Indiewire Critics Poll for the Best Films of 2014 (First Half)

[slumcat]

122 critics voted over at Indiewire to decide the best films of 2014 (first half) and they have chosen Wes Anderson's staggering masterpiece as the Best Film Of The Year.

Below are the Top 10 as chosen by critics

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson
2. Under The Skin - Jonathan Glazer
3. Only Lovers Left Alive - Jim Jarmusch
4. Ida - Pawel Pawlikowski
5. The Lego Movie - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
6. The Immigrant - James Gray
7. Stranger By The Lake - Alain Guiraudie
8. Blue Ruin - Jeremy Saulnier
9. The Raid 2: Berandal - Gareth Evans
10. Nymphomaniac: Volume I - Lars von Trier

Honorable Mentions

11. Manakamana - Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez
12. Locke - Steven Knight
13. The Missing Picture - Rithy Panh
14. The Double - Richard Ayoade
15. Ememy - Denis Villeneuve

Which of these Top 10 films do you agree with as the best of the year. You can vote in the poll (YOU CAN PICK MULTIPLE OPTIONS) and discuss below.

 

[The Endless]

The Grand Budapest Hotel is rightly number 1, for me.

 

[DA_Champion]

Filk snobs rated the lego movie as 5th?

Will lego movie be the first comic book movie to get a best picture nomination?

How hilarious would that be?

 

[DA_Champion]

Also, I very much enjoyed Budapest, but I'm missing how it's a grand masterpiece.

 

[The Endless]

I think it's a complete film. It's dramatic, thrilling, suspenseful, funny, romantic. It makes you think but it also taps into your emotions. It looks beautiful and has some brilliant performances. It's unique and indulgent, but not obnoxiously so. Well paced and edited.

 

[redhawk23]

Out of those available here I'd have to go with Grand Budapest Hotel, but the Lego Movie and Only Lovers Left Alive were also great.

Under the skin was...interesting. I like it but I didn't necessarily love it.

Lord and Miller continue to kill it with 22 Jumpstreet btw.


Enemy was a kind of okay movie just just kind of decides to flip everyone the bird at the end. Dreadful.


Not enough love for Noah.

 

[redhawk23]

I think it's a complete film. It's dramatic, thrilling, suspenseful, funny, romantic. It makes you think but it also taps into your emotions. It looks beautiful and has some brilliant performances. It's unique and indulgent, but not obnoxiously so. Well paced and edited.

And what is great is that it really found an audience. Which is great to see.

 

[DA_Champion]

It is impressive that Budapest grossed 162 million in spite of zero marketing.

 

[DA_Champion]

Out of those available here I'd have to go with Grand Budapest Hotel, but the Lego Movie and Only Lovers Left Alive were also great.

Under the skin was...interesting. I like it but I didn't necessarily love it.

Lord and Miller continue to kill it with 22 Jumpstreet btw.


Enemy was a kind of okay movie just just kind of decides to flip everyone the bird at the end. Dreadful.


Not enough love for Noah.

Noah was amazing, however, science fiction / fantasy movies do poorly ob these lists.

 

[DA_Champion]

By the way, here are the movies ranked 16-50 omitted by slumcat:

11. Manakamana
12. Locke
13. The Missing Picture
14. The Double (2013)
15. Enemy
16. Edge of Tomorrow
17. Godzilla
18. Night Moves
19. We are the Best!
20. Chef
21. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
22. Noah
23. The Lunchbox
24. How to Train Your Dragon 2
25. Nymphomaniac: Volume II
26. It Felt Like Love
27. Cheap Thrills
28. Cold in July
29. Gloria
30. Like Father, Like Son
31. Obvious Child
32. The Last of the Unjust
33. Child's Pose
34. Vic and Flo Saw a Bear
35. The Fault in Our Stars
36. Hide Your Smiling Faces
37. The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld
38. The Rover
39. La Danza de la Realidad (The Dance of Reality)
40. 22 Jump Street
41. Omar
42. The Wind Rises
43. X-Men: Days of Future Past
44. Neighbors
45. Dom Hemingway
46. Borgman
47. Mistaken For Strangers
48. Joe
49. Policeman
50. Finding Vivian Maier

**********

Two surprises:

- Godzilla is doing remarkably well on this list;
- The Wind Rises is doing remarkably poorly, why do the critics hate that movie?

 

[slumcat]

I think it's a complete film. It's dramatic, thrilling, suspenseful, funny, romantic. It makes you think but it also taps into your emotions. It looks beautiful and has some brilliant performances. It's unique and indulgent, but not obnoxiously so. Well paced and edited.

That. And the direction is genius. It really truly is. This is his most assuredly staged and composed mis-en-scene, just brilliant.

I think it is his best film since Royal Tenenbaums.

And also for perhaps the first time, we have a Wes Anderson comedy tinged with melancholy. I feel haunted by the film, it is unusually affecting. And his impact is very abstract, it kinda creates a longing for the world and a way of life gone by. It is tremendous.

Plus it has the best lead performance in a Wes Anderson film since Gene Hackman in Tenenbaum. Fiennes is magnificent.

 

[slumcat]

Of their 10, Budapest, Stranger By The Lake and Nymphomaniac are the only 3 I have seen and they all belong in the conversation of the year's best, all 3 are very accomplished films.

 

[slumcat]

Just gotta say, watched Grand Budapest Hotel again today and it is still a masterpiece to me. Its intricacy of construction is dazzling.

Anderson has finally gotta win some Oscar for this. The critics are certainly behind him. It wouldn't surprise me if Grand Budapest Hotel tops the year end critics poll too.

 

[slumcat]

As if you wanted more confirmation!

The 3 Variety critics miraculously agree and anoint The Grand Budapest Hotel as the best film of the year just like their brethren 122 critics at Indiewire.

You can read their individual Top 5 choices and reasoning below.

PETER DEBRUGE
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2″
“Locke”
“Stranger by the Lake”
“Le Week-end”

SCOTT FOUNDAS

“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Ida”
“The Immigrant”
“Norte, the End of History”
“Nymphomaniac”

JUSTIN CHANG

“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Ida”
“Noah”
“Only Lovers Left Alive”
“Under the Skin”

http://variety.com/2014/film/columns/variety-critics-pick-the-best-films-of-2014-so-far-1201243658/

 

[chamber-music]

Locke is the best indie of the year so far for me. Tom Hardy gives the performance of a lifetime.

The first half of Blue Ruin was awesome but the second half was a bit weak.

Cold In July was good. The twists are very unpredictable.

I wanted to like The Grand Budapest Hotel but I didn't.

Under The Skin was good. I liked the tone and the visuals.

Only Lovers Left Alive was ok.

 

[Lord]

Filk snobs rated the lego movie as 5th?

Will lego movie be the first comic book movie to get a best picture nomination?

How hilarious would that be?

It was good, but not "that" good

 

[TalismanRing]

From the early critics list, of those I've seen, I find LEGO (B-) and Godzilla (C+) massively overrated.

My "Indie" rankings so far this year complete with an overabundance of adjectives.

Snowpiercer - Visceral, thrilling, bizarre, quirky, devastating, and a wee bit hopeful - finely acted with diverse styles fitting the diverse characters and situations. So far this year, no better production design or cinematography. (A)

The Wind Rises - Beautiful, intelligent and moving biopic about an inventor and dreamer who's dreams are perverted and who's single minded passion makes him more than a bit oblivious or indifferent to consequences. (A-)

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Delightful, clever, inventive farce with a killer Fiennes performance. But story and character development don't support the weight of the end scenes. More Fantastic Fox than Royal Tennenbaums. (B+)

Chef - Charming, funny and warm finding your passion movie. Ending winds up a bit too neat and sappy. Gorgeous food porn. Needed more RDJ - OK not need just want. (B)

Only Lovers Left Alive - Elegant, sexy, moody, quirky but a bit too languorous but that's Jarmusch. I really wish Chekov's gun was used. Also small pet peeves - I hate that elitist Marlowe as Shakespeare bull, why was Marlowe so old when he died at 29, and doesn't anyone own a brush or comb? (B)

Under The Skin - Worked better as a tone poem than a movie for me - all mood and striking visuals that repeats and meanders amid often near incomprehensible accents. Scarlett uses her dead pan dead eyed shtick to very good affect. Peaks early with the devastating beach scene. (B-/C+)

 

[flickchick85]

I haven't seen all the movies on Indiewire's list, but of the ones I have, I'd only agree with Grand Budapest, The Lego Movie and The Immigrant being on there. Only Lovers Left Alive and Under the Skin were interesting, and Raid 2 was awesome bloody fun, but I wouldn't put any of them in a top 10 of the year.

 

[Boom]

I'd say it's a toss-up between The Grand Budapest Hotel and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.