Robert’s Top 10 Films Of 2014
This year has been a great reminder of why I love working in the theater industry. From watching a sold-out audience enjoy The Interview on Christmas Day, something I couldn't have predicted happening even days earlier, to listening to a crowd go bananas (sorry) during a screening of King Kong vs. Godzilla during the opening weekend of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Lubbock, Texas (a city where I was unsure how locals would react to repertory programming), my belief in the power of the theatrical experience has been re-energized and re-powered. These ten films were just my favorite ten of what has been a year of great films. Born of budgets both big and small, this year's films have been some of the strongest I've seen in years. I hope you had a chance to share these ten with an audience yourself, or find the opportunity in the coming months and years.
10) BLUE RUIN
Beautifully constructed, painfully inevitable - Blue Ruin is a movie that stuck with me long after I watched it. The film isn't splashy - it's a good story told exceptionally well. Watching Macon Blair's character, a beach bum who sets of on a path of vengeance, crawl his way to the film's climax is like watching a puppy tread water in a lake while the leathery hide of an alligator emerges in the water from under a patch of reeds. You don't want to watch this simple man be consumed by death and ruination but you're definitely not going to look away.
9) THE BABADOOK
I watch a lot of horror movies in any given year - classics, the formulaic crap Hollywood has a tendency to churn out, independent films both good and bad. Sometimes I wonder why, given how terrible so many horror movies I watch tend to be, I keep putting myself through the experience. The Babadook is the answer. Horror will always be a genre worth exploring as long as films like this exist. Smart, considerate and centered by an amazing performance by Essie Davis, The Babadook is what happens when the stars align and you get a good movie with a name that's just plain fun to say.
8) WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL?
Sion Sono's film is almost impossibly hard to describe in a way that doesn't leave me looking like a grinning, incoherent idiot. It's a gangster film that also pays tribute to the power of cinema. There's romance, comedy, action, musical numbers. The film constantly shifts - leaning away from expectations and surprising audiences. It's an amazing film to watch with an audience - if you listen carefully, you can hear the tiny sounds of synapses having sweet, sweet love made to them.
7) GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
A funny thing happened with this movie. I walked out of my first screening thinking it was solid, but ultimately disappointing. Some of the dialogue seemed stilted, characters were underdeveloped. As the film played in the theater where I work over the next eight weeks, though, I found myself constantly sneaking in and catching bits and pieces. I learned to memorize the timing of the film - anticipating when my favorite bits were coming up and making a point to be in the theater to listen to the audience react to those moments. It was amazing watching audience after audience walk out of the film with gigantic smiles plastered on their face. As I watched the prison break scene for the 20th time, I realized I had fallen in love with this movie. Sure the bits I had issues with were still there but the characters were so strong, so lovable that I could simply ignore my small quibbles with the story or script in the same way I will eventually ignore Texas laws when I am finally able to trap a raccoon and keep it as a pet. This is a film that wanted nothing more than to entertain and in that department it succeeded wildly.
6) 22 JUMP STREET
This was a great year for comedies but no comedy made me laugh more and sound like a bigger idiot while doing so than 22 Jump Street. The movie knew exactly how to solve the issue that has plagued almost every comedy sequel ever made. It stood up to expectations, met them at every corner and used them for its own purposes. It was a sequel that deconstructed the very idea of sequels. I really hope the Sony hack doesn't put a nail in the coffin of the proposed JUMP STREET / MEN IN BLACK Crossover. I want to see Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill continue to work as a comedy duo - hopping across genres like a modern day Abbott and Costello. Heck, that could be the next movie - have them cross over with the proposed Universal Monsters reboot!
5) GONE GIRL
Smart, stylish and featuring a riveting performance from Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl managed to catch me by surprise at nearly every twist - despite the fact that I had gotten a bunch of the movie spoiled for me by the point I finally saw it. This, folks, is proof in the power of a strong narrative. David Fincher and company were so in control of their story, they managed to string me along and soak me up in what was going on - causing me to completely forget I knew much of what was in store. In the same way a great storyteller can cause you to laugh at a joke you've already heard, David Fincher and his cast completely reeled me in to their sly thriller. And forever put me off on the idea of marriage.
4) BOYHOOD
Going in, I was helpless to this movie's charms - I'm a sucker for coming-of-age films and I grin like an idiot anytime my home of Houston is used as the setting for a film. It's that Texas pride (see the scene in which the students recite the Texas pledge - this is a real thing, folks). Luckily, Boyhood did not take advantage of my school boy infatuation. The film is an incredible achievement, it's slathered in feel-good sentimentality and - most importantly - there's a scene set in Houston. I'm serious about this uncontrollable pride thing. Top Five almost made this list because there was an extended sequence in which Chris Rock tells a raunchy story set in a Houston hotel room.
3) WHIPLASH
I watched the entire film with my butt cheeks clenched tighter than I thought humanly possible. Constantly subverting expectations, the film actually managed to make jazz music exciting. As somebody who was in the Boy Scouts and JROTC, I know a thing or two about being intimidated by an imposing male authority figure. J.K. Simmons is every authority figure who has ever intimidated me rolled into one imposing force of spite and hated. This film is mean, ugly and completely riveting. True beauty, true achievement comes only through pain and suffering - that's a terrible thing to believe but, as the cliche goes, the truth hurts. So did my rectal muscles after watching this film.
2) WILD
I've been guilty of overusing the expression "this movie was made for me." With Wild, I feel like I was made for this movie. So many of my interests and passions coalesce in this absolutely stunning film. The editing, the music, the performances - everything fits tightly into place to tell an inspiring tale of rebirth and renewal. This is a movie where every single aspect of the film carries its own weight. The film churns along at the pace of a half-remembered pop song and watching it awoke something in me. That's why I go to the movies, to have things inside me awoken. Also, to see superheroes punch Nazis. I can't recommend this movie enough - and not only because Art Alexakis from Everclear makes an out-of-nowhere cameo. I can't wait for David Pirner to appear in the next Jean-Marc Vallée film.
1) NIGHTCRAWLER
God bless the working man. Some may see Nightcrawler as a cautionary tale of unchecked power, ambition and greed. I see it at an inspiring tale of true productivity and the American go-getter spirit. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man who knows what he wants and goes out and grabs it. Even if that means breaking a few laws, breaching any form of moralistic integrity and completely abandoning your soul in the process. This movie feels appropriately dirty but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't something inspiring about the film. I walked out of the theater and immediately went to a J.C. Penny's to buy a nice Polo shirt.
