Visit my Best Movies of 2015 for my list of the year’s best films, complete with images, trailers and my comments on each movie – as well as their availability to rent on DVD and to stream. My top ten movies for 2015 are:
Ex Machina
Wild Tales
Leviathan
Brooklyn
Youth
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Creed
Spotlight
Phoenix
The Martian
The other best films of the year are: The End of the Tour, Love & Mercy, The Big Short, Corn Island, Mustang, I’ll See You in My Dreams, ’71, The Look of Silence and The Grief of Others.
I’m saving space for these promising 2015 films that I haven’t seen yet: The Revenant, Joy, The Hateful Eight and 45 Years.
This blog exists because I’m an evangelist for outstanding films that may be overlooked by people who will appreciate them. You don’t need ME to tell you that The Big Short, Creed, Spotlight and The Martian are good movies. What’s important to me is that you don’t miss the less well-known gems:
The unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox.
The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
The gentle, thoughtful and altogether fresh dramedy I’ll See You In My Dreams with Blythe Danner, available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Phoenix from Germany – a riveting psychodrama with a wowzer ending. It is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, YouTube and Google Play.
The brilliant psychological drama 99 Homes, available on DVD early in 2016.
The delightful family centric Meet the Patels – a documentary funnier than most comedies.
Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT
Talk about overlooked – one of the year’s very best films, the exquisite and lyrical Georgian drama Corn Island, didn’t even get a US release. Neither did some other wonderful films that I saw at Cinequest: the narrative feature The Hamsters and the documentaries Aspie Seeks Love, Meet the Hitlers and Sweden’s Coolest National Team. Here’s hoping that I can tell you where to see them soon.
It’s that glorious four-day weekend with the earliest of the fall’s Prestige Movies – and a chance to catch up on the great movies from earlier this year that are now on video.
In theaters now:
The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances;
The Martian – an entertaining Must See space adventure – even for folks who usually don’t enjoy science fiction;
Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
Sicario – a dark and paranoid crime thriller about the drug wars.
The smartest road trip movie ever, The End of the Tour. It’s available streaming from Amazon Instant, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox.
The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
The Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, the story of an extraordinarily gifted person’s escape from torment. Love & Mercy is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu.
The gentle, thoughtful and altogether fresh dramedy I’ll See You In My Dreams with Blythe Danner, available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Sam Elliott and Blythe Danner in I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS
The Martian – an entertaining Must See space adventure – even for folks who usually don’t enjoy science fiction;
Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
Sicario – a dark and paranoid crime thriller about the drug wars.
Prophet’s Prey – a Showtime documentary about child sexual abuse in a polygamous religious cult.
My Stream of the Week is the extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia – and it’s one of my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
October 29 is a pretty cool day for Turner Classic Movies, with three completely disparate films that I recommend. First, if you have teenagers jaded by today’s empty horror flicks, Freaks will knock them for a loop. Bad things happen at the circus. And bad things happen in Freaks, one of the most unsettling horror films (and the least politically correct), because it was filmed in 1932 with real circus freaks.
If you are ready for some vintage camp, there’s the 1960 low-budget and self-mocking horror comedy Little Shop of Horrors. The story was remade into a Broadway musical which, in turn, was adapted into the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors starring Rick Moranis; the 1986 version is a much, MUCH better move, but the 1960 version has its own sublime silliness. The young Jack Nicholson first made a name for himself with a hilarious turn as a masochistic dental patient.
Finally, as funny as a heart attack, is the riveting 2005 Oscar winner The Hurt Locker. Kathryn Bigelow directed this hypertense story of an adrenaline-fueled GI bomb defuser (Jeremy Renner) in the Iraq War. The Hurt Locker won the first Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director for a film directed by a woman.
The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan is a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia – and it’s one of my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. A Job-like Everyman struggles to protect his home from the clutches of the town’s corrupt mayor – and he has to battle the corruption that has permeated the political and justice systems. The very struggle takes its toll in his relationships, too, and the audience begins to wonder just how much he’s going to be left with at the end of the story.
Despite being deliberately paced and darkly themed, Leviathan is very watchable. The characters are superbly crafted and the story is filled with “what’s going to happen next?” moments. Writer-director Andrei Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin are keen observers of human nature and season Leviathan with plenty of wry humor (e.g., the mayor runs his criminal Sopranos-like enterprise from a desk under a portrait of Putin). And there’s a surprise at the end.
Our Everyman is Kolya (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who is hotheaded and drinks too much. He fixes cars out of his seafront home in a bleak village on the Barents Sea. His younger second wife Elena Lyadova is cipher. His teenage son (Sergey Pokhodaev) is a good kid, but troubled by the death of his mother. The performances are exceptional, along with that of Roman Madyanov as the corrupt-to-his-marrow mayor. The mayor wants to take Kolya’s property, and their battle plays out in the courts – and in extra-judicial arenas.
And then there’s the vodka abuse. The amount of vodka consumption by virtually every character is astounding. Expect (along with your fellow audience members) to gasp and giggle at the size of the pours.
The film’s only shortcoming is the heavy-handed symbolism employed to hammer home the hopelessness of the protagonist’s struggle, There’s a biblical quote (from Job, of course): “Can you draw out the Leviathan with a fishhook?”, and then shots of whales and of the skeleton of a long-dead beached whale. All this isn’t really necessary, especially with the courtroom scenes, which make the filmmakers’ point exceedingly well.
Andrei Zvyagintsev has solidified his place as one of the masters of world cinema. Leviathan is just his fourth feature, after Elena , which made my Top Ten list for 2012, and The Return, which made my Best Movies of 2004. Elena is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Vudu and Xbox Video. The Return is available on DVD from Netflix.
Leviathan was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar, and has been critically acclaimed, currently scoring 92 on Metacritic.com. It’s available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
Wow, we’ve had a great start to 2015 in the movies. I’ve already placed eight films on my running list of Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. Usually, I only have three or four at this time of year. Here’s my Best of 2015 to date:
Wild Tales (saw at Cinequest; DVD release in June)
Leviathan (available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and DirecTV)
Ex Machina (in theaters now)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; releases June 12)
The End of the Tour (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; releases July 30)
’71 (saw at Cinequest; DVD release in July)
The Look of Silence (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; limited release July 16)
The Grief of Others (saw at Camera Cinema Club; release undetermined)
I’m also mulling over adding to the list I’ll See You in My Dreams (in theaters now). And I know I’ll include Corn Island, an exquisite Georgian film that I saw at Cinequest, if it gets a US release. This is a GREAT and uncharacteristic start to the year in movies!
I’m already looking forward to some especially promising films that debuted at the Cannes International Film Festival. The universally acclaimed, heartbreaking biodoc of Amy Winehouse, Amy, releases July 3. Other Cannes films that will contend for my top ten list include The Lobster, Louder Than Bombs, Mia Madre, The Measure of a Man, Sicario (releases September 18), Youth, Green Room, The Assassin and Dheepan.
Plus there will be some superb documentaries that I don’t know about yet AND the usual stream of Oscar Bait movies released in the fall by the prestige arms of the Hollywood studios. We should have a pretty good handle on 2015’s pool of excellent cinema at the time of the Toronto and Telluride film festivals in September.
2015 has been an excellent year so far and has the potential to be a great year of cinema.
If you haven’t seen it yet, run out and watch the hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales, a series of individual stories about revenge fantasies becoming actualized. I also really like the Belgian romance Three Hearts – the leading man has a weak heart in more ways than one.
I did see Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise, and it is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is a satisfying bio-doc that features lots of clips of the great Orson himself.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the dark, feminist Western The Homesman. It is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
You can’t get any more surreal than the Luis Buñuel- directed and Salvador Dali co-written Un Chien Andalou from 1929. And you can’t film anything more cringe worthy than the slicing of a human eyeball. Un Chien Andalou is LITERALLY textbook surrealism and airs on Turner Classic Movies on March 29.
On March 30, TCM brings us an overlooked film noir, While the City Sleeps (1956). When a zillionaire dies and leaves his media empire to his feckless playboy son (Vincent Price), the scion cruelly dangles the CEO job in front of the company’s top talent, plunging them into a ruthless competition. Whoever solves the Lipstick Killer Murders will win the prize, and plenty of backstabbing in the board room ensues.
While the City Sleeps benefits from a killer cast. Star columnist Dana Andrews (and the audience) weighs in on the side of old school Thomas Mitchell – but it’s going to a tough fight against arrogant George Sanders and oleaginous James Craig (here even more slippery than Sanders). One of these guys is having an affair with their new boss’ trophy wife (Rhonda Fleming). Ida Lupino is a cynical free agent. And Andrews his using his own girlfriend (Sally Forrest) as bait for the serial killer! A tragic figure in real life, John Drew Barrymore, has a small but important role. The cast is so deep that noir leading man Howard Duff is stuck playing the cop.
While the City Sleeps is directed by one of the giants of cinema, Fritz Lang, the German auteur of Metropolis and M. After WWII, Lang had an productive noir period in Hollywood, churning out Moontide, Scarlet Street, House by the River, The Blue Dahlia, The Big Heat, Human Desire (my favorite Lang noir) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
There are two Must Sees in theaters now, and both were nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar:
The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales, a series of individual stories about revenge fantasies becoming actualized.
The Job-like Russian drama Leviathan, a searing expose of post-Soviet Russian society.
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is a satisfying bio-doc that features lots of clips of the great Orson himself. Queen and Country is director John Boorman’s (Deliverance) well-crafted and moderately entertaining look back at his year as a British Army conscript in the 50s.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Whiplash, the drama about the line between motivation and abuse and the line between ambition and obsession. J.K. Simmons just won an acting Oscar for his dominating performance. Whiplash is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
If you haven’t seen the hilarious gender bender comedy Victor Victoriain a while, catch it again on March 20 on Turner Classic Movies. I think that’s it’s director Blake Edwards’ best comedy – and that’s saying something after all the Pink Panther movies. Along with the alcoholism drama Days of Wine and Roses, this is Edwards’ masterpiece. Julie Andrews (Mrs. Blake Edwards) and James Garner give perfect performances, and there’s a memorable supporting turn by Alex Karras. Victor Victoria is over thirty years old, but stands up just as well today as in 1981.
The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan is a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia – and it’s one of the best movies of the year. A Job-like Everyman struggles to protect his home from the clutches of the town’s corrupt mayor – and he has to battle the corruption that has permeated the political and justice systems. The very struggle takes its toll in his relationships, too, and the audience begins to wonder just how much he’s going to be left with at the end of the story.
Despite being deliberately paced and darkly themed, Leviathan is very watchable. The characters are superbly crafted and the story is filled with “what’s going to happen next?” moments. Writer-director Andrei Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin are keen observers of human nature and season Leviathan with plenty of wry humor (e.g., the mayor runs his criminal Sopranos-like enterprise from a desk under a portrait of Putin). And there’s a surprise at the end.
Our Everyman is Kolya (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who is hotheaded and drinks too much. He fixes cars out of his seafront home in a bleak village on the Barents Sea. His younger second wife Elena Lyadova is cipher. His teenage son (Sergey Pokhodaev) is a good kid, but troubled by the death of his mother. The performances are exceptional, along with that of Roman Madyanov as the corrupt-to-his-marrow mayor. The mayor wants to take Kolya’s property, and their battle plays out in the courts – and in extra-judicial arenas.
And then there’s the vodka abuse. The amount of vodka consumption by virtually every character is astounding. Expect (along with your fellow audience members) to gasp and giggle at the size of the pours.
The film’s only shortcoming is the heavy-handed symbolism employed to hammer home the hopelessness of the protagonist’s struggle, There’s a biblical quote (from Job, of course): “Can you draw out the Leviathan with a fishhook?”, and then shots of whales and of the skeleton of a long-dead beached whale. All this isn’t really necessary, especially with the courtroom scenes, which make the filmmakers’ point exceedingly well.
Andrei Zvyagintsev has solidified his place as one of the masters of world cinema. Leviathan is just his fourth feature, after Elena , which made my Top Ten list for 2012, and The Return, which made my Best Movies of 2004. Elena is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Vudu and Xbox Video. The Return is available on DVD from Netflix.
Leviathan was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar, and has been critically acclaimed, currently scoring 92 on Metacritic.com. ,
There are two Must Sees in theaters now, and both were nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar:
The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales, a series of individual stories about revenge fantasies becoming actualized.
The Job-like Russian drama Leviathan, a searing expose of post-Soviet Russian society.
Queen and Country is director John Boorman’s (Deliverance) well-crafted and moderately entertaining look back at his year as a British Army conscript in the 50s.
We’ve just concluded the 2015 Cinequest film festival. Here’s all my Cinequest coverage – with several features and comments on over twenty five movies – conveniently linked on one page.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Dear White People, a brilliant comedy about identity that’s on my list of Best Movies of 2014. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
On March 16, Turner Classic Movies is playing the French thriller Wages of Fear. It’s directed by that master of suspense Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique), nicknamed the French Hitchcock. The Wages of Fear features one achingly scary scene where two truck drivers try to get a long truck around a cliff side hairpin curve – and the truck is filled with nitroglycerin.
