Count Down 100 Movies from 2013 (Multiple users) Tele page 20

[baumer]

7) Mud: There are fierce powers at work in the world boys.  Good, evil, poor luck, best luck.  As men, we've got to take advantage where we can.

 

The year of Mathew McConaughey started with this tiny little gem of a film.  A coming of age story where two kids help an escape convict try to find his true love, played by Reese Witherspoon.  McConaughey is rightfully getting recognition this year for his role in Dallas Buyer's Club but the academy has once again forgotten about films that play before the summer.  This film is about rage, love, guilt, friendship and loyalty.  

 

A film that has it's roots in Stand By Me and is almost as good.  Twenty years from now it might be known as McConaughey's best performance, even if it is overshadowed by DBC this year.

***Side note:  Filmed in only eight weeks. 

 

 

6) Captain Phillips:  Look at me.  I'm the captain now.

 

Along with Gravity and the film at number one, I thought this was the best paced film of the year, also one of the most intense.  Tom  Hanks is a shoe in for an Oscar nomination and Greengrass is too.  And don't be surprised if Barhkad Abdi scores one as well.  I thought he was pretty brilliant. 

 

This film is like a punch to the gut.  The movie is excellent throughout but the final 10-15 minutes is about as intense a film as I've seen.  Hanks and Abdi are simply awesome throughout.  Hanks made me lose it at the end.  He brought the tears streaming down my cheeks and (this is rare) I didn't even try to stop them once they came.  I felt his shock, his anxiety, his fear, his terror, his emotional roller coaster he went through.  He's just brilliant.  That is the sign of a legendary actor.  He is someone who you feel invested with, someone who you care about.  And the strength of the film is that you know how it ends.  This is based on a true story, so if you Google it or watch CNN, you know how it all turns out.  But the film and Hanks still rock you anyway.

***Side note:     Tom Hanks claimed that the scene of Captain Philips' medical examination was improvised on the spot with real-life Navy Corpsman Danielle Albert, who was told to simply follow her usual procedure. However, Albert was so star-struck by Hanks that she froze during the first take. Hanks joked to her that he was supposed to be the one in shock during the scene.

 

 

5) Homefront:  Whatever you're thinking, rethink it.

 

Action films often get ignored when it comes to the pundits top ten lists.  Homefront is a lot like First Blood in a way.  It's a film about a lethal killing machine but it's told with a serious tone. Gary Fleder directs from a script by Sylvester Stallone and you can see that this is a role that Sly would have played 15 years ago.  All due respect to Stallone, he never could have pulled this off the way Statham did.  He is absolutely brilliant as the father who just wants to see his daughter grow up free of violence.  Unfortunately, with his past, that will not happen.

 

 I was quite tense throughout and that can be attested to a good script, great acting by everyone and tight direction.  I can't believe the beautiful Kate Bosworth is in the film.  She reminded me a bit of Matt Damon in Courage Under Fire.  She is already a petite woman, but she must have lost about 15 pounds here to play the heroine addicted, redneck, foul mouthed villianess.  I was mesmerized by her every time she was on screen.

 

And here's the best part of the movie.  Almost every character in here is painted in grey.  There are good sides to them and bad sides.  I like how you start off hating Bosworth and her husband and even the sheriff but in the end, they are just people making stupid decisions, and not the true evil you think they are at the beginning.

 

Homefront is one of the better action films of the last few years.

***Side note:  At one point Dolph Lundgren wanted to do the film.  

 

[baumer]

Top 4 in about an hour....have to feed and walk the dogs.

 

Thanks for reading and commenting, guys.

[Ezen Baklattan]

1. Battle of the Year

2. Planes

3. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

4. Scary Movie V

5. Free Birds

 

Just a guess.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Spaghetti

[baumer]

4) About Time:  You can't kill Hitler or shag Helen of Troy.

 

I think (pretentious post here in 3.2......1) if you are a bit older, you'll appreciate this more.  A film about appreciating every single moment you're here.  I related to ALL the themes in this film.  Love, marriage, cancer taking a parent, kids, career and the ups and downs of life.  Love is an act, a feeling and an emotion that is hard to convey correctly in film.  About Time hits all the right notes.  The last act is just a smidge off from the rest of the film or it would have gotten a ten from me, but as it stands absolutely one of my faves of the year.  

 

The women in this film shine.  The men are good as well but Rachel McAdams and Margot Robbie are simply radiant.  This was the first performance I had ever seen Robbie give.  The next one she did knocked me out (for more than one reason).  

***Side note:  This is the third film in which Rachel McAdams stars as the love interest of a time traveler. 

 

[baumer]

3) The Way Way Back:  Don't die wondering, man.

 

  Maybe I'm getting old and it's affecting my judgment but this year my faves have been relatively small films.  Mud, Place Beyond the Pines and now this.  The only part I didn't like was Alison Janney at the beginning.  She came on way too strong and it didn't match the rest of the movie.  That small complaint aside, this is one of the best coming of age films I've seen.  Stand By Me is the best of all time but this really tries hard to be that kind of film.  

 

Blessed with a fantastic cast that includes one of my faves, Amanda Peet, the film really benefits from this strong cast.  Btu stealing it all is Sam Rockwell. He is aided by a heartwarming and poignant script but what he does with his character is he brings him to life.  He is the best part of the film and every time he opened his mouth, I was laughing.  There is one scene where he tells a crowd of people that he needs a hero, and then he starts reciting off the words to Bonnie Tyler's Hero from Footloose.  I laughed the entire time he was doing it.  Maybe another actor wouldn't have done such a good job with the timing and such but Rockwell sold it all.  I really hope he gets some Oscar consideration.

 

The Way, Way Back has one of the best scripts of the year and it's filled with heart and a tenderness not often seen.  I simply love this film.

***Side note:  The film was originally supposed to take place in 1984 but budgetary restraints caused them to scrap that idea.

 

[baumer]

2) This is the End: Oooh! I fuckin' wish you'd cum on me right now! I fuckin! dare you to cum on me!

 

Brilliant Audacious Risky Shameless and completely original.

 

There aren't many films that you can say you have never seen before.  They are all derived from another film in some way or another.  This is The End is as well but it's never been done like this.  Instead of the review, let me regale you with some of the hilarity.

 

Cum scene will be iconic. Too funny. I spit up my Coke.
Cera getting blown in the bathroom, slapping Rihannas ass, being so jacked on Coke that he cant feel the giant piece of steel impaling him...hell he was hilarious in every scene.
Exorcism of Jonah Hill "power of Christ compels you".
Drinking pee
The entire first scene with McBride ripping into everyone.
Tatum..rotflmfao
Franco getting rejected from heaven
Weed and Backstreet Boys in heaven.

Best line of the year:  "Well, Hermoine stole all our shit."

Jonah Hill getting molested by Satan's big black dick.

No one wanting to save Aziz

And many, many more.

All frikkin hilarious.
One of my all time favourite comedies.

***Side note: According to Seth Rogen, Danny McBride was the person who made everyone laugh and break character the most. At one point, it took 18 takes and over an hour for the cast to get a joke on film because Mcbride's delivery kept making everyone laugh. 

 

[baumer]

1) The Wolf of Fucking Wall Street:   Let me tell you something.  There's nobility in poverty.  I've been a poor man, I've been a rich man.  And I choose rich every FUCKING time. 

 

This is not just the best film of the year, it is unquestionably one of the best films I've ever seen.  Every scene, every shot, every performance is about as good as it gets.  Standing out of course are DiCaprio and Hill.  Hill transforms himself in this film but DiCaprio gives the best performance of his career.  He jumped head first into the role and there isn't one moment that you are watching this where you feel like you are watching Leonardo DiCaprio.  What you are seeing on screen is Jordan Belfort.  He is brave, brilliant and fearless.  Snort coke off a hookers breasts?  No problem.  Blow coke into a hookers ass?  He does that.  Give rousing speeches that me, the viewer, want to work for him?  It's in here.  Dance, get naked, party,     crawl around like a baby, cry, show vulnerability, it's all in here.  It is one of, if not the best performance in a film I have ever seen.  DiCaprio is good in everything I have seen him in, but he has taken the extra step here.  He knows Jordan Belfort.  There is a scene where he crawls around on the floor for 10 minutes in a drug induced paralysis and it will go down as not only the scene of the year (along with the cum part in This is the End) but one of the most messed up but brilliant scenes in film history.  When DiCaprio first came on the scene, his talent was easily seen.  Then he did Titanic and became a heart-throb to teenage girls.  But he's never just let loose like this.  Scorcese did it with Pesci and Liotta in Goodfellas and he has done in Wolf with DiCaprio.  He holds nothing back and just goes for it all.  

 

This is the Goodfellas of the 2000's.  It's created from the same palette that made Goodfellas.  It's long but never boring and it's so entertaining and funny and exhilarating that I hope the 4 hour cut we have heard about does find it's way to the DVD.  I'm not sure yet if this is better than Scorcese's opus, Goodfellas, but it is certainly on par with it.  I don't know if the academy is going to be progressive enough to reward this film with what it deserves, but in time, regardless of the awards, it will be remembered as one of the great films in the annals of film history.  

 

It has to be said that the movie makes you kind of envious of the lifestyle these guys lead.  Their life is a party.  They make 22 million dollars in three hours and then spend the next 12 hours snorting coke, swallowing queludes, banging the hottest strippers and hookers around, flying in private jets and spending 2 million dollars on bachelor parties.  Their life is a fairy tale and it makes you a little sad that after you leave the theater you have to go back to your 9-5 existence.  This world is full of excess and debauchery but damn it looks like fun.

 

IMO, this is the best film of the year and it has the best performance of the year and it's not even close.  I understand this will not be a film for everyone's liking but it is undeniably hilarious, expertly directed, crisply edited and beautifully acted.  And Margot Robbie is insanely sexy, insanely sexy.

 

And as Gopher said, Scorsese dropped the mic after he made this film.

***Side note:    The cast included three other prominent directors in acting roles:  Rob Reiner, Spike Jonze and Jon Favreau.  

 

 

 

[baumer]

FINALLY! lol.

 

Like em, hate em, doesn't matter.  Thanks for reading em.  

[Ezen Baklattan]

Great job, baumer. You've really got a distinct voice on these forums with your reviews.

[baumer]

Thanks Spaghetti, thank you very much.

 

I'd love to see someone else take a crack at their top 100.

[Ezen Baklattan]

I would, but I haven't even seen 70. 

[rukaio101]

I might do a top 50. Won't start until Friday at earliest so I can watch Wolf of Wall Street first.

[baumer]

Start your own thread then rukaio.  Then we'll combine all the lists to make one big thread.

[MovieMan89]

I might do a top 50. Won't start until Friday at earliest so I can watch Wolf of Wall Street first.

Yeah I'd consider doing a top 50 as well. I also have a movie I need to see first though, and that's Dallas Buyer's Club.

[RobinHood26]

Fuck yeah Wolf #1! 

 

Also glad to see The Way Way Back on there. 

[DAR]

Great job Baumer I have some movies to see.So both you and Gopher said WoWS is Martin Scorsese dropping the mic. Would that mean STiD and Free Birds, the 100th films on your lists are cinematic equivalent of Fredo fumbling for his gun?

[baumer]

Great job Baumer I have some movies to see.So both you and Gopher said WoWS is Martin Scorsese dropping the mic. Would that mean STiD and Free Birds, the 100th films on your lists are cinematic equivalent of Fredo fumbling for his gun?

 

Yes, that's one way of putting it.

Another is that it's the equivalent of Hans Gruber firing the gun at John McClaine without knowing that McClaine knew he was Gruber.

Another is the equivalent of Indy reaching for his gun in Temple of Doom and it not being there.

[Empire]

Great job Baumer! Loved reading your list and your opinions on each film!

Edited January 14, 2014 by Empire

[SchumacherFTW]

Nicely done Baumer, don't agree with all of your list, but it was pretty Damn good to read.

[baumer]

If you guys agreed with my list, I'd worry about you.