REVIEW: Whiplash

Good grief. I've never been in more dire need of a cup of tea than I was after watching the finale of Whiplash. It's more than just exciting, it's nerve-racking pushed to a physical extreme. I moved about in my seat, I recoiled, I bit my fingernails down to nubs. I might have wet my pants a little. It is, without question, one of the best bits of filmmaking released this season, and more than solidifies Whiplash as not only a worthy awards contender but a really, really good film.

Back-pedalling a little, this cymbal crash would mean nothing without its build-up, its drum roll, and it's in the same league as something Buddy Rich would play. It focuses on the relationship between drummer Andrew Neimann (Miles Teller) and fearsome music teacher Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), whose method of teaching his students is questionable at best, downright tyrannical at worst. When Andrew attends his first rehearsal with a prestigious college band he struggles to keep perfect rhythm, which prompts Fletcher to throw a chair at his head and publicly berate him.

Fletcher's philosophy is that his prodigies must be pushed "beyond what's expected of them" in order to become the next great musician. Andrew takes this to heart, and pushes himself to the very limit, literally drumming until his hands bleed. An effective sequence has him arrive late at an important jazz concert, only for him to forget his drumsticks. He drives back for them but, speeding at over eighty miles an hour, gets hit by a truck. Andrew crawls out the wreckage but goes back for his drumsticks and, such is his self-inflicted determination, stumbles on to play (badly) at the concert anyway. Being one of the greats ain't easy.

A lot has been made of J. K. Simmons' performance, him being the frontrunner for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and it's about time, too. He's been brilliant since Oz but is too often pigeon-holed into small character parts, gruff authority figures and practical everymen. But his Terence Fletcher here is a breakthrough, not just a R. Lee Ermey impression but a real, complicated, unpredictable character, who has the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. When he shows some genuine emotion over the death of a former student we think he's about to emerge as a compassionate human being, but then he forces the drummers at his disposal to practice until three in the morning. And Simmons makes it such an impressively physical performance, who communicates as much through his swift orchestral gestures as he does through his scathing put-downs.

In the main role Miles Teller is often equally impressive, equally physical, yet much like Ellar Coltrane, he's been completely ignored by the awards circuit. It's another example of effectively sweaty acting, where his face molds to a grimace of pain whenever he really gets into a drum solo. We don't always like him - he's pretentious, and dumps his girlfriend so she doesn't stop him being a great musician - but we always feel sympathy for his character, who discovers the hard way that having talent alone might not be enough.

In many ways this is an uncomplicated film, and I don't mean that as a slight in the least. It knows exactly what it's doing and it does it, with visceral, cinematic power. What more could you want?

★★★★★

REVIEW: Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher was released in the United States in November last year, but was released in the UK last week, and only recently has there been some furor regarding the film's faithfulness to the real-life story upon which it was based. The short version: it's not very faithful, and takes many creative liberties in spinning its complex, nasty yarn. But, unlike others, I really don't care. Yes, people involved are still around today, and yes, a murder was committed, so an argument can be made that the film has a duty not to exploit the more sensationalist elements of the story out of respect for the victim's family. Yet if Foxcatcher didn't have the freedom to move around its story and, in many places, devise relationships and characters almost out of thin air it wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful, for the film's depiction of obsession, jealousy, and intense emotional rigour is one of the best in years.

The story begins back in the 1980s, where billionaire philanthropist John E. du Pont - heir to the Du Pont family fortune - has created a facility at his Foxcatcher Farm where Olympic-standard wrestlers can train. More specifically, he has taken an interest in two brothers, Mark and Dave Schultz, who have just won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Yet over the years the relationship sours between Du Pont and the brothers, as he develops a (perhaps homosexual) obsession with Mark, driving him too hard to succeed and growing jealous of the close bond between him and Dave.

This is, in many ways, an actor's film. Du Pont, Mark, and Dave are played by Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo respectively, and all three are magnificent. A lot has been made of Carell's prosthetics, sporting a nose that would make Nicole Kidman blush, and while the physical change is impressive it wouldn't work without the unsettling yet vulnerable performance he gives. Du Pont is an idealist who sees himself as someone who will save his country through all-American sporting accomplishment, but mostly comes off as lip-smackingly psychotic - particularly when he forces Mark to wrestle him, and enjoys the physical contact a bit too much. It also seems inevitable that the story ends with a murder, but even in his most chilling moments Carell channels an inner sadness, fostered by years of loneliness and parental pressure, that never lets us judge him too harshly. It's really quite something.

Mark Ruffalo is also enormously charismatic as Dave, the softly-spoken, dignified older brother with a sensible head on his shoulders. But for my money it's Channing Tatum who impresses the most. He delivers an uncomfortably physical performance, his chin jutted out like a bullish Jay Leno, and you can almost feel his sweat and spit coming out of the screen during the (very effective) wrestling sequences. In fact, there's a brilliant scene where, having suffered a major defeat in the qualifiers for a championship, he goes into a self-destructive rage and destroys his hotel room before gorging on junk food. His brothers discovers him and has him pedal furiously on an exercise bike so he can match the required weight for the next round. Tatum communicates so much through clenched fists and a permanently-furrowed brow - it's incredible to think that, eight years ago, he was just the kid from the Step Up films.

Of course, the film is more than the sum of its performances. Bennett Miller does a great job of making you feel uncomfortable yet engaged throughout the entire experience, especially the scenes between Du Pont and his mother (a stony Vanessa Redgrave). It's like The Office by way of One Hour Photo. Although it should be said that as much as I liked Foxcatcher, I don't think I'd want to see it again. It's both deadly serious and disturbing, which is fine, but it ought to be entered into with the right mindset, because I think it can come off as quite cold. Miller is a very professional director, and he gives the picture a hard edge, perhaps to widen the scope of his enquiry to analyse America itself and the pressure society places upon athletes to succeed - which works, but can feel clinical. I mean, I'm nitpicking - it's still claustrophobic, moving, and nothing less than a must-see. And when the films are this good, who cares if the stories aren't real?

★★★★½

NEWS: Oscar Nominations

The Oscars Nominations

'Tis the season for award shows. The Golden Globes aired on Sunday and the Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday, in what has become a weirdly formal ceremony where celebrities turn up to have their name read out by Captain Kirk, like a surreal school assembly (although it did produce this classic line-flubbing moment). But the Globes will always be the more relaxed and fun cousin of the Oscars - helped by generous servings of alcohol - and there were several great moments over the course of the evening, even by awards-ceremony-bullshit standards. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey proved, yet again, that they were the funniest women working in Hollywood - while the North Korea jokes became dull, their close-to-the-bone jab at Bill Cosby was hysterical. And Michael Keaton's (now viral) acceptance speech was just as honest and moving as everyone said it was.

But there's only so much you can write about awards shows before it all starts to sound the same, the standard industrial jargon used by journalists all over the world. So I thought I'd talk about something a little different. Following the announcement of the Oscar nominations some people on Twitter began posting the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. This was in response to the fact that all twenty of the year's acting nominees are white, in spite of David Oyelowo's celebrated turn as Martin Luther King that seemed to be a shoo-in for a nomination. Not covered by the hashtag, yet still equally criticised, was the complete absence of women in the directing and writing categories.

Now, I've got mixed views on this. On the one hand, yes, it's a shame that Oyelowo and Ava DuVernay have been ignored, although few people have mentioned the fact that Selma has been nominated for two awards including Best Picture (which not even Foxcatcher managed to nab). But on the other it just seems strange to nominate films and performances for the sole purpose of diversity. Yes, the Academy is not the most progressive institution in America - it's still odd to remember that Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash ten years ago - but I do think we've seen some improvement. Let's not forget that 12 Years a Slave won last year, which was an incredibly uncompromising look at a subject most of the (predominantly white) members of the Academy would find uncomfortable at best.

So maybe 2014 just wasn't a year which showcased enough racially diverse performances. Whether this is a problem with the culture of Hollywood itself is another matter (and the controversy of the "whitewashing" of Exodus: Gods and Kings and Ghost in the Shell would seem to suggest this). But I don't have the energy to get angry about this matter, nor about the omission of women in the creative categories - while I think some formidable female talent has emerged this year (Jennifer Kent, Gillian Robespierre, Ana Lily Amirpour) I'm not surprised or outraged by the results of the nominations. 2014 has been a really good year for male directors and writers, many of whom released career-best work, and I surprise myself by saying that I mostly agree with all of the Academy's nominations this year.

Except for The Lego Movie snub. Fuck that.

NEWS: Charlie Hebdo, BAFTA Nominations, Ant-Man

Charlie Hebdo

The news this week was overshadowed horribly by a mass shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly newspaper in France which became famous for profanely depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in several of its cartoons. I won't say much about the attack itself, which has already been obsessively covered by news publications around the world (and a huge number of political cartoons involving pens and pencils). But I do think that now, more than ever, we have to remain consistent in our position on free speech and the limits of creativity, and not just in unambiguously horrific events such as this one.

Before Charlie Hebdo it had already been an bad few months for artistic freedom. While The Interview ultimately received an online premiere, it's safe to say that the whole ordeal was a failure - it didn't make as much money as it would have done if it was released in cinemas, and it was a show of cowardice on the part of Sony, already in a weak position from the scandal of its internal leaks. While the release of the film may have been a double-edged sword - if the promised attacks of the hackers had been carried out Sony's reputation would be in an even worse state - and while there may have been diplomatic issues at stake, it has created a dangerous precedent that threatening people is effective. Whatever happened to the U.S. doctrine of "We don't negotiate with terrorists"?

Of course, this isn't the only time this has happened. Back in 2006, Matt Stone and Trey Parker were writing an episode for their animated show South Park about the censorship of drawing the prophet Muhammad, inspired by the recent controversy surrounding Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishing twelve editorial cartoons depicting the prophet. While working on the two-part story "Cartoon Wars" they ran into interference from Comedy Central and parent company Viacom, who felt that his depiction would incite violence from Muslim extremists. Stone and Parker incorporated the network's interference into the episode, but were still not allowed to show Muhammad, a decision they were outwardly critical of at the time:

That's what we said to them, was, 'This is South Park, and we rip on absolutely everyone in really horrible, terrible ways. And if you're saying that this is the one thing we can't do, besides Tom Cruise, because they're threatening violence, well, then, I guess that's what everyone should do. Then if the Catholics don't want us ripping on Jesus anymore, they should just threaten you with violence, and they'll get their way.' That's why it is such a slippery slope and such a dangerous path to go down.  (Trey Parker, 2006)

They later received a similar treatment in the development of their 200th anniversary episodes, "200" and "201", where, following death threats from the radical Islamic organisation Revolution Muslim, Comedy Central heavily censored portions of the latter episode, even bleeping out the timely final speech about fear and intimidation. You can now watch an uncensored version on YouTube, but that's not the point - it was, and still is, a disappointing failure

No matter what your opinion on South Park or the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that provoked extremist outrage, both works have the right to publish whatever they want. And while the world is currently united behind the magazine and the friends and families of those who died in the incident, I can't help but feel that this might be used in the future as evidence that the risk of publishing something inflammatory is real, and outweighs the benefits of free speech. As Trey Parker says, it's a slippery slope.

BAFTA Nominations

In lighter news, the nominations for the 2014 BAFTAs were announced on Friday. The yearly tradition of handing out creepy golden face-masks has become quite predictable - the British biopics score highly, with The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game nabbing ten and nine nominations respectively, but this year there's also a good turnout of independent oddball films as well, with Birdman scoring ten nominations and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel scoring a whopping eleven.

Elsewhere there are some surprises and, of course, omissions. Interestingly, Jake Gyllenhaal has been nominated for his (admittedly brilliant) turn in Nightcrawler, whereas both David Oyelowo and Brendan Gleeson have been omitted, despite the fact that you're likely to bump into them at a pub in Crouch End. But by far the most glaring omission is Timothy Spall's turn as J. M. W. Turner in Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner. In fact, the film has only been nominated for technical categories, which is utterly bizarre - isn't this exactly the kind of outstanding film from an outstanding British director that BAFTA likes to celebrate?

There are some nice surprises, though, namely Under The Skin's nominations for Best British Film and Best Score. It won't win any of them, but it's nice anyway. And Boyhood's been nominated for five things, which is also nice. Nice nice nice. Nice.

Ant-Man

Finally, Marvel released the trailer for Ant-Man on Monday, a film which was already infamous before it left the starting block. After working on it for five years, Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright left production over creative conflicts with the all-powerful Marvel franchise machine. This really pissed everyone off, because Ant-Man was supposed to be the underdog of the comic book blockbuster world, a consciously offbeat and funnier take on the superhero story. And Edgar Wright seemed crucial to that vision, a director famous for his visual flair and dynamic, energetic filmmaking, whose previous experience at adapting the comic book Scott Pilgrim vs. the World went down a storm.

But the show must go on. Wright's been replaced by Peyton Reed (Yes Man) and we've been given our first glimpse of the film itself. And the reaction is a definite "meh". It's a strange trailer, one which is mostly generic superhero backstory, with only a knowing quip from Paul Rudd at the end to even hint that this might be a comedy. It's nothing like the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, which confidently announced itself to the world as a film which didn't take itself too seriously (the Blue Suede helped too). Granted, having no prior expectations for that film was one of the reasons why it was a success, but even so, this trailer is disappointing.

REVIEW: Birdman

Birdman was a film I was very excited to see, and for good reason. It's the latest effort from the usually talented but sombre Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose previous works include the "Trilogy of Death" of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. Yet Birdman is almost nothing like these films - it's spectacular, an acerbic roller coaster ride of a film that reaches for the stars and settles for nothing less than pure, unadulterated cinema.

It's about a washed-up Hollywood actor, Riggan Thompson, who decides to mount a Broadway stage adaptation of a Raymond Carver story, and in what may be the smartest casting choice of the year Iñárritu casts Michael Keaton in the title role. Almost every aspect of production seems to be geared towards emphasising Keaton's strengths - he's always been a phenomenal actor with an acute sense of comic timing (see: Beetlejuice, Much Ado About Nothing), but his abilities reach their very peak here, as he is both able to absolutely nail the funniest, sharpest lines in a funny, sharp script and generate an enormous amount of pathos for his vulnerable character. Thompson was once a star of a franchise of superhero films, centred around the titular "Birdman" character (essentially interchangeable with Batman, Keaton's big break), but he has decided to overcome his ego and reputation by earning artistic integrity in the viable medium of the theatre. Of course, it's not as simple as that - his ego is starting to manifest itself in strange places, such as a growling voiceover of Birdman himself, and he's begun to develop magical powers that might just allow him to fly.

It could easily become a cliché-ridden role, but Keaton is anything but - he effortlessly grounds the film, allowing the audience to latch onto a complicated yet sympathetic character, whose troubled relationship with his daughter and ex-wife truly resonate. He also has the unenviable job of guiding us through the weirder elements of the film, namely the style - the film appears to be shot in a single long-take (it's actually about five takes stitched together, although the transition between them is seamless) that had the potential be irritating and gimmicky, but it succeeds in being neither. Instead, the film's structure resembles a stream of consciousness, bound only by the limits of the imagination. Who says that a walk down the street can't turn into a sudden moment of blockbuster fury, then into a transcendent moment of levitation, then into an exhilarating, beautiful flight through the streets of New York? It's never quite clear whether Thompson's magical powers are real or imaginary - Iñárritu provides contradictory clues - but the attitude of the film is that it doesn't matter. This is cinema, where nothing is real yet everything is possible, and this should be positively celebrated.

I should mention the acting, for this is a film primarily about actors and the theatre. I've said how superb Keaton is, but he's frequently in danger of being upstaged by a pitch-perfect Edward Norton as a method actor from hell - he cleverly undermines his reputation as the world's most serious actor with some ridiculously funny sequences, notably a boxing match in a tight pair of white leopard skin underwear. Also worth mention is Emma Stone as Thompson's troubled daughter, who looks like Bambi even when she's spitting off the side of the side of a building and who nabs the film's most affecting monologue.

It's interesting - the person I went to see this film with described it as "cynical about Hollywood", which I didn't agree with, although the idea has some merit. It's certainly critical about franchises, and films which exploit the viewer for profit. But Birdman is also critical of the elitism often found in people like myself - a critic played by Lindsay Duncan is cynical and prejudiced, claiming that Hollywood actors don't belong on Broadway - and what I think the film is trying to achieve is a detoxification of all the bullshit we associate with films. The egos, the politics, the complacent expectations we have for how a story should be told, they're all distractions from the real magic of filmmaking. I suppose in that way it's self-reflexive, aware that it's indulging in some of cinema's real pleasures and subverting them (I promised myself that I wouldn't describe it as "post-modern", because I sound like a 15 year old who just watched The Matrix). But this doesn't lessen the film's impact in any way, and it's still mercilessly entertaining even when it's undermining everything you expected. I'm still not quite sure what I'm talking about, but I know one thing for sure - Birdman is more than worth your time.

★★★★★

FEATURE: The 10 Best Films of 2014

I don't usually make lists. They're a bit cheap and low-effort, a product of click-bait journalism designed to appeal to readers with low attention spans. Having said that, I think a review of the year's films is perfectly acceptable, and the best way to express that is, oddly enough, through a list. Empire have done it, Sight and Sound have done it, so I'm going to do it, and that's final.

I used the UK release dates when it came to compiling my choices, so anything that was released between January 1 and December 26 was eligible. Unfortunately, this means that films such as Birdman and Whiplash, which both look excellent, have been omitted. Of course, it also means that many of last year's Oscar nominees can be included, so there's some give and take. My list is far from definitive - I haven't seen all the films released in 2014, so there may be some glaring omissions (namely Nightcrawler, which I intend to see very soon). But these are, for what it's worth, the ten films which have made enough of an impression on me to be deemed my favourite films of 2014.

10. Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy might be one of the latest films to come out of Marvel's franchise machine, but it's actually its conscious departure from the qualities we've come to expect in comic book films that earns it a place on my list. For one thing, while everyone has heard of Iron Man, Captain America, the Hamburglar and so on, to the point where they might as well belong in the Nation Archive for Stock Comic Book Characters, very few have heard of Rocket Raccoon, or Drax the Destroyer - and what's more, no-one expects us to have heard of these characters either. It's a completely refreshing experience, to go into the cinema without worrying about whether the fact that you haven't seen Thor 2 or didn't stay after the end credits of The Avengers will impact your enjoyment of the film.

Instead, Guardians of the Galaxy functions as a straightforwardly exciting adventure among the stars, the likes of which we haven't seen properly since the original Star Wars. It follows Peter Quill, a.k.a. "Star Lord", as he hops between planets in his spaceship intent on finding and selling a priceless artefact. He's played by the enormously charismatic Chris Pratt, and he's only one of the many memorable characters that we meet here - including a tree voiced by Vin Diesel - who are thrown together to become the "guardians" of the title. The fact that we know nothing going in means that the characters have to compete for the audience's attention, which does wonders for the quality of the narrative. Sequels will inevitably come, but as a self-contained film this might be one of the best blockbuster efforts in years.

BEST MOMENT: James Gunn's script is inspired and consistently funny, so picking an individual moment is almost impossible. But there's a great bit where Dave Bautista's red-skinned warrior Drax gets one of the best set-ups for a joke I've ever heard (it's the one about things going over heads).

9. Jodorowsky's Dune

Now, here's a story about a film which might have made Guardians of the Galaxy possible. It's a documentary by Frank Pavich about Alejandro Jodorowsky's infamous attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece Dune, which never quite came to fruition. But, like the best of documentaries, Jodorowsky's Dune goes beyond the (already quite fascinating) non-fictional subject matter to make a far deeper comment on human ambition, and how moments of history can be made - and unmade - by the agendas of a select few individuals.

Part of the joy of watching this film comes from Jodorowsky himself being interviewed, as he speaks enthusiastically about the many ways he tried to bring the seemingly impossible project together. Some of his stories are very funny (his encounter with Orson Welles is a highlight), but there's an underlying sadness to both his and his many collaborators' interviews. Jodorowsky poured his heart and soul into the film - which can be seen in the brick-like book full of storyboards - so when it was rejected by nervous Hollywood executives he lost hope, and didn't make a film again for over thirty years. But Pavich argues that even these storyboards inspired an entire generation of films, from Star Wars and The Terminator to Prometheus, and the film itself becomes a celebration of one filmmaker daring to innovate, to explore the wild and unknown territories of cinema in hopes of creating great art. As Jodorowsky says, "If you fail, is not important. We need to try."

BEST MOMENT: Jodorowsky interrupts the interview to speak to (and cuddle) his cat.

8. The Babadook

Can a horror film move you? Yes, says Jennifer Kent, and not only that, but a horror film can move you and scare you - at the same time! Such was The Babadook, Australia's unexpectedly brilliant horror offering. What made it stand out in the saturated horror market was the fact that, for all its supernatural pretensions, it was a film about truly scary aspects of the human soul, and didn't rely on cheap jump scares to get this across.

It's a story about mother and son, the mother (Amelia) still suffering from the grief of losing her husband seven years ago. Living in a claustrophobic, messy house, domestic issues bubble to the surface even before the titular conceit is introduced. Amelia seems to blame her son for her husband's death - he was driving her to the hospital when he crashed their car - and her son copes with this by lashing out, making make-shift weapons to ward off seemingly imaginary monsters. It's hardly a surprise, then, when a real monster shows up, although to Kent's credit it's brilliantly spooky. The "Babadook" is a shadowy being with long, sharp fingers, sporting a top hat and mask fixed in a permanent grin. He announces himself with three sharp knocks, and soon begins possessing the members of the house over the period of a few claustrophobic days.

Part of the brilliance of The Babadook is its ambiguities. Is the Babadook real, or is it a metaphor for a mother's depression, or a child's worst fears? Can it be all of the above? It's never really resolved, but the emotional heft of the acting and storytelling make this an unforgettable, terrifying experience.

BEST MOMENT: Amelia begins reading a children's storybook to her son, only for her to realise, too late, that it's not a normal storybook...

7. Gone Girl

Throughout the months of October and November, if you were a student then, for a time, Gone Girl was the film to see. Seldom before has a film's reputation as both the twistiest and nastiest around travelled so quickly through word of mouth. It's a wonder I managed to arrive at the cinema without at least one of the many twists being spoiled for me.

Thank God I did, however, because I can't remember the last time I was gripped so ferociously by a film's narrative. What first begins as compelling story about a missing wife (Rosamund Pike) and a husband (Ben Affleck) who might be harbouring a dark secret soon turned into a sensationalist story about trust, the media, and the breakdown of a marriage. And then things get really crazy. Notable for its perfect casting - Affleck and Pike are both superb, but even those in the smallest roles are brilliant (even Tyler Perry!) - and shiny-smart direction by David Fincher, it was essentially pulp, but it was so well made and entertaining pulp that I didn't mind at all.

BEST MOMENT: "Technically, missing..."

6. 12 Years a Slave

On the other side of the spectrum, Steve McQueen's film about slavery is perhaps the antithesis of escapist entertainment; instead, it's both compulsory filmmaking and compulsory viewing, for there's no better depiction of one the darkest moments in human history. The story of Solomon Northup is an incredible one, sobering in its damning indictment of humanity and allowing someone to slip through the cracks for twelve years, but also inspiring in our hero's utter refusal to give up hope. He doesn't want to survive, he wants to live.

However, it's also a film which owes a great deal of its success to its talent. McQueen's direction is obviously electrifying, refusing to shy away from the most brutal aspects of slave life, but of equal importance are the performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor, one of Britain's most talented but cruelly underrated actors, is finally given the role of a lifetime here, and he couldn't do a better job; and Michael Fassbender dominates the screen as a bible-bashing plantation owner who refuses to see his slaves as human beings. Yet the star of the show is, in my book, newcomer Lupita Nyong'o, who gives her character Patsey a heartbreaking dignity and quiet bravery. Deserving of all its Oscar glory, 12 Years a Slave is undoubtedly one of the most important films of 2014, maybe of the decade, and to ignore it would be foolish.

BEST MOMENT: The powerful sequence where Solomon is forced to whip Patsey, all filmed in one unbearably long take.

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Now we're talking. A delightful antidote to the saturated world of the gritty blockbuster, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel is probably his best effort yet. It's essentially a madcap comedy, told through three separate filters of stories - a child is reading a book about an author (Jude Law) interviewing an elderly hotel owner (F. Murray Abraham) about his encounters with a world-famous concierge (Ralph Fiennes), and all kept separate through three aspect ratios. But Anderson's film was never less than an utter delight, with a fairytale quality weaved into the narrative through its saccharine, beautiful use of colour and consciously perfect composition, making every frame into a virtual painting. The performances were brilliant, too - a bitingly sharp Fiennes effortlessly steals the show, but the star-studded cast was put to good use, with highlights including a topless Harvey Keitel and Bill Murray sporting the world's most impressive moustache.

Yet what made The Grand Budapest Hotel such a memorable experience was its underlying sadness - the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, the film's setting, is ravaged by war and disease - and nostalgia for a long-lost age. Fiennes' Gustave H. is the last bastion of class, standing before a new world order defined by chaos and brutality, and his gradual undoing is nothing less than heartbreaking. As Mr Moustafa (Abraham) says of his mentor: "His world had vanished long before he entered it, but he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvellous grace."

BEST MOMENT: The climactic chase on the ski slopes.

4. Calvary

John Michael McDonagh began his directing career with The Guard, a very funny buddy-cop film which paired Don Cheadle's FBI agent with Brendan Gleeson's profane local Irish policeman. His second film, Calvary, also stars Gleeson, but it's made in a darker, more serious vein, and is all the better for it. It's about honest priest Father James (Gleeson) who is told at the beginning of the film that he's to be killed in a week. We don't see the man who makes the threat; James thinks he knows who it is, but he doesn't say, choosing instead to put his house in order and make peace with his daughter (a terrific Kelly Reilly). The problem is that it's made harder by a community that has grown hostile of the church over the years, years dominated by scandal and immoral behaviour. It doesn't matter that James is a good priest, and it doesn't matter who's threatened him - McDonagh uses the intimate, domestic details to tell an epic story of Ireland in turmoil.

Of course, none of this would work without Brendan Gleeson. He's not only one of our generation's finest actors, he's one of the only actors that can completely dominate a film, both in physical stature and emotional resonance. By far my favourite performance of the year, Calvary is worth seeing for his presence alone, but also for a climax that will leave you breathless and moved beyond tears.

BEST MOMENT: The stark opening in the confessional booth.

3. Inside Llewyn Davis

Cruelly overlooked at the Oscars in March, Inside Llewyn Davis might just be the Coen brothers' masterpiece. Set in early 1960s New York, the film follows Oscar Isaac as Llewyn Davis, a struggling folk singer who spends his time working in sleazy bars and sleeping on his friends' sofas. He soon sets off on a meandering odyssey to Chicago, where he hopes to audition for legendary music producer Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). But, unlike most musical biopics, Llewyn never achieves success - he's only a good musician, not a great one, and the story is ultimately a melancholy reflection on the altogether too-common death of creative aspiration in a hostile world.

Yet it remains one of the year's most beautiful films, visually in its depiction of New York (all washed-out, smoky colour pallets) but on a narrative level, too. Llewyn is a fascinating character - when we first meet him he's unlikeable, overbearingly passive-aggressive and ungrateful of his friends' support, notably couple Jean (Carey Mulligan) and Jim (Justin Timberlake), the former pregnant with his child. But soon we find that this front is masking an underlying sadness following the death of his musical partner, and that the sincerity and pride which emerged from this is preventing him from realising his full potential.

Of course, it's not all doom and gloom. There are some ripe comic moments, particularly from John Goodman as a heroin addict, and the soundtrack is unanimously excellent. But this is the Coens at their most serious and their most profound, and for my money it's the best film they've ever made.

BEST MOMENT: The hilarious recording of "Please Mr. Kennedy", a catchy novelty song featuring a scene-stealing bass player (Adam Driver).

2. Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer's masterpiece arrived quietly, playing in a select few arthouse cinemas and taking away a modest $5 million, which didn't even cover its $13 million budget. Yet it's a testament to the quality of the film and the power of word of mouth that it managed to be one of the most well-regarded films of 2014, landing the #1 spot in several critics' "Top 10" lists. And were it not for a particular film that connected with me on a deeply personal level, Under the Skin would also be my #1, for it might be some of the bravest, most original filmmaking of the twenty-first century.

I can't summarise the plot well, partly because I still don't quite understand all of it but also because it doesn't really matter. The film follows an alien, played by an almost unrecognisable Scarlett Johansson, who traverses Glasgow in her white van, preying on susceptible men and luring back to her black, gooey lair where dark electronic music plays. This is where Glazer's genius shines through - the film is set in the most unremarkable areas of Scotland, but through simulating the perspective of an extra-terrestrial even the most boring shopping malls come across as terrifying and otherworldly. The film basically moves between settings and set pieces, going from the city streets to a nightclub and even to a mountainside forest, but never feels meandering or dull because of the astonishing power of its imagery. I never thought I'd see a man's body completely crumple, or find the image of a baby stranded on a beach so intensely upsetting, but I did, and when I came out of the cinema I had to wander around for a bit to process what the hell I'd just seen.

Some have described it as frustratingly vague, which isn't entirely untrue, but I didn't care. The film's merits - among them Mica Levi's incredible soundtrack and Johansson's brave, subversive performance - heavily outweigh its flaws, and I'd hope it would inspire more filmmakers to take bigger risks in their art, and to never shy away from anything which can be seen as challenging or abstract. Under the Skin is the uncompromising proof that this always pays off.

BEST MOMENT: The disturbing, beautiful ending in the snow.

1. Boyhood

How could I pick anything else for the #1 spot on my list? Back in July I raved about this film, saying it was the closest cinema has ever come to saying something meaningful about my own life, and my position hasn't changed one bit.

Richard Linklater gambled big when it came to planning Boyhood, a film which would be made periodically over 12 years to realistically capture the development of its young (and old) actors. So much could have gone wrong - what if Ellar Coltrane, the leading "boy" of the picture, decided he didn't want to be an actor any more? What if financial backing stopped mid-way? But, as we know, none of this happened - everything in Boyhood was perfect. Not concerned with rigidly structuring a coming-of-age piece, Linklater allowed the film to come together naturally, with seemingly improvised scenarios going beyond their obvious period value (Coldplay and Harry Potter are some of the signifiers of time passing) to act as gentle, subtle, sometimes funny and often poignant vignettes about family life and growing up in a frighteningly complicated world.

The acting was some of the best of the year, with Patricia Arquette taking away top honours solely for the emotional scene where she laments a life that has passed too quickly, but Ethan Hawke was also brilliant as Mason's well-meaning and occasionally hapless father. Yet this is a film which belongs to its young heroes, both Coltrane and an undermentioned Lorelei Linklater as his sister, who also makes the incredible transformation from child to adult before our very eyes. All the characters are treated with grace and dignity, and show that it isn't just a film about "boyhood" - it's a film about life, presented with the highest degree of realism and, thankfully, without sentimentality. It's what makes this film so moving without being cloying, and it's part of the reason why this is, without doubt, my favourite film of 2014.

BEST MOMENT: Jason drives away for college while Family of the Year's "Hero" plays. I'm welling up just thinking about it.

NEWS: New Year, Slightly Different Me

I don't post on this blog much. Sorry. It's a problem that can be attributed mostly to sheer laziness, but also the fact that I only ever post something when A) I've seen a film, and B) I have something to say about it.

But that's all about to change. So far I've been working on a big article listing my favourite films of 2014 - which should be coming out either later today or tomorrow - but I'm also going to start posting things like discussions on the latest trailers, current news events (that Sony thing was pretty big, right?), or maybe just off-topic ramblings on stuff I find interesting. The key word is "more". I'll try and make it a weekly thing - and don't fret, I'll still be posting reviews-a-plenty. So get hyped!

In the meantime, here are some of my assorted writings from rival student publication The Boar:

The Best Films of 2014

The Best Episodes of Christmas Past

REVIEW: Get On Up

Twin Peaks: The Show That Time Remembered

That's all for now. Here's to a film-fuelled 2015!