15. Dead Man Down- Noir with Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace, give great subdued performances of two people with tons of bag...gage that need one another. I saw this in March and it’s stuck with me.
14. This is the End – Hilarious comedy with comedic actors playing warped versions of themselves, tons of cameos. Vulgar and profane, filled with pot humor (which, if you know me at all, if I STILL found it extremely funny, it must be).
13. The Conjuring- Great old school 70s style horror movie. Beautifully shot and acted, very subdued in its gore. In fact, I’m still not sure why it was rated R over other horror movies I’ve seen that were gorier and rated PG-13. Was very creepy, but the only thing I wish is that studios would quit showing all the great scary parts in the trailer.
12. The Call- Great suspenseful thriller that gets going from about the beginning credits and never lets up. With a great, extra creepy performance by Michael Ecklund, as the serial killer. This was a movie I didn’t expect much from but was really surprised.
11. Olympus Has Fallen- Best “Die Hard” movie of the year, which in the year an actual Die Hard movie came out, is not a good sign for Die Hard. This was action packed from beginning to end, very violent, R-rated, which nowadays is very hard to find in an action movie. Gerard Butler was really good, and should definitely do more action movies instead of romantic comedies. This is right in my wheelhouse, very enjoyable.
10. Fast and Furious 6-Outrageous, unrealistic, unbelievable, but as far as action films go, a hell of an enjoyable movie. It does include a sequence that involves what must be the longest airplane runway in the universe, but I LOVED every minute of it. People in the audience either cheered or groaned at certain sequences. Which I thought was hilarious. The Rock has brought the last two movies to another level in my opinion. I was really looking forward to the next movie with Jason Statham as the villain, it’ll be interesting to see how they deal with the loss of Paul Walker.
9. The Dallas Buyers Club- Excellent film with great performances from Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. The trailer did a great job not telling you much about this film, which I actually enjoyed going into the movie without seeing the entire movie in the trailer. McConaughey will probably be up for an Academy Award for this, and he should be. Jared Leto should probably be up for Supporting Actor, as well.
8. The Heat- Really funny buddy comedy with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, was one of the funnier movies of the year to me. Foul mouthed and definitely worthy of the R-rating. This was a great movie poster too.
7. Captain Phillips- Great performance by Tom Hanks and also Barkhad Abdi, as his Somalian captor, in this suspenseful movie that is tense as hell and doesn’t let up. I did not know any of the details of this story, so I enjoyed not knowing where the movie was headed and how it was going to end. When Tom Hanks is being checked out by the doctor at the end of the movie and breaks down its hits you hard…..or you just have no heart, you bastard.
6. Prisoners- Very dark movie with Hugh Jackman, about his and Terrance Howard’s daughter’s getting kidnapped. Awesome performances from both, Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. Not a movie for everyone, and I’ve had an argument about the ending of this movie with a friend of mine since we’ve seen it. Her version, ends even DARKER than how I think it ends. Lol
5. Out of the Furnace- Darker movie than probably even Prisoners, amazing performance by Christian Bale, maybe my favorite performance by anyone this year. His performance with Zoe Saldana on the bridge when he tells her he wants her back is probably my favorite scene in anything this year. Woody Harrelson was awesome too, and Casey Affleck, hell pretty much everyone in this movie was great. It is a VERY depressing movie, but acted brilliantly. A shame that no one really saw this movie, as it came out in a tough month competition-wise for movies.
4. American Hustle- Great movie about a con man and woman forced to work for the FBI, great performances by Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner etc. Very funny, great music, and wardrobe.
3. The Wolf of Wall Street- Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, have made a new Casino/Goodfellas for the stock market crowd. Profane, funny, disgusting and reprehensible. Great performances and story. Being argued right now that Scorsese is glorifying this behavior, utter ridiculous to me. Was he glorifying the mob in Goodfellas and Casino?
2. Saving Mr. Banks- A movie that kind of caught me off guard, GREAT performance by Emma Thompson, and actually I really enjoyed Paul Giamatti in a very minor role as the poor chauffeur tasked with "Driving Miss Travers" to and from Disney studios. Tom Hanks was good as Disney, but after Captain Phillips, it paled in comparison, and honestly not a big part of the movie, a lot less than I imagined. Colin Farrell as Emma Thompson’s Father told in flashbacks turned in probably one of the best performances of his career.
1. Gravity – (I know this will make my friend Shannon roll her eyes, but oh well. ) Singlehandedly the most awestruck I’ve been in a theater in years. The special effects were just amazing; I know in my mind it was CGI, but damn if the inner kid part of me didn’t believe at times, that Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were actually in space. The tension was pretty much constant for the entire 90 min running time and by the end of the movie I was exhausted like I’d been trapped in space myself.
There it is, my picks for the top movies I saw in 2013. See you at the movies.
I feel so lame that I have only seen two of these. I just saw Prisoners last weekend - the only thing decent I could find on On Demand (which used to have lots of good, recent stuff and now it's all straight to DVD garbage - what happened???). I only made it through the first half and got too tired. Thought it was hokey and formulaic for the most part and thought Hugh Jackson's character was ridiculous. Then watched the rest a couple nights later and changed my mind. I ended up thinking it was pretty clever and I felt stupid for missing all the clues sprinkled throughout the film. But I still don't understand the motives and goals of the kidnappers really. I felt that was given short-shrift and not fully explored. But I'll say no more so as to not get into "spoiler" territory. Amy
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