Jon's Top Fourteen of 2014

First of all- you may notice that my list does not exclude any sort of genre entirely except ones that are pornographic, including sexuality, body horror, torture porn and incredibly violent films. These are far out of the mainstream in any case, but I do not include films like Nymphomaniac and many horror films for this reason. I never see these kinds of films because I am not interested in them at all.

Secondly- I will provide a list of warnings for those of you who are still squeamish about seeing certain things in films, like horror, violence, sexuality and drug use. 

And thirdly- I really enjoyed a lot of films this year so I included films that didn't quite make my top 14. I even list them from worst to best- so you can make a complete list from "OK" to "GOOD" to my 14 best films and I order them down from "OK" to #1.

So, I categorized my films in three sections: "OK", "GOOD" and "AMAZING" (films that made my top 14). "OK" films are acceptable. They were enjoyable to watch in places and didn't have huge, glaring mistakes. If they did have mistakes- the good outweighed the bad for me and made it watchable. "GOOD" films might have been good enough to be in my top 14 but they just weren't good enough to be AMAZING. I REALLY enjoyed these films. Some of them had superior structure, tone, characters, themes and sequences. But the "AMAZING" section is my 14 BEST films of 2014.

How I Judge Films

You may read a past article I wrote about "How I Judge Films" to fully understand this- but to sum it up- I recognize that judging films is entirely subjective. It is up to the viewer to determine what a great film is for THEM. You can't say what a good film would be for ME and I can't REALLY say what makes a good film for YOU. We simply learn, as we watch more films, what MOST makes us happy and enlightened in films. 

There are certainly the generally common things 99.9% of people will agree on- like good audio or good acting. It can be debated I'm sure (as most anything can be) that this isn't true but MOST people don't enjoy films that are just made badly. I am not going to include any films like that in this post. I am really interested in professional work that is not just acceptable but is amazing.

What IS notably different about my top films list of 2014 compared to most every other list out there is that I don't exclude any other genres from my favorite films- because I don't judge films by making 'value judgments' for what a worthy film is. Hollywood and the media machine in the film world however, would NEVER include a blockbuster film or a Young Adult property at the Academy Awards.

I, however, only think about what films I enjoy more than other films. So, it isn't about the Hollywood machine here or me imposing my value system on you! And it isn't about educating you about great films or about telling you how to watch films. How pretentious is that? NO, no. I just enjoy films and want to share the films I enjoyed the most with people.

So, here are the "GOOD" and "OK" films (counting down from LEAST favorite to MOST favorite).

OK:

Need For Speed

Divergent

The Double

Locke

Robocop

GOOD:

The One I Love

Enemy

The Maze Runner

John Wick

St. Vincent

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Joe

Godzilla

Maleficent

The Amazing Spider Man 2

The Lego Movie

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Fury

The Skeleton Twins

The Interview

The Fault in Our Stars

Happy Christmas

Gimme Shelter

X-Men: Days of Future Past

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Noah

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Unbroken

Remember, these films go DOWN from least favorite to best at the bottom.

...And now we have Jon's Top 14 Films of 2014. The "AMAZING" list. From 14 down to #1- my favorite film of the year. 

14. Snowpiercer

13. Palo Alto

12. The Babadook

11. Blue Ruin

10. Edge of Tomorrow

9. Cheap Thrills

8. Nightcrawler

  

7. Under the Skin

  

6. The Grand Budapest Hotel

5. Gone Girl

4. The Raid 2

3. Birdman

2. Interstellar

and the best- my #1 film of the year...

1. The Guardians of the Galaxy!!!!!

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Ooops! I didn't know how this thing works!!

I know. To all those film reviewers that would NEVER include a Marvel Film- I can only ask "Why not?" If you ENJOY a film- If it was stimulating and you wanted to watch it again, and the work was obviously stellar work with great skill involved in making it... Why not include these kinds of films? Why? 

Probably because we believe that if we don't tell people what to watch they will ONLY want to watch these kinds of films- and all those boring, dumb films that don't really relate to their audience would get left out in the cold. That's just hogwash. 

People pay to see the films they want to see- including the directors and actors that they like. You don't need 20 million dollars in advertising to get your film seen. You can build momentum and put yourself out there on the internet. People WILL see your film. And when they do they will give you feedback on how well you did- or what mistakes you made. Nothing wrong with that. There's just an old model of film curation out there that needs a good update and needs to remember to be open minded to their audience. And I believe the new film curation should simply be about what we and audiences enjoy- regardless of what the Oscar hype says or what reviewers find to be acceptable or educated. These big films take just as much work- if not MORE work to make. Why not give it some filmmaking cred? I certainly do.

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P.S.:

Ok. Here's my list of WARNINGS for these films for concerned viewers out there:

WARNING:

None of these films are G rated (even The Lego Movie is PG) and many of these should not be seen by teenagers either.

Don't see these films if you can't watch sex scenes or drug use:

Gone Girl, Under the Skin, Cheap Thrills, Palo Alto, Happy Christmas, The Skeleton Twins, Joe, The One I Love, The Interview, Birdman

Don't see if you have a weak constitution:

The Raid 2, Gone Girl, Under the Skin, Nightcrawler, Cheap Thrills, Blue Ruin, The Babadook, Fury, John Wick, Robocop

Don't see if you can't enjoy violent action as an art form:

The Raid 2, Need For Speed, John Wick

Don't see if you don't enjoy deep or cryptic themes:

Interstellar, Birdman, Under the Skin, Noah, The One I Love, Enemy, The Double

Don't see if you can't enjoy dumb jokes:

The Lego Movie, The Interview

Don't see if you can't watch teenagers doing bad stuff:

Palo Alto, The Fault in Our Stars

Don't see if you do not watch horror films:

The Babadook

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And that's it! I hope you can get something useful out of some of these films if you were not able to see them yet. Happy movie watching my friends!