Top 20 Best and Top 10 Worst Films of 2014

Top 20 Best Films of 2014

1.     Birdman

2.     Whiplash

3.     Gone Girl

4.     Life Itself

5.     Boyhood

6.     Guardians of the Galaxy

7.     Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

8.     Edge of Tomorrow

9.     How to Train Your Dragon 2

10.  Snowpiercer

11.  The Wind Rises

12.  The Lego Movie

13.  The Imitation Game

14.  Interstellar

15.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier

16.  John Wick

17.  The Grand Budapest Hotel

18.  Nightcrawler

19.  Foxcatcher

20.  Wild

 

Honorable Mentions: 22 Jump Street, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, American Sniper (Watched in 2015), Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, Bears, Big Eyes, Big Hero 6, The Book of Life, The Boxtrolls, A Brony Tale, Cavalry, Chef, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, The Equalizer, The Fault in our Stars, Fury, Get on Up, Godzilla, The Good Lie, The Hundred-Foot Journey, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, Interstellar, Into the Woods, Love is Strange, Lucy, The Maze Runner, Million Dollar Arm, A Most Violent Year, A Most Wanted Man, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Mr. Turner, Muppets Most Wanted, Neighbors, Noah, Oculus, Penguins of Madagascar, The Purge: Anarchy, The Raid 2, Selma (Watched in 2015), The Skeleton Twins, St. Vincent, The Theory of Everything, Top Five, Veronica Mars, A Walk Among the Tombstones, X-Men: Days of Future Past

Movies I Liked That Were Not Well-Received: 300: Rise of an Empire, The Interview, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Judge, Maleficent, The Monuments Men, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, RoboCop, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, This is Where I Leave You

Top 10 Worst Films of 2014

1.     I, Frankenstein

2.     Annabelle

3.     The Expendables 3

4.     Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

5.     Need for Speed

6.     Transformers: Age of Extinction

7.     Dracula Untold

8.     Dumb and Dumber To

9.     A Million Ways to Die in the West

10.  Horrible Bosses 2

Dishonorable Mentions: Annie, Divergent, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Gambler, Into the Storm, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transcendence, Unbroken

The Gambler review

THE GAMBLER:

DECENT PERFORMANCES BY MARK WAHLBERG AND JOHN GOODMAN, BUT IT LACKS JAMES CAAN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Mark Wahlberg is The Gambler

            Marky- Mark himself, Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter, Ted, Transformers: Age of Extinction) and John Goodman (The Big Lebowski, Monsters, Inc., Flight) join forces with director, Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) in his third film as a director, The Gambler, remake of the 1974 James Caan classic of the same name.

            For a remake, it’s a decent attempt, the film is well acted and put together, and the intense drama is gripping. Unfortunately it lacks the Golden Globe nominated James Caan performance as a gambler who steals from his mother to pay gambling debts, and manages to be a likable character.

            Wahlberg’s performance is pretty solid as well, he managed to take James Caan’s character and made it his own, and for the most part I think he pulled it off. In some of his previous films, he looks like the type of man who would have a gambling addiction, especially in Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain from last year (2013).

            The film focuses on English professor, Jim Bennett (Wahlberg) who has a serious gambling problem. He bets lots of money he stole from his mother (Academy Award® Winner, Jessica Lange-Tootsie, Blue Sky, Big Fish) in poker tournaments that backfires colossally when he realizes he’s in debt to gangsters who he borrowed money from, and a fat shirtless thug named Frank (Goodman).

            While that’s going on, Jim is developing a bond with one of his students, Amy Phillips (Brie Larson-21 Jump Street, Short Circuit 12) who’s at the top of his class, because he’s teaching a bunch of students who honestly have no interest in what he’s teaching them. He also helps an African-American slacker in his class, Lamar Allen (Anthony Kelley) become a basketball player on the school’s team, the Wildcats (No, not that kind of Wildcats!).

            Jim’s life keeps getting worse when the head gangster (Michael K. Williams-12 Years a Slave, The Purge: Anarchy, Inherent Vice) threatens to kill Amy if he doesn’t give him the money he owes. So we can all hope, he makes the right decision and turns his life around for the best.

            Overall, The Gambler is a pretty entertaining crime drama; there are enough intense and gritty moments, solid acting, and decent writing to satisfy. And of course Mark Wahlberg’s performance as Jim Bennett is very convincing, seeing how he was once a rapper before becoming an actor and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did any gambling during his time as a rapper.

            However the one who really steals the show is John Goodman as the fat thug, Frank. His performance is very similar to his roles from The Big Lebowski, Argo, Flight, and The Hangover Part III; he’s big, mean, but also pretty funny, not to mention he taught me about the “Fuck You Positions”.

            Even though I enjoyed Wahlberg and Goodman’s performances, they don’t top James Caan’s performance from the original movie. He really looked like the Gambling type in that movie, not to mention he was also casted in The Godfather, if that’s not an accomplishment I don’t know what is.

            But I’m just nitpicking here, take the remake for what it is, if you liked the original Gambler or other gambling classics like Casino, chances are you’ll find something to enjoy about this modernized re-imagining, but if you want something more powerful and smarter, I’d say watch the original or Casino.            

Unbroken review

UNBROKEN:

DECENT EFFORT FROM DIRECTOR ANGELINA JOLIE, BUT THIS WAR FLICK IS MOSTLY FORGETTABLE!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Jack O’ Connell as Lou Zamperini in Unbroken

            Angelina Jolie (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Salt, Maleficent) makes her second feature film as a director, the first being 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey. This time she’s taking her directing skills to World War II with Unbroken, based on the true story of war prisoner and Olympian runner, Louie Zamperini (Jack O’ Connell-Eden Lake, Harry Brown, 300: Rise of an Empire).

            For a second film as a director, Angelina definitely put a decent amount of effort into the movie; unfortunately there are a lot of moments that feel like rehashed scenes from films like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket, and Chariots of Fire; not to mention the film has a few scenes that drag on longer than they should, and some of the emotional dialogue is rather cliché and often predictable.

            The film follows Louie and two other crewmen surviving in a raft at sea for 47 days after a plane crash in World War II. The three war heroes get caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a Prisoners of War camp where they are tortured and forced to work for the Japanese or be executed.

            Louie and his airmen, Phil (Domhnall Gleeson-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, True Grit, Calvary) and Mac (Finn Wittrock-The Normal Heart, Winter’s Tale) must fight their way out of the prison camp, win the war, and make it home so Louie can pursue his dream of becoming a runner in the Olympics.

            Overall, Unbroken is a passable Angelina Jolie directed film, it has a gritty war atmosphere and some of the emotional drama can be powerful at times. But compared to other war films like Saving Private Ryan, Inglourious Basterds, or Full Metal Jacket, there’s not enough war action or original moments to make it count as a cinematic war classic.

            With that said, the acting for the most part is pretty solid, Jack O’ Connell does well as Louie and seeing him go through the cruel elements of war; you want to see him fight his way out. However if there’s one performance throughout the entire film that was worth watching was Japanese actor, Miyavi in his English film debut as the brutal Japanese camp guard nicknamed, The Bird, he’s really hamming it out and you can tell he’s having fun with the performance.

            It’s nice there were enough elements in the film that I enjoyed, even if the movie isn’t entirely good. Jolie’s directing is solid, the acting is great, and there are enough intense war scenes to keep you on the edge of your seat. But it’s a shame the dialogue and emotional drama is cliché and not very original, if more effort was put into the writing to balance out the war action and acting I’m sure the film would have held up better.

            I’m just nitpicking here, if you’re all about war themed movies, you’ll probably like the movie, but if you want a really smart and gripping war epic, I’d say you should see Fury again, or just pop Saving Private Ryan or Inglourious Basterds into your DVD player instead.

Big Eyes review

BIG EYES:

A DIFFERENT BUT EQUALLY ENTERTAINING NEW FILM BY TIM BURTON!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

Christoph Waltz (left) and Amy Adams (right) as Walter and Margaret Keane in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes

            Odd director and frequent Johnny Depp collaborator, Tim Burton (Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie) takes a refreshing change of pace in his latest film, Big Eyes. The first film in many years to not feature Johnny Depp, Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter, Winona Ryder, Jack Nicholson, or any of his other frequent actor collaborators from previous films, it’s a brand new cast that never worked with Burton before, which is strange but adds more to the praise.

            Besides the cast, what’s also very different about Big Eyes is the premise, instead of being based on a comic, book, or original sketch drawing by Tim Burton; it’s a biographical drama about a famous artist. It’s odd to see Tim Burton tackle a real life story, although he did direct Ed Wood in 1994, which was about a real filmmaker, but that movie felt more “Burton-ish”.

            The film is about famous painter, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz-Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained) who is known for painting caricatures of children with really big eyes, and was once one of the most successful painters of the 1950s and 60s. He became noticed by revolutionizing the commercialism of his art.

            It’s not long until the truth is discovered that Walter did not create the paintings, when it was really his wife, Margaret Keane (Amy Adams-Enchanted, Man of Steel, American Hustle) and what was once a seemingly happy married couple becomes a War of the Roses to claim ownership of the art.

            Overall, Big Eyes is a decent Tim Burton film; it manages to mix its quirky looking tone with drama perfectly. Not to mention Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz’s performances are absolutely amazing, especially Christoph Waltz as the nasty husband who hogs all the fame from his wife, who worked very hard on the paintings.

            The only recurring crew member collaborator who returns is composer Danny Elfman, who composed the score music for almost every Tim Burton movie from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure to Frankenweenie. Like most of his music for Burton’s films, the music is very quirky and sets the mood of the movie very well.

            Besides the acting, directing, and music, the set designs for the film definitely scream Tim Burton, the colors, designs, and settings have his fingerprints all over them. Also the suburban neighborhood is very colorful and it looks like it’s been ripped right out of Edward Scissorhands.

            I enjoyed watching this film a lot, especially because it was a different kind of film from Tim Burton’s previous projects. Although I wouldn’t say it’s up there with my personal favorites like Batman, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, or Edward Scissorhands, but it was entertaining and weird enough for me to get some satisfaction out of it.

            If you’re a fan of Tim Burton or art, chances are you’re going to enjoy this movie, especially if you’re a painter; this is a very important movie for you to see. It’s like the Ed Wood of painting; with its quirky Tim Burton style rolled into reality makes Big Eyes a Big Burton Movie.