Best Films of 2014 (#20-16)

2014 was the first (and judging by how much time it took, the last) year that I made an effort to see as many new release as possible.  There were a few highly acclaimed releases that I regrettably couldn’t track down or watch in time (listed below), but otherwise I feel pretty confident in saying this is a pretty definitive ranking. Enjoy.

You can see #50-21 over here.

The ones I most regret missing

Actress (Robert Greene)

Beyond the Lights (Gina Prince-Bythewood)

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (Johnnie To)

Goodbye to Language 3-D (Jean-Luc Godard)

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) which I will be seeing this weekend, but oh well.
Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz)

A Spell To Ward of the Darkness (Ben Rivers, Ben Russell)

The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zurcher)
Stranger By The Lake (Alain Guiraudie)

Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

20.) Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre)

                Obvious Child was unfairly labeled as “the abortion comedy” before it was even released, but one of the most refreshing things about Gillain Robespierre’s film is the way it treats abortion not as a Big Issue but as an actual choice that real people have to make. It’s incredibly honest handling of the subject is refreshing and genuinely progressive in a way a lot of awards-bait pretends to be (Dallas Buyers Club). But focusing on that is to ignore the film, which is probably the best romantic comedy of the last ten years, if not longer. I laughed more watching Obvious Child than I did watching pretty much every other 2014 film combined, thanks to the hilarious writing and to Jenny Slate’s magnificent performance as the neurotic comedian whose pregnancy brings into focus just how unstable her current way of life is.

“Listen, change can be good, Donna.”

“Oh, man, that’s like the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

I love it.

19.) The Rover (David Michod)

                It’s unclear what sort of catastrophic event happened in the Australia we see depicted in The Rover, but it’s left the world in a rough state. As its two central characters, played by Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, drive across the country, death is a constant presence, buildings are either abandoned or are housing some sort of danger, and everyone seems to have only their own interests in mind. This is no Mad Max. The Rover didn’t get the audience it deserved, and it was divisive among the few who did see it, but never has a cinematic conception of the post-apocalypse felt this disturbingly real.

18.) What Now? Remind Me (Joaquim Pinto)

                What Now? Remind Me documents a year in the life of its director, Joaquim Pinto, as he undergoes experimental drug treatment for HIV and Hepatitis C, both of which he has lived with for more than two decades. Pinto could have easily just focused on his medical struggles and the film still would have been fascinating, but what puts it among the best documentaries of recent years is the way he treats his story as a jumping off point to explore much more complicated and powerful ideas that place his illness in a greater context. And, unlike a lot documentaries of this sort, it’s not boring to look at either, with Pinto trying to represent his thoughts visually using techniques reminiscent of recent Godard films. My favorite little moment comes after a doctor tells him to stay positive and Pinto includes a l shot him driving to upbeat music with a smile superimposed over the image. What Now? Remind Me is most powerful as the diary of a man who’s desperate to get his thoughts down on film before it’s too late. It’s so incredibly dense with ideas that it demands to be seen multiple times, but its overwhelming emotional power makes that a scary prospect.

Currently available on Netflix Instant.

17.) Why Don’t You Play In Hell? (Sion Sono)

                For most of its running time, Why Don’t You Play In Hell? follows two separate threads. The first focuses on a gang war, where the daughter of one crimelord dreams of being a movie star. She became famous as a little girl for a toothpaste commercial (with an absurdly catchy jingle), but her career was quickly sidetracked after her mother goes to prison for massacring a group of rival gang members. The second focuses on a group of amateur filmmakers who call themselves “The Fuck Bombers” who dream of making a film but in the last decade have only produced a single trailer. Both storylines follow characters stuck in a golden age of film, and Sion Sono similarly uses Why Don’t You Play In Hell? to mourn the death of celluloid while recognizing the dangers of romanticizing the past. The two storylines converge in a glorious finale that brings this message to the forefront, refusing to allow these characters to live in the past any longer.

16.) Beside Still Waters (Chris Lowell)

                The central themes of Chris Lowell’s debut features line up so exactly with my own personal fascinations that it’s difficult for me to tell how well the film will play for anyone out there who isn’t lucky enough to be me. With that said, I adore this film. Any film about childhood friends reuniting for a weekend is destined to earn comparisons to The Big Chill, but where that film attempted to be a touchstone of an entire generation, Beside Still Waters tells a more specific story about the emptiness of nostalgia. It’s clear that life hasn’t gone exactly as planned for any of these characters, and their reunion seems less like a happy get-together and more like a desperate attempt to correct new problems with old solutions. It’s a premise that could go wrong so easily (as it did in About Alex, also from last year), but Lowell and his incredible cat nail it in just about every way that counts.

Tomorrow, I will posting #15-11, so come back then.