2014: A Year in Review

So what did it really feel like to go to the flicks in 2014?

A master Scandinavian absurdist took the gold Lion in Venice while, back in February, a similarly metalled Bear took an unexpected trip from Berlin to China. Boyhood was the bookies favourite for that particular gong, and it now looks odds on for Oscar glory too, but if March 2015 turns out to be the story of Linklater's 12 Year's a Boy, this year's razzle dazzle was all Steve McQueen and his 12 Years a Slave. Indeed, while somewhat unexpected turns were taken elsewere, the BIG, "important"- and truly quite brilliant- American thing still won the Academy Award while out on the French coast, the long, difficult European thing (Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep) still won the Palme d'Or.

It was a year when the dream factory churned out the sequels, remakes and prequels at an oddly interim level as the green beads of sweat began to form for its endlessly lucrative 2015. And yet despite all that talk of Justice leagues, expanded universes and Michael Bay, the real story of the multiplexes came, quite bizarrely, from the left of field. Guardians of the Galaxy (Decent), 22 Jump Street (Good) and The LEGO Movie (Great) let Hollywood show us that it was in on the joke, but a Tom Cruise Sci-fi styled Groundhog Day and a stupid-smart thrill ride from Luc Besson offered even greater escape than these. For the most part though it all seemed quite familiar and, far too often, tediously self aware. But then, like a great big gravitational shift, along came Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmer and their mighty Interstellar to pummel us into our seats. To paraphrase the great David Thomson, cinema simply says: Look at this, isn't it amazing? Isn't it beautiful? Nothing else this year seemed to ask these questions so loud (and I mean LOUD) and clear.

It was a year when reality often offered more urgency and thrills than fiction. Documentary land introduced us to the defiant nationalism of Viacheslav Fetisov, the courage and charm of the American Samoan football team, the staggering integrity of Edward Snowden and what lies behind the curtain of Johannes Vermeer. Great twists were taken in Wes Anderson and Kelly Reichhardt's careers while It Felt Like Love, The Guest, Blue Ruin, Nightcrawler and Coherence proved that there's still fresh blood in American indie too. In other lands a young Polish woman named Ida listened to John Coltrane; a Russian man named Nikolay experienced the book of job; but then a rumble rumble rumble and a dook dook dook for something or other called the Babadook. We reeled with David Cronenberg and rallied with the Dardennes before Alice Rohrwacher, and her quiet Tuscan farm, gently let us reminisce on childhood and life. 

It was a year of North Korean hacking and Nymphomania; of Foxcatcher Farms and Budapest Hotels. Edward Snowden broke rank; Spike Jonze broke hearts; Jack O'Connell broke heads; Miles Teller broke sticks. Jonze, Besson and Glazer helped Scarjo rise from the ashes while Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Williams and Lauren Becall tragically returned to theirs...

So another year of the unexpected and the business-as-usual. And yet, like a fool, what struck me more than anything was just 8 quick shots and 90 seconds long. A scurrying little droid, a dessert plain, and the greatest opening chord in cinema history. 

Happy New year y'all, and thanks for all the reads. x 

2015 is coming, those twin suns loom...