The top 10 films of 2014 was a lot harder of a list to make than I thought. While it’s always nice to put together a list after you’ve let the year settle in your mind, it also allows for crammed screenings and long thoughts about what should make it. For me this list proved more challenging than most years because not only did I have to consider latecomers, but I had movies that spanned from Sundance in January as well as movie I’d see at festivals as far as two years ago that finally received distribution (I go by calendar year of release).
Well we’ve finally heard from the Academy on what they consider some of the best in film this year and like most Oscar nomination mornings we got some shocks. I didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn to look at that Oscar nominations but when I finally saw them, I instantly let out a chortle. Let’s dig into the nominees with some analysis.
‘Twas the night before Oscar nominations and all the bloggers/critics/awards enthusiasts are hedging their bets at what will be announced tomorrow. For me, this has been one incredibly interesting phase 1 with films like Nightcrawler, American Sniper and The Grand Budapest Hotel making strong cases while the likes of Unbroken and Fury have faded a bit. There are so many ways the awards can go given that all categories are being announced live. Will we get 9 Best Picture nominations again? Will one of the big front runners miss? We’ll just have to wait and see.
You all don’t know what pain is until you attempt to vote on awards or do best of lists. 2014 in particular proved to be an incredibly difficult year to narrow down and so before I unleash my top 10 films of 2014 and personal ballot choices into the world, I wanted to pour a bit out for the stuff I had to leave off.
If there was a movie definition of the word bristling, Mommy would certainly be the representation. This movie, directed by Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan, is brash, aggressive, and all-consuming, yet there’s never a moment you aren’t caught up in its spell. It’s one thing to make a movie that’s incredibly charged with energy, populated with characters who are at once repulsive and magnetic, but quite another to add the humanist element that makes you extremely invested in the movie.
Movies can often stir up emotions and speak to a current culture’s issues and climate. Often times this is a conscious choice, but in the case of a film like Selma, which comes at a time where protests and racial conditions have factored into the news cycle, a film can hit a portion of the zeitgeist. Thankfully for audiences Selma is more than just a film that people are using to explain the now, it’s a wonderfully made picture with crackling energy and a larger than life performance at the helm.