Best & Worst of 2015, Part II: The Quickening

We’re already two weeks into the new year so why waste time? Here’s the digs and dregs of all the movies I saw during the back half of the calendar.

So Good!!

Mad Max: Fury Road

Yep, that’s right: if the bandwagon is the War Rig, I’m on it. This is a visceral, gut-punching, heart-wrenching, head-banging explosion of joy and terror and excitement and dread and amazement, absolute fucking amazement, at the kind of cinematic beauty only true visionaries can create. Every single frame is an extraordinary work of art. Every character, costume, set, prop, and moment of sound are each an integral and appropriate part of the world. The movie is simply fucking awesome. It just is. No amount of words or praise can do it justice; one has to experience it for oneself.

What We Do In The Shadows

Sometimes it’s good to find a DVD on the library shelf and have no idea what you’re in for when you take it home. This movie, which pretends to be a documentary about centuries-old vampires in New Zealand, is consistently inventive and hilarious in a way very few movies can maintain; it is literally both those things for every single minute of its run time. If that doesn’t sell you nothing will, so I have little more to say about it. The characters are fun, the performers know exactly what they’re doing, and it’s somehow perfectly realistic and utterly ridiculous, in precisely the right way. My favorite surprise film of the year.

The Voices

Ryan Reynolds again proves how truly talented and versatile he is, in a movie hardly anybody saw or heard of. It’s certainly not perfect overall, but the skill and artistry on display from all the performers and filmmakers involved is exceedingly admirable. It doesn’t take any wrong turns with the drama, doesn’t cross the line into silliness with the satire...it rides that nebulous road known as tone by being equally amusing & disturbing, similarly serious & strange...one of those films which wanders into the corners of the human condition, just to see what’s there.

The Martian

This makes the list because it could have, so easily, been such a different movie, but instead of choosing some flashy young director to make it, they got Ridley Scott -- and he guides this story with the kind of confidence and acuity only such an experienced, composed filmmaker could. I admit I got very, very tired of the many “jokes” about disco music, most of which involved incongruous use of said music, and the overall structure didn’t feel natural or well-timed in spots, but it’s still a strong cinematic work and a pleasant experience to view. 

Ant-Man

I’m not saying it’s a great movie -- but it hits the right notes in the right way, it’s consistently enjoyable...in a year with a lot of half-assed garbage, it stands out for being well-made when it could have been fairly standard. It also has two terrific performances, from Corey Stoll (a seasoned and respected actor) as the bad guy and Abby Ryder Fortson (a young and inexperienced cute kid) as the hero’s cute kid. She is exceptionally good; way more than just adorable.

Honorable Mention

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

I say it’s the best of the five, and do so because it works better as a story than any of the others. Does it have the best stunts? The most style? Did I never once say “Come on; really?” while viewing? No. But if the story & characters come together well, I’ll always be more satisfied with the movie as a whole.

Chappie

Far short of the brilliamazing District 9, of course, yet far better than Elysium...Neill Blomkamp pulls off a movie that is often kinda dumb and generally makes little sense, but still somehow manages to be quite extraordinary in several of its moments. I recommend those moments. The rest of it, feel free to forget.

A Most Violent Year

The movie itself isn’t that exciting or fascinating, but the two lead performances are seriously good. Oscar Isaac inhabits his character so completely, and conveys so much with the smallest movements and inflections; just a great example of film acting. As for Jessica Chastain: she’s been in a lot of movies the last few years, always does a good job, never made a big impression on me despite all the accolades, but here she’s doing what I always wanted to be seeing in her other performances.

Super Bad...

Tomorrowland

Holy future shit is this movie annoying!! Such poor story construction...it takes insanely long to advance every plot point, it’s constantly repetitive, it wastes tons of time with look-how-amazing-everything-is scenes in which nothing actually happens...supposedly smart characters do the dumbest things & ask the stupidest questions...it’s also exceedingly violent at times for a PG “family” movie. It gets a little bit better, more toward the end, but by then...ugh; it ain’t nearly enough. This small portion is far too late the save the whole, with its few good ideas buried beneath an avalanche of slop. What a waste of money and talent.

Home

Fuck this stupid-ass shit-suck of a movie. Right in its colorful little animation hole. Dumb characters. Dumb story. Bad direction. Bad voice acting (except for Rihanna who isn’t bad but wrong for it because she’s a grown woman playing a little kid). Had a few cool ideas it took no advantage of, and many bad ideas it played out waaaaaaaaaaaay too long. Light & simple (aka dumbed-down) because it’s aimed at kids (who aren’t dumb) but full of adult “humor” (which isn’t funny) kids won’t get. There are worse movies on this list, but none I hate so fucking much (Tomorrowland comes close).

Jupiter Ascending

It really is that bad. Really. Tons of silly-ass nonsense, melodrama, overacting...and an excess of goofy shit I think we’re meant to take seriously. But it ain’t happenin’. The one movie on this list bad enough to be worth seeing because it’s so awful, and could even be enjoyable for that very reason.

Blackhat

The opposite of Jupiter: so bad it should never be seen. It’s like a few talented people got together to make a movie, spontaneously evaporated halfway through, and a handful of mutated wildebeests wandered into the abandoned studio to piece everything together. I don’t know how else to explain the horrible sound mix, the bad dubbing/ADR, the lousy editing, the constant shots through a long lens with some out-of-focus object or person obscuring whatever’s meant to be in frame...the directionless plot, pointless scenes, boring clichés...it’s intolerably awful. It doesn’t even end, but simply stops being a terrible movie because it’s finally over.

Ex Machina

I know! Lots of people love this movie and think it’s brilliant. They’ve all been fooled into thinking what others want them to...just like characters in the movie. Oh wait; maybe that means it IS brilliant! Nope. Not. Two of the three major performances are completely wrong, completely off-track from what they should be, from what would make them actually work, actually be believable. Oscar Isaac is, again, a fucking awesome actor -- too bad his supposedly super genius character does the dumbest possible thing whenever the plot requires him to. No surprises, no twists unseen, no turns unexpected...the whole thing is just lame, with lots of style to dress it up. Don’t be fooled, humans. It ain’t much to go on about.

Dishonorable Mention

The Hundred Foot Journey

Lasse Hallström, what the fuck? So many amazing, beautiful, light dramas in your career, and now this? Seriously; this?!? It takes forever to get around to being about whatever it’s supposed to be about, and even then, it’s horribly uninteresting. The characters are stupid, and they do nothing but argue (even when they have no reason to disagree), and they’re purposelessly petty, and there is no realistic human drama because there is no realistic human behavior...what fucking planet are they on in which people act like this? It’s so awful, I can’t believe his name is on it. The guy made What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, folks...he must have gotten sick and some co-producer with no experience took over. It’s just appalling. I don’t even remember the details because it’s such an awful fictional representation of anything resembling real people and their interests, none of it registered with me. I am sorry this thing even exists.

The Loved Ones

Tons of potential, all totally wasted. Characters making bad choices in a horror movie has become such a thing that it’s now either made fun of or plain old ignored, but here, when somebody does the stupidest thing they could do, it somehow plays like that wasn’t meant to be the stupidest thing. I mean, this guy escapes from people who’ve kidnapped & tortured him, but instead of getting away he hangs around watching them, then they see him and chase him, then he climbs a tree...yes, they’re pursuing him in a car and he goes up a tree. No, they’ll never catch you up there! Dumbass...I understand for the plot of the movie they need to recapture him, but does it have to play out so idiotically? Does the cop who shows up later to save him need to be so dumb as to turn his back on a room full of blood, without having checked ANY OTHER ROOM yet? Clear the house much, officer? Not worried about anyone coming up behind you and killing you? Which is, of course, exactly what happens, but it’s presented as if it’s supposed to be a shocker moment...as if we couldn’t completely see it coming. That’s just part of what makes this so fucking stupid. It’s basically a horror movie that wants to be a horror movie because it likes horror movies, but it’s so poorly written and staged it doesn’t know how to be a real horror movie. And many scenes drag on forever because the director & editor have no idea how to pace anything. So much promise, so little delivered.

Dead Snow

I’d heard this was a unique, funny, scary, foreign horror movie -- and it is indeed the second three of those six things. Otherwise it’s all clichés, poor direction, lackluster editing, unscary jump scares with stupid stinger music, no character development...it just sucks and is stupid. Apparently there’s also a sequel. No thanks. I’m done.

Dumb And Dumber To

Parts of it are not so bad: the two leads seamlessly resume their characters, Kathleen Turner is wonderfully cast, a couple of the gags are the right kind of silly...but in addition to being mostly unfunny, often racist & sexist, and occasionally downright mean-spirited, the whole thing felt like all it wanted to do was remind us how great and funny the first one was and still is. They even show images from that better, stronger movie during the credits -- and this is in addition to all the references, callbacks, & characters returning here. It could have been its own thing, but it wasn’t. 

----------

For anyone wondering why Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t on either list -- didn’t see it until January. But don’t expect it on next year’s list either...it’s decent, but neither exceptional nor execrable. If I had a yeah-it’s-all-right list, it’d be at the top...or the middle, if that’s how such a thing might work. Perhaps I’ll give it its own full review soon enough, if anyone’s still interested at this point. See what the future brings, we will.

What did the spoon say to the knife? May the fork be with you! (Sorry.)

Best & Worst Movies I’ve Seen This Half-Year

Here’s the deal: I don’t work from a list of movies which have been released during a calendar year, because I don’t often manage to see them when they’re new. Instead, I rank those I’ve viewed for the first time during said year, regardless of when they were initially revealed to the world. And I’m doing this at the end of June because I don’t want to wait another six months. I’ll do another half-year list then.

This is also in alphabetical order because it’s pointless to rank them further when they’re this good or bad. I may have stronger feelings toward some, but instead of numerical placement I’ll let the words chosen to describe them convey this on their own.

And so we begin!

Good Thrills

The Babadook

All the familiar aspects of a horror movie are here, but are used so well - with such confidence and precision - it feels like a new experience. Sometimes it shows restraint, other times it's an onslaught of visual and aural stimuli. Regarding said sound design; it’s insanely good. Just the right quality of what you hear or what you don’t, what is scary and what is normal. Sometimes it’s scary because it’s normal. And through all this, there is a truly terrifying psychological undercurrent running beneath the supernatural veneer. An astonishing example of what the medium of film can create.

The Battery

One of the best examples ever of how no-budget limitations can be a blessing, and used to produce a much more thoughtful and intelligent movie than additional money might have allowed or encouraged. While there are occasional issues with the storytelling and direction, most of the time the lack of funds serves these elements well, as the camera tends to stay away from big action sequences which would cost a lot and take a long time to shoot. So it’s a zombie movie with very few zombies or human cast members, but they each interact with the others in a realistic manner grounded in simple, clear motivations. They don’t get involved in major set pieces just so there can be an action scene every ten minutes; their actions are based on individual goals, which sometimes conflict. A solid buddy movie and horror concept which derives many of its scares from what you don’t know and can’t see. Excellent filmmaking at its most fundamental.

Blue Ruin

Another low-budget success! At least in terms of quality drama; I have no idea how well it did in regard to profit, etc. But here is a story about people in direct conflict, who don’t necessarily want to be doing what they’re doing but are compelled to see it through. It’s a revenge plot in which the revenge is not presented as admirable (finally!) but as an unfortunate choice which has extremely destructive consequences. The hero - if one can call him that - is both a bumbling amateur and extraordinarily clever, exhibiting each attribute depending on what he’s gotten himself into at one point or another. He knows what he’s doing is wrong, and doesn’t actually want to carry it out - which is more than anyone can say about those with whom he’s feuding - but he does so anyway because he can’t live with himself if he doesn’t. Complex characters, with clear motives. The way drama should always be done.

The Double

If I’d watched this not knowing anything about those behind it, I’d think Terry Gilliam made a film based on something by Kafka...but no, it’s a Dostoevsky novel adapted by a guy best known for playing a tech support geek on a British sitcom. But talent is talent, and Richard Ayoade knows exactly what he’s doing. This movie is dark, surreal, odd, funny, nervous, and beautiful. Jesse Eisenberg plays a dual role, and since both characters are usually dressed the same the only way to tell them apart is by his distinctly spectacular performances. Add to that this film’s wonderful lighting, tone, sound, music, and overall weirdness: you end up with an insanely brilliant work which doesn’t always make sense but doesn’t have to, because it’s just so enjoyable to view such artistry.

Predestination

A few years ago, the Spierig brothers from Australia quietly made Daybreakers - an excellent vampire movie full of intelligent and assured filmmaking. With Predestination, they’ve quietly done the same for a unique time travel concept. Some of its secrets may be easy to guess before they’re revealed, but the story being told is so beautiful and compelling that it doesn’t entirely matter what you know or think you know. The journey, from beginning to end and back around, is so exquisitely crafted that any piece of information you determine or discover ahead of time can only enhance your experience. The amazing actress Sarah Snook, another Australian, is extraordinary in her role and would stand out in any film, whether taking a lead role or supporting...and Ethan Hawke is good the way he is when he’s good, which is more often than he’s generally given credit for. And while the mind-bending elements of time travel do play a large part, what the movie’s really about is one’s sense of identity and purpose. At least that’s what I got out of it; everyone should see it for themselves and take away what they will.

Honorable Mention

22 Jump Street

Funny as fuck. I especially love the references and jokes about sequels and moviemaking in general. Not exactly brilliant cinema; how could it be? But pure entertainment always has value.

Exodus: Gods And Kings

It tells what people know as a biblical story without making it religious. Director Ridley Scott, as he often does, combines wondrous visuals with emotional depth. Imperfect but solidly enjoyable.

Frances Ha

One of those great introspective indies with terrific characters and tremendous performances. Always good to see female-centered films which aren’t silly clichéd romantic comedies.

Bad Spills

Afflicted

I’ll be mentioning this again when I write about found footage films, but will try to refrain at that time from ranting about how endlessly fucking stupid it is. One thing which bothered me, a lot, aside from the dumbness of the story: there are two main characters; a filmmaker and his subject. The filmmaker guy has all sorts of cameras and lenses and other equipment for recording their trip around the world, or whatever the fuck this was supposed to be about, but, SPOILER: he gets killed halfway through. Maybe even earlier. Up to that point, we already had to deal with his handheld found-footage-style bullshit, but now that he's dead, we're viewing footage supposedly captured by the guy who DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO USE THE FUCKING CAMERA. So it’s deliberately shot as if the guy shooting doesn’t know how to shoot. Yeah, that’s fucking brilliant. It's fucking terrible to look at, guys...and you tell me you WANTED it to look like this? Fuck off. The story itself is just a brainless retread of monster movies and other tired-ass found footage crap. Worthless beyond measure.

Big Hero 6

I already slammed this one earlier, so I won’t go into detail again, but holy shit did it make me fucking mad to watch this. In a way I’m glad I saw it after the Oscars, already knowing it’d won (ha) Best Animated Feature - because if I’d seen this shitbomb before the Oscars and then had to learn it won, I might have snapped some connective fibers in my brain while exploding with uncomprehending rage. As it is, I just watched it thinking “This garbage won the top award in its field? Fucking insane.”

The Giver

Briefly mentioned in a multi-review, so here’s a bit more left unsaid: it’s one of those adaptations of classic books which spends so much thought and energy on the design of the film, and making the world of the book appear on screen; I find no fault with it regarding how it looks and feels...but the story and the characters are so fucking stupid and ridiculous I don’t even know how anyone involved read or watched this from beginning to end and thought “Yeah, that makes sense.” Not a single plot element or character motivation works in proper conjunction with any other. They’re just people doing what the story says is supposed to happen. Plus it contains magical/mystical/supernatural elements which are NOT established as being a part of this world. I’ll buy anything through suspension of disbelief IF it’s properly established as existing, the rules governing such fantastic elements are presented, and everything stays within those guidelines. Seriously, anything, if it’s done right. This does everything wrong. A lot of the acting stinks too.

Hell Baby

I thought this was going to be a funny, silly, goofy, horror comedy. Nothing in it is funny. Not one thing. It tries, but weird and aimless ain’t funny. It’s boring. The fucking title character doesn’t even show up until nearly the end, then has one scene and it’s over! What the fuck? I even tried to find a screen shot of the actual hell baby from the movie and couldn’t find one! That’s how unimportant the hell baby is to a movie called Hell Baby. There’s a haunted house, and possessed people, and odd neighbors, and corrupt authority figures, but none of it has anything to do with anything! I kept waiting for something pertinent to occur, but it doesn’t. It’s like an exercise in wasting a talented cast on stupid bullshit to see how much they put up with before they quit, then using whatever footage the crew managed to get and cutting a movie out of it. Hopeless crapola.

Need For Speed

The caveat on the inclusion of this hateful mess is that I did not watch the entire movie...I know, I know, it isn’t fair to judge it not having seen it all, but I guarantee you: it could only have gotten worse. I gave up after 40 minutes - twice as long as I’ll usually tolerate something which obviously sucks and I already loathe. It’s unrepentingly stupid, and misogynist, and the kind of movie in which the characters do the stupidest possible thing and are then surprised when stuff goes bad for them. Duh. Even the one thing this movie might have done well, which is race cars, looks terrible. Just a lot of expensive-looking vehicles zooming past the camera. Ooh, thrilling. I’d get more excitement out of a Hot Wheels set with a plastic track.

Dishonorable Mention

Jessabelle

Another clunker written by half the writer/director team of Hell Baby. I’m not trying to rip on them, they’ve done plenty of decent work in the past; maybe this is just a slump. Anyway, this supposed horror movie does a lot of things The Babadook does, but does them all wrong. Every common cliché, every obvious foreshadowing, every stupid jump scare and dumbass character decision one can think of - all here. The writing is so transparent, I constantly found myself seeing right through all the hints at “what really happened” and wondering why the characters didn’t look into such things...at all.

There’s even a point when the title character finds a videotape in the wall - because the ghost broke a mirror hiding it - and she just throws it off to the side and screams. So obviously, there is information on this tape she will need at some point, but the filmmakers don’t want her to know it just yet, so she doesn’t watch it. And I’m just waiting for the point near the end when she realizes oh yeah, that video, I’ll watch it and learn the secret…which does occur, but she doesn’t even have to deal with trying to remember what she did with the tape, or bother searching for it, because the fucking ghost TURNS ON THE TV and the tape has been placed on a nearby table. Gee, ghost, if you can do that shit, why not just tell the bitch up front what your fucking problem is?

I know that’s a stupid thing to say about a horror movie, because if every angry spirit in every movie could communicate so plainly, there wouldn’t be a movie. I get that. But if there are limitations on the ghost’s abilities, fucking abide by those limitations! And don’t get me started on what terrible, expository writing it is to have information revealed to the protagonist through a series of videotapes...and then try to find reasons to prevent her from watching all of them at once like any normal person would. Just lame all around.

If you’re wondering why I’m writing at such length about a movie I didn’t even include in the worst five, it’s because the thing isn’t horrible in every way. Sarah Snook, the star of Predestination, is just as good here, even if the story is shit and her character’s an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with the lighting or sound or other aspects of filmmaking; they’re all well executed...they’re simply done in the hackiest of ways. Yeah, that’s how awful it is to watch this mess; I have to make up words to describe its badness.

Just Go With It

Oddly enough, Adam Sandler is not the issue here. He doesn’t play that annoying obnoxious asshole he usually does, just a decent charming guy who causes a major problem for himself. He even has good chemistry with Jennifer Aniston, who is the main reason I even tried watching this: she’s often good, thus sometimes makes movies she is in turn out better than they otherwise might. But not this time: the story is just too dumb, the characters’ choices too pointless and obvious; too contrived. A bad decision has to be the result of a character flaw, not merely the screenwriter’s need for conflict. The farce doesn’t play here because the conflict is so unnecessary. And the movie skips over important scenes which would be pivotal if this plot actually merited significant attention. But it doesn’t, so what would be pertinent in a good movie happens offscreen in this one. Also: of the two kids, the little girl is a good actress and has been good in other movies; the boy is terrible. He cannot act. I don’t know how he got the job. Some producer’s kid, maybe.

Locke

No clue why this had so many positive reviews raving about its brilliance. One reviewer wasn’t sure how an entire movie about one guy in a car managed to not be boring…easy; it did not manage this. I won’t say nothing happens, because events do occur and lives do change - offscreen. Over the phone. The whole movie is this guy driving and talking to various people on the phone, telling them things they don’t pay attention to, and then it’s over. Seriously; no one listens to him. He tells them what they should do and they don’t do it, then call him back and ask him what to do. Or they just flat out refuse his advice. It’s fucking ridiculous.

If there were actually some tension generated by the fact this guy is in the car on the way somewhere and can’t help the idiots more directly, I might go along with it, but there's no sense of anything truly at stake. And how many times does one man need to talk to the same four people on the phone in ninety minutes? Nobody does that! And nothing is fully resolved: he’s still driving when it’s over, having said what he intends to do, but why listen to himself when no one else does? So anything could change. Just a dumb gimmick that didn’t work, despite Tom Hardy actually being very good. Too bad the material gave him no chance of success.

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones

Just another dumb adaptation of a dumb book series written for teens to make them feel like they’re not special and they can’t do anything important. Yes, that’s exactly what I think these stories do, even though they claim to be empowering, and the kids only like them because they like the fantasy that they aren’t in fact just like everyone else but special and powerful and magic and all other kinds of bullshit. Every person - adult, teen, or child - is indeed unique, while still sharing the same fears and doubts as everyone else, even though they think they don’t. These movies don’t promote that. They promote the idea that even though you think you are just the same dull human being as everyone else, maybe you have magical powers you don’t know about yet, you’ll meet a nice vampire, you’ll find the courage to save your oppressed kingdom...fucking stupid escapist fantasy bullshit.

Even if it weren’t, the movie’s just bad. It creates numerous story threads it then leaves hanging, the characters are turkey-slice thin and poorly motivated, plus the direction prefers hectic what-the-fuck-is-happening-ness to properly showing the action. Nothing but dull rubbish trying to capitalize on an already popular product. From what I understand, it failed; a box office bomb. Good. Fuck that noise.

The Other Woman

Again, a story intending to present itself as empowering to a particular demographic - in this case women over 35 instead of under 17 - but instead is stupidity piled on top of itself. Nobody in this movie thinks like a rational, sane, adult human being. They do the dumbest possible thing at every turn...or if not something pea-brained, then just plain old petty and puerile, not to mention simplistically selfish.

And for a supposedly "adult" comedy, it sure goes for the lowbrow laughs. Bad sex jokes in every breath, except for when the cheated-on ladies secretly slip the bad guy some laxatives for the purpose of a bathroom scene with nasty splashy farty sounds which goes on for a LONG, LONG time. Ha. So hilarious. Don’t they realize Dumb & Dumber is the pinnacle of this gag (no pun intended) and can never be improved upon? Leave it out of the script and try to be intelligent instead. Even without that stinky scene, the whole movie smelled the same. I knew it would be bad but watched it anyway just to see where and how it went wrong. The answer: everywhere, in every way.

-----

And now, a first: on BOTH lists, we have…

Troll 2!!

SUCH a bad movie - but so amusing to watch, and make fun of, and watch again for how awful and funny and stupid and delightful it somehow ends up being.

So yes I loved it, but it’s terrible. Downright horrific! Best worst movie indeed.