{"id":702,"date":"2014-12-31T17:54:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T01:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/?p=702"},"modified":"2014-12-31T17:54:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T01:54:06","slug":"best-10-movies-of-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/2014\/12\/31\/best-10-movies-of-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Best 10 Movies of 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone is doing their &#8220;top 10&#8221; or &#8220;top 20&#8221; or &#8220;top X&#8221; lists so I figured I&#8217;d chime in on a topic I&#8217;m fairly familiar with.\u00a0 There are some <strong><em>SPOILERS<\/em><\/strong> so please don&#8217;t read if you haven&#8217;t seen the movies mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, this list does not consider the following movies I&#8217;ve yet to see which I feel might otherwise have a shot at being mentioned here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Starred Up<\/li>\n<li>Obvious Child<\/li>\n<li>Dear White People<\/li>\n<li>Whiplash<\/li>\n<li>Birdman<\/li>\n<li>Under The Skin<\/li>\n<li>Unbroken<\/li>\n<li>Foxcatcher<\/li>\n<li>Boyhood<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 10:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2980592\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Guest<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A strangely compelling if totally unbelievable thriller that succeeds nearly entirely based on its star Dan Stevens&#8217; hypnotic allure. The actors playing the teenaged children of the family he terrorizes, Maika Monroe and Brendan Meyer, are also strong performers. And it&#8217;s always great to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1119644\/\">Fringe&#8217;s<\/a> Lance Reddick do his badass thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 9: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1843866\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given how lifeless and boring the original Captain America film was, it&#8217;s shocking how entertaining and satisfying this follow-up is. \u00a0The addition of Scarlett Johansson&#8217;s Black Widow to the cast of characters\u00a0definitely has a lot to do with that. \u00a0Too bad they didn&#8217;t give Emily VanCamp more to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 8: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2429074\" target=\"_blank\"><em>GBF<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It may make <em>GBF<\/em> (Gay Best Friend) sound derivative to call it a &#8220;gay <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0377092\/\"><em>Mean Girls<\/em><\/a> for the 2010s&#8221; but if you ask me, that&#8217;s higher praise than most gay films can aspire to. \u00a0At this point, 95% or more of gay cinema is worth skipping&#8212;happily that is not the case for <em>GBF<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 7: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2267998\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Gone Girl<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Despite requiring a lot of suspension of disbelief, there&#8217;s no denying Gone Girl is a fascinating film. Ben Affleck is fine but the real stars of the film are the women: Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon, and Kim Dickens. \u00a0Watching the psychopathic nature of Rosamund Pike&#8217;s character slowly unspool is disturbingly captivating.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 6: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2771372\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Veronica Mars<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The most anticipated and successful Kickstarter film project in history delivered exactly what all the much-beloved TV show&#8217;s fans wanted&#8230; and more. \u00a0Let&#8217;s hope a sequel is in the works because really, can you ever have enough Kristen Bell and (Canadian) Enrico Colantoni?<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 5: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2582846\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Fault In Our Stars<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t deny it&#8212;I&#8217;m a sucker for a tearjerker, especially a teen tearjerker, and if you didn&#8217;t cry during the funeral &#8220;rehearsal,&#8221; then I just don&#8217;t want to be friends with you.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 4: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1631867\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Edge of Tomorrow<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That a Tom Cruise film is this far up on my list is surprising but while he is totally serviceable in the film, the credit for the film&#8217;s success and appeal has to go to Emily Blunt, hands down. \u00a0What should have been a very derivative &#8220;sci-fi Groundhog Day&#8221; instead becomes something original and gripping.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 3: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1877832\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>X-Men: Days of Future Past<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The latest X-Men film could have attained this slot solely on the basis of its final few minutes, where director Bryan Singer (and the man most associated with the X-Men films) takes great delight in using time travel to erase\u00a0the most egregious entry in the X-Men film series (Brett Ratner&#8217;s <em>X-Men: The Last Stand<\/em>) from continuity.\u00a0 It is completely worth the price of admission just to see that. \u00a0So add in amazing special effects, appearances by nearly everyone from both sets of X-Men movies, and Patrick Stewart literally going t\u00eate-a-t\u00eate with James McAvoy, and you easily have one of the best films of the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 2: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2084970\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Imitation Game<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was expecting a lot out of this movie&#8212;and in nearly all cases, it delivered. I would have liked to see more flashbacks to Turing&#8217;s high school days and I definitely didn&#8217;t like that the main story was told as a flashback itself.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0203009\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Moulin Rouge!<\/em><\/a> has the same problem: you are told from the get-go&#8212;owing to the framing device&#8212;that the love story is doomed. I didn&#8217;t need that spelled out for me in that film and I similarly didn&#8217;t need to be hit over the head\u00a0at the outset of <em>The Imitation Game<\/em> that &#8220;things will go terribly wrong.&#8221; \u00a0Maybe that&#8217;s because I&#8217;m already well-acquainted with Turing&#8217;s tragic end and maybe that isn&#8217;t the case with the majority of the movie-going public who will see the film but gee, that has all the subtlety of a hammer to the face.<\/p>\n<p>The gay press tried\u00a0to make the lack of a gay sex scene (or any overt gay affection, really) in the film a news story prior to its wider release, and perhaps because of that I didn&#8217;t find that absence terribly jarring. In a way, the movie dealt with Turing&#8217;s homosexuality\u00a0as I would expect it would have been dealt with at the time&#8212;very obliquely&#8212;and that seemed to suit the story, and the extremely repressed way Cumberbatch portrayed Turing, well. \u00a0The schoolboy scenes communicated, in a very timeless\u00a0way that I could relate to despite the approximately 60- to 70-year gap between my school days and Turing&#8217;s, what it&#8217;s like to be a boy in love with another boy.<\/p>\n<p>So despite its structural issues, a very excellent film with great performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightley, and the gorgeous Matthew Goode.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Number 1: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3169706\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Pride<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There really are no other contenders this year that are even close. I have no idea how the creators\u00a0of <i>Pride<\/i> managed it but somehow they made\u00a0a movie that deftly portrays at least five vastly different types of story, from the traditional coming out story, to an AIDS cautionary tale, to a classic fish-out-of-water comedy, to a David-vs.-Goliath parable that ends in defeat yet is somehow uplifting, and&#8212;perhaps most impressively&#8211;the most accessible pro-union film I have ever seen. \u00a0In fact, I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;ve ever seen any pro-union films but this one somehow embodies every positive ideal of the labour movement. \u00a0Usually movies trying to tell this many disparate types of stories stumble well before they&#8217;re out of the gate (e.g. this year&#8217;s <em>Life After Beth<\/em> and Kat Dennings&#8217; little-seen <em>Daydream Nation<\/em> from 2010) just on tone alone&#8230; and yet <em>Pride<\/em> doesn&#8217;t. \u00a0It lovingly weaves together all these archetypal stories and leaves you satisfied, and even moved, on every front.<\/p>\n<p>Add in Bill Nighy and Paddy Considine, and top that off with Imelda Staunton, and you have a film that simply cannot be beat, even if they had skipped the cameo by Russell Tovey. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>If I wasn&#8217;t sure myself that this was the best movie of 2014\u00a0(and possibly the best movie I&#8217;ve seen since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1315981\/\"><em>A Single Man<\/em><\/a>), I went to see it with a friend of mine with whom I sometimes dread seeing movies because he just doesn&#8217;t connect with most things that make it to the theatre. Seeing a movie with him and expecting him to enjoy the experience is a bit like going to Vegas and hoping against hope you&#8217;ll beat the House. And we have a long history of seeing gay-themed movies together and just ending up having to wade through barely-mediocre shlock. \u00a0Finally, while I cry at movies fairly easily, I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;ve ever seen him cry at one.\u00a0 Well, until now.<\/p>\n<p>And there you have it: this movie made him cry. \u00a0Case closed:\u00a0<em>Pride<\/em> is the best movie of 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone is doing their &#8220;top 10&#8221; or &#8220;top 20&#8221; or &#8220;top X&#8221; lists so I figured I&#8217;d chime in on a topic I&#8217;m fairly familiar with.\u00a0 There are some SPOILERS so please don&#8217;t read if you haven&#8217;t seen the movies mentioned. Sadly, this list does not consider the following movies I&#8217;ve yet to see which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kalev.org\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}