With Summer 2014 approaching its conclusion, its time to look back and inventory the blockbuster season. For the last few years, the Summer movie season has been filled with a lot of disappointment. This year, however, a lot of great films hit theaters. My top twelve best movies of Summer 2014 list is comprised of a mix of big Hollywood blockbusters and some smaller independent films which played Sundance and other film festivals earlier in the year. Some of these may have flown under your radar. Which films made my top ten movies of Summer 2014? Hit the jump and find out.
Disclaimer: Why isn’t ______ movie on this list? Either the following twelve movies on this list entertained me more, I didn’t care for that movie, or I might not have seen it. Thats right, I have not seen every film released this summer. While I write about movies, I’m not a film critic who sees everything in theaters. (I’ll eventually see anything I’ve heard is half good at home later.) There are even a couple big films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Expendables 3 which I have yet to see, although I don’t expect either film would’ve made this list. So take this list however you want to. Also, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not on the list because it was released in April. For me, the summer movie season begins in May. Enjoy.
12. X-Men: Days of Future Past
No, it wasn’t quite as good as X-Men: First Class, but it was cool seeing the older X-Men actors sharing the screen with the new class. This is a comic book story I read when I was younger, and it always seemed like such a crazy concept. I never would have expected them to be able to make it into a big screen movie. The futuristic opening with Blink zapping portals and the X-Men team in full action comes close to my hopes and expectations of what an X-Men movie action sequence can be. As much as I didn’t like Quicksilver’s design, I loved seeing the character in action on the big screen.
11. The Signal
The Signal is the kind of science fiction movie that I love — intense, mysterious, original and extremely ambitious. What is The Signal? It’s a puzzle that keeps you guessing and working to figure it out. Director William Eubank (a former cinematographer, something which shows in the visual composition of every frame) crafted a high concept film with big production value and an intimate character story, completed on relatively low budget — under $4 million.
The film tells the story of three friends on a road trip who somehow awaken in a mysterious room. Their attempt to escape begins to reveal more questions than it answers. The Signal premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and its very likely you might not have thought about seeing it. And you should, but let me warn you that this movie is not for everyone. If you liked the mysteries of Lost or still watch episodes of the old Twilight Zone television series, this was made for you.
10. 22 Jump Street
As an adaptation of a 1980′s high school set crime drama, 21 Jump Street really had no right to actually be a great comedy. But directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are the masters of “under-promise / over-deliver.” Your expectations? Throw them out the window. 22 Jump Street is genius because not only is it the same thing all over again (only set in college), it’s a send-up of the sequel concept. The film is self-aware and very clever, hilarious, and densely packed with laughs.
9. Chef
As much as I love the fact that Jon Favreau has become a director of big blockbuster films such as Iron Man, I really miss his smaller films like Made, Elf and Swingers. (The last of which he wrote but didn’t direct.) Favreau has returned to his roots a bit with this film, which may have gone under the radar of most of America.
Favreau plays a chef who loses his restaurant job. He starts up a food truck in an effort to return to his more creative work, all the while trying to build a relationship with his estranged son. In a way its a story about Favreau himself, who got stuck working within the system on big films with studio execs demanding he serve all the classic dishes, offering little room for creativity or humanity.
Which is interesting because I feel like this isn’t a groundbreaking film for Favreau, its a return to him making the classics and doing what he does best. The story is a feel-good indie, charming and hard to dislike. Chef will leave you with an appetite. The food cooking sequences earn my highest award for cinematic “food porn”. Designed by LA chef and film consultant Roy Choi, the cooking sequences are some of the best and most realistic I’ve ever seen in a theatrical movie.
It's like a zombie film in reverse; an outbreak of ticks is succeeding where environmental statistics, health warnings and pictures of cute animals have failed – turning hardened meat eaters vegetarian.
Known as the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), the tick caries a variety of diseases, such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, although it is not a carrier of Lyme Disease, by far the best known tick-borne infection.
However, the tick's most interesting feature is the capacity to make people allergic to meat. The ticks carry alpha-gal (Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose), which may sound like a superhero, but is actually a type of sugar found in non-primate mammals.
Under normal conditions the stomach digests alpha-gal without negative effects. Alpha-gal in the bloodstream is a different matter. The immune system creates antibodies against it. The next time the body encounters alpha-gal it responds as though the sugar really was a superhero and the antibodies were the villain's minions. This can occur whether the alpha-gal is now in the bloodstream or the digestive system.
The association was first made when an infestation of a different species of tick produced similar symptoms in Australia seven years ago. Warnings were sounded in February, but this summer has really seen the number of cases take off. The tick is spreading across the United States and has become particularly common on Long Island, bringing increasing numbers of people within range of its ravenous bite. Allergist Dr Erin McGintee reports seeing 200 cases from the island in the last three years.
Those with the allergy can still eat fish or chicken, but some dairy products can also stimulate a reaction – or even vegetable products cooked in beef fat. While allergists are unsure whether the allergy will wear off with time, those who have been hospitalized and need to carry EpiPens in case they ingest a small quantity of meat products may not be too keen to test if they have recovered, particularly since reactions often get worse each time a person is exposed.
McGintee warns that the reaction can take up to eight hours after eating meat, making it hard to identify the trigger.
“To not have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.”
“Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut,”Charles Bukowski wrote in his famous poem about what it takes to be a writer, “don’t do it.” But Bukowski himself was a late bloomer in the journey of finding one’s purpose, as his own “it” — that irrepressible impulse to create — took decades to coalesce into a career.
Like many celebrated authors who once had ordinary day jobs, Buk tried a variety of blue-collar occupations before becoming a full-time writer and settling into his notorious writing routine. In this mid-thirties, he took a position as a fill-in mailman for the U.S. Postal Service. But even though he’d later passionately argue that no day job or practical limitation can stand in the way of true creativity, he found himself stifled by working for the man. By his late forties, he was still a postal worker by day, writing a column for LA’s underground magazine Open City in his spare time and collaborating on a short-lived literary magazine with another poet.
In 1969, the year before Bukowski’s fiftieth birthday, he caught the attention of Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin, who offered Buk a monthly stipend of $100 to quit his day job and dedicate himself fully to writing. (It was by no means a novel idea — the King of Poland had done essentially the same for the great astronomer Johannes Hevelius five centuries earlier.) Bukowski gladly complied. Less than two years later, Black Sparrow Press published his first novel, appropriately titled Post Office.
But our appreciation for those early champions often comes to light with a slow burn. Seventeen years later, in August of 1986, Bukowski sent his first patron a belated but beautiful letter of gratitude. Found in Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978–1994 (public library), the missive emanates Buk’s characteristic blend of playfulness and poignancy, political incorrectness and deep sensitivity, cynicism and self-conscious earnestness.
August 12, 1986
Hello John:
Thanks for the good letter. I don’t think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don’t get it right. They call it “9 to 5.” It’s never 9 to 5, there’s no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don’t take lunch. Then there’s overtime and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there’s another sucker to take your place.
You know my old saying, “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.”
And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don’t want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.
As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can’t believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?
Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: “Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?”
They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.
Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:
“I put in 35 years…”
“It ain’t right…”
“I don’t know what to do…”
They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?
I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I’m here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I’ve found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system.
I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: “I’ll never be free!”
One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.
So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.
To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.
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Robin Williams was found dead today, report authorities in his home town. The report of Williams’ death comes from the Marin County Sheriff department. The department released a statement saying that authorities found Robin McLaurin Williams unconscious and not breathing inside his home in Tiburon, CA, and that he was pronounced dead this afternoon. The report says that suicide is suspected, but a true cause of death has yet to be confirmed.
Williams was equally known for his manic comic energy and his ability to portray heavy dramatic roles. He was an uncanny chameleon, mimic, and clown, able to channel whole characters in a single affectation and statement. When Williams’ first stand-up specials hit, they were unlike anything else. His best comedy had the same effect as great pop songs: Williams would riff on a line or character in a way that stuck that thing in your head forever. Nearly every comedian relies upon language, but Williams could dance around words like few others.
After an appearance on Happy Days, his kooky alien character Mork was spun off into a TV show of his own in 1978. Along with Mork & Mindy, Williams’ few live stand-up specials pushed him into the spotlight as one of the defining comic voices of the ’80s. After a set of early film roles, his comic and dramatic abilities came together in the 1987 film Good Morning Vietnam; prime roles followed in films such as Dead Poets Society, Aladdin, The Fisher King, Good Will Hunting, Insomnia and One Hour Photo.
Williams won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting. His acceptance speech is wonderful.
Even a passing glance at Williams’ film work reveals a common core: his wildly entertaining comedy so often seemed to be a cover for a very dark worldview. In that respect, he was the ultimate clown, which is something I write as the highest of compliments. There was a part of Williams that seethed, and which could be very difficult to look squarely in the eye. Good Morning Vietnam touched on this; World’s Greatest Dad stared it straight in the face.
But Williams’ comedy never seemed like a put-on; there was genuine joy in his performances. He seemed fearless — who else would do Altman’s Popeye? — and his energy could buoy a scene to incredible heights. The comedy world is full of tales of Williams as a generous collaborator, and someone who was ready with advice for up and coming talent.
Some of the ’80s stand-up specials appeared to be the product of heavy cocaine use, which Williams later admitted. Williams quit drugs in the ’80s, and hit rehab in 2006 after relapsing into alcohol use. Depression has been revealed as a contributing factor in his death. The actor’s long-time publicist said today, “Robin Williams passed away this morning. He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.”
Williams wife said in a statement,
This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.
Here’s Williams’ appearance on WTF with Marc Maron, doing a very revealing interview:
Here’s a career-spanning interview conducted by Charlie Rose:
Here’s a recent stand-up performance by Williams, with all his energy and quick thinking on display:
Robin Williams wurde heute morgen tot aufgefunden, er wurde 63 Jahre alt. Todesursache ist bislang nicht bekannt, man geht allerdings von Selbstmord aus.
Oscar winner and comedian Robin Williams died this morning at 63. While his publicist wouldn’t confirm that it was a suicide, they did issue this statement. “Robin Williams passed away this morning. He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.” […] According to a press release issued by the Marin County Coronor’s office, the Sheriff’s office suspects the death to be “suicide due to asphyxia.”
Der Mann spielte in gleich zwei meiner Lieblingsdramen tragende Hauptrollen: In Dead Poets Society den Walt Whitman-Lehrer und für seine Rolle in Good Will Hunting als Psychoonkel mit der furzenden Frau gewann er hochverdient den Oscar. Vielleicht sollten wir heute nacht auf unsere Schreibtische klettern.
„No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.“ — Robin Williams
Goodnight, Captain.
[update]Time.com: „President Barack Obama issued a statement on Williams’ passing later in the day:
‘Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien — but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most — from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets. The Obama family offers our condolences to Robin’s family, his friends, and everyone who found their voice and their verse thanks to Robin Williams.’
Is there anyone who doesn’t know about Khan Academy, the free online school? A favorite of the digiterati, this website was founded by Sal Khan who started out by making video tutorials on how to learn algebra. He captured his instructional doodles on a black screen (rather than focus on his talking face) and these short intense classes were amazingly effective. Our son used them for high-school math summer school. Students love them because they can go their own pace, and back up when needed. Sal Khan branched out to cover almost every other school topic, from history to economics, in over 4,000 videos. I’ve searched for, and attended, specific lessons in his Chemistry set in order to brush up on a forgotten point. While his math and SAT prep ones are still the best, all his courses are free, and he still teaches better than the average teacher.
In 1944, fully a year before the first successful nuclear test, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a remarkably detailed description of an atomic bomb in a story called Deadline. The story, by the otherwise undistinguished author Cleve Cartmill, sent military intelligence racing to discover the source of his information — and his motives for publishing it. Read the rest
One of the most fascinating things about early “shared folder” P2P networks and protocols such as FastTrack (Kazaa) and Gnutella (LimeWire) was the amount of unusual content that turned up online.
In the end, however, this ungoverned and unmoderated publication of content became the undoing of these and similar networks, with malware, viruses and badly (even maliciously) labeled files taking over.
With the advent of BitTorrent with its reliance on managed indexes, publication of content became significantly less accessible. That cut down hugely on junk but also much of the desirable oddball content too. However, torrents ate big files for breakfast and heralded something new and exciting – leaks of movie content never intended for public consumption plus exclusive fan-modified versions.
Also noteworthy with BitTorrent is longevity of content availability. With both in mind we took a browse around to see what unusual movie content is still being seeded today.
Fight Club – Workprint – 1998/1999
According to the iMDb, Fight Club is one of the world’s most-loved movies with countless millions having seen it to date. However, lurking away on file-sharing networks is a special version of the movie sporting hundreds of changes from the final version including 13 reported cuts for violence.
Showing that something as important as the intro isn’t always set in stone, this video claims to depict an earlier intro to the movie accompanied by “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters instead of “Stealing Fat” from the Dust Brothers.
As the world waited for the return of Michael Myers in the 2007 remake of Halloween, scene release group mVs (Maven Supplier) had a surprise in store. On August 27, 2007, three days before its official release, mVs released an unfinished version of the movie online.
Curiosity value: Missing final edits, some scenes added, and general polish. Full extensive details are available here.
Alien “Virtual Workprint” – 1979
From release notes: A fan-edit of the film ALIEN which interpolates all existing deleted scenes and a variety of unseen footage and unused score cues to create a version that runs considerably longer than both the 1979 theatrical release and the 2003 director’s cut.
Curiosity value: Runtime of 139 mins (117 mins original, 116 mins director’s cut)
Apocalypse Now – Workprint – 1979
According to the information posted along with the release, this is the best workprint copy of the movie outside “Mr Coppola’s archives” although as the screenshots show, quality is stuck in the VHS era.
“I was given this on VHS many years ago. It was from a higher up source on the food chain and quite possibly one or two generations down from the source that leaked it to begin with,” a note with the release reads.
“The workprint ended right during the cow slicing. I then tacked on the finished
film ended but before the credits I also added the Kurtz compound destruction.
Now you have a super edition of the film running 30 mins short of 6 hours!!
This Jim Carey classic was nominated for a special effects Oscar in 1995, but people who stumbled across an unfinished version of the movie were seriously but interestingly short-changed in that department. This workprint copy is missing many special effects and in some of the more dramatic morphing scenes everything is replaced by hand drawn story boards.
Curiosity value: A full 20 mins longer than the DVD with unfinished scenes, scenes not present in the final version, additional dialogue and Jim Carrey acting scenes before CGI is added in.
Dune The Reconstructed Workprint Edition – 1984
From release notes: This edit attempts to reconstruct David Lynch’s workprint better than the official Extended Edition. It removes most (if not all) of the offensive elements that led Lynch to remove his name from the Extended Edition.
Erroneous FX shots are eliminated, and as much of the Theatrical Edition as possible is used for the sake of better sound and score. It also restores most of the
deleted scenes that were not present in the Extended Edition but finally showed
up as a supplement on the DVD.
Curiosity value: 41 mins longer than the official 137 min runtime.
The Nightmare Before Christmas Workprint – 1993
From release notes: The film was half-complete at this point. You’ll see a lot of finished scenes, including a few that don’t appear in the final movie, but you’ll also see scenes which are only storyboard drawings.
There is a lot of temporary audio and music. Oogie Boogie’s scenes, for example, aren’t ready yet – they’re storyboards, with temporary audio on his song, which is a longer version probably sung by Danny Elfman. “Making Christmas” is also just storyboards with an extra verse.
The final confrontation between Jack and Oogie (and pretty much the entire ending) is also just storyboards, and a bit vague compared to the final film.
Curiosity value: Seriously unfinished
This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – 4.5 Hour Workprint
From release notes: This workprint of the film contains about 3 hours of footage not included in the commercial release. The picture quality is pretty bad; it’s dark and muddled, but you can see everything pretty okay.
The sound is really great, however. The audio also falls out of sync at certain points because it is an extremely rough cut of the flick and that stuff wasn’t finalized yet.
Curiosity value: Three hours of extra footage.
If you’ve found any obscure video content hiding away online, please feel free to detail your discovery in the comments section below. Please do not link to any copyrighted material or torrents since those posts will be removed.
each unit offers expansive views of the andaman sea, with spacious living rooms lined with teak flooring and grey walls complementing the natural stone used within the bathrooms.
“Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut,” Charles Bukowski wrote in his famous poem about what it takes to be a writer, “don’t do it.” But Bukowski himself was a late bloomer in the journey of finding one’s purpose, as his own “it” — that irrepressible impulse to create — took decades to coalesce into a career.
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.
In 1944, fully a year before the first successful nuclear test, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a remarkably detailed description of an atomic bomb in a story called Deadline. The story, by the otherwise undistinguished author Cleve Cartmill, sent military intelligence racing to discover the source of his information — and his motives for publishing it. Read the rest
