Best of My 2014

The best titles in each of my ratings categories, of everything I saw for the first time since last year's year-end list:

Concept
1. Noah, 2014
2. Boyhood, 2014
3. The Twilight Zone (season one), 1959-1960

Story
1. A Most Wanted Man, 2014
2. Fruitvale Station, 2013
3. Calvary, 2014

Characters
1. The Breakfast Club, 1985
2. Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014

Dialog
1. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014
2. To Have and Have Not, 1944
3. The Breakfast Club, 1985

Pacing
1. A Most Wanted Man, 2014
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014
3. Fruitvale Station, 2013

Cinematography
1. Calvary, 2014
2. The Conformist, 1970
3. Interstellar, 2014

Special Effects/Design
1. Her, 2013
2. Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013
3. Interstellar, 2014

Acting
1. Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008
2. 12 Years a Slave, 2013
3. Blue Jasmine, 2013

Music
1. Inside Llewyn Davis, 2013
2. Under the Skin, 2014
3. Her, 2013

Enjoyment (my favorite titles)
1. Her, 2013 (A+)
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014 (A+)
3. Tabletop: Season Two (A+)
4. The Lego Movie, 2014 (A)
5. Mockingjay: Part 1, 2014 (A)

GPA (the best titles)
1. Her, 2013 (4.0/4)
2. Calvary, 2014 (3.7/4)
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014 (3.7/4)
4. 12 Years a Slave, 2013 (3.4/4)
5. A Most Wanted Man, 2014 (3.4/4)

Angel: Season Five

Angel: Season Five, 2003-2004. A vampire is CEO of a law firm.

Created by Joss Whedon, & David Greenwalt. Directed by Whedon (2 episodes), James A. Contner (2), Steven S. DeKnight (2), Jeffrey Bell (2), Jefferson Kibbee (2), Skip Schoolnik (2), Vern Gillum (2), Terrence O'Hara (2), Marita Grabiak (1), Bill L. Norton (1), David Boreanaz (1), David Fury (1), Ben Edlund (1), & Greenwalt (1). Written by DeKnight (6 episodes), Drew Goddard (5), Whedon (4), Fury (4), Edlund (4), Sarah Fain (3), Elizabeth Craft (3), Bell (2), & Brent Fletcher (1). Starring Boreanaz, with James Marsters, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, Andy Hallett, Mercedes McNab, & Alexis Denisof.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: D
Enjoyment: And suddenly Angel is fun. It's not good enough to make four seasons of crap worth watching, but season five is finally the sort of thing I'd expected from a Buffy spin-off. B

GPA: 2.2/4

Wild

Wild, 2014. A woman goes hiking for three months.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Nick Hornby, based on a book by Cheryl Strayed. Starring Reese Witherspoon, with Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, & Keene McRae.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's slow and repetitive; there's absolutely no reason for it to be longer than 90 minutes (it's nearly two hours). Otherwise, it's pretty good. They don't do anything in the way of making me understand the character (or even seem to try), but she's kicked around enough that you can't help empathizing. B

GPA: 2.6/4

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014. A power vacuum causes a small war.

Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, & Guillermo del Toro, based on a book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring Martin Freeman, & Richard Armitage, with Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, & Luke Evans.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: I've noted before that there's a great two-hour movie buried in this nine-hour trilogy. Only about 20 minutes of that would come from this movie. Bilbo is barely in this. It's mostly one long fight scene, which is considerably less boring than the first two movies, but does not belong in The Hobbit. Peter Jackson's Bloodlust: The Movie would be a more apt title. C

GPA: 1.6/4

Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever

Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (tv movie), 2014. Grumpy Cat's pet shop home is robbed.

Directed by Tim Hill. Written by Hill, & Jeff Morris. Starring Megan Charpentier, & Aubrey Plaza.

Concept: B
Story: F
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: There's a funny-looking cat, and they wave it in front of the camera a lot. Not surprisingly, this makes for a more entertaining movie than most of what was in the theaters this year. C

GPA: 1.8/4

Top Five

Top Five, 2014. A recovering alcoholic comedian is about to marry a reality TV star.

Written & directed by Chris Rock. Starring Rock, & Rosario Dawson, with J.B. Smoove, & Gabrielle Union.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Funny, but with only a handful of laugh-out-loud jokes. Otherwise, it's pretty intelligent. I imagine Rock could potentially make some great movies, if he keeps at this Woody Allen/Richard Linklater style. B

GPA: 2.7/4

Doctor Who #80: Terror of the Zygons

Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons, 1975 (the first story of six from season thirteen). The Loch Ness monster is a cyborg controlled by aliens.

Directed by Douglas Camfield. Written by Robert Banks Stewart. Starring Tom Baker, Nicholas Courtney, Ian Marter, & Elisabeth Sladen.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: The monster is terrible, but the alien spaceship is pretty great. C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: An inexplicable throw-back to the worst of the Pertwee era. I'd think it was meant as a parody, but it's not funny (with the exception of a couple good Fourth Doctor Dialog Moments). C

GPA: 2.0/4

Shadow of the Thin Man

Shadow of the Thin Man, 1941. A wealthy couple solves yet another mystery.

Directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Written by Irving Brecher, & Harry Kurnitz; story by Kurnitz, based on characters by Dashiell Hammett. Starring William Powell, & Myrna Loy, with Barry Nelson, & Donna Reed.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Similar to Another Thin Man, it might seem pretty good if it weren't necessarily compared to the original. This time, the story is more of a mess (with a mystery that you couldn't possibly care about), featuring at least one long, boring, gratuitous stretch without Nick and Nora in it. C

GPA: 2.3/4

"The Goose Goes South"

"The Goose Goes South" (short), 1941. A goose migrates on the highway.

Directed by Joseph Barbera, & William Hanna. Starring Sara Berner, Mel Blanc, Truman Bradley, Harry Lang, & Cliff Nazarro.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: Getting a still from this, I watched it at 2x speed, and the pacing seemed about right. D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Dull but painless. C

GPA: 1.9/4

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

"The Tell-Tale Heart" (short), 1941. A murderer panics.

Directed by Jules Dassin. Written by Doane R. Hoag, based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. Starring Joseph Schildkraut, with Roman Bohnen.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: A
Enjoyment: It's a shame TCM doesn't include high quality shorts like this on their releases more often. This is the only dramatic short I've ever seen from this era. It's kind of like a really good episode of The Twilight Zone. The story's too familiar for it to really be suspenseful, but they could hardly have done better otherwise. B

GPA: 3.0/4

"The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos"

"The Woods Are Full of Cuckoss" (short), 1937. Celebrity caricatures as woodland animals.

Directed by Frank Tashlin. Written by Melvin Millar. Starring Mel Blanc, & Tedd Pierce.

Concept: F
Story: F
Characters: F
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: A
Enjoyment: Yet another caricature cartoon. They just never stop. There are a couple moments of humor in this one that aren't merely references. C

GPA: 1.7/4

X-Men

from my 100 Popular Movies Marathon, part 44 of 100



X-Men, 2000. Superhuman good guys don't want superhuman bad guys to kill people.

Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by David Hayter; story by Tom DeSanto, & Singer. Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, & Ian McKellen, with Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, & Anna Paquin.

Concept: Ah, the days when every superhero movie didn't have to be an origin story... B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's interesting how little this has aged (unlike the Spider-Man movies of that era); it's pretty close in tone to what Marvel was doing just a couple years ago. B

GPA: 2.6/4

Doctor Who #41: The Web of Fear

Doctor Who: The Web of Fear, 1968 (the fifth story of seven from season five). Robot yetis invade London.

Directed by Douglas Camfield. Written by Mervyn Haisman, & Henry Lincoln. Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, & Deborah Watling.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: A lot of things are done surprisingly well in this story. Sadly, the plot is not one of them.  People just wander around in the sewers for six episodes. And not being able to see the first yeti story (this is a sequel, and the original is lost) leads to a lot of basic questions not being answered (such as, "What the hell is this villain?" or, "Why is that robot so fluffy and huggable?"). C

GPA: 2.0

The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything, 2014. Young Stephen Hawking marries with a life expectancy of two years.

Directed by James Marsh. Written by Anthony McCarten, based on a book by Jane Hawking. Starring Eddie Redmayne, & Felicity Jones, with Maxine Peake, & Charlie Cox.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: It's basically a soap opera, which just incidentally happens to feature a famous physicist. He could have any sort of academic job, and it wouldn't change the story. Which is for the best. Movies about Scientists Doing Science never work. Instead the focus is on well-proven and popular movie tropes of the Romance & Adversity variety. There isn't anything here that I don't feel like I've seen before, but they execute those pieces expertly, and do a good job putting them together into strong movie. B

GPA: 2.9/4

"Porky's Double Trouble"

"Porky's Double Trouble" (short), 1937. An escaped convict looks like Porky Pig.

Directed by Frank Tashlin. Written by George Manuell. Starring Sara Berner, & Mel Blanc.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: D
Music: A
Enjoyment: You need to keep your finger on the pause button to watch this cartoon. It might have been pretty good with a better sense of timing. C

GPA: 2.0/4

Survivor: Season 19

Survivor: Season 19, 2009. A reality game on a Samoan island.

Created by Charlie Parsons. Starring Jeff Probst.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: n/a
Music: C
Enjoyment: There's no one to root for, and only one player who seems to know what he's doing. C

GPA: 2.0/4

Cast Away

from my 100 Popular Movies Marathon, part 43 of 100



Cast Away, 2000. The only survivor of a plane crash lives on an island.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Written by William Broyles Jr. Starring Tom Hanks, with Helen Hunt.

Concept: B
Story: "Man against nature? But why can't it also be a love story?" D
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: Zemeckis takes every chance he gets to distance you from the character. Why would you do that? C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: C
Enjoyment: One of the most predictable movies I've ever seen. I really expected to like it. I also expected it to be essentially a Tom Hanks one man show, which it is not. It has its moments to make it worth seeing, but... meh. C

GPA: 2.5/4

Doctor Who #40: The Enemy of the World

Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World, 1967-1968 (the fourth story of seven from season five). A man who looks like the Doctor is trying to take over the world.

Directed by Barry Letts. Written by David Whitaker. Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, & Deborah Watling.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: D
Music: D
Enjoyment: Having Troughton play two characters should have been great, but in six episodes, they only bothered to have any fun with it in two or three scenes. C

GPA: 1.6/4

"The Case of the Stuttering Pig"

"The Case of the Stuttering Pig" (short), 1937. An evil lawyer wants Porky's inheritance.

Directed by Frank Tashlin. Written by Melvin Millar. Starring Sara Berner, Mel Blanc, & Billy Bletcher.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: D
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: A
Enjoyment: Clever. It's one of the better Looney Tunes of this era, but that's not saying much. C

GPA: 2.5/4

Star Trek: Enterprise: Season Three

Star Trek: Enterprise: Season Three, 2003-2004. A spaceship crew tries to save Earth.

Created by Rick Berman, & Brannon Braga. Directed by David Livingston (4 episodes), Roxann Dawson (4), Allan Kroeker (3), David Straiton (3), LeVar Burton (3), Mike Vejar (3), Robert Duncan McNeill (2), Michael Grossman (1), & James L. Conway (1). Written by Chris Black (6 episodes), Berman (5), Braga (5), Michael Sussman (5), Manny Coto (4), André Bormanis (3), Brent V. Friedman (2), Terry Matalas (2), Phyllis Strong (2), David A. Goodman (2), Paul Brown (1), & Jonathan Fernandez (1). Starring Scott Bakula, with John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, & Connor Trinneer.

Concept: Gee, I wonder if they'll save Earth from complete destruction? Oh, the tension. C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: Villains by Dr. Seuss. D
Acting: C
Music: D
Enjoyment: It could be worse. I guess. There's only one or two good episodes, and lots of bad. It usually tips towards the watchable end of the Bad spectrum. C

GPA: 1.6/4

The Cosby Show: Season Four

The Cosby Show: Season Four, 1987-1988. The day-to-day life of a large, wealthy family.

Created by Ed. Weinberger, Michael Leeson, & Bill Cosby. Directed by Jay Sandrich (10 episodes), Tony Singletary (7), Regge Life (6), Carl Lauten (4), & Chuck Vinson (1). Written by Gary Kott (11 episodes), John Markus (11), Carmen Finestra (11), Janet Leahy (5), Matt Williams (3), Matt Robinson (2), & Chris Auer (1). Starring Cosby, with Phylicia Rashad, Sabrina LeBeauf, Geoffrey Owens, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Tempestt Bledsoe, & Keshia Knight Pulliam.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: About the same quality as season three - it's not consistent, a few episodes are bad, but it's usually hilarious. A

GPA: 3.0/4

[update of a previous post - original is here]

Sherlock: Series Two

Sherlock: Series Two, 2012. A private investigator solves mysteries.

Created by Mark Gatiss, & Steven Moffat, based on works by Arthur Conan Doyle. Directed by Paul McGuigan (2 episodes), & Toby Haynes (1). Written by Moffat (1 episode), Gatiss (1), & Stephen Thompson (1). Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, & Martin Freeman.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Much better than the first series, which I did not like. I continue to not understand what people see in Cumberbatch; Jeremy Brett could Sherlock circles around him. (And I have more than a little resentment towards him for Star Trek. A white actor who takes a role of a non-white character is not someone I want to see more of.) And Moffat continues his annoying habit of not letting you forget how hard he's trying. Still, it's a pretty good show. B

GPA: 2.9/4

Mockingjay Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, 2014. An unwilling symbol of rebellion joins the propaganda team against a dystopian government.

Directed by Francis Lawrence. Written by Peter Craig, & Danny Strong; adapted by Suzanne Collins from her book. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, with Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Julianne Moore.

Concept: B
Story: Knowing where it's going, I know it's the first half to a great story. But the first half of a story is not a story. D
Characters: Again, a little slice of a great character arc isn't a great character arc. B
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: Finally, they got the music right. That was my biggest pet peeve about the first two movies. A
Enjoyment: I can understand how so many critics are indifferent to this movie. It's half a movie - and the set-up half, at that. If you don't know where the story is going, it probably seems like a rambling mess. But if you're a fan, it's pretty damn great. Much stronger than the first two movies. (If you're not a fan, wait until part 2 comes out, because this does not work on its own. If they keep up this level of quality, the two parts together will make an amazing movie, and it's a shame the year wait between them will ruin it for a lot of people.) A

GPA: 3.3/4