When the folks who say the words and act out the movements flocked together, these were the groups who made the most thunder.
Best Film Ensembles of 2015
February 13, 2016
Best in Film 2015, Best of 2015, Cinema Creed, Inside Out, Krampus, Spotlight, The Big Short, The Hateful Eight Leave a comment
Best Films of 2015
December 31, 2015
Best in Film 2015, Best of 2015, Cinema Best of 2015, Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, movies, Sicario, Spotlight, Star Wars The Force Awakens, Steve Jobs, The Big Short, What We Do in the Shadows 1 Comment
Clockwise from Top Left: Inside Out; Spotlight; Ex Machina; The Big Short (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots)
Box office records kept falling in 2015, and some of the biggest blockbusters were actually among the best films of the year! This is appropriate enough, as bigness was the name of the day in 2015, with Big Emotions and Big Ideas all over this list. Whether it was through muckraking journalism and statesmanship, the birth of new heroes, or the burning desire to make personal connections, the makers of the best films of 2015 made sure audiences heard what they had to say.
This top 10 list was originally posted on Starpulse in December 2015.
1. The Big Short – Spoiler alert: as the wild ride of Adam McKay’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’ bestselling nonfiction thriller about the players who anticipated the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble settles into its conclusion, the epilogue reveals that every Wall Street fraudster was imprisoned and new stringent legal regulations have been implemented to prevent another crisis. Except, of course, that didn’t happen. This is an esoteric topic, but the audience for “The Big Short” knows it has been screwed. The level at which this swindling occurred is astounding and ridiculous, and the filmmaking that captures it is just as absurdly gut-wrenching.
This Is a Movie Review: Spotlight
December 17, 2015
Cinema, Movie Reviews Billy Crudup, Brian d’Arcy James, Jamey Sheridan, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Richard Jenkins, Spotlight, Stanley Tucci, Tom McCarthy 2 Comments
There is an inherent drama and urgency in the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal that a film about it does not need to do any work to tease out. But just perfunctorily putting the Boston Globe’s investigation of this story does not automatically make for a great movie. Luckily, director Tom McCarthy and his co-screenwriter Josh Singer make plenty of astute filmmaking decisions alongside their similarly tuned-in cast and crew.
Recognizing that the story itself is plenty powerful (the epilogue text detailing the extent of the abuse is perhaps the most overwhelming moment in any movie this year), the actors on the Spotlight team (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James) keep it understated. As victims’ lawyer Mitch Garabedian, Stanley Tucci is labeled eccentric, but he is actually also low-key. The production design, cinematography, and costumes are all also appropriately drab.
The plot manages to legitimately earn the descriptor “action,” with the editing favoring cross-cutting between various story threads. This plays out as such: Mike Rezendes (Ruffalo) tracks down evidence at the courthouse, and before we find out if he uncovers the right puzzle piece, we check in on Sacha Pfeiffer (McAdams) interviewing a victim, but before she gets out all her questions, it cuts back to Mike, and then it cuts around to the rest of the team. This is just Filmmaking 101, creating tension and establishing engagement. Spotlight makes a difference, and it is thrilling.
Jmunney's Blog 