The Films of 2013

[Sonmi451]

To those who have seen Vivan las Antipodas! (2013 in U.S.)

Spoiler

A quick google search shows up nothing, but I'm curious if it is known exactly how much of this film is staged. Was the whole thing scripted from the outset, or was it mostly improvised? I found myself constantly questioning the seeming contrivances (so it was somewhat jarring), and it appears most reviews are discussing it as a straight documentary.

[flyonthewall2983]

Watched Metallica: Through The Never tonight. The mix of concert footage and scripted action felt more cohesive than something like The Song Remains The Same, which isn't saying a whole lot. I'm a moderate Metallica fan so I am somewhat immune to the internet's hate of them. The performances were a whole lot tighter than I remember, seeing them 9 years ago (right around the time their other movie came out). The concert footage was better served by the 3D than the other stuff, which was okay as interstitial material.

[zedz]

To those who have seen Vivan las Antipodas! (2013 in U.S.)

Spoiler

A quick google search shows up nothing, but I'm curious if it is known exactly how much of this film is staged. Was the whole thing scripted from the outset, or was it mostly improvised? I found myself constantly questioning the seeming contrivances (so it was somewhat jarring), and it appears most reviews are discussing it as a straight documentary.

I don't think there's anything actually spoilerable in either your question or in my reply, but just in case:

Spoiler

It's anything but a straight documentary. Where the Condors Fly shows just how much trouble went into getting the scenes you see in the film. Talk about herding cats!

That said, I didn't get the impression that it was 'scripted' in any conventional sense. It seems more like Kossakovsky went to his locations, took into account what and who were there, and then figured out what kind of action / activity / compositions he'd like to see take place there. A lot of it is just what he found there, filmed in an interesting way (e.g. the Shanghai traffic), but other scenes are specific tableaux that were set up and repeated until they turned out just right.) I'm pretty sure he didn't deliberately beach an actual whale, and the brevity of that sequence suggests that he was much more beholden to an actual event in that case than he was elsewhere.

Another thing that the documentary makes clear is that a lot of waiting was involved, not just for things to turn out 'just so' in front of the camera, but for weather conditions and the time of year to be right for certain effects. Which is a contrivance, if you like, but not exactly a falsification of reality.

[Sonmi451]

Thanks for that zedz, it definitely confirms my own thoughts. I found the film absolutely mesmerizing; I need to revisit it now that I know I shouldn't be constantly questioning my sanity, since I was originally going in expecting a straight doc. I must now seek out this Where the Condors Fly.

[colinr0380]

World War Z is a very strange beast. On the one hand I'm not sure it is that innovative a zombie/action film as it contains any number of clichéd moments, particularly that trope of the woman calling her husband's mobile, which goes off and alerts any hostiles in the area to his presence! I suppose it is so common in films as a way of getting that message across that it is always important to turn your mobile off rather than have it go off and irritate everyone! I guess that it also keeps the female character involved in the main thread of the narrative in a small way, but it usually also causes the audience to lose all sympathy for her at the same time!

On the other it is refreshing to see a major Hollywood film actually daring to raise lots of different political and cultural ideas (even if the film also generally sidesteps taking any particular side on such issues) from the pluses and minuses of isolationism against global travel, to the existence and even necessity of infectious diseases (used in a War of the Worlds kind of way here), to individual governments taking draconian defence measures, to the idea of large international organisations generally being powerless to do anything to save anyone in the short term except watch.

I particularly found the idea of a UN/WHO representative who is regularly able to become an action hero, shooting, stabbing or crowbarring formerly human zombies to death, both frighteningly callous and highly amusing at the same time, even if the barbed satire suggested by that image (a peacekeeper with extreme prejudice!) was likely unintentional!

That final idea was something which I found provided the most frightening feelings in the film, that sense of seeing the world through jaded, detached and unemotional eyes of a peacekeeping organisation such as the UN or WHO, with the feeling of individual human beings being abandoned or even sacrificed to the great roiling mass of their all-consuming attackers. In a way the film keeps equating the mass of panicky humans to their zombie equivalents (the only difference appears to be that the zombies are deadlier) and to its credit the film seems to allow that problematic feeling to take centre stage, and create feelings in the audience of lack of empathy for large groups of still living humans as they become dehumanised in sense of regularly being more of a liability or a hindrance (or in the Jerusalem scene, the hubris of pointless, over confident human celebratory behaviour being the aspect that immediately leads to downfall). In that sense the film is also (perhaps too) obliquely tackling issues of armed conflict and overpopulation in the idea that whenever there are just too many people in society causing a pressure on resources, both natural and man-made, then either mankind starts a global war or genocide to wipe out swathes of population in one fell swoop, or nature introduces a new kind of virus or disease that does the same thing. Though this was also the same sort of idea that 28 Days Later... was tackling.

Spoiler

It certainly undercuts the 'happy' ending if we consider that the zombie virus, whether naturally created or a man-made weapon, has done its job in reducing the population back down to manageable levels!

Yet also away from those relatively heavyweight subjects, the film also amusingly works as what I imagine Brad Pitt's, or any megastar's, lifestyle must be like - travelling around the world from country to country on press junkets or to filming locations, surrounded by security quickly pushing you down streets or around corners while you try desperately to try and actually see some of the local colour, adopting children and members of your entourage from the various locations that you visit and regularly being pursued by hordes of anonymous fans desperate for a piece of you! Because of that I was kind of left thinking more of that scene from Michael Jackson's Moonwalker than a relation to any particular zombie film!

[domino harvey]

the Way Way Back (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) Hmm. Here's a familiar template: coming of age / one special summer tale of a young kid learning from a rag-tag group of older mentors to grow as a person, and unfortunately the film doesn't do much to set itself apart from the pack. There's something to be said for actually casting and directing a child actor to be convincingly awkward and not witty or clever in the slightest, but I'm not sure a film like this can survive such a passive, nothing central figure. It's sweet that Sam Rockwell takes him under his wing and nice that the cute girl kind of likes him out of boredom more than due to his charisma, but while Steve Carell's boor was out of line to say it to his face, the kid by all evidence is a three. Also, the film was/is sold as a comedy but there are few funny moments attempted, and the whole thing is really kind of a downer in a weird middleground way that doesn't embrace an extreme and just looks untethered and ill-conceived. That said, this is harmless, mildly diverting fare, but I don't think this will be around all that much longer in the public consciousness to matter anyways!

[swo17]

Tiny Mix Tapes' Top 30 Films of 2013. Plenty of documentary recommendations, for those participating in that project.

[flyonthewall2983]

Snitch is an admirable attempt to disguise social consciousness (in particular, the mandatory sentencing of drug offenders) into an action movie. Granted, that the actual screen violence is 5-10 minutes tops in the whole near-2 hour running time. The tension throughout indicates that at a moment's notice, anything is about to go down so it helps give the illusion of more action than there really is. By no means a classic, but is at least memorable for taking high aim and mostly succeeding.

Between this and Pain & Gain, Dwayne Johnson has branched out in his abilities. His persona as a professional wrestler and in much of the action movies and comedies he's done since, has always been brash, arrogant and confident. In Snitch specifically, he eschews all that and does his best to come across as an every-man. His size hinders that to a degree, and I have read in some reviews that people couldn't buy that this mountain of a man would be scared of some of the people he comes across in this journey to save his son. Whatever shortcomings Johnson's performance runs into, it's saved by a pretty strong supporting cast into what's ultimately a serviceable B thriller.

[colinr0380]

Don't forget his, more confused-man than every-man, role in Southland Tales!

[repeat]

Did anyone catch Cristi Puiu's Rohmer tribute, Three Interpretation Exercises? I see it's been screened at Lincoln Center and TIFF at least. Completely passed me by - first heard of it on some year-end lists (Film Comment, Michael Sicinski)

[domino harvey]

All Is Bright (Phil Morrison) I have no idea why the talented director of one of the best films of the last decade, Junebug, waited eight years to make a follow-up, and I'm even less clear why it is this film. Even the film's few defenders admit that it's a slight affair, and while there's a certain debt to the loose narratives of 70s studio character pieces, the film is too flimsy and Sundance Channel-ready to be of much impact. Paul Giamatti, Paul Rudd, and Sally Hawkins do fine work with what they're given, but this is a film no one would be talking about at all except that it came from a director once-poised for greatness and while this isn't a bad film, that's it's a mediocre one is far more disappointing.

the Company You Keep (Robert Redford) Clearly star and director Redford still has a lot of pull, as virtually every speaking part is cast with a known name actor or actress. This lowkey thriller (of sorts) tackles quite compellingly the growing divide between aging baby boomer activists and the current class of muckrakers working the beat today (wonderfully embodied by Shia LaBeouf as a callous, tuned-out and plugged-in reporter who never stops to consider moral ambiguity in his quest for objective truth, a nice indictment of my generation that didn't do it any favors in getting the under 40 set into seats) and while I didn't buy one character's last minute change of heart (there's more than one, but this is the one that resolves the plot), there's something to be said for how Redford's character and most of his former cronies operate under a personal code that doesn't waver, even when self-interest should win out.

[domino harvey]

Mama (Andrés Muschietti) While the Conjuring got more hype and critical acclaim, I found this to be a superior "old school" horror film (I love seeing this descriptor in lazy reviews-- apparently the early 00s now qualify as old school) with an intriguing set-up and finish and the standard-issue confused fuzziness in-between. While the prologue seems almost needlessly dark, even for a film like this, it does prepare the audience for the disturbing ending based upon an unusual but logical choice. Upon reflection I realized that the reason I liked the film so much was that it reminded me of all those dark yet safe books for kids that populated the store shelves in the post Fear Street/Goosebumps sweepstakes. In fact, if children today weren't such wimps I'd call this one of the best kids' movies of the year. I still would, maybe, but don't yell at me if you put this on your niece's birthday party and everyone starts crying. Also, for the millionth time in a film like this, I could help but wonder how much more effective the "monster/ghost/whatever" effects would be if they were practical and not CGI.

You're Next (Adam Wingard) Oh, I should have looked at the cast list first to see that this was going to be a Mumblecore slasher and saved myself ninety minutes and fifteen bucks. Seeing so many 80s slasher movies in such a small span of time has given me an appreciation of sorts for their structural riffing and economic perversity, but these constant contemporary throwbacks so rarely bring more to the the party than a rehashing of ideas decades past their sell by date. The best modern reduxes justify their existence by providing some form of genre or issue-related commentary via their existence: Sorority Row gave us an actual feminist slasher; the good Scream entries each had specific satiric targets and executed them and their victims with verifiable wit; and Final Destination 3 proved you could remove everything from a slasher movie but the victims and synthesize the function and meaning to a depressing elemental essence. This movie? This is someone who saw Home Alone, the Strangers, and Home Sweet Home (or any of fifty other slashers just like this) and decided if they just moved quickly, no one would stop to ask why this movie makes absolutely no logical sense, not even within the world of slashers. Everything about the plan at work is idiotic, and what's worse it completely misunderstands how these kind of films function by giving in to these plot maneuvers. What's left is sub-standard performers giving obnoxious line readings before or during their own demise, lots of arch superiority, and little to no actual entertainment value. This was suggested to me as an answer to my lingering questions re: the Strangers. The Strangers was a powerful, beautiful, tense, and effective film undone by an unchecked nihilism that derailed the whole endeavor. You're Next is all derailment.

[Lemmy Caution]

Has anyone seen The Book Thief?
Unless the search function let me down, the sole mention of it here was in the BAFTA awards thread, where it received an Original Score nom.

[CSM126]

Lemmy - I saw it and didn't feel like wasting my time writing about it because all I have to say is hateful things. A wretched, cloying Hallmark Channel-style weepie with lots of bad acting and lame brained writing and glaring continuity errors (the film's ten year old star is supposed to age to nearly twenty by film's end and they never change actresses or even make her up to look different. I don't think she even changes her outfit during the film's duration). It's the worst film I saw all year by far.

[Lemmy Caution]

Negative reviews are valuable too.
Thanks.

[rohmerin]

Brilliant film with a very, very very beautiful girl (and a handsome ginger German).
I think Ozon is living his "maturity", making his best films (In the House was brilliant too) since He worked mainly with "straight themed" subjects.

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I love Françoise Hardy's beauty, voice and style; I recommend to watch the youtube clip, it's one of the 4 songs that sound in the film, L'amour d'un garçon, the French-language Burt Bacharah's cover.

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[Sonmi451]

Just saw The Broken Circle Breakdown, and I must say I am no longer surprised as to why there is virtually no mention of it anywhere on this forum, despite its Oscar nom. After a rather promising first act - and some very good acting, music, and editing - the film descends into an awkward melodramatic mess that veers from emotional manipulation to something resembling political satire without batting an eye. Simplistic claptrap masquerading as something deep. Perfect Academy fodder.

[colinr0380]

Senses of Cinema's World Poll for 2013, in three parts

[colinr0380]

This Is The End

I was very pleasantly surprised by this one as I have tried to keep as much distance between myself and gross-out, stoner comedy (so really any Hollywood comedies) for the last decade or so. Despite vague memories of the last 'apocalypse comedy' I saw being the horrific Little Nicky (I think that was the film that actually made me decide to stay away from Hollywood comedies!), I was interested enough in the premise of This Is The End to give it a try. What I got was a gross-out stoner comedy, but mercifully without Adam Sandler, so it was far better! The film is also exposing an entire modern comedy-film social network of actors that I was vaguely aware of but had previously not really been following at all, from the Apatow actors, through the David Gordon Green epics to films like The Sitter and 21 Jump Street, so my comments should be taken with the pinch of salt that I barely know who any of the actors in the film are! (Really even Emma Watson, as I've only fully watched the first Harry Potter, despite catching snippets of the rest on television!)

The film also appealed to my fascination with single location (almost entirely one location here), claustrophobic, barricaded-against-the-outside world films that lead to characters arguing with one another. I'd much rather see a group of late 20s-early 30s bickering about bigger issues of religion (kind of) and working together for a shared goal than how they are inevitably going to end up with the impossibly beautiful girl (who breezes in and straight out again of the film whilst wielding an axe here!). I can forgive the inevitable drugs section that it seems mandatory for these films to have (fitting in with all of the meta-jokes about Your Highness and Pineapple Express - speaking of which I haven't seen the original, so I assume that the Pineapple Express 2 'swede-ing' is a fantastic deconstruction of the intricate themes of the original!), but I do like that the Milky Way bar becomes a much more precious commodity!

The thing that I liked most about the film was despite all the antics there was a very generous approach on show towards giving all of the main six characters their moments to shine, and especially that the most gross-out moments were often the funniest (especially the James Franco and Danny McBride argument over reckless onanism, which leads to the hilariously insincere make-up scene - if the Devil incarnate wasn't actually a character in the film, I'd probably say that McBride is trying to play that role, arriving in a puff of smoke, selfishly manipulating everyone and turning out to be pretty well suited to the new world order) tying it into character bits rather than just expecting the shock value to do all the work. I also like that the film neatly underplays all of their individual character flaws rather than heavily underlining them, until those flaws become key to the plot later on (the early scene of Seth's cowardice which first gets shown when he runs indoors whilst Jay is hanging on the side of the pit, or Jay's friendship issues for example).

Much of the broad character humour is saved for the early pre-apocalypse section of the film with the cameos from various big names (although one cameo is squirrelled away for later!) with the (totally untrue I'm sure) characterisation of Michael Cera and the seemingly perennially unlucky Rihanna flying through the scene, and a supporting cast of familiar TV comedy actors getting used en masse as disaster victim 'Special Guest Star' fodder! And I love the completely incongruous pop songs that crop up at the strangest possible moments!

Spoiler

My one issue with the film is that it moves a little too easily into providing a get out clause for our heroes. But at the same time it does let the film end on a joyous note!

I'll end with a few of the film-related moments that made me laugh:

The 'hipster-versus-Forrest Gump' moment that ends with the most heartbroken recitation of "You never know what you're gonna get!" that I've ever heard!

The Terminator 2 in-joke as a pair of characters pass a child's playground in flames and one guy comments on its poignancy.

And I have to single out Jonah Hill's great character arc in which after praying to God ("Hi, it's me Jonah Hill, from Moneyball") for a favour, he gets to replay in a surprisingly sensitive manner the "this is no dream, this is really happening!" scene from Rosemary's Baby and then fluidly move from paying tribute to Mia Farrow, through Linda Blair in The Exorcist into Ellen Sandweiss from The Evil Dead in just a couple of scenes! If Hill wins the Best Supporting Actor for Wolf of Wall Street, I'll be hoping in some small way that the versatility on display in This Is The End played its part in the award!

[ShellOilJunior]

Has anyone seen Fateful Findings (Neil Breen) yet? It seems to be picking up steam on the midnight movie circuit as a so-bad it's good title. The plot summary sounds ridiculous enough that it would be a lot of fun.

The director Neil Breen also wears the hats of writer, actor, producer, editor and production designer.

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A small boy discovers a mystical power as a child. He is then separated from his childhood girlfriend. He grows up to be a computer scientist who is hacking into the most secret national and international secrets, as well as being an acclaimed novel writer. His childhood 'finding' gives him amazing paranormal powers. He is reunited with the childhood girlfriend, mystically, on his hospital deathbed... as his relationship with his current drug addict girlfriend is deteriorating. The passions build between the threesome. Mystical, psychiatric and worldly forces rise to prevent him from revealing the hacked secrets. He attempts to reveal all in a Washington DC large press conference, with 'fateful' and dangerous consequences.

[jindianajonz]

I've never heard of it, but I love this pullquote from their website:

"...It may be the next Cine-Thing you see all year!” -Twitch Film, 2013

[Sonmi451]

One of the most assured and compelling debuts I've seen in years is Jaffe Zinn's Magic Valley. It was technically released in 2011 on the festival circuit, but only last year became available to a wider audience via VOD. I caught it on a lark due to Zinn's sophomore effort being listed on ion cinema's most anticipated films of 2014 list, and I'm most certainly glad I did. It is sublimely strange and original and eerie, and Zinn creates a level of unease that is creepingly palpable. Beautifully photographed and leisurely paced (despite its under 90 minute runtime), if you get a chance to catch this hidden gem you should not pass it up. One of the best films of the year (whichever year you count it).

[flyonthewall2983]

Milius (can be seen on Netflix now) is a fascinating look at John's work and his personality, and the struggles he found later in life both with Hollywood and with his health.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Too long to quote, but just wanted to echo colin's comments on This is the End, which was surprisingly better than I thought it would be. Basing it around Jay Baruchel, whose career is less stellar than the other Apatow veterans and is something of a 'straight guy', is a good idea as it allows Franco, Rogen, Hill, McBride et al to parody their personas, but then even Baruchel has a slightly meaner streak in him than you first thought. It's stupid, self-indulgent and has some real non-sequitur moments, but it's funny above all, though whether it's as funny as the actors involved think it is, might be another question.

[colinr0380]

Amusingly though, despite perhaps not being as huge a name as the rest of the cast, on watching Cronenberg's Cosmopolis again recently I was suddenly able to recognise Baruchel as the first of the guests inside Pattinson's limo!