2013 Was Not a Good Year for Movies

I have to say, as a film aficionado, this year has really not been that great for movies. I spent more time catching up on older must-sees than going to anything from this year. I have seen one Best Picture nominee (Gravity, which was visually astounding). I will see three or four others, but I’m only excited about one (American Hustle). Oscar-time films that failed to be nominated actually looked more interesting, such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Summer blockbusters were also generally disappointing. Man of Steel, in particular, while good, was not remotely as great as it could have been. There were some surprises in that category. Pacific Rim was a unique and visually-awesome good time with terrific supporting characters. Also, Star Trek: Into Darkness managed to live up to the first and add Benedict Cumberbatch. Frozen is the best non-Pixar, animated Disney film since The Emperor’s New Groove.

The best film of the year was perhaps the biggest surprise. Prisoners is the among the top 5 best mystery thrillers of the last generation. Well-written, beautifully-shot with layers of interweaving plots that never quite lets you get your footing on what’s true and what isn’t. Subtle and brilliant performances, especially from Jackman and Gyllenhaal. Unfortunately, while well-liked by those who have seen, it has gone somewhat under the radar.

Overall 2013 was sad. Fortunately, 2015 looks to be an incredible year. Maybe 2014 will tide us over.

A New Way of Looking at the Greatest Directors of All Time

Francis Ford Coppola is considered by many people to be among the greatest directors in film history. Certainly, parts I and II of The Godfather  are two of the greatest films ever made. Some would say that they are the two best. At a minimum, they are both top-10 films. Additionally, Apocalypse Now is possibly the best war movie ever made and could arguably be placed among the 20 best movies ever.

But beyond that, what has Coppola done? The Godfather: Part III was a good stand-alone film, but probably should never have been made in the context of the previous two films in the series. The Conversation is now highly regarded among film critics and historians, but is not widely appreciated. He wrote the Academy Award winning screenplay to Patton, but that’s not directing. Dracula was nonsense.

Rather than dispute Coppola’s inclusion into the pantheon of great directors, I am going to assume, for the purposes of this post, that this standard is an accurate representation of the greatest directors of all-time: one can reasonably argue that 3 of their film are among the 20 greatest ever made. The following directors, by my judgment, make the list. They are listed with their arguably top-20 films.

Francis Ford Coppola: see above

 

Steven Spielberg

–          Jaws

–          Raiders of the Lost Ark

–          E.T.

–          Schindler’s List

–          Saving Private Ryan

 

 

Alfred Hitchcock

–          Rear Window

–          Vertigo

–          North by Northwest

–          Psycho

 

 

Stanley Kubrick

–          Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

–          2001: A Space Odyssey

–          A Clockwork Orange

–          The Shining

 

 

Peter Jackson

–          The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

–          The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

–          The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

 

 

Charlie Chaplin

–          City Lights

–          Modern Times

–          The Great Dictator

 

 

Akira Kurosawa

–          Rashomon

–          Yojimbo

–          Seven Samurai

 

Here are other notable directors who don’t make the list by this standard. The films I list are ones that I believe could be reasonably argued to be among the top 20. If I list none, I don’t believe that any film the director has made could reasonably be considered one of the top-20 greatest, notwithstanding any high regard I might have for the director and his films.

John Ford — Stagecoach, The Searchers

Frank Capra — Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life

Quentin Tarantino — Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction

Martin Scorsese — Raging Bull, Goodfellas

Christopher Nolan — The Dark Knight

George Lucas — Star Wars: A New Hope

David Lean — The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia

Orson Welles — Citizen Kane

James Cameron — Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Billy Wilder — Sunset Blvd.

William Wyler — Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur

Michael Curtiz — Casablanca

Clint Eastwood — Unforgiven

Sergio Leone — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Frank Darabount — The Shawshank Redemption

Elia Kazan — On the Waterfront (A Streetcar Named Desire is a famous film, but is it that good?)

Joseph Mankiewicz —  All About Eve (Cleopatra basically ruined Hollywood epics.)

Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Gladiator are all great movies — but top-20 ever?)

What do all of you think? Did I miss one? Include someone who shouldn’t be on here? Is this method just dumb?

Are You Watching (Too) Closely?

Now You See Me is the latest is a small sub-genre of films about magic tricks whose plot is itself a magic trick. In keeping with tradition of The Prestige and The Illusionist, a character warns you up front that you, the audience, are witnessing a trick, essentially daring you to figure it out. “The more you look, the less you see,” J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) explains. He’s right.

It is unlikely that the audience will spot the movie’s “prestige.” The reason is that it is an intricately designed magic trick that actually treats its audience as intelligent. You feel like the smartest person in the room as you notice things you shouldn’t. But you’re wrong. Unlike The Illusionist, you don’t see it coming a mile away. You just think you did.

Now You See Me is good fun that you’ll want to see twice. The actors are unique and charming, the cinematography, editing and action are well done and the magic performed is interesting enough by itself. Louis Leterrier knows how to shoot action and suspense, and the movie is done in a smarter and more technically competent way than most summer flicks.

There is, however, a reason that you may not buy it after you see it twice. Aside from a somewhat disappointing denouement, the reality is that although the characters are amusing, they aren’t deep. There is little exploration of their motivations or personal stories, giving the audience little emotional connection to their fates. It is a difficult thing to include in a fast-paced story built on deception, but 24 proves it can be done.
 
Despite the fact that Now You See Me will not have the staying power of top-end surprise ending films like The Prestige, The Sixth Sense and The Game, which connect with the audience in other ways that outlast the novelty, I do recommend seeing it at least twice – even if I did kick myself for not predicting the ending.
 
7.5/10

 

“Ray Harryhausen, Cinematic Special-Effects Innovator, Dies at 92”

From the New York Times:

Ray Harryhausen, the animator and special-effects wizard who found ways to breathe cinematic life into the gargantuan, the mythical and the extinct, died on Tuesday in London, where he lived. He was 92.

Read more

Disney and Pixar paid clever homage to Harryhausen’s influence in the scene in Monsters Inc. that takes place in a restaurant and sushi bar named after the molder of monsters.

Hoytema to shoot Nolan’s ‘Intersteller’

As some of my readers may know, I am a huge Christopher Nolan fan, and I always eagerly anticipate his next release. His 2014 offering Intersteller, however has been minus a cinematographer since Wally Pfister, who has shot all of Nolan’s films since Memento — including Inception, for which he was given an Academy Award — left to work on his directorial debut Transcendence. NolanFans has just reported that Chris has picked his replacement: Dutch cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who shot Let the Right One In, The Fighter and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. If the latter is any indication, he has a fantastic eye for color-rich, gritty shots of memorable detail.

As NolanFans details: “Hoytema received the Nordic Vision Award in 2008, and is also a multiple Guldbagge Award winner.” One interesting fact to note, “Hoyte Van Hoytema is new to the IMAX format [in which some of Intersteller will be shot], but his highly skilled in shooting on film, and has been still shooting on film while many cinematographers are switching to digital.” It will be interesting to see how he makes the transition. At this point, his resume seems promising.

Finally…

A place for a cinephile to expound on his love of movies. If moving pictures entertain you too, I hope that you find something of interest here. I plan to post pictures and quotes, trailers and clips, lists, links and general thoughts on the movies, my reviews of what I’m watching lately, that kind of thing.