My Top 10 Movies of 2014

This year's tally was 64 films watched from 2014* at the time of this post, which is a new personal record! You'll see at the end of the list that I have a lot of honourable mentions I couldn't fit into the top 10. 

*Note: While one or more of these may come up as being from 2013 on IMDB, my criteria for release year is when the movie was released in North American theaters, not film festivals or foreign countries. 




10. Edge of Tomorrow 
It's too bad this movie bombed - either from people boycotting Tom Cruise, the title and advertising not doing the movie justice, or both - because it really is a great film. How can a sci-fi action version of Groundhog Day not be loads of fun? 





9. X-Men: Days of Future Past 
I've enjoyed all of the X-Men movies, but an epic story that sweeps across two time periods and makes good use of a very large cast raised this one to another level. 






8. Begin Again 
Not as good as Once, from the same director, but that's not an easy movie to top anyway. Begin Again is still a film with charm and magic that makes me smile a lot when I watch it. 





                                  7. Coherence 
A simple dinner party with friends turns into a night of chaos, confusion, and danger when a passing comet creates a surreal phenomenon that has the group panicking. I love movies like this where characters are trying to figure out what to do in a weird, unprecedented situation. I don't want to spoil any more, but this is one that messes with your head and gives you things to think about, which makes it a lot of fun for me. 






6. Mommy 
A heart-breaking French-Canadian film about a mother dealing with the burden of her delinquent son, the crass characters were off-putting at first but eventually grew on me. Not only does this movie make brilliant use of its aspect ratio as a storytelling device, but it also contains the best use of "Wonderwall" since Charlie sang it on Lost. 




5. Boyhood 
Putting the groundbreaking gimmick aside, I enjoyed this film because it offers the complete experience of growing up. Obviously there are already plenty of coming-of-age movies out there, but they tend to be limited to one age, or brief snippets of a few ages, but Boyhood gives us 12 consecutive years and we can see some familiarity in all of them.




4. Housebound 
This horror-comedy from New Zealand is about a young woman confined to house arrest at her parents' house...which is haunted! This one is an absolute blast, subverting the haunted house genre and going to all kinds of unexpected places.

3. Birdman 
I am one of those people who are impressed by long takes, and while I'm aware this movie isn't really one long take, it's still a series of long takes strung together and that's good enough for me. The continuous action perfectly captured the energy of live theater and the never-ending human struggle for relevancy.




2. Snowpiercer 
An interesting post-apocalyptic sci-fi concept with awesome set designs and action set pieces, and a very fun character performance from Tilda Swinton, made this one of the most unique and enjoyable films of the year.




1. Whiplash 
While Birdman used long takes to convey an energy to the audience, Whiplash used music. J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller are both phenomenal in this movie, but the music brings all of the anger, dedication, and desperation crackling to life, with a stunning conclusion that sticks with you.


Honourable mentions: Interstellar, The One I Love, Big Hero 6, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Cold in July, I Origins, In Your Eyes, The Interview, They Came Together, Predestination, Locke, Enemy, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Gone Girl, Big Eyes, The Homesman, Nightcrawler

Previous lists: 2013 / 2012 / 2011 / 2010

My Top 10 Movies of 2013

This has been the hardest list to rank so far. To give you an idea, I watched 43 movies from 2013 and only gave 9 of them a rating lower than 7 out of 10. Honourable mentions - which were painful to leave out - are at the end.




10. The Place Beyond the Pines

I was expecting this to be some cool action movie going in, but what I got instead was a thoughtful drama that flows from character to character in a really interesting way. I was surprised by how much I ended up liking it.

 9. The Way, Way Back

I know what it's like to be the weird, quiet kid who has trouble connecting with people who think quiet people have something wrong with them, and how freeing it is to be around those people who want to see you be yourself. This movie captured that well.

 8. This is the End

There have been several apocalypse movies lately, but this one put an original spin on it by making it about a group of actors (playing themselves) trying to survive cooped up in a house together. The humour may not be for everyone, but I found it funny.

 7.  The Wolf of Wall Street

I didn't realize this was going to be a comedy, but it's actually pretty funny in parts, and entertaining in a Breaking Bad sort of way because the characters are finding success in doing terrible things. I was also very impressed with Jonah Hill's full-on character performance here.

6. 12 Years a Slave

Parts of this were hard to watch because of the horrible treatment of the slaves, but I think that's also what makes this one effective and real. Really strong and beautiful performances across the board here, and I feared it was going to be one of those long and boring historical epics, but I was not bored in the slightest.

5. Gravity

I got to see this in 3D at the theater, and it was quite an intense and gripping experience. It's a fairly simple concept, but everything that could go wrong generally does, ramping up the tension until the very end. And I'm not normally a Sandra Bullock fan, but this was the best performance I've ever seen from her.

4. Star Trek Into Darkness

I liked the first movie, but I found this one to be ten times more fun, which is rare for a sequel. And I haven't even seen much of any of the TV series'.

3. The Kings of Summer

I think everyone has that fantasy as a teenager of being able to run away and live by your own rules; The Kings of Summer is about three boys who made that fantasy a reality by building their own house in the woods. This movie is actually hilarious to me, as I found the jokes close to my sense of humour.

2. Her

I love a good romance movie when it's nontraditional. There's usually at least one of those on my list every year, and this year it's Her. The concept of a man falling in love with a computer voice might sound weird at first, but when you watch the movie it doesn't come off that way because the voice has a full personality, and the scenes with them spending time together are charming and fun to watch.

1. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

As a lifelong dreamer, I really "got" this movie and its protagonist. I don't think the critics liked it very much, but I found it to be an amazing and wonderful adventure, and ultimately the most enjoyable movie I saw all year. You know those movies that just make you really happy? This is one of those.

 Honourable mentions: Upstream Color, American Hustle, Stoker, The Spectacular Now, The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Iceman, Mud, The Grandmaster.

Previous lists: 2012 / 2011 / 2010

My Top 10 Movies of 2012

Look at that, I got 'em in before June this year! As with last year, I watched close to 30 films again, and while it actually wasn't too hard to decide on the final 10 this time, there were still some great ones that got left out. Honourable mentions at the end.





10. The Avengers
I wasn't too interested in the SHIELD stuff at the beginning, but once the Avengers assembled, this movie became a wild, action-packed bucket of fun. Great use of a superhero ensemble.





9. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Every once in a while, I fall for a more formulaic romance (when I'm not generally avoiding them). This was one of those instances, largely due to the wonderful chemistry between Carell and Knightley, in spite of their pairing being fairly random.




8. Jeff, Who Lives at Home
This was an "everything happens for a reason, and everything comes together at the end" kind of movie, which I wasn't expecting before it started, but I really enjoyed watching it play out. It's probably also appealing to the slacker generation in that the lazy slob gets to save the day.





7. Brave
One of the biggest surprises of the year for me, because I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did, but Brave's heroine is awesome and I love that this is a feminist film to counter all of that exposure to Disney princesses.






6. The Master
It may not be 100% understandable after the first viewing, but boy is it fascinating. The methods of the Scientology-like cult are, I'm pretty sure, frighteningly accurate, but it's the top notch performances from the cast that put it over the top.





5. Moonrise Kingdom
Like everything Wes Anderson does, this is a highly stylized and colourful presentation of a prestigious cast wandering between deadpan humour and cartoonish surrealism. Or as my dad called it: "super atmosphere." Watching it is definitely an engrossing experience.




4. Django Unchained
I'm so glad Christoph Waltz got another Oscar for this one, because he was just as awesome here as he was in Inglourious Basterds. As only Tarantino can do, he made a long movie seem not that long just by having a bunch of memorable characters kill each other amidst a revenge plot.

3. Seven Psychopaths
Smart, funny, and insanely enjoyable to watch. The ensemble cast is a group of people who are basically proven action stars but also have good comedic timing. On top of that, there's a whole meta-fictional aspect to the story that puts this one in the same category as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.




2. Ruby Sparks
Combining two things I love - non-traditional romance stories and  "WTF is going on?!" scenarios, Ruby Sparks blew me away and went to places I wasn't even expecting. Equal parts cute and dark, but wholly satisfying for me.





1. God Bless America
Another one that was just a blast to watch, but the reason I'm putting it at number one is because I feel it is the most culturally relevant film of the year. The violence is merely an attention-getting statement and not a suggestion for the audience, but I like the observation that society has, to simplify, grown shallow and rude, and I support spreading awareness of that through this movie.



Honourable mentions: Looper, Wreck-It Ralph, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, Ted

God Bless America

Impressions before seeing it
I didn't entirely know what this was about, but I saw Bobcat Goldthwait promoting it on Attack of the Show a while back, along with a clip of the main characters shooting folks in a movie theater, and the idea of Bobcat making a violent movie intrigued me.

How was it?
I think this movie is potentially easy to misinterpret, and probably even easier to dislike. It is made for a specific type of person, and that is its only flaw, but more on that in a moment.

Frank (played by Joel Miller, one of those "Oh, that guy" actors finally in a starring role) flips through TV stations with a frown as he not only observes all the crap that passes for entertainment these days, but also acknowledges sadly to himself what this means for the state of American society. There are few decent people left, because modern Western lifestyle begets shallow, dumb, spoiled, mean, exploitative idiots and then rewards that behaviour. Pessimistic, yes, but also realistic. Depressed and suicidal, Frank almost offs himself but first decides to kill an annoying reality TV star. The act impresses Roxy (Tara Lynn Barr), a classmate of the victim, eventually leading to the two of them going on a douche-killing spree.

This movie is almost like Super meets Taxi Driver. Someone else on the internet described it as "Falling Down meets Leon", which I suppose also works. Both actors are excellent here, and I found it to be a lot of fun watching them bond over their pet peeves and treat murder like a casual hobby. But don't misunderstand that aspect: this movie isn't saying that someone should go out and kill all of the insufferable morons out there. That, which was Frank's mistake, would be blaming the individuals instead of the group. If you're truly a dick, it's probably not your fault; you just grew up in a misguided environment. Does that mean you deserve to die? Maybe, maybe not; it shouldn't be up to someone else to decide that. But it's not going to make a difference, because there will always be annoying morons as long as society keeps churning them out. That's what this movie is really saying: Western culture produces a lot of idiots, but too few people are aware that that is a problem because those same idiots have become the majority. Ironically, this is where this film's own existence becomes problematic; none of those dunces would likely watch a movie like this, therefore never getting the message, which means this movie ends up preaching to the choir. I would say it's up to us to show it to people we hate, but that would be equivalent to Frank and Roxy killing them; an individual here or there won't make a difference in the workings of an entire nation. We have to change as a whole if we're going to change at all.

Recommendation
There is danger of finding God Bless America too preachy or disconnected, but I think it definitely speaks to that type of person who is frustrated by our shallow, exploitative culture. If that sounds like you, have fun living vicariously through this dark comedy action thrill ride! I know I did.

Pilot Week 2012

While I've discontinued my weekly television posts, I wanted to maintain my annual tradition of watching pilots for shows I've never seen during the week of American Thanksgiving. I think it's a fun way to force myself into shows and see what I'll end up liking, so here is this year's selection.

Game of Thrones
At times I felt the pilot was a little slow, but mostly interesting. I know that pilots usually aren't the best episode of a series, though, because they have to spend too much time establishing everything and it's hard to do that while also being really awesome and exciting. If this show weren't so popular I might consider stopping here, but I want to keep going to where it (I'm assuming) becomes really captivating. Or is this just a dense show, like a fantasy version of The Wire? P.S. Viserys is one of the creepiest TV characters ever.

Party Down
I really like the idea of a show about aspiring showbusiness people having to work a crappy party catering job because their careers haven't taken off. The pilot wasn't hilarious, but had a few funny moments, and I like its potential, as well as the cast. Lots of fun overall, and something I'm looking forward to more of (yes, I'm aware it was canceled).

Archer
I enjoyed Frisky Dingo, and Archer has the same people behind it. It definitely has the same humour and a similar feel - Archer is very Xander Crews-like - and it was funny, but going just by the pilot I do like Frisky Dingo better. That might be for it's unique cast of characters, though.

Girls
What I kept hearing about this show was that it was good, but not funny. I can understand that viewpoint; I did laugh at certain parts, but they were more like light chuckles than hilarious belly laughs. It has the tone of one of those indie movies that is often labelled as a comedy but feels more like a lighthearted drama. That being said, I really enjoyed it because I found the characters compelling. Thanks to Lena Dunham's script, the dialogue felt natural and the characters felt real.

The Venture Bros.
I was surprised to learn that this was a half-hour show, because most Adult Swim cartoons are 10-15 minutes and I thought this was one of them. Anyway, I have to say that in spite of this show having cool artwork on their DVD covers, I didn't really enjoy the pilot. On paper the concept sounds like it could have been a really cool, fun series, but the whole time I felt like I was watching a children's cartoon. I figured the show was popular for its sense of humour, and maybe it is, but the jokes weren't really clever, original, wacky, or mature enough for my taste (and when I say "mature", I'm not referring to an absence of toilet humour, or anything to do with joke topic/content, I'm more referring to joke type. This pilot used an excessive amount of visual and physical gags, which doesn't require maturity or intelligence in order to laugh at, hence why it felt like a children's cartoon). I would glady watch episode two of the other shows in this post, but not this one.

Dexter - Season Six

Sometimes when a successful movie franchise begins to go downhill in its sequels, it's because the crew tends to get too comfortable in knowing they have a loyal audience, resulting in less effort and a lot of failed attempts to make hammy inside jokes for the viewer's sake. This is what the sixth season premiere of Dexter was like. It had almost a fan-fiction feel to it, like I was constantly being winked at and force-fed a series of moments the producers thought I wanted to see. Luckily the rest of the season was not as cringe-worthy, but that one lapse in an otherwise solid show was definitely concerning; it was the first time I'd ever watched Dexter and thought "Wow, that episode was just bad."

The one thing that did remain awful for the rest of the season, though, was guest star Colin Hanks' acting. Or maybe it wasn't specifically his acting that was to blame, but more that he was completely and totally wrong for the role. He's just not believable as a creepy, disturbed serial killer (I recall that he pretty much only had one facial expression through most of the season). The innocent man-child aspect of his character is more fitting for him. In a situation like that, you can try to overlook it and pretend the character is more than the actor, but it's still going to be distracting. Furthermore, I wasn't really into the concept of a religious serial killer creating Biblical tableaux and hiding out in an abandoned church, because most of the time anything too religion-heavy automatically bores me. I wasn't literally bored, but one of the best things about Dexter is how each season has that one main villain, the really dangerous but fascinating one who takes a whole season for Dexter to catch, and this time around I never felt that sense of danger or fascination. In other words, a huge part of the season was ruined by a poor choice of villain and an even poorer choice of actor to play him.

Aside from those things, I did find the rest of the season to be adequate. As one of my least favourite characters on television, I appreciated that LaGuerta's role in the show seemed to be downsized somewhat, although it didn't stop her from being more annoying than ever. This season also includes an interesting plot twist that I didn't see coming, and a cliffhanger that I did - even before starting the season, I had guessed how it was going to end because it felt like the only logical next step after season five had pushed the show in that direction. Apparently there are only two more seasons left, and I do intend to watch both of those, but this one was the weakest so far and I'm really hoping it doesn't get worse from here.

Best episode: I'm going with "Get Gellar", because with a slightly lowered bar after the first two thirds of the season, that episode threw out an unexpected plot twist that raised it back up.

This Season in Television - 2011-2012 (Part 2)

Before I get to my choices for the best episodes of this past TV season, I'd like to announce a slight format change on this blog. When I first started it up, my intention was to do a write-up of every movie and TV show I was watching for the first time. There was a very small number of things I didn't write about because I just had nothing to say about them, but for the most part I was diligent and got every review posted. As you can see, I haven't posted anything in over a month, and that last post was a month after the previous one. I've still been watching all kinds of movies and shows, but I've decided it's just too time-consuming to write about all of them. It probably takes me at least an hour per post (I'm not a fast thinker, okay?), which means every 2-hour movie takes up 3 hours of my time, and that piles up if I watch a few things in fairly close succession and then don't have the time to write them all up because of work and life getting in the way. To be honest it gets a little tiring forcing myself to write about everything, and it isn't really worth it when there's barely anyone reading. I'm not shutting down the blog, I just won't be posting about every single title anymore, and I will probably gravitate toward posts on more general topics and top 10 lists. I'm not going to do a weekly television post anymore (though it was fun naming a hero and douchebag of the week), but I'll likely still do season wrap-ups like this one, and I will always post about my top 10 movies of the year, even if it comes in June. Apologies to anyone who might be disappointed by this news, but it's still kind of cool to have a complete snapshot of my viewing habits over a three year period. Thanks for reading and now let's talk about some episodes!

Once Upon a Time
This show really surprised me in the later episodes of the season, because I had been mostly lukewarm about it and was expecting to name "Skin Deep" as my favourite. It's still a great episode, and probably makes a close second, but the finale, "A Land Without Magic", was just too epic and exciting not to choose it. It made me want to see the next season, a total reversal of where my opinion was when the series began.

Glee
It's no secret that I find every episode of Glee frustrating for its messy writing and overabundance of unnecessary characters, so when choosing the best episode it's not so much the best episode as the one that annoyed me the least. Tough call this time, as season three was the worst to date, but I guess this season's "least bad" episode goes to "On My Way", one of the few times I didn't feel that their handling of a serious issue was offensive or ineffective.

New Girl
Like Once Upon a Time, the second half of the season was an improvement on the first, although I don't think there was really an episode I loved more than the others. Maybe "Injured" or "Secrets".

Community
This year's pick was surprisingly easy for me. As always, this show continues to do amazingly fun and creative episodes, but "Remedial Chaos Theory" blew them all away as not only one of the series' best episodes, but one of the best episodes I've ever seen of any television show. It was so brilliantly written, so fun, lively, hilarious, and strategic with the characters, that it was really the perfect half-hour of entertainment. I mean, I can't not choose an episode at which I was grinning the entire time and repeating "This is so awesome!" to myself.

30 Rock
I think it's a tie between "Idiots Are People Three!", which had Devon Banks and Kelsey Grammer, and "Kidnapped By Danger", which had Weird Al Yankovic, and Billy Baldwin playing Jack Donaghy in a TV Movie. Excellent use of guest stars.

The Office
This season had its ups and downs, but never managed to be as hilarious as it was with Michael Scott around. Still, it had some laughs and sweetness left in it. I'd say top marks go to "Special Project", because I really liked the idea of Dwight getting stuck with the "dud" characters for his Tallahassee team but then finding them to be more capable than he thought.

Parks and Recreation
"Citizen Knope", the Christmas episode that very much highlighted what makes this show's cast of characters so awesome and lovable, each in their own completely unique ways.

Up All Night
This show was disappointing in that it was a lot less hilarious than it should have been, but the finale, "The Proposals", was more or less enjoyable after a mediocre first season.

Awake
In my opinion, every episode of this tragically cancelled series was fantastic except for one, which is not a bad track record at all. But my favourite was the series finale, "Turtles All the Way Down", because it wrapped things up in a way that was actually 100% satisfying, which doesn't happen that often in finales. Maybe because shows that go on longer than one season have built up an audience expectation that they can't completely fulfill.

Fringe
Fringe doesn't normally have stand-out episodes to me, but they did something unique this season in "Letters of Transit" when they spent an episode in the future. It was a crazy and risky move by the writers, but a very riveting episode that apparently served as a sneak peek for season five. Plus Desmond from Lost was in it.

On a final note, there is no new show this fall that looks good or interesting to me, but I will probably at least watch The Mindy Project. I hope mid-season will be better.