Each
film on this list was available for the first time (either theatrically, on
DVD/Blu-Ray, or through streaming services) in the Milwaukee area between January 1st,
2015 and December 31st, 2015. Due to the vagaries of international
film distribution, many of these films had their world premieres in 2014, and
some won’t receive a wider national release until 2016, but for the purposes of
this list these are 2015 releases since my first realistic opportunity to see
any of them came during that calendar year.
Notable
films that haven’t yet made it to the Milwaukee area
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman
& Duke Johnson, USA, 90 min.)
The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien,
Taiwan, 105 min.)
The Revenant (Alejandro
Gonzalez Inarritu, USA, 156 min.)
Films
that I am interested in seeing but didn’t get around to in time for this list
Ex Machina (Alex Garland,
UK, 118 min.)
The Green Inferno (Eli Roth,
Chile/USA, 100 min.)
Inside Out (Pete Docter
& Ronnie Del Carmen, USA, 95 min.)
Joy (David O. Russell,
USA, 124 min.)
Knock Knock (Eli Roth, USA,
99 min.)
Mississippi Grind (Anna Boden &
Ryan Fleck, USA, 108 min.)
Sicario (Denis
Villeneuve, USA, 121 min.)
The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle,
USA, 90 min.)
A- Excellent
1)
The Club (Pablo Larrain, Chile, 98
min.)
This
lacerating yet wryly funny indictment of the Catholic Church concerns a group
of disgraced priests whose cushy banishment on a Chilean beach house is
disrupted by the arrival of a sexually abused former altar boy. His appearance
inadvertently sets off a violent event that causes the church to send a crisis
counselor to investigate the incident, leading to a chain of revelations that
it would be a shame to spoil here. Co-writer/director Pablo Larrain doesn’t shy
away from the brutality of the film’s subject matter, but he takes an admirably
nuanced and measured approach that prevents this from feeling like a simplistic
angry screed. The superb ensemble cast ensure that the priests feel like real
people rather than broad caricatures, which makes it all the more effective
that Larrain refuses to let them off the hook.
2)
The Duke of Burgundy (Peter
Strickland, UK/Hungary, 104 min.)
Peter
Strickland’s latest initially appears to be a dead on parody of ‘70s-era
European softcore sex films, as it follows two lesbian lovers (Chiarra D’Anna
and Sidse Babett Knudsen) engaged in a sadomasochistic relationship. While
Strickland does poke some fun at the conventions of the genre, his real
interest is in exploring what happens in the relationship between the sex scenes
that you would expect to see in that type of film, and investigating how two
people who love each other attempt to negotiate their wildly different desires
and interests. Though the film is set in a dryly absurdist world of human
toilets and sexy boot polishing it’s exploration of the difficulties inherent
in any relationship is genuinely moving, witty and insightful.
3) It Follows (David Robert Mitchell,
USA, 100 min.)
David
Robert Mitchell’s riveting thriller is the rare horror film that simultaneously
boasts a unique concept, a depth of feeling for its characters, and genuine
scares. A deadly curse is sexually transmitted, with each victim being pursued
by a shape-shifting demon that can be easily outrun but never entirely shaken
off. The plot sounds silly in its broad outlines, but Mitchell makes it work by
preserving the mystery of the curse’s origins and by slowly building an
atmosphere of nearly unbearable dread. Many horror films exploit teenage
sexuality, but this may be the first film in the genre to actually show respect
and sympathy to its heroes’ excitements and frustrations. The investment in the
characters makes the big scare sequences that much more intense. This uncommon
level of genuine pathos can’t entirely overcome some of the goofier aspects of
the premise – the handful of scenes showing inanimate objects being thrown
around by an unseen force are by far the least effective parts of the film –
but overall this is the freshest horror film in recent memory.
4)
The Look of Silence (Joshua
Oppenheimer, Denmark/Indonesia, 103 min.)
The
companion piece to the remarkable 2012 documentary The Act of Killing approaches the 1960s Indonesian genocide from
the perspective of an optometrist whose brother was one of the victims. The eye
doctor visits some of the highest ranking perpetrators (many of whom are still
in positions of power) under the guise of medical assistance, but gradually
confronts them about their roles in the purging, and the various responses to
his inquisitions are intense and psychologically fascinating. As in his
previous film, Oppenheimer exposes an entire nation still traumatized by and unable to process their brutal history. While the film lacks the audacious
point of view or the unforgettable ending of its predecessor, it has a
similarly disquieting power.
B+ Special
5)
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller,
Australia, 120 min.)
The
latest in the Mad Max series runs a
full two hours, and there are probably fewer than five minutes that don’t
involve something blowing up, getting shot at, or crashing spectacularly. This
is the most ferocious, relentless and visually spectacular action film of
recent memory. George Miller never lets the pace slow down enough for the
viewer to question the film’s one-dimensional characterizations or shallow
attempts at feminism, but frankly considerations like narrative and theme seem
beside the point in the face of such mind blowing action choreography. Miller
executed as much of the action as possible with live stunts and practical
effects rather than CGI, and the carnage is so outrageous that it often feels like
a live action Looney Tunes cartoon.
6)
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra,
Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina, 125 min.)
Ciro
Guerra’s visionary epic rivals Aguirre:
the Wrath of God (1972) as a viscerally authentic depiction of dangerous
jungle landscapes as it follows an Amazonian shaman’s experiences guiding two
generations of European scientists to the location of a legendary healing
plant. The film threatens to go off the rails during an over-the-top sequence
where the heroes are kidnapped by a false prophet, but is otherwise a
thoroughly convincing and thoughtful look at the destructive effects of
colonialism on South America. David Gallego’s black and white cinematography is
consistently mind-blowing.
7)
Welcome to Leith (Michael Beach
Nichols & Christopher K Walker, USA, 85 min.)
Leith,
North Dakota is one of the smallest towns in the United States, with a
population of 24. In 2012 white supremacist Craig Cobb began buying up land in
town with plans to move in like-minded people and overthrow the tiny local
government. This documentary follows the efforts of the native townspeople to
prevent their homes from becoming a base of operations for racial extremists.
Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K Walker don’t do anything
cinematically flashy or innovative here, but the story is so bizarre, and the
copious footage of Cobb’s contentious interactions with his neighbors is so
intense, that aesthetics seem almost beside the point. In many ways this piece
of real-life journalism was the most interesting true story to appear in theaters
this year.
8)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier
Assayas, France, 124 min.)
Olivier
Assayas’ complex backstage drama covers a lot of the same thematic territory as
last year’s Birdman, but thankfully
replaces that film’s bombast with grace, mystery and profundity. Juliette
Binoche stars as a famous actress returning to the play that launched her
career decades earlier, though she will now be playing the role of her previous
character’s much older lover. Much of the film revolves around Binoche and her
personal assistant (Kristen Stewart) running lines from the play, and Assayas
gradually blurs the line between the characters from the play, the characters
in the film, and the real-life Binoche and Stewart. Assayas’ films haven’t been
this loose and witty in years, and the film’s playful tone mixed with his firm
grasp of both art history and contemporary pop culture combine to make this an
engrossing critical essay.
B Very
Good
9)
Queen of Earth (Alex Ross Perry,
USA, 90 min.)
A
lake house retreat for two longtime friends is spoiled by the attitude of
Catherine (Elisabeth Moss), who is wallowing in destructive self-pity following
the suicide of her father and the end of a long-term relationship. What at
first seems like mere self-centered narcissism is gradually revealed to be
outright insanity, and writer-director Alex Ross Perry responds to Catherine’s
displays of emotional abuse by filming her in discomfiting extreme close-ups
and scoring her movements to creepy string music as if she’s a horror movie
villain. At times the combination of horror aesthetics and kitchen sink
personal drama seems overly gimmicky, particularly during a party scene that
simply does not work, and Catherine and her friend Virginia (Katherine
Waterston) are at each other’s throats so consistently that the idea that they
are best friends sometimes strains credulity. Thankfully Moss and Waterston’s
performances are mesmerizing enough to keep the movie riveting even through the
intermittent rough patches of Perry’s script.
10)
The Hateful Eight (Quentin
Tarantino, USA, 187 min.)
A
bounty hunter’s (Kurt Russell) plan to transport a big money fugitive (Jennifer
Jason Leigh) to the town where she is to be hanged goes awry when a brutal
blizzard forces him to make a pit stop at a cabin inhabited by a collection of
lowlifes, all of whom have a reason to hate and distrust each other. Quentin
Tarantino’s skill at creating tension through lengthy scenes of colorful
dialogue is on full display in this playful Western/drawing room mystery
hybrid, but the story sadly runs out of steam once the characters’ motivations
are revealed and the bodies start dropping. Though his script has some third
act issues, Tarantino is consistently at his best as a director here, and his commitment
to making this film as purely cinematic as possible is much appreciated.
Cinematographer Robert Richardson’s stunning work in the rare mega
widescreen Ultra Panavision 70 format and Ennio Morricone’s eerie score (his
first work on a Western in nearly four decades) combine to make this the most
sumptuous cinematic experience of 2015.
11)
Mistress America (Noah Baumbach,
USA, 86 min.)
Noah
Bambach’s second film of 2015 is vastly superior to While We’re Young, which suggests that he works best when in
collaboration with his star/co-writer/wife Greta Gerwig. Like their previous
collaboration Frances Ha (2013), Mistress America is a slice of life
about a flaky big city dreamer that is told in a series of rapid-fire, punchy
scenes that unfold with tremendous deadpan comic rhythm. It’s a much more
appealing tone than Baumbach’s usual wallow in misery, and perhaps the best
vehicle to date for Gerwig’s oddball charisma.
12)
Shaun the Sheep (Mark Burton &
Richard Starzak, UK, 85 min.)
This
charming dialogue-free clay animated romp follows a band of sheep as they
journey to the big city in search of their lost and amnesia-stricken farmer.
Aardman Animation’s whimsical aesthetic seems more naturally suited to short
films (such as their fantastic Wallace
& Gromit series), but they manage to keep this movie action packed and
frequently hilarious for nearly 90 minutes. The stop-motion animation is incredibly
detailed and fluid throughout, and a nice change of pace from the lazy computer
art that dominates so much of the current family film landscape. Generically
bubbly kids pop songs intermittently spoil the handmade aesthetic, but overall
this is a delight and one of the year’s nicest surprises.
13)
The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt,
USA, 106 min.)
This
compelling two-hander dramatizes five days in 1996 in which David Foster
Wallace (Jason Segel), fresh off the success of his enormous novel Infinite Jest, was interviewed by Rolling Stone journalist and struggling
author David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg). The film isn’t so much a biopic as it is
study of two men negotiating an awkward dynamic fueled by professional
jealousy, self-consciousness and loneliness. Whenever it seems that Wallace is
about to open himself up to Lipsky the reporter’s ever-present tape record and
notepad get in the way. The two leads are more than up to the task of carrying
an entire film that has little time for other characters, and Segel in
particular is a revelation in a performance that foregrounds the gentle sorrow
that has so often been an undercurrent in his comedic roles.
14)
Theeb (Naji Abu Nowar, United Arab
Emirates, 100 min.)
Cinema’s
first Bedouin Western follows a young boy (Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat) who is forced
to grow up fast when he is charged with leading a WWI British soldier (Jack
Fox) to a secret desert location. Things fall apart quickly as their party is
attacked by members of a rival clan, leaving the survivors to struggle both to
avoid capture and to find drinkable water. The brutality of the film’s desert
setting never feels less than authentic, which makes the titular character’s
struggle all the more compelling.
15)
A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor,
USA, 125 min.)
Abel
Morales (Oscar Isaac) clings to the notion that his up and coming heating oil
business is succeeding in spite of the ruthless criminal practices of his
competitors, but writer-director J.C. Chandor keeps piling on the evidence that
his fortune has less to do with his own hard work than with the unscrupulous
accounting of his wife (Jessica Chastain) and the shady dealings of his
business partner (Albert Brooks). Rather than turning his tale into a
full-blown crime saga, Chandor keeps the action at a low simmer, and he
impressively sustains this unique tension for over two hours.
16)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, UK, 150
min.)
Mike
Leigh’s account of the life of Romanticist painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy
Spall) isn’t particularly effective as a biopic, offering neither a very clear
synopsis of the events of the artist’s life or a thesis about the meaning of
his work. Nonetheless the film is engrossing for reasons that seem almost
incidental to its titular figure. Leigh offers a fascinating look at life in
the 1800s, and the film’s meticulous attention to bizarre details about a huge
array of subjects (the preparation of pig’s heads for meals, ancient forms of
insect repellant, strange scientific experiments with light) brings the period
to life in a way that is all too rare in films set in the distant past.
17)
The Overnight (Patrick Brice, USA,
79 min.)
A
new-in-town couple (Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling) get more than they
bargained for when a dinner with some artsy new acquaintances (Jason
Schwartzman and Judith Godreche) gradually turns into an awkward swinger
situation. Writer-director Patrick Brice’s comedy gets a lot of laughs out of
the absurd minutiae of the libertine couple’s lifestyle and the more
straight-laced couple’s reaction to same, but he also keeps the details
specific enough to make this a credible and insightful look at the lengths that
people will go to keep their relationships fresh. The film climaxes with a
wonderful punchline that is simultaneously hilarious and disarmingly sweet.
18)
Force Majeure (Ruben Ostlund,
Sweden/Denmark, 120 min.)
A
family ski trip turns tense when the father (Johannes Kuhnke) and mother (Lisa
Loven Kongsli) have radically different instinctual reactions to a sudden
avalanche. This is basically the comedic version of Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet (2012), but the
lighter tone makes Force Majeure the
far less ponderous and more entertaining of the two films. Writer-director
Ruben Ostlund pokes a lot of amusingly uncomfortable fun at his central couple
but never loses sight of their humanity in the process.
19)
Focus (Glenn Ficarra & John
Requa, USA, 105 min.)
No
one will mistake this breezy romantic comedy about con artists falling in love
for the second coming of Trouble in
Paradise (1932), but the tight pacing and the charismatic lead performances
of Will Smith and Margot Robbie do feel like a welcome throwback to an era when
big budget films didn’t feel the need to be endless and grim. Writer-director
team Glenn Ficarra and John Requa keep the proceedings lively, witty, sexy and
stylish throughout.
20)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg,
USA, 141 min.)
This
true story follows an insurance lawyer (Tom Hanks) who is unexpectedly thrust
into international intrigue when he is charged with defending a Soviet spy
(Mark Rylance) in court, and then recruited for further help with a CIA
exchange of hostages. Steven Spielberg thankfully avoids giving this material
the full prestige treatment, and while he occasionally indulges his weakness
for emotion-stoking background music he largely trusts the fascinating story
and its basic moral points to hold the audience’s attention.
21)
Spy (Paul Feig, USA, 120 min.)
Not
a parody of the superspy genre so much as a surprisingly credible action film
told from a funny perspective. Melissa McCarthy plays a CIA analyst who is
thrust into field work after the cover of her more glamorous co-workers is
blown. As expected, much of the humor revolves around McCarthy being an
unlikely stand-in for James Bond, but the film refreshingly makes it clear that
she is ultimately far more resourceful and intelligent than the generic action
heroes who surround her. Jason Statham steals the film as a parody of the type
of macho character that he normally plays, and the sequence where he lists off
his credentials as a badass (including seeing his wife get thrown from a plane
only to get hit by another plane mid-air) is the funniest scene of the year.
22)
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Christopher
McQuarrie, USA, 131 min.)
Like
all of the Mission Impossible films, Rogue Nation is not so much a proper
narrative film as it is a series of excuses to put Tom Cruise’s superspy in
ridiculously dangerous situations. But there’s little point complaining about a
stock narrative or shallow characters when the results are this fun. Nothing
here outdoes the insane Burj Khalifa free climb sequence from Ghost Protocol (2011), but the big
action setpieces are still mighty impressive, particularly a wild pre-credits
sequence where Cruise scales the outside of a moving plane with no evidence of CGI
assistance.
23)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J.
Abrams, USA, 135 min.)
The Force Awakens is such a
skillful imitation of the style of the original Star Wars trilogy that it legitimately feels like it picks up where
Return of the Jedi (1983) left off.
J.J. Abrams has never been a particularly distinctive stylist, but his skill
for mimicry serves him well here, and the old school shot-on-film look gives the
movie an appropriate iconic sheen.
24)
Cartel Land (Matthew Heineman, USA,
100 min.)
Matthew
Heineman’s riveting look at vigilante groups fighting against Mexican drug
cartels often feels more like a high-octane action feature than it does a
documentary. The director (who served as his own cinematographer) was often
present when bullets were flying and hostages were being taken, and he managed
to capture most of his footage with camerawork that feels remarkably composed
considering the difficult conditions he was working in. This is one of the most
cinematic documentaries in recent memory, but some tightening up in the editing
room could’ve improved it both as a film and as journalism. The material about
the Autodefensas, a group of Mexican citizens raging against the notorious
Knights Templar gang, is vastly more engaging than the sections concerning a
crackpot Arizona paramilitary group who seem more concerned with preventing
illegal immigrants from entering the United States than they do with keeping
drugs off the street, but Heineman crosscuts between the two frequently as if
to suggest that their efforts are somehow equivalent.
25)
Love & Mercy (Bill Pohlad, USA,
120 min.)
Bill
Pohlad’s look at the life of Brian Wilson smartly sidesteps a number of biopic
clichés by employing an interestingly fractured narrative structure that
contrasts two distinct periods in its subject’s life. A young Wilson (Paul
Dano) follows his wandering muse and slowly loses grip of his sanity as he
composes Pet Sounds and Smile, while the Wilson of the ‘80s (John
Cusack, surprisingly effective playing against type) struggles under the weight
of cultural irrelevance. The continuous cross-cutting between the two periods
gives the film a melancholic weight that a more generic rise and fall narrative
couldn’t have provided.
B- Good
but flawed or insubstantial
26)
Furious 7 (James Wan, USA, 137 min.)
That
Furious 7 is simple to follow even
for those of us who are new to the Fast
& Furious franchise is less an indictment of the series’ braindead
storytelling than it is a testament to the clarity of its mission statement: to
be as loud and dumb and explosively entertaining as possible. The shallow
characterizations and frenzied (though unusually clearly arranged) MTV-style
editing obviously place a ceiling on the film’s quality level, but there’s no
denying that the enormous and ridiculously expensive looking action setpieces
are tons of fun.
27)
Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre
& Luc Dardenne, Belgium, 95 min.)
The
power of the Dardenne Brothers’ films comes from their verisimilitude, so it’s
a shame to report that their latest effort is their least convincing to date. A
factory worker (Marion Cotillard) returns from a depression-induced leave of
absence to discover that her co-workers have opted to receive a bonus in
exchange for her dismissal, though she is allowed one weekend to convince them
to change their votes, and the film is essentially a series of scenes of her
attempting to do so. It is interesting to watch Cotillard’s various colleagues
react to her desperate pleas, but the scenario feels simultaneously less
plausible and more mundane than the plights of protagonists of previous
Dardenne masterpieces like Rosetta
(1999) and L’enfant (2005).
Cotillard’s performance is excellent by most standards, but the directors’
uncharacteristic decision to cast a movie star amidst their usual collection of
non-professionals and unknowns is distracting.
28)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/Denmark,
109 min.)
Lisandro
Alsono’s epic is an aesthetic marvel, featuring richly colorful Academy ratio
shot compositions, a hypnotic long-take approach to editing, and a quietly
moody soundtrack that combine to create an almost meditative experience. So
it’s a shame that the film’s basic narrative, involving a Danish explorer
(Viggo Mortensen) searching for his runaway daughter in an Argentinian desert,
goes completely off the rails in its last act, incorporating supernatural
elements that seem out of place and laughable in this context.
29)
Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan,
Turkey, 196 min.)
Though
it runs for over three hours and features numerous spellbinding shots of the
Anatolian countryside, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes prize winner is not a
conventional epic. Instead it is an exhaustive (and ultimately exhausting)
portrait of a wealthy hotel owner (Haluk Bilginer) who thinks of himself as a
community leader even though everyone around him, including his considerably
younger wife (Melisa Sozen) and live-in sister (Demet Akbag), think he’s an
asshole. At times Ceylan is able to frame his protagonist’s inability to relate
to other people as a compelling tragedy, but after a scene where he spends 30
uninterrupted minutes dismissing his wife’s school fundraising ambitions it’s
hard to care about what’s happening to him – and there’s still an hour of the
film to go. Bilginer gives a towering performance, and there’s no denying
Ceylan’s ability to arrange majestic shots, but there simply isn’t enough here
to fill 196 minutes.
30)
Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev,
Russia, 140 min.)
This
seemingly simple tale about an ordinary man (Aleksay Serebryakov) trying to
protect his seaside property from demolition proposed by the town’s mayor
(Roman Madyanov) aspires to be nothing less than a parable about the state of
modern Russia. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s deliberate pacing prevents the
film from having the urgency it needs to function as an effective state of the
union address, and the mayor is too cartoonish a creep to serve as a credible
villain, even as a stand-in for Vladimir Putin. The film is at its most
engaging when it sets aside its big themes and focuses on the strained
interactions between the frustrated protagonist and his friends and family, or
during moments when virtually nothing is happening and viewers can simply enjoy
Mikhail Krichman’s breathtaking cinematography.
31)
Bird People (Pascale Ferran, France,
127 min.)
This
playful two-part study of people desperately trying to break free of their
limitations doesn’t add up to much of a statement, but it does take some
intriguing stylistic risks. The first half is a somber drama about an American
computer engineer (Josh Charles) who abruptly decides, in the middle of a Paris
business trip, to quit his job and leave his wife (Radha Mitchell). Part two is
the fantastical tale of a hotel maid (Anais Demoustier) who suddenly and
without explanation turns into a bird. Director Pascale Ferran displays equal
skill at navigating the uncomfortably realistic dialogue of the Skype-moderated
dissolution of the engineer’s marriage in the first half and at seamlessly
integrating special effects and practical animal stunts in the second half, and
if nothing else the film is an impressive display of her versatility.
32)
Wild Tales (Damian Szifron, Spain,
122 min.)
Damian
Szifron wrote and directed all six segments of this revenge-obsessed anthology
film, but the results are still as uneven as we’ve come to expect from any
collection of shorts. The highlights are a tale of road rage gone horribly awry
and a wedding reception where the groom inadvertently reveals his adultery to
his violently angry bride.
33)
Kingsman: The Secret Service
(Matthew Vaughn, UK, 129 min.)
This
awkwardly titled homage to the British superspy genre is surprisingly
irreverent and fun for a big budget blockbuster. Proudly crude and often
brazenly eccentric, Kingsman feels
refreshingly free of pandering attempts at cross-demographical commercial
appeal. The story, concerning a street kid (charismatic newcomer Taron
Eggerton) who is inducted into a powerful underground group of secret agents,
is nothing more than silly wish-fulfillment, but that fantasy is delivered with
an energizing punk rock attitude. Co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn (adapting
Mark Millar’s graphic novel) does occasionally settle for generic hyperactive CGI
spectacle, but he seems more interested in filling out the bizarre details of
the film’s setting.
34)
Selma (Ava DuVernay, USA, 128 min.)
Ava
DuVernay’s look at Martin Luther King’s efforts to secure equal voting rights
is unmistakably an overly earnest prestige film, but it does distinguish itself
from other Oscar hopeful biopics in a few intelligent ways. Rather than
attempting to squeeze King’s entire life story into two hours, the film focuses
exclusively on his march from Selma to Montgomery, and is more nuanced and
detailed as a result. The Civil Rights movement is presented as a contentious
tug of war between different factions making strategic political decisions
rather than as a blandly homogenized force of good, which introduces some moral
complexity and narrative intrigue into what otherwise might have been a tame
history lesson.
35)
Call Me Lucky (Bobcat Goldthwait,
USA, 106 min.)
Bobcat
Goldthwait’s documentary begins as a lightweight (and perhaps overly fawning)
tribute to his stand-up comedy mentor Barry Crimmins, but gradually works its way toward darker and far more compelling material regarding the sexual abuse
that Crimmins suffered as a child. The comedian first revealed his traumatic
past to friends and fans alike in the middle of a comedy set, and his later
efforts to battle child pornography lend the film a weight and purpose that
justify the meandering hero worship of its first act.
C+ Decent
36)
While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach,
USA, 97 min.)
Noah
Baumbach’s comedy of generational warfare is sharp and funny when focusing on
the minutia of Generation X and Millennial culture, but too often loses its way
in pursuit of big laughs. Scenes of the film’s older couple (Ben Stiller and
Naomi Watts) grinding in a hip hop dance class and participating in a New Age
retreat feel embarrassingly broad in this otherwise low-key film. Stiller and
Watts form an uneasy friendship with a young hipster couple (Adam Driver and
Amanda Seyfried) who both energize and confound them. Baumbach takes great
pains to show the ways that his Gen X characters (and ostensible stand-ins) are
just as silly and short-sighted as the younger couple, but Driver and
Seyfried’s characters aren’t sufficiently developed enough for some of the
later scenes to come off as anything but a bitter condemnation of an entire
generation.
37)
The Big Short (Adam McKay, USA, 130
min.)
Adam
McKay attempts to dramatize the collapse of the housing market in this
adaptation of Michael Lewis’ best-seller, but the subject matter simply isn’t
very cinematic. The all-star cast (particularly Steve Carell and Christian
Bale) do a good job of conveying their characters’ disgust with destructive
banking practices, but no amount of nervy dialogue exchanges can disguise this
economics lesson as a work of art.
38)
American Sniper (Clint Eastwood,
USA, 132 min.)
Clint
Eastwood’s factually shaky biopic about notoriously lethal Navy SEAL Chris Kyle
(Bradley Cooper) has proven divisive among cultural commentators, and it seems
to be equally divided against itself on an artistic level. The film subtly
builds an intriguing thesis about Kyle’s old-fashioned cowboy heroism being
useless and delusional in a messy, goalless war, but ultimately undercuts its
potentially subversive message by shying away from the real-life soldier’s less
heroic attributes (such as his xenophobia and propensity for tall tales) while
offering a blanket depiction of Iraqis as sadistic savages. The daring film
that might have been pokes through during a few powerful depictions of Kyle’s
PTSD, but the hints of moral conflict are heavily compromised by Eastwood’s
apparent need to view the sniper as a tragic national hero.
39)
We Come as Friends (Hubert Sauper,
France, 110 min.)
Hubert
Sauper’s disturbing documentary about the chaos in modern Sudan and the various
outsiders who profit from the nation’s natural resources features an impressive
amount of provocative, unforgettable imagery. Unfortunately Sauper seems more
interested in outraging the viewer with distressing footage of political
turbulence and abject poverty than he does in actually understanding the
Sudanese crisis or offering solutions. The film is undeniably disquieting and
striking, but it never even attempts to be edifying.
40)
Hard to be a God (Aleksay German,
Russia, 177 min.)
Alexsay
German’s final film is the most singularly focused movie of 2015 – which is
especially remarkable when one considers that he began preparations for it as
early as the 1960s. Unfortunately his focus was on creating a one-dimensional
medieval world strewn liberally with mud, blood, shit, and outrageous human
stupidity. The film truly feels like a Hieronymous Bosch painting come to life
as an epic black and white movie, but while there’s no denying the
extraordinary quality of the cinematography, the single-minded nihilism of the
film’s outlook prevents it from having the spellbinding power that German
seemed to be aiming for.
41)
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana
Lily Amirpour, USA, 99 min.)
Ana
Lily Amirpour’s feature film debut has an irresistible hook, as it is surely
the first black-and-white vampire movie set in the Muslim world (though
financed and filmed in the United States, it is set in Iran with Persian
dialogue). The trouble is that she couldn’t seem to settle on an angle into
this unique setting. At various points the movie is a deadpan comedy, a
straight horror film, a vaguely feminist allegory, and (most effectively) a
quirky teenage romance. The material never coheres, but Amirpour’s sense of
style is strong enough that many of the individual moments are compelling. With
a stronger sense of focus Amirpour could probably make a great second film.
42)
Spectre (Sam Mendes, UK, 148 min.)
Up
to this point the Daniel Craig era of James Bond has done a good job of
slapping a fresh coat of paint on the beloved but stodgy franchise, but the
latest entry feels like a lazy (if fitfully entertaining) return to “Bond by
numbers.” All of the classic Bond elements are present but there is nothing to
make this film stand out from other series entries. Even Christoph Waltz’
Blofeld seems oddly uninspired.
43)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss
Whedon, USA, 141 min.)
Writer-director
Joss Whedon’s distinctive voice is largely drowned out in the rush to tie together
the increasingly convoluted strands of the Marvel cinematic universe in his
second valiant attempt to shoehorn six movies worth of plot into one action
blockbuster. The conflict with an artificially intelligent menace provides a
reasonably diverting main storyline, but everything feels too hurried to have
any dramatic impact, and the CGI-drenched action sequences feel downright tame
compared to the epic setpieces from Mad
Max: Fury Road, Mission Impossible:
Rogue Nation, and Furious 7. It’s
telling that the only time the film truly comes to life is during one of its
few moments of downtime, when the plain-clothed superheroes are enjoying each
other’s company at a party.
44)
Jurassic World (Colin Trevorrow,
USA, 124 min.)
The
latest film in the Jurassic Park series
is less a sequel than a jokey homage to the beloved 1993 original. Director
Colin Trevorrow keeps the proceedings moving at an entertainingly frantic pace,
but the glib tone prevents his action scenes from achieving the synthesis of danger
and awe that is the series’ trademark.
45)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
(Francis Lawrence, USA, 137 min.)
The
latest Hunger Games film has the
benefit of having virtually non-stop action (as opposed to the virtually
non-stop exposition of last year’s Mockingjay
– Part 1) but the series never delved coherently enough into its themes to
justify its oppressive drabness.
46)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson,
USA, 148 min.)
Paul
Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel is surprisingly
shaggy and aimless for a film with such a lofty pedigree. As far as tales of
stoner detectives getting in over their heads go, it’s less funny than The Long Goodbye (1973) or The Big Lebowski (1998), and less
profound than Cutter’s Way (1981) or A Scanner Darkly (2006), and far more
scatterbrained than any of those movies. Joaquin Phoenix does his best to hold
the film together through sheer quirky magnetism, and a few members of the
supporting cast are allowed a handful of amusing moments, particularly Josh
Brolin as a square police office. Unfortunately all of the talent on display is
wasted on what amounts to nothing more than a string of intermittently
entertaining non sequiturs.
47)
Amy (Asif Kapadia, UK, 128 min.)
Amy
Winehouse’s talent was exceptional, but her life story is sadly pretty similar
to that of a lot of other famous musicians who died young. Director Asif
Kapadia wisely sidesteps certain documentary clichés by eschewing talking head
interviews and building the film around the copious amounts of footage
available, but the results are still scarcely more revelatory than the average Behind the Music episode.
48)
The Last Five Years (Richard
LaGravenese, USA, 94 min.)
Even
for those of us who haven’t seen it performed live, Jason Robert Brown’s stage
musical clearly loses something in translation to film. The play charts the
dissolution of a marriage through a skewed chronology, with hotshot novelist
Jamie and struggling actress Cathy taking turns narrating the story, he
starting at the hopeful beginning and she starting at the bitter end and
working backwards, only meeting onstage for one duet where their timelines
briefly coincide. That poignant conceit is absent in the film version, where
Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick share screen time during virtually every
musical number, with the person not singing usually relegated to reaction
shots. Director Richard LaGravenese’s complete lack of stylistic flair has the
benefit of allowing the viewer to focus on the fine score (and Kendrick’s very
strong performance) but this is clearly an inferior version of the material.
C Mediocre
49)
Chappie (Neill Blomkamp, South
Africa, 120 min.)
Neill
Blomkamp’s tale of an artificially intelligent and emotive robot harkens back
to the style of his acclaimed 2009 debut District
9, and while his skill at combining utterly convincing CGI with
documentary-style location shooting remains impressive it also feels far less
distinctive the second time around. It doesn’t help that Chappie is constantly raising political and existential dilemmas
that it has no interest in exploring (and that countless other sci-fi films
have had more interesting takes on). The titular robot has some charm thanks to
the incredible robotic effects and the voice work of Blomkamp regular Sharlto
Copley, but the human characters are universally one-note and unlikeable.
50)
Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The
Residents (Don Hardy Jr., USA, 87 min.)
This
frivolous documentary about legendary avant-garde collective The Residents
feels more like a DVD bonus feature than something that belongs in theaters.
The group’s commitment to anonymity prevents the talking head footage from
revealing any new information to longtime fans, and too much of the performance
footage was culled from what appears to have been a relatively mundane recent
tour.
C- Below Average
51)
Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam
Taylor-Johnson, USA, 125 min.)
Hollywood’s
stubbornly un-erotic adaptation of E.L. James’ best-selling novel about a
sadomasochistic relationship devotes more of its runtime to interminable scenes
about contract signing than it does to sex. When the heavy-breathing scenes
finally do appear they are tame and shamefully heteronormative, with the female
heroine’s breasts supplying virtually all of the nudity despite that fact that
the film is ostensibly aimed at a female audience. Dakota Johnstone manages to
bring some charisma to her role. The theoretically more interesting half of the
relationship, the rich and tortured sadist, is filled blandly by Jamie Dornan,
whose strategy for conveying his character’s mysteries seems to be remaining as
stone-faced as possible whenever he’s on screen.
52)
Jupiter Ascending (Andy & Lana
Wachowski, USA, 127 min.)
Early
looks at the Wachowskis’ long-delayed sci-fi epic suggested a hyperactively
weird clusterfuck that could be this generation’s Zardoz (1974). Sadly, the actual film is a ponderous bore that’s
only occasionally enlivened by outrageously campy supporting performances from
Eddie Redmayne and Douglas Booth. Baffling plot twists and an insanely
byzantine mythology can’t hide the fact that the basic scenario is a clichéd
“chosen one versus ultimate evil” story, and the gonzo details are mostly
drowned out by the film’s oppressively self-serious atmosphere.
D Awful
53)
Terminator Genisys (Alan Taylor, USA,
126 min.)
Yet
another tedious action franchise sequel/reboot. The decision to use the Terminator series’ time travelling
elements to literally re-stage sequences from the vastly superior James Cameron
originals really highlights how bland and uninspired this dreary new film is.
Even the special effects – a seriously vital component of any Terminator movie – have
regressed from what the series offered decades ago.
