2013 - Year in Review

What a big year for movies 2013 was.  Some of the biggest box office returns of all time were achieved and the number of films released in 3D increased again, but not only that, there were a large number of quality films released.  It has been very tough doing my 2013 best/worst list, because there were a lot of what I would say are 4 star films, and not a lot of terrible movies.
 
Movie of the Year: Sharknado
 
Just kidding!  While Sharknado was an extremely entertaining movie, being one of the most hilarious things you can watch for continuity and cheesy dialogue, it wasn't actually good.
 
Here are my real Top 10 Movies seen in 2013:

1. Gravity 3D. The most cinematic film of the year.
2. This is the End.  Hands down best comedy, I wanted to watch it again that night! Will be extremely quotable after repeat watches.
3. Pacific Rim 3D.  Giant robots vs giant monsters. That is all.
4. Mystery Road. Beautifully filmed, powerhouse Aussie film.
5. Django Unchained. Brutal, funny, Christoph Waltz.
6. The Square. Essential eye opening documentary about the power of protest.  Now up for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
7. World War Z.  The most tense film of the year. Yep more than Gravity.  I repeat: not a zombie movie.
8. Iron Man 3. A blockbuster with dialogue and humour equally as good as the action.  Best twist of the year!  There's a reason this has moved to the 5th highest grossing film ever (not adjusted for inflation).
9. The Way Way Back. Gentle funny coming of age with a difference.
10. Only Lovers Left Alive.  A sexy mood piece of incredible style and a totally different take on the vampire genre.
11. Kon-Tiki.  A true story of an incredible adventure, told grippingly.

OK I have had to make it 11.  Sorry! I could not decide between those last 2 spots!

Most Disappointing/Worst
1. Hyde Park on Hudson. Distasteful topic and strange humour, lifted somewhat by the King and Queen of England.
2. Kick Ass 2.  Take the best thing about the first movie (Hit Girl swearing and killing people) and drastically cut that back and focus on other characters.  Darker is not always better!
3. Man of Steel.  Was going pretty well, if a little serious, until Zack Snyder just took the ending way over the top in destruction and darkness.  Supes saves earth but kills thousands of people in the meantime?
4. We're the Millers.  A comedy that was rarely funny but often predictable.
5. Lords of Salem.  For some reason Rob Zombie has gone from making weird, smart horror movies to making senseless, dull, stupid ending movies that are barely scary.

Great Acting
These were the standout performances for me this year:

• Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle
• Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
• Liam James in The Way Way Back
• Sam Rockwell in the Way Way Back
• Steve Carell in the Way Way Back
• Aaron Pedersen in every scene of Mystery Road
• Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained
• Tom Hiddleston in Only Lovers left Alive and Thor: The Dark World
• Surat Sharma as Pi in Life of Pi
• Naomi Watts went through the wringer on The Impossible

Worst Acting
Everyone in Pacific Rim, especially the "Australians".  Although to be fair it's probably the script and not entirely the actors' fault.

Favourite moment:
As per last year, my favourite film moments appeared in Marvel films.  The first is the reveal of the twist in Iron Man 3 and the second was Kat Dennings' exclamation of "Hey it's miaow miaow" in Thor: the Dark World (an in joke from the first film where she can't pronounce Mjolnir, Thor's hammer).

If you agree or disagree with these lists, please let me know - I love to hear what others think.  You can leave a comment below with your name or Anonymous if you prefer.

Australian Box Office Top 20
All stats below are courtesy of Box Office Mojo website
Interesting stats I've picked out of the Box Office list:

• Tom Cruise's 2 movies can't get higher than #31 and #32.  Poor Tom is not the box office draw he used to be.
• The Hobbit did incredibly well at #8 given it was only out for 5 days in the year.
• Dr Who made #99 for a 'one day only' movie!
• There were some unexpected monetary flops - Lone Ranger only hit #30, Pacific Rim #42 (beaten by Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa at #35!!!), Will Smith's vanity project After Earth #68, One Direction vanity doco #81, Kick-Ass 2 #93, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone #85.
• Movie version of Stephanie Myer's adult novel The Host did not benefit from the Twilight fanbase - it only got to #88.
• It was not a good year for comedies that in previous years would have hit big - films from Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, Vince Vaughan, Melissa McCarthy were not as funny as the trailers indicated and audiences stayed away. Anchorman 2 excepted which hit #23 off a week and a half of box office in 2013.
• Kid flicks, sequels, franchises and book conversions were the only real way to make money.  Gravity at #12, Django Unchained at #13, Now you See Me #16 and The Heat #22 were the highest ranked original concepts.

Rank	Movie Title	Distributor	Gross	Release
1	Iron Man 3	Disney	$36,164,486	4/25
2	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	Roadshow	$33,559,179	11/21
3	Despicable Me 2	UPI	$32,712,318	6/20
4	Life of Pi	Fox	$28,420,882	1/3
5	The Great Gatsby (2013)	Roadshow	$25,282,416	5/30
6	Fast & Furious 6	UPI	$24,693,368	6/6
7	The Croods	Fox	$23,752,747	3/28
8	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	WB	$23,059,265	12/26
9	Man of Steel	WB	$22,342,258	6/27
10	Monsters University	Disney	$21,747,029	6/20
11	Thor: The Dark World	Disney	$20,494,942	10/31
12	The Hangover Part III	WB	$19,150,236	5/23
13	Gravity	WB	$18,787,616	10/3
14	Django Unchained	Sony	$16,521,964	1/24
15	World War Z	PPI	$16,421,768	6/20
16	Now You See Me	E1	$16,163,376	8/8
17	Oz The Great and Powerful	Disney	$15,877,141	3/7
18	Star Trek Into Darkness	PPI	$14,866,428	5/9
19	The Wolverine	Fox	$14,391,290	7/25
20	Silver Linings Playbook	Roadshow	$14,272,799	1/31

Full list is here: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/australia/yearly/

Global Box Office 2013
The world box office was very similar to Australia.  Interestingly the charts are dominated by movies released recently and not the big US summer tentpole movies.  Congratulations to Baz Luhrman for getting The Great Gatsby at #20 worldwide!  Several movies were much more popular overseas than in America (the domestic column) with Pacific Rim being a clear standout - obviously the Asian audience boosted this a lot after barely making $100million in the US.

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio* FilterA24 BV CBS FD Focus Fox FoxS LG/S LGF ORF Par. RAtt. RCR Rela. SGem Sony SPC TriS Uni. W/Dim. WB WB (NL) Wein. ALL	Worldwide	Domestic / %		Overseas / %
1	Iron Man 3	BV	$1,215.4	$409.0	33.7%	$806.4	66.3%
2	Despicable Me 2	Uni.	$921.2	$368.0	39.9%	$553.2	60.1%
3	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	LGF	$832.8	$409.4	49.2%	$423.4	50.8%
4	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$788.7	$238.7	30.3%	$550.0	69.7%
5	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	WB	$761.2	$234.2	30.8%	$527.0	69.2%
6	Monsters University	BV	$743.6	$268.5	36.1%	$475.1	63.9%
7	Gravity	WB	$670.3	$255.8	38.2%	$414.5	61.8%
8	Man of Steel	WB	$668.0	$291.0	43.6%	$377.0	56.4%
9	Frozen	BV	$644.7	$302.6	46.9%	$342.1	53.1%
10	Thor: The Dark World	BV	$630.6	$203.6	32.3%	$427.0	67.7%
11	The Croods	Fox	$587.2	$187.2	31.9%	$400.0	68.1%
12	World War Z	Par.	$540.0	$202.4	37.5%	$337.6	62.5%
13	Oz The Great and Powerful	BV	$493.3	$234.9	47.6%	$258.4	52.4%
14	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$467.4	$228.8	49.0%	$238.6	51.0%
15	The Wolverine	Fox	$414.8	$132.6	32.0%	$282.3	68.0%
16	Pacific Rim	WB	$411.0	$101.8	24.8%	$309.2	75.2%
17	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	Par.	$375.7	$122.5	32.6%	$253.2	67.4%
18	The Hangover Part III	WB	$362.0	$112.2	31.0%	$249.8	69.0%
19	Now You See Me	LG/S	$351.7	$117.7	33.5%	$234.0	66.5%
20	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$351.0	$144.8	41.3%	$206.2	58.7%

Movie # 3 - Her

What a unique movie this is. A film about love, how we love and why we love.  I've never really seen anything like it. It's offbeat, a little uncomfortable at times, but strangely magnetic.

A brilliant central performance is given by Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a very sad man who is getting over the breakup of his marriage while trying to maintain an emotional even keel at work where his job is to create beautiful handwritten letters for other people to send to friends, family or lovers.  Theodore's melancholy existence is interrupted when he purchases a new Operating System (OS) for his computer, one with the ability to learn and evolve.  Voiced evocatively by Scarlett Johanssen, "Samantha" proves to be far more than artificial intelligence from the very first moment of set up, displaying the sense of humour and conversational style of a real woman.

I don't want to say too much about the plot as it's definitely better to experience it live.  Suffice to say that from here, the film goes on to explore the behaviour of people falling in love and being in love.  It's done in an extremely talky style, essentially being a lot of conversations between Theodore and Samantha, Theodore and his dictated work letters, Theodore and his friend Amy, Theodore and his ex Catherine.  These conversations are dense but fascinating and well-written by that crazy genius Spike Jonze ("Where the Wild Things Are", "Being John Malkovich").  Given one half of the relationship is an unseen computer drive spoken to through an earpiece, the camera lingers on the face of Joaquin as he goes through the full range of emotions.  It's a brave, excellent portrayal although distractingly at the beginning there are lots of similarities to Johnny Galecki's Leonard on Big Bang Theory as he gets his geek on.

It sits in the 'sci-fi' genre because a unique  world is created in minute detail that completely immerses you into the setting in such a way that it doesn't seem bizarre that a man dating his OS is not seen as needing to go to a mental institution.  The setting is definitely Earth and definitely not quite now but not a dystopian future either, it's just not the world we live in right now (in this way it reminds me strongly of similar sci-fi "Never Let me Go" and "Oxv: the Manual).  This is portrayed most strongly through the technology being futuristic but the clothing being retro 50s in many ways.  

There are laughs in this movie but it's mainly a drama tracing the odd emotional reawakening of a man who has unwittingly hidden himself from life.  The relationship between a man and his OS doesn't seem that unrealistic most of the time due to the setting, but then there are moments where I was thinking "this is so weird".   The scariest thing of all is how you leave the cinema thinking "this could really happen the way we are going".  Look around you and see how many people are sitting on your bus or train, immersed in their phone and ipad. or with an earpiece in and having a one-sided conversation in public while avoiding eye contact with any other human being.  Let's hope this doesn't really happen in future.  But the overwhelming outcome of the movie is that it will leave you thinking about love and all its wonderful feelings and lack of reason, and wanting to express your feelings to your loved one in a deeper way.  Well I did anyway. 

Up for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design and two noms for Best Music.  It's got some pretty stiff competition in most of those categories but regardless if it wins, it's gotta go down as going to be one of the most unique films of the year and probably the warmest.  I give it four hearts out of five.

Movie #2 - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Back at the beginning of 2013 when I published my post on 2012 Year in Review, I included a number of predictions for 2013.  One of those was that Anchorman 2 would "withstand being the most anticipated sequel of the year and deliver".  I am pleased to say that this is one prediction that came true, although some of the others were off the mark (World War Z definitely beat Warm Bodies as the zombie movie of the year, Seth McFarlane unfortunately didn't nail the Oscars hosting gig). Debateable though if this or Catching Fire was the most anticipated given the box office records the Hunger Games sequel has been smashing around the world.

Anchorman 2 picks up a little after the end of the first movie.  Ron and Veronica are now married with a son and co-anchoring the San Diego local news.  The rest of the team is scattered for reasons unknown.  Ron and Veronica are summoned to the office of the big boss (the first of a series of excellent cameos) where they think they are going to be promoted to the primetime news hosts.  However only Veronica gets the gig and oh boy is Ron not happy about that.  Cut to a few months later and Ron is alone and in a sorry state when he is approached by Freddie Schapp to move to New York and work for GNN (Global News Network) on their new concept of 24 hour news.  Which Ron promptly calls "stupid" when he hears it but hey, what choice does he have? So he gets the team back together, moves to New York and takes a shot at this stupid new concept, having a series of bizarre adventures and trying to win Veronica back along the way.

From the get-go Anchorman 2 is very funny although some of the gags are recycled from the first movie (Ron's pre-news warmups are more of the same stupidity) and they start to become a little more sparse as the film progresses and life lessons have to be fit in.  The humour continues to be on the stupid/bizarre/offensive side of things and if anything, takes the weirdness even further than the first one.  So if you didn't like that, you won't like this at all.  The introduction of Kristen Wiig's character Chani as a love interest for Brick creates some very uncomfortable humour as these two are almost like mentally deficient children and if they were real people would actually be unable to survive in the world let alone have jobs.  But it is pretty funny if you're not too sensitive.  It is overstuffed with big star cameos, particularly in another news team smackdown.

While frequently gut-bustingly, tears in the eyes funny in the first half, the second half is less so because of the relationship drama that needs to be resolved but also because the film actually has some very good points to make about what has happened to "news" over time.  Smartly ignoring the 1970s setting, the film skewers our obsession with light news using current popular issues such as "cute animals", "car chases" and "patriotic stories".  When you have so much time to fill, is it inevitable that you are going to end up giving people stories they want to hear about rather than telling them what they need to know?  It's left me reflecting on these issues even a week after seeing the movie, as well as quoting all the funny lines. 

It doesn't have the surprise factor of the first movie, but it certainly has a lot of positive points with most of the original cast returning to provide great support to the wonderful creation that is Ron Burgundy.  Will Ferrell finds some new shades to Ron in this one with the introduction of what could be yet another Wes Mantooth style inferior rival in Jack Lime (James Marsden hamming it up) but instead Ron is in awe of him - "he's magnificent" he breathes upon first seeing him.

This is a very funny movie for the first hour and then a smart, kinda funny movie in the second portion. So I'm giving this 3.5 stars out of 5.

2014 Movie #1 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Picking up just after "An Unexpected Journey" left off, "The Desolation of Smaug" is a far more action packed affair than the first movie.  Although I liked the first movie, many complained it was too long and slow.  They won't say that about this one!  It bounces from action setpiece to action setpiece as the quest continues.

Our party of dwarves and one becoming braver Hobbit are still being pursued by Azog the Defiler and his gang of ugly orcs as they try to get to their goal (The Lonely Mountain) before the end of Durin's Day.  Escaping Azog, our strange company encounter a huge bear, navigate the dark and twisted Mirkwood, and are captured by the wood elves ruled by the greedy Elvenking Thranduil (father of Legolas).  Imprisoned, the dwarves despair until they are rescued by Bilbo in what has to be one of the funniest, most entertaining escape scenes ever put to film.  They then have to sneak in and out of Laketown to ascend the Lonely Mountain, but will they make it in time, how will they get into Erebor and what will Bilbo do when he tries to steal the Arkenstone and meets the dragon Smaug (seen singeing Erebor in the first Hobbit movie) who has been slumbering peacefully in the treasure filled throne room of Erebor for many years?

A side story involves Gandalf heading to Dol Guldur to investigate whether The Necromancer is gathering dark forces to start a war on the various races of Middle Earth.  Going in alone might not be the best decision he has ever made....

The film is hugely entertaining because it really has to further the action along so that we can reach the conclusion by the end of the next movie, which still has to cover what happens to Smaug, what the Necromancer is up to and the Battle of Five Armies.  It's still long (2 hours 40 minutes) but as long as you take a trip to the bathroom before hand you won't have a problem with the running time which zips past with all the action.  We still don't get to know all the dwarves very well, with only Thorin, Balin and Kili (the least dwarfy dwarf in the group) getting much screen time - Kili's interaction with female Silvan elf Tauriel (an invented character not from the book) giving the film a much needed lighter edge.

Thank God for Tauriel (played by Lost's Evangeline Lilly) because she is virtually the only female presence in the 2 movies so far, but she is a real butt-kicker apart from the soft spot she has for Kili, much to  the distaste of Legolas (returning Orlando Bloom who has been very CGI'd to look 10 years younger than his first trilogy character).  She also ups the gore factor of the film with some spectacular orc kills. Yeah!  A lot of practical effects have obviously been used here (harking back to director Peter Jackson's earlier horror movies) but at times I found the film used a very strange mix of CGI and practical effects that really pulled me out of the movie.  Maybe seeing it in High Frame Rate would have been better.

The heart of the movie is still Bilbo and his transformation from homebound hobbit to brave adventurer and One Ring resistor, and he again plays this role to perfection.  His scenes with the dragon Smaug are amazing, before the film ends in a cliffhanger which leaves you wanting the next movie "There and Back Again" immediately.  Sadly, we now have to wait until December 2014 for this after it was bumped from a planned July release date.  But of course we will all go and see the end of what is now becoming a rollicking adventure.

I give this 4 stars.

Movie #33 - American Hustle

Ahhhh Oscar buzz.  It's a strange thing sometimes.  Early sure things get left out of the nominations, icons are snubbed for years, some people are nominated every time even if undeserved occasionally, and sometimes unlikely films become the big picture of the year out of the blue.  Last year it was Argo that snagged some well deserved nominations and the directing statuette after being very low key but succeeding on word of mouth.  And American Hustle looks like being this year's Argo. Apart from some leaked photos of Bradley Cooper's tightly permed 70s locks, the latest film from David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) was flying pretty well under the radar until it hit cinemas a few weeks ago.  Now it's the next big thing, with Golden Globe nominations for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay.  Interestingly the acting and best film awards are sitting under the "Musical or Comedy" category though.  While there are definitely humourous moments in the film, I would still classify this as a drama but I guess if you put it up against the films in the drama category, it probably wouldn't have made the cut so maybe they stuck it in the comedy section to give it a go?

Anyhow, let's talk about the movie which is loosely based on true events.  Small time con-man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale again suffering for his art by gaining quite a few kilos and shaving his head to provide a spectacular comb-over) meets Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) and it's love at first sight.  She has come to the big smoke to make it big and he finds a willing partner in his loan shark scheme which becomes so successful that they soon come to the attention of FBI Agent Richie DiMasso (Bradley Cooper).  Richie catches Sydney in her British accented conwoman mode taking a cheque and uses her incarceration to force Irving and Sydney into a sting to capture the corrupt New Jersey mayor (Jeremy Renner far from his Avengers Hawkeye action man role).  From here, things get complicated and you will need to really keep your eyes and ears open to follow all the plot strands, especially when the movie is being told by cutting between flashbacks and current times.

Richie needs Irving and Sydney to teach him the art of conning if he is to capture his target, but he proves to be a poor student.  Sydney is conning Richie into thinking she is falling for him (or is she really falling for him - neither she nor Irving seem sure), Irving has to deal with his highly strung wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) who he doesn't love but can't leave, Richie is having trouble with his boss, Mayor Polito is the most likeable corrupt mayor ever making Irving regret his actions, and then the sting escalates as the mob start to get involved in the transaction and then some high level politicians may or may not become involved. Richie starts to get greedy, while Irving gets more and more nervous and Sydney starts to unravel as she is caught in the middle of the emotional rollercoaster between all the main characters.

The 70s setting provides an opportunity for the production team to create some absolutely stunning period detail and the costumes and hair are all great.  The film looks fantastic and the soundtrack is superb.  And the acting is wonderful from all, especially Jennifer Lawrence who definitely deserves all the accolades she has been receiving recently.  Her house cleaning scene has to be one of the best I saw all year.  And Amy Adams' boobs (or their Hollywood tape) should probably get a 'supporting' nomination of their own, being featured via plunging V-necks in almost every scene she's in.  The thing about this movie though is that it is a fairly involving and enjoyable story but ultimately falls short of greatness by not making you care about any of the characters and not quite hitting the mark with the deeper issue it tries to explore.  There is something being said about how we all con ourselves but about what and how to stop I'm not sure it actually answers.  Maybe you're just too distracted by the twists and turns of the sting to notice.   In the end the character I felt most sorry for in all of it was 'baddie' Mayor Carmine Polito.

This was the last movie I saw in 2013 and while I enjoyed it while it was on, I didn't love it and I personally don't think it deserves to win any Best Film or Best Director awards.  It definitely suffers in comparison to Silver Linings Playbook which had the same director and some of the same actors, but landed all the emotional punches.