Billy Ray’s (Breach, Shattered Glass) Secret In Their Eyes is a movie with a trailer that makes it look amazing. With an all-star cast that includes two Academy Award-winning actresses, a mystery/suspense/drama, and the murder of a teenage girl with close ties to the main character’s plot, this movie was sure to be a bona fide hit. Not so fast. As the mixed reviews started rolling in, you had to wonder what was holding this movie back from being great. There were enough negative reviews that would have saved me from seeing this movie, or at least had me wait for a home viewing if I weren’t a person obsessed with seeing as many movies as possible in the theater. It turns out I could have easily waited for or skipped it entirely. While entertaining, it’s not a movie that needs to be seen. When all is said and done, I can’t see this landing as even one of the 25 best movies I’ve seen this year. It wasn’t the most disappointing movie I saw this year because I had tempered my expectations, and it still held my interest for a brief moment. However, it was very uneven, pretty far-fetched, and didn’t have an audience for it.
Category Archives: 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
The second-best action movie heading into the final month of the year has got to be Mad Max: Fury Road, which also happens to be one of the best remakes of a movie ever. I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t like the 1979 original movie, which starred Mel Gibson. I waited until maybe five years ago to watch the film, preferring to keep it as one of those classics to watch on a rainy day. Not so much. It was more disappointing to me than both Blade Runner and Total Recall. That is saying something, as both of those movies I felt were overrated. Blade Runner gets some slack because it was so far ahead of its time. However, I still thought it was overrated.
Creed (2015)
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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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.
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.