Top Five Movies of 2014!

I was reading through Empire's Top 50 Movies and realized that of that list, I had only seen 12 of them. Granted, some of them have not yet been and may never be released here and there #3 was actually released in 2013. I suspect that TWOWS was released in the UK late as it was here. Other than that, I have never even heard of #s 1, 2, or 4! (The above paragraph is really enigmatic if you don't click the link.)

Of the movies I did see, I would choose Guardians of the Galaxy as my #1 (their #5; further picks will be in brackets). My are others ranked as follows:
2: X-Men, Days of Future Past (13)
3: Captain America, Winter Soldier (12)
4: Godzilla (26)
5: Dawn of Planet of the Apes (9)
6: The Lego Movie (17)
7: Interstellar (15)
8: Edge of Tomorrow (8)
9: Hercules--The one with the Rock, not the other one; it was a real stinker. (Not on Empire's List.)
10: Sabotage Arnold's best movie since T2. (Also not on Empire's List.)

But my five movies that are NOT (and are never likely to be) on Empire's List are as follows:

5: Yamato 2199. (I cheated on this one because I saw it 15/01/01 but it was the only way to make this a list of 5). Great Movie! Visually terrific and a terrific soundtrack. As usual, I wish I had read up on it beforehand because it was tough to follow, especially the Hotel scene in the middle.



UPDATE: I forgot about this because it was still in my pocket, but all moviegoers received a mini-film strip!

4:  進撃の巨人 (Shingeki no Kyojin) Attack of the Titans Lots of fun with some great action, excellent music and okay-great animation. This is one of the few times where I think TV anime suffers on the big screen. (If you click on any of these links, one will send you to the homepage and the other will send you to my reviews. I don't know which is which.)



3: クイメ Kuime or Over Your Dead Body. For a horror Kabuki movie set in modern day, it was surprisingly easy to follow with the trademark Miike gore.



2: 神さまの言うとおり or for the shortened version--Daruma-san or see My review. This movie is quite gory and over the top and I loved it! 



1: 寄生獣 Kiseiju or Parasyte.
I would place this as one of my favourite Japanese horror movies in years. Funny and gory and weird and cool! Best news of all is that most of the above movies will have a sequel coming up in the near future.



Even better that unlike 2 or 3, there are still plenty of goodies to be had from either Capsules or UFO!

Honourable Mention:  Kaguya Hime no Monogatori
Yes, I saw it in Nov/2013 but it has since been released in the US and it is up for an Academy Award this year. I'm surprised it didn't show up on Empire's List though perhaps it hasn't made it to Britain yet.



Dishonourable Mention: Lupin III, live action movie. If it weren't for the great music, this would have been my least favourite movie of the year.



It looks cool but it isn't!

The Dirty Half-Dozen.

Here are some of the TV spots for エクスペンダブルズ. As you can see, I had a cameo in the movie!

As I mentioned earlier, I saw Expendables the other night. "Very stupid, very fun." (That'd make a good sales pitch, I feel.)  I equated some of the cast with Yōkai-clones. I already cloned Li, Statham, Dolph & Rourke and I'm afraid I don't know anything about Randy Couture, Steve Austin or Terry Crews (all wrestlers, perhaps) but I've like Eric Roberts since his sleazy turn as Stratton/Hemingway's killer in Star 80 and just as sleazy in Heroes! This creepy fellow, あまめはぎ (Amamehagi) fits the bill I think. It bears a slight resemblance to him as well.
Amamehagi is to Hokuriku as Namahage is observed throughout Oga Peninsula in northern Japan. Originally it is said to be a ritual for cleansing people's soul, and praying that the coming year is to be a good one. It is a kind of 年神(Toshigami=(God of the New Year.)
On New Year's Eve, a group of young village men dressed up as fierce demons, or Namahage/Amamehagi , visit each house in the village, interrogating loudly "any misbehaving kids live here?" They then come up to children in the house, to menace them telling not to be lazy or cry, though little children bursting out crying is usually the case. Then parents will assure Namahage/Amamehagi there is no bad child in their house, and treat refreshments to the demons.

An obvious purpose of the festival is to encourage young children to obey their parents and to behave, important qualities in Japan's heavily structured society.

Apart from its hairstyle there's not much to compare 泥田坊 (Dorotabo (the ghost of an old man whose rice fields were neglected and sold) with Bruce Willis but I was disappointed by his meager cameo. (Here's some unembeddable Gegege goodness.)

An even more disappointing cameo was by Ahnold whose ever expanding ego is similar to 見あげ入道 (Miage-Nyudo, a spirit which grows as fast as you can look up at it.)

I don't want to disregard the ladies in the movie but since I'm unfamiliar with Giselle Itié, I'll focus on Cordelia  Charisma Carpenter who plays the frigid girlfriend similar to the つらら女 (Tsurara-Onna or Icicle Woman.)

Finally, we come to the guy who put the whole thing together a certain Sly fox named Stallone who must be portrayed by 白蔵主 (Haku-Zousu, a fox who disguised himself as a trapper's uncle.)