[tps_title]Josh Cabrita’s Top Midyear Picks in Movies[/tps_title]
Note: although I’ve seen close to 150 films released in 2015, and you’d think that would be almost all of them, I must admit that a few like Dope and The Tribe haven’t made their way to my neck of the woods yet.
Ever since Moses came down the mountain with those two stone tablets, lists have been made of ten. There is nothing magical about that number, but you would expect that half a list would be made up of five films. We’re missing “thou shall not murder” and a few others, but here are my top five films of 2015.
- About Elly
Technically Asgar Farhadi’s thrilling psychological drama was made in 2009 when it played at the Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals, but About Elly never garnered a theatrical release until earlier this year. The filmmaker behind greats like A Separation and The Past is in full form as he finds poignancy and horror just by tracing small moral conflicts to their uncontrived and thought-provoking conclusions. About Elly is a quiet film–one where the soft-sounding waves of the ocean carry more emotion and atmosphere than any action scene I’ve seen this year. Millions of lives may not be in danger, but Farhadi makes us care more about small white lies and their everyday effects than most Hollywood filmmakers could do with stakes extraordinarily larger.
- Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Based on a first viewing, I called this film “one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen,” and I fully stand by the seemingly hyperbolic statement. Although a second look at Me and Earl and the Dying Girl didn’t carry the same emotional wallop (how could it?) as the first time, I was able to better appreciate the daring formal flourishes. About Elly might be the best movie of 2015, but Me and Earl was my first love. It will always be dearest in my heart.
- Predestination
The Spierig Brothers’ adaptation of Michael A. Heinlein’s short story All You Zombies adds depth to the source material while emerging as one the most affecting, thought-provoking, and thrilling science fiction films of recent memory. Not only is it a dissection of the paradoxes of time travel, a showcase for fantastic production design, and a great vehicle for Sarah Snook and Ethan Hawke, but it’s also an example of profoundly empathetic and deliberately-paced characterization. If your heart and head don’t ache after Predestination, you should wonder if you have either of them.
- A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence
Having never seen any of Roy Anderson’s previous work, I found A Pigeon Sat On A Branch to be unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The long takes and wide shots, the droll and nihilistic humor, and the structure and absence of a conventional narrative show Anderson’s clear and uncompromising vision. Made up of 60-something vignettes–some funny, others sad and many both at the same time–Anderson has not just made a unique work that views human activities like a museum exhibit but one that considers the effects of greed, pride and consumerism.
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- Ex Machina
This film, about a middle-rung coder chosen by an eccentric billionaire to investigate the consciousness of what could be the first self-aware android, fascinates with philosophical debates of free-will and determinism, and materialism and dualism. It’s a thought-provoking film that should thrill both high- and low-brow audiences alike with witty dialogue, suffocating tension, and profound themes. Ex Machina, like Predestination, is real, hard sci-fi, and not of the Abrams variety.
Because this list could have included ten or twenty films, I feel compelled to recognize a few that could have easily been listed above: When Marnie Was There, Phoenix, Mad Max: Fury Road, Tu Dors, Nicole, Mommy, Slow West, While We’re Young, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Inside Out.
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