16. What Maisie Knew – A quiet movie that comes so close to NOT working due to its need to sanctify Maisie’s saviors. But Julianne Moore’s ability to create something much more complex than a “monster mom” caricature turns what could have been a saccharine mess into a minor gem.
15. The Place Beyond the Pines - Melodrama, for good and for bad. In many ways, Cianfrance's commitment to creating mood and pathos overshadows the plot itself, which runs off the rails from time to time. But I like that this is such a sweeping, epic, novel-like story, and I like that it veers toward earnest dramatics over detached snark and irony. Sometimes appeals to emotion can be their own reward.
14. Give Me the Loot – Micro-budget indie film. I barely made it past the first few minutes due to amateur production values and acting that took a little time to adjust to. But I am very glad that I held strong. This is a fun heist/friendship movie that provides its racial/class commentary through observation, rather than heavy-handedness.
15. The Place Beyond the Pines - Melodrama, for good and for bad. In many ways, Cianfrance's commitment to creating mood and pathos overshadows the plot itself, which runs off the rails from time to time. But I like that this is such a sweeping, epic, novel-like story, and I like that it veers toward earnest dramatics over detached snark and irony. Sometimes appeals to emotion can be their own reward.
14. Give Me the Loot – Micro-budget indie film. I barely made it past the first few minutes due to amateur production values and acting that took a little time to adjust to. But I am very glad that I held strong. This is a fun heist/friendship movie that provides its racial/class commentary through observation, rather than heavy-handedness.
13. Blue is the Warmest Color – I liked it a lot. But now I’m going to criticize it. In a lot of ways the director's decision to avoid a "coming out" narrative and to create a more universal love story is an admirable one. One problem with this approach, though, is that the process of coming out DOES affect romantic relationships in a way that we don't really see here. I absolutely bough Adele's insatiable need for Emma, in spite of the relationship’s shortcomings. But I didn't buy that Emma would stay with Adele for all those years, enduring the indignity of being kept a secret, and serving as the entirety of Adele's lesbian existence. The strong sexual connection between the two women is helpful in revealing sex's temporary power to obscure deeper emotional chasms. But I felt I was being asked to believe that the love between these two characters went much deeper than the film had in fact shown us.
12. Short Term 12 - Veers every now and then into the danger zone of schmaltziness, but manages to escape the trap (just about) every time. In the end, this is an incredibly moving and thoughtful movie that earns the tears it jerks.
11. Before Midnight – I imagine that this film will rise up in my personal rankings as the years pass—it has certainly stuck with me in a way that many of these other films have not. To be honest, I think that my fear of turning into Jesse and Celine may be holding me back from completely surrendering myself. But yeah, it’s really, really good.
10. Gravity – This movie does not fully trust its audience’s intelligence. While Ryan Stone’s backstory works for me, the dialogue surrounding it is clunky, and the movie’s score pushes way too hard to indicate to viewers what they should be feeling. THAT SAID, the movie DOES make me feel. I was completely gripped and moved, overbearing score and all.
11. Before Midnight – I imagine that this film will rise up in my personal rankings as the years pass—it has certainly stuck with me in a way that many of these other films have not. To be honest, I think that my fear of turning into Jesse and Celine may be holding me back from completely surrendering myself. But yeah, it’s really, really good.
10. Gravity – This movie does not fully trust its audience’s intelligence. While Ryan Stone’s backstory works for me, the dialogue surrounding it is clunky, and the movie’s score pushes way too hard to indicate to viewers what they should be feeling. THAT SAID, the movie DOES make me feel. I was completely gripped and moved, overbearing score and all.
9. Fruitvale Station – Very simple, very effective. No, the dead dog foreshadowing probably was not necessary. But the otherwise mundane nature of Oscar Grant’s last day does help to reinforce the tragedy of this fate. I am a big fan.
8. Valentine Road – A very important documentary. It is less about an anti-trans hate crime, and more about the scores of regular people who enable such acts to take place again and again, and about a culture that sympathizes with perpetrators more than it does with their gay and trans victims. I may be making it sound more like bad-tasting medicine than a good documentary, but it really is a good documentary.
7. Sister – This Swiss movie has a lot of superficial similarities to The Kid with a Bike, the Iron List champ of 2013. I loved them both, but this film manages to explore similar territory while maintaining a very different, much warmer tone. In other words, wonderful in its own right.
8. Valentine Road – A very important documentary. It is less about an anti-trans hate crime, and more about the scores of regular people who enable such acts to take place again and again, and about a culture that sympathizes with perpetrators more than it does with their gay and trans victims. I may be making it sound more like bad-tasting medicine than a good documentary, but it really is a good documentary.
7. Sister – This Swiss movie has a lot of superficial similarities to The Kid with a Bike, the Iron List champ of 2013. I loved them both, but this film manages to explore similar territory while maintaining a very different, much warmer tone. In other words, wonderful in its own right.
6. Paradise – An Austrian trilogy Paradise: Love, Paradise: Faith, and Paradise: Hope) that I have decided to include as one entry (after agonizing debate). Its examination of three blood-related women’s ventures into sex tourism, fanatical Catholicism, and weight loss camp is tough to describe, and often tough to watch. But it manages to dig pretty deeply into the depths of human dysfunction without ever quite veering into condescension or disdain. Fascinating through and through. (For anyone who is interested, my ranking of the individual films is 1. Love, 2. Hope, 3. Faith)
5. Nebraska – I think I let my utter disappointment over The Descendants convince me that the Alexander Payne I loved had gone away. But in my eyes Nebraska is a major return to form. I can understand the criticisms that Payne’s films show contempt for their Midwestern subjects, and I worried that the movie was moving in that direction as I watched. But in the end, dignity triumphs over snark in a major way. Now let’s just pretend that The Descendants never happened.
5. Nebraska – I think I let my utter disappointment over The Descendants convince me that the Alexander Payne I loved had gone away. But in my eyes Nebraska is a major return to form. I can understand the criticisms that Payne’s films show contempt for their Midwestern subjects, and I worried that the movie was moving in that direction as I watched. But in the end, dignity triumphs over snark in a major way. Now let’s just pretend that The Descendants never happened.
4. Enough Said – Rant alert: I think it’s a disgrace that Nicole Holofcener is not a household name. So much buzz surrounds every move that Nolan, Aronofsky, Payne, P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderson, the Coens, Tarantino, etc. make, and yet I can think of no director with such consistently strong output (and such a finely-tuned point-of view) as Holofcener. She deserves a higher place in the conversation of present-day auteurs.
And this film is one of her best. Its deceptively trite/cute premise leads to an emotional release that is anything but trite. Above all, Holofcener writes real-life characters. Of course James Gandolfini is wonderful in one of his final roles. But Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the revelation here, creating a character whose sometimes cringe-inducing behavior only enhances her utter humanity. Far and away my favorite performance of the year.
And this film is one of her best. Its deceptively trite/cute premise leads to an emotional release that is anything but trite. Above all, Holofcener writes real-life characters. Of course James Gandolfini is wonderful in one of his final roles. But Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the revelation here, creating a character whose sometimes cringe-inducing behavior only enhances her utter humanity. Far and away my favorite performance of the year.
3. Frances Ha – By no means a universal story, but a startlingly familiar investigation of the post-millennial, post-liberal arts degree haze. Sometimes I found it a little too close for comfort—and I mean this as high praise.
2. Twelve Years a Slave – I acknowledge that the bar for “best slavery film ever” was a pretty low one to clear. But I was blown away by this film’s sheer willingness to be unrelenting, however difficult it can be to watch. Some may call it torture porn. I call it a much-needed historical corrective (and needless to say, an expertly crafted, beautifully acted one at that).
2. Twelve Years a Slave – I acknowledge that the bar for “best slavery film ever” was a pretty low one to clear. But I was blown away by this film’s sheer willingness to be unrelenting, however difficult it can be to watch. Some may call it torture porn. I call it a much-needed historical corrective (and needless to say, an expertly crafted, beautifully acted one at that).
1. Stories We Tell – I knew when I saw this movie in June that it would be my #1 film of the year. Perhaps this is because it’s kind of a historian’s dream in its commitment to destabilizing the idea of “truth.” But if that pretentious sentence turns you off to the movie, rest assured that it is an incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking documentary. It’s also a hard one classify; it’s kind of a work of history, kind of a study of memory, and kind of an investigation of family dynamics. But more than anything, it’s an original work of art that makes me excited about Sarah Polley’s future output, and that reminds me of how many uncharted territories still remain in the world of filmmaking.