The time has arrived once again to give my final celebrations and last minute pummeling and poundings to the films of 2013 with my annual four part Savage Scorecard series!
Unlike the cinematic year of 2012, which was uniformly excellent, 2013 was a bit of an odd duck. It was a year when major, big budgeted films tended to show an increasing lack of imagination and creativity, settling for the same tired old CGI tricks of the trade and a disturbing trend in emotional emptiness. It was also a year in which some established and esteemed filmmakers presented works that were undeniably terrible, and fell so tremendously far from their previously greater artistic heights. While I did indeed award quite a number of films with my highest rating of four stars, for much of the year, those films tended to be the ones that were smaller, more intimate and stemmed from more independent sources.
At this time, I am happy to bring to you the first installment of the Savage Scorecard series with
"The Honor Roll," a short compilation of the films I awarded the rating of
three and a half stars.
1. "THE BLING RING" Directed by Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola's sharp, stylish, satirical docudrama about a collective of uber-rich Hollywood teens breaking into and stealing from a variety of Hollywood celebrities was a knowing, matter-of-fact cultural commentary that could exist as a close cousin to
Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf Of Wall Street." Coppola deftly presents her material in a fashion that some found detached but I thought was very wise and perceptive as the film does not moralize but powerfully explores our increasingly soulless obsession with celebrity culture and evolving narcissism at the expense of our collective sense of humanity. And yet somehow, Coppola does give us a sly thrill with creeping into the homes of the rich and famous and special mention must be given to
Emma Watson, who clearly had a wickedly fun blast playing essentially the polar opposite of the intelligent and virtuous Hermione Granger.
(Originally reviewed June 2013)
2. "THE BUTLER" Directed by Lee Daniels
I still cannot believe that this film did not receive even one Oscar nomination.
While some of the stunt casting
(Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan?!
John Cusack as Richard Nixon?!) fell completely flat and some of the sequences felt to be a tad rushed here and there, Lee Daniels' "The Butler" was a deeper, richer, more subtle and provocative film experience than I believe that it was ever given credit for. In addition to existing as a biopic, a historical travelogue and a film that is actually
about the butler and not the white people who
helped the butler, I think what Daniels accomplish most beautifully was to actually deconstruct what the concept of "history" actually is. That "history" is not the sole property of the key players that find their ways and names into our history books. "History" is the complete and collective experience of every single individual who has lived through a particular period of time, in this case, as exemplified by the titular butler. Furthermore, I believe that Daniels has also fashioned a stirring film devoted to the concept of empowerment, either of the self or through an entire ethnic group, and how in pursuit of that empowerment there are many roads up the same mountain. This film has stayed with me since I saw it last summer, and what gripped me the most was the astonishing, transformative performance by
Forest Whitaker, who embodied his role so completely, that I honestly never saw Forest Whitaker on the screen. There was
only the character of Cecil Gaines. Ignoring Whitaker's outstanding work is a cinematic crime, as far as I am concerned, Oscar. You should be ashamed!
(
Originally reviewed August 2013)
3. "ELYSIUM" Directed by Neill Blomkamp
While this follow-up to
"District 9" (2009), did not enthrall me quite as completely as that film, Neill Blomkamp's brutal, bloody, pummeling and deeply disturbing science fiction epic would feel like the most hollow form of ultra-violence if Blomkamp did not have something so passionately upon his mind and spirit to examine and express for us. Working as an allegory to immigration and our continuous precarious class warfare between the 99% and 1%, "Elysium" is film that simultaneously looks backwards to science fiction's past, where the merging of ideas and holding up a mirror to present day society fuels the storyline and also looks forwards with its stunning usage of photo-realistic CGI effects and relentlessly bare knuckled, two-fisted action sequences. And to those who complained that the plot point of a child nearly losing her life to Leukemia as she is denied a crucial Med Pod was gratuitous, look around our country right now in 2014 and then tell me if that plot point was not so far fetched. "Elysium" is happening right now.
(
Originally reviewed August 2013)
4. "ENOUGH SAID" Directed by Nicole Holofcener
This was one of the loveliest, most bittersweet films of the year. An adult romantic comedy made by and for adults that treated people as three dimensional human beings with real emotions, desires, fears, lusts, regrets and failings. The wonderful
Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave one of her most fluid and richest performances as a lonely, divorced, masseuse who is dreading the departure of her 18 year old daughter for college and who soon falls in love with the late, great
James Gandolfini, a lonely, divorced Father, also dreading the departure of his daughter for college. The unlikely chemistry between Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini made for one of the most honest, heartfelt on-screen romances of the entire year as "Enough Said" explored not only how the perceptions of outsiders can influence our own when it comes to building a relationship but also the exquisite pain of middle age and the serious soul searching that comes with growing older.
(
Originally reviewed October 2013)
5. "IRON MAN 3" Directed by Shane Black
My favorite superhero film of the year and a most worthy successor to
Joss Whedon's "The Avengers" (2012), "Iron Man 3" greatly succeeded not only through its high flying style and the still engaging, firecracker performance of
Robert Downey Jr. but also because this was a rare sequel that dared to take some serious risks, especially with the controversial re-imagining of the terrorist known as The Mandarin (
Ben Kingsley). But what I loved most about the film is that it bothered to continue exploring the evolution of Tony Stark as he deals not only with the psychological fallout of his adventures with The Avengers, he is forced to take a hard, disturbing at himself and discover just who he is as a man and not as an iron clad superhero, a level of pathos that made the film more dramatic and even claustrophobic. With that, there is excitement and the aerial sequence where Iron Man has to miraculously save thirteen people ejected from an exploding airplane was downright sensational!
(
Originally reviewed May 2013)
6. "TRANCE" Directed by Danny Boyle
While this blistering, jet-propelled, hallucinogenic thriller did not quite scale the artistic heights of Danny Boyle's
"Trainspotting" (1996), "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) or
"127 Hours" (2010), this was still a wildly kinetic ride unlike any other I saw in 2013. This madhouse tale of art thieves and hypnotherapy is merely a launching point for Boyle's endlessly inventive filmmaking, which is often so breathless to behold that you may find yourself grabbing onto the arms of your theater seats just to ensure that you will not be whisked away! While I realize that a film like this is not for everybody tastes, the jigsaw puzzle nature of this story which falls into dreamscapes, memoirs and filled with all manner of duplicitous characters with duplicitous motives all set to the beat of a throbbing electronic film score sailed right up my alley.
(
Originally reviewed April 2013)
Stay tuned for PART TWO!
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