The Panda

I loved Bridge of Spies, one of my favorite Spielberg films of this century.

Number 11 The Peanuts Movie "Why am I here? Inadequacy." My Original Grade: A- Most Valuable Player: Nostalgia Box Office: 127.9m+ Tomatometer: 86% Reasoning: I have to say, I absolutely adored this movie. The Peanuts movie manages to hearken back to the roots of the series, yet also revitalizing it for a new audience. The animation is gorgeously well done, managing to blend classic style and modern style, and the script remains as charming as the Peanuts has ever been. There's a great number of visual gags, clever Schultz inspired dialogue, and a simple plot that manages to capture why Charlie Brown is such an empathetic character. Despite the predictability of the simple plot, it is still surprisingly affected, and the ending managed to warm my heart a little bit. The Peanuts movie is inspired, creative, and true to its roots. I believe if Charles Schultz were alive today, he'd be very pleased with the results of this movie. Fun Fact: Charlie Brown does his book report on "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, which was Charles Schulz's favorite novel.

Number 12 Beasts of No Nation "If I'm telling this to you... you will think that... I am some sort of beast... or devil." My Original Grade: A Most Valuable Player: Abraham Attah's breakthrough performance as Agu Box Office: 90.7k Tomatometer: 91% Reasoning: For all of the negative attention Netflix got for greenlighting Adam Sandler movies, there doesn't seem to be the appropriate positive attention for this incredibly haunting Netflix original. There are many films that are proclaimed daring and original during the Oscar season that, most of the time, honestly aren't, but this isn't one of them. Fukunaga crafts a brilliantly shot and told film focusing on a child soldier during a civil war in West Africa. The film manages to take such a harrowing topic, and churn out a message of sober hope at the very end. Idris Elba proves his capabilities as an actor in this, and Abraham Attah delivers a performance that just can't get enough praise. While, the movie can definitely be a lot to take in at once, it is a film that I think is very worth a viewing. Only reason I can't rank this higher is because I don't know if I'd ever be able to bring myself to see it again, because even with some messages of hope, it brings a very true and distressing message about the nature of man. Fun Fact: They had to cast extras out of locals during filming because some of the actors were arrested on suspicion of being mercenaries.

Number 13 What We Do In The Shadows "I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it." My Original Grade: A- Most Valuable Player: Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi for the screenplay (and also directing and starring in the movie) Box Office: 3.5m Tomatometer: 97% Reasoning: What We Do In The Shadows is quite possibly the best vampire movie of the 21st century, and if not that, easily the best of the decade so far, and it comes from a mockumentary about vampires living in a New Zealand flat. While there really isn't any plot to the movie, that's nearly what makes it as great as it is, a film following vampires living out their daily lives is quite the comedic concept, and it pays off as a full-length film. The opening act of this movie is probably the most I have laughed during a film this year, and that was without me being a theater full of people laughing with me. The movie is innovative, and knows exactly when to stop so you're wanting more and not wanting it to be done. This was definitely one of my biggest surprises of the year, because I had no idea what to expect when watching this on HBOGo, I thought it'd be a boring hipster comedy, and instead it was a hilarious deconstruction of the vampire genre. Fun Fact: More than 120 hours of footage was shot, most of which were improvisation from the leads.

Number 14 The Martian "In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option, I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this." My Original Grade: B+ Most Valuable Player: Ridley Scott back on his directing game Box Office: 225.1m+ Tomatometer: 93% Reasoning: I'll admit, I don't seem to have dug this movie as much as everyone else around here, who made it sound (at times) as if it was the next coming of Sci-Fi Jesus. But just because I said I didn't like it more than Gravity (to the people comparing it to it) or that I didn't hands-down love it, doesn't mean I didn't dig it enough to put it on my top 15 of 2015 list. The Martian is a great survival story lead by Matt Damon at his best since the Bourne movies. The story is funny, it is inspirational, and it never makes you depressed (like you would think a movie about a man stranded on Mars might). It is a clever film, and it is held together magnificently by Ridley Scott, the movie would not have worked as well with a different director at the helm. While the eventual outcome of the film you're going to know from the start, you still can't help to smile when the inevitable rescue comes. The Martian really is another "triumph of the human spirit" movie, and it's not afraid to show it. Fun Fact: A real potato farm was installed on the studio lot with potatoes in all stages of growth so they could be used for filming.

On a side note, I'd like to be able to center my videos, im just having trouble doing so.

Can you no longer insert videos into posts?

And so it begins... Number 15 Kingsman: The Secret Service "Manners. Maketh. Man" My Original Grade: B+ Most Valuable Player: Colin Firth as Harry Hart Box Office: 128.3m Tomatometer: 74% Reasoning: There have been a number of good, fun spy movies this year. Since the genre has been so prevalent to 2015, I figured I'd kick my list off with the movie that I felt outdid James Bond and outdid comic book movies in general this year. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a blast of a movie that only continues to get more insane and overdone as it continues, and the more wacked out it gets, the more fun it becomes. All of the big-name actors give great, hammy performances that you just can't help getting a large kick out of watching. It features almost too creative fight sequences, one in particular that stands as one of the most memorable scenes of the year. I was very close to swapping this movie with The Hateful Eight, a movie that's arguably much higher quality, but I didn't. The reason for that is this is a movie I could pop-in on almost any day and enjoy myself watching, I don't need to really be in a certain mood to do so, and it really serves one of the original purposes for movies in the first place. Kingsman entertains. Fun Fact: During and in the lead-up to the First and Second World Wars, the British intelligence services often used tailor shops as fronts for their activities.

I just re-watched this, and it still makes my heart melt.

Hey! Don't hate on Jurassic World! Blue and Pratt's relationship is totally one of the best of 2015.

Question about donations. If I want to upgrade to a premium account, do I just need to donate 2 dollars, or do I need to donate another 10?

It's that time of year again, this year has breezed by so quickly. I honestly feels like I just did my top 20 of 2014 a few months ago. It's been an overall good year, personally and also for films. There's been some stinkers (and I will devote a post for those movies), cringeworthy performances, and movies I totally forgot even existed (until I looked at the list of films I watched this year). There have also been some great cinematic moments, sequences that made my mouth water, performances that gave me chills to watch, movies I screamed with joy just at the opening sequence, and overall some fantastic films. It's those that I am going to devote most of my posts in this thread about (all but one), because looking back at the positive is just a lot more fun than looking back at the negative. Anyways, to the logistical disclaimers of this thread I always have to include in order to avoid responding to posts like, "How was that in your top 15" or "Why is this film missing?" or "You gave this film an A+ and this one an F, why'd you put the F above the A+ Panda? Do you lie in your reviews?" First off, this is my personal list, a mixture of what I enjoyed the most and the films I thought were the overall best quality (with a much larger emphasis on what I enjoyed the most). There will be a few films on my list that did not necessarily receive the best critical reception, or maybe even BOT member reception. There's one in-particular that about half the members of this forum will scoff at me for, but it's my list so deal with it. I also have not seen every movie released this year, some I didn't get around to seeing, some I had no opportunity to see, some I had a chance but missed that chance and had no way of seeing it afterwards. A few of the most notable movies I missed were The Revenant, Room, and Carol. I will try and see those three before I vote for the BOFFIES or submit my top 25 list, but this is when I am doing my list so it would be lying to put something I haven't seen on my list. And my last disclaimer, whatever grade I gave a movie on my running listing in "Best of 2015" thread or on a review that movie thread, doesn't have any barring of where I rank it. It's not that I've changed my grade for the movie (there's only one, with thought and a re-watch, that has changed in my mind, and I'll say when I get to it), it's that there might be something stopping me from giving a movie a higher rating even if I personally enjoy it more than another movie. Or there might be a movie I found no technical flaw with, I just personally did not enjoy it as much as a more flawed movie. There's multiple different reasons, but there will be a few cases of a movie that I gave lower grade to ends up ranking higher than the higher graded movie. Enough of all that babbling though, my list is starting tomorrow morning (December 31st), and finishing either tomorrow or the morning of January 1st. I am shooting to get it all done tomorrow though. In the meantime though (for fun), here was what my list looked like last year (this was my list on the 1st, so it's not including a few movies like Whiplash, and I might personally rank some movies in a slightly different order) And just so I can give something of substance before tomorrow, here are my three honorable mentions that nearly made my list (but as honorable mentions, they don't get anything but a mention). The Hateful Eight Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief Brooklyn

I am going to win 2016.

A Beasts of No Nation The Big Short Bridge of Spies Creed Ex Machina Inside Out Jurassic World Mad Max: Fury Road The Peanuts Movie Spotlight Star Wars: The Force Awakens What We Do In the Shadows B Ant-Man Avengers: Age of Ultron The Best of Enemies Brooklyn The DUFF Everest Furious 7 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief The Good Dinosaur The Hateful Eight Kingsman: The Secret Service The Last 5 Years The Martian Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Sicario Slow West Spectre Spy The Walk C Cinderella Chappie Crimson Peak The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Minions No Escape Pitch Perfect 2 Queen of Earth Ricki and the Flash Terminator: Genisys Vacation War Room The Wolfpack D Blackhat Descendants Do I Sound Gay? Get Hard Insurgent Jupiter Ascending Max The Man From U.N.C.L.E Mortdecai Pixels T3ken Tomorrowland F Fantastic Four Fifty Shades of Grey Hot Pursuit In The Heart of the Sea Pan Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension The Ridiculous 6 Seventh Son

?? I wasn't saying it should have been that big. I was saying if rabid fanbases determined BO gross then it would have been a 2b grosser. It was a joke dude, apparently it didn't come across right.

Please don't pretend like it didn't have a rabid (even if it was a minority) fanbase. Critics got death threats for posting negative reviews. It was the reason RT had to remove commenting on reviews. That's the definition of rabid. Internet fanbases (especially for Nolan) have some terrifying individuals.

I like the idea of visual experiences, and I agree with all three of those. Great things to see in them, just not great movies as a whole.

If rabid fanbases were what was needed for 800m+ grossers, the Dark Knight Rises would be champ with 2b domestic.

It's a really good, if not overly long, genre movie. It's definitely not the best of Tarantino's work, but it's not the worst either. The build up was the best part, and although the ending is quite cinematic, I thought the conclusion was rushed once things got going. Great score and great cinematography, definitely the technical highlights of the film. Weirdly, for as much build up as there is, the pay-off is kind of non-existent which stops it from being as good as it could. All the actors do a great job, especially Leigh's character. She was very dynamic and deserves the Oscar win. The film is a solid B/B+ for me

You just can't win then

That's assuming 30% drops for Force Awakens, possible, but not guaranteed or conservative.

That's the course this movie's gone on. Final domestic total is going to be 999.94m, with a 2.785b WW total.

Difference is, Big Short is a dark horse to win BP. I don't think either of those were.

If those are your choices? Babysit the kid.

I'm excited for this, looks like a lot of fun and an interesting premise.