A Year Long Remembered: 2014 in Film Part 1

Well well it's that time again, the time when like we do with our Christmas list, we cast our minds on what was another 12 months in the movie theatre.

And for me I have to say that of the 6 years I've been blogging reviews for movies, this has been my favorite year of reviewing films and that is mainly because I had the most access to movies in a cinema than I have ever had (though the travel side of it as well as the heavy cost it can incur is still no fun whatsoever) as well as being able to see a much wider variety of films (after all I am a grown up and would like to see more movies for grownups.)

But for me it is impossible to talk about this year in movies without talking about Blue Thursday and by that I mean the Blue Thursday in July where I was offered the ABC Radio gig for which I am eternally grateful even if I fear I'll be cancelled after this year.

But in terms of the trend of the year well it would have to be the huge explosion of Superhero films as not only Marvel ramp up their cinematic universe but also DC and Warner Brothers start putting their cinematic universe together plus 20th Century Fox putting their rights to X-Men and Fantastic Four to work and Columbia well let's not talk about them shall we as they are definitely dead last with their continued bungling of the Amazing Spider-Man (a character that could do with a return to Marvel Studios IMHO).

But sadly this has come at a very big cost as many of the more adult movies like Boyhood, Birdman and Nightcrawler have been relegated to the arthouse and independent markets where they gain only limited cinema releases whereas 10 or 20 years ago those sort of films thanks to the rise of small studios like Miramax got to enjoy more mainstream cinema releases now don't get me wrong some of those still do David Fincher's Gone Girl is one of them.

But it saddens me that those sort of movies are being shoved out of the mainstream market and like I said onto the arthouse and independent markets and for me it is a sad shame as I am 18 months away from turning 30 and would like to see more adult oriented movies but at the moment those films just don't get the widespread cinema run they might have back in the old days.

And given the heavily corporate fanboy culture infesting Hollywood at the moment that lack of diversity in the mainstream market puts me off being more excited for the big Superhero films set to dominate cinemas in the next few years as to my perspective it looks like that's all we're getting (I think this corporate fanboy culture in Hollywood is also why we haven't seen many female leads in films also but that's just my theory.)

And so that is Part 1 of A Year Long Remembered, keep an eye out for Part 2 where I talk about my surprises and disappointments movie wise for 2014.