Top 5 Films of 2013

These are not in any particular order. It's just a list. 

1. Frances Ha (2012) by Noah Baumbach

Alright, let me get this out of the way. I don't care that this film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September of 2012. It got a wide theatrical release in 2013, so I'm counting this as a 2013 film. 

This is a brilliant film. Frances Halladay (played by the lovely Greta Gerwig) is a late-twenty-year-old dancer who lives with her friend Sophie. They have beautiful chemistry; some of the best I've seen on-screen in a long, long time. 

The film is shot in black and white and is much less about beautiful camera movements and is much more focused on realistic and rather witty dialogue. This is a film that dives into friendship and ambition. It's worth a watch; check it out on Netflix Instant.

2. Stranger by the Lake (2013) by Alain Guiraudie

This is a rather bizarre film. I've never seen a psychological thriller paired with a gay-romance film. The story is that there is an all-male nude beach somewhere in France. When the men are sick of sunbathing and are looking for "adventure," they dip into the woods where other men are looking to hook-up. 

The main character, Franck, is a character that falls in love with Michel at the nude beach. Michel is already in a relationship with a rather jealous man and they always dip into the woods before Franck has a chance to have a real conversation with him. One day Franck is coming out of the woods to see Michel and his boyfriend swimming in the lake. It looks as if they are wrestling in the water until Michel's boyfriend doesn't come up. Michel kills his boyfriend.

Michel's boyfriend's body is found and airlifted out. From there a detective begins asking questions. At the same time Michel and Franck are basically a couple.

This film is riddled with subtle suspense. There is so much going on between the lovers, Franck's knowledge of who murdered the man, and Franck's inability to tell the detective that his lover is the killer. Stranger by the Lake is a fantastic film.

3. Pacific Rim (2013) by Guillermo del Toro

Do I really need to talk about this movie? It's giant monsters versus giant robots. This was my favorite blockbuster of the summer. I got together with a bunch of my friends, decided to see this  total testosterone flick, and have a good time. We had a blast; it was so fun.

Basically, in the future these Kaijus (big alien monsters) travel through another dimension and try to wreck havoc on Earth. We build giant robots (Mechas) to fight them off and get really good at it. Eventually the Kaijus get stronger and stronger and we are unable to fend them off for much longer. So the humans drum up a plan to stop the menacing inter-dimensional beings once and for all.

This movie's dialogue is stupid to say the most. I only watched it for the robots and the monsters. I got my money's worth. It's the most fun I've had in the theater in a long time.

4. Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) by Adellatif Kechiche

This film is so raw and emotional that I can't help but put this on my top five. It's a little embarrassing, but this film made me feel things I haven't felt in a long time. It's a very impactful film.

It's a very traditional storyline: girl meets girl, they fall in love, they have a falling out, and years later they meet up and reconcile with their emotions and sexual longing.

It's disappointing that this film is surrounded by so much controversy over the sexually graphic scenes. They are so appropriate and so well done that I write off that kind of criticism. This film is emotionally packed and it explodes in a very tender and loving way, but also in a rather violent and extremely depressing way. 

This is going to be a very important film in the next decade.

5. Only God Forgives (2013) by Nicholas Winding Refn

This film did not do good critically. I think audiences and critics were both expecting Drive 2 with this film. Obviously this is a HUGE departure from what Drive was. 

I read Only God Forgives as a middle finger to the people that liked Drive because it has even LESS substance than the 2011 film. This is a classic case of style-over-substance, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The cinematographer, Larry Smith, also worked on Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. This guy is on top of his game in this film. The lighting layout must have been insanely technical and complicated. You can't have pure red, pure yellow and pure blue all separated perfectly by just "messing around."

Audiences and critics read Gosling's performance in Drive as a way to project the viewer into the viewpoint of the driver. I believe that Refn had Gosling do the same thing in Only God Forgives, so that audiences would try and project themselves onto an oedipal, crazy,  and hopeless person. Refn has always been a polarizing director and Only God Forgives only adds onto that fact.

Honorable Mentions of 2013: The Canyons, Place Beyond The Pines, Gravity, Spring Breakers

My Top 5 Films Of All Time

I'm a filmmaker and cinephile, so the most obvious question I get all the time is "what's your favorite movie?" It's a hard question to answer. I've seen so many movies over the years that it's impossible to narrow it down to just one film. So I've compiled a list of my five favorite films of all time with a short snippet of why I like it so much. Enjoy!

These are not in any kind of order. 

1. Vivre Sa Vie (1962) by Jean-Luc Godard

It's almost cliche at this point to say that you love Godard. He is one of the most important figures in the French New Wave. His film Breathless is hailed as a very notable film (especially since it was his first film). Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) starts one of my favorite actresses of all time: Anna Karina. She's a blend of the femme-fatale idea of the film noir age and the 60's girl pop that trended across the world. 

The film follows Anna Karina as she tries to become an actress, but eventually fails and goes into prostitution. The film is structured as 12 short chapters of Anna Karina's life as she sells her body, adopts a pimp, and is eventually sold to another pimp. 

Godard implements camera techniques that I'd rather not spoil. So go check this out.

2. Letter Never Sent (1959) by Mikhail Kalatozov

Kalatozov is a very interesting director, to say the least. He implements techniques that were revolutionary at the time. For example, in his film I am Cuba, the final shot is a sequence shot that goes along a wire from building to building following a funeral. It is so insane how he even got the shot, and even more so that it is such a successful ending shot.

Letter Never Sent follows a crew of geologists looking for gold in the Russian mountains. A forest fire breaks out and destroys their gear. They have to find a way to civilization or perish. 

This film is rather heartbreaking. The 3rd act really has some of the more tear-inducing dialogue. You should only watch this if you don't want to be happy for a little bit. That does not mean that this film is bad, though. The successful conveyance of emotion (especially romantic longing and suffering) is enlightening. 

3. The Turin Horse (2011) by Bela Tarr

This was my first taste of Bela Tarr, and it left me craving more. It's really unfortunate that his films are so hard to find without paying ridiculous shipping prices. 

The Turin Horse has less of a plot and more of a collection of visual vignettes. It's hard to describe what this film is about. A word of warning: every shot in this film is about ten minutes long.

I have never seen a filmmaker be so ambitious with a single camera. This expressive piece really dives into emotions of dread and pity while commenting on the beauty and wrath of nature.

Sure it's "boring," but it is so evocative. I can't wait to see more from this filmmaker. 

4. L'Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo

Jean Vigo died too early. He actually died while making this film. Vigo only had three short films under his belt before he took on this endeavor, and to me, L'Atalante is one of the best romance films of all time. 

The story of the film is a man who works as a captain on a canal barge marries a woman from a small farming village. They take off on the barge towards Paris to spend their honeymoon. Work gets in the way of the man's honeymoon and conflict takes place there.

There is one sequence in this film that is one of the best depictions of sexual longing. The film cuts from the woman in her hotel bed sexually gazing right into the lens to the man doing the same thing. These images are dissolved in and out of each other until the sequence ends. 

If you thought The Notebook was good, this will blow you away.

5. Robocop (1987) by Paul Verhoeven 

This movie is misunderstood. It has a Criterion release, so maybe that is not the right choice of words. Most people think this film is a dumb action flick. It's not! Well it is and isn't. Verhoeven is a master of not-so-subtle satire in his films (Starship Troopers, Total Recall) and the fact that no one reads them as satire is even more hilarious. 

I should not have to explain what Robocop is about, but it follows Officer Murphy (played by Peter Weller) as he is killed on duty. He is rebuilt as a robot police officer that is the ultimate law enforcement. 

It's a satire based on the American "security state." We are more concerned with security than safety. It sounds like these two go hand in hand, but Verhoeven demonstrates in Robocop that even the most secure state puts safety at risk. Officer Murphy enforces all laws. He has no conscience to really discern lawfully wrong from morally wrong and enforces it his own way: through violence.

This is a film that can be read two ways depending on how you're feeling. It can be seen as a campy sci-fi with social commentary or it can be seen as a humorous critique of the American security state. Either way works for me. It's a good film. 

A Round Table Discussion: Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

I was joined by a few lovely fellows to discuss a not-so-lovely film. Give it a listen!

I Spilled Beer On My Professor At The ACTC Film Festival

The ACTC Film Festival is a yearly event that takes films made by students from Minnesota schools such as Hamline University, St. Katherine University, Augsburg College, Macalester College, and University of St. Thomas, and gives them exposure. The event  takes place at the St. Anthony Main theater.

The entrance of the St. Anthony Main Theater

This year was a mixed bag of films. While Augsburg put out some really good narrative films (my favorite submissions all came from Augsburg... yes I am biased), other colleges made some really good documentaries, and some other schools made really horrible films that should not have made the cut.

Film Festival pamphlet and schedule

Of the few films that were legitimately good, my favorite has to be Augsburg student Nial Nelson-Hopkins' CHESSDOGS (which you can check out here). It was also one of the audience's favorite films as well; the reaction and applause was immense.  I made my cinema debut in another Augsburg student's film. I play a 90's gangster that uses laundry detergent as a dumbell in Casey Bargsten's Puppet Passion (the link is not the version that Bargsten showed, but it's close enough). This was a fantastic film. The audience really received it well; they laughed at the right moments and died down during the drama. Another Augsburg student, JC Calubayan, submitted his film Black Sun, Red Sky to a wonderful reaction. This director has a knack for composition. His work reminds me of Terrence Malick (especially this specific film). Black Sun, Red Sky was definitely the most beautiful film at the festival. 

Filmmaker Casey Bargsten at the reception.

I had a huge problem with two films specifically. One of these films won a very undeserved award for a really problematic and almost offensive documentary. Chia Lor's "A Hmong" Scar: Translated Bodies of the Hmong Diaspora was promising at first (except for the comical opening that I felt bad about laughing at), but it quickly devolves into something the filmmaker did not handle with sensitivity. The film starts out with an interview with a Hmong soldier that now lives in America. He shows the audience his scars from war and does begin to cry while talking about the atrocious things he saw during the war. This is, unfortunately, immediately discredited by the next two people the director talks to. There is a woman in traditional Hmong dress and a man who is dressed in a button up and slacks. The filmmaker asks them what it means to be Hmong. They reply with "you have a rice cooker and drive a Toyota." I could not believe that it ended on that note. I feel that to sum up a culture with those two factors is disgusting. If the film was about the Americanization of Hmong people it would fit, but that's not what the film deals with.

Hamline University student James Zimmerman also submitted a comedy film called Quest for Youth. This film is about a scientist that has found the formula for everlasting youth. The jokes are mostly about what ingredients are put into the youth serum. The humor of this film is that of a middle school boy; it's crude and dumb. Eventually the scientist drinks the youthful concoction and turns into a child. The next five minutes of the film is the child running around the house and screaming. The laughs from the audience did not last long. 

Overall the festival was very enjoyable. I got to meet with filmmakers at the reception and tech-talk as well as converse with professors about projects I am working on at the moment. I also spilled beer on Augsburg professor Stephen Clark, so I don't think I can hang out with him anymore.


The reception of the ACTC Film Festival. Filmmaker Alex Behrns, on the left, ruining my picture.

Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013): Everyone Loves Spaghetti

Adellatif Kechiche's latest film Blue Is The Warmest Color has been polarizing audiences with its exhausting and generous tale of sexual awakening, youth, and romantic dependency. 

I was very nervous to see this movie. With all that I have read about the three hour tragic love story with very graphic sex, I was expecting this film to be two and a half hours of full on nudity and maybe a half hour of actual narrative. I was completely wrong.

The film stars a very sensitive Adele Exarchopoulos  as a high school girl doing high school girl stuff; she dates a boy, they have sex, she gossips, and she deals with a break up. She later meets Emma (played by Lea Seydoux) who is a college senior working on her art major. They lock eyes earlier in the film as Adele is off on her date with a boy, but she comes in much later in the film. The first conversation had by Emma and Adele is at a gay bar. This scene has one of the most simple and beautiful reveals of Emma coming out of another room just barely out of focus. From there the love story takes flight and later comes crashing down. 

Adele and Emma at a pride parade in Blue Is The Warmest Color
Blue Is The Warmest Color is one of the most raw and emotionally honest films I have seen. Ms. Exarchoupoulos is definitely a shining star in this film. When she cries, she really cries. There's snot that runs through her tears; there is simply no ego. It's brilliantly done and it's even more impressive that the actress is only 19. Lea Seydoux also comes through with a role of modesty and personal security. She plays a role that is rooted in masculine values. Her emotions play out much heavier than Adele's do in the way that they are bursts of anger and sexuality rather than extreme sadness. There is no fault in the acting in this film. To me, it is absolutely spot on. 

If you are not interested with Adele's face, this is going to be a very long movie for you.The cinematographer, Sofian El Fani, is my biggest gripe with the film. He seems to struggle when the image is not an extreme close up of someone's face. There are a handful of shots where he pulls the camera back, but there is no substance to them. This film, to me, is very boring stylistically. Don't get me wrong, though, the images fit perfectly well with the film. It is intimate and, at times, intrusive. It feels almost voyeuristic; an outsider looking in, if you may. There is just a strange amount of close-ups of people eating spaghetti in this film. It sounds like I am lying, but I'm not. Everyone in this film loves to eat, and they show it. These shots really pulled me out of the film just because it was so gross. There's no music; it's just people biting away at spaghetti. Kechiche definitely has a weird sense of humor... if it even is humor. 

OK, the sex scenes. Well, the author of the source material (Julie Maroh) has said "the heteronormative laughed because they don't understand it and find the scene ridiculous. The gay and queer people laughed because it's not convincing, and found it ridiculous."

I felt that the scenes worked. Throughout the film there is this build up of sexual tension between Adele and Emma that it was not surprising to see a very hard cut to graphic sex. The one thing I absolutely hated about it was how raw it really was. There was no music, so everyone in the theater had to hear me take sips of my drink between the passionate moans and groans on the screen. It's volcanic in the way that the sex progresses. It serves the film well. It is an important and integral scene that addresses the sexual dependency that Adele has for Emma. 

Overall, this film is amazing. It really is glorious in its method of tackling ideas of love and sexuality. It really is too bad that there is so much controversy surrounding the film. It is far too powerful of a film.

First time watch: 9/10