Category: Movies

Top Ten Films of 2013

A week ago I posted my reactions to this year’s list of Academy Award nominees; the post included my initial predictions as well as my insights as to why some films or actors may have been snubbed over others. After all, there are always a few surprises.

You can read the post here. A couple of readers inquired about my “Top Ten Movies” list for the year. I recited a few favorite films off the top of my head, but never compiled an exact list. Top ten lists, however, are essentially a prerequisite for any film critic, even an amateur such as myself. So without further ado – and noting that I haven’t seen every 2013 film on my wish list – here’s my (pending) list.

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Oscar Nominations 2013-14 – predictions vs. reactions

This is my second consecutive year predicting the nominees via my blog, though I’ve been informally making these predictions for perhaps 15 years now, with a 75% degree of accuracy on average. If I was a Vegas odds-maker in this category I’d likely make a small fortune. Then again, there are categories like Best Director – 2012-13, where I only predicted two of the five eventual nominees correct.  Stranger things have happened….

Because I took a few weeks off from blogging, I never got around to writing a specific “predictions” post. As such, I’ll combine my predictions and my reactions in a single entry, below. The nominations were announced yesterday morning. My predictions were made in advance, and I suppose there’s no way of proving that I didn’t just make them up today to make myself look good. Honor system. Really. 🙂

Best Picture

My predictions (in alphabetical order):
American Hustle
Blue Jasmine
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Nebraska
The Wolf of Wall Street
12 Years a Slave

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Top Ten Holiday Movies

I bemoaned on Facebook perhaps two weeks ago that I wasn’t ready for Christmas. More specifically, that it still seemed too early for department stores to be decked out in Christmas-y color. A 30-foot artificial Christmas tree in a shopping mall atrium next to a real, year-round palm tree…and Halloween (at the time my comment was posted) was barely two weeks old?! Shudder.

But temperatures have been getting cold – a few days last week were Chicago-esque, almost. I called my parents a week ago and heard my dad listening to Christmas music in the background. The weather – and dad’s “muzak” choices – cold-cocked me into reality: Christmas is less than a month away. And for that matter, Thanksgiving is tomorrow! The next four weeks will seemingly pass in the blink of an eye, but it is a given that even down here, at least one of those weekends will be spent re-watching one of the same old holiday movies that I’ve no doubt seen two dozen times already.

Here, Loyal Reader, for curiosity and for what I hope will prompt a fun discussion, are my top ten favorite holiday movies.

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Travel Movies

I mentioned in my Sidebar: Summer Movies 2013 blog entry that I would follow-up that critique of the season’s summer films with some potpourri about travel-themed movies. As I see it, there are two kinds: The Classic Road Trip Misadventure, and The Fish out of Water Tale. On my honor, I’ll keep this short. No, really. 🙂

The Classic Road Trip Misadventure

This sub-genre of travel cinema usually makes for a fun time at the movies. Here, the protagonist is sent on his/her way for a reason – often a family emergency – and he/she (I’ll just say “he,” “him,” or “his” going forward) is forced to share his bumpy journey with someone very unlike himself. The two will ultimately find some common ground by film’s end, and if they aren’t good friends by then they’ve at least garnered some sort of mutual respect. These films were huge in the 1980’s.

Examples: “Midnight Run,” “Planes, Trains & Automobiles,” “Rain Man,” “Twins.”

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Sidebar: Summer Movies 2013

One of my friends told me recently that my whole life is about travel, referring to the fact that I willingly chose to move to Mexico City, a place so very different from my hometown of Chicago. I never thought of things that way, but I can certainly respect her view.

This exchange was one snippet of a larger conversation in which we lamented the lack of vacation time (in her case) or money (in mine). Most people would say that I have little grounds for complaining, considering that my post-college travels have taken me to 70 countries on six continents. And if I’m content in my new life, it is because I have finally accepted (well, mostly accepted) that I just don’t have the pecuniary wherewithal to travel anymore. My unforgettable spring trip to Colombia nearly broke the bank – and that’s considered to be a cheap country! These days, a day trip to Teotihuacán is about all I can manage.

What does this mean? It means I have to content myself with other hobbies and interests. The most obvious, it would seem, are movies. With two multiplexes no more than a 30 minute walk from my apartment, I have countless options for weekend entertainment lest I not feel like navigating the metro or absorbing the latest museum’s offerings. Ticket prices are in the $6 to $10 range, making them about 40% cheaper than in LA or Chicago. Concession prices are similarly scaled back, and you get much for your money on both counts.

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Oscar 2012-13 – recap and reactions

It is a curious thing about the Oscars: Millions of people watch the Sunday broadcast each year, talk about the show for perhaps five minutes at the office water cooler Monday morning, then never think about it again. Seeing as it’s already Tuesday evening, post-Oscars as I write this, methinks this blog entry is dead in the water. Still, I’m a completist, and I didn’t want to leave my Oscar predictions blog simply hanging in the GringoPotpourri wind without a proper bookend. I promise to keep this brief. No, really!

The Winners

So, not too surprisingly, it was Ben Affleck’s “Argo” as Best Picture, Life of Pi’s “Ang Lee” as Best Director, “Lincoln’s” Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor, and “Silver Linings Playbook’s” Jennifer Lawrence as Best Actress. I called ‘em all, of course. Supporting honors went to Christoph Waltz for “Django Unchained” and Anne Hathaway for “Les Misérables.” Waltz’s win threw me for a bit of a loop; I had Robert De Niro for “Silver Linings Playbook,” and in fact predicted that if there were any major category upsets they would be in favor of “SLP.” Alas, ’twas not meant to be. “Django Unchained” also earned Quentin Tarantino his second Best Original Screenplay Oscar; his acceptance speech was one of the better ones of the night, and about as humble as you could ever expect Tarantino to act. I failed to predict either of “Django’s” Oscar wins; although I’m a big fan of the film I thought it would go home empty-handed, considering that Tarantino’s superior effort, 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds,” lost in the Original Screenplay category. Waltz won the same prize in that same category then; I simply didn’t think lightning would strike twice, nor so soon after his last win.

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Oscar 2012-13 – predicting the winners

I have been busy of late, and my mind has been abuzz with blog ideas. I want to write a few words about a recent weekend trip to Querétaro. Meanwhile, friends have requested topics for me to cover, and I still have to put together a “Links” page to the blogs of other writers who’ve inspired me, entertained me, or helped me along the way.

But that’s all pushed to the side for a few days; this Sunday is Oscar night, and – amateur critic that I am – I thought I’d take a stab at predicting the winners. Putting things in context, “Lincoln” leads the overall race with 12 nominations, followed closely by “Life of Pi” with 11 nominations. That said, this year’s race seems one of the toughest to predict in years. As such, it should be a good show.

Note that I’ve seen every nominated film in the categories covered below. Oscar prognosticating is an expensive hobby!

Best Picture

Nominees:
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

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Oscar Nominations 2012-13 – reactions

“The Help” star Emma Stone and 2013 Oscar host Seth MacFarlane woke up bright and early today to read off this year’s Academy Award nominations. They were not the only ones at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, as hundreds of reporters were on the scene for the big scoop, hoping to make the evening papers. I was with them in spirit, of course, watching the live broadcast from my apartment. And although it was 7:30 out here and not 5:30, that was still damn early – for me at least.

As expected, there were a few surprises, but the actual list of nominees closely mirrored my own predictions from yesterday, with most categories predicted to 80% or 100% accuracy. (Best Director notwithstanding. Yikes!) “Lincoln” leads the race, with 12 nominations including Best Picture.  “Life of Pi” is a close second, garnering 11 nods.

For now, I’ll try and hold off from commenting on who I think will actually win, though I make no promises. Here we go….

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Oscar Nominations 2012-13 – predictions

My blog entry for today is not about Mexico. Nor is it about the series of events that led to my moving to Mexico. Before I fell in love with travel, I fell in love with movies – since I was a child, actually – and although I don’t obsess about them to the degree that I once did, they still provide much enjoyment in my life – especially when I’m not traveling.

Oscar season is a particularly fun time of year for me. I always enjoy predicting the nominees before they are announced, reacting to them once they are announced (well, not at 5:30 a.m. when they’re read off, but later that same day), and watching the big show, typically the only night of television that – at least in the U.S. – rivals the Super Bowl as the year’s most-watched broadcast.

In years past, my conversations about the predicted nominees were limited to a few seconds of office water cooler chit-chat, and a couple hours’ worth of internet movie message board postings. I always made it a point to see as many of the nominated movies as possible, so most of my moving-going friends simply couldn’t keep up. Alas, I’m a bit behind this year, as some movies released in the last months of 2012 still haven’t opened here (“Les Misérables,” for example, doesn’t open until February 15th). Still, I’ve seen two-thirds of the contenders, and the amateur critic in me has come up with my own “wish list” of nominees.

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