10. While We're Young
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried
Release Date: March 27, 2015
Running Time: 97 minutes
Rating: 4/5
So, I've been a fan of Noah Baumbach for quite some time now, but frankly two Baumbach films in one year was a bit much for me- so I only managed to see this one: While We're Young. It seemed this movie went under the radar for a lot of people, even though it actually made more money at the box office than all of his previous films combined. As the trailer indicates, While We're Young is longtime indie director's opportunity to finally trying to break out into the mainstream, while still retaining the awkward dialogue, hipster characters, and New York environment we're used to seeing in his films. And the result is very charming. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are perfectly cast here as a husband and wife who start hanging out with a younger couple because they're secretly afraid of growing old. This is a story about the older generation's paranoid frustration with the younger, and as the story unfolds, we find, to our surprise, that the younger generation is equally fascinated by the older. It's far less tawdry than your usual summer comedy fare, which makes sense, considering its target age group, but it's also far more honest and sensitive. So if you enjoy that sort of thing, I'd check it out.
9. Ex Machina
Director: Alex Garland
Starring: Domnhall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander
Release Date: January 21, 2015
Running Time: 108 minutes
Rating: 4/5
Here's one that a lot of people have been talking about: Ex Machina. Half psychological thriller, half science-fiction piece, Ex Machina belongs to a subgenre one may rightly call "psy-fi". Ex Machina has been praised by fans and critics alike for its intelligence and while the time is certainly ripe to tap into growing public curiosities about A.I., this is hardly the first cautionary fable on the dangers of Promethianism. In fact, watching this movie I couldn't stop myself from thinking about every movie I had seen which had done better things with these same concepts. Ex Machina explores the sexual implications of robotics and maintains a blurry line between consciousness and the illusion of consciousness but so did Spike Jonze's Her. As is the case with many other sci-fi films, the robot character's design to be human lends them more humanity than the human characters themselves. If this movie does have one really original aspect to it, it's the aesthetic. The inventor's hi-tech research facility gives the story not only a cool, sleek aesthetic but also a sense of isolation that sets the stage for the kind of mindgames that these characters play with each other. And if there's any movie ending this year that is bound to keep you up at night, this is the movie that has it.
8. Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Director: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford
Release Date: December 18, 2015
Running Time: 135 minutes
Rating: 4/5
I first watched The Force Awakens with a friend who is prone to disagreeing with me about movies. He thought it it would be terrible, I thought it would be O.K., and it managed to exceed both our expectations. Which is not to say it was like Empire Strikes Back level good, instead, I'd say it's on par with Return of the Jedi. And despite being one of the most talked about films of the year, it seems like ever since the initial buzz died down, the film has become fair game for a lot of critics to really tear it down, which, in my opinion, is pretty unfair. Seeing this film was one of the best movie experiences I had this year because even without 3D, I felt like I could reach out and touch the scenery, objects had weight and texture. What's so beautiful about this film is how it reproduces the coolest thing about the old movies-- it takes you to new places and introduces you to likable characters-- everything a good adventure movie should do. Sure, it steals the plot from A New Hope, but as a lot of people have said already, that's just the training wheels. J.J. Abrams needed to prove to us that he could do a Star Wars movie before he could explore new territory. And in my opinion he's done that, and we nerds can rest assured in the fact that Star Wars is cool once again.
7. Inherent Vice
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Katherine Watersron
Release Date: January 9, 2015
Running Time: 149 minutes
Rating: 4/5
Inherent Vice is a film which I can't wait to see a second time-- more so, to be honest, than any other film of the past year. Many of have complained about the film's seemingly incoherent plot: the story stumbles through the forlorn fever dream that was 70's Los Angeles, exploring a maze of connections between two or three dozen characters like a detective story where the detective is on drugs the whole time-- because, that's exactly what Inherent Vice is. The film is incoherent because incoherence was an essential part of Thomas Pynchon's novel (which the film inspired me to read). Paul Thomas Andersen's films always seem to have a literary quality about them, so it's no surprise that he adapts the book with this level of sensitivity, understanding that in a book like Inherent Vice, atmosphere is more important than the plot, and in the movie, it should be likewise. Of course Inherent Vice is impossible to watch without thinking of the similarly disconnected comic mystery film The Big Lebowski- in fact, the only immediate difference being that the hero of The Big Lebowski remains looking back towards the world that the hero of Inherent Vice inhabits: the American 70's. Because, more than mystery or comedy, this film is a period piece- it wants you to take in the sights and sounds of a specific time and place: so next time I see it, that's where I'll be putting my focus. And I advise first time viewers to approach it in the same way.
6. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Director: David Zellner
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi
Release Date: March 13, 2015
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Now those of you watching this who know me personally should know how much I love weird movies, so even though it's probably not my favorite film of the year, I can't deny that Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter seemed like it was made for me, even from the first few shots. Now, the fact that the tragedy of an Asian woman's suicide evolved into an urban legend about an Asian woman coming to North Dakota on a misguided search for the treasure from Fargo is a tragedy all unto itself. But while it's easy to allow the story's dark origins to lessen your viewing experience, you have to remind yourself that Kumiko may be inspired by that urban legend, but what the story becomes is so much more than that. The depth and vitality of Kumiko confirms this- for many American viewers, Japan still seems like a foreign environment to us, and yet as a character, Kumiko is instantly familiar. She is the outsider of every society. The treasure Kumiko searches for is more than a charming plot device- for her, it's compensation for the social fulfillment she's lacking. A lovely surreal ambience transports this movie to the edge of sanity while still remaining alluring, even as it also balances on the edge between dark comedy and Greek tragedy, playfully remaining of those things in our own lives which we feel would complete us, and how, like mirages, they remain always just beyond our grasp.
5. Timbuktu
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Starring: Abel Jafri, Hichem Yacoubi
Release Date: January 28, 2015
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
It seems like every year, there's a boring foreign drama film which the critics go absolutely nuts over simply because it's "serious" and discusses "important issues", and a lot of times I can't stand these movies. Timbuktu surprised me, though. Now, I certainly didn't enjoy the film as much as I enjoyed some other films I've already mentioned, but that's simply because a film about the occupation of a city in North Africa by a group of radical Muslims is more of a "food for thought" kind of film. And like bitter medicine, it can be hard to swallow. But that being said, Timbuktu isn't boring or pretentious- in fact, it's got a certain honesty which is always refreshing to find in realist drama films like this one. Again and again, we see really big hit movies which try to show American audiences what's going on in places like the Middle East and North Africa, but it's always from the American perspective- Timbuktu shows us terrorism through the eyes of those who are affected by it firsthand, which is why there is no clearly defined protagonist, because it's a film about what religious extremism does to the whole community. Telling a story this way requires incredible craft, and the result is beautiful. Timbuktu isn't just an important film, then, but a film which is becoming more and more important as long as things like this continue to happen in the world.
4. Dope
Director: Rick Famuyiwa
Starring: Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons
Release Date: June 19, 2015
Running Time: 103 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
There's a moment in Dope, around halfway through the movie, where the such a huge twist of fate is dropped upon our main character that I had to pause the movie, take a walk and just get all the excited nervous tension off my chest. How can someone even begin to describe a movie like this? Is it a satire of 90's "hood" movies? Is it a high-school coming of age comedy? Or is it a fast-paced high-stakes drug-dealing adventure? To some degree, it's all of these things. In many ways, Dope successfully achieves what Justin Simien's Dear White People tried to do last year. Dear White People was a smart satire, but in many ways, it was preaching to the choir. Take away the abrasively obvious message, and all you're left with is a bunch of self-righteous jokes which are only half-funny at best. Instead of pushing a message of political correctness, Dope dances around the edges of good taste, resulting in a film which discusses important social issues with enough honesty and subtlety to still allow for a lot of good humor, even if it does lose its way towards the end of the film. Following three relatable social outcasts through a world of danger, Dope's story has enough wit and energy to be ranked among the best high-school comedies of this generation.
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Chalize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Release Date: May 15, 2015
Running Time: 120 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
So a lot of people seem to be saying that Mad Max: Fury Road is the best film of the year. And if I only reviewed "mainstream" films, I'd say the same thing. In all honesty, there is a small part of me that hopes this will win Best Picture. But to be fair, giving Mad Max such high praise would, for me, mean giving it more it more credit than it deserves, and before people jump up on me for sounding over-critical, let me confirm: I do think Mad Max: Fury Road is a good movie. More than that- it's a great movie. Like The Force Awakens, Mad Max uses traditional special effects in place of CGI to achieve impressive feats of aesthetics, and I think that this signals a big change in the way in which blockbuster movies will be made. Like The Road Warrior, the film places a large emphasis on visual storytelling: hardly a line of dialogue is spoken by the story's titular hero, and George Miller's decision to constantly keep the characters in motion is revolutionary. Despite all this, there are still some issues I can't overlook. For one, I think that the acting of the story's two biggest characters... was terrible. Also, I think the story felt incomplete. I mean, it's okay if the movie wants to be one big chase scene, but it starts a lot of things it doesn't really develop, etc, etc, I'll get into it later. All in all, though, Mad Max stands strong as a high-action adventure so visually dazzling, you need to see it on the largest screen possible.
2. Slow West
Director: John Maclean
Starring: Michael Fassbinder, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Release Date: May 15, 2015
Running Time: 84 minutes
Rating: 5/5
Slow West has got to be just about the strangest Western I've ever seen. With films like True Grit, Django, 3:10 to Yuma, and many others, it seems that there's been a revival of interest in the traditional Western. And though most of these recent Westerns I still have yet to see, Slow West is the best one that I've encountered so far, which is surprising considering that it's filmed in New Zealand. In the hands of an incompetent storyteller, this would be a mistake. New Zealand is too beautiful to successfully stand in for the rugged American West. Yet director John Maclean seems well aware of the effect that such a decision will have upon the aesthetic of the movie. The heightened colors of the film's scenery construct a surreal, exaggerated version of the American West- the hero's idealized version of the country. The movie is uncommonly short- only about 80 minutes, and yet it's still strangely powerful. There is a lot of comedy and a lot of beauty here, but there's a melancholy message beneath the exhilarating adventure that lies on the surface. Slow West is about idealistic expectations and the dangerous consequences of allowing naïveté to act as your paper shield to the deadly world you walk through.
1. It Follows
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe
Release Date: March 13, 2015
Running Time: 100 minutes
Rating: 5/5
Many people see modern horror as a genre which has fallen into serious decline since the height of its popularity, yet out of all the films which came out this year, none left quite the impression on me that It Follows did. Along with last year's The Babadook, I think that It Follows represents the beginning of a new wave of horror; a wave with unspoken rules dictating an emphasis on visual style and the abandonment of trite horror conventions. Much of the film's success can be attributed to its brilliant premise-- that of a specter which follows its victims at a slow, steady pace until it catches up with them and kills them. It Follows sets its story agains the backdrop of Detroit, creating an environment soaked in the desolation of the past, and it's worth noting that the curse of being followed by the spirit is passed from person to person by sexual intercourse. In this way, the demon operates as a metaphor for the inevitability of death and how, through sexuality, people cope with mortality by passing their fears down through their genetic line. This is an atmospheric horror film intended to keep you looking over shoulder-- as one critic put it, "it's like an urban legend you've known your whole life"-- at once both boldly fresh and eerily familiar.
-Julian Rhodes
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