Turns out I haven’t told you about my favorites since 2011. So I thought I’d drop a quick note to ya about 2014 while I’m waiting for my hair to dry. You are welcome! 🙂 HA!
I saw 29 movies in 2014, thanks to Project Life for reminding me of some of the titles as I sorta lost track of keeping up my list OOPS.
1, 2. My favorite two movies in 2014 were Only Lovers Left Alive and Words & Pictures with the former maintaining a slight lead over the latter were I forced to name an absolute favorite. They were both movies about relationships; about both who and what we choose to have in our lives; about the importance of art, words and music; about what maintains us across time; about how we have to live within our own choices and our weakness, and while sometimes that does damage, sometimes that’s a place to have strength. They were both filled with lovely performances and I loved them to pieces.
3. My third favorite movie was Guardians of the Galaxy, by far the most fun I had in the theater (both times!) all year. I’ve already watched it at home, I’ve listened to the music a million times (after I put the soundtrack into the correct order-it-was-played-in-the-movie order; that IS the music of much of my childhood, I was born in ’68 after all); and it only furthered the extreme goodwill I have had toward Chris Pratt since Everwood (where he got to play a *slightly* more layered character than his Parks & Rec tour de force as Andy Dwyer).
4. Calvary. Wicked powerful performance by Brendan Glesson. Very moving.
5. The Imitation Game. Love Cumberbatch, love Knightley, LOVE Matthew Goode (LOVE HIM, WATCH THIS!) Bring a kleenex for the ending–and I don’t mean the ending of the war. Lords of kobol, the horrible things we have done to people for so-called morality are just sickening.
6. Begin Again. I just rewatched this after recommending it to a friend for the James Corden performance as she’s geeking out into him in Into the Woods. This movie, like my numbers 1 and 2, is really about choosing what’s important to you and then being forced to live with that decision, through good and bad. I read an article recently about how this director (who also did Once, which I did NOT like, too sappy por moi) does all these films about unrequited relationships and how weird that is (how he thinks that’s what true love is, some unconsummated-esque state of being). I actually thought this movie was NOT about a relationship between Knightly and Ruffalo and that what happens romantically in HIS life in the movie was truly perfect. If you’ve ever seen Kevin Williamson defend the idea that Dawson was indeed Joey’s soul mate even if Pacey is her forever relationship…well I don’t think the Knightly/Ruffalo characters needed to be in love. That was my take anyway.
I also REALLY like: A Most Wanted Man (we sure are assholes, us Americans); The Grand Budapest Hotel (fantastic, but not as good as the fabfabfabulous Moonrise Kingdom, the standard against which all his movies shall forever be judged); Wish I Was Here, even if it stretched the reality a bit for Kate Hudson to be Zach Braff’s wife (doesn’t it seem Judd Apatow-esque to always have the homelier guy have the most gorgeous girl); Rob the Mob, which was fun and had some great performances from lesser known peeps; Wild, which I found oddly affecting; Magic in the Moonlight; and Edge of Tomorrow which was HILARIOUS. I mean the first 35 minutes of that movie are magically funny. Boyhood is definitely worth seeing, although maybe not deserving of its mostly format-based hype.
I liked but ultimately found unsatisfying Snowpiercer and Birdman.
I saw some other movies that were OK or fine but not horrible. You can check the list and ask me if you’d like to know about one or another in particular, I obviously am happy to share opinions/thoughts. HA.
What I did think was HORRIBLE was: Wolf of Wall Street, what an egotisitical piece of utter bullpucky; Under the Skin, monotonous and bizarre but not bizarre interesting more like bizarre this director told, showed and gave us NOTHING HERE; and sadly the new Chris Rock movie Top Five which I really really wanted to like because I think he’s a comic genius (and wicked smaht, yes please say that with a Boston accent) but ultimately was a big hot steaming mess.
AND BONUS:
I saw 30 movies in 2013 and my favorites were: Flight, Zero Dark Thirty; Much Ado About Nothing (LOVE!!), Mud, Fast & Furious 6 (YES I SAID IT), Fruitvale Station, American Hustle, and it’s a tough call between Dallas Buyers Club and Philomena. Least favorites were: Byzantium (overwrought), What Maisie Knew (sadly not very compelling), To Rome with Love (lame)….I don’t know, looking over that list right now nothing jumps out as me as SUCKING AS MUCH AS WOLF OF WALL STREET. So maybe I just didn’t really see many bad movies in 2013.
I saw 34 movies in 2012 and my favorites were: the aforementioned Moonrise Kingdom; Silver Linings Playbook; Skyfall (SO GOOD); Cabin in the Woods (damn smart); A Separation, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Least favorites: Magic Mike (so disappointing), Killer Joe (so disgusting horrifying); and Battleship (so so so so bad). OH WAIT I actually wrote a post about my 2012 faves. I guess my memory has changed things, eh. HA.