Not Coming to a Theater Near You

In years past, we have taken up the task of looking back on the last twelve months, like so many venerable cultural-gatekeeping sites in the cybersphere. Most year-in-review-top-whatever-that-was-the-year-that-was things embody much the same form, with close-knit coteries of critics polling one another in some kind of statistical simulation of democracy in which the _Gravity_s, the Kanyes, and the Nelson Mandelas tentpole a roundabout approximation of the year that was.

We have done much the same in these pages, but have attempted to sidestep the critical consensus by honoring the idiosyncrasy of our writers and wholeheartedly supporting our bias for the old over the new. And thus, our years in review may be construed for their difference—a difference marked by contrarianism, anachronism, obscurantism, compulsion, and, above all, variety.

By Adam Balz, Abbey Bender, Sam Bett, Veronika Ferdman, Jonathan Foltz, Cullen Gallagher, Leo Goldsmith, Glenn Heath Jr., Briallen Hopper, Ian Johnston, Victoria Large, Michael Nordine, and Rumsey Taylor   ©2014 NotComing.com