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If you missed it, you can check out the movies I ranked between 11 and 20 here.
Below is my top 10 movies from 2013. Do be aware that this is an end-of-year list and, not being a proper movie critic, there are tons of movies that I have as yet to see and review. But this selection below are the best so far.
10. Monsters University (2013)
UK release date: 12 July 2013
The demise of Pixar has been hugely exaggerated. It may be Pixar's marketing strategy that is suffering the biggest decline. I found the marketing for "Brave" to be somewhat uninspiring, but absolutely loved the final product (not least because of similarities to my favourite Disney movie of all time, "Sword In The Stone"). In the case of "Monsters University" I was actively horrified by the teaser trailer showing Mike, the smaller one-eyed green monster, being bullied by Sully, the giant blue furry monster, and treated like a living disco ball. Yet strangely this prequel to one of the Pixar films which never really spoke to me turned out to be enormous fun and absolutely crammed full of clever little details. I'd actually argue that this is one of the better Pixar movies, not the mediocre entry I was expecting at all.
(My review here)
9. Gravity (2013)
UK release date: 7 November 2013
On the negative side there's a typical "oh no, what can my life possibly be worth without children" element to the central female character which I found enormously irritating. On the positive side however, there are great performances from the two actors. (I don't count the voices of Houston or the Eastenders actor whose face is only shown in a photograph. There's only really Clooney and Bullock giving a performance here.) And of course the biggest positive point is the absolutely incredible spectacle. There's some wonderfully creative artistry involved here. Sorry astronauts if this didn't entirely capture the way everything works in outer space, but you've got to give it some poetic license and full credit for the incredibly ambitious vision involved here. As Bullock's character travels across space doing whatever she has to do to survive there's a kind of 'action movie' feel here.
This was a welcome surprise considering I'd imagined that this movie would mainly feature a woman stranded in the empty blackness of space having an existential crisis as she contemplates her inevitable death. "Gravity" isn't perfect, but it's both a fun and an intense cinematic experience. Wondering why it received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture? Heck, flipping "Avatar" received an Oscar nomination and that was nowhere near so worthy. If technical achievement is going to swing in a movie's favour at the Oscars (which, let's face it, normally isn't how it works) then "Gravity" seems like a film more worthy of that kind of special treatment. The wow-factor is strong with this one.
(My review here)
( Click here to see the rest of my favourites from 2013 (so far)... )
