FINISHED | Allstar's Best Of 2014 - Page 9

Allstar

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
#Chapter 3

These Final Hours

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'These Final Hours' is definitely the worst movie of this batch but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's a what-if drama about what you would do on your very last day on Earth as our planet will be inevitably be destroyed by the end of the day and you know it.

It sure drives through familiar territories. That's just attached to making an apocalyptic action film. 'These Final Hours', however, sets itself apart from the mass by creating an intimate atmosphere in contrast to other films that try to be as big and eventful as possible. This movie asks questions and wants us to ask the same ones.

There might not ever have been a movie about the ending of the world as this directorial debut. Hilditch knows to build up horrific images inside of our minds without needing to always
It's a symbolic movie that shows people at their darkest but still holds on to a hopeful ounce of humanity that accompanies 'These Final Hours' until the very end.

The Guest

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Alright, you might have seen 'The Guest' considering it's another addition to popular cult director Adam Wingard's filmography. Last year he's gotten a lot of attention thanks to his badass-female horror film 'You're Next' and while there's no doubt about it that Wingard's directing style lends itself much more to the horror genre than it does to thriller/action I believe this movie is more powerfully crafted than his other ones.

Not surprisingly, 'The Guest' gets best when it enters the horror genre territory in the end but unlike 'You're Next' it's not quite as and just like it it also stars a badass female even though this character is more held-back suffering the fate a teenager does whenever stupid grown-ups don't want to believe them. Have they never watched a movie?! Anyway, this genre film also revives a lot of the 80's aesthetic that make it feel so amazingly darkly humorous many times.

It's suspenseful and what makes it so great is the fact Wingard knows very well that his audience sees most of the turns coming and thus, successfully manages to make a show out of each and every twist leaving us anticipating how the next corner will be turned. Oh, and 'The Guest' is beautifully shot, pays tribute to many other cult films and most importantly has a killer soundtrack. It's an easy, captivating watch for both movie buffs and the casual watcher.

Predestination

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'Predestination' is one of many really good Australian releases we've had in 2014 and definitely one of the best. This very intelligent sci-fi genre flick combines all the elements that define its genre in a craftful manner and bolsters an innovative, original premise to suck you right in. It's rare to get something new and fresh in niche-genres nowadays but the Spierig brothers have created a wonderful tale about fate and destiny all the while turning it into one of the most tremendously entertaining thrillers of the year using a sharp narrative device that effectively keeps building up suspension until the very end.

Ethan Hawke is good but the still unkown actress Sarah Snook is the real star of 'Predestination'. She delivers a starmaking performance that turns this outlandish niche-genre film into something real, intimate, personal and heartbreaking. Thanks to Sarah's impressive take on her complicated character whose fate is hard to resonate with she knows just what exactly to do for us to sympathize with her devastating story.

Not a perfect movie at all as it doesn't do the best job at trying to make its complex storyline easily accessible and can get a little predictable drawing some moments way too strong but if you pay attention 'Predestination' can be one of the most fascinating and surprising cinematic experiences you will have all year. It's a real treasure.

Blue Ruin

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'Blue Ruin' is not quite as unknown as other movies on this batch having been screened at Cannes and receiving a lot of praise. It's a vendetta story told more violent than usually and supported through one of this year's best male performances (or last year's whatever) delivered by Macon Blair.

The movie's director Saulnier benefits from his previous experiences as a cinematographer and perfects the art of telling a story solely through images without need of many explanatory dialogues for people to chew on. I didn't enjoy the movie as much as others have for several reasons but seeing as it's received a lot of praise and I can very well respect and appreciate how well this film has been made and how many strong links it has I figured it needs to get a spot in this thriller/mystery batch.

The Double

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After Denis Villeneuve's amazing 'Enemy' last year proved that the 'clone'-genre is not dead yet after all, Richard Ayoade delivered his own strong tale about it. He's already proven himself to be a promising director with his debut 'Submarine' and seems to perfect the kooky cinematic directing style of Wes Anderson.

'The Double' has two impressive performances - lead Jessie Eisenberg and supporting actress Mia Wasikowska (who's had a great year, by the way). 'The Double' stays crazy, over-the-top and mysterious throughout its entire run to get us intrigued and simultaneously entertains us through dark humour, haunting shots and rumination on personality, love and even the point of life.

This mystery film is so bleak and ambitious, at times it feels like a satire about life and our current aspiration to job prosperity instead of personal success. Through striking paranoia and determined writing Richard Ayoade created one of this years most thought-provoking and creepy comical mysteries (yes, that combination works).

A Most Wanted Man

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'A Most Wanted Man' is a clever, sharply written and powerfully acted British spy thriller set in Germany. This year's deceased Philip Seymour Hoffman further proved just how accomplished his acting abilities are. Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Daniel Brühl and Willem Dafoe all deliver strong supporting performances.

It's still a mystery to me how this intentionally slow-paced thriller is tighter packed than other spy-films trying to out-top and out-turn themselves through explosions, It might have to do a lot with how well 'A Most Wanted Man' draws its characters and slowly but steadily makes us deeply and genuinely root for them despite not all of the cast being on the same side. Or maybe it's because despite the film's premise being fabricated you can't help but think all of it must have actually happened. The movie is shot so dark, written so realistic and directed so gritty that it always sprays out a true vibe of realism.

To me by far one of the most exciting movies I have had the pleasure to watch in 2014, 'A Most Wanted Man' convinces through poignancy, rising intensitiy that reaches a powerful climax and well, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Rider

prézli

I need to watch A Most Wanted Man. I like Willem Dafoe

Hugamari

I wish I watched movies so I would even know the names of these movies.

Kang.

How many of these movies is Jennifer Lawrence in?

Kang.

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Originally posted by katyperryismylife

Best TV show of all time. I'm sorry for you because you clearly don't have the capacity to understand the complexities and intricacies of this television marvel.

K$Ellie

I didn't watched many movies this year and I haven't heard of any of these

AshleeSimpsonFan

Predestination sounds interesting

Allstar

#20 - In The Flesh

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Along with the fantastic first season of 'Les Revenants', the critical acclaim of this show highly influenced American TV leading to a wave of new shows focusing on the return of the dead to the living.
In an interesting turn zombies - or "rotters" as this show likes to call them - are being cured and from now on able to live amongst everyone else. Of course this inevitably means that the questions of prejudice, segregation and second chances make up the show's core. But so much more little things make this show; the way it perfectly treats the sexuality of its gay protagonist being a noteworthy example.

This year's first half of the 6-episode running series was completely overshadowed by the latter half. The first three episodes spent a lot of time chewing over the same ol', same ol'. The small-town dynamics got stale, the newly-introduced characters felt like walking blank wallpapers and some of the thematics were too on-the-nose. The last half of the season, however, fortunately saved all of it. "Save" not being the perfect choice of words here seeing as it wasn't bad just plain boring.
Let's be honest many shows have a hard time trying to live up to the quality of its first season and by trying to do that the shows often end up being held back by trying to emulate their own success formula. 'In The Flesh' seemed to suffer the same fate at first but thankfully found a perfect way of raising the stakes later on. Introducing a whole new plot raised and continues to raise so many more new interesting questions for the series' future run. However, the second half did not only do a great job at finding new direction but also truly establishing and developing its entire cast. On top of that it was the first time I felt the show was genuinely extremely exciting for longer than just a few moments. Especially the finale was clever, sharply-written and most of all very heartbreaking.
For me, the second season's strong links were better than anything on the first season. Overall, though, I'd rate them about as equally good.

'In The Flesh' is one of the most underrated and overlooked shows. I see why seeing as it takes a lot of investment on the audience's part but trust me when I say that the pay-out is every bit worth it for patient viewers. Now everyone form a circle take each other's hands and pray for a last third series with me!

Best Episodes: "Episode 4"; "Episode 6"

Allstar

#19 - The Fall

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The following three entries are soooo close that I might very well change my mind on their rankings in the future. All of them have been so great, similar even, yet very different. But ultimately, for me 'The Fall' is definitely not as good as the following ones because like so many shows it lost a lot of its previously genius touch when it tried to drag out things for more than one season. I understand that move and it's completely reasonable to want a critics darling last a little bit longer but it doesn't always work out well. Especially not if you're a show so dependent on psychological elements and progressive plot movements.

What set 'The Fall' apart was by no doubt the ingenious psychological profilng of its crime protagonist by both our feminist lead, wonderfully played by Gillian Anderson, and also by us as an audience being given clear view on all actions and always knowing more than everyone else on the show. Of course, being a tv series, it also made us ache for a final showdown - not necessarily in the literal sense of a fight but more of a confrontation between Detective Stella Gibson and the serial murder. We got that one by the very end of this season and it was as amazing as one could have wished for. Most other shows could have never pulled off a 20 minute-long interrogation scene in which both protagonists verbally attack each other so subtle through trying and psychologically play at each other's weaknesses. It was one of my favorite tv moments this year but that doesn't change the fact we should have gotten it last year already - or at least way earlier.

The rest of the season dragged a lot. Hardly any effective plot developments which used to make 'The Fall' so exciting and as previously mentioned its psychological elements gradually faded away. The "knowing everything"-approach didn't benefit the show anymore because while the police's investigation kept slowly bubbling on we were left with the knowledge of where the show's criminal was and what he was doing. There were times said storytelling device was used perfectly but they were rare and so it quickly became more often than not a frustrating watch for us.
Apart from Gillian Anderson the show can't brag about any other good performance, either. I appreciate Dornan'slimited approach on his murderer character giving off an authentic vibe but who's to say an actually talented actor couldn't have done the same more subtle and added a stronger personal note?

Thus, while 'The Fall' might not have been as clever or as gripping as last year as an overall season it was still better than many other shows. Yes, its strong aspects faded away but everytime they were present they were drawn as strong as ever. It wasn't as captivating of an hourly watch but this season still had a lot of smart and thense moments, nonetheless.

Best Episodes: "It's Always Darkest"; "In Summation"

Allstar

#18 - The Missing

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'The Missing' is another British crime show that, just like 'Broadchurch', did something many other shows always intentionally shy away from doing - it set it focus on the dealing with grief and loss. Its heavy emphasis put on the emotional side of a crime story rather than only barely scratching on its surface as most crime fiction does doesn't just set this series apart but makes it so strong. Unargubaly, it is very hard to rightly depict losing someone. How can you ever really know what it's like to deal with losing a child and can you ever universally state how to deal with it?
You can't and at all times 'The Missing' is very well aware of that always making sure that it only shows the truth about our two protagonists and not about anyone else. And it's important to say this could never have worked so effectively if it wasn't for Frances O' Connor's devastatingly heartbreaking take on her character and especially James Nesbitt who almost takes possession of his character and somehow achieves perfectly balancing his disgusting traits through making us understand and even sympathize with him. Both have to definitely be counted amongst this year's best tv performances.

“Perhaps it’s better to simply let go, not to dwell on the choices we have made, where we should have gone, this way or another. Instead we should always go forward and try not to get trapped in the past.” is one of this show's most memorable lines taken out of what most likely was 'The Missing's darkest hour. In its fifth episode after a plot blockade the show reached a new climax and said so many things about human's most darkest sides - the stuff nightmares are about. It defined the series in all of its best traits - haunting, complex and true. It's accurate to say that this show could have finished its plot very well in a matter of two hours but where would be the fun or the depth in that? There's no doubt its slow progression has to be the weakest aspect of this series but it also left much more space to create notions of our world about a variety of themes and make us ruminate about them.

Not real spoilers ahead but I'll still collapse and warn if you don't want to keep on reading:

Ending

I feel like I need to address its similarity to 'Broadchurch' here, as well. To me, Broadchurch was superior because it had a broader notion of the impact a crime has and didn't only focus on two people. Both didn't throw its red herrings away as leftovers of lazy writing but used them to depict a sad and honest truth about the world taking very interesting turns on paedophilia or religion. 'The Missing' did that better than 'Broadchurch', even, leading its audience astray not quite as often and still making sure every time it leaves an impact. 'Broadchurch' also has a great depiction of media and its influence over the way a crime can be solved something which 'The Missing' for better or worse didn't focus on, at all.

I'm becoming more and more stream of conciousness right now so I'll stop this right here. By far one of this year's darkest, most depressing and frustrating watches it was thought-provoking, almost as raw and honest as tv can get, gritty, beautifully shot and exciting. A character study being brave enough to reflect the dark sides about all of us - about greed, utterly hate and disgust and corruption - speaking through one of this year's most convincing characters - Tony Hughes.
'The Missing' is definitely amongst my very favorite shows this year but other things held it back for me not to be able to put it above following shows even though I enjoyed it more. I have high hopes for the second series thanks to revolving around a completely new case. Here's hoping it takes its thematics one step further as teased by its promotional catchphrase.

"To lose somebody can destroy a person. But to find them again, when so much has passed, that can be worse."

Best Episodes: "Eden"; "Molly"; "Return to Eden"

Allstar

#17 - The Affair

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This year, Showtime put quite an emphasis on using their shows to depict sex as a proxy for love and intimacy rather than simply portraying it as a physical act and 'The Affair' is one of the primary examples. What made its premiere stand apart immediately was its somewhat new way of storytelling. Sure the schtick of telling the same events through two POV's seems a little old but 'The Affair' knew exactly how to use it to its benefits to strengthen its themes and that's what makes it an interesting addition to our current tv landscape. Unfortunately, while at first the show delved interestingly deeply into its themes it didn't take all too long for it become less interesting because instead of introducing new themes, or at least adding new layers to its foundation the writers simply kept reinforcing what they had already introduced for the next episodes. Even worse was the fact that later on, the two different POVs didn't just focus on some details anymore but told two entirely different stories completely deviating from each other, being set at different locations and having different dialogues between the protagonists. I will never understand some of their choices seeing as it only confuses the audience and doesn't tell anything true about people's different perceptions. In fact, during some moments it felt just completely false. Then there's also its incredibly basic and completely unnecessary flash-forward future plot that's obviously just lazily written in to attract viewers and have a reason to explain its storytelling device.

But make no mistake, 'The Affair' is still a good show. After its mid-season slump it improved and got stronger again in bringing across all of its points. Ironically, however, it's at its strongest whenever it departs from its usual "forbidden fruit"-angle into much more versatile themes, like various things about family - the role of a patriarchal father in the modern world, brotherhood, adolescent development. Ali having to confront her mother who's been travelling through the world to study her "traditional shakra healing methods" and human auras instead of raising her child or Noah having to deal with his promiscuous, self-absorbed oldest daughter bullying another child and his eldest son faking a suicide - those were moments when 'The Affair' asked its most interesting questions.
The finale was strong even though it sets the show up for future failures (if the premise hasn't done that already) and delves more into the uninteresting murder plot. So far, however, 'The Affair' has strongly proven itself to be worth watching, even if at times it's repetetive both thematically and plot-wise.

Best Episodes: "Pilot"; "Episode Four"; "Episode Five"; "Episode Nine"; "Episode Ten"

Allstar

#16 - The Knick

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It's strange to think that a 'Cinemax' series is making this list yet it's been hailed as one of this year's greatest and rightfully so.
'The Knick' is only further prove that more and more channels are able to produce quality tv. Steven Soderbergh has said he wants to retire or at least have a long break from making movies so we should be glad he's given us a 10-episode series - each one directed by him - so good to keep us afloat until he most likely changes his mind again.

'The Knick' is carried by Clive Owen who gives an impeccable performance as one of the best and most resourceful doctors in a New York set in 1900. The show's past setting makes it able to tangent on every topic present back then. The background role a woman had to play, public displays of racism, the strong presence of faith, the waves of immigrants travelling from Europe to New York are just a handful of themes that this series is about. To state it only angents them, though, does the show wrong because it delves into all of these very effectively, actually.
Most importantly, though, the show is about all the revolutionary innovations that the medical sector has been gifted with over the course of time and how operations were set up back then. It's an extremely insightful and educational watch that unfortunately drags at times.

Furthermore, Soderbergh's show does a great job at creating authentic characters like its protagonist Dr. John "Thack" Thackery who's a genius and(maybe because of that) greedy, jealous of other's achievements but also one to never decline to help someone in need and able to see things pragmatically, thus, isn't as prejudiced about different races or social classes as other people depicted here. A mix of these character traits shouldn't always work on screen but it does marvelously here thanks to a combination of Clive's strong acting motions and the show's approach of giving a noble, popular and well-respected man a weakness to drugs.

The show's approach to the drug scene is fresh and accurate being set at a time in which people could buy cocaine without a prescription and patients were gullibly treated with heroin to treat their addictions. It reaches a very dark point by the last episodes that I found to be one of the strongest drug angles to have seen depicted on tv in a long time, albeit not really being new.
Another fantastic character is a black doctor who is easily up to par to our protagonist in terms of skills and has imaginative, progressive thoughts on how to change the medical world but is being held back due to the time's present racism. The disparity between black and white is an always underlying theme that hits a huge climax in one of the show's best final hours.
I could mention so many more matters this Cinemax' fictional piece brings up or so many more topics in which the writing shines but it would take ages.

So all in all, 'The Knick' is an underdog amongst the public and very slow but thanks to its thematical richness and smart seasonal build-up has a grand payout and is undeniably to be counted into this year's top-tier.

Best Episodes:"Where's The Dignity"; "Get The Rope"; “The Golden Lotus”; “Crutchfield”

madonnas

I know NOTHING of anything on this page

Superpower

I'm excited about The Affair. I wanna watch it

AshleeSimpsonFan

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Originally posted by madonnas

I know NOTHING of anything on this page

This

Navyofbadgals

The Knick looks good.. might watch it

collin

Oh dear, I haven't seen any of these

Uncultured AF.

Bloomers

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Originally posted by madonnas

I know NOTHING of anything on this page

This is me too

I just might watch a good amount of these though.

Sunderland 4ever

Long time no see Gillian Anderson