Captures - Viva Villa!

If you’re familiar with the Jahnke’s Electric Theatre page on Facebook, you’re all too aware of the ongoing JET’s Most Wanted project. If you’re not, I’m not sure how you got here but hey, welcome! Simply put, JET’s Most Wanted spotlights obscure but worthy titles that have never before been released on DVD (in the US…foreign mileage may vary).

Since I started JET’s Most Wanted waaaaay back in 2010, over 300 featured titles have been released on DVD, Blu-ray and/or MOD DVD. It’s an eclectic group, so odds are you’ve probably even purchased a few of them. But if you’re anything like me (and honestly, I pray to God you’re not), there are likely a few discs in your collection that remain unwatched, despite your best intentions. Personally, I feel a twinge of guilt when I finally get a Most Wanted pick on disc and allow it to sit, unopened, for months. I can almost hear the disc taunting me from the shelf. “You asked for it. You got it. Now what are you gonna do with it?”

Welcome to Captures, an occasional new feature here at the Electric Theatre. In this space, I’ll be taking a closer look at former Most Wanted picks to see how they hold up now that they’re readily available. When I first started JET’s Most Wanted, I focused on movies I’d already seen that weren’t on disc. It didn’t take too long before the scope widened to include movies I’d always wanted to see but couldn’t, which naturally led to discovering more unavailable movies that sounded interesting. Captures is meant to be a deep dive into the seemingly bottomless well of movies previously unavailable on DVD.

Viva Villa!, newly available on MOD DVD from Warner Archive, has tumbled into obscurity since its release in 1934. If you Google “Viva Villa” today, the first results you’ll get are for a chain of Taquerias in Southern California. But at the time, it was a sizable box office hit and up for multiple Oscars including Best Picture (hey, this can double as an Honor To Be Nominated column, too! Score!). It even won one for Best Assistant Director John Waters (not that one, obviously). Bet you didn’t even know Best Assistant Director used to be a category, did you? I know I didn’t.

If Mr. Waters assisted everybody who had a hand in directing Viva Villa!, I’d say he earned his Oscar. Like most studio system films, this was producer David O. Selznick’s vision more than the director’s. Jack Conway ended up with screen credit but William Wellman and Howard Hawks each did uncredited work as well. It comes as no surprise that the resulting film is extremely episodic and about as authentically Mexican as a Doritos® Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell. But the movie is undeniably entertaining and that goes a long way.

Wallace Beery, sounding more like Chico Marx than a Mexican Revolutionary, stars as Pancho Villa. Beery was a huge star in the 30s thanks to movies like The Champ and The Big House but for years, I only knew him as a punchline in the Coens’ Barton Fink. (“Wallace Beery! Wrestling picture! What do you need, a road map?”) Beery is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the other legendary stars of the 30s these days but after watching some of his most enduring work, it’s easy to see why he was such a popular personality. He’s a boisterous, larger-than-life character, eager to please and oddly likable even when he’s boasting about his rape-and-murder filled exploits.

Part of this is due to the fact that most of the violence and mayhem takes place off-screen. The storyteller’s mantra may be “show, don’t tell” but Viva Villa! never uses imagery when dozens of words can be employed instead. Although the filmmakers do have a penchant for whips, first in the opening scene where young Pancho sees his father killed after 100 lashes. This comes back into play years later when an incensed Pancho tries to teach Spanish aristocrat Teresa (Fay Wray) a thing or two about real suffering. The scene is shot in silhouette (presumably by the great James Wong Howe, one of two credited cinematographers). The moody camerawork and Wray’s reactions give the whole thing a distinct S&M quality. Even during all this, Pancho Villa comes across as a big, friendly, loyal, kinda dumb dog, ironic considering his father dies protesting that he is a man, not a dog.

Structurally, Viva Villa! bears an unmistakable similarity to Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata!, released almost 20 years later. Personally, I preferred Viva Villa! to Kazan’s humorless slog of a movie. Neither movie can lay much claim to historical accuracy and suffers from casting very American actors in very Hispanic roles (though, granted, Kazan’s movie does have Anthony Quinn’s Oscar-winning performance going for it). But Beery as Villa at least seems to be having fun. You can’t say the same about Marlon Brando as Zapata. Brando always seems on the verge of realizing he’s made a mistake and walking off set.

A dozen movies were nominated for Best Picture in 1934 and, believe it or not, three of them still remain unaccounted for on DVD: the opulent biopic House Of Rothschild, the musical One Night Of Love, and The White Parade, a tribute to young nurses. I can’t say how Viva Villa! stacks up next to these rarities. For that matter, I don’t think anyone would argue that it deserved to triumph over the year’s winner, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. If nothing else, Viva Villa! serves as a reminder of the studio system’s remarkable capacity for making effective entertainment out of the most chaotic and troubled productions. It’s no classic but the fact that it’s even coherent is something of an achievement.

Viva Villa! is now available on MOD DVD at www.wbshop.com.

Thanks For Watching. Good Night, Everybody.

It’s difficult for me to overstate the profound impact David Letterman has had on my life. That may sound ridiculous or, at the very least, pretty lofty for something that Dave himself has repeatedly dismissed as just a TV show. But for over 30 years, Dave has helped shape my sense of humor, my taste in music, even my image of New York City, a town I’ve only been to once in my life. Without David Letterman, television would have been a far more boring medium for the past few decades.

I first discovered Dave on his short-lived daytime talk show. I can only assume I was home from school sick that day (and I’m sure Dave would say, “Well, that explains a lot.”) (Note: Actually, a quick internet search reveals the show debuted in June, so I probably watched it all summer long. But that home sick joke seems appropriate, so I’m leaving it in.) I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved his total lack of talk show phoniness and the absurdist streak in his comedy. A favorite gag from the daytime show that I still remember all these years later: Dave’s Household Hints – Scrape the dried up globs of toothpaste from the bathroom sink and serve them as after-dinner mints.

When school began in the fall, I would occasionally skip class just to catch the show. Still, nobody was happier than I was when The David Letterman Show was canceled after just four months. In those pre-VCR days, skipping school was my only option but not really a viable long-term solution. But staying up to watch Dave guest host The Tonight Show or, as of 1982, even later once he snagged the post-Carson slot? That I could do.

Thus began a steady diet of Stupid Pet Tricks, Top Ten Lists, Viewer Mail, Small Town News, suits made out of Velcro and Rice Krispies, Larry “Bud” Melman and various Guys played by Chris Elliott. At its best, the comedy was sharp, surreal and utterly ridiculous. At its worst, Dave would give the camera a withering, knowing look and somehow make it work.

It also didn’t hurt that Dave brought out the best, and occasionally the worst, in his guests. Recurring favorites like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, and many more always brought their A-game to Dave’s shows. Hell, even Jay Leno was a frequent and hilarious presence during the Late Night years. But Dave could be, in the immortal words of Cher, an asshole but really only when the guest deserved it. Dave had zero tolerance for fools and idiots and while that edge may have softened a bit after he moved to CBS, it never entirely went away.

As much as Dave helped mold my sense of humor, Paul Shaffer was an equally big influence on my taste in music. Paul was the perfect choice for the show, having honed his comedy chops on Saturday Night Live in addition to his prodigious musical gifts. I was introduced to countless songs and artists thanks to Paul and The World’s Most Dangerous Band/The CBS Orchestra playing them during commercial breaks. Not for nothing is Paul the musical director for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. These folks can back up pretty much any artist, play any kind of music under the sun, and sound amazing.

As for the musical guests, it goes without saying that I discovered countless artists thanks to their exposure on Dave’s shows, first and foremost, the late, great Warren Zevon. But over the years, there have been so, so many others, including Janelle Monáe, Heartless Bastards, The Heavy…the list goes on. Dave clearly loved nothing more than when a mostly unknown band or artist made their network television debut on the show and proceeded to “blow the roof off the dump”. And what Christmas is going to be like this year without Darlene Love’s annual performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is simply too awful to contemplate.

So far, Dave’s swan song has been refreshingly and predictably free of sap. Dave has never seemed like the sort of person who dwells too much on the past. But if (when) some sentimentality creeps into these final shows, it’ll be borne of genuine, heartfelt emotion tempered by a realistic view of what’s really ending here. It’s natural to get emotional when you’re saying goodbye to people you’ve worked alongside for years and closing a major chapter of your life. But at the end of the day, it’s just a little comedy show, one of way too many cluttering the airwaves these days. In a few months, Stephen Colbert will make the show his own. Life will go on.

Dave’s best on-air moments have always struck that balance, whether it was his return to TV after 9/11 or his heart surgery or speaking candidly about the birth of his son or his sex scandal. When it mattered most, Dave always spoke from the heart and helped put things in perspective. These bigger issues, community, family, health, wellbeing, these are what matter. Everything else is pretty small in comparison. But if crushing watermelons with a steamroller and having stagehands Pat and Kenny read Oprah transcripts helps us to momentarily forget about these bigger problems in some weird way, so be it.

It’s important to remember that for the most part, all these indelible memories are just that: memories. Sure, we have some YouTube clips these days and there were a tiny handful of best-of releases on VHS long ago but there are no DVD releases of Late Night or the Late Show. Part of me doubts there ever will be. It’s no easy thing to revisit these old episodes. Somewhere deep in storage I have a few videotapes full of episodes of Late Night. For years, I kept one right next to the VCR, ready to be popped in if there was a good guest. Eventually that practice fell by the wayside, but at least I got some gems including anniversary specials, the Holiday Film Festivals and the Dave-hosted Academy Awards.

Dave’s final episode of Late Night on NBC was just about perfect, capped by a surprise appearance from Bruce Springsteen, making his first appearance on the show after years of requests, performing (what else?) “Glory Days”. The show ended on a high and why wouldn’t it? It was a send-off, not a farewell. Dave was on to bigger and better things.

This time is different but I suspect the final show will still be a celebration, not the quiet, somewhat mournful goodbye of Johnny Carson’s final Tonight Show. The show and its host have always been too modest, self-deprecating, and irreverent for that kind of treatment. Over the years, it’s become easy to take Dave for granted but to a lot of us, he really mattered. A lot. And we’ll miss him when he’s gone.

Thanks Dave. Maybe I’ll run into you on the street in Montana someday. Enjoy your retirement and, of course, enjoy every sandwich.

The Movies of 2014, Volume VI

All things considered, 2014 was a very good year for movies. Even the movies in yesterday’s entry that disappointed me weren’t complete wastes of time. If you didn’t see at least one movie you liked last year, you just weren’t trying very hard.

But there are always a few stragglers that simply didn’t work. At all. Try as one might to avoid lousy movies, sometimes they’re simply unavoidable, like food poisoning or Ebola. With that, I give you the movies I’d prefer to forget, the worst films I saw in 2014.

Proxy

This indie horror flick from director Zack Parker is actually an interesting case. It’s one of the few films where you can literally pinpoint the exact moment it goes off the rails. And it’s a real pity because up until that moment, this is a moody and intriguing thriller (although it opens with a particularly brutal act of violence that might have you switching it off long beforehand). Without giving too much away, the twist in this movie is spectacularly ill-conceived. The closest analogy I can think of would be if Marion Crane had overpowered Norman Bates in Psycho and the movie continued to be about her instead of the far more interesting Bates. This is a bizarrely self-sabotaging movie that fails to recognize the genuinely disturbing and compelling questions its first half raises.

Divergent

I feel a little bit bad about including this YA sci-fi franchise kickstarter. I didn’t hate it but it had really no impact on my brain whatsoever. I’d essentially forgotten it existed while the closing credits played. I probably wouldn’t have watched it at all if it weren’t for the presence of Kate Winslet. Her appearances can lead me to make some regrettable movie-going decisions.

The Monuments Men

George Clooney is an excellent filmmaker. If you don’t believe me, just watch Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and Good Night, And Good Luck. Don’t watch this. I’m baffled by what happened here. It’s a very interesting story packed with a stellar cast, including Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and John Goodman. This should have been a home run. Instead, it’s pleasant at best and downright dull as dishwater at worst. This feels like it needed a little more time at the drawing board before the cameras rolled.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

I’ve never read a single Tom Clancy book but for whatever reason, I feel compelled to watch every Jack Ryan movie. This despite the fact that they’ve all struck me as pretty generic and forgettable. However, none of them have been quite as generic and forgettable as this attempt. Chris Pine fails to bring much spark to the role and Kenneth Branagh probably should have concentrated on one job instead of two. His Russian bad guy seems like he should be giving orders to Boris and Natasha.

Noah

I think Darren Aronofsky is a terrific filmmaker and I’ve genuinely enjoyed most of his work to date. But I’m really confused who the audience for this movie is supposed to be. It’s ambiguously religious (or, if you prefer, spiritual), so it’s not likely to please the church-and-temple crowd. But it’s a reasonably faithful retelling of one of the most famous stories in the Bible, so agnostics and atheists probably won’t have much use for it, either. It’s certainly an ambitious movie but ultimately it felt like those ambitions defeated Aronofsky and his cast.

3 Days To Kill

And then there’s this. Kevin Costner goes to France to team up with co-writer Luc Besson and director McG in a bid for a piece of that Liam Neeson aging action hero pie. Costner is diagnosed with terminal cancer, retires from the CIA and attempts to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter. Until sultry and miscast Amber Heard shows up to lure him back into the spy game with the promise of an experimental miracle drug if he helps her take down some bad guys. This isn’t so much an action movie as it is a jigsaw puzzle that’s been tossed into the air and haphazardly assembled by an indifferent child in a hurry. As usual, I had some trouble figuring out the exact placement of some of the movies on these lists. But there was never any question what movie was going to be dead last. If there was a worse movie than 3 Days To Kill released in 2014, I pray to all the major and minor deities that I never see it.

That’ll finally do it for 2014. I’ll be back again soon to talk about…I dunno, other stuff. This blog is still a bit of a blank slate, so it’ll be fun figuring out what to use it for. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

The Movies of 2014, Volume V

I’d like to believe that every movie gets a fair shake with me and they all start out on a level playing field. Every time I sit down to watch a movie, I’m rooting for it to succeed. But in reality, we all go into every movie with different sets of expectations. We anticipate that Movie A will be awesome or that Movie B can’t possibly be awesome.

If we’re lazy, those expectations turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes, lowered expectations work to a movie’s advantage and high hopes can be left unfulfilled. Unfortunately, the latter is the case with most of today’s movies. About half of them were major disappointments. As for the rest, I didn’t really expect much and that’s exactly what I got. They’re this year’s fast food movies, consumed and forgotten quickly.

Interstellar

Usually if your hopes are too high for a movie, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. But in this case, Christopher Nolan shoulders some of the responsibility. Keeping the movie cloaked in an unnecessary shroud of  secrecy and proudly touting the movie’s scientific accuracy primed audiences to expect the greatest science fiction film since 2001 (the movie). It isn’t even the greatest science fiction film since 2001 (the year). It’s OK but while Nolan was busy sweating out the technical details, he overlooked some fundamental storytelling flaws that sank the entire endeavor for me. This is a swing and a miss from the usually reliable filmmaker.

The Congress

Ari Folman’s partially animated sci-fi head trip stars Robin Wright as Robin Wright, an actress who signs control of her virtual self over to a movie studio. The movie has some great ideas and stunningly beautiful animation, especially in its second half. But those ideas end up having very little to do with its ponderous set-up which isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is. This is an interesting misfire but make no mistake, it is very much a misfire.

Non-Stop

The grizzling of Liam Neeson continues with this utterly ridiculous airplane thriller. A wildly overqualified supporting cast (including Julianne Moore and Lupita Nyong’o) help make this bucket of cheesy corn go down easy but you’ll never once lose sight of just how ludicrous this movie is. It’s a reasonably diverting but forgettable way to spend 106 minutes on a rainy Sunday.

Only Lovers Left Alive

I’m a big Jim Jarmusch fan, so I was surprised that his moody vampire flick didn’t really do anything for me. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are fine, if a little one-note, as the immortal lovers. Their been-there, done-that attitude extends to the movie itself, resulting in a movie that feels a lot longer than it really is. It briefly comes to life when Mia Wasikowska and Jeffrey Wright are on screen but not enough to overcome the dead weight at its center. This is one of Jarmusch’s art-snobbiest efforts, a movie seemingly designed to show off how much smarter it is than you are.

300: Rise Of An Empire

Audiences were blessed with not one but two sequels nobody asked for to Frank Miller properties this year. I haven’t seen the Sin City follow-up yet but if it’s anything like this, it provides more of the same with slightly diminished returns. There are some OK moments in here and Eva Green is a lot of fun, although it’d be really nice if somebody could cast her in a legitimately good movie for a change.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Speaking of more of the same. The first Dragon movie was a pleasant surprise and a big hit, so I can’t say I’m surprised that the sequel does nothing to shake up the formula. But it’s not like that first movie was some sort of modern classic, either. I don’t really understand why these movies are so acclaimed. To me, they’re textbook examples of movies that seem like they could have been much, much worse.

We’ll stop here today. I don’t have a lot of good things to say about the rest of 2014’s movies. Come on back tomorrow for my least favorite movies of the year! Hopefully they’ll be more fun to write about than they were to watch.

The Movies of 2014, Volume IV

Last week, we focused entirely on movies that I either flat-out loved or liked very, very much. Hey, 30 very-good-to-great movies in one year is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you consider how many are still out there that I’m looking forward to catching up with (especially Whiplash, Birdman, Big Eyes and Selma, so if you’re wondering when they’re going to show up, they’re not going to).

This week is going to be a little different. Don’t get me wrong, I liked all ten of today’s movies to varying degrees. But in some cases, I didn’t love them the way a lot of other folks seemed to. So if I spend more time talking about what I didn’t like about them, forgive me. These are all fine movies and don’t let me discourage you from checking them out. But don’t be mad if your favorite movie of 2014 wasn’t my favorite movie.

Dom Hemingway

This was fun. Jude Law is excellent and is clearly having a good time as a washed-up, egomaniacal safecracker trying to get back on his feet. And it’s been way too long since we’ve seen the indispensible Richard E. Grant in a role this good. It may be a little too indebted to Guy Ritchie’s early movies but it’s still entertaining.

The Lego Movie

Although I ended up enjoying this movie, I never entirely got over my initial negative reaction to the mercenary nature of this project. This is absolutely the best-case scenario for a movie that is, let’s be honest here, a feature-length commercial for Legos. It really is. At the end of the day, it should be placed at the opposite end of the spectrum of Mac And Me (representing the worst-case scenario of a feature-length commercial). Exceeding expectations doesn’t impress me much when those expectations were less than zero.

Jodorowsky’s Dune

It may surprise some people that this documentary didn’t rank higher on my list. It’s extremely well done and the story of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade version of Dune deserved to be told. In this case, it’s not the movie, it’s me. I already knew a lot about this project and the movie didn’t really reveal anything I hadn’t heard before. And it’s great to see the artwork and hear from the people involved but I could have done with a bit less talk from people who weren’t directly associated with it discussing its influence.

Gloria

When American actresses complain that there aren’t enough good roles for actresses over 40 or 50, this is the kind of movie they’re saying they’d like to see more of. Naturally, it comes from Chile, not the US. Paulina Garcia is excellent as the title character, an over-50 divorcee who spends her evenings at singles mixers. The movie is occasionally a bit slow-going but the final scene is transcendent.

Stranger By The Lake

A secluded gay cruising spot is the ideal setting for a Hitchcockian thriller. Everyone in this movie could be the title character. Anonymity is the whole point. Franck falls for a handsome guy named Michel but Michel’s current boyfriend is extremely jealous. After Franck witnesses the boyfriend’s maybe-maybe-not-accidental death, he hooks up with Michel anyway, despite (or because of) the danger. Writer/director Alain Guiraudie takes his time but succeeds in creating a sultry and dangerously atmospheric film.

Obvious Child 

Indie dramedies about struggling twenty-somethings trying to find their place in the world can often remind me of the worst parts of going to college. And Gillian Robespierre’s movie about an aspiring stand-up (Jenny Slate) coming to terms with an unplanned pregnancy occasionally comes close to disappearing up its own navel. But by the end, the movie reveals itself to be a sharply observed and level-headed portrait of a talented and funny young woman and I had been won over.

Gone Girl

I think David Fincher is a fairly overrated filmmaker in general, so it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that this one didn’t exactly wow me. And I thought Gillian Flynn’s novel was an OK page-turner (up until the ending, which I really disliked). To me, this was just an OK adaptation of an OK book, really no more remarkable than 80s and 90s thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. Although I do have to give it up for Kim Dickens, who I thought was great as Detective Boney, and this is by far the best Tyler Perry movie I’ve ever seen.

Locke

Tom Hardy is one of the most magnetic actors to hit movies in a long time. I doubt many other people could have carried off Steven Knight’s daring drama, which is just Hardy driving a car for 85 minutes, on the phone trying to put out a wide range of fires on what may be the most trying evening of his life. Knight and Hardy can’t quite sustain the premise entirely but the fact that the movie is compelling at all is pretty impressive.

Under The Skin

I was hoping to like this a lot more than I did. Scarlett Johansson gives an impressive performance and director Jonathan Glazer creates an impressively eerie, otherworldly mood. Some have likened it to Kubrick but it struck me as more of a Man Who Fell To Earth vibe. But the movie’s glacial pace worked against it, at least for me. I feel like I got the point about halfway through and while I kept expecting there to be more to it, at the end, there was just no there there. Not bad but pretty disappointing.

The Interview

After all of the sturm und drang surrounding the release of this movie, it would be nice to report that Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Franco had really upped their game and crafted a biting satire for the ages. Of course they did not. I like Seth Rogen and I feel bad that his goofball little movie caused such a fuss that it could never possibly live up to. I got some laughs from this but not as many as I’d hoped. I’ll give Rogen and Goldberg one thing, however. I admire them for continuing to develop their own unique visual style. A lot of comedy filmmakers go their entire careers without even thinking about it. I appreciate that Rogen and Goldberg are making comedies that don’t look like comedies.

We’re down to the last two entries! Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at the disappointments and meh’s of 2014. Then come back Wednesday for the movies I simply did not like. That’s always a fun one.

The Movies of 2014, Volume III

Who’s ready for another round? Let’s see what ended up in slots #21-30 on my personal ranking of the various kinetoscopes and peep shows of 2014.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Critics may have gotten a little bit carried away when they started comparing this Marvel sequel to the great conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good. It just maybe isn’t Parallax View-good. Regardless, this is a superior follow-up and a terrifically entertaining superhero movie that did an excellent job broadening and shaking up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And Chris Evans deserves a lot of praise for his work as Cap, taking what could be a one-dimensional character and instilling it with a great sense of purpose and soul.

Joe

It may be hard to believe these days but the Academy did not hand Nicolas Cage a Best Actor Oscar as a prank. David Gordon Green’s rural drama reminds us what Cage is capable of when he actually gives a damn. He’s remarkable as an alcoholic ex-con who just wants to be left alone until he becomes a reluctant mentor to a teenager who’s even worse off than himself. Green captures the low-income environment extremely well and it’s a little scary how seamlessly Cage blends into it.

Godzilla

Expectations for another Americanized Godzilla movie couldn’t possibly have been lower, which certainly helped make this a nice surprise. But Gareth Edwards delivered an extremely fun kaiju movie with a solid (and arguably overqualified) cast giving the proceedings gravitas. I’m looking forward to a return trip to Monster Island.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

Like I said in part one of this series, this movie doesn’t really stand on its own merits without its companion piece. It’s an interesting journey but you don’t discover the destination until Vol. II. But it’s definitely a compelling set-up that makes you want to see the rest. And Uma Thurman deserves some sort of MVP award for her brief but unforgettable appearance in this.

Alan Partridge

Steve Coogan’s most famous character comes to the big screen in this somewhat disposable but often hilarious adventure (titled Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa everywhere in the world except here). The good news is that if you aren’t familiar with Partridge, this is a pretty decent introduction to the character that’ll probably make you want to track down his TV appearances. It’s no classic but it’s a much better TV-to-film transition than, say, Ali G Indahouse.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

First Class was the kind of reinvigorating fresh start that gives reboots a good name. Bringing all the X-Men, past, present and future, together into one super-colossal epic was an ambitious move that mostly paid off. It offers some of the year’s best superhero setpieces and entertaining character bits. The movie’s biggest flaw may be that its mythology is getting a little too convoluted at this point. It doesn’t seem like you should have to do so much homework just to enjoy an X-Men movie.

Ida

An orphaned girl raised in a convent is forced to postpone taking her vows when she learns her real family history from an aunt she never knew she had. Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and shot in stunning black and white, the film takes you on a journey into the heart of identity and family. It’s an impressive work, deserving of its recent Oscar nominations.

Ernest & Celestine

A lot of the most interesting animated movies these days are coming from overseas. This gentle French movie about the unlikely friendship between a bear and a young mouse pairs lovely hand-drawn animation with a clever, imaginative story. The movie gets dangerously close to being too soft-spoken for its own good but at its best, this is a winning and engaging family film.

Neighbors

Seth Rogen certainly had an interesting year, didn’t he? I wasn’t really expecting much from this raucous comedy about a war between would-be cool dad Rogen and frat boy Zac Efron. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get some big laughs out of this. Rogen and Rose Byrne are a believable and very funny couple and Efron (who honestly I knew more by name than his actual work prior to this) is a terrific foil.

The Missing Picture

On the opposite end of the fun spectrum is this Cambodian documentary from director Rithy Panh. Using carved figurines and miniature sets, Panh tells the harrowing story of growing up under the regime of Pol Pot in the 70s. It’s an innovative, dark but compelling film worth seeking out.

I’ll be back on Monday with ten more that I liked but didn’t love, then it’s on to the year’s disappointments and stinkers. Stick around, the worst is yet to come.

The Movies of 2014, Volume II

Let’s continue looking back at 2014 with #11-20 on my personal list of faves. There’s still plenty of good stuff here to load up your Netflix queue. We won’t start getting to the real duds for awhile yet.

Coherence

You don’t need a lot of money to make a smart, gripping science fiction movie. Shane Carruth proved that with Primer and Upstream Color. This year, James Ward Byrkit followed in his footsteps with this twisty thriller about a dinner party gone seriously haywire. I wasn’t sure where this was headed for quite awhile. Even after I started to figure out what was going to happen, I had a great time seeing if I’d be proven correct or not.

The Lunchbox

Maybe last year’s most pleasant surprise, this is a gentle, extremely winning romance. Nimrat Kaur stars as a lonely wife trying to capture her emotionally distant husband’s attention by making him a special lunch. But the lunchbox is delivered to the wrong address, ending up in the hands of widowed Irrfan Khan. Soon, a friendship blossoms between the two via handwritten notes. Ritesh Batra directs this lovely little sleeper.

Boyhood

Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making intimate epic is absolutely a remarkable accomplishment. I didn’t exactly fall in love with it like everybody else seemed to. It gets better as it goes along but the first hour definitely feels like Linklater is trying to figure out what story he’s telling. I’m sure in this case he really was but most of his movies feel like that to me. But at its best, Boyhood provides some of the year’s most powerful and emotional moments.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was one of the best franchise reboots I’d ever seen. Despite this, I didn’t dare get my hopes too high that lightning could strike twice. But Matt Reeves pulled it off capably with eye-popping visual effects, thrilling action and a bracingly grim tone. The bar for the next installment has been set very high.

Witching And Bitching

Alex de la Iglesia, Spain’s maddest filmmaker, returns with a movie that couldn’t possibly be the work of anybody else. A jewel heist performed by Jesus Christ, a plastic soldier (or men disguised as them, anyway) and a young boy goes awry and the crooks take it on the lam, ending up in a house owned by three generations of witches. This movie starts off over the top but somehow manages to keep turning corners and find new levels of crazy to climb.

Bethlehem

A complex and compelling Israeli drama that does a remarkable job of illuminating the friction between the Palestinians and the Israelis through the story of an Israeli Secret Service officer and his young Palestinian informant. It’s both a tension-filled spy thriller and a gripping drama and well-worth seeking out.

The Trip To Italy

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back, eating sumptuous meals, staying in beautiful hotels and engaging in frequently hilarious conversation. Not quite as good as the first Trip but so much fun that it almost doesn’t matter.

The Immigrant

James Gray’s period drama went mostly unnoticed for some reason, which is a shame because it’s actually quite good. Marion Cotillard is excellent as a Polish immigrant who reluctantly becomes a prostitute under the thumb of Joaquin Phoenix to provide for her sister, quarantined on Ellis Island. Back in the 70s, this kind of well-mounted, intelligent production was commonplace. It deserved a wider audience.

Night Moves

Kelly Reichardt’s films are very deliberately paced but if you stick with them, they’re extremely rewarding. Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard and a virtually unrecognizable Dakota Fanning are eco-terrorists whose sabotage of a dam leads to unexpected consequences. Not Reichardt’s best work but never less than engaging.

Visitors

Godfrey Reggio’s latest and most challenging work is probably not best experienced at home. The movie’s ultra-long takes and Philip Glass score may well put you to sleep if you’re watching it on your sofa. But on the big screen in a theater without outside distractions, the movie’s effect is actually rather hypnotic. I don’t imagine this will develop the same following as the Qatsi trilogy but on its own terms, it’s a unique and often extraordinarily beautiful film.

I’ll be back tomorrow with ten more. Hey, maybe your favorite movie of 2014 will be one of them! Unless your favorite movie of 2014 was Veronica Mars, in which case you shouldn’t get your hopes up.