Dennis Hartley's Top 10 for 2014
Dennis is still recovering from knee surgery but he wishes everyone a Happy New Year and sent this in in case you're looking for something excellent to watch over the rest of the holiday.
In alphabetical order:
Birdman -- One of my favorite movies is the 1957 "show-biz noir", The Sweet Smell of Success, Alexander Mackendrick's portrait of an influential (and megalomaniacal) New York newspaper columnist (Burt Lancaster), who can make or break the careers of actors, musicians and comics with the mere flick of his pen. One of my favorite lines from Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman's infinitely quotable screenplay is uttered by Lancaster, as he sharpens his claws and fixes his predatory gaze down on the streets of Manhattan from his lofty penthouse perch: "I love this dirty town." Now, I don't know if writer-director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu intended this as homage, but there is a scene in his new film, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) where a character looks down upon the streets of Manhattan from a lofty rooftop perch (after accepting a "dare" to spit on a random pedestrian below) and gleefully proclaims, "I love this town!" Read on ...
Child's Pose -- I'm sure you recall the “affluenza" case in Texas, in which a 16 year-old from a wealthy family received 10 year's probation and a stint in rehab as "punishment" for killing four people in a drunk driving accident? A psychologist for the defense defined "affluenza" as an affliction unique to children of privilege; claiming that the young man's coddled upbringing led to an inability to connect actions with consequences. We have to assume that he said this with a straight face, because judge and jury bought it. Which begs a question: Does the world have two justice systems...one for the rich and one for the poor? Child's Pose, a new film from Romanian writer-director Calin Peter Netzer, would seem to reinforce that suspicion. Shooting in a unfussy, Dogme 95-styled manner, and armed with a script (co-written by Razvan Radulescu) that blends droll satire with social realism, Netzer paints a portrait of contemporary Romanian class warfare through the eyes of a haughty bourgeoisie woman named Cornelia (Luminita Gheorghiu). Read on ...
A Coffee in Berlin -- Have you heard the good word? There's this trendy new food pyramid that apparently keeps you energetic and svelte: Vodka, cigarettes and chewing gum. This appears to be all that sustains Niko (Tom Schilling), the Millennial slacker hero of writer-director Jan Ole Gerster's debut film, A Coffee in Berlin (known in Germany as Oh Boy). Oh, you are allowed to drink coffee...if you can get your hands on a cup. This is proving difficult for Niko, as we follow him around Berlin on (what we assume to be) a typical day in his life. Read on ...
The Grand Budapest Hotel -- In the interest of upholding my credo to be forthright with my readers (all three of you), I will confess that, with the exception of his engaging 1996 directing debut, Bottle Rocket, and the fitfully amusing Rushmore, I have been somewhat immune to the charms of Wes Anderson. I have also developed a complex of sorts over my apparent inability to comprehend why the phrase "a Wes Anderson film" has become catnip to legions of hipster-garbed fanboys and swooning film critics (even the normally discerning Criterion Collection seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid). Maybe there's something wrong with me? Am I like the uptight brother-in-law in Field of Dreams
who can't see the baseball players? Am I wrong to feel that Plan 9 From Outer Space
should be supplanted by The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 
as Worst Movie of All Time? To me, "a Wes Anderson film" is the cinematic equivalent to Wonder Bread...bland product, whimsically wrapped. At the risk of making your head explode, I now have a second confession to make. I kind of enjoyed Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. A lot. I know, I know, I was just as shocked as you are right now. I can't adequately explain what happened. The film is not dissimilar to his previous work; in that it is akin to a live action cartoon, drenched in whimsy, expressed in bold primary colors, populated by quirky characters (who would never exist outside of the strange Andersonian universe they live in) caught up in a quirky narrative with quirky twists and turns (I believe the operative word here, is "quirky"). So why did I like it? I cannot really say. My conundrum (if I may paraphrase one of my favorite lines from The Producers 
) would be this: "Where did he go so right?" Read on ...
) would be this: "Where did he go so right?" Read on ...Kill the Messenger -- Sometimes, all you have to do is tell the truth, and nobody will believe you. That's what happened to San Jose Mercury investigative journalist Gary Webb, who published a number of articles in 1996 that blew the lid off of this "dark alliance". I'm ashamed to admit that while I remember hearing something about it back then, I somehow got the impression (at the time) that it was just some kind of urban legend; the kind of thing that the SNL sketch character "Drunk Uncle" might blurt out at the dinner table while everyone snickers or hides their head in embarrassment. "Hey everybody...I heard that the CIA was responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in the African-American community!" Yeah...right, uncle.
Here's the thing. The CIA actually did (sort of) cop to it, a few years after Webb's newspaper expose. Normally, that would (should) have become a fairly major news story in and of itself. Unfortunately, the MSM was a little preoccupied at the time with a shinier object...the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Also by this time, Webb had lost his credibility, thanks to a concerted campaign by same aforementioned MSM to make Webb look like some nut yelling at traffic. Tragically, it "worked" too well; he became a pariah and ended up killing himself.
This largely forgotten debacle has been dramatized in a new film from Michael Cuesta called Kill the Messenger. Jeremy Renner delivers a terrific performance as the tenacious and impassioned Webb. We follow him on a journey that begins with a relatively innocuous tip from a player in the local drug trade, which leads to a perilous face-to-face meet with an imprisoned kingpin in Nicaragua (a great cameo from Andy Garcia) and eventually to the belly of the beast in D.C., where he's implicitly advised by government spooks to cool his heels...or else. Naturally, this only makes him want to dig deeper. He hits pay dirt, and the exclusive story is published. His editors appear to have his back; that is, until the backlash begins. Read on ...
Last Days of Vietnam -- Call this an intervention, but someone has to say it. America has an ongoing co-dependent relationship with the Vietnam war. Oh, I know, it's been nearly 40 years since we were "involved". And to be sure, as soon as the last Marine split, we wasted no time giving the war its ring back. We put our fingers in our ears, started chanting "la-la-la-la can't hear you" and moved on with our lives, pretending like the whole tragic misfire never happened. But here's the funny thing. Every time we find ourselves teetering on the edge of another quagmire, we stack it up against our old flame. We can't help ourselves. "We don't want another Vietnam," we worry, or "Well...at least this doesn't seem likely to turn into another Vietnam," we fib to ourselves as we get all dressed up for our third date.
But do all who use that meme truly understand why it's so important that we don't have another Vietnam? For many (particularly those too young to have grown up watching it go sideways on Walter Cronkite), the passage of time has rendered the war little more than an abstract reference. It's too easy to forget the human factor. Even for many old enough to remember, dredging up the human factor reopens old wounds (personal or political). But you know what "they" say...those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Which is why I would encourage you to catch Rory Kennedy's documentary, The Last Days of Vietnam, precisely because she dares to dredge up the "human factor". Read on ...
Life Itself -- After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert kept the show going whilst essentially auditioning an interestingly diverse roster of guest critics for several months, with fellow Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Richard Roeper eventually winning the permanent seat across the aisle. Ebert remained a stalwart fixture until 2006, when treatment for his thyroid cancer began. Of course, Roger Ebert’s life journey didn’t end there, just as it had already taken many twists and turns before his fame as a TV personality. In fact, it is these bookends that provide the most compelling elements in Life Itself, a moving, compassionate and surprisingly frank portrait from acclaimed documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams
).The film covers the full breadth of Ebert’s professional life as a journalist; beginning with his fledgling days as a reporter and reviewer for The Daily Illini while attending the University of Illinois in the early 60s, to his embrace of new media during that personally challenging (and very public) final chapter of his life, wherein he was able to reinvent himself as a socio-political commentator (which he pursued with the same passion, candor and intelligence that defined his oeuvre as America’s most respected film critic). Read on ...
A Summer's Tale -- I'm about to lose any (infinitesimal) amount of street cred that I may have accidentally accrued thus far in my "career" as a movie critic with the following admission. I was originally introduced to the work of Eric Rohmer in a roundabout and pedestrian manner. In Arthur Penn's brilliant 1975 neo-noir, Night Moves
(one of my all-time favorites), there's a memorable throwaway line by cynical private investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman). After his wife says she's off to catch a Rohmer film, Harry scoffs (mostly to himself), "I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry." Since I was hitherto unaware of this Rohmer fellow, I was intrigued to explore his oeuvre (glad I did).This is why I had to chuckle when I checked the time stamp and realized that it's nearly 8 minutes into the Rohmer film A Summer's Tale before anyone utters a line of dialog; and it's a man calling a waitress over so he can order a chocolate crepe. As for the "action" that precedes, well...a young man arrives in sunny Dinard, unpacks his clothes, and heads to the beach to check out the scene. He has a beer and a sandwich. He kicks around the boardwalk until dark. He has dinner. He gazes out his window and strums a nondescript melody on his guitar. The next day, he strolls on the boardwalk some more, then decides to grab a crepe and some coffee. As Harry might say, it's kind of like watching paint dry.
But not to worry, because things are about to get much more interesting. Read on ...
The Theory of Everything -- There's a truly jaw-dropping moment in James Marsh's new biopic about theoretical physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in which lead actor Eddie Redmayne (without the benefit of camera trickery or CGI) literally "unfolds" his paralyzed, crumpled body from the confines of his wheelchair, and walks offstage into the audience to gracefully kneel down and pick up a pencil. A lump formed in my throat, and I began to cry like I haven't cried at a film since...I don't know when (maybe Old Yeller, when I was 6?). I know what you're thinking. I might as well write: "I saw this film today. There was this one incredible scene, where this guy gets up off the couch, and flips on a light switch. I wept." But it's all about context. In context of all the events leading up to that scene, it makes for an extraordinarily moving moment (as 'they' say..."You weren't there, man!"). Read on ...
The Wind Rises -- If I understand Hayao Miyazaki's take on the life of Jiro Horikoshi correctly, he was sort of the Temple Grandin of Japanese aviation; a photo-realistic visual thinker who lived, breathed, and even dreamt elegant aircraft designs from childhood onward. The fact that his most famous creation, the Zero, became one of the most indelible icons of Japanese aggression during WW2 is, erm, incidental. As I was hitherto blissfully unaware of Horikoshi prior to viewing the venerable director's new (and purportedly, final) anime, The Wind Rises, I'm giving Miyazaki-san benefit of the doubt; though I also must assume that Miyazaki’s beautifully woven cinematic tapestry involved…a bit of creative license? Read on ...
What are your favorite movies of 2014? Tell me on twitter at @digby56.
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