The Best Films of 2014

Well, seeing as though everybody else has had their "best of the year" list out since December, I guess I should get off my lazy behind, and get one out also, shouldn't I?  As always, I have a good excuse.  As a regular paying filmgoer, I choose to hold off on this list until I can see as many of the year's films as I can.  And since many of the big end of the year films usually expand slowly (sometimes very slowly) into wide release around January-February, I choose to wait.

As usual, I will be naming my favorite film of the year, followed by what I felt were the great films of 2014.  The great films can be anything that truly grabbed my attention, so they can be dramas, comedies, kid's films, whatever.  Then I'll be listing the "honorable mentions" (the runner ups), followed by my 10 favorite actor and actress performances of the year.  Aside from Best Film, all of these choices will be listed in no particular order.

So, with that out of the way, let's get down to the important stuff - the movies.



THE BEST FILM OF 2014

THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA -  Isao Takahata's The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a profound animated film.  It is joyous, sad, tender, and a marvel to watch.  At almost 80 years old, Mr. Takahata has created some of the more memorable films to come out of Studio Ghibli, Japan's leading animation studio (which he co-founded with Hayao Miyazaki).  His latest film is filled with visual beauty,and can easily be dubbed a masterpiece.  Based on an ancient Japanese folk tale, the film tells the story of an old bamboo cutter who is going about his work in a forest, when he suddenly witnesses a beam of light from the heavens strike the ground nearby.  A plant grows in the spot where the light hit, and within moments, the plant opens to reveal a tiny doll-like woman.  It turns into a human child who grows and matures at an accelerated rate.  From this strange yet whimsical opening, the movie develops into a stirring drama as the girl is forced into a life she does not want, that of royalty and wealth.  The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a masterful film in just about every way, especially the artstyle.  Watching the film, it made me realize just how many corners are often cut in some traditional animation.  There is a realism to the movement to the characters here that we seldom see.  There is so much care and detail up on the screen, it is almost staggering at times.  All at once funny, tender and ultimately tragic, this is simply the year's most unforgettable cinematic experience.  Even by the standards of its talented director, this stands as something truly unique, special and achingly beautiful.



THE GREAT FILMS OF 2014

THE IMITATION GAME -  A truly great film puts you through the full list of emotions, and The Imitation Game is one such film.  It's a powerful and complex, yet surprisingly understated film that left me feeling drained when it was over, but in the best way possible.  It tells of a secret program the British government used during World War II to break the Nazi's "Enigma" code.  The code is what the Axis forces used to communicate with each other, and it was believed to be unbreakable.  It was up to a small group of mathematicians to crack the code, and hopefully give the British military a fighting chance in the war.  The leader of this group was a brilliant yet socially awkward man named Alan Turing.  In the film, Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, giving what is easily his best film performance yet.  In telling Alan Turing's story, the filmmakers have successfully broken it down into three main segments set in different points in his life.  While the story of Turing's efforts to break the code are stirring, it is the scenes depicting Turing's later life, where he is persecuted for being gay by the same government he once served that are truly heartbreaking.  When it's over, the film is guaranteed to leave you with a wide range of emotions.  But the most important one will be that giddy high you always feel when you've just watched a truly fantastic film.

THE RAILWAY MAN - A criminally underrated film from earlier this year, Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man is based on a true story so good, I'm surprised it wasn't adapted into a movie sooner.  Colin Firth stars and gives a riveting performance as Eric Lomax, a meek and quiet man who is hiding and battling some very powerful personal demons that stem from his time as a POW in a Japanese prison camp, during his time as a young man in the British military in World War II.  At first, Eric refuses to share any of his story, but his memories continue to haunt him.  Eventually, he decides to track down his former prison camp tormentor, who is still alive, and living a happy and normal life.  The movie asks Eric (and us, the audience) what do we do with this information?  How does Eric want to confront this when his past is literally standing right in front of him, and most importantly, how do we want him to confront it?  The Railway Man forces us to face Eric's pain and torment head-on, so that when he sees the man he associates with his anguish leading a group of tourists on a tour of an attraction, we feel just as enraged as he must at first. From the first rate performances, right down to the way that the movie puts you in the mindset and situation of the main character, this is a stunning film that should have gotten more attention.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER - Of the many comic book and superhero films we got in 2014, this was not only my favorite, but also the most fascinating.  The secret behind the film's success is a brilliant notion - Take Captain America, a square-jawed patriot from the 1940s who still believes in the values of America and its freedoms, and place him in the middle of a 1970s-style conspiracy thriller, where he can't trust anyone, and his own government is out to destroy him.  This is not just a great superhero movie.  It is a taut and tightly executed edge of your seat thriller that hits home, because of some eerily plausible ideas and plot elements.  Captain America, as well as his alter ego, Steve Rogers (once again played by Chris Evans), is a relic from his own time.  And as he is slowly drawn into a hidden world of corruption and controlling Americans through fear, even he begins to question just what he is fighting for.  If any of this sounds surprisingly complex for a comic book movie, it is in a rewarding way.  You have to give Marvel credit for one thing, they're not playing it safe here, and aren't afraid to shake up the rules of the superhero movie once in a while.  And while the presence of Robert Redford in the cast is somewhat of a winking nod to 1970s conspiracy thrillers, this movie takes itself very seriously, and turns into not just an exciting action blockbuster, but a genuinely thrilling movie about paranoia and control.

LIFE ITSELF - The late Roger Ebert loved movies like few people do, and through his clear and concise writing, I think he made a lot of other people fall in love with the movies as well.  He was able to talk openly and simply about art and indie films just as well as he was about the latest blockbuster hitting the multiplex.  Even if you did not agree with his opinion on a certain film, you always enjoyed reading what he had to say in his newspaper reviews or books, and hearing what he had to say on the syndicated TV show he co-hosted.  In 2011, he wrote a memoir about his life called Life Itself.  It was a heartfelt, honest and daringly open book that talked not just about his life and career, but also the struggle he went through with alcoholism for part of his life.  Now, director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) has made a documentary film about Ebert with the same title, and it just as daringly open as the book was.  It is not only a look back at Ebert's life and accomplishments, but it is also an up-front look at the man during the last few months of his life. (Ebert passed away while the film was being made.) Ebert was a passionate man about many things, not just the movies, as anyone who read the blog he ran on his website knows.  This film beautifully captures just about all the man's passions, especially his love for his wife, Chaz.  This is a funny, sad, emotional and stirring film.  I doubt Ebert would want a movie about his life any other way.  Given its subject matter of the best known film critic ever, it is fitting that Life Itself is one of the great films of the year.  Through the film, we learn that Ebert was far from perfect, but he had a love for life as strong as his love for great movies.  When he saw a truly great film, he could praise it in a way that made you want to immediately see it.  When he panned a bomb, it was often hilarious.  But most importantly, as this film depicts, he was a loving and passionate man to the very end.

BOYHOOD -  Writer-director Richard Linklater loves the idea of following a fictional character through different stages of their life, as he has proven with his series of romantic dramas (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight) that follows a couple in different stages of their relationship.  His latest film, Boyhood, follows a similar but much more ambitious approach.  Rather than follow its characters over a series of films, it manages to fit an entire 12 years worth of a character's life in a film that runs nearly 3 hours, but is completely enthralling from beginning to end.  Linklater and his cast filmed the movie off and on over a 12-year-period, so we actually get to see the actors mature and age up on the screen.  But it is much more than an impressive gimmick - Boyhood is one of the better coming of age stories to hit the screen in a long time, as it follows a young boy from the time he is six years old, to the point that he leaves home the first time for college.  There is a documentary feel to the film, as there is no real Point A to Point B plot structure.  Instead, we follow a young man named Mason (played over the course of 12 years by Ellar Coltrane), and his various experiences from family turmoil, to experiencing heartbreak of a failed relationship, and making and losing friends over the years.  It's fascinating to watch not just the character, but also the performance of Mr. Coltrane mature before our eyes.  Linklater has long had a gift for natural sounding dialogue, and to just follow people having a conversation, and manage to make it engaging.  He once again displays that talent here.  There's not one frame that feels artificial or scripted.  The kids can be annoying sometimes.  The mom loses her temper.  Mason experiments with drugs and alcohol as he gets older.  All of these moments ring true.  Boyhood must have been a tremendous undertaking for everyone involved.  In fact, I know it was.  Linklater's experiment has paid off with one of the most fascinating movies of the year, and one we're not likely to see again anytime soon, as I doubt the major studios would have the patience to devote 12 years to a single project being filmed.  This is not just an innovative film.  It is a joyous film full of warmth, humor and life.

THE LEGO MOVIE -  The writing and directing team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller have pulled off a small miracle with The Lego Movie.  Not only have they made the most imaginative animated film since the heyday of Pixar, but they have also given us a film that is truly funny (even hilarious at times), inventive, heartfelt, and smart enough that any audience of just about any age can enjoy it.  All this from a product placement film based around plastic toys.  But, if you look at the track record of Lord and Miller, maybe it's not so surprising.  These two guys seem to have a talent for taking ideas that should be awful and generic, yet they always wind up digging beneath the surface, and striking gold.  This is a movie filled with so many big laughs and surprises that some adults actually found themselves going back to the theater for a second viewing - this time without the kids.  But what really sets The Lego Movie apart from the countless previous efforts to adapt toys into feature films (Transformers, G.I. Joe, Battleship) is not just the smart humor, but that it actually is about something.  Lord and Miller put a lot of thought into their script, and it really shows during the film's final and surprisingly heartwarming moments.  That's ultimately what pushes this movie up from being good, and makes it great.  They could have easily have just made a funny movie about these plastic figures (and they have), but they also make us care about what we are watching.  Here is a movie that could have gone wrong in so many ways, yet it manages to not only be better than we expect, it also manages to go even further.  The Lego Movie surpasses all expectations, and really does deserve the title of being a small cinematic miracle.

GONE GIRL -  Every once in a while, Hollywood gets it exactly right.  Gone Girl is that rare cinematic miracle where everything has come together to create as perfect an adaptation of Gillian Flynn's runaway bestselling novel that one could hope for.  The casting, the direction, the screenplay, even the music score - not a single element is out of place. The many people who have embraced Flynn's book for its sinister and unraveling mystery story will be glad to know that director David Fincher is more than up to the task of bringing it to the big screen.  He chillingly recreates the story, centered on a love gone very, very bad.  And when the secrets behind the mystery start to be revealed, Fincher does not shy away - He shows us every detail and every side of the lurid characters who populate the story.  He brings a smart and sinister sense to the film.  It is cold, unflinching, and at times darkly humorous in the best possible way.  In casting the two leads, the filmmakers could not have found a better pairing than Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.  Their portrayals of Nick Dunne and Amy Elliot Dunne not only help to flesh out the characters from the page, but are nearly flawless in their portrayals.  Pike, in particular, is perfect as the beautiful yet manipulative Amy.  She can have a certain warmness to her performance, but as her character is slowly revealed, she brings so much intensity and cold concentration that it is almost terrifying. Not only that, but the film recreates the novel's structure, and allows us to view the story through both characters' point of view.  Through diary entries, flashbacks, and personal recollections, we get to observe this complex couple, and the events that led up to where they are.  Even if you are already familiar with the story, Gone Girl is just as haunting and unforgettable as the novel, if not more so.

NIGHTCRAWLER -  Some of my favorite movies are the ones that make you look at something you see everyday in a different way, and Nightcrawler is one such film.  I guarantee that if you see this, you won't watch the local news the same way again.  This movie reveals the world behind the smiling news anchors, and shows us a realistic depiction of just how they get that footage of accidents, local robberies, muggings and murders.  The film takes something we see everyday on the news, and rips open the lid, showing us how that footage gets on the air.  Our entry into this world is Louis Bloom, who ranks as one of the truly great antiheroes of cinema.  Louis is creepy, disturbed, and hides his contempt for humanity with a false sense of kindness and good manners.  As played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Louis Bloom is one of the fascinatingly off-putting characters ever to appear on film.  The fact that Gyllenhaal's frightening and fascinating performance was not recognized at Award time is one of this year's great oversights.  This is not a moralizing film.  It never once questions the actions of its lead character, even if some of the people around him grow increasingly uncomfortable as Louis is pulled further into his obsession of getting the perfect shot.  Nightcrawler is a fascinating film, because it never once shies away from what Louis Bloom is really doing.  It forces us to watch his moralistic descent, and what's perhaps most shocking to the audience is that it is fascinating to watch.  Of course, the movie knows this.  It's built around the premise that we as a society are drawn to these kind of news stories.  We slow down when we see an accident, and we watch continuous 24 hour news coverage of the latest murder trial or police manhunt.  All this movie does is take us into the world that makes those kind of stories so compelling to most viewers, and how those kind of stories come to be.  This is an electric and truly alive film.

BIRDMAN - This is a dark, odd movie about a washed up actor (Michael Keaton) who is trying to reinvent himself by writing, directing and starring in a Broadway play based on Raymond Calver's short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.  This is a bitter and biting movie, but it is also noticeable for having some of the best performances I've seen in any movie in 2014.  The entire cast (including Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Zach Galifianakis) is on top of their game here, while director Alejandro Gonzalez (Babel) has made a bold film that looks at a man trying to hold everything together as everything around him flies apart.  He achieves this with a stunning filmmaking choice, by hiding almost every single edit and making it look like we are following the main character in one long, uninterrupted take.  Working with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity), this approach is not only fascinating to watch, but it really does let us get inside the jumbled head of its lead character.  This is important, as the movie basically is about Riggan's gradual mental breakdown.  Birdman (which has been subtitled or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is such a tense film at times that its moments of humor almost seem out of left field.  Yet, there are some big laughs.  This truly is a fascinating film - Deeply felt, funny, and often angry, but never so much so that we feel turned off by the film.  Lots of movies have depicted a descent into madness, but few have done it in such a way that we feel like we're there for the entire journey.  This is a strange and original film, and Gonzalez obviously sees this as being deeply personal, especially with how he shows us all the work that goes into the making of any production.  While this movie divided audiences upon its release, I highly doubt anyone who watched it has forgotten about it.

THE BABADOOK - Jennifer Kent's The Babadook is one of the most unnerving horror films I've seen in a long time.  Most successful horror movies work as a thrill ride, giving you a jolt and making you feel uneasy while you're watching them.  This movie gets completely under your skin, and manages to stay there for its entire running time.  Even more important, it doesn't fade from your mind the instant you walk out of the theater.  The trailer would lead you to believe that this is a supernatural film about a boogeyman who lurks in the dark corners of a little boy's room.  And while there is certainly a dark presence lurking in the home of the two main characters, Kent's screenplay (which is inspired by a 2005 short film she made titled Monster) goes much deeper than that for its thrills.  The movie is also about the pressures of motherhood, and a woman who seems to be at wit's end when it comes to her son.  Both the woman (Essie Davis) and young son (Noah Wiseman) deliver chilling and honest performances, and it's a real crime that neither was recognized for their work here.  This movie goes so beyond being a mere "creature film".  Unlike a lot of thrillers, The Babadook does not cheat with its answers, nor does it lose our interest once the movie starts to wind down.  It is smart to keep us somewhat in the dark as to what is really happening.  So much of the film is seen through the exhausted eyes of the mother, we start to wonder what's real, and what is being created by a sleep-deprived mind.  The monster itself represents two things - childhood nightmares becoming real, and the very real frustrations of motherhood.  The Babadook does so much more than simply put you on edge.  It is just as much a drama as it is a supernatural story, and it is successful on both fronts.  It knows how to tap into childhood fears of the dark and the unknown, yet it also knows how to create characters who are flawed, broken and very human.



HONORABLE MENTIONS

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Monuments Men, About Last Night, 3 Days to Kill, The Wind Rises, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Divergent, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Heaven is for Real, Bears, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Maleficent, The Fault in Our Stars, Edge of Tomorrow, How to Train Your Dragon 2, 22 Jump Street, Jersey Boys, Willow Creek, Tammy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Lucy, Begin Again, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hundred-Foot Journey, If I Stay, Magic in the Moonlight, The November Man, Dolphin Tale 2, The Maze Runner, The Drop, A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Boxtrolls, Alexander and the No Good...Day, The Judge, Fury, The Book of Life, John Wick, St. Vincent, Big Hero 6, Interstellar, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, The Interview, Into the Woods, Top Five, Wild, The Theory of Everything, Big Eyes, Selma, American Sniper, Foxcatcher, Cake, Still Alice



MY TOP 10 PERFORMANCES BY AN ACTOR (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER):

Steve Carell in Faxcatcher
Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Colin Firth in The Railway Man
Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
Michael Keaton in Birdman
Edward Norton in Birdman
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything
Channing Tatum in Foxcatcher
Noah Wiseman in The Babadook



MY TOP 10 PERFORMANCES BY AN ACTRESS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER):

Amy Adams in Big Eyes
Jennifer Aniston in Cake
Patricia Arquette in Boyhood
Essie Davis in The Babadook
Laura Dern in Wild 
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Chloe Grace Moretz in The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl
Emma Stone in Birdman
Reese Witherspoon in Wild

So, those are my favorites of 2014 in a nutshell!  Hopefully, as we go further into 2015, we will get many more bright moments to come in the cinema.

3 comments