Best movies of the 2000s - Yearly Top 5 lists

[Steel Dragons]

John ,


We just did a month of script work at school and it was funny to hear that many scripts are changed up to 80% from the original. The point it leaves the original script writers hands to the movie screen takes many different forms. When I asked my teacher why writers do not complain he told me that they only complain when they are not given the script credit. I just sent in a teaser script to a website a month ago for school and they are reading it now.

I also set up a teaser e-book of Takanawa Times for school. Sadly the transfer from a smooth .pages program does not work well when I had to reformat it to smashwords.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/404612

A random guy already read it and gave me feedback

[Denny]

I will continue to contend that 'Moneyball' is boring and horribly over-rated, but I do recommended highly, Bob, '42' - it was well done and does pretty good justice to the times. I'd also suggest The Butler. Forrest Whitiker is always great and Oprah is surprisingly good. Lots of great little cameos, too. It also depicts the era(s) nicely!!

I think more than anything else I was disappointed with how far Moneyball strayed from the book. Recognizing of course that the book wasn't exactly Hollywood movie-making material, I felt like it took a lot of liberties with regard to both how the A's organization operated and how it portrayed a lot of the characters in the story. I mean, if the A's were a step away from the World Series and lost a couple free agents would it really be time to go back to the drawing board as the movie suggests? Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to lay out the story the way it actually went down wherein the revolution slowly happened several years prior to that point? I never got how they couldn't make the original story a little more adaptable to a Hollywood-style movie but then again, I'm certainly not experienced in screenwriting and have no idea the complexities involved in such a feat.

You probably would have preferred the original Steven Zaillian version then, Brian. It hewed much closer to the source material. This was before Stephen Soderbergh's aborted version. Soderbergh's tinkering with Zaillian's script almost scuttled the entire project. Of course, before all this there was Stan Chervin's version. I actually have six different Moneyball script versions on my hard drive, starting with an early Chervin and progressing through the final shooting script. It's fascinating to see the twists and turns as different writers took a whack at converting the story to the big screen. (No pun intended.)

I'm just amazed a movie based on that book was ever made at all, regardless of how close it is to the original story, and even more amazed that it became a hit...."find and exploit under-recognized market inefficiencies" is not the most compelling theme for a film. :eek:

[klewis]

I saw only a fraction of John's 2013 list. I agree that Prisoners was great. I would have put Gravity lower on my own personal list. The cinematography was outstanding but the plot and ending left more to be desired. It reminded me more of Buried where one actor/actress had to carry the entire movie.

I was pleasantly surprised by World War Z. Based on the trailers, I did not plan on watching this movie at all but John's review convinced me :)

I agree with Bill that John needs to see more animated films! I have always been a fan of Pixar Studios. But I probably should check out some Disney films as they have been on a roll lately.

[John]

I finally saw 12 Years a Slave. I would not argue against it being a good film, but I cannot say it was one I particularly enjoyed. It is a progression from brutality to brutality, and I'm not sure if I traveled far enough by the end to justify the difficult journey. If nothing else, it is a superb reminder of why the word "injustice" exists in the vernacular. There is value in that, lest we forget our bloody history and repeat sins of the past. Perhaps the fault is mine for wishing there had been some sugar coating the bitter pill.

At any rate, 12 Years a Slave enters my list in the upper part of the "C" tier of 2013 films. As always, this only reflects my personal view, and my rankings are not like-for-like quality comparisons. I'm not quite so daft as to suggest that Fast & Furious 6 is of higher quality than 12 Years a Slave; I just personally enjoyed the former film a titch more.

As for Academy Awards, 12 Years a Slave has a strong case. Director Steve McQueen and lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor certainly deserve their nominations, and I would have argued for an Original Score nomination, too. The film certainly deserves a Best Picture nomination, but I personally would rather see American Hustle take home the prize. It told a fascinating story, and it did so in a highly entertaining fashion. For me, 12 Years a Slave succeeded on only the first count.

[John]

NOTE: Newcomers interested in seeing previous rankings from the 2000s should start from the beginning of this thread before jumping into the post below.

2014
The narrative entering 2014 was that this was the year we had to suffer before we got to the good stuff in 2015. New Mad Max! New Jurassic Park! New Terminator! New Star Freaking Wars! All coming ... next year. So what do we get in 2014? A bunch of misfit Marvel outcasts? That's going to suck, right?

Well, Guardians of the Galaxy didn't suck, and neither did 2014 in film. If the blockbusters disappointed a little, there were more than enough surprises to carry the load. Who could have imagined that Richard Linklater's crazy 12-year film experiment would pan out so magically? Speaking of magic, how about Jon Favreau rediscovering his indie touch after a couple of big budget misfires? How about a charming film about kids dying of cancer? Or how about Edge of Tomorrow surviving a dozen rewrites and as many title changes to become one of the most thrilling sci-fi films in memory? And show me the person who claims to have known that Keanu Reeves would kick ass in one of the best action films of the 2000s and I'll show you a liar.

Action films underwent a renaissance in 2014. No year in recent memory has boasted two action films as good as John Wick and The Raid 2. R-rated comedies graduated from gross-outs to honest-to-goodness touching character pieces with Top Five and Bad Words Other genres aren't doing quite as well. Horror in particular seems to be stuck in a quagmire of supernatural flimflam, where there are no rules beyond "Thou Shall Overuse Jump Scares." We desperately need a new-age John Carpenter to shake up this moribund genre.

On a personal note, there was one oddity I experienced this year: many of my most anticipated films were duds. I mean, real duds. In fact, two of my most anticipated films of the year earned "F" grades, and one even took "Worst of the Year" (dis)honors. The Monuments Men, Interstellar, and Snowpiercer all disappointed in 2014, while Jupiter Ascending waited until 2015 to disappoint and How to Catch a Monster still hasn't been released but is shaping up so badly that it has changed its name and is going straight to VOD.

Still, the good outweighed the bad. For every over-hyped Unbroken, we got a Whiplash that delivered. If a highly anticipated film fell flat (I'm looking at you, Interstellar, another one was there to live up expectation (thank you, Gone Girl).

What else can be said about a year so packed with goodness, the hands-down best acting performance of the year didn't earn Jake Gyllenhaal an Oscar nomination? Only that there were some really, wonderful films released in 2014. If you missed them, let this list be your catch-up guide.

As always, the following ratings only considering films that I have seen. That means touted films like X-Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier aren't candidates for my top 5, just as Saving Christmas and Transformers: Age of Extinction are (thankfully) ineligible for Worst of the Year.

Top 5 Films

1. Edge of Tomorrow - Do you remember the film that made you love films? Do you remember how you felt when you watched it that first time? You've surely enjoyed many films in your adulthood, but when was the last time you felt the awe, the wonder, the pure joy of those formative films? If you want just a little taste of that nostalgia, watch Edge of Tomorrow. It's the kind of film that sneaks up on you, defying expectations ("Tom Cruise? Pffft.") and slowly drawing you into its intricately weaved web of awesomeness. The setup is highly clever. Humanity is on the verge of losing Earth to an invading alien force, and a hapless military journalist "infected" with the ability to "reset" upon death must die over and over as until he determines how to win the decisive battle for the planet. The action is thrilling, but it's also one of the year's funniest films. (Try not to laugh at the myriad ways Cruise casually offs himself once he realizes his power/curse.) Best of all, it's a legitimately good film, so you don't have to worry about feeling disappointment when you return to it years later the way you do with some of those childhood favorites.
2. Nightcrawler - It is time for you to respect Jake Gyllenhaal. Time for you to forgive him for junk like The Day After Tomorrow and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This guy can act. We saw it in Zodiac. He kicked it in End of Watch. Prisoners was the best film of 2013, and Gyllenhaal was a big reason why. And now there is Nightcrawler, one of the best performances of the 2000s. Gyllenhaal lost 30 pounds to play Louis Bloom, the drifter/lowlife who finds his niche selling first-responder film footage of horrible accidents and crimes to local news stations. The man is a vampire roaming the Los Angeles night, sucking nourishment from the wounded and the dead, and it shows in his haunted, sunken eyes. His journey to the "top" is one of the more improbably in memory, yet Gyllenhaal sells it completely.
3. Whiplash - It's hard to remember a Best Picture candidate where the supporting actor takes such center stage in the discussion. Yet that's the situation that J.K. Simmons find himself in. Make no mistake: Simmons is an electric an utterly intimidating presence as Terrance Fletcher, the band instructor/drill sergeant who tears dreams apart and reduces skilled players to quivering lumps of jelly. But let's not forget about Miles Teller's performance as Andrew, the boy driven to be the next transcendent American drummer. Miles leaves his blood on his drum kit, and Whiplash leaves it all out there, too. The film beats with a thrumming heart: you're gripped from the moment that Simmons discovers Miles practicing, and the film never lets go. In a more just world, this would have beaten out the other contenders to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
4. John Wick - Before I mention how John Wick feature the most kick-ass action since The Raid (psst ... John Wick feature the most kick-ass action since The Raid!), something must be said about how cleverly this film builds John Wick up in our eyes. When we meet him, he's a broken man, lost without his recently deceased wife. Aside from his grief and the fact that he's clearly well off, there doesn't seem to be anything special about him. Then some thugs break into his home, beat him up, and kill the dog his dead wife left him. A lesser film would have had John Wick fight back, or at least instantly mount a counterattack. Here, though, we see the thugs return to their crime boss, reporting their successful crime. And the boss flips out because ohmygod, you just messed with John Wick! Here's the most powerful crime boss in the city, terrorized by what this grieving nobody chump might do to him. And the chump hasn't even begun to do anything yet. This guy must be serious. Boy, is he ever. When John Wick begins tearing a swath of revenge, bullets will fly and practically every one will find a bad guy's forehead. The action choreography is some of the most outstanding you'll see. Action junkies must see this film.
5. Gone Girl - David Fincher faced a real challenge here. Gone Girl is one of the clever books in recent memory, but its twist - a story told by two contradictory and unreliable narrators - is extremely difficult to transfer to the screen. Somehow, Fincher pulled the trick without compromising Gillian Flynn's brilliant narrative. If you haven't read the book (and you should), Gone Girl (the film) will likely keep you guessing right up until the end. And if the ending is ever-so-slightly unsatisfactory for overstaying its welcome, it doesn't diminish the quality of what came before.

Worst of the Year - Transcendence. We almost had a two-for-two on Worst of the Year Hobbit films, but The Battle of the Five Armies carried such low expectations after the previous Hobbit debacles that it was almost a relief to discover the film was merely highly crappy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did its level best to lower everyone's IQ, and that was almost enough to earn the top spot at the bottom. But Turtles was supposed to be stupid. Transcendence ostensibly was supposed to be smart. It was also supposed to feature non-wooden characters doing non-wooden things, but none of this ever came to be. The very basic elements of storytelling get savaged by this sci-fi turd. The film goes to pained lengths to leave you ambivalent about each character. The nonsensical plot is less engaging than your 39th viewing of the dramatic chipmunk GIF. And dear God, what has happened to Johnny Depp? Somebody transfer this man's consciousness to a computer and then smash that hard drive to pieces so we no longer have to suffer his atrocious acting!

David's a Cooler Dad Than Goliath - Chef vs. Interstellar. What could a small-budget film about a fancy chef reduced to working out of a food truck have in common with a mega-budget sci-fi epic about the fate of mankind? Both these films center around father-child relationships. Now Interstellar is one gorgeous film. If you just bought yourself a 90" TV and want to show off the goods, here's your baby. But for all the pageantry, the relationship between Interstellar's astronaut hero Cooper and daughter Murph is largely hollow. Murph hates her father ... why, exactly? Because he has the gall to leave the planet in order to save her and the rest of humanity. How does anybody empathize with that? Why does Cooper even care about reconnecting with such a selfish brat? But the real trouble is that Cooper is perfect when the film starts, so he has nowhere to grow. It's left to Murph to come around to the realization that he dad was a swell guy the whole time. That's not an interesting arc; it's not any kind of an arc at all.

The father-son relationship at the heart of Chef is far more compelling. Carl Casper is so busy making his name as L.A.'s top chef that he's losing his son Percy. When Carl loses his job, you figure this relationship is only going to get worse. Instead, Carl realizes that he's losing Percy and finds a way to incorporate his son into his efforts to reestablish himself. As the pair strike out in their new food truck, they're learning together and growing closer to one another in the process. Yes, Percy realizes his dad's okay, but Carl also realizes that he's not totally okay, that he needs to make changes if he's going to keep Percy as part of his life. These kinds of relationships are so much more interesting when there's a flaw that needs to be overcome. Chef has that; Interstellar doesn't. That makes Chef the better film, even if it was made for 1/30th of Interstellar's budget.

[John]

2014 Movie Rankings
To qualify for this list, a film must have received a U.S. theatrical or video-on-demand release during 2014. When interpreting my tiers, know that I consider "A" movies to be must-sees, "B" movies to be recommended, "C" movies to be recommended for particular tastes, "D" movies to be avoided, and "F" movies to reaffirm your belief that Hollywood is trying to rob you of your hard-earned cash.

1. The "A" tier
2. Edge of Tomorrow
3. Nightcrawler
4. Whiplash
5. John Wick
6. Gone Girl
7. Guardians of the Galaxe
8. The Raid 2
9. The Fault In Our Stars
   
   The "B" tier
10. Chef
11. The Imitation Game
12. Boyhood
13. Non-Stop
14. The November Man
15. RoboCop
16. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
17. The Equalizer
18. Top Five
19. Citizenfour
20. The Maze Runner
21. American Sniper
22. Bad Words
23. Lucy
24. The Lego Movie
25. Fury
26. The Babadook
27. Rosewater
28. Selma
    
    The "C" tier
29. Pompeii
30. Draft Day
31. The Drop
32. Unbroken
33. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
34. Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
35. The Theory of Everything
36. Locke
37. Sabotage
38. 3 Days to Kill
39. Godzilla
40. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
41. The Monuments Men
42. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
    
    The "D" tier
43. Interstellar
44. Snowpiercer
45. Brick Mansions
46. Million Dollar Arm
47. Divergent
48. Oculus
49. Deliver Us from Evil
50. The Judge
51. The Signal
    
    The "F" tier
52. Enemy
53. Hercules
54. The Grand Budapest Hotel
55. As Above, So Below
56. Inherent Vice
57. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
58. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
59. Transcendence

[John]

NOTE: Films new to these lists are highlighted in red.

Best of the 2000s

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The movie that kept cinema alive for me long enough for my #2 movie of the decade to rekindle my passion. I never would have thought it possible for there to be such a perfect capturing of those masterworks of literature, but Peter Jackson pulls it off.
2. V for Vendetta - The movie that made cinema relevant to me again after a 10-year falling out. Much more than a simple action film, this one really reached me on a personal level. "Remember, remember the fifth of November,"... a message as timely now as it was in the time of Guy Fawkes.
3. Inception - It's always dangerous ranking movies you've only recently seen; they tend to come off higher than they should be. Despite that fact, I believe Inception will stick high on my list. It's theme of the importance of letting go of regret and the importance of forgiving yourself resonated with me.
4. Looper - Science fiction so smart, you don't bother looking for the time travel paradoxes. A thrilling showdown between an older and younger version of one person is the draw, but the lasting message of how love has the power to redeem even the most damaged child is what ultimately sticks with you.
5. District 9 - How amazing is this film? For $30M, Neill Blomkamp delivered a poignant tale of how we all too often allow our differences to become justifications for bigotry, and created a cracking sci-fi/action film with production values rivaling movies with 10x District 9's budget. It's just my kind of film; simultaneously entertaining and thought-provoking.
6. Children of Men - An artistically shot film depicting a hopelessly bleak future. Sometimes depressing can be beautiful.
7. Edge of Tomorrow - A wondrous throwback to the classic sci-fi/action films of youth that will leave you wide-eyed with joy. Arguably the most "pure fun" film of the last ten years. Grab some popcorn and live the joy ... then repeat ... and repeat ... and ...
8. There Will Be Blood - An acting and directorial tour de force. Who would have thought, "I drink your milkshake!" would become a classic line for the ages?
9. No Country For Old Men - The Coen Brothers have long deserved recognition for their quirky work. They finally received it with one of their darkest films ever - and coming from these guys, that's saying a lot.
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - RotK gave this trilogy the fine send-off it deserved and cemented its place as the #1 movie series of the decade.
11. Collateral - No one paid much attention to this move. They should have. Watching Jamie Foxx make the journey from dreamer to doer is inspirational.
12. Gladiator - A grand epic in the Braveheart mold (which, incidentally, remains one of my favorite films of all time).
13. The Grey - It's a testament to the power of this story that even though you know the men who have been stranded in the Alaska wilderness are likely to die, you still feel so much for them. While the audience left my screening complaining about the abrupt ending, I left wiping tears from my eyes.
14. Inglourious Basterds - Returns to the top 25 after falling out last year. Has there been a more riveting opening scene in recent memory than Christoph Waltz congenially breaking down a kindhearted but totally overmatched farmer harboring Jewish refugees under his floorboards? How about a more cathartic scene than machine gunning Hitler into little bits?
15. Avatar - Say what you want about the film's worldview, but it's clearly a film that's going to impact how we look at movie's for years to come (quite literally, if the spate of announcements of 3D versions of upcoming movies is any indication).
16. Silver Linings Playbook - A difficult romance between bipolar lovers may not sound like a lot of fun, but this movie draws laughs and tears in equal measure.
17. In Bruges - My highest ranked comedy was also not seen by many people. Like Collateral, it deserves more attention, though I admit the film's foreign-ness works against its acceptance here in the States.
18. Nightcrawler - Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Craft is a character for the ages. His "Here's what I want from you, Nina" speech is one of the best balance of power shifts in recent memory.
19. Prisoners - Dark disturbing, deeply layered, and demanding. See it with friends so that they can help you fill in the inevitable gaps in your comprehension. They stay up late discussing if Hugh Jackman acted properly to save his daughter or if, by making a prisoner of Paul Dano, he made a prisoner of himself.
20. Whiplash - There's something inspiring about watching a person driven to excel, pursuing their passion with such total abandon that they literally bleed for their craft. And boy, oh boy, does J.K. Simmons' Terrance Fletcher make you bleed for it.
21. Blood Diamond - Is it emotionally manipulative? Probably. In this case, I was successfully manipulated. You win this round, Ed Zwick.
22. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - The least of the trilogy is still a fine film in its own right. Boo for dumbed-down Ents; yay for the Battle of Helm's Deep!
23. Serenity - My lowest ranked top film of a year before 2011 (which placed no films on the top 25 at all). It won't show up on most film critics' top anything list, but then most film critics aren't as passionately in love with Firefly as I am.
24. Pan's Labyrinth - Watching what Guillermo del Toro dreams up here makes me wonder what he would have done with The Hobbit.
25. Memento - You could make a compelling argument that this amazingly told story is the best movie of the 2000s. Perhaps I saw it before I was ready, but I still recognize its genius.

Falling off the list: American Hustle, The Wrestler, True Grit

Worst of the 2000s

1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Wins the award for most soulless cash-in on a beloved story. It's like Peter Jackson took a multi-million dollar dump on the legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien. How can this be the same director who made three of my top 25 films?
2. Battlefield Earth - Of all the movies on this list, this one is easily the worst from a purely technical perspective. Film students will be studying this movie for years as an example of what not to do.
3. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones - The Phantom Menace already dragged my memories of the original trilogy through the mud. Now you're burying my memories neck-deep in dung.
4. Four Lions - See my tirade from 2010. It's a testament to my hatred for this film that I lump it in with these big-budget shlock-fests. I probably hated my experience with Four Lions more than any of the other films on this list. Still, part of what goes into my determination of "worst" is expectations, and I expected less from Four Lions than these other films.
5. The Host - I hadn't walked out on a film in at least fifteen years before I walked out on The Host. Voiced inner monologues didn't work for Dune, and David Lynch is a far more talented director Andrew Niccol.
6. Transcendence - Is there anything more insufferable than a terrible piece of art that thinks it's brilliant? Transcendence couldn't be any more ponderously proud of its empty shell of a non-story. How could anyone who touched this script not see the complete lack of compelling characters?
7. Transformers - When one of these brain-dead mega-budget films gets made, how many smaller budget potential gems do we lose out on? I shudder to think.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - If we judge "worst" solely on the merits of sheer dumbness and most unnecessary reboots, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat all.
9. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - The film that entered "nuke the fridge" into the vernacular deserves a special place in Hell.
10. Battleship - Is it a coincidence that the two worst movies of the 2000s were based off of toys/games, designed essentially to shill merchandise?

[John]

Top 10 Films to Anticipate in 2015

• Chappie (March 6)
  • Logline: In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.
  • Even Neill Bloomkamp admits he misfired with Elysium, but let's not forget the man's knockout debut. Let's also not forget that he will be rebooting the greatest horror series of all time. Now doesn't that make you curious to see Chappie?
• Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15)
  • Logline: The familiar post-apocalyptic setting returns, this time seeing Max crossing paths with female warrior Furiosa in an epic chase of vehicles, in an attempt to protect a group of women known as the Brides.
  • My personal #1 most anticipated film. What sets this apart from other reboots is that the man responsible for the original is back at the helm. This will be George Miller's first live-action film in 17 years, and if the trailer's are any indication, it's going to be bonkers awesome.
• Southpaw (July 24)
  • Logline: A boxer fights his way to the top, only to find his life falling apart around him.
  • After Nightcrawler, I'm ready for more Gyllenhaal. The man has totally transformed himself again, going from this to this.
• Sicario (September 18)
  • Logline: A young female FBI agent joins a secret CIA operation to take down a Mexican cartel boss, a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit.
  • You may not have heard of this little film, but pay attention. Sicario is one of the best spec scripts to have hit the market in recent years. Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, and Josh Brolin headline the talented cast that will be led by Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve (who, BTW, is negotiating to direct the Blade Runner reboot).
• The Martian (October 2)
  • Logline: An astronaut is stranded on Mars after he’s left behind by his crew-mates and must find a way to survive and get off the planet.
  • I refuse to give up on Ridley Scott. I so desperately want him to recapture his greatness. Maybe Matt Damon can help him out?
• Bridge of Spies (October 16)
  • Logline: An American lawyer is recruited by the CIA during the Cold War to help rescue a pilot detained in the Soviet Union.
  • Hard to believe that Steven Spielberg's last great film came out ten years ago. Bridge of Spies looks like it could be a return to form for the master.
• Midnight Special (November 25)
  • Logline: A father and son attempt to evade government officials when they learn the boy has supernatural powers.
  • Here's a bit of a mystery for you. Little is known about the plot of Midnight Special, but it's being described as a chase movie in the vein of John Carpenter's Starman. You had me at "John Carpenter."
• Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (December 18)
  • Logline: A continuation of the saga created by George Lucas set thirty years after Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi.
  • This is a tough one for me. Star Wars, once my most beloved film franchise, fell hard with the release of the prequels. I haven't yet caught the new strain of Star Wars fever sweeping the Internets, and I don't trust J.J. Abrams any farther than I can kick him. Still, how can you have a "Most Anticipated of 2015" list without Star Wars?
• The Revenant (December 25 (limited))
  • Logline: In the 19th century, fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear while hunting. His companions rob him and leave him to die, but he survives and sets out to get revenge on the men who betrayed him.
  • Fresh off winning the Best Director Oscar, Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu returns with a truly twisted-sounding tale and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.
• The Hateful Eight (December 25 (70mm) / January 8, 2016 (wide))
  • Logline: In post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunters try to find shelter during a blizzard but get involved in a plot of betrayal and deception. Will they survive?
  • New Tarantino! Say no more! The word is that this one is less action-oriented and more in the "talky contained thriller" vein of Reservoir Dogs. Works for me.

And Ten More ...

• Ex Machina (April 10)
  • Logline: A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I.
• Child 44 (April 17)
  • Logline: In Stalin-era USSR, a disgraced MGB agent tries to track down a serial killer of children while working to keep his wife safe from the authorities.
• In The Heart of the Sea (December 11)
  • Logline: A single mother is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town.
• Joy (December 25)
  • Logline: A biopic about Joy Mangano, a single mother coming to fame and wealth by inventing over a hundred products, including Shopping Network favorites like the Miracle Mop and the Huggable Hangers.
• Bone Tomahawk (Release date TBD)
  • Logline: In the Old West, a sheriff leads a group of men to rescue their loved ones from a group of cannibals.
• Green Room (Release date TBD)
  • Logline: After playing a gig and witnessing a horrific act of violence, a punk band are targeted by a gang of neo-Nazis.
• The Lobster (Release date TBD)
  • Logline: In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods.
• Money Monster (Release date TBD)
  • Logline: The host of a financial advice TV show is taken hostage live on air by a disgruntled viewer.
• The Sea of Trees (Release date TBD)
  • Logline: A suicidal American travels to the famous "suicide forest" at the base of Mount Fuji, where he meets a similarly depressed Japanese man.
• Triple 9 (Delayed until March 4, 2016)
  • Logline: A gang of criminals and corrupt cops plan the murder of a police officer in order to pull off their biggest heist yet across town.

[Arroyos]

I love John's annual movie reviews because his top five list includes films I've never heard of.

Really? I wonder as I scroll down his choices, these were movies? This past year?

Nightcrawler is a movie and not a worm I used to catch at night on my front lawn?
Whiplash is a movie and not a common consequence of a car crash?
And who the hell is John Wick?

Not only have I never seen any of these films, I never heard of any of them either. Well, wait, I confess, I actually did hear of Gone Girl before reading it in John's list, but only because they showed the previews to it at my local film theatre. (Where, just to set the record straight, NONE of John's 58 ranked movies for 2014 have ever been shown.)

So not only are John and I diametrical opposites in film taste, but obviously we go to completely different kinds of movie houses. For those of you whose taste diverges from John's, here's an alternate list of 2014's top 5 films. Simply the ones I liked best.

1. Still Alice
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. Chef
4. Magic in the Moonlight
5. Grand Budapest Hotel

Anyone else have a list of completely different films they saw and enjoyed last year?

[Borealis]

I'm kind of with Bob, as I've seen very few and am amazed at how much cinema JR sees.... That said, I thought Chef was wonderful, I knew the Hawking movie would net a Best Actor on the first preview I saw, and Monuments Men wasn't half bad - and it spurred an addition to my summer plans last July while I was in Europe, making a very surprising and welcomed side trip to lovely Bruges to see that frickin' statue!

EDIT: OK... Maybe frickin' is a little disrespectful, but I will add that the cathedral in Bruges is very quaint and beautiful - as is this canal laden town. Had the best beer ever: Gulden Draak, in a small pub off the main square.

[John]

Chef really was a lovely little surprise. I wanted to dance and eat when the film finished. And bond with my son-to-be.

Inside Llewyn Davis and The Grand Budapest Hotel, however, you can keep. For the latter, I'm just not much of a Wes Anderson fan. Oh, he's magical enough when he's doing stop-motion animation, but his live action films just feel to me like whimsy for whimsy's sake, like they're trying oh-so-hard to impress with their artistry. I hear the gears grinding when I watch his films, and it grates on me.

Now the Coen brothers, they make some truly great films. Yet every so often, they churn one out that I don't just dislike ... I despise. Inside Llyewn Davis was one of those. It felt terribly self-indulgent. I appreciate that you are extremely talented filmmakers, guys, but you still owe us a story. There's only so much drifting in and out of loosely connected scenes a man can take.

Somehow, I have never been exposed to Woody Allen. Weird, I know. I'll have to rectify that some day. And I will have to see Still Alice, too, if only for Julianne Moore's reportedly outstanding performance.

As for seeing all these films ... for me, it's an education in storytelling. I watch, I read, and I (hopefully) learn. I guess we'll see soon enough if I'm really learning or if I'm just fooling myself.

[Denny]

• The Revenant (December 25 (limited) / January 8, 2016 (wide))
  • Logline: In the 19th century, fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear while hunting. His companions rob him and leave him to die, but he survives and sets out to get revenge on the men who betrayed him.
  • Fresh off winning the Best Director Oscar, Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu returns with a truly twisted-sounding tale and Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.

Mildly interesting "six degrees of separation" trivia: the author of the book on which this film is based grew up a block and a half away from me in our small Wyoming town; though I didn't really know him (he was several years older), I knew his younger brother and sister, and his mother was my fourth-grade teacher. Go see the movie early and often to help cement my extremely minor connection to fame and fortune!

[Zephyrs]

John, I am amazed at how much I agree with your movie (and TV) choices. I was stunned by John Wick. I just didn't expect it to be anything other than a cheesy action flick. I have seen Guardians of the Galaxy no less than 6 times and would watch it again right now. And thanks to your recommendation I saw Edge of Tomorrow and found it to be one of the smartest Sci-Fi movies of all time.

[John]

John, I am amazed at how much I agree with your movie (and TV) choices. I was stunned by John Wick. I just didn't expect it to be anything other than a cheesy action flick. I have seen Guardians of the Galaxy no less than 6 times and would watch it again right now. And thanks to your recommendation I saw Edge of Tomorrow and found it to be one of the smartest Sci-Fi movies of all time.

That's awesome, Scott! I'm so glad you discovered Edge of Tomorrow. It really is a gem, and it kills me how so many people skipped it because they assumed it to be another Tom Cruise sci-fi "meh" (a la Oblivion. In fact, it's one of the most clever mainstream films I've seen in recent memory, and it deserved such a better fate at the (domestic) box office. I loved it so much that I bought the South Korean limited edition Blu-ray that comes with a whole slew of extra goodies in a slick steelbook package.

You don't have to go that far, but I encourage anybody who enjoys smart action films to pay a little money and buy yourself a copy of Edge of Tomorrow on Blu-ray or digital download. You'll be supporting a seriously talented group of filmmakers. Buy John Wick while you're at it and pick yourself up two of the best action films of the 2000s.

[richard_v]

I've been reading through this from the start as I hadn't actually looked through it before. Have to say it's an outstanding thread, a few parts of it really caught my attention.

Four Lions:

Four Lions might be one of the worst films I've ever watched, you summed it up far better than I ever could as I'm still struggling to process what I watched. The fact that it had absolutely no back story was bizarre in itself, but it just wasn't funny, at all, on any level. I like British cinema there's some absolutely outstanding films that have been produced on these shores, but that was just dreadful.

Battleship:

Why is Rihanna in it? What happened in the years from arrest to being in the Navy? Why do they always make people who clearly can't play soccer, play soccer? *see the film Goal for a better example of this, like it just doesn't look right, no-one kicks a ball like that etc etc.. I could rant about that all day*

Just awful. And it cost $220million.


My relationship is actually underpinned by a mutual dislike of films more than anything else, so I've actually enjoyed the scathing reviews more than the positive ones.