Enjoyed this blockbuster, though at two hours is about 20 to 30 minutes too long. Has a lot of goofy humor to offset the violence, which I appreciated. And the music is great. There are several blockbusters ($100+ million in domestic gross revenue) on the Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 list and I plan to watch all of them. Green rating, recommended.
Movies Watched -- Gone Girl
Made it thirty minutes in then quit. It's two and a half hours long, meaning at least an hour too long. Ben Affleck is a good-looking guy but he just can't act. The girl was awful and I didn't care that she was missing. Did she stage her disappearance to get out of Missouri? Wouldn't blame her. Red rating. (Rex Reed got it right, once again.)
Everyone's favorite frat boy?
Movies Watched -- The Rocket
Sort of a feel-good pic from Laos, made by Australians maybe? Heart-string music at all the right spots which drives me mad. Watched to the end with no fast forwarding intermittently over several days so it gets a yellow rating, but I'd never recommend it.
Movies Watched -- Starred Up
Fifth movie I liked and can recommend from 2014: Starred Up. Prison pic. Would have been incomprehensible to me without the subtitles. Had Ben Mendelsohn in it, whom I know from Bloodline, a good one season TV series on HBO? that I can recommend. Body language of young star Jack O'Connell is something to see, great stuff.
"Starred Up" joins "The Lunchbox," "Nightcrawler," "Omar," and "Under the Skin" as movies I can recommend.
Movies Watched -- Lucy
A fellow Twitterer who liked "Starred Up" recommended Lucy to me. It wasn't on my radar since it's not on the Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 list, and I learned the reason for that: it is terrible. I made it 15 minutes in before quitting. Taipei as backdrop was kind of nice to see. I think Scarlett studied Chinese in real-life, but may be confusing her with another blonde. The characters on the wall in pic below say "Keep Clean," more nonsense script that looks cool?
Movies Watched -- In Bloom
Who knew Georgia (not the one in Dixie) was this screwed up? About two teenage girls growing up, sort of ... friendship, loyalty, dysfunctional families ... lots of drunkenness and violence and desperation ... not a feel-good pic ... I watched it to the end, no fast-forwarding, so it gets a yellow rating. Can't recommend it because it's too bleak ... all the post-Soviet movies are like this, places just look godawful (though the girls are beautiful ... a documentary I did like and can recommend is "Girl Model"). Georgian language sounds like Arabic? Central Asian people, they appear to be an interesting mix.
One on left soon to be child bride.
2014 Movies Watched -- Master List
Italics means I've seen it or attempted to watch it. In bold italics means I liked it and can recommend it. I'll list documentaries separately.
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2014)
- Gloria (2014)
- Leviathan (2014)
- Starred Up (2014)
- Song Of The Sea (2014)
- Boyhood (2014)
- Mr. Turner (2014)
- The Babadook (2014)
- A Summer's Tale (2014)
- Two Days, One Night (2014)
- We Are the Best! (2014)
- Ernest & Célestine (2014)
- The LEGO Movie (2014)
- Ida (2014)
- Blue Ruin (2014)
- The Lunchbox (2014)
- The Rocket (2014)
- Nightcrawler (2014)
- Snowpiercer (2014)
- A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
- The Dance of Reality (2014)
- Whiplash (2014)
- Love Is Strange (2014)
- The Normal Heart (2014)
- In Bloom (2014)
- Stranger by the Lake (2014)
- Child's Pose (2014)
- Diplomacy (2014)
- Birdman (2014)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
- Frank (2014)
- Force Majeure (2014)
- Pride (2014)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Locke (2014)
- How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
- Dear White People (2014)
- Omar (2014)
- Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
- Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)
- The Imitation Game (2014)
- Wild (2014)
- The Guest (2014)
- Bears (2014)
- Wetlands (2014)
- Alan Partridge (2014)
- A Field in England (2014)
- Under the Skin (2014)
- 22 Jump Street (2014)
- Lucy (2014)
- Gone Girl (2014)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Movies Watched -- Ida
Breaking rule of never watching anything remotely related to the Holocaust ... in this case the Nazi occupation of Poland ... anyway, orphaned girl discovers just before taking her vows (chastity, poverty, obedience ... grew up in a convent, you see) that her parents were Jewish ... it's an identity crisis movie ... just over 80 minutes long and I did watch to the end, but can't recommend it -- dark stuff. Yellow rating.
Movies Watched -- Omar
Pleased to announce I've found a fourth movie I can recommend from 2014: Omar. A story of love and betrayal from the West Bank. Sympathetic to the Palestinians' plight which means it won't get widely covered in the mainstream media in the US, but it was good. No idea why they try to pitch it as a thriller, it's not a thriller, it's just drama. Boy meets girl. Boy does awesome parkour throughout the West Bank fleeing burly Israeli security forces. Those isolation walls present a true parkour challenge. Distrust, shifting allegiances, and Marlon Brando Monkeyface is no friend in the end. 96 minutes long so falls within my sacred 100 minute limit. Green rating.
See it if you get the chance! The other three I can recommend from that year are: The Lunchbox, Nightcrawler, and Under the Skin.
Movies Watched -- A Summer's Tale
Was on Rotten Tomatoes 2014 top list so I watched it ... very French ... lots of talk, no action. There's a tall skinny kid who has a giant head of lustrous black hair summering down on the French Riviera, strumming his guitar, going for swims, being lonely. Three separate beautiful girls throw themselves at him, but non, he's très bored, hates himself or something, doesn't end up banging any of them. Actually one of them was his girlfriend I guess, but she was a real bitch, he should have dropped her like a hot pomme de terre. I did watch to the end which is a yellow rating, but definitely not recommended.