13th January 2014

Hello to the good people, however few, who are willing to read or even care about which films I've liked the most over the past 12 months. These aren't necessarily what I think are the best made or acted or written, just the ones which I loved personally for whatever reasons, as I'm sure I'll attempt to explain in their own paragraphs. Witty anecdotes are not my forte, neither is humour really so I apologise in advance and I thank you again for even reading this far. Hopefully I quit the self-deprecation for the rest of this piece.

Firstly, here are 10 runners up who didn't quite make the cut, I rate each of these films quite highly but I just don't feel strongly enough about them to include them in my list.

Now to get into the meat of the dish, apart from one more runner-up which I just felt that I had to mention. Here's my top 10, with an honorary 11th runner-up spot:

1. 

   Wreck-It Ralph

   (runner-up)
   It is just a pure delight! Loved it!!!

   The villain in an old arcade game is fed up playing the bad guy so he leaves his game for another, one with a lot more pixels.

   Wreck-It Ralph captured my inner-child with all of its 16-bit sounds, references and visuals. Kids wouldn't get most of these old references but luckily there's a colourful and joyous movie in there as well. It made me tear up (just a little bit), smile (a hell of a lot) and tap my foot to the Skrillex-tinged soundtrack. Not to forget that it is also very funny. A film that can cheer me up massively.

2. 

   Frozen

   I'm smitten with this film's ironically warm heart, its songs, characters, looks and individual aspirations!

   Disney Animation about two princesses but one has ice powers so remains hidden and distant from the other before running away.

   Disney Animation studios have had a great year with Wreck-It Ralph and this. This one is more a return to Disney of old, what I mean is it has princesses and songs. The songs are utilised to great effect with the Do You Want To Build A Snowman drawing a tear to nearly everyone's eyes and What Snowmen Do In Summer sung by a loveably naive snowman named Olaf bringing the laughs.

   The film diverges from the Disney of old at many turns but a main focal point is that its female stars are the dominant sex and that they save the day rather than a knight in shining armour. This ability to undermine our expectations created a much more enjoyable film. Already looking forward to a rewatch.

3. 

   Spring Breakers

   Neon flavoured Sex, Drugs and Violence in a surreal dream/nightmare.

   Four college girls decide to head down to Florida for Spring Break where they get mixed up in all sorts.

   This film was so weird. It's neon visuals almost sugar-coating the sex, drugs and violence it contained. I found myself tensing up throughout with the expectation that something shockingly terrible was going to happen.

   James Franco was mesmerising as white ganster rapper, Alien. His rendition of Britney Spear's Everytime on a piano by a pool whilst the girls clad in balaclavas and bikinis slinked around him was so surreal and engrossing. In other words, my most memorable scene of the year.

   The whole walk home we disected this film, trying to figure out what we thought about it or whether we even liked it. It has stuck with me ever since and my positivity towards it has continually grown though I am hoping that it is an easier watch second time around.

4. 

   Fast & Furious 6

   Fights with cars, planes, tanks and fists. Leave your brain at home.

   A flying headbutt of a fun movie.

   Good people in fast cars face off against bad people in fast cars with other modes of transport sprinkled throughout.

   After a synopsis like that, how in the world could this make my top films of the year? Well, for me it was pure entertainment. It had awesome car chases, tank chases, plane chases, car fights, plane fights, tank fights etc. but it also made me laugh repeatedly, whether some of them were intentional or not I'm not sure. I really hope that Vin Diesel's flying headbutt was indeed intended to be ridiculously hilarious. Before I even entered the cinema, I decided that I'd park my brain outside for this film and this may be the reason why I left the cinema like a hyper child who drank too much cola. Any film which has me leaving the cinema feeling that great and happy deserves to be in my top films list.

5. 

   Before Midnight

   Beautiful, passionate and thought-provoking. I want more of these films!

   The third film in the 'Before ...' series follows the lives of Jesse and Celine for a day, 9 years after Before Sunset left us in Paris, we are now in Greece and the couple have become a family.

   These films have always portrayed romance in an authentic manner, having you believe every word and feeling expressed is true. This instalment though is the rawest yet. They now have two daughters together but Jesse remains in touch with his son from his ex-wife. This leads to some brutal and passionate quarrels between the lead pair but captivate you throughout. Not as cheery as the previous two films but just as excellently portrayed.

6. 

   Gravity

   I spent 90 min, slack-jawed, looking at the screen, wondering HOW they did this.

   Film spectacle at its best.

   Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are astronauts who get stranded in space. Simple premise but spectacularly realised.

   This is the film that has cropped up on most people's top lists of this year, and rightly so. We've never seen anything like this, it has you in awe for almost the entirety of its running length. Enough enthusiastic adjectives have already been used to describe this film without me adding any more. Space tears in 3D were beautiful, the terror felt any time the debris hits is gripping and the event on display filled me with wonder.

7. 

   Good Vibrations:

   An inspirational tale escaping The Troubles with musical rebellion! Affecting yet warm-hearted and a joy!

   A local film about a record store owner in Belfast who loved music and couldn't care less about the arguments of either side in The Troubles.

   Richard Dormer's performance in the lead as Terri Hooley has us rooting for him the whole way through but what struck a chord with me immediately in this film was the proximity of it to home and my familiarity with the history of its backdrop. Being a Derry man, my highlight of the film is easily the very first time we hear The Undertones' Teenage Kicks played on the radio. It almost had me jumping out of my seat to sing and dance along, the swelling of joy that I was filled with was in part down to the iconic song but also how the whole scene was orchestrated, perfectly realised.

8. 

   Cloud Atlas

   Different threads. Similar strands. Superbly ambitious. Slightly flawed. Defiantly epic.

   Intertwined threads which span space and time make up this epic film from the ever ambitious Wachowski siblings.

   Everything that I had seen and heard about this film before going to see it, gave me the impression that it was going to flop at the box office and not be very good. One of those things was almost correct. It made $130 million worldwide but cost $102 million, not very profitable but not a low enough gross to be a flop. The other thing as that it turned to not only be very good, but totally uplifting and strange. The Cloud Atlas Sextet theme played throughout in various ways helps to stitch each separate strand of storyline together, paired with familiar faces popping up in each section helps too. This film has plenty of flaws with some CGI and makeup too distracting but its overall sense of ambition leads me to overlook these slights and to simply appreciate that something this big, weird and wonderful even got made.

9. 

   Iron Man 3

   More Tony Stark than Iron Man is great as are the main cast! Just enjoy it! Witty, original and great fun!

   Tony Stark after The Avengers. He isn't coping too well after the Bbattle of New York and a new bad guy in The Mandarin doesn't help.

   I love the superhero trend of the past decade, it's repetitive of course but this film felt both fresh and fun. It opened with the song Blue Da Ba Dee and a quick throwback to the first film, both in my good books. Dry humour was peppered throughout and Shane Black's glove was obviously a perfect fit for the world of Tony Stark, with a helping hand from our friend, Drew Pearce. All of the small things made me laugh, the suit judging Pepper, especially a certain rug-pulling fan-infuriating reveal. The end sequence was still filled with boss fights and explosions but the action was intuitive due to the suit-jumping gimmick. Even the post-credits scene was funny and different from our usual teasers. Overall, I had a blast with this film and of all the 2013 releases, it's the one I've seen the most already.

10. 

    Mud

    A raw coming-of-age story filled with innocence, wonder and love.

    Two young boys (Ellis and Neckbone) come across fugitive Matthew McConaughey (Mud) and decide to help him evade the law and win back his girl.

    The only thing I knew about this before going in was that it starred Matthew McConaughey. I had no idea that the two adolescent boys were the focus. I became so glad they were. I empathised with the pair through almost every teen emotion fuelled by naivety and youth, Ellis more than Neckbone in this respect. It evokes memories of films like Stand By Me but this little film which I just kind of happened to end up watching, easily became one of my favourite films of 2013.

11. 

    About Time

    Overwhelmingly lovely. It just wants you to appreciate life that little bit more. I loved it. Bring tissues.

    A young man finds out from his Dad that he can travel back in time. He wants to find a girlfriend. Advertised as a rom-com but quickly diverges.

    I loved this film. The fact that this is my favourite film of the year may alienate most of you but I believe this film affects everyone in different ways, it just so happened that it massively affected me. It is probably Richard Curtis' most personal film and it shows, there's life embedded in this film. Someone's own thoughts, dreams and outlooks of life are sown throughout. This is the film where I started crying about halfway through, and never stopped. A mixture of loveliness, sadness and overall sweetness were to blame.

    The father-son relationship was what hit me the hardest. I can hear you all screaming "DADDY ISSUES" at me but I think that would be unfairly narrow-minded, it made me overwhelmingly happy and full of love rather than upsetting me. That is a powerful thing to accomplish through film.

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Ethan M Barr
Embarr Himself