Numbers' Numerical Numbering (A 2013 Top 50)

[4815162342]

#39

 

Star Trek Into Darkness

 

 

The Star Trek reboot in 2009 was a delightful burst of kinetic energy that hummed with excitement and adventure even if it kinda took Star Trek into a more Star Wars-like mode. It's delayed follow-up is possibly the definition of a mixed bag, in that it has some standout elements but also feels like a giant missed opportunity, a chance to hit a home run that ended up as a single squeaking past the infield. The main issue the film faces is that it wants to tell its own mash-up of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, but instead of going ahead and doing that, it tells a fairly generic story of a corrupt Federation official with direct copy-and-pastes from the Wrath of Khan Greatest Hits Album. At its worst point, it downright cheats like few movies can dream of aspiring too by hooking up our characters with Old Spock so he can deliver some key 3rd Act Exposition that is pretty much our heroes reading the Prima Strategy Guide to Star Trek Wrath of Khan to solve their problems in this movie. So with all of that weighing down, how does it still manage to get to this spot? Because the ensemble case clicks and hums very well, maintaining that wonderful family feel that is central to the crew of the Star Trek films. Because Benedict Cumberbatch demolishes the screen in nearly every scene he's in, almost making you root for the strangely pasty-white Khan. Because it really hits the emotion and tension in the scenes, even if you feel like you've seen them before. And because Peter Weller totally nails the best over-the-top exasperated line delivery in a blockbuster since Daggett in TDKR.

[4815162342]

#38

 

The Way, Way Back

 

 

This is another of 2013's offerings that delve into the psyche and experiences of the disaffected teenage boy and it is the best of them. Liam James stars as Duncan, a teenager whose family's disintegration and his mother's shacking up with asshole Steve Carell has led him into a very insular, unexpressive existence until a summer by the sea shakes him somewhat out of it. The film is generally paced well, though some of its vignettes do last a bit past their welcome, and it struggles in the scenes showing the family dynamic between James, Carell, and Toni Collette, but when the film is more relaxed, such as in its water park narrative, it really takes off. Sam Rockwell absolutely steals the movie as Owen, the water park manager whose outward immaturity conceals a rather feeling and paternal figure who wants to get it right in acting like an adult, and eventually seems to find the right balance to do so. Perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay the film is that it feels real, rather than creative speculation about what teenage boys lives are like or what they could be like.

[4815162342]

#37

 

Enough Said

 

 

The late James Gandolfini will be remembered for many great performances, which makes this film stand out all the more since it features him at the complete opposite of his most iconic role. Enough Said features Julia Louis Dreyfus in a fittingly tentative and kinda neurotic role as someone taking a chance on love with Gandolfini's character, even as she unknowingly finds herself caught between him and his ex-wife. It's a very down-to-earth and real movie, showcasing the light-hearted and earnest moments in a budding and blossoming relationship, but also the pitfalls and dangers of playing two sides of a conflict and how neutral inaction can turn out to have worse effects than action. It also touches on the struggles of parents facing empty-nest syndrome with kids leaving for college and there again it feels real. The film though has major dangling plot thread with the subplot of Dreyfus' character becoming a surrogate parent for her daughter's best friend. All of a sudden the plot gets kneecapped in the third act and we get no resolution for it. For a film that otherwise takes care in nudging its characters forward, it's a very odd thing.

[4815162342]

#36

 

Lone Survivor

 

 

As Tele put it, Lone Survivor has an awkward but necessary opening act as it introduces the main characters, establishes their relationships and rapports, and sets up the chessboard. It does what it needs to do to get things started, but it is handled a bit clumsily and forced. But then, once the mission begins, the film moves far smoother, slowly building suspense and tension as the SEALs plot their movements and wrestle with a difficult decision. And then, all hell breaks loose. In a single action sequence that lasts something like a half-hour, with short intervals as the characters displace from forest to cliff to ravine to overlook as they fight for their lives, the film displays a mastery of violent choreography. The finale to this sequence with Taylor Kitsch's Michael Murphy making his ascent to a cliff-side to send a signal intercut with the gunfight below and with Emile Hirsch's final moments is thoroughly gut-wrenching and chest-pounding. Afterwards the film slows up a bit and the Afghan village third act is generally well-handled, if a bit clumsy and heavy-handed in a few moments. All in all, Lone Survivor is a war movie that absolutely knows how the handle the "war" part.

[4815162342]

Break until later, another random award

 

 

Greatest Disparity Between the Quality of a Film's Trailer and the Final Product

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6DJcgm3wNY

 

The trailer that ignited a BOF fandom into overdrive...and the movie that caused the greatest forum war since The Dark Knight Rises. So much promise distilled into a movie that has lots of narrative and tonal disjointedness.

[rukaio101]

Break until later, another random award

 

 

Greatest Disparity Between the Quality of a Film's Trailer and the Final Product

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6DJcgm3wNY

 

The trailer that ignited a BOF fandom into overdrive...and the movie that caused the greatest forum war since The Dark Knight Rises. So much promise distilled into a movie that has lots of narrative and tonal disjointedness.

I regret only being able to give this one like.

[4815162342]

#35

 

The Place Beyond the Pines

 

 

The Place Beyond the Pines reunited Ryan Gosling with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance in what is certainly an ambitious film. Covering almost 20 years worth of time, the film is broken into three clear story arcs each following a different character but building off of the plot turns of the previous acts. Ryan Gosling plays a character very much in the vein of The Driver, though he is allowed to emote a bit more in this film. The film's narrative structure allows for it to pull clever wrinkles in the story, such as hiding Bradley Cooper until about an hour into the film at which point he suddenly takes over the story for a good chunk of the film. The film does a good job at establishing mood and tension, but its ambition is bigger than the results. I think with an extra 15-20 minutes spread over the second and third acts it really could have nailed the character progression. The best acting impressions come from Bradley Cooper and Dane DeHaan as Gosling's kid grown into his troubled teens.

[4815162342]

#34

 

 

Trance

 

 

Trance is kind of what Inception would have been like if it was high on some mushrooms and Nolan was inclined to be a bit more "naughty" in his writing. It's a twisty-turny near-mess of a plot melded with trippy visuals and a rough, dark view of the world. One of the achievements of the film is that it plays its cards close to the vest and slowly reveals them one by one as the film progresses, only it also includes some jokers in the deck which keeps you guessing as to whether what you're seeing is the truth or actually visions induced by hypnotic trances or hallucinations. It also douses all of the main characters in gray paint, making unclear which ones are really the ones you should be rooting for, as each displays some good qualities and some questionable ones. The film on a few occasions nearly ties itself into a giant mess of a knot, but it manages to pull through every time. The necessary final twist reveal isn't entirely satisfying, but it does fit everything together pretty well and does serve the evolution of the characters by that point.

[4815162342]

#33

 

Ender's Game

 

 

Ender's Game is a very tricky novel to adapt into a film, because while it mainly features children some not even in their teens, it tackles very adult issues and has some very adult and dark events and undertones. Gavin Hood's adaptation tries to straddle the line between young adult story and sci-fi war/political depiction. It hits the right balance for the most part, but the straddling also leads to some awkward compromises such as the fight between Ender and Bonzo and makes its conclusion more of an accident than deliberate action by Ender. The cast is very well rounded out, with Asa Butterfield more than capable as Ender, especially in one crucial scene near the end after a major revelation where his despair and trauma blows the rest of the film's acting out of the water. The visuals are well done, with the Zero-G fights definitely the standout sequences of the film. The other issue with the film is that it is severely compressed into a bit under two hours. Some people at BOF had suggested the book needed more than one film. I disagree there, I think something more like 2.5 hours would have been enough to allow the plot to breathe and to develop some of the key supporting characters (Petra, Bean, Ender's siblings) more, as some of the big geopolitical elements of the novel are jettisoned entirely.

[4815162342]

#32

 

Stoker

 

 

Stoker is famous Korean director Chan-wook Park's English language debut and is an unforgettable film experience. Park takes Alfred Hitchcock's famous family crime thriller Shadow of a Doubt and remodels it into a lurid Southern gothic horror tale. The plot for the movie is pretty threadbare, only deepening here and there with some reveals about the twisted past of some characters, but the plot is completely secondary to the ambiance Park establishes between the characters as things slowly get darker and more bloody within the family trio. The acting by the main three is very good, with Mia Wasikowska definitely breaking out of the mold previous acting roles had set her in. The film doesn't shy away from the strange, the erotic, or the disturbing and Park presents it all in such beautiful visuals. It may not be as good as the Hitchcock film it's inspired by, but it's certainly memorable and quality enough to stand in its own right as a film you have to check out, divisive as it is sure to be with audiences.

[4815162342]

#31

 

Oblivion

 

 

Oblivion is Joseph Kosinski's follow-up effort after TRON: Legacy and the film shares the eye-popping and beautiful visuals of Tron, but takes note of Tron's weaknesses in writing and acting and seeks to improve on them. It's not a dramatic improvement, no one aside from Cruise and Riseborough is given that much material to work with, but it still is a fair one. Tom Cruise never seems to age, his physical presence here is the same as it's been the whole 2000s and he presents a sympathetic main character being dealt with shocking revelation after revelation about the nature of his mission and the planet below him. Some have criticized the film for being very derivative of a number of prior science-fiction works. Well, there is a fine line between being derivative and having homages, and Oblivion IMO stays on the latter side of the line, using them more as inspirational tools rather than core concepts to build off of. It's not a great film, but the action thrills, the hero is relatable and identifiable, the visuals and sounds are great, and Melissa Leo's voice chimes in for some classic Leo drawling ham. Can't go wrong with that.

[4815162342]

Done for tonight, other than another award (or demerit in this particular case)

 

 

Worst Film of 2013

 

Only God Forgives

 

Wow, this movie. This fucking movie. The only reason it didn't bore me out of my mind was because I was so interested to see what colossal WTF moment or scene it would serve up next scattered throughout a midst of drudgery. I'm not sure what elements of the film were the worst of the worst, but they certainly include a disinterested stone-faced Gosling being straddled and jerked off by a prostitute, a pair of completely irrelevant and painful karaoke scenes, and Gosling lovingly and pensively sticking a hand into the disemboweled stomach of his mother.

 

Maybe The Counselor would have been worse if I had seen it, but the collective howls of disgust and fury from the forum here warned me off before I could subject myself to it. This film...I do have to recommend it in a way because it's the kind of bad, pretentious fartfest that has to be seen to be believed.

[MrPink]

#39

 

Star Trek Into Darkness

 

 

The Star Trek reboot in 2009 was a delightful burst of kinetic energy that hummed with excitement and adventure even if it kinda took Star Trek into a more Star Wars-like mode. It's delayed follow-up is possibly the definition of a mixed bag, in that it has some standout elements but also feels like a giant missed opportunity, a chance to hit a home run that ended up as a single squeaking past the infield. The main issue the film faces is that it wants to tell its own mash-up of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, but instead of going ahead and doing that, it tells a fairly generic story of a corrupt Federation official with direct copy-and-pastes from the Wrath of Khan Greatest Hits Album. At its worst point, it downright cheats like few movies can dream of aspiring too by hooking up our characters with Old Spock so he can deliver some key 3rd Act Exposition that is pretty much our heroes reading the Prima Strategy Guide to Star Trek Wrath of Khan to solve their problems in this movie. So with all of that weighing down, how does it still manage to get to this spot? Because the ensemble case clicks and hums very well, maintaining that wonderful family feel that is central to the crew of the Star Trek films. Because Benedict Cumberbatch demolishes the screen in nearly every scene he's in, almost making you root for the strangely pasty-white Khan. Because it really hits the emotion and tension in the scenes, even if you feel like you've seen them before. And because Peter Weller totally nails the best over-the-top exasperated line delivery in a blockbuster since Daggett in TDKR.

 

'Who's gonna lead Starfleet against the Klingons? YOU?!!!!!!!!'

 

So glad I'm not the only who absolutely loves that line delivery.

[4815162342]

#30

 

The Wolf of Wall Street

 

 

The Wolf of Wall Street is Marty Scorsese going for broke, putting everything he possibly can into a single movie (or not, if you believe the rumor of the 4-hour original cut). If movies had food analogies, Wolf would be like a Turducken. Everything you can think of: sex, drugs, profanity, irreverency, dark humor, rage, despair, violence, and so on, it's all in here. It's a bold, unapologetic film that gives you a look into an ugly, dark, slimy side of the rich and powerful and dares you to not at least admire their guts, ambition, and possessions. Leo is vintage Leo, being likeable and despicable simultaneously, Calvin Candie trading his plantation for a stock trading floor and his racism for an insatiable hedonism. I found myself in the minority of BOF concerning this movie, since I do feel that the film has a major flaw in simply having too much. It's an overexposure and underpacing that would have needed a solid half-hour shaved off to correct.

[4815162342]

#29

 

Dallas Buyers Club

 

 

I think watching True Detective spoiled me a bit with regards to Matthew McConaughey's acting. Because after watching the beast of Rust Cohle, when I saw this movie I was thinking "yeah Matt's pretty good in this, but he's not Oscar-worthy and not nearly as good as my man Rust." Still, he delivers an excellent performance against type as a rather despicable and loathsome man who only very slowly sheds his outer shell of hate and judgment and begins to appreciate people for who they are as he knows them more and spends more time helping them. Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto are both very good as the major supports to Matt's main man and the film moves along at a solid clip. Perhaps the film could have done with a bit less editorializing and focused a bit more on the changes of character and heart, but it's still a very good movie that tells an important story about a volatile period for many in the USA.

[4815162342]

#28

 

Europa Report

 

 

I credit 7ele with keying me into this movie being something worth checking out because it's probably a great example of how you get a "found footage" movie done right. Telling the story of a lost mission to the moon Europa, the movie centers around an ensemble cast of mostly no-name actors playing the astronauts, using plenty of ingenious interior and exterior cameras to chronicle their voyage and explorations, with occasional jumps to "interviews" with one of the astronauts and a pair of scientist executives who ran the mission from back on Earth. The use of non-linear storytelling for the film is done well since it keeps you a bit off-balance and questioning as to what has led to the current point, and the use of the "interviews" is smart because it sets up a very effective revelation in the closing minutes. In many ways, it's like a smart, simple, focused version of Prometheus, which makes me wish this film had a bigger budget so we could have gotten some more impressive scale and scope and visuals (though for the mini-budget it had the look is pretty good) and a bit more impressive cast (they're all fine, but the acting could have been a bit better from most of the six astronauts). Check it out.

[4815162342]

#27

 

This is the End

 

 

This is possibly the funniest movie of 2013, with some scenes that will go down as comic legends (Danny eating breakfast, Danny and Franco and jacking off). The pacing and composition is a bit rough around the edges, but the laughs never stop coming, which is pretty important. The only segment of the film that doesn't quite work is Possessed Jonah Hill. It's kinda crammed in because of the connection to the Apocalypse, but it kinda stalls and never really gets that humorous beyond some mild chuckles. The main cast you can tell is just having a blast, mocking each other and their celebrity status and taking the time to skewer many other celebrites such as Michael Cera, drug fiend and skirt-chaser. It's a film that has a lot of ideas for laughs and mockery thrown in, and most of them do hit. I think perhaps the film could have used a bit more structure and a bit more character (since the real only character building we get is between Seth and Jay).

[4815162342]

#26

 

Saving Mr. Banks

 

 

This is a sweet, good-natured, yet still sharp film about the struggle between a studio and an author in adapting a novel into one of the most famous childrens' movies of all time. The film is guilty of one thing and that is it pulls its punches in a few key moments, which isn't unexpected since this is a film by Disney about the making of a Disney movie with Walt Disney as a major character. We do get some cracks and jokes here and there about old-time Disney practices, but you still get the impression that Pamela Travers is toned down and Walt deified a bit more than he should be. Emma Thompson is sharp and funny as Pamela Travers, rarely hesitating to zing the many things that Disney wants to do to her novel series in the making of Mary Poppins. The real surprise of the film though is Colin Farrell powerhousing through the flashback sequences as her alcoholic father who means well but is unable to control his addiction and life. The film takes the stance that the changes made over objection to Mary Poppins were "all for the best," and given how iconic Mary Poppins has been as a childhood staple, it probably is right. But it's a bit frustrating to see the film softpedal Pamela's reaction to the finished project, since it's a happy ending Disney wants us to see that doesn't quite mirror the real thing.

[4815162342]

5 more later this evening, but first another award

 

 

Most Surprising Performance by an Actor/Actress in a 2013 Movie

 

 

Octavia Spencer in Fruitvale Station

 

When Octavia Spencer won Supporting Actress for The Help, I railed against it. I was thoroughly unimpressed by the loud, cliched, stereotype of a role she played, and found it not much different from other similar roles Spencer had done in earlier films. So I was extremely and pleasantly surprised by her turn in Fruitvale Station. It's a far more substantial and rewarding role for her and she digs into it with strong and subtle power. This is the kind of role you get an Oscar nomination for.

[4815162342]

#25

 

Inside Llewyn Davis

 

 

Inside Llewyn Davis is a vintage Coen brand of fatalistic nihilism first debuting with Fargo and refined in No Country for Old Men and A Serious Man. The film is a story of a guy who wants to be the next big folk singer, but through a mix of his own poor judgment and simple fate intervening, he will never achieve it. Oscar Isaac is great as the title character, a fairly unlikeable schmuck mooching off of others as he tries every trick he knows to find his big break and unknowingly screws himself over in several ways over the course of the movie. The rest of the ensemble is solid, providing a nice backdrop of characters for Isaac to play off of. Much of the film is quite stellar, showcasing the folk music scene of early 1960s New York City and the downbeat nature of the quest for success. What hinders the film is the road-trip segment featuring John Goodman and Garrett Hedlund. It really doesn't flow well with the rest of the movie and kills the momentum near to dead, before things pick themselves way up with F. Murray Abraham's arrival onscreen.