Now with 100% less Transformers 4

2014 was quite a year for movies. Bunch of crazy stuff happened this time around: Christopher Nolan got back in the game, Chris Pratt became even more famous overnight, Robin Williams died, Marvel and DC announced everything for the next five years, X-Men fixed everything in one movie, Marc Webb managed to fuck up The Amazing Spider-Man 2 astronomically, Zach Braff made an okay movie, everything's going bananas. And continuing the silly notion of my opinion mattering, I have come up with everyone's favorite thing: a top ten list for movies. Let's dive right in.

Disclaimer: I'm only one man and I've only seen so many movies this year. There are gonna be some movies that won't be on here because I didn't get a chance to watch them. I've heard Nightcrawler is good but I never got to see it. Maybe some day. Also, this list is very strictly 2014, excluding late 2013. Sorry Wolf of Wall Street. If it makes you feel any better, you get the award for having the best first three minutes of any movie ever.

#10: Interstellar

I sat in a theater for three hours because of this movie. Three hours. Oh don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this movie and I'll go see it again soon but still, three hours. Goddammit Christopher Nolan. You really love making movies with a minimum run time of two and a half hours.

In all seriousness, I still liked this movie. Whole thing is really beautifully shot and I wish I was able to see it in IMAX. Hans Zimmer brings another great soundtrack as per usual, sound mixing was good when it came to space but there was one point in the movie where Michael Caine is telling some important plot thing, he's barely able to speak and all I hear is the soundtrack is drowning him out. I had no idea what he was saying until a few scenes later when they implement the plot changing thing into the story. Mattew McConaughey brought a great performance, story was alright and overall, pretty good film. The reason it's so low on the list is because there are some issues with it, such as the previously mentioned sound problem and the ending, which sounds really dumb once you say it out loud.

A lot of people hated this movie but I still liked it for whatever that's worth. Probably nothing but whatever.

#9: Edge of Tomorrow and How to Train Your Dragon 2

Number nine is a tie between the American adaptation of All You Need Is Kill and an animated movie people really love for some reason. Don't get me wrong, I liked the first Dragon movie and I enjoyed the second one, but I never liked it to the point a lot of other people on the internet have. It was alright, I enjoyed it. I'll watch it if it were on tv or something. I got nothing against it.

Edge of Tomorrow was a whole lot of fun and in this age of ever serious movies, it was a nice change of pace. Action was good, Tom Cruise was good, it was all good. Dragons 2 was also good. Animation was pretty nice, action scenes were pretty nice, the dragons were alright. Honestly, the only dragons that stood out to me were the Alphas but those fuckers are giant, powerful things and I really enjoyed seeing them duke it out.

I liked both of these films and they might be watched again in the near future.

#8: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This movie told us what S.H.I.E.L.D. was so busy doing that they couldn't help in the events of Thor 2 and Iron Man 3. I was really pissed that S.H.I.E.L.D. did jack shit while Tony Stark was attacked by terrorists but even more so when they did nothing while FUCKING ALIENS invaded Britain. But then I saw Captain America 2 and I understood.

Story was really mature in this movie, which was nice considering that this is Marvel and Marvel isn't all too serious with their things compared to say DC. The whole cast was good in this and the action scenes were pretty cool. One of my favorite scenes in this movie is the one with Nick Fury in his supercar fighting all the police officers. Do you have any idea how cool it was? He had a motherfucking minigun in his car. A fucking minigun. I suppose you really have to be prepared if you're the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.

You have no idea how much the aliens thing bugged me until this movie.

#7: Guardians of the Galaxy

Whoa whoa whoa there! How is Guardians so low on the list? It should be in the top three if for some reason it isn't number one! That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?

I'm fairly certain that's how it works but I don't give a shit. It's on the list anyways. There's a bunch of movies that can't say that, like Maleficent, Tammy, or Transformers 4. Oh wait...

Let me just put away my gun after firing those shots and continue with this explanation of why Guardians is number seven on the list.

It turns out that I was one of the few people that looked forward to this movie when it was announced. I looked at it and thought that it looked like fun. I knew that I would definitely watch it once it came out and it came out at around 7 PM, which was a pleasant surprise since I thought I would have to wait for five hours.

I liked it. Thought it was a really enjoyable 80s movie. Action was pretty good, humor was pretty good, Chris Pratt was great, Howard the Duck showed up for some fucking reason at the end (It's like Marvel doesn't give a shit about their end credit scenes anymore), Guardians will return someday, just not during Age of Ultron.

Now just because I liked the movie doesn't mean it's flawless. I did not love Groot as much as everyone else did. I thought he was a lovable character, but he didn't woo me over. The "best" joke in the whole film was the Jackson Pollock joke and it did not make me laugh. Why? Because the joke was stolen from none other than Chuck Lorre, aka the man who created Two and a Half Men. The joke was used during the CSI crossover episode where Teddy dies and everyone get interrogated. The joke is made when they put the black light on Charlie's room and the two detectives are shocked, saying "It's like a Jackson Pollock painting!" Because I was a huge Lorrefag back in the day, this joke simply could not be enjoyed. Everyone else loved it though so I guess it's just me.

#6: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson made another film this year everyone. This time, it follows a hotel manager and his busboy as they have some wacky adventures, specifically when one of the ladies the manager has been banging dies and leaves him as the heir of a priceless painting and becomes the prime suspect of her murder.

It's Wes Anderson. You can't really hate the guy all that much. I really liked Fantastic Mr. Fox so I decided to give this one a go and you know what, I really liked it. The characters are all unique, they're pretty funny, the environments are beautifully designed and there's a bunch of quirkiness throughout the movie. The only complaint I have is that the movie can get a bit slow at times but they fill those gaps with humor so I guess it makes up for it.

This movie is a good film, it's also a Wes Anderson film. Put the two together and you've got yourself something pretty great.

#5: X-Men: Days of Future Past

Another superhero movie I let myself get excited for. Oh boy. Fortunately for me, every superhero film I got excited for turned out to be good. Thank god I didn't get excited for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Look how that turned out: they fucked it up astronomically. Fuck you Marvel, I wanted my fucking Rhino.

I'm getting off topic. Returning to this film, pretty good even it was only made to fix all the fuck ups the X-Men franchise has made. *cough* X-Men Origins: Wolverine *cough* X-Men: The Last Stand *cough* I shouldn't coughing this much. Not a good sign of my health.

This movie still had a bunch of good things in it. For starters, it didn't focus completely on Wolverine. Xavier and Magneto actually got some prime screen time in this movie. Jennifer Lawrence did her role pretty well as Mystique. Peter Dinklage fucking brought it as Trask. Then again, he has a tendency to bring it in everything he's in. Action was pretty good, especially that grand finale at the White House.

Onto the bad: Quicksilver. Now I should have probably included this in the good but the good also works against it so I'll just continue. Quicksilver was easily the most memorable character in this whole movie. The best scene in the whole movie and the one people most definitely remember is the Quicksilver scene where he beats up all of the guards in slow motion. That was fucking great. Quicksilver brought his A game and now Kickass or whatever the actor's name will have to step it up for Age of Ultron because of it.

The problem is that that's it. After that, the gang moves on and leave Quicksilver behind to return home. He never shows up again. Why would you do that? Why would you leave out the best character in the whole movie for the rest of the movie? Why?

Oh well. At least the actor who played Quicksilver has something good on his palette.

#4: Big Hero 6

I'll be honest: I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to. I went in, expecting an animated movie that I knew I would at least enjoy, but nothing spectacular, no. I was pleasantly surprised. I really, really liked this movie.

It's a Disney animated movie. You know what to expect when you go in. Honestly, the only reason I saw this movie was because it's technically a Marvel film even though the only items they use from the source material are a bunch of characters and that's it. They change everything else. Fun fact: Silver Samurai was one of the main guys in the original Big Hero 6. Yeah. That Silver Samurai. The one that fought Wolverine in The Wolverine.

Enough of that. Returning to the film itself, the story itself isn't anything too new. It deals with the whole "dealing with loss" type of story and it's a kids movie so it approaches it from that angle kids movies tend to do. The characters are actually pretty unique for the most part and they're alright. There are a bunch of cliches in this movie, such as when they find out that Fred was rich the whole time and he just passed it off like it was nothing. The plot twist was something I should have seen a mile away but I saw it at five feet instead. That one's on me but in any case, the point I'm trying to make is that this movie doesn't really bring anything new to the table.

Despite this, it's still a pretty good movie and I would recommend going to see it. However, don't wait til the end credit scene. It was not worth it at all. Screw you Stan Lee, we were the only people left in the theater. In fact, I saw an usher wanting to clean up but then he saw that we were still there so he just kinda turned around and waited. I felt like an asshole for staying in the theater.

Oh and Honey Lemon is better.

#3: 22 Jump Street

I, like a good 80% of the American audience, went to see this movie instead of How to Train Your Dragon 2. I enjoy a good animated movie as much as the next guy but like I said earlier, I only liked the first movie so much. I didn't love compared to 21 Jump Street so naturally, I went to the sequel for that film.

This movie is fucking hilarious. This movie nails it on the humor with it being easily one of the funniest movies I've seen all year and a movie worthy of being a successor to 21 Jump Street. In fact, it might actually surpass the first one in terms of quality. I can't really decide since it's been a while since I saw 21 Jump Street so for now, I'll just say that both are good movies that I recommend.

The chemistry between Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill is still there and although it can feel like it's being worn out, it still works. Ice Cube showed up a lot more in this film and he also brought it. One of the best scenes is when he gets pissed at the parent lunch and he's just destroying all the food in a fit of anger. Action wise, it isn't heavily oriented on action with the movie consisting of maybe twenty minutes total on action and the action itself also has the humor element implemented, but otherwise, the action was alright for the most part.

There's a bunch of easter eggs in this movie and I only managed to find so many. There were a bunch I missed but I plan to see this movie again so hopefully I'll find them.

The end credits for this movie has got to be by far one of the best end credit sequences for any movie, ever. My favorite part of that is when Seth Rogen replaces Jonah Hill for one of the fake sequels and Tatum notices that it isn't Hill and then in the next sequel, Jonah Hill returns and he remarks "What contract dispute?" Fucking brilliant.

#2: The Lego Movie

I do not know any of Everything Is Awesome past the first five lines, and two of those lines are in fact "Everything is awesome!" Goes to show how many times I've listened to that song completely and not just the first ten seconds.

A lot of people had concerns when this movie was announced that it would just be a giant product placement ad and that the movie would suck. I had blind faith in this movie, supported by the casting for this movie, and I expected it to be good. Well, my blind faith was rewarded as I was presented with a pretty good movie. My blind faith has done that a lot this year with the only exception being A Million Ways to Die in the West. Seth MacFarlane, I trusted you! Then again, that might have been a mistake from the beginning anyways.

Film, right. Forgot. Despite the fact that the main concept for this movie revolves around Legos, it does manage to provide a pretty good and fairly original story. The characters are all pretty good, animation was fucking amazing and impressive as all hell. I know it was mostly computer generated but still, I was really impressed. Jokes were pretty spot on in this movie and the story does get a little dark in the middle which is something I can appreciate. This movie is just filled with social commentary and that's something everyone can appreciate.

Fuck, I can't really think of anything bad to say about this movie. The only thing I've come up with is that this movie hammers in the fact that Morgan Freeman will do anything for money but hey, at least he did a good movie this time and didn't tell the American audience that we use 10% of our brains. Goddammit, she didn't turn into a flash drive. She turned into the universe and made the flash drive from there. I enjoyed Lucy, but you seriously have to turn off your brain for that one.

#1: Gone Girl

Once upon a time, there was a man. He decided to spend his entire weekend watching David Fincher films. He didn't watch any other movies nor any television shows nor anything else. He blasted through every David Fincher movie except Alien 3 because why would he do that to himself?

Another fun fact: David Fincher shares a similarity with Zack Synder in that both have only made adaptations from books. Granted, Synder does comic books but they're still books. David Fincher has only adapted books. Fight Club, a book; Seven, a book; The Social Network, a memoir and also a book; Gone Girl, a book. He only does books and an Alien sequel for some reason. He was starting out with Alien 3 though so I'll give him a pass.

Enough about David Fincher. Let's talk about the movie itself. The movie is fucking great, top movie of 2014 but only because I haven't seen Nightcrawler. If I have, it might be different.

This whole movie is an intense thrill ride and I loved every minute of it. This movie wastes no time and it throws you right into the story. I'm fairly certain that Amy was gone by the five minute mark. Once she disappears, the fun begins as Nick at first tries to figure out where his wife went but is soon hounded by the media and accused of murdering his wife.

I can't explain the movie any further other than that, the main premise and title because anything more would be entering spoiler territory and there's one large twist that is revealed halfway through the film that changes everything so unless you looked up the plot of this movie on wikipedia or whatever, I can't tell you what happens because that would ruin everything.

Performance wise, everyone did a fantastic job. Ben Affleck did a really good job as Nick, Neil Patrick Harris did a superb job as the very creepy Desi, hell, Tyler Perry did a pretty good job in his role also but his role was mainly the important and rich defense lawyer so I feel like it wouldn't have been too hard for him to channel in that role. Still did a nice job with it though so props to Perry even though he didn't know who David Fincher was before this film. But despite these great performances, the best one yet has to be Rosamund Pike as Amy. It's easily one of the best performances by an actress this year.

As a drama, it's solely the characters that drive the story and even though this movie was adapted from the book of the same name, the story was still nevertheless very original. I guess it helps that they got the original author of the book to work on this movie as well.

This movie receives the number one spot mainly because it's the only movie this year that me go "Holy fuck. That was really good." The "holy fuck" part was partially due to the fact that the movie gets quite fucked up near the end and the ending itself is pretty fucked up in and of itself. But just because it had really good ending does not mean that it's great. No, what made it great was everything else about it. The performances, the musical score, the performances, it was all sublime and I loved it.

2014 was a great year for movies and with even more stuff heading our way next year, I can't wait.