2013 movies

I've made a previous post about 2013 movies, but that was way back in March.

In the coming weeks and months, kenoncinema will do its best (or really, my best) to be as comprehensive of a guide to movies coming out in 2013 as it possibly can be. I want people to be excited about film every year, as excited as I get because I want more people to show up to the theaters, more specifically, to potentially good movies made by good/great directors. It's important to me.

In the past few years, with 2012 not even being finished, this is how I rank the past five years in terms of movie quality:

1. 2012
2. 2010
3. 2009
4. 2011
5. 2008

2012 is kicking other years right in their ass, and I've talked about this before. It's because there was a perfect alignment of great filmmakers making films in the same year and a lot of them making their best film.

2010 was a great kickoff to the '10s decade, 2011 was kind of a slip in quality, but 2012 really feels like the peak. I still haven't seen Django Unchained or Zero Dark Thirty, but everything points to those films being good movies at the very least. Les Miserables has a bit more of a mixed view, that one is a wild card at this point. But overall, when you have Spielberg making one of the best movies he's made in years, Paul Thomas Anderson coming back after five years with his best film (in my opinion), Ben Affleck making his best film, a young unknown like Benh Zeitlin coming up with something as wild as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Wes Anderson making his best film, Rian Johnson too, Christopher Nolan with a satisfying conclusion to his Batman trilogy. I already think that those things alone makes 2012 one of the best years of film, Tarantino and Bigelow's films would just put things over the top for me. You even got David O. Russell with a solid effort, Martin McDonagh as well. Whit Stillman came back after a 14 year absence. You can't ignore the visual wonder that is Ang Lee's Life of Pi.

A year like that, there's bound to be a dropoff in quality for the year after, but 2013 does have a lot of interesting filmmakers: Jason Reitman, Alexander Payne, Steven Soderbergh, Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola, Noah Baumbach, Terrence Malick, Nicolas Winding Refn, Derek Cianfrance, Edgar Wright, Steve McQueen, Danny Boyle, George Clooney, Spike Jonze, James Gray, Pedro Almodovar, The Coen Brothers, David O. Russell, Lars von Trier, Neill Blomkamp... I mean, when you put it like that? Thing is, all great filmmakers I just listed but with some of them, you don't know exactly what you're gonna get. Sofia Coppola could come out with something as "meh" as Somewhere, Reitman/Clooney/Scorsese could all make good films, but just how good are they? Blomkamp has just made one film altogether. Who knows if he's capable of making something as good as District 9? Roman Coppola is also very much a wild card. Compare that to Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, Tarantino, etc... filmmakers that are a bit more dynamic with their output. The guys I listed, they're all capable of making great films, but it could go either way. 2012 felt much more like a sure thing at this point last year.

We'll see what happens and once it becomes 2013 and these movies come out, we'll know for sure. One thing that's interesting about 2013 is that the first half of the year has a lot of interesting films coming out...

January - Gangster Squad, February - Side Effects... then in the months from March - May, you have The Place Beyond the Pines, To the Wonder, God Only Forgives, Frances Ha... some interesting stuff right there. So, can't sleep on the first few months of 2013, that's for sure. And that's something I like to see. Of course, September-December, all the heavy hitters will come out, but it's nice to have the whole year peppered with an interesting film here and an interesting film there. Makes things more well-rounded. So we'll see what happens, once again. I'll make sure to let you know what's going on.