Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
You know what? I loved this. I love most of the Marvel movies - if nothing else, because the state of tentpole blockbusters before they came along was a little dire, Dark Knight trilogy excluded. (Hancock came out in 2008.) This did some interesting stuff with the characters, was expertly paced, and even the final fifteen minutes (where everything devolves into explosions and massive destruction) provided for some brilliant setpieces. Definitely got me excited for the next Avengers film, at least.
Boyhood (2014)
I rented this out of impatience, and I’m glad I did. I loved every minute of it - the gimmick (that it was filmed for a couple of weeks every year for twelve years) quickly fades away, and you’re left with a series of great performances and a story that reveals itself slowly. Oddly, the character I felt the strongest empathetic pull for was the protagonist’s mother, played by Patricia Arquette; there’s a scene toward the end that was particularly powerful, and stuck in my mind for a few days afterward. Altogether, though, it’s a masterwork; so much about this film could have been cloying, or weird, or awkwardly nostalgic, but it somehow skips all of that and gets to something more genuine and honest. Of the films on this list of 10, it’s probably the one I’d recommend the most.
Blade (1998)
Did I like this? Yes, absolutely. Is it a good film? Probably. Is it extremely cheesy, and is Wesley Snipes playing something of a caricature of a moody action hero? Definitely. The film sags a little in the middle, but it’s very fun. And more than a little stupid.
The Impossible (2012)
I think Fran characterised this best as a film-long anxiety attack; so genuine and heartfelt are the performances of Tom Holland and Ewan McGregor (in that order) that I had to pause it once or twice just to ground myself. Taking place in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, it’s not perfect; you get the nagging sense that maybe a few more Thai faces should be around (or, you know, more than four), and the script is kind of terrible, but in the heat of the moment those quibbles fade away, replaced with pure, unadulterated emotion. There are a couple of moments where I wept.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
I tried, but I guess I just don’t like Mel Brooks (having seen now the triumvirate of The Producers, Blazing Saddles and this). There’s something about his pacing, and the obviousness of his jokes, and the all-around mood that I can’t quite gel with. I think my main issue is that these are films; so much of his films feel like collections of sketches with a thin premise tying it all together, and I think I need a little more if I’m going to sit through something for two hours. I’m willing to accept that it might just be me, though.
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Oh, this was silly. There’s this phenomenon you run into sometimes in Hollywood, where two films with extraordinarily similar premises are kind of filmed in tandem, and the reasons are kept under the radar; the most recent I can think of is the coincidental co-production of Repo! The Genetic Opera, a musical in which artificial organs are sold by a huge corporation and repossessed if owners don’t meet their payments, and Repo Men, a thriller in which artificial organs are sold by a huge corporation and repossessed if owners don’t meet their payments. The Thirteenth Floor is a science fiction film about living in a simulation that was made at the same time as The Matrix, and while it differs in a few key ways (no-one wakes up to a dystopia, things begin in an artificial 1937), the bones of the film are a little too similar to discount. The Matrix is also, uh, better.
Chef (2014)
Don’t watch this hungry. I was a little skeptical about the idea of Jon Favreau having Sofía Vergara as an ex-wife and Scarlett Johansson as a maybe-sort-of girlfriend, but then he gets to work cooking, and it all suddenly makes a weird sort of sense. This is shame-free food porn, and it’s wonderful. There’s also a nice little story in there about a father and son, and about taking pride in your work, but it takes a back seat when things get a little too intense. A good film to watch if you want to unwind. After you’ve eaten.
Horns (2014)
This was shit.
Gloria (2013)
This is a fairly quiet Chilean romance drama about an aging divorcée who finds love after twelve years of drifting, only to have that love complicated by a number of external factors. It’s heartbreakingly sad at times, but also strangely uplifting, and features some of the most remarkable sex scenes I’ve seen in a while - remarkable in that it portrays sex between two older people as something erotic and intimate, rather than comedic or disgusting. I will say that it moves quite slowly, and could have maybe done with a couple of extraneous cuts, but overall it’s a welcome portrayal of a character we tend not to see in cinema.
Obvious Child (2014)
Speaking of welcome portrayals, I was ten kinds of ready to not enjoy this (and it feels disingenuous to call it this, but) abortion comedy, and this film blew all of those expectations away. This was sweet, and honest, and a New York comedy with a Jewish lead that has nothing to do with Woody Allen, and above all it was funny in a way that didn’t rely on cynicism or misery to get its point across. Jenny Slate delivers a wonderful performance, and I really hope this launches a long film career; she’s got a lot to give.