June has ended and July has begun, which means we are officially into the second half of the year. So how was 2013's first half? To say the least, it's been a disappointing year. No 4 stars movies yet, which in and of itself, is not uncommon. But the most distressing thing about the year so far? Only 3 3.5 star movies. By this time, we usually have at least half a dozen or so.
To be fair, there are still several independent films that I have yet to see. I have yet to see the eco terrorist thriller, The East, which was given to us by the same writing/directing team that gave Another Earth a few years ago and I loved that movie. It's on my top 10 of that year. Another promising title I have yet to see is Upstream Color, which is from the writing/directing team of 2004's somewhat confusing but still clever and cool Primer. Disconnect also looked promising. Terrance Malick is always a wild card. I like most of his stuff, but I wasn't much of a fan of The New World. And while I thought Tree of Life was, for the most part, a terrific movie, it got off to a rough start. This year, Malick had out what may be his most divisive film yet with To the Wonder. I want to say that I'm looking forward to it, but I hear most of the dialog is told in voice over narration. That does dampen my excitement for the movie. A big Hollywood movie that I, unfortunately, missed out in theaters was Bazz Lurhman's latest, The Great Gatsby. Reviews for that one were all over the place, but that's pretty much true of almost any of Lurhman's movies. I was particularly sad to miss out on that one since it seemed like a movie that should have been seen on the big screen. I also have yet to see Before Midnight. I haven't even seen Before Sunset yet and I want to see that one before I see Midnight. One of the year's most critically acclaimed movies was the Matthew McConaughey film, Mud. That comes to us from the director of the excellent Take Shelter. I hope to see that one soon. A few other promising movies I missed include Stoker, The Company You Keep, The Kings of Summer, Trance, Spring Breakers and 42 among others. I also will be seeing Sofia Coppola's latest, The Bling Ring, sometime in the next day or so. So, yes. 2013 has been a weak year so far, certainly for big Hollywood studio efforts (several disappointments too, some of which I'll talk about in the worst of the year list), but the year might be saved by independent movies. We shall see.
Without further do, here are my top 10 of 2013 so far:
10. The Last Stand - Arnold Schwarzenegger was back and he remains in solid form. The Last Stand is aided immeasurably by Kim Jee-Woon's very stylish direction. There are some great car chases in the movie, my favorite being one near the end through a corn field. The supporting cast is surprisingly strong, particularly, and perhaps surprisingly, Johnny Knoxville, playing a guy who loves his gun. He's a hoot to watch. And so is the movie.
9. The Internship - In a year that has had it's fair share of disappointments, The Internship came as a pleasant surprise. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are almost as good here as they were together in Wedding Crashers. There is nothing remotely original about this movie. It's definitely a very formulaic film. But it's an immensely likeable effort and frequently funny and even, surprisingly, a little touching at times. Also loved the chemistry between Owen Wilson and the lovely Rose Byrn. Any movie is made better by her presence. I just wish she had more to do here.
8. Now You See Me - A clever and mostly well written movie, that begins as an usual heist movie, but by the end, morphs into kind of a revenge film. To say anymore though should be a crime. This is a movie best left for you to watch it unravel before your eyes. It's a well cast movie, with Mark Ruffalo being especially good. The only downside to the movie is that the chase scenes are filmed shaky cam style.
7. World War Z - With reports of production woes and reshoots, there was every reason to expect a complete disaster with this movie. But surprise, surprise. It's actually quite good. Taut, fast paced and extremely well directed by the always reliable Marc Forster, World War Z zips along at a good pace from one great set piece to the next. The first twenty minutes are especially dazzlingly and horrifyingly well done. With other great scenes set in Israel, an airplane and North Wales, it all comes to an immensely satisfying conclusion. A nice surprise.
6. Fast and Furious 6 - No, I did not do this on purpose. Easily my favorite of the franchise, surpassing Fast & Furious (the 4th film) and Fast Five. It's got a cool story involving Letty's reappearance after long being thought dead. And some great action set pieces involving a tank and the terrific climax set on an airplane trying to leave a runaway. Great stuff.
5. White House Down/Olympus Has Fallen - The two "Die Hard in the White House" movies that came out this year. I can't really pick one from another. I enjoyed both of them about equally. The sad part is that both of these movies are easily then the actual Die Hard movie that came out. Sigh.
4. Dead Man Down - Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace are both excellent, playing characters who have been wounded on the inside and both looking for revenge. It's a taut, moody, atmospheric, wonderfully acted revenge thriller. Bonus: it was shot here, in Philly.
3. Jack the Giant Slayer - The year's best surprise. The trailers and commercials failed to grab my attention, consequently, I went in with low expectations. I never should have doubted Bryan Singer, the director. He hasn't given me any reason to doubt him before, he is after all the guy behind The Usual Suspects, X-Men 1 & 2, Superman Returns and Valkyrie. I'll never doubt him again. The leads are appealing, the supporting cast, especially Ewan McGregory, are wonderful. The special effects and battle scenes are astonishing. And I loved how it ended. I loved every minute of this LOTR's type epic retelling of the popular fairy tale.
2. Iron Man 3 - The only big Hollywood epic this summer that was actually great. Shane Black is a better director filmmaker than Jon Favreau and he definitely does a better job of directing action sequences than Favreau. One of the best scenes of the movie, which is also one of the best scenes of any movie I have seen this year, is a scene where Air Force One is attacked, and Iron Man has to rescue 13 people who are falling to their deaths from the plane. It's a fantastic sequence.
1. Side Effects - Supposedly, this will be Steven Soderbergh's final theatrical released film. I somehow doubt that will be the case, but if does end up being true, then at least Soderbergh will have gone out on a high note. I won't even bother with saying anything about the plot. This is a movie that is best going in and watching knowing NOTHING about it. It's got so many twists and turns. It's wonderfully unpredictable. I loved every minute of this movie. Great performances from top to bottom with special mention going to Rooney Mara in a very tricky role and Jude Law, whose character goes through a real tailspin and Law never misses a beat.
That's the best and now here are the year's worst.
My Bottom 5 of the year:
5. Broken City - A crime/morality thriller that lacks any interesting characters and a story that's dull and too much that goes too much into been there/done that territory.
4. Oblivion - A dull, plodding movie. Movie looks great, the production design is stunning. And there are individual moments that work, movie actually gets off to a promising start. But the movie takes itself so seriously, it's just not fun, and quite frankly it's boring.
3. A Good Day to Die Hard - The year's biggest disappointment. I was probably more harsh on the movie than I needed to be. Truth be told, if this was just another generic action movie, I probably would have given it 2 stars, rather than 1.5. But since they are trying to pass this off as a Die Hard movie and since they call the Bruce Willis character John McClane, it just made me all the more angry. A soul crushing experience.
2. Lords of Salem - It's a Rob Zombie movie. Nuff said.
1. Scary Movie V - About as unwatchable as movies get. The Scary Movie films were never great, but even the dreadful first film, wasn't this bad. This is so bad that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was from the same guys who gave us Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, etc.
That's the first half of 2013. Here's hoping for a better second half.
Next off: a list of movies I'm looking forward to for the fall movie season, Emmy nomination coverage including shows and names that I would like to see get nominations (but most of them, if not all of them likely won't). I'll also do my predictions. And some movie reviews and some television reviews, including the end of Breaking Bad next month.
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