Writing a year-end wrap-up on movies is a useful way of acknowledging quality, but it’s also a handy method for capturing what’s in the air at any given moment. Check lists from 1967 or 1985, and you can tell a lot about the temper of the times.
This year, anybody who filed an annual thinkpiece before mid-December missed the movie story of 2014. The film in question is almost completely unseen, but it ended up grabbing the headlines from the other big holiday releases.
We refer, of course, to “The Interview,” the raunchy comedy in which Seth Rogen and James Franco are enlisted by the CIA to assassinate the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Distributor Sony was hacked, threats were made against theaters showing “The Interview,” and Sony fumbled the response — cancelling the film’s release, then allowing it to play in a few arthouse theaters, then putting it out for home viewing on demand.
That story is ongoing, and fascinating — aside from the geopolitical implications, Hollywood just found out that a video-on-demand release can be extremely lucrative. In any case, the tale of “The Interview” cast a shadow across a movie year that was already very mixed.
Big Hollywood films disappointed, although the delightful “Guardians of the Galaxy” (the year’s top-grossing picture thus far) sent a message that a movie could be wildly popular and still be hugely quirky. And it wasn’t a sequel or a remake.
There was encouraging news in the lower-budgeted ranks, where some filmmakers took fascinating chances. An entire movie about a guy in a car? Steven Knight’s “Locke” gave Tom Hardy a bravura one-man show.
A comedy about abortion? Gillian Robespierre’s “Obvious Child” created a risky blend of the thoughtful and the profane, and launched Jenny Slate as a leading lady.
And how can we describe Jeremy Saulnier’s “Blue Ruin” — a revenge movie with a “Home Alone” homage?
Maybe the most reassuring sign of the year was the continued health of indie-film stalwarts. Directors like Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson hit high notes, and Jim Jarmusch found new life. John Sayles’ little-seen “Go for Sisters” (released here in January) was his best in years.
Who were the year’s losers? Well, Sony head Amy Pascal had a hard time of it, as you may have heard. And anyone who ever sent an email in Hollywood is feeling nervous right now.
We might also note that the sword-and-sandals picture failed to make a comeback: Remember “Pompeii,” “The Legend of Hercules,” or just plain “Hercules”? Neither does anybody else. The holiday-season soft opening of “Exodus: Gods and Kings” might be the last gasp on that score.
But let’s survey the best of 2014, and imagine what all this might tell us about ourselves when we look back ten years from now. A pink box of sugary confections from Mendl’s Bakery to the following:
1. “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Both hotel and movie seem to spring from a vanished era — but such is the pleasure of Wes Anderson’s wonderful comedy about a fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes) and his way of doing things just so. “His world had vanished long before he ever entered it, but … he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.” That’s a description of Fiennes’ Monsieur Gustave, but also of Anderson’s moviemaking method.
2. “Only Lovers Left Alive.” Jim Jarmusch directed this stylish vampire movie, with Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as immortals lounging around Detroit. The movie makes decadence look pretty good, as the vampires cling to music and books (and regular doses of hospital plasma) while the rest of society declines into barbarism.
3. “Under the Skin.” Good movies create their own worlds, and my top three are all about that. None is more alarming than what we see in this film, in which a mysterious visitor (Scarlett Johansson) lures men to their horrifying ends. Director Jonathan Glazer keeps us guessing right up to the unexpectedly touching conclusion, and composer Mica Levi’s music will give you nightmares.
4. “Two Days, One Night.” I’m looking ahead on this one because although this counts as a 2014 release, it doesn’t open around here until Jan. 30. But it’s great: Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard plays a factory worker who must go around convincing her fellow employees not to vote her out of a job. The simplicity of the set-up is heart-wringing, and Belgian filmmaking duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“The Kid with a Bike”) have created one of their best.
5. “Boyhood.” This is the film Richard Linklater and his cast took 12 years to make — allowing the realistic aging of its youthful protagonist (Ellar Coltrane, who goes from age six to 18). Linklater leaves out the three-act story arc in favor of the gentle unfolding of childhood experiences; the fact that they don’t seem to build to Something Big is part of the point. It’s not a masterpiece — I don’t think it wants to be — but it’s a special movie.
6. “Blue Ruin” and “The Rover.” Two action movies with a twist. “Ruin” is a loopy revenge picture that takes it for granted that revenge is an absurd exercise; leading man Macon Blair gives a heroic performance. “Rover” is a grim Aussie film, mildly post-apocalyptic, in which Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson make an uneasy duo. Director David Michod strips everything down so that all details matter — including the payoff of the last 60 seconds.
8. “Force Majeure.” A Swedish film that delivered the searing view of marriage that “Gone Girl” supposedly contained. A husband has a weak moment during a brief crisis; his wife won’t let him forget it. Director Ruben Ostlund keeps the temperature on simmer for the remainder of the film.
9. “The Homesman.” Tommy Lee Jones directed and stars in a Western about a frontier lady (Hilary Swank) guiding a wagon full of deranged women. It has some odd shifts from comedy to drama, but the overall mood is haunting.
10. “Edge of Tomorrow.” This sci-fi variation on “Groundhog Day” was considered a box-office disappointment, but it’s an ingenious piece of big-canvas Hollywood moviemaking. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt play futuristic warriors navigating a crease in the time-space continuum, in which new lessons must be learned with every repetition of the same day.
There were many good ones jockeying for runner-up position. I liked Joanna Hogg’s British mood piece, “Exhibition”; Kelly Reichardt’s low-key look at eco-terrorists, “Night Moves”; Roman Polanski’s finely calibrated “Venus in Fur”; and John Curran’s Aussie walkabout, “Tracks.” Strong genre pictures were led by Jennifer Kent’s storybook tale “The Babadook,” Bong Joon-ho’s crazed sci-fi flick “Snowpiercer,” and — you bet — James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Make room for Ira Sachs’s “Love Is Strange,” which gave great roles to John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, and the adolescent punk rockers of Lukas Moodysson’s “We Are the Best!” And there were quite a few good documentaries, but “Finding Vivian Maier” deserves special note for its poignant profile of an artist who remained completely and utterly unknown — until now.
Our year-end account wouldn’t be complete without a helping of turkey. So here were the bad ones, my most dismal experiences at the theater this year. There were contenders for the bottom spot, but nothing matched the spectacle of Colin Farrell doing battle with Lucifer while riding a winged white horse.
“Winter’s Tale.” This preposterous adaptation of Mark Helprin’s apparently beloved novel stars Farrell and Russell Crowe as time-traveling ne’er do wells. It keeps insisting that “everything is connected,” in which case, include me out.
“300: Rise of an Empire.” Hilariously overheated action in a sequel to “300” (which, oddly, takes place at the same time as the first movie). Some of the movie was saved by the sight of a gloriously vamping Eva Green.
“Neighbors.” Back before “The Interview” grabbed headlines, Seth Rogen was having a profitable year — this raunchy comedy racked up nice returns. It’s a pretty dumb movie, though, with lots of time devoted to Rogen obsessing about bodily functions. Like he does.
“The Identical.” Strange project: A Christian production company made this saga of the frustrated twin brother of an Elvis-like rocker. Cringe-worthy throughout, although unknown lead actor Blake Rayne was actually pretty engaging.
“Transcendence.” Scientist Johnny Depp is reincarnated as a computer, a decent sci-fi concept given a flat treatment. This one is a part of Depp’s current dry spell.
“Earth to Echo.” This sub-“E.T.” kiddie movie made for a very long 90 minutes. It’s not only generically dull, but presented in “found footage” style — all that, and motion sickness, too.
“Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” Revenge fantasies and adolescent misogyny are doled out in Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s ultraviolent sequel. Once again, the best thing about a bad movie is Eva Green.
“And So It Goes.” Cranky Michael Douglas just needs to be warmed up a bit by free spirit Diane Keaton, as this Rob Reiner comedy keeps reminding us.
“Dracula Untold.” Not a good showing for the age-old monster (played by Luke Evans). And whose idea was it to have the Count transform himself into a swarm of computer-generated bats?
“Muppets Most Wanted.” Probably not one of the absolute worst, but I have to complain about a Muppet movie that leaves a sour taste (even if this is a future cult-film candidate). Imprisoning Kermit the Frog in a Russian gulag was, in retrospect, probably a bad idea.
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