2014 movies - Top Ten and Below

If you read this blog regularly then you know I am an unashamed movie nut.  Every year for the last post of the year I pontificate on the best and worst from only the movies I went to see. My kids and I share a love of movies but that’s where it stops – my daughter likes the movies with a conscience – my son and I like seeing things blow up (see below).  I’ve also included what I considered to be the worst movies of the year, because that’s almost more fun.

Best Movies of the Year

Top Ten –

#1 - Guardians of the Galaxy – Clear winner this year because it was such a surprise.  A rare combination of action, comedy, warmth, plot, special effects, and probably the most kick ass sound track ever.  I saw this because I’m not going to miss a sci fi flick and was then mesmerized for the next two hours – a singular and totally enjoyable treat. 

#2 - Edge of Tomorrow – Any movie where Tom Cruise is killed literally hundreds of times is worth seeing but combine that with a great story and a seemingly impossible battle against an alien menace and you have a true winner.  Emily Blunt’s performance as a dangerous alien killer brings this to another level.

#3 - 22 Jump Street – the funniest movie I’ve seen in years because it pokes such unrelenting fun at itself and sequels in general.  Channing Tatum can do anything and his comedic timing with Jonah Hill is hilarious.  Throw in what has to be the funniest end credits in cinema history and you’ve got something very special.

#4 – Lucy – a big year for Ms. Johansson who is transformed into a superhuman when illegal drugs leak into her system which allows her full access to the powers of her own mind.  The end drifts a little but a tight action picture with mind bending special effects, not the least of which is the star herself.

#5 – Interstellar – The struggle for human survival told on an epic scale on an almost too big a stage moving backward and forward in time during a search for a new home world.  The sheer size of the story is brought under control through human interactions, most notably between a father and daughter.  It’s rare that a movie can meet lofty expectations – this did so, resoundingly.

#6 - John Wick – another movie that surprised me.  Keanu’s been fairly quiet over the last few years but he delivers in a taut, action packed revenge flick as a retired mob hit man bent on revenge against his former employers.  A lot of heart to go along with just desserts for murderers of a puppy.

#7 - The Drop – this movie came out of nowhere for me.  I went to see it in tribute to James Gandolfini in one of his last roles but Tom Hardy (another actor with a very good year) steals the movie from the rest of a solid cast.  A simple plot set in a Brooklyn dive belies the hidden and pervasive danger lurking just below the surface which culminates in a great reveal near the end. 

#8 - The Hobbit:  Battle of Five Armies – The epic journey which began with the immense battle scene from The Last Alliance that started the Lord of the Rings concludes with another one as Peter Jackson finally bids farewell to Middle Earth.  The Hobbit never stood a chance of living up to The Lord of the Rings but still had the lovable characters and amazing special effects (taken to a whole new level) that marked Jackson’s first trilogy.

#9 – Birdman – Michael Keaton playing an aging movie star famous for portraying a superhero (hmmmm?) trying to resurrect his career on Broadway surrounded by sycophants and miserable critics, oh and he may be losing his mind at the same time.  A searing black comedic look at the shallowness of actors told with a lot of verve.  Some great camera work as the audience follows Keaton as he careens around his disastrous play and culminates with probably my favorite ending scene of the year.

#10 – Fury – Special effects have finally caught up to World War 2 action as Brad Pitt expertly captures the brotherhood of war forged by combat in a tank crew facing impossible odds against the Germans in the waning days of the war.  Pitt is outstanding as the tank commander desperately holding onto his humanity as an insane war rages for his soul. 

Honorable Mention: 

As with every year it was tough to make the last few cuts and I always include those that almost made the top ten, in no particular order:

Gone Girl – Affleck married to the wife from hell in a strong murder suspense film that creates some serious shading of good and evil (except for the wife that is).  Rosamund Pike is definitely the villain of the year. 

3 Days to Kill – strong year for Kevin Costner.  He plays a CIA assassin facing terminal cancer in this Luc Besson vehicle.  Costner tries to establish a relationship with his teenaged daughter while wreaking havoc on Besson’s beloved Paris.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Best of the new Apes movie with Andy Serkis’ motion capture portrayal of Caesar almost scarily realistic.  Remnants of humans in post-Apocalyptic San Francisco do battle against sentient apes.  Jason Clarke is superb as the leader of the humans while Gary Oldman plays Gary Oldman – never a bad thing.

Boyhood – Groundbreaking movie shot with the same actors over twelve years as we watch a boy grow to manhood.  The plot is mundane but the arc is incredible to watch.

Draft Day – Costner again in a movie that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did but he’s always at his best in sports related movies.  He plays the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns on draft day (poor soul) and the movie revels in the chaos reining in his life of a recently dead iconic father, a pregnant love interest, rebellious coaches and players, as well as the insanity surrounding the NFL. 

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier – Another solid Marvel entry although this movie belongs just as much to Scarlett Johansson as it does to the redoubtable Cap.  A great plot line undermining the very existence of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the dangers of too much “benign” government oversight combined with the usual amazing Marvel battle scenes. 

2014 Superlatives:

Best Comedy:  22 Jump Street

Best Horror Movie:  Godzilla

Best Drama:  The Drop

Best Romance:  The Fault in our Stars

Best Action:  Edge of Tomorrow

Best Special Effects:   Guardians of the Galaxy

Best lines:  “They just never see you coming, do they?” -  The Drop  and

                     “I am Groot” - Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Scene of the Year:  Guardians of the Galaxy - Peter Quill steals an orb on the planet Morag accompanied by rock and roll favorites on a lizard microphone, after which he is almost intercepted by the bad guys.  Sets the pace for the whole fantastic movie.

Worst Movies of the Year: 

It was a good year in movies but the lists wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t point out what I considered the other end of the spectrum – the absolute worst movies of the year.

A Million Ways to Die in the West – My daughter and I disagree as to whether Seth McFarland is a misogynistic a-hole incapable of humor.  I’ve always thought he was incredibly funny – that is until I saw this disaster.  McFarland should retreat back behind the camera and stay there – worst movie of the year.

Left Behind – Nicholas Cage must really need the money because this was bad even compared to some of the other turkeys he’s been in lately.  A movie about a significant portion of humanity just disappearing while Cage pilots a jumbo jet across the Atlantic.  This movie works on no level.

The Giver – a sci fi movie starring Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep about a humorless future should work – it doesn’t.  I’m trying hard and failing to remember anything worthwhile about it.  You must be a really sad excuse of a filmmaker to turn out a turkey with these two leads.

Sabotage – what were you thinking Arnold?  No one wants to see the governator as a ruthless bad guy.  You need to go back to blowing up the bad guys and not trying to be a thespian.  Worst movie of his career which is saying something when he played a pregnant man in Junior.

Happiest of New Years!!!!

Lonely Farewell

Yesterday had the distinct honor of being a holiday week Monday, a little more tolerable than most Mondays.  Less traffic and work as everyone takes a deep breath from all of last week’s frivolity and leans forward into the incipient New Year.  My wife and the PanaGal did what PanaGals do when they swarm – a day long shopping expedition.  This meant a lonely dinner, except for the Wonder Pooch who would take rightful issue with the loneliness adjective.

Since I found myself abandoned and at loose ends I did what I usually do, I went to the movies (again).  I saw the movie The Gambler and really wished I hadn’t.  This was an action star’s (Mark Wahlberg) attempt at some dark earthy acting in a drama where the lead character is beneath contempt.  Wahlberg as a college professor was always going to be a huge stretch and he almost carries it off; almost being the operative phrase here.  The movie concerns his character’s descent into debt to gangsters due to his seemingly uncontrollable gambling addiction.

This movie might have worked if we cared one little bit about the lead.  I also did not need to repeatedly see John Goodman without any clothes on, I had just eaten.  Wahlberg really is a better actor than most would give him credit for but I sincerely hope he goes back to blowing things up (other than his box office appeal) soon.  Don’t waste your money on this; it’s too late for me.

One of the best things about the move of my daughter and WingMan to California was the ready pool of friends they were settling into out there.  A lot of them were former denizens of NYC and if the attached photo is to be believed – those friendships continue to prosper.  This California thing is looking better and better – except for the distance, of course.

NYC Friends gathering in My Daughter's Kitchen Last Night
WingMan on the Right

Yesterday I finished off my month long, frenzied trek through the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald with the last in the series, The Lonely Silver Rain.  This wasn’t a sendoff because MacDonald’s death a year after this was published wasn’t anticipated. I kind of like it that way because I can still imagine Travis hanging around the Busted Flush at Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale, now well into a richly deserved dotage, sipping gin while playing chess with Meyer.  I’ve truly enjoyed reconnecting with this series of books and the godfather of all my literary heroes – Mr. McGee, which I last read in the 1980’s.  I feel like I can get a little bit of my own life back because these books truly became an obsession over the last few weeks.  Thank you Mom for introducing me to Travis McGee as I send him off once again to take his rightful place atop my personal pantheon of fictional heroes.

In this last book you can see MacDonald preparing McGee for middle age complete with a surprise character descended from a long dead love.  McGee finds himself the target of numerous hit men when he’s held responsible for the death of a prominent narcotrafficker’s daughter. He spends the book figuring out who the real culprit is and aiming the vengeful folks after him. I leave you with some of MacDonald’s words as McGee cogitates about the major plot twist thrown at him at the final pages of The Lonely Silver Rain:

McGee

“Some strange mechanism in my head was projecting color slides of all the familiar parts of my life.  I seemed to hear the click as each slide fell into place.  Everything familiar had assumed different shape, sharper outlines, purer kind of color.  It seemed very much to me like the strangeness which happens after you have spent weeks in a hospital, when you come back out again into the world, seeing everything fresh – a stop light, a brown dog, a yellow bus.  Something had changed the world and washed it clean…When the hard winds of change blow through your life, they blow away a lot of structures you thought permanent, exposing what had thought was trivia, buried and forgotten.”

Slip F18 Bahia Mar

The Busted Flush

Broken Down

Sad Remnant

Christmas came to a screeching halt yesterday for which my liver is thanking me.  Our gallant Christmas tree had limped to the finish line and I spent most of the Patriots’ game defrocking it of ornaments.  Like the Patriots’ it was good to get a day off because they certainly didn’t show up for a meaningless game against Buffalo.  This is the first time I can remember a Patriots team just flat mailing in a game but I was happy to see so many of the best players being rested against a hard hitting team.

Day Off at Gillette

The unseasonably warm weather continued so Buddy and I took the tree out back for recycling operations.  Buddy decided he had to check and see if there were any ticks still in need of a home by venturing into the usually impenetrable brush which has been beaten into submission by our so called winter.  Once the tree was denuded, thanked, and returned to nature Buddy passed a tick screening exam.  It’s always interesting to try and get him to settle down long enough for something like that – especially after he’s just discovered so many new and interestingly remote scents.

Shorn of Locks

My wife and the PanaGal were not interested in my continued vigilance of the last of the year’s Red Zone.  I find I really do miss fantasy football, if for no other reason than it keeps my wife interested and less focused on my lethargy.  I solved this problem by taking them to see Unbroken, the new Angelina Jolie movie about the life of Louis Zamperini. 

I loved the book so this was going to be tough sledding for Ms. Jolie and in the end I don’t think she did an adequate job of capturing the arc of Zamperini’s life.  It was all too sedentary and lacked the uplifting quality of the book.  It’s obvious she fell in love with the character of Zamperini and went with just a straight forward storytelling which lacked the book’s dramatic punch. 

The time in the life boat was as harrowing and gut wrenching as imagined but too much time was spent in the Japanese prison camp.  This left little time to explore what Zamperini did post World War 2.  Zamperini’s life was defined by what he did after all his trials and the movie ends with thirty seconds of newsreel and subtitles explaining that away.  He deserved better from his friend.  It’s always difficult to translate a good book into movie form and Jolie joins a long list of directors who failed in doing justice to the source material.

Occasion Rising

Wife and PanaGal At Start of Party

I’m not proud to admit to this but I thought I was all partied out yesterday after a prodigious amount of same over the past few days.  I was rescued from this misconception and the general malaise of self-doubt by the sprightly form of the woman I’m lucky enough to be married to.  Panamanians never seem to tire of trying to wring the absolute most joy life has to offer and the Worcester Chapter of the Panamanian Mafia certainly rose to the occasion last night with a post-Christmas party.

The Gallant Hostess Laying Out the Food

The day started out innocently enough as we awoke in Keene Friend’s house after his Christmas party.  We stopped by to spend some time with my mother’s best friend because it wouldn’t truly be Christmas if we didn’t get a chance to see her.  She was a fixture of my family’s Christmas for as long as I could remember.  She’s in her nineties now and still as feisty and pleasant as ever.  It offered me a chance to reconnect with a Mom who’s impossibly been gone for more than a decade now.

The Jokester (red shirt)

We returned home where I was completely suspect of my ability to attend the planned Worcester party last night.  My wife dismissed any doubts as she and the newly resident PanaGal went about preparations.  I was sentenced to Couch Potato Position #1 to watch college football and do some loin girding for the evening.

The Sedate Phase

The party started out innocently enough with a bunch of middle aged friends sitting around the table and kitchen sharing some Christmas cheer and recounting recently concluded adventures.  This group, however, has a tendency to quickly move past the mundane and engage in behavior bordering on the epic.  While I contented myself with Golden, Colorado’s most famous export the group’s jokester had supplied several bottles of his newest fascination – Culitos wine.  “Culitos” means “butt” or “fanny” with an appropriate label proclaiming the word’s meaning.  Surprisingly, in the opinion of the wine drinkers – the party’s Culitos were admirable (the wine too).

The Wine

We first had to get through a kitchen filled to the brim with a memorable dinner as everyone contributed a couple of dishes.  Dessert was especially painful since my keto vacation had ended the night before.

Wife Giving Dance Lessons

I discovered that my wife had been kidnapped by the host’s grandchildren and I found her conducting dancing lessons in a nearby bedroom (the Panamanian blood runs strong in this group).  The dance fever soon migrated to the older generation which is not at all surprising.  In the same vein was the fact that my wife one of the ringleaders of that migration.

Older Generation Dancing

There wasn’t an open space for dancing but furniture was moved and they are nothing if not resourceful when it comes to creating a dance floor.  The rest of the evening was a really fun exploration of that expedient dance floor.  I texted with my daughter and Wingman who were returning to their L.A. home with another long road trip.  They were just arriving home when I reported her mother was conducting a scorched earth campaign on said dance floor. 

The Improvised Dance Floor

We arrived home after midnight totally gassed (again) but I took a moment to reflect how done I thought I was at the beginning of the day.  The subsequent events certainly gave lie to those feelings of inadequacy.  Its times like this I give thanks to the tiny but energetic party animal I’m married to.  I’m holding out hope for the delayed recovery time today though.

Bring on the Dancing Girls!

Post C-Day Road Trip

I was up early yesterday for no good reason other than I had a half day of employment to attend to.  I was able to intercept the Keene Friend who was attempting one of his patented early morning escapes.  He had to get back to Keene to prepare to host the last of our Christmas traditions - the December 26 party at his house.

Work was about as much fun as you would expect after basking in the reflected glow of time spent with family and friends over the last couple days but I actually got a lot of work done because my excellent boss wasn’t in.  He usually stops by a couple times a day to share his views on the political leadership and then kidnap me to see something.

My Wife and the Newest PanaGal

I left a little after noon to pick up my wife since we had to journey into Boston to pick up a new addition to the pantheon of PanaGals, a close friend of my wife’s twin sister.  She’ll be staying with us for a couple weeks and my wife forgot to de-conflict her arrival with the December 26 party.  My wife was reaching out to her own Panamanian roots in terms of timeliness and I had to urge and nudge to get her moving.  Due to our late start we might have fractured a few traffic laws enroute to Logan International.

Luckily it was not a normal Friday rush hour in Boston and we cruised right into the airport and parked after Buddy sufficiently inspected the garage security guard.  The PanaGal’s flight had already unloaded and she wasn’t anywhere near the baggage storage.  We set out in search, my wife inside and I outside (duh).  I was armed with a name, a description (dark hair, a backpack, and glasses), and little expectation to find a Panamanian wandering the cold.  I did pass a gal who met the description and after trying her name on her it turned out she was made of sterner stuff than the garden variety Panamanian as she strolled outside in the cold. 

Assisting my Son with TV Construction

We were soon safely under Buddy’s care and took advantage of the missing Boston traffic once again.  We made it to Keene in less than two hours after pulling out of the airport (again – a few traffic regulations may have been stretched).  We arrived to find a house full of friends and family with my son/ABFA, Keene Friends 1 & 2, and of course the Cantankerous One. 

Keene Friend did his usual fantastic job of hosting and there was food literally covering every flat surface of his house.  This meant Buddy was sentenced to his cage since the food was at tail level and would stand little chance of survival.  There was also a rat with a hormone problem masquerading as a dog which Buddy may have mistaken for a snack or play toy in need of evisceration.

Keene Friend with his Christmas Gift

The first task was assembling Keene Friend’s new television which the older folks wisely allowed my son to put together.  I’m not saying we’re technically challenged (we are) but this did allow my Cantankerous Friend to provide his running commentary on my son’s performance which was entertaining to everyone with possibly the lone exception of my son.

The ABFA and Son

The rest of the night followed with people coming and going and food and drink flowing seamlessly with the company of some really special people.  They immediately drew the new PanaGal into the conversation.  She did avoid the customary 15 minute marriage with the Cantankerous One – something of a PanaGal tradition.  The food was eventually reduced enough to place at a higher level and Biddy was released to clean whatever was unfortunate enough to fall on the carpet.  

My Wife Rescuing the PanaGal From the Cantankerous Friend

The night ended entirely too early as people eventually had to make their ways home.  We spent the night in Keene since we wanted to stop in to wish an old family friend a Merry Christmas this morning.   Buddy attempted a late night escape from his kennel by tunneling through the bottom.  He was unsuccessful at everything except waking Keen Friend up.  Other than that this marked the end of a very successful Christmas celebration that more than adequately plucked the heartstrings despite missing two very important people.  As Keene Friend said this morning as we were leaving – “We did good this year!”   Indeed.

Holiday Struggle

The House Ready for Christmas

I knew going into this thing I would have a hard time capturing just how much fun I’ve been forced to endure over the past couple days.  I lay blame for this fortunate situation squarely at the feet of my family and friends who conspired to make this one of the best Christmases ever.  I worried going in that the lack of a certain couple constricted to California would rob a lot of my holiday cheer.  That concern was dealt a devastating blow by today’s ability to connect.  We shared several video calls and a series of texts which allowed us to share (if in a somewhat diluted fashion) the holiday with my daughter and Wingman.  They were still sorely missed.

Christmas Eve Dinner

My excellent boss kicked me out of work shortly before noon on Christmas Eve and I was home in time to catch the video call from California where my daughter gave a guided tour of their new apartment to my son and the ABFA.  She also took the chance to remind her brother who was the newly crowned, fantasy football super bowl champ – a theme that was repeated throughout the subsequent calls and texts from the Left Coast.  My son went into paroxysms of rage at Marshawn Lynch –again – another repeated theme. 

I'm Carving the Bird

We changed up the schedule this year by preparing a huge Christmas dinner for Christmas Eve.  We were lucky enough to have the ABFA’s parents join us and stay overnight.  They arrived in a tropical rain storm (gotta love New England weather).  The only thing white about this Christmas was the knuckles of people trying to drive.  I prepared the Christmas turkey and shared the kitchen with the ABFA who delivered a lasagna of note. 

The Two Moms

As dinner was winding down my sister and her family arrived from their Rhode Island festivities and the party was on.  Christmas carols blared while there was as serious competition in the kitchen (where else) to catch up with everybody.  I really think this is my favorite part of the entire holiday – sitting and standing around our kitchen island talking, laughing (a lot of that), and reminiscing.  Buddy and his cousin Bailey (my sister’s dog) paid rapt attention to the goings on and tried to pick off any snack that wandered to the edge of the herd.

Christmas Eve Island Time

After a while my wife and the ABFA’s parents braved the deluge to attend midnight mass while the rest of us moved to the family room to take part in another family Christmas tradition – watching the movie Love Actually.  It warmed my heart to know there was another later viewing taking place in the Golden State.  The church goers returned in time to catch the end of the movie and share some Merry Christmas hugs as midnight arrived to extinguish Christmas Eve.

The Pre-Ravaged Tree

My Early Morning Compatriots

As usual I was the first one up in the morning (damned Army habit), well me and a couple dogs (who provide great early morning company).  I like that quiet time before the house awakes to share a last interlude with a soon to be ravaged Christmas tree.  Since there are no young children in the house we get to sleep in on Christmas morn (well except for me).  So many of my earliest and fondest memories are tied to Christmas mornings and I spent some time remembering the people so important to those memories who were no longer around to share with us, primarily my mother and father.  I thought how proud they would be of their grandchildren, especially my dad who never got a chance to meet them.

Gift Giving Time

My Wife With Her Haul

The rest of the house soon awoke to the seductive smells of coffee brewing.  My brother in law successfully avoided electrocution at the hands of my wife for another year and soon the family room was filled with everyone as gifts were delivered, opened, and gushed about.  Buddy immediately went to work eviscerating the stuffed squirrel he received (yet another Christmas tradition).  My wife invested heavily in her gifts to me at overhauling my wardrobe.  This made my annual practice of putting every article of clothing I receive on at the same time a real challenge.  I managed but the group consensus was that I looked like an overweight pervert (couldn’t get the three pairs of pants I had on to close).

My Wife and I

The Christmas Pervert Wearing All His Gifts

Activities then shifted to the kitchen where yet another Christmas tradition was modified.  The ABFA volunteered to create a special omelet which was a huge success- despite the radical mixture of vegetables and spices (yours truly did not partake which will surprise nobody that knows me).  My son filled in for my daughter and excelled in the Christmas morning mimosas  That opinion as not shared with his sister who claimed later in a video call that this was yet another situation where he finished second to her (see what I mean?).

A Screen Capture of Our Video Call With Daughter and Wingman (upper right corner)

My wife prepared the fried dough as she learned from my mother.  I got a little misty eyed towards the end of the brunch as people started making noises about leaving for their other family holiday obligations.  I felt truly blessed I was able to keep them all for as long as I did.

First the ABFA’s parents, then my son and the ABFA and finally my nephew all departed on a bright, sunny, totally non-New England type of Christmas Day.  That left my wife, sister, and brother in law to clean up and share the rest of the day.  We remarked about how quiet the day was after all the departures and how our Christmas had evolved this year.  As long as I can keep having as much fun as I did I’m all in.  I think Christmas Eve will take on added importance in future years which is completely awesome in my view – anything for extending the period I can sip at the pool of holiday cheer. 

ABFA With Her Omelet and Son Creating Mimosas

Christmas Brunch

And Again With Me

We spent a quiet afternoon while I introduced them to the fun that is The Guardians of the Galaxy.  I spent most of the movie conducting visual inspections  of the inside of my eyelids before venturing into the kitchen to prepare my second turkey dinner in as many days.  In deference to my sister’s allergies this one was prepared gluten free and we combined leftovers from the Christmas Eve dinner with some new additions.  This included my sister’s signature jello mold which I seriously believe my wife would kill to get more of.  We enjoyed each other’s company and I felt so much gratitude for their presence which helped immensely with the California subtractions to the day.

At Least My Daughter Had Some Dogs Around Her
We'll Cure Her of that Cat Addiction Some Day

Buddy Completing His Christmas Evisceration

We were all awaiting the final event of the day which was the arrival of the far travelling Keene Friend.  He has Christmas day obligations spread out over the breath of New England but he always ends the day at our house.  We had a big surprise waiting for him.  My son came up with the idea to combine all the funds we normally expend for gifts for him into a pool and buy him a large HD television. He loves to watch sports and I think he was genuinely moved by the gift.  We’re all headed to his house tonight for the annual day after Christmas party where my son will help him set up his new gift. 

Keene Friend Opening His Big Gift

We were fortunate to share Christmas with yet another locale when my college roommate called in from Pittsburgh for an extended call.  My sister and brother in law reluctantly had to leave since he is working today but we parted knowing we had accomplished something special this year.  I owe them so much.  I stated when I started writing today that I would struggle to fully capture how extraordinary the past couple of days were with my paltry abilities.  I hope everyone reading this was as blessed as I was with the time and people surrounding you.  If I’d had two more people around I could honestly claim it was perfect.