It seems like lots of folks have been taking stock of the year that is 2013 so far seeing as we are over half way through it. As I'm about to take my mid-year holiday and probably won't be doing a lot of film watching for the next few weeks, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to make a note of all the (UK cinema) new releases I have seen in 2013 and what my favourites of the year have been so far.
So firstly here are all of the 2013 releases I have watched so far in the order that I watched them:
The Impossible
Flight
The Bay
Les Miserables
Rebellion
No
Wreck-It Ralph
I Give it a Year
The Fall of the Essex Boys
Warm Bodies
Hitchcock
Cloud Atlas
Song For Marion
A Good Day to Die Hard
Stoker
The Paperboy
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
Broken
Robot and Frank
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Sleep Tight
The Lords of Salem
Trance
The Liability
Side Effects
Evil Dead
Spring Breakers
Olympus Has Fallen
The Gatekeepers
Iron Man 3
Bait
The Look of Love
Bernie
Everybody Has a Plan
21 & Over
Side by Side
Sound City
A Hijacking
Sweet Vengeance
This is the End
Come as You Are
Summer in February
Man of Steel
Star Trek into Darkness
Desert Runners
Monsters University
The Internship
To the Wonder
The Deep
The World's End
Frances Ha
Dark Skies
So 53 of the 95 films I have watched this year have been brand new releases which must be some kind of record for me and I have Filmoria to thank for special advance screenings of many of these. Without further ado, here is my top 10 of 2013 so far:
Please click any title for my reviews of the films. It's a pretty crazy list for me. A rom-com??? A remake??? Two documentaries, what looked like (and probably is to some extent) sexist crap, two comedies about the end of the world and a true life tale of massive loss of life. Cheery isn't it?
So that's my top 10 of the year so far (I think). What have been your favourite 2013 films so far? Perhaps The Impossible has stuck with me the most because I'm off to Thaliand. Though it may have focussed on only one family, it is still the true story of the deaths of 200,000 people and was therefore bound to have a strong impact. It is certainly the film that had the biggest emotional effect on me this year.
I'll be back in a few weeks so until then... take care now and bye bye then!
This is the End should be completely self-indulgent twaddle. The kind of movie that could be the end of careers and make you hate the stars who so self-consciously play themselves in an attempt to be hip, clever and funny. Full of quirky cameos of the friends of the stars and showing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, it should be insufferable.
However This is the End is actually a very fun horror comedy that pits Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, James Franco, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill against the apocalypse. The stars might be playing themselves and managed to rope in a huge number of celebrity cameos, but This is the End laughs in the face of its slacker stoner stars and never takes itself seriously enough to irk viewers.
When Jay arrives back in LA to see old buddy Seth, they both end up at James Franco's Hollywood hills mansion for a celebrity crammed party that just happens to also be the end of the world. As it is in the book of Revelations in the Bible, it seems the rapture is upon us and those not immediately taken to heaven will be left on earth to battle it out with demons and each other. After a pit opens in front of the house swallowing most of those at the party, only the core characters are left holed up in Franco's house to bicker over food, water, a dwindling supply of drugs and are suddenly left trying to survive hell on Earth.
Fans of the Judd Apatow crew like Rogen and Hill will love this. It's got that same brand of slacker style humour that runs through many of their other films. There are movie references aplenty with The Exorcist making for one particularly hilarious scene and James Franco's camcorder (from 127 Hours) also providing much humour. If you know and like these guys and their movies, you will enjoy every second. The references drop thick and fast and are not afraid to comment on the less successful films of their back catalogue with Your Highness coming in for one particularly funny mention.
Even before the apocalypse comes knocking, it is a real pleasure to see a representation of how these characters live. Rogen and Baruchel get stoned a lot, Michael Cera takes coke and slaps Rihanna's ass and James Franco is as weird and wonderful as you would hope, clearly a little in love with his Pineapple Express co-star Rogen. If this all seems a bit self-indulgent, well it is. If you don't like these guys and their films, seriously stay away. There is nothing for you here. On the other hand, if you like your stars stoned and silly, please step forward.
There are a few mishaps. The final scene is a bit of a flop and the running time is slightly over stretched, At times it seems like a series of sketches giving it a slightly disjointed feel. There are also a couple of missed opportunities. From the guys who brought us the hilarity of two guys watching Cirque de Soleil on mushrooms (in Knocked Up) and the hysterical wonder drug of 21 Jump Street, the drug taking scene where the surviving stars ingest a bunch of drugs fails to grab any laughs and feels woefully under utilised.
However on the plus side the effects are fantastic, particularly towards the end of the film where the stars leave the safety of Franco's house. It's hard to decide whether the film is verging on promoting Christian values or whether it is really just ridiculing them. Just when you think you've seen all the celeb cameos, there is another cameo towards the end that is also hilarious and unexpected. Emma Watson shows up for one scene that is funny but borders on tasteless but this is a film full of smutty, dirty humour that the easily offended would do well to miss. It's also got a fantastic soundtrack that spans Cypress Hill to Black Sabbath.
At times This is the End feels like a bunch of mates larking about. But when the bunch of mates include some of the funniest guys around, there is a hell of a lot of pleasure to be had from hanging out with them. Even if it is the end of the world.
This is the End is out on 28th June 2013 in the UK. It was one of my top 5 films to see in June. Thanks to the Total Film screening club for the tickets. Here is the trailer:
Each month, I will pick 5 films that I am most looking forward to, starting with June 2013. This month we have Brad Pitt in an action horror blockbuster, the return of Richard Linklater (for the second time this year), James Franco and Seth Rogen playing themselves and plenty of Michael Shannon. In fact we have two films about the end of the world, two featuring Shannon and two featuring Franco. After Earth is also out this month but though I love the idea that Earth has evolved to get rid of the human race, it also looks a bit like a vanity project for Will Smith and his son (and let's face it that household needs NO more income).
Behind the Candelabra starring Matt Damon and Michael Douglas also narrowly missed this list. I wasn't at all interested in seeing it as I barely even know who Liberace is but at a Slackers Club free screening, I was blown away by the two central performances so I would highly recommend it.
Anyway enough about the other films not presented here. Instead here are the top 5 films I'm looking forward to in June:
The Iceman (7th June) Starring Michael Shannon as a real life hit man who led a double life, killing people for a living but hiding it from his ordinary family. It's the first of two Shannon appearances on this list but will likely be the best performance of the two. The supporting cast includes Chris Evans, Ray Liotta and James Franco and it sounds too weird to be true. Unfortunately it is both brutal and frighteningly true.
Man of Steel (14th June) The next Michael Shannon film on the list sees him taking the old Terence Stamp role of General Zod against new Superman Henry Cavill. I started off thinking this was going to be a dull attempt to Nolan-ise a character that would not fit into the dark, down to earth, realistic style of The Dark Knight but actually the copious trailers and TV spots have been growing on me and I'm more than willing to give this latest incarnation of Superman a go. Also it has Amy Adams so... yeah.
Before Midnight (21st June) The concluding(?) part of a beautiful trilogy about flirtation, falling in love, letting go, re-connecting and finally marriage with kids will see the welcome return of Jesse and Celine who met 18 years ago one night in Vienna. Or on a train headed for Vienna anyway. Now the couple are perhaps older, wiser and on holiday on a Greek island, I can't wait to see where Linklater and the cast take this ever developing relationship. It's starting to feel a bit like the book One Day if we keep meeting these characters so infrequently. I hope this one gets a bit tragic with the couple facing the realities of life together and maybe the possibilities of love and happiness together being not so sweet and simple.
World War Z (21st June) Not sure if this is worth getting excited about because they've clearly made a huge mess of the book but on the other hand it's not every year we get a huge Hollywood blockbuster featuring the zombie apocalypse. So many things worry me about this adaptation (the messing with the book's narrative, the over use of CGI, the reshoots etc) but I can't help but be intrigued to see how it turns out. No doubt it will be more action than horror to keep it kiddie-friendly but never mind.
This is the End (28th June) I get to see this on Tuesday thanks to the Total Film screening club. It should be a self-indulgent silly mess with all these stars playing themselves (James Franco, Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, Danny McBride etc) but the trailer looked pretty funny so here's hoping this is a film lover's comedy dream with plenty of cameos and references and an apocalyptic plot to keep things lively.
So that's my June sorted. I'll be happy if I see even half of these in the cinema! What are you looking forward to in June?
