by Brett Parker
There was a time when people would tell you all about everything that’s wrong in this world with a certain amount of hysteria in their voices. If you were alive and present in 2013, you probably talked about such things with the same sanitized calmness you’d use to read off a grocery list. A gaze through the news and social media nowadays would prove to anyone that the freaks are out in full force and have plenty to work with. We have political uncertainty, a troubled economy, alarming violence, shameless dating catastrophes, and a zombie-like reliance on technology that would make Johnny Five raise an eyebrow. But the most troubling thing of all may just be how people have grown an uneasy complacency with all of this. Chaos has become the new normal. In a world gone completely out-of-whack, accepting the out-of-whackness has become a rational coping mechanism.
Looking over the films of 2013, you can’t help but notice that keeping calm amongst suffocating madness and carrying on was some kind of unifying theme. Whether facing environments of alien robots, sinister science experiments, rampant greediness, suicidal car races, elaborate con games, or violent battles to the death, movie characters did their damnedest to survive. Watching these compelling folks keep their cool amongst bewildering circumstances certainly gave me a lot to connect with and helped me flesh out my Top 10 Movies of 2013:
The Catholic Martin Scorsese has always been a filmmaker who shows us the temptations and darkness involved with sin, and the Wall Street Satan he focuses his camera on this time revels in sinful temptations that are stunningly fascinating. Through the true life tale of infamous penny stock huckster Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio, a man possessed), Scorsese not only transplants ancient Roman decadence to modern-day New York, but also gives slimy stock traders the Goodfellas treatment. The result is a hypnotic portrait of shameless wealth, sexual depravity, and alarming drug use that makes Wall Street look like Sesame Street. But this isn’t just lunacy for lunacy sake, for you’d have to be a fool to miss the morals and decency that become serious collateral damage in the process. Most chilling of all is the film’s final scene which shows that in the religion of money, a business Beelzebub can be recast as the Christ of cash.
Edgar Wright is quickly becoming one of my favorite filmmakers for the way he sets out to spoof a beloved genre of cinema and ends up churning out a superior work that can stand with any film in said genre. So it’s damn near mind-blowing how The World’s End shrewdly marries an alien bodysnatcher flick with a midlife reunion tale and teaches both types of film a serious thing or two. After grappling with a zombie apocalypse and super-cop gunplay, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost once again hurl their friendship into a movie-mad playground, although this trip takes their bromance to surprisingly painful depths. Even though this movie supposedly caps the end of the duo’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” The World’s End will make you wish they’d keep bringing their cheeky touch to every film genre ever.
Literary purists scoffed and guardians of subtlety are still shaking their heads, but Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby adaptation is a grand explosion of colors and sounds I find damn near impossible to resist. Armed with a cast that delivers the best acted film version of the novel yet, Luhrmann plays fast and loose with historical accuracy to deliver the Gatsby of our teenage fever dreams: a frisky, candy-coated world that’s just as grand and delusional as the title character (played by Leonardo DiCaprio with commanding insight). It’s only when we apply our modern minds to the giddy dream world on display that we see the emotional cracks in the foundation, bringing great illumination to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s bittersweet truths and heartbreaking disillusionment.
I’m not entirely sure about everything that happens in Upstream Color, only that it’s certainly a difficult and beautiful mediation on the human spirit. As brainy auteur Shane Carruth guides us through an elaborate and creepy experiment that hijacks the souls of two innocent people (Carruth and Amy Seimetz) through a strange osmosis, we are left to ponder the hidden terrors of our own emotions and the thriving perseverance inherent in humanity. As these two damaged souls struggle to get to the bottom of their victimization, we see the colorful and challenging ways Carruth pits science against heart, with heart dealing the final winning blow.
Ron Howard once again displays his fascination with mythic men in high-risk occupations by focusing on the real life story of James Hunt (a lively Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (a masterful Daniel Bruhl), two Formula One drivers who carried out an intense rivalry in the 1976 racing season. Rush is one of the best movies about racing ever made thanks to its understanding that the sport is a platform for the ego to taunt various men and push them towards transcendence. As Howard shows off some of the sexiest and vibrant filmmaking of his career, it’s his focus on the peculiar drama just outside the cars that pushes this manly-man’s tale towards poetry.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut plunges headfirst into some very uncomfortable truths about our cultural expectations, but it offers up a sweet hope for even the most delusional of modern-day people. Levitt himself wonderfully plays Jon, a lothario who realizes his porn addiction may be threatening the “perfect relationship” plans of his girlfriend, Barbara (a funny Scarlett Johansson). Levitt shows the strikingly funny and sad ways the dreamy idealism of our media consumption can seriously distort the real things we should be looking for in human relationships. As Jon goes from championing the superficial to appreciating soulfulness, you realize that Levitt’s film may just be the perfect wake-up call for plenty of human sheep out there.
Most cinematic con games excite us with plenty of visual razzle-dazzle, yet David O. Russell brings such a tale to his level of freewheeling oddness to show us just how maniacal a con game actually looks. As Russell veterans Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence push themselves to comic and sleazy extremes, American Hustle puts us in a hypnotic trance with the fast flashiness of the 70s and the mind-boggling complications of con artistry. We’re used to seeing players in cinematic hustles acting ultra-slick and too-cool-for-school, but Russell’s love of screwy outsiders pushes such characters to beautiful depths of ridiculousness and poignancy we may not have sensed before.
The Joss Whedon touch involves taking overly-familiar pop archetypes and giving them fresh new angles of humor, heart, and pathos. Here he takes stuffy Shakespearean types we’ve been seeing our whole lives and fills them with modern day jitters and California sunniness. Filmed on a break from shooting The Avengers at his own house, Whedon’s black and white adaptation of the William Shakespeare comedy assembles bit players and friends from throughout his work and the result perfectly nails the play’s slapstick humor and romantic yearning. It’s rare for a Hollywood director to film a classical work in his own backyard, so it’s some kind of miracle that this turns out to be one of the best adaptations ever of said work.
When you ponder that one of last year’s most scathing critiques of American society came in the form of a young adult sci-fi adventure, you realize that Catching Fire is no ordinary pop ride. With devilish insights into the ways pop culture distracts the people from terrifying government truths, Catching Fire gave youngsters plenty of unwelcome thoughts to grasp about the real world. But it wasn’t all bleakness, for this sequel dished out an irresistible Empire Strikes Back vibe with thrilling sets, ace supporting roles (Sam Claflin and Jena Malone are dynamite), killer make-up and costumes, and a plunge into darkness that punched up the alertness to exciting new heights. Respect must be paid to a sequel that smokes the original and gets you all-kinds-of-fired up for the next installment in ways you never expected.
Our heavy reliance on ever-expanding technology has always walked a fine line between hopefulness and horror, and no modern film better understands that than Spike Jonze’s Her. This futuristic story of a lonely writer (a wonderfully heartfelt Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his advanced computer system (Scarlett Johansson is the lovely voice of the romantic ghost in the machine) challenges the audience to decide if such a development is supreme insanity or an exhilarating new angle on romantic love. What’s remarkable is how it makes a very persuasive argument for the latter. Filled with lush colors, a soothing score from Arcade Fire, and delicate acting, Jonze just may have convinced us that surrendering to technology could be more Woody Allen than The Terminator.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
-Gravity
-The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
-Pacific Rim
-Saving Mr. Banks
-12 Years a Slave
