2015 Movies Ten Years Gone

Just in time, we're here to review the top films of 2015!

I find more and more it seems trite to make year end lists, even if it's the backbone of our industry. For one, I struggle to see every film that comes out, and also there is a big shift in staying power that I think is fair to asses after a decade. There is assuredly merit in films that are of their moment and give great first impressions, though as well. Hence why we do still keep listing movies the same year they come out for time capsule purposes but the ten year list is the real deal.

I also really like the ten year list because I am less worried about throwing on movies that would be utterly laughable to really call the best of the year. So here we go:

#10: Ex Machina

I had rated this pretty high back in 2015 and I think it's still enjoyable, remarkably more for thematic prescience over craft. It holds up but is no longer mind-blowing.

#9: The Night Before

Yeah, I couldn't rank this at the moment. I just re-watched this because I was drunk, but I think it remains one of the last true "Seth Rogen" movies, which doubles for movies starring that Freaks and Geeks Apatow crowd. I might even call it the last funny movie ever made. It is remarkably solid, has some tight themes of growing up and moving on, but earns them, and is consistently funny.

#8: Bone Tomahawk

Let's go the other way. This is such a brutal grim movie that I mostly remember for Kurt Russell having the exact same hair as he did for The Hateful Eight. But this holds up as an unsparing smaller film that exists out of time and an unheralded S. Craig Zahler effort.

#7: Krampus

I recognize I'm putting two really off-beat Christmas movies on this list, so be it. I keep returning to Krampus, though! It has remarkable energy, a game cast, a really established atmosphere, and the perfect mix of holiday cynicism with a tiny glimmer of hope.

#6: Joy

I feel like I am the only one who liked Joy, but there just doesn't exist any other movie that quite shows female ambition like this. There is an insane amount of films from the male perspective. For whatever reason this persists for me.

#5: The Big Short

I don't totally love how this movie tends to blow past the minutiae with Margot Robbie in the tub and stuff but I get why, but it still seems to not dig into why all this stuff happened. It's still an amazing collection of scenes and a monumental kinetic narrative effort.

#4: Straight Outta Compton

There have been a ton of biopics over the years, including a lot more of rappers but not many as honest as this. I still think about it, especially has many have somehow gotten worse.

#3: Creed

As I'm going through this list, a lot seems to be movies that are just different enough within their genres to stand out. This may be one of the few, if not only legacy movies to truly stand on its own with fully fleshed out characters that are able to go on their own journeys, a feat not even its sequels achieved.

#2: The Hateful Eight

I still don't think this quite nails the ending but it feels like a bottle film that Tarantino challenged himself to do, but because he's Tarantino he nailed it. The cinematography is astounding, moreso because of the ultra wide aspect ratio for a movie that largely takes place in a single room lodge. It had grown on me for sure.

#1: Mad Max: Fury Road

What can I say, this movie is perfect. There you go.

There were a handful more on my shortlist and I can't believe I found myself giving them the boot, especially Inside Out. I think I have retroactive Pixar fatigue setting in, but I also struggle getting excited about Inside Out ten years out where I don't have that for everything else on this list.

The Duke of Burgundy

The Martian

Spotlight

Carol

Dope

Inside Out

2015 has a nice mix of great big and small movies, franchise efforts, indy efforts, and mid-size efforts. Hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine films. Looking back it does feel like it is far as we got as a culture before turning around and heading straight to hell. There is great, compelling energy to all these films, all clear visuals, and crisp film language. Again, probably the last stop on the trolley before cinema became all haves and have nots and digital mud replaced everything.

Storytelling in Star Wars (1977)

Today people is what this blog, and ALL blogs, are actually for - I had a random thought in my head that the whole world needs to know about.

I have dabbled in writing, published nothing, but I have a few novels under my belt and I'm working on a new one that has really deep world and lore, but to make the story actually good, I wanted to take what I call the Star Wars (1977) approach.

See, the interesting thing about the original Star Wars is that it's a complex galactic war, but you only ever get exposed to it through the eyes of Luke Skywalker. You never really see anything that he doesn't see. You're just following him throughout the whole story, learning as he learns, and it makes for a remarkably tight narrative. The only narrative bit without him is the inciting incident, which happens immediately as Vader boards the Tantive IV looking for the stolen Death Star datatapes (sure, there are bits that don't feature Luke like Han talking to the Imperials over the intercom, some of Obi-Wan's fight with Darth and sneaking around the Death Star, but none of these have narrative importance to the story the movie is telling).

It wasn't until I was crafting my own work that I realized how gnarly it is that they pulled this off without the use of a ton of long exposition scenes. You get a bit with Obi-Wan both in his hut and on the Falcon, but it's such a simple story that you can get it and then hop on Luke's journey. This both opened up Andor to show a lot more of the nuance and grays within the black and white journey (and on a meta level, it totally ruins Star Wars because all the sacrifice of dozens of rebels in a real fight and spy game doesn't matter as much as this hick farmboy flying in and blowing it up and getting a medal. Where's Kleya's medal?!).

For nearly fifty years I also believe that people misunderstood this style, because it only works if the storytelling conventions are still solid. You don't necessarily need backstory, but you do need motivation. When you look at The Force Awakens (2015), it falls apart because we don't have backstory or motivation. JJ Abrams thought it was enough that people look cool and menacing. Vader is cool and menacing but we know immediately that he is searching for the stolen plans for the Death Star, and that's important because it's the Empire's new, super-powerful battlestation and if it's blown up their plans for domination are ruined. More importantly, the battlestation can blow up all the Rebels so they are fighting for existance, too!

The Force Awakens sucks for many reasons, but most of all, we have weird mysterious folks in masks and weird faces like Snoke and the Knights of Ren, but we also really don't know their motivation. The Emperor's motivation in the first two movies is a bit obscure, although from the Board Room scene with just one bit of dialogue: "The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away....The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." You get all of what the Emperor is trying to do from that. Again, the motivation and stakes are clear for both the rebels and the Empire.

The First Order's motivation is....something? They built a bigger Death Star and use it to blow up...some random planets that aren't personally connected to anyone either in the Resistance or otherwise. I thought it was Coruscant. They aren't established, they aren't a thorn in anyone's side, they're just...there and then blown up. It makes me so angry to think about, not because it ruined Star Wars but because it's just bad storytelling.

You can also get away with a blanket evil Empire without a ton of backstory, like I get that that's bad. But it was destroyed, and we all know that, so I don't think you can pull that trick twice and reset everyone back to where they were with the First Order and Resistance just being the Empire and Rebellion again. No, that makes no sense, like you skipped a lot of beats there about how that happened. I think there are artful ways to do this, probably without the moronic idea to never have the original big three of Leia, Han, and Luke united on screen at the same time, because I think it's important to acknowledge that while the universe may have shifted, their friendships remained solid, because ultimately that's what the original trilogy was all about. Luke had friends and the Emperor didn't. Wah-wah Emperor! Man these movies are bad.

Anyway, this is all ten year old territory now and nothing new but I do like articulating why this stuff doesn't work instead of just saying "It's lazy writing!" It's actually not lazy writing, it's just really bad storytelling.

Summer Jam 2025: Fun While It Lasted

 Wow. What a summer of...absolutely nothing. We've called this for a few years now but there are a lot of factors at work, namely the difficulty for new artists to have staying power, fractured listening habits, drop-offs in radio and MTV listening (which honestly exposed me to a lot of new music back in the day...I think I first heard Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood" on MTV at 8 am one morning before school), a trend towards younger people listening to older music, and this year in particular has a noted lack of big time major artists dropping well....anything. I couldn't even come up with eight songs for the whole summer that were popular.

So here's uh...our list I guess for the past almost twenty years:

2007: "Umbrella" by Rihanna
2008: "Bleeding in Love" by Leona Lewis
2009: "I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas
2010: "California Gurls" by Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg
2011: "Park Rock Anthem" by LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock
2012: "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
2013: "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke ft. T.I. & Pharrell
2014: "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea ft. Charle XCX
2015: "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon
2016: "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake
2017: "Despacito" by Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi ft. Justin Bieber
2018: "Never Be the Same" by Camila Cabello
2019: "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

2020: "Rockstar" by DaBaby

2021: "good 4 u" by Olivia Rodrigo

2022: "Running Up that Hill" by Kate Bush

2023: "Kill Bill" by SZA

2024: "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar

Let's go ten years back for a second, because I've always had issues with "Shut Up and Dance" technically being the summer jam winner. That's just nonsense. But damn, look at these legends. Looking back it's so tempting to elevate "Cool for the Summer", "Lean on", "Trap Queen", or "Post to Be" eatin that booty like groceries. I think it should probably be "Can't Feel My Face" which is a quintessential Weeknd song, but runner-up should actually be "Bad Blood" which feels like a very minor Taylor Swift song now. I suppose this is why we can't do this thing ten years later, it really has to be in the moment. Maybe we'll stick with the wrong choice so EVERYONE can be unhappy.

So what is it this year? Here are some candidates:

"Golden" by Huntr/x

Yes, from KPOP Demon Hunters! A song from a movie! Wow! "Golden" is I suppose the best song of the pop musical movie to include. We didn't track it, but it's coming a bit too late to really be THE song of summer,

"Ordinary" by Alex Warren

Honestly, I have never heard this song before seeing it on Summer lists. It's also really bad.

"What I want" by Morgen Wallen ft. Tate McRae

Morgen might be the artist of the summer, which just a million songs going on right now. Tate McRae is also the biggest up and comer right now. This is here more because it's a vacuum of any other talent right now.

"Love Somebody" by Morgen Wallen

I'm a total victim of not really being able to distinguish country, but it's important to acknowledge their place in pop culture and Morgen Wallen has really transcended like few others ever could. This is maybe his most popular? I guess? Or maybe it's "I got better" or "I'm the Problem." I don't know, he's not winning so go listen and pout if you want.

Others

There seems to be a middling Billie Eilish, sombr, Doja Cat, Chappell Roan, Playboi Carti, and Benson Boone song every other week this summer. It's all kind of mid and blurry. So let's give it to--

"Manchild" by Sabrina Carpenter

That's right! Not only is this the real only major release by an established pop artist (as much as you can call Sabrina Carpenter "established"), but it's a worthy follow up to "Expresso" which would have made great strides last year if not for the "Not Like Us" juggernaut. It's summer-y, buzzy, poppy fun, with just a bit of girl power, but also a music video that's super Americana but also surreal and bonkers. And I know, A$AP Rocky did this last year, I literally named that video the best of the year. You can't pull that crap, Sabrina. But it also shows just how funny she is. You know, outside of her Christmas special.