Year In Lists: 2013

 

Is the correct way to say it Year End Lists or Year In Lists? For the time being, I’ll follow what Los Campesinos! said. It’s kind of messed up to be barely writing this one month into 2014 but since it is Chinese New Year this weekend I’m technically not cheating nor am I late.

Anyways, the bulk of these lists are going to deal with films. So lets jump into that first. I don’t quite remember if I wrote my Top 10 favorite films last year, but ever since I signed up for Letterboxd, keeping track of the movies I’ve been watching have been so much easier (ditto with their list creating features). So here we go.

 

TOP 10 FAVORITE FILMS OF 2013

10. Gravity: This movie was a huge technical achievement and it’s result was a eye viewing spectacle. I saw this one twice in theaters and I’m definitely counting on it to win Best Picture this year at the Oscars.

9. Blue Jasmine: Woody Allen went into some dark territory with this one and I loved it. Cate Blanchett completely owned as the delusional Jasmine who loses everything and deals with it horribly.

8. Her: My favorite sci-fi film in ages. Same for being one of the best romances I’ve seen in a long time. From the writing to the camera composition, everything in this film was beautiful.

7. Before Midnight: Along with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Richard Linklater’s third film about Jesse and Celine rounds out the series into one of the greatest trilogies of all time. For a lot of people, this film was 9 years in the making and it certainly did not disappoint.

6. The Garden of Words: After a stint in fantasy, Makoto Shinkai’s latest anime feature returns to the roots of his hauntingly depressing 5 Centimeters Per Second by once again telling a tale of angst and distance. Though it doesn’t hit as hard as Centimeters, it is still one of the most beautiful animated films out there and the story moved me towards the end. But why didn’t Tenmon do the soundtrack?!

5. Drinking Buddies: Joe Swanberg pulled a bit from his mumblecore roots for his first mainstream feature, while at the same time keeping his signature style intact. I love pretty much everything this man does.

4. The Wind Rises: Though his last feature was a bit of a disappointment, Hayao Miyazaki came back with a vengeance in a film that solidified his status as the master of animation.

3. Frances Ha: Maybe it’s because I’m in my 20s or the simple fact that I love coming of age flicks, but I just enjoy everything about this movie. And at some points, it was just a complete comfort to see a likewise character who has no idea as to what she is doing with her life.

2. The Way, Way Back: As much as I loved both, this is the film that Adventureland failed to be.

1. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: While some of the movies this past year were technically superior in storytelling, this is the movie that captivated me the most out of the whole year. Ben Stiller: BEST HUMAN.

 

TOP 5 LEAST FAVORITE FILMS OF 2013: 

5. Thor: The Dark World

4. Iron Man 3

3. Unbeatable

2. Star Tek Into Darkness

1. Man of Steel

Fuck all these movies.

 

FAVORITE GIG OF 2013

Best Coast @ The Hangout: I’m still so grateful that they were able to come to Hong Kong and bring a taste of home sweet home. This show was a bittersweet emotional rollercoaster of radness and homesickness.

 

FAVORITE SONG OF 2013

September by Batwings Catwings

While this song definitely did not give out the same mosh friendly chaos I always enjoyed at their gigs, their sound of the summer was totally best and did it for me the most out of every song this year.

 

HOWEVER, a close second was Prom Night by Anamanaguchi – this was totallay sex.

 

That’s it for now I guess.

 

The Second Christmas Post (Uhh… kinda)

 

With Christmas just barely over a week a way, 2013 is quickly coming to a close. This is the second year in a row where I cannot say it was the best year of my life. It makes me wonder if 2011 was truly my life’s peak and if the rest of my days will simply be a mix of ups and downs that come at will.

I’m not to saying that 2013 was a bad year at all – in fact it was terrific. I’m super grateful for the people currently in my life and all the new experiences that have come my way. I’ve visited three different countries this year and checked out some cool places in China. But nevertheless, I had two depression spells this year, proving things were definitely not totally best. Luckily, things seem to be getting on track after a rough autumn and it being the holidays now definitely helps.

Unlike last year’s holiday season, I made it my goal to have things as easy as possible this December and one thing that helped was wrapping up several long standing projects. One of which is Like Like zine, which my friend Jeane and I created together along with contributions with other friends. It took us a year to finish it and it was in late November that distribution began. This was a project that I was really happy to be a part of and am looking forward to creating another issue in the coming year. The title of the zine was originally a trashed screenplay title brought back to life by this project and the zine itself is a short story compilation all dealing with tales of angst. Though the plan was originally for us to drop off free copies all over Hong Kong and L.A., we ended up also selling the zine at the Kowloon City Book  Fair through our publisher. It was pretty cool! If you’re interested in reading it, you can check out the online version right over here.

 

One of Like Like’s stories, conveniently opened at the tale written by myself.

Yours truly at the Kowloon City Book Fair in a rare blog appearance.

Like Like’s cover and Jeane’s amazing design skills all in one pic!

 

Another thing that I recently finished was a new music video that I edited for Brooklyn-based band Late Cambrian. I think it’s pretty cool that despite living in Hong Kong, all the music videos I’ve edited this year were filmed back home in the states. This one was especially a pleasure to work on as not only was the song within my normal music taste, but it appealed to the optimistic movie geek in me.

 

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/80288127]

 

Tonight is my last night in Hong Kong before I head back home for the holidays. With plans already made to see some peeps I haven’t seen in almost two years, I am quite looking forward to it.

 

The Academy Awards: Perfect Nominations or Out of Touch?

 

Oscar season is upon us again and just like every year, there are cheers for many people’s favorite nominated films and there are grumbles from fans who aren’t happy at with the nominations. And like every year, I am hearing the same two lines:

“The Academy is full of old people who are out of touch.”

“They never nominate films that people actually see.”

But is this true? The best example people give for these statements is 2008’s huge Best Picture snub for The Dark Knight. The films that did make the nominations that year were The Reader, Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Four years later, the only movies from that list that people still talk about are Slumdog and Milk. Though I personally may have given Best Picture to Slumdog Millionaire rather than Dark Knight, I am baffled as to why a mediocre film like Benjamin Button made a nomination for Best Picture.

When that snub occurred, people are outraged. And this time, the Academy listened. A next year in 2009, the Academy Awards upped the chances for other films to win Best Picture by allowing nine films to enter instead of four or five. Not only that, but two science fiction films were nominated (Avatar and District 9), an animated film (Up) and also Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Though the nomination list featured typical Oscar bait such as The Blind Side, there were also agreat acting pieces such as Up In the Air and work from today’s best directors like the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man. I remember watching just about every nominated film during the December of ‘09 and just loving the quality of films that I was seeing. An excuse to view nine greats films? I was great! The Hurt Locker ended up winning that year and it was a choice most people were happy with. At the end, it seemed that the Oscars had redeemed themselves from 2008’s disaster.

However, 2010 and 2011 were mixed years for the Oscars, with people once again being less than thrilled about the winners. For 2011’s winner, The Artist, I’ve heard many people say it was just industry kissing its own rear with the movie being a glorified tribute to the golden age of Hollywood. This once again caused people to wonder if the Oscars really reflect today’s moviegoer.

For 2012, the nomination grumbles are not as loud. Like I said earlier, people still have things to say, but the nominations are no doubt the best films of the year year. While my own grumblings do demand justice for Moonrise Kingdom not getting, I feel the Academy pretty much nailed it this year.

Yes, it was a mistake that The Dark Knight was not nominated in 2008. But at the same time, another huge fan-followed franchise won Best Picture in 2003, that being The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King. Then again, to this day people are still angry that Crash somehow beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture in 2005. With gay cinema being less shocking in 2013, would the outcome have been the same nowadays? We can even go farther back into controversial Oscar wins: Annie Hall beating Star Wars for Best Picture in 1977. Yes, Annie Hall is Woody Allen’s greatest film and is the quintessential New York City romantic comedy film but it definitely did NOT have the culture impact of Star Wars. Not even close.

But the grumblers can be ridiculous at times too. This year alone, there were people angry that The Dark Knight Rises was not nominated for Best Picture. As good as a movie as it was, this film had many flaws and was definitely not worthy for Best Picture in my personal opinion.

This is a debate that can go on and on in endless circles. With that in mind, I will have to say in conclusion that both sides are both wrong and right in this debate. I feel at times the Oscars do indeed choose less than worthy films as Best Picture, especially when comparing today’s winners to the legendary movies from the past. But I feel this also reflects the quality of films being lower nowadays when compared back then.

As a grumbler myself, what would I like to see from the Oscars? I would love for them to completely get rid of the Best Foreign Film category and allow an equal number of entries of films from all over the world. Perhaps it would get more Americans to see more movies from other countries. Nevertheless, I feel that would be the only true way to really decide what the best film of the year is.

(This post also written for cinemaddicts.net)

 

[youtube:”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8QnW6h5fl0&w=490&h=279″%5D

 

Last Year Stuff

 

We are already on the downhill slope to the end of January and I never even put a post about my thoughts of 2012. Those 15+ days of visiting home in California really took its up all chances write a post before the year has ended.

But yeah, 2012 was pretty much the year of changes. From moving out of the U.S. and into Hong Kong and meeting lots of new people, my life was full of new experiences and I loved it. Not only that, but living on the other side of the world allowed me to travel to places that a year ago would have been so much more difficult for me to visit.

Of course, the year wasn’t all peachy. I did lose a friend due to us outgrowing each other and though I sincerely hope that we can reconcile in the coming new year, I am personally fine with moving on with our lives. And then there was Captain Ahab, my favorite band from the L.A. music scene, breaking up. Both guys in the band will no doubt be moving on to great ventures but it was sad to see them go. Being able to visit home for one weekend in November to see their final performance was something I was so happy that I was able to do. Not only was that night the end of one of the best bands today but their breakup also signified an end of an era: the nights my friends and I would go and see Ahab perform were no doubt some of the best nights of my life. So like I said, all the stuff this year pretty much signified major changes.

The Rundown:

Favorite song of 2012: Harsh Tokes and Bong Jokes – Your Heart Breaks

Favorite film of 2012: Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson

Favorite night of 2012: November 2nd, 2012 – Captain Ahab’s final show at The Smell.