Late-ish 2013 Retrospective: Top 10 Directors

Again, I don't have a huge disclaimer to put here. I know it's May, I know it's late, but hey, it is never too late to honour some pretty awesome directors, is it?

Honourable Mentions: Steven Soderbergh - Side Effects, The Coen Brothers - Inside Llewyn Davis, David Lowery - Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Abdellatif Kechiche - Blue is the Warmest Colour, Ron Howard - Rush, Lake Bell - In a World..., Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Don Jon, Ryan Coogler - Fruitvale Station, Asghar Farhadi - The Past, Richard Linklater - Before Midnight, Harmony Korine - Spring Breakers.

10. Spike Jonze - Her
Her is an incredibly brave film. Take it from one of the film's pivotal lines about love: "it's like a socially acceptable form of insanity." The way that the film ruminates on love is so beautiful, as opposed to sugar coating everything and having couples running of into sunsets and that kind of gooey stuff. Perhaps that's all because this is a film about a man having a relationship with his computer. Which is quite strange (it's quite hard to sell this movie to my friends), but Jonze does it in such a way that it feels completely natural. Not to mention, the futuristic world he creates is definitely a world that I could see actually happening, thanks to Jonze not over-saturating the film with ludicrous visions of the future. Even though the movie left me feeling extremely empty for a little while, this is a unique kind of beauty that I wish we could see more of.

9. Denis Villeneuve - Prisoners
Fun fact: throughout many lines of ancestry, it's possible that in some way I'm related to this guy (I would have even had his last name once upon a time, which would have been nice). If that somehow means that I have an ounce of his talent, that would be fantastic. Even though I haven't seen Incendies since it first came out about two and a half years ago, it is still engrained in my brain - it's so hard to shake the deliberately cold, striking way the film was made. It's the same with Prisoners, which Villeneuve could make with a bigger budget, bigger names, and the magic touch of Roger Deakins behind the camera. Prisoners is a masterful, slow burning thriller that mixes the suspense of detective work with the emotional trauma created within the families. It's a puzzle that doesn't seem willing to be solved, but it is made in such a way that I wasn't sure if I ever did want it to be solved. Villeneuve is always in control of his material. I haven't seen Enemy yet (because who knows if it will even get a release here), but how crazy is it that he managed to make those two films in the same year? And here comes my trademark saying: I want to be him.

We Might Be Hollow, But We're Brave: Spring Breakers and The Bling Ring (and Lorde)

But every song's like: Gold teeth, Grey Goose, Tripping in the bathroom, Bloodstains, Ball gowns, Trashing the hotel roomWe don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams
But everybody's like: Crystal, Maybach, Diamonds on your timepiece, Jet planes, Islands, Tigers on a gold leashWe don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair

Why the hook from Lorde's uber-phenomenonal song, Royals? It isn't just that I'm madly in love with the girl who makes me feel largely inadequate as someone in a school year ahead of her (damn you talent god for not making me musical), but because Royals became somewhat of an anthem for the NZ teenager, and somehow the rest of the world caught on. I mean, last week (or last year, whatever), I bought a copy of Vogue Magazine, purely because it had Jessica Chastain on the cover, and I was confused by how there were 65 pages of advertisements before the actual magazine started, and one of the options for a Christmas gift were $490 place-card name holders. Like, it was a big deal that I spent $25 on buying my Mum The Heat for Christmas. But hey, this is a reality for some people - and that reality is something that has been touched upon by many films in 2013 that I've unofficially called the "Look at My Shit New Wave". Falling under the umbrella of this slice of history that we'll no doubt be studying in a few years is The Wolf of Wall Street, Side Effects, Blue Jasmine, Pain & Gain, The Great Gatsby and The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers, which I'll be focusing on in this post. I'm told that films like American Hustle and The Counselor could fall under this umbrella, but I haven't had a chance to see them yet.

It is kinda funny how Lorde's music became big in 2013, defining teenagerdom, when we had The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers to define teenagerdom in film (bar The Spectacular Now, which paints a different, if equally true picture). The funny thing is that several songs off Lorde's album, particularly 'White Teeth Teens' and 'Tennis Court' wouldn't be out of place if they were to headline the soundtracks of those two films. They both depict the obsessive nature of teenagers, and how they dream of projecting a better life filled with diamonds on their timepieces and tigers on gold leashes. However, where The Bling Ring has already privileged teens wanting more, Spring Breakers has empty teenagers left broke and bored by their studies trying to achieve the kind of life the kids of The Bling Ring already have.

My Movie Biography: 2011 and How I Came to Love Jessica Chastain

(2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) 2011. The bestest year ever. Well, in my life so far, but it is not like I have that many years to compare it to. It is kinda hard to write about a year so close to this one, but lemme tell ya, tomorrow is going to be even harder. Anyway, hope you're enjoying the series, and mark your calendars for Sunday. Big things are going to be happening!

• I went down to Wellington for a week with my best bud. It was fun. We went to the cinemas like, four times. I usually never go to the cinemas more than three times on my holidays (I know it is really bad, but hey, I'm in a big city, so how can I refuse that?) We went and saw Tron: Legacy (which we didn't really like), The Social Network (because somehow it was still in cinemas), Morning Glory and Unstoppable. It was so fun!
• One of the worst experiences I've ever had was watching Eat Pray Love when it was excruciatingly hot. That movie is by no means short. And it just does not stop. Ever. Okay it does, but it literally felt like I'd missed Christmas by the time it ended. 
• I get very nostalgic over that summer because I spent the entire thing to the tunes of The Social Network's soundtrack. Sometimes I just listen to 'Painted Sun in Abstract' and it takes me back to those happy times. And then I look outside and it has just started hailing for the fifth time (we are supposed to be in spring).
• That awards season was crazy. It was the first year I really got into it, even managing to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the show. My love for certain movies changed so much during this awards season. First of all, I kinda resented The Social Network for being more popular than Inception. But what did I really expect? I thought that The Social Network was just gonna sail through and win everything. Then The King's Speech won the PGA. Everyone was now like "The King's Speech for Best Picture!" So I promptly realised that Inception wasn't going to win anything, I went and saw The King's Speech and thought it was pretty average, and then I became team The Social Network. From there on I became the biggest raging The Social Network fan on the planet. Every time I heard The King's Speech mentioned, I would fake gagging reflexes. I knew it was well over when The King's Speech won the SAG, but I refused to let go of the hope that The Social Network might take that award home. My friends and I gathered around the TV and watched The King's Speech win Best Picture. I may have cried.
  Those Oscars tore apart my life, man. Which I realise is pretty silly considering everyone in the blogging world hates the Oscars (seriously, they're still my favourite part of the year). Now I can tolerate The King's Speech, even though I still feel those twangs of pain whenever I hear it mentioned. As I said last night, I still can't decide between Inception and The Social Network being my favourite film of 2010. Ah, to look at things with a clear head...

"We would never be sure of the sequence of events."

Film: The Virgin Suicides
Year: 1999
Writer/Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Scott Glenn, Danny DeVito, A.J. Cook, Hanna Hall, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain.
Running time: 97 min.

Teenage girls. These two words are likely to have people feeling scared. Honestly, most teenage girls do nothing to break out of their largely negative stereotype. Some are overly melodramatic, moody and needlessly melancholic. Others go from one extreme to the next faster than the speed of light, like going from vegetarianism to hating the world and everything in it just like that. It would appear that all they care about are boys, their body image and their social status. Yes, we teenage girls can be very annoying. So I guess that Sofia Coppola's debut feature The Virgin Suicides, which revolves around five teenage sisters, may sound annoying. Luckily, it's not. I, as a teenage girl, found a lot to connect to. I'm not sure about anyone else, but there's plenty to love about Coppola's true masterpiece.

Classic - Lost in Translation

I must admit, I was pretty unsure about Lost in Translation before I watched it. I mean, I know that it was very well loved and all by the critics, but not many 'other' people really liked it. However, since I loved Somewhere, I'm pretty sure it was a given that I would like Sofia Coppola's most lauded film. Which does make me a little confused, as between this and Somewhere, not a lot happens. Most films that I've watched recently, like, I don't know, The Mechanic or Season of the Witch, have been films that I have found really boring. And, while I mean this in the nicest possible way, there's a bit more happening in those films than the two Sofia Coppola movies I've seen. However, those films, with all of their sequences of blood and violence fail to draw me in, whereas Somewhere and Lost in Translation rope me in from the very start, making me want to observe a character's life. Does that mean I'm becoming a snob? Whatever, I like Sofia's films better.

Anyway, Lost in Translation is a film set in the beautiful looking city of Tokyo, Japan, where two strangers meet and form an unlikely friendship. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an American filmstar making an advertisement for whiskey, which has provided him with an opportunity to get away from his boring marriage. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is a young wife of a photographer and spends most of her time at the hotel alone, as her husband is often out taking pictures. The two, very alone souls wander around Tokyo hoping to find something fun, which is when they come across each other. So now, these two Americans are together exploring Tokyo, being as confused and amused as each other by their relationship with the Japanese. But with their relationship comes with the fact that their relationship will have to end when one of them ends their stay in Tokyo. Which is of course a shame, but through finding each other, they both 'found themselves', so to speak.

Well there's no denying that Lost in Translation is one hell of a beautiful movie. You know that a director has done well when she makes a movie romantic without the story involving a lot of romance. This may sound weird, but I could really feel the romance between the camera and whatever it was filming. Rarely do I ever watch a film that is so understated in the way it is made, but the beauty just glows through it. This is the main reason as to why I pretty much love Sofia Coppola now: she knows how to make a film look gorgeous, without much effort at all. What she also manages to do is give us a good tour of Japan, exploring everywhere from temples to arcades. She doesn't try to make the city look like one perfect place, though, as she makes it look as frustrating as it is beautiful. The relationship between the visitors and the Japanese is particularly funny to watch though, because as any traveller would know, things always happen differently in every country, which makes for a pretty confusing time. There's just a divine simplicity about Lost in Translation which is given life through Coppola's excellent vision of Tokyo and how a film really should be. Hell, this was way more interesting to me than that Jason Statham movie.

Maybe the reason I found this more interesting than watching Statham beat the bejesus out of people was the fact that there was a proper, realistic relationship between two characters. Okay, I don't know if some normal girl would just meet a film-star in a bar and they would strike up some wonderful friendship. But you really can't tell me that some assassin would be paired up with a guy whose father was killed by him. Anyway, the relationship between Bob and Charlotte is gorgeous to watch. They never, to our knowledge, really engage in any hanky panky between the two, which is nice, because their friendship is enough. The two, instead, are joined by the fact that they are in the same boat: lost in a city, not being able to understand what everyone else is saying, feeling very alone instead of enjoying the city as most tourists would. They are reduced to spending their free time in their hotel room, venturing out to the pool and gym sometimes, eventually ending up in the bar at night. This just goes to show that there is no point in going to a beautiful city unless you have someone to enjoy it all with, and Bob and Charlotte, with the help of Tokyo, are perfect for each other.

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson do a wonderful job of making this relationship work, as without their chemistry, the film probably would have fell flat. Murray was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, and rightfully so. While there's a great deal of seriousness in his performance, his comic charm overrides this. His character is really a wounded soul, but he doesn't let that be known through a depressed performance. Instead, he just looks haplessly bored with his life, and has that certain 'I-should-probably-try-to-make-you-like-me-since-I'm-famous' air about him. I found it somewhat hard to like Bob at the start, but as the film progressed, and his relationship with Charlotte deepened, I came around to him. Scarlett Johansson delivers a brilliant performance too. At first I thought she was quite boring, but that only came down to the bored life she was living. However, there was something in both the character and Johansson's performance that I really connected with; whether it be general abandonment, a slight jealousy towards someone on a higher level (that would be movie star Kelly, who is played brilliantly by Anna Faris) or the need to find herself, but not in the way everyone else does (like her discontent with not feeling anything while visiting the temple - because everyone is supposed to feel something there). Both of these characters are essentially dead inside, until they discover each other. Which might sound clichéd, but in all honesty, that doesn't matter. This is a film which observes a friendship in the most beautiful possible way: with simplicity and elegance. The best thing? It ends all too soon.

THE VERDICT: While not moving at the fastest pace, Lost in Translation is a great observation of a relationship between two stranger in a foreign land, beautifully done by director Sofia Coppola and stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.

What I hoped for:

What I got:

DVD - Somewhere

or: Living the Hollywood life

One word to sum it up: Lingering

Somewhere opens with a flash car going round and round a track. It probably does around six or seven laps, leading the audience to wonder what they're in for. Could the movie just be a series of pointless long shots of stuff that really doesn't lend much to the story? Or could we be witnessing the life of an actor going around in a circle? That opening scene, though seeming as pointless as anything at first, is actually a symbol for so much more to come. It shows that our protagonist, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), is all dressed up with nowhere to go. He can't go backwards, because he has his reputation as an actor to uphold. He can't go forwards, because he doesn't have the willpower to. So he just goes around in circles, something which he is quite comfortable in doing.

We don't ever find out much about Marco. We know that he spends his time in the Chateau Marmont either drinking, sleeping, or hiring twin pole-dancers to entertain him. We know that he broke his arm. We eventually find out that he's an actor, and his co-star Rebecca (Michelle Monaghan) thinks he's a bit of a dick. And then we find out that even after we learn of his unlikeable traits, Marco is a father to an eleven year old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning). He has partial custody over her, and enjoys some visits from her, until she turns up outside his door looking for a place to stay while her mother goes away for an extended period of time. So Marco and Cleo share a time together that they probably haven't had the chance to share together before, which, in turn, causes our Marco to re-evaluate his life.

The phrase "Somewhere goes nowhere" is one which is often used to describe this movie. To a point, that is true. The film isn't anything new, the ending is a bit confusing and there isn't a lot going on in the movie. Not to mention the fact that Sofia Coppola isn't one to use quick editing, opting instead for long shots that linger...and linger...and linger. However, despite the fact that most people have been quick to shoot down this movie since it is slightly long, empty and well, boring, I absolutely loved Somewhere. I don't know what it was about this film. I could see the flaws in this film happening right before my eyes, I could understand why people hated it so much, I had a little ticker tape running through my brain of all the bad things I'd heard about this movie. But yet, this movie completely took me. I felt like a backseat passenger in an actors life. Sofia Coppola, certainly no stranger to the world of Hollywood herself, managed to involve me in a world which seemed entirely realistic as opposed to the 'star life' that I read about in the tabloid magazines. She's someone who really knows what she's talking about. You'd think that this film would be really dramatic, but Coppola blends a mix of drama, pure heartbreak and a great deal of humour, making it even easier to watch.

Coppola has made a very observational film, as if you were a spectator to this chain of events. She not only observes the life of a movie star, but she observes the effect that it has on Cleo, who isn't alienated by it at all. She seems to resent it, in a way, but she doesn't treat her father any differently. Cleo is essentially taking care of Marco, and in the end, becomes the one to change Marco so he can take care for himself. It's a beautiful relationship they have set up, which no doubt has a lot to do with the chemistry between Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning. I am not familiar with Dorff at all, and aside from the fact that I swear he could have been Guy Pearce at some points, I really liked his performance. He just knew how to be a movie star, and he knew how to 'be nothing'. The scene towards the end when he admits to himself that he is 'nothing' was a beautiful moment, because he was actually right, even though he was a film star. Elle Fanning, the younger sister of Dakota, was the star of the show here. She just lit up the room, even if you couldn't tell whether she was really yearning for a good relationship with her father or not. It just shows how many young people stole the show this year: Fanning, Hailee Steinfeld, Chloe Moretz...while Fanning may have been the least recognized of the lot, she sure did a fantastic job.

THE VERDICT: Somewhere is slow, but it is hypnotic and engaging. The way Sofia Coppola draws you in to observing the life of Johnny Marco is brilliant.

What I hoped for:

What I got: