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The DVDVR Best of 2015 Film Poll [Initial Discussion/Guidelines/Pimpage]


caley

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Current list. Probably forgetting something, and I haven't seen The Revenant or Sicario yet (those are the two I most want to) but

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Creed

3. Inside Out

4. Straight Outta Compton

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

6. The Hateful 8

7. Sisters

8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

9. The Martian

10. Spy

11. Ant-Man

12. Minions

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Watched two terrific 2015ers last night.

 

The End of the Tour: A few years ago, I read an article/obituary in Rolling Stone by David Lipsky about author David Foster Wallace.  I'd never heard/nor read anything by Wallace (I'm not a very good reader) but somehow the article transfixed me.  I immediately borrowed 'Infinite Jest' from the library and...barely began it.  At various points over the years, I've tried to get into Wallace with little luck.  Finally last summer, I read a short story of his and I really enjoyed it, and I'm now fairly certain that I WILL eventually enjoy Wallace, I just have to sort of dedicate myself to that goal.  Yet, I've read and re-read that obituary about him repeatedly.  I even entertained trying to turn it into a short-story until I found out Lipsky, himself, had written a story about Wallace that had been adapted into a film.  'The End of the Tour' is that film and it details the 1990s meeting between Lipsky and Wallace, where the former intended to write a story for Rolling Stone featuring the latter.  It's basically 105 minutes of conversation, where Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and Wallace (Jason Segel) meet, talk, hang out, talk,  become friends, talk then get annoyed with each other and the interview takes a harder turn.  But it's absolutely riveting.  Segel channels Wallace's regular guy-ness and pain while still radiating his genius through every pore.  There's some controversy about the film as Wallace's family did not approve of the film, nor did his friends.  So if you find a particularly negative review (Glenn Kenny's for instance), it's likely a friend/fan of his who objects to the very idea of the film.  But, as a guy who's fascinated with Wallace, but not actually a friend, even a fan yet, it's a realy entertaining and interesting little film.

 

Digging For Fire: Your mileage with this will probably vary depending on your fondness for largely improvised mumbleore indie films.  I really liked director Joe Swanberg's 'Drinking Buddies' and 'Happy Christmas' so I wanted to see this one and totally loved it, as well.  A couple, Tim and Lee (Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt, repsectively) stay in one of the latter's client's homes while she vacations.  Tim finds a bone and a gun and wants to investigate it, while Lee wants him to just let it be.  They part for the weekend, Lee taking their son to her affluent parents' house, while Tim stays around their vacation place to finish their taxes.  It's not long, though, before Tim is inviting friends over and leading an expedition in the back yard to see if he can unearth more bones or evidence, while Lee just searches for herself.  There's a great cast: Sam Rockwell, Mike Birbiglia, Anna Kendricks, Brie Larson, Sam Elliott, Judith Light, Melanie Lynskey, Ron Livingston, Timothy Simons, Jenny Slate and Orlando Bloom all turn up in various roles.  And it's just a really interesting and honest look at marriage and growing up and outgrowing friends and forging new relationships.  I really enjoyed it but don't want to give up any more of the plot as it's more fun to watch it unfold on your own.  Highly recommended.

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Current list. Probably forgetting something, and I haven't seen The Revenant or Sicario yet (those are the two I most want to) but

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Creed

3. Inside Out

4. Straight Outta Compton

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

6. The Hateful 8

7. Sisters

8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

9. The Martian

10. Spy

11. Ant-Man

12. Minions

 

THIS LIST HAS NO CREDIBILITY~!

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My list of no credibility:

 

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Beasts of No Nation

3. The Martian

4. The Revenant

5. Ex Machina

6. Inside Out

7. Star Wars: Force Awakens

8. Straight Outta Compton

9. Creed

10. It Follows

 

Sicario got edged out narrowly.  I love that movie but have no interest in revisiting it since it is a bleak soul smashing piece of work.

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Current list. Probably forgetting something, and I haven't seen The Revenant or Sicario yet (those are the two I most want to) but

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Creed

3. Inside Out

4. Straight Outta Compton

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

6. The Hateful 8

7. Sisters

8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

9. The Martian

10. Spy

11. Ant-Man

12. Minions

THIS LIST HAS NO CREDIBILITY~!

I liked The Martian quite a bit, but it's failure to sell its stakes as being real at any point really drags it down. It was funny, but if I'm taking best comedies, it's behind Sisters

I assume that's where your issue lies at least.

I also literally forgot Black Mass and A Walk In The Woods...

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Honestly it's more me entertaining myself by going all Chris Cooey anytime someone posts a list

Beyond that I can't comment since I'm behind on the big 2015 movie watching.

I did get Mad Max from the library so I can finally see what all the fuss is about

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Cooey. God I'd forgotten all about him.

I wish I could forget about him. Some things are just burned into your brain whether you like it or not.

My own list looks something like this:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. The Martian

3. Inside Out

4. Creed

5. Bone Tomahawk

6. The Hateful Eight

7. The Final Girls

8. Jurassic World

9. Regular Show: The Movie

10. Avengers: Age of Ultron

11. Mr. Holmes

12. Ant-Man

13. Spectre

14. Maggie

15. HUGE empty space

16. Jupiter fucking Ascending

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My list of no credibility:

 

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Beasts of No Nation

3. The Martian

4. The Revenant

5. Ex Machina

6. Inside Out

7. Star Wars: Force Awakens

8. Straight Outta Compton

9. Creed

10. It Follows

 

Sicario got edged out narrowly.  I love that movie but have no interest in revisiting it since it is a bleak soul smashing piece of work.

 

Sicario is easy top 5-10 for me. I find the bleak piece of work comment funny just from the aspect of Beasts of No Nation being #2. Fantastic film. Elba should have been nominated for an Oscar.

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16. Jupiter fucking Ascending

 

God that movie...I mean, 'Ridiculous 6' is hands-down the worst thing I've seen this year but 'Jupiter Ascending'...there's nothing I can say that wasn't covered better in Will Leitch's review.

Cherry-picking the best quotes

 

It's a baffling, bloated nightmare of a movie, an incoherent mess that's impossible to follow and shockingly, interminably long. But the real reason it's terrible is that it's not fun—the film is so caught up in its own brain that it never gives us anything to grab onto, no poppy moments that give you that head-rush of recognition that only popular culture can give us. Even the most imaginative new universes must have some connection to ours, even if it's just Keanu putting on sunglasses and deadpanning, "I know kung fu." There is none of that here. This place exists entirely between the ears of the Wachowskis, and that's a place I'm no longer willing to visit.

 

 

Half this freaking movie is about taxation rates and committee meetings, and I have no earthly idea why. At one point, for no reason whatsoever, we get a five-minute-long montage of our heroes waiting in various lines. I'm not kidding about that, by the way: For whatever reason, in the middle of a sci-fi fantasy film, the Wachowskis decided to make some sort of point about intergalactic bureaucracy and governmental red tape. It's honestly one of the most bewildering things I've ever seen in a movie. As the scene kept going on and on—"No, you need this stamp for citizenship, you must visit that office" as Channing Tatum rolls his eyes for the eighth time—I started to legitimately worry I'd blacked out. As a filmmaker, this is the sort of thing you do when no one is telling you no.

 

 

The Wachowskis have forgotten how to hook us, so we just float around, untethered and bewildered, wondering how we got here and how much longer it'll be until we get to leave. Jupiter Ascending isn't even unhinged enough to be fascinating. It's just a sad, lonely trip to nowhere. Give me the blue pill. I absolutely do not need to know how deep this rabbit hole goes.

 

 

The whole thing is here and totally worth a read

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Creed. Watched this opening night in the UK, it’s a January 2016 film over here. Creed’s critical reception surprised but it’s deserved for the story, performances with Sylvester Stallone the standout, he deserves to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. There’s the music, the graphics listing a fighter’s bio/record, the way the fights were filmed and the nods to the previous Rocky films. The only two Rocky films I’d take over this are the original and Rocky Balboa. Shame the film missed out on Academy Award nominations it deserved. I’m thinking Best Picture, Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Best Director (Ryan Coogler), Best Screenplay (Ryan Coogler/Aaron Covington), Best Original Score (Ludwig Goaransson) and Best Cinematography (Maryse Alberti).

 

Inside Out. I borrowed Inside Out from the library watching it with my Dad/Sister last Friday and is the first Pixar film I’ve seen since Toy Story 3 (2010). If I had to sum Inside Out Up…see what I did there ; ) in one word…Imaginative.  Clever with the emotions in heads (liked seeing inside different brains such as the parents and animals), the different colour memories and various islands.

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My list of no credibility:

 

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. Beasts of No Nation

3. The Martian

4. The Revenant

5. Ex Machina

6. Inside Out

7. Star Wars: Force Awakens

8. Straight Outta Compton

9. Creed

10. It Follows

 

Sicario got edged out narrowly.  I love that movie but have no interest in revisiting it since it is a bleak soul smashing piece of work.

 

Sicario is easy top 5-10 for me. I find the bleak piece of work comment funny just from the aspect of Beasts of No Nation being #2. Fantastic film. Elba should have been nominated for an Oscar.

 

Beasts was a brutal watch but at least I felt angry about what was on screen. Sicario just numbed my soul.

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Beasts was a brutal watch but at least I felt angry about what was on screen. Sicario just numbed my soul.

 

 

Yeah. My Libertarian leanings fully embraced how cynical it was on the drug war though, and it makes you come to terms with the fact that much worse is probably going on in reality.

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THE GREEN ROOM and THE LOBSTER are both probably top five for me. Did anyone else see these? I caught them at a film festival, so they might just be getting wide release this year.

 

Yeah - Lobster isn't hitting till March 11 and Green Room isn't till April 29

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caley didn't specify, but I think the rule is to go by what Rotten Tomatoes says.  It has The Lobster as 2015 and Green Room as 2016.  

 

(Box Office Mojo has April 1 as the release date for Green Room, and nothing announced for The Lobster.)

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It's really difficult because some definite 2015 stuff like 'A Most Violent Year' squeaks into 2016 because of RT.  On another message board, we used to go by the axiom of 'If you can make a case for it being 20XX, then you can vote for it' which worked more often than not, but also lead to a number of arguments that detract from the end goal of something like this: celebrating the films of 2015.  So, we're not a real big group here, we're not a real authority on anything, so my feelings are 'If you can make a case for it, vote for it', but just know that if something ranks on our list this year, albeit low, it might not be eligible for next year when more people are going to be able to see it and push it up higher.  We're not critics, a lot of us aren't in big cities (The film I most wanted to see of 2015 is 'Youth' and it's fallen through the cracks as not quite being an Oscar contender, but being an Oscar-type movie so that it's still lingering in some theaters and not hitting DVD until March so it's unlikely I'll see it before the deadline), so I figure we just do the best we can.  I'm open to pretty much anything, really.

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It's really difficult because some definite 2015 stuff like 'A Most Violent Year' squeaks into 2016 because of RT.  On another message board, we used to go by the axiom of 'If you can make a case for it being 20XX, then you can vote for it' which worked more often than not, but also lead to a number of arguments that detract from the end goal of something like this: celebrating the films of 2015.  So, we're not a real big group here, we're not a real authority on anything, so my feelings are 'If you can make a case for it, vote for it', but just know that if something ranks on our list this year, albeit low, it might not be eligible for next year when more people are going to be able to see it and push it up higher.  We're not critics, a lot of us aren't in big cities (The film I most wanted to see of 2015 is 'Youth' and it's fallen through the cracks as not quite being an Oscar contender, but being an Oscar-type movie so that it's still lingering in some theaters and not hitting DVD until March so it's unlikely I'll see it before the deadline), so I figure we just do the best we can.  I'm open to pretty much anything, really.

 

I voted for A Most Violent Year in 2014. It had a limited run in a few cities on Christmas that year here in the US.

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It's really difficult because some definite 2015 stuff like 'A Most Violent Year' squeaks into 2016 because of RT.  On another message board, we used to go by the axiom of 'If you can make a case for it being 20XX, then you can vote for it' which worked more often than not, but also lead to a number of arguments that detract from the end goal of something like this: celebrating the films of 2015.  So, we're not a real big group here, we're not a real authority on anything, so my feelings are 'If you can make a case for it, vote for it', but just know that if something ranks on our list this year, albeit low, it might not be eligible for next year when more people are going to be able to see it and push it up higher.  We're not critics, a lot of us aren't in big cities (The film I most wanted to see of 2015 is 'Youth' and it's fallen through the cracks as not quite being an Oscar contender, but being an Oscar-type movie so that it's still lingering in some theaters and not hitting DVD until March so it's unlikely I'll see it before the deadline), so I figure we just do the best we can.  I'm open to pretty much anything, really.

 

I voted for A Most Violent Year in 2014. It had a limited run in a few cities on Christmas that year here in the US.

 

I got my years mixed up, I meant 'A Most Violent Year' is definite 2014, but RT has it as 2015.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'll definitely push it back a week, as there's still stuff I haven't watched.  So we'll go with February 29th, knowing full well that I have my brother's birthday, Oscars party, and the NHL trade deadline all in that weekend, so it will probably get pushed back further.

 

BTW, I have no ballots for this, unless I count a couple lists in this thread, so...yeah.

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I'll definitely submit a ballot, I just wait until the deadline so I can watch as many movies as possible.

 

I hope some more participants will turn up, I don't want to skew the results with my shitty taste in movies.

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