Glazer

It's that time of the year, well, just time before the thing actually ends, for a top ten of summat. Let's have films today, albums tomorrow...

I looked back through my diary and my blip journal and wrote some stuff down and it seems that I've been to the cinema 46 times in 2014. A few of these trips were to see re-releases of older movies, a couple were to see things that came out at the tail-end of 2013, one or two were cinema visits where I was merely an accompanying adult (I couldn't tell you whether Rio 2 was any good or not for example, or even give you a single plot point. There may well not even have been one, I think I daydreamed my way through that one completely) and two cinema trips were during the Edinburgh Film Festival to see things that have never actually been released properly in the UK. There were also a couple more films that were released in 2014 but that I caught up with on DVD.

So, discounting various films for various reasons, I've ended up with about 35 films that were released in 20124 that I went to the cinema to see during the course of the year and that's what the top ten is based on. I should also point out that on 1st September my diary simply has 'Danish crime thing' written down in it. Can't even remember the title of it, very forgettable...unsurprisingly it doesn't feature in the list below.

Here goes -

1. Under The Skin
2. Two Days One Night
3. Pride
4. All This Mayhem
5. Leviathan
6. Nightcrawler
7. 20,000 Days On Earth
8. Inside Llewyn Davis
9. Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets
10. The Possibilities Are Endless

Plenty more I really enjoyed, but got to have a cut-off point somewhere so no Ida, no 12 Years A Slave, no Dallas Buyers Club, no Boyhood, no Frank, etc, etc...all close but not quite.

That number one choice has stuck with me ever since I saw it, and it is as startlingly brilliant as the book that it's adapted from, a book that I've subsequenltly read and whilst I wouldn't say that it's a loose adaptation, it's a mark of director Jonathan Glazer's vision that there have been changes made, things left out, the film is much more abstract, a lot is less than fully explained and it's one of those films that if you're happy to immerse yourself in its mood and tone and just go with after the first ten minutes you'll be more than richly rewarded. Try and 'work it out' and you won't stand a chance. Visually stunning, audacious in it's uncompromising nature and Scarlett Johannsson is perfect in the lead role. I've not actually seen it since that cinema trip on Monday 17th March, but the DVD of it appeared in this house last Thursday, might have to treat myself tonight.

Love.