Movies of 2013 Part 1: 139-121

Well, the whole 'end of 2013' list thing isn't quite over for me. I've written up the 149 movies I saw for the first time in 2013, now it's just a case of posting them. I'm not going to bother doing hyperlinks or even editing what I've written, so enjoy all my typos and factual errors! Here is part 1, counting down from 139 (Just before I post my top 20 or top 10, I will do my bottom 10, 140-149).

139) Thirteen (2003, Catherine Hardwicke)

I remember when this film came out it was lauded for what a true and interesting voice it had, and perhaps even hailing Hardwicke as a new directorial voice for youth. Looking at her filmography since (Lords of Dogtown, Twilight, Red Riding Hood) she seems more like a one-trick pony. And I found this film mostly just mean-spirited and annoying. What’s more it didn’t make sense to me why Evan Rachel Wood’s character would so quickly descend to Nikki Reed’s character’s level of debauchery; she seems smarter than that. I don’t know, I’ll never be a 13-year-old girl, but I just feel there are much more pertinent and redemptive looks at the angsty years.

138) Pillow Talk (1959, Michael Gordon)

This probably doesn’t need to be as low as it is. What it’s definitely got going for it is some very fun style and good dialogue. The problem with it is that it just isn’t very funny. It also seems very dated now (what the hell is a party line, anyway? I challenge anybody to watch this film without having to google ‘party line’) but there’s some fun byplay between Rock Hudson and Doris Day. It’s unpretentious fun, but maybe not as much as I’d have liked.

137) Old School (2003, Todd Phillips)

On the other side of the comedy spectrum, Old School  is reasonably funny, if you’re prepared to lower your eyebrows for a couple of hours. Basically it’s a sort of Animal House rehash, but one that is funnier, smarter, less horribly dated and far less overrated. Essentially though it has the same plot, except for the amusement of seeing men verging on middle age and who should know better acting out in frat boy ways. It’s really Will Ferrell who carries this, though, and while I don’t like him as much as others do, I think this is some of his best comic work.

136) Silver Linings Playbook (2012, David O Russell)

Yes, I’m aware I’m about to be burned at the stake for my assessment of this film, but that doesn’t frighten me, because it’s actually you and everybody else who is wrong, and I’m right (along with Adam from Filmspotting, who seems to be the only person publicly willing to take off the Weinstein company’s free saccharine rose-tinted glasses to view this film for what it is). This film is well-acted, yes, but that’s the only highlight. The story tries to tread that Oscar-bait fine line between drama and comedy, but ends up with a messy cringing tone and a farcically sugar-laced ending that would make Chris Columbus blush. The only other film I’ve ever seen so completely forget to include the bits of the plot that explain why the main characters fall in love by the end is the gut-wrenchingly awful Sandra Bullock vehicle The Proposal, and that’s exactly the company this piece of shit belongs in. I should note that this is only down so low as a violent reaction against the universal jizz heaped upon this false, shallow and schmaltzy piece of overrated crap by young and old, stupid and intelligent-but-temporarily-insane alike. Also, the fact that David O Russell got a Best Director nomination for having no direction at all in an at-best mediocre film I think is up there with the silliest politically-charged missteps in Oscars history.

135) Death Proof (2007, Quentin Tarantino)

I haven’t yet been masochistic enough to sit through Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez’s half of this Grindhouse­ double feature, and I guess I was hoping Tarantino’s half might be stylistically interesting enough to pique my interest. Alas, aside from some trademark Quentin-esque dialogue, this really has nothing going for it. You can forgive it for being such a shameless homage to B-grade grindhouse movies, but this crosses the line from being clever pastiche to being just a B-grade grindhouse movie itself.

134) Fantastic Mr Fox (2009, Wes Anderson)

This was a disappointment for me. I caught up with this on the flight over to the US and, being an adaptation of one of my favourite (possibly my actual favourite) childhood stories, expectations were high. But then I remembered I used to love short books, and there really isn’t the story in it to substantiate a film. So Anderson pads it all around the edges with some really, really quite odd story turns that just confused me. I don’t think George Clooney’s voice is right for animation at all, and I think the casting also just made Mr Fox far more smug than he needed to be. I know he’s smug, but he’s meant to be smug because he knows how great he is. I just found this confusing, particularly in tone, and I would actually rate it as my least favourite Anderson film (yes, I liked The Life Aquatic better).

133) Elmer Gantry (1960, Richard Brooks)

Got this one for no reason at all from my local library, which was the film-selection technique that led me last year to watching so many mediocre films, and this is really no exception. The story of a sleazy salesman who falls for a pretty young evangelist and seeks to join her preaching ways, its strength lies in the great lead performances from Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons. However, outside their sympathetic portrayals, the film is overlong, inevitably sanctimonious and just rather boring.

132) A Dangerous Method (2011, David Cronenberg)

Freud and Jung? Cronenberg coming off good form, with his new muse Viggo Mortensen and ‘it boy’ Fassbender? What could go wrong with this? Ah, yes, cast Keira Knightley. What’s worse, give her a bloody ridiculous Germanic accent to talk with, and have her shriek hysterically for half the film so that irritating jawline comes right to the fore. I hope I’ve made my aversion to Keira Knightley clear to all filmmakers for whom my approval matters in any way. Now that’s out of the way, yeah the film really didn’t grip me anyway, and as with the previous entry it went on for at least half an hour too long.

131) Donnie Brasco (1997, Mike Newell)

Another one I watched just because it was available from my library and because I may have heard one nice thing said about it once. This is really ‘OK’ filmmaking, but it’s a bog-standard crime caper, undercover-cop-infiltrating-organised crime fare with no real surprises thrown in. I found Al Pacino’s performance really sappy, like a tired washed-up movie star. Johnny Depp is fine, but not great. I learned the nice mob terms “friend of mine” and “friend of ours” but there was very little else I got from this.

130) The Great Gatsby (2013, Baz Luhrmann)

I’m probably being a bit harsh on this film given that I went in with very low expectations, considering the book is right up there on my most-loathed list, and what I got was a fairly good adaptation to the screen, bringing to energetic life the spirit of the book and the jazz age in general. But beyond the spectacle I thought the film’s plotting was a little stodgy, not helped along by Tobey Maguire’s self-pitying performance. DiCaprio was good, Joel Edgerton was great, Carey Mulligan stunning as usual. I just think Baz should stick to… actually no, he’s not really good at anything besides spectacle.

129) Trance (2013, Danny Boyle)

This film needn’t be as low as it is, because for the most part it’s a taut and interesting heist thriller. The problem with it can’t be discussed openly without massive spoilers, but let’s just say after the first couple of plot twists it goes into pretty ridiculous territory, and while the big climax is quite shattering, the resolution is the stuff of romantic comedy farce. I’m never quite sure about whether I like Vincent Cassell or not, but I do like a bit of James McAvoy, and that will come up later. This film also inspired my delving into Danny Boyle’s retrospective which, in turn, informed a huge amount of my film-watching this year in looking at particular directors’ entire bodies of work, so I have that to thank it for, too.

128) Corpse Bride (2005, Tim Burton/Mike Johnson)

Tim Burton never really does it for me, but when he’s working so completely and comfortably in his milieu as in this film, there is a certain charm. This is a short and sweet twisted fairytale, obviously aimed at a younger audience, but that still manages to deliver a decent story and some macabre humour. I could do without the songs, though, which aren’t really great enough to warrant inclusion in and of themselves, but which I feel also detract from the narrative progression.

127) Prairie Home Companion (2006, Robert Altman)

Part of my Altman retrospective. One of Altman’s trademark ensemble mosaic pieces of filmmaking, and by far his least successful. There are some reasonably amusing parts to this – John C Reilly and Woody Harrelson’s singing cowboys are a standout – and a whole lot of boring. I feel you really need to be a fan of Garrison Keillor, or at least to be familiar with the radio show Prairie Home Companion to fully appreciate this, so while I’m not the target audience, I’ve seen other films where I’m not the target audience (remember I said that, I will reference this later) that speak far more deftly and cleverly to outsiders looking in.

126) To Die For (1995, Gus Van Sant)

Part of my Gus Van Sant retrospective which didn’t go very far (I’ve seen enough of his films in the past but didn’t quite get the motivation to watch Even Cowgirls Get the Blues this year), this film actually has the potential to be really beloved by me. It’s quirky, dark-themed comedy with a decent cast and an introspective director behind the camera. However, like most people, it was a big over-reach for that black satire, and Nicole Kidman’s cringeworthy performance didn’t hit those uncomfortably comic notes it was going for. Definitely could have been better if it was toned down a little.

125) Scoop (2006, Woody Allen)

One of the many, many films in my Woody Allen retrospective, and no surprises for it being the lowest. It has all the Allen hallmarks that could make a great film: a quirky and supernaturally-tinged mystery theme, and everyman, flawed, neurotic characters bumbling their way through the rapids that are way over their heads. But it’s a rare misstep for him in so many ways: the comic tone throughout is glib, and twee, and overly pleased with itself. The relationship between Scarlett Johansson and Allen himself is confused and unnecessary. Sometimes Allen works well in his own films, but what is he even doing in this one? His character is completely superfluous and frankly annoying. It’s also hard to see the great Hugh Jackman stumbling over such weak material and characterisation as this.

124) My Week with Marilyn (2011, Simon Curtis)

I really wanted to like this film more, but I just couldn’t. I guess there’s something about stories where naïve rubes get taken advantage of that always rub me up the wrong way. Although being based on the character’s own diary, Eddie Redmayne’s idealistic, star-struck youngster Colin here is the epitome of that blank-slate narrator that I always detest. He just doesn’t have any real character, and the way he lets circumstances constantly lead him on just makes me want to shake him and yell at the screen. Maybe it’s Redmayne himself that irritates me, he’s got such a fluffy-tailed puppy dog look about him whenever he’s happy. But seriously, I don’t give a shit if it’s Marilyn Monroe, why would anyone dump Emma Watson?

123) The Importance of Being Earnest (2002, Oliver Parker)

An OK adaptation of a good play, this meagre effort is a perfect example of why one really needn’t bother adapting beloved theatrical works to the screen. That is, unless you’re going to do something really interesting stylistically. Even the presence of the indisputably great Colin Firth (man-swoon) can’t elevate this from a straight page-to-screen transposition.  Of course it’s mildly amusing, it’s Oscar Wilde, but just read the play – you’ll get just as much out of it as watching this film.

122) Coraline (2009, Henry Selick)

Interesting that the two macabre-themed animations fell in such similar places.  Still apparently aimed at a youngish audience, but far more serious in tone than Corpse Bride, this has a fair bit going for it. Nonetheless, the story never really gripped me as it might have as a young lad, so I think the main issue I have with this is its lack of grown-up texture. It just seems like a mildly twisted fairytale, but wasn’t quite twisted or quite grim enough to really hold me in its grasp.

121) Wreck-it Ralph (2012, Rich Moore)

Hmmm, another animation in the third-bottom ten, and you know what, looking up my list I actually think this might be the highest-ranked animated film on the whole list. So obviously I didn’t watch a lot of fantastic animation this year. Having said that, I think this is a bit unfairly ranked, because I did like it a lot. The gamer humour was fun, as was Sarah Silverman’s performance as the Glitch, but ultimately I think this trod fairly predictable territory as far as animation plots go, and it didn’t surprise me as much as it seems to have surprised lots of people. The biggest surprise was how long it took me to realise that was so obviously Jack McBrayer playing Fix-it Felix.