Tonight are the Academy Awards. At least I think so. I’m enough of a movie fan to have started a movie website, so of course I’m interested in them, but I probably won’t be able to watch them (last year a TV channel here in Costa Rica was playing a dubbed version, but it was pretty bad; that’s irrelevant, though, since we moved our TV in the meantime and the antenna isn’t connected, so we went from two channels to zero). It’s also debatable how much the Oscars matter. Nevertheless, I sometimes use them as a way to see what movies people were talking about in the previous year, since living here can skew perspectives a bit.

So I thought I’d just do a quick run-through of the movies I saw and liked in 2013. I know most people and sites do this kind of list at the end of December or the beginning of January, but at that time, I’d maybe seen 5 or 6 of these. Plus, dividing movies into years is pretty arbitrary, anyhow. According to my Flickchart list, I’ve seen 23 movies from 2013 so far. Here are my top 5:

5. The World’s End

I’ve really enjoyed the three movies that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright have done together. Shaun of the Dead is in my Top 20, I think, and Hot Fuzz was a brilliant cop movie spoof full of fun references. I’ve only seen this movie one time, but it certainly has the potential to fit in with the others, even though the mood and genre are completely different. The only thing that may make this movie a bit lower on my list as compared to the other two is that this one seems to have more things that are quintessentially British, and I maybe just don’t appreciate the significance of them. My only visit to Britain was a night spent in London 15 years ago, and of course that was hardly enough time to get a feel for the culture. But nevertheless, I thought this was a great movie with some very good characters. I especially liked how Pegg and Frost seemed to defy my expectations of what kinds of characters they’d be playing in this film.
Rating: 15/17

4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Some people (Paul) will probably criticize me for this choice, but so be it. I’m just going with what my Flickchart says. I think I enjoyed this movie mainly because I just wanted to see if what I saw in my mind as I read the book matched what they put on the screen. It was pretty similar, in fact.
Rating: 13/17 (I know that this is lower than #5, but as I said, I’m just going with what my list says.)

3. Gravity

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney… Love is in the vacuum! Actually, I don’t think this shot was actually in the movie. But oh well. I really liked this movie, and it made me think for a while afterwards. I especially liked that it was short and didn’t try to over-explain everything. The action starts just a few minutes into the 94-minute film, which in my opinion was much better than a 65-minute exposition just to set the scene, which seems to be the norm for so many action and sci-fi movies these days.
Rating: 15/17

2. Pacific Rim

I’m a bit surprised that this landed so high on my list, although I did enjoy it a lot. I’m glad I didn’t see any previews beforehand because if I had, I probably would have not seen this one. I probably would have written it off as cheesy action fare. There is that element, of course, but it’s done in a way that’s pretty different from its predecessors. Maybe it’s the fact that a lot of it takes place in Japan and Hong Kong, but it just seemed more tolerable and worthy of an eventual second viewing than other comparable movies that come to mind, like Avatar or Independence Day.
Rating: 15/17

1. This Is The End

This is a good, weird movie. I’ve heard people say it’s unlike any other movie they’ve seen, and I’d have to agree with them on that, try as I might to think of any examples to debunk that statement. I thought it was great how all the actors played themselves, or at least caricatures of themselves, making fun of their personas (and each other, of course). At first glance this may seem similar to The World’s End, and indeed both are comedies full of dudes bravely facing the end of the world by making jokes and consuming intoxicating substances. But whereas The World’s End is very British, this one is very Hollywood, and that makes a big difference. Oh, and Hermione’s small part is pretty great, too!
Rating: 16/17

So, that’s it for my 2013 list, at least so far. And it should be noted that I’ve still NOT seen many movies that are getting a lot of praise such as The Dallas Buyers Club, Her, American Hustle, Nebraska, Blue is the Warmest Color, and 12 Years a Slave. I know that those have a ton of nominations, but that’s just how it is: it’s harder to see new movies when you live on a mountain in Central America, I guess.

What do you think? Have you seen any of these? Would you put them higher, lower, or not even on the list? What does your Top 5 look like?

Allow me to be frank: This video is awesome. Or, as the girl at 2:20 says, “All right!” I got Saturday Night Fever and Staying Alive as part of a Christmas gift exchange (the letter this year was “D,” hence the disco movies), but we’d not had a chance to watch them until now.

Actually, you really SHOULD be dancing.

So this past Saturday we sat down to some popcorn and watched Fever. It was pretty good. Travolta does seem to have charisma and there were some pretty funny parts. I’d seen the movie before, but a long time ago, and my memory was hazy, so I was a bit surprised that the main dance scene didn’t feature the Bee Gee’s song “Staying Alive,” since that’s pretty emblematic of the movie and indeed the whole era of disco. In fact, it was “More Than a Woman,” also by the Bee Gees:

The rest of the soundtrack was really good, at least if you like disco (and I do). I especially liked “If I Can’t Have You,” also written by the Bee Gees but sung by Yvonne Elliman, aka Mary Magdalene from Jesus Christ Superstar:

The rest of the story was only OK, though. Dancing is important to Travolta and his douchebag friends, but it’s just one aspect of their douchebaggery, which also includes street-fighting, racism, smoking and drinking, and sexual assault. That’s the big problem with this movie: the protagonists veer too much towards butthole territory to have their scarce “good” qualities redeem them. You keep thinking that something will happen to win you over to their side, but by the end you just hope they all jump off the Verrazano bridge.

Oh dear…

Staying Alive, though. Where do I start with Staying Alive, our Sunday night movie? I know it’s widely hailed as a catastrophe, and it’s very hard to find defenders of this flick. And you won’t find a defender in this post, either, although there are some comment-worthy aspects to it.

There is no aspect of this picture that is NOT worthy of a comment.

In this “sequel” Travolta’s Tony has moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and he’s struggling to become a dancer in a Broadway musical. He seems to have changed his douchebag ways, but there’s still a lingering sense of him being a tool. And he does still cheat on his kinda-girlfriend, but a lot of the other vices seem to have gone, along with the first movie’s R rating, which has now become a PG. The story is maybe a little better in the sequel, but it’s hard to tell because there are so many things that are worse and/or weird, and they require your full attention to comprehend them.

Wow, check out Stallone’s jacket. As a reminder, my birthday is coming up…

First of all, it was directed by Sylvester Stallone–isn’t that weird? This fact becomes even more noticeable when his brother Frank Stallone is featured fairly prominently as a bar singer in a few scenes. It’s pretty painful. The music is also… how can I put this delicately? Awful? Yeah, that’s about as delicate as I can make it. It’s obvious that they’ve moved from 70s disco to 80s Movie Songs, in terms of soundtrack style. Additionally, dancing has moved from a pastime to the main focus, but it’s a completely different type of dancing, namely, a much worse kind. And don’t even get me started on the wardrobe, both in the dancing scenes and the street scenes. Just… ugh, just look at this:

In fact, everyone involved with making this movie seemed to know this since the final scene of Staying Alive is basically the same scene that opened Fever: Tony walking down the street to the song “Staying Alive.” It’s a good, iconic scene, but in this case it’s not borrowing, it’s stealing, and blatantly so, since it has absolutely nothing to do with the 92 minutes that preceded it. Tony’s just finished up his Broadway show; the star of the show shoots him a meaningful look, and then Tony tells his girlfriend that he’s gotta do something really important: strut!

Yep, that just happened. Fortunately, it was so absurd that even the Simpsons made fun of it:

Anyhow, there are definitely worse ways to spend an evening than watching Fever, but I’m not sure I could say the same about the sequel. Watch that one with a bit of caution!

Ratings:
Saturday Night Fever (movie): 10/17
Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack): 16/17
Staying Alive (movie): 7/17
Staying Alive (soundtrack): 1/17
Staying Alive (costumes): -3/17

Thanks for reading and until next time: stay alive!

I recently watched Seeking A Friend At The End Of The World.  I went into the movie expecting a dark, slightly goofy, comedy.  While it is those things, I unexpectedly found myself feeling extreme sadness throughout the entire film.  For those who don’t know, Seeking A Friend stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley going on a road trip across New England while an asteroid is quickly approaching promising the apocalypse.  As with other road trip movies, the two encounter a wide array of great character actors and goofy situations.  My favorite was a party that Carell goes to in which the adults are getting kids drunk and trying heroin because, honestly, who cares, the world is ending in two weeks.  What makes this movie different from other road trip films though, is the impeding doom that looms over the entire film.  Nearly every scene has a feeling of urgency and fear.  This seems strange for a comedy, but is also one of the reasons I found it so interesting.  Carell’s character spends the first part of the film doing what he would normally do any other day.  He goes to work (as an insurance salesman), comes home and watches TV.  He doesn’t act like someone who KNOWS he will die in less than two weeks.  While he is doing normal things, very abnormal things are happening in the background.  People are constantly committing suicide, riots are starting, parties eventually turn into orgies, etc.  It makes the movie feel extremely real.  I kept finding myself thinking of Children of Men during a lot of these scenes.  I also found myself wondering what I would do if an asteroid was going to end the world.  Would I be a different person?  Would I start doing drugs and getting drunk constantly (something I don’t do now)?  Would I regret the life I’ve lived thus far?  These are questions that are very strange to ponder, especially during a comedy.  The end was extremely heart-wrenching.  I actually felt scared when the asteroid was imminent and jumped when I heard it hit.  Then I cried harder than I’ve cried during a movie in a very long time.

This made me think about other great comedies that are hysterically funny one moment and dreadfully sad the next.  Judd Apatow and John Hughes made their career making these films.  Every Thanksgiving our family watches Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and every year I want to cry for Del Griffith when Neal realizes that his wife has been dead (sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen it yet, and if you haven’t GO WATCH IT NOW!).  I love it when a movie can make you feel so strongly for a character, in a hilarious comedy no less, and make you cry while you’ve been laughing.  They seem very realistic and true-to-life in that way.

I didn’t realize it before, but I’ve kinda been on a phase of these “heartbreaking comedies.”  In the past week, I’ve watched Planes, Trains, Seeking A Friend, The Royal Tenenbaums and 50/50 (which is one of my favorite sad comedies of all-time).

Here is a list of my Top 5 Favorite Heartbreaking Comedies:

1. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (John Hughes)
2. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
3. Knocked Up (Judd Apatow)
4. 50/50 (Jonathon Levine)
5. Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillepsie)