The Top 10 films of 2014 (+ five worst, and five honorable mentions)

Worth the two-year+ hype, its the most rollicking, fun Paul Thomas Anderson film since "Boogie Nights", but still retains some of the more austere and restrained hyper-period-detail of his recent darker dramas. Cast member Josh Brolin said it best: "its Chinatown after a bong-hit".

What a surprise. Bill Pohlad, the uber-money producer behind Malick's "The Tree of Life" risks taking the chair himself with this Brian Wilson biopic. When the film was first declared, most assumed a fail. But stellar acting by John Cusack, Paul Giamatti and a revelatory Paul Dano easily place it among "Ray" in the pop-music biopic pantheon.

We had to wait about five years for Nicolas Cage to give us a great performance again (his last was in Herzog's "Bad Lt. 2"). "Joe" made it worth the wait. We had to wait seven years for David Gordon Green to give us a great movie again ("Snow Angels" was the last one), and "Joe" made it worth the wait.

Director Bennett Miller's best and most bleak film since "Capote" also delivers the year's most complex and despicable character with Steve Carrell's eagle-beaked, closeted, socio-path Jon Du Pont, who tried to buy himself the title of wrestling coach but ended up with the title of America's first billionaire one-percent murderer. Carrell joins that ultra-select class of comedic actors (Peter Sellers, Robin Williams) of virtually limitless thespian range and ability. Give the man his Oscar!

The only thing perhaps more detestable than Alan Turing's name not plastered all over our 20th Century history texts, is the fact that it took this long for anyone to make a film about his genius (that's what being gay in the 40's and 50's will do to you). And Benedict Cumberbatch seemingly slips into the workings of his intricate mind to a tee.

Phil Hoffman's swansong is the best Carre adaptation put to screen yet, and by far the most pertinent. And the cold, dark and alienating style of director Anton Corbjin finally finds a proper ally in this tale of terrorist infiltration in the post-9/11 extremist mecca of Hamburg.

A highly intimate historical epic that also vouches as the most poetic film of the year, its a probing portrait of Abe Lincoln as a boy done in the Malick-aesthetic that touches vulnerabilities foreign in the work that Spielberg or Ken Burns have done regarding the man.

Michael Keaton comes back! Edward Norton's the baddie! Its the first film done on a high-end digital red-camera that all completely in one take (what took so long?!!!)! YES, that's correct, its one of the best movies of the year...!

Another controversial subject that surprisingly, took this long, "Kill the Messenger" sees its impassioned star and producer Jeremy Renner exposing the Reagan Administration's plan to pump crack into inner-city African-American communities in hopes of self-genocide. I imagine most politicians were pleased when the film flew under the radar.

Call it Cronenberg does Hollywood, Cronenberg does the Bieber/Cyrus generation, or Cronenberg does Easton Ellis (he's atually doing Bruce Wagner btw). Either way, this satire/fantasy/nightmare is Cronenberg finally getting his mojo back.

(Honorable Mention) A documentary about a scene, a time, a place and an artist (artists, if you count some the best hip-hop producers of all time) of prodigious lyrical talent and a hunger for a perfect debut record; what would become one of the greatest records in the history of music.

(Honorable Mention) The second visionary mess from Darren Aronofsky (the first was 2006's "The Fountain"), "Noah" is like flipping through an old testament coloring book if illustrated by a new-age mystic. Aside from Russell Crowe as the brooding ark-builder the characters are poorly-acted, screenwriter-cliches but oh! those visuals, oh! those beautiful montages, oh! the subversive-ideas (it was almost Nolan's "Interstellar" done via a biblical text). From now on, I hope all Aronofsky films come to IMAX.

(Honorable Mention) After we all thought he'd fallen off the map and become Marilyn Manson's satanic reverend or something, 2014 got a double dose of the great Alejandro Jodorowsky with his documentary on his legendary unmade adaptation of "Dune", and this, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, that despite the modest-budget still feels like a spectacle conducted by Fellini with a head full of mescal.

(Honorable Mention) J.C. Chandor continues to show that he might be one of the great directors of his generation with this cold, detached crime epic set in New York in the crime-drenched early 80's. Chandor says they were years when everyone in the vast melting-pot proved equal, just as long as they were staring down the barrel of the same gun.

(Honorable Mention) The great John Lithgow and the great Alfred Molina (expect certain Oscar noms for both), play a newly married longtime gay couple that face public persecution for the first time after they publicly put-a-ring-on-it. Not only did I buy the genuine warmth and affection between these two actors and their characters, I bought that this fiction film is probably the year's truest story--a story that sadly, occurs everyday.

(Worst of the Year) Mr. Cage (like most every year) left me with many choices for my worst film list (the most Uwe-Bollesque was probably his Hayden Christensen co-vehicle "The Outcast", which should have been properly titled "The Unwatchable"). But then there was this, where he brings his "Wicker Man" persona to a Kirk Cameron consumerist Christian franchise. Score 1 for Satan!

(Worst of the Year) After her out-of-touch Bosnian War-set love story debut "Land of Blood and Honey", Angelina Jolie tries to become the next (female) version of George Clooney or Ben Affleck by showing she too, is a director of 'smuggy-prestige' with this big, shiny and safe PG-13 World War 2 epic, which neuters one man's story of resilience and heroism, with a completely airless script (by believe it or not, Oscar winners William Monahan and Joel and Ethan Coen,,smfh!) and native Japanese 'evil-doers' with accents straight out of Sacramento. It makes this year's other tepid Japanese POW-camp drama "The Railroad Man", look like "Bridge on the River Kwai", by comparison..its that bad.

(Worst of the Year) Linklater's "Boyhood" isn't the absolute worst film of the year, but its definitely one of the most boring, and by far and away the most overrated. Critics created such a circle-jerk over its conception (it was filmed over twelve years w/the same cast and crew..so?), that they forgot to notice its subject remained totally uninteresting, its vignettes completely cliched (another divorce, another alcoholic) and its soundtrack just bloody awful (Coldplay and Souja Boy anyone?!?). Reviewers were quick to drop any acumen and jump on the bandwagon with this.

(Worst of the Year) In my best Trey Parker voice: "WHY does Michael Bay get to keep on making moooovies..."

(Worst of the Year) Call it "Ocean's 1945", except if Steven Soderbergh was wrongfully-fired and replaced by Hollywood's version of Bono--who than precedes to fellatio everyone in the cast, starting with himself. That would only begin to describe the levels of vanity and pretension seen here.