Ten Favorite Films of 2013

These are the films I liked the most this year. I'm hesitant to call this a Top Ten list because I haven't seen everything yet. 

10. American Hustle (David O. Russell)

I actually thought this film was a bit of a mess, narratively, but it was so entertaining. It really proved that cinema's best special effect is still an actor or actress, delivering movie star chops.

9. Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg)

This mumblecore-ish, improvised film started a little slow, but by the end, I was fully invested in the lives of the film's four main characters.

8. 56 Up (Michael Apted)

Michael Apted's documentary series is in its 49th year, chronicling the lives of ordinary citizens. It's a remarkable piece of filmmaking.

7. Her (Spike Jonze)

I thought I'd like it more, but I liked it a lot. Maybe it didn't go far enough for me in terms of exploring what a romantic relationship with an operating system means, but what was there on the screen was pretty flawless. Touching, cerebral, and a fully possible vision of the future (high-waisted pants!).

6. Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)

Disney's best animated film in years. Broadway-style songs, great story, and two of the biggest narrative surprises I encountered in a film this year.

5. Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)

The ride of the year. A huge leap in special effects, and an emotionally satisfying story.

4. The World's End (Edgar Wright)

The third of the Cornetto trilogy is Edgar Wright's and Simon Pegg's deepest film yet. And Pegg, as a wrecked man trying to relive his glory days is one of my favorite performances of the year.

3. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

This deserves to win the Oscar. Stunning depiction of Solomon Northrup's journey to a terrifying alternate reality that turns out to be his own country.

2. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)

After seeing this sad, perfect third film (I'm hoping for more than a trilogy) in a series, I went back and watched Before Sunrise again, and marveled at how deeply Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy inhabit Jesse and Celine.

1. Inside Llewyn Davis (The Coens)

In some ways, the Coen Brothers' film this most reminds me of is Miller's Crossing, my favorite. A cold tale about a man trying to figure out where his heart lies. I keep thinking about it, and that cat.

And a special prize goes to Scapegoat (Charles Sturridge).

This was a TV movie in the UK in 2012, but it is just now available here on Netflix, and I enjoyed this film as much as I enjoyed anything in the theaters last year. Based on a Daphne Du Maurier novel of the same name, Matthew Rhys plays a mild-mannered classics teacher who meets his doppelganger, an aristocratic thug. They switch places, and the film alternates between comedy, romance, suspense and tragedy. 

Favorite Books of the Year

My ten favorite books of the year. 

I enjoyed all of the stories in Joe Hill's book, but I'm really picking this for "Pop Art," one of the strangest, saddest, most memorable pieces of fiction I read this year.

This is the first Sophie Hannah book I've read, and I'm looking forward to many more. A creepy, psychological thriller with a great premise.

Back in 1967, Deighton took some time off from writing cold war spy thrillers to write this semi-comic tale of three con artists. So much fun.

If you've ever seen a Law and Order (I'm speaking to all of you), then this police procedural will seem familiar, except that this was one of the very first, as the author follows the police as they track down a missing college girl. Riveting stuff, even though it now seems familiar.

Rendell writes a creepy, and surprisingly moving, psychological thriller, about a twisted mother-daughter relationship. Ruth Rendell has never really let me down.

Maybe this book is only for true Fleming fans (it's certainly not going to thrill fans of the Roger Moore films, for example), but reading this was both comforting and thrilling. Boyd nailed it. For one thing, he got the drinking right. Bond likes an occasional martini, but he is really a whiskey-and-soda man.

The blueprint for the movie, so it didn't really excite as I read it, but it's so good, and I can only imagine what it must have been like to be reading this book without knowing how it ends.

Best contemporary page-turner I've read in a couple of years. A solid, beautifully-written mystery about a woman with amnesia and the men who love her.

One of JDM's iciest thrillers. Immoral men at a weekend conference destroying lives around them. Unrelenting, and timely, even though it was published in 1962.

A perfect thriller by a true master.