Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2013)

7.5/10
Long-hyped on the basis of Matthew McConaughey's radical physical transformation for the role of Ron Woodroof, an AIDS victim who starts his own "buyers club" to get non-licensed and unapproved medicine to others dying of AIDS. At the very least, it delivers on that promise - McConaughey is excellent, and so gaunt as to be frequently unrecognizable. Jared Leto co-stars and is also just as good. Jennifer Garner is in the mix as well but seems out of her depth (trying on a Texan accent exactly once) - even her character feels like an odd fit in the film itself.
I found the movie struggled a lot with its rhythm. It seemed to have a hard time figuring out when to poke fun at the absurdity of the whole situation and when to treat it as serious as it was. As such, the movie never really hits the emotional heights it seems destined for and the tragedy and comedy rub against each other awkwardly rather than meshing as a cohesive feeling.
The pace is also frequently messy, jumping to include as much of Woodroof's (admittedly fascinating) story as possible.
I criticised it a lot but really Dallas Buyers Club is not a bad movie by any means - it's interesting, entertaining, and very well-acted. But it's hard not to feel like there's an even better movie somewhere in here, something that would rise above a merely entertaining showcase for its two talented lead actors.

When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2013)

7.5/10
Corneliu Porumboiu is a fascinating filmmaker, but this may be his most impenetrable work yet. Actually it feels less like a movie and more like a series of shorts or experiments that evolved into a full-length movie. However, like in his two previous movies, his dialogue casts a spell, which is good because much of the movie consists of the seemingly mundane conversations between a director and his star actress/lover. There is a lot going on here - a director finding himself in his movie, a director with comparatively little direction, a director cramped by the limitations of his format...but "movie within a movie" talk outside, I felt like Porumboiu had interesting things to say about life itself - like Sangsoo, the repetition of life, and especially how he broke every day actions down further and further (in repeatedly rehearsing a nude scene with his actress) into the very essence of daily mundanity. I was reminded of two quotes - one I'd seen recently in a movie about how you can draw a line from point A to B, then divide that in half and draw a line to the halfway point, and divide that in half and draw another line, and so on until you go insane...and Jim Morrison's quote about the highs and lows of life and anything else being just "in between" - the in between being Porumboiu's prime concern.
I also think this was, like Police Adjective, an incredibly dark comedy...maybe the slowest-moving, least obvious comedy ever, but one nonetheless.

Devil's Knot (Atom Egoyan, 2013)

5.5/10
Devil's Knot is the book that opened my eyes to the West Memphis Three case, and it's not surprising it was eventually turned into a feature film, especially with the recent release of the WM3 stirring up new interest in the case. However, in the intervening years, we've had 4 documentaries on the crimes, so is a big budget reenactment really necessary? This movie doesn't do much to dissuade me from the opinion that it wasn't. Director Atom Egoyan is mostly wasting his talents here, and visibly struggles with the overwhelming material about the case, using multiple devices (voiceovers, subtitles, flashbacks, dream sequences, etc) to cram in as much pertinent info as he can. The result is pretty messy. The courtroom scenes are well-handled and by far the movie's strength, but they sit awkwardly against anything taking place on the outside - witness a particularly cringe-inducing scene in an elementary school, for example.
Egoyan also appears to have had no idea how to end the movie, stopping it abruptly and using text to fill in the "here's what happened since" blanks.
The WM3 story is a fascinating one, but either it doesn't translate to feature film format or Egoyan wasn't the right choice to make the attempt.

Our Sunhi (Hong Sang-soo, 2013)

8.5/10
My first encounter with another renowned director, Hong Sangsoo, went a lot better. I see a lot of Sangsoo fans mentioning this is a "slight" work by his standards, and it does have a light and breezy feel to it, but I thought that was one of its best attributes. It feels a lot like a Woody Allen movie with a clever, self-referencing script that was wry and delicate and funny and touching. It's essentially composed of a series of conversations, often in long and naturalistic takes, between Sunhi, her ex-boyfriend, their mutual friend, and her professor. I can't place my finger on it but I thought the movie also said something profound about the repetitiveness of humanity, our speech and our relationships. Overall it was a very pleasant surprise.

A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2013)

6.5/10
I've heard this is quite different from the rest of Jia Zhangke's work and maybe it was a bad place for me to start because I was expecting quite a bit more. A series of vaguely related stories that eventually come together in a loose way by the end, all concerning money and violence, and most ending rather tragically. My interest slipped as the film went on - the first few characters we met were interesting but by the end I was sort of sitting there thinking, "is this all there is?". I didn't dislike it but I can't say I was too blown away either.

The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2013)

7/10
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s filmmaking career has been erratic at best. This is the first movie he’s done since 1990’s much-hated The Rainbow Thief. Money has always been Jodorowksy’s enemy and The Dance of Reality is definitely made on a budget. It’s something of an autobiographical movie, but a strange one – it focuses on Jodorowsky’s pre-teen youth and especially his relationship with his parents, Jaime and Sara. Jaime, Alejandro’s father, is played by Brontis Jodorowsky – Alejandro’s son. Alejandro himself frequently appears in the movie as well, usually speaking directly to the camera but occasionally interacting with his younger on-screen self. Many of the scenes are, of course, surreal, and it’s impossible to tell what might have happened from what didn’t (the “dance” of the title of Jodorowsky combining the real and the imagined of his real life, his memories, his fantasies, etc.) but it’s also arguably the most straight-forward and honest work I’ve ever seen from him. It goes on for a little too long and gets a bit off track at times but overall it’s a clever, heartfelt, and interesting depiction of a true original.
Worth noting is that the screening was preceded by a short video introduction from Jodorowsky – stark naked, “as cinema should be”. Naturally

Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, 2013)

8.5/10
The last act really turned this movie from a good movie to a must-see…sort of reminiscent of what Zero Dark Thirty did last year, although I still liked that movie more on the whole. Captain Phillips is very good though, impressively maintaining its tension as it moves through a variety of set pieces and scenes. Hanks doesn’t really get to take off as an actor until the movie is almost over, but he does more in that brief time than most other actors do in two hours. I was also surprised to learn the Somalians were non-actors, as they were uniformly excellent. Worthy of the hype, for sure.

Closed Curtain (Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi, 2013)

6/10
I kind of felt wrong going to this one without seeing Jafar Panahi’s previous work, This is Not a Film, made under house arrest and after explicit orders from the Iranian government to stop making movies. But I gave it a shot, and I have to confess that the low score is owing to the fact that I just didn’t get it. It starts out simple enough, with a writer and his dog hiding out in a house and settling in to get some work done. A woman shows up, also on the run from authorities, and resists the writer’s attempts to get her to leave. The film gets stranger when Panahi himself shows up and the film focuses on him living in the house and occasionally interacting with the writer and the woman and other characters who come into the house. My best guess is that this is some sort of paean to the creative process (didn’t I already say that in another review?) mixed with Panahi’s current life and his coming to terms with his current life…but I’m not really sure. I was mostly stumped.

Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)

9/10
This was pretty much what I thought it would be, after hearing the hype for so long, but it still knocked me over, owing in large part to the two performances by the lead actresses – they are phenomenal. The movie may be “about” Adele but what I really loved and felt was a universal sentiment was how far the relationships we form in those formative teenage years are carried with us and help to shape us for the rest of our lives. It’s something I’ve always felt was true and, though I’ve seen a lot of ‘coming of age’ stories, I’ve rarely seen one that encapsulated that feeling as well as Blue did.
As far as the sex scenes, my initial reaction is to say ‘get over it’ on the grounds that it’s ridiculous in 2013 we’re all still so afraid of sex…but I would also argue that in Blue they’re essential and not at all gratuitous. The lust and sex between Emma and Adele was so endemic to their relationship that we would never have gotten the passion we do from those scenes if they were censored or if they were hidden under conveniently-positioned sheets. I feel like anyone objecting to them either forgets what it was like to be a lust-filled, hormone-ridden teenager (sad) or was never one to begin with (sadder).

Gabrielle (Louise Archambault, 2013)

7.5/10
Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar…strangely I was expecting worse, but I was also hoping for better. When I heard about the subject matter (a relationship between intellectually-challenged adults and their looming choral performance) I prepared myself for Oscar-y mawkishness. But it’s actually a very heartfelt, fun, and emotionally honest film. It treats its subjects with respect and doesn’t feel exploitative in any sense. But on the other hand I was waiting for a heavy moment or an emotional release that never really came – it just floated by, making me smile but not doing a whole lot else. The movie raised an interesting dilemma when one of the protagonists’ own mother opposes the couple’s relationship on the grounds that they’re “not like regular people”, but this thread is abandoned with no real exploration. I feel like some of the heavier issues were pushed aside to hurry to the feel-good ending. So I had fun, but I wanted more.

All the Wrong Reasons (Gia Milani, 2013)

5/10
Cory Monteith gives his last performance in this movie about four people – a career-obsessed man and his traumatized wife, a single mother barely getting by and a man trying to get his job back after losing his hand in an accident. Their stories interweave, much of the life lessons doled out here involving infidelity, but no insights greater than what one would glean from a soap opera. In fact most of the acting is pretty melodramatic and the script is passable at best – it takes some logic-defying leaps that had me rolling my eyes quite a bit.

Fata Morgana (Peter Schreiner, 2013)

8/10
Not to be confused with the Werner Herzog movie of the same name, although they both take place in the desert in an ambiguous sort of way. Another one where I went in blind, reading only from the description that it was long and slow and in black and white and all that other boring stuff that interests me. It was pretty abstract. I was actually reminded of To the Wonder, but it didn’t irritate me nearly as much as that one did, although it is privy to the same sort of clunky, pseudo-philosophical lines. I really liked the photography, though, and what I got from the movie was a sort of musing on growing old and death and letting go…but I could be way off.

A Field in England (Ben Wheatley, 2013)

8/10
Ben Wheatley is a filmmaker I’ve been missing the boat on, all his previously hyped up features just out of my grasp. I made a point to catch A Field in England and it was very good indeed. As strange as promised, with beautiful digital black and white photography, and a crazy, psychedelic climax that pushes the film from good to really good. I’ll have to check the other ones out stat.

Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (Alexei Fedorchenko, 2012)

7.5/10
I haven’t seen much of Aleksei Fedorchenko’s work, just a short from a triptych I saw last year, so I didn’t know what to expect from this one. It has a curious format – a compilation of some twentyish short stories about girls of the Mari community in Russia, all with names beginning with the letter ‘O’. Almost all the stories deal in some way with the girls becoming women and the rites of passage associated with that – puberty, menstruation, first loves and crushes, and so on. The segments range from the bizarre to the light-hearted to the touching. Nothing mindblowing but fun and interesting to watch.

The Last of the Unjust (Claude Lanzmann, 2013)

7.5/10
In 1985 Claude Lanzmann released Shoah, a 9-hour documentary on the Holocaust. While researching the documentary he met Benjamin Murmelstein, the only surviving Elder of the Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He filmed a week's worth of conversations with Murmelstein, but wrestled with what to do with the footage until recently, when he edited it into the Last of the Unjust (a term Murmelstein uses to refer to himself).
So, effectively, this is a 3 hour conversation between Lanzmann and Murmelstein in 1975, with occasional excerpts of Lanzmann in present-day visiting some of the sites mentioned. I won't summarize Murmelstein's life here but it's certainly an interesting film and Murmelstein is a very complex individual with a fascinating story to tell. He comes across as incredibly intelligent, self-aware and wry. I wouldn’t dare pass judgement on him.

Interior. Leather Bar. (James Franco & Travis Mathews, 2013)

7/10
Al Pacino starred in a movie in 1980 called Cruising, about a cop going under cover in New York's gay and S&M scene. Roughly 40 minutes had to be cut out of the movie for it to get the MPAA's approval, and those 40 minutes have purportedly been lost forever. James Franco and Travis Mathews set out to "reimagine" what that footage would have been. Interior. Leather Bar. is not that footage, however, but a documentary about filming that footage - so most of it centers on the casting process and how the participants (straight and gay alike) feel about essentially shooting gay S&M porn, focusing in particular on the straight actor playing Al Pacino's part, Val Lauren.
The question raised almost immediately is if this is an authentic documentary or not - everything seems a little too perfect, with Lauren's vague homophobia being the perfect foil for Franco to come in, deliver some "we are the world" speech, and see the light. It's also incredibly self-reflective - in one scene we see Lauren, sitting alone in a parking lot against a brick wall, reading aloud from the script for "Interior. Leather Bar." which describes how the Pacino character is reading the script alone in a parking lot against a brick wall. At another point we hear a voice "directing" a conversation between actors that initially appeared to be just a casual conversation.
What blunts the film is its hour-long running time. Rumor has it Franco's schedule only allowed 2 days for shooting, so this is what we get, rather than a complete film. There are interesting questions posed and the film is shot in a nifty way, but it's hard not to feel like it's only half-baked.

Story of My Death (Albert Serra, 2013)

4/10
Albert Serra's first two movies, Honor de Cavaleria and Birdsong, are among my favorites, retelling the journeys of Don Quixote and the 3 Wise Men respectively. Story of My Death features two more historical characters, Casanova and Dracula. Like his previous two, Story of My Death is very slow and very long (about 3 hours). Unlike his other two, it features a lot of dialogue - this is a hideous miss on Serra's part. Casanova takes up the first 2 hours of the movie, and it's a slog - annoyingly reciting Serra's lousy speeches on women, religion, history, as well as eating food forever, laughing like an idiot, having sex like an idiot, and taking a straining dump. He's a terrible character and the movie is only slightly saved by the appearance of Dracula and the threat of something - anything - happening. If you lopped off the first hour entirely, you might convince me that this is a good movie. As it is, it's borderline unwatchable.
The one "new" thing Serra did get right was the music - there are about 4 music cues in the movie (as opposed to none in the other 2, by my memory) and they're all exquisite. But as far as branching out into dialogue and conversations - keep em mute if this is the best you can do.

Heli (Amat Escalante, 2013)

7/10
Mexico's entry for Best Foreign Language Film focuses on a teenager named Heli, his wife, their baby, his sister and his father, all of whom live together in relative poverty. Heli's sister's boyfriend steals drugs from the Mexican government, planning to buy their way out of town. Heli gets caught up in it and the government immediately catches on and generally makes their life miserable.
It's a well-made movie, also tough and contains some pretty disturbing and graphic scenes...it serves as a hell of an indictment of the Mexican government but I didn't think it imparted much about its characters and how they responded to their experiences in the film. It felt a little inert in that sense, and it's a movie I don't think will resonate with me for very long. Strangely, it won the "Louve d'Or" as the best film in the festival's main competition, so I guess not everyone shares my opinion on its staying power.

Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, 2013)

8.5/10
Stranger by the Lake, written and directed by Alain Guiraudie, contains some of the most frank and graphic depictions of sex I’ve ever seen in a commercially-released movie. It’s also a great movie, a slow-burning thriller that was actually quite reminiscent of the aforementioned Tom at the Farm. This one takes place entirely (over the course of about a week) on a secluded beach in France that gay men use for cruising. The protagonist, Franck, takes interest in a man named Michel just before witnessing him drowning his lover in the lake. At the same time, Franck befriends an older man named Henri, a visitor to the spot uninterested in sexual relations. The movie details Franck’s relationship to both and his own feelings, while also serving as an ominous metaphor for the dangerous and sometimes thoughtless world of cruising. I loved the lake and beach as a “locked room” setting (the characters arrive in the day and leave at night and off-beach events and occasionally referred to, but 100% of the movie takes place there) and the cinematography and sound design were stunning. It was tense, erotic, even a little scary…highly recommended.

Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz, 2013)

7.5/10
I didn’t really know what to expect from Filipino auteur Lav Diaz’s newest, except to steel myself for its 4 hour, 15 minute runtime. I expected slowness, and Norte has its share of long takes, but they rarely feel excessive or unnecessary. The movie has a remarkably “organic” feel – the story is not overly complex, just given plenty of room to breathe. Essentially it transports Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to the present-day Phillipines. Its “Raskolnikov” descends much further, but is counter-pointed by the ascension of one of the victims of his crime. The movie is an artful exploration of political, religious and social motivations, and surprisingly watchable and engaging given its length – it just didn’t floor me like I expected it to from the post-Cannes buzz.

Why Don't You Play in Hell? (Sion Sono, 2013)

9/10
Ever since Love Exposure, Sion Sono has been on something of a downward slide for me. In the bunch of his movies I’ve seen since (Cold Fish, Guilty of Romance, The Land of Hope) he’s been interesting, but failing to reach the heights of Love Exposure. So it was a thrill to walk out of Why Don’t You Play in Hell? wondering if it was even better than Love Exposure. It’s definitely the most similar, an absolutely frenetic piece of work that proceeds mostly at breakneck pace. The plot is typically insane – a yakuza must shoot a movie for his imprisoned wife featuring their reluctant daughter relying on a group of cinema diehards called the Fuck Bombers praying every day for their chance to make their masterpiece. To say any more would be unfair, but Sono crafts a frequently hilarious, smart, ridiculous, gory, intricate work that is just a blast to watch. It’s both a love letter to movies and a sharp criticism of Japanese cinema in the present day, and like Love Exposure, it simply has to be seen.

Jealousy (Philippe Garrel, 2013)

6/10
I’m a big fan of Philippe Garrel’s 1968 experimental film Le Revelateur, and I’ve always wanted to see his 1972 film that looks even crazier, Le Cicatrice Interieur. I haven’t heard much of him in the intervening years so I checked out Jealousy, his fourth consecutive film starring his son Louis. Louis plays an actor with an ex-wife, a new girlfriend, and a young daughter. The film focuses mainly on Louis and his girlfriend’s indiscretions and the titular emotion it evokes in both of them, but briefly touches on the jealousy felt by his ex-wife at their daughter’s new relationship with Louis’ girlfriend. It’s a pretty rote examination of jealousy, almost entirely unremarkable save for the charming performance of the young girl playing the daughter. With a paper thin plot and barely clocking in at over an hour in length, this feels like a minor effort indeed from someone who did some way more interesting things 40 years ago.

Tom at the Farm (Xavier Dolan, 2013)

9/10
Keeping Xavier Dolan’s last movie, Laurence Anyways, in mind, I expected a little melodrama in Tom at the Farm, and I definitely got it. But I found it to be refreshing, not self-conscious and not ironic and it made for a stronger movie. The workings of the film itself are very interesting, as what initially starts out as a contemplative study of homophobia and attraction and family relationships gives way to something approaching a thriller, which could have been very messy in the hands of a clumsier director. Instead Tom at the Farm maintains its tension almost impeccably, relying on incredible performances from its small ensemble cast, and is consistently enthralling. The use of an unsubtle string score was another gamble I felt paid off, really pulling you into the atmosphere of a psychodrama in a Hitchcock/Herrmann style. I feel like the ending was a bit of a misstep, or perhaps I built myself up too much for a final reveal or twist that was never in the cards. That tiny quibble aside it’s an excellent movie.

The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2013)

6.5/10
I haven't seen it but I have heard a lot about Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani's previous feature, Amer, as an extremely stylish ode to giallo movies. When this was announced, with its ridiculous title and promise of ridiculous things within, I decided to go with low expectations. The film, unfortunately, met those expectations. It's a visual feast, from setting to effects, and it has some scenes that will stick with me for a long time - a body possession scene in particular is the best of its kind I've ever seen. The plot starts promising enough (a man's wife disappears inside their apartment with rumors of other disappearances leading to speculation that the building itself is consuming people) but it quickly goes way off the rails and I'd pay good money to anyone who was actually able to explain the plot coherently. The ending is more silliness tacked on to silliness but at an hour and a half running time, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome. Fun to look at but not much else.

A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (Ben Rivers & Ben Russell, 2013)

8/10
I didn't know much about this one going in, and when it was over, I didn't know much more about it. It's directed by experimental video artist/filmmakers Ben Rivers and Ben Russell. Rivers is known for blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, and ASTWOTD follows suit. Its loose center is a man played by Robert A.A. Lowe, best known for making music under the name Lichens. In the first segment he's shown living in a sort of hippie commune on an island in Estonia. In the second segment, he's off on his own in the wilderness of Finland. In the final segment, he's performing in a black metal band in Norway. At no point does the question of a plot come up, and the film felt to me like a sort of recreation or paean to the mysticism of creation. The film is an extremely slow and measured pace (the black metal concert scene appears to be one continuous shot that must go on for at least half an hour) but is extremely hypnotic. Russell and Lowe were on hand for a Q&A afterwards and despite coming across as very genial and enthusiastic, clarified precious little about the actual movie. Which was okay too, because I liked it.

The Sixties Quartet (Jonas Mekas, 1990-1999)

7/10
More from the Mekas retrospective, this was a compilation of 4 half-hour-ish short films from Mekas shot in the 1960's and released in the 90's. The first was "Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections". The first half or so was dubbed over with live audio of a static-filled, droning VU performance of "I'll Be Your Mirror" that I enjoyed quite a bit. Much of the footage was Warhol at home, on vacation, and occasionally at work.
The second film was "Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas" and was probably the one I was least interested in, not knowing much of George Maciunas. There was some cool footage from early Fluxus happenings though and seeing the likes of George Brecht, Nam June Paik, Yoshi Wada and even John and Yoko was fun.
The latter were the stars of the next one, "Happy Birthday to John, with John Lennon and Yoko Ono" and the title is very self-descriptive, featuring footage shot of a birthday party thrown for Lennon. It was cool to see some rare, casual footage of monstrously famous people, and wondering at the discourse taking place between John and Miles Davis in the garden at John's birthday party was a treat.
"This Side of Paradise with Jackie, Caroline and John Kennedy Jr." (aka "Scenes from an Unfinished Biography") was the last film, featuring footage shot from a vacation Jackie Onassis took shortly after John Kennedy's death as something of memoriam for Jackie and John's children. The idyllic vacation footage from a beautiful place featuring more hugely famous people being themselves was exhilarating, even if much of the footage here was repeated from the Warhol film. Glad I got to see these, they were a treat.

Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas, 1972)

6.5/10
A quasi-documentary directed by Jonas Mekas as part of a retrospective of his work, the film features footage from the 50's, 60's and 70's as shot by Mekas and detailing his life in the turmoil of Lithuania, his exile to America, and the return to his home country. It has more of a "home movie" feel than a documentary feel and, coupled with Mekas' slow, halting English voiceover, it can be a struggle to keep your attention held, but it had its interesting moments. Jonas attended the screening and gave a cool Q&A afterward, which was very impressive considering he's 90 years old!

Miss Violence (Alexandros Avranas, 2013)

7/10
This is a Greek film that was met with some controversy when it screened at Venice, and not without merit. It's a dark and pretty disturbing film. The plot is reminiscent of a Greek sensation from a couple of years ago, Dogtooth; a film I enjoyed very much. Miss Violence also centers around a father with an extremely unconventional way of raising his children and grandchildren. Where Dogtooth was a bit more surrealist and darkly comic, Miss Violence aims for the unsettling and harrowing. That doesn't make it a better movie, in my opinion, but it's not too bad in its own right as a harsh criticism of Greece as embodied in a patriarchal figure eating its own.

To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2012)

4/10
As much as I like Terrence Malick, most of his movies make me cringe at some point. That's the risk you take in being a poet, or being a romantic, as Malick likely considers himself (and he has a good claim to both titles). But To the Wonder is like Malick without a filter - a 2 hour stream of the worst bits to ever worm their way into his movies. The constant voiceovers are an unending source of embarrassment, coming off completely mawkish and juvenile. They would appear clunky in anyone's debut feature, but for a vet like Malick, they're unforgiveable. The characters flit and romp and carouse in every scene to the point of obnoxiousness, and god help me if Ben Affleck picked up a cheque for his "performance" in the movie.
Every now and then you get a glimpse of the good Malick can do - I really liked the sterile suburban housing setting, some images are indelible (a girl playing hopscotch in the sunlight pouring through a window) and Malick is still a fantastic documentor/recreator of something classically American in cinema. You can usually count on his pretty images to pick up the slack when Malick's storytelling falters, but they can't bear the entire weight, and even they start to appear cheap and repetitive as the backdrop for a wholly uninteresting, uninvolving and emotionally inert movie.

Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013)

9.5/10
Werner Herzog once said of movies, "we are surrounded by worn out images, and we deserve new ones". As far as new images go, Gravity fits the bill better than anything I've seen in recent memory - it's hard to even believe that this was a movie, made in a studio somewhere. It feels, more than anything, like a genuine documented excursion into space with the viewer being taken along for the ride. I guess the only thing to remind you that it isn't real is the presence of Clooney and Bullock. I don't have a problem with either of them, and they're both very good in the movie, but it is the one thing on screen to constantly remind you you're watching a movie. Maybe casting two unknowns would have been the better choice? Although, then, no studio would have bankrolled the effort. So I get the conundrum. All things considered it's an excellent movie, a breathtaking (almost overwhelming) experience, and something that will undoubtedly be seen as a cinematic landmark for years to come. I wouldn't have a problem with this winning Best Picture at all.

Rush (Ron Howard, 2013)

8/10
It occurred to me when typing the above that this is a movie that deserves a better (or at least a more original) title than....Rush. At the very least it's an accurate description of the feeling watching the racing sequences - those are tremendously well done and really give you the exhilaration of being there.
Rush is going to draw inevitable comparisons to Senna, and for the first hour or so it doesn't do a whole lot to distinguish itself (again, in-car sequences aside). The period setting (recreated here, historical in Senna), the two conflicting drivers with charisma, their off-track pursuits...it's all well done, but familiar.
Where I felt the movie really set out on its own and succeeded was in the last hour or so - basically everything from August 1 1976's "decisive race" onward. The August 1 race is tension-filled, especially if you don't know the story as I didn't, and the aftermath brings a lot of welcome gravitas to Hunt and Lauda that was missing in the broad strokes that defined them in the first half. Maybe the ending was a little more protracted than it needed to be, but not by much. After recently seeing a couple of movies with final-act let-downs, it was nice to see one that took it up a notch instead.

World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013)

6.5/10
I haven't read the book, so I'll steer clear of that discussion entirely, although from what I understand they pretty much only share a name in common.
This is a strange movie, because despite its checkered production, it does a lot of things right. Better than probably any zombie movie I've ever seen, it did a great job showing a zombie epidemic on a truly massive scale. Not just in the globe-trotting scenes but in the sheer amount of zombies and how quickly entire major cities are overrun. I liked how the movie hit the ground running and the pace made for an exciting middle section that pulled me along nicely as Pitt's character zipped around looking for a cure. The final act really let the movie down, and felt like it was stitched in from a previous, lesser version of the same movie I was just watching. The "stealth mission" in the hospital to get the MacGuffin was weak, the ending was telegraphed from a mile away, and it includes one of the most weirdly jarring instances of product placements I've ever seen. I won't spoil the ending but it's the one you knew you'd get 5 minutes into the movie anyway.
The movie relies on way too many tropes for its own good - Pitt as the retiree called to do One Last Job, his daughter with the useless ailment that vanishes from the storyline a half hour in, the gruff army badass...it's hard not to feel like these are pieces cobbled together from the many revisions the script endured...and even harder to not roll your eyes when they show up.
Interestingly the zombies are treated pretty anonymously - no gruesome set pieces, no crazy kills, almost no gore and a minimal amount of blood. I'm sure it was done to lock down a PG-13 rating but I think it served the film well too - too often zombie movies can feel "too cinematic", self-consciously one-upping prior zombie movies in makeup or in CGI or distracting set pieces. Here it felt like a bit more of an authentic treatment of zombies as an epidemic and not just a way to shock or scare the audience.
Considering how disastrous the movie was expected to be and how much it apparently strays from its source material, it's pretty passable entertainment. It could have been a lot more, but I guess it could have been a lot worse too.