Deviation Actions
) - the overblown, massive rambling self-indulgence in which I rave about all the movies I loved the most over 2014. I did BRIEFLY think about just getting it over and done with and posting it all in ONE GO, but it's TWENTY-ONE PAGES in Word! 
So as usual I'm gonna be posting it in THREE parts. And so, of course, here we go with the LOWER ten - not the BEST movies of the past year, but every single one a cracker which I can't recommend enough. So the half dozen people who usually read these things should, hopefully, feel at least REASONABLY inspired to check out some of the underdogs, yeah? 
AAAAAAANYWAYS, as usual I present THE DISCLAIMER!! Basically, this is all MY OWN point of view, these aren't necessarily the BEST movies I saw, just the ones I loved the most and that made the biggest impression on me. I'd love to hear other folks' opinions on what they think about my choices, anything they might think I missed, and all that stuff, but as always I PLEAD with you to of course be kind. Okies?
30. THE WIND RISES – much as in 2014’s summer Top 10, we kick off with the beautiful but bittersweet swansong of Hayao Miyazaki, undisputed master of anime and one of my very favourite directors, who retired this year after long-bandied rumours due to his deteriorating eyesight. The film is a suitably personal, near-autobiographical work, his own astonishing career reflected by that of main protagonist Jirô Horikoshi, the true-life visionary genius who designed the Japanese air-force’s legendary World War II Zero fighter-bomber. While his creation was used to attack Pearl Harbour, Jirô was himself a man of peace, a naive soul often at odds with the world around him, far more at home in his dreams, or in the simple pleasure of the creative process – through him, Miyazaki has truly found a character through which he can tell the world who HE really is. The film is also, of course, an homage to his own first and greatest love, flight itself, his most telling ode since Porco Rosso, although this enjoys much grander scope and a calmer, more introspective pace, with a narrative happy to let the world breathe and evolve around the characters. Miyazaki is a director whose best moments concern the little things, the subtle details, polarised in one particularly exquisite sequence revolving around Jirô’s experimentation to create a perfect paper airplane, just one of many spellbinding beats throughout the film. The result is one of the director’s finest features to date, at turns achingly beautiful, heartbreakingly moving and restively tranquil, and a true benchmark of Studio Ghibli itself. Like all his fans I truly hope this proves simply another false alarm, but if the Walt Disney of Japan really has retired from the game, I couldn’t think of a better film for him to go out on.
29. ‘71 – Jack O’Connell’s come a long way from playing headstrong yob Cook in Skins – Boxing Day saw him playing legendary Japanese POW-camp survivor Louie Zamperini in Unbroken, while earlier in the year he wowed us with his incendiary turn in prison drama Starred Up, but for me THIS is the best thing I’ve seen him in to date. Yann Demange (director of Charlie Brooker’s awesome Big Brother spoof-with-zombies Dead Set) has created a deceptively compact period suspense thriller which sees O’Connell’s raw Royal Army recruit Gary dispatched to the front-line of war-torn 1971 Belfast, charged with keeping the angry locals under control while the police raid houses in search of the IRA. When a riot breaks out and Gary is separated from his unit, he finds himself lost, unarmed and completely surrounded by enemies, with only the dubious help of duplicitous army intelligence officer Captain Browning (Sean Harris at his repellent best) to see him home, and with a pack of vengeful young IRA gunmen on his trail, he probably won’t survive the night. As behind-enemy-lines thrillers go this is one of the best I’ve seen in years, Demange cranking up impressively palpable tension throughout, and a typically excellent O’Connell easily makes us root for Gary and pray he makes it home even as the odds stack higher against him. There are some outstanding set-pieces, particularly a pulse-pounding foot-chase through narrow streets and abandoned houses, and a horrific-yet-masterfully-realised pub bombing played out entirely in one gritty, concussed shot. The pace is maintained on a razor’s edge, but Demange and screenwriter Gregory Burke also pass stealthy comment on the conflict itself, examining points of view from all-sides with such subtle skill you absorb the information almost without even realising you’re being educated. Hard questions are asked, but none of the answers are easy, and in the end, like Gary himself, we’re just caught up in “a confused situation”. Maybe, but an exciting and rewarding one all the same.
28. WISH I WAS HERE – although best known as the star of hospital sitcom Scrubs, actor Zach Braff is also an accomplished writer/director, whose quirky indie comedy Garden State has built up a well-deserved cult following (and it’s a real favourite of mine too). A follow-up feature’s been a long time coming, but (thanks in no small part to an impressive Kickstarter campaign which surpassed its $2 million goal in just three days) the wait’s finally over, with Braff back in the director’s chair (and in front of the camera too) for this gentle and, yes, quirky comedy drama about growing up and facing our responsibilities. Braff plays struggling actor Aidan Bloom, still chasing a lifelong dream of making it big despite the pressures of raising a family, whose hopes suffer a major blow when his strict, old-fashioned Jewish father Gabe (Mandy Patinkin) tells him he’s got cancer and that he may well be dying. Worse, in order to pay for a radical, potentially life-saving treatment, he’s got to pull the funding he’s been using to send his grandchildren to a prestigious (and very Orthodox) private school, leaving Aidan and his wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) with no choice but the pull their kids out and start homeschooling them. While not as good as Garden State, WIWH is still several steps above the average indie comedy, with Braff crafting an involving story and a collection of intriguing characters; meanwhile, in front of the camera he’s an appealingly awkward man-child, imbuing Aidan with a lovable hangdog vibe and a fine line in quiet exasperation as his dreams go tits up. He’s also supported by a winning cast – Hudson is sweet but steely, Patinkin as stately and gruffly charismatic as ever, Joey King (White House Down, the Fargo TV series) and Pierce Gagnon (Looper) are both excellent as Aidan and Sarah’s daughter and son Grace and Tucker, and Josh Gad quietly steals the film as Aidan’s super-intelligent but unrepentantly lazy little brother Noah, while there’s a fun cameo from a surprisingly NON-neurotic Jim Parsons (Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory) as Aidan’s actor friend Paul. It’s a funny movie, but the humour is the same kind of understated, quietly left-field observational quirkiness Braff coined in Garden State, and it shares its predecessor’s wealth of heart and emotional heft, especially in the moving final act. On the evidence it’s safe to say Braff’s still got it in spades – hopefully he won’t leave us waiting so long for his next one.
27. THE EQUALIZER – long before Liam Neeson reinvented himself as an elder action hero in Taken, Denzel Washington was a Man On Fire, and it’s a role he keeps returning to, seeming to relish playing worn-but-still-dangerous veteran bruisers still plying their trade well into their autumn years. So he doesn’t seem too outlandish a choice to succeed Edward Woodward in Training Day director Antoine Fuqua’s big screen adaptation of the classic 80s thriller show – he imbues retired CIA spook Robert McCall with a laconic charisma and restrained but playful sense of humour that belies the shark-eyed, coldly-efficient killing machine hidden under the surface, kept in check by stopwatch-controlled OCD. He spends his days working in Home Depot and his nights reading books in a Boston diner frequented by Kick-Ass star Chloe Grace Moretz’s cocky-but-sweet teen hooker, but when one of the girl’s Russian pimps puts her in the hospital McCall finds his special skill-set a fresh use ... inadvertently drawing the attentions of the East Coast Russian Mob and their sadistic, unpredictable enforcer “Teddy” (a quietly ferocious Marton Csokas), who just might be his physical and intellectual match. Denzel is mesmerizing here, completely inhabiting one of his best roles in years, but then he and Fuqua have worked very well together in the past (the director having overseen his leading Oscar-winning turn on Training Day), and he’s always looked fantastic dealing ingenious death to bad guys, which he does with gusto in a succession of fast and furious set-pieces culminating in a spectacular high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse in a darkened hardware megastore. But action aside, there’s far more emotional weight on display here too, with Fuqua and writer Richard Wenk proving equally adept at exploring the deeper complexities of McCall’s character and the simpler everyday world he’s built for himself and now fights to defend. Indeed, there’s much more depth of character here than you find in your average “man on fire” thriller, but this is a director who’s always made much more cerebral fare out of typically glossy blockbuster fare (Shooter, Tears of the Sun). A tense, gritty thrill-ride, then, but one with far more reward than you’d expect – here’s hoping this is just the start of a great thing, as the potential for a franchise here is very strong indeed.
26. LOCKE – this is one of those canny little high-concept movies that really sneaks up on you – Hummingbird writer/director Steven DeKnight’s micro-budget masterpiece is basically a night in the life of a blue collar worker filmed ENTIRELY in and around his car. The worker in question is Tom Hardy’s Ivan Locke, a construction foreman who inexplicably leaves the site of a mammoth project on the eve of its key foundation-pour with the intention of driving across the country to take care of a pressing personal matter – the whys and wherefores are skilfully revealed as Ivan attempts to micro-manage the site preparations, his uncomprehending family at home and the source of this sudden problem over his car phone, with each new, sometimes terrible development threatening to upend his previously perfectly-aligned little world. While there’s some sterling support from a talented cast of unseen actors over the phone, this is essentially a one-man show, and DeKnight could not have asked for a better leading man than Hardy – the star of Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises and the incoming Mad Max: Fury Road delivers his best performance to date, effortlessly holding the camera and the audience’s attention throughout the entirety of the film’s brief-but-packed running time with a perfectly nuanced performance of extraordinary subtlety and visible restraint, Locke being a supremely controlled perfectionist who works incredibly hard to keep a hidden reserve of powerful feelings tightly bottled up. He’s the perfect everyman lead for DeKnight, the writer of Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises once again proving he’s one of the premier storytelling talents in British cinema. A perfect little gem of a film.
25. THE BOOK OF LIFE – he may not have directed this fascinating little curio of animated majesty, but producer Guillermo Del Toro’s DNA is shot through it all the same. Playing like a love letter to the folklore of his native Mexico, it uses the Day of the Dead festival as a kickoff point to explore themes of love, loss and familial duty versus personal dreams as “death gods” La Muerte (seductive Kate del Castillo) and Xibalba (Del Toro’s lucky charm Ron Perlman) make a secret bet on who will win the heart of free spirit Maria (Zoe Saldana) – shy novice bullfighter Manolo (Diego Luna) or super-confident would-be town sheriff Joaquin (Channing Tatum). Things look good for underdog Manolo, who has a gentle heart and a secret dream of being a mariachi singer, but when Xibalba feels threatened he cheats, landing Manolo in a deathly underworld with no choice but to face a series of supernatural ordeals if he ever hopes to see his beloved again. The consistently excellent vocal cast, featuring the cream of Latin American acting talent (everyone from Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo to the great Placido Domingo), perfectly compliment an exquisitely crafted world teaming with beautifully offbeat, stylised character, creature and set design – everything’s been crafted to look like a chunky woodcut puppet theatre, but rendered in smooth, fluid CGI – meaning this was certainly the year’s most visually striking and original film; meanwhile director Jorge R. Gutierrez and co-writer Douglas Langdale have crafted a deeply romantic fairytale filled with compelling characters, challenging questions and crafty answers. Granted, the hit-and-miss rate of the songs is varied, but when they work they really work, and the film makes a virtue of taking gutsy risks and winning far more often than it loses. Great fun for all the family then, this one, and a great way to enlighten the wider world about the rich mythology of a vibrant culture. One of 2014’s best and brightest surprises.
24. EXODUS: GODS & KINGS – Christmas was an interesting time to release a new film account of the classic Biblical tale of Moses and the Ten Plagues of Egypt, but with the year’s final holiday season becoming something of a second blockbuster season this proved a suitably epic offering. Marking master auteur Ridley Scott’s return to the swords-and-sandals genre he resurrected with comeback masterpiece Gladiator, this is also his strongest film since the (much-improved) director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven, immediately putting memories of the striking but ultimately misfiring Prometheus to rest. Christian Bale is Moses, the Hebrew slave babe unwittingly adopted to live amongst the family of Pharaoh Seti (a particularly stately turn from John Turturro), raised like a brother to heir-apparent Ramses (Animal Kingdom’s Joel Edgerton) – the pair grow up to become near-inseparable, at least until Moses’ true past is revealed and he’s forced to flee into exile in the wilds of Canaan. There he marries and starts a family, only for fate to come calling in the form of a burning bush, as God charges him with freeing his people and leading them to their Promised Land. As you’d expect, Scott plays this pretty straight and keeps even the most outlandish fantasy elements as grounded as possible – to start off Moses trains the Hebrews to wage a guerrilla war of attrition against their masters, God only stepping in to speed things along with an increasingly brutal series of natural (and occasionally SUPERNATURAL) plagues that chip away at the Egyptians’ resolve; all the while former friends-turned bitter enemies Moses and Ramses spit and rail against one another, neither willing to back down. Bale and Edgerton are both on top form, crafting complex, challenging takes on their roles, up to the point that you’re no longer sure WHICH side is really in the right anymore, and between them they effortlessly propel the film to a spectacular climax with the parting of the Red Sea. The battles, vistas and digital money-moments are as magnificent as you’d expect, both from Scott and IMAX at its best, to the extent that with this alone Biblical epics are in the best shape they’ve been in for years ... and with luck this is an indication that one of cinema’s mightiest directing talents is back on form with a vengeance. I for one am REALLY looking forward to The Martian on the basis of this ...
23. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL – The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my top five all-time favourite comedy films, the gem in the filmography of one of the most distinctive writer/directors in the business today, Wes Anderson – a filmmaker I for one just can’t get enough of. With this latest offering his track record remains untarnished – this is easily one of his best films to date, and definitely one of the comedy highlights in 2014. Once again using the framing device of a quaint old novel, it presents the larger-than-life adventures of Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes, clearly having a ball in one of his most memorable and enjoyably offbeat roles), concierge of the eponymous hotel and unofficial “gigolo” to a variety of elderly, super-rich female clients, as seen through the eyes of hero/narrator Zero (F. Murray Abraham in his adult years, but mainly portrayed by an astonishing performance from newcomer Tony Revolori). To give away too much of the endearingly outlandish plot is to ruin much of a enjoyment, suffice to say it includes murder, intrigue, missing priceless paintings and delicious pastries – this is classic Anderson, in which he concocts a delightfully whimsical and thoroughly endearing fantasy world that you just want to LIVE IN for a couple of hours, populated by weird and wonderful characters endlessly spouting sharply witty dialogue. Indeed, the full quota of classic Anderson regulars are all on hand – Adrien Body, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman and, of course, good-luck-charm Bill Murray – as well as a spunky turn from “newcomer” Saoirse Ronan as Zero’s pastry-chef girlfriend Agatha. As always, this is thoroughly endearing stuff, and anyone with heart, soul and a love of wonder will be spellbound from start to finish ... and of course, it is consistently, riotously FUNNY. 
Another solid gold offering from one of the kings of the genre.
22. CALVARY – following the impressive sleeper success of his marvellous debut feature The Guard, writer/director John Michael McDonaugh cements his place as one of the premier new comedy filmmakers with this sly comedy drama about a small town priest on a provincial Irish island. Brendan Gleeson delivers the performance of his career as Father James, a world-weary but cuddly teddy bear of a man whose world quietly falls apart when he’s told, in confessional, by one of his parishioners that he’s going to be murdered in a week’s time. Jack’s a good, honest, forthright man, but then, as the would-be killer says, there’s no shock-value in killing a bad priest, so he has just seven days to put his affairs in order while he tries to go about his daily grind and deal with a cry-for-help suicide attempt by his estranged daughter (Sherlock Holmes’ Kelly Reilly, born before he took his vows). There’s sterling support from an excellent cast that also includes The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd, Game of Thrones’ Aiden Gillen, Shaun of the Dead’s Dylan Moran and a particularly fascinating, edgy cameo from Gleeson’s own son Domhnall (Frank, Ex-Machina, soon to be seen in Star Wars). The pace is pretty glacial, but this is one of those films where the fun’s in the details, with some well-realised characters and some of the funniest, sharpest, most biting dialogue to come along this past year ... seriously, this film is ACHINGLY funny, albeit cut with a strong dash of bittersweet poignancy, regret and heartbreak, particularly in the powerful, thought-provoking climax. Comedy doesn’t come much smarter than this.
21. HER – Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze returns with this quirkily prescient comment on life and love in the digital age. In the near future, newly-divorced “letter writer” Theo (Joaquin Phoenix) purchases a revolutionary new operating system in order to get his life organised – Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), a super-smart, sparklingly witty genuine artificial intelligence who evolves from his secretary into his live-in confidante and (most intriguingly) lover. In most hands this could have wandered into mawkish, puerile or shamefully sugary territory, or twisted halfway through into a dark sci-fi thriller regarding the perils of technology, but in Jonze’s hands this is a thoughtful, gentle exploration of our increasing disconnect from real flesh-and-blood encounters as we delve further into digital social communications tools and resources. More importantly it’s a sweet, uncomplicated love story born of a decidedly leftfield concept, appropriately cute, funny, moving and heartbreaking throughout. Phoenix carries the film heroically, his performing primarily with an unseen partner meaning most of his scenes are solo acts, and we laugh, cry, yearn and mourn along with him; Johansson, meanwhile, proves just as memorable, her husky voice and bubbly giggle just two of the vocal weapons she’s able to employ to effortlessly capture our attention. They were easily one of the year’s most lovable screen couples, meshing so seamlessly we quickly forget how unconventional their relationship actually is. Amy Adams provides welcome support as Theo’s software-developer friend Amy, herself a lost soul in need of connection who’s nothing but supportive of Theo’s choice of companion, while Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde and Rooney Mara also make strong impressions. Challenging, thoughtful and endlessly charming, this is one of the smartest and most original sci-fi films in years.
Sooooooo anyways ... there we go so far, I will of course make an effort to post the NEXT instalment, from 20 to 11, tomorrow, and then the final TOP TEN on Sunday. Meantime, hope you guys enjoy ...
HerE we go! Part two's HERE:
2014 in Movies - My Top 30 (Part 2)So, part TWO of my massively overblown and overgrown rundown of all my favourite movies of the past year, presented in three parts! For the half dozen people who bother reading these things when I do them (
Anyways, ONCE AGAIN I present THE DISCLAIMER!!
20. GODZILLA – in 2010, virtual-unknown visual effects artist (Walking With Dinosaurs) Gareth Edwards blew minds with his stunning directorial debut Monsters, which deservedly became a major sleeper hit. Naturally Holly
