TJ and Joe discuss the amazing craft, the historical accuracies and inaccuracies, the agenda, and everything else about ‘The Imitation Game’ staring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing. What a fantastic film. TJ wishes he had seen it before he made his top films of 2014 list. They also discuss the newest ‘Peanuts’ trailer and the state of animation, CGI, and nostalgic filmmaking, the new trailer for the live action remake of ‘Cinderella’, some of the actors we lost in 2014, and the films TJ is looking forward to in 2015 (by no means a comprehensive list).

I wonder what the process of casting for the part of the irascible “father of modern computing” looked like? I have to say I have no idea, but whatever process lead them to casting Benedict Cumberbatch was the right one! This film rises or falls on this one performance — even though there were several good performances in the film — and as always and ever, Cumberbatch elevates this film to a level I do not think would have been possible with any other actor.

There are many uncomfortable details about the work and life of Alan Turing’s life that the film does not shy away from.

An Odd… Read The Review

The job of any trailer is to get people excited for the film — or at the very least, to get them interested in the film. The first two teaser trailer succeeded in that. This one does too in a way, although it’s a little bit strange. They seem to be calling this the first full trailer, and yet it’s basically like the last teaser trailer. It’s all Snoopy flying his dog house around. I’m not complaining too much, though. Many modern trailers give way too much away over the course of the promotional run and leave little left to discover in the theater. Of all the films I doubt that would hurt,…

We lose great actors every year because time marches on, people get old, accidents happen, tragedies are unavoidable. Some years we lose better actors than others. This tribute video highlights the actors we lost this past year. While I think it was an unfotunate mistake to play that sappy music throughout the entire tribute, even when music from the hightlighted video clashes, the video does serve to remind us of those actors that we lost.

As we know, a longer version of “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” is coming this year — known as the “Rogue Cut” — which will reportedly feature at least ten minutes of new footage, including more of, you guessed it, Anna Paquin‘s mutant in scenes excised from the theatrical release. But this won’t just be a re-release of ‘DOFP’ on home video. Here’s what Fox Home Entertainment EVP of marketing communications James Finn tweeted last month (via X-Men Films):

Distinct Film. Distinct extras. Complimentary to DOFP Blu-ray but not repetitive.

So that’s sort of interesting. We heard rumors and…

A new year is a time of retrospection, but also of looking forward. I’ve already looked back at my favorite films of 2014 — it was a pretty good year for films actually. Though there were no big standouts like Gravity from 2013, there were many great films that I included in my top list.

And now the question is, will there be any good or great films in 2015? There almost certainly will be — and many of them will probably not be on this list. And some that are on this list will likely be duds. That’s the way it works, but that does not make it any less fun to look forward and see what’s…