2014 in Film: A Most Vibrant Year

It’s that time of the year folks. With 2014 concluded, it’s time for another look into the very best industry: film. This past year I managed to see 25 films in the theater, which I’ve attempted to capture below. Enjoy.

Films

Wild
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Gone Girl
American Sniper
Boyhood
A Most Violent Year

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Big Eyes
The Theory of Everything
Edge of Tomorrow
Nightcrawler
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Immigrant
Noah
The Drop
Birdman
Whiplash
Mr. Turner
Selma
The Two Faces of January
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Foxcatcher
Venus in Fur
A Most Wanted Man
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Thoughts

The ancient chinese philosopher Lau Tzu once wrote, "Empty yourself of everything", and this is the subject of Wild, my favorite movie from 2014. Wild is an impactful drama that’s centered on a protagonist who faces deep inner turmoil, struggle, and yearning, and ultimately experiences a kind of personal evolution. Wild is about a woman whose life is in complete disarray after the death of her mother, disintegration of her marriage, and rampant casual sex and heroin use, and decides to take a 1000 mile hike through the wilderness on her own. Along the way, she meets various travellers, thinks about poetry from the likes of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, and recalls joyous and painful memories from her past. With a riveting performance from Reese Witherspoon, the film hit me pretty hard.

The Imitation Game was a very polished film. Following in the footsteps of movies such as A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting, this film is about the life of Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician who invented a machine that is attributed to be the first version of a computer, and whose homosexuality ultimately led him to suicide. The title of the film refers to a test that Turing proposed to distinguish between the thoughts of a human and a machine, and ponders whether there is a difference. Not only is The Imitation Game entertaining, sad, and inspiring, but also quite interesting as an exploration of the beginnings of questioning if a machine can be made to think and how that idea unfolds in reality. Distributed by The Weinstein Company and carrying excellent performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game is an easy target for the Oscars.

You might assume that Christopher Nolan’s latest film is about interstellar space travel, but it’s not. The journey through galaxies is only a medium to explore the film’s true subject: love, a word whose overuse and sentimentality would likely make most grown men cringe. Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher describes love as being divided into three components or types: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment, each of which serving a distinct purpose. Interstellar centers around the third one, specifically on the attachment between a parent and his child and between a daughter and her father, and how this force of attachment reverberates through the cosmos. It is almost like the concept of quantum entanglement in physics, where two particles are fundamentally connected in such a way that they can only be described in terms of the other, no matter how much distance is between them or how much time has passed, themes that are explored in Interstellar. It is a very emotional film, and deserves to be watched even if only to experience the mind-blowing “bookshelf scene”. Well done Mr. Nolan, well done.

Quotes

“When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise you end up staying in the same place your whole life, and that I can't do.” -A Most Violent Year

“It was my life - like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.” -Wild

“If there's one thing I can teach you, it's how to find your best self and when you do, hold on to it for dear life.” -Wild

“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” -The Imitation Game

“Our lives unfold before us like puzzling reflections in a mirror.” -American Sniper

“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brain, trying to get answers. The primal questions of a marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do?” -Gone Girl

“You know how everyone’s always saying seize the moment? I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking it’s the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us.” -Boyhood

“I just thought there would be more.” -Boyhood

“Love is the one thing that we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” -Interstellar

“This is more than just some piece of metal. It’s about what the medal represents, the virtues it requires to attain it.” -Foxcatcher

“His world had vanished long before he entered it, but he sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.” –The Grand Budapest Hotel

“We’re all easily explicable, yet remain inextricable. Life makes us what we are in an unforeseen instant.” -Venus in Fur

“The key is to just relax. Don't worry about the numbers, don't worry about what the other guys are thinking. You're here for a reason. Have fun.” -Whiplash

“The truth is always interesting.” -Birdman

“The nightingale sings sweetest when it’s darkest.” -The Immigrant