2014 closes. Looking back, I've made a rundown of the films that most satisfied my cinematic curiosities or just plain left me the most entertained. Not all of them are perfect, to say the least, but from every feature I found gusto or unique eccentricity; passion and remarkable artistry. There are very few fan favorites or critical darlings, as most of my picks range from forgotten oddities to top-heavy monstrosities to outright renegades—even a couple box office bombs amidst the bunch. Yet, let it not be said the spectrum of my selection was left wanting: surrealism, fantasy, black comedy, pulp-noir, neo-noir, sci-fi western, straight western, urban action and suburban growing pains, slasher revisionism, long journeys, epic landscapes, ultraviolent and the serene, superhuman and the utterly inhuman ...it's all there.
Some of the titles below were technically from 2013 by way of some limited film festival release (one of which is actually a carryover from my last year's list) but none were given wide release until 2014, and thus I call fair game. I haven't any quick summary reviews this time around. Just see the movies for yourself and decide. Nor is there any real order or countdown of any kind, with the exception of a one Miss Scarlett Johansson, who bookends the following:
Virtuoso evolution.
Dark, romantic and French.
Strange headspace. Lynch meets Gilliam.
The great podcasting experiment.
Troublemakers. Sex and cigar smoke.
Terrorism behind the wheel.
Heroism behind the wheel.
Frontiers of the past.
Frontiers of the future.
Another Coppola throws her hat into the ring.
Outback introspective.
Meta.
Linear Keanu with a linear purpose = action reborn.
Mixed
Martial Arts dominates the landscape, the mentality. It has since become the sole
yardstick. In turn, Traditional Martial Arts is now viewed as a kind of relic
of self-delusion ...silly old ways, which is unfortunate, to say the least. The
very term 'Mixed Martial Arts' is in fact a misnomer (less mixed, more specialized)
but that’s a whole other can of worms. Today is Kata.
Fighters,
trainers and octagon enthusiasts in general tend to laugh at Kata. At best, they
shrug it off as mere performance art. At worst, it is deemed a foolish exercise
in aesthetics and bad habitual muscle memory; not simply a waste of time, but
something that encourages fantasy. "Kata don’t win fights," they say. "It has
no place in the ring or on the streets!"
Kata
is not a fighting discipline. It is a mind discipline. The purpose of Kata is
not to confine oneself in a perfect sphere of rehearsed techniques. Rather, in
part and in essence, the purpose of learning Kata is to unlearn it. Variation
and improvisation are meaningless without form. Kata is form. It is also the
art of concentration, the discipline of discipline itself. Kata is deeply
philosophical in that it establishes principles of movement and technique. This
can range from a single theory or an entire library of ideas, yet the
assumption that it further removes one from the realities of functional
techniques is incorrect—incorrect because such is a misunderstanding of the
very intent.
Kata is not meant to replicate real fighting, but to stimulate it,
as in practice it allows one to execute full force, as opposed to the pulls and
limitations inherent in sparing. It is not so much an attempt to visualize all
that your opponent may or may not do as it is a process of building confidence
in the visualization of your own movements and responses. Kata is also deeply
personal. It is a means of self-examination, even down to an emotional and
psychological level.
However,
if nothing else, Kata is just plain hard. Below is karateka Rika Usami at the 21st
WKF World Championships in 2012 during her final rounds of Female Individual
Kata. What begins impressively enough as a courtly display of automated gestures
quickly ignites into a passionate act of self-expression -- a roar of personal
empowerment -- and one of the most extraordinary feats of pinpoint mind-body coordination
one could ever witness.
Her countenance during which is not merely all business
or 'game face', but a burning resolution to vanquish that which cannot be seen;
the seemingly incalculable; the near infinite possibilities of failure at every
step, shift, turn, leap, extension etc. Afterwards, note her contrasting state of intense
emotional release. This is a girl who, for a lifetime within a few minutes,
pushed herself to the brink of flawless Kata mastery. Rock the fuck on.
