Notable Films of 2015...(or rather the films that I saw in 2015, not necessarily released in 2015)

Midtown Manhattan, by the way, is quite striking at 7:45 am in the morning, with the sun just rising across the horizon. You look down 42nd Street and there are no buildings on the west or east ends - so it's like looking down a long man-made sparkling canyon constructed of concrete, steel, and glass. Someday I'll stop and take a picture of it. Urban jungles are actually beautiful in the right light.

I saw a lot of films in the last quarter of 2015, in part because I happen to have an actress friend who's loaning me her DVDS of recently released films. (They send movies to Academy voters to screen for awards. At the bottom of the screen, they intermittently remind you that this is for "consideration for awards" only and not to sell, give away, or distribute it. Actually, they want you to burn it after you see it. ( Like anyone will do that.) And it's only non-blockbuster or non-action films that are provided. (ie. she didn't get Star Wars or Mad Max: Fury Road.))

One of my Co-workers, who is a play-write and frustrated screenwriter, advised I see "Ex Machina" which is apparently amongst the best he's seen to date. He's published various plays, and has them performed occasionally. Haven't seen it yet, so it didn't make the list. Sort of have to narrow it down to the films I saw this year or were released this year, and I saw within the last four days.
Was going to wait until I got a chance to see Michael Fassbender's turn in MacBeth but alas, I'm just not in the mood to watch it yet. Shakespeare is definitely a mood thing, at least it is for me. (I live in NYC, 98% of the population are frustrated artists, actors and writers.)

Anyhow...

Notable Films of 2015

1. The Big Short directed by Adam McKay, adapted from the book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis. It stars Steve Carroll, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, and Marisa Tomei. It's about how various banks and investment firms set up housing mortgages as bonds, believing that this was a safe bet, since people will always pay their mortgage, and a group of investors realized that they could bet on those mortgages coming up short - or bet against the banks. In doing so, they expose a fraudulent system on the brink of collapse. It brilliantly satirizes the housing crisis that came thisclose to crashing the world economy in 2008, and explains why you can't get a mortgage without putting 20% down any longer. Never seen anything like it -- and the dialogue is crisp and rapid-fire throughout.

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2. Spotlight - director Tom McCarthy, starring Michael Keaton, Jamie Sheriden, Rachel McAdams, Brian D'Arcy, Mark Ruffalua, Liev Shrieber, and John Slattery.
"In 2001, editor Marty Baron of The Boston Globe assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. Led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson, reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents. The reporters make it their mission to provide proof of a cover-up of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church." This film reminded me a great deal of All The President's Men, and in some respects it feels like a homage to the films of that decade. It's brilliant, if at times slow due to the pacing. Best journalist procedural that I've seen outside of All The President's Men. Straight-arrow story-telling without the manipulation.

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3. Mad Max: Fury Road directed by George Miller, starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Therone, and Nick Hoult. Amongst the most graphically violent films that I've seen, but explosively filmed. And Charlize Therone raises the bar on action heroines, with her portrayal of Imperosa Furousa. She manages to convey pathos with almost no dialogue. It's about a post-apocalyptic world where both gasoline and water are hot commodities. And gangs rule the desert roadways. Imperosa stolen as a child and raised to shuttle gas and water between Warlord territories, decides to help the Warlord's child brides escape his fascist and abusive rule. The Warlord's having already captured Max, take after her in pursuit, with Max along for the ride as a blood bag.

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4. The Tale of Princess Kaguya directed by Isao Takahata, with voiced dubbing - Chloe Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenbergen, Dean Cain, Darren Cris, Lucy Liu, James Marsden, Oliver Platt, Daniel Dae Kim, and George Segal. It was first released in Japan in 2013, but the American DVD release was in February 2015 - so I saw it in 2015.
The story is based on a Japanese folk legend about a princess in a peapod that a woodsman finds one day. She comes to our earth from the moon, wanting to see who people are. And is raised by the woodsman and his wife, but the woodsman becomes convinced that she should have riches, live in a palace and marry a prince - he becomes enamored of material things, when all the princess wants is to live in the woods with her friends, and the young man she's become enamored of. It's somewhat tragic and she ends up finally returning to the moon. The art is Japanese air brush drawings and paintings, simple and striking in their simplicity. Amongst the best animated films of the decade.

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5. Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) - released towards the end of 2014, but I saw it in 2015. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts and Emma Stone. An actor known for his blockbuster movie role as a superhero, attempts to direct and star in a play, and demonstrate his worth as an actor. It's a surrealistic character sketch - that takes us inside the mind of an artist, who fears he has wasted his life as an actor.

6. Listen to Me Marlon - directed by Steven Riley, who cobbles together screen footage, news reels, and audio tapes that Marlon Brando self-recorded into a stirring and insightfully intimate documentary into the man's life and in the man's own words. Perhaps the most intimate biopic made. And possibly the most moving.
It shows how a sensitive artist can be eaten alive by the Hollywood marketing machine, yet still remain true to himself as an artist and a man, unique, somehow.

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7. Ant-Man directed by Peyton Reed, starring Michael Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly...weirdly the best action flick that I've seen this year or in a while. It was fun, it developed the characters, and played the father angle from a slightly different take. Not perfect, not by a long shot. But notable for it's differences - it's a story about a man who can shrink to the size of an ant and speak to ants, controlling them, befriending them and getting them to help him save others. And it pairs a scientist and a thief, with a tough as nails female scientist. Also, it contains the wit, and banter that we've only seen in Iron Man and the Avengers.

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8. Star Wars The Force Awakens - directed by JJ Abrahams, story by George Lucas, written by JJ Abhrams and Lawrence Kasdan, starring Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Issacs, and Adam Driver. Notable if only because it just surpassed Avatar as the highest grossing domestic film of all time in the US. But also for creating a kick-ass female heroine who subverted various genre stereotypes. While imperfect, it was highly entertaining and a bit like visiting old friends. I'll probably watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

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9. The Martian by Ridley Scott, based on the self-published nove by Andy Weir. Starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wigg, Jeff Daniels, Chietwel Ejiofor, Sebastian Stan, and Kate Mara. Notable for being a funny story about being trapped on Mars - a hard sci-fi adventure story reminscient of Robinson Crusoe, except funnier and a lot more moving. (I was never a Robert Louis Stevenson fan.) Although, it does appear that Hollywood is spending a lot of money rescuing Matt Damon in movies, doesn't it?

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10. X-Men: Days of Future Past - another 2014 film that I didn't get around to seeing under 2015. Directed by Bryan Singer, starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Nick Hoult, Ellen Page, and Peter Dinklage. I honestly think this may be the best superhero flick that I've seen.
It commented on so many things, was tight, and true to the actual comics. It also managed to fix all the mistakes of the previous movies (the predecessors to X-men First Class), and rebootted the franchise.

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11. Selma - 2014 release, didn't see it until 2015. See trailer below the cut:

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It was the best fictionalized bio-pic that I've seen, and amongst the most moving.

12. Steve Jobs directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin, starring Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet. A film that was critically acclaimed but bombed at the box office due to the subject matter and the controversial nature of the film - it is not factually accurate and a fictionalized portrayal of the volatile and controversial Apple Founder, Steve Jobs. (Although a lot of it is backed up by Alex Gibney's documentary Man in the Machine. This by the way was the same controversy that plagued Imagination Game. People are particular about the factual accuracy of biopics.) The story is about a man who focuses primarily on one thing at the cost of all else - and the toil that takes on him and everyone surrounding him. In short, it is a great metaphor for the costs of the technological age and in particular the cost of worshipping a smartphone or computer. Which may explain why people avoided it - after all we don't want to look that closely at the such things.

Frightening and disturbing, the structure of the film remains gripping and compelling throughout.
Blows Sorkin's previous effort The Social Network out of the water (that film was poorly paced and too busy, with few roles for women, while this makes up for that.)

Also breakout performance by Kate Winslet.

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Wed Reading Meme...It's a Matter of Style

You know you have an odd job when NY1 - the local news channel - alerts you to a project that will be coming your way soon. And you know more than the news commentators about it.

Anyhow...almost forgot to tape to television series starting tonight - The Shannara Chronicles on MTV (8pm) and American Crime on ABC (10pm) -- although DVRing doesn't necessarily mean watching them.
Been on a movie kick at the moment. And I don't have a lot of time for television. Nor patience for commercial television.

Wednesday Reading Meme

1. What I just finished reading

* Uprooted by Naomi Novick - which I reviewed in another post. It was okay. The narrator and writing style irritated me, so that was a problem, but I liked the overall story and metaphors.

Writing style, I've realized, is really in the eye of the beholder, and not always a deal breaker.

Co-worker (whose a lawyer, looking over a contract): this was clearly written by an amateur lawyer, because the writing isn't clear, clean or crisp. Lawyers want clean crisp writing - which we don't have to litigate.
Me: Unless it's fiction. If it's business related or a contract - I want it to be clear and clean, and crisp. If it's fiction...I'm more lenient. Just don't bore me.

Unfortunately most of the engineers and lawyers I deal with can't write. Clean crisp writing...I'd be lucky if I can make heads or tails out of it. Today's bit of legal prose...was the run-on sentence to beat run-on sentences. And it didn't make a lick of sense. I showed it to three people, including my boss, and no one could figure it out.

Uprooted's style is basic fairy tale prose. Read Brother's Grimm and there it is.

Those the walkers carried into the Wood were less lucky. We didn't know what happened to them, but they came back out sometimes, corrupted in the worst way: smiling and cheerful, unharmed. They seemed almost themselves to anyone who didn't know them well, and you might spend half a day talking with one of them and never realize anything was wrong, until you found yourself taking up a knife and cutting off your own hand, putting out your own eyes, your own tongue, while they kept talking all the while, smiling, horrible. And then they would take the knife and go inside your house, to your children, while you lay outside blind and choking and helpless even to scream. If someone we loved was taken by the walkers, the only thing we knew to hope for them was death, and it could only be a hope.”

And...

“I'm glad," I said, with an effort, refusing to let my mouth close up with jealousy. It wasn't that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn't, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars. But they meant life: she was living, and I wasn't.”

Magic Stars - a novella by Illona Andrews - stars Derek and Julie. If you haven't read the Kate Daniels series, don't bother with it. You'll be hopelessly lost. I wonder sometimes how these series attract new readers? I mean isn't it a little daunting to come into a series that has 7 books and counting? I find it daunting. And expensive.

I prefer Andrews style to the vast majority of writers in the fantasy and urban fantasy genre. Her style is crisp and clear, conversational in tone, character-centric, not overly descriptive, witty or snarky (depending on your point of view), and well-paced. I don't like all her books though. Burn for Me did not work, too romantic, and the characters felt a bit flat. This world is built better and she seems to have a deeper sense of her characters. I like how she puts you inside their heads, and bodies. I smell, taste, and feel these characters.

Naomi Novik's style was too similar to many YA fantasy novels I've read or attempted and it doesn't work for me. Too rambly. Too serious in tone. With a somewhat whiny edge. And far too much description of setting, which confused me in regards to action scenes. The action and the setting competed with each other.

Both writers play with Eastern European metaphors. Illona Andrews is an immigrant from the Ukraine and speaks Russian, she references the stories from her childhood. Novick is Polish.

Clothes don't have magic powers. They don't mystically protect you from three-inch claws, rapists, or murderers. If someone decides to hurt you, they will do so whether or not you have a thin layer of denim over your skin.”

“How did it feel, Herald?” The memory of power ripping from her in a torrent surfaced in her mind, followed by a spike of pain as she said the power word after her incantation had paved the way. She heard the sound of Adams’ bones breaking and patted Peanut’s nose. “How did it feel?” The Herald of Atlanta smiled. “It felt good.”

The distinctions are subtle, but the characters are less passive here, and the tone is crisper with a dry wit or edge. While the other novel is more formal in its tone and more flowery somehow, reminding me, oddly, of a lot of romance novels I'd recently read with similar styles. You'd think it would be the opposite, since Andrews fancies herself a romance novelist at times, and Novick is more a YA fantasy novelist.

2.) What I'm reading now?

* Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - which I'm still reading in snippets before I go to bed at night. Atwood's writing style is...amazing. It's her story that I'm struggling with -- it's so bleak and tragic. Also, I'm not sure I like any of the characters, which is an issue. The protagonists are both rather passive-aggressive for my taste, which is required for the story to work, but it is insanely frustrating to read and I already know it will end tragically. Atwood gives us the ending first.

To give you an idea of how profoundly and beautifully written this book is, and to help explain why I'm sticking with it, here's a few quoted passages:

Some day when I'm feeling better I'll go back there and actually write the thing down. They should all be cheered by it, for isn't it what they want? What we all want to leave a message behind us that has an effect, if only a dire one; a message that cannot be cancelled out.

But such a message can be dangerous. Think twice before you wish, and especially before you wish to make yourself into the hand of fate.

p. 428, Blind Assassin.

I tortured myself with visions of her, imprisoned, struggling, trapped in a painful fantasy of her own making, or trapped in another fantasy, equally painful, which was not her's at all but those of the people around her. And when did the one become the other? Where was the threshold between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through the gateway every day, we use the passwords of grammar-- I say, you say, he and she say, it, on the other hand, does not say -- paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we've agreed on.

See? Pure poetry in motion. Word choice, rhythm, all pitch perfect. Reading Atwood feels like listening to Mozart.

* The Traitor Baro Commorant by Seth Dickensen - a story that reminds me a little of Uprooted in structure and theme. Also, style. So we'll see how long I stick with it. It put me to sleep on the train...but that was in part due to work and lack of sleep.

Also only 10-15 pages into it. It's a science fiction adventure tale about a young woman who is willing to do just about anything to save her world, and does it through subterfuge, in the process she falls for another woman. Ends tragically or at least I think it does (people on good reads appeared to be torn up over the angst-ridden ending). The premise is intriguing.

3.) What I'm Reading Next

The Pope's Daughter by Dario Fo for book club.