Big Hero 6

INTRODUCING ‘REDBOX READY’ – Week of April 14th

April 11, 2015 by Adam Membrey

Here’s the thing: I read about movies a lot more than I actually see them. There’s only so much time. There’s only so much energy. So when you make a choice of a movie to watch, you obviously want it to be worth your time. Netflix and Amazon Prime have so many options that it’s literally a full-time job to keep track of all of it. Not everyone has the cable or those premium movie channels. But Redbox? Everyone has some kind of access to Redbox.

But when you go to a Redbox kiosk, if feels like there’s a clock counting down. There’s already either a line waiting behind you, or people are slowly moving through the parking lot and heading your direction. You have a limited amount of time to make a pretty important choice. The sad thing? You don’t have a lot of information to make that choice. You can see the movie covers. You can try and read the synopsis, but that always takes up more time and angers the people behind you. What would happen if you went to Redbox with an informed mental list of what you wanted to get? You could not only pick a good movie, but in a short amount of time.

Enter Redbox Ready. Each week, I’m hoping to give you some short snippets about the Redbox releases so you can make an informed choice. I can’t guarantee you’ll love the movie, but I can guarantee you’ll know more about it than if you had not read this column.

Since I know some of you reading this have a family to consider, I’m going to introduce a new aspect: The Blush Factor. Again, I’ve read about far more movies here than I’ve seen, so I can’t promise anything; but I will do my best to warn you of the Blush Factor – you know, anything that might make you nervous around your family. Swearing, sex, lots of violence – that kind of thing. Sometimes you can tell by the film’s rating; sometimes you can tell by the people who wrote the script and made the actual movie. There’s nothing lamer than taking a movie home you’re excited about only to find a few minutes in that it’s totally not appropriate for the audience watching it. Let’s avoid that blushing.

Coming to Redbox on April 14^th:

Big Eyes (2014) – directed by Tim Burton, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz

Rotten Tomatoes: 71 %, Audience Score: 70% Liked It

Director Tim Burton has had his head in the CGI clouds for some time now. Go back to his first films and you’ll see a man enamored with the practical – stop-motion and make-up, the eerily realistic over the disarmingly fake. But more and more, Burton’s style began to completely overwhelm any story he was trying to tell. The Master of Macabre got drunk on his own medicine. It then led into a movie I still find grotesquely ugly – 2010’s Alice in Wonderland – for just how full of clashing, poorly composited CGI it is. I resigned myself to the fact that maybe Burton was gone for good. We got some good movies out of him; we could all move on. But then 2012’s Frankenweenie saw him return to the stop-motion that pushed him in the early years, and 2014’s Big Eyes has been reported as a nice return to storytelling form. There’s no major CGI or dark, quirky design elements. This is Burton telling a simple story and telling it well. Let’s hope it’s a sign of good things to come.

The Short Story: Margarent Keane is known for painting figures with unusually large eyes and, running from her husband with only her paintings and her kids, runs into Walter Keane, a fellow painter. Walter goes off selling the paintings while Margaret paints at home – but she doesn’t know he’s actually selling the paintings as his own.

Blush Factor: Pretty low. It’s PG-13 for “brief strong language”. If you have an earmuffs set on hand for the family, you should be just fine.

Exodus: God and Kings (2014) – directed by Ridley Scott, starring Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton

Rotten Tomatoes: 28%, Audience Score: 37% Liked It

Ridley Scott is 78 years old. Just how many people do we know of that age who are making a 140 million dollar epic in the Middle East? You can take that as a sign that this movie has been imbued with some kind of amazing life force that refuses to die – or you can take it as a sign that studios will make anything with Scott as long as he’s still standing. But very few directors today can direct an epic with the eye that Scott has. He’s proven it time and time again over the years, and early trailers showed he still has that visual acumen. The movie gained a lot of controversy early on for having stars that look nothing like someone from the Middle East – like Hollywood’s never done that before.

The Short Story: Moses is pretty fed up with the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses and leads 600,000 slaves on a pretty incredible, action-packed escape from Egypt.

Blush Factor: This is a PG-13 epic for “violence including battle sequences and intense images”. Expect a lot of fighting and maybe some digital blood. PG-13 movies are getting away with violence in ways they never have before, so be aware of that. The other Blush Factor? Respected actors Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton hitting the tanning salon too much in their attempt to look Middle Eastern.

The Babadook (2014) – written and directed by Jennifer Kent

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, Audience Score: 75 % Liked It

The reputation of this Australian film precedes it. Every time I’ve heard the name of it, it’s always been after someone describing it as one of the scariest movies they’ve ever seen. Even better, it seems to that kind of scary flick that leans less on jump-scares on more on psychological horror, while somehow splicing in a really moving story about parents and children.

The Short Story: A mother loses her husband in a car crash. Her only son, whom she’s raising on her own, begins fearing monsters that no one else can see. They read a book about the ‘Badabook’ monster who lurks around the shadows of the house. This isn’t going to be a picnic.

Blush Factor: the film is unrated at the moment, but it has been called one of the scariest films in years by many, many people. In other words: leave the kids out of this one. The only other blush factor to worry about is how often you’ll accidentally pee your pants.

The Penguins of Madagascar (2014) – directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith

Rotten Tomatoes: 71%, Audience Score: 64% Liked It

The Dreamworks Animation franchise train keeps on rolling. After their successful TV show on Nickelodeon, it only made sense to make a Penguins of Madagascar movie. But since this film didn’t do too well at the box office (and Dreamworks Animation’s films have been struggling at the box office in general) enjoy it’s existence, with all its random lines and odd verbal jokes intact.

Short Story: If you know the plot of Despicable Me 2, you know the general plot of this profoundly silly, completely delightful film. The Penguins get wrapped up in a mission to stop an evil octopus from making all other penguins around the world far less cute and a lot more ugly. You read that right.

Blush Factor: Really low. This film is rated PG for “mild action and some rude humor”. So, farting. And maybe a couple jokes that will go completely over your kids’ heads.

Other Movies on Redbox Totally Worth Checking Out:

Big Hero 6 (2014) – Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%, Audience Score: 92% Liked It

This not only made my Top 10 List for the Year of 2014, but probably the Top 5 list of every kid in America. You can’t resist the cuteness of Baymax or the emotional story that threads its way through the movie. I work with deaf students with special needs, and I’m still amazed at how many details they remember and are able to communicate to me. You can pull out any movie from 2014 in front of them, and every single one of them picks Big Hero 6. This is a movie that has stuck to a lot of people for a variety of reasons. Disney has every right to be as proud of this film as they are.

Short Story: If you don’t know already, it’s about a young tech prodigy named Hiro who loses his older brother in a tragic accident and is stuck with his invention, a personal health care companion robot known as Baymax. Hiro also meets a group of well-meaning nerds who band together to fight against a dark power attacking the city of San Fransokyo.

Blush Factor: rated PG for “action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements”. The brother dying might be a bit tough for some little kids to take, but the real blush factor is going to be how much of a weeping baby you are by the end, and with nowhere to hide.

Beyond the Lights (2014) – Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%, Audience Score: 79% Liked It

When I was in high school, I heard many girls talk about this movie, Love & Basketball. It sounded too corny for a guy to like, so I promptly ignored it. When I got to college? Even more women who loved this movie and wouldn’t stop talking about it. If you were one of those women? That movie was directed by Prince-Bythewood and this is her first movie since 2008’s The Secret Life of Bees and only her third feature film overall. She might not make many, but she makes them good.

The Short Story: a young music superstar (up-and-comer Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is caving in from the pressures of fame until she meets Kaz (Nate Parker), a young cop who helps her become the person she’s always wanted to be.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for some minor sexual provocation, some minor violence, and some minor swearing. Nothing too crazy. Just enjoy the movie.

Whiplash (2014) – Directed and Written by Damien Chazelle

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%, Audience Score: 95%

I saw Whiplash a couple months ago in a theater and just couldn’t find a way to say anything about the film that hasn’t already been said before, and better. This is simply an incredible film about a young drummer and the man who pushes him past his limits. You may question his methods, but you won’t question just how kickass a movie this is. The final 20 minutes are my favorite stretch-run of any movie I’ve seen in the past year – I still get goosebumps just thinking about it.

The Short Story: a young freshman drummer goes to college, intent on being great. He runs into a demanding band instructor who wants nothing more than the best from his players. Something’s gotta give.

Blush Factor: There is a lot of language in this film, and most of it screamed by Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons. Because the camera closes in tight on him frequently, it may feel as though he’s in the room, and maybe even yelling at you. If you can’t handle obscenities at high volume, then maybe this film isn’t for you.

The Book of Life (2014) – Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez

Rotten Tomatoes: 82%, Audience Score: 78%

Imagine taking a kaleidoscope, a firecracker, and some confetti and tossing it in a blender. Whatever you get out of that is still not nearly as colorful as The Book of Life. I highly recommend seeing this on the biggest screen and with the best picture possible. The artwork in this film is jaw-dropping, and when the film goes to the Land of the Remembered? You haven’t seen anything this gorgeously colorful. This is a film that celebrates the director’s culture as well as his American influences with some nice popular song covers. It’s about the most heartfelt movie you will see this year outside of Big Hero 6, and something for everyone to enjoy.

Short Story: Manolo, a young man torn between his family’s legacy and what he really wants, finds himself in the middle of a supernatural wager to win the love of his life. You’ve seen this kind of story before, but never with the verve, the depth, or the colors that this one has.

Blush Factor: PG for some mild action, rude humor, and scary images. There are some character designs that are pretty crazy, and the character of Xibalba might be a little visually intense for some.

Birdman (2014) – Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Rotten Tomatoes: 93%, Audience Score: 80% Liked It

After their fractured-narrative films of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, Inarritu and his collaborating writer Guillermo Arriaga went through a bad break-up. No one seems to know exactly what happened, but what followed was a re-evaluation: who was more responsible for how good their three films were? Did Inarritu carry it to greatness and make a decent script great? Did Arriaga create stories Inarritu merely had to point and shoot? Were the two of them just a beautiful collaboration of two distinct artistic voices?

Both men struck out on their own with Inarritu’s Biutiful being praised for it’s electric direction and incredible central performance from Javier Bardem, but derided for a weak and contrived script. Arriaga himself overwrote his directorial debut in The Burning Plain, with his script being called overly symbolic, too much like his other fractured, multiple narrative stories, and without emotional resonance. So who was going to emerge with the career, to get back on track?

While Arriaga has mostly made short films since, Inarritu collaborated with a team of writers and came out with the awards season darling Birdman, which won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. He’s now shooting a movie, The Revenant, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. Not too shabby.

Short Story: The film follows a washed-up actor (Michael Keaton) as he battles his demons in the days leading up to the opening of his new Broadway play.

Blush Factor: Rated R. Lots of swearing, some sex, and a fair amount of bloody violence. It wouldn’t be an Inarritu film without a little bit of everything.

Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 – Directed by Francis Lawrence

Rotten Tomatoes: 65%, Audience Score: 74% Liked It

Director Francis Lawrence brought a nice eye to Catching Fire that gave the film some visual flair and epic world-building. The real problem with this film is that it really only tells half of a story, with the second half of Mockingjay hitting theaters in November. You can blame Lionsgate for that decision, but you can’t blame them for giving the production what it needs to make a pretty incendiary movie.

The Short Story: Katniss continues the fight in District 13. What more do you need to know?

Blush Factor: PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images and thematic material”. A revolution was never going to be pretty or go quietly.

Interstellar (2014) – Directed by Christopher Nolan

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%, Audience Score: 86% Liked It

Last time Nolan followed up a Batman movie with 200-million dollar budget thinkpiece, we got 2010’s Inception. This time, following The Dark Knight Rises, we get Interstellar. Both times the media knew very little about these original films while they were being made. Nolan is one of the few who can command the budget, the large roster of incredible actors, and still remain in relative secrecy until just before film opens. While I’m still amazed I have not yet seen Nolan’s latest, it goes without saying that this is not a film to see when you’re tired – unless you want to fall asleep. There are a number of high-concepts tossed around here, and all of it played out by a large group of game actors. They don’t make movies much like this anywhere, so if you’re one of those people who complains that Hollywood is always dumbing down to it’s audience, this is your antidote.

Short Story: The Earth, devastated by drought and famine, is making it hard for people to survive. Our main character (Matthew McConaughey) must lead a team on a space shuttle deep into the space-time contiuum to try and find another hospitable planet and save the world before it ends. I think. I think that’s it. It’s pretty complicated stuff. Just see the movie!

Blush Factor: Low. Some “intense perilous action and brief strong language:. So, a lot of things go wrong and sometimes people swear about them like normal people do. Nolan’s films have been rather sexless affairs, so no need to worry on that front, either.

Under The Radar, But Now Pinging For Attention

A Most Violent Year (2014) – Directed by J.C. Chandor

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%, Audience Score: 73% Liked It

You know a movie’s going to be good when it’s about something that sounds entirely boring, and yet people talk about how explosive it is. Even better: putting two of today’s finest actors – Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain – together as the couple at the heart of it.

Short Story: Set in 1981 New York City, historically a year of violence, a young immigrant and his family try to make it out as oil salesmen. I told you it sounded kinda boring. But it appears to be anything but. And about that violence of this most violent year? Only two people die in the entire film.

Blush Factor: Rated R. Lots of violence and lots of swearing. You didn’t think 1981 New York City would be anything but, didn’t you?

The Voices (2014) – Directed by Marjane Satrapi

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%, Audience Score: 60% Liked It

Director Satrapi, who made the great graphic novel (and film adaptation) Persepolis, returns to the directing chair to work off another person’s script. The same dark sense of humor is here. Also joining in the fun is an entirely game, incredible acting performance from Ryan Reynolds, as well as nice turns from Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick.

The Short Story: Jerry (Reynolds) clearly has some issues but is refusing to take his meds. As a result, his cat, Mr. Whiskers, starts speaking to him about sinister, evil deeds, while his dog, Boscoe, does his doggy best to persuade him he’s still a good person and he can always do the right thing. The two voices grow louder and louder as Jerry continues to avoid taking his meds, leading him down a pretty awful path he can’t back away from.

The Blush Factor: there’s a lot of swearing in this one, with most of it coming from the cat (of course!). There’s also a lot of violence and blood and completely unexpected things being stocked up in piles of tupperware. The humor in the film takes some of the edge off, but this is still one bloody film.

The Double (2013) – Directed by Richard Ayoade

Rotten Tomatoes: 82%, Audience Score: 60% Liked It

Richard Ayoade, an actor mostly known for British comedy series, The IT Factor, carved out a nice spot for himself as a director with his debut, Submarine. I’ve been dying to see his follow-up, and here it is, with great young actors Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska in tow.

Short Story: a young, introverted clerk in a government agency arrives to work one day to find he has a new co-worker – an exact physical clone of him and yet his complete opposite – outgoing, charismatic, and spectacular with the ladies.

Blush Factor: the f-word is used up to 15 times, and there are reoccuring mentions of suicide throughout the movie, as well as an attempt at the beginning and middle of the movie.

The Drop (2014) – Directed by Michael R. Roskam

Rotten Tomatoes 89%, Audience Score: 77%

Don’t let the boring title deter you. Screenwriter Dennis Lehane should be a familiar name to any crime fiction fans as he’s responsible for the novels of which the movies Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island were all based on. He also was a writer for HBO’s The Wire, which is always a great stamp of approval in my book. Here, Lehane wrote his first screenplay as an adaptation of his own short story, “Animal Rescue”. The script was enough to attract the great cast of Tom Hardy and the late James Gandolfini.

The Short Story: A bartender (Hardy) who makes money drops finds himself caught in the middle of a robbery gone awry, entrenching him in an investigation that reveals a town that works together to make a living, regardless of the costs.

Blush Factor: Rated R for a ton of swearing (66 f-words!) and violence. This is a crime film after all.

Top Five (2014) – Directed by Chris Rock

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%, Audience Score: 67%

I’ve never been convinced of Chris Rock as an actor. Every movie he’s in, he seems to be unable to blend into the scene. When Top Five took Sundance 2014 by storm, I figured, “Maybe he’s figured something out!”. But when I saw the film, the first half of it felt like that guy at a party who’s trying way too hard to sound smart. He uses obscure references. He moves around too much. He thinks he knows how things work when those who know better shake their head a little. There’s just too much going on, and it all seems to be a way for him to show you, “Look! I’ve come a long way!”. But once Rock, the director, writer, and actor, calms down about halfway through, the film gets a new charge. It feels like something real and organic. Rock looks comfortable with his luminous co-star Rosario Dawson. It feels like a film about two broken people trying to find their way around, and you totally buy it. It may take a while to get there, but once it does, it relaxes into a nice piece of work.

Short Story: A comedian who’s trying to make it as a serious actor agrees to allow him and his fiancé to be filmed for a documentary series about the days leading up to their wedding. Feeling the pressure, he takes a break from the madness and walks around with a journalist who’s intent on doing a story about him.

Blush Factor: Lots of nudity and sexual conversation, pretty non-stop profanity, and some drug use. Definitely not for the kids.

Foxcatcher (2014) – Directed by Bennett Miller

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%, Audience Score: 69%

This film first got attention as being “that movie where Steve Carrell has a beak for a nose” and “Can Channing Tatum win an Oscar?” Much of the award buzz unfortunately fizzled out as the year went on, but this appears to be still be a strong, potent film.

The Short Story: the film is based on a rather shocking true story, in which a Olympic Wrestling champion team of two brothers (Tatum and Mark Ruffalo) gets tangled up with a multimillionaire sponsor in John E. du Pont (Carrell) as they train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It doesn’t go well.

Blush Factor: Rated R for some violence and blood, brief profanity, drug use (cocaine), and a wrestler shown naked from behind as he weighs in. A gun murder is also shown.

Other Films Worth Considering:

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014) – Directed by Shaun Levy

Rotten Tomatoes: 50%, Audience Score: 60% Liked It

You knew they were going to make a third film, because all Hollywood productions come in threes. If you enjoyed the first two, you will likely enjoy this final entry. It also sports one of Robin Williams last performances.

The Short Story: Larry goes to a museum in London to try and keep the magic alive.

Blush Factor: Low. Rated PG for “mild action, some rude humor and brief language”. If you see something awful, like a large monkey peeing on miniature Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan, ask your son, “Is that the appropriate place to tinkle?” and then pat yourself on your back as your child emphatically shakes his head.

Alexander and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day (2014) – Directed by Miguel Arteta

Rotten Tomatoes: 62%, Audience Score: 60%

Director Miguel Arteta has been behind some pretty great little films of the last 10 years – Cedar Rapids, Youth in Revolt, and The Good Girl – as well as a great deal of television episodes. Here, he’s adapting Judith Viorst’s classic children’s book for the screen, and it appears to be just about what you expect – a movie about all the things that can go wrong and still remind you how lucky you are to have the family you do.

The Short Story: It’s all the there in the title. Alexander and his family don’t have a very good day.

Blush Factor: Rated PG. Some mild bathroom humor, a bit of slapstick violence, some pretty tame language. All in all: some good family fun.

Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – Directed by The Farrelly Brothers

Rotten Tomatoes: 29%, Audience Score: 39% Liked It

You won’t find many people a bigger fan of 1994’s Dumb and Dumber than this guy. I still laugh just as hard at it as I did twenty years ago. I initially found myself kind of excited about Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprising their roles from 20 years ago. Cautious optimism, I guess. But then the trailers came out, and some of the jokes seemed like they had been imported from a far crasser Farrelly Brothers movie. It didn’t feel the same. Something felt off. That got confirmed when the movie came out when several critics noted how, unlike the first film, there seemed to be a mean streak with the characters. The original film might have had Harry and Lloyd do some pretty awful things – but they never had any mean intent to them; they were simply clueless.

I still haven’t seen this film, and I’m not sure I really want to. I prefer to think of Harry and Lloyd as the lovable, well-meaning losers they are instead of the creepy, mean-spirited men they may have become. Check this out for yourself.

The Short Story: The boys go on a new road trip to find Harry’s newly discovered daughter, who had previously been given up for adoption.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for some crude sexual humor, some comedic violence, some drug use and some jokes that may be offensive to some.

Welp, that’s all for this week. Tune in next week for another edition of Redbox Ready.

ADAM’S FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2014

March 6, 2015 by Adam Membrey

Before I get started, apologies to the movies of 2014 I will no doubt love but have yet to see: Boyhood, Whiplash*, Nightcrawler, The Babadook, Birdman, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Locke, The One I Love, Force Majeure, Calvary, Foxcatcher, A Most Violent Year, The Skeleton Twins, Only Lovers Left Alive.

1. The Lego Movie

From my youngest years, LEGO has been a part of my life. I still have, in my classroom, over half of my collection that I’ve amassed over the years. I still play with them sometimes. And I have absolutely no shame over that.

So I approached this movie with trepidation until I found out Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 22 Jump Street) were making it. These two dudes are not only some of the funniest directors working today, but they’ve shown time and time again that for all the hysterics that can whip their audience into, for all the creativity they throw out at you to the edges of every frame of film, they never, ever forget the importance of character and story. These guys know what makes it stick.

There are few thrills I had this year like seeing this movie in theaters for the first, second, and third time. Each time just as thrilling as the last. This is a movie built for the long run. It will probably outlast us. And it will probably inspire generations to come. Everything is awesome, indeed.

2. Obvious Child

I first heard about this film as “the one where the girl goes through with her abortion”. The media loves to summarize films into their most incendiary components (this is why Sundance is full of reports of crazy sex scenes that get spoiled 9 months before we get a chance to actually see them).

But Gillian Robespierre’s debut film, adapted from her short film of the same name, is the most charming film I’ve seen all year. It certainly helps having breakout actress/comedian Jenny Slate as her lead, but every actor brings such a humanity to their role that you can’t help but smile throughout. Even the characters who grind our gears at first are given their moments to show there’s more to them than meets the eye. And this is all without saying that the movie is hilarious. I laughed out loud. Far more than once.

This movie will also make you believe that a pee-fart is the most hilarious, most charming thing ever.

3. Edge of Tomorrow

From the time this film was announced as a sort of sci-fi ‘Groundhog Day’, the joke has been clear: either you can go to see Tom Cruise be a badass over and over, or you can go to see him die horrible death after horrible death, again and again, with delightful repetition.

The title changes didn’t sell me. The trailers did an okay job. But this movie, from start to finish, is one hell of a ride. It’s easy to have a plot that involves a lot of repetition become a fast-track to Snoresville, but Doug Liman and his band of movie men have made each do-over as thrilling as what came before. I don’t know how they did it. I’m just glad they did.

Yes, the third act falls into a bit of a trap in which it’s telling they didn’t have it figured out before they started filming. The scenes are too dark, the resolution too rushed. But it all leads up to the most euphoric ending that, against all expectations, is absolutely, absolutely earned.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy

Director/writer James Gunn finally got his chance to shine and play in a much bigger, more expensive toolbox. The amazing thing about this film is how much it feels like Gunn’s sensibility – with its colorful characters and oddball humor – and how it earns every emotion on display. This is the movie that helped Marvel realize anything is possible. Gunn has shown that you can make people care just as much about a simple-minded tree and a scarred raccoon as you can about Chris Pratt. That’s quite the trick.

Superhero movies have, since Batman Begins, been largely grey, drab affairs. Everything that was once colorful and energetic has suddenly been made dark, brooding, and gritty. Some comics are well-suited to this treatment. But anyone who has seen teenagers turn from their bright, effervescent selves to moody, brooding marketers of doom knows that sometimes, when it comes to the shadows, less is more. So I thank Guardians of the Galaxy, with its rich visual palette, for letting us all know that, hey, it’s totally okay to have a superhero movie with bright colors that pop and explode off the screen. It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to be silly. It’s okay to embrace that goofball within you and spread it across a big piece of we’re-becoming-a-family slice of toast. These things are okay – and they can become enormously successful. So I give a standing ovation to Gunn for finding the emotional core of this film, spray-painting it with his full personality, and fighting for everything that made this as special as it is.

5. Wild

I’m still in awe of Nick Hornby’s screenplay. When Amores Perros came out in 2000, it birthed a great deal of movies that played with fractured narratives, moving back and forth and in-between the present, past, and future. And yet, whenever you aligned the pieces into chronological order, the result would be quite underwhelming. It became more smoke and mirrors, with a bucket of tears and overacting thrown in.

Wild is the first movie, that I can remember, that has so perfectly shown how memory works. There are no perfect, clean edits, but rather scenes that bleed into each other, sometimes from pain, sometimes from euphoria, and sometimes from both. Grantland and Entertainment Weekly have written great articles about just how well the music of the film runs parallel to the way the script works, fading in and out and in fragments and, more than anything, working just the way our memories do.

There is so much to admire about this film, and yet I nearly leapt from excitement when I saw Laura Dern nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Her screentime may be compact, but her impact runs far longer. She makes the pain of loss hurt all the more, and helps you understand just how, in her absence, someone’s life could spiral so badly as to require this incredible journey in the first place.

6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

It says a lot about 2014 that the movie I looked forward to the most ends up at #6. This film has balls, guys. It starts with almost 20 minutes of no dialogue, nothing but the apes working together in concert and giving us a chance to experience the civilization they have built. It’s all so elaborate and beautiful, and WETA has done a stunning job of outdoing themselves. These chimps feel as alive and real as ever.

I want to point out something that really stood out to me about the making of this film: in the first of the new Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there were several times where the apes would be swinging in places and in ways that were in no way safe for even a stunt performer. So CGI had to be used. And it really showed. It took me, and, I imagine many others, out of the film.

But this time, director Matt Reeves and his crew did something different: the did motion capture with parkour and gymnastics athletes, and then did their magic. The result is apes that move around, even from high above the tree-tops, in such realistic fashion. It makes a difference, guys. If you can believe how something moves, you can believe how ANYTHING looks. Too often we see it the other way around – the creation will look almost photorealistic, and then look immediately fake once it starts moving. The danger is eliminated. The character ceases to exist. But here? I totally believe them as they’re moving through the forest, working towards an absolutely uncertain conclusion.

This is a film about trust. About how hard it is to earn and how easily it can be broken. This is a story about two chimps, Caesar and Koba, who sit on opposite sides of the coin. One trusts humans, and the other, for completely understandable reasons, cannot stand them. And with the chimps having something that the humans absolutely need, something has got to give. The pacing is deliberate, but never slow. This story takes its time to show you all the increments of change that click into place, that shift gears in ways that are irreversible. And by the end, you will not only be satisfied, but dying for the next chapter. All hail Caesar.

7. Big Hero 6

When Disney first acquired Marvel in 2009, we all wondered out loud which comics their animation studio would take on and run with. In fact, Big Hero 6‘s eventual co-director, Don Hall, recounted to Wired Magazine about the time when he lined up his pitches for possible adaptations, starting with what he felt were his strongest ideas and moving down. As he worked his way to the end of the line, head animation honcho John Lasseter remained, for the most part, still. He didn’t say much. When Hall finally got to the pitch for the 90’s obscure comic Big Hero 6, he described the heart of the story: a young boy who loses his brother, and the robot who essentially becomes his surrogate sibling.

“Finally, Lasseter spoke. ‘That one,’ he said. He was taken with the idea that a robot could become a brother to the main character, and care for him, and teach him. “It had potential for a tremendous amount of heart,” Lasseter says.”

This story not only speaks to the strength of Big Hero 6 as a film, but to Disney Animation as of late. They are rediscovering the emotional core of their stories and letting them guide outward. And, unsurprisingly, the audience is eating it up. In fact, as much as I love the superhero team that develops in the back half of the film, it almost feels like an add-on to the emotional core. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. The heart of the story, with its incredibly charming robot and its obviously grieving main character, is more than enough weight for the movie to build around. It grounds it; it guides it; it makes it feel like something whole and richly satisfying.

And by the time Baymax utters, “The treatment is working,” your tear ducts will be working overtime.

8. How to Train Your Dragon 2

I’ll never forget the moment when I went into Fred Meyer’s one day and saw Pixar’s Up playing on one display TV, with Dreamwork’s recent Monsters vs Aliens playing on another TV. The comparison was not flattering at all. Up, like all Pixar films, looked astonishing in HD, as perfectly crafted with ornate, meaningful detail as we’ve come to expect. Dreamwork’s film, on the other hand, looked absolutely rushed. The characters all looked the same. The colors looked cheap. Everything felt like a product rushed through the assembly line, chasing money over quality.

When Dreamwork’s released 2011’s How To Train Your Dragon, it was the first film from their studio that felt something like Pixar. The attention to detail was noticeably higher. The character designs were as varied and colorful as anything Pixar had ever put together. The lighting, thanks to a visual consultant aid from cinematography wunderkind Roger Deakins, felt as real and bold as any animated film that came before. Shadows were not only deeper, but almost encouraged. It felt like we had stumbled into a lived-in world, rather than a dashed-together theme park ride.

All of this is to say that the second installment of this series has been on my radar for years. I had no idea that Dean DeBlois, who took over sole reigns after his co-directing partner Chris Sanders moved on, was ready for his moment in the sun. Everything about this movie is deeper. The palate. The mythology. The characters. The detail. Everything.

It grapples with real emotional struggles that we’ve all experienced, and it does it in a way that always feels slightly underplayed and always, always cool. And dragons, guys? You can’t beat dragons. Especially when they’re as enormous as in the picture above.

9. The Boxtrolls

“Cheese, hats, boxes, they don’t make you,” Eggs says. “You make you.”

That line, delivered near the end of the film, may sound a little ridiculous, a stumbling attempt at a platitude. But by the time the film gets there? It works. It works for me. I imagine it will work for many others. And sometimes, let’s be honest, we all need a little reminder that our material goods will never be what makes us who we are. We make who we are. Of course we do.

What stood out to me in this film more than anything is the character design. Far too often, we are seeing animation studios use very similar character models throughout their films – Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and even Illumination are all guilty of this. But this film, the 3rd from Laika, is almost a workshop in itself of just how daring you can be with your character design. Each character is incredible distinctive and with so much detail that you will get lost in it. Sometimes the character details are charming, and at times they border on terrifying (who knew lactose intolerance could look so scary?). But they are incredibly inspired in their distinctiveness and willingness to try new things.

Just a jaw-dropping amount of care and detail went into this film. Not everything about this film clicks, but the detail alone is worth any price of admission.

10. 22 Jump Street and They Came Together

After proving (again) their incredible storytelling skills with The Lego Movie only a couple months earlier, Lord and Miller were back to take it to another level. This film, like David Wain’s They Came Together, showed that you can make meta and have heart.

Both films use the deconstruction of the formula – 22 Jump Street with all money-hungry sequels, and They Came Together with every romantic comedy you’ve seen – to not only show how hollow the formula is, but to use them for their own means. They Came Together is all about showing bad romantic comedy cliches at their true core: mostly hot hair with a couple fake kisses. 22 Jump Street uses the formula as a skeleton of which to fill with recognizable emotions – such as that awful feeling when you feel you’re growing apart from the one you love – and inject it with the electricity of hilarious joke after hilarious joke. They both deconstruct the formulas, alright, but they also show why we fall for them every single time.

I still laugh thinking about the intense levels of meta these two films achieved. Bonus points to them for actually making them highly enjoyable movies in the process.

HONORABLE MENTION: Chef

I’ve been a huge fan of Jon Favreau since seeing his debut acting/writing/directing performance in Swingers. Everyone knew he was a born storyteller. He had the chops. He had the charisma. He was ready.

What resulted is Favreau becoming involved with a number of projects with varying degrees of success. But it felt depressing to watch him get beaten up by the Hollywood studio machine with Cowboys & Aliens, Iron Man 2, and a number of big-budget projects that just didn’t work out.

Chef feels like a man exorcising a lot of demons at the same time he’s blazing a new path for himself. It’s a palate-cleanser both for Favreau himself, and for the audience to realize what this man is capable of. This is a simple, gentle film with some well-earned emotions and laughs. You can feel the pain Favreau must have gone through, but you will also experience with him the creative high of turning your life (and your career) around into something that works.

YOUR FUTURE IS BRIGHT AWARD: Neighbors

Coming out of this movie, after having laughed my ass off for two hours, I immediately texted my brother and said, “Dude. You have to see it.” I hounded him for days. I tried to follow up on his mission for weeks. I was convinced he would be raving alongside me. But then I got his response: “Eh, it was okay. It had some kinda funny parts, but felt too much like Project X.” I sat dumbfounded. How could he not have loved Neighbors like I did? But then it hit me: Project X, the 2012 film about 3 teenagers who attempt to throw a lifetime-defining party that quickly gets waaaay out of control, is all about the party and it’s escalating nature. There is an escalating party atmosphere in Neighbors, don’t get me wrong. But what made me laugh the most about Neighbors is the story that, well, neighbors the party: two 30-somethings who are not sure if they’re ready to move on to the next phase of their life, even as they got a baby reminding them that it’s already arrived.

My brother is almost 8 years younger than me. He’s still in college, where sometimes there are parties that escalate. But there aren’t 30-somethings with a baby, desperately trying to show they can still be cool. We plugged into different parts of the film – it happens. So I imagine, maybe 8 years down the road, we will revisit this film together and he, of course, will look to me and say, “Okay, now I see why this is so funny. This is some seriously funny stuff, bro.” And then we will find ourselves foolishly attempting to sneak into someone else’s out-of-control party.

MOST KICKASS MOVIE OF THE YEAR: John Wick

John Wick showed us the simplest way to let everyone know how badass a character is: have the bad guys in the movie speak about him in hushed, reverent tones. I still crack up thinking about the phone calls that took place in this movie, debating how to handle this John Wick. The slow burn of understanding that, Holy smokes, we are so screwed.

This movie is what happens when you have legendary movie fight coordinators take a stab at a story they’ve been dying to tell. All the fights are clearly shot – there’s no shaky cam or nonsensical sense of place. Everything here can be seen and understand. And the conclusion, like John Wick’s actions, is simple: it kicks an unholy amount of ass.

Bonus points to the movie for developing a simple mythology that just made me cackle: a hotel, headed by Lt. Daniels himself, of which no business is allowed to take place on the premises. It’s even more amusing when you realize when the business he speaks of is the killing kind. There are rules. And they must not be broken.

Come for the puppy. Stay for the action. Leave with a smile on your face.

THANKS FOR MAKING ME CRAZY AWARD: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

For a solid 3 months after seeing this film, I whispered “Hail Hydra” in my girlfriends’ ears whenever the time felt appropriate.

There’s never an appropriate time to do it. I blame this movie.

I WILL LOVE YOU SOON AWARD: Grand Budapest Hotel

I imagine that this film will be higher on my 2014 list in the coming years. The film immediately charmed me, but as is wont to happen when you watch a Wes Anderson film as you get sleepy in the middle of a long week, you just might miss the overall aim.

I smile at the parts I remember. I look forward to taking it again as a whole and enjoying it once more.

BIG, BIG BALLS AWARD: Noah

There’s something that happens in Hollywood when a director of smaller, artsier films makes a couple that are so successful he buys himself some capital. A studio, wanting to keep his talent close by and happy, allows him to make the movie he’s always wanted to make, and with a sizeable budget. It happened to Christopher Nolan. And it, to a degree, happened with Darren Aronofsky. And what did he spend his new capital on? A movie he’s wanted to make since childhood: a movie about Noah, of course!

I cannot say enough about the size of this movie’s balls. I am amazed that Paramount willingly put out something like this and didn’t interfere more (though they did try). This film pulls no punches; it holds nothing back. And there are these weirdly awesome, stop-motion-inspired rock monsters! There is all kinds of weird shit in this movie that I just can’t help but admire. And it is all displayed with that same sense of earnestness that Aronofsky had with The Fountain, in which he is deadly serious about the matters at hand and the stakes that come with them. This is as uncompromising as a $125 million dollar movie gets. I can’t praise Aronofsky enough for sticking to his guns.

BEST USE OF AWESOME MONSTERS AWARD: Godzilla

The human story in this film is kinda lame. Populating it with great actors, like Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche, helps a little. But even then, it helps to remember this is not a human story – this is a story about the King of Monsters, Godzilla himself. The human story, I’ve decided, is just there for the audience – and just there to create a sense of scale. Because these humans look mighty small next to these giant monsters.

The inspiration from Jurassic Park is obvious here, but in a way that feels inspired rather than copied. These monsters are not immediately on full display, like every other big, special-effects film out there. They are slowly introduced, bit by bit, piece by piece. It’s such a slow, enticing burn that by the time you get to see everything? You damn near explode. Seeing Godzilla be his badass self is quite the treat. And director Gareth Edwards shows that he’s more than got the goods.

I FULLY ADMIT I WATCHED YOU AWARD: The Fault in our Stars

Guys, let me tell you something: there is absolutely no shame in liking or even crying through this movie. It’s okay. Really, it’s okay.

This movie could have gone wrong in so many ways. But when you start your movie with an appearance by the hilarious Mike Birbiglia, populate your film with great actors, and underplay the material as much as you can? It works. It just works. And did I cry real grown-man tears at the end? You bet I did.

I’LL LOVE YOU WHEN I UNDERSTAND YOU AWARD: Snowpiercer

Going to see this film was one of the best movie experiences I’ve ever had. Alamo Drafthouse and their crazy crew set up a wonderful ride aboard the Hill Country Flyer to an outdoor blow-up theater somewhere around Leander. If you ever get a chance to take a true, living train to the movies – something no one can say unless they’re one really old, incredibly dedicated movie fan – you can’t pass that kind of thing up. And Drafthouse one-upped the game by passing out “protein blocks” – those nasty things as seen in the movie – as a nice little snack along the way.

As someone who is Deaf/HH, I knew there would likely be no subtitles (save for those by some of the foreign-language-speaking characters) and yet I still completely “got” the story since director Bong Joon-Ho is one talented visual storyteller. But I imagine that when I revisit the film, with the full subtitles and all the dialogue understandable, this movie will move further up the list.

RELEASE THE GONDRY AWARD: Mood Indigo

I have always been charmed by director Michel Gondry’s craftwork. The guy’s low-fi aesthetic and ability to seemingly make anything out of anything is a joy to watch on screen. But I – and many others – have always felt that he works best in collaboration with another writer. For all his incredible creativity and outside-the-box thinking, his strengths do not extend as much into the realm of storytelling. His ideas don’t always string together into a coherent whole – the balance is always being threatened.

So it came as no surprise that Mood Indigo – a film he wrote and directed – felt uneven. The tone felt all over the place. The story didn’t always gel as well as I wish it would. And it often felt like the film was playing at 1.5x speed, just a little too fast for everything to be taken in properly.

But the creativity on display? Good Lord. I still want a pianocktail (a piano which will make the cocktail drink you’re supposedly playing); I want to ride in a cloud with a bubble window; I want to have a kitchen like the inventor at the heart of the film has. There are so many creative, inspiringly awesome touches throughout the film that I can’t help but think two thoughts: 1) I’m glad this movie exists just so I can see all this cool stuff I never would have imagined, and 2) I wish Gondry could find a writer who taps into his brain well enough to steer him into the whole film he’s always got the parts of.

Maybe one day Gondry will astonish with his pure storytelling ability. But for now? I’ll take all those wonderful inventions and store them in my imagination.

SNEAKIEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Penguins of Madagascar

Throughout the entire movie, I had this distinct feeling that nobody was paying attention to the writers. The story works in the ways that formulas always do – as long as you got the structure, you can work your way to the end – even if the formulaic plot is so overused that it happens to almost be a carbon copy of Despicable Me 2. But everything in between? There are so my lines in this movie that I had to assume were either written while stoned or as a dare by the writers to see what they could get away with. There’s an astonishing amount of wordplay and verbal wit that I have to imagine the writer’s simply decided the kids would only care about the animation and the words were where they could do something for the adults stuck in the movie.

The formula creaks and eventually bores. But all the non-plot talking in-between? Delightful, subversive fun.

Well, that’s all folks. I know this list has arrived 2 months into 2015. Hopefully this year I’ll deliver on time.

* Just saw Whiplash recently. Expect some kind of attempt at a review soon.