NUTS4R2's Best Movies of 2015

NUTS4R2's
Best Movies of 2015

Well this has been a mixed bag of a year for movies. I thought it was better but looking over my many cinema trips over the past year, I am forced to conclude that it wasn’t as positive a year for movies as I thought it would be. For the soundtracks in them, it was a fantastic year... but more on that when I do my review of the year’s best scores, coming up in a couple of weeks, which I’m expecting will be looking quite different in comparison to what I have in this list.

I feel I should offer a brief word or two of explanation on certain movies found here, by way of clarification as to what is and isn’t in the list.

All of the films on here came out in the UK in some capacity in 2015. A couple of them only had one or two solitary screenings and one didn’t even play at any cinemas in this country, as far as I know. But this list is, as I feel it should be, based on the date of when they were able to be seen by people in my country fro the first time. So, as an example, I know some people have included Birdman (reviewed here) in their 2015 lists but in London, it was released at the end of December 2014, which is when I saw and reviewed it. If you check back to my review of last year here, you’ll see I included it in my 2014 list. Luckily, I didn't have this problem with High Rise (reviewed here) because, as it turns out, that wouldn’t have made the list anyway.

There are, however, three oddities here. For starters, my number one pick of best movie of the year is from Mexico and it came out over there in 2014. However, as far as I know, it screened only once (the performance I caught at this year’s Raindance Film Festival) and it’s not going to be getting any kind of release or home video distribution in this country anytime soon (according to the producer who I asked after the screening)... although I’m hoping that will change and I believe it may be getting a home video release in the US at some point.

My number three pick this year is a film that screened twice at the London Film Festival and I’m, frankly, hoping it gets some kind of wider release here next year because it’s just an awesome B-movie horror. My number eight pick is kinda interesting because its primary release was via streaming, downloading and DVD/Blu Ray. I understand it had a few screenings in the US but, as far as I remember, it got nothing over here. It's very much a 2015 movie though.

And that’s that. Not much more to say other than how disappointed I was that the new Star Wars movie didn’t make it anywhere near the number one spot on this list. How did that happen? I really wanted it to get right up there but, alas, it didn’t quite do it for me.

So, anyway, here’s my list with links to my reviews. Hope you like and, if you don’t agree, feel free to vent in the comments section. It won’t change my mind about anything but it will promote discussion, right?


20. American Ultra
Well this was just a fun little movie which I would have absolutely put at my number one spot if I’d had still been a teenager. I reckon this is the Heathers equivalent of the current early to late teen generation and I hope they realise this is out there. My review is here.


19. The Theory Of Everything
This biopic of Stephen Hawking is way better than I was expecting and Eddie Redmayne turns in an amazing performance here. Not something I could probably sit through again but certainly something to be admired. My review here.


18. Crimson Peak
Phenomenal film by Guillermo Del Toro that was much less enthusiastically received by the general public at large than I expected it to be. As for myself, I loved it and it’s definitely a movie which needs to be appreciated on a Blu Ray release as soon as possible. My review is here.


17. Paranormal Activity - The Ghost Dimension
Another movie which wasn’t well received but I feel this was a real return to form for the franchise and it even, against my expectations, had a reason in terms of the plot, to be shown in 3D. I’m just a little disappointed that it’s probably also going to be the last in the sequence as I feel there’s still a few more story beats to hit before the whole tale is told. My review here.


16. Krampus
Hooray. A Christmas movie actually gets into my listings this year. Pleased about that. This Christmas horror is more like a bitter and less optimistic version of Gremlins and, supported by a superb score, is a real seasonal confection to be savoured by horror fans who are usually let down by their Christmas horror movies being... well... somewhat rubbish. It’s not straight out horror... it’s not particularly scary for example but, then again, not many horror films are... and it is a little crude in places but it’s certainly entertaining and I’m looking forward to revisiting this one on Blu Ray next December. My review here.


15. Ant-Man
This was a slow burn with me and I probably didn't praise it that highly in my review. However, it grew on me really quickly and I love the way it manages to slot into the current Marvel universe movies. Can’t wait to see the direct sequel in a couple of years. My review here.


14. Tomorrowland
This is another one that people didn’t exactly champion when it came out but it’s a real strong contender, as far as I’m concerned, for being repeated constantly over the Christmas and Easter holidays as a future staple of family entertainment by any TV channel that has it. The trailer is quite misleading and it’s got a lot more going for it than most people would realise, or be able to tell, from its marketing, I suspect. Plus it has the best of Michael Giacchino’s scores for this year. My review here.


13. Maggie
The name Arnold Schwarzenneger and zombies in the same pitch certainly conjures up a specific type of movie in peoples minds and that’s why I think the very small audience who were in attendance at the screening I went to had a couple of walk outs. As it happens, this is a small and dramatic role for Schwarzenneger... not an action epic in any shape of form and, as such, the main star handles himself exactly as I would have expected him to in a straight and somewhat downbeat role of a father trying to accept the fact that his daughter is slowly turning into one of the undead... absolutely magnificently. He really reminds us just how great an actor he can be in this one... not just an action man. My review of this superb movie is here.


12. Mr. Holmes
This one took me by surprise. Thought it was going to be a bit rubbish and dull and, instead, it’s sensational. Especially pleasing is the fictional Holmes at the cinema in the movie, within the fiction of the ageing Holmes watching a film at the cinema based on one of his cases, with his big screen version being played by the same actor who portrayed Holmes himself, decades ago, in Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear. A very special treat which I reviewed here.


11. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Possibly the best of the Mission Impossible films. This one kept me riveted and, although it kinda side steps certain issues about the history of the main character portrayed by Tom Cruise in this franchise, it’s extremely entertaining. My review here.


10. Kingsman - The Secret Service
Of the many 1960s spy movie parodies launched into cinemas this year (Mission Impossible, Mortdecai, The Man From UNCLE, SPECTRE), this is probably the best of them. They may have a problem bringing back a certain character for the sequel but... we shall see what we shall see. Reviewed this one here.


9. Sicario
This is a stunningly beautiful film but it’s all the shades of darkness that you can think of when it comes to content. You will leave the cinema totally depressed, more than likely, and it’s not one I think I could probably sit through again. It is quite devastatingly haunting and powerful, however. Reviewed here.


8. Ned Rifle
Yay! My favourite living director continues to be brilliant with the third installment of his Henry Fool trilogy. Much better than the second movie, Fay Grimm, and a real return to form for the characters. You can read my review of this one here.


7. Star Wars - The Force Awakens
I wasn’t too happy with this when I first saw it but, now that I’ve been to take another look and I’m not constantly waiting for what I thought was going to happen to happen (which it did), I can relax into it a bit and enjoy it more for the homage to the classic films that it is (to an extent). John William’s score for this movie really knocks it out of the park and it’s probably the best score he’s done in quite some time. My review here.


6. Avengers - Age Of Ultron
This was another one I was probably a little over harsh with in my review, after my first watch, but it grew on me fairly quickly after I took a couple of other people to see it. I really enjoyed the hell out of it on subsequent performances and it’s something I’ll probably hold up now and say this is one of the better Marvel movies in recent years. Review here.


5. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
This movie has some special, personal connotations to it for me but, above its special importance in my life, it’s a really great little vampire movie which is, perhaps, more similar to the cinema of Jim Jarmusch than anyone else I can think of right now... although it’s nothing like Jarmusch’s own vampire movie. A nice, gorgeously photographed piece of art that ambles along at its own pace and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Definitely a keeper. Reviewed here.


4. Ghost Theatre
Stupendously cool Hideo Nakata movie about a possessed doll which is like watching Mario Bava on acid in terms of its shot design and use of bright, primary colours. I just hope it gets some kind of release over here next year because, like Crimson Peak, it’s one of those films which is a ‘must own’ on Blu Ray. Reviewed by me here.


3. It Follows
When this came out I was pretty sure that this was going to be my number one movie of the year. A cool American horror movie which is formulaic but which looks, sounds and feels like a classic 1970s US horror film. The fact that it’s not in my number one slot shows that I had at least a slightly better year at the cinema than I at first thought. I reviewed this one here.


2. Carol
Beautiful film about a 1950s lesbian relationship which is lovely to behold and, with its pseudo-Philip Glass score by... um... by Carter Burwell... it sounds as good as it looks. Truly gorgeous movie making with a certain sense of subtlety to it and the kind of thing I would like to see more of playing at our cinemas. My review here.


1. The Incident (El Incidente)
This movie is like watching a drawing by Escher come to life. It’s elliptical, confusing, needs decoding and is, very occasionally, completely impenetrable. Since this has no release in this country and is not likely, as far as I can make out, to get one, I am in somewhat of a quandary because it’s definitely one of those films you need to watch again and start to look out for the bits you missed in the hopes it’ll make more sense in places on subsequent viewings. Still, a truly great film and my number one pick for the year. I reviewed this here.

Avengers - Age Of Ultron

Stark They Were 
And Golden Eyed

Avengers - Age Of Ultron
2015  USA
Directed by Joss Whedon
UK cinema release print

Warning: Really quite huge spoilers implied in the text here... 
don’t read before watching if you really don’t want to know.

Okay. Where to start on this big beast of a movie?

There’s been a lot of pre-hype to this next Avengers movie, as can be expected. Clips started being released maybe a year ago? I think in the case of this movie that was maybe a bit of a mistake because, honestly, the clips released are probably some of the best parts of the film and I could have done with, especially the Hulk-Buster armour, being a bit more of a surprise. Maybe I would have responded to the film a little better if it had been.

Now, I have to say that this is certainly not a bad film and neither, despite first impressions, is it a mess of a movie. It’s actually quite a good, solid little entertainment. However, it’s also not a great movie and, if I totted up some kind of personal ranking for the Marvel Phase 1 and Phase 2 movies, I guess, for me, it would come about halfway down the list.

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I actually gave the original Avengers movie a not so hot review (read it here) and I have to say I was kinda disappointed with that one at the time. However, I rewatched it on Blu Ray about a year later and, it has to be said, it grew on me quite a bit and I really enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. This new film isn’t half as good, in my opinion, and it’s certainly not up to the standards of, say, more recent Marvel movies like Iron Man 3 (reviewed here) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here)... although I liked it a hell of a lot more than the Marvel Universe Phase 2 movie that preceded it (and you can read that review here).

But, like I’ve said before, this particular set of Marvel universe films have been put together by producers who have an uncanny knack of both getting perfect casting (there’s not a bad or inappropriate performance in this film) and picking just the right directors for the job. Following up on this we have writer/director Joss Whedon, who directed the first Avengers movie and was presumably chosen, at least partially, because of his proven ability to work wonders with films and TV shows which require a strong, unifying story arc involving interaction with a large ensemble of characters... such as Firefly, Serenity and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Once again he manages to skillfully wield this army of ever increasing characters that the producers are throwing at him to get something that, while not always gold, is at least very serviceable and satisfying in parts.

The movie once again features Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner (Hulk), Chris Evans as Steve Rogers (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth as Thor (you know... The Mighty), Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and an impressive roster of other regular characters from the Phase Marvel Universe popping up in places where you’d like to see them... the only noticeable absences being Downey Jr’s and Chris Hemsworth’s leading ladies from their stand alone films. Added to this cast are four new characters including the titular character Ultron, a bad guy voiced and motion captured by James Spader. We also have the Iron Man series regular Paul Bettany back as both his usual “voice of Jarvis” and the first live action movie incarnation of “The Vision”, although this character’s origins are terribly messed around with. One good thing about that, though, is the fact that the actor having also voiced Jarvis is absolutely accounted for in the course of the story at an almost metatextual level.

Two other new characters on board are “the twins” Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, aka Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch as played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olson respectively. Now this is an interesting thing because, as I mentioned in my review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pietro is also in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise now, played by a different actor and with different origins. In the original comics he was a mutant (as he presumably is in X-Men: Days Of Future Past - reviewed here) and both he and The Scarlet Witch started out as villains in the 1960s, part of Magneto’s mutant army, before switching sides and joining The Avengers. In Avengers: Age Of Ultron they are, instead, genetically enhanced humans who have been modified by agents of H.Y.D.R.A. So it will be interesting to see if audiences get confused with Quicksilver’s inclusion, in two completely different guises, in both franchises.

Asides from the company politics which allowed for stuff like this to happen, however, I’m happy to report that Spader, Bettany, Taylor-Johnson and Olson all do a great job and more than hold their own against the regular cast members in this movie... which can’t be an easy task when there’s so much talent in the room, so to speak.

So there’s bad things and there’s good with this movie.

For starters, while Banner/Hulk is more integrated into the plot in this one, not to mention a romantic sub-plot with one of the other characters, he also has less impact. In the first movie, they held back on Hulk a little and when he did get a couple of moments, they really counted and were extremely funny. The humour of all the characters is still in here but, especially with Hulk, its quite toned down.

Another problem for me is the structure. This kind of tent peg movie usually builds to a spectacular climax and, though it certainly has a lot of money up there on the screen and has an epic feel to the way it’s been shot and edited... it still feels like there’s a heck of a lot less going on than in the previous collective outing. I think one of the reasons for that is that there’s no real surprise in terms of opposition at the end. In the first film, Loki was the bad guy and it wasn’t until the last hour that he brought on thousands of aliens and even some bigger alien flying slug thingies... the stakes kept getting bigger, at least on a visual level. In this one, although the stakes get bigger in terms of what’s actually going on, on an eye candy level with the antagonist it’s just... more of the same. We have loads of multiple variants of Ultron and he’s everywhere at once. When he’s killed or seems near defeat he brings on... more Ultrons. Yeah, okay, we’ve seen that trick more than once throughout the movie... we didn’t really need to see it again. Now my regular readers know I’m not one for going with a standard, cause and effect, build to a big finale structure and usually revel in films which are brave enough to take a less obvious approach... but in the case of this film I think it does kinda hurt the picture a little, if I’m being honest. I also don’t think it’s anyones fault because, until you get this stuff in an editing room, you’re kind of rolling the dice as to how what you’ve captured and created digitally comes across and so... I think it’s just one of those things. Saying that, I think most people will be more than satisfied with the structure and spectacle in this one... so I’m probably in a minority on this point.

There are some truly nice moments in this too, though.

For instance, there’s an extended version of the pre-release clip Hammer scene, where The Avengers are having a party and everybody, or almost everybody, tries to lift Thor’s hammer off the table. It’s quite fun but... Joss Whedon’s genius doesn’t stop there... it’s actually a really nice set up for a punch line which comes into play for the last act of the movie. So if you do get fed up with this early sequence, remember that it’s all an elaborate set up for a great and humorous moment later on in the movie which also, I should add, tells you everything you need to know about the calibre of one of the new characters and is pretty great movie shorthand for getting a feeling of trust and bonding with the core group of Avengers going. It’s a really nice moment when it happens and, judging from the gasps of glee from the audience I was with... you’ll probably know just what I’m talking about if you’ve seen this film.

Another great thing here is that none of the new characters are skimped on. Sure we get less coverage than maybe most of the regulars do but, the new characters aren’t just treated like add ons here... they have a sense of history and identity, even The Vision, and because of this there’s a great moment towards the end of the film where... oh wait... that really would be a spoiler too far but... well... lets just say, I didn’t see that coming. So that was kinda unexpected which, with modern movies, can only be a good thing.

Another great moment is where we realise that, as much as we think we know these characters from the previous films, there’s always something new up their sleeve. Take Hawkeye, for example. Not only does he very quickly and efficiently, temporarily take care of a character who has pretty much knocked out the entire team at one point, but when the chips are down he fleas with his team to his safe house where we, and most of the team (only Natasha Romanoff knows this fact about Hawkeye which, given their history, is no surprise), get to meet Hawkeye's best kept secret... his wife and kids. So this is all good stuff and it’s in moments like this that we see Joss Whedon’s beating heart breathing life into these four colour creations and bringing the humanity, along with his cast and crew, to these famous creations.

And then there’s the music...

I’ve commented before on the dire lack of musical continuity within the Marvel Phase One and Two movies and have tried to justify it to myself by comparing it to a comic drawn by the same artist but with different inkers each issue. However, this film has two music credits which, surprisingly, come up separately... Music by Brian Tyler and Music by Danny Elfman. The credits don’t share the same screen and, with an album release towards the end of next month which seems to have different cues by each of the two artists, I’m guessing this was not a collaboration. So what happened here? Was Brian Tyler busy because his time on the project over ran and Elfman was called in to score the rest? Or did the producers just reject part of Tyler’s score and instead of having Elfman replace it all, just had him rewrite the bits they didn’t like. I’m sure it’ll be a while before the truth of that situation is revealed to enquiring minds but, it has to be said, the real surprise here is how well this patchwork approach works in the final movie. Both composers seem to have made themselves subservient to certain films in the history of some of the characters and are happily quoting from various themes throughout the series. This gives it a nice musical continuity which really, and puzzlingly, seems to be quite successful...although it has to be said that it’s a noisy movie and a lot still gets lost in the sound design.

So there’s that.

There’s only a mid credits end scene in this one and, if truth be told, it really feels like a retread of an end credits scene from one of the previous movies. However, the film leaves the movie in a spot where it’s quite clear where the characters can go from here and this thing seems to be leading directly into the next Thor and Captain America/Iron Man movies. It’s also getting clearer how the second Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, when it gets made, will jigsaw nicely into proceedings when it comes time for the big two part Avengers Infinity War movies which will signal the end of Phase Three... as this one signals the end of what the Marvel people call Phase Two. Meanwhile, we’ve got the first Phase Three movie, Ant Man, being released in a few months and, since that character and his many later incarnations also has such a strong history with The Avengers in the 1960s and 1970s comics, it will be interesting to see just how many characters they can try and cram into Infinity Wars when it finally hits our screens a few years from now.

But for now we have this film, Avengers: Age Of Ultron and, though I was a little disappointed in places, it’s really not a bad movie and I reckon if I take another look at it at some point soon, I might enjoy it better. My experience with films of a certain type is that sometimes my brain doesn't enjoy the movie too much the first go around because it’s too busy processing all the information some directors like to cram in. So there’s no need for me to recommend this one... if you are into superhero movies which, in the mightly Marvel manner, are pretty much modern morality plays dealing with broad stroke issues then this one’s right up your street. Like I said at the start of the review, it’s certainly not a mess and it’s worth taking a look.