2013 Best Reviewed Movies

Deep in the San Fernando Valley, amidst rows of dilapidated warehouses, was rock n' roll's best kept secret: Sound City. America's greatest unsung recording studio housed a one-of-a-kind console, and as its legend grew, seminal bands and artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Metallica and Nirvana all came out to put magic to tape. Directed by Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and featuring interviews and performances from the iconic musicians who recorded some of rock’s greatest albums at the studio, Sound City doesn’t just tell the story of this real-life rock ’n’ roll shrine, it celebrates the human element of music as Grohl gathers some of rock's biggest artists to collaborate on a new album.

Oscar-nominated director Markus Imhoof tackles the vexing issue of why bees, worldwide, are facing extinction. With the tenacity of a man out to solve a world-class mystery, he investigates this global phenomenon from California to Switzerland, China and Australia.

Morgan Neville follows half a dozen diverse and gifted back up singers from throughout music history, each of whom has a story to tell of life in the shadows of superstardom (Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Joe Cocker, Bette Midler to name just a few). These talented artists represent a range of styles that come from all eras of popular music, but each singer belongs to the first family of American voice. Now is their turn for the spotlight.

10-year-old Wadjda challenges deep-rooted Saudi traditions in a determined quest to buy a bicycle. When everything goes against her plans, she sees one last chance in her school's Koran recitation competition and the large cash prize for first place.

The drama picks up with Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) two decades after their first meeting on a train bound for Venice. This time, the story of the star-crossed lovers takes place just before the clock strikes midnight.

The story of Grace (Brie Larson), a twenty-something social worker who has channeled the demons of her own troubled past into a passion for helping at-risk teens. Her newest ward, Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), forces Grace to relive her own difficult upbringing just as she and her boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) are on the cusp of making a decision that will change their lives.

Released in 1939, The Wizard of Oz is considered to be one of the most iconic films of all time. The film was adapted from L. Frank Baum’s timeless children’s tale about a Kansas girl’s journey over the rainbow.

Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the mulit-billion dollar sea-park industry.

The film tells the story of two schoolmates in a struggling working-class community in Bradford, England: the scrappy, hyperactive Arbor (Conner Chapman) and the reserved, more mature Swifty (Shaun Thomas). To pick up some extra cash, Arbor and Swifty begin collecting scrap metal for Kitten (Sean Gilder), a shady local dealer with a penchant for racing horses. Arbor is eager to please, desiring the wealth that appears to come with Kitten's lifestyle. But it soon becomes evident that Swifty is the favored one, because of his talent with horses. As jealousy sets in, the fragile bond that holds Arbor to his closest mate begins to crumble away.

On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated—and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Using only archival news coverage and interviews, first-time filmmaker Jason Osder has brought to life one of the most tumultuous and largely forgotten clashes between government and citizens in modern American history.

Ellis, a 14-year-old boy, is determind to help his friend Mud, a dangerous yet charismatic fugitive, escape from both the law and some very serious bounty hunters.

The story of a small Alabama town by the Tennessee River, where a man named Rick Hall overcame crushing personal hardship to put together a recording studio and house band (the Swampers) that became legendary for its electrifying musical chemistry. Luring some of the biggest figures in 20th century pop music, like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, theStaples Singers, the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Simon and Garfunkle, the studio produced all time classic songs like “Mustang Sally,” “I Never Loved a Man,” “Wild Horses” and many more, uniting black and white musicians in the deep south during an incendiary period of racial hostility.

The cargo ship MV Rozen is heading for harbour when it is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Amongst the men on board are the ship’s cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) and the engineer Jan (Roland Møller), who along with the rest of the seamen are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company (Søren Malling) and the Somali pirates.

1975. In Rome, Claude Lanzmann filmed a series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, the last President of the Jewish Council in the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, the only "Elder of the Jews" not to have been killed during the war. A rabbi in Vienna, following the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, Murmelstein fought bitterly with Adolf Eichmann, week after week for seven years, managing to help around 121,000 Jews leave the country, and preventing the liquidation of the ghetto.

2012. Claude Lanzmann, at 87 – without masking anything of the passage of time on men, but showing the incredible permanence of the locations involved –exhumes these interviews shot in Rome, returning to Theresienstadt, the town “given to the Jews by Hitler”, a so-called model ghetto, but a ghetto of deceit chosen by Adolf Eichmann to dupe the world. We discover the extraordinary personality of Benjamin Murmelstein: a man blessed with a dazzling intelligence and a true courage, which, along with an unrivaled memory, makes him a wonderfully wry, sardonic and authentic storyteller.

Through these three periods, from Nisko in Poland to Theresienstadt, and from Vienna to Rome, the film provides an unprecedented insight into the genesis of the Final Solution. It reveals the true face of Eichmann, and exposes without artifice the savage contradictions of the Jewish Councils.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced soon-to-be empty-nester wondering about her next act. Then she meets Marianne (Catherine Keener), the embodiment of her perfect self. Armed with a restored outlook on being middle-aged and single, Eva decides to take a chance on her new love interest Albert (James Gandolfini) - a sweet, funny and like-minded man. Things get complicated when Eva discovers that Albert is in fact the dreaded ex–husband of Marianne. This sharp insightful comedy follows Eva as she humorously tries to secretly juggle both relationships and wonders whether her new favorite friend's disastrous ex can be her cue for happiness.

This chilling and inventive documentary examines a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love.

When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on the black market to leading anti-communist death squads in the mass murder of over a million people. Anwar boasts of killing hundreds with his own hands, but he's lived in his country with impunity ever since. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide, Anwar and his friends eagerly comply-but their idea of being in a movie is not to provide reflective testimony, but to dance their way through musical numbers, twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across the prairies as yodeling cowboys.

Set in a romanticized 1920s Seville, Berger's Snow White is Carmen (Macarena García), the daughter of a famous bull fighter, who lives under the tyrannical rule of her monstrous, evil stepmother, Encarna (Maribel Verdú). She escapes and joins a troupe of bullfighting dwarves, where her beauty and natural talent in the ring attract notices from the press. But soon the news reaches Encarna, who at last she knows where to find Carmen, and she prepares for the final showdown.

As a rowdy young Neo-Dadaist artist in Tokyo, Ushio yearned for international recognition, so in 1969 he set sail for New York City. Nineteen-year-old Noriko came to New York to study art, where she met and fell in love with Ushio, 21 years her senior. Putting her own artistic ambitions on hold, Noriko dedicated herself to supporting her husband's career. Over the course of their marriage, the roles of assistant and artist have slowly begun to transform. Now 80, Ushio, widely known for his boxing painting, is obsessed with establishing his artistic legacy, while Noriko is at last finding her voice as an artist with a series of drawings entitled “Cutie and Bullie,” depicting her own chaotic relationship with Ushio.

Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, Her follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.