Top 10 Movies of 2014

10. Gone Girl
David Fincher's deceptively sly, disturbing adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel is a consistently delicious meditation on sex, lies and media iconography. Rosamund Pike completely commits herself to a layered, deranged role.

9. Inherent Vice
Offering the closest thing you might get to a theatrical contact-high, PTA's Pynchon adaptation does justice to the author's penchant for absurd comedy, nonsensical plotting and poignant historical commentary. Worth watching, if only for Martin Short's scene stealing cameo as a cocaine-snorting Dentist.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy
A huge win for Disney/Marvel/nerds, James Gunn's space-action comedy was the top box-office grosser of the year and for good reason. Fully realized and filled with real soul (as truly evidenced by the funk-soaked soundtrack of 70's hits), this is the rare hollywood film that takes as much time for inventive space battles as it does for hilarious, endearing dialogue between CGI and human characters. The cinematic minting of Chris Pratt (a funny, funny, amazing man) has been one of the best surprises of the year.

7. The Lego Movie
Easily the best animated film of the year, The Lego Movie's limitless comic, visual and aural imagination amounts to a sheer a blast of cinematic joy. Lord/Miller, currently the top comedic writing/directing team in the biz, also inject a necessary nostalgia and anti-conformist spirit that infuses the breathlessly told story with actual weight. An instant classic.

6. Concerning Violence 
Hugo Goran Olsson's largely unseen follow up to The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (only having been screened in London and New York) is one of the most searing indictments of European (and American) atrocities in Africa committed to film. Using the words of Frantz Fanon's anti-imperialist The Wretched of the Earth and documentary footage from Swedish news archives (which makes up 95% of the film's footage), Olsson presents a clear and present case for the formulas that create armed resistance to occupation.

5. Life Itself 
Master documentarian Steve James lends a careful, meticulous but satisfyingly soulful touch to the life story of Roger Ebert, the world's most famous film critic. Not one to shy away from difficult themes or imagery, James smartly puts us bedside with Ebert as his health deteriorates, all the while building a convincing case for a perfectly flawed, but brilliant man who battled with alcoholism, ego and weight. But what shines through most is Ebert's true love for film, family and the joys of a fully-lived life.

4. Boyhood
For most of Richard Linklater's magnum opus, we see people. And as the film - following 12-years in the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family - progresses and the actors begin to show their age, we start to see ourselves. I think the unanimous adoration for Boyhood comes from a very real place; it is not borne out of nostalgia for a more precious, innocent time, but from Linklater's ability to capture the thrills, melancholy and joy inherent in the twists and turns of growing older.

3. Interstellar 
Painting on the grandest of all cinematic canvasses, visionary director Christopher Nolan literally swings for the moon with his latest, a space exploration that literally transcends time and place. Admittedly, this is Nolan at his messiest and it deserves all the critical dissection it has received, but for sheer awe and thought-inspiring spectacle, Interstellar belongs on the very same shelf as Kubrick's 2001 and Kaufman's The Right Stuff.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Minute for minute, the most pleasurable film of the year, Wes Anderson's comic caper is at once a sumptuous cinematic feast, hilarious heist flick and richly moving ode to an era of irrevocable change. Anderson's films have been described as being only for those with taste's similar to the director's, an opinion I have always met with derision. But with each passing film, he has been (literally) showing us his evolution from maker of meticulously framed and planned filmic storybooks to an auteur that commands a serious grasp of all the available cinematic tools as well as a keen sense of the intricacies of the human heart. 

1. Keep On Keepin On / Whiplash / We Are The Best! 
From Boyhood, through to The Lego Movie and many other films released this year, I kept seeing the theme of human expression, be it artistic, scientific or wholly creative in nature. In my own life, music has been my most significant form of expression. To me, the freedom and satisfaction that comes along with creating, practicing and playing music for an audience are wholly tangible; almost vital. The three best movies of the year, for me, managed to capture this same feeling in - virtually unidentical - cinematic bubbles all their own.

 

Keep on Keepin On is a remarkable documentary (perhaps still pending a proper theatrical, streaming or DVD release) that follows the burgeoning, fruitful relationship between Clark Terry, an ailing, legendary jazz trumpeter and 23-year-old blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin, just as Kauflin prepares to compete in an elite, international competition. First time director Alan Hicks draws on his years as a drummer to portray, accurately and intimately, the remarkable bonds created between fellow musicians.

Whiplash is wunderkind director Damien Chazelle's intense cinematic exploration of fiery artistic ambition that happens to be played with sticks. But I found it less of a realistic portrayal of the modern jazz drummer's struggle than a breakneck, machismo-fueled celebration of the almost violent passion in the foundations of the (film and musical) genre. So bruising that some of the (permanent) calluses on my hands began to harden as I gripped the seat.

And finally we come to We Are The Best, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's latest, following three unapologetically shit-disturbing 12-year-old girls in 1982 Stockholm aspiring to start a punk band - with almost zero musical talent. Hilarious, rebellious and heartfelt, this is one for the heralded canon of punk rock cinema. Moodysson directs with an honest, unflinchingly critical eye toward Swedish society in the early eighties, a time that was fraught with Cold War-imbued paranoid rage towards the political other; a time where to be punk was to embrace a dead art form.

Those that choose to express themselves through music, in all of its structures, practices and century-old traditions, know that how and why we choose to play is more important than the playing itself. Today, it is increasingly difficult to have ourselves truly heard in the growing and crowded cacophony of digital voices. For this reason, it seems only natural that we gravitate to cinema that so beautifully offers artistic solace amidst an uncertain future.

Review - Take This Waltz (Polley, 2011) ***

Disclosure: I am proud to be a born and raised Torontonian, so it was hard for me not to get wrapped up in the stunning, sun-soaked portrayal of the city in Actor/Writer/Director Sarah Polley's sophomore feature Take This Waltz. The film itself is a love letter to the giant, amorphous city that I live in, but it is also a dizzyingly honest, if at times heavy handed treatise on the insecurities that plague us and the dangerous allure of infatuation; an almost apt metaphor for those who have fallen in love with the city, but are consistently disillusioned by its faults and inability to love them back.

Michelle Williams is breathtaking as Margot, a 28 year old pamphlet writer living in Toronto's characteristically quirky West End with her simple, but adoring husband Lou, played by a surprisingly convincing Seth Rogen. When Margot travels to the Maritime province of Nova Scotia, she meets and instantly develops a sexually tense bond with Daniel, an intelligent, hauntingly handsome artist who just so happens to have moved into a bachelor apartment across the street. Daniel and Margot's relationship quickly intensifies, but lies dormant under the weight of Margor's committment to her love for Lou, his family and their life together, despite the emotional distance growing between the married couple.

This is a poignant, humanistic look at the most desperate, idealistic form of love. The kind of love that is dreamed, never realized, but always sought after. Sarah Silverman plays Lou's sister Geraldine, a recovering alcoholic whose addiction Polley writes in as a thematic parallel to Margot's struggle to maintain control while being pushed towards romantic idealism. Is Margot addicted to delusions of a grand love? Polley toys with the answer, building her characters through sometimes subtle, sometimes metaphorically overbearing, but mostly memorable moments: a kaleidoscopic spin on a chaotic amusement park ride is effective, but hints at pretentiousness. A late night swim shared by Margot and Daniel at a local community center pool (which happens to be *my* local community center pool) is also lensed carefully, with an assured rhythm that permeates a number of key scenes.

Polley strikes a more provocative, interesting tone in the third act that almost absolves the film of its slightly overbearing symbolism. The film is paced somewhat like a Summer love affair. It's hot, full of passion, but has an inevitable tinge of melancholia that comes with its conclusion. There is something of a slight plot twist that I really liked in its powerful simplicity. Characters make decisions that have life-changing consequences, but we know their regrets will always linger. As Seth Rogen's Lou comments near the end of the film, "sometimes things stick." Polley's strengths as a writer and director come from her ability to create indelible cinema out of moments that feel entirely natural. In a recent interview, Polley said making this film was an opportunity to "experiment" after the critical success of her first feature, Away From Her. All filmmakers' experiments should hope to be as delicately crafted, if a little undercooked, as this Take This Waltz.

Review - The Cabin in the Woods (Goddard, 2010) ****

A veteran scribe of the J.J Abrams cabal of forward thinking creatives, Drew Goddard's first feature film "The Cabin in the Woods", co-written and produced along with fantasy/sci-fi master Joss Whedon, is a roundhouse kick to the balls to the modern "horror" film. The word "horror" in this case deserves such puncutation because this is not a horror film. Well, on the surface, in terms of actual plot, style and thematic substance, this is a horror film, but on it's most base operating level, it is not. Rather, "The Cabin in the Woods" is one of the most subversive genre pictures ever made precisely because it is specifically about genre and the stigmatic pratfalls of falling into what one might call a "genre."

To give away any plot details of this film, other than to say that it is about five co-eds that have embarked on a weekend getaway to a cabin in a remote part of the woods, so remote that it does not even register on GPS, would be a crime. But I guess I can also tell you that what happens at this cabin will ultimately result in a frightening, gory mess since I revealed that this is a "horror" film. The five leads, of which the most noteworthy is Chris Hemsworth, whom we are familiar with from "Star Trek" and last summer's "Thor", are impressive in their portrayals of what some might call the typical "horror" film archetypes. Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins are also in this film and they're both perfect for their roles, but I cannot reveal more than that. What I can reveal is that Goddard has a knack for getting the right pitch and tone from his actors; this is a very funny, I would argue hilarious, "horror" film.

The comedy in this film is fascinating. It amused me the same way that other subversive horror films like Peter Jackson's "Braindead" and Edgar Wright's "Shaun of the Dead" did; those films ultimately sticking to their respective genres. But this is a film that breaks loose from genre, while actually creating its own metaphysical genre of comedic horror film, which is ironic. But it is this irony that propels the comedy and creates a substantial amount of mystery surrounding not just the actual plot of the movie, but the purpose for the movie even existing at all. Why make a "horror" film if all you want to do is shoot horror films in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun? Or stab them in the face with akimbo pick-axes? Or perhaps you might want to rip the hearts out of their chest cavities and then feed them to a pack of hungry mutant Zebras? You need to watch this film if you want to find out why the hell I just wrote all that.

I could spend pages unpacking the philosophical and even sociological implications of this film; it's that fresh and intelligent. This is a kitchen-sink style "horror" film that on one level isn't afraid to satiate your thirst for blood, humor, destruction and just a plain old fun-ass time at the movies. But on another, tougher level, if you're willing to look further (and it is really up to you if you want to go there), it will force you to question the popularity of horror films and why they quench the most transgressive of thoughts that go on in the back of our sick, depraved skulls. In the end, both thematically and philosophically, this is a film about sacrifice. What are we willing to give up for the greater good? What are we willing to suppress in order to function as civilized beings in an ultimately primitive world?

I could end this "review" of this "horror" film with a quote or some sort of pithy remark about the state of the modern horror film and how "The Cabin in the Woods" has irrevocably changed the way I define "genre." Oh wait, I just did.


"The Cabin in the Woods" has had an interesting distribution history. It was put on the shelf for two years after MGM, the studio that made the film, went bankrupt. In 2011, following legal deliberations, MGM decided to sell the distribution rights. After what director Goddard said was a heated bidding war, Lionsgate picked up the film and has slated it for release on Friday, April 13th. If you do not know why that is awesome, don't see this movie.

Review - Midnight In Paris (Allen, 2011) ***

Sometimes I wish I lived through the 1970s, in New York or Chicago, or even Detroit. I wish I could be there in the golden age of Funk and Soul music. A time when it took real musicianship and a real sense of substance to really make it big. But this kind of naivete really never takes me anywhere but back to my own sense of romanticism for that period in music. Such is the paradox in the great Woody Allen's latest film "Midnight In Paris", a charming and satisfying comedy with beautiful photography, a crisply written, tightly plotted script, boasting the finest Owen Wilson performance in a really long time and a thematic eloquence to boot.

Wilson plays Gil Pender, a successful Hollywood screenwriter of many funny, but forgettable films, vacationing in Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams, who is absolutely stunning here, but in one-note role) and her vapid right-wing parents. Gil is absolutely smitten with Paris, and is immediately taken with the idea of throwing his cushy Beverly Hills life away in exchange for spending the rest of his days walking in the rain through Paris and writing novels. After a wine-drenched evening with Inez's pretentious, overly flirty friend Paul (Michael Sheen, donning a shockingly good American accent) and his wife, Gil finds himself inexplicably transported back in time to 1920s Paris, where he meets F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, among others that I won't reveal as to spoil the fun.

Devotees of Woody like to separate his films into a number of classes, including minor Woody, funny Woody and classic Woody. What's interesting about this film is that it is a mix of all three. He keeps a nice, steady pace to the proceedings here, lingering enough on character, theme and dashes of his trademark humor to keep things light and fairly engaging. I liked that the plot device of time travel exists not as a gimmicky bludgeon, but more as an extension of Gil's internal struggles as a hopeless romantic torn between the prospects of the seduction and nostalgia of the past and the constant uncertainty of the present. Each character is allowed a moment of memorable poignancy too, as seen in a surprisingly intense monologue about life, death and sex by Woody's version of Ernest Hemingway (played by Television vet Corey Stoll, who absolutely sinks his teeth in here.

Woody's better films of the past two decades (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) are at their best when his leads are accompanied by strongly written, directed and acted supporting characters (see Penelope Cruz's Oscar for VCB as proof in the pudding). Here, we have the always ravishing Marion Cotillard as Adriana, Wilson's love interest who, like his character, longs for the beauty of an earlier era. Cotillard, always sumptuous, is radiant here. And like many of Woody's great female roles, Adriana's beauty and scars of the past are the direct cause of her tragic endgame (don't worry, it's not so bad).

In the end though, the film draws to a relatively light, but satisfying conclusion; it's a lesson of embracing the uncertainties rather than living inside a disguise of predictability. The subject matter here is certainly not as dark or cynical or relentlessly depressing as heavy Woody, but leaves a rather positive, uplifting aftertaste. It's nice to know that a filmmaker who has been around as long as Woody (he's 75) can still make films this poignant. "Midnight In Paris" is a short, memorable, romantic lark that has given me the opportunity to coin a new term: Just-plain Woody.

Review - Bridesmaids (Feig, 2011) ***

In an age of dime-a-dozen chick flicks that are completely superficial in their creative and commercial aspirations, director Paul Feig's "Bridesmaids" is refreshingly honest and hilarious, reminding us again of the power of the funny female and the enormous cinematic potential of star Kristen Wiig.

Sporting a terrific script from Wiig and Annie Mumomo, "Bridesmaids" takes us into the life of Annie (Wiig), a broke thirty-something who gets booty called on the regular by a rich asshole (another great Jon Hamm cameo), is about to get thrown out of her apartment by her half-witted British roommates and works a miserable job at a retail jewelery store.

When best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged, Annie decides to take up the reins of Maid of Honor and meets Lillian's bridesmaids: Becca, the too innocent for her own good newlywed (Ellie Kemper); perpetually boozy and jaded housewife Rita (Wendi-McLendon Covey); plus-sized party animal Megan (Melissa McCarthy, in the definition of a scene-stealing role); and of course Helen (Rose Byrne) the control-freak trophy wife of Lillian's fiancee's boss and ultimately the film's semi-antagonist, thwarting Annie's every endeavor with a transparent tinge of condescension.

Strung together by a loose, episodic structure similar to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (another Apatow production), the film maintains dramatic escalation by means of letting all of Annie's failures, missteps and awkwardness inform her inability to perform as Lillian's Maid of Honor; Wiig gives Annie a spectacular display of drunkenness on a flight to Vegas that is absolutely uproarious. We root for Annie because she's a smart, attractive woman and we know that her incompetence at this stage of her life is due to previous heartbreak.

Director Feig gets most of the credit for the film's substantive feel. He allows his female stars the ability to stay improvisational inside the bodies of these fleshed out, honest characters, and we love them all the more because of their natural reactions and attitudes. But this is also the film's weakest trait; some scenes are very fatty with dialogue and gags such as an engagement party one-up-a-thon between Wiig and Byrne get dragged out to an unnecessary length.

"Bridesmaids" is a blast and a great reminder that the female condition is a lot funnier and more nuanced than most (both gals and dudes) would like to believe. This is truly a breakout vehicle for Kristen Wiig and a solid entry in the realm of Apatow-style character driven comedies.