Top 12 Films of 2015

It’s been a long, fascinating year for cinema, not only here in the UK but across the world. We still have one trip to a galaxy far, far away yet to come, but in the mean time, Mac and I thought that now would be the best time to look back at the rest of the year and decide what came out strongest. We’ve each picked our 6 favourites (UK release calendar), stacked them up side-by-side. The result is a varied and interesting mix of films, spanning almost the entire year. You might not expect some of the choices, and you might not agree with others, but rest assured that if there’s anything on this list that you haven’t seen yet, you should fix that.

 

NUMBER SIX

Mac – Steve Jobs

Seductively dazzling dialogue being uttered by some of Hollywood’s most gifted actors in the visually arresting story of the YouTube generation’s very own messiah. Steve Jobs landed on our shores only a mere few weeks ago and brought with it a fairly heavy amount of baggage and the undesirable task of meeting the high expectations of critics and cinephiles alike.

However, Danny Boyle and company proudly shook all that off and presented us with a captivating and operatic, Shakespearian tale that took us on an enthralling voyage into the mind of a so-called ‘genius’. A tragic tale of the complicated, unapproachable and frustratingly inhuman revered tech figure, whose sole desire was to create simple, accessible future technologies that would bring people together and make computing a more human experience. Michael Fassbender (donned with turtleneck and frameless glasses) completely disappears behind his multi-layered performance as he spouts out the illustrious dialogue scribed by Aaron Sorkin, dialogue that flows like a symphony and travels at the pace of a runaway locomotive. It is pure magic to the eyes and ears.

Full review here.

 

Callum – It Follows

The best horror films should feel like a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. It’s a pressure point that a worrying majority of the recent additions to the genre have been failing to hit, but It Follows doesn’t so much hit it as savage it with a rusty pickaxe. Without giving too much away, It Follows the exploits of a rag-tag group of teens, with an almost Goonies-style 80s sensibility as they scurry across the suburbs of Detroit to keep one of them (rising star Maika Monroe) safe from something.

The action might not follow a complex path, but the premise that fuels it is thought provoking, terrifying and aggressively devoid of any comfort. Things seem hopeless almost from the outset and the more carefully you think about what’s going on, the worse it seems. For reasons I can’t precisely get into, it plays double duty as a darkly funny satire. What I can talk about is the beautifully balanced homage to John Carpenter that resonates through the film, from the sinister synth blasts of the score to the ragged, gothic lens that American suburbia is observed through. Simply one of the finest horror films of the decade.

Full review here.

 

NUMBER FIVE

 

Mac – The Martian

Fear not, that faint yet piercing sound you’re hearing rattle off your ear drums, making you question the level of your own sanity, is quite simply the echo of a giddy seventy-year old filmmaker shouting through his cupped hands from a rooftop: “I’m back!’ Along with George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015 was very much the year in which the old dogs of Hollywood taught the new kids a definitive lesson. This is how it’s done.

Ridley Scott’s rousing and surprisingly hysterical science fiction romp landed in October and it hit big. A stellar success with both critics and the general movie-going populace, The Martian saw the incomparable Matt Damon play both astronaut and botanist Mark Watney, who is accidentally stranded on the big red planet without so much as a friendly-faced volley ball to keep him company. A pitch perfect cast, gorgeous visuals, and a refreshingly optimistic and lighthearted tone made this one of the most entertaining flicks of the year. A film that got you questioning whether it was too late in your mediocre life to pick up a science textbook and knuckle down because in 2015, science was cool again!

Full review here.

 

Callum – Inside Out

Almost every film ever made under the Pixar banner has been able to appeal to adults and children in almost equal measure. Inside Out might be the first one which actually has more to offer to the older audience than it does to the younger one. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s a brilliant kids movie, the box office statistics testify to that, but I’m far from alone in saying that, as a 25 year old man, I came out of it feeling like I’d legitimately learned something about myself. The idea that the insides of our heads act as a control station, manned by the humanoid manifestations of different emotions might not be the most original (Osmosis Jones springs to mind), but the way the film uses that launchpad in order to address ideas about emotional balance, complexity, dominance and maturity is masterful.

Amy Poehler’s Joy was the one that appeared on the posters, but it’s when you realise that Sadness, played to overwhelming effect by Phyllis Smith, is the real star of the film, that you start to understand just how much depth is really on offer. The action outside of Riley’s head is also handled excellently, the problems she and her parents face aren’t cute, softened movie-land problems, they’re real, and everyone can relate. I’m not sure how exactly Pixar have managed to maintain this standard of quality for this long, but the same kids who were excitedly taken to see the first Toy Story (myself included) are still flocking to cinemas as adults every time they put out a new release. That’s a towering achievement.

Full review here.

 

NUMBER FOUR

 

Mac – Sicario

If The Martian was the glass half full entry on this list, then Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario is very much the shattered fragments of that same glass imbedded in your face as you lay there helplessly bleeding out, praying for one last shred of hope, only to realise in your final moments, there is none.

The ominous thriller Sicario saw Emily Blunt being dragged, tooth and nail, into the depths of the rabbit hole, straight into the heart of the murky and sordid frontline of the war on the Mexican Cartel. A film bursting at the seams with moral ambiguity and unforgiving violence, Villeneuve forcefully grasps the audience by the retinas and takes you on a journey into hell itself. It will make you rush home to take a scorching shower as you vigorously try to cleanse yourself of the filth and grime of this debauched world. The striking visuals and direction are matched only by the unsympathetic messages and questions it throws at you.

Full review here.

 

Callum – Amy

When it comes to chronicling the tale of someone who was hounded mercilessly by the media for the entire extent of her tragically short career, a film-maker needs to know where they stand. After Amy came out, some critics derided Asif Kapadia for basically being no better than the paparazzi that stalked her, or the chancing writers and TV personalities who made light of her suffering, but if you ask me, they completely missed the point. Amy is not about Amy Winehouse’s relationships, or her lifestyle , it’s about her music, through and through.

All of her music was inspired by the other things going on in her world though, so that had to play a role, but rather than merely detailing her motion from underground sensation to global celebrity to addiction-addled controversy magnet, Kapadia acutely and gallingly reminds us that she was so much more than all those things, that she had so much more potential and that her downfall happened right out in the open, we all saw it, and none of us did a damn thing. Knitting together interviews with her friends, family and artists who supported her like Mos Def and Tony Bennett, the film delves deeply into her writing, recording and performing process, laying bare just how much of a genius she really was. It’s deeply, infuriatingly tragic, but also intensely beautiful, the moment ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ begins to play as the credits roll, everything fits together and you understand better than ever before what a treasure Amy Winehouse really was, and how much we all still miss her.

Full review here.