2014’s silver screen
I do like a good film and looking back through my last-year’s ticket stubs it appears we’ve been particularly well served by the movie industry in all genres. The year kicked-off in a surprising manner with grizzled leading-man Robert Redford appearing in what turned out to be a quasi-silent, one-actor thriller, All is Lost. Set completely in a damaged and sinking boat in the middle of nowhere, the ‘will he/won’t he survive’ question grips you until the very final wave. And did he or didn’t he? 12 Years A Slave was essential viewing but was it just me who found it all a bit worthy and self-serving?
Irrespective of the 70s dress sense and ill-fitting toupee, American Hustle was undoubtedly the sexiest, most seductive film of the year and the eventual ‘sting’ was almost up there with the Robert Redford/Paul Newman film of the same name. Matthew McConaughey continued his progression to Hollywood immortality (started with Killer Joe) in his tremendous portrayal of the hellraising, trailblazing AIDS drug campaigner, Ron Woodroof. I’ve just watched the trailer again and the Dallas Buyer Club truly has everything you could wish to see on celluloid. And a lot you’d rather not. I quite enjoyed the tense Gone Girl even though I find it hard to really get-into a movie if I don’t warm-to the principal protagonists…which you find out towards the end is exactly the point of this film! Perhaps like a lot of us, they have everything and they have nothing. The same rationale applied to Cold In July where I found myself unable to get past Richard Dane Dexter’s mullet. Not to mention the baseball bat scene.
Babadook. Babadook. Babadook. Great horror films make you do more than merely jump or check under the bed. They claw at your very primal instincts for survival and make you question our place on this earth. The low budget Australian horror flick, Babadook, achieved this in spades and stands head-and-shoulders above all else as the horror delight of 2014. This brilliantly acted, emotionally engaging movie is both genuinely scary and its lingering sense of dread will stay with you for weeks. Was Scarlett Johansson’s Under the Skin alien piece a horror movie or not? Was it an enigmatic, idiosyncratic and well-paced delight? Or slow, confused, pretentious, disjointed and not worth the entrance money? No, I don’t know either. What I do know is that the two hours of my life that was spent snoozing through Inside Llewyn Davis I’ll never get back. When a director has to resort to losing a pet cat to inject some warmth or human interest you know you’re onto a loser.
The movies which surprised me the most this year included The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Boxtrolls, Mr Turner and Maps to the Stars. All, perhaps because of my low initial expectations, massively over-delivered and all are worthy of both your money and your time. Wes Anderson’s TGBH is a fantastically witty, sharp, enchanting comic revelation in which Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray have to be seen to be believed. Forget everything you know about children’s animated films for TB where a loving & supportive community of box-wearing trolls are hounded to near extinction by the arrogant, self-obsessed cheese-worshipping locals. Magical. You’re probably already sick-to-death of hearing about Timothy Spall’s curmudgeonly performance of the eponymous Mr Turner but it really deserves a further mention and what he lacks in the love-making department he more than makes up for everywhere elsewhere. As far as I’m concerned Margate has been recovered for the national good and Tracy Emin is banished forever. The best of the bunch though is MttS and, as a movie, it really shouldn’t work, it really shouldn’t. Comprising of all of Hollywood’s blatant & universally accepted stereotypes, it should in theory be merely a tawdry re-run of everything we’ve seen before and everything we expect, but its depictions are sooo extreme, sooo cynical and sooo out-there that it turns out to be one of the most watchable films I’ve ever seen. Julianna Moore and John Cusack deserve everything they get. And more.
Which brings me to my favourite three movies of the year. Now, I know you’re going to think this is contrived and pretentious, as all three are foreign language movies, but it’s just the way it is and I make no apology for that. Maybe because of the lack of budget and Hollywood influence they concentrate more on story and dialogue? Anyway, in third place is the staggeringly good, A Touch of Sin. Jia Zhangke’s harrowing depiction of four individual lives in today’s emerging China is, at times, painful to watch but should be made compulsory. It’s a cinematic exploration of the world’s relentless industrial and capitalistic policies writ large. As we sow so shall we reap. Thankfully, on a much lighter note is India’s The Lunchbox which, as a sucker for an old-fashioned love story, captivated me from the first vividly colourful frames. You leave the cinema reeking of turmeric, cumin and coriander. And it doesn’t end like you think it’s going to. So, without further ado I give you this year’s #1 movie, Serbia’s wonderfully dark black comedy, A Monument to Michael Jackson. Trust me, put away any preconceptions and prejudices you may have about subtitles and go hunt it out. A story of ordinary people, doing extraordinary things, you won’t be disappointed.
