2015 movies

[mellicious]

Near as I can figure out, this is all the movies I saw in a theater in 2015 (in approximate chronological order):

1. Selma


2. Jupiter Ascending (x2)


3. McFarland USA


4. Avengers: Age of Ultron


5. Max Max: Fury Road (x2)


6. Inside Out


7. Ant-Man (x2)


8. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation


9. The Man from UNCLE


10. Crimson Peak


11. The Martian


12. Spotlight


13. Mockingjay part 2


14. Star Wars: the Force Awakens (x2)

Only 14 movies, but four of them we saw twice. (I say "we" because while Rob goes to the movies without me all the time - to the things I'm not interested in seeing, particularly horror movies - I hardly ever bother to go without him, these days. I might possibly make an exception for another "Force Awakens" viewing in the next week or two, though.) Except for Star Wars, I think all the second viewings were at the dollar theater - in other words, we're most likely to go see something a second time if it's really cheap.

I've been saying my shortlist for best movie I've seen this year was Fury Road, The Martian, Spotlight and Star Wars (well, Rob said the first three, originally, and I agreed and then I added The Force Awakens, because well, how can you not?) but I completely forgot about Selma, which we saw way back at the very beginning of the year. It was awfully good too. Partly I have trouble picking a "Best Picture" because these movies are all over the place and how do you choose? -- I suppose this is how Oscar voters feel. Maybe it's why the action movies never get nominated, because if you nominate them they might win and then how would the "prestige" movies ever get any attention? Honestly, if you force me to pick, I'm going to pick "Fury Road" because I just love it with a white-hot love that eclipses everything else. It's partly the whole female-leads thing, but it's more than just that. It's mesmerizing. I've watched it several more times on TV (on OnDemand, that is), and every time I end up dropping everything else and just watching, which is something I do for very few movies at home, especially not repeatedly like that.

And man, Inside Out was awfully good too. Nothing I saw was really terrible - that's why I go to so few, I have an aversion to wasting my time on bad ones. Well, except there's the "hot mess" division which is mainly Jupiter Ascending and Crimson Peak, here, both of which I adored in their weird ways. (You could maybe also call "Age of Ultron" a bit of a hot mess but I didn't love it nearly so much.) Jupiter Ascending and Crimson Peak both tap into some well of femaleness that's real, real hard for me to put a finger on (very different from Fury Road, mind) - it's the same kind of well that fanfiction comes from, I think. And romance novels. If Hollywood had the least idea how to market to women both these movies would have done a lot better than they did, because pretty much every woman I've talked to that saw them loved them. (More true of Crimson Peak than Jupiter Ascending, maybe, but the latter seemed to inspire more intensity.)