2014 top ten.

hey! for the past few weeks, little else than movies has been on my mind. it was sundance in utah, one of the best times of year imo. and this year was my biggest movie-watching year yet! i saw five films (mistress america, operation artic, shaun the sheep, don verdean, and the wolfpack). all good things.

movie season continues as the academy awards are just two weeks away. which brings me to another year of the best movies / my favorites / movies to see / my top ten movies of 2014:

10. the babadook
number ten was the hardest spot to fill. 2014 was a great year for movies.*** but i think the babadook won me over cause HORROR! i love this genre and, when done right, it's perfect entertainment. the story, which explores the horror of loss, is just SPOT ON. there are few horror movies these days that can tell such a meaningful and approachable story, while still being able to pack a punch in the scare department. really, this is a rare gem.

9. into the woods
i've just recently been hearing that people didn't like this movie. and i don't really understand why. sondheim is weird, i'll give you that. but i feel like it was a welcomed departure from the classic fairy tale. good lessons there! it had a GREAT cast. probably the best musical cast in recent years (russell crowe singing "stars" #neverforget #can'tforget #hauntsmydreams), it stuck to the original story, yet removed the bits that maybe we didn't even WANT to see. the costumes! meryl! what more could you want?!

8.  magic in the moonlight
there could never be a year that woody allen isn't featured on this list (save 2012, to rome with love). this movie was sadly, very underrated. i saw it opening weekend, friday night, and my companions and i were the only ones in the theater! sad. emma stone is enchanting as always. woody always knows the way to my heart.

7. nightcrawler
ok who's with me that jake gyllenhaal is one of the great actors of our time?! with prisoners last year and nightcrawler this year, he is really making quite the name for himself. this movie was a slow burner? i don't know if that's the right word. SUBTLE. that's it. subtle, but when it comes down to it, TERRIFYING.

6. the lego movie
my interest was first piqued when i read this article on kottke, "the wikipedia page notes the lego movie video game will be released in conjunction with the movie. which, if you're following along, is a video game based on a movie based on stacking toys & figures containing characters based on other movies that are based on comic books. i can't wait for the lego movie videogame comic book movie that comes out in 2019." HA! it was SO much better than i expected it to be. i can't say it better than edgar wright, "what could have been such a shameless, corporate, brand-heavy, cash-grab of a movie becomes a truly inspired comic adventure about individualism, imagination, and the creative spirit. " YES!

5. edge of tomorrow or i guess live, die, repeat:  edge of tomorrow??
i'm not sure and that was the biggest (and only?) problem with this movie. it was marketed completely wrong. the trailer was the WORST and the title, completely forgettable. i even still forget it and it was one of my favorite movies last year. so unexpected, so not-the-normal tom cruise, funny, action oriented, and probably best of all, emily blunt doing that wicked awesome yoga move, which apparently was all her, not a stunt woman. WHATTTT.

4. boyhood
oh boyhood. the opus of richard linklator. i'd seen the before sunrise / sunset / midnight trilogy, and was quite excited upon the idea of boyhood. can you imagine filming something over a twelve year period? huh! just that feat is worth number four on the list.

3. whiplash
i saw whiplash january 2014 at sundance. it won "best of fest" for the audience favorite. and it darn well deserved it. oh gosh, this film. i was on the edge of my seat the ENTIRE one hundred and seven minutes. from that opening scene of him drumming, to the closing scene of him drumming. and when the end was near, i just remember thinking he was going to drop dead, at any moment. mind you, this movie is about a college jazz band ... yeah. gripping really. and jk simmons. this movie is SO good.

2. interstellar
emily and i saw this mostly blind. well at least on my end. i had seen a couple trailers, but didn't really know what it was about. it turned out to be one of my favorite theater experiences in recent history. loved the cinematography, LOVED the music (or lack-of in some parts), and this is one of very few movies in which i enjoy anne hathaway, so that means something.

1. birdman
birdman was another movie i went in to knowing nothing about (catching the theme here?), so it too was an unexpected gem for me. i sometimes judge movies on how much i'm thinking about them afterwards. i was thinking and talking about birdman for weeks after i saw it. i loved the story, the acting and actors (emma stone and edward norton had SERIOUS chemistry here and zach galifianakis was the best i've seen him). i loved the commentary on what audiences want. on top of it all, i loved the one-take editing and the music. i liked it all. i liked it a lot.

i hope i wasn't premature in making this list. i still need to see foxcatcher, two days one night, and a most violent year.

find my favorites of 2013 here and favorites of 2012 here.

peace and happiness to you this february. and loves!

***runners-up:  the skeleton twins, the theory of everything, and x-men:  days of future past. not on my top ten, but always in my heart.

top 10 songs of 2014.

i don't know why didn't think of doing a list like this earlier in my listing career, but it came to me last night:  A TOP TEN SONGS OF 2014 LIST!
duh!

1. a tie between two alt-j songs. every other freckle and hunger of the pine.

**parental advisory warning:  there's a bare bum in this video, and some other stufffff.**

it was just too hard to choose.  my first experience with alt-j was listening to taro back in 2013. once their new album dropped they had me hooked. the cherry on top of this love affair was seeing them live in november. hands down one of the best concerts i've ever been to. so ethereal, "in a way that seems too perfect for this world".

2. james blake, retrograde.

i feel like i'm coming a little late to the james blake party. but DANG! that voice! i rarely compare musicians to my all-time-fave sufjan, but if anyone deserves it, james blake does. that sweet honey voice combined with "space-blues", rolling stone called it when they said it was "like dawn after a rough night".

3. chvrches, do i wanna know?

should i feel bad that a cover is in my top 10? i don't. lauren mayberry has the cutest, softest, most fragile, weightless voice. the perfect touch for arctic monkeys' tune. i probably listened to this song like, over a hundred times this year. find it on soundcloud.

4. st. vincent, digital witness.

i can't help but bounce and sing along to this tune. i was really into st. vincent this year. mostly though, i just have hair envy.

5. phantogram, fall in love.

i've always been a fan of phantogram and their album this year really set in stone my fandom. well, actually, what set it in stone was her hair flips at in the venue in march.

6. disclosure, latch AND flume, you & me.

**parental advisory warning: there's lots of kissing here, and sometimes between same-sex couples**

disclosure is another band featured twice on my top 10. they have a way with electronic dance music. add the sultry sounds of sam smith and you've got yourself an earth-shattering hit. in pitchfork's words, "if you've heard latch, you already know about that voice:  sam smith posessess one hell of a set of pipes, able to go from a commanding lower register to an inhumanly high squawk in record time." oh, also, THE LYRICS. swoon.

i don't really know how to properly site this song. it's a disclosure song, with eliza doolittle, that flume remixed. i've talked about flume before. wanna get pumped? have a dance off? look no further than flume. i love that aussie.

7. lo-fang, #88.

lo-fang is my most recent discovery. i heard his cover of you're the one that i want in a commercial while waiting for birdman to start. apparently he plays all the instruments on the album, which surprisingly includes the violin, cello, and electronics. very baroque, a mix of "classical symphony and contemporary pop".

8. jefferson airplane, white rabbit.

numbers eight and nine on the list are throw backs and they definitely hold their own against all this new stuff. there's a reason they are classics. in my tenth grade health class, i did a "report" in which i created a mixed-tape of songs about mental illness and/or drug use. white rabbit was on the tape. so i've been keen on this tune since then, but i re-discovered it when an arabic version was featured in american hustle. i feel myself transported back to the 60s, headbanging at woodstock during the last few lines of the song.

9. the beatles, tomorrow never knows.

it's no secret that i've been a mad men fiend this year. and although i consider myself extremely well-versed in the beatles discography, i hadn't heard this song until it was played on "lady lazarus" in the fifth season of mad men. it's a gem, as all beatles songs are.

10. snoop lion, here comes the king.

i just couldn't resist adding this. have i let myself go? putting a snoop LION song on my TOPS list? whatever. i thought snoop's latest album was a good turn of events for the rapper. really, it's a fun song to sing to, and werk it out to. is it the worst thing that i identify as a rastafarian on occasion?

listen to the full set on spotify (with some exceptions).