Ten Nines for Fourteen

[Stewball]

2014 actually turned out to be a pretty good year for film at the top end, though for me there's nothing above a nine; no masterpieces. I'm hard pressed to pick a best of among them, but I'd be happy with any of the asterisked titles listed. I moved Birdman up after a second viewing. No noticeable original music but The Gambler made a good use of stock music. It's been a year of strong male performances after several years of female dominance in that area. I think Jake Gyllenhaal deserves best actor but neither he nor Nightcrawler were nominated for Oscars.


*American Sniper
Bad Words
*Birdman
The Gambler
Hateship Loveship
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Lucy
*Nightcrawler
Noah

In the notable "weak", "bomb", "disappointing" and "overrated" categories, I group them together here in no particular order and let you decide which is which:

Exodus: Gods and Kings
Whiplash
The Interview (NOT to be confused with the excellent 2007 film Interview)
The Grand Budapest
22 Jump Street
Magic in the Moonlight
The Great Beauty
The Zero Theorem
Boyhood
(Didn't see Foxcatcher or The Theory of Everything and probably won't)

Honorable mention:

Calvary
The Edge of Tomorrow
Dear White People
Mr. Peabody and Sherman

[VinegarBob]

I only ranked 3 films over an 8 this year, and I've caught almost everything of interest to me except A Pigeon Sat on A Branch Reflecting on Existence and Hill of Freedom. There are a bunch of films I rated 8 but I usually rank a handful at 9, and this year there are none. A pretty lacklustre year imo

9½:
Winter Sleep

8½:
A Most Violent Year
Two Days, One Night

[Paxton]

The best movie I saw this year (and a tier 10 for me) was unquestionably Why Don't You Play in Hell?

In addition, I am shocked, shocked I say, that the once mighty Stewball hasn't seen Gone Girl. Are you slipping in your old age or do you have a Fincher ban since the whole Benjamin Button fiasco?

Birdman gets my uneducated (only two of eight nominees seen) vote for best picture, but I'm an Anderson apologist and look forwards to Grand Budapest.

Seriously, though, Why Don't You Play in Hell? Changed my life.

[Stewball]

The best movie I saw this year (and a tier 10 for me) was unquestionably Why Don't You Play in Hell?

In addition, I am shocked, shocked I say, that the once mighty Stewball hasn't seen Gone Girl. Are you slipping in your old age or do you have a Fincher ban since the whole Benjamin Button fiasco?

Birdman gets my uneducated (only two of eight nominees seen) vote for best picture, but I'm an Anderson apologist and look forwards to Grand Budapest.

Seriously, though, Why Don't You Play in Hell? Changed my life.

You'd have to do a lot more to convince me to watch a Japanese martial arts film with subtitles by the guy who did Love Exposure. Why do I get the feeling you're suggesting the title is directed me?

And I did see Gone Girl (8/10). Where did you get the idea I hadn't?

Rumplesink, if I was going to put myself through a subtitled movie, I'd see Force Majeure, which is on my to do list...way down on my to do list.

[VinegarBob]

...if I was going to put myself through a subtitled movie, I'd see Force Majeure, which is on my to do list...way down on my to do list.

Yes. I've seen that one, and enjoyed it - it's one of my 8/10 films from 2014. It's worth checking out.

[P u l p]

To me, it was a good year actually; and still i haven't seen many suppose-to-be-good movies like Inherent Vice, Leviathan, Foxcatcher, Interstellar, Selma, Citizen Four, Imitation Game, Birdman, Horse Money, Mommy,...
Till now i've seen about 100 movies of 14, and i liked these:

Boyhood
Winter Sleep

Nymphomaniac
Grand Budapest Hotel
Two Days, One Night
Enemy
Under the Skin

Gone Girl
Whiplash
Force Majeure

And sure i must see Why Don't You Play in Hell? as soon as possible.

2014 actually turned out to be a pretty good year for film at the top end, though for me there's nothing above a nine; no masterpieces. [/i]

It is a bit weird that you think Get Low and Undisputed are masterpiece but movie like Boyhood is not even in your list. You really didn't like it?

[Stewball]

It is a bit weird that you think Get Low and Undisputed are masterpiece but movie like Boyhood is not even in your list. You really didn't like it?

As I said in my review, " Nearly a 3 hour gimmick about a boy growing up while his mother gets fat, in a family with a rotating door for fathers, and the boy is pretty low on personality to boot."

I'm as big on character development and dialogue as anybody, but it just wasn't there in Boyhood, and very much was in Get Low--with excellent humor to boot. And I know I'm out in left field with Undisputed, as Shogun has pointed out, but I stand by it as actually one of my upper level masterpieces due to a lot of elements I guess only I appreciate--none the least of which is the irony of what is considered to be "undisputed" vs. what actually is as championed by the suppressed hero. All the characters were great, with Peter Faulk's as the crown jewel. The movie's reception exemplified its theme; we just don't like being told how often our groupthink can be wrong.

I hope you aren't confusing this '02 original with any of the series of abominable remakes that started in '06.