The Top Ten Movies of 2013 (+5 worst and 5 honorable mentions)

Probing, timely, titillatingly subversive, slyly feminist (!?), there are so many ways to argue, describe and interpret the latest film from self-taught wunderkind Harmony Korine, who finally fulfills the promise of his remarkable debut "Gummo". Plus, if it was my Academy, Franco would get an Oscar for this.

It can be a big risk when a director of Bruno Dumont's uncompromised, Bresson-like cinematic austerity works with a big name stage and screen star like Juliette Binoche. But what we get is a film balancing a transcendent near wordless performance of quietly grand emotions with the rural echos of Dumont's mighty influence.

There is no sophomore slump for Aussie director Cate Shortland ("Somersault"), who boldly ventures beyond her comfort zone with this poetic and realistic look at the plight of a family of children orphaned by SS war criminals in the immediate aftermath of Germany's defeat.

By far the best American debut film of the year, Ryan Coogler's timely masterwork should be essential viewing for everyone, especially police officers around the country as a presentation of 'how not to act'

Steve McQueen, one of the great recently emerged hopes of the future of cinema, goes Hollywood here and despite a few missteps (a Brad Pitt cameo as jarring and disrupting as Ted Danson's was in "Saving Private Ryan"), his patient, single-take style and theme of the spirit-vs.-the body remain beautifully intact enough to make Tarantino's "Django" look like the moronic cartoon that is was. Plus, Michael Fassbender gives what is his most fascinating performance yet.

I can't stand Ben Affleck and "To the Wonder" is by far Terrence Malick's weakest film. That said, it still managed to be perhaps the most romantic, melancholy and beautiful film of the year. And still better than about 95% of everything else.

People said it was a weak follow-up to "Drive". I didn't really care for "Drive", but I liked this film. Quick, bloody and (thanks to a uber-bitch role from the always reliable Kristen Scott Thomas) gleefully un-PC, Refn's film is like if Wong Kar Wai's "Fallen Angels" met up with David Lynch on the worst corner of Bangkok.

Sure, Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" has more problems than Payne's previously acclaimed films like "About Schmidt" and "Sideways" (mostly the gross miscasting of Will Forte, aka SNL's MacGruber"). But Payne's rambly-yet-deadpan style fits like a glove on Bruce Dern, that spry-yet withered face and body still a signpost of that most yearnful time, the 70's, when movies were made with heart and ramble.

Like "Say Anything" (a clear influence), "Spectacular Now" is that rare high school movie that actually feels true and with characters that seem real. I came away feeling like I'd known people headed down this life pathway, a compliment for any film. I'm always skeptical of the talent pool of this upcoming generation, aka the Efron-Beiber generation, but the two leads here both deserve bright futures.

A really weird, ultra-violent new-age techno acid Western (if that really exists). Imagine a 4-way standoff between "El Topo", "Wild At Heart", Alex Cox and a Rockabilly band; it might be scratching the mere surface of this one.

honorable mention: Woody's patented schtick is to me inconsistent, especially when he's nowhere to be found in the cast (for every "Match Point" and "Sweet and Lowdown" we get a "Whatever Works" and a "Tall Dark Stranger" it often seems). But sometimes we know he's often most potent when both identifying with and dicing up the upper-crust, and for that "Blue Jasmine" works although not as incisively as say a Chabrol film. & sticking Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins alongside Andrew Dice Clay and Louis C.K. is enough to intrigue even Allen's biggest hater.

honorable mention: Yes, the great Michael Shannon tried his hamful-hearted best to bring depth to his bad guy in "Man of Steel". But even he isn't worth sitting through that film. Not so here, where he redeems himself with his note-perfect performance of infamous hired-killer Richard Kuklinski. "The Iceman" is not a flawless movie by any means, but Shannon is unforgettable.

honorable mention: Another dark true-crime story, "Blue Caprice" follows the strange, surrogate father-son relationship of the notorious Beltway snipers, who in 2002 stunned the country with their random killings in the same way David Berkowitz or the Zodiac did. And like "Fruitvale Station" this film isn't about judgement, only observation.

honorable mention: Although these stuck-in-a-space scenarios have grown tiresome for me ("Buried", "Unbroken", "127 Hours" blah, blah should I keep going), "All Is Lost" makes the list because of the daring decision made by director J.C. Chandor to keep the film as humanly realistic and devoid of Hollywood script as possible. Especially when Chandor's Oscar-nominated debut "Margin Call" was such a well scripted movie.

honorable mention: Call it "All is Lost" with 4 times the budget, Emmerich-like disaster special-effects, and George Clooney acting like George Clooney. Call it "All is Lost--in Space!". But one things for certain, the techniques and the style of this film (thrilling suspense punctuated by airy long-takes) devised by director Alfonso Cauron and the great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki are masterful.

One of the Year's worst: Imagine a "Superman" movie with no humor, fun or lightness and you have this movie. Imagine "The Dark Knight Rises" but with Superman in Batman's place and extended to 3 hours, and you have this movie. Imagine a PG-13 superhero movie where half-the world parishes in a 9/11-like catastrophe and no one in the audience cares or feels anything. That's this movie.

One of the Year's worst: Closet Scientologist Will 'L.Ron' Smith hires M. Night Shyamalan to adapt and direct his Battlefield-Earthian story about a father and his son marooned on a hostile earth in the distant future. And not to mention they for some reason have botched South-African accents and his son is played by his real life no-talent son and its got a budget of over 100 million dollars yet looks like it was made for 25. How did this get greenlighted again? Because Tom Cruise wouldn't even greenlight this, let alone want to watch it.

One of the Year's worst: When you're sitting in a theatre and you see the names Tyler Perry and Kim Kardashian listed alongside one another, you should tell yourself, "this is what they made emergency exits for"

One of the Year's worst: When you're sitting in a theatre and you see the names Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck listed alongside one another, you should tell yourself, "this is what they made emergency exits for"

One of the Year's worst: Is there nothing more dunderheadly pretentious and universally awful than a soap opera director who thinks he's the next Stanley Kubrick? That's what Lee Daniels is, and this film is above and beyond his most terrible yet. Robin Williams as Eisenhower(!?), Cusack as Nixon(!??), Cyclops as Kennedy(!???). But my word doesn't matter, just as long as Lee Daniels can rolodex people like Oprah and Obama to plug his kind of misguided, sub-artistic, self-indulgent trash.