Joe's Top 15 Movies of 2014

2015 is upon us, and 2014 is in the books. It is just me, or did this year speed on by? It was a good year for good movies, and there is a solid lot of pictures that aren’t on this list that maybe deserve to be. My list this year includes chefs, decoders, superheroes, musicians, wrestlers and chicks hiking.

At the time I post this, only one of my Film Yap colleagues has weighed in with his picks, but as we’re an opinionated lot, there are certainly likely to be more.

So drink it in: Here is my list for the Top 15 films of 2014.

15. Oculus

Even for an avowed horror fan like myself, you don’t often find a horror movie on a “best of” list, but you most likely will find a few lists with one this year…just not the more deserving “Oculus.” Do yourself a favor: Ignore the hype for the overstuffed “The Babadook” and check out this tale of a brother and sister trying to put to rest a curse that has haunted their family for years in the guise of a possessed mirror. Scary, touching and haunting in more ways than one, “Oculus” was the best scary movie I saw in 2014.

14. Get On Up

Very few people saw the James Brown biopic this year, and that’s a shame. Chadwick Boseman owned the screen, and people you recognize like Nelsan Ellis (HBO’s “True Blood”), Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and, you know, Dan Aykroyd lifted this could’ve-been-pedestrian musician biopic. It doesn’t do a whole lot that's new, aside from letting Brown be largely unlikable, but it does what it does really well.

13. Guardians of the Galaxy

The most fun time you’ll have at the movies is this Marvel Universe offering that brings a ragtag group of heroes together to keep an Inifinty Gem (finally getting the official name after being featured in several Marvel films) from the hands of a genocidal madman. The movie made Chris Pratt a bona fide star, and made us fall in love with a tag team comprised of a walking, talking raccoon with a penchant for automatic weapons … and his buddy, a tree who can only say three words.

12. Fury

Brad Pitt’s and Logan Lerman’s World War II tank movie does smack of “Saving Private Ryan,” but it is very well done. Evoking something of a different vibe than most movies of its type, “Fury” creates a real “band of brothers” mood, where men are thrown together and personalities clash. It also features one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the year, where Pitt and Lerman discover two young German women living a somewhat normal life amidst the war zone … and play house with them.

11. Wild

"Wild" manages to nail what has become among the most trite of genres: the gal-goes-on-a-journey-to-find-herself category. With the postergirl of that particular type of movie in the lead, this one screamed “lame” throughout the trailers, but, to its credit, avoids raising a fist and shouting “GIRL POWER!” It dangles some of the genre’s tropes at us without succumbing to the temptation to go all the way with them. When all is said and done, this may be Reese Witherspoon’s best performance.

10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

A twisty spy thriller, a buddy cop movie and a fish-out-of-water story, by way of Marvel. Of the superhero translations, Captain America is the one I was most worried about not being properly realized on screen, but thus far Chris Evans has nailed him. The best scene in this terrific flick doesn’t go to any of the outstanding action sequences or interplay between Cap and Black Widow, but to the movie’s opening scene, where Cap makes friends with a soldier (Anthony Mackie) who will become a trusted partner.

9. Begin Again

If you haven’t seen “Once,” pair it with this one from John Carney (he wrote and directed both of these musical masterpieces). Mark Ruffalo plays a down-on-his-luck music exec, and Keira Knightley is a recently dumped musician with whom he pairs up to create beautiful music. A terrific cast including Catherine Keener, Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”) and Adam Levine make this flick a pleasure to watch.

8. Locke

Imagine this: A full-length feature that takes place entirely in a car. That only has a driver inside. Who talks on the phone virtually the entire runtime. Oh, I forgot to mention, that one guy is Tom Hardy. The result is one of the more riveting movies you’ll see this year, as we watch the title character's entire life unravel as he takes a trip to be at the birth of his child after a one-night stand, and agonizes over telling his wife, all while the deal of his professional life threatens to crash down around him. Trust me: See this movie.

7. Life Itself

You’d think the Roger Ebert documentary would be a snap to be on movie critics’ best-of lists, but we're not simply engaging in hero worship. Steve James’ documentary tells the tale of the last years in Ebert’s life as he battled the cancer that took his jaw and his speech but not his livelihood or his spirit. Of course, the look at Ebert’s life, and his relationship with co-host and longtime frenemy Gene Siskel, is riveting stuff, but even more moving is the look inside his life as he struggles to live as his body repeatedly betrays him.

6. Foxcatcher

Steve Carell is amazing as batshit crazy rich guy John Du Pont in the story of the death of Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). Channing Tatum continues to wisely play in his wheelhouse, excelling in the role of Mark Schultz, Dave’s younger brother and an Olympic gold medalist in his own right who still can’t escape his brother’s rather long shadow. A bizarre story of father figures, role models and strange obsession, you’ll hardly have a clearer view of why Du Pont killed Schultz, but you’ll be fascinated just the same.

5. Chef

A delightful film chock full of things to say about balancing a career, a relationship and children. And the Internet. Lots and lots of Internet. “Chef” is the journey of an Internet-shamed chef (Jon Favreau) who revitalizes his career and his family … by starting a food truck. A tremendous cast that includes Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt and Robert Downey Jr. anchors this movie about getting your mojo back after a tough spot.

4. Nightcrawler

Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of the performances of the year as a freelance “photojournalist” who specializes in getting footage of crime scenes, then selling it to the highest bidder—namely, television news programs. Nothing is off-limits, and Lou Bloom’s entrepreneurial spirit is perverted by a greed sated only by blood … or does it just reach its full potential? A dark, wicked film, “Nightcrawler” will get under your skin, and stay there for days.

3. The Imitation Game

Alan Turing’s contributions to society arguably should place him with the giants of invention; after all, for all intents and purposes, he invented the machine that became the personal computer. But the circumstances of its invention, along with some personal issues, took a great deal of that credit from him. “The Imitation Game” tells the story of Turing (a dynamite Benedict Cumberbatch) and how he used the first computer to crack the Germans' supposedly unbreakable code during World War II, most likely costing them the conflict and the world domination they sought. But an arrest for lewdness (read: homosexuality) after the war left Turing a broken shell of a war hero living in obscurity. A tale that shames us while it hails a great man who was shamefully treated after taking a lead role in saving civilization as we know it, “The Imitation Game” is a movie that’s about all of us.

2. Boyhood

This movie’s central gimmick is that it was legitimately filmed over a decade, “Boyhood” could, with relative accuracy, be called the story of my own childhood. Young Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grows up before our eyes, starting as an elementary school student and ending at high school graduation. Mason and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater) are the products of a broken home, as their single mother (Patricia Arquette) struggles through jobs, school and men to raise her kids with a dad (Ethan Hawke) who is in and out of their lives. A movie where we don’t know a character in the first three minutes of meeting them, we see the power of time as people come in and out of Mason’s life, but we see their impact on him throughout. Full of great performances from veteran actors, “Boyhood” still rests on Coltrane’s performance, and he knocks it out of the park.

1. Whiplash

The year’s best on-screen rivalry just might got to Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons as a determined jazz drummer and his megalomaniacal teacher, respectively, in "Whiplash." No actor this year gave a better performance than Simmons, playing a musical Bob Knight on steroids who alternately soothes and snarls at his students, saying things that would make Gunnery Sergeant Hartman blush. Teller almost matches him as a drummer who plays until his hands bleed, then grabs a bandage and keeps going. “Whiplash” is an unrelenting film about the unfettered drive to succeed, to be the best. But it’s also about something more: It’s about the need for that acknowledgment for your hard work, which really is what we’re all looking for. The best single scene of the year in any movie is the finale of “Whiplash.” Its details are too delicious to spoil here, but trust me. This is the movie to see this year.