Oscar Picks, Part 2

A few more… Best Original Screenplay Birdman – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo. The Grand Budapest Hotel – Hugo Guinness, Wes Anderson. Boyhood – Richard Linklater. Foxcatcher – E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman. Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy. Until Birdman‘s chances rose, I thought Wes Anderson had this category locked. He’s

Best films of 2014 – End of Cinema

Whew. 5. Child’s Pose, dir. Călin Peter Netzer Movie moms are the easiest to render, easier than garrulous sidekicks who get killed in buddy movies. The trick is to direct and act them so that they don’t turn into gargoyles. Child’s Pose flirts with gargoyle poses but its devotion to the procedural mechanics of the

Best movies of 2014 – Part Three

10.The Babadook, dir. Jennifer Kent. As much as we might believe kids are our future and little darlings, they’re also pains in the ass: selfish, uncensored, there, always there, demanding and clawing. Among other pleasures The Babadook understands this suspicion enough to build a story on it. This Australian horror film, shot on what was

Best movies of 2014 – Part Two

14. Happy Christmas, dir. Joe Swanberg. Happy Christmas, comedy about how annoying relatives can be when a young family is already bucking under the pressure of raising a child, is Joe Swanberg’s most realized film. The annoying relative, played by Anna Kendrick, smokes and parties too much, and according to her brother and sister in

Best movies of 2014 – Part One

I saw no great movies in 2014 but lots of good ones, including several gay and lesbian movies that reduce The Imitation Game to the equivalent of the guy at the college party who brings his mom. Thanks to a renaissance in Miami art house options, I saw more movies than ever. Most of the