Weekly Mini-reviews: “12 Years a Slave,” “Captain Phillips,” “Only God Forgives” & More

November 3-10, 2013

12 Years a Slave | Steve McQueen | 2013 | ★★★

With 12 Years a Slave tried something with the topic of slaver that almost no film on the topic has ever tried: to show how brutal it really was. This gives the film some memorable harrowing moments. However, it lacks something that Schindler’s List, a film this has been compared to many times before, had in spades: emotion. I imagine that the real Solomon Northup went through all sorts of emotions in his head or in private, but McQueen apparently had no time for this, and he only focused on how he acted in front of everyone else- as someone simply going through the motions, thereby making him a rather bland character. With that said, there are moments where emotion is finally allowed to come up to the surface, and these are moments where the film touches true greatness. There also moments where McQueen taps into the artfulness of his previous work that are aesthetically beautiful and haunting. However, these great moments don’t come to often in the entire running time. Add to that Hans Zimmer’s overbearing score and some distracting celebrity casting (Brad Pitt and Paul Giamatti distract, while Paul Dano kills any momentum the movie had) and what we are left with is a merely good film based on a tragedy that should have made for a better film.

While it didn’t do much for me, I’m still glad others are loving it and it’s making people have important conversations on the topic that are very much relevant today, and for that, I respect the work put into this a lot.

Best Films Seen for the First Time in 2012

Although my write-up on the films of 2012 will not be around for a while because I have not seen everything that I have seen from the year, I can reveal my top 10 non-2012 (or 2011) films that I watched for the first time this year. There’s no pattern to it as I just watched whatever tickled my fancy.

So, anyways, here is the list in gallery form. If you want to read my brief thoughts on a certain film, just click on the picture. 

Cinematic Heaven: Toy Story

Toy Story | John Lasseter, 1995

A few days ago, a few cousins came to my house with my uncle and aunt just to visit. They are 14, 13, and 9 years old. The 14 year old is the kind that just wants to hang out with his friends and is always glued to his cell phone. The 13 year old is one of those that only seem to talk about videogames. And the 9 year old is still figuring out what to do, but as of late he is the “too cool for school” type.  They said they were bored, and they had already seen Fantastic Mr. Fox, my latest to-go film for entertaining younger children. So I thought, “hey, Toy Story 3 is coming up soon, let’s watch the original.” They were like “whatev b” so I just put it on, and they went back to their texting and video gaming, and stuff. But once the Pixar logo came up and Andy is shown playing with Mr. Potato Head and Woody, they all looked at the screen and did not look away from the screen until the credits rolled. That right there is the power of good cinema, Toy Story, and Pixar.