Top30 Favorite Film Discoveries of 2015

Though I thought this was going to be my first post of the year… Bala’s trailer had to move past it. Damn it, news urgency!

Another year gone by~~~ I’m pretty please at how this list turned out. For a minute there I thought it was going to be a list of mostly Chinese/Hong Kong/Taiwanese films, like my past entries focusing mostly on Indian films I had been discovering. Turns out I diversified this past 2015!

Same rules~ No films of the last three years (’14, ’13, ’12).


30. Genius Party / Genius Party Beyond

My brain melted. Studio 4C made their catalog available, not only in Netflix US, but also across other territories [1][2][3]. That means you can also sit through their animated short anthologies. Among them, of course, Masaaki Yuasa’s trippy Happy Machine (pictured) [Trailer], but Shoji Kawamori’s Shanghai Dragon also slays, alongside Shinichiro Watanabe’s Baby Blue [Trailer]. And don’t forget the larger than thou Gala by Mahiro Maeda.

genius-party-dream-machine

29. 200 Pounds of Beauty (미녀는 괴로워)

200 Pounds of Beauty is one of those movies Kpop fans and K-film/drama aficionados are really into, so you know- always with a certain grain of salt. But I dug it~ Kim Ah-joong totally sells the role, and you know there’s some questionable plastic surgery outer-beauty-inner-beauty mumbo jumbo there, but- hey! I ate it up.

28. So Close (夕陽天使)

You had me at Zhao Wei and Shu Qi are sisters lady ninja hackers in early millennium attire. You had me at Karen Mok does her elevator attack. There’s cake, and Zhao Wei and Karen Mok had a total thing going on.

so-close-2002-zhao-wei-shi-qu-karen-mok

27. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Dame Maggie Smith gets it~

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source. You show them who can stand in their own two feet.

26. Intouchables

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

4 Responses

  1. aw man, after I ~finally~ finish my 2015 music post, I might do something like this. might. I totally need to watch So Close, as well as The Heroic Trio…
    also this might be nice after Muriel’s Wedding: ” http://the-toast.net/2014/11/07/ozten-pride-and-prejudice-for-australians/
    So glad I got Attack the Block on DVD, especially since, when I shared it with friends and family, they needed subs for the accents.
    Swanson managed to do better in talkies than some of her contemporaries, but yeah, her celebrity dimmed until Sunset Boulevard. Also nice for the Buster Keaton cameo during the “waxworks” card game…now that’s an even sadder story somewhat centered around the talkie transition. At least he got to see his best work rediscovered and re-appreciated, though.
    Have you seen “Hipsters (Stilyagi)” yet? It’s a Russian musical that’s quite long, but some sequences are really brilliant.

    • Amy says:

      I’ll look Stilyagi up :D thanks!

      And yeah, it’s kinda sad about Buster Keaton, but as I understand, his problems had more to do with his drinking, no? I read Swanson had a steady career on the radio (!!) which in itself is a lot more ironic considering people though she disappeared because of the talkies. Why have a face, when you have a voice! xD

      • re: Buster Keaton: he didn’t have as much trouble with alcohol until the combination of a messy divorce and moving from independent studio control to MGM constraints (pushing him through more sound films than he could actually take care with- along with his voice being odd for previous fans), and possibly seeing fellow silent film friends not do well (especially Fatty Arbuckle) led him to fall more on drink, and then all these factors together fed on each other for years. At least things got better for him towards the end of his life, though.

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