Just in time for The Holidays, a big chunk of the Boston Online Film Critics Association sits down to hash-out the recent BOFCA Awards and Top Ten list:
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BOFCA 2013 YEAR-END TOP-TEN PODCAST
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BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 12/20
ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES
“There’s an expectation to live up to the original, tossing aside new content in favor of recalling those catchphrases and iconic moments.” – Monica Castillo, Movie Mezzanine
“There’s no doubt that McKay and Ferrell are playing big and broad here, discarding nuance entirely for on-the-nose commentary.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk
“ANCHORMAN 2 checks off a lot of the boxes you’d expect it to check off, sure, but it also checks off a bunch of boxes you didn’t know existed.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE
“There’s a surprising amount of plot, which is the same thing that killed BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter
“About all anyone could reasonably expect from the unnecessary sequel to one of the best comedies of all time.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist
AMERICAN HUSTLE
“It’s exhausting. There are no stakes. There are wigs and braless dresses and fat suits and perms. There is nothing resembling a compelling character or story.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter
“It joins the pantheon of great con job movies with THE STING, HOUSE OF GAMES and WILD THINGS. – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies
“Hang onto your hair and pay attention to the details lest you get caught with your brain exposed.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
“The film positions itself as a lost artifact from an imagined world, one that few even bother to imagine much anymore — a perfect treatment for a narrative about an artist that no one was ever going to bother to remember.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE
“That’s Llewyn in a nutshell: He’s the friend you’ll always let sleep on your couch, even though he brings almost nothing but ill tidings.” – Andrew Crump, In Review Online
“INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS is my favorite movie in years. It’s the Coens’ most melancholic reverie, ditching their usual clockwork plotting for a loosey-goosey collection of anecdotes that only reveal themselves to be impeccably structured in retrospect.”- Sean Burns, Improper Bostonian
“He is angry. He is frustrated by the way his life is going, and the way that he’s struggling so hard to make this work.” – Monica Castillo, Cinephiliacs Podcast
“An unexpected gem, a movie that seems completely familiar while turning narrative convention on its ear again and again.” – Norm Schrager, Meet In The Lobby
WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D
“It gets this critic’s traditional back of the hand for this kind of kid’s movie: parents should flip a coin… and the loser has to take them.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies
“This new 3D spectacle is a visual miracle. The animation comes alive through a celebration of corporeality: the jiggle of fat, the stretch and release of sagging skin, the tide-like motions of tendons and arteries beneath pebbled skin.” – Inkoo Kang, Village Voice
BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 12/13
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
“Hollywood films like THE HOBBIT and THE AVENGERS and so many more are re-appropriating the standards and structure of old-school serials, always building toward the next chapter, but they stretch on for three times as long. It’s exhausting.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE
“A significant improvement in every way, save that its triumphs make its predecessor’s shortcomings all the more apparent.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist
“We’ll just have to wait for next year’s conclusion,THERE AND BACK AGAIN, to see whether it was worth the detours.” – Kristofer Jenson, DIG Boston
“There’s a dispiriting lack of energy in this second adventure; there’s no spring in Jackson’s step.” – Monica Castillo, Movie Mezzanine
“I didn’t hate it. It’s not converting me to a fan of elves and dwarves and orcs and hobbits, but considering its running time and that there’s one more film to go, consider it high praise from a vocal non-fan that I wasn’t bored. I can only imagine what true believers will make of it.” – Daniel Kimmel, North Shore Movies
“This a case of just-too-muchery, more for the sake of more, which is neither strictly a negative thing nor the best way to approach bringing every nook and cranny of Tolkien’s world to life.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk
“A bajillion times better than the previous installment, THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED PIECE OF SHIT.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter
SAVING MR. BANKS
“Your enjoyment of the film will depend on how you take your grandfatherly figures and traumatic childhood flashbacks, and how long you want to spend in the Disney vault.” – Monica Castillo, DIG Boston
“The great irony, though, is that there is some serious revisionism and whitewashing going on to make one of the characters more agreeable… it’s just not Walt Disney.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist
“The moments are there. The story has a chance. But in the world of Disney entertainment, this is far from an E-ticket ride.” – Norm Schrager, Meet In The Lobby
“If you can enjoy this as a fictional gloss on the real story, it is quite entertaining. If you walk away thinking that Disney finally won over Travers who loved what he did with her work, you’ll have jumped into one of Bert’s chalk pictures and left the real world behind.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies
TYLER PERRY’S A MADEA CHRISTMAS
“Lee Daniels tried to sell out but he just somehow couldn’t. Meanwhile Tyler Perry is on the nearest street corner with a “FOR SALE” sign around his neck in a skirt shorter than anything Madea ever wore. This movie is gross.” – Sean Burns, Technology Tell
BOFCA AWARDS: 2013
THE 2013 BOSTON ONLINE FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS
BEST PICTURE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST DIRECTOR: Steve McQueen, 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST ACTOR: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, BLUE JASMINE
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST SCREENPLAY: BEFORE MIDNIGHT
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
BEST DOCUMENTARY: THE ACT OF KILLING
BEST ANIMATED FILM: THE WIND RISES and FROZEN (tie)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
BEST EDITING: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
BEST ENSEMBLE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
THE TEN BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR:
1. 12 YEARS A SLAVE
2. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
3. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
4. GRAVITY
5. BEFORE MIDNIGHT
6. THE SPECTACULAR NOW
7. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
8. SPRING BREAKERS
9. THE WORLD’S END
10. FRUITVALE STATION
BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 11/29
FROZEN
“…this may be the best animated offering out of Hollywood this year.” – Daniel Kimmel, North Shore Movies – Daniel Kimmel, North Shore Movies
“Succeeds in updating, modernizing and even critiquing the [Disney Princess] franchise-formula – without turning into a SHREK-style jaded gagfest.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist (Spoiler-free. In-depth piece w/spoilers HERE)
HOMEFRONT
“It’s not exactly idiosyncratic, but at least it doesn’t feel as if it came off the focus-tested-$150-million-movie conveyor belt.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE
“A straightforward thriller with beatings, shootings, a young girl in peril, and a stoic hero who never loses his cool. It’s worked before. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work again.” – Daniel Kimmel, North Shore Movies
“You can think James Franco’s turn in SPRING BREAKERS was the defining supporting performance of this year and still want to watch him get his block knocked off by Statham. At least I do.” – Sean Burns, The Improper Bostonian
OLDBOY
“I liked this movie fine but I’ll get back to you when I figure out a reason why it exists.” – Sean Burns, Technology Tell
PHILOMENA
“Provokes fury and outrage, but also supplies a balm in the form of truly gracious forgiveness.” – Kilian Melloy, EDGE
“Needless to say, the grande dame’s performance, alternately goofy and grave, is an absolute tour de force.” – Inkoo Kang, Village Voice
BLACK NATIVITY
“It’s goofy and probably very easy to mock, but so full of positivity and good spirits that I can’t imagine why anybody would want to bother.” – Sean Burns, Technology Tell
“Lemmons hits all of the expected notes that come prepackaged with this sort of picture; call it corny and hammy, because it is, but she’s more than up to the task of making all of the expected “stuff” of its archetype work.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk
NEBRASKA
“This is more of a melancholic reverie than a young man’s outburst – this once-furious auteur has grown up, and mellowed out.” – Jake Mulligan, Movie Mezzanine
“Payne cobbles together a shockingly accurate portrait of the US’s flyover states, at least as envisioned by those of us living on the East and West coasts; they’re desolate, barren, cultural wastelands, places that time has forgotten, populated by people modernity has passed by.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk
“It’s a gimmicky sitcom script gussied up with “artful” affectations borrowed from the New Hollywood heyday of the early ’70s. Except it doesn’t even get those right.” – Sean Burns, The Improper Bostonian