The Hot Shots of 2015

Man, 2015 was an interesting year. From Asians on TV to Mad Max, some exciting and great things happened. Here's a look at some Hollywood people who had a rocking year.

Elizabeth Banks
I've always liked Elizabeth Banks since I first saw her in 2005's The 40 Year Old Virgin. Her comic energy and striking beauty held her out as a star from the beginning. In 2015, Banks showed her versatility as an actress in the stellar Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, and directed one of the biggest hits of summer 2015: Pitch Perfect 2. And she finished her run as Effie in the Hunger Games; her performances were so iconic, that the films used Effie much more than she appears in the novels. To be honest, Elizabeth Banks is just one of my fave people in the industry.

Ryan Coogler, and the Creed team
When I first heard about a 7th movie in the Rocky series, I groaned. Did we really need another? Well, as directed by Ryan Coogler and written by Coogler and Aaron Covington, we did. The filmmakers give the franchise adrenaline, heart and innovative filmmaking (one take fight scene!). The cast, including Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, and Tessa Thompson, is amazing. The film looks and sounds beautiful, thanks to the hard work behind the scenes. Creed is a top movie of 2015 and I'm happy to admit being wrong.

Spike Lee's CHI-RAQ is Angry, Absurd, Alive (Review)

How often do we get to see films that are truly passionate, straight from the heart? I'm not talking about just powerful stories that move filmmakers on an emotional level. I mean, films that burst with inner rage and joy, and abundant personality. How often do we get to see films that are about something not in an ironic or metaphorical way but in a direct, confrontational way?

Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Inside Man) has made a vibrant, exciting, infuriating movie Chi-Raq, and it's a film where rage and passion overflow and overcome the viewer. Based on the Ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Spike Lee co-wrote the film with Kevin Willmott (Jayhawkers). Chi-Raq stars rapper/actor Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Winning the Best Picture Oscar: Blessing or Curse?

The Academy Awards are the film industry's most prestigious awards. Movie fans such as myself spend the months of September, October, November, and December guessing the nominees. Then when the nominees are announced in January, we try to predict the winners. Everyone wants to win an Oscar, right? Well, maybe. It is an honor to be honored by your honored colleagues. But winning an Oscar puts a lot of pressure on the film. A lot of casual movie goers may only see a movie because the Oscar win is a seal of approval.

With hundreds of movies released each year, there's bound to be someone who likes a movie a lot better than the award winner. And so sometimes the Oscar win is more a curse than a blessing. For every time the Academy gets it right (12 Years a Slave, the most recent example), sometimes the public consensus is that the winner was poorly chosen. There have been a number of times when the eventual Oscar winner was a good movie that had the sorry fortune of being merely a good movie. These were films that perhaps beat out more critically acclaimed/fan appreciated works by favorite veteran directors. Ultimately, their histories are tarnished, becoming "that movie that stole the Oscar from a better movie." What I often wonder is, what does it mean to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Four Levels of Femininity in HUM AAPKE HAIN KOUN..!

On some level, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! is probably Sooraj Barjatya's best film. At least, it's the best expression of his voice and his style as a filmmaker. It redefined Indian cinema in the 1990s as the first family musical entertainer after a long period of violent crime stories reigning the box office. Love it or hate it, HAHK is one of the most iconic films in the Indian history, even making it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I watch HAHK fairly often, at least once a year. Each time I keep thinking about the themes of what Indian femininity is to these characters, how modern values intersect with that, and traditions being both appealing and unappealing.

HAHK features four levels of femininity, each represented by a young female character. Because the film revolves around a large extended family, there are certain expectations about the ladies in the family should act. How these women meet these expectations, and how they are treated in the film, is what I want to talk about in this article.