Questions swirled around my brain as I looked at the paper in front of me in
the roadside Easy-Stop. On a personal level I was wondering whether this
hangover was going to subside before I reached Graywolf. I was doing a mental
back-count on the number of drinks that Higgins and Spivot had bought me at
McKellan's last night. At first I thought it was four, but then, in tune with a
heaving feeling in my stomach and a spiking of pain in my head I remembered the
three successive rounds of Jose Cuervo. I cringed and wished the waitress would
stop by my booth, refill my water and coffee, and bring the pancakes I ordered
almost twenty minutes ago. Seriously, where was that waitress? Second question. The small cafe only had
three other patrons, truck drivers by the look of them, and they all seemed to
be enjoying their meals, despite arriving after me. My stomach cringed again
and I looked over to the sign for the men's room and debated whether venturing
in there would be better or worse for my hangover. I shook my head lightly, trying to get myself to focus again on the paper in
front of me. This particular issue of the New Haven County Journal was
the source of all of my non-digestion related questions. I had already been
briefed on the situation, but I wanted to get a local perspective. Small town
papers are notorious for reporting rumors and hearsay, the kind that a federal
case file often leaves out. Higgins would say that they leave it out for good
reason, local rumors can easily become witch hunts if acted too intently upon,
but I wanted to know what Graywolf's biases were, and familiarize myself as
much as I could with the mindset of the town before I arrived. St. Andrew Murder; Police Investigation Stalled After 7 Days The article's headline was plastered across the font page of the newspaper
in large bolded font, and the article beneath it took up half the entire front
page, accompanied by a photo printed across the other. "Here you go hun!" Said the voice of the waitress from behind me.
I have to admit it startled me a bit. Hangovers tend to make me a little
jumpier than usual. Probably the reason that I try not to drink so much these
days. She walked around me, carrying a plate of pancakes and a pot of coffee
that looked blacker than brand new car tires. "Oh! thank you!" I exclaimed, in that tone of voice people use
when they're caught off guard in a situation where they weren't expecting to
have to talk. She smiled and placed the plate down in front of me to the
right of my newspaper, filled up my coffee and asked me if I would be needing
anything else. I told her that I wouldn't, forgetting that I wanted my water
refilled as well. Oh well, I thought, it would have been probably be another 20
minutes before I'd see that glass of water anyway. I looked back to the paper as I forced down the thick, blueberry pancakes
and coffee despite my stomach's first inclinations to expel everything already
inside it. It was her picture next to the article. Jessica Sweeton, 20 year old
daughter of Reverend Mark Sweeton and his wife Tanya, in this picture she was
smiling, beautiful, and living. It was a high school graduation photo. The
caption below the picture read "The body of 20 year old Sweeton was found
early last Monday morning on the St. Andrew’s football field by campus
security." The article itself went on to lambast the local Sheriff's
department for not making any arrests yet, despite questioning Jessica's
boyfriend and several other members of the community. It was clear that whoever
had written this piece believed the Saint Andrew University's football team
should be questioned more thoroughly. The author cited the fact that Jessica's
boyfriend is teammates with one Martavious Jones, who, along with two former
team members, had been implicated in a sexual assault case in 2014. Other than
that though, the article merely recapped already widely known details of the
murder, that Jessica had been found wrapped in a tarp with a knife wound in her
chest, and that no witnesses could be found to explain how the body had been
brought to the center of the football field. What it didn't mention, was that
the knife used to kill Jessica had been found still planted in her chest, and
there had been no public mention of any of the autopsy results. That was one of
my biggest questions. Why had none of the media or local press ever mentioned
the fact that the coroner found evidence that Jessica had also been raped? I
knew people from small towns like Graywolf are often much more conservative,
but I felt that not reporting a fact like this goes beyond that somehow.
Could it be because her father was a pastor? Or maybe the Sheriff's department
had some other reason for keeping that fact under wraps. Either way I wanted to
know. I made a mental note of the author of the newspaper article, Sandra Clark-Duncan.
Her article made sure to mention the previous sexual assault convictions of the
football players, and I thought that it could be because she knows something
about the case the rest of the media doesn't, or simply that she, like the rest
of the citizens of Graywolf, is looking for someone to blame. I folded up the paper, finished my pancakes and coffee, and left twenty
dollars on the table as I got up and walked out of the cafe. The dirt parking
lot was fairly large, obviously to accommodate any transport truckers stopping
in for a bite or to sleep. I zipped up my brown bomber jacket, climbed
into my car and began driving. The Easy Stop was roughly a half hour drive outside of Graywolf, at the edge
of New Haven county, which would mean that I was due to arrive at the Sherriff’s
office at about 7:30 am. I was unsure how strong any media presence would be
around the station itself, so arriving early was my way of avoiding the possibility
of a scrum or scene of any kind. I had also made sure to procure an all black
unmarked town car from the regional field office. I wanted to stay as low
profile as I could going into this investigation. In small towns like Graywolf,
gossip gets around fast, and the presence of a RCMP special investigator was
sure to cause a stir in a town already desperate for new information on Jessica’s
murder case. It’d be the kind of gossip that could potentially lead the guilty
party to skip town (if they were even still in Graywolf at all) or to simply
lay low, cover their tracks, or concoct an alibi. Showing up to a media scrum
in full uniform and police cruiser could also potentially intimidate any
potential witnesses, and encourage crackpots to come forward and lead me on a
wild goose chase all over the county. That was my thought process anyway, the
way I was justifying my decision for discretion. The real reason I was going to
arrive as unannounced, and incognito as possible was that working in the
background, and digging in the shadowy recesses of the world was where I was at
my most comfortable as an investigator. 11 years working undercover makes you
comfortable with secrecy. That’s where I’ve done my best work, undercover, poking around in the dark
when people aren’t looking. I’ve observed people at their weakest points, I’ve
seen how people try and dance around a truth they don’t know you know. I’ve seen what makes a killer kill and I’ve
seen how that changes a man. It’s something in the eyes. Not so much the pupils
or the corneas, but something in the way a killer’s eyes move. It’s too fast.
They move their gaze fast, and hold too long on you, trying to see if you’ll
hold back. It’s a trait I’ve noticed on gang enforcers countless times. It’s a
hardness, or sadness, or something I can’t quite place and it’s a trait I’d be
on the lookout for when I reached Graywolf. I didn’t really know the people, I
didn’t really know the town, but I knew that look and it was a look I was
determined to find. As I drove I looked over at the case file in the passenger seat. I had
pinned Jessica’s picture on the front of the file to remind myself of the
person that was gone. Some investigators like to divorce themselves as much as
they can from the victim and their family. But for me, I needed to make this
personal in some way. Jessica’s face was the first from Graywolf I’d ever seen,
and her life was what I was going to be diving into. I was going to need to
uncover everything about the life that went along with the face in that
picture. I was going to find things I was sure she didn’t want anyone else to
know, things people in her life might still not want to know about. If I was
going to upturn Jessica’s privacy, her family’s privacy, their entire lives, I
needed to put a face to that. I needed Jessica to be as much a part of my
investigation as any other witness. Because chances are she knew the person who
killed her, she could pick them out of any line up, she’d contradict any alibi
they came up with, and probably prove they did it if she could talk to me right
now. My resolve, as I drove past the sign welcoming me to Graywolf, was to
listen.
Today is October 20th 2015, the day after Canada has chosen to elect Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada a Majority government after a 9 year government held by the Harper Conservatives. What I wanted to do with this post was to effectively put a closer on all of the discussions, arguments, fights and online trolling I've been battling through during this election campaign, and give you my final thoughts on why what happened, happened. This is how I felt about this historic election, I've battled a lot with people on the internet getting some of this across, but I wanted to put it all in one place, before we move on from this to something else.
However I feel it would be dishonest of me, after such long and vocal voicing of my opinions to emit from you how I personally voted, and my biases, because we all have them. I voted NDP. Specifically because my riding had Megan Leslie, an amazingly effective politician and government critic who was very well liked, and because I thought it better to raise the corporate tax rate, rather than individual income tax. The liberal party was my second choice, and I will say it was a very close call and if I had been in a different riding I may have made a different call. I tell you this so you know where I stood in this election, and so you will not think me to be writing on behalf of those who do not share my opinions. I will also say that I did not vote blindly or impulsively and actually did read every party platform (conservatives included) and watched lengthy interviews with all the candidates (yes, even Stephen Harper, and yes even Elizabeth May) I know very well what everyone wanted to do with Canada, and I chose the option I thought best.
Majority governments are not easy to get from a political stand point, and to achieve one after a majority government of a different party on the opposite side of the political spectrum is rare. That's why I think it's important to look at this, because it says something about where we are as a country. From where I sat, intensely following the debates, social media, election coverage and public conversation, I think there are a couple major reasons why the Liberals were so widely voted into government this year. So, for better or worse, here's what I think went right and wrong for all the parties this election.
Voter Turn out:
68.9% of all eligible voters voted in this election, with some regions like Atlantic Canada having turnouts in the low seventy percents. That is the highest voter turn out since the early 90's. Whatever party you voted for, that high a voter turn out is excellent, it means people are actually engaged, and interested in their government. It also means that our democracy functions better because it is a more accurate representation of what a majority of Canadians want.
When the Conservative party was elected their majority in 2011 the voter turn out was 61%. A lot of people are saying that the vote went the way it did this time because young people actually showed up to vote this year, but, while young people generally do tend to skew more to the left on the political scale, this kind of turn out is too high to be just young voters (especially on the east coast where the population is mostly seniors). Clearly whatever the Liberals were saying it was connecting with people young and old far more than even when the Conservatives got their majority. I think it also speaks to just how much of Canada was unhappy with their current government, very unhappy. Now, obviously the conservatives have many supporters across the country, and did actually get enough seats to have a shot at a minority government if the vote was split more, but unfortunately for them the Liberals scooped up roughly 50-60% of the popular vote. In fact the conservatives had roughly the same share of the public vote as they did when they were elected the 2011 majority, (39% of public vote in 2011, Roughly 30% in 2015) which really speaks to how much a factor voter turn out is. The Cons basically didn't change their share of mind space in the public consciousnesses, they didn't get new voters over to their side, they didn't drive away that many of their former voters. The difference was that this time, the rest of the country also showed up to vote.
The other significant thing to notice is how the votes were distributed, because I think it paints a very clear picture of who Steven Harper's conservatives stood for and were most beneficial to while they were in government.
So, here to the left you can see this terrible picture I took with my phone amid all the drama of the election last night which shows a map of Canada with what ridings voted which way. As you may or may not be able to tell, the cons only had real success in two areas of Canada, the oil rich prairies, and southwestern Ontario minus major city centers. These are the areas that have done well under the conservatives. Harper's government focused heavily on investing in oil and cutting taxes for the upper and upper middle class, and effectively ignored the real issues the rest of the country has.
Issues like...
Infrastructure:
This is one of the biggest campaign promises to really strike a chord with a lot of Canadians outside the "blue zones." One of the biggest things that I've noticed since I moved out to Halifax from Southern Ontario was the state of the infrastructure everywhere east of Montreal. Roads are constantly filled with pot holes, faults and inadequate patch jobs, when they're paved at all, most bridges are visibly rusting or decaying, there are almost no buried power or phone lines and what transit there is remains underfunded. The provinces and municipalities out here just simply can't keep up with the rate of decay which makes it even harder to make improvements. Many of my facebook friends who were conservative supporters seemed to think that infrastructure was something we didn't need, or at least didn't need enough to spend the kind of money the liberals were promising on, and I can understand why they'd think that. When I lived there I got to enjoy excellent infrastructure, and pretty much assumed the kind of quality of roads, powerlines and bridges would be similar across the country. But I am here to tell my Ontario friends that is not the case, even in rural areas or the Muskokas the infrastructure is better than it is in most of the east coast and other areas of the country. This is not some idea for improving people's luxury and comfort, it's about keeping our roads and communities safer and working better. It's the kind of thing a federal government should be helping with. The promise for more infrastructure was the kind of thing the east coast and many, many other parts of Canada have been asking the federal government for the last decade, which went completely ignored by the Harper Conservatives.
It's strange that he would refuse so much to engage at all with East Coast issues, standard logic would dictate, that as a region full of mostly seniors who traditionally lean right or centre right,the Maritimes should have been somewhere he focused his energies. But instead he ignored us, barely visited (6 hour surprise stop over in Amherst) and then called down the ideas of the candidates who were trying to help this region. That's just simply a bad strategic move.
The Economy and Tax Reform:
For the last decade Stephen Harper's economic action plan has worked pretty well for some people, but pretty poorly for others. Unsurprisingly, the division between who his plan has helped and hurt also corresponds to the colour map above. Here's what he did, just so we're all on the same page here:
He focused primarily on allowing international companies to extract our oil more easily, which created Jobs in the Prairies.
Lowered the GST to 5%
Cut taxes for the upper and very upper middle class, with the hope that they will create jobs
Cut the large corporate tax rate to a ludicrously low 14% (less than most individual tax rates)
Signed free trade agreements to make it cheaper to import/export goods
I know that's all in the past but their plan in this election was simply to not change anything at all. The Conservatives I'm sure had good intentions, the idea that if you help rich people and large corporations make more money, they'll spend more money and create jobs and stimulate the economy is one that a lot of people are in favor of. But rarely works well on a national level, usually causes more harm than benefits, and the benefits they do cause are incredibly lopsided. The plan to focus on oil and foreign manufacturing only worked in Alberta and parts of Ontario, and failed in the rest of the country. It made our economy incredibly lop sided and while, at the beginning the national job creation rate went up, that came at the expense of more rural and isolated communities in Canada who didn't have oil or manufacturing. In addition to that, the Tories repeatedly lied about their job creation record during the election campaign, insisting that it was fine and good, and not, as it turns out, the lowest out of any Prime Minister since WWI.
This was a bad plan, and Canadians saw that. Instead, latching onto the idea of raising taxes for the those Canadians who make 7 figure salaries or above to create revenue to make improvements. Something that has been shown to work. People often forget that taxes are actually good provided the tax revenue is spent on social programs that help all kinds of Canadians, but especially those bellow the poverty line. No one likes paying taxes, but Canadians were smart enough to realize that under a liberal government 99% of people won't be paying more taxes.
The Campaign of Fear:
This, this is where Harper went the most wrong, having policies people disagree with will get some people not to vote for you, but running a campaign like he did will apparently get your government completely thrown out in Canada. Stephen Harper tried to run the Canadian election like an Alabama GOP primary, and unsurprisingly, people asked him to leave.
There was a 78 day campaign this year, the longest one in Canadian history and it may have seemed even longer given that the Tories have been running American style attack adds since before the 2011 election started. Attack adds have been run by the cons out of election season for the majority of the time they were in office, seemingly every time the publicity surged for the NDP or the Liberals. They started saying that Justin Trudeau "just wasn't ready" before he even won the leadership of the liberal party. Canadians, clearly were pretty tired of hearing them. Now I'm not saying that attack adds are terrible and parties shouldn't use them, nor am I trying to say the the leftist parties didn't use negative advertising, because they most certainly did. What I am saying is that the sheer amount and, frankly, ridiculous advertising used by the Harper team did not benefit them. I also feel as though it galvanized the pro-left/pro-liberal supporters to speak their minds more than they convinced people not to vote for Justin Trudeau (remember the cons got almost the same percentage of the public vote as last time, when the liberal's soared). All the political attack adds levied for so long got people's attention, but once they had it, the Tories just couldn't figure out what to do with that.
Then there's the fact that nobody actually knew what the Conservatives plans actually were. Their entire platform was effectively them saying "See what the other parties are doing, we won't do those things" and then no alternative plan for what they would do instead. There platform was an expansion of an already existing home renovation tax credit and.... to.... keep doing.... the things they're doing? Do you know what those are? No? Well that's too bad because you'll never hear a conservative party member actually tell you anything they want to do or change. Look over there! Justin Trudeau's young and has hair!
Even Stephen Harper, whenever asked a question about what he wants to do for Canada, would just talk about how foolish it would be for Canadians to vote for Justin Trudeau. This interview with Peter Mansbridge that Harper gave halfway through the campaign is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Again, it's fine to attack your opponents, that's politics, but you have to have more to say than just pointing at the guy next to you and saying he's not as experienced as you. We've heard that song, tell us something new. Except he didn't. He ignored so many of the major issues that the other parties were talking about that it became apparent that there wasn't much that his government actually stood for rather than stood against.
Then, what parts of their message that did get through the haze of deflections and misdirection were ideas that clashed on a fundamental level with a vast majority of the country. First, the "home renovation tax credit" appealing to people who can afford putting large extensions onto their home, the credit would mean that you would pay less taxes on that. Okay, that's not a terrible idea, but when young families across the country are struggling more than ever to buy their first house, it's an inadequate response to the issues that most of the country is dealing with. Secondly, there was of course the Niqab/"barbaric cultural practice hotline" debacle, which was an obvious move by the cons to again direct attention away from their lack of actual platform by stoking the fire of the islamiphobia lying dormant in a vocal minority of Canadians. "Why was that an issue?" is the question that I heard asked by more people than any other question this election. Why? Because if we're talking about the Niqab, we're not talking about public broadcasting, bill-c51, the economy, or anyone of the dozens of important issues at play in this election.
Stephen Harper's conservatives campaigned to the exact same people they did last election, the same areas they did last election, with the same promises as the last election, with tactics that only made people more angry. And as one of the presenters during Global's election coverage last night said "When you P off enough people for long enough, it'll bite you in the ass." And it did.
The Cons ignored women's issues- Canadians elected more women to the house of commons then they had in the last 20 years.
The Cons actively fought against First Nations peoples- Canadians elected more First Nations MPs then we ever have in history.
They tried to make everyone talk about banning the Niqab, and to get everyone to give into islamiphobia- Canadians elected more Islamic MPs then we ever had before.
It's clear that they severely misunderstood what was important to Canadians in this election.
To put it quite plainly, the silent Majority who have been listening to everything that's been going on, all the hatred and dissension that the Conservatives stirred up during this campaign, and politely, but in no uncertain terms told them that it was not appreciated and that they should leave.
My (Biased) Conclusion:
To sum it up, Canadians decided to do something very rare and historically significant in this election. The sheer amount of people that turned out is astonishing, and what they decided on was equally astonishing. I'm not going to say Trudeau will be a great PM, we don't know if he'll be able to deliver on his promises, we never do about any politician, and I don't think Justin some uniquely pragmatic man. The next four years will have their share of challenges and curves for him and Canada as a whole.
Conservative supporters are talking about this as the worst possible outcome, they are fearful that then next four years will see Canada go down in a blaze of red flames. To them I say this; we're all worried about Canada's future, and the rest of us will tell you from experience, when the majority government has the opposite views you do, it's annoying.
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 deepor 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.
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 filmfollows 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.
