Film Feature: 13 Films That Define 2013

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5. “The Heat”

A very funny film in a movie year that’s strength does not come much from comedy, “The Heat” showed that the success of previous female-centric comedy “Bridesmaids” was no fluke, and also that the touch of producer Judd Apatow was not necessary to create box office magic. Though it remains to be seen in the upcoming few years how studios will embrace the success of this buddy-cop story with working women as the two opposing leads, 2013 provides an exciting hope they will soon listen.

6. “Blackfish”

Though many try, rare is the documentary that reaches out to a wide audience, and then convinces them to rally them behind a specific perspective-changing cause. As 2008’s “Food Inc.” caused a ruckus and inspired by new eating habits, so did 2013’s “Blackfish” change a lot of its viewer’s perceptions about water zoo destination SeaWorld, causing a massive inflation to the amusement park’s number of critics. Especially when the film earned wider exposure by arriving on Instant Netflix and receiving two-hour broadcasts on CNN, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s emotional documentary created a rippling cultural effect, which included musical acts canceling their previously-scheduled gigs at the water park, the mysterious alteration to the upcoming plot of the new Pixar movie “Finding Dory,” and certainly numerous social media posts by “Blackfish” viewers expressing disturbance with SeaWorld, and places like it. To Cowperthwaite’s credit, all was achieved without brandishing a phone number or web address in the credits.

7. “Drinking Buddies”

Is this the future of an ancient genre, the romantic comedy? And to be fair, there may not be a lot of romance in this story about two friends (played by Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde) toeing the line of being platonic pals, but the makings of this low budget, star-led project released to VOD seem to be a fruitful kinship for a genre that always has audience potential. So long, of course, as the films themselves can actually be made, and find their way onto audience’s radars. If a film looks tempting as “Drinking Buddies” does, especially with stars recognizable from other mainstream projects, then it may not matter at all to the future viewer whether a film is on VOD or in theaters. While Joe Swanberg may have made “Drinking Buddies” to expand his appeal, his project has helped make 2013 a historical year for a md of film-viewing that is becoming increasingly popular.

8. “Sharknado”

Bad movies are a fact of life, and junky movies from production company The Asylum are a dime-a-billion, especially considering their constant output of campy material where logic and/or science are not real celebrated concepts. Yet despite The Asylum’s plenitude of “mockbusters” about sharks and natural disasters, arguably no coupling has caught affection from the mass public more than 2013’s “Sharknado,” putting them on the pop-culture map in a way that “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid,” “Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus,” “2-Headed Shark Attack,” “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopous,” somehow never did.

“Sharknado” (in which tornados pick up sharks from the ocean and then throw them at people) essentially went viral in 2013, standing as this year’s “Friday” (in reference to the pop music deconstruction that was the Youtube song from Rebecca Black). It even transcended usual Asylum treatment, with its premiere on the Syfy channel leading to a showing in 200 movie theaters across the country on August 2nd. The reported ticket price? $12.50.

9. “Wadjda”

World cinema had many achievements in 2013, but a strong argument could be made that none was more historical than “Wadjda,” the first film to be directed entirely in Saudi Arabia, and consequently also the first to be directed by a woman from that country. A country, as it should be noted, that outlawed movie theaters in the 1980s for fear of gender mixing, one of many archaic rules that keep women like this film’s title character and her mother secondary to the males in their lives.

“Wadjda” expresses punk rock attitude against these ideas with its story of a girl who wants to get a bicycle, even though women are not allowed to ride bicycles especially in conservative capitol of Riyadh (her mother even has to pay a man to drive her 90 minutes to work as women are similarly not allowed drive). The stories of “Wadjda’s” production are heroic but also indicative of Saudi Arabia’s specific conditions, including the now-famous image of Al-Mansour having to direct some of her own film from within the confines of a van, as she could not be seen with her male film crew.

Al-Mansour’s film is not only a strong one for its classic narrative (a la “The Bicycle Thief” or “Children of Heaven”) but for the progress that it represents. With the film first premiering to the world in late 2012, in April of 2013 by perhaps some coincidence, the cycling ban on women biking was lifted. However, women are only allowed now to ride in parks, and “for entertainment.”