Although there are some critically acclaimed films from 2014 that are awaiting release, including several Oscar-nominated foreign films, I've decided to forge ahead and submit my year-end Favorite Film List.
If I see some late-stragglers from 2014 that happen to be notable, I'll just have to consider them for next year's list.
As always, the following are not necessarily the best of the past year but merely my favorites. I did not employ any special criteria for selecting the following; the films just happened to be ones I liked the most; plain and simple. I noticed documentaries were represented robustly, which is always a good thing, as were Hollywood and independent films.
I wish I could have included more foreign films but it seems fewer and fewer offerings from overseas make their way to our shores. With most of Europe staggering with anemic economies, ear-marking money for film budgets and distribution might not be considered a priority. It's understandable. Or maybe the American film industry is becoming increasingly xenophobic. Who knows? But some terrific stuff from our international brethren did find their way here and some found their way to my list.
So, without further delay, here are my 2014 faves; in no special order:
Tim's Vermeer
--Director: Penn Jillette
Inventor Tim Jenison set out to "paint" a Vermeer using materials, lighting and optics the master may have used himself and made some startling discoveries along the way. Penn Jillette's documentary on the process is fascinating, illuminating and as absorbing as Vermeer's paintings.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
--Director: Bryan Singer
Who thought a superhero movie could actually be so fun and inspired? Most of them suffocate under thw weight of excessive CGI.
I still think the sequence set to Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle is one of the most humorously inspired sequences in last year's films. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are an excellent pairing and they bring so much credibility to their respective roles. I hope this particular X-Men series goes on forever.
Violette
--Director: Martin Provost
Emmanuelle Devos is terrific as the famous French author Violette LeDuc, whose struggle to be published in a male-dominated literary world is dramatized beautifully in Martin Provost's cerebral biopic. Sandrine Kiberlain also delivers a memorable performance as Simone de Beauvoir. This film premiered at an inopportune time (late Spring) on American screens. It was lost in the welter and bluster of the blockbuster season, but it distinguished itself anyway and earned some fine critical praise.
Viktoria
--Director: Maya Vitkova
Bulgarian director Maya Vitkova's first feature film is something extraordinary. A surreal indictment of Bulgaria's Communist past, the film is powerful, strange, totally absorbing and otherworldly beautiful.
The Overnighters
--Director: Jesse Moss
A heartbreaking and wrenching documentary about a Pastor whose boundless compassion leaves him at odds with a small North Dakotan town after he allows guest workers to stay on church property. The film is a critical examination of the myths behind North Dakota's employment rush. It dispels popularly held notions about America's beliefs in brotherly love and tolerance and presents an unflattering portrait of our nation's hypocritical piety.
The Homesman
--Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones directed this overlooked gem about a woman eking out a rough existence on the Nebraskan frontier in late 19th century America. She is also entrusted to transport three mentally disturbed women to Ohio after they are driven mad by the brutal and unforgiving way of life on the prairie. The film is unsparing in its depiction of the rough and dangerous world so often romanticized in cinema. Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones are exceptional as the partners who risk rape, violence and hostile Native American tribes to pursue their goal. The story is hardly predictable and often takes surprising and terrible turns. Very impressive film.
The Babadook
--Director: Jennifer Kent
Another auspicious, feature film debut though this time its Australian. It isn't often we see a horror film from down under but The Babadook is something special. Terrifying and aesthetically realized, Kent's story doesn't shy away from psychologically dark, frightening places. Actress Essie Davis' electrifying performance as a woman at the end of her mental tether is only one of the film's astonishing attributes.
The Great Flood
--Director: Bill Morrison
Director Bill Morrison specializes in documentaries (very loosely categorized as such) that tell stories using historical footage on decaying nitrate film. Here his subject is footage of the 1927 Mississippi River Flood. Accompanied by jazz guitarist Bill Frisell's wonderful score, Morrison's film gives us a glimpse into how people once responded to natural disasters and a sense of America's cultural past; with its endless contradictions. We see proof of America's resilience and indomitable spirit but also its shortcomings, like racial segregation. The Great Flood is great found art.
Nightcrawler
--Director: Dan Gilroy
Far from being a great movie, Nightcrawler manages to get under one's skin and much of that has to do with Jake Gyllenhaal's creepy portrayal of Louis Bloom; a mentally unbalanced, opportunistic, videographer of tragedy and death, from which he derives profit. One never knows how Bloom will react in any given situation but one characteristic that is consistent is his disturbing, emotional detachment. Rene Russo is also quite fine as a T.V. news manager who is as determined as Louis to climb the ladder of success without a pesky conscience to obstruct her. An underrated film but one that could attract a cult following.
Jodorowsky's Dune
--Director: Dan Gilroy
What if avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodoroswky had made his version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic Dune; a film that in conception made Star Wars look like The Waltons? That burning question is what makes Gilroy's film so intriguing and ultimately, so infuriating. Ferociously inspired and subsequently stolen from, Jodorowsky's Dune might have been too creative for studio executives in the 1970s'. Too bad. We only have Jodorowsky's colorful story-boarding to stimulate our imaginations. His Dune is a great film that never was.
I Origins
--Director: Mike Cahill
Cahill's cerebral, thought-provoking film was another Summer release that got smothered in the Blockbuster onslaught. Brit Marling and Michael Pitt play molecular biologists who make an extraordinary discovery that changes their (and our) perception of the world. I hope this film is given new life on DVD.
Interstellar
--Director: Christopher Nolan
Nolan's artistic scope is as wide and vast as the story he tells. Extraordinary performances by Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway simmer in a plot that demands our alertness and receptivity to some mind-bending astrophysics. This makes for a heady 170 minute experience. Interstellar is dark, beautiful and it offers contradictory outlooks on humanity's fate: pessimism and optimism.
Ida
--Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
The only narrative film on this list shot in black and white. The images of a gray and dismal Poland in the early 1960s' are unforgettable, as is its protagonist, Anna; a nun novitiate who finds life outside the convent to be messy and cruel but sometimes intoxicating. A discovery about her family's past proves to be devastating. Agata Trzebuchowska's performance is as moving as Pawlikowksi's film.
Harlem Street Singer
--Directors: Simeon Hutner and Trevor Laurence
Blues musician Reverend Gary Davis' is the subject of an enthralling documentary that explores his early life in the south and traces his northward migration to New York; playing his own distinctive style of blues in unusual places like a tobacco house in North Carolina and New York streets. The fact that he was blind lends some poignance to his story. An unforgettable man and an unforgettable documentary.
Guardians of the Galaxy
--Director: James Gunn
Irreverent and fun as all hell, G of the G is a sci-fi adventure that can't be bothered to take itself seriously, which is delightful in itself. A rag-tag group of mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells are assigned a mission to save the galaxy from an evil overlord but spend more time getting in one another's way. A talking, tree-like creature named Groot and a smart-alecky Raccoon named Rocket are just two of the lovable oddballs that make up the Guardian outfit. For once, I'm eager to see a sequel.
Foxcatcher
--Director: Bennett Miller
One of the more powerful films of the year, Foxcatcher is so emotionally raw and psychologically sharp it has yet to leave my mind since I first saw it. Culled from 1990s' headlines, the story of a mentally imbalanced man's bizarre passion for collegiate wrestling and the deadly path to which it leads will sear itself on the viewer's memory. Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo are so good and so real. Easily one of the year's best.
Force Majeure
--Director: Ruben Ostlund
Another of the year's best, Force Majeure tells the story of a marriage in crisis amid a family ski vacation. A near catastrophe resulting from a avalanche leads the wife to challenge her husband's manhood and role of family protector. Ostlund's film is highly and wonderfully eccentric. Surreal long-shots and a harrowing scene on a mountain road are but a few of its spellbinding moments.
Finding Vivian Maier
--Directors: John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
Finding Vivian Maier is essentially a documentary about serendipity. In purchasing boxes of camera rolls from an auction house, Director John Maloof finds himself in possession of negatives by an unknown photographer whose work turns out to be beautiful and very accomplished. The film isn't just about the discovery but the odd and mysterious Vivian Maier herself, whose life and personality prove to be quite complicated. Oscar-nominated and deservedly so.
Enemy
--Director: Denis Villeneuve
Based on a story by the great Portuguese author Jose Saramago, Enemy is another film on this list featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, who demonstrates exquisite taste in dark characters and dark subject matter. The story of a man who spots his doppelganger then stalks him about town is a little bit David Lynch with a splash of Hitchcock. Its non-linear narrative and spine-tingling ending prove Canadian cinema is alive and well (mostly, anyway).
Citizenfour
--Director: Laura Poitras
It isn't often one gets to see history take place onscreen. Watching the now-reviled Edward Snowden make his files of the NSA's surveillance programs known to the media and the world almost seems unreal, as if what we see couldn't possibly be happening. But Poitras' privileged perspective allowed her to capture it all on film. At once frightening and fascinating, we see the process by which Snowden becomes a fugitive from American justice and how the NSA's shenanigans aren't compatible with democratic principles. Fantastic film.
Calvary
--Director: John Michael McDonagh
Pity Calvary didn't garner any attention at year's end but maybe the uncompromisingly tough story did little to charm the Academy voters. I myself felt Brendan Gleeson turned in a singular performance as a priest who is threatened during a confession. With only 7 days in which to identify and stop the would-be killer from carrying out his deed, the idea that any one of the townspeople could be the culprit-to-be make Calvary a plausible candidate for the Mystery genre.
Boyhood
--Director: Richard Linklater
The fact that Linklater's film took 12 years to make isn't its most remarkable quality but how he managed to make a coherent film and elicit solid, consistent performances from his cast is the real marvel. Boyhood could have been nothing more than a gimmicky film in Linklater's oeuvre but he turns it into something original and engaging. Watching actors literally mature in the course of 165 minutes is nothing short of amazing.
Birdman
--Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
By now Birdman has garnered its whale's share of nominations and awards and what not. And guess what? It deserves all it earns. Inarritu's film is funny, frenetic, and peopled with characters both flawed and layered. Michael Keaton leads a superb cast and gives a performance for the ages.
Before Snowfall
--Director: Hisham Zaman
If I had to whittle down my favorites to just 3 for 2014, Zaman's Before Snowfall would be a member of such an august group. The story of a Iraqi-Kurdish boy who leaves his village to find his sister, who has transgressed against Kurdish mores by running off with a man rather than acquiescing to a customary marriage, is taut and riveting. What the boy discovers along the way opens his eyes to a world beyond his village and an act he commits in a moment of self-preservation blossoms in the most horrific way. To think Zaman worked with non-professionals boggles the mind. An amazing film and one that didn't even appear as a blip on most critic's radars.
A Most Violent Year
--Director: J.C. Chandor
A gritty film about the competitive heating oil business in 1980 New York and couple's struggle to curb violent attacks on their business. Chandor's excellent script and Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain's marvelous performances, and some beautifully choreographed chase scenes alert us to J.C. Chandor's meteoric growth as a director.
American Sniper
--Director: Clint Eastwood
Eastwood's film is tough and relentlessly intense. Based on an autobiography by the most celebrated sniper in American military history, the film doesn't succumb to sentimentality nor does it cast sniper Chris Kyle as the paragon of American virtue. It portrays him as he probably was: a duty-bound patriot who believed a higher power would eventually judge him for his actions.
That sums up my list. I apologize for its lack of brevity but I didn't want to omit anything I really liked. It goes without saying that I recommend all the aforementioned films. It also goes without saying that all the films on the list were viewed theatrically. If you feel you would like to list some of your own, please do so in the comment section. Thank you for viewing my selections.
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