Here are ten remarkable 2015 films that:
- Are not blockbusters
- Got completely snubbed by the Oscars
- Are nearly, if not completely, unknown to the general public
- And are extraordinarily unique creations
Each one deserves to be given at least a single viewing—far more so than a good deal of mainstream films. I highly recommend checking them out.
"Carver and his sheriff henchmen come to evict Nash in an incredibly tense and all too realistic scene. Viewers can just feel the wave of stress-inducing panic wash over Nash as Carver explains what the construction worker dreads most: being publicly evicted—in front of his neighbors—from his generational family home. While already intense, the scene hits greatness with its uniquely neutral handling of both sides. Carver is a greedy and insensitive man, yet intelligent enough to hide such feelings towards his evictors—handling the situation in an entirely realistic and professional fashion. This isn’t Snidely Whiplash evicting the Nash family, as both Carver and the sheriffs handle the situation professionally, levelheaded, and with complete rationale. Both the evictors and evictees feel all too realistically portrayed—'the bank is evicting you Mr. Nash, I’m simply their representative' Carver collectively explains. Carver is carrying out exactly what he’s paid to do, with the only apparent villainy being the inevitable enforcement of a thankless job."
"It becomes apparent how Clouds of Sils Maria is paralleling the fictional play Maloja Snake—which is named after the very cloud formations in Sils Maria. The film is separated into “parts”, fades to the next scene similar to a curtain closing, and most importantly has its characters symbolize the play’s actors. Such symbolism approaches the forefront during the line rehearsal scenes, where Valentine reads the lines of Sigrid as Maria frustratingly tries acting as Helena. These rehearsal scenes are delightfully entertaining to watch, combining surprise comedy and engaging commentary with a sense of underlining reality which nearly manifests on several occasions. Both Binoche and Stewart give terrific performances, complimenting each other’s characters, as well as the film’s plot, to a higher level of effectiveness."
"The creature is a supernatural being invisible (though not intangible) to the average human. The creature only hunts those who can see it however, humans infected with a curse by the previous carrier (through the means of sex). Once a carrier has sex, the curse is passed onto his or hers partner, causing the creature too endlessly follow its new target until caught. The creature always knows where the cursed person is, and cannot be killed through physical means (though it can be stunned); if the creature catches its target…well the resulting corpse isn’t a pretty sight. The only way to de-curse one’s self is to have sex with someone else, thereby creating a new target. Here’s the catch however: if the creature ends up killing its present target, it will begin hunting the previously cursed person, and so on and so on. This creative twist generates a unique scenario where it’s in the cursed person’s best interests to teach the newly infected about the creature and how to rid themselves of it."
"Maggie takes one of the zombie genre’s most tragic elements—the forced transformation of loved ones into cannibalistic monsters—and explores it in an effectively profound way. The film features a post-apocalyptic world where people are beginning to return to their old lives after a massive zombie outbreak. The infected have dwindled down significantly, but they still exist, one such infected biting teenager Maggie Vogel. Maggie’s father Wade finds and brings her back home from a contamination center thanks to a favor from his doctor friend Vern. Vern explains to Wade that Maggie will eventually succumb to the rapidly progressing infection in a matter of weeks, where she too will become violently cannibalistic. Vern writes a false report saying the disease is progressing slowly, giving Wade the choice to pick from one of three options when the time comes: send Maggie to quarantine (a place where all the infected—no matter what stage—are bundled together), give her a very painful lethal injection, or lastly, 'make it quick'."
"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl throws caution to the wind by making Greg and Earl cinema lovers (whether it be silent, black and white, foreign-language and/or avant-garde), to the point of directing their own short parodies based off various film titles. There’s at least 50 different jokes/references to films made before the 1980s—including, but not limited to: Citizen Kane, A Clockwork Orange, Midnight Cowboy, Apocalypse Now, Harold and Maude, Mean Streets, The 400 Blows, Dawn of the Dead, The Third Man, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, and many, many more Werner Herzog references. Even the most knowledgeable of film enthusiasts may draw blanks from the film’s vast and obscure references—yet average moviegoers needn’t worry, as Me and Earl and the Dying Girl comprises such references inside its surreal comedy; providing bizarre humor for the mainstream audience, as well as a nod of acknowledgment for its art-house viewers."
"The film tells a somewhat self-referential tale where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never existed, yet his books and films do. Here it’s the flesh and bones Dr. Watson who wrote the famous detective novels based upon his equally real colleague’s (Sherlock Holmes) detective cases—the stories all inflated to make the cases more dramatic. Set in the late 1940s, the great detective is now an elderly, frail man (93 to be exact) with an ever-growing fuzzy memory. In his late years, Holmes tries writing a non-exaggerated depiction of his final case, the very one that put an abrupt end to his detective career 30 years ago. The only problem is Holmes’ memory, which has gotten so bad he needs to write names of familiar faces on his sleeves as reminders. Roger, a young housekeeper’s son fascinated with Holmes’ stories, grows close to the detective, assisting him in trying to remember the past case."
"Slow West is an excellent western: more gripping than the Coen Brothers’ True Grit remake, and better paced than Tarantino’s previous western Django Unchained. The latter seems unexpected from a film called Slow West, but with its short run time, gripping storyline, and fascinating array of colorful characters, the film is both quick and memorable. What’s strange is the film still has time for lengthy dialogue and campfire stories, though the tales and discussions are themselves little gems. Slow West could be seen as an assembly of fascinating western short stories each around two to five minutes long, connected by one overarching journey of a naïve young gentleman named Jay. Each section conveys a piece of the Old West’s brutality, before moving without hesitancy to another event. By the end, the pieces loosely connect through Jay’s journey, which represents the flicker of light within the gritty violence."
"Spring is a strange oxymoron. In part, it’s a good, yet standard romance film featuring two actors with great chemistry. The romance follows the tropes for its genre while the actors bring enough harmony, wit, and compelling dialogue to prevent staleness. All in all, an enjoyable passing of time, yet nothing notably spectacular…yet here’s where things get bizarre for the better. Spring, additionally, has a horror factor to it: there’s blood, disturbing imagery, several animals get slaughtered, a horny young adult is gruesomely murdered, and I jumped once from a subtly effective scare. This horror element, which revolves around science fiction, is actually what takes Spring’s decently made romance, and turns it into something exceptional."
"Tangerine is the indiest of indie films I’ve ever seen! It was filmed entirely using three different IPhone 5s, making it look near identical to a home video…a well-made home-video. Don’t let its low-budget fool you, Tangerine utilizes its hand-held approach (popular with horror/thrillers) to the fullest in a new and refreshingly non-horror approach. Tangerine is in fact a buddy comedy-drama, telling the story of two transgender prostitutes Sin-Dee and Alexandra. Sin-Dee is on a rampaging search for her cheating pimp boyfriend Chester, as well as the woman he cheated with, while Alexandra spends her hours passing out flyers to customers and prostitutes about her Christmas-eve karaoke show (“It’s at 7 o’clock, 7 o’clock, 7 o’clock” she firmly repeats to several prostitutes). While the film focuses mostly on these two, it also contains a connecting side-plot involving a stressed-out taxi-driver Razmik trying to find the recently paroled Sin-Dee, all while his mother-in-law tries to prove his infidelity to her daughter. "
"Filmed in one continuous take from 4:30am-7am (taking director Sebastian Schipper three tries to do so), Victoria steadily changes from night to morning throughout its near two and a half hour run. The film’s length is understandable (given its dealing with real time), but does hit a few sluggish points around the beginning and middle. Victoria’s impressive gimmick, however, is combined with a chilling storyline that gets very intense and thoroughly engaging during its last third."
