My Award nominations: Picture

*(In hopes of catching one or two more foreign films imminently, I am holding off on that category for just a few more days, but I won't wait any longer to declare my fav five of the year.)

And so we finally reach the big daddy of them all. I've already waxed philosophical at length on how 'connected' I felt to the best films of the year, but the time has come to be a little less general and a little more specific. Without further ado, I present my five candidates for Best Picture of 2013 (plus my five runner-ups, so for all intents and purposes consider this my Top Ten article):

Connecting with the Movies of 2013

How does one begin to relate the white-knuckle space adventure of a thrill ride like Gravity to the soberly grounded realism of a docudrama like Captain Phillips? How is the intimate conversation piece Before Midnight at all similar to the sprawling historical tragedy 12 Years a Slave? What do any of these films have in common with each other – or any of the dozens of other applicable films released in the past 12 months – besides the fact that they are among the finest motion pictures of 2013? It's a question I find myself asking not only this year (which is being touted as one of the best for American cinema in a critic's age), but every year, as my mind mulls over the thematic patterns that connect the cream of the annual movie crop.

In 2009, 'escapism' was the pervasive theme connecting such disparate stories as Up in the Air, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, An Education, and Precious, among others; In 2011, 'nostalgia' and 'inspiration' connected many of the year's most celebrated titles, including The Artist, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, and many more; And for me, 2013's greatest films were connected by... well, 'connection'. Indeed, and as generic as it sounds, it's hard for me to recall a year in which so many memorable screen characters seem to triumph or fail as direct result of the connections they forge (or don't forge) between themselves and their fellow human beings.

My Award nominations: Documentary

As it is every year, I caught up with a lot of Documentaries after the Oscar nominations were announced, so these can also serve as capsule reviews for the ones I never had the time to write up properly.

WGA winners!

While the Annies drag on, I have more than enough time to mention that the Writers Guild of America have awarded Her, Captain Phillips, and Stories We Tell in their feature film categories. This is an odd scenario in that I can see none of these winners repeating on Oscar night.

My Award nominations: Director

So many good films this year that I could fill this category entirely with directors of films that aren't even in my top five! But of course, since I always have a hard time divorcing a film from its direction, there is always significant overlap. But I won't tell you just yet which of these five Best Directors will go on to have their films shortlisted for my top award!

Guild noms keep rolling with American Cinema Editors

The ACE has joined the fray with their nominations for the Eddies. As expected, all four Best Picture frontrunners are represented.

The four feature film categories (plus commentary) after the cut:

Writers Guild nominations

Hot on the heals of yesterday's PGA announcement, the WGA has chimed in with their selections for the year's best screenplays... at least those that were eligible. It rankles every year that a number of the most highly touted films of the year are not qualified for the guild's honour, and this year's list of ineligibilities include likely Oscar nominees 12 Years a Slave and Philomena, among others.

Full list of nominees (and comments) after the cut.

NBR names Spike Jonze's "Her" year's best

Another day, another precursor triumph for a film I won't get to see for ages. The National Board of Review named Spike Jonze's postmodern romance Her the Best Picture of 2013, with Jonze himself taking Best Director honours as well. Nebraska picked up a pair of acting honours for stars Bruce Dern and Will Forte (both of them arguable co-leads).

My favourite choices of the lot: Stories We Tell for Best Doc (but you already knew that), and Prisoners for Best Ensemble (it'll definitely be making my top five ensembles of the year).

Review - Stories We Tell

(I feel a little embarrassed getting around to this film a full year after it debuted at TIFF and has already had it's Canadian release, but better late than never. Here's to Can-con that's actually good!)

'The purpose of art is to get at absolute truth.' This paraphrased belief is conveyed by Harry Gulkin, one of a dozen or so storytellers we meet in Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell, and it is at once a wise but misguided philosophy. Yes, art strives to present the truths about our world and the human beings that inhabit it, but is there such a thing as a truth that is “absolute”? In this extraordinary documentary, Sarah's own personal history is probed through intimate interviews with her family and other witnesses. The “truth” is revealed to be far from absolute. It is ethereal, fluid, and subject to the biases of those recalling it; Such is the very nature of storytelling.

Polley starts her story before she was even born, with recollections of her late mother, Diane, from the people who knew her best. By all accounts she was a beloved and infectious spirit. An actress at heart, she put her stage career on the back burner in order to raise her children with her husband Michael, who narrates much of the film from a voluminous personal letter he wrote to Sarah. As the multiple perspectives on Diane and Michael trickle in from Sarah's father, siblings, and family friends, an amorphous whole starts to take shape about Diane and the secrets she kept.