TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2015 AT THE MID-POINT

What a weird year 2015 has turned out to be for movies.  We’re halfway through the year, and I think there’s no doubt that this is going to be a second half that delivers most of the best films.  We had that incredible dry spell to begin the year that Furious 7 quenched with a jaw-dropping performance at the box office that is now being surpassed by an even bigger showing by Jurassic World.  Jurassic is already the #4 film, passing The Dark Knight this weekend and there’s little doubt in my mind it will – at least – end up at #3 passing The Avengers.  Both Furious 7 and Jurassic World are Universal Studios films, giving that studio the kind of year we thought Disney was going to have (though the mouse has done just fine with Avengers 2 and Inside Out with Star Wars yet to come).

Movie Review: The Age of Adaline (2015) *ADVANCE REVIEW*

Every now and again I get tickets to advance screenings of films, and because I’m not the New York Times, they’re usually not big films.  Let’s Be Cops was the last one….so that gives you an idea of my place in the film community review hierarchy.  The trailer for The Age of Adaline was so painful, that even with free tickets, it was a game time decision on whether I go, but I will tell you what I told the studio rep: “This movie was so much better than I ever expected from the crap trailer you released.”  I could’ve been nicer about that.

The trailer makes this film look like an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks novel (not a compliment), and what it really mostly succeeds at being is a fairy tale.  Adaline (Blake Lively) through an incredibly contrived set of circumstances that they should have probably just chalked up to magic, stops aging at the age of 29.  The rest of the film is a very grounded answer to the question: What would it really be like to never age?