Best of 2014

I don't see as many films as I used to when I rode the Metro to work every morning, but I still see more than the average bear.  That said, here's a list of the ten best movies I saw in 2014.  You may quibble with my ranking, but I don't think you can go wrong by spinning up any of these wonderful pictures.

10. The Bridges at Toko-Ri:  Forget Top Gun.  If you really want to know what it's like to be a naval aviator, this is your film.

9. Interstellar: Tense, beautiful, and thought provoking, I loved every minute of it.

8. Seven Psychopaths: Such a great script, and so well performed. I don't understand why this wasn't a big, big hit.

7. The Raid: Redemption: Pay no attention to the paper-thin story. The stunt work in this picture is the best I've seen since Ong Bak: Muy Thai Warrior.

6. Gravity: Stunningly beautiful and masterful in every way, it'll look great sitting on my shelf next to Interstellar.

5. 3 Idiots: I'm a sucker for singing, dancing, life-affirming pictures that give me a window into another culture. Aal izz well!

4. Edge of Tomorrow: The most underrated film of the year, and the one I most look forward to seeing again. Creative, exciting, and featuring a brilliant lead performance, this is everything you could want in a summer action movie.

3. A Separation: A thoughtful, compassionate, yet devastating film, A Separation takes us into another culture and crumbling marriage with care and love. This is a heartbreaking, absolutely necessary film.

2. Chef: When I wasn't laughing during this charming film, I was sitting with a big, dopey grin on my face. If you relish the idea of spending 90 minutes with good people trying to do the right thing, all while making you laugh, this is the movie for you. I'm smiling just thinking about it. Smiling and craving a Cuban sandwich.

1. After Life: I think about this film every day.  It makes me a better person. I hope I think about it every day for the rest of my life.

3 Idiots

3 Idiots is a Bollywood comedy about three classmates at a prestigious engineering college. It's also a lot of fun. Madhavan (left, above) is the would-be amateur photographer taking the safe path of an engineering degree instead of following his passion. Sharman Joshi (right) lives in fear: fear of failure, fear of letting down his family, fear in general. Aamir Khan (center) is basically the Buddha, a brilliant visionary who leads his friends (and the beautiful Karina Kapoor, daughter of the hated Dean, Boman Irana) through four years of hijinks, exams, sticking it to The Man, and enlightenment.

This is a Bollywood movie, so it's two hours and 44 minutes long and has five or six acts. In addition to laughs, it offers lavish musical numbers, an impressive flood sequence, pathos, and heaps of beautiful Indian scenery. It's performed and scored broadly, with literal bells and whistles underlying the gags and one-liners, plenty of eye rolling, and never so much as a hint that all this stuff could possibly be happening in the real world.

Perhaps its best feature, however, is its sense of goodwill. Here's a movie that'll try just about anything in the name of entertainment, and it tries so gosh-darned hard that we in the audience can't help but tap our feet, chuckle along, and even shed a tear or two. Just thinking about it makes me feel like all is well, and it's hard to ask for much more than that.