Mason's Best And Worst Movies Of 2013

2013 was a big year for movies. There were some triumphs, some flops,and some surprise hits. I think I may have been to the movies more times in 2013 than any year previously which means I had many opportunities to see some fun movies and some just flat-out awful ones. Without further ado, here are my personal picks for best and worst of 2013.

The Good

Best Film Overall: American Hustle

Best Comedy: The World's End

Best Horror and Biggest Surprise: Evil Dead

Best Action: Kick Ass 2

Best Animated: Frozen

Best Drama: Dallas Buyers Club

Best Documentary: Evacateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie

Best Independent: Escape From Tomorrow

Honorable Mentions: This Is The End, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, August: Osage County, Her, The Great Gatsby, Pacific Rim, Saving Mr. Banks, Spring Breakers, Monsters University, Don Jon, Despicable Me 2, John Dies At The End, The Lords Of Salem, and Mud.

Best Director: David O. Russel, American Hustle

Best Screenplay: Spike Jonze, Her

Best Cinematography: Benoit Debie, Spring Breakers

Best Visual Effects: Cody Amos, Evil Dead

Best Score: Thomas Newman, Saving Mr. Banks

Best Original Song: "Let It Go" By Idina Menzel, Frozen

Special Achievement: The cast and crew of Escape From Tomorrow for shooting the film in secrecy on location at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

Best Actor: Mathew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Supporting Actor: Tie between: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, August: Osage County

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

Best Voice Acting In An Animated Film: Tie between: Kristen Bell, Frozen and Billy Crystal, Monsters University

Best Voice Acting In A Live Action Film: Scarlett Johansson, Her

The Bad

Worst "Film" Overall: The Lone Ranger

Worst "Comedy": The Hangover 3

Biggest Disappointment: Tie between: Anchorman 2 and Man Of Steel

Worst "Screenplay": David S. Goyer, Man Of Steel

Worst Actor: Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger

Worst Supporting Actor: Armie Hammer, The Lone Ranger

Worst Actress: Natalie Portman, Thor: The Dark World

Worst Supporting Actress: Kat Dennings, Thor: The Dark World

Most Shameless, Money-Grubbing Performance: Anthony Hopkins, Thor: The Dark World

Saving Grace In An Awful Movie: Helena Bonham Cater, The Lone Ranger

The Movies I Need To See

The Wolf Of Wall Street

12 Years A Slave

Captain Phillips

Nebraska

You're Next

Philomena

Gravity

Blue Jasmine

The Butler

Blue Is The Warmest Color

Don Jon Review By Mason

      Very few movies can successfully balance raunchy  themes and heart. The exception of course being films like Kevin Smith's debut, Clerks and Judd Apatow's Knocked Up. There have been many cheap imitations of this successful balance (Wanderlust, Hall Pass, and countless others.) so imagine my surprise when an actor's directorial (!) and writing (!) debut ended up being one of my most favorite films of the year.

      Don Jon centers around the titular character, "Don" Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon Levett in an award-worthy role), a muscle bound New Jersey native who's life is all about "His body. His pad. His ride. His family. His church. His boys. His girls." but he has one big problem. He's addicted to internet pornography. In the film's brilliant opening Jon explains that he even prefers it to the real thing. So obviously, he has a hard time keeping a girl for very long or even liking a girl enough to want to see her again. This reigns true until one fateful night at the club he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansen), the tall, blonde, girl of his dreams. Throughout the course of the movie we see Jon's struggle between his dream girl and his ultimate vice, both of which he sees he can't live without. Meanwhile Barbara becomes controlling of Jon and makes him give up porn, cleaning his house, and clubbing with "the guys". In another demand from Barbara, she makes him take a business class at the local community college to get a "real" job. It's at his class where he meets Esther (Julianne Moore), a widowed woman with whom he forms a strong friendship with along the way. I would say more but I wouldn't want to spoil some great scenes later on.

   

         
             The movie is both brilliantly written and brilliantly acted. You forget you are watching actors and you feel like you are watching real people. I think that Mr. Levett has a real ear for dialogue and it translates very well onto the screen. I was a bit apprehensive of this movie at first glance because of the New Jersey setting and typical New Jersey caricatures. It was beginning to look like they were going for some type of Jersey Shore parody. I am glad I was wrong. They aren't bland, tan, cursing, catchphrase machines; they are real people with very interesting things to say and do.

           

             All in all, Don Jon is a great movie with a solid cast, a fantastic script, and a nice message. If you are planning on seeing only one movie this awards season, please make it this one. You won't regret it.

That Time That I Was Completely Wrong About The Evil Dead Remake

       I have always had a special connection with the Evil Dead trilogy. I was 12 years old when I rented Evil Dead and Army Of Darkness from the video store. The covers grabbed my attention right away. A guy with a chainsaw hand and an army of skeletons looked awesome. I popped them in the DVD player that night and had my mind blown. I had never seen anything like them before. They showed me what can be done with the horror genre, which is a genre that is overlooked constantly by the general public. They showed off some of the best camera work in movie history. And most of all they showed me the most fun I had ever had on a Friday night watching movies. I have carried the 3 Evil Dead movies with me ever since. I have watched them all at least 50 times each. I know all of the dialogue by heart. I proudly wore my Evil Dead shirt I purchased from a horror convention every chance I got until it got so worn out that I have had to recently retire it. 

          You can feel my anger when a remake was announced. I was saddened and angry. "How could this be allowed?" I would say. It was nothing short of blasphemous to remake one of the greatest horror movies of all time and one of my most beloved movies. Well, after months of fanboy nitpicking, I coughed up the dough and saw this dubious attrocity I was so dreading to see. I walked over to the auditorium where the movie was playing and looking down at the words "EVIL DEAD" printed on my ticket with disgust. After the insipid trailers ended, the movie started. "This is just wrong." I kept thinking. Well, imagine my surprise when halfway through the movie the angry fanboy turned into the 12 year old kid who watched the original Evil Dead on a Friday night on a beat-up rental copy from the video store. I could not stop smiling during the movie. 

         Evil Dead ended up being one hell of a satisfying movie. It was such a fun time to be had at the movies. I went in mad and came out giddy. It starts off very slow but like the original, around the 20 minute mark it gets great. It's chock full of many great nods to Evil Dead 1 and 2, the cast for the most part was very good, and the practical gore effects will make you cringe and smile. Evil Dead is the best thing I have ever been wrong about. Do yourselves a favor and stop nitpicking and check this movie out. It's groovy.

Disney Infinity Game Review By Mason

     

       

                Disney has been promising gamers for months that it's new Infinity game can let you do just about anything you want and that it delivers a fun and engaging experience. Does Infinity live up to its name? Is it filled with infinite possibilities of things to do and things to build? Disney Infinity has two core modes of game play; Play sets, which are the games story mode, and Toy Box mode, the open world creation mode where the game really shines. 

               Play sets are accessed by placing a play set piece on the hexagonal area on the Disney Infinity base. There are three Play sets included in the starter kit, Monsters University, The Incredibles, and Pirates Of The Caribbean. Monsters University centers around a prank war during "Fear-It Week" and is primarily made up of stealth based missions and fetch quests, and is easily my favorite of the three included play sets. The Incredibles puts players smack dab in the middle of a fight between the family of "Supers" and the infamous Syndrome. The game play is sort of a mash up of Grand Theft Auto and Spider man 2. The Incredibles almost feels too easy sometimes because every character is overpowered when compared to other characters in the game, but that doesn't take away from the fun of it. The third and final of the included play sets in the starter kit is the Pirates Of The Caribbean play set which thrusts you into the world of Captain Jack Sparrow and in the middle of a race against Davy Jones to find pieces of Kraken Bane, which when formed will awaken the legendary sea monster of lore. The play set is a fun mix of Assassin's Creed and Uncharted and is filled with wall jumps, puzzles, and the most enjoyable aspect, sailing your very own pirate ship. Besides the three play sets included with the game's starter kit, there are three more play sets that you can purchase separately. The three additional play sets available for purchase are Toy Story, Cars, And The Lone Ranger. 

             The main draw of this game is it's free roaming, creation heavy, toy box mode. The Toy Box perfectly recreates the feeling of playing with all of your different toys on your bedroom floor, letting you make an environment with buildings, NPC's, enemies, vehicles, animals, and decorations spanning decades of Disney theme park rides, TV shows, movies, and cartoons. The building system is very easy but not too simplistic to master, think Minecraft or Little Big Planet style building. If building is getting tiresome, you can also partake in some Toy Box adventures. These adventures usually consist of races, or timed fetch quests but the best Toy Box adventure is the gladiator arena where you can face of with a wide array of Disney baddies. 

                                    

                   One of the other big selling points for this game is that you can buy physical toys and "bring them to life" in the game. Each character has different abilities in the game. For example, Violet can turn invisible while Mike Wazowski can use his scream to scare enemies. The figures are each beautifully sculpted and have near-perfect paint applications. They look like they came right out of the game. The wide variety of characters is very nice and I am anticipating the 2nd wave of characters. In addition to the figures and Play set pieces, there are power discs. The circular power discs can level up your character by placing them underneath the character. The hexagonal power discs can change the theme of your toy box and spawn weapons and vehicles.

                   

                        In conclusion, Disney Infinity is one of the best times I have had playing a video game in quite some time and has infinite replay values. If you can ignore some of the flaws of the game and the somewhat high price tags, the game is just about perfect.

Mason's Score: B+

World's End Review By Dylan And Mason

Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, And Nick Frost’s first two installments in the Cornetto Trilogy (Or the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy if you prefer.) have reached cult classic status and have stood the test of time.  Does World’s End deliver? Will it gain the same cult classic status as it’s two predecessors? In this boozy sci-fi comedy we start out with a particularly charming opening featuring the main character, Gary King (Simon Pegg in the best role of his career), an alcoholic still stuck in high school, recalling the night him and his high school friends attempted the Golden Mile, a 12 pub stretch in his hometown of Newton Haven but failed to reach the final 3. Gary ends up “getting the band back together” and persuades his high school buddies: Peter Page (Eddie Marsan), Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost).The Night starts out normal enough (as normal as an evening with Gary King can get) but after a brawl with some suspicious teenagers in a pub bathroom we learn the town is overrun with androids (Or “Smashy smashy egg men” as Andy calls them) bent on turning any humans into androids to eliminate imperfections.

                The film stats off a bit slow at the beginning but picks up in pace after the gang ends up in Newton Haven and starts the pub crawl. After that, hilarity ensues during their journey to the World’s End. In regards to the question I posed at the beginning of the review, yes it is a worthy competitor of the first two Cornetto films. The special effects for the androids were just superb. The decapitations and gushing blue blood looked fantastic. The choreography for the film’s many fight scenes was spot on and made every fight scene feel like you were watching a live action cartoon. The acting in this film was top notch. Simon Pegg plays the best character in his carreer. Gary King is a loveable loser who is constantly drunk and stuck in high school. Nick Frost plays a surprisingly straight laced character as opposed to the oafish, but unswervingly loyal best friend he has portrayed twice before. As you can expect, an Edgar Wright film will always have a great soundtrack and this is no exception. The music compliments every scene in the movie perfectly.

                Overall we had a blast watching this movie and thought it was every bit as good as the previous two Cornetto films. We highly recommend this movie and suggest you go see it as soon as possible.

Mason- A+

Dylan-A

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This blog is all about our passion for anything geeky. We will be featuring stories and reviews about movies, comics, video games, action figures, and any current geek news. We will also have features like top 10's and countdowns. Expect seasonal offerings as well. Expect us to delve into some classics and older movies in addition to the latest Hollywood blockbusters. In addition we will also take requests for reviews and articles. I hope you enjoy what we are doing and just chill 'til the next episode.