Best of cinema by Mad Movies. Part 6: 2013-2014

Every year my favorite magazine for action/horror/thriller/SF (Mad Movies) publishes the list of the best movies of the previous year (and the worst ones), according to its editors and an average for the whole magazine team.
I have gathered them for your here with a few comments. Enjoy!
All parts of this article can be found under this link.

2013 was the first year during which JoRafCinema was in full swing, so that I can provide links to all the movies I have seen. For once let me start by commenting the Mad Movies redaction list. I liked Gravity in spite of a disturbing (to me) post-converted 3D, The Wachowski's Cloud Atlas definitely has its place in the top, maybe Star Trek Into Darkness as well and I have already mentioned the excellent Love Exposure in the 2011-2012 article. However I found Berberian Sound Studio disappointing for a supposed Giallo, as well as Stoker the first American movie by Chan-wook Park (Oldboy), Lone Ranger and Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem. I have yet to watch Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners (positively reviewed by Raf) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Shokuzai. 
From their list of Flops I liked Brandon "son of David" Cronenberg's Antiviral and the entertaining and energetic World War Z with Brad Pitt, but I can otherwise agree with the rating of G.I.Joe: Retaliation, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Machete Kills, and I haven't seen Michel Gondry's L'Ecume des jours, The Spanish Los últimos días (Les derniers jours), Dario Argento's Dracula 3D, Brian de Palma's Passion or the sequel to the efficient Insidious.
Other movies I can see from the article and that I liked from that year include Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (for the incredible action), Man of Steel (for the story but not the too big ending), The Conjuring the most frightening movie I have seen in a long while, the remake of Maniac with a surprising Elijah Wood, Ti West's simple The Innkeepers (actually from 2011) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was alright.
I found average Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, The Wolverine, R.I.P.D, Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, Snowpiercer and the third Riddick in the franchise. Bad movies of that year include the useless The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the not-funny This is the End, M. Night. Shyamalan's After Earth, Ari Forman's half-animated The Congress with Robin Wright, Iron Man 3 and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.
I heard a lot of good about the French Neuf Mois Ferme with Albert Dupontel and haven't seen either Alejandro Jodorowsky's La danza de la realidad, Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives (well rated by Raf), Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful, Kick-Ass 2, The Curse of Chucky, the documentary Room 237 about Stanley Kubrick's Shining, the supposedly good horror movie Mama and the contested remake of Evil Dead, both sitting on my Blu-ray shelf. 
Some good Mad movies that went unnoticed that year: Man of Tai Chi with and by Keanu Reeves, the simple and efficient Coherence seen in festivals, the excellent Filipino Shift seen at the Far East Film Festival in Udine (IT), another Ti West movie The Sacrament, Alex de la Iglesia's crazy and energetic Witching and Bitching (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi), the sequel Monsters University, the underestimated movies Ender's Game and its kids in a war against aliens, A Good Day to Die Hard and Europa Report with Sharlto "District 9" Copley, the anthology V/H/S 2, the futuristic blockbuster Oblivion with Tom Cruise and the exceptional Horror movie American Mary from the Soska sisters.

I will proceed the same way about the 2014 movies. I very much agree with the appearance in the Top list of Gone Girl with Ben Affleck, Christopher Nolan's revisitation of 2001, A Space Odyssey with Interstellar, Denis Villeneuve's Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal and Fabrice "Calvaire" Du Welz's Alléluia, while I still have to watch Hayao Miyasaki's The Wind Rises. I liked the scary surprise The Babadook and I found average The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Lego Movie, Under the Skin in spite of a sensual Scarlett Johansson and Sin City: A Dame to Kill for in spite of a very sexy Eva Green. I didn't like much Transformers 4 and its dinosaurs, Lucy nor The Amazing Spider-man 2 and was utterly disappointed by The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears by Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani that had however brought us the excellent Giallo revival Amer. I haven't seen The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and am not eager to watch The Baby, Annabelle the poor sequel to the frightening The Conjuring, I, Frankenstein, while Raf reviewed positively Jim Jarmush's Only Lovers left Alive and negatively Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem. 
Other movies I can see from the article and that I liked from that year include 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves, X-men: Days of Future Past, the weird Dark Touch seen at a festival, the TV-series P'tit Quinquin (at least the first half), Godzilla by the promising Gareth Edwards (Monsters), the original Cheap Thrills, the continuation of the revisitation of a classic story with Dawn of the planet of the Apes and Darren Aronofsky's Noah in spite of some lengths. Raf also liked Night Call (Nighcrawler in OV). I have yet to see the French Beauty and the Beast and Detective Dee 2 (and the first one as well actually).
I found average the peplums 300: Rise of an Empire, Pompeii and Hercules, the remake of Robocop, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller and Marvel's The Guardians of the Galaxy. Bad movies of that year include the formatted Divergent for teenagers, Captain America: the Winter Soldier, Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transcendence with Johnny Depp, and according to Raf Blue Ruin, David Cronenberg's Map to the stars and Spike Jonze's Her with Joaquin Phoenix as well.
Some good Mad movies that went unnoticed that year: the blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, the twister movie Into the Storm with Richard "Oakenshield" Armitage, the Japanese comedy about Tokatsu stuntmen Unsung Hero, the excellent Spanish thriller Marshland (La isla mínima), Adam Wingard's Home invasion The Guest, Kevin Smith's UFO Tusk, Matthew Vaugh's refreshing Kingsman: The Secret Service, the funny animated Big Hero 6, the best Horror movies of the year Starry Eyes and It Follows and the Texan thriller Cold in July all seen at the Munich Fantasy Film Festival, Open Windows with Elijah Wood seen at the NIFFF, the hilarious Kiwi vampire comedy What we do in the Shadows and the Norwegian Horror comedy Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead, and the first movie from Brunei Yasmine. Special mentions go to the good fourth season of Game of Thrones, the first one of Fargo and the final one of Sons of Anarchy. Note that the delicious Birdman with Michael Keaton was reviewed the following year in the magazine.
Looking at the list above, it seems like in 2014 some of the best movies were not released in cinemas but one had to go to festivals to see them.

Stay tuned for the next episode, Part 7: 2015.