Most people I know describe 2013 as a relatively weak year at the movies, and a brief perusal of this year’s Oscar Nominations certainly reinforces this idea. As usual, the Academy’s selections are completely lame and unoriginal, almost as if the voters couldn’t will themselves to nominate anything that didn’t have a full page advertisement in the New York Times. Front-runner American Hustle was certainly a fun, enjoyable film, but it was far from great, and many of their other selections are just average films – Philomena, Nebraska, Captain Philips, Gravity, and frankly even Dallas Buyers Club. As for the big, flashy “important subject” movies, 12 Years a Slave was visually remarkable and emotionally wrenching, but intellectually lacking, and The Wolf of Wall Street was a grandiose abomination.
I actually think it has been a reasonably strong year at the movies, featuring a very nice variety of wonderful, memorable films. It’s just that no one saw the good movies, and few critics said anything good about them. Costa-Gavras’ brilliant film Capital is my choice for the top film of the year, taking the only gold medal. But the year featured many other extremely fine films which have stayed with me powerfully, many of which are already shining on re-watching: the remarkable science fiction of Europa Report, the different but amazing approaches to love and relationships in Blue is the Warmest Color and To the Wonder, the masterful, old school drama A Hijacking, the lovely political exploration of The Attack, and finally Night Train to Lisbon, a film completely trashed by the critics, but which I found brilliantly enjoyable and memorable.
In the informal category of honorable mention, American Hustle was a tough call for me, but in my final analysis it fell just short of a Bronze Medal. Although it’s a lot of fun, with wonderful performances and a great soundtrack, and is certainly the best of the Oscar Nominees, I seem to have relatively little interest in seeing it again, and I don’t find myself marveling over its strong points the way I am with the other medal winners this year. In the end, I think its story was just too light-weight, and its technique a little too crude, to earn a medal. I should add there were several other films that were better than most or all of the Oscar nominees, despite failing to win a medal on Irreviews; they are Mud, Mental, and The Motel Life.
So without further ado, I give you the 2013 Irreviews Movie Awards:
Gold Medals
Silver Medals
Bronze Medals
Special Mention
- Mental – Indie Renaissance Award
- Adèle Exarchopoulos – for her brilliantly subtle performance in Blue is the Warmest Color
- Matthew McConaughey – for his incredibly natural performance in Dallas Buyers Club
- 12 Years a Slave – for its beautiful visual texture and cinematography
- Dirty Wars – for its political importance
- Ginger and Rosa – Best Trailer Award
Irreviews 