50 Best Films of 2014 - #40 - #31

Moving on to my next ten favorite films of 2014, #40 through #31.

40. Coherence

A delicious low budget slice of science fiction, Coherence takes a really cool concept and executes it very well. I will say no more because I don't want to spoil the fun of the film, as I found not knowing what to expect to be the very essence of why it works so well.

39. Still Alice

A very good film featuring a breathtaking and devastating performance by Julianne Moore. As hard as the content of Still Alice is to swallow, you owe it to yourself to sit down and watch the very definition of what makes acting an art form. I keep on saying it, over and over and over: just give her the damn trophy already.

38. Force Majeure

A very simple concept done fascinatingly well, Force Majeure examines a husband making a split second decision and the ramifications of it being deemed the wrong one by his wife. This one is sure to lead to some interesting conversations between spouses after seeing it, as you can't help but wonder...what would they do in the same situation?

37. Locke

Minimalist cinema done so, so well, Locke takes place entirely inside the car of a man as he drives. Sounds boring, right? Thanks to the performance of Tom Hardy, and the creative decision to let the man carry the film with his amazing talent, Locke is surprisingly riveting stuff, and the more you learn about where he is headed and the pressure he is under, it's impossible to look away.

36. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

While not quite as excellent as the second installment, Catching Fire, it is unfair to hold it to such lofty standards. Mockingjay Part 1 is still a very well made movie and one that leads beautifully into the highly anticipated final chapter, due out later in 2015. I was pessimistic about the choice to split the third book into two films, and obviously the decision was financial motivated more than a creative necessity, but I was surprised to find that there was very little fat to trim off these bones. While I'm sure sequences could have been cut, the film still flowed with ease and there is plenty to look forward to in Part 2.

35. Tangerines

Excited to include some Estonian cinema on my list, and Tangerines is a worthy choice. This is a film driven by the amazing performances from the entire ensemble, and I honestly think it would work just as well as a stage play because I could watch these quiet yet intense conversations over and over and never be bored. 

34. A Most Violent Year

J.C. Chandor strikes again with another winner, as expected when a gifted filmmaker casts the amazing Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain to play the two key roles in the movie. A Most Violent Year is a tense, exquisitely crafted work.

33. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

I am more than willing to admit when I am wrong, and my skepticism about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes proved to be misguided. I really believed a sequel to the surprisingly good Rise of the Planet of the Apes seemed like it had no chance to work, but not only did it work, it was a step up from the previous film in every way.

32. Starred Up

I love when a film that I never anticipated sneaks up and shocks me due to its high quality. Starred Up did just that, a movie about a father and son both serving time in the same prison and the charged, dangerous dynamic such a thing would cause. Jack O'Connell was good in the otherwise cringe worthy film Unbroken, but this was his breakout role of the year. 

31. Godzilla

I'm a sucker for big blockbusters involving giant, awesome monsters. Godzilla very clearly fits that bill, and while the performances along with any attempt to develop a meaningful human character came up flat, it didn't matter in the end because everything else kicked so much ass. Some of the set pieces are breathtaking and the musical score of Alexandre Desplat perfectly suited the film, leading to some sequences that were flat out amazing to experience on the biggest screen in town.

Another ten down, into the top 30 we will go soon. The image above is from a film that will appear on the next list.

My Unofficial 20 Favorite Films of 2014 - #20 - #11

It's that time of the year when the best of 2014 lists come flying in from every direction, but I actually typically don't post mine just yet. My tradition is to make the previous year official on the day of the Oscars, as that gives me the first two months of the new year to catch up on films I am yet to see. While I have managed to watch 90 movies released in 2014 already, there are still so many more that I need to make sure to catch before I can really feel good about what I claim to be my favorites. Films like American Sniper, Into the Woods, Inherent Vice, Foxcatcher, Selma, A Most Violent Year, Wild, Whiplash, The Imitation Game and more, so many works receiving tons of praise that I must witness before my 2014 wraps up.

That being said, why not release an unofficial best of list now?

These are my the first ten of my current twenty favorite films of 2014:


20. Godzilla

My Review of Godzilla


Is it a flawless film? Of course not, but the pacing, the musical score by Alexandre Desplat, the confident direction by Gareth Edwards, and the jaw dropping visual effects all combined to make this a blast at the theater way back in May.


19. The Fault in Our Stars

My Review of The Fault in Our Stars


As a thirty year old man, I was apparently not the target audience of this film. As I always say though, there are no bad genres, only bad films, and The Fault in Our Stars is not one of them. I refuse to write off something for being a "chick flick" before I even get a chance to see it, and this hit so many wonderful notes for me and made me weep openly in the theater that day.


18. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

My Review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes


I was extremely pessimistic about a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes as I thought the progression of the apes would prove to be silly. I am so glad I was proven wrong. Exciting action and excellent storytelling, not only was this a worthy second installment into the rebooted franchise, it turned out to be a rather large step up from the first in every way.


17. The Guest

My Review of The Guest


The 2014 film I most recently watched and I was surprised to find it entering my top 20 films of the year, but this fantastic genre film was a total blast and the final fifteen or so minutes were possibly the most entertaining of anything I have seen all year.


16. X-Men: Days of Future Past

My Review of X-Men: Days of Future Past


Another film that I admit I was pessimistic about in advance, as I thought it would be too crowded, a movie trying to do too much and thus it would succumb to its lofty ambitions. Again, glad to be proved wrong. I actually just revisited this on Blu-ray the other night and everything I loved about it in the theater held up just fine at home. A smart, stylish, entertaining film.


15. Enemy

My Review of Enemy


Last year the film Prisoners was my #2 of the year, a gritty, dark and disturbing thriller that had me truly riveted from start to finish. While not quite reaching those heights in 2014, director Denis Villeneuve is back again with his new film Enemy, a confounding and original work that made me literally yell out loud at the end, and then scratch my head as I wondered what I just saw. I am still not entirely sure, but I know it is great.


14. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After a down year in 2013 for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I was hoping my boy Captain America would bring the intelligence and excitement back, with a little less focus on absurd humor and more on a solid script and some kick ass action. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was just what the doctor ordered, essentially a fantastically crafted spy thriller that so happens to have a superhero in it.


13. Under the Skin

My Review of Under the Skin


When I finished watched Under the Skin, the first thing I thought was "What the hell?!" but I had a pretty big smile on my face because I meant it in a very positive way. A truly bizarre experience, but the themes are pretty apparent and meaningful and I appreciated the way it was handled. Seriously though, some of the imagery seen here will keep you up at night. Some truly weird crap, without a doubt, and I loved it.


12. Blue Ruin

My Review of Blue Ruin


I thought I had Blue Ruin pegged from the get-go. I assumed it would go down a rather predictable path, but then something happened that surprised me: exactly what I thought would happen did...except all in the first act of the film. So much story to tell and I had no idea what to expect next. A smart revenge flick that keeps you on your toes until the very end.


11. Life Itself

My Review of Life Itself




Growing up, there was no Rottentomatoes or Metacritic to go to for every review you could imagine. I found my film criticism from two places: the Chicago Sun-Times, where I quickly flipped through in search of the written words of Roger Ebert, and also the television program Siskel and Ebert. I greatly admired Roger for his passionate love for film and the fact that he was able to create a connection with his readers and viewers by never seeming like he knew more than you. He wrote so that you would understand why he felt the way he did, and after you finished reading you truly were persuaded to either see or skip the film being reviewed.

Life Itself is hard to watch at times because it follows Roger to the very end and focuses on the good and the bad, but it is a remarkable tribute to the life of a great man.

My next list will be my current top ten of the year. Happy New Year everyone, here's to a hopefully great 2015.

Monsters Review

For most people, $800,000 is a life changing sum of money, a dream come true for anyone grinding out week after work of a job to ensure that they can keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. However, in regards to the process of making a film, a production budget of under a million dollars these days is almost unheard of as we currently experience a cinematic landscape that regularly releases works with budgets north of 200 million dollars, needing absurd box office success in order to simply break even. The directorial debut of the new hot commodity in the industry Gareth Edwards, Monsters is a film of stunning craft and attention to detail, a film derived from passion that is oozing with nuance and a message of political thematic significance, and the fact that it came to be from a budget so low only makes it that much more astonishing.

At the start of the film we are provided with a quick bit of background on what has lead to the existing circumstances of North America. Six years earlier, a NASA deep space probe crashed in northern Mexico, and the samples it had collected lead to the appearance of new life forms in the region. forcing a massive piece of land to be quarantined and labeled as "infected", a giant wall being erected to stop the creatures from entering the United States. With this information in hand the story begins, that of a photojournalist named Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) being contacted by his boss while on assignment in Mexico, giving him an entirely different task. His new job is to locate and protect the bosses daughter, a young woman by the name of Samantha (Whitney Able), whom is also down in Mexico and ensure her safe return to the states. 

This is a far greater challenge than a typical bit of travel, as the only safe passage without having to cross into the infected zone is by water, a ferry system that runs through the Gulf of Mexico, one that charges the incredibly pricey sum of $5000 a ticket, an amount that Kaulder is willing to and does pay to complete his mission, but when the moment arrives for Sam to board the ferry they come to the realization that her passport was robbed by a guest Andrew had spent the previous night with. This leaves only one course of action to get back home to their lives and loved ones waiting for each of them respectively: travel directly through the infected zone by vehicle and on foot. 

There are more aspects to the story and the development of these two lead characters involving those that await their return and whether or not Sam truly wants to return to her normal life and feign happiness that clearly eludes her, and I admired the way Edwards valued creating a film that existed in a science fiction, supernatural world yet focused its narrative on a human level, a dose of realism and believability while surrounded by a landscape filled with a nightmarish threat that represented anything but. Andrew and Samantha feel genuine, their emotional connection and attraction proceeds at a pace that seems plausible, and they fact that they need each other in order to survive the ordeal allows their chemistry to resonate on a deeper level. 

I would compliment a script if possible, but in regards to Monsters one essentially did not exist. Due to financial constraints and the indie status of the project, Edwards was forced to shoot in various locations without even asking permission in advance, and every other character besides the two leads were merely people on location that were willing to participate as extras and were not asked to memorize a script but instead merely given a guideline on what should happen next and allowed to deliver it in any way they saw fit. When considering this, along with the fact that each day whatever content they had filmed had to be downloaded off of a flash drive to clear off the space to continue shooting the next day, what Edwards achieved here is truly remarkable. Not for a second was I bothered by an amateurish feel to the film, nor did I wish for anything more from the performances. I was hooked from the get go and cared deeply for the fate of these characters, I absorbed the clear political themes that were in play when a story involves a giant fence stopping "monsters" from Mexico from gaining access to the United States, and I admire any level of nuance involved in such a low budget debut feature. 

Also noteworthy are the special effects of the film, as the monsters rendered after filming had completed do not look low brow or cheap in any way, shape or form. The entire film is photographed with confidence and beauty, and during moments involved the alien creatures they were added to the backdrop without skipping a beat and fit right into the frames, work that became even more admirable once I learned that Edwards himself created all of the visual effects on his laptop using an Adobe software any person could purchase off the shelf of an electronic store. Truly remarkable, and such a passion for cinema and a personal vision is something that I easily embrace and leads to me thinking highly of the filmmaker going forward.

Shortly after I watched Monsters for the first time, the announcement came through that after the success of his second film, the mega blockbuster Godzilla reboot, Gareth had been chosen by Disney to helm a spin off Star Wars film as his next project, I began to look for more information regarding further details as I am an enormous fan of the galaxy far, far away. While visiting various message boards and forums for film discussion, I came across multiple people who referred to Monsters as "truly terrible" and even in more than one comment it was described as "one of the worst films ever made". As I had just experienced this triumphant example of the power and possibilities of independent film-making, these reactions floored me and I couldn't wrap my head around such thoughts. I am a firm believer in the value of an opinion and allowing others to have their own without judgement, because what one work does to a person may not impact another in nearly the same way, but such outlandish hyperbole really troubles me from time to time. I see plenty of films that feature content that simply does not click with my interests, but I am still able to recognize the good that went into crafting the film, various bits of framing and imagery that I found impressive or a performance that stood above the rest. To dismiss Monsters as "one of the worst films ever made" means you either need to have your eyesight checked or simply do not watch nearly enough cinema, because so much good went into this production when those creating it were given so very little to work with.

My reaction to Monsters is beyond mere admiration due to a low budget and the factor of it being a debut film for Edwards. On practically ever level I adored this film, and after sleeping on it the love continues to flourish. 

4.5/5