AUTOPSY: 2015

This was an unusually strong year for genre movies, filled with moments of thrilling originality, deep emotion and awe-inspiring visuals and ideas. It really was one for the books, comparable to one of those benchmark years from the early '80s that people from my generation look back on so reverently. 2015 gave us a deluge of fantastic indies and a surprising amount of top-notch blockbusters.

I narrowed this down to my top 20 (listed alphabetically) but suffice it to say that my top 5 in descending order are: Mad Max: Fury Road; The Duke of Burgundy; Bone Tomahawk; Sicario; and a tie for 5th between Ex Machina and The Nightmare. The Martian was very narrowly edged out of my top 5.

The list of movies that I haven't gotten around to that could have ended up here is just as long: Macbeth; Anguish; Love; Tales of Halloween; #Horror; Alleluia; Tangerine; Midnight Swim; The Hallow; Yakuza Apocalypse and many more.

I'm off to picturesque Kangaroo Island for a much needed break now. Cheers and all the best to my readers and I'll see you on the other side!

TOP 5:

THE REST:

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:

PREDICTIONS FOR BEST OF 2016:

ETERNAL, SHINY AND CHROME!

For the edification of all non-local War Boys and Girls: witness the unstoppable momentum of George Miller's War Rig! Fanging it through the gates of Valhalla, all mediocre schlangers in its path are annihilated!

Miller's juggernaut of art and action utterly destroyed our Academy (AACTA) Awards this week, taking home best film, director, cinematography, editing, sound, score, production design and visual fx. Aside from the fact that I love the movie, this is great news because it speaks to the maturity of the Australian Film Institute. Last year the AACTAs were dominated by three fantastic genre movies (The Babadook, Predestination and The Rover), and it's to the AFI's credit that for the second year in a row they're willing to acknowledge the importance of the oft-maligned genres of sci-fi and horror. Bravo to them, and congrats to everyone who worked on Mad Max: Fury Road. What a lovely day!