Tell me a story

My Top Ten:

10) Pain & Gain
9) The World’s End
8) Her
7) The Spectacular Now
6) Blue is the Warmest Color
5) Gravity
4) This is the End
3) The Wolf of Wall Street
2) About Time
1) Rush – I’d heard this one was good, but I wasn’t prepared for how much it grabbed me, both the story and the characters. I was all in with this one. Just a great movie-going experience.

Honorable Mentions
(a.k.a. If I Were to Make a Top 20 Instead of Top 10):

20) Upstream Color
19) The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete
18) You’re Next
17) The Great Gatsby
16) Short Term 12
15) 12 Years a Slave
14) Fruitvale Station
13) Place Beyond the Pines
12) Captain Phillips
11) Inside Llewyn Davis

My Least Favorites:

10) The Bling Ring
9) Sightseers
8) Gangster Squad
7) Only God Forgives
6) After Earth
5) The Grandmaster
4) Mama
3) G.I. Joe: Retaliation
2) Oz the Great and Powerful
1) Pacific Rim – As with with Rush I was not prepared for how this movie made me feel, and what it made me feel was bored. I didn’t care a lick about a single person in this, it was predictable, and the action did nothing for me. Yeah the scale was huge, there was no excitement to the fight scenes, just slow robots hitting slow monsters. Zzzzzz.

The Most Forgettable:
(a.k.a. The Movies I Forgot I Saw Until I Made These Lists):

5) Bullet to the Head
4) Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
3) Iron Man 3
2) Wasteland
1) The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Movies That Defied Expectations
(a.k.a. The Ones That Were Better Than I Had Guessed):

5) Thanks for Sharing
4) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3) Fast & Furious 6
2) World War Z
1) Pain & Gain – I’ve used Michael Bay’s name as a punchline plenty of times, but it might be time to stop. He delivered a testosterone-fueled romp that was funny and exciting and interesting. You may loathe the real people these characters were based on it, but as movie characters they are comedy gold.

The Movies I’m Bummed I Missed in 2013
(a.k.a. Top of my Netflix Queue in 2014):

7) Mr. Nobody
6) +1
5) A Single Shot
4) Starbuck
3) Out of the Furnace
2) The Kings of Summer
1) Kick Ass 2

The Most Frustrating Movies
(a.k.a. The Ones I Couldn’t Decide How I Felt About):

1) The Hunt (Jagten) – I can’t tell if I was emotionally manipulated by this or if it was just too painful for me to handle. Could be both. Either way it was too much. Still, it was a good movie, I think…

Click for 2012 in Review.
Click for 2011 in Review.