Best of 2015: Cinema

With each passing year, my annual lists (which seem to mark the only time I have in a given year for writing “for fun” about film) become increasingly, unintentionally esoteric, purposefully defiant of any form of order, woefully incomplete, and predictably homoerotic. As each year comes to an end, I lament the films upon films I haven’t seen and frantically try to fit as many of those into my December schedule as possible. This year, I realized that my list was going to comprise of a bunch of films most people hadn’t heard of, no matter how many Oscar screeners I try to hustle through, and I accepted that. When I was in my early 20s, I would have marveled at a list of films only the most elite of cinephiles had even heard of, but these days, I just feel like an asshole.

These 10 films impressed me more than all the others. I’m slightly embarrassed that there isn’t a single film by a female filmmaker on the list, but I suppose I’d be more ashamed if I included one just for the sake of inclusion. Feel free to share your thoughts or possible suggestions (my to-see list is already epic). I’ve included distribution information for all of the films I could find it for (in the U.S., U.K., and France). And without further adieu, my 10 favorite films of 2015, listed alphabetically:

• All Yours (Je suis à toi). David Lambert. Belgium/Canada.
• Carol. Todd Haynes. USA/UK.
• The Club (El club). Pablo Larraín. Chile.
• Everlasting Love (Amor eterno). Marçal Forés. Spain.
• Full Contact. David Verbeek. Netherlands/Croatia.
• The Here After (Efterskalv). Magnus von Horn. Sweden/Poland/France.
• Neon Bull (Boi Neon). Gabriel Mascaro. Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands.
• Nova Dubai (New Dubai). Gustavo Vinagre. Brazil.
• Tales of the Grim Sleeper. Nick Broomfield. UK/USA.
• Te prometo anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy). Julio Hernández Cordón. Mexico/Germany.

I also wrote about 10 additional films that left an impression on me, as well as the two films I hated the most in 2015: Jurassic World and The Overnight. Look for my 2015 television and music wrap-ups later this week.

Oh, and the most overrated film of 2015? Mad Max: Fury Road, which might have made my honorable mentions list had the world not praised it to high heaven and set my viewing up for disappointment. Alas.

Best of 2015: Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield)

Tales of the Grim Sleeper. Nick Broomfield. UK/USA.

With the year book-ended by a pair of first-rate miniseries (Andrew Jarecki’s The Jinx on HBO and Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi’s Making a Murderer on Netflix, respectively), 2015 felt a little bit like the year of the true crime documentary, and how fitting for a year marked by civil unrest, racial injustice, and a growing distrust in the police force. You can hear these sentiments echoed throughout Nick Broomfield’s Tales of the Grim Sleeper, a troubling mosaic about a serial killer who haunted the streets of South Central Los Angeles over a twenty-five-year period. No stranger to making films about murder conspiracies (see Kurt & Courtney and its thematic sequel Biggie & Tupac, as well as the pair of Aileen Wuornos docs he made), Broomfield takes a different angle with this film, trying to piece together testimonials about The Grim Sleeper, who was widely believed to have been able to carry out his crimes due to the racial discrimination and negligence of the local law enforcement.

Getting nowhere as a white British man with a camera in South LA, he enlists the help of Pam Brooks, a former prostitute with the sort of star quality young Hollywood couldn’t sell their souls to obtain, who helps him look for a number of missing women believed to have been victims of The Grim Sleeper. With so much time passed and so little evidence, Broomfield pieces together fragments of a terrifying portrait of America, merely scratching the surface of a story that’s pages have been torn out, raising questions that won’t ever have an answer. Tales of the Grim Sleeper is available streaming on HBOGo and HBO Now in the U.S. and was released by Sky Vision in the U.K.

Calling All Ken Russell Fans!

Apparently voting is the way to go these days, for both the Warner Archive Collection and Criterion Blu-ray, and now MGM. Check their page to vote for a DVD release of Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, his take on the life of Tchaikovsky starring Glenda Jackson and Richard Chamberlain, and any of the others you want to come out. Ken Loach's Ladybird Ladybird, Nick Broomfield's Diamond Skulls, Mark Romanek's Static with Amanda Plummer and Sergei Bodrov's The Prisoner of the Mountains (which is actually already on DVD and still in print as part of MGM's 'World Films' series) are other options. I'm pretty sure Russell's woefully underrated The Boyfriend belongs to Warner now (though I could be wrong). Make it count! Us Russell fans have been suffering too long. Thanks, Eric.