Top 5 Films of 2015

In just 24 short hours 2015 will officially go down as the biggest year in box office history, a healthy seven percent increase over 2014 and a nearly two percent rise over previous record holder 2013.

Obviously behemoths like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World helped push numbers over the top, but there actually was a healthy dose of other worthwhile titles that arrived pretty steadily over the course of the year: Mad Max, The Walk and The Hateful Eight, to name a few. I did my part as usual, catching 26 films from January through December. Below are my top 5 of 2015.


1. Brooklyn: John Crowley's adaptation of Colm Toibin's 2009 bestseller concerning a young girl who leaves her Irish home for prosperity in 1950s America is not just a beautiful, perfectly told love story, it's a career triumph for actress Saoirse Ronan, who melts your heart with every smile, tear and word that falls from her mouth. Having Nick Hornby write the script doesn't hurt either.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road: George Miller's reimagining of his popular 1980s post-apocalyptic action franchise was easily the best and most original film of the summer, simply two hours of mind-blowing, in-your-face action the likes we've never seen before. Sure the story was a bit thin, but you tend to forgive such minuscule concerns when finding cinematic Xanadu.

3. Spotlight: Tom McCarthy's compelling true-life tale of the Boston Globe's investigation of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is an All the President's Men for a new generation, all anchored by the terrific ensemble of Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber. More than enough to forgive McCarthy's 2014 misstep The Cobbler.

4. The Martian: Ridley Scott's adaptation of Andy Weir's 2014 bestselling tale of an astronaut left for dead on Mars is grand Hollywood entertainment, full of thrills, humor and heart and featuring a masterful, Oscar-worthy performance from star Matt Damon. This is why we go to the movies.

5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: J.J. Abrams' surprisingly effective, deeply moving continuation of the George Lucas' iconic space saga offered both a nostalgic look back and an exciting look forward for fans of all ages, making us pine for the revelations yet to come. Let's hope Luke has a few more lines in the next one.

If I Could Pick Five More: 6. Bridge of Spies 7. The Hateful Eight 8. The Walk 9. Trumbo 10. Steve Jobs

Happy New Year!

Quick Flick Review: The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight is pretty much business as usual for Quentin Tarantino fans, full of desperate, wily characters, thunderous, razor-sharp dialog and merciless, bloody violence. Exactly what we want, right?

Set in in the Wyoming wilderness not long after the Civil War, the film opens on a stagecoach racing across a snow-shrouded trail amidst a brooding opening theme by legendary composer Ennio Morricone. It's not long before the coach comes across stranded bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), asking for a lift into the town of Red Rock, as a blizzard is fast-approaching. The driver tells Warren he'll need to ask the passenger in back for permission, as the man has paid for a private ride into town.

That passenger is fellow bounty hunter John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell, doing his best John Wayne) and his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After verifying Warren's identity and making sure the former Union officer has no interest in the $10,000 price on Domergue's head (Warren has three of his own dead bodies to cash in on), Ruth allows the man to board and the three roar off toward a nearby way station known as Minnie's Haberdashery.

Shortly thereafter, another man, one Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), is trailside asking for a ride. Mannix, a loose interpretation of a Southern gentlemen if there ever was one, claims to be the new sheriff of Red Rock and tells Ruth if he wants to get paid for Domergue, he'd better extend him a ride. After some "colorful" dialog insues, Ruth again agrees.

The four barely make it to Minnie's before the brunt of the storm hits and there they are met by four more "stranded" individuals: hangman Oswaldo Mosbray (Tim Roth), cowpuncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), former Confederate army general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and storekeeper Bob (Demian Bichir). Of course it's not long before suspicion takes over and all hell breaks loose.

Every character in The Hateful Eight is memorable and each actor seems to to be having the time of their lives spouting that one-of-a-kind Tarantino verbiage, especially Jackson and Goggins. They really are the two linchpins of the film, sworn enemies at first, but strangely closer by journey's end.

As if the dialog and characters weren't enough of a draw, this time around Tarantino has chosen to shoot his film in the long-dormant, super-wide Ultra Panavision 70 format and release it as a throwback Cinerama roadshow presentation in select cities. I was fortunate enough to screen the film this way and while it was nice to have an overture, intermission and souvenir program, 70mm road shows just don't work in small, run-of-the-mill multiplex theaters, where The Hateful Eight has been relegated since every large, premier screen in the country is committed to Star Wars for the next month.

70mm aside, The Hateful Eight doesn't exactly break any new ground in the Tarantino canon, but it does extend an extremely talented filmmaker's incredible eight-film run of giving audiences exactly what they want: indelible entertainment. Grade: B+

Dec. 31: Top 5 Films of 2015

Quick Flick Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens delivers both a nostalgic look back and an exciting look forward for a 40-year-old saga that can easily be labeled the most influential and enduring film franchise in cinematic history.

Set 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, we learn from the now-iconic opening crawl that Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, is missing and in his absence a new order of evil has risen from ashes of the old Galactic Empire and now threatens the entire republic, so much so that a resistance has formed (they called it a rebellion in my day), led by none other than General Leia Organa.

As the film opens, Leia has dispatched crack X-wing pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to the desert planet Jakku to obtain a clue to Luke's whereabouts. Before Poe can take off with the vital information, the First Order, led by the Force-sensitive, Vader-esque Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), drops in looking for the same quarry, forcing Dameron to hide it inside his beach-ball-looking droid BB-8, who rolls off all alone into the desert night.

BB is soon befriended by the young scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and the two intersect with Finn (John Boyega), a morality-stricken AWOL Stormtrooper who's recently crash-landed on Jakku while helping Poe Dameron escape the clutches of the First Order. The trio barely get past introductions before a swarm of Tie fighters come calling, forcing our new heroes to escape in the only ship handy....a long-since-abandoned Millennium Falcon.

The Falcon isn't in the air long before it's swallowed up by a large freighter. Soon its crew, a certain Corellian smuggler of some repute and his Wookie cohort, are boarding the fabled "hunk of junk," claiming to be "home." Yes, a graying Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca have joined our adventure and eventually agree to help Rey and Finn get BB-8 to Leia and the resistance.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is surprisingly effective, full of subtle nods to the original trilogy while successfully marrying a believable, satisfying story with engaging, purposeful personalities, both new and established. While the film does mirror the 1977 original at times, right down to a Death Star-type weapon, and illicits more questions than answers, the enveloping narrative and characters allow you to forgive the little transgressions of unoriginality and plotting.

Ford hasn't been this energetic and enjoyable to watch in years, maybe decades. His Han Solo really drives this new installment and carries most of the emotional weight of what has come before, and will transpire later. It's a performance that stays with you long after you've left the theater. Carrie Fisher's Leia is a little more reserved than we remember, but it's nice to see our favorite princess still fighting the good fight and keeping Han in check.

Newcomers Ridley and Boyega are really the ones who will carry this new trilogy forward and they both have an easy, natural rapport and infuse their characters with just the right amount of heart and spunk.

The Force Awakens is an entertaining, deeply moving continuation of the Star Wars franchise, one that should satisfy both old and new fans alike, and make all of us yearn for the revelations to come. Grade: B+

Happy Holidays!