Birdman

A perfect movie about such imperfect characters. Everything about this movie feels like a dream. The one-shot direction as if the whole thing is one big, dramatic scene. The sharp visuals that usually only occur in one's head. The vivid characters brought to life by those portraying them (most notably Keaton, Stone, and Norton). The grand finale making you wonder what really happened and what the whole thing meant, wanting you to go back and re-do it all.

4/4

Nightcrawler

If there's ever an award for most committed performance,  just like Leonardo DiCaprio in last year's Wolf of Wall Street, I would say Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler would be an obvious choice. He dives down the mental rabbit hole so persuasively at times you have to wonder if the actor himself is a bit nutty. It's such a sociopathic movie, watching him outsmart and manipulate his assistant and his boss (a stellar Rene Russo) at times you almost forget the character's inability to be anything but deceptive. It's such an unsettling concept that sometimes the ones behind the camera give you more to worry about then the ones in front of it. Nightcrawler will get and stay under your skin.

4/4

The Theory of Everything

If this one took a bit more chances in the approach used to display Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane's marriage, I'd easily name it the best of the year. Because technically, everything is on its' side. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones are breathtaking. They couldn't have more chemistry and both express more with their eyes and body language then many can with an entire script. Speaking of script I admired how it never turned sappy and doesn't favor one side or the other as to why the marriage didn't work. I also loved the color changes; the brightness during when they first meet, the rather melancholy look when Hawking is diagnosed, and the rather muted look of when things feel rather hum-drum. If it was played a bit less safe/was wrapped up a little too perfectly it would have been flawless. 

3/4

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Mehh. I'm all for building suspense, but this movie just felt like fancy, pretty time-killer to the second part of Mockingjay.  My biggest issue is that nothing really seems to happen. Situations get set up, there's so much build-up but it leads to nothing. It's a roller coaster that takes you up the big hill and ends the ride just as the anticipation reaches its' highest. I did enjoy the change of theme here as I find it intriguing that more evil is off the battlefield.  And Jennifer Lawrence is always a treasure even when the script reduces her to crying and looking distraught.  But it all just feels like filler. You're not catching any fire this time, Katniss.

2/4

White Bird in A Blizzard

When I think of this movie,

a blizzard comes to mind,

though Woodley & Green bring the fire,

and the material certainly resonates,

stiff characters & clashing tones drag it down,

possibly leaving the viewer cold and disoriented,

struggling to see through all of the fog.

2/4

Interstellar

A work of beauty, Interstellar soars

B ecause of the heart and soul throughout

C an you find a bigger piece of eye candy?

D oubt it

E ven though some dialogue is lost in space

F orget it all and let Interstellar take you away

4/4

Deliver Us from Evil

The only evil on display here is the screenplay,  rarely has an exorcism felt as watered down or so unimaginative. 

1/4

Gone Girl

I don't know what's more terrifying; the path marriage takes the characters down or the idea of this brilliant screenplay and Rosamund Pike's performance not getting nominated.

4/4

Annabelle

By having lead performances as wooden and scares as cheap as the title character, Annabelle is an absolute dummy.

1/4

Boyhood

Beautiful, flawlessly acted, and it will ring true for anyone especially those who grew up in modern times. Brilliant.

4/4

Tusk

If this was actually based on true events (I always take this line with a grain of salt), then I can see why Kevin Smith wanted to take this to the big screen but to say the approach was off is an understatement. There's just no sense of tone or effectiveness here.

Justin Long's character Wallace,  is such an oddity. He's given absolutely no redeeming qualities or humor in his early scenes so are we really supposed to give a Shit when he is eventually turned into a walrus by a crazed ex - seaman? Is it supposed to be a funny situation or a disturbing one like The Human Centipede? I get the feeling it was more of the latter but Michael Parks' performance as the antagonist is so campy nothing registers as frightening. 

It feels like such a waste of time with no merit as a horror movie or comedy, so many scenes register as completely blank and you're wondering what you're supposed to get from them, if anything.  The ridiculously terrible makeup and costume used later on summarizes Tusk in a nutshell; ugly and full of blubber.

0/4

The Other Woman

It's such an oddity when a movie with a theme of such overriding female empowerment turns out being so misogynistic and flat-out embarassing to females. I have to wonder if the screenwriters have ever met any woman in life. And if they were women, if they even considered thinking about any women on this planet when they wrote these characters.

Cameron Diaz's character finds out that her dream boyfriend is married to Leslie Mann's character. After a meeting or two, they are best friends (because that totally happens) and both then find out that their dream man has a dream mistress played by Kate Upton.

The characterization of the female characters sinks this already broken ship. The transition from hating each other to revenge buddies feels so rushed and forced I wondered at times if reels were missing from the movie. Diaz's character is a stiff, Mann's belongs in an institution,  Upton's is completely vacuous.  So we're supposed to like these people? Why? Because none of them have the brains to just move on? And the less said about Nicki Minaj's complete waste of film role...the better.

All of their hijinks feel terribly amateurish as well.  Giving someone laxatives and filming it isn't funny. Giving a male character female hormones to make his tits bigger isn't funny. No matter what the women go through you'll leave this movie feeling like you've been screwed over the hardest.

0/4

Reservoir Dogs

Compulsively watchable, ridiculously entertaining, with razor sharp writing and unforgettable characters. A great start for the master.

4/4

Clue

It starts out as flat as a board game but picks up momentum as the script and performances get wackier.

3/4

Sin City: A Dame to Kill for

There's nothing like watching something so beautiful where it's apparent that the lights are on but nobody's home. Sin City 2 is just as beautiful as the original and it has a similar structure of interlacing stories, but that's about all it has in common with the original.  

It's not all uninspired luckily. As mentioned before, it looks as great as ever the cinematography is just as dreamy as before. The new additions are warmly welcomed also. Joseph Gordon-Levitt fits the genre like a glove and Eva Green could make a reading of the phone book seem sexy and intriguing.

But sadly,  both actors are underused and their stories end up feeling uninvolving and unsatisfying. The bulk of the movie focuses on Jessica Alba's quest for revenge, but sadly her character and her performance feel too tame for such a wild setting. This dame is far from being worth killing for.

1/4

A Million Ways to Die in the West

The funniest joke and most involving character both involve a retarded sheep. Enough said.

1/4

Noah

As never-ending, wooden, and overpowered by Russell Crowe as the arc itself.

1/4

The Quiet Ones

It's such a clichéd and sloppy piece of work that not even a creepy performance by Olivia Cooke can bring it back from the dead.

1/4

Bad Words

Actors directing their own movies sounds like the stuff that nightmares are made of, but Jason Bateman has a surprising flair for being in the director's chair.

He plays Guy, a real life Grinch who sneaks through the cracks of being eligible and ends up competing in a children's spelling bee for reasons that even his reporter can't screw out of him. The whole cast is a riot. Bateman is gleefully nasty, Allison Janney holds nothing back as the president of the spelling bee, and Rohan Chand couldn't be any more charming as the Cindy Lou Who to Bateman's Grinch.

Even as the movie starts getting sentimental,  it never gets sappy and the relationship between Bateman and Chand's characters is surprisingly endearing. Bad Words is a R-I-O-T. 

3/4

The Purge: Anarchy

Ugh. The original Purge had a good idea and promise but fell flat in the execution in the last half. It's like if you cooked a great piece of chicken and left half of it out to rot before you finished it.

This one is the braindead cousin that is like if you took a raw chicken and left it out to become raw from start to finish. Instead of doing something fascinating like maybe filming the sequel based on the aftermath of the original Purge, or maybe filming it from the lead "purgers" perspective, we repeat the same old shit from the first one. The only difference is the characters. There's a mother to root for, her sassy daughter, a soon to be divorced couple working on their issues, and a father with a moral conflict of purging with a justification of revenge. 

There's very little point of listing the characters's names or the actors who play them since no one behind writing this movie seemed to want us to have any interest in the people onscreen. They're all so thinly written besides these attributes I just mentioned you don't know anything about anyone in this movie making you care very little about whatever shit happens. And what's even worse is that everything is so predictable you can see who is going to die/be in danger of dying from about a mile away.

The whole movie feels so lazy and underwritten it's as creative as someone throwing a sheet over their head for scares. Literally nothing goes on minus shooting for the entire 100 minutes, and damn is that 100 minutes stretched like Gum. And did we really need a slo-mo scene every time the lead purgers came on? There's so many laughable elements here I can't see anyone taking the central idea seriously over our government allowing and encouraging us to kill for 12 hours in order to keep the country happier.

When (there's no doubt in my mind this will become like the Saw franchise) the next Purge comes out, I'm making a public announcement that I will purge. In both senses of the word, this lackluster do-do birded entry will make me kill other human beings while forcing myself to vomit knowing that we have to endure more of this.

0/4

A Simple Plan

If there's a moment of A Simple Plan where I wasn't holding my breath it sure the fuck didn't exist. A Simple Plan is an electrifying, unforgettable downward spiral of middle class Americans who have fallen into a situation that was too good to be true, for a reason.

Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton), his brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), and Jacob's best friend Lou (Brent Briscoe) come across a crashed plane which turns out to be the host of a corpse and over several million dollars in it. None of them are in the best financial status to be turning down that much money so they make the decision to split the money amongst themselves. Surely enough this decision turns out to bite all of them in the asses as greed, betrayal, deception take over ruining the relationships of all the characters involved.

A Simple Plan wouldn't have worked as well if the trio of leads didn't commit to such an intense degree. Bill Paxton is a force of nature as Hank, the character who easily makes the biggest moral downgrade of all the characters. It's fascinating watching his character fall down the rabbit hole of sin as money drives him to do things he would have never imagined doing.

As easily the least morally repugnant character of the group, Billy Bob Thornton shines as Hank's dim-witted but well meaning brother. There's such an innocence and sense of vulnerability in his performance it's almost depressing watching his character fall down the hole with the others at such a rapid speed.

My favorite performance though, was Bridget Fonda as Hank's wife. The scenes with her and Paxton work so well because there's such a fascinating dynamic between the two people. Though she's apprehensive at first, she turns out to be the mastermind behind Hank's moves, giving her character a deeper layer then the throwaway, worried wife.

Once you think you know where things are going in A Simple Plan they not only avoid going in that direction but they take off in the complete opposite direction at about 90 miles per hour. There's a scene about halfway through involving the three lead males and a blackmail plan that's brilliant. You think you see one character betraying another just to see him head in the opposite direction. It's a verbal cat and mouse and the viewer never knows how things will end up.

The script in A Simple Plan shines so brightly because it never feels inauthentic. Though violent, crazy, and destructive, A Simple Plan never feels ludicrous and it's a story that could happen to anyone. And that's the most frightening thing of all, that this could be a story of anyone who falls into an opportunity for a better life that's too perfect to imagine. That this life blinds your eyes to everything around you. That those who love and care for you are simply pawns in the way of your success. A Simple Plan is bone chilling and easily one of the best movies of the year.

4/4

Satan's Little Helper

It aspires to be nothing more then absolute garbage and this is one of the rare times I would label this as a strength. 

2/4

Top dogs *Non Horror*: 2010-2019

2010

3. Toy Story 3

2. The Social Network

1. Blue Valentine

2011

3. Drive

2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

1. Moneyball

2012

3. Silver Linings Playbook/Zero Dark Thirty

2. Life of Pi

1. Django Unchained

2013

3. About Time

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

1. 12 Years A Slave

2014

3. Gone Girl

2. A Most Violent Year

1. Nightcrawler

2015

3. Room

2. Spotlight

1. Inside Out

2016

3. Arrival

2. La La Land

1. Moonlight

2017

3. Call Me by Your Name/Coco

2. Lady Bird

1. I, Tonya

2018

3. A Simple Favor

2. BlacKkKlansman

1. Eighth Grade

2019

3. Booksmart

2. Knives Out

1. Joker

Top dogs *Non horror* : 2000-2009

2000

3. Chicken Run

2. Best In Show

1. Requiem For A Dream 

2001

3. Ghost World

2. Monsters, Inc.

1. Moulin Rouge

2002

3. Gangs of New York

2. About Schmidt

1. Chicago

2003

3. Kill Bill

2. Finding Nemo

1. Thirteen

2004

3. Finding Neverland

2. Eternal Sunshine

1. Million Dollar Baby

2005

3. Brokeback Mountain

2. Crash

1. A History of Violence

2006

3. Notes on a Scandal

2. The Last King of Scotland

1. Little Miss Sunshine

2007

3. No Country for Old Men

2. Eastern Promises

1. Atonement

2008

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2. Wall*E

1. Milk

2009

3. Coraline/Precious

2. Up

1. Inglorious Basterds

Top dogs: 1990-1999

1990

3. Paris is Burning

2. Misery

1. Edward Scissorhands

1991

3. Boyz n the Hood

2. Beauty and the Beast

1. The Silence of the Lambs

1992

3. The Muppets Christmas Carol

2. The Crying Game

1. Reservoir Dogs

1993

3. What's Eating Gilbert Grape

2. The Fugitive

1. The Nightmare Before Christmas

1994

3. The Ref

2. Natural Born Killers

1. Forrest Gump

1995

3. Leaving Las Vegas

2. Casino

1. Toy Story

1996

3. The Craft/Beautiful Thing

2. Freeway

1. Scream

1997

3. Scream 2

2. As Good as it Gets

1. Jackie Brown

1998

3. Mulan

2. The Big Lebowski

1. The Truman Show

1999

3. The Sixth Sense

2. American Beauty

1. Election

The Signal

There's definitely a sense of ambition but when it comes to being coherent and having involving characters, The Signal fades out.

1/4

Edge of Tomorrow

The ending made me feel as lost as Cruise's character, but it's still an inventive, well-written and visually stunning blast. Never has repetition felt so fun.

3/4

Maleficient

It looks great, and Angelina Jolie (who also looks great) are in on the fun, but characterization and clear motivation are as inactive and inert as Sleeping Beauty.

2/4

From Dusk Till Dawn

It's a terribly selfish movie, looks like it was a blast to make but the audience is completely screwed out of the fun.

0/4

The Starving Games

The entries in the spoofing franchise have became so fucking lazy I'd be shocked if someone even woke up to direct it. That's the problem. There's no direction, no brains, and far from anything resembling humor in any of this Shit. It's such a shame that that back in 2000, Scary Movie started all these spoofs and that was actually funny! It's impossible to remember considering that movie is now suffocating under the mountain of trash that has been stuffed into a bin since 2001.

The main actress who plays Kantmiss (sadly one of the best jokes, I kid you not) isn't funny. No one's funny or in control of what they're doing. I kept looking above their heads for giant strings or someone's hand going right up their asses. What's worse is that it takes a good feature film length of 90 minutes and drags it so far from Hell that you can see stretch marks by the time it's over.

If movies continue at this level of quality (aka none at all) I vote we have a real Purge and wipe out anyone involved in the creation of these demonic entity movies that couldn't be any more allergic to real comedy.

0/4

The Dark Knight Rises

There's definitely tons of va va va voom here and the newcomers more then hold their own, but unfortunately there is too many of them, too many subplots, and too many flashbacks. It needed to be a miniseries as opposed to a feature length film.

2/4

LOL

It's a rare breed of movie; one so peculiar, contrived, and ludicrous, that I kept waiting for the characters to shed their human masks and take off into their pods.

0/4

The Truman Show

It resonates in your memory, tickles your funny bone, and breaks your heart. Also valid proof that Jim Carrey is far from a one-trick pony.

4/4

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The dream-like visuals, the splendid cast's work, the scripts magnificent quirk and charm....all delicious.

4/4

X-Men: Days of Future Past

A tad long, but it's such a buffet of visual and mental delight, Hugh Jackman & Jennifer Lawrence are as splendid as ever and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) almost steals the show.

3/4

Devil's Due

Ironic that the whole thing is shot on a handheld camera because the whole movie feels like it's missing reels. Or any type of comprehension over what is scary.

0/4

Vampire Academy

Feels completely bloodless and pointless and for God's sake, what age group was this made for?

0/4

Godzilla

Despite the stellar effects, Godzilla is a bipolar movie split into two completely different, and sadly the ham-fisted, tedious and overdone half is the one where the characters talk....a lot.

2/4

That Awkward Moment

That awkward moment when you release a laugh-free, toxic movie with unlikeable characters and shoddy writing with no reason for its' existence.

0/4 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In terms of taking a journey, Walter Mitty never steps off the front door. It's hard to admire growth or progression in a movie that feels like one terribly overstretched and gimmicky concept.

I never thought I would say this but I miss the OTT, child-like style of humor from Ben Stiller. Because the dry, morose style just doesn't work. Walter Mitty could have had a stellar approach with the comedic situations that a fish out of water goes through but it never takes any. The material is played so dully straight at times you're wondering if you're watching something that is supposed to even entertain you.

This is a type of movie that either succeeds or fails highly based upon the audience's reactions to the characters, this is one of the problems, everyone is completely one-dimensional. Stiller's character never grows or expands as a person, Kristen Wiig is highly underused as his crush, and one of his motivating factors to go on the quest to save the company. Adam Scott as Ted Hendricks, his overbearing boss is a straight-up caricature, and Sean Penn's role as the mysterious photographer giving Walter all of his inspirational photos is highly underused.

And if you're going to make a children's movie for two hours, for fuck's sake give us something meaningful to watch or something with a plot that can hold strong for two hours. At one point in the movie, Walter Mitty is speaking with a rep at Eharmony and states that he hasn't been anywhere or done anything. This to me, summarized my thoughts on the screenplay, as Walter travels from country to country without ever really moving anywhere in the story.

I will say that, that visually, this movie is spectacular. Whoever did the graphics deserved a standing ovation as being the only factor that kept me awake. Walter's trips to Iceland, the sea, even his fantasies of attacking and chasing his boss look incredible. If only the performances and what came out of their characters' mouths was on board with this fun, then we might have had a success.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is easy on the eyes but that's the only sense that remains unscathed. It never gets in your head, or heart, and after watching it, you never really felt as if you entered any of these parts in the character of Walter Mitty either. Some things are just better left a secret.

1/4 

Blue Valentine

A beautiful, heartbreaking film about the ending of a marriage with unforgettable performances by Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams.

4/4

Oculus

Oculus uses an interesting technique of blending the past and present into one also making the viewer realize that the biggest monsters are the demons we grow up with. 

3/4

Juno

Ellen Page's charmand Diablo Cody's screenplay work in unison to create magic.

4/4

Requiem for A Dream

From the stellar performances to the nerve-wracking climax, Requiem will be impossible to forget.

4/4

August: Osage County

Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep's nominations were well deserved but they're shining in such a tedious, phony dud.

1/4

Heathers

Never has being sour looked so sweet. From the pitch-perfect screenplay to the daring performances, Heathers is a blast.

4/4

Short Term 12

An unforgettable and inspiring movie about youth in foster care lead by a firecracker performance from Brie Larson.

4/4

Fruitvale Station

Feels so meticulously authentic you feel like you're in the real Oscar Grant's shoes. And Michael Jordan, Octavia Spencer, and Melonie Diaz will break your heart. 

3/4

Best in Show

There's writing and characterization so sharp it drew blood. And I could watch a miniseries of Parker Posey as Meg Swan all day long.

4/4

Non-Stop

I could have done without such a silly, overworked motive but Non-Stop is a pretty exhilarating thrill ride from beginning to end. Liam Nelson and Julliane Moore make terrorism in the air look so badass.

3/4

Saving Mr. Banks

Despite the sappy and tedious flashbacks, Saving Mr. Banks has an undeniable charm and Emma Thompson is a total pistol as Nancy Travers.

3/4

Oldboy

For a movie whose original was deemed as so controversial and outrageous, this version of Oldboy just has no kick or bite to it. The previews mislead me thinking it would take risks and include surprises instead what we're watching feels sub-standard and watered down.

The problems start out in the beginning. Josh Brolin's character; Joe, is instantly unlikeable, it's hard to give two shits about anything that happens so the following scenes of isolation and quarantine just tend to drag considering they're happening to someone that they should be happening to.

Once he gets out things don't improve. I was shocked at how tedious and poorly visualized the action scenes were. Half of the time you can't tell what is going on and when you are able to see it....you wish you wouldn't have; straight-up Mortal Kombat shit graphics.

I mentioned that Brolin's character is unlikeable and this seems to be the guideline for the rest of the characters; make you care as little about them as possible. Marie played by Elizabeth Olsen is just there for a love interest for the lead without being given any personality or impact into the plot herself. Even Samuel Jackson's antagonist character comes off as incredibly silly and not the least bit threatening. It's a fucked up day when you can make Samuel Jackson lame but damn it, that is one of the few challenges that Oldboy rises up to defeat and conquer.

1/4

The Lego Movie

And here I was thinking Pixar was the only company with their animated shit together. The Lego Movie is such a blast I couldn't get enough of it. The visuals are an absolute dream here. All of the colors and tiny details (even their showers are impressive) look immaculate and I would be shocked if this didn't receive a Best Animated Feature nomination next year. The music played is ridiculously catchy, all of the characterization is terribly clever (I especially enjoyed The Green Lantern isolation bit) and there's a nice little twist at the end I enjoyed as well. And to add to its' saving graces, Morgan Freeman kills it as Vitruvius, the mentor of the group. Everything is awesome.

3/4