Carol (2015) Theater Movie

The 1. 0 Best Movies of 2. From space yarns to music epics to lesbian romances to dystopian adventures, these were my favorite movies of the year.

Because it’s hard to stop at 1. I’ve added a few honorable mentions at the bottom. And hey, if the still unseen Star Wars: The Force Awakens proves as good as we all hope, maybe we’ll make that number 1. The Martian. Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. A nerdy, technical novel becomes a nerdy, technical, gripping, funny movie in director Ridley Scott’s best work in ages.

The story of an astronaut, played by a deeply likable Matt Damon, struggling to stay alive after he’s stranded on Mars, The Martian gleefully balances humor, science, and suspense with winning moxie. Drew Goddard’s witty, buoyant script keeps the action moving at an engaging clip, while the supporting cast—including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, and Jeff Daniels—grooves perfectly as one of the best ensembles of the year. The Martian also serves as a nice bit of stumping for the space program, reminding us what marvelous ingenuity smart, dedicated people are capable of when they work together. A pure cosmic delight. Steve Jobs. Courtesy of Universal Pictures. There are two towering things working in concert in this beguiling triptych about Apple’s creative visionary: Aaron Sorkin’s whizzing, voluble script and Michael Fassbender’s dexterous, keenly realized lead performance. Director Danny Boyle adds dashes of corny sentiment here and there, but for the most part Steve Jobs is lean and propulsive, imagining the behind- the- scenes drama at three major points in Jobs’s life to create a fascinating portrait of a brilliant, tempestuous mind.

With stellar supporting work from Kate Winslet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jeff Daniels, and Seth Rogen,Steve Jobs is, like an Apple product, sleek and stylish and accessible. Here’s a good example of what could disrupt the staid biopic formula—a compelling, formalist character study that illuminates its subject’s inner workings instead of blandly running down a timeline of events. Recursive and lyrical, Steve Jobs plays like a crisp, elegant, surprising piece of music. Eden. Courtesy of TIFF/Films. We. Like. Ostensibly a chronicle of the rises and falls of an aspiring French electronic dance music D. J. Creativity, ambition, passion, and the meander and rush of time are all depicted beautifully in Eden, a film that’s alternately joyous and wistful, hopeful and resigned. Not much happens in Eden, and yet everything happens, as our hero Paul (F.

Paul hits rough spots as he grapples with failure and jealousy, but by the film’s affecting end, Eden has asserted itself as a humane, warmhearted paean to magical, possibility- filled youth, and the uncertain world that lies beyond it. Romantic Movies 2009 Logan (2017) more. The End of the Tour. Courtesy of the BFI London Film Festival.

Another film about creativity, James Ponsoldt’s gracious, empathetic recreation of journalist David Lipsky’s brief time on the road with celebrated novelist David Foster Wallace, in the winter of 1. The film, adapted masterfully from Lipsky’s compiled transcripts by Donald Margulies, finds Foster Wallace, thoroughly realized by Jason Segel in a career- best performance, inundated with obsessive praise following the publication of his seminal tome Infinite Jest, but more than a little wary of all this newfound fame and adoration. Lipsky, played with just the right amount of nervous itch by Jesse Eisenberg, is envious and intimidated, but the two eventually find an enriching rapport. As they talk and talk and talk, mulling over the writing life and pop culture and artistic identity, The End of the Tour takes on a philosophical inquiry that proves genuinely nourishing. What does it mean to be a person who thinks and feels and observes? How do we come to value or prize one person’s experiences of the world over another’s?

Ponsoldt’s happy, aching film doesn’t answer these questions, but it doesn’t need to. It’s heartening enough to have them posed at all, no less in such wise, moving fashion. Tangerine. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Shot entirely on i.

Phones and starring two non- professional actresses plucked out of obscurity, Tangerine initially appears to be a nervy indie gimmick, more stunt than substantial film. But Sean Baker’s zippy, riotous comedy, about two trans sex workers’ misadventures one crazy Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, is the real deal, loaded with comic flair and laced with an arresting poignancy. The film’s stars, hyper Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and soulful Mya Taylor, are true finds, pulling us gamely along through their seedy/charming world of pimps, johns, donut shops, and laundromats. Tangerine slows its high- heel trot at a few key moments to show us the inner yearnings, fears, and sadnesses of its varied cast of characters, creating a sense of true understanding, rather than rubbernecking voyeurism. It sets a pretty high bar for future movies about sex work, or trans issues, or the multi- culti liveliness of a city like Los Angeles. In that regard, the timing of Tangerine feels just right, a positive document for our sociopolitical era.

But with its sharp humor and sincere good nature, it’s also timeless. Oh, and it has one of the loveliest, sweetest final scenes of the year. Ex Machina. From Moviestore Collection/Rex USAHere’s a rare science- fiction film that references old classics, like Blade Runner, while inventing its own strange, haunting vernacular. Director Alex Garland’s mesmerizing, thoroughly frightening chamber piece about artificial intelligence has the smooth, polished hum of a meticulously made machine. But there’s something dark and chaotic lurking under its skin. The cast—Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Sonoya Mizuno—performs with intensity and deep focus, Isaac and Vikander in particular, as a mad scientist and his wondrous creation, lending something both alienating and undeniably alluring to this slippery story of consciousness and deception.

Credit also to Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s eerie score, each metallic fuzz and ping creating a mood of uncanny beauty and foreboding. Ex Machina is a chiller with whirring intelligence, and an uncommonly, almost scarily good directorial debut. All rights reserved. Todd Haynes’s sumptuously tailored period piece could easily have been just an affecting romantic melodrama, all pain of repression and unrequited longing.

And there is plenty of that in this transfixing film. But Haynes and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, adapting from Patricia Highsmith’s landmark lesbian novel The Price of Salt, also do a deeper, more intellectual investigation into the story of two women who fall in love in 1.

New York City. Carol is as much a picture about the vast, validating, unifying power of gay connection, the thrill and tingle and ache of seeing the same in another person, than it is about the specific romance between Rooney Mara’s quiet shopgirl and Cate Blanchett’s older, more experienced married woman. With Haynes and Nagy at the helm, Carol is a gay movie made by gay people, with all the particular intimacy that comes with that. The performances are superb, as are all the technicals, like Carter Burwell’s dreamy score, but there’s something beyond the tangible that really gives Carol its remarkable strength.

It’s rare that a film so gracefully, fluently understands something deep and innate about the lives it’s depicting, and the lives it’s speaking to. Carol can be wintry and aloof, but it is always there, close by, whispering something like, “Me, too.”3. Spotlight. Courtesy of Open Road Films. Proof that a film can flourish without a bunch of fussy technical stuff, as long as the storytelling is smart and precise, Tom Mc.

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Twelve people were killed and 70 injured. The Angry Birds Movie (2016) Theater Movie on this page. On July 16, 2015, James. The best of arts and culture news from L.A. Times columnists and critics. Read reviews and find event information for Los Angeles. Ben Brantley, Charles Isherwood and other New York Times Critics on the plays and musicals currently open in New York City.

Carthy’s. Spotlight is probably the most lo- fi movie on this list. But it still tells an extraordinary story extraordinarily well, detailing The Boston Globe’s reporting on the Archdiocese of Boston’s massive sex- abuse cover- up in a way that’s exciting, informative, infuriating, and galvanizing.

Arts & Culture News - Los Angeles Times. Matt Cooper. Nixon Library Sunday Concerts Guitarist Gregg Goodhart performs. Nixon Library, 1.

Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda. Sun., 2 p. m. Bing Theater, LACMA, 5. Wilshire Blvd., L.