Sign In Now ► or Create A New Account ►
3 comments
8 comments
Rank This Matchup or Comment/Reply Below
on 1/22/2014
12 Years a Slave is no longer my favorite film of 2013. Yep, I'm going with the "silly" cars film, which is easily one of the best character studies I've ever seen. I had some problems with 12 Years a Slave, like I thought the girl who played Patsey wasn't all that great (although she got nominated for an Oscar and nobody else seems to criticize her, so I guess I'm alone on this) and its score sounded too much like the Inception score, which is silly nitpick, but I found it really distracting. It was an excellent film, don't get me wrong, but Rush just impressed me more. It's mindboggling that it didn't get nominated by the Academy for anything this year, not even best editing or best score (which in my humble opinion had a much better Hans Zimmer score). I immensely enjoyed it, It's well made, it's very entertaining and it made racing look intense. That's a real accomplishment, since I don't like watching Formula 1 (or any kind of professional racing for that matter) whatsoever.
on 1/23/2014
YES! A film which MysticSpoon and I both enthusiastically agree on, EURIKA!!! Rush is my favourite of 2013 as well, having seen it in the cinema back in September. I would say that the Hans Zimmer score in Rush is not especially oscar-worthy in itself, since it is very similar to a lot of stuff he has done before (minus the prog-rock influence), but good god, 12 Years a Slave's score is so f*cking jarring in it's similarity to Inception. He even got the "BWWWOOOOOOWWWWMMMMMM" into the film, come on Hans, try harder! Not to mention the fact that Rush's score is makes fantastic listening on its own. Aside from that, 12 Years a Slave features some fantastic performances, good direction, and beautiful cinematography; I'm struggling to think of a film where deep south USA has looked so beautiful on film, especially in contrast to the ugly events portrayed in it. But then, Rush features all these things as well. The only thing where 12 Years significantly betters Rush in my opinion is the script, which is not to say that Rush was badly written, but there are times where it can get a little too broad-stroked and obvious (although I've defended a lot of this as adding to the racing atmosphere and culture, particularly regarding the commentators in the race sequences, which a lot of critics have derided). 12 Years a Slave was much more internalised at times and flowed a bit better. But overall, considering that 12 Years a Slave was labelled "one of the best films ever made", while Rush got largely overlooked, I think that 12 Years is already treading old ground, albeit with its own juxtaposed mix of beauty and ugliness, whereas there aren't that many good racing films aside from Rush and Senna. Plus I'd easily watch Rush again any day of the week, and it's one of the few films which I've still been talking about almost half a year after its initial release, whereas other "awards" films this year have been lost at the wayside (Gravity, Captain Phillips etc). That it didn't get nominated at the Academy Awards is shameful, as it deserves every praise it gets. Rush wins, with 12 Years a Slave coming in at a close second place for 2013 (although since it was released in 2014 in the UK, I'm tempted to judge it as a 2014 film).
Well, it's not like we barely agree on other films, Smatticus :P . For those wondering why I thought the score of 12 Years a Slave sounded so similar to Inception's score, listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ0FQovU0Ws . And then listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0kGAz6HYM8
Or just this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhUE-GVeG44
^^True, but it's not often we agree on superlatives ;)
Meh, I guess that's true :)
on 2/15/2014
Both are well-done period pieces about two very different periods. I enjoyed both of these, but I think TYAS is better.
on 7/27/2014
Rush
I was more entertained by Rush....
on 2/3/2015
Both wonderful movies. 12 Years a Slave is undoubtedly the more important film in my mind, but I'm not sure I could ever bear to watch it again. Rush is beautifully crafted and richly entertaining, as well as a great character study. I give it therefore to Rush.
on 10/31/2016
Rush is really soapish. Really soapish. Kinda silly, but a great deal of fun. I don't know about "important" (what the fuck does that even mean?), but I'm still leaning slightly towards 12 Years. Pretty close though.
