90 Minute Movie that Felt Like 3 Hours: The Good Dinosaur
Aggressively Average: Burnt, Goosebumps, Ricki and the Flash
All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go: Crimson Peak
Angriest I Got During a Movie: (tie) Chi-Raq, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Mistress America
Bad But Kind of Funny: The Wedding Ringer
Bad Eli Roth: The Green Inferno
Best Actor in an OK Movie: (tie) Al Pacino in Danny Collins and Bryan Cranston in Trumbo
Best Actress in an OK Movie: (tie) Malin Ackerman in The Final Girls and Rebecca Ferguson in Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation
Best Actress in a Bad Movie: Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey
Best Horror Movie: Bone Tomahawk
Best Romance: Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen in Brooklyn
Best Screenplay: The End of the Tour
Best Soundtrack: Da Sweet Blood of Jesus
Best Spy Movie: Bridge of Spies
Best Twist Ending: The Gift
Biggest Disappointments: Digging for Fire, The Night Before, Spectre, Tomorrowland
Biggest Mess: Jupiter Ascending
Craziest Movie: Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau
Cutest Movie: People Places Things
Favorite Character: Apple in Turbo Kid
Fine to Watch While Babysitting: Home
Found Footage is Evil: The Gallows
Found Footage is Not Evil: Unfriended
Funniest Reveal: The Beast in What We Do in the Shadows
Future Christmas Staple: Krampus
Good Eli Roth: Knock Knock
Good Movie but Too Reliant on Other Movies for Its Own Success: The Martian
Good Movie I Never Will See Again: Room
I Don’t Care, I Still Like It: Jurassic World
I Don’t Get the Appeal: Dangerous Men, Ex Machina
I Love Rap Music! Dope, Straight Outta Compton
Independent Horror You Should Seek Out when it’s Released: Body, Sun Choke
Made Me Wish I Was a Journalist: Spotlight
Most Boring: Focus
Most Forgettable: Insidious Chapter 3
Most Generic: The Lazarus Effect
Most Ironically Fun Movie: The Boy Next Door
Most Shockingly Incompetent: Aloha
Most Suspenseful Movie: Sicario
Most Tasteful Ending: The ending of Furious 7
Movie I Feel Bad For: The Forger
Movie I Will Watch Over and Over on Cable: Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Intern
Movie I Missed Part of that I am Looking Forward to Finishing: He Never Died
Movies I Wish I Liked More: Batkid Begins, Everly, It Follows, Southpaw, Spring, We Are Still Here
Movie that Got Me the Most Pumped Up: Creed
Movie that Made Me Cry: Inside Out
Movies I Like More than Most People: Blackhat, Burying the Ex, Chappie, I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story, Irrational Man, San Andreas, True Story, The Visit
Nice Try: Black Mass, Goodnight Mommy, Hellions, Queen of Earth, The Wolfpack
Not Bad but Not Very Funny: Spy
Only Would Work in IMAX: Everest, The Walk
Only Works on an Airplane: The DUFF
Perfect Double Feature to Watch on Netflix: Results and Unexpected
Phipps! Dark Summer, Some Kind of Hate, Tales of Halloween
Sanctimonious: Black or White
So Good: Slow West
Ugh! American Ultra, Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Cooties, The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened, Get Hard, Poltergeist (2015), Taken 3, Terminator Genisys, Vacation
Underrated Movie: Run All Night
Underrated Performance: Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy
Walkouts: Love the Coopers, Mortdecai, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocolypse, Sinister 2, While We’re Young
Whatever: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Overnight, Ted 2, Welcome to Me
Worst CGI Fire: Maps to the Stars
Worst Scene: Marv Albert in Trainwreck
You Need to See This! Buzzard
I liked Digging For Fire quite a lot, so I'll go with the biggest disappointment of 2015* was Child 44. Ugh.
ReplyDelete*Other biggest disappointment was the loss of The Dissolve.
The Dissolve! Sad face.
DeleteConfession: I haven't seen Slow West. I guess I'll have to if it really is that good.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, you're right about The Good Dinosaur. I just wanted it to end. It's not good, and probably the most disappointing movie of the year for me, especially after seeing the masterpiece that was Inside Out. I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else that I read someone's thoughts, but they said that it was as if they took The Lion King, The Land Before Time, and An American Tail and smushed then all into a blender and turned it on and The Good Dinosaur was the result. I'd rather watch any those other, better movies any day.
Ha! I just noticed that the blender comment was from your review here. Oops! Well, I agree with that comparison whole-heartedly.
DeleteNice, realistic end of year list. People, Places and Things is the cutest. It completely hit my adult rom-com sweet spot, those movies almost don't exist anymore. It looks like I should check out Sleeping with Other People as well, seem like it's in the same wheelhouse.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I can watch Cameron Crowe movies anymore. Aloha was just tragic.
I really want to see Creed and I might actually have to watch at least the first Rocky movie also... please don't judge the lack of movie cred here. Sylvester Stallone is my least favorite actor in the "tough guy" pantheon.
sleeping with other people is very good!
DeleteMakes me a bit sad that my 3 favorite movies of the year (Ex Machina, It Follows and We Are Still Here) land on your "less than impressed" lists. But I guess I'll get over it.
ReplyDeleteBtw, you're spot on about the Marv Albert scene in Trainwreck. It went from a movie that I was genuinely enjoying, to something I immediately wanted to turn off. It was like something from a Family Guy episode. The worst.
I just finished watching Trainwreck and that scene is terrible. It was the unrated version, so I don't know which scenes weren't shown in the theaters, but there are a couple of them in there that have that Apatow touch, making me angry at a movie that I was otherwise enjoying.
DeleteI can't believe Jupiter Ascending came out this year. That movie feels at least 5 years old.
ReplyDeleteOh, I have another award I personally would offer up:
ReplyDeleteIt's Nice To See Him Getting Work (That Doesn't Feature Adam Sandler): Colin Quinn, Trainwreck
Totally agree with you on Jurassic World. But Mr Riske...Rogue Nation....just okay?(Best Actress in an okay movie) *GASP* Good list btw.
ReplyDeleteWas reading thenation.com and came across a great article on Chi-raq: http://www.thenation.com/article/chi-raq-reveals-spike-lees-outdated-race-politics/
ReplyDeletethis article makes some fair points but also, i think, is pretty reductive of a lot of the nuances in spike lee's film
DeleteReally looking for to "Sun Choke" as I mentioned in the most anticipated post. Was also really looking forward to "Body" (hit VOD today for those interested). Just watched it and unfortunately I thought it was mostly a mess.
ReplyDeletePro's: I thought the lead was great. She was the only likable character of the three (which I know was mostly intentional but I also thought she was the most convincing.) I love that it was 75 minutes. I love that Fessenden is in it, although not sure what attracted him to the story. It's fairly well shot, I liked the set of the house and I liked the dialogue heavy opening that established the characters fully (almost to a fault*).
Cons: SPOILERS
The story. It full of massive problems. On the surface, it's really easy to see what's going on from the time they arrive to the house. The third friend is so disgustingly bitchy that you know she's leading the other two into trouble and she's an awful person. Was that intentional? Probably, *but it's a misstep to do it to that extreme so early in the film.
My second, and biggest problem, is where they establish rules for the film and then straight up break them, and break them quickly. The first vote that is taken establishes a rule, right? Nope, that get's broken. So any other vote that might happen automatically holds no value therefore detracts from any suspense that could follow. If they had instead established the first rule as a truth and THEN broke a rule later, that would have come as more of a surprise.
Lastly, the end is SO abrupt. It tells you that they figured out a clever way to get out of the situation but it really doesn't work at all. There are way too many details that were overlooked for it to be believable. Now, I did think, "was that intentional? Cause after all, they have no idea what the hell they are doing and will most likely get caught, regardless?" If that's the case, I will accept it but it's still not a satisfying ending as this movie does not feel like ambiguity was part of it's plan.
Sorry for the lengthy post, Adam. Again, can't wait for Sun Choke!