And the lists just keep on comin’. Five days into December and we’re swimming in end-of-year coverage, and it continues today with Entertainment Weekly dropping their choices for the best and worst movies of the year. And it seems two films covered in blood, sweat and tears topped both categories.
For the Best Movie of 2014, the magazine selected Damien Chazelle‘s Sundance hurricane "Whiplash," which edged out flavor of the moment "Boyhood." The rest of the ten picks lean a bit more mainstream, though two documentaries make the list: the Roger Ebert salute "Life Itself" and "Jodorowsky’s Dune," this year’s ultimate movie about a movie.
As far as the mag’s picks for the year’s worst films, we can’t argue with most of the selections, except "Monuments Men" was more bland than flat out awful, and "Nymphomaniac?" Really? It was certainly divisive, and I can totally see people not liking it, but the movie has more balls (literal and figurative) than anything in the past year (or few years).
Check out the lists below and debate in the comments section.
Entertainment Weekly’s Best Films Of 2014
1. Whiplash
2. Boyhood
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel
4. Life Itself
5. Selma
6. Guardians Of The Galaxy
7. Gone Girl
8. Snowpiercer
9. Birdman
10. Jodorowsky’s Dune
Entertainment Weekly’s Worst Films Of 2014
1. Nymphomaniac: Volumes I & II
2. Transformers: Age Of Extinction
3. Let’s Be Cops
4. Transcendence
5. Monuments Men
I 100% Agree with the Worst-List! I was actually looking forward to Nymphomaniac, only in terms of Von Trier\’s ability to bring Cinema something uniquely different, but all "I" got was a useless story about an unlikable character\’s ultra-sexual lifestyle, that was just plain boring. I felt that Von Trier\’s choice to use the same Music that Kubrick used in his Erotic-Mystery Eyes Wide Shut was "bad" frosting on the cake, I mean, really you couldn\’t choose something different, but Rammstein was awesome to here, & really is the only thing remotely good in the picture. I\’ve read that Lars is sober now & doesn\’t think he can produce another film due to his sobriety, which makes sense, but he\’ll be back with something, I hope, much better than this waste of time.
I recently tried to watch the new Transformers, but man, I couldn\’t even bother to make it halfway through, I\’m not normally a hater on Michael Bay, as most do, cause I think of him as a Blockbuster-Director, not a storyteller, but no one, not even Marky-Mark, could save this nearly-3hr disaster. I thought reworking the whole thing with new characters would give Franchise a nice reboot, especially after the last one was truly bad, but this has to be one of the worst this year, by far.
Monuments Men, well, the Trailer looked quite promising, & the cast is beyond amazing. Even the Storyline (from the Preview-Trailers Perspective) seemed to look,quite interesting & fun…but man, this one just took a deep nose dive into the realm of boredom.
Transcendence had a promising chance; at least, like Monuments Men, the Trailer & Cast & Crew were in the Hopeful-Category, but this thing Bombed, thankfully Interstellar is a lot better.
I\’m surprised "Tammy" isn\’t mentioned, or even worse, "Neighbors," I\’m so tired of Seth Rogen & his ugly a$$ everything, for crying out loud, the kid had to use CGI just to get by a friggin Bouncing Ball, how much of a wuss can you be….I thought This Is The End was the Worst last year, but I have to say, Neighbors is uncomfortably unfunny throughout. What kind of Fraternity has a guy like Efron running it with a bunch of nerdy-minions as his frat-brothers.
I\’m sadden to hear the distaste of the new Docu-Jodorosky\’s Dune, I\’ve been waiting years to get a glimpse of what he Alejandro had to offer, but knowing that Nicolas Winding Refn is in this, I can understand why people are frustrated. I say that, cause most are saying this is nothing more than an Ego-Boost for Jodorowsky, with everyone practically worshipping his every word, obviously that sounds annoying. I mentioned Refn, cause I thought his "Dedication" to Jodorowsky at the beginning of the end-credits of Only God Forgives was quite annoying…okay we get it, you\’re a fan of his, but it\’s not like he died or something, I thought when a Filmmaker dedicates a film to someone, usually it\’s because they\’ve passed. I thought it was a bit tacky on Refn\’s part, especially after wasting time on that film to begin with.
Any way we could add The Pyramid to this list? It\’s awful.
Kind of a predictable list for a magazine that no longer employs film critics. I heard the best and worst were complied by interns in the mail room.
I thought, "Really? These are the picks of EW\’s critics?" Then I remembered: EW recently sacked its longtime professional critics in favor of using random bloggers and whoever else they wouldn\’t have to actually pay. So these lists are the opinions of…whoever.
Well, I thought Nymphomaniac was one of the year\’s best, and I do think it was feminist, certainly.
Nymphomaniac the worst film of 2014…? Totally absurd. Sure it\’s far from the regular crowd\’s cup of tea and it\’s a polarized piece but I don\’t know how anyone can watch it and genuinely think it was a \’terrible\’ film. At its worst, a misfire. Brave and fearless in direction and content, even if exploitative. I personally thought Volume 1 was von Trier at his finest and Volume 2 was sort of its less memorable epilogue. But I mean, come on… Transformers 4 was REALLY just an all around terrible motion picture. Hardly daring, hardly innovative, hardly bold or experimental… Pretty much the archetype of carelessly made commercial cinema. That\’s the only film on that entire \’Worst\’ list that\’s even truly poor. You want to see some genuinely BAD films, check out this year\’s direct-to-DVD dramas and you\’ll find a handful.
How exactly is Amazing Spider-Man 2 being excused from the worst of lists?
Jodorowski\’s Dune was a fascinating subject, but a terrible documentary; they drank the kool-aide of the artists involved, and turned the film into a self-celebratory, unchallenging and dull mess. Tremendous opportunies to dig deeper (like the relationship between Jodorowski and his son) are ignored to make room for more talking heads complimenting eachother, and complaining about how Hollywood is so backward it couldn\’t see his genius. One-sided, boring, and fanboyish across the board.
Granted, "Nymphomaniac" was not one of my favorite Von Trier movies – but it was still good. Far from being the worst movie of the year. Then again, this critic also didn\’t like "Under the Skin." Considering his inclusion of "Guardians of the Galaxy" (which is good enough, but come on), not too surprising.
Let\’s Be Cops was not that bad! I hate how worst movie lists are not actually the "worst" movies, just the ones well-known movies that they didn\’t like. Clearly, there were worse movies but not enough people would know what they are so they don\’t include them.
this don\’t ever deserves an article