2015 in Movies
This year in movies, 35 seen (excluding DVD and TV), is a bit higher than 2014's 32 and below '13s 43. This year is already over 20, so that 43 seems achievable. In cases where I've seen a new release multiple times, I count it as one movie.
12/27 Star Wars 7
11/28 Mockingjay 2
11/14 Spectre
10/23 Bridge of Spies
10/16 Goosebumps
10/11 The Martian
10/3 Hotel Transylvania 2
9/20 Pawn Sacrifice
9/5 Transporter Refueled
8/28 Fantastic Four
8/22 Hitman: Agent 47
8/21 American Ultra
8/15 Man from UNCLE
8/1 Mr. Holmes
7/31 Pixels
7/18 Ant Man
7/9 Inside Out
7/7 Get Hard
7/7 The Wedding Ringer
7/7 A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night
7/4 Minions
6/21 Shaun the Sheep
6/13 Spy
6/7 Tomorrowland
5/23 Mad Max: Fury Road
5/2 Avengers: Age Of Ultron
4/18 The Woman in Gold
4/2 Home
3/14 Chappie
2/22 Jupiter Ascending
2/20 Kingsman
2/6 Seventh Son
1/15 The Interview
1/10 The Imagination Game
1/3 Night at the Museum 3
Again, I'm not going to talk about all of them.
Night at the Museum 3 was sad in light of the death of Robin Williams. It was a good one for one of his final movies and was quite fun. I was not familiar with Rebel Wilson prior to this film and am looking forward to seeing her in other roles.
It was a good year for spy movies with Spy, The Interview, Kingsman, Bridge of Spies, Man from UNCE, and Spectre. And I have the first three in my collection, eventually I'm sure I'll get a copy of Spectre, but for some reason the more recent Bond movies, i.e. Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, just don't have much of a repeat value for me. I'm still miffed that Timothy Dalton didn't get a third movie - his second one had such a terrible and horrible story that no one could have made a good movie out of it - but he seems to be having a lot of fun with his current projects, such as Penny Dreadful, getting to play a Sir Richard Burton (the explorer Burton, not the actor) clone. In my opinion License To Kill is the absolute worst James Bond movie: much worse than George Lazenby's or Octopussy or A View To A Kill.
Spy was such a wonderful turn-it-on-its-head spy movie. I really liked Melissa McCarthy in her buddy cop movie The Heat (2013), but I loved her in this one and am really looking forward to Ghostbusters. The Interview was really wild: I loved the concept before North Korea got pissed, and the madder they got the more I had to see it. I didn't get to see the Christmas Day premiere, but I was amazed when the local theater showed it a few weeks later and I saw it. It is, by no means, a great film - but it is a huge amount of fun. I bought the DVD when it came out, and they were giving away free t-shirts! So I was quite happy to get a The Interview tee. Kingsman was also a bit of turn-it-on-its-head film, and I also quite liked it. It was an amazingly over the top spoof of the Bond movies. However, it was also a VERY radical departure from the graphic novel that it was based on. I picked it up and was very surprised to see the GN was much more main-stream Bond than what the movie was. It was OK, but I doubt that I'll be keeping the GN. I also imagine there would be a considerable cognitive dissonance shock if I'd been a huge fan of the GN before the movie came out.
We also particularly enjoyed Bridge of Spies and the Man From UNCLE, having just been to Berlin. Even though UNCLE was not filmed in Berlin, when we went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum we could feel the movie's realism. And in the case of Bridge of Spies, we drove across that actual bridge! That was pretty cool.
American Ultra and Hitman are also technically spy movies. Ultra was very interesting: sort of Bill & Ted Excellent Spy Adventure. A stoner doesn't know that he's a deeply programmed master spy and killer. Hitman was not bad, not great. I understand it's much better than the first Hitman movie. I have to add that I have not played the computer game, so I have no idea how faithful it is to the move.
Get Hard, The Wedding Ringer, A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night, and Shaun the Sheep were all movies that I saw flying to/from the USA and Berlin. I wasn't really interested in seeing Get Hard and Wedding Ringer when they were in the theater, but they were a lot funnier than I'd expected. A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night was very interesting. Not a great film, but still quite interesting. It is an Iranian vampire movie. I shall repeat that. An Iranian vampire movie. Filmed in Iran. It was an interesting slice of life of rural, industrial (oil production) Iran. Lots of drugs and disco. It was great getting to see Shaun the Sheep a few weeks before it released in the USA. I love Aardman animations and it was lovely to see a feature-length film with such a nice story. I was busting a gut laughing to it while listening through headphones that my wife finally had to watch it, she also loved it.
Minions we did not see on the plane: we saw it in Berlin. In German. And loved it. Look at it: the minions speak gibberish, and anyone else's dialog you can figure out from context and actions. I saw it again in the theaters when we got home and it was pretty much exactly what I thought was going on.
Also, if you ever find yourself in Berlin, make an effort to go to the Astor Theater. Superlatives escape me when it comes to describing this place, it's just so freakin' amazing. I so want to go back to it. Germans are interesting people when it comes to lip-sync: they are utter perfectionists and their voice actors do perfect matches for the lip movements of whoever it is that they're dubbing. Even though they're totally off-screen, they're treated like so many Americans treat the actual screen stars. I think that's pretty cool.
Star Wars 7? Not particularly impressed. Goosebumps? Lots of fun. Mockingjay? Good conclusion to the series and a very good book read. The Martian? Excellent, also a good book read. Hotel Transylvania? Surprisingly fun, I bought the first movie on DVD on my way home from El Paso where I saw it. Transporter? Waste of time. Stick with the first two and ignore the third, though I expect I'll be buying the TV series that I did not know existed. Fantastic Four? Garbage, but I liked it more than the first two. Apparently it was made to let the studio keep the license, but was not intended for release. Mr. Holmes - excellent movie. It deserves awards. Great take on a fictional hero at the end of his life, and also sad knowing that we won't have Sir Ian for too much longer.
And I think I'll leave it at that.
12/27 Star Wars 7
11/28 Mockingjay 2
11/14 Spectre
10/23 Bridge of Spies
10/16 Goosebumps
10/11 The Martian
10/3 Hotel Transylvania 2
9/20 Pawn Sacrifice
9/5 Transporter Refueled
8/28 Fantastic Four
8/22 Hitman: Agent 47
8/21 American Ultra
8/15 Man from UNCLE
8/1 Mr. Holmes
7/31 Pixels
7/18 Ant Man
7/9 Inside Out
7/7 Get Hard
7/7 The Wedding Ringer
7/7 A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night
7/4 Minions
6/21 Shaun the Sheep
6/13 Spy
6/7 Tomorrowland
5/23 Mad Max: Fury Road
5/2 Avengers: Age Of Ultron
4/18 The Woman in Gold
4/2 Home
3/14 Chappie
2/22 Jupiter Ascending
2/20 Kingsman
2/6 Seventh Son
1/15 The Interview
1/10 The Imagination Game
1/3 Night at the Museum 3
Again, I'm not going to talk about all of them.
Night at the Museum 3 was sad in light of the death of Robin Williams. It was a good one for one of his final movies and was quite fun. I was not familiar with Rebel Wilson prior to this film and am looking forward to seeing her in other roles.
It was a good year for spy movies with Spy, The Interview, Kingsman, Bridge of Spies, Man from UNCE, and Spectre. And I have the first three in my collection, eventually I'm sure I'll get a copy of Spectre, but for some reason the more recent Bond movies, i.e. Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, just don't have much of a repeat value for me. I'm still miffed that Timothy Dalton didn't get a third movie - his second one had such a terrible and horrible story that no one could have made a good movie out of it - but he seems to be having a lot of fun with his current projects, such as Penny Dreadful, getting to play a Sir Richard Burton (the explorer Burton, not the actor) clone. In my opinion License To Kill is the absolute worst James Bond movie: much worse than George Lazenby's or Octopussy or A View To A Kill.
Spy was such a wonderful turn-it-on-its-head spy movie. I really liked Melissa McCarthy in her buddy cop movie The Heat (2013), but I loved her in this one and am really looking forward to Ghostbusters. The Interview was really wild: I loved the concept before North Korea got pissed, and the madder they got the more I had to see it. I didn't get to see the Christmas Day premiere, but I was amazed when the local theater showed it a few weeks later and I saw it. It is, by no means, a great film - but it is a huge amount of fun. I bought the DVD when it came out, and they were giving away free t-shirts! So I was quite happy to get a The Interview tee. Kingsman was also a bit of turn-it-on-its-head film, and I also quite liked it. It was an amazingly over the top spoof of the Bond movies. However, it was also a VERY radical departure from the graphic novel that it was based on. I picked it up and was very surprised to see the GN was much more main-stream Bond than what the movie was. It was OK, but I doubt that I'll be keeping the GN. I also imagine there would be a considerable cognitive dissonance shock if I'd been a huge fan of the GN before the movie came out.
We also particularly enjoyed Bridge of Spies and the Man From UNCLE, having just been to Berlin. Even though UNCLE was not filmed in Berlin, when we went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum we could feel the movie's realism. And in the case of Bridge of Spies, we drove across that actual bridge! That was pretty cool.
American Ultra and Hitman are also technically spy movies. Ultra was very interesting: sort of Bill & Ted Excellent Spy Adventure. A stoner doesn't know that he's a deeply programmed master spy and killer. Hitman was not bad, not great. I understand it's much better than the first Hitman movie. I have to add that I have not played the computer game, so I have no idea how faithful it is to the move.
Get Hard, The Wedding Ringer, A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night, and Shaun the Sheep were all movies that I saw flying to/from the USA and Berlin. I wasn't really interested in seeing Get Hard and Wedding Ringer when they were in the theater, but they were a lot funnier than I'd expected. A Woman Walks Home Alone At Night was very interesting. Not a great film, but still quite interesting. It is an Iranian vampire movie. I shall repeat that. An Iranian vampire movie. Filmed in Iran. It was an interesting slice of life of rural, industrial (oil production) Iran. Lots of drugs and disco. It was great getting to see Shaun the Sheep a few weeks before it released in the USA. I love Aardman animations and it was lovely to see a feature-length film with such a nice story. I was busting a gut laughing to it while listening through headphones that my wife finally had to watch it, she also loved it.
Minions we did not see on the plane: we saw it in Berlin. In German. And loved it. Look at it: the minions speak gibberish, and anyone else's dialog you can figure out from context and actions. I saw it again in the theaters when we got home and it was pretty much exactly what I thought was going on.
Also, if you ever find yourself in Berlin, make an effort to go to the Astor Theater. Superlatives escape me when it comes to describing this place, it's just so freakin' amazing. I so want to go back to it. Germans are interesting people when it comes to lip-sync: they are utter perfectionists and their voice actors do perfect matches for the lip movements of whoever it is that they're dubbing. Even though they're totally off-screen, they're treated like so many Americans treat the actual screen stars. I think that's pretty cool.
Star Wars 7? Not particularly impressed. Goosebumps? Lots of fun. Mockingjay? Good conclusion to the series and a very good book read. The Martian? Excellent, also a good book read. Hotel Transylvania? Surprisingly fun, I bought the first movie on DVD on my way home from El Paso where I saw it. Transporter? Waste of time. Stick with the first two and ignore the third, though I expect I'll be buying the TV series that I did not know existed. Fantastic Four? Garbage, but I liked it more than the first two. Apparently it was made to let the studio keep the license, but was not intended for release. Mr. Holmes - excellent movie. It deserves awards. Great take on a fictional hero at the end of his life, and also sad knowing that we won't have Sir Ian for too much longer.
And I think I'll leave it at that.