Hindsight can shift one’s view of one’s favorite films from a given calendar year quite a lot. So the idea is pretty simple: How would my top ten of 2014 look right now? For the next five days, I will be pick two films per day that might make up my list of the best ten films I saw from that year (and will be doing this for each previous year in the coming month).
10.) THE LEGO MOVIE (directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)
Creative potential is when our heroes venture to a land of brightly colored, delightful beings and structures called Cloud Cuckooland. Creative follow-through is when that trip becomes an excuse to see LEGO likenesses of Michelangelo the painter and Michelangelo the teenage mutant ninja turtle, Dumbledore and Gandalf, the members of the 2002 NBA All-Stars and the Sixteenth United States President on a rocket-engine version of his statue’s chair, and, of course, a pirate that boasts a shark for an arm. It’s clear that writing/directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s modus operandi when it came to the The LEGO Movie was to approach the titular, block-shaped toys with a childlike innocence. That’s without reckoning the film’s surprising amount of heart and a genuinely innovative visual style that mimics stop-motion animation.
9.) IDA (directed by Pawel Pawlikowski)
Co-writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski’s quiet but highly effective study of the divide, sometimes blurry, between rigor and liberty personifies itself in our heroine’s story. She has moved from the strict patterns of a convent to the looser pleasures of her aunt’s apartment, along the way severing the ties of her former life for one that must grow accustomed to outside life. But that’s too simple for Pawlikowski and co-screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, whose characters (greatly aided by performances from Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska) are complex and revealing in more than one way. Rarely before has the literal act of a young woman letting down her hair so subtly revealed truths about that woman. Reminding of a modern-day Bergman effort and sporting some truly striking, black-and-white photography, Ida is one that sneaks up on the viewer.
Podcasting Them Softly 