“Consider this ‘The Year of the Image,'” suggests Budd Wilkins, introducing Slant‘s annotated list of the “25 Best Films of 2013.” “At the bleeding edge were films that tested the boundaries of the current technology. Making the most of its in-your-face IMAX 3D format, Gravity dazzled with formalist pyrotechnics (even if its narrative beats had whiskers back in D. W. Griffith‘s day), while other films reserved their fireworks for the funhouse-mirror complexity of their narrative conceits. You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, The We and the I, and Viola all discovered wildly disparate ways to blur lines between performer and performance. Terrence Malick continued his ongoing project of stockpiling miscellaneous imagery for metaphysical recycling in a manner that recalls T. S. Eliot’s line: ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins.'”
You’ll find the individual ballots and a plain vanilla list of the films voted into slots 26 through 50 at the House Next Door. First off, though, you’ll want to know what’s been voted all the way to the top. Calum Marsh on the latest from Spike Jonze: “The genius of Her is that it doesn’t ask you to believe in the truth of its speculative science fiction so much as it does the truth of its romance, which is to say that Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) means more as metaphor—for a hard-won connection, long-distance or otherwise remote—than as a prediction of future tech. Her is about ‘the modern condition,’ but not, importantly, in the strictly satirical sense: It tells us less about how we live than how we love.”
MORE LISTS
Always an event: For the Notebook, Adrian Curry has selected, posted, and added notes on his favorite movie posters of the year.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s documentary filmmakers roundtable: Alex Gibney (The Armstrong Lie, We Steal Secrets), Errol Morris (The Unknown Known), Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom), Teller (Tim’s Vermeer), James Toback (Seduced and Abandoned), and Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel).
Designer Sam Smith lists and writes about his top ten movie posters as well, and the bonus here is that he’s added a brand new one, a fresh take on Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, his own favorite film of 2013.
Also at the Dissolve, two group projects: “The best 2013 films that made under $100,000” and the “worst films of 2013.” Plus, Nathan Rabin looks back on the year in comedy.
#1 on Kiva Reardon‘s list of ten: Denis Côté‘s Vic+Flo Saw a Bear.
“The Last of Us is the best video game ever made and, God willing, the start of a new era for the medium.” The only other item on British novelist Ned Beauman‘s list for frieze is Upstream Color: “Shane Carruth is one of the most important living artists working in any medium.”
NOT 2013
Craig Keller‘s 1985.
MEANTIME
Best albums: Motel de Moka and Stereogum. And at the Atlantic, you’ll find a list of the “Most-Instagrammed Locations of 2013.”
Lists and Awards 2013 Index. For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.
