The Usual Choices
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Inarritu)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum)
But how about...
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
Creepy, creepy. A deeply disturbed 6 year old boy (whose father was killed in a car crash on the day he was born) lives with his still-grieving mum. The kid is obsessed with monsters, has night terrors which increasingly turn up in the daytime...and one day, he finds a picture book about a monster called Mr Babadook. Well...
Superbly acted (young Noah Wiseman is extraordinary), this horror movie was shot in my hometown of Adelaide, South Australia and effectively scares you...mainly because you don't want the kid to get hurt. At its best when Mum's behaviour can be logically explained by mental illness rather than the supernatural, this film is one of the strongest explorations of grief + guilt ever made: Monsters do exist, and they arise out of us. Out of what we feel.
...and what about...
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
This is an intricately-plotted Private Eye story (ref. Farewell My Lovely; Chinatown) with equal amounts of comedy, drama and weirdness. Set in 1970 hippies'n'drugs L.A., this features Joaquin Phoenix as a groovy and constantly-stoned investigator and Josh Brolin as his bad-bad-cop nemesis. It somehow remains interesting despite numerous meanderings and an overdependence on Joaquin to hold the whole sprawl together (which he nearly does...it's a wet-eyed puppydog performance...you're happy to follow him around). While the side-characters should've been more eccentric to help jazz up the fleeting meetings and conversations, and, at 149 minutes long, it insists upon too much attention...it's worth the effort. Sex & drugs & violence & murder & corruption & jokes...what's not to like?
...not to mention...
Predestination (Michael & Peter Spierig)
One of the greatest films to ever come out of Australia, one of the great science-fiction movies, and certainly one of cinema's unjustly underrated masterworks. Impossible to provide a rundown of the plot without a massive and ruinous reveal, but the story is a fusion of time travel, gender identity, the space race, noirish characteristics and what must be the ultimate in self-love. Loaded with a (ta-da ta-da!) Breakthrough Performance by Sarah Snook (why hasn't she conquered the world yet?) and a typically-impressive portrayal by Ethan Hawke, this movie is thematically rich, immediately absorbing, clever to the point of acclamation and topped with a throw-your-head-back punchline. See it with friends, open a bottle of South Australian shiraz afterwards, and verbally trip over each other as you discuss what the fritz you have just seen.
...and one personal unmentionable...
The Monuments Men (George Clooney)
I went to see this during a dreadful time in my life, so I can't entirely trust my opinion, but still...this has to be one of the biggest letdown movies I have ever seen. Featuring an all-star cast (George Clooney! Matt Damon! Bill Murray! John Goodman! Cate Blanchett! er...Jean Dujardin and Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville), this is the epitome of self-indulgent self-amusement...like a group of mates warming themselves at a weekend campfire, passing around a bottle of green ginger wine and laughing at each other's stories. Unless you're one of the gang and drunk too, you won't find it funny. Everything falls flat: the jokes, the drama, the action, the proclaimed historical accuracy and the group dynamic. A factual WWII story that comes across as inane. Now, I ask you...is that respectful?
My Top 10 Films of 2014
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| Spiritual Veganism: Becoming One with the Salad. |
#02 A Predestination (Spierig)
#03 A- Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn)
#04 A- The Drop (Roskam)
#05 A- The Imitation Game (Tyldum)
#06 A- The Babadook (Kent)
#07 A- A Most Wanted Man (Corbijn)
#08 A- Birdman (Inarritu)
#09 A- Love & Mercy (Pohlad)
#10 A- Inherent Vice (Anderson)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ Foxcatcher (Miller)
#12 B+ Whiplash (Chazelle)
#13 B+ Boyhood (Linklater)
#14 B+ Calvary (McDonagh)
#15 B+ Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo)
#16 B+ Pawn Sacrifice (Zwick)
#17 B+ Nightcrawler (Gilroy)
#18 B+ Gone Girl (Fincher)
#19 B+ Mr Turner (Leigh)
#20 B+ X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B A Most Violent Year [Michael Mann-ish gangstery film which is sleek, classy and too restrained]
> B Maps to the Stars [confronting but interesting character study of repellent people]
> B Frank [one of the strangest films I've ever seen, twice...and I'm still not sure what I think]
> B Testament of Youth [BBC WWI story which is suitably tragic, rousingly anti-war and just a little dry]
> B Still Alice [early onset Alzheimer's...a true horror I can barely watch]
> B The Theory of Everything [a genius is cruelly targeted by God, who gives him true love as compensation]
> B- The Two Faces of January [strong actors in a Patricia Highsmith story...so how did it end up being so uninvolving?]
> B- The Homesman [curious Western which falls apart when the switch is made from gruff heroine to gruff hero]
> B- Interstellar [well-acted, looks wonderful but what does it all mean and why don't I care?]
> B- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day [meh...I've had worse]
> B- Big Eyes [a little story that's only a little interesting]
> B- Paper Planes [okay kids film where you meet a lot of people who will never be real]
> C Magic in the Moonlight [boring Woody which had comic potential but goes all philosophical and longwinded]
> C Noah [pretty good when it's a Biblical epic; pretty ridiculous when it's a monster movie]
> C Lucy [kinda propulsive but also kinda stupid...I mean really stupid]
> C The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [featuring possibly the worst reinterpretation of a comicbook villain ever]
> D Into the Woods [a musical set in Fairy Tale Land starring a singing Meryl Streep...that's 3 strikes]
> D Manglehorn [a film about old age loneliness that makes some weird plot and structure choices]
> E The Monuments Men [A Personal Unmentionable]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 2014 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
American Sniper (Eastwood); Before I Disappear (Christensen); Camp X-Ray (Sattler); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves); Dig Two Graves (Adams); Divergent (Burger); The Duke of Burgundy (Strickland); Edge of Tomorrow (Liman); The Fault in Our Stars (Boone); Fury (Ayer); The Gambler (Wyatt); The Guest (Wingard); Housebound (Johnstone); It Follows (Mitchell); The Judge (Dobkin); Kill the Messenger (Cuesta); Kingsmen: The Secret Service (Vaughn); Paddington (King); Selma (DuVernay); Spring (Benson, Moorhead); Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Decker); Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn (Kastner); A Walk Among the Tombstones (Frank)
Best Performances of 2014
Patricia Arquette in Boyhood
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything
J.K. Simmons in Whiplash
But how about...
Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
While the film is a rather hysterical (but still pointed) look at the dangers of the 24 hour Breaking News / Exclusive Report competition in TV journalism, Jake creates a character who is pathologically self-moderated. With more than a touch of the sociopathics (he casually steals; he hurts people who won't do what he wants; he cannot understand how anyone could ever think him mistaken), Jake is a wannabe who lucks into the filming of night crime in the suburbs...and selling his footage to TV news. Like a hybrid of Anthony Perkins in Psycho and Robert De Niro in The King of Comedy, Jake's antics become more and more desperate, all in the pursuit of respect and recognition. The actor has it nailed, from slightly spastic hand movements to his vocal kitbag of Achieve-Your-Personal-Goals catchphrases. He is clearly peculiar, increasingly disturbed, and is the smartest guy in the room. By far.
...and what about...
Mia Wasikowska in Maps to the Stars
There are some movie roles which are little more than a cinematic version of a literary device: unrecognisable, clearly not someone you're ever likely to meet, placed there to help push things along or make some grand thematic point...and an actor must turn it into flesh, making something into someone. Cue Mia in this movie. A young woman who is schizophrenic, obsessed with incest, scarred from head to toe by a fire she personally lit (after drugging her 6YO brother), on speaking terms with Carrie Fisher (pre-death), hopped up on medication and a desire to achieve an orgasm in front of the HOLLYWOOD sign. And, by gum, the actor miraculously makes it work. You pity, like and at least try to understand this troubled girl as she interacts with vile fake people, primarily because all she wants to do is reconcile with her family...I'm sorry Daddy. The poor thing. You even forgive what she finally ends up doing in a fit of pique.
Um, on second thoughts, you'd better make that "maybe you forgive".
...not to mention...
Paul Dano & John Cusack in Love & Mercy
The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is one of the great musical works of the 20th Century (I adore the album...my favourite of all the Sixties LP masterpieces), and the psychological collapse of its prime creator Brian Wilson is one of pop music's great tragedies (although, happily, he got better). This film tells the story of the man's genius and its loss via Dad, drugs and having three or four skins less than everybody else. Paul has the showier part: the artist in full bloom, struggling with lesser beings, inevitably crumbling and blowing away...John has the near-zombie aftermath and the eventual rescue courtesy of true love and family. As the Before'n'After of the same man, this acting partnership is more like a tag-team performance, and while the physical resemblance is non-existent (it's unfortunate that John Cusack looks like John Cusack), they are mentally and emotionally the same person. And the music is wonderful.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Emma Stone in Magic in the Moonlight
When Woody Allen is not at his most artistically inspired, he has no choice as a director but to rely on the charm and talent of his cast to get the film through (Scoop; Small Time Crooks). With MitM, Colin Firth steps up to the plate, playing an arrogant, sarcastic conjuror with a touch of the Noel Cowards (despite having to talk so bloody much about love and pain and the whole damn thing). But not Emma. It's not that she's bad in this, it's just that she's wrong. As pretty as apple blossom with a voice that is touched up with huskiness, Emma plays it like she's still in Easy A or Crazy, Stupid Love...when she's being asked to play a 1929 girl who is a cross between Daisy Buchanan and The Lady Eve. Maybe her suitability for romantic dramas from-days-gone-by will grow with age, but in 2014 she was decidedly that year's model.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 2014
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| Even the ashtrays are fancy in Club Nouveau. |
#02 Tom Hardy in The Drop
#03 Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel
#04 J.K. Simmons in Whiplash
#05 Mia Wasikowska in Maps to the Stars
#06 Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
#07 Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
#08 Paul Dano & John Cusack in Love & Mercy
#09 Philip Seymour Hoffman in A Most Wanted Man
#10 Brendan Gleeson in Calvary
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything
#12 The ensemble cast of Birdman
#13 Michael Fassbender in Frank
#14 Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy
#15 Hilary Swank in The Homesman
#16 Julianne Moore in Still Alice
#17 Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood
#18 Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game
#19 Maggie Gyllenhaal in Frank
#20 The ensemble cast of Foxcatcher
#21 Tobey Maguire in Pawn Sacrifice
#22 Noah Wiseman in The Babadook
#23 Colin Firth in Magic in the Moonlight
#24 Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Patricia Arquette in Boyhood [certainly good, but great? Really?]
> Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl [certainly mental, but psychotic? Really?]
> Timothy Spall in Mr Turner [I learnt a lot about the boorish man but nothing about the great artist]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 2014 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
SILVER: Predestination (Michael & Peter Spierig)
BRONZE: Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Tom Hardy (The Drop)
SILVER: Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
BRONZE: Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Sarah Snook (Predestination)
SILVER: Mia Wasikowska (Maps to the Stars)
BRONZE: Hilary Swank (The Homesman)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)
SILVER: Michael Fassbender (Frank)
BRONZE: Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)
SILVER: Maggie Gyllenhaal (Frank)
BRONZE: Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Paul Dano & John Cusack (Love & Mercy)
SILVER: Michael Keaton & Edward Norton & Emma Stone & Naomi Watts & Amy Ryan & Zach Galifianakis & Andrea Riseborough (Birdman)
BRONZE: Steve Carell & Mark Ruffalo & Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Ellar Coltrane (Boyhood)
SILVER: Noah Wiseman (The Babadook)
BRONZE: Evan Bird (Maps to the Stars)
The Alternate Razzies for 2014 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
The Monuments Men (George Clooney)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Jamie Foxx (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Emma Stone (Magic in the Moonlight)
