Okay, so 2014 was a fantastic year for film, and I wanted to throw together a personal Top 10 list  for the first time in a few years. That said, there are a lot of critically well received films of 2014 that I still have yet to see, so go easy on me, I guess. However, that said, my top 5 films are seriously incredible, and were my motivation to put this list together. They are pretty much locks on this list, but the back half might have been different if I had seen everything. Okay, okay, stupid disclaimer out of the way, here’s my list, starting with one Honorable Mention:

Honorable Mention: Enemy – Denis Villeneuve

A seriously enigmatic film that you won’t understand on your first viewing, guaranteed. It’s obtuse nature can be frustrating and certainly unsatisfying, but upon careful inspection, Enemy is a fascinating film that plays with the boundaries of storytelling, audience expectations, and even cinematic structure. Is it a good film? I’m still trying to figure that out. Is it worth seeing? Most definitely.

10. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan

First things first: I didn’t walk out of Interstellar liking it all that much. Hell, the final 10 minutes had me rolling my eyes and ready for the film to be over with. It contains some of the most awkward lines of dialog in any film I saw in 2014, and it’s plot doesn’t hold together cinematically nearly as well as it may scientifically (thanks, Neil Degrass Tyson). But, and this is a huge BUT, Interstellar has some of the most powerful images and thrilling sequences of any film I saw in 2014. The Black Hole alone could win an award, and I wouldn’t disagree. Granted, films are more than the sum of their parts, and as a whole, Interstellar is quite flawed, but between Hans Zimmer’s POWERFUL score (all caps for volume), McConaughey’s performance, and sequences like those on that shallow water planet, it was one of the best theater experiences of the year. Continue reading →