GMD Social Poll: Top Ten Films of 2015

[challenge_everything]

A couple more recs from this year. Firstly, Too Late for anyone who likes neo-noir. It takes a while to ease into it as the acting is very stylised (and borderline bad in parts) but it's worth perservering. A really ingeniously constructed tale.

Second, El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), about the last survivor of an Amazonian tribe. Gorgeous black and white cinematography.

 

[challenge_everything]

For real? Surprised, I definitely feel like 21 Grams, Babel and Amores Perros are better movies. I still need to see Biutiful and Birdman but I hear good things.

Inarritu basically made the same hyperlink style movie 3 times with 21 Grams, Babel and Amores Perros. Yeah, life is a complex tapestry, I get it. Didn't really feel like he had much to say though. The Revenant suffers a bit from that too, but it can get away with it being a more stark and beautiful film.

I feel like Birdman is his best even though it is a case of style suffocating substance.

 

[CiG]

On one hand I agree, but it's only noticeable because it's a very easy genre to recognise. I would say most directors make the same movie a few times over. I can think of very few who reinvent themselves, and in terms of the ones who do niche, stylism and repetition I think Inarritu has been way better than Tarantino lately, for example.

 

[challenge_everything]

If he'd continued in the same vein as Amores Perros then he'd be an irrelevance, but Birdman and The Revenant definitely showed an evolution and boldness which I didn't think he had in him.

 

[CiG]

Amores Perros feels like a very typical debut to me, but I still liked it quite a lot. Birdman is actually on Netflix so I'll watch that one soon.

 

[Burkhard]

And now (as usual) for something completely different:
1. Le tout nouveau Testament
2. Nous trois ou rien
3. En man som heter Ove
4. Papa ou maman
5. Comme un avion
6. Frau Müller muss weg
7. Familienfest
8. Le Grand Partage
9. Inside Out
10. She's Funny That Way

Looks like I like French movies best. Well, my no. 1 is actually a Belgian-French-Luxemburgian co-production by a Belgian director. Just in case someone might be curious, here's the official UK trailer of it:

 

[no country for old wainds]

A couple more recs from this year. Firstly, Too Late for anyone who likes neo-noir. It takes a while to ease into it as the acting is very stylised (and borderline bad in parts) but it's worth perservering. A really ingeniously constructed tale.

Second, El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), about the last survivor of an Amazonian tribe. Gorgeous black and white cinematography.

funnily enough i watched too late yesterday and pretty much loved it. could do without some of the pop culture references and i wish the narrative was less cute, but it hits a lot of my weak spots: drunken melancholy neo-noir, john hawkes, the blend of dardennes verite and slow pans/zooms, the sense of time passed and the tragedy of it, 'maximalism' i.e. all the drowning in loud sad music and ostentatious camera movements, etc. most people seem to think it's a tarantino rip-off but it's a lot more emotion-driven than he's arguably ever been. also seen people describe it as sexist, which is just fucking stupid unless they mean against men.

don't like embrace of the serpent much, personally. too much of a thesis, one that explains itself way too much through dialogue and metaphor because it cares more about its ideas than actually framing those ideas in a way that makes them meaningful. the aesthetic's too much like classy, pandering film festival b&w when it really needed to go full batshit herzog or w/e.

 

[Bloopy]

I just saw Embrace of the Serpent as it was on my watchlist on a recommendation from my sister. As some kind of lesson on humanity, I didn't get much from it, but as a story about a few dudes in a relatively far-flung world it was pretty good. It'll be near the top of my list as I haven't really seen anything great from this year.

 

[Anom@nder Rake]

A couple more recs from this year. Firstly, Too Late for anyone who likes neo-noir. It takes a while to ease into it as the acting is very stylised (and borderline bad in parts) but it's worth perservering. A really ingeniously constructed tale.

this film was probably the best random thing i watched blind on netflix. it felt like a cult classic. i really liked how the whole film was just a few long shots

1. Green Room
2. The Witch
3. Too Late
4. Sicario
5. Embrace of the Serpent
6. The Hateful Eight
7. Bone Tomahawk
8. The Revenant
9. The Lobster
10. Anomalisa

 

[challenge_everything]

don't like embrace of the serpent much, personally. too much of a thesis, one that explains itself way too much through dialogue and metaphor because it cares more about its ideas than actually framing those ideas in a way that makes them meaningful. the aesthetic's too much like classy, pandering film festival b&w when it really needed to go full batshit herzog or w/e.

Maybe we've watched too many cynical Herzog or Apocalypse Now type films that we now associate these 'lost world' settings with that kind of movie. Personally I liked that it didn't go down that path. It felt like an intimate tour of a stranger's world, sharing their love and enthusiasm for things we don't readily appreciate. It reminded me of various times I've spent staying with villagers in different parts of Central America and South East Asia, there is a tinge of sadness at the impoverishment but mostly they're happy and take pride in sharing their lives.

 

[challenge_everything]

1. El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Ciro Guerra)
2. The Witch (Robert Eggers)
3. Too Late (Dennis Hauck)
4. Youth (Paolo Sorrentino)
5. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
6. Carol (Todd Haynes)
7. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
8. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
9. The Revenant (Alejandro Inarritu)
10. Spotlight (Thomas McCarthy)

 

[CiG]

Green Room is killing it, I love this. Planning to watch Cemetery of Splendor tomorrow, then hopefully The VVitch, Sicario, The Assassin, Beasts of No Nation and Embrace of the Serpent and I should be good to go.

Not looking forward to trying to order everything, I'll be honest this is a strong year for me with no clear frontrunners, unlike most other years we've done.

 

[no country for old wainds]

you should also watch these immediately tbh:

 

[CiG]

lol what the fuck is up with that last one?

 

[no country for old wainds]

the last one is probably the least insane of the three lol. it’s a total mess but peaks at all-time-favourite level for me. the other two are generally awesome though

 

[CiG]

Cosmos (Andrzej Zulawski)
Love (Gaspar Noé)
Yakuza Apocalypse (Takashi Miike)
German Angst (Jörg Buttgereit / Andreas Marschall / Michal Kosakowski)

That's all I got. Modernity sucks.

Have you heard of Darling by Mickey Keating? It wears its influences on its sleeves (Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant, Repulsion) but I think you might enjoy it for what it is.

You might like it too @Funerary_Doom.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

I'll have to check that out. You guys obviously know my number one would be Embrace of the Serpent, as it's my favorite movie ever. I have a lot of free time, so I'll do this round between this week and next.

 

[CiG]

No rush, take your time. I'm actually about to watch Embrace of the Serpent now.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

Man, you'll love it. Visually stunning and the story is incredibly layered. Shit. There needs to be a thread just to discuss that shit.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Maybe we've watched too many cynical Herzog or Apocalypse Now type films that we now associate these 'lost world' settings with that kind of movie. Personally I liked that it didn't go down that path. It felt like an intimate tour of a stranger's world, sharing their love and enthusiasm for things we don't readily appreciate. It reminded me of various times I've spent staying with villagers in different parts of Central America and South East Asia, there is a tinge of sadness at the impoverishment but mostly they're happy and take pride in sharing their lives.

again, if the movie you describe was the movie i saw i'd probably like it a lot more haha. i like travelogues that just explore and soak up foreign environments without trying to explain anything concrete. i could just see the strings far too much with this one, i was always very aware i was watching a film--one that was doubling as a thesis--which doesn't seem to be the experience the movie's fans had at all. *shrug* i wouldn't be as harsh as this review but ignatiy vishnevetsky kinda gets at my issues with the movie, as does matt zoller seitz. maybe i'll give it another try sometime.