A-List: Top Ten Movies of 2014
By J. Don Birnam
January 22, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I have seen approximately one quarter (83 to be precise) of the Oscar eligible movies. Of the 1,000 or so reviewed by the New York Times, by contrast, I saw approximately 91 - the difference being that some movies released in film festivals were not eligible for Academy Awards in 2014 (David Cronenbergs’s Maps to the Stars, would have otherwise made my list).
Two general observations emerged as I put together the list (which, for the first time allows 10 instead of five movies). First is that the narrative surrounding 2014 in film, that it is a “weak” year, is not necessarily correct. Few movies this year have engendered the strong, adulating passions that movies in the past have caused. But the selection of good movies is varied and I would recommend a solid half of the 83 to any film fan. The good movies are out there. You just have to look. Indeed, I struggled mightily to narrow this down to ten.
The second observation is that the themes of 2014 movies are much more varied than the Academy Award nominations would lead you to think. The Best Picture nominees include a somewhat unidimensional and predictable field. Men lead all eight nominees. You have your troubled geniuses saving the world (The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game), or just good old fashioned American heroes (Selma, American Sniper - although the former features the only non-white lead in the group), or the struggling but lovable and quirky artists (Birdman, Whiplash), or simply the good, cool guys you want to hang out with (Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel). These respectable movies do not capture the entirety of the world in 2014 like some other movies did brilliantly. Here are some of them.
10. Nightcrawler
Many movies in 2014 included smart social commentary - many of them about the media and our perverse relationship with it. Nightcrawler takes it to a disturbing level (the presence of the movie Network is felt persistently). Featuring career-reviving performances by Renne Russo and a devastated Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler is chilly, disturbing, dark, and gripping. It’s a horror story not simply because of the horrific acts that the lead character commits, but because of the horrifically high probability that acts like these - which our media and smut obsessed society condones and encourages - occur in the real world.
9. Beyond the Lights
What Nightcrawler tells us about the nastiness of the media and the press, and our collective obsession with smut, Beyond the Lights showcases even more disturbingly and realistically regarding stardom and fame. Starring Minnie Driver and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, it tells the story of a ridiculously famous pop singer and her controlling, conniving mother. Sound familiar? The women in this film are complex characters, evil at times. They are driven by ambition and fed by the opium of the love of the masses, much like a lot of our celebrities today. Driver and Mbatha-Raw are perhaps the most overlooked actresses this year, as they chill with their respective ambition, suffering, and ruthlessness. I was happy to see Beyond the Lights land a surprise Best Original Song nod for Diane Warren’s “Grateful,” but it really deserved a better fate than a single nomination, and it was one of my most surprising likes of the year.
8. Love Is Strange
One of the many reasons I was in awe of this Alfred Molina/John Lithgow vehicle, which explores issues relating to sexuality and aging, is that it represents what I believe is the new trend in movies in the 2010s: “Life/Reality Movies.” In the 1980s the dramas were real but contrived and in the booming 1990s they were epic. Today, as movies struggle to compete with television, a lot of which is based on the (mostly false) notion that we are watching humans in reality, “Reality Movies” abound. Indeed, Boyhood will likely be crowned victorious in February as the quintessential example of a “Reality Movie” gone wild - reality to the point of 12 years of filming. Love is Strange, then, tells the seemingly real story of an old gay couple struggle to make ends meet in New York. The whole point of a Reality Movie is that when you are watching it you feel like you’re just peering into someone’s life - the dialogue, characters, and situations are mostly realistic, believable, and even common day. Their power comes in that they touch us because any of it could happen to us or even be us.
Love is Strange accomplishes this by blending themes of economic struggles faced by today’s aging middle class and baby boomers, discrimination that gay men and lesbians encounter, and the love and societal support that weave and keep groups together, of all ages and creeds, helping us to survive. Molina and Lithgow give touching performances, and you do not feel like you are watching a movie at all. Most of all, however, it was refreshing to see a movie that catered not to the usual tween or fanboy but to a mostly neglected sector of the population.
7. Two Days, One Night
Speaking of “Reality Movies,” and movies that are relevant, and movies that tell another tale aside from the usual male, struggling hero, the Dardennes Brothers Belgian entry (and snub) into the Best Foreign Language Film has it all. It tells the story of a woman (played by the nominated and astounding Marion Cotillard) who has 48 hours to convince her 16 coworkers to give up their lucrative bonuses so that she may keep a job she desperately needs. What follows is a heartfelt narrative of human endurance, greed, selflessness, and valor.
You would think you are watching a documentary given how easy and nonchalant the entire movie feels. Even better, the piece has infinitely subtle meanings regarding the struggles of today’s middle class, income inequality, the struggle of women to be mothers, wives, and providers at the same time, and the overall oppressive forces that stifle the average worker today. It also touches upon issues of class, immigration, and - believe it or not - pharmacodependency. All of this in 90 minutes. I don’t normally fall this hard for films that exhibit little in the below-the-line crafts, but the story and lead acting of Two Days is that good.
6. Snowpiercer
And, speaking of class struggles, few movies I have ever seen achieve such witty and entertaining commentary on the matter than the post-apocalyptic and somber Snowpiercer. Humanity has been destroyed by a freezing of the world, left to survive on an endlessly moving train that circles the globe and is divided by class - the poorest in the back, the most privileged in the front. Sure, that gimmick may be a little in-your-face and the allegory painfully obvious, but the campiness with which Snowpiercer deals with these subjects, while showcasing showy visuals and an exact supporting performance by Tilda Swinton, makes it at the very least memorable. The message is so clear and yet so forgotten today: all may seem lost, but not if those oppressed stand up for themselves against the most brutal oppressor.
Snowpiercer is not meant to be seen as a highbrow movie. Instead, it is best enjoyed as a slapstick, witty parody of those movies, but one that says more than most of them. A different release date might have given it a different fate in the awards race but no matter, the movie is destined to be a cult classic. And it deserves it.
5. Birdman
I struggled mightily as I chose between some of the great Best Picture nominees in the lineup. The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood could have easily made this list as superb movies. Ultimately, however, I went for Birdman, because of its sheer inventiveness, technical achievement, and lasting mental effects. First, if you were impressed by the photography of Children of Men and Gravity, Emmanuel Lubezski just topped himself twice over with the continuous, seamless, and entrancing shots of this movie. Then, if you thought Alejandro González Iñárritu had given his best with the originality of Babel, think again. In a completely different environment, he has found relevant things to say about the cost and struggles of fame. He also brought out some of the best performances in the careers of Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Michael Keaton, who should win an Oscar for his bravura. The Academy’s love for Birdman is refreshing, as is the movie itself. For all of the complaints about Birdman’s strangeness, it works. Indeed, it is one of those rare movies with brilliance in craft, acting, writing, and directing combine to remind us that the seventh art is alive and well in some niches.
4. Selma
Watching Selma, at times, felt as if I were watching a newsreel of America in 2015. Voter suppression. Police brutality. Marches and controversy. The people then really believed that they were right and the other side was wrong - just as we do today. The verdict of history has favored one side, but Selma reminded us brilliantly that we should re-examine our positions on all these issues, lest we be relegated to the proverbial dustbin of history. Selma also gave us one of the best performances of the year - I would defend it as Daniel Day Lewis-like in Lincoln, in fact - with David Oyelowo completely immersing himself in a most difficult task: that of interpreting a well-known historical figure.
Selma also exhibits its director’s touch in just the right amount: scenes of lights, and falling items, quick edit cuts from a moment to the next. And the story is not easy to swallow, as the hero is portrayed as flawed, human, doubting, and at times mistaken. I don’t have the space here to get into the controversy that the movie has generated regarding its portrayal of LBJ other than to say that those insisting on exact historical correspondence are either living by a double standard that they do not impose on other movies or ignorant of how art has worked for centuries (did La Gioconda really look that way?). Regardless of its Academy fate, Selma will live on as one of the most relevant, important, and well-made movies of 2014. It is one of the few movies that is in a way uplifting and gives us courage and hope for a better future.
3. Ida
I tried, but failed, to resist including a Holocaust-themed film on the list. Ida faces formidable competition in the Best Foreign Language Film race by the timely Russian entry, Leviathan. But Ida, which also tells a story not from the usual struggling male hero perspective, elicits the longer lasting emotional response. Ida is a young girl about to become a nun, who is tasked with facing her family’s sad past before doing so. You see, Ida is - what else? - a Holocaust survivor and a Jew, although she did not know it. But not only does she have to deal with her religious heritage, she has to cope with what she is about to learn about her family’s fate which, although not necessarily surprising, is nonetheless disturbing. Along the way she encounters a relative and a suitor, both of whom turn topsy-turvy her creed and values. Indeed, they disturb the viewer in their realism, tragedy, and sadness. Ida has to cope with these forces, face her past, and make a life-defining decision about her future. Ida, then, is a story about the human struggle to survive, but most important, is about the darkness in the human spirit (hauntingly depicted in the Academy Award nominated cinematography). I’m pulling for this movie to win its category, bar none, and will remember it as one of the most touching movies of 2014.
2. Gone Girl
The story of film in 2014 will be told, I predict, by the daring vision of one of the best and most under-appreciated directors of our time, David Fincher. Not close to Fincher’s best work, Gone Girl is still leagues above the rest of the 2014 field. Here’s the story that never gets told. The woman who has had enough, and who is a lunatic. But she’s the heroine, unlike Aileene Wuornos in Monster. She’s that dark vile heroine you hate to love and love to hate, one we have had since Vito Corleone and Hannibal Lecter for men. Rosamund Pike is thrilling, Angus Baxter’s editing is poignant, Gillian Flynn’s adaptation is incisive, Trent Reznor’s soundtrack is bone chilling, and David Fincher’s directing is simply magnificent.
The movie, of course, generated controversy. Men in particular don’t like the ending (that they could stay subjugated to a more powerful female’s grasp and, sardonically, enjoy it). Feminists didn’t like it: not all women are insane, they complain. But Flynn’s take on modern marriage, relationships, and gender, and Fincher’s dark spin on it in his perfectly-paced plot are brutally honest and relevant. Perhaps the biggest sign of the exactness of the portrayal is the cacophony of the controversy - which, funnily enough, brings me to my favorite year of 2014.
1. Interstellar
I was surprised when she won the Oscar that hatred for Anne Hathaway was as strong as it appeared to be. But when at least half of the devastating reviews for Christopher Nolan’s inspiring and haunting epic Interstellar began and ended with hatred for the casting choice of Hathaway, I knew I had entered a twilight zone I would never understand.
As I said when I first discussed this movie on this site, in an age when Hollywood produces film after film based on a comic book, a sequel, a prequel, a rehash, or a remake (only Interstellar is a wholly original work among the top ten highest grossing films of 2014), to see a creative mind placing his whole soul on that movie canvas is exhilarating. The soundtrack is the best (and most personal) I have heard since perhaps Titanic’s. The story is about love but of a different kind than the usual trite subject Hollywood thinks of as love. It’s a father-daughter relationship, with both playing strong emotional and intellectual anchors. It’s a story that is relevant today, challenging our arguably dangerous notions that there is no room for space exploration and that life on this planet is ecologically safe. It is a thrilling adventure, an action movie, and science-fiction piece about the future of humanity. Recognized for its technical prowess with five technical nods, Interstellar will likely go home empty-handed at the Oscars but will resonate in the future as the most daring movie of the year.