Aubrey MaloneAubrey Malone reviews the year in film
Crank of the Year Award: We should give this to Robert de Niro, who walked out on an interviewer during the year when she asked him if he ever acted on “auto pilot”. Perhaps the truth hurts. For about 10 years from the late 1970s de Niro was the best actor on the planet but since then he’s just been going through the motions with a few notable exceptions.
Best Documentary: Listen to me Marlon, which was based on the life and times of Marlon Brando. This came and went unnoticed in the Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield, Dublin. Many people didn’t even know it was showing. What kind of way is that to remember a legend?
Saddest Death: Maureen O’Hara, the ‘Queen of Technicolour’, passed away at the grand old age of 95 in November, thereby taking a little bit of “Oirland’s” golden past with her. Our first superstar, she put the Emerald Isle on the map as far as movies were concerned.
Best Film for Oldies: The French delicacy, Le Weekend. It was neither sentimental nor patronising: the two pitfalls most films about the ‘Golden Years’ fall into. There was a lovely understated performance by Lindsay Duncan, and Jim Broadbent was a riot, especially when he played Bob Dylan on his Walkman. A much-needed antidote to the Paris attacks.
Most Understated Film: A Most Violent Year, which wasn’t that at all. There was an intense sense of menace about it but it was kept under full throttle, like a constantly humming engine.
Newcomer of the Year: Alicia Vikander. It was all but impossible to take your eyes off her in A Testament of Youth. I feel we’ll be hearing much more from this lady in the years to come.
Best Mental Health Movie: Still Alice. Julianne Moore captured the heart-breaking sadness of Alzheimer’s disease without any special pleading.
Second Best Mental Health Film: Patrick’s Day. Potentially fine treatment of schizophrenia spoiled by some cavalier psychiatry and a slightly ropey ending.
Most Over-rated Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel. Yes it was good, but not as good as it thought it was. Which is always irritating.
Most Entertaining Actor of the Year: Al Pacino for his winning turns in Danny Collins and Manglehorn.
Most Annoying Actor of the Year: Al Pacino for demanding outrageous sums of money from his fans for an “audience” with him. (He has been on record as denouncing this diva practice in others in the past.)
The ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’ Gong: To The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Because that’s exactly what it was.
Most Enjoyable Piece of Hokum: Big Game. For a while you almost found yourself swallowing this nonsense. (Runner-up: Ant-Man).
Most Disappointing Animated Film: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Rarely has so much money been spent on so many special effects to such little “effect”.
Best Feelgood Flick: The Good Lie. It was surely that.
Most Promising Director: Noah Baumbach, a young man who gave us two laugh-out-loud offerings during the year in While We’re Young and the only-slightly-less-hilarious Mistress America.
Best Fairytale: Into the Woods – if only for Meryl Streep’s cameo. (How often do film critics tag those six words onto a review?)
Lookalike of the Year Award: Scott Eastwood in The Longest Ride. A dead ringer for his father, Clint. Why not play him in a biopic now?
Most Unintentionally Funny Film: San Andreas. Dwayne Johnson saves his marriage. And, er, the world.
Much Ado About Nothing Award: A Little Chaos, a film in which nothing happens over and over again.
Runner-Up to Much Ado About Nothing Award: Paper Towns. We spend two hours watching a man searching for a young girl without really understanding why he (or we) are wasting two hours of our lives searching for a young girl.
Best Foreign Film: Difficult to decide between Gente de Bien and Clouds of Sils Maria.
Most Far-Fetched Sci-fi Film: Hitman: Agent 47. Not even comic strips should have this much poetic licence.
Best Casting against Type Award: Jennifer Aniston in Cake. We’ll never look at Friends the same way again, will we?
The Year’s Most Ridiculously Fascinating Film: Gone Girl, which combined all the Grand Guignol elements of Fatal Attraction and Disclosure. It then placed them in a blender and let all hell break loose before giving us the year’s most outlandish surprise.
Most Manipulative Film: Fifty Shades of Grey, which tried to make pornography into Mills & Boon, thereby only making it more pornographic.
Best Horror Movie: It Follows. (Almost art.)
Worst Horror Movie: The Visit. (Almost farce.)
Release Me from Bondage Gong: To Daniel Craig. No matter how much money they throw at him as James Bond, I still can’t buy it.
Most Unlikely Catharsis: In Captive, serial killer David Oyelolo becomes ‘converted’ to pacifism after listening to Kate Mara reading a few pages from a book. If only…
Most Delightful Period Romp: A Royal Night Out – though the sheen was taken off it when a plagiarism charge followed in its wake.
Reality Check Award: To Colin Farrell for realising that ‘small’ films like The Lobster can be much more rewarding than ‘big’ ones like Alexander.
Best Social Issue Drama: Suffragette, a film that confirmed Carey Mulligan’s status in the front rank of actresses as she reminded us what a world without the female vote was like. No, it wasn’t quite accurate in every sociological detail but we should remember it wasn’t meant to be a historical documentary, more a personal story.
Most Disturbing War Film: Kajaki, which was a bit like going to a particularly brutal dentist.
Best Rite of Passage Performance: Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn – because it happened almost without you being aware of it.
The ‘End Justifies the Means’ Award: A toss-up between Sicario and Irrational Man. Both films led to many armchair discussions about when, if ever, violence can be condoned – a very moot topic in this dangerous world of ours.