The first question that a person might ask when deciding to see Ryan Coogler’s Creed (based on Fruitvale Station) could be, “Do I need to have seen all of the Rocky franchises to like this movie?” The answer to that question is no, but I think you’ll enjoy the movie if you are familiar with movies I through IV. There are lots of references to the relationship between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. While this movie is enjoyable as a standalone, it is likely to be even more fulfilling if you are familiar with some of these references. Creed might be the surprise movie of 2015.
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Category Archives: Genre
It Follows (2015)
Total creep-fest. 2015 was looking for a legitimate horror. While this movie has completely flown under the radar for the general public, word of mouth has allowed the independent It Follows to become a cult classic quickly. Not only is this the best horror movie of 2015, but it is also the best horror movie in years. Honestly, the feeling I got while watching this movie was what I expected from what’s arguably the most over-hyped horror movie of all time, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project.
When I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater, I was expecting to be scared in ways that I had been before. I know that a few of the friends I went with were terrified by it. I wondered if we had just watched the same movie. The Blair Witch Project is a different type of horror from A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think that perhaps as a 23-year-old, I hadn’t yet adapted to the idea that what you might imagine could be even more terrifying than what you see. I’ve mentioned on this blog a couple of times that I need to go back and watch The Blair Witch Project to see if I view it the same way that I did 16 years ago. Given its 87% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m willing to admit that I am probably missing something when I give it a D-. But this is neither here nor there. It Follows is much more like The Blair Witch Project than A Nightmare on Elm Street. The movie’s 96% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes aligns with my view of the film. It Follows is an instant horror classic.
Far From Heaven (2002)
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ne of my five favorite previews for 2015 has been for the movie Carol, which is, more or less, Cate Blanchett narrating a quick story about her life in 1952 New York City. We don’t learn much about it, except that she’s married to Kyle Chandler and that not everything is what it seems. At the start and then again at the end of the trailer, Blanchett mentions how everything comes full circle. The trailer is captivating and made me want to see it. It’s directed by Todd Haynes, who has filmed just one movie (I’m Not There) between 2015’s Carol and 2002’s Far From Heaven. In Carol, Haynes returned to what worked in Far From Heaven. We return to 1950s Northeast America. In both movies, Haynes craftily tells the stories of lives that are less perfect than they appear
Brooklyn (2015)
Hands down, the best romance of 2015 is John Crowley’s (Intermission, Boy A) terrific Brooklyn. This movie features no wining and dining. There are no passionate, hot and heavy, sometimes stir a little in your seat scenes that you might be used to in movies like Titanic, The Notebook, Pretty Woman, Before Sunrise, (500) Days of Summer, Dirty Dancing, or Ghost. This isn’t R-rated. It isn’t PG-rated. It is very appropriately rated as a PG-13 movie. It’s the closest thing to the process of two people meeting by chance, getting to know each other casually before moving on to a deeper level, and eventually falling into an intense, meaningful love that feels both believable and beautiful. I did not know this was a love story going into the film. My mantra this year is to know as little about a movie as possible going into it. That doesn’t mean I’ll see just anything. I do have to see first that the film is getting positive reviews. But if it has decent reviews and Oscar buzz, I’ll make every effort to see it. Brooklyn was a movie that was the most straightforward film in the world to understand, but at the same time, almost impossible to truly comprehend. And in a word, that is love.
Spotlight (2015)
There are several ways to begin the review for Spotlight. Let’s talk about the cast (quite the ensemble cast of the year). I could talk about the hypocrisy that is organized religion. I will mention both of these in this post. However, I will begin with the old-fashioned newspaper reporting that was once our primary source of reliable news. In many ways, it is unfortunate that newspapers are no longer what they used to be, nor will they ever be again. With the invention of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before most newspapers folded, while others had to majorly trim their staff, editions, and the number of pages produced with each issue. Where will The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The New York Times be in 20 years? Well, if the changes in the previous 20 years are any indication, these newspapers will not even be around in 20 years. If they are, they might be entirely electronically based. There will still be a place for prominent metropolitan newspapers, but it will not be in the print variety. There are still things that interest me in the Washington, D.C. area that can only be fully addressed in a publication like The Washington Post. Still, I haven’t purchased a physical newspaper in over a decade and only read one if I happen to see it sitting at a bar while eating dinner, in the school library, or elsewhere.