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| Adele Exarchopoloulos and Léa Seydoux from Blue Is The Warmest Color |
I recently provided a list of what I consider the Top 10 movies of 2013. Because it was such an excellent year in movies, it was a tough list to make. For fun, please find below an accompanying collection of films that might have made the best on a different day. Below those you’ll find another list of fine films, and then ones I didn’t really care for.
(We love the lists here at Flaw In The Iris. Especially at this time of the year.)
Honourable Mentions
Most Welcome Visit With Old Friends
I wish Jesse and Celene were happier, but it was still great to be able to spend time with them again. I can’t wait to look in on them in 2022 when they’ll be in their 50s.
Most Intimate Love Affair
Blue Is The Warmest Color (La Vie D’Adele)
Unsustainable at three hours, but still jaw-droppingly brave and authentic performances from Léa Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoloulos. And, yes, it’s hot.
Funniest Single Scene
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, twisted on quaaludes, trying to open the door of a Lamborghini with his foot.
Loveliest Romcom
Hollywood isn’t making them much anymore, so you need to watch the Danes do it. Good thing they do it so well.
Best Grumpy Old Men
Bruce Dern, Stacey Keach and most of the male cast of the charming and sad Alexander Payne film Nebraska.
Best Old Man Of The Sea
Robert Redford in All Is Lost. The legendary actor and director is 78. Consider that as he shimmies up the mast of his yacht.
There were a bunch of fun British crime dramas out this year, but this one really grabbed me.
Best Bloodsuckers
Byzantium
An adult vampire movie, practically an endangered species.
Best Bloodsuckers
Byzantium
An adult vampire movie, practically an endangered species.
Best Hollywood Film by a Quebec Filmmaker
Dallas Buyers Club
Jean-Marc Vallée draws career-best performances from both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. It tops Ken Scott’s Delivery Man, a remake of his own Starbuck, or Denis Villeneuve’s problematic Prisoners.
Best Movie That HBO Saved When Hollywood Studios Had No Guts
Behind The Candelabra
Michael Douglas would be enjoying an Academy Award nod come January 16 if this got a theatrical release. It’s a genuine shame.
Creepiest Movie I Saw
Michael Douglas would be enjoying an Academy Award nod come January 16 if this got a theatrical release. It’s a genuine shame.
Creepiest Movie I Saw
V/H/S 2
Maybe this isn’t saying much since I don’t see a lot of horror—I think it was a toss-up between this one and the solid The Conjuring—but the anthology won the day for sheer variety, that nightmare-inducing Indonesian devil cult, and Jason Eisener’s thing.
Sports Movie Of The Year
Rush
Maybe this isn’t saying much since I don’t see a lot of horror—I think it was a toss-up between this one and the solid The Conjuring—but the anthology won the day for sheer variety, that nightmare-inducing Indonesian devil cult, and Jason Eisener’s thing.
Sports Movie Of The Year
Rush
You didn’t even need to dig Formula One to get into this great look back at 1970s motor racing; maybe Ron Howard’s best film.
Best Summer Nostalgia
The Way Way Back
Sam Rockwell and co. make for a light, sweet treat.
Best Example Of A Performance Carrying A Movie
Best Summer Nostalgia
The Way Way Back
Sam Rockwell and co. make for a light, sweet treat.
Best Example Of A Performance Carrying A Movie
Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. Yeah, Woody is pretty good here, but it’s Cate’s show, the film elevated in every corner by her brilliance.
Best New Weird Twisted Feature from Nicolas Winding Refn
Only God Forgives
I couldn’t decide if it was brilliant or empty, but I also couldn’t get it out of my mind.
I couldn’t decide if it was brilliant or empty, but I also couldn’t get it out of my mind.
Best Reason Joss Whedon is The Man
Has there ever been a less likely but supercool follow-up to a record-breaking blockbuster?
Most Entertaining Blockbuster Sequel
Most Entertaining Blockbuster Sequel
Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, were all contenders, but Fast & Furious 6 takes it for that super-long, ridiculous runway chase sequence. And even though I never gave him much love, let me just say RIP Paul Walker.
Best Double-Feature Suggestion
Hell, they might actually be the same movie.
Science-Fiction Epic Most Deserving of More Love
Science-Fiction Epic Most Deserving of More Love
Much better than expected, even with Tom Cruise, who’s becoming the Charlton Heston of his generation.
Other good times at the movies
Captain Phillips, 2 Guns, The Spectacular Now, The East, In A World…, This Is The End, Drinking Buddies, Headhunters, Upside Down
Dishonourable Mentions
For confidence artists, Irving and Sydney have no confidence. And ask yourself this: how much better would the movie be if Bale and Adams switched roles with Cooper and Lawrence?
Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9 has much of the earlier film’s wonderful production design, but very little of its smarts.
Riding entirely on the considerable charm of Greta Gerwig, the movie never really delivers on its quirky promise and instead comes across as an unfunny indie comedy. I don’t really get why so many people adore it.
Two movies with identical plots again this year. The first one with Gerry Butler was so awful I couldn’t bear to sit through the second one with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx.
An appalling sell-out of everything that made Gene Roddenberry’s original series great, overrated fan-fiction creator JJ Abrams, not even really a fan of the source material, creates an action flick space opera masquerading as a Star Trek movie. Maybe he’ll do better with Star Wars. He couldn’t do worse.
