It is unfortunate that director Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money, Lovely and Amazing) Enough Said was the last film that James Gandolfini (television’s The Sopranos, The Last Castle) completed before his untimely death, but what a lasting impression he will leave with the mass public in the most real and honest movie of 2013. Gandolfini has frightened us on the big and small screens for the last 20 years. He has played some of the vilest characters and some of the meanest. Like me, you might go into this movie thinking Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a romantic dramedy. There’s A) No chance it will be good, and B) Even if the critics somehow give it a positive review, there is no way I will give it a chance because it will be so unbelievable. Just like with Gandolfini as some mobster, hard military man, or hitman, we think of Louis-Dreyfus as the queen of goofy television comedies like Seinfeld, Veep, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. There is no way this movie could ever work in the world, right? Well, I will say unequivocally that this assumption is wrong. This movie is not just good. It is great. The chemistry between Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus is not something that just gets by. It is something that works effortlessly.
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Category Archives: 2013
Captain Phillips (2013)
The movie of 2013 that I think I found to be most disappointing was Captain Phillips. This was by no means a bad movie, but I approached this movie with the belief that this was going to be THE movie of the year. It was anything but the movie of the year. It wasn’t even a top 10 movie of the year. After all, is said and done, it most likely won’t even be a top 20 movie of the year for me. I’m not entirely certain what the main reasons were that I didn’t like it. I will rattle off a couple during this review, but I think that, ultimately, it came down to not meeting my extraordinarily high initial expectations.
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Disconnect (2013)
Following the pattern of such successful smashes as Crash, Traffic, and Babel (all of which earned Best Picture nominations, with Crash winning the top prize), Henry Alex Rubin’s (Murderball) first non-documentary film, Disconnect is a movie that tells three distinct stories at the same time that have little connection with each other and only minor overlapping, but one in which many of its main actors are not on the screen at the same time. It’s a formula that, when done correctly, is magical but when done poorly, can be a disaster. Disconnect was done right. It is a daring movie and deals with not just one but three of the most prevalent technological safety issues of the day, which are cyberbullying, security fraud/identity theft, and the predatory practices of recruiting minors to become online porn performers. Each story could be its movie, but Disconnect does an awesome job of telling all three and showing the raw emotion associated with each. On top of that, the performances are top-notch. And while this movie came in at 68% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it earned only $1.4 million at the box office. Both are much too low for a movie of this magnitude, officially classifying Disconnect as a hidden gem I think everyone should see. Continue reading Disconnect (2013) Lone Survivor (2013)
It took the entire year to find it, but the last must-see movie of 2013 proved to be the most emotional and tear-jerking movie of the year. With apologies to 12 Years A Slave, which was very gut-wrenching at times, Lone Survivor is the movie that plays with your heartstrings like no other. Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter, The Perfect Storm) gives the performance of his lifetime as Marcus Luttrell, the only surviving member of a four-person Navy SEALs team on the now infamous failed Operation Red Wings mission of 2005. The covert mission is simple enough. The four SEALs are to find notorious Taliban loyalist Ahmad Shah, a man currently residing in a village in Afghanistan who is responsible for killing 20 US marines a week earlier. Intel has informed him of his location, and the team knows what to look for because Shahd has no ear lobes. They are informed of the terrain, the mission’s dangers, and the engagement rules. The mission’s main goal was reconnaissance and surveillance of Shah and then informing the waiting military team, who had the authorization to launch an air strike on the village to take out Shah and his men.
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Philomena (2013)
Philomena is a fine little movie that has somehow been classified as a great movie worthy of Best Picture and Best Actress (Judy Dench – Notes on a Scandal, Shakespeare In Love) nominations. In my opinion, neither are deserving. This movie, though only 1 hour 38 minutes, never felt super slow, but it still did feel long. I think that had to do with the story not winning me over. In a year where there were many decent movies but not many great ones, Philomena will not be remembered. I think when people go back and remember 2013, the list isn’t very deep. People will remember 12 Years A Slave, Gravity, and possibly Frozen (I’m not an animated movie type of guy, so I won’t see this movie, but I understand how great others think it is).
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