I saw 11 movies in the theater in 2014. Up to this point—with a few exceptions—new theatrical releases are the only movies I've reviewed on this blog. But it occurred to me that, 1.) I don't see all that many movies these days in any venue, and 2.) I've been reviewing all of the books I read regardless of format or publication date. Thus, I decided to include rentals and streaming as candidates for review, bringing my total for the year to a whopping 13. Once again, in chronological order:

Walking With Dinosaurs: Oh, the things we do for our kids. Looking over my notes, this is probably the worst movie I've seen in the past five years. Maybe longer. Imagine if you took The Land Before Time but made the voice acting terrible, gave it a stupid modern-day framing story, switched from charismatic hand-drawn animation to sleek but soulless CGI, and weighed the whole thing down with a veneer of edutainment (which fails at being either educational or entertaining). That's pretty much what you have here. My six-year-old liked it, but fortunately not so much that it's likely I'll have to see it again. (IMDb)

Her: Of the two heavily nominated movies of 2013 that are included in this list, this is certainly the one I liked better. I'm hot-and-cold with Joaquin Phoenix, finding him sometimes wonderfully nuanced and sometimes overly self-conscious as an actor. His performance in Her was definitely the former, just a wonderful portrayal of a buttoned-up sad sack in an alienating world. And, of course, I was impressed by how much of a presence and personality Scarlett Johansson projected using just her voice. Amy Adams was great in her supporting role, too, the first I can think of where she wasn't stuck in her former cute-as-a-button pigeonhole. (IMDb)

American Hustle: Walking out of the theater after this movie, Juliette and I turned to each other to ask whether either of us understood why American Hustle had garnered such high praise from so many corners. It's not that it was a bad movie—really, it was a perfectly adequate little caper story. But the hype leading up to the awards season had been so high, we both expected something that ultimately the movie didn't deliver. The performances were fine, but mostly a bit over-the-top for our taste. The story was fine, but nothing special. There were some funny parts and some tense moments, but in the end nothing really stood out to either of us. I have a feeling that this isn't going to be one that enters the canon, but so far I've been in the minority with this movie, so I wouldn't be too surprised to be wrong. (IMDb)

The Lego Movie: One of the things that having a six-year-old has given me the opportunity to do is revisit a lot of the pop culture of my youth. And although much of it still holds my interest via nostalgia, I have to admit that it's made me realize how great kids these days have it. Really, a whole lot of the children's entertainment from my youth is just crap. Meanwhile, my kids get to grow up with stuff like The Lego Movie, which I not only loved when I took my son to see it in the theater, but I've been more than happy to re-watch several times since we bought the Blu-Ray. It's funny, smart, and just completely entertaining. (IMDb)

Muppets Most Wanted: As I recall, I really enjoyed The Muppets when it came out back in 2011. I wasn't expecting much from this sequel but, if anything, I think I liked it even more than the last one. The songs were better, the plot more in line with the sort of capers I remember from the old Muppet movies, and the jokes were just as good. Heck, I even liked Ricky Gervais, so something must have been going right. (IMDb)

The Grand Budapest Hotel: As far as I can tell, most people tend to fall into one of two camps with Wes Anderson: you either think he's a genius or he's pretentious and twee. Given that The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou are two of my favorite films, you can guess where I land with respect to Mr. Anderson. And The Grand Budapest Hotel may be his best work yet. It's visually gorgeous, with all the cinematographic hallmarks of a Wes Anderson movie but in a way that felt—to me, at least—more organic and heartfelt. It's never as emotionally raw as the climax of The Darjeeling Limited, possibly not quite as funny as The Royal Tenenbaums (though my opinion there may change with more viewings), but it all comes together just so, a perfect balance of affectation and emotion. (IMDb)

Don Jon: It's funny, the more I think about this movie, the less I like it. In general, I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, both as an actor and as a general creative force. And I always have a soft spot for Tony Danza, and I thought Julianne Moore was quite good. But the sexual politics portrayed in the movie were problematic, to say the least. On the one hand, the movie is a sharp criticism of porn addiction and the sort of bro-y, meat-headed, overt chauvenism of the "guido" type, of which the title character is a member. And that's fine. But it also finds an equal problem with the rom-com-fueled, "a real man would do anything for his woman" sort of objectification that a woman can do to a man. And while the latter is certainly problematic on a personal level, it just doesn't have the same structural ramifications of the former. So, despite a certain amount of charm, I'm left feeling kind of uncomfortable with this movie. (IMDb)

Sleepwalk With Me: Mike Birbiglia is one of my favorite recurring contributors to This American Life, and I was quite excited when I heard that he and Ira Glass had teamed up to make this movie. Sadly, 2012 just wasn't a year where I managed to get out to see a lot of small, independent movies. Or any, actually. But when I saw that it was available via Netflix, I added it to my queue immediately, and while it was shaky in the ways that movies from first-time writer/directors often are, I really enjoyed it. It was funny, heartfelt, and painfully honest in just the way I love about Birbiglia's stand-up, and more than any other movie that I've seen, it really focused in on the life of a young road comedian, which is something I've always found fascinating. (IMDb)

Chef: It's an odd coincidence that I'd happen to see two movies in a row that I heard about via a podcast. I became aware of Chef when its writer, director, and star, Jon Favreau, appeared on Marc Maron's WTF podcast. In that interview, Maron described the movie as sweet, and Favreau talked about how it wasn't the kind of movie that would have gotten made if he hadn't done it himself. I'm glad that he did, because it was one of the most heartwarming movies I've seen in recent years. Favreau really hit all the right notes to appeal to someone like me, with beautiful food, self-deprecating humor, a great cast, and a feel-good story that would make Frank Capra proud. It's an unabashedly sweet and earnest movie that yet manages to avoid becoming overly saccharine. Thinking about it now, I can't help but smile. (IMDb)

How to Train Your Dragon 2: Dreamworks has really had a great run of animated films over the past several years. That's not news to anyone who watches animated films, of course, but it's still striking to me how quickly and strongly they switched from being a mere "not Pixar" to an animation studio to be reckoned with. I absolutely adored the first movie, and even though I'm on record as being tired of sequels and movie franchises, for some reason animation tends to slip around those reservations of mine; I was quite excited to see this one. And, boy, it delivered, maintaining the laughs and thrills of the original while broadening the scope of both the setting and the characters' personal histories. I just loved it. (IMDb)

Planes: Fire and Rescue: This one, though, I didn't love. Here's the thing: it's basically the exact same movie as the first Planes, which while visually exhilarating was completely flat and boring in just about every other way. The first one was just a cheap knock-off of Cars, which, itself, was not one of Pixar's better movies. This one is an even cheaper knock-off of the first one, so if you're above elementary-school age, it's probably not going to do a whole lot for you. (IMDb)

Big Hero 6: For the past two months since we went and saw Big Hero 6, my son has been talking about the main characters, drawing them, pretending to be them, and asking for toys of them at least every other day. Suffice it to say, this was probably his favorite movie of the year. I liked it quite a lot, too. It's gotten to the point where I'm no longer surprised when a kids' animated movie makes me both laugh and get choked up—indeed, the stinkers like Walking With Dinosaurs and Planes: Fire and Rescue have become the ones that feel like outliers. Children's entertainment has just gotten so great, and I'm just happy that I get to be a parent now that that's the case. (IMDb)

Annie: The last movie of our year was the remake of the classic musical Annie. Juliette and I, of course, grew up with the 1982 version, which Jason has also seen and enjoyed. We weren't sure how this one would measure up, especially since we'd heard that much of the music was going to be different. (I'm also just generally skeptical of remakes.) But both Juliette and I agreed that this new version of Annie was pretty great. Many of the songs were almost unrecognizably different, and there were several new ones added, as well. But it all just worked. There were a number of character and plot updates as well. The most notable of these was the changing of the two main characters from Caucasian to African American, but there were a lot of others, too: having Will Stacks (the Daddy Warbucks character) be running for mayor; replacing Miss Hannigan's dastardly brother, Rooster, with Bobby Cannavale's political consultant; giving Will more overtly humble origins; making Annie a foster child instead of an orphan. From what I've read, some purists have protested the changes, but for me they all added up to a story that felt more organic and plausible, as well as more relevant. At the end of the day, both Juliette and I and our kids thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and it was a great way to close out our cinematic year. (IMDb)