ITB with AB #9: The 1st Annual Boxies (The Best and Worst Movies of 2014)

What's in the Box:

Hello all! So this post is way over due as I like to put up a post by Friday every week. With this post I am starting my very own movie awards named The Boxies. Due to the late nature of this post I'm going to shorten what I had originally planned. I will share 4 of my favorite movies from 2014 and 4 of my least favorite movies from 2014. At the end I will also recommend a few more movies from last year that I think are worth the watch. So I hope everyone enjoys taking a look inside the box!

The 1st Annual Boxies

So like always I just wanted to say that this is all my opinion and it is very possible some of you wont agree with my decisions. I also want to point out that I didn't see every movie that came out last year so I might not have seen what some of you liked. Also I do want to warn everyone that there might be a few spoilers within my blurbs about the movies. With that being said lets get the awards started!

The Boxies' Best Films of the Year:

Guardians of the Galaxy: In my opinion this is the best action movie of last year! This is the best Marvel has done in blending action and humor since the first Iron Man. The movie, which is fueled by a fantastic cast lead by Chris Pratt, does a great job delivering the origin story that superhero movies are infamous for but without it ever feeling boring or to rushed.

The movie also features one of the best soundtracks of the year. Titled Awesome Mix, Vol. 1, the soundtrack features songs such as "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede, "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone, and "Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways.

This Is Where I Leave You: As you all know I did an entire review of this movie a couple weeks ago. As I said before this movie features great performances throughout and the cast works really well together.

I wont to go much into detail on this one since I wrote a whole review for it at the end of my Movie Characters Part 2 blog. This is a fun movie that has a little bit of everything in it and great characters.

Chef: If you haven't seen this movie yet go onto Netflix and watch it! Jon Favreau (Iron Man) directed and stars in this movie about a chef who decides to star a food truck when his dream off opening up a restaurant fails to pan out.

This movie features a great cast that also includes John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, and cameos from Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Patt, and Robert Downey Jr.

How To Train Your Dragon 2: Once again if you haven't seen this it's on Netflix instant. This movie is even better than the first HTTYD and I thought that movie was great!

This movie features everything from dragon racing, bad guys who yell a lot (not Al Pacino), and alpha dragons. Unlike the upcoming Worst Films section I don't want to spoil anything about this film because it really is great. So join Hiccup and Toothless for another amazing adventure!

The Boxies' Worst Films of the Year:

Boyhood: Okay yes it's pretty cool that this movie was made over 12 years. Looking past that point this isn't a great movie. It isn't really all that original of a story and it's really boring.

The Monuments Men: Holy crap was this one a let down! This movie was made to look amazing in the trailer. It was made to look like an Ocean's movie set in World War II and based on a true story.

The problem was this movie does nothing to hold the audience's attention. I'm sure the story this movie was based on is amazing but the movie did a bad job of trying to tell it. I watched part of the movie fast forwarding and I didn't feel like I missed anything because I already had no idea what was going on in the movie. I also think this movie would've been better off without the all-star cast.

Hercules: Just to clarify I'm talking about the Hercules starring Dwayne Johnson since there were two movies last year about Hercules. I didn't see the one with Kellan Lutz but I heard it was actually worse than this one. I took Latin in high school so I am a huge fan of Greek Mythology and I love the story of Hercules. Well this movie took that story and then said lets do something else.

The movie takes place after Hercules has completed his twelve labors. The problem is in this movie Hercules is a sword-for-hire and has a band of friends who help him along the way. Basically this movie takes all of the supernatural out of the story. For example the Hydra is just a group of soldiers who all wear matching armor. So they basically made the story realistic which just doesn't work for the 12 Labors of Hercules. He is the freaking son of Zeus! You can't base the story in reality because his dad is the King of the Greek Gods.

Godzilla: Had this movie been Cloverfield 2 I might have enjoyed it more because it at least wouldn't have been a lie. Remember that warning at the beginning about spoilers well this will be full of them.

First off the movie is called Godzilla but he only has like 20 minutes of screen time and most of that screen time is his back. Instead most of the monster screen time goes to a male and female monster who are trying to reach each other so that they can mate. Second, Bryan Cranston is featured in most of the trailer for this movie and well guess what he dies like only a quarter of the way into the movie! Instead we are forced to have not so Kick-ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as our main character. Finally, it really felt like Ken Watanabe was only cast in the movie so that Godzilla could be said dramatically with a Japanese accent.

Other Movies of 2014:

Here are a few more films from 2014 that I recommend everyone should check out.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Birdman

Tusk

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Just try to ignore Megan Fox...worst casting choice of the year!!

Big Hero 6

Final Thoughts:

Thank you all again for reading the blog each week. I will try to get back on schedule with the blog as I will still be posting one on Friday. In the next post I will share my Top 10 Favorite Sitcoms. If anyone whats to suggest a topic for me to talk about or a list they want me to create or if you want to share your own thoughts or lists you can email them to me at acbach27@gmail.com. As always you can also follow me on Twitter (@acbach27) or I always share the links to the blog posts on Facebook. I'm considering creating a Facebook page for the blog but would like to hear everyone's thoughts on creating one. 

Until next week...err Friday!