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Dinner and a Movie Teri Bayus

My Top 10 Movies for 2014—By Teri Bayus

teri use1. Guardians of the Galaxy. This is the perfect movie with a fun plot, a tight script, strange and wonderful creatures that we will come to adore. Marvel hit another one out of the park with this soon-to-be iconic film. Guardians is nothing short of amazing; I loved and laughed every minute. Not only does it have the impressive set pieces and enough action to last you a lifetime, it has an emotional core and you actually get to care about each and every single character.
Guardians of the Galaxy plays out like Star Wars on crack, its fast, ferocious and an entertaining thrill ride throughout. Following a rag tag group of intergalactic criminals, Guardians has the plot line of a Star Wars film, the characters of a Dirty Harry movie and the action of every Marvel movie combined.

2. Chef. Chef serves up its plot, simultaneously sweet and tart with a generous helping of memorable characters and gentle comedy. Filled with star cameo performances, this film shows Favreau’s (who produced, wrote, directed and stared) clout in Hollywood, as one huge star after another popped up for small parts.
The film follows a master chef whose career is derailed and as a last resort, opens a food truck and drives across country with his young son and his sous-chef. Along the way, we’re treated to food-porn at its best and introduced to a cast of characters that would make Woody Allen blush — Oliver Platt, Dustin Hoffman, Sofia Vergara, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansen, and a slew of other familiar faces. The pairing of sumptuous shots of food preparation with Latin beats is hard to resist, and the food scenes in Chef are so luscious and evocative that you can almost smell what’s cooking.

3. Birdman. Birdman is spectacular, a perfect piece of cinema. This is a miraculously crafted original story with brilliant screenwriting that blends existential drama with pop culture savvy. The groundbreaking cinematography that presents possibly the best use of a Steadicam ever conceived. I was in love with every aspect of this film from the first frame.
The film stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up actor named Riggan, who had previously been famous for his portrayal of a superhero called Birdman. Riggan is attempting to create a new name for himself as a theater actor and put on a Broadway play in which he is both starring and directing.

4. Fury. Fury pits a tank filled with five American soldiers at the end of World War II, as they struggle to fight off a small army of Nazi soldiers that are closing in on them. David Ayer directs this brutal and grim war film with no romance to it. Ayer’s film is bloody and unrelenting and fully captures the absolutely horrific nature of war. My favorite line: “Ideals are peaceful…History is Violent.”
The cast of characters is solid across the board with just the right amount of interaction and personality to make them worth rooting for until the end. Brad Pitt’s character (Wardaddy) is a man who is truly run ragged by this war. Fury depicts not only the atrocities of war but also the ideology of brotherhood with this film.
Fury is a masterwork of film production. The close quarters of the men in the tank, the ugly muck and mire of the grime-soaked ground. It showed the gritty authenticity amidst the graphic and unspeakable violence.

5. Big Hero Six. With the action of Marvel, the drama of Disney and the comedy of both, I loved “Big Hero 6.” What made the movie special is its focus on the main character and his relationship with his brother and the invention. This is where the story is sincere, quite compelling, and almost leading the audience to tears. Because it is a Disney film, the protagonist must suffer a devastating loss. But as a superhero movie, everything you seek is accounted for — quest, an evil villain and handy sidekicks.

6. Gone Girl. I will honestly say, this is the first time I will tell you to skip the book and watch the movie. Director, David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven) used his visionary attitude of an incendiary novel. Like Fincher’s previous films, he wants to bring the viewer into the world that characters live in by focusing on the setting and place. Staring Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne and Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne, this “Who done it?” with an astonishing twist is tight, well written and will scare men to death.

7. The Lego Movie. I was glad that they made this movie with a nod to the parents (and grandparents) who have fond memories of building masterpieces from these plastic toys. This movie made me laugh the entire time, with adult humor that was pleasantly over the kids’ head, without sacrificing his chuckles.
The film had absolutely breath-taking detail when it came to making the computer animated graphics look as though they were filmed entirely in Lego bricks. The wide variety of characters, gave a sense of worlds colliding as well as charm.

8. Her. A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly-purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need. Here is a film about the journey itself and not about where the journey ends. It’s about companionship, love, loneliness, joy, heart break and everything that that comes with it.
Director/writer Spike Jonze always takes a different approach and it shows in spades in this film. This movie was directed in a way that the person watching gets consumed by the story, the characters, and the situations. A compelling love story mixed with self-discovery leaves one watching breathlessly. The subject matter could have gone stale and trite so easily, but this is classic storytelling at its finest.

9. The Book Thief. I was moved beyond words at this epic tale where the message consisted of what I have always believed. The act of storytelling can heal, sooth and enhance a soul.
The Book Thief is a breath-taking film, nuanced and thoughtful, and buoyed by strong performances. We watch as Germany falls under the storm of war, the country slowly descends into madness, as we follow this lost girl who finds a home in the care of a childless couple. Papa is a merry man whose soul is as light as a child’s (Geoffrey Rush) and mama is a woman who rumbles like a thunderstorm (Emily Watson). She makes friends with a yellow haired boy Rudy (Nico Liersch) and learns to trust again under his tutelage. What follows is all the horrors of war we have come to know — Jewish hero’s wasting away in basements, neighbors turning on each other and relentless bombs being dropped on peoples head as they just try to find enough food to eat.

10. Authors Anonymous. Written by our local media celeb, David Congalton, this independent film is about a writing group. The film is fantastic, a perfect display of writer support, love, then envy, insecurity, vanity and dysfunction. The film stars Kaley Cuoco as Hannah. She starts out as a non-reading, mother dependent ditz and goes on to become a successful writer.
The film is shot in a “Mocumentary” style so the actors break the third wall to explain their writing process, goals and aspirations. The writing group meets and they all interject, pontificate and give opinions as to where each story should go next. It is a perfect comedic telling of the writer’s mindset. D

Teri Bayus can be reached at: [email protected] or follow her writings and ramblings online at: www.teribayus.com. Teri is also the host of Taste Buds, a moving picture rendition of her reviews shown on Charter Cable Channel 10. Dinner and a Movie is a regular feature of Tolosa Press.

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