As great as 2014 was, it is hard to not notice that there were a few bumps along the way. There were things whose expectations were so high that it seemed impossible to live up to. In the case of the following 10, these reflect a certain disdain that I had towards them. Ranging from cinema to celebrity culture, this is a personal feeling of things that came up short in ways worth noting. While there's still hope that their longevity won't judge them too harshly, they're still a little subpar in a lot of ways.
Jason Reitman's Career
Let me just say it upfront: I LOVED Jason Reitman before this year. Between Thank You For Smoking and Young Adult, he directed four of the best films of the decade. His track record was almost flawless. Then for some reason, things went horribly wrong this year and he released two of the most maligned films of his career with Labor Day and Men, Women & Children. From personal opinion, the former is a very haphazard film that doesn't even feel like a Reitman film and has a very problematic romantic central plot. Also, poor Kate Winslet had a terrible year between this and Divergent. I can only hope that these two films are only bumps in his career. Otherwise, I am afraid that the Reitman magic is gone and I will begin to question why I loved him in the first place.
The People Who Revived Community
Right off the bat, I am not saying that Community was itself a disappointment in 2014. The show deserved to have a season under the wings of Dan Harmon. As a result, it delivered some of its strongest episodes. However, once Donald Glover left, the show had trouble finding its voice and I never felt like it recovered. It became pandering and a fractured form of its better years. Worst of all, when NBC cancelled it, Yahoo! Screens picked it up. Why? Because people believe that the show's slogan "Six seasons and a movie" actually means something. It is a stretch and is only going to disappoint people when the show doesn't live up to its potential. It worked as the underdog on NBC because each episode had a special feel due to potential cancellation. On the internet, it feels like just another show, and there's nothing all that interesting about that.
Get on Up
James Brown is a phenomenally eccentric man that is worthy of a strong biopic. Thanks to Chadwick Boseman, he gets a great performance. However, the film from The Help director isn't all that great and at best is saved by schizophrenic editing. Brown's life is hard to encapsulate into one film, so Get on Up rarely spends too long on one moment. The results are enjoyable and the performance elevates its potential. However, it doesn't really feel like a definitive portrait of the man despite having a performance that in a better story would have been.
Louie
Plain and simple, Louie was the dark comedy series that could do no wrong. For the first three seasons, it pushed the boundaries of conventional comedy narratives. In fact, it got me excited for what he could do with an hour-long format. However, I guess that my wishes were too misguided, as the results weren't fulfilling. For starters, the episodes were shown in a rapid succession of a few weeks. The results started off good, but when "Elevator" and "Pamela" stories came around, there was too much dead air to really care. Aside from the idea of starting conversations about rape, obesity and drug use, the show lost its creative edge in favor of being pretentious. I can only hope that this was a test run and that Louie will return to form next season with a strong, more formed structure.
Antonio Sanchez's Birdman Score
You're probably noting a few things right now. For starters, Birdman is an excellent film (I agree) and that Antonio Sanchez recently got a nomination for Best Original Score at the Golden Globes (that too is true). In fact, I really want to like the score because of one reason: it's entirely percussive. It works within context of the film, but only because it is used as background sound and also sparingly. On record, it is probably the least listenable soundtrack of the year. I keep trying to listen to it, but the lack of rhythm and flow really becomes jarring immediately. There have been worse scores out there this year, but none have been more frustrating than this one because while I cannot back it, I still want to like it. However, it remains one of the weaker elements of the recent success of Birdman.
Masters of Sex
Masters of Sex became more experimental in season 2. That is perfectly fine. In fact, it produced their best episode to date with "Flight." However, the back half is particularly flawed and a little bothersome. This is mostly because the show felt like it was stuck in a rut as it mixed erectile dysfunction with not moving the story forward for weeks on end. The show did some interesting things involving race, but the show became a laborious exercise towards the end of its second season mostly because it didn't know what to do with half of the characters. Some plots were even dropped. It wasn't bad enough to cancel watching for good, but after a strong first season that mixed sexuality with current events, it is sad to see the show struggle so frequently. The final episode was pretty strong thought.
AMC's "Split" Decisions
It was all the rave when Breaking Bad went off the air last year. Splitting a show's final season in half felt like a novelty idea. However, this year saw the channel announce the end of its other two flagship series getting the same treatment. Mad Men has already done their first half, leaving many frustrated. Hell on Wheels is set to do their own split next year. It could just be that AMC is having trouble finding the new generation of series, which includes the bland Turn and the promising Halt and Catch Fire. However, it is an annoying trend that reflects a channel that once was the biggest channel in the prestige drama world coming to terms with their step down.
Karen O's "Crush Songs"
Childish Gambino's mixture of "STN MTN/Kauai" could have easily been substituted in here, but there's moments that work there. However, Karen O wins the category because of how unassuming and forgettable this album is. After a banner year with an Oscar nomination for her Her song "The Moon Song," she comes out with a short, distorted record full of songs she wrote clearly for herself. A musician of her talent should be producing more interesting work than this. While there's moments that work, it definitely doesn't hold a candle to her amazing work from the past few years with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and multiple Spike Jonze collaborations.
Tusk
Call me duped. I have been a waning Kevin Smith fan for years who hasn't liked any of his films since Cop Out. However, I got swept up in the marketing for this film with fans going crazy (first mistake) and the director claiming that this is the type of films he wants to make. In truth, I felt like there was a chance that things could have turned around between Red State and this. Instead, he made his worst film of his career which isn't so much pandering as evidence that he is creatively bankrupt. While the first 35 minutes reflected him doing something ambitious, it was quickly distracted with awful caricatures of Canadians (with Johnny Depp turning in his worst performance of his career) and a meandering story that should have been better done. There were jokes there, but the Smith who relied on dialogue early in his career couldn't come up with the right words. The film is so awful that it made me feel defeated inside in some of the worst ways possible. Most of all, it's because even when he does something for his fans specifically, he is producing pure garbage that is contradicting to his original vision.
Charles Manson Has a Girlfriend
Headline says it all. If one of the most notorious cult leaders in American history and is hated by millions for his brutality can get a girlfriend, what is wrong with the rest of us? True, maybe we wouldn't want to date his girlfriend. But seriously... if the man who once did this has a woman who will put up with him, what is stopping us as upstanding citizens from getting some significant others? The world makes no sense and chalk this up to one of life's greatest mysteries that will never be answered.
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