Best of 2013: Movie Awards

My awards for the films of 2013.

Best Actress:

Amy Seimetz, Upstream Color
Amy Seimetz has been quietly doing superb work in mublecore films for a few years now, and 2013 finally saw her starting to get some recognition outside of that niche genre. She was given a large role on AMC's The Killing, and also had a featured role in Christopher Guest's HBO comedy series Family Tree.  But her best work is on display in Upstream Color. The film made waves at Sundance, and Seimetz's performance is at the film's center. It's hard to describe the demands of her performance, given the nature of the film's incredibly complicated plot, but she manages to pull off a role that requires her to seamlessly portray a character who is both well grounded yet completely otherworldly. She goes above and beyond, making the viewer care about a character they may likely never really understand.

Runner-Up: Amy Adams, American Hustle

Best Actor:

Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Look, I know he's Tom Hanks and everything he ever does tends to be overpraised (call it "The Streep Effect"), but he actually earned this one. He does a great job throughout, and an absolutely amazing job in the last few minutes.

Runner-Up: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Supporting Actress:

Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
A heart-wrenching piece of acting from a previously unknown actress. I hope we see a lot more of her soon.

Runner-Up: Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
My apologies to Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, but Roberts mines a previously untapped vein of anger for her role and it works like gangbusters. (totally NSFW language in the clip)

Best Supporting Actor:

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
There is a scene in the movie where Leto's AIDS-infected transvestite Rayon confronts her father. Leto has to portray a character experiencing a hundred different conflicting emotions at once. That he is able to do so in a quiet, subdued way is a testament to Leto's historically-underappreciated talent.

Runner-Up: James Franco, Spring Breakers

Best Director:

Martin Scorsese, Wolf of Wall Street
Wolf of Wall Street is a film that presses the pedal to the floor from the very first frame and doesn't let up until the credits nearly 3 hours later. Only a master of the medium like Scorsese could keep a film like this from crashing.

Runner-up: Shane Carruth, Upstream Color

Best Cinematography:

Upstream Color
Every frame is beautiful. Every. Single. One.

Runner-up: Prince Avalanche

Best Screenplay:

Terence Winter, Wolf of Wall Street
It takes good writing to make an audience willing to care about reprehensible characters. Winter is up to the task. (He's the creator of HBO's Boardwalk Empire, which also follows the lives of terrible people)

Runner-up: Scott Z. Burns, Side Effects

Best Score:

Explosions in the Sky & David Windgo, Prince Avalanche

Runner-Up: Shane Carruth, Upstream Color

Best Guilty Pleasure:

Escape Plan
This is the Schwarzenegger/Stallone collaboration that the world was waiting for, not those stupid Expendables movies. Everyone involved appears to be having fun, especially the former Governator and mustache-twirling villain Jim Caviezel. 

Runner-Up: White House Down
Again, it all comes down to fun. That's why I will always appreciate Roland Emmerich films far more than the movies (I refuse to call them films) of Michael Bay. Emmerich makes things big, dumb and loud. But he also makes them fun, dammit.

Best Movie I was Led to Believe Was Bad:

The Lone Ranger
It's a giant, silly popcorn movie directed by a master of epic, highly choreographed action setpieces (Gore Verbinski). It never takes itself seriously, nor should anyone. Just enjoy this old fashioned rollercoaster ride of a movie for what it is: breezy entertainment.

Runner-Up: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
I thought it was funny.

Best Opening:

Gravity
The 17-minute faux-one-take tracking shot is the best single setpiece of the year, period.

Runner-Up: We Are What We Are
This little seen-or-appreciated bit of old fashioned gothic horror opens with gloom and death, but not the type you're expecting. Rather, it's just a simple trip to the convenience store in the drizzling rain as a massive thunderstorm approaches, with a character whose mind appears to be elsewhere. She buys groceries, goes to her car, spots a sign stapled to a telephone pole, and stares at it sadly, knowingly. Then her nose starts bleeding, and she faints, falling into a flooded drainage channel where she dies, unseen by the people around her. It's a decent enough teaser to get the audience interested is staying for the rest of the film, but it's far better on second viewing where you can fill in the blanks. She's haunted by the choices she's made. And those choices are what led her to her death. And she won't be the last thing that's washed away in the storm.

Best Out of Context Line:

“You never want to do anything interesting.” 
“I don’t think that’s a fair criticism.” -You're Next

Runner-Up: “I'm never eating at Benihana again, I don't care whose birthday it is.” -Wolf of Wall Street

Special Award for Ambition:

+1 (Plus One)
It's a deeply flawed movie, but it tries really hard to do something new and different with the typical teen comedy/drama. And while the results are very mixed, it has a handful of great scenes and tosses around some intriguing concepts. 

Biggest Waste of Talent

Parkland
A sprawling, overqualified cast does good work in an otherwise middling drama that offers nothing to the audience that the audience didn't already know.

Runner-Up: The Way Way Back
Steve Carell (playing against type), Toni Collette, Sam Rockwell, Alison Janney, Maya Rudolph, Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry can't make this coming-of-age comdey/drama feel anything more than slight, despite their best efforts.