New World

It's another incredible Korean gangster film, taking a page from Infernal Affairs and turning it upside down.  The story, pacing, performances here are spot on with the best gangster films.  It's taut, riveting, operatic, action packed, gripping, and well directed by Park Hoon-jung. American gangster films can certainly learn something from this type of film making, as it seems a remake might be down the road.  2013's New World is a classic piece of film making, with an even mix of character performance, an intricate chess like plot, and unique and appropriate action sequences.

A Company Man

Starring Ji-seob So as a hitman who works for a company hell bent on eliminating him as a matter of policy for sparing the life of a new employee, Korea's A Company Man is an interesting enough action-drama, having an almost Shakespearean, cautionary tale, kind of a feel to it.  However, the story could have benefited from more fleshing out of the characters, particularly in building a more substantial romance with So's character to raise the stakes of the plot.  Maybe I'm thinking this, because it's very much in a way like a more serious Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

The Man From Nowhere

Oh my gosh, this was  a fucking amazing film.  The Man From Nowhere is already one of my favorite Korean films. Starring Won Bin and is directed by Jeong-beom Lee, this action thriller delivers on so many levels.  It has great action, great acting, heart, and soul.  I've never heard of the actor Won Bin, but damn can this guy deliver on screen.  Think The Professional, Taken, The Equalizer, etc. meets The Bourne Identity.  Add a splash of The Raid: Redemption, stir well, and this is what you get.  Superb! Yeah, it's that kind of a movie.  No wonder they wanna do an English remake.

Once Upon A Time In Shanghai

This was a 2014 remake of Boxer From Shantung and it was pretty good. It stars Philip Ng, Andy On, and Sammo Hung, all martial artist and choreographers.  As if that weren't enough credentials, it's choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping so the action is definitely pretty solid. The film is shot in a muted down, sepia color and the action sequences are very stylized. With the story centered on the invasion of China by Japan, Ng does get a chance to do his version of Bruce Lee taking on the Japanese. Great acting it's not, but there's no surprise there.  But, Once Upon A Time In Shanghai does get a refreshing face lift for a kung fu movie.

The Suspect

2013's The Suspect is a pretty good  Korean spy thriller in the vein of The Bourne Identity.  I've been saying for some time now that the South Koreans have been making pretty good quality films on par with Hong Kong, and this is no exception.  What it suffers from is a storyline, that is a bit too convoluted to follow in detail but I don't hold that against it given I was also reading the subtitles.

Get Hard

You've got Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, so like what the fuck happened?  Get Hard just tries too hard perhaps with all of the dumb stereotypes milked to death so unrealistically in a cheap, shitty way.

Southpaw

Southpaw is a generic, cliche of a boxer's movie elevated primarily by a great cast with great performances in Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, and Rachel McAdams.  Only secondary, is the realistic action choreography that sets it apart from other boxing film with much credit given to director and boxing aficionado Antoine Fuqua.

Fading Gigolo

John Tuturro is one of the best actors period and not a bad writer or director, as is seen in Fading Gigolo.  Here, he's teamed up with co-star Woody Allen as the pimp to his gigalo in a small Jewish community of New York. Sharon Stone, Liev Schreiber, Vanessa Paradis,  and Sofia Vergara round out the cast.  It's a very charming dramatic comedy with relationships intersecting, small moments highlighted, and the nuances of life and love examined in a melting pot of a setting.

True Legend

2010's True Legend had all the makings of a good classic kung fu movie, but fell rather short in it's delivery. Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping and starring Vincent Zhao, it portrays the legendary story of the Drunken Fist kung fu style.  There are some moving moments in the story, that futily attempt to be a saga, but the pacing is such that it feels like too many stories are just not effectively pieced together.  Martial art movies need a good story, but if that gets lost then the fight choreography is it's only saving grace.  Here, the kung fu action is average, with maybe 2 or 3 fight segments where Woo-Ping does rise to the occasion.  Wire works and special effects are done rather too heavy handed in True Legend, as are the segments that too obviously borrow from other martial art films instead of being a respectable nod.  So, it's better than most kung fu films, but not by much given the production value.

Magic Mike XXL

The sequel to Magic Mike seems like a good time reunion for the cast alone, minus Matthew McConaughey.  Yet, it lacks much of the darker themes of the first film that made it a surprising sleeper hit. Character development is traded in too easily for easy going humor that limps the story along too long for a not so worthy finale more at home on youtube.

San Andreas

Starring Dwayne Johnson, San Andreas lacks a much needed multi-dimensional plot and credible acting, enough to make me not even care about the devastation and urgency of the earthquake.   Even tying it in to the notion of global warming is omitted.  Really? Decent special effects are sadly not enough here. 

Wolf Warrior

Jackie Wui and Scott Adkins star in 2015's Wolf Warriors, an unfortunate, shitty, Chinese military propoganda film that doesn't even deliver the kind of anticipated action its action stars are worthy of performing. Shitty acting, plot, and action make this the limpest action movie I've seen all year.

Ex Machina

One of the best and most original films I've seen this year and that will have me reverberating for a while is Ex Machina, starring Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander.  This sci-fi thriller was superbly written and directed by Alex Garland.  It's a very intellectually and philosophically far reaching film with deftly nuanced performances that are both visually charged and left me spellbound in anticipation. Technology meets humanity and they are boldly flipped around; and special effects are throughout, wisely left to a minimum.  If that wasn't enough, it's a masterful thriller with enough style, anticipation, and unexpected moments to instantly be committed to following through.  Comparisons to Blade Runner, Her, Under The Skin, and others are pretty obvious, but Ex Machina is a unique turn in a different direction.  One of the nice bits of this uniqueness is how the story was set in one location with only 4 characters and against the backdrop of a very picturesque (fun fact) Norway. It is truly, as my lovely friend says from time to time "Awesome sauce!" So, I'll let that sentiment speak for anything else I could possibly say about the film.

Spectre

The latest and much anticipated Bond movie, Spectre, reunites director Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig together again for what many of us were hoping would capitalize on the success of Skyfall. For the most part, it succeeds in doing this. There are the splendid locations and set pieces, a great choice in actors including protagonist Christolph Waltz, cool action sequences, and an attempt to delve deeper into the origins of James Bond. It's a winning formula that almost wins and the movie is more than long enough to showcase these things. Now let me be clear. Spectre is a great James Bond film and certainly much better than Quantum Of Solace. After nearly a decade, Craig certainly seems much more at ease in the role and with the cast addition of Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw, this latest distillation of Bond is arguably the best yet. While notably giving homage to the past, Spectre also manages to stay relevant to the present with issues of national security, privacy, and intelligence gathering all at the center. It's a very action driven Bond movie that is certainly reminiscent of the early Connery films. However, there are shortcomings and one of them is ironically the length; and I only say this because the story does noticeably lag on in pace at certain points. There's a slow buildup and a certain anti-climactic let down, that speaks to the ambiguity of Craig's return or not in the role. I was also not happy with Mendes' use of the supporting cast, particularly the women. Talented and beautiful Monica Belluci is in like only one or two scenes. Really? Moneypenny (Naoime Harris) could have had a more active role considering the stakes of the story. The lead female character, French actress Lea Seydoux, was not really memorable or convincing in her role and her hookup with Bond felt too contrite. Dave Bautista was certainly a muted and memorable villain, (think an updated Oddjob) but he certainly could have appeared more to bolster the ending. Even the performance of Waltz as the iconic villain mastermind Blofeld, was undercut by the pacing of the film. In fact, Bond's relationship origins with Blofeld were not touched on enough here.  There was not much surprise to actor Andrew Scott's character, C, especially to fans of the tv show Sherlock, but I still have the same misgivings of story pacing and character use. At certain points after the exotic locales were used up and everything was brought back to London to wind down, viewing Spectre seemed like watching an episode of BBC tv show MI-5, which is not necessarily a bad thing but still......  I reiterate that Spectre is a good Bond film, one of the best in fact.  But it's also a daunting task to live up to the expectation that culminated in Skyfall.

The Gunman

Sean Penn's The Gunman is about an ex Special Forces soldier who has to confront the sins of his past and navigate the love of a woman (Jasmine Trinca). Exploitation of the Congo by large multinationals, military, and others, are the conditions.  So I can certainly see why Penn, serving as both producer and additional screen writer, would be interested in a project with a subject matter like this as he is notoriously opinionated about such matters and a famous humanitarian.  However, The Gunman falls way short of this endeavor, instead being overshadowed by Penn's obvious time in the gym.  It's kind of sad, because Penn is a great actor with a great supporting cast, rounded out with the likes of Idris Elba and Javier Bardem. Unfortunately,  the only exploitation that seems to be focused on here, is pumping Penn up and giving him a second wind at miserably competing with Stallone and Liam Neeson. 

The Avengers: Age Of Ultron

The second Avengers installment has the team going up against the accidentally created artificial intelligence of Ultron (James Spader).  Cutting to the chase, Age Of Ultron is descent enough with the type of action we've come to expect from the Marvel world, but it's just like it's story and ever growing characters, a bit bloated.  There are good attempts by director and writer Joss Whedon to explore and further develop the characters, particularly with characters Banner and Black Widow, but even at 141 minutes, it's a far too ambitious undertaking, and so the allusions to the lapsed time period since the last fiasco, feel forced and campy, even with the rather good editing. Here, the cgi is way too obvious an effect however cool, as in the opening sequence which felt more like the trailer of an Xbox or Playstation game.  So it becomes a problem of how do you align that tongue and cheek humor and character development and growing conflict of the last installment among the Avengers, with the seriousness of the stakes at hand.  To it's credit however, Age Of Ultron does introduce us to some great new characters, minus Ultron who seems even in this age of technology to be improbable and disappointing as a foe.  But if the Transformers AI characters could do it, you'd think. Underlying themes of AI and what it means to be conscious and all the other deeper implications were not lost on me in the effort: but in this case, I wasn't impressed.   I also like that this installment seems like other movies to be taking story direction and character cues from films like 2009's Watchmen.  The strong and perhaps universal selling point for me was watching the Avengers all coordinate and work together, simple as that. It would probably be easy to conclude that I didn't like the movie and that would be wrong.  I just was expecting more quality and a better pacing, not everything thrown out there at once rather heavy handed in segments.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road is a hell of a reboot to the franchise. Writer and director George Miller of the orginal shows that after nearly 35 years, he still has the goods. Starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, Fury Road is a visual treat to behold with visceral old school action devoid of the heavy use of special effects. It is also Miller's use of old school, tried and true film techniques that allow the action to really carry the story along.  As the viewers may know, it was never about the dialogue in these movies or even the acting for that matter.  But if you're lucky enough to get great actors like Hardy and Theron (looking like a young Sigourney Weaver), then it's certainly a plus that comes through. Miller utilizes the best elements of silent films and spaghetti westerns to more than measure up to his original and it appears that there will be more to come.  That's what's up.