Good, the bad and the ugly from memorable films in 2013
IT’S that time of the year when critics trot out their top 10s. But I’m sure you’ve read enough about Space Bullock, Woody Meets the Working Class, and
Exciting Jack” and the inevitable “Jack! Jack! Jack!” Previous winners include all four
movies (“You are Jack Sparrow“), (“I’ll never let go, Jack ... ”) and
(“Way to go, Jack!“) The Titanic award for collateral damage – 1 517 people died when the ship went down, but that’s OK, because it helped make Rose a better person. This year’s award goes to
in which the climactic battle between Superman and General Zod leaves Metropolis trashed. With the help of Watson Technological Consulting, Buzzfeed.com calculated there would be 129 000 confirmed fatalities, 250 000 missing and one million injured amid the collapsing skyscrapers. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be fatalities during epic battles between superbeings, I’m just wondering why Superman didn’t seem even remotely sorry about the carnage he and Zod had caused.
The Quantum of Bollocks award for cackhanded action goes to
proving that Marc Forster, who directed both films, still doesn’t have a clue.
I started dreading the zombie attacks simply because it meant we were in for another dose of incontinent wobblicam and purposeless hyper-editing, both seemingly designed to prevent us seeing what’s going on.
Perhaps directors who try to copy Paul Greengrass’s techniques should study his
more closely. Yes, there’s a lot of shakicam, fast editing and handheld, and no, it’s not to everyone’s taste ... but it’s never random, always at the service of story and characters.
Cat performance of the year is a tie between a ginger cat called Pumpkin in the cop buddy comedy and the tabby commandeered as a modesty shield in Talking of
some splendid rotting 19th century sailors’ mouths help tie it with
for the bad tooth make-up award.
The John Carter award for sacrificial scapegoat to the studio gods goes to oddest and most heartfelt of this year’s otherwise tiresome and tiring blockbusters.
Not only did it feature some of the best action sequences (which, unlike the ones in were clearly and classically choreographed and shot), but it paid intelligent homage to the Western genre, and signed off with the most moving end credits sequence of 2013.
And the film that most got under my skin? The film that kept making me nod off during its interminable cod-philosophical speechifying, that left me depressed yet unable to stop thinking about it, to the degree that I shall now have to watch it again because I suspect it just might be the best and most important film in Ridley Scott’s career?
It certainly contained the year’s most explicitly gruesome fate for a character played by a major movie star, as well as a chilling performance from Cameron Diaz that is fated to be forever underappreciated because no one ever takes her seriously. Take a bow,