{"id":963,"date":"2013-12-25T01:11:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T01:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2013-12-26T21:16:10","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T21:16:10","slug":"seymour-movies-not-top-ten-2013-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=963","title":{"rendered":"Seymour Movies’ Not-Top-Ten 2013 Round-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top Ten? Worst Ten? Ugly-But-Brilliant Ten? I don\u2019t know. Like\u2026why?
\nThere\u2019s more than one way to sum up a year. I should start this off by saying that, contrary to what some may say, this was one of the better overall years for moving pictures and I wasn\u2019t expecting a whole lot, given the way episodic TV has been routinely eating cinema\u2019s gourmet lunch for at least a decade. With TV having one of its more mediocre fall seasons in decades, it was inevitable that the movies would get better at about the same time.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t need to give you a list to tell you that. There are many more of these lists to argue with from people who are even busier (if not smarter) than I am. What I prefer to submit is a potpourri of impressions, observations and \u00a0pronouncements that will give you a general idea of how I reacted to the movies I saw this year. I’m not fond of the role of critic-as-magistrate (which may explain partly why no one’s now paying me to do it.) I like to think about what I’ve seen and talk it over with others. \u00a0Don’t you?\u00a0I\u2019ve already rambled about 12 Years a Slave<\/em> <\/a>under what one would call a separate cover. And you can probably figure out what I liked a lot from what you see when you scroll down.<\/p>\n

One other thing to say at the outset: Women will likely dominate the forthcoming discourse, but that\u2019s because women gave me more to talk and think about in the dark this year than men. Or children. Or aliens. I\u2019m not necessarily making a point here. Just saying\u2026<\/p>\n

\"gravity<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"incredible<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Incredible Shrinking Bullock<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because movie reviewers tend to a.) be pressed for time and\/or lazy and b.) not take science-fiction all that seriously as a literary genre, it was inevitable that most of the comparisons they made to Gravity,<\/em> positively, negatively or otherwise, were to other \u201cin-space-no-one-can-hear-you-scream\u201d movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> and Alien.<\/em> These aren\u2019t inept or in-apt analogies, given all the heavy-breathing spacesuits floating and crashing through all three movies. They just seemed too obvious. The first movie I thought of as I tossed my 3D glasses in the bin outside Gravity<\/em>\u2019s screening room was The Incredible Shrinking Man,<\/em> whose visual effects wouldn\u2019t make anybody gasp now, but were pretty cutting-edge for 1957. Both that Jack Arnold classic (which holds up better than you\u2019d think) and Gravity<\/em> have protagonists forced to deal with overpowering, inexplicable forces squeezing them in tighter spaces and erasing their options for survival. The telling difference (maybe I\u2019d better flash SPOILER ALERT here) comes at the end when, though both heroes are literally stripped down to almost nothing, Shrinking Man somehow feels larger and more consequential as a human being<\/a> despite his rapidly-diminishing state while astronaut Ryan Stone, though out of immediate danger, staggers off into a world that somehow feels bigger than she is. \u00a0And this, you ask, is significant because…? Think of the difference in calendar years: In 1957, we integrated Little Rock’s Central High and, weeks later, Russia launched a beeping toy into orbit. This year, as I write this, there are barely enough astronauts working on Christmas Day to patch up an ailing International Space Station. \u00a0And don’t even ask how voting rights did in the High Court a few months ago. \u00a0We’re a lot better at special effects, but as for the rest…As I say, think about it.<\/p>\n

Movie Critics of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n

I only this year discovered the HISHE Network on YouTube and I have now become their stalker, looming at their door in anticipation of their next animated shot at a studio franchise. (No Desolation of Smaug<\/em>, yet? No Catching Fire<\/em>? You guys slacking or what? I\u2019ve got other things to not do, OK?) The acronym, BTW, stands for How It Should Have Ended and, as you wits have likely discerned, the site\u2019s proprietors do their own version of a blockbuster\u2019s ending that makes you laugh and often makes more sense than the \u201creal\u201d thing. Because the guys and gals who work the controls of this site are knowledgeable fans of these genres, their send-ups are mostly affectionate. And it\u2019s this admirable deficiency of snark that only magnifies their impact. It\u2019s like having emissaries of Geek Nation sending out dispatches to the major studios and telling them, in essence, \u201cWe love this stuff, but we\u2019re not idiots!\u201d<\/p>\n