2014: A Hollywood Year in Review

It's been another memorable year for the movie industry. With regard to box office returns, 2014 has so far raked in $10.22 billion domestically and looks like it will finish in 4th place (since 2010) behind the record haul of $10.92 billion in 2013 and $10.83 billion in 2012. I doubt it can catch and surpass the $10.56 billion earned in 2010 because the last two blockbusters of the year, "The Hunger Games; Mockingjay - Part 1" ($306 million so far) and "The Hobbit; The Battle of the Five Armies" ($168 million), are already well into their respective theatrical runs. I can't see both movies mustering up an additional $400 million between them, beyond what they have earned so far, that would be required to push 2014 into 3rd on the annual earnings list.

Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com

Looking back on this year, there were notable moments to reflect on;

Saying Goodbye

Legendary actor/comedian Robin Williams tragically committed suicide on August 11th. He was 63 years old. Unknown to me and many others, he had been battling severe clinically diagnosed depression for many years. A sad irony considering he had spent his career bringing laughter to millions of people around the world for decades. He can currently be seen in theaters in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" which is the third movie in the series. He has a few more movies he completed before his passing which will be released in subsequent years. His talent will be sorely missed.

Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was only 46 when he was found dead in his New York City apartment on February 2nd. Cause of death was listed as a heroin overdose.  Two movies featuring him were released this year; The British espionage thriller "A most wanted Man," released in July, and the science fiction, action adventure "The Hunger Games; Mockinjay - Part 1," released in November.

A great year for "ScarJo"

If I could single out one actress for having a memorable year, it would be Scarlett Johansson (whose name has become an unofficial portmanteau, "ScarJo," by fans). First, there was the wonderful science fiction, romantic comedy "Her," directed by Spike Jonze, where Johansson played the voice of an artificial intelligence software whom Joaquin Phoenix, the lead character in the film, falls in love with. Now technically, "Her" is a 2013 movie because it was released on December 18th, 2013. But being 3 weeks into the last month of 2013, the movie didn't really take off until this year. 

Against a $23 million production budget, the movie grossed $25.56 million domestically, and $21.78 million overseas for a global total of $47.34 million. It was nominated for five Oscars (including "Best Picture") and won one for "Best Original Screenplay" earlier this year at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony. If you haven't seen this movie, do so.

In April of this year, we were treated to two more movies starring ScarJo. The big budget, action/adventure superhero film "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," and smaller budget science fiction thriller "Under The Skin." Produced by Marvel studios and distributed by parent company Walt Disney, the Captain America movie was the sequel to 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger." This is the third movie ScarJo's Black Widow character has featured in in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following "Iron Man 2" in 2010, and "The Avengers" in 2012. The Winter Soldier was a resounding success. Hailed by critics for its mature storytelling, the $170 million movie grossed $259.76 million domestically, and $454.31 million overseas for a gargantuan total of $714.07 million globally. That's close to double the $370.56 million in global returns posted by the first movie, "The First Avenger." The film is the third highest grossing movie of 2014 at the U.S box office.

The same box office success story cannot be said for "Under the Skin." Costing $13.3 million, the movie grossed $2.6 million domestically and $2.7 million overseas for a global total of $5.3 million. But to view "Under the skin" as a commercial failure misses the mark. It received an 85% score on the popular movie review website Rotten Tomatoes, and was generally lauded by critics. The movie is set in Scotland, where ScarJo plays an alien driving around in a van picking up unsuspecting men, whom she takes back to her lair and consumes in a very unconventional way. Bottom line, the film enhanced Ms Johansson's profile and is considered another feather in her cap. I watched it and found it refreshing.

She wasn't done there. To cap off a great year for Scarlett Johansson, the summer blockbuster "Lucy" blasted into theaters in July. How impressive was its performance? It went head-to-head with "Hercules," starring former pro-wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and beat it to number 1 at the box office over the weekend of July 25th, when both movies were released. "Lucy" cost $40 million and made all its money back in THREE days! It grossed $43.89 million during its opening weekend to take the number 1 position at the box office while "Hercules" grossed $29.8 million to come in second. Keeping the comparison going, "Hercules" cost $100 million (more than double "Lucy's" budget) and grossed $72.68 million domestically, and $170.7 million overseas for a global haul of $243.38 million. "Lucy" almost doubled that return. It made $126.66 million in the U.S and a whopping $332.2 million overseas for a spectacular global return of $458.86 million. 

I really enjoyed this movie and was rooting hard for it to succeed. I saw it twice in theaters and thoroughly enjoyed the concept of the plot, which is centered on Psychokinesis. The success of the movie could be attributed to a combination of ScarJo's star power, her exposure from the Marvel superhero movies, and audiences craving a female lead in a blockbuster film. In all, 2014 is a year that Scarlett Johansson will never forget.

American movie goers experiencing Tom Cruise fatigue?

Since "Eyes Wide Shut" in 1999, we have been blessed with a Tom Cruise movie every year except for 2009. He was featured in two movies in 2012 so he made up for 1999 anyway. I am a fan of Tom Cruise and look forward to his movies (specifically Action) every year. This year, he gave us the science fiction action movie "Edge of Tomorrow," which co-starred an impressive Emily Blunt. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and was hoping it would do well at the domestic box office but "sadly," it didn't. Let me explain why "sadly" is in quotes. "Edge of Tomorrow" cost $178 million but "only" made $100.20 million at the domestic box office. "Only" is also in quotes because grossing $100 million is successful under normal circumstances. Also, this was the first movie outside of Tom Cruise's successful "Mission: Impossible" franchise to soar past the $100 million mark in a long while. Critics also liked the film. It scored an impressive 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

But with a price tag of $178 million (not including marketing costs which can range from an additional $50 million to $80 million or more), the film had to at least break even which it did not. At least, not domestically. It could be audience fatigue fuelled by resentment from Cruise's last sci-fi movie, "Oblivion," released in 2013, which cost $120 million and only made $89 million domestically. I saw that film but didn't enjoy it much. Still, it should not be forgotten that Tom Cruise is a big international star and can rely on foreign audiences to boost returns for his films when they fall short domestically. "Oblivion" grossed $197.06 million overseas while "Edge of Tomorrow" made $269 million so both cannot be called commercial failures. Next year, Mr Cruise returns to familiar territory with his fifth "Mission: Impossible" movie which I expect to warm the hearts of American movie goers when it arrives. Can't wait.

More Religious blockbusters to come?

2014 featured two big blockbuster biblical films that featured big stars. The bible is filled with entertaining stories about larger-than-life events (whether they really happened is a different kettle of fish altogether that's inconsequential here since we're talking about movies) which Hollywood has noticed can translate into big profits. Who can forget Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," released in 2004, that cost $30 million, grossed a MASSIVE $370.78 million domestically, $241.11 million overseas, for a total of $611.89 million? Hollywood definitely got the message. The two movies (amongst other smaller budget religious films like "Son of God, " "God's not dead," and "Heaven is for real") were hit and miss though.

"Noah," starring Russell Crow, was released in March of this year and cost $125 million. It made $101.2 million in the U.S and $261.43 million overseas for a respectable total of $362.63 million. I saw the movie and liked it. I particularly enjoyed how the movie dealt with the impact on one's conscience making a decision like Noah's can have. It humanized him and I found it relatable.

"Exodus: Gods and Kings" stars Christian Bale who played Moses. It was released just 3 weeks ago on December 12th. It cost $140 million and has so far grossed a paltry $52.48 million in the U.S and a more impressive $96.3 million overseas for a total of $148.48 million so far. The movie has been affected by controversy surrounding director Ridley Scott's decision to cast Caucasians as the Egyptian title characters while listing people of African descent to play slaves. In addition to that, the critics have not been kind to the film. It scored an awful 29% on Rotten Tomatoes which suggests that, controversy aside, it was just a poorly executed film. I decided to skip it.

Superhero movies still going strong

Source: www.boxofficemojo.com

Of the top ten highest grossing movies at the U.S box office for 2014, four of them were superhero films that collectively grossed $1.02 billion. This is not including "Transformers: Age of Extinction." If you consider that a superhero film, the total rises to $1.27 billion for 2014. The momentum is doing anything but slowing down. In october of this year, both Warner Bros studios (which owns the rights to DC Comics) and Marvel studios made headlines when they announced their respective superhero movie schedules as far into the year 2019. With the HIGHLY anticipated Marvel studios "Avengers" sequel due in May of 2015, followed by "Ant-Man" in July of the same year, then Warner Bros' EAGERLY anticipated "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice" due in 2016, expect more superhero films to make a regular appearance on the year-end-highest-grossing-films list for the next 5 years at least.

That concludes my highlights for the year. Without further ado, here are my top 10 favorite movies of 2014:

10) Snowpiercer

9)   The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

8)   Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

7)   Edge of Tomorrow

6)   Lucy

5)   Captain America: The Winter Soldier

4)   X-Men: Days of Future Past

3)   Gone Girl

2)   Interstellar

1)   Guardians of the Galaxy

It was tough putting this list together. These movies could swap places easily. Also, this list is subject to change. At the time of this writing, I just got my hands on "The Equalizer," "Nightcrawler," and "Boyhood," the latter two of which have received critical acclaim this year. Looking forward to watching them all and getting my hands on other great movies I may have missed.

Mischaracterizing Racism

In a blog post titled "But My Racism Is Better Than Yours", my college buddy "Ofili Speaks" said the following:

People get upset that Iggy Azalae is doing rap music but can’t understand why other people are upset about a Black storm trooper…

They feel their racism is better, sleeker, much better but can’t comprehend how it’s the same thing as another person not wanting a black storm trooper because it infringes on white culture just like an Australian Iggy supposedly infringes on black culture.

At the end of the day we all think our racism is better!

It would help to provide some background. His blog post was inspired by a lengthy, spirited facebook debate that took place this past weekend. Here is the status message of the mutual friend that sparked it:

That the comments tally ran into triple digits is a testament to how engaging the debate was. Our mutual friend posted the status message in response to what I think was a twitter rant (which I can't recall, too many comments to go digging) and an article from Malek Mouzon titled "The Silence of the 'Black' White Musicians". An excerpt from the latter:

I hope that by the time this article posts it no longer applies. But as of its writing, the following is a small list of musicians who have yet to make a public statement or acknowledgement of Michael Brown's murder and the racial epicenter that is Ferguson, Missouri. In no particular order, they are: Justin Bieber, Macklemore, Iggy Azaela, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus.

I chose the above five for a very specific reason; they are what I like to call "Black" White Musicians. They are entertainers who have been inspired by some facet of Black culture and whether through authentic means or appropriation have gone on to repackage it for the masses under their own guise.

The above musicians enjoy and in many ways reap the rewards of the best parts of Black culture and yet... are surprisingly absent when it comes to the worst.

It's frustrating to watch white musicians be so ready to have legions of Black dancers/singers behind them, work with Black producers, sing about how "we" do and then be nowhere to be found when a Black tragedy takes the national stage. 

Mr Mouzon's article, posted a little over a week after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, echoed the sentiment of quite a number of people on social media. On of my favorites was on twitter:

For the record, I partly disagreed with the facebook post. While I don't feel any white rapper should feel obligated to comment on any issues affecting the black community, I can understand why they would be criticized for keeping silent. As for black music "belonging" to black people, that was largely ignored by almost everyone that commented. I don't remember anyone feeling it was worth their time discussing. I've never heard any rational person say any genre of music "belongs" to any particular race and feel that was just added to the facebook status message for the purpose of sensationalism.

Now, as far as Mr Ofili's blog post is concerned, which is what I am focusing on, I felt it was important to provide some background because reading Mr Ofili's post without prior knowledge of what informed it, would lead one to incorrectly assume the racist reactions to actor John Boyega playing a Storm Trooper in the latest "Star Wars" movie mirrored those towards rapper Iggy Azalea.

The fringe minority (my assessment of their numbers is my assumption, I could be wrong, there could be many more, this is still a racist world) of people that expressed displeasure with John Boyega's casting did so simply because of his race. No one that I know that dislikes Iggy Azalea feels that way because she is caucasian. Not one of the 192 comments on that facebook post that were not fans of her based their sentiment on her race.

Mr Ofili is guilty of false equivalence in his post. Speaking for myself, I am not a fan of Iggy Azalea. I think she is a joke of a rapper without an ounce of originality. But am I "upset" that she is "doing rap music" and think she is an "infringement" on black culture, as described by Mr Ofili? Not at all. That's quite an extreme characterization that misses the mark completely. Black culture has been very accepting of white rappers. You see it in stadiums where a good number of African Americans attend concerts thrown by caucasian rappers. Iggy is free to rap to her heart's content. That's not the issue, based on the background I provided earlier.

I mean, if I'm racist because I don't like Iggy Azalea, what about the following three rappers I'm a fan of?

 Eternia, from Ottawa, Canada

Invincible, from Detroit, Michigan

  Dessa Darling, from Minneapolis, Minnesota

These are three skilled rappers that are good at their craft. I've never heard of any backlash towards any of them based on their race. If Mr Ofili is going to slap a "better, sleeker" racism tag on criticism of Iggy Azalea, surely that would apply to others in her genre that fit her racial makeup. But that is simply not the case.

Maybe Mr Ofili will shed more light in a subsequent post. For now, based on what he's written, I can't agree with where he is coming from