GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

In 1988, a young Earthling, Peter Quill, is kidnapped by aliens.  Twenty-six years later, Peter, is grown up and dancing across a weird-looking alien planet while listening to his ancient Walkman.  He's grown up to be a bizarre mixture of Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, Han Solo and whatever the hell Kevin Bacon's name was in FOOTLOOSE.  After getting his boogie on, he finds what he's looking for: a metal orb that looks like a larger version of Rosemary's necklace in ROSEMARY'S BABY.  Stuff happens and it ends up that an evil dude (who looks likes what would happen if the bad guy from THE KEEP joined a black metal glam band) wants the orb in order to use it as a weapon to kill everybody.  Later on, Peter crosses paths with some other folks and they end up becoming friends.  Awww.

I've only seen a handful of these Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, so I can't really tell you if it's good or not from a comic book fan perspective, but from an entertainment perspective...I liked it.  Quick pace, impressive special effects, good acting, intriguing characters, zero tension.  I would totally watch it again.

The Infinity Saga

Phase One
Part 1 - Iron Man (2008)
Part 2 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3 - Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4 - Thor (2011)
Part 5 - Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6 - Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Phase Two
Part 7 - Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8 - Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 11 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12 - Ant-Man (2015)

Phase Three
Part 13 - Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14 - Doctor Strange (2016)
Part 15 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Part 16 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Part 17 - Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Part 18 - Black Panther (2018)
Part 19 - Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Part 20 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Part 21 - Captain Marvel (2019)
Part 22 - Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Part 23 - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Phase Four
Part 24 - Black Widow (2021)
Part 25 - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Part 26 - Eternals (2021)
Part 27 - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Part 28 - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Part 29 - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Part 30 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Phase Five
Part 31 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Part 32 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Part 33 - The Marvels (2023)

NIGHTCRAWLER (2014)

As a cynical, poison-filled, unloved, unliked, dead soul slowly rotting away in a ugly worthless human carcass I related quite a bit with the awkward, unsociable loner Louis Bloom, played brilliantly by Jake Gyllenhaal.  One evening, quite by accident, Louis sees freelance cameraman, Bill Paxton, filming two police officers saving a woman from a burning car.  This gives Louis an idea and next thing you know he's out on the street filming overnight events for the morning news.  He has a natural eye for the more sensational stuff and before long his personal drive has brought him a small amount of notoriety.  This only drives him further.

I enjoyed every second of NIGHTCRAWLER.  The photography by Robert Elswit was absolutely spellbinding, the story had me hooked from beginning to end, the acting by the entire cast was fantastic, nice pace, smart script, satisfying ending.  The only thing that keeps this film out of my favorites films category is it wasn't dark or misanthropic enough for my tastes.  That said, it's a great movie, I just like my dark movies to be really dark.

Highly recommended.