Indie Focus: The best of 2015 includes ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ ‘Tangerine’ and more

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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen, and welcome to your weekly field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

As the year barrels to a close, we’ve still got some screening events and Q&As coming up. I’ll be moderating two this week, including one so big and exciting and packed with stars we had to change venues. Check here for more info as it is updated: events.latimes.com.

My colleague Rebecca Keegan and I recently hosted a series of conversations among actors, actresses and directors that will air on the Ovation TV channel starting in mid-January. For now you can see clips and read condensed versions of the Q&As for the lead actress and supporting actress panels and we’ll have more posted soon.

Nonstop movies. Movies nonstop.

Best of 2015

Tom Hardy, left, and Charlize Theron appear in a scene from “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

(Jasin Boland / Warner Bros.)

Tom Hardy, left, and Charlize Theron appear in a scene from "Mad Max: Fury Road." (Jasin Boland / Warner Bros.)

It really is that time of year, when we hit pause and look back to make some sense of the year that was. I feel lucky to publish a top 10 list that runs in Sunday Calendar. But I also always find I’ve got way more movies I’m enthusiastic about than fit on that list. So this year I went ahead and stuffed a supplemental second 10 on there as well. And I still have movies that I regret didn’t make it there either.

As I looked at this year in movies, time and again I saw depictions of a world in crisis. From “Mad Max: Fury Road” to “Creed,” to “Carol" to “Chi-Raq” to “Results,” it seemed like filmmakers were looking around with the same mix of confusion and wary hopefulness as many of us do. And, as the movies are apt to do, I found their perspectives useful in sharpening my own.

My wise and esteemed colleague Kenneth Turan also gathered his thoughts on the movie year that was, looking at the ongoing tension between emotional truth and factual actuality, between drama and reality, that he saw playing out on screen. And here’s his top 10.

Rebecca Keegan wrote powerfully on whether someday soon we’ll look back at 2015 as the tipping point year regarding awareness of issues of gender and racial diversity in Hollywood.

‘The Big Short’

Director Adam McKay’s new movie “The Big Short” is adapted from Michael Lewis’ bestselling book of the same name. McKay’s film traces the roots of the global market collapse of the late 2000s.

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Director Adam McKay's new movie "The Big Short" is adapted from Michael Lewis' bestselling book of the same name. McKay's film traces the roots of the global market collapse of the late 2000s. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

One movie I already worry I underranked on my own best-of list is “The Big Short,” on the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. I’ve been a big fan of writer-director Adam McKay for quite some time, as to me, his comedies, such as “Talladega Nights” and “Step Brothers,” said more about contemporary America than a truckload of earnest dramas. And “The Big Short” is still quite funny, but plays with a fury and air of queasy dismay that makes it tip more toward drama. At the very least, it is a movie that demands to be taken seriously.

In his review, Turan compares the film to the classic-age comedies of Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch in noting that “making an anarchic, absurdist comedy about 2008's housing market collapse and the global financial crisis that followed is as unlikely as the collapse itself. But that catastrophe happened, and that very funny movie, "The Big Short" is here to wonder at and enjoy.”

In the New York Times, A.O. Scott referred to the movie as “a true crime story and madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, 'The Big Short' will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.”

Josh Rottenberg sat down with McKay to talk about the movie. Once McKay had written the script, he said to himself: “'No one is going to let me direct this. No way.”

The Hollywood Reporter put together a nice roundtable featuring not only McKay but also the author of the original book, Michael Lewis, and the film’s stars, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale.

‘In Jackson Heights’

A still from the documentary “In Jackson Heights.”

(Zipporah Films)

A still from the documentary "In Jackson Heights." (Zipporah Films)

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is nothing short of a national treasure. Even well into his 80s, he has a level of productivity and accomplishment that would be an inspiration at any age. And he continues to make films of great insight, as with his new "In Jackson Heights."

In her review of the film in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis said: "All of creation converges in 'In Jackson Heights,' a thrilling, transporting love letter from Frederick Wiseman to New York and its multi-everything glory."

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune added: “‘In Jackson Heights’ becomes one of the truest images of gentrification and its costs on film. ... Wiseman never points to a single mood or affirmation in any of his explorations. He sees the whole of this place, and shares it.”

Wiseman spent an afternoon touring the neighborhood with the New York Times, in which he said “I like making movies. And I like making movies that meet my objective standard of good movies. And that’s my ultimate goal: to make as good a movie as I can.”

Empire Spoiler Special podcast

Director Christopher McQuarrie, left, converses with actors Tom Cruise, center, and Rebecca Ferguson on the set of the film “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.”

(Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions)

Director Christopher McQuarrie, left, converses with actors Tom Cruise, center, and Rebecca Ferguson on the set of the film "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation." (Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions)

One of my favorite movie podcasts is the Empire Spoiler Special series, which features directors talking about their movies and then usually a conversation among a few of the U.K.-based magazine’s writers.

The recent interview with Christopher McQuarrie, director and writer of this summer’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” went on for nearly three hours. (It was only scheduled for 45 minutes.) And it pretty much flies by, as the conversation is packed with information, not just on the specifics of the film, but also McQuarrie’s other collaborations with Tom Cruise, including “Jack Reacher,” “Ghost Protocol” and “Edge of Tomorrow.” There is also some real insight into the world of making movies at that scale, grappling with budgets, casting, logistics, schedules and even the upside of product placement.

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.