The best (and worst) from 2015

Charlize Theron in a scene from "Mad Max: Fury Road." Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Theater going in 2015 was a very, very satisfying experience. Audiences could pick from a little of everything this year and find stellar options, whether it was an action epic, an animated tearjerker, a wonderful romantic comedy masquerading itself as an Oscar flick, or a thrilling peek into the drug trade. Every genre was well represented and included at least one excellent selection to choose from. And, as with any year, there were a few dregs as well, one of which is much worse than the others.

All of the below are films I reviewed for this year, which knocks out the gripping documentary “Going Clear.” I also kept it to the seven films I thought were worth highlighting, but these other flicks deserve at least a mention: “The Big Short,” “Furious 7,” “Crimson Peak,” “Suffragette,” “Bridge of Spies,” “Me Earl and the Dying Girl,” “Dope,” “Love & Mercy,” “The Second Mother,” “The Walk” (as seen in theaters) and “The Stanford Prison Experiment.”

No. 1: “Mad Max: Fury Road”

Just an outstanding, astonishing movie that’s nothing less than an action masterpiece. The continuation of the post-apocalyptic adventures of Max Rockatansky (now played by Tom Hardy), George Miller's fourth installment took 30 years to come to fruition, and it was worth the wait. Miller's vision – a fair use of the word given how much creative control he has on this – goes old school on the effects, limiting the CG and crashing as many cars in the desert as he could.

“Fury Road” is a marvelous movie to watch and a wonderful film to think about. Many articles have analyzed the film's feminist bent, but it is worth emphasizing how every female character in this film is more heroic than their male counterparts, whether in battle like Charlize Theron's iconic Furiousa or finding the courage to leave an abusive situation as the wives do. As the film implies, it was the men destroyed the world; it's up to the women to save it.

Image courtesy Disney/Pixar.

No. 2: “Inside Out”

I cried once the first time I watched this. I cried twice when I went to see it again. Any film that evokes that kind of reaction is a lock to make it into the top five.

“Inside Out” hits the beats of the best Pixar film, putting the right voice actors (Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader and Lewis Black) inside the mind of a preteen girl undergoing the greatest shift in her young life. Moving across the country is scary and intimidating, no matter how much Poehler's Joy tries to imbue her charge Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) with positivity. Joy learns how valuable Smith's Sadness is to Riley's life, how valuable she is to the girl's continued emotional evolution, and the film portrays that journey of self-discovery in a way that's silly and heartbreaking. Plus I still haven't gotten over the fate of poor Bing Bong (voiced with desperate pride by Richard Kind). 

Image courtesy Open Road Films.

No. 3: “Spotlight”

One of the frontrunners to win Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Award ceremony, “Spotlight” is the least cinematic film on this list. There's nothing flashy about it aesthetically; the office walls are white and drab, the clothes are toned down, the streets of Boston are shot as if the city is crumbling around the characters. Then again, the absence of cinematic grandiosity fits the film's workmanlike theme of people plugging away to get to the bottom of a complicated, horrifying cover up perpetrated for decades by the Catholic Church.

The staff of the Boston Globe's eponymous investigation unit (played by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian D'Arcy James) are single focused on their job, putting the story and, most importantly, the victims above themselves. Plus, the acting is  thoroughly terrific, especially Stanley Tucci as an attorney for several victims. “Spotlight” is good journalism, and it practices exactly what it preaches.

Image courtesy The Weinstein Company.

No. 4: “Carol”

Christmas is rarely as beautiful and melancholy as it is in “Carol,” which documents the early stages of a romance between Cate Blanchett’s Carol and Rooney Mara’s Therese. Their rapport is a strange, based little on spoken words and more on those little moments like the soft touches and the tender stares they share. The film even goes out of its way to show how the two talk to other people far more often than they do each other, perhaps because the conversation only gets in the way of the spark they share.

“Carol” is a beautiful film to watch in large part because of the way director Todd Haynes frames the 1950s era, yet the aesthetic loveliness is belied by an ugliness of the era directed at the central pair’s relationship. “Carol” contrasts itself frequently like that and plays around with expectations and filmmaking techniques, framing certain moments as dreamy fantasies while mocking a well known writing convention. The result is a portrayal of a dizzying romance that takes its time to reveal the inevitable.

Image courtesy Lionsgate.

No. 5: “Sicario”

“Sicario” is simply intense, the kind of film in which breathing becomes a near impossibility during a few key sequences. As depicted in the film, danger is a constant presence for all involved in the drug war, along with the people who just happen to live in cartel area.  Director Denis Villeneuve never lets the audience have a moment to breath; something bad could happen within that half second between inhalation and exhalation.

It's a shame this film isn't getting the level of Oscar attention it deserves. Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan do a tremendous job invoking an atmosphere of fear and mistrust – a feat that often goes unrecognized during Award voting – and the performances by Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro are top notch. Hopefully “Sicario” at least gets a nod for Roger Deakins' cinematography efforts; if anything the film illustrates how beautiful the region could be, and how ugly the drug wars have made it.

Image courtesy A24.

No. 6: “Room”

Speaking about crafting an intense sequence, “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson created one of the most frightening moments of the year when Jacob Tremblay's Jack tries to escape the only place he's ever known. That's what makes the moment effective, as Abrahamson frames the escape through Tremblay's eyes, making the outside world a large, ominous and alien place.

The film's highlight though is star Brie Larson as Ma, who has spent seven years trapped in the eponymous place by kidnapper/rapist Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). Larson is simply stellar, convincingly oscillating between strength and weakness when the time calls for it. Her moments with Tremblay are a delight, which makes the scenes in which she starts to fall apart all the more shocking. It's the best performance of the year, regardless of gender.

Image courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.

 No. 7: “Brooklyn”

“Brooklyn” is the best romantic comedy to come out in a very long time, a smart, sweeping story of a woman discovering what she wants for herself and fighting to get it. It's easy to see the dilemma Saoirse Ronan (who is fantastic) faces with the two men courting her, as both of her beaus treat her with respect and love. There is, however, one significant difference between the two, and that difference is the one Ronan eventually recognizes and fights for.

The film succeeds because of how it lays out her internal journey, and it is unexpectedly funny as well. Nick Hornby's dialogue is crisp, clear and laser focused, and “Brooklyn” benefits greatly from Ronan and a supporting turn by Julie Walters as the sharp tongued Mrs. Kehoe. This film evokes a fair number of smiles between the moments when it pummels with sadness.

Image courtesy Universal.

Bottom of the barrel: “Ted 2”

There are quite a few contenders for this title. “Truth” is frustrating and ire inducing but is redeemed slightly by Cate Blanchett's performance, and Dakota Johnson similarly counters the suck that is “Fifty Shades of Grey.” “The Boy Next Door” is too silly and dumb to be offensive, while “Insurgent” and “A Walk in the Woods” are bad in a forgettable fashion.

That leaves “Ted 2,” a risible piece of garbage with few laughs and an obnoxious streak a mile long. Director Seth MacFarlane, who also voices the titular stuffed animal, has crafted a perfectly offensive, misogynistic and cruel film film whose comedy is derived from laziness. Those problems are exacerbated by leads MacFarlane and Mark Wahlberg, whose characters lack anything resembling likability. That’s kind of a problem considering their relationship is, supposedly, the heart of the entire film.

Breaking taboos

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett star in "Carol." Image courtesy The Weinstein Company.

One of “Carol’s” most interesting aspects is its employment of the holiday season as a backdrop. Like the film, the days leading up to Christmas and New Year’s Day are equal turns cheerful and miserable, and it is the one time of year in which both feelings are equally acceptable. As “Carol” shows, the sense of optimism and hope brought by the season is undercut by a sense of disappointment and even sadness, essentially creating a paradox befitting a film that revels in contrasts and ambiguity.

Funny enough, “Carol” starts off as a meet cute between two women who are very, very different. Shop girl Therese (Rooney Mara) is a mousy girl whose small ambitions match with the tiny, barely furnished New York apartment she calls home and boyfriend (Jake Lacy) constantly pushing the relationship. Contrast that with the life of the eponymous character Carol (Cate Blanchett), a miserable housewife with a loving daughter and a husband (Kyle Chandler) who fights furiously against their impending divorce. Still, Mara and Blanchett see something in each other – a quiet sense of desperation each has – and kick off a strange, mismatched romance. Things soon take a turn for the worse when Blanchett’s divorce proceedings turn ugly due in part to Blanchett’s relationship with long-time friend Abby (Sarah Paulson). She needs to leave town for a while and takes Mara with her on a road trip to the west, stopping by a few small towns along the way. The trip is fun and cute at first, until a dramatic twist curtails the party and results in a major change in the relationship.

“Carol” is a difficult film to get a good read on because director Todd Haynes and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy break a few conventions along the way. The romance between Blanchett and Mara is often quiet, as the two exchange far fewer words with each other than they do with the rest of the cast; the film even makes a point to catch the two toward the end of conversations. Most films would flip that around, but the result shows effectively how extraneous words get in the way of the heart of the romance. Their language consists of devilish smiles and subtle touches that add a hint of intimacy to the film itself.

Also bizarre is a plot point that violates one of Checkhov's most well-known rules of writing. Haynes and Nagy establish the element in an obvious and intentionally cliched fashion, yet the payoff never occurs, and the moment where it could happen reflects the circumstances the characters involved face. It’s a masculine concept, and the women can’t bring themselves to violate their sapphic natures.

Little in “Carol,” essentially, is as it appears to be; rather, it's all just a bit distorted, a little bit off kilter. The sparse dialogue spoken between Mara and Blanchett has an odd cadence to it, the lines delivered with caution and with a comedic timing that wouldn't necessarily fit into such a heavy drama. It's as if the reality within “Carol” is heightened to an extravagant level – not overly surprising considering how the film oscillates between dreams and reality in a manner akin to a David Lynch film that makes everything feel a little surreal. Everything is a little ambiguous, and straightening out what is going on would remove some of the mystique that makes “Carol” so wonderful. There's a lot of mystery to be found in this film, much of which emanates from the terrific performances offered by both Blanchett and Mara; neither says everything on their respective minds, but get just enough across to have an inkling of what they might be thinking and allow silence to fill the holes.

And yet they do get what they want from the other without overly expressing their desires, and their wishes are both rooted in offering honesty. For Blanchett, it's escaping a situation she cannot cope with and being herself; Mara, on the other hand, wants control over her life and to establish something resembling a path through life, The ending suggests both characters might get what they want (arguments are easily made the other way though given “Carol's” inherent ambiguity) but the question Haynes and Nagy offer is whether the journey to that happy-ish ending is worth it. Happiness often has an exorbitant and unfair price, and like the season the film centers on, that joy is tainted by misery and despair.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 118 minute

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone interested in LGBTQ issues and who are down to watch some wicked good performances.

Take the whole family?: The film takes a while to get to it, but it does get quite explicit. In other words, it might be best for the children to stay home.

Theater or Netflix?: “Carol” is definitely worth a theater trip.

Academy Award odds?: Cate Blanchett is close to a lock for a Best Actress nomination. Rooney Mara's status is up in the air – the main question is if she'll qualify for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress according to sites that track these things– and the film is on track for nominations for Todd Haynes for Best Director, Phyllis Nagy for Best Adapted Screenplay, and for Cinematography and Best Picture.

Watch this as well?: Hit up another Todd Haynes film about homosexuality and forbidden desires rooted in 1950s society, “Far From Heaven.” Julianne Moore is terrific as usual, and Haynes evokes great performances from Dennis Haysbert and Dennis Quaid.

Betting big against America

Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling star in "The Big Short." Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Every film recapping the market crash from 2008 is brimming with venom. Those films – from fictionalized accounts to documentaries – have a plethora of bad guys to choose, people who can serve as the closest approximation to scapegoats available given the dearth of arrests or justice. (Really, how hard is it to find a villain among a bunch of arrogant, unscrupulous, well-groomed sharks?)

The newest look back at last decade’s chaos, “The Big Short,” has more than enough scoundrels to pick from, but, as the film points out, but there weren't exactly a lot of heroes in this situation either. None of the characters in the film (which is based Michael Lewis’ book) do much more than feel some guilt about their actions and put in one token attempt to report the shenanigans to the press. Rather, much like the characters from “Dr. Strangelove,” they seem pretty content to watch the world burn around them. The true anger about the economic destruction belongs to the men behind the camera, who sadly let their ire get the better of them.

“The Big Short” spends most of its time a few years before the crash and splitting time between three sets of investors. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale), an aloof fellow in possession of a brilliant mind and just a hint of an ego (he prefers to be addressed as “Dr. Michael Burry”) is the first to spot a notable weakness in the subprime mortgage market. Realizing the end of the market is near, Bale takes out more than a billion dollars in credit default swaps, effectively betting millions of Americans wouldn't pay their loans. The deal trickles down to oily investor and film narrator Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who wants in on the action but needs money to join in. He eventually stumbles upon cynical hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) and his team (Jeremy Strong, Rafe Spall and Hamish Linklater) who work under the auspices of Morgan Stanley, and presents an economic opportunity that appears too good to be true. But a little research and a trip to Florida reveals the danger in the market, and provides Carrell and his team ample motivation to invest in credit default swaps. The final side of the triangle consists of aspiring investors Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), who desperately want a seat at the table with the big boys but don't have the experience or the capital to earn it. That is until they catch wind of Gosling’s proposal and recruit retired trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to assist them. All that's left then is for the players to wait and see if their forecasts are correct.

While the film is presented in a linear fashion, the filmmaking is not as straightforward. Characters repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to offer short asides to the audience or redirect viewers to a few celebrities, and several clips of pop culture moments infiltrate the screen to point out how easily distracted the American people were at the time. Director Adam McKay takes an absurd approach to the material, which fits the absurdity of the events that actually occurred. Like its spiritual forefather “Dr. Strangelove,” is organized chaos, and while not all of it succeeds, enough lands to keep the film engaging for more than two hours, and the little tricks showcase McKay's distinct voice and sensibilities, along with a bite he hasn't shown often in his comedic films.

That bite ends up souring the film, especially when McKay's rage starts to boil over. The man is very, very angry about what happened, angry that the people responsible effectively got away with it and have already rebooted the same practices that led to the last collapse. The problems arise when the McKay and his fellow screenwriters begin to let that frustration seep into the filmmaking – a few bits of dialogue have a strong “mad as hell” vibe to them – that diminishes the “Big Short” as a film. It’s why the film suffers, and the reason “Dr. Strangelove” makes for such a strong point of comparison. Both films find humor from humanity's eagerness to destroy itself, but while “Dr. Strangelove” embraces the farce and let’s the insanity speak for itself, “The Big Short” is just pissed off by it and can’t help but rant and rave about the injustice. Even if the anger is justified as it is in this case, it just isn’t a very good means of storytelling; yelling at the audience to wake up is condescending no matter how good the intentions are.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 130 minutes

Genre: Biographical

Ask Away

Target audience: People still peeved at the people who caused the economy to fall asunder and the system that let it happen.

Take the whole family?: A fair amount of cursing and nudity earns this a solid “R” rating. Only bring the kids if you play an extended game of earmuffs and cover their eyes with a free hand.

Theater or Netflix?: You might be better served waiting for the streaming version. Hit up a matinee screening though if you do opt to see it in theaters.

Academy Award chances?: It has a strong shot to get Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations in the very near future, and Adam McKay might sneak in for Best Director. Any major awards beyond that could be tough, as the Best Supporting Actor field is crazy deep (Christian Bale has a chance per Oscar tracking sites, although it is a volatile category).

Watch this as well?: The documentary “Inside Job” does a terrific job navigating the complexities of the fall while holding a few of the major players accountable for their deeds. Also seek out one of McKay's previous ventures, “The Other Guys,” which touches on the economic collapse, as well as the raucous, insanely funny and dispiriting “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

The dangers of social climbing

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in "Macbeth." Image courtesy The Weinstein Company.

The very first shot in the new film adaptation of “Macbeth” is an attempt to explain the ensuing wicked deeds of the titular character and his wife. It’s not the sole narrative shift the film takes from the play, but it sets an off-kilter, moderately anachronistic tone for this adaptation that keeps the dialogue while changing the characters’ motivations radically and not to the film’s benefit.

“Macbeth” stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Scot, whose bravery and ferocity as a warrior are second only to his loyalty to the king, Duncan (David Thewlis). After stunting an uprising alongside friend Banquo (Paddy Considine), the pair is visited by four witches who tell Fassbender he will become both the thane of Cawdor and the future king of Scotland while Considine will be the father of a line of kings. Fassbender and Considine are confused at first by the seers' fortune, but the fates begin to play their hand when Fassbender receives his promotion moments after the confrontation with the witches.

The coincidence is notable enough to convince Lady Macbeth (a very good Marion Cotillard) of her husband's grander future, and she persuades Fassbender to commit regicide to advance up the ranks. He's hesitant to participate until Thewlis proclaims the meek Malcolm (Jack Reynor) will succeed him on the throne. Once the act most foul is done and Reynor runs away in terror, Fassbender is named king and accomplishes everything he set out to do. The hard part though is keeping the dream, and he worries about the witches' prophecy about Considine's children, as do additional bodements about his downfall from the throne involving a possible heel turn from the good Macduff (Sean Harris).

What happens next is what one expects from a Shakespeare play, with the man’s paranoia serving as the means to his inevitable downfall. The debate over how much control the fates have over a person’s life remain in the film adaptation, along with the era-appropriate dialogue and sense of impending doom that swarms around Macbeth. The film version does take advantage of the medium though, showcasing the oft-beautiful (albeit infrequently used) Scottish/United Kingdom locales and staging large and impressive battle scenes scored with a screams and a heavy soundtrack. Blood flows relentlessly amid the skirmishes, and “Macbeth” doesn't shy away from showing the effects such brutality has on its participants; Fassbender and his fellow soldiers are covered in gashes and mud well after returning home from the war. The dirtiness works as a contrast to Thewlis' Duncan, who is garbed in fine white clothes as his men do the dirty work to protect his stature.

“Macbeth” would be a much more successful film had it limited the changes to the senses, but the desire to explain the plotting and reinterpret the Macbeth clan do far more harm than good. That opening image of the funeral mentioned earlier is proffered as the reason to the madness that eventually conquers Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but it undermines that all too human sense of greed that drives the couple to murder for social advancement. The lust for power is strong to inspire such levels of evil; implementing a dead child as the justification is a cop out.

So it isn’t greed that drives Macbeth in this case; it’s loss and sorry and a need to atone for a family torn apart by the death of a child. The shift effectively reduces the cunning edge he develops after murdering Duncan; rather, savvy is exchanged for insanity that effectively removes the fault from his stars and shifting it to the fates. Considering the man is goaded into the act by his wife in the first place and Macbeth can pretty much blame the world for his actions and have some justification for it.

And then there’s poor Lady Macbeth, whose emotional complexity is stripped away by a film too eager to enter into pop psychology. Those undercurrents of fratricide that plague her during the planning in the play are gone, and the film opts to link her sudden illness death to an act of barbarity committed by Macbeth against Macduff's wife and children instead of Duncan's death. Macbeth's cruelty toward Macduff's family is revelatory for Lady Macbeth because it puts the monster she created on full display, but attaching it to a traditionally feminine concepts – family and innocence – erodes the strength behind her eventual madness. She transforms from an oak to a willow, with her expedited fall into eternal sleep taming material that’s better served with a little ferocity and bite.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 113 minutes (One hour and 53 minutes)

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Lovers of Shakespearean drama and anyone down for a little war Scottish style.

Take the whole family?: “Macbeth” gets pretty bloody at times, but teens reading it for lit classes will be more than fine.

Theater or Netflix?: Wait for Netflix; the visuals are OK but just aren't strong enough to justify the additional expense.

Can you understand what’s being said?: Every now and then. The dialogue remains Shakespeare's, and the lines are delivered with thick accents by those involved, making for a rather tricky listening experience for viewers. Fortunately, the context of the situation remains easy to figure out, so it's easy to follow along even if a few lines fly well above your head.

Watch this as well?: I admittedly have a soft spot for Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Emma Thompson is wonderful as always, while Denzel Washington and Michael Keaton seem to have a lot of fun with the material. Plus Keanu Reeves flails at a British accent, which is always fun to watch.