Best Pictures of 2013

It is time for the prestigious Ordpaxa Awards, those highly anticipated but too-cool-for-fanfare awards which come sandwiched between the Globes and the Oscars.  This year, there were but 2 films which qualified as nominees, but I've also included six honorable mentions to round out a Top Eight:

Honorable Mentions:

8.  Gravity
Overhyped and with some bad science (how were the debris particles going the opposite direction to all the other orbiting stations?), the special effects and acting were still pretty spectacular.  At the end of the day, the story was compelling, but will not be iconic.

7.  Mud
A low budget indie film with heart.  Manages to take the muddy rivers and strip malls of Arkansas and make them seem spellbinding with great filming and the frame of a coming of age story.  They overplayed their hand with an overdone ending, but McConoughy still gave some of the best acting of his career.

6.  Blue Jasmine
With a plot almost entirely ripped off from A Streetcar Named Desire, this film still manages to seem original with the stylings of Woody Allen and Best Actress caliber performance from Cate Blanchett.

5.  Saving Mr. Banks
The criminally under-recognized and under-nominated film from Disney chronicles the creating of the film Mary Poppins.  From this unlikely premise comes a great character-based script.

4.  12 Years a Slave
Solid.  Best performance from an actor this year.  Will almost certainly get the Best Picture Oscar. Intense, required viewing.

3.  American Hustle
David O. Russell strikes again with an incredibly creative well scripted film that is sexy, stylish and cool.  As with last year's Silver Linings Playbook, we get a mixture of drama and comedy, this time with a 70s vibe.

Runner Up:

2.  Before Midnight
Obviously the Ordpaxa best films skew towards movies with great scripts and great acting, and this would be exhibit A in that trend.  As the (probable) culmination to the 'Before' Series, this would have been the year they finally took home the (nonexistent) Ordpaxa statue for Best Film were it not for an 11th hour dark horse:

The Winner:

1.  Her
It's a movie about relationships.  It's a movie about the Singularity.  It's a movie that proves Scarlett Johanson would still be sexy even if she were a disembodied computer program. This movie is excellently paced, and has one of the most creative scripts I've come across in a long time.  It's quirky indie perfection with a scifi twist.




Full Disclosure Haven't Seen Yet:
- Nebraska
- Philomena
- August: Osage County
- Captain Phillips
- All is Lost
- Inside Llewyn Davis