My Review of the Year! Pt. 2: What I Loved In 2014

Considering I see at least 2 – 3 new releases a week on average, it’s fair to say that whittling down my favorites from 2014 was no easy task. As such, before I delve in to my list, honorary mentions are rightly deserved for some of the films that didn’t make the cut. So a round of applause for Nymphomaniac, 22 Jump Street, Two Days One Night, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Rover, and Paddington. But these ones below are the 14 I loved more than anything else; they made me laugh & cry in equal measure, thrilled me, and stirred me. They’re the best of the best from 2014, and if you haven’t already, make sure you see them all.

14: Life Itself

An expertly crafted love letter to film criticism’s commander in chief, Life Itself profoundly detailed the prosperous highs and painful lows of Roger Ebert’s life. Moving and magnificent, it was the best documentary I saw this year.

13: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

An exceptional sequel with seamless SFX bringing the eponymous simians to life, Dawn was a thrilling and fascinating cinematic experience, helmed by an extraordinary motion capture performance from Andy Serkis.

12: Mr. Turner

An incandescent canvas of vivid colours, augmented by Timothy Spall’s spellbinding performance and instilled with the tribulations & triumphs of art, artistry, and life in the 1800s, Mr. Turner was a cinematic masterpiece that found Mike Leigh at his creative best.

11: A Most Wanted Man

Tightly woven, terrifically played, and terrifyingly true to life, A Most Wanted Man was the perfect final curtain to Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s life & career. Those final shots will live long in the memory.

10: Inside Llewyn Davis

A profoundly moving movie that was perfectly pitched and a joy to both look & listen to, the Coen’s ode to Greenwich Village music scene was a folking masterpiece.

9: Leviathan

A muted masterpiece that plunged to the deepest depths of human depravity to reveal the how monstrous we all can be, Leviathan excellently retold the story of Job in a haunting & honest way.

8: The Grand Budapest Hotel

A contemporary comedic treasure and Wes Anderson’s best film to date, Grand Budapest transported the audience to a wondrous new world that was so intoxicating you couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang of disappointment when it ended.

7: The Wolf of Wall Street

A tale of unimaginable debauchery, Wolf of Wall Street was Scorsese firing off on all cylinders, telling the tale of a larger-than-life figure that epitomised the greed that led to the financial crises we currently find ourselves in. DiCaprio has quite simply never been better.

6: Blue Ruin

An intelligent and exciting revenge thriller with a consistently pulsating pace, Blue Ruin was a beacon of light in a genre whose brains were generally found splattered across the screen.

5: Calvary

A brave & brilliant masterpiece and a thing of visual beauty, Calvary tenderly explored religion with more confidence than many hardened veterans of the medium. Director John Michael McDonagh is one with immense potential.

4: Boyhood

To hell with those who dismissed it as a “concept” film! Boyhood was at once a tale of childhood, an observation on adolescence, a parable about family, an ode to maturity, a salute to parents, a celebration of society, an odyssey of emotion, an achievement in filmmaking and a love letter to cinema… or, put simply, a film by Richard Linklater.

3: Under the Skin

Not your typical modern masterpiece I grant you, but Jonathan Glazer’s superbly realised Under The Skin proved how subversive cinema could be. Eerie, enigmatic, and ethereal, it crawled under my skin from the moment it began and preceded to envelop my mind.

2: Pride

There were few films released in 2014 that managed to embody the warmth & wit of Pride. Based on a true story, Matthew Warchus’ film tells the profound tale of how a group of gay activists helped support miners striking in Wales during the summer of ’84. Bold, bittersweet, and bolstered by an array of terrific performances from the likes of Imelda Staunton & Bill Nighy, Pride perfectly composited heart with humor while addressing a serious socio-political situation from our recent past. Not only is it a great film, it’s arguably one of the most important contemporary British films ever made.

First published by Culturefly on Dec. 26^th 2014

1:  12 Years A Slave

In an interview he gave while promoting 12 Years A Slave, director Steve McQueen pointed out a cinematic travesty; that more films had been made about Roman slavery than American. With this incredibly moving and indelible film, McQueen righted that cinematic wrong. Driven by a haunting central performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, McQueen conjured a tableau of terror that vividly confronted the realities of American Slavery in an honest & utterly heartbreaking way. America may now be known as the land of the free, but given how Hollywood has strived to ignore this key chapter in their nation’s history, it can hardly be considered the home of the brave.
First published by Culturefly on Dec. 26^th 2014

As ever, if there are any that you don’t agree with or think I’ve missed, then let me know in the comments section below. Have a great new year, and see you in 2015

James :D

My Review of the Year! Pt. 1: What I Loathed In 2014

Any doubts I had that 2014 wasn’t a good year for film were immediately quashed as I sat down to write this list. It was a great year for film, but in amongst all the grand cockerels were 14 ugly turkeys so insipid they simultaneously made my blood boil and skin crawl. And here they are, named and shamed in the hope it’ll dissuade you from sitting through these cinematic travesties. As ever, if there are any that you don’t agree with or think I’ve missed, then let me know in the comments section below.

14: Sex Tape

Even the sight of Cameron Diaz’s bare bum couldn’t save this juvenile jamboree of Apple merchandising. Sex Tape was little more than an extended X-rated promotional video, how ironic that it was released shortly after the ‘fappening‘ scandal!

13: This Is Where I Leave You

Shaun Levy attempts to make a “serious” film, but ends up making a stupid & sentimental.

12: Into The Storm

The film that strived to reinvent the disaster flick, but ended up feeling like nothing more than poorly rendered destruction porn.

11: Horrible Bosses 2

A film in which one of the actors says he can “smell dog shit” during the closing outtakes; it was probably just the festering smell of the film’s quality.

10: Non-Stop

Liam Neeson takes his Taken shtick to the skies, storming up and down the aisles of economy class in this witless and borderline offensive thriller.

9: The Love Punch

A crime caper come rom-com that’s about as much joy to experience as a punch in the face.

8: Divergent

An irrepressibly bland YA adventure that was all the more frustrating for wasting the talents of Shailene Woodley.

7: The Other Woman

At one point towards the end of The Other Woman we see Nikolaj Coster-Waldau walking in to various glass walls in a fit of rage. He appears to be in a lot of pain, but that’s nothing compared to the agony inflicted while watching this film.

6: The Legend of Hercules

Ironically, watching The Legend of Hercules was more laborious than any tasks undertaken by the Greek demigod himself.

5: As Above, So Below

Despite moments of unintentional hilarity, this is a film that follows its characters through the gates of hell and then takes its audience to the cinematic equivalent.

4: A Million Ways To Die In The West

A film built on half-baked ideas, a monotonous onslaught of crude humor, and the sight of a sheep’s penis. Just thinking back to it is enough to give one the willies.

3: Grace of Monaco

Booed by the critics; snored at by the audience; loathed by me.

2: The Inbetweeners 2

Stale jokes and hackneyed storytelling, it’s fair to say I’d rather be chased down a water slide by Neil’s shit than sit through this filmic equivalent of manure once more.

1:  Sabotage

Shoddy writing, second-rate performances, shite action sequences, and Schwarzenegger’s stupid hair, put them all together and what do you get? The worst film of the year that’s what. Good luck coming back after that one Arnie!

My Top 5 Cinematic Performances By James Gandolfini

This weekend saw the release of The Drop in UK cinemas, a Brooklyn based crime thriller that stars Tom Hardy & is penned by Dennis Lehane. It’s certainly not a bad film, but neither is it a very good one. Lehane’s narrative plods along at a pace that always burns slow but rarely bright, and Hardy seems to be subdued for the most part. What it does have in its favor though, apart from the eminently atmospheric setting, is a superb turn from James Gandolfini. Being the final film he completed before his untimely death last year, this is your last chance to see the genius of Gandolfini on the big screen; now that’s an offer you can’t refuse!

Upon leaving my screening at the weekend, I was once more found myself I awe of Gandolfini’s incredible acting abilities, and dejected at the idea that I would no longer be able to experience his range in the cinema again. Thankfully, despite only having a relatively short screen career, Gandolfini has left behind an enormous body of work to be reveled in for eternity. And here, as a final goodbye to the late, great Gandolfini, I have listed the five cinematic performances of his that I will always carry close to my heart.

1: as Albert in Enough Said

For many, James Gandolfini was, and will continue to be, the contemporary embodiment of the archetypal gangster, which is perhaps why his nuanced performance in the superbly subtle Enough Said felt so special to all those who were fans. Here Gandolfini exuded the charm of a gentle giant that bathed this subversive rom-com in eternal warmth. Displaying a regularly unseen shy & sensitive demeanor, Gandolfini’s Albert was worlds away from the aggressive gangster characters the actor was typecast as for much of his career, and there’s a sheer joy in seeing such a different side to this prolific performer.

2: as Virgil in True Romance

Playing the vicious & violent Virgil wasn’t Gandolfini’s first screen role, but it was the one that made his name. It’s the complete antithesis of Albert; here Gandolfini radiates a menacing aura from the moment here appears on the screen. When we first find him waiting for Patricia Arquette in her motel room, a shotgun on his hand and The Shirelles playing on the stereo, the sense of dread it immediately evokes is almost unbearable. But it does nothing to cushion the impact of just how ferocious Virgil becomes as he proceeds to beat and batter Arquette’s Alabama to within an inch of her life. From this truly terrifying tour de force of acting, the modern mobster was born.

3: as Lt. Gen. George Millar in In The Loop

Guided by the assured hand of director of Armando Iannucci, Gandolfini here delivers a perfect illustration of his acting range. His performance as Lt. Gen. George Millar is laced with a simmering wit, but throughout his persona bubbles with aggression. The scene that perfectly encapsulates this, of course, is Millar’s confrontation with Peter Capaldi’s scheming & sweary Scot Malcolm Tucker. It’s a short conversation that’s full of memorable moments, but the talents of Gandolfini are epitomised in the final shot, as Millar becomes overcome with confusion at being told by Tucker to never call him “fucking English again”.

4: as Carol in Where The Wild Things Are

It may not be a physical performance, but that doesn’t stop Gandolfini from being a commanding screen presence in Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved childhood novel.  It’s a gorgeous use of his vocal tones, which compounds aggression with emotion. And through it Gandolfini superbly manages to convey Carol’s distinguishably impulsive & imaginative characteristics, fuelling the film’s wildly inventive personality.

5: as Mickey in Killing Them Softly

Given how well known he was for playing Tony Soprano for so many years, it’s not much of a surprise to find him inhabiting many other gangster roles in the later part of his career. Mickey is arguably the most substantial and certainly the most effective of the bunch. Gandolfini is a bold & bitter presence as a hit man who let the greed of his formative years get to his head, and now finds himself wallowing in a pool of self-pity. Flexing his more muted acting muscles, it’s a role that’s far removed from Tony Soprano.

So there we have it, my top five cinematic performances by James Gandolfini. But which ones have I left out, which ones do you believe deserve to be on this list, and are there any I have included that you don’t agree with? As ever, leave your remarks in the comments section. And then be sure to check out my full review of The Drop over on the Culturefly website!