It’s that time of year again! I hope you have all been having a lovely holiday season! I somehow managed to get myself to write way more movie reviews this year than I have in previous years, thanks in part to my discovering a decent system for finding free early screenings.
Criteria for this list are as follows:
I saw it between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2014
It was released between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2014
Exceptions will be made if they were released internationally this year
Snowpiercer was first released internationally last year but was released here this year so this is an exception to the exception
Without further ado, here is my 2014 movie roundup, in the order provided by Wikipedia:
* = early screening
** = not seen in theaters (streaming service/in-flight movie/DVD rental, etc.)
No notation indicates that I saw it in theater during its release
*Updated 30 December with a last-minute addition to the party!
*Updated 31 December because I forgot I went to the movies in China!
I’m realizing I missed a lot of films that I really wanted to see this year. It was a really crazy year for me, and seeing movies was one of the things I sacrificed in the midst of all that chaos. (I mean, I had been wanting to see Snowpiercer since last year and I watched it yesterday so…)
Last week, I was able to see Disney’s newest animated feature, Big Hero 6 early in theaters.
Me and Baymax! I’m dressed a bit like Gogo Tomago and worked hard to get her makeup look down, which you can’t see at all in this photo but it came out pretty well, lemme tell ya.
Basically, it was amazing fantastic awesome spectacular. This is kind of a longer review, but it gets a full 5/5 100% recommend you watch it for the following reasons:
Fantastic characters
Beautiful animation
Great promotion of the sciences
Fun story and funnier lines
I have been waiting for this movie for over a year now. No, really. (It’s not easy being a Disnerd. The wait for Moana is agonizing as well.) This is Disney Animation’s first go with a Marvel property and it’s pretty great.
Let’s look at our cast of characters first, because that’s really where this movie just comes alive.
From L to R: Fred, GoGo Tomago, Baymax, Hiro, Honey Lemon, Wasabi
These are our 6 heroes. Let’s meet them, shall we?
Hiro Hamada in full hero gear
Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter) is the protagonist of our film. He’s 14-years-old and a casual robotics prodigy. We get a really good feel of his personality in the opening scene, where he’s at an [illegal] underground robot fight. As a character, there is a lot of depth to Hiro that I really really loved. Seriously classic example of how to put a character through hardships and see him pull through. He’s a teenager at the cusp of puberty, so he’s awkward and sassy and kind but selfish. He’s many things and that complexity is SO delicious because it makes him more real without making him too real. (I tend to dislike characters who are TOO realistically flawed.) I also really want to talk about his family, but just know that Hiro’s relationship with his brother and his aunt are really special.
Baymax in battle gear
Meet Baymax, our adorable squishy character. THIS is how you do a non-human sidekick. (Note: I hate Olaf from Frozen.) Baymax is squishy and chock full o’ comic relief because he is a robot and doesn’t understand our zany human ways! I’ll admit, I was skeptical of Baymax because it seemed like an Olaf-esque ploy to just push out merchandise and have a recognizable character for the franchise. But he’s completely terrific.
Gogo Tomago (voiced by Jamie Chung) is one of my favorite characters in this movie. First of all, I’m always thrilled when more Asian characters are added to the Disneyverse and Gogo Tomago is everything we could have asked for. She’s a no-nonsense butt-kicker who is, as with the rest of the team, also really smart. She works with electromagnetic disks (that you see her wearing above) and chews gum. Also PURPLE. She’s awesome, everything about her just screams cool.
Wasabi (No Ginger?) (voiced by Damon Wayans Jr.) is also a really fun character. He’s the biggest hero of the team (besides Baymax, of course), but he has this really funny neuroticism that makes him maybe too relate-able, personally speaking. He seems like the most real-world-esque character. He gets freaked out flying over the city, he is scared of creepy abandoned warehouses, he doesn’t like his workspace being disturbed because he has a system goshdarnit! He’s also wicked awesome with lasers.
Honey Lemon (voiced by Génesis Rodriguez) is a bubbly and cute character (although her accent was inconsistent in a way that I found slightly distracting). She is also really kind, and that is not really shoved down your throat too much, which is great. She’s just an overall sweetie and her love for chemistry is adorable.
Oh Fred Zilla (voiced by T. J. Miller) is easily one of the most fun characters in this entire movie. The only hero in our group who is not a genius student at SFIT, he is the mascot and dreams of being a fire-breathing dragon. So the team uses science to make that a reality. I usually don’t like characters like Fred too much (think Shaggy from Scooby Doo) because they’re a little TOO laidback and TOO silly. But BH6 did a really great job of making him likable for me.
Tadashi Hamada (voiced by Daniel Henney) (“I thought he sounded hot!” – my friend) is Hiro’s lovely older brother. Like brother like brother, he is the robotics specialist in the group of nerds at SFIT and built Baymax to be a healthcare robot and help people. His powerful desire to help other people is, again, not overdone but it really does affect everything he does. He saves his brother from an illegal robot fight, he gently encourages to use his genius for more noble pursuits, and more. It’s difficult not to really adore his character, I think because I’m just such a sucker for really beautiful families.
Speaking of beautiful families, this is Aunt Cass (voiced by Maya Rudolph) (but Tumblr says she looks like the animators used Tina Fey for a reference model). It’s not really explored much in the movie, but Hiro and Tadashi’s parents are dead and she is their guardian. She does the best she can and it really shows, just how much she loves her two boys. She works really hard to support them in their endeavors, runs a cute cafe, and is just such a cute and fun and loving character. She’s easily one of my favorite characters in this movie.
There are so many things I love about this movie. One is how appealing it makes getting a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) education. The heroes are all engineering geniuses, more or less. They attend a “nerd school” where they are changing the world. One of my favorite moments in this movie is when Tadashi, Hiro’s older brother who is a student at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, shows Hiro what he can be doing with his genius. I really think that Big Hero 6 will inspire so many children to look into studying science and engineering. It’s going to be amazing and I’m so happy that Disney has really been pushing this with lots of innovation-themed contests for kids. Amazing.
Also, can I just say WOWOWOWOWOWOW to the animation team? The animation in this movie was absolutely beautiful.
I can’t find too many examples online but I remember, even as I was watching, just being stupendously impressed with the attention to detail and the framing and WOW. Just visually, this is SUCH a stunning film.
I also think this is one of Disney’s funniest movies of late. I just found myself laughing so much because the screenwriters made such good use of awkward silence, omission, physical humor, puns, etc. You’ve probably seen scenes like this online already, and it is definitely one of the moments that shows you how funny of a character Baymax can be right here in his introduction:
Too good. Toooooooo good.
Please please please please go watch this movie, I promise it will be well worth your time.
In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of the first Avengers film and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.
Also in case you didn’t hear, this teaser trailer was leaked 2 days ago and Marvel had the greatest response to the incident.
If you don’t understand the reference, check out Captain America, Captain America: Winter Soldier, or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Marvel fandom has been in absolute uproar. I mean, you thought we were excited about Guardians of the Galaxy?
Okay, yes, we were excited for GotG. But that was for a comic franchise that most movies-only fans like myself weren’t familiar with at all.
This is the AVENGERS. Everyone fell in love with them 2 years ago. (I may have seen the movie 3 times in theaters.) (Not on purpose, but just because people kept spontaneously deciding to see it and I wasn’t going to be that spoilsport who went “No no no we can’t I saw it already”.) (But I digress.) We love the characters and we love the cast. OH how we love the cast.
So. The new trailer is out. Release date is May 1, 2015. Here is a quick list of things that got me SUPER excited in this trailer:
The deliciously dark cover of “I’ve Got No Strings” from Pinocchio. Disney, as a movie powerhouse, knows that their audience looooves these dark and somber covers of songs in trailers. (See: Maleficent with “Once Upon a Dream” ) In fact, all of Hollywood knows this. (See: The Social Network with “Creep” or, heck, even Fifty Shades of Grey uses an intense version of “Crazy in Love”).
James Spader’s voicework as our new villain, Ultron, is flippin’ fantastic
Marvel Studios’ take on Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver. If you watched the sting scene at the end of the credits for Captain America: Winter Soldier, you would’ve seen that Hydra has the twins. It’s also interesting because we’ve seen Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but these are two different studios, so… the joke in the fandom is that AOU (Age of Ultron) won’t be able to talk about mutants. Which is what they are. But… Marvel Studios doesn’t have the rights to “mutant” because Fox does? (In the sting scene, they’re referred to as “miracles”.)
By the way, I am liking what I see with Elizabeth Olsen? I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any of her work before.
Hulkbuster! The Hulk is a fairly important in the first film but it seems like he’ll be important in this one as well with how often he features in this trailer.
Also, one of the best things about the first film I think we’ll be seeing here: the Avengers clashing and having to work together
With all the talk of Civil War, the fandom is definitely abuzz about the clashing of the Avengers and the conflicts that will be exposed in this film that the previous films have been building up to. (I’m not familiar with the comics, but essentially, the Civil War arc sets Avengers against each other on the debate as to whether superheroes/mutants/whatever need to be registered.)
Doubly also, a Hulk + Iron Man fight means that the Science Bros fandom will go bananas.
Hoping that Hawkeye gets more screentime in this one! Although he wasn’t featured much in the trailer.
Also hoping for some Black Widow story here, since Marvel keeps hedging on her own independent movie…
Some folks think this will be a Natasha Romanoff backstory sequence?
Possible Steve Rogers flashback?
Y’all know I love me some Cap.
SHIRTLESS THOR?
Because in the midst of half the world getting wrecked, we still need some at least one shirtless Chris to appease the fans
Andy Serkis as not-Gollum!
Rumored by comic fans to be playing Ulysses Klaw?
MUCH MUCH MORE
Sorry, guys. I started getting sucked into all the great information out here about this teaser trailer, all courtesy of the wonderful Marvel comics universe fans out there.
Are you excited for this movie?
Were you excited when you saw this teaser trailer?
How many times did you watch it??? I watched it no fewer than 10 times. No fewer than 3 times in a row.
Thanks to Yelp, I was able to see an advanced screening of Gone Girl last night. SO the advanced screening folks issued way too many tickets for the screening and I was turned away despite turning up really early. So mad. A lot of folks were mad. I was one of them. SO MAD. But I got to go to a theater with reclining seats (!!!) to watch with my parents today so it all turned out well in the end!
As per usual, I did not read this book before watching the movie. Long story short, I get to enjoy the movie without knowing how it’ll end or how it deviated from the book.
I like this poster, although it’s not what I expected because it looks almost nothing like the book cover.
I’ll admit, I didn’t understand why people were getting so excited about this movie. Not being part of a book fandom will do that to you, I guess. Reviews started pouring in and everyone was raving about the movie, so I went in with fairly high expectations. I’m also a really big fan of David Fincher, the director, so I was ready for a ride.
And boy did I get it.
What a roller coaster of emotions. With the greys between villain and victim, Gillian Flynn (author of the book and the screenwriter) paints this incredible portrait of how many people doing the wrong thing turns into a sh*tstorm, to say the least. The plot takes you for a ride, with plot twists cropping up every which way. It is really enjoyable if you haven’t read the novel, because then the twists really surprise you. There were several points near the middle/end of the film where I thought it was over but then BOOM MORE STUFF IS GOING ON, IT AIN’T OVER JUST YET.
What kind of man smiles at a press conference announcing that his wife is missing? A sociopath? A bundle of camera-shy nerves? Both? Neither?
Some spoiler-free points:
While I do love Fincher’s work, I would like to see him do more with color. He uses this muted color palette so often in his films (see The Social Network, Fight Club, Se7en, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, etc.) and I want to see him and his cinematographers play with COLOR more. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Zhang Yimou and Brian Fuller, but I think he can do it.
I like Ben Affleck in general as a person and as a director, but I’m really just not hot on him as an actor. I don’t know, he often plays these characters where things happen to him, which doesn’t require too much on his part as an actor, and even then it just falls short. I’m kind of over Ben Affleck as an actor, and I’m really curious about what he’ll bring to the table as Batman because… I don’t know, I always feel underwhelmed.
On the other hand, I really liked the casting of Rosamund Pike. I’ve only seen a few of her movies, and her characters usually don’t have too much depth in those movies. Bond girl. Bennett sister. But here, I got some new things from her, namely:
An American accent, which is new to me and done well
More depth and breadth to her character, which she also does well
She is amazing in Gone Girl. She is about to become HUGE in Hollywood because of this role, and rightfully so.
Neil Patrick Harris does a great job in his role as the maybe stalker ex-boyfriend. He manages to play on the edge of concerned and obsessed so well. You never quite knew which he was, and that was extremely unnerving. Although it gets overlooked often, I think he did the same with Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother: you were never totally sure where he stood morally, and there was something about the way he carried himself where you felt at ease with him most of the time but in the back of your mind you worried about him because you knew deep down you couldn’t 100% predict his next move. So good.
Extra unnerving for me considering I haven’t seen in him a non-comedic role before. Nailed it so hard.
In fact, I would argue that what is great about Gone Girl, as is usually the case with many David Fincher films, is that it is really difficult to put a character in a box. Their moral character, as is the case with real people, is not clearly defined. These folks live in the greys between right and wrong, and the film was done in a way that, even as I was leaving the theater, I didn’t know who was the “good guy” or the “bad guy”. Add in the great unreliable narration written in by Gillian Flynn, as both the book and film are told from two characters at odds with each other and who are both, as most people are, unreliable… Plus, we have the craziness of the media as a big theme in this story, and I think that comes across so well. Some of the main antagonistic forces in this movie are the sensationalizing media and the mob mentality of the people who consume those media. MMM yes so good.
… I understand why there’s SO much buzz around this movie. It is good. You don’t know what the truth is. You realize that no character knows the truth either. You understand that the truth exists outside of any single person’s story. Messy stories don’t endings tied neatly in a bow. That’s how life is, and it’s unsettling and fantastically done.
Although I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite films, Gone Girl delivers so well on what it promised. Rating:★★★★★ 5/5 Would I recommend watching it?Yes. (Please note that there is disturbing imagery in this film that is hard to get out of your head afterwards.)
Thanks to Punch Drunk Critics, I was able to see an advance screening of The Maze Runner on Tuesday. I like Dylan O’Brien, and I know this is a[nother] popular YA dystopian novel trilogy, so I was really looking forward to seeing it and am really really glad I got to see it early.
The Maze Runner really delivers on action and I particularly liked taking a look at how these teenage boys have to figure out a way to coexist and keep each other alive in the society that they’ve been forced to create. It seems relatively utopian in that pre/post-technology way: everyone working together to make sure that the collective group has food, water, shelter, and most importantly, each other. That is, of course, unless you remember that every single boy living on The Glade was put there against their will with no explanation and that they are trapped there. So we have a very interesting dynamic and conflict between newcomer Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), who immediately wants to figure out how to leave and how he got to The Glade on his first day, and Gally (Will Poulter) who dislikes Thomas rocking the boat and works to maintain the status quo that has been keeping them alive.
Spoilers after the jump, but here are a few thoughts I had about the film while watching. (Please bear in mind that I have not read the novel.)
I really like Dylan O’Brien. I’ve liked him since I first (and, really, last) saw him in The Internship. (Which, itself, wasn’t a great movie.) He essentially has to carry the movie with his performance and he does a great job with that. (He also does a great job looking confused. Definite bonus for this role.)
While I’m glad that Ki Hong Lee got to have a prominent role in this film, his character kind of lacks depth in the film. But I like Ki Hong, so I’m glad he got this really huge break. Maybe Minho will get more fleshing out in future films?
You may know him from his work with Wong Fu Productions or The Nine Lives of Chloe King
Also, I’m so glad to see Thomas Brodie-Sangster. I don’t watch him on Game of Thrones, so really the last time I saw him was Love Actually, and he was teeny tiny back then. I like his face, it’s so playful.
Maybe it’s because I just have a lot of anxiety about being chased and having to run away from things, but I thought that they did a really great job building tension with all of the running scenes. (“Maze Runner” = there are a LOT of running scenes)
I usually don’t notice things like this, but I thought the scoring really did a great job elevating anxiety during those tense running scenes. I was VERY STRESSED watching this movie and the music was just adding to that.
Actually, overall, really good use of lighting, camera angles, AND scoring did a great job of building tension.
Did I mention that I do like the cast? Good chemistry with them, although we really didn’t have a lot of time to explore their characters. We did get to hear from more supporting characters than I expected, which is nice.
Also speaking of the cast, good amount of diversity among a group of boys. I liked that. (Not sure if it’s written this way in the book or not.)
I remember flinching when the first girl (played by Kaya Scodelario) because I was really worried about what the introduction of a girl to an all-boys society would do. Luckily, it didn’t do anything other than elicit the comment: “Are all girls like this?!”
Also, I am really glad that Will Poulter got this role and is an actor because a) he clearly worked really hard to bulk up for this film and b) he looks a bit like Sid from Toy Story aka has a “bully face” and I’m just really happy for him because ordinarily that might be annoying to deal with in life but he is literally being paid a lot to make that bully face work.
I just kept thinking throughout this movie that Sid looks like he could have been modeled off a today-version of Will Poulter.Poulter in the film
Not sure if this is because of the book or the film adaptation or what, but I left the theater kind of mad that none of my questions from the moment the movie started were answered. Like NONE OF THEM. If anything, I had more questions, and I kind of hate sequel-baiting. Movies should be able to stand alone.
In general, this was a really well-done movie. Not sure how true it is to the book and whatnot, but it’s definitely a very good action film. As far as comparing it with The Hunger Games and Divergent, which everyone knows is going to happen, I still favor The Hunger Games as a solid story and for the complexity and depth. I was never all that impressed with Divergent to begin with.
The Maze Runner comes out today, Friday, September 19th. Spoilers below this jump. (And by spoilers, I mostly mean my unanswered questions.)
Sip of Starrshine 