My Top 30 Films of 2014: 10-1

A very USA-centric top 10 this year, though I haven't seen 'Leviathan' and didn't rate 'Ida' which accounts for the absence of two of the foreign language movies that have appeared in a lot of end of the year lists. 'Interstellar', 'Gone Girl' and 'Mr. Turner' also did very little for me. The latter probably should have made this list somewhere near the other end but I forgot I'd seen it until just this moment, which is not a great sign in its favour.

Here are the other two parts of this list:

30-21
20-11

Below are my personal favourite ten movies of 2014:

10) Noah, dir. Darren Aronofsky, USA

What I said: "On the face of it you'd think there couldn't be much worse in this world than a big screen Bible story starring Russell Crowe, but the director's decision to tell it as a full-blown High Fantasy-influenced myth - complete with rock monsters, flaming swords and magical potions - makes for something highly entertaining, yet also thought-provoking as it becomes something of a discussion about the Old Testament in the post-flood second half. For his part Crowe is perfectly cast as a biblical patriarch in the old mould: an uncompromising zealot who would murder a child if God willed it of him. It's his decision to collaborate with God (referred to throughout as 'the creator') in wiping out the rest of humanity that forms the bulk of the third act soul searching and causes conflict between Noah and his long-suffering family."

One of the year's most divisive films, I haven't met too many people willing to defend Aronofsky's 'Noah' let alone admit to liking it. Yet it was undoubtedly one of the bravest, most insanely risky movies in recent memory: an expensive biblical epic that - for all the talk of the powerful American Christian cinema audience - seemed destined to be a notorious failure. The marketing did it no favours, painting it as a very boring looking tale of a couple of beardy blokes fighting in some mud, but what that didn't show was all the High Fantasy-tinged craziness or the Old Testament soul searching. For a long time in the second half of the film Noah is essentially the villain and following God ("the creator") is cast as a type of madness which brings him to the brink of committing acts of unambiguous cruelty.

9) 12 Years a Slave, dir. Steve McQueen, UK/USA

What I said: "[W]e're, along with Solomon, witnessing the rape of enslaved women, children torn from mothers and sold to the highest bidder, lynchings, and many other appalling acts of brutality. And we see many faces of slave ownership too, from the paternalism and impotent liberal-guilt of Benedict Cumberbatch to the blind hate of Paul Dano, who seems to take great pleasure in beating and tormenting the slaves as a means to reinforcing his own fragile sense of self-worth. Then there's the mercurial Michael Fassbender as the alcoholic and unpredictable Edwin Epps, whose religious fervor and cold conviction that his slaves are nothing more than property makes for an especially nasty villain... Though there is a sense that all involved are victims with slavery an institution that ultimately demeans everybody... '12 Years a Slave' is manifestly McQueen's most conventional and mainstream film to date, with his visual artist background and arthouse sensibilities more keenly felt in the cold and self-consciously difficult 'Hunger' and 'Shame'. What this film does is wed the director's compassion for difficult characters and interest in exploring unpalatable human truths with something more heartfelt and genuinely emotional - something built for an audience."

Having triumphed at the Oscars and succeeded in finding an audience, Steve McQueen's slavery drama has probably lost a bit of the kudos that's been associated with the video artist in the past - with less accessible, less widely seen critical darlings like 'Hunger' and 'Shame'. But don't hold its success against it: whilst the film is certainly more audience friendly than past efforts, its this marriage between McQueen's uncompromising, hard-hitting sensibilities and conventional narrative that makes '12 Years a Slave' so brutally effective.

8) Inside Llewyn Davis, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, USA

What I said: "Llewyn is an interesting character. Superior, aloof and prideful - refusing to sell out his artistic sensibilities, living hand to mouth and playing 'real' folk music with thankless results and no commercial future. A user and a man without responsibility or attachments. Yet he is on occasion, paradoxically, upstanding and decent in his quiet way. Both humble and egotistical. Emotionally detached and yet harbouring his own grief and inner turmoil. A complex and nuanced character perfectly suited to Isaac's intelligent and introspective demeanor. He's not a hero in any sense; he's infuriating and maybe a little pretentious - but he's entirely human. The Coen's get criticised often for not liking their characters enough, but this kind of nuanced depiction of people - with all their faults and idiosyncrasy - to my mind comes from a place of empathy and understanding. I think they understand people very well, but they aren't afraid to admit that we're all basically a bit rubbish."

The titular Llewyn Davis - played by Oscar Isaac - is something like a spiritual successor to Barton Fink, that pretentious, not wholly self-aware, not wholly likable early Coen's creation, whilst the film itself has the subtlety and relative plot-lightness of the more recent and criminally underrated 'A Serious Man'. Throw in the fact that it has a soundtrack to rival 'O' Brother Where Art Thou' and you have a winning combination. As well as being a neat little character study the whole thing also looks and feels like you've stepped into the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which a nice place to some spend time.

7) The Lego Movie, dir. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, USA

What I said: "[P]acked with funny moments, charming characters and surprising Lego character cameos (which I won't spoil here). It's also way more subversive and socially aware than you expect from a movie based on a toy license - with the evil President Business (Will Ferrell) using an army of robotic micro-managers to ensure optimum social conformity. In the same vein, it's a love of chart music and chain restaurants that tips off ass-kicking heroine Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) to the fact that generic, smiley Lego construction worker Emmet (Chris Pratt) might not in fact be "the special" - a prophesied "master builder" who will restore free-thought and fun to a land oppressed by the tyranny of the instruction manual."

I was initially a little underwhelmed when I first stepped out of the cinema from 'The Lego Movie' last summer. Though I enjoyed it a lot there was no question all the best gags had been put in the trailer. However, watching it again over Christmas - after buying it for my kid brother - it was more consistently funny than I'd remembered. The big laughs were still all those moments spoiled by the trailers, but there's a constant trickle of great sight-gags, character moments and bits of business that get a lot of charm and humour just from the way the Lego characters have been animated. Best of all though is how Miller and Lord's movie manages to make a toy license movie seem completely un-cynical, even whilst being overtly subversive from start to finish. There's no "franchise" movie like it.

6) The Wolf of Wall Street, dir. Martin Scorsese, USA

What I said: "Funnier than most straight comedies, Martin Scorsese's biopic of stockbroker Jordan Belfort is consistently entertaining over its daunting three hour running length. In many ways it's very similar to 'Goodfellas', albeit following a different (less physically violent) type of criminal, but the beats are the same and the same questions remain, namely "why would somebody choose to live this life?" - with the suggestion made that we will all envy the Belfort even as we come to despise him as a human being. And despicable he is. For all the moral panic about the film failing to condemn its protagonist, Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio paint a picture of a charismatic but morally bankrupt figure, ultimately without any real friends or meaningful human connections. He's an out of control, drug-addicted monster by the film's final third, punching his wife (Margot Robbie) and driving his young daughter into a wall. If you think the film doesn't make his life seem unappealing enough, or that it doesn't show the dark and sinister side of his character, then I don't know what version of the film you saw."

Comedies rarely run too much long than 90 minutes, presumably because keeping an audience laughing for much longer is very difficult, especially as most comedies are not simultaneously asking for too much audience investment in plot or character development beyond what is customarily expected. Yet Martin Scorsese's 'The Wolf of Wall Street' had me in stitches for a lot of its three hour running time, which is some feat. True, the film is probably not considered an out-and-out comedy: it's a crime drama and biopic about a real-life villain who got rich on Wall Street by making a lot of other people poor (and he is most certainly not portrayed as a good or likable person), but it's so much funnier than, say, '22 Jump Street'. To my mind it's the year's best comedy. Jonah Hill should have won an Oscar.

5) Gloria, dir. Sebastián Lelio, SPA/CHI

What I said: "'Gloria' is a particular joy due to its nuanced and atypical portrayal of a middle-aged woman, with the title character multifaceted and shown engaging in activities - such as clubbing, drug taking, having lots of sex, drinking, gambling - usually restricted to the under-40s as far as movies are concerned, none of which are played for easy laughs.A claustrophobic film, during which the camera never strays away from the protagonist (I'd be hard pressed to recall a single shot Garcia isn't in), director Sebastián Lelio has crafted something deeply compassionate and empathetic with a deceptive lightness of touch. It isn't showy and there isn't a loose scene or sequence in it, instead this is a well-crafted character piece told with great economy and forward drive that plants the viewer firmly in the shoes of its brilliant and quietly tragic central character."

I'm not certain this is officially a 2014 release, with UK screenings apparently happening in 2013, but the cinema I worked at got it back in January and it is so bloody good I'm not leaving it out on a technicality. 'Gloria' is a bittersweet little Chilean movie about a middle aged woman who gets drunk, does drugs, and has sex with a frankness, joyfulness and lack of judgment that isn't really seen in movies. It's a "feelgood movie" in a lot of ways. A fist-pumping "yes!" of a film with a terrific central character. There's a little melancholy to it, with Gloria feeling lost and lonely - a single woman in Santiago whose daughter is contemplating a move to Europe - but ultimately this isn't the story of a woman finding happiness and self-worth in a man but on her own terms.

4) Nightcrawler, dir. Dan Gilroy, USA

What I said: "'Network' for the modern age, 'Nightcrawler' is a darkly comic and very disturbing thriller which casts Jake Gyllenhaal in a potentially career redefining role as Louis Bloom - a sociopath who, lacking in empathy or anything approaching a moral code, is perfectly suited to filming grisly accidents for an unscrupulous TV news network... It's pretty grim and though not physically violent (with one notable exception in the opening scene) Bloom is a menacing, unsettling presence who seems to threaten an aggressive outburst during every encounter. It speaks to writer-director Dan Gilroy's skill that he never releases that pressure valve. To allow that outburst would grant the character a level of interest in other people and a degree of emotion that he just doesn't have. Much scarier is how coldly and calculatedly he seems to regard everybody in his orbit. There's something of Patrick Bateman in him and maybe a slice of Travis Bickle too. The film itself invites that company not only with its lead character but with its complexity and quality."

Jake Gyllenhaal gave one of the year's best performances in this unsettling and tense thriller about a sociopath who finds his calling in the ambulance chasing world of American cable news. The actor vanishes into the role, undergoing a physical transformation which goes beyond the evident weight loss: it's something unhinged behind his eyes that makes the whole thing so creepy, especially when he is trying to appear charming or happy. The tension - born from this central performance - never lets up all the way through the movie, with the feeling that something terrible is always about to happen. And it often does, though never in the explosive display of violence you expect. It's queasy and compelling from start to finish.

3) Locke, dir. Steven Knight, UK

What I said: "A masterclass in terms of showing what you can achieve with one (admittedly world class) actor and a tight, disciplined screenplay, 'Locke' is literally a film in which Tom Hardy drives down a British motorway for around an hour and a half, juggling problems at home and work on his phone. It begins with him getting into his family car in Birmingham and ends with him taking an exit ramp off the M40 and, though hugely important to Hardy's Ivan Locke and to the disembodied voices we hear on the other end of his carphone, the problems he faces are refreshingly down to earth. If given a small budget, one actor, and the brief to make a film entirely set in a moving car, it would be tempting to inject high-octane drama by making, say, something about a man with a bomb on his backseat who is having to deal with terrorists as he drives against the clock to rescue his wife and kids - but Locke gets a lot out of far less. It's consistently tense and thoroughly gripping even though it's about a man who's simply trying to get to resolve marital problems whilst also trying to co-ordinate what we're told is the "biggest concrete pour in Europe" (outside of military and nuclear). High stakes on both fronts, but on a relatable, human scale."

Who knew a film that consists entirely of a bloke driving down an English motorway talking about concrete pouring could be so riveting? On paper 'Locke' shouldn't work, even with an actor as watchable as Tom Hardy in the central role, yet Steven Knight's tight little movie gets by on one actor and a consumer car without ever being the slightest bit boring. Hardy's Welsh accent is a little bit hammy and the voices on the other end of the phone sometimes don't quite ring true (his kids especially) but it doesn't do anything to diminish how good - and how unique - this movie is. Reportedly made for less than $2 million (which is probably less than the catering bill on some Hollywood movies) the film stands out as an example to aspiring filmmakers about how far you can go with a clever, disciplined screenplay.

2) Boyhood, dir. Richard Linklater, USA

What I said: "As well as the thrill of seeing these characters age and change in such a unique way, the film presents a look at attitudes and lifestyle in Southern Texas - with events likes the invasion of Iraq and election of Barack Obama in the background, as well as obligatory changes to cell phones and video games - as the family move around the Lone Star State. If there's an ongoing plot it's in seeing Mason constantly pressured into not being himself by a succession of douchey stepdads, shortening his hair against his will and taking an interest in sports. You get a sense of what it must be like to be an introverted, creative kid in Linklater's home state and so, in some sense, this might even serve as a semi-biographical film about its director. Incidentally his daughter Lorelei plays Mason's older sister and she steals every scene she's in with natural screen presence."

It has a few clunky moments but overall 'Boyhood' is something very special. Not only is it a fascinating and relatively authentic window on the ageing process - not just for its young stars but for the older actors in the supporting cast - but it also manages to be a movie about a period of time in Southern Texas and, incidentally, a look at a lot of other changes that occurred over the years of its making (notably in glimpses at the rapidly changing state of mobile phones and video games). It's a document of a place and time(s) that will only get better with age, as its strange time capsule quality becomes even more evident and exotic. It wasn't quite my favourite film of the year but I think there's an argument to be made that it's one of the most significant and interesting films of the decade.

1) We Are the Best!, dir. Lukas Moodysson, SWE/DEN


What I said: "It's uplifting without being schmaltzy, with an infectious enthusiasm for jumping around and generally being a 13 year-old misfit that I would have loved to have seen at that age... There just aren't that many films that depict adolescence with the kind of heart and complexity displayed here. The three leads are all incredibly interesting, lovable, fully-formed characters who you really root for in spite of, or rather because of, their naivete, stubbornness and half-formed pseudo-political ideas. As fun as it is, the film also cuts to the heart of what it means to be an outcast: to feel isolated, unloved and alone. We see their daily interactions with cruel classmates, weary teachers and odd parents - with three contrasting family dynamics proving its how you fuck up your children as opposed to if - and glimpse more than a little casual everyday sexism, that's so constant as to be mundane. Yet there is a fierce optimistic streak running through it too and the film is smart enough to also understand (and embrace) how the girls' self-conscious outcast status is to some extent a construction of their own design. A film that says so much about youth, friendship, being an outsider, and the unaffected joy of music."

An unalloyed joy of a movie. Whilst being very honest and heartfelt in its presentation of the difficulties of being a young person (in particular an unconventional young woman) it's also an overwhelmingly sweet and good natured film - without ever being the least bit twee. It's imbued with a love of music and an affectionate recognition of some the arrogance that comes with youth (the girls think they know everything about everything), but mostly it's all about a love of running around, waving your hands in the air, shouting at the top of your voice - in that way you can really only get away with when you're small. For those of us that are no longer small, the movie bottles that feeling and allows you to experience it all over again.

'X-Men: Days of Future Past', 'Godzilla', 'The Wind Rises', '20 Feet from Stardom', 'Blue Ruin', 'Locke', 'A Story of Children and Film', and 'Tracks'

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' - Dir. Bryan Singer (12A)

Regular readers of this blog will know I'm a huge fan of the Marvel Studios movies to date, with my enthusiasm for 'Captain America: the First Avenger' and 'The Avengers', in particular, leading me to become an avid reader of the comics themselves. I like the Sam Raimi 'Spider-Man' series a lot too (even the third one, with reservations) and I even have time for Ang Lee's much-maligned 'Hulk' and, over on the DC side of things, I am overall a fan of the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. Yet, even though I'm of that generation that grew up with the Saturday morning cartoon series in the 90s and had parents who owned and loved an extensive collection of the Claremont/Byrne comics, I have never been a huge fan of Fox's X-Men movie franchise. The first one was pretty good - certainly better than I remember expecting it to be after seeing the title characters disappointingly decked out in unexciting black leather outfits - and its direct sequel, 2003's 'X-Men 2', was better still, but I've never been nostalgic about the series at all. And that's in spite of the fact that, with a couple of exceptions, the casting has always been superb.

That cast is probably why the series has limped on within the same continuity for over a decade now, even after the third entry 'X-Men: the Last Stand' killed off several main characters and pissed fans off by being completely terrible in almost every way: how do you recast Ian McKellan as Magneto or Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier? To say nothing of the fact that Hugh Jackman, a near unknown when he was first cast in 2000, practically is Wolverine. The solution was to go backwards a few years ago with 'X-Men: First Class' (which most seemed to love and I completely hated bar its, again, exceptional casting), keeping the option open of making more Jackman Wolverine movies (2013's 'The Wolverine' was legitimately pretty great, whilst 2009's 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' is best left forgotten) and enabling the recasting of key roles without inviting the same unkind comparisons that might have persisted had it been a straight-up reboot.

Now, seven movies in to Fox's X-Men movie franchise, they've finally made one I unequivocally love. Bryan Singer, who helmed the first two movies, returned to the director's chair to tell a very X-Men story: one involving not only the comic book series' staple of time travel but also spinning a tale specifically designed to address and repair perceived to an increasingly elaborate and inconsistent continuity. Put that way, 'X-Men: Days of Future Past', which is loosely based on a classic Chris Claremont and John Byrne story, is possibly the most comic book movie ever. The series that once felt the need to make jokes about heroes wearing "yellow spandex" has now fully embraced the madness of comic books and I couldn't have had a bigger smile on my face whilst watching it. Especially at the ending, because here's the thing: Singer and writer Simon Kinberg have done it.

They have fixed the X-Men movie franchise and in a classy way that makes it possible to make new movies with the 'First Class' cast (primarily James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence) without fear of bumping into any of the old baggage that once lay in the way. It's a smart movie that celebrates the past, but definitively makes way for the future. It's a rare sequel/prequel that actually elevates everything that came before and makes it all seem, finally, like it all sort of makes a certain fuzzy kind of sense. I like problem movies, which is to say movies which seem to have set themselves a problem and solved it. It's partly why I liked Joss Whedon's 'Avengers' as much as I do. By all rights that movie should have been a huge mess: too many characters to juggle, too many egos on set, too much extended universe baggage to make it appeal to new audience members - yet it all clicked into place.

The same applies to 'Days of Future Past' in that this movie seems to have been conceived as a way to address continuity mistakes and to help rejuvenate and reboot the franchise. It's a placeholder movie, paving the way for new stories with a couple of hours of energetic rebuilding work, basically. Yet it also works on its own terms somehow, and is fast-paced, fun and contains terrific fight scenes not matched by any X-Men movie and, possibly, by any superhero movie to date. For the first time I'm excited to see a new X-Men movie. In fact, now I'm excited to see the recently announced Channing Tatum Gambit movie. It's not often movie number seven is the best in the franchise, but Fox's X-Men just got really good and it only took about 15 years to get there. Oh, and Quicksilver is awesome.

'Godzilla' - Dir. Gareth Edwards (12A)

Can't talk about this one without a mild SPOILER that won't be a surprise to anyone who's seen the more recent trailers, but some may want to avoid until they've seen the film.


The obvious way to reboot 'Godzilla' for a modern audience would be to re-tell that great original story from Ishiro Honda's 1954 classic, with all its post-war nuclear paranoia and pitch-perfect melodrama, as scientists work against hope to prevent the gigantic scaley metaphor from wiping out humanity one city at a time. He emerges from the sea, we get terrified, he fights the army, we somehow beat him back, the end. That first movie is popularly acknowledged to be the best of a series that, depending on who's counting, now extends to around 40 entries all sticking to a tried and tested formula which typically sees Godzilla fighting other giant kaiju whilst we humans look on helplessly. It's a "proper movie" that still holds up, in other words, whilst the sequels went the way of 'Rocky'. So it's fascinating to me that Gareth Edwards, director of DIY critical darling 'Monsters', has effectively bypassed this obvious route to respectability and gone straight into this prospective franchise in the spirit of those sequels. It's a weird choice but he more or less pulls it off with an entertaining monster smash-up even if it's not the more grounded and cerebral film many were expecting.

Godzilla is, charitably, a supporting player here, arriving around the hour mark and seldom seen until the big final showdown in which he rescues hopeless humanity from no less than two other gigantic terrors, after which he is declared the "king of monsters" by the TV news and celebrated in the streets. He's not the main hero and nor is he the epic antagonist, but instead serves as an elemental force of nature who sweeps in and, as Ken Watanabe's scientist has it, "restores balance" when things are at their bleakest. Until that happens we have to make do with a bunch of really good actors with varying degrees of little to do (Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, Brian Cranston, David Strathairn) and a lot of Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a military guy who, for one reason or another, follows the monsters around the world, acting as witness to a lot of city destruction and a number of futile US military attempts to thwart the beasts.

It lacks a little on the human side, but one thing Edwards' movie gets spectacularly right is the special effects on the monsters, which pull of that difficult trick (notoriously hard with CGI) of giving the creatures weight and scale. These are impressive things that easily dwarf aircraft carriers and skyscrapers. One of the most fun aspects of this movie is that Godzilla and his kaiju cousins are completely indifferent to us, only attacking when we get in their way, something best shown by scenes which show the American navy travelling alongside Godzilla as he makes his way inland. He could smash them up in moments were he bothered, but we're insects to him - which is probably the clearest way the film retains any of the original's fear of destructive forces outside of our control. Despite the cheering at the end, there is little indication that Godzilla has gone out of his way to save humanity, just that his vague objective matched up with our own this time around.

Far from perfect and not as complete or fully realised a vision as last year's more ambitious and imaginative 'Pacific Rim', Edwards' latest monster movie is a strange inverse of his last one: great at delivering epically sized beasts laying waste to civilization in suitably entertaining ways and a little bit shoddy when it comes to character work. Perhaps if a supporting player like Bryan Cranston were the star instead of the bland Taylor-Johnson then things would be very different, but as it stands this is a film that has just enough thrills to make you forgive its shortcomings.

'The Wind Rises' - Dir. Hayao Miyazaki (PG)

Supposedly representing the final film from legendary writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, 'The Wind Rises' is a relatively low-key affair which serves partly as a biopic of aircraft engineer Jiro Horikoshi - designer of the famous 'Zero' fighter plane during the Second World War - and, oddly enough, also as a loose adaptation of a short story by Tatsuo Hori called The Wind Has Risen, which concerns a woman suffering from tuberculosis. It's a strange blend, especially as it means half the story (the part concerning Jiro's love for his sickly wife Naoko, which becomes increasingly pronounced in the final third) bares no obvious correlation with the life of the person the film is directly about, but it works in injecting what might have been a fairly dry tale about an aviation pioneer with the heart and romanticism associated with the filmmaker.

In almost every Miyazaki film to date his passion for machines, engines and, especially, aircraft has loomed large - most notably in 'Castle in the Sky' and 'Porco Rosso' but also visible in the joy of flight experienced on the catbus of 'My Neighbour Totoro' or the broom in 'Kiki's Delivery Service' - so in many ways, though it is less fantastical and magical (and it does still have those qualities stylistically), 'The Wind Rises' does have the air of a great passion project and represents an extremely personal sign-off. In the dream sequences, which are many, Miyazaki indulges his childish imagination, creating wondrous and impossible aircraft and contriving to have two of his heroes converse in what is ultimately aviation hobbyist fan fiction, as Jiro regularly checks in with the Italian airplane designer Giovanni Caproni, who forms his imaginary mentor. Miyazaki's obsessions enter the film in other ways too, with Jiro's drive and single-minded dedication to pursuing his chosen profession, perhaps at the expense of his personal life, another recurring theme.

At its core it's a film about choosing to pursue your creative dream even if it might be appropriated for nefarious purposes. Some have criticised the director for not going far enough to address the fact that Horikoshi ultimately designed efficient engines of war and destruction which were quickly put to devastating purpose in expanding the Empire of Imperial Japan - and it is fair to say he doesn't admonish Jiro for anything more severe than maybe not paying his (fictionalised) ailing wife enough attention. That said, given some of that negative reaction I was surprised how much the oncoming war underpins the entire film from its opening dream sequence (interrupted by bombs and destruction) to it's bittersweet final moments as Jiro finally perfects his plane only to be suddenly overwhelmed by the reality of what it will be use for next.

I'd argue Miyazaki effectively creates an air of menace and unease for most of the running time, with the foreshadowing of the coming destruction keenly felt during a haunting portrayal of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, as it levels Tokyo amidst an eerie sense of calm and quiet resignation of defeat in the face of a greater power - one of the greatest sequences he's ever conceived. The anti-war theme also comes to the fore in Jiro's dreams and the question of whether to "live in a world with or without pyramids", as Caproni puts it to him, is central. Then there's the kindly German traveller who (voiced to great effect by Werner Herzog in the English language dub) speaks gravely about the great evils being perpetuated by Japan's Nazi allies in Europe and who is suddenly forced to flee from the secret police. Ultimately this distaste for (though never outright rejection of) war is what sours Jiro's greatest achievement.

As you'd expect by now, the animation is peerless and beautiful, rendered all the more majestic by Joe Hisaishi's sweeping score. Miyazaki always nails small character moments and this film is no exception, from the effortless poetry of Naoko pulling her quilt over the sleeping Jiro as he rests at her side to his light and joyful depiction of something as simple as a paper airplane drifting on a breeze or a group of kids squeezing cartoonishly into the narrow confines of a giant biplane. Without much in the way of conflict to power the narrative, or anything like the fantasy of 'Howl's Moving Castle', 'Spirited Away' or 'Princess Mononoke', this is a film of small moments and wonderful details, no less joyful than those he's given us in the past. He threatened retirement in the past and then came back with some of his most celebrated work, so here's hoping this isn't the last of Hayao Miyazaki. But, if it is, this personal and intimate film is a great way to go.

'20 Feet from Stardom' - Dir. Morgan Neville (12A)

Controversially taking the Best Documentary Oscar earlier this year when it beat the fancied critical favourite 'The Act of Killing', '20 Feet from Stardom' may not be as exceptional a film in terms of form or content, but it's still a very entertaining doc, especially for those with a predilection for the girl groups of the 50s and 60s. The great Darlene Love is probably the best known of the film's subjects, as it explores the careers of remarkable singers (more often than not black women) who found themselves, for one reason or another, working as back-up rather than making the breakthrough as solo acts. There's all the expected VH1 Behind the Music style accounts of the highs and lows of fame and fortune, as some make it and others fall into obscurity and even out of music altogether, but it's pretty shallow when it comes to insight and is far from a definitive account of any era or artist. The main reason to watch is to see and hear these brilliant singers given a long overdue spotlight, and to learn anecdotes about their careers in music which saw them working behind everyone from Ray Charles to Stevie Wonder via Springsteen and Bowie.

'Blue Ruin' - Dir. Jeremy Saulnier (15)

With a low budget crowd-funded on Kickstarter and a very slight plot, 'Blue Ruin' is a taut thriller that mostly gets by on atmosphere, with the camera often uncomfortably close to Dwight (Macon Blair) who, when we first meet him, is a soft-spoken, reclusive vagrant - apparently sleep-walking through the past several years of his life in a traumatised stupor and living on a beach in a rusted, blue Pontiac. This changes when a local cop informs him that the man who killed his parents is due to be released from prison, prompting Dwight to start moving with a zombie-like single-mindedness on a quest for revenge. He starts up his old car, gets himself a gun, and heads out on a path of endless and empty ultra-violence with no clear winners.

Whilst clearly relishing the imaginatively executed scenes of violence, and clearly taking influence from the black humour and dark-hearted menace of early Coen Brothers movies, director Jeremy Saulnier also makes revenge seem appropriately childish. His baby-faced protagonist seems stuck in infanthood after losing his parents and seems perpetually afraid and incompetent, as opposed to cool and in control, a fact which serves as a nice counterpoint to the place revenge now seems to occupy in media in a post-Tarantino world. He gets his guns from a similarly childish old school friend, who displays a juvenile male's love of firearms and murder that is without conscience or understanding of consequence. That's not to say Saulnier isn't perhaps having his cake and eating it, with part of the thrill of 'Blue Ruin' definitely coming from the well-crafted scenes of death and violence, but it's an interesting and welcome aspect and one which elevates this interesting film above the crowd.

'Locke' - Dir. Steven Knight (15)


A masterclass in terms of showing what you can achieve with one (admittedly world class) actor and a tight, disciplined screenplay, 'Locke' is literally a film in which Tom Hardy drives down a British motorway for around an hour and a half, juggling problems at home and work on his phone. It begins with him getting into his family car in Birmingham and ends with him taking an exit ramp off the M40 and, though hugely important to Hardy's Ivan Locke and to the disembodied voices we hear on the other end of his carphone, the problems he faces are refreshingly down to earth. If given a small budget, one actor, and the brief to make a film entirely set in a moving car, it would be tempting to inject high-octane drama by making, say, something about a man with a bomb on his backseat who is having to deal with terrorists as he drives against the clock to rescue his wife and kids - but Locke gets a lot out of far less. It's consistently tense and thoroughly gripping even though it's about a man who's simply trying to get to resolve marital problems whilst also trying to co-ordinate what we're told is the "biggest concrete pour in Europe" (outside of military and nuclear). High stakes on both fronts, but on a relatable, human scale.

The only criticism I have of 'Locke' is that some of the voices on the other end of the phone sound theatrical and exaggerated rather than naturalistic, which is jarring when Hardy's adopted Welsh accent comes across as conversational and a little more nuanced, which has the effect of making it feel like the two sides of the conversation are coming from different films. Though that's a minor quibble at most because Hardy delivers a central performance that is captivating from beginning to end, even as/especially when he monologues about the minutiae urban planning and the construction industry in great detail. In fact his Alan Partridge-like fixation on pedantic, humdrum details lends the film a lot of humour even as you find yourself on the edge of your seat wondering if he can get the council to approve a vital 'stop and go' on a minor road at short notice.

'A Story of Children and Film' - Dir. Mark Cousins (PG)

In the vein of his celebrated television series 'The Story of Film: An Odyssey', critic-turned-filmmaker Mark Cousins turns his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema onto films from around the world depicting children, shining a spotlight on a number of little-seen gems and forgotten classics along the way. Using footage of his young niece and nephew playing in his front room as a sort of framing device, he identifies what he thinks are true expressions of childhood on camera and then uses films - ranging from the blockbuster 'E.T' to Iran's 'The White Balloon' and the Albanian 'Tomka and His Friends' - to illustrate how these traits and ideas have best been depicted on film.

It's as much a celebration of cinema and childhood as it is a work of criticism and film history, with the definite article in the title of his aforementioned series replaced with a more subjective 'A' this time around. Admittedly, some of the links Cousins draws between the films feel like a stretch (I'm still not sure what his segways to the art of Van Gogh have to do with anything) but it's primarily made up of clips from some truly beautiful films, presented here with an enthusiasm to match the intellect.

'Tracks' - Dir. John Curran (12A)

The based-on-a-true-story tale of one young woman's nine month trek across the best part of 2,000 miles of inhospitable Australian desert, from the Northern Territory town of Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean on the west coast, John Curran's 'Tracks' struggles to convey a sense of either time or distance. Like many walking films before it, such as Peter Weir's 'The Way Back' or even John Hillcoat's adaptation of 'The Road', the great swathes of land covered by the protagonist are lost in the edit in the name of brevity, with the film instead taking us from incident to incident - which seems antithetical to the nature of the story being told. The ever-watchable Mia Wasikowska plays Robyn Davidson as a loner who prefers the company of animals to people, yet the film - even with frequent flashbacks to a traumatic childhood - never really gets to the heart of why that is, or why it is she decides upon this arbitrary and extremely dangerous goal.

We don't really even get to see her deal with isolation for any great stretch of time, as the film bumps Robyn into numerous people seemingly every other scene - from Adam Driver's well-meaning photojournalist to empathetic aboriginal elders and bemused white settlers. It's ultimately a movie hamstrung by an apparent belief that the only way to advance the story or develop its central character is through dialogue and contrived drama. I can't help but imagine Robyn Davidson's months in the outback must have, in truth, consisted of very little of either. Her biggest struggle, perhaps after ensuring a reliable supply of drinkable water, must have been against boredom and madness. This should have been a tale of remoteness, quiet self-reflection and perseverance, but what we have instead is a fairly conventional romance story about a woman who just needs to learn to let people in, principally by learning to love Driver's manic pixie dream-boy.