The Best Films of 2013

When I sat down to review 2013 in cinema, I was surprised at how closely my tastes aligned with critical consensus. To give you an idea, three of my top 5 are up for Oscars. That never happens. I never set out to be willfully contrarian; there's just too much good stuff out there that it's impossible to restrict yourself to sleepy prestige pictures.

In addition to being a great year for film in general – restricting this list to 30 was an exercise in self-restraint – 2013 saw a kind of renaissance for Hollywood. After getting its ass kicked by the indies and "new waves" in places like South Korea, the major studios put out some of the best films of the year. Gravity, for example, represented a major risk for Warner Bros. Yes, it has a lot of breathtaking action, but it essentially revolves around a single character coping with grief while also struggling, and at times failing, to keep calm in the midst of disaster. And it was a very expensive film directed by someone, Alfonso Cuarón, not known for cranking out blockbusters.

There are still a lot of films on this list that didn't have the benefit of multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, of course. Upstream Color, a film I was utterly blown away by, was produced for just $7,000. Its director, Shane Carruth, did almost everything else: screenplay, cinematography, music and even co-starred in his uncanny sci-fi opus. A Hijacking, meanwhile, serves as an interesting companion to Hollywood's Captain Phillips. While Paul Greengrass' (still excellent) film pulls back to a birds' eye view at times, the Danish thriller keeps you in the thick of the hostage crisis as seen by both the sailors and the shipping executive who's become negotiator.

I could go on about each of these films, but I'll save that for another time. Please do give these films a spin. Each links to their Netflix page, where a number are also available to stream.

Whole Lotta Tree of Life

Collider, via the crafty Russian (don't they manage to get everything?) site Kinopoisk, has a selection of some of the 70 Tree of Life stills that surfaced today. The images have mysteriously vanished from Kinopoisk, so if you're interested in getting a sneak peak of Terrence Malick's new film, you should probably act fast.

Moreso than Malick, it's cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, The New World) that has me eagerly awaiting this one. The man is a master with light and, from these stills, he clearly hasn't lost his touch. There's a very distinct Edward Hopper-feel to the stills, particularly the one above, that I like. Even though Hopper was painting for a good five or so decades, his work always feels like the '50s to me. I'd relish the film that finally takes advantage of that association (even if it's only me that makes it).

Uncle Boonmee welcomes you to an "odd and beautiful world"

The N.Y. Times has an exclusive video clip and an A.O. Scott review of Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul's upcoming Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I generally don't give too much creedence to individual reviews, but Scott does a beautiful job of capturing the (presumed) magical realism of the film. More than even the trailer, which I previously posted, his review has me psyched to see the film.

The Movies Are Dead; Long Live the Movies!

Just in time to fill the annual movie "sky is falling" quota, GQ (ever the bastion for high culture) has published an article assaying the death of the movies. It's impressive for the author's ability to extract quotes from various industry luminaries, but on the whole it's just a warmed over helping of panic. At various points, Mark Harris points the finger at filmgoers, studio executives and, oddly, the burgeoning film industries in Italy and Japan, for the sorry state of summer tentpoles and the recent, alleged dearth of quality adult-oriented dramas.

But really, there is nothing new about any of the theories he presents (except for the Japanese kamikaze thing; never heard of that before).

I happen to agree that a lot of what passes for blockbuster is utter crap these days. A couple weeks ago, I tried to watch Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and gave up halfway through. I almost never do that. Even bad movies usually have some redeeming qualities, or bring a certain goofy gallows humor to the table. Not the Prince.

I'm not sure who gave Harris the idea that thriving overseas film industries are a bad thing, but if you're looking for the kinds of films Hollywood used to make, that's where you should be looking. Last year, seven of my top ten were foreign films and most of them share striking similarities to the American classics Harris seems to mourn. Animal Kingdom has been compared (somewhat daftly) to Goodfellas by critics. A Prophet pulls more than a few pages from the gangster flicks of the 1930's. Tokyo Sonata has a script that Frank Capra would be proud of. And Mother is, by my estimation, the only film that actually earns the "Hitchcockian" label that was foisted upon it by its marketing.

There's also the simple fact that American cinema doesn't actually need the defibillation that Harris feels compelled to give it (how noble of him). It's true: the studios dump a lot of crap on the market. But, then again, they always have. Even in this era of cinema-via-focus-group, it was largely the studios that produced the watershed year that was 2007. That year, American films dominated my personal top five (including Warner Bros.' The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Miramax/Paramount's No Country for Old Men, Pixar's Ratatouille, Paramount Vantage's There Will Be Blood and Paramount's Zodiac). And as the article begrudgingly points out, there've been some quality tentpoles (2008's Iron Man and The Dark Knight and last summer's Inception), too.

Honestly, I think any movie fan who can't find anything satisfactory out there is just lazy or stubborn, or both. It's a wide world out there — it's time to leave the familiar behind and go explore.

Widescreen Awards: Visual Effects

Now that Oscar has had his way with the wide world of cinema, it's my turn. For the next week or so, I'll be offering up what I viewed as the best performances in front, behind and inside the camera. Starting out, here are the best achievements in visual effects.

The striking visuals of Enter the Void play a very cunning game. When you're immersed within the film, all of it feels real. It's only after you think back — to the ghostly, wall-breaching camera and the soaring shots of the city — that you realize just how much trickery is involved. The real Tokyo beneath those glowing phosphorescent skies bears only passing resemblance to the one depicted here, but the film's purpose is not to present Tokyo as it really is. Nowhere seems normal when you're as detached — mentally, physically and metaphorically — as the drug-dealing protagonist Oscar is. BUF, the company behind the visual effects, has posted an impressive making-of gallery.

Inception, on the other hand, is playing a different game entirely. Dreams are fantastical shades of real life, complete with surreal, wondrous spectacles that can only be make-believe. The visual spectacles here — mirrored walls, an exploding fortress and a cascading city by the sea — are awe-inspiring. But, what separates them from other effects excesses (such as the Laws-of-Physics-defying ones in "Iron Man 2"), is that they all operate under their own strict rules of logic. It may all be a dream, but the effects here never feel like a put-on.

If anyone knows how to use CGI, it's David Fincher. All of his films have made extensive use of it, but he never goes too far. What's so impressive about a film like The Social Network (and "Zodiac," which came before it) is how transparent the effects are. Unless you've seen the FX reels or read about Fincher's exploits elsewhere, you would never know that one of the Winklevii is actually an otherworldly doppleganger, the face of one actor transposed onto the body of another. Sure, it's not as boldly impressive as the reverse aging of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," but then again this flick has 10 times the heart of that syrupy confection.

A Tale of Two Housemaids

I'm not sure how long it's been available for free on MUBI, but since it is, there's no reason not to check out the original 1960 version of "The Housemaid." It's not as sleek or as capital-L lurid as the trailer (embedded below) for Im Sang-soo's remake, but for my money there's no femme fatale quite as unhinged Myong-ja (apart, perhaps, from Ann Savage's Vera in Detour).

What makes her even creepier than your garden variety Glenn Close or Alicia Silverstone obsessive female is how unknowable the character is. She creeps around outside in the rain. She hammers away at her master's piano. She does all these unnerving things, but it's not simply a case of love gone awry. There's a fire burning in Myong-ja that goes much deeper than that of a jilted lover or fed-up outcast. Her character earns that fourth-wall shattering disclaimer that follows the proper ending of the film. Philanderers, be warned: Mess around with the housemaid at your own peril.

Here's hoping Im Sang-soo (not Lee Chang-dong, as I mistakenly wrote in a previous post) captured some measure of that mysterious quality in Jeon Do-yeon, who plays the modern-day temptress.

Top 20 Films of 2010

With the year well and truly put to rest and Oscar nominations a scant day away, now is as good a time as any to count down what I saw as the best the cinema had to offer in 2010.

First, a note on inclusiveness. As ravenously as I devour films — by my count I watched 61 last year — it's simply impossible to see them all.

I tend to avoid films I know will be horrendously bad. A high school English teacher once told me life is too short to read bad books, and I believe the same applies to the movies. My "bottom 10" list would probably include innocuously mediocre fare such as "Shutter Island" and "Ondine," as well as absurdly entertaining stuff like the South Korean disaster epic "Tidal Wave." I have no qualms about recommending any of those films to the right person in the right mood to enjoy them. (FYI: "Tidal Wave" is available on Instant Netflix. Check it out.)

Because I don't live in an urban area, there are a lot of films each year that are impossible to find. If I would have had to hop a flight out to L.A. to see the movie, it's not going to show up here. I am, after all, a broke print journalist of the ol' Chevrolet Set.

But that also means films that were seen by the tastemakers last year — and one from as far back as 2007 — are fair game. Similarly, I don't exclude direct-to-video releases or documentaries. If the film fired the right synapses, it doesn't matter how it was created or where I saw it.

In brief, 2010 presented an embarrassment of riches, ranging from surprising summer blockbusters ("Inception," "Salt") to homegrown indies ("Night Catches Us", "That Evening Sun") and what very well may be the crest of the Korean New Wave. I'm not sure if any such movement actually exists in real life, but that country has presented a plethora of talented directors in the past decade, from almost-household-names Bong Joon-ho ("Memories of Murder," "The Host" and lastyear's "Mother") and Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy") to rising workmen Lee Chang-dong (last year's "Secret Sunshine" and the forthcoming "Poetry") and Kim Ji-woon ("A Tale of Two Sisters").

Before launching into the cream of the crop, here are some honorable mentions that just missed the cut: "The American" (USA, dir. Anton Corbijn); "Carlos" (France/Germany, dir. Olivier Assayas); "Fish Tank" (UK, dir. Andrea Arnold); "Life During Wartime" (USA, dir. Todd Solondz); and "The Town" (USA, dir. Ben Affleck).

For those keeping tally, the top 20 are as follows:

20. "Triangle" (UK/Australia, dir. Christopher Smith)

19. "Cairo Time" (Canada, dir. Ruba Nadda)

18. "Black Swan" (USA, dir. Darren Aronofsky)

17. "Toy Story 3" (USA, dir. Lee Unkrich)

16. "Salt" (USA, dir. Phillip Noyce)

15. "Inception" (USA, dir. Christopher Nolan)

14. "The Chaser" (South Korea, dir. Na Hong-jin)

13. "Night Catches Us" (USA, dir. Tanya Hamilton)

12. "True Grit" (USA, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

11. "I Am Love" (Italy, dir. Luca Guadagnino)

10. "Restrepo" (USA, dir. Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)

9. "Splice" (Canada, dir. Vincenzo Natali)

8. "Animal Kingdom" (Australia, dir. David Michôd)

7. "A Prophet" (France, dir. Jacques Audiard)

6. "That Evening Sun" (USA, dir. Scott Teems)

5. "Secret Sunshine" (South Korea, dir. Lee Chang-dong)

4. "Enter the Void" (France/Germany/Italy, dir. Gaspar Noé)

3. "Tokyo Sonata" (Japan, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

2. "Mother" (South Korea, dir. Bong Joon-ho)

1. "The Social Network" (USA, dir. David Fincher)