Some of the greatest films encountered in 2013
December 30, 2013
This year proved quite fruitful for worthwhile cinema experiences for this writer. So much so, I want to vary up my year-end list. There were so many amazing documentaries, I have decided to rank those separately because, quite honestly, some of those could dethrone several of my top feature films (stay tuned for a top 20 in February). I have also decided to rank separately some of the great sentimental films that pulled me by the heartstrings despite their contrivances.
All lists below are ranked from descending to ascending order. There are links to reviews or interviews, if applicable. All the large, bold, italicized titles under the posters link to the home video releases on Amazon. If you follow that link and purchase them, a percentage of the sale goes back to support this blog.
First, some might call the following guilty pleasures. I call them sentimental favorites, where I swooned along with everyone else who wanted to escape for just a pleasant night at the movies, be they action-adventure or idealized depictions of true stories:
5. Saving Mr. Banks
There’s something a bit surreal and somewhat incestuous about Disney dramatizing the true story behind bringing Mary Poppins to the big screen. Though much of the hype surrounding the film came from a not-always-flattering portrait of Mr. Disney (big deal, you get to see him sneak a cigarette), the real skeletons depicted come from the traumatic childhood of the book’s author. The film spends a great amount of time flashing back to the past of author P. L. Travers who proved stubbornly uncooperative in the adaptation of her novel on the Disney studios lot. There’s much talk of Emma Thompson in the role of the author and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. However, Colin Farrell offers the film’s most tangibly tragic performance as the father who cannot seem to rise to task during the author’s childhood. He’s the heartbreaking glue that explains all the trauma, escapism and defensiveness of Travers.
4. The Book Thief
More childhood trauma in real-life. This time, it’s a little girl growing up in Nazi Germany. Director Brian Percival, he of the stirring Downton Abbey series, brings his romantic eye to a place not often treated with romance. However, this is a child’s coming of age, so a hint of rose-colored lenses may be forgiven. Also, personal bias, my father survived living through Nazi Germany after he was drafted to fight for Hitler at the ripe age of 16. To add some more bias, I had a chance to speak to Percival, the film’s star (Sophie Nélisse) and the original book’s author, Markus Zusak, a conversation that began with sharing my dad’s journals during the war … which are still looking for a serious translator (read my interviews).
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
While the first Hobbit film felt like an overdose of effects and Rube Goldberg-like action sequences, things finally came together with the second part of this trilogy. There was time to get more intimate with the characters, as the film slowed down for some substantial moments between them. It also had a brisk pace and sense of adventure that harkened back to the great epic action films director Peter Jackson so much loves, like The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
2. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
I had no idea I would like this film as much as I did. I think its message that celebrates experiencing life without the escapism, ironically enough, touched me. It’s funny how a film so anti-escapism can also feel escapist. It started with obvious, overly stylized, stagey fantasies by the title character and ended with him out-growing them. (Read my link to my review here).
1. Star Trek: Into Darkness
This movie was just the greatest thrill that had it all. The sentimentality on screen overwhelmed as stakes ran high, including a bromantic exchange of affection in the face of death between Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto). Even the evil Khan (a scene-stealing Benedict Cumberbatch) shed a tear for his cause, though it meant the extermination of humanity. It gives you high hopes for what director J.J. Abrams has planned for his series of Star Wars films under the ownership of Disney (Read my review).
* * *
Some of the most extraordinary documentaries I saw included these, again in bottom to top order. I reviewed all of these, so I shall spare additional commentary; click on the link below the poster art to read my reviews and the titles to purchase from Amazon and support the Independent Ethos:
5. Beware of Mr. Baker
(read my review)
4. Leviathan
(read my review)
3. The Act of Killing
(read my interview)
2. Stories We Tell
(read my review)
1. Cutie and the Boxer
(read my review)
* * *
Finally, the 10 best feature films I saw in 2013. I was surprised by my own ranking. Though consistency of tone, acting, cinematography, pacing and complexity of story all play a factor, I determined the ranking by considering how strongly the films drew me in and then delivered their message and punch line. As usual, ambitious foreigners often win this list, but there was also a strong showing by a pair of American indie directors and one pair of directors who are given free-reign in the Hollywood machine. Again, click on the link below the poster art to read my reviews; the titles all link to product listings on Amazon, which supports the Independent Ethos:
10. The Great Beauty
(Read my review)
9. Laurence Anyways
(Read my review)
8. Museum Hours
(Read my review)
7. Computer Chess
(Read my review)
6. Inside Llewyn Davis
(Read my review)
5. Frances Ha
(Read my review)
4. Blue is the Warmest Color
(Read my review)
3. Something in the Air (Après mai)
(Read my review)
2. Night Across the Street
(Read my review)
1. Beyond the Hills
(Read my review)
I think the Wolf of Wall Street, probably the biggest disappointment of the year for this writer, had some influence in my number one choice. Beyond the Hills indeed looked at some despicable people, but threw the lambs among them for a sense of dynamism that was missing from Wolf. It also had a similar ending that gave a shocking twist in perspective regarding the power of a leader who has led many astray that was well-earned over an extravagant run-time of two-and-a-half-hours. Because of that, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu proves himself a stronger director than Martin Scorsese is now.
Of course all these films, from sentimental faves, documentaries and features could be mixed for a top 10, or as in many previous years, a top 20, which I plan to prepare in February, when more late-coming foreign titles will see release (Miami has yet to see Mexico’s entry to the Oscars, the harrowing Heli arrive in theaters, and only now the multi-award-winning Wadjda is seeing release in indie art houses).
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ is one nasty, vulgar film about nasty, vulgar people– for 3 hours!
December 26, 2013
Despite his status as a big time Hollywood director, Martin Scorsese deserves consideration as an auteur who can still assert his independent ethos to produce work that does not neatly fall into the category of classical Hollywood cinema. Sadly, his latest work reveals what can go wrong when such a talent goes unchecked. There’s something rather soulless and harrowing about his latest picture, The Wolf of Wall Street. It reveals the travesty of self-indulgence on many levels, and the ultimate victim is the viewer.
The news in advance of this film was it needed to be cut back from an original four-hour run-time. Recently Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, participated in an interview where she revealed Scorsese had considered releasing the Wolf in two parts (read the interview). One can only wonder how much easier to swallow the film might have been in two doses and whether there had been some subtlety lost in cutting out an hour’s worth of material for the endurance test that ultimately saw release. Might the repetitive Bacchanalia seemed less redundant? Could there have been some actual character development that allowed you to care for the asshole dweebs that constantly rampage across the screen?
The film follows the rise and fall of coke-snorting, lude-popping, prostitute-fucking, slick-talking king swindler Jordan Belfort (a kinetic, unrelenting Leonardo DiCaprio). His talents are revealed during orgies and phone conversations, not to mention several speeches to his crew. 
For three grueling hours, the Wolf of Wall Street agonizingly drones on toward an inevitable conclusion that just does not come soon enough. Why did this film have to carry on so long and feature so many monologues by such a despicable character? I just wanted to see this asshole jailed already. Instead of feeling moved by the slight crash down to earth for this character, by the end, all I felt was relief that this mean movie had ended.
The film is a satirical affair based on a real human being and his autobiography, also titled The Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort was one of those late ‘80s masters of the universe who eschewed any sense of principle for maximum profit. “Was any of this legal?” he says. “Absolutely not.” He worked his way toward the big fish investors by offering penny stocks in unreal shiny packages of bullshit. The slimy con man reels them in using only words and enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what junk he peddles, they buy it (Belfort has since moved on to become a motivational speaker). The investors invest in crap, and Belfort reaps the commission.
Soon, Jordan has created an industry using just a telemarketing script and a stable of petty drug dealers eager to learn the language that will sucker almost anyone to give up their money. Over the course of the film, we only watch Belfort grow richer. He upgrades his car, his house, his boat and even his wife. All the while, the film gives him nary a redeeming moment to even give one shit about him.
The decadence of after-work parties that include orgies in the office as soon as trading stops are complexly choreographed affairs that will leave you reeling in disgust or delight as horror and humor collide with a reckless sense of tone. Cocaine and Quaaludes freely flow, as does degradation of humanity, particularly to women. Greed is the ultimate motivator for both the wolves and the prey. Early in the film, during one party at the office a woman takes center stage to have her long hair shaved off for $10,000, which she plans to spend on breast implants. It’s a moment of stark depravity that has a rather tragic resonance for any sense of pity for these characters.
For much of the film, you follow Jordan at the height of his most unsympathetic. One cannot even call this man a misanthrope. He’s just an asshole. There is never a moment where he struggles with his conscience. The film never seems to consider the victims. All we know of them are their muffled voices on the other side of a telephone lines. Jordan speaks to them of the riches they are bound to gain while giving the phone receiver a stiff quavering middle finger and silently mouthing the words “fuck you!” while his lackeys gather around and snicker. Jordan seems to hate his customers for their greed, despite how much of his own greed he is satisfying.
It’s a smart depiction, but after seven or eight similar examples featuring gimmicky, jokey scenes that includes cocaine snorted off ass cracks, Jordan’s right-hand Donnie (Jonah Hill) whipping out his dick in the middle of a party to beat off to Jordan’s future next wife 
(Margot Robbie) and Jordan experimenting with a dominatrix who sodomizes him with a candle, the point is made. It doesn’t matter whether you change the music, the setting or vary the speed of the film. There needs to be a sense of something beyond the greed preying on the greedy to merit this film’s languorous duration of indulgence. Otherwise it all just feels voyeuristic, inane, cruel and pointless.
One of the film’s few interesting moments happens way too late to redeem this film. After OD-ing on Quaaludes at a country club, Jordan crashes so hard he calls it a “cerebral palsy high.” Just then, an emergency that could incriminate his racket arises, and he must drag himself to his Lamborghini during a moment of drawn-out slapstick. When he arrives at home, after crawling down the street, he feels some pride at having driven the car the one mile without even scratching it. The following morning, however, it’s another story.
That duality of perspective is essential to contrast the often romantic presentation of the character’s slash and burn ride to his mountain of millions. It’s a shame Scorsese cannot present enough moments like this. When the final scene arrives, offering a hint of a more grounded world featuring more common men, it’s just too late. You have to wonder where these people were throughout the entirety of much of this high-pitched movie, which screeches along like some speed metal album without any dynamics.
There’s just hardly any sense of humanity in The Wolf of Wall Street. The film feels like watching voracious garbage disposers noisily grind up refuse. You’re just glad when the noise finally stops and all that trash has run its course. All you’re left with, in the end, however, is a greasy residue of emptiness. One should expect more from the director who gave us Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.
The Wolf of Wall Street runs 180 minutes and is rated R (beyond unchecked Scorsese, there’s lots more to be offended by). It opened pretty much everywhere in the U.S. yesterday, Dec. 25. Paramount Pictures hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review.
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