Movies
Cinderella
There's not much to say about this movie except that it does exactly what it set out to do. It holds together much better than the Disney animated classic, but unfortunately it never quite manages to get out of Ever After's shadow. Essentially, it's a pure telling of the story of Cinderella. For 95 million dollars.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
They tried really hard, but the movie just barely makes it to the finish line. I think it was probably a case of overload. And while it doesn't fall apart like Spider-Man 3 did, it does feel a little smothered under its own weight. I wanted to love it, but I only wound up liking it. It's not a bad thing, but you really feel the difference when so much is riding on a franchise.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Let me put this out there, Mad Max just isn't my thing. I find the character boring and I find the whole wasteland setting tedious. But EVERYBODY raved about this movie, so I gave it a shot. And, yeah, I liked it. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it's definitely worth checking out.
Hot Pursuit
I saw this one at the dollar theater and came away liking things about it, but feeling like it missed the mark a bit. Then I showed it to my family on DVD and suddenly the strengths felt greater than the weaknesses. It's a fun B-reel comedy. Not Midnight Run's caliber, but a cute movie on it's own.
Tomorrowland
The funny thing is, I felt obligated to say I liked this movie just because it was a big budgeted original film. And while not much of it has stayed with me months later, I remember rather enjoying the bulk of it. I'd honestly rather see this one again over Inception.
Inside Out
Okay, the only thing I didn't like about this movie was that stupid short about the damn volcano. The film itself was beautiful, well crafted, and just creative. I had the pleasure of watching two siblings during the second viewing (roughly a twelve and nine year old) in a deep interpretive discussion about each place Joy and Sadness visited. Pixar is going to have a hell of a time reaching this peak again.
Jurassic World
I had fun. Once. Then I started thinking about how utterly uninteresting the human cast was and I've become progressively more irritated with this movie. "But dude," I hear the 1.6 billion dollars in ticket sales say, "You just go for the dinosaurs-" F**k you. I saw Dinosaur for the dinosaurs and that movie sucked too. In any worthwhile movie you have to be rooting for something, and in this case it seems to be the carnage; which means we've taken a wrong turn into Friday the 13th territory. You missed the mark, movie.
Ant-Man
On the one hand, this was probably the best Ant-Man movie they could have made. But that's also the other hand. Why do we need this character in the already overpopulated MCU? This character is dumb guys. Remember when we were kids and had our heads held underwater by someone a few years older and twice our mass? This was the kind of thing they used to justify it to themselves. Now that we own pop culture, please don't blow this.
Spectre
A film series with continuity is a double-edged sword. You have the ongoing arc to propel the plot forward, but you also have the difficulty of each installment being evaluated on its own terms. That said, this might actually be my favorite of the Daniel Craig Bond films. If we could just eliminate the Bond/Blofeld backstory I think I'd have nothing to complain about.
The Peanuts Movie
Craig Schulz gets an automatic green light for whatever he wants to do next. There are people who don't care about Charlie Brown. I don't know what they do with their lives because I've unfriended them. The rest of us love Chuck because respect the hell out of his undefeatable optimism. This movie brilliantly solves the issue of how to make him fail and succeed at the same time. The end result is a story with a purity on par with The Muppet Movie.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2015 had its highs and lows, but the year ultimately hinged on this movie not sucking. And it didn't suck. I'm not the kid I used to be. My heart has been broken a few times and dented nearly out of recognition. The sheer glee I felt about Luke and his Joseph Campbell template has long since been stored up in a box in the attic. So I didn't come out of the theater pantomiming a lightsaber or asking strangers if they SAW that thing that happened in the middle of the screen. I politely got in my car and drove away, reflecting on how much I enjoyed the experience and that I would really like to see it again. But a few states away, I could feel that box in the attic stirring, jumping around, and about to burst open. Suffice to say, the force has awakened.
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