Earlier today, the National Society of Film Critics announced their picks for the best films of 2014! By one vote, they named Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language as best picture of the year.
Thank you, National Society of Film Critics, for reminding us that, occasionally, unexpected things do happen!
One of the best films to be released in American theaters last year was also one that never really got as much recognition as it deserved.
Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur (which, itself, is based on a play by David Ives that was loosely adapted from a novel written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose name and book would inspire the term masochism) features only two characters. Thomas (Mathieu Almaric) is a neurotic playwright and director whose latest production is based on Sacher-Masoch’s book, Venus in Furs. Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) is an actress who shows up late to audition for a lead role.
At first, Thomas is annoyed with and condescending towards the actress. After all, she shows up late for the audition and gives a rather long and convoluted explanation as to why. (It involves a dog wanting to fuck her.) Despite the fact that she’s auditioning for a play set in the 19th century and featuring repressed members of the upper class, she shows up for the audition wearing leather and a dog collar. (“I’m usually really demure and shit…” she assures him.) At first, Thomas refuses to allow her to audition and says that there’s nobody in the theater for her to read with. Vanda suggests that he read with her. Reluctantly, Thomas agrees…
And suddenly, Vanda goes from begging for his permission to taking control of the situation. It turns out that she’s brought a period costume with her. Before going up to the stage, she skillfully sets the stage lights to create the perfect effect. (A stunned Thomas admits that he’s not even sure how the lighting board works.) And when they’re on stage together, Vanda stuns Thomas by suddenly transforming herself into the character that he wrote.
The audition itself quickly becomes a not-quite friendly game between the two. (This is a film that anyone — even little community theater actresses like me — who has ever auditioned for a role should be able to relate to.) Vanda frequently interrupts the audition to question what Thomas has written and Thomas finds himself growing more and more disoriented as he’s frequently pulled out of the world he created and into reality.
Whenever challenged by Vanda, Thomas argues that the play has no deeper meaning. It’s simply an adaptation of a work of literature. However, as the audition continues, it becomes apparent that there’s more to the play and to the two people on stage than was originally apparent…
Venus in Fur is a fascinating film. In its way, it’s also a playful one. (You have to love the scene where a lingerie-clad Vanda suddenly takes on the role of therapist and perfectly psychoanalyzes Thomas’s fiancee. Never has the invoking the name of Jacques Derrida led to so much laughter.) Intelligently filmed by Polanski and wonderfully acted by both Amalric and Seigner, the power struggle between Thomas and Vanda makes for compelling viewing.
And hey, it’s currently on Netflix so you can watch it anytime you want. Of course, it is subtitled but so what? If you don’t know how to read, how did you make it through this review?
Seriously, find 93 minutes to spare and watch Venus In Fur.
Continuing our look back at the previous year, today I present you with my choices for the 16 worst films of 2014!
I have to admit that 2014 was a strange year for me. While I saw a lot of films that I didn’t think were very good, none of them quite inspired the amount of loathing that I felt while watching previous TSL worst film “winners” like Love and Other Drugs and Man of Steel. Looking at the 16 films below, I’m struck by how many of them were simply films that failed to live up to my expectations. (The Judge and Endless Love are obvious examples.) Some of the other entries are films that we all knew ahead of time would never be good but they made the list because they represent everything that annoys me about mainstream film making. (Case in point: Transformers: Let’s Deafen The Audience or whatever the Hell that thing was called.)
Of course, some of the films listed below are on the list because they just plain sucked. In fact, one made-for-Lifetime movie was so mind-numbingly awful that it made the list despite having never actually been released in theaters! That’s pretty bad!
(Be sure to click on the links in this sentence if you want to see what I considered to be the worst of 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013!)
The Eddies! Isn’t that a perfectly adorable name for an award?
Anyway, the Eddies are given out by the American Cinema Editors and they honor the best editing in film and television. The Eddies make for an interesting precursor because (much like the SAG awards), they’re a guild award and the nominees and winners are being determined by many of the same people who will be voting on the Oscars.
Add to that, films that get a nomination for best editing often also get nominated for best picture. (One huge exception to that rule would be David Fincher’s rehash The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which actually won best editing despite not being nominated for best picture.)
The big news from the Eddie nominations is that potential Oscar front-runner Selma was snubbed. However, American Sniper was not. While I doubt that the makers of Selma have anything to worry about, this does seem to indicate that — despite not making a huge showing as far as the critics awards are concerned — American Sniper might still be a factor in the best picture race.
(Then again, Oscar watchers like me are notorious for overanalyzing stuff like this…)
The film nominees can be found below.
Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
“American Sniper” (Joel Cox, ACE & Gary Roach, ACE)
“Boyhood” (Sandra Adair, ACE)
“Gone Girl” (Kirk Baxter, ACE)
“The Imitation Game” (William Goldenberg, ACE)
“Nightcrawler” (John Gilroy, ACE)
“Whiplash” (Tom Cross, ACE)
Best Editing Feature Film (Comedy or Musical)
“Birdman” (Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione, ACE)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Barney Pilling)
“Guardians of the Galaxy” (Fred Rasking, Hughes Winborn, ACE & Craig Wood, ACE)
“Into the Woods” (Wyatt Smith)
“Inherent Vice” (Leslie Jones, ACE)
Best Edited Animated Feature Film
“Big Hero 6” (Tim Mertens)
“The Boxtrolls” (Edie Ichioka, ACE)
“The LEGO Movie” (David Burrow & Chris McKay)
Best Edited Documentary (Feature)
“CITIZENFOUR” (Mathilde Bonnefoy)
“Finding Vivian Maier” (Aaron Wickenden)
“Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me” (Elisa Bonora)
For the longest time, I thought that there would never be an animated film that would make me cry as much as I cried at the end of Toy Story 3.
And then I saw The LEGO Movie and I thought that I would never cry as much as I did when Will Ferrell acknowledged that he hadn’t been a very good father and that his son should be allowed to have fun while playing in the basement.
And then, way back in November, I saw Big Hero 6 and there was big, goofy-looking, kind-hearted Baymax asking, “Are you satisfied with my service?” and I sobbed and sobbed.
Baymax, of course, is a big, balloon-like robot that was specifically designed to provide medical care to the citizens of San Fransokyo. After his original creator, Tadashi Hamada, is killed in a mysterious explosion at the local university, Baymax becomes the property of Tadashi’s younger brother, Hiro. Hiro, naturally enough, designs some armor for Baymax and programs him to fight so that he can get revenge for his brother’s death…
And you know what?
The exact plot doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Baymax is probably one of the most memorable and kind-hearted non-human characters to ever appear in an animated film. Significantly, Baymax resists Hiro’s attempt to turn him into a killing machine, making Big Hero 6 into one of those rare films that ultimately celebrates peace over war.
It’s also an incredibly sweet film, one that earned every tear that I shed.
What a long and strange trip it has been for Foxcatcher.
Originally, Bennett Miller’s latest film was scheduled to be released at the end of 2013 and it was expected to be a major player in the 2013 Oscar race. And then it was suddenly announced that Sony Pictures would, instead, wait an extra year to release the film. Usually, this is a sign of a film that’s not expected to live up to expectations. (Case in point: The Monuments Men.) But, in this case, it was seen as being the exact opposite. Sony had such faith in the Oscar prospects of Foxcatcher that they were willing to hold off a year so it wouldn’t get lost in all of the attention that was being given to American Hustle, Gravity, 12 Years A Slave, and Wolf of Wall Street.
Then, during the summer, Foxcatcher premiered at Cannes and was one of the hits of the festival. With the notable exception of the A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd, the reviewers at Cannes were rapturous in their praise of Foxcatcher. And, though it failed to win the Palme d’Or, it did win best director for Bennett Miller and it cemented it’s status as the Oscar front-runner.
And then, something started to happen.
There was backlash against Foxcatcher. As more and more critics saw the film, we started to hear more and more speculation that the film would fail to live up to all of the hype. Critics generally praised the performers but many complained that the film was too cold and detached for its own good. At first, it was easy to say that this was partially the result of unrealistically high expectations. But, as more and more reviews came in, it became almost fashionable to speculate that Foxcatcher would be left out of the Oscar race.
Of course, most of us who were doing the speculating were doing so without actually having seen the film for ourselves. After all, film critics and festival goers aren’t the ones who actually vote on what films will be nominated for and win Oscars. One need only look at the nominations for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to realize that.
Well, Foxcatcher has finally been released and we’ve all finally gotten a chance to see it. I saw it last week, while I was in Fort Worth for the Christmas holidays. And my reaction…
Well, there’s a reason why it’s taken me nearly a week to write this review.
Ultimately, Foxcatcher is a good film. In fact, on a purely technical level, it’s probably one of the best films of the year. If it is nominated for best picture, the nomination will not necessarily be undeserved. Bennett Miller comes up with some hauntingly chilly images. Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo all give excellent performances. It’s a film that stays with you, a powerful depiction of a true crime.
But it’s still not an easy film to enjoy.
Those critics who complained that Miller’s approach was too cold and detached have a point. You watch the film with a sense of dread, knowing what’s going to eventually happen. (Though I didn’t know anything about the murder of Dave Schultz before the film, I had read the reviews and I knew that eventually Mark Ruffalo’s kind-hearted family man would end up being gunned down in front of his family.) But Miller always keeps the characters and the story at a distance. You watch the characters and you struggle to understand them but, by the end of the film, you’re no closer to understanding why John E. du Pont (the eccentric millionaire turned murdered, played by Steve Carell) murdered Dave Schultz than you were at the beginning.
Instead, Miller is more interested as looking at John du Pont as being an example of American exceptionalism gone crazy. Throughout the film, characters frequently comment on the fact that the du Ponts are one of the oldest and richest families in America. (Not coincidentally, we’re also told that they initially made their fortune by producing and selling gunpowder.) Du Pont is an outspoken and proud American. Along with training wrestlers on the grounds of his estate (the Foxcatcher of the title), he also frequently invites the police to use the grounds for target practice. Though Miller couldn’t have realized it when the film was originally shot in 2013, the scenes of the obviously unstable du Pont hanging out with the cops take on an extra resonance in this time of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice.
John du Pont frequently talks about how his plan to open a world-class wrestling training facility is, at heart, a patriotic act. The world wrestling championship, du Pont believes, belongs in America and he’s going to make sure that it gets there. In order to achieve this goal, he hires Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) to be his wrestling coach. Mark, who has always lived in the shadow of his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), jumps at the chance to establish his own identity. At first, du Pont is like the father that Mark has never had. They even become friends. (Du Pont, at one point, talks about discovering that all of his childhood friends had been paid to be his friend.) Mark shows du Pont some wrestling moves. Du Pont introduces Mark to cocaine.
But, ultimately, it becomes apparent that du Pont’s friendship with Mark was really just a ruse to get Mark to convince his older brother to come work for du Pont. When Dave finally does join Mark at Foxcatcher, it causes Mark to turn self-destructive and du Pont to eventually turn into a murderer.
And, as I said, it’s a powerful film. Channing Tatum gives the performance of his career and Steve Carell is frighteningly believable as John du Pont. (One minor complaint: Carell is being promoted for best actor, even though his performance was clearly a supporting one.) Mark Ruffalo, as well, does great work as Dave and somehow manages to make innate human decency compelling.
But the film itself is so cold and detached that, ultimately, this is a film that you end up respecting more than you end up enjoying.
This is the time of year that the Shattered Lens usually takes one final look back at the best and worst of the previous year’s offerings in cinema, television, literature, and music! Last year, I kicked things off by taking a look at the best that the SyFy network had to offer.
Unfortunately, SyFy didn’t produce as many original films in 2014 as they did in 2013.
However, my beloved Lifetime network remained a consistent showcase for some of the best and worst melodrama that one could hope for.
With that in mind, here are my nominees for the best films and performances that were featured on either the SyFy or the Lifetime network last year! As always, winners are listed in bold.
After having spent close to a year hearing only negative things about it, I finally watched Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot last night. On the basis of what a lot of critics had said about the film, I have to admit that I was mostly watching it to see if I needed to include it on my upcoming list of the 16 worst films of 2014.
But you know what?
Devil’s Knot really isn’t a bad film. It’s just an extremely unnecessary one.
Devil’s Knot opens with a title card that reads, “Based on a true story.” Honestly, the title card could have just as easily read, “Based on a true story and if you doubt it, there’s four other movies you can watch.” The trial, conviction, and subsequent imprisonment of the West Memphis Three is perhaps the most famous miscarriage of justice in recent history precisely because so many documentaries have been made about it. Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost Part Three are two of the most disturbing true crime documentaries ever made.
(As for Paradise Last Part Two, it displays a stunning lack of self-awareness as it attempts to prove the guilt of John Mark Byers by using many of the same techniques that were used to convict the West Memphis Three. The less said about it, the better.)
The story is so well-known that I almost feel like retelling it would be like taking the time to inform you that George Washington was our first president. But here goes — in 1993, 3 eight year-old boys were murdered in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Three teenagers were arrested for the crime and, on the flimsiest of evidence, were convicted. As is seen in the documentaries, their conviction had more to do with community hysteria and paranoia than anything else. The supposed leader of the West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, was accused of being a Satanist. Why? Mostly because he wore black clothing.
Eventually — and largely as a result of the documentaries made about the case — the West Memphis Three would be freed from prison. (However, their convictions would still legally stand, meaning that their exoneration would be limited to the court of public opinion.) Devil’s Knot, however, doesn’t deal with any of that, beyond a lengthy scroll of “this is what happened after the movie” information that rolls up the screen after the final scene. Instead, Devil’s Knot deals with the first trial of the West Memphis Three and the small town atmosphere of fear and hysteria that led to them being convicted in the first place.
And — though the film is surprisingly conventional when you consider the reputation of director Atom Egoyan — it’s all fairly well-done. As a former resident of and frequent visitor to Arkansas, I was happy to see that Egoyan didn’t indulge in as many stereotypes as I feared he would. (One need only watch the self-important Northern activists in Paradise Lost Two to see the attitude that I feared Egoyan would bring to the project.) Reese Witherspoon is perfectly cast as the mother of one of the murdered boys. Kevin Durand is properly intimidating at John Mark Byers. Even Colin Firth manages to make for a convincing Arkansan.
But, ultimately, Devil’s Knot just feels so unnecessary. It doesn’t bring anything new to the story and there’s ultimately nothing here that you couldn’t have learned from the original Paradise Lost.
Probably the best thing that I can say about Devil’s Knot is that it’s better than Paradise Lost Part Two.
I was recently looking over what some of my fellow movie bloggers consider to be the worst films of 2014 and imagine my surprise when I saw that almost all of them had found room to list a little comedy called Walk of Shame.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to argue that Walk of Shame was a great movie or anything like that. Essentially, it was a dumb comedy that was full of plot holes. For the most part, it was a film that was specifically designed to appeal to neurotic white people from the suburbs. Then again, I am a neurotic white girl from the suburbs so maybe that’s why, despite all of the critical disdain and moralistic posturing that was directed towards Walk of Shame, I actually liked it.
In Walk of Shame, Elizabeth Banks plays Meghan, a local TV new correspondent who is being considered for a job with the national network. However, soon after being informed of this, Meghan returns to her apartment and discovers that her boyfriend has left her. Then she gets a call informing her that the network is leaning towards another candidate. Depressed, Meghan puts on a skin-tight yellow dress, goes out to a club with her best friend (Gillian Jacobs), ends up drinking way too much (much like me, Meghan doesn’t have much of a tolerance when it comes to alcohol), and finally ends up meeting an aspiring writer named Gordon (Jason Marsden) and going back to his apartment with him.
The scenes where Meghan and Gordon drunkenly fool around before eventually having sex are actually surprisingly fun. Marsden and Banks have a really playful chemistry throughout this entire film. You like both of their characters and it’s fun to see them together. In fact, Jason Marsden, who I had previously assumed was a bad actor on the basis of his work in The Butler and Straw Dogs, gives a truly charming performance in his film, turning Gordon into both the ideal one night stand and the ideal boyfriend.
The next morning, Meghan gets a call informing her that the network has decided against the other candidate and they want to interview her for the job. She’s told that she only has a few hours to get down to the station. After sneaking out of Gordon’s apartment, Meghan discovers that not only has her car been towed but her purse and all of her money was also in the backseat. (Not to mention the fact that she left her phone back in Gordon’s apartment…) So now, still wearing that yellow dress, Meghan has to try to make her way across Los Angeles, get back her car, and get to her interview in time.
And, of course, this means that Meghan has to deal with drug dealers, simple-minded policemen, and snooty bus drivers. Admittedly, there’s not a single problem that Meghan couldn’t have solved through the use of common sense but sometimes you have to be willing to cut a film a little slack.
Walk of Shame has a lot of flaws but I still enjoyed it, mostly because I’ve been there. I may not have been there to the extreme that Meghan finds herself being there but I’ve still been there. Elizabeth Banks is one of my favorite actresses and her chemistry with Jason Marsden generates enough good will to help the film get over a few rough patches.
And, for that reason, Walk of Shame is my favorite guilty pleasure of 2014.
Art and Craft (dir by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman)
Art and Craft is a fascinating documentary about a fascinating human being. As quickly becomes obvious, Mark A. Landis suffers from any number of mental illnesses. However, he’s also one of the most successful art forgers in history. While his own artwork is undistinguished, Landis is capable of perfectly imitating the work of other artists. For 30 years, Landis would forge the work of other artists and then donate the forged paintings to museums across America. (Since Landis never made any money off of his scam, he never technically broke any laws.) The documentary follows Landis as he prepares for a show of his work and it features revealing interviews with both him and the people he fooled. Ultimately, this is a film that — much like Exit Through The Gift Shop — forces us to consider just what exactly makes something a work of art. Is it the name of the artist or is it the work itself?
The Book of Life (dir by Jorge Gutierrez)
The animated film The Book of Life was released in October and, for whatever reason, it never seemed to become quite the hit that a lot of us were expecting it to be. However, even if I don’t think it came anywhere close to reaching the heights of producer Guillermo Del Toro’s best films, I still rather liked it.
The film tells the tale of Manolo (voiced by Diego Luna) who is tricked, by Xibalba (voiced by Ron Pearlman), the ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, into believing that the love of his life, Maria (Zoe Saldana), has died. Eager to see her again, Manolo allows himself to be bitten by a snake, which kills him. Now trapped in the spirit world, Manolo has to find a way to return to life and be reunited with Maria.
The Book of Life is a gorgeously animated film that pays wonderful tribute to the culture and mythology of Mexico. And it’s great for losniños!
The Boxtrolls (dir by Graham Annabelle and Anthony Stacchi)
The Book of Life was not the only animated film to not quite get the respect that it deserved in 2014. The Boxtrolls was another perfectly charming film and, considering its dual message of tolerance and not giving into paranoia, one that more people should have seen.
Taking place in a town that’s full of stupid people who are obsessed with cheese, The Boxtrolls is a memorably dark little film from the same studio that gave us Paranorman. The citizens of the town live in fear of the Boxtrolls, a group of creatures who live underneath the city. Little do they understand that the Boxtrolls are actually peaceful and the only reason that they come out at night is to scavenge through trash. The citizens of the town hire the evil Snatcher to take care of the Boxtrolls and, because of their paranoia and fear, they are soon literally slaves to the whims of Snatcher.
(Insert your own NSA surveillance analogy here.)
The Boxtrolls is a memorably subversive little film, one that makes the argument that even the ugliest of animated monsters still deserve a chance to find happiness.
Dolphin Tale 2 (dir by Charles Martin Smith)
So, as some of you may remember, I absolutely loved the first Dolphin Tale. The sequel is not quite as good as the first film but you know what? I saw it with my niece and she absolutely loved it and I loved watching it with her and yes, the film totally made me cry. So, as far as I’m concerned, the film succeeded. Winter the Dolphin appears as himself and he’s joined by Hope the Dolphin. And both Winter and Hope give Oscar-worthy performances.
The Quiet Ones (dir by John Pogue)
Want to hear something sad? The Quiet Ones, which is probably one of the most forgettable films to be released last year, was produced by Hammer Studios. That’s right — the legendary British studio that produced such immortal films as Horror of Dracula — also produced The Quiet Ones, a film that could have just as easily been made by …. well, by anyone.
Borrowing multiple pages from The Conjuring, The Quiet Ones takes place in the 70s, is “based on a true story,” and features a creepy doll! Jared Harris plays a psychiatrist who wants to prove that ghosts do not exist and that poltergeist activity is the result of telekinesis. In order to prove his theory, he and his forgettable students isolate an orphan named Jane (Olivia Cooke) and go out of their way to upset her, hoping that she’ll lash out at them with her telekinetic abilities. Apparently, nobody in this movie has ever watched a movie before or else they would have understood why this was a bad idea.
Anyway, The Quiet Ones feels like about a hundred other recent horror films, right down to having Sam Claflin play a student with a camera who records the entire experience. Jared Harris is well-cast and Olivia Cooke proves that she deserves a better film but otherwise, The Quiet Ones is forgettable.
Vampire Academy (dir by Mark Waters)
Speaking of being forgettable…
Actually, Vampire Academy is not as bad as a lot of critics said. It was one of the many YA adaptations that were released in 2014. It deals with a bunch of teenage vampires who are attending St. Vladimer’s Academy. When the film tries to be Twilight, it’s boring. When the film tries to Mean Girls, it’s a lot more tolerable. Best of all, one of the main characters is named Lissa and I like any film that features a Lisa.
But, otherwise, Vampire Academy was pretty forgettable.
