For posterity and personal
reference, here is my movie list from 2015. My favorites are in bold;
avoid-at-all-costs are in italics.
1. Pitch Perfect: the Brooklyn Shepards brought this pee-your-pants funny movie to Christmas. I had to buy it for St. Paul.
2. The Interview: bought as soon as it was available on On Demand. As stupid as I thought it would be.
3. From Russia with Love: classic Bond never disappoints
4. The Fault in Our Stars: ugh. Sad for my children whose generation has John Green instead of John Hughes
5. Maze Runner: another YA book adaptation; predictable with good action
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: I have no idea
7. Lucy: I enjoyed this when I watched it, but now I feel nothing. Scarlett Johansson, tho.
8. Hateship, Loveship: a movie adaptation of an Alice Munro story. Kirsten Wiig was solid in this unfunny role.
9. Girls, season 3: the Girls are awesome.
10.
Obvious Child: This is the type of indie movie I love to love. This one
mostly made me uncomfortable, but I still really liked Jenny Slate.
11. Gross Pointe Blank: classic. Watched with Simon and put John Cusack on his radar.
12. The Kingsman: LOVED. Took a mess of 15-year-olds to see this R-rated undercover agent comedy
13. St. Vincent: This movie was all that: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy. Funny, poignant. Loved.
14. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou:
Still my favorite Wes Anderson. Simon couldn't convince his friends to
dress as Team Zissou for Halloween. But he did buy the Seu Jorge
soundtrack.
15. Horrible Bosses 2: Stellar cast but as dumb as anticipated.
16. Breaking Upwards: Quirky but sad. Zoe Lister-Jones.
17. Life After Beth: Fun and funny teen zombie movie.
18.
Revenge of the Mekons: John and I are in the movie!!! Audience scene
filmed at the Fitz. We saw this at the Trylon, a charming jewelbox of a
theater.
19. Blade Runner (final cut): Took the boys to see this at the Trylon. Their first viewing yielded a great postmortem.
20. Annie: At Christmas, Ben insisted on calling this the "black Annie". Argh. It's hard to ruin Annie.
21. Paddington: What can I say? Cute. W and I watched it on a sick day so it was perfect in all respects.
22. Wedding Ringer: Another dumb-funny movie. I see too many of these.
23. Pitch Perfect 2: the pitches are back. surprisingly, this sequel was as funny and whip-smart as the original
24. Spy: Melissa McCarthy. Funny.
25. Grand Budapest Hotel: New appreciation on second viewing. Color. Staging. Wes Anderson
26. Bottle Rocket: Attempting to become a Wes Anderson completist soon. Couldn't finish watching.
27. Imitation Game: Gut-wrenchingly sad. I loved this movie so much. Deserved all accolades.
28. The DUFF: love Mae Whitman
29. A Million Ways to Die in the West: I had higher hopes for this Seth MacFarlane vehicle
30. Barely Lethal: I got nothing. I feel like it should have been more memorable.
31. 100 Foot Journey: so charming and heartbreaking. Watched on our flight to Barcelona
32. While We're Young: Painful and funny and so Noah Baumbach. Barcelona flight.
33. Fantastic Four: Entertaining
34. Trainwreck: Date night. Funny.
35.
7 Days in hell (twice): Perfect mockumentary. Loved Andy Samberg, Kit
Harrington (indubitably), Chris Evert and Serena Williams. Made my HBO
subscription totally worth the extra expense.
36. This Is Spinal Tap: Shared with son #1. Still funny after all these years.
37. Meru: Glad to have seen this mountaineering documentary on a big screen. Need to see again.
38. A Walk in the Woods: Disappointing. Read the book, skip the movie.
39. Barcelona: Still funny. Whatever happened to Whit Stillman?
40. Real Genius: Shared with son #1. He loved it. I fell asleep.
41. The Martian: Glad I read the book first. I enjoyed the movie with youngest son.
42. The American, season one: Spies. 1970s. Slightly campy. Sign me up for Season Two.
43. Creed:
I didn't want to see this but my boys persuaded me to go with them. No
regrets. Cried like a baby. I hope this is the beginning of a new
franchise.
44. Mad Max, Fury Road: wha? I don't get the fuss and strong reviews.
45. National Lampoon's Vacation (2015): Not a bad reboot. I laughed.
46. Jessica Jones: We binge-watched this Netflix series. LOVED. Can't wait for Luke's story.
47. American Ultra: Oh, I loved this funny, strange movie with Jesse Eisenberg and Kirsten Stewart.
48. Ricky and the Flash: Meh.
49. Pitch Perfect: Watched with nieces in Princeton while coloring. Perfect.
50. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Holding Episodes 4-6 sacred, I wanted to hate this but couldn't. Despite being a retread of Episode 4, JJ Abrams nailed it. I love the new characters.
