Top 20 of 2015

— Here are the 20—really the top 23—films I've liked most from 2015. I may end up with more than 23 since I have not seen "The Lady in the Van", "99 Homes", or "Straight Outta Compton":

• The Big Short
• Black Mass
• Brooklyn
• Bridge of Spies
• Carol
• Clouds of Sils Maria
• Creed
• The Danish Girl
• The End of the Tour
• Ex Machina
• 45 Years
• Grandma
• The Hateful Eight
• I'll See You In My Dreams
• Inside Out
• Love & Mercy
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Martian
• Mr. Holmes
• The Revenant
• Scicario
• Spotlight
• Truth

Nine films almost made the list: "Far From the Madding Crowd", "Joy", "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl", "Mission Impossible–Rogue Nation, "Room", "Southpaw", "Spectre", "Steve Jobs", and "Testament of Youth".

If I include documentaries, I'd have to make room for "Amy", "Best of Enemies", "Cartel Land", "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck", "The Look of Silence", "Meru", "What Happened Miss Simone", and "The Wolfpack.

The D Train

— An unusual look at male insecurity and sexuality. Jack Black’s Dan Landsman is the epitome of nerdiness and you just know he was mercilessly teased as a child. Twenty years later he’s still unpopular and uncomfortable but, somehow, he has a good-looking wife and two children. He’s on the high school reunion committee and, seeing former, popular classmate Oliver Lawless on a national sunscreen commercial, he sees him as having “made it” and decides to get the successful Oliver to the reunion so others will want to come too. Under the ruse of a business trip, Dan goes to LA and hooks up with Oliver for a couple of days of bars, drugs and, ultimately, seduction. The next day Dan is nonplussed and Oliver, who isn’t into labels, is unconcerned. When Oliver shows up for the reunion, the nuances of things are somewhat clarified but, overall, it’s hard for viewers to build up sympathy or understanding for anyone. The film’s interesting but not particularly successful. [DVD]

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[2015. 101 min. Directed by Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul. Starring Jack Black, James Marsden, Kathryn Hahn, and Jeffrey Tambor.]
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-d-train-20150507

The Danish Girl

— Eddie Redmayne takes on a character the way Meryl Streep does. He becomes the character, in this case transgender pioneer Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe. “The Danish Girl” is an empathetic look at Lili’s awakening and confusion over her sexuality, efforts to deal with her dual identity, the reaction of most members of the medical community, and what was then experimental, gender-reassignment surgery. The script is definitely geared toward mass consumption and every effort is made to minimize any discomfort the audience could feel but Redmayne’s intimate portrayal mostly overcomes this shortcoming. We’ve come to expect this kind of acting from Redmayne, but Alicia Vikander was something of a surprise to me. She is superb as the fragile and steadfast wife who must wrestle with the reality of the situation and figure out her own path. The film is beautiful and, although its restraint and straightforward narrative are a little disappointing, it is well worth seeing.

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[2015. 119 min. Directed by Tom Hooper. Starring Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard, Ben Whishaw, and Matthias Schoenaerts.]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-danish-girl/review/

The Big Short

— I expected to like “The Big Short” with its great cast, worthwhile premise, and great reviews. Well, it’s pretty good, except it has the indignation of a Michael Moore documentary, an uncomfortable humor, gives a nod to Frank Underwood and his penchant for speaking to the audience, and includes cameos by varied celebrities who help viewers understand financial terminology. Or maybe because of it—at least with the cutaways and the humor, there’s no mistaking this for a documentary. The film seems like a mixed bag of tricks and, in its fervor to point fingers, it identifies everyone except those who were hurt as culpable. It’s the methodology employed by the protagonists as they come to understand what’s happening that makes the film work. First it’s a numbers game derived from printouts and statistics that leads to the realization that the housing market could implode but, as the film goes on and the main characters begin to bet on the implosion, the faces of the greedy financial traders and the clueless sellers and advisers, along with so many overextended and greedy homeowners, makes the millions made on the implosion by the film's protagonists perhaps more legal but not necessarily ethical.

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[2015. 103 min. Directed by Adam McKay. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-short-2015

Joy

— Jennifer Lawrence brings Joy Mangano’s character to life and, even as David O. Russell jumps from scene to scene at a quick pace, she manages to be the tether holding it all together. Mangano invented a self-wringing mop that sold like hotcakes, eventually making her a QVC network star. It ends up the film is only loosely based on Mangano’s life and, good as Lawrence and her supporting cast are, the film is fun to watch, particularly as the characters are introduced and as Joy struggles to get her mop to market, but it falls a little flat in the end. Lawrence manages to make seeing the movie worthwhile, but David O. Russell’s previous two films are far better films.

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[2015. 124 min. Directed by David O. Russell. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Edgar Ramirez, and Isabella Rossellini.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/movies/review-jennifer-lawrence-as-a-modern-day-cinderella-in-joy.html

Mad Max: Fury Road

— This is another film I missed in theaters so I picked up the DVD. It is a really, really good installment in the “Mad Max” series. I have to admit I loved the original dystopian film from 1979 and I liked the next installment (1981, “Mad Max: The Road Warrior”) almost as much. I was faithful when Tina Turner joined the in the fun in 1985 for “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” but I was beginning to think things were getting a little too glitzy. Maybe George Miller thought the same thing and that’s why he waited 30 years to come out with the fourth installment. Chases have been always been an integral part of Mad Max films, but “Fury Road” takes it the extreme and the entire film is a chase. Honestly, I know that sounds dull, particularly since there isn’t much dialogue either, but it isn’t dull at all. I was easily mesmerized by the post-apocalyptic ride with sand blowing everywhere and noise blaring, with fireballs and wanton destruction. It’s a wasteland where things are black and white, where you make your own mark or leave no mark, where people like Max wander in search of their better selves.

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[2015. 120 min. Directed by George Miller. Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and Nicholas Hoult.]
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/mad-max-fury-road-20150513

Brooklyn

— “Brooklyn” is a gorgeous film, the kind where you can almost feel the texture of every floral print, all those cotton shirts and wool slacks are perfectly ironed, and every home reminds you of the past. Luckily, it has more going for it than just a pretty face. The story unfolds more like you’re reading the novel than watching the film so most things move at a slower but appropriate pace. At first it almost seems like it’s just another immigrant love story, well-crafted perhaps, but nothing special, and then the story expands to consider sibling love, the meaning of home, the price of change, the value of heritage and of cultural blending, the need for both earnestness and acceptance, and the cost of personal growth. There’s just the right amount of nostalgia and anticipation in this tale of a woman torn between two generations, two countries, and two loves.

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[2015. 111 min. Directed by John Crowley. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Jim Broadbent.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brooklyn-2015

Clouds of Sils Maria

— I missed this film when it was in theaters but I’m sure glad I checked it out on DVD. It’s an incredibly complex and intimate film. Juliette Binoche is wonderful as Maria, a 40-year-old star no longer able to play the parts she wants, whose personal assistant, Val, played with amazing finesse by Kirsten Stewart, is her able organizer, confidant, and friend. Maria has been signed to play in a stage version of the film that made her famous when she was 18, but this time she’ll be the vulnerable older boss instead of the young, personal assistant seducing her boss, a role to be played by an up-and-coming star who is comfortable as fodder for the TMZ world. There isn’t a straight path in this film and there’s plenty of dialogue as the scenes unfold, touching on the complexities of art and reality, youth and experience, and beauty and wisdom. With several layers and subplots started but not continued, it’s no surprise the story itself doesn’t exactly end even if the film does. If you like neat packages or definitive ways of living, this may not be your film. For me, even the parts that seemed a little too rambling were still fascinating since all the dialogue seemed real and the vaguely blurry line between stage and life only reminded me of the blurry lines we all have as we step among the parts of our lives.

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[2015. 124 min. Directed by Olivier Assayas. Starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Cloe Grace Moretz.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/movies/review-in-clouds-of-sils-maria-a-celebration-turns-into-a-memorial.html?_r=0

Suffragette

— “Suffragette” was a little disappointing and not very rousing. Instead of letting me witness the British suffrage movement, this film presents everything in retrospect for today’s sympathetic eyes, leaving little sense of the opposing view. That very filter makes it nearly impossible to feel a part of the struggle or even as sympathetic to the cause as I would have expected. Carey Mulligan’s subtle expressiveness is really about all that saved it from just being a heavy-handed, one-sided flick for those who need to look at the past with a narrow focus. It does raise questions about when violence is justified and to what extent, martyrdom, patriarchy, and why, all these years later, issues like economic equity remain unresolved.

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[2015. 106 min. Directed by Sarah Gavron. Starring Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, and Ben Whishaw.]
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/suffragette-20151022

Creed

— After all these years, something of the original “Rocky” is at work again in “Creed”. This is a decently scripted, directed, and acted boxing film. Both Michael B. Jordan’s character and Sylvester Stallone’s are more complex than expected and their relationship and emotions add some extra layers to the film. It’s not a great film, but it is old-fashioned entertainment along with a bit of nostalgia that was worth the price of admission.

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[2015. 133 min. Directed by Ryan Coogler. Starring Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, and Phylicia Rashad.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/creed-2015