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2014 IN REVIEW: My Top Films of the Year
I saw so many movies this year, I honestly couldn’t pick the best movie. The selection was so wide because I saw so many, I honestly couldn’t pit movies I just enjoyed versus films I admired. So, this year, I’ve decided to do something different — I separated them into genres. it’s not exactly what you might expect – Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t in sci-fi, for instance, because it’s much more of an adventure film in space.
I’ve ordered these based on gut instinct overall, however, and so you’ll be able to see what I (currently) favored over others. That being said, however, all of these movies are fantastic.
I’m tired of explaining things, honestly. The process of doing the year in review this year was a lot longer than I intended. So, yeah. You know the drill. Read below! Read more…
REVIEW: Space Jam
Directed by: Joe Pytka
Produced by: Ivan Reitman, Joe Medjuck, Daniel Goldberg
Written by: Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod
Edited by: Sheldon Kahn
Cinematography by: Michael Chapman
Music by: James Newton Howard; Soundtrack produced by R. Kelly
Starring: Michael Jordan, Billy West, Dee Bradley Baker, Danny Devito, Wayne Knight, Bill Murray, Kath Soucie, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Shawn Bradley, Larry Johnson, Muggsy Bogues, Theresa Randle, Bob Bergen, Bill Farmer, June Foray, Maurice LaMarche, Colleen Wainwright, Frank Welker
Year: 1996
Space Jam, that wonderful marketing ploy that fooled audiences into handing over $230 million to a studio for an overlong concoction of advertisements and which made us all love R. Kelly in an innocent time where that was still an acceptable thing to do. Seriously, the film is a commercial for itself – the marketing synergy between the two entities who merged two completely unrelated but massively successful franchises together to resemble something like a movie, and yet that is honestly also the film’s main draw. It asked us a question nobody outside of a corporate think tank would have ever asked in their right mind – “Who doesn’t want to see Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan play basketball together?” – and convinced us that this was, come to think of it, actually something that would be pretty entertaining to watch! Read more…
THEATRICAL REVIEW: The LEGO Movie
Directed by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Produced by: Dan Lin, Roy Lee
Written by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (screenplay)
Edited by: David Burrows, Chris McKay
Cinematography by: Pablo Plaisted
Music by: Mark Mothersbaugh
Starring: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman
Year: 2014
I actually saw this movie weeks ago. Like… I couldn’t stand the wait and saw it the opening weekend, in fact. I was just so freaking excited for the movie, and it was going to be my first post-“2013 IN REVIEW” review, and – well, it still is, but not nearly as early as I intended. (Hey, life gets in the way. I’ve been working more from home, getting more tired at work, and then my sister had the audacity of getting married, which required some clothing search. ANYWAY…) Read more…
REVIEW: Fireproof
Directed by: Alex Kendrick
Produced by: Alex Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick, David Nixon
Written by: Alex Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick
Edited by: Alex Kendrick, Bill Ebel
Cinematography by: Bob Scott
Music by: Mark Willard
Starring: Kirk Cameron, Erin Bethea, Ken Bevel, Jason McLeod, Perry Revell, Stephen Dervan, Harris Malcom, Phyllis Malcom, Renata Williams
Inspired by the book The Love Dare by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick
Year: 2008
Fireproof was reportedly the highest grossing independent film of 2008 – a year that included indie runners up Vickie Cristina Barcelona from Woody Allen and the lauded Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Oscars for Best Director, Adapated Screenplay, and Picture. While I’ve yet to see Allen’s contribution, I’m a bit baffled to have learned that Danny Boyle’s harrowing, inspirational epic was outperformed by a megachurch-produced film based on a Christian self-help book that relied upon donated time and money to be made. I’m not saying that such a film would inherently not deserve such success based solely on those factors, but when you consider the fact that Fireproof relied not on TV spots and theatrical trailers but primarily upon word of mouth that began with screenings for church leaders, it really says something about the zeal Christians will put on display for anything potentially popular that they think will get the message out about their beliefs. As a Christian, however, I think it’s my duty to point out that I’m fairly certain that many of them have also deluded themselves into thinking that this cinematic equivalent of panhandling the congregation for an offering is also somehow a good film. Read more…
Review: “Foodfight!”
Directed by: Lawrence Kasanoff
Produced by: Lawrence Kasanoff, Joshua Wexler, George Johnson
Written by: Brent Friedman, Rebecca Swanson, Sean Catherine Derek (screenplay) Lawrence Kasanoff (screenplay & story), Joshua Wexler (story)
Edited by: Ray Mupas, Craig Paulsen, Ann Hoyt, Sean Rourke
Production Design by: Jonathan A. Carlson
Music by: Walter Murphy
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Eva Longoria, Hilary Duff, Larry Miller, Chris Kattan, Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Stiller, Cloris Leachman, Christopher Lloyd, James Arnold Taylor, Edie McClurg
Year: 2012
Starting production all the way back in 2001, it’d be tempting to call Foodfight! the Duke Nukem Forever of animated movies – with that game’s developer-hopping, financially constrained, 14-year-long development cycle from c. 1997 all the way to its miraculous resurrection and yet disastrous release in 2011 already something of a legend worthy of its own film adaptation – but that would imply that anybody who doesn’t work in marketing actually anticipated this corporate mascot-infested Toy Story rip-off’s release. Read more…
Theatrical Review: “Wreck-It Ralph” / Sub-Review: “Paperman”
Directed by: Rich Moore
Produced by: Clark Spencer
Written by: Phil Johnston, Jennifer Lee (screenplay); Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Jim Reardon (story)
Music by: Henry Jackman
Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Adam Carolla, Horatio Sanz, Mindy Kaling
Year: 2012
Video games were probably my first passion. I’ve been a game player since my grandpa first introduced me to his Nintendo Entertainment System back when I was only 4, and while video games have largely become more of a rare hobby of mine since I left high school, I still love the medium and I try to find new favorites (the Uncharted series) while keeping up with my old ones (The Legend of Zelda primarily). So I was pretty excited to hear that Disney was making a film that many were calling the Who Framed Roger Rabbit of video games. Here was the world’s biggest animation studio finally acknowledging the mainstream popularity of video games by not only making a film centered around one, as they did with Tron, but actually making the film part of its prestigious “Disney Animation Canon,” placing it in the same ranks as the revolutionary Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Best Picture Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast. Read more…
Special Review: “You’ve Got Mail”, My Favorite Nora Ephron Film
Directed by: Nora Ephron
Produced by: Nora Ephron, Lauren Shuler Donner
Written by: Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron
Cinematography by: John Lindley
Music by: George Fenton
Starring: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Greg Kinnear, Steve Zahn, Heather Burns, Dave Chappelle
Based on the play Illatszertár (trans. “Parfumerie”) by Miklós László
Year: 1998
When I had heard that Nora Ephron passed away not too long ago on June 26, I knew that I had to do a tribute review for her. It’s not that I was a huge fan of her, her films, her plays, or even her widely acclaimed various writings. From my earliest memories of becoming a fan of films, Nora Ephron was among one of the earliest names in film credits that I recognized consistently outside the much more widely recognizable names like Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. This was largely thanks in part to my mom, who was a fan of many of the films she did make, especially Sleepless in Seattle.
I originally planned on reviewing Sleepless in Seattle, in fact, which was Ephron’s second film as director and first widely acclaimed film. It also happened to be the only film of hers that I had in my library, and only then due to the fact that my mom had somehow managed to have two copies and so, you know, why not? But, though it is not at all a bad film, I must confess that my already limited affection for it has waned over the years, primarily thanks to the Meg Ryan character going completely unrecognized as an insane woman who seriously needs help. Needless to say, after re-watching it for the purposes of a review after not seeing it for several years, I felt as though I wasn’t doing the director justice in writing up a review of a film that I began to see as, well, enjoyable but quite mediocre.
Luckily, I found justification in buying up one of her other films — one that I genuinely love. At $9.99 on Amazon and featuring a DVD copy of the older film, The Shop Around the Corner, which also borrows its story from the same Miklós László’s stage play, You’ve Got Mail was a steal, and its purchase a cathartic experience for me. You see, as a guy, it was hard to admit it for a while but, yes, I genuinely have the whole guilty pleasure thing going on with this movie. Read more…
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