Fall Itinerary: The Season's Movie-Going Prospects

A double dose of Moore this fall. Oh, hold me!*

As a companion piece to my last post where I finally got my act together and gave y'all a proper account of what I've been seeing this year, I now want to focus my attention on what I plan to see for the rest of the film year. I might be missing a few titles (especially if there are late-season additions like Timbuktu or Grace of Monaco, which would obviously work as a double feature), but this is generally how I keep up with all of the fall/winter films on my radar, and now everyone can share in the experience! I've already seen a few of the titles, which are denoted by the addition of a grade and twitter capsule. I apologize in advance to all of the internet for not liking Gone Girl. If it makes any difference, it hurt me too.

Tier 1
(Indispensable viewing for Top 10 list)

• Leviathan – After Elena and The Return, Zvyagintsev has ownership of my heart.
• Goodbye to Language – Oh, here's the 3D innovation that Cameron/Scorsese were talking about.
• Inherent Vice – Guessing this won't be my favorite Anderson, but c'mon!
• Mr. Turner – Guessing this won't be my favorite Leigh, but c'mon!
• Birdman – Was one of the few who liked Biutiful. Theoretically interesting move for all involved.
  - An absolute marvel of grandiose form, evoking film and stage as pompous and noble exercises. Rich, peculiar ambience. Keaton A+ A–
• Gone Girl – Curious how well this one will land, but Fincher always demands loyalty.
  - Ideal material for Fincher, w/ little inspiration to approach. Tone, pace way off. Smug flippancy flattens spiky thematics. C
• Maidan – Crazy about Loznitsa since My Joy and In the Fog. Sounds like a gutsy approach to subject.
• Selma – DuVernay's Middle of Nowhere just came to Netflix. Always behind rising female auteurs.
  - Impeccable historical probing in a Lincoln vein, revealing complex, uncannily intimate nerves and organisms of an era and revolution. A–
• Foxcatcher – Loved Capote and Moneyball. Can't wait to see what Miller does with this bizarre tale.
  - Near Snowtown-levels of tonal/atmospheric oppressiveness. Obvious current builds to riveting second half. Actors give it heft. B

Tier 2

(Almost as indispensable. No way I'm missing any of these.)

• Interstellar – Nolan at 3 hours sounds iffy, but I'm digging this one's emotional vibe.
  - Inception-y amalgam of everything frustrating/brilliant about Nolan's ambitions and emotions. Sincere, for better and worse. B
• Life of Riley – Final film from Resnais. Never liked latter-day stuff as much, but easily a must-see.
• Stray Dogs – Have yet to see a Ming-liang. Looks quite impressive.
• National Gallery – Caught two hours of At Berkeley on PBS back in the winter. Excited to see more!
  - Great semi-intro to Wiseman, a lucid, pristine rumination on painstaking techniques and labors. Invigoratingly assembled. A–
• Maps to the Stars – I didn't like Cosmopolis at all, but could I be any Moore excited?
  - *Pushed to 2015, giving new meaning to my cries of "Oh, hold me," above. :(
• Two Days, One Night – Dardennes' reliable humanism coupled w/ Cotillard's dramatic potency. Eager.
  - Dardennes continue to package allegory, polish, surprises in character-specific ways. Delicate but not simplistic. B+
• Winter Sleep – Not huge on Ceylan, but, for obvious reasons, this one isn't exactly the one to miss.
• Abuse of Weakness – Breillat breaks either way for me, but Huppert always entices.
  - Breillat's bone-cold precision shines even through script's most tepid stretches. Strong Huppert perf. KO of a finale. B–
• A Most Violent Year – After Llewyn Davis I'll follow Isaac anywhere.
• Citizenfour – Always eager for docs with Weighty Issues that don't just reiterate facts we already know.
  - Vital, vivid, unsettling. Clear-eyed study of media jungle. Nails tricky balance of reluctant-but-necessary focus on Snowden. B+
• Mommy – I'm more tolerant of Dolan than most. Curious to see what's getting people on the bandwagon now.
• Pride – Looks a little stunty, trailer full of dated jokes, but cast, reviews encourage.
  - Shrewd political osmosis and a cheerful crowd-pleaser. Builds remarkable urgency, beguiling joy. Generous ensemble. Moving tale. A–
• The Guest – Know very little about the plot of this one, but has a lot of enthusiastic supporters, and I like stylistic verve.
• The Skeleton Twins – Originality likely won't be its biggest asset, but Wiig and Hader show promise.
  - Darkly funny spin on Estranged Siblings; their shared unrest and compassion. Wiig, Hader keenly perceptive to this dynamic. B+
• Rosewater – Rooting for Stewart! Love that he cast My Bernal.
• The Homesman – Loved Three Burials; Cannes response intrigues.
  - Cutting, wistful mosaic of Frontier themes, styles and characterizations. Trenchant camera, edits yield gripping authority. A–
• Beloved Sisters – Not gonna lie, everything about this radiates with appeal, to me.
• Björk: Biophilia Live – Playing for a couple of days at the Belcourt, so I might make the effort.
  - Blissful exhilaration. Marries eclectic visual wit with Björk's bravura audio-sensory pleasures. Crystalline! B+
• Tracks – Love to see Wasikowska continuing to push herself.
• The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby – Finally able to see this! Hope Weinsteins didn't mangle it.
  - Ambitious but stultifying ideas, POV, framework. Able cast, but few cogent cases made for characters. C
• Still Alice – Hi, I'm Luke, and I love Julianne Moore.

Tier 3

(Likely won't skip, for a number of different factors.)

• Nightcrawler – Loyal to Jake, but I am feeling concerned about his propensity for twitchy affectation.
  - Shocking, I guess? Best surprises come from Jake. Frames, sound, atmospherics all entice. Thin blanket of rancid concepts. B–
• The Babadook – Everything I hear seems to guarantee I'll be utterly shattered by the end. But in a good way?
  - Fearless, indelible plunge into traumatized tone and formal conviction. Eerie, relentless scares, specific to character, milieu. B+
• Whiplash – Heard a few discouraging words from festival screenings, but still curious, obviously.
  - Hyperbolic style, perfunctory script beats limit actors and scenarios; grows increasingly senseless as it goes. Why such raves? C
• Wild – Obviously awaiting the return of Reese, however rote the material sounds.
  - Strains to tie Cheryl's physical and spiritual voyage, but a fair stab. Iffy flashbacks; immediate textures. Welcome home, Reese! B–
• Force Majeure – A favorite of many at TIFF. Interested to see where they go with the premise.
  - Unbeatable start poses tasty setup, but from there: a slippery slope in tone, insight, and tension. Characters a bit vague. B
• Big Eyes – Not sure how to feel about Burton or Waltz, but Adams a big sell.
  - Tritely dramatized in script and direction, shrouding character motivations/perceptions. Faulty tone fails cast, story. Cumbersome. D
• Dear White People – Sundance dramedies go either way for me, but I'm really rooting for this one.
  - Defiant eccentricity makes film feel shaky, but also displays considerable breadth in humor, characters, tough ideas. B
• The Tale of the Princess Kaguya – Last from Studio Ghibli for a while. Looks gorgeous
• Fury – Kind of like Monuments Men (Big Stars and History!), except not nauseatingly horrible? Will follow Pitt to the end.
  - Grisly swerves, lurid acrobatics, minus EoW's brazen voice. Dodges complex politics of story. Sound, MVP actors have charisma. C
• Listen Up Phillip – The perfect match for Schwartzman's house style?
  - Candid, deceptively aloof study of writerly narcissism. Vinegary wordplay redeems structural limits. Moss astounds. B
• American Sniper – Trailer sure got to me. Cooper's been on a role, lately. Just what Eastwood needs?
• Starred Up – I kind of like Mackenzie. O'Connell's going to be hard to ignore.
  - Mackenzie acerbic as ever with meticulous rhythms and textures of a gutsy if slightly precarious script. O'Connell delivers. B
• The Two Faces of January – Weird that it's taken so long to arrive, but this cast looks stunning.
  - Handsome. Taut one minute, overly mannered the next. Dunst weirdly short shrifted. Mortensen easily MVP. C+
• Camp X-Ray – I happen to think Stewart is very capable. Moaadi wowed in A Separation.
  - Leads anchor heightened, absorbing dual character study. Nabs balance of empathy and strife even when scenes underscore both. B–
• Top Five – Having trouble gauging the reaction to this one, but I'm admiring Rock's creative risks lately.
• Lilting – Every time I give Whishaw a chance I get smacked in the face. Still: gay-interest.
• Cake – Based on stills and synopsis I feared this to be Aniston's Own Love Song, but thrilled that this isn't the case.
• The Drop – Glad to have Tom back from Nolan-land. Final Gandolfini role.
• Unbroken – Missed In the Land of Blood and Honey, but loving Jolie's enthusiasm over this.
• The Good Lie – Been hearing that this isn't just White Savior fodder. I can make the time.
  - Assured, thoughtful handling of narrative and theme; characters, ideas never sold short. Cast aids dips into tedium. B–

Tier 4

(A little on the fence, but curious.)

• Miss Julie – Reactions a little dismaying, yet feel more convinced than ever that I need to see it.
• Into the Woods – Fans of source material swear by it. Has Marshall exhausted all good will?
  - Songs, cast have appeal, but barely sustain Marshall's dissonance, tale's fleeting charm. Smartly-played by non-Depps. Fine. C+
• The Theory of Everything – I'd see it anyway for the Oscars and the cast, but "excited" I am not.
  - Not impervious to biopic cliché or unsubtle accentuation of theme, but Marsh, cast unearth rich nuances from both. B
• The Imitation Game – Same as Theory. Maybe looks slightly less appealing than that one.
• The Boxtrolls – Laika's two-for-two for me and the reviews are all good, but I'm still hesitant.
• Beyond the Lights – Yet another tale of the woes of fame and fortune. Good-looking cast, though.- Keenly and carefully considered study of depression and stardom. Subversive, satisfying stab at formula. Mbatha-Raw! B+
• Low Down – Actors entice; story beats feel very familiar from trailer and plot descriptions.
• White Bird in a Blizzard – Never have warmed to Araki. Little stacked in its favor, beyond Woodley.
• The Book of Life – Maybe if the reviews are good. Design could elevate it?
• Kill the Messenger – Renner's barely sustaining enthusiasm at this point, but could surprise?
• Big Hero 6 – Frozen impressed. But Marvel opportunism seems a big discouraging step-down from Princess sisterhood.
  - Visible influences from prior Disney/Marvel outings. Sensitive warmth drowns them, esp. via disarmingly "huggable" robot. B
• Before I Go to Sleep – I'm not opposed to another modest Kidman-Firth surprise, but I'm skeptical.
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Made it through first two. Maybe I can tolerate this one?
  - Not flip about themes, internal conflicts of be all/end all finale, but still whiffs of misguided execution C
• Annie – Adore Quvenzhané, but the fact that this was originally intended for Willow Smith alarms.
  - Quvenzhané sells chintziness, script's better intentions more amiably than Gluck. Changes in setting, character utterly floundered. C

Tier 5

(Spring/Summer titles that are on my radar in some form.)

• The Last of the Unjust – The notion of seeing 3 more hours of Lanzmann's footage deeply excites!
  - Frank, indelible witness's ethically shaky position. Deft in Lanzmann's own tie to atrocities. More than a Shoah rehash. A
• The Missing Picture – This has been in my Netflix queue forever. Why is this still unwatched?!
  - Moving, poetic, aptly diverse in form and detail. Takes risks of testimony-via-clay figures and turns them into virtues. A
• Closed Curtain – Panahi's cinematic voice more crucial than ever.
• Unrelated – Premiered in 2008. U.S. finally getting a release. Unsure about availability.
  - Crisp, economical style as a rich meditation on barely-contained ennui. Wise choices in structure, performance avoid cliché. A
• Child's Pose – Also, been available on Netflix forever. Romanian New Wave still fascinates.
  - Worthy in every respect. Melodramatic surges, socio-political allegory, toxic protagonist thrill even as ideas begin to ebb. B
• Obvious Child – Know a lot of fans of Jenny Slate. Vital topic that Apatow would run from, screaming.
  - One small step for U.S. indie cinema, one bold leap in tiny but vital political progression. Funny, tender. Slate amazes. B+
• Manakamana – An endurance test? Maybe. But those festival reactions are hard to beat.
  - Laconic subjects, static camera are a challenge, but beams with quotidian pleasures. Local nuances overwhelmed by conceit? B
• The Final Member – A "penetrating" doc from what I gather.
  - Oddity of Penis-museum doc opens gate for ribbing or base inquiry of subject, but finds intelligent engagement with story. B
• We Are the Best! – Everything I hear about this is nothing less than excellent.
  - Funny, caustic, and humane. Rare tale of adolescent confusion that attains acute profundity without feeling confused. A–
• Before You Know It – I root for any documentary that studies what others ignore.
• Land Ho! – Loved Eenhoorn in This is Martin Bonner; qualified fan of Cold Weather.
  - Sweet, semi-intimate take on well worn tale of aging/male bonding. Both feel like crutches as a result, but are sharp and impactful. B–
• The Amazing Catfish – Wanted to see this so badly at NaFF. Agnès Godard is a treasure.
  - Intricate family snapshot, lent lithe humanist detail from Godard. Hews to a familiar pulse, but heart stays intact. B
• The German Doctor – Sounds intriguing, though not rave material for most?
• The One I Love – Love Moss and Duplass. Have no clue what the premise actually is.
  - Safety Not Guaranteed-ish: stalls on unique ideas/scenarios, coasts on savory cast. Creative mind-tease and genre-bending. B–
• Finding Fela – Playing Belcourt's Doctober, but at the worst possible time for me. Still, looks promising for Gibney.
  - Gibney's repetitive grooves an odd fit for Fela's indefatigable musical rebellion. Enlightening if awkwardly assembled sketch. B–
• The Trip to Italy – First film was a howler. Doesn't look like a retread.
• Hide Your Smiling Faces – A lot of enthusiastic supporters! Why have I yet to budge?
  - Rigorous and refreshingly lucid regional excavation, building new weight in adolescent inquiry/sibling bonds. B
• The Face of Love – Annette Bening falls for Ed Harris. Again. Love these two.
• Belle – Mbatha-Raw supposedly the year's great find. Vehicle seems shaky?
• The Congress – Didn't get into Waltz, but this seems much more daring.
  - Laudable conceptual brio, with sharper undercurrents than Folman's last, but quickly degenerates into listless entropy. B–
• It Felt Like Love – Understudy of Fisk Tank, Fat Girl, etc. Could excel on its own terms, though.
  - Familiar sketch, but also observant and tactile in ways that few U.S. indies ever bother to be. Hittman its biggest find. B–
• The Strange Little Cat – Available on Fandor. Been curious about this since its festival run last year.
• Get on Up – Viola is in this. Boseman is an enticing prospect. It's been out since August. How have I not seen this?
  - Adheres to predictable, stifling biopic arcs, despite tonal and structural gambles. Odd padding, dull camera, electric star turn. C+
• Muppets Most Wanted – Predecessor didn't thrill me as much as others. Step in the right direction?
  - Like Muppets, hems songs, gags, actors into self-aware antics; but nails absurdist delight of prior entries. Bliss. B
• Neighbors – Supposedly a great showcase for Byrne, and not just frat-bro antics!
  - Typical shabbiness from Rogen/Stoller group, but generously funny material for its ensemble. Strong adult/adolescent critique. B
• Alive Inside – Subject hits close to home for me. Lot of fans.
• Tammy – No, reviews aren't great, but I root for any comedy that actually cares about its women.
  - Frustratingly slipshod in conception, but warmly and valiantly explores what most comedies ignore. One hell of a firework show! C+
• Frankie & Alice – After 4 years, a commercial release is obtained! Morbidly curious.
  - After 4-year wait, outcome fails to fascinate like troubled distribution. Sax botches story. Berry preserves what she can. D+
• The Rover – Cannes reactions disappoint, but I feel like I owe it to Michôd after Animal Kingdom.
• Jimmy P. – Latest from Desplechin, but such a tepid response from Cannes. A year and a half ago.
• Non-Stop – Apparently quite fun. Gotta have some Moore and Nyong'o.
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Thought the first was pretty banal, but I'm open to being surprised.
• Cold in July – Hall doesn't have the best track record with movies, but I hear this is good.
  - Taut, insinuating narrative puzzle at beginning. Strong on region/period nuances. Still, crude reliance on sexual brutality. B–
• Hellion – Finally ready to meet Aaron Paul.
• Venus in Fur – Polanski does one-stage setting again. Same middling results as Carnage?
  - Wicked arsenal of intellectual playfulness and mercurial energies. Smart, if not quite elegant in self-reflexive psychology. B
• The Railway Man – I hear it's better than its reputation. Kidman can easily persuade me.
  - Mixed blessings in frankness of emotion, subject, and narrative presentation, but a sobering stab. Firth very moving. B–
• Lucy – Rooting for ScarJo since Don Jon. Mixed reaction, but I can handle stupid fun.
• Calvary – Didn't care for The Guard. Curious about new direction in tone, though.
  - Like The Guard, arranges a prime showcase for Gleason, but smugly churlish tone often irks, even amid loftier themes and ambitions. C–
• Mood Indigo – Haven't been excited by Gondry since Dave Chappelle's Block Party.
  - Gondry's Pee-wee-inspired take on The Congress, with the manic energy/melancholic undertones that implies. Still, hard to savor. C+
• Veronica Mars – By which I mean, I want to watch the show, first. I love Kristen Bell.
• How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Sequel seemed a dubious idea, but (hyperbolic?) reviews say otherwise.
• Words & Pictures – I mean, it looks awful, but Binoche!
• The Other Woman – I should be more excited for this, but it just seems so disgustingly sexist.
• Chef – Favrea wins heart of film food critics with Culinary Integrity! Wins back sexy wife. Everyone be charmed!
• Palo Alto – Should I be interested in this if I have no interest in reading James Franco's short fiction?
• Magic in the Moonlight – Mustered some enthusiasm for Stone and Firth, but still: bad reviews.
• What If – Waiting for Radcliffe and Kazan to stretch their abilities. Also: Potterhead.
  - Opposite of innovative, but funnier and smarter about male-female friendship than I wagered going in. Good showcase for leads. B–
• The Fault in Our Stars – Not big on YA adaptations, but loved Woodley in Spectacular Now. 
  - Torpid mix of earnest approach and pandering sentiment. Stilted dialogue and scenarios. Dern its saving grace. C–
• The Raid 2 – Plenty are into its craftsmanship, which I'm not against. Grisliness more irksome.
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – My best hope is Rourke, but even he looks like he's running on fumes.
• Divergent – Good to have lead roles for women in mainstream cinema. Next step: make them interesting!
• The Giver – Film makes shambles of themes, actors, stylistic conceit from what I hear.
• Fading Gigolo – Ideal double bill for Chef? Two tales of middle-aged male fantasies and self-flattery.
• Jersey Boys – Nothing screams "Broadway" more than Eastwood's dull colors or mannequin actors.
  - Dramatic paralysis. Tunes utterly devoid of joy or catchiness. Squanders promise of cast, barring Walken. Eastwood adrift. D
• Dom Hemingway – Not sure if this is where I want to see Law going.
• A Million Ways to Die in the West – Loved Ted, but this is looking more like Family Guy than American Dad. (i.e. richer characters, humor)
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – A misguided disaster of comic proportions!

Tier 6

(We'll see.)

• St. Vincent – Murray plays another dour asshole. But let's condescend to McCarthy for deciding to switch it up.
• My Old Lady – Normally, I'm not that against comfort-blanket viewing, but this one smells fishy.
• The Maze Runner – Don't know what it is about YA adaptations that make them look all the same these days.
• Dumb and Dumber To – That trailer: a lot of cringing. (Still might be dragged to it.)
• The Interview – Loved Neighbors, but I'm guessing this is more Pineapple/This is the End territory.
• Exodus: Gods and Kings – Title suggests hot new franchise. Tarsem would be ideal!
• This is Where I Leave You – Cast looks okay; on paper, at least. Why wouldn't you hire the Real Steel director for this?
  - Appealing cast can't shake formulaic setups, wobbly tone. Switch out Levy for Demme and you have a start. D+
• One Chance – Was actually quite beguiled by Corden in Begin Again, but not feeling this one at all.
  - Very Slumdog-meets-Billy Elliot: tiresome, over-edited, condescendingly sympathetic. Script tarnishes Corden's affability. D+
• The Zero Theorem – Increasingly missable from what I gather. Not even Waltz can save it?
• Horns – Meh, I'll probably just watch What If.
• The Judge – Finally! A chance to see RDJ and Duvall outmug one another in a father-son dramedy!
• Harmontown – Harmon gets #sixseasonsandamovie and another venue to grouch about his despair.
• Men, Women, & Children – This time Emma Thompson narrates instead of Tobey Maguire, so progress?
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 – I didn't catch Fire, as it turns out. Intrigue still eludes me.
• The Equalizer – Washington goes Mel Gibson? I'll just wait for his next Unstoppable, thanks.

Tier 7

(Haha!)

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – Come kick off Carell's Oscar campaign!
• Annabelle – The only thing scary here is the shameless coattail-riding of The Conjuring.
• The Best of Me – Hoffman does Sparks. Not exactly dissimalar to how I'd describe The Last Station.
• John Wick – Keanu Reeves avenges his murdered dog? Can't imagine this being in poor taste.
• The Identical – NaFF '14's closing night film. Stayed away then, likely staying away now.
• Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb – Amazed that three of these have even been demanded.
• Tusk – The fact that this is under Night at the Museum should tell you how I feel about Kevin Smith's career.
• Horrible Bosses 2 – If making me want to hurl is funny, then the first was fucking hilarious!

Hello to 2014 Movies!

As crushingly hard as it is to believe, we're nearly three-fourths of the way through 2014, but as far as 2014 as a movie year goes, it's only just getting started for me. I'm currently in the process of applying a few updates to the blog (mostly in the sidebar, with more to come), one in which I catalog every film I've seen this year so far, which can be viewed by clicking on the image above. I plan to add past years as well, but as you can tell by my September activity, I've been devoting a lot of my free time to catching up with stuff that I missed from earlier in the year, making the total number of films screened, 58. And that's with The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and Love is Strange opening near me this weekend! Please, take a gander, and let me know if there's anything I should be adding to this list. I have no excuse for not watching Child's Pose or The Missing Picture at this point, other than laziness. And of course the fact that I've now seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before watching either of the aforementioned titles is making me feel even more cinephile self-hate.

Best of 2013: Picture & Lead Actress

Alright, it's time to finish this thing. Saved my favorite category for second-to-last:

Best Actress

• Amy Adams for American Hustle, for discharging precarious poise, mettle, craftiness and vulnerability where it counts, dizzyingly juggling accents, registers, allegiances and personas and believably making us wonder whether she's pulling one over on the eccentric cast of characters or herself.

• Adèle Exarchopoulos for Blue is the Warmest Color, for fully assimilating the film's French title (The Life of Adèle) and not only painting us a full, insatiable portrait of the titular character's sexual awakening but also richly vivifying each little lived-in detail about her.

• Margarethe Tiesel for Paradise: Love, for injecting such odd empathy into Seidl's pitiless observations and conceptions while portraying the middle-aged woman's desperation with a complex, unnerving chaser of self-sabotage and self-deception, cajoling her lovers to lie to her, emotionally and physically.

• Robin Weigert for Concussion, for keeping sex scenes, quotidian interactions and relationships alive and informative of character, showing us a candid, unassuming take on the Restless, Unfulfilled Housewife and neither condescending to nor sugarcoating Abby's agitations or frustrations.

• Shailene Woodley for The Spectacular Now, for refusing to furnish Aimee with any diamond-in-the-rough padding, sweetly and honestly playing an intelligent, lovely-but-ordinary young girl who deserves happiness and earns our admiration for her.

Honorable Mentions to Sandra Bullock & Melissa McCarthy for The Heat, the latter of which obtained the most plaudits between the two for her signature brilliance in boldfaced but revealing comedic stylings, but is evenly matched by the former's diligent, wonderfully subversive straight-lady repackaging of her comic persona. Bonus points to both for deciding to build a study of blooming female friendships around the generic pastiche of mismatched buddy-cop comedies and adding lovely edges of warmth and character-specific detail; Rachel Mwanza, who navigates War Witch's tricky, clear-eyed approach to its subject and lends the film its most sobering moments of introspection, taking Komona through a harrowing journey and circling back with an emotional sucker-punch of melancholy and newfound hope; Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clèment both excel in I Killed My Mother and Laurence Anyways, respectively, two separate films from Xavier Dolan (the first being his 2010 debut that wasn't realeased commercially in the U.S. until 2013) that serve as trenchant actressing springboards in both cases; Meryl Streep, who shocks the world and turns in a pretty great performance for once in August: Osage County, undertaking a Big, juicy role to be sure, which is a little concerning after the surprising humanity of Hope Springs, but the showboating feels more appropriate here than it did in The Iron Lady, and she adds a lot of compelling facets to the theatricality that's required of her; Cate Blanchett, who's also saddled with a mammoth of a part in Blue Jasmine; a mammoth of a part, like Streep's, that I'm not entirely convinced is honestly conceived as-written, but Blanchett manages to make Jasmine's hemmed-in characteristics of surface instabilities cohere through sheer force of charisma and cubistic vitality, single-handedly making Jasmine Allen's most fascinating protagonist since those acridly confrontational couples from Husbands and Wives; and Julie Delpy, whose inimitable luminosity is key to making Before Midnight's existence necessary, resuming her warm, funny and thistly portrait of Celine with new marital baggage and hurdles and understandably being loath to succumb to either. And those are just the ones that were fighting for third/fourth/fifth spots.

I also loved Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, Brie Larson in Short Term 12, Danai Gurira in Mother of George, Rosario Dawson in Trance, Veerle Baetans in The Broken Circle Breakdown, Jane Adams in All the Light in the Sky, Amanda Seyfried in Lovelace, Chiarra Mastroianni in Bastards, and Rooney Mara in Side Effects.

Best Picture

• 12 Years a Slave, for offering us the kind of bold, emotionally enveloping artistry that we often deny our "Prestige" studio fare or austere (and, in this case, oft-neglected) subject matter and managing to let it enrich and marry both.

• The Act of Killing, for finding ways to conceive a probing and ruminative film around one man's obscene past, even when bravely (if somewhat problematically) eschewing context and siphoning formal power through its subject's disturbing interpretations.

• Bastards, for sort of being Trouble Every Day all over again, with even queasier (and more soberingly earthbound) implications towards upper-class French society and domineering men, finding in one man's suicide another's gradual descent into sordidness and deception.

• The Bling Ring, for being an unexpectedly spry opportunity for its director to mix up her aesthetic and tackle different angles of humor and perspective, and serving as a vessel for heterogeneous characters and thematically vital stylistic surfeit.

• Inside Llewyn Davis, for showing the Coens' "softer" side while remaining an intriguing and honest encapsulation of their recurring themes, moods and interests, considering their established strengths and weaknesses in exploring all three.

• Leviathan, for pure sensory transference that immerses its audience in an endless cycle of environmental nightmares and a haunting nautical milieu, matching even the likes of Gravity in how-do-they-do-that visual chutzpah.

• Like Someone in Love, for continuing Kiarostami's hot streak in involving and intellectually playful two-handers, without feeling like he's overplaying his hand or exploring familiar territory, carefully measured in thought and skepticism.

• Mother of George, for having the technical temerity to tell a story of systemized cultural mechanics through apt stylistic panache, using it to enhance rather than undermine emotions and character development from the script.

• Paradise: Love, for detailing the Sugar Mama sex tourism scene in Kenya and linking it to a brutal and scathing tale of one woman providing men lessons in skilled manipulation over her own emotions, sneaking potent doses of empathy.

• The Selfish Giant, for steeping one foot in tacit acknowledgement of its titular inspiration and the other in valiantly suffocating subject matter finding ways for both to intersect, dramatize and oddly reflect one another.

Honorable Mentions begin with that frustratingly close #11 spot, Blue Caprice, and then move on to more festival holdovers from prior years like War Witch, I Killed My Mother, I Want Your Love, and In the Fog. All five have had durable staying power for me, and might even move higher on the list if I were to give them another whirl. And then Before Midnight, which had the potential to be in the top 10 if not for those prominent quibbles that I talked about in the Screenplay category, but the effortless elasticity of its two leads go a long way in helping it succeed, and it definitely does more right than it does wrong. You can see what else I liked and how I'd rank the actual nominees by visiting my Top 10 list.

And that's it for the personal ballot! I really hope that anyone who's been reading has enjoyed it, and even if you haven't been enjoying it, don't be shy! Leave a comment with your own favorites. I'm especially interested in your choices for Best Actress and anything you feel that I might have overlooked.

Now that we can move on from 2013, stay tuned for more topical posts that I have in the works.

Best of 2013: Lead Actor

Best Actor

• Bradley Cooper for American Hustle, for emanating qualities of overconfidence, hot-tempered eagerness and misguided intentions that are barely contained or aware of themselves, equaling his SLP performance in tonal acrobatics while achieving a generous rapport with his castmates.

• Oscar Isaac for Inside Llewyn Davis, because it's hard to imagine the film clicking as strongly as it does without his presence, bearing a lifetime's worth of (self-induced) misfortune and using sharp, eclectic forms of comedy and pained human detail to inch Llewyn towards his weary reckoning.

• Hugh Jackman for Prisoners, for hinting at helplessness but displaying pure animalistic veneer in the wake of tragedy, most especially when the plot piles on absurdities, and for providing a smart deconstruction of the Dutiful Avenging Family Man trope and of his own persona.

• Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, for also boiling down the essential components of who he is as a performer, but showing us what his career has the potential to be, packaging newly rejuvenated charisma, physicality and perceptive character detail into a bonafide star performance.

• Isaiah Washington for Blue Caprice, for a smart adherence to unsettling instability amongst Moors' elliptical construction and unpleasant moods, conveying a man with an odious persecution complex who has a very strong possibility to mold a directionless kid into a dangerous human being.

How appropriate that I publish this list on Father's Day since four of the characters that the actors portray are fathers, though I don't actually remember whether its even mentioned that Ron Woodruff has a daughter or not in Dallas Buyers Club (which he did in real life). I know his paternity wasn't as vital to the story as Isaac's, Jackman's, or Washington's.

Honorable Mentions start with the young Conner Chapman in The Selfish Giant, who's constantly challenged to fluidly fluctuate between being pugnacious and generally caring (sometimes within the same scene), and having to have his entire world come crashing down around him while staying in the naturalistic hew set up by his director; and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave, who is key to providing the film an understated conduit for empathy and lending nuance to McQueen's hyperbolic style, showing us the ways in which he learns to keep his head down over the years and the utter devastation he exudes with his reluctant involvement in scenes like the whipping scene. These two were fighting tooth and nail for those fourth and fifth slots, but are just as laudable regardless of their unfortunate omission.

Honorable mentions continue with Israel Broussard, who shows sweet elation to his new friends' acceptance and blind desperation to please them in The Bling Ring; Vincent Lindon, who serves as an emptied-out sexual and cerebral embodiment of the mythic, rock-nosed noir hero in Bastards; Joaquin Phoenix, who handles against-type tasks so deftly in Her, like the natural amiability he shows around Amy, the daffiness he lets loose during the first-date scenes between he and Samantha or how measured and revealing he makes scenes like the lunch with his soon-to-be ex-wife; Mads Mikkelson, who  has to work around a jerry-rigged script to provide an honest characterization of a man who's lost everything in the otherwise turgid, The Hunt; Bruce Dern, who does everything in his power to keep Woody from feeling one-note, adding a myriad of colors to his shame, humor, and aloofness amidst Nebraska's cajoling of easy gags and empty ranking of characters; Paul Eenhorn, who imparts This is Martin Bonner's title character with solitary reticence, and who avoids the lazy routine of viewing his religious crutch in a sneering, judgmental eye, painting his observer-reactor with wisdom and lust for life just waiting to shine through; Ali Mosaffa, who manages to make the twisty but faintly revealing nature of The Past's plot and character dynamics compelling, laying out a complicated history with Marie and a rich specificity in those promising opening scenes and warm approachability during the lunch with his stepdaughter; Miles Teller, whose charming turn as a wise-ass but intoxicatingly friendly high-schooler in The Spectacular Now transcends the surface teen alcoholism PSA and finds ways to earn our concerns and sympathies for the track that Sutter is going down; Ethan Hawke, who continues to make Jesse an endearing but slightly insensitive "roosterprick", constantly catching himself with his foot placed firmly in his mouth, even in his later, more weathered years in Before Midnight; and Tom Hanks, who starts off at one level as the cipher-ish titular captain in Captain Phillips and lets the entire film build to some of his most emotionally stripped-down moments than we've ever seen from him in the cathartic release of the film's ending.

Best of 2013: Direction

Best Director

• Clio Barnard for The Selfish Giant, for working from an emotionally wrecking palette of hardscrabbling working-class dynamics and social realism, achieving bold depth of naturalism and narrative velocity, without The Arbor's oppressiveness.

• Ethan Coen & Joel Coen for Inside Llewyn Davis, for conceiving an ill-fated protagonist in a misanthropic hew but veining his hardships with an emotionally tender throughline, subtly invoking dusty, era-specific nostalgia and bruising, ornery cheekiness to do so.

• Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity, for being prodigious in scope, ambition and craft without feeling airless or mechanical in execution or style, achieving a limber braiding of intimacy, empathy and urgency in each of his marvelous sequence constructions.

• Claire Denis for Bastards, for setting up taut, shard-like frames, surfaces and insinuations while balancing sensuous and stoic approaches to confrontational material, and for linking the film's seedy undercurrents and social-political adroitness in ways that serve the story cogently.

• Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave, for seeing trickier, more truthful angles of observation in Solomon's story than I suspect Ridley's otherwise good script does, employing his distinctive strengths of elevated style to evoke a devastating ordeal.

Honorable Mentions begin with Joshua Oppenheimer for The Act of Killing, who immediately grabs our attention with the audacity of his conceit and, barring the one little quibble about insufficient context, keeps the novelty of it sobering, head-spinning and world-crushing; Sofia Coppola for The Bling Ring, whose gifts with mood and rhythms feel riskier than they usually and more adventurous when applied to its satirical bent; and Andrew Dosunmu for Mother of George, who manages to distribute cultural and familial unease across a bevy of memorable characters and bracing visual schemes.

The rest of the honorable mentions are filled out by (in alphabetical order): Noah Baumbach for Frances Ha; Xavier Dolan for I Killed My Mother; Spike Jonze for Her; Abbas Kiarostami for Like Someone in Love; Harmony Korrine for Spring Breakers; Terrence Malick for To the Wonder; Alexandre Moors for Blue Caprice; Kim Nguyen for War Witch; Ulrich Seidl for Paradise: Love

Best of 2013: Cinematography

The last of the technical categories! Only four more categories to go until we can put this year behind us.

Best Cinematography

• Emanuel Lubezki for Gravity, for taking this technology to bolder and more excitingly resourceful places than his effects-driven predecessors in the Oscar-equivalent category ever have, finding a rich distillation of light, space, lensing and action-specific mobility all within its green-screen confines.

• Bruno Delbonnel for Inside Llewyn Davis, for devising a frigid yet crystalline palette that serves key themes, settings and moods while demonstrating a remarkable sensitivity to faces and silhouettes, and for bouncing so deceptively off of the Coens' visual conceptions.

• Bradford Young for Mother of George, because beyond the fact that he's one of the few DPs working who can favorably light darker-complected actors, he's also tremendously adept at enriching emotions, tones and dramatic textures, finding vivid and engrossing observational angles to set the scene with.

• Benoit Debie for Spring Breakers, for integrating a hypnotic gallery of mobile lensing and neon, sun-kissed and sterile sources of light to relay a mystical yet deftly investigative glance into the spring break ethos, if only for its first 40-50 minutes alone.

• Emanuel Lubezki for To the Wonder, for sustaining Malick's familiar kinship with capturing crunchy, gold-leafed landscapes and ecstatic angles of natural light and allowing both to serve as a microcosm for the film's living and dying relationship at its core.

Honorable Mentions were tough to boil down in such a strong year, but I hated having to exclude the fabulous streetlight gleam of Bastards; the dreamy excess of The Bling Ring; the unflinching detail of 12 Years a Slave's camera; even more gliding beatification from Bradford Young with Ain't Them Bodies Saints; and the awe-inspiring mechanics behind

Leviathan's almost-literally-down-in-the-gears visual sculpting. These five would have made a worthy lineup all on their own, so consider them my extreme honorable mentions.

From a cinemtography perspective, I also liked (in alphabetical order): All is Lost, The Grandmaster, Her, Only God Forgives, Post Tenebras Lux, Prisoners, and The Selfish Giant. And no, I was not impressed by Nebraska's cinematography.

Best of 2013: Supporting Actress

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams for Her, for eliciting the film's most generous and delicate gaze through which we view Theodore, assembling a sharp economy of warmth, sensitivity, communication and frustration and never once allowing any of these facets to box Amy in as the obvious alternative to Samantha.

• Scarlett Johansson for Don Jon, for infusing full-flavored enthusiasm and lived-in personality into a regressive caricature, embracing her voice and voluptuous body language to embody a real person with real flaws/strengths and to engage with comedic and dramatic beats in significant ways.

• Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave, for refurbishing the script's propensity for takes on character types with a distillation of angular forms of speech, amplified physicality, and an honest approach to a sympathetic character all of which make the idea of this girl a more potent concept than it is on paper.

• Léa Seydoux for Blue is the Warmest Color, for candidly suggesting what it is about Emma that attracts Adele's voracious gaze, hewing to a chewy, cerebral concept of her sexuality, and for the strands of composure, aggression, and desire that manifest in the break-up and post-break-up scenes.

• Emma Watson for The Bling Ring, for deceptively integrating Nikki into the middleground of the group and narrative curves and staying true to such a scabrous and tetchy satirical portrait when navigating a wide range of panic, petulance and repentance, slyly allowing all to play in her favor.

Honorable Mentions: These five ladies are so terrific (and if I'm being honest, were also the five nominees that I had the easiest time settling on) that I didn't even feel as bad as I usually do about leaving smaller, less high-regarded performers/performances out of the shortlist that would nevertheless make fine nominees on their own, like Ela Piplits in Museum Hours, who enters about halfway through the film for one guest lecture on Brueghel, flirting with deliberate didacticism while fully submerging herself as just one fascinating component of a bigger portrait; Julie Bataille in Bastards, who balances frazzled, petty and abrasive reactions to traumatizing news and piles even more layers to them when we find out information that only she was privy to; Sarah Paulson in 12 Years a Slave, who utilizes razor-sharp actorly instincts in vivifying this unnerving portrait of a slave-master's wife who turns out to be just as vicious as her husband; Angela McEwan in Nebraska, who sweeps in at just the right moment when the film is beginning to feel flabby and provides its most poignant and fully felt grace notes as Woody's former fling; and Mickey Sumner for Frances Ha, who is tasked with making Sophie the spitting spiritual image of the titular character (only with different hair) and then her foil, while managing to kindle a whole off-screen history behind their friendship.

Further honorable mentions are rounded out by Alfre Woodard in 12 Years a Slave; Verena Lehbauer in Paradise: Hope; Nadezhda Markina in In the Fog; Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives; Maggie Siff in Concussion; Suzanne Clement in I Killed My Mother; and Rebecca Jenkins in Stories We Tell.