My Top Ten Movies of 2014

A new year is upon us, full of promise, and hope and as many, many painstakingly put together lists of the best things from the year before. Of course I am no exception, for as sparsely as I post in this blog nowadays  the golden allure of a "top list" click bait is, somehow, too much to resist. I know that I'll read just about anyone's "top list" for some reason, and I'm not alone. People love these things! For me, I think the appeal is getting to compare notes with whoever's made the list, to see what they liked from 2014, and more importantly, the order in which they liked them. To see if my favourite items are on that list, and if they are, where they stack up. Because all that information's going to tell you just a little bit more about the person making that list and the people all around you.

So, here's mine. Last year I did songs, this year films.

Why?

Because my body's righting cheques my ego can't cash.

Quick not before we start, these are all films that I actually saw this year. I don't go to the movies every week, nor do I watch everything, just the movies that already peak my interest. So, Nightcrawler, Cake, 22 Jump Street, Birdman and John Wick aren't on here, not because I hate them, I didn't see them, so I have no idea, and I'll try to keep it spoiler free.

X-men: Days of Future Past isn't on here because I didn't like it as much as these other movies. Put it at a solid #11.

#10:The Hobbit: The Battle Of Five Armies

Yep, you read that right, #10. I think a bunch of people in my life would have expected me to rank this one pretty high on my list, I am after all, a pretty huge fan of the original novel, The Lord Of The Rings (books and movies) and the first two hobbit movies. But, while I didn't hate it, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies is easily my least favourite Peter Jackson Middle Earth movie. 

On the whole TH:TBOFA has a lot of great things going for it, amazing design, the best special effects I've seen this year, testosterone filled action scenes, a fantastic cast of actors and like 30 seconds of Benedict Cumberbatch. All of which are more than enough to make this a good movie. But what holds it back from being a great movie is the story, pacing and the sheer amount of filler crammed into this 3 hour Risk game of a movie. 

Look, I'm sure there's a ton of hardcore Tolkien fans that are stoked to see Elrond, Saruman, Galadriel, and Gandalf fight Sauron. People who want more Legolas or even who still want to see Evangeline Lily in movies, which is fine and good but this movie needed none of those things. The Wizards grind the movie to a painful halt every time they're on screen doing whatever it is that they're doing that isn't related to the plot of the movie at all. A problem I had with the first two movies but is even more aggravating in the third instalment of this trilogy. I just couldn't help from somehow feeling kind of bored. Not something that should happen in a movie that is almost all awesome fight scenes. Battle fatigue should only be felt by the characters in the movie, not the ones watching it.

The pacing is just so slow, because very little actually happens in this movie. Thorin finds gold, gets too greedy and doesn't want to give it to the guys who killed the dragon for him, but before they can adequately talk it out, more armies arrive wanting access to the kingdom, but before they can fight, orcs show up, so they all kill the orcs because, y'know, orcs. 

3 hours.

Also, Bilbo's there kind of. I'm aware that even in the book, Bilbo's role in the battle isn't big, but one of the problems I had with this movie and the last Hobbit one is the startling lack of hobbit. It's called The Hobbit how come Bilbo's entire character arc is finished by the end of the first movie in the trilogy? Sure we keep checking in with Bilbo, but he doesn't do anything, he doesn't grow or change at all past Unexpected Journey. Martin Freeman is an amazing actor and played a great Bilbo, but the last two hobbit movies have been taken away from him.

Come on, quit mining the appendices, adding filler and tell The Hobbit in two movies like you said you were going to, Peter Jackson, this isn't a video game. This movie makes my top ten, purely on the back of the positive things I mentioned above as well as Howard Shore's score, which is fantastic.

#9:Amazing Spiderman 2

I posted a review about this one on this very blog a few months ago so I won't go too into depth on this one. But, Amazing Spiderman, and it's sequel here, are both prime examples of how rebooting a franchise is supposed to work. They take something that was already great, and without ruining it, do it again, but learn from the original's mistakes. Where Spiderman 2 was a melodramatic mess with a lame ass payoff, Amazing 2 is a tighter more impact full story. The actors and director shine in this superhero sequel, creating characters we can care about, even though much of their screen time is spent in action scenes. While not the best superhero movie of the year, but it's an exciting flick that knows just how to turn from fun to tragedy without feeling too heavy handed, or betraying the source material. 

#8: Gone Girl

There aren't many movies these days that can actually surprise an audience with a plot twist, the audience has gotten too good at spotting them, and yet Gone Girl finds a way. While from first glance or from the trailer, Gone Girl appears to simply be the story of a man trying to find his wife who's gone missing but it becomes clear very quickly that all is not as it seems. Gone Girl's trail takes the audience on awesome and unexpected twists that keep them guessing all the way through. I like to think of myself as someone who understands basic film writing, and I can usually determine, within reason, the way that the film I'm watching will probably turn out. But not this one. I had no idea where the story would go next, and I loved that about Gone Girl. 

The acting is okay, nobody's going to be winning any oscars here, but I think Carrie Coon really shines as Margo Dunne, Ben Affleck's character Nick's fraternal twin sister. She's definitely a stand out as, surprisingly, is Tyler Perry, who plays Nick's lawyer. Ben Affleck is fine but pretty much what you'd expect performance wise and Roseamund Pike does a decent job too (Note: Since writing this, I've seen that she's actually been nominated for an Oscar for this performance. I didn't expect that and while it wasn't a terrible performance, I don't think she'll win. It seems like a really weird nom to me, but i guess the irony was too much for fate to resist). 

Overall though it's the storytelling of Gone Girl that makes it a must see for me, and for that the credit has to fully go to David Fincher, the film's director, who's done a knock out job on this complex story that really could have gotten tiresome in the wrong hands. The pacing is excellent and I'm a big fan of the choices he's made in putting this film together. 

7:The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie was such a pleasant surprise to me this year. As a huge fan of the original toy growing up, I was both excited and skeptical when I heard there was going to be a full length feature film dedicated to it. I mean I'd seen what happened to The Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2014, so a bad movie about one of my childhood toys didn't seem that far fetched to me.

Luckily, The Lego Movie is as fun to watch as Lego is to play with. Seriously, this movie is dripping with fun, it's so much fun that if you step on it you'll hurt your feet. I had so much fun watching this movie, the entire world that the film makers created is so rich and detailed yet feels true to fans of the toy, which is a difficult thing to do. The world of The Lego Movie is filled with tiny references to what it's like to play with lego. Like the way the characters sometimes argue over what piece they need to find next, instruction booklets, and unique pieces you recognize as a fan.

 That was enough to make me like it but The Lego Movie also tells a story. Chris Pratt plays Emmet, a simple lego construction movie, who despite his efforts to fit in can't find any friends, until that is he is thrust into an epic adventure where he finds friends and himself along the way. It's pretty standard story wise especially for a kids movie, but the characters are all very likeable mostly due to the all star cast. Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett as Batman, Charlie Day are all in there along with cameos from Jonah Hill, and Will Forte. Those names, the characters they brought to life really made this movie something I dearly enjoyed.

6:Guardians of The Galaxy

Anyone who knows me probably knows about my love of comic books. I read them all the time and like to think of myself as someone who knows the ins and outs of the comic book world fairly well. But I have never in my life read a single issue of Guardians of the Galaxy. I also asked my fellow geeks when this movie was announced. None of them had either. Before this movie The Guardians of the Galaxy where probably even less recognizable to the public than the cast of Damage Control. So the fact that this movie not only got made, but was good, and made a bajillion dollars (technical term) is mind blowing to me. It solidifies my notion that Marvel Studios can do no wrong at the moment.

As for the actual movie though, it follows the adventures of Peter Quill, a human abducted off earth at a young age, who's search for fourtune and glory lands him in prison, where he meets a sentient talking racoon with attitude, a giant walking tree, and a couple alien warriors with vengeance on their minds. What follows next is one of the better action movies of the year. 

Guardians does what many other scifi movies have a hard time with, being unique without being obtuse. Everything in the film feels alien and spacey-wacey, but you can still always understand what's happening even without a deep understanding of the lore. This problem really plagues the earlier Star Trek movies, hard to understand if you didn't already know your Trek. Guardians though doesn't feel unnecessarily deep or complex, just creative and interesting.

The characters are a big part of that, it's pretty clear to the audience that 90% of the main cast are alien beings, but instead of trying to tell us why they're each unique and different, the film just shows us. This works so well in large part due to the actors performances. Zoe Saldana is on point here as a green alien instead of a blue one. Dave Bautista pulls of a great performance here as Draxx the Destroyer, a character as poignant as he is hilarious. Bradley Cooper's vocal performance for Rocket Raccoon is well done and Vin Diesel says "I am Groot" about 30 times, so there's that. But the one that ties it all together is Chris Pratt's Peter Quill who seems to be the rightful heir to the Han Solo throne of scruffy looking nerf herders.

In short Guardians of The Galaxy is a better Star Wars movie than all three prequels put together. 

5:Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This to me was the best superhero movie that came out this year, to me, as a geek, it perfectly executes what I love so much about what's happening with the Marvel movies right now; The shared universe. This movie may as well be called Black Widow: The Winter Soldier, SHEILD: The Winter Solider, or The Falcon: Captain America and it could have played out exactly the same. That's so cool to me. It felt every bit as much Black Widow or Nick Fury's movie as it did Steve Roger's, and yet it still feels intimately like Captain America's film. It all makes the movie feel extremely "comic book-y" which, as a comic book reader, I really appreciate. The idea that the effects of the events of this movie will be felt more widely than just the events of Captain America 3. That's cool.

Of course that's not the only reason why I liked this movie. The Russo Brothers have directed a fine film here, a Captain America movie that has all the action you'd expect but with massive "spy vs spy" elements added too. While the first Cap movie is more or less a straight up WWII movie, Winter Soldier feels more at home next to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than it does Enemy at the Gates. It's an unexpected move for this franchise and a risky one to, one that I think they pulled off with aplomb.

The action is solid and for the most part feels very grounded and real, which is awesome (the fight on the highway in particular) and different to the more fantastical combat we saw in The Avengers. It's a welcome change of pace when held up against Guardians of The Galaxy or Thor: The Dark World, Marvel's other two recent films. It's also nice to see Steve Rogers superpowers emphasized much more in this movie, in The Avengers it's easy to forget that Cap is a super soldier much more powerful than your average man, especially during scenes like the assault on the heli-carrier. In Winter Soldier though, Cap feels very powerful, capable and dangerous, which is great to see again.

It's also worth saying how great the lead actors are in this film, I think Chris Evans is fantastic as Captain America, and his performance in this movie has a lot more depth than your average superhero lead (lookin' at you here, Hemsworth). Scarlet Johansen is also really good as Black Widow, this movie might just have the most of that character in it than any other Marvel flick so far, and it's really nice to see Natasha's character fleshed out a little more. As the two leads I think they far and away eclipse the rest of the cast, performance wise in this movie, and are just a joy to watch.

4:Wild

I gotta be honest here, this was a movie I was not expecting to like at all. Reese Witherspoon has never been a huge selling point for me in any movie. 9/10 times I think she turns in really average performances and Wild was billed as a film that is almost entirely Witherspoon acting on her own. But it just so happened that I did see it, and I've got to say, Wild turned out to be one of my favourite movies this year.

Based on a true story, Wild follows the journey of Cheryl Strayed along a 1100 mile solo hike across the wilderness to.... I think Portland? Honestly I forget where exactly it was that she ended up geographically.... Nebraska?..... Whatever, doesn't matter. Point is it's a long hike through the wilderness with Cheryl's objective being to find something within herself and deal with the tragic loss of her mother. 

Wild is not a complex movie plot wise, rather a quiet and thought provoking character study that feels at home next to this year's Boyhood (soon to appear on this list) in terms of tone and introspection. Reese Witherspoon is actually fantastic in this (the trailer really does not do her performance justice) and really connects with the audience perfectly. I don't have anything in common on the surface with her character, but to me Cheryl felt very real and familiar, and her search for something more is truly inspiring and identifiable.

I think the character's success comes from three major parts, the impeccable direction of Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), Withersoon's performance and an amazing script by Nick Hornby. It's a character that the audience is really prepared to ride or die with until the very end and feels connected to throughout. We feel her strength, but also her vulnerability constantly at odds with each other as she struggles to overcome the obstacles she has set before her.

It seems like a lot of critics are fairly lukewarm on this film for some reason, so I don't know how much buzz it will have come Oscar season or even if it will get any noms or deserve them. While I do like Wild I will freely admit that it is pretty intentionally targeted at getting some kind of nomination and may take itself a little too seriously in it's marketing, it's classic "Oscar Bait." But I do think Wild is brilliantly shot (albeit with a couple of strange editing choices) the vast harsh landscapes feel like a character all on their own in what is one of the most real portrayals of solitude in the wilderness I've seen in a while. I was so very surprised by how much I liked this film, and encourage you to check it out for yourself if you get the chance.

(Note: So It turns out Reese Witherspoon was nominated for an Oscar for this, I think she deserves the win, she's got Rosemund Pike beat for sure. Witherspoon really kills it with this character so I think she should get it.)

3: St. Vincent

Bill Murray. 

I mean I really could leave it at that and justify putting it this high on my list. I feel like the internet would pretty much agree with me on principle, but personally, I would like to talk about this movie a little. So long as that's alright with you.

I'm always a sucker for comedians in dramatic roles. I feel like far too often funny actors and performers can get typecast into the same roles over and over again, which is a real shame. Comedy is hard. It's really hard to do well and takes as much, if not more skill than drama and actors should be allowed the chance to succeed at both. St. Vincent features two famous comic actors doing something dramatic, Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy. Both of them truly excel in St. Vincent.

Don't get me wrong this isn't a super hardcore drama, there's a light heartedness mixed in here to give St. Vincent a unique and interesting appeal. It's a movie that will make you laugh as much as it makes you cry and that was a rare thing this year at the movies. St. Vincent follows a retiree named Vincent as he's roped into caring for Oliver, the child of the single mother next door. Along the way Vincent's relationship with the boy and his mother cause them all to look at just how much life can change from one moment to the next. An idea that really resinated with me a lot.

It's also a film about how sometimes a family can come from the most unexpected places. We see the bonding between Oliver and Vincent as they very naturally fall into a father/son dynamic that exemplifies how sometimes, you can't choose who you love, and you've got to take them as they are, and love them for it. Father/son theming seems to really be popular this year in the movies I saw, almost everyone of the movies on this list features that dynamic prominently (except for Wild, Gone Girl, and Captain America) none more so than...

2: Boyhood

Richard Linklater has been making Boyhood, a film about growing up, for the last 12 years. The film follows the life of a boy named Mason through all the trials and tribulations of growing up from ages 5 to 18. It's been filmed chronologically with the same actors so that all of them, over the course of the movie, actually age (Except for Ethan Hawke, I think he may be immortal). Told with typical Linklater style and pacing Boyhood paints one of the most accurate pictures of what it's like to grow up into a person I've ever seen. Sure Mason's exact circumstances (single mother, one sister, series of alcoholic stepfathers) weren't mine, but it's in the little moments that this movie hit me, and in my opinion absolutely shines. 

Linklater's best films are always the ones where he is allowed to take his time telling the story. He seems to love making the environment or idea he's examining be the real focus point of the film instead of more traditionally telling a straight foreword story. Dazed and Confused is a film that is about a very specific snapshot of time (last night of school 1976), Fast Food Nation is the industry of a single burger, Slacker, the slacker culture of 1990's Austin. All films that take their time examining an idea or moment through the characters that are a part of it.
Boyhood is no exception to this trend. As the title suggests, the film is very much about the idea of not just growing up, but what it means to grow up from a boy to a man. It's an idea that's been tackled in countless movies before, but the honesty and realness of Boyhood is what makes it stand out. Tons of movies have the "boy becomes a man" character arc featured as a prominent part of the film, but most of the time it's told with the assumption that a boy becomes a man as the result of one pivotal event; a first kiss, first fight, first beer, first achievement, first child etc. It's a good way to tell a simple story, but that's not how it works in the real world. Becoming "a man" is a long journey that begins and ends for all of us at different points for different reasons, it's a culmination of countless experiences and how our young minds form reactions to them. Boyhood understands this perfectly.

Through the eyes of Mason, Linklater takes the audience through the journey of cultivating those experiences, and shows us a character that literally becomes a person with feelings, ideas, a personality and world view over the course of one movie. It's downright fascinating in how true to life this movie is. Boyhood is probably the best character study I've seen put to film and a real masterpeice. Give Richard Linklater the best director Oscar right now for this unprecedented filmic achievement.

I was blown away by Boyhood. It was very nearly my favourite film this year. But there can only be one movie that I can put at number 1.

#1: Interstellar

First off, the fact that this movie, and it's director were totally ignored by The Academy Awards this year is a freaking travesty. The only things Interstellar is nominated for are it's score and special effects, and before I get too far into this let me first say that in my opinion, it should walk away with the Best Score category. Hanz Zimmer knocks this thing out of the park with a hauntingly beautifully simple and yet overwhelming sound that to me is the rock bed of this movie and puts goosebumps all over me when I hear it. Zimmer's score is such a massive part of this film and so expertly used by Christopher Nolan to pump each dramatic moment to absolutely ecstatic levels wonderment.

I have never seen a movie that felt. So. BIG.

I didn't even see it in IMAX, if I had... I think I probably would have needed to be escorted home in a pair of these. But I didn't need to see it like that for it to seem huge. It does a fine job on it's own.

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar feels to me to be the modern day sci-fi equivalent of a Jules Verne story. Just like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, or Journey to the Center of the Earth, Interstellar taps in to the fundamental curiosity and determination of the human race with such vigour and intensity that I could not take my eyes away. 

Taking place in a future not so far removed from our very own, Interstellar paints us a picture of a version of the apocalypse without nuclear war, zombies or a robot uprising. A time where the human race simply cannot sustain themselves on a used up earth. The film follows the journey of a team of NASA astronauts as they journey out into an unknown galaxy to find a new home for the human race to immigrate to, so that they may survive. It starts as a quest to save mankind from extinction, but the harrowing meta-physical ride we are taken after that point is best experienced in person, I don't want to spoil too much about where this movie goes. The journey and the experience of the people on it are an absolute joy to watch.

With a at least one foot firmly planted within the realm of scientific possibility Interstellar is what I think might be one of the most realistic science fiction movies in recent memory. There's no aliens, or faster than light travel. There's no lasers, laser swords, or space pirates. The film's biggest sci-fi conceits are one wormhole that a spaceship can pass through, and exploring what might be on the other side of a black hole. That's it. The main characters are all actual astronauts, in space suits, who are all either scientists or engineers, just like most real astronauts. The robots aren't human looking silver androids, instead, black boxes with motors and simple limbs, even the spaceship looks strikingly similar to NASA's real life concept for an interstellar space craft. It's so cool to see those things and the ideas of what's actually believably possible be used to create such an amazing movie. It's what makes the peril more real, and the victories feel more elevated, because the danger is felt so much more. You can feel the tension behind every docking sequence or landing operation. The vulnerability of the crew on this journey is what makes this movie feel massive. They truly are the tiniest of fish in an endless black ocean, where a wrong move means certain, unpleasant, death. 

The actors are fabulous as well here, each one doing a great service to the material they've been given. Matthew McConaughy deserves another oscar nomination for this performance and shines in this role. I saw Dallas Buyers Club last year, but I honestly think that he may have done an even better job in Interstellar. Anne Hathaway is extremely likeable (not something I always attribute to her) and has some great performance moments. Micheal Caine and Jessica Chastain have great chemistry in all of their scenes together, and John Lithgow and Matt Damon play their respective parts with dignity and intensity. Even Topher Grace and Casey Affleck are good. It's a real testament to Nolan's ability to work well with his actors. 

I could go on about Interstellar all day. But it's an experience you really have to see for yourself. It's a crime this movie hasn't seen more recognition this year, and it's starting to get me thinking that the academy might feel the same way about Nolan as they do Leonardo DiCaprio. 

To put it simply, Interstellar is what happens when you mix The Dark Knight, with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Apollo 13 with a twist of 2001: A Space Odyssey thrown in for good measure. 

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!