2014 Movies - In-Betweeners

I saw these movies. They were fine.Not awful, not great. I'll just say a few words about them. All of these are worth watching if it's in your wheelhouse.
  

A Million Ways to Die in the West had its funny moments. I didn't expect much. Might be a fun rental.

Godzilla was fun. Perhaps the most important part was "Let Them Fight," which helped to teach Realism in International Relations. I wouldn't mind a sequel.

Edge of Tomorrow was a good video game movies, as that's what's really happening. Tom Cruise is just restarting the game each time. It was fun to watch him make different decisions to progress further along.

A lot of people seemed to really like Chef. I found it to be OK. I guess it must have hit an emotional button with them that it didn't with me.

Snowpiercer was a different angle for a dystopian future. It had its moments, but over two hours is a long time to be in one location. There are parts that are a bit weird. A few big adjustments and this could have made my top ten list, I think.

I seem to remember liking The Skeleton Twins. I think there was good chemistry between Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, even though they played twins. But other than that, it was too forgettable.

If you want to know more about tank warfare in World War II, you might enjoy Fury. It was a decent movie.

Foxcatcher features three great performances from Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo. It's well worth watching just for those. I try to go into movies knowing as little as possible, so I avoided the true facts about this until after I had seen it. I wonder if I actually would have liked it more if I knew more about it.

I would have enjoyed Into the Woods much more if it hadn't been a musical. And that's because I didn't like any of the music. I can't recall a single melody. Most of it felt more like talking in tune than singing a song. It's also probably about twenty minutes too long. Johnny Depp truly finds his inner... pedophile.

I just saw the following two movies today. They aren't bad enough to be on the bottom list, but they weren't really good either.

 The paintings in Big Eyes are accurately described by an art critic as kitsch. I felt like Christophe Waltz's performance was as close to a representation of kitsch that an actor can portray. Unfortunately, I don't think it was on purpose. It was creepy, silly, and over-the-top. The movie itself? OK.

Unbroken is broken. I hoped that the Coen Brother's role in writing the script would elevate this beyond melodrama, but it doesn't. If you enjoy being uplifted by cliche, by all means go enjoy it. There's probably a good movie to be made about Zamperini. This isn't it. Eh - I probably would have put this on my bad list if I had more time to get angry about it.

I saw two more movies this year that don't get to go onto the good or bad list since they are re-releases. The first was Gone With the Wind. I wrote about it here, though I'm not sure I remembered to mention how it's SO DAMNED LONG.

A movie that would have made the top ten list if it had come out this year was Blazing Saddles. I saw it at the Paramount. If you've never seen a movie at the Paramount, you need to do yourself a favor and go see something in 2015. First, it's a beautiful art deco theater. Next, it begins with a news reel and cartoon, then old movie trailers. You can win prizes in the raffle (which comes with your ticket). And then you get to see a great movie with people who also love that movie. Best of all? Five dollars. Don't I repeat this every year?

Oh yeah - the movie? Blazing Saddles is still the funniest movie ever made.