Just under the buzzer in time for this year's Oscars, here's a list of my favorite films of 2014. This by no means a study of what I think are the "best," just a survey of what I found to be the most entertaining -- and some which I believe were ignored. Being in Ohio -- and subject to short runs and/or no screens at all -- it takes a while to get caught up. It's February and I'm still not caught up. I'd still like to see Under the Skin (which I fully expect would have made this list), The Theory of Everything, Two Days, One Night, Still Alice, Timbuktu, Ida, Gone Girl, and Selma -- but they'll have to wait.
1. Boyhood
(dir. Richard Linklater)
When I first heard about Linklater's Boyhood "project" finally wrapping, I wholly intended it to be a just that, a "project." I expected a series of vignettes, some moments of philosophical waxing on what it means to "grow up," and a loose thread to tie it all together. I didn't expect something this prophetic, which Boyhood is, even when it comes to the smallest details. I'm not a single mother, a deadbeat dad with a heart of gold, a introverted kid stuck in the middle, but by the end of Boyhood it kind of felt like my youth had just flashed before my eyes in a momentary blink. I could have sat and watched it for another three hours. All of the accolades lauded upon Boyhood are deserved and its singularity (no one will ever make another Boyhood -- unless of course Linklater is currently filming "The College Years") will secure it as a monument in film for years to come.
2. Whiplash
(dir. Damien Chazelle)
By no means are Whiplash and Birdman the same movie. I didn't keep Birdman off of this list as a slight. It's entirely worth your time, as is Foxcatcher, just not one that I intend to ever re-visit. Both of these films though operated on a particular rhythm, and for damnation on my soul for using such a pun, Whiplash had the better "beat." The chemistry between Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons is combustible in every single scene. It's shows that the hero's journey -- the rise, fall, and redemption -- can be fit into any scenario and be engrossing. Were you to tell me that the no-frills story of a promising jazz drummer and his "mentor" was going to be my second favorite movie at the beginning of 2014.....
3. Inherent Vice
(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
I don't wanna be one of those hyper-literate know-it-alls who tells you that you need to "READ" Inherent Vice before you go to see the Paul Thomas Anderson epic on the big screen. I will say though, that it makes the film much more enjoyable. PTA lifts Pynchon's enigmatic prose straight from the book pastes it directly into the screenplay -- so it's bound to not make much sense, seeing as the book is wild and woolly enough. Enough people have walked out, complained about it's density and whispered dialogue, and chalked it up as a failure for PTA. I'm still wrapping my head around it -- and intend, just like with The Master, to study and unfold it for years to come. The biggest crime of this year's Oscars is that both Phoenix and Brolin did not get actor nominations. I blame it on the scope and ambition of PTA, who likely adheres to the dictum that the best "art" is that which we do not fully understand.
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel
(dir. Wes Anderson)
I've never been a Wes Anderson apologist. Though his aesthetic is always cutely kaleidoscopic and arcane and his casts always a treat, as a filmmaker for the ages, he's never been completely consistent. For every Rushmore there's a Darjeeling Limited. The Grand Budapest Hotel though is Anderson finding a perfect balance between his visual craftiness and the adept storytelling that only pervades about half of his films. It's his masterpiece for now.
5. Joe
(dir. David Gordon Green)
I'm amazed at how under-appreciated David Gordon Green has become in Hollywood. If you didn't see Prince Avalanche, start there for now. Like Prince Avalanche, Joe is yet another small, quiet, film from Green that simply doesn't garner the attention it deserves. Perhaps it's based in the popular opinion that Nicolas Cage is doomed to be a straight-to-video actor from now on? But Joe is easily his best performance since Bad Lieutenant. And the guy deserves some Oscar love beyond Leaving Las Vegas.
6. Force Majeure
(dir. Ruben Ostlund)
On first glance Force Majeure might look like Haneke or Dardenne by way of IKEA. You'd be partially right, as it's an intense and prickly family drama from the moment Tomas pushes through the crowd, leaving his wife and kids in the line of an avalanche. To give audiences the climax in the first fifteen minutes of the film frames the falling action -- the slow, deflation of marriage and fatherly rule -- as the centerpiece. Visually the smart angles and rich architecture of the ski resort vs. the wild, majesty of the French Alps is a perfect metaphor for the artifice of the nuclear family vs. the natural law of raw emotion. Don't expect to leave the theater with much resolve.
7. Rich Hill
(dir. Andrew Droz Palermo, Tracy Droz Tragos)
No matter what side you're on, there's no debate that in many parts of the U.S., especially among the "belts" of "rust and bibles," the American Dream is dead, and in most cases decaying around those who are generations removed from it. Rich Hill, a small enclave in Missouri, is not unique. This could be Oceana, WV, or Toledo, OH, or Bowling Green, KY. The directors here do not force any themes of resilience or hope upon their subjects. "This happens everywhere," should be the refrain. There have been many documentaries lately showing lives among the ruins, but none as intimate and existential as Rich Hill.
Check out the trailer here.
8. Guardians of the Galaxy
(dir. James Gunn)
Superhero movies have become a bland game of one-upmanship and I'm not keeping score. The special effects race, or lack thereof, has done little to separate one sequel to the next -- a continuous cycle of recycling and re-branding where any anticipation is lost in the confusion. I suppose it's curmudgeonly to say it's all gone downhill since Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. But wait....Guardians of the Galaxy pumped fresh blood into what it means to be a "popcorn" movie or a blockbuster (without a recognizable hero at it's core) that doesn't simply rely on SFX to move it along. Sure, it is a Marvel adaptation (a pretty obscure one though), but it felt original, surreal, comic and, with Chris Pratt as the lead, terrestrial, instead of trying to be bigger than life. A franchise? Let's hope not.
9. Goodbye to Language
(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
As far as filmic "language" goes, I have a love/hate relationship with Godard's oeuvre. There's no doubt he's a singular titan as a director, but too often his work is too pedantic to truly just enjoy -- especially in his later years. Goodbye to Language seems to violently break any mold Godard has set for himself in that phase. It also breaks any mold set for 3D film and that's what's most intriguing here. Much like Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, GTL is like nothing you've ever experienced at the theater. Godard uses the medium to create textual puzzles, expressionist displays of light and color, and mind-bending edits. You're so caught up in the visual (and sonic for that matter) experiments that any of the "plot" or philosophical rants are secondary.
10. The Babadook
(dir. Jennifer Kent)
Hopefully where horror is headed. Essie Davis deserves the Oscar for this performance. The kid deserves to die. Beetlejuice in a Brecht play. Can't say much more. It IS scary. Just go watch it.
11. Snowpiercer
(dir. Joon-hon Bong)
Currently, where I am, I'm living in the winter dystopia of Snowpiercer, which makes it a perfectly good time to re-visit this early 2014 release. Bong's first-person shooter technique is innovative, even if I had GoldenEye tremors, Bong's kooky, "what's in the next train?" reveals (assassins with fish, a utopian school, the protein bar factory, Ed Harris) makes for a dark and adventurous thrill.
12. Life Itself
(dir. Steve James)
A film primarily for people who like film. Indeed, Roger Ebert was a critic on his own terms, a force, and his void will likely never be filled. Life Itself would be powerful were it just a post-mortem, nostalgia-filled, document of his rise as not just the film world's pre-emanate cinephile but also as a social commentator. Instead, Steve James allows Ebert to be every part of his obituary or better yet, Ebert's final review of humanity.
13. God Help the Girl
(dir. Stuart Murdoch)
Admittedly it's been years since I considered the work of Belle and Sebastian as the same transcendental pop I once fawned over as a collegian full of equal strains melancholy and optimism. Perhaps Stuart Murdoch was feeling the same loss of magic before writing and directing his debut God Help the Girl. The film is a veiled origin story for B&S performed as a sometimes campy, but always bittersweet musical and a love letter to Glasgow, where that melancholy and optimism hangs over the characters like a happy little raincloud. I myself have felt the grand dread of meandering through the city's necropolis. It's also the story of Eve, the quintessential manic pixie, played expertly by Emily Browning, who grounds herself in a miasma of melody. Lastly, it questions "what is pop?" continuously, with a Hard Day's Night, "making the band" flair so rarely executed in pop culture these days.
Bonus: Currently re-obsessed with Belle and Sebastian again.
14. The Fault in Our Stars
(dir. Josh Boone)
I'm a sucker for teen drama. Degrassi, Skins, the Secret Life (of which Shailene Woodley was the star), and most recently the cinematic triumphs of teen drama on the big screen with The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Spectacular Now (of which Woodley was again the star, noticing a trend) all have created an intense want for nostalgia when it comes to coming-of-age tales. Based on the book by YA phenom John Green, The Fault in Our Stars is a simple tale of young love facing death in the face. Waterworks are a given here as director Boone treats the book as if it were classic American literature. There is nothing precious, trite, or predictable here as every word counts.
Bonus: Woodley also starred in the strangely addictive White Bird in a Blizzard, another coming-of-age story set in the early '80s. It's got all of the visual phantasms one can expect from director Gregg Araki, but also the penchant for listless, boring pacing. As such, I can't fully recommend that unless you know what to expect from Araki.
15. They Came Together
(dir. David Wain)
Sure it's no Wet Hot American Summer and it's not even close to the rewarding re-watchability of Wain's last romp Wanderlust, but They Came Together is still tethered to the post-State cult of comedy that no one else is doing. Or if anyone's trying they aren't doing it this well. Perfectly skewing the romantic comedy almost to a fault, Poehler and Rudd play it as if this were a legitimate rom-com full of trap doors, in-jokes, and absurdist flashbacks. That this scene screened in suburban multiplexes is enough to allow Wain to do anything he wants.
