2015 in Film Part 1

And so here we are again, we put up our Christmas decorations, we race around for that perfect holiday gift (cinema vouchers are truly the sweetest gift of all, a gift for the true believers) as well as putting together our various lists of the favorites and worst of the year now that we've seen the vast majority of the films we wanted to see this year.

Before I delve into that I want to talk about how I felt about the year as a whole and I have to say it was a pretty good year all around, not a great year but one that was more of a 3 and a half out of 5 year and it was definitely full of surprises in terms of what I thought were goals going in turning out to be out on the full or behinds and stuff I didn't think would do it for me ended up absolutely doing so.

But the one part of the year I just cannot forgive is that last quarter which had virtually no MA15 movies for me instead it was just all of these soft hearted middle of the road kiddie fare like Oddball or the Walk or Blinky Bill or the Martian or Pan or the Intern just to name as a few examples and I don't mind those sort of pictures but I am also 29 years old and I would also like some movies to allow me to reflect that and the fact that I couldn't just infuriated me frankly and I really really really hope 2016 does not repeat this incompetence but given the start of that year will be dominated by Star Wars I fear it will come around again like the hands of the clock.

This leads me to the one regret I have about 2015 in film and that for all of the success I had in terms of getting to see the films I wanted to see and the success I've been having with the Radio Station (from every indication I got from them on my recent visit was that they were very happy for me to continue next year but I'm more cynical given the changes they'll go through) there was but one film I just couldn't get to despite trying my level best to do so:

Sicario: Yup director Denis Villenueve's third film following 2014's Enemy and 2013's Prisoners was Sicario a dark action thriller starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin and concerning the drug war in Mexico and the questionable boundaries that come as a result.

Now the preview I saw for this film looked great, Blunt and Brolin are two bright talents working today and Denis doesn't mince his cinematic meat on screen, you know where his vision is but unfortunately the films cinema release here in Australia was badly handled by Roadshow Distributors as not only did it have to contend with the School Holiday movies but also with the Martian and as a result despite good word of mouth it was slaughtered and later gone within 3 weeks.

And I also can't help but feel it or Legend with Tom Hardy or Black Mass or Crimson Peak might just might have done better in cinemas if they had different release dates maybe later in October or Early November but at the same time early November would've had it either of those up against SPECTRE and the final Hunger Games so perhaps it was just a case of just sending each of them out there to die knowing that they wouldn't have a hope of success.

But that is first up for my film watching in 2016 and hopefully it will deliver the goods but I will have to wait and see.