It was while eating (almost) a whole pint of “Scotchy Scotch Scotch” that I had an epiphany: maybe all film marketing should be done Anchorman 2-style, each with its own ice cream flavour? Why not have a taste-off between “Before Midnight Mint,” “McConaughey Mud Pie” or a retro Rum Raisin “Americone Hustle”? Just a thought... With apologies to Ron Burgundy, who didn’t make the list, here are my picks for the most satisfying films of 2013.
1. 12 Years A Slave
A harrowing story based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Steve McQueen’s film stands out among others in the genre because of the way the director marries the constant fear with the endless tedium of slavery. The days are hot and long: torturous if you’re working cane or cotton, repetitious to the point of madness if you’re the master’s wife (Sarah Paulson). Lupita Nyong’o, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano and Benedict Cumberbatch are excellent. And McQueen regular Michael Fassbender is so convincing as “slave-breaker” Edwin Epps that he may never get a decent restaurant table again. Powerful, memorable film.
2. Gravity
I hate space movies and underwater movies. They make me feel seasick. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, then, with its no-fixed-point-on-the-horizon plummets through blackness and low-oxygen dizzy spells, was a challenge. But the filmmaking is simply spectacular, a wonder, and I was transfixed. Sandra Bullock is required to convey heartbreak, regret, panic, primal fear and resolve from inside the close confines of a space suit, and she does so brilliantly. Who knew a film about two people floating in space (George Clooney also stars) could be so riveting?
3. Her
We’re really not that far away from the near-future scenario outlined by Spike Jonze in Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a man who falls in love with the voice on his new operating system. (Granted, the voice is Scarlett Johansson.) Theodore Twombly still hasn’t signed his divorce papers and dives into his work, writing heartfelt letters on behalf of other people. He and Samantha (Johansson, creating a fully fleshed-out character with only a voice) face all the growing pains of a traditional couple: jealousy, one person outgrowing the other, dwindling sex drive. It’s surprisingly touching, this love story, and says much about our dependence on technology and our need to connect with somebody despite it all.
4. Before Midnight
Collaborators Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater have been bringing the love story of Jesse and Celine to life for some 18 years, with lengthy breaks in between. The couple, now in their 40s, is finally together but the honeymoon is finis. This third film is every bit as talky as the first two: challenging in an age of sound bites and tweets. But the payoff of the too-true love and life tale is worth the effort, and I can’t wait to see what Jesse and Celine do in their golden years.
5. American Hustle
Featuring amazing performances all round — not to mention one hell of an ice-fishing story — this tale of small-time grift gone global was a holiday present wrapped in ’70s glitz and tinsel. Starring Christian Bale (epic comb-over), Bradley Cooper (man perm), Amy Adams (Chaka Khan frizz), Jeremy Renner (Jersey pompadour) and Jennifer Lawrence (brassy, brassy blond) sporting hairstyles that were characters unto themselves, the film was electric.
6. Mud
Appearing twice on this list is Matthew McConaughey, forcing his detractors to clam up once and for all. Jeff Nichols trawls his Arkansas boyhood to impart the story of two boys who take a boat out to a “deserted” island, where they find a boat in a tree and a criminal (McConaughey) hiding out, waiting for his girl (Reese Witherspoon). The film flows quietly and steadily, at times a love story, a thriller, a coming-of-age narrative, and an elegy to a dying way of life. Mud is a lovely lesson on how the cure — whether it’s a snakebite antidote or a long-lost love — is sometimes more dangerous than the poison, and how we risk it nonetheless.
7. Dallas Buyers’ Club
Here’s McConaughey again, some 40 lbs lighter, playing late rodeo cowboy Ron Woodruff, who contracts AIDS in the mid-’80s, when fear about the “gay plague” was at its peak. Homophobic Ron finds himself running illegal prescription drugs with the help of transsexual Rayon (Jared Leto, amazing) after doctors give him four weeks to live and the healthcare system fails him. Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee (C.R.A.Z.Y.) coaxes meaningful, memorable performances from the two men, and a career best from Jennifer Garner.
8. The Gatekeepers
Six former heads of Israel’s secret service, the Shin Bet, talk about the organization’s military and ideological struggles and its successes and failures since the Six Day War in 1967. The nature of terrorism changed after the peace summit under Bill Clinton fell apart, it changed again following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the men of Shin Bet have felt both empowered and abandoned by the Israeli government over the years. Director Dror Moreh provides unique and riveting insight into the region, the politics and the people that comprise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
9. Captain Phillips
The true-story thriller of an American tanker boarded by Somali pirates in 2009 could have been a flag-waving propaganda piece in less capable hands. But Paul Greengrass (Green Zone, United 93) makes it instead a character study of two men: Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) and the pirate leader Muse (newcomer Barkhad Abdi). This is Hanks’ best work in a decade: he’s a shoo-in for Best Actor shortlist.
10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Middle films in a trilogy are often like middle children: the first gets all the glory, the last gets all the attention, and the middle merely gets lost in the shuffle. But Catching Fire is a worthy sequel. It’s all about Katniss, of course, played with great care by Jennifer Lawrence. What could have been a standard action role in a “teen movie” is fully drawn by Lawrence, and her co-stars (Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Elizabeth Banks) rise to the occasion. Effects, locations and action surpass the original and even the boys (Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth) keep pace this time around.
