I get such pointless anxiety when I try and put these lists
together. My thought process is complicated and annoying. For instance, I think
you can see that my first four picks are all awards sirens, three of which reek
of prestigious domestic auteur status. I genuinely feel stupid for going so steadfastly
with the grain, but I can assure you I am being sincere in my adulation. I
guess I’d feel equally stupid disingenuously throwing lesser known and loved
films at the top if I didn’t truly love them as much. I’ll admit that I’m the type to go into a Wes
Anderson, Richard Linklater, and Paul Thomas Anderson (not to mention Jarmusch,
Fincher, and Dardenne) with high expectations and said expectations don’t
usually prove in detriment to my overall impression. However, I’m convinced
that I’m not completely blind to the likely flaws in each of my top movies and
I hope I’m not the type to “carry anyone’s water” so to speak. In a way I guess
I’m relieved to find the Andersons continuing to challenge even their most
steadfast champions either by burrowing further into their inimitable worlds or
possibly throwing the final mound of dirt on most of what we’ve known before.
Inherent Vice is many things, but the thing that stuck the most with me appears
in the book’s epigraph where Pynchon writes “under the paving stones, the
beach!” I didn’t really know what to write about it after seeing it as I was
trying to arrange all of the information and hopefully make sense of it. I saw
today that Glenn Kenny wrote a wonderful essay on said epigraph’s “end of an
era” theme and how this worked its way into the movie. For me, Inherent Vice
felt like a eulogy buried within a romp about the encroaching extinction of
Doc’s way of life. His act of altruism towards Coy Harlingen and his family
truly moved me and took it to that next level of adoration that maybe was
missing from some of his previous works. Reading the book is certainly helping
fill in the voids that mind couldn’t possibly process in a theater (some of the
lines were damn near inaudible).
And how about Wes Anderson, whose style and vibe has been
mocked and parodied ad nauseam by his fans and detractors. Here he’s created a
mock world to ape that of WWII, with a similar encroaching
neighbor-sellout-neighbor-malady and a similar (yet fatal) act of selflessness
from a dodgy antihero. I’ve spoken to many friends around the same age (early
thirties) ---- for whom Anderson’s first three features proved critical to
their development ---- about the weird
fatigue that has been setting in even while not necessarily loathing his recent
work. I’ve urged them to ignore this and watch The Grand Budapest Hotel as I
think it’s got the cure for whatever trivial ailments we thought upset us. And
similarly, I think many feel some fatigue from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s
Two Days, One Night. I can’t disagree that the film is schematic and
predictable, and I’ll admit that it took longer than expected for me to get fully
engulfed in the drama, but seeing these two masters land this with such
elegance and control (thanks also, obviously, to Cotillard’s second great
performance of 2014) was truly incredible.
I’m in agreement that movies are lacking a genuine
representation of all walks of life. We are oversaturated with white,
patriarchal, middle/upper class, heteronormative, and entitled protagonists and
we need this remedied now. There were a few films to broaden our perspective, I’m
hoping 2015 brings us more. They certainly aren’t remedied in Richard
Linklater’s Boyhood but I’m not complaining. Linklater and company have honed
in on and highlighted the moments in a family’s life (at least a 12 year span)
that stuck with me, not by hopping from one milestone to the next but filling
in the gaps with those crucial junctures that seem to stick in the back of our
minds. Yeah, and it hit me on a personal level, mostly because I’m a new dad
and I’m looking forward to some of these milestones and gap fillers, but also
because I was once a child with a mom and dad and sibling and life happened. And
as for the scenes that elicit what I would consider justifiable grief over
either broad caricatures, odd abrupt transformations, and strained reunions I’d
like to remind you that these scenes make up about fifty seconds of a film that
runs about two hours and forty-six minutes. I completely understand those who
don’t connect with it or even find it slight or annoying but for those who try
to pin the film’s failure overall on those brief lapses in judgment I just want
to remind you that it’s in your embedded nature to blow the negative aspects of
life out of proportion. And I hope I don’t ruffle feathers to suggest that
David Fincher’s Gone Girl, while probably not the “laying the institution of
marriage to waste” masterpiece that so many proclaimed, is also not claiming
that Nick and Amy represent manhood and womanhood incarnate. I dread the day in
which villains cease to exist, or where writers and directors tread lightly
when selecting their antagonists various sexual, gender, racial, or mental health
characteristics. I can’t justifiably call out Fincher and Flynn and still be a
self-respecting Leave Her to Heaven fan after all. I thought this was a sly,
funny thriller with the director’s distinctive knack for pace, space, and
atmosphere. I’m reading a lot of gushing about how Michael Mann is able to
elevate “high concept junk” via his expressive style and atmosphere, AMEN, but
I guess I’d wager that Fincher is doing the same for now. I especially loved
how the movie eventually flies gleefully/preposterously off the rails. Still,
I’m not impervious to the thought of Fincher and Anderson being knocked off
their demigod perch.
Winter Sleep and The Tale of Princess Kaguya dapple with
parenthood and marriage amongst other things. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is
visually minimal but far from simple, thematically mystifying but far from
impenetrable. It’s a fairy tale about a father’s mixed up but benevolent ideas
about his magical daughter’s future and how his lavish notions displace her
from her idyllic habitat and stifle her true dreams and passions. This leads to
a heartbreaking finale, something Isao Takahata had perfected long ago. Winter
Light does an accurate job in observing the disintegration of a marriage. At
first it seems serene enough, to each his/her own with some minor hiccups, but
then our "protagonist" goes from avoiding a fight to being the hammer
that only sees nails. It doesn't hurt to have Nuri Bilge Ceylan's eye for
composition nor does it hurt to have a cast this good, but the thing that maybe
separates it from any other gorgeous movie is its ability to dismantle a
relationship without pinning the downfall to a single cause or person. And I’m
only highlighting one of the movies many themes, mainly because it hit me at
the time personally. Pride is the key to his downfall. A wiser man however would know when he's
licked as Aydin is so clearly licked here. His arrogance (similar to the feeble
"protagonist" of Listen Up Phillip) and smug infatuation with age and
experience (constantly using it against his younger better half) have finally
lost their sting. You see it in Nihal's tired eyes, like the wild horse Aydin
pays to imprison with him at his Cappadocian Xanadu she yearns to be free of
his reigns.
My friend Jackson described Under the Skin as a feature
length Calvin Klein commercial, or something to that nature. I’ve heard similar
complaints from other friends with very little company in the “it’s a
masterpiece” camp. I get it, but I also think it’s fitting that a film that
emphasizes the treachery of surfaces is seen as surface level trifle. I also get my friend John’s comments about
Only Lovers Left Alive being cute, though not any more or less cute than
Jarmusch’s other work which he seems to like just fine. I found more to love in
both, obviously, and I wrote at length about it. I’m also going to have to just
admit that Land Ho! scratched me right where I needed it even as many found it
slight. Early Lyn Nelson and Paul Eehoorn deserve awards, all of them now!
One more. Ava DuVernay's Selma hones in on a specific time,
place, group of people, and climate for most of its entirety. Like Lincoln, it
focuses specifically on the passing of a certain piece of legislation and all
of the negotiation and compromise (or lack thereof) that comes with it. For a
long duration of time I was convinced it was a masterpiece. I'm not saying it
isn't a masterpiece, not yet, but I'll admit that there came a point somewhere
after the second march on Edmund Pettis Bridge where the movie started to slide
for me. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say that there are
moments in movies or even a band's set where you feel it should end. Then the
movie or set continues on for whatever reason and some of the air gets let out.
I guess I felt that during a few scenes towards the end, maybe one too many
meetings or visits to the oval office. So I’m sure it deserves a higher spot
but for now I’m going to cheat and keep it as a tie with another timely film
about our societal devaluing of human life. It’s an important movie and that
goes a long way for me, at least right now.
Honorable mentions? I’m going to limit my list because it pains me to leave
these movies off the top ten. I don’t know why or how Snowpiercer isn’t as good
as any of the seven through ten picks other than to say that the ending felt a
little rushed and expository for my taste. Still, I think it’s incredible and
I’ll probably remedy my snub after watching it again. Likewise, I thought James
Gray’s The Immigrant would land but I found myself feeling the complete
opposite about the ending and rather begrudging some of what came before.
Still, it’s another great Gray film that wasn’t seen by nearly enough people.
He’ll have his day. I finally caught up with Shoah and it’s as great as I had
anticipated. I kept scanning the land for something, maybe remains or even
ghosts, but I found Lanzmann’s Last of the Unjust another wonderful companion
piece that, once again, could have easily cracked this list. Biggest surprise
of the year? I would say Tommy Lee Jones’ strange, disturbing, and consistently
surprising The Homesman, my pick for movie with the best ending of 2014. I
loved Ida and We are the Best a lot. Why lump them together, because I saw them
both on Netflix Instant two nights in a row. John Wick was the best maintstream
action movie I saw all year, with Edge of Tomorrow nipping at its heels. Both
have lackluster endings however and some other problems peppered in. The Guest
was another huge surprise as I’ve been underwhelmed by every long or short film
from Adam Wingard. It’s satisfying genre work plain and simple. Life Itself
moved me and Birdman (the movie that all of my Williamsburg pals seemed to
prefer) is, to me, hopefully a sign of things to come from a director I haven’t
frankly cared for in the past. I’m wrestling with American Sniper on a gut
level, but that’s probably the intent here. Also, Locke was a great story with
a great central performance (another reason to hail Hardy as one of our best
living actors) but I struggled with the visual aspects of the movie. I also
quite liked Ira Sachs’ Make Way For Tomorrow update Love is Strange and Jimmy
P. That’s all folks!
My Top Ten of 2014:
1.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
2.
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
3.
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
4.
Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
5.
Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
6.
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
7.
Land Ho! (Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens)
8. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata)
9.
Gone Girl (David Fincher)
10.
Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc
Dardenne) and Selma ((Ava DuVernay )
Honorable Mentions: Snowpiercer (Bong-Joon
Ho), The Immigrant (Gray), Last of the Unjust (Lanzmann , , The Homesman
(Jones), Ida (Pawlikowski), The Guest (Wingard), We Are the Best (Moodysson),
Edge of Tomorrow (Liman), John Wick (Leitch and Stahelski), Life Itself
(James), Birdman (Innuaritu) Love is Strange (Sachs).
Blindspots: Goodbye to Language, A Girl Walks
Home Alone at Night, Closed Curtain, Stray Dogs, Actress, National Gallery,
Stranger by the Lake, Citizenfour, Last
Days in Vietnam, Horse Money, Top Five, Beyond the Lights, Whiplash, Lucy.
