The Best Films of 2015

this is a super timely thing I put together.

I wanted to wait to post my thoughts on 2015 films until the Oscar nominations were announced today. It didn't change my choices, but hopefully it works as a continuation of the conversation. Below are my choices for the best films of 2015, with my (somewhat long-winded) thought process on how I came to these decisions.

Oscar nominees for Best Picture are highlighted:

Top 15 Films 2015

1. Spotlight
2. Inside Out
3. What We Do in the Shadows
4. Brooklyn
5. Room
6. Dope
7. Amy
8. Anomalisa
9. Kingsman: The Secret Service
10. Straight Outta Compton
11. Mad Max: Fury Road
12. Experimenter
13. Ex Machina
14. Creed
15. The Martian

365 Days, 365 Movies: December [Star Wars-apalooza]

With the clock striking midnight and the world heralding a new year, I officially ended my year-long adventure in daily movie watching. Having actually reached my 365 total in mid-November, December was more of a victory lap than anything else. I thought I would just watch a few movies (28 or so) to get up to 400 movies for the year, And then I ended up watching 53. 

My focus was broad, but I definitely spent my time with three big categories: Oscar contenders, Holiday movies, and Star Wars films. I'll talk Oscar contenders soon, and Holiday movies have been dissected and vivisected 100 times over. I would talk about Star Wars, but who wants that? Sure, the films taught me a lot of lessons about life and filmmaking and the prequels clued me into the fact that nothing golden can stay and that we're all going to die someday, but let's not talk about that. Let's look at a list!

Film Review: 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'

I'll get to Maz Kanata in a minute

To say that I was excited about the newest Star Wars film is a huge understatement. Having attended first-night, 12:00 screenings of the prequels (Episodes 1-3), I know how very real the disappointment in Star Wars can be. Still, I'm a huge fan of J.J. Abrams (Alias is still my favorite show of all time, for some reason), and all of the trailers and behind-the-scenes interviews/clips made the movie seem, if nothing else, cool. So I went into the theater with a little trepidation but a lot of joy. And since it's fun to rope other people into my nervous psychosis, I brought family along as well. Below are our ALMOST COMPLETELY SPOILER FREE reviews of the film:

365 Days, 365 Movies: October & November

Grace Kelly: Fancy

It's been a crazy 11 months, but October and November finally saw me meeting my goal of watching 365 movies in 2015. Since the majority of the films I'd watched before October were from 1990-2015 (with over 150 coming from the last two years),  I thought I would focus more on 'classic' cinema for October and November, particularly old musicals (because Netflix) the films of Katharine Hepburn (who holds the record for most Oscars won) and Grace Kelly. It ended up being a fun couple of months filled with adorable old-timey accents.

I also got to pick my 365th movie, which I chose with a little trepidation.  I decided to watch two of my favorite movies, Rope and Home for the Holidays, as my lead-up movies, and I decided to watch Citizen Kane as my 365th. I'd never seen it, and people seem to like it, so it seemed like a good choice.

365 Days, 365 Movies: September [Charlie's Angels]

You guys! Watching an average of one movie a day has been a glorious experiment, but I'm almost positive that it's making me a dumber person. My reflexes are slower, my reading skills are diminished, and sometimes I space out for minutes at a time. I might be getting more film-literate, but at what cost!? Anyway, I still thought I would do a post about the movies that I watched way back in September, so that, if I end up turning into a real dumb-dumb, someone will be able to track my descent into dunce-hood through this blog.

September was the most fruitful month for me in terms of the amount of movies watched -- 62 in 30 days! I very quickly decided that my theme was going to be the films of the women and men of Charlie's Angels, the 2000 movie starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu. Surprisingly, there were a lot of films by those three women that I hadn't seen. Additionally, I watched the films of Bill Murray and Luke Wilson, because they're both fairly important to the movie as well.  Below are the movies I saw from each of them, and my thoughts on their filmography so far. Of the 62 movies I watched in September, 30 of them included some member of the Charlie's Angels family:

Hello.

It's been over two months since I last posted anything to this blog. Work got busy, a baby took up all my free time, and I wasn't really in a mood to write. And then...

(source)

... someone went and woke me up again. That is, I had the extreme pleasure to see Adele perform today, as part of an iHeartRadio broadcast that should be airing any minute now. She was performing at Joe's Pub, the site of her US debut 7 years prior and my favorite music venue in the world.

Adele at Joe's Pub
(Photo Credit: Danny Williams)

She was amazing, both in her performance and the following interview. She's like a fun mix of Jennifer Lawrence;s relatability, Emma Thompson's goofy wit, and Shirley Bassey's pipes. Obviously, "Hello" has been playing on repeat in my apartment for weeks (and the houses and apartment of literally tens of millions of people), and her album, 25, has already had a few plays on the ol' iPhone. But I've never heard her perform live, and it's a truly incredible experience. Her voice is so powerful and pure, and the emotional resonance of her songs are so clear. 

And then she's funny, too, in ways that are kind of unexpected. She drops jokes about motherhood and incontinence with equal aplomb, and her full-throated cackle is infectious.

She's a very personable artist who's created another incredibly personal album. Aren't we all lucky to be a part of it?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to collapse into a heap of my own emotions and listen to the album again.

365 Days, 365 Movies: August

Julia Roberts: A Profile

August was quite a crazy month for me, both personally and professionally, but I managed to sneak in 31 movies in as many days. (How do I do it!?) Due to my hectic schedule, I once again ended the month without a theme. I started on August 1 with My Best Friend's Wedding, a rom-com I love more than my children, and thought that it might start a month of Romantic Comedies or Julia Roberts movies or Cameron Diaz vehicles. As you'll see from my list below, that didn't happen – I did eventually watch another Dermot Mulroney movie and another Diaz movie, so I guess that counts for something. I also ended up going to the theater a lot in August, which resulted in a higher-than-average number of New Releases.

365 Days, 365 Movies: June and July

Welcome to the Summer, when television goes away and movies get louder and stupider! I focused on Reese Witherspoon movies in May (in my quest to watch 365 movies in 365 days), and it was great. I really had a new-found respect for her. So, for June, I focused on another great American actor. I'm speaking, of course, of Kurt Russell. For July, I just tried to clear my Netflix queue AND go to the theater as much as possible, really soaking in that free air conditioning.

Hit or Miss: Quick Movie Reviews 10 – FEMINISM!

Terminator: Stigmata

Watching Terminator: Genisys this weekend, I was perplexed at what was on the screen. I haven't really seen the first Terminator films (I saw Terminator Salvation for HBC reasons), but Sarah Connor is supposed to be one of the strongest female characters in film history. Yet, throughout the movie, her only purpose is to be the eventual mother of John Connor. Then, from there on out, he does the heavy lifting as the leader of the war against the machines. Is she the savior or merely the vessel for the savior? Is she completely defined by her ability to give birth, or can she be the master of her own fate?

Now, this problem of predestination is something that plagues time travel movies regardless of the gender of the lead, but the plight of Sarah Connor made me think more about female representation in film more generally. Not just the number of women on screen, but also how their presence shapes the narrative.

So, for this edition of Hit or Miss, I thought it best to look at the current top-grossing, female-starring movies at the box office (not counting Mad Max: Fury Road, which I loved and already reviewed). Forthwith are my reviews of the movies, paying special attention to the ladies therein:

'Jurassic World' Comic

I haven't gotten up the energy to write a review of Jurassic World.
So, I drew a comic instead: