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