The Counselor (2013)

I found it incredibly hard to concentrate on The Counselor. I can tell you quite a bit about the wonderful landscape shots and the cool camera work, but I hardly remembered what had happened as I was watching. Two thoughts kept bugging me: first, the amount of neat shots of Fassbender was perfect; second, why are these people in this film? Pitt, Fassbender, Cruz, Bardem… I want the intensity of Shame, I want the genius of Fight Club, I want those actors in great films. And I want Ridley Scott making films that leave you breathless like Alien or Blade Runner. I want no talent to be wasted.

The Host (2013)

The time has arrived.

Yep, that’s a Diet Coke cap. I fell asleep while watching it and missed about half an hour, woke up and what I saw then was so f–king ridiculous that I didn’t bother to go back where I’d dozed off at. The crazy part? I literally didn’t miss anything. I had no problems with watching on.

The concept is suprisingly unique, but the story is so lame that it doesn’t give anything The characters are bland and the events are stupid. I have no respect for it. The actors try to do something, but they’re uninspired and the visual effects, which are beautiful, are a waste on The Host.

I know this face. I wore this face for the 95 minutes I spent watching this film.

The quotes were cheesy, the final sentence was lame, but the ending credits were actually pretty awesome, with beautiful images of galaxy, Radioactive blasting loud and a gorgeous typeface. That’s the problem with this film: for every good thing, there are five awful ones. I wanted to know the story without having to read another book of Meyer’s, because I really have a problem with her bland style of writing. And I was intrigued: would they turn a book she wrote into a good film? And I got my answer: no, and that’s where I’ll leave that, and I’ll say that I enjoyed the Twilight films more — they were (often unintentionally) hilarious and eh, I had someone to show my displeasure to because I had a buddy with whom we watched all these movies.

But what bothered me most about this pile of steaming crap? The idea was a lot better than the execution — the screenplay. The visuals were much better than The Host deserved. Diane Kruger’s crying belonged into a better f–king film. If you haven’t seen it, great. Don’t watch it. The stupidity might piss you off.

Her (2013)

Her is the most thoughtful film about technology nowadays that I’ve seen. Instead of portraying the advancement of technology as cold and distant, Her focuses much more on how much human is in technology. This is achieved cleverly: by using a warm colour palette.

FAVOURITES OF 2013 — since Jordan Belfort likes Coke, too.

I really wanted to put together a concluding list of the year — films I loved, films I’m glad to have seen, to express some sort of an opinion of my own before the Academy gives their awards. I only chose categories where I had shortlist and where I was more confident in. Runner-ups are in brackets and films and I haven’t seen Captain Phillips, August: Osage County, Nebraska, Mud, Rush or Stoker, so none of them made the cut. Let me know what you think!!