Top Five Films of the Year: 2007

Hell of a film year, 2007.  A lot of good-to-great films scattered about the whole calendar year, and Oscar season was one of the strongest in recent memory with some truly original stuff.

5. Juno

Jason Reitman scored big with his sophomore effort, about a brainy teenage girl who finds herself pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption.  Ellen Page put herself on the map with her performance as Juno, delivering screenwriter Diablo Cody's quirky nerdspeak convincingly and naturally.  Not many actresses would be able to make this dialogue work, but Page weaves it right into the character so we're able to identify with her.  The film is full of wonderful and engaging supporting performances, such as J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno's father and stepmother.  Both characters are gruff and brutally frank but still supportive and loving, and it's refreshing to see such realistic parent characters in a film.  Their relationship with Juno is just as you'd expect a healthy one to be under the circumstances.  The other two major characters are the intended adoptive parents, played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner.  Garner's character is played as slightly neurotic and uptight, while Bateman's cool charisma and affinity for alternative rock naturally draws Juno to him.  As the film wears on the dynamic between her and the adoptive parents changes very unexpectedly.  Juno is a splendid mix of quirky comedy and light drama - a real triumph for Reitman and co.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2006

Welcome to another installment of our Top Five Films of the Year series, where I recap my picks for the best movies of a given calendar year.  Today we're talking about 2006 a rather sparsely populated year for really great films.  There wasn't much of value in terms of popcorn movies that year (Superman Returns and X-Men: The Last Stand for example felt okay at the time but didn't age well), but Oscar bait season provided some quality films.  Here are five of them.

5. Children of Men

Alfonso Cuaron's stark adaptation of the 1992 sci-fi novel takes place in a dystopian future Great Britain, where humanity is facing an infertility crisis.  It's been 18 years since a human baby was born, and society has begun to break down, with political groups waging war on each other, almost every government in the world having fallen to chaos, and Britain having turned into a police state.  A former activist named Theo (Clive Owen) is tasked by his ex-wife and her allies with escorting a pregnant refugee to the coast so she can meet up with scientists in Portugal and aid them in finding an infertility cure.  Along the way Theo and his friends are ambushed and betrayed, and the film becomes a taut race for survival.  Cuaron makes incredible use of long, unbroken shots in a few of the action sequences, giving them a wholly unique feel and plunging us right into the bedlam.  Clive Owen makes a splendidly flawed, unlikely hero, while Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine supply memorable supporting performances.  Children of Men touches on themes of immigration policy, religious faith, and redemption, while exploring a fascinatingly thoughtful science fiction premise.

4. Rocky Balboa

Well this wasn't supposed to happen.  The sixth entry in the dead-horse Rocky franchise should never have been even watchable, let alone one of the best in the series.  But Sylvester Stallone managed to wash off the foul stink of the wretched Rocky V and present a completely worthy conclusion to the saga.  While this film doesn't totally ignore the events of V (Rocky is still back to his working-class roots), it picks up the story years later after Adrian has died (Stallone famously explained the decision to kill her off by citing how much of a drag her character had become).  Rocky now owns a successful Italian restaurant and has settled into a comfortable (albeit lonely) retirement, until an ESPN dream fight simulator pits Balboa against the current heavyweight boxing champion Mason Dixon, piquing the public's interest in seeing the matchup for real (inspired by George Foreman's unlikely comeback in the 90s).  Rocky eventually agrees to the exhibition fight and we wander into familiar territory, complete with the classic Training Montage.  As with the first Rocky film however, this movie is not really about the fight, but rather focuses on the characters.  Rocky has seemingly lost his sense of purpose after Adrian's death and spends much of his energy mourning her, while her regretful brother Paulie is anxious to leave that part of his life behind ("Stop talking 'bout yesterday, Rock! Yesterday wasn't so great!").  Rocky develops a relationship of sorts with Marie, a girl he used to know from the old neighborhood, and in growing close with her and her son Rocky begins to really live again.  I had no expectations of enjoying this film.  The idea of picking up the Rocky series again after 17 years seemed totally absurd, but to his credit Stallone rediscovered what made these movies work in the first place and crafted an excellent final chapter (until the equally excellent spinoff Creed showed up that is) that rivals the original.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2014

2014 had quite a diverse crop of good films.  As often happens, only a handful of memorable films came out in the first half, but the fall/winter season picked up pretty big and left us with some quality cinematic fare.  So let's look at the five best of 2014....

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel

 

I've historically not been much of a Wes Anderson fan.  He seems to fall into the "you either love him or hate him" category.  In my case it's been more like "I don't get him."  I was less than impressed with Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, finding them almost desperately quirky.  But with Grand Budapest he created a memorable, sardonic, atmospheric little black comedy about a hotel lobby boy (Zero) and his friendship with the head concierge (M. Gustave), who unwittingly finds himself the beneficiary of a deceased female guest, with whom he had a romantic relationship.  The inheritance is in the form of a very valuable painting, now highly sought after by the old woman's criminal son, and the chase is on to keep the painting in the hands of its rightful new owner.  The all-star cast includes Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Tony Revolori as Zero.  Sporting a unique visual style and art direction, this film was an unexpected treat.  Watching these characters outmaneuver each other while delivering rapid-fire, stylized dialogue made for a tremendously charming experience.

4. X-Men: Days of Future Past

The sequel to possibly the best X-Men film thus far, DOFP picks up the story in the distant future, where mutantkind has been hunted to near-extinction by Sentinels, a fleet of superpowered robots designed in the 1970s by the bigoted Dr. Bolivar Trask.  Upon his assassination by Mystique, Trask was held up as a martyr and his Sentinel program gained support from the US Government, eventually leading to this dystopian future.  Professor X, Magneto, and the remaining mutants concoct a plan to send Wolverine's consciousness back in time to prevent Trask's murder, thus stopping the Sentinels from ever being commissioned, and altering the timeline.  Only problem is Xavier and Magneto are each at their lowest and least cooperative point in 1973, and Wolverine must talk them into working together for the eventual common good.  Full of great action set pieces and excellent performances (particularly by James McAvoy as the young Xavier), Days of Future Past continues the trend of great X-Men films and kinda sorta restores the continuity X-Men 3 so carelessly tampered with (Okay, it really doesn't restore anything, but who cares; this movie's awesome).

3. Birdman

The 2014 Best Picture winner, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu stars Michael Keaton as an aging former superhero film star now relegated to a small Off-Broadway play in the hopes of reinvigorating his flagging career.  Filmed largely on handheld and presented as one fluid, unbroken shot, the film almost feels like a stage production and boasts multiple excellent performances by Keaton, Edward Norton as a self-important Broadway star, Emma Stone as Keaton's troubled daughter, and Zach Galifinakis in a rare straight-man turn as Keaton's lawyer.  The film contains themes about struggling with celebrity (or lack thereof), artistic integrity, redemption, and the theater itself.  Iñárritu and company have created a brilliantly unique, thought-provoking cinematic experience, and he would follow it up in 2015 with another one.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2013

2013 ended up being a great year in film.  I was worried there for a good nine months when almost nothing of note was released in the theaters.
The summer movie season, traditionally rife with fun popcorn fare, continued the trend of joyless disaster porn (except for amusing romps like Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness) and left me fearing the film industry had nothing new to show me.  As the fall rolled around I realized how wrong I was. 

2013's Oscar bait season was one of the strongest in recent memory, and four of the five standouts of the year (plus a few other gems) were released during 2013's closing months.

 5. Dallas Buyers Club

This grim but ultimately inspiring true story of rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof's long battle with AIDS is an intimate character study that showcases two extraordinary performances.  Matthew McConaughey continues his impressive foray into serious cinema after a long stint as a typecast romantic comedy lead, and Jared Leto returns to acting after a five-year hiatus with a career performance as Rayon, Woodroof's transgender business partner.  Jean-Marc Vallee uses muted colors and stark realism to portray Woodroof's physical decline and personal redemption as he opens an unauthorized pharmaceutical distributorship for AIDS patients.  Both actors deservedly won Oscars in 2014 and the movie heralded a major comeback for McConaughey in particular.

4. Blue Jasmine

As someone who is not a self-described Woody Allen fan per se, I was incredibly impressed with this story of a disgraced woman's descent into self-pity and madness.  Cate Blanchett delivers probably the best performance of her career.  As Jasmine, the widow of an ultra-wealthy stock swindler who has lost her entire fortune, Blanchett creates a positively loathesome, self-obsessed character who has spent a lifetime looking down on the 99%.  And yet somehow though we as the audience should revel in her frankly rather well-deserved misery, we find ourselves rooting for her to pull herself out of financial ruin and get back on her feet.  That Blanchett is able to make such an awful woman so sympathetic is remarkable.  We spend the entire movie being disgusted with this character, but when her dishonest and manipulative plot to climb back up the social ladder fails in the end, we still feel for her.  This is the best Allen film I've seen.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2012

2012 was sort of a weird film year for me.  I had such incredibly high expectations for the year's slate of films, with multiple high-profile comic book-based movies being released, a prequel to Alien, and a new Quentin Tarantino film.  Some of the aforementioned were very good, some of them were pretty awful (*ahem* Prometheus), but I wouldn't necessarily classify anything that came out in 2012 as a truly great film.  Still there was a lot to like.

5. The Avengers

What a fun popcorn movie this is!  I honestly hadn't seen a pure summer action romp this entertaining in many years.  Since just about every action movie around that time tended to be dark, gloomy, disturbingly violent and devoid of likable characters (see Man of Steel), The Avengers was such a refreshing callback to a time when summer action movies were purely about exhilaration and escapism.  It's the deftly assembled climax to a series of Marvel Comics superhero movies, combining all the major characters in such a way that we don't need to spend much time on expository scenes (we've already done that in the previous films) and we can get right to the meat of the story and how these established characters interact with each other.  Director Joss Whedon manages to fit all these larger-than-life personalities into one film without it becoming overcrowded, and keeps the action set pieces fairly simple but memorable, resisting the temptation to make them overly long where they'd become tedious (unlike a certain Superman film I could name). 

The villain, Thor's brother Loki, is charismatic and just menacing enough to be a threat without darkening the mood of the film or distracting from the main thrust of the story - how these egotistical superheroes work together to save mankind.  In that respect The Avengers is almost an origin story in that we've never seen all these characters in the same film. 

Top Five Films of the Year: 2011

Quite an eclectic crop of flicks we have sitting atop the 2011 heap.  We have a raunchy comedy, a comic book adaptation, a morose character piece, a lighthearted love letter to cinema, and a black & white silent film.

5. Bridesmaids

In the tradition of recent comedy hits The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Hangover, screenwriters Annie Mumolo and SNL alum Kristen Wiig set out to prove female comedic actors could be just as raunchy and hilarious as their male counterparts.  Wiig stars as Annie Walker, a woman whose bakery and relationship have recently failed leaving her dejected and lonely.  Her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces she is engaged and asks Annie to be her Maid of Honor, prompting severe insecurity and jealousy issues when Annie meets fellow Bridesmaid Helen, the wealthy and beautiful wife of Lillian's fiance's boss.  A power struggle ensues between the two, who compete both for Lillian's attention and the glory of planning the pre-wedding festivities.  Annie also labors over a potential romance with Nathan (Chris O'Dowd), an affable fellow whose advances Annie's low self-worth prevents her from enjoying.  Bridesmaids assembles an uproarious cast, including The Goldbergs' Wendi McClendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper from The Office, and Melissa McCarthy, in a showstopping Oscar-nominated performance.  The six principle female stars have amazing comedic chemistry and their loose improvisational delivery fits the material perfectly.  Bridesmaids is yet another brilliant entry in the pantheon of Judd Apatow-produced comedies.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2010

2010 is one of the best overall film years I can remember.  Awards season featured so many good movies and memorable performances it was hard to pick a winner.  Even a few of the summer offerings were award-worthy.  Amazingly, four of these five films take place in Massachusetts.  Here we go....

5. The Social Network

Leave it to director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to take a movie about the creation of a social media website and turn it into a riveting dramatic thriller.  The (mostly) true story of the creation of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg's resulting legal troubles could've been a dull piece of techno-babble, but instead the filmmakers focused on Zuckerberg's personal relationships and his inability to relate to other people on a humanistic level.  Star Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark almost as an Asperger's victim.  He approaches every situation completely analytically and speaks to everyone in the most blunt terms possible, almost as though sugarcoating would be a waste of energy.  This has the effect of alienating almost every one of his friends, and his business decisions result in lawsuits, both from his roommate and FB co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and from the Wiklevoss twins, who claim he stole their idea.  The Social Network is presented as a tense, powerful, dialogue-driven pseudo-thriller, and the screenplay by the always excellent Sorkin moves along just fast enough to drive the story but not so fast we can't follow it.  In lesser hands this story would have focused too much on the technical aspects and lost the characters, but Fincher and co. know exactly how to draw the audience in.

4. The Fighter

David O. Russell's true account of Lowell fighter Mickey Ward ranks right up with Rocky and Raging Bull as one of the best films about boxing.  Ward's tale of an unlikely champion finally realizing his dream is a familiar one, but Russell uses hyperrealism for the fight scenes, emulating the look of a television broadcast capturing the action.  The film features three amazing supporting performances, all of which garnered Oscar nods.  Amy Adams plays Charlene, Ward's love interest and tough-as-nails local girl who isn't ashamed of who she is or where she came from.  She is drawn to Ward's awkward shyness and feels for his bizarre family situation, aware that the people he loves most are holding him back.  Melissa Leo won an Oscar for her performance as Mickey's mother/manager Alice.  Alice is incapable of making a business decision that isn't driven by her own personal issues.  She acts as much out of her own need for glory and gratification as for her son's well-being.  The Oscar-winning show-stealer in the film though is Christian Bale as Mickey's half-brother Dicky Eklund, a former fighter who, despite being a hopeless crack addict, still thinks he's going to make a ring comeback.  Like his mother, Eklund is a shaky-at-best hand guiding Mickey's boxing career and preventing him from succeeding.  These three characters engage in a power struggle to win Mickey's trust.  Charlene knows Mickey needs to distance himself from his dysfunctional family, while Alice and Dicky see Mickey as their meal ticket.  Mark Wahlberg as Mickey wisely keeps his performance understated, knowing he can't compete with such huge characters.  I've read some reviews stating Mickey was an unworthy protagonist who gets lost in the shuffle, but I found him easily identifiable as a quiet person surrounded by forceful personalities who are pulling him in different directions.  Russell has made an extraordinary career of taking strange characters and making us sympathize with them.  The Fighter is a showcase of superb acting, and one of the best of all boxing films.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2009

Eclectic group of films this time.  Let's get right to it....

5. I Love You, Man

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel star in this unrelentingly funny bro-mantic comedy, directed by John Hamburg.  Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a real estate agent who has just gotten engaged and is troubled by his lack of male friends.  He has no qualified best man contenders and at the urging of his fiancee Zoe (Rashida Jones) decides to shop around for a new best friend.  At one of his open houses, he meets Sydney Fife, a free-spirited investor who frequents house showings to pick up divorcees and enjoy the free catering.  Despite being near opposites, Peter and Sydney hit it off almost immediately, and quickly become so close that Peter and Zoe's relationship soon seems at risk.  This is really just a terrific lighthearted comedy, with countless quotable jokes ("Slappa da bass, mon!"), likable characters (Is there a more affable star out there than Paul Rudd?) , and perfect chemistry between the actors.  There isn't a whole lot to dissect or analyze; it's just a wonderfully enjoyable romp that I find myself able to watch just about anytime.  Also on a personal level I Love You, Man is largely responsible for my newfound appreciation for the music of Rush.

4. Up in the Air

Adapted from the 2001 novel of the same name, Wunderkind director Jason Reitman's third film stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a professional downsizer.  Ryan's company gets hired out by other companies going through layoffs, to travel to their site and fire their employees for them.  Ryan prides himself on being a lifelong bachelor with little to no roots anywhere in the country, and also on "making limbo tolerable" for his clients' unfortunate victims.  Two events throw Ryan's simple, easily manageable life into turmoil: he meets and begins to fall for fellow business traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga) who initially seems to be the female version of him; and his firm decides to cut costs by pulling all their agents off the road and moving to a virtual business model, firing people via videoconference.  This revolutionary new strategy is introduced by Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a new hire fresh out of college with designs on reshaping the industry.  During the transition, Natalie is sent on the road with Ryan to get acclimated with the business, and her tendency to question Ryan's life choices forces him reexamine his own mindset.  Clooney is wonderful as always, projecting his usual swagger mixed with a world-weary loneliness that belies his outward demeanor.  Kendrick injects her character with a cocksure energy but reveals great vulnerability as Natalie realizes the severity of what her job entails.  The script manages to pull countless upliftingly comedic moments out of what seems to be a depressing backdrop - the comatose state of The American Dream.  2009 was a year of brutally difficult economic times, and Up in the Air is a perfect reflection of what we as a nation were going through.

Top Five Films of the Year: 2008

2008 was rather an uneven year for film.  The good stuff had a lasting impact, but there honestly wasn't a ton of it.  A few films ended up a little disappointing, like The Incredible Hulk (I know I'm in the minority but I greatly prefer Ang Lee's moody, cerebral Hulk of 2003 to the dumbed-down Edward Norton version) and Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (ya know, the Rocky V of the series - the one we'll all pretend never happened).  But 2008 featured a few films that have undoubtedly earned permanent real estate in the pantheon of their respective genres.

5. Milk

Gus Van Sant's biopic about the first openly gay politician to be elected to public office stars Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning performanceas Harvey Milk.  Milk moves from New York to San Francisco and begins campaigning for office as a way to expand gay rights, amid multiple attempts by the religious right to treat homosexuals as a threat to the community.  The film covers the later years of Milk's life as he becomes a fixture in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, building relationships with disillusioned gay citizens and becoming a beacon of hope for the disenfranchised.  His mission eventually puts him at odds with fellow City Supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin), an outspoken gay rights opponent.  Van Sant uses quirky, inventive visuals to tell this story often assembling shots in very unexpected ways.  Case in point is a scene early in the film where a young gay man is being assaulted - his glasses are knocked off his face and we see the rest of the incident in a warped closeup through one of the corrective lenses.  This scene could have been a standard one illustrating the contempt these people faced every day on the streets, but Van Sant creates a claustrophobic mood and leaves much of the event to the imagination.  Penn and Brolin are both excellent as the two central characters.  Penn eschews a potentially caricatural performance and gives Milk three dimensions, showing us just how brave and dedicated this public figure was.  Brolin plays White as a spiteful, insecure opportunist who only seems to warm up to Milk's cause when it will benefit him politically.  I went into this film expecting a sort of sterile biographical account, but Van Sant is able to convey the passionate weight of Milk's struggle, allowing us to be emotionally, and visually, engaged.