Hashmoney's Top Ten Films of 2013

2013 was one of the best years in cinema. I truly believe that this last year was just an amazing time for us as an audience. From about the month of September to early January, the films that were hitting theaters were some of the best that came out in the last few years. Heck even during the entire year, you had great films popping up at times.

From the list of films that you see below you, I picked the best films of the year because of one trait that most of them had: A human element. It seemed that amongst all the superhero films and all the loud action films that true storytelling might soon be going by the wayside. But thankfully that didn't happen.

The films on this list show all the elements that make great films. Great filmmaking talent. Superb Storytelling and great acting. Without further ado and with the Academy Awards taking place this Sunday, here are my picks for the top ten films of 2013.

10.

Prisoners was a surprise for me when it was released in late September. I expected an intense film but not one that had this many great characters in it. Every character had a great backstory to them. From Hugh Jackman's career best performance as an angry father whose is desperately trying to find his daughter anyway possible. To Jake Gyllenhall's detective who is assigned to find Jackman's son. To Paul Dano as the mentally challenged young man who is the prime suspect in the case. Everything in this film is set up for maximum impact. Even the controversial ending I loved. I won't spoil but to just say that I can't think of any other way to end it. The character, like many people in this film, was a prisoner of their own making.

9.

 

Paul Greengrass is a great filmmaker. That is no surprise. Captain Phillips was an intense true story about the MV Maersk Alabama being hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. It is written with great skill by Billy Ray, whose also wrote the under appreciated Shattered Glass and Breach. Again, not a surprise considering what a great writer Ray is. But what gets this film onto the list is Tom Hanks. Hanks has always been a great leading man and a good actor. But not since Cast Away have I seen Hanks give such an emotional performance. What he does here is amazing. Not only guiding audiences through the emotional roller coaster that he goes through as Phillips but also giving a great performance alongside actors who have never acted before. Barkhad Abdi needs to be commended as well for his performance as the lead Somali pirate. He really shows us why his character makes the hard choices he does before he take over the Alabama. Just a great intense film all around.

8.

Stoker is just a damn creepy film. The director of the original Oldboy, Park Chan-wook, just keeps viewers on the edge the whole time. We see that the family in the film is unhinged but Chan-wook does a great job sustaining the tension on how unsettling this family is. You never know what to expect. Mia Wasikowska plays India Stoker, a young girl who on her 18th birthday loses her father in a horrible car accident. At the funeral, Stoker and her unstable mother played by Nicole Kidman, receive a visit from Charlie, the brother of Stoker's father. The fun in this film is watching Stoker and Charlie interact with each other in devious ways. These two people are not normal. You know they are capable of dark, evil things. But yet you can't take your eyes off of them. That is the power Stoker has over you and it is magnificent to watch.

7.

David O. Russell is a filmmaker on a roll. All the more surprising considering that before 2010, he was someone many people left for dead after all the on set horror stories about his behavior. But he cleaned up his act and now has risen to the level we thought he was capable of early on in his career. The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook were both great films. But American Hustle is his best film. Some people have complained that Russell ripped off Martin Scorsese with this film. I don't think that is the case at all. Russell has always loved stories about characters trying to escape their circumstances and Hustle shows that off. Here we get five characters who are trying to do just that.against the backdrop of the ABSCAM operation in the late 70's. There is not a bad performance in this film. Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence both give the best performances in the film. It is great to see such life come from such a complicated film and it is even better to see Russell pull it off beautifully.

6.

Matthew McConaughey is getting raves and plenty of awards attention for Dallas Buyers Club and he should. It is a great performance. But the best film that he did this year to me was Mud. It is a simple and small film that is just great southern storytelling. Director Jeff Nichols has mentioned numerous times that the story was influenced by Mark Twain's storytelling and that is clearly evident in the film. While McConaughey gives a great performance, the story is really about the two children, Ellis and Neckbone, who find McConaughey's character hiding out along the banks of the Mississippi River. Tye Sheridian is especially great as Ellis. He has a lot of innocence to him that makes us care about him throughout the film. McConaughey though shows that with this film and with the other great performances he has given lately, that he is ready to leave behind the dumb romantic comedy roles and do films that are up to his potential as a leading man. Mud is one of those films.

5.

 

It's been a great couple of years for teen films. We have had a few great ones come out the last few years after having to suffer through the awful horror of "young adult" films that followed in the wake of Twilight. But starting with The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I think we are starting to see the slow emergence of good truthful teen films come back to us. One of those films is The Spectacular Now. It is a flat out great film. A lot of that has to do with the two lead actors in this film, Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. The chemistry these two have is amazing and it keeps the film grounded in reality. Through them, we experience what it felt like to be in love for the first time. The stupid decisions we make as teens because we are always told that our high school years are the best times of our lives. Director James Ponsoldt makes sure the film is not rushed. It moves at it's own pace. If for nothing else, the film works because the two lead characters feel like people we grew up with in high school. Find this film and watch it. It's a true buried treasure from the heart.

4. 

Some films you know are going to be brilliant. The second it was announced that director Richard Linklater had shot Before Midnight, I knew it was a film that was not going to disappoint and it didn't. Midnight show Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy are in complete control of these characters. All three have written a film that is mostly just talk. But the talk is never boring. The dialogue clues us in on what is happening in the lives of Jesse and Celine. It's been nine years since Before Sunset. The two of them have kids now and we can since the relationship is about to hit a major crossroad. When it does, all the feelings the two have felt about each other for the past nine years comes out. To watch Hawke and Delpy play these roles again is something to behold. None of the scenes they have together strike a false note. This maybe the end of the story for these two characters. But it wouldn't surprise me if in another nine years, we get another film about Jesse and Celine as they enter into old age together. We all would welcome it.

3. 

12 Years a Slave is not just a historical film. It is a nightmare. That is the best word to describe it. A nightmare. It was hard enough to be a black man in the 1800's. But director Steve McQueen makes sure we feel the horror of what Solomon Northup went through. It's hard enough for someone to be born into slavery. But to see Solomon, a free black man living up in the north, have his freedom taken away from him is just inhuman. McQueen though makes sure to never let up on the nightmare. He surrounds the story with great characters. Most notably, Edwin Epps, a cruel slave owner played with evil brilliance by Michael Fassbender. To hear Epps quote bible scripture in order to justify slavery is a truly awful thing to hear and see. The film ends on just the right note. Even if all was to go right, McQueen is right in saying that we must never forget what slavery did to this country and what a truly inhuman, evil thing it was. A powerful, well told film.

2.

Rush is a great story about a subject that we thought we were bored enough with: auto racing. But the film, which covers the 1976 Formula One racing season, does something unexpected. It gets inside the heated rivalry between James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl). Formula One is already considered a dangerous sport. Why in the world would these two drivers risk everything they have over something like car racing? That is the question director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan ask. At his best Howard is a director that is exceptional at putting you right into the middle of dangerous situations. Think back to the fires in Backdraft or the damaged shuttle going through space in Apollo 13. For Howard, Rush is his best film in a decade. With great cinematography, amazing writing, and great acting by the two lead actors, Rush is an great film to watch. Whether it is following the cars around the track or watching the horror of one of the drivers being burnt alive in 800 degree heat after a crash, Rush is just pure a simple storytelling done to excellent effect. Ron Howard needs to do more films like this. Rush shows what a great director he can be at times.

1.

Watching Gravity for the first time this year, I almost got the sense of what it must of been like to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey back in the day. The sense of wonder and being completely in awe of what was on the screen. This film was an excellent experience. One that not only was completely immersive, but one that pushed the boundaries of film forward. Director Alfonso Curon did things in this movie that were truly impressive. The special effects in this film were amazing but you never felt them take center stage. The story and the acting is what kept our attention. Sandra Bullock was grace under pressure. She plays an astronaunt who is stuck floating in space with George Clooney after space debris has hit destroyed the space shuttle they were attached to. The both of them have to survive the deep cold space as they try to avoid debris and other disasters from happening to them. That is it. The story is simple. Yet from that Curon is able to do amazing things. All the way to the end, Curon is able to leave you breathless. This film is an achievement that Curon and his film crew should be proud of. They made a film that comes once in a lifetime and was undoubtedly the best film of 2013.

Harold Ramis: Remembering the Smart Guy in the Room.

In high school, we all had that one guy in class who knew what the hell was going on. If you were in a hard class like math, you would find this guy at some point in the day and run your math problems by him just to make sure they were correct. You knew that if you didn't have this guy, you would have failed the test easily.

Harold Ramis was that guy in comedy.

Although the people he worked with usually tended to get all the spotlight put on them, he was always usually the guy in the background making sure everything worked right. It was always subtle, but when one realizes the scope of Ramis's work, one sees what an amazing career he had.

The list of films he helped write or direct were endless: Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, National Lampoon's Vacation, Ghostbusters, Back to School, Groundhog Day, Multiplicity, Analyze This, The Ice Harvest.

A few common threads emerge when you look at this list of films. For one thing, even though these films were comedies, most of them had a very sound structure and plot. The jokes and the humor were hysterical, but at their best they never overtook the films.

Look at Ghostbusters for instance. One of my all time favorite films. This is a film that has very complicated effects. Most films these days would let the effects do the work for them. Dazzle the audience to make sure they don't notice the lack of humor in the movie. But Ramis and co-writer Dan Aykroyd wrote a script that put character first. You felt the camaraderie that this group of guys had with each other. They had a history together. That probably came from Ramis and Aykroyd's working history with some of the actors in the film. But it worked like a charm and it is still one of the most quoted films ever due to this reason.

Ramis also liked writing about characters who were always up against the establishment, the elite, or anyone who were snobbish and thought they were better than anyone else. Caddyshack was a prime example. The battle between the "slobs" versus the "snobs" was the stuff of comedy legend. Animal House was another prime example, with it's battle of competing fraternities.

But in 1993, Ramis directed and co-wrote what many people (including myself) consider his best film: Groundhog Day. This film works simply because of Ramis and Murray. At this point the two of them had worked together so much, you could almost feel the shorthand between the two of them work itself out into the film. The performance Murray gives is effortless. But for Ramis, the film represented a change. Phil Connors, Murray's character, starts off like one of the typically snobbish characters that Ramis had written about in the past. But as the film progresses and as Phil continues to live Groundhog Day over and over and over again, we see Phil become a better man. He is not as rude to the people around him and he even appreciates life a little more. It was almost as if Ramis learned to let go of the bitterness he had for characters like this. It marked a change for Ramis and it was one that helped got him more respect.

At the time in 1993, Groundhog Day was only a moderate hit. But over the years it has gained a ton of respect and many people now consider it a classic. The same has been said about Caddyshack and even Ghostbusters. Much like the kid we never really thought about helping us with the homework in high school, you never really appreciate someone till they are gone. Harold Ramis was never a big star in life. But seeing the films he helped create, the moments he made memorable, he is a talent that will be missed.

 Tell them about the Twinkie.

Songs from Soundtracks That Don't Suck: #2 Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty from the motion picture "Rocky IV."

All right let's be realistic here. Rocky IV is an insanely cheesy film. Don't get me wrong, I love it. Sylvester Stallone was at his peak stardom at this point in 1987. Rocky IV would prove to be his biggest hit of his entire career. Plus the fight between him and Dolph Lundgren is just insane in every way. Heck, they even had the guts to kill off Apollo Creed!

But this is such an 80's film. Not just in the Cold War metaphors that Stallone puts all over the film but also in the music. The 80's were know for their cheese and John Cafferty's song "Hearts on Fire" might have been the cheesiest song on the soundtrack.

Yet the song works perfectly because of the part where Stallone placed it in the film: The Training Montage.

It is not a Rocky film without a training montage. While "Hearts" is no "Gonna Fly Now," it is able to get the job done. The music swells and swells and we see Rocky Balboa and his Russian opponent Ivan Drago train for their boxing bouts. The song ends on the image of Rocky climbing a mountain. A very kick ass image in every way possible.

"Hearts on Fire" is also such a perfect 80's song because it fit with the fitness craze that hit the 80's hard. Songs like this and Olivia Newton John's "Physical." fit right in with the era.

Plus you can't beat the lyrics: Hearts on fire / strong desire / rages deep within / hearts on fire / fever's rising / high the moment of truth draws near. 

Come on, that is about as close to poetry as it got in the 80's! If those lyrics and the training video above don't inspire you to go kick commie butt, then nothing will!

 Kim Applegate picked this song and she picked it well!



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