Two Tickets For...'s Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2014

Andrew: Hello dear readers. Long time, no post. We know. We've been positively awful about reviewing and posting other content on the blog the past few months. And it's not that we're not seeing films - because we are - but we've been pretty busy with our days jobs to the point that the time it takes to record, transcribe, edit and post the reviews like we'd like to feels exhausting. 

We'll try to be better as the new year continues, considering there are a TON of great-looking movies that we're excited for this year.

That all said, with 2014 in the rearview mirror now, Sarah and I wanted to take the opportunity to look back at all fifty-some films we saw that were released last year and talk about which ones were our favorites. Unlike in previous year's, because of our lackadaisical job at reviewing all the films we saw this year, our criteria is simply that we had to have actually seen the film. We've included a few movies that we didn't post reviews for.

So without further ado, in alphabetical order after the jump, here are my and Sarah's respective list of our Top Ten Favorite Films of 2014!

Cruise and Blunt Shine in Refreshing Alien Invasion Flick: Our Review of "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014)

Directed By: Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) 

Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson

Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material

Run Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Synopsis: See below in the opening paragraphs

REVIEW

A: Hello dear readers! Sarah and I caught three films this past weekend, one of which was the teenage romance film The Fault in Our Stars (you can read our review of that HERE) on Friday night, and the second one of those was the new Tom Cruise sci-fi/action film Edge of Tomorrow. This is one I had been hearing great things about in the weeks leading up to its release, so suffice it to say I was excited to see this one. Before we get to the review, though, I feel like I need to explain the concept of the film just a bit.

Based on a 2004 Japanese novel called "All You Need is Kill," Edge of Tomorrow stars Cruise as Major William Cage, the head PR guy for a worldwide military called the United Defense Force that's fighting an invasion from a destructive alien race dubbed "Mimics." The UDF is losing the war by a large margin, with Europe almost completely invaded by the Mimics, and only having won one battle - the Battle of Verdun - thanks to the heroics of a soldier named Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada).

After refusing to be embedded with a troop on the front lines of a planned beach invasion called Operation Downfall, Cage is stripped of rank and sent to basic training the day before the invasion by General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). There, Cage is thrust into the front lines of the invasion and promptly killed in action by an "alpha" Mimic.....then somehow wakes up again back at basic training the day before the invasion.

Despite attempts to tell everyone something strange is going on and that the impending invasion is doomed from the start, Cage keeps reliving the same two days over again. He finally approaches Vrataski after seeing her on the battlefield and discovers she, too, has experienced the same phenomenon thanks to her blood getting mixed with an alpha Mimic's blood and thereby gaining their power to manipulate time, which is how the Mimics have been winning the war so far, and how she was able to win the Battle of Verdun. From there they team up to learn how they can win Operation Downfall and, more importantly, the war.

Whew! That's a lot of words! And one of the more impressive parts about the film is that it's all summed up and explained very well in the first act better than I did just now. So Sarah, now that we've seen the film and I've done my best to set up the concept of the film, what did you think of Edge of Tomorrow?

Two Tickets For... Trailer Talk (Week of March 23, 2014)

Andrew: Hello readers! Today we have a very special treat for you - a new feature! And we're actually going to try and make this a regular feature, as in once a week! We know!

We're simply calling it Trailer Talk because we're super original. In this feature we'll take a look at a few new trailers that have been recently released and give some fresh takes on them - what we liked, what we didn't like, what we saw, etc. And then we'll grade each of them old-school style with actual grades. Pretty simple, but we're looking forward to doing it on a weekly basis. Let's get started with the big trailer that came out this week. 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

A: Okay Sarah, I'll kick things off. First and foremost SENTINELS! The big antagonistic conflict in the film is that a military scientist named Bolivar Trask creates these robots called Sentinels for the express purpose of hunting down mutants. We didn't really see them in the teaser trailer but they're all over the place in this one. Heck, it looks like Halle Berry's Storm might get killed by one right from the get-go!

S: Yeah this trailer was awesome sauce. When the first trailer came out, I was excited but there wasn't anything new, It really just felt like a logical, methodic step to follow First Class. BUT, then this second one aired. And, WOWZA! Totally new and exciting! I mean, it opens with a totally destroyed NYC and a very sci-fi feel.