Top 20 scenes of 2014: 10-1

Directors: Jean_Pierre Dardennes, Luc Dardennes / Cast: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salée
Writers: Jean_Pierre Dardennes, Luc Dardennes / Cinematography: Alain Marcoen

A reflection of modern industry that's a little too close for comfort, Two Days, One Night sees Marion Cotillard's factory worker let go after being signed off for depression, with her co-workers effectively signing her death warrant by opting for their bonuses instead of choosing to keep her on. The Dardennes brothers signpost the road ahead - Cotillard's beleagured Sandra, haggard and frail, will doorstep each of her colleagues to see if she can change their minds. The results, you feel, will either be negative or positive - they will either stick to their guns and take the money which they've earned, or they'll be guilt-tripped into giving in. Not in every case.

Midway through the film, Sandra approaches her colleague Timur, who she finds playing football near his home. Upon seeing her, Timur rushes over to the sidelines and lets her speak, barely allowing her to finish before he bursts into tears and professes his long-festering guilt as to his original vote. Bent in two with genuine contrition, Timur apologises profusely, tears streaming down his face, and thanks Sandra for giving him a chance to lift his burden. By the end of their encounter, she is comforting him.

It's an unexpected ray of sunshine beamed through an otherwise cloudy film, hung heavy with doom and gloom. Two Days, One Night lays bare the human condition; the different ways people behave when their morals are questioned and their livelihoods are threatened. The Dardennes showcase a full spectrum of emotion and don't pull any punches, but Timur's redemption is a welcome reminder that light can still reach you even when you're down a deep, dark hole. Ali


Director: Bryan Singer / Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence
Writers: Simon Kinberg (screenplay), Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn (story) /
Cinematography: Newton Thomas Sigel

The past X-Men characters from the future meet the present X-Men characters from the past! Old Xavier meets Young Xavier, Old Magneto acts a bit like Young Magneto, Same Wolverine becomes Same Wolverine's Gratuitous Butt... in among the combining of these TWO ensemble casts of already popular characters, it says a lot that the stand-out star is new mutant Quicksilver. And it's all thanks to this one scene.

This set-piece is a stop-everything break of pure pleasure in a film that is otherwise evenly balanced to within an inch of its runtime. With time standing (relatively) still, the perfectly-pitched ADHD-infused tearaway saves the day with his tongue stuck firmly in his G-Force shaking cheek. He moves fired bullets, positions security guards into precarious situations and even tries some of the mid-air spilled soup, all to the low-key sombre crooning of Jim Croce's Time In a Bottle.

Just like any movie involving special powers with undefined limitations, it's best not to think too hard about the logistics. So don't question why Quicksilver puts on his headphones even though the whole scene occurs, real-time, in the blink of an eye. Don't wonder whether that means he is listening to a sped up version of the song. Or if THAT suggests that he also listens in superspeed. Or er... what that even means.

What is important is that X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a pretty much perfect celebration of the entire X-Men franchise to date and yet, barring a few time-travel related continuity questions, the only problem anybody seemed to have with the film is that Quicksilver is barely in it. That he is inexplicably sent home despite the fact that there is still a major apocalyptic event to be prevented is the craziest decision ever made in the X-Men universe. Well, that and casting Vinnie Jones. Matt

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Director: James Gunn / Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista
Writers: James Gunn, Nicole Perman / Cinematography: Ben Davis

It's Chris Pratt goofing around.

I mean, it's so much more than that, obviously. It's the continuation of the film's all-important soundtrack, it's picking up a hanging thread about how dancing is an all-bonding expression of freedom and individual personality, and it's Marvel subverting its own reliance on big-budgeted, bombastic set-pieces by cutting through the film's own pompous climax with a record-scratch scene of sheer silliness. But it's mostly Chris Pratt goofing around.

It is also a perfect representation of Guardians Of The Galaxy's overall tone - an altogether more irreverent take on the superhero genre that swaps hotchpotch resourcefulness for the standard "strong belief in truth, justice and the American way". This is a movie where – rightly so, considering its setting in the infinite cosmos - it feels like anything can happen. While director James Gunn doesn't exactly throw out the Marvel rulebook, it seems like he has gone through it like a teenager would with a biro, scribbling rude words in the margin and drawing moustaches on all the important illustrations. He sticks to the subject matter and ticks all the boxes in setting up The Avengers 15, or whatever, but, everywhere else, he is deliberately poking fun into every scene.

And so we have this interruption in the final climactic showdown, making this a film where the world is literally saved by a funny gag. Of course, the scene does other things too: it emphasises Peter Quill's heroism in the face of an all-powerful supervillain, fulfilling his character arc in making a brave, selfless act, while also highlighting that – in this film at least – having fun is so much more important than telling a serious epic story.

But it's also just Chris Pratt goofing around.

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Director: Richard Linklater / Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke
Writer: Richard Linklater / Cinematography: Lee Daniel, Shane F. Kelly

I was braced for tears. A movie about youth and young manhood that plays out in real time? With a rapidly growing wee boy waiting for me back at home? My mind was already made up: Boyhood would ruin me. As it happens, I didn't shed a single tear, at least not until the movie was over. It made a deeper impact; a more lasting impression - one that'll probably stay with me my whole life. The moment those credits roll, 12 years in the waiting, the enormity of Boyhood washed over me - not just the near-impossibility of the achievement, but the bonds that had been forged that were now to be no more than memories.

An end credit epiphany is rare - few films make me want to sit and reflect instead of high-tailing it out to beat the crowds. Boyhood makes it easy. Linklater ends his opus with Mason (the excellent Ellar Coltrane) staring out into the wild blue yonder, his whole life ahead of him, his childhood a distant memory but still so vivid in your mind's eye. The cut to black takes a lifetime to come, but it still feels abrupt - a full stop to a sentence you don't ever want to end. Boyhood doesn't feel like a movie that should have an ending - it's impossible to think that Mason stops existing once the final reel stops playing.

The opening bars of Arcade Fire's 'Deep Blue' gently ease you back into the room, the lyrics dreamily cooing of the past as a foreign land ("I was only a child then / Feeling barely alive when / I heard a song from the speaker of a passing car / And prayed to a dying star"). It's one of those perfect marriages of music to film, forever entwined - a beautiful end to a beautiful film that still brings a tear to my eye whenever I revisit it.

Read the full review | Ali's thoughts on Boyhood and fatherhood



Director: Jonathan Glazer / Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Paul Brannigan
Writers: Jonathan Glazer, Walter Campbell / Cinematography: Daniel Landin

I have seen some disturbing imagery in my time. Exploding heads. Twitching bodies in bags. Seth Rogen's nutsack. But nothing prepared me for the emotional impact of the beach scene in Under The Skin. Jonathan Glazer's extraterrestrial eye captures a series of indelible images - an abstract construction of a human eyeball, a overlaid collage of human life that knits itself into a terrifying golden mesh, the papery skin of a man bursting before your very eyes - but there's something deeply unsettling about the scene in which an infant is abandoned on a stony Scottish beach, his parents having long since been swallowed by the sea. It taps into a very primal urge to protect those that are vulnerable. But you can't help. All you can do is sit and watch.

There's no swifter way for Glazer to illustrate the lack of humanity in his characters - the essence of their alienness. Scarlett Johansson's predator watches with glassy eyes as a woman is swept out to sea trying to save her dog, then again while her husband perishes trying to save her, only acting to kill a surfer who attempted to save both of them. All the while, the cries of their baby go unheard. Later, at night, Johansson's protector, clad in motorbike leather, strides towards the weeping infant - dirty and distressed - as it wails hopelessly. Grabbing the towel nearby, the only evidence its parents were on the beach, the biker turns on his heel, leaving the child to die, waves lapping at his little feet. There isn't a soul alive who could fail to be affected by such a startling image. The whole movie can be distilled down to those few seconds.

Fittingly, it's a scene that genuinely gets under your skin. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I still can't. It lingers in the darkest recesses of my mind. Even creating that image above was upsetting. I know it's a work of fiction. I know that baby is alive and well and it's all movie magic ("On set, the baby's mother was just out of frame, a foot and a half away," said Glazer. "The baby is only crying for 10, 15 seconds"). But nothing will make me forget how deeply that image affected me - the most disturbing, unforgettable scene of 2014 without a doubt. Ali

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Embedding is disabled but you can watch the clip here on YouTube, you sick fuck
Way to end on a high! Hopefully 2015 will bring more awesome superheroes and intergalactic adventures and attractive people making out and bros high-fiving and rad Jonah Hill movies and fewer babies abandoned on beaches OH GOD WHY CAN'T I FORGET. See you next year! (In two days).