The Best Movies of 2016

Another great year of movies has passed, and it's time for my annual list of the best ones that I got to see. I was fortunate again to be able to see all of the Best Picture nominees, while also enjoying several films outside of that scope. I've filled the major categories per the norm while also throwing in several of my own so as to honor some great movies that don't fit in the standards. I also have thrown a ranked list at the bottom of the blog for those who want a simple TL;DR, but I promise that my small comments on each film are worth reading through!

As always, here is my DISCLAIMER that I wasn't able to see every film that was released in 2016, and I didn't necessarily agree with the critics/audience on which films were good or not. This is my personal opinion, and should be taken as such. I got to see some good animated films this year, so that category is back, but there weren't any documentaries that piqued my interest, so that category is missing. Despite my poor performance last year (11 of 20), I want to continue making Oscar predictions and so you can find those in each major category. Now before we begin, my dis/honorable mentions!


Movies Best Forgotten

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
The Lobster
Silence (despite a tour de force from Andrew Garfield)
Star Trek Beyond


Movies Respected But Unawarded

Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Finding Dory
Green Room
Hacksaw Ridge
Hardcore Henry
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
The Jungle Book
Loving
Manchester by the Sea (Casey Affleck was tremendous in this tremendously depressing film)
Moana
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Sing Street
Train to Busan
The Witch
Zootopia


Movies Unwatched or Unknown

20th Century Women
Allied
Captain Fantastic
Elle (I wish I could but I couldn't find it anywhere)
Florence Foster Jenkins
Hail, Caesar!
Jackie
My Life as a Zucchini
Nocturnal Animals
Passengers
The Red Turtle
The Salesman
Suicide Squad
Sully
Trolls


Now, the Best Movies of 2016 according to Robert, along with predictions.



Oscar Predictions for Categories Unrepresented

Costume Design - La La Land
Documentary (Feature) - I didn't see any nominees so I really don't know.
Documentary (Short Subject) - I apologize for not watching documentaries this year.
Film Editing - Arrival
Makeup and Hairstyling - A Man Called Ove (because it can't be the other two...)
Production Design - La La Land
Short Film (Live Action) - Uh, yeah, no clue.
Short Film (Animated) - Piper
 ^
 Side note: if it had been aired in theaters, I would've wholeheartedly vouched for The Last Bastion from Overwatch for Animated Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to8yh83jlXg)




Best Modern Greek Tragedy: Captain America: Civil War

First, I want to explain the category title. In many ways, superheroes are our culture's version of the gods that the Greeks and Romans obsessed over and wrote many stories about, primarily in the tragedy genre. Civil War is one of the first true tragedies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for spoiler reasons that I'll leave unmentioned here. But if you've already seen this great comic book film, then you know what I'm talking about. The betrayal of close friends and the clash of titans on screen give all of us the same feelings that I'd imagine the Greeks had when Paris shot Achilles in his heel during the Iliad. The dividing of lines between Captain America and Iron Man over one man, Bucky Barnes, has created a modern Greek tragedy of sorts, although I'll be the first to state that the quality of the stories is incomparable. However, getting to see Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man was quite amazing!

This is such a unique genre that I don't have any other candidates that really match its requirements, but if we went with strictly tragedies, Manchester by the Sea with its dark mid-film twist and Silence with its mental and spiritual breakdowns definitely would be worth mentioning here.


Best Cinematography: Arrival

One of the most breathtaking moments of 2016 was when we follow Amy Adams as she first witnesses the enormous alien ship floating above a misty valley, with a stunning aerial view of the fog rolling over the hills surrounding it. Bradford Young has shown himself to be a remarkable cinematographer with not only these large, epic shots, but also the close-up framing of characters' faces, often with a soft focus and natural lighting. In a film so centered around language and human-extraterrestrial interactions, the portrayal of every shot continues to capture either a natural beauty or an eldritch terror of the unknown. As far as beauty goes, Arrival is one of the best in the last few years, and that's saying something with Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant) tearing up the place recently. This will be Lubezki's first year in the last four that he's not nominated for an Oscar (which he won all 3 he was nominated for).

Moonlight had many visually artistic scenes and La La Land had some of the best choreography in years, but Arrival still proved itself to be a masterwork in cinematography.

OSCAR PREDICTION: La La Land


Best Supporting Actress: Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

Perhaps many of you are like me, and only know Naomie Harris for her small role in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films as the witch Tia Dalma. That said, I didn't expect much of her in Moonlight, but I was dead wrong. Harris gives us one of the most twisted mothers in recent memory, during a time when single-mother roles seem to be winning a lot of awards (Patricia Arquette in Boyhood, Bria Larson in Room). However, where those mothers were generally good with some complicated problems, Harris plays a very abusive, drug addict who treats her son like trash, leading him to seek refuge with strangers from her constant emotional and mental trauma. Harris gives us a very complicated person who definitely has some personal demons, but ultimately tries to fight through them for her son. However, the absolutely broken relationship between her and her son and the heartbreaking moments of interaction between the two are part of what made Moonlight so great, and makes Harris absolutely deserve this award.

Michelle Williams was almost as devastating as a grieving mother in Manchester by the Sea, while Angourie Rice was hilarious as the snarky daughter in The Nice Guys, but Harris' performance was absolutely perfect. On a side note, I considered Viola Davis to be a leading actress in Fences, so that's the reason that you don't see her name here.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Viola Davis (Fences)


Best Music: La La Land

Here comes the biggest DUH of 2016: La La Land winning Best Music. And why not, with its original, jazz-styled soundtrack that also hearkens back to the glory days of musicals. There's some Singin' in the Rain here, some West Side Story there, but all Damien Chazelle (writer-director) everywhere. Justin Hurwitz has composed a beautiful film that does what all musicals wish to do but often fail at: infusing the soul of the film itself with its music, instead of the other way around. Oh, and it got two songs nominated for Best Original Song, if you were wondering.

Moonlight has a gorgeous soundtrack that sets the mood for every scene, while Sing Street was another great musical set in 1980s Ireland, but La La Land was a jazz musical made by the creator of Whiplash. It was going to win.

OSCAR PREDICTION: La La Land


Best Foreign Film: Lion

I'll be honest, this Australian gem caught me off guard with its very real and very human story, and almost can be likened to a nonfiction version of Slumdog Millionaire in some ways. Sunny Pawar shows some incredible talent as the child actor of Saroo as he becomes lost in India and finds himself thousands of miles away from home, but then Dev Patel also shows skill as an adult Saroo desperately trying to retrace his journey and find his hometown and family. Nicole Kidman is also great as Saroo's adoptive mother, but the way this very real story is told hits home and brings all of the feel-good emotions that you would want. I wish that they had developed Saroo's girlfriend, played by Rooney Mara, a little more, but that may just be me wanting Mara to have more of a chance to show off those incredible acting chops of hers. Regardless, this was a great movie and coming-of-age story.

Eye in the Sky (UK) gave us a very realistic depiction of modern warfare, and Train to Busan (South Korea) was one of the best zombie films in recent memory, but neither had the power of Lion. On a side note, I've decided that I need to stop awarding this category to English language films, since that's kind of cheating, so expect the rest of my categories to include more non-American films in the future.

OSCAR PREDICTION: The Salesman (an Iranian-French film, in protest against Trump)


Best Ensemble Cast: Eye in the Sky

Ever wonder what it's like to have to decide the fate of several people over a phone? This film captures that impersonal way of hefty decision making, as it follows a single day in British warfare as they seek to assassinate a group of terrorists via missile strike amidst a group of citizens. Every order or action has to be approved, and sometimes extra steps have to be taken in order to get that approval, such as sending a tiny drone into a room to verify someone's identity. Helen Mirren, the late Alan Rickman, and Aaron Paul all lead this deft cast who all perform to the best of their abilities, turning this combat-light war film into a bureaucratic thriller, filled with tension and moral ambiguity. It's really a shame that so few people saw this film, as I thought it was one of Rickman's finest roles and worth remembering him by, in addition to Severus Snape or Hans Gruber. War is hell, even when the gore and violence isn't necessarily turned up to 11, which this film shows clearly.

Moonlight has a stellar cast, including all three actors of the main character, while Manchester by the Sea has several masterworks with strong support, but Eye in the Sky had a large group of people all come together without a definitive lead and all deliver great performances. Fences is also worth mentioning for its acting-heavy run time.


Best Portrayal of a Modern Disaster: Deepwater Horizon

It's been quite some time since I've enjoyed a disaster film as much as this one, and its directing from Peter Berg (Lone Survivor) is top notch. Berg also made Patriots Day, which was a good film as well, and all three of his last movies have featured Mark Wahlberg delivering some of his best roles outside of The Departed. This movie shows the real-time unfolding of the largest oil industry accident in U.S. history, an event which I actually studied while going to school. The accuracy of the film along with its dramatic flourishes make this frighteningly realistic, with camerawork that makes you forget that you're watching a movie and some of the best visual effects I've seen. The moment when the rig goes up in flames is absolutely terrifying in theaters, and well worth the price of a ticket.

As I mentioned before, Patriots Day was another great disaster movie from Berg, and Lion portrayed a modern familial disaster very well, but this thrilling reenactment still stands head and shoulders above the rest.


Best Visual Effects: Kubo and the Two Strings

Not since The Nightmare Before Christmas have we seen such a beautifully animated stop-motion film. With the stylings of a samurai Western and the artistry of an oil painting, Kubo and the Two Strings manages to create one of the most wondrous worlds of 2016, while also delivering with a great story. Think no farther than the fighting origami scene or the voyage across the sea to prove just how gorgeous this film really is. Although this is technically an animated film, I would definitely count it as visual effects (and apparently the Academy agreed!). If you love true eye candy, not just explosions and action, definitely give this one a go.

The Jungle Book was filled with fantastic visual effects with its junglescape and animals, while Arrival also delivered with several haunting visuals, but Kubo and the Two Strings stole the show with its old school animation.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Kubo and the Two Strings


Best Sledgehammer-to-the-Fourth-Wall Flick: Deadpool

I was honestly surprised that this movie ended up being so great. Ryan Reynolds is perfect as Deadpool as we follow him being transformed into a superhuman who still just wants his lover, played by Morena Baccarin (of Firefly fame), which actually created one of the best love stories in a comic film. Some of the funniest moments of the year happen within the first hour of this film, including many fourth wall breaking jokes (obviously), references to International Women’s Day and 127 Hours, and several tributes to fellow X-Men universe actor Hugh Jackman. T.J. Miller also gives a hilarious supporting role as Deadpool’s bar owning friend Weasel, including their discussion of how ugly Deadpool looks after being transformed. If you’ve got one of those I’m-going-to-hell-for-laughing-at-that senses of humor, you will be laughing almost nonstop throughout this film like I did. This was just the right film that the superhero genre needed, and follows in the footsteps of Guardians of the Galaxy in proving that we don’t need goody two shoes heroes that everyone already knows in order to enjoy a film such as this.

The closest thing to a fourth-wall break is when the audience is being talked to as a character, which Popstar: Never Stop Stopping did hilariously in its mockumentary style, while Hardcore Henry did in its first person action style, which was also a great addition to the action genre, if you haven't seen it yet. But neither even come close to the wrecking ball that was Deadpool.


Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Many people will know Ali for his work in House of Cards as political aid Remy Danton or for his phenomenal role as Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes in Marvel's Luke Cage on Netflix, but he takes his acting abilities to a whole new height in Moonlight. Ali gives us a friendly father figure for main character Chiron, who's in the middle of a struggle with his addict single mother. Juan, as Ali's character is called, also happens to be a drug dealer who discovers how he directly messes with others' lives. Juan's struggle with his own lifestyle while trying his best to be a foundation in Chiron's life is both complex and moving, and Ali gives us a very realistic human who is one of many characters in Moonlight to show us just how complicated our modern society can be, where everyone's story has a hero and a villain but those lines often blur to the point of no distinction. Ali has been getting lots of praise for his performance in this film and I would definitely advocate that he deserves it all.

John Goodman as a monstrous villain in 10 Cloverfield Lane and Yosuke Kubozuka as a spineless wretch in Silence both deserve praise as well, but Ali was in a league of his own this year.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)


Best Sound Effects: Arrival

From the moment that we finally see the aliens in Arrival, we get treated to some of the best auditory experiences in a film. The deep bass notes of the aliens themselves, the emphasis of fuzziness during moments when Amy Adams is unfocused, the dream-like muffling of thick air; all of it works together with the directing and visual effects to create a cinematic experience unlike many. The silence around dialogue or during quiet moments without music also serve as great calm scenes in the midst of a very emotional storm involving Adams' personal life, as well as the panic of a world dealing with extraterrestrial communication. This was one of the best science fiction films that I've seen in years and the sound effects were just one reason for its excellence.

Don't Breathe had some great soundwork involved with its creative horror plot of being trapped in a house with a blind Marine, and Deepwater Horizon also showed excellence in its aural realism, but Arrival still takes the cake for me.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Sound Editing - Hacksaw Ridge
OSCAR PREDICTION: Sound Mixing - Arrival


Best Hitchcockian Thriller: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Placed within the claustrophobic confines of a fallout shelter and an enigmatic host with the menacing John Goodman, this was one of the best written and directed films of the year. I don’t mean to continue to toot Damien Chazelle’s horn, but on top of making two of the best films of the last few years (Whiplash, La La Land), he wrote the script for this nail-biter, which was then expertly directed by Dan Trachtenberg. The whole cast does exceptionally well, especially Goodman, and the whole film is packed with dread and tension; a Hitchcockian experience of paranoia. The big, lovable teddy bear that is Goodman in most films turned that character on its head as a paranoid war veteran who only mentions how dangerous it is outside and how much he misses his daughter (taken during a divorce). Although he often appears kind and protective on the surface, his outbursts of rage and bizarre behaviors hint at something monstrous lurking beneath the surface. When this monster finally appears, it is both shocking and terrifying, creating a fantastic thriller worth watching.

No other film really had a Hitchcockian influence to it, but Green Room, with its paranoid isolation and helplessness, and Hell or High Water, with its confusion of identity and many twists, came close to matching that tone.


Best Leading Actress: Viola Davis (Fences)

I've sung Davis' praises in the past, especially for her role in Prisoners, but she gives us her absolute best in this heartbreaking drama. Denzel Washington starred in and directed Fences, an adaptation of the stageplay by August Wilson, and he also did fantastic as an aging man in post-segregation Pittsburgh dealing with his dissatisfaction with his life and grudges against a country who stunted his own aspirations before finally establishing equality. But Davis does just as well as his wife, who reined him in when he was young and wild and provided a stable foundation for his life. Her own dissatisfaction finally comes to light during a catastrophic exchange between Davis and Washington that was one of the most emotional moments I saw in all of 2016. Her brilliance has been praised, and although the Academy nominated her for Best Supporting Actress (which I mentioned earlier and predicted that she'd win), I felt like she was much more in a leading role and so have reflected that here.

Amy Adams hasn't even gotten enough praise for her wonderful performance in Arrival, while Ruth Negga deserves recognition for her excellent role in Loving as well, but Davis still gave the best acting of the year for me.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Isabelle Huppert (Elle)


Best Cinematic Song: City of Stars (La La Land)

I know; shocking. In addition for giving us some of the best music of the year, La La Land also gave us several great songs, and none any greater than City of Stars. Ryan Gosling's great voice is the key to this song, along with his great piano-playing, but it also embodies much of the film's message to me: hope and ambition despite a ruthless and pessimistic world. Los Angeles is depicted as a city filled with both opportunity and a glut of people pursuing the same opportunities, and La La Land does this extremely well with its story, music, directing, and acting. Damien Chazelle has proven to be one of the brightest young talents of our time and I eagerly look forward to any and all of his future works, especially if they give us the same level of energy that both Whiplash and now La La Land have.

Feel Right in The Nice Guys had a great funk to it, and How Far I'll Go from Moana had a very inspiring message and sound, but neither can match the soul-felt vibes of City of Stars.

OSCAR PREDICTION: City of Stars (La La Land)


Best Animated Film: Kubo and the Two Strings

The little-known gem from Laika held me breathless with its gorgeous animation (all stop-motion and mentioned earlier) and great story. For those of you who do not know, Kubo and the Two Strings follows a young boy (Kubo) as he journeys across a Japanese-styled landscape to find three pieces of armor that will help him to defeat his evil grandfather, the Moon King. Along the way, we learn a lot about his background and the dark history of the world that he lives in. The characters are super memorable, especially Charlize Theron as the ferocious Monkey, and the fight scenes are unforgettable, especially when Monkey is involved. It's a great, original adventure for the family and also a piece of art meant to be treasured.

Finding Dory brought the emotions for me and did well as a sequel, while Zootopia had some interesting social commentary as a kid-friendly Se7en, but neither were anywhere near as classic as Kubo became for me.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Kubo and the Two Strings


Best Director: Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

I often love the epic styles of directing that Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy) or Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight) love to deliver; or the close and personal styles of Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant) or Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men); or especially the stylized, thrilling styles of Martin Scorsese (The Departed, Raging Bull) or Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds). But I often forget how the subtle styles of directing can be some of the best in cinema by making you forget that you are watching a movie and make you feel like you are there, or that frames everything in beautiful portraits that make every shot feel like art. Barry Jenkins accomplishes both of these things in Moonlight, which was THE most beautiful film that I got to watch last year. The slow-motion shots of angry yelling, the silent and static shots of a painful conversation, or the romantic shots of an imagination gone wild; Jenkins gives us it all. He takes a phenomenal cast and makes them perform to their uttermost capacity, resulting in them winning two of my acting awards (and nearly three with Best Ensemble Cast being a close thing). Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) and Steve McQueen (12 Years of Slave) are the only two other directors that I can think of that combined absolute realism and artistic beauty so well, and if that's not the highest compliment that I can give to Jenkins, then suffice to say that I sincerely hope that he wins Best Director this year, and it would be well deserved.

Denis Villeneuve very, very nearly took this home for his fantastic work in Arrival, and Damien Chazelle has been praised often enough in this post that you know how much I loved his work in La La Land, but neither can match Jenkins' masterwork in Moonlight.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Damien Chazelle (La La Land)


Best Leading Actor: Ryan Gosling (The Nice Guys)

Of course, I could go the easy route and name the same person for his performance in La La Land, but the honest truth is that I enjoyed him more in The Nice Guys. Gosling delivers one of the most hilarious and well-done physical comedy performances in recent memory, playing a sleazebag private detective hunting down a missing heiress in 1970s Los Angeles. His pairing with Russell Crowe as a straight man (a for-hire thug of sorts) also creates some of the best interactions between two characters in a comedy ("I was interrogating the mermaids." "You were, what?"). The most hilarious scene in all of 2016 occurs, however, when Gosling drunkenly stumbles upon a corpse and attempts to call Crowe for help. And then they dispose of the body in a, umm, irregular manner, and the results are riotous. As far as buddy cop comedies go, I advocate The Nice Guys for one of the best I've ever seen, and Gosling as one of the best actors ever in genre flexibility (The Notebook, Drive, La La Land, The Nice Guys; he's a master).

Casey Affleck is absolutely devastating in Manchester by the Sea and Andrew Garfield did great in both Silence and Hacksaw Ridge, but neither add up to Gosling's performance in The Nice Guys coupled with La La Land.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)


Best Screenplay: Arrival

When you base the script of your film on an award-winning short story (Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang), the results are likely to be incredible. Following an expert linguist, played by Amy Adams, we experience the attempts at communication with extraterrestrials who have descended onto Earth. Filled with realistic dialogue, mind-bending plot twists, and an emotional core, Arrival delivered a phenomenal true science fiction that deserves to be respected up there with Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s not a single complaint that I could name about any of this film’s screenplay, and anyone who loves stories will adore this film like I did.

Fences was adapted from a stage play and has some amazing dialogue, while Moonlight has the best steady flow of story during its own three acts and emotional catharsis, but Arrival still pulled slightly ahead of both in all of those traits.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Adapted Screenplay - Arrival
OSCAR PREDICTION: Original Screenplay - La La Land


Best Picture: Moonlight

This was one of the most difficult choices that I've had to make during my time of writing these personal awards, with Arrival and La La Land both being fantastic films. But in the end, the personal and complex tale of a black boy growing up in Florida moved me and affected me the most. Moonlight is a film about the most basic of modern dilemmas: personal identity. Who are you? Who is each of us? This is a film that explores this theme thoroughly and is not afraid to show both the highs and the lows of finding yourself. Only in a film as well crafted as this can we have a friend, a lover, a villain, and a role model all packed into one single character. And many of the characters are as multi-faceted as this, with director Barry Jenkins seeking to build one of the most intricate dramas with depth in every scene. Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris both give amazing performances, as I've already noted, but they aren't the only great actors in this film.

Alex Hibbert is both pitiful and lovable as a young Chiron, then Ashton Sanders is heartbreaking and quiet as a teen Chiron, then Trevante Rhodes is masculine yet fragile as an adult Chiron, fully fleshing out this young man's entire upbringing. Each act of the film is divided by these times in Chiron's life, and each one represents a different identity that he seeks to build for himself. The first two acts both end with devastating scenes that bring different emotional crescendos to the story, and although the third act ends unlike those, it also has a powerful ending that is more thought-provoking than it is emotional. The way that Moonlight also portrays modern masculinity, and how those who don't fit its norms face persecution, can be quite brutal at times, but really defines this generation much like Fight Club came to define the many children of divorce in Generation X. This film is a beautiful work of art with a fantastic story, and its execution is flawless. Thus, I can confidently say that Moonlight was THE best film of 2016.

As I already said, Arrival was a great science fiction drama and La La Land was a gorgeous musical, but Moonlight stole my heart and just edged out those other two masterpieces.

OSCAR PREDICTION: La La Land



TL;DR

1. Moonlight (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor)
2. Arrival (Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Effects)
3. La La Land (Best Music, Best Cinematic Song)
4. Kubo and the Two Strings (Best Animated Film, Best Visual Effects)
5. The Nice Guys (Best Leading Actor)
6. Fences (Best Leading Actress)
7. Deadpool (Best Sledgehammer-to-the-Fourth-Wall Flick)
8. 10 Cloverfield Lane (Best Hitchcockian Thriller)
9. Captain America: Civil War (Best Modern Greek Tragedy)
10. Eye in the Sky (Best Ensemble Cast)
11. Lion (Best Foreign Film)
12. Deepwater Horizon (Best Portrayal of a Modern Disaster)


Thank you for reading through my personal awards, and I hope you look forward to me posting these each and every year! I'm excited to see who wins the Oscars as well, but in the end, I know what my favorites were and that's what this post is all about. Please comment with your own suggestions or maybe a ranked list of your own!

The Best Movies of 2015

The 2016 Oscars are just around the corner, and so that means that it's time again for me to announce my own favorite films of 2015! As always, this blog reveals my personal selections for each major category, as well as a few extra categories for films that I had to have on my list but had nowhere to fit them in the categories. This also doubles as a ranked list, so feel free to scroll to the bottom and read my TL;DR if you're not feeling particularly patient, but I promise you that you won't regret reading through my miniature reviews in each category!

But first, a DISCLAIMER: I haven't yet found a way to grow money from the tree in my backyard, nor did I discover time travel, and so I did not see every movie that came out this year, or is up for award nominations, and even the ones that I did see, I did not necessarily enjoy. Therefore, these awards are limited to what I have both seen and enjoyed, but I will present both films that I didn't like and the ones that I may or may not ever see. Foreign films and documentaries will be present again this year, but no animated films even touched my favorites of the year, so that category will sadly be lacking (sorry, Inside Out fans!). And since I did SO WELL last year at predicting the Oscars (I went 16 out of 20!), I decided to do that again as well. Now that all that's out of the way, let's begin!


Movies That Were Seen But Not Heard From Again (or Remembered)

Amy (tried very hard to portray her tragically, but all I saw was a spoiled brat who blamed everyone)
Ant-Man
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Black Sea
Brooklyn (Ronan did do a fantastic job, but otherwise a very plain and boring film)
Cinderella
Everest
The Hateful Eight (Tarantino disappointed me so very, very much...)
In the Heart of the Sea
Inside Out (yeah, I didn't love it, call it the Frozen effect)
Insidious: Chapter 3
Jurassic World
Minions
Slow West
Southpaw
Spy (the insults-only humor is funny the first 20 minutes, then bottoms out quickly)
Ted 2
Trainwreck
The Water Diviner


Movies That Were SO CLOSE But No Cigar

Black Mass (Johnny Depp was terrific but the rest was just okay)
Clouds of Sils Maria
Creed
Dope
Furious Seven
The Gift
Infinitely Polar Bear (my favorite family dramedy since Chef)
It Follows
The Martian
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Mr. Holmes
Paddington
The Peanuts Movie (relies a bit too heavily on nostalgia)
Shaun the Sheep Movie
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (fun but A LITERAL COPY/PASTE OF EPISODES IV & V!!!)
Straight Outta Compton (which had surprisingly good acting!)
The Visit
The Walk


Movies That I Forgot To See, or Could Not See, or Whatever

99 Homes
Anomalisa
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
Concussion
The Danish Girl
Danny Collins
Fifty Shades of Grey (just...no)
The Good Dinosaur
Grandma
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
The Hunting Grounds
Joy
The Lady in the Van
Love & Mercy
Pitch Perfect 2
Spectre (was looking so forward to this until I saw the reviews...)
Trumbo
Youth


And finally, here are the Best Movies of 2015 according to Robert, along with Oscar predictions.




Oscar Categories That I Didn't Include But Decided to Predict Anyways

Best Animated Feature Film - Inside Out
Costume Design - Mad Max: Fury Road
Short Subject Documentary - Didn't see any soooo....
Film Editing - The Big Short
Makeup and Hairstyling - Mad Max: Fury Road
Production Design - Mad Max: Fury Road
Animated Short Film - Also didn't see any....
Live Action Short Film - You guessed it: none seen.






Best Cinematic Song: Free Bird (Kingsman: The Secret Service)

Sometimes, this world can be filled with hate, typically perpetrated by hateful people. So to see a group of these people (with a very obvious nod towards a real hate group / church) get their “overly” just desserts, while having Lynyrd Skynyrd play in the background, satisfies the viewer completely. On top of that, the action choreography is excellent, Colin Firth becomes a genuine badass, and the scene ends with one of the biggest plot twists of 2015. Most people associate this song with Forrest Gump, but I, for one, will forever associate it with my favorite scene from this spy-spoof action-comedy, which surprised in that it became one of my favorite films with its wit and incredible amounts of fun. Did I mention that it was directed by Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class head men Matthew Vaughn, who's already teased at a sequel? YES!

Feels Like Summer from Shaun the Sheep Movie was a heartwarming song, and See You Again in Furious Seven absolutely made that ending (I teared up!), but the epic action and fun of Free Bird could not be beaten. Side note: I never saw The Hunting Grounds but I really want to now after listenning to Lady Gaga's song about the documentary's subject, college campus rape.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Til It Happens To You (The Hunting Grounds)



Best Historical Reenactment: Bridge of Spies

What is one of the most reliable director-actor combinations of the last twenty years? Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal) have done it again in this incredibly interesting reenactment of a Cold War standoff where both sides had one of the others' spies and so had to bring in American lawyer James Donovan to negotiate an exchange. On top of being historically appealing, this movie features many instances of wit and humorous or intelligent dialogue, which can be credited to the Coen brothers writing the script (it makes sense!). Not only does Tom Hanks do a tremendous job, but there is a scene-stealing performance by Mark Rylance (rightly nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year) as the old Soviet spy who has been caught. Spielberg also cleverly uses this scenario to show how little our society has changed with its racism and bigoted patriotism, although the subject of which has changed. Not as serious or groundbreaking as previous Spielberg films, but still a fine gem nonetheless.

The Big Short, The Revenant, Steve Jobs and The Walk were all great films that were historical reenactments of some sort, but Bridge of Spies was the most factual as well as being supremely well done all around, including a beautiful score by Thomas Newman.



Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)

Winslet did such an amazing job becoming her character in this film that I didn't even realize that it was her until about halfway through. Her looks, her accent, and her body language are all far different than anything I've previously seen from her. and she really carries a lot of scenes in a very dialogue-heavy movie. Portraying Joanna Hoffman, a Polish marketing executive who was like a business wife to Steve Jobs (acted perfectly by Michael Fassbender), she nails the personality of her character and, as I said before, never really seems like she's acting. With a fast-paced Aaron Sorkin script (The Social Network, Moneyball) that follows a traditional play format of three nonstop acts, we get to see not only relationships within Apple change, but Hoffman's constant coaching of Jobs to take care of his estranged daughter, which ends up being one of the most poignant parts of this film. Hats off to Danny Boyle for directing such a great film, but also to Winslet to joining a cast of great actors and still shining brightly.

Kristen Stewart was actually excellent in Clouds of Sils Maria and was penned into this category for most of the year before I saw Steve Jobs, and I enjoyed Rachel McAdams in Spotlight and Nina Kunzendorf in Phoenix, but none did as astounding as Winslet here.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)



Best Foreign Film: Phoenix

One of the most beloved movies of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's mystery thriller Vertigo, which deals heavily with manipulation of women into what men want. I personally don't care for that movie, but Phoenix does an extremely similiar thing with its story, but in a far more heartbreaking and beautiful way. Directed gorgeously by Christian Petzold and acted masterfully by Nina Hoss, it follows a German Jew who has returned to her hometown of Berlin after a stay in Auschwitz, which she only survived because they shot her in the face while shutting the camp down. This is not shown, but the damage to her face left her alive but disfigured, forcing her to have reconstructive surgery done and rendering her almost unrecognizeable to her family and friends. The chemistry between her and Ronald Zehrfeld (playing a man wishing her to pretend to be his dead wife so they can get her inheritance) takes center stage for most of the film, and it is equal parts tragic and romantic. To see post-WWII Germany through the eyes of a wayward Jew brings a very interesting perspective as well, as we hardly think of what the country was like after a devastating time period in which friends and family turned each other in if they were Jews. This was a masterpiece and I'm sad that it didn't end up much higher on my list, but it still deserves special recognition.

Room was technically a Canadian film, but still took place in America so I couldn't include it, then Paddington was a charming British family film, but Phoenix blew all competition out of the water.

OSCAR PREDICTION: I haven't seen any of the nominees, so I can't make a prediction.



Best Music: Sicario

If you ever see Sicario, one of the first things that you will notice is the atmospheric and tense music that drives the film through its many intense sequences. From the falling bass of the drive into El Paso to the dead silence of a house raid, Jóhann Jóhannsson has proven again to be a rising star in cinematic scores, following up his celebrated work in The Theory of Everything. He combines again with director Denis Villeneuve (having worked together in the excellent thriller Prisoners) to produce a haunting tone that fits the film's serious depictions of a violent and immoral border war, on both sides of the fence. The collective sigh of release at the end of this film can be attributed as much to Jóhannsson's music as it can to the edge-of-your-seat plot of one of the best films this decade.

I absolutely adore Ennio Morricone and his work in both Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns and John Carpenter's The Thing, and so I loved the music in The Hateful Eight. However, I was far too disappointed in the movie overall to include it in my best movies of 2015, but I fully expect the Academy to do their "let's award the old person who doesn't have an Oscar" thing and give it to Morricone anyways. Room, The Revenant, and Ex Machina also had great atmospheric scores, and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Big Short had awesome jukebox playlists, but none could top Jóhannsson's mastercraft.

OSCAR PREDICTION: The Hateful Eight



Best Ensemble Cast: Spotlight

Apparently, Michael Keaton has become the king of leading ensemble cast films. After last year's fantastically well acted cast in Birdman: or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, Keaton returns to lead the cast of Spotlight in another dialogue-based film with an excellent story. It's safe to say that at this point, he has revitalized his career, and as a dramatic actor at that. His determined and witty portrayal of Walter "Robby" Robinson, the editor of the Spotlight section of the Boston Globe, perfectly corrals the many other characters and helps them to focus. Liev Schreiber also deserves credit for his reserved role as the new editor of the Globe who puts the team on the case of a very corrupt Catholic church. Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d'Arcy James round out the Spotlight team of investigative journalists, and all three have great moments in the film, from Ruffalo's hounding of lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (played wonderfully by Stanley Tucci) to James' realization of how real their story is when he recognizes an address from down the street from his own house. John Slattery, of Mad Men fame, plays his typical character role (of the show mentioned) but he excels at it and it fits in with everyone else, so you enjoy it. This was the best acted film this year in my opinion, but it was hardly a sure thing.

The Revenant had great turns from Leonardo DiCaprio, Domnhall Gleeson and Tom Hardy, who was the best villain of 2015. Steve Jobs was another dialogue-heavy film with a great cast, featuring Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet (who I already mentioned), as was The Big Short, with Steve Carrell, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling. Room and Sicario also had an ensemble of great actors, but none could quite top Spotlight this time.



Best Cinematography: The Revenant

After last year’s Birdman and now The Revenant, I think that we can officially label Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki as the best filmmaker pairing currently operating. Lubezki may just get himself a third Oscar in a row (Birdman, Gravity) for his work here, as it is as beautiful as you could ask for while remaining extremely visceral and realistic. The choice to only use natural lighting in this film made the shooting of it excruciatingly difficult (they went months over schedule), but it really adds to the film’s grittiness and natural beauty. On show here is also Lubezki's mastery of the long shot, making for an incredibly immersive film filled with harrowing scenes, including a raid with brutal violence and a bear attack that goes from walking through the woods all the way to the final gunshot without breaking once. To say that I cannot wait to see more Lubezki films is a vast understatement, as he has shown himself to be the greatest cinematographer of the last two decades, and perhaps of all time.

Roger Deakins did excellent work in Sicario with the framing of several scenes (including the night raid), Masanobu Takayanagi emulated Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu with the static cameras or slow zooms in Spotlight, and Danny Cohen produced paranoia and enclosure in Room, but Lubezki is THE master.

OSCAR PREDICTION: The Revenant



Best Leading Actress: Brie Larson (Room)

To say that I loved Larson's role in Room would be understating her case. If Patricia Arquette was a shoo-in last year for Best Supporting Actress as a single mother, Larson is an absolute etched-in-stone kind of shoo-in this year for a similar role as the leading actress. Although this film has several very well done minor roles, the focus is squarely on Larson, playing 24-year old Joy, and her 5-year old son Jack, played tremendously by Jacob Tremblay. The beginning of this film is pretty rough, showing Joy as a victim of serial rape, Jack being a product of that, and somehow managing to raise her son as best as she can under terrible circumstances within a confined room that is all he has ever known. We see her struggle with accepting their fate, finally taking matters into her own hands and having to risk the life of her son in order to earn their freedom, and the harrowing events thereafter tear you apart as you understand the complex emotions behind Joy's face: maternal instinct and survival instincts fighting each other. Then we see the misery of PTSD and the effect of rape on her psyche, as well as very serious social disorders that she must fight through with her son, who helps her in ways that are so very real that it's hard to describe the emotional power of the actions without having seen it yourself. Larson has shown incredible range in this film, and I hope she has many, many roles sent her way after this.

Nina Hoss was excellent in Phoenix, as I previously mentioned, and Emily Blunt (Sicario) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) deserve mentioning as well, but none were even close to Larson's powerful role.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Brie Larson (Room)



Best Screenplay: The Big Short

Wanna know one of the most controversial yet rarely understood events of our time? The economic collapse in 2008. Some films have been made on the subject (such as the well-done Margin Call), but they often are so thick with jargon that most of us simply don't understand it. It'd be like me trying to describe the details of a propane refrigeration cycle to someone who hasn't taken thermodynamics, while using industry jargon. Enter Adam McKay, best known for his comedies, such as Anchorman or Talledega Nights, who decides to make another comedy but in a much more serious manner, akin to The Wolf of Wall Street or Birdman. The movie is very funny, quirky, and often breaks the fourth wall, including a scene where characters explain that the circumstances that they just acted out weren't exactly how it actually happened. It explains the crash in such an accessible and fun way (a la Geico commercials where a celebrity helps to explain something) that you find yourself just able to keep up while still being incredibly interested. The cast was perfect, especially Christian Bale as an eccentric hedge fund manager and Steve Carrell as another manager with deep personal issues, which are expressed onscreen in an incredibly dramatic way, moving this film into more of a dramedy genre. Do yourself a favor both educationally and funwise and go see this gem, which was also easily my favorite comedy of the year (suck on that, vastly overrated The Martian!).

Spotlight, Room, Bridge of Spies and Steve Jobs all had great scripts as well, but I didn't feel that any were as clever or well executed as McKay and Charles Randolph's work.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Adapted Screenplay - The Big Short
OSCAR PREDICTION: Original Screenplay - Spotlight



Best Documentary: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

When people hear the name Kurt Cobain, two things immediately pop into their head: him blowing his own off, or his music-altering band Nirvana. Forged from the many collections of video recordings kept by Courtney Love, Cobain's longtime girlfriend then wife, this documentary seeks to show Kurt Cobain the person, as well as the many life events that influenced his music. We follow him from broken home, to rising rock star, to heroin addict, and to husband and father. This is an incredibly personal documentary that really shows him as he was, as well as showing us Love's influence on the final days of his life. The music is also incredible, of course, but they typically juxtapose it with an explanation of the meaning behind it, making it that much more poignant. There are also several animated scenes where the style is based on his own doodlings that would be tremendous in any film, and so this EASILY should have been nominated, but regardless, I name it the winner in my book this year.

I honestly didn't see many other documentaries this year, but I did see Amy and thought that it was garbage because it spends the entire runtime showing a spoiled brat then trying to explain that it was everyone else's fault but her own. But hey, the critics loved it, so I'm sure it will win the award. But here, it doesn't even remotely come close to Montage of Heck.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Amy



Best Leading Actor: Jacob Tremblay (Room)

That's two, count 'em, two Oscar snubs in a row that I decided to rectify in my own awards. The Academy has a longstanding history of almost never nominating children for any kind of acting award, but this easily should have been done away with this year for the heartwrenching performance by Tremblay. As I described in my piece about Brie Larson, Tremblay's role as Jack becomes the anchor around which the film becomes based, especially since we get to follow his childish wonder at the outside world once they leave the room that he's only ever known. There are so many interactions that he has with other people that left me in tears, including when he's waiting in a police car for his mother to return to him, and you understand that he feels trapped again like when he was in the room. When he finally is reunited with his mother and they embrace, their love is so real that you instantly forget that you're watching two actors. All that you see is a mother and her son. In addition to his emotional appeal, Tremblay never missteps or ever acts like anything other than naturally, and shows tremendous talent as an actor, which SHOULD have been recognized but wasn't. Alas, I am here to tell you that his performance was hands-down the best of any actor in 2015.

Michael Fassbender did excellently in both Steve Jobs and Macbeth, playing the titular character of both films, and I expect him to take home the Oscar, since having two excellent performances usually strengthens the one nomination (see Matthew McConaughey in 2013, nominated for Dallas Buyers Club but also doing great in Mud). Shameik Moore burst onto the scene in Dope, and I expect to see more of him, while Leonardo DiCaprio decided to take a chance and go mute, relying on visual acting and body language for his excellent performance in The Revenant. But none were as impacting or skilled as Tremblay was.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)



Best Sound Effects: The Revenant

One of the best things about this film is its immersion, not only with its camerawork and visual effects, but with the sounds and aural omnipresence. From the babbling brooks to the roaring grizzly bears, everything sounds like being right in the middle of nature, and it can be downright terrifying at times. During a raid sequence, the whistling of arrows by your ears or the fleshy thud of them into the bodies of men bring the scene to life, and this mixing of the visual and audio works perfectly together. Bravo to the men who worked so hard on this soundtrack of the wilderness.

Room, Sicario and Mad Max: Fury Road also had many instances of great sound effects, but none struck me as better than The Revenant's. For the sake of my predictions, I feel like Mad Max will take home Sound Editing because of its ability to maximize car engines and other loud noises without ever being overwhelming, but The Revenant will definitely take Sound Mixing for my aforementioned reasons.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Sound Editing - Mad Max: Fury Road
OSCAR PREDICTION: Sound Mixing - The Revenant



Best Paranoid Closed-Room Thriller: Ex Machina

I bet that most of you would figure that I'd have my fanboy director Quentin Tarantino in this category with his newest film, The Hateful Eight, but his dialogue and story pale in comparison to this tense and taut tale. This was the first movie that I ever saw Domnhall Gleeson or Alicia Vikander in, and they both deliver great performances that are sure to get Vikander some nominations and Gleeson some more roles. Oh, look at that, they both got what they deserved! This sci fi thriller focuses on only three characters: a software employee (Gleeson) who wins a trip to meet an eccentric billionaire programmer (Oscar Isaac with a great performance that deserves praise) who wants him to test his newly created AI (Vikander), which leads to a simple plot on the surface that quickly becomes complex and full of tension. Can any of them trust each other while in complete isolation? These kinds of movies are why I love giving directorial debuts a shot (with Alex Garland's steady hand here), despite lesser known actors and a story shrouded in secrecy. Tarantino, take notes; maybe you can SUCCESSFULLY recreate the tension of Reservoir Dogs that you failed to do in H8.

The Gift, with its Hitchcockian stalker vibes (also from a first-time director, Joel Edgerton) and Clouds of Sils Maria, with its sexual tension and isolated scenery, deserve praise for their paranoia-inducing scenarios, but neither can match the two hour slow-burn thrills of Ex Machina.



Best Director: Denis Villeneuve (Sicario)

And for my third and final snub, I want to bring up the incredibly talented yet perpetually overlooked director that is Denis Villeneuve. Perhaps it's because he's Canadian? Regardless, Villeneuve has proven to be one of the top five directors of the past ten years. Polytechnique was a shorter yet incredibly tense and socially accurate commentary about the shootings during the Montreal Massacre, and gave us many of his directing tropes: amoral characters, complex stories with no clear good and bad, and a mastery of atmosphere through both camerawork and music. He also knows how to build suspense perfectly, as well as keep you guessing throughout his films, and this was on full display in his Oscar-nominated film Incendies, which has one of the best commentaries on the Middle Eastern region that I've ever seen. Then he teamed up with Jake Gyllenhaal to create the mindbending thriller Enemy as well as the dark and twisting Prisoners, both of which have made my previous Best Movies lists. Then, to top all of it off, he blew away my expectation with Sicario and made the best movie of his career, which would have been my favorite of the year if not for one other transcendent film.

Sicario follows an FBI agent named Kate, played wonderfully by Emily Blunt (mainly known for Edge of Tomorrow), who wants to do more to end the drug war on the Mexican border, and so joins up with some sketchy CIA personnel in order to do so. Their actions are grey, their characters are grey, and although Kate tries to stick to the book or keep everything black and white, she just cannot do it without sacrificing the victory. Villeneuve plays on this greyness perfectly, creating a narrative that makes it difficult for even us to make decisions, and setting up several powerful finales that leave you both on the edge of your seat and totally unknowing of what will happen next. In addition to this, the paranoia dominates in this film, from a tense highway traffic scene to a nighttime raid with limited visibility. Villeneuve gets the most out of his actors, including a phenomenal turn from Benicio del Toro, and out of his scenery, putting us into the action when necessary, but also bringing his environments to life. I've never seen a film pull off this border war narrative so well before, and, of course, it took a non-American to do it, and Villeneuve did it with aplomb in creating his best film yet.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu once again showed incredible talent in his work in The Revenant, as I mentioned in Best Cinematography, and then I have to give shoutouts to Thomas McCarthy (Spotlight), Danny Boyle (Steve Jobs), and Lenny Abrahamson (Room) for their excellent work on their films, but none could match the perfection of Villeneuve's directing in Sicario. As for my Oscar prediction, this will, once again, be another "old guy gets the award" situation where George Miller will be recognized for his many contributions.

OSCAR PREDICTION: George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)



Best Visual Effects: Mad Max: Fury Road

Sometimes, the most astounding things that we see on the screen have nothing to do with a computer. Just look at Jurassic Park, Mary Poppins, or Alien for examples of films with practical effects that made their onscreen glory last throughout the years and feel more realistic for that. That’s exactly what director George Miller brings with this epic post-apocalyptic film that features the greatest action sequences of 2015, not to mention the best (and longest) car chases in years. The fact that everything was so well done with painstaking and time-consuming effort, with attention to detail throughout in the costume and set designs, makes this film go to a whole new level of eye candy that was never matched, resulting in a very one-sided victory. Plus: that flaming guitar guy!

The Revenant deserves special recognition here for its recreation of wildlife in the film, since real animals cannot be used in violent scenes, and especially for the bear attack scene. Other than that, no movie even came close to Mad Max's dazzling effects.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Mad Max: Fury Road



Best Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)

It takes a determined person to get people to tell the truth when they are hiding it, and Ruffalo played a man like that perfectly in Spotlight. Here we see a lapsed Catholic who seems to be only out to tear the church down, but during a moment of anguish over the findings of the Boston Globe’s investigation, we hear his cry of, “I always thought that I would eventually go back, but now I can’t!” and see a very real person who never wishes for evil, and finds despair in the brutal reality that he has discovered. Ruffalo covers all the quirks and twitches that real life reporter Michael Rezendes has, making him eccentric but yet very human and likable. His own determination often drives the film, and the lack of a true leading actor does not matter between all of the great work done by the cast, especially Ruffalo. On a side note, he was also a tremendous lead actor as a bipolar father in Infinitely Polar Bear.

Tom Hardy in The Revenant was phenomenal as the villain, while Benicio del Toro also was showstopping in Sicario, but neither could quite match Ruffalo's excellence. However, I once again think that the "older person without an award" will win yet again here....

OSCAR PREDICTION: Sylvester Stallone (Creed)



Best Picture: Room

What begins as a claustrophobic scene within a small room that a woman and her 5-year old son live in becomes a psychological and emotional film that had me crying almost nonstop for long stretches of time. Jacob Tremblay is easily the best child actor that I’ve gotten to see, and Brie Larson plays his young mother perfectly as they deal with a very disturbing situation. Tremblay shows us the wonder of a child discovering the outside world for the first time, and charms you every step of the way while remaining completely believable. Larson has a much more complex role that involves the loving tenderness of a mother, the hysterical paranoia of a mother, and the psychological trauma of a rape victim. One of the most touching moments (one of many) in the film comes when Tremblay asks his grandmother to cut off his hair and send it to his mother in the hospital, believing that it has strength (like Samson) and says that "She needs the strong more than I do."

This movie moved me more than any film since 12 Years a Slave, and really elevated itself far above the most celebrated films in this year’s awards; Spotlight, Sicario, Mad Max: Fury Road, Phoenix, Steve Jobs and The Revenant don’t even hold a candle to the perfection of this film. I will have to let it soak in and age a bit before I can fully declare it, but I'm almost 100% certain that this film will appear in the top ten of my next best movies of all time. Lenny Abrahamson has directed a masterpiece worthy of recognition, and well deserving of a viewing from everybody who did not see it. Do yourself a HUGE favor and watch this film as soon as you possibly can!

Like I said, no film even came remotely close for me, but Sicario, Spotlight, The Revenant and Phoenix all deserve recognition for being great films this year as well. I feel like Mad Max and The Revenant aren't serious contenders for Best Picture, leaving me to agonize between Room and Spotlight for the Academy to award, and in the end I decided to go with my heart and pick my own favorite, since I DIDN'T do that last year and missed the mark.

OSCAR PREDICTION: Room



TL;DR

1. Room (Best Picture, Best Leading Actress, Best Leading Actor)
2. Sicario (Best Director, Best Music)
3. Spotlight (Best Supporting Actor, Best Ensemble Cast)
4. The Revenant (Best Cinematography, Best Sound Effects)
5. Phoenix (Best Foreign Film)
6. Mad Max: Fury Road (Best Visual Effects)
7. Steve Jobs (Best Supporting Actress)
8. Bridge of Spies (Best Historical Reenactment)
9. Kingsman: The Secret Service (Best Cinematic Song)
10. Ex Machina (Best Paranoid Closed-Room Thriller)
11. The Big Short (Best Screenplay)
12. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (Best Documentary)

Thank you so much for reading through this list and reviews, and good luck to all contestants in the Oscars this year. As for myself, I always enjoy doing these and I'm glad to have had such a fantastic year for movies last year. Until next winter!

Fruitvale Station: The Should, the Could and the Empty

I haven't written a movie review in a few months, but sometimes, a film comes along that knocks you over and wakes you up. And without a doubt, Ryan Coogler's masterpiece Fruitvale Station is one of those films.





Let me preface this realization:





I'm looking forward to the upcoming Rocky sequel, which instead casts Sylvester Stallone in a supporting role for the main protagonist, Adonis Creed, who is Apollo Creed's son and is played by Michael B. Jordan. I've never seen anything with the young actor (having avoided Fant4stic this year), so I looked up his filmography and found a highly rated film from 2013 called, of course, Fruitvale Station. I like to see who is involved with the creation of a film, primarily the actors, directors, and screenwriters. Jordan was the lead actor for Fruitvale Station, like he is for Creed, and I noticed that the writer and director of Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler, was also the writer/director for Creed. Whenever you see directors and actors pair up constantly, that typically means that they bring out the best in each other (see Robert DeNiro/Leonardo DiCaprio with Martin Scorsese, or Michael Fassbender with Steve McQueen). A quick search showed me that the movie was (and still is) available to view on Netflix, which I happen to have, and so I added it to my list and forgot about it until recently.

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was to go into this film expecting more anti-police / heavily-slanted racism messages, akin to what we've been bombarded with from the media regarding Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and of course, Oscar Grant (whom this film is about). Instead, I watched a film that focuses on who Grant was as a person. We see his days in prison, his struggle to stop dealing dope and maintain legal income, what his persona and speech was like, and most importantly, his relationships with his long-time girlfriend Sophina Mesa (portrayed well by Melonie Diaz), their daughter Tatiana, his mother Wanda Johnson, and the many people (family, friends, and even strangers) that he interacted with in his life. Coogler chose to use the film as a quasi-documentary, which creates an hyperrealistic tone that will either enthrall you or bore you, in a similar way to Boyhood. Unlike that 3-hour film, however, this one is 97 minutes long and spends only an hour of it to show Grant's life before progressing into the inevitable final act, which is both tense and emotional. While I understand that Coogler took some creative liberties with his film (adding and omitting to the overall story), I feel that he did it so as to make the story flow a bit better while also helping us to get to know this short-lived young man.

Jordan has mesmerizing hold of the camera without ever overacting or overselling his character. He simply portrays the young ex-con like a young ex-con, and has drawn many comparisons to Denzel Washington's strong-yet-silent persona. But it wasn't the stoic personality that made me look past the actor to see the man: it was Jordan's complete lack of self. He became Oscar Grant (or at least, Coogler's Oscar Grant) so that we could see that person and fully understand him. There are so very few films with this capability to engross you in the protagonist: I can think of two off the top of my head, which are The Godfather and 12 Years a Slave. That's very esteemed company indeed, and although I do not think that Fruitvale Station quite reaches their level, it doesn't miss the mark by much.

Coogler has constructed a film and semi-fictional environment that is brutal with its honesty, yet artfully recorded as if by a simple onlooker of Grant's life, which we become. The complete lack of bias immediately drew me into the story and its characters, since that is so rare to find nowadays. Almost all films now have some sort of message, whether it be simple (Captain America: The Winter Soldier with representation of NSA and surveillance) or much more powerful (12 Years a Slave with the cruelly accurate portrayal of slavery as it was). But Coogler follows in the footsteps of directors such as Kathryn Bigelow or David Fincher where they simply tell the story how it happened, more or less, and leave all judgment and subjectivity to the viewer. Obviously, being both the writer and director, Coogler can only be so objective while being human, and so he definitely portrays the events in such a way that we are sympathetic towards Grant, but I'd argue that simply happens when you get to be in a person's footsteps for an extended period of time, such as with Walter White in Breaking Bad, who you root for despite his monstrosities.

Oscar Grant was not a perfect person. Fruitvale Station is not a perfect film. But I'll be damned if it isn't one of the best I've seen in a long time, and fully capable of drawing emotions out of me that I have reached with a select few films, most recently being the aforementioned 12 Years a Slave.


So, it's really quite easy for me to say that you SHOULD see this film as soon as you can, which could even be tonight if you have a Netflix subscription. I can guarantee that you will enjoy it, and will introduce you to the combined power of Michael B. Jordan and writer/director Ryan Coogler.


P.S. - Now I want to try to find Rocky somewhere to fully prep me for Creed. Planning to see that on either Tuesday or Wednesday!

A Cruel God

INTRODUCTION

Christianity nowadays hyperfocuses on the aspects of how to be a Christian. How to act, what to say, what to do, and what to believe, of course. More and more often, political and religious views are mixed together and the terms become interchangeable: liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. The laws of the land become governed by personal convictions, and debates spiral downwards into calling each other idiots or immoral. Nobody wins and everyone feels like the other party gets too much. Middle ground is nonexistent.

Therefore, I have decided to preface this article by first stating that this is not an attack on Christianity. I grew up in a Christian home, and I have very few complaints about my upbringing. However, as Paul stated so eloquently (in 1 Corinthians 13:11):

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I set aside my childish ways.”

And so I have now found, after nearly five years removed from my own childhood, that I cannot blindly accept things that I had before. I have questions that want answering, or at least discussion. I have thoughts that haunt me and keep me awake, in the most real sense of that condition, as I have had bouts of both depression and insomnia for the last two years. The very real fact is that I do not think I am capable of accepting Christianity as it is anymore. Why? I want to explain that to you in as clear terms as I can without letting this deteriorate into another slugfest between atheism and Christianity, which helps no one and discourages any sort of productive discussion. This is by no means the final word on the subject of belief. Neither is it a declaration against belief. Rather, it is an observation of the foundations of Christianity which I have personally found wanting.

BUT

My entire presentation will take place within the context that EVERYTHING in the Bible is fact. Everything is true. Nothing is incorrect. I want this to be on a middle ground of sorts. I feel that most people who state nonpositive things about Christianity often begin by attacking its very existence and its veracity. I want to show what I think, while remaining on the foundation of Christianity so that no one can say that I misrepresented or demeaned its content. That being said, let me begin with a most basic question.

WHY DID GOD COMMAND DEATH?

A major argument against God has always begun in the Old Testament with the many cruel things that he commanded. For making fun of a bald man, children were killed by bears in 2 Kings 2:23-25 (for the sake of article length, I will leave the verses here but refrain from quoting so you can peruse your own favorite version for translation). He turned Lot’s wife into salt for looking back at a city’s destruction (Genesis 19:26, which also seems harsh that an entire city must be destroyed for some of their citizens’ sins), tested Abraham by commanding him to kill his own son (Genesis 22:1-12, which, regardless of God’s “psyche!” moment, was cruel), and tested Job by allowing his entire family to be slaughtered (Job, which was “made better” by giving him a new family, because our relatives are that easily replaceable). Not to mention, he ordered the complete genocide of the Amalekites and the Canaanites, including “every man, woman and child” (1 Samuel 15:2-3 and Deuteronomy 20:16-18), which I guess pales in comparison to when he did not like how the human race was going and wiped everyone out in the Flood (Genesis 6-9).

All of this begs the question: why did he do these horrible things? They are all recorded biblically, and all evidence of cruelty. I have seen two arguments regarding these actions, however, the first of which being that Moses would often speak or write claiming to be the voice of God but actually adding his own words. Since Moses wrote Genesis and Deuteronomy, that explains those books, but what of the two books of Kings? Are those falsely worded through their scribes as well? But then, the entire validation of the Bible as fact and being inherently God-breathed falls apart, as you are now allowing the existence of fallacies and lies within the writing of its text. How can we trust any of Moses’ writing if he lied about these parts? How can we accept the entirety of the Bible as truthful if some of its God-breathed contents are stained by human error or translation? And if you do not question Moses’ honesty, then you freely admit that these despicable actions are factual and real, and they are commands from God. That is a difficult pill to swallow.

The second argument I have seen against these actions is that the Old Testament is little more than history for the modern Christian, since our new covenant, established in the New Testament through Jesus Christ, changed everything. This is a valid argument, but opens a whole new can of worms.

DOES GOD CHANGE?

If we accept that the new covenant has replaced the old one of the Old Testament, then that means that God completely changed his tactics. The Old Testament was all about works and rituals, doing your best to be good enough to be accepted into heaven. The New Testament shuns this and states that only through accepting Christ as your savior will you be able to enter heaven. So, what gives? Did God cry uncle? Why did he go from being a solemn, cruel god who demanded much of his people (while playing favorites) to becoming an open-armed god who accepted anyone as long as they accepted his son?

God has very obviously had a change of heart, resulting in a new religion that has now grown alongside the two older ones (being Judaism and Islam). But this now calls into question another fundamental aspect of Christianity: that God is omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful, and never changing (Malachi 3:6 for OT, Hebrews 13:8 for NT). If he never changes, then why did he change? And if he did not change, but rather altered his tactics, why did he use the failing ones of the Old Testament in the first place? He is supposed to know everything that was, is or will be, so why would he use a method that he knew was doomed to fail? And in this paradox, we come to the most crucial point of this article.

GOD CANNOT CLAIM BOTH FREE WILL AND AN ULTIMATE PLAN

When God created human beings – or even angels, for that matter – he allowed them to have free will; that is, the option to either love and follow him, or go their own way and become selfish and evil. By allowing us free will, he gave the ultimate test of loyalty (which we promptly strayed from). But if we are allowed free will, then why does he have an ultimate plan (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28)? What is the point of free will if our ultimate destinations have already been established long ago? An equivalent would be scientists breeding (“creating” if you will) mice then placing them inside of a maze that they designed, and then allowing the mice to run around within the maze. Sure, there is the illusion of free choice since they must make decisions at each turn, but they are all ultimately going to exactly where the scientists want them to. That is not true free will; it is a lightly disguised puppet show.

If you are capable of explaining how we can have free will while God has a plan, then explain this conundrum to me: within both halves of the Bible, and within modern life as claimed by many, God performs miracles and interferes with our lives. HOW CAN THAT BE POSSIBLE? He created Lucifer, allowing him free will (and leading to his choice to become Satan) but then immediately punishing him, but only after Lucifer had tainted God’s newest creation. Why did he allow that to happen? When he created the angels, he knew immediately what they would do with their free will, but allowed it to happen then promptly punished them (Hebrews 12:22). When he created humans, he already knew exactly what was going to happen, all the way down to when Jesus would have to die on the cross for our sins. Since he had given us free will, we could choose what we wanted to do, and he would allow the consequences of our choices to hurt us (e.g. Adam and Eve eating the fruit). But why did he even go through all of the ineffective religion of the Old Testament before deciding to start the new covenant? Why did he CHOOSE to make the only way to righteousness incredibly difficult, and above all else, why did he decide that THE ONLY WAY for him to save us was to incarnate a part of himself as Jesus Christ, then sacrifice himself? Could he not have done it any other way? Did this all-knowing, all-powerful being have no control over the situation at all?

Once again, you can argue that he did it that way to encourage us, once again, to exercise our free choice in order to choose to accept him through Jesus Christ. But our free will means nothing when the hand of God can touch us at any time. He stopped the sun for Joshua (Joshua 10:13), he broke the chains of Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:16-40), and as I already stated, many claim that he performs miracles even nowadays. This means that, although he allows us to choose poorly and suffer the consequences of our actions, he will sometimes (or frequently, depending on your viewpoint) interfere with these natural consequences in order to favor someone.

WHY?!

If he can reach out and part the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites, why could he not save them when Hitler had over five million of them murdered? If he can heal an 80-year old man of cancer one day, then allow a 4-year old girl to die of leukemia the next day, then what is he thinking? Oftentimes, Christians will state that, “it’s all a part of God’s plan,” or “we can’t understand the way God thinks,” or “the Lord works in mysterious ways.” So, somewhere, written down in heaven, or within the massive expanse of God’s brain, it says “Jenny will be allowed to die today because it will make Mike a better person.” Or perhaps, it said, “Over two thousand people will die on September 11 because it will unite the nation to attack the Middle East.” Seriously? Is that how God operates?

The most common argument I hear at this point is that God does not cause these things: the Devil does. Alright, but who created the Devil? Who allowed him to do these horrible things? We have proven that God is fully capable of preventing these events, and completely competent at rendering the Devil’s works useless. So why does he still allow it? The next reason given is because it is part of his allowing our free will, once again. We have now completed the circle. So does God have a dartboard, where he decides at random whether he will help us or not? Does he have an infinitely-sided dice with which to make his decisions regarding our well-being or mortality? Can our free will even exist within such a finite space in comparison to God’s enormity and all-knowing plans?

A CRUEL GOD

And here we are. Or perhaps, here is where I am. Limiting myself purposefully to arguing within the logic and confines of Christianity and its beliefs, I have come to the conclusion that if such a god exists as within these beliefs, I want no part of him. I still hold onto the belief that something did create us, but I have very little reason to believe that this god which has been presented to me is that being. This is a malicious and rabidly selfish being that literally created us so that we would choose to love him. That is the whole purpose of our being according to Christianity: to exist only to worship him. Think about that. If I stumbled upon the secret to artificial intelligence tomorrow, what would people think of me if I created a small race, capable of breeding, then told them to do as they wished, but if they did not choose to love me, I would destroy them. Only if they chose to love me, their creator, would I allow them to live.

I refuse that life. If such a god exists, then I want no part of him. He is Charles Foster Kane: a being incapable of feeling or giving love, only performing actions which he hopes will turn us towards him. He wants us to love him… or else. He created the entire universe and everything in it for the sole purpose of our existence, whose sole existence is to worship him?

That would be one of the emptiest lives I could ever live.