Friday, January 2, 2015

The Year in Film (2014)

Let's be clear: My longlist included films from this and last year that I saw this year. That's the most inclusive method, I think, if you live in a country where so-called Oscar contenders and even local film festival entries often get late commercial releases, if none at all.  

*     *     *     *     *


1. Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher)
"The movie's script, by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the novel, pares down both the discursive and expressive rhetoric of the book as well as its psychology. I suspect that part of the book's appeal is its underlying mythic power. Fincher unleashes that primordial, archetypal fury along with its cosmic irony, making a movie that is a tragedy of our time."
--Richard Brody, The New Yorker.

The rest of my top ten in alphabetical order:

Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)
"André Bazin wrote that art emerged from our desire to counter the passage of time and the inevitable decay it brings. But in Boyhood, Mr. Linklater's masterpiece, he both captures moments in time and relinquishes them as he moves from year to year. He isn't fighting time but embracing it in all its glorious and agonizingly fleeting beauty."
--Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.

Child's Pose (dir. Calin Peter Netzer)
"Few viewers will come away from "Child's Pose" without strong feelings about Cornelia and her behavior. But even the most passionate judgments might be chipped away after the film's amazing final sequence, which the director begins in a cramped home kitchen and ends by masterfully framing a pivotal encounter in a car's rearview mirror."
--Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)
"[A] marvelous mockery of history, turning its horrors into a series of graceful jokes and mischievous gestures. You can call this escapism if you like. You can also think of it as revenge."
--A.O. Scott, The New York Times.

Ida (dir. Paweł Pawlikowski)
"[T]here is nothing overtly ideological about Ida. Its concerns are predominantly personal and emotional, like watching what transpires when two women pick up a hitchhiking musician on the way to a desultory gig."
--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times.

The Immigrant (dir. James Gray)
"[W]hat makes The Immigrant a great film is the way in which Gray uses actors and his mastery of the unspoken to create a tremendously lived-in, felt-through world. Every space--public or private, interior or exterior--feels authentic, historically and emotionally."
--Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The A.V. Club.

Maps to the Stars (dir. David Cronenberg)
This film is not so much a mess as it is about mess. The most bonkers fun I had with a 2013/2014 release this past year, and if it were up to me, this would be Julianne Moore's awards ticket.

Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy)
"The movie is quite something, and, despite its title, it doesn't really crawl. It scuttles ahead, wide-eyed, antennae waving, on a journey to the end of the night, and toward a future when nothing will not be shown. Don't look now, it tells us. So we do."
--Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (dir. Lav Diaz)
"The force compelling us all to stay was the audacity of Diaz's filmmaking. His scenes go on, though not for the sake of their longevity. The extended takes, at every range (wide shots, close-ups, a flying digital camera that approximates dreams), allow your eye to study the details of the prison cell or the vastness of a woman's farm. They're not long takes so much as deep breaths."
--Wesley Morris, Grantland.

Violator (dir. Eduardo Dayao)
This film scared the shit out of me. To think that the only reason I saw this, on its last screening on the last night of the 2014 Cinema One Originals film fest at Glorietta 4, was because "That Thing Called Tadhana" was sold out already. 

And ten more titles that made my year at the movies, in alphabetical order: The Babadook (dir. Jennifer Kent); Barber's Tales (dir. Jun Lana); Le Week-end (dir. Roger Michell); Lilting (dir. Hong Khaou); Night Moves (dir. Kelly Reichardt); Palo Alto (dir. Gia Coppola); The Skeleton Twins (dir. Craig Johnson); Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-ho); Winter Sleep (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan); X-Men: Days of Future Past (dir. Bryan Singer).

Finally, my ten--let's make that 22--favorite performances of the year:
  • Nina Arianda (Rob the Mob)
  • Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)
  • Rose Byrne (Neighbors)
  • Carrie Coon (Gone Girl)
  • Essie Davis (The Babadook)
  • Mackenzie Davis (What If)
  • Adam Driver (What If)
  • Lindsay Duncan (Le Week-end)
  • Jesse Eisenberg (Night Moves)
  • Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
  • Paulina Garcia (Gloria)
  • Luminita Gheorghiu (Child's Pose)
  • Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
  • Bill Hader (The Skeleton Twins)
  • Mailes Kañapi (Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon)
  • Agata Kulesza (Ida)
  • Sid Lucero (Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan)
  • Julianne Moore (Maps to the Stars)
  • Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
  • Gladys Reyes (Barber's Tales)
  • Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer)
  • Ben Whishaw (Lilting)

No comments: