As much as I can see 2014 packed to the gills with films people fell head over heels for, many of those mainstream and even ScreenAnarchy favorites will be vacant from this list, simply because I thought this was a decent year for cinema. And as I always tend to do with these lists, I go off the beaten path as much as possible, so if there are choices of mine you have yet to hear much of, or have yet to be released, do not fret, keep an eye out, do a little digging, or drop me a question in the comments below.
What follows are a few general reflections on the year, honorable mentions, the top twelve countdown, followed by a brief rundown of favorite TV Shows. Onward and enjoy!
The Year At Large
While most of my coverage here at ScreenAnarchy goes against the mainstream grain, this year's crop of tent-poles proved to be a bit more pleasurable for me, in that The LEGO Movie gave me joy, Noah gave me darkly herald allegory, and X-Men: Days Of Future Past gave me an X-Men flick my 10-year self could swoon over.
What was certain in the film community at large is that there was one extraordinary work that unified a lot of disparate folks: Richard Linklater's Boyhood. What's ironic to note here is the film's gentle, astute look at a white, male, and middle-class subject, while pop cinema (and TV) still seems to be justifiably experimenting with destructive male hubris (Mad Men), death of the patriarchal society (Interstellar), and also with the slower, if far more vital, rise of action/adventure feminist storytelling (Mockingjay, and in TV, The Legend Of Korra). This absolutely goes without saying, but it's a very needed set of growing pains for the generally lethargic and bombast burdened Hollywood to be having; one that is long overdue and will, hopefully, continue to unfold towards an industry of equality, both in front of and behind the camera.
Honorable Mentions
Titles highlighted in red have links to my full reviews.
20. Inherent Vice (U.S., dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
19. Birdman (U.S., dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
18. Spring (U.S., dir. Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
17. Felt (U.S., dir. Jason Banker)
16. Kung Fu Elliot (Canada, dir. Matthew Bauckman, Jaret Belliveau)
15. Uncertain Terms (U.S., dir. Nathan Silver) (pictured)
14. Love Steaks (Germany, dir. Jakob Lass,
13. War Story (U.S., dir. Mark Jackson)
The following list of 12 films (shorts and features alike) compromise my favorite experiences, favorite stories, worlds, characters, moods and moments of the year. Liminal by default, nothing here is "best of" as many of these favorites have imperfections that I choose to accept as part of their beauty.
12. Force Majeure (Sweden, dir. Ruben Östlund)
Speaking of that destructive male hubris again... on the opposite side of that coin is the equally deafening masculine inability to communicate. With four feature films that just keep finding wider and wider appeal, Ruben Östlund is proving he has a real penchant for upending the dark foundations of western society with a sharp, dry wit.
His latest is a fabulous comedy of discomfort, which stems first from cowardice... or perhaps it's just embarrassingly plain survival instinct. But what transpires for the patriarch of a Swedish family on a ski holiday in France is, despite its comically painful male posturing, anything but one note. For as sharp as lines are drawn, Östlund is not looking for clean cut answers. Quite simply, the film is hilarious because it is human.
Force Majeure is currently playing in U.S. Theaters and available to rent from most VOD platforms.
11. Nightcrawler (U.S., dir. Dan Gilroy)
There will come a day when I see printed on a T-Shirt: "In Louis Bloom We Trust". On that day I will smirk and then give a little shudder.
Proving that he is at his absolute best when playing obsessives fueled by some freaked-out version of the American Dream, Jake Gyllenhaal bugs out in Dan Gilroy's terrific directorial debut. Nightcrawler is skeezy, slick, surprisingly hilarious and downright horrific. What it shows about our seemingly unquenchable quest for power, the lowest denominator/bottom line nature of the news media, and of American entrepreneurship, is anything but a walk in the park.
Mark my words, for better or worse, Louis Bloom, the man who doesn't blink, will become an American cinematic icon: The Face of the post-recession zeitgeist.
Nightcrawler is currently in U.S. theaters and releases on Blu-ray February 10, 2015.
10. Memphis (U.S., dir. Tim Sutton)
First seen nearly a year ago at Sundance, Tim Sutton's mythic Southern odyssey of a second feature haunts me a little bit everyday, and I am all the better for it.
At the center of the magic is the magician himself, musician Willis Earl Beal, a young man who shoulders his God-given talent with equal disdain and nonchalance. Our titular city is beautifully lensed by Chris Dapkins, with each street, each person, glowing softly with a spiritual quality that can only be found in the everyday. Part documentary, part diary, part dream, Memphis is glorious to behold.
Memphis is currently available to rent or buy on Vimeo On Demand.
9. Buffalo Juggalos (U.S., dir. Scott Cummings)
Short films are often sidelined on these lists, despite the form being far more innovative and enticing than many features out there.
Enter Scott Cummings' 30-minute experimental portrait work on the Juggalo community that resides in and around Buffalo, New York. What may seem to outsiders like an unhealthy devotion to the music of the Insane Clown Posse, is a way of life, a way of truth, for the young men and women who participate with Cummings in creating 30 1-minute vignettes of such mesmerizing power, that I was left utterly speechless after my first viewing.
The film is devoid of any music, or any dialog, and it is all the more apocalyptic for it, pulsating with dozens of cold, hard war-painted tribesmen and women, daring you to look back. As a confrontational statement, Buffalo Juggalos is full of enough quiet violence, derelict mysticism, and just plain wonder to make your head spin. A short form masterpiece.
Buffalo Juggalos does not currently have a release.
8. Daybreak (Canada, dir. Ian Lagarde)
Much the same can be said of Ian Lagarde's short form look into another so-called tribe: that of pre-teen suburbanites.
The absolute best film out of Slamdance last January, Daybreak charts that fine line between fantasy and reality that so many adults forget, merely because they want to articulate about it with words, and well... that is nearly impossible. The resulting work is sensitive to a time when everything seems equally brutal and fragile, as if you're screaming from inside a glass jar. And you know that glass is going to break, and you'll get cut. And you'll cut others. But you don't want that. You just want to ride your bike and play with your friends.
7. The Double (U.K., dir. Richard Ayoade)
Moving from strange dream and into an outright nightmare... it's Richard Ayoade's dastardly clever and frightfully dour adaptation of Dostoevsky's famous tale.
The film is a technical marvel of composition, lighting, production design, music cues... all the tricks in a filmmaker's bag to make one remark "Wow." Its mood is something of another marvel, equal parts Ermanno Olmi social comedy and Alfred Hitchcock thriller, with the very best of absurdest Czech New Wave stylings thrown in. And while I'm rarely in favor of actor's playing into type, Jesse Eisenberg as the meek Simon James and the creep James Simon is pitch perfect.
Ayoade may be treading ever so closely to the well-worn aesthetics and thematics of a smokestack dystopia, but dare I say he gets a much more finely sharpened movie out of the proceedings over most?
The Double is currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S.
6. The Duke Of Burgundy (U.K., dir. Peter Strickland)
The most purely erotic movie in quite some time, Peter Strickland's second feature is also an astute, complex look at the varying roles and personas we put on in relationships.
Set in a picture-perfect autumnal land of beautiful and affluent female academics, The Duke Of Burgundy shimmers with questions and wonders surrounding human nature. Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D'Anna act as gateways and enigmas alike in this world, forever making us fall in and out of love. And if one thing is clear from this adult fairy tale of control and dominance, it is that I shall never again find the word "Pinastri" (or is that "Be Nasty"?) quite as mesmerizing as it is here.
The Duke Of Burgundy releases in U.S. theaters, January 23, and in the UK, February 20.
5. Two Days, One Night (Belgium, dir. John-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
The Dardenne Bros. don't make action movies. And they don't make thrillers. But they do make nail-biters.
Charting the weekend in which Marion Cotillard' Sandra has to gain the trust of her fellow workers at a solar power company, asking them to vote in favor of her keeping her job instead of them getting a bonus, the Dardennes are in top form for this seminal post-recession film. For as Sandra painstakingly pleads her case, something becomes increasingly, and alarmingly clear: It doesn't matter if her co-workers are a Caucasian European or Minority Immigrant, all are living under an illusion of a stable working-middle-class. They are all, quite simply, striving for something that no longer exists. The message is thus: no matter who we are, or where we are from, we are now all living paycheck to paycheck.
This may be a moot point considering the Dardenne Bros' social realist filmography, but Two Days, One Night is tender, humorous and harrowing like few films this year. It is human drama at its most humane and inhumane.
Two Days, One Night is currently playing in U.S. theaters.
4. Boyhood (U.S., dir. Richard Linklater)
Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making chronicle of growing up white and middle-class in America is so extraordinary, simple and generous with life that what needs to be said about it... just has. But I suppose I'll go one step further with an adaptation of a part of my review...
To consider Boyhood is to consider early 21st century America: its politics, its culture, its wars and technology. As a document of a generation of children, and a generation of parents, it is perhaps more complete, alive and important than any other American film of its kind in the last 15 years. It's clarity of vision is remarkable, for that clarity lies in the charms and considerations of the everyday.
Boyhood is currently available in the U.S. to rent or buy on most VOD platforms and Blu-ray.
3. Blind (Norway, dir. Eskil Vogt)
For those familiar with Eskil Vogt's screenplays for the Joachim Trier directed Reprise and Oslo, August 31st, Vogt's own feature directorial debut carries with it the same sensitive, melancholic touches of Trier's work, with a greater penchant for the narrative byzantine and bizarre.
Charting the wildly imaginative inner life of a young teacher and writer who finds herself isolated in her apartment, suffering from loss of sight, Blind is a stunning ode to the lonely, and another grand love letter from Vogt (and Trier, who acts as associate producer here) to the city of Oslo, Norway.
Blind does not currently have a release scheduled for the U.S.
2. Only Lovers Left Alive (U.S./Germany, dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Vampires are the original hipsters, which by most turns should mean that Jim Jarmusch's take on bloodsuckers be pretentious and insufferable. Except it's not. At all. What it is, despite all the melancholy, all the depressive and suicidal tendencies, is an utter joy of film to behold.
Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play married vampires Adam and Eve, an on screen couple for (of?) the ages. It would be totally uncool to try and shape a plot for this one, as what we get is essentially a hangout movie... with a great noise rock soundtrack, atmosphere aplenty (from the derelict streets of Detroit to the staircase allies of Tangiers), primo existential and philosophical wonderings on the end of civilization, and Tesla-inspired tech to boot. This results in one of the most engrossing, original, well thought-out and realized worlds (with or without vampires) to hit the screen in quite some time.
But it all comes down to Swinton and Hiddleston who light up the screen, pouring such wit, nuance and brooding indulgence and deadpan humor into what are undoubtedly the most alive characters of 2014. Heck, I'd just about ask for a TV series starring these two over the centuries. My latest desert island choice, and a new high mark in the sub-genre.
Only Lovers Left Alive is currently available in the U.S. to rent or buy on most VOD platforms and Blu-ray.
1. Under The Skin (U.K., dir. Jonathan Glazer)
Starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien manhunter in Scotland, opinions on Jonathan Glazer’s third feature reign from outstanding to flabbergasting. Upon the film’s release last spring audiences were presented with what could be summed up as Tabula Rasa Cinema. Is the film minimalist Science Fiction? A kitchen sink social experiment with non-actors? Is it a sly gender study, or painful allegory on objectification and misogyny?
The challenge and attraction of Under The Skin lies within all these interpretations and beyond. Whether through Mica Levi’s otherworldly score, or Johansson at her most blank and alluring, it is the film’s relentless opacity which makes it an experience to be seen rather than a work to be intellectualized. And In an age of oversaturated thought, such pure alien beauty is greatly needed.
Under The Skin is currently available in the U.S. to rent or buy on most VOD platforms and Blu-ray.
Favorite TV Shows
10. Moone Boy
9. Transparent
8. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
7.Louie
6. Penny Dreadful
5. Nathan For You
4. In The Flesh
3. The Knick
2. The Legend Of Korra
1. Rectify(pictured)