This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2014

from Boyhood thread ...

begins to get nominated for awards

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/gotham-nominations-2014-awards-full-list-1201337272/

― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Thursday, October 23, 2014 11:07 AM (54 minutes ago)

It begins

THE DYING HISTORY OF DETRIUS (a full decade!):

This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2013
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2012
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2011
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2010
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2009
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2008
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2007
end-of-2006 film stuff (detrius 2, the Richard Donner Cut)
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2005
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2004

Very detrius thoughts: I haven't even seen it yet and I have absolutely no problem with Gothams leaving Foxcatcher off the list.

but it got an ensemble troika acting award. I am skeptical.

Haven't seen Birdman, Actress, Dear White People and a number of others yet, but my favorite films to date on that list are probably still Grand Budapest and Manakamana.

A film critic on my wall sez Birdman is All That Jazz.

Haven't seen Birdman either, but don't have major qualms with any of the other four nominees for feature. Under the Skin ftw tho.

xp I could live with that.

it's a Fellini hommage?

I shudder when I see Innaritu without a screenwriter

yay another detrius thread to hang out in my active bookmarks for years to come

I'm gonna bookmark detrius this year we'll see how long I can sustain interest

I've got them all double bookmarked.

Hey, I've actually seen one of these (Boyhood)! That never usually never happens until well into the following year.

This two-month-old review of Birdman has been causing shit over at the site in question ever since: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2014/08/telluride-14-birdman.html

midway between a mid-life crisis Black Swan and the Noises Off version of Brazil

This is one of those movies that it's apparently impossible to make unkind comparisons with other movies and not still sound awesome to me.

it's Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman.

If they showed Karen Blixen walking up to a pride in thigh-high Naugahyde heels with "Wild Women Do" blaring on the soundtrack, I'd bite.

are there any where-to-stream-detrius lists yet?

The Nordic Council Film Prize will be given out tomorrow. The nominees are:

Nymphomaniac (Denmark)
Concrete Night (Finland)
Of Horses and Men (Iceland)
Blind (Norway)
Force Majeure (Sweden)

It's probably a fight between Nymphomaniac and Force Majeure, which is as it always is, only once has the prize not gone to Denmark or Sweden, but I'm kind of rooting for Blind. I'd be ok with the winner no matter what, though, it's probably the strongest field ever.

hypothetically they would've had to watch Nymphomaniac to give it a prize right?

Well, I'll be. The prize went to Of Horses and Men. Fun choice. Very good film. Very small as well, 80 min, basically pictures of stoic men on tiny horses, but it's fun all the way through.

International Documentary Association Nominations

BEST FEATURE AWARD

Citizenfour
Director: Laura Poitras
RADiUS-TWC, Participant Media, and HBO Documentary Films

Finding Vivian Maier
Directors: John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
Sundance Selects

Point and Shoot
Director: Marshall Curry
The Orchard

The Salt of the Earth
Directors: Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Sony Pictures Classics

Tales of the Grim Sleeper
Director: Nick Broomfield
HBO and SKY ATLANTIC

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/international-documentary-association-awards-announces-744750

My two faves this year at the moment are The Naked Room and Fifi Howls from Happiness.

British Indies

BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM

’71.
Calvary.
Mr. Turner.
Pride.
The Imitation Game.

ACTRESS

Alicia Vikander for Testament of Youth.
Cheng Pei Pei for Lilting.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw for Belle.
Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game.
Sameena Jabeen Ahmed for Catch Me Daddy.

ACTOR

Asa Butterfield for X+Y.
Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game.
Brendan Gleeson for Calvary.
Jack O’Connell for ’71.
Timothy Spall for Mr. Turner.

INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM

Blue Ruin.
Boyhood.
Fruitvale Station.
Ida.
The Badadook.

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-british-independent-film-awards-2014-nominations

European Film Awards

EUROPEAN FILM 2014

Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (Turist).

Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida.

Andrei Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan (Levifan).

Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Director’s Cut: Volume I & II.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Winter Sleep (Kis uykusu).

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2014

Brendan Gleeson in Calvary.

Tom Hardy in Locke.

Alexey Serebryakov in Leviathan (Leviafan).

Stellan Skarsgård in Nymphomaniac Director’s Cut: Volume I & II.

Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner.

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2014

Marian Alvarez in Wounded (La herida).

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in Human Capital (Il capitale umano).

Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit).

Charlotte Gainsbourg in Nymphomaniac Director’s Cut: Volume I & II.

Agata Kulesza in Ida.

Agata Trzebuchowska in Ida.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-european-film-awards-2014-nominations

One amazing thing: The show has an audience award, and naturally, there's a bit of overlap with the nominees for Best Film. Now, Ida being nominated for both does not surprise me - haven't seen it yet, but it seems popular and -ist. But Nymphomaniac being nominated for an audience award seems to say something very weird about European audiences...

Have only seen the Scandinavian nominees. Root for them or perhaps Ceylan.

euro audiences fucking love shia laboof

euro audiences love shia laboof fucking.

btw

The New York Film Critics Circle announced today they will vote for the 2015 awards on December 1. This year the Gala Awards dinner will be held on Monday, January 5, 2015 at the elegant Tao Downtown. Additions to the group are new members Scott Foundas of Variety, and Wesley Morris of Grantland.

so on those newbies, 1 - 1 = 0

NYFCC has lost a majority of the ones I trust tbh.

i didn't know, have they been bleeding members? (I'm assuming youre not referring to Armond.)

Well, maybe not everyone ... looks like 3biri and Uh1ich and K1awans are still in there. But so is R3x R33d.

And regardless of all else, you could certainly count on 4rmond to not blindly rubber stamp this year's predestined Oscar draws.

I'm semi-sensing a fair amount of resistance to the "predestined" so far, but this is the furthest removed i've been from it in years.

I always say that right about this time of the year. And then by one month from now it's all "what happened to that wide open race?"

All the biopic-type stuff seems received at the same upper level of "meh" so far, which leaves the fake-indie (Birdman) and the indie-indie (Boyhood)? What aura of inevitability do you see coalescing?

(i did get into Turing-Cumberbatch at MoMA for next week)

At this very minute, I do see a clear path opening up for Boyhood to lose to Selma.

We're not nec talking about the Osc*rs, you realize...

I haven't seen any "takes" on Selma yet -- does it matter if it's good? (I like I Will Follow, Ava DuVernay's last, but it was humble, and I don't know if this one can afford to be.)

check that, it was Middle of Nowhere I saw.

oh boy, Tim Roth and Tom Wilkinson play George Wallace and LBJ in Selma. Get-a ready fer some Brit thespian/good ol' boy scenery CHEWIN'!

Oh, yeah, I'ma guess the crix awards are probably gonna be pretty much a Boyhood lovefest.

Nick Davis and N@thaniel think Whiplash is assured of a Best Pic nod. Maybe. Def for Supporting Actor.

you're talking about OSCAR NODS in DETRIUS again...

Pretty vocal minority calling bullshit on Whiplash

I misread the title.

i always forget that tom wilkinson is british, he's a very convincing american

Every alternative to Boyhood has a pretty solid core of detractors (moreso than Boyhood, I mean). I don't think there will be a major rally on behalf of Wes Anderson this time around, but who knows. Still trying to guess which foreign actress no one has heard of LAFCA will select for their prize this year.

Agata Trzebuchowska.

uh god is boyhood gonna win a bunch of prizes?

as sure as Mason grows up

oh boy, Tim Roth and Tom Wilkinson play George Wallace and LBJ in Selma. Get-a ready fer some Brit thespian/good ol' boy scenery CHEWIN'!

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 12, 2014 5:40 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/10/36/65/2223429/5/628x471.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511D7X3M13L.jpg

more doc love for Poitras

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION FEATURE FILMMAKING

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days on Earth.

Steve James‘s Life Itself.

Jesse Moss’s The Overnighters.

Laura Poitras‘s Citizenfour.

Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTION

Nick Broomfield for Tales of the Grim Sleeper.

Robert Greene for Actress.

Steve James for Life Itself.

Jesse Moss for The Overnighters.

Laura Poitras for Citizenfour.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-cinema-eye-honors-2015-nominations

And more love for Roger Ebert, for that matter.

Just got home from seeing Actress. It's quite good. Both Robert Greene and Brandy Burre were there, talked a lot afterwards, they are pretty talkative people. Ne me Quitte Pas, which has gotten a few nominations, is worth checking out as well.

so did I! Was very wary of the subject matter, and was impressed with the permission it gave you to consider that BB was a huge fucking mess/asshole much of the time. Probably my favorite doc of the year so far along with Naked Room and Fifi.

A pretty fun moment at the Q&A when she talked about her thoughts on when she should tell her documentarian that she was having an affair...

is she using the doc as her "reel"?

He, that was a good scene wasn't it? 'Oh that's the sex scene, don't think we need to see that...' I don't know if she uses it as reel, but she said it changed her life, and apparantly she is working with people in New York. Oh, she was in Listen Up Philip, which Robert Greene also edited, wonder if she thought we would know that.

lol of course i just missed a week of listen up philip at the afi, p sure that wasn't on the calendar a week ago

could see he who gets slapped with live accompaniment tho! if i had $15 to spare!

I saw them in the wrong order, i don't remember her in LUP (which i quite disliked)

oh shit, now i do. one of its worst scenes.

Hong Sang-soo’s Hill of Freedom has been named the best Korean film of the year by the Korean Association of Film Critics’ Awards. “Korean-Chinese director Zhang Lu was named best director for his Gyeongju, with the best actor award going to Choi Min-sik of Roaring Currents, and Chun Woo-hee of Han Gong-ju named best actress.”

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/hill-of-freedom-wins-korean-critics-award-1201355423/

not holding out much hope for Imitation Game tnite, but Matthew Goode will be appearing afterward, hotcha

Independent Spirit Award nominations:
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/birdman-tops-spirit-awards-nominations-full-list-1201364588/

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt3263614/

A jaded Japanese woman discovers a hidden copy of Fargo (1996) on VHS, believing it to be a treasure map indicating the location of a large case of money.

I just...

yeah, that came to the festival here. it looks dreadful.

Minnesotans loved it, I guess.

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant
Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Jenny Slate, Obvious Child
Tilda Swinton, Only Lovers Left Alive

OK, that's a pretty cool slate as far as these things go.

wow – that's an estimable list.

(haven't seen Kumiko or Moore though)

Obvious Child trailer made me kinda sick.

Cotillard, fine....
oh hey Eric, look what's at the top of Sicinski's poll-eligible list now:

http://academichack.net/notasteforaccounting.htm

i just caught up w/ only lovers left alive this past weekend. i enjoyed it, though i think it ran out of a lot of steam after mia wasikowska (sp?) left. not because her character necessarily enlivened the film so much as i think it just ran out of whatever slight narrative momentum it had built up, and the visual inventiveness flagged a bit too. maybe "inventiveness" is too strong a word for jarmusch mostly running through his favored poses.

i do think the idea of ageless vampires as the ultimate hipsters is a really funny and surprisingly rich one, at least as far as ideas in jarmusch films go. the film did about as much with that as i would have hoped in the first half of the film, then it began spinning its wheels. the last sequence was pretty great, though something about the framing of the final image felt off to me.

i really liked the visually disorienting opening shots

even more than his other films the film felt like an amused semi-autobiography. jarmusch is the ultimate hipster gadfly, carefully maintaining his cred through generational and other shifts. he probably feels a little bit like the main characters of his film by now.

It ran out of steam for me too but it was by far the wittiest and most engaged Jarmusch I've seen in years, maybe ever. Ideal fusion of subject + form.

Yeah, it's about record collectors. The damned, truly.

In the Indies' queer ghetto I prefer Test to Ira Sachs' Make Way for Old Married Gays in Sweaters.

OK, Armond.

it was the first decent jarmusch since parts of "ghost dog." actually i think i liked it better than anything since "mystery train," but i haven't revisited "dead man" or "night on earth" in a long long time so that's not a judgment i'd stake anything on.

ultimately i think all of films after "stranger than paradise" are basically redundant, but that doesn't mean they don't have their pleasures.

all of HIS films, i mean

it'd be funny if i thought that "stranger than paradise" was truly the end point of cinema.

Given so much of Sic's list matches my own, and given Cotillard's participation, I'll give that one a shot.

In the Indies' queer ghetto I prefer Test to Ira Sachs' Make Way for Old Married Gays in Sweaters.

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius)

A facile comparison. Except for a mildly craven dream sequence, Test is first-rate; it has nothing to do with Sachs' movie except in how well it shows gay life unfolding. I would've thought Test's white San Fran dancers would irk you just as much.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt3263614/

/A jaded Japanese woman discovers a hidden copy of Fargo (1996) on VHS, believing it to be a treasure map indicating the location of a large case of money./

I just...

Idk I enjoyed it. Rinko Kikuchi is pretty wonderful.

Facile comparisons are the only ones worth making.

I gen don't have problems with gays in period pieces. I've never seen a film use its last shot in publicity/media photos as much as Test does, tho.

Gay movies in using bare pecs as promotional material shocker.

there were options besides a spoiler!

J.Ro's top 5 (+1):

Horse Money (Pedro Costa)
Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard)
Locke (Steven Knight)
The Owners (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras)

TV vote: Borgen

Oh, and for that matter:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/best-films-2014

Boyhood over Goodbye to Language by a 2:1 margin.

goodbye to boyhood

Leviathan seems to have really connected with UK arthouse audiences (it won best film at the London Film Festival this year, too); it's an impressive film in many ways, but there's not much that's submerged about it. The Return was a better, more oblique film.

Apparently these are all coming down today...

Cahiers du Cinéma's top 10 of the year (according to J0rd4n Cr0nk on Twitter)

01. LI'L QUINQUIN (Dumont)
02. ADIEU AU LANGAGE (Godard)
03. UNDER THE SKIN (Glazer)
04. MAPS TO THE STARS (Cronenberg)
05. THE WIND RISES (Miyazaki)
06. NYMPHOMANIAC (Von Trier)
07. MOMMY (Dolan)
08. LOVE IS STRANGE (Sachs)
09. LE PARADIS (Cavalier)
10. OUR SUNHI (Hong)

Screener season seems to have leaked early this year, have already got Mr Turner, Still Alice and Fury.

screener-free year-end for the first time in 7 or 8 years for me

That Dumont film is an alleged comedy, oui?

ugh Mommy

heh i'm seeing Mommy for free Monday at MoMma

Tom at the Farm (which is older but doesn't come out until next year or something) was really good.

I saw *that* at MoMA last spring with XD in the house. A homophobia thriller, I guess? Didn't really work on me.

Watched my Wild screener yesterday - nowhere near as risible as Dallas Buyers' Club, works as kind of an undergraduate feminism primer. Plus I have a soft spot for "long walk" movies. and Laura Dern never hurts.

Tom at the Farm was kinda ordinary, I think. Very stagy, trying hard to filmify it up. Also, all the bad critics in Denmark love him, write dumb stuff about him, so my lack of enthusiasm is kinda turning into active dislike.

if Mommy is no good I may quit the little twink forever

His twink days are limited. He's maybe a year or two away from being the gay, French Shia LaBeouf.

Kevin B Lee on the best first features, topped by Dear White People and The STrange Little Cat:

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/the-best-first-features-of-2014

Actress might be my new fave of '14 (admittedly not too much competition tho)

https://twitter.com/Sidney_Falco/status/539420983762104320

The beginning of the end begins now.

Unless they somehow pick Winter Sleep or Under the Skin or Stranger By The Lake over Boyhood or Birdman.

Michael Keaton will win. At a local film critic's apt yesterday watching Locke, I saw that its screener was particularly egregious about promoting Hardy.

BEST ANIMATED FILM: The Lego Movie

what did ye think of the dardennes' "two days, one night". i watched it (and liked it) last night, cotillard was brilliant in it.

Critics aside, only festival ppl have seen it in the US, opens 12/24.

Ida as foreign film. I don't understand the hate on ILE, but that's a boring choice.

btw keep an eye out for Bad Hair, best Venezuelan film ever about a gay 9-year-old boy. (srsly, it's good and the best queer film I've seen this year besides Stranger by the Lake)

xpost wow, its out on DVD over here

That didn't take long. Citizenfour apparently steamrolled its way to a win as best doc.

Michael B, we are spoonfed foreign films about 6-24 months after they are relevant elsewhere.

re Stranger by the Lake, which NYFCC members do not disqualify films with come shots?

Citizenfour apparently steamrolled its way to a win as best doc

trying to make OTOH amends for Zero Dark Thirty (as if)

Probably not.

and entirely predictable Oz prison Nazi for supp actor

basically, Jeffrey Wells might be the NYFCC membership

and P Arquette, that's OK

I'm fine with both Arquette and Hawke being in the mix.

Mike D'Angelo @gemko
People seem really excited about SELMA. Does it delve into the NIGHT COURT years or is it mostly behind the scenes at YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS?

(I hear it's pretty good, in fact)

are there any where-to-stream-detrius lists yet?

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Tuesday, October 28, 2014 7:43 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I hoped Arquette would get noticed somewhere.

I think she is the fave for most of the crix groups

J.K. Simmons juggernaut begins

Wes Anderson, finally not a bridesmaid for the NYFCC screenplay award.

good one

yes the Lou Gossett verbal sadist showoff role (Somehow didn't work for R Lee Ermey) xp

Though Budapest, Simmons, Arquette, LEGO all feel like very very very safe choices, I can't really vehemently dispute any of them.

wait till Keaton wins

totally fine w/ Citizenfour as the doc consensus pick, similarly

a few intriguing titles I've never heard of on John Waters' list, and a surprise omission

https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201410&id=49103

If Wes A was going to win a screenplay award someplace, where but here? ppl weird about "surprises" these days.

what's the omission, Woody? sounded too tasteful for JW.

So Dardennes have a shot at best actress w/ their movie star, right?

unless she wins for this

Best Cinematography: Darius Khondji (The Immigrant)

is whiplash any good

the central performance is more interesting than Simmons, and it's refreshingly free of biographical detritus designed to humanize the lead; but the movie confuses great effort with inspiration.

Timothy Spall! fine (if not as fine as Fiennes)

NYFCC loves Mike Leigh iirc

yeah, i assumed it was too good to win til i remembered Sally Hawkins. It probably is TS's biggest and best role for Leigh (or anyone).

A pretty brilliant pair of choices. Esp. w/ actor given how many stuffy, boring frontrunners there are in the biopic sweepstakes.

and entirely predictable Oz prison Nazi for supp actor

Huh, I didn't know J.K. Simmons was in Oz.

he was essentially the reason to watch the show aside from the beefcake.

Ooh, this is getting good.

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard (for The Immigrant and Two Days, One Night)

I mean in terms of staving off if only momentarily the Keaton/Redmayne/Moore avalanche.

YES

Cotillard my least favorite of The Immigrant perfs but that film needs recognition

Opposite with me! I didn't like a whole lot about The Immigrant at NYFF '13 besides Cotillard and the images, so OK by me.

The other two actors were alright, but doing Brando and Cagney/Richard basehart too much, i thought.

I could imagine Cotillard winning NYFCC, LAFCA and NFCS and still managing to take a back seat for a nod to Jones, Adams, and/or Pike.

It's almost as if they're *trying* this year:

Best First Film: Jennifer Kent (The Babadook)

film/dir go to some combination of Boyhood and Immigrant?

maybe the membership "cleanse" is partly responsible?

i do need to see The Babadook shortly...

film/dir go to some combination of Boyhood and Immigrant?

Halfway there.

Best Director: Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

they actually don't split pic/dir as often as the AAs lately

Nope, they sure don't.

Best Picture: Boyhood

That result came down extraordinarily fast, which means that this could be another Social Network-style sweep year for the crix awards.

Peter Travers got a ballot, so be thankful.

and there we have it! amateurist to thread!

the J Wells blog is beautiful, he's apoplectic over Cotillard and The Immigrant.

Worth pulling:

Let me explain something very clearly: Nobody has been talking about Marion Cotillard as a Best Actress contender of any consequence. Nobody at all. She’s clearly genuine and stressed-out and crumbling in a non-actressy way in the Dardennes Brothers film but c’mon, going door to door and asking her co-workers for the same consideration in scene after scene after scene? In my book she phoned in her performance in The Immigrant.

Nobody at all.

Every year I forget this man is dumb as rocks:

The Best Supporting Actress award has gone to another consensus choice, Boyhood‘s Patricia Arquette. A fine performance although I didn’t care for Arquette’s character subjecting her kids to not one but two abusive, alcoholic conservative assholes as stepdads.

I mean, he sounds like Chuck Todd pissed off about bloggers:

The New York Film Critics Circle used to represent an elite standard (and by that I don’t mean ingrown and dweeby). It really mattered to win one of their awards because they didn’t suffer fools and only the creme de la creme contenders were considered. Four years ago they gave their Best Picture award to The Social Network…exactly! But they’ve gradually become more easygoing as far as admitting new members were concerned over the last few years and so their choices have begun to feel less and less discriminating, at least as far as Best Picture choices have been concerned.

@NickPinkerton
DON'T BLAME ME I ONLY VOTED FOR STRAY DOGS AND AMERICAN SNIPER ON EVERY SINGLE BALLOT #NYFCC

Still giving Wells a run for his money...

https://twitter.com/AwardsDaily/status/539453061911945217

strange tweet by Scott Tobias crediting Weinstein promotional savvy for Immigrant awards. HUHHHH? After they practically dumped it last spring?

Other (far more OTM) Tweets goading them into doing a bona fide promotional push.

Always worth a read:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-nolan-effect-why-the-larger-best-picture-pool-is-actually-shrinking-the-number-of-oscar-contenders/

Anyway yeah, let's hope Spall continues to vanquish the Cumbermayne.

I see The Immigrant is not out on r1 Blu/disc yet? So they WERE planning awards bounty, the bastards.

Gothams to Birdman, Keaton, Moore

http://deadline.com/2014/12/gotham-awards-2014-winners-list-1201305127/

any news on what the runnersup for NYFCC were?

https://twitter.com/kristapley/status/539542176934674432
https://twitter.com/kristapley/status/539544241379504128

Apparently "Selma" and "Inherent Vice" had Best Picture support in the NYFCC vote. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Julianne Moore in Best Actress.
David Oyelowo, Eddie Redmayne and Alfred Molina were in the mix for actor Norton for supporting, though Birdman had little support.

National Board of Review today, nO?

Yes. They managed a comparatively rare feat of having 3 of their 4 acting winners get snubbed by Oscar last year.

Always a nice countdown, from Little White Lies:

http://vimeo.com/113355414

GOLDEN GOB noms are next week already, prepare that gag reflex.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/save-the-dates-heres-the-2014-15-awards-calendar-20140916

My, but the National Board of Review likes to do stuff like this:

Best Film: A Most Violent Year
Best Director: Clint Eastwood – American Sniper
Best Actor (TIE): Oscar Isaac – A Most Violent Year; Michael Keaton – Birdman
Best Actress: Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton – Birdman
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain – A Most Violent Year
Best Original Screenplay: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller – The Lego Movie
Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Breakthrough Performance: Jack O’Connell – Starred Up & Unbroken
Best Directorial Debut: Gillian Robespierre – Obvious Child
Best Foreign Language Film: Wild Tales
Best Documentary: Life Itself
William K. Everson Film History Award: Scott Eyman
Best Ensemble: Fury
Spotlight Award: Chris Rock for writing, directing, and starring in – Top Five
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Rosewater
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: Selma

Top Films
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
Fury
Gone Girl
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
The Lego Movie
Nightcrawler
Unbroken

Top 5 Foreign Language Films
Force Majeure
Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem
Leviathan
Two Days, One Night
We Are the Best!

Top 5 Documentaries
Art and Craft
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Keep On Keepin’ On
The Kill Team
Last Days in Vietnam

Top 10 Independent Films
Blue Ruin
Locke
A Most Wanted Man
Mr. Turner
Obvious Child
The Skeleton Twins
Snowpiercer
Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
Starred Up
Still Alice

Evidently everyone's on the same "ignore Foxcatcher and it'll go away" page as I, tho.

i guess no major awards to Boyhood cuz they are composed of the gun- and Bible-gifting grandparents

A Most Predictable List

I dunno, their listing AMVY doesn't mean anything to me but i am looking fwd to it bcz of the participants. Was anyone suspecting it'd get best film somewhere?

Reports on it have been sorta all-or-nothing, afaict.

surprised the Board went for Force Majeure and Ida is nowhere.

at least we can tell from the Citizenfour snub that they are a branch of either the NSA or Ready for Hillary.

scores

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the-playlists-15-best-film-scores-of-2014-20141202

bit irritated that half the sight and sound best of 2014 list is made up of films that arent actually out until next year. not everyone gets to go to cannes, yknow.

Some of them are "from" last year to me! (US vs UK)

Why? Won't you rather be told about great films to come than great films you've already missed?

(x-post)

People across the globe are not gonna be drawing from the same pool of "eligible" films anytime soon, even tho it's allegedly possible via illegal means I presume (or unless you use the Whatever I See Anywhere criterion).

"Why? Won't you rather be told about great films to come than great films you've already missed?"

well that's one way to look at it... though it then becomes an overlap between 'films to look out for in 2015' and 'the best of 2014'. all the films look good in any case.

I will confirm that Mommy might be Xavier Dolan's worst film yet tho.

Dolan has become my albatross on these lists in recent years.

The release-date eligibility reared its ugly head in last year's ILX poll. I think I'd like to do it again anyway.

Ehrlich is so good at those videos but boy do I have issues with his choices.

I can't believe Selma might actually be good.

It's the writer's first produced screenplay, which has been kicking around for at least seven years, acc to this 2008 (!) Variety piece. He's a Brit in his 60s who had a scuccessful play in the UK, late '90s. So they had awhile to get it right, maybe. (And DuVernay has talent.)

http://variety.com/2008/film/news/paul-webb-1117987703/

I will confirm that Mommy might be Xavier Dolan's worst film yet tho

Believe it or not it's even dumber if you're Canadian

well, I consider myself blest then! The two actresses did have some moments, but I would've shoved the lad into an oncoming truck v early.

" The release-date eligibility reared its ugly head in last year's ILX poll. I think I'd like to do it again anyway."

Well, to be fair it was more me being a dick about it. I promise to be less so. Please do it again and remember to vote for nymphomaniac!

caught Whiplash yesterday - I liked Reiser's unusually supportive/warm dad character, beyond that, kinda nonplussed? probably didn't help that it was the anti-We Are the Best! in terms of its approach to music. works better as a sports movie.

Please do it again and remember to vote for nymphomaniac!

What was Michael Douglas in this year?

Catherine Zeta-Jones, last I checked.

i'm sure she checks regularly.

I think I was pretty dickish about release-date eligibility too, but it worked out OK last time, didn't it? Hope we do it again too (though I'm a lot more confident about what will win this time)

I'm doing it again but not until the end of January/beginning of February to let people get caught up.

Wait, remind me, is Stray Dogs eligible for the list this year? If so, that is obviously what everyone should vote for.

It's on my list anyway.

Mine too.

not mine

I will try von Trier's sex epic from the library

I'm inclined to give SD a second look, but I think I've seen nine Tsai films and off the bat it was not in the upper 5 or 6.

Boston crix get challopsy w/ awards: Snowpiercer, Brendan Gleeson

Hoberman, Taubin, James Quandt all have the same #1: Goodbye to Language

details:

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-lists-and-awards-ida-bofca-tony

LA crix in progress:

@LAFilmCritics
BEST ANIMATION, Winner: THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA.

https://twitter.com/lafilmcritics

Tom Hardy, eh

So, um, Birdman.

Mostly reminded me that I loathe most things related to theater generally.

saw Locke last week. Hardy sure has a beautiful voice and blows his nose with eloquence, but the thing is a 90-min stunt.

Best coming-of-age movies that are not Boyhood

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/the-ten-best-coming-of-age-movies-that-arent-boyhood

AFI chooses eleven utterly unsurprising films (get 'edgy' with Nightcrawler:

AMERICAN SNIPER
BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
BOYHOOD
FOXCATCHER
THE IMITATION GAME
INTERSTELLAR
INTO THE WOODS
NIGHTCRAWLER
SELMA
UNBROKEN
WHIPLASH

a survey by Keyframe

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/top-25-feature-films-of-2014

and on a crappier note, SAG nominations (no Spall or Cotillard obv)

http://www.eonline.com/news/604452/sag-awards-2015-complete-list-of-nominations

why didn't they nominate more stars

Duvall in The Judge has gotta be the worst-reviewed trophy horse in that bunch.

Ban actors.

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GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS
DateThursday, December 11, 2014 at 8:40AM

No, Paula Patton did not become a Hollywood Foreign Press Associate. But she was helping with the nominations in the wee hours. Refresh your screen for updates...

Best Picture, Drama
"Boyhood"
"Foxcatcher"
"The Imitation Game"
"Selma"
"The Theory of Everything"

Best Picture, Comedy Or Musical
"Birdman"
"The Grand Budapest Hotel"
"Into the Woods"
"Pride"
"St. Vincent"

Best Actress, Motion Picture - Drama
Jennifer Aniston, "Cake"
Felicity Jones, "The Theory of Everything"
Julianne Moore, "Still Alice"
Rosamund Pike, "Gone Girl"
Reese Witherspoon, "Wild"

Best Actor, Motion Picture - Drama
Steve Carell, "Foxcatcher"
Benedict Cumberbatch, "Imitation Game"
Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler"
David Oyelowo, "Selma"
Eddie Redmayne, "The Theory of Everything"

Best Actress, Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
Amy Adams, "Big Eyes"
Emily Blunt, "Into the Woods"
Hellen Mirren, "The Hundred-Foot Journey"
Julianne Moore, "Map to the Stars"
Quvenzhane Wallis - "Annie"

Best Actor, Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
Ralph Fiennes, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Michael Keaton, "Birdman"
Bill Murray, "St. Vincent"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Inherent Vice"
Christoph Waltz, "Big Eyes"

Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture
Patricia Arquette, "Boyhood"
Jessica Chastain, "A Most Violent Year"
Keira Knightley, "The Imitation Game"
Emma Stone, "Birdman"
Meryle Streep, "Into the Woods"

Best Supporting Actor, Motion Picture
Robert Duvall, "The Judge"
Ethan Hawke, "Boyhood"
Edward Norton, "Birdman"
Mark Ruffalo, "Foxcatcher"
J.K. Simmons, "Whiplash"

Best Director, Motion Picture
Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Avu Duvernay, "Selma"
David Fincher, "Gone Girl"
Alejandro González Iñárritu, "Birdman"
Richard Linklater, "Boyhood"

Oops. Film bitching alright.

Didn't realise big eyes had come out already.

It is opening quietly this weekend in NY.

That Helen Mirren thing is a home movie, I guess?

Spall should hire a hitman.

Supporting actor is a good list:

Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K, Simmons, Whiplash

have only seen Hawke, allergic to his ratface

isn't Duvall's par tin The Judge basically Fred Gwynne in My Cousin Vinny

it's a father-son melodrama w/out a clue apparently

Edelstein

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/best-movies-of-2014.html

Keyframe performance poll

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/top-20-performances-of-2014

And I shock myself to say it, BEN AFFLECK.

so has anyone seen St Vincent? Will it fizzle come nominations time like Bill Murray's FDR moviee?

hey, I have the same #1 as Eric (so far)! Did you get to see the Dardennes yet?

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/slant-magazines-top-25-films-of-2014

LOL is there really a film critic called Diego Costa?

Stranger by the Lake is def top ten material for me too, but it seems to have been one of those films that got a very staggered release worldwide (it was in the 2013 Sight and Sound Top Ten, tho it didn't hit British cinemas until this year.)

I saw it at NYFF 2013, it ran in NYC in January '14 (for maybe 3 weeks).

(i don't get D Costa ref)

hey, I have the same #1 as Eric (so far)!

I probably will too if North, The End of History and The Immigrant survive replay.

*don't survive

don't think I would survive a Norte replay, tho it was OK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Costa

Film Comment released and unreleased Top 20 lists (I probably prefer #2 and 3 on unreleased to everything but Stranger by the Lake on the other):

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/20-best-films-of-2014

http://filmcomment.com/entry/20-best-unreleased-films-of-2014

a less eccentric and hence less interesting list than Slant's.

top tens bumming me out this year

you mean, Alfred, you like Ida better at #19 than 4.

(I would unrank it too)

which of your favorites are missing, schlump?

i think i'm fairly jumbled to start with; between my patchy, un-time-stamped memory & the aforementioned quantum-release-date limbos in which films exist, now, i can really barely piece together a top ten. i'd co-sign your enthusiasm for stranger by the lake above whatever else was in its list were it not something i saw last year. think what i was getting at was just a deficit in what these lists actually seem to sometimes track, which for a couple of other recent years would be at least the vague parameters of a contemporary moment in cinema - if a list had to juggle apichatpong & panahi & martel, & so on, it felt appealing to consume, just for trying to corral everything into some kind of cohesive register of importance. it's really disappointing to read brody's list & see it heavier on the usual like ... One New American Filmmaker I Don't Care About entries than usual, or to read other lists & see that ida was included because i guess that's as good as it got this year in the churning-serious-historical-film scene. & in personal grudge-match terms i hated seeing the wes anderson film pop up again & again; i really thought it was just so slight - that continued attention toward it is embarrassing, almost, that the kind of aesthetic-moment/semiotic-exercise is something we should be looking past. i was never a hoberman person but i thought his AF list was super boring, too.

things that come to mind that would make a top ten for me would be the godard, thankfully co-signed by everyone else, & which i feel as enthusiastic about as anything, for its newness; & the roy andersson film, the strange little cat - again, 2013 for some - exhibition, the new hong, & i remember no other films. & there's a lot i'm enthusiastic about that i won't see until next year - mr. turner, inherent vice, winter sleep, what now? remind me, &c. you were leaning toward docs in your list of highlights, too, right?

Nice that Goodbye to Language is getting THE SECOND BEST but then when you see Wes Anderson froth directly below and you want to just bin it all.

The Tribe looks like something I could watch in '15.

The attraction to a dessicated distillation of sixties art house cliches like Ida is one of the few puzzlers for me this year.

The Wes A did go down a bit on 2nd viewing for me but I think part of it was the reduction from the big screen. I still think it's very good if not up to Moonrise Kingdom.

While I liked Under the Skin I'm finding it a tad overrated by the listmakers, but those Slant kids do like their thrillers, and I can't complain when the one with the dicks and ejaculate came in second. Under-40s not rushing to see The Homesman, genrewise.

This year not looking as doc-heavy for me as last year, but then again I won't declare it "over" for at least ten weeks. Also while I'm 100% politically attuned to Citizenfour, it's not more than half a first-rate doc on the aesthetics.

(also I am sorta eager to see Inherent Vice but I just saw a piece about PTA hyped "the West Coast Scorsese" and felt ill)

won't declare it "over" for at least ten weeks

otm

I wasn't moved by Under the Skin at all. This kind of mystery-of-women subject tends to make me fidget.

I honestly don't see how TGBH is "slight" when it's about love, war, sex, death. Do not confuse the wrapping paper w/ the contents.

xpost

Hmm. I didn't think of it as a mystery-of-women movie.

I don't think there was any intention for the makers of Under the Skin to "move" anybody.

I honestly don't see how TGBH is "slight" when it's about love, war, sex, death. Do not confuse the wrapping paper w/ the contents.

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 13 December 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All of those themes were played for laughs. At least that is my judgment from the trailer, which is all I will bother with.

I'd been sick of Wes Anderson for years and loved Grand Budapest Hotel. Give it a shot.

xyzzzz: a) not true, and b) laughs are serious business.

Ida's p good - nice architecture, a very beautiful tracking shot at the end, an unexpected departure through a window from the film's best performer, some good jazz - a well-mounted piece of pastiche that didn't overstay its welcome (unlike Leviathan, another film where Communist architecture and iconography looms large).

At least GBH has displaced Her as this year's whimsical piffle Top Ten pick.

i think the tracking shot in ida would be more laudable were it not exemplary of something the film was just crushingly absent of otherwise -- its freshness obviously rests on how stifling the rest of the framing was, but i don't think it's worth suffering a couple hours of the guy's abstruse formalism just to feel pleased when it stops being like that.

kinda agree with xyzzzz, though obviously: see the film. writing from work so can't go into depth, here, but, yes, its the employment of those themes, this kind of playful, semiotic elbow-in-the-ribs that frustrates me so. i feel like watching anderson encircle, like, a jailbreak plot, a simmering romantic tension, a tenderly-recalled bildungsroman & everything else exists solely in this narrow register of film as post-modern aesthetic exercise, a slideshow of curios it's nice to dip a toe into. we aren't watching a jailbreak plot; we're just pleasantly, ironically indulged by the demonstration of what it would be like if we were, at arm's length, appreciative of fiennes' eligibility to play that kind of guy, wrapping ribbon around just the idea of a certain kind of half-familiar arc. i don't know; i'm not arguing this intelligibly, i know. i just watch them & can't find the contents beneath the paper, the wrapper being (sorry i'm taking this too far) the product of a fastidious wrapping paper fetishist who just wanted something to wrap. i couldn't find a depth to what was happening, or a theme underneath; this is maybe me. there are some kinds of mannered un-realism that really work for me - bresson, hartley, stillman; maybe i just don't speak anderson's language.

I liked the undecurrent of Polish Jazz in Ida, how it almost stood for a people trying to move onto better things, from all those errors and buried bodies. xp

So The Babadook was good. Essie Davis will win no precursors though.

European Film Awards to Ida, Cotillard, Spall

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-ida-sweeps-the-european-film-awards

i think the tracking shot in ida would be more laudable were it not exemplary of something the film was just crushingly absent of otherwise -- its freshness obviously rests on how stifling the rest of the framing was, but i don't think it's worth suffering a couple hours of the guy's abstruse formalism just to feel pleased when it stops being like that.

The framing in Ida was compatible with the stifling atmosphere and the situation the characters were in? The tracking shot at the end might be seen as a moment of clarity/liberation.

idk, when I put it like its way too obvious in a cack handed way. Something you watch without spelling it out.

Brody (among the barely released, nobody here brought up the one-two of Josephine Decker yet)

1. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Wes Anderson)

2. “Thou Wast Mild and Lovely” (Josephine Decker)

3.-4. “Goodbye to Language” (Jean-Luc Godard)

3.-4. “The Last of the Unjust” (Claude Lanzmann)

5. “The Immigrant” (James Gray)

6. “American Sniper” (Clint Eastwood)

7. “Listen Up Philip” (Alex Ross Perry)

8. “Actress” (Robert Greene)

9. “Memphis” (Tim Sutton)

10. “Butter on the Latch” (Josephine Decker)

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/best-movies-2014

online crix for Budapest

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-online-film-critics-take-to-budapest

A choice for #1 that I thought received undeservedly grouchy reviews when it ran in NY this summer:

http://www.labuzamovies.com/2014/12/philippe-garrels-jealousy.html

ugh I'm starting to see Pike pop up in a few places

here's Indiewire

http://www.indiewire.com/survey/indiewire-2014-year-end-critics-poll/

Fiennes, hurrah

and Essie Davis!

i'm ascairt to see The Babadook

Pike's totally going all the way.

ah i see this is all an OSC*R preview, thx for playing

also, Essie Davis did not WIN, Alfred; Fiennes WON here, and WINNING is all that counts in all things detrius-related

I'm aware of it..?

i'm ascairt to see The Babadook

It's biggest failing is that it just isn't very scary, you'll be fine.

I'd be more scared of the overlap b/w this thread and the Oscar one.

William Friedkin gave it "THE SCARIEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN" quote (he also did that for a NYC funhouse around Halloween)

xp

Indiewire still has no idea how to make those individual ballots easily clickable, do they?

I totally forgot about Jealousy

maybe you'll see my name here next year:

http://www.floridafilmcritics.com/2014/12/16/2014-florida-film-critics-award-nominations/

Slant, workin' it

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-20-best-film-performances-of-2014

I really liked Michael J Andersons list:

1. Closed Curtain
2. Stray Dogs
3. Stranger by the Lake
4. Northe, the End of History
5. The Immigrant
6. Manakamana
7. Boyhood
8. Winter Sleep
9. The Strange Little Cat
10. Only Lovers Left Alive

8 of them are 2013 films, though...

not in the US! why are they going to make a list of films people can't see?

Sicinski:
"Even if innovation was in short supply, it was hardly absent. My top five films from this year all displayed something new. In some cases that something new was a way of organizing image and sound material that departed from shopworn avant-garde maneuvers; in other cases it was a posture or an attitude with regard to structure or representation, a refusal to adhere to established concepts of what experimental film looks like. Almost all of them expand the more time you spend with them. A few resemble documentary but are actually meticulously constructed. Others seem more overtly political than others, until those subtler works reveal their relationships of image, identity, and form, engaging in social and political discourse by other means."

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/top-5-experimental-films-of-2014

The only one I've seen of that list is Episode of the Sea, and I really, really hated that...

I would also wager that experimental film this year belonged to Adieu au Langage and Journey to the West, though prob more because of stature. It's not as if I've seen AaL, so I can't say if it's better.

PAULINE KAEL BREAKOUT AWARD

Did you name this award, Alfred?

don't be silly, they don't let blahggers join critics groups. It's all that distinguishes film criticism from musi -- OMG

FFCC allows bloggers if they meet the review minimum.

Did you name this award, Alfred?

― Eric H.,

vetoed my idea for BREAKOUT COCKTAIL AT FILMCRIT PARTY

Watched Ida tonigt. It's fine, don't have any objections to it winning the oscar and getting positions on all these lists. Not among the best films of the year, but fine fine.

Despite not totally agreeing with him, Brody's takedown of Ida has stuck with me. I think my biggest problem is that it's too in my Bresson/Bergman/Dreyer wheelhouse and feels like a pastiche, and I'm someone who really thinks he did a bang-up job with the framing.

a pastiche it remains although not charmless (and its brevity helps)

I did really like the use of curves in the film, the stairway, the arc, basically everytime yazz is heard. That was when it didn't seem as pastichy as elsewhere.

Also, has to say I disagree with Richard Brody massively. I hate that notion that victims somehow become better people from being treated like shit. Only one step from actively blaming them when they fail to be better than everyone else around them. Seems very realistic and understandable that Wanda would have been mighty vengeful coming home from fighting the nazis.

the Voice:

Best Film: "Boyhood"

Best Director: Richard Linklater "Boyhood"

Best Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler"

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "Two Days, One Night" and "The Immigrant"

Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons, "Whiplash"

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, "Boyhood"

Best Screenplay: Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

Best Documentary: "CITIZENFOUR"

Best First Feature: "The Babadook"

Best Animated Feature: "The LEGO Movie"

Worst Film: "Interstellar"

Movie Everyone Is Wrong About: "Birdman"

I can't figure out why Interstellar is worse than Transcendence, which got the same amount of votes. Alphabetical? Also, there best Undistributed Film was Norwegian film Blind, which is def on my top list as well.

Interstellar is p much the same as Boyhood tbh

John Wick and the Mekons and Cave films made Zacharek's top ten.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/12/stephanie_zachareks_top_10_movies_of_2014.php

last but not least, Kim Ki-duk's way, way out-there Moebius -- for a hotdog-eating contest the likes of which you've never seen.

^ Should've made way more Top tens.

Is it just me or was there just way less reasons (in the UK at least) to go to the cinema from Oct - Dec?

Way too many biopics -- Jimi hendrix, James Brown, Alan Turing, but even on the arthouse/foreign there was Violette (playing off on the dumb Sartre/De Beauvoir "aren't they a bunch of shits?" mild scandal), and I haven't been that arsed with Mr. Turner (like Spall enough but can't stand Mike Leigh). Panto-y or what?

Maybe I'm just noticing more but it took until Winter Sleep to feel things going back to normality.

Moebius was way better than awful awful Pieta, but top 10 of the year is ludicrous.

A lot more 'challenging' than Boyhood. I don't see the problem.

National Film Registry Class of 2014

Movie Everyone Is Wrong About: "Birdman"

I don't even know what this means

is anybody else interested in repping John Wick?

I will.

tell me more? I totally phased it out of my mind as late keanu international BO cash grab drek based on the poster.

well, i've seen 7/13

http://thedissolve.com/features/2014-in-review/851-the-best-2014-films-that-made-under-100000/

WHAT

Best Cartoon: The Congress
Rounding out the year's best is a cerebral satire about the Hollywood of tomorrow. Robin Wright plays herself as an aging actress who submits to a studio scan of her body to create a pliant, pixelated version of Robin Wright that will act in whatever schlock it wants. Then director Ari Folman leaps forward two decades to a future film industry where everyone is a cartoon star -- even the fans. Avatars of Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean jostle for space in an absurdist landscape that looks like the head trips of Hieronymus Bosch. It's a gorgeous nightmare. But as long as movies as strong as this year's best keep getting made, we can forestall it.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/12/amy_nichols_ten_best_movies_of_2014.php

what as in u haven't heard of this?

Ugh, The Congress is the worst film I saw all yeah, I think. Awfulawfulawful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIDUHFso6Uk

Slant does scenes

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-10-best-film-scenes-of-2014

https://filmfrontier.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/birdman-soars-with-the-florida-film-critics-circle/

Starting to think Birdman must actually be a biopic.

it isn't?

http://m.cdn.blog.hu/li/lisztesmegmondjaatutit/image/Az%20alcatrazi%20ember/7.%20Lancaster%20Stroud.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CRBK_oJYQOo/SwDTLnC64VI/AAAAAAAAAyE/JyWhIOcvcgk/s1600/cap691.bmp

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2014/12/the-best-films-of-2014.html

handy index if you like that sorta thing

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-lists-and-awards-2014-index

I have Polanski's to watch tonight.

so per G Kenny, what critic said the kid in Boyhood was a "monster"? amateurist?

saw Wild this morning. Witherspoon deserves the awards buzz, but oi, Vallee can't shape a scene without reminding the audience about motivations; he leaves nothing to the imagination.

so per G Kenny, what critic said the kid in Boyhood was a "monster"? amateurist?

why am i being invoked here? i don't read kenny regularly since i get kind of tired of him wrassling with other critics.

i feel like such a grouch for being kind of down on "boyhood." i'm not /trying/ to be contrarian. i guess i felt like too many of the scenes were kind of clumsy or banal /as/ scenes and the governing concept didn't really paper that over for me. i would like the film more, i think, if its deftness and experimentalism extended to the moment-to-moment texture of the film and not primarily to its high concept. but a lot of people i respect feel very differently so i'm happy to say "taste is taste" and leave it at that.

I accepted Boyhood's banality as a reflection of life's inherent banality.

finally watched my Homesman screener - what a strange movie. I dug it!

I accepted Boyhood's banality as a reflection of life's inherent banality.

― Eric H., Friday, December 19, 2014 9:49 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that reminds me of something a professor told me when i wondered if he thought students would find a film i wanted to show in my class boring. "it's good for them to be bored. it will prepare them for the rest of their lives."

Why show what we know?

Slant does scenes

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-10-best-film-scenes-of-2014

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, December 18, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like the look of the seduction scene in Under the Skin. I wasn't so into the soundtrack, maybe I am aware of how old timey modern classical that was.

wait is amateurish glenn kenny

"a new kind of shot altogether"

http://thedissolve.com/features/2014-in-review/866-the-shot-of-the-year/

was expecting the last shot of The Immigrant (haven't had a chance to see the Goard yet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wxp-NxJny8

I actually found it virtually impossible to make any 3D-ness out of any shot in AaL or much of anything at all but I still found the experience interesting and enjoyed the film. I've had problems with 3D before though and thought e.g. the spaceships in Gravity looked like cardboard cut outs.

I'm guessing you've got a problem with the vision in one of your eyes

probably. usually i can settle into 3D but it takes a while.

Michael Atkinson -- "It’s been far from a special year, in terms of movies in America" -- goes with Lonitsa, Manakamana, JLG, Ceylan etc.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/17471/top_10_movies_2014

We went to see The Homesman today. Shook us up a bit, it's a hard movie to walk out of into a Saturday afternoon and go straight to grocery shopping. I liked its jaggedness, although liked might not be the right word -- admired. I loved the final shot. I loved a lot of the shots, Tommy Lee Jones is a lyrical sumbitch.

I admired how doggedly, consistently unpleasant that movie is, in contrast to the lovely cinematography

Yeah every time it seems like it's building toward sweetness or redemption, it pulls the rug out.

also like life

Two Days One Night was well worth seeing; cotillard is everything that's been said and then some

Saw it yesterday; she's excellent... still, the best-looking person in the movie by a few light years, just a wee bit distracting.

SPOILER:

Shouldn't she have changed her top? esp after the Xanax came up?

The last year more than any in recent memory has underscored how insane the current state of film distribution is. On one hand, a few big dogs seem to get all the major "indie" flicks and hold on to them for exclusive engagements, while the few real indie theatres are pretty far-flung and limited to, well, extremely limited engagements (like one week). On the other hand, there are some OK theatres (like our local place) that outright refuse to book films that are currently available as VOD, which, as VOD becomes a more viable/convenient option for small films/indies, strictly limits what our nearby place will book. I can't think of a year where seeing movies on the big screen was more difficult. Like, a movie like "The Babadook?" I literally have no idea if it played Chicago, or where. Movies like "Blue Ruin," or "The Immigrant," or "Goodbye to Language?" No idea where they popped up or for how long, assuming they did. Very frustrating.

no braggin but this is one element of being a film fan that a decade and a half in nyc has left me totally blind to; i am ridiculously privileged with absolutely minimum effort out here.

It's not like I'm in the weeds, though. Chicago is a big city.

no doubt, i guess i'm surprised it's not the same there.

It's really shitty in Houston. We've got a Sundance downtown that's I think 12 screens usually booked 1/2-3/4 mainstream Hollywood stuff vs. limited run Foreigh/Indie (actually right now it's all Franchise Films and Oscar Bait), so it's really more of a place where adults can see Hunger Games or Guardians of The Galaxy without a bunch of teens around. We have one Landmark cinema that's in a old picture palace, now sub-divided into 3 screens, which sometimes share titles (for instance, Boyhood ran on two screens this summer against an rotating third title). There's two Alamo Drafthouses, both of which are on the outskirts of town (one suburban, the other might as well be), which--if you know our town--is a bit of a hike when you're inside the city. One MFA, which has inched away from Repertory screenings to Contemporary Art House stuff, albeit in very limited engagements (usually 1-6 screenings, the latter spread out over two weekends). A couple of our colleges do hardly publicized Cinematheque-style programming, which is also the case for a couple non-profit screening rooms. And of course, loads of chain Googleplexes with interchangeable slates of films.

I live in Lewisburg, PA, a small college town in the northeastern part of the state. Our Campus Theatre is, really, reasonably great in that it focuses on small run stuff; it sucks in that it typically shows one film a day, and only shows each film for 3-4 days before moving on to something else.

The breakdown is more or less: 35% big-ass typical Hollywood fare you can find anywhere (after the fact), 35% indie-ass stuff you can't find anywhere (also after the fact), and the rest is free replays of old popular movies/old obscure movies/old documentaries, mostly for the college film courses (this is how I got to watch Wiseman's High School II a couple months back).

There's an annual membership that offers fantastic savings that I never go in for because I hate the populist programming they do - I mean, I get it, they need to make money but I'm never gonna wanna watch "Guardians of the Galaxy" ever.

Previous: movies like Love Is Strange, The Trip to Italy, The Drop, many others I'm forgetting now.

Next month: Citizenfour and Nightcrawler are on my radar, while everything else is stuff I could care less about.

(Also one town over there is a typical multiplex where one can feast on the typical fare, but it's more expensive and I have to drive there.)

Ah, so looking into it, the Godard (specifically) has been hampered by its 3D-ness. So it will show up here as part of this: http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/3D

Better late than never.

No braggin, but I live in Copenhagen, 1 million people, and I have five arthouse cinemas within walking distance, one of which is a repertory theater - I went there and saw Miguel Gomes' Tabu from a few years back today. And while we don't get as many foreign fimls in distribution as NY and LA does, we have two big filmfestivals for fiction and docu to help catch up. And then, if there is nothing on the big screen I want to see, there is Danish public service television and all the good films they show, which I can now stack on my dvr. This weekend, it was Dazed and Confused, Zvyagintsev's The Banishment, Petzold's Barbara and Take the Money and Run.

Sorry, that was totally braggin... I just saw someone from LA complain about his one local arthouse cinema, and I began thinking about my situation, and I became really, really happy and thankful.

i've had friends direct some films this past year (which have shown up on many year end lists, even!) and i feel like in the '80s or '90s they'd have been given a much longer leash and a shot at much wider distribution, but they're picked up by indies that only put them in theaters for a week in certain cities and then put them on VOD a month later. that's all they can do, i'm sure, they'd love to put them in a thousand theaters instead of thirty. but the new model is that certain low profile types of movies are more low profile than ever before. and very few people are making any kind of real money in that part of the film business. i also read something recently that said the big studios are making a lot fewer films than they used to even fifteen or twenty years ago, but they're taking up a much higher percentage of the films being shown in theaters in the u.s. at any given time.

I can't think of a year where seeing movies on the big screen was more difficult. Like, a movie like "The Babadook?" I literally have no idea if it played Chicago, or where. Movies like "Blue Ruin," or "The Immigrant," or "Goodbye to Language?" No idea where they popped up or for how long, assuming they did. Very frustrating.

The Babadook and Blue Ruin played at Music Box (the former's still there, I think). I don't remember where The Immigrant played when it opened in the spring, but I do recall that it played at the Siskel for a week in July. And you've already mentioned the deal with the Godard.

Miami has seen an explosion in art cinemas: at least five in three years. The Babadook, Goodbye to Language, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night all played with in a week of each other, sometimes at the same time, plus a screening of very rare Warhol films. It's been good.

xp I haven't even seen any of those films, but I pick up the Chicago Reader each week, and I'm pretty sure all of them were reviewed prominently.

In Toronto, we got places all over the place.

Thing is, if a film is only playing a week at one place, that's such a pia. So hard to hustle before it's gone, let alone when I have, you know, kids and stuff. It's hard enough to watch things at home. That sort of here today, gone tomorrow exclusivity makes it so difficult to see movies worth seeing.

There was a week, btw, where I could have sworn The Babadook was reviewed prominently everywhere but apparently not playing anywhere.

DC mostly sticks to the mainstream arthouse with a smattering of foreign language (FORCE MAJEURE etc...) but it's failing me hardcore on Goodbye to Language.

Also the Angelika said it was going to have Winter Sleep but there is no sign of it.

It looks like a bunch of the movies I was looking for but missed were maybe at the Music Box here for a week, but will be coming back to the Siskel Center in January. But the odds of me going to the Siskel Center for multiple movies in January are pretty slim to none, sadly. One of the nicest things about going to the movies is (or should be) that you do not need to hustle. It's a true leisure activity. But if you have to race around the clock to catch something, jeez, no wonder people prefer big TVs. I'll make a point of seeing the Godard, though, because 3D.

West End Cinema is the only DC place I can think of that might normally have something like Goodbye to Language but they might not be 3D-capable.

still, the best-looking person in the movie by a few light years, just a wee bit distracting.

i imagine marion cotillard has that problem in general, i.e. being the best-looking person wherever she happens to find herself. she seems like kind of a dim bulb, though.

are there any critics worth noting who refuse to do the whole end-of-year thing? i guess it's a journalistic necessity, but i tend to find it exhausting and unenlightening except perhaps as a way of taking note of some interesting-sounding films i hadn't previously heard of. but reading the 47,000th musing on whether "boyhood" is the best movie of the year etc. is not very appetizing.

cotillard is doing a talk back at the IFC following a screening on January 4

the music end-of-year things are more interesting (though still mostly dumb/exhausting) b/c it's more likely that there are a bunch of good albums that i missed (or rather, didn't hear about at all) than films. if i haven't seen a film it's probably because it hasn't played my neck of the woods, i'm not interested, or i just don't have the time -- it's unusual for something to escape my notice entirely.

I still find lists useful for catching up with things (e.g. a couple of items on Brody's l ist).

sometimes i am surprised and intrigued by someone recommending a genre movie--from the USA or Asia or elsewhere--that I wouldn't have thought I'd be interested in. but the end-of-year lists that actually include films like that are dwindlingly small. it's usually the same 30 or 40 films reshuffled.

No different from the year end album lists I've seen. The singles lists are much more eclectic.

West End Cinema is the only DC place I can think of that might normally have something like Goodbye to Language but they might not be 3D-capable.

― Chris L, Monday, December 29, 2014 10:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yeah, I have a feeling they're not. I remember Pina playing at the AFI Silver, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams played at the big AMC multiplex in Alexandria.

I missed Story of My Death on the last day of its week in NYC bcz I was sitting on an F train blocked by an "investigation."

I cleaned up my seen/wanna see list for 2014 and am presenting here. I watched a lot less contemporary film and a lot more television this year. Dunno what that says about me or anything else.

Best Pitchers:
Under the Skin
National Gallery
Child’s Pose
Manakamana
Like Father Like Son
The One I Love
Watermark
… and I saw Stranger by the Lake in ’13 but you could add that in here too; it’s certainly deserving

Good Stuff, Would Recommend Heartily:
Guardians of the Galaxy
Boyhood
The Lego Movie
The Babadook
Two Days, One Night
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Dear White People
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Ernest et Celestine
The Unknown Known
Particle Fever

Okay and occasionally Dokay:
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ida
The Raid 2
Cold in July
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

Seeing soon on a Screen:
Goodbye to Language
Life Itself
CitizenFour
Leviathan
Song of the Sea

Seeing Soon (like maybe before March) on Netflix Streaming:
The Missing Picture
Gideon’s Army
We Are the Best!
Venus in Fur
Blue Ruin
The Double
Gloria
Violette

Need to See Soon (like within a year or so):
The Dance of Reality
Only Lovers Left Alive
Night Moves
The Boxtrolls
Starred Up
The Strange Little Cat
Tim’s Vermeer
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Birdman
Foxcatcher
Edge of Tomorrow
Big Hero 6
The Wind Rises
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
The Lunchbox
Nightcrawler

Need to See At Some Point:
Mr. Turner
Frank
Whiplash
Inherent Vice
Obvious Child
Top Five
Joe
Get On Up
The Lunchbox
Maps to the Stars

I Hear I Need to See This Stuff and Dutifully Will Before I Die:
Enemy
Locke
Force Majeure
A Field in England
The Blue Room
Wild
The Overnighters
Norte End of History
Actress
Stray Dogs
American Sniper
The Tribe
Happy Valley
Fifi Howls from Happiness
The Salt of the Earth
The Naked Room
Selma

I May Hate Myself But I Will Watch These Some Evening Soon:
Lucy
Godzilla
John Wick
Gone Girl
Noah
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Into the Woods
The Maze Runner
Nymphomaniac (or as much of it as I can manage)

Biggest Disappointment:
Snowpiercer

Recommendations for whatever I'm missing?

two completely different movies that aren't on your list and I loved

Ilo Ilo
The Guest

Ilo Ilo is in my instant watch already; thought that was 2013?
Just added The Guest, thanks!

Lucy is great

I had to bail 30 mins into The Lego Movie.

I enjoyed Lucy and John Wick, no self-hate necessary.

Right now The Tale of Princess Kaguya is maybe #3 on my list; great diaphanous artwork, saw it in a sold-out house at MoMA. However, the subtitles were 15-20 seconds behind the action for THE WHOLE DAMN THING. Very annoying -- apparently no one complained? I was trapped in the middle of the third row, and I don't think most people know realize that since the Glorious Digital Revolution, the titles are often on a separate piece of software; did the MoMA projectionist start it late and think "meh, good nuff?"

forks: Himizu, Exhibition, Memphis, Gebo and the Shadow, The Homesman

p sure Into the Woods is skippable (they "lightened" the second act, OK goodbye)

Morbs - I woulda raised hell about the subtitles there. That sucks. I liked Kaguya a lot but I felt the attempt to heavily humanize what amounts to a fairytale occasionally backfired. There's a reason those characters don't have deep backstory: they're stock characters. Some indelible moments though and the art was knockout.

I'm also tagging on "The Last of the Unjust" which got strong critical love at the start of the year on a 2014 US release (and is available on Netflix instant!) but is not in the discussion for some reason. 3 1/2 hour conversations about the holocaust maybe a bit daunting.

Looking into your list now.

Yeah, Gebo and the Shadow was pretty great. Will watch Last of the Unjust once the Shoah-boxset is released from MoC.

I didn't have any issues with the subtitles when I saw Kaguya fwiw

I watched Rasoulof's bleak state repression thriller Manuscripts Don't Burn today. Apart from a few bits were the dialogue gets a bit didactic it was an excellent movie. Some remarkable cinematography of a bleak, wintry urban Iran which is some achievement considering it was filmed covertly.

It's fine, but I think it's most interesting as a third way to deal with repression, on top of the two films Jafar Panahi has made. It's not at all as good as his two, though. Wrote some more about it here, if anyone's interested: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-4-manuscripts-dont-burn-eden.html

Are you not a fan of Rasoulof's previous movies ? I am watching Jazireh Anahi (Iron Island) next, which sounds amazing from the reviews.

I have never seen a Rasoulof before. So many Iranians...

Let me know if they're good!

i thought kaguya felt a bit overlong... like it might have been better served by a more elliptical treatment. but much of it was stunning, and the scene where she flees the town (in her imagination) is one of the most astonishing things i've seen in an animated film.

yeah that scene is all time

cosign there

just watched Gideon's Army, a '14 doc about southern public defenders, avail on netflix instant and very engaging / thoroughly devastating
worth a try if you're putting together documentary lists

the kid looking over his shoulder as he's being led to jail from the courtroom and saying "love you" to his foster fathers got me teary

btw, did anyone see/rate Willis Earl Beale in Memphis? I'm a fan of the music, curious to see how the persona translates.

Yes, and yes.

Don't know if this is the right thread, but this is my list of TRUE 2014 releases, that I've managed to see in 2014 (as such, it doesn't look an awful lot to my list of best new films I saw this year, but whatever)

1. Storm Children: Book One (Diaz)
2. Winter Sleep (Ceylan)
3. Nymphomaniac (Director's Cut) (von Trier)
4. The Iron Ministry (Sniadecki)
5. Journey to the West (Tsai)
6. Maidan (Loznitza
7. Horse Money (Costa)
8. Force Majeure (Östlund)
9. The Postman's White Nights (Konchalovsky)
10. The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer)
11. In the Basement (Seidl)
12. Phoenix (Petzold)
13. The Lego Movie (Miller & Lord)
14. Two Days, One Night (Dardennes & Dardennes)
15. Blind (Vogt)
16. The Quiet Roar (Hellström)
17. Concerning Violence (Olsson)
18. History of Fear (Naishtat)
19. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson)
20. Life of Riley (Resnais)
21. Casa Grande (Barbosa)
22. Bird People (Ferran)
23. In Order of Disapearence (Moland)
24. Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn)
25. Boyhood (Linklater)

Saw Goodbye to Language today on the tail end of 30 hours with no sleep. It was headache inducing and revelatory and wild.

this is worth reposting as I *did* audibly gasp during this scene. It did my head in.
http://thedissolve.com/features/2014-in-review/866-the-shot-of-the-year/

Bordwell & Thompson do 1924

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2014/12/28/the-ten-best-films-of-1924/

http://letterboxd.com/frankentomato/list/2014-a-year-in-hot-dads/

ugh Hawke

can get with Louis Garrel obviously

totally forgot about Jealousy

right on imo

http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/week/type/1/2

get the fuck outta here with this lineup; amazing

The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu) (Hayao Miyazaki). Details. DCP. 2013. 126 min. 12:00 pm.
Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez). Details. DCP. 2013. 118 min. 3:00 pm.
The Strange Little Cat (Das merkwürdige Kätzchen) (Ramon Zürcher). Details. DCP. 2013. 72 min. 6:00 pm.
Stranger by the Lake (L’Inconnu du lac) (Alain Guiraudie). Details. DCP. 2013. 97 min. 7:30 pm.

yeah, seen all those, not sure i'll make it out for any repeats.

Stray Dogs!

Over here, there's a retro of best Danish cinema 2014 this month at the cinemateque, which is curated by one of the more middlebrow critics and is pretty bland, but it does offer a few more rare chances to see Nymphomaniac Director's Cut.

National Society of Film Crix earns their stripes this year, at least in the top cat:

BEST PICTURE
1. Goodbye to Language 25 (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. Boyhood 24 (Richard Linklater)
3. Birdman 10 (Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
3. Mr. Turner 10 (Mike Leigh)

BEST DIRECTOR
1. Richard Linklater 36 (Boyhood)
2. Jean-Luc Godard 17 (Goodbye to Language)
3. Mike Leigh 12 (Mr. Turner)

BEST ACTOR
1.Timothy Spall 31 (Mr. Turner)
2. Tom Hardy 10 (Locke)
3. Joaquin Phoenix 9 (Inherent Vice)
3. Ralph Fiennes 9 (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

BEST ACTRESS
1. Marion Cotillard 80 (Two Days, One Night)
2. Julianne Moore 35 (Still Alice)
3. Scarlett Johansson 21 (Lucy; Under the Skin)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. J.K. Simmons 24 (Whiplash)
2. Mark Ruffalo 21 (Foxcatcher)
3. Edward Norton 16 (Birdman)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Patricia Arquette 26 (Boyhood)
2. Agata Kulesza 18 (Ida)
3. Rene Russo 9 (Nightcrawler)

BEST SCREENPLAY
1. The Grand Budapest Hotel 24 (Wes Anderson)
2. Inherent Vice 15 (Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Birdman 15 (four co-writers)

BEST NON-FICTION FILM
1. Citizenfour 56 (Laura Poitras)
2. National Gallery 19 (Frederick Wiseman)
3. The Overnighters 17 (Jesse Moss)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. Mr. Turner 33 (Dick Pope)
2. The Immigrant 27 (Darius Khondji)
3. Goodbye to Language 9 (Fabrice Aragno)

Honestly having a hard time remembering the last year that WASN'T a total ruthless sweep in the supporting categories.

but hey! No Michael Keaton!

viva Oncle Jean-Luc

also hey! no Ebert!

Kinda rude. He was a member, after all.

Honestly having a hard time remembering the last year that WASN'T a total ruthless sweep in the supporting categories.

Totally know what you mean ... but supporting actor two years ago? Waltz's Oscar win certainly didn't seem ordained to me.

we don't know what that is in this thread

which is now basically over

https://angelnumber25.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/fin_de_cinema.jpg

I know what that is in this thread.

Morbs, I was referring to Waltz's Oscar win specifically within the context of precursor awards, which he didn't sweep.

Getting ready to watch "Supermench" on iTunes.

"So Alice shows up, he's wearing a coat made of dead rats..."

oh hey... zzzz

“American Sniper,” “Birdman,” “Boyhood,” “Foxcatcher,” “Gone Girl,” “Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Imitation Game,” “Nightcrawler,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Whiplash” have been nominated for the Producers Guild of America’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for top feature film.

Weird for them to nominate such a hysterical comedy as Foxcatcher.

at least one prosthetic-related film must be nominated

Oh, the FC list now goes to 50

http://filmcomment.com/entry/20-best-films-of-2014

A Summer's Tale would be my #1 if I counted it.

Part 1 of the annual Labuza/Uhlich podcast is up.

http://www.thecinephiliacs.net/2015/01/2014-favorites-with-keith-uhlich-part-1.html

well, it seems calling an end is premature.

Senses of Cinema:

http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/world-poll-2/introduction-2014-world-poll/

Reverse Shot:

http://reverseshot.com/archive/entry/1981/reverse_shots_best_2014

Slate Movie Club:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_movie_club/features/2014/the_movie_club_2014/year_in_movies_2014_the_interview_the_sony_hack_and_the_best_films_of_the.html

And coverage of the NYFCC dinner:

Before giving Linklater the best director prize, Hawke quoted a New York Times review of Boyhood that said he had "achieve[d] the impossible with Ethan Hawke [by making] him seem bearable."

STANDS AND APPLAUDS

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30693749

I sympathize:

And Dana, it’s true, I disliked Tilda Swinton for the longest time. The aristocratic punkiness she was going for should have worked for me but just didn’t. But I flipped when I saw her in Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love. Either I changed, she changed, or maybe both—and this, I have discovered, is the most wonderful thing about working as a critic over a number of years, 10 or 20 or beyond: It’s so joyous when someone surprises you, changes you. Now I’m totally in Tilda’s camp.

Well, not totally. I didn’t care for her in either Snowpiercer or The Grand Budapest Hotel. That kind of extreme cartooniness may be fun for her as a performer; I find it less fun as a viewer. But I adored her in Only Lovers Left Alive—her preternatural coolness, the way she carries off those floaty Moroccan clothes with a white leather jacket. That yak hair! The color of a moonbeam. She also brings such tenderness to that character—she’s the caretaker in that relationship, the one who keeps fellow vampire Tom Hiddleston (who’s also pretty terrific) grounded in the here and now. Which is probably quite a task in a marriage that has lasted, what, 300 years or so? Vampire Tilda is up to the task.

Nathaniel's: http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2015/1/5/best-of-the-year-nathaniels-top-ten.html

ASC Nods:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/asc-nominations-birdman-unbroken-earn-761501

Birdman
Grand Budapest Hotel
Imitation Game
Mr. Turner
Unbroken

So I just watched The Normal Heart -- was that the best cable film of the year?

Best discs of 2014:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/best-dvds-blu-rays-2014

Sgt Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show: The Whole Series!

I have not seen The Normal Heart, but Olive Kitteridge was really strong.

will get to that at some point

(Feb 10 DVD)

Part 2 of the Labuza/Uhlich podcast.

http://www.thecinephiliacs.net/2015/01/2014-favorites-with-keith-uhlich-part-2.html

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/jan/09/bafta-nominations-2015-a-tough-turner-events-and-a-hard-selma
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bafta-nominations-2015-unveiled-762089

Oh joy, Theory of Everything has the most nominations!

Oh good, the curtains are on fire!

my friend finally replied to my demurral on FB: "You found ToE BLAND?"

haha, i did it again... our exchange was on Imitation Game

tolja i wdn't keep em straight

I actually prefer Theory of Everything by a razor-thin margin to Imitation Game, but man, this awards season is going to end with some especially hard bummers.

just ignore the Pia Zadoras, the Sagging Actors and the Golden Hankses, dearie

Hey, this year might find me rooting for a Dardennes joint. Strange times.

haven't been able to listen to Labuza yet, but i see Keith's #1 is Love is Strange. I wish my resistance to that one wasn't a deeper version of "painfully tasteful old dull married gays zzzz," but it is.

ie Normal Heart was the best film to shoot in Julius' last year

One of the most reasonable skeptics' reviews of LiS: http://letterboxd.com/gemko/film/love-is-strange/

Sachs turns these two men into Martyrs for Love by having their loss of income directly and exclusively triggered by their decision to marry. It's realistic, to be sure, but it's a dramatic sinkhole, because now every minor irritation that might otherwise be attributed to human nature gets filed under "if only the church didn't have a stick up its ass."

At no point in the film did I tut-tut the Catholic Church, but I can see how the door would be open.

yeah i saw MD'A's too

i see news stories about such firings in the NYC media fairly often

(thus i guess it was set up as an 'issue drama' at least in my head)

MD'A has an iffy history of figuring out "how to handle" gay movies. Stranger by the Lake saw him coming damned close to a "it didn't give me a boner" detraction.

i remember... i thought "I don't understand wanting to have sex with strangers" was a passable defense though, in line with my hatred for many films with straight couples arguing (Contempt, Before Midnight et al).

unless theyre machiavellian drunks like George & Martha, obv

unless theyre machiavellian drunks like George & Martha, obv

we're still talking about middle aged gay couples, I see.

One of the many good things about LIS is its figuring out that relationships and economics are indivisible and perhaps not incompatible.

yes well "gay playwright drag" etc xp

not to be all Eric, but Mkae Way for Tomorrow did that better.

in my world you can have both

I mean, you might as well say, "Well, Tokyo Story did that better."

k, point taken

i just thought even for an artsy old Manhattan couple they were too, i dunno, classy.

and the family squabbles a lil mundane

with Test, SBTL, Pride, Vicki & Flo, The Normal Heart, etc, it's actually been a decent year for representing teh gayz in ways that don't check boxes.

just Vic. Vicki + Flo is gonna be about a showgirl couple.

autocorrect doesn't like teh gayz

oh let me just note that Cahiers picking Dumont's P'tit Quinquin as their #1 is some sad shit.

Not as sad as Redacted at #1 in '08.

"Vic + Flo" was a doozy, watched it last night.

It was a strange night to watch the Dumont TV series, as the last hour features a persecuted black Muslim teen in a French town shooting from a window of his home yelling "Allah akbar!"

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/gay-and-lesbian-entertainment-critics-reveal-2014-film-and-tv-nominations-20150112

Campy Flick of the Year
Annie
Gone Girl
Into the Woods
Maleficent
Tammy

"Into the Woods" as camp ... nope, not seeing it.

What Now? Remind Me, The Strange Little Cat, Exhibition all now "available."

How so? Where?

well on disc, and there is a bricks-and-mortar store on Smith Street y'know

DGA noms:

Wes Anderson
Clint Eastwood
A. G. Innaritu
Richard Linklater
Morten Tyldum

Tyldum's praying at the altar of Tom Hooper continues paying off.

I can't be the only person who had to look up who that is.

I think there's only one person who doesn't have to look up who that is -- Morten Tyldum.

I love that he's Norwegian and all but ... that's it.

morten tyldum is the best kind of spackle

when did he play keybs in a-ha?

Imitation Game trailer should be mashed up w/ "Take On Me"

Imitation Game trailer should be smashed up w/ "Take On Me"

Huzzah for the Scandinavian guy, though truth be told, I've forgotten who he is as well. He's directed something you know, I think.

Wait, no sorry, Headhunters was his calling card. Big success in Scandinavia, but hardly internationally known, I think. Jamie Lannister is in it.

I'd rather the Scandinavian guy have been Ruben Östlund (even tho I didn't really love his movie, either).

guess i should see force majeure w/a ostlund q+a in a couple days? seems like a p big thing to happen around here

Force Majeure is great. But Östlund was never ever going to get nominated for anything other than foreign film for it.

Boy, "Blue Ruin" is excellent.

Is there a 2015 Cinema thread yet?

well on disc, and there is a bricks-and-mortar store on Smith Street y'know
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius)

Reverse Shot's offenses of the year include Gone Girl & Finding Vivian Maier:

http://reverseshot.org/archive/entry/1985/offenses_2014

and in "Two Cents,"
Worst Scene in a Good Movie: Boyhood (guess)
Dumbest “Smart-Dumb” Action Movie: John Wick
Most Overappreciated “Feminist” Film: Under the Skin

http://reverseshot.org/features/1988/two_cents_2014

Best Use of Suspense: Manakamana
Will those two women finish their rapidly melting ice cream bars before the gondola ride ends?

i laughed through about 1/3 of the goat sequence tbh

goats are funny!

Worst Scene in a Good Movie: Boyhood (guess)
. . .
Most Overappreciated “Feminist” Film: Under the Skin

Yes, and yes.

Under the Skin is perfect, in its way: it nails that brand of cool distance familiar from certain strands of art-world installation work, Björk music videos, Lexus commercials, and…almost any other arty indie sci-fi film. Indeed, its icy perfection becomes all terribly expected after a point, and going back over the film, looking at its shooting strategies, it feels less a work of rigor than one of remove. Even so, its fans generally came off like a pack of forty-niners in their rush to be the first to label it “Kubrickian.” I

btw that second RS piece properly advocates Enemy > Nightcrawler

agree

Chris Rock is an eloquent and essential voice in our entertainment culture, not least because he endeavors to create non-pandering mainstream African-American comedy. It’s too bad, then, that in his frequently funny, occasionally trenchant, often childish, and finally disappointing auteurist statement of intent, Top Five, starring Rock as a version of himself and Rosario Dawson as the New York Times reporter interviewing him over the course of a day, he falls back on eliciting easy laughs from his viewers by goosing them in their well-prodded nerve centers. There is a shockingly lengthy interlude in which we learn that Dawson’s boyfriend is cheating on her with another man, and furthermore that his gayness had been foretold . . . due to his obsession with sticking things up his ass. This grade-school definition of homosexuality would be bad enough, but the punchline, in which Dawson enacts revenge on the closet case by inserting a hot sauce–doused tampon up his rectum, is genuinely uncomfortable—and for no greater comic truth I can ascertain. Judging from reports in Rock’s New Yorker profile and the audience I saw it with, the cluelessly homophobic joke went over like Pavlovian gangbusters. Someone as thoughtful and self-critiquing as Rock ought to know that a laugh this cheap can cost a lot in terms of integrity.

hey guess what flag-waver the Denver crix picked?

http://denverfilmcritics.org/1186/news/dfcs-film-awards-2014-best-movie/

Glenn Kenny on accusations aimed at American Sniper: http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2015/01/a-professional-film-critic-answers-your-american-sniper-questions.html

xxp guess that's what u get when u write your script during the downtime on set of grown ups 2

Yeah, Top Five is very uneven. Lots of great scenes/moments, but that whole Anders Holm interlude is the worst.

Sicinski writes the last word on the Turing movie as awards bait:

http://letterboxd.com/msicism/film/the-imitation-game/

*applauds*

i mean, yeah, thats all correct and everything, but i kinda fell for it, even though i saw it coming. middlebrow cinema is sometimes fun, to respond as you are told and you know you are expected to. man cannot survive on slow arthouse alone. plus, its just... DUH, of course its middlebrow and award bait and a film for people that only go to the cinema at christmas time. its sort of hitting at an easy target. i consider the imitation game and theory of everything to be on the more harmless end of boring cinema. things like zero dark thirty and american sniper i find far more insidious and worrying.

Under the Skin is perfect, in its way: it nails that brand of cool distance familiar from certain strands of art-world installation work, Björk music videos, Lexus commercials, and…almost any other arty indie sci-fi film. Indeed, its icy perfection becomes all terribly expected after a point, and going back over the film, looking at its shooting strategies, it feels less a work of rigor than one of remove. Even so, its fans generally came off like a pack of forty-niners in their rush to be the first to label it “Kubrickian.” I

who wrote this? i can't seem to keep up w/ this thread.

https://medium.com/message/pirating-the-2015-oscars-hd-edition-6c78e0cb471d

that UtS minireview is gratingly smug and self-satisfied

am, the thing on UTS was from one of the Reverse Shot pieces that ran this week. That bit was by Jeff Reichert.

http://reverseshot.org/features/1988/two_cents_2014

i haven't even seen the movie, but the reviewer must have thought it was really bad to be that uncharitable toward those who liked it-- a group that includes quite a few smart critics.

generally i think that the "i don't know what other people saw in this, therefore they are easily deceived fools" line should be the rhetoric of last resort

Producers Guild Award to Birdman

generally i think that the "i don't know what other people saw in this, therefore they are easily deceived fools" line should be the rhetoric of last resort
― I dunno. (amateurist)

I agree. But you do variations on that all the time.

Eddie Cuteness Incarnate Redmayne just beat Keaton at SAG, which is kind of a fun twist.

I saw him this morning in a clip and thought, Wow, so this is what cute redheads look like.

yeah, that aspect of Top Five is where I was like o_O.

xp I know I should step in to defend the honor of my people but ... hell, even I wouldn't date one.

His teeth are terrifying.

i found E.R. repellent from The Good Shepherd on

cute redheads look like Eric Stoltz circa 1988

or me

not gay enough in TGS.

much too gay

Saw Josephine Decker's Thou Wast Mild and Lovely today. Butter on the Latch is here as well, hope to catch it before the end of the week. If it's as good as this one, she is probably my favourite new American filmmaker. Amazingly sensual visuals.

man butter on the latch is really pretty bad, i think, & it's so grinding knowing i ought to get around to seeing thou wast on account of everybody's enthusiasm.

maybe better than the other way around? being hyped on thou wast mild & lovely & deflated by the next thing? who knows

shd check if those are still showing on Fandor.

Pinkerton on Selma, Sniper and "true enough" films:

http://filmcomment.com/entry/bombast-true-enough

My writeup of Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

K-Stew's been nominated for a Cesar:
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/marion-cotillard-kristen-stewart-land-2015-cesar-awards-nominations

Nick Pinkerton summing up his year in loose nonranked fashion

The words of the Louvin Brothers—“Others find pleasure in things I despise”—proved as true as ever in 2014. The burgeoning cult of John Wick is clearly an attempt to gaslight me by critical culture at large, and I will not succumb to madness. The likes of Wick, Snowpiercer, and neo-erotic thriller Gone Girl constitute a mini-revival of attitudes and aesthetics that belong in a time capsule marked “1997” and I must stoically endure them as I now endure hearing Blues Traveler’s “Run-Around” and tracks from Offspring’s Americana album in public spaces. One generation’s FM radio traumas are another’s no-strings-attached pleasure, a fact of which I was rudely reminded upon seeing a band I admire covering Sugar Ray’s “When It’s Over.”

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/bombast-2014-the-year-we-made-content

1997 was a great year for pleasurable singles.

thought he wrote a "a song I admire by Sugar Ray, 'When It's Over'," which, yeah, I do.

Trumans Water put out a good cassette that year

I was going to comment but I forgot my password after months of NRO abstinence.

oh hey 1997 was "Autumn Sweater"

The American Cinema Editors have announced the winners of their Eddie awards. The film categories:

Dramatic: Sandra Adair, Boyhood.
Comedy or Musical: Barney Pilling, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Animated: David Burrows and Chris McKay, The Lego Movie.
Documentary: Mathilde Bonnefoy, Citizenfour.

Mike D'Angelo's Skandies (top 20 everything) poll has begun:

http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.de/

I sent a top 20 list to the FC readers' poll, but will be watching/revising at least til Oscars.

Scene winners are still some of my favorite detrius.

among not-great movies' scenes, i really liked the rolling car in the b.g. window in The Rover

(a shot rather than a scene, that is)

Great scenes are def easier to pick out from not-great movies.

Dan Sallitt (#1 and 8 are both pretty underappreciated tales of oppressed youth):

1. Bad Hair (Mariana Rondón)
2. The King of Escape (Alain Guiraudie)
3. Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller)
4. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors (Sam Fleischner)
5. The Monuments Men (George Clooney)
6. Exhibition (Joanna Hogg)
7. A Summer's Tale (Eric Rohmer)
8. Stop the Pounding Heart (Roberto Minervini)
9. Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg)
10. The Rover (David Michôd)
11. Palo Alto (Gia Coppola)
12. Elle s'en va (On My Way) (Emmanuelle Bercot)
13. Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley) (Alain Resnais)
14. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)

http://sallitt.blogspot.de/2015/02/2014-manhattan-one-week-run-premieres.html

5. The Monuments Men (George Clooney)

Admirably nutty pick.

No detrius would be complete without our lists, no?

Strangers by the Lake
The Immigrant
Norte, The End of History
Abuse of Weakness
Child's Pose
Mr. Turner
Only Lovers Left Alive
Love is Strange
The Wind Rises/The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
The Babadook
National Gallery
Borgman
Young & Beautiful
Test
Happy Christmas
Pride
Vic + Flo Saw a Bear
Boyhood
Inherent Vice
Manakamana
Noah

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/tag/best-of-2014-movies/

Immigrant just hit me as too derivative at the NYFF '13.

Test exceeded my gayxpectations, Love is Strange fell short, but both land well offlist for me.

awaiting Happy Christmas and Pride tho.

Hey, we shared a #1, that's always fun.

meet you at 21.

alfred, i saw precisely seven of those. most never came to my neck of the woods. others i was just too busy and had to pass on.

Here's my best old-and-new-to-me list. Find me on Letterboxd you get ten extra.

1.Él 1953
2.The Plea 1967
3.A Borrowed Life 1995
4.Miss Oyu 1951
5.The Breaking Point 1950
6.7th Heaven 1927
7.The Brute 1953
8.City of Pirates 1983
9.A Geisha 1953
10.The Sniper 1952
11.The Joyless Street 1925
12.Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One 1968
13.Miami Blues 1990
14.Marianne and Juliane 1981
15.The Long Good Friday 1980
16.Profound Desires of the Gods 1968
17.Letter from Siberia 1957
18.Cousin Jules 1972
19.Little Lise 1930
20.The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress 1944
21.Whirlpool 1949
22.The Battle of San Pietro 1945
23.Red Hollywood 1996
24.Regeneration 1915
25.The Lighthouse Keepers 1929

Starting the end of year poll on Monday if all goes well. Will link here. Sorry Morbs.

nice!

gee, i wonder what will win

wait! Is it too late to vote? I didn't even see it.

Morbs! Why don't you say goodbye to that little horseshit attitude, okay, because we're not taking that in the poll thread.

I haven't started it yet, Alfred. I'm aiming for Monday.

haha exactly Guk

Boyhood, the usual actors win BAFTAs

http://deadline.com/2015/02/bafta-award-winners-2015-baftas-winner-list-bafta-awards-1201368762/#

I haven't started it yet, Alfred. I'm aiming for Monday.

― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Saturday, 7 February 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Great. I'm gonna watch Goodbye to Language at the weekend.

People, they love blood. They love action. Not this talky, depressing, philosophical ILX 2014 Film Poll Thread - Voting closes Friday, Feb. 21st at Midnight EST.

A+ title.

Jeffrey Wells absolutely aploplectic that BAFTA broke the string of Birdman victories. After that and his recent "Patricia Arquette will only get 'dumpy' mom roles" remarks, i'm half convinced a bot writes his blog, or should.

oh yeah, DGA went to Innaritu.

Am starting to think that you all might have a point, but again it's exciting to pretend that BP is once again "a race."

yeah – white

Don't bring your Grammys into this thread.

BP? what is this BP? take it away

beep

well now it's time for Last of the Unjust

appparently you and I are the only American fags who liked Pride, Sotosyn.

pride is better than theory of everything and imitation game and should have won more awards.

mais oui

Last of the Unjust a complicated watch whose initial seeming faults mostly turn into assets.

INDIE SPIRITS with mostly a xerox year. Still no idea why ppl are bowled over by Nightcrawler.

Best Feature: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Producers: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, Arnon Milchan, James W. Skotchdopole

Best Director: Richard Linklater (IFC Films)

Best Screenplay: Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)

Best First Feature: Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)
Director: Dan Gilroy, Producers: Jennifer Fox, Tony Gilroy, Jake Gyllenhaal, David Lancaster, Michel Litvak

Best First Screenplay: Justin Simien, Dear White People (Roadside Attractions/ Lionsgate)

John Cassavetes Award (For best feature made under $500,000): Land Ho! (Sony Pictures Classics)
Writers/Directors: Aaron Katz, Martha Stephens, Producers: Christina Jennings, Mynette Louie, Sara Murphy

Best Supporting Female: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood (IFC Films)

Best Supporting Male: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Female Lead: Julianne Moore, Still Alice (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Male Lead: Michael Keaton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Robert Altman Award: Inherent Vice (Warner Bros.)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, Casting Director: Cassandra Kulukundis, Ensemble Cast: Josh Brolin, Hong Chau, Martin Donovan, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, Joaquin Phoenix, Sasha Pieterse, Eric Roberts, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Serena Scott Thomas, Benicio del Toro, Katherine Waterston, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Kenneth Williams

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Best Editing:Tom Cross, Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best International Film: Ida (Poland – Music Box Films)
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski

Best Documentary: CITIZENFOUR (RADiUS-TWC / HBO Documentary Films / Participant Media)
Director: Laura Poitras; Producers: Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky

Special Distinction Award: Foxcatcher (Sony Pictures Classics)
Director/Producer: Bennett Miller, Producers: Anthony Bregman, Megan Ellison, Jon Kilik, Writers: E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman, Actors: Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Channing Tatum

FC readers poll

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/film-comment-readers-poll-2014