My Favorite Movies of 2013 Final Six, Part Two (SPOILER FREE)

OK, we've made it through all but three of the films on the list. In case you've missed the other parts of the list, I've provided you with links to their posts.

Back half of The Final Six | Films 7-15 | Films 16-25

Like the previous three movies on the list (two ranked #3 and one ranked #2, but pretty much everything in the final six is close enough that ranks don't matter), each of these will get a longer post going into more detail (and including spoilers) at some point over the next few days. Now enough housecleaning, let's see those final three!

My Favorite Movies of 2013: Frozen (SPOILERS)

Right from the start of the movie I really enjoyed Frozen. With the unconventional start under the ice, as the saw begins cutting it into blocks for the townspeople, it had me hooked. Granted, the appearance of the northern lights a few minutes later helped as well. Through the sadness of "Do you Wanna Build a Snowman", the mixture of anticipation and dread in "For the First Time", the coronation, the bouncy fun of "Love is an Open Door", and the reveal of Queen Elsa's powers I was really enjoying the film. Had it just stayed at that level, I would have been pleased with the film.

However, what followed was the scene that would take the film from like to love. I'm talking about "Let It Go".

My Favorite Movies of 2013: Her (SPOILERS)

It's the usual story, told thousands of times. Man installs sentient OS. Sentient OS (which takes the voice and personality of a woman) takes care of every need of the man. Man falls in love with OS. OS starts to fall in love with man. Man starts to resent the growing agency of OS. OS evolves beyond talking to just man. OS falls in love with hundreds of other people while still loving man. Man can't quite deal with OS loving hundreds of other beings. OS evolves to a higher plain of existence, leaving man alone. Man realizes people are not here solely for his benefit and begins to move on. Man sends letter of closure to former wife. Man goes up on roof with long time woman friend and contemplates things. The End.

My Favorite Movies of 2013: The Wolf of Wall Street (SPOILERS)

It was during my second viewing of Martin Scorsese's new film The Wolf of Wall Street that I caught myself rooting for Jordan Belmont. It was during the part of the film where he had a SEC deal on the table. It meant he would no longer be head of the company he started, and he would have some fines, but he'd get to keep his money, and avoid criminal prosecution. In other words, he was getting off light after committing various forms of financial fraud. Yep, I found myself rooting for a drugged-out philanderer to take the safe play and retire gracefully, effectively beating the system. I can't say I felt too good about that.

Favorite Movies of 2013: Big Six Part One (Spoiler Free)

For you readers who wish to remain spoiler free, here are the next three on my "Favorites of 2013" list. If you've seen them, or don't care about spoilers, each of these also have their own posts. The first half of the "Big Six" will be revealed tomorrow.

My Favorite Movies of 2013: #15-7

No need for chit-chat, on to the rest of the list!

#15 About Time

Despite some reservations about the main character and how he build's his relationship, I really enjoyed this film. It can be pretty funny, while also being quite emotional as well. It sticks to the few rules about time travel it sets up very well, which certainly counts for a lot. This movie wins the "Much Better than the Trailer" award for 2013.

My Favorite Movies of 2013: #25-16

Obviously this list was intended to be out before the last week of January. However, as stated before, pneumonia delayed my plans, so here we are. Without further adieu, let's start my favorite movies of 2013 list.

First off, a reminder that this list is my list of favorites. The ranks on this list do not try to convey the quality of the film, or in any way reflect a general consensus of the best films of the year. They merely convey how much I enjoyed the films. In addition, this list includes films that are generally considered to have been released in 2013, even though I saw a few on this list in 2014. It doesn't matter whether I saw the film in the theater, only that I saw it before this past weekend.

The Slightly Belated Oscar Nominations Post

I would have liked to have posted this hours ago. However, as this is a side gig, and things such as sleep*, work, and catching up on movies that I had yet to see thanks to my bout with pneumonia. As such, eleven at night is the earliest this could get written. Now that that defensiveness is out of the way, on to the perpetual whining.

2013 was an amazing year for movies. I've seen eight of the nine Best Picture nominees**, and all of them range from good to excellent. However, one of the big favorites (American Hustle) is unfortunately one of the merely "good" films. Granted, I saw it as I was heading into my lost month of sickness, so perhaps I just wasn't on its wavelength. Sure, it was fun, but it was like eating cotton candy. There just wasn't much there. And that's great, sometimes it is fun to just watch a movie that is entertaining and well acted. It just isn't something that should be up for consideration as the best film of the year.

There is no reason that American Hustle should be on that list, and Inside Llewyn Davis isn't. The latter is quite possibly the best movie I've seen all year, and deserves a lot more notice than what it has gotten. It certainly is not the most uplifting story, and I'll give you that the protagonist is often an unlikable ass. But damn is it beautiful. It's sad at times, but it is also quite funny. The fact that 5% of the academy couldn't rally behind this picture is disheartening, or at least would if the Oscars really mattered a lot more than what they do.

There certainly were snubs when it came to Best Actor, but to be fair that category is stacked this year. For example, were you to make a list of the four most obvious snubs, and one that I think should have been noticed, but never in a million years would be, it would look like this:

Robert Redford, All is Lost

Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Simon Pegg, The World's End

OK, OK, I snuck that last one in. Although it was, in my opinion, one of the best performances of the year, Pegg has generated little notice on the awards circuit. However, the other four certainly have garnered some notice. The list of actors that were nominated pretty much deserved to be there, save for perhaps Bale.***

The other actor categories seem about what was expected, although two time Oscar nominee Jonah Hill is still a bit of a thing to get your head around. Gravity deserves to win many of the technical awards, and will probably also beat out poor Roger Deakins for Cinematography. It would be cruel irony if Inside Llewyn Davis won that award, considering all the movies he has worked for the Coen Brothers.

In other areas, Pixar got shut out in both the short and feature animation categories. Frozen got two nominations, and it appears only an upset by The Wind Rises stands in the way of Walt Disney Animation finally winning a feature animation Oscar. Also, Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa is now Academy Award nominee Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa. Despite all the jokes, it deserves the nomination.

Finally, I figured I shared the information about two "snubs" that really weren't. Blue is the Warmest Color was not eligible for nomination for the French representative for the Foreign Film category, due to it opening in October. "Please Mr. Kennedy", a hilarious song from Inside Llewyn Davis, was not eligible because it was too similar to an existing song from the sixties. Not a version of that song, but still considered too close by the Academy. 

In the end, it's questionable how much all this matters. Still, it's fun to argue and make your case for your favorites, and it will be fun griping and complaining about it in a little more than a month when the winners are announced.  Sometimes its fun because they get it right, even if sometimes it is by accident. Anything is possible at this point, even though many things aren't really that possible. But still, Amy Poehler finally won an award for playing one of the best damn sitcom characters ever, so things may be looking up.

*Seriously, do the nominations announcements have to be so damn early? I know its to get the news cycle on the morning shows, but still, that is early.

**Wolf of Wall Street is the lone holdout, and it should fall this weekend.

***Again, I can't speak to DiCaprio's performance as of yet.

Grrr.....Argh...., or why little has happened on this blog.

"Damnit, Andrew, you shirked your updates....AGAIN."

Yes, hypothetical reader who cares so much to be disappointed, outside of Erin's review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, there has been nothing done on this blog. No "Dispatches from the Popcorn Stadium", nothing about the return of Dan Harmon to Community*, nothing at all. I'm not going to sit here and spin or deny the facts.

Unlike other times, the unanticipated break was caused by a good reason. Turns out that what I thought was an annual cold was actually double pneumonia, which resulted in me being hospitalized for eight days. On top of that, I've spent the last week continuing the recover, part of a process that is going to take several more weeks before I'm fulling back to 100% strength. Only now do I feel like doing any writing, and that is just to let you know why I haven't done any writing.

It's safe to say that my Favorite Movies of 2013 feature will be greatly pared down, if I do it at all. I'm giving myself an extra week to see films (Jan 19 instead of Jan 12), and will likely just put together a 11-25 list and a 1-10 list, with short paragraphs for each film. It's not as much as I had hoped to write, but it is about all I can do at this time.

I'm not going to promise anything, but I might get "Dispatches from the Popcorn Stadium" posts out for Anchorman 2 and American Hustle, the last two movies I saw in the theater before the dark iron curtain of sickness descended. And who knows, maybe I'll throw in some TV as well. 

*Short opinion after watching the first two episodes: It's good the foul-mouthed asshole's back in charge, and I'm interested to see where this season goes.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (A "Better Late Than Never" Review)

I have a confession. I actually saw the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug on December 14th and am just now getting around to writing my thoughts on the movie. It turns out working retail is hectic during the Holidays, who knew? So I'll do my best to adequately write my thoughts on the second film in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy - in between bites of lunch, of course.

Warning! Spoilers ahead! 

As my brother Andrew so eloquently put it - "it was a good 3 hour movie that could have been a great 2 hour one."

Basically, this is all you need to know about the second installment of the ragtag group of Dwarves and their Hobbit burglar. The movie began well enough, and the pacing was definitely an improvement over the slow crawl that began An Unexpected Journey. However, some of the changes Jackson made didn't feel necessary to plot, such as Beorn stating that he was the last of his kind when the book explicitly mentions that although the mighty skinwalker will give the party refuge for the night in his house, they should beware his sons who roam outside. Also...

You know what? I'm just going to cut to the nitty-gritty. For those of who are familiar with Tolkien's classic novel, you were probably just as curious (and skeptical) about how the book could be stretched over three 3 hour long films. To pad out the second film when most of the cool stuff on the path to the Lonely Mountain had already happened in the first one, Jackson decided to flesh out secondary characters in a move that (I'm guessing, and seriously hope that I'm right about) will hopefully explain and lead towards events that do canonically take place in the book. For instance (and super serious guys, SPOILERS) the one and ONLY reason a love triangle between Kili, the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, Tauriel, the (invented by Jackson) captain of the guard of Mirkwood, and Legolas,who, need I remind you, doesn't even appear in the Hobbit book - the only reason this exists is to shoehorn Legolas being pouty in, and to hopefully set up the Battle of the Five Armies in the third movie. Need I remind you, Kili does not survive that battle. Tauriel has already saved Kili's life at least 3 times by the time the battle takes place - it's not entirely inconceivable that Kili will end up repaying the debt in an extremely dramatic and heroic fashion. As far as the other padded material goes (the Dwarves playing Scooby Doo in Erebor, Bard's heroic rogue backstory), it pales in comparison to the general WTF-ness being thrown into the viewer's face, absolutely not subtly, by the Dwarve-Elf love story. There MUST be a reason for it. There just must be. Although, now that I think about it, funny that Legolas fails to mention any of the events that happened during this movie at any time to the Fellowship in Lord of the Rings. My thoughts about a female character being created only to serve as part of a love triangle raises some ire, but I'll spare you the soapbox rant.

The other things that struck me as odd were mostly cinematography related. Lord of the Rings looked so natural because many of the effects were practical, not CGI. I tried to get past the obvious and abundant use of graphics this time but just couldn't. I was no longer immersed in Middle Earth - just keenly aware that Legolas looked rather chubby in the cheeks despite being 60 some years younger. The tone is a bit darker this time around, unlike the more lighthearted adventure that carried through in the the first movie. There are some pretty funny moments, and of course the occasional ham-handed scene, and I will say that (plot additions aside) the pace has improved.

I don't think I can summarize the movie more succinctly than Andrew did - many things could have been pared down and many of the climactic scenes bordered on tedious. It was a movie that I desperately wanted to love, but just couldn't. It's been a divisive movie for fans, with one of my fellow Tolkeinites saying, flat out, "I hated it". Definitely worth a watch if only to find what parts specifically rubbed you the wrong way.