The summer 2014 wrap up.

Inch by inch the days are giving way to the growing nights.  The summer movie season is winding down and only two titles remain on my must list of the summer.  The Sin City sequel and Pierce Brosnan espionage thriller The November Man are the only two titles remaining.

The summer started with the superhero release of The Amazing Spiderman 2, which like the other superhero flicks this summer, I really enjoyed.  I expected to really enjoy those.  With Spiderman I am glad that Tobey Macguire is no longer doing the role.  I enjoyed his spiderman films but not him in the role.  Andrew Garfield is what I want in the role and his films have been good.

This summer saw many blockbusters, the mightiest of them all was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  I throughly enjoyed continuing to see the rise of Caesar and almost always enjoy some ape goodness on the cinema marquee.  Lucy, Godzilla, and The Signal rounded out some great science fiction this summer.  I do enjoy my sci-fi flicks.

On the comedy front nothing was better then the Seth Macfarlene film A Million Ways to Die in the West.  He recruited a great ensemble and utilized the talents of his cast.  The film also had some great cameos from pop culture history.  22 Jump Street was a great second place comedy.  The jokes about sequels never got old in this one.

Surprisingly I enjoyed Jersey Boys.  I saw it solely because it was directed by Clint Eastwood, who is my favorite director and occasional actor working in Hollywood today.  The music was good and I loved the mob story that was told.

The indy scene had a strong summer as well with releases like Ida, Boyhood, and A Most Wanted Man.  A Most Wanted Man is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final film outside of The Hunger Games.  It’s also the first film I saw twice on the big screen in a little over a year and a half.

Unfortunately every coin is two sided and there were some bad flicks.  Thank you Michael Bay.  First was the Bay directed Transformers: Age of Extinction.  It was three hours over long and filled with bad slow motion action sequences.  When I thought it couldn’t get any worse I saw the Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Thank you Mr Bay for ruining a beloved franchise from my childhood.  In Ninja Turtles the action was bad, dialogue worse, and the CGI was just awful.  There were other films that were subpar that weren’t influenced by Michael Bay.  Into the Storm jumps to mind but I’d rather remember the good this summer.

Now I look forward to the long cool nights of fall when the awards contenders come out to play.