I’m gonna start my coverage of the best that the movies had to offer this decade although I don’t think I’ll have a list of my favorites of the decade that I can stand by until March at the earliest, especially since I have to do a 2019 lists first. But I’m gonna start now with genre or category-specific lists to not just dump everything at once.
Today, we are starting with the following music-specific categories: Best Musical, Score, and Songs Written for Motion Pictures.
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So what is there to say about 2013 in film? Towards the end of the year a lot of critics and other movie folks deemed it to be a great year, perhaps even greater than 2007. I did like what cinema had to offer this years, and there were plenty of gems (otherwise there wouldn’t be a top 25), some of which could become all-timers. But a GREAT year? I don’t think so. A lot of these conversations happened on the level of Oscar films, but on a year when mediocrity like Philomena, American Hustle, and dreck like August: Osage County and Rush were even the conversation, that adjective didn’t deserve to be used. So, as far as overall quality goes, it was an average year. Continue reading
This month, as it will be for the first few months of the year, was mostly about catching up with 2013 films that I have missed. In the mean time, I also watched two 80s Eddie Murphy classics, one of the most underrated films of 2011, and a rewatch of a childhood staple. Overall, I watched 16 films for the first time and did six rewatches. I will post a top 10 but I must say that only the first seven are above being merely okay.
I must also say that this month I spent a fair amout of time watching television, such as the new episodes of Teen Wolf, Looking, and about 7 episodes of American Horror Story: Coven. I hope the rest of the year is kinder to my movie-watching Continue reading
(This time I’ve included what I’ve watched in the past two weeks)
Her | Spike Jonze | 2013 | ★★★
For me, Her succeeds because of the way it imagines what our likely future looks and feels like. From the production design subtly influenced by Asian culture, to how it imagines technology will move forward. But the film is being sold as a love story, and that’s where the film didn’t succeed for me. I did not feel anything for the relationship between Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), and perhaps worst of all, I didn’t feel for Theodore and the fact that the only relationship he could handle was with an artificial intelligence and he kept ignoring something good that was right in front of him. The last 45 minutes or so approach greatness in this regard as it becomes more intellectual and it posses some interesting questions, but there’s a stretch of about an hour towards the middle that drags on and on. Ultimately I liked it, but I want to watch it again to see if my opinion of it changes. As of right now, however, it’s the biggest disappointment of 2013. Continue reading
A Journey Through Cinematic Heaven and Hell 