Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas, 2013)

7/10
A movie about that time Lucien Carr, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were sparking a literary revolution and oh yeah, Carr murdered a guy. The movie does a good job of portraying the development of both events in sidestep. It's helped along by good, credible performances, especially Daniel Radcliffe as Ginsberg and Dane DeHaan as Carr. The movie, thankfully, is not entirely reverential to the literary titans it portrays, showing them occasionally as the messy, unpleasant, pretentious, morally-confused kids they were.
First-time director John Krokidas does a very fine job, although he leans a bit too heavily on upbeat montages. They work okay when set to the hot jazz of the time, but when one is backed by TV on the Radio, well, why? Krokidas is careful to let the story to do the talking and directs pretty unobtrusively, maybe a little too unobtrusively but that's OK.

American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014)

7/10
It was entertaining enough if unspectacular for the first 75% of the film, but I felt like things kind of fell apart with the remaining 25%. Notwithstanding Kyle's actual account of the events, I thought the movie wrapped up his fourth tour way too neatly - casting Mustafa as a recurring villain gave the story a weird, almost "video game" type feel. Like Kyle had to beat the "final boss" before feeling like he had accomplished what he had to and could finally head home.
The ending was also problematic. Since the case still isn't closed on Kyle's death, there was only so much the movie could do or say in depicting it and it had a weirdly rushed, anticlimactic feel. Couldn't we have waited a couple more years to see how the trial shakes out before committing his life to film? In any case, it was not hard to be moved by the tragic poignancy of a guy who lived his life to protect others only to be murdered by one of his own...on U.S. soil no less.
I'm gobsmacked that people have criticized the movie for glorifying war or blamed it for dehumanizing Iraqis or anything like that...I don't know how dumb you have to be to interpret this as a "pro-war" movie, come on. I was actually expecting the movie to be a lot more chest-thumpingly pro-America (based on what I'd heard) than it turned out to be.
In any case, the action was mostly very good, and Bradley Cooper was very good himself, but in comparing this to other recent war movies, it's a lot closer to The Hurt Locker (i.e. meh, not bad) than Zero Dark Thirty (i.e. great) for me.

Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014)

7/10
Following The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game in the "true stories told well" category this year is Selma, which was everything I thought it would be and little more and I could probably copy and paste my review from the Imitation Game in here and there wouldn't be much change. I liked Selma a little bit more as it was still more emotionally engaging than IT and its lead performance was much, much better but it's still not a movie that's particularly memorable or notable for any one reason. So I'll say what feels like something I've said a lot about the Best Picture finalists this year: well told, well acted, well scripted, well shot...nothing much else to say.

The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2014)

8/10
I really liked this. Comparing it to other Best Picture nominees, it is not tier 1 (Boyhood) or tier 2 (Budapest) but fits snugly with Whiplash and Birdman in tier 3 as movies that were not life-alteringly brilliant but ones that I can definitely say I enjoyed on most levels. On the face of it its closest comparable is The Imitation Game but I found TToE had a lot of warmth and heart that Imitation Game lacked.
I will say one thing with respect to Tkachuk4MVP's review a couple of posts ago - this is definitely a movie that knows it has a tremendous amount of ground to cover and at times it's easy to become conscious of that as a viewer. Often, especially at the beginning, it feels like it's racing along, cramming in necessary scenes and info, but not really taking as much time as it should to dwell on them (gotta stay inside that Academy friendly 2 hour running time!).
But on the other hand, I liked how it took the focus off of Hawking's genius (mostly). We all know he's a genius, we don't need the movie to go to the necessary lengths to tell us that again. And frankly I assume what would be needed to establish just why Hawking is a genius would go over a lot of the audience's heads, myself included. So I give the movie credit for dodging that battle and instead mostly focusing on a (not so) simple love story that does plenty of credit to the subject himself while remaining engaging, interesting, and heartfelt. Not to mention beautifully shot, extremely well acted, and featuring a really good score. Plainly put if you take it for what it is, it makes virtually no missteps. No pun intended.
I also thought Eddie Redmayne was exceptional and deserving of every accolade he should get for his performance including (if I had my way) the Oscar.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, 1982)

9/10
What's not to like? This is the kind of movie that could easily become one of my favorites, a la Dazed & Confused. Nothing happens, but everything happens. I never knew this was written by Cameron Crowe, though it certainly shines through in the prominence of the music selections. Just a great movie all around, loved it.

The Fall of the House of Usher (Ivan Barnett, 1949)

4/10
One of many adaptations of Poe's story, this is the 1949 version by director Ivan Barnett. It's not particularly good, especially the story which gets muddled in a hurry. The director elects to use a strange device in which the story begins in the present day with a bunch of men sitting around a smoking lounge telling tales, and one of the men decides to recite The Fall of the House of Usher, which leads to the main story portion of the film. I'm not sure why this was done, but it was pretty unnecessary.
The movie gets points for making "the hag" creepy enough and there's some cool black and white gothic shots, but one of the other adaptations probably did this story better.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (Nathan Juran, 1958)

6/10
Switching gears slightly, this was a pretty fun, pretty silly watch. Although inconsistencies abound and the special effects were, uh, less than good. For a movie made in 1958 it had some interesting things to say (unintentionally) about how others perceive us. The amount of people afraid to say something for fear of being thought of as a nutcase is still around today (arguably more than ever, with mental health becoming an increasingly hot topic), although it doesn't involve 50 foot women.

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

8/10
Whiplash isn't a particularly brilliant movie - for the first hour plus it's actually pretty by-the-numbers. It's not that it turns into a brilliant movie after that point either, just that it finally gets to where you knew it was going and it still turns out to have been totally worth the wait. It's also helped along by two great performances by Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons. Simmons' performance doesn't exactly have a lot of depth but for a supporting role it's hard to ask for much else. In fact Simmons' character Fletcher teeters so often on the brink of being cartoony that he deserves a lot of credit for keeping him monstrous instead.
(Some spoiler talk below)
I read some conversation (here and elsewhere) condemning the movie for appearing to condone bullying. I'm not totally sure I agree. I think some viewers were left disappointed that we never really got to see Fletcher's real comeuppance despite him being a jerk for 100% of the film's running time, but just because we're denied seeing that doesn't mean the movie condones what Fletcher does. I mean, if the movie had shown Fletcher and Andrew having a laugh and sharing an iced tea after the final performance I might agree, but the movie smartly ends onstage, leaving any inference of right or wrong up to the viewer alone. So I don't think the movie was condoning or condemning, just portraying, which is OK too.

The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014)

6.5/10
I mean, you know, it is what it is. Incredibly formulaic, tells a reasonably interesting story, well scripted, well acted, perfectly pitched at the old white dudes who give out the awards...there's not really much to say. I remember in reviewing a movie once kihei said, as a kind of metric, 'there must be someone, somewhere out there who claims this is their favorite movie, but who?'. I felt that way about The Imitation Game, so non-descript on so many levels that I can't imagine anyone ever claiming it as their favorite movie of all time...but I guess there must be someone out there!
With regards to the movie itself, one thing I didn't like was the inclusion of newsreel clips and historical footage of rote scenes like soldiers going to war or ships ablaze in the ocean or whatever. It felt ugly and unnecessary.
I've heard some complaints about the way they dealt with Turing's homosexuality and whether it really had a place in the movie but I didn't mind the way it was handled. Surely it would have been a bigger omission to not address it at all? Especially since it deeply affected his life and his work.
I also, of course, went on Wikipedia and read all about the inconsistencies/inaccuracies, of which there are many, but I usually don't care too much about that. I try to take a Herzogian 'ecstatic truth' approach to biopics like this as opposed to expecting a historical record from a piece of entertainment.
But whatever. Accurate or not I'm not going to remember it too far beyond this week.

Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2014)

7.5/10
Not going to lie, I was a little bit expecting to be more blown away than I was, rather than just pretty entertained, amused, and impressed by Innaritu's rather insane vision and execution. I'm actually surprised the Academy has latched on to this movie as much as they have, it's arguably one of the strangest Best Picture nominees since...well I don't know. Since a long time ago, it feels.
All the acting was great, especially Keaton and Norton, and I loved the jazzy drum score. The one-shot (but not really) technique was all it was hyped to be, and very well done. If anything the film lacks an emotional punch I was expecting/hoping for, which I think goes a lot of the way to explaining why I didn't like it more than I did. i.e. remaining impressed by it as opposed to being enthralled with it. I do feel like it's a movie that would grow on me with repeated viewings. And hopefully its widespread acclaim leads to more movies that take the kind of chances this one does.

New Year's Evil (Emmett Alston, 1980)

3/10
Recorded this off TV around New Year's, it's a pretty lame 80's slasher pic. A killer calls the host of a New Year's Eve new wave party show and promises to kill someone at midnight in each timezone leading up to her death. The only cool thing about the movie is the new wave rave with some pretty groovy tunes from the house band. Nothing else is particularly interesting or notable.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)

7/10
I never saw this one before so I recorded it off TV, it was good. Classic Spielberg really. Richard Dreyfuss was great and I really liked how Spielberg made it a family affair (in the beginning at least). He has (had? He doesn't do it so much anymore) such a knack for making even movies about aliens or sharks tie back to family relationships and whatnot. Nothing much to complain about, I enjoyed it.

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)

4/10
I read the book last year in anticipation of the movie. It was no masterpiece - messy and convoluted, as expected from Pynchon, but not worthless. Doc Sportello is a great character (the book is full of great characters honestly) and the almost-but-not-quite-post-hippie fried California 1970 vibe was nailed.
The book was fun and frustrating, and obviously any attempt to bring its mess of plot and characters to the screen was going to be a challenge. PTA does a reasonably good job of paring Pynchon's novel down into something that could be put on screen, although in 2 and a half hours he still doesn't ever really come close to saying anything worthwhile or telling a compelling story. What's shocking is how boring the movie is, which the book rarely was. Maybe it's Pynchon's language that made the book compelling and was lost completely in translation. I was reminded of an earlier adaption, Walter Salles' On the Road, which put the book on the screen but completely lost the charm of the author's voice in doing so.
I found the movie really dropped the ball on my two previously-mentioned favorite parts. I really didn't like Phoenix's portray of Doc. Doc in the book reacts to the ridiculous circumstances he gets caught up in with a fried, bemused, mildly curious detachment. Phoenix reacts to almost everything with a furrowed brow and a scowl. Paranoia is a theme in the book but Phoenix's portrayal takes it too far. Sportello as a character to me is way closer to someone like the Dude in the Big Lebowski - solving the mystery of the story almost because he has nothing better to do so why not.
And the other aspect, the stoned early 70's in California, was almost completely absent. Too much of the movie takes place in mostly cramped, unattractive interiors. The era was endemic to Pynchon's book, Anderson treats it almost as an afterthought. The movie could have easily taken place in the present day and there would be little difference.
Finally I was really disappointed in PTA's direction, which was so bland and unadventurous I never would have guessed it was the guy who did There Will Be Blood and The Master at the helm of this thing. A director for hire could have put together a similar effort.
So there you go. There's almost nothing in here worth recommending to anyone for any reason. A huge missed opportunity to make something really cool, in my opinion.