Gonna get my Best of 2014 out of the way now: 8. The Rover (dir. David Michôd): Harsh. This movie is harsh. A post-apocalyptic road trip, with Guy Pearce as a purposeless survivor who turns into a steely-ball of rage when some crooks steal his car. Robert Pattinson is a pleasant simpleton who gets dragged into the resulting vengeance quest. The lawless nature of the film is communicated in the first frame, Pearce staring into the middle distance, a million emotions on his face and all of them bad, before segueing to a population of apathetic layabouts. Director David Michôd shoots conversations the same way he does violence--stunted exchanges between two or more people talking past each other, barely cognizant of anything beyond themselves. 7. The Strange Color of Your Bodys Tears (dir. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani): Superficially, its a Belgian homage to Italian slasher movies, with spectacular colors and a disorienting, disgusting plot unafraid to follow any tangents it can down the rabbit hole, dragging anyone who watches it kicking and screaming. Below that artifice, the movie only gets more unsettling. 6. Need for Speed (dir. Scott Waugh): The lunatic personalities of Death Race 2000 wrapped around a solidarity plot--a group of working class friends and a posh interloper drop everything to travel across the country and equalize a personal injustice. Aaron Paul is great, sos Michael Keaton, Imogen Poots, and the actors in Pauls crew, but this is a pure car chase movie, successful because of its minute details (state-specific police cruisers, the modified Shelby-Ford mustang which serves as the films centerpiece for its first 2/3, the use of environments in chase scenes [including a beautiful sequence in downtown Detroit]). Sometimes, its the little things that matter most. 5. Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson): As expected from Anderson, theres lots of film references and in-jokes, quirky characters (Edward Norton as a fascist with a silly mustache) and model sets, bright colors and actors with forlorn expressions. Anderson also, as usual, makes a movie loaded with pain, specifically a longing for people or things we can never have again: his bellhop lead lost his family before the story unfolds, and spends the course of the film finding a new one he will only lose again. 4. Oculus (dir. Mike Flanagan): Total surprise for me. A mean, Christopher Nolan-style mindbender masquerading as a super-generic ghost movie, in turn a fable about abusive relationships. Strange Color of Your Bodys Tears is technically the better horror film, but this scores points for being so visible, so mainstream, and still willing/able to challenge its audience. 3. The One I Love (dir. Charlie McDowell): Science fiction had a good year. Interstellar, Edge of Tomorrow, Noah, Snowpiercer, even Transformers 4 (and that surprises me) brought big ideas and unexpected moments of virtuoso acting, directing, editing, you name it. By comparison, The One I Love is sedate, almost minimalist, with only three actual actors in the whole thing--primarily a married couple, played by Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, who encounter doppelgangers during a weekend retreat to fix their relationship. Just a really funny, disarming movie about two people who still (kinda) love each other, but hold onto idealized versions of their spouses (which only sabotages themselves). Those big blockbusters are good and all, but how many existentialist romantic comedies with body snatcher plots are there? 2. John Wick (dir. Chad Stahelski and David Leitch): Its only one step above a highlight reel for its freshman directors, with fight scenes that play like cover versions of action movies greatest hits, but its done with such style and skill. Furthermore, the fights arent merely technical achievements, but character pieces unto themselves, showing the titular former-hitman (Keanu Reeves, who is incredible in this) frustrated, desperate for an outlet for his grief. The best he can manage is to pull a trigger, then pull it some more. 1. The Raid 2 (dir. Gareth Evans): Where to start with this one? Its bigger, messier, noisier than its predecessor (the best action movie of 2012). Its not as good, either, but that still puts it leagues above so much of whats come out this year. Like John Wick, fight scenes are also character pieces, stories told in the choreography. The added benefit is Raid 2s star, Iko Uwais, is far more game to play up the fragility of the human body. Uwais, as undercover cop Rama, gets battered, bruised, cut up, you name it. He wins, like 80s Jackie Chan, not through skill necessarily, but by refusing to give in. Rama only ever has a marginal impact on the gangster drama unfolding around him, his goals more personal, but hes all the more sympathetic for this. The Raid 2 is less about destroying corruption than surviving it without getting dragged down. When everything in the news seems so monolithic and frustrating, its nice to remember that, sometimes, staying alive another day, to return to those we care about, is an accomplishment. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment. Happy holidays.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 00:53:56 +0000
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