The Finest Hours

The story is solid, but the acting and dialogue leave a lot to be desired. The camera work is erratic, which makes the action fairly hard to follow most of the time, and it is often obscured by the setting. There are glaring examples of those things that took me completely out of the experience.

4.5/10

Wild Tales

I'm quite enamored with this film. Essentially a feature-length Black Mirror without the sci-fi elements, Wild Tales is some of the most fun I've had with a film this year. Each story is expertly crafted and paced, and the film is littered with very interesting camera angles and techniques.

9.5/10

45 Years

In a film that depends so heavily on the series of conversations between the two leads, what stood out to me was the impressive duality on display. Every mundane, ordinary conversation was tinged with distrust or anger, and every argument was laced with a feeling of unending devotion to one another. Ultimately, the final product is a film that is heartfelt, raw, and utterly devastating.

9.25/10

The Keeping Room

Essentially a slasher film at its core, The Keeping Room's radically different setting shift the tone to that of a more nuanced and subtle thriller. The protagonist is strong, and the antagonists are quite terrifying.

8/10

Magic Mike XXL

This sequel takes the characters from the first and places them into a fairly standard road-trip film. But the charm and artistry from the first aren't lost, but rather magnified.

8.25/10

Magic Mike

On the scale of "adult-themed" movies, Magic Mike is much closer to Boogie Nights than 50 Shades of Gray. The plot is engaging and well-done, and Tatum is fantastic in this role. I loved that this movie is much less about stripping, and much more about artistry and pursuing your passions at any cost.

7.75/10

Brooklyn

I found Brooklyn to be a charming, heartwarming, and beautiful take on both an immigrant story and a romance. Saoirse Ronan was tremendous, and the film also features maybe the most significant marker of a great 2015 film: Domhnall Gleeson.

8.5/10

White God

A visually impressive film that is unfortunately bumped down by its heavy-handed themes as well as a jarring and odd tonal shift in the third act.

6.75/10

Pressure

A tense, claustrophobic tale featuring one of the most terrifying scenes I've witnessed in recent memory.  I think it was intended to be a bit more visceral than I found the film, but it was a solid attempt at the genre.

6.75/10

When Marnie Was There

Not only does Studio Ghibli once again redefine how gorgeous animation can be, but they do so while telling an incredible, touching, and heartfelt tale.

9.25/10

Last Shift

Last Shift was a sufficiently weird and creepy horror film. It isn't special in any way, but the jump scares are solid and the lead performance and story are fine.

6/10

Pirates

The special effects are very noticeable, and the acting and dialogue are cheesy and over-the-top at times. That being said, if a "Pirates of the Caribbean meets Korean Wire-Fu" movie sounds awesome to you, you're going to love this film.

8/10

Phoenix

Nina Hoss carries this film on her back magnificently. The plot is not a complex one, but is expertly crafted and unfurled for the audience. On top of that, the cinematography was tremendously beautiful.

8.75/10

Slow Learners

Slow Learners is another rote romcom with little-to-no innovation. While slightly funnier than the average attempt, there are also plenty of jokes that fall flat. The two leads are merely acceptable, but pale in comparison to yesterday's Sleeping with Other People by quite a bit.

4.75/10

Sleeping With Other People

Sudeikis and Brie are endlessly charismatic, and Brie's role is also fairly dramatic at parts, allowing her to really show how great she is.

For a movie filled with so much comedic talent, though, there weren't a lot of hilarious moments. The banter between characters was amusing, but I expected a bit more 'com' from this romcom. And I guess that is my biggest complaint. This turned out to be a fairly generic romcom. There were a few moments that seemed to suggest veering off of that safe, paved highway onto an interesting dirt path, but those moments all ended rather quickly, back on the safe banality that is the modern romcom.

6/10

The Revenant

DiCaprio and Hardy are wonderful as always, and Iñárritu's long takes and breathtaking shot-composition combine to produce a gorgeous piece of art. There are a few scenes that really highlight the enormity of the tasks ahead of DiCaprio's character, and the gritty hyper-realism of the action scenes depict the brutality of both nature and the time.

8.75/10

Parallels

The concept here is really intriguing, but the 90-minute film asks too many questions and leaves too many things unresolved to be satisfying in any way. The acting and dialogue is fairly poor, as well. In fact, it felt very much like the pilot to a TV show...

Which is when I looked it up and discovered it was originally intended to be a pilot to a TV show. That explains quite a bit! Too bad, because I would definitely watch this as a TV show, but it just barely works as a film.

4.5/10

Tangerine

Ah, the timeless Christmas tale of a transgender prostitute, fresh out of prison, on the trail of her cheating fiancee pimp.

Seriously, though, director Sean Baker manages some fairly incredible things with this film. The world he takes the audience to is so completely foreign, and the characters so large, but nothing ever feels dramatized or over-the-top. Nobody feels like a "movie character".

Somehow the film is gripping, energetic, and strangely relatable. Add to the fact the it's visually stunning, despite the "gimmick" of being shot entirely on an iPhone 5s.

8.5/10

Infinitely Polar Bear

Ruffalo is great here, but I found the film hard to watch. There are charming moments, to be sure, but the characters are all so grating. Which I think is the point, and in that case the film is successful, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to watch.

6/10

Hidden

This film was great at setting up an unsettling atmosphere, and then slowly unraveling the story for the audience. The story does drag a bit at times, but other than those small breaks, the tension just builds and builds.

8.75/10

Entourage

While fun, this film suffered from a lack of focus. It has been some time since I watched the TV show, but I remember it having more heart. In the film, lots of things happen to our characters, some of which should clearly feel important, but nothing really resonated in that way. Several of the subplots went unresolved and/or felt irrelevant. I have  always found these characters entertaining, but I would've preferred a better foray onto the big screen.

5.25/10

Deathgasm

An Australian interpretation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World meets Shaun of the Dead, all with a coat of death metal and the occult. There are copious amounts of fun, campy gore and black humor, but the poor production value and fairly basic plot held Deathgasm back.

6/10

Anomalisa

Visually, this film is transcendent. The stop-motion style is gorgeous and immersive; during several scenes I felt as if I weren't watching animation at all. Kaufman films tend to be slightly optimistic, but mostly crushingly depressing, and Anomalisa is no different. That said, it is an incredible piece of film making and storytelling, and easily one of the year's best.

9.25/10