87th Academy Awards: Predictions

It’s that time of year again; time for the Academy Awards, the biggest film award show of the year. And of course that also means that it’s time for me to list my choices predicting who will be winning awards this Sunday. This year’s show is being hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, which is a pretty good choice if you ask me. However, this year’s list of nominations have attracted quite a lot of controversy, primarily the fact that all of the 20 nominees for Best Actor/Actress (Leading and supporting) are white, which is actually the third time this has happened since 1995. But… because I’m not one to talk about race-related controversy on this site I won’t be saying anything further about it, nor will I be focusing that much on ‘potential’ snubs this year either. I’ve come to the point where I realize that criticizing award snubs is a very clichéd thing to do. Because film is so subjective, awards shows like this are fundamentally flawed because they obviously aren’t going to please everyone given the fact that only about 5 or so films/performances get nominated for the major awards every year. Some may call the Oscars ‘bulls***’ but in reality they’re usually the ones who stir up all of the controversy surrounding the Oscars in the first place.

From this point on, I’m just going to accept the annual Oscar nominations for what they are and not complain that much about what didn’t get nominated. So because of this, unlike the ‘Oscar Predictions’ post I did last year, I’m not going to list any snubs for each of the award categories though I will probably mention some here and there while discussing my picks, the only thing being that I won’t make that big a deal about them. Also, I won’t be looking at every single one of the Oscar categories for one of two reasons; A.) Because I haven’t seen any or all of the films in that category (e.g. Foreign Films, Short Films) or B.) I’m really not that familiar with that particular aspect of filmmaking (e.g. sound mixing). Finally, and most importantly, please bear in mind that this is all just my opinion. Obviously I’m not going to predict every single one of these winners correctly (I doubt anyone can) and some of you will no doubt disagree with my picks because you’re always going to get that with film. All I ask is that you please be respectful not only to what I have to say but everyone else’s opinions as well. In other words, don’t be a jackass and trash someone else for liking something that you didn’t. So without further ado, here are my picks for the 87^th Annual Academy Awards.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

*CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

*DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

*GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

*INTERSTELLAR

*X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

My Pick: Interstellar

Quite frankly, I’m fine with any of these five films winning this award as they all had some really nice special effects. While last year’s winner ‘Gravity’ was obviously going to win the award regardless of who else got nominated, thankfully this year doesn’t seem so ‘obvious’. In the end, my vote goes towards ‘Interstellar’, a film that once again showcases the strength of practical visual effects, a common trait of the films of Christopher Nolan. They created an actual dust storm for the scenes on Earth. They created the space visuals beforehand so that the actors wouldn’t have to act in front of a green-screen. And the planets that are explored in the film were filmed in real locations. Sure, they were fairly simple in design but if you ask me, that works much better for the kind of movie that ‘Interstellar’ was. The other four films’ visuals are mostly CGI-based so out of them, my runner-up choice would probably be ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, which once again featured exceptional motion-capture visuals for the ape characters. I mean it’s clear that the whole controversy surrounding whether or not motion-capture performances should be nominated for any major acting awards is still out there, hence why there’s no nomination for Andy Serkis’ work in the film. Ultimately though, like I said before, I’m fine with any of these films taking home this award and unlike last year, it’s not 100% certain which one will.

BEST MAKEUP/HAIRSTYLING

*FOXCATCHER

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

My Pick: Guardians of the Galaxy

Admittedly there isn’t really that much to say about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ when it comes to hairstyling considering that quite a few of the characters are bald (Drax, Nebula, etc…). Still, you really got to give the makeup artists a lot of credit for their work here. Now you can make the joke that most of the ‘aliens’ in the film were just humans who had paint splashed on them and for the most part that’s kind of true. But I’m mainly referring to the makeup effects for some of the main characters, namely Drax, Nebula, and Ronan, who had unique looks to them in terms of the makeup design. The work for Ronan and Nebula is so effective that Lee Pace and Karen Gillan are pretty much unrecognizable in these two roles. And as for Drax, Dave Bautista literally had to stay standing for the whole time that his makeup was being applied. That takes a lot of patience to get through and ultimately I feel that it paid off nicely. I have the feeling that ‘Guardians’ probably won’t be a ‘front-runner’ for Best Visual Effects so I think it has a better chance at winning this award. If not ‘Guardians’, then ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ which I think is going to win big in the next two categories coming up.

BEST COSTUME/PRODUCTION DESIGN

COSTUME DESIGN

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*INHERENT VICE

*INTO THE WOODS

*MALEFICENT

*MR. TURNER

PRODCUTION DESIGN

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*THE IMITATION GAME

*INTERSTELLAR

*INTO THE WOODS

*MR. TURNER

I’m pairing these categories together because not only do I feel that a lot of times they’re basically just the same thing (even though production design is technically a different aspect of filmmaking than costume design), but because my pick for both categories is the same film.

My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel

‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ was actually my first major introduction to the films of Wes Anderson and right away I can say that one thing that you can always expect from a Wes Anderson film is a top-notch production design and colorful, zany visuals to boot. And that’s definitely the case with ‘Budapest’. There was some pretty unique-looking model work done in this film (namely wide shots) and the overall production design has a nice wintery vibe to it. The costume design was also really solid too, with plenty of colorful and eccentric outfits worn by the main characters. So that’s why my vote goes towards ‘Budapest’ in regards to both its production and costume design. I’m not sure if it has much of a chance at winning Best Picture but I have the feeling it’s much more likely to win in these two categories. For my runner-ups in these categories, I’ll be going with the simplistic but visually-pleasing production design of ‘Interstellar’ and the eye-popping fantasy costumes of Disney’s ‘Maleficent’.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

*BIG HERO 6

*THE BOXTROLLS

*HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

*SONG OF THE SEA

*THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA

My Pick: Big Hero 6

Well seeing how a certain animated film didn’t get a nomination in this category, I have to go with my second favorite animated film from 2014, ‘Big Hero 6’, as my choice for Best Animated Film. In my review, I referred to it as the animated equivalent of a MCU film, resulting in a fun, colorful, and charming effort from Disney, who are clearly in their second animated renaissance when it comes to their films. Not only that, but it is coming off the heels of ‘Frozen’, which won this award last year so I think it has a pretty good chance at a possible win. Though it does have some heavy competition in the form of DreamWorks’ ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’, which has won this same award at a lot of other award ceremonies including the Golden Globes and the Annie Awards. But at the time I am writing this, I have not seen it… nor have I seen the other nominees in this category. Let me reiterate… I’m not going to complain about ‘The LEGO Movie’ not getting a nomination here. Moving on…

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*THE IMITATION GAME

*INTERSTELLAR

*MR. TURNER

*THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

My Pick: Hans Zimmer- Interstellar

While ‘Interstellar’ was a fairly polarizing film amongst critics and audiences, the score by Hans Zimmer wasn’t so it earns my vote for this award. Anyone who went into this movie expecting Zimmer’s score to be too similar to his work on the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy were more than likely pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn’t the case. A very organ-based score, Zimmer delivered some truly epic motifs as well as some genuinely emotional beats that resulted in a nicely balanced sci-fi film score. In the terms of the former, the best example of this came during the docking scene (‘No Time for Caution’) and, in terms of the latter, was best exemplified in the scene where Cooper leaves home (‘Stay’). Some people felt that the score was too bombastic though I think that was more a problem of the sound design… and yet the sound design was nominated in both ‘Sound Mixing’ and ‘Sound Editing’ (go figure). I guess the Academy wasn’t too bothered by it. I mean, to be fair, it didn’t bother me ‘that much’ either but for the record, it doesn’t get my vote in either of those two categories (that honor goes to ‘Whiplash’ and ‘American Sniper’, respectively). Anyway, my runner-up in this category will be ‘The Imitation Game’, specifically for the final track of the score ‘Alan Turing’s Legacy’. Alexandre Desplat has delivered some truly excellent scores in the past and this one is no exception.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

*EVERYTHING IS AWESOME- THE LEGO MOVIE

*GLORY- SELMA

*GRATEFUL- BEYOND THE LIGHTS

*I’M NOT GONNA MISS YOU- GLEN CAMPBELL: I’LL BE ME

*LOST STARS- BEGIN AGAIN

My Pick: ‘Glory’- Selma

I’ll just be honest… I had never heard of ‘Grateful’, ‘I’m Not Gonna Miss You’, or ‘Lost Stars’ before these nominations were announced. In fact I’m a little disappointed that ‘The Last Goodbye’ from ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ wasn’t nominated. Anyway… this category looks to be a contest between the emotionally rousing tune ‘Glory’ by Common and John Legend and the annoyingly catchy ‘Everything is Awesome’ by Tegan and Sara (featuring The Lonely Island). While it was definitely one of those songs that immediately got stuck in your head, ‘Everything is Awesome’ was also a pleasantly upbeat tune that fit perfectly with the overall tone of the film. But in the end my vote goes to ‘Glory’ for its empowering themes and beat that, like ‘Everything is Awesome’, also fit well with the film that it was made for. ‘Selma’ may not have been nominated for Best Actor or Best Director, and it probably won’t win Best Picture, but it definitely looks like it will win for Best Original Song.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

*BIRDMAN

*BOYHOOD

*FOXCATCHER

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*NIGHTCRAWLER

My Pick: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

Wes Anderson’s films are full of quirky and hilarious dialogue; ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ is no exception. My favorite moment, you ask? When Gustave is hanging off of the cliff and Jopling starts stomping the ground trying to knock him off. Gustave seemingly accepts his fate… and then Zero pushes Jopling off (‘Holy S***, you got him!). For my runner-up pick, I’m going with ‘Birdman’ for both its excellent portrayal of an actor trying to recapture his former glory and its fair share of humorous bits of dialogue.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

*AMERICAN SNIPER

*THE IMITATION GAME

*INHERENT VICE

*THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

*WHIPLASH

Quite a bit of controversy surrounding this group of adapted screenplay nominees this year. One of them, ‘Whiplash’, technically isn’t an adapted screenplay at all. Now it’s true that ‘Whiplash’ was originally a short film but that was done just so that investors would sign on to produce the full-length film. So really it should be in the ‘Original Screenplay’ category but it isn’t, apparently due an error by the Academy. And then with the two biopics ‘American Sniper’ and ‘The Imitation Game’, both films attracted controversy for their alleged ‘historical inaccuracy’. In the case of ‘Imitation Game’, it was for ‘allegedly’ underplaying Alan Turing’s homosexuality. And ever since it became a major hit at the box office, ‘American Sniper’ has been criticized by many people for its stance on the war in Iraq and the ‘questionable’ heroism of Chris Kyle. The other major biopic in this category, ‘The Theory of Everything’, has gone by unscathed for the most part. So with that said, where do I stand on this category?

My Pick: Any of the following 3: ‘Whiplash’, ‘American Sniper’, or ‘Imitation Game’

In a sense, I should probably go with ‘Whiplash’ just on the grounds that it should probably win anyway due to it being put in the wrong category. But I also really liked ‘American Sniper’ as well. Now of course I’m aware of all of the controversy surrounding the film but because I’m not really that much of a political person, I’m not really going to say anything about it. Really, the key to the film wasn’t its views on the war in Iraq or how cohesive the overall story was. Where it succeeded the most was how it portrayed the struggles of Chris Kyle, specifically how he felt compelled to keep going on tours of duty because he struggled to adjust back to normal life at home. Kyle’s story is a very fascinating one and Kyle himself is a fascinating person. Another equally fascinating person was Alan Turing and that is why I also give credit for ‘The Imitation Game’ for being a very compelling war story through the eyes of a man whose work forever changed the world. Personally I didn’t think the film ‘underplayed’ Turing’s homosexuality; I think it was handled very subtly showing the personal struggle Turing must’ve gone through his interactions with his co-workers, like how in one scene he risks it all so that he can reveal to his superiors that one of his co-workers was a Soviet spy. Ultimately, I’d be fine with any of these three films winning this award. ‘American Sniper’ and ‘Imitation Game’ were my favorite biopics from a year that was full of great biopics. But ‘Whiplash’ also had a great screenplay too; too bad it accidentally ended up in the wrong category.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

*PATRICIA ARQUETTE- BOYHOOD

*LAURA DERN- WILD

*KEIRA KNIGHTLEY- THE IMITATION GAME

*EMMA STONE- BIRDMAN

*MERYL STREEP- INTO THE WOODS

My Pick: Patricia Arquette- Boyhood

This year I’ve made an effort not to read a lot of ‘Oscar Coverage/Predictions’ posts for fear of this year’s event turning out as ‘predictable’ as it was last year due to the fact that I read a lot of posts that discussed all of the major front-runners for each award. But it’s safe to say that for the Supporting Acting categories this year, we have clear front-runners. In the case of Supporting Actress, it’s Patricia Arquette for her role as the Mom from ‘Boyhood’. Now I’m just going to lay this out there… I wasn’t really that big a fan of ‘Boyhood’ compared to, well, pretty much everyone else in the world given the fact that this is easily the most critically acclaimed film of last year. Now I’m not faulting the film for its ambitious production technique (being shot over 12 years with the same main actors) and I do think it did a great job at capturing the childhood experiences of the main character. But ultimately it didn’t really connect with me that much and I think that is because I never really had a childhood like the one Mason has in the film where my parents were divorced and my family moved around a lot. Now if you did have a childhood like that, then I perfectly understand why you’d connect with this film and really I feel that this will be the key factor as to whether or not you like the film. Again, let me be clear; I don’t hate it, and for the record I hate to use this following term, but I do feel that it’s a bit overrated and it’s ultimately my least favorite out of these 8 Best Picture nominees… boy I can already expect a lot of cinephiles giving me a lot of unfair s*** for this one.

But I will give credit where credit’s due in that Patricia Arquette does a fantastic job in this film as the mother; she and her husband (played by Ethan Hawke, who for the record I would have probably picked as my choice for Best Supporting Actor had there not been a different frontrunner in that category (more on that in a sec)) are probably the most interesting characters in the film. Personally I would’ve loved to see them reconnect as a couple (especially after she went through a series of, to quote the film’s ‘Honest Trailer’, drunken a-holes) but in the end Arquette did a great job portraying the emotional struggles of this character, as shown in scenes like the one near the end where she breaks down as Mason prepares to leave for college as she realizes how fast time has flown by. If I had to choose a runner-up, I’d go with either Keira Knightley from ‘The Imitation Game’, who definitely held her own against Benedict Cumberbatch in that film, or Emma Stone from ‘Birdman’. I’ve heard a lot of people say that Stone was the weakest part of ‘Birdman’ but I disagree. I think she did a really nice job in that film but in the end, I think it’s safe to say that Arquette is going to win this one.         

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

*ROBERT DUVALL- THE JUDGE

*ETHAN HAWKE- BOYHOOD

*EDWARD NORTON- BIRDMAN

*MARK RUFFALO- FOXCATCHER

*J.K. SIMMONS- WHIPLASH

My Pick: J.K. Simmons- Whiplash

There’s no contest here… on pretty much all accounts, it looks like the former boss of the Daily Bugle is going to win the Oscar for his turn as the tough-as-nails music conductor Terrence Fletcher in ‘Whiplash’. Seriously, J.K. Simmons is so frigging amazing in this film and is guaranteed to make you terrified of him whenever he goes all out on any of his students; all those years playing J. Jonah Jameson in the Sam Raimi ‘Spider-Man’ films really paid off. I mean it’s pretty much a given that Simmons is going to win Best Supporting Actor on Sunday. But what if, on the off chance, he doesn’t win it? I mean, this is a really solid list of nominees we have here… and yes I’m saying this even though a lot of people are bashing the nomination of Robert Duvall for ‘The Judge’ due to the mixed-to-negative reactions towards the film. I’m not one of those people (I did like the film) but I think it’s safe to say that Duvall isn’t going to win anyway. As for the other three, like I noted earlier, I’m going with Ethan Hawke as the dad from ‘Boyhood’. The dad was actually my favorite character in that film, primarily due to his all-around likable personality (again to quote the ‘Honest Trailer’, he wasn’t that bad, especially compared to his ex-wife’s other husbands). But like with Best Supporting Actress, I don’t think we’re really going to see an upset here.

BEST ACTRESS

*MARION COTILLARD- TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

*FELICITY JONES- THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

*JULIANNE MOORE- STILL ALICE

*ROSAMUND PIKE- GONE GIRL

*REESE WITHERSPOON- WILD

My Pick: Rosamund Pike- ‘Gone Girl’

Out of all of the acting categories, this is the one where my choices are the most limited because I’ve only seen two of these films; ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Theory of Everything’. And while Felicity Jones did a phenomenal job in ‘The Theory of Everything’, my vote goes to Rosamund Pike for his stand-out performance as Amy Dunne in ‘Gone Girl’. Once the big reveal of ‘Gone Girl’ occurred showing that Amy was the mastermind behind her own disappearance, Pike commands the film from that point on and as I noted before I didn’t expect this character to be as, to put it simply, committed as she was. Regardless of your overall stance on the character, Pike’s performance in the film was outstanding. But of course, Jones’ work as Jane Hawking was also superb so of course, given the fact that I haven’t seen ‘Two Days, One Night’ (which from what I hear only played in like two or three theaters nationwide), ‘Still Alice’, or ‘Wild’, she is my runner-up pick. But it’s looking like we have a different front-runner for this category in Julianne Moore for ‘Still Alice’ given the fact that she’s pretty much won every other major award in this category from the Golden Globes to the SAG Awards. 

BEST ACTOR

*STEVE CARELL- FOXCATCHER

*BRADLEY COOPER- AMERICAN SNIPER

*BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH- THE IMITATION GAME

*MICHAEL KEATON- BIRDMAN

*EDDIE REDMAYNE- THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

My Pick: Eddie Redmayne- The Theory of Everything

In a category full of fantastic performances that all deserve their nominations, I’m going to go with Eddie Redmayne for his turn as Stephen Hawking in ‘The Theory of Everything’. It was a role that required quite the transformation and Redmayne handled that perfectly. I mean, I’m kind of rooting for him anyway in the hopes that the alleged ‘Norbit’ curse that affects actors who have a critically maligned movie come out a few weeks before the Oscars won’t occur for him. Personally, I think this ‘curse’ is a bunch of bull but Redmayne did recently star in ‘Jupiter Ascending’ and of course as we all know, his turn as the villain in that film was one of the biggest acting misfires in recent memory. Still, that doesn’t take away the fact that he was brilliant in ‘Theory of Everything’ so that is why he earns my vote here. On a side note, Julianne Moore is arguably in the same boat as well giving the poor critical and commercial performance of ‘Seventh Son’ but again I really don’t believe in this ‘curse’ so I think that both of them will be fine. Runner-Up? Screw it, I’m fine with any one of these five brilliant performances taking home the Oscar. All five of these performances were brilliant and while it’s looking like it’s mainly a toss-up between Redmayne and Keaton, there’s no denying the phenomenal work that these five actors did in their respective films. In my opinion, this is the best group of nominees from any of the Oscar categories this year.

BEST DIRECTOR

*WES ANDERSON- THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU- BIRDMAN

*RICHARD LINKLATER- BOYHOOD

*BENNETT MILLER- FOXCATCHER

*MORTEN TYLDUM- THE IMITATION GAME

My Pick: Richard Linklater- Boyhood

While I’ve already made it very clear that I’m not the biggest fan of ‘Boyhood’, my vote for Best Director goes to Linklater for his work on the film as this is a case similar to Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Gravity’ last year. He worked on this film for 12 years and it got to the point where Linklater was going to put Ethan Hawke in charge of finishing the film in case he ended up dying at one point. Thankfully he didn’t and he was finally able to finish the film this year so ultimately he basically deserves this award anyway. I mean to be perfectly honest, this is a rather dull list of nominees for Best Director this year. I’m not discrediting any of the work done by these five directors but I do wish that there were some more ‘interesting’ nominees in this category, like Ava DuVernay for ‘Selma’ (not going to bring up the ‘race’ issue) or David Fincher for ‘Gone Girl’. So from the other four nominees, I guess my runner-up will be Wes Anderson for ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ though it’s unlikely that he’ll actually win.

BEST PICTURE

*AMERICAN SNIPER

*BIRDMAN

*BOYHOOD

*THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

*THE IMITATION GAME

*SELMA

*THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

*WHIPLASH

Just for reference, here are my ratings for these 8 films:

American Sniper- 5/5!

Birdman- 4.5/5

Boyhood- 3.5/5

The Grand Budapest Hotel- 5/5!

The Imitation Game- 5/5!

Selma- 5/5!

The Theory of Everything- 4.5/5

Whiplash- 4/5.5

Personally I feel that this is one of the best groups of Best Picture nominees that I’ve ever seen. And while I may not have been the biggest fan of the critical darling that was ‘Boyhood’, I would be fine with any of these eight films winning Best Picture… but if I had to choose one…

My Pick: AMERICAN SNIPER

Is this the ‘best’ film of 2014? Probably not, but from a personal preference, ‘American Sniper’ was my favorite out of all of these nominees. Is the film perfect? No. Has there been a whole lot of controversy surrounding the film since it became a box-office hit? Yes. But like I said before, I’ve ignored most of this controversy due to the fact that I’m not that much of a ‘political’ person. Besides, there have been quite a few times where the ‘audience favorites’ have won Best Picture before. Remember in 2003 when ‘Return of the King’ won this award? Or when ‘Titanic’ did it back in 1997? Heck, you may even argue that ‘Argo’ was probably the fan favorite a few years ago. My runner-ups for this category are the three other films that I gave 5/5 ratings to. That includes ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, which probably won’t win but was still very entertaining, ‘The Imitation Game’, my second favorite biopic from last year and one that did really hit me on an emotional level, and ‘Selma’, and again I’m not saying anything about the controversy surrounding this film’s snubs.

So those are my picks for the 87^th Academy Awards. Obviously many of you are going to have different picks so feel free to share them in the comments below. 

Favorite Films of Summer 2014- As Voted by the Fans

A little over a week ago, I set up a poll on Surveymonkey.com and asked you guys to vote on what your favorite movie from Summer 2014 was and I’m really pleased with the amount of responses the poll got. In the end, 43 people submitted their votes so with that said I would like to thank all of those who voted. So now that the voting process is closed, it’s time for the fun part of all of this. Now you guys get to see which films earned your votes as your favorite films from these past four months of the year. Now despite what I said in my ‘End of Summer Announcement’ post, I’m ultimately not going to do a ‘Top 10’ list. The main reason for this is because ultimately 19 films earned votes from you all and a lot of them had similar amounts of votes (some had 2 votes each, some 3 each, etc…) so it’s actually rather impossible to do an official ‘Top 10’ list. So instead of doing that, I will be listing all of the films that got votes, going from those that earned the lowest amount of votes to the ones that got the highest. So without further ado, here are your favorite films from the Summer 2014 movie season.

9 FILMS EARNED ONE VOTE

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

If this film hadn’t gotten a mixed reaction from both critics and audiences, I’d be more comfortable in saying that this was the best year for comic book movies yet. For the record, I do think this has been the best year so far for comic book movies mostly because of the other three superhero films that came out this year which all earned glowing reviews from both critics and audiences. But Spidey wasn’t as lucky as ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ pretty much became the ‘Man of Steel’ of the year as both critics and audiences were mixed on it though overall I’ve heard QUITE a lot more negative reviews than I have positive ones. I may be in the minority here, but I really loved this film. I may have been hesitant at first about these ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies due to their status of being a very rushed reboot (just five years after the Sam Raimi trilogy had ended) but after seeing these films, I actually find myself preferring these two to the Raimi trilogy because I like the characters in this series more, specifically Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy, respectively.

The common complaint towards this film was that it was too overcrowded in both ideas and characters and while I do see where people are coming from with this, I didn’t really think it was that ‘bloated’. It’s clear that with this film the writers did not realize the major problem of ‘Spider-Man 3’ in that it had too many villains. Both films have three villains each but overall I feel that ‘Spider-Man 3’ is still the bigger mess in terms of its characters and plotlines. But even with that said, I don’t think that film is as bad as the entire internet is putting it out to be… and the same can be said for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ as well. Despite the multiple villains, the film does clarify who the ‘main villain’ is, I found the story to be pretty self-contained, and while I’m not trying to compare the quality of the following films, the direction by Marc Webb is much more confident here than it was in the first film, similar to Christopher Nolan when he went from ‘Batman Begins’ to ‘The Dark Knight’. It’s clear that Sony wants to do a ‘Sinister Six’ movie and that is something that I do want to see. But if I did have any complaints about ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’, it is that the lead-in for ‘Sinister Six’ is just a minor tease during the ending. Sony, if you want to make ‘Sinister Six’ happen, actually start making it happen!

CHEF

In between all of the summer blockbusters that came out this year was this charming little indie film from Jon Favreau about a chef who quits his job at a major restaurant when he feels that he is unable to express his culinary creativity. He also becomes infamous on social media when he berates a food critic both online and in person for criticizing his food (which was because he had to stick to the ‘classics’ and was forbidden from trying new things). It’s fairly clear that this film’s story mirrors Favreau’s own frustrations with the Hollywood system. After directing many big-budget summer blockbusters like ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and the first two ‘Iron Man’ films, he returns to the more low-budgeted films where he got his start as a director. ‘Chef’ is an incredibly charming film, with an excellent message that stresses the importance of freedom of expression. I especially loved the sequence in this film when Favreau’s character, his son (Emjay Anthony), and his best friend (John Leguizamo) go on a road trip across the country in their new food truck. Now I can’t say that it’s the ‘best film’ of the year because I didn’t really find it as funny as a lot of people were saying it was but at the same time I still appreciated the charm of this film and its strong message. All in all, ‘Chef’ was a very pleasant change of pace from all of the summer blockbusters.

MILLION DOLLAR ARM

This film, released during the weekend that ‘Godzilla’ came out, is based on a true story about a sports agent who, looking to find new talent for the Major Leagues, establishes a new contest in India in order to find new talent. His first two contenders, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel) became the first two Indian men to sign U.S. pro sports contracts. Now I didn’t see the film but from what I’ve seen online, it looks like the film got pretty decent reviews from critics. To paraphrase the RT consensus, it’s a pleasant film that benefitted heavily from having Jon Hamm in the lead role while not really adding much to the ‘inspirational sports story’ formula that we’ve seen a lot of times. But really… I don’t really mind that at all. Being a sports fan myself, I grew watching films like ‘Rookie of the Year’, ‘Angels in the Outfield’, and ‘Remember the Titans’ and while I know they all share similar plot points, I still find a lot of them to be very entertaining. In fact, the same can be said about another sports film that came out this year, ‘Draft Day’, which I did see and I was rather surprised to find that I really liked it. I didn’t end up seeing ‘Million Dollar Arm’ in theaters, but I’ll probably watch it sometime soon.

EDGE OF TOMORROW

‘Edge of Tomorrow’ unfortunately ends up being one of the most criminally underrated films of this summer season. Now I’m not saying it’s ‘underrated’ from a critical perspective because it actually got really, really good reviews from critics (something that I did not expect to happen at all). I’m referring to how the film performed at the domestic box office where it fared pretty poorly commercially. It only grossed about $100 million here in the U.S., at least $78 million under its budget. Thankfully the international box office helped it at least make its money back but still it’s sad to see that this film didn’t fare so well here in the U.S. It seems like the biggest reason for the film’s poor performance was due to lackluster marketing which might have had some people thinking that it was just a rehash of star Tom Cruise’s most recent film ‘Oblivion’. However, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is far from that; it’s an incredibly well-made sci-fi action blockbuster with phenomenal performances from both Cruise and Emily Blunt. The first half of the film sees Cruise go against type as a general who isn’t trained in combat but forced into serving on the front lines while Blunt more than proves that she can be a Grade-A female action star. Hopefully this film’s poor performance at the U.S. box office won’t affect this film’s reputation too hard because it really was an excellent entry in the sci-fi genre.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Speaking of excellent sci-fi films, now we come to ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, the sequel to 2011’s surprise hit ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. ‘Dawn’ is one of the rare sequels that actually manages to improve over its predecessor. Like ‘Rise’, it gives us characters that we really do care about but it also does a great job at immersing us in this ‘post-virus’ world where genetically-modified apes are living away from the human race, who is trying to survive after a virus wiped out millions of people. Andy Serkis is once again phenomenal as the lead ape Caesar but credit is also due for Toby Kebbell as the ape Koba. While he is the ‘villain’ of the film, at times you actually do sympathize with him because of how he was treated before the virus spread. The human cast is really great as well, including the fairly underrated Jason Clarke in the lead human role (the scenes between him and Serkis are phenomenal) and Gary Oldman in a role that, going in, might have had you thinking he’s the bad guy but instead they actually gave him a really good amount of depth. So all in all, director Matt Reeves delivered what could arguably be the best ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie to date; a film that is not only entertaining, but one that also quite a lot of emotional depth as well.

SEX TAPE

As the title suggests, this film centers on a couple (played by Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) who film a sex tape in order to spice up their love life. However, instead of deleting the video when they are done, it ends up getting uploaded to ‘the cloud’ which is linked to a bunch of iPads that they gave to their friends, resulting in them trying to get them all back before anyone ever sees their video or, worse, it gets leaked to the internet. Now I didn’t see this film in theaters because of one main reason… it got TERRIBLE reviews from critics and considering that it got a C+ on CinemaScore, I’m guessing it didn’t fare too well with audiences either. My friend Matt saw it and he told me that it was ‘all right’ with the major highlight being a cameo by Jack Black as the owner of the website YouPorn. But despite that, I really have no interest in this film right now and am probably not going to bother with it.

THE PURGE: ANARCHY

2013’s ‘The Purge’ was one of those movies where, despite the fact that it didn’t fare well with critics (and from what I’ve seen online, even most audiences), it was still very successful from financial standpoint because it was filmed on a very small budget. So because of this, we got a sequel, ‘The Purge: Anarchy’. Now I didn’t see ‘The Purge’ so I didn’t see ‘Anarchy’ when it was in theaters. The general consensus seemed to be that while it still really wasn’t that good, it was at least an improvement over its predecessor. The main reason for this was because unlike the first film, this film took place in a city during the event known as ‘The Purge’, when all crime is made legal for 12 hours and all emergency services are shut down. The first film mainly took place within the home of the main characters which I’m guessing disappointed a lot of people who wanted to see a lot more of this ‘Purge’ thing but instead had to be stuck watching this family try to survive when they come into conflict with a group of Purgers. However at the same time, it seems like this film still had its fair share of stupid characters (I’m aware that most of what happened in the first film happened because of one incredibly stupid action committed by the main character’s son) and was really nothing more than a series of violent imagery trying to act like it’s smarter than it really is. But again, I haven’t seen either of these films so I don’t know how I would actually feel about these films.

LET’S BE COPS

I didn’t see ‘Let’s Be Cops’ for one main reason and it actually wasn’t because of the reviews which were pretty bad regardless. Believe it or not the main reason why I didn’t really have my interest in the film was because of what happened in one of my film classes. My professor had recently been to Los Angeles where he got to take a peek at some of 21^st Century Fox’s upcoming films, including ‘X-Men’ and this film. He responded favorably to ‘X-Men’ but not so much for ‘Let’s Be Cops’. So you can chalk this up as another comedy this summer that I didn’t see.

LIFE ITSELF

Anyone who either is a film critic or wants to become one absolutely needs to see this film, a biopic on the life of famed movie critic Roger Ebert who, even more than a year since his tragic death in April 2013, is arguably still the most famous movie critic of all time. This film gives us a poignant look back on his life. It offers some facts that you might not have known, like how Ebert’s co-host on his show ‘Siskel and Ebert’, Gene Siskel, was once a part of Hugh Hefner’s posse or that Ebert actually wrote the screenplay for a film, ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’. But in the end one thing is clear; as the title suggests, Ebert loved life and I’ll always admire how he continued to do his job and continue to write movie reviews even after losing his voice around 2006. Like many other film critics, both current and aspiring, Ebert had a major influence on my development as a film critic because I read his reviews and while I didn’t grow up with ‘Siskel and Ebert’, I have watched some of their old videos. One major thing I learned from watching him on ‘Siskel and Ebert’ and reading his written reviews is to always stand up for your opinion even if someone else disagrees with you and that is a philosophy that I still follow to this day.

R.I.P. Roger Ebert.

3 FILMS EARNED TWO VOTES

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Talk about a franchise that has successfully redeemed itself after some very mediocre entries. After ‘X-Men’ and ‘X2’ director Bryan Singer left the franchise to go direct ‘Superman Returns’, the series really started to go downhill with the highly disappointing ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and the god-awful ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’. The series managed to get back on track with ‘X-Men: First Class’ (which Singer produced) and Wolverine even got a much better solo outing with ‘The Wolverine’. And finally, Singer returned to the director’s chair with ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, which I feel is the best X-Men film to date. The film of course is based off of the iconic X-Men storyline ‘Days of Future Past’ from the comics though from what I hear, the film doesn’t stay true to the original story that much but regardless of that, it is still a well-written film with the best ensemble cast of any X-Men film to date. Even though the film does focus on a select few of the cast, everyone does their job in this and I really have to highlight James McAvoy who is just phenomenal in this movie. Whereas Michael Fassbender stole the show in ‘First Class’, this movie belongs to McAvoy. I really like how they’ve been handing the character of young Professor X as he starts to mature more into the Professor X that we knew from the original film trilogy. But most importantly this film is pretty much the filmmakers’ apology to the fans for letting the series go the way it did with ‘Last Stand’ and ‘Origins’ as this film pretty much eradicates those films from the series’ timeline. Now we know that this series is back in the right hands now that Bryan Singer has returned to the franchise that he started back in 2000. I can’t wait for 2016’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’.

TAMMY

This was another summer comedy that I didn’t see in theaters. I wasn’t really interested in it before it came out and once I heard it got rather mediocre reviews, I just went to go see ‘Jersey Boys’ again during 4^th of July weekend. As for ‘Tammy’, this is Melissa McCarthy’s newest film. She of course has been on a roll ever since she got nominated for an Oscar for ‘Bridesmaids’. In this, she stars as the titular Tammy, a woman who has a really bad day (she gets fired from her job, she finds out her husband is cheating on her, etc…) so she takes a road trip along with her grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon who, despite playing her grandmother in this, is actually not that much older than McCarthy). Anyway, so the reviews weren’t all that good for it but another reason why I didn’t see the film was because I hadn’t really seen a lot of McCarthy’s work. I’m sure she’s a very funny lady but for the most part, I haven’t really seen a lot of her recent big hits like ‘Bridesmaids’ and ‘The Heat’ so I didn’t really have much interest in ‘Tammy’.

THE EXPENDABLES 3

It’s kind of sad that the newest entry in ‘The Expendables’ franchise performed pretty badly at the box office during its opening weekend. Franchise fatigue might have been the main factor in this along with the filmmakers’ failed attempt at marketing this film towards a younger audience by having the film rated PG-13 (more on that in a second) but clearly a major factor for this poor performance was because of an incident where a Digital Copy of the film was leaked online weeks before the film was set to come out. I know that if the film wasn’t leaked early, it still was at risk at doing poorly at the box office but still it’s pretty sad because this film wasn’t that bad. I’ll admit to being a fan of ‘The Expendables’ films, especially the second one which I feel was a major improvement over the first film by not taking things as seriously and for having better action sequences. So now we come to this third film and it’s rated PG-13 following the first two which were both R-rated and well-deserving of that rating. This change in rating, though, isn’t entirely a bad thing. Yes, a lot of the action sequences are heavily edited but at the same time it eliminated the use of those digital blood squibs that I know a lot of people really hate so it’s not all bad. Plus, even under a PG-13 rating, this film is still pretty damn violent. Like the two that came before it, ‘The Expendables 3’ is cheesy and pretty stupid but I still found it to be pretty entertaining.

3 FILMS EARNED (IRONICALLY) THREE VOTES

NEIGHBORS

In terms of the comedies that came out these past few months, the summer movie season got off to a pretty nice start with ‘Neighbors’, in which Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne star as a couple who end up getting into a ‘turf war’ with a local fraternity when they move in next door. The main reason why I feel this movie worked as well as it did is because while this is about a prank war between the two main ‘parties’ of the film (family vs. frat), this film doesn’t have a ‘villain’. Sure, the film is primarily from the view of the couple and they are a likable couple (Rogen and Byrne do have really nice chemistry) but at the same time it doesn’t portray the members of the frat as ‘a-holes’. They have an admirable goal; become legends of their frat and their leader, Teddy, is doubtful about his future, which is a nice bit of contrast with Rogen and Byrne’s characters who want some more excitement in their lives. So in the end, the frat members aren’t portrayed as being the villains; if they were portrayed as such I feel that this movie could’ve ended up giving fraternities a bad name but it didn’t. Two of my fellow panelists on ‘The Feature Presentation’, Matt and Alex, are in a fraternity and they agree that this film did a really good job when it came to portraying fraternities so overall, this is a fun little comedy that may not be my pick for the funniest film of the year (that honor goes to a film that’s coming up in a few moments) but it is still an incredibly entertaining comedy that has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments.

MALEFICENT

Disney’s latest live-action fantasy film, ‘Maleficent’, is a re-telling of  their classic animated film ‘Sleeping Beauty’ but told from the perspective of its villain, Maleficent, who is arguably the best animated Disney villain of all time. Fans of the character might be a little disappointed, however, that Maleficent is not the main villain here. Instead, she’s the protagonist but it still works because unlike the original film, this film actually does give her a motive for her revenge against the King whereas in the original her motivation for revenge was that she was uninvited to Princess Aurora’s christening. In this movie, she befriended a young boy when she was younger but years later when the boy has the chance to become king, he takes it and betrays Maleficent by cutting off her wings. We do sympathize with her character, even when she acts like the ‘bad guy’, and of course Angelina Jolie is phenomenal in the role. But probably my favorite part of this whole movie is the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora. There’s sort of this ‘mother-daughter’ relationship that develops between them and this really is the heart of the film. Of course the visuals are excellent and at just 97 minutes, the film never overstays its welcome. In terms of the recent big-budget live-action fantasy films that Disney has made in recent years, I still prefer last year’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ but I will say that I did end up liking ‘Maleficent’ more than I did Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’. So far I’d say that Disney is doing a pretty good job in regards to these kinds of movies and I’m interested in seeing more of these kinds of films; live-action versions of their classic animated films.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Despite the fact that director Michael Bay’s newest film, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’, received some of the worst reviews of the year, it still became the highest grossing film of the year worldwide as it’s currently the only film this year that has grossed over $1 billion. Bay’s other major film this year, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, has faced similar scrutiny with critics. Heck, the film was controversial ever since it was first announced and not just because Bay was producing it; there was the alleged change of the origin story, the casting of Megan Fox as April O’Neil, and much more controversial developments that caused many people to predict that this was going to be a disaster. Well, considering what the reviews have been like, I’m guessing many people feel like they were right… however I disagree with that. In fact, while I do understand the criticisms towards the ‘Transformers’ films, I really don’t get the hate towards this film. Now let me be clear; I don’t think that this movie is ‘great’. In fact, compared to the other movies that we got this summer, there’s really nothing about it that ‘stands out’. But regardless of that, I still managed to have a lot of fun with it. When the Turtles are on screen that is where the movie really shines; they had great camaraderie and while I know I’m in the minority on this, I didn’t mind their CGI design.

But I want to address a complaint that I’ve heard that’s being thrown around when talking about this movie and that is that some people feel like this film ruined the TMNT franchise the same way Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films ‘ruined the Transformers franchise’. Again, I get why people would say that about the ‘Transformers’ films but I call major B.S. on the idea that this new TMNT film ruined the franchise. The main reason why is because all of those supposed controversial changes that were allegedly going to happen (e.g. the ‘alien’ origins, William Fichtner being the Shredder, etc…) are not present in any way in this film. This does feel like a Ninja Turtles movie that stayed true to what made this franchise so famous in the first place, more so than Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films ever did. In fact, despite the fact that this is produced by Michael Bay and directed by a Michael Bay wannabe (Jonathan Liebesman), this doesn’t feel too much like a Bay film. For one thing, there aren’t millions of explosions happening every minutes. Plus, even with a PG-13 rating, this film is generally harmless for younger audiences. So in short, I strongly feel that the new ‘Turtles’ film isn’t as bad as the entire internet is putting it out to be. I’ve said the same thing about the ‘Transformers’ movies but this time, I stand by that belief.

THIS FILM EARNED FOUR VOTES

BOYHOOD

The most popular film of the write-in section, ‘Boyhood’ is the highest rated movie of the summer according to Rotten Tomatoes with a 99% Tomatometer score (Given how much a lot of people are loving this film, I’d really hate to be the two critics who gave it negative reviews right now). For those who haven’t heard about this film, here’s the basic rundown about it; the film was shot over a span of 11 years so that director Richard Linklater could properly tell a ‘coming of age’ story with the same kid actor (Ellar Coltrane) as he grew from childhood to adulthood. Just a quick disclaimer; I haven’t seen this film yet so I know a lot of people are going say that ‘I must see it’ so with that in mind I assure you that I will try and see it soon. But for now, it’s safe to say that ‘Boyhood’ is one of the most popular films from this summer as proven by the fact that it was the fourth most popular film on this poll.

AND NOW… THE THREE MOST POPULAR FILMS OF SUMMER 2014 (AS VOTED BY YOU, THE FANS) WITH FIVE VOTES EACH

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Here’s a funny little story about this film. My co-panelists on the ‘Feature Presentation’, Matt and Alex, were going to see ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ but when they went into the theater they ended up coming in during the last few minutes of this movie making them wonder if they went to the wrong theater… thankfully, they didn’t. But anyway, back to ‘Fault in our Stars’, this being an adaptation of a popular novel of the same name by John Green about a young cancer patient (Shailene Woodley) who falls in love with an amputee (Ansel Elgort) when they meet at a cancer support group. I didn’t see the film but from what I’ve heard online, it’s actually pretty good. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, I wasn’t really that interested in this film because I thought it looked like another ‘chick flick’ but thankfully it looks like I was very much wrong about that. So with that said, I probably will see this movie sometime soon; I can’t make any promises but given the fact that I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, it’s more than likely I will end up seeing it in the near future.

22 JUMP STREET

I’m just going to come out and say it… ‘22 Jump Street’ is the best comedy sequel of all time. Now to some that may not be saying much given that most comedy sequels aren’t really that good but this is one of the rare exceptions of a film that is not only as good as the film that came before it (21 Jump Street, a film that I’m pretty sure none of us were expecting would be as good/hilarious as it was) but also better. This film is filled to the brim with meta humor that heavily plays up the fact that this film is pretty much note for note rehashing the exact same plot of the first film, a mistake that a lot of comedy sequels make. However, in this case it works because they continuously poke fun at this and like the last film, the writing is superb and the camaraderie between leads Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is terrific. Admittedly there are some jokes in the film that come off as being incredibly awkward, such as when Hill’s character keeps getting called ‘Maya Angelou’, who had just died a few weeks before the film came out as well as a scene where Tatum’s character criticizes the fact that some people are still using the ‘other F-word’ in 2014, which comes off being really awkward considering Hill’s recent incident in which he used that exact same word on paparazzi. However, the film more than makes up for that with multiple gut-busting laugh-out-loud moments, including one of the best end credits sequences ever in which they do numerous fake sequels to the film. Simply put, ‘22 Jump Street’ is easily the funniest comedy of 2014 (so far), and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller strike gold once again. At this point, having made 4 films that all seemed to be risky ventures at first but ended up being terrific, they really can do no wrong.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

It’s clear that we all got ‘hooked on a feeling’ with Marvel Studios’ latest, and strangest, film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. Remember when everyone was saying that this would be a major risk for the studio given that odds are that most people were unfamiliar with these characters (myself included when the film was first announced)? Well, this ‘major risk’ ended up being the highest grossing film of the summer (stateside) and is currently the highest grossing domestic release of the year. Rightfully so, as it truly is a fantastic comic book film. The film feels self-aware about how this is a much more obscure franchise compared to something like ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Captain America’, resulting in an incredibly entertaining space film a la ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Serenity’. It’s also one of the funniest out of all the MCU films but at the same time it isn’t a straight-up comedy; it takes itself seriously when it needs to be but at the same time isn’t all gloomy and depressing (looking at you, DC, and your alleged ‘no jokes’ mandate). It has the best non-Avengers ensemble cast of the entire MCU with a great cast of leads and some pretty awesome villains.

But most importantly, this film really benefits from having a lot of emotional resonance because you really come to care about the ‘Guardians’. While they are criminals and, to quote a line in the film, ‘a bunch of a-holes’, they’re really just misfits trying to find their place in the universe. You really have to give Marvel a hell of a lot of credit for making us feel for a talking raccoon and a tree creature. It is because of this emotional resonance and the fact that I feel that ‘Guardians’ is actually the funniest MCU film to date (because it’s more consistent with its humor) that I feel that ‘Guardians’ is actually better than ‘The Avengers’. Now I know that’s an incredibly bold thing to say. Also, please don’t misinterpret me because ‘Avengers’ is still phenomenal but after just two viewings of ‘Guardians’, it’s now my new personal favorite MCU film because I feel it does a few things better than ‘Avengers’ (e.g. humor, emotional resonance, etc…). It’s clear that a lot of you share that same sentiment because as this poll shows, ‘Guardians’ was one of your top three favorite films of the summer.

So those are your picks for your favorite films from these past four months of this year. I’m not going to do a ‘Worst of Summer 2014’ poll, mostly because I can already tell which film(s) is/are going to win that argument. So once again, I’d like to thank all of those who voted on this poll and as the end result shows, there truly were a large number of great films that came out this summer based on the various responses you gave me.

I leave you with this... dancing Groot!