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| What are the winners and what are the losers so far? |
The 5 Best Movies of 2015...So Far
5. Love & Mercy
It is a musical biopic like no ordinary other and the movie is basically a sonnet to music and to the music industry itself as one songwriter and musician has had fame in the 1960s and goes into isolation subconsciously as he is a paranoid figure of depression and drug overload. John Cusack gives a good performance but it is Paul Dano that stands out as the younger version of Brian Wilson who is about to go into fame and head straight for drugs. It seemed like a clichéd downfall, but it transitions to something vibrant and colorful.
4. Me and Earl and The Dying Girl
The movie wants to grasp your emotions like candy for a baby, but, no, it is not an overly sentimental and manipulative film like The Fault in our Stars. This movie is about facing the situation regarding a friend with a terminal illness and what to do about it and how to overcome your feelings towards the victim, the victim's crisis and your own future. Thomas Mann, C.J. Cyler and Olivia Cooke give different and strong performances balancing the pure nuance of drama and humor on-screen with a passion of imaginative filmmaking and unconventional romance surrounding them with a pitch-perfect script behind them.
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
Holy crap! Director George Miller has topped himself from his original trilogy to this grand and epic-scale sequel of a long-filled chase sequence that is dazzling and hyper from start to finish. The visual effects are unbelievable and the cinematography is spectacular as we gaze at the post-apocalyptic horror filled with people with rage. Tom Hardy is one of the best actors around right now and proves it as Mad Max, but it is Charlize Theron's movie as she displays Furiosa as one of the most bad-ass female characters in recent movie history.
2. Ex Machina
It is a quiet science fiction film that is crafted with skill and thought that you never know what to expect based on how Alex Garland made this movie, who was also the writer of Sunshine and 28 Days Later. This is a movie that feels like an echo of a Stanley Kubrick film as it presents ideas, creativity, suspense and intelligence all in one movie as we see mostly three or four characters for most of the movie as we follow their every move. It has a cold and unpredictable conclusion that gets people to talk about.
1. Inside Out
This is my favorite movie of the year so far and the movie proves that Pixar can be great given how deep the story is and how complex the situation is as how the story identifies with both kids and adults. This great movie has a range of humor and emotional depth that earns our tears with sentiment as we follow Riley and her emotions throughout the whole movie. Can kids identify with it? Yes. Can adults identify with it? Undoubtedly. I certainly did as this psychological animated film is challenging and entertaining simultaneously. Right now, this movie is definitely going to be in my top 10 of 2015 at the end of the year.
Favorite Pixar Movie Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ_22CI-6zU
THE WORST 5 MOVIES OF THE YEAR...SO FAR
5. The Gunman
Sean Penn is interrupting a so-called romantic dinner to remind them that this is not the movie that he or the audience signed up for as it was advertised as an action thriller. But, nope, if you add the audience clapping or laughing or cheering, it is a boring TV soap opera that will make you fast asleep.
4. Fifty Shades of Grey
These two Twilight wannabe characters gaze at each other with such hopes that the female demographic will be turned on by their bodies in the sex scenes. Well, that's what their husbands and boyfriends will think. But, I think they are just gazing for the point that the script is idiotic and stupid. I wonder how Dakota Johnson's mother, Melanie Griffith, feels about this movie now.
3. Jupiter Ascending
The Wachowskis created a celebration of magic: A magic of nifty special effects. But, the characters are in the way as they are having conversations. And, I was trying to figure why they are going to places and why they are stopping the bad guy and why Channing Tatum is saving Mila Kunis from her movie career. Then, it turned to black. Oh, now, I got it: it was a product called a movie with an awful story.
2. Hot Pursuit
Well, I hate to play the "rude" card, but this is what a female director (who also directed Fifty Shades of Grey) can do with two female characters in a movie. Let's give them a round of short applause and appreciate how trashy the story is and how it wasted Hollywood's money and our money. Sofia Vergara, Reese Witherspoon and director Anne Fletcher didn't even care to bring that poor guy along for the boring ride. What a great contribution, ladies! It has not been a good year for y'all. My apologies to the audiences who saw the movie.
1. Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Lazy is the understated word to describe this movie. I wanted to take my face and douse in the water in a hot jacuzzi to be in less pain than watching this dreck. Plus, it felt that the director just got the cast back solely to improvise dialogue for the movie because there's no movie here. I think they miss John Cusack but he's smart around to not be in this terrible turd. This movie is like a person drowning in a swamp of hot molten lead writhing in pain for an excessive amount of time. The experience was cringing and miserable. The worst movie of 2015...so far.
(NOTE: I would have had Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 in there, but come on, I had no expectations for that movie and I got what I expected. An empty movie. So, that's why it was not on the list. At least, these 5 had expectations.)
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