Films watched for the first time and reviewed in 2013
Best Films of the year
Best Films of the year
In no
particular order:
Okay, this
was technically a 2012 release, but I didn’t see it until January. The same is
true with Silver Linings Playbook. But we’re talking about the year we see
a movie and reviewed it on the blog.
The winner of
the Academy Award for Best Picture, Argo tells a historical event and while it
takes some license with the facts, it does make a true story seem suspenseful.
Going in, if you’ve ever heard of the Iran Hostage Crisis, you’d at least heard
of the U.S. Embassy workers who escaped with the help of the Canadian Embassy
in Tehran. While not 100 percent historically accurate (neither was Lincoln,
another historical drama from 2012), it worked as a movie and that’s what’s
important. I was on the edge of my seat even knowing the group makes it out
successfully.
The obvious
star of this movie is David O. Russell, who both wrote the screenplay and
directed the movie. This is a quirky Romantic Comedy about two of the most
broken people you’d never want to meet: Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), a
bipolar man obsessed with his ex-wife, and Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence),
a policeman’s widow who drowned her sorrows with promiscuity.
Together the
two help rebuild each other while preparing for a dance contest Tiffany has her
heart set on participating in. While the goal they set is sort of the point
equivalent to a participation ribbon, it is the fact that they make it there at
all that is important. Jennifer Lawrence would deservedly win the Academy Award
for Best Actress, but the cast, which also included Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver
and Chris Tucker, makes for a very strong ensemble.
A man crazy
about guns meets a lady sharpshooter who is a little crazy. Okay, this film
from 1950 isn’t new, but I saw it for the first time this year and I fell in
love. Now some of that has to do with
Peggy Cummins, the Welsh-born actress who plays Laurie. She is great in the
part and I’ve never seen a woman look sexier with a gun belt on. I don’t blame
Bart (John Dall) for falling for her and doing whatever he can to keep her.
The story is
a little slow to get going, but when it does the film is really worth watching.
The film is famous for one sequence, a ten minute bank robbery shot in its
entirety from the backseat of a car, but there is so much to love in this film.
Given his love for Laurie, what Bart has to do at the end of the film makes it
very powerful. Of all the movies I saw in 2013, this is one of the few I’d want
to see again and again and would most highly recommend.
Biggest Film
Disappointments of 2013
In no
particular order:
The Die Hard
franchise is one without a mastermind. There is no George Lucas or book series
behind these films to guide it. The films sort of lurch along, some good, Die
Hard, some not, Die Hard 2, some sort of in between, Die Hard with a Vengeance.
The fourth film, Live Free or Die Hard finally seemed to get the franchise on
the right track and picked up a couple of characters, a more mature Lucy
Gennero (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a slacker/computer
programmer and possible romantic interest for Lucy. If they made a sequel to
Live Free, I’d been happy.
But, no, all
that gets swept away in the fifth installment. This is a film designed to
appeal to as many international markets as possible with Australian, Russian
and German actors/actresses cast in prominent roles, including John’s son, Jack
(Jai Courtney). Lucy is reduced to a cameo and the movie suffers. There is a
yet another heist and a lot of action, but there is none of the humor that made
the Die Hard films fun to watch. Even the catchphrase is mishandled. It makes
you wonder if the franchise has run out of steam.
I will admit
that I’m not a huge Superman fan. I saw the original movie with Christopher
Reeve when it came out in 1978 and I went into that with high hopes and came
away disappointed as well. But my biggest disappointment is the stupidity of
the back story they give the Man of Steel. While they sort of improved on the Jor-El
side of the story, they did a disservice to the Kent side. Why was
Clark made to feel ashamed of saving other children’s lives? Why did his father
Jonathan (Kevin Costner) sacrifice himself rather than let his son save him?
They both seemed like stupid choices to me.
And this was
not a reboot of the Superman story, rather a remake of the Superman film from
1978. General Zod is not an original character. He did not come along until
1961 in a franchise that has been around since 1938. In Hollywood’s attempt to
retell and reboot, but bigger and flashier than the original, Superman’s battle
with Zod not only levels Metropolis (like a gabillion dollars’ worth of damage
and most likely hundreds or thousands of deaths), but that doesn’t make the
movie any better.
Okay, I’m
going to sound like a broken record here, but I have pretty much the same
complaint with the second of the Star Trek movies that I had with Man of Steel.
While I liked the film, it is basically a remake of Wrath of Khan (1982) rather
than an all-new Star Trek adventure. Oh, there are a few twists and turns, but
basically it’s an unneeded redo of one of the better original Star Trek movies.
We don’t need to see movie stories again and again; especially since it’s going
to be several years until we see a new Stark Trek movie. Remakes seldom tell
the story better than the original and J.J. Abrams has a chance to take the
crew of the Enterprise boldly go where the original series had never gone before, not
retrace its footsteps. I’m hoping we don’t see some new remake of The Search
for Spock (1984) whenever this series picks up again.
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