#2015 Films

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

October: Gold Redux

Bajirao Mastani / Deepika Padukone as Mastani

I debated whether to put this under gold or brown, but on examining the material in close-up (see bottom photo), I could see that the outer layer is all sheer gold, so that convinced me it belongs here.

This film takes place in the early 18th century. I don't know enough about Indian costume history to comment on the accuracy of the design, but it is a very pretty garment, with the layered filmy skirts. When she twirls, loose trousers are visible beneath them.

[denastudio]

Mustang (2015) dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven

In a Turkish village, five orphaned sisters live under strict rule while members of their family prepare their arranged marriages. An astonishing drama about the oppression of spirited young women whose sexuality frightens the Muslim elders in the community.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)

Every source I've seen describes Yakuza Apocalypse as an action film. This must mean that my initial thought to categorize it as a parody comedy is inaccurate. So what is it then? An incomprehensible tale that seems to halfheartedly say one thing until it devolves into absolute madness and then just ends. I kind of hated it.

Beloved Yakuza crime boss Genyō Kamiura (Lily Franky) is the idol of Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara) and secretly, a vampire that drinks the blood of criminals. When a gunslinging priest (Ryushin Tei) and an assassin (Yayan Ruhian as Mad-Dog) decapitate Kamiura, he uses the last of his strength to turn Kageyama into a Yakuza Vampire. Unfortunately, he only learns the rules of his new condition after biting a civilian and unleashing a plague upon Japan. Meanwhile, the priest is not done yet and summons the ultimate terrorist (Masanori Mimoto) to finish what he started.

At first, I thought this was prolific director Takashi Miike lampooning Yakuza films. We’re told Kamiura has kept the big companies and chain stores out of the city and that he instructs his men only to harm other criminals. This makes him a hero of the people because Yakuza gangsters are so cool. Kageyama thinks so. All his life, that’s all he’s wanted to be but he’s never been able to get the trademark tattoos. When Kamiura bites him and transforms him into a Yakuza vampire, he becomes the real deal but in time, vampirism is rampant. Teachers, high-school girls, nurses, police officers are all becoming Yakuza vampires! Where is this going? Is it a lamentation that the criminal identity has become meaningless today, that it no longer inspires fear?

I'd say yes, if the idea went somewhere but in-depth analysis has no place in a film like this. Ambitious criminal Masaru (Makoto Sakaguchi) starts leaking brain matter out her ears like a hose, we get psychedellic gardens, martial arts battles between people in the worst monster costumes you’ve ever seen, and more. It should be so nutty it becomes awesome but it isn’t. All of the characters are so flat you don’t care about them and the incomprehensible non-logic means you have no idea what you should be paying attention to, what’s there just to be weird or if anything means anything at all. Did we just witness a rape scene? Who cares? Not the people who made this film. If they did, they might’ve tried harder to give us some convincing special effects or believeable performances. When you don’t speak Japanese and you can still tell the actors are struggling with their lines, you’ve experienced a badness so intense it transcends language.

The only thing that keeps you watching Yakuza Apocalypse is that something will make all of this click together. Is Miike saying the Yakuza are the vampires of Japan as they bleed the population dry? Does he suggest we’ve become infatuated with people who should be hated like we have with vampires? Your guess is as good as mine. The non-ending doesn't help. Abruptly cutting off your story can work - sometimes. Here it feels as though everyone got bored and said “let’s just end it here and move onto the next thing. It’ll be too late for them to get their money back after nearly two hours”. That’s another mark against this picture. It’s way, WAY too long.

Yakuza Apocalypse is little more than a mad-lib of supernatural action. Ideas are tossed in at random. Few of them pay off. You’ll retain nothing from the experience and will feel like you wasted your time. (Original Japanese with English subtitles, April 2, 2021)

[rookie-critic]

Bone Tomahawk (2015, dir. S. Craig Zahler) - review by Rookie-Critic

Bone Tomahawk was gruesome. Like, there's some incredibly graphic stuff in this movie. There were times when it didn't feel like I was watching a western. Actually quite a few horror elements in it, which was surprising. I thought that the acting was good and the suspense and practical effects were incredible. If you can stomach the more brutal aspects of it I'd say it's worth a watch.

Score: 7/10

Currently available for streaming on The Roku Channel and PlutoTV.

[talkaboutmovies]

Oz Perkins ("Longlegs") 2015 feature debut as writer-director

[seasonofhorror]

THE WITCH

2015, dir. Robert Eggers

[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

Say what you will about Van Helsing 2004; hate it, love it, be indifferent, But the All-Hallow's masquerade ball went sooooo hard and it had zero right to do so! It's a fun, campy, monster mash movie with wonderfully dated ( and expensive) cgi and non-stop action meant to be a popcorn flick one takes out to watch around spooky season. And it has this* chef's kiss* GORGEOUS 6 minute sequence plopped arbitrarily in the second act, which unexpectedly surpasses nearly every other ball in the last 30+ years of film( notable exception being the Cinderella 2015 ball) for literally no reason other than to be dramatic af.

Like feast your eyes on this Gothic masterpiece!!! Who doesn't want to immediately live in this picture?!??

They used those candles with oil in them so that they would have real candles, real string orchestra( I believe), probably around 100 real life extras( something which is tragically absent in modern film), said extras are all in beautiful fully decked-out costumes( which are in luxuriously dark colours, but nearly no fully black, another thing you cannot say for much modern cinema), REAL CIRQUE DU SOLEIL PERFORMERS for all the acrobatics!!!! Hell, instead of filming in a sound stage, where they could control the reverb and the acoustics and the size of the set and the bloody lighting ( they apparently had a heck of a time emulating the firelight for this sequence) and the temperature( it's very cold in stone churches!) better, they filmed in a Baroque church in Prague! As I said, peak dramatic splendour, jfc...

Think about that a second...They filmed a vampire masquerade in a Baroque Catholic Church( St. Nicholas' in Lesser Town, if you were curious) with amazing over-the-top acoustics and marble statues and real, tiled floors and marble pillars and a choir loft which they very much utilized, covered the pipe organ and the altar with a grand brocade curtain so it wouldn't be so obviously a, you know, a church! And there's a gold gilt elevated and canopied pulpit into which they put two vampire kiddies for, again, the sake of being dramatic.

And the costumes! They remind me of the 25th anniversary Phantom of the Opera Masquerade costumes. Same quality, like they're old, well-cared-for costumes pulled out of a warehouse, instead of fast industry churn-outs. With lots of trim and colour and masks and lace and feathers and..just...ugh.. they are all perfect! Just look at all the head pieces on the ladies and the hats on all the gentleman ( save Dracula of course) and the powdered wigs on the musicians. ANNNNDD! The dresses are historically correct!!!!!! It's the 80's bustle era! Nobody does the 80's bustle era in film anymore and it's a bummer. Oh and one other thing! Anna's ( and other women's) hair, at least here in the ball, is also historically accurate because it's all pinned up! None of those fucken modern beachwaves at a ball! Everybody's got updo's!

Gah, I swear, Dracula in his gold cloak really does things to me in this scene!

By the way, the acrobatics are bonkers in here for just background stuff!! Especially the random guys on unicycles and the dude playing the violin whilst standing on a ball...Like....WHAT?

Anyways, all this to say, that this masquerade ball feels sooo real and tangible and because of that it blows every other film out of the water, and no, I will not change my mind!!!!!

Here's a few more gifs, bcuz, why the hell not, this scene is sexy as fuu*ck?

Alright I need to go to bed now.

[indigomood]

Carol (2015) dir. Todd Haynes

[gay]

Carol (2015) dir. Todd Haynes

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

October: Gold Redux

The Age of Adaline / Blake Lively as Adaline Bowman

Adaline wears this dress (by Gucci) for a brief scene at the very end of the movie in which she is preparing to go to a New Year's Eve party. It has something of a 1940s flavor, with a suggestion of shouldamapads--appropriate for a character who spans so many decades. I love the textured effect of the beaded black "bows" at the shoulders.

[reunitedinterlude]

called out (2015 // 2024)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Chappie (2015)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

I’m man enough to admit I was wrong about Chappie. I was initially dazzled by its special effects and unique approach to the story. I see clearly now. This picture ultimately throws away its potential thanks to a dumb climax and a misguided belief that we care about its criminal protagonists.

What if the first fully self-aware, sentient artificial intelligence was raised by the worst people? in crime-ridden Johannesburg, Deon (Dev Patel) has created Chappie (voiced by Sharlto Copley). Unfortunately, the young robot isn’t being raised by its maker. It’s been stolen by criminals Ninja and Yolandi (played by the African rap artists of the same name): thugs who teach the robot to commit crimes and settle their drug debt.

Chappie begins with a solid idea. When we typically explore the subject of "artificial intelligence", it's either misunderstood until it befriends a friendly child or becomes evil immediately and plots mankind’s extinction. Chappie may be made of metal and circuits but it’s little more than an easily-impressionable child in a body whose strength and endurance exceed any normal person’s. It’s endearing to see it misinterpret the deluge of profanities uttered by Ninja and you’ll grow nervous watching the criminals trick it doing their dirty work. You feel for Deon, who desperately wants to get his creation back.

Along with this unique take on the Frankenstein story, the picture’s got a lot of style. The soundtrack by Ninja and Yolandi fits perfectly with their bizarre vernacular, graffiti-laden hideout and the film's general tone. They’re childish but dangerous all at once. One thing you could never call Chappie is "generic".

As the story moves along, details about it foreshadow trouble. Deon is one of the dumbest scientists we’ve ever seen. He’s got absolutely no sense of preservation whatsoever. He's constantly coming back to visit Chappie and his family despite having guns waved in his face. He never even considers calling the authorities when every sign points towards the former police robot being used to commit crimes. You might say it’s because he’d get in serious trouble with his boss (Sigourney Weaver, doing Neil Blomkamp a favor by appearing but having little to do) but who are they going to believe, the scientist, or the criminals? Even if the seemingly reasonable Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo) corroborated their story, there’s no way the police wouldn’t side with the robotics genius!

Oh but it gets worse. In the end, this film is about much more than artificial intelligence: it’s also about ripping off Robocop. With a smidge of transhumanism thrown in. The film’s villain isn’t actually the criminals who have adopted Chappie; it’s Hugh Jackman as Vincet Moore. He's a cartoon character obsessed with pushing his urban pacification robot as the next best thing. One look at it, and you wonder what the hell he’s thinking. It’s a 10-ton, bipedal behemoth that can fly, shoot rockets, slice people up with its saw OR its giant mechanical pincer and is equipped with infra-red sight, a railgun and who knows what other goodies. This beast would feel out of place even on the lawless streets of Escape from New York. Why hasn’t he been shut down yet? Every scene with Moore might as well be set in front of a giant neon sign that reads "evil”.

The strategy seems to have been “introduce an even BIGGER villain so that we forget how unlikable Ninja and Yolandi are. Na-unh. It doesn’t matter how action-packed and explosive the film’s last scenes may be. They’re not enough to make you overlook what happened before, certainly not when they're as predictable as this. It only gets worse from there. It’s a giant misstep following a long trip down the stairs.

It doesn’t even take long to see what’s wrong with Chappie. The signs are all there from the start and no effort was made to deviate from the wrong direction it was headed for. I enjoyed Chappie very much when I saw it in theatres. Now, it’s a little embarrassing to have been that enthusiastic about it. Maybe if you’re a big fan of Ninja and Yolandi, or if you get a kick out of seeing your hometown of Johannesburg in a movie, you’d get something out of this picture. Otherwise, stay away. (February 22, 2019)

[ladiesofcinema]

Lily James as Cinderella CINDERELLA (2015)

[andrew3garfield]

CRIMSON PEAK (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro

[francesanim]

More yonderland doodles + Gabriel from Bill the film, cuz she’s a sweetie 💞

[seasonofhorror]

THE WITCH

2015, dir. Robert Eggers