My Top 20 Films of 2014, Part I

2014 was an awesome year for film, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We had a surplus of good and great movies of all flavors. To not find good movies, you either have to have terrible taste, or else be in need of trying harder to find the great material. This is one year where there was such a spectrum of interesting, engaging films, that there's a lot of variance in people's year-end lists.

When I started compiling my list, I was initially struck by how few films I saw this year that I truly hated. There were a few disappointments, to be sure, but not many outright dogs. There were plenty of films I avoided, mostly out of a sense that it wasn't my thing. I circled back and caught a few of those movies on DVD and most of them we so forgettable it took a look at a list of this year's releases to remember I even watched them. So take a lesson from that - you can still see plenty of movies and not waste too much time and money on outright crap.

(I'm not doing a Worst of 2014 list, but I will say my least enjoyable experience in a theatre this year was SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL for. As I'm sure there were worse movies in release this year, it feels really disingenuous to claim that as the worst movie anyone could have seen this year.)

I made it a point to see a lot of movies this year and as I started taking stock, I realized that my list of favorite and recommended movies could not be contained by a mere top 10. In all honesty, I probably could have gone into the 20s, but at a certain point, a best-of list can be so long as to be ridiculous. I ended up drawing the line at a Top 20 because in looking at the movies represented, you could probably pick any five of them at random and I wouldn't be embarrassed to have them called out as the five best of the year.

These are all ranked, but any such list is going to be comparing apples-to-oranges to some degree. I did my best to figure out where everything fell, but in the end, is there really that much difference between being 3rd and 4th? Or 14th and 15th?

I haven't seen everything, but I've reached the critical mass where I feel comfortable standing on these picks. My yet-to-be-viewed films include THE IMITATION GAME, UNBROKEN, AMERICAN SNIPER and INHERENT VICE. I'm also really bummed I didn't get out to see WILD this weekend, as all indications are it probably would have landed somewhere on this list.

Also, FAULTS probably would have snuck into the high-teens somewhere, but as it's not getting a wide release until March, I'm treating it like a 2015 film. (This is also how MILLUS is listed with this year and how COHERENCE would have been on this list had it not been eventually nudged out.)

Today we'll cover 11-20 and then the Top 10 tomorrow.

11. Rosewater - The story of how journalist Maziar Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian government on suspicion of being a spy after appearing in a satirical segment of The Daily Show that covered the 2009 Iranian election. Comedian and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart weaves an emotional and thoughtful mediation on torture, coercion and freedom. We see how torture can break a man, and how it doesn't necessarily have to be physical beatings, but just prolonged isolation and deprivation of hope. When Bahari is able to take a small victory against his captors despite being powerless, it's one of this year's most uplifting moments.

12. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I don't know how coherently this plays to viewers who haven't seen at least the first CAPTAIN AMERICA or THE AVENGERS, but at least unlike most Marvel productions, its connections to the other Marvel films is a virtue rather than the worst thing in the film. (Few things were saddder than THOR: THE DARK WORLD's persistent name-dropping of events in THE AVENGERS, as if desperately saying, "You liked that film, didn't you? We're part of that thing you like!") Part superhero-film, part spy-thriller, CAP 2 uses it's lead character as a black-and-white counterpoint to the shades-of-grey world we live in today, particularly with regard to surveillance and national security. Yes, some of the logistics of the Helicarrier plot are goofy, but the pacing, themes and character arcs make that less of an issue than it could have been. This is also the comic-book movie that proved you CAN juggle a lot of major characters in a comic book film that isn't an AVENGERS-like team movie. Nowhere is that more evident than in the use of Black Widow, made far more indispensable here than she was in IRON MAN 2. (Honestly, the film easily could have been called CAPTAIN AMERICA & BLACK WIDOW, and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is also probably put to his best use here too.) I still love the goofy charm of seeing all the heroes rub shoulders in THE AVENGERS, so that's probably still my favorite Marvel movie, but this is a VERY close second.

13. Kill the Messenger - Few things disappoint me more than the total shrug this based-on-a-true-story film was greeted with upon release. Five years from now, people will be asking, "Why didn't tell me Jeremy Renner was so good in KILL THE MESSENGER?" Renner plays a reporter named Gary Webb, who exposes the CIA's role in supplying Los Angeles gangs with cocaine in the '80s, the sales of which went to fund Contra rebels. Webb's moment of glory comes at the middle of the film, and our expectations about the noble profession of journalism are subverted as the second half details a brutal smear campaign that wrongly destroys Webb's credibility, career and marriage.

14. Edge of Tomorrow - I still don't think the ending totally tracks, but that's about my only problem with this Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt vehicle that finds Cruise trapped in a GROUNDHOG DAY-like timeloop in the middle of an alien invasion. It's both smarter and funnier about time travel than the marketing indicated and Cruise again proves why he's one of the last TRUE movie stars. Dare we hope that Blunt's against-type performance here as a total badass signals a future for her as a major action star?

15. John Wick - JOHN WICK shows that just because an idea is old, doesn't mean it's dead. Break it down to its barest essence and it sounds like one of those script's you'd pass by for fear of it being generic: "A retired hitman is drawn back into the trade on a crusade of vengeance. Brutality ensues." The brilliance of the film is the way that first-time director Chad Stahelski moderates the tempo. For every intense, non-stop action sequence where Keanu Reeves takes out a small army of goons, there's a moment where the film takes stock of the stakes and allows characters to react to the fallout of the action orgy. There's actual emotional engagement here, and it's another case of a director using Keanu's occasional blankness to good effect.

16. 22 Jump Street - At this point, I need to stop being amazed when writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller totally stick the landing on something that seemed destined to disappoint. This sequel sends Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum undercover in college (where they are admonished "just do the same thing as before.") The script milks the meta-humor exactly long enough to keep from wearing it out and even manages to freshen up old bits like "sleeping with the boss's daughter." Ice Cube thankfully has more to do in this one (give this man his own vehicle!) Honestly, the rest of the movie could have been mediocre and the ending credits gag would still make this a must-see, as we're taken on a tour of about a dozen future sequels for the franchise.

17. The Theory of Everything - While I still have some script issues with this one, you can't deny that both Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne give amazing performances as Jane Hawking and Dr. Stephen Hawking. Redmayne especially, as he's forced to spend must of the film bent into a misshapen position, immobile and limited in every possible way that one could communicate emotion. That barrier presented Anthony McCarten with an unusual challenge when the time came to write one of the film's most emotional moments, the break-up between Dr. Hawking and his long-supportive wife. Though it feels like other moments bend over backwards to make both of them squeaky-clean in the separation, that moment is powerful, raw and honest.

18. The Fault in Our Stars - If this had a fall release date, would we be hearing Oscar buzz for Shailene Woodley? She gives an expectedly-moving performance as a teen fighting cancer who finds love with another cancer survivor. I've never read the John Green book which is adapted here by THE SPECTACULAR NOW's Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, but the film hits the right emotional beats by really understanding its teen characters. Neustadter & Weber really understand how to craft real people whose emotions can drive a scene, without having to rely on plot to provide all the urgency and heavy-lifting. That's got to be tricky when dealing with source material that is able to get inside both characters heads, something impossible to truly pull off in a visual medium. It definitely says something about their writing that fans of the novels generally come away satisfied with the screen translations. I once briefly met Neustadter and he jokingly suggested I give (500) DAYS OF SUMMER another chance. I'm thinking I might actually have to do a "second opinion" post about that sometime in 2015.

19. Neighbors - We need more of these. An original comedy idea with a premise that seems low-concept, but excels thanks to strong character. A married couple with a baby moves in next to a frat house and clashes with the college kids. The smart move is that the frat boys are allowed to be real people, likeable people, and not one-dimensional stereotypes. The couple - played by Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne - also are fleshed out more than you'd expect rather than just getting stuck playing dofusses mad at those damn kids. Expecially refreshing is the fact that Byrne's character is a total participant alongside Rogan rather than being relgated to a "nagging wife role." (The film even has a meta joke about that.) I'll always cheer for a film that doesn't fall back on the most dumbed-down execution.


20. Millius - Would you enjoy the experience of sitting down with a number of titans of filmmaking as they all share tall tales of a larger-than-life peer? Then rush off to Netflix and look up the documentary MILIUS in their streaming category. The real-life Bill Brasky in question is John Milius, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Apocalypse Now. He's also the writer-director of Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn. It would be a crime to spoil many of the great stories offered in this documentary. Though many tales paint him as a force of nature, there's also little doubt that few have a way with the pen as he does. When a producer needs someone to write "bigger speeches" to convince Sean Connery to sign onto a film, Milius's name alone sways the actor's opinion. When Milius is on his game, the pages seem to flow out of him like water over Niagara Falls. And when the writer falls on hard times, you feel the weight of that tragedy.

Come back tomorrow for the Top 10!

Jon Stewart's ROSEWATER deftly provokes thought without preaching or pandering

There's little debate that ROSEWATER's promotion has been aided in large part by the existing profile of its first-time writer-director Jon Stewart, moonlighting from his day job on The Daily Show. As I consider that, I can't help but ponder if the writing and directing might be getting even more praise if it was coming from a truly unknown quantity. With a cast full of relative unknowns, Stewart has crafted a film that leaves an impression on the viewer well after the final title card has run.

ROSEWATER is the story of how journalist Maziar Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian government on suspicion of being a spy after appearing in a satirical segment of The Daily Show that covered the 2009 Iranian election. Bahari himself had returned to his home country of Iran to cover the elections for Newsweek. For a while, it appeared that encumbrance President and all-around oppressive madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might lose to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who - perhaps not coincidentally - was favored by the west, as well. Ahmadinejad's election was believed by many to be the result of a rigged election, sparking protests.

When Bahari is first detained by the Iranian government, he assumes his coverage of those protests is what brought him there. It's an utter surprise when his interrogator confronts him with a Daily Show segment where correspondent Jason Jones pretends to be an American spy and interviews Bahari. Bahari's jailers absurdly believe this to be evidence that Bahari himself is a spy collaborating with American spies, despite Bahari's futile attempts to explain the satire behind The Daily Show piece. (This may come as a surprise, but Iranian officials are not known for their sense of humor.)

One scene hints at possibly an additional motivation, as another clip of Bahari's appearance on the show has him saying that "Iran and America aren't so different." The Iranian interrogator is incensed that one of his own people would equate their country to what the Iranian government likes to term "the Great Satan." Governments generally crave war more than their people do, and so a government like Iran, constantly fearful of American intervention that will upend their oppressive regime, needs its people to hate the West. The foundation of their rule is based on ensuring the people fanatically hate a democratic way of life.

For an Iranian to speak well of America is a vile a notion to the Iranian government as it would be for an American citizen to say "Y'know, that Hitler guy might have been on to something." Furthermore, for an Iranian-born individual to have such little fear of repercussion that he would say this openly on a TV broadcast likely only galls his jailers more. Revolutions happen when people no longer fear the consequences of speaking openly. And so what we come to see are jailers desperate to break Bahari.

It'll be interesting to see if ROSEWATER provokes any debates about torture similar to what Zero Dark Thirty incited a few years ago. The films depict markedly different versions of torture. Zero Dark Thirty's torture scenes were dehumanizing and viscerally degrading while most of the abuse depicted in ROSEWATER is of a more banal nature. During his 118-day imprisonment, Bahari spent a great deal of time in solitary confinement. While it's not the most cinematic of tortures, it definitely is a horrible thing to isolate a person from all other contact for extended periods. Though the film shows the occasional physical beating, it appears that the efforts to break Bahari were more psychological than physical.

The film strongly demonstrates something I've believed for a long time - that torture is an incredibly ineffective way of eliciting useful information. It holds its greatest power when it comes to punishing someone or forcing their compliance. Last year I wrote about some powerful moments in 12 Years a Slave that demonstrated just how quickly a person will break and stop fighting when they just want the physical pain to end. They'll say things they don't mean and believe things they didn't before just so they won't have to hurt any more.

You don't have to go far to find documentation that torture is incredibly ineffective and unreliable, to the point that anyone who argues it is a valuable tool for intelligence purposes is lying, either to themselves or to everyone else. ROSEWATER supports this in spades, for eventually, Bahari confesses to crimes he never committed. Why would someone do that? Because he's hoping his cooperation betters his situation, perhaps increasing the chance that he'll walk out of there and back home to his wife.  Torture makes people compliant, not truthful.

But as we've discussed, The intelligence gathering may only be one facet of Bahari's imprisonment and torture. If the goal is to punish the prisoner and gain power over him, then it becomes clear why his captors would so readily work to break Bahari's spirit. This is about power as much as it is about investigation. Bahari is taken from his home on incredibly flimsy pretense, denied any kind of due process and then is psychologically and physically abused all because state officials must demonstrate their might against an enemy they fear.

There's an analogy that's begging to be drawn there. It might surprise you that the film doesn't try to find a way to compare Bahari's imprisonment with any number of "suspected terrorists" who found themselves rounded up on thin pretenses by U.S. officials and tossed into the legal limbo of Guantanamo Bay. There, government officials enthusiastically had interrogators use dehumanizing interrogations that ultimately degraded this nation as much as they did the suspected terrorists. And eventually, given the nature of how torture works, it likely yielded as much bad information as good.

Stewart doesn't go near this territory, likely in part because it would widen the scope of the story beyond Bahari's experience. Even if there had been a way to deal with this notion more directly, it would have given the idiots at Fox News an easy talking point to attack the film with. Perhaps not every viewer will come away drawing the same comparisons as I did, but it is hard to watch this film and not be swayed on how torture is a tool that more effectively brings compliance and submission rather than credible information.

It's to Stewart's credit that he made a film capable of provoking these questions. Perhaps some viewers will come out of the film pondering what they would have done in Bahari's situation. How much would they give in just to retain a little bit of hope?

Among many powerful scenes is one that comes late in the film. (SPOILER ALERT. Don't say you weren't warned.) After Bahari's been imprisoned for quite some time, a guard mentions to him that Hilary Clinton has been talking about him. We are then treated to a rapid montage of news channels discussing the outrage over the detainment of a journalist. A great deal of this is due to an effort from Bahari's wife to keep the imprisonment in the public eye.

The Iranians are furious at the efforts of this woman, eventually sending Bahari's interrogator in to tell Bahari to "control his woman." The interrogator gives Bahari a phone and makes him call his wife to tell her to stop. It's the first time in months that Bahari's been able to speak to his pregnant wife and the emotion overwhelms them both. He whispers "I love you" and before he can even say anything about the media coverage, the interrogator takes back the phone. He verbally berates his prisoner, trying to intimidate him, but Bahari literally laughs in his captors face.

The Iranians tried to take his hope away, but in making him tell his wife to call off the dogs, they showed their hand. Bahari saw their fear, and in that moment, the power shifted. The interrogator showed he didn't have total control, for if he did, nothing Bahari's wife could do would be of any concern. He might still be a prisoner, but in that moment, the torturer restored one thing for him: hope.

There are so many strong films from this year that it's hard to call anything a sure thing. That said, it would not be surprising for ROSEWATER to nab a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and I wouldn't entirely count out the fine work from Gael García Bernal as Bahari. He gives such an empathetic performance that when one particular title card delivers the coda, it's impossible to not be moved.