Movies of 2015

Brief review of every 2015 film I've seen so far.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Alex Gibney's doc delves into the church of L. Ron Hubbard, shining a light on what many believe is clearly a sham religion. And yeah, that's pretty much what Gibney's light reveals. Lots of talking head interviews with ex-members (several of whom were fairly high-ranking) that thoroughly eviscerate the "religion". It's very one-sided, but that's kinda the way it has to be when dealing with Scientology.

The Salvation
A very old fashioned western about an immigrant (Mads Mikkelson, once again nailing the stoic hero role) whose wife (Oh Land!) and young son are murdered by a local big shot (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, having fun without going camp), and the quest for revenge/justice that follows. There are corrupt local politicians (Johnathan Pryce, because of course), citizens too scared to rise up, a helpful boy sidekick, and many of the other cliches of the genre. But The Salvation has 3 good things going for it: 1) as a Danish production filmed largely in South Africa, it has the same distanced view of America as some of the great 70's Italian westerns, which allows the film to be 2) almost relentlessly cynical and cruel in a way that even the grimmest of American productions never quite pull off, and 3) Eva Green, proving that even when playing an involuntary mute (her character's tongue was cut out prior to the events of the film), she has a classic screen charisma that cannot be contained. It's a good film, but it has absolutely no surprises to offer once you realize that the film is going to probably kill everyone who isn't top billed.

It Follows
A new horror classic. Gorgeously shot, well acted, great score, and enough twists of genre convention to please rabid fans. Fans of the lazy "BOO!"-style horror movies would be advised to skip it, so as to not infuriate actual cinephiles by potentially calling it "slow".

Jupiter Ascending
Another batshit sci-fi film from Andy & Lana Wachowski that marries a ridiculously convoluted plot with some of the best visuals of the year. As always, the labyrinthine plot seems to exist merely as a foundation on which to erect the glorious eye candy, so it's not strictly necessary for a viewer to actually know what's going on. Though in the middle of the film there is a wonderful and funny homage to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, culminating in a cameo by Gilliam himself.

Avengers: Age of Ultron
Entertaining and funny, but clunkier than its predecessor. The weight of the MCU really shows, with too many scenes meant to lay the foundation of what's to come instead of focusing on the plot at hand. The first Avengers felt like a destination, wheres Age of Ultron feels like a crossroads pointing to several other destinations instead of being a culmination of Marvel's Phase 2. And the editing is very, very apparent this time. It feels too little like Marvel's "Big Event" movie and too much like a middle chapter.

Blackhat
Michael Mann on autopilot. Which means there are still some inventive sequences, a great soundtrack, and top-notch shootouts. But the story is ridiculous, the romantic plot is cliched, and the Big Bad ends up being kind of a letdown, even though he's played by a character actor, Yorick van Wageningen, who knows how to play a loathsome human being (see: David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where he's not even the main bad guy).

Kingsman: The Secret Service
A vulgar, violent action-comedy that at one point has none other than Colin Firth engaging in a fantastically choreographed murder-spree set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". Matthew Vaughn goes back to the Kick-Ass well for the tone, but brings with him his experience on X-Men: First Class to amp up all the action sequences. For those not easily offended, it is an absolute riot.

Ex Machina
Screenwriter Alex Garland's (28 Days Later, Sunshine) directorial debut is a heady science fiction film that's more interested in ideas than action. Oscar Isaac plays a bro-tastic tech billionaire who has created an artificially intelligent android (Alicia Vikander, in one Hell of a career-boosting role). He enlists employee Domhnall Gleeson to test the authenticity of the A.I., or so he claims. Obsessions are born, ulterior motives are exposed, and mental chess-playing is performed. While Garland has historically had issues with nailing down his third act (though I will defend Sunshine's polarizing ending until my death), here he finds an ending that's a logical conclusion to what has come before. It is a very good film.

Mad Max: Fury Road
Fury Road is about a woman named Imperator Furiosa and her quest to free a group of women who have been enslaved as "breeders" by the evil Immortan Joe, ruler of The Citadel, in a post-apocalypse Australia. Along the way she picks up the film's title character, who then rides shotgun for most of the film as Charlize Theron kicks all the ass. The film itself starts out fast, then just gets faster as it goes, amounting to what is essentially a feature-length chase sequence. It's very entertaining and inventive, and Theron definitely deserves all the hype she's getting, but it may be just a tad overrated. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty great, but it's not as life-changing as some critics are saying.

Hot Girls Wanted
A Rashida Jones-produced documentary of the "professional amateur (or ProAm)" porn industry in Miami, Florida which goes light on the lurid stuff and heavy on the lives of the girls involved. As an expose` of the porn industry it's very heavy-handed and one-sided, but as a character study of people involved in a fringe and stigmatized business it's pretty engaging.

Cobain: Montage of Heck
A fascinating look at Kurt Cobain, largely told in his own voice. Director Brett Morgan is a master of assembling archival material into a coherent storyline (his 30 for 30 entry is that series' high-water mark). Through audio recordings, notebook sketches, and home videos Cobain tells his own story of growing up, with only an occasional talking-head interview added to fill out details or offer some distanced perspective (notably absent is David Grohl, though apparently that was due to a scheduling issue). It gives an enlightening look into the life of someone who seemed to value his privacy to a fatal degree, yet who so thoroughly documented his own life.

Jurassic World
A fun action-adventure that pays homage to the original film, while falling short of matching it. It succeeds as popcorn entertainment, and is certainly better than the other sequels. But it has to be said that Jurassic World's gender politics are...uh...let's go with "throwback".

Ted 2
Like Seth MacFarlane's previous film A Million Ways to Die in the West, Ted 2 has a handful of really great jokes sprinkled across nearly two very unfunny hours. Not worth it.

Minions
Not bad, but not the equal of its parent franchise. Like most adults who will see it, I watched it because I have a small child. He seems to like it just fine.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau
Worth the price of admission just for the insane stories about Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, and the eccentric Stanley. It's no Jodorowsky's Dune, as Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil) isn't half the auteur that Jodorowsky is, but it's a decent look at how a unique cinematic vision get eroded away by competing egos. It could have used more cast interviews (David Thewlis is never mentioned, despite being the film's ostensible lead, and Ron Perlman only shows up in archival footage), though Fairuza Balk compensates by having all the best stories.

Tig
A good but inessential look at the life of talented comedian Tig Notaro. If you like Tig's comedy, you'll enjoy spending 90 minutes watching her life.

What Happened, Miss Simone?
A surprisingly candid biography of Nina Simone that doesn't try to gloss over the ugly parts of the singer's life. From the beginning her musical talent is acknowledge as legendary and rarely paralleled, but is not offered as an excuse for some of her failings. Simone was a complicated person (some of it stemming from her bipolar disorder, which went diagnosed until late in her life). She brought light to important social issues while simultaneously preaching violent revolution. She was trapped in an abusive relationship while also visiting abuse on her own daughter. It's an illuminating film, and certainly not a hagiography. It also was never compelling enough to keep me completely hooked (I watched it in pieces over a couple of days).

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?
Apparently there is a new genre of documentaries that cover never-made films. This one concerns Tim Burton's would-be Superman movie starring Nicolas Cage. It's poorly shot, poorly edited, and has a pace that will lull most viewers to sleep. There are a handful of decent parts (some archival costume testing footage that reveal the Superman suit to look much cooler than that terrible JPG that's been floating around on the internet for a few years), and the filmmaker was able to coax an interview out of Tim Burton, who seems fairly game to talk about an aborted project that took away two years of his life. But overall it's not worth seeking out, even for cinephiles.

Terminator: Genesys
Mind-bogglingly terrible movie, and easily the worst in a franchise that already contained Terminator: Salvation. I'll just let the fine folks at io9 take it from here, in their spot-on FAQ of the film.

Ant-Man
A charming Marvel movie that spends more time on its characters than its action sequences. Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas are charming, and Corey Stall has fun as the film's villain. Unfortunately the film also shares Marvel's overall problem with female characters, and Evangeline Lily gets stuck with the most underdeveloped role. At this point Lily is a pro at adding depth to underwritten roles, so she does her best to make her character seem like more than just a plot point in the male characters' emotional arcs. The movie is fun, and despite a few small flaws (like really annoying, slap-sticky side characters) manages to be a worthwhile entry in the Marvel canon.

Fantastic Four
Ugh, what a slog. How can a movie that spends 80% of its running time on its characters still manage to be this one-dimensional? The tone is wrong, the changes to the source material are inexplicable, Kate Mara gets the worst neglect in any Marvel movie thus far (though Fox Marvel is different from Disney Marvel, they both share the same gender inequality issues), and it managed to somehow make me long for the old FF franchise (those films were wretched, but they at least had Chris Evans as a perfectly-cast Johnny Storm). This film was a failure through and through.

What We Do in the Shadows
Very funny mockumentary about a group of vampires sharing a house in New Zealand. It mines a lot of humor from the everyday minutia of being a vampire (dressing-up without being able to see one's reflection, trying not to get blood stains on the couches and furniture, cleaning huge piles of blood-stained dishes). The film does enough good character work to keep the premise from wearing out its welcome. The humor is rarely of the laugh-out-loud variety (though there are certainly those moments), but rather just an overall pleasantness that will have viewers smiling throughout. Imagine a Christopher Guest vampire film and you'll have a good idea of this film's tone.

Spy
Melissa McCarthy's loud, brassy shtick wore out its welcome for me about halfway through Bridesmaids, where everyone else seemed to fall in love with it. Subsequently I have not enjoyed her films, which seem to rely solely on that personality for their "laughs". So it came as a relief to me that Spy largely skips it, and lets McCarthy be naturally funny as a capable but under-utilized CIA employee. She's surrounded by a game cast of reliable comedy players (Rose Byrne, Alison Janney) and a scene-stealing, self-parodying Jason Statham. It isn't a great film, but it's a funny one.

Black Sea
A solid thriller that keeps tightening a vice on its characters and doesn't ever let up. Black Sea is a deep sea heist film that puts very little emphasis on the heist and much emphasis on xenophobia tearing a crew of seafaring mercenaries apart. Jude Law leads a cast of international character actors through nearly two very tense hours aboard an ancient, leaky submarine whose crew quickly segregates into two sides that hate each other, but have to rely on each other to run the submarine. A really good movie that got unfairly buried with a limited January release.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine
Alex Gibney admits up front that his Steve Jobs documentary is out for blood, and blood it finds. Gibney acknowledges that Jobs' genius is almost universally known, and instead focuses on the less glamorous aspects of the controversial icon's life. The end result could easily come across as a straight up attack on a man who is no longer alive to defend himself, but even the people the Apple co-founder screwed over end up admitting that Jobs' visions paid off in the long run. As such, Gibney's film ends up mainly being a tally of all the collateral damage that resulted from Jobs' march to greatness.

Turbo Kid
Turbo Kid winkingly adopts the look of bad 80's direct-to-VHS genre pictures, but manages to pay homage without becoming parody. There's cheesy synth music, hammy acting, BMX bikes, an android sidekick, buckets of blood, and Michael Ironside playing a villain named Zeus. It's nostalgic fun, but don't let the title "Turbo Kid" fool you: this is strictly adult fare.