My Top 10 films of 2014

Continuing yesterday's post, here's the main event! My Top 10 films of 2014.

Before we begin, I'm sure someone will bring up the fact that a film I called "the most brilliant and subversively political film you'll see all year," a movie I said, " might be the most cinematically daring film of this decade, if not this century," is not on this list. The truth is, I didn't think it was fair to these other twenty films to make them measure up to the opus that was TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION. I gave it four thumbs up last summer and if you're curious about why, check out this review, or buy my book on all of Michael Bay's movies - MICHAEL F-ING BAY: The Unheralded Genius in Michael Bay's Films.


1. Boyhood - I feel like these first three or four films are in a dead heat with each other. I give BOYHOOD the edge because it's a deceptively simple story, yet really quietly powerful. I've seen a few people snark about how the film has no point beyond just showing people get older. Some even say that it's no different than watching characters grow up over the course of a long-running TV series or a continuing film series like HARRY POTTER. I think that misses some of the point of BOYHOOD, which often seems to be about the quieter, mini-milestones of youth. It's a character-heavy story that doesn't burden itself so much with making each year fill a "character-defining moment" quota. After a lot of thought, I think it works because it puts the audience in the shoes of the parents, always aware that their child will continue to grow and evolve, and wondering what sort of young man he'll become. There's a moment with Patricia Arquette near the end that really drives home how much we've been following the story of her life as well as her son's. So let the naysayers cry about how there was "no story." That just makes me more impressed with how this movie provokes an audience to feel.

2. Nightcrawler - If you're in the middle of writing a dark suspense film, like I am, NIGHTCRAWLER is both essential viewing and also confidence-crushing. Working from his own script in his directing debut, Dan Gilroy pulls off one of the most intense films of the last year. At least two sequences will have your heart racing and the wonderful thing is that by the time each of those emerges, the film has taken so many risks that we truly feel like anything can happen. I saw this movie while I was working on a script that had a total sociopath at its core and I was struggling with how to depict that without pandering to the audience. The first two scenes alone were a revelation in unfurling that sort of character. Jake Gyllenhaal gives what is likely his best performance ever as the ambitious and slimy Lou Bloom. He makes your skin crawl even before he gets to the really nasty stuff. Unfortunately, he's so good that the Oscar buzz for his performance seems to be overshadowing the equally deserving Rene Russo. And in a year that was even slightly less competitive, I bet Riz Ahmed would be a dark horse contender for Best Supporting Actor buzz.

3. Whiplash - For my money, it's one of the best films of the year, capped off with a fantastic performance by J.K. Simmons as a band conductor at one of the best schools in the country. Miles Tellar plays the jazz drumming student desperate to earn his respect, to the point that he endures a lot of verbal and (technically) physical abuse. It's also a very small-scale movie. Though there were turns in the story that came as a gut punch to me, it's much more about character than plot. Any writer seeking to learn from strong character writing (and that should be all of you) really would benefit from studying this film. Don't walk into this movie with the misconception that a film needs to be an epic in order to be one of the year's best. Simmons deserves the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this one.

4. Selma - Like THE CRUCIBLE, SELMA tells a story about the past with very direct commentary on our present. Some of the parallels are so of the moment that for a moment, you might almost think that it was conceived in direct response to recent incidents. The film wisely doesn't attempt to be a full biopic on Dr. King and instead focuses on the marches Dr. King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in an effort to protest obstacles put in place to prevent black citizens from registering to vote in the South. This is a film as much about 2014 as any other contemporary film. I'm aware this is an intensely competitive year, but director Ava DuVernay deserves to be singled out by both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America for her extraordinary work here. SELMA is more than an "eat your vegetables" movie. It's an important film that honors some brave men and women who stood up for their rights and forced a nation to look hard at it's own shame.

5. Gone Girl - What I appreciated most about Gone Girl is that this was not a film that felt like it made a choice between having a complex, twisting plot and complex characters. There's enough real estate here for both. Usually in these kinds of films, the plot goes through so many contortions that the characters either don't have time to be fleshed out, or the film needs them to be cyphers so that later twists aren't telegraphed. Wild Things is a good example of this, a fun, trashy thriller with more turns than a roller coaster, but barely any pretension about its cast of characters. It's far harder to tell a story about complex people and maintain enough mystery about them to keep shocking us late into a complex story. Ben Affleck is quite good as a man suspected in the disappearance of his wife, maintaining his innocence even as the evidence piles up, but Rosemund Pike utterly owns this movie with her Hitchcock-blonde portrayal of that wife, Amy. If you've gone this long without learning of the many twists in this film, see it before someone ruins it.

6. The Lego Movie - We all wrote this off before seeing it, and we all ended up with egg on our face afterwards when this was as clever, fun and moving as some of the better Pixar films. Writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller remind us that even a questionable idea can be - wait for it - awesome with the proper execution. At this point, Lord and Miller could be announced on a remake of Birth of a Nation and I'd say, "Let's give them a chance before we judge."

7.  Birdman - the story of a washed up actor who saw his career plummet after walking away from the latest sequel in his superhero franchise twenty years ago. That actor, Riggan Thomsan, (played by Michael Keaton) is on the verge of a possible comeback via the Broadway play he's directing, starring in, and adapted. The problem is the show isn't very good and it's just had to recast one of its main players at the start of previews. The film's thoroughly character-driven from start to finish. As much as the three-act structure is there, this is not a movie where you'll be overtly aware of the structure. You will notice the film's technique of appearing to have all been shot in one take. Though the visual effect is seamless, I found it occasionally showy to the point of distracting. That doesn't change that this is a well-made, well-acted film.

8. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Dawn is probably the best film this summer at building tension and character simultaneously, and that equation adds up to tragedy. Even if you went into this story unaware of how events have to turn to line up with later installments, you'd probably be struck by the inevitability of the events, specifically the war between apes and humans. After this, there's no excuse for fully CGI-characters to not feel as real as ones played by human actors. This is a movie that opens with some fifteen minutes in ape society and it's absolutely riveting. As it develops the conflict between humans and apes it's clear neither side really wants a war, but the ones doing the most saber-rattling are provoked into it out of the fear that if they don't strike first, they will be run over. Both sides have their justifications and once the die is cast, the saddest moment of the film comes when it's apparent there will be no way to avoid the consequences. It's rare to get this sense of tragedy in a summer movie. In fact, it's probably even rarer to find this sort of craft in a franchise that's some eight films in.

9. Interstellar - INTERSTELLAR is a hard movie to write about, even though it ranks among director Christopher Nolan's best. It's also one of his most emotional. The director has a rep for being cold, but the script - co-written with his brother Jonathan Nolan - wisely makes the emotional relationship between McConaughey's Cooper and his daughter Murph into its backbone. The sequence where he awakens from decades of cryo-sleep to catch up on years of recorded messages from his daughter as family as they grew up without him. I have some issues with the third act (I think Murph makes a critical realization WAY too fast considering what a logistical leap that it is, and then a later scene involving Cooper and Murph is too rushed and abrupt to be a fitting emotional catharsis for that relationship.) So much of this film works that if its ambitions outstrip its ability in a few spots, I can roll with it. Best seen on the biggest screen you can find.

10. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Not just my favorite comic book movie of the year, but one of my favorite comic book movies ever. The degree of difficulty on this was insanely high. There's the blending of two casts in what is essentially a crossover between the two X-MEN continuities, a complex time travel plot, and solid character arcs for multiple leads. On top of that, there's a coda that addresses some of the missteps of the past films and brings closure to a 15 year saga while putting us on a path to tell new stories with the younger cast. The fact that any of this feels effortless or simple is just a tribute to the fine work of credited writers Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn and director Bryan Singer. If you want to write superhero movies, you need to study this film.

Gone Girl is a perfect marriage of complex plot and complex characters.

WARNING: This article will include all manner of Gone Girl spoilers, up to and including the ending.  If you have not seen the film, I highly suggest you turn back because this is one film that is absolutely enhanced by knowing as little as possible!

You have been warned.

I have not read Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl. I actually made a pretty effective effort at not being spoiled about the details of the story before seeing the feature film adaptation directed by David Fincher and written by Flynn herself. If you're unfamiliar with the novel, that's the viewing experience I recommend for all of you because Gone Girl is one of those films that works best when you're not sure which way it's going to swerve.

What I appreciated most about Gone Girl is that this was not a film that felt like it made a choice between having a complex, twisting plot and complex characters. There's enough real estate here for both. Usually in these kinds of films, the plot goes through so many contortions that the characters either don't have time to be fleshed out, or the film needs them to be cyphers so that later twists aren't telegraphed. Wild Things is a good example of this, a fun, trashy thriller with more turns than a roller coaster, but barely any pretension about its cast of characters. It's far harder to tell a story about complex people and maintain enough mystery about them to keep shocking us late into a complex story. I assure you, while it might be an odd comparison to draw, Wild Things was a film that kept springing to mind during my viewing. The two films would make a great double feature.

Ben Affleck stars as Nick Dunne, an unemployed professor who comes home on his fifth anniversary to find his wife Amy missing and some furniture smashed. He calls the police and they immediately begin investigating as a missing person's case, starting with going through the motions of checking out Nick as a suspect. Because Amy's a minor celebrity (her mother is a children's author who's used Amy as inspiration for the heroine of her books), the case quickly becomes a media frenzy.

Speculation and rumor all become grist for the mill of the 20-hour news cycle. Pundits don't waste much time before speculating on Nick's guilt, pointing out strange behavior like smiling while posing for pictures with his wife's "Missing" poster, and noting that he seems unusually close to his twin sister.

Just as the police and the press aren't sure what to make of Nick, we find our opinion of his innocence wavering as well. The crime scene at the house seems staged and Nick alternately seems too eager to please and too defensive when his own guilt is floated. Those suspicions only deepen as we learn that his marriage with Amy wasn't the fairy tale that they're feeding the press. Flashbacks show us their union in an early blissful state, but soon we are presented with money troubles. There was tension when Nick moved the two of them from Amy's home of New York to Nick's birthplace of Missouri to be with his dying mother. As both suffered the loss of their jobs, financial pressures and internal tensions mounted, capped off with disagreements over whether or not to have a baby.

Some of this we are told from Nick and a great deal of it comes from Amy's diary. Amy doesn't always paint the most flattering portrait of Nick and when Nick's behavior appears to back up Amy's observations, it becomes more apparent that Nick might not see his wife's death as the worst thing that could happen to him. After all, it's hard not to make a suspect out of a guy who's revealed to be sleeping with a student of his who's in her "early twenties." (When Nick uses this to describe her, it feels like we're almost supposed to read that as "19" or "20," and frankly, the only detail we get that truly contradicts that is her later presence in a bar that Nick happens to own.)

Nick supposedly told his mistress he was getting a divorce, and since other scenes have helpfully informed us that Amy made him sign a pre-nup, it's not hard to make the leap. A sudden increase in her insurance policy just months earlier reinforces that suspicion. Affleck does really good work here, in a performance that's bound to be underrated.  It's a full hour into the film before Gone Girl really starts showing us its hand, and until then we need to be suspicious of Nick's guilt without Affleck's performance reading as clearly innocent or clearly guilty.

That's a tricky tightrope to walk, particularly when this is a movie that knows the audience will be jugging their assumptions of innocence and guilt. Affleck's performance needs to make us speculate. It's not a role that's meant to be seen as totally innocent up to a point so that we can be blindsided with a twist reveal of his guilt. Affleck needs to play Nick in a way that essentially turns us into those pundits, scrutinizing every out-of-place grin. Harder still, it's a delicate dance that the film needs to maintain even in Nick's "private" moments rather that just the instances he's in the public eye.

And then comes the first big twist, arriving just over an hour into the film - Amy is not only alive, but she's faked her own kidnapping and has spent months, possibly years plotting the perfect crime so that Nick will be framed for her death. It's a twist that most movies would use as their final denouement. When Gone Girl deploys it less than halfway into its two-and-a-half-hours, we know we're in for a ride.

She's very carefully left a trail of bread crumbs for the police to uncover - details like a fake journal that gradually makes Nick out to be a monster, the testimony of a "best friend" who became the supportive ear for Amy to talk about her "abusive" husband, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expensive merchandise that maxed out Nick's credit to make him look financially overextended with something to hide. That's not even getting into the lengths to which she's staged the "murder" scene and then plotted her own escape.

The second half of the film features some incredible work from Rosamund Pike, whose Amy is revealed as more and more unhinged as we peel back the layers of her psychosis. At one point, she indicates she plans to go so far as to kill herself just to make sure Nick gets the death penalty. That is conviction. It's amazing how far back her manipulations extend, having played both a boyfriend of seven years ago and one of twenty years ago like a fiddle.

The latter of the two is Desi, played by Neil Patrick Harris, whom Amy turns to after her first plan goes sour. The film makes an interesting choice here, too. Desi is no mere patsy, and when he quickly embraces Amy and sets up his lake house to act has her safe house, there's a glint of an edge to his joy at getting to play house with his ex. As he gives her the tour and notes the camera's everywhere, recording everything, for a moment we forget that Amy is a manipulative lunatic and almost shudder at the gilded cage she's about to be locked up in.

As obsessive as Amy is, Desi is a portrait of a different sort of obsession and Harris plays him like a stalker who's delighted that the object of his desire is now under his thumb. A lesser script might have made Desi an earnest dope, so as to heighten the tragedy when Amy kills him and then "escapes," claiming Desi had been holding her all this time. Much like how Nick is more interesting for not being a model husband, Desi is more compelling by how "messy" his character is too.

Yes, Amy's scheme is so convoluted that you could probably pick a lot of it apart if you were determined. This is where Fincher's wizardry is visible and the movie effectively casts its spell while we view it. Where movies often get into trouble is when the execution is so sloppy that the audience can't help but question the logic in the moment. It's not that there aren't loose threads to pull on, but they're very well hidden.

The film's final stages become genuinely unpredictable, and it is here where the twists are leavened with some dark humor. Much of it lands, but the audience I was with was clearly thirsting for those reliefs from the tension. Lines that should have been darkly funny (and seemed to have been delivered correctly) got uproarious laughter because of the pent-up nervous laughter. Particularly during some of the final chess moves between Nick and Amy, it threatened to break the spell.

I feel like I could devote a full day or two of posts just to Amy and what the final act says about her insanity and motivations. There's a delicious irony in that in order to clear his name, Nick had to pretend to be the man whom Amy always wished she had married. Now that she's has exonerated him by turning up alive, she coerces him to continue that act for the rest of his life. How she pulls this off is an act of pure evil that's astonishing even after everything we've seen her do. Nick might have escaped any legal judgement, but he got a life sentence nonetheless.

The very first screenplay I ever wrote dealt with the police investigation of the disappearance a college co-ed, with suspicion quickly falling on her egotistical film student boyfriend.. As the story progressed, it seemed the film student was almost making sure he was a suspect, as if the whole thing was staged.  And then the girl's body turned up, with evidence implicating the boyfriend... who was now in the position of trying to convince police that he did stage the disappearance with the girlfriend and that her turning up dead was never part of the plan.  I liked the idea of someone masterminding the perfect frame-job and having that upended in a way that totally screwed them over.


(In Gone Girl, I also felt echoes of a season ten episode of Law & Order called "Patsy," where a man claims he's been framed not only for the murder of his girlfriend, but an assault on her comatose sister. Of course, the lengths someone would have to go to in order to frame him for those crimes appears to be preposterous.... except that it might be exactly what happened.)

That old script of mine had a number of flaws that I eventually learned from to become a better writer, but I couldn't help but think of it during stretches of Gone Girl. I sat there in the dark, musing, "Damn. This is the movie I wish I'd made."

We're given a number of memorable characters and performances, but this is a real breakout for Rosamund Pike, whose character is brilliantly summed up by Affleck in a line every viewer will feel like they could have written: "You. Fucking. Bitch." You won't easily forget her as credits roll, that's for sure.