Category: Theaters

With so many geeky movies coming out in 2014, I couldn’t pick just five, but this is my site, so you get ten.  Sue me!  Here are my choices in reverse order!

10: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Marvel has done an amazing job making characters I never liked before seem great.  The new trailer for Captain America sold me with its almost spy movie feel.  The only reason this movie dropped to number ten is that I am ready for some new Marvel characters to take the forefront.

9: Jupiter Ascending

 

The Wachowskis don’t always make good movies, but they always make interesting movies.  Everything they make is at least worth a watch, so a Sci-Fi movie from them is an exciting proposition.

8: The Lego Movie

We are finally getting a Justice League movie!  It is being made by the people from Lego, but still, it will probably be better than whatever Warner Brothers is going to make.  I rolled my eyes when I first heard about this movie, but the trailers have sold me.

7: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

The first Sin City movie showed what we can do with modern CGI by almost literally ripping the pages out of the comic book and putting them on the screen.  I am a little worried since this movie has been in production forever, but the last one was great, so here is hoping.

6: Muppets Most Wanted

It’s the Muppets, so I will see it.  That is all.

5: Guardians of the Galaxy

Cult movie maker James Gunn is making a movie out of one of the strangest Marvel franchises out there? Yes he is, and it is a fantastic choice.  The Marvel movies have been starting to get a little to serious, so this should fix that.  I hope Guardians of the Galaxy is crazy silly.

4: The Hobbit: There and Back Again

It has been good so far, so I will have to see how it ends.  I am hoping this third movie ties everything together, and that the Battle of Five Armies is awesome!

3: Interstellar

Christopher Nolan has earned my trust, so I will see just about anything he makes.  This space flick should be wonderful.  If Inception has taught us anything, bring your thinking caps and expect the unexpected.

2: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Good heavens the last movie was good, so watching the next one is a no brainer.  The only reason it is not number one is that it is just half of the final book.  I hope they can make a full movie out of so few pages.

1: X-Men: Days of Future Past

It is strange, only X-Men 2 and First Class have been good, but the idea of merging the two worlds and bringing Bryan Singer back to direct is just so darn exciting!  If Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t huge before, she will be after having an X-Men movie and a Hunger Games movie come out in the same year.

That was my list, and hope you liked it.  What are you looking forward too?

Saving Mr. Banks is a 2013 film produced by Disney Pictures and directed by John Lee Hancock.  It seems that John Lee Hancock is the guy to get when you want to produce a sweet Bio-Pic, because Saving Mr. Banks is just as good as his previous directorial effort The Blind Side.

The story follows P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) as she flies to Los Angeles to try and co-write a script for Mary Poppins that she can live with.  Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) has been trying to make this happen for twenty years, so he is trying his best to get the difficult woman to work with him and his crew.  While writing the script Travers flashes back to her childhood, and to the father she loved Travers Robert Goff (Colin Farrell).

Like most “based on a true story” movies, there are several differences between it and the real-life tale, but what they have presented is quite good.  It is a touching story about the influence a father can have on a child.  Even a father with some serious flaws can positively shape the lives of his kids.

Had you told me before I saw this movie, staring both Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, the performance that would blow me away would be Colin Farrell, I wouldn’t have believed you, but it is true.  He is the standout in this film full of talented people.  His portrayal of P.L. Travers’ father is almost perfect.  It is sad and sweet, and he makes Goff someone you can root for.  Now both Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks are predictably good, great in fact as is the rest of the cast, but Farrell was incredible.

John Lee Hancock, who is known for his sports biography movies, deftly applies his skills to this story of a quarrelling writer and billionaire.  He somehow makes a film about acquiring legal creative rights both interesting and enjoyable.  True he had great actors to work with, but it was him that kept the whole movie in focus and on track.  It was perfectly edited, so that it did not feel too long or that anything was left out.

It was a good film, and one that will no doubt be in the hunt for some Oscars next year.  Of course a movie created by Disney Pictures would paint Disney as the hero of this film, but still it was fun to watch.  I also hope that after this movie Farrell starts getting some better roles because he is more than capable.

A year has past since The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and Bilbo and his pack of Dwarf friends continue their quest to reclaim the throne of the King Under The Mountain.  Peter Jackson once again helms this Hobbit tale, and if you liked the first movie then you will like this film more, but if you did not care for the first Hobbit, I am not sure that this improved film will win you over.

This movie starts out with a little background in to how the quest got started, but then quickly gets us back to Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Thorin (Richard Armitage), and the rest of the dwarves as they continue to run from the orcs that are chasing them, and their quest to get to the Lonely Mountain by the last light of Durin’s Day.  Along the way they will have to contend with giant spiders, jerky elves, the aforementioned orcs, and Smaug himself. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) meanwhile has to deal with another threat.

Despite the over two hour and forty minute running time, they should really call these movies The Hobbit and The Lost Tales due to all the added material, The Desolation of Smaug has a much brisker pace.  They must have cut out all the random walking about, and just stuck to the action scenes.  Which is great because An Unexpected Journey gave me enough walking scenes for the rest of my life.  There are quite a few long action scenes in this movie, and they all show Jackson’s deft hand at directing since they are all wonderfully framed and a joy to watch.

From a technical standpoint though the action scenes are not perfect.  It must be really hard to show molten gold because it is by far the worst effect in the whole movie, and whoever convinced Jackson that it would be fine to use a GoPro 1 camera in the river barrel scene should be flogged.  Other than those two examples Weta Workshop continues to show that they are a top tier effects company because this movie looks great.  They just need to find a new gold animator.

When I first saw Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel in promos for this film, I was unsure about her addition, but she great in this film, and adding a female character to this all male cast was much needed.  Adding Tauriel gave more depth to the elves as well as the dwarves, so she is not just a throw away character.  Martin Freeman’s Bilbo is fantastic.  It is great to see a character drawn to the power of the ring, and not just suffer the weight of it.  You can see the lust for its power in his eyes, and how he changes when he wears it.  He is better than the Bilbo in the book (Geek Note: I am not saying however that the movies are better than the book, just Bilbo).  The rest of the cast is great too, but they are pretty much background for Freeman.

This movie is much improved over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but it still has one major flaw.  Its ending, or I should say its lack of an ending.  It simply does not have one.  I won’t tell you where it ends or how, but after all the fun and adventure it ends in a questionable manner.  That is not enough for me not to recommend this movie however, and I do.  Especially to all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit fans out there.  It is a fun film with some great action sequences, and it is a good time in the theaters!