the 10 best movies of 2013, according to a guy who’s technically been a music critic since 2013
the yellowest and most starring-the-same-actor-in-two-roles movies of the year
as a brief intro to this list, i just want to make it clear, because it probably wouldn’t be otherwise, that just because a movie stars two guys played by the same actor it doesn’t mean i’ll automatically love it. like, yeah, ok, adaptation and dead ringers are two of my favorite movies of all time, and where would we be as a culture without norbit and all the funny accents tom hanks attempted in cloud atlas, and i almost enjoyed dr. strangelove as much as i’m told i should upon watching it a, like, fourth time, but these are all somewhat incidental to their appeal for me.
on the other hand, movies that are weirdly yellow? i mostly love them for their jaundiced color palettes and that’s the precise reason i included several of these entrants on this list, no other reason.
i purposefully omitted her and inside llewyn davis only because they felt to me like fairly obvious choices, which i like to avoid when writing these lists (i may even argue gravity and prisoners belong on here but i wouldn’t know how to write about them without going hundreds of words over my unspecified word count on actually-their-good-ing them which, again, goes against the aim of this project). i also recall really loving norte, the end of history when i saw it but that movie is literally over four hours long and loosely based on dostoevsky. nobody wants to hear me talk about a movie that’s four hours long (don’t worry, though, i cover dostoevsky here).
unlike previous years there was nothing i outright hated that got a lot of positive attention, though for some reason i still can’t connect with under the skin or snowpiercer nearly as much as i want to. there are, however, individuals i deeply loathe after reading their wikipedia pages in the midst of writing this list and they happen to be the directors of entrants #3 and #5—two awful bitches who specifically did evil shit on the sets of the movies i wrote about here. i do have moral qualms about including them but i also figured i’d already been impacted by the movies before i knew any of this, and frankly as a grown man i still don’t know how to navigate the nuances of quote-unquote cancel culture when it comes to my own personal relationship with media and the relationships i am potentially cultivating with, like, two other people through writing about them here.
thanks you. sorry. ok. movies:
10. a spell to ward off the darkness dir. ben rivers & ben russell movie that plays into my desires to both go outside to get as far away from noise as possible and to go inside to submerge myself in it as the film depicts various communities of people who’ve all literally or figuratively had their fingers up each other’s assholes. too slow and unfocused to be a concert film and too uh abrasively pagan to be a verite nature doc this is a perfect expression of black metal’s depth beyond the superficiality (and, increasingly, gimmickry) of its corpse paint. in juxtaposing the serenity of the natural world in both solitary and communal contexts with chaotic rock music it also equates the two as spiritual experiences that both invite profound community and profound solitariness—something that a movie like mandy gets right about the genre and something that a movie like lords of chaos, which seems to use metal merely as a set piece to tell a disparaging story in the history of the genre, smugly overlooks. starring ravenna hunt-hendrix.
9. the double dir. richard ayoade loose remake of short film about love, superb vehicle for jesse eisenberg face shadows. movie’s as much an adaptation of dostoevsky (its actual source material) as it is an overt homage to gilliam’s over-the-top dystopian office spaces, kafka’s bureaucratic comedy, and kieslowski’s metaphysical social dramas unfolding within block housing units, all enhanced by notably lynchian industrial sound design—which is to say that the weirdest parts are when it leans into moments of conventional romcom (granted, directly recalling plot points from the notably grim the apartment and dead ringers). what remains to be addressed is what i can only assume is the dostoevsky of it all: a classic doppelganger narrative literalizing the projected ideal self which formulates over the years during moments in which you’re ashamed of how you respond to situations in both your professional and personal lives, in ayoade’s hands additionally putting a coda on the eisenberg era of simpering white men depicted in indie films trying to get laid who, in retrospect, represented the social-outcast faction of the antihero renaissance simultaneously playing out on prestige TV. starring j mascis.
8. prince avalanche dir. david gordon green odd-couple danny mcbride–produced comedy set with a backdrop of environmental tragedy. possibly more than with any other director there are polarly opposing kinds of DGG movie and what’s so interesting about this one is that i can’t for the life of me tell which one it is: the soundtrack is comprised of the fragile post-rock of explosions in the sky and farting; the imagery is stunning nature-doc b-roll and emile hirsch yanking his lizard in a sleeping bag; the only two supporting characters are, respectively, absolutely heartbreaking and totally ludicrous. all of which is to serve the point that getting the little man squeezed is incredibly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things per the most hurried screenplay i’ve ever seen set to film balanced out by patient cinematography and jarring moments of genuine profundity. it’s also undeniably fun watching a self-righteous-older-brother paul rudd act overly confident as a father figure as he and hirsch’s character discover the lowest common denominator of the human experience and revel in their ability to connect over it on a deep level. mario and luigi lookin asses…..this is basically more in line with the nintendo lore than the 1993 super mario bros.
7. stray dogs dir. tsai ming-liang movie about continuing to love humans despite their rain-damaged interiors. feels odd watching a distinctly contemporary take (crocs; late-capitalist labor that seems only to exist as a form of public humiliation) on tsai’s long-held formula of two-ships-passing individuals meeting in abandoned spaces which they’re seemingly forced to make their home, in this case finding a roy-andersson-like sense of humor in all-too-relatable human suffering stylized by the pedro costa interiors much of the action (too aggressive a word?) plays out in—we’ve all found ourselves so deep in our silly little problems that we can’t help but mournfully chew apart a cabbage that may or may not symbolize our son’s face, or mournfully soliloquize to ourselves under a busy freeway while on the clock as a totally ignored human signpost for a real estate company. feels like this movie’s about helping us shift our perspectives, as summarized in the final, comically long static shot of a man dumbly watching a woman tear up as she stares at an artistically-rendered rectangle for a long enough period that we realize we’re doing the exact same thing, ultimately tearing up in front of our own rectangles upon which these artistically rendered images are streaming.
6. the immigrant dir. james gray movie that distinctly feels like lars von trier’s godfather pt. ii (you could make the argument that it’s actually just dancer in the dark, i’ll allow it) from the setting and visual style of that film to the director’s miserable depictions of the immigrant experience in america inevitably (yet still jarringly) first rearing its head here in an early scene where it’s demonstrated how power is wielded in this country: everything’s a life-saving favor until they need something in return which is right now and that favor is to completely debase yourself but it’s ok because there’s a tiny bit of money in it for you (which, again, you should be grateful for). incredible mid-movie sequence—taking place after it’s been established that for marion cotillard’s polish immigrant character to gain any sense of footing in this country she’ll need to have two needs that are not only not mutually exclusive but totally unrelated pitted against each other—where the american dream, the impossible, a miracle, is symbolically and cockily performed in front of hopeless ellis island detainees by an assimilated white man, succinctly stating the film’s thesis without the interference of joaquin phoenix looking totally lost in his role and—maybe intentionally—acting as if the film revolves around him.
5. upstream color dir. shane carruth movie about the limitless drug only it makes you good at haim choreography and fighting like george and oscar bluth. abstract-expressionist composite of vaguely theological malick-y wisps of fractured dialog reading as bizarrely specific soft sci-fi allegory for exiting the fugue state of an abusive relationship and the surreality of re-entering a new one with someone in possession of a compatible traumatic past without any romantic pretense, as established in a strictly-business meet-cute. behind it all is god-as-field-recording-artist pulling the absolute weirdest strings, presenting each of us with completely unrelatable pasts with which we, as adults, need to find partners willing to put up with our odd little routines, such as reciting lines from a classic work of literature written by a guy who desperately tried to assure us he’s happy being alone. unfortunately for god the (zero-chemistry, tellingly) pairing of the two leads and their mutual interest in H&M bring them so close together they share a subconscious, ultimately bringing down the man behind the curtain. feels like shane didn’t think the drab cinematography and pool scenes got across the three colors: blue homage enough which is why amy seimetz suddenly has that haircut in the final shot.
4. coherence dir. james ward byrkit movie about how you should avoid a whisper of ketamine at all costs. there’s something about space exploration movies that’s always unnerved me way more than any conventional horror and i feel like the astrological backdrop of this—combined with mumblecore conventions permitting a highly realistic cast of characters to be scared in a highly realistic way, to say nothing of the anxiety stirred by the movie’s setting being a party i very much would not want to attend meticulously aestheticized so as to make every stylistic choice unforgivably hideous (such is the power of mousehunt’s (1997) concept artist in his sole directorial effort)—makes it one of the most genuinely skin-crawly movies i’ve ever seen. on top of that there’s the appeal of its analogy for meeting up with old friends and exploring the infinite alternate timelines that may have unfolded amongst your various relationships and career prospects until you astral-project into the best possible outcome, regardless of what that looks like for your partner and closest friends. showing up to my next party with a tiny attache full of inexplicably numbered headshots of all the party’s attendees, let’s see where this goes.
3. moebius dir. kim ki-duk second favorite 85-min dialogue-free film implicitly about masturbation. this one swaps jan svankmajer’s stop-motion conspiratorial comic-fantasies for relentless over-the-top body horror in what is ultimately an oddly poetic and purely physical interpretation of the outward-spiraling effects of parental separation on a child and the individuals outside that family unit who get sucked into the drama. while the opening scene pretty explicitly states that this is a movie about the aftermath of a husband’s affair and the guilt he feels upon realizing he’s created a specific kind of shame out of thin air that will permanently become deeply ingrained in his teenage son’s life, it immediately transforms into some bizarre magic eye picture where if you squint at scenes of a father essentially teaching his son to crank hog you see a story about individuals doing whatever they can to push through pain in order to feel the pleasure of familial cohesion again, where horrendous physical and sexual violence becomes a visual metaphor for the various painful unspoken situations that arise from a ransacked domestic life. while the title implies a cycle of antisocial behavior passed between generations i think a rubik’s cube may be a more apt visual for the movie’s trajectory as each family member frantically shifts blocks trying to return pain and pleasure (and dicks) to their proper places.
2. starred up dir. david mackenzie movie about how you can be in a high security adult prison and still not escape being embarrassed by your da. feels a lot like a dardennes movie the way we’re immediately thrust into a story about a determined and destitute individual doing lord knows what very intensely before their painfully human motive is slowly revealed—in this case a teenager working his way up to his dad’s prison facility in search of his approval with both figures ultimately coming to the conclusion that parenting has to end at a certain age as the individual is passed off to various extra-familial support groups.
dropping the genre element it’s weirdly just a basic coming-of-age story about a kid—eager to take on grown-up problems, thinking he’s equipped for them—fighting off daddy issues while learning that adulthood is less about independence than it appears, which also happens to express the backwards thinking prison systems tend to operate under. by the definition of their subject matter prison films are an extremely constricting genre, but when done well there’s something so appealing in watching an inmate manipulate a rigid system to transcend their suffocating boundaries and suit their basic human needs which ensure survival. wanted to make a joke about it being a good father’s day watch but honestly? yeah.
1. enemy dir. denis villeneuve i have this reoccurring dream where my moderate fear of spiders becomes wildly exaggerated when i encounter one (usually a very, very large one, also vibrantly colored) resting motionlessly between myself and some item or location i know i need to get to. the whole dream is just me totally immobilized by anxiety trying to prepare myself for the worst before making any sort of movement. the next morning i’m usually able to identify its significance in my waking life as relating to whatever task i’ve been putting off that i know i need to confront in order to ensure my own comfort, if not survival.
it’s hard not to think about these dreams when watching this movie, even if the metaphor isn’t a perfect fit. what could just as reasonably be interpreted as a straightforward yet dream-logic-y portrait of the eerie possibility of encountering a physical embodiment of yourself in the world feels too mobius-like to not look deeper into the trajectories of history-teacher gyllenhaal and his local-actor doppelganger; the first gyllenhaal’s personal life appears to derail after a couple of vaguely unpleasant sexual encounters with his partner which, these scenes being intercut with his uni lectures about dictatorship, imply his despotic perspective on this relationship in which he’s losing control—a situation he’s probably encountered with previous partners considering his subsequent lectures on history’s inevitable repetition. one small shift in the dynamic and his fragile ego leads him to panic, which then leads to a nearly comic fictionalized version of himself as an eyes-wide-shut-sex-party alpha/only-eats-organic-blueberries domestic husband hybrid he helplessly tries to harness.
the final act reverses the roles while maintaining teacher-gyllenhaal as the ‘real’ one—only now the implication is that his demeanor’s evolved from that of the type of guy who subscribes to motorcycle periodicals and practices shouting ‘did you fuck my wife’ in the mirror to that of the simpering history teacher as his pregnant wife looks like she’s due at any moment. the pregnancy, then, becomes the spider whose webs are alluded to throughout the movie in intersecting cable car lines and cracked windshields as visual reminders of the anxiety at this movie’s core which comes to a head in the highly abstracted final shot when the creature cowering in the bedroom (incidentally the location of many of my own dreams) recalls the one crushed under a high heel in the opening dream sequence. the classic doppelganger dilemma of which one will survive becomes moot—we just need to decide whether he approaches the spider or continues worshiping the heel.