The Best English Films Of 2013

          

Okay, so here am I back, to present you all the finest English-language films of 2013. Last year, we toasted 2012’s medalists- ‘The Master’, ‘Django Unchained’ and ‘Lincoln’. This year, we will applaud the finest ten films of the year along with films that almost made it to the list……

Ah, 2013…..

It was an exceptionally exciting year for movies with unconventional ideas and scripts powered by solid filmmakers and spectacular performances made for a great time at the movies. While 2012 was the year for the mainstream audiences, 2013 was the year for the real connoisseurs and aficionados- those who love their cinema loaded with ample doses of style, substance and seminal, incendiary brilliance.

In fact, most of the films in this list are already vying for top prizes in the Oscar ceremony and it rather puzzles me why the usual pundits are placing their bets on only a few of them.

That said, this was a tough race and I had to leave out some really exciting films as well- but rest assured that the ones which did make it to the list are nothing short of breathtakingly awesome.

Okay, then let’s first applaud the runners up-

The 11^th place is for movies which almost made it to the list- brilliant efforts all but somehow lacking the gusto which the real winners had.

Zack Snyder’s ‘Man Of Steel’ packed in a wonderfully sober and sensational twist on the Superman story with enough panache but winded down with a Roland Emmerich-style blow-up climax;  Danny Boyle’s ‘Trance’ was a twisty and titillating trip through London’s groovy nooks and crannies while also handing us a stylishly crafted psycho-noir but became too self-indulgent; Woody Allen’s ‘Blue Jasmine’ featured Cate Blanchett in her career-best turn as an affluent woman going off the rails but lacks the witty, ingenious touch of some of the director’s usual works…

And now we herald the champions…

10- ‘Pacific Rim’

Director- Guillermo Del Toro

Many-a-action blockbuster in today’s times end in a familiar and frustrating mess of collapsing cities battered in incoherent battles. But it was only Guillermo Del Toro’s jaw-dropping, spectacular and sublime monster actioner that made it look like sheer poetry. A wiseass throwback to the Japanese monster films of the yore, ‘Pacific Rim’ is as wet, sensational and thrilling alive as its name suggests- with the master writer-director blending the bare-bones of his robot-versus-monster story with much visual daredevilry to craft a crowd-pleaser for ages.

With spectacular, crunchy, gob-smacking action sequences between the relentless Kaiju monsters and the human-controlled juggernauts, and enough of Del Toro’s trademark visual camp and some surprising warmth between the proceedings (watch out for a stirring, stunning nightmare scene set in a ravaged Tokyo) this is unashamedly Hollywood blockbuster formula cooked up into a massively entertaining, off-the-wall crazy action film which knocks other, mediocre franchises like the ‘Transformers’ as neatly and spectacularly as it can. It does get predictable but trust Del Toro to make even cliché sound and look cool.

9- American Hustle

Director- David O. Russell

Style, rather than substance, rules the roost in David O. Russell’s unashamedly lavish caper film set against the Abscam sting operations of 1970s. The eclectic characters, from jaded conmen and nervy FBI agents and their devious, gold-digging wives and sweethearts, are all larger-than-life and swagger more than frequently on the screen, compelling us to make our jaws drop with sheer perversity of it all. And while Russell’s film may abandon the usual genre elements, it has the sheer confidence to make them the real explosives in the film.

It is all shiny, swelte and even indulgent to a fault but ‘American Hustle’- Russell’s soap-operatic love-letter to the 70s comes off as a ravishing and raw human drama, punctuated boldly and brashly with staggering performances and much visual cheek thrown into the cocktail, right from Scorsese-style long-shots to the rambunctious score and flashy editing that never let you up. Nearly everyone in the film- the paunchy and wig-wearing Christian Bale, the cleavage-baring Amy Adams and the lovably gullible Jeremy Renner- delivers solid acting punch while Jennifer Lawrence steals the show again as a fiery housewife with a penchant for creating disaster.

8- 12 Years A Slave

Director- Steve McQueen

Hollywood usually shies away from baring the more-than-skin-deep horrors of slave trade in pre-Civil War America- save for Tarantino’s brutally funny ‘Django Unchained’- a Western reimagined as a morality tale in the South. Steve McQueen, one of the most unrestrained and uncompromising directors in recent times, comes up with his own sweltering, bloody and emotionally raw take on the premise and the result is a film that, while being predictable, delivers a magnificent punch in the gut.

Faithfully based on the memoirs of real-life survivor Solomon Northup (essayed here poignantly by Chiwetel Eijofor) and his psychological and physiological struggle with the nature of slavery, McQueen’s film ends up being a harrowing yet rousing story of one’s man’s survival against the brutality inflicted as a result of his race. Contrasted incredibly against the idyllic Southern settings, the unforgiving tenor of the violence gives way to a sentimental and way-too-idealistic climax but this is more than compensated by the extraordinary performances- watch out for Michael Fassbender’s vicious and wicked slaver Epps, whose bursting, Bible-quoting badness makes all screen villains look like school bullies.

7- Captain Phillips

Director- Paul Greengrass

Few can direct the action thriller format as convincingly and thrillingly as Paul Greengrass, the man who made Ludlum’s spy novels and the 9/11 hijackings come alive in full, throbbing tension on the big screen. In this film, a masterly recreation of the Maersk Alabama hijacking by Somali pirates, Greengrass does something phenomenal- turning a regular hostage situation drama into a tense, sweltering and grittily authentic Herzog-style survival story that inspires yet instills dread.

Tom Hanks is nearly flawless as the titular protagonist- a disciplined mariner facing the biggest storm of his life as the malicious yet vulnerable pirate chief Muse (played with chilling realism by Barkhad Abdi) holds him hostage in a vicious game with heavy stakes. Greengrass, armed with master lensman Barry Ackroyd, superbly contrasts the verbose tension with the literal fireworks while smartly keeping politics out of the fray and crafting a remarkably objective character study that is as thrilling and sobering as the film’s splendidly brittle action scenes itself. And that shocking climax is sure to break many hearts as well.

6- Rush

Director- Ron Howard

Sports films will never be the same again.

Blending brash, bold and beautiful visual aesthetic with Peter Morgan’s turbo-charged, bloody and brilliant script, the relentlessly energetic Ron Howard has crafted a rare feat- a glorious, deliciously-off-the-wall Formula 1 racing film that celebrates the sport’s breakneck, brutal speed and the glory of finishing first. It is also a solid story of red-hot rivalry, captured faithfully in history’s milestones, between the diligent, ingenious racer Nikki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) and the flashy and dashing champ James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) as they battle it out in a historic 70s tournament that is both sizzling and shocking to the senses and the soul.

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he racing action is savage and shot with thrilling urgency, with Howard and wildly inventive cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle plunging us into the frenetic pace and hefty stakes with brash skill while Morgan’s script blisters with the scorching sparks between its leads. Both Hemsworth and Bruhl face off with terrific chemistry and emerge as heroic yet utterly real people, torn between their soaring ambition and their turbulent personal lives. And through it all, with the aid of sharp dialogue, superb supporting performances and tension enough for a Hitchcock film, Howard makes history thrilling alive, fast and furious.

5- Gravity

Director- Alfonso Cuaron

Talk about miraculous. Alfonso Cuaron turned the often-abused survival story format into an existentialist masterpiece set in the depths of open space and crafted a rare film- a 3D miracle that stuns us with the shattering yet sublime thrill, chill and beauty of its visuals, while keeping enough meat in the plot to give us that energetic and visually stunning kick that only great cinema can provide.

At its basics, this is a story often told- nervous first-time spacewalker Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is stranded in zero-G chaos along with the talky and terrifically charming Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and has to make her way back, to land her feet on solid earth. But Cuaron, with the skill of a technical visionary and compelling storyteller, turns the premise into a film which blends brittle, breathtaking thrills and wiseass humor with just the right blend of emotion and visual beauty to make a spectacular adventure.

There is much to love in the film- from the painstakingly created, awe-inspiring outer space scenarios (kudos to Cuaron regular photographer Emmanuel Lubezki and special effects geek Tim Webber) to the snappy repartee between Kowalski and Stone, and from Bullock’s intense, heartfelt and stirring performance to Cuaron’s mastery at balancing tension with dramatic weight, lending the film with ample doses of danger, heroics and pure narrative and visual poetry.

Whoa! Spielberg and Kubrick, please take a bow!

4- Inside Llewyn Davis

Director- Joel and Ethan Coen

Few people can depict the American landscape as skillfully and authentically as the Coen Brothers do. In this hilarious yet utterly humane story of a down-on-his-luck musician trying to grapple in frosty 1960s New York and its crazy characters, they reveal their hidden gift of crafting a truly melodious and melancholic musical which portrays one’s man’s vain attempt to make it big and reconcile with the people around him.

Oscar Issac delivers the performance of a lifetime as the jaded and jittery Llewyn Davis, an inscrutably unlikable yet magically gifted guy who has knocked up his girlfriend, lost the cat, belonging to a benevolent friend and has lost his fellow struggler to suicidal depression of the era. As he embarks on a quirky quest for self-discovery and redemption, the Coen Brothers paint an everlasting portrait of a nation and its hidden shades- of an outcast losing his last chance to reconnect with his fellow humans, and a musical that is unafraid to celebrate life’s mediocrity with a stirring tweak of the guitar strings.

Shot evocatively, pitched with deadpan humor and profound sadness and acted with solid conviction (check out Carey Mulligan as the hot-headed yet helpless girlfriend and John Goodman as a decadent artist), ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ takes us inside its messed-up character as well as the usual mess of everyday life. And therein lays its beauty, which stands out against the aching turbulence all around.

3- Dallas Buyers Club

Director- Jean-Marc Vallee

It is perhaps rare that a film centering on a terribly imperfect character may end up nailing him as the hero of the piece. And no, we do not feel for Ron Woodroof, that cowboy-hatted, foul-mouthed homophobic hustler, simply because he suffers from AIDS and is unable to get his hand on the medicines that can lessen the death sentence. Nah, rather, we feel for him simply because, in spite of everything, that man makes us wolf-whistle at his charisma, at the sure-footed swagger.

And yet, Woodroof is hardly a guilty pleasure because  gifted director Jean-Marc Vallee and writers Craig Borten andMelisa Wallack- and a super-capable actor in peak form- turn Woodroof into a constantly charming character- a character whom we want to improve as a person, and a character whom we want to live and come up as a hero.

Blessed with Vallee’s graceful and grittily realistic direction and Borten and Wallack’s rapid-fire narrative, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ emerges as a rousing film- a heartfelt, hilarious and always heroic tale of a man pitted against odds and who won’t give up at all. And through his fast-paced, drug-driven quest for a new lease of life, he comes across people who change the way he lives and gives Vallee enough meat to inject solid, sizzling drama into the proceedings.

Jared Leto, as a transgender siding up as an unlikely partner for the vitriol-spewing Woodroof, creates wonders in an affecting performance while Jennifer Garner, as a troubled, unsmiling doctor lends the film’s its most harrowing moments. But this is a film about that one great man.

Matthew McConaughey has beaten almost every other actor in this generation by transforming from hunky eye candy to the scrawny, lean-limbed yet dashing Woodroof and yet, the change is not merely physical. Diving deeply and gloriously into Woodroof’s moral muck, McConaughey reveals his immense histrionic potential with what could be one of the most towering, intense, free-spirited and moving performances of all time.

2- Her

Director- Spike Jonze

Romance is a fine old wine that most filmmakers pour and pack it in stinky bottles that ruin the entire flavor. And we should thank our stars that we have Spike Jonze in terrific, wonderfully whimsically form- a kind of wunderkind, a vibrant, younger version of Spielberg who, with much bold imagination and plenty of oozing warmth, pours good ole romance into a hipflask that comes with some sizzling futuristic wizardry and tender emotions.

The result is ‘Her’- a sci-fi romance so sweepingly majestic, so striking sublime and so shatteringly relevant that it does not feel like a futuristic film at all.

Lonely guy Theodore Twombly (played exceptionally by Joaquin Phoenix) buys a quirky and nifty OS, which can behave like a human and boy, it does…like a lovely woman. Hold on, it has named itself Samantha and it has a lovely, lovely voice, one that belongs to none other than the supremely sexy Scarlett Johannson.

Between the two, an unusual and unlikely bond blooms and Jonze fills up the canvas with a riot of color, frolic, sensuality and intimacy to craft a heartbreaking romance for ages.

To call the film merely ingenious is a hell of an understatement. Jonze ensures with his blazing script along with his idyllic and intelligent direction that the fanciful yet utterly coherent ideas rarely interrupt the romance between the duo and while there is much to smile at, right from the quirks of modern technology down to the sunny moments between Theodore and Samantha, this is also a film that teaches us the quintessential importance of human affection and love.

A film about broken relationships, of broken hearts. And above all, a film about loners, both real and virtual, seeking contact, seeking romance. If this is not essential cinema, that nothing else is.

1-The Wolf Of Wall Street

Director- Martin Scorsese

Hold on the wolf-whistles for a moment please.

Martin Scorsese’s off-the-wall, insanely ingenious and unashamedly nihilistic masterpiece has won its own share of bravos and brickbats and indeed, a cinematic experience as unhinged and uninhibited as this does divide the audiences. What many people may not realize is that Scorsese, at 71, and only him, is capable of blowing up cinematic territory with terrific gusto.

And his latest- a radical 3 hour biopic rolled into the blackest of black comedies- is one hell of a storm.

Jordan Belfort, the hero and villain of the film, essayed by Leonardo DiCaprio with rippling energy and loathsome repulsion, is at the center of this outrageously true story of the boiler room scams of the 90s that burst into a carnival of sin- flooded with hooker sex, heroin and hard cash. Loved by his equally depraved cronies (Jonah Hill slams it as the slimy and slippery Donnie Azoff), lambasted by others, Jordan is nothing less than a Caligula of the stock boom era- a man who sinks deeper and deeper into his excesses and yet stays compellingly albeit guiltily lovable.

And through it all, Scorsese, forever the smarty pants director, armed with Terence Winter’s explosive script, makes us run and hunt with these hounds as they scavenge for cash- making us see with wide-eyed wonder at the ugliness which we all secretly crave for.

And so, ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’ delights in its morbid spoils, speeding like a Ferrari in full throttle and plunges all the venality and horror at our face, willing us to react and therein lies the knockout punch of this chaotic party.

It is this generation’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’- and even better and with far more resonance for Marty is not merely making a political comment- he is asking us out open- is this the life- the corrupted one- that one should really lead? And the answers are as jolting as a bolt of lightning.

Go watch it. And yes, we can now have the wolf-whistles. Awooooooo!