Top Ten 2014

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Four of my ten highest-rated movies in 2014 were actually 2013 releases. This has caused me to add a PS to my last year’s Top Ten (see below) and acknowledge what a bad year 2014 was for movies. There is a chance that there will be 2014 releases still to come my way that will improve the list – A Most Violent Year and Two Days, One Night come to mind – but I suspect that this year will go down as one of the weaker in history. The fact that 7 of my 10 are Oscar nominees reflects a lack of depth: I don’t think I’ve ever been so short of idiosyncratic choices. So, with apologies for being so unoriginal, here is my list:

1. Boyhood – Far and away the best movie “experience” of the year as well as the most innovative moviemaking. It was more real than reality TV, with situations that everyone could identify with. The plot was life itself, only with better actors.
2. Selma – An important story, skillfully told. Perhaps the best thing is that the movie didn’t try to do too much. It left me curious, and hungry for more.
3. A Most Wanted Man – Just as Selma was filmed in brown, this was filmed in gray, a bleak, smoke-filled tone that encapsulated the spirit of this Cold War spy thriller, a worthy ending to Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s great career.
4. The Imitation Game – Two stories on parallel tracks probably shortchanged each other, but both had impact and both came with delightful period attire and a great cast.
5. American Sniper – I read this as a strong, if subtle, anti-Iraq War statement, but more to the point a probing character study of what it takes to be a soldier, or what being a soldier takes from you.
6. Ida – Gorgeous black-and-white cinematography matched the purity of nun Ida’s faith and reminded me of Eastern European New Wave cinema of the ’60s.
7. Grand Budapest Hotel – The cleverest film of the year, from our most idiosyncratic director, held together by Ralph Fiennes and the spirit of a Charlie Chaplin silent movie.
8. The Theory of Everything – Two of the year’s best performances made this a story about a relationship, more than “a crippling disease and super-difficult math,” although that did add a dimension of importance.
9. Guardians of the Galaxy – Maybe nothing original here, but every scene was rollicking fun and nobody took themselves too seriously (cf. Interstellar).
10. The Drop – The year’s best straight action film, with a good story, gritty setting, unusual lead character adroitly played by Tom Hardy and the usual fine work from, RIP, James Gandolfini.
Acting Awards: Without seeing Julianne Moore or Marion Cotillard, my nod goes to Patricia Arquette, who gave life to Boyhood. She is Oscar-nominated for Supporting Actress instead (for which she’s a shoo-in). I have seen all the Actor nominees, and while Benedict Cumberbatch and Bradley Cooper are totally deserving, I vote for Eddie Redmayne, who acted with his eyes when his body couldn’t move anymore. In addition, I liked the score of The Imitation Game, and I thought The Homesman was the most beautiful movie I saw, although it’s not nominated for anything.

Top Ten 2013 – Part II
1. Big Bad Wolves – Quentin Tarantino couldn’t’ve done it any better.
2. Omar – The agony of Palestine, personified.
3. Nebraska – Bruce Dern and June Squibb are wonderful, but it’s Will Forte’s son that caught my attention.
4. August Osage County – As good as the stage play, which is unusual, thanks to Streep and Roberts.
5. The Wind Rises – An animated look at the engineer who designed Japan’s WWII airplanes, sheer artistry.
6. The Past – Ambiguity, in people and relationships, kept us guessing, and thinking.

American Sniper – 8

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I worried that my visceral opposition to the Iraq War would color my appreciation of a war film from Clint Eastwood, Republican spokesman and director of Gran Torino. I needn’t have. Yes, the movie glorified Chris Kyle, “the Legend,” credited with killing 160 of the enemy, and we certainly rooted for him to accomplish his mission, survive four tours of duty and make up with his beautiful wife (Sienna Miller). And certain of the enemy were made to look pretty evil – using a drill on a young boy, collecting body parts in a meat locker. But the question of why U.S. troops were there in the first place was left wide open: Kyle’s reasons – revenge for 9/11 and preventing the war’s coming to San Diego – were obviously spurious. The disillusionment of others, including Kyles’ brother, allowed the viewer to think about this. Then there was the nature of the American operation: rather than defending against attack, our troops were going door-to-door, knocking down barriers, terrorizing whomever they found, often women and children who had done no wrong. It hardly seemed unreasonable that some Iraqis, and even a Syrian, would be trying to defend their homes and their country against alien invaders.
In this confused situation, Kyle was a beacon of certainty, but only because, as remarkably portrayed by Bradley Cooper, he wasn’t too smart. And that, more than his skill as a marksman, is what made the movie so engrossing. How did he handle the pressure; how did it affect his relationship with his wife; how did he recover his equilibrium when his war was over? It was this intense study of a personality that fascinated and carried the story. One last thought: I wonder if the characterization would have been the same, or, indeed, if the movie would have been made, had Kyle not been murdered after he wrote his book?

Selma – 8.1

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A very good story told well, not biting off too much or chewing anything too hard. Seemingly filmed in brown-and-white, the film captured a moment in our nation’s history that is worth preserving and thinking about, raising questions of what is different 50 years later and what isn’t. The acting was excellent – including Oprah – and if things seemed slow or occasionally hard to see, the gravity of events always kept our attention.

Interstellar – 5.5

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If a little Matthew McConaughey – as, say, in Mud – goes a long way, more than two hours of him saving the human species is a very long trip. Anne Hathaway is more to my liking, but like Sandra Bullock in Gravity she was quite buttoned up. “Interstellar” seemed to refer to all the stars that were assembled for even bit parts: beyond the three names above the title, we were treated to Michael Caine, Matt Damon (miscast), Casey Affleck, Ellen Burstyn, , David Oyelowo, John Lithgow – even my old favorite, William Devane (although I have no recollection of his role). Almost none created a character beyond their persona, which was partly due to the comic-book nature of the script. The conclusion, instead of bringing things together, was one big contradiction, which kept me from thinking too seriously about the movie, if I had been inclined to in the first place.

The Imitation Game – 8

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This was a schizophrenic film: was it about Alan Turing’s cracking the Nazis’ Enigma code, or was it about Britain’s cruel criminalization of homosexuality? The film’s scenes jockeyed back and forth, up to and including the closing credits. Fortunately, both stories were quite good, although my two biggest reservations sprung from the latter: Benedict Cumberbatch’s excellent acting went over the top in his final scene with Keira Knightley, and the boy Turing was too adorable to justify being picked on so brutally. My other complaint relates to the film’s trailer, which we saw a good half-dozen times: every one of the best lines, and I do mean every one, had been given away before we could experience them in context. What I especially liked in the actual film were the cooly, crisp characters played by Mark Strong, Charles Dance and Matthew Goode. The complete competence and intelligence displayed by MI6’s Menzies (Strong) was refreshing in a government official. The period sets and costumes drew me in right away and I remained engrossed until the end. The character played by Keira Knightley (not to mention others) may have wildly diverged from historical accuracy, but there is little I wouldn’t forgive for the chance to watch Keira Knightley.

Foxcatcher – 5

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Another entry on my list of “Based on a true story” makes a bad movie. Characters and events were so extreme that no reasonable screenwriter could have sold them, but the fact that something like this actually happened helped remove the no-one-will-believe-this filter. Steve Carrell’s John DuPont was such a one-dimensional obvious nutcase from the beginning that it wasn’t even interesting to watch him. That USA Wrestling would give him their program, regardless of the money he offered, was just as absurd as the military’s giving him a machine-gun-mounted tank. Presumably, both of these occurred, but that didn’t make them dramatically convincing, or even relevant. Mark Ruffalo stood out by playing a relatively sane person, but again casting him as Channing Tatum’s brother required an imaginative stretch I wasn’t prepared to make.

Citizenfour – 4

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As much as I admire, and in awe of, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, this wasn’t much of a movie. It was static, very limited in scope and didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. How did Snowden get everything and take it with him to Hong Kong? How could he communicate it to Greenwald so quickly? And most of all, how could Greenwald understand everything so easily and translate it into comprehensible stories for the public? The brief glimpses we were given of the outside world – government officials testifying, CNN reporting – were teasingly brief. To me, this film was more document than documentary.

The Horseman – 6.5

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Every scene was an art shot, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the movie ended with a tableau of Bingham’s Jolly Flatboatmen. The story, however, wasn’t quite Lonesome Dove, despite Tommy Lee Jones and the incident-beset cross-country trek (who knew Nebraska was west of Iowa?). Why anyone would’ve done anything they did, or how they could’ve done it, made no sense, nor did the characters. Tommy Lee’s Mr. Briggs was such a self-contradiction that he canceled himself out. And while John Lithgow disguised himself decently, Meryl Streep was a bit obvious.

Diplomacy – 7

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Once one accepted that this was a stage play, not a docudrama, the philosophical back-and-forth between German General Chotlitz and Swedish Consul Nordling could be appreciated as an intellectual exploration of human motives, rather than a somewhat incredible portrayal of how Paris was saved from Nazi destruction. There was no reason Chotlitz would have allowed Nordling’s presence for a movie-long dialogue, but the set-up allowed us to analyze and weigh the thought processes of a Nazi commander and the wall between soldier and human. Personally, I didn’t find Chotlitz’s change of heart credible: the reasons for his change were present from the beginning, although they were a surprise when revealed to us near the end. We were equally unprepared for the sudden resistance of the collaborating French architect that effectively saved the city. (Since all these figures lived many years after the war, perhaps there is a more factual basis to the dramatization than I allow.)

The Theory of Everything – 7.8

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Wonderful performances by Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, embodying, respectively, physical deterioration and maturation. Inasmuch as we sort of knew Stephen Hawking’s story it was, in a way, more interesting to follow the path of Jane Wilde, who started cute as a button then had to deal with a crippled husband, three children and her own emotional needs. And even though I couldn’t understand it, it was fun to be in the company of genius, especially accompanied by wit and rather normal human feelings, and failings.