The Best Film Moments of 2013

2013 has been a veritable feast for brilliant moments in film, regardless of the quality of the overall motion pictures themselves. It's hard to pick just a few moments that stand out from the bunch, particularly as the undeniably greatest moment I've witnessed in the cinema this year belongs to a film that isn't actually out until 2014, (three words - Please Mr Kennedy) but here is just a small selection of the moments that have kept me laughing, crying, or simply glued to the screen this year. (A few spoilers ahead, obviously)

Song and Dance - I'm So Excited!

I've already charted my love of this film in my review earlier this year, so instead of gushing over how much I enjoyed Almodovar's latest bonkers and hilarious offering, I'll skip to straight to the brilliance of this clip. It's probably obvious by now that I have a penchant for song and dance numbers in film, and this scene really is one of the best. The dance is absolutely hilarious and oddly riveting, and is brilliantly juxtaposed by the looks of absolute horror that the plane's passengers give their air stewards.

Modern Love - Frances Ha

If I had my way, this list would be comprised solely of clips from Frances Ha, but I've forced myself to show a little self restraint and just pick the one. This scene, a loving ode to New York and Greta Gerwig's wonderful awkwardness is also an accidental homage to an equally brilliant scene in Leos Carax's Mauvais Sang - allegedly he chose Bowie's Modern Love to score the scene and only afterwards realised the connection. This scene provides just a small glimpse into one of the most sincere and wonderful films of the year... and conveniently enough, isn't even available on Youtube. 

Look At My Shit - Spring Breakers

I wasn't actually a fan of Harmony Korine's hedonistic latest release, (but read our review here for a different opinion) but even I can see that James Franco's monologue here is an absolute masterpiece. Is it satire, commenting on how much we treasure our possessions, or is the scene used just to show off how cool Alien's pad is? Who knows. I'm not even sure Korine does. But this scene is so gleefully over the top - Franco must be having the absolute time of his life - that it's hard not to watch it in a state of slight awe. After watching Alien cooing over his shell-shaped base board and aftershaves, the films we've seen this year seem pale in comparsion. Jay Gatsby, eat your heart out. 

Ending Scene - Drinking Buddies

Joe Swanberg's departure from low-budget mumblecore into... slightly higher budget mumblecore may have been well reviewed, but it was heinously over-looked this year. The film's naturalistic approach to male/female friendship that could at any moment bloom into something more (and, judging by the film's ending, does, if you're one of those people who reads the ending of The Apartment as the start of a beautiful relationship) is so well written and well acted that it's incredible it never got more attention. Aside from this lovely, simple scene in which the two main characters silently reconcile after an argument through food and beer, it also features some of my absolute favourite dialogue of the year - "What the theme of our bar going to be again?" "Reservoir Dogs meets Casablanca, I've told you a million times!" It's impossible to watch this film, and especially this scene, without a wry smile on your face.

Marcus's Rap - Short Term 12

Here, technology has failed me somewhat, because the rap that Keith Stanfield performs in this scene (or at least, a remix of it, the original the features in the film is far more stark and stripped back)  is on Youtube, yet the powers that will be will not allow me to put it in this actual post. Short Term 12 is a film full of brilliant little moments, some of them funny - such as the monologues about his time working at the facility that John Gallager Jr's character uses to bookend the film - and some of them utterly powerful and heart-wrenching, such as this scene. Short Term 12's oldest resident, Marcus, is leaving the facility in a few short weeks, and has been acting out. Through a rap that he performs with careworker Mason accompanying him on a basic drum, he vents his frustrations and also reveals his past to the audience. So good is the rap that it has been (unless I'm making this up out of sheer will) put on the longlist for Best Original Song at 2014's Academy Awards. 

I Follow Rivers - Blue is the Warmest Colour

Blue is the Warmest Colour is now infamous for a set of scenes that are very different in tone to this one, but this very short scene shows a side of the main character Adele that we do not see often in this illuminating but at times very hard to watch film - we see her as the teenager that she is, laughing, having fun and dancing with her friends. While the performances of the film's lead actresses, Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, the film's director makes it clear here the the true subject of the film  is Adele. Although in a group of people, it is possible not to notice her presence, and the camera is constantly drawn back to her face in a moment of rare unadulterated happiness. 

Piano Scene - Stoker

Stoker was an hour of a half of surreal madness, (although, who expected anything less from the director of the dark and twisted Oldboy) some of it, such as the cringe-worthy shower scene, perhaps not paying off. But this rapidly paced scene in which India duets with her Uncle on the piano - OR DOES SHE?! - is wonderful, and shows just how good a director Park Chan-Wook can be if he's given the right scene to direct. 

Turbulence - Flight

Everyone seems to have forgotten about Flight - mainly because it really wasn't the great - but it's worth refreshing your brain with this scene towards the beginning of the film, in which Denzel Washington's inebriated pilot manages to drive a plane through turbulance and safely land it... upside down. The film's by the director of Forest Gump, so anything goes here really. After the plane's landed, the film begins to tail off, but these ten minutes show just how good it could have been. 

Opening Shot - Gravity

Yet another reason that nobody remembers Flight anymore is due to just how tacky and dreadful it would look in comparison to Gravity's masterful and breathtaking opening shot. I've ooh and ahh-ed over this shot already, as have about a thousand other people, but this unbroken 13 minute long shot really is the pinacle of modern filmmaking, and will definitely still be discussed in 10 years time when talking about the best film openings of all time. 

The Gimp - This is the End

I confess somewhat guiltily, This is the End was one of my favourite films of the year. I've always been a sucker for initally awful looking but surprisingly good "bro" comedies, (such as last year's 21 Jump Street) and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's directorial debut did not disappoint. Well, apart from the special effects. More on that over here. As all the actors in the film played themselves, there were cameos aplenty, making it very hard to choose just one - it was a tie between this and the "is this amazing or the weirdest thing ever?!" ending - but Channing Tatum suddenly popping up for a minute long cameo as Danny McBride's love gimp was perfect. 

Hotel Room Fight - Before Midnight

Before Midnight was a film of two distinctive halves: (oh, and what wonderful halves they were - and you don't believe me, here's our review) the "before" and the hotel room. While I may have preferred the breezy and humorous tone of the first half of the film, showing Jesse and Celine as a family after 7 years (!!!!) of viewers not knowing what became of their relationship. But the film's dialogue, co-written by the film's stars, truly comes into it's own in the second half, a bitter, painful fight that the couple shares in the hotel room that has been gifted to them by their friends for the night. There are still comic moments - Celine storms in and out of the room in fits of rage - but it's definitely more serious, and subtly reveals what's been happening for the past 7 years without the dialogue ever become too wooden. Because we've invested so much in these characters in their relationship over three films, this scene is painfully tense not just for the characters but for us too. After all these years, after finally getting together, are they really going to throw away their relationship? The scene leaves you on tenterhooks. 

Opening Shot - The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines didn't do too much to impress me after it's first "act" starring the always swoon-worthy Ryan Gosling - a pity considering how in love I am with Derek Cianfrance's wonderful Blue Valentine - but the 45 or so minutes that open the film really are wonderful, particularly the film's opening shot, a long unbroken take of Gosling walking through a fair, preparing to perform his cage biking act. It's inexplicable to say why (although perhaps it's due in part to the menacing looking knife that he performs a trick with at the beginning of the scene) but there's something ominous about the scene, as though - while not explicitly - it foreshadows the grim nature of the events that will follow. It really is a wonderful shot, and an even better way to open a film, even if the rest of it is perhaps less wonderful.

Do you agree with my choices? What would you have chosen? Let us know in our comments box. 

Grace Barber-Plentie

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

After watching both of his films, it's become clear to me that Derek Cianfrance is an auteur that likes to feed his stories to an audience in chunks. If you're reading this review before seeing The Place Beyond The Pines, or even his heartbreaking 2010 Rom-Dram Blue Valentine, then that will mean very little to you. But upon seeing his latest work, it will all make sense. The film has the distinct feeling of being divided into chapters, with the not-so subtle use of a fade to black used to tell the audience "This section of the story is over now. This is the next section beginning." Sure, a lot of films employ this device, to varying degrees of success, but what's so infuriating about it here is that, well, to put it bluntly, some "chapters" are better than others.

The film's first "chapter" opens with and mainly focuses on a subject that it's now clear Cianfrance is very fond of - Ryan Gosling looking tortured, wandering around and smoking. Oh the tragedy of it all. What an unsightly image to be forced upon an audience. Gosling plays Luke, a carnival stunt driver who learns that a previous fling, Romina (a very underused Eva Mendes) has had his child. Feeling a sense of warmth towards his child, most likely due to his own upbringing, something that is only hinted at, he quits the carnival, stays in town and gets a job. Sadly this job is as a bank robber, which causes him to collide with Bradley Cooper's rookie cop. While comparisons to 2011's Drive are inevitable, sadly the two films are very different. While there are moments, such as the bank robberies and Luke's fleeing journeys on his bike that pick up the pace and carry the furious electricity of Drive, the majority of the film uses the slow, reflective pace of Blue Valentine. Basically, there are lots of beautiful shots (the film, similarly to the "young" half of Blue Valentine is filmed on 35mm, a choice that pays off) of the protagonists looking miserable and reflecting on their mistakes.

It's after the denouncement of this first chapter that the film sadly starts to dip, due both to its possibly over-long running time, and quickly formed characters who were are not given much information about. Character-wise, Pines is the very opposite of Blue Valentine - it gave us a full and detailed view of a couple, told us everything about them that there was to know. Here, we are forced mainly to pick up information with exposition. None of the characters in the film are fully formed, and there simply isn't time to get to know them properly as the film is constantly rushing along trying to show us something new.

It seems to me that while Cianfrance is trying to do something interesting, the film is ultimately flawed. The first forty-five minutes or so are absolutely perfect, but the rest of the film struggles to keep up the momentum, or to actually show us anything that interesting. True, the film does pick up again to give us a beautiful and emotional ending, (If filmmakers want to make me sad, all they have to do is stick a Bon Iver track on the end of their film) but it feels like a lot of time has been wasted trying to get us to that point. But really, despite its faults, who can complain about a film that features Ryan Gosling with bleach blonde hair, pensively smoking and feeding ice cream to a baby?

Grace Barber-Plentie