January 20-26 Recap

Films

City Lights
Director: Charles Chaplin
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1931)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B+

I have yet to see a silent movie I love more than Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr., but City Lights comes close. Sweet, silly, and full of heart, the film makes it easy to see why Chaplin was such a beloved performer. His Little Tramp is so full of pathos and comic nobility that it's impossible not to root for him--especially when his intentions are so good.

The film has plenty to say about social strata and injustices--and about fundamental humanity that crosses all economic, racial, and other boundaries--but it doesn't really hit you over the head with those points. They just seem to shuffle themselves out of Chaplin's silly little walk: a hypocritical and drunken rich man, a bum who helps save a potential suicide, a black man who tries to share his knowledge with a white man, and on and on. All that, plus Virginia Cherrill's great performance as a sweet blind girl make this my favorite Chaplin movie so far (though admittedly, I have a lot of blind spots here--no pun intended). A pretty great little film.

Diabolique
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Genre: Thriller
Source: France (1955)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: A

What a great thriller! Diabolique works in ways like a standard Hitchcock thriller, but Clouzot ratchets up the tension in his own unique ways; this surpasses many of Hitch's own efforts and stands comfortably with the master's best. In fact, Clouzot is beating Hitchcock to the punch on several ideas that would later be attributed to Hitchcock. It's smart, it's frightening, and it is brilliant film making.

I couldn't look away from this film, and even if I suspected part of what was going on, the director found twists and turns that made it increasingly unsettling. The filthy pool, the photograph that could have been just a trick of the light, the shadows and sounds in the climactic scene--all of it brilliantly shifts ever so slightly beneath our feet, defying our expectations in small or large ways, so that we too, like Vera Clouzot's Christina, find ourselves increasingly unsure what to think or believe. It's really effective. And Christina herself is a fascinating figure. In the film's climax she is dressed in a sheer nightgown that is both old fashioned as well as sheer and revealing, and that combination serves as a great metaphor both for Christina's character and the film as a whole. 

I understand this film was remade in the 90s, and I have to wonder why bother? This nearly sixty year old film stands up perfectly well to any thriller of recent days. 

Frozen
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Genre: Animation
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

People repeatedly told me this was a really good little animated film, but the trailers did nothing for me, and that little snowman looked dumb. Fortunately for me my wife wanted to see it, because people were right, the movie is pretty great, and the snowman is actually pretty funny.

I like that Disney is taking a few notes from the conversation about what harm the "princess image" can do to girls, because this is clearly a film aimed at sending more positive messages to young women. Here we have a princess determined to save her sister--not in order to win the love of a man, but because her relationship with her sister matters to her, and she thinks the world is wrong about her sister. Not only that, but even as it gets into more standard territory regarding "true love" and the usual fairy tale fluff, the film finds ways to twist it and continue to affirm the empowerment of Princess Anna in smart ways. It's Disney film that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, and that's a really nice thing to see.

On top of that, it's clever, comic, and engaging. The music is pretty great, the visuals are beautiful, and the humor is really funny. Josh Gad took a while to grow on me as an actor, and he's often miscast I think, but when he gets the right material he is pretty hilarious.

I just really enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.

Glengarry Glen Ross
Director: James Foley
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (1992)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C+

I think this film was basically designed to give each of the different actors a little set piece monologue they could run with. I get the draw of that--these are great actors who are clearly into the project--and there's a bit of an "ode to the crappiness of work" element to the thing that is appealing, but the film didn't really click for me. Jack Lemmon did, and since in a lot of ways he's our access point in to this world that's good, but the film as a whole got a little tedious, even at only 100 minutes. 

As a writer, David Mamet works for me until he exhausts me, and that's pretty much how this film felt. The story is relatable (who hasn't felt under-appreciated at a job before?), the acting is great, and so on. I just got tired of it all long before the movie did.

Big Trouble in Little China
Director: John Carpenter
Genre: Action Comedy
Source: USA (1986)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B-

Silly 80s B movie that has Kurt Russell drawling his way through a mishmash of genres--kung fu movie, monster matinee, supernatural thriller, etc. There's no real logic at play here, and at times it seems almost defiantly bad, but it's also kind of defiantly fun. As Russell (as the always cool Jack Burton, a kind of blue collar truckstop Indiana Jones) and his buddy Wang battle their way through a series of Mortal Kombat rejects to save the women they love, the film gets more and more absurd as the movie progresses, but it doesn't seem to care.

Really, it's just the kind of movie I wish I had seen when I was about ten. I would have loved it as a kind of grown up Goonies. Now I can just enjoy it for the fun it provided for me on the treadmill.

Some Like It Hot
Director: Billy Wilder
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1959)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: DVD
Grade: A-

I rewatched Some Like it Hot to teach the basic three act structure and linear storytelling to my high school Intro to Film Class, and I was pleased to say the film still works well, both for film aficionados and for students leery of anything made before the year of their birth. I primed the pump a little bit by emphasizing how this was one of those films that seemed scandalous according to the standards of the Hays Production Code, and its success helped put a nail in the coffin of that system (though it wouldn't completely disappear for another eight years). I talked about how many movies still took their cues from this early cross-dressing film comedy (White Chicks, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Tootsie all came to mind) and discussed the reasons director Billy Wilder wanted to keep it in black and white. Then I crossed my fingers and started the film.

They ate it up! OK, maybe I had to help them understand what kind of comedy to watch out for (the lines, "You must be the new girls." "Yes, very new." still make me laugh), but they bought into it pretty quickly. And why wouldn't they? Jack Lemmon is a riot here, playing a character so over the top he might be insane. Tony Curtis is doing such strange things with his voice that you can't help but be drawn in. And Marilyn Monroe? Well, I haven't seen everything Monroe has done, but I know that from what I have seen this is just one of her best roles ever. Sugar is sexy, but she's also vulnerable and sincere and a little dumb but a lot good-hearted, and it's that image of Marilyn that seems to have lived on.

Fifty-five years later, I'm pleased to report the film still has legs--and shapely legs at that, whether they belong to a man or a woman.

(Side note: This is a pretty solid film for teaching the traditional three act structure. The inciting incident, plot points, midpoint, and climax are all really easy to identify. I might put this one back in rotation for film class.)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Genre: Spy Thriller
Source: USA (2014)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: B-

Standard grade thriller here. I don't find it to have the highs of my favorite Jack Ryan movies (Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger) but it's much better than Affleck's attempt at whatever brand Hollywood is determined to sell here. What is that brand, by the way? What purpose does giving this character the same name as Tom Clancy's well known hero actually accomplish? This could have been any burgeoning spy franchise. I don't quite get it.

That aside, though Branagh (even after his turn with Thor) seems like an odd choice for director, and though at times the film seems to lose track of itself in its editing, and though the story as a whole is in pretty well worn spy thriller territory, I had a nice enough time with the film (until the final act, which just felt a little silly). Pine is a solid leading man; the dynamic set up between he and his girlfriend is really great; Branagh is even a fun understated-yet-still-chewing-scenery type of villain. There are even some sequences that really work--the first major fight scene in the film is great: no choreographed martial arts, no superhuman ballet, just a gritty and rough scramble to stay alive. But my favorite part here may be Kevin Costner. After the summer's Man of Steel, I can't help but think he's better as a mature supporting actor than he ever was as a leading man.

Branagh's presence notwithstanding, this ain't Shakespeare, and it's not even a super original spy movie. But it's kind of a fun popcorn movie, and given the barren wasteland that is usually the beginning of the year, there are worse movies out there to see.

I Married a Witch
Director: Rene Clair
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1942)
Rating: NR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B

Yep, crush on Veronica Lake still confirmed.

This film is several steps below the only other Lake film I've seen (the classic Sullivan's Travels), but she remains fun, alluring, and ridiculously likable. Frederic March is all right as the often befuddled Wallace Wooley (as well as a whole host of his ancestors), and Cecil Kellaway seems to be having a good time as a sorcerer (and father of Veronica Lake's Jennifer) named Daniel, but really this movie is all about Lake. The plot keeps moving forward in increasingly weird and silly directions, but Lake serves as the energetic and self-possessed center of it all. 

The movie has a few other things going for it as well: a few clever effects (the "moving" smoke, a simple double exposure, actually works really well), sharp dialogue, and a zany sense of fun. The film even even made me laugh out loud a few times (every time the singer started in to "I Love You Truly" it just got funnier and funnier). But make no mistake, this movie is all about Lake. She brings a confident but innocent sense of sex to the role (from her smoke covered but suggested nude first appearance to her repeatedly showing up in Wooley's bed) that is alluring, but she also just exudes playfulness in every scene that makes it impossible not to smile along. Maybe she can't sing (I'm not sure who thought her little fireplace song would be a good idea), but when you've got this much appeal on screen, you don't have to.

She's just great.

Books

The Good Lord Bird (by James McBride)
I'm really on a roll with fantastic books this year.

Every once in a while you get to read a book that really pushes all your buttons, and The Good Lord Bird was one of those books for me. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, I heard again and again (so much so that I started to tune out) about Bleeding Kansas and the border wars with Missouri ruffians over the slavery issue. Of course we focused in Lawrence on Quantrill's burning of the city in 1863, but we also touched on John Brown's time in the state. After all, there in the capitol building in Topeka is that mural of Brown--a raging lunatic with a flowing beard, Bible and gun in hand. He's a terrifying figure, looking equal parts inspiration and insanity.

In The Good Lord Bird, James McBride brings Brown to vivid life, a prophetic madman who is driven by God or folly to try and end slavery by waging a one man war against it, no matter the cost. In McBride's incredibly skilled hands, we see Brown through the eyes of Henry/Henrietta Shackleford, better known as Onion--a slave boy mistaken for (and then disguising himself as) a girl, freed by Brown and accompanying him from his Kansas days and through Harper's Ferry, able to testify to the Old Man's derangement as well as his determination, his psychosis as well as his passion. The novel is funny, rich, and often poignant, and in less skilled hands it could have been to self-serious or too wild, but McBride finds a perfectly Twain-like balance between the two. Onion him/herself isn't quite sure what to make of Brown, and so she sees identifies his deficiencies with a deft eye. But she also respects this man who trusts so fully in his cause and in his God that his faith makes his defeats into victories and his victories into divine will. Onion's adventures sometimes take him/her away from Brown, and buried in the narrative is an equally compelling coming-of-age story of a young black man in the worst of times, when anything you need to do to save your skin--even denying your identity by putting on a dress--seem to make sense.  McBride writes with a sense of the hypocrisy surrounding the slavery question, both of the whites and of the African Americans themselves. Frederick Douglass may be taken down a peg or two, even as Harriet Tubman is elevated. In the end, those who do nothing but talk are exposed for the pretense and false virtue, while those who act--in whatever way they know how--are elevated and celebrated. 

There are elements of the novel that I'm still working through. I'm not sure, for example, what the opening set up for how Onion's story came to be told really serves any particular purpose, other than to set up the possible unreliability of the narrator (an idea further confirmed by a few of the details that don't quite match up within the narrative), and perhaps a second read through would help me see why having an unreliable narrator might be a boon to this book instead of a detraction. But on the first time through I just loved the journey, the voice, the characters, and the contemplation the book inspired. It's quirky, but it's also one of the best books I've read in a long time--and I like a lot of books.

What a great way to start the year.

Grade: A

January 13-19 Recap

Films

Europa Report
Director: Sebastian Cordero
Genre: Sci-fi
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

A solid pseudo-documentary about an international mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, Europa Report really surprised me. I tried to watch the film once a couple of months ago and must have been distracted, because this time through I couldn't tear myself away. The documentary hook works well (especially as you start to realize who's not being interviewed) and the nonlinear narrative works well in building suspension and emotional weight. 

Mostly I loved that the film seemed to be a bit of a love letter to sci-fi films. I caught pointed references to both Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssy, and I'm sure a second viewing would reveal even more homages. I've never heard of writer Philip Gelatt before, but the deftness with which he handles the pacing (and particularly the climax) of the film makes me want to seek out more of his work. This was a pleasant surprise. I'm glad I gave it another shot. 

Nebraska
Director: Alexander Payne
Genre: Drama/ Comedy
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

Do you have to be from the Midwest to really appreciate Nebraska? I'm not sure. Maybe there's a plainness, a sadness, to small towns and working class people everywhere that crosses geographical boundaries. I've heard Payne be accused of not having much sympathy for his characters before, but that's not at all what I saw in this film. I saw an honesty and an optimism that, while perhaps at times misguided (like Woody's belief that he has won a million dollars) also has a kernel of heart and sweetness to it that gets at something genuinely human. It may be sad, but there's also heart and sweetness, if you can get past the rough surface. Just like Bruce Dern's Woody Grant.

There's a lot to like here. The acting really is fantastic. Payne doesn't seem to be afraid of pauses, or of letting his actor's speak in awkward cadences, much like real life. I didn't love June Squibb (nominated for Best Supporting Actress), but I was blown away by Dern (nominated for Best Actor), Will Forte, Bob Odenkirk, and several of the minor characters. Angela McEwan's Peg Nagy (who runs the local newspaper), for example, seems to be genuine, a woman who has seen a lot and done a little and is thoroughly pleased with her life. She's got a grandmotherly sweetness to her that reminds me of my own grandmother. Scenes of awkward gatherings, where there's really not much to say to family you rarely see, so you find something else to do to distract yourself (like watch a football game, which decreases the opportunities for awkward small talk) remind me of times visiting my family or going to friend's houses.

The film is funny as well. Cousins Bart and Cole--and their determination to talk to Forte's David about what kind of car he drives, despite his utter lack of interest in the discussion--reminds me of so many conversations I've had since moving to the South. Payne finds comedy in age and even in dementia that manages to recognize the humor while refraining from being too cruel. 

And it's really beautiful. I don't know the last time (if ever) I saw a black and white movie on the big screen, but there's something beautiful about it, a reminder of just how many shades of grey there are in the world. The cinematography fits the bleak Midwest winter landscape, but it also finds beauty in a sunrise, or in a cold breath, or in a truck driving down an empty road. I'm not afraid of black and white film the way I was as a kid, but I hadn't expected to see it move me so much when projected on a big screen.

This is one of those movies I can see a lot of people enjoying but being ultimately apathetic about (despite the Oscar nods), but I really found it an honest and heartfelt film. Really great.

Books

Jim Henson: The Biography (by Brian Jay Jones)
Who doesn't love the Muppets? I know I do, and clearly author Brian Jay Jones does as well. While I was interested enough in Henson's life, ups, and downs to keep reading, however, I wish Jones had as much creativity in writing about Henson as Henson had in writing about, say, coffee advertisements. It's not that this was a bad book. It was just much flatter than I expected it to be. 

Granted, I'm much more of a fiction than a biography kind of guy, so perhaps I just came at the story of Henson's life and work from the wrong angle, but I got bored much more often than I expected to. Jones writes about every detail of Henson's life with little regard for what details are interesting and what are somewhat bland. He waxes philosophical on Jim's rather generic childhood for nearly a hundred pages and spends nearly as much time writing about how who he hires to decorate his house as he does about much more interesting elements such as Henson's disagreements with Roald Dahl. I think the problem is he likes Jim and the Henson family (both literal and professional) so much that he's not really as interested in exploring Jim's complexities and contradictions as he is praising and celebrating him. Which is fine, it's just that it gets a little dull.The book becomes a chronicle rather than a story, and the peaks and valleys that should be there eventually all get evened out and flattened.

Which is not to say there's not great stuff here. Jones clearly drives home several aspects of the "What made Henson tick" question: his love of creativity, his desire for positivity, the pleasure he took in work. All of those elements are explored--and explored well--at several points throughout the book. And though the book could and should have had more pictures (Jim was, after all, a visual storyteller), reading the biography was still fun in that it drove me to the Internet repeatedly to look up film clips (like Henson's short film "Time Piece" on YouTube) or to find scenes with individual Muppets. And it also made me wish I had some Muppet movies/tv episodes in my own collection!

In the end, the book isn't bad, it's just not as dynamic or compelling as it should have been, given the creative genius at its heart.

Grade: C+

Eleanor & Park (by Rainbow Rowell)
I devoured this book like Saturday morning breakfast cereal.

Rainbow Rowell captures about as perfectly as I could hope that feeling of teenage love--the consuming, overwhelming, enveloping feeling of wanting and needing and feeling hungry to consume another person that anyone who had a relationship that mattered to them in high school is sure to recognize. 

And in Eleanor and Park, she creates the kind of misfits that so many teenagers can identify with. Not so much the idealized wunderkind who other YA writers celebrate, but the mostly average kid who is passionate about a few things and lost about a lot of things and feels broken much of the time and doesn't know she (or he) needs someone who helps her (or him) feel found. Kids who love music and comic books and are smart, but they're not savants, and they're not about to change the world or save the world, because they're just trying to survive. Because sometimes high school can be the loneliest place on the planet.

And then someone says something like, "You can be Han Solo. And I'll be Boba Fett. I'll cross the sky for you." And if your little heart doesn't melt a little at that, then you're not the kind of person I probably have much in common with, because damn, that's fantastic. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for Rowell's millions of metaphors about trying to capture that feeling of love. 

There is drama here. One of the two lives in a hellacious and abusive home. Teenage cruelty, and parents who don't understand, and figuring out how to get time alone. All that drama is here, and more. 

But at heart, it's about being an outsider, and finding someone who makes you feel like you're a part of the only inside circle that matters. 

I loved it.


(PS: On Spotify Rowell has listed a killer soundtrack to the novel. A mixtape from Rowell to us--a kind of "Best Of" of Park's mixes for Eleanor. It's fantastic.)

Grade: A

January 1-12 Recap

During a short break from the blog I decided I'd rejigger the format a little bit and try to meet my twin desires of both 1) making the upkeep of the blog a little less of a hassle and 2) continuing to record my observations and reactions. In that regard, I'll probably be posting only once a week or so where I recap my viewing and reading for the week. In that way, I can say a lot if I have a lot to say, and just a little if I don't have much to contribute. We'll see if it works.

Films

The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Comedy/ Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: B-

Here's the thing. It's entirely possible to respect and admire a movie for its quality of film-making, acting, and nerve--and even to love a few individual sequences--and still be overall turned off by it. Such was the case of The Wolf of Wall Street. Am I supposed to laugh at a despicable person like Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort? Laugh with him at all the schlubs he's taking advagtage of? Admire the unbelievable level of debauchery with which he is able to live his life?

I can't comfortably do any of those things. Sure, the sequence where he's high on Quaaludes and attempting to make his way to his car, his home, and his friend may be entertaining, but at a certain point (and frankly that point comes early in the movie's too long three-hour running time) his antics, selfishness, and downright dastardliness stop being "fun" and start being just an assault on the eyes and on good taste. DiCaprio is playing him up as a devil-may-care bad boy, and I suppose he is, but I just got tired of him. And then I still had like two hours of movie remaining. Because this sucker is long (3 hours)!

I know I'm in the minority here, because the movie is getting tons of praise. And I get Scorsese is applying his same trademark bad guys you watch rise and fall routine he pulled in Goodfellas and Casino. And maybe my expectations were just too high (this is probably the film I was looking forward to most in 2013). But this mostly just left a bad taste in my mouth. Wouldn't recommend it and have no interest in seeing it again. I don't need to see Belfort live out his selfish, egotistical fantasies in order to realize that's no way to live life.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Director: Adam McKay
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: C+

Yep, this is why beloved comedies don't need sequels. 

There are some very funny parts to the film here for sure. The lighthouse sequence really did make me laugh several times--and not just because those beach scenes were filmed near where I live. And predictable as the newsman battle was, it still really did crack me up. And there were great jokes here and there.

But then there are many moments when you realize too much of a good thing is . . . too much. Steve Carell's Brick loses his wackiness the more we see of him. Sometimes Will Ferrell yelling is just Will Ferrell yelling. And the commentary here about the dumbing down of the news and the blending of news and entertainment is just a little too spot on. 

In the end, it just made me realize how much I enjoy the first film. This felt like a pale imitation.

Run Lola Run

Director: Tom Tykwer
Genre: Action
Source: Germany (1998)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Blu-Ray
Grade: A

What a great surprise! As a film teacher I'm always looking for movies that will be accessible to my (mostly disinterested) high school students while still teaching some basic film premises. With that in mind I picked up Run Lola Run cheap thinking I'd take a look at it and see if it would work for my students. Foreign? Check. Valuable for key film principles? Check (nonlinear film, editing, sound, etc.). Fun and interesting? Absolutely.

Tykwer's film may feel like a 90s film (from the electronic soundtrack to the styles and so on) but it's also full of vitality, surprise, and adventure that kept me enthralled. I can't wait to dig into it deeper and to share it with my students. I love the sense of play as the story retells itself three times, each time exploring how small changes and choices have big effects.

That screaming though. What's up with that?

The Last Stand

Director: Kim Jee-Woon
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

This is not a great film, but it is definitely a better film than I was expecting. Kim Jee-Woon might not be working with materials as rich or as philosophical as some of his Korean films, but as a modern update on the Western, this is pretty good work. I mean, in a lot of ways this is High Noon as filtered through Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fast and the Furious, and I found myself entertained and hooked from early on.

Granted, the attempts at comedy here mostly misfire, and I don't mean to imply it has the classic stature of High Noon, but it's doing a solid job hitting those classic cowboy notes, and with fairly intense (and surprisingly bloody) action to boot.

Pretty good background film for folding laundry or kicking back on a Saturday afternoon.

Her

Director: Spike Jonze
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

While Wolf of Wall Street left me cold, I had the complete opposite reaction to Her. I loved it. Perhaps it is because I am a 30-something male who struggles (at times) to open up to others--even the people who he truly loves--and how relies far too much on technology, I identified with this film much more than I expected to. My wife and I had a long conversation (she didn't connect with the film) about what it was that worked for me, and I think that a lot of it has to do with the way in which some of the central ideas resonated with me: the risk we take on really opening up and letting others in; the damage we do to others in relationships by not accepting them for who they are and by holding our ideas of them against them; the importance of letting yourself experience joy. The movie was full of beautiful ideas to me, and ultimately was incredibly optimistic--despite the pain.

It was beautiful visually too. Jonze's world is candy and pastel colored, a future that looks not so impossible and ultimately optimistic, though at the same time the heart of the film addresses whether our reliance on technology is healthy or not. Still, those scientific questions are really in the background. Really it's a film about how we grow, how we touch others and allow ourselves to be touched be them, how true intimacy is hard to come by. It's about how we sometimes are afraid to be authentic--and how sometimes then we blame our lack of connection on others. It is no coincidence that Theodore Twombly (played with care and subtlety by an excellent Joaquin Phoenix, who may give Chiwetel Ejiofor a run for his money in the Best Actor category at the Oscars) works at "Beautiful Handwritten Letters"--a company that is hired out to write love letters, thank you notes, and so on for other people. His letters are beautiful--perhaps more than what the customers could write themselves--and yet at their heart is an unwillingness of the customer to open up and  say for him or herself what they are thinking and feeling. We risk by loving, the film tells us, and though that risk can result in heart, it can also bring joy and life and fulfillment. Jonze brought that message to life. So did Phoenix. So did Scarlett Johansson and Amy Adams.

It was warm-hearted and hopeful, and if I had watched it in 2013 it most certainly would be vying for one of the top positions on my Best Of list. It was lovely.

Books

Nos4a2 (by Joe Hill)

At this point, it's really not too much of a stretch to say that I think I prefer Joe Hill's writing to that of his better known father, Stephen King. In a lot of ways, Nos4a2 is Hill's most King-like book, but he still writes with a vitality and sense of propulsion that King seems to lose sight of, as many of his books meander and dawdle at times with ideas that King latches onto but that don't actually propel narrative forward. (I'll have a chance to compare soon; Doctor Sleep, King's long awaited sequel to The Shining, is sitting in my to-read stack right now).

But I don't want to spend my review of Nos4a2 talking about Stephen King. Here Joe Hill introduces a concept that loosely connects at least one of his earlier works (I don't remember his short stories enough to know if there were references to them the way there was a passing allusion to his first novel, Heart Shaped Box) in a wonderful way: the connection between fantasy and reality (and, in Hill's writing, the way that some people can cross between and blend together the two worlds): The Inscape. It's a concept that he clearly loves--it's at the heart of his excellent comic series, Locke & Key--and it works beautifully here as well. Victoria McQueen has a bike that lets her find lost things--she just crosses over a bridge that shouldn't exist, and boom, she's where those lost items can be found--but when she runs into trouble one day, her life will forever be altered. Because trouble takes the form of Charlie Manx, a twisted old man who bleeds the innocence from the young in exchange for a trip to Christmasland, the imaginary world in his head in which everyday is Christmas and children can forever eat candy, open presents, and play games like scissors-for-the-drifter. Manx bends reality to suit his desires, and those desires come at a price. When Victoria escapes from Manx's custody (avoiding being caught in his 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith), she is forever scarred by it, and the two seem destined to meet again for another confrontation.

Hill's story flies along, full of little allusions, gags, shocks, and surprises, and it bleeds on every page with a great degree of humanity. Hill, like his father, is more than willing to put his characters through and into hellacious situations, but he also sees his stories through to satisfying conclusions (and note that satisfying doesn't necessarily mean happy or that every character you like will live)--something else King always struggles with to me. This may be popcorn lit, but it's popcorn lit that leaves me content and satisfied and ready for more. And it's horror that kept me up at night--not in fear, but unable to put down the novel. And that's a good thing. Because I have a feeling Hill isn't done with his concept of the Inscape. I believe it will show up again in some form or other. And when it does, I'll be there, ready to read again. 

Grade: A

Best of Other Than 2013

Top Ten Non-New Releases Watched in 2013:

As with most people, I didn't just watch new films this year. I watched a whole lot of older films as well. Here are my top ten films released prior to 2013. Interestingly, my first draft of this list was a LOT longer than my first draft of any other list. Turns out making a concerted effort to watch some classics means you end up watching a lot of really great films.

10. Safety Not Guaranteed/ The Do-Deca-Pentathalon (tie)

Two independent comedies that may not be great films but were some of the most fun to watch. Both movies touched on ideas that struck a chord with me: belief and brotherhood.

9. Sullivan's Travels

An ode to the power of comedy. Also, this movie might have made me fall in love with Veronica Lake.

8. Brokeback Mountain

Tender and powerful love story about being true to yourself and how some people can change our lives forever. Ang Lee does it again.

7. In the Mood for Love

Another forbidden love story, this one full of rich colors, careful cinematography, and haunting music. Beautiful and haunting.

6. Manhattan

Another film that I fell for in large part due to the beautiful cinematography--in this case black and white that makes the titular city glow. Woody Allen's snappy dialogue doesn't hurt either.

5. Before Sunrise

I can't wait to see the remainder of this trilogy, because this film works so perfectly as a reminder of the power of dialogue and the stirrings of infatuation, love, and meaning. 

4. The 400 Blows

Not only a fantastic introduction to the French New Wave, but one of the most empathetic films about childhood I've ever seen.

3. Rosemary's Baby

I'm not sure what it was exactly about this movie that struck such a chord with me--the exploration of womanhood in the 60s, the perfect balance between camp and suspense, the way it blurs the lines between dream and reality. I don't know, but it worked.

2. Badlands

Not sure whether it was the house on fire or the building of the tree house or Martin Sheen's fantastic performance, but somewhere along the way I fell in love with this movie.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Without question, the best film experience I had this year. I was wrapped up in the film from the first frames, I'm still thinking about the meaning, and Kubrick balanced image, sound, and editing more perfectly here than any other film I've seen. Incredible experience.

Honorable Mentions: Shotgun Stories, Zero Dark Thirty, Primer, Robot & Frank, Adam's Rib, Blow Out, Tell No One, Compliance, My Left Foot, Mary & Max, Eyes Without a Face, Compliance, The Killing, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Third Man, Strangers on a Train, The Man from Nowhere, Re-Animator, End of Watch, Gimme Shelter, Repulsion, The Shining

Worst of 2013

Worst Watches of 2013

I'm not sure how (or why) I made it through all of these films. Sometimes two hours can feel like an eternity, and each of these films made me regret my wasted time. Avoid at all costs! Here we go, from least terrible to most terrible.

10. Legends of the Fall

After having been promised a classic when I missed it back in the 90s, I was looking forward to an epic story. It was pretty, but not much else.

9. Dream House

The first of several horror films on the list (because it's a genre that attracts young filmmakers and innovation, I think it also attracts a fair share of misses), this film should have a lot going for it given the cast and director. Nope. Stupid and predictable.

8. Oz the Great and Powerful

Despite being from Kansas, I'm not committed to loving all things Oz-related, and this weird little movie was just too much of a mess for me to ever enjoy. I don't think I rated it as lowly as some of the others, but it was a real disappointment.

7. The Dictator

Yikes, Sacha Baron Cohen, what were you thinking. Racism isn't inherently funny.

6. Mimic

Guillermo del Toro had a film on my favorites of 2013, and then he has this abomination that was just an incomprehensible mess.

5. RED 2

The first RED movie was clever and a unique take on the action film--not great, but fun. This one was a self-satisfied and stupid mishmash of old-people-jokes and spinning cars.

4. Now You See Me

CGI is movie magic, but if your film is supposed to be about cool talented magicians, it just gets silly. Watch The Prestige instead.

3. A Haunted House

Parody can be fun. But first it has to be funny. This was neither.

2. The Hangover Part III

These films seem to get worse and worse each time. Maybe you can't recapture old magic. I hope they stop trying with this ensemble.

1. Chillerama

Ugh: unlikable, unfunny, and unwatchable. This movie actively made me angry and unhappy, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Honorable Mention: We're the Millers, The Numbers Station, The Ward, Fast & Furious 6, Scream 4, and Cold Weather.