Top 10 of 2014

Since signing up for MoviePass, my love for going to the movies has been rekindled. It had always been there, but now that I can see as many as I want for $9.99 a month, I've found myself seeing just about everything that catches my interest. It has also revived my interest in doing some more writing on this page. My #nerdrage led me to write about the new Star Wars in December, which made me look through my old posts and realize I hadn't done a top 10 list since 2013. So before I started putting together a list for 2017, I decided to go back and fill in the gaps.

Putting together a top 10 list years later is probably the best way to do so, although the interest will likely have waned (I fully expect no one to read this, and a couple of people to read the 2017 list). Bill Simmons once had a half-baked idea to award the Oscars 5 years later. So this year, we'd be handing out the Oscars for movies from 2013. Although no one would watch the ceremony or care, it would be a much more honest way to determine the best movies of the year. Time allows us to re-watch films, sometimes again and again, and let things sink in. I'll give you a couple of examples. The first time I watched Blade Runner, I was a freshman enrolled in Film Lecture at the University of Arkansas. I was expecting a cool Sci-Fi action film with Harrison Ford. Instead, I was confused and bored by the plodding, strange neo-noir with a weird soundtrack. However, I gave it another shot a few years later and absolutely loved it. I was moved by the Roy Batty character, and appreciated the look of the film even more. Another example is the movie Swingers. I had always heard this was a great low-budget comedy that launched Vince Vaughn's career. I watched this one for the first time as a college junior and was bored to tears. After giving it another chance when I'd had a few years out of college, it completely clicked. Swingers is a movie about love and career in the awkward stage right out of college. Until I had experienced that, I couldn't connect with the film at all. Point being, neither of these movies would have made any top 10 list had I ranked them after one viewing, but they are two of my favorites now.

But I digress. Here's my top 10 of 2014. Had I written this in January 2015, it likely would have looked slightly different. These are the films that have stuck with me over the years, and left the strongest impression.


1. Interstellar

Christopher Nolan is batting a perfect 1.000. I've loved every movie he's ever made (save for his independent debut Following, which I've never seen), and Interstellar is another incredible entry to the Nolan canon. Released in the middle of the Matthew McConaussaince, the film is an incredible science fiction and father-daughter tale. The Hans Zimmer score is burned into my brain as one of the best of all time. The acting is top notch, it's not overly science-y when it's explaining things, and has real emotional stakes. This is how you make a science fiction film.

2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Having watched the entire Apes trilogy this summer, I can confirm that this is my favorite of the three. Which is saying a lot, because these Apes movies are so much better than I ever thought they could be. In this film, Caesar is no longer an ape in a lab, but a bona fide military leader. Andy Serkis' motion capture work gives nuance and emotion to a CGI animal that I had no idea could be possible. The titles of these movies make no sense (why is there a Rise before a Dawn?), but they’ve managed to be one of the best trilogies this decade.

3. X-Men: Days of Future Past

This iteration (somehow) successfully merged the early 2000’s X-Men movies with the new cast of the semi-reboot First Class. This is my favorite movie of the franchise, with the time travel and the 70’s vibes all meshing so well. I had such a bad taste in my mouth after the horrific X-Men 3 that it was really nice to allow that cast to finish up in an actual good movie. But the scene of the film (and maybe of all 2014) was Quicksilver taking out an entire room of bad guys in slow motion. I could watch that over and over.

4. Gone Girl

I love David Fincher. His style is exceptionally unique and effective at telling a story. Gone Girl is probably a lower tier Fincher movie, which tells you how deep his IMDB page is. It’s a twisting drama that was expertly placed on film from the best-selling novel. Ben Affleck was perfect casting because our feelings about his character are basically the same as how we feel about Ben himself: is he a jerk? Is he a smart dumb guy or a dumb smart guy? Do I trust him? And so on. Just perfect.

5. Edge of Tomorrow

The most underrated movie of 2014 was an awesome mix of Groundhog Day and The Terminator. The premise is Tom Cruise essentially living the same moment over and over in order to beat the bad guys. The execution is what’s important here, as director Doug Liman mixes action and comedy perfectly. And even though Emily Blunt is still too young to play Cruise’s love interest, it’s more believable than about half the movies he’s done this decade.

6. Guardians of the Galaxy

I saw this movie at a group outing at the drive-in, fully expecting to be bored to tears. At the time, I was in the middle of a full on Marvel boycott. I had felt that they had become tiresome, predictable, and boring. So to say that this movie caught me by surprise was an understatement. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that it was around this time that Marvel decided to drop any pretense of taking itself seriously, which means two things. One, almost all of these Marvel movies are going to be fun and entertaining. Two, very few are going to be memorable. This one ended up in the memorable category, due to its killer soundtrack and comedy.

7. The Grand Budapest Hotel

It's a Wes Anderson movie. It's quirky. It's funny. It has memorable characters. What else do you need to know?

8. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The conclusion to the epic, albeit unnecessary, "Hobbit" "trilogy". I put both of those in quotation marks because it's not really a trilogy of movies about JRR Tolkien's classic novel, but an attempt to make prequels to the Lord of the Rings. Which is fine! It's just not what I was hoping for. The Hobbit is my favorite book of all time, and Lord of the Rings are my favorite films of all time. So my anticipation for these movies was great. But when the story would deviate from Bilbo and our main story on to other things, my interest would dip. I can't help but feel like there's an excellent 3.5 hour Hobbit movie buried within this trilogy of movies (I may or may not own a bootleg called "The Tolkien edit"). Battle of the Five Armies is a fine end, with some memorable Bilbo scenes, and some over the top action. My biggest complaint with these movies has nothing to do with the writing or story, but the decision to make the main two Orcs CGI. They proved in Lord of the Rings that good ol' fashioned makeup can make incredible movie monsters. Going back to watch those movies today, 15 years later (!), they are still just as scary and just as believable. But the CGI orcs in The Hobbit just look awkward and way less scary. I'm not sure if it was cost, or Peter Jackson feeling like his vision couldn't be realized, but I was disappointed in the decision.

9. Birdman: or The Unexpected Virture of Ignorance

The Oscar winner for Best Picture comes in at number 9 on my list. Birdman was a thoughtful, well-acted movie with a very unique score and cinematography. But this is a great example of time giving  better perspective. I loved this one at the time, but have felt little to no desire to re-watch. This movie is excellent, but not the best movie of the year.

10. Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler is one of my all-time favorite movie theater experiences. The film is incredibly dark, and our lead is Jake Gyllenhaal playing an unhinged wannabe news reporter. He lies, cheats, steals, and assaults his way to the "top" of the breaking news report game. His character is so strange, and so weird, I couldn't help but laugh. My friends were laughing too. But that's where it stopped. The entire theater must have thought we were a band of psychopaths, because the humor was lost on everyone else. My wife constantly nudges me when I'm too loud in movies (which is all the time), and if we had been dating at this point she may have walked out. It was magnificent.

Honorable Mention:

Neighbors
The Lego Movie
The Imitation Game
John Wick
Big Hero 6
Dumb and Dumber To
Kingsman: The Secret Service