Dumb Things Westerners Believe about Terrorism: Part Two

Myth Four: The West can defuse tension by seeking dialogue with terrorist groups and unfriendly governments.

Even Deepak knows there are some gulfs that can't be bridged

Barack Obama believed that when he was a candidate. He's wiser now. Call this myth "dreams gone wrong." Belief in reason is a foundational value in the West. It's a key component of what anthropologists call worldview. It's why the West (plus Asian democracies and secular China) pioneer in science, medical technology, electronics, consumer goods, creative culture, aeronautics, computers, and (alas!) military hardware. We believe in the power of reason so much that we have trouble understanding alternative worldviews.

Faith-based and ideological worldviews–including those of troublesome groups in the West–demote or reject the power of the reason. What person grounded in empiricism believes that 72 virgins will greet each religious martyr in the after-world? Or that prayer alone will set a broken arm? Or that it's fine to kidnap children? Or that it's logical to make threats against a military superpower when you command tin soldiers?

But you know what? It's pretty dumb to hew to the logical path when your adversary thinks reason is a bigger fairy tale than Cinderella. Diplomacy is for diplomats, not ideologues. If you're not on the same worldview page as your opponent you must either find some other sliver of common ground, or stop talking.

Myth Five: International bodies such as the United Nations and the World Court can mediate disputes.

Perhaps it's time to call many of these bodies noble experiments that have failed. Economic sanctions have a decent chance of working, but international law is an oxymoron. (See Myth Four!) It always has been. Does it matter if Al-Qaeda leaders are labeled as having committed crimes against humanity? Or that the Kymer Rouge committed war crimes? Only if you defeat them, something that blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers are forbidden by charter to attempt.

Reason can involve as much blind faith as a religious worldview. We treat international laws as if they are  objective standards of decency when they've never been more than a victor's fiction since the days of Nuremberg when they were invented. Classic example: If the Axis had won World War II, would the Holocaust or Pearl Harbor have been crimes against humanity? Nope, but the bombing of Dresden and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan would have been. Don't like hypotheticals?  Since World War II the only Westerners mentioned as possible war criminals are Americans associated with the My Lai Massacre and Serbian leaders. What do they have in common? Americans lost Vietnam and the Serbs the Yugoslav civil wars. The U.S. military prosecuted William Calley for My Lai and has since maintained the position that American combatants cannot be tried in international courts. The U.S. has also extended this principle to its Allies. Don't hold your breath waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu to be tried as a war criminal. On the other hand, I'd not get too comfortable if I were Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

At best, international bodies such as the UN, the World Court, and the Geneva Convention can restore some order after the fighting ends. At worst, they are idealistic anachronisms. In neither case can they be said to solve or prevent conflict–unless both sides are willing to submit to mediation.

Myth Six: The West wishes to bring democracy to the globe.

No, it doesn't. Nor would it if it could. There are legions of terrorist leaders in the world; often the only difference among them is that a few receive Western sanction for assumed titles such as president or king. You tell me what made El Salvador's Roberto D'Aubuisson, Chile's Augusto Pincohet, or Guatemala's numerous juntas valuable U.S. allies, but Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro were allegedly dangerous.

 The West has always been selective in its demonization of "tyrants," so why not just admit it's all about self-interest? In 1946, George Kennan counseled that the U.S. should identify and support "core" nations vital to U.S. interest, and mostly ignore "peripheral" lands inconsequential to those concerns. Then and now such advice smacks of cold-heartedness, but that doesn't mean he was wrong in describing what the West has done and should do. It should surprise no one that the West did little more than lament tragedies in Rwanda and Bosnia, but took an active role in Iraq. It's called oil, as in the first two have none but Kuwait and Iraq do.

Part of the Western improvements in Iraq

The West gets in big trouble when it thinks it can be a nation-builder. Does anyone with an ounce of Western worldview reason think that Iraq is better off today than when Sadam Hussein was in power?  Sure; all those elections have made it a pillar of hope–for ISIS. About those peripheral nations, Afghanistan or Palestine anyone? I'm uncomfortable with the idea, but would the West be any worse off to announce that it's done with nation building and that future acts of aggression against it will be met with indiscriminate force? Elections don't deter terrorists, and smiling boots on the ground don't make populaces embrace Western values. I'd prefer we butt out and let history run its course, but wasn't it Machiavelli who said it's better to be feared than loved?

Dumb Things Westerners Believe about Terrorism: Part One

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The barbaric murders at Charlie Hebdo magazine are the latest reminder that it's time for Westerners to jettison old myths, excuses, and practices concerning terrorism.

Myth One:  The label 'terrorist' is used only to describe Muslims and is a form of religious bigotry.

Believe it or not, the government calls these people terrorists as well

Nonsense! Roughly 875,000 Americans are on Homeland Security watch lists and it would be even more except that right-wing Republicans got pissed off when some of their looniest supporters appeared among then usual suspects. Even with the whittling the list of domestic terrorist organizations is large. (We presume the FBI has a long list as well, though it doesn't like to share.) If you think that only Muslims are seen as terrorists, you've been smoking too much medical marijuana.

The Black Panthers, Timothy McVeigh, the Weather Underground, the Unabomber, product tamperers (remember poisoned Tylenol), and lots of others have borne the label "terrorist." Groups currently monitored by Homeland Security include everything from anti-abortion groups and gangs to white supremacists and "paper terrorists" who use frivolous lawsuits and tax avoidance schemes to sabotage the federal bureaucracy. You'll find non-Muslim groups such as the Army of God (anti-abortion), Alpha 66 (Cuban exiles), the Animal Liberation Front, the Crips, the Earth Liberation Front, the Jewish Defense League, the Ku Klux Klan, the Phineas Priesthood (Christian terrorists), and various skinheads, hate groups, and neo-Nazi organizations on the list. And, yes, they are called "terrorists," not some euphemism.

Myth Two: Unless we respect all views, true freedom and a multicultural society are impossible.

That's what Noam Chomsky and the American Civil Liberties Union say–and it's rubbish. I stopped contributing to the ACLU back in the days when it defended Skokie, Illinois Nazis. The ACLU claimed that Nazi groups have rights too. My rejoinder is that freedom is in greater jeopardy when we give comfort to groups that, if successful, would eliminate freedom. Just look at fascism's historical record.

The principle extends to those seeking asylum or opportunity in the West. Those who  do not agree with the values or laws of the host nation, shouldn't immigrate there. Why should, for example, France, The Netherlands, or the U.K. accept an immigrant who believes in sharia law? This is a glaring inconsistency, as other nations do not reciprocate. Saudi Arabia, the Maldvies, and Yemen expressly forbid non-Muslims; numerous others persecute them. You certainly wouldn't wish to practice any non-sanctioned faiths in places such Cambodia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Sudan, or Vietnam. I suppose one could say, "We're better than that," but this misses the point. Sovereign nation-states–as opposed to lands under the grip of neo-tribal anarchy–define their civil codes. The very act of definition places limits on the outer boundaries of freedom. A "free" society is not one without rules or constraints; such conditions are the law-of-jungle antithesis of freedom. There is no multiculturalism in such lands, just conformity enforced by militarist might.

Myth Three: Islam is a religion of peace.

Not necessarily. Most of the world's Muslims practice peace, but Islam can be interpreted as militant.  The Qur'an–which I've actually read by the way–has numerous passages that (literally) sanction the forceful conversion, discrimination against, or killing of non-Muslims. The same is true of prophetic teaching collected as hadith literature.

Millions of Muslims view these passages as symbolic (as in overcoming temptation, or symbolically "slaying" the lure of other faiths), but we must acknowledge that much of political Islam interprets the Quar'an as literally as a Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Is there a difference? Yes. There is a pervasive return-to-the-Crusades mentality loose in today's Muslim world analogous to Christian Europe during the 15^th and 16th century wars of religion, or indeed the Crusades Europe launched in the 11^th century.

It's true that Muslims have no monopoly on violence, but when was the last time you saw scores of Christians or Hindus applaud using a 10-year-old girl as a suicide bomber? Many of the world's recent terrorist acts have indeed been done in the name of Islam: the seizure and beheading of hostages, the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the ritual killing of Daniel Pearl, 9/11, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the revival of anti-Semitism, the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, bombings across the globe (Boston, Indonesia, London, Madrid, India, Kenya…) And Islam has spawned barbarous groups such as Abu Sayaff, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, the Taliban, and dozens more. There are far too many to be dismissed as "rogues." Over the weekend Boko Haram slaughtered 2,000 Nigerians.  The best way for those Muslims appalled by this to change global perceptions of their religion  is to annihilate hate groups. About which….

They must do so themselves. History reveals that not much good can come of spreading faith by the sword. It also tells us, though, that outsiders don't fix the problems of others. The West can restrict who it allows to enter its own borders, but it should give Muslims abroad wide berth rather than trying to direct internal wars. Disengagement runs counter to the paths of globalism and economic integration, but if Westerners were honest, they'd admit that Cold War politics and oil have mattered more than what happens inside Muslim lands. Memo One: The Cold War is over. Memo Two: Most Western nations don't need the oil anymore. Russia's Putin's a jerk, but Europeans would be better off buying from him than terrorism exporters such as Saudi Arabia or Nigeria.  (The U.S. is now self-sufficient.) Let authoritarians like China buy from the theocrats. Memo Three: The West needs to pay more attention to domestic terrorists and those who should be deported, not the internal affairs of others.

Strong Performances Highlight The Imitation Game

THE IMITATION GAME (2014)

Directed by Morten Tyldum

Black Bear Pictures, PG-13, 114 minutes

* * * *

The Imitation Game tells the story of how World War Two British researchers cracked Nazi Germany's "Enigma" encryption code. As biography and history, The Imitation Game takes many liberties, but it's a very compelling screen story and is exceptionally well acted.

The film is (very) loosely based on Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), an individual who many regard as an architect of both computers and artificial evidence. Although based on a highly regarded biography by Andrew Hodges, the film exaggerates many aspects of Turing's character, his isolation, his afflictions, and his unhappy schoolboy years. It is structured like numerous other films in which an unlikely team of bright young minds solidifies in the name of a greater good.  An inspiring repeated line–"Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine"–is pretty much the arc of the story. Think films and TV shows you've seen of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, and the atomic bomb, then transpose these to Turing, Britain's Bletchley Park research center, and constructing a prototypical computer and that's the essence of The Imitation Game. This extends to the role of difficult military overseers with contempt for pinheads, Major Leslie Groves at Los Alamos, and Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance) at Bletchley. Spies also plagued both projects, and both Oppenheimer and Turing had closeted skeletons–Oppenheimer's leftwing politics and Turing's homosexuality. The latter theme is woven in and out of the film in ways open to charges of being a tack-on, though we do see Turing's life unravel in 1952, when he was arrested for "indecency," Britain's code word for homosexuality.

The Bletchley team included patrician scientist Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), Jack Good (James Northcote), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). (Downton Abbey viewers will recognize Leech as Tom.) The ensemble are terrific together, including Knightley who, as she often does not, turns in a very convincing performance as the cryptanalyst who was briefly Turing's fiancée. Especially riveting is Mark Strong, who plays MI6 head Stewart Menzies with an icy calculation that rivals the statistical output of the Bletchley Park scholars.  Ironically, Cumberbatch, though perfectly competent, is the least impressive member of the central cast, largely because he's essentially reprising his TV role as an autistic Sherlock Holmes. But there really aren't any weak links–the British simply don't junk up the screen with weak actors, no matter how small the role.

The Imitation Game is a taut and thrilling 114 minutes because the acting is so good and the stakes were so high. It's a very good film, though not a perfect one. Add Alexandre Desplat's score to the ever-growing list of overwrought composers. (Honestly, must soundtracks slap us in the ears to telegraph every action?) As noted earlier, the story on the screen departs from reality, including portraying Turing and Clarke as closer than they were. There are other dramatic contrivances and coincidences, some of them rather obvious. The film's title seems to have been chosen because it sounded good and then a scene was written to explain it. It references a test that helps determine if a response comes from a person or a machine–think Deckard in Blade Runner– but its applicability for this film feels forced. But there is little dispute that breaking the Enigma code was a major accomplishment that both shortened the war and saved untold numbers of Allied lives.

Spoiler Alert: Stop here until you've seen the film (which you should) as below I've listed several of the film's inaccuracies.

Rob Weir

-- Turing is not thought to have suffered from Asperger syndrome. He did, however, later suffer from gynecomastia caused by the court-ordered chemical "castration" drugs he took after his arrest.

--Turing, though an egghead, was not as socially isolated as the film suggests. He mentored several researchers before he was forced to leave Cambridge.

--The machine the team built was not named "Christopher" for Turing's unrequited schoolboy love; it was commonly called "Bombe."

--Turing did not invent the machine out of thin air; he refined models developed by Polish researchers.

--One dramatic scene shows the team making a decision that led to the death of Hilton's brother. This is a fabrication.

--Although Turing and Clare were affianced briefly, she probably knew of his homosexuality at the time. There is no evidence that she ever contacted him after the war ended and the Bletchley project shut down. 

--The film shows Turing and Cairncross working side by side and, in a key moment, Cairncross blackmails Turing to prevent him from revealing that he was a double agent. In truth, the two never worked together and there is no evidence Turing even knew Cairncross. (The latter was a thrice-confessed spy who–in one of the Cold War's many absurdities–never suffered any repercussions for being a Soviet spy.)

--The code-breaking machine (surprise!) developed slowly and incrementally, not in one big revelatory moment.

--Turing's team was not five (with Clarke an honorary member); over 1,500 people worked at Bletchley.

--The film states categorically that Turing killed himself in 1954. In fact, his suicide is conjectural. It is known that Turing was using the cyanide in his experiments and ingesting it could have been an accident. There was, however, a half-eaten apple by his nightstand that might have been the suicide delivery vehicle. It was never tested, though one theory holds that it was a macabre homage to Snow White, a film over which Turing was reportedly obsessed.

Lorrie Moore's Bark Lacks Bite

Bark: Stories (2014)

By Lorrie Moore

Knopf, 9780307594136, 208 pp.

* *

I got bamboozled by the Hype Machine, the one that praised Lorrie Moore's past work and assured me I'd be dazzled by her new stories and her stylish prose. I'm not a fan of short stories in general; my preferences gravitate toward complex characters, plots, and story development that need space to unfold. Courtesy of the hype, though, I put aside my short story skepticism to give Moore's first new collection in 16 years a try. I ripped through this thin volume very quickly, but not in a good way. Overall, Bark lacks bite.

Moore's new work consists of eight stories, each of which muses upon or mentions some meaning of the word bark. Clever or a contrivance? More the latter I fear. The most affecting story is the first, "Debarking," in which Ira comes to shed the wounds of a recent divorce. His interlude of self-flagellation preceding revelation includes a completely incompatible relationship with Zora, a pediatrician creepily over devoted to her sullen (spoiled? psycho? garden variety jerk?) son. In this sense, bark is an unpeeling of outer layers–much as a cork tree's exterior must be cut away to get at its inner cork/core. It's one of the longer pieces in the book, which may be why it works–we dwell long enough in the psyches of its characters to understand what makes them tick and what makes them unwind.

It's downhill from there. "Juniper Tree" is a diverting ghost story, but nothing special; "Foes" a rather obvious cautionary tale against snap judgments with a 9/11 twist that's more hammered in through the cracks than woven into the story's fabric. "Wings" could have/should have been a contender. It has an intriguing set up in which KC, a self-absorbed hipster/singer, and Dench, her boyfriend/artist, find themselves exiled in suburbia. KC encounters an elderly widower who shows her what she already knows: that Dench is a mooch and a genius only in his own mind. Then the story takes a weird turn, elides time, and ends on an improbable note. Oh yeah, KC meets the old man when she walks the dog. If that sounds a bit forced, it is. Bark! Bark! Woof!

The less said about the final three stories, the better. I have no idea who Moore's intended audience was in these, but she wasn't barking up my tree. There was quite a lot of unconvincing dialogue and breaking of sequential narrative in service of very little. As for Moore's prose style, the last few stories in particular seem destined to impress other writers more than general readers. In total, the book's central hook put me in mind of an old power game journalists play in which they slip the phrase "it was as if an occult hand had reached down" into a story and try to get it past their editors. Bark made me yearn for a big, thick, juicy novel–something to sink my teeth into, as it were.  Rob Weir

Insane City is Too Much Dave Barry

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INSANE CITY   (2013)

By Dave Barry

Berkley Trade, 400 pp. #9782425264720

* *

I used to read Dave Barry's columns religiously until he gave up the weekly grind back in 2005. I usually guffawed like a fool, even though I knew that a lot of Barry's humor was shtick and quite a bit more was sophomoric. In short, I was a fan. Alas, what one can get away with in 900 words wears really thin when stretched to 400 pages.

Insane City is a tale of a wedding gone wrong, but its real protagonist is Miami, the namesake metropolitan loony bin and one of Barry's frequent foils. Seth Weinstein has hit the romantic jackpot, or so he thinks. Seth is little more than a hunky slacker who does social media for a douche spray. To date, his greatest life  success was graduating with what may be the tallest empty pizza box collection in collegiate history. But his intended is the gorgeous Tina Clark, a high-powered (and high maintenance) attorney and the daughter of one of the richest men on the planet. All Seth has to do is get to the altar without screwing up. And, of course, that won't happen. Seth is capable of plenty of mayhem on his own, but the poor sap has no chance when his college buddies–aka/ the Groom Posse–decide to arrange a boys' night bachelor blowout.

There are plenty of laughs in a novel whose cast includes the following: an overweight stripper named LaDawne; her pimp boyfriend Wesley; the bride's stoner sister Meghan; an anal wedding planner who had her name legally changed to Blaze Gear; a grab-ass guru who goes by Banza Dazu; a tattooed (semi) tough guy, Duane; Cyndi, a well-endowed but slightly cheap Cuban woman; two muscled ex-cop (for a reason) bodyguards; a nine-foot albino python named Blossom; a Haitian woman, Laurette, who washes ashore with her two children; and a lovesick orangutan called Trevor. There's even a scene­–and I kid you not–that involves a pirate ship firing frozen chicken wings at a speeding tour boat trying to board it. Barry presents Miami as a repository for every kind of human being and animal except those one might dub 'normal.'

Does this sound funny? At times it's laugh out loud hilarious. It's just as often inane and dumb. Barry has never shied away from lowest common denominator humor, though sometimes we wish he would. We'd also like him to avoid strolling down Biggest Cliché Imaginable Boulevard. Tina, as you no doubt surmised, isn't the perfect catch. She's smart and has a body that turns heads, but she's also controlling, egoistic, spoiled, self-deceived, and in possession of every quality necessary for a Bridezilla. I'm a supporter of recycling, but I had my fill of Bridezilla books, TV shows, and movies decades ago. Insane City reads more like an ongoing Saturday Night Live sketch than a novel. To imagine the book's tone, think Carl Hiaasen crossed with The Three Stooges, and a little bit of Cheech and Chong. I'd call this a classic airplane book–the sort you  leave it in the seat pocket, and never give it another thought, even if you don't finish it. My emerging impression is that maybe Dave Barry is like the big gooey desserts on the Applebee's menu–a small taste is all you need. A second bite is too much.  –Rob Weir    

2014 Films that Gobbled

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There are so many mediocre movies these days that it's a distinction to be worthy of being singled out as a turkey. For me, the gobblers fall into two categories: those rated I for Incompetence and H for hyped beyond any virtue they might have had. Here's a digest of films I saw in 2014 that should be stricken from your Netflix cue.

August Osage County  (Rated H)

Okay, so it is possible for Meryl Streep to give a bad performance! She plays Mama Violet to a trio of screech daughters, but ain't nobody gonna out-yell Streep in this histrionic Oklahoma buffalo turd masquerading as a drama. I wished she had been a shrinking Violet.

Dallas Buyers Club (Rated H)

I'm willing to cut a deal. I'll admit that Matthew McConaughey has made himself into a decent actor if you promise not to tell me that this trite film is serious commentary on the 1980s, the AIDS crisis, sexual identity, or an awakening social consciousness. It's really like an episode of the TV series Dallas with too many swears and "adult themes" to have been green lighted. I will allow you to tell me that it is commentary on Texas.

Exscape from Tomorow

Escape from Tomorrow (Rated I)

Oh my goodness what a good director could have done with this material! Alas, the only thing interesting about Randy Moore's film is that he had to fend off potential lawsuits from Disney and Siemens to get it released. Dad Jim (Roy Abramsohn) comes unglued at Disney World when he finds out he's lost his job. Filmed in black and white, we see how Disney World is the vehicle for a descent into madness–its robots, faux dreamscape, and hyper-capitalism a gateway to debauchery, creepy stalking, and perhaps something even more sinister. It's hard to know if Moore was making social commentary or the worst sci-fi film since Plan 9 from Outer Space. Moore's film reminds me of ones we used to view and reject for a local film fest after commenting, "He might become a decent filmmaker if he ever grows up." Special actor horns to Abramsohn, who seems to be auditioning for a Chevy Chase bio-pic.

Force Majeure  (Rated H/I)

Other than offering a peek at the peaks of the French Alps, I can't think of a single reason why this Swedish snoozer should have been made. Nuclear family goes on ski holiday, where the raveling seams of a bad Yuppie marriage come apart when dad gets scared. That's about it. Oh, I forgot, there's also a very annoying soundtrack. This one pretends to be subtle, but that's because its director has no idea how to create believable tension.

Labor Day (Rated I)

Can Kate Winslet find love in a pie? Especially one baked by the convicted murderer and prison escapee that's holding her and her son hostage? Well… he is mighty handy as a carpenter as well, so sure, that could happen. This risible Jason Reitman film is an insult to the intelligence of a concrete block.

The Lego Movie (Rated H)

I'm officially baffled. Lots of people had this on their best-of lists. I've heard it called clever, subversive, and visually stunning. The film I couldn't watch any more after a half hour was obvious, saccharine, blocky, and dull. Check out the similarly named Logorama if you want to see subversive and clever; that 2009 short says more in 16 minutes than Lego manages in 100. All The Lego Movie really manages to do is confirm my thesis that movies are in serious trouble. It also made me wonder what happened to the CGI evolution. The herky-jerky movements and garishness of Lego make the old Rocky and Bullwinkle 'toons look prescient.

Wolf of Wall Street (Rated H)

Okay, I'll make another offer. If you will agree with me that Leo DiCaprio will never make us see anything other than his smug supercilious self on the screen, I'll agree to give Marty Scorsese one more chance before I declare him yesterday's bagel and toss him to the birds. Leo plays a sleaze ball. What? You expected Mary Poppins? Watching three hours of Leo behaving badly is like being stuck in a waiting room with nothing but People Magazine to read. 

A final note: I didn't hate Boyhood, which was okay. It was, however, way over-hyped. I found its central hook of filming real people over a long period puzzling within a fictional narrative. Recent viewings of Michael Apted's magisterial 7 Up series drive home the differences.

Reel Trouble in Movie Land: 2014 as an Art Sinkhole

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Okay, I know film is digital now and that my title is anachronistic, but you know what I mean. It's a new year and something all culture bloggers are supposed to do is weigh in on the ten best films of the year past. I can't do it. Unless the late-arriving Oscar contenders are absolute dynamite, 2014 will go down as one of the worst years in cinema history. Does this portend the end? Maybe.

I suppose if you live in London or near a little art cinema in Tribeca, you might be able to find ten great films, but these days most of us live in the Land of Limited Options. Art houses have folded like a poker player down to his last buck and that doesn't portend well for the future of cinema.  Low-budget indie films, foreign offerings, and below-the-radar "small" pictures don't get a lot of love from Hollywood, but the latter sucks from their buzz like a blood-deprived leech. What non-industry films have always done is instill a love of movies among those looking for more than a cheap date venue. Hollywood blockbusters lure young folks to mall cinemas, but they don't create lifelong moviegoers. Look around your town. How many flicks are on offer that appeal to someone over the age of 25? In the short-term feeding frenzy known as advanced capitalism that's fine, but I'm not seeing a lot of long-term viability. Hollywood has been riding a baby boomlet that's already crested; very soon, it will run low on 15-25 year olds. Reckoning Day will comes when today's moviegoers –gasp!–turn 30, look at what's playing at the local theater, and announce themselves as disinterested as I felt in 2014.

Here is my very short list of exceptional films for 2014–the ones that make you think movies are art. It includes some that were, technically, 2013 releases–those that opened in New York of LA, but nowhere else until early March of 2014. In order of preference:

Birdman (Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2014)

This one takes the piss out of the very Hollywood blockbuster problem noted above. Riggan (Michael Keaton) is a superhero matinee idol too old for the part, bored with its lowbrow caché, and filled with remorse for the muck he's made of his life. He seeks respectability as a Broadway director and seeks to keep his demons at bay long enough to salvage respect. Among his obstacles is a caustic actor (Ed Norton) whose ego and cynicism surpass his own, and a troubled daughter (Emma Stone) who reminds him of his past inequities. Will life again imitate art? Will Riggan achieve an epiphany? Disappear down a magical realism hole? Find redemption? Little is what it seems in this inventive and deliciously weird film.

Locke (Directed by Steven Knight, 2013)

The most taut and anxious 85 minutes imaginable and all that happens is that Ivan Locke (Tim Hardy) takes a nighttime drive from Birmingham to London while chatting incessantly on his car phone. All he has to do in that 85 minutes–filmed in real time–is save a construction project, his marriage, his sense of honor, and calm the hysterical one-night stand about to birth his child. Is Ivan a god-like puppet master, or a knave about to take the fall for the one time in his life in which he strayed from the straight and narrow?

The Great Beauty ("La grande bellezza," Directed by Paulo Sorrentino, 2013)

Beloved playboy journalist Jep (Toni Servillo) has spent decades cavorting among Rome's rich and beautiful in round after round of partying and debauchery. He cleanses his soul by immersing himself in the Eternal City's art and culture. Jep awakes on his 65^th birthday to the realization that, even were he not too old to persist in his libertine ways, he is bored by its ephemerality and dull sameness. Can eternal beauty save him? And can he, in turn, save other troubled souls through art? Call this one Fellini for a new generation.

The Past (Directed by Asghar Farhadi, 2013)

This superb telling of William Faulkner's adage that "the past is never dead" takes us to Paris, where an Iranian man, Ahmad (Ali Mosfta), has returned to visit the wife, Marie, and step-child he abandoned four years earlier when he chose to live in theocratic Iran rather than the materialist West. Ahmad is there to grant Marie the divorce she seeks, though in her (Bérénice Bejo, The Artist) he experiences anew all that led him to and away from the West. Moreover, he sees the turmoil swirling around Marie and her daughter and must decide anew whether to act or flee. This is a subtle but powerful tale of what happens to a man of conscience when right and wrong blur.   

That's it, folks. If pressed to add a few also-rans of good-but-flawed films, I'd offer these (in alphabetical order): Captain Phillips; Deceptive Practice: Ricky Jay; Finding Vivian Maier; Ida; Jodorsky's Dune; Life Itself; Theory of Everything; and Tim'sVermeer. Notice how absent Hollywood is from my list?

Rob Weir