It’s time to catch the some of the VERY BEST MOVIES OF 2014: Dear White People, Birdman, Force Majeure and Gone Girl. The Theory of Everything, Foxcatcher and Whiplash are really good, too. Here are the links to my recommendations:
- The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
- Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
- I really don’t want anyone to miss the brilliant comedy about personal identity, Dear White People.
- The cinematically important and very funny Birdman; and
- The best Hollywood movie of 2014, the thriller Gone Girl, with a career-topping performance by Rosamund Pike.
- I liked the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, which won an award at Cannes and is Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
- If you want a stark and grim look at the Old West, there’s Tommy Lee Jones’ feminist Western The Homesman.
- J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.
- Bill Murray’s funny and not too sentimental St. Vincent.
- If you’re in the mood for a brutal, brutal World War II tank movie, there’s Fury.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the appealing musical Jersey Boys. Jersey Boys is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
And here’s a bonus DVD/Stream: I really liked Blue Ruin, an entirely fresh take on the revenge thriller. Blue Ruin was an audience favorite on the festival circuit in 2013 but didn’t get a theatrical release. It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.
Tune your DVRs to Turner Classic Movies on December 14 for three unforgettable classics. There’s the sexy, cynical prototype film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice. Then Henry Fonda is at his most appealing in the subversive WW II comedy Mister Roberts.
Finally, there’s Blow-up. Set in the Mod London of the mid-60s, a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) is living a fun but shallow life filled with sports cars, discos and and scoring with supermodels (think Jane Birkin, Sarah Miles and Verushka). Then he discovers that his random photograph of a landscape may contain a clue in a murder and meets a mystery woman (Vanessa Redgrave). After taking us into a vivid depiction of the Mod world, director Michelangelo Antonioni brilliantly turns the story into a suspenseful story of spiraling obsession. His L’Avventura, La Notte and L’Eclisse made Antonioni an icon of cinema, but Blow-up is his most accessible and enjoyable masterwork. There’s also a cameo performance by the Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page version of the Yardbirds and a quick sighting of Michael Palin in a nightclub.
