2013’s Top 10 Movies

Greetings amigos,

It’s that (late) time again: the wrap-up to end all wrap-ups. The top 10 extraordinaire. The best movies of 2013.

Read below the jump for my very own list of movies that are a must see.

Enjoy!

10. The Wait (d: M. Blash, with: Chloë Sevigny, Jena Malone)

The Wait incorporates basically everything it needs in order to be utterly annoying: it’s a rather pretentious indie drama and, to top it all off, it’s with Jena Malone. Fortunately, the story of the two sisters that receive a phone call that advises them that their dead mother will return (!?) is full of gorgeous music and superb imagery. Moreso, the its last segment is completely haunting.

9. The Wolverine (d: James Mangold, with: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto)

A while back I wrote about The Wolverine that deep down inside, there’s a rather mature movie struggling to surface: „The Wolverine is rather atypical for an action movie and even more so for a superhero movie: the number of fight scenes is rather low (but brilliantly executed – the TGV sequence or the chanbaratribute towards the end) and the weight of the movie tends to be placed on characters and their motivations. By no means is this a character-study, but for a movie of this caliber, it deals rather well with the portrayal of its two main characters.”

8. All Cheerleaders Die (d: Lucky McKee, with: Caitlin Stasey, Sianoa Smit-McPhee)

It’s an atypical story about the typical cheerleaders, brought to life by the usual highschool goth girl. With its roots in movies like The Craft or Jawbreaker, All Cheerleaders Die deals with stereotypes, highschool life and group segregation (jocks, goths etc.) in which the aforementioned cheerleaders party, die, are brought back to life with hilarious consequences: they suffer from some sort of vampirism and can feel each other’s orgasms.

7. Frozen (d: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, with: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel)

It strays somewhat from the usual Disney manierisms (although it keeps some of the usual and mandatory tropes) because we do not have the usual villain and because we’re treated to that plot twist that, let’s face it, as an adult you kind of see it coming. Based extremely loosely on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Snow Queen, Frozen is unbelievably beautiful, extremely fun (and funny) and goosebump-inducing.

6. Fecha de Caducidad (d: Kenya Marquez, with: Damián Alcázar, Marisol Centeno)

Fecha de Caducidad is a quirky mexican movie that plays at being a drama and a thriller. Basically, a beautifully shot and carefully constructed triptych. A triptych in wich the spoilt son of a rather ancient lady goes missing and in which all of the characters are afflicted and affected by the same chain of events. Plus, there’s a lot of tomato soup being ingested.

5. The Rambler (d: Calvin Reeder, with: Dermot Mulroney, Lindsay Pulsipher)

A total coup de coeur, The Rambler (Calvin Lee Reeder’s second feature after the wonderful The Oregonian) is, essentially, a trip to the same rocky northern state – Oregon – in which Dermot Mulroney plays a sunglasses-adorned, newly-out-from-the-slammer pseudo-cowboy. It’s a play on Lynch’s films basically – dialogues and story a la Wild at Hear, characters straight (ha!) out of Straight Story and visuals on par with Lost Highway. Reeder manages to build up an atmosphere that reeks of Richard Stanley’s wonderful Dust Devil, adorned with seventies Cronenberg.

4. The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (d: Elena Psikou, cu: Christos Stergioglou, Maria Kallimani)

Antonis’ whole story is brought to life through TV coverage about his dissappearence, all the while his personality is created via his neurotic outbursts. Henceforth: the TV Antonis is an outdated TV icon, while the real Antonis is a depressed old man, paranoid, all-too-bombastic and proud, in dire want of celebrity. And that’s something that he’d do anything for, including his own fake kidnapping. As the movie draws to its conclusion, Antonis becomes even more insufferable and repugnant.

3. Broken Circle Breakdown (d: Felix Van Groeningen, with: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh)

An exercise in soul-crushing emotional turmoil with wonderful bluegrass music. It’s rare to come across a moving so haunting and so painful that is, at the same time, beautiful in a sort of twisted way (Grave of the Fireflies springs to mind instantly). The story is told with the help of seemingly randomly chosen vignettes (from a chronological point of view) but Broken Circle Breakdown does offer some moments where the tension is eased and the drama is dialed down. It does that with a perverse pleasur because, after all these little calm and seemingly happy moments, it slams you straight in the soul with its almost unbearable torture.

2. A Field In England (d: Ben Wheatley, with: Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley)

Ben Wheatley is one of the recent directors which get me all excited. Last year I had in my list of best movies his crazy tongue-in-cheek black humor-infused love story, Sightseers. If Sightseers and Kill List are relatively simple films in terms of coherence, A Field in England is a full-blown demented and psychedelic orgy. It’s wonderfully shot in black and white which only serves to enhance the soldiers’ chaotic trek.

1. La Danza de la Realidad (d: Alejandro Jodorowsky, with: Brontis Jodorowsky, Pamela Flores)

La Danza de la Realidad is essentially (and extremely loosely) young Jodorowski’s autobiography, in the most hallucinogenic , nostalgic and masturbatory sense. Jodorowski oozes all of his melancholy on the screen, trying to exorcise the demons that come from his relationship with his parents. Replete with saturated colors and heart-warming music, La Danza de la Realidad is, without a shadow of a doubt, this year’s best film. In turns funny, sad, absurd, it toys with the viewer and with his/her emotions.