Favorite Films of 2013

Another year, another batch of Top-Films-of-the-Year lists will be coming your way soon. Below is mine - films are listed in no particular order. Enjoy. 

THE KINGS OF SUMMER - Reviewed for Twitch

THE WAY, WAY BACK - Reviewed for Twitch

THE SPECTACULAR NOW -  Reviewed for Twitch

SHORT TERM 12

CALL ME KUCHU

WILD BILL

UPSTREAM COLOR - Reviewed for We Got This Covered

MAN OF STEEL - Reviewed for ChaseWhale.com

PRINCE AVALANCHE  - Reviewed for We Got This Covered

FAST & FURIOUS 6

THIS IS MARTIN BONNER

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

GRAVITY

SUN DON’T SHINE - Reviewed for Twitch

NEW WORLD

Honorable Mentions: 

AFTERNOON DELIGHT - Reviewed for Twitch

MR. NOBODY

C.O.G. - Reviewed for Twitch

Films I missed lots of folks are heehawing about:

DALLAS BUYER’S CLUB

12 YEARS A SLAVE

BLUE JASMINE

ENOUGH SAID (RIP MR. GANDOLFINI - Return if Possible)

NEBRASKA (Update: This is my favorite film of the year.)

Films I watched and liked just OK lots of folks are heehawing about:

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

MUD

FRANCES HA

Anticipated films not released at the time of this post:

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Update: didn’t care for this one)

AMERICAN HUSTLE (Update: I liked this one)

HER (UPDATE: Warner Bros. sent me a For Your Consideration screener of HER. It’s a solid film but not a favorite of the year.)

Film Independent Spirit Awards Voting Started. Here are My Picks

Once again, the Spirit Awards has some powerful contenders this year - the mightiest being the Female Lead category and the most difficult to choose. Everything else was a pretty clear choice.

And as usual, because nitpicking comes with award nominees, there were  a few snubs. But the only thing I can’t wrap my head around is how Stephen Chbosky’s THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER got nominated for Best First Feature when he made a film called THE FOUR CORNERS OF NOWHERE, which played at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995. According to Film Independent’s guidelines, the film submitted must be at least 70 minutes long. Both THE FOUR CORNERS and PERKS are 110 minutes. I may have missed something else in my research, but this just seems odd.

If you read this blog regularly or following me on Twitter or Facebook, then you know there’s one film I’ve been very loud about: HOLY MOTORS. This is unmistakably the best International Film of the year, and Its lead, Denis Lavant, gave the best performance of the year. The film didn’t make the guidelines required for eligibility, so I’ll just complain here while I can and IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO. C’est la vie. 

Despite those nags, I do adore some of the films nominated––SMASHED, AMOUR, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, and SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK being a handful of them. I’m a member of the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and voting started on the 25th––my picks are below in bold. Cross your fingers, eyes, toes, and torso that a few or all of them win.

The winners will be announced on Saturday, February 23rd at 10pm ET/PT.

BEST FEATURE
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep the Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

BEST DIRECTOR
Wes Anderson
David O. Russell
Benh Zeitlin
Julia Loktev
Ira Sachs

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Linda Cardellini, Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE LEAD
Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd, Compliance
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere 

BEST MALE LEAD
Jack Black, Bernie
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On
Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce, Four 

BEST SUPPORTING MALE LEAD
Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike
David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere
Michael Péna, End of Watch
Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST SCREENPLAY
Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On 

BEST FIRST FEATURE
Fill the Void - Rama Burshtein (director); Assaf Amir (producer)
Gimme the Loot - Adam Leon (director); Dominic Buchanan, Natalie Difford, Jamund Washington (producers)
Safety Not Guaranteed - Colin Trevorrow (director); Derek Connolly, Stephanie Langhoff, Peter Saraf, Colin Trevorrow, Marc Turtletaub (producers)
Sound of My Voice - Zal Batmanglij (director); Brit Marling, Hans Ritter, Shelley Surpin (producers)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (director);  Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Russell Smith (producers)

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Rama Burshtein, Fill the Void
Derek Connolly, Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank
Rashida Jones & Will McCormack, Celeste and Jesse Forever
Jonathan Lisecki, Gayby

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Yoni Brook, Valley of Saints
Lol Crawley, Here
Ben Richardson, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov, End of Watch
Robert Yeoman, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DOCUMENTARY
How to Survive a Plague - David France (director); David France, Howard Gertler (producers)
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present - Matthew Akers (director); Maro Chermayeff, Jeff Dupre (producers)
The Central Park Five - Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon (directors-producers)
The Invisible War - Kirby Dick (director); Tanner King Barklow, Amy Ziering (producers)
The Waiting Room - Peter Nicks (director-producer); Linda Davis, William B. Hirsch (producers)

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Amour (France), Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Turkey), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust And Bone (France/Belgium), Jacques Audiard
Sister (Switzerland), Ursula Meier
War Witch (Democratic Republic of Congo), Kim Nguyen

Sundance 2013 Review: THE WAY, WAY BACK Wants You to Laugh as Hard as You Can. And You Will.

Being the awkward kid is the worst. Making friends is hard; everyone thinks you’re one with the freaks, and contact with the opposite sex is pretty much non-existent. Since lack of confidence is always going to be an uphill battle and the Pretenders will not always be around to “…Stand By You,” something needs to happen to balance out the suck — a strange and wonderful friendship, perhaps?

If you agree, keep reading, because this is the story of The Way, Way Back: a way charming, way honest, and way, way funny movie about an unlikely friendship.

Way, Way opens with Duncan (Liam James) being asked by his mother’s boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) to rate himself from 1-10. At first we think Trent means well and is being funny, but we quickly learn he’s kind of a really big dick when he tells Duncan he’s a three, adding more insult to injury. It’s safe to say these two don’t see eye to eye. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in Trent’s family. His daughter Steph (Zoe Levin) is arguably more cruel to Duncan than Trent. The four are heading to Trent’s beach house for some sun and fun, but it kind of sucks for Duncan because Trent and his daughter clearly hate him, and the only person who understands him is his pushover mother, Pam (Toni Collette), who kneels to Trent as he pleases.

Where they’re heading isn’t much of a place for kids — especially kids with no friends — but more of a “spring break for adults,” with drinking, drinking, and, well, more drinking. So like any awkward kid celebrating nothing to do in a foreign land, Duncan spends a lot of time eyeballing Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), who lives next door, and riding the tiny pink cruiser he found in Trent’s garage. Good luck comes to rescue his boredom, however, when he meets the manager of the local water park, Owen (Sam Rockwell). Owen gives him a job at the park, and Duncan’s adventure of real fun begins. 

Let’s kick this off and talk about the Infallible Sam Rockwell. His performance as Owen is the funniest I’ve ever seen him and perhaps his best performance to date. There’s no question that he’s fluent in “awesome,” but here, he will make you laugh until you hurt. He really goes for it. His comedic timing is flawless and he owns every second you see him — from the first glimpse we see him grinning as he passes Duncan and his family, to, well, every word that comes out of his mouth for the rest of the film. Owen is flippant and lives and breathes by telling jokes only he appreciates more than everyone else, and he loves it. Every line Rockwell delivers is hilarious. And Owen’s banter with Duncan will make you love him, no matter how much of a meatball he is. If lots of acclaim doesn’t come Rockwell’s way when this film releases, there will be blood.  

500 words in and I haven’t even gotten to Allison Janney yet. She plays Betty, Trent’s long time next door neighbor who’s off the wagon (again). Sloshing her way through her scenes with a drink always in her hand, Betty is the woman who dresses just as inappropriately as she speaks. Janney makes every one of her scenes count and eats it up as this sloppy woman. Betty is that mom you knew in high school who wanted to hear all the gossip and hang out with her kid and their friends. Janney is notable for some profound dramatic performances (see Life During Wartime), but here she has a field day as the boneheaded Betty, cuts loose, and is just as bonkers as Owen. Maya Rudolph and Rob Corddry also co-star and deliver their sharp wit. Watching this ensemble is paradise.

Besides remarkable performances from Rockwell and Janney, big, big credit goes to the filmmakers, Nat Faxon (that guy in Broken Lizard movies who co-wrote The Descendants) and Jim Rash (that guy on Community who also co-wrote The Descendants). These two make a slick writing duo. The Way, Way Back is tightly polished and there’s not one dull moment in the film — there are so many scenes and so many characters (Faxon and Rash included) that will make you laugh out loud, and hard. 

It’s quite possible I’m boldly going where no film critic is supposed to go and calling this film a perfect comedy. OK, yeah, it’s a perfect comedy. You’ll be adding this to your collection of favorite “summer vacation” movies. Trust me. The Way, Way Back is everything you want in a laugh out loud, crowd-pleasing, coming-of-age movie. 

P.S.: Yes, there is a Sam Rockwell dance scene.

(Follow Chase Whale on Twitter.)