Baumer's Top 50 of 2015 5) Creed 4) Jurassic World 3) Trumbo 2) It Follows...number one on pg 13

[The Stingray]

I'm sorry, B, but I just can't "like" Fury Road at #22.

 

Edited January 18, 2016 by The Stingray

[chasmmi]

23 minutes ago, In the Heart of the Tree said:

Wow, someone actually liked Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse?

 

He isn't the only one

[Avatree]

28 minutes ago, The Stingray said:

I'm sorry, B, but I just can't "like" Fury Road at #22.

 

Fury Road would be like my #75 best film of 2015. 

[The Stingray]

10 minutes ago, In the Heart of the Tree said:

Fury Road would be like my #75 best film of 2015. 

 

That's because, like lisa, you're a very special person, tree. 

[baumer]

If I wasn't so in awe of the way it was made and how it looked, it would have been out of the top 50.

 

Now onto the top 20.

[Ethan Hunt]

I had Fury Road around 17th granted I only saw a small portion of the films baumer did (I saw 32)

[WrathOfHan]

Scouts above Fury Road? That's worse than an Ethan level move.

[baumer]

20) The DUFF:  You either know one, have one or are one.

 

This is another movie that really shocked me.  I had no expectations for it except that it was a high school film.  I'm big on the 80's high school stuff but a lot of the later efforts have been kind of lame.  This one however seems to benefit from many things.  One is that this is the first effort from both writer Josh A. Kagan and director Ari Sandel.  I also think the film benefits from taking a few risks.  Not all of them pay off, but most do.  I remember watching the Christian Slater/Marisa Tomei film Untamed Heart and I kept waiting for it to take a wrong turn because it was so good.  It never did.  I had the same experience with this one.  It was so beautifully told that I just kept waiting for some moronic plot piece to take place.  But it never did and from start to finish this was tender and sweet and real.  High school social paradigms haven't changed in 25 years.  They seem to be the same now as they were when I was there, or at least they are in the movies.  But everyone is still fighting for social acceptance and you still have the "Breakfast Club" kind of divisions.  Jocks and prom queens still hang out, the shop guys hang with shop guys and the nerds, while more socially acceptable, are still nerds.  The DUFF explores this in painful strokes and it actually reminded me of a John Hughes film.  In fact this has some similarities to Some Kind of Wonderful.  I feel the writing is very accurate and it doesn't try to cheapen any of the characters.  It's very funny but not at the expense of realism.  The high school movie might seem like it's an easy one to perfect, but it is not.  There are too many examples of horrible films with horrible writing.  This is probably the best high school film I've seen since American Pie.

 

Trivia:  Mae Whitman is 9 years older than her co-star, Bella Thorne.

 

[baumer]

19) Inside Out:  Meet the little voices in side your head

 

Here is a first.  Not only is the first Pixar to get a 9/10 from me, it's the first time one has made my top 50 list at the end of the year.  The thought that went into perfecting this film is just astounding.  It's about as complex as they come but it is written so perfectly that it all makes sense.  This is a Pixar movie so usually it annoys the shit out of me, but just the opposite happened this time.  They have given us a story that explains how our emotions have impacted our childhood and our adult life experience.  The Pixar team did a remarkable job at trying to understand the psyche involved in human behavior.  This is complex enough for an adult but simple enough so that kids love it too.  I appreciate the film for all that went into it and I enjoyed it immensely, however my 6 year old niece loves the characters and the voices and the animation.  So it's a perfect blend for both adults and kids.  

 

I had fun, laughed a lot and even got a little emotional, and that has never happened to me in a Pixar movie.  I was cheering for the toys to be incinerated in Toy Story 3, bunch of manipulative bullshit that was.....toys dying....cry me a fucking river.....I digress.  

 

Inside Out is moving, emotionally satisfying and and incredible experience.  And I'm glad I can finally say I like a Pixar film.

 

Trivia:  Depending on the country of release, Riley's father day dreams about either hockey or soccer.

 

 

[Ethan Hunt]

16 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Scouts above Fury Road? That's worse than an Ethan level move.

.

 

11 minutes ago, Baumer said:

20) The DUFF:  

 

 

Actually expected this to be higher honestly based upon your initial review

[baumer]

Well, all the films remaining are either a 9 or above.  So it gets difficult slotting them all in.  

[Kalo]

6 hours ago, Baumer said:

22) Mad Max Fury Road:  What a lovely day.

 

Here's a film that is very odd to me.  I didn't really enjoy it, actually I didn't enjoy it at all.  I thought Tom Hardy was kind of abysmal as Max and I thought it was just a little too glossy strayed too far from the originals.  In the original, post apocalypse meant that weapons and ammo were rare, but not here.  They seem to be in abundant supply.  It's a film I will probably never see again and I'm still giving it an 8.5/10.  Why you might ask?  Why am I giving a film that I don't particularly like an 8.5 and why am I ranking it above a lot of films that I did like?  Two reasons.  One, @Telemachos has threatened me personally with bodily harm if I say anything too disparaging about the film and two I'm simply in awe with how they made this movie.  In my opinion, it's one of the greatest directing efforts of the year.  I'm simply in awe with how it looked, how it sounded, how it was designed and everything else from a technical standpoint.  I appreciate the film I just don't necessarily think it's my kind of movie.  But when you have a dude hanging on the front of a truck, playing guitar while flames shoot out of it, and somehow this makes sense in the film, you have done something really right.  I'm in awe of Mad Max Fury Road and I understand the praise its getting....even if I didn't really care for the movie.  

 

Trivia:  The film editor is Margaret Sixel, George Miller's wife.  She had 480 hours of footage to edit and it took three months to watch the movie.  

 

 

Not good enough Buamer, not nearly good enough.

[Kalo]

25 minutes ago, Baumer said:

20) The DUFF:  You either know one, have one or are one.

 

This is another movie that really shocked me.  I had no expectations for it except that it was a high school film.  I'm big on the 80's high school stuff but a lot of the later efforts have been kind of lame.  This one however seems to benefit from many things.  One is that this is the first effort from both writer Josh A. Kagan and director Ari Sandel.  I also think the film benefits from taking a few risks.  Not all of them pay off, but most do.  I remember watching the Christian Slater/Marisa Tomei film Untamed Heart and I kept waiting for it to take a wrong turn because it was so good.  It never did.  I had the same experience with this one.  It was so beautifully told that I just kept waiting for some moronic plot piece to take place.  But it never did and from start to finish this was tender and sweet and real.  High school social paradigms haven't changed in 25 years.  They seem to be the same now as they were when I was there, or at least they are in the movies.  But everyone is still fighting for social acceptance and you still have the "Breakfast Club" kind of divisions.  Jocks and prom queens still hang out, the shop guys hang with shop guys and the nerds, while more socially acceptable, are still nerds.  The DUFF explores this in painful strokes and it actually reminded me of a John Hughes film.  In fact this has some similarities to Some Kind of Wonderful.  I feel the writing is very accurate and it doesn't try to cheapen any of the characters.  It's very funny but not at the expense of realism.  The high school movie might seem like it's an easy one to perfect, but it is not.  There are too many examples of horrible films with horrible writing.  This is probably the best high school film I've seen since American Pie.

 

Trivia:  Mae Whitman is 9 years older than her co-star, Bella Thorne.

 

 

The DUFF is in my top 5 least favorite films of 2015. it's awful.

[baumer]

18) Bridge of Spies:  In the shadow of war, one man showed the world what we stand for.

 

A terrific suspense Cold War movie about civilian lawyer, James B. Donovan, who negotiates the release of U2 spy plane pilot Gary powers and American foreign exchange student Frederic Pryor.  The American has KGB mole Rudolf Abel.  Based on a true story, I sought out some of the real thing after the film was over.  The real life story is even more fascinating than the movie.  If you have the chance and are interested in that sort of thing, you might find it worth investigating.  The most fascinating aspect of this movie (and another movie in my top ten) is the tough questions it asks about politics from a different era.  The KGB agent was here doing his job.  Yes, he was a spy in the literal sense, btu again, he was doing the job asked of him.  Just like the spy plane pilot was doing the job asked of him.  Do these men deserved to be tortured, or spend their lives in prison for doing the job they were told to do?  Sometimes people have a tendency to over react to things without knowing why they are reacting the way they are.  Being told to feel something is a dangerous thing and, at least by the movies stance, it happened to much especially during the 50's and 60's.  

 

This is Spielberg and Hanks doing what they do best.  Mark Rylance is also brilliant in his role and he absolutely deserves his Oscar nomination.  And if Stallone wasn't so good this year, Rylance would have my backing as the best supporting actor this year.  

 

Trivia:  This is the second collaboration between Spielberg and the Coens.  He executive produced True Grit.

 

[baumer]

Sorry you feel that way @Kalo

 

Your opinion is wrong, obviously. 

[Ethan Hunt]

3 minutes ago, Kalo said:

 

The DUFF is in my top 5 least favorite films of 2015. it's awful.

He's included 3 out of 5 worst films of the year  ( Kingsman, Ant-Man, Adeline) not that I have a problem with that. Two of those three will show up on several people's list. I just hate them personally

[The Panda]

Ooh dang, you've already said 2/3 movie from top 3, 2/5 from my top 5, and 3/10 from my top 10.  Could our lists match up closely?

 

I mean, my 1 and 3 were 19 and 22 respectively, but still.

Edited January 18, 2016 by The Panda

[Kalo]

8 minutes ago, Ethan Hunt said:

He's included 3 out of 5 worst films of the year  ( Kingsman, Ant-Man, Adeline) not that I have a problem with that. Two of those three will show up on several people's list. I just hate them personally

 

No just The DUFF, I liked all those movies.

[baumer]

17) The Gift:  Not every gift is welcome.

 

What goes around comes around.  That's basically the premise of the film.  Karma might take her sweet time when dishing out cold revenge, but no matter what you do, you cannot outrun your destiny.  This is the brilliant but simple idea behind the film.  It's how it's executed that makes it one of the years best.  It must be said that the "twist ending" is fucking brilliant.  When you think of endings that kick you in the stomach, Seven. Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects come to mind, just to name  few.  Once you have seen this film, you will add it to your list.  Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play a very wealthy married couple that seem to have it all.  Then Gordo shows up and all fucking hell breaks loose.  Gordo and Simon (Bateman) went to high school together and Gordo was bullied by Simon and some of his friends.  This left him scarred for life and he never really recovered from the emotional abuse he took at the hands of Simon.  Pay backs are a bitch and Simon takes full advantage of his chance encounter.

 

The Gift is written and directed by Joel Edgerton (Gordo) and it is one hell of a debut.  He's made a name for himself in films like Black Mass and Warrior to name a few.  He's a fine actor, but he's an even better director.  There's plenty of suspense here and he milks every scene beautifully.  I'm really curious to see how he follows this one up.

 

Trivia:  Joel Edgerton wanted to concentrate more on directing so he filmed his scenes two weeks into filming and it only took him 7 days to complete those scenes.

 

 

[baumer]

16) Everest:  Never let go

 

There's three exceptional elements to Everest and I'll tell you about all three of them.  The first and best part of it is that there are no good guys and bad guys and there is no embellishment to make this film more Hollywood.  This is based on a true story and apparently the producers, writers and director wanted to keep this as close to the truth as possible.  In most Hollywood films, there would be some kind of conflict in here where one guy is more like Tom Hardy's character in the Revenant.  Business wise I understand why this is needed but from a pure story stand point, it's nice to see the story told without any bullshit added.  

 

The second exceptional element to this film is the directing and how it was shot. Salvatore Totino was the DP and although the name is not familiar to me, checking his imdb page and it comes as no surprise that he did the DaVinci Code as that was one of the more beautiful films to look at in 2006.  He does an exceptional job here.  And director Baltasar Kormakur is not really familiar to domestic audiences but he did a film called The Deep and although I have not seen it, it's on my list of films to see before I die.  I have heard excellent things about it.  

 

The third thing that is exceptional in here is Jason Clarke.  In my initial post after seeing this film, I said that I hoped the academy would recognize him with a nomination. I still fel that way.  He should have been here in place of Matt Damon imo.  He's the expert on the expedition but he shows so many different layers.  He's tough when he needs to be, terrified when faced with the insurmountable odds and brave in his last moments on earth.  He really hits all the notes perfectly.

 

Everest is a touching film and one that stayed with me after the credits rolled.

 

Trivia:  The cast includes five Oscar nominees.  Jake Gyllenhaal, John Hawkes, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Josh Brolin