Other Top Ten Lists.
This Christmas, a holiday season inundated with an insurmountable flood of Star Wars merchandise, I heard my nephew describe one of his toys as a "Lego Movie Lego Set." In other words, this is a toy set based on a film adaptation of that same brand of toy set. Setting aside the meta-awareness that The Lego Movie brought to the conversation, that playset throws into stark reality the perpetual cycle of film and merchandise, forever feeding off of each other.
Before my second viewing of The Force Awakens, a ticket purchase that I felt some vague guilt about, there was a big screen commercial that by all appearances advertised neither a film nor a product, but rather urged its audience to talk to more people about Star Wars and watch more Youtube videos about Star Wars. We've gone beyond advertising products, and are now advertising cultural monopolies--the utter domination of discourse.
Culture is eating itself. 2015 exists at the nexus of rampant reboot/remake/requel culture. Movies that make significant money are almost never original properties anymore. That being the case, production companies have delved deep into their reservoirs to try to dredge up old properties that still carry with them a modicum of brand recognition. Thus we get the crushing inevitability of a nostalgia-pillaging Jurassic Park sequel. A wretched Fantastic Four cobbled together out of sheer corporate obligation. A new Terminator movie that nobody liked, the third Terminator movie in a row that was meant to kick off a subsequently aborted trilogy. A trilogy of failed trilogies. And on the horizon, a Die Hard remake, a Labyrinth remake, a Memento remake, and cinematic universes for Marvel, DC, Ghostbusters, Avatar, Transformers, Hasbro, the Universal Monsters, and The Fast and the Furious, among others.
The cart is firmly before the horse.
The cart is firmly before the horse.
Yet, it appears, there is still hope. Some of the best films of the year have accomplished one of the most unheard of tasks in filmmaking: successful new additions to long dormant beloved franchises. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the success story here, but even more deserving of accolades are the excellent Creed and Fury Road. These films resuscitate beloved franchises without succumbing to the pitfalls of the franchise machine. Unlike most manipulative cash grabs, these movies focus on craft and storytelling first and foremost.
That has been the story of the cinema landscape of 2015--the best films have simply been rock solid on the level of craft. Very few of my favorite movies this year pushed the envelope of creative possibility, but a year of classical filmmaking is a very welcome palette cleanser nonetheless. This list highlights some of the movies that have staunched the bleed of cultural regression in the film industry. But first, some films I missed that could have figured into my top ten:
Crimson Peak, Steve Jobs, Room, The Assassin, The Walk, Beasts of No Nation, Girlhood, The Duke of Burgundy, Brooklyn, Carol, Anomalisa, Slow West, Macbeth, Chi-Raq, Clouds of Sils Maria, Son of Saul
Before we get into the list, I have a few awards to hand out.
Most Disappointing: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
Most Inane: The Revenant
Most Nonsensical: Spectre
Most Generic: Fantastic Four
Most Infuriating: Jurassic World
Most: Mad Max: Fury Road
Can't Remember: Trainwreck
Sophomore Slump: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Kindred Spirits: The Hateful Eight + Bone Tomahawk
Kindred Names: Spotlight + What We Do in the Shadows
Best Names: 1. The Hateful Eight 2. It Follows 3. Cop Car
Worst Names: 1. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 3. The Good Dinosaur
Worst Superhero: Fantastic Four
Worst Adaptation: Fantastic Four
Worst Sequel: Jurassic World
Worst: Fantastic Four
Honorable Mentions
Kingsman: The Secret Service - The bland advertisements, the blander title, and the complete lack of pre-release buzz around this movie meant that I had little to no expectations about what it might offer. I went into the movie fresh, and for that reason Kingsman may have been the most pleasantly surprising movie watching experience of the year for me. This crackling action comedy is bolstered by a great commentary on classism and Bond iconography, as well as a killer set of performances. Samuel L. Jackson as a lisping, squeamish bad guy bent on world domination sounds like something we want to see, but who knew how badly we needed to experience Colin Firth kicking ass and taking names? The film is all-around solid, but the audacity of its action setpieces will be its legacy.
The Visit - I spent years in denial as an M. Night Shyamalan apologist, until The Happening pushed me back to sanity. I enjoyed The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and even Signs so much that I badly wished for a resurgence. None came, and I abandoned all hope. I heard about the terrible conceit behind The Visit--a found footage horror movie about visiting weird grandparents--and paid little attention. But the movie got mixed-to-positive reviews, so I checked it out. Somehow, some way, Shyamalan has managed to crawl out of his creative ditch and piece together a good movie. Let's hope it doesn't go to his head! My Review.
Phoenix - Phoenix is a post-Holocaust story about a Jewish woman who has had facial reconstruction surgery and now must return to her old life. Yet instead of doing so, she becomes obsessed with her husband, who may or may not have betrayed her. He then becomes obsessed with her because he believes his real wife died in the Holocaust, and that she is his wife's lookalike. He needs a lookalike to collect his wife's fortune, so he begins to train his wife to behave like his wife. It's bizarre. The film is permeated with melancholy yearning and ambiguity; I couldn't even begin to unpack the psychological layers that are happening here. Certain aspects of Phoenix are off-putting, purposely so, but it boasts the single most powerful ending scene of 2015.
Cop Car - Kevin Bacon and a couple of kids star in this coming of age story written and directed by Jon Watts, the young guy who's going to be masterminding Marvel's new Spider-Man movie. It's going to be a great fit judging by this film. Cop Car follows two kids who come across an abandoned cop car and decide to take it for a joy ride. This embroils them in a parallel story, that of Bacon's corrupt cop trying to cover up some sort of drug deal mess he's gotten himself wrapped up in. What results is a cat and mouse game that one side is too innocent to realize they are even playing. The two threads intertwine beautifully. The simplicity with which Watts infuses his storytelling makes Cop Car feel like vintage mythic Americana.
The Martian - When I spoke above about this year's movies being rock solid on the level of craft, I had The Martian in mind. This film functions correctly in every single way, and no aspect of it stands out enough to distract from the story as a whole. In that sense the film is downright workmanlike, which is fitting considering the entire dramatic thrust of the film centers around competent workers doing their jobs very well. I'm not in love with anything in particular about this film (though MVP has to go to Drew Goddard for somehow adapting such a procedural book effectively to the screen), but it certainly deserves the accolades it has received. My Review.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - In bad storytelling, convolution is the name of the game. That goes double for action cinema. You won't find any blurry shakycam, or unclear geography, or confusing stakes in the newest entry of the recently revamped Mission: Impossible franchise. The opera scene alone is one of my favorite sequences of the year. My Review.
The Big Short - I originally thought this film would have a solid spot on my top ten list. It hasn't stuck with me as well as others, but at the time I was deeply affected by this off-kilter perspective on the 2007 housing bubble. I've never been so invested in anything that had the word "financial" in it. My Review.
Spotlight - This was the hardest one to bump from my list. Spotlight is an exercise in masterful restraint and subtlety. It's awards season fare without the pandering or the melodrama. Tom McCarthy uses his impeccable control of tone and pacing to craft a sincere and incisive narrative about the uncovering of a hidden molestation epidemic in the Catholic church. Spotlight could have taken a number of wrong steps on the way to the big screen, but it didn't. It's my prediction for Best Picture, and if that happens I wouldn't mind one bit. My Review.
Now, of the 34 movies I have seen released in 2015, here are my top ten.
There are crucial problems with David Robert Mitchell's horror tale about a sexually-transmitted curse that causes some sort of violent entity to follow you incessantly until you're caught (or until you pass it along). These issues mostly have to do with the film's continued violation of the rules it sets for itself. It's messy, but the rule-breaking at least has the effect of throwing the audience off balance. That lack of discipline doesn't matter so much for me, because It Follows is a tonal masterpiece. The film plants the knife of the premise firmly in your gut, then spends the next hour+ twisting it slowly and deliberately. The beauty of the premise is that the entity can appear as anybody, distinguished only by its singleminded and deliberate gait. Thus every single wide shot in a crowded area becomes a Where's Waldo? of dread. Mitchell maximizes that dread with a roving camera. As we circle around our vulnerable protagonists, our eyes scan the horizon just as theirs do. I still remember walking into the dark parking lot after the show and feeling the tickling need to look over my shoulder. Just to see if anyone was following.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
There's something undeniably special about Tangerine. No, it's not that director Sean Baker shot the entire film on a modified iPhone, though its visual flair is pulled off so flawlessly that you wouldn't be able to tell. And it's not that this is a "very special movie" about the dramatic plight of a minority group, like The Danish Girl. Rather, I think Tangerine feels so special because it's rare that we see a movie so blatantly, nakedly human. This story of a day in the life of a couple of trans prostitutes and an Armenian taxi driver in LA feels real in a way that we're not used to seeing on the screen. Part of that is the screen presence of our two main characters, who are not actors but rather LA trans prostitutes themselves. But perhaps the best thing about Tangerine is the way it makes these people's problems feel universal even while rooting them firmly within a hyperspecific culture. Tangerine doesn't break barriers by preaching about them. Tangerine breaks barriers by telling a simple story.
A new Spielberg movie has somehow come and gone without much interest. That is insane. Spielberg has proven himself to be one of the greatest living artists on the planet, and every frame of his films will be studied for a long time to come. Bridge of Spies is a worthy, if not absolutely essential, addition to the pantheon. Lincoln is an all around better work, but I love the games Spielberg plays with Spies. He effortlessly mixes and melds genres from scene to scene. The movie could easily feel like patchwork, but it doesn't thanks to his sure directorial hand. Of course, the glue that holds the movie together is Tom Hanks. This is another living legend who quietly flies under the radar. His scenes with Mark Rylance are ridiculously compelling.
Top it all off with a stunning commentary about the American political and justice system, and you have a movie that manages to be both idealistic and cynically pragmatic at the same time. That's one of the lessons of the film, after all. Idealism isn't the easy way out. Idealism is the hardest thing you can do.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
The western has seen a cinematic resurgence in recent years, and Bone Tomahawk hits a sweet spot of western-horror that I didn't even realize I was yearning for. As such, I can't recommend it to everybody. It's incredibly slow-paced, and quite gruesome. When it's the former, you won't believe it will ever become the latter, and when it's the latter, you won't believe it was ever the former.
That's really what I love about Bone Tomahawk. The pacing, tone, dialogue, and performances are just flat out peculiar. They all combine to make the experience of watching feel surreal, even purgatorial. Yet even during the slow stretches, of which there are many, I was never bored thanks to S. Craig Zahler's brilliant screenplay. You've never heard neo-western dialogue quite like this before. And having it come out of the mouth of Kurt Russell makes it all the better.
I don't watch many comedies. Whole swathes of the genre just don't appeal to me. The genre also has a nasty habit of ignoring the benefits of working in a cinematic form. Not so with What We Do in the Shadows. This film is a compelling, well-shot contemporary vampire narrative that innovates and sidesplits at the same time. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi take what could easily be a hack premise and infuse it with life. They pay their respects to centuries of vampire iconography while simultaneously filtering it all through a shockingly current and relevant lens. We're not looking at a simple parody, we're looking at real characters with real arcs that just happen to be bound up in a batshit crazy mythology--pun intended. This ought to be the definitive vampire story of our generation.
I consider each new great comedy film I encounter to be an unexpected gift. I look forward to rewatching What We Do in the Shadows again and again, joining In Bruges and every Edgar Wright movie in my personal comedy pantheon.
The weird thing about how much I love Creed is that I've never seen a single Rocky movie in my entire life. That is an enormous testament to the amount of care that writer/director Ryan Coogler breathes into this well-worn narrative. Just like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Creed hits many of the same beats of the original in their respective seven-movie-franchises. Yet unlike The Force Awakens, nothing about Creed feels derivative. Creed refuses to coast on nostalgia, instead bringing passion to every single moment. Major credit also goes to Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, a pairing that work wonders together. They recontextualize what has heretofore been yet another very white Hollywood franchise.
I believe that a great deal of what makes Creed so fresh is that it is not only telling a universal story about overcoming obstacles, but that it is telling a very personal story about black America. Coogler never has to say any morals or truths out loud; Creed is too artful for that. We learn everything we need to know about the hardships Adonis has faced with the opening scene of a childhood brawl.
My Review.
Original Score: 9.5
The number of 2015 films that have utterly captured my obsession is quite small. I can think of three offhand. Loving a movie and obsessing over it are different, of course; some films just stick with you for weeks and won't let you go. The Hateful Eight did that to me. I've seen it twice now, and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm obsessed with the bizarro structure of the film. I'm obsessed with the droning soundtrack. I'm obsessed with what is by far Tarantino's most mature screenplay to date. I'm obsessed with the searing thematic insight on display. But perhaps most of all, I'm obsessed with the wildly varying reactions with which the public greeted the legendary filmmaker's eighth movie.
I understand how it could turn you off. The Hateful Eight is, above all, mean and nasty. It has egregious things to say about the dirty race and gender politics that suffuse American culture, and it doesn't even pretend to pull any punches. This is frankly one of the most honest and insightful movies of the year, and it was released at the perfect moment to impact our national conversation about race. Yet so many are dismissing the film as juvenile, racist, sexist, nihilistic, messy, pretentious, what have you. I consider many (not all) of these reactions to be grievous misreadings of Tarantino's work, and it bothers me, but you know what? I don't imagine that guy cares one bit. He set out to condemn a nation, and the polarized reaction indicates that in some way, he has succeeded.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
But hey, sometimes we can indulge too much in dread and depravity. Thankfully, we have movies like Inside Out to remind us about a whole other spectrum of humanity. Inside Out never gripped me on my first viewing the way many other Pixar movies have, but every time I think about it I like it more. This film is proof that, despite slip-ups like Brave and the Cars franchise (as well as, to some extent, this year's later release The Good Dinosaur), Pixar still has the ability to deliver masterpieces.
The visuals, characters, story, and performances are all top notch, but the very best aspect of Inside Out is how insightful it is about the way personality functions. I was fully expecting some sort of cute but reductive story about humans being big meat puppets controlled by little cartoony people in their head, but the film is so much more complex. Inside Out recognizes that our personality is not inherent; it is an internalized social system. The forces that cause us to act have complex relationships with each other that are affected by external stimuli, as well as the human organism as a whole. I firmly believe that Inside Out should be mandatory viewing for all grade school and middle school health classes. I've never seen a more enjoyable and accurate portrayal of why we behave the way that we do.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
I walked into Ex Machina knowing nothing about the film, beyond that it was an AI movie that was getting a lot of praise. Two hours later I remember being a bit shellshocked as I walked away from a truly impactful viewing experience. This is another movie that I obsessed over and began feverishly recommending to people.
Again, like The Hateful Eight, Ex Machina is not an easy movie to parse. For a while we feel as if we are watching a peculiar little philosophically-motivated sci-fi movie. Only later do we realize we are witnessing one of the most excoriating commentaries on gender politics in recent memory. A great deal of the film involves watching characters have conversations about ideas. That's partially because there is so much intellectual meat to chew through, and partially to lull us into a kind of dreamlike sense of security. The film, much like the characters it contains, is an expert manipulator. I was completely jerked around by the narrative in a way that forced me into very personal insights about my internalization of our patriarchal society. We've all internalized this junk, and Ex Machina is not about to let anyone off the hook.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
Was there ever any doubt? I believe I was half an hour into this masterpiece when I realized it would without doubt be my most beloved movie of the year. I have so little to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said; if you haven't seen Fury Road it should be at the absolute top of your priorities list. Unlike every other movie on my list this year, I would recommend Fury Road to everybody.
All of this thanks to George Miller, a seventy (!) year old man who returned to his iconic franchise and not only recaptured it, but reinvigorated it, also reinvigorating an entire industry while he was at it. Action filmmakers no longer have any excuse to mount a bare-bones plot, throw in some shaky cam combat, and phone it in. Miller has made a film that transcends genre despite barreling full speed ahead towards all the weird genre trappings you can imagine. The film is deeply functional in every way, filled with hundreds of moments that any given person could pick as their favorite. Perhaps most importantly, layered on top of all the cinematic wonder is an incredible gender commentary woven flawlessly into the plot. There are more complex, badass women in Fury Road than in every other action movie of 2015 combined. Miller has created a female-driven action movie that doesn't appropriate or ignore the gender of its characters. I repeat: filmmakers take note. You don't have an excuse anymore.
My Review.
Original Score: 10
That has been the story of the cinema landscape of 2015--the best films have simply been rock solid on the level of craft. Very few of my favorite movies this year pushed the envelope of creative possibility, but a year of classical filmmaking is a very welcome palette cleanser nonetheless. This list highlights some of the movies that have staunched the bleed of cultural regression in the film industry. But first, some films I missed that could have figured into my top ten:
Crimson Peak, Steve Jobs, Room, The Assassin, The Walk, Beasts of No Nation, Girlhood, The Duke of Burgundy, Brooklyn, Carol, Anomalisa, Slow West, Macbeth, Chi-Raq, Clouds of Sils Maria, Son of Saul
Before we get into the list, I have a few awards to hand out.
Untoward Awards
Most Disappointing: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
Most Inane: The Revenant
Most Nonsensical: Spectre
Most Generic: Fantastic Four
Most Infuriating: Jurassic World
Most: Mad Max: Fury Road
Can't Remember: Trainwreck
Sophomore Slump: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Kindred Spirits: The Hateful Eight + Bone Tomahawk
Kindred Names: Spotlight + What We Do in the Shadows
Best Names: 1. The Hateful Eight 2. It Follows 3. Cop Car
Worst Names: 1. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 3. The Good Dinosaur
Worst Superhero: Fantastic Four
Worst Adaptation: Fantastic Four
Worst Sequel: Jurassic World
Worst: Fantastic Four
Honorable Mentions
Kingsman: The Secret Service - The bland advertisements, the blander title, and the complete lack of pre-release buzz around this movie meant that I had little to no expectations about what it might offer. I went into the movie fresh, and for that reason Kingsman may have been the most pleasantly surprising movie watching experience of the year for me. This crackling action comedy is bolstered by a great commentary on classism and Bond iconography, as well as a killer set of performances. Samuel L. Jackson as a lisping, squeamish bad guy bent on world domination sounds like something we want to see, but who knew how badly we needed to experience Colin Firth kicking ass and taking names? The film is all-around solid, but the audacity of its action setpieces will be its legacy.
The Visit - I spent years in denial as an M. Night Shyamalan apologist, until The Happening pushed me back to sanity. I enjoyed The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and even Signs so much that I badly wished for a resurgence. None came, and I abandoned all hope. I heard about the terrible conceit behind The Visit--a found footage horror movie about visiting weird grandparents--and paid little attention. But the movie got mixed-to-positive reviews, so I checked it out. Somehow, some way, Shyamalan has managed to crawl out of his creative ditch and piece together a good movie. Let's hope it doesn't go to his head! My Review.
Phoenix - Phoenix is a post-Holocaust story about a Jewish woman who has had facial reconstruction surgery and now must return to her old life. Yet instead of doing so, she becomes obsessed with her husband, who may or may not have betrayed her. He then becomes obsessed with her because he believes his real wife died in the Holocaust, and that she is his wife's lookalike. He needs a lookalike to collect his wife's fortune, so he begins to train his wife to behave like his wife. It's bizarre. The film is permeated with melancholy yearning and ambiguity; I couldn't even begin to unpack the psychological layers that are happening here. Certain aspects of Phoenix are off-putting, purposely so, but it boasts the single most powerful ending scene of 2015.
Cop Car - Kevin Bacon and a couple of kids star in this coming of age story written and directed by Jon Watts, the young guy who's going to be masterminding Marvel's new Spider-Man movie. It's going to be a great fit judging by this film. Cop Car follows two kids who come across an abandoned cop car and decide to take it for a joy ride. This embroils them in a parallel story, that of Bacon's corrupt cop trying to cover up some sort of drug deal mess he's gotten himself wrapped up in. What results is a cat and mouse game that one side is too innocent to realize they are even playing. The two threads intertwine beautifully. The simplicity with which Watts infuses his storytelling makes Cop Car feel like vintage mythic Americana.
The Martian - When I spoke above about this year's movies being rock solid on the level of craft, I had The Martian in mind. This film functions correctly in every single way, and no aspect of it stands out enough to distract from the story as a whole. In that sense the film is downright workmanlike, which is fitting considering the entire dramatic thrust of the film centers around competent workers doing their jobs very well. I'm not in love with anything in particular about this film (though MVP has to go to Drew Goddard for somehow adapting such a procedural book effectively to the screen), but it certainly deserves the accolades it has received. My Review.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - In bad storytelling, convolution is the name of the game. That goes double for action cinema. You won't find any blurry shakycam, or unclear geography, or confusing stakes in the newest entry of the recently revamped Mission: Impossible franchise. The opera scene alone is one of my favorite sequences of the year. My Review.
The Big Short - I originally thought this film would have a solid spot on my top ten list. It hasn't stuck with me as well as others, but at the time I was deeply affected by this off-kilter perspective on the 2007 housing bubble. I've never been so invested in anything that had the word "financial" in it. My Review.
Spotlight - This was the hardest one to bump from my list. Spotlight is an exercise in masterful restraint and subtlety. It's awards season fare without the pandering or the melodrama. Tom McCarthy uses his impeccable control of tone and pacing to craft a sincere and incisive narrative about the uncovering of a hidden molestation epidemic in the Catholic church. Spotlight could have taken a number of wrong steps on the way to the big screen, but it didn't. It's my prediction for Best Picture, and if that happens I wouldn't mind one bit. My Review.
Now, of the 34 movies I have seen released in 2015, here are my top ten.
10. It Follows
There are crucial problems with David Robert Mitchell's horror tale about a sexually-transmitted curse that causes some sort of violent entity to follow you incessantly until you're caught (or until you pass it along). These issues mostly have to do with the film's continued violation of the rules it sets for itself. It's messy, but the rule-breaking at least has the effect of throwing the audience off balance. That lack of discipline doesn't matter so much for me, because It Follows is a tonal masterpiece. The film plants the knife of the premise firmly in your gut, then spends the next hour+ twisting it slowly and deliberately. The beauty of the premise is that the entity can appear as anybody, distinguished only by its singleminded and deliberate gait. Thus every single wide shot in a crowded area becomes a Where's Waldo? of dread. Mitchell maximizes that dread with a roving camera. As we circle around our vulnerable protagonists, our eyes scan the horizon just as theirs do. I still remember walking into the dark parking lot after the show and feeling the tickling need to look over my shoulder. Just to see if anyone was following.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
9. Tangerine
There's something undeniably special about Tangerine. No, it's not that director Sean Baker shot the entire film on a modified iPhone, though its visual flair is pulled off so flawlessly that you wouldn't be able to tell. And it's not that this is a "very special movie" about the dramatic plight of a minority group, like The Danish Girl. Rather, I think Tangerine feels so special because it's rare that we see a movie so blatantly, nakedly human. This story of a day in the life of a couple of trans prostitutes and an Armenian taxi driver in LA feels real in a way that we're not used to seeing on the screen. Part of that is the screen presence of our two main characters, who are not actors but rather LA trans prostitutes themselves. But perhaps the best thing about Tangerine is the way it makes these people's problems feel universal even while rooting them firmly within a hyperspecific culture. Tangerine doesn't break barriers by preaching about them. Tangerine breaks barriers by telling a simple story.
8. Bridge of Spies
A new Spielberg movie has somehow come and gone without much interest. That is insane. Spielberg has proven himself to be one of the greatest living artists on the planet, and every frame of his films will be studied for a long time to come. Bridge of Spies is a worthy, if not absolutely essential, addition to the pantheon. Lincoln is an all around better work, but I love the games Spielberg plays with Spies. He effortlessly mixes and melds genres from scene to scene. The movie could easily feel like patchwork, but it doesn't thanks to his sure directorial hand. Of course, the glue that holds the movie together is Tom Hanks. This is another living legend who quietly flies under the radar. His scenes with Mark Rylance are ridiculously compelling.
Top it all off with a stunning commentary about the American political and justice system, and you have a movie that manages to be both idealistic and cynically pragmatic at the same time. That's one of the lessons of the film, after all. Idealism isn't the easy way out. Idealism is the hardest thing you can do.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
7. Bone Tomahawk
The western has seen a cinematic resurgence in recent years, and Bone Tomahawk hits a sweet spot of western-horror that I didn't even realize I was yearning for. As such, I can't recommend it to everybody. It's incredibly slow-paced, and quite gruesome. When it's the former, you won't believe it will ever become the latter, and when it's the latter, you won't believe it was ever the former.
That's really what I love about Bone Tomahawk. The pacing, tone, dialogue, and performances are just flat out peculiar. They all combine to make the experience of watching feel surreal, even purgatorial. Yet even during the slow stretches, of which there are many, I was never bored thanks to S. Craig Zahler's brilliant screenplay. You've never heard neo-western dialogue quite like this before. And having it come out of the mouth of Kurt Russell makes it all the better.
6. What We Do in the Shadows
I don't watch many comedies. Whole swathes of the genre just don't appeal to me. The genre also has a nasty habit of ignoring the benefits of working in a cinematic form. Not so with What We Do in the Shadows. This film is a compelling, well-shot contemporary vampire narrative that innovates and sidesplits at the same time. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi take what could easily be a hack premise and infuse it with life. They pay their respects to centuries of vampire iconography while simultaneously filtering it all through a shockingly current and relevant lens. We're not looking at a simple parody, we're looking at real characters with real arcs that just happen to be bound up in a batshit crazy mythology--pun intended. This ought to be the definitive vampire story of our generation.
I consider each new great comedy film I encounter to be an unexpected gift. I look forward to rewatching What We Do in the Shadows again and again, joining In Bruges and every Edgar Wright movie in my personal comedy pantheon.
5. Creed
The weird thing about how much I love Creed is that I've never seen a single Rocky movie in my entire life. That is an enormous testament to the amount of care that writer/director Ryan Coogler breathes into this well-worn narrative. Just like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Creed hits many of the same beats of the original in their respective seven-movie-franchises. Yet unlike The Force Awakens, nothing about Creed feels derivative. Creed refuses to coast on nostalgia, instead bringing passion to every single moment. Major credit also goes to Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, a pairing that work wonders together. They recontextualize what has heretofore been yet another very white Hollywood franchise.
I believe that a great deal of what makes Creed so fresh is that it is not only telling a universal story about overcoming obstacles, but that it is telling a very personal story about black America. Coogler never has to say any morals or truths out loud; Creed is too artful for that. We learn everything we need to know about the hardships Adonis has faced with the opening scene of a childhood brawl.
My Review.
Original Score: 9.5
4. The Hateful Eight
The number of 2015 films that have utterly captured my obsession is quite small. I can think of three offhand. Loving a movie and obsessing over it are different, of course; some films just stick with you for weeks and won't let you go. The Hateful Eight did that to me. I've seen it twice now, and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm obsessed with the bizarro structure of the film. I'm obsessed with the droning soundtrack. I'm obsessed with what is by far Tarantino's most mature screenplay to date. I'm obsessed with the searing thematic insight on display. But perhaps most of all, I'm obsessed with the wildly varying reactions with which the public greeted the legendary filmmaker's eighth movie.
I understand how it could turn you off. The Hateful Eight is, above all, mean and nasty. It has egregious things to say about the dirty race and gender politics that suffuse American culture, and it doesn't even pretend to pull any punches. This is frankly one of the most honest and insightful movies of the year, and it was released at the perfect moment to impact our national conversation about race. Yet so many are dismissing the film as juvenile, racist, sexist, nihilistic, messy, pretentious, what have you. I consider many (not all) of these reactions to be grievous misreadings of Tarantino's work, and it bothers me, but you know what? I don't imagine that guy cares one bit. He set out to condemn a nation, and the polarized reaction indicates that in some way, he has succeeded.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
3. Inside Out
But hey, sometimes we can indulge too much in dread and depravity. Thankfully, we have movies like Inside Out to remind us about a whole other spectrum of humanity. Inside Out never gripped me on my first viewing the way many other Pixar movies have, but every time I think about it I like it more. This film is proof that, despite slip-ups like Brave and the Cars franchise (as well as, to some extent, this year's later release The Good Dinosaur), Pixar still has the ability to deliver masterpieces.
The visuals, characters, story, and performances are all top notch, but the very best aspect of Inside Out is how insightful it is about the way personality functions. I was fully expecting some sort of cute but reductive story about humans being big meat puppets controlled by little cartoony people in their head, but the film is so much more complex. Inside Out recognizes that our personality is not inherent; it is an internalized social system. The forces that cause us to act have complex relationships with each other that are affected by external stimuli, as well as the human organism as a whole. I firmly believe that Inside Out should be mandatory viewing for all grade school and middle school health classes. I've never seen a more enjoyable and accurate portrayal of why we behave the way that we do.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
2. Ex Machina
I walked into Ex Machina knowing nothing about the film, beyond that it was an AI movie that was getting a lot of praise. Two hours later I remember being a bit shellshocked as I walked away from a truly impactful viewing experience. This is another movie that I obsessed over and began feverishly recommending to people.
Again, like The Hateful Eight, Ex Machina is not an easy movie to parse. For a while we feel as if we are watching a peculiar little philosophically-motivated sci-fi movie. Only later do we realize we are witnessing one of the most excoriating commentaries on gender politics in recent memory. A great deal of the film involves watching characters have conversations about ideas. That's partially because there is so much intellectual meat to chew through, and partially to lull us into a kind of dreamlike sense of security. The film, much like the characters it contains, is an expert manipulator. I was completely jerked around by the narrative in a way that forced me into very personal insights about my internalization of our patriarchal society. We've all internalized this junk, and Ex Machina is not about to let anyone off the hook.
My Review.
Original Score: 9
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
Was there ever any doubt? I believe I was half an hour into this masterpiece when I realized it would without doubt be my most beloved movie of the year. I have so little to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said; if you haven't seen Fury Road it should be at the absolute top of your priorities list. Unlike every other movie on my list this year, I would recommend Fury Road to everybody.
All of this thanks to George Miller, a seventy (!) year old man who returned to his iconic franchise and not only recaptured it, but reinvigorated it, also reinvigorating an entire industry while he was at it. Action filmmakers no longer have any excuse to mount a bare-bones plot, throw in some shaky cam combat, and phone it in. Miller has made a film that transcends genre despite barreling full speed ahead towards all the weird genre trappings you can imagine. The film is deeply functional in every way, filled with hundreds of moments that any given person could pick as their favorite. Perhaps most importantly, layered on top of all the cinematic wonder is an incredible gender commentary woven flawlessly into the plot. There are more complex, badass women in Fury Road than in every other action movie of 2015 combined. Miller has created a female-driven action movie that doesn't appropriate or ignore the gender of its characters. I repeat: filmmakers take note. You don't have an excuse anymore.
My Review.
Original Score: 10
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