Movie Battle: The Best Disney Animated Film, Round 2

 Round One of the Movie Battle is in the books.  We had 32, Disney Films, enter this tournament now we are down to just 16!  So welcome to the Sweet Sixteen! 

We had a crazy first round, that had a few surprises!  We witnessed a number one seed lose to an eight seed and a number two seed lose to a seven.  We watched as two different games went down to the wire and had a difference of less than 3 percent.  So here are the results of the first round!

Winning film will have there percentage of votes next to there name.

Princess Brackett:

#8 Mulan (56.67%) upsets #1 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

#4 Cinderella (75%) beats #5 Sleeping Beauty

#3 The Little Mermaid (70%) beats #6 Frozen

#2 Beauty and the Beast (78.33%) beats #7 Tangled

Talking Animal Brackett:

#1 The Lion King (88.33%) devours #8 Bolt

#4 Dumbo (50.82%) barely survives #5 Bambi

#3 Zootopia (51.67%) beats #6 Lady and the Tramp

#7 The Jungle Book (55%) upsets #2 101 Dalmatians

Pixar Brackett:

#1 Toy Story (70%) is no match for #8 Walle

#4 Inside Out (61.67%) holds off #5 Ratatouille

#3 Finding Nemo (60%) beats #6 UP

#7 The Incredibles (56.67%) upsets #2 Toy Story 3

Wild Card Brackett:

#1 Pinocchio (55%) beats #8 Alice in Wonderland

#5 Big Hero 6 (56.67%) upsets #4 The Nightmare Before Christmas

#3 Aladdin (68.33%) beats #6 Tarzan

#2 Moana (51.67%) holds off #7 Lilo and Stitch

Movie with the Most Votes: The Lion King (53 out of 60)

Here are your Round Two Match Ups!

Princess Brackett:

#8 Mulan vs #4 Cinderella

#3 The Little Mermaid vs #2 Beauty and the Beast

Talking Animal Brackett:

#1 The Lion King vs #4 Dumbo

#3 Zootopia vs #7 The Jungle Book

Pixar Brackett:

#1 Toy Story vs #4 Inside Out

#3 Finding Nemo vs #7 The Incredibles

Wild Card Brackett:

#1 Pinocchio vs #5 Big Hero 6

#3 Aladdin vs #2 Moana

VOTE HERE

https://surveynuts.com/surveys/take?id=131367&c=2574267749VPPF

Movie Battle: The Best Disney Animated Film! Round One!

Have you ever had a debate about which movie is king?  Well, Movie Battles is where we end those debates! 

Our very first Movie Battle will help us determine which Disney movie is King!  We have 32 films in our tournament, divided into 4 different brackets. (Princess Bracket, Talking Animal Bracket, Pixar Bracket, Wild Card Bracket)  In each bracket the films are ranked 1-8.  We came up with each films rank by which film had the highest Rotten Tomatoes score. 

Here are our Round One match ups.

Princess Bracket:
#1 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs vs #8 Mulan
#5 Sleeping Beauty vs #4 Cinderella
#3 The Little Mermaid vs #6 Frozen
#2 Beauty and the Beast vs #7 Tangled

Talking Animals Bracket:
#1 The Lion King vs #8 Bolt
#5 Bambi vs #4 Dumbo
#3 Zootopia vs #6 Lady and the Tramp
#7 The Jungle Book vs #2 101 Dalmatians

Pixar Bracket:
#1 Toy Story vs #8 Walle
#5 Ratatouille vs #4 Inside Out
#3 Finding Nemo vs #6 UP
#2 Toy Story 3 vs #7 The Incredible

The Wild Card Bracket:
#1 Pinocchio vs #8 Alice in Wonderland
#5 Big Hero 6 vs #4 The Nightmare Before Christmas
#3 Aladdin vs #6 Tarzan
#7 Lilo and Stitch vs #2 Moana

Vote Below!!

Princess Bracket and Talking Animal Bracket:
https://surveynuts.com/surveys/take?id=130407&c=2555455589JVTF

Pixar Bracket and The Wild Cards Bracket:
https://surveynuts.com/surveys/take?id=130408&c=2555475185HPPL


Voting will remain open until March 31, 2017.

  Vote as many times as you would like. 

Next weekend I will post results of this poll as well as Round two of the tournament!

Have fun battling!!

Adam

almostsideways.com

Year in Review: Terry's Top Ten Films of 2015

It's been a long time coming, but I have finally seen enough films to feel confident enough to write my top ten list of last year.  I try to make it a rule that I don't finalize my top ten list of the year until I have at least seen all the Best Picture nominees.  With my busy schedule, it usually takes until around now for that to happen.  As I think I say every year, it is better late than never.

To date, I have watched 28 films from 2015.  I realize probably all of my counterparts have seen that many, if not more, already in 2016 (my 2016 total right now is 3), however I have seen enough quality throughout the 2015 canon that I have no problem proclaiming my top ten of the year.  Here we go!

Honorable Mention

Southpaw

(dir. by Antoine Fuqua)

The Good Dinosaur

(dir. by Peter Sohn)

The Big Short

(dir. by Adam McKay)

10.  Beasts of No Nation

(dir. by Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Many people complained this year about racial bias in the Academy voting.  I think that is an unfair assessment and evaluation of the situation.  Yes, there were no African-Americans nominated in a major category this year.  However, the issue wasn't racial bias but a bias against streaming services.  The best chances African-Americans had at getting nominated was in Beasts of No Nation, a beautifully tragic film about the abduction, recruitment, brainwashing, and training of child soldiers in third world countries.  The film's star, Abraham Attah, deserved a nomination similar to Quvenzhane Wallis is 2012.  Idris Elba looked destined for his first nomination and an outside chance at winning.  At the very least, it would get the attention of the tech categories for the beautiful work of Fukunaga and his crew, showing that the first season of True Detective was a sign of the greatness to come from this young filmmaker.  However, it got no recognition.  Why?  It wasn't because of the all black cast.  It was because it was released on Netflix.  It received enough of a theatrical run to qualify for awards season, but everyone could see the film streaming online as soon as it was released.  Maybe this meant none of the important people saw it.  Maybe it meant all the moneymakers in Hollywood refused to vote for a film that refused to bring in a box office income.  Either way, Beasts of No Nation didn't get the credit it so much deserved.  Go find it on Netflix now if you haven't seen it.  It will break your heart.

9.  Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

(dir. by JJ Abrams)

Now to shift gears in the furthest direction possible from the last film, here's Star Wars, the biggest box office darling of 2015.  There is a reason it made so much money though.  It was that good.  It was a film that brought the franchise back down to earth ... or whatever planet they happened to be on.  George Lucas ruined the prequels with overuse of the digital.  JJ Abrams made it all look real again.  Sure, there are way too many parallels between this and A New Hope to ignore, however it doesn't change the fact that it was possibly the most entertaining theatrical experience of the year.

8.  Room

(dir. by Lenny Abrahamson)

This was the last film I required myself to watch before I made my list, and I am so glad I did.  This film is very similar to 2011's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as it explains a horrific experience and ordeal through the eyes of a child.  However, where Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close resorted to mental illness and puzzles to connect with the audience, Room stayed much more down to earth as we see possibly the most honest and genuine performance of the year, and I am not talking about Oscar-winner Brie Larson.  Jacob Tremblay's performance in this should go down as one of the greatest child performances of all time.  His unique perspective on life and the world is shown in every moment he, or his voice, is on screen.  Somehow, this heartbreaking story of abduction and captivity is made heartfelt and inspiring through both Larson's and Tremblay's performances.

7.  The Revenant

(dir. by Alejandro G. Inarritu)

He did it again.  Who, you might ask?  There are several perfectly acceptable answers to this question.  Let's start with director Alejandro G. Inarritu.  Just one year earlier, Inarritu took home Oscars for Best Director and Picture for his groundbreaking film Birdman.  Now, he goes in a completely opposite direction and tells this story of struggle and survival in the wilderness.  His keen eye for beautiful filmmaking and setting in this might be rivaled only by Ang Lee in today's Hollywood.  Now, the other very acceptable answer to my original question is, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio.  Although he may have finally been recognized by the Academy with his first Oscar for this film, he once again proves that he might go down as one of the greatest actors of all time.  He has such a natural ability to disappear into any role he plays, and not in a campy, makeup way like Johnny Depp.  Leo just simply is whoever he needs to be.  Whether it be as the "King of the World" in Titanic, a con-artist kid in Catch Me If You Can, an eccentric entrepreneur in The Aviator, an undercover cop in The Departed, a plantation owner in Django Unchained, a crooked stock broker in The Wolf of Wall Street, or a man mauled by a bear determined to survive and live in The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio delivers the most believable performances in any film he makes.  He is simply the best of his generation, and it is about time the Academy honored him as such.

6.  Ex Machina

(dir. by Alex Garland)

This was definitely the biggest surprise of the year.  This brilliant film by Alex Garland, who had written several screenplays but was making his directorial debut here, explored the world of true artificial intelligence.  Appearing yet again on this list, Oscar Isaac (Star Wars) and Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars, The Revenant) star as the mad scientist and his guinea pig.  Alicia Vikander plays a robot that is very hard to recognize as such because she acts, thinks, reacts, and speaks just like a human.  It is an endlessly fascinating film that gets in your head and doesn't go away for awhile.  If you haven't seen it, do whatever you can to change that.

5.  The Hateful Eight

(dir. by Quentin Tarantino)

Why did I every doubt the master?  When I heard the plot and even saw the trailer for The Hateful Eight, it felt like a film that was bound to disappoint.  Quentin Tarantino makes films like no one else has ever even thought of.  However, a second consecutive film about a bounty hunter; this time stuck in a room for two hours with a bunch of other people?  Really?  I was skeptical to say the least.  Then I saw it and hated myself for ever thinking Tarantino could produce anything but a masterpiece.  This film's closest relative is definitely Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's first film.  However, he also does things Tarantino has never done before.  He takes the time for long, landscape shots.  A filmmaker obsessed with dialogue let this film breathe almost more than any other film he has made.  I have said before that Quentin Tarantino has created his own genre.  The Hateful Eight shows that he is still the king of that genre he created.

4.  Brooklyn

(dir. by John Crowley)

Brooklyn is a beautiful story of love, loss, and self-discovery.  It is like a 20th century Jane Austen tale.  Saoirse Ronan is absolutely brilliant as a young Irish girl leaving everything she knows to find a new and better life for herself in America.  You know it is a good film when you are sad it ends because you want to live in these characters' lives a little longer.  I loved every minute of it.  On a side note, let's recognize the amazing year Domhnall Gleeson put together.  This is his fourth appearance in my top ten.  Few actors find enough work to put out four movies in a year.  Not only did Gleeson accomplish that, but all four films are among the very best of 2015.  Well done!

3.  The Martian

(dir. by Ridley Scott)

I have very high standards for movies in outer space, especially realistic ones.  Apollo 13 has scarred me for life.  With that said, The Martian is the closest thing to the greatness of Apollo 13 I have seen.  Matt Damon plays an astronaut left for dead on the Martian surface.  To everyone's surprise, including his own, he is still alive and must survive on Mars until someone can come get him.  Everyone made fun of the fact that this was categorized as a comedy at the Golden Globes.  Although I wouldn't classify it as such, it is quite funny.  Matt Damon and others are able to keep this potentially tragic survival story light and humorous throughout.  I normally am not a huge fan of Ridley Scott, but he really produced a masterpiece with this one.

2.  Spotlight

(dir. by Tom McCarthy)

The surprise winner of Best Picture deserved every accolade it received.  I have been a fan of Tom McCarthy's work for some time.  His unique way of telling stories in films like The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Win Win is always heartfelt and approachable, not matter the topic.  I even liked The Cobbler much more than I should have!  Now we find McCarthy's masterpiece.  Spotlight tells the true story of the investigation done by the Boston Globe surrounding child abuse and molestation in the Catholic church.  It is a heavy and depressing topic that could easily be preachy.  However, the film takes a very different approach.  It simply tells the story from the point of view of the reporters.  At no point do we "see" anything because the reporters didn't see anything.  Every character is a real person as the performances are some of the most understated and brilliant you will see on screen.  This is led by Liev Schreiber, an outsider new to the area that brings a fresh set of eyes to a topic many seemed to turn a blind eye to in the close-knit community of Boston.  It is a quiet, real, yet intense movie you cannot take your eyes off of.  Movies don't get much better than this.

1.  Inside Out

(dir. by Pete Docter & Ronnie Del Carmen)

Pixar is king when it comes to animated films.  They simply operate on a different level than every other animated studio.  Their secondary film this year made my honorable mention!  However, every now and then, they make a film that is truly a masterpiece regardless of whether it is animated or live action.  Inside Out is one of those films.  It is fun and entertaining for the kids, yet it has a message that is profound and genuine.  This film takes you inside the head of a young girl where her five key emotions (Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness) control her actions and attitude.  The intricate world that is built to represent her mind is a genius way to describe how our brains work.  As chaos enters the young girl's life, chaos erupts in the brain's control room as Joy must try and fix what has been broken.  Being someone who works with kids often, I had such a deeper appreciation for the immense thought and care that was put into such a story that really explores the psyche of a pre-teen better than any film I have ever seen.  When Pixar makes films like this and WALL-E, they are not only making a fun kid's film.  They are making a cinematic masterpiece that will stand the test of time.

So there's my list.  What do you think?  Check our page later this week to see what films made our site's top 5 films of 2015.

Power Rankings: Top 5 Pixar Films

With the release of the newest Pixar film, Finding Doy, lets count down the Top Five Pixar Films!  
Now all top list are subject for debate and discussion.  So lets start one, here is my list!

Honorable Mentions: Up, Ratatouille, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo

5.

Wall-E

Starting off our list is the crazy and curious little robot named

Wall-E.  I remember watching this film in theaters, with a ton of kids and their families.  I know i left the theater with a greater appreciation of this film then the kids did.  That's what makes Pixar so great,  their films are entertaining for kids and thought provoking for adults. 

4.

Toy Story

The one that started it all and made Pixar a force to be reckoned with in animation. This was every kids dream, to make their toys come to life.  Buzz and Woody are the greatest characters that Pixar have ever created and the most endearing as well. 

3.

Monster's Inc.

This film answered the age old question, Is there a monster in my closet?  The monster's inc. universe is such a fun and interesting place to be apart of.  I loved every minute of it.  I was glad that Pixar made a sequel to this hit film too.  Though, it didn't live up to the original.  

2.

Inside Out

One of the newest additions to the Pixar filmography.  Inside Out has to be the craziest idea for a film, that has the best pay off!  It is a movie that made me cry, several times through out and made me laugh just as much.  It should of gotten some best picture love at the Oscars in 2016 but at least it won, best animated film!

1. 

Toy Story 3

Now if you would of told me, that back in 1995 when the original Toy Story released that it would be the beginning of a trilogy, I wouldn't believe you.  The reason why is because I didn't know what a trilogy was back then and that I thought the first film was perfect as is.  With each chapter of Toy Story films, you can see that Pixar has love for these characters.  This is their baby and they totally don't want to put out a bad film.  What a heart felt, tear jerking, and fun time this film showed us!  Totally worthy of the top spot on my list and other peoples list as well!

Pixar is money $ when it comes to films!

What is your top five films?

Comment Below!

Adam

Year in Review: Todd’s Top 10 Films of 2015

2015 was a notably average year. The best films were pretty good, but at no point did I feel like I was watching something that would have been in my top few films of any of the previous five years. This makes our top 10 lists a bit watered down, but they are all really solid films that are worth seeing and remembering 2015 for. The year was dominated, of course, by Star Wars and the Marvel franchises, but those were not the best films of the year. Box office surprises like The Martian and Straight Outta Compton highlighted the fact that audiences are actually after fresh stories and original ideas and that you don’t actually need to make a popcorn movie to get people in the seats. Check out what my top movie-going experiences of 2015 were after a quick year in review…

Films seen: 90

Thumbs Up percentage: 55.56% (55.56% at this point in 2014!)

Actor of the year: Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, Show Me a Hero, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Actress of the year: Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight, Anomalisa, Welcome to Me)

 

Best Actor: Robin Williams – Boulevard, Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant, Matt Damon – The Martian, Richard Gere – Time Out of Mind, Jack O’Connell – ’71

Best Actress: Kristen Wiig – Welcome to Me, Arielle Holmes – Heaven Knows What, Elisabeth Moss – Queen of Earth, Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn, Rooney Mara – Carol

Best Supporting Actor: Richard Jenkins – Bone Tomahawk, Benicio Del Toro – Sicario, Emory Cohen – Brooklyn, Idris Elba – Beasts of No Nation, Jin-woong Jo – A Hard Day

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight, Suzanne Clement – Mommy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Faults, Chloe Grace-Moretz – Clouds of Sils Maria, Mya Taylor – Tangerine

Best Original Screenplay: The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Sicario, Dope, Digging for Fire

Best Adapted Screenplay: Carol, The End of the Tour, Brooklyn, Steve Jobs, Beasts of No Nation

Best Ensemble Cast: The Hateful Eight, Digging for Fire, Mommy, Carol, Black Mass

Most underrated film: Dope

Most overrated film: Kingsman: The Secret Service

Biggest surprise: It Follows

Biggest disappointment: Everest

Best sequel: Mad Max: Fury Road

Worst sequel: Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Great indie films that no one saw: Bone Tomahawk, Cop Car, Digging for Fire, Faults, Heaven Knows What, Results

Bottom five of the year (from bad to worst): Serena, The Cobbler, Jupiter Ascending, Lost River, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus

Film I still need to see: 99 Homes, Anomalisa, The Assassin,  Chi-Raq, Coming Home, Jaraf Panahi’s Taxi, The Look of Silence, Son of Saul, Straight Outta Compton

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES

15. Results (directed by Andrew Bujalski)

14. Timbuktu (directed by Abderrahmane Sissako)

13. Ex Machina (directed by Alex Garland)

12. The Revenant (directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

11. Trainwreck (directed by Judd Apatow)

10. Welcome to Me (directed by Shira Piven) It pains me to leave Trainwreck off, especially in favor of another female-centric comedy, but Welcome to Me is something special. Kristen Wiig, Oscar-worthy, plays Alice, a woman with borderline personality disorder who winds up winning the lottery, quitting her medication, then funds her own network talk show, starring only herself. The show is awful, but voyeuristically fascinating. Welcome to Me reminds me quite a bit of HBO’s failed, but sort of cult classic Lisa Kudrow series The Comeback. The humor is so biting and uncomfortable, but it is realistic and hard to look away. Ironically, in a year when Adam McKay might be a Best Director nominee, it is his wife Shira Piven who makes one of the best comedies of the year and who should be getting the recognition.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Actress – Kristen Wiig [1^st]

9. Dope (directed by Rick Famuyiwa) This was one of the biggest surprises of 2015. Shameik Moore plays Malcolm, a geek of ‘90s hip hop culture who gets in over his head with a drug dealer and others in The Bottoms, one of the notoriously toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, CA. The movie is filled with big laughs and original characters, and while it is in love with ‘;90s hip hop and everything about that culture and lifestyle, it also feels undeniably 2015. It is equal parts Superbad, Boyz N the Hood, Better Luck Tomorrow, even including shades of The Girl Next Door. I actually think it surpasses every one of those movies. It is a complete original and a movie that I can see revisiting as much as any movie last year.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Original Screenplay [4^th; The Hateful Eight], Best Original Song (“Go Head”) [1^st], Best Original Song (“Can’t Bring Me Down”) [3^rd]

8. Brooklyn (directed by John Crowley) Eilis (Saorise Ronan, incredible) is a young Irish girl who is immigrating to the US in 1950s Brooklyn. While there, she experiences intolerable roommates and unexpected love, while trying to make a living and rid herself of her homesickness and a life that she left behind. The movie is almost flawless. It gives perspective into class and relationships, but what makes it different is its absolute love for New York and how it doesn’t simply fall into the cliché coming-of-age subgenre. It is a bittersweet film that is absolutely old-fashioned, but in a good way. The changes that we see Eilis go through are as beautiful and rewarding as any movie experience I had in 2015.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Actress – Saoirse Ronan [4^th; Kristen Wiig], Best Supporting Actor – Emory Cohen [3^rd; Richard Jenkins], Best Director [4^th; Todd Haynes], Best Adapted Screenplay [3^rd; Carol], Best Costume Design [5^th; ‘71],

7. Digging for Fire (directed by Joe Swanberg) This is another case of my unexplained love for mumblecore and its talented filmmakers. Swanberg also had one of my favorite movies of 2013, Drinking Buddies. His 2015 effort, Digging for Fire, is one of those special little movies that is the perfect mix of subtle comedy and dark themes. The movie is about Tim (Jake Johnson, co-writer) and his wife Lee (the underrated Rosemarie DeWitt), who discover a bone and a gun buried in the backyard of a home they are house-sitting, while having a get-together with friends. The film is low-key, as you could probably guess by starring Johnson, but it is also true and meaningful. The quest to figure out where the bone and gun came from might be easy screenwriting ploys, but it works within the context of this movie. It gives insight into the ups and down of marriage, of love. The ensemble cast lends commendable support, including Brie Larson, Orlando Bloom, Sam Rockwell, Sam Elliott, Anna Kendrick, among others. It is a special movie and one that really gets under your skin and stays there. Swanberg has gone from no-budget films to these borderline mainstream movies within a decade. He could be our next Woody Allen in another 10 years.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Original Screenplay [5^th; The Hateful Eight], Best Ensemble Cast [2^nd; The Hateful Eight]

6. Faults (directed by Riley Stearns) This is a movie that I do not expect anyone else to have on their list. I watched it on Netflix, and I was drawn in more than almost any other movie I saw last year. It is about Ansel (Leland Orser, fanstastic), a man whose job is to provide seminars and materials to debunk cults and mind control, is sort of roped into helping out an old married couple whose daughter Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) was taken in by a cult and brainwashed. Following Ansel’s sketchy way of abducting Claire and locking her in a motel room with him for three days, it is strictly surprises and oddball occurrences and images throughout the entire second and third acts. Any more details would be a disservice to the experience of actually watching the movie, but it gets bizarre and totally enthralling. The implications from the ending make it almost terrifying.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Supporting Actress – Mary Elizabeth Winstead [3^rd; Jennifer Jason Leigh], Best Editing [4^th; Sicario],

5. The Hateful Eight (directed by Quentin Tarantino) Another Tarantino movie, another spot on my top 10 list. This is Tarantino’s third dive into the western(ish) genre, but again, it is not typical of that genre at all. It stars Kurt Russell as John Ruth, a bounty hunter with a prisoner Daisy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who are traveling across the wilderness to collect a bounty, but have to stop in a remote cabin with some other dangerous characters due to a blizzard. Each and every one of the characters is undeniably Tarantino, and the guessing game of who is playing who, and if anyone is actually who they say they are is fascinating and, finally, brutal. The technical and artistic achievements only enhance the atmosphere and make it QT’s most beautiful movie to look at. The final 45 minutes of this quick 3 hour movie are pure movie-going bliss, filled with gut-busting laughs (and violence) and some of the best one-liners Tarantino has ever written. It is not among his best movies, but it still is as good as anyone could do in 2015.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Picture [5^th], Best Supporting Actress – Jennifer Jason Leigh [1^st], Best Director [3^rd; Todd Haynes], Best Original Screenplay [1^st], Best Cinematography [2^nd; Sicario], Best Art Direction [3^rd; Ex Machina], Best Sound Mixing [5^th; The Martian], Best Original Score [1^st], Best Ensemble Cast [1^st]

4. Cobain: Montage of Heck (directed by Brett Morgen) There may be a bit of eye-rolling in seeing this movie on my top 10, but that would be from those who haven’t actually seen the movie. Yes, I have a lifelong love of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, but this documentary is not just a send-up or worshipping of its tragic genius front man. It has some raw invasive footage of Kurt Cobain and his tumultuous lover Courtney Love shot by her ex in their apartment that is deeply unflattering and somewhat mesmerizing at the same time. You really get an idea of what Cobain was like in his personal life by the reading of his diaries and suicide note, which has always been somewhat of a mystery. There are interviews with all of the most important people to really tell the story of his fame rise and fall in the most provocative way. This is not a documentary about the conspiracy, it is about an artist and the environment that fed his genius and how that same environment led to his insanity and ruin. It is a movie that really shook me and one that should be seen even by those who didn’t hold Cobain up on as high of a pedestal as I do. It's haunting.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Picture [4^th], Best Documentary Feature [1^st]

3. Sicario (directed by Denis Villeneuve) This was a movie whose trailer sold me unlike any other from 2015. Somehow, the movie was even better than I could have imagined. Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) is an FBI agent who gets recruited to be part of a task force to infiltrate the drug wars at the US-Mexico border. The cartel had rigged a bomb that took out members of her team, so she is willing to do whatever it takes to seek justice. She is joined by the irritating Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and the mysterious and brutal Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro, Oscar-level) in her efforts. The movie is incredibly dark, which is probably self-explanatory given that it is helmed Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve and written by Sons of Anarchy vet Taylor Sheridan. The second half of the movie will have you on the edge of your seat, and while not every single scene works, the vast majority do and are absolutely breathtaking. When I first saw it, I said it is a cross between Traffic, No Country for Old Men, The Silence of the Lambs, Breaking Bad, and Zero Dark Thirty. I still cannot explain this movie any better. It is the real deal.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Picture [3^rd], Best Supporting Actor – Benicio Del Toro [#2; Richard Jenkins], Best Director [2^nd; Todd Haynes], Best Original Screenplay [3^rd; The Hateful Eight], Best Cinematography [1^st], Best Sound Mixing [2^nd; The Martian], Best Editing [1^st]

2. Inside Out (directed by Pete Docter) Sometimes it is discouraging when you see a movie early in the year that remains at the top throughout, but in the cast of Pixar, it is becoming a regular occurrence and no longer something to feel bad about. Inside Out is one of their best movies yet. The main (human) character is Riley, a young girl whose family moves from lovely Minnesota to horrible San Francisco. She is homesick and loses the charm (and hockey!) she has always had. The actual main characters are her emotions Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. They have a sort of control center in her mind and are able to shape how and what she feels to an extent. It is a beautiful movie and one that is almost impossible to not tear up at. Docter is the best director at Pixar, adding this gem to Monster’s Inc. and Up. This movie especially shows that the best movies that they make are their original ideas. This was probably their most ambitious effort, and it comes up all aces. With time, it could very well settle into the #1 spot of 2015.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Picture [2^nd], Best Original Screenplay [2^nd; The Hateful Eight], Best Original Score [3^rd; The Hateful Eight], Best Animated Feature [1^st]

1. Carol (directed by Todd Haynes) Todd Haynes is a genius. He is as great of an auteur as any director working today. This isn’t even his own material, yet it still feels unmistakably Haynes. The movie centers on Therese (Rooney Mara) and Carol (Cate Blanchett), a young photographer and a mysterious older woman who begin an unexpected and passionate love affair in 1950s New York. From the opening frames, the audience’s eyes are glued to the screen, marveling at the flawless performances and stunning sets and costumes. The drama grows deeper and becomes something similar to a Hitchcock aching romantic film in the ‘40s. There is not a false note or line that does not ring completely true. It is a meticulously-detailed and rich screenplay. There was not a movie in 2015 that was as in touch with its own tone and story as Carol. It is beautifully-mounted and tense, sexy, and ravishing. It may not quite have the impact of Far from Heaven or the vastness of Mildred Pierce, but it is hard to not refer to Carol as a Todd Haynes masterpiece. It lingers in your mind for days.

Personal nominations/wins: Best Picture [1^st], Best Actress – Rooney Mara [5^th; Kristen Wiig], Best Director [1^st], Best Adapted Screenplay [1^st], Best Cinematography [4^th; Sicario], Best Art Direction [4^th; Ex Machina], Best Costume Design [2^nd; ‘71], Best Original Score [2^nd; The Hateful Eight], Best Ensemble Cast [4^th; The Hateful Eight]

Thoughts? Comments? You list? Let me know below!

Year in Review: Zach's Top Ten Films of 2015

            Like the main character of my favorite film of this year, I became homesick for motion pictures in 2015.  In spite of the wealth of publications and breathless critics proclaiming the usurping of film by television (a claim that has been made on a regular basis since the 1940s), I still ardently believe, or am just too rigid to concede otherwise, that even the most pedestrian movies are still better than the best TV shows.  Yes, film may be a dying art (metaphorically as well as literally) and television may be in a “golden age” – whatever that means – but no television set, no matter how high-definition, can adequately replace the overwhelming totality of the theatergoing experience.  And for those who vigorously assert that a 13-episode season contains infinitely more complex narrative depth than even the most intricately written two-hour film, I would counter that most often in drama as in life (as well as with talkative guests at parties), less is more.

            Television remained a vast wasteland in 2015 (even in spite of a handful of watchable and engaging programs like Fargo, Better Call Saul and The Jinx), and while it is undeniable that many movies in 2015 might have been a wasteland too, at least their shorter running times enabled their experiences to be considerably less vast.  Of course, the most successful movies in 2015 were fundamentally derivative – sequels, franchises, remakes, rip-offs, or in some cases, all of the above – but let the populist audiences eat their cake.  At least films like Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens added much-needed diversity, youth, and an astute sense of political consciousness to their narratives rather than simply playing lazy old hat. 

            As for The Force Awakens, a film that outgrossed all six of its previous installments in the first week of its theatrical release: Say what you will about it (I personally enjoyed it more than I had ever expected to), but few can deny the powerful pull it had for young and old audiences alike, illustrating for better or for worse that commercial cinema still has that unique and inimitable ability to bring even the most disparate and dissimilar audiences together for the same cause.  Even the snarky cynical Marxist in me can take comfort in knowing that, in most cases, for a film to earn that much money (much of which derives from repeat viewings), it has to have some markers of quality.  Same with Jurassic World, Furious 7 and Spectre.  No one went to those movies because they were bad – people didn’t go to (or back to) Pan precisely because it was bad.  And the millions of Chinese audiences who saw Avengers: Age of Ultron and Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II had no other choice. It is wrong to blame movie audiences for all the bad movies released and the gradual erosion of taste and critical insight into media and storytelling.  People are usually smart, and great movies are genius.  Instead, let’s blame television.

2015 by the numbers

Total 2015 films seen: 61

“Thumbs up” percentage: 63.9 percent

Movies I haven’t seen that could still potentially make this list: The Revenant, Son of Saul, The Lobster, Anomalisa, Mustang, Eden, 45 Years, Taxi, Jauja.

Movies I’m proud to say I didn’t see: Cinderella, The Good Dinosaur, The Intern, Pixels, Fantastic Four, The Age of Adaline.

Overrated: Room, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (two of the year’s worst movies), What We Do In the Shadows, Bridge of Spies, Love and Mercy, Time Out of Mind, The Big Short, The Martian (It’s probably appropriately rated, but nowhere near deserving of Best Picture).

Underrated: The Walk, Dope, Unfriended, Boulevard, Paper Towns (not good, but so much better than Me and Earl…), Blackhat, the first 20 minutes of Fifty Shades of Grey, and yes, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (That’s for all the haters.)

Best Actor: Jason Segel, The End of the Tour

Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Best Supporting Actor: Liev Schreiber, Spotlight

Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina

Honorable Mention

Carol (Todd Haynes)

Inside Out (Pete Docter)

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) 

Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller) 

Sicario (Denis Villeneuve) 

The Top Ten

10. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino) If it feels obligatory putting another Tarantino film in my top ten list for the year, it is because his films represent the best aspects of motion pictures in general.  He is a visionary auteur who self-consciously invokes his cinephilia both on-and-off the screen.  His films are uncompromising, lengthy, full of circular and quirky inimitable characters and dialogue, and full of images that are as violent as they are inherently, romantically cinematic.  The Hateful Eight is chalk full of Tarantino, from the setting (a self-reflexive western) to the actors (Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Madsen, and Tim Roth, among others) to the over-the-top levels of bloodshed in the film’s second half.  But even in spite of those recognizable components, the film still feels fresh and engaging, portraying characters we want to know more about, events that have greater significance than what we could possibly initially comprehend, and outrageous moments that no other director would have the audacity to remotely approach.  In interviews, Tarantino has discussed how, in spite of being confided to a single interior space over a single 24-hour period, the story of The Hateful Eight is really the story of reconciliation after the Civil War between the North and the South.  This reconciliation is anything but seamless and, as Tarantino’s recent activism has demonstrated, neither has it been fully resolved in 2015.  But the way it is depicted in The Hateful Eight – through a surprising degree of delicacy and thoughtfulness in the midst of vast bloodshed and dismembered body parts – is as idiosyncratic and improbable as its virtuosic filmmaker.

9. Tangerine (Sean Baker) One of those wonderful and woefully rare movies where, after the first ten minutes, it is safe to say you have no idea what you have gotten yourself into.  As I wrote in my initial full-length review, the story is something of a cross between Paul Haggis’ Crash and The Jerry Springer Show: Two transgendered hookers (Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) spend 24 hours before Christmas hanging out in a donut shop, confronting a cheating ex-boyfriend, performing music at a local bar, soliciting johns on Hollywood Boulevard, and enacting revenge on an adulteress.  The movie is simultaneously funny, vulgar, sweet, gritty, trashy, and even surprisingly touching.  It is also somewhat groundbreaking; director Baker shot the entire film on an iPhone 5s using nothing more than an anamorphic adapter blow up the images.  The result is a crisp, detailed production that looks in no way as though it was filmed using a consumer device.  The film is by no means a “message” picture, but it is difficult to believe that even the most skeptical and socially rigid audience member would not be won over by the charming and diverse cast.  Ultimately, Tangerine is not about sex as much as it is about being an outsider, and how vital it is to combat the loneliness and isolation that comes with the territory of not belonging, with other people you can put your trust in.  Of course, the film is much too fun and subversive to be caught up with anything approximating that preachy of a message, but deep down, Tangerine has its heart firmly in the right place.

8. Goodnight Mommy (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala) After you see it, you will probably observe its narrative resemblance to certain other films and novels (which I dare not mention here), but for the most part, Goodnight Mommy is not concerned with plot – the film’s overwhelming concern is mood and atmosphere.  The story is told through the perspective of twin cherubic 10-year-old boys, Elias and Lukas (played by real-life brothers Elias and Lukas Schwarz), who inhabit an isolated house deep in the woods.  One day, a woman purporting to be their mother returns with bandages wrapped around her face after having undergone substantial facial reconstructive surgery (the first of two films on my list this year to involve a woman whose facial surgery brings her identity into question).  The boys quickly realize that the woman is not who she claims she is and they begin to craft ways of bringing their real mother back – the results of which become gradually more dark and twisted.  The film moves at a slow pace in the first half, only to move to a much more ominous, quick, and violent resolution in the second half; this strategy reveals itself as intentional at a certain point when revelations are revealed which call into question the reliability of some of the characters.  Like the best films of Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier, Goodnight Mommy contains a deep and unremittingly dark view of humanity, which in many respects is far more disturbing than any bloodshed depicted in the film.  It is the type of film that could never be made in the United States (or rather, if it was made, it would be more chopped up than Elias and Lukas’ mother’s face), and yet somehow after seeing it, your first impulse is to watch it again. 

7. The Walk (Robert Zemeckis) At this point, it is more than fair to call The Walk a box-office bomb (grossing only $10 million domestically, less money than The 33, Burnt, and The Gunman).  It has also been all but completely ignored by critics and end-of-year awards, which is rather inexplicable for a major studio film released in October to favorable reviews.  Maybe it was the PG rating, maybe it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s French accent (not bad at all in fact), or maybe everyone thought they already knew all about Phillippe Pettit’s incredible tightrope walk across the Twin Towers in 1974 after seeing the 2008 documentary Man on Wire.  Who knows.  In any event, Zemeckis’ film is a spectacular rendering of Pettit’s unconventional journey, first as a fearless street performer and amateur tightrope walker in Paris, then as an internationally-renown daredevil putting his life in danger for the sake of his art.  The story is a neat combination of Ocean’s Eleven and Hugo, and the supporting characters are interesting and serviceable, but the heart of The Walk is its incredible visual effects, which are truly heart-pounding and even stomach-inducing.  I must admit without hyperbole, my palms became unspeakably sweaty for most of the film’s final hour.  I suppose one must ask the same question that was asked of Avatar and Gravity, which is whether the IMAX 3D experience put a spectacular disguise on an otherwise pedestrian story.  But in this era where film and TV spectatorship has become disturbingly intertwined, The Walk serves a reminder that there is no other experience quite like an epic movie (on a movie theater screen) transporting you to a visual world few others have ever seen. 

6. The Lesson (Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov) This was an excellent under-the-radar film from Bulgaria that no one saw because it only played in a handful of festivals at U.S. cities (fortunately, it is available to stream right now on Netflix).  The story: An English teacher named Nadya (Margita Gosheva) is on the verge of bankruptcy, cohabiting with an insolvent alcoholic husband and a young daughter.  The film profiles a few days in her life, as creditors are able to track her down and threaten to foreclose on her house unless she can come up with a substantial sum of money.  Aesthetically and narratively, the film bears an unmistakable similarity to Two Days, One Night, as Nadya scrambles desperately to solicit assistance from friends and family (as well as the occasional perfect stranger), all while steadfastly struggling to maintain her dignity in the face of surrendering to defeat and humiliation.  It’s not as good as the Dardenne Brothers’ masterpiece, but I enjoyed the way the film goes to great lengths to establish an elaborate geographical and emotional universe (albeit on a small scale) that seems to throw hurdle after hurdle at the likeable and engaging heroine.  The film moves at a very quick pace, is often quite unpredictable, and even contains a few scenes of wicked and unexpected humor (such as Nadya’s confrontation with her estranged father’s new trophy wife).  And Gosheva’s performance is one of the year’s best, illustrating the stark realities of a desperate teacher trying haplessly to honor the same ethical code she so rigidly instills to her students.

5. The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt) From a purely subjective standpoint, there may have been no film more personally enjoyable to watch in 2015 than The End of the Tour, particularly in light of the considerable doubts I had walking into it.  Would the film lionize, demystify, or lampoon David Foster Wallace and his mythical literary status over the past two decades?  Would Ponsoldt dumb down Wallace’s complex and uncompromising personality, and how would his intellectual contributions be translated into a coherent narrative?  For all its audacity, the film finds its greatest success in how small it is, opting only to show a few days in Wallace’s life soon after the publication of Infinite Jest in 1996.  Not too far removed from Almost Famous, the film depicts a struggling young Rolling Stone writer named David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) given unprecedented access to Wallace (Jason Segel) at the precipice of his launch into international stardom.  The vast majority of The End of the Tour is the long, rambling, often unresolved conversations between the two protagonists, which recalls the rich and beautifully unkempt attitudes of 1970s cinema (particularly Wim Wenders and Eric Rohmer).  Set against a backdrop of the snowy Midwest, Wallace is depicted as a relentlessly self-conscious and earnest burgeoning intellectual, and the film is daring in the way it doesn’t shy away from frequent unspoken tension and hostility between him and Lipsky.  Both performances are outstanding, but Segel in particular ascends to completely new levels of acting, using a beautifully understated demeanor to hint at deep levels of despair and loneliness.  In spite of everything you may think you know about Wallace – and everything you think you know about Wallace’s acolytes and imitators – the film shows something new with dialogue that feels substantive and meaningful, which has become rare for the majority of commercial cinema.  

4. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy) The current front-runner for Best Picture is well-deserving of the praise which has been bestowed on it.  It is a story that could have easily gotten swept up in the hysteria and revelations of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, as exposed by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative reporting team in the early 2000s, but rather than being exploitative or overly political, the film wisely limits its purview solely to the perspectives of the journalists working on behalf of Spotlight.  Subsequently, the film isn’t really as much about the church abuse scandal as it is the contours and nuances of investigative journalism in the era just before the internet made access instantaneous and near-universal (and arguably rendering much previous investigative journalism benign and reactionary).  Like All the President’s Men, the film is singular in its focus on reconstructing events that occurred years earlier by characters we’re vaguely familiar with through name and verbal description only.  Even by the end of the film, we know considerably more about the much-ballyhooed classified church documents than we do about the personal lives of the reporters (played with uniformly strength by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d’Arcy James), which is precisely the point.  It would be a fallacy to praise the film on that one aspect alone, but it deserves recognition because McCarthy’s focus (as one of the film’s characters astutely points out) is not on the relatively inconsequential individuals involved, but the larger institutional systems that enabled and promoted years of abuse and cover-up.  The film also illuminates the power of ethical, painstakingly-researched journalism in a way that isn’t quite Frank Capra, but also isn’t cynical or jaded either.  Spotlight is quietly a David-and-Goliath story where the slingshot is replaced by the much more powerful mighty pen.

3. Ex Machina (Alex Garland) You may have heard that Ex Machina contains the best dance scene in recent cinematic memory (you would be correct).  It also is the best pure sci-fi film in an era when the notion of “sci-fi” has been relegated to mean bloated budgets, high-octane action with little attention to story, and superfluous special effects replacing intellectually probing questions about the future of human ingenuity.  In yet another remarkable performance in a truly prosing career, Oscar Isaac plays a somewhat-mad scientist named Nathan who invites a young protégé named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to participate in a Turing test at his remote laboratory in order to prove that his artificially intelligent fembot, Ava (Alicia Vikander), could pass for human.  Structurally, the film is essentially a cat-and-mouse game between Caleb and Nathan, with each one suspicious of the other’s motives and as a result, eager to make the next move before the other catches on.  All the while, Ava proves to be more truly more intelligent than either man suspects (the film has a nice undercurrent of feminism laced throughout), and eventually the battle of wits over who truly controls Ava transforms into a larger metaphor about what core elements remain uniquely human in a future when the vast majority of intelligence has become robotic.  Sure, it doesn’t boast the spectacular visual effects of Interstellar or The Martian, but it more than compensates through a story that is rich with intelligent, captivating dialogue about the ethics of engineering artificial life, as well as dramatic events that are truly surprising and unexpected in a genre whose tropes have often become instantly recognizable and predictable.  The claustrophobic atmosphere (one remote house, four characters) gives the film a feeling of immediacy and unease, while Garland’s camera and stark color scheme invite the viewer into a universe where human emotions are simultaneously nothing as well as the only thing. 

2. Phoenix (Christian Petzold) If The End of the Tour recalled Winders, then Phoenix undoubtedly invoked Rainer Fassbinder, full of melodramatic and absurd artifice in order succinctly depict a scathing critique of society and historical memory.  Taking place shortly after the end of World War II, the film depicts a Holocaust survivor named Nelly (Nina Hoss), whose face has been severely burned and deformed to the extent that she has been rendered unrecognizable – even to her husband, who survives the war and believes that she has died on the concentration camps. So there’s the Victor/Victoria conceit – Nelly pretending to be someone pretending to be herself – but that is only the first and most basic level of plot; the film really is much more concerned with asking the question what it means to be a Jewish Holocaust survivor in a world where there are no more Jews or Holocaust survivors, but only those who consented to sacrifice their ethics and loyalties in exchange for an empty life under the Third Reich.  Nelly becomes a disembodied observer of herself and the people she used to know before her fate was sealed in the camps, and in that sense, she represents survivors of the Holocaust who attempt to return to their lives only to realize that returning to their lives before the war is impossible.  Petzold’s film is imperfect and complex, so complex in fact that it is difficult to follow at times, but the result is a film that is so overwhelming and narratively rich that it left me aghast for days after initially viewing it.  Who are these people and why are their motivations shaped in the disorienting and perplexing ways that they are?  An American film would have undoubtedly attempted to answer these questions in broad, obvious strokes, but Phoenix remains mysterious and beguiling.  The brilliant final scene shows Nelly finally saying everything she needs to say to her husband but none of it is expressed through words, instead only a fleeting and stunning accidental glance.

1. Brooklyn (John Crowley) Even in the weeks after seeing Brooklyn and, at this very moment, considering the high quality of the other films on this list, it still comes as a relative shock to me just how good Brooklyn truly is.  It lacks the complex, rich narrative of Phoenix, the witty, erudite dialogue of The End of the Tour and The Hateful Eight, and the impressive visual spectacle of The Walk.  But as Roger Ebert famously decreed in his first law of film, a movie is not what it is about, but how it is about it.  And no other film in 2015 understood its subject matter better, nor more successfully enraptured its audience, than Crowley’s adaptation of Colm Toibin's novel of the same name.  In what was by far the best performance I saw all year, Saoirse Ronan starred as Eilis, an Irish girl in 1952 who makes the brave and tumultuous journey from her small hometown in Ireland to Brooklyn.  Eilis is not exactly borne of an adventurous spirit, but rather is a shy, introverted, deeply frightened teenager on the brink of womanhood whose prospects for success as an immigrant in New York City are at first extremely poor. But after making a new family of the friends and acquaintances she meets at the boardinghouse she resides at, as well as getting a job at a department store, Eilis gradually learns to overcome the hardships of homesickness.  This doesn't exactly sound like groundbreaking material, but the way in which this story is told -- through careful and delicate observations, as well as handsome period detail throughout -- quickly makes Brooklyn's story captivating, even as we anticipate the film growing stale and sentimental with the emergence of a love interest and inevitable trip back home to Ireland.  In actuality, the film gets better and edgier as it goes along.  Eilis' return visit shows that in spite of her growth and blossoming into independence and adulthood, like the best of us she still succumbs to the nostalgic scent of home, even with the idea of home is fraught with complacency, stunted dependence, and limitations abound.  The final image of Brooklyn is that most cherished of all cinematic images -- a kiss -- except of course it signifies so much more than simply a kiss; for Eilis, it is the embrace of freedom and endless possibilities.  It's only on the surface that Brooklyn is a movie about America.  In reality, Brookyln is about the romance of finally growing up and becoming a citizen of the world.

Thoughts? Disagreements? Let me know below!