Anyway, enough preamble. Here's the list! Looking forward to hearing what y'all think.
Favorite Movies
2015 brought us more important, more profound, more prestigious movies. But I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed any movie this year more than Shaun the Sheep Movie. Drawing on the silent legacy of Chaplin and Keaton, Aardman Animations deliver a tightly plotted, graciously choreographed, sharply witted masterpiece. The very craft of stop motion forces attention to detail, but even within that technique, the level of detail here is staggering: every frame is packed with jokes, flights of fancy, and inventive storytelling, and it's a marvel to behold. I'm sure some will scoff at the idea of the year's best movie being one concerning escaped barnyard animals, but considering that this blog is run by a man who considers Babe the greatest movie ever, I maintain that this choice makes total sense.
If there's a single image that captures just what makes Mad Max: Fury Road so good, it's of the Doof Warrior: shredding thrash metal riffs on his flamethrowing guitar while perched on a monstrous semi rig that's speeding through the desert. But if there's a single image that captures just what makes Mad Max: Fury Road so great, it's of Charlize Theron's Furiosa in the film's final shot: ascending shoulder-to-shoulder with her fellow freed slaves as the crowds below pillage the body of the former patriarch, Immortan Joe. That such radical (for Hollywood) populism can co-exist with the most inventive action sequences in recent years should have been a no-brainer—the mechanics of action cinema have always favored Soviet montage and even anarchy more than anything—but it's nothing short of a revelation here.
To watch Ex Machina is to experience that distinctively cinematic pleasure of seeing a whip-smart screenplay executed with equally sharp visual technique, a work of art calibrated to the tightest mechanical efficiency. If that makes the movie sound like one of those cold, ideas-oriented stories from '50s sci-fi, well, you're not exactly wrong—Isaac Asimov is clearly an inspiration here. But that description makes two huge reductions: 1) Asimov isn't as cold as we say he is, and 2) Ex Machina is terrifying in a way that Asimov only hinted at: think "Robot Dreams" without the assurance of a gun in humanity's hand. By the end, the film has shown us a deliriously complex reaction to the promise of A.I., one that regards conscious robots with a sense of both cosmic horror and niggling compassion.
When, at the end of Inside Out, Riley's tears are met with tender acceptance without resolution, the movie lands like a cannon shot. The idea that it's okay to be sad is only just slightly less revolutionary a message for a movie aimed at children than that idea that sometimes you can't follow your dreams from Pixar's previous feature, 2013's criminally underrated Monsters University, which makes Pixar's latest the most emotionally sophisticated American animated film since June of 2013. It's the most visually sophisticated American animated movie since even longer ago. That Pixar continues to defy easy answers in its movies is a marvel; that these movies do so in such visually inventive, technologically groundbreaking ways is nothing short of a once-in-a-medium miracle.
Earlier this year, we got She's Funny That Way, a movie that very obviously tried to recapture the magic of '30s screwball comedy, and it was fun enough. The thing it forgot, though, was that the reason we love screwball comedies to begin with is the scathing, hilarious, bleeding-edge dialogue tinged with a hint of sadness, and, thanks to super-team Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, that's something that Mistress America pulls off with delirious panache. Not only does Mistress America have one of the highest words-per-minute rate of any film this year, it also has one of the year's most magnetic starring roles. Baumbach is directing and co-writing, so he's obviously giving some large contributions, but make no mistake: this is Gerwig's movie. She's phenomenal.
Being the best American horror movie since Ti West's under-seen The House of the Devil does not make It Follows a perfect film, certainly not on the level of story logic. You can pretty easily pick apart the mechanics of It, and none other than Quentin Tarantino has done so. Far be it from me to disagree with him. Still, horror remains perhaps the most obvious proof of the old Roger Ebert nugget that it's not what but how a movie is about, and look no further than It Follows as concrete evidence. For all its evocation of John Carpenter's icy, calculated '70s and '80s work, this movie works best as a visceral experience, that feeling of slow-building dread as you watch figures pace deliberately toward the camera in what is the most unsettling horror innovation in a decade.
It Follows is scary. Crimson Peak is not. Contrary to what the trailers of Guillermo del Toro's most recent gem would have you believe, the goal of Crimson Peak is not to frighten you but instead to provide you with the much cozier experience of evoking the feeling of reading a 19th-century Gothic romance. Like del Toro's previous feature, Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak is a genre pastiche, with even the lumpiest characteristics of your favorite 19th-century novels lovingly recreated onscreen: dark, brooding men, creepy old houses, the creeping unease of the supernatural; there's even lengthy epistolary sequences. Pair all that with the most meticulously designed del Toro scenery since Pan's Labyrinth and a crackerjack villainous turn from Jessica Chastain, and you've won this book nerd's heart.
If you have to, forget that this movie centers on transgender prostitutes or that it was filmed on iPhones or anything else people might use to pitch Tangerine as Important. Not that those specific qualities aren't essential to Tangerine's impact—they absolutely are. But what can happen when we focus on a movie's social importance is that the actual contours of the film, the texture of the experience, get lost under the weight of cultural exegesis, and in the case of Tangerine, that would mean losing track of that this is one of the most blistering, anarchic American comedies in years. The film's long, shaky takes and the pulsing, sardonic electronics of its score give the already frantic plot a tone of visceral hilarity that only relents to deliver the movie's periodic moments of gut-punch tragedy. It's an experience.
Faults has its, um, faults, particularly in the ending, which makes too tangible some of the most intriguing of the film's ambiguities, but taken as a whole, it's a tense, twisty thriller the likes of which you probably aren't going to see anywhere else any time soon. Focusing on a burned-out writer and professional cult expert who is hired to help a father and mother "decompress" their daughter after rescuing her from a cult, the movie has the benefit of an already disorienting premise. What really earns this film's keep on this list, though, is how Faults doubles down on that disorientation by gradually undercutting everything we think we know about that premise. Faults is a great character piece, a great genre exercise, and, most importantly, great fun.
If nothing else, Queen of Earth had some of the best promotional material of 2015: the poster pictured here is gorgeous (as is this one), and that's to say nothing of the cheeky, unsettling trailer. Oh, but there is so much else. Even having not seen his hard-to-find Gravity's Rainbow-inspired debut, Impolex, I feel confident calling Queen of Earth the least immediate work of Alex Ross Perry's nascent career, but don't mistake the film's mystery for imprecision. This movie blossoms on rewatch, revealing a psychologically complex portrait of a soured relationship. You needn't pour your life into repeat viewing, though, to see the sheer craft on display here, not just in Perry's diversifying writing and direction but especially in Elizabeth Moss's bracing performance. Academy Award, anyone?
Appendix: Miscellaneous Movies Also Worth Noting
Best Action in Any Other Year but 2015: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation—That a movie that begins with Tom Cruise (as always, performing his own stunts—this guy) dangling from the outside of an in-flight Airbus isn't the best action movie of the year is yet another testament to the greatness of Mad Max: Fury Road.
Best Final Scene: Phoenix—This German slow-burner is good throughout its run time, but it becomes great in its last moments. It's too sublime to spoil, but I'll avoid the details anyway. Suffice to say, you should watch it.
Best Kindly Reminder That the Natural World Can Be Cruel and Weird: The Good Dinosaur—For a gentle movie about family and growing up, The Good Dinosaur has a startling amount of animal-on-animal violence. There's a brutality here that only comes once in a generation of animated children's entertainment. Bambi, Watership Down, meet your younger brother.
Best Choice for People Who Thought Tangerine Was Too Funny: Heaven Knows What—A searing, compelling, excellently crafted portrait of NYC homelessness and drug culture. Necessarily bleak.
Best Answer to the SAT question "The Hidden Fortress : A New Hope :: A New Hope : ____": Star Wars: The Force Awakens—J. J. Abrams' kickoff to Disney's Star Wars revival lacks the yearning imagination of even Lucas' prequels, but that was never the point. We wanted a Star Wars pastiche, and by golly, that's what we got. It's pandering and familiar to a fault, but let's not be too down on it for that. The Force Awakens does the two things a new Star Wars movie absolutely needed to do, and it does them very well: 1) Create interesting new cast members, and 2) Deliver an exciting, fast-paced space epic. On those metrics, it's a stunning success.
Best Acid Trip in a Kid's Movie: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water—SpongeBob Squarepants has always been a bit on the groovy side, but the uneven-but-periodically-great Sponge Out of Water from early this year takes that trippiness to a whole new level. The sequence in question involves Plankton and SpongeBob riding a time-traveling photo booth that carries them to the end of the world, where they meet Bubbles, a dolphin tasked with overseeing the universe. It's something to behold.
The "Welcome Back" Award: The Visit—M. Night Shyamalan's fall from grace is well-documented. Hopefully his renaissance (right? right?) gets just as much attention. The Visit is funny and frightening and, yes, occasionally maudlin in a way that recalls the winning formula of Signs over ten years ago. On an unrelated note: how nice is it to have a found-footage film focus on the camera of a character who actually knows some cinematic language?
The "Contrary to Popular Belief, You Never Left" Award: Irrational Man—Before 2015, Woody Allen's last good movie was Blue Jasmine from 2013 (well, actually, it was the first 3/4 of Magic in the Moonlight from 2014, but I guess we've got to deal in whole numbers here). That's more recent than Terrence Malick's last good movie. That's way more recent than James Cameron's last good movie. So why do people talk about Allen's career like it's in decline? And why did so few people like Irrational Man, Allen's comedic thriller about the incompatibility of high-concept philosophy with real life? It's wonderful! Whyyy? *sobs alone in the corner*
The "No Thanks" Award for Giving My Wife and I Nightmares: Goodnight Mommy—This Austrian thriller is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns. Literally. Well-made and tense, to be sure, but not something I'll be revisiting any time soon.
The "Yeah, Science!" Award: The Martian—I almost majored in physics in college. Never have I regretted not doing so more than when I watched this movie.
Most Likely Candidate for an Undergraduate Paper on Identity and Media Images: The End of the Tour—Who is the real David Foster Wallace? The character we see onscreen? The words he says? The man David Lipsky records in his original book? Is a person even knowable? This is what happens when you adapt transcriptions of interviews with one of the most self-reflexive writers of all time.
Best Non-2015 Movie I Saw For the First Time in 2015: Make Way For Tomorrow—One of the most notoriously hard-to-watch movies of all time also happens to be one of the greatest movies of all time. It's a shockingly cruel (especially for the 1930s), unflinching, beautiful movie that will make you want to call your parents to tell them you love them. I'm not crying. Shut up.
And that's all I've got! Be sure to let me know your own favorites of the year or how wrong you thought mine were. I'm always up for discussion.
Until next year!
