The Top Ten Films of 2014 (rough draft): Of course, we went with "Boyhood"

It is a bit premature perhaps to be doing this as I have yet to see many of the top films of 2014 as many of them will of course as always be released on or after Christmas Day, but since everyone else is posting their top 10 films of 2014 list, I may as well go for it.

This was an exceptional year for film in every capacity.

For those of you new to this blog, I always go with an image referring to something about the film rather than an image of the film itself.

We are also using the word 'Rough Draft' in the title as a joke, everyone feels the urge to change these lists when they have seen more films from the year of release (here in the United States).

Here is the list:

1) Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater, image #1 is of the 1969 children's show "H.R. Pufnstuf)

2) Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher, the middle image is the universal symbol for women)

3) Birdman (dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the bottom image is of the early anime cartoon "Battle of the Planets")

4) The Grand Hotel Budapest (dir: Wes Anderson)

5) Life Itself (documentary. dir: Steve James. Will air on CNN in January)

6) The Unknown Known (doc. dir: Errol Morris)

7) Blue Ruin (dir: Jeremy Sauhier)

8) Begin Again (dir: John Carney)

9) Interstellar (dir: Christopher Nolan)

10) "A Most Wanted Man" (dir: Anton Corbijn)

Worst Movie of the Year: "Wrong" (appropriately titled, dir: Quentin Dupieux)

Most Underrated: "The Skeleton Twins"

Most Overrated: "Snowpiercer"

Most Disappointing: "Only Lovers Left Alive"

A Most Impressive Debut: "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"

Most Interesting Mediocre Movie: "Life After Beth"

http://www.filmcomment.com

My Ten Best Films of the Decade (2000-09)

It is hard enough to choose the best films of the year, but it always even more daunting to proclaim a film to be 'the best movie of the decade.' I am still deliberting if Robert Altman's "The Player" was a better film than Mike Figgis' "Leaving Las Vegas," which gave Nicholas Cage an Oscar. Those are my two top choices for the best of the nineties.

This decade saw the emergence of international film. It was the decade of cinema globalization as now good films can come from Mexico, Brazil, Iran or Turkey as easily as they can come from The United States, France, Germany or Japan.

There are also many great films which did not make this list including "Elephant," "Lost in Translation," "21 Grams" and "There Will Be Blood."

All lists by their nature subjective and if mine reflects a bias it comes that reflected by a British film critic who when listing his ten best films ever made said he was choosing a Turkish and an Iranian film because those films were always overlooked. Perhaps, because Turkey is my late father's country, I fully sympathize with that view. And, perhaps for that reason, a Turkish and an Iranian film made my list, but I assure you both "Distant" and "Ten" are outstanding films, irrespective of my own bias.

Here is the list, with a compilation of titles I thought about selecting listed under 'honrable mention:'

1. Cache (Hidden)- France, 2005. dir. Michael Haneke
2. Sideways- USA, 2004. dir. Alexander Payne
3. Distant- Turkey, 2002. dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
4.Lilya 4-ever- Sweden. 2002. dir, Lukas Moodysson
5. A History of Violence- USA/Canada. 2005. dir, David Cronenberg
6. Little Children- USA, 2006. USA. dir, Todd Field
7. AI- USA, 2001. dir, Steven Spielberg
8. The Darjeeling Limited- USA, 2007. dir, Wes Anderson
9. Talk to Her- Spain, 2002. dir, Pedro Almodovar
10. Ten- Iran, 2002. dir. Abbas Kiarostami


Honorable Mention:
"21 Grams"
"Y Tu Mama, Tambien?"
"4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days"
"In the Bedroom"
"You Can Count on Me"
"Grizzly Man"
"Downfall"
"Mullholland Drive"
"The Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"The Royal Teenbaums"
"City of God"
"Borat"
"Bruno"
"Before Sunset"
"Bus 174"
"spirited Away"
"Minority Report"
"The Road to Perdition"
"I'm Not There"
"Climates"
"High Fidelity"
"Little Miss Sunshine"
"Lost in Translation"
"Fog of War"
"Bright Future"
"Best of Show"
"Frost/Nixon"
"The Wrestler"
"The Aviator"
"The Departed"
"There Will Be Blood"
"No Country for Old Men"
"Mystic River"
"Million Dollar Baby"
"Elephant"
"Traffic"
"Almost Famous"
"The Pianist"
"The Magdalene Sisters"

And, I'm sure there was at least one film I overlooked!

The Last 10 Films I've Seen

This may qualify as an in-joke since I am using two images from the original books to two movies I've recently seen on my two respective blogs.

The in-joke is that because I watch so many films, I rarely get around to actually reading novels, but perhaps I can read the original book to "Where the Wild Things Are" (pictured here) since it is reportedly less than 300 words! Perhaps, my friends Sam Riddleberger (pseudodymn) and CeCe Bell (a married couple, both of whom are children's book authors) would be proud of me.

I have read William Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch" several times though, but I haven't read Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!," which was the basis for "There Will Be Blood." However, I have read Sinclair's most famous work "The Jungle," which I don't believe ever got made into a movie.

I got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine which lists the last ten films that film directors or esteemed film critics have seen. I forget whose list I saw last (I think it may have been Wes Anderson) though I would love to see the list of films that Quentin Tarantino and John Waters have seen.

Here is my list, going from the film I've seen most recently backwards. I actually saw all but three of these films at a movie theatre, including a midnight screening in Greensboro, NC, of the ever-disturbing Japanese horror film "Audition."

The star indicates that I had viewed the film previously:

1. "In the Loop"
2. "Zombieland"
3. "Where the Wild Things Are"
4. "Audition" (Japan)*
5. "Death at a Funeral"
6. "Bright Star"
7. "Capitalism: A Love Story" (doc)
8. "Naked Lunch"*
9. "There Will Be Blood"*
10. "Cold Souls"