AMF's 2013 Year-End Recap

Top 10 Movies of the Year (in no real order)

Blue Jasmine
Woody Allen's candy-colored tragedy about the wreckage that mental illness leaves in its wake gets my nod for best film of the year, hands down. It's pretty and sprightly and utterly, holistically heartbreaking. 

Enough Said
Nicole Holofcener writes people like nobody else. These are people you know: they're your friends, your co-workers, they're the people you see every day and who you intrinsically care about -- they may not be perfect (in fact, they're usually far from it), but they're very, very real. Nothing earth-shattering happens in this movie, but it somehow leaves you excited for the adventure ahead of our protagonists, even after the credits roll. 

Moral of this movie: love is sharing your stoop

Nebraska
I have a little "thing" for movies about old people confronting their own obsolescence (don't even play the theme to Up unless you want me to start bawling). I'm not sure entirely what I was expecting from this movie, but I loved what it is -- a quiet, sometimes-frustrating meditation on what it's like to realize who your parents were before you, and who they are because of you.

American Hustle
This ballsy tour de force is one of the most self-assured crime movies I've seen in a very long time. It's exquisitely put together, yet giddily enthusiastic -- Christopher Nolan-esque precision, yet with such a dirty, sexy vibrance that you never see the surgically elegant hand behind the action. 

dude-perms and velvet and boobs, oh my!

Warm Bodies

Every end-of-year list needs one movie that may not be good, but just makes you feel good. I grinned for essentially the entire run-time of this movie, and for ages afterwards. It's a Romeo and Juliet story that, on first glance, doesn't look like much... but it gets under your skin. It's a movie to turn on while you cuddle with someone. It may not be life changing, but it's warm and sweet and oddly affecting.

Dallas Buyers Club

I almost didn't bother going to see this because, based on the trailer, it just looked schmaltzy and like a soggy change-of-heart sob story. Ads, luckily, lie. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both rock some serious Method acting and while this is inherently a rather emotional story to tell, there are no cheap saccharine moments here.

McConaughey and Leto waiting patiently for their Oscars

Gravity
The spectacle of this movie may suffer on DVD, but the experience of seeing this on a theatre screen in 3D, was truly one of the highlights of the year. I panic-attacked multiple times (the first time being about 2 minutes in... it boded well for the next 2 hours), but the completeness of the world constructed by Cuarón is immersive and incredible.

Blue is the Warmest Color
I was conflicted about putting this on my list. It's 3 hours long but could have easily been edited down to about 2, the director is a perv (as well as essentially abusing his lead actresses), and, let's be honest: there was no need at all for that 9 minute pornographic sex scene that earned the movie its (very valid) NC-17 rating. But on the other hand, it has two of the most beautiful performances (by Léa Seyoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos) I've ever seen and the first 90ish minutes are a near-perfect depiction of what the confusion of being a teenager in love feels like.

this is a kissing movie

The World’s End
I would follow Simon Pegg and Nick Frost almost anywhere and while this didn't generate the buzz that Shaun of the Dead did, I almost think it was funnier. It is, like the rest of their oeuvre, smart, snappy and silly... and then it just jams you in the gut with legitimate emotional heft. 

Much Ado About Nothing
There's no movie I'd rather have been a part of than this. A long weekend overflowing with wine, friends and Shakespeare -- what could be better? 

everyone's had this house-party moment ... right?

Point-by-Point: The Man with the Iron Fists - 4/10

We start in China at some unspecified-but-long-ago time. There's a gang that was taken over by a traitorous lieutenant, there's a rightful-but-out-of-power leader to said gang, there's a blacksmith, there's a madame and her prostitutes, there's a western badass, and there's a buttload of gold that they all are somehow involved with. A variety of things happen, but any plot is mainly an excuse for kung-fu action.

The Good: While none of the action is outstanding, the variety of characters and weapons is entertaining. I especially enjoyed Zin Yi's knife armor that would sprout blades wherever needed. The movie is ridiculous in a campy / throwback sort of way, and there are enough fun bits that you begin to think it would have been very possible to make a better movie than what they ended up with. Russell Crowe is fun to watch and seems to be having a good time, although he does end up making the rest of the cast look bad.

The Bad: RZA. He's a pretty mediocre director and an utterly horrible actor. Since this is his movie and he was the main character, that inevitably led to a crappy outcome. There are some interesting style choices, especially when it comes to music, but the movie begins to drag towards the end and some of the fight scenes rely on CGI gore instead of actual fight choreography. The story is a little thin, but you can chalk that up to the genre. Even with all of that, the movie could have been salvaged if RZA had picked someone better in the lead role instead of trying to do it himself. He doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the dramatic parts and looks downright silly during the action scenes. I don't know if he chose to be the main character because of ego or just because he thought it'd be fun, but he should have hired a real actor.

The Ugly: With all the gore in the unrated version, there are a lot of scenes to choose from. However, probably the ugliest was just how the Man with the Iron Fists comes by his name.

Points Pondered

-Were I Russell Crowe's character, I'd think about carrying an actual gun along with my knife gun.

-Mirrored battle rooms seem far more confusing in movies than they'd actually be in real life. If the average 8 year old can make their way through a hall of mirrors at a carnival, a trained martial artist can figure out where the bad guy actually is.

-Taking a 10 or 15 minute timeout to learn the Blacksmith's history was a bit much, but then watching the RZA try to fight people made the whole exercise laughable. If he doesn't fight like a badass, no amount of backstory will convince us.

-Knife Armor seems like a risky proposition, and would probably be a hassle to put on and take off. Still, pretty cool looking. 

Point-by-Point: The Frankenstein Theory - 4/10

A researcher finds out that his ancestor was the basis for Dr. Frankenstein. He thinks the monster is still alive, and he hires a documentary crew that accompanies him to the arctic circle to track the creature down. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

The Good: This is an interesting idea for a movie, and by framing it as a documentary, there's slightly higher production value than the average found-footage film. Also, the acting (save for the main character, sadly) is well above par for this kind of movie. They actually spent some money on real actors for the side characters - the meth head and the guide both did standout jobs. 

The Bad: Our hero Dr. Venkenheim veers a bit towards Gene Wilder in a supposedly serious film, and it doesn't quite work. But the main problem is this movie just doesn't deliver on it's promising premise. It's a very slow build up to an utterly underwhelming conclusion, and there's nary a startle along the way. 

The Ugly: The weather. I really hope they didn't drag the entire crew up to the arctic circle, but wherever they were looked miserably cold. Oh, and I guess you see a corpse that was ripped in two. But mainly the weather.

Points Pondered

-At first I was about to give the movie a 6, but then I realized I had just watched Greystone Park and in comparison everything looks like Shakespeare. Just because a movie isn't terrible doesn't make it good.

-Christine Lakin of Step by Step fame plays the doctor's girlfriend, which I only realized after I saw her name in the credits. I would say she should be in more stuff, but a quick check of her IMDb page shows she's in about 5-10 things a year. Might be time to raise her standards.

-There's absolutely nothing in the movie you don't see coming from miles away. Halfway in and most people could give you the order in which the cast is culled.

-Be warned - the cover is much cooler than anything you see in the movie.  

Point-by-Point: Greystone Park - 1/10

A group of folks with a camera wander in to a haunted mental hospital. Why, or who exactly these people are, isn't made entirely clear. Anyway, if you've seen a found-footage horror movie, it's basically just like that, but worse.

The Good: Move along, nothing to see here.

The Bad: This movie is a mess. The premise is overused, the characters are utterly boring, and I'm not entirely sure there was a plot. Even for the shaky-cam genre, the camera work was notably bad - the movie was overly dark, with far too many out-of-focus and wildly-swinging shots, and an amazing amount of fake distortion / cutting to random 'creepy' shots the camera could never have taken. Trying to follow along with anything in this movie is a lost cause. Of course, it wouldn't be a total loss if it was at least scary, but no dice. Sure, there's a jump scare or two and the occasional shadowy blur as the camera pans across from one wooden actor to another, but that's nowhere near enough to keep the average viewer from falling asleep. So, to recap, the acting, editing, writing, and directing were all horrible. I bet the catering even sucked.

The Ugly: The look on Oliver Stone's face when he saw just how crappy of a job his son did. That's an assumption, of course, but it's a safe one. 

Points Pondered

-If you can figure out the relationship between our main characters, or even how many people are actually in the group that enters the asylum, my hat goes off to you.

-If this is found footage, why is there a score?

-There's not one point in this movie where I felt like I had a firm grasp on what was happening. It quickly devolves into people yelling at each other in similar looking rooms and hallways. 

-Until they find a fully-lit cathedral. In the middle of an abandoned mental hospital.

-The credits look like they were created in iMovie - 3D stone-textured names, poofing off the screen. I mean, did the director even watch this?

-Really, just watch Grave Encounters instead. Or maybe even an episode of Ghost Hunters.

Point-by-Point: The Tall Man - 6/10

The Good: This starts off as a pretty good thriller - the story, pacing and direction are solid. The twist in the middle, which I didn't see coming, had me figuring that this movie was going to be great.

The Bad: It was all downhill from there. The second half of the movie slows to a crawl, and it doesn't help that it relies on Jessica Biel's acting chops. 

The Ugly: The assumed morality of the final reveal is off. I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but it seems the movie treats the end as fairly clear-cut when it really isn't.

Points Pondered

-Really, owning as creepy of a van as our villain does should probably be regarded as probable cause for any crime.

-Most of my points pondered actually occurred in the latter half of the film, so I'll avoid mentioning them. Instead, I'll just say that the Tall Man from Phantasm is both taller and scarier than the The Tall Man's Tall Man. 

Point-by-Point: The Chaser - 4/10

An ex-detective turned pimp tries to track down his missing girls who, despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes have merely run off. Turns out, there's a creep involved, and then the chasing begins.

The Good: Taken individually, there are some interesting and well done scenes. There are moments in the direction and story-telling where I can see why people really like the film. Also, despite our hero basically being a total jerk, the performance is able to humanize him, making us truly end up on his side.

The Bad: The plot holes and sheer stupidity of the characters ruined this movie for me. Usually I'm pretty good at turning my brain off and just enjoying the ride, but The Chaser pushed me over my limit. Your story has serious problems when you rely on multiple people being idiots in order to get your characters out of sticky situations. Once is annoying, but it was almost a motif. For me, this killed any suspense they were trying to build, which then destroyed the pacing because I was sitting there going "There is no way this should possibly be happening" instead of focusing on the actual story. 

The Ugly: The utterly pointless murder near the end, that happens only due to a long sequence of the aforementioned stupidity. You can claim that it makes this movie gritty, or brutal. To me, it's just the director giving a big middle finger to the audience. 

Points Pondered

-Although this one takes it to an entirely different level, pretty much every Korean movie I've seen has totally incompetent cops. Is this just in film, or are they really that bad?

-There's absolutely nothing about the bad guy that convinces me he wouldn't get caught within an hour of his first crime.

-If my houseguest drew a creepy, four-walls-and-floor mural in two days, I might ask him to leave.

-This movie just proves that if you're sick, you shouldn't go to work. It's for your health, as well as the health of others. 

Point-by-Point: May - 8/10

May is a lonely girl. She meets a few people, but they find her creepy. She proves them totally right. 

The Good:  For a fairly small horror movie, the acting is outstanding. Angela Bettis is pretty much perfect as May, which is important because the movie could have easily fallen apart if her performance was even a little bit off. She makes you feel for May, even when she's being horrible. I also have a soft spot for Anna Faris (The House Bunny is far funnier than I would have imagined). Also, credit to the director - it's not easy to combine all of the emotional responses he was going for without it being a muddy train wreck, but he goes effortlessly between black comedy, psychological drama and horror. 

The Bad: Because of previously mentioned blending of genres, the pacing is a bit strange. I didn't have many problems with it, but someone hoping for a thrill-a-minute horror film will probably be bored towards the middle of this. 

The Ugly: Of the all gore in movies, violence of the ocular variety is by far the worst. This movie is a horrible offender.

Points Pondered

-My wife informed me that if the cat ever died while she was away, I should put it in the freezer. No.

-I appreciate that everyone treats May realistically - try to be friendly, see that she's kind of cute and quirky and want to hang out, then realize that she's actually crazy and slowly back away. Most people will take weirdness in stride until it gets to dangerous-weird.

-Has there ever been a non-creepy doll? 

-It's a bit odd - Jeremy Sisto looks to have aged a lot since this movie came out, and Anna Faris basically looks the same.  

Point-by-Point: Kill'em All - 2/10

A group of assassins is rounded up and forced to do battle. Why? That's never satisfactorily answered. 

The Good: This is a tough one. I guess there are a few nice shots of Bangkok. It also doesn't waste a lot of time getting to it's point.

The Bad: You'd think a movie about 8 assassins with different backgrounds and fighting styles killing each other would be exciting, but this movie is excruciatingly boring. The characters are entirely forgettable, and they all fight in basically the same way. I mean, you have to actively TRY to be boring to screw up this premise. I hate you, Kill'em All, for making me nostalgic for The Quest. Remember? The Van Damme movie? Featuring a tournament of deadly fighters from across the globe? No, the other one. That wasn't GOOD, but it was at least fun to watch. Kill'em All was not.

The Ugly: The set. I know the official description says they're locked in a "high-tech bunker known as the Killing Chamber," but that's awfully grandiose. I was thinking something like the X-Men's Danger Room, but it's basically a basement in an abandoned building that has a pipe for gas to come in. That's it. Disappointing.

Points Pondered

-It doesn't really seem fair to pit an assassin who specializes in explosives against one that has trained for years in hand-to-hand combat. Of course, he manages to hold his own, because this movie is dumb.

-For some reason, they decide to kill the most interesting assassins off first. Would have been too exciting, otherwise. 

-"Hey, now he's fighting like a monkey!" Oh, The Quest. 

-While you watch this movie (which you really shouldn't do), keep in mind that the main bad guy had all of these deadly assassins unconscious and totally helpless at two points during this ordeal. The fun begins when you try and reconcile that with the villain's ultimate plan. 

Point-by-Point: 13 Assassins - 8/10

A group of 13 samurai are sent to assassinate a brutal lord before he can grab any more power. Yet another well-titled movie.

The Good: For the most part, Takashi Miike tones down his usual cavalcade of brutality and that lets his ability as a director to shine through. The battle sequence is long yet amazing and well-shot, and avoids devolving into random guys hitting other random guys. Of course, he still puts in a few visceral scenes, but they are all the more effective when not surround by more of the same.

The Bad: Even though the story is well-told, it's fairly rote. Also, a number of the 13 aren't fleshed out very well, leading you to figure that they'll just be fodder when the time comes.

The Ugly: The variety of scenes used to paint a monstrous picture of our bad guy is about as ugly as it gets. Of course, by the end of it, you're totally on the side of the assassins, which is the point.

Points Pondered

-I knew this wasn't the average Miike film when a guy commits seppuku and you don't actually see him stick and knife in and watch his guts fall out.

-Setting this at the end of the samurai era definitely makes it more believable that a handful of well-trained men could pose a threat to a small army of amost-ceremonial samurai.

-The interplay between the leader of the 13 and the general of the enemy army was well done. It could have become one of a number of clichés, and avoiding them made the story stronger.

-Reading the description of the uncut version, they definitely made some wise choices for an international audience. Usually changes are made to dumb down films for a wider market, but here they eliminated a lot of silly scenes and weirdness that would have felt out of place. 

Point-by-Point: Lady Vengeance - 6/10

A lady goes to prison for awhile, then seeks vengeance on the one who put her there. The title is apt.

The Good: Park has style to spare. While it didn't quite impress me as much as Oldboy, the movie has an elegance that's easy to like. I also appreciate that people looked to have aged between when our hero first went to prison and eventually got out - I've run across far too many movies where 5 or 10 years supposedly pass and all the folks even have the same haircuts.

The Bad: I didn't like the story. More to the point, I felt like it was a good premise wasted. I actually kind of enjoyed the whole build-up of her calling on prison connections, but once a little girl shows up and other families get involved, it gets stupid fast. There are more than a few pointless scenes, and none of the actors seem like anything special. Overall, it's a pretty, dull movie.

The Ugly: There are a few scenes to be sure, but surprisingly nothing really approaching Oldboy. Let's go with the man-dog in the dream sequence.

Points Pondered

-The main character looks cooler in the poster than she does in most of the movie. I mention this mainly because I really like her eyes in the poster.

-She totes a very cool, albeit impractically super-close-range, handgun. But hey, style is definitely important.

-The "10 prisoners to a room" system seems to just be inviting problems.

-I think we can all agree that Chan-wook Park just enjoys torturing Min-sik Choi.