It’s July, and that means it’s time to count down our top 10 movies of 2014 (so far).
Doing a best of list at this point in the year is always a little bizarre as studios always keep their best movies until the final months of the year, but here we are. Either way, there have been some great movies released so far this year and making a top 10 list is still tough.
In a perfect world this list would have been released on July 1, but due to studio embargo I wouldn’t have been able to include and write about one movie that I really wanted to include. Now that I’m able to write about it this list can now be a better reflection of what I deem the best movies in the (just over) first half of the year.
#10. – ‘Snowpiercer’
On paper Snowpiercer looks like a bonafide summer blockbuster, but since it wasn’t made in America it isn’t being treated as such. Thankfully its limited release success at the box office has forced The Weinstein Company to roll it out across the country, at least on VOD. This isn’t quite the wide theatrical release it deserves, but it will have to do because Snowpiercer is an awesome movie unlike anything else in theaters right now and needs to be seen by the widest audience possible. This is truly a unique movie, and it’s well made on so many levels. This is refreshingly different, thoughtful filmmaking. As great as Chris Evans is as Captain America, this movie features him at his best. Snowpiercer will be hitting VOD this Friday, and I can’t recommend it enough.
#9. – ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’
I felt strongly that a sequel to How to Train Your Dragon was not necessary, yet when it was released I changed my tune. A lot of this is due to just how good the filmmaking in the movie is. In particular, I thought How to Train Your Dragon 2 was a very special film because of how well it told its story using all of the tools available to it as a film. One aspect of this was the stunning visual storytelling. This included a great use of frame in which what was happening behind the focus (or sometimes completely out of the frame altogether) of many shots was as important to the storytelling. It’s unfortunate that the film’s release was somewhat of a flop (it was, at the very least, disappointing) as the film was a great piece of animated storytelling that proved why further exploration of this world is worth it.
#8. – ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’
Perhaps no movie released this summer had a scene as innovative as X-Men: Days of Future Past. The scene I’m referring to is the one with newcomer Quicksilver, and if you still haven’t seen it I still don’t want to give anything away. Scenes like this are why we come to the movies. We come to be surprised, to have fun, to be young again. This scene alone made this installment of the X-Men franchise one of my favorite movies of the year, but the movie was still really great all around. It’s a lot of fun from top to bottom, and sure, there are things to nitpick, but watching this movie is as much fun as I’ve had at the movies in a while. This movie was necessary to the franchise to correct some of the mistakes of the past (namely in The Last Stand), and I’m excited to see where the franchise goes from here.
#7. – ‘Edge of Tomorrow’
Edge of Tomorrow was a disappointment, at the box office, that is. This was the most original blockbuster of the summer, and it’s a shame that more people didn’t go see it. With its source material being the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow didn’t have the built in audience that so many of its competitors did, and audiences chose the competitors. This could be due in part to Tom Cruise underperforming lately in non-Mission Impossible roles, bad marketing, or a variety of other factors, but it’s disappointing because this is such a good movie. Tom Cruise brought a tremendous performance to lead the movie, Emily Blunt and Bill Paxton were also great, and the story, action, and how unexpectedly comedic it was combined to make for one of the best movies of the year.
#6. – ‘22 Jump Street’
With 21 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller knew that nobody was asking for them to reboot an 80s cop show, and with 22 Jump Street they understood that a sequel was just as unnecessary. In doing so they created one of the funniest comedies in recent years. 22 Jump Street is almost certainly the most meta you can make a movie including all the references to sequels, its stars, college movies, and everything else that 22 Jump Street tackles head on. These references were great, but they wouldn’t have been good enough were it not for the strength of everything else in the movie. Much of the success of the film rests squarely on the shoulders of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, two very funny men who are even funnier when they’re together. I hope to see them in a non-Jump Street movie to see how flexible their chemistry is.
#5. – ‘Joe’
David Gordon Green made a strong comeback last year with the Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch starrer Prince Avalanche, and he’s done it again this year with the even better Joe. Nicolas Cage stars and delivers one of his best performances in quite a long time, and he’s only one piece of what makes the movie so great. Starring alongside him is Tye Sheridan, the star of Mud another great movie from last year (which also starred Matthew McConaughey). Sheridan’s role in Joe is quite similar to his Mud role, but he’s quickly proving himself to be one of the best actors of his age as his performances in the two movies are nuanced and different from each other. Green loves delving into the themes of what it means to be a man, and never are they explored as well as they are in Joe.
#4. – ‘Godzilla’
Were it not for the often lifeless performance from Aaron Taylor Johnson, Godzilla may have been the #2 on this list. I loved almost everything about this movie apart from that one performance. For starters, the Jaws-like restraint Gareth Edwards exercised with showing his monster was impressive, especially in the system that rewards having more and of movies filled with incoherent action at the expense of story (looking at you, Transformers). Edwards also created many stunning visuals, often times visuals that harkened back Steven Spielberg’s blockbusters. But most importantly, Edwards’ Godzilla was a film with a conscience, a film that understands what its destruction means. Edwards’ film understands what human life means in a situation with great, non-human forces, something that it shares with the original Godzilla. This was an impressive film.
#3. – ‘The Lego Movie’
Now come the portion of the list I am fairly confident will be in my top 10 come the end of the year too. Having reviewed The Lego Movie not once but twice, there’s not much left to say about just how much I love this movie. I think it’s virtually perfect. Much of this is due to just how well it gets what Lego is. From the imaginative world creation, to the way the story is constructed and what themes it displays, The Lego Movie gets it. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are the big winners when it comes to directing this year, and along with 22 Jump Street they’ve made two of the best movies of the year. They clearly know what they’re doing when it comes to making movies. They have both a complete understanding of what a movie should be and a talent to make the movie that they have in their heads. I cannot wait to see what they do next.
#2. – ‘Life Itself’
In my review last week I called Life Itself a perfect documentary, and it’s one of the best movies of the year. The movie is both a fitting tribute to the world’s most famous critic Roger Ebert and an unflinching look at just what he went through in his life. By never sugarcoating Ebert’s life but still expressing why he was as important as he was, Hoop Dreams director Steve James made a whirlwind of emotions stuck inside a spectacular piece of filmmaking. At times uproariously funny and heart wrenchingly sad, Life Itself is a special film about a special man. It’s hard to write about Ebert without writing about what made him special to me (which I’ve done). Ebert was a powerful voice in film, and his effect on the industry has given rise to some amazing movies and inspired generations of film fans.
#1. – ‘Boyhood’
Not only do I think Boyhood is the best movie so far this year, I think it’s the best movie to be released in the last several and it’s certainly in my top five for the last decade. Though it has been shown at a few festivals, the movie doesn’t come out in theaters until this Friday. Still, I desperately wanted to include this movie on this list because of how spectacular of a movie it is, and if this list convinces just one person to check it out, it will have been worth it. By filming for a short period of time each year for 12 years, writer/director Richard Linklater has made a movie unlike any other, and it’s movie that captures the last decade perfectly. This is a movie I can’t imagine not watching every year for the rest of my life, and I can’t remember a movie having that effect on me any time recently.
As always, it’s almost impossible to create a perfect top 10 list. Due to factors out of my control, there are several movies that have come out this year that I haven’t been able to see. Under the Skin, Locke, Only Lovers Left Alive, Cold in July, Ida, The Raid 2, and Enemy are among the movies I’ve yet to see. Even though I have included this week’s Boyhood, I have not yet seen the other movie to release this week, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. If everything I’ve heard about the movie is correct, it could easily make it’s way into my top 10.
Making a top 10 list is incredibly difficult, and there are some movies I had to keep off that I really wanted to put on the list. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of them, and it would have been the next on the list. Other movies that I really loved but just couldn’t fit into the top 10 were Blue Ruin, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Chef, Oculus, and They Came Together.