#10
Nightcrawler
Dir. Dan Gilroy
Jake Gyllenhaal has churned out a string of really strong performances in the last few years, from his roles as a policeman in End of Watch, as a detective in Prisoners, as both a professor and an actor in Enemy, and now as a freelance videographer in Nightcrawler. Dan Gilroy‘s directorial debut is thrilling and darkly funny, but Gyllenhaal is its biggest selling point as he transforms into the character of Lou Bloom, a sort of new-age Gordon Gekko who sells a philosophy and lifestyle alongside his provocative, blood-spattered news footage. The film presents an interesting take on the media, but if you dig deeper it presents an even more compelling examination of the new economy, one that requires young professionals to sell themselves — not just skills and ideas but sometimes morals and values — to a pool of bidders who don’t necessarily have their best interests in mind. After all, if we learned anything from Lou, it’s if we want to win the lottery, we’ve got to make the money to buy a ticket.
#9
Edge of Tomorrow
Dir. Doug Liman
You sit down to play a video game. On your first life, you happen upon a glitch that gives you infinite lives, and so on your second life you take what you learned from your first attempt and you adapt. You make it a little further than last time, and the same happens with the third attempt, the fourth, the fifth, and so on. You make minimal, steady progress until you get to the boss level, where you lose the power and are forced to go on with the game knowing you’ve got only one life left. That’s the idea behind Edge of Tomorrow, a film I have now seen four times, and yet one that never ceases to entertain through a deft mix of action, sci-fi, and comedy. So few blockbusters today have the balls to tell a story that isn’t created, filtered, and tweaked by and through a formula, but Edge of Tomorrow takes its high-concept premise and runs with it to thrilling effect. I’m down to watch anything Tom Cruise is in, but perhaps the biggest surprise for me here was Emily Blunt, who almost instantly blossoms into a bonafide action star right before our eyes.
#8
Layover
Dir. Joshua Caldwell
I wrote about Layover a little over a month ago and referred to it as a hidden gem, and after reflecting on the film more and speaking with director Joshua Caldwell about his first feature — an interview I’m currently working on piecing together for you all to read — Layover is a film I’ve come to hold in high regard. In the vein of Richard Linklater‘s Before trilogy, Layover is driven not by traditional plot mechanics but by the characters we see on screen and the way they interact with the world around them, led by Nathalie Fay as a Parisian woman stuck in Los Angeles for 12 hours when her connecting flight to Singapore is cancelled. Maybe it’s just the place I’m at in my life, finishing school and getting ready to head off into the real world, but Layover really grabbed me and took me along for the ride. Simple and assured, Caldwell’s film is a knockout, and I really encourage you guys to check it out if you haven’t done so.
#7
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dir. Wes Anderson
The Grand Budapest Hotel is probably the funniest and the most quotable movie of 2014, bar none. Wes Anderson directs a seriously loaded corps of actors that includes F. Murray Abraham, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson — and that’s without even mentioning star Ralph Fiennes or fantastic newcomer Tony Revolori. In spite of the delicate production design, the complex nested narrative structure, and the notion this is arguably the most Wes Anderson-y Wes Anderson joint Wes Anderson has ever Wes Anderson-ed, it might also be his most accessible film to date. How exactly that works I’m not sure, but if this is the film to convince the moviegoing public that Anderson is worth coming around to, you certainly won’t hear me complaining: like the courtesans au chocolat we see in the film, The Grand Budapest Hotel is an absolute treat.
