I have a love-hate relationship with year-end top 10 movie lists. I love the culmination of the year in moviegoing and thinking about which films stood apart among everything I’ve seen.
As New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis once wrote, top 10 lists also serve as a public ritual, allowing one to lay his or her cards down on the table, to say who you are as a movie fan and what you truly appreciated. It doesn’t matter if all of your favorites are superhero blockbusters, romantic comedies, or ambitious dramas. It’s obviously all subjective, even if we could argue about “best” versus “favorite.” Your top 10 list belongs to you and reflects your tastes as a consumer.
However, it does bother me when some critics in big markets like New York and Los Angeles that get every single movie put obscure foreign films which only they and their colleagues could have possibly seen on their lists. Including such films comes off as an attempt to appear elitist and smarter than your audience, even if their lists might be genuine. Thankfully, there seems to be less of that as film criticism has moved from traditional newspapers to online media, perhaps from a less scholarly view to more of a fan perspective.
My other beef with year-end movie lists is that many of the presumed best films of the year aren’t available to moviegoers even some critics until a week or two into January. So let’s say I think Selma or American Sniper is one of 2014’s best movies, yet I didn’t see it until 2015. Should I wait to do such a list until late January? Do I include it on a “Best of 2015” list, since it’s truer to the calendar year? Or do some of the movies that may have gone on such a list just get lost in a limbo? Unfortunately, I think that’s what happens.
Having qualified my feelings on year-end top 10 movie lists, here is mine for 2014. Movies that I wrote about previously include a link to the original review and a short excerpt. Thank you for reading our reviews here at The AP Party. We’ll be back with plenty more in the year to come.
10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes demonstrated that big summer movies don’t have to be brainless. They can tell a story, present intriguing themes and allow for compelling performances. The fear was that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes would cede to the Bigger, More, More Bigger! sensibility that typically plagues sequels. (Though in recent years, the second chapter of these tentpole trilogies have typically been the best.)”
9. Only Lovers Left Alive – Jim Jarmusch
On some level, I would have enjoyed this movie purely for the beautiful, hypnotic shots of a deserted, deteriorating Detroit where Tom Hiddleston’s lead character chooses, composing music in solitude and quietly filling his vampiric need for blood. To some, this movie might seem slow — and it is. Jarmusch takes his time with these characters and there’s not really a story, other than two vampires’ (the other played by Tilda Swinton) desire to stay alive (pure, untainted blood is increasingly difficult to find) and maintain a relatively decadent lifestyle without drawing attention to their hunger. Yet they’re both so intriguing that you keep wanting to follow them.
8. Birdman – Alejandro González Iñárritu
“Birdman isn’t just a parody or commentary, as the movie’s subtitle “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” indicates. Everyone in this movie is aware of how little their life and achievements seem to mean, realizing that they didn’t find the happiness that seemingly comes with success. For Thomson [Michael Keaton], those self-doubts are a voice in his head, telling him that he used to be a star and can be one again. Put on that Birdman costume (which is hilariously ridiculous, by the way), give the people what they want and forget all this anxiety about being taken seriously as an actor. And if you feel unloved, wait until you become a star again. The love will come.”
7. Snowpiercer – Bong Joon-Ho
Of all the movies for which I didn’t write a full review this year, Snowpiercer is the one I regret not doing the most. The film’s independent release kept it from the wide audience that such a sci-fi blockbuster deserves. Yet Bong Joon-Ho’s film is unusual and dark enough that it likely would have eluded mainstream acceptance — even with Captain America, Chris Evans in the lead!
In an apocalyptic future, a man-made attempt to slow global warming resulted in the entire planet freezing over and the only survivors of the human race are left on a high-speed train circling the globe repeatedly. But within the train is its own society with different levels of class, from the impoverished to the elite. And guess who gets the worst end of that arrangement? Snowpiercer is far more creative, daring and surprising than most of the science fiction we see in movies these days, as is the work from its Korean director.
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson
Maybe it’s just among my friends, along with the film writers and fans I follow on social media, but Wes Anderson seems to be something of a polarizing figure. Those who love his work truly adore his movies. Others are left cold by the lack of likable characters and relationships. Anderson does seem to keep viewers at a distance, asking them to admire the fantastic compositions he creates within every single frame of his films.
I suppose I lean more toward the “adore” side of the scale, but admit to not feeling that way until seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel. To me, this movie was like reading a great comic book, in which I stare at an illustration long after absorbing its story point because it’s just so damn pretty to look at. Anderson also makes Ralph Fiennes funny, something I wasn’t sure was possible. And getting a heartfelt, comedic performance out of newcomer Tony Revolori speaks to Anderson’s ability to work well with actors, for which he probably doesn’t get enough credit. My biggest regret is that I didn’t make more of an effort to see this on the big screen.
5. Jodorowsky’s Dune – Frank Pavich
Can a documentary about a movie that was never made actually be one of the best films of the year? Absolutely — hell, yes. Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune has twice been adapted for the screen, once in David Lynch’s 1984 film and again in 2000 for a SyFy miniseries. But neither of those adaptations would have matched the ambition and creativity Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky envisioned for his version of the sci-fi epic.
Calling something “ahead of its time” is an overused phrase, but it truly applies here. Filmmaking technology and special effects just weren’t ready for what Jodorowsky wanted to put on screen, years before George Lucas made Star Wars. Jodorowsky truly thought he could expand people’s minds with this movie, like a LSD trip put to film, but studio fear and uncertainty ultimately prevented him from following through on that ambition. And he assembled a brilliant team of artists and designers, such as H.R. Giger and Dan O’Bannon, to execute his vision.
Many of the concepts and designs originated here eventually found themselves in subsequent films such as Star Wars, Flash Gordon, and Prometheus, giving Jodorowsky’s project something of a life on screen. Perhaps his Dune would have been a magnificent failure, but being deprived of the opportunity to see it is a creative tragedy, as Pavich’s documentary explains in adoring detail.
4. Boyhood – Richard Linklater
Initially, Linklater’s vision of a story told on film in real time over a 12-year span seemed like a moviemaking gimmick. Yet the idea of seeing actors age on screen, their skills and characters developing through the years, was incredibly promising.
Though the story of young Mason growing from six-year-old boy to college-age teenager seems like a small tale, it’s anything but. This is the story of our lives, even if it doesn’t carry grand ambition or epic consequences. It matters to us because it’s what actually happens. We grow up, friendships develop and fall apart, relationships with family strengthen and weaken. Above all, these are the years that determine what sort of person we will be.
Other great filmmakers could have attempted something like Boyhood. I would love to see what Steven Soderbergh might have done, for instance. But would they have kept the scope of the story as small as Linklater did? He knows his characters and the worlds they live in, giving this story added weight because it’s something all of us can relate to. Linklater may be the most creative, diverse American filmmaker working today, and should probably get more credit for that.
Here is Pete Schwab’s review from Aug. 6.
3. Fury – David Ayer
“Fury probably is a far better movie when it shows the soldiers at battle. I was particularly impressed how Ayer made a standoff in a field between three American tanks and a hulking, seemingly invulnerable German counterpart exciting and dramatic. In a different director’s hands, this sequence might have been boring or even silly. We’re talking about four lumbering vehicles engaged in battle, much of it by firing artillery from afar. Yet the sequence has a surprising energy to it, especially when it looks like the heroes of the film are in major trouble.”
2. Whiplash – Damien Chazelle
“Though this story takes place at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory of Music in New York City (presumably a stand-in for The Julliard School or Berklee College of Music) and focuses on the studio jazz band that’s won the school many awards and a great deal of prestige, it could conceivably be a boxing or football movie. Substitute the drummer for an aspiring fighter or quarterback, and the teacher for a hard-driving coach, and you could have a similar film.”
1. Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy
I don’t know if Jake Gyllenhaal will win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but I can’t think of another actor who deserves it more. And not just because of his 30-pound weight loss that seemed to make his eyes pop out of his face. His Louis Bloom was the most memorable character seen in 2014, a fatally ambitious loser who speaks the language of business books and management seminars trying to make something of himself who tenaciously fights to keep the niche he’s created for himself. This is a character we should be talking about and quoting 20 years from now. Whether or not we will obviously remains to be seen.
Gilroy’s story of a guy who preys on gory crime and tragedy with his camera to get good footage on the early morning news is surely a commentary on the media and its audience’s desire to see some sort of hyper-reality that keeps our existences framed as normal. But it could also arguably be seen as the funhouse mirror reflection of Boyhood, with a protagonist who wants anything but a regular life and will do anything to make sure he matters.
His movie also takes place in the hypnotic, surreal environment of late-night downtown Los Angeles, which seems to become another world when the skies go dark and the outliers of society come out to play. This is a film that Michael Mann might once have made, though his aspirations to frame cops vs. criminals as good vs. evil would have kept him from going to the dark places Gilroy and Gyllenhaal choose to explore. (Comparing Nightcrawler to 2004’s Collateral might be an interesting exercise, however.)
Not nearly enough people saw this movie, in my opinion. Maybe it will get the praise and added life it deserves on video. Gilroy pulls you in by the lapels and does not let go. And you don’t want him to, because the ride is so intriguing.
