Well now that we’ve got the crappers of the year out of the
way, and given some of the terrible films that I have seen this year I am so
glad that this is the case, it’s time to start looking back on this past year
to highlight the really good stuff from this year in movies. And really, as far
as films go, 2014 was a pretty darn good year. Sure, this year may have become
infamous for certain events, like the recent Sony hacking scandal over the film
‘The Interview’ (which is even sadder considering that the film itself isn’t
very good), and unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of great film legends this year
like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, which unfortunately is just to
name a few, but as far as the films went, a lot of them were really good. This
year had a lot of excellent blockbusters and also some strong award contenders
as well, giving audiences a nice variety of films to enjoy. So now it’s time
for the one thing that you can always expect from film fans like me whenever a
year is over… Top 10 lists! But, if you’re new to this blog, I actually do a
Top 12 list for the ‘Best of the Year’ instead of a ‘Top 10’ list. Why? Well,
because I do see a lot of movies and I want to cover as many that I liked as
possible, which I feel usually can’t be done in just a ‘Top 10’ list. I’ve seen
some people this year actually do a Top 20 best given all of the great films
from this year but I won’t be doing a list that big.
Before I start though, let me lay down the three main
disclaimers that I always put out before I do these ‘Best of’ lists. Rule
number one is to warn you all that this is a SPOILER post. I will be talking
about key plot-points of the films on this list in great detail so if you have
not seen any of these films, I recommend you watch them first before reading what
I have to say about them. Second, like every year, I haven’t seen every major
movie from this year’s lineup of films. So, if you don’t see a film like ‘The
Grand Budapest Hotel’, ‘Whiplash’, or ‘Birdman’ on here, this is why. And with
that said, I will put this out there in that my list primarily consists of
blockbusters. I’ve heard some people say that there’s not much of an excuse to
have a blockbuster heavy list due to all of the great films from this year but
I feel that this is an unfair statement to people like me who don’t go out of their
way to go see the big award contenders. I just see what I want to see and a lot
of times, the films I see are blockbusters. And finally, and most importantly,
please be respectful of my opinion of these films as I know that some of you
will no doubt disagree with me on certain films (or in some cases how I rank ‘em).
Film is subjective so something one person likes won’t exactly be someone
else’s cup of tea. All I ask is that you don’t give me or anyone else who likes
one of these movies crap just because you didn’t like it. Comments like those
(that say something along the lines of ‘your opinion doesn’t matter’ or
something similar to that) unfortunately are still fairly common throughout the
internet and they give all of us film fans a bad name. So do us all a favor and
just don’t do it. So now with all of that out of the way, let’s get on with the
list. But first, as always… the Honorable Mentions and this year I have 6.
VERONICA MARS
First, a quick disclaimer; I was not one of the 91,585
backers who donated money to this film on Kickstarter when the campaign was
first launched back in March 2013. That’s because at the time I hadn’t seen the
show yet but after it made headlines for breaking multiple Kickstarter records,
I decided to finally check it out and as you probably recall from the two
‘Veronica Mars’ posts I did back in March (reviews of both the movie and the TV
show), I, like many, fell in love with the show for its smart writing that
elevated it from being just your average teen drama and for its many memorable
characters, highlighted especially by one of the best female leads of any TV
show in Veronica Mars, played perfectly by Kristen Bell. And really, that’s all
I need to say because the movie is pretty much the same thing. I will admit
that it’s kind of difficult to recommend this movie in a way for anyone who
hasn’t the show but ultimately I don’t think that it’s necessarily required to
have seen the show first before watching the movie. But like ‘Serenity’, the
film adaptation of the show ‘Firefly’ that, like ‘Veronica Mars’, also got
prematurely canceled before it could really shine, I do recommend you check it
out because it really is a great show and it will make watching the film even more
satisfying.
EDGE OF TOMORROW
‘Edge of Tomorrow’ was one of the most critically acclaimed
blockbusters of the year, but ultimately it wasn’t as big of a commercial
success. Sure, it at least got its budget back so it wasn’t a complete
disaster. But here in the U.S., it really underperformed, just barely reaching
$100 million domestically while the international box office had to help save
the film from being a total box-office bomb. Still, this lead to a lot of film
fans becoming very depressed over the fact that while a critically reviled
movie like ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ ended up grossing more in one week
than ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ had grossed domestically at that point in time, ‘Edge’
was struggling to make it big here in the U.S. (believe me, I’ve seen many,
many people say this). Ultimately though, while I do like the film, I don’t
technically ‘love it’ as much as others do. Yes, the film features some
incredible action sequences and a lot of funny dark humor and both Tom Cruise
and Emily Blunt are fantastic here, with Cruise playing against type as a
character who’s initially a coward before he becomes a badass and Blunt proving
to be a top-notch action star. Ultimately though, it just wasn’t one of my
absolute favorites from this year (again remember folks, this is all just my
opinion). Don’t get me wrong, though… I still really liked it but this is why
it’s only an Honorable Mention on my list.
BIG HERO 6/THE LEGO MOVIE
Just on account that there were a lot of great movies that
came out this year, these two animated films just barely missed the Top 12. But
with that said, I do want to emphasize the fact that these are two terrific
animated films. ‘The LEGO Movie’ could’ve easily ended up being a
commercial/soul-less cash grab being that it was based on the popular
construction toy brand LEGO. But, under the direction of Phil Lord and Chris
Miller, who at this point can do no wrong, ‘The LEGO Movie’ was full of heart
and did a great job at highlighting the popularity of the LEGO brand; in other
words, it was pretty much a love letter to the LEGO fan-base. Also, the
animation was outstanding and the voice-acting was excellent from top to bottom.
‘Big Hero 6’, the latest animated film from Disney, once again showed that Disney
is now back on track in terms of their animated films, as was shown in recent
years with films like ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ and, of course, ‘Frozen’. ‘Big Hero 6’,
inspired by the Marvel comic book series of the same name, is pretty much the
animated equivalent of watching a Marvel Cinematic Universe film; it’s loads of
fun, it has a bunch of memorable characters (especially the healthcare robot
Baymax), and has some awesome action sequences, which in the case of this film
is benefitted from excellent animation. And of course, as one might expect from
a Disney film, it’s also got a lot of heart. I won’t try and compare it to
‘Frozen’ as some people have done, but it’s safe to say that Disney is in the
middle of its second animation Renaissance.
FURY
As I said in my Top 10 worst list in which I listed director
David Ayer’s other film from this year, ‘Sabotage’, at Number 3, ‘Fury’ and
‘Sabotage’ are similar in a lot of ways, namely in regards to being very brutal
in terms of their violence and for having a cast of characters that, for the
most part, could be rather unlikable. However, while ‘Sabotage’ was just
violence for the sake of violence with a cast of irredeemable characters,
‘Fury’ handled these aspects a lot better in my opinion. The brutal violence
does work in ‘Fury’ because it’s a war movie and let’s face it; war is brutal
and it can really bring out the darkest parts of humanity in all who partake in
it. And sure, the main characters of ‘Fury’ can be fairly unlikable at times in
regards to them constantly mocking the new addition to the crew of the tank
‘Fury’, Ellison, for his inexperience in tank combat. But there are times where
you can see that there is still some humanity in them and it’s clearly shown
that in war, sympathy won’t get you very far. The action sequences in ‘Fury’
are superb, the five leads all do excellent jobs, and you can really sense the
camaraderie amongst them. ‘Fury’ may be a very hard-hitting war film, but it’s also
a very compelling war film.
INTO THE WOODS
While it’s true that Disney toned down a lot of the darker
parts of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s multiple Tony Award-winning
fairytale musical, I feel that the changes were ultimately for the better.
Because while ‘Into the Woods’ does get fairly dark in the second half of the
film, for the most part it’s a very light-hearted story with a lot of humorous
moments. And while it can be a bit over-the-top at times, it’s understandable
given that it’s a fairy-tale, more specifically a ‘crossover’ of famous
characters like Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. This film benefits from
some really stunning visuals, solid musical numbers, and a great ensemble cast
from top to bottom, highlighted by Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep in the roles of
the Baker’s Wife and the Witch, respectively. Now because I haven’t seen the
original Broadway musical, I can’t say much about how much this film stays true
to it. But even with the toned down changes in mind, I think that it will at
least do the musical justice… but then again, this is from the perspective of
someone who hadn’t seen the original musical so please keep that in mind.
Speaking of musicals, to kick things off at Number 12, we
have my pick for the most underrated film of the year. Many will no doubt list
‘Edge of Tomorrow’ as their most underrated but like I said earlier, that film
was well-received by critics so really it’s only underrated in the sense of its
box-office performance here in the U.S. This film, on the other hand, did not
get that same recognition either critically or commercially.
12. JERSEY BOYS
I’m not going to lie… this has quite frankly become my
favorite musical ever. I’ve had the soundtrack playing on repeat ever since I
first saw the film adaptation of the popular Tony Award-winning musical ‘Jersey
Boys’ and after seeing it a second time in theaters, I then went to go see the
actual musical on Broadway. For anyone’s who unfamiliar with it, ‘Jersey Boys’
is based on the true story of the rise and fall of the famous 60’s
rock-and-roll group The Four Seasons. Though for the record, it’s mostly
dramatizing the events so obviously not every moment in the story actually
happened in real life. Still, it’s a very fun musical featuring some great
classic music that quite frankly is much better than a lot of songs we hear
today (and no, I don’t care if I sound like an old man for saying that).
However, the film adaptation first interested me not because of the musical
itself (which I hadn’t seen yet at the time), but because it was directed by
none other than Clint Eastwood. Who would’ve thought that the star of the ‘Dollars
Trilogy’ and director of gritty dramas like ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘Mystic River’
would ever direct a film based on a Broadway musical? Well you see, considering
that this story does feature elements like the mafia and that the main
characters sometimes ran into trouble with the law, you can sort of see why
Eastwood was actually a really good choice to direct this film.
While the film is maybe just a bit overlong, I did like its
fairly laid-back pace and I was still very much engrossed in the story,
particularly when the Four Seasons actually do get together, which I feel is
where the film really shines. All four leads work off each other very well and
they all do a terrific job performance-wise, with the biggest standout being
Vincent Piazza (who you might recognize from ‘Boardwalk Empire’) in the role of
Tommy DeVito. I didn’t realize this until after seeing the actual musical, but
Tommy is quite frankly the best character in the entire musical given that he
arguably has the best material to work with as compared to the other three
leads. But even with that said, the other three (John Lloyd Young as Frankie
Valli (reprising the role that he originated when the musical first made its
debut in 2005), Erich Bergen as Bob Gaudio, and Michael Lomenda as Nick Massi)
are all superb as well. The songs were performed live on set and while 2012’s
‘Les Miserables’ made this practice rather controversial for fans of musicals,
it’s actually done to great effect here, mostly notably with what is arguably
the musical’s most famous number when Frankie Valli performs ‘Can’t Take My
Eyes Off of You’.
Now I’m not going to compare this film to the musical that
much as they’re both their own thing but I will say that there are two major
advantages that the musical has over the film. In the key scene at the end of
the story when Frankie’s daughter Francine tragically dies of a drug overdose,
the song ‘Fallen Angel’ is performed in the musical. In the movie, however, the
song ‘My Eyes Adored You’ was used a second time after its original use in the
scene where Frankie divorces his wife Mary. For the record, I have nothing
against that song as it is a really good song, but I feel that ‘Fallen Angel’
is much more fitting for that scene. Also, the film does away with the
narrative structure of the musical, where the story was done in four ‘seasons’
(get it?), though really it’s not that big of a loss here. Though I will give
the movie credit in that it does one thing better than the musical in that it
gives some much needed development to the relationship between Frankie and
Francine. In the musical, which by the way the actress who first played the
role of Francine when it first debuted is still in the role and is now old
enough to the point where she also plays Frankie’s mother (which is just weird),
they don’t share any major scenes together aside from a talk on the phone. The
movie adds in a scene where Frankie talks to her at a diner which I feel is one
of the absolute best scenes in the movie, where they both realize that things
haven’t been going the way they were hoping it would and that Frankie regrets
not being there enough for her. It’s a terrific scene that adds much needed
depth to a plot-point that was just glossed over in the musical. And in short,
‘Jersey Boys’ may not be the best musical ever (I do agree with the RT
consensus in that it is a fairly straight-forward entry in the musical biopic
genre) but it’s surely a film that deserves much more attention than what it
got while it was in theaters.
Splitting the final book of a popular series into two films
has been a rather controversial practice and my Number 11 pick is no doubt
proof of that. But, in the end, I found that I was in support of the decision
to split the final book of this series into two films based on the quality of the
first half of the story.
11. THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY- PART 1
In 2010, the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise became the first major
film series based on a popular book series to split the final entry in its
series, in this case ‘Deathly Hallows’, into two separate films. While I was
fairly hesitant about the decision, ultimately it worked out in the series’
favor as there was enough material to satisfy two feature films. And because it
worked so well for ‘Potter’, other studios began to do the exact same thing
with their book-to-film franchises but not really to the same results.
‘Twilight’ split ‘Breaking Dawn’ into two films and without even seeing them, I
could tell that it wasn’t going to work based on the poor quality of the
previous films. And while the final entry in the ‘Divergent’ series,
‘Allegiant’, hasn’t yet been adapted to film, the fact that I wasn’t too
compelled by ‘Divergent’ tells me that this won’t be a good idea either. And
then we have ‘The Hunger Games’ and its final entry, ‘Mockingjay’. Ever since
it was first announced that ‘Mockingjay’ was to be split into two films, the
reaction has been fairly mixed to negative as many feel that there wasn’t
enough material to justify two feature films. And that response has pretty much
been the same now that the first ‘Mockingjay’ film has been released as many
have felt that it was just a fairly dull ‘set up’ for Part 2. I, however,
disagree…
The big complaint with this film is that there wasn’t enough
action, which I actually think is rather unfair to blame the film for as
‘Deathly Hallows Part 1’ was also a very slow film with less action than
‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’. Anyway, I agree that the length of ‘Mockingjay’
doesn’t really justify two films, though comments made by the filmmakers eased
my worries a bit before seeing the film. Apparently, this was done because when
author Suzanne Collins first wrote the book, she was pressured by the studio
and had to cut out certain plot elements in order to meet their demands.
Because of this, I feel that the movie does succeed in expanding upon certain
things, like giving characters like Effie (who brings much-needed levity to the
bleaker atmosphere of this part of the story) more to do compared to their
roles in the novel. That has actually been an advantage that the movies have
had over the books in that because the movies don’t have the first-person
narrative from Katniss’ perspective, we’re allowed to see more of this universe
and the characters within it. And admittedly that’s a good thing seeing how
Katniss isn’t necessarily the most likable lead ever (and this film is kind of
proof of that fact), though Jennifer Lawrence is once again superb in the role
as she’s always been. Though in the case of this film, I actually have to give
the most credit to Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. The transformation that the
character goes through in this is fascinating and this is Hutcherson’s best
performance in the role to date.
But the big reason why I feel that it does work to have this
in two parts is that ‘Part 1’ does have a legitimate beginning and end with a
very clear goal for the main characters, specifically Katniss is looking to
rescue Peeta, who was captured by the Capitol at the end of ‘Catching Fire’.
And by the end of this film, that goal is met though we learn that Peeta has
been brainwashed by the Capitol as shown when he tries to kill Katniss when she
first tries to speak to him after he’s rescued. I feel that this film does end
on a neat little suspenseful cliff-hanger as we see Peeta in isolation as the
rebels of the districts of Panem prepare to take on the Capitol. Yes, this film
doesn’t really have as much action as the first two films, but that’s fine
because ‘Mockingjay’ is structured differently than the first two films and
really, there’s still a decent amount of action in this film. Even with less
action than before, I was still very much engrossed in this story, in fact more
so than the first two films thanks to all of the political drama of the
rebellion with both the rebels and the Capitol working hard to sway public
opinion to their sides. Director Francis Lawrence’s direction is once again
solid as it was in ‘Catching Fire’, proving that he truly was the best man for
the job to direct the remaining films in the series a la David Yates with
‘Harry Potter’. Obviously, this split hasn’t fared well with a lot of people
but quite frankly, I do feel that it at least worked with Part 1. But even with
that said, now we just have to see how Part 2 turns out. And while I haven’t
read the book in a long time, I know that a lot of crazy stuff goes down in
that half of the story so I’m interested in seeing how that translates into
film.
Starting off the ‘Top 10’ is my pick for the best comedy of
the year and the fact that it’s a comedy sequel is really a testament to how
great it was.
10. 22 JUMP STREET
For the most part, comedy sequels have been rather mediocre
and one of the main reasons why this is usually the case is because a lot of
them tend to directly copy most of the major plot points from the first film
with only a few cosmetic differences (like how in ‘The Hangover Part II’ they
switched out Vegas for Thailand). ‘22 Jump Street’ does fall into that category
of rehashing the main plot points of ‘21 Jump Street’ so in a sense it really
shouldn’t have been as good as the original. But, with the direction from the
aforementioned all-star duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who as I noted
earlier can do no wrong at this point), ‘22 Jump Street’ actually does succeed
in being not only as good as the first film but quite frankly is even better
than it. Yes, this is actually better than the first ‘Jump Street’ movie, which
for the record was also incredibly hilarious, which is impressive considering
that not many people were expecting much out of it given that it was based on
an old TV series from the 80’s that was really only known for being one of the
first major starring roles for Johnny Depp. Therefore, ‘22 Jump Street’ is
easily the best comedy sequel ever which may not be saying a lot for some given
the typical quality of comedy sequels but in this case it doesn’t disappoint in
the slightest.
So because this film is basically just retreading the same
general plot of the first film, only in this case Officers Schmidt and Jenko
are undercover in college instead of high school, most of the humor in this film
is meta-based with the characters fully aware of the situation that they were
in. In the first film, most of the meta humor came in the scene where Jenko and
Schmidt are in Deputy Hardy’s (Nick Offerman) office (and the same can be said
for the scene in Hardy’s office in this movie) but here there is a whole lot
more of it. For the first half of the film, the humor revolves around the
self-awareness of the characters going through the same general case from the
first film. There’s also a few funny references added in here and there, like the
fact that Schmidt and Jenko’s captain is played by Ice Cube (due to the fact
that, to quote Schmidt, his office looks like a ‘cube of ice’) and even a
reference to one of Channing Tatum’s previous films, ‘White House Down’, when
Jenko suggests that they join the Secret Service and while that idea is
rejected, Jenko thinks it was a good idea. The latter half of the film features
jokes revolving around the characters worrying about their operation (in
reality, the film itself) going ‘over-budget. During a big chase scene at the
university, Schmidt and Jenko are trying to be very careful not to crash into
anything for fear of going ‘over-budget’ and when some of the bad guys do crash
into things, they do comment about how while it does look cool it also looks
very expensive.
The two most hilarious bits of humor come as a result of one
hell of a great plot twist, when Schmidt learns that the girl that he meets and
begins dating, Maya, is none other than the daughter of Captain Dickson,
resulting in a very hilariously awkward dinner scene between Schmidt and Maya’s
family, where Schmidt yells at a waiter to get the Captain some water (“he’s
black, he’s been through a lot”) and the Captain starts to rage when he goes up
for seconds. The other best hilarious moment comes shortly afterwards when Schmidt
and Jenko are in the Captain’s office and Jenko is unaware of the ‘elephant in
the room’. It takes him a little while to realize what’s going on but then he
does (‘OH S***!!!! OH S***!!!!) and then he starts going around the building
telling everyone about Schmidt f***ing the Captain’s daughter. Admittedly
though, not all of the jokes hit, namely three bits that are untimely due to
recent events that had happened before the film’s release. In one scene,
Schmidt and Jenko, while hiding from the bad guys, act like one of them is
giving a blowjob to the other and when one of the bad guys find them, he calls
them the other ‘f-word’, leading to Jenko ranting at him for using that word in
2014, which was only awkward due to a recent incident when Jonah Hill used that
exact same word on a paparazzo. The other two awkward bits are when Maya
constantly refers to Schmidt as ‘Maya Angelou’, who had just recently died, and
when one professor references Tracy Morgan, who had just been in a severe car
accident. It’s not really the fault of the writers, though. These things just
happened around the time the film got released so they were just unavoidable,
really.
Still, the direction from Lord and Miller is once again
superb showcasing their creative talents, like their talent for visual jokes, like
in this film when Schmidt and Jenko end up tripping on the drug that they’re
investigating into, with Jenko having a ‘nice trip’ with happy scenery while
Schmidt ends up in a ‘bad trip’ where it all looks like hell and music from
Creed is playing. Not only that, but the camaraderie between leads Jonah Hill
and Channing Tatum is absolutely superb. This film also has one of the best
end-credit sequences in the history of film with faux sequels imagining Schmidt
and Jenko in more undercover situations, like at a culinary school and flight
academy just to name a few (heck at one point Schmidt is even recast with Seth
Rogen due to a contract dispute (“What contract dispute? I’ve been here the whole
time”). But at this moment, a third ‘Jump Street’ film is actually in the works
and believe it or not, I’m actually rather worried about this one, mainly
because it’s looking like Lord and Miller might not be returning to direct it.
Now I’m not saying that they’re 100% necessarily required for the film to be
good but their direction has certainly been one of the main reasons why these
last two films have been so great. And also, just try and name me a good comedy
‘threequel’… if you can’t, don’t worry about it because from what I can tell,
there hasn’t been any. I will note that I’m optimistic about it, but it’s a
cautious optimism especially due to the high expectations that we’ll be having
about it given the two that came before it.
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| SOMETHING COOL!!!! |
Check back tomorrow
for Part 2, where I’ll be listing films 9 through 7…
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