2014 in review

BEST
Ishtar was remarkably good.


I encourage just about everyone to watch Mortified Nation.  It manages to capture the excitement of a live cringe reading.  It's well-directed, and it doesn't slow down.  A big contrast to the Improv Everywhere documentary I watched.

I was impressed with Phone Booth.  Mostly a single location, and it keeps things going strong for the whole thing.

I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining Raze was.  For a budget semi-exploitation movie, it's good.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    To be honest, I didn’t feel like the plot was quite as strong as some of the reviews have made it out to be, but it remains very fun, and each time I look at it, I’m impressed with the variations in the action, the score is really cool, and it’s a comfortably fun watch.

Last Night    This has stuck in my mind.  As the world comes to an end, there is a variety of reactions, but none of them are as anarchic as you would expect.  The slow ending of the world is somehow more beautiful, and more introspective than a violent ending.

Guardians of the Galaxy    It’s hard to ignore the success that Guardians had.  It’s good.  It’s good in a way that pleases a wide audience.  I’ve heard it compared to Star Wars, and that seems to be a fair comparison.  The actual plot will slip past younger viewers, but the imagery and action will capture the imagination.

21 Jump Street/22 Jump Street
    This was a real surprise.  I liked these.  These were both fun watches, but I did prefer the second one, probably for the switch to focusing on “bro” humor.






WORST

    In looking over the list of movies, I noted two other movies that I considered to be really bad.  Butcher Boys and Raptor Ranch.
    I’ve decided to ignore those.  Those were low-budget movies that mostly accomplished what they intended to do.  Sure, they’re bad, but they don’t bother me.

     The Amazing Spider-Man 2 bothers me.  Now and then, I think I should go back and look at the first movie, hoping that it would improve.  I hoped that there could be some character development that happened in the second movie, justifying Peter Parker’s terrible character in the first movie.
    Instead, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is an over-stuffed water balloon filled with crap.  You cringe as you watch it.  With ever mis-step that the movie makes, you worry that this is just going to get all over everything.  And it does.
    There was no point at which I was enjoying this movie.  Every little cameo, every little piece of setup information they dropped in, hoping to develop future movies… all of it was annoying, not pleasant fan service.  Felicia Hardy?  That’s nice, but you changed everything about her.  Dr. Kafka?  That’s nice, but you changed the character for no discernible reason.  Showing all of the equipment - the vulture wings, the octopus arms - just played like an obvious setup.  It didn’t serve this movie at all.
    I’ve already complained about their absolutely terrible treatment of Peter Parker.

    The worst thing about this movie and the first one is that it actually reduces my fandom of the character.  Spider-Man has normally been my favorite comic book character, and now I find myself reading Captain America more.  I’ve picked up Iron Man comics, Avengers comics.  I still read Spider-Man, but nowhere near as much.  I’m not excited for another Spider-Man movie.  However, I’m more excited to see Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and especially the Infinity War movies.  Spider-Man movies?  I think I’m on a negative-excitement level.  I’d rather that they not be created at all.  I would actually avoid watching them.