Life got in the way of the movies of 2015 for me. I was on a work assignment that kept me from reviewing movies on a regular basis. I got lucky though, because of the 2010s, this is one of the weaker years. Thankfully, the quality is good at the top, helped sigificantly so by time. Action movies require a few years to properly evaluate, as cultural retention factors heavily into their success. I LOVED Mad Max: Fury Road when I saw it in the theatres, but due to the onslaught of streaming services demanding the film, I underestimated it’s greatness. The baffling one for me was Spotlight, the Best Picture Winner. I enjoyed it when I saw it, but I must have had a bad moviegoing experience because I didn’t rate it too highly. Upon rewatch, it’s totally deserving of that win it received. Did either Fury Road or Spotlight alter the top of 2015’s movie list? Read on to find out!
At the time hope for the western resides in Quentin Tarantino (now, Taylor Sheridan holds that mantle. Hateful Eight combines Tarantino’s all stars trapped in a house in the middle of nowhere. Fun and chaos ensues. QT stalwarts like Sam Jackson and Tim Roth do fine, and newcomers like Jennifer Jason Leigh and Walton Goggins shine with newfound light thrust upon them.
The forgotten gem of the year came out like a week into it. Trippy twisty sci-fi tale about time travel. This one will mess with your head for days before you can let it go, led by terrific performances from Sarah Snook and Ethan Hawke.
The United States proudly claims it is a “nation of immigrants.” Most Americans has a family member that shared at least one experience from Brooklyn. Anchored by a strong performance from Saoirse Ronan, this immigrant’s tale/love story will leave you gooey inside. This is a love story for all those brave souls who leave their homes in search of a better life for themselves or their loved ones.
The great horror movies have some tie in to elemental fears. David Robert Mitchell’s movie has 2. No one likes that feeling of being followed, which Mitchell terrifies us with via a terrifying 360 slow moving camera. The 2nd is allegorically turning the movie into worries about Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and how you feel if you get one, if you have one, and if you think about passing it on to someone else.
The most adult kids’ movie to be released in a long time. This study of the mind of a pre-teen girl puts Pixar back atop the animation domination. This movie will be used in college psychology classes for years to come, articulating feelings better than most other stories out there. And if the phrase Bing Bong doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, I don’t know what to tell you.
Matt Damon in space, but much MORE than that. The Martian is a love letter to science, showing how important and compelling problem solving can be, and how collaboration makes us smarter and brings us together as a human race. Drew Goddard’s script also brings some new ideas to the sci-fi table, like long term vs. short term problems, making Damon’s triumph that much more rewarding.
A 5 year revision was necessary for the Best Picture Winner. On rewatch, this movie earns your full attention, because it’s telling two compelling stories at the same time. The main one, the quest to unveil the Catholic Church abuse scandal, is directed like a 70s political thriller, with the entrenched Church terrifying all the heroic people trying to speak truth to their power. The 2nd one also looms over the journalists, focusing on the decline of the newspaper industry, further raising the stakes of the investigators to make a big splash with their investigation.
NWA get the Shakespeare treatment in their rise to fame. Before they became Easy E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and MC Ren, these guys were poor African Americans trying to get by in their Compton streets. Their experiences gave a voice to the voiceless, culminating in some of the most electric concert sequences committed to film. Sometimes it’s a comedy, sometimes it’s a tragedy, but it’s always captivating.
George Miller’s career has been building to this movie. The first two Mad Max films proved he could construct killer car chases. Beyond Thunderdome proved he could do effective post apocalyptic world building. Fury Road fuses those two together, creating better car chases than any Fast and Furious movie, with a well thought out tale of female empowerment, anchored by a terrific Charlize Theron performance. What a day. WHAT A LOVELY DAY indeed!!!
You know who should do a movie about the 2008 financial crisis? The Anchorman guy! I’m pretty sure the world was confused when Adam McKay tasked himself with adapting Michael Lewis’s amazing book. What instead happened is the creation of our generation’s finest satirist: a man who knows how to entertain audiences while explaining what the hell happened in 2008, reviling and angering you in the process. Sorry: while Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explains it to us.
