For anyone living in the Midwest or East coast, it finally feels like spring! After another brutal winter, temperatures are coming back to a reasonable level. Baseball is coming back this weekend. But who really needs the outdoors when you have millions of great films and television shows to stream on demand? Stay inside, crack the windows, and check out the newest titles to stream this weekend.

Netflix

Kicking and Screaming (Noah Baumbach, 1995)

Just in time for Noah Baumbach’s latest, While We’re Young, his first feature is now available on Netflix. One of the best movies ever made about the post-college transition, this slacker comedy is the story of a group of friends that try at all costs to hang onto their college lives. Kicking and Screaming is heavily influenced by Richard Linklater’s Slacker, and along with Reality Bites and Singles, make up the short-lived GenX comedy genre. Before you check out Baumbach’s latest indie, see where his work started.

Other new titles new to Netflix this week:
American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)
Approaching the Elephant (Amanda Wilder, 2014)
The Big Lebowski (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1998)
Bound (Andy & Lana Wachowski, 1996)
The Devil’s Rejects (Rob Zombie, 2005)
Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford, 1989)
Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)
Open Water (Chris Kentis, 2003)
Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999)
This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)

Amazon Prime

Groundhog Day

It may be two months past the holiday, but there is never a wrong time to watch this masterpiece comedy. Bill Murray stars as smarmy weatherman Phil Connors, in the signature role of his fine career, who gets stuck in a curious time loop. One of the most complex comedies ever written, the film has been read as Buddhist theology, a video game adaptation, time travel film, and just about everything in between. It is impeccably directed by Harold Ramis (who died just over a year ago) – he hits every conceivable joke out of this bizarre set-up. We were all a little depressed when Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this past February, but the eight weeks are gone and we can celebrate with this fine film.

Other new titles new to Amazon Prime this week:
The Better Angels (A.J. Edwards, 2014)
Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974)
Saved! (Brian Dannelly, 2004)
Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010)
Tusk (Kevin Smith, 2014)

Fandor

Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Mohammad Rasoulof, 2013)

A new entry in the wonderful new Iranian cinema movement, Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a gripping thriller about one of the country’s darkest times. In the film, two men are on a mission to commit murder and cover it up as a suicide, but their plans suddenly change once the deed is to be done. The film screened Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the International Federation of Film Critics prize. It is one of the most critically acclaimed and underseen films of 2013, and now you can catch up with it on Fandor.

Other new titles new to Fandor this week:
Black Moon (Louis Malle, 1975)
The Devil and Daniel Webster (William Dieterle, 1941)
Les visiteurs du soir (Marcel Carne, 1942)
Princess from the Moon (Kon Ichikawa, 1987)
Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Masahiro Shinoda, 1975)

Video On-Demand

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

The most visually ambitious film of 2014 hit DVD and VOD this week. Though it was Christopher Nolan’s least celebrated and successful film since he started making the Batman pictures, it will delight any fan of the auteur. It may not have the same impact on your home television as it did on IMAX, but the visual marvel will still play for its large landscapes and big ideas. Interstellar is perhaps his most emotional film, as well. Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain really ground the film on a human level even while the film is so fascinated with space and science. It isn’t Nolan’s best film, but in this respect the cool, clinical filmmaker turned a corner.

Other new titles new to VOD this week:
Cut Bank (Matt Shakman, 2014)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson, 2014)
The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014)
Island of Lemurs: Madagascar (David Douglas, 2014)
Last Knights (Kazuaki Kiriya, 2015)

On this special edition Way Too Indiecast, we take a quick look back at the five-year history of Way Too Indie as part of our anniversary coverage this month. Our discussion leads us to our humble beginning when our name came to be and just one person was on staff. We continue our retrospective glance back by discussing some late-season 2014 films that are coming out now, including the wonderful Best Foreign Language nominee Wild Tales, an overlooked documentary The Overnighters, and J.C. Chandor’s excellent A Most Violent Year. Plus, we catch Bernard off-guard when he can’t remember a film he just reviewed for the site (hint: it was the unimpressive The Lazarus Effect).

Topics

• Name 5 Game (2:10)
• Way Too Indie 5th Anniversary (5:50)
• 2014 Films Coming Out Now (16:30)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Way Too Indie Turns 5

Best 50 Movies of the Decade So Far

The Lazarus Effect Review

The Overnighters Review

Interview with Jess Moss of The Overnighters

Wild Tales festival coverage

A Most Violent Year Review

Interstellar Review

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• and don’t forget to leave us a rating and quick review!

Tonight’s the night! Years of work (12 in at least one case), a year of movies, and a lot of hard work leads toward what is considered Hollywood’s highest honor, the Academy Awards. That said, the Academy’s tastes are particular and after last night’s Birdman upset at the Spirit Awards, we can expect a few surprises tonight, but perhaps not in the bigger categories.

Refresh on our predictions. But remember, as they say it absolutely is an honor to be nominated.

List of 2015 Oscar Winners

(Winners highlighted in bold font)

Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Highlight: That it won AT ALL?! Not expecting it, but tough competition this year and Boyhood still holds our respect. 

Best Actor
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton – Birdman
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything
Highlight: His adorable bashfulness and utter surprise and happiness at winning. 

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
Highlight: Her joke about winning an Oscar adding years to one’s life (what science is that based on?!) which helps her out since she’s married to a younger man and also her call to trying to get patients of alzheimer’s to be seen and call attention to the disease. 

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall – The Judge
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash
Highlight: J.K. tells us all to call our parents. Lazy Sunday night parents everywhere tell their kids to “call back later.”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Laura Dern – Wild
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game
Emma Stone – Birdman
Meryl Streep – Into the Woods
Highlight: Patricia used a portion of her speech to call attention to her ecological sanitation organization givelove.org as well as an impassioned shoutout to women calling for “wage equality once and for all.”

Best Director
Alejandro G. Iñárritu – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Bennett Miller – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum – The Imitation Game

Best Foreign Language Film
Ida – Poland
Leviathan – Russia
Tangerines – Estonia
Timbuktu – Mauritania
Wild Tales – Argentina
Highlight: Director Pawel Pawlikowski defies music deadlines and says his keep, thanking those he wishes to thank.

Best Animated Film
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Best Documentary Feature
CitizenFour
Finding Vivian Maier
Last Days in Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga
Highlight: Neil Patrick Harris cracks the joke: “The subject of Citizenfour, Edward Snowden couldn’t be here for some treason.”

Best Original Screenplay
Birdman
Boyhood
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler

Best Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Best Original Score
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Mr. Turner
The Theory of Everything
Highlight: Preceded by an amazing performance by Lady Gaga performing songs from The Sound of Music for its 50th Anniversary. 

Best Original Song
“Everything Is Awesome” – The Lego Movie
“Glory” – Selma
“Grateful” – Beyond the Lights
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” – Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me
“Lost Stars” – Begin Again
Highlight: Common and John Legend call attention to the current struggle for justice and spotlight on the number of black incarcerated men in America in an impassioned speech bringing tears to many eyes in the audience. 

Best Cinematography
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ida
Mr. Turner
Unbroken

Best Editing
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Whiplash
Highlight: Tom Cross thanks director Damien Chazelle for pushing him to create great art. 

Best Visual Effects
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Best Sound Editing
American Sniper
Birdman
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Unbroken

Best Sound Mixing
American Sniper
Birdman
Interstellar
Unbroken
Whiplash

Best Production Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Into the Woods
Mr. Turner

Best Costume Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Inherent Vice
Into the Woods
Maleficent
Mr. Turner

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Live Action Short Film
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
The Phone Call

Best Documentary Short Subject
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper (La Parka)
White Earth

Best Animated Short Film
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

Sometimes a single scene can elevate a good film into a great one. Other times a moment can single-handedly redeem a film, or save it from the brink of disaster. Like last year, 2014 had plenty of terrific scenes and moments out of the many films released over the last twelve months. Before we reveal our big list of 2014’s best films, along with plenty of other year-end goodies, a few of the Way Too Indie staff put together this list of our favorite movie moments of 2014. Whether these scenes made us laugh, cry, creeped us out or got our hearts racing, they’ll certainly stay in our brains long after the year is over.

Warning: Some of these descriptions contain spoilers.

The Babadook – Reading The Book

The best horror film of the year’s scariest scene doesn’t involve a murder, a monster or a bump in the night, but a single mother reading a children’s book to her troubled son. The book that releases Mister Babadook is a brilliant piece of design. Beautifully drawn and written, the book’s pop-ups start out as delightful before becoming more elaborate and psychotic. The further along Amelia and young Samuel get, the nastier it becomes, and the the more it sucks in the viewer. Suddenly, one might realize that this isn’t just a general warning, but a true foreshadowing of events to come. The book’s narrative directly impacts our expectations up until the end, making us truly dread what’s coming. The Babadook has so much more going for it than a typical haunted house horror flick, but this quiet scene is its scary height. [Aaron]

Blue Ruin – In The Trunk

Jeremy Saulnier’s fantastic debut feature, a moody, bluesy, violent deconstruction of the revenge thriller, is at its best when it’s also darkly comedic. No scene mixes the two better than when Dwight has his second of three confrontations with the Cleland family. By this point Dwight is already established as being completely out of his element, but now he’s been introduced to a firearm by a former friend he meets in the previous scene. Once Dwight opens the trunk to come face-to-face with Teddy, it is difficult to predict what exactly will happen, but it certainly won’t be good. Dwight is trying his best to end the blood feud here, not wishing to harm Teddy but nervously willing to use deadly force. Pettiness, or perhaps some effed up fate, won’t let that happen, however, especially after Dwight is tricked and overpowered by his hostage. I won’t spoil what happens next, but the scene ends on a perfect laugh to break this tension – first, horror over the remnants of a violent act, followed by a simple, yet philosophical decree: “That’s what guns do.” [Aaron]

Enemy – Spiders!

Denis Villeneuve’s deliberately confusing Enemy, an adaptation of José Saramago’s novel “The Double,” really loves to throw spider imagery around. The opening scene has a group of men watching a woman crush a spider with her foot. A shot of streetcar cables looks awfully similar to a spider web. And to make matters worse for arachnophobes, the protagonist repeatedly has nightmares involving disturbing, Cronenbergian images of giant spiders terrorizing Toronto. A shot of the Toronto skyline goes from ominous to severely creepy once you notice the massive spider towering over the city’s skyscrapers in the background. An image of a naked woman with a spider’s head comes straight out of a Lynchian nightmare. And oh yeah, that ending. I’m not gonna spoil it (and if you don’t want it spoiled, don’t go sniffing around on Google either). People have already called it one of the scariest endings to a movie, and while I don’t agree with that declaration, I don’t blame anyone for getting freaked out by those final frames. [C.J.]

Force Majeure – The Avalanche & Arguing In Bed

If someone were to explain the plot of Force Majeure outright, they would probably give the wrong impression. A well-to-do family’s vacation in paradise quickly upended by a natural disaster sounds more like The Impossible than its internalized examination of masculinity and familial responsibility. Without nailing the pivotal avalanche scene, there is no film, no matter how great the remainder may be. As the Swedish family enjoy their casual lunch on the side of a mountain, with a view as tasty as the expensive cuisine, someone notices a controlled avalanche building on the slopes in the distance. In the course of only a few minutes, the scene twists and turns as the blinding powder hurdles toward them. Is this truly a controlled blast, or something out of control? We can see the characters working through thoughts from the serene to the horrified, leading to the ultimate actions which set the film’s second and third acts. It perfectly connects with the plot and themes of the entire film, but could stand on its own as a wonderful short film that can adequately hit on these themes all on its own. The avalanche is beautifully shot in a single long take, a perspective allowing the intense background and the entire lunch crowd to be viewed together. Shoot it any other way, and the scene just wouldn’t build as organically as it does. [Aaron]

The avalanche at the crux of Force Majeure does more than test the relationship between the film’s lead couple. Tomas and Ebba’s concerns become the subject of several conversations, including a notable one between themselves and Tom’s full-bearded friend Mats (Kristofer Hivju) and Mats’ 20-year-old date Fanni (Fanni Metelius). At the end of an awkward night together, Mats and Fanni return to their room where the night of bickering has only just begun. Mats attempts to empathize with his friend, but Fanni suggests that, were he to be caught in a similar situation, Mats would have likely ran from the avalanche rather than returned to help his children. What Fanni means as an innocuous observation leads to the couple debating in bed throughout the night. Lying next to one another, Fanni attempts to explain her thinking while Mats continues to assert his masculinity, offended at her insinuation. As the lights keep flicking on and off, with the couple finishing and reopening their argument, the uncomfortable familiarity of getting stuck in an argument headed nowhere creeps in. This scene is one of the most relatable, hilarious moments of the year. [Zachary]

Gone Girl – Consummation

A warning: Readers shouldn’t be reading this if they haven’t seen David Fincher’s Gone Girl. But assuming those of you reading are film lovers who have already seen this fantastic modern satire, please proceed. Amy (Rosamund Pike) emerges halfway into the film as the antithesis to the cool girl, but then finds herself in a bit of a pickle with her ex-stalker Desi (Neil Patrick Harris). How she gets rid of him is one of my favorite moments in 2014. Fincher, working in tandem with regular collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (music), Kirk Baxter (editing) and Jeff Cronenweth (cinematography), manages to shine a whole new light on Pike’s multifaceted performance; that of the psychotic, murderous, dangerously intelligent bitch. Luring Desi into the bedroom, Amy’s plan to “cry rape” works perfectly in the film’s highest dramatic moment when she slits Desi’s throat while he’s inside her, the blood spurting all over her body and Desi’s thousand dollar sheets, shown through slow-burning black fades and ominous chords. I’m pretty sure my irises expanded as if I had just been injected by a drug, and as shocking as it was, I couldn’t help but smile and admire all the artistry behind the creation. If I were to anatomize scenes from 2014, this would be the first. [Nik]

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Lobby Boy Interview

There are many, many wonderfully spiffy and affably hilarious moments to choose from in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. I equally love loads, but the one I’d like to signal out here is Zero’s (Tony Revolori) interview with M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes)—centered around the cornerstone of the film’s marketing question, “Why do you want to be a lobby boy?” After shouting out various demands and instructions, Gustave realizes that he has no clue who this little earnest boy following him around is. “You’re now going to be officially interviewed” “Should I go and light the candles first, Sir?” “What? No.” This tit-for-tat between Revolori and Fiennes in the first of their many brilliant exchanges, mostly dominated by Fiennes’ spectacular comic timing. Not only do we get why Zero is called Zero (“Education. Zero”), but this moment also shows how well Anderson balances funny with poignant. When asked about his family and the young boy replies, “…zero,” it’s poignant enough to produce a lump in one’s throat. Anderson does that well throughout The Grand Budapest Hotel, but this early-on interview, which turns out to be the beginning of a wonderful bond between Gustave and Zero, is as good an example as any. [Nik]

Honeymoon – “Take it out”

In a year full of exciting horror debuts, many of which come from first-time female directors, Leigh Janiak’s debut feature Honeymoon has been somewhat overlooked. Perhaps this partially stems from the film’s minimalist approach to the actual scares. The movie largely confines its disturbing imagery and spilt blood to one intense, prolonged scene near the story’s end (Warning: Spoilers ahead). As the newlyweds lose their trust in one another, Paul (Harry Treadaway) decides he’s had enough of Bea’s (Rose Leslie) unexplained weirdness, tying her down to the bed until she reveals what’s really happening. Bea pleads with Paul, thrashes around, and attempts to break free, eventually falling silent instead of saying the words Paul needs to hear. As an audience member, Honeymoon makes you think that Paul has gone crazy as well, but when Bea finally begs for Paul to “take it out,” the real horror emerges. Paul sticks his hand deep inside Bea and pulls out a slimy, alien organ that has burrowed inside her. The “retrieval” is hard to watch, and harder to listen to with disgusting noises and Bea’s pained exhales. It’s a wonderfully gross reveal of what Honeymoon was hiding all along: a body snatching. [Zachary]

Interstellar – Tesseract

The “docking moment,” with its visual effects paired with Hans Zimmer’s ear-melting score halfway through Christopher Nolan’s arresting direction, is considered the ultimate highlight by many Interstellar fans. But, what personally took my breath away at the cinemas, and will end up being very high on my year-end list of awestruck theatre moments, was something that happens towards the end, “the big reveal” as it were. Obviously, if you have managed to still not see Interstellar, definitely stop reading this right now. But, if you have, then this should be familiar. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) detaches from the main ship as a last attempt to collect the data from the black hole and save the human race. All his prayers made, his death an impending inevitability, he instead surprisingly finds himself in a multi-dimensional, time-warped “tesseract” (a.k.a. that colorful cube thingy) and realizes that he brought about his own future as his daughter Murphy’s (Mackenzie Foy) mysterious “ghost.” This moment of revelation should go down as one of the most unforgettable plot twists of the 21st century. The emotion, McConaughey’s performance, the visual effects, how it ties into the core of what Nolan’s sci-fi is truly about—the word ”awesome” can’t even do it justice. [Nik]

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons – The Fish Demon

Stephen Chow, the director of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, knows how to create grand visual comedy, combining lowbrow humour with pure, inventive spectacle. He’s credited as a co-director on Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, but the opening sequence feels like it could only come directly from his brain. A fish demon terrorizes a small, ramshackle fishing village (think Waterworld), gobbling up anyone foolish enough to get near the water. Amateur demon hunter Xuan decides to take a crack at defeating the evil creature, resulting in one of the year’s best action sequences. The elaborately staged scene, including a bit with giant seesaws that feels straight out of silent-era comedy, shows the immense talent and precision on display, while the use of cheesy CGI and a fat suit as a punchline makes it hard not to burst out laughing at the lunacy on-screen. Journey to the West marks Chow’s first time back in the director’s chair since 2008, and it’s a reminder of how much his zany imagination has been missed. [C.J.]

Leviathan – Appeal Denied

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan is a cinematic goliath, and it feels almost wrong to single out just one scene, when part of power the film holds is how gracefully it weaves all of its scenes together into one knockout punch. That said, I want to climb every mountain top and scream the praises of this wondrous film, so I’m grabbing every chance I get to talk about it. A standout scene is Nikolai (Aleskey Serebryakov) visiting the court, after hearing that the Mayor’s (Roman Madyanov) plans of demolishing his house are moving forward, and listening to the judge deny his appeal by reading out a litany of rules and clauses, loopholes upon loopholes which Nikolai gravely realizes he’ll never be able to jump through. The speed at which she spits his virtual sentence out, Serebryakov’s powerhouse subtlety, Zvyagintsev’s choice to slowly track towards her in a shot that is unexpectedly long. It’s but one masterstroke in a film satiated in them, and the first moment that makes one realize how cinematically rich this film is. [Nik]

Nightcrawler – The Car Chase

There have been plenty of car chases in the history of film, so at first glance it might seem unnecessary to single out this one, but the climactic chase in Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler is an exception. Why does this one stand out from the rest? Because of Lou Bloom’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) escalating obsession with capturing carnage on film to sell to the news. Bloom becomes more fanatical in his quest to capture great footage at blood-filled crime scenes, even going so far as to move a body so he can get a better angle. In the final act, Bloom deliberately creates a showdown between two dangerous criminals and police, and once the battle starts the film goes full throttle. The energy and intensity of the car chase is a massive expulsion of all the obsession brewing under Bloom’s façade the entire time. People die in the chase because of Bloom’s unsympathetic and greedy decision-making; but what does Louis think? All he cares about is if it looked good on camera. [Blake]

Nymphomaniac: Volume I – Mrs. H

The first part of Lars Von Trier’s epic, explicit saga of Joe, the titular sex addict (played in this scene by Stacy Martin) has plenty of sexual depravity going on, but the film’s knockout sequence doesn’t have anyone baring skin. In a chapter titled “Mrs. H,” one of Joe’s regular flings comes to her place with his bags. He’s left his wife and children, ready to finally come live with Joe. She isn’t actually interested in this man, but that’s the least of her problems. Suddenly the man’s wife (Uma Thurman, who needs to work more with Von Trier) shows up with their kids, letting herself in and unleashing a firestorm of emotions on Joe and her husband. The scene is Von Trier in top form: funny, unbearable, sad, provocative, and riveting all at once. It’s a sequence that lingers all the way through to the next volume, and while the rest of the film offers plenty to like, nothing comes close to matching the power of “Mrs. H.” [C.J.]

Rosewater – First Interrogation

When Maziar Bahari is first taken in by the Iranian government and questioned about his involvement covering the presidential election, it seems like a joke. Certainly, he’s not an American spy as he’s being accused. We’ve seen his incredible attempt at trying to stay unbiased while still being inquisitive. But his accusers are wrapped up in silly questions over his possession of Italian art films and misunderstand his appearance on a satirical political show. Javadi, his interrogator, seems like a brutish buffoon who will easily get his comeuppance. But then Javadi leans into Bahari, lowers his voice and changes his expression. He asks Bahari why he talks about Americans and Iranians as if they are similar. Suddenly, the entire mood of the scene and the film changes from a fish-out-of-water comedy to something much more serious. In a simple character moment, we understand that Javadi isn’t a clown or a buffoon, but a very serious man who is hurt and angered. He’s not just a powerful captor, but a wounded animal who poses a legitimate threat to Bahari’s freedom. There are louder, more dramatic interrogation scenes in Rosewater, but none crystallize the complex political environment as much as this moment. [Aaron]

Snowpiercer – The Classroom

The Snowpiercer classroom scene is a bit like the “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” moment from The Wizard of Oz. It begins the unmasking of the surreal world brought to life by Bong Joon-ho in an abrupt shift of tone. Lead by an absolutely zany performance from Alison Pill, the schoolteacher guides her young class through ritualistic songs praising the train’s mighty engine and its creator Wilford. Sure, the scene’s use of propaganda as educational material serves for a convenient exposition dump, but the colorful classroom and its blissfully ignorant children occupants add a moment of levity between the movie’s frequent brutality that manages to somehow feel crazier than many of the story’s insane twists. This scene turns swiftly brutal too, after Teacher retrieves a hidden automatic gun only to be dispatched by a swiftly thrown knife. All of it is mesmerizing and bizarrely fun. [Zachary]

Stray Dogs – Final 2 Shots

Anyone familiar with Tsai Ming-Liang knows how duration plays a vital part in his work. I saw Stray Dogs in theatres last year during its festival run, hopeful that Tsai’s self-declared final film would have him close off his filmmaking career on a strong note. I did not expect something as powerful as the film’s final two scenes, possibly the best work Tsai has ever done, to come from it. It’s hard to explain exactly why the ending has the power of an emotional sledgehammer without getting into too much detail, so I’ll stick to the facts. Shooting on digital instead of film, Tsai no longer has the limitation of a film reel to stop him from rolling. The penultimate shot lasts for close to 15 minutes, and the next shot lasts closer to 10. The extended length turns both shots into something constantly changing with each minute, an engrossing and ultimately transcendent experience. Few films have moved me the same way as those final minutes of Stray Dogs. I’m sure that only a few films ever will. [C.J.]

Two Days, One Night – Meeting Timur

Marion Cotillard’s Sandra spends the length of Two Days, One Night attempting to convince a slew of co-workers to give up a significant bonus which will allow her to retain her job. The task is uncomfortable, and for Sandra incredibly anxiety-provoking, especially after her first couple of face-to-face interactions with co-workers don’t end in her favor; however, one excursion provides Sandra hope, and gives Two Days, One Night a much needed release of tension early in the film. As Sandra starts to hesitantly ask for empathy, becoming accustomed to the routine of being turned down by her colleagues, Timur instead is the one to break down into tears. He confesses that the decision to take his bonus rather than fight for his job has been haunting him. To Sandra’s surprise, Timur is relieved to have the opportunity she’s provided him, so much so that he’s even agreed to call another one of their co-workers. The scene comes unexpectedly, but is a beautiful and heartfelt moment that sets Two Days, One Night into motion. [Zachary]

Watchers of the Sky – Tycho Brahe

At the end of Watchers in the Sky, one of the documentary’s subjects relates a story about the 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brahe spent decades observing the stars and their position in the sky, writing his observations down every night. When someone asked Brahe what the purpose of his work was he said he didn’t know, but he was sure that, when someone does figure it out, he’ll have saved them several decades worth of work. And sure enough, Brahe’s measurements ended up being used by the first astronauts on the moon. It’s a moving, goosebump-inducing sequence because of how perfectly it ties into the film’s subject. Following different people fighting to end genocide, Watchers of the Sky commends them for their hard, thankless efforts. None of these people might ever see their goals fully realized, but their work will help make it easier for whoever ends up carrying their torch. It’s a level of selflessness that can inspire chills. [C.J.]

Whiplash – The Concert

If one thing’s obvious from Damien Chazelle’s 2nd film Whiplash, it’s the director’s impeccable sense of timing. The film moves along at a quick pace, settling into a rhythm of highs and lows for Miles Teller’s lead character Andrew. It’s in the film’s exhilarating finale that Chazelle allows his movie to hit the crescendo (Warning: Spoilers ahead). As Andrew performs with a band of professionals lead by the abusive conductor he’s just screwed over, he finds out Fletcher has set him up for disaster by not giving him sheet music to play. Andrew fumbles through one song so spectacularly that he leaves the stage out of embarrassment; however, just as you’ve become ready to accept this downer ending, Andrew storms back onto the stage. He interrupts Fletcher’s preamble with a energetic jazz beat and leads the band into an electric performance of “Caravan,” highlighted by a captivating drum solo. Andrew’s talent shines through so undeniably that he even wins over Fletcher. It’s an intensely visceral, satisfying moment that deserves a standing ovation. [Zachary]

What Else?

Working on this feature was like dealing with an embarrassment of riches. We could keep going on, talking about dozens of other scenes that left some sort of impact on us this year, but we all have our limits. In some cases it was simply too hard to pick one scene out of a film that contained so many amazing moments, like Under the Skin, A Spell to Ward off the Darkness and Winter Sleep. While we talked about the heart-pounding car chase in Nightcrawler, an earlier scene where Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo “negotiate” over dinner, is also notably skin-crawling. 22 Jump Street wasn’t as funny as its predecessor  but its end credits, a hilarious montage of potential sequels, was ingenious;  the ending revelation of The Overnighters packs a wallop, tragically shedding everything that came before it in a new light; and the moment when Jean-Luc Godard “splits” his 3D cameras in Goodbye to Language 3D is, simply put, something that’s never been done in cinema before. Want to share the love of a moment we picked? Want to let us know how wrong we are for not including a scene you loved? Let us know what your favorite movie moments of 2014 are, and here’s hoping 2015 brings us many more unforgettable sequences.

Spanning the farthest reaches of time and space, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will show you worlds so wondrous you’ll feel the floor fall out from under you and the breath leave your lungs. It’s an experiential, transportive sci-fi film that’s even more spectacular than advertised. The film is made a mess of, however, by a clunky and scatterbrained plot. Nolan burrows deeper than ever into his creativity to build an epic journey into the stars, but more of that energy could have been devoted to making his on-screen explorers, their relationships, and their internal struggles, as inventive and sharply-executed as the visuals. Still, you’ll be floored by Nolan’s outer-space opus, its imagery overwhelming in scope and wonder, its ambition boundless. This is a worthy moviegoing experience, despite its flaws.

Oh, the amazing things you’ll see: alien tidal waves thousands of feet high; planets where time itself gets bent and stretched beyond all recognition; clouds frozen into floating ice chunks; a black hole that looks unlike anything I’ve seen on film. But before shooting off to the edge of the galaxy, the story begins on the ground, in the dirt, on a farm owned by a country-bred former astronaut named Cooper (Matthew McConaughey). He’s raised a brainy daughter, Murph (Mackenzie Foy), and a son, Tom (Timothee Chalamet), with his caring, wise father-in-law (John Lithgow). Earth is plagued by parasitic dust storms called “The Blight” that have ravaged the planet of her crops and diminished the global food supply to frightening lows.

One day, Murph discovers a gravitational anomaly in her bedroom she claims is the doing of “her ghost”, who’s allegedly also been pushing books off her bookshelf. Following clues extrapolated from the anomaly, Cooper and Murph end up at a secret NASA compound where they find Cooper’s old mentor, Prof. Brand (Michael Caine), who consequently needs him to lead a mission through a wormhole near Saturn to track down a team of previous explorers who were tasked with finding a new home planet for the human race. His crew mates are Brand’s daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway), snarky scientist Doyle (Wes Bentley), the jittery but brilliant Romilly (David Gyasi), and a walking homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a talking robot named TARS who looks like a mobile version of the monolith from Kubrick’s masterpiece. Cooper accepts the mission, and doesn’t know when he’ll be able to return to little Murph, who’s resentful and torn to pieces. Nolan cleverly pairs the image of Cooper speeding away from the farm in his truck, kicking up a trail of dust, with audio from a space shuttle countdown and liftoff, a shining example of his audacious filmmaking style.

The plot is rooted in complex physics, metaphysics, relativity, and other concepts richer than the average moviegoer is used to. Nolan and his co-writer and brother, Jonathan Nolan, must have been terrified audiences wouldn’t be able to keep up, because the dialogue is so over-explicated and reiterative (if they reference Murphy’s Law one more god damn time…) your ears will turn beet red. If clarification was the objective, the Nolans achieve the opposite; the incessant exposition and space-time mumbo-jumbo only make things more complicated, and the heady concepts swirling above it all only add to the confusion.

Cluttered as it is, the script poses some fascinating scenarios. A great example is the aforementioned time-bending planet, whose proximity to a black hole means that for every hour Cooper and his team spend on its surface, 7 years pass for everyone else on earth. An unforeseen accident that extends the team’s stay on the planet leads to the film’s most devastating scene, in which Cooper returns to the ship, opens his video mailbox, and discovers the severe consequences of his mistake. McConaughey, convulsing and drowned in tears, breaks your heart. This portion of the film is terrific, because it’s a case in which the big, bombastic on-screen action dovetails perfectly into a moment of raw human emotion. It clicks, and it’s divine.

An older Murph is played by Jessica Chastain, whose poise as an actor makes her the film’s second-biggest boon, next to McConaughey. Cooper and Murph’s inter-dimensional father-daughter relationship is the glue that binds the film, which otherwise would feel like a collection of unrelated sci-fi short stories. Matt Damon enters the fold at around the halfway mark as one of the original astronaut explorers, adding a welcome layer of mystery to the proceedings. Bill Irwin, who voices TARS without an inkling of robotic inflection, lends the film a surprisingly significant amount of warmth and humor. What’s frustrating, though, is that 50 percent or more of the actors’ dialogue seems to be fixated on tiresome exposition, Hathaway being the prime victim of this design choice. She tries valiantly to emote, but labyrinthine chatter about space-travel mechanics constantly gets in her way.

Where the film threatens to fall apart is in its final act, a prosaic series of events sorely lacking finesse. Nolan’s finales often come off as emotionally cold or overwrought because he’s so self-serious and obsessed with juggling pathos, plot twists, philosophy, and mind-bending visuals all at once. Interstellar is sadly no exception, with a climax so disorganized that you’re frantically trying to shuffle things around in your head to make sense of it all, too preoccupied with deciphering logistics to feel the full impact of Nolan’s message, which he means to be poignant, but ultimately thuds. The shame is, the message is a beautiful one, in which we’re asked to consider the preciousness of the time we have with our family, and confront the inevitability that one day, we will all drift apart into eternity. I was ultimately touched by the heart of the story; I just wish I didn’t have to shove so much space junk out of the way to get there.

Nolan shot Interstellar in 35mm, VistaVision, and IMAX 70mm, which gives the breathtaking imagery a sort of dirtiness and inelegance that fits the story well, while sufficiently supporting the grandiosity of his vision. The mind-boggling proposition of visually representing four or more dimensions on-screen has always been fascinating to me, and Nolan and his team (including Her cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema) have concocted the most awe-inspiring version I’ve seen. It’s encouraging to see a big budget supporting such an artful, sincere endeavor. Flying under the radar, surprisingly, is Hans Zimmer, whose tasteful, nuanced score is one of his best, floating in and out of scenes fluidly and emphasizing only when appropriate. His notorious blaring, thrummy horns are replaced by sensitive, heavenly organs, which is a saving grace, because the last thing Interstellar needs is more chaos to further obstruct its purpose.

Interstellar trailer

With the Oscars looming on the horizon, it’s time for filmmakers, actors, and studios to bring out the big guns and fight to nab one of those wee golden fellows. For cinema-goers, the fall season is the best time of year: With the summer blockbuster melee out of the way, our focus is shifted to the foreign dramas, auteur showcases, and breakout performances that will populate theaters through to the winter. It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty, and with so many excellent films to look forward to in the next few months, we’ve compiled our list of 20 must-see films of the fall. Some we’ve seen, and some we haven’t, but all in all, this fall season is shaping up to be one to remember.

20 Essential Fall Films

#20 – Force Majeure

Ruben Östlund made a splash at Cannes back in 2011 with Play, a controversial film based on real-life incidents of a group of children elaborately mugging other kids their age. This year, Östlund returned to Cannes with a different kind of film. A family vacationing at a ski resort in the Alps has a close call with an avalanche, and an impulsive fight-or-flight action by the father causes the family unit to break down. Like it or hate it, Play showed that Östlund has remarkable directorial skills, and the praise from Cannes only has us more excited for his follow-up. After a bow at TIFF, Magnolia will release Force Majeure in October. Keep your eyes on this one, as it’s been one of the more buzzed about foreign films this year. [C.J.]

#19 – Tusk

In 2011, when Kevin Smith released his last feature film, Red State, he announced (with his usual long-windedness) that he’d be retiring from film directing after completing one more film. Since then he seems to have calmed down. At Comic-Con Smith did his usual “Evening with Kevin Smith” where he spent a lot of time talking about the new Star Wars film, before revealing the first trailer for his upcoming film Tusk. Based on a conversation Smith had on his podcast discussing a craigslist ad a man posted offering a free place to live to someone willing to dress as a walrus while there, Smith’s always-buzzing brain of course ran free with the very dark way such a scenario could play out. And the trailer indicates the film is just as creepy, dark, and (because it’s Smith) funny as his imagination could make it. Starring Justin Long as a podcast host investigating a reclusive old mariner in Canada, and playing up Smith’s offbeat sense of humor in lieu of Red State’s politically-charged tension, it seems like Smith may finally have found his perfect style of horror. Release date is September 19th, just in time for some pre-Halloween fun. [Ananda]

#18 – The Two Faces of January

A throwback to ‘60s romance thrillers (and appropriately set in the ‘60s itself), Hossein Amini’s The Two Faces of January throws three excellent actors—Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, and Kirsten Dunst—into a dizzying, dangerous love triangle set in sun-drenched Greece. An adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel, the film is rife with deception, jealousy, and murder, a treat for those of us with a taste for such noir-ish goodies. The film has gotten some decent buzz on the festival circuit, though it’ll likelier to please retro lovers than the mainstream masses when it hits in early October. [Bernard]

#17 – The Theory of Everything

I’m pretty much a sucker for anything involving Stephen Hawking. While he is most known for his brilliant advancements in physics, The Theory of Everything appears to center more around his personal life. Before being diagnosed with a fatal illness at 21 years old, he fell in love with his first wife while studying at Cambridge. Dealing with this tragedy, the film aims to be both heartbreaking and inspirational. Based on the trailer and the award season release date of November 7th, it seems that Eddie Redmayne (who plays Hawking) could be in early contention for an Oscar nomination. We hope to catch its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, so stay tuned for our coverage. [Dustin]

#16 – The Interview

The Interview received a good amount of unexpected publicity thanks to North Korea’s decision to file a complaint with the United Nations over the movie’s plot; TV personality Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen) become involved in a secret CIA plot to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (Randall Park). This film, the 2nd from Rogen & his writing partner Evan Goldberg as directors following This Is The End, finds the Pineapple Express duo partying hard, rescuing puppies and manning DPRK tanks. Despite Sony’s decision to digitally alter aspects of the movie and (supposed) cutting of a rumored “face melting” scene, reuniting Rogen with Franco in this premise seems absurdly promising. [Zach]

#15 – Listen Up Philip

Because Alex Ross Perry had already mesmerized us with his previous no-budget film The Color Wheel, his newest film Listen Up Philip has been on our radar since its announcement. Then overwhelmingly positive reviews flew in from its Sundance premiere. Combine all of this with the fact Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss star in the film and you’ve got our full attention. Schwartzman playing an arrogant novelist seems like a perfect role considering his character from HBO’s Bored to Death. Perry is quickly becoming an independent director to keep an eye on, so mark your calendars for when Listen Up Philip opens in theaters on October 17th—we already have. [Dustin]

#14 – The Skeleton Twins

If someone wanted to convince me to watch Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins and began the sentence with “Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play twins,” I will most likely tune out anything else after that. Deep down I know my mind would already be made up: there’s no way I’m not watching this movie. Hader and Wiig have both grown out of their SNL multi-personas and transitioned into film; Wiig has been the more successful of the two thanks to Bridesmaids, but Hader’s small charming role in The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby hints at his untapped dramatic talent. In any case, The Skeleton Twins looks like a perfect showcase for both actors to show they have what it takes to be both funny and serious. Unveiled at Sundance to very positive response (it’s currently 100% fresh on the Tomatometer) the story deals with the reconnection of twins Milo and Maggie after they both manage to cheat death on the same day. [Nik]

#13 – Big Hero 6

Over the past two decades, Pixar Studios has taken most of the shine away from Disney Animation, and rightfully so. Toy Story is coming up on 20-years-old. Think about that for a second. Disney has had its share of recent hits with Tangled and Frozen, but those are films that aren’t really catered to me. What about a super-hero film about a boy and his robot companion with flavors of Japanese anime? Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. Big Hero 6 has a lot of potential as a unique entry in the overpopulated super-hero genre. It doesn’t hurt that Baymax looks to be an impossibly cute robot character, on the level of Wall-E and the Iron Giant. I don’t know if the film will be as good as those films, but if it can deliver on the fun premise, it has a chance to be one of the most satisfying films of the year. [Aaron]

#12 – The Overnighters

Earlier this year at Hot Docs I called The Overnighters “a roller coaster” that’s bound to be one of 2014’s best documentaries. My feelings haven’t changed since. Jesse Moss’ remarkable film follows a small town in North Dakota going through an oil boom. As people across the country flock to the town looking for work, a local pastor’s decision to let new arrivals sleep in his church (housing is next to impossible to find) triggers a surprising chain of events. With a narrative so cinematic the doc could easily be adapted into a drama, The Overnighters starts out riveting and never stops. Drafthouse will release the film on October 24th, and don’t be surprised if this one ends up becoming an Oscar nominee. [C.J.]

#11 – White Bird in a Blizzard

This novel adaptation looks to be a stylized coming-of-age story about a teenager (played by Shailene Woodley) whose mother (Eva Green) suddenly disappears one day. The early buzz from its Sundance premiere had people praising Woodley’s brave performance as she swears up a storm and spends a fair amount of time undressed. Perhaps her acting career is evolving from Young Adult hits like Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars to more serious and adult roles. Although Green doesn’t have as much screen time as Woodley because of her character’s mysterious disappearance, it’s been said she makes every minute count. White Bird in a Blizzard will be available on VOD September 25th and in theaters October 24th. [Dustin]

#10 – The Guest

Adam Wingard is proving to be one of the most formidable directors in modern horror, with 2013’s excellent You’re Next infusing the tried-and-true slasher genre with a quirky style that’s both primal and electro-cool. The Guest, his latest offering, again takes an old-school set-up and kicks it in the teeth, straight into the new millennium. Dan Stevens plays a soldier who visits the Peterson family, claiming to have been a close friend of their son, who was killed in action. The family invites him to stay, but as random acts of violence begin to pop up throughout town, young Anna (Maika Monroe) suspects they may stem from their mysterious visitor. I’ve just come from a press screening of the film as I write this, and let me tell you—The Guest is bloody freakin’ brilliant. Go see it when it’s released on September 17th. [Bernard]

#9 – Nightcrawler

Dan Gilroy’s debut feature as a director burst onto the scene with a trailer full of frantic energy. Led by what looks like a batshit performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, he continually reiterates the motto, “If you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy a ticket.” The actor looks increasingly unhinged as freelance crime journalist Lou Bloom, pursuing cop cars and moving bodies to get the perfect crime scene shot before that chill-inducing shot where he screams while grasping at the bathroom mirror. The director, Gilroy, has written several films including Tarsem’s The Fall; however, worthy of note he is the brother of Tony Gilroy (also a producer on Nightcrawler), whose debut as a director (Michael Clayton) became one of the most compelling adult dramas of the last decade. Nightcrawler debuts at TIFF in September before its October 31st U.S. release. [Zach]

#8 – The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

Most years when I sit down and think about the best films of the year, there is usually one or two picks near the top of my list that are unquestionably flawed, but incredibly daring in its writing and structure — last year’s The Place Beyond the Pines, for example. I don’t know a lot about The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, but the thought of one film basically splitting into two different films from the differing perspectives of a failed relationship has me beyond intrigued. The studios recent decision to theatrically release the film in three different version (labelled Them, Him, and Her) has me wondering if this is going to be cinema gold or a complete train wreck, but it definitely has my attention. [Aaron]

#7 – Stray Dogs

I caught Ming-liang Tsai’s movie at last year’s TIFF, and was floored by its audacious nature and relentless control. It’s a very particular wheelhouse that Tsai’s movies play in, but if it happens to be yours then Stray Dogs will not disappoint. The central narrative storyline deals with a small impoverished family unity (a father and his two children,) as they move around the outskirts of Taipei and try to survive. Those familiar with Tsai’s won’t be surprised to hear about incredibly long takes of actors staring off into oblivion, or a slightly grotesque scene featuring cabbage, but Stray Dogs is nothing if not one of the year’s greatest examples of transcendental and deeply captivating works of cinematic art. The film is finally getting a theatrical release on September 12th courtesy of Cinema Guild. [Nik]

#6 – Foxcatcher

Capote and Moneyball director Bennett Miller returns with what many have described as his passion project, a film about the late John du Pont, whose attempt to support the US wrestling program in spite of declining mental health. The unlikely actor portraying du Pont is comedian Steve Carell in a part tailored for Oscars consideration, flanked by both Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo in strong roles. While the film was among our writer Nik’s Cannes disappointments this year, there are many touting not only the highly anticipated performances. After stops at TIFF and NYFF in September and October, Foxcatcher opens everywhere on November 14th. [Zach]

#5 – Dear White People

It’s about time a filmmaker set their sights on race in America, especially with people claiming the country is now living in a “post-racial” society. Justin Simien’s debut feature Dear White People is an ensemble following several black students at an Ivy League school, a premise Simien uses to open up a funny and probing insight into what race and identity means today. Back at the LA Film Festival, our writer Ananda said Dear White People is “sharply written” and “progressive and humorous”, and we can’t wait to see it once it comes out on October 17. [C.J.]

#4 – Whiplash

Whipping up a mighty buzz-storm at Sundance, Damien Chazelle’s drummer drama Whiplash stars Miles Teller as a young percussionist pushed to the breaking point by his vicious drum instructor, played by JK Simmons. Teller has been living up to expectations with each role he tackles, proving to be one of the most promising new faces in movies, and combined with Simmons’ veteran savvy, sparks should fly as their combative mentor-pupil story unfolds. Since Sundance in January, the excitement surrounding the film hasn’t fizzled in the slightest, a strong indicator that we’re in for a treat when it drops in October. [Bernard]

#3 – Interstellar

I’m partly tempted to explain Interstellar’s placement toward the top of our most anticipated Fall films list by simply stating “Because Chris Nolan” and “Because Matthew McConaughey”, but if you need qualifiers, I bet I can think of a few. For starters, the ambiguity surrounding the film for so long indicates (and it would be par for the course with Nolan) that Interstellar might be more than we yet know. The latest trailer gives us plenty to stew over. Dirt storms show a water shortage on Earth and Matthew McConaughey’s character, Cooper, is a father faced with the difficult decision of leaving his children to travel through a wormhole to find a new planet for humans to survive on. Along with fellow spacetraveler, Brand (Anne Hathaway), and a few others, Cooper and the small team travels through some gorgeously crafted foreign galaxies. Further motivation to see the film in IMAX. But knowing Nolan, who loves his late reveals and complicated relationships, we can almost guarantee that Interstellar will, ahem, take us further into space and story than we can even imagine. The film releases on Nov. 7th, which seems like forever. [Ananda]

#2 – Birdman

Despite some slight foreboding after watching the trailer for Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film is still one of my personal must-see films of the year, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, Iñárritu has yet to truly disappoint me (yes, I even liked Babel) and perhaps I’m even more inclined towards his new film because his last one, Biutiful, was so undeservedly neglected by many. Secondly, this is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s first post-Gravity project to see release and he’s a guy who knows how to make pretty pictures, plus there’s reports of more long take wizardry in Birdman. Add to that the ensemble cast of Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis and Naomi Watts all lead by a resurgent Michael Keaton, and there’s really no need to go any further. The film will open the Venice Film festival, play the New York Film Festival, and then unspool for the public on October 17th. [Nik]

#1 – Gone Girl

Top of the list is the latest from a perennial favorite, David Fincher. Not only is he master of the book to film adaptation, but he excels when working with crooked characters. And Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel Gone Girl is a character-study in marital crookedness. In the film, Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a man whose wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), goes missing on their 5th wedding anniversary. When her disappearance goes public, Nick finds himself the primary suspect and the most hated man in the country, and as detectives uncover more around the case, Nick begins to question just how well he knew his own wife. I predict the sort of character mastery we’ve seen in House of Cards and Social Network combined with the nerve-fraying plot development of Se7en and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Rumor has it the ending is slightly different than the book, co-written by Flynn and thus having her blessing, so even those of us familiar with the novel should be in for some new twists come October 3 when the film is released. It’s going to be a dark and twisty fall, and we can’t wait. [Ananda]

Day 1 of Comic-Con was everything you’d expect. Crowds, cosplay, and curveballs galore. Thursday’s Hall H presentations began a bit later than they will the rest of the weekend, but the movie surprises were rapid-fire with plenty of juicy tidbits to make each of the presentations quite exciting. The day was fun-filled enough that not even the cancellation of the Goonies Never Say Die panel could ruin it.

Here’s a recap of the day, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for details as they come throughout the day, @WayTooIndie.

Dreamworks Animation

While not initially on our most anticipated list of Comic-Con, the first panel of the day ended up being rather delightful. Moderated by Craig Ferguson, who started with especially funny jabs at Jeffrey Katzenberg and his own inability to land coveted voice-acting gigs, he welcomed in Tim Johnson and Jim Parsons of the new animated feature Home. Johnson directs this fun little alien film around a quirky, minion-like alien society that colonize Earth. Among these aliens is Oh (Parsons), whose outsider tendencies make him a pariah among his people. When he meets Tip (Rihanna), an unlikely friendship emerges and the two have to work together to save earth. Dreamworks gave us plenty of footage, including a long action sequence that shows off some of the film’s animation. It doesn’t look especially enlightened, and is even slightly reminiscent of Monsters vs. Aliens, which wasn’t exceptional. Home should be coming out in March.

A title card was presented for B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations, an animated film about a ghost sent back to haunting school voiced by Seth Rogan with Melissa McCarthy and Bill Murray. Should be out next summer.

The real fun began when they finally moved on to the Penguins of Madagascar, which will be released this November. A definite oddity in the world of both animation and sequels, especially animated sequels, the Madagascar series has only grown in its cleverness and acclaim with Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted scoring higher than the earlier two on Rotten Tomatoes. Now this spinoff, which already has its own TV series, gets its own feature film. What began as A LOT of footage and a conversation with directors Simon J. Smith and Eric Darnell, and voice actor Tom McGrath, quickly escalated as the panel welcomed first John Malkovich, who plays evil octopus villain Dave, and then soon after, the one and only Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Classified, a Bond-like wolf.

Of course fans were hard pressed to keep their questions limited to the movie at hand, Ferguson joking that “Any questions about Sherlock and Comic-Con is cancelled”, but a clever fan was able to pose a question to Malkovich and Cumberbatch about what super hero they would most like to play. Malkovich gave a very Malkovichian answer and replied after some thought, “Lois Lane”, Cumberbatch was clearly being goaded for info on his talks to play Doctor Strange, and while he hemmed and hawed initially he did make a non-commital Doctor Strange comment before saying “I don’t know, Batman” which alludes that conversations are definitely ongoing. We’ll see if we see him at Marvel’s panel Saturday.

The Giver Panel

Up next was a straightforward panel about The Weinstein Company’s upcoming film The Giver. Lois Lowry, author of the now 21-year-old young adult novel, was on hand and sharper than any of the younger panelists. Her wicked wit and astute observations providing plenty of explanation for her inciting and thoughtful dystopian drama. An extended trailer (showing what felt practically like the entire film) was revealed and it looks not only true to the adaptation, but like an exceptionally well done film. Director Phillip Noyce couldn’t be at the panel, but sent a filmed intro explaining his passion for the project. But none spoke more passionately than Jeff Bridges, who plays The Giver, the one who enlightens the young protagonist to the evil and suppression of their supposedly perfect society. Bridges has been lobbying to get the film made for years, initially hoping to direct it himself and cast his father in the role of The Giver.

He’s not the only one who seems to have grown into his role for the film. Lowry admitted she had hoped the script would allow for one of the more controversial scenes of the book, when teenage Jonas bathes an elderly woman, so that she herself might play the woman. Sadly the film didn’t make it into the script. Lowry also praised the missing Meryl Streep’s performance (and from the extended trailer it does look quite impressive), she even went so far as to say seeing Streep’s performance made her want to go back and “rewrite the character to be more like her portrayal.” High praise indeed from such an acclaimed writer.

Sony Pictures Panel

Pretty much everything we expected. A brief video from director Chris Columbus promoting his film Pixels and a gag video of sorts. Mostly they want fans to participate in their live experience at the Hard Rock Hotel, which includes an arcade. It fits, as the film, which stars Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage is about aliens who attack earth when they think our old arcade style video games are an actual attempt at intergalactic warfare.

The majority of the panel was about the upcoming Goosebumps film, introduced with a video featuring writer R.L. Stine. Mostly Jack Black, who plays Stine in the film, was on hand to be goofy, present clips, and banter with Slappy the Dummy, one of the scarier and more memorable of Stine’s evil characters. Slappy was shortly joined by a bevy of other Stine-imagined monsters and eventually they all drag Black off stage.  Our nostalgia is adequately piqued.

Paramount Pictures Panel

Rounding out the day was the panel we were less sure of and that most definitely packed the biggest punch. They were always going to push Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on us, and they did, almost immediately following a sneak peek at the trailer for the new SpongeBob Square Pants film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Then a bass-thumping intro for TMNT came on, exploring the evolution of the Turtles as told by co-creator Kevin Eastman and ending with footage from the film, marking this new rendition/era of the Turtles. It adequately raised expectations in the room and hearing Eastman discuss the Turtles and his excitement for the film along with director Jonathan Liebseman and eventually co-stars of the film Megan Fox and Will Arnett had even this skeptic thinking this film may not be so bad. Then they showed us a solid ten minute clip of an action sequence down a snow-covered mountain in a semi-truck. And it was ridiculous, but the good news is that despite all the spectacle, the Turtles themselves are quite funny and the film should be entertaining.

An especially interesting moment was when a fan turned interrogative and asked Eastman why there were implications in the trailer that the Turtles are aliens. Eastman recovered well saying they had always intended that the ‘ooze’ from whence the Turtles comes is an alien substance. Those unwilling to see the franchise stray from its roots may have a hard time swallowing that.

TMNT was plowed through rather fast and then we got a quick look at Dean Israelite’s new Michael Bay produced Project Almanac film. It looks a little too shaky footage-y for my liking, but interested fans were given the chance to attend a preview Thursday evening on a first come, first served basis.

And speaking of sneak previews, next up was an especially fun visit from Dwayne Johnson, who walked out into the crowd and then on to the stage to encourage Comic-Con-ers to check out his film Hercules, opening Friday. And as a special promotion, The Rock rented out three Gaslamp area theaters for the audience to show up to (at a time of his tweeting) for a special advanced screening.

The Rock seemed like a high note to end on, but the hits just kept on coming and out walks Clark Duke with two hot chicks on his arms. I didn’t think they’d talk about it, nor did I think I wanted to hear about it, but there it was: Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (watch the newly released trailer). While obviously lacking in the first film’s leading man, John Cusack, the film, which has the guys traveling into the future, looks surprisingly hilarious for a sequel, not to mention a film about time travel via jacuzzi.

That would have pretty much ended things nicely, except this is Comic-Con, and the name of the game is shock and awe. When the recognizable footage from the Interstellar trailer starts to play the crowd goes nuts. And when the trailer ends and Matthew McConaughey is brought onto the stage for his first ever appearance at the con, the audience is on its feet. McConaughey gives us a few ‘alright’s, to satisfy the crowd, and then starts giving us vague insight into Christopher Nolan‘s mysterious new film. Sure it’s about space travel. Sure it’s about a family man who has to make a hard choice. McConaughey finally starts getting into it describing Nolan as a director who needs to be original and who “works by his instincts.” McConaughey describes the filmmaking process with Nolan, that it “felt like an independent film — 2, 3 takes and we’d move on.” He claims this is his most ambitious film to date, and then decides he’s not sure he can really tell anymore, so perhaps he should let the man speak for himself. And out comes Nolan, also a Comic-Con first-timer. Finally, a real conversation around the film and then what we’re all waiting for: an honest to goodness trailer that gives us an idea about what happens in this film.

The trailer won’t be up for a while, but I can say it certainly gets into more detail about the space travel aspect of the film. There’s more Anne Hathaway. More Michael Caine. A little Wes Bentley and Jessica Chastain. And we can finally see that the film seems to focus on astronauts (space travelers? pilots?) who travel to space to find some place else where Earth’s inhabitants can survive. McConaughey’s Cooper is a conflicted man, at odds against his love for his own family and his desire to contribute to the greater good. There are some impressive space shots of fictional galaxies and the planet they seem to want to try and make habitable. It’s got the same vagueness Inception’s trailer had, which only makes us want to see it more.

All in all an exhausting but eventful first day. Stay tuned, we’ll be here all weekend!

It’s a new year, and that means new films, right? 2013 gave us some truly wonderful films, but amongst catching up on those that we missed and all the Oscar buzz, we’re also thinking about what’s on offer this year. Narrowing these films down to just a few was an incredibly difficult task, as not only are there so many films set to come out, but some are so clouded in mystery that you just don’t know where to start. Nevertheless, we have selected 10 films that we’re looking forward to the most in 2014, and they come from just about every genre. Let us know if there are any you think we missed, but as far as just these 10 are concerned, the anticipation is killing us.

10 Most Anticipated Films of 2014

Gone Girl

David Fincher makes the movies I love to see. The man seems to have a knack with twisty tales, whether they be completely crazy endings (like Se7en or Fight Club) or characters you love to hate (like The Social Network or Netflix’s House of Cards). Having read the novel, I know Gone Girl has both. And with a great cast that includes power-hitter Ben Affleck playing Nick Dunne, the husband who is unexpectedly thrown into the national spotlight when his wife goes missing, my expectations are pretty high for the film adaptation. Casting for the lead part of Amy, the housewife-gone-missing, took some time to be solidified, with several major actresses in consideration. But Rosamund Pike was finally chosen, which has me quite curious. Pike has played some really soft roles in the past and, without giving any of the story away, Amy is the sort of character that could either show off Pike’s versatility or ruin the whole thing. The book is known for it’s major plot twists and I for one can’t wait to see Fincher put his own mark on the visuality of the story. Slated for an October release, it should be exactly the sort of chilly Fall tale we’ll be craving. [Ananda]

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson is famous for his distinctive visual and narrative style in such films as Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Darjeeling Limited, and will be releasing his latest quirky comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel in March of this year. The film follows the adventures of an infamous concierge at a well-known and well-frequented European hotel. Their experiences are shared with an all-star cast, most of which have worked with Anderson in the past; Jude Law, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody. The Grand Budapest Hotel looks to be quite the dramatic comedy with the charm and flare we all know Wes Anderson films to behold. [Amy]

While We’re Young

Last Year my faith was restored in Noah Baumbach as a filmmaker to be vigilant of again after supplying his delightful indie comedy Frances Ha, a film that landed the #2 spot on our Best Films of 2013. Reuniting with the director again for the first time since 2010’s Greenberg is Ben Stiller, playing the part of a middle-aged filmmaker whose marriage gets more tranquil after making friends with a young free-spirited couple. Joining Stiller as part of the cast are Amanda Seyfried, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, and Brady Corbet. It will be interesting to see if While We’re Young plays out to be more like his earlier work (The Squid and the Whale), or more like his re in nt work (France Ha). Though a happy medium between the two could be in order. Either way, we are glad to see the uptick in frequency which Baumbach is making films as of late, he even has another film in post-production at the moment. [Dustin]

Nymphomaniac

At this point it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know about Nymphomaniac. Split into 2 films, and running for 4.5 hours total, Nymphomaniac is Lars Von Trier’s newest film. It tells the story of Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the titular sex addict who explains her life story to a stranger (Stellan Skarsgard) after he saves her life. The eclectic cast includes Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier and Jamie Bell, just to name a few, and it`s already been widely reported how porn actors were used as doubles for the film`s hardcore sex scenes. The film`s marketing, including ‘appetizer’ teaser clips and a provocative series of character posters, have helped make Nymphomaniac the arthouse event of 2014. The film will be out in theatres and on VOD in March, but Lars Von Trier purists might have to wait even longer. The theatrical version wasn’t put together by Von Trier, and he’s already preparing a 5.5 hour director’s cut that will presumably come out later this year (Volume 1 of the “uncut” version is set to premiere at Berlin, and it won’t be a surprise if Volume 2 pops up at Cannes). [CJ]

Knight of Cups

Just as Flaubert and Joyce understood the need for literary revolution in the face of an unstable society, so did certain filmmakers understand cinematic development as part of a larger social reality: Griffith, Welles, and Hitchcock to name a few, and now, Terrence Malick. Some people are just game-changers, and there is no denying that Malick has changed the world of cinema irrevocably. I could wax lyrical for hours about his conceptualisation of film – his work is nothing short of a feast for the eyes and indeed the very soul – but truly, all you need to do to understand is watch some of his work. His recent association with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in The Tree of Life brought mainstream audiences just a little closer to Malick’s world, so it’s incredibly exciting to think of what he could have in mind to really show audiences what he is capable of. Knight of Cups is in post-production and has been for a while now; while we’re still not entirely certain it will come out this year, we can but hope. With names like Christian Bale, Natalie Portman and Teresa Palmer on the bill, there’s no doubt Malick has something breathtaking in store for us – I’m certainly going to keep my eyes peeled for this one. [Pavi]

Interstellar

It’s time to let him off the leash again. Christopher Nolan has proven he can sell a movie ticket or two with his Dark Knight trilogy, which has earned him the freedom (granted by big studios like Paramount) to make movies and tell stories on his terms. Based on the theories of relativity physicist Kip Thorne, Interstellar looks to excite the senses and tickle the imagination in the same way Inception did. The film follows a group of scientists who, with their home planet drying up, travel to different dimensions in search of a place to grow crops so that their people can endure. Boasting a killer ensemble cast featuring Michael Caine (surprise, surprise), Anne Hathaway, Casey Afleck, Matthew McConaughy, Ellen Burstyn, Wes Bentley, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Bill Irwin, and Mackenzie Foy, Interstellar is sure to get sci-fi geeks all hot and bothered leading up to its November release. Plus, Nolan strapped an IMAX camera to the nose of a freaking learjet. Hold on to your butts! [Bernard]

Journey to the West

Back in September at the Venice Film Festival Tsai Ming-Liang publicly stated that he hoped Stray Dogs would be his last film. The news was disappointing, especially since Stray Dogs was his best film in years (it went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Venice). It came as a surprise, then, that the Berlin Film Festival announced a new Tsai Ming-Liang film would be premiering in February. There isn’t much information out there on Journey to the West, but from what we know it’s going to be a loose adaptation of the classic Chinese tale. Knowing Tsai’s style, this will probably be a very loose adaptation, but regardless it’s exciting to see him continue to work. Tsai is one of the most distinct filmmakers working today, and while his style may not appeal to everyone (the last two shots of Stray Dogs combined come close to breaking the 30 minute mark) it’s undeniable that no one out there is making films in the same way. [CJ]

Jupiter Ascending

While Cloud Atlas was not the return of the Wachowskis I had hoped for, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that it’s because they were working with someone else’s writing, and an incredibly complex novel at that. This time Andy and Lana are back to writing a story of their own, and hopefully tapping into the vein that brought us the complex and sci-fi world of The Matrix. Granted, it has Channing Tatum, and he’s wearing eyeliner. But if there’s anything the trailer proves, it will definitely be up to par with the visual grandeur that we’ve come to expect from the Wachowskis. Similar to The Matrix, Jupiter Ascending is the tale of a girl with a genetic destiny, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis). Destined to overthrow the Queen of the Universe, Jupiter is rescued from her life of toilet cleaning by Tatum’s genetically engineered hunter. She discovers the vastness of the universe she lives in and that she has an important place in it. Who doesn’t love a good tale of comeuppance, on an intergalactic scale? Even if it’s got a bit of cheese, it comes out in July when we’ll all be glad for an excuse to escape to the theater, and I for one will gladly splurge to see the Wachowskis first 3D endeavor. [Ananda]

The Double

Richard Ayoade began his career as a comedy actor starring in relatively popular television shows such as The IT Crowd and he Mighty Boosh, before making his incredible feature directorial debut with Submarine. The Double is Ayoade’s sophomore film that stars Jesse Eisenberg as a man who goes crazy after running into this doppleganger. The film already premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival and received a lot of praise for its trippy mind games and quirky comedy–which is exactly the kind of films we kind to enjoy here at Way Too Indie. Make sure that The Double is on your list of films to catch in 2014. [Dustin]

Inherent Vice

Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice follows the fuck-ups and follies of druggy detective Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who’s surprised to find that the kidnapped girl of a case he’s investigating is his ex-girlfriend. What’s most exciting to me about the project (aside from the obvious fact that ol’ PT never fails) is that Anderson is reuniting with director of photography Robert Elswit, who helped him make There Will Be Blood look so damn pretty. As per usual for Anderson, everything will be filmed in 35mm film stock. The cast is stacked, with Phoenix being joined by Josh Brolin, Martin Short, Benicio Del Toro, Jena Malone, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Kevin J. O’Connor, Maya Rudolph, and more. [Bernard]