Final Prayer (2015)

I really didn't like this movie. It felt like every common complaint lodged against found footage movies bundled together and put on repeat. It's got everything:

• Flashlights that illuminate approximately 2 inches at a time
• Nauseatingly shaky camera work
• Unhelpful locals
• Vague religious/occult tone
• Dysfunctional group consisting of:

          * Idiot who regularly jeopardizes the mission due to ignorance
          * Superior know-it-all who is quickly in over their head
          * The one who "gets it" and behaves like a rational adult

I did wonder if this was where the idea for the (truly entertaining) TV show "Evil" came from, since it features a team employed by the Catholic church that validates or debunks reported miracles, possessions, and such. Or is this an actual "thing"?

D

Meru (2015)

I don't understand mountain climbing. I mean, I appreciate John Krakauer doing his damndest to explain it as a talking head here, but the truth is that I don't want to understand it. To me, it's like trying to understand self-flagellation. The thought of exhaustedly standing atop a mountain, finally having achieved a near impossible goal, and then having to GET BACK DOWN? No thank you.

This film, for me, only explains myopic obsession. A team of three attempts a never-done-before climb and doesn't achieve the summit. It's a horrible experience, leaving one (Renan) disillusioned with his team and another certain he'll never return. But, years later, after Renan stages a stunning recovery from a devastating skiing accident, the team decides to try again despite warnings that he could suffer a stroke in the attempt. Why would the other two agree to this? Reckless obsession is my only answer to that.

But wow. That shot of them sitting on that teeny tiny ridge together? Thrilling. I admit it.

C+

Welcome to Me (2015)

In a nutshell: a mentally ill, compulsive, Oprah-obsessed Alice wins the lottery and decides to use her money to make a show about her life. The small production studio she approaches with this idea is on the verge of going under, so they agree to take her money and do what she wants, even though no one thinks it will work. Surprise: it actually works -- I think because most viewers think it's over-the-top satire rather than the disjointed whims of a weirdo with enough money to indulge them.

There were quite a few fun moments, but I mostly just felt sad about the entire situation. It felt closer to a Roald Dahl-type world than anything in reality.

C

SuperBob (2015)

Yes, Bob's a superhero, but there's nothing special about him otherwise. He works for the British government (except for Tuesdays, which is his day off), he's got a mother in a care home, a sassy cleaner comes in a couple of times a week, and there's a pretty girl he's hoping to take out sometime soon.

The funniest bits here are observations about government red tape and the entitled attitude of the United States. The rest of it is one joke hammered to death: he might be super but he's fairly boring otherwise. Natalia Tena injects all the charm she can, but comes up short.

C

Tangerine (2015)

Sin-Dee is released from jail on Christmas eve and quickly finds out that her boyfriend/pimp Chester has not been faithful to her while away, so she goes looking for the hooker he's been screwing. Meanwhile, Alexandra is trying to drum up an audience for her singing gig at a local bar while a taxi driver/family man/trans hooker enthusiast searches for a hookup.

It's a small, likable film with decent performances from everyone except the lead, who was gratingly one-note.

C

Spectre (2015)

The villain is muted, the political machinations too bureaucratic to make me care, and the love interest (no, not the widow Bond fucks right after her husband's funeral) is too combative to so quickly be conquered by his charms. Even Blofeld's torture of Bond -- which, by description, should basically leave him a shell of his former self -- only seemed to cause fleeting pain from which he fully recovered in minutes.

It's a serious falloff in quality and sensibility from the preceding few. Gary and I both fell asleep in the last 10 minutes or so, forcing us to rewind in case we'd missed anything significant (we hadn't).

C+

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

After a primitive tribe abducts three people from their small town, a group of four men ride out to rescue them. There's the sheriff and his elderly deputy who do so out of duty, an injured man whose wife was one of those taken, and a bachelor braggart with the most killing experience. The enemy's location and customs are a mystery to the rescue party and the journey seems to get more difficult by the hour. Yet, they persevere. 

This may not be the most graphically brutal movie I've ever seen, but it's definitely close. The barbarity, however, felt earned rather than "let's see how disgusting we can be."

B

Veteran (2015)

This is one of those movies where a protected-by-daddy psycho does whatever the hell he wants to and everyone just tries to figure out how to not get on his bad side. It's always kind of delicious when that type of character gets on a good but also scary dude's radar, and that's what happens here. 

I admit that I got a little lost a few times due to the combo of it being a foreign film with tons of dialogue (i.e. lots of words on the screen to read) so that words were often floating over action-packed chases or fights, meaning I had to choose which to focus on. It says a lot that, despite the fact I know I missed quite a bit, I still had a great time.

B-

Burnt (2015)

Adam Jones has left a path of destruction in his wake. While in Paris, the two-star Michelin chef's drug habit took several people down with him. But his talent is such that when he shows up in London sober years later, even his most skeptical victims seem willing to give him a chance.

This is a decent movie with some excellent food porn, but the forced love interest distracts.

C+

The Wolfpack (2015)

Documentary profiling the Angulo family, comprised of parents, six brothers, and a sister living in a small New York apartment. And I mean living in the literal sense -- they rarely leave the place. They were homeschooled and, despite several being old enough to get their own jobs and move out, they are still in the apartment. To pass the time, they watch television and movies and elaborately recreate the films they see.

Without such a weak partner, the father would never have been able to hold such sway over his family. His fears and disdain for the outside world probably wouldn't have been able to so profoundly shape this group's experience. It's fascinating for a while, but then it just becomes weird and frustrating. I'm glad that the boys took some control and changed their course, but I wound up feeling like a voyeur.

C+

The Age of Adaline (2015)

Woman stops aging due to hypothermia + electric shock (it's all explained in a patient voice-over reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh narration). When people start wondering what's going on, she starts a pattern of changing her name and moving every decade or so. The only one who knows her secret is her daughter. Well, until she encounters a blast from her past.

Wow, this movie is dumb. But it's also incredibly romantic. I think it probably caught me in the right mood because I just went with it and enjoyed myself.

C+

The Spirit of Christmas (2015)

Lawyer Kate is sent to get a historic inn appraised for sale before the end of the year. Problem is, no appraiser wants the job because the place is haunted. Since it's closed for the season, Kate decides to stay there until she can get the job done. Whaddya know... the appraisers had it right. 

This is a bizarro story about a ghost who ISN'T a ghost 12 days out of the year, but a living, breathing, eating, petulant dickwad. Kate takes this in stride and makes it her goal to figure out how he died in order to, hopefully, send him onto the afterlife and out of the inn. Will she get ghost fever instead? Is this a danged Christmas romance?

Bad acting + crazy story = a movie even the biggest helping Christmas cheer cannot forgive.

D

American Ultra (2015)

A stoner who suffers from panic attacks is targeted for elimination by the CIA. But, by the time operatives show up to carry out the order, the stoner (actually a sleeper agent) has been activated and -- well -- we're gonna need some new CIA guys, I guess.

I'm almost ashamed at how much I liked this movie. It's got all of the standard elements, e.g. a way over-the-top "asshole in charge," and few plot surprises, but it's just fun. The action is well-choreographed and I was rooting for the leads.

B

The End of the Tour (2015)

David Foster Wallace is finishing up a book tour for Infinite Jest and agrees to have David Lipsky -- a reporter for Rolling Stone -- spend the last leg with him. This film was recommended to me more than 5 years ago, but the recommendation contained the sentence, "Nothing happens in this movie," which didn't exactly put it at the top of my to-see list. But I'm glad I finally got around to it. Though there are no big scenes, this felt like an honest glimpse. 

Wallace and Lipsky are two writers who, under different circumstances could've been true friends. They just hang out, doing mundane things like going to the movies and to the mall and shooting the shit. I especially enjoyed the way that Wallace opened his messy home to Lipsky -- sharing his last pop-tart and setting him up with a mattress on the floor in a spare room the dogs insist on being able to enter whenever they want. 

Jason Segel as Wallace did a surprisingly great job. He was eager and guarded and protective and petulant. He was a real person who seemed to sometimes forget the reporter/subject relationship, getting his feelings hurt when Lipsky wanted to lightly pump his friends for stories. Though it's true that nothing spectacular happens, that's kind of what makes this story so special.

B+

McFarland, USA (2015)

After being fired from his job, football coach Jim White takes the only position he can find: assistant coach at a school in a very poor California town. The culture shock for his family is severe and he doesn't last long as assistant coach since he's not used to being second-in-command. But, by keeping his eyes open, he sees that some of the kids in his PE class have real speed from which he might be able to construct a cross-country team.

It's got inspiration to spare. Seeing the family become part of the community when their initial reaction was to leave as soon as possible was downright heartwarming. I came away lifted and hopeful -- this just really worked on me.

B

Summer of '92 (2015)

I don't follow soccer now, so I certainly didn't follow the sport 30 years ago, which means I had no idea what was going to happen in this movie about the real-life Danish national team from 1990-92.

Coach Nielsen has an uphill battle taking over the team from his predecessor. He's interested in winning rather than putting on a show and that is the opposite of what Denmark's national team had become known for. He has neither the respect of the players nor the confidence of the owners, who courted 7 other coaches before settling for Nielsen. But it's his steadiness and lack of vanity that serves him so well in the role. Despite all of the knocks, he is insistent that his way will work.

I loved that the game scenes were intercut with what looked to be footage of the real matches. This is a feel-good movie without a lot of flash -- simply lovely.

B+

We Are Your Friends (2015)

Aspiring DJ Cole and the same friends he's had since childhood are living in a kind of in-between state, hoping Cole will make it big and take the crew along. When Cole steps outside to smoke and winds up sharing a joint with a well-known DJ, he gets his foot in the door and a possible chance at getting heard.

I'm not sure if this is a great movie, but it sure felt great to me. There were a few scenes with animations and voice-over to explain how the body reacts to beat-driven music, and I don't know. It just really worked. But it wasn't just the music scenes that grabbed me -- it was also the recognition of that time in life when you realize you've got to make a change, but you don't like the options in front of you. The film captured that perfectly.

And, man. The festival scene. I'm not a dancer, but I was involuntarily moving -- just one of the crowd of fans bouncing along to Cole's beats.

A-

The Gift (2015)

Simon and Robyn are just getting set up in their new home when they run into an old classmate of Simon's. Before they know it, Gordo is showing up to their house uninvited and with gifts in hand. They feel somewhat forced into a friendship with him, even though he makes them uneasy. When Simon finally decides to break off the relationship, odd things begin happening around the house. Is it retaliation or just coincidence?

This is a solid thriller with a somewhat predictable twist. Worth the watch if you're in the mood for mild scares and enjoy a good dose of comeuppance.

C+

Freeheld (2015)

Laurel Hester, a New Jersey detective, is a lesbian in a domestic partnership with Stacie. She keeps her work and home life separate to the point that not even her partner on the force knows she's gay. When she's diagnosed with stage-four cancer, she petitions to have her pension assigned to Stacie. Others soon see the value in joining the fight.

The story's affecting and sticks to what's important, rather than getting too bogged down in sentimentality. I appreciated the clean approach: no big epiphanies, just sticking it out -- doing the work -- can sometimes result in huge victories. People given the chance to change their minds sometimes do. That's a reason to hope.

B+

Self/less (2015)

Dying rich guy decides to have his brain downloaded into a new body. Turns out the body is only new-to-him.

This could've gone really wrong, but it turned out to be a good story that doesn't insult the watcher. After the introductory scenes and the body transfer, things really take off. And I really appreciated the main character's motivations and responses. At every point, I thought he made perfect sense.

B