My Memaw and My Mom

My Memaw passed away and I love her very very much.

Growing up with friends primarily in the Midwest, I didn’t hear a lot of people call their grandmother “Memaw,” which is by all accounts a silly word. Memaw’s real name was JoJean which is also a silly name. In her world Target was Tar-Je, Jezebel was Jezzie, my friend Pedro was Paco/Pancho/Padre and Buca di Beppo was never called the same name twice. She kept trying to get Benedict Cumberbatch’s name right, even to the point where she called me to say she tried to study his name in People.

Top 72 Films of 2014

There were a ton of great films last year. SO MANY GREAT FILMS. I saw 134 films that came out in 2014 and I liked, in one degree or another, 94 of them. There are still a ton of them I would like to see that I’ve missed including The Blue Room, Calvary, Coherence, The French Minister, Get On Up, Happy Valley, The Inbetweeners 2, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Life of Crime, Love is Strange, A Master Builder, Miss Meadows, The Missing Picture, A Most Violent Year, The Mule, Norte the End of History, Omar, Particle Fever, Showrunners, The Skeleton Twins, Space Station 76, The Strange Little Cat, The Unknown Known, Vic and Flo Saw a Bear, Wetlands, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and Willow Creek.

There’s this joy that there are so many interesting films coming out. I’m now living in a city where more of them can be seen in some excellent theatres, but the world has changed where within a matter of months all of these films can be seen by anyone, not just those who live near an awesome art house. If you type in any of these films to Netflix, the odds are strong that they will be there or will be there soon. 

So even though all of these lists are a little bit silly, I still like to make mine for the fact that it can be a recommendation list for you. Is #34 that much better than #40? It was for me, but you may end up adoring #28 more than anything. This is what I loved last year and I hope that you too can find something exciting and stimulating and original and bonkers and sophisticated and a film that makes you too wave it to someone where they have to see it pronto.

Since I’m writing about so many films, I’m going to try to keep it brief until I get later in the list. I say that now…

#72

Leviathan

Destruction seems like something that will be inherently cinematic, but not every film is able to pull off the emotional weight of it. By the end of this film, you’re really able to feel the impact of all the consequences that these characters had control of and the ones they sadly didn’t.

#71

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The more superhero films we get, the more Hollywood can’t rely on the same old stories. This is a complicated and curious story full of worthy twists and a confidence to play around in this universe. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer to allow for even more emotional scenes between its characters.