If I were to identify a theme present in most of the films on my top-10 this year it would be genre films that
managed approach things from an interesting angle or simply films with familiar trappings that completely subverted my expectations. I guess as someone who see's a lot of movies, reads about a lot of
movies, and ends up writing about a lot of movies, I want to be
surprised, and this list consists of the ten best surprises I
encountered this year.
Forget the loaded titled that sparked
a short-lived Twitter campaign, this debut feature from writer/director Justin Simien is one of the sharpest and smartest
comedic satires about race since Spike Lee's “Do The Right Thing." “Dear White People” examines
culture-clash in a post-racial America through a nuanced lens of
youthful identity panic and turns what could have been a simple and
predictable story about a racially divided college into a universal
message about learning how to define yourself instead of living up
to the expectations of others.
From
South Korean genre director Bong joon-ho comes his first English
language film, a multinational post-apocalyptic action thriller about
a team of survivors fighting their way through a train that separates
the worlds population by class as they get closer to the engine room. There they hope to find a path to freedom and equality.
This is an unapologetic, bleak vision of our world's current
Geo-political mess, in which joon-ho refuses to supply any easy
answers. Filled with shocking blasts of action violence and
beautifully arranged set-pieces, “Snowpiercer” takes the tropes
of a familiar hero story and forces the audience to examine difficult
political questions.
Set in small
town, rural America, this mini-budge revenge tale is another film
that leaves you guessing all the way through. Almost a Coen Brothers
archetype, our protagonist is an unassuming, ill-equipped nebish who
takes on more than he is capable of dealing with when trying to right
the wrongs between two warring families. While the tone or look of
the film never suggests overt comedy, the priceless scenes of actor
Macon Blair fumbling through learning how to shoot guns, dispose of a
bodies and hide from his pursuers creates a nervous laughter
throughout.
There
have been plenty of indie flicks about young couples who're stuck in
a vacation home to work through their relationship problems, but
never one as chilling and surreal as director Charlie McDowell and
writer Justin Lader's “The One I Love.” Mark Duplass and
Elizabeth Moss are sent to vacation house per recommendation of a
counselor and after some drinking and music they find that the house
provides a type of strange existential therapy that can't easily be explained. I don't want to say too much because going on the ride is
all the better when you don't know anything about it. All I
will say is that the movie takes an absurd premise and follows it to
it's natural extremes, and does so without overshadowing the original theme of
what it takes for a young marriage to resolve problems of trust
and communication.
David
Fincher's adaptation of Gillian Flynn's popular airport novel “Gone
Girl” also examines trust issues between sorted lovers. Fincher is
a master at work here, as he takes what could have been a overwrought
and over-written B-movie, and through his own cinematic brilliance, he confidently guides us through a brooding noir yarn that somehow
manages to jump the shark three times and recover just as
quick.
Indie veteran and
uber-cool NY hipster Jim Jarmusch made a film about rock and roll, vampire
junkies and reworked a well-worn and tired cinematic myth to create a
sarcastic and post-modern world of his own. Tilda Swinton and Tom
Hiddleston are captivating as bored shut-ins who have to live
their lonely lives away from the public that worships them. Jarmusch's romantically lit vision of the deteriorating industrial
neighborhoods of Detroit also suggests that these character's observations
about the generational and economic changes in high/low culture has
had a measurable effect on America's global relevance.
Jake Gyllenhaal
gives his best performance yet in Dan Gilroy's black-as-coal media
satire “Nightcrawler.” Here he plays Luis Bloom, a desperate and eager swindler who goes to uncomfortable lengths to film the fallout of
crime scenes before his competitors get there first. Gilroy
compares the hunger to succeed with a sociopaths lack of empathy, creating a nocturnal LA milieu where the loners and losers rule the
city.
Forget those warm
and fuzzy flicks about an older mentor and his younger talented
protegee looking for words of wisdom. Damien Chazelle's “Whiplash”
re-examines this familiar set-up as an abusive and epic power
struggle. Miles Teller as the masochistic and ambitious college jazz
drummer and JK Simmons as his Hannibal-Lector-like teacher steal the
air from every scene as they fill their spaces full of raw and
tangible tension, boiling to a fever pitch until arriving at one of
the best movie ending of last decade.
Richard
Linklater's twelve year project about a Texas boy growing up in a
broken family creates an emotional scope far larger than the average
coming-of-age drama usually aspires. By watching these actors age on
camera and by composing each scene as a mini narrative within the larger context of someone's life, this movie becomes a living photo
album full of the key memories that define who we are--be it the big moments that
change everything or the small, insignificant moments that we forget
as time passes.
Unlike anything
else this year, this intimate sci-fi horror slinked it's way into
brain and never let me go. Scarlett Johansson says very little as a
predatory vixen who roams the poorly lit streets of Scotland
looking for her prey. Without explicitly trying, British director
Jonathan Glazer illustrates a compelling allegory about sexual power
dynamics and gender politics, wrapped in a sensual thriller that will possess a patient audience with it's icy atmosphere and nightmarish
visuals.
Honorable Mentions:
Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stranger by the Lake, Birdman, Foxcatcher, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Obvious Child, Locke
Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Jan-2015
