The 10 Best Movies of 2014

The Best Movies of 2014, from Boyhood, Citizenfour, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Gone Girl and more.

Despite a lack of racial diversity, gender equality, originality, strong box office returns or general cultural interest in things that aren’t Taylor Swift or “Orange is the New Black”, the movies manage to put out more than a few good ones each year.

But because all of the above are all anyone’s been clamoring for this year, it’s hard to say this was a strong year for the movies and then read a post like Mark Harris’s in Grantland. His article “The Birdcage” is the most compelling and informative Death of Cinema post you’re likely to read this or any year. He argues that Hollywood is following superheroes down the franchise rabbit hole, in which it isn’t enough for a movie to be a movie; it has to fit with the brand.

I look at my Top 10 list now and only see two blockbusters, only one of which will become a franchise, so presumably it can’t all be bad. But increasingly I’m not so sure. Following the events of “The Interview,” will Hollywood be likely to take the risks that produced that movie, among many of the other daring films this year? It’s unlikely that anything will ever be made quite like my Number One selection this year, but does the audience for such a film get smaller or larger moving into 2015?

The 10 films I’ve listed here are simply the ones I enjoyed the most, not necessarily the ones most likely to push cinema forward or be the game changers the industry needs. Later this week I’ll list out my picks for the 11-30 Best Films of 2014, and hopefully those will help tip the scales a little more. Continue reading “The 10 Best Movies of 2014”

Citizenfour

Laura Poitras’s documentary on Edward Snowden goes beyond politics to the nuances of how he made his escape.

Edward Snowden is sitting in his Hong Kong hotel room on his bed, laptop in hand, with a red sheet over his head. He’s taking certain precautions. Sitting in the same room are journalists Glenn Greenwald and “Citizenfour’s” director Laura Poitras. Snowden jokingly condescends about how they’re not being completely secure online, and then very casually remembers that the VOIP phone in his room could quite easily be tapped. “I don’t think that anything would surprise me at this point,” Greenwald says in response.

Poitras’s documentary takes you so deep down the rabbit hole that just about anything could happen, and no surprise would be beyond belief. “Citizenfour” is a real life spy story, the stuff of “All the President’s Men” and “The Conversation” in which a slow, sinister, mysterious burn can reveal the greatest twists and controversies. It’s a chilling, tingling documentary about how Snowden first wrapped Poitras and Greenwald into this mess and how he finally got out. Though it is as tense, entertaining and emotionally powerful as any fictional movie, “Citizenfour” and its subject matter makes for also the most important movie of the year.

So much was made and said about Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding the NSA. Was he a patriot or a traitor? What does it mean to have privacy in a digital age? What was up with Snowden’s stubbly beard? Continue reading “Citizenfour”