Tag: Wes Anderson

2014 ~ The Year In Film

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The top 10 films I saw in 2014 are:

  1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
  2. Boyhood
  3. Los Angeles Plays Itself**
  4. Guardians of the Galaxy
  5. Blue Ruin
  6. The LEGO Movie
  7. Snowpiercer
  8. Gone Girl
  9. Edge of Tomorrow
  10. X-Men Days of Future Past

Honorable mention to: Detective Detective Detective, The Babadook, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Dumb & Dumber To, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Cheap Thrills, Interstellar, Fury, and Joe.

** = Technically, this film was completed and released in 2003, however it didn’t see widespread availability until being re-released this year.

This year, for the first time, I took a leaf out of Justin’s book and kept track of every single film I watched! Actually, it’s not hard to do. Just write down a film after you watch it.

Here are all of the 95 films I watched in 2014:

* = denotes theatrical viewing

– A Band Called Death
– Ace In The Hole
– The Babadook
– Big Hero 6*
– The Big Lebowski
– Biutiful
– Blue Ruin
– Boyhood*
– The Canterbury Tales
– Captain America: The Winter Soldier*
– Cheap Thrills
– Coneheads
– The Conjuring
– The Croods
– Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*
– Dead Silence
– Detective Detective Detective*
– Drinking Buddies
– Dumb and Dumber To*
– The Edge of Tomorrow
– A Fish Called Wanda
– The Fisher King
– Fracture
– Frozen
– Fury*
– Ghostbusters
– The Gift
– The Grand Budapest Hotel*
– Gone Girl*
– Good Will Hunting
– Gremlins
– Guardians of the Galaxy*
– Hairspray
– Heavenly Creatures
– Her*
– The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies*
– The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition
– Home Alone
– Homicide
– Hot Rod
– Hugo
– Humanoids From the Deep
– The Ice Storm
– Imprint
– Inside Llewyn Davis*
– Insidious
– Insidious Chapter 2
– Interstellar*
– Joe
– The Lady Vanishes
– The LEGO Movie*
– Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
– Logan’s Run
– The Long Goodbye
– The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition*
– The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition
– Los Angeles Plays Itself
– Lovelace
– Mad Max
– The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
– Men In Black 3
– Minecraft: The Story of Mojang
– Mr. Bean’s Holiday
– The Muppet Christmas Carol
– My Left Foot
– Nacho Libre
– National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
– Nebraska
– Nymph()maniac Volume I
– Oculus
– Pacific Rim
– Philomena
– The Prestige*
– ReAnimator
– Scarlet Street
– Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
– Short Term 12
– Showrunners
– Singin’ in the Rain
– The Skeleton Key
– Snowpiercer
– Solomon Kane
– Stargate
– Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
– The Talented Mr. Ripley
– Tangled
– Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!
– Transsiberian
– The Usual Suspects
– Wake in Fright
– The Way Way Back
– The Wind that Shakes the Barley
– X-Men
– X-Men Days of Future Past*
– Year One

2012 ~ The Year in Film

Admittedly, I didn’t see a great many “films” theatrically in 2012. I spent a decent portion of 2011 ingesting a glut of films for free at a theater that still used the actual medium of film, but in 2012, I daresay I saw perhaps only one legitimate “film.”

The Master
Enigmatic. Surreal. Mesmerizing. Discomforting.

That film, was The Master. By no means an endearing experience, it is nonetheless an unshakeable one. This film springs from a dusty, high, forgotten shelf of cinema  where a few peers may reside. Perhaps Aguirre: The Wrath of God? Perhaps The Thin Red Line? I don’t know what else to compare it to.  It’s just… extant. Great performances all around, but the connection between the film’s titular character and Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard is tenuous and oblique. P.T. Anderson seems to have something to say about the apparent futility of soul-searching in a world replete with charlatans who employ technology as a means of enlightenment, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is.

Balin & Dwalin
Dwarf Lords from Under the Mountain

Now I am brought to my top 10 list of movies from 2012. The #1 spot is taken by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, unsurprisingly. I have been a Tolkien fan since my youth, and originally read The Hobbit from an illustrated version that my mother bought for my cousin. Gollum’s cave is etched deeply into my remembered childhood imagination. Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth is at once triumphant, cataclysmic, and like the arrival of a dear, old friend on your doorstep.

Bernie
Jack Black’s greatest role.

My second favorite film came as something of a surprise. I had known of Richard Linklater’s new(er) film, Bernie, for a while. Strictly speaking, the film was completed back in 2011, but it didn’t see the light of day as far as a distributor until 2012. Why on earth it took me so long to finally watch it, I cannot say. I do know I will NOT miss out on Linklater’s next project, a third entry in the Before Sunrise series, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. I digress. Jack Black does something amazing, here. He inhabits the entire length, breadth, and width of his idiosyncratic, real-life character’s personality traits and proclivities, delivering a performance that is so bizarre and true, it could not have ever been invented. Read that last sentence aloud, without taking any breaths. Sorry about that.

And the list goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.

  1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  2. Bernie
  3. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
  4. Moonrise Kingdom
  5. Kari-gurashi no Arietti (The Secret World of Arrietty)
  6. Looper
  7. The Avengers
  8. Les Misérables
  9. The Master
  10. The Dark Knight Rises

Here is a list of ALL 2012 releases which I have seen, specifically. An all-time low: total number equaling 18. I aim to do a little better in 2013.

  • Brave – theatrical
  • Les Misérables – theatrical
  • The Master – theatrical (film!)
  • Kari-gurashi no Arietti (The Secret World of Arrietty) – theatrical
  • The Avengers – theatrical
  • The Dark Knight Rises – theatrical
  • The Hunger Games – theatrical
  • Skyfall – theatrical
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – theatrical
  • Prometheus – theatrical
  • John Carter – theatrical
  • Looper – theatrical
  • Chronicle – theatrical
  • Moonrise Kingdom – RedBox
  • Bernie – Netflix
  • Jiro Dreams of Sushi – Netflix
  • Take This Waltz – On-demand
  • The Innkeepers – DVD