The Best Films of 2014 Voting/Pimping Thread

[caley]

I unexpectedly adored Foxcatcher.  It'll probably be in my top 3, possibly even #1.  The knock on it seems to be that it's a slow movie, but I was right with it the whole way.  I wish Carrell had looked slightly less like an alien - and they insisted in shooting him in profile, to emphasize that nose - but the performance was great.  He does this thing where he swallows mid-sentence where there shouldn't be a pause, like he's never fully sure about what he's saying, and him being uncomfortable makes the audience uncomfortable.  Liked the idea that Mark Schultz (played by Tatum) lives very simply despite being a gold medalist, which seems a little sad, but later on you realize that he's so driven precisely because he doesn't have any of the trappings of success, and when you start throwing money at him, he loses his motivation.

Changed my mind and took it in anyways.  Good movie.  I don't get how Carell and Ruffalo got the only nominations for it: I mean Carell is amazing and Ruffalo is good, but Ruffalo plays a nice guy, Ruffalo's always a nice guy (Even his Incredible Hulk just seems like a dude who would come over and eat Cheetohs and help you put together a desk from Ikea.  Channing Tatum, on the other hand, is one of the coolest, handsomest dudes in Hollywood and he plays Schultz as a guy who literally has nothing in his life, save for wrestling.  Ruffalo's Schultz is outgoing and affable, Tatum's Schultz is intense, off-putting and not particularly personable.  I don't think they portrayed Mark as having mental issues, so much as a guy who didn't much time/interest/inclination for learning.  Wrestling is his entire life, but he's just a not a real outgoing person, hence why he and Du Pont have a connection, because, in some ways, they're quite similar: off-putting, friendless loners.

[Chaos]

I watched a few films over the weekend that really helped in shaping out my list to where I feel that it'd be respectable if I did not watch anything else prior to balloting. One film I really want to place on everyone's radar is the below film. I am pasting a brief blurb I posted about it on my Letterboxd account.

Ida - I can throw many adjectives at Ida for which it rightfully deserves: gorgeous, effective, engaging. Ida explores and ultimately wrestles with a platter of ideas at the viewer while not wasting a single frame and says a multitude while rationing the film's dialog. How does Poland move past the atrocities of the Holocaust? How can Ida stay steadfast with her faith now that she's faced with a new history and new temptations? I like the decision to keep the camera still for most of the film until its final moments. It jars the viewer into an uncertain world that Europe and Ida must face ahead. 

[S.K.o.S.]

Clouds of Sils Maria is now listed as 2015 on Rotten Tomatoes

[Chaos]

Clouds of Sils Maria is now listed as 2015 on Rotten Tomatoes

 

I loved Summer Hours, but I still need to work through Carlos.

Also, Something in the Air never hit my radar.

[nate]

I meant to see that today, but got up lazy (Parking is lousy down there on weekends, and I hate parking in the parkade on weeknights), but I'm hoping to partake some time later in the week.

 

I did watch The Skeleton Twins and pretty much straight-up LOVED it.  Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play twins who have been separated for 10 years when the former's suicide attempt brings them back into each others' lives.  Both are damaged by their father's suicide in their teenage years and trying to deal with it.  Really staggeringly great performances by Wiig and Hader which are not 100% comedic.  Hader, in particular, shines in as the brother trying to atone for his failed life while keeping his head up high.  There's a scene where he lip-synchs to Jefferson Starship's 'Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now' that is so perfect and pretty much one of the best, most joyful scenes of the year.  Also nice to see Luke Wilson turn up in a supporting role as Wiig's husband and look and sound much...healthier (?!) than he had recently.

 

I've seen some suggestions that this was a weak year for film.  Now maybe it's just the selection of films I've been watching (I've kinda gone out of my way not to watch the big OSCAR! movies unless there's specific actors/directors/trailers that appeal to me.  Like I haven't bothered to see the Hawking movie, Unbroken, the code-breaker one, etc. because, you know, life's too short for stuff that I feel like I'm gonna see and go "Oh yeah, that's well-made...depressing...but well-made") but I've just been repeatedly blown away by stuff I've seen.  I had a nice tidy little Top 5 before, and every time I see something I end up going "Hmm, well now I'm going to have to bump something else out of there).

 

Wiig had a great nude scene in that.

 

(Obscure reference meant really just for me.)

[caley]

 

I meant to see that today, but got up lazy (Parking is lousy down there on weekends, and I hate parking in the parkade on weeknights), but I'm hoping to partake some time later in the week.

 

I did watch The Skeleton Twins and pretty much straight-up LOVED it.  Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play twins who have been separated for 10 years when the former's suicide attempt brings them back into each others' lives.  Both are damaged by their father's suicide in their teenage years and trying to deal with it.  Really staggeringly great performances by Wiig and Hader which are not 100% comedic.  Hader, in particular, shines in as the brother trying to atone for his failed life while keeping his head up high.  There's a scene where he lip-synchs to Jefferson Starship's 'Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now' that is so perfect and pretty much one of the best, most joyful scenes of the year.  Also nice to see Luke Wilson turn up in a supporting role as Wiig's husband and look and sound much...healthier (?!) than he had recently.

 

I've seen some suggestions that this was a weak year for film.  Now maybe it's just the selection of films I've been watching (I've kinda gone out of my way not to watch the big OSCAR! movies unless there's specific actors/directors/trailers that appeal to me.  Like I haven't bothered to see the Hawking movie, Unbroken, the code-breaker one, etc. because, you know, life's too short for stuff that I feel like I'm gonna see and go "Oh yeah, that's well-made...depressing...but well-made") but I've just been repeatedly blown away by stuff I've seen.  I had a nice tidy little Top 5 before, and every time I see something I end up going "Hmm, well now I'm going to have to bump something else out of there).

 

Wiig had a great nude scene in that.

 

(Obscure reference meant really just for me.)

 

"Did you watch the movie?"

[caley]

2014 Flicks I've seen since my last post here

 

Wish I Was Here: I liked this more than I expected to, it's Zach Braff's directorial follow-up to 'Garden State' and it's a little more uneven, dealing with death and all, but having moments that tend more toward almost sitcom-like comedy.  Strangely, though, I felt like the comedic moments actually hit home and came across a little more natural than the most emotional moments.  It's about an unsuccessful, middle-aged actor who is forced to take his kids out of Jewish private school after his father falls ill and can no longer pay for it (It was a deal that his father would pay for their schooling if he got to pick the school) and decides to home-school them, but instead teaches them about life and stuff.  The kids are pretty funny, Mandy Patinkin is great as Braff's ailing father and I actually didn't mind Kate Hudson (Whom I ordinarily loathe) or Josh Gad.

 

Transformers: Age of Extinction: This is, I think, by far the best movie in the Transformers series.  By the third of the series (Dark of the Moon), it really felt like Michael Bay was bored of the giant transforming robots and seemed to linger more often on the humans/military procedures while the robots fought off-screen.  But this time around, he's back interested in them again, shooting them from great low angles to emphasize their size.  Now I've never been as down on Shia LaBoeuf as many are, but boy is Mark Wahlberg just a a massive upgrade in any way over Laboeuf.  Rather than a hero who seems annoyed, terrified and like he'd rather be anywhere else, Wahlberg's lead is just constantly in awe, but also completely dialed-in.  Plus, shockingly, it has some really pretty cinematography in the first half hour or so.

 

Mood Indigo: This was a little TOO whimsical for me.  A man meets a woman at a party and they fall in love, then she falls ill after a flower petal lands in her lungs (Don't ask) and the only remedy is to surround her at all times with fresh flowers, which greatly eats into the man's bank account.  Audrey Tautou is quite amazing in that she doesn't look really any different even though 'Amelie' was 14 (!!!) years ago.  It's wacky, it's Michel Gondry without a filter, and half the time I wasn't really sure what was going on.

 

Blended: The third (!!!) Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy is pretty bad.  There's a requisite bit of Sandler wackiness (Background characters saying/shouting punchlines) and I thought the kid who's constantly getting caught talking about his mother being hot was kind of funny, but NO ONE would buy Bella Thorne as a tomboy (One character calls her 'sir') no matter how many stupid wigs you put on her.  Joel McHale turns up twice and pretty much steals the movie and I REALLY want to see a movie about his character instead of anyone else who is in the movie.  When the best line exchange in the movie is "You know, I'm curious. With so many possible reasons, which one's the one your wife left you for?" "Cancer", you know it's probably not a great flick.

 

Calvary: Boy, this was HEAVY.  I wasn't expecting the director of the severely underrated 'The Guard' to come at with me with something as stark and dark as this, but here we are.  Somebody on the DVD case referred to it as "Darkly funny" (or something like that), but I remember only a handful of funny lines.  It's good, with Brendan Gleeson (Man...why isn't he in more stuff?!) as a priest in a small Irish town who is told at confession that he has a week to get things in order because on the following Sunday he is going to shoot him dead in retaliation for years of being molested at the hands of the Catholic church.  Now Gleeson's character has/had nothing to do with the molestation, but he's still been chosen as the target of their ire.  So, it's a week of Gleeson trying to solve the (completely horrible) townspeople's problems: the abused wife cheating on her husband, the cuckolded husband, her love, an atheist doctor, an elderly American writer, a disenchanted rich man, and his own suicidal daughter.  It's a real downer of a film, really heavy.  Great performances, but heaaaaavy.

 

Draft Day: This is corny as hell, with Kevin Costner as GM of the Cleveland Browns trying to improve his team on draft day with all sorts of stuff going on around him (Jennifer Garner as his pregnant girlfriend, Ellen Burstyn as his overbearing mother, Frank Langella as his threatening owner), but I pretty much loved it.  You see I'm a draft junkie.  I will watch the draft for pretty much any sport, even if I don't follow the sport, and spend hours re-reading old NHL draft guides and comparing picks and the like.  So, this is basically right in my wheelhouse.  Plus the cast is pretty amazing: in addition to the above four, you've got Denis Leary, Sam Elliott, Chadwick Boseman, Pat Healy, Chi McBride, Tom Welling, Kevin Dunn, Timothy Simons, Terry Crews.  It also had some really neat split screens, like one scene where Costner talks to another GM on the phone and they're shown in separate split-screns and as the other GM walks, he actually crosses over into Costner's split screen, then across into his own new split screen.  Total guilty pleasure movie for me.

 

The Interview: This was pretty enjoyable.  By now, I'm sure everyone knows the plot and story behind this one, but I don't hear anyone talk about how amazing Randall Park is in this, totally stealing the movie as Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.  Pretty funny, pretty gory.  It was a good time.

[JRGoldman]

Clouds of Sils Maria is now listed as 2015 on Rotten Tomatoes

 

SKoS, you mentioned in your earlier post that Stewart/Binoche was stunt casting. Can you elaborate why? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but my brain can't quite put it together. 

[S.K.o.S.]

 

Clouds of Sils Maria is now listed as 2015 on Rotten Tomatoes

 

SKoS, you mentioned in your earlier post that Stewart/Binoche was stunt casting. Can you elaborate why? I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but my brain can't quite put it together. 

 

Apparently the meaning of "stunt casting" isn't what I thought it was, but I just intended it to mean casting for the purpose of getting attention.

 

I was referring to Stewart having a reputation as a terrible actress (which, after this + Camp X-Ray + Still Alice, is seeming more and more undeserved) and Binoche having a reputation as a great actress, and the majority of this movie being scenes with just the two of them.  Also Chloe Grace Moretz's character is (in very broad terms) essentially what Stewart is in real life - a young celebrity actress with a bad reputation and paparazzi following her around.  Honestly that's probably closer to Lindsay Lohan, but it kind of works with Stewart if you think of the period where her relationship with Robert Pattinson was ending.

 

Like if you put, I don't know, Elizabeth Olsen in Stewart's role, she might very well do a better job with it, but the movie would lose a lot of its appeal to me.

[caley]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: This was not as good as I was hoping it would be (I thought the trailer was awesome) but not as bad as I was afraid it would be either.  Some fun action sequences, some entertaining goofiness, some just outright terribleness (Megan Fox is as bad as she's ever been here).  But I thought the Turtles looked more like mutated turtles, Shredder was bad-ass and the big action set-pieces were good.  It's not as good as, say, Transformers 4, but it's not bad.

 

Brick Mansions: This was the rare American remake (Well Canadian co-production) that was a little too faithful to the original.  I mean, the plot of the District 13 was no great shakes, really, but you didn't care because of the action sequences.  This time around the action sequences aren't as good (Partially because Paul Walker can't do the parkour stunts, so instead they throw in some car chases) but they stick doggedly to the plot of the original when it probably  would've helped the flick if they had made it a little more sensible.  But, hey, the opening parkour stunts are as breathlessly exciting as some from the first flick, and this one has the RZA as a scenery-chewing bad guy.

 

Nightcrawler: This kinda floored me.  Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing as a creepy jobless thief who decides to get into the world of nightcrawling, which is basically freelance video work listening to police scanners and trying to get footage of accidents, murders etc. before anyone else and selling it to news outlets.  He quickly gets a reputation for getting closer than anyone else to the action that endears him to struggling news director Rene Russo.  Gyllenhaal's character is hair-raisingly ruthless in his pursuit of the best shots, not letting anyone get in his way.  Gyllenhaal is incredible, his features gaunt and angular, projecting a simultaneous cagey nervousness as well as a bizarre confidence bordering on, then spilling into arrogance.  The last thirty minutes or so, are some of the most intense, edge-of-your-seat action of anything I've seen all year.  As much as I was bummed about Channing Tatum not getting nominated for 'Foxcatcher' (And I'm still bummed! about that), Gyllenhaal not getting a nomination for this is even more of a travesty.

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past: This was entertaining.  I thought the tone was weird, though, where you had this movie about a horrible dystopian future with people getting killed and most wiped out, then you have a scene with a mutant running at super speed to a 70s soft-rock song while giving guys wedgies and stuff, then scenes with young hippie Professor X making jokes, then being heart-broken.  The big action set-pieces are entertaining, but it just never quite came together the way I hoped it would.  You've also got this amazing cast of award-nominated actors: Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Patrick Stewart...and most of them don't really do much acting, stand around, looking dour, then cracking jokes.

 

Snowpiercer: This was pretty great.  In a future where the world is frozen over, the remaining living humans are on a train that runs continually around the planet, segregated by a class system throughout the train: closer to the front are the rich, while the poor are in the tail.  Chris Evans plays a disgruntled tail-car member who decides to stay a revolution and take back the train.  There's a couple of amazing action sequences in this, especially the giant axe fight, and some fun scenery-chewing performances by Allison Pill and, especially, Tilda Swinton (I would watch an entire movie about her character, in all honesty, she was so bizarrely weird) but I thought it kinda of stumbled to a finish.

You spend all movie hearing about the guy who runs the train, then you meet him and he's just...Ed Harris.  No weird makeup or accent or anything, just Ed Harris running a train.  And then the big revelation is nothing the main guy ever needs to have substantiated, he just takes everything the bad guy says as face value, even after being warned not to talk to him.

Still a good movie, though.

 

The Equalizer: This was a heck of a lot of fun.  Denzel Washington plays a guy working at a Home Depot-style hardware store who's insomnia leads to him befriending a teenage prostitute and deciding to come to her rescue when she is brutally beaten.  This leads into a fun middle-point with Washington going around helping people out who are in bad situations.  Then evil Russian mobsters come after him, and it gets more violent and more fun and ends with a thirty minute sequence in Washington's Home Mart which is basically like grown-up 'Home Alone' with him killing various baddies with traps and stuff.  Tons of fun.  I'd watch a whole series of these, starring Denzel.  Based on the mid-80s CBS series.

[S.K.o.S.]

Kill The Messenger was really good imo.  You just have to be aware that Michael K. Williams as Rick Ross has very limited screen time, almost like a cameo.  This is very much Jeremy Renner's movie.  But it's got overtones of Zodiac at the start (just for the west coast newspaper office setting), Renner is more likable than I can ever remember him being, and it's very watchable.  This is maybe a weird compliment to give a movie, but there was no point where I was thinking "Yeah I could pause this right now and go get a snack."

[caley]

Deadline pushed back two weeks, March 6th now!

[Control]

So. WHIPLASH just as intense as advertised. Though I'd say Fletchet is just Drill Sarent Hartman from FULL METAL JACKET.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Control]

also: THE GUEST is better than BOYHOOD.

[The Natural]

Pimping two films I haven't seen mentioned:

 

Night Will Fall is a documentary that tells and shows footage from a documentary in 1945 about liberated concentration camps. The footage from 1945 is shelved and has only recently been shown in this film. Night Will Fall aired on Channel 4 in the UK this year before Holocaust Remembrance Day, advert free. I can't ever remember the channel doing that, it was the right call. I strongly recommend this film though its HORRIFIC viewing. Such evil on our fellow man/woman.

 

Citizenfour is a documentary about Edward Snowden and features interviews with him who revealed the spying surveilance programs. I've had an interest in freedom vs. security and the right to privacy since I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, as such I had to watch it even if it showed at a late time on TV. This won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the recent Academy Awards.

 

Deadline pushed back two weeks, March 6th now!

 

My birthday!

[S.K.o.S.]

also: THE GUEST is better than BOYHOOD.

 

My knee-jerk reaction was "GTFO", then I realized my ballot agrees with you.

[Execproducer]

I don't suppose we could push this off one more week?

[caley]

So, March 13th...yeah I could make that work...seeing as I have only two ballots, thus far, anything to get more.

[Brian Fowler]

I lied earlier.  My likely never going to happen hypothetical ballot would have Boyhood thus far #2, behind Veronica Mars.

[Execproducer]

I lied earlier.  My likely never going to happen hypothetical ballot would have Boyhood thus far #2, behind Veronica Mars.

lol, I was pretty sure you were going to be skewing the Veronica Mars vote. I should have predicted it.

[Execproducer]

So, March 13th...yeah I could make that work...seeing as I have only two ballots, thus far, anything to get more.

Thank you! Right in the middle of my vacation, so I might get another 15 films watched.

[Brian Fowler]

 

I lied earlier.  My likely never going to happen hypothetical ballot would have Boyhood thus far #2, behind Veronica Mars.

lol, I was pretty sure you were going to be skewing the Veronica Mars vote. I should have predicted it.

 

 

That only happens if I actually do a ballot, which currently stands at...  two films

[Execproducer]

Really? you've only seen 2  2014 films?  Damn Brian, stop and smell the roses. 50 bucks says you've seen  Big Hero 6.

[Brian Fowler]

No, I've seen several.  I've ranked two.

[Brian Fowler]

Also, nobody take him up on that bet.