Top Ten of 2014 (Even Though It's Already February of 2015)

This past year I kind of gave up on reviewing movies (took a bit of a hiatus from March to about August). This was partly due to being a bit bored with the process and because not many movies had been released that truly excited me. One movie really brought me out of that funk (Snowpiercer) and made me realize that 2014 was a pretty great year for movies. Here are my top ten picks and a few honorable mentions that, if I was in a different mood, might have been in my top ten.

One more thing, I know it’s kind of crazy to release a top ten of 2014 almost two months into 2015, but I figured if the Academy can wait that long, then so can I. Plus, I needed a bit of extra time to see everything.

1.    Snowpiercer

As I stated above, this movie brought me out of my movie funk. The world created for this film felt so lived-in, and that’s what makes me want to keep watching it. I love the performances and the weird elements of the film, but it’s the feeling of the film in general that sticks with me. When “Snowpiercer” starts, you believe that these people have lived most of their lives on a train, no matter how stupid that sounds. This is the film from 2014 I will return to most in the future.

2.       Birdman

Definitely my favorite Oscar-nominated film of the year. The cinematography gets most of the attention, but the acting is the best aspect of this surprisingly funny film. This movie is the total package for me: great performances, impressive visuals, interesting theories, realistic drama, and actual comedy.

3.       Inherent Vice

Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite director. Pretty much anything he makes will end up in my top ten. I don’t recommend this movie to anyone who doesn’t care for Anderson’s films. Even then, I’m wary of recommending it. It’s weird and hard to follow, and that’s what I love about it.

4.       Interstellar

I’m a sucker for science-fiction, and Christopher Nolan’s surprisingly emotional sci-fi film worked for me on every level.

5.       Guardians of the Galaxy

Did I mention I like sci-fi (for the record, this makes three of my top five films science fiction)? The Marvel movies, while great, needed a jolt, and this is definitely that jolt. Sure, it still follows the basic plot of nearly every comic book movie, but it’s a lot of fun to watch.

6.       Gone Girl

David Fincher is another director who can do no wrong in my eyes. He took what would normally be a TV movie and made it respectable. The great performances from the two leads helped out quite a bit, as well.

7.       The Guest

This is definitely one of the weird ones that I liked this year. I recently described it as an ‘80s slasher flick pretending to be a standard thriller. Anything modern that’s reminiscent of an ‘80s slasher movie definitely has my attention.

8.       Whiplash

Show up to see J. K. Simmons’s performance. Enjoy it for the overall great movie that it is.

9.    American Sniper

Forget the controversy (which shouldn’t exist anyway) and just watch this effective portrayal of an American soldier on and off the battlefield.

  10.    John Wick

There are at least five other movies that I would put in this last spot, but I’m going with John Wick because it reminded me how great action films could and should be. This isn’t thoughtful art or anything, but it is a movie that I had one of the most enjoyable reactions to while watching.

Honorable Mention - Here are the five movies that easily could have been in the top ten: The Grand Budapest Hotel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Noah. I also really enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fury, The Babadook, and A Most Violent Year.

"Gone Girl" (I have no witty title for this one. Also, I know it's really late, but I still felt like putting it on here.)

Gone Girl

That smile is the best evidence of Affleck's perfect casting.

                 A local man’s wife goes missing.  There is evidence of a struggle.  The man, over the course of the first days of the disappearance, acts strangely and appears to be increasingly guilty.  Does this sound like the set up to the year’s smartest, most biting comedy?  Strangely enough, it is.  Gone Girl, the insanely popular novel by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the screenplay), had its darkly comedic moments, but overall the novel maintained an acerbic tone as it dissected a toxic marriage and the media circus of disappearances/murders.  The film maintains that tone but also elevates the source material by becoming a somewhat absurdist comedy.  It’s almost as if Flynn realized as she was adapting it that a lot of the plot, simply over the top on the page, would become silly on the screen.  It’s a good thing she did because it made Gone Girl not only interesting, but entertaining as well. 

                The specific story of Gone Girl concerns Nick Dunne (a perfectly cast Ben Affleck), a failed New York journalist who returns to his economically down-turned Missouri home with his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), a New York woman through and through (and the subject of a children’s book series written by her parents titled Amazing Amy).  Their marriage deteriorates over the course of a couple years in Missouri, and on the day of their fifth anniversary, Amy goes missing.  That sounds more like the plot to your typical Lifetime movie, but to say much more would spoil the bulk of the film. 

                The film jumps around narratively so both sides of the relationship are featured, and this allows for plenty of fears of marriage to be tossed around (cheating, money, complacency, bitterness, etc.).  It ends up being a darkly funny look at all the fears married couples (or just people in relationships in general) go through.  The basic question being: how much can you really know anyone?  This isn’t a new question for a film.  (The Rules of Attraction comes to mind, when James Van Der Beek’s character flat out says, “No one ever knows anyone.”)  And marriage is often the subject of a film (my favorite film about marriage, or rather, the fears of marriage, would have to be Eyes Wide Shut).  But Gone Girl is unique in that it doesn’t present itself as a case study about marriage.  It’s an absurdist dark comedy about marriage. 

                Who better for an absurdist dark comedy than David Fincher?  Director Fincher may not be the first name brought up when it comes to comedy, but when you check his filmography (Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network), you see that a number of his films are flat out comedic or at least contain quite a few darkly comedic moments.  Some questioned his decision to take on such a popular novel for his latest film, but once you see it, you understand why the director, famous for filming dozens of takes for particular scenes, is perfect for this source material.  On the page, Flynn wrote dialogue in many scenes as sparsely as possible.  On the screen, reaction shots are necessary.  This is why Fincher was perfect for this; his multiple takes allowed him to capture the best facial responses to the insanity of the story.  Hats off to Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) for providing the funniest nonverbal reactions.  Because of this, the audience is so used to seeing these silent reactions that when Nick’s lawyer (portrayed by a great Tyler Perry) states, “You two are the most f-ed up people I’ve ever met,” it gets a huge laugh (or at least it did in my theater) because someone finally said it out loud. 

                Those people Perry is referring to are impressively portrayed by Affleck and Pike.  Everyone knows who Affleck is, and we’re all on board with his career resurgence of late.  I never found him to be lacking in acting ability (his role choice is another question), so it was great to see him in a part seemingly written exclusively for him: a character that many people seem to want to hate (just look at the typical internet reaction to Affleck’s casting as the new Batman), but really can’t help his nature.  To be certain, Affleck is not Nick, but it’s easy to confuse the two, which is a credit to his performance that will almost certainly get ignored in the coming awards season (they already gave him Oscars for writing and directing, it’s doubtful they’ll add acting anytime soon). 

                Rosamund Pike is lesser known but her work here is just as impressive.  Without spoiling anything, she gets a bit more to do than the other characters, and she handles it all very convincingly.  The film opens with Nick narrating, wondering what goes on in Amy’s mind, and Pike does a great job at conveying that mystery.  There’s so much going on in her eyes and reactions.

                The supporting cast is just as perfectly cast as the leads.  The aforementioned Fugit and Perry surprised in their roles (it’s hard to imagine the kid from Almost Famous as a detective or Madea as a lawyer).  Kim Dickens (under-appreciated in nearly everything she does), as the lead detective, is effective as she puzzles through the story, providing a cipher for the audience.  Carrie Coon provides another cipher role for the audience as Nick’s sister and provides plenty of comedic relief, as well.  You get the idea; it’s a great cast through and through.

                The writing, directing, and acting are all great, but the music truly completes this film.  The score (by recent Fincher mainstays Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) for Gone Girl gets under your skin.  While the film is funny, it is also filled with tense moments.  The tension created by the script and performances is already apparent, but that distracting score adds the finishing touch.  A good score isn’t necessarily supposed to be noticed, and Reznor and Ross concocted a perfect blend of…well, noise that pervades throughout the film cutting off just at the moment it becomes impossible to ignore. 

                If Gone Girl accomplishes anything, it presents a certain despairing mood about a toxic marriage.  It’s truly a nihilistic, somewhat angry film peopled with (mostly) unlikable/despicable characters.  Somehow, however, Fincher and company have turned this into one of the year’s funniest, most enjoyable film experiences.

Gone Girl receives a: