by Joyless Creatures Staff
Film critics generally love list-making and canonization, for reasons ranging from the legitimate (an effort to highlight underappreciated gems and open a discourse on the cinematic climate) to the self-serving (the tendency to stubbornly offer our own favorites as the unimpeachable "best"). Even the most list-happy critics, though, can agree that there's an inevitable downfall: whether you choose ten or twenty or fifty "bests," there will always be just a few more that narrowly missed commemoration. With that in mind, we thought we'd offer a few additional Best Movies of 2014 that didn't appear on our semi-official Best of 2014 list (published in early January). From the well-known to the obscure, these five selections deserve mention alongside the twenty films we enshrined a few months ago. Check 'em out if you haven't already; just keep in mind that beyond these five choices, there are still more cinematic treasures from last year that, worthy though they are, didn't make our proverbial cut.
Selma
How sad that Selma will be remembered mostly for the politically-charged debates about its historical accuracy and its Oscar-worthiness. As evidenced by the spine-tingling performance of its Best Original Song-winner "Glory" at this year's awards ceremony, the film's emotional resonance is impossible to deny. Alternately sobering and stirring, director Ava DuVernay's breakout film hints at a remarkable future provided she plays the Hollywood game. Wherever DuVernay ends up, Selma deserves to be remembered among 2014's best films, and not only because of its coincidental arrival during a year in which the black experience in the U.S. came into sharp relief.
Rather, Selma should be remembered for its thoughtfully grounded screenplay and its landmark cinematic portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. It should be remembered for its terrific ensemble acting, featuring a cast of superb character actors (Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Keith Stanfield, Oprah Winfrey, Stephan James, and others) in support of an indelible performance by David Oyelowo. It should be remembered for its technical excellence, featuring evocative music and gorgeous cinematography by Bradford Young. And Selma should be remembered for its message: progress and social change, even when long overdue, can only be realized through patience, courage, and transcendent leadership. --Daniel Getahun
How sad that Selma will be remembered mostly for the politically-charged debates about its historical accuracy and its Oscar-worthiness. As evidenced by the spine-tingling performance of its Best Original Song-winner "Glory" at this year's awards ceremony, the film's emotional resonance is impossible to deny. Alternately sobering and stirring, director Ava DuVernay's breakout film hints at a remarkable future provided she plays the Hollywood game. Wherever DuVernay ends up, Selma deserves to be remembered among 2014's best films, and not only because of its coincidental arrival during a year in which the black experience in the U.S. came into sharp relief.
Rather, Selma should be remembered for its thoughtfully grounded screenplay and its landmark cinematic portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. It should be remembered for its terrific ensemble acting, featuring a cast of superb character actors (Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Keith Stanfield, Oprah Winfrey, Stephan James, and others) in support of an indelible performance by David Oyelowo. It should be remembered for its technical excellence, featuring evocative music and gorgeous cinematography by Bradford Young. And Selma should be remembered for its message: progress and social change, even when long overdue, can only be realized through patience, courage, and transcendent leadership. --Daniel Getahun
Level Five
In 1982, Chris Marker made the dazzling Sans Soleil, the kind of thing for which the term "essay film" was coined: a free-floating, globetrotting rumination on culture, identity, and the past. Fifteen years later, Marker would create the unlikely companion piece Level Five, shot on grubby late-90s digital video. Released in the US for the first time last year, Level Five is a one-of-a-kind blend of historical analysis, oblique memoir, media deconstruction, digital experimentation, and (of course) exploration of culture and identity. Marker structures the film around the character of Laura (Catherine Belkhodja), who strives to honor the memory of her dead lover by completing a computer program he had initiated reenacting the Battle of Okinawa—one of the most vicious conflicts in the Pacific during World War II. Shuttling between interviews with Japanese subjects, monologues performed directly to the camera, archival footage, and pixilated recreations of "war," Level Five envisions a modern world in which warfare is nothing more than a mediated takeover—or, in other words, a video game. "Level Five" itself is the endpoint of this digital obliteration, the highest level of the game that anyone can reach. It's all as heady as it sounds, volleying mind-blowing ideas at the audience with jarring rapidity, but it's also unexpectedly emotional and bitterly humorous. It's truly high praise to say that it's nearly as rich and magisterial as Sans Soleil. --Matt Levine
In 1982, Chris Marker made the dazzling Sans Soleil, the kind of thing for which the term "essay film" was coined: a free-floating, globetrotting rumination on culture, identity, and the past. Fifteen years later, Marker would create the unlikely companion piece Level Five, shot on grubby late-90s digital video. Released in the US for the first time last year, Level Five is a one-of-a-kind blend of historical analysis, oblique memoir, media deconstruction, digital experimentation, and (of course) exploration of culture and identity. Marker structures the film around the character of Laura (Catherine Belkhodja), who strives to honor the memory of her dead lover by completing a computer program he had initiated reenacting the Battle of Okinawa—one of the most vicious conflicts in the Pacific during World War II. Shuttling between interviews with Japanese subjects, monologues performed directly to the camera, archival footage, and pixilated recreations of "war," Level Five envisions a modern world in which warfare is nothing more than a mediated takeover—or, in other words, a video game. "Level Five" itself is the endpoint of this digital obliteration, the highest level of the game that anyone can reach. It's all as heady as it sounds, volleying mind-blowing ideas at the audience with jarring rapidity, but it's also unexpectedly emotional and bitterly humorous. It's truly high praise to say that it's nearly as rich and magisterial as Sans Soleil. --Matt Levine
True Detective
The glut of high quality work in cable television has spawned countless think pieces and articles; we even wrote one. But more than a topic for casual media critics, this new confluence marks a tectonic shift in the filmic universe. As television and film (and video games and online video) all start to become the same fluid medium, new kinds of work will begin to exist in the margins, and True Detective marks the biggest push against the evaporating borders between media. Its consistently oppressive tone and intensity, matched with two of the year's best performances (McConaughey and Harrelson should have both beaten out Eddie Redmayne if they were on the same slate), made this series as impactful as any film this year. True Detective's strange fusion of pulpy true crime, convoluted video gamey plot points, incredible performances, and Ophülsian camerawork makes it a completely unique project. Its famous six-minute tracking shot joins a short list of truly baffling long takes, along with Children of Men, Touch of Evil, and a few other greats. While it's certain to have imitators who learn the wrong things from it, True Detective still marks a new dawn for both television and film. Actors and directors will follow McConaughey and regular director Cary Fukunaga's leads and move to the small screen or the computer screen, and—if all goes well—more great work will be permissible with fewer limitations. Whether the second season is any good remains to be seen, but the first 8-hour season is a truly remarkable cinematic work and deserves a high place in the world of top ten lists. --Jeremy Meckler
The glut of high quality work in cable television has spawned countless think pieces and articles; we even wrote one. But more than a topic for casual media critics, this new confluence marks a tectonic shift in the filmic universe. As television and film (and video games and online video) all start to become the same fluid medium, new kinds of work will begin to exist in the margins, and True Detective marks the biggest push against the evaporating borders between media. Its consistently oppressive tone and intensity, matched with two of the year's best performances (McConaughey and Harrelson should have both beaten out Eddie Redmayne if they were on the same slate), made this series as impactful as any film this year. True Detective's strange fusion of pulpy true crime, convoluted video gamey plot points, incredible performances, and Ophülsian camerawork makes it a completely unique project. Its famous six-minute tracking shot joins a short list of truly baffling long takes, along with Children of Men, Touch of Evil, and a few other greats. While it's certain to have imitators who learn the wrong things from it, True Detective still marks a new dawn for both television and film. Actors and directors will follow McConaughey and regular director Cary Fukunaga's leads and move to the small screen or the computer screen, and—if all goes well—more great work will be permissible with fewer limitations. Whether the second season is any good remains to be seen, but the first 8-hour season is a truly remarkable cinematic work and deserves a high place in the world of top ten lists. --Jeremy Meckler
Inherent Vice
Having seen Inherent Vice two times in one week, I can assure you that its complex plot doesn't seem any clearer after the first viewing. But Anderson's deconstructed private-eye caper eschews narrative as it probes early-70s paranoia, that sinking feeling that the promises of the prior decade have burned faster than the joint in your ashtray, and, most of all, of profound loneliness. Anchored by Joaquin Phoenix's performance (as great as in The Master, maybe better), Inherent Vice follows our man through a maze of strange interiors, as if wandering through the collective unconscious of a whole era. Funny, baffling, and ultimately heartbreaking, Inherent Vice isn't for everyone...but if it's for you, you'll probably agree it's a masterpiece. --Peter Schilling Jr.
Having seen Inherent Vice two times in one week, I can assure you that its complex plot doesn't seem any clearer after the first viewing. But Anderson's deconstructed private-eye caper eschews narrative as it probes early-70s paranoia, that sinking feeling that the promises of the prior decade have burned faster than the joint in your ashtray, and, most of all, of profound loneliness. Anchored by Joaquin Phoenix's performance (as great as in The Master, maybe better), Inherent Vice follows our man through a maze of strange interiors, as if wandering through the collective unconscious of a whole era. Funny, baffling, and ultimately heartbreaking, Inherent Vice isn't for everyone...but if it's for you, you'll probably agree it's a masterpiece. --Peter Schilling Jr.
Dear White People
I missed the boat when Dear White People screened at the Walker in the spring of 2014. Eight months later, I finally got to see what all the buzz was about when it played again as a nominee for the Independent Spirit Awards. I had read multiple reviews, spent hours rereading old tweets from the DWP account, and watched the trailer countless times, so I didn’t expect anything new when I did actually sit down to watch it. But writer/director Justin Simien’s debut made me conscious in a way I didn’t anticipate. Dear White People never failed to make me laugh while simultaneously revaluating and questioning that laughter. The audience was implicated in every way, making the whole experience incredibly self-aware (particularly for Minnesotans, given its University of Minnesota filming location). I think the brilliance of Dear White People is its ability to provoke a conversation about race in America that feels serious and productive as well as inclusive. There is no character who stands 100% morally correct and this ambiguity creates the space for empathy. Days after I watched Dear White People, I continued to muse over Simien’s use of humor as a political tactic. I strongly encourage watching the conversation between Simien, producer Effie Brown, actors Tessa Thompson and Tyler James Williams, and Macalester professor Leola Johnson that took place after the first sold-out Walker screening. --Eliza Summerlin
I missed the boat when Dear White People screened at the Walker in the spring of 2014. Eight months later, I finally got to see what all the buzz was about when it played again as a nominee for the Independent Spirit Awards. I had read multiple reviews, spent hours rereading old tweets from the DWP account, and watched the trailer countless times, so I didn’t expect anything new when I did actually sit down to watch it. But writer/director Justin Simien’s debut made me conscious in a way I didn’t anticipate. Dear White People never failed to make me laugh while simultaneously revaluating and questioning that laughter. The audience was implicated in every way, making the whole experience incredibly self-aware (particularly for Minnesotans, given its University of Minnesota filming location). I think the brilliance of Dear White People is its ability to provoke a conversation about race in America that feels serious and productive as well as inclusive. There is no character who stands 100% morally correct and this ambiguity creates the space for empathy. Days after I watched Dear White People, I continued to muse over Simien’s use of humor as a political tactic. I strongly encourage watching the conversation between Simien, producer Effie Brown, actors Tessa Thompson and Tyler James Williams, and Macalester professor Leola Johnson that took place after the first sold-out Walker screening. --Eliza Summerlin
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