What are the best films you have seen this year? Why did you like them so much?

Was desperate for a motor-head guilty pleasure thrill, so watched 'Fury Road'. It was surprisingly good. For a Mad Max movie that is.

The buzz was pretty good. I'll be on the look for its Netflix debut... I loved the second Mad Max.

"SPY" was a really funny movie with Melissa McCarthy who plays a weird frumpy CIA analyst sent into the field for the first time to find the person responsible for ambushing their top agent. I almost didn't see it but I was really glad I did.
I also loved "Ant Man" which had a great plot, good acting, humor and some interesting special affects.

I suspect that Legend might be more fun.

Interesting interpretation -- i would live it to be true and yet as a teenager he fell very much in love with that girl from the north.

Yes? I need to watch it again. Wasn't he cold and distant and "grey" in his marriage?

You gotta go see Spotlight. 10 great actors and a suspenseful plot about the Catholic church in Boston.

Saw Brooklyn last night, a sweet, old-fashioned love story set in the early 1950s. The heroine, played by Saoirse Ronan, actually is quite able to take care of herself, but there are things going on in her family that she is unaware of except that her sister has contacted a priest in NYC who arranges for the heroine to have a job and a place to live.

She is homesick and too intelligent to be happy working as a saleswoman but she meets a sweet young plumber played by discovery of the year, Emory Cohen. Cohen plays the young man as genuine, sweet, understanding, giving . . . just the boy you would want your daughter to bring home.

Great acting with Jim Broadbent as the wise and helpful priest and Julie Walters as her opinionated and somewhat tyrannical landlady. The young stars -- Ronan is only 21 and Cohen is 25 . . . have brilliant careers ahead for them.

I've been looking forward to this and the Tom Hardy vehicle about Britain's Fray brothers. Wonder which is more compelling...

One of my new favorite actors played Ronan's 'back home' love interest. The actor's name is Domhnall Gleeson. Did he make any impression?

He was a little stiff, but, I suspect it was the way the role was written. The character, Jim, had been engaged once but broke it off because he felt the girl wasn't really in love with him. It was rather a tough role to play.

Now that you've asked for more information on the film, and I am thinking about it in a different way, I see it is a bit like Far from the Madding Crowd. Both heroines are capable and intelligent, although the girl from Brooklyn, Eilis, isn't as confident or as egotistical. Both become involved with men who have struck out in love. Interestingly, both characters present their proposals more like business arrangements. They both tell the women how secure they are financially.

To be fair to Domhnall, I would have to see him in another role. I googled him and saw that he was Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley but I do not remember his character.

"Lucky Them"

A jewel of a movie. If you're 25 or older you can probably see yourself in at least one of the characters in this film. Both at your worst and your best. You can't ask for more from a movie.

I loved that it didn't have a 'Hollywood ending".

I've seen two movies since I last wrote. One is the National Theatre Live production of Jane Eyre which was fresh and imaginative. It brought out the modernity of Charlotte Bronte's thinking. Very well done. Look for the actor who plays Pilot, Rochester's dog. Great staging.

I also saw MacBeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. It opened with a scene that helped explain how Lady Mac could have been a nursing mother but who had no children. There were some imaginative touches but it was the bloodiest, most violent movie I have seen in a long time, possibly for ever. And to all the women excited about Michael: there is one long beefcake shot.

A friend suggested I watch Patrick Stewart as MacB in the Great Performances collection. It is available at pbs.org. I liked it much better.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

Based on a true story and book by the same name. In 1986, an Iranian husband plots to have his wife falsely accused of adultry. It ends just like you think it will. Hardest film to watch I've ever seen.

I saw it last week with two new friends with whom I am working on an oral history project. It is very well done with two of my fav character actors, Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci. This is one of those rare films that is able to build suspense with material that is all ready well known.

I saw the new Star Wars. I was a bit bored for about 20 minutes but then got into and saw they used Alice in Wonderland and Persephone as motifs. Looking forward to the next two.

'Railway Man'.

Based on a True story about an British POW in a Japanese camp meeting his captor many years later. Multifaceted ...

Seems we spotted the Best Picture at the Oscars pom.

Was that Revenant? I haven't followed at all..or the Star Wars one?

The Martian was fun....Star wars meh...

pom and I reviewed the upset winner Spotlight, to my surprise.