I watched quite a few 2013 releases in December (as often happens at the end of the year), but I won’t be writing about any of those films in this post. The 2013 releases that I saw this month that I really loved (including my favorite of the year!) made it into my Favorite Fifteen Films of 2013, which was posted yesterday (or last year. . .). I saw quite a few interesting films this month, including several films from 1913 (I’d like to thank The Academy for those). I also (finally) graduated from my M.F.A. program earlier this month. Which ultimately means I should have more free time for here on out. I don’t know if that means I’ll up my film viewing (I’m hoping to actually go out and do things this year!), but as any fanatic knows, I’ll never truly abandon the cinema! You can see all the films I watched in December after the cut, and later today I will be posting a giant wrap-up summarizing my entire film-watching experience in 2013. Enjoy!

1. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
2. Reaching For The Moon (2013)
3. Mystery of the 13th Guest
4. Black Nativity
5. The Punk Singer
6. Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
7. The Mysterious Villa
8. Barney Oldfield’s Race For A Life
9. The Evidence of the Film
10. A Lady and Her Maid
11. Suspense. (1913)
12. Arabia Takes The Health Cure
13. The Lady and the Mouse
14. The Struggle
15. Jockey Par Amour
16. Gold Diggers of 1937
17. Romance of Louisiana
18. Speaking of the Weather
19. Susan Slept Here
20. Never Say Goodbye (1946)
21. Vision Quest
22. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75
23. Gold Diggers in Paris
24. At Land
25. Easy Street (1917)
26. The Man I Love (1947)
27. Motion Painting No. 1
28. The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus
29. Camille Claudel, 1915
30. A Fig Leaf for Eve
31. Her
32. Hooray for Love
33. La grande bellezza
34. Desert Escape (aka Marked Men)
35. American Hustle
36. The Wolf of Wall Street
37. Harriet Craig
38. Queen Bee
39. The Story of Esther Costello
40. Labor Day
41. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
42. These Glamour Girls
43. The Cure in Orange
44. The Dawn Rider
45. Hôtel Monterey
46. The Clock

1880s: 0
1880s: 0
1890s: 0
1900s: 0
1910s: 10
1920s: 0
1930s: 7
1940s: 8
1950s: 4
1960s: 0
1970s: 3
1980s: 3
1990s: 0
2000s: 1
2010s: 10

I sort of love that fact the two decades I watched the most films from last month were the 1910s (specifically 1913) and the 2010s (specifically 2013).

Suspense, 1913 (dir. Lois Weber)

This film had some really great filmic techniques from the underrated pioneer Lois Weber. I think you can watch it on YouTube. Look it up and learn something!

Susan Slept Here, 1954 (dir. Frank Tashlin)

Debbie Reynolds is slowly starting to win me over and this film surely helped. She so full of energy and zest in it. Kind of a Christmas film, maybe a little outdated in some of its ideas, but fun from start to finish regardless.

These Glamour Girls, 1939 (dir. S. Sylvan Simon)

One of the co-writers on this also co-wrote Gilda. It’s a peppy script about a NYC taxi dancer originally from Kansas, played by an 18-year-old Lana Turner, who crashes the homecoming weekend of a stuffy private college and realizes that all the “glamour” boys and girls are full of shit. She tells them that too, in one of the best cinematic tell-offs I’ve ever seen. The end also has one of the best comedic plants and payoffs I can recall. Loads of fun.

The Story of Esther Costello, 1957 (dir. David Miller)

Partially a story that resembles The Miracle Worker, and partially an expose on the exploitative nature of fundraising campaigns, this film features some of Joan Crawford’s best dramatic work. Fans of Rosanno Brazzi may want to avoid it, as he plays a MAJOR creeper in this movie.

The Clock, 1945 (dir. Vincente Minnelli)

This was the last movie I saw this year and I left it to that spot on purpose because I KNEW I would love it. It’s basically one of only two films where Judy Garland doesn’t sing a song, but that’s okay because she is such a damn good actress, she doesn’t need to. Robert Walker really is “green as grass” in this movie, but in such a sweet, sincere way. It’s funny to think he started out in things like this and Since You Went Away, playing innocents and now he is most famous for playing a psycho in Strangers on a Train. Walker and Garland have amazing chemistry and hopeless romantics, such as myself, will eat this movie up.

So that was December. Like I said, look forward to an end of the year wrap-up later today and I hope your 2014 is filled with all the best cinema can offer!