The Films of 2014

Photo credit: Jennifer Finley (j-fin) on Flickr

As I note every December, I watch a lot of movies, though most are viewed on my television -- on DVD, from DVR recordings, or streamed from Netflix. Because I have not yet seen that many new films in the theater, I cannot yet write a credible post on the best movies of 2014. Most of the highly touted films are released in December, a very busy month. Eventually, of course, I will see them.

Again this year, I missed many of the summer blockbusters as well.

Indeed, many of the best films I saw this past year were movies that I originally missed in the theaters in prior years. I saw many late 2013 Oscar-bait films in theaters earlier this year.

To make this abbreviated 2014 list (split, as usual, into two sub-lists), I scanned the top grossing movies of the year, as well as IMDB's most popular titles for 2014. I also consulted Metacritic.

In rank order of my preference, these were the best 2014 films I saw this year, so best as I can recall:

The Grand Budapest Hotel **
Birdman **
Wild **
Locke
Gone Girl **
Snowpiercer
Frank
Venus in Fur
Filth
The Double

** I saw these films in the theater.

The top two films are doing well in end-of-year critic lists, so I anticipate they will be competitive for Oscars. The Grand Budapest Hotel was hilarious and Birdman was unique, though I'm not sure I liked the ending (or interpreted it correctly). Basically, that film can be viewed as a critique of superhero action films, even though it stars a number of actors who made lots of money from their work in those kinds of movies.

Wild and Locke are substantial films that provide real showcases for their lead actors, Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy. Both seem deserving of Academy Award nominations.

I read Gone Girl in 2013, so I was already familiar with the twists and surprises. Still, this was a fine film and worth viewing.

Frank twists the typical rock band bio-pic into unexpected directions, though other members of my family were split as to whether it was watchable. Venus in Fur is a provocative Roman Polanski film that is trying to say something artistic about the theatre, but also comments on gender relations. It is a two-person film featuring a male director casting a leading actress for his adapted play.

Filth is from the same mind as Trainspotting and includes a number of scenes that are provocative, but perhaps not entertaining. I did not much care for the adapted The Double.

The rest of the my 2014 list consists of genre films -- bawdy comedies, action flicks and science fiction. They are not ranked very carefully, though I think that the ones near the top are superior to the ones near the bottom:

Edge of Tomorrow (Live. Die. Repeat.)
Guardians of the Galaxy
22 Jump Street
Alan Partridge
Bad Words
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes **
Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I've switched the positions of Edge of Tomorrow and Guardians of the Galaxy twice already on that list. The latter film has a much stronger sense of humor, but I am a huge fan of Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow is a science fiction-action movie take on the concept. That said, I'm far more likely to watch Guardians a second time when it finds its way to cable.

Both 22 Jump Street and Alan Partridge featured characters that Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, and Steve Coogan have played before. Sigh. Moreover, both are unusually violent for comedies. Nonetheless, they are quite funny and 22 Jump Street clearly recognizes the limits and dangers of repetition.

I viewed Captain America on a very small screen on a plane, but I did not care for it very much. I had similar reactions to the Iron Man and Hulk films, so perhaps Marvel isn't appealing to me all that often (Guardians is a notable exception). I wish the filmmakers of the bottom three movies had been a bit more creative and less reliant upon CGI and explosions. For me, of course, the gold standard is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

Here's the annual list of 2014 movies that I intend to see in the future (hopefully in 2015):

Adult World, American Sniper, The Babadook, Begin Again, Belle, Big Eyes, Birder's Guide to Everything, Blue Ruin, Boyhood, Cheap Thrills, Chef, Dear White People, The Drop, Equilizer, Fault in Our Stars, Force Majeure, Foxcatcher, Fury, Get on UP, Godzilla, Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Ida, The Imitation Game, The Immigrant, Inherent Vice, Interstellar, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Joe, John Wick, Le Week-End, The LEGO Movie, Listen Up Philip, Lone Survivor, Lucy, Manuscripts Don't Burn, A Most Wanted Man, A Most Violent Year, Mr. Turner, Neighbors, Nightcrawler, Night Moves, Noah, Non-Stop, Obvious Child, The One I Love, Only Lovers Left Alive, Palo Alto, Railway Man, Rob the Mob, Rosewater, Selma, St. Vincent, Theory of Everything, Top Five, Two Days One Night, Under the Skin, What If, Whiplash, and the Zero Theorem.

Keep in mind that I didn't get around to seeing many 2013 movies from last year's wishlist:

12 Years a Slave, 56 Up, Ain't them Bodies Saints?, Despicable Me 2, The East, Ender's Game, Fruitvale Station, Kill Your Darlings, Love is All You Need, Manhunt, Much Ado About Nothing, Oblivion, Pacific Rim, Place Beyond the Pines, Prisoners, Short Term 12, Spring Breakers, Stories We Tell, The To Do List, Trance, You're Next, and We Are What We Are.

Yes, somehow I've missed the acclaimed 2013 Oscar winner. Shame on me. Virtually all of those films are now readily available -- as DVDs at my University library or as recordings on my DVR. A few are on Netflix.


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Books of 2014

Photo credit: azrasta on Flickr

As I have annually since 2005, I am posting a nearly complete list of books I read in the preceding year.

Please allow me to repeat the ground rules: First, I generally do not list academic books that I reviewed unless the review was published. In my academic job, for instance, I reviewed a number of books competing for a $100,000 award exhibiting the best "ideas for improving world order." However, only the winning entry is listed here. I read it as a member of the Final Selection Committee.

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of many books pertinent to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list those here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure? (Some of the recommended books may include a link to Powell's books; the blog receives a 7.5% commission on sales that begin via these links). I posted short reviews of most of these books at Shelfari. 

Non-fiction

The Rule of the Clan; What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom by Mark S. Weiner.

New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced by War by Andrew Bacevich

Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State by Garry Wills

Bigger Deal by Anthony Holden

Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers, edited by Steven Goldman (Baseball Prospectus team)

I also read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2014, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. It was edited by Sam Miller and Jason Wojciechowski.

Of these non-fiction books, most were worth reading. The Weiner book won the 2015 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. I blogged about it at the Duck of Minerva.

Bacevich and Wills offer stark and important warnings about the dangers of United States militarism. Holden returns to the Texas Hold 'em poker circuit after the 2003 Chris Moneymaker boom. I preferred his earlier book on poker.

Fiction

As I have in most years, I place the best works of literature at the top of the list, then the genre fiction (though there are some books that could be placed in either category). The least interesting or entertaining books are listed last in each section.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Constant Gardener by John LeCarré

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon.

Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene

Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

All of this fiction is worth reading, though McCarthy's book is kind of a slog given the way it is written and its subject matter. With the exception of the Wodehouse (which was my first book ever read using a Kindle app on a tablet), all of these books are fairly dark. The works by McMurtry and McCarthy are set in Texas and are meant to feature a desolate context. LeCarré's novel begins in impoverished Africa, but the main character travels also to Europe and North America to solve a mystery about his wife's death. Gaiman's book is a sweeping work of modern mythology, while Pynchon offers a strange post-modern noir detective story.

State of Siege by Eric Ambler

Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin

Find a Victim by Ross MacDonald

D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton

Children of Men by P.D. James

Judas Goat by Robert Parker

Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry

Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

The Scarlet Ruse by John MacDonald

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky

Bank Shot by Donald Westlake

Djibouti by Elmore Leonard

The Mourner by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake)

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block

Thanks mostly to Bookmooch and PaperBack Swap, I continue to read books by a diverse array  of (mostly) hard-boiled crime story authors. These writers typically develop a single main character across a long series of books: Parker's Spencer, Stark's Parker, John MacDonald's Travis McGee, Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Burke's Dave Robicheaux, Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski, Rankin's Inspector Rebus, and Lehane's Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro.

Grafton is from Louisville and this (D) Millhone case was very interesting, making me look forward to reading the next (E) book. I read Rankin while visiting Edinburgh, though I cannot say the book would be endorsed by that lovely city's Chamber of Commerce. I have stuck with Burke's Robicheaux series through several violent books that did not appeal to my tastes. However, I liked this one a good deal. Travis McGee, Lew Archer, and Spencer were all challenged by good cases that made for solid stories. Spencer's book is set abroad and involves terrorism.

The Lehane books I've read feature over-the-top violence. Strike one. This work involved serial killers working together, which count as strikes two and three.

By contrast, the Dibdin book involves a clever murder and just enough violence to propel the story to an interesting conclusion. I highly recommend it. Look for the touch of international politics in a character's correspondence.

Though Djibouti was certainly not Leonard's best book, it is an entertaining contemporary story about piracy and terrorism. Mockingjay is the basis for a new film (the first of two, ugh) and in my view is the weakest book in the popular dystopian trilogy. I saw the film made from P.D. James's Children of Men several years ago, but the book is quite different from the film in many details. Generally, these details make the book bleaker, simpler, and less reliant upon contrived circumstances. The science fiction book, set in a future when all men are infertile, is laden with Christian symbolism.

Ambler and McCarry were writing during the cold war and their stories involve interesting geopolitical dimensions based on real-world events. McCarry offers an odd theory about the JFK assassination.


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Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho.

That's Robey (L) and Paddy (R), when they were just pups. We celebrated their 9th year in the family this fall. They were likely born in July 2005.

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Inherent Vice

When my spouse and I saw "Birdman" recently, the film was preceded by a trailer for Inherent Vice. Since I already owned a copy of the book, I decided to read it before I see the film.

My review of the novel:

I really cannot do justice to this book with a short review. The work can be read as a relatively mainstream detective story set in the drug-culture of southern California in 1970. Pynchon has clearly read Raymond Chandler as the plot includes many references to Philip Marlowe and his most famous cases. If you are looking for a postmodern Chandler, then you might enjoy this book. However, many parts of it may seem really strange. Indeed, this book's main character encounters situations and people that are more overtly comical (if not ridiculous) than any situations and people Marlowe ever encountered. The book packs in so many odd characters, coincidental meetings, and contrived circumstances, in fact, that it can also be read as satire -- and Chandler and Marlowe could be viewed as targets. Many of Marlowe's encounters could be viewed as far-fetched and ridiculous if not portrayed in the way they were written by Chandler. PI Larry "Doc" Sportello's drug of choice is pot rather than alcohol, but he is a viable stand-in for Marlowe. Doc's adventures parallel Marlowe's and led me to think about how Marlowe would survive in Doc's world and vice-versa. The book seems to lament the end of the counterculture 1960s (Doc's world), though the "gumsandal" PI obviously has significant ties to the "straight" world. His girlfriend works in the prosecutor's office, he trades information with a prominent cop, and he earns a living working as a "hopeless stooge of the creditor class" (which he realizes in an epiphany near the book's end). Other targets of Pynchon's satire are more overtly identified: heavy-handed police officers and other elements of law enforcement, heroin, and the background political figures, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Here's an interesting video promoting the novel, apparently narrated by Thomas Pynchon in the voice of PI Doc:




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Will Rogers on Inequality

I just returned from a trip to Tulsa to visit family members. The Tulsa World newspaper runs a piece called "Will Rogers Says" and I quite liked the quote from last Saturday:

"[Economists] show that there is just as much of everything as there ever was, and all that. But they don’t tell that what’s the matter with us is the unequal division of it. Our rich is getting richer, and our poor is getting poorer all the time. That’s the thing these great minds ought to work on.” – December 14, 1930

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Divine Intervention?

I'm still working my way through the array of article clippings surrounding my desk at home.

This quote is from General Lee Butler, former head of the US Strategic Command:

...we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.

The quote was included in an article I read back in June, but it was originally delivered in a speech by Butler in 1999.

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Environment and Security

I have not blogged very frequently in 2014 and thus have a big stack of magazine clippings surrounding my desk. One story that caught my eye this past year was authored by journalist Sharon Lerner in The Nation back in November. It concerned alleged links between local pollution from a defense contractor and a cluster of pediatric brain tumors in a small Florida community called The Acreage.

This paragraph caught my eye given that I often work on both environmental issues and national security topics:

“If Al Qaeda sent a team of sleeper cells to poison our groundwater and release toxic materials into the air, people would go nuts. It would be an act of war,” [Law Professor Stephen] Dycus [at Vermont, the author of National Defense and the Environment] notes. “But if we do it to ourselves in the name of national security, in preparation for war, that seems to be sort of OK.”

These are the key paragraphs about the pollutants and area in question:

...the plaintiffs’ attorneys have been constructing their case based on the defense contractor’s well-known history of involvement with projects that involve radioactive materials. Since so many of its operations are top secret, it is difficult to disprove the company’s claims that it has never worked on nuclear planes or spacecraft in Florida. But documents from the 1960s through the ’90s show that Pratt & Whitney had licenses to use at least a dozen radioactive substances [PDF], including radium D and E, thoriated nickel and cesium-137, in Florida. The plaintiffs’ lawyers also unearthed company correspondence indicating that some of these radioactive materials wound up outside of their proper storage places. In court filings, Pratt & Whitney denied having any “contaminations” beyond “properly stored chemical compounds.”

In fact, there is a clear documentary record, stretching across many decades, of Pratt & Whitney contaminating its Florida environs with a variety of toxic materials, both radioactive and nonradioactive. According to a 1985 Department of Environmental Regulation update, the company had soil on its property that contained PCBs—chemicals that have been linked to brain cancer—at more than 200 times the maximum level now allowed even in fenced-off, nonresidential areas. PCBs were also found in fish [PDF] that swam in ponds on the company’s grounds, at more than 7,000 times the safe level set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for human consumption.

Jet fuel, which was the suspected cause of another cancer cluster in Fallon, Nevada, may also have played a role at the Acreage. A mixture of chemicals that can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause cancer in mice, jet fuel was found at the Pratt & Whitney facility in Florida. According to a 1983 report, there were three plumes of jet fuel totaling some 53,000 gallons beneath the company’s property, and a layer on top of the groundwater in certain places as well.

 In 1979, just one year after the Acreage Homeowners Association formed and began constructing a system of canals to make the area habitable, 2,000 gallons of trichloroethylene (TCE), a carcinogenic solvent, leaked into the groundwater and surface water on Pratt & Whitney's campus, as the company later admitted. 

The entire article is worth your time.

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