March 2013, Richmond, Virginia. Matthew E White's Big Inner album has become a minor word-of-mouth sensation: a country-soul fantasia, saturated with lavish horn and string arrangements, mostly recorded in the attic of his Richmond house (You can read my 2013 interview with Matthew E White here).
On December 3 last year, Nigel Godrich sent an early Christmas present to his 62,000 followers on Twitter. In a move doubtless sanctioned by his old friends, the producer posted a photograph of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood poring over a fiendish tangle of studio kit, styled very much as radiophonic engineers absorbed in the process.
In Birdman, Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a veteran film actor who is eager to rebuild his reputation. Like Keaton, Thomson is largely remembered for playing a superhero 25 years ago. And, like Keaton, he has spent much of the intervening quarter of a century explaining why he abdicated from that role – in Thomson’s case, Birdman 4; Keaton, meanwhile, turned his back on Batman.
The current issue of Uncut features our albums of the year list, compiled by the Uncut team, along with the best reissues and compilations of the year, and the best films and books.
Here, for your consideration, is Uncut's list of the 20 Best Films Of 2014. If you're interested in the administrative aspect of this list, it was voted for by a shadowy cabal of Uncut staffers, writers and a few trusted confidants. It broadly dovetails with my own personal Top 20, though I think the film that's stuck with me most throughout the year is the wonderfully strange Under The Skin. But I won't detain you further. Have a great Christmas and New Year, by the way: see you in 2015.
