By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
2015’s Best, Alphabetically
The ritual of “best” lists for the Seventh Art is a perennial. Those of us from the fifth estate privileged to ply this arena get to trot out “good taste.” The passage of time may validate one’s options; conversely, looking in the rearview mirror could metamorphose us all into pillars of salt.
Ten is the usual number for the exercise but there have been times when I couldn’t muster steam to get past seven or eight, and on the flipside, have cited more than the traditional minyan. And long ago I gave up on ranking because of the diversity and challenge of the hundreds of films released each year.
Amy: With this portrait of Ms. Winehouse let us also embrace What Happened Miss Simone and Janis: Little Girl Blue. All three documentaries focus on iconic songstresses and forego the sort of talking head style that mummifies a subject. All three are tribute films, although clearly the details involve tragedy, repression, self doubt and the business of the business. Still, music and talent prevail and each has a joyous quality.
Ant-Man: This film has the distinct advantage of not being a sequel. Setting aside what was an apparently tortuous development and production history, the end result has a feisty, thumb-your-nose at standard superhero movies attitude. At once in full embrace of the genre it casts an unconventional actor in the title role, spices the narrative and dialogue with irony and ladles on eye-popping production design to exploit the talent of a diminutive warrior. It’s an unabashed amusement ride with a sneaky punch that its myriad brethren largely lacked last year.
The Assassin: Superficially this tale of a female martial artist sent to eliminate a ninth Century Chinese warlord has all the familiar twists and turns of so many Asian potboilers. But where the similarly skilled Wong Kar-wai heightened the tropes in The Grandmaster, Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien makes only scant nods to the familiar. It’s mesmerizing not for the set pieces and choreography (though both are formidable) but for its ruminative tone and facile visual grace. He’s a filmmaker that knows the power of stillness and can subtly coax out resonances in the historic saga that are all the more psychologically disturbing in such a richly sumptuous environment.
The Big Short: A tale of the financial meltdown back at the start of the new millennium sounds like an arid landscape. But in evolves as one of the few successfully audacious American films of recent time as it navigates the story through the eyes of a handful of generally unconnected analysts and observers that saw it coming. Following Anchorman and Step Brothers, one has to conclude that director-co-writer Adam McKay was itching to make something more substantive. He pulls out all the stops with asides that break the fourth wall and actually go a long way to explain the situation and circumstances as its principals go from disbelief to shock and ultimately outrage. It’s quite possibly the most riotous cautionary tale in American movie history.
Brooklyn: A seemingly simple saga of an Irish lass that winds up in the Manhattan borough during the immigration wave of the 1950s. However this well observed saga has considerably more to digest. What if her migration were ambivalent? Circumstance brings her back to the Emerald Isle and the tug of the past is pitted against the prospects of the future. It’s the sort of narrative that threatens to tumble into maudlin sentiment or woefully improbable conclusions.
Inside Out: Easily the most sophisticated conceit ever from Pixar and a testament to what can be realized in animation. This coming-of-age story finds an 11-year-old girl adjusting to radical geographic relocation as well as budding maturity. “Inside” are five controlling emotions – anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness – that grapple with her moods in a visual inventive manner as she and they struggle to find order in the chaos. One more than respects the serious underpinnings and the consummate skill at exacting a truly singular entertainment.
Love & Mercy: The life of Beach Boy frotnamn Brian Wilson emerges as an anti-traditional biopic. Rather like Steve Jobs, it’s strategic rather than chronological or comprehensive. The intertwined threads are the early days of the group leading up to the creation of the seminal “Pet Sounds” LP and the later period where the beached genius is over medicated, under the thrall of a pseudo-psychologist and his struggle to break away with the assistance of an exceedingly resourceful and insightful woman. The music is unquestionably an asset with the recording sessions providing a rare and plausible insight into the creative process. The decision to cast different actors to play younger/older Brian is also smart and inspired. And though we think we know this story its greatest strength is providing the “don’t know” and context that validates an optimistic conclusion.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Few things frighten me more than adaptations of young adult novels. Regardless of whether they reflect personal experience or observation, it’s a genre that tends to descend into saccharine conclusions. In this instance the title trio is comprised of a movie-obsessed nerd, his accomplice and the seemingly doomed heroine. Again it’s fraught with potential disintegration. Yet it manages to confront very sober sided issues such as class, race and mortality with a breezy resolve that’s disarming, honest and effective and at the top of the list… unexpected.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence: It’s daunting to describe any of the all too few films Swedish auteur Roy Andersson has made. Pigeon, like the others, is an absurdist sequence, loosely knitted by a pair of intrepid if clueless and dead pan salesman of questionably amusing novelty items. They travel through the contemporary and historic byroads of their nation in a stream of conscious fashion that befits the attitude of the piece. Suffice it to say that Andersson is one of the few filmmakers (Buñuel and Kieślowski would also be on the short list) that speaks to me.
The Revenant: As with The Assassin, this tale of brutality and revenge finds its strength in visual majesty that enhances and intensifies the drama. The period is the French-Indian Wars of the early nineteenth century and the title character is a frontiersman/scout for a military hunting party. The tale turns when the scout is mauled by a bear and subsequently left for dead by men assigned to ensure his safety. Largely devoted to survival in a ferocious and unrelenting environment that’s been unexplored since the likes of Man in the Wilderness and A Man Called Horse, the film is graphic without unduly exploiting the inherent violence and cruelty. The symmetry between beauty and barbarism is organic and compelling.
Truth: With Spotlight ,it was a good year for journalism on screen. I take the minority position that Truth is the better of the two, and not to get too analytical, because it leaves you debating with what the title puts forward. At issue is a “60 Minutes” segment on George W. Bush’s military service in the Texas Air National Guard and the subsequent internal investigation into questionable reporting by Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes. Though based on producer Mapes’ book, the film, while slanted, doesn’t come off as overtly biased. Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford as Mapes and newsman Rather are adroit in conveying flawed characters who nonetheless are putting forth best efforts in what evolves into an inescapable quagmire.
Wild Tales: These are six stories that begin as routine situations and escalate into nightmarish scenarios with truly acidic comedic consequences. The Argentine production leaves you gasping as your inner voice fluctuates between “they’re not going to do that” to “push it further.” It brings out the devil albeit in the safe environs of a darkened room and is the sort of escapist fare with a true kinship to bygone smart screwball comedies that lamentably are too infrequent in the contemporary movie landscape.
Here are a handful of close calls with brief descriptions: Carol, the haunting adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1950s forbidden love; Room, the ultimate captive tale; Mustang in which five Turkish sisters find their modern values largely thwarted by religious traditions; The Second Mother, an ingenious tale of class and ambition in contemporary Brazil; and the Red Planet portions of The Martian.
And one more you’re unlikely to see: Spear: A tale of a young aboriginal brought up traditionally who finds life in the big city to be rife with prejudice and overcomes obstacles through the strength of his upbringing. The twist is that acclaimed stage director Stephen Page’s first film is told entirely through movement and a tiny bit of narration mixing real locations, studio sets and musical pieces in a seamless blend of verite, humor and compassion.
