Best of 2014: Films

10

CALVARY
directed by John Michael McDonagh

John Michael McDonagh’s sophomore effort finds a small town priest (Brendan Gleeson) entering confessional with a man who promises to murder him in one week’s time. While not a complete departure from levity, the humor of Calvary is darker and the themes more mature than McDonagh’s The Guard. He strikes a perilous balance between repugnance and acceptability, using comedy as a mechanism for discussion on some of the more horrifying events in recent memory. Characters who play characters crowd McDonagh’s film, a constant, and “meta” reminder that they are actors inhabiting roles. The only real depth comes from the incredibly talented Gleeson and the compelling profile written for him by McDonagh. Partly an allegorical re-telling of Christ’s final days, and partly a fascinating journey into the life of a modern priest in Ireland, Calvary is a haunting and thoughtfully-constructed film. —Jordan Brooks

9

THE LEGO MOVIE
directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord

Hollywood finally brought the epic building blocks from the toy chest to the big screen. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s film delivers a perfect blend of childish and adult humor with a message about the power of creativity — not to mention the funniest interpretation of Batman (Will Arnett) in years. —Chris Porazzo

8

WHIPLASH
directed by Damien Chazelle

Moviegoers are willing to spend hours upon hours in a movie theater seeking a thrill that can only be offered by the biggest, loudest, and most expensive blockbuster of the week. But not a single one of these films will inspire a radical increase in heart rate quite like Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, the story of a brilliant young jazz drummer (Miles Teller) who butts heads with his short-tempered and arguably abusive teacher (JK Simmons). It’s a film so strong, passionate, funny, sad, and inspiring, it’s hard to believe that it runs less than two hours. Anchored by two of the strongest performances of the year – including a horrific turn by Simmons that will surely earn him an Oscar that is long overdue. Despite this, the film doesn’t allow for the strength of these performances to function as an excuse for otherwise lazy filmmaking. Whiplash is written, shot, edited, and scored to perfection on nearly every level, and the result is an astoundingly good film about greatness, youth, legacy, and music. It’s a cinematic achievement of the highest order. —Josef Rodriguez

7

BIRDMAN
directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

A feature-length inquiry into what constitutes truth or falsehood in the context of art through the lens of a high stakes broadway play as directed by an aging movie star (Michael Keaton), Birdman doesn’t offer up a lot in the way of answers by the film’s end. What it does offer is plenty of food for thought in a wildly entertaining whirlwind jive of great performances, camerawork, and improvised jazz drumming. The plays on reality are subtle but ever-present, with the aforementioned drums sneaking into the soundtrack often, and eventually being revealed on-screen when a street drummer picks up the score. Birdman revels in oxymorons and meta-humor, and therein thrives its creative energy. It’s not often a film like Birdman comes around, and even when it does, it’s rarely so earnest in its emotions. —Maximilien Luc Proctor

6

IDA
directed by Paweł Pawlikowski

A collection of still frames from Ida, pulled at random, could tour the world as a renowned photography exhibit. Paweł Pawlikowski and his two cinematographers photograph this eighty-minute masterwork in gorgeous black and white images that eerily capture the understated narrative of a young nun’s self-discovery in 1960’s Poland. A jazzy score primarily featuring Coltrane draws a second comparison to early Bergman on top of the expressive imagery that feels like a resurgence of Rossellini. Today, this kind of thing is both celebrated and doomed as the respected and feared “art film,” but that tag may mistakenly imply a glacial pace. Simmering beneath Trzebuchowska’s stoic, soft-spoken performance as the titular Ida is the tension of characters navigating the differences between “right” and “good.” And for that, this 1960’s-set, 1960’s-style film is wonderfully relevant to 2014 audiences. —Taylor Sinople

5

NIGHTCRAWLER
directed by Dan Gilroy

“On TV it looks so real.” So laments Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom, a freelance crime scene videographer falling into the same trap that the film surrounding him contemptuously lauds: the believable and bewitching terrors of the 24-hour news cycle. Dan Gilroy directs his own scathingly satirical script, building fantastic tension that keeps you on the edge of your seat as a career-best Gyllenhaal delivers line after creepy line on the way to an action-packed finale. Beautiful, grimy nighttime cinematography from Robert Elswit is the twisted bow on this jet-black package. —Zack Miller

4

BOYHOOD
directed by Richard Linklater

Even those who haven’t seen Boyhood are likely aware of its premise: Richard Linklater’s brilliant but otherwise-straightforward coming of age tale was shot over the course of twelve years, allowing his cast to age at the same rate as his characters. Boyhood’s success extends far beyond this novel—and possibly revolutionary—concept. Boyhood is a film where small details grow into central plot lines as time turns idiosyncrasies into flaws, naiveté into wisdom, and affection into hatred. The success of Boyhood is primarily due to the pleasure the audience gets from watching our young protagonist grow into his own.

I’m reminded of another great coming of age work, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which famously begins in the third person and ends in the first. The shift in narrative tone indicates that our protagonist has grown into his own: he has found his voice. Boyhood features a clever cinematic parallel: the film begins with the titular boy looking just off camera and ends with him glancing directly at it. When the still-young protagonist looks into the camera at Boyhood’s finale, it’s impossible not to feel pride in the young man he’s become. In explicitly constructing a narrative of this young man’s boyhood—as we all do implicitly for our own childhoods—Linklater has tapped into the joy and sadness of growing up, the pride of parenthood, and brought us closer to understanding of the perpetual wear of time. In Boyhood, Richard Linklater has elevated the mundane to the poetic. —Marcus Michelen

3

FORCE MAJEURE
directed by Ruben Östlund

Ruben Östlund kicks off his timely and hilarious comedy with a groomed, perfect family on a groomed, perfect ski slope. As the shifting and rumbling of the snow starts to disrupt this idyll, the film never loses sight of the absurdity of family vacations: silent moments, contrived confinement, inevitable arguments. Perfectly paced, impeccably shot, and featuring an inspired Vivaldi soundtrack, Force Majeure is as smart as the whip it cracks across the back of marriage and masculinity. —Zack Miller

2

UNDER THE SKIN
directed by Jonathan Glazer

On first viewing, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin—a tale about an alien seductress who prowls the streets of Glasgow for unsuspecting men—is purely experiential. The audience can only watch with curiosity and awe at the surreal—and sometimes just plain scary—scenes that play out as the film comes to a close, ultimately offering little explanation. Upon second viewing, the experiential becomes the intellectual; Under the Skin reveals that it’s many films at once. It’s a catalog of the roles young women play in our male-dominated society: seductress, passive lover, and the Other. It’s a study on what it’s like to view our society as an outsider. It’s a science fiction tale about an alien race that harvests young men in a strange liquid. It’s a filmic exercise in the blending together of documentary footage and surreal imagery. It’s a work that plays with the use of undecipherable spoken language in film. It’s a subversion—and inversion—of the male gaze that is so prominent in mainstream, independent and art-house film. Like its protagonist, Under the Skin is shape-shifting, seductive, and uncomfortably close to being human. —Marcus Michelen

1

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
directed by Wes Anderson

Elaborate, symmetrical shots, pastel colors, and oh my god, the vintage costuming. If this, with a crazy look in your eye, is how you’d eagerly describe a Wes Anderson film to a non-believer (probably while shaking them by the shoulders and begging them to go straight home and watch Rushmore), then you’re going to be over the moon about The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson’s love for whimsy and nostalgia has, over the course of only a handful of films, become one of the most personal and recognizable aesthetics in the history of cinema. All of the attributes and quirky-bizarre style that drives the cult status of his catalogue are, in Grand Budapest, at total fever pitch – it’s an Anderson epic. —Taylor Sinople

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