(Going to do something a little different this year. Sometimes, I don’t have much to say about films besides a verbal shrug, and sometimes I want to talk about films until your ears bleed, and that doesn’t really lend itself well to a film-by-film approach. So: for every ten that I watch, I’ll look back and see what stood out.)
Night Moves (2013)
This was a thriller with an interesting premise that utterly fell apart in the final third. There’s an interesting approach to environmentalism here - the protagonists are all diehard ecowarriors, but the film takes care not to condescend - but beyond that, it’s all just a little flat. Jesse Eisenberg is basically just playing Jesse Eisenberg with fewer lines.
The Congress (2013)
This barely came out anywhere during its 2013 release (the Alamo Drafthouse chains showed it, but that’s presumably because Drafthouse Films helped finance it), but it’s a beautiful hidden gem that has this sense of creeping escalation. To begin with, it seems like a humdrum science fiction premise: Robin Wright (playing a fictionalised version of herself) is pressured into signing over her likeness and digitised performance in exchange for a fat paycheck and a future with no more work. From there, it all gets a little strange - without ruining it, there are some significant jumps forward in time and the last hour or so of the movie is fully animated. It’s not perfect - at times, it’s a little too clever for its own good - but it’s jaw-dropping in its beauty and has a central performance that’s utterly spellbinding.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
I had no idea that Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield had been in a gay relationship the whole time.
Frank (2014)
This film holds a strange place in my heart - the titular character, played by Michael Fassbender under a giant papier-mache head, is based on the comedic persona of Chris Sievey, a Manchester-based surreal comic who died of cancer back in 2010. This isn’t a biography, though; it’s more of a celebration of an idea. Frank Sidebottom (or just Frank, in the movie) was one of those characters who was so bizarrely out there that you often weren’t sure why you were laughing. Both the real persona and the film embrace surrealism at its finest; laid bare in the film is the idea that art should be made for art’s sake, regardless of whether or not anyone will actually like it. It ended up being oddly inspiring by the end.
Wetlands (2013)
Still not sure how I feel about this one. It’s a German film based on the memoir of Charlotte Roche, and it's incredibly gross - one of the key plot elements involves an anal fissure, and this is the first film in a while where I’ve had to look away from the screen at a particularly disgusting moment. Having said that, it does feel like there’s a point to it all; Helen, the protagonist, has a very matter-of-fact relationship with bodily function that ties in well to the film’s wider subject matter. Carla Juri, playing her, is a brilliant actress. This definitely isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s certainly interesting.
Metro Manila (2013)
I put this off for a long time because it has a really boring title, but this is an incredible film, and probably the only one on this list that I could recommend without any reservation whatsoever. It’s a thriller that keeps an extremely tight focus throughout, while finding beauty in the strangest things. It’s also on Netflix, so you should watch this immediately.
Wild (2014)
To be insultingly reductive, this kind of plays out like a female-led On The Road, but that in itself is enough to give you a moment’s pause; watching this made me realise quite how few female-driven films there are that don’t have romance as the key plot conceit. There’s a relationship in here, sure, but it’s fractured and a secondary concern to the protagonist’s immediate concern - specifically, that she’s made the decision to walk the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail with very little preparation. It’s based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of the same name, and it’s a very welcome return for Reese Witherspoon. In the weeks since I watched this, there are one or two points that are less than perfect. Ultimately, though, that doesn’t matter because more films like this deserve to exist and they don’t. Screw you, Kerouac.
Godzilla (2014)
Eh. A bit of a mess. Very good creature design, some stunning setpieces, and Elizabeth Olsen lent some much-needed humanity to the whole thing, but it was overlong and stupid in the parts that it needed to be a little brighter.
Noah (2014)
I loved this. I loved how unashamedly weird it was, and Logan Lerman’s adorable British accent, and Emma Watson’s pregnancy wail, and Clint Mansell’s score, and the VFX in this were incredible. The film understands that we know how this story goes, and uses that familiarity to subvert expectations in its bombastic and beautiful delivery. I am amazed this got made - there’s a brutality to it that you don’t really see in blockbusters (and this cost $125 million to make, so it’s definitely that). It’s not perfect - things end on a bit of a twee note, and Jennifer Connelly seems strangely cast - but it’s certainly testament to what a visionary director can do with a hell of a lot of money.
Philomena (2014)
This was sweet and predictable and Judi Dench was really good in it. There’s nothing particularly special about it - somewhat ironically, the film itself becomes the kind of “human interest story” that Steve Coogan’s journalist lead sneers at - but it’s a very good example of a certain kind of film. It never languishes, and it never lays it on too thick, but it’s not reaching to great new heights. It’s just nice. It’s the kind of film I’d happily watch with my parents.