Movies: Before Midnight ('Best of 2013' List)

"How long has it been since we've just been wandering around bullshitting?"

Too long!

Before Midnight is the third film in what is, to-date, a trilogy about the ongoing romantic relationship of Céline (played and co-written by Julie Delpy) and Jesse (played and co-written by Ethan Hawke). A chance meeting between strangers on a train in 1994 leading to a day spent in Vienna with a promise to meet again, and the actual reunion nine years later in Paris, were the stories of the the previous films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, respectively.

Once again directed and co-written by Richard Linklater, this chapter takes place during a vacation to Greece nine years after Sunset. Céline and Jesse are now married with young twin daughters. The film opens with Jesse at an airport seeing off his son from his previous marriage back to the U.S. for the start of a new school year.

This film is a little older, and a little harsher, as reality and romance come into conflict. This couple has always been thoughtful, but Céline comes across as more pragmatic this time around (perhaps she always was). Relationships are delicate things, and as the story progresses, the characters and the audience worry that this bond is at a precarious juncture. Is this the inevitable nature of all romances over time?

Part of the resonance of the story for some of us viewers is that Céline and Jesse are contemporaries, and though the specifics of their relationship are not directly applicable to everyone (how often do you get to hash out your life with your significant other in exotic locales?), there is enough common ground and truth in their experience and the articulation of it that leads to us reflecting on our own relationships. It's one of the rare, powerful things that can happen with movies. That it's happened over the course of three films is rarer still.

Add to that: charming and witty leads, stellar naturalistic dialogue, filmed against beautiful European cities. What's not to like?

As long as the three principles are interested in expanding this tale, I would gladly visit these characters again in another nine years.

Other goodness:

• Delpy as Céline, acting like a theorectical bimbo during a lunch with friends to underscore a point.
• Lying to your kids.
• The ending, equal parts hopeful and sad.

Movies: Gravity ('Best of 2013' List)

Gravity concerns the first NASA mission of civilian medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock. She's responsible for a bit of tech that's normally used in hospitals, but that is now being tested as an augmentation for the Hubble Space Telescope, which is being serviced by the space shuttle. Dr. Stone is one of a team of five, the most senior member of that team being astronaut Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, who routinely jokes with Mission Control about having "a bad feeling about this mission", apparently on every mission he's ever been involved in. Coincidentally and unfortunately, his faux-premonition turns out to be correct this time.

Catastrophic events ensue.

Director and co-writer Alfonso Cuarón, whose 2006 dystopian film Children of Men is one of my favourites, continues here with a directorial audacity and assuredness, even more impressive considering it's been seven years since he made Children. As one of many noteworthy examples, the film opens with a single 18 minute shot that lays out the geography of the scene while retaining the openness and, seemingly paradoxically, the disorientation that being in space provides. More impressive is the organic nature of the presentation: I wasn't fully aware that it was one meticulously choreographed sequence for that length of time until it ended, and my brain caught up with that fact. "Wow!", it said.

I own a stereoscopic television, and also now work on projects that are stereoscopic, but I find myself mostly over the whole notion of "3D" entertainment, to the point that I rarely use the 3D capabilities of my set anymore, and will mostly actively seek out 2D presentations of films I see in theatres. I find that usually 3D adds nothing to the film-going experience, other than, ironically, an impediment to my immersion in the story being presented. There are very few films where I think it worked in the way it was intended and was successful: Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon, and (although a flawed film otherwise) Prometheus.

Having said all that, I think Gravity is the best 3D film I've seen, and if you see it theatrically you should see it in 3D, and ideally on the biggest screen you can find (honest to goodness IMAX). The effectiveness of the 3D here had me experiencing that nervous, tingling sensation I've sometimes felt in real life when looking down from really tall buildings or airplanes, and that I've never experienced when watching a 3D film -- until now. Also, while I'm positive that the emotional resonance and visual splendour on view will still be as engrossing, I think that if you wait for home video that you will be missing out on an added level of immersion that makes the film so satisfying.

Thrilling and refreshingly efficient in a way that recalls, for me, Jaws (which is high-praise), Gravity would be one of my 'best-ofs' in any year it was released.

More goodness:

• Sandra Bullock: it's equally her film as it is Cuarón's, and possibly her best performance.
• Framestore et al, feel free to pick up your VFX Oscar now.
• I thought that was you, Ed.
• The fetal position.
• Unexpected bungee.
• Tears in space.
• A lullabye in a foreign language.

P.S. I you haven't seen Gravity yet, and you haven't seen the official trailer, avoid the trailer at all costs. I avoided it, then saw the film, then saw the trailer -- it gives away everything, and I was mighty happy I hadn't seen it before hand. For the most part, I think trailer editors these days (or whoever is directing them) need to be punched in the nards.

Movies: The Kings of Summer ('Best of 2013' List)

In The Kings of Summer, Joe, played by Nick Robinson, and his best friend Patrick, played by Gabriel Basso, are on the cusp of finishing high school, and are fed up with their mostly harmless but often annoying parents. This particular summer, the two of them decide to run away from home, off to live in woods indefinitely, doing whatever they want without the concerns of the adult world encroaching on their freedom. On their way, they encounter Biaggio, played by Moises Arias, a peculiar but endearing little weirdo who joins their ranks and becomes one of the three "kings of summer".

I've grown tired of big budget comedies that amount to little more than famous comedic actors getting together and lazily churning out whatever underwritten , high-concept, improvisational mishmash they can that will keep them employed and earn them a fat paycheque (and ultimately waste my time as a viewer -- This Is the End, for example). That they are mostly unfunny just underscores the problem.

The Kings of Summer knows that the funniest moments come from a combination of strong story and fleshed-out characters, and how those two things intersect in crazy and interesting ways. It also knows that often the funniest moments are the truest (shout out to The Untouchables). It doesn't avoid broader comedy (see Biaggio, or as a better example Patrick's parents, played by Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson, who are just-this-side of cartoons, but not off-puttingly so), but it also doesn't pander.

One unfortunate coincidence about the movie is that it has a climactic event that is almost identical to the climactic event that happens in another, better movie that I'm also listing as one of the 'Best of 2013' entries. A minor quibble. I won't mention what the event is or which other film uses it, to avoid spoilers.

Other greatness:

• The opening scene, pictured above. You had me at hello, basically.
• Eugene Cordero as Colin, Joe's older-sister's super-nice boyfriend, and his eager-to-please interactions with Joe's dad Frank, played by Nick Offerman, who frankly couldn't give a shit.
• The post-credits scene. It shows one character in a different light, and if ever there were to be a sequel, this scene indicates that it might be in a different genre of films entirely. It got a big, deserved laugh from me.