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2014: the year in film

Last year was, like any other 12 months in cinema, a mixture of highs and lows. Early in the year we saw the usual glut of Oscar contenders, with January releases of the utterly harrowing 12 Years A Slave and Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, a film whose ultimate moral was lost under mountains of coke and hookers and obscured by the fact that once again, Leo was snubbed at the awards. February saw the surprise highlight of the year, The Lego Movie, which amazed and delighted at every turn. March’s The Grand Budapest Hotel was, by contrast, less than impressive. Wes Anderson swapped substance for style and upset the careful balance that had made his films brilliant since 1998’s Rushmore: there was little emotional punch in this chocolate box of a movie. Bushy beards were the flavour of the month in April with the darkly comic Catholic drama Calvary and similarly biblical Noah. Superhero season got underway tentatively with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, then continued in earnest in May with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Time travel was central to X-Men’s plot, but it wasn’t handled nearly as well as Edge of Tomorrow, the true standout sci-fi movie of the year. Gripping performances from Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt helped reconcile elements of Groundhog DaySaving Private Ryan and video game aesthetics for thrilling results. 

Summer began with a fallow month, as June witnessed the release of 22 Jump Street, a placeholder of a movie, and the trainwreck that was Grace of MonacoTransformers: Age of Extinction did nothing to lift the quality of summer blockbusters, despite becoming the highest grossing movie of 2014. All was not lost, however, as Boyhood emerged as the most moving movie of 2014 and the boldest undertaking of the past ten years. Though far from flawless, the triumph of artistic endeavour over real-life practicality which it represented was hugely significant. July then ended as it began, with another, better, blockbuster, in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy.

August was a month of sequels where originality was thin on the ground. Inbetweeners 2, Sin City 2 and Expendables 3 were all forgettable. Nonetheless, Marion Cotillard offered a moving performance in the quiet gem Two Days, One Night. In September, Oxford’s PR department soiled itself as The Riot Club singlehandedly destroyed decades of access work, whilst Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last hurrah, A Most Wanted Man, did similar damage to the reputation of the CIA in the War on Terror. The feel-good award for 2014 went to Pride, before David Fincher took things firmly back to his disconcerting best in October with the ice-cold Gone Girl. This, and the disturbingly stylish Nightcrawler, stood in contrast to the lukewarm offerings of the mawkish Love, Rosie and Brad Pitt’s Fury, before Mike Leigh topped off an excellent month by trying his hand at something different with Mr. Turner

The quality continued into November with the mind-bending Interstellar and a brilliant turn from Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game. Hailed as the best British film of the year, anything less than a nomination for Cumberbatch from the Academy would be a travesty. It was also the beginning of the end for the Hunger Games franchise, as Mockingjay: Part 1 flew the nest to decent reviews and $675m in box office takings. The following month, there was another conclusion in the form of the final Hobbit film – a spectacle of suitably epic proportions that proved too much for some. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings came under attack for alleged racist casting whilst The Interview came under literal attack. In all, 2014 proved that cinema is in a healthy state. From the billion-dollar blockbusters to the grainy arthouse charmers, creativity is fomenting, formulae are being perfected and ideas are cross-pollinating. Here’s to an even better 2015.

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