Here follows a list of my favorite movies of 2015 (and 2014, where I just got to seeing them in 2015). It is in a quite particular order, only no one has explained to me which order that is.
– My favorites –
Ant-Man
My wife and I saw this in Las Vegas during a summer trip to attend a Barenaked Ladies concert. I generally enjoy Paul Rudd and this was no exception. The MCU Marvel movies have so far failed to disappoint me, even with some less-than-stellar entries such as Iron Man 2. I’m looking forward to more Ant-Man in the future.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Joss Whedon, you can do very little wrong. I know he got a lot of criticism for the handling of Black Widow’s character, but I enjoyed almost everything about this movie. The only thing I can currently think of that I would like to see changed is the expansion of Thor in the weird water cave, i.e. the re-insertion of the deleted scene from the Blu-ray.
Big Hero 6
From 2014; we watched this on Blu-ray when it came out in early 2015. Disney has really been on a good streak with their main animated line lately. I hope that the trend continues.
Inside Out
This may be one of Pixar’s finest, though that isn’t saying much given their track record. Even Cars, my least favorite, was pretty enjoyable when I rewatched it recently. The voice cast in Inside Out was excellent and the story was touching and I had just finished watching Parks and Recreation about a month before seeing Inside Out and Amy Poehler is just fantastic and that is all.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
I can’t decide whether the Mission: Impossible movies keep getting better or if they are just all maintaining a consistent level of quality (except for M:I II–that one just doesn’t do it for me at all). I saw this theatrically and when I saw Ethan Hunt jump down into the cooling system, my inner Keanu Reeves said, “Whoa!”
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Our family went to see the new Star Wars movie on opening weekend, and I must say, I expected the theaters in Utah to be much emptier on a Sunday afternoon. I know there’s a lot of criticism regarding J.J. Abrams’ adaptations of some franchises, i.e. Star Trek and the aforementioned Mission: Impossible, I’ve generally enjoyed his takes on things. (I could have done with many fewer lens flares in Star Trek.) While hitting many of the same story beats as the original Star Wars, the new movie still had my attention and made it fun attention. I just hope Kylo Ren isn’t the new Anakin Skywalker, e.g. super whiny.
– Other movies I enjoyed –
Chef
From 2014. I watched this on Netflix after reading a positive review. It wasn’t disappointing and definitely was not hurt by Scarlett Johansson’s presence.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
From 2014. After enjoying Rise of the Planet of the Apes a couple of years ago, I watched the sequel and liked it too.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
From 2014. I’ve enjoyed the Hunger Games movies so far, though I have yet to see the final installment.
Jurassic World
I really like the original Jurassic Park. The sequels I could take or leave. I saw Jurassic World theatrically with my dad and younger brother, and it was definitely enjoyable, I’d say second after the original film. Chris Pratt is always fun to watch (I think I had only previously seen him in Guardians of the Galaxy, and a few months after Jurassic World I discovered Parks and Recreation). One thing that surprised me though was just how much money Jurassic World made. It was good, but I didn’t think it was that good.
Lucy
From 2014. Scarlett Johansson? Check. This was a fun little movie, though the ending was really kind of weird.
Minions
This was another movie we took the family to see in the theater. My youngest child loves the Despicable Me movies, so this was kind of a no-brainer to see. I laughed a lot, and laughed a lot again when we watched it on Blu-ray (though not as much as my son laughed).
The Skeleton Twins
From 2014. I also watched this on Netflix after reading a positive review, and liked it.
Spy
I think the only movie I’ve seen before with Melissa McCarthy is The Heat. I’m pretty sure that yet another positive review led me to watching Spy, and I was not disappointed. I love the way that it sort of felt like a female-driven Bond film, with a serious plot and no small amount of hilarity. Jason Statham as a pompous Topper-type character was fantastic. It doesn’t surprise me that Paul Feig, the writer and director, also wrote and/or created and/or directed some other things I found funny, such as The Heat, Bridesmaids, and Freaks and Geeks. I’m looking forward to his version of Ghostbusters now.
They Came Together
From 2014. Amy Poehler + Paul Rudd + romantic comedy satire = fantastic fun.
– Movies that made me say “meh” –
Dumb and Dumber To
Much like the first Anchorman movie, I love the first Dumb and Dumber, and was not as impressed by the sequel. However, unlike the second Anchorman movie, I found little to redeem Dumb and Dumber To from the halls of Meh-dom. It was just sort of there, occasionally amusing, and ultimately forgettable.
– Movies that made me say “Why on earth did I watch this?” –
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
This movie was just so, so bad. Michelangelo was creepy and weird and really creepy. The one scene that I enjoyed was the elevator bit. It pains me that a sequel is forthcoming.
– 2015 movies I haven’t seen yet that I hope are good, or at least not terrible –
007: Spectre
The Good Dinosaur
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
Poetism Commentary: “Means To The End”
The poem in question: Means To The End
About the time this poem was written, my family took a trip to Oregon, via motor home. I don’t recall if it was the primary purpose, but we visited some extended family there. We also drove through the redwood forest in northern California, where I bought some “happy rocks,” which are little tiny rocks with smiley faces drawn on them.
It was a long drive (I know approximately how long, given that last fall I made a similar drive with my wife and children), but it was nice to have a bit of room to move around in rather than just being crammed into our minivan. As I recall, the old LDS movie Saturday’s Warrior was watched over and over during the drive by my sisters, along with My Girl. I read some books, and I think wrote this poem during or shortly after the trip.
The reason the subject matter was on my mind, I think, is that a shortly before we left, our bishop stopped by for an impromptu interview regarding whether I should be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. In another six months I would be 19 years old and eligible to serve a mission for the LDS church. We had a brief discussion and the bishop told me he would consider things while our family was gone.
Throughout my life, I have often had a difficult time fully relating to things that I could not tangibly experience, though the written word helped me out a lot, in that it was both easy to ingest emotion and to filter out things I didn’t really want to experience. So one of the ways I tried to experience a deeper closeness to the Lord was to write about him from a fictional spectator’s point of view.
The title Means To The End is a mixed bag. It evokes the common phrase “the ends justify the means,” which does not generally carry positive connotations. I suppose I was trying to turn that around somehow. I’m not sure how appropriate it is, but I stand by it.
A man who has been traveling for a while sees Jesus ahead on the road, and looking for some walking company (but not necessarily anything else) speeds up a little to catch him. The first thing out of Jesus’ mouth is that He’d like to be friends. For me, that is the fundamental characteristic of Jesus. Regardless of all the other godly characteristics He may possess, the personal relationship is first and foremost.
The man is a little taken aback by this statement; I just met you and that’s the first thing you say to me? But he’s drawn in by a kind smile. He’s not a sucker; I like to think that when Jesus smiles, you just feel that good. Within just a short amount of time, Christ has been betrayed and is on trial. Despite not knowing Jesus personally for long, the man already knows “no horm could this man ever do.”
Then the scene switches to the Crucifixion. Despite the reworking (and somewhat recontextualizing) of the famous words, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” I think the heart of the matter is actually in the middle of the last stanza:
Again, despite the overarching reach of Jesus to be a savior for everyone, the focus for this person is, well, personal. Even though this moment is terrible, he is individually reassured. And that’s what I think Jesus is all about. It is also in this final stanza that the capitalization of pronouns referring to Jesus commences. It’s at this moment of true, personal connection that he becomes Him.
Now, a few words about a different, apparently earlier version of the text. I have one that changes three lines. The first is inconsequential: the last line of the second stanza,”This man would serve them better dead” became “The man would serve them better dead.”
The second is also relatively of little note: near the end of the first stanza, “We set off again, and as we walked…” became “We walked again, and as we walked….” I think the final version flows better.
The third change is the most interesting to me. The lines
originally read:
The change to use of the word straightway was deliberate. The word is used several times in the King James Version of the New Testament, and I take its meaning to be that of suggesting immediacy. The reference I always connect with use of the word is Mark 1:18, where Jesus tells some of the apostles who are fishermen to follow Him, and “straightway they… followed him.” The use in my poem reinforces to me the priority of Jesus to establish a personal friendship with each of us.
Finally, two years later, while serving as a missionary in France, I used this poem as a basis for one I wrote in French to share with members of the Church there. I debated whether to give the text its own blog entry, but I think maybe it fits here. I am pretty proud of the job I did of translation, especially the use of the passé simple tense, which is generally reserved for literary or other written texts. It is not something generally learned in high school French class or as part of missionary language training (but is used in The Book of Mormon and the Bible), so I had to struggle to get it right.
The rough English translation of the above text is: