We’ve only a few hours left to enjoy 2014, and I admittedly have a few more movies to watch before I’m in tip-top shape for awards season. Plugged In (my day job) will be trotting out its own movie award nominees in a couple of weeks, and the Denver Film Critics Society (to which I belong) will unfurl its own “best of” list soon, as well.
I don’t think there’ll be a lot of overlap.
Good art (which the DFCS cares about) and good messages (Plugged In’s bread and butter) don’t always go together, unfortunately, and this year seemed to have fewer movies that combined both. It didn’t feel like a super-strong year for film to begin with, quite honestly, and given the sort of bleak tone that many of the year’s best flicks embodied … well, that made 2014 a tricky year for a faith-driven sentimentalist like me.
Even so, there were some gems out there. What follows is my very personal, very subjective list of 10 of my faves—in alphabetical order and linked to any pertinent blog posts I’ve written about them. (If there’s not a link, I promise to blog on every film listed here before Oscar night.) Be warned: This is not a “family friendly” sort of list. This list contains rough-hewn, deeply challenging fare, and four of the films here are rated R. But for me, this list is nevertheless filled with movies that embody good art, hold worthwhile messages and some that I just plain liked.
So, without further blather, let’s begin. Or rather …
Begin Again: Mark Ruffalo’s getting a ton of praise for his work in Foxcatcher, and deservedly so. But his best performance was here—as a drunk, down-on-his-luck music producer to Keira Knightley’s broken-hearted singer/songwriter—was even better. Lots of language here, but the plot is so sweet and music so magical that even writing this little paragraph about it makes me smile.
Birdman: No movie made me think quite as much as this Michael Keaton-fronted movie. This strange, funny, brutally searing story follows a man as he searches for career redemption and, perhaps, personal salvation under the bright lights of Broadway.
Boyhood: A Best Picture front-runner, this flick directed by Richard Linklater took 12 years to make. It follows an introspective Texas boy (Ellar Coltrane as Mason) as he grows up and deals with girls, bad haircuts and a litany of troublesome stepfathers. Again, tons of language and bad behavior, and frankly, there’s not much of a plot. But that’s the point, and it makes for a resonant, bittersweet one indeed.
Calvary: A priest (Brendan Gleeson) gets a death threat from someone in his small, cynical Irish parish, setting in motion the worst week of the guy’s life. Calvary’s windswept, surprisingly funny story is a relentless indictment of religion (by the townsfolk, if not by the movie itself) that doubles as a pure, honest embrace of faith. I can’t wait to write about this in a bit more detail. Calvary probably won’t win any Oscars … but it should.
Guardians of the Galaxy: So, why do Oscar-worthy pictures always have to be so serious? Why not give the occasional shout-out to competent, well-crafted movies that people simply enjoy? Guardians is, for me, that kind of movie—a fun, exciting, deceptively moving flick that folks’ll be watching long after many of the year’s Oscar nominees are forgotten.
Interstellar: Not everyone liked this movie. In fact, I’ve talked with a couple of folks who hated it. But Christopher Nolan’s flawed, geeky space adventure/love story is a titanic visual, and surprisingly spiritual, achievement., laugh at Nolan’s fifth-dimensional musings all you want: I’m betting that in a decade, Interstellar will be considered a sci-fi classic.
The LEGO Movie: Can one unremarkable piece of plastic save the world? If he knows how to build a double-decker couch he can! The LEGO Movie is a cinematic paradox: It’s an unmistakable rejection of commercialism that doubles as a feature-length advertisement; an insistence that an ordinary schlep can also be amazing and precious and important. Hey, that sounds kinda like what the Bible says too, doesn’t it?
Selma: Great art, great performances, great messages … Selma has it all. This movie, which just came out in limited release on Christmas, focuses on the 1965 Civil Rights marches in Selma, Ala., led by Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo). This film is both educational and powerful, and it doesn’t overlook King’s flaws, his faith or the sacrifices he and others were willing to make in their long, dangerous drive toward equality.
St. Vincent: Vincent (played by Bill Murray) is a jerk. He might even admit to being a jerk. He drinks and gambles and generally treats people like … well, like a jerk would. But when he begins babysitting a young neighbor kid named Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), Oliver begins to see a side of Vincent that few ever do. And Oliver, dare we say, begins to help make Vincent a better person, too.
Unbroken: Angelina Jolie’s take on the life of Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), Unbroken is sweetly old-fashioned—so much so that it almost feels like it should’ve been filmed in black-and-white. Sure, I would’ve liked to see more of Zamparini’s story. But given the movie’s parameters, Unbroken worked well, giving us a truly inspiring hero and a happy ending.
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