I’ve now seen ’em all and my list of Best Movies of 2015 is now complete – you can see five of these in theaters this week:
- The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
- Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
- The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
- Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
- The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.
- (a sixth top film, 45 Years, will be released in the Bay Area in two weeks.)
Two more choices:
- The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
- Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.
I’m not a fan of Joy or The Danish Girl.
My DVDs of the Week celebrate the late cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. The Hired Hand is one of his overlooked masterpieces. Visions of Light is a documentary about his art of cinematography. Both are available on Netflix DVDs.
On January 21, Turner Classic Movies is playing Pushover, one of my Overlooked Noir. An amoral cop (Fred MacMurray) decides that, if he can double cross BOTH the other cops and the criminal, he can wind up with the loot AND the gangster’s girlfriend (“Introducing Kim Novak”).