Very odd for me to refer to Nightcrawler as the little movie that could, but, in a sense, it is. Made for nearly $9 million dollars, Jake Gyllenhaal put everything into this project in hopes for an Oscar nomination. He was also the first actor to be a part of this film, adding more to the project. Dan Gilroy, who wrote screenplays for Freejack, Two for the Money and Real Steel, stepped into the directing chair as if he did it before. Brother of Tony (Michael Clayton, The Bourne Legacy) & John Gilroy, who is a film editor. Dan was able to bring Jake to a place of nihilism, which is weird, since, he's a first time director, so, watching Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom exude arrogance or Rene Russo's Nina becoming consumed to Lou's perverted vision for broadcast news, it was something that took me by surprise. Gyllenhaal brought his A game for this movie and the character, Lou Bloom. It's odd that I think that he being in this film is more challenging than some of the other work that I'm accustom to seeing him in. You had other actors like Bill Paxton and Riz Ahmed play the role of spoiler here, and they were both great in their own respects, but I was here for Russo & Gyllenhaal's characters. Both of them were battling different issues. One was trying to stay relevant in network news, while the other was selling desensitized news via video. Worst part for Nina, she has to choose what Lou is selling, because she'll be irrelevant, otherwise. Kinda reminds me of the current state of reporting, really. There's a lot of references of "soul selling" here. I mentioned in my review that I thought this movie should've been a tad short, but I apologize; 2 hours was good enough for this movie.
14.) The Fault in Our Stars
This just made my list by the slimmest of margins, not that a list should come down to a wild. I manage to catch Fault in time when prepping it for this list, when I had time to work on this. What impressed me the most, is how the cast treated a disease, such as cancer, as that it wouldn't hinder the lives of Hazel & Augustus. As their characters developed, and as cliched as this sounds, I ended up rooting for them to overcome their illness. Other than Interstellar, this was the closest I was to crying. No Joke. Even though it can make the viewer emotional or dispirited because it hits you hard metaphorically, it does have a way of making you feel fine when the movie attempts comedy to shed away the drama. While, I can't make a relation from the book to film adaptation, because, alas, I haven't read it. If there was a movie that you had to watch that screams YOLO for young and old. Truly, it is the little movie that could, when you beat out the $178 million Edge of Tomorrow and had high female & millennials show up for something like this. Only thing I can say is, good for y’all & this film.
13.) Get On Up
Had a slight dilemma with this one. First things first, I loved this film and Chadwick Boseman's portrayal as James Brown. Plotwise, it's filmed out of order to give that "best of James Brown" feel. I didn't mind that it was in this way and it worked for this movie. Preferably, it would've been considerate to allow the story of Brown straightforward. That being said, some biopics do have this tendency of being dull in nature for being so damn linear. I remember watching The King's Speech years ago and I couldn't stay up for that (It was also nighttime & performed my evening job, thus, sleepy). Some struggle to set you in the right mood, others have that right approach to make things interesting. It's a damn shame this was released at the same time as Guardians of the Galaxy on Aug 1st. Sure, it barely made its budget ($30 produced/$32 domestically), but Universal put this one at a bad date, so as people were partying to the ebbs & flows of Galaxy, this one was left alone, period. Chadwick will be in good hands as he'll be among the growing ranks at Marvel Studios as Black Panther, though. Not a total loss for him or his superb acting prowess.
12.) Edge of Tomorrow
Before I get into my overview of Edge of Tomorrow, I'm still stunned that young adults managed to steal the shine away from Tom Cruise with The Faults in our Stars during the summer. Maybe folks were sick of effects-driven action flicks or maybe millennials decided for a weekend, it's Shaliene Woodley's time to take Cruise's throne. Then again, Cruise was a Box Office draw during the 90's, not today. It's kind of unfortunate this film didn't get more viewership in theaters. Can’t figure as to why that was, but sucks that it didn’t work out. Having caught it, recently, a lot of people missed out on a joyous spectacle. Besides Cruise, Emily Blunt was wonderful as the action heroine to rival that of her venerable star. Whether she was slicing creatures or teaching Lt. Bill Cage to master the art of death, she served a core purpose towards defeating the Mimics. There were times where it felt, she held everything together and Tom was the supporting character for the movie. Hopefully, I'll see her in more action movies, she really held her own here. Cruise was his usual cocky self here as a PR rep for the Army. Fitting role, really; because, he's never looked vulnerable, character-wise. He wasn't a sympathetic character at first, until, he was able to nail down the "rinse, repeat, death" thing to an art. As he kept losing, his skills, suddenly, improved with every death. I like to think of that as leveling up on the first stage of Devil May Cry (2005 version). Obviously, the selling point, is the "unlimited continues" concept here. The more you die, the easier the opportunities at success. But, just avoid getting a pint of someone's blood, you won't be able to reset the day. I never had the privilege of reading "All You Need is Kill" from Hiroshi Sakurazaka, which was adapted for Tomorrow, I'll have to check it out of curiosity. Still, though, to get beaten by Faults on the weekend of June 6-8, stands as a stunner for 2014.
11.) Theory of Everything
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