Top Ten of 2013

It's that time of year again - when I bemoan how few films I have managed to see and blame life for getting in the way; when I explain this is my top ten films seen this year (even if some are technically from last year) ... I hope you saw some crackers this year. I certainly did. And, yes, I can count - there are 11 films below. I simply couldn't decide which one to cut. Ah well - my blog, my rules to break. So, here they are:

Beasts of the Southern Wild – An early favourite this year, Beasts has stayed with me for many months. A beautiful, heart-breaking story with a ton of magical realism.

Captain Philips – I thought Gravity was tense. Then I saw Captain Philips. Jeez – nails bitten, seat edge occupied, stomach churned. Hanks gives his best performance ever in this harrowing true story.

The Fifth Estate – This will be an unpopular choice, I’m sure. This movie has been almost universally panned by critics and not seen by audiences. But I simply couldn’t overlook Cumberbatch’s amazing lead performance and this gripping tale of ego.

Gravity – One of the most memorable visual experiences of my life, Gravity has finally proven beyond any doubt that there is a place for 3D in modern cinema. An amazing achievement.

Les Miserables – My token musical … But so much more than that.

Lincoln – With many a fine lead performance this past year, Day-Lewis’s Lincoln still tops them all. A film especially compelling for legal history buffs (yes, we do exist).

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Mediocre reviews should not put you off this wonderfully magical film. A stellar effort from Stiller as both director and lead. I smiled throughout.

Silver Linings Playbook – I said it in January when I first saw Playbook and I’ll say it again: absolutely my film of the year. Wonderful performances from all and the kookiest love story you will see in quite some time.

Star Trek Into Darkness – Warts and all, this film entertained the hell out of me. Non-stop action and some great visuals. Cumberbatch shines again (when doesn’t he?)

The Way Way Back – A delightful coming-of-age movie, with a cast to die for. Funny, touching, compelling; a real unexpected highlight of the year.

The World's End – The final offering in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, World’s End rounds out perhaps my favourite boxset ever. Bloody brilliant.

Top Five of First Half of 2013

Yeah, I know; I’ve been absent. I blame life in general. And my new-found obsession with the terribly time-consuming Doctor Who. I certainly haven’t been absent from the cinema though. So, for the first time ever, my top five films of the first half of this year (not very snappy; must try harder).

Beasts of the Southern Wild – What a cracking wee film. Its imagery and grittiness has stayed with me for months. Highly recommend. (My review is here: http://theflicks.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/beasts-of-southern-wild.html)

Les Misèrables – I dreamed a dream that Crowe could sing. I dreamed that flair would be forthcoming. It wasn’t. However, it simply didn’t matter that Crowe was so average. The film was glorious and bombastic and a visual treat. (My review is here: http://theflicks.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/les-miserables.html)

Lincoln – If you have any interest in US history or legal history or politics, you must see this film. If not, see it anyway; you might learn something. You certainly won’t see a better lead performance: Day-Lewis is (once again) an absolute phenomenon.

Silver Linings Playbook – My film of the year … so far (though it would take something quite special to knock it off top spot.) I don’t necessarily buy all the hype that it’s the first film to openly and honestly deal with mental illness, but it certainly does so with a whole lot of heart and spunk. Simply brilliant.

Star Trek Into Darkness – I just don’t care that it’s flawed. Or ridiculous. Or illogical. It was fun and relentless and visually wonderful. I laughed. I cried. And my love for Benedict Cumberbatch increased beyond a healthy amount.

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Quote of the year thus far:

Pat – “You have poor social skills. You have a problem.”

Tiffany – “I have a problem? You say more inappropriate things than appropriate things.”

Silver Linings Playbook

Django Unchained

Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L Jackson, Kerry Washington, Walton Goggins

Dir & Scr. Quentin Tarantino

It needs to be said up front: I’m not the biggest Tarantino fan. His early work is, at times, excellent and you’re never in doubt that he’s always got something to say. But in recent years he’s got self-indulgent and a tad sloppy. Django Unchained is a perfect example of the best and worst of Tarantino, with not enough of the good to balance the bad. According to the man himself, he’s telling us something new about slavery. That’s dubious at best. Django has style, it has humour (some of it very clever), it has some lovely against-type performances. But, make no mistake, this is Tarantino’s version of history and it’s too shallow and it’s too showy and it’s too blooming long.

Django (Foxx) – the ‘d’ is silent – is a slave in 1850s American South, separated from his wife and on the way to be sold to his next owner. Enter former dentist Dr King Schultz (Waltz), an eccentric German who is in the business of killing for money. Joining forces, Django and Schultz track down Broomhilda (Washington), Django’s German-speaking wife, in the possession of infamous and brutal plantation-owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). And, it goes without saying, there will be blood.

And on that note, first things first – this is a violent film. Of course it is. It would be refreshing for Tarantino not to resort to extreme violence, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. And it is gratuitous. Not all the time, but there are certainly two scenes which could have been just as effective if they had been reduced to thirty seconds rather than several minutes. I don’t accept that this is anything but self-indulgent. It’s not worthy, it’s no longer original. It’s just lazy. Another big problem with the film, also due to self-indulgence and ill-discipline, is its length. The story comes to almost natural conclusion, but instead of taking advantage of this, Tarantino adds another thirty minutes. A completely pointless and simply terrible thirty minutes, featuring Tarantino himself with the worst Australian accent I have ever heard. What were Australians even doing in the American South in the 1850s? And how did they have such clichéd Australian accents by that time??

The story itself hinges hugely on the characterisation of Django and Schultz, and when they are together the film is compelling and engaging. Once the repugnant Calvin Candie enters on the scene, we are fully on side with Django and Schultz, understand what motivates them and care about what fate befalls them. I’ll turn to the actual performances in a moment, but kudos to Tarantino for some chunky character development, including a very clever power shift, as well as a rewarding underlying fairy-tale theme.

I think what really saved Django Unchained for me were three key performances. Foxx was very good as the freed slave driven by the love of his wife. When he takes on the cold, unfeeling character Schultz encourages him to play, he truly shines. DiCaprio is excellent, perhaps the best I have ever seen him. He has moved so far from his Titanic days, he’s hardly recognisable as the slick, inhuman Calvin Candie. But for my money, Waltz is the stand-out. He is a stranger in a very strange land and the gradual breakdown of his character is nuanced and extremely well played. A somewhat inconsistent act by Schultz towards the end of the film does not do enough to mar an excellent performance. Much has been written about Jackson’s portrayal of Stephen, Candie’s elder statesman slave, and just how accomplished and difficult his performance is. I was less impressed – throw in a few ‘motherf**kers’ and he’s basically playing the same role he always does in this type of film.

Django Unchained has been heaped with critical praise and will no doubt continue to pick up an award here and there. This doesn’t annoy me as much as perplex me. Tarantino is fundamentally making the same film over and over and I’m just waiting for him to surprise me. I think I’ll be waiting a long time. See it if you like this sort of thing; avoid if you don’t.

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Calvin Candie: Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. But now you have my attention.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Gina Montana, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper

Dir. Benh Zeitlin
Scr. Benh Zeitlin & Lucy Alibar

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a beautiful, sad, empowering story which, it seems, has captured the hearts of many. With four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, this wee film is punching well above its weight. And all power to it. A compelling, magical story with some top acting, this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But if you want to see something different, something less polished, something that will stay with you, see this film.

Beasts is the story of Hushpuppy, a young motherless girl living with her father in a small bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a massive levee. Her imagination knows no bounds and she seemingly lives in harmony with the natural world around her. A fierce storm and a sickness drastically alter her life and outlook and she must adapt to the overwhelming changes these events bring.

It all sounds very noble and high-minded, but there is little piousness or overwrought emotion here. The story moves along at a clip, with a quiet charm and melancholy that captures you right from the start. First time feature director Zeitlin is not trying to preach at his audience. And yet one can learn much from Hushpuppy – her bravery, her holistic outlook, her optimism. Beasts is what you might call a quiet achiever.

You mind also find Beasts a welcome respite from the bangs-and-whistles worlds of recent blockbusters. Filmed with a budget of around $1.5 million, there’s nothing digital at work here. Some might find discomfort with the frequent use of hand-held cameras and, at times, a lack of clarity of picture. But don’t mistake this for amateur film-making. There is much beauty in Beasts and the mystical creature motif is, for the most part, seamlessly integrated.

Beasts hinges greatly on two key performances, both superb. Hushpuppy’s father (Henry) is clearly a man who cares for his daughter, but in his own special way. Henry captures this perfectly and gives a heart-breaking and heart-warming performance. Wallis is the real star here though and her Oscar nomination is well deserved, though I doubt she will win. She has wisdom and a great deal going on behind her eyes. Her Hushpuppy is both naïve and haunted. Utterly bolshie, but still such a little girl.

This film is not for everyone. For my money, it’s one of the most visceral films I have seen in quite some time. It is also incredibly poignant and unusually beautiful. Highly recommend if you think it’s your sort of thing.

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Hushpuppy: When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me lying around in invisible pieces. When I look too hard, it goes away. And when it all goes quiet, I see they are right here. I see that I'm a little piece in a big, big universe. And that makes things right. When I die, the scientists of the future, they're gonna find it all. They gonna know, once there was a Hushpuppy, and she live with her daddy in the Bathtub.

Les Misérables

Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks

Dir. Tom Hooper
Scr. Based on musical of same name, which is based on book of same name by Victor Hugo.

The funniest thing I read about this glorious film is that it was too bombastic. Excuse me? A musical in the truest sense of the word, not short of religious sentiment, set against the backdrop of revolution, about love and redemption. If it wasn’t bombastic I would have asked for my money back. Right from the opening scene, we are swept away by the grandeur of it all. But, much to Hooper’s credit, Les Misérables is also incredibly intimate. Please don’t see this film if you are one to scoff at sung dialogue or overwrought emotion. THIS IS MUSICAL THEATRE! Trust me, there is nothing here for you poor soulless types. Everyone else – see it. See it now.

Set in early nineteen century France, Les Misérables is the story of Jean Valjean (Jackman), a French peasant set free after serving nineteen years of hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread. Valjean reinvents himself as a respectable businessman and community leader, but continues to be haunted and hunted by police inspector Javert (Crowe). A part of his journey of redemption is the adoption of the daughter of one of ex-employees, Fantine (Hathaway), who he feels responsible for condemning to a life of poverty. Running alongside Valjean’s tale is the story of a group of young revolutionary idealists hell bent on taking France back for the common man. Please be warned – this is not a jolly tale. It’s full of filth and grime and heartache and death. Some critics have called it miserable. Ah, yes. It’s right there in the title.

As I said above, this movie is grand. It’s big and bold and relentless. It is a blockbuster in exactly the same exhausting way that Iron Man is and much more so than any other musical has been in recent memory. Hooper has taken full advantage of his medium and we have a Les Misérables that we could never have on the stage. But much more impressive, in my opinion, was the intimacy he was able to achieve by choosing to do that other thing that is impossible on the stage – the extreme close up. When Hathaway sings I Dreamed A Dream or Redmayne sings Empty Chairs At Empty Tables, we get up close and personal and the emotion is suddenly right in our faces. Which is, to say the least, intense. And here is Hooper’s masterstroke – his cast are all singing live. This isn’t all that new, but it certainly hasn’t been done in a big movie musical for quite some time. Obviously, you need a cast you can sing extremely well. Or quite well and can act themselves out of any weaknesses they might have. For the most part, Hooper has that. The raw emotion of a four-minute close up song, sung live, is amazing. And, for me, provide the high points of the movie.

Les Misérables is packed full with great performances. Jackman said in his Golden Globe acceptance speech that he very nearly told Hooper to find someone else, that he wasn’t up to the job. Which was really quite amusing – there is no one else! If Jackman couldn’t have pulled off the central role of Valjean, I’m not sure there is anyone out there that had even half a chance. He is commanding and larger than life, but also vulnerable and damaged. Brilliant, as expected. What I didn’t quite expect was the brilliance of some of the others. Hathaway and Redmayne are simply exceptional. Much has been said of Hathaway’s performance and, in particular, that song. You will not be disappointed. Redmayne’s Empty Chairs, though, was at least as good. Better perhaps, if you take into account all that has happened in the scenes preceding. Seyfried, Tveit and Barks are all extremely good. Providing us with some sorely needed comic relief, Baron Cohen and Bonham Carter are hilarious and brilliant. It has to be said, and it has been said again and again, the weak point here is Crowe. I suppose I suspected this going in so perhaps didn’t judge him too harshly. There is no doubt he doesn’t have the range and projection of Jackman. But he certainly didn’t ruin the scenes he was in and his raspy, restrained, soft rock voice suited his repressed, straight-laced, dark character. But I don’t doubt he will annoy a great many Les Misérables fanatics.

Les Misérables is an emotional, action-packed roller coaster. A blockbuster. I nearly cried four times but held myself together. Until the end … when I simply couldn’t contain the sobbing. I think you’ll know whether this is a movie for you. And if you’re not sure, see it anyway. You certainly get plenty of bang for your buck.

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Fantine: I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living.

Life of Pi

Irrfan Khan, Suraj Sharma, Adil Hussain, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Gerard Depardieu

Dir. Ang Lee
Scr. David Magee (based on novel of same name by Yann Martel)

Few movies have ever looked so lush and wondrous. And finally, a 3D experience so immersive that I almost forgot I was wearing those awful glasses. Almost. Life of Pi is a lovely couple of hours in a darkened room but, while I was drawn into the visual, the emotional and spiritual was a little harder to buy. Certainly Ang Lee has certainly achieved a feat – not only bringing an unfilmable book to life, but doing so with such panache. But while the sights and sounds will stay with me, sadly, the spoon-fed messages won’t.

If you’ve read the book, you’ll know exactly what sort of experience you’re likely to have. If you haven’t, well, your eyes with either widen with wonder or narrow with derision. Pi Patel is an inquisitive and challenging young boy, living in India with his parents – who run a zoo – and his older brother. One day his father (Hussain) decides they will pack up and move to Canada, taking the animals with them to sell on arrival. So the Patels and their collection of exotic beasts board a Japanese freighter bound for a new land and a new life. When disaster strikes, Pi is left stranded on a lifeboat with just an array of animals for company, most notably a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

It’s all wonderfully far-fetched, which will turn some people right off. It is also unabashedly religious, which will turn others away. But, as with all movies, you take to it and from it what you will. What saves this film from everything that might have made it a disaster is just how amazing it looks. It’s staggeringly beautiful and awash with colour. The opening credits introduce us to some of the animals in the zoo and it was like walking amongst them. There is plenty of CGI on offer and most of it is excellent. Bringing the tiger to life must have been especially challenging and is a real achievement – Richard Parker is perhaps my favourite character in the film. Life of Pi is possibly the most sumptuous visual feast you will see all year.

The spiritual elements of the film didn’t annoy me so much as bore me. But I wouldn’t say not to see it because of this – the punch Lee manages to land visually makes it worth a viewing. And while the movie’s religious depths didn’t move it, it certainly manages to scare and amuse and delight. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that they wanted me to descend into tears and prayers, and didn’t shy away from bashing me over the head with the big messages I should ponder as I left the cinema. A dose of subtlety wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The performances on offer here are all very good indeed. Much of the film rests on the shoulders of the stranded teenage Pi, played absolutely brilliantly by Sharma. Khan, who plays older Pi recounting his story of survival to an intrigued writer, is enigmatic and excellent. Hussain and Tabu, as Pi’s parents, as well as all the incarnations of Pi and his brother Ravi, give very solid performances. Spall, who plays the writer, is a very likeable actor and has a pivotal role here – he is the audience; cynical and disbelieving at first, wide-eyed and converted by the end. I didn’t quite make the entire journey with him, but never mind. A wee appearance by Depardieu, as the ship’s cook, is grotesque and wonderful.

I really enjoyed Life of Pi. But while the visual journey was a treat, the story didn’t move me in ways I suspect I was meant to be moved. Nevertheless, this film is a wild ride that shouldn’t be missed.

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Pi Patel: I can eat the biscuits, but God made tigers carnivorous, so I must learn to catch fish. If I don't, I'm afraid his last meal would be a skinny vegetarian boy.

Jack Reacher

Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Jai Courtney

Dir & Scr. Christopher McQuarrie (based on a book by Lee Child)

Jack Reacher is a man out of time. And so too is this film. In an age of Jason Bourne and a rebooted James Bond, this film simply isn’t up to scratch. A rubbish plot, some decidedly wooden performances, a complete lack of any sort of humour (well, any intentional humour) and a villain that would have been much more suited to a Bond film than this dire piece, Jack Reacher is utterly forgettable. Avoid.

A sniper lines up a bunch of random people in his sights, picks them off one by one, and disappears. All the clues lead back to one man, a former soldier, who, when asked to confess, requests just one thing – Get Jack Reacher. Reacher (Cruise) is a ghost, who reappears to help figure out just what has happened and why. Joining forces with defence lawyer, Helen (Pike), they discover nothing is quite as it seems. Blah blah blah.

I disliked much of this film. And not just the obvious. For example, the score bugged me immensely – tugging you along against your will and hitting you over the head at key moments. The story is unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy and, in the end, completely irrelevant. The dialogue is beyond cheesy and clichéd, and not in a good way. You will laugh, and you’re certainly not supposed to. There are a few jokes and I guarantee you won’t laugh at them. The acting is, almost across the board, either rubbish or simply unsuited to the film. But the biggest problem is that we have moved on from this sort of thriller – it felt like a tv movie or an episode of CSI, lacking any cinematic magic we have come to expect from this sort of genre. Reacher doesn’t even come close to the likes of Bourne or Bond. But even taking it down a notch, Cruise’s Reacher completely pales in comparison to the likes of Liam Neeson in Taken.

Much has been said of the miscasting of Cruise as Reacher – apparently he’s supposed tall and weathered and rugged. If you haven’t read the Lee Child books, I don’t think this should really make a difference. Although, Cruise is decidedly Cruise-like in this film. I have nothing against Cruise, but he’s really phoning it in here. Pike is simply awful as a gifted defence lawyer trying to make her name in the shadow of her DA father (Jenkins). Wooden, deer-in-the-headlights throughout, I simply didn’t care if she survived or not. Jenkins is woefully under-used. As is Duvall, who is one of the few rays of light in the film as an ex-vet, running a shooting range. Oyelowo, who I have not seen before, plays a detective and is almost as awful as Pike. Herzog, I have to confess, is probably the reason I rushed to see the film as soon as it came out. He is brilliant. Unfortunately, he is so clearly a Bond villain and simply doesn’t fit into an ultimately mundane story. I was rooting for him though – I simply wanted him to kill EVERYONE.

There were, I admit, a few good bits. As noted above, Duvall and Herzog set the screen ablaze every time they appeared. The scenes between Duvall and Cruise were also particularly good – the dialogue suddenly rang true and it all started to make sense. Unfortunately this was short-lived. The final stand-off between Reacher and Herzog’s villain, The Zec, is refreshingly uncharacteristically anti-climatic. But these elements did not make up for the many, multiple, various, numerous crap bits.

I guess if you’re a big fan of Child’s Reacher, you may be curious about this film. By all means, satisfy that curiosity. You’ll probably regret it though. Everyone else – simply avoid.

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Jack Reacher: You think I'm a hero? I am not a hero. And if you're smart, that scares you. Because I have nothing to lose.