In the lead-up to the unveiling of our definitive Top 50 Films of 2013 list, we’ve asked some friends of Paste to tell us their favorites of the year. Tune in for a different list each day. Today’s contributor is Dan Mirvish, who directed this year’s Between Us (pictured), among others, and is one of the co-founders of the Slamdance Film Festival.
As a working filmmaker who was on the festival circuit for much of this year with my own film, I’d love to say that I saw hundreds of movies. But in reality, at these festivals I mostly saw my own movie, Between Us, over and over again. And I went to parties. And ate a lot of finger food. Then when I’d come home, if I saw a movie at all, it was with my kids. Since I’m not in any Hollywood guild (I get dental coverage through my wife’s job, so why join the WGA?), I don’t get self-pirated screeners from the studios, and I’m not savvy enough to figure out BitTorrent. I rarely make it to a grown-up movie outside of a festival, and my local multiplex doesn’t have many awards-contenders even in the best of times. But they do have free parking. Consequently, my list is a bit weird.
1. Gravity
Last year, I met the guys from the company that invented the robotic systen Alfonso Cuaron used to film much of the movie, so I’d heard about the movie early. I normally hate 3D films (those damn glasses hurt my nose), but for Gravity it made sense. It was undoubtedly a damn hard movie to make, but Cuaron pulled it off with style and substance to back it up.
2. American Hustle
Just saw it and I think it also lives up to most of the hype. Great acting, especially from Amy Adams. The only things missing from her performance are an Oscar and a bra. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence also were terrific, but I found Christian Bale to be weirdly miscast (a fat, bald New York Jew? No amount of makeup, combover and cronut binging did the trick for me). The story is a bit of a mess, and as a student of Congressional scandals, it was dissappointing that it didn’t hew to the real story of ABSCAM more. But moment-to-moment, it was everything you want in a movie.
3. The Dirties
Winner of the Slamdance Grand Jury Prize in January, Kevin Smith picked up the film for his proto-distribution label. As a co-founder of Slamdance and MC for many of the Q&As, I do actually see a few films there, and this was one. A brutally funny and jaw-droppingly honest and heart-breaking look at school shootings, Matt Johnson’s The Dirties shows that occasionally you really can make an indie film about self-referential young filmmakers that is actually ABOUT something. The fact that more critics either ignored this movie or never saw it all shows how screwed up the studio-publicist-critical-industrial complex really is.
4. Between Us
If I don’t include my own film on my ten-best list, how can I expect other people to? An adaptation of an Off-Broadway play, Between Us is an intense drama about two couples yelling and throwing things at each other. Starring Julia Stiles, Taye Diggs, Melissa George and David Harbour, I’d stack their performances up against those in American Hustle any day (Stiles actually shot her role as J-Law’s sister in Silver Linings Playbook after we shot Between Us. Damn you, David O. Russell, you’ve lapped me!). Harbour won the Best Actor prize at the Woods Hole Festival, and Between Us won the Grand Jury Prize at the Bahamas International Film Fest. All together, the film played at 23 fests in 7 countries, and had a theatrical release in over 50 cities this year. Seen with an audience, the film works beautifully – as a director it’s truly gratifying to see audiences laugh, cry and shriek in all the right places. Not a perfect movie for sure, and definitely not for everyone, but I’m quite proud of myself and my team for pulling it together. (Available now on VOD, DVD, iTunes, Starz and Showtime) And if you want to see Julia Stiles in something funnier, then check her out in It’s a Disaster – essentially our sister-film since it also had half the same crew.
5. Malaza (Molasses)
I was on the jury at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and we unanimously gave this Cuban film our Grand Jury Prize. First-time director Carlos Lechuga pulls together a unique story of an impoverished couple in a rural town that could take place anywhere in the globe, but happens to be in Cuba. Perhaps bit of a “European pacing” for everyone’s taste, but it’s deservedly won countless film fests around the world.
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