Best movies of 2017

2017, here we go!

12. INGRID GOES WEST – This movie begins with a tear filled girl looking at the Instagram of someone who didn’t invite her to her wedding. She shows up to the wedding, walks right up to the bride and straight up maces her right in the face. This was the most cathartic cinematic moment of 2017 and a great way to open a movie. We then learn a bit more about Ingrid, a girl who has suffered a nervous breakdown and has a dependency on social media since she has no real friends or life of her own. She discovers a new obsession through the profile of a pretty young woman with a massive following seemingly based on her own style and tastes. Ingrid worms her way into her life by aping her styles and tastes and a relationship builds upon a massive and creepy lie. Along the way, Ingrid meets a man that is obsessed with the 1995 hit BATMAN FOREVER, and I was satisfied with the endless references to this timeless classic. The movie is very dark, and very funny and has excellent performances from Elizabeth Olsen, O’Shea Jackson and a real hopeful turning point for Aubrey Plaza. Who graduates her usual creepy girl persona into something multilayered and more human.

11. BRAD’S STATUS – There were a lot of great surprises this year and with the expanded benefits of MoviePass from this year compared to last year, I get to take some risks again. BRAD’S STATUS doesn’t have a great title or trailer so none of that factored into my decision to see it. It simply started next after I finished a play of vague mall Asian cuisine. It’s about this father Brad, played by Ben Stiller, who is about to take his son on a tour of colleges who is also reflecting on his own life choices and where it’s taken him. He had a group of friends when he was in college who all went on to become rich and famous people while he, who leads a comfortable middle class life, seems to find extra pain in the struggle that he thinks his friends don’t have to deal with. Brad’s inner monologue is constantly talking to the audience and we are aware of every insecurity and conceived slight that’s coming from everyone he interacts with. Even his wife and son. It barely edges out Ingrid with the dark and creepy. It’s definitely the most uncomfortable movie of the year. The best example of that being a scene where Brad has a drink with one of his son’s student advisors, confesses lament for his place in life and this young woman tells him his white straight male suburban complaints aren’t gonna amount to people giving shit one about him and it’s all together stomach obviating and rejuvenating. Like a cleansing rain. I think there is something here for those willing to venture into a middle aged white guy’s brain in 2017.

10. KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD – Another fantastic surprise of 2017. Admittedly, the only Guy Ritchie movies I have seen have had the words SHERLOCK HOLMES in the title. Wait, I think I saw his MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and that was pretty shit. So there was really no reason for me to even set foot in this theater. But I love the Arthurian legend and they haven’t made a good movie about it yet so I gave it a chance. Lucky for me, I was hooked within the first five minutes when King Eric Bana protected his kingdom from these evil wizards riding gigantic elephants with his flaming blue magic EXCALIBUR, MOTHER FUCKERS. King Bana is betrayed by his closest confidant, Jude Law who steals the crown from him but loses the sword. Arthur ends up hidden from Law and grows up a pauper raised by prostitutes and learning how to hustle on the mean streats of jolly old England. This movie is fantastically edited, as all this is shown during the credits in a cool montage. There are even scenes that happen and then happen again in different context right after the other. When Arthur finally does get the sword in his hands, he can’t control it. Like a video game he has to learn to wield the sheer power of Excalibur and do cool berserker combos to take back the throne and save England. Every moment of this was a blast and it failed miserably. I get it. All the promos and advertising were pretty bad and people don’t like the lead but it’s a great time. They had planned 7 films for this franchise, playing out the full Arthurian story with Lancelot and Guinivere and the Knights of the Round Table but we aren’t getting that now because none of you take risks! Think of the Round Table pizza promotions we are missing out on.

9. THE BIG SICK – I had the opportunity to see this movie last year in a test screening. Before Sundance and all that. I went because Judd Apatow is trying to right the ship with comedies and gave Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon a shot to put this amazing script on the screen. But since someone is dying in the movie, big studios wouldn’t touch it. So instead they released comedies like THE HOUSE, FATHER FIGURES and have BLOCKERS all ready to go for 2018. But the good movies are being made, you just have to look for them. This one is about the true story of how Kumail met Emily, fell in love, broke up and how she fell into a mysterious coma not long afterwards and Kumail and Emily’s parents had to deal with it together. The true stand out is Ray Romano, who plays Emily’s dad. Ol’ RR has secretly been amazing for a long time now. His role on PARENTHOOD showed great dramatic range which is showcased here as well. Ray does not need to work anymore. He had a giant hit sitcom that will run forever in syndication and yet he’s putting his best foot forward now with roles like this. Everyone knows Holly Hunter rules. I think people have finally gotten their Hogwarts letter about how great Zoe Kazan is. And finally, FINALLY, Kumail can stop appearing in bit parts in things like FIST FIGHT and BRA AND HEATHER HAVE A SPRING BREAK or whatever the fuck that movie was and is now a lead! Amazon Studios released this movie in theaters and they are showing us what our movies could be. And they are basically what movies were 20 years ago but I guess we lost our way somewhere. I blame Transformers.

8. SPLIT – M. Night Shymalan’s comeback would be one of the most shocking things about 2017 if 2017 wasn’t just a crazy netherworld of impossible and improbable things happening almost every day. If you still haven’t seen this, I am not going to spoil it for you suffice it to say that it will probably take more than one watch to truly get all that is being served to you in SPLIT. It’s wonderful to see that after more than a decade of constant and uninterrupted suck from this guy, that he has returned to power and right at the dawn of what will hopefully be one of his greatest achievements. Ana Taylor-Joy and James McAvoy are fantastic together and apart. This movie makes miracles happen.

7. IT – All but two of these movies so far, I thought were gonna suck. So I think 2017 was a great year for movies. I’ve read plenty of Stephen King and have watched a lot of King adaptations. I was never a big fan but out of all of his works, to me, this is the one that had the most potential to be something great. The book has its moments and so does the mini-series that came out on television in 1990. But none of those felt like they lived up to the potential. This does. The movie scales back some of the more fantastical elements of a story about a killer alien demon clown who feeds off kid’s fears and then the actual kids, and focuses on character and relationships. This cast is so amazing. Trouble is the whole story takes place over decades and the characters get much older, which means any subsequent movies will have to deal with other people playing these roles that were given such soul by these kids. Typically, horror movies end with one last scare to show you it’s not over. And while they could have done that here because there’s a lot to go, they chose to leave off on a hopeful, peaceful, loving moment. Because things are gonna get a lot worse. I’ll take a cue from the movie and just cherish what we got here in case things really hit the fan.

6. LOGAN LUCKY – There’s a big theme of surprise in this movie year. The surprise here is that Steven Soderbergh retired from directing movies a few years ago and came back. He made this one in secret and set up his own distribution as to not have to deal with the studio system that made him quit in the first place. Independent movies used to primarily feature controversial subject matter or content, which is why a big studio would feel they reached too broad of an audience for niche dealings. Now independent movies are just any movie without big robots or superheroes in it. It’s a bit of a shame, but like I said before, if you look for it, the good movies are still there. There is nothing about LOGAN LUCKY that is controversial or potentially offensive. It’s a big crowd pleasing adventure with big name stars filled with laughs and excitement. A laid off driller decides to get a band of relations and second hand nut job colleagues together to rob a race track during NASCAR’s biggest event, whatever that is. It didn’t get the audience it deserved, but film is forever. It will always be there for you. So why not find it sooner, rather than later?

5. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING – It’s no surprise that Marvel Studios would make the one Spider-Man movie that I truly love but the idea that they would have the opportunity to do so is a god damn miracle. After 5 movies, Marvel had their work cut out for them. They could have simply delivered on the minor details we have yet to see on screen from our beloved wall crawler, but instead, they rested on no laurels but still represented the spirit of the character better than any film ever has. No origins. No Daily Bugle. No Norman Osbourne. No J. Jonah Jameson. Aunt May is hot. Spider-Man has siri. AND IT’S ALL SO GOOD! The best I ever had. And Michael Keaton is in it. And he’s one of the best villains Marvel ever had. Out of a character that I didn’t really care about before. Hearing Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige talk about these characters makes me tear up from time to time. Because he’s able to deliver on his passion. He once made reference to Captain Marvel’s power level stats on early 90’s Marvel cards to describe how powerful the character is gonna be. When talking about this movie, he states very simply “Spider-Man is the greatest super hero ever created” and he believes it. And he makes you believe it. And I have faith they will keep us believing it.

4. LADY BIRD – I survived the underwhelming follow ups to FRANCES HA. Never fully believing I’d see anything like it again. Luckily, Greta Gerwig wanted to direct something she wrote on her own and the torches were lit once again. Telling the story of a young teen in 2002 navigating the rites of passage and changing relationships with friends, parents, lovers was not something I found to be gender biased. It took awhile for me to deal with all these things, going well into my late 20’s but hey, movies are supposed to be condensed. Seeing Gerwig play out these things on the very locations I myself played out 2002 was a little extra special and made it all the more intense and authentic. Saoirse Ronan has been in plenty of good movies, a good handful of bad and a whole lot if middle of the road. But she’s always great. And for someone who grew up in movies, she is also a convincing teenager who longs for a life better than she has. Laurie Metcalf’s brilliance and Jon Brion’s best score in years round off a movie that deserves all the acclaim it’s getting. It’s permeating even the toughest of movie critics that I know personally and that really warms the heart.

3. Brigsby Bear – This year at Comic Con, I stayed behind after a panel to watch one for a movie I didn’t really know much about. They played the first 10 minutes of this movie and I said that showing any more would ruin it and that we should all go see it when it was released later that month. I was instantly hooked. The marketing suggests a bit of a nasty hipstery feel making fun of the fact that we had to use VCRs at one point in human history (isn’t video tracking  HILARIOUS?) but lo, they looked beyond the obvious sort of insecure musings they could have made and found the sense of wonder that feels the truest when remembering the shows and videos portrayed in this movie. This has all been pretty vague so far, and it’s because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you. But it has this positive energy and sincere disposition that you wouldn’t expect and this tremendous heart from Kyle Mooney, one of the new SNL guys behind some of the funniest, darkest, and vicious takes that show does these days. None of that darkness is shown here, just the pure joy that inspired him to become who he is. I think out of all the movies on this list, this is the one people probably wouldn’t have seen and probably wouldn’t pick up otherwise but I can’t see you not liking this movie, whoever you are. Unless you were a truly despicable person.

2. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 – What a year for being a Guardians fan. Not only have we got the best new Disneyland ride in years from these dopes but we also got this. This franchise was such an unexpected success that reached even the farthest depths of the audience (you have to remember your uncle or something telling you about the first one like you didn’t fucking KNOW already) that I expected the worse with a sequel. I’ve seen plenty of shoes drop and a lot of the time, the element of surprise being lost takes away a lot of the punch. Luckily for me (and us), James Gunn had a few aces up his sleeve. Even while watching it the first time, I thought to myself that it definitely wasn’t better than the first and then I kept watching and realized that it wasn’t plot driven. It was character driven. A first of it’s kind, a big deal summer popcorn hit with cereals and liquid soap tied into it decided to take a deeper, more intimate look into the way its characters worked and THAT WAS THE STAR OF THE SHOW. It lead to its exciting action packed climax but it was the characters that took it there, not the plot. It’s the most personal movie of the year to me, selfishly because I see so much of myself across all these guys. You can make an argument for any character as the best character and even now I couldn’t tell you which one wins. I look at the parental issues, feelings of family, feelings of regret, feelings of loss, feelings of hope and it all seems so familiar to me. And on top of ALL OF THAT, a soundtrack that feels like it’s been with me my whole life but like I’m hearing it for the first time. I knew what Marvel was capable of, but I didn’t know it was capable of something like this. We are living in a golden age.

1. THE FLORIDA PROJECT – Director Sean Baker has always been interested in showing you the lives of people you probably only at most deal with for a few minutes, if at all, and even then in a pretty sparse regularity. Here he takes a look at the people that live off the tourism brought in by Disney World. It focuses on these kids that live in a nearby motel to parents that don’t really work and get money through other ways. Sometimes illegal, or at the very least on the line of what is and is not legal. This is all they know. They are left alone most of the time as it’s the summer time, and the colorful bizarre eyesores that surround them are adventures yet to be lived. The dangerous around them. The people that look after them, taken for granted because they are kids. And that’s a good thing, that even despite their hardships, they don’t even realize it’s happening to them and get to be happy little trouble makers. Like a modern day Little Rascals. It’s proximity to one of my biggest fascinations, the theme park capital of the world, has been keeping me obsessed with it. I’ve seen it three times and it’s just a world that you wouldn’t see unless someone like Sean Baker rolled up his sleeves and decided to show you what it was like. It has the best performances of the year from a cast that mostly, has never acted before and a genius Willem Dafoe. Who per my research has indeed acted before. For my money it is the one masterpiece that was released this year and I urge you all to check it out.

I really loved the year of film that was 2017, and look forward to what the next year has to bring and talking about it with all of you even if you’re being difficult about it.

- D

Top 5 Most Surprising Movies Of 2016

Last year, I decided to not do a worst list and I feel similar now. What’s the use of telling you that your beloved Deadpool is for the kids that ate glue in Kindergarten or telling your about how this weird Christian movie you’ll never be able to get a hold of was horrid? Not this year, anyway. So I’ll instead take up your precious time with another list of the top 5 most surprising movies of the year. Not exactly guilty pleasures. Not exactly good or bad but were not something I expected to have a strong reaction to, and keeps the net I cast for movies wide so I don’t miss anything worth seeing.

5. OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY/ NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING

Studio comedies are in a bit of a slump. The same five faces grace the posters these days and the kings and queens of 10 years ago are starting to get a little stale. In the case of NEIGHBORS 2, I quite enjoyed the original but saw little point to another one. This was more like a back door spin off that didn’t need any of the original characters, but felt compelled to include them anyway. Chloe Grace Moretz plays Twitter’s Shelby Ferro so blatantly, that her name is Shelby in the movie and we get a sequel not about quarrelling neighbors, but a college film about the ladies that want to have fun too without getting fucking raped. Very refreshing, very timely but most importantly, very funny. OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY is a newer premise that looked like it would fall into HANGOVER territory but actually being funny made up for its flaws. It’s kind of a shame how foreign it is to think that a comedy only really needs to be funny to succeed with an audience. It feels like a lot of comedies these days seem to put that effort in last. All it really needed to be was a giant cartoon and it had me pretty entertained.

4. ME BEFORE YOU

Not surprising in that something that looked like a Nicholas Sparks rip off would get me in the theater. I will always be there for those. Good or bad, it’s always fun. But what looked like boilerplate romance here became a more intimate portrait of character. Even though the standard quirky girl meets rich snooty snoot has been done, flipped, reversed and laid out in every way possible, like a nice Turkey dinner with all the trimmings, a simple dish done well is still delicious. There were things that I knew were gonna happen. From seeing them in the trailers, to them getting telegraphed in earlier scenes, to flat out expectation of cliché. And shockingly, when they came, I found myself welling up. Because the set up overwhelmed the feelings of familiarity. The leads were flat out great. Emilia Clarke shed her tough girl role she’s famous for, for a cute weirdo that she’s probably more like in real life. Sam Claflin earns the sympathy his cold and broken character gets from us, and not because of what is presented to us in the beginning, but by how he’s dealing with it. I also snuck in a really good burrito into the theater when I saw this and it was just a really great night that I look upon fondly.

3.  PETE’S DRAGON

Why did I walk into this remake of one of Disney’s most boring movies by one of the indie scene’s most boring directors? Because it was 90 minutes long, that’s why. Let that be a lesson to the studios. Let people get on with their lives. Looking at the runtime of a movie has become such a make or break thing with my decision to see a movie, even with things I’m actually looking forward to! I’ll pretty much give any movie a shot if it’s 90 minutes or shorter. This was a very sweet, very soothing, very successful exercise in tone. It felt like a bedtime story, and not in that condescending M. Night Shyamalan way, but still with a little Bryce Dallas. It deals with traumatic stuff but in a sleepy way that let’s fairy tales get away with baby eating and stuff. It never talks down to its audience and still remains interesting. There’s usually this us vs. them dynamic in fantasy movies that take place in a real world context, and that can get really boring, really quickly. This doesn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the unconvinced, and I was thankful for it. It was so unlike the Disney remakes that have come before, or like anything a big studio like Disney is putting effort into, that it must have slipped past them in their production of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, remakes and their own original films. I guess they have room to experiment and it worked.

2. BAD MOMS

Believe any movie that has “bad” in the title the way these movies are doing it these days. The thing that interested me in seeing this was that it went into turn around after nearly becoming an Apatow/Leslie Mann vehicle and falling apart at the last minute. It went over to the Chinese money production company of STX-Huayi Brothers, which is trying to build content for itself as a new studio. I was curious to see if an American production for I’m assuming a more global appeal by Chinese money was any different than your average studio piece of garbage. Well, in the last year, STX-Huayi Brothers is actually just picking up the slack for the kind of mid-level movie that studios don’t want to risk making anymore, across the board in all of their films. This was led by Mila Kunis, who I keep forgetting is amazing. And it finally puts her front and center in a way she’s never been before. She’s really funny and charming. And Kristen Bell playing the exact same character as she did in THE BOSS (same wardrobe too, right?) is finally worth a god damn again! I guess she works best a broken woman stripped of all dignity. I guess marrying fucking Dax Shepard is good research for that kind of role. The Bad Moms don’t actually let their children drink the blue stuff under the sink or fuck their kid’s friends or anything that real bad moms do. They kind of just go the grocery store and don’t pay for the milk that they’re drinking right there in the aisle. Oh, and they drink a lot. Still, it was the rare comedy these days that actually had more laughs than groans and you just feel like watching Kunis all day long. Also I like grocery stores a lot, and they need to be depicted more in cinema.

1. NERVE

We really can’t title movies anymore. We’ve become really bad at it. But NERVE is something you could really sink your teeth into. It fits on your ticket stub and everything. Reigning indie queen, Emma Roberts really gets to flourish in this techno thriller for millenials in which her character takes part in a dangerous online reality game controlled by users on an app. Kids be snap chattin’ and tweetin’ and it all adds to the fun but at a certain point the game gets a little too DANGEROUS. This was fun, exciting and courteous enough to provide some interesting twists and turns and has one of the more exciting sequences of the year that really fits in with the movie’s sensibilities. It may not stick the landing but it kept me talking about it for days afterward. It also introduced me to the wonder of Emily Meade, which I guess MONEY MONSTER did a few months before, but I didn’t even realize it was the same person playing both roles, so that’s how good she is. I may have snuck a burrito into this one too!

Coming later this week, my top 10 of the year!

- D

Best of 2015 - The Epic Conclusion

Ok, time to finish thing and put 2015 in the books. Follow me.

11.  I AM BIG BIRD

There was a documentary a few years ago about the guy who famously played Elmo and how he was one of the last few muppeteers to work under Henson that were still around and working today. Well we all know how THAT worked out. Carroll Spinney, who has been playing the character since 1969 was right in the middle of the Henson renaissance but it’s not a story of a group of people changing the world. It’s the story of a single man who felt like he never felt like he was part of the gang while the character he was playing was touching the hearts of millions of children. His life story is fascinating, overwhelming and a little bittersweet. I mean, they reveal that Big Bird was supposed to go up in the space shuttle Challenger! Can you imagine the unbearable tragedy of explaining to your child what happened to Big Bird? Thankfully he is still doing what he does, into his 90’s. A stalwart humble figure that has spent decades making people happy.

10. STEVE JOBS

Aaron Sorkin reinvented the biopic and people didn’t seem to pay attention. Even with all it’s behind the scenes problems, changing directors, changing studios, changing leads, the script was still served superbly. Everyone wanted Leonardo DiCaprio or Christian Bale to play Jobs and that isn’t hard to imagine but Michael Fassbender got the job. He’s great but not the ideal choice. WELL, IT TURNS OUT HE PROBABLY DID IT BETTER THEM ALL THEMS. His performance brings out that sympathy to Jobs’ cold personality that we saw in all the interviews and documentaries. The structure of only showing the unveiling of key products in his career was something I had read about for years and was always excited to see it but to anchor the entire thing with the relationship with his daughter is what really got me. I’ve read up a lot on Jobs and his denial of paternity was always gutwrenching. But the fact that he named one of his computers the LISA is just one of those real complex emotions that the movie tries to decode and I loved every minute of it. I was planning to explain to the people I saw the movie with about the amazing Apple Newton joke that The Simpsons once had but the movie flat out showed the clip. This is being at the top of your game if you’re a filmmaker.

9. TANGERINE

I love the LA story. Most people that live and work in LA are not from here and resent every minute they have to spend in the sprawl and take every opportunity they can to leave it. If you ever spent more than 10 minutes in the East Hollywood area, you’ve been privy to some kind of madness or weird altercation, especially if the sun isn’t out. Usually you just leave the area and hope for the best. This movie is that area, and you can’t leave. Because it’s about the people that are that area and they can’t leave either. At one point, the movie spends a long shot walking down the bad part of Santa Monica Blvd. and you feel it. It’s like the opening of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, feeling the burn of something people ACTUALLY went through from the safety of your plush movie theater seat. Unfolding on these streets, is a story very human story of friendship and loyalty in the harshest of conditions. You probably will never know this kind of life and you wonder what could be gained by getting a glimpse but to me, that’s the entire point of life and cinema. Gathering people’s stories in your head and getting something from them. As impressive as the movie was, the final credit was that the entire thing was shot on an iPhone, which absolutely stunned me. From the filmmakers of previous Top Ten list dweller, STARLET, it offers another look at human beings you probably wouldn’t give a second thought to.

8. SHAUN THE SHEEP

Aardman, the studio that gave us CHICKEN RUN and WALLACE AND GROMIT return to give us this movie, apparently based off a kid’s show that has run for several seasons. But you don’t need to know that. You just have to enjoy the antics and action of one of the best streamlined emotional and hysterical stories of the year. The simplicity is one of it’s more appealing aspects. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken yet the humor is flawless. It has hands down the best long con joke of the year. There is something about British farm life that I will always call to me.

7. JURASSIC WORLD

JURASSIC PARK is one of my top 5 favorite films of all time. I have read the book several times. I have many curiously emotional attachments to the ride of the same name. I’ve seen sequels miss the mark and I was ready for nostalgia to just get me through this life without every getting that magic repackaged and shoved into my eyes again. I loved being wrong about this. A wonderful idea for a sequel with fun new characters and exciting action and a cheer worthy finale was one of the funnest theater experiences of my life. It’s June and I’m watching raptors jump into battle with their Chris Pratt trainer. This is the way it ought to be.  Michael Giacchino’s brilliant score emulating the themes of John Williams while adding intense new ones encapsulate how well these ideas have been given a shot in the arm and are revitalized and ready to tear our arms out once again. It’s kind of worth it for Star Wars to suck to give me ammo to all those JW naysayers out there. Hail to the king, baby.

6. DANNY COLLINS

Al Pacino has unfortunately spent a lot of time being in bad movies over the last decade or so. That means that his comeback was always destined to be lost in the shuffle but I’m here to tell you here it is. His very own JERRY MAGUIRE shot at redemption on and off the screen. I hesitate to tell you much more about it, because a great story unfolds, and this does a great job of it. All the way to it’s brilliant ending. I’ll just persuade you with the fact that Supergirl is in it beaming and giggling and who doesn’t need more of that in their lives?

5. INSIDE OUT

I kept wanting INSIDE OUT to get darker. Get a little harder to watch. To twist the knife a little more. Pixar has been coasting for a while and this was the movie that brought them back to greatness but I always want them to go a little further. But for the first time, I realized why they didn’t. This young girl, who’s spectrum of emotion is getting more complicated and intricate, like everyone, is going to feel pain in more diverse ways in her life. And we don’t have to drop it all on her now, even though that happens to far too many people. The beginning of it all is enough, and the message that even though the feelings will get become tougher to process, and maybe too many to handle, that the ways of coping and figuring them out will also be abundant as well. Pixar has a way of making you miss the characters and really hope they end up okay. I wouldn’t mind a sequel where Riley gets older and they have to deal with heavier stuff. Or maybe a prequel where he emotions go to college or something. Wait, scratch that one.

4. GRANDMA

Lily Tomlin deserves an Oscar this year and way more attention than she’s getting. I fear that most of the young and attractive people will remember her from yelling at David O. Russell on YouTube. But she was nice enough to remind us why we’re all dumb for not thinking about her more. She plays an actual old person who doesn’t rap or smoke pot in this movie (or maybe she does smoke pot, but she doesn’t make a big deal about it) with a history that she unknowingly starts exposing her granddaughter to as they scour the town looking for money to pay for her abortion. If anything, the academy should at least give her the “body of work” Oscar for snubbing her legendary performance as Ms. Hathaway in THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES movie.

3. THE HATEFUL EIGHT

I’ve reviewed this very recently, so the only thing I can add is to tell you that this movie plants seeds in you that start growing right away and you end up feasting on the juicy fruit for days. We are lucky to have Quentin Tarantino making movies. We are lucky he cares so much about the exhibition of film. We are lucky he cares about film because I get to watch so many great films at his theater on glorious celluloid. Those of us that love movies are always rewarded with him. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2. THE INTERN

I’m so happy that Hollywood has focused so much on non-romantic relationships over the last couple of years. The idea that we can make each other better has always inspired me and kept me going. This is a movie like BIG or PLEASANTVILLE that transcends its premise and gives you something beyond an extended joke. Robert DeNiro has decided he’s going to do comedies until he hits the grave but the one or two light dramas he’s done in the last few years have really blown me away. Who knew mid-level energy DeNiro is where it’s at son. And Anne Hathaway, my great love, bogged down by a bunch of Oscar bait nonsense pays homage and builds on the phantom career of the person who was gonna make movies like PRINCESS DIARIES her whole life. I like the version of reality where THAT happens. Despite everything that this movie does, despite my breaking out in tears at it’s beauty, there is another film that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go for months on end…

1.     MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

I love George Miller. He’s a goddamn beast. And he had a hand in the BABE movies so he has a heart too. Who knew that in his 70’s he’d be THIS hungry? Hungry to jump back in his world and slap shot your brain into a goal made of razor wire and dipped in Taco Bell fire sauce. Imperetor Furiosa. Fuck yes. She lost an arm and she’s willing to lose everything else to get her women to freedom. Max, floats on in like a post-apocalyptic Forrest Gump, and one of three great 2015 performances by the flawless Tom Hardy, has nothing left to lose and together they both reach purpose. And along the way is the coolest imagery and stunts of the year. The second I saw the Pole Cats in the trailer, I knew I was gonna be hooked. When you can be convinced that they actually murdered people in order to accomplish stunts than you’ve done your job as a filmmaker. And it’s one of those movies that only gets more kinetic and potent upon each viewing. That rarely happens with me but in the 3 times I watched it in a theater this year it only became harder to see where the seams are. There isn’t a second of this movie where you aren’t sucked in and there isn’t a moment or action taken for granted. It is the most satisfying of the classically told cinema epics I’ve seen in a long time and it’s the fourth in a franchise. I feel it changed the way we should look at “reboots” in the way BATMAN BEGINS invented them. It’s everything we needed to see and hear at exactly the right time. To me, nothing can eclipse the accomplishment this was this year. Even Robert DeNiro watching Gene Kelly on the television and realizing he’s having a moment he thought he’d never have again. Even Joy (the emotion, not the Jennifer Lawrence character) realize that a memory can change context over time. Or a man riding a motorcycle with his trained raptors to take down a genetically enhanced super dino. Or a girl selling Fruit Brute ice cream. It bests every great moment I saw in a movie this year but I had a hell of time seeing them fight for the top of the heap. I can’t wait to see what will be better than all of those things so I’m never gonna stop looking for it.

- D

Best of 2015 - Part 1

It’s that time again for the guy who saw too many movies to tell you which ones he thought were good enough to talk about and gush over. I will say that these movies are good but I think the year suffered from a real lack of stand-outs. The best this year didn’t move me like other year’s but that tends to happen during years with so many big anticipated releases. Let’s start with some honorable mentions:

DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: THE STORY OF THE NATIONAL LAMPOON

We are probably all way past the prime of any of us being someone that actually read this when it was out. But the importance of not only the content but the talent behind it sent shockwaves throughout the comedy world still being felt today and probably for a long time coming. The institutions of Saturday Night Live and MAD Magazine owe a lot from this publication and all that’s left of it’s legacy is about 1000 terrible direct to video Will Friedle movies with it’s name on it. They discovered so much talent that went on to become icons of the industry and they were all pilfered and pillaged away toward more successful and notable ventures. Now their bittersweet story finally gets told. I sort of wish it was available to me when I was in my teens as a way to continue my humor mag education. I could have really benefitted from that vicious bite as a lad.

KRAMPUS

My era of horror preference is the 1980’s. That’s when I was most frightened of what they could do to my impressionable imagination. The video boxes told entire stories in my head that were far worse than what was actually inside. For most cases, as I would find out years later. Christmas horror is a particular favorite of mine because of the juxtaposition of hopeless against the background of the season of hope. KRAMPUS is inspired from this era and does it’s inspiration proud. It never forgets the fun and humor in the ridiculously tragic circumstances and takes delicious pleasure in the tried and true horror principle. This is all your fault.

SPECTRE

I haven’t loved a Bond movie in almost 20 years. I love the franchise and the characters. I’ve seen every (LICENSED!!!) Bond movie made. I of course have a taste for a certain kind of Bond. The fun of being a fan is that it will always steer back to what you loved about the movies eventually when it gets tired of being a certain way. Bond has finally given up on his self importance and learned to have fun again. Learned how to do great cinematic set pieces again. And use its strengths again. It may have veered toward it’s classic sensibilities a bit too early for everyone else’s tastes, but tell them to meet me in the toilet of the facility and we’ll hash it out there.

CREED

This has become a year of the return of classic heroes. Not everyone made it through but one of the best premises managed to get executed beautifully even with a change of creative team. All of the heart and soul of the franchise beginnings return through new eyes, and Rocky Balboa, the man that has been getting knocked around for his whole life, has a new reason to keep punching.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT

Michael Moore returns after five years to do something we’ve seen him do a little bit of in previous films but really hammers it home with this one. In this, he goes to different counties to “invade” and take the ideals and practices of the country back home to America to use. He wants us to have 8 weeks paid vacation. Better nutrition for our public schools. Better prisons and better acknowledgement of our checkered past as a nation. All of the ideas these counties have all came from American principles and it’s a very entertaining reminder that we can always do better. There’s a sequence in a Norwegian prison that is right out of a Christopher Guest movie and made me laugh like a maniac. Can’t even credit Moore for it. It’s reality.

20. THE DEATH OF “SUPERMAN LIVES”: WHAT HAPPENED?

Another documentary and it’s not just about a version of a 90’s Superman movie that didn’t happen. It captured a time and era of filmmaking that brought forth the edgy and gritty epics of the 2000’s due to it being the stark opposite of complete ridiculousness. The Tim Burton directed Nicolas Cage starrer based off the massively popular “Death of Superman” storyline that was not only the height of the sales for the comic book industry but also brought about the major implosion it has since to fully recover from. The movie’s story mirrors this pretty closely. Not only was it the corporate brand emphasized committee filmmaking that caused the destruction of this movie, it was that it was going to be yet another high concept oddity in a steady stream of high concept oddities that failed miserably. Even though I followed every leaked bit of concept art or script drafts or costume tests throughout the years, this movie still told me tons of new information of just how close we got to a movie that for better or worse, could have been talked about for decades after. I mean it was never made, and we’re doing just that.

19. PEANUTS

The Peanuts gang was one of the many beloved batch of characters that came back to us this year sans its creator at the helm. But due diligence and capturing of a certain spirit lead to a successful return. Peanuts seems to be the one exception when it comes to riding art and commerce harmoniously. They are critically lauded for changing the medium they bore from with an exceptional style and wit that cannot be duplicated, and they also appear in insurance commercials. It would be easy to sell these kids out, to change them for these app obsessed kids but they don’t need to. They are timeless and still get more character added to them in this. How do you make Snoopy even better than he was? They did it. They plussed Snoopy.

18.  THE AGE OF ADALINE

Blake Lively gets struck by lightning in the 1920’s and has gained the power to stop aging. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t a documentary based off her real life. Having to restart your life every couple of years is the nomadic life that I know all too well. This is a real dirge of the lonely. Of the empathetic. And the pain of the abundance of time. Blake Lively really gets to do her best work here. I mean, for Blake Lively. I really respect when an actor's personality shines in a character and even though she's a robot, she's a pleasant one. And this is the best Harrison Ford performance of the last few decades. And certainly of the year. It feels like if Philip K. Dick was a hopeless romantic and wrote this. There is a decadence to emptiness that feels like if Lana Del Rey was directing movies, they would be like this. This is what I wanted Benjamin Button to be. How come only severely hot people are the ones stuck with the aging diseases?

17. UNFRIENDED

Last year we got a real boon of quality horror. This year, not so much. But we did get this, which was fun and tense and actually frightening. They attacked us at our most vulnerable. In our beds with our laptops. The premise of this being unfolding all in the screen of a laptop is so powerful that it was also a Modern Family episode this season and it made me a fan of that show for life. I feel this will hold up to the passing in time in the way that horror used the phone to terrorize us. This one uses our warm inviting screens. People think I don’t use video chat because I don’t want to remind people my head is shaped like Gumby’s but the real reason is that I don’t want this to happen to me. Okay, maybe both reasons.

16. INFINITELY POLAR BEAR

I have a friend named Ameesh. I have probably told you stories about Ameesh. They are always wild and hilarious. I am convinced Mark Ruffalo found and decided to base this character based of good ol’ Ameesh. I can’t prove it but I just know it in my heart. This is a movie about a father who has had a mental break down getting back into the groove of taking care of his kids in the 1970’s. It doesn’t always work out and could get kind of crazy. And not burn the soufflé crazy either. Characters that have parents you come to resent but can’t really truly dismiss also speaks directly to my inner most kindlings. Mark Ruffalo racks up another amazing performance that makes you even wonder why you’re surprised, but it still surprises you. Like when we saw his debut in YOU CAN COUNT ON ME fifteen years ago and didn’t know why were so dazzled because he is always surprising, rarely repeats himself and is always sincere. I can’t believe Edward Norton was the Hulk once.

15. CHAPPiE

Sony remade ROBOCOP last year to typically unsatisfying results. This year, they remade ROBOCOP a lot better with CHAPPIE. Built to be a police robot, experimented on to have artificial intelligence and emotions, becomes a liability and then must take on a bigger more military skewed robot in a David and Goliath like square off. Sharlto Copley comes at it from a much more sympathetic angle playing Chappie as a naïve newborn instead of Peter Weller playing the cold and sterile dead soul. What Copley had to do in this movie was pretty magic, and you kind of wish there was more charming robots out there for him to play. Or at least babies. Can he motion capture a baby or something for a LOOK WHO’S TALKING reboot set in post-apocolypic South Africa staring Aqua as Molly and James? Why is Hollywood not paying me?

14. ALL THINGS MUST PASS: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOWER RECORDS

I have never felt such affection for a dead past time as much as I have watching this. If you live in Los Angeles or pretty much near any big cities I can tell you with much certainty that there is most likely a record store around. But it’s not a corporate run discount big box run by hippies that jumped on the big business boom just as it was leaving the station. To feel nostalgic for a company that set up it’s own demise with greed is such an odd occurrence. But the America Dream is built up so much in our heads that we can’t help but admire the story of a small band of trouble makers that managed to put their love and attitude into every corner of the country. I think the 80’s and 90’s, their heyday was also a time where mainstream media as we know it peaked before it got splintered in all kinds of different directions by the internet. There was this manufactured rebellion that us Tower customers all fed into, as we roamed their well stocked aisles of infinite discovery. We are at the point where mourning the tragedy of the baby boomer generation and I think that’s a perfect ending to their story.

13. RICKI AND THE FLASH

A woman abandons her well to do family to play in dive bars in the deep valley. It’s hard to be mad at this woman when Meryl Streep is the one playing her. Then you’re just kind of mad at everyone that gives her a hard time. Her daughter justifiably is furious at her and is having a hard time with life and won’t let her mom show her the attitude it takes to handle a steady diet of humble pie. Diablo Cody has made this list 3 times in a row now, after her debut ended up on the worst list. And we’re not even paying attention to her. We’re really bad at this kind of thing. Blowing our wad on a debut and not even following up with your darling. Well, I am Diablo. And so is Jonathan Demme who really puts his RACHEL GETTING MARRIED chops to good use here. Especially with the musical sequences.

12. BURYING THE EX

Joe Dante was forged in low budget horror and that's where you can find him these days. Not even going through the ringer on a corporate Looney Tunes commercial can ruin him. Even with little money for budget, he can still take a charming group of actors and an outlandish premise and make it one of the most fun rides of the year. There are so many things in this movie that are tailor made to pander to me. Th LA small business. The pop culture obsessed characters. The Alexandra Daddario. I can't even fully recommend this to non-me's but you should really get in my head some time. It's a riot.

Next up, THE TOP 11 OF THE YEAR!

 - D

The Top 5 films of 2015 That Weren’t As Bad As You Thought They Were Gonna Be

Instead of doing a worst list this year, I’ve decided to highlight a few movies that didn’t set the world on fire but were kind of worth your time anyway with

The Top 5 films of 2015 That Weren’t As Bad As You Thought They Were Gonna Be

5. JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS

A lot of purists and fans of the cartoon didn’t even bother to see what Hollywood had cooked up for them. There really shouldn’t even be a Jem movie because the last movement of the needle on Jem interest was sometime before the Soviet Union fell. These aren’t real fans, because if you love Jem, you gotta at least answer the ransom note that Universal was sending to you. If you did, you would have seen that they at least tried to introduce the character and the same elements of the show into a modern live action setting for new kids to enjoy. It was like the SUPER MARIO BROS. movie (which isn’t exactly helping my case) but I find it interesting how to interpret things in new ways and the soundtrack brought the hot traxxx. It’s actually pretty impressive how many parts of the Jem lore they put in here and made make sense. And you really have to give them props when you realize they did all this with a 5 million dollar budget. They also gave you the best end credits tease since Skeletor promised to come back and kill He-Man and you didn’t even care. Sometimes you guys are too spoiled.

4.  50 SHADES OF GREY

This was a big hit primarily because of couples with no imaginations having nothing better to do than to go see this on Valentine’s Day weekend, but if anyone was familiar with the novel on which the movie was based, you’d know that a lot of lambs would have to be sacrificed to make something that even resembled a movie. Well, consider the desolate one please, because they managed to even surpass that high benchmark. A lot of the malarkey was excised and Dakota Johnson delivered a performance that took this from a Lifetime movie to a film truly worthy of a February release. Her, the screenwriter, and the director (all females) managed to tell the story of withdrawn girl with no life experience being thrown into an overwhelming situation and coming out stronger and wiser from it. They even made this doomed romance something that I thought about FOR MONTHS after I saw the movie. In the end, despite all the sex gimmicks, anyone could relate to the problem of loving something that isn’t good for you. Another killer soundtrack here as well. I have no hope for the sequel because the book is based off of is even more insane and the nutty author who hated this movie now has more control. Be thankful it kind of worked once.

3. ALOHA

A lot of you got caught up in the politics of this one, one way or another and never allowed yourself to get into the amazing cast conducted by the Crowe. Entertaining and all sorts of feely even though not at the levels of what he was at in his prime, the cast makes it work. I’ve seen far worse from him and he makes a ground rule double feel like a triple. I also think Emma Stone’s work this year was largely ignored. Going into dicey territory again by working with Woody Allen in IRRATIONAL MAN, she really showed this year that she was worth every bit of ink written about her in 2011 about how she was gonna save us all. We never treat our saviors well, anyway.

2. PAPER TOWNS

The fact that we’re at the point where we need to put teens in a post-apocalyptic society or give them cancer to take them seriously is a sad thing. There have been a very small group of teen films in the last few years with no outward gimmicks that really do a good job of the low-key angsty tone that these kind of movies deserve. The film doesn’t know what it wants to be, but who does when you’re that age? It gets a lot of the feelings right and has two great performances with Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne. The movie takes her away just as you’re starting to fall for her and she becomes a siren of your own design at that point, and when the movie catches up to her? It’s one of the best bits of reality done this year.

1.     SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE

Saying that you had any preconceived opinion about this movie is saying too much. Because implies you even heard of this movie before now. But this Paramount Pictures release was kind of dumped into a Halloween slot without warning (prints of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 12 touted a special preview of this movie after the end credits, and didn’t even deliver, that’s how against the movie fate was). But just because Paramount had a movie they didn’t know how to market, didn’t mean they had a bad one. It’s actually one of the more fun surprises of the year. It’s fun, a bit bawdy but often clever and rather satisfying. This really was a movie for a small distributor to build an audience for, but it was instead the small fish in the gigantic ocean planet Splashoria. This is the best possible thing you can get from a Red Box blind rental.

Coming soon: The best 20 or so films of the year!

- D