Top 10 Films of 2013

[Xard]

Dunno about the DVD release, haven't checked it.

Xard how do you get to meet all these cool important filmbros, let alone talk to them?

Oppenheimer was quest at Helsinki International Film Festival in which I saw the film. He held before and after screening Q&A's (yes, it's okay to laugh at it, people in Indonesia laughed the hardest in fact ) and after that he got ambushed outside theatre for almost hour by adoring viewers. I went to speak with him and editor after most of the masses had disappeared so it was only me, my friend (not Oz) ando ne other guy so it was really nice privateish little chat.

As for editor, he happend to be in Helsinki because he's also editor of Pirjo Honkasalo's first fiction film in ages, Betoniyö/Concrete Night and the film premiered at HIFF during the same day (in fact only reason I didn't get to see film then was screening overlap with Act of Killing screening I had bought tickets for).

Anyway, Betoniyö - going by reviews and footage I've seen- seems godly as expected from Honkasalo so I might be even more hype for it than Gravity. The problem is it only had short stint in my hometown and I missed it because of being too busy with my uni studies so I probably have to wait for DVD/BD release. :(

We also went to see The Grandmaster, too. But what the fuck is Betonimylly?

Fix'd already

[Kazuki_Fuse]

Fuse you best be trollin'. OGF wasn't even entertainingly bad. It was just bad. N.W. Refn = hack of the forever.

I realize this might be bait, but I'll bite. OGF is on my top 20 movies of all time. I fell in love with it instantly. It was one of those movies that at the end, I thought to myself 'Ten, fifteen, probably even twenty years from now, I will still be able to rewatch it.'

Did you hate it because you didn't get anything out of it? You at least understand the symbolism behind everything right? Or is that why you disliked it, because you labelled it as being pretentious?

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I don't make Top 10 lists because mine changes too often. I'll write one, then disagree with it in about a month.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

I don't think I even saw 10 new movies this year. But I liked The Grandmaster and Gravity.

[gatotsu911]

Oppenheimer was quest at Helsinki International Film Festival in which I saw the film. He held before and after screening Q&A's (yes, it's okay to laugh at it, people in Indonesia laughed the hardest in fact ) and after that he got ambushed outside theatre for almost hour by adoring viewers. I went to speak with him and editor after most of the masses had disappeared so it was only me, my friend (not Oz) ando ne other guy so it was really nice privateish little chat.

Shit, I really need to start planning stuff like this. I live an hour away from New York, so I don't even have an excuse. I just... don't really get out, ever.

@Fuse: Yeah I got the symbolism that Refn was going for, it just isn't even remotely as profound as he seems to think it is. Refn is a director who makes 2edgy4u exploitation flicks masquerading as arthouse dramas, which I usually don't mind because the stylistic window dressing is top-notch, but OGF, unlike Drive, committed the mortal sin of being not only trite and pretentious but boring as hell. The visual richness carries it for all of maybe 15 minutes before it turns into a monotony of aesthetic and thematic overkill drawn out to literal slow-motion and populated by a cast of hilariously affectless man-robots and crude misogynist caricatures. If it were more energetic it might have been an entertaining clusterfuck, but as is it's just not fun to watch, and it sure as hell doesn't have any kind of valid intellectual payoff for being a tedious chore to watch.

With all that said I didn't hate it, but I did think it was a massive pile of mediocrity that just so happened to look very pretty.

[Gendo'sPapa]

Frances Ha was shot & had it's festival premiere in 2012 but played absolutely nowhere until mid-2013. Since I saw it for the first time in theaters in 2013 that puts it on my list as a 2013 release.

Anywho - 2013 was a fantastic year for cinema. Anyone who tries to say otherwise clearly is not a cinema buff who goes to the theaters often.

[Guy Nacks]

I honestly can't name as many as 10 films that I REALLY liked that I saw in theaters, so I'll just do this:

Best Highbrow Film:
The Wolf of Wall Street

Runner Up:
Gravity

Best "Popcorn" Film:
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Runner Up:
Iron Man 3

Unexpected Gem of the Year:
Spring Breakers

Worst Film of the Year:
R.I.P.D.

[Chuckman]

Iron Man 3 was the most highbrow film of the year.

[Oz]

Number 1 Untintentionally Hilarious Film of the Year:
Spring Breakers

Fixed.

[gatotsu911]

Iron Man 3 made me really wish they'd just never even bothered making any sequels to the first one.

Also, I dunno if I'd consider Gravity "highbrow". However you make that distinction. Not any morseo than, say, Castaway anyhow.

I honestly would like to know what people enjoyed about The Wolf of Wall Street. For me it was just a few decent scenes punctuated by hours of mind-numbing repetition. The film literally could've been half as long and lost nothing of substance. Hell, by the end of the film I'd learned nothing about the characters or narrative that I couldn't have inferred from watching the trailers.

[Xard]

Spring Breakers

Spring breeeaaakkkk.....spring breaaaak......


spring break?


Spring break!


spriiiing BREAAAAAK


Break spring....



spring break..... spring break....


spriiiiiiing breaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak



Honestly, the worst 2013 I've seen easily but I can't say I hated the experience all in all. It was too intentionally and unintentionally ridiculous for that.

[Guy Nacks]

Honestly, the worst 2013 I've seen easily but I can't say I hated the experience all in all. It was too intentionally and unintentionally ridiculous for that.

I think one of the Red Letter Media guys said it best. Something along the lines of: "It may not be a 'great' film, but you really can't take your eyes off of it. It's very colorful and very watchable."

[Chainsaw Owl]

Honestly, I don't think I've even seen 10 new films this year.
Just nothing that really interesting to me.
but my top movie this year was Pacific Rim

Same here, I absolutely loved Pacific Rim.

I was also quite fond of the new Superman movie and Anchorman 2 as well.

[Dataprime]

I was also quite fond of the new Superman movie.

Really now? I stayed as far away from this one as possible because I
heard from (both reviewers and fans) that it sucked.

[gatotsu911]

Yeah Man of Steel looked terrible and I've heard only bad things about it.

[Chainsaw Owl]

Really? I can see where some people might have taken offense with it. I mean, they took away Superman's heroic red underwear for no good reason...

And it's true, most of the characters are fairly flat. But I thought Michael Shannon played an impeccable General Zod, and the final battle was a real treat to watch.

Admitedly, I was never a huge Christopher Reeves fan, so the bar was perhaps a little low for me.

[Chuckman]

Man of Steel is actually a metaphor for the process of making a movie about Superman. The creators must constantly struggle with the fear that the audience will misunderstand and reject it.

[gatotsu911]

I don't trust Zack Snyder to make a movie with any kind of metaphor in it more subtle than "sword = dick".

[Fazmotron]

Not my top ten, but rather the films I quite enjoyed seeing last year:

The Counselor - loved how the violence was handled in this, and the particularly hilarious and disgusting scene (you know the one). Like a suckerfish.
The Turning - Incredible collection of Australian short films based off the collection of short stories by author Tom Winton.
Prisoners - Fantastic, edge of the seat slow thriller. Very well made.
Gravity - With the exception of a few scenes this film is amazing and captivating.
The Worlds End - Hilarious conclusion to the cornetto trilogy.
The Wolverine - So freaking cool, the Wolverine movie we'd been waiting for.
The Great Gatsby - I really liked how this was done, Baz Luhrmann's over the top style really works for this film. Also I thought the 3D was used to excellent effect in the film.
Fast & Furious 6 - Big dumb stupid but entertaining action.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Ditto.
Oblivion - I really love Tron: Legacy and Joseph Kosinski did a great job on this film.
Trance - Danny Boyle not doing an uplifting happy ending film, I'm in.

[gatotsu911]

I was wondering when someone was going to mention The Counselor. I hated it, but I hated it in unique and interesting ways that I'd be curious to go back and think about some more. It was the kind of disaster that can only be produced by a number of really smart and talented people committing totally to an astoundingly misguided vision.