Last Movie You Watched

[Brian]

I saw 26 movies this year!

Here is my personal ranking:
26. The Imitation Game
25. The Theory of Everything
24. Big Eyes
23. Muppets Most Wanted
22. Chef
21. Guardians of the Galaxy
20. Gone Girl
19. Nightcrawler
18. The Interview
17. Ida
16. Lego Movie
15. Snowpiercer
14. The Homesman
13. Still Alice
12. The Immigrant
11. Birdman (!)

Top ten revealed later. My reviews of #s 11-26!

[Karl Henning]

I've not watched Snowpiercer; I'm living it 

[mc ukrneal]

I saw 26 movies this year!

Here is my personal ranking:
26. The Imitation Game
25. The Theory of Everything
24. Big Eyes
23. Muppets Most Wanted
22. Chef
21. Guardians of the Galaxy
20. Gone Girl
19. Nightcrawler
18. The Interview
17. Ida
16. Lego Movie
15. Snowpiercer
14. The Homesman
13. Still Alice
12. The Immigrant
11. Birdman (!)

Top ten revealed later. My reviews of #s 11-26!

I've seen two movies on this list - Guardians of the Galaxy and Lego Movie. Lego would go last on any movie list for the last year or two. It was a huge disappointment. Guardians was the opposite - was expecting crap and enjoyed it for the fluff it is.

EDIT: One of my biggest beefs with Lego is that it was a Superhero movie masquarading as a Lego movie.

I am gonna guess Whiplash is up there - Simmons was amazing. One of the remarkable things about his performance - his facial expressions, which were surprisingly good when there were stretches of no speaking. His presence was felt even when he wasn't on the screen - a great role, acted to perfection. He totally deserved the Oscar.

[Karl Henning]

Parenthetically:  The stars you think have acting Oscars — but have never actually won

[mc ukrneal]

Parenthetically:  The stars you think have acting Oscars — but have never actually won

I guess they need to update the list for Moore now!

Cary Grant not winning one was just a travesty, but then Hollywood has always poopooed comedic roles.

[North Star]

Polish cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski (Ida) interviewed at LensCulture. 14 of his photographs are displayed, too.

[SonicMan46]

I've seen two movies on this list - Guardians of the Galaxy and Lego Movie. Lego would go last on any movie list for the last year or two. It was a huge disappointment. Guardians was the opposite - was expecting crap and enjoyed it for the fluff it is.

EDIT: One of my biggest beefs with Lego is that it was a Superhero movie masquarading as a Lego movie.

I am gonna guess Whiplash is up there - Simmons was amazing. One of the remarkable things about his performance - his facial expressions, which were surprisingly good when there were stretches of no speaking. His presence was felt even when he wasn't on the screen - a great role, acted to perfection. He totally deserved the Oscar.

Hi Neal - Susan & I have not seen as many films as Brian this last year, but of the ones that overlap, my ordering would be much different (especially for the last two) - will look forward to this top 10!  As to the Lego film, the reviews were so positive that even Susan attended - we almost walked out but stayed to the 'bitter end' - now, I'm a BIG fan of animated films (just bought the Blu-ray of Dumbo - ) - I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy, too.  Dave

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Full metal jacket is certainly an awesome movie. It is also notable for the fact that R. Lee Ermey persuaded the control freak Kubrick to allow him to improvise pretty much every line that comes out of his mouth during the movie. And Kubrick liked it.

For a movie full of awesome black humor, that blanket party scene still horrifies me.

Btw, consensus seems to be that no-one remembers the second half of the movie, when they're actually in 'Nam. I think it is severely underrated although I still think the first half is significantly better.

[Wakefield]

... now, I'm a BIG fan of animated films (just bought the Blu-ray of Dumbo - ) - I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy, too.  Dave

I liked both of them; but if I had to choose, I would choose "Lego"... you know, everything is awesome. 

[Abuelo Igor]

I'm starting to form the view, after much reflection and absorption of cinema in that last 2-3 years, that this whole art-form is rather silly & limited. [/font]

An awesome amount of time, more than enough to reach such a definitive conclusión. My, my, 120 years of trying for nothing.

[listener]

KILLERS FIVE (1969)
In this movie from classic period of Shaw Brothers, we have a group of evil bandits that terrorize the land from their invincible mountain castle. The high commanding official decides to put a stop to this and commands one of his officers to gather a group of Kung Fu masters and put an end to the terror. But everything is not that simple and straight-forward, as we quite soon learn when the plot thickens.
Deception, double-cross, and lot of action all in 81 minutes.   Obligatory fight in a tea house is about to start

[Bogey]

I saw 26 movies this year!

Here is my personal ranking:
26. The Imitation Game
25. The Theory of Everything
24. Big Eyes
23. Muppets Most Wanted
22. Chef
21. Guardians of the Galaxy
20. Gone Girl
19. Nightcrawler
18. The Interview
17. Ida
16. Lego Movie
15. Snowpiercer
14. The Homesman
13. Still Alice
12. The Immigrant
11. Birdman (!)

Top ten revealed later. My reviews of #s 11-26!

Hey Brian, here is my portion of our annual Oscar reviews for the Best Movie category that we send out to friends each year right before the ceremonies.  My wife and so also done, but I'll just throw you mine.



Once again, the Academy has thrown me eight films some of which were decent, others dreadful, and a couple that were forgettable.  In any case, none will have a second viewing from me (mayyyybe Whiplash).  The only films that I ended up buying from 2014 were Guardians of the Galaxy and Maleficent.  Guardians was like Star Wars meets Indiana Jones.  In short, it was fun, something the Academy seems opposed to.  Heck, I would even rate The Lego Movie over most of these nominees.   



The Good

Whiplash: J. K. Simmons makes this film, though the over the top acting goes a bit too far at points.  What hurt the picture is never developing the lead character played by Miles Teller.  In fact, he just seems to serve most of the film as a sounding board for Simmons.

American Sniper: Incredible story for sure.  However, as for the film, I found it just "good".  Clint Eastwood does an excellent job of unfolding a story, but his style is monochromatic and usually lacks something. 

Selma: With regard to Selma, I thought it was very well done and why David Oyelowo did not get nominated is a head scratcher.   The movie did have a very slow pace.  However, this may have been something that added to the film and gave it a closer feel for the day to day and background work Dr. King and his supporters had to put in.

The Bad

Birdman: My friend found a site where the director pointed out that the meaning of this film was that life is an illusion.  You have to be kidding me.

Boyhood:  I liked this review from Amazon that Greg posted here:

Boy who takes pictures, goes to college and grows a mustache.  There, I just saved you three hours.

Grand Budapest Hotel: I thought the look was interesting, but the directing seemed lazy.  Using explicit scenes to develop the main character is never a good idea and the film lost me early on

And The Meh

The Imitation Game: Probably should have developed the supporting cast more so and spent less film footage watching cogs in a machine churn.  I'm sure all their stories were more interesting than the incessant whirring.

The Theory of Everything: I am still waiting for the main character to actually answer the question posed at the end of the film.  ;-)

[Wanderer]

Boyhood:  I liked this review from Amazon that Greg posted here:

Boy who takes pictures, goes to college and grows a mustache.  There, I just saved you three hours.

That pretty much sums it up. And I totally agree with this.

[Brian]

Once again, the Academy has thrown me eight films some of which were decent, others dreadful, and a couple that were forgettable.  In any case, none will have a second viewing from me (mayyyybe Whiplash).  The only films that I ended up buying from 2014 were Guardians of the Galaxy and Maleficent.  Guardians was like Star Wars meets Indiana Jones.  In short, it was fun, something the Academy seems opposed to.  Heck, I would even rate The Lego Movie over most of these nominees.   

In terms of pure fun, I would rate Lego Movie higher than Guardians - Lego Movie was so darn charming! But I thought that Interstellar, Budapest Hotel, and (yes) 22 Jump Street were even more fun still.

[TheGSMoeller]

In terms of pure fun, I would rate Lego Movie higher than Guardians - Lego Movie was so darn charming! But I thought that Interstellar, Budapest Hotel, and (yes) 22 Jump Street were even more fun still.

I REALLY enjoyed Interslellar, even with Neil De Grasse debunking the whole plot. But it was bold and daring, and I appreciated that aspect.

[Brian]

I REALLY enjoyed Interslellar, even with Neil De Grasse debunking the whole plot. But it was bold and daring, and I appreciated that aspect.

2014 was the year of Bold and Daring! Interstellar, Whiplash, Dear White People, Inherent Vice, Lego Movie, Boyhood - those are all bold, original movies that zag where you expect them to zig. I legitimately had no idea what was going to happen next when I watched Interstellar (and Whiplash). Like them or not (and I liked them all), it's so refreshing to see Hollywood put out such a huge crop of movies that do unexpected things!

[Cato]

A "Cold Day" off from school today, so I can re-enjoy some completely "politically incorrect" and Aristophanic humor with dialogue like:

Terrorist: "Durka Durka!  Baklava!  Mohammed Jihad!"

Gary: "Durka Durka!  Mohammed Jihad!"

Terrorist: "Durka, durka, durka!"

[asin]B00AEFZ8OY[/asin]

Hard to believe it has been 10 years!

Great, fun score by Harry Gregson Williams!

Concerning other movies mentioned above:

I have read a good number of reviews for and against both the Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing movies.  Hawking's first wife would certainly have a different view of her former husband.  And apparently the Turing movie involves a good number of distortions and worse.   Of course, Hollywood has never been known for keeping the real story and letting it speak for itself.   

The Grand Budapest Hotel was great fun, but yes, was somewhat spoiled by the sex stuff.  And I believe the last time a comedy won a major Oscar was Kevin Kline's Best Supporting Actor win for A Fish Called Wanda.

Concerning Boyhood: I have also learned that a good amount of it was improvised during the filming.  Perhaps that is part of the problem?

[SonicMan46]

Yesterday, saw the sniper on the big screen & streamed the other last night from Amazon:

American Sniper (2014) w/ Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, & Kyle Gallner; Clint Eastwood, director - true story about the legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, who was killed two years ago - ratings, 7.5/10, IMDB; 73%, Rotten Tomatoes; 4.1/5*, Amazon - good film and worth seeing for me - recommended, especially for the performance of Cooper.

Nightcrawler (2014) w/ Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo; synopsis below (RTomatoes); ratings, 8/10, IMDB; 95%, Rotten Tomatoes; 4/5*, Amazon - was on my 'to stream' list - disliked at first, then started to enjoy and watched until the end - I'd probably do a lower rating, such as 3+* on Amazon - if the story plot below is of interest, then worth a watch, but a one-timer for me.  Dave

NIGHTCRAWLER is a thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling - where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.

 

[André]

I indulged myself and bought me the Bluray version of MASH.

I emailed my son to let him know this is mandatory stuff and he replied : "when it hits the doormat, Pops !"

[Wakefield]

Concerning Boyhood: I have also learned that a good amount of it was improvised during the filming.  Perhaps that is part of the problem?

It is possible, but, I think, it would be good, first, to clarify what exactly "the problem" is: too long? trivial? pretentious? boring? unstructured? all of the above?