THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART 3: OUR TEN FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2015

With only hours left until we welcome in a fresh new year of cinema-going, here’s the final Best of… list you’ll have to endure. Chosen from the 545 films I’ve watched this year (it’s true; check out star ratings of every one we’ve seen via our Letterboxd page), here they are - The SCREEN-SPACE Ten Favourite Films of 2015…

10. YOUTH
In the ironically titled Youth, Paolo Sorrentino explores the notion of wisdom, artistry and friendship; familiar ground for Italian director, the themes central to his 2013 stunner, The Great Beauty. If the auteur’s occasionally artful narrative proves testing, one can always bask in the stunning visuals; Youth is arguably the most beautifully lensed film of the year.
Best bits: Jane Fonda’s acerbic cameo; Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel get giddy while sharing a spa with a naked Miss Universe (the majestic Madalina Ghenea).

9. CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Like Sorrentino’s moody drama, Olivier Assayas’ finest work in years brings a bracing Euro-sensibility and vivid visual style to an exploration of how memory and melancholy work to redefine one’s later life. As the actress revisiting the seminal project of her career, a larger-than-life Juliette Binoche is warm and compelling; that Kirsten Stewart (pictured, right), as her insightful PA, matches her beat-for-beat is the film’s true revelation (earning the Twilight starlet serious new cred and a Supporting Actress Cesar).
Best bits: Stewart takes command of a line reading for Binoche’s struggling diva; the clouds, snaking through the alpine valleys.  

8. EX MACHINA
The directorial debut of writer Alex Garland (28 Days Later; The Beach; Sunshine) melds moody chamber-piece/single-setting character drama with near-future AI super-tech. The result is a chilling, low-key, high-voltage cyber thriller that pulsates with dark humour and sexual tension; as the dream-girl android Ava, Alicia Wikander earned her ‘2016 It-Girl’ status with an iconic genre performance.
Best bits: Oscar Isaac’s disco moves alongside Sonoya Mizuno; Ava’s breakout.

7. 99 HOMES
Capturing that moment during the 2008 housing market crash when a ruthless adherence to capitalism took hold, writer/director Ramin Bahrani’s Faustian morality tale pits compromised everyman Andrew Garfield against the soulless might of financial sector hyena Michael Shannon. As the middle-class evaporates and suburbs become ghost towns, the dark heart of the crumbling American empire is exposed with a fierce clarity in this Wall Street for the new millennium.
Best bits: That first eviction; “America doesn’t bail out losers. America was built by bailing out winners.”
Read the SCREEN-SPACE interview with director Ramin Bahrani here.

6. THE AGE OF ADALINE
“Krieger’s vivid, melancholic melodrama emerges as a major work in the tough-to-pull-off ‘romantic fantasy’ genre subset…”
Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review of The Age of Adaline here.

5. WILD
As real-life recovering addict and author Cheryl Strayed, Reese Witherspoon gives a career-best performance in Jean-Marc Vallee’s adaptation of the autobiographical bestseller, Wild. Every emotionally enriching, soul baring consequence of the 1,100 mile trek Strayed made along the Pacific Crest Trail is captured in Witherspoon’s interpretation; Vallee’s fluent non-linear narrative builds to a deeply moving denouement.
Best bits: The fox; losing the boot; Laura Dern.

4. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION
Tom Cruise’s fifth spin as super-agent Ethan Hunt gets the nod as 2015’s best action pic over Mad Max Fury Road, by a whisker (don’t worry, we rave about George Miller’s action epic here). Fury Road was pure kinetic energy and a technical marvel, but it was slight on story; Christopher McQuarrie’s slick, thrilling old-school spy adventure offered a dozen nail-biting moments and delirious B-movie plotting that both supported and drove the action. With Bond dropping the ball badly this year, Cruise’s M:I operative is cinema’s reigning superspy.
Best bits: Rebecca Ferguson; that plane stunt, of course; the virtuoso ‘opera house’ sequence.

3. IT FOLLOWS
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s first foray into horror riffed on every slasher pic trope in the book– the villain exists to punish the amorous; the ‘final girl’ archetype; absent and/or ineffectual adults; the final face-off. But It Follows was a study in deconstruction, and worked as a truly invigorating (and terrifying) new vision of those old standards. In Maika Monroe, horror has a fresh new muse; in the ever-walking force that stalks her, a classic new malevolence.
Best bits: The kitchen encounter; the old, naked guy on the roof; checking out every background extra to see if they are ‘it’.

2. LOVE & MERCY
“In succinct and sublime tones, Love & Mercy convinces that God only knows where American music would be without Brian Wilson…”
Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review of Love & Mercy here.

1. INSIDE OUT
That Pixar offered up another superb piece of smart, funny animated entertainment is not that surprising. It is a true family classic, the studio’s best film since Up, but something had to be. Inside Out is the year’s best film not because of its beautiful design elements or wonderful character rendering; instead, Pete Doctor’s and Ronnie Del Carmen’s vision soars as a profound study in teen anxiety, alienation, emotional upheaval and depression. Few films have ever conveyed the complexities of mental health with the clarity and devastating emotion achieved by this masterwork.
Best bits: Riley runs away; the mixing of the spheres; “Congratulations San Francisco, you've ruined pizza!”

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Bridge of Spies, Shaun the Sheep, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Jupiter Ascending, The Visit, Everest.

Read The Year in Review, Part 1: The Ten Best Festival Sessions of 2015 here.
Read The Year in Review, Part 2: Australian Cinema in 2015 here. 

…AND THE WORST OF 2015:
2015 was a dire year for retread cinema, aka ‘The Reboot’ (Mad Max Fury Road being the exception that proves the rule). Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four got all the bad press, but it was a better film than the woefully ill-conceived Terminator: Genysis, the already-forgotten Poltergeist and the worthless new spin on Vacation. Worst of the bunch was JURASSIC WORLD, Universal’s wildly successful but grotesquely mounted bludgeoning of all that was enjoyable about the dino-trilogy to date. The box office suggested it worked for a new generation, but die-hard fans weren’t conned; like the genetic creation at the heart of its barely-there plotting, Jurassic World was borne of the same DNA as its ancestors but morphed into something both hideous and ridiculous.

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS: Now Add Honey, Train Wreck, Chappie, Ride, The Walk, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence), Get Hard.

IN HINDSIGHT...: MY YEAR IN FILM

Reflecting upon the cinematic year, I recalled not so much the movies I saw (681 in total, with thanks to the awesome Letterboxd site) but the lively discussions, heated debates and vast opinions I enjoyed with those I am fortunate to call colleagues and friends. So below you won't find my Best/Worst of the Year opinions (if you're inclined, you can find that here), but more a revisiting of the issues and events that left an impression upon me...

“Another round, bartender…”
In 2014, ‘Hollywood Blockbusters’ mostly resembled drunks in a seedy bar early on a Wednesday afternoon. There was the refined gentleman acting above his fellow patrons yet, deep down, fully aware he was the just like them (Captain America: The Winter Soldier); the increasingly haggard old broad (The Hunger Games: Mockinjay Part 1) who dragged along her innocent daughter (Divergent) for her first sip; the hulking, brooding boozer who threatens to erupt but mostly just mumbles to himself (Godzilla); the fading 40-somethings who loudly reminisce about the good old days when they were relevant (X-Men Days of Future Past; The Amazing Spiderman 2; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, top); the violent, obnoxious jerk who everyone hates (Transformers: Age of Extinction); the douche-bag hipster, covered in brand names, who gets less funny the longer he drinks (The LEGO Movie); and, the sad little nobody that no one talks to and most forget is even there (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). But then there were the films who peeked into the bar, saw the worst that they could be and said “no”; blockbusters that instead developed vibrant, funny personalities (Guardians of the Galaxy; 22 Jump Street; Neighbors), serious smarts (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Edge of Tomorrow, above) and human, empathetic souls (The Fault in Our Stars).

Film Critics Can Make of Break Your Movie. Except if you’re The Babadook. Or These Final Hours. Or Tracks. Or Predestination.
Respected Australian critic Margaret Pomeranz had a lot to say in the wake of director/star Josh Lawson’s A Little Death (pictured, below) tanking domestically. Pomeranz, who called time in December on a 28 year career as the yin to David Stratton’s yang on the iconic At The Movies show (the pair; pictured right), penned an op-ed piece in which she took her peers to task for bagging the sex-themed rom-com (on which her son, Josh, was an EP). Toronto critics liked it (it had its US premiere there, so the festival mood was...festive), while Australian journos largely derided it. “(When) effort is made and talent is discernible, I think it ought to be acknowledged rather than have its undeniable flaws recklessly highlighted,” Pomeranz opined. It was an embarrassing outburst of self-serving personal opinion by Pomeranz; she has bagged innumerable films with one or two star reviews, most of them made with good intentions and plenty of talent attached, though few of them Australian (“I have become well-known for supporting Australian films, I've been accused of being too generous, of awarding half a star too many, whatever,” she deflects in her rant). It was one of the many bewildering contradictions in the piece. “What is it with Australian critics of Australian films? Are we setting the bar so high that no one can possibly jump over it?” she bleats. Well, Australian critics loved The Babadook, These Final Hours, Felony, Galore, Charlie’s Country, Tracks and Predestination; they mostly liked Healing, The Rover, The Infinite Man and The Turning. But shitty marketing and outmoded distribution strategies hurt them all. Pomeranz should have used her profile to force answers from decision-makers in the sector and worried less about the general opinion of a minor work in which she has personal investment.

No, television is not ‘The New Cinema’…
Television continued its highly touted ‘renaissance’ in 2014, which led many to declare that film would soon be dead in the water. Which is, of course, nonsense. Television is offering up some terrific entertainment, such as 2014 newbies Gracepoint, Broad City, Peaky Blinders and Olive Kettridge and holdovers The Walking Dead, Masters of Sex, The Americans and Orange is the New Black. But television, by its very nature, is bound by convention, from the 43 or 22 minute commercial framing to the very platform on which it is seen (no matter how big TVs get, they will always be ‘the small screen’). What has improved is the boldness of the writing; not the quality per se, just the themes and narratives being tackled by some of Hollywood’s best wordsmiths. But television can never mimic the scale and scope of cinema, the fully immersive sensorial experience, the all-consuming atmospherics. In his popular podcast, Bret Easton Ellis chatted with director James Gray (on-set of his 2014 film, The Immigrant; pictured, right) on the essential value of seeing films on the biggest screen possible. “The specialness of the event, of going to the theatre, with a lot of people, in a big room where you (eat) your warmed popcorn with the bad butter,” said an impassioned Gray, “well, that was amazing. I don’t think anything tops that. Certainly not watching it on my iPad."

The Booming Irrelevance of The Oscars…
Actually, that needs clarification. The Oscars circus is still crucial to the movie-making industrial complex. The award season madness, which culminates with the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards ceremony, provides a point-of-difference for Hollywood’s marketeers, allowing them to cover their respective studios in the glow of socially redeeming, issue-based films, the kind that can make money without fast food tie-ins. The films need not be very challenging, very insightful or even very good; earlier this year, such earnest, average voters-bait as 12 Years A Slave and Dallas Buyers Club triumphed, while Her and American Hustle were elevated far beyond their worth to provide an element of ‘cool relevance’; in a few weeks, the vastly over-rated Boyhood, this year’s BIG issue-pic Selma and obligatory Brit contenders The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything will dominate the 2015 line-up; we can only hope Birdman (pictured, left), Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Nightcrawler brighten Oscars’ podium with their unique visions. Of course, I’ll clear my calendar to watch it live. 

Also, it just crossed my mind that...

Scarlett Johansson is in a very good place. From the fearless ferocity of Under the Skin, the lunacy of Lucy and the sexy, good-time physicality she exuded in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the actress (pictured, right) had a great 2014.

Shailene Woodley will be America’s next great film actress. Two big hits in 2014 (the franchise-starter, Divergent; YA phenomenon The Fault in Our Stars), a hotly-anticipated indie (Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard) about to roll-out, and the lead in the new Oliver Stone film locked in, Woodley is on track for super-stardom.

Indie Horror is where it’s at! Studios have bailed on horror fans (Annabelle? Ugh, puh-leeze; Eric Bana's Deliver Us From Evil was terrible) but the independent sector delivered the year’s most memorable midnight movie-going moments with nerve-rattlers like Honeymoon, Starry Eyes, The Sacrament, How to Save Us, Oculus and Inner Demon.

Keanu Reeves is back. Not just because he was in the year’s bloodiest, most exhilarating action film, John Wick (pictured, left), but also because he handled with grace the wave of ill-will about his actually-quite-awesome flop 47 Ronin, took on the new technological paradigm of digital filmmaking as frontman on the doco series Side by Side and directed the martial arts bone cruncher, The Man from Tai-Chi (yes, 2013, but saw it this year).

Subtitles rule. Iranian Nami Javidi made his directing debut with the unnerving, compelling drama, Melbourne. Other foreign sector must-sees were Cannes favourites Leviathan and Winter Sleep; the dialogue-free social document, Manakamana; the 5½ hour Filipino drama, From What is Before; and, Ida.

And, from the desk of Amy Pascal. Change all your passwords, now.

Thanks for all your support in 2014 and have a happy and safe New Year.
Simon Foster, Managing Editor