2015 Year Overview

Another year is done and behind us, and a new one is ahead. The day this is posted, January 7th of 2016, is this blog’s 2 year anniversary, so it’s time to dive into 2016 by taking a little look back on 2015, what was a great year for movies.

2015 gave us many fun and memorable films. Five of them were popular enough to gross over $1 billion worldwide! Furious 7, Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Minions (for some reason), and Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens were the ones that people flocked to the theaters for all around the world. These films broke quite a lot of records for box office gross. Furious 7 was Universal Studio’s first movie to earn over $1 billion, and up until Jurassic World, it held the record for the film to earn that much in such short time. Jurassic World grossed $1 billion within thirteen days, but Star Wars, on the other hand, earned it in just twelve days.

Whether you personally liked those movies or not, many people apparently seemed to enjoy them quite a bit. I enjoyed many of the ones I did manage to see. I am only one person with limited time and money, so I wasn’t able to see all the movies I wanted to. I missed out on a few well received ones that I may end up seeing some time later, like The Hateful Eight, The Revenant, and Ex Machina.

The year in general had a lot of interesting and highly anticipated movies, many were sequels, others were lesser known gems that nobody expected to be as good as they were. I’d say that most of the movies we were looking forward to satisfied a good portion its audiences. Avengers 2 was fun, Mad Max was astonishing, Jurassic World was a pretty darn enjoyable sequel, people loved the latest Mission: Impossible, and everyone I know went nuts with Star Wars. Of course there were the atrocities that every year is certain to have. I’m lucky to have only seen one: Pan. That one was the most hilariously awful movie that I’ve seen all year. People who have been following me for a while my know that my friend was unfortunate enough to see the movie called Fant4stic. He wrote a review for that movie for the blog, and a lot of readers really seemed to enjoy it.  The one that neither of us saw was 50 Shades of Gray. I had no desire to see that one. Maybe I’ll rent it off of Amazon or Apple just to see how truly terrible it is, but for the time being, the ball-gags and handcuffs are staying far away from me.

Movies that I didn’t expect to love as much as I did were The Peanuts Movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Martian. I originally didn’t feel like seeing Peanuts or Mad Max whatsoever, but thanks to the same friend that saw Fant4stic, I was persuaded otherwise. I am so glad I saw the movies I did. While I wasn’t at the theater, I made up for it by reviewing other films that I happened to see throughout the year, like my reviews for the 1925 The Lost World, the horrible 1976 King Kong remake and its sequel, King Kong Lives, each of the Fast and Furious installments, and many more. I didn’t post reviews as often as I would’ve liked, but life sort of got in the way. Stupid life. I’m hoping to be more frequent in 2016, but we’ll see.

And now, the part that most people have been waiting for, I present to you, my readers, my personal Top 5 Favorite Films of 2015! These may not be the most well acted, the best written, or the most Oscar-worthy films at all, but they are the movies I enjoyed seeing the most in 2015. And if you don’t agree with what’s on my list, then make up your own.

5: Inside Out

Inside Out is perhaps my second favorite Pixar film to ever be made. After a bit of a slump starting at Cars 2, Pixar simply didn’t make a great movie for a while. They were ranging from ‘okay’ to ‘good’. While not particularly bad, they weren’t up to true Pixar standards by a long shot. Inside Out was their big comeback, and I absolutely love it. Not only is it a fun movie, but it’s one of the most emotionally powerful animated films I’ve ever seen! I didn’t cry over Bambi’s mom, I didn’t cry over Littlefoot’s mom, I didn’t cry over Simba’s dad… but you better believe I cried over Bing Bong. And basically the rest of the movie, too. I teared up twice. I would definitely say it’s an important movie to show kids. Heck, it’s an important movie for anyone of any age! It’s about emotions- literally- and there’s a perfectly written and perfectly pulled off message about emotions that I think would really help kids learn how to balance their feelings and understand their feelings. It’s fun, well animated, visually appealing, made me and many other adults I know cry, and I wouldn’t hesitate to say it’s a movie that is essential to pretty much every human being.

4: Mad Max: Fury Road

This one I had no desire to see. I thought it looked dumb, the trailers looked dumb, and that it’s just another stupid post apocalyptic piece of crap… then I actually went and saw the movie. My friend dragged me to it on its opening weekend just a couple hours after he saw it himself, and I can’t thank him enough for it. Fury Road was simply an exhilarating thrill ride of steroid-fueled testosterone, with a huge, kick-ass amount of estrogen from the main character, Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron. I consider Furiosa to be the main character, as do many others. Max was just sort of there. While the film is unbelievably simple, it does simplicity in the best way possible. Without much dialogue or exposition, it succeeds in being a fantastic and ridiculous adventure that actually has a good deal of emotion in it. It gave me exactly what I wanted without even knowing I wanted it. That’s when you know you’ve just seen a great movie. I cherish this film above many others, and I wouldn’t hesitate to call it one of my favorites.

3: The Martian

Well, it seems like people need to rescue Matt Damon again. Seriously, count how many films he’s been in where he’s needed rescuing! Anyway… The Martian was a movie that sort of came out of the blue for me. I didn’t hear about it until I saw the trailer on IMDb’s front page. It looked interesting enough, but I didn’t expect it to be as great as it was! It did a good job in getting me engaged with its science-heavy plot, explaining the details in just the right way so the less scientifically inclined audience can follow along. In an age where the plot of a person being stuck on an alien planet would normally be a gritty, dark, and depressing movie, director Ridley Scott made the right choice of giving the film a sense of humor. I laughed more in this sci-fi more than many people I know laugh at recent ‘comedies’. It’s lighthearted, fun, Matt Damon is a damn fine actor, the cinematography was perfect, the story was perfect, the effects were perfect, and it was all around a perfect film! Again, I would not hesitate to tell someone that this is one of my newer favorite movies of all time! Not in the top 10 by any means, but definitely in the top 50.

2: Kingsman: The Secret Service

All I have to say about this movie is: WOW. Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of the most entertaining films that I have seen in my life. It’s an awesome spy movie that knows exactly what it is and has fun with it. It’s not a parody, but it is quite self aware. It has some of the best action and the best comedy that you could ask for in a movie like this. And the cast is absolutely incredible. Samuel L. Jackson as the main villain? Thank you. Colin Firth as the agent who trains our main character and slaughters a bunch of raging religious extremists in a hate-church while the song Blackbird plays in the background? Thank you very, very much. A girl with blades for prosthetic legs? I cannot thank you enough, kind sir. I love everything about this movie, but it is not my favorite of 2015.

My #1 favorite film of 2015 is indeed...

1: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

No, I’m not choosing this one as my favorite because I’m a ‘fanboy’. I never was an extreme Star Wars fan, but I enjoy the movies nonetheless. And as for The Force Awakens… I’d go as far to say it’s my favorite Star Wars movie. I love The Empire Strikes Back as much as anyone else does, but I love The Force Awakens even more than that. Yes, it’s very similar to A New Hope in many ways… in fact you could line up the plot points from both these movies side by side and they’d match perfectly… but the thing that makes Episode 7 so great is the way it executes its story. The characters are great- Finn, Rey, even Kylo Ren, they were all fantastic, and the actors are perfect for the roles. As I said in my review, if there was ever a new cast that I would want for a new generation of Star Wars, this would be it. The characters carry this movie to glory, but most of all, I respect how practical they did the special effects. Did you notice that only two characters in the whole film were CGI? Everything else- the aliens, the robots, the creatures, the explosions- they were all done in front of a camera. I’m hoping this shows other filmmakers and studios that CGI doesn’t need to be used for everything that could be done in front of a camera. I’m not even one of the people that hates CGI! I love CGI! But the way that Star Wars 7 used its CGI put the ‘special’ back in ‘special effects’.

The Force Awakens is one of the best experiences in a theater that I’ve had, and I love it most of all the movies that came out in 2015.

Honorable mentions that didn’t make it onto this list are:

Furious 7, for being a genuinely fun movie and for leaving me in tears for three days after I saw it, The Peanuts Movie, for being unexpectedly cute and brilliant, and Jurassic World, for being a great and worthy sequel to Jurassic Park, and being everything I asked for.

And that, everyone, is my overview of the last whole year. I’d say that it was as good year for movies as 2014 was. Maybe slightly better! And now that 2016 is here, and my blog’s third year is about to begin. There’s a whole lot of new films to look forward to. Here is my list of top 10 movies (in no specific order) that I myself am looking forward to the most for 2016:

Captain America: Civil War

Kung Fu Panda 3

Deadpool

The Jungle Book

X-Men: Apocalypse

Warcraft

Finding Dory

Bourne 5

Star Wars: Rogue One

Dr. Strange

These 10 are ones that I will see this year no matter what. I’m curious as to what your most anticipated films are for the next 12 months. Tell me in the comments, and if I see it, I’ll be sure to tell you how good (or horrendous) it is. Let’s hope 2016 is another good year!