Looking Ahead to 2014!

Nerds, fanboys, and pretty much the general public who enjoys movies are already panting in anticipation for 2015. Debates have erupted about whether it will be the best year for movies ever...but before that we have to get through 2014. And 2014 still looks like a pretty darn great year in movies.

January:

Finally in wide release will be two 2013 award hopefuls Lone Survivor and Her. Two other movies that look watchable is Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and I, Frankenstein.

February:

The Lego Movie, Monuments Men and Robocop in early February all look from pretty decent to darn good... Later in the month we have Liam Neeson in another action movie Non-Stop which should prove to be entertaining at the least.

March:

March looks darn good for a usually cold movie season with an interesting release every week: 300: Rise of an Empire, Aaron Paul in Need for Speed, a new YA book adaptation with Hunger Games size hopes in Divergent, and finally a new Biblical Epic with a Russell Crowe led cast in Noah.

April:

The summer superhero phase kicks off early this year with Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 4. This month also has a Kevin Costner helmed sports drama Draft Day, animation for kids in Rio 2, and a Christopher Nolanesque film staring Johnny Depp in Transcendence.

May:

Notable movies in May include The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Maleficent.

June:

Tom Cruise heads up an interesting movie titled Edge of Tomorrow, we all get to cry at Fault in Our Stars, some will laugh at 22 Jump Street, many will take kids to see How To Train Your Dragon 2, I will definitely be checking out The Purge 2, and all the fanboys can see the reinvented Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.

July:

We all lose the battle in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Channing Tatum stars in what actually looks like a watchable Jupiter Ascending, and Dwayne Johnson stars in Hercules: The Thracian Wars.

August:

Marvel releases its biggest gamble in Guardians of the Galaxy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboots...again, the Expendables gather for a third outing, and Sin City has a Dame to Kill For

September:

White people try to remake Death At A Funeral with This Is Where I Leave You, Resident Evil returns in its 6th movie, The Maze Runner makes an entrance, and Denzel Washington comes out in The Equalizer

October:

October looks like a pretty dead month but release dates could be moved around: Two sure bets: Gone Girl and The Judge.

November:

My most anticipated movie of 2014 comes in November...not The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 but Christopher Nolan's first movie since Batman, Interstellar. Expect Dumb and Dumber To to be lost in the midst.


December:

Another Biblical Epic, this one staring Christian Bale, Exodus, the final Hobbit movie There And Back Again, an African American take on Annie, and the third Night at the Museum.

Well movie fans, that's what 2014 looks like so far... release dates and other releases subject to change...

The Top 10 Overrated Movies of 2013

These movies made a lot of money and wooed a lot of critics....but were they really that great?


10. This Is The End: A raunchy, buddy comedy about celebrities surviving the apocalypse made a decent amount of profit and had a lot of great reviews. Some moments where surprisingly funny but it just felt like an excuse to make Hollywood inside jokes and get pretty darn blasphemous.

9. Spring Breakers: A heralded good-girls-gone-bad flick. James Franco as alien is about the only good thing in here...except the time when the credits roll

8. Identity Thief: I have this Melissa McCarthy lower on the list then her other because it wasn't as loved but it was a little better. But not that much.

7. 2 Guns: Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in a buddie cop movie. It's not that bad bud it's not nearly the gem that critics raved it to be.

6. The Heat: High hopes for the pairing of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy but unfortunately it reverts to familiar tropes of the buddie cop film...somehow critics still loved it and audiences couldn't stay away.

5. Despicable Me 2: Critics and audiences loved this animated sequel... but it truly lacked the heart that made the first one such a delight.


4. Lee Daniels' The Butler: A decade trotting, power house of talented actors about a black butler serving in the white house during the times of change. It was all facts and lacked the emotional power that ruled the far superior 12 Years a Slave.


3. Gravity: True it reinvented modern movie making but strip all the technical marvels and you have a simple story line with not a lot of interesting characters.



2. The Wolf of Wall Street: Scorsese at his best or worst depending on how you look at it. This tale of sex, drugs, and thievery is truly loved by critics but as its put in the movie "Its obscene."


1. American Hustle: Star studded cast, true story, Oscar bait. Critics loved it and its raking in the cash but the one word that truly describes this tale? Underwhelming.

The 20 Best Movies of 2013

2013 was the year that:


20. A Pixar sequel was good in Monsters University


19. Monster movies returned in Pacific Rim

18. Magicians surprised us stealing stuff in Now You See Me

17. Exorcisms and paranormal activity became scary again in The Conjuring

16. We forgot about XMen Origins in The Wolverine

15. Zombies became fast again in World War Z

14. Tom Cruise was in a good movie in Oblivion

13. A post credits scene                                                                        made us exited for more                                                                  cars in Fast and Furious 6

12. Movie making was reinvented in Gravity


11. Disney melted our hearts with their biggest hit since the Lion King in Frozen

10. Christian Bale reminded us what a great actor he is in Out of the Furnace

9. The world burned for this superior sequel in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

8. Marvel apologized for Iron Man 3 in Thor: The Dark World

7. A ghost was truly haunting    in Guillermo del Toro                                                                       Presents Mama

6. We all dreamed a little bigger after The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

5. Tom Hanks made us cry as Captain Phillips



4. Hugh Jackman was unfairly overlooked in Prisoners



3. Ron Howard is still freaking amazing in Rush



2. A movie was practically perfect in every way with Saving Mr. Banks




1. We bawled our eyes out watching 12 Years A Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese is a well known staple of Hollywood. He has churned classic after classic out including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, and The Departed. Scorsese has rejoined with Leonardo DiCaprio for a fifth time to reestablish his supremacy in Hollywood.

In 1987, Jordan Belfort joined a prestigious stock brokerage company on Wall Street. Unfortunately the first day after him passing his broker exam was Black Monday. As Belfort puts it in the movie "Wall Street had swallowed me up and s*** me right back out." But that doesn't slow down Jordan Belfort, soon he made a name for himself in trading penny stocks and sets out with his new friend Donnie Azoff to form their own company. Money are what they care about, lies are how they get it...who even cares? It is Wall Street after all...

The Wolf of Wall Street is a fantastic film cinematically speaking. Incredible directing from Scorsese, fantastic performances by DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, and a captivating story about the rise and fall of a stock market guru. But the content and message is much more problematic. Wolf now holds the new world record for most uses of the F-word in a non-documentary, mainstream film. It had to be edited (in my opinion not nearly enough) to avoid the NC-17 rating. It borderlines glorification of drug use, loose sex, and shady to downright illegal business tactics. The antihero can be said to get his comeuppance but a three year prison sentence in a place where "it's not so bad if you're rich" isn't really what I call justice. I heard one teen behind me jokingly say after the film: "Well that was good. Let's go do drugs and sell people s***!" When you think about it, it's a pretty scary thing to joke about...and a terrible thing to get from a movie...

The Secret Life of Walter Mittty

In 1917 it was a short story...in 1947 in was a Danny Kaye film....and now in 2013 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has been adapted by Ben Stiller. It may not be much of a secret anymore but this is a story that still needs telling.

Walter wants to be an adventurer. He wants to be a lover and live his dreams. Unfortunately dreaming is what he's really good at...that and getting professional photographer Sean O'Connell's work published in Life magazine. Now though he can't even do that. See Life is going online and for the last issue Sean sent what he considers to be his greatest work ever...and Walter can't seem to find it. Now with his job in serious jeopardy, Walter sets off to find Sean and get that picture...and maybe on this globetrotting journey, just maybe Walter will find the courage he's been looking for all his life.

Well everyone, Hollywood is on a roll. Within three weeks they've released two of the greatest family films in years. The first was Saving Mr. Banks (have you seen it yet? Stop reading and go! Jeez) and now The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Seriously, its a great movie with great performances and a great message. You want more? Well there's also some great humor, a compelling mystery, and a sweet love story. Do I still need to keep talking? Yeah, I didn't think so.

47 Ronin

47 Ronin is a well known story in Japan, now the west has given it a hearty fantasy spin. Keanu Reeves stars in this fantasy flick made by a new director and the film has had its share of difficulties. Now after over a year of delaying release dates 47 Ronin rides into theaters...but is it worth the wait?

Kai owes a lot to Lord Asano. See when Kai was abandoned in the forests of Japan when he was a baby, the demons that lived there adopted him and tried to teach him how to kill and hate. Kai ran away when he was a boy, carrying his scars with him, and Lord Asano spared his life and made him a squire. Asano even let his daughter befriend Kai. Years later a rival, Lord Kira, killed Lord Asano (in a roundabout way with the help of a witch) and his Samurai was disbanded. Now Kai, thirsting for revenge and honor has joined this group of Samurai outcasts...rebels....Ronin...

The story of the 47 Ronin is a true story. If Hollywood would have done a straight adaptation of that story we would have something like a Last Samurai (one of my favorites.) Unfortunately the studio took a very fantasy take on the story...and it suffers because of it. 47 Ronin is a decent flick... but the creatures, demons, witches, and dragons clog it up with un-realism.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Since 1997 Peter Jackson has been developing, honing, and filming what will soon be The Epic of Middle Earth. A series of movies based on the beloved books from J.R.R. Tolkien about a certain ring... and a Hobbit. This is the second to last movie in this series...but is it the best?

The film picks up about where the first one left off (bar a flashback scene to The Prancing Pony) with Bilbo and Co. trying to stay ahead of the pack of nasty orcs and wargs while navigating the craggy mountains of New Zealand  err...Middle Earth. Bilbo, the thirteen oddly named dwarves, and Gandalf the Grey continue their journey to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug and reestablish the kingdom of the Dwarves. Along the way they meet many a nasty creatures, sketchy elves, and is abandoned by Gandalf right before a very difficult task. Anyone feel like they've seen this before?

Okay, so that sounded a bit rough but seriously think back through all the movies and it does seem that Gandalf has a habit of abandoning quests he started or what? In the second chapter of the Hobbit and the fifth movie some of the Desolation of Smaug can feel a bit familiar, over long, and stuffy. For me, Smaug himself made up for all of that and some. His on screen presence is dominating, sinister, and creepy. The creation of Tauriel and addition of Legolas may seem unnecessary but it actually adds a sense of familiarity and relevancy to the journey. The Desolation of Smaug is a far better thing then was Journey, but still a far, far cry from the magic of Lord of the Rings.  

American Hustle

Last December director David O. Russell's film staring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro expanded into hundreds of theaters across the country. It instantly became a critical darling, audience favorite, and financial success. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, made over eleven times its budget, and was one of my personal favorites of last year. This December David O. Russell ads Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Renner to his old cast, upgrades to a historical drama, and attempts to recapture that lightning in a bottle.


The movie opens with the line "Some of this actually happened." This is when you know you're in for an experience. In 1978, con man Irving Rosenfeld and his lover Sydney Prosser are happy ripping off suckers looking for a loan and selling fake art to wannabe collectors. Happy until they capture the attention of up-and-coming FBI Agent Richie DiMaso who offers them a plea bargain to help him capture four other con artists. This originally small time sting snowballs into the now well known Abscan involving corrupt politicians, well meaning politicians, and the ever sinister mob.


To be clear, American Hustle is already a critical darling and is fully expected to rack up at least a few awards. My only question is: Why? It has been compared to Goodfellas often and one reviewer even suggested that Russell "come(s) close to out-Scorsese-ing Scorsese," Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes all hold it in "universal acclaim," and I am still left unimpressed. Was it entertaining? Sure, in a slightly confusing and brash way. Strong performances? Too be sure. Silver Linings Playbook was a quiet indie that captured audiences with its honest portrayals and fresh story. American Hustle is an unabashedly, in your face of an attempt to be the the great awards worthy movie and in that, it falls flat. Positively fantastic? Not so much...more like passable frolic. 

Saving Mr. Banks

A fight over movie/book rights can be a bitter pill to swallow. Artists and authors love their works and no one wants to hand their dream over to someone who might turn that dream into a nightmare. Saving Mr. Banks shows how Walt Disney discovered just how much sugar it takes to make some people swallow a bitter pill.

Walt Disney has bargained, bartered, and begged for the rights to adapt the children's classic Mary Poppins into a film for twenty long years. Now in 1964 he has finally convinces P. L. Travers to come to Los Angeles  to sit down and discus her demands for how the movie is made. Unfortunately her many demands include no animation, no made up words, a clean shaven father, and ...none of the color red? Yeah, to make this happen Disney will need all of his magical fairy dust...

Its very rare that a movie that is in the running for the best picture Oscar and is geared to the fans of adult drama is even close to suitable for children. Hollywood loves making movies about themselves but many times the rest of us could hardly care. Surprisingly, Saving Mr. Banks isn't just a movie everyone can see, its a movie everyone should see.   

12 Years A Slave

Some stories need to be told and heard. They are hard to hear and even harder to watch but they still need to be told. Movies have become the medium for storytelling and sometimes the stories they tell are uncomfortable and emotional. The movies have changed peoples way of thinking for years to come. Movies like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Precious, and now 12 Years A Slave.

Solomon Northrup is just like every other man. He lives in New York with his family and works to provide for that family. He is a talented musician and carpenter. Unfortunately Solomon lives in 1841... a time when not all men were understood to be equal, a time when free black men like Solomon were kidnapped and sold into slavery often. This is exactly what happens to Solomon and what follows is a visceral, harrowing tale of cruelty, humanity, and the will to overcome.

Let me get right to the point: 12 Years A Slave is the best movie of the year to date. I predict it will win the Oscar for being just that. It is a powerful film that beats you emotionally with its portrayals. I walked out of the theater feeling physically different than when I walked in. My popcorn was hardly touched and my drink was barely sipped. It is a hard story to watch but it needs to be watched.

Out of the Furnace

Hollywood loves gritty dramas. Every year you will see quite a few on awards lists that boast big stars, great directors, and respected producers. Out of the Furnace has all of these things. It stars Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard, Zoe Saldana, and Forrest Whitaker, is directed by Scott Cooper, and produced by Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio. With that much pedigree you could tell this movie was reaching for the Oscars... so why did so many pan it?

Russell Blaze doesn't have it easy. His dad is dying, his brother is getting into debt thanks to gambling, and he just want to escape the steel town of Braddock, PA with his girlfriend and live happily ever after. But he just keeps plodding away at his hard job in the mill, paying his brothers debts, and visiting his dad. Unfortunately it doesn't get any easier for Russell either... A tragic accident sends him to prison and when he gets out things have gotten even worse. His father is dead, his girlfriend is with another man, the steel mill is ready to close down, and his brother has suffered a painful tour in Afghanistan and is still in deep debt. So deep that he tries to pay it off in illegal fights. After all this Russell is ready to pick up the pieces and put his life back together... but he should know by now that his life isn't easy...

Out of the Furnace is almost a period piece. One that could have been to this generation what The Deer Hunter was to the last. These two movies are easily comparable and I know I'm alone when I say that Out of the Furnace is the better one. Almost every year a movie is inexplicably ignored by critics and crowds. Last year was Lawless and this year is easily Out of the Furnace. Both have career best performances and captivating stories. Both are about hard men living hard lives and doing questionable things. But neither should have been so easily ignored...

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Sequels have it tough. Some are criticized for not living up the original's glory while others are called simply stepping stones to the next installment. But there is that rare case when the sequel does out do the original... for example Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and The Matrix: Reloaded.... CALM DOWN!! I was just kidding with that last one. Seriously though, we can add Catching Fire to that list.

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have won the Hunger Games. They now live in the grand Victors Village in their district with fellow victor Haymitch Abernathy. True, Peeta now knows Katniss was faking the love story that allowed them to win and they aren't together but Katniss is now hanging out with her old pal Gale... It's going pretty good. Except: the districts are starting to rebel, Katniss and Peeta can't fool the coldhearted President Snow (see what I did there?) and now the 75th Hunger Games (known as a Quarter Quell) has allowed a rule change.... one that brings back old victors....like Katniss and Peeta. I guess no one really does win the Hunger Games....

I loved The Hunger Games books and I hated the first movie. It was decent but could have been so much better. When the movie franchise switched director Gary Ross out for Francis Lawrence I began to see a glimmer of hope in the future and when I saw the trailers for Catching Fire I knew this was going to be different. Catching Fire is the movie fans deserve. Stellar acting with superb directing and a great screenplay finally captures the magic that was in the books. Bottom line: If you aren't really a fan of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire will make you a fan

Thor: The Dark World

Many years ago some Marvel executives sat in what I imagine as a dark room and began mapping out their dream for the years to come. A plan to bring the greatest heroes this side of DC together in a daring, original, and thrilling collaboration that was the Avengers. Many fans were concerned after the experience of the Avengers of them returning to the individual movies that where the fantastic building blocks. After Iron Man 3 confirmed for many that the lightning in the bottle couldn't be caught twice Marvel answered with Thor: The Dark World.... We all should have trusted Marvel.

Many years ago...(before the executives sat down together) Thor's grandfather defeated a race of elves. Not the kind that live in a workshop and make toys or the kind that help hobbits but the kind that wants to destroy the world with a nasty device called Aether. At least he thought he did... Every story needs protagonists so the nastiest of the elves escape and have now returned. They easily retake the Aether that had been taken from them and begin their plan to destroy the world again and if Thor wants to stop them, he has to take help from his greatest enemy: Loki.

Marvel movies have been consistently the lighter, happier (but not near as good) counterpart to the dark, intense Nolanesque DC Comics movies. The Dark World is as close to a Nolan movie that Marvel has come... and it benefits from it. The risk is higher, the action darker, and the movie is better. In my opinion Thor The Dark World is the greatest Marvel movie to date and the best superhero movie this year.