The Best of 2013 (Sort of)

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This week’s post may seem a bit odd, why (in June 2014) would you post a recap of the best films released in 2013? Let me explain, the end of the year “Top 10 List” is a fun right-of-passage that most cinephiles do come January 1st of any year. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, as well as arbitrarily rank movies and pick the oh-so-coveted “Movie of the Year” top honor. A person’s end-of-year list can help give a snapshot of a person’s taste in movies.
Before we get started, here is a recap of my favorite movies from the past three years:

 

2010

5. 127 Hours

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

3. The Fighter

2. Inception

1. The Social Network

 

2011

5. Crazy, Stupid, Love.

4. 50/50

3. The Muppets

2. Moneyball

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

 

2012

5. Wreck-It Ralph

4. The Cabin in the Woods

3. Silver Linings Playbook

2. Lincoln

1. The Avengers

 

This brings us to 2013. Looking back on those three years, there was a sense of confidence in picking my favorite movies. There are films up there with great reviews, general agreement in the nerd community, and many Oscar nominees/winners. 2013 was a strange year; in fact, overall I don’t think 2013 was a good year for movies (at least the movies I like). I’ve never taken the time to rank my favorite 2013 movies because there were really no great films to come out last year (and I missed seeing some of the high-profile films). When you try and rank films from a year, usually 20-11 are good movies that came out, 10-5 go up in quality, and 5-1 are those great movies that you have a hard time ranking (see 2010 and 2012 above).

Well, all of my “favorite” movies from 2013 would fall in the 10-5 category of other years. That being said, I want to do a recap of my favorite movies from 2013, of all my Top 5 lists, this is the strangest one to be sure. Before we start, two things to consider: First, because I didn’t LOVE any of these movies I won’t rank them numerically, just alphabetically. Second, I have yet to see Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, Grown Ups 2, Her, or Inside Llewyn Davis (this is the other reason I have yet to make a list, I don’t feel I’ve seen enough to justify a list…btw, just kidding about Grown Ups 2).

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American Hustle (David O. Russell)

American Hustle is another hit in David O. Russell’s career revival. As you can see above, The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook made my favorite lists in their respective years. Russell’s strength as a director is getting career best performances from actors, American Hustle features an incredible cast featuring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Renner. The writing in this film is what makes it so great (as performed by the talented cast), Russell should only direct films he writes. Watching these corrupt characters lie and steal from each other in such elaborate ways proved to be a great movie.

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Fast & Furious 6 (Justin Lin)

This was the best action movie of the year. After four mediocre films, the Fast franchise got a boost of adrenaline with Fast Five. That film saw the entire cast return, as well as adding Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, for an international heist movie (that also featured cars). My problem with Fast Five is that it took itself too seriously. The dramatic moments were so heavy-handed that it took away from the quality of the action. That was fixed with the sixth installment. Though it may have a simple plot, Furious 6 is an amazingly fun movie, with incredible action and solid performances from everyone involved.

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Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)

I have no problem saying Frozen was one of my favorites of last year. There has been a resistance online to Frozen, its now the cool thing to hate on the film. Just because “Let it Go” has been overplayed in every way it doesn’t mean Frozen has dropped in its quality. The film had the potential to be horrible: overuse goofy side characters, feature a stereotypical love story, have lazy animation. But it didn’t: it kept it’s side characters to the side, instead of a standard love story it featured a beautiful relationship between two sisters, and the animation was gorgeous.

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Saving Mr. Banks (John Lee Hancock)

Disney had a great year in 2013 (let’s all forget about The Lone Ranger, shall we). Saving Mr. Banks registered with me on a couple of different levels. It was a movie about the movies and it is always fascinating to see the drama of how a film came to be. It was a dramatic movie that was so filled with joy, sometimes we need a movie to be bright and feature a happy ending. Not that it was all happy, Saving Mr. Banks also had a very emotional story to tell, the journey P.L. Travers goes on is a powerful story.

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Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor)

While not one of Marvel’s best, The Dark World delivered where Iron Man 3 failed. The movie featured great action scenes and a great world to explore. While the storyline featuring Jane might not have worked totally, the movie shines when it stays with Thor and his family drama. Just like the first film, any scene dealing with Thor, Odin and (of course) Loki succeeded. The Thor/Loki story was very captivating is what makes the Thor franchise so great.

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As I said, I didn’t LOVE any of these movies, so it is a little hard to pick a favorite. Even in 2011 when my pick of Rise of the Planet of the Apes was strange to many, I have a passion for that movie and will stand up for that film. There are no such emotions for any of these movies. That being said, I think I will come out and say it. As of June 16, 2014, Fast & Furious 6 is my favorite movie of 2013. Just because I try to prop myself up like I’m a movie-snob-film-journalist, it doesn’t mean I can’t go to theater and enjoy myself immensely at a well made action movie.

Come back next week for a follow up post and the real stories of 2013 in film: The Disappointments.

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Thank you for visiting Mr. and Mrs. at the Movies! We have discontinued this blog and have migrated over to our brand new site, Tarpley Movie Talk. If you would like more discussion of movie news, think pieces on hollywood trends and straight-forward film reviews. Please click on over to the new site and check it out.

You can also follow the blog on Facebook and follow Josh Tarpley on Twitter.