Sunday, January 10, 2016

My Top Ten Films of 2015

Let me throw out the usual caveats before we get down to business.  These are my personal favorite films.  There are other films that easily could have been included.  You won’t agree with all of them (but feel free to tell me that).  Enjoy!

Films I haven’t seen:  Anomalisa, The Hateful Eight, Bridge of Spies, The Assassin, Chi-Raq, Dope, The Lobster, Son of Saul, The Wolfpack

Honorable mentions:  Star Wars:  The Force Awakens, Kingsman:  The Secret Service, The Hunger Games:  Mockingjay – Part 2, It Follows, Mission:  Impossible - Rogue Nation, Very Semi-Serious, American Ultra


10.  The Gift


Joel Edgerton made one hell of a directing debut with this genre exercise, crafting a character-based thriller that keeps you guessing as to who exactly the bad guy is.  The script hits all the beats you want without feeling rote, the shot composition feeds the paranoia, and the acting trio of Edgerton, Jason Bateman, and Rebecca Hall are near-perfect.  No other movie this year left me scrambling to figure out the ending like this one did, and it still plays well on repeated viewings.




9.  The Keeping Room


Criminally underseen and divisively reviewed, The Keeping Room is a knowingly art-house genre blender that won’t appeal to everyone.  One part western, one part home invasion thriller, and one part allegory, it’s the tale of three southern women confronting the brutal end of the American Civil War.  The allegory revolves around life never turning out how we think it will be, and how whatever shatters that illusion will forever remain a monster in our past.  Moving on from these moments are difficult, and while The Keeping Room handles this and its other themes a bit roughly, a film this brimming with ideas is a rarity that I always treasure.  Plus, the cinematography and sound design are second to none.




8.  The Big Short


This is the closest you’re going to get to a comedy on my list, because while it’s about the housing crash and global economic crisis of the mid-2000s, it goes about its unappealing premise with style.  Its cocky smoothness hides a complex message, one that we all need to learn, and the broad-based appeal of its A-list cast and hilarious asides makes for some brilliant packaging.  Let’s face it, people don’t want to be lectured at for two hours.  Films that embrace the power of an entertaining idea like The Big Short are the ones that really harness what the medium can do.




7.  Testament of Youth


Testament of Youth is the Alicia Vikander-led sweeping epic that no one is talking about.  This is mystifying to me because it’s the most affecting film I saw all year.  Yes, it’s unapologetically tragic, but the story it’s based on was a real-life tragedy.  The softening of the blows that come in steady succession makes the film painful but not devastating, leaving it’s beautiful depictions of memory as the lasting reminder of what was lost.  According to both her memoir and the people who knew her, Vera Brittain was forever haunted by what happened to her during World War I, and the film captures that beautifully.




6.  Love & Mercy


Two music biopics intertwined the artist’s music in masterful ways this year, but Love and Mercy took far more risks than Straight Outta Compton, and it’s all the better for it.  In telling the story of Beach Boy Brian Wilson in two parts, audiences get to see the brilliant but deteriorating Wilson while he wrote the acclaimed album Pet Sounds and his later ascent from the pits of mental illness.  The former are lush scenes of sound and light while the latter is a more familiar tale of love, but both are expertly sold by Paul Dano, John Cusack, and Elizabeth Banks.  How the team were able to blend these two sections together so seamlessly is one of the great achievements of the year, but Love and Mercy is a satisfying film whether you take into account the risks or not.




5.  Three Days in September


This is a small film from Macedonia that played in only a few festivals around the world.  I was lucky enough to catch it at the Chicago International Film Festival, and the entire theater I was in seemed pretty blown away.  It’s the story of two women in a remote town slowly becoming friends while also trying to keep some dark secrets hidden.  The two leads, Irena Ristic and Kamka Tocinovski, navigate their character’s changing relationships and personal fears wonderfully, and writer/director Darijan Pejovski keeps the tension slowly ratcheting up.  Pejovski listed film noir and ‘70s American cinema as influences, which is an apt representation of the film’s gritty entertainment.  This is Pejovski’s first feature-length film, and with a debut this great, I’m anxious to see what he does next.




4.  Clouds of Sils Maria


Clouds of Sils Maria is aimed pretty directly at someone like me, who likes to ponder narratives, characters, marketing strategies, and thematic ideas.  The whole business of storytelling and how it reflects real life is what fascinates me about film, so watching the story of a woman prepping for a play while confronting the time that has passed since she previously performed it ticks nearly all of my boxes.  That it also addresses the real-life people involved with the production checks the remaining boxes, so despite being very on-the-nose, I find myself thinking about and re-watching Clouds of Sils Maria quite regularly.




3.  Mad Max:  Fury Road


It’s hard to remember a film so universally loved as Mad Max:  Fury Road.  I’ve had many conversations with fellow cinephiles about it, and my co-worker has had a picture of Imperator Furiosa posted at her desk since the film’s release.  At this point, everyone’s heard the song and dance about how great this film is, and it deserves every ounce of its adoration.



 
2.  Goodnight Mommy


The little horror film that could, Goodnight Mommy broke out of the festival circuit on a wave of critical praise, but it’s a tough film to sell.  It takes its time setting everything up and peppering in scary images until all hell finally breaks loose.  It’s a big, horrifically glorious ending, but like the best of the genre, all that craziness is rooted in a very real and universal fear.  I’m fine with horror going big, bloody, and violent, and Goodnight Mommy doesn’t shortchange its setup.




1.  Z for Zachariah



If you couldn’t tell, I got into a lot of thrillers this year, and Z for Zachariah is the kind of slow, smart thriller that I’ve always loved.  It takes place in a secluded bit of fertile land, possibly the only one left after an unnamed disaster, and only contains three characters.  The way these three come together and interact is where all of the tension derives from, and the film manages to mine all the fears that come with being in a society and the potential of being without one at the same time.  This is very much the kind of film that feeds off of what you bring to it, because it’s not going to give you any answers.  Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine are at the top of their games, and director Craig Zobel delivers another unsettling, technically impressive film.  As a special note, this is one of the most complex and respectful takes on religious belief that I’ve seen out of American cinema in a long time.