We’re still harvesting the Best Movies of 2014 (and awaiting the wider release of Selma, A Most Violent Year, American Sniper and Inherent Vice):
- The cinematically important and very funny Birdman.
- 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.
And here are some other hearty recommendations:
- Reese Witherspoon is superb in the Fight Your Demons drama Wild, and Laura Dern may be even better.
- The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
- The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
- Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
- Big Eyes is a lite audience pleaser.
- J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.
- Mr. Turner is visually remarkable and features a stuning performance by Timothy Spall, but it’s toooo loooong.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the dark, intense and mesmerizing Calvary. In my opinion, Brendan Gleeson’s extraordinary performance as a good man navigating a grimly urgent situation is the very best acting of the year. Calvary is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Coming up on TV on January 11, Turner Classic Movies brings us Knife in the Water, Roman Polanski’s first feature, made in Communist Poland in 1962. A couple picks up a hitchhiker and invite him on to their small sailboat and sexual tension ensues – think of a mystery thriller influenced by the French New Wave. Knife in the Water lost the Best Foreign Picture Oscar to Fellini’s 8 1/2. This was Polanski before Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Sharon Tate’s murder by the Manson Family, the rape scandal and the fugitive flight from prosecution in the US, The Pianist and a slew of inappropriately young actress girlfriends. Incidentally, the most thoughtful and revealing documentary on Polanski is Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which is available on DVD from Netflix.