Movies Seen, 2014
Jan. 3rd, 2015 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayne12/21 The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
12/12 The Homesman
12/7 Mockingjay part 1
12/5 Penguins of Madagascar
11/28 Rosewater
11/15 John Wick
11/8 Big Hero 6
11/8 Interstellar
10/26 Book of Life
10/23 Fury
10/20 Maze Runners
10/19 Kill the Messenger
9/4 November Man
8/3 Guardians of the Galaxy
7/29 Hercules
7/24 Monty Python Live (mostly)
7/24 Lucy
7/18 Sex Tape
6/22 Chef
6/10 A Million Ways To Die In The West
5/30 Godzilla
5/24 X-Men Days of Future Past
5/2 Peabody & Sherman
4/3 Captain America: Winter Soldier
4/3 The Grand Budapest Hotel
3/23 Divergent
3/12 Three Days to Kill
3/11 Philomena
3/10 Pompeii
3/3 Non-Stop
2/6 Monuments Men
1/28 jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
I would have to say that, overall, the best movies that I saw were (in no particular order): Monuments Men, Philomena, Grand Budapest Hotel, Chef. Honorable mentions to Rosewater and Homesman. There were lots of good action movies including Three Days To Kill and November Man. The two Avengers movies, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were both excellent, I was amazed at how well CA:WS integrated with Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on ABC, but I guess that's an advantage of everyone working under the same corporate umbrella. Hobbit: 5 Armies was an excellent conclusion to the series and I really think Jackson provided an excellent interpretation of Tolkien's bed time story.
Funnest Movies: Penguins of Madagascar, Big Hero 6, Book of Life, Sex Tape, Chef, honorable mention to Million Ways to Die in the West. Half are animated, that's interesting. I've seen Big Hero 6 twice and will definitely be buying the DVD. Oddly I haven't picked up the DVD for Chef yet.
Biggest Disappointments: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Mazerunners. I used to be a fanatic for Tom Clancey books, I was really in to military fiction at the time and thought Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were great. But he so Mary Sue'd Jack Ryan that I stopped buying him long before Clancey passed away. Mazerunners: well, it didn't make sense to me. Yes, it's YA, but I want some sort of logic, and some times the stupidest things can break suspension of disbelief for me. For example, the new runners are injected in to the world by this freight elevator that seems to be 30 stories tall or more, yet when they escape, everything is at ground level. So they bored down umpteen stories, then over to the compound, then back up just for an elevator? I won't be bothering with the subsequent movies nor the books, whereas I'm a big fan of the Hunger Games series and enjoyed Divergent and am looking forward to more of those.
I need to add a Disappointment tag for Hobbit, but it was an instance where the 'print' was bad. The digital copy had an audio distortion in the end credits that made it sound like the film wasn't tight around the sound pickup head, but since almost everything is digital these days, that makes no sense. Apparently the cost for a new print to fix this is rather formidable, so it will be a flawed print for as long as they're showing this in Boulder.
I think the releases for 2015 that I'm looking forward to the most would be the new Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, I can't remember if the new James Bond movie is '15 or '16. And there's a new Godzilla movie coming from Japan which should be cool, but again I don't know if it's for this year or next. And I think Luc Besson has another action movie due, but the title is not coming to mind. Yes, they're mostly mainline pictures, but Kurosawa and Itami are dead and Miyazaki is retired, and it seems like Joss is the only American film maker anymore who is on the 'must see' list.
Next Up: I think tonight will be Night At The Museum 3 or possibly The Interview. I know the latter will be a very uneven and not very good movie, but it still looks like a lot of fun. NATM3 will be bittersweet since I think it'll be one of the two last appearances of Robin Williams in film, the other being something called Absolutely Anything, due in late June, which also stars most of Monty Python as extra-terrestrials. That could be quite strange.
12/12 The Homesman
12/7 Mockingjay part 1
12/5 Penguins of Madagascar
11/28 Rosewater
11/15 John Wick
11/8 Big Hero 6
11/8 Interstellar
10/26 Book of Life
10/23 Fury
10/20 Maze Runners
10/19 Kill the Messenger
9/4 November Man
8/3 Guardians of the Galaxy
7/29 Hercules
7/24 Monty Python Live (mostly)
7/24 Lucy
7/18 Sex Tape
6/22 Chef
6/10 A Million Ways To Die In The West
5/30 Godzilla
5/24 X-Men Days of Future Past
5/2 Peabody & Sherman
4/3 Captain America: Winter Soldier
4/3 The Grand Budapest Hotel
3/23 Divergent
3/12 Three Days to Kill
3/11 Philomena
3/10 Pompeii
3/3 Non-Stop
2/6 Monuments Men
1/28 jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
I would have to say that, overall, the best movies that I saw were (in no particular order): Monuments Men, Philomena, Grand Budapest Hotel, Chef. Honorable mentions to Rosewater and Homesman. There were lots of good action movies including Three Days To Kill and November Man. The two Avengers movies, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were both excellent, I was amazed at how well CA:WS integrated with Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on ABC, but I guess that's an advantage of everyone working under the same corporate umbrella. Hobbit: 5 Armies was an excellent conclusion to the series and I really think Jackson provided an excellent interpretation of Tolkien's bed time story.
Funnest Movies: Penguins of Madagascar, Big Hero 6, Book of Life, Sex Tape, Chef, honorable mention to Million Ways to Die in the West. Half are animated, that's interesting. I've seen Big Hero 6 twice and will definitely be buying the DVD. Oddly I haven't picked up the DVD for Chef yet.
Biggest Disappointments: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Mazerunners. I used to be a fanatic for Tom Clancey books, I was really in to military fiction at the time and thought Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were great. But he so Mary Sue'd Jack Ryan that I stopped buying him long before Clancey passed away. Mazerunners: well, it didn't make sense to me. Yes, it's YA, but I want some sort of logic, and some times the stupidest things can break suspension of disbelief for me. For example, the new runners are injected in to the world by this freight elevator that seems to be 30 stories tall or more, yet when they escape, everything is at ground level. So they bored down umpteen stories, then over to the compound, then back up just for an elevator? I won't be bothering with the subsequent movies nor the books, whereas I'm a big fan of the Hunger Games series and enjoyed Divergent and am looking forward to more of those.
I need to add a Disappointment tag for Hobbit, but it was an instance where the 'print' was bad. The digital copy had an audio distortion in the end credits that made it sound like the film wasn't tight around the sound pickup head, but since almost everything is digital these days, that makes no sense. Apparently the cost for a new print to fix this is rather formidable, so it will be a flawed print for as long as they're showing this in Boulder.
I think the releases for 2015 that I'm looking forward to the most would be the new Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, I can't remember if the new James Bond movie is '15 or '16. And there's a new Godzilla movie coming from Japan which should be cool, but again I don't know if it's for this year or next. And I think Luc Besson has another action movie due, but the title is not coming to mind. Yes, they're mostly mainline pictures, but Kurosawa and Itami are dead and Miyazaki is retired, and it seems like Joss is the only American film maker anymore who is on the 'must see' list.
Next Up: I think tonight will be Night At The Museum 3 or possibly The Interview. I know the latter will be a very uneven and not very good movie, but it still looks like a lot of fun. NATM3 will be bittersweet since I think it'll be one of the two last appearances of Robin Williams in film, the other being something called Absolutely Anything, due in late June, which also stars most of Monty Python as extra-terrestrials. That could be quite strange.
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Date: 2015-01-04 07:42 pm (UTC)Big Hero 6 I've been looking forward to, and will finally be seeing later today. ^_^
I was quite impressed by The Book of Life - some engaging characters, replete with flaws, and a distinct visual style that wasn't merely imitating Pixar et al. Indeed, more Laika than Pixar. =:D
I'd also have to highlight Maleficent - a tour de force from Angelina Jolie, in what may be her swan song, given her announced disdain for acting, or at least, the profession and its toxic internal politicking, if not the craft.
Grand Budapest Hotel was a beautifully odd fish indeed. I suspect it'll survive many viewings, given the strength if performances, as well as its technical excellence, down to the model miniature sets.
As for this year, I'm eagerly awaiting the Wachowskis' Jupiter Ascending, and Chappie looks like being the definitive tale of cybernetics coming of age. And then, of course, we have Brad Bird's Tomorrowland.. =:D
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Date: 2015-02-23 04:02 am (UTC)The nearest larger city, 90 minutes away, has three theaters, one is a discount/end-run four screen, the other two are a total of 22 screens between the two and they show probably 90% the same movies between the two locations. Further insulting the situation, they show the same movie at the same time, and since the theaters are about 3 miles apart, there's no way to get from one to the other if a movie is sold out. El Paso is a bit over 2 hours away and has much better restaurants and movie theaters, and that's where we have to go for the rare stuff. We saw The Imitation Game in El Paso ages before our local chain picked it up, the last Philip Seymour Hoffman film, A Most Wanted Man showed there and was never carried here.
I think I'll look for a copy of Hundred Foot when I'm in Phoenix next month.