The Drunk Monkeys Reader's Poll Best of 2014
The bad news is, Inherent Vice is easily Paul Thomas Anderson’s worst movie. The good news is, it’s still a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, so there’s plenty of great stuff to be found.
But you do have to search for it. The setting is 1970’s Los Angeles. Joaquin Phoenix plays Doc, a private detective who operates out of a doctor’s office, for some reason.
The bad news is, Inherent Vice is easily Paul Thomas Anderson’s worst movie. The good news is, it’s still a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, so there’s plenty of great stuff to be found.
Bond 24 is still over a year away, but the buzz department is already working overtime with the latest casting of Christoph Waltz and Andrew Scott in villain roles. Just recently, The Mail definitively declared Waltz as reviving James Bond’s archenemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, as well as highlighting Andrew Scott’s role as another villain. Not to leave Ian Fleming fans hanging in the wind for too long, their minds rampant with speculations on where this could be heading, it was later revealed that the name of the film would be SPECTRE, which is the acronym of the terrorist organization Blofeld commanded over quite a few films.
While the rest of the Internet anticipates what 007: SPECTRE will be about, we a Drunk Monkeys have drawn swords on each other over more pressing matters, ready to shed blood in our battle over whose minstrels should guide us into this next high-octane outing.
This is the sort of horror movie that should be seen alone with the lights off. It is genuinely frightening and is yet more proof that a big budget does not make a good movie.
It’s December and I had almost given up on a good 2014 horror film. Thank goodness for Australia. Also, thank goodness for VOD because you’re likely not going to find The Babadook in your local theater.
On its release, Boyhood was met with near unanimous praise. Six months later, perhaps not accustomed to outbursts of sincerity, it seems we’ve collectively become a little embarrassed by our exuberance. That shouldn’t be necessary. Boyhood is a singular, beautiful achievement that will long stand as a classic.
It’s not easy to distill the life of any person into a two-hour film, especially a person as complicated as Alan Turing. Turing was the brilliant—if socially awkward—mathematician who helped to crack the infamous “Enigma” code-machine used by the Nazis during World War II, building a machine that would become the basis of modern computing.
Film Review: The Imitation Game
Any one aspect of Turing’s life would make for an absorbing film. The Imitation Gamewants to have it all, centering on Turing’s work to break the Enigma code, but bookended by the investigation into Turing’s secrets which would lead to his public shaming, and even flashing back to a formative schoolboy romance. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and it’s a testament to Norwegian director Morten Tyldum that the film moves at such a fast—and coherent—clip.