I feel like this is the first time in years that there really have been a lot of really good movies to pick from in terms of Best Picture. I'm actually kind of floored how much better this year is than the last few in terms of quality.
In 2011, one of my five picks for Best Picture (since I hate the 9 or 10 picks idea) was also in my "Over-Rated" section.
In 2012, there was no competition against "The Artist", one of my picks wasn't even nominated for anything, and everything I didn't nominate ended up in categories that were lower than "Liked."
Last year was definitely better but I had started to claim I was getting cynical.
This year I'm almost overly positive. I really liked 7/9 of the movies nominated for Best Picture which is a record for me. Narrowing it down to five was only easy because four of these I gave 4.5 stars to (I'm notoriously stingy with five stars). FOUR. That's probably a record too.
This year I think I talk about fewer movies since I got lazy. I also haven't seen a bunch of the foreign movies on my list yet ("The Past", "The Hunt", and "Blue Is The Warmest Color") and the only other animated film I want to see is "The Wind Rises." Maybe I'll add some of those when I see them. Also, while I have seen a few documentaries this year, none got nominated for anything.
As always, starred movies are my picks for the five Best Pictures and ones with a plus signs are movies that weren't nominated for Oscars.
Previous Years: 2013 2012 2011
Movies I Really Liked:
Gravity*: This movie was a lot better than I was expecting. I didn't know about the use of IMAX 3D until about ten minutes in when George Clooney reached for a screw and I'll admit I was a bit disappointed by this discovery. While I may be stuck in the mud when it comes to my distaste for 3D, I can believe that this is a movie that uses modern technology to its advantage while still having a plot that can be enjoyed without it (unlike "Avatar" which I holistically hated). The plot may be a little thin but it really holds your focus in a classic sci-fi way (i.e. "Alien"). The attention to detail in the directing and effects more than make up for any of the minor issues and Sandra Bullock did a solid job, although I didn't care for Clooney who was mostly just doing his Clooney thing in space.
12 Years A Slave*: This is one of those movies that begs the question: good story or good story well told? Definitely, the latter. The directing was great, the acting was amazing, and the story was really compelling. I don't think I really have anything negative to say about this one so this is kind of a boring little entry. You could almost say the movie is too traditional but it really isn't thanks to Steve McQueen's interesting direction. It very well may be the Best Picture winner. (And I totally cried at the end.)
Her*: I wanted so desperately not to like this movie. It's written by Spike Jonze for God's sake. All I could think when I heard about this movie, a movie about a guy who falls in love with a computer program, was that it was bound to be an entry in "Stuff White People Like." The problem is: I like of loved it. It might be my personal favorite of the year. Yes, it's got a layer of pretension but overall it's a really thought provoking movie about communication and how technology affects the way we connect with others (with a thin layer of existentialism on top). It's also really interesting because it takes place about twenty minutes into the future. All the tech from the movie seems like something we could feasibly have in the next ten years which makes it dreadfully topical while still technically being a little sci-fi.
Wolf Of Wall Street*: Martin Scorsase has made this kind of movie many times before so I find it hard to judge this movie without in some way comparing it to its predecessors and I come up with this: better than "Casino", not as good as "Goodfellas." Heck, the opening scene of this movie is a direct callback to "Goodfellas". After realizing this, I was set up to find this movie to be an inferior copy but I couldn't help but like it in its own right. It was well told and there were some really fantastic directorial decisions and shots and every actor was giving it their all but the spectacle of the movie got kind of oppressive and distracting after a while. Still, a quality film.
Philomena*: This movie burrowed into my brain. That's the best way for me to explain it. I watched it, thinking it was going to be the fluffy feel-good Oscar nominee and while it did make me feel good in some way, I realized that it really made me think. It's true that it's just a story about a woman looking for her son but it's a really compelling story, well told and hilariously acted by Judi Dench. This movie gave me feels but it was still also good.
Nebraska: I don't really get Alexander Payne. Every movie I have seen by him has been perfectly competent and enjoyable but never utterly unforgettable or show-stopping. And again, he has made another one of those. The best thing I could say about this movie is that it strongly reminded me of David Lynch's "Straight Story" and overall gave a Lynch vibe in how it talked about small town America and I found that very appealing. I enjoyed it, I got laughs from it, the directing and acting were fine . . . and yeah. Now that I think about it, I think I liked it more than I originally thought. I actually kind of debated whether this one or "Wolf of Wall Street" should be my fifth nominee.
The Great Beauty: This was a movie that I initially wasn't sure what to think of. It's got a lot shoved into it and sometimes something will happen before you understand why it's happening. When it was over all I could think was, "That was the most Italian movie I've ever seen." Architecture? Check. Nuns? Check. Ridiculously well dressed people? Check. Reminds me of a Fellini film? Check. I felt a bit underwhelmed at first but when hours and hours passed and I was still thinking about the movie and deciding it needed a rewatch, I realized that I actually thought it was kind of great. The name doesn't lie.
Frozen: I loved this movie. I loved that it completely plays with your perception of Disney movies. I love that it's ultimately about two sisters and the love story is secondary. I love that it has a character who is both the main antagonistic force and a character you are supposed to sympathize with and support. I love that song "Let It Go" and wish it would leave my head. This is my favorite non-Pixar Disney movie since "Mulan."
Dallas Buyers Club: I went into this movie having no idea what it was about but having a vague idea that Jared Leto plays a transgender woman in it. It was really interesting and well-acted but unfortunately, I don't have much to say about it aside from the fact that I really liked it.
Inside Llewyn Davis: This was on the upper end of Coen Brothers movies to me but it wasn't "The Big Lebowski" or "No Country For Old Men." It was a fascinating time capsule of a movie about a folk singer in the 60s trying to get by and had some nice little reoccurring themes and the music flowed well within the context of the story. It reminded me that I should set aside some time to watch "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" because the Coens really do good things with music in their films and that one is well known for it.
Blue Jasmine: Woody Allen makes a movie every year of varying quality and this would be about average for him: a film about people coping with something. It was a perfectly competent film with Cate Blanchett doing an amazing job in the lead role. I think my biggest issue with it was the ending. Did she go completely crazy? Was that what happened there? It just felt kind of incomplete or as if he wasn't sure how to end it.
Much Ado About Nothing+: Read it all here.
Warm Bodies+: Did anyone see this movie? Because it was awesome. Yes, okay, we are over-saturated with zombie movies. It's true. But how about a romantic comedy between a zombie and a human as told from the zombie's perspective in a post outbreak society? It's a little cheesy, I'll admit, but overall I just found it hilarious and adorable.
Catching Fire+: In a lot of ways I thought this was better than the first "Hunger Games". They switched directors and managed to make it still have the same look but now without all the nausea-inducing camera work. The biggest complaints I had were with the script. They really didn't mention District 13 enough to have the ending make sense (this could have been fixed easily with an abbreviated Bonnie and Twill scene) and the director kind of killed the impact of the final scene (it lingered on Katniss' face too long without meaning). Everything else was solid.
Movies I Liked:
Captain Philips: So I watched this movie and walked away from it thinking it was a perfectly good action film based on a true story. Then I went online and read all this stuff about how it's this profound meditation on globalization. Sure. That may be a bit of an underlying theme but that is not what you take away from this film. It is an action-suspense film. A well made and acted one (albeit I found a lot of the direction kind of dizzying) but still, above all it is an action film.
August: Osage County: A family drama that hinges pretty much entirely on the actors who were all excellent. There's nothing really to say in the way of directing (unobtrusive) or the script (it's based on a play) so I'll just leave it at: it's a very good film. If family dramas aren't your thing, you might not agree.
Pacific Rim+: My feelings about this movie are so conflicted. It's so dumb but it's so good! I mean, it's a big dumb robot fighting movie where they say, "Don't get cocky" in the first ten minutes! And yet, it takes so many conventions and turns them on their head! And yet, the main character is an obnoxious stereotype! And yet, all the other characters are kind of awesome (particularly Mako, who is a great example of a strong female character, and Newt, who may have been pulled directly out of my brain)! ARGGGGG!
The Great Gatsby: This was essentially "Moulin Rouge" in the 20s and I was mostly fine with that but I could see how someone wouldn't be. Baz Luhrman is a director I always feel mixed about and I was particularly conflicted by the music choices, many of which were good as music, but so incongruous that it took me right out of the feel. Alienation from the time period is not really something you want from a movie based on a book that was the defining book of the underbelly of the jazz age. Just saying.
Saving Mr. Banks: Heart-warming little biopic. Possible Disney money-making scheme but a very nice one.
The Conjuring+: A classic horror film which is actually genuinely creepy and has that added element that many horror films lack: character development.
Rush+: This movie was fine but I feel like I have seen this movie at least three times before. It's a sports rivalry movie, competently made and acted. *shrugs*
Movies I Think Were Over-rated:
American Hustle: Oh God, this movie. So this was a very powerfully acted film that I actually kind of hated. The plot made very little sense and the editing only served to make it even more confusing and the problem when you have a movie that is well acted but nonsensical is that a lot of people are very passionate about something that makes no sense to the viewer. David O. Russell has yet to actually do anything as a director that I would find notable. "The Fighter" was decent but not memorable and "Silver Linings Playbook" I really liked until the last twenty minutes which I thought were kind of stupid. This is Russell's biggest film in scale but I just couldn't abide by the sporadic editing and the convoluted plot.
Book Thief: This movie wasn't overrated y the critics so much as it was overrated by the movie goers. Every person I talked to who saw this movie absolutely loved it and I was underwhelmed. It has ELAIC ("Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close") syndrome. That is when you take a book that is really theme heavy and thought provoking and make a movie that touches lightly on those things without actually doing anything significant. It's almost a rough draft of a good movie. I could tell when I watched "Extremely Loud" that the book was really good even if the movie wasn't and later on I went to read the book and discovered that to be the case. In this situation, I read the book first and could tell from watching the movie that this was another example of the same. It's a movie that makes you want to read the book but not rewatch the movie.
Spring Breakers+: This one's popularity I can only determine via time spent on Tumblr where it seems to be rather well-liked. Personally, I'm still recovering from this movie. It wasn't bad but it wasn't exactly good. It does make you hate humanity though.
Movies I Didn't Like:
Romeo And Juliet+: . . . well, the costumes and sets were really nice! Unfortunately, the acting was weak overall and as much as I love "Downton Abbey", Julian Fellowes' adaption of the script was actually kind of painful for me to watch. I spent a lot of the movie saying, "This dialogue sounds wrong" and "I don't remember this scene."
Mortal Instruments+: I feel the need to mention this movie because I actually did read the first three books in the series back in the day. I think the first one came out with I was 17 or something so I was on the very end of the age range for these books and they are highly derivative but I found them relatively enjoyable. This movie, on the other hand, was awful. A huge part of that was the casting. Not a single actor could deliver a joke without it sounding like a parody or a line that sounds weirdly sincere and then Jonathon Reyes Myers played the bad guy and oh boy did he ham it up. The pacing of the movie was dizzying and the effects were pretty silly. The one advantage: AFI songs.
Sharknado+: Just kidding. This movie is awesome.
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