2014 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #5)

Tells the remarkable true story of Robyn Davidson (Wasikowska), a young woman who leaves her life in the city to make a solo trek through almost 2,000 miles of sprawling Australian desert. Accompanied by only her dog and four unpredictable camels, she sets off on a life-changing journey of self-discovery. Along the way, she meets National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan (Driver) who begins to photograph her voyage.

Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris (The Fog of War) offers a mesmerizing portrait of Donald Rumsfeld, one of the key architects of the Iraq War, and a larger-than-life character who provoked equal levels of fury and adulation from the American public. Rather than conducting a conventional interview, Morris has Rumsfeld perform and expound on his “snowflakes,” tens of thousands of memos (many never previously published) he composed as a congressman and as an advisor to four different presidents, twice as Secretary of Defense. These memos provide a window onto history—not history as it actually happened, but history as Rumsfeld wants us to see it. Morris makes plain that Rumsfeld’s “snowflakes”—whether intended to elucidate, rationalize, obfuscate, or control history—are contradicted by the facts.

On the brink of separation, Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) escape to a beautiful vacation house for a weekend getaway in an attempt to save their marriage. What begins as a romantic and fun retreat soon becomes surreal, when an unexpected discovery forces the two to examine themselves, their relationship, and their future.

Mr. Peabody (voiced by Ty Burrell) is a business titan, inventor, scientist, Nobel Laureate, gourmand, two-time Olympic medalist, and genius… who also happens to be a dog. Using his most ingenious invention, the WABAC machine, Mr. Peabody and his adopted boy Sherman (Max Charles) hurtle back in time to experience world-changing events first-hand and interact with some of the greatest characters of all time. But when Sherman breaks the rules of time travel, our two heroes find themselves in a race to repair history and save the future, while Mr. Peabody may face his biggest challenge yet – being a parent.

When young couple Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) lose their way while driving to a music festival in the remote Irish countryside, they find themselves trapped in a maze of back-roads with only their vehicle for protection, terrorized by an unseen tormentor hell-bent on exploiting their worst nightmares. Driving, lost and tormented in the night, primal anxieties of the dark and the unknown take hold as the couple realizes that they may have to let the evil in, or that it is already there.

New York City, 1991. Small-time crooks TOMMY (Pitt) and ROSIE (Arianda) have two things in common: a crazy-passionate love for one another and—after they’re caught robbing a florist on Valentine’s Day—prison records. Trying to go straight, Rosie lands a job at a debt-collection agency and persuades Tommy to join her. But soon Tommy is skipping his shifts to do something much more interesting—attend the landmark trial of Mafia hit man Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, whose graphic testimony could finally bring down flamboyant Gambino-family boss John Gotti.

Tommy’s fascination with the mob is deeply personal; when he was a boy, he saw his father suffer a brutal beating beat at the hands of local gangsters. So when he hears Sammy name a Mafia-owned social club where no guns are permitted, he has an idea: Why not rob the joint? And so begins a series of Bonnie-and-Clyde-style stickups of mob hangouts around the city, with Tommy wielding an Uzi and Rosie driving the beat-up getaway car. The brazen daylight raids net enough cash for the lovers to move in together, taking their fiery romance to the next level. They also draw the attention of the FBI and veteran mob reporter CARDOZO (Romano), who splashes their unlikely story across the front page of the paper. But while the attacks enrage the mob, Bonanno crime family head BIG AL (Garcia) orders his men only to scare the couple. After all, he says, eagles don’t kill flies.

It’s a decision Big Al will come to regret. During one of their heists, Tommy and Rosie stumble upon a Mafia secret so closely guarded that rank-and-file mobsters don’t even know it exists. To the Feds, it’s the smoking gun they’ve been looking for—a key to finally dismantling New York’s already-faltering crime syndicate. To Big Al, it’s the high cost of his earlier leniency—a mistake he quickly moves to correct. For Tommy and Rosie, caught between the law and a mob contract, the future all depends on who gets to them first.

Follows Eddie Redmayne as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, world-famous as the author of A Brief History of Time, opposite Felicity Jones. The movie explores the excitement of the 1960s for Stephen as he studies at Cambridge University. At the dawn of a brilliant life’s work, he falls passionately in love with arts student Jane Wilde. Their relationship leads him through personal and scientific challenges and breakthroughs, and as his world opens up he opens up the entire world to new ways of seeing.

Takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters across European destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine—the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit—and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard, and Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon.

Based on the incredible life story of the Godfather of Soul, the film will give a fearless look inside the music, moves and moods of James Brown, taking audiences on the journey from his impoverished childhood to his evolution into one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.

Story centers on the social warfare that erupts when two gay high school boys realize they must become GBFs to the most popular girls in school to improve their social status.

A thriller set in Greece and Istanbul, 1962, and adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Intrigue begins at the Parthenon when wealthy American tourists Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his young wife Collete (Kirsten Dunst) meet American expat Rydal (Oscar Isaac), a scammer working as a tour guide. Instead of becoming his latest marks, the two befriend him, but a murder at the couple’s hotel puts all three on the run together and creates a precarious bond between them as the trio’s allegiance is put to the test.

In 1991, music manager Shep Gordon held Mike Myers over a barrel a few weeks before shooting “Wayne’s World” regarding an Alice Cooper song Myers wanted to use in the film. They have been close friends ever since. Twenty-two years later, the story of Gordon’s legendary life in the uber fast lane is now told in Myers’ directorial debut. And this time it’s Myers who has Gordon over a barrel.

Capitalist, protector, hedonist, pioneer, showman, shaman . . . Supermensch.

Shep Gordon is the consummate Hollywood insider. Though he isn’t a household name, Gordon has become a beacon in the industry, beloved by the countless stars he has encountered throughout his storied career. Shep is known for managing the careers of Alice Cooper as well as stints with Blondie, Luther Vandross and Raquel Welch, among others – a career that began with a chance encounter in 1968 with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He even found time to invent the “Celebrity Chef.” Though the chef as star is part of the culture now, it took Shep's imagination, and his moral outrage at how the chefs were being treated, to monetize the culinary arts into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. Personal friends with the Dalai Lama through his philanthropic endeavors with the Tibet Fund and the guardian of four children, Gordon’s unlikely story told by those who know him best, his pals, including Alice Cooper, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Emeril Lagasse and more.