Category Archives: Jenna’s Lists
Jenna Ipcar’s Top 5 of 2014
An honorable mention.
Ah yes, December. The month in which we all gather round the fireplace with a warm glass of wassail, cozy up to our loved ones, and talk about how many movies we regretted spending thirteen bucks on over the last twelve months.
Just kidding—I was actually pretty impressed with 2014 overall as far as new releases went. Of the 103 movies I watched this year—26 of which came out this year—I found that I enjoyed most of the new releases. I only actively disliked about one of them, Gone Girl). So, whereas 2013 was a year of ‘meh’ for me, I’d say 2014 was a year of three-star or higher films—a good solid year.
Jenna Ipcar’s 2013 in Film
I watched 71 films this year! More impressively, 29 of those films actually came out this year! That might be a record for me, seeing as I mostly seek out movies that are over thirty years old. Man, 29! I’m not going to even think about how much money that was.
That said, 2013 was a year of ‘meh’ for me, as far as new releases were concerned. I felt let down by a lot of the big buzz movies: 12 Years a Slave was superbly acted, but felt disjointed; Gravity managed to not excite me visually or emotionally; Frances Ha just felt like Baumbach’s version of Girls; Elysium was a snooze fest where I found myself rooting for the bad guys because they at least had more character. I was also excited for both Star Trek: Into Darkness and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and while neither particularly disappointed me (well, the whole Star Trek reboot I’ve always had issues with, but whatever) they didn’t excite me either.
I was, however, surprised by a couple of movies I saw on a lark: The Bling Ring was surprisingly watchable, Saving Mr. Banks was genuinely well done, Blue is the Warmest Color wasn’t entirely French junk, and Prisoners sort of blew me away. I also would include Wolf of Wall Street in this category, but I’ll be expounding on that one at a later date.
So, here’s my list of the best and the worst, aka, the movies that, at the very least, made me say something other than “Meh.”
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4 Halfway Decent Movies In Theaters Now (Hannah Arendt, Frances Ha, The Bling Ring, Berberian Sound Studio)
I’ve been hitting the ol’ theaters hard this month, and I’ve found most of these movies to be decidedly satisfactory. I didn’t ‘love’ any of these, but I would say that if you’re interested in seeing them, they’re worthwhile:
Hannah Arendt (2012) | Dir. Margarethe von Trotta | 113 min.
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10 Subtitled Movies For People Who Hate Subtitles
Stalker (1979). Not all subtitled movies are this, people.
Personally, I’ve never understood the hatred people have for subtitles. Sure, there is a level of inconvenience that comes with being unable to focus entirely on the visuals, since your eyes have to dart between it and the text. I mean, you’re watching a movie because that’s what you want to do—watch something, not read it. However, it seems to me in this age of text messages, the internet, scrolling news tickers, and billion hit Youtube videos from around the world, you’d think we’d be over the stigma of subtitles by now.
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