Monday, January 19, 2015

Baby, You're "OUT OF TIME" Moments of 2014

I almost forgot to do this.  Almost.  You remember the 'Out of Time' concept?  Check out here for a little more info, but the short of it is: a moment, or maybe a part or a whole of a scene, just a gesture even, that really stuck out in 2014 movies.  What were those instances that you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stick up from something a movie was doing, or really stuck in your brain weeks after it was done?

I had some this year (and not all of them are for films I totally loved, but most are):


The Tale of the Princess Yaguya: After the 'Princess' hears people talking smack about her not being a real princess, a 'fraud', she runs FAST and escapes her prison of a temple.  This RUN, done in water-colors, is mesmerizing.

Jodorowsky's Dune: Jodorowsky pulls put a dollar bill.  No matter what wild imaginations a person can have, this is all that it comes down to with movies - in particular if they never get made.  

The Imitation Game: A young man holds back his tears and holds composure (it's the English way) as he is told by his school headmaster his first young love is dead.  A life in the closet begins there.

Whiplash: 'Reefer Madness' jazz style as Miles Teller bleeds to drum fast as possible according to the demand of JK Simmons' task-master instructor. 

Inherent Vice: Josh Brolin doing a hippie version of the Daniel Plainview bit near the end of PTA's There Will be Blood where he throws bowling balls at hapless Paul Dano - he smokes a joint, says every word Phoenix's Doc says, and then eats every last bit of weed left with Doc in tears. The Hippies have lost - for now.

Tusk: Michael Parks sings a song to his human-as-walrus companion, Mr. Tusk, with a film of the ocean and seagulls screening in the background as a ominous peace is the contradiction of the day.

CitizenFour: Edward Snowden sits in the bed of his Hong Kong hotel room (the only place he can be at the moment), gets up and looks out over the city.

The Unknown Known: The Cheshire-Rumsfeld grin.

Unbroken: In what I suspect is the only scene the Coen brothers scripted, a shark eats another shark when it can't get the human victim.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Forget Stan Lee - prisoner Lloyd Kaufman is not locked in here with you - you are locked in here with Lloyd Kaufman! 

The Dance of Reality: To knock out the leprosy/plague that has just affected him, Alejandro Jodorowsky's father (as played by his son, Aden Jodorowsky) gets urinated on by his singing-talking wife.  No fake urine here. 

Snowpiercer: Everyone in this room battle (not unlike Chanwook Park's Oldboy as far as a filmmaker throwing down the gauntlet for making THE bad-ass action sequence of his time) who is on the side of the enemy puts on x-ray glow-in-the-dark vision.  Shit's on.

Selma: Martin and Coretta Scott King are surrounded by death and love in the face of marital indiscretion.  

Under the Skin pt 1: Elephant Man Jr gets to touch who may be the very first person he has ever touched, and it's not about sex, just about connection.  pt 2: Scarlett Johansson looks at herself naked in the mirror - and it's not sexy.  It's more about, 'what is this thing on me called the epidermis?'

Nymphomaniac Vol 1: Uma Thurman screams in anguish at the end of her marriage - and it's funny in that way of a Larry David comedy... if David was a fucked up, depressive Danish gnome crafting it.

Gone Girl: The moment of conception for Rosamund Pike's future child comes as she VIOLENTLY kills her impregnator, like a blonde, alluring, icy praying mantis. 

Birdman: Keaton does his best performance telling about his drunk father to Edward Norton in a moment of vulnerability... and you know what?  None of that's true.

The Interview: Eminem is... what?

Force Majeure: A couple go outside of their hotel room in the hallway to have an argument, only to notice an odd looking man not out of place from the Lodge in Twin Peaks staring at them.


The LEGO Movie: Emmett falls down the psychedelic hole from Lego-land to reality.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Man and Ape bond over Charles Burns' Black Hole comic book.

Boyhood: The 'Boy' of the title watches the same Will Ferrell skit again, as he has been for a while apparently - if you notice the skit is really about child abuse, sort of.  I wish I could find it, I'm sure it's on College Humor somewhere, but it comes in the midst of step-father stride from an alcoholic asshole.

Why Don't You Play in Hell?  A young would-be director suddenly realizes he's getting a chance, out of nowhere, to direct THIS movie, THIS kind of movie, one he's ALWAYS wanted to do?  Mind - blown.

Nightcrawler: "And the last thing that I want, Nina, is for you to do the things that I ask you to do when we're alone together in your apartment, NOT LIKE THE LAST TIME."

X-Men- Days of Future Past: If I could save time in a bottle....