Bottom Ten | 90-71 | 70-51 | 50-36 | 35-21
So this is even later getting up here than I intended, considering the Oscars were last night and I've yet to write the post for the Top 10. The truth is that I grossly underestimated how much effort it would be to write even just a couple paragraphs for 100 films. By the time I had finished the first 80 I was writing about, I'm pretty certain my mind was fried like an egg. For my own sanity, I had to back away from the keyboard for a while. In the meantime, the usual things (especially work) got in the way, and it made it difficult to write last week. If I were shooting for timeliness with these posts I would have missed the mark.
But I'm not doing this for the hits (although I'd appreciate it if you click through and read on). I'm doing this because I have some things to say about the films I saw. Well, about 45-50 of them or so. The rest I see as an exercise to figure out how to say "eh, it was OK, I guess" in the form of two paragraphs.
Unlike last year, there aren't any clear favorites in my top 20. I'm pretty confident that my top 10 is my top 10, but there's a pretty good chance any of these could be #11, or even higher, depending upo which one I've seen most recently. We start with a film that should have won more than one Oscar, a film that was literally more than a decade in the making.
20. Boyhood
Were the film terrible, Boyhood would still be an interesting achievement. Filmed in non consecutive blocks over twelve years using the same cast, it would be a curiosity just to keep up with the changes in the actors and actresses. That it was a great film is all the better.
This was a pretty big gamble on the part of Richard Linklater, as it involved picking a child lead that would be good as a 6 year old, a twelve year old, and an eighteen year old, which isn't always a sure thing. Fortunately, Ellar Coltrane was up to the task as Mason Evans Jr. Lorelai Linklater as his sister Samantha and Ethan Hawke as his father Mason Sr. were also pretty good as well.
In a lot of ways, however, the movie belonged to Patricia Arquette, who played Mason and Samantha's mother Olivia. While a lot of her story plays on in the background of Mason's foreground joys and troubles, it never loses sight of how her story affects the family as a whole. Somehow, despite being married three times, with only Mason Sr. not ending up being an abusive asshole, she gets her college degree and becomes a fairly successful professor.
Beyond the acting, Linklater does a great job of making the movie flow very well across the years. Instead of holding your hand with dates and obvious signals of the time period, he uses cues such as different hairstyles, and background events and signage to convey a jump in time. The film often has an effect of being a time capsule. While sometimes a liability to a film, the fact that it's actually true that the scenes are time capsules of the time they were shot makes it a strong point.
19. The Congress
In many ways, Ari Folman's The Congress is similar to another film from 2014, Birdman. Both films feature actors best known for their roles from the 80s and early 90s (in this case Robin Wright). They both have things to say about show business, and have plenty of weirdness to go around.
But the similarities end there. For one thing, instead of playing a thinly veiled version of herself, Robin Wright is playing a fictionalized version of herself. OK, OK, that doesn't sound that different, but it does mean that she's playing a character that has her history as an actress, even if the world she lives in is pretty different from ours.
This is not a perfect film. It's kind of a jumbled mess, and the satire doesn't always hit the mark. But I am a sucker for ambitious films, even when they are full of flaws, and this one has plenty of that. Even though the animation that makes up large chunks of the film can be kind of clunky at times, with some not so great voice over work, it still is quite often beautiful and poignant. It also features an excellent performance by Wright, with some notable performances by supporting actors Danny Huston and Paul Giamatti. This film has a lot to say, even if sometimes it doesn't quite know how to say it.
18. Frank
On its surface, Frank looks like a film born to be described as "twee indie crap". After all, it's about a atonal band who refuses to play "likable" music, with a lead singer who always wears a papier-mâché mask, no matter what is going on. And you know what, it kind of feels like the superficial reading of the film is spot on, at least for a bit. You've got the new guy (Domhnall Gleeson) who's just trying to succeed at being a musician. There's also the true believer (Scoot McNairy), the purist (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and the rest (Carla Azar and Francois Civil). They make music, theoretically start a record, Gleeson records it all for the bands social media following. Sure, there's some rough times as well, but this is what you need to be a real artist, right?
Yeah, it started out looking rather middle of the road for an indie film, until it wasn't. Things take a turn in the middle of the film, and it becomes something much sadder, something much more poignant, and something that is certainly not cutesy. And yet, it's still a celebration of music, and the power of how it has a value beyond "being successful".
Even with the changed trajectory of the back half of the film, it still could have ended up a ridiculous mess if the man behind the mask (Michael Fassbender) wasn't so damn good as Frank. Despite having nothing but his voice and his body language, he's able to give a great performance that conveys the complex nature of his character.
17. Edge of Tomorrow
I'm pretty certain this film would have earned many millions more at the box office over the summer if it had a better name than the blandly vague Edge of Tomorrow. Judging from the DVD cover, the Warner Brothers Marketing people had the same idea, making the somewhat better tagline "Live. Die. Repeat." more prominent. At least that tells you the basic gist of the film.
Oftentimes, it's been derogatory to say a film is like a video game. What that usually means is that it has the flow of a video game, where you move from screen to screen, with a fixed set of objectives to clear before moving on in the plot. Its better than being compared to a video game movie (i.e. Super Mario Brothers or Street Fighter), which almost completely has a negative connotation, but that isn't saying much.
However, Edge of Tomorrow is like playing a video game, or rather it gives you the experience of going from being a clueless neophyte getting killed right out of the box, and then gradually improving your skills until you effortlessly kick alien butt without a second thought, having memorized all of the patterns, while your thoughts are focused on the next level, which still gives you trouble. The film even conveys the feeling of skipping cut scenes as you restart the level, gradually phasing out most of the parts leading up to the "important" parts.
While I enjoyed his performance, Tom Cruise portrays his most common character, Tom Cruise, in the film. If you don't like him, you probably won't like his character all that much. However, Emily Blunt is the anchor of the film, as the "The Angel of Verdun", Sergeant Rita Vratasky. She's the only character who can quite understand what Cruise' Major William Cage is going through, and she goes about it with focused determination. Also enjoyable was Bill Paxton as Master Sergeant Farell, who certainly looked like he was enjoying his small, but memorable, part.
16. Locke
Outside of some establishing shots at the beginning, and a few spread throughout the film, the entirety of Locke takes place in the interior of the main character Ivan Locke's (Tom Hardy) car. He's the only character we ever see, and the camera is almost always on him, only breaking away to show his hands free phone console, or his hands digging through the documents and files he has sitting in the passenger seat. For a film as stripped down as this one, there's is still plenty going on. In many respects Locke is similar to the Josh Charles in Bird People, as both are seeing the end of pretty much everything their life had been to that point. Unlike Charles, Locke has no intention of letting his responsibilities fall apart, particularly the one which is leading to unraveling of everything else.
It's pretty difficult to convey tension through phone conversations, at least one sided ones. However, Locke does a great job with this, the actors on the other side of the phone using their voices to the best of their ability to make the film one hard to take your eyes and ears off of. It helps that Hardy is quite effective at keeping an air of certainty in his course, even if there are plenty of reasons for him to doubt himself and the choices he's made.
15. Life Itself
It would easy for a film like Life Itself to be nothing but a softball celebration of Roger Ebert. After all, he certainly was well known, and did plenty of worthy things. Given that it was based upon Ebert's memoir of the same name, and he was involved with the production of it, he could have insisted on a hagiography, a blurred and bland look at only the parts of his life that weren't so respectable. But that wouldn't befit Ebert, and wouldn't have been something he'd have been willing to support.
It's this fearless ability to look at Ebert, warts and all, that makes this such an enjoyable documentary. It's not afraid to use archival footage to show what an ass Ebert could be when working with Siskel, even if Siskel gave as good as he got. A lesser film would have papered over Ebert's writing of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and discouraged discussion of his alcoholism. It also probably would have avoided the raw nature of the footage taken in the last year of his life, detailing the travails of the medical complications that took his life almost two years ago. And having done that, it would have made the rest of the film feel more disingenuous and less earned.
I only have two complaints about the film. First, it doesn't have anything about Steak and Shake, which played a much larger role in the book. And second, nowhere is his and Siskel's guest spots on The Critic referenced or shown, not even a small clip. While these are almost deal breakers, I think I'll forgive them. For now.
14. Whiplash
It's always nice to see members of the "That Guy" Hall of Fame make a leap into full blown recognition for their skills. Simmons is one of those actors who has been quite prolific, and always makes everything he is in better. Just putting him in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as J. Jonah Jameson would have been worth 5-10 places in this list. Whiplash sees him doing his usual great job, but in a much bigger part, and on a much higher plain.
His Terrence Fletcher, the domineering jazz band instructor at a prestigious music school, is a a masterful performance. He's terrifying, even when he's not throwing chairs or yelling at aspiring drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller). In fact, he might more terrifying when he's calm. A master manipulator, he often uses what appears to be small talk as a conduit towards figuring out details to use to throw back at his subjects.
Without Miles Teller's intense and painful performance, however, it would all be for naught. Instead of being a thoroughly entertaining film about the price of genius, and how the pursuit of perfection can be self destructive, a poor Neiman would have made this at best a piece of campy popcorn entertainment, maybe even as good as Grand Piano.
Writer and director Damien Chazzelle is not afraid to show the blood, sweat, and tears that often goes into the effort of a musician, particularly one trying to reach towards perfection. It's often painful to watch, but in a good way, wondering how far Neiman is going to be pushed, and seeing what line Fletcher crosses to get there. And just when you thought things went too far, the last 20 minutes of the film comes along and snaps it takes it farther.
I won't spoil the ending, other than to say it's certainly one of those endings where ambiguity of whether what happens is good or bad is a virtue of the film.
13. Big Hero 6
One of the side effects of Pixar's purchase by Disney was that it probably saved Walt Disney Animation. Although the studio hasn't made a traditional animated film since The Princess and the Frog, the rejuvenated animation studio has turned the corner from early 21st century dregs like Home on the Range and Chicken Little. Certainly, the quality has been from good to excellent since Meet the Robinsons.
Released in the shadows of the Frozen juggernaut, Big Hero 6 is loosely based upon an obscure comic from Marvel, another recent Disney purchase. The film takes place in a wonderfully realized mashup of Tokyo and San Francisco (surprisingly called San Fransokyo), and follows a young scientist named Hiro and the friends of his deceased brother who become a team of superheroes in order to stop a mysterious figure who stole one of Hiro's inventions.
If Frozen was about the relationship between sisters, Big Hero Six is at heart about the bond between brothers, and the hollowness of revenge. It's also about robotics and techno-wizardry, even if some of what they're engaging in feels about as realistic as magic. The members of the Big Hero 6 team are definitely superheroes in the vein of Batman, using devices and intelligence to do their work, rather than that of Superman or the X-Men, which is based upon superpowers. As such, it's important that they learn to work as a team, as shown by a disastrous first encounter with their masked antagonist.
In an industry that is still dominated by stories about white characters, particularly white men, it's nice to see a cast of characters as diverse as the ones in Big Hero 6. It's also nice to see two woman characters who, while being very different in personality and method, are still resourceful and good at what they do.
I also appreciate that Disney used the Pixar method of going for quality in their casting, and not casting on the names of the actors. And the cast is quite good, including Maya Rudolph, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller, James Cromwell, and Disney regular Alan Tudyk, who has become the Disney equivalent of Pixar's John Ratzenberger, in that he has a role in every film, at least since Wreck-It Ralph. I particularly enjoyed Miller's performance as Fred, Genesis Rodriguez as Honey Lemon, and Scott Adsit as Baymax.
12. Gone Girl
I've not read the Gillian Flynn's* novel of the same name, so for a large portion of the movie I was a bit puzzled at all of the praise it had gotten in some of the reviews that I read. I mean, it was well put together, with good performances and the usual good things about a David Fincher directed film. But it the story was cliched, cookie-cutter thriller material. Of course, that all changed once a pivotal moment hits, one that anyone who has seen it or read the novel is aware of. From then on everything clicked into place, and it became a much better film.
The best part of the film is Rosamund Pike as Amy Elliot-Dunne. Like so many of the best performances of this (or any) year, she has to walk a fine balance with a character that could so easily fall into the realm of over-the-top camp. At various times in the film she has to play different "roles", and each one she's very convincing, most of all the part where she's the real "Amy".
I also enjoyed Ben Affleck as her husband Nick. However, while he did a pretty great job, I think some of his natural charisma overshadowed the fact that Nick is a pretty big ass, making it seem like the film is more sympathetic to him than it actually was. I don't think it was enough to misconstrue the message of the film, but it may been for some people.
Also of note were the performances of Carrie Coon as Nick's twin sister Margot "Go" Dunne, Kim Dickens as Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry as Nick's attorney Tanner Bolt. They livened up roles that could have been pretty pedestrian, and often gave the film needed bolts of levity to deal with all of the crime drama going on.
In the big scheme of things, the Oscars don't mean that much. I'll spare you the usual list of films, actors, and directors that never won a meaningful award, but the snubs can still feel a bit wrong at the time they happen. A big one was the omission of Flynn from the Adapted Screenplay nominees. Because of the way the film is structured, it would have been very easy for things to go awry with the journalized flashbacks in the front half, or the concurrent narrative paths in the back half. There isn't a lot of fat on the script, and given the two very weak winners for writing this year, it just doesn't feel right that this one was even nominated. It also sucks that Pike had to go up against a film where oft-nominated Julianne Moore played a terminally ill woman.
As for the director, if you like Fincher films, than you'll like Gone Girl. It has all the usual stuff, from the kinetic pace of the scenes, to the excellent use of rhythmic music to amp up the tension and bring you to important reveals. I appreciate that the film was mostly filmed around Cape Girardeau in Missouri, with a sizable portion filmed at Giant City State Park near Carbondale, IL. When a film attempts to film on location in places as close to where the setting of the film is, I think it adds authenticity to what they are trying to say. I'm looking at you, The Judge. Massachusetts is not southern Indiana. **
*She also wrote the screenplay.
** It's a damn sight closer than Southern California though, Parks and Recreation.
11. Listen Up, Philip
In general, the American moviegoing audience likes rooting for the main characters in films. They don't have to be perfect, and in fact we often like them to be less than perfect. They can be sarcastic, close minded, or even mean (but never to puppies or little children*). As long as they show a softer side, or redeem themselves heroically, or are changed into a better person by the end of act three**, we're willing to see our heroes have rough edges.
But what if the character doesn't learn their lesson by the end of the film. In fact, what if not only are they a pompous ass to start out with, they actually get more selfish, more pretentious, and less likable? We're much less likely to root for this character, and in fact many of us will hate a film of this type because there was no growth, no movement of any kind to root for with the character.
Philip, the character being told to "listen up" in the title of Alex Ross Perry's film, is one of those latter characters. He's given several chances to not be a self-absorbed dick. Time and time again the film deftly sets him up for what often leads to "redemption" for the misanthropes that we've come to love. He has chances to make up with his estranged girlfriend, have a road trip with a fellow author, or get to know his favorite writer's lonely daughter. He even has a chance to realize how much a jerk he is and start a relationship with a co-worker at the college he teaches at. But each time he goes the way less traveled, alienating those who might care for him. It's a film that is often without much sought after catharsis, and by the end of the film it's unlikely that Philip has learned much, or had any sort of epiphany.
Even though I'm willing to give more lee-way to films where the main characters don't grow, don't improve themselves, and quite likely become worse people, this all would be frightfully frustrating if it wasn't for Philip's girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss). In her story we get a bit more of that satisfaction missing so much from Philip's story. As her relationship falls apart with Philip, she at first starts to fall apart with it. But instead of breaking, she rallies, getting a cat, going on the rebound, and putting herself into her job. Her story acts as a good comparison to Philip's, showing what can happen when you choose to "listen up".
Elisabeth Moss was the best actor in the film, giving it her usual effort that has made characters like Peggy Olson so worth watching. Jason Schwartzman is also great, playing a character who in a lot of ways feels like a cautionary tale for Max Fischer from Rushmore. Also worth watching the film for are Jonathan Pryce as Philip's literary hero Ike Zimmerman and Kristen Ritter as his estranged daughter Melanie.
This is the first film by Perry that I've seen, and I'm looking forward to seeing others. While it would be easy to condemn this as yet another film about "pretty white people with problems", the way he plays with expectations and denies relief from Philip's myopic decisions makes it a frustrating (in a good way) watch. I just wish it had shown up in more theaters, so I could have gotten out and seen it before I rented it on Amazon back in January.
*Unless the child's a smartass, or they laugh it off and/or are oblivious to the meanness of the character.
** Often by the child they were harmlessly mean to earlier in the film.
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