2013: Best and Worst

Oscars are handed out and I realize I never did my Best/Worst of 2013. Oops. But who can blame me? I live in the sticks. If it’s “art house” good, I see it in March. Maybe. With my tardiness, I’m skipping a formal numbered Top 10, bottom 5. Brevity is key now.

The Best

No film floored me in 2013 quite like “12 Years a Slave,” a real American horror/history story. It is the truth to the lies of that other Oscar winner of American lies, “Gone with the Wind.” A must see.

Yet, I had no better time in a theater last year than “Gravity,” an amazing piece of film-making. And it has an equal companion, “All is Lost.” A woman adrift in space, a man lost at sea. Each facing hopelessness. These films are odd, perfect twins that hit me perfectly square in the chest and head, and why not as I turn 40. They are my No. 1 choices, tied.

Call “12 Years” a very close second. It certainly is the most vital film of 2013.

The rest from 4 down: Romantic drama “Her” -- again about a lonely man, notice a theme here? -- and family documentary “Stories We Tell.” Each told new stories with power. 

Trilogy closer “Before Midnight” seemed to spool out as a captured reality, while “American Hustle” and “Wolf of Wall Street” played two wild games of comedy from too-strange real events set in New York.

I also loved the Coen Brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Issac Davis just another cool cat.

Closing out at No. 10, another tale at sea,“Captain Phillips,” with Tom Hanks, also staring down death while soaking wet, but desperate to be alone. 

Is this list complete? No. It will change many times. For now, it will do.

The Worst

No film pissed me off more in 2013 than “A Good Day to Die Hard,” an abomination on the 1988 classic action film. That film played for humanity among all the fireworks. “AGDTDH” is soul-dead garbage. 

Four more grating entries: “The Lone Ranger,” “The Host,” “Percy Jackson 2,” and “Fifth Estate.” 

Again, sure to change. But I doubt “AGDTDH” will be bottomed.

Before Midnight (2013)

During a summer heavy on superheroes and angry robots, “Before Midnight” is a miracle dose of meds against overindulgence. This is the third chapter in the “Before” series -– “Before Sunrise” came in 1995, “Before Sunset” nine years later -– that follows American writer Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and a French activist Celine (Julie Delpy). In 1995, they met on a train; in 2004, they fell in love; and here they as parents and a couple face head on and bite into each other over the hurdles and sacrifices of love and commitment. That they do this while vacationing in splendid Greece is called on even by the couple, as they also comment on the prior films as books as pretentious talkers. The film is all talk, loving and harsh, with actual adults using adult words about the things that matter -– career wars, regretted missed moments of parenting –- and it’s a sad commentary that such a film is rare. The dialogue pulsates as if every man and woman on screen barely knows what they will say next. Electric. Delpy, Hawke, and director Richard Linklater have collaborated on all three films, creating a treasured trilogy of films about all of us. Amazing. A