The 2014 Oscar The Grouches.

The Top 20

1. The Policeman's Wife (Philip Gröning - Germany)

2. Exhibition (Joanna Hogg - UK)

3. Nymph()maniac Volumes 1 & 2 (Lars Von Trier - Denmark/UK)

4. Goltzius And The Pelican Company (Peter Greenaway - Netherlands/UK)

5. Mr Turner (Mike Leigh - UK)

6. Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer - UK)

7. The Past (Asghar Farhadi - France/Iran)

8. The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi - Afghanistan)

9. The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh - Cambodia/France)

10. 12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen - UK)

11. With You, Without You (Prasanna Vithanage - Sri Lanka)

12. The Congress (Ari Folman - France/Israel)

13. The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (Elina Psikou - Greece)

14. Venus In Fur (Roman Polanski - France)

15. Sofia's Last Ambulance (Ilian Metev - Bulgaria)

16. Stranger By The Lake (Alain Guiraudie - France)

17. Meteora (Spiros Stathoulopoulos - Greece)

18. Attila Marcel (Sylvain Chomet - France)

19. Fill The Void (Rama Burshtein - Israel)

20. Two Days, One Night (The Dardenne Brothers - Belgium)

Performance of the Year

Jessica Chastain - Salomé

Glorious, girlish, ridden with rejection, she teases, demands, dances, deals, masks her face with her veils, wraps them around herself like Red Riding Hood; her skin as incandescently pale as the feathers of a dove, as the moon of which she speaks, she writhes like Shinsuke Nakamura, bites her words, spits them out replete with teeth marks, her lips and her fingertips mottled with drops of blood. She weaves false memories to her lust, her adoration, her hate and passion alike. She asks for love with rage and sobs. She rises and descends, she lives and dies with a heart full of throat. She is strong and yet weak, alive and yet myth. She is all. There just wasn’t a better actor this year.


Short Film of the Year
Buy Bling Get One Free! (Kosuke Takaya - Japan)

Cleverly written and innovatively shot Kosuke Takaya's satire of youth and fashion consistently plays with genre expectations, places genuine horror alongside bizarre farce and has the best giraffe related moment of the year. For that alone it comes highly recommended.

Most Surprising Performance

Julia Roberts - August: Osage County

If you'd told me at the start of the year that Julia Roberts would have been the best actress in anything I'd probably have either dismissed you, the film itself or both. If you'd told me that she would be the best actress in a film starring Meryl Streep I'd have doubtless sworn at you and thrown my hands in the air, exhausted by your constant tomfoolery. But that is the situation August: Osage County presents us with. Here Roberts is ferocious, raw, desperately trying to curb an explosion (mostly her own) amid familial obligations and at a career best. Given the power and frayed emotion of her character I fully understand if she never wants to reach this level again but, in a selfish way, I hope she does.
Full review: http://whyiswilhelmscreaming.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/i-think-what-you-said-is-true-im-going.html


Frustrating Fucktrumpet of the Year
Ali Abbas Zafar

Zafar's thundering Gunday was very probably the film that caused me the most turmoil while picking a top twenty. On the one hand, it was cinematically the best Bollywood film I saw this year and quite possibly one of my top five overall. On the other it was wildly racist. As his mainstream breakthrough it should have launched Zafar's career into the top line and marked him out as a talent to watch and cherish for years to come. As it is he may never be allowed to direct again. Say it with me - fucktrumpet.


Funniest Scene
Moebius

Often considered a purveyor of human cruelty, the ever-experimental South Korean director Kim Ki-duk's films have traditionally been nothing to laugh at and, for the most part, his latest Moebius is no different. Except in one deadpan scene that is. To describe it may spoil part of the pleasure so all I'll say is that it invokes The Hands of Orlac...except with a penis.