List: Top 25 Performances from 2013

Starting today, I’ll have my lists up daily until I’m through. As I mentioned on my latest capsule review post there will be also be Top Fives of 2013, my What I’ll Remember About the Films of 2013: A Personal Sampling (something I started last year and absolutely loved doing) and of course my Top 30 Films of 2013 split into two posts.

Performances feel pretty silly to rank number by number, so my strategy is to split my Top 25 performances into two groupings, 25-10 and 10-1, and within that order them through alphabetizing. With my performance list I’ve also started my tradition of using three word descriptors to encapsulate the work that impressed me most. Even with 25 slots, a lot of work I loved got left off, but I try to get a mix and luckily my Top Fives of 2013 has room for all kinds of recognition. My count for 2013 film is 100 films exactly. There’s a lot I did not get around to seeing for a variety of reasons, but these are my standouts from the aforementioned 100.

Honorable Mention:
Scarlett Johansson – Samantha – Her 
Inquisitive. Evolving. Ebullient.

25-10 (in alphabetical order) 

Gael Garcia Barnal – René Saavedra – No 
Smug. Enigmatic. Cutting edge.

Michael Cera – Brink – Magic Magic 
Sketchy. Unnerving. Ineffectual.

Suzanne Clement – Fred Belair – Laurence Anyways 
Conflicted. Fabulous. Dauntless.

Matt Damon – Scott Thorson – Behind the Candelabra
Boy toy. Malleable. ‘Cock-sucking tenor fuck’.

Chiwetel Ejiofor – Solomon Northup – 12 Years a Slave
Dignified. Patient. Survivor.

James Gandolfini – Albert – Enough Said 
Affable. Openhearted. Wounded.

Jake Gyllenhaal – Loki – Prisoners 
Weary. Automated. Mordant.

Caleb Landry Jones – Syd March – Antiviral 
Ghostly. Cipher. Crispin Glover Jr.

Melissa McCarthy – Detective Shannon Mullins – The Heat 
Offhand. Streetwise. Rowdy.

Lupita Nyong’o – Patsey – 12 Years a Slave 
Depleted. Transporting. Tender.

Joaquin Phoenix – Theodore Twombly – Her 
Poignant. Loner. Smitten.

Cosmina Stratan – Voichita – Beyond the Hills
Withdrawn. Devout. Hardened. 

Saskia Rosendahl – Lore – Lore 
Steadfast. Blinded. Burdened

Shailene Woodley – Aimee – The Spectacular Now
Sweet-natured. Compassionate. Selfless.

Zhang Ziyi – Gong Er – The Grandmaster 
Tenacious. Glowing. Wistful.

THE TOP TEN (alphabetical order):

Cate Blanchett – Jeanette ‘Jasmine’ Francis – Blue Jasmine
Acidic. Manic. Flailing.

Leonardo DiCaprio – Jordan Belfort – The Wolf of Wall Street 
Licentious. Unhinged. Capitalism.

Adele Exarchopoulos – Adele – Blue is the Warmest Color
Sensual. Earthy. Restless.

Hwang Jeong-min – Jeong Cheong – New World
Posturing. Boastful. Brotherly.

Oscar Isaac – Llewyn Davis – Inside Llewyn Davis 
Alienating. Soulful. Grasping.

Brie Larson – Grace – Short Term 12 
Inhabited. Scarred. Munificent.

Mads Mikkelsen – Lucas – The Hunt 
Unassuming. Enduring. Immovable.

Peter Mullan – Matt Mitcham – Top of the Lake 
Formidable. Alpha-Male. Detonative.

Simon Pegg – Gary King – The World’s End 
Drowning. Skittish. Wild-eyed.

Miles Teller – Sutter Keely – The Spectacular Now 
Deflecting. Reckless. Stasis.
 

Capsule Reviews: Films seen in 2014 Round-Up #6-10

#6. 12 Years a Slave (2013, McQueen) (USA/UK)
Steve McQueen somewhat inverts his psychological studies from outside-in/how the body inherently relates as vessel between what we see of people and what goes on within. It’s all recognizably McQueen, with suffering as the nucleus, but everything about 12 Years a Slave feels inside-out. By this I mean one man’s story, which remains prioritized, is used as a catalyst for taking in, if not directly on, the larger whole, all stemming from the centrality of Solomon. There is a blanket focus on the broader sets of societal and ideological circumstances through character behavior required for atrocities to be normalized. It’s a story of perverse realities, realities that reinforce the importance of always continuing to confront history, to reexamine, to not forget. Shouldn’t have to be said, but apparently it does, that history reflects the present (not to mention that slavery, in different forms, still exists). There is an emphasis on papers, on the thin and simultaneously meaningless/critical line that determines Solomon’s, and everyone’s, fate. There is also an emphasis on the abruptness of comings and goings in the people Solomon comes into contact with. Eliza’s children, Eliza, Clemens and of course Solomon, now on the exiting end, as he leaves Patsey. It doesn’t linger on these comings and goings; no time is left to process. The moment Solomon leaves particularly resonates, because we leave with him. He is in the carriage, Patsey barely visible, a fuzzy dot in shallow focus, and we can make out enough to see she faints, and then she is out of the frame a couple seconds later.

Can we all agree that the Hans Zimmer score is a direct rip-off of his own work? Specifically the track “Time”, from the last five minutes of Inception. Considering that “Time” is my favorite piece of score Zimmer has ever done, I’m okay with this and understand his desire to self-rehash. But still.

It’s pretty clear that Lupita Nyong’o is sort of the transcendent soul of the film, or rather that Patsey is.

The riverboat sequence stands out as a distinct transitional marker. It formally supports the abhorrent process of being put into the system with atonal music and a focus on the riverboat’s wheel churning (also pulling him farther away from his family). It’s a sort of prelude to the way McQueen presents the material, with a no safety setting intact. Long takes, shallow focus, the pain showing on the face and being inflicted on the body. I also wonder about the focus on brutality in the film, and if maybe it’s sort of an easy way of addressing the institution of slavery that puts that blanket focus mentioned earlier in the shadows. It’s complicated to be sure.

I’ve tried to avoid talking about how I felt during the film because it’s the way most reviews have been framed. But I have to mention the emotional build-up, one of unsurprised but nevertheless tearless disgust, that gets released by the end. As Solomon looks on at his family, both familiar and unrecognizable, apologizing for the state of his appearance, the impact of the film hits all at once. Being lifted out of hell is more emotional, understandable as beginning vs. end of film, than taking the initial plunge.

Lastly, I get that Plan B Entertainment helped produce the film but I really wish someone besides Brad Pitt had been in that role who pulls out his Aldo Raine voice, which I hated the first time, to distract.

#7. Simon of the Desert (1965, Buñuel) (Mexico)
Daunting to write about this one; I can’t pretend to know what Buñuel was trying to do. When it started, I didn’t think much of it, but its combination of overt moments of humor and a gentle sort of satire won me over wholesale by the end. Buñuel sympathizes with or at least pities Simon’s efforts even if the film lampoons the worthlessness of said efforts. One of the things, hell perhaps the thing, I most connect to with Buñuel is his atheism, and so I always enjoy seeing how he tackles religion in various ways throughout his career. What I took from Simon of the Desert was a depiction of misguided piety, and the way Simon’s extreme devotion to God, in which he spends years standing on a pillar, is actually sort of a cheat/empty gesture. That extreme isolation is sort of useless and meaningless; the real hardships are down there on the ground. In this parable, God and Satan exist, but the way faith functions for the characters is condemned. The local priests don’t know their own faith. A father, upon being granted the miracle of restored hands, uses them to slap his child. The townspeople react with indifference and change the topic to bread. Even Simon, who refuses all adornment and basic needs, accepts a larger grander pillar on which to stand upon.

Claudio Brook was giving me weird Bob Odenkirk vibes in his physical appearance.

Buñuel lost money at the end of the production and had to tack on a quick ending, the result being rife with lunacy and the most drastic of all scene-changes. I’m not sure what to make of it, besides it being awesome, but there is an odd complacency on Simon’s part. Radioactive Flash!

#8. Escape from New York (1981, Carpenter) (USA)
Even with Carpenter films that don’t do much for me, like this one, anything I get out of it directly derives from it being ‘a John Carpenter film’, even if said characteristics help make up my ambivalence. His tendency, particularly with films he has a writing credit on, are exceedingly simple set-ups to the point of near abstraction and a refusal to be bogged down with world-building. He periodically adopts a deliberate molasses-like pacing that promotes a precise foreboding atmosphere supported by his synth scores.

I didn’t feel much one way or the other towards Escape from New York. I enjoyed it enough but wouldn’t call myself a fan. Neither would I go out of my way to put it down. Predictably great cast; I always admire the actors Carpenter chooses to work with, assembling a varied group of regulars in the character actor vein. Even Kurt Russell feels like a character actor in star’s clothing. Donald Pleasence as the President! Was annoyed that Adrienne Barbeau’s character immediately stays by her dead mate to die alongside him. Of course the one female character stops living after her lover dies. Ugh. Harry Dean! Borgnine! Lee Van Cleef! Isaac Hayes! Tom Atkins (!) who I like to pretend is the bane of my existence. So many manly men.

My 3 takeaways were the score, the green-lit streets and alleys, and the ending. I would admittedly have liked a bit more world-building. There is a short casual scene in which Snake enters a decrepit theater where a stage production is happening. I liked that slice-of-desolate-Manhattan life and could have used a bit more of it.

#9. Story of a Prostitute (1965, Seijun Suzuki) (Japan)
I believe this is only my second Seijun Suzuki film? Can’t claim to have loved Story of a Prostitute when taken as a whole, but there sure as hell were moments, scenes, elements I am in awe of. What held it back for me, though this what probably makes it a more objectively ‘great’ film, is that its focus is far more on the military than is of interest to me, at least in this particular story. Seijun Suzuki served during WWII, and uses this story, which takes place during the Sino-Japanese war, as a gateway for criticizing Japanese military institutions. That aspect is pretty scathing; there is no winning, people are swallowed up like it’s nothing, the system is the one that betrays the individual. The most committed of the bunch, Private Mikami is a boy devoid of personality for his loyalty, and who goes to trial for being taken prisoner only to later commit suicide. It’s nice to see Suzuki reach outside that relentless pulp sheen for that scathing political surge, but I admit it lost me a bit for this same reason.

Yumiko Nogawa is outrageously physical and high-pitched; a force of nature if there ever was one. This is a representative example of Japanese actors/actresses often, depending on the melodrama or tragedy of other tone of the story, using their bodies and voices in ways that seem connected specifically to Japanese theater origins. Harumi is self-destructive, coarsely defiant, and desperate, but she’s fearless. That reliable style-to-spare of Seijun Suzuki’s makes for some remarkable moments within the whole such as using slow-motion and mismatched use of sound to heighten emotion and torment. These moments slow down the nightmare.

#10. Short Term 12 (2013, Cretton) (USA)
So close to being great, and some of it is great, to the point where I still like this a lot despite what I’m about to write. It’s largely undone by an insistence on neatness and on failing to recognize the complexity of individuals by bluntly tacking on a predictable parallel backstory for Larson’s Grace which is rote and unnecessary. There’s also a faint whiff of it having gone to the Hollywood cleaners even if it hasn’t. What I mean is it’s a bit too shiny; a bit too neutered as to make everything more presentable. Just look at the way Nate is presented. He is the new employee and audience surrogate, our introduction into the foster care system. And he is flabbergasted by everything around him. Attempted breakouts, getting spit in the face, being called out on his naivete. Everything. And it’s like really? Really? It seems geared to represent audience reaction, which means the film is assuming that people live in under a rock and don’t understand how tough it is for everyone involved in foster care facilities.

So it’s a testament to the film that despite these major drawbacks, I really liked Short Term 12. When it isn’t stumbling, it has a natural grace, a commitment and attentiveness to both staff and kids alike, and the acting is stellar. I’ve been patiently waiting for Brie Larson to be given a chance to show people what she can do since her work on “The United States of Tara” (where she took the snarky teen role and created new nooks and crannies for her character tenfold) Her contribution to the film is incalculable. She has such a spontaneous charm, such conviction, such a lived-in quality. Her character has a pretty drastic arc, where the illusion of control and responsibility collapses completely. She’s so good that she sells Grace’s arc, and though I hate the direction they take her in, Larson is never less than captivating, selling it all wholesale. The same goes for the Keith Stanfield as Marcus and John Gallagher Jr. as Mason. These are some truly gifted performers. Marcus’ rap is heartbreaking and raw. Short Term 12 feels on its way to authenticity, and I encourage people to see the film even if it abandons its good intentions with clunky compact sheen.

Lists: The Top Fives of 2011 Film

Everyone has pretty much already posted their Top Ten’s for the year. I like to go list crazy in summing up the year in film and go beyond the standard 10 ‘best’. I go over this again and again, but it’s all about subjectivity for me and what I considered my favorites. And in going through the year in film, there are a lot of different facets I like to recognize. Everyone comes away with a new batch of films to hold near and dear to their hearts, myself certainly included. This particular post will recognize things like types of performances, characters, beginnings, endings, character dynamics and more. For my attempts at judging technical aspects of film, my eventual Dream Oscar Ballot will cover that particular ground. The two films I will be seeing before posting my final Top 30 of the year (yes, I do Top 30, not 10; I am in no way, shape or form a Top Ten purist) are A Separation and Love Exposure. By the time I see Mysteries of Lisbon, Margaret, Into the Abyss, The Interrupters and others, my lists will be posted.

Like last year, the upcoming posts that will get more time dedicated to them (and will be posted within the next week and a half) are:
Top 10 Worst Films of the Year (which will really be Least Favorite, but nobody will search for a ‘Least Favorite’ list, so I will conveniently name it ‘Worst’.
Top 10 Song Usages
Top 20 Scenes in 2011 Film
Top 20 Performances in 2011 Film
Top 30 Films of 2011

This first post is supposed to be pure harmless superficial fun. I have seen 133 films from 2011. I will list them at the bottom so readers will know what was considered. Beware of spoilers in the Top 5 Romances regarding Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy for those who have not seen it. These preliminary posts will give some hints as to my favorite films of the year, a group that may not be particularly original, but that I am nonetheless proud of and happy with. The year in film has already been picked apart with collective themes of identity, nostalgia and more running deep. There are many who think this was a weak year for film. From an awards standpoint I would agree. But from an overall standpoint, I wholeheartedly disagree.

On to the 1st Annual Cinema Enthusiast Awards! Being a huge fan of The Film Experience’s Film Bitch Awards, I borrowed a few categories from there.

Top 5 Beginnings:
1. Melancholia
2. Incendies
3. Kung Fu Panda 2
4. Contagion
5. Drive (The Driver’s opening speech)

Top 5 Use of Title Card/Opening Credits
1. Drive (Title Card/Opening Credits)
2. Hanna (Title Card only)
3. Insidious (Title Card Only)
4. Outrage (Title Card Only)
5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Title Card/Opening Credits)
Honorable Mention: The Adventures of Tintin (Title Card/Opening Credits)

Top 5 Endings:
1. Hanna
2. Melancholia
3. Warrior
3. The Housemaid
4. Take Shelter
Honorable Mention: The Skin I Live In, Moneyball, The Trip, Of Gods and Men

Top 5 Ensembles:
1. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
2. Midnight in Paris
3. Melancholia
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
5. Hugo
Honorable Mention: Margin Call

Top 5 Underrated Films in 2011:
1. The Sleeping Beauty (that other Sleeping Beauty film not directed by Julia Leigh, but by Catherine Breillat)
2. Bobby Fischer Against the World
3. Black Death
4. Terri
5. The Green Hornet
Note: Underrated could mean anything. But seeing what films get attention in the blogosphere, with critics, from a box office standpoint and from a year-end list perspective, these are the films I felt did not get enough attention from at least two of the aforementioned considerations.

Films That Started Strong But….
1. Source Code
2. Insidious
3. The Double Hour
4. Cold Fish
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love (Where the other films are on this for their final thirds, my last choice appears only for that final speech. It did not entirely dampen the experience and is still ranks among the better films I saw this year)

Top 5 Newcomers:
1. Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2. Jessica Chastain – The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help, The Debt (the ones I’ve seen her in)
3. Elisabeth Olsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene
4. John Boyega – Attack the Block
5. Ezra Miller – We Need to Talk About Kevin
Honorable Mentions: Oscar Issac (Drive, Sucker Punch), Asa Butterfield (Hugo)
Note: I realize this is not the first year some of these actors have been in significant parts. But I’d call all of these actors newcomers this year relatively speaking.

Top 5 Underrated Performances
1. Ludivine Sagnier – Love Crime
2. Eva Green – Cracks
3. Melanie Lynskey – Win Win
4. John C. Reilly – Terri
5. Brie Larson – Rampart

Top 5 Film 2011 Limited Performances (characters with only a few scenes/a limited role)
1. Oscar Issac as Standard – Drive
2. Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway – Midnight in Paris
3. Michael Stuhlbarg as Rene Tabard – Hugo
4. Collette Wolfe as Sandra – Young Adult
5. Kathy Baker as Sarah – Take Shelter

Top 5 Worst Performances:
1. Lauren Petre as Miss Hindle – The Woman
2. Sean Bridgers as Chris Cleek – The Woman
3. January Jones as Emma Frost– X-Men: First Class
4. Mickey Rourke as Nate Poole– Passion Play
5. Vanessa Hudgens as Linda – Beastly

Top 5 2011 Film Scores:
1. Hanna – The Chemical Brothers
2. Senna – Antonio Pinto
3. The Skin I Live In – Alberto Iglesias
3. Jane Eyre – Dario Marianelli
5. Take Shelter – David Wingo
Honorable Mentions – Contagion, Moneyball, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Attack the Block

Top 5 Film 2011 Characters:
1. Charlize Theron – Mavis Gary – Young Adult
2. Kristen Wiig – Annie Walker – Bridesmaids
3. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Paul Zara – The Ides of March
4. Eva Green – Miss G – Cracks
5. Ryan Gosling – The Driver – Drive
Honorable Mention – Michael Shannon in Take Shelter and Jonah Hill in Moneyball

Top 5 Character Dynamics: (this could be any kind of dynamic between 2 or more characters whether adversarial, based in friendship, etc.)
1. Juliette Binoche and William Shimell – Certified Copy
2. Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender – Shame
3. Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman – Tyrannosaur
4. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon – The Trip
5. Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt – Young Adult
Honorable Mentions: Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun – I Saw the Devil, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph – Bridesmaids, William Jøhnk Juels Nielsen and Markus Rygaard – In a Better World

Top 5 2011 Film Villains:
1. Tom Hollander as Issacs – Hanna
2. Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose – Drive
3. Choi Min-sik as Kyung-chul – I Saw the Devil
4. Gary Oldman as Lord Shen – Kung Fu Panda 2
5. Ezra Miller as Kevin – We Need to Talk About Kevin
Honorable Mention – Ralph Fiennes – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Top 5 Film 2011 Romances:
1. Kristen Wiig and Chris Dowd – Bridesmaids
2. Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender – Jane Eyre
3. Tom Cullen and Chris New –Weekend
4. Ewan McGregor and Melanie Laurent – Beginners (less for the material the two are given and more for the chemistry between McGregor and Laurent which, for my money, was the strongest of perhaps the last few years)
5. Mark Strong and Colin Firth – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Honorable Mention: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love

List of 2011 Films Seen: 13 Assassins, 50/50, A Better Life, A Dangerous Method, Albert Nobbs, American Grindhouse, Another Earth, Attack the Block, Beastly, Beginners, Being Elmo, Bellflower, Bill Cunningham, New York, Biutiful, Black Death, Bobby Fischer Against the World, Bridesmaids, Buck, Cameraman: the Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, Captain America: The First Avenger, Carnage, Cars 2, Caterpillar, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Cedar Rapids, Certified Copy, Cold Fish, Cold Weather, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, Contagion,, Cracks, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Dream Home, Drive, Edge of Dreaming, Hanna, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hesher, Hobo with a Shotgun, Horrible Bosses, Hugo, I Saw the Devil, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, In a Better World, In Time, Incendies, Insidious, J. Edgar, Jane Eyre, Kung Fu Panda 2, Last Night, Le Quattro Volte, Love Crime, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Meek’s Cutoff, Melancholia, Midnight in Paris, Mildred Pierce, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Moneyball, My Week with Marilyn, Of Gods and Men, Outrage, Page One: Inside the New York Times, Passion Play, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Poetry, Project Nim, Rampart, Rango, Red Riding Hood, Red State, Redline, Retreat, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rubber, Scream 4, Senna, Shame, Sleeping Beauty, Source Code, Submarine, Sucker Punch, Super, Super 8, Tabloid, Take Shelter, Terri, The Adventures of Tintin, The Arbor, The Artist, The Debt,The Descendants, The Devil’s Double, The Double Hour, The Future, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Green Hornet, The Help, The Housemaid, The Ides of March, The Last Circus, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Mill and the Cross, The Muppets, The Rite, The Roommate, The Skin I Live In, The Sleeping Beauty, The Thing, The Tree of Life, The Trip, The Ward, The Woman, Thor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, TrollHunter, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Tyrannosaur, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Unknown, War Horse, Warrior, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Weekend, Win Win, Winnie the Pooh, X-Men: First Class, Young Adult, Your Highness, Yves Saint-Laurent: L’Amour Fou