Counterpoint: Becky's Monthly Countdown for March 2015

In which Becky shares her wrong different opinion on a Filmquisition post.

With another passing month comes another contested list of the best movies that Becky and I saw during it.  And exempting movies that one of us had already seen beforehand, our lists look very much the same.  The problem is just how many movies didn't count toward one or the other's list.  Becky's top ten for March are

Chappie
Cinderella
Dragonball Z: The Tree of Might
Gone Girl
The Guest
Insurgent
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Non-Stop
Rear Window
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Chappie, Cinderella, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, Non-Stop and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel all made it onto my list for the month.  I've already shared my disappointed feelings concerning Insurgent on Unreality.  The remaining four are all movies that I'd already seen and were thus disqualified from my own list.

Dragonball Z: The Tree of Might - Despite being so non-canon it hurts, The Tree of Might is easily the best of the pre-Battle of Gods DBZ movies that I've seen.  The fighting and animation are both on par with the the series, resulting in a pretty fun way to pass a spare 60 minutes.

The problem with the movie comes in two-fold, however.  The first is that it is hopelessly non-canon, and as a result the stakes simply can't be as high as any 60 stretch of the TV series of which it's based.  I mean, who cares if Goku lives or dies here, because it will not affect his adventures on Namek and elsewhere in the slightest.  The other is that the plot, while functional in getting the fighting underway, is simply non-cohesive mess of retcons and "this would look cool" mentality.

Gone Girl - Obviously I loved this movie, seeing as how it made my top 30 list of 2014 movies.  It's an intelligent, bitingly condemnatory take on everything from media crusaders, the court of public opinion and public law enforcement that only a director as skilled as David Fincher could pull off.

What issues I did take with the film were notably subdued when I gave it another go-around with Becky.  Yes, it still drags near the end (although not as much when you realize that it's not actually wrapping up yet).  And yes, it's not as satisfying as a narrative as it probably should be (although it's more satisfying when you realize that the movie is about everything except for the plot).  And two months later, I'm still not over the fact that Rosamund Pike didn't win Best Actress.

The Guest - This is another one from my top 30 list of 2014 movies and one that I knew would be right up Becky's alley.  It's a slickly made retro-horror movie that has a lot of fun with its psychotic premise of a mentally unstable soldier looking out for his dead comrade's family in the only way that makes sense to his twisted mind.

Although it over-thinks and over-explains its core premise, The Guest is one of last year's better horror movies, mostly because of how much fun it has with itself.  Fans of highly stylized arthouse "genre" films like Drive will love the movie for its color pallet and underground soundtrack.  Fans 80s-styled horror will love its well-executed slasher motifs.  And fans of Disney will get a preview for what they can expect from their new Beast.

Insurgent - Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with the sequel to the promising (if ultimately unfulfilling) Divergent.  Its post-apocalyptic premise was sound for a half-measure of Magic: the Gathering's celebrated Ravnica setting.  Its character was a poor man's Katniss and her brother a potentially exquisite antagonist.  Even the film's promotional imagery was evocative of the much-lauded Ghost in the Shell, which lent itself a lot of promise that it sadly failed to deliver on.

The problem was that despite all of its effort, the Divergent series simply couldn't live up to The Hunger Games.  Its protagonists were obnoxious caricatures.  Its setting was a painfully obvious metaphor for a teenaged caste system.  Its underlying message was a sickly mix of "nobody understands me" and "science is evil."  There is absolutely no reason why anybody should bother with the series after this abominable entry.

Rear Window - I still can't believe that Becky somehow made it as far through life as she had without ever seeing this Hitchcockian masterpiece.  Sure, it might not be as good as Psycho, or even Rope.  Hell, other than Vertigo, it's probably my least favorite of the director's work.  But a "bad" Hitchcock movie is still a Hitchcock movie, which means that it's still a masterpiece.

For all of my talk of it being bad, there's really very little to dislike about this retro who-done-it.  Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly are absolutely sublime together.  The setting lends itself to any number of increasingly interesting mini narratives, including the plot-centered "man across the way kills his wife" scenario.  If you haven't seen this yet, please check it out.  I guarantee you that it's worth the effort.

So what was your favorite movie that you saw for the first time in March?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.