The Best of 2015

Every year when I go to assemble this year end list I tell myself not to lament the current state of film (because I really did enjoy myself at the cinema this year) but 2015 was an especially pitiful year with disturbing, reprocessing trends which should not be ignored. Major studios laughed all the way to the bank this year submitting stale rehashes of past hits (Jurassic World, Star Wars, The Hateful Eight, any Marvel humiliation) for audience consumption and even some critical darlings (The Martian, Creed) were just reinvigorated revisitations of tested and by the numbers stories. Further, monotonous indistinguishable “indies” continued to muddle to market along with an incalculable number of straight to stream projects.

With that being said, the year offered much to appreciate. Mad Max seemingly took everyone by storm early on and it magically perpetuates as an awards favorite. Sicario was a pulse pounding thriller of a different ilk  as was Phoenix, a post WWII thriller done in a much more somber key. Spotlight a powerful newspaper movie with incredible casting. Brooklyn is an old-fashioned romance with a lovable lead performance. Love and Mercy, also a romance plus a dual picture of creation and horror. What We Do in the Shadows was a hilarious vampire mockumentary and Room showed earned uplift in the face of despair. Irrational Man didn’t get a lot a love but was a well-crafted work from an old hand and It Follows showed that horror movies are still capable of being scary, even when they are incredibly stupid. Aside from these “best” pictures, I should mention I had a lot a fun with other action oriented pictures including Kingsman, Blackhat, Chappie, Black Sea, and The Walk, the hindmost which is by no means even a decent picture but one with an extraordinary finale I would equate it to waiting in line for an hour on a hot summer day to ride the Millennium Force at Cedar Point. 

Well that about sums it up. Writing this there are still several movies I haven’t seen, with Joy, The Danish Girl, 45 Years, Son of Saul, and Anomalisa figuring most prominently and I will update as I see them when appropriate. Here is a gathering of my 2015 favorites in pictures:

Supporting Actress (tie)

Joan Allen, Room

Jane Fonda, Youth

Rachel McAdams, Spotlight

Supporting Actor (tie)

John Cusack, Love and Mercy

Jeff Daniels, Steve Jobs

Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation

Michael Keaton, Spotlight

Best Actor

Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs and Macbeth

Best Actress (tie)

Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Rooney Mara, Carol

Best Director

George Miller, Mad Max

Best Movies, Alphabetically

Brooklyn

Carol

The End of the Tour

Irrational Man

It Follows

Love and Mercy

Mad Max

Phoenix

The Revenant

Room

Sicario

Spotlight

What We Do in the Shadows

The Best of 2014

It has become trite to open these year-end roundups with gripes of the state of affairs in the film industry, still I think it needs to be said. Between an almost complete lack of anything substantial released in the first three quarters of the year and a surprisingly deficient awards season, 2014 made me question my commitment to film. Still, the cream rose, and without having seen everything gracing Top 10 lists and awards conversations, here are my favorite movies I saw this year:

10. Joe

Joe represented an escape from the Hollywood clutches that has sucked the life and talent out of both its director, David Gordon Green, and star, Nicolas Cage. Green, revisiting his roots, weaves an engaging backwoods crime story and Cage offers a performance that stands amongst the best of his career.

9. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Though not without the usual whimsical trappings of any Wes Anderson movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel cannot be overlooked due to its painstakingly gorgeous set design and cinematography and a bravura turn from Ralph Fiennes.

8. Whiplash

If anything, Damien Chazelle's second feature deserves an Oscar for Tom Cross' editing which unrelentingly drums up the tension and results in one of the most watchable films of the year. Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons shine in this battle of the wills.

7. Boyhood

Although not as enamored by most reviewers placing this atop their year-end lists, I don't know if I've ever been so taken by the sheer magnitude of a film before that its caused me to forgive its flaws (I would argue overlength, pacing, and even redundancy). Filmed over 12 years and chronicling a young boy's journey into adulthood, Richard Linklater's labor of love is sure to impress both by its scope and insightful coming of age screenplay.

6. Inherent Vice

Following the ambiguities of The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson returns again with Joaquin Phoenix with the hazy, drug-fuelled, incoherent, and very funny adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon 1970s detective story.

5. Nightcrawler

Dark, funny, well-scripted, and frankly unexpected, Dan Gilroy's directorial debut was a welcomed oasis following the mindless cinematic wasteland of summer. Jake Gyllenhaal continues his reliable resume with an originally crafted sociopath and receives strong support from Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, and Riz Ahmed.

4. The Imitation Game

Exciting and intimate look into the little known story of the cracking of the supposedly insurmountable German coding machine Enigma by the formidable British squad led by the irascible, ingenious Alan Turing. Benedict Cumberbatch delivers another finely honed performance and Keira Knightley brings warmth to a supporting role.

3. Fury

Leaving the streets of L.A. for the mud-caked, blood drenched battlefields of the Western Front, David Ayers turns what could have been a tired, forgettable brothers-in-arms tank story into a brutally intense and moving saga which boasts astounding performances from Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf which will sadly be overlooked this awards season.

2. Foxcatcher

Another incredible, little known true life story, Bennett Miller's tragic tale of Olympian grappling siblings and their unfortunate relationship with an unbalanced tycoon moves at a measured pace with striking photography and powerful performances from Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, and Steve Carell.

1. The Homesman

In what may seem an odd choice for picture of the year, no other film in 2014 moved me more than Tommy Lee Jones' bleak, offbeat western. Hilary Swank brings vulnerable toughness to her role and Jones offers another great turn as a rascally ne'er do well assisting spinster Swank in escorting three mentally ill women from the Nebraskan Plains to Iowa where they can receive proper treatment.

The Best of 2013

So, as summer turned to fall and the movie year seemed like it would fulfill its promise of disappointment, I anticipated this post and writing a snarky year end round-up, something with a title along the lines of The Best of October thru December, 2013. However, as the calendar year churned to its conclusion, and even the sandbagged awards bait movies seamed slacker than normal, I found myself struggling to come up with the standard 10 films to toast, a charge which usually involves weeding. Instead, I offer 9 films which rose out of the black void that was the passing movie year. Of the lot, two were actually released in the year's first half, one isn't technically a movie, and, somewhat dishearteningly, they were all made by established filmmakers. I haven't seen quite as many movies this year and titles like The Hunt, and Ain't Them Bodies Saints are some of the major blips on my radar, and I will amend any titles to the list when applicable. So without further ado here are, in alphabetical order, the best films of 2013:

Captain Phillips

Paul Greengrass turns another recent news story into a thrilling nail biter, with an assured performance from Tom Hanks and an incredibly engaging one from newcomer Barkhad Abdi

Frances Ha
Excellent trendy film from Noah Baumbach featuring superb black and white photography and an incredible self-styled performance from Greta Gerwig.

Gravity

The mesmerizing, sustained shots and Sandra Bullock's beautifully expressive performance are the stars of Alfonso Cuaron's space thriller.

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coens take on the early 60s Greenwich Village folk scene to great avail, really honing their peculiar brand nicely. The music, cinematography, and Oscar Isaac performance are all superb.

Nebraska

Another empathetic, humanistic portrait from Alexander Payne, who returns to his home state and spins a story about folks he knows like the back of his hand. And what an overdue opportunity for Bruce Dern, which he absolutely nails. If pressed, my pick for film of the year.

Philomena

The kind of potentially icky schmaltz that the Hallmark Channel was made for, but in the hands of Stephen Frears, Steve Coogan, and Judy Dench it is a kind of incredible and moving amalgam.

Side Effects

A good old fashioned thriller, unassumingly and sure handedly directed by Stephen Soederbergh.

Top of the Lake

Jane Campion's unconventional and stirring miniseries was as involving as any feature film released this year.

The Wolf of Wall Street
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, back together for the fifth time, craft a hilarious and thankfully non-moralizing picture on greed and excess, which features some of the most memorable scenes of the year.

The Best of 2012

So my mid-year expostulation becomes amended from "where are all the good movies?" to "why can't they be dispersed evenly throughout the year (and still why have there been so few)?" I did, ultimately, see many fine films this year and have not yet seen a few (i.e. "Zero Dark Thirty", "Amour", etc.) which are predominating end of the year lists but have yet to reach my area. This year, I've decided to present my picks in the same fashion of the National Board of Review, offering a Best Film of the Year in addition to ten more entries listed alphabetically. So without further adieu, here you have my favorite movies of 2012:

Best Film

Moonrise Kingdom

For his ode to first love, Wes Anderson accented what he does best and modulated the whimsical elements for which he is often assailed, resulting in a highly cinematic and completely disarming picture, which features an inimitable adult cast and an equally fine, unknown adolescent ensemble.

Top Films

The Central Park Five/The Dust Bowl

Ken Burns released two films this year, the latter in his usual style, and the former which he made with his daughter Sarah and her husband David McMahon and that bears little resemblance to any of his work. Both tell harrowing, consummately researched stories and focus largely on their human elements.

Cloud Atlas

Bizarre, incredibly ambitious, heartfelt, and entertaining The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer's adaptation of David Mitchell's sprawling novel went inexplicably through theaters without much fanfare.

Django Unchained

Tarantino returns with another exploitative, revisionist tale about a freed slave exacting vengeance on the Antebellum South. It's a wild and raucous ode to the spaghetti western, demonstrating again QT's vast knowledge of the cinema and features no less than four Oscar caliber performances from Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Samuel L. Jackson.

The Do-Deca Pentahlon/The Five-Year Engagement/Jeff, Who Lives at Home

I've decided to mesh together three films into this one entry, two made by the Duplass brothers, two starring Jason Segel, and one featuring them all. These are sweet and very funny films that rose above what is usually served as comedy by Hollywood.

The Life of Pi

Ang Lee, one of the most sensitive of all directors, offers this simple, thought to have been unfilmable adaptation of Yann Martel's book, which results in one of the best uses of the 3D format and one of the most moving films of recent memory.

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis outdo themselves again, crafting a work that stands amongst their finest, and becomes something even more. On top of a superbly-acted, historically faithful film, etc. etc., it is also an unexpectedly humorous retelling of the passing of the 13th Amendment.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Where "The Hobbit" has many viewers squirming in their seats and lighting up their cellphones to check the time, this protracted crime thriller held my gaze, almost inexplicably, for its lengthy, hypnotic duration.

Prometheus

At 74, Ridley Scott revisited "Alien" territory and offered one of his finest films in a longevous career, which was also among the year's most divisive. It's clear what side I'm on.

Promised Land 

Gus Van Sant's tale of small town fracking is aware of the traps most eco-movies fall into, and crafts an informative, fair, and entertaining drama featuring fine performances from Matt Damon and John Krasinski (who both coauthored the screenplay) and the great Frances McDormand.

Silver Linings Playbook

David O Russell's followup to "The Fighter" tells of another dysfunctional family, this one about a manic depressive, not realizing the love of his life is right in front of his eyes, and his father who becomes aware that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.