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


caley

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Fast and Furious 7.

My Sister bought me and my Dad tickets to see Furious 7 last Friday, our first from the franchise. Only things I knew: car films, Paul Walker died before this was completed and a five minute scene showed from one before the screening of a film we were seeing. I right enjoyed this over the top vehicular fighting film without seeing the others, guessing more if I had.

 

LOL at the Rock Bottom, Walker running up the bus as the bus was slipping off a mountain like the Eliminator from the old Gladiators TV show and the car hopping between the two buildings in Abu Dhabi.

 

Tribute to Paul Walker was handled well. I asked my Sister if she wanted to see the films released on DVD, she does so I’ll be buying the DVD box set. What do you think to this and the rest of the films in the series?

 

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.

 

Furious 7 was my first Fast and the Furious film this year and Rogue Nation was my first Mission: Impossible film last night. I right liked it. Maybe a bit too twisty at the end? I perhaps would have got more out of the references in Rogue Nation to events in the previous films if I'd seen them. Tom Cruise may be small but his balls sure aren't doing stunts like he does in this film and I'd seen the Burj Khalifa Ghost Protocol stunt previously as it made the news while Cruise was promoting the film. More Rebecca Ferguson in the next entry please, what a bad ass! Going to be hard to top what Cruise and Ferguson did in this movie. 

 

Wouldn't mind seeing the remaining film in the series to complete the set, know Ghost Protocol is well regarded.

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The wife and I knocked out The Martian last night. Here are some quick thoughts:

 

I found this to be quite the enjoyable entry in the latter period of Ridley Scott's filmography. The Martian by and large plays it safe and delivers a charming, charismatic performance for Matt Damon. Godard's script and (I'm guessing) Weir's novel do a wonderful job of mostly avoiding unnecessary melodrama and stick to this being a film based in process and isolationism; however, the film does lose its luster in the third act as it overplays the "on earth" component and relies on forced unity and sweeping score to urge the viewer to elicit emotion.

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I will totally try to submit something by then.

What about SON OF SAUL? Anyone see it? It's great, but it was another film festival viewing.

 

It played in enough markets that I think it counts as 2015. It's one I definitely need to see.

 

I'm excited about seeing Heaven knows What when it hits Netflix too.

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You know what? It feels like EVERYTHING is hitting DVD right now (The Room and Creed are out today; Spotlight last week; Bone Tomahawk just came out 2 weeks ago in Canada) and in the interest of letting everybody try to see as much as possible, I'm going to push this thing back ALL the way to March 29th, 2016. Firm deadline, no more pushbacks (Unless something catastrophic suddenly befalls me).

 

Anybody (Well...SKOS and Natural) who have submitted a list already, feel free to keep watching and re-do your list closer to the deadline, or if you don't, I'll still count your earlier submissions.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have had an epic week or so of 2015 watching

 

Vacation: which I prepared to have one of my favourite flicks completely bastardized and destroyed and then...didn't.  I love the two main 'Vacation' movies (The first one, and the Christmas one, the latter of which my family watches every single year at Christmas time, while the former is something I try to make a habit of watching every summer) and had no time for this one after watching the trailer (As my brother said, it looked like it was written by a thirteen-year-old: "Excrement! Glory Holes! Rim Jobs!") and while all that stuff was in the movie, it was actually much more faithful to the spirit of the aforementioned 'Vacation' movies than I was expecting.  I enjoyed the younger brother bullying his older brother, Ed Helms as grown-up Rusty being oblivious to everything going on around him, and the mountains and mountains of cameos (Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day, Liam Hemsworth etc. etc.).  And then, in the final stretch

Rusty meets up with his parents at their B&B and in those 3-4 minutes, Chevy Chase just shows he still has that incredible knack for physical comedy and I would 100% watch a movie about the Griswolds B&B

 

Spotlight: which was really great.  I like movies about journalists researching and investigating things and this has that in spades (Yet I hate doing research myself...but I will watch movies about other people doing it every day of the week).  Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams got the Oscar nods for this one, though I'd argue that Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber maybe deserved them more.  But yeah, it's really good, well-acted, frustrating, then infuriating, thrilling, then just sad.

 

Ant-Man: which had exactly what I wanted: Paul Rudd reacting in his inimitable deadpan way to the zaniness around him, then actually had some great action sequences, good fight scenes, and a climax that is both simultaneously tense and exciting and completely silly.  I liked this a lot.

 

Room: which I went into blind not knowing that it was

50% in the room, 50% about the pair's re-adjustment into society whereas I thought the bulk of the movie took place in captivity

but was still good but I felt some stuff in the last 1/3 of the movie felt really unrealistic and brought it down a bit

There is no way I think a TV interview would guilt someone who just got out of this situation in the way the interviewer did.  I also felt the family had a genuine lack of empathy, understanding and compassion for just what they had been through which I thought was going to be the point, but then was kind of quietly swept aside

but still the two main performances by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay were so excellent that it smoothes out those rough parts I didn't jibe with.

 

Bone Tomahawk which quite surprised me with its methodical pace.  Billed as a horror-western, about a group of men attempting to rescue prisoners taken by a cult of cannibals, I expected lots of gunplay and splatter, but the bulk of the movie is about the posse's journey to the lair of the cannibals and the majority of the action and gore (And there is one scene of almost unspeakable gore.  I mean, it's not gore that would surprise someone who has seen like the 'Saw' movies, but it is infinitely surprising in a film as slow-paced as this one) takes place in the final stretch.  Lots of good performances here, especially the four main actors: Kurt Russell, Matthew Fox, Patrick Wilson and, especially, Richard Jenkins turning in one of my favourite supporting performances of the year.  So, yeah, it's quite good, but it's not for the faint of heart.

 

Infinitely Polar Bear which baffled me because while Mark Ruffalo was good and nominated for 'Spotlight', he was even better here as man battling bi-polar disorder, tasked with looking after his two daughters while their mother goes off to business school.  It's sweet, it's sad, it's exasperating, and it has a huge, huge heart.  I really loved the relationship between the daugters and their father and loved how the film approached his illness with compassion, but refusing to allow it to be wrapped up in a neat little bow.  A wonderful little film.

 

Youth: which was my most-anticipated film of the year after I fell madly in love with director Paolo Sorrentino's previous theatrical release: 'The Great Beauty'.  This one stars Michael Caine as a retired conductor and composer who is vacationing at a spa in Switzerland, brushing shoulders with other celebrities (Harvey Keitel as a director in decline; Paul Dano as an actor on the verge of his next big break; an obese Diego Maradonna; and Miss Universe) and trying to mend his relationship with his daughter (Rachel Weisz) and trying to turn down an emissary for the Queen of England who wants him to perform at Prince Philip's birthday.  Has an incredible soundtrack, gorgeous cinematography, and I love the occasional breaks with reality which aren't always explained if they are dream sequences or something else.  One of my favourite films of the year, I'm still digesting it, but I just know that I love it.

 

Sicario which is probably the most intense film of the year, and would hold up as one of the more intense films of any year (The almost never-ending tension reminded me a lot of 'Hurt Locker' in that sense, where even moments that are meant to lessen the tension, end up taking sharp turns right back into it).  Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin are all excellent, and the action pieces are uniformly excellent and well-made.  It's a really terrific film, even if it doesn't exactly make you feel good.

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I watched Bone Tomahawk recently and it's a strange bird. Just visually there's a lot of cut corners. I wonder if a combination of budget and scheduling with all the actors lead to it looking like it was a rushed shoot. Didn't think Kurt Russell was too invested in anything, but Richard Jenkins looked like he was having lots of fun and is maybe the biggest reason to see this. There's some really cool ideas and some of them come off really well particularly some of the violence. I'd like to see it remade actually.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm spending this week powering through some things for both polls. There's probably going to be quite a bit unseen for this poll, but I do have Carol from the Library and I hope to snag Spotlight from Redbox for the weekend as wel.

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I've reconciled myself to not hitting some of the big Oscar-y ones (Carol, Brooklyn, The Big Shot, The Danish Girl) but I'll be damned if I'm making a list before I get a chance to see 'Mission Impossible'!

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Re Youth: I don't want to spoil it, but about what ends up happening to Keitel's character... I've seen two other (non-English) movies, both relatively recent, where the same thing happened.  I was surprised when I saw it the first time.  This is the third time, and it's been diminishing returns every time.

Granted, that final symphonic performance is an amazing scene, but it wasn't enough to save the whole movie for me.

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16 hours ago, S.K.o.S. said:

Re Youth: I don't want to spoil it, but about what ends up happening to Keitel's character... I've seen two other (non-English) movies, both relatively recent, where the same thing happened.  I was surprised when I saw it the first time.  This is the third time, and it's been diminishing returns every time.

Granted, that final symphonic performance is an amazing scene, but it wasn't enough to save the whole movie for me.

Youth is one that pops up on my Letterboxd a lot and seems to get quite the mixed response. It's one I'm sure I'll catch up with at some point.

Has anyone seen A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence? That was one that garnered a lot of praise at the end of last year and is on the back and forth of that 2014/15 divide.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a large amount of 2015 stuff suddenly cross my path this week (The Martin, Fantastic Four, The Gift, Cop Car, Dope, Bird People) so I'm probably going to try to watch as much of it as possible in the next week-ish so I probably won't finish my own ballot until then.  So if anyone still wants to get a ballot in, or add to their already submitted list, feel free!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I kinda lost the passion for this as I only got 6-7 ballots (I think) and didn't feel like hounding after people to see if they wanted to vote.  But I could cobble together a quick countdown if y'alls want to get in some late ballots.

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Jingus, I messaged you about counting your post earlier in the thread as a vote.

As of right now, I have 10 lists counted (This could drop as I'm counting three lists posted in-thread as lists but will withdraw them if the posters don't want them acknowledged).

The List of Voters (If you don't see your name and felt you voted, wanted to vote, or know someone who voted, please PM me ASAP)

Caley
Execproducer
Chaos
The Z
Bald Henry
The Natural
S.K.O.S.
Brian Fowler
J.T.
Jingus

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Up to 12.  If you don't see your name and think you sent me something, let me know.

Caley
Execproducer
Chaos
The Z
Bald Henry
SKOS
The Natural
B.Fowler 
JT
Solid Gold Bomb
Control
Peterien

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  • 3 months later...

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