Looking at Hollywood’s best and worst of 2013

2013 was a pretty good year at the movies. Of the 37 films I saw this year (and I still have to see some biggies like 12 Years a Slave and The Wolf of Wall Street), I’ve only got a handful that go in the “Worst” column … and mostly because they were major titles that ended up being pretty disappointing. Most of the films I saw fall into the “Good” category, so to determine the “Best” films of the year, I chose the ones that I would definitely want to see again.

Topping the list as my favorite movie of the year is David O. Russell’s American Hustle. The 70s period piece that uses a real operation – Abscam – to create a fictional story is perfectly cast with great actors, dressed and coiffed to perfection, with a twisty, turny script that will have you alternately disgusted by and empathetic with the characters. By the end, good guys are villains and villains are (somewhat) redeemed, and through it all Russell keeps his camera moving fluidly through each scene. It’s simply master filmmaking at its best, and many are calling it the best Scorsese film he never made (and there is a major nod to Scorsese late in the film).

The other “usual suspects” (i.e. Oscar bait movies) are on the list as well. Saving Mr. Banks is practically perfect as a movie, even if its storytelling is a bit too Disneyfied. Emma Thompson, however, deserves all the accolades she’s getting for playing the difficult author of the classic Mary Poppins books (and the audio tapes played during the film’s credits demonstrate that her performance is not far off from the real thing). Tom Hanks gives us a too-genial Walt Disney, but it’s still a good performance. Like American Hustle, the period production design is impeccable, the rest of the cast is excellent (I loved the relationship between Thompson’s P.L. Travers and her driver Ralph, played by Paul Giamatti), but the ending is as far from reality as you can get. Despite that, this is Thompson’s movie and is well worth seeing.

August: Osage County is playing in limited release to qualify for Oscar consideration and will open in wide release on January 10. (Our full review will be available on January 10.) This is the kind of movie that you think “these actors took these roles to win an award,” and true or not, it certainly brings out the best in everyone to have this kind of material. Based on the Tony Award winning Broadway play (also Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama), the movie focuses on the Weston family who gather back at the parental home in Osage County following a death. Meryl Streep stars as the pill-addled, chain-smoking mother (who also has mouth cancer) who knows everyone’s dirty little secrets and isn’t shy about revealing them, usually at the dinner table. Julia Roberts is the daughter who was the apple of her daddy’s eye and has the worst relationship with her mother. Fireworks fly as these two forces of nature collide, and their verbal (and physical) sparring is amazing to witness. The rest of the cast has their moments to shine, but they wisely stay out of the way when Streep and Roberts go at it. It’s a movie filled with laughter and tears and should live up to all the awards chatter.

Gravity was a high-concept story executed perfectly by director Alfonso Cuarón with a stellar (no pun intended) performance from Sandra Bullock who has to basically carry the entire film after a disaster in space leaves her alone and stranded with very limited time and resources to try to get home. The film was originally touted for its realist depiction of what it would be like orbiting the earth, but most of those things have turned out to be little more than fantasy (famously debunked by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson). The film hinges completely on Bullock’s performance and she pulls it off with aplomb (comparisons to Tom Hanks in Cast Away are inevitable). And points to Cuarón for keeping space a silent void, even if someone at Warner Brothers got a little over-zealous with the sound effects in the trailer. It’s a white-knuckle ride from start to finish, and is served extremely well by the IMAX and 3D process.

Disney hits another one out of the park with the animated “princess movie” Frozen. The story seems typical with two princesses and the men who are apparently there to save one, the other, or both of them (and let’s not forget the wacky reindeer and animated snowman sidekicks, thankfully used sparingly and to great comic effect), but the story has a deeper twist as it truly becomes about family and trusting in the love that comes with it even when events transpire to tear that family apart (yes, this is a Disney movie so the parents must die early in the film). The snow-covered landscapes are rendered gorgeously in CG and the film is also served extremely well by 3D. And as a bonus, the film starts with a brand new Mickey Mouse short that looks like a classic cartoon but becomes an eye-popping experience in 3D. Frozen is definitely a film for all ages.

Also on my list of favorite movies of the year that may or may not garner much award consideration includes The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the much, much better follow-up to the first Hobbit movie. Where that one dragged interminably, this one moves at a crisp pace, interweaving several storylines, and keeping things moving without resorting to “look what we can do” scenes of CGI battles and singing trolls and dwarfs. Martin Freeman again gives a terrific performance as Bilbo Bagging, but this chapter of the story belongs to Richard Armitage as Thorin, who finally steps up as the leader of the group of travelers. Director Peter Jackson indulges himself with a terrifying giant spider attack and a comical escape scene with dwarfs in barrels, but he saves the best for the last act as we finally get to encounter the dragon Smaug. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch with a honeyed gravelly growl, he makes it all worth the wait to get to that point. And unlike the first movie, this two-and-three-quarter hours actually flies by, leaving us with a huge cliffhanger that will make you want more.