#them after verbally destroying each other: do you want your fries jokerized??
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Dick and Jason fighting:
Dick: youâre nothing but a scummy, worthless piece of shit! I hope you die again! You shouldâve never come back in the first place!
Jason: oh yeah?! Well youâre nothing than a big fake who doesnât deserve to be here with the family or with superheroes in general! Thereâs a reason why youâre the one Bruce took the longest to adopt! Itâs because youâre not worth it! Youâre worthless and nobody loves you!
Dick: well at least I can get my own juice box from the grocery shop! But oh no Iâm Jason Todd, the favorite child because I fucking died and I need to do everything criminally because Iâm rebelling! Get over yourself you ass no one thinks youâre cool!
Jason: and people think youâre cool?! With your fucking mullet phase and need to over sexualize yourself?! Yeah fucking sure, stop blowing this out of proportion itâs a fucking juicebox!
Dick: and youâre just a fucking failure but oh look at thatâ Bruce still loves you for some reason!
Jason: what youâre sad cuz he doesnât love you?!
Dick: and youâre sad because you never had a real mother?
*five minutes later*
Dick, in Jasonâs doorway, has done this a million times before with all his siblings: Iâm going to bat burger
Jason, was contemplating burning down Dickâs apartment, and also wanted to go ask Dick his opinion on some cargos but didnât want to be the first to cave: Iâm coming with
#they both canonically can and will rip someone to shreds for whatever reason they want#verbal abuse is their weapon đđ„°#but anyway this is more actually to do with the kinds of things that happen when me and my siblings fight than it is anything else#like weâll be fighting like crazy. about to kill each other. punching and kicking and pulling hair. then weâre laughing cuz we canât take#each otherâs side eye srsly or something. or weâll make up two minutes later when we want to order food or some shit.#dc comics#comics#batfam#robin#Jason Todd#dick Grayson#nightwing#Redhood#them after verbally destroying each other: do you want your fries jokerized??#the answerâs always yes btw. ainât none of the bat kids gonna eat fries without extra seasoning. more seasoning=more happiness.#except for Bruce and Tim those white âsalt is spicyââ ass fuckers.
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2016 Movie Year in Review
All the 2016 movies I saw, ranked from worst to best, with superlatives in the end.
Notes:Â
1. I apologize for some of these reviews being half-assed. I went a bit overboard with this and at a certain point just wanted to be done.
2. Thank you for reading this. Even if you donât read it all, just pretend that you did and tell me how great I am. I love validation.
3. If you disagree with any of my reviews, please tell me, so I can explain precisely why your taste is shit. I also welcome regular discussion.
91. Diablo â In what was a recurring theme in 2016, I saw this under-the-radar Western despite itsâ shitty reviews. I was never one to let critics influence my own opinion on something, and I figured that Scott (son of Clint) Eastwoodâs Western debut with a supporting performance from personal-fave Walton Goggins couldnât be that bad. Well, if itâs completely forgotten about and accomplishes nothing else (it already has been and it doesnât), âDiabloâ shows that even the majority of people can sometimes be totally, totally right.
This film is about a young Civil War veteran whose sexy wife gets kidnapped and he goes out on a journey to rescue her. Along the way, we start to realize that the motivations in the kidnapping and the rescue arenât so simple, etc. The premise is decent and it starts out well (with one hell of an entrance for Eastwoodâs character) but the longer the movie goes on, the exponentially faster it falls apart.
This is one of the most poorly-made and ineptly-written actual movies Iâve ever seen. Itâs kind of like an Ed Wood flick minus the schlocky charm. None of the characters in this movie act or talk like actual human beings. Itâd be surreal if it felt intentional. Iâve written better screenplays on toilet paper, and I donât mean with a pen. The dialogue is awful and often goes nowhere, the direction is confusing, guns are shot with zero recoil (a personal trigger for me, no pun intended), the acting (even from good actors like Goggins and Danny Glover) sucks, the plot twist is retarded and obvious from a minute into the movie, and Iâm willing to bet that even the catering for this film wasnât that great either.
If Scott Eastwood wants a future in Westerns (or movies in general), I would ask/bribe/intimidate everyone who saw this film to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which shouldnât be hard since so few people saw it. âDiabloâ has nice intentions, but intentions will only get you so far when everyone involved in the creative process is so inept at their job that they make Sony/Warner Bros. executives look almost competent. Itâs would all be hilarious if it wasnât so damn dull. It feels a bit mean giving my bottom spot to a tiny, independent movie with almost no release when thereâs plenty of studio-produced garbage to choose from (more on that shortly), but trust me, even in a shitty year for film like 2016, âDiabloâ deserves it.
Nice cinematography, though.
90. Suicide Squad â Iâm probably going to spoil parts of the movie here. I also probably wonât proofread this review after I finish writing it. I donât care, honestly, because just thinking about the aptly-named âSuicide Squadâ makes me lose the will to live.
I went into this film expecting it to be garbage even before the negative reviews started pouring in. When I heard that Warner Bros. were planning massive reshoots and rewrites to âmake the movie more light-heartedâ, a million red flags went up for me. Itâs one thing to add in a few additional shots or lines, but WB wanted to fundamentally alter the filmâs DNA, while still retaining much of the original footage. The result isnât so much a new film but rather two films horrifically Frankensteined together, not unlike last yearâs âFantastic Fourâ (howâs that for a comparison?) The first half is atrocious. Itâs just a series of introductions to the main cast that all feel like badly-edited music videos. EVERY. GODDMAN. SCENE in the first half of the movie has some really out-of-place popular song that is not only groan-inducing but also doesnât fit the tone of the scene in most cases. Slipknot doesnât even get one of these introductions (not that it matters much since heâs killed off about 10 minutes after we first meet him). His intro amounts to another character saying the funniest line of the movie; âThatâs Slipknot. He can climb ANYTHING.â Whoa, watch out for this bad motherfucker.
I donât know how much of this you can blame on the reshoots, but the plot is fundamentally retarded, as well. Putting aside the basic idea that the contingency plan for a rogue god-like superhero is just a small team of criminals with guns and melee weapons, only two of whom have actual powers, the story progression beats are just plain dumb. The main villain is an all-powerful witch that was supposed to be on the squad but escapes because the government was very lenient in looking after her. Upon being rescued, Viola Davisâ government higher-up kills her subordinates because they âdidnât have clearanceâ or something like that, even though it was literally their job to help her run everything. At one point, the Joker shows up, takes Harley Quinn away from the squad, only to crash and die (but not really), and she just returns a minute later. In wanting to show his trust, the soldier in charge of the Squad smashes his explosion-app phone, and allows them to leave if they want to. In the ONLY genuinely funny moment in the movie, comic relief character Captain Boomerang wordlessly gets up and leaves. In a move I will never forgive Warner Bros. for, he just returns unceremoniously a minute later (there might be a boomerang joke there, but thatâs giving the script too much credit). During the climax, the Squad has a fight with the witch, during which no one even gets hurt so it feels pretty pointless, before she says to stop and tries to coax them into joining her by making them envision and promising them their greatest desires (once again wasting the characterâs potential, Captain Boomerangâs is never shown).
The characters might have been the saving grace, but they are all handled incredibly poorly. Despite being âbad guysâ (which they verbally remind each other and the audience throughout), they are more like quirky Guardians of the Galaxy-esque heroes, spouting quips and doing the right thing even when itâs against their supposed nature. El Diablo makes sense, as heâs trying to repent for his sins, but why do the rest of them have morals? Why, during Diabloâs story about how he accidentally killed his family, does Harley Quinn un-ironically give him a âhow could you do such a monstrous thing?â reaction. What little character development any of them have feels rushed and/or forced, where by the end they are willing to sacrifice themselves for each other and calling themselves a âfamilyâ despite having only met a few hours earlier and only exchanged a few quips here and there. Where they could have made genuinely interesting characters by making the main-characters actual villainous anti-heroes who act against the government even while working for them, Warner Bros. just made them typical Marvel heroes, spouting typical Marvel quips while killing typical Marvel cannon-fodder enemies and trying to close a typical Marvel sky portal that can destroy the world or whatever it was supposed to do, except doing it all worse. It doesnât help that Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Katana, and even Joker are all useless and have literally no practical purpose for being in the plot.
How do you fuck up a movie so badly that even Will Smith canât save it? Smith is one of the few good things about this movie, basically playing his typical leading-man Will Smith persona but heâs so charismatic and likable that you canât help but feel bad for him for being in this dreck. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Margot Robbie has the potential to play a good Harley Quinn, but none of her jokes work (a combination of her delivery and the awful script) and as mentioned before, sheâs written to be way too sympathetic. Jai Courtney (Boomerang) had the career-first potential to be good here, but is barely used and what little comic relief he provides is squandered. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (who I was actually looking forward to in this movie) has only like 6 lines as Killer Croc underneath all that makeup, and all of them make him sound like a black stereotype; as a favor for accomplishing the mission at the end, he asks for BET in his cell, which is a step above asking for fried chicken and grape-drank, so at least thereâs that. The guy playing El Diablo is alright. The actors playing Col. Flagg and Katana are forgettable. Oscar-nominee Viola Davis is actually pretty bad as the government head of the squad, looking bored throughout and giving stilted line-deliveries while failing to be intimidating. Cara Delevingne (in her witch form) looks and talks like a particularly poorly-written Game of Thrones character, and is probably the least intimidating villain Iâve ever seen in a comic book movie. Ben Affleck is in the movie for like, a minute. Thatâs all there is to him.
And how can I forget Jared Letoâs performance as Joker? No seriously, how? Please tell me. He decided that playing the most famous bad guy in comic history would be to act like a Tourette-afflicted edgy teenager who rebels against his upper-class parents by shopping at Hot Topic. At least he was entertainingly cringe-worthy, unlike most of the movie, which is just the regular kind. Who knows, maybe in all that cut footage of him lies a good performance or character arc, but he seems less like a demented criminal mastermind and more like the type of person who would giggle maniacally to himself after tearing the tag off of his mattress. Also, if thereâs a word for the introduction version of an anti-climax, Jokerâs first appearance in the film is exactly that.
In summary, the acting ranges from decent to bad, the characters are weak, the writing is abysmal, the plot is nonsensical, the tone is all over the place, the music choices are head-drillingly irritating, the action scenes are dull to the point where I zoned out quite a bit during them, and all-in-all a movie that shouldâve been stylish and cool is just drab and embarrassing. I know that director David Ayer is better than this (and that he didnât even have any say in the final edit) and Iâm sure thereâs a decent cut of this film somewhere, so instead of blaming him Iâm going to blame Warner Bros., a studio that gives Sony Pictures a run for their money in terms of sheer incompetency. Theyâre in such a hurry to catch up to Marvel that they forgot to properly set up their universe and donât even have a clear vision for what they want to accomplish, story-wise. Say what you will about the MCU and how formulaic a lot of their movies are, but at least Kevin Feige has a vision for his series and makes it work. WB saw the less-than-ideal performance of âBatman v Supermanâ, panicked, and butchered Ayerâs film to try and make it appeal to as many people as possible, ultimately appealing to no one.
Hell, give Zack Snyder the reigns to the DCEU. Heâs not without his flaws, but heâs the closest thing to an auteur working in superhero films today and heâs infinitely more competent in telling a story than the hacks who edited the âSuicide Squadâ I saw in theaters. Who is the real Suicide Squad? Is it the team of âbad guysâ in the movie? Or is it the audience who is forced to endure this piece of shit? If there is justice, it will be the executives at Warner Bros. who should be forced by shareholders to commit ritualistic suicide live on The CW following âArrowâ
Or just punched in the stomach.
89. Ghostbusters â A âGhostbustersâ reboot is the most politically divisive film of 2016. Itâs things like this that make me wonder if weâve lost our way as a culture. Why people got so up in arms over the casting is beyond me. Personally, I think that anyone who condemns or praises a film solely because of the sex of its leads should be sterilized. But for months ahead of release, I saw almost nonstop articles, Tweets, and arguments about âmisogynyâ and âthe patriarchyâ and âraped childhoodsâ in regards to a silly comedy about people who hunt ghosts, and I started to wonder if it was actually a bad thing that the Chinese will soon take over the West (not that the Chinese would ever allow this film to be released, because Commies are afraid of ghosts or something like that).
It should come as no surprise to anyone with the slightest bit of rationality and foresight, however, that all this controversy would amount to nothing because the film is just a dull, unimaginative slog. I was expecting the movie to be shit because writer/director Paul Feig is a hack who never should have moved past television comedies, and Sony Pictures is a major movie studio run by a bunch of chimps with Downâs Syndrome, and apparently Iâm better at pattern recognition than most. But honestly, I canât even get worked up about âGhostbustersâ because it was just so boring. It never reached the point of being offensively bad like âSuicide Squadâ, but this movie doesnât really have anything going for it either. The lead actresses are fine, and could do well if they had some decent material to work with, but they arenât funny enough to carry a very improv-heavy feature length film by themselves. A good improvised bit can be like a nice sprinkling of cinnamon on a tasty dessert, but âGhostbustersâ felt like eating several spoonfuls of cinnamon straight from the container. This felt like a modern-day SNL sketch arduously stretched out to two hours.
The improv could have worked if the leads had actual characters to work with, but each one is given just one personality trait (Leslie Jones is scared, Kate McKinnon is koooooky, Kristen Wiig is insecure, and Melissa McCarthy isâŠthere), and they often break their trait for their banter where they constantly try to say funny things and tell jokes, making them feel like a bad college comedy-troupe instead of actual characters. Paul Feig didnât even bother with any character development; just one forced scene where the animosity between Wiig and McCarthyâs characters, thatâs forgotten within 15 minutes, is finally brought up again in the last 5. After a point, I started to feel bad for the cast. I know that McKinnon, Wiig, and McCarthy can do better than this (and have), and even Leslie Jones (who was the worst part of the trailer but is surprisingly the only likable and believable character in the film) deserves more than what sheâs given. The only somewhat funny character was the mayoral aide who privately supports the team while publically insulting and condemning them.
As with Paul Feigâs other films, the plot is thin as can be (four women team up to investigate ghosts, start their own business, and before you know it, all hell breaks loose), and it feels very disjointed, with a lot of scenes feeling like they could be put in different orders and it wouldnât make a difference. As a result, the film fails to properly ramp up in terms of stakes and motivations. There are set-ups without payoffs, and payoffs to things that were never really set up. And of course Feig canât shoot action or comedy for shit, to the point where even a gifted physical comic like McCarthy looks like sheâs lightly swinging at air in her fight scenes. He also clearly misses the R-rating heâs had so far in his feature films, where the lack of jokes is exacerbated without the crutch of swearing to lean on. Plus, as typical of a Sony Pictures movie, thereâs enough forced product placement on display to make Michael Bay blush.
The lowest points of the film are the cutesy references to the original film and cameos from the original cast, with the absolute nadir being a scene with a Bill Murray who looks like heâs wondering if itâd be faster to run away from the film set (that he was sued into being on) or to slit his own throat. This just points to a studio product that plays it so safe and close to the original that it doesnât have any identity of its own, and funnily enough, the gender-swapping of the lead roles is the only decent idea it has to differentiate itself.
As I said before, this wasnât terrible or painful to watch (possible because I was already detached very early in the movie, but still). I got two chuckles, one from Jones and one from Chris Hemsworth, and a handful of snorts here and there. The CGI, sets, and prop-design are all colorful and surprisingly solid. But the overall movie is just mediocre and a chore to sit through. I normally donât write lengthy reviews for comedies because there are only so many ways to say something isnât funny, but the 2016 âGhostbustersâ just isnât funny, and all the controversy that was brewed up (it wouldnât surprise me if Sony manufactured the hateful reactions to the trailers themselves to drum up publicity) ultimately led to another one of the same bland, cash-grab remakes that Hollywood has been pumping out for the last several years. Now I may be a sexist, chauvinistic white cis-het misogynist shitlord, but I think the movie-going public deserves better than this, even those dumb bitcâŠ[REDACTED]
88. The Neon Demon - A 16-year-old girl moves to LA to become a model, and finds quick success due to her good looks (and we know she looks good because none of the other characters, including her, ever stop mentioning it), but soon after finds herself succumbing to her own hubris and the jealousy of those around her. Thatâs literally the entire plot of the movie, minus some of the dirty specifics. Then again, you donât see a Nicholas Winding Refn for the plot. As can be expected from any of his post-Drive films, characters speak very obvious dialogue with remarkably long pauses, they stare off into the distance a lot (even when just looking into a mirror), jarring ultraviolence occurs, and pretty red-and-blue lighting abounds.
I found NWRâs particular brand of violent, brightly colored autism amusing up to a point, but after a while, it became increasingly grating. Part of that is that the movie as a whole just feels kind of pointless. Thematically itâs quite obvious; the modeling world exploits young women, and said women are also jealous, catty bitches (at least, thatâs the impression I got from Refn). But why the fuck is this movie two hours long? So much of the film is just NWR indulging in all of his trademark filming techniques at the expense of making interesting characters. Yes, there are plenty of striking visuals with their fair share of obvious symbolism, but thatâs pretty much all there is to it. Much of the movie is filmed like a modeling session or a runway show (which is probably intentional), but there comes a point where you just want to shout âYES, I GET THE GODDAMN POINT, ALREADY.â After about an hour in, I just wanted it to end and couldnât really care about what happened next. In what seemed like an attempt to rope me back in, the last 40 minutes or so is when the twisted and violent stuff starts happening, but I was less shocked and more annoyed and disgusted by what I was seeing.
The cast is alright, I suppose. The performances from Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee as the two models that become jealous of the main character are fun and biting. Keanu Reeves is surprisingly entertaining as a sleazy motel manager. As much as I hated that one particular scene with Jena Malone (youâll know it when it happens), I commend her for being so committed to her performance to actually pull that scene off. Everyone else kind of just occupies that NWR character spectrum that exists somewhere between ethereal and autistic (leaning much closer to the latter in this film).
I hate it when people say the stuff I dislike about a movie is done intentionally. Was my boredom intentional? If, however, the prospect of having Nicholas Winding Refn slowly jerking himself off in your face for two hours while maintaining unblinking eye contact with synth music playing in the background sounds like your cup of tea, then âThe Neon Demonâ will satisfy your unusually specific fetish, you weirdo.
87. Triple 9 â Have you ever seen an urban police drama? Congrats, youâve already seen âTriple 9â. Basically, there is a squad of crooked Atlanta cops who plan to rob a government building with some criminals in order to appease a mob wife (hammed-up by Kate Winslet in what could possibly be her first bad performance), and they aim to simultaneously stage the murder of a fellow cop across town so there would be little resistance during their robbery. There are ride-alongs, roughing up of suspects, lots of swearing, drug use, betrayals, etc. Pretty much every âgrittyâ urban crime movie clichĂ© since the â90s is in this film, and very little of it is interesting. The movie only really comes alive during its action sequences. The opening bank robbery and mid-film raid especially are expertly crafted and are genuinely exciting. However, they (and a wonderful little cameo from Michael K. Williams) are the filmâs only highlights, and the only other thing âTriple 9â is noteworthy for is having such a talented cast and wasting them on such been-there-done-that material. Itâs not an ordeal to get through; it holds your attention and itâs thankfully not as edgy as I feared, but between the dull plot, lame dialogue, and unlikable, two-dimensional characters, âTriple 9â is more of a Single 5 (out of 10).
86. The Invitation â A man named Will, who looks like a cross between Jesus and Tom Hardy, brings his new girlfriend to a dinner party set up by his long-estranged ex-wife and her new husband. Things start to get weird when they begin talking a lot about a spirituality group theyâre a part of, and Willâs paranoia over their strange behavior is made worse when all of his friends seem to accept it with no problem. I went into watching this movie with little to no expectations, and those expectations were steadily raised by the performances and direction, and it all got pissed away at the end. For a while, it seemed like a really good drama with a genuinely interesting exploration of grief, but without spoiling anything, in the third act it became the EXACT movie I was really hoping it wouldnât become. Iâm sure most people wonât have the problem with this movie that I did, and the good actors and Karyn Kusamaâs strong directing (she expertly builds tension and creates a great sense of space) keep it going for the most part, even despite how dumb and illogical a lot of the characters are. But I was just so disappointed by the schlock it became that it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Accept this âInvitationâ if you want, but Iâm staying home instead.
85. Swiss Army Man â Look, I give it points for originality, but this was never going to be my kind of movie. Itâs the kind of premise and cast (Paul Dano uses Daniel Radcliffeâs magical farting corpse to get back to civilization while learning about life) that seemed destined to be âbabyâs first high-concept indie filmâ. I saw it because I wanted to give it a chance anyway, and while itâs not without its merits (a good deal of creativity, two committed performances, and plenty of visual flair), the endless grossout humor, montages, and really ham-fisted explanation of themes and character development wore me down to the point where I just didnât care by the end. I would have liked for the movie to have a more straight-faced approach to the situation, which I think would have underlined the absurd humor present. Instead, we have the kind of ironic whimsy one would get if they saw a bunch of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry films and completely missed the point. I also would have liked a darker and more realistic ending, one that would actually feel like a culmination of the themes of loneliness and isolation the movie wouldnât shut the fuck up about. As you might have guessed, the tone is all over the place, too.
If you like this movie, thatâs fine. But âSwiss Army Manâ is certainly not 2deep4me, and if there is any point I missed in watching it, I donât care enough to re-watch it. Someone told me that a lot the things I found annoying about this film are intentional. Well, intentionally annoying is still. Fucking. Annoying.
84. Elvis & Nixon â The premise for this movie is really neat. On a December morning in 1970, Elvis Presley strolls up to the White House to request an emergency meeting with Richard Nixon and convince the President to swear him in as an undercover agent, leading to one of the most famous photos in U.S. history. The execution: not so great. The main problem is that the actual meeting is only the last 15-or-so minutes of the movie. The lead-up involves Elvis and his managerâs efforts to actually set up the meeting with Nixonâs staff, while Nixon is hesitant about allowing it. There is way too much stuff about the manager and his family, and Nixonâs staff. Itâs not a lot of screentime, but itâs stuff/people you donât care about in the slightest and is too much by definition (no offense to Colin Hanks, but he should really stick to TV). A lot of this stuff could have been replaced by more Elvis/Nixon, or just cut out entirely, since even at 87 minutes, the filmâs length is stretched out.
Luckily, the movie is saved by the outstanding talents playing the titular characters. Michael Shannon as the King and Kevin Spacey as Tricky Dick are so good that they go beyond mere caricatures and actually feel like they embody the historical figures, even if the material is rather light. Much of the movieâs focus is on Shannonâs Elvis, and he easily holds the film together, even though you wish there was more of Nixon. The meeting between the two is of course the highlight of the movie, a wonderful stranger-than-fiction moment of history that would have made a pretty good short film. Hereâs hoping for an exploitation-style sequel where they team up to fight evil drug fiends, because they deserve a movie as fun and unique as they are.
83. The Little Prince â Full confession: I wrote this review a couple of months after actually seeing âThe Little Princeâ on Netflix and I barely remember anything about it. I remember thinking it was a nice little animated film with a nice message about not forgetting your childhood spirit and imagination and sense of wonder as you grow up. I remember thinking that the CGI animation was nothing special (it was animated in France with a modest budget, so I wonât complain), but the stop-motion sequences were pretty impressive. I remember chuckling a few times and getting the feels once or twice.
Itâs alright, from what I recall, so check it out if you like. Iâm sorry if youâre a big fan of âThe Little Princeâ and were hoping for a more in-depth and detailed review, but I genuinely had a hard time remembering stuff about this film, which (considering the filmâs message and key themes) is pretty ironic.
82. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back â I was going to make a superlative at the end of this list for âmost genericâ, but I realized nothing came close to this Tom Cruise action thriller. This movie is so relentlessly generic that it almost feels intentional, like a satire of one of those mediocre 90âs thrillers that are shown endlessly on cable, probably as a double-feature with âU.S. Marshalsâ. Tom Cruise has never made a bad movie, but this is easily one of his worst ones. Typical conspiracy thriller plot from the type of shitty airport-bookstore paperback novels that boring middle-aged people enjoy (and that these movies are adapted from). Noteworthy only for the scenes with Cruiseâs maybe-daughter and their dynamic, something that feels like itâs from a different movie altogether but funnily enough is the only stuff that actually works. Not terrible in any way, but this is something for a lazy Sunday afternoon or to have on in the background while you do something more interesting like ironing your clothes or vacuuming dog hair from underneath the sofa.
81. Gods of Egypt â Who would have thought that a silly fantasy movie about ancient Egyptian deities would be such a beacon for controversy the way it was prior to release? (The controversy was swiftly forgotten about, as it usually happens). Donât get me wrong, whitewashing is certainly an issue in Hollywood, but in a film where 10-foot-tall, golden-blooded gods rule over a flat Earth consisting entirely of Egypt while Ra, the God of the Sun, rides around in a magic spaceship taking potshots at a giant space worm all day, complaining about historical inaccuracy is a bit silly. Regardless of what ancient Egyptians actually looked like, any attempt at historical realism would just be jarring and out-of-place here.
Gerard Butler and Chadwick Boseman hamming it up as the evil Set and smarmy Thoth are fun, as is Geoffrey Rush as Ra. Shame that the rest of the cast is as dull and forgettable as they are. The CGI quality is in the halfway-point between âgoodâ and âSyfy movie-tierâ. Itâs not exactly convincing, but itâs pretty and colorful enough that you donât need too much suspension of disbelief. Tonally and stylistically, the movie harkens back to those cheesy low-budget fantasy films from the 80âs (if not in budget and star-power). I particularly love how the human girl love interest is portrayed as an innocent girl-next-door-y type, but her massive, barely-contained rack is prominent in almost every frame sheâs on screen.
The only major detrimental flaw (and itâs kind of a big one) is that âGods of Egyptâ feels about 20-30 minutes too long. It just doesnât have the narrative strength or filmmaking energy to sustain itsâ running time. If it was edited down (particularly the parts with the young, discount-Orlando Bloom main human character), itâd be a reasonably fun movie. Still, I appreciated âGods of Egyptâ for its goofily-sincere throwback spirit, and nothing about it was painful to watch. Not god-like, but not god-awful either.
80. High-Rise â Itâs difficult for me to review a film like âHigh-Riseâ, because while thereâs a great deal I admire about the film, the overall experience just felt hollow and repetitive to me. Itâs about a young doctor who moves into a fancy 1970âs London high-rise, a self-sustained building with many luxuries intended to provide equal quality of housing to all its inhabitants, where mounting tensions between tensions between the upper and lower floors eventually give way to literal class warfare (subtle). While the first half of the movie is engaging, as the doctor maneuvers through all the social groups and meets a lot of the residents, the second half where the actual fighting starts lost me pretty quickly. None of the characters behave like normal human beings, which makes it hard to be invested in their conflict. While thereâs some maintenance issues and disrespect in the building, itâs not clear why they all descend into savagery so quickly. I guess itâs something weâre just supposed to accept (human nature, man), but I feel like a more prolonged slide into chaos would have helped the movie, especially since the second half is just repetitive âone side does bad shit to the other, while the doctor tries to stay out of itâ nonsense.
While I donât buy any of the characters, the cast is strong and they play these caricatures with great conviction. I actually love the aesthetics of the movie; the set design, lighting, camerawork, etc. all being very striking and creative. Director Ben Wheatleyâs talent here is evident, even if I stopped caring about the material after a while. I get that this movie is intended to be satire, so a lot of my complaints about the movie could be something that someone else would enjoy because it was all intentional, man. Maybe youâll get more out of it than I did, but to me it was just a pretty and well-acted slog.
79. Lion
White saviors
Inspirational piano-heavy music the occasionally remembers to throw in some foreign flavor
A cute kid
A solid performance from a minority actor (Dev Patel)
A former Oscar winner who cries a bunch (Nicole Kidman)
A well-intentioned but kind of condescending depiction of another culture
Over-reliance on fish-out-of-water humor
Really obvious plot beats and recurring elements
An attempt to depict ârealismâ in poverty but watering it down for a PG-13 rating,
A happy/emotional ending
âBased on a true storyâ
Ending text that not only says what happened to the real-life figures with photos and video, but also includes a statistic about missing children in India and how this film is helping to fix the problem while a pop song by Sia plays.
I know this was based on a true story, but itâs like the fucking Academy themselves made this movie.
78. Independence Day: Resurgence â Roland Emmerich is like a more boring Michael Bay. Many of his films are little more than special effects showcases, dragged down by stock characters and awful writing. Oftentimes, the stupidity on display in a Roland Emmerich movie goes past the point of fun and becomes downright insulting to the audience. Charitably put, the manâs kind of a hack., but even a broken hack is right twice a career (sort of). The first time was 1996âs âIndependence Dayâ, one of the most famous movies of the 90âs and a fun piece of cheese in its own right. The second time was 2016âs long-awaited (by nobody) âIndependence Day: Resurgenceâ*. I donât wish to imply that âRevengeanceâ is high-art or anything, but if youâre in the right frame of mind, itâs a simple and comfortably enjoyable flick.
A big part of that is that itâs never insultingly stupid. Itâs not smart or anything, but it goes about its business without giving anyone a headache. The characters arenât deep, but theyâre likable enough for the audience to enjoy following them and for possibly the first time in Emmerichâs career, theyâre not irritating. âRevolutionsâ is sincere in its goal to entertain, and displays enough self-awareness to get the audience to relax, like when Jeff Goldblum cheekily comments âThey like to get the landmarksâ during the filmâs main destruction sequence. Thereâs also some hilariously goofy dialogue like âThe ship will touch down over the Atlantic.â --> âWhich part?â --> âALL of it.â Thereâs a little bit of Chinese pandering (including that juice-box filled with milk or some shit that I keep seeing in these movies), but not enough to annoy, and weirdly it suits the theme of different nationalities banding together.
The cast is fine, but really nothing special. Goldblum is enjoyable because he seems constantly aware of the kind of schlock heâs in, but âRegurgitationâ is sorely missing Will Smith, who is more charismatic than all the new cast members combined. When Bill Pullman is giving the best performance, your film isnât going to win any acting awards. One other thing that I personally really missed was David Arnold, whose score for the 1996 film is one of my favorite film scores of that decade, and the only time the soundtrack for this one comes alive is when it occasionally reprises his majestic themes.
In summary, if youâre looking for something original or high-brow, look elsewhere, but if you just want to kill a few hours and seeing a diverse** group of attractive, multinational humans band together to fight aliens warms your heart a little bit in these cynical times, then âIndependence Day: Redemptionâ will scratch that particular itch.
* I also admit to enjoying âWhite House Downâ
**by diverse I mean black, white, Chinese, and Jeff Goldblum.
77. X-Men: Apocalypse - There's a bit in "X-Men: Apocalypse" where the younger characters go see "Return of the Jedi" and one of them comments on how the third movie of the trilogy is always the worst.
How prophetic that line turned out to be.
Not that X-Men: Apocalypse is a bad movie, but itâs definitely closer to Brett Ratnerâs âX-Men: The Last Standâ than it is to Bryan Singerâs previously strong entries in the franchise. This is definitely one of those âyou take the good with the badâ situations. This is a really inconsistent (tonally and otherwise) movie, so instead of writing a repetitive âthis is good, but this isnâtâ review, Iâll just list off the positives and negatives and leave it up to you to decide if itâs worth watching or not. This will include some spoilers, but youâre not missing much and the canon in these movies is a complete mess anyway. Iâll say that I was entertained, sometimes genuinely and sometimes ironically, for most of the film, so take that how you will.
The Good:
Evan Petersâ Quicksilver, who steals the second X-Men movie in a row
The Quicksilver mansion scene
Nice visuals
Good soundtrack
The early scenes in Poland
The Wolverine cameo
The Bad:
Nightcrawler being wasted despite being one of the best parts of Singerâs âX2â
Jennifer Lawrence is clearly phoning it in
The film does nothing fun with the 1980s setting
Oscar Isaac is wasted on a generic âIâm going to destroy the world and only the strong shall remainâ villain.
Storm joins Apocalypseâs gang for like no reason, then switches sides pretty abruptly during the climax
Olivia Munnâs Psylocke has like, one or two lines the whole movie
For the third movie in a row, Magneto becomes the bad guy because heâs Magneto
For the third movie in a row, Professor X gives Magneto the âYou donât have to do this, there is still good in youâ speech.
I know itâs the key theme of the franchise, but to hear these characters complain about mutant rights and discrimination is getting tiring after so many movies
Itâs two-and-a-half hours long
The Funny:
Nightcrawlerâs makeup
Everyone in the movie keeps saying how important Mystique is when this is the most useless and unnecessary her character has ever been.
After killing like, millions of people during the climax, they just let Magneto go, with Professor X telling him âIâll see you around, old friendâ
The characters are 20 years older than they were in âX-Men: First Classâ, but all still look like theyâre in their 20s or early 30âs.
That scene where Professor X beats up Apocalypse in his mind
Coca-Cola product placement
Magneto destroying Auschwitz
76. The Finest Hours â âThe Finest Hoursâ is a period disaster/rescue drama about a small 1950âs Cape Cod Coast Guard teamâs attempts to rescue the crew of an oil tanker after their ship gets Titanicâd by a major storm, and itâs as old-fashioned a movie as it gets, even to a fault. Itâs a refreshingly straightforward film. I liked the community/teamwork-focused buildup, as we get to know Chris Pineâs Coast Guardsman, his love interest, and the crew of the ship before the disaster hits. I liked the scenes on the water the most, the experience of them struggling to clear the huge waves during the heavy weather is actually pretty harrowing. I liked the warm tone and the understated heroism.
Thereâs really not much to this film. I feel like itâs a bit too safe and predictable and not as white-knuckle exciting as Iâd hoped. I wasnât a fan of how the movie kept cutting back to the generic worries of the people on the shore, and the only things in this film thicker than the nostalgia ah the faahkin New England ahhccents. Still, I enjoyed it. Itâs not a first-rate vessel, but it stays afloat.
75. Warcraft â Iâll start this by saying that Iâm not a Warcraft fan and have never played any of the games. With that out of the wayâŠ
"Warcraft" is the nerdiest movie I think I've ever seen. It was so geeky, I felt like watching and enjoying it gave me my virginity back. This movie was made for Warcraft fans and literally nobody else (maybe the Chinese, but they're an easy-to-please bunch).
I actually really admire that. In an age where almost all blockbusters are watered-down, homogenized garbage made by people who seek maximum profit by catering to the largest possible demographic, seeing Universal Pictures take such a risk and sinking $160 million (plus marketing) into a film so niche and nerdy warms my heart. A movie that tries to please everybody pleases nobody in particular, and I'm happy for the Warcraft nerds for having their own cinematic moment.
The movie itself is kind of a mess, however. Even putting aside the stuff you probably need to be a WC fan to understand, the pacing is wonky, the script is weak, most of the human cast is bland, the editing sucks, and it ends very anticlimactically. While Duncan Jones (who is the main reason I saw this movie) pulls off some impressive visuals and great moments, the movie for the most part lacks the epic feel youâd expect in a big-budget fantasy movie. I was able to follow the basic story, but I was definitely lost at times, and remembered like, 3 or 4 of the charactersâ names by the time the movie ended.
âWarcraftâ certainly has its positives, however. While most of the human cast is underwritten or boring, Travis Fimmel and Ben Foster are both quite good in their roles, easily standing out from their cardboard cut-out castmates. The orcs won the lottery on their actors, all of whom play the orcs with such conviction that they feel more believable than most of their human counterparts. Even the writing was better during the orc scenes, weirdly. Speaking of believable, the special effects on display are fantastic. Between the amazing-looking orcs, the magic effects and the scenery, the CG artists have definitely earned their paychecks on this one. The battle scenes were fun, and (THANK GOD) shot clearly without using shaky-cam or fast editing, those two errant turds on the delicious pie of most action films. Itâs also nice to see a movie that seems like it was created out of love and affection by people who actually care for the franchise, and who donât feel the need to make it ironic or quippy.
While I mentioned that the writing is weak (most characters are frustratingly undeveloped and there are lots of important-sounding proper nouns that left me scratching my head), I see plenty of room for improvement, and with more refinement and focus, I can see a great sequel arising from this. I genuinely hope this franchise continues, because even though itâs not my thing and certainly not without its weaknesses, I enjoyed it for the most part and it feels like such a refreshing medicine to the disease of bland, corporate modern blockbusters that I donât mind the odd taste or that the spoon is made from frozen fanboy wank.
74. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows â I admit to being one of the few people that liked the Michael Bay-produced 2014 TMNT reboot, so I was also one of the few people looking forward to this yearâs generically-subtitled sequel. Iâm happy to say that as incremental as it may be, OOTS is a definite improvement. It feels less like the factory-assembled reboot typical of Hollywood attempts to cash in on nostalgic properties, and feels more in line with the original cartoon series. No longer is charisma-vacuum Megan Fox the main character; she is relegated to supporting duties, and the turtles (still enthusiastically played by their mo-cap actors) take center stage. This movie does the typical sequel thing where it includes more villains than the first, but all of them (besides Shredder, who is little more than a cameo) are surprisingly entertaining and never outstay their welcome. Tyler Perry is delightful as a mad scientist, as are the two guys who play man-beasts Bebop and Rocksteady. âArrowâ star Stephen Amell is clearly having a blast as vigilante Casey Jones. The action sequences are creative and fun to watch.
Thereâs plenty of product placement, but the Turtles have always been whores designed to sell merchandise, so it doesnât feel out of place. I miss Brian Tylerâs bombastic music from the first film, the score here by Steve Jablonsky being much more generic and forgettable. The few attempts at character development are trite and unnecessary. The writing is still kinda crappy, and thereâs a bit too much juvenile humor. I suppose my biggest complaint is that while the filmmaking is competent, it really lacks the sort of energy and inspiration to take it to the next level. Almost all the elements for a genuinely good Turtles movie are here; it just needs someone to put it all together into something thatâs more than the sum of its parts, and not the dude who directed âEarth to Echoâ (Iâd heard of it either).
73. Zootopia â Nice animation, great attention to detail and some good visual gags (the population-counter on the rabbit farm, the wolf cop going undercover, etc.). Highlight of the film was the opening school-play scene. Nice message for the kids about how prejudices can lead even the most well-intentioned of people astray. Plot goes through the familiar beats of a Disney film, except for a pretty retarded third-act heel turn that I wonât spoil, but it would make more sense and have more story impact if the character didnât feel so minor, and if it wasnât so last-minute in the movie. âFrozenâ was dull as shit, but at least the scene where HANS BETRAYS ANNA (spoiler warning) was pretty hilarious because of how well-timed and out of nowhere it was. The âgrown-upâ references (Godfather, Breaking Bad, etc.) feel pretty forced, mainly due to them just being references and not actual jokes. Overall, itâs a decent, well-made, and occasionally funny film (âI mean, I am just a dumb bunny, but we are good at multiplyingâ), but the overly-formulaic and predictable plot signifies that Disneyâs lack of creative ambition is still there. Also, the sloth scene might have been funny if I hadnât already seen it in the trailer. Itâs definitely not one of those scenes thatâs funny more than once.
Recommended for kids, furries, and those who love animal puns.
72. Hush â A deaf-mute writer is terrorized in her home by a psychopath intent on killing her. A nice premise with a refreshing twist on the tired home invasion genre, and the movie is a brisk 81 minutes. However, I feel like it should have been shorter, and it was only so long because the villain was so unbelievably stupid. At multiple points he could have entered her home and killed her pretty easily, but the plot dictates that she needs to think of ways to survive and outsmart him, so heâs just written as a crazy and evil idiot who wants to toy with his prey. I imagine most people would be fine with it, but his behavior became more annoying than scary after a while.
Making the film watchable is the solid directing and cinematography, along with writer/star Kate Siegel who makes for a very sympathetic and likable protagonist. We both wince and feel for her character when she gets hurt, as she sobs quietly but canât audibly cry. Her performance is so convincing that I was genuinely surprised to find out that sheâs not actually deaf in real life. The movie is decent and worth watching if you like horror-thrillers, and it shows than Blumhouse can still produce the occasional, not-garbage horror film.
71. War Dogs - I wasnât a fan of the âHangoverâ trilogy, even if the third entry was an admirably bold middle-finger to all of its established fans, but I saw talent in Todd Phillipsâ direction which made me somewhat look forward to his next endeavor. Based on a true story, Miles Teller and Jonah Hill play two 20-something Miami dudes who get into the world of gun-running and happen upon a major but shady deal with the U.S. government. Basically, âLord of Warâ for the new generation. However, where âLord of Warâ was, despite itsâ wry sense of humor, a pretty dramatic and searing look at the arms trade and the U.S. governmentâs involvement with it. âWar Dogsâ, meanwhile, feels more like a lightweight âWolf of Wall Streetâ-esque rise-and-fall story of two friends and businessmen that, despite the constant references to the Bush administration, feels like only a passing criticism of the government. The key problem with the movie is how been-there-done-that it is. Even if you know nothing about the real-world story that inspired it, all the dramatic beats and character progressions are thoroughly predictable, and watching it I felt like Iâve seen this movie a hundred times already. It even opens with a variation of that freeze-frame âYouâre probably wondering how I got in this situationâ clichĂ©. Itâs not bad. Itâs solid in pretty much every aspect. The directing by Phillips (I like a visual gag where a character sees approaching Iraqi insurgents in his truckâs side mirror, then the camera pans down to âObjects in mirror are closer than they appearâ), the writing, the acting (with a noteworthy turn by Jonah Hill). Itâs all fine. But the movieâs crippling lack of ambition means that by the end of the year, itâll probably be completely forgotten about. Iâm writing this review two days after having seen it and Iâm genuinely having trouble remembering things about it. To put it in a hack-y movie critic kind of way; âWar Dogsâ is a gun that doesnât malfunction, but never hits the bulls-eye either.
70. Jason Bourne â If the Bourne films popularized the âgritty espionage thrillerâ genre, 2016âs âJason Bourneâ feels like a generic knockoff made while the trend was hot, except itâs several years later and no one really cares. Still, I was looking forward to the film, because there are so few good action movies coming out these days and Paul Greengrass is at least a pretty strong director. I will always slightly resent Greengrass for popularizing the shaky-cam, fast-editing style of action filmmaking, but I admit he does it better than pretty much everyone, and it actually suits Bourneâs gritty, improvisational nature. Thereâs an early chase set during a riot in Athens and a climactic chase in Las Vegas that feel as urgent and intense as any action scenes Iâve seen in a while. Still, you wish the guy would invest in a tripod or something. Itâs nice that Greengrass doesnât discriminate, but exclusively hiring camera operators with Parkinsonâs does make the end product a bit hard to follow, visually.
The plot is some hokum about the CIA trying to knock off a billionaire social media tech guru because he wonât let them use his product to spy on everyone, and somehow Jason Bourne is brought out of exile/retirement because of EVEN MORE buried secrets about his past. Itâs pretty generic stuff that tries to be timely but comes across as trying too hard. Damonâs a compelling lead, and heâs given a decent villainous counterpart in Vincent Cassel, but itâs hard to be involved in the material. I was also disappointed by the lack of character development for Julia Stilesâ returning Nicky Parsons. Some insight into why she came out of hiding to give Bourne information would have been nice. The rest of the cast is unmemorable; Tommy Lee Jones in particular looks like heâs counting down the seconds until he stops shooting and can cash in his check.
You can tell that this is a tacked-on cash-grab sequel. They couldnât even bother thinking of a proper Bourne title (The Bourne Resurgence, maybe?), and while Damon and Greengrass are definitely not half-assing it, you can tell their hearts arenât really in this. Their workmanlike approach and their undeniable talent, however, does mean that Jason Bourne is an enjoyable thriller, and youâll at least get a great pair of action scenes out of it. Still, what the hell were they thinking, making a Bourne film without Jeremy Renner?
69. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - There is perhaps no bigger red flag to me for a major blockbuster movie than hearing about âextensive reshootsâ. Putting aside the lessons weâve learned from âFantastic 4â and âSuicide Squadâ, the main problem with these kinds of reshoots is that it speaks to the studio not having enough confidence in the directorâs vision, and more in the opinions of test audiences. I know that reshoots are commonplace in the film industry, but when they announced that âRogue Oneâ would have several weeks of reshoots that werenât even headed by director Gareth Edwards, my heart sank a bit.
Now, I donât mean to compare this to the previously mentioned comic-book dumpster fires, but the fact that âRogue Oneâ is just âkinda goodâ makes it pretty disappointing for me. Before some of you nerds ask; no, I didnât watch this film with the sole purpose of criticizing it and ruining the Star Wars circlejerk. I was really looking forward to it when I heard that Gareth Edwards would direct, because his recent âGodzillaâ reboot was fucking awesome and easily one of the best blockbusters of recent years, and I had hoped that âRogue Oneâ would mark an effort in taking this unkillable franchise to bold, new directions. Itâs not like doing so would even be considered risky; âStar Warsâ fans would literally pay money to eat dogshit if they were told itâd be canon or if the actor who played Wedge Antilles told them to do it.
But thereâs the problem. Despite some differences in approach to the main saga, âRogue Oneâ is as safe as they come. Sure, thereâs no opening crawl and the visuals are grittier than usual, but in terms of dialogue, storytelling, style of music, etc., itâs still very much a Star Wars movie. I do like how the movie takes itself fairly seriously and is bereft of the typical cringe-worthy Disneyquips©, but it kind of lacks the passion and inspiration that made so many people fall in love with the original trilogy.
Michael Giacchinoâs score does the job, but isnât all that memorable. He happily mimics John Williamsâ style, but doesnât display the sense of flair or majesty that made Williamsâ music for this series so famous. Itâs a shame weâll never get to hear original composer Alexandre Desplatâs work for this film (he couldnât do the score due to rescheduling around the reshoots).
The cast is a major case of âtalented actors let down by a weak script and thin charactersâ. Try doing the Plinkett thing and describe the charactersâ personalities, without talking about their role in the plot or their motivations, and ask yourself if any of them sound interesting. The main character Jyn Erso is especially disappointing, since what initially seems like a personal quest to find her father turns into her just selflessly becoming a noble rebel hero. Thereâs kind of an arc, sure, but itâs seriously missing any real drama to make the arc meaningful. This is especially bad during the slow and plodding first two acts of the film, which are rather unengaging and even boring at times.
The only somewhat amusing characters are the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), the blind kung-fu former Jedi (Donnie Yen), and the Death Star director (Ben Mendelsohn). The droid is pretty much the only source of humor in the film, and he feels welcome because he doesnât feel over-the-top (heâs a kind of cross between C3PO and HK-47). Donnie Yen is an insanely charismatic actor, and he makes his character interesting enough that he can overcome the writing. Ben Mendelsohn makes for an entertaining and slimy villain, but heâs let down by the script and the constraints of the canon more than anyone. Mendelsohnâs naturally villainous performance is wasted due to his characterâs frequent emasculation at the hands of old franchise baddies Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader.
And therein lies the crux of the matter, both that of the film and of Disney; they focus less on building the future or telling new, memorable stories in lieu of milking the past for all itâs worth. This is best exemplified by Disneyâs decision to reintroduce a pair of ANH characters using their creepy, uncanny-valley CGI technology and body doubles. They did this in a few Marvel movies to have actors play younger versions of themselves, but here they use it to bring a dead actor (Peter Cushing as Tarkin) back to life, and itâs quite morbid and uncomfortable when you think about it. They literally bought a dead manâs likeness from his estate to milk it for nostalgia bucks. Is that where we are as a society where weâre totally cool with something like this? Wouldnât it be much more natural (and cheaper) to just recast the old characters? You know, with human beings and whatnot?
Donât get me wrong. As an action-space-fantasy movie, âRogue Oneâ works well enough. I mentioned previously that the first two acts are meh, despite some good moments (like the Death Starâs demonstration on a desert city, and the whole opening scene). Most of the movie was characters traveling from one colorless location to the next, getting into a scuffle with the Empire, then escaping. Itâs in the third act where the movie really kicks into gear. The stakes are raised, things feel more urgent, and the bland locations are swapped for a beautiful tropical beach setting with an Empire base on it. Itâs basically one large action sequence, but it works. Edwards again uses his excellent sense of scale and visual prowess to make the battle feel epic and exciting. As someone who isnât a big Star Wars fan, itâs easily the best 30-40 minutes in any of the movies for me.
However, while âRogue Oneâ gives an admirable effort in being its own thing, it canât help but keep calling back to the original trilogy just to please its established fanbase. I donât blame all of the filmâs flaws on the reshoots. Thereâs no obvious difference between original and new footage like a crappy wig or awful, forced humor. And who knows, maybe the reshoots actually made the film better. But at the end, âRogue Oneâ feels like it doesnât want to be a Star Wars movie but is forced to be one (pun intended) by its strict parents. So often the characters go on about âhopeâ, as if they are seeking HOPE of a NEW variety. It may be like poetry (it rhymes), but after a point it becomes less poetry and more beating you over the head with a rhyming dictionary. For future installments, letâs cross our fingers for a little less âhopeâ and a little more ânewâ.
68. Passengers â Betrays Chris Prattâs best movie performance to date, an excellent first act, and its own interesting (and pretty disturbing) premise by watering it down with schmaltzy Hollywood romance, unnecessary action, and a cancer-inducing end-credits Imagine Dragons song. I could write an entire essay on why the movieâs specific approach to its story is deeply uncomfortable. Iâm also pretty much over Jennifer Lawrence at this point.
67. Three â Intriguing and unique chamber piece, but its comical elements and over-the-top melodrama feel out of place, and the final shootout feels like style just for styleâs sake, which makes it oddly boring. Watchable, but a massive step down for Johnnie To after his excellent âDrug Warâ.
66. Captain Fantastic â Soulful performance from Viggo Mortensen and the occasional touching and insightful moment help buoy this portrayal of family and unconventional parenting whose biggest flaw is having a script and viewpoint thatâs too smug and proud of itself for its own good, which makes most of the emotional moments feel cheap and unearned. Wes Anderson could have made a great movie out of this.
65. The Edge of Seventeen â Overcomes (just barely) the unlikability of its main character, the annoying way characters always describe what theyâre going through, and its own sheer predictability with good performances, the occasional funny line and a fairly honest and empathetic look at growing up. Iâd respect it more if it had the balls to have an unhappy ending. Woody Harrelson gives probably my favorite portrayal of a teacher in a movie.
64. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice â Oh, boy, here we go. For the record, this review is of the extended cut of the film.
I firmly believe that you can make or break a movie in editing. No matter how good the writing, acting, directing, and cinematography are, if a film is poorly edited, it becomes confusing at best, and a complete chore to watch at worst. Such was the case with the theatrical cut of the highly-anticipated (not by me, of course) âBatman v. Superman: Dawn of Justiceâ, a film that despite being two-and-a-half hours long, felt like a rushed and confusing mess. Iâm not saying that the extended cut is some sort of masterpiece, but this 3-hour version is what Zack Snyder intended the finished product to be before Warner Bros. got their stupid fucking fingers on it. Characters are given more scenes to be fleshed out, subplots are better developed, and the pacing is significantly improved, amounting to a much more coherent and downright better film. If you saw the theatrical version and are really on the fence about the film, I recommend watching the extended cut.
The movie itself is still fundamentally flawed in some aspects. Itâs still a film constrained by the pressure to set up an entire cinematic universe, which makes the story itself suffer. It probably should have been solely about the personal grudge between Batman and Superman and the consequences it takes on both of them, and them eventually teaming up together when they realize theyâre not so different and both want the same thing. The actual movie tries to do that, have Lex Luthor try to destroy both of them, introduce Wonder Woman, set up Wonder Womanâs origin story, set-up three other Justice League membersâ origin stories, set up the Justice League movie itself, have an investigative Lois Lane subplot, hint at a future bad guy, and create a giant Frankenstein monster for the third act, among other things. The movie does keep most of these plates spinning, but some of them do fall. Itâs an ambitious undertaking, but weâre still left with expensive broken china.
The writing is pretty hackneyed, too. If you can explain Lex Luthorâs motivation for hating Superman to me without citing a comic book or saying âitâs just what he doesâ, please do. They hint at some biblical reason for it (the Christ allegories and symbolism are even less subtle here as they were in âMan of Steelâ, to give you an idea), but it came across as Lex hating him for no particular reason and trying to quote scripture to justify it. There are like three extended dream sequences in the movie, which feels like two too many. And then thereâs that awful flow-breaking scene where they set-up The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. Iâm reminded of an anecdote where during the making of âMan of Steelâ, Zack Snyder wanted to include an after-credits scene but producer Christopher Nolan opposed, telling him âA real movie wouldnât do that.â This story is probably bullshit, but I think itâs funny that Snyder made an after-credits scene and just crowbarred it into the middle of the movie.
âBatman v. Supermanâ attempts (and actually succeeds for a while) to really create a sense of consequence in a comic book movie, with the whole world, particularly Batman, being concerned about Supermanâs presence on Earth after the destruction caused in âMan of Steelâ. But itâs all kind of thrown out the window when that conflict is immediately dropped after the âMARTHAâ scene so they could team up to fight the aforementioned Frankenstein monster. The âMARTHAâ scene has become kind of infamous, but I was actually fine with it (even if it could have been better written) until Batman says âDonât worry. Marthaâs not dying tonightâ, which got a good howl out of me. It was at the very least an interesting movie until it became the typical third-act destruction fest that has characterized so many superhero flicks, with even a few tonally jarring quips thrown in for good measure. The actual fight between Batman and Superman only lasts for like 5 minutes, despite so much buildup. While fun, it feels really schlocky, especially when Batman rips a sink out of a bathroom wall and starts beating Superman over the head with it. Why they started fighting in the first place instead of talking it out like Superman originally intended is beyond me, as well. Zack Snyderâs penchant for outstanding visuals is never in question (he does handheld camerawork better than pretty much anyone) but his grasp on storytelling has always been a bit iffy, even if this is arguably his best work.
If youâre a comic book fan and werenât a fan of the characterization in this film, the extended cut wonât change your mind on that. Superman is still kind of a dick, Lex Luthor is still a Jolly Rancher-sucking autist, and Batman still kills people. It (mostly) makes sense in the context in the film, and I personally didnât care too much, but I know some comic book fans who wonât forgive it. Last but not least, I want to mention what is probably the most annoying product placement Iâve seen in a movie this year. Itâs not as gratuitous as a TMNT or Transformers flick, but at least those films didnât take themselves seriously. There is nothing that can ruin a good, serious scene like a really out-of-place product placement. I was enjoying the scene with Clark Kent and Lois Lane in the bathtub until the camera turned to the bottle of Olay and stayed there for like a solid 2 seconds. The scene I was most looking forward to in the movie (the âMan of Steelâ destruction of Metropolis as seen through Bruce Wayneâs eyes, which was really well done) was really hurt by the fact that right before the movie started they showed an ad for the Jeep used in the scene, using footage from the movie. Thereâs also a scene where Lex Luthor tries to force-feed Holly Hunter a Jolly Rancher. I understand that the movieâs titanic budget has to come from somewhere, but itâs shit like this that really pulls me out of the movie.
The cast is strong, particularly Jeremy Ironsâ Alfred and Ben Affleck, who exceeds all expectations as Batman, even if he looks a bit silly in the suit. If nothing else, Iâm really looking forward to his solo Batfleck film. Gal Gadot is nothing special, but at least she isnât terrible. Henry Cavill is solid and likable even when the script lets him down, as is Amy Adams (not to politicize things, but I feel like this movie is getting no credit whatsoever for actually having a female love-interest who is like ten years older than her male counterpart, as opposed to the typical older-male-younger-female one). I like how they try to make Laurence Fishburneâs newspaper editor like a reverse J. Jonah Jameson from Spider-Man, constantly telling Clark Kent to report on some local sports team and admonishing him for writing about a vigilante dressed up as a bat beating the shit out of criminals and branding them.
I could go on, but at least BvS feels like an actual movie, instead of the really long trailer that was âMan of Steelâ. Its (many) flaws aside, Zack Snyder is to be commended for using such a massive budget to at least try and do something different and ambitious than typical superhero films, and the fact that he succeeds as much as he does despite so many expectations and so much pressure is to be lauded. His cast is good, his action scenes are brutal and weighty (I loved that âArkhamâ style warehouse fight between Batman and a group of armed thugs), his heart is in the right place, and he really, honestly dares to be different. If he had a better script and a not-terrible studio to back him up, âBatman v. Superman: Dawn of Justiceâ would be appreciated for what it is, and not the kind of movie that inspires actual news articles about RottenTomatoes.
63. Billy Lynnâs Long Halftime Walk â Uneven but occasionally powerful and refreshingly biting look at Americaâs oft-hypocritical worship of its soldiers and what battle can really do to their psyche, with lead actor and newcomer Joe Alwyn deftly carrying the movie on his shoulders. Let down by a weak script and most of the supporting characters being one-dimensional caricatures, however intentional it may be. The weirdest cast ever assembled for a drama (Garrett Hedlund, Chris Tucker, Steve Martin, Kristen Stewart, and Vin Diesel) works surprisingly well, except for the sadly out-of-place Martin. Didnât get to see it in the original 4K, 120fps format, but at least I donât get a headache out of it.
62. Hidden Figures â Typical inspirational historical drama. Sugary and as clichĂ©d as it gets, but solid enough that it works. Elevated by strong performances from the three leading women, made amusing by how every other line spoken by any of them is an Obama-esque crowd-pleasing âMmhmmâ moment, and almost ruined by the presence of Bazinga as a racist, sexist strawman who is just there to be continually outsmarted and embarrassed by the smart, black lady. Probably going to become a staple in high school math/physics classes with lazy teachers. Thumbs up for the Oscar-bait title.
61. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi â I let out a good chortle when I heard that there would be a movie about the 2012 Benghazi attack starring Jim from âThe Officeâ and directed by none other than Michael Bay, a man whose approach to maturity and good taste generally amounts to a passing laugh and cocaine-sneeze. It was to my pleasant surprise (and admitted slight disappointment) that â13 Hoursâ turned out to be not only a solid military thriller but also Bayâs most restrained and mature movie. Donât get me wrong; thereâs still plenty of military hardware porn, explosions, and tastefully lit shots of a shirtless John Krasinski (hnnng). However, it also doesnât include the obnoxious humor and out-of-place product placement that characterize most of his films (although there is a really unnecessary scene in a McDonaldâs drive-through), and it actually takes itself fairly seriously, which is surprising coming from the guy who directed a film about two Miami cops who single-handedly invade Cuba.
It presents an account of what happened that night at the U.S. embassy and nearby CIA station as seen through the perspective of the security contractors stationed there, and it avoids politicizing the matter. Thereâs an annoying CIA chief strawman who refuses to let the contractors go in early to rescue the ambassador, but thatâs pretty much the extent of it. The rest is a tense military action film, along with the expected jingoistic hero worship that these types of films have to include by law or something, though thankfully itâs not as bad here. Bay spends a decent amount of time setting up the location, the characters and the situation, before tits go inevitably up. The characters are fairly thin, their non-action scenes amounting to the usual dick-swinging soldier banter and some phone calls to their wholesome, attractive families back home, but the actors are good and convincing enough to make you care about them.
The action scenes are the reasons to see this, characterized by strong sound design and the aforementioned hardware porn that I admittedly enjoy, as well as some great shots, like the slo-motion one of a soldier surrounded by sparks. I also liked the atmosphere of the film, as the contractors slowly move through the ghostly streets of Benghazi, one of them remarking âItâs like weâre in a horror movieâ, as some residents nearby are casually watching a soccer match while ignoring the gunfights outside their homes, as if itâs just another weekday evening.
The writing is pretty weak. It gets the needed information across, but the characterization is thin, the dialogue ranges from corny to boring, and there really isnât enough plot to make this movie as long as it is.
Nontheless, itâs a solid action-thriller. Iâve defended Michael Bay for a long time now (mainly because he made âThe Rockâ, and I donât see any other fucking director that made âThe Rockâ), but between this and 2013âs âPain & Gainâ he shows how much better he can be with smaller budgets and when not constrained by a plot involving giant robots punching each other and making racial wisecracks.
60. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping â Imagine âWalk Hard: The Dewey Cox Storyâ, but not as good, and you get a good idea of what âPopstarâ is like. The humor was pretty hit-or-miss and definitely favored quantity over quality when it came to the jokes, as can be expected from a movie made by SNL alumni, but it kept me entertained and made me laugh enough to warrant a recommendation. Funniest bits were the TMZ parodies, Justin Timberlake, and the âEqual Rightsâ music video.
59. Midnight Special â I like Jeff Nichols as a filmmaker. Itâs partly because Michael Shannon is in all of his films, and Iâll watch anything that man does at this point, but Nichols has shown himself to be a nuanced and compelling storyteller with an excellent command of both atmosphere and tone. Itâs this skilled storytelling and another strong performance from Shannon that make Midnight Special worth watching, even if itâs all in service of a story that becomes pretty dumb by the time we find out whatâs going on.
The basic plot is that of a father who runs away from a religious compound with his son and is soon hunted by a number of groups because of some mysterious power that his son possesses. The opening scene where they and a helping friend of the father hurriedly leave a motel room and drive away into the night is excellent and expertly sets up a low-key but involving sci-fi thriller tone. Unfortunately, the more the movie goes on, the more we find out what the sonâs powers are and what his âpurposeâ is, and without spoiling anything, it lost me pretty quickly after the late-second act revelation. The strong cast led by Shannon and Nicholsâ direction kept the movie compelling enough to get me to the finish line, but this is definitely a case of a screenplay being too ambitious for its own good.
58. Green Room â Punk rockers vs. neo-Nazis is a premise more fitting of a sillier movie, in my opinion. Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (who made 2014âs underrated gem âBlue Ruinâ) probably knew this, and subverts it by making âGreen Roomâ as grim and unpleasant as he possibly could. Going off of a theme from âBlue Ruinâ, the deaths in this movie are often bloody, realistically brutal, and purposely sudden and anticlimactic, simultaneously being a violent movie but also anti-violence. Saulnierâs technical aptitude and the talents of the cast are never in question, and the movie itself is quite gripping and well-paced. I donât think âGreen Roomâ is as good or thematically rich as âBlue Ruinâ, and the ending is a bit of a letdown, but itâs still a well-made and clever genre flick, and if you enjoy feeling like shit and averting your eyes from the screen then itâs the movie for you.
57. Eye in the Sky â A government joint-operation to kill some high-ranking terrorists in Kenya via a drone strike is halted when a little local girl enters the kill-radius. The story is told from the perspective of a ground recon team trying to get her out, the drone pilots, and the military brass and government officials who argue about whether the strike is justified and should be carried out. It has a good setup and a pretty powerful climax, but drags quite a bit in the middle portion where those in charge of the operation keep referring up to their superiors to figure out if they can/should/will fire the missile. The cast, in particular the late, great Alan Rickman as a weary general, are good enough to get you through the duller bits of the movie, and itâs really nice to see Barkhad Abdi in a movie again. While it could have trimmed some of its excess fat, âEye in the Skyâ is a tense, compelling thriller, and a much more mature and responsible examination of the consequences of drone warfare than âLondon Has Fallenâ, albeit much less entertaining.
56. Sully â Youâve got to give Clint Eastwood credit. For a guy in his mid 80âs, he sure is prolific these days, regularly cranking out solid movies every year or two. In retelling the events of the âMiracle on the Hudsonâ passenger plane water landing from a years beack âSullyâ continues that tradition by being good. Not great, but good. Tom Hanks makes for a fine lead, Aaron Eckhart is decent as Hanksâ co-pilot and friend (albeit constantly overshadowed by his own glorious mustache), just about everything else is meh. The highlight of the movie is the water landing itself, shown 3 times at different points from the perspectives of an air traffic controller, the passengers, and finally the cockpit. These scenes are intense and pretty harrowing, dodgy CGI aside. The rest of the movie is either the lead-up to the flight, or the aftermath where Captain Sully deals with the mental trauma from the incident and contends with a federal investigative committee that easily wins the award for âMost Obvious Strawmen of the Yearâ. Whatever. The film is well-made and compelling enough. As I said before, itâs good. Itâs the definition of a 7/10 movie. If youâre old, like the audience during my theater showing was, youâll probably love it. Everyone else will probably just like it. If youâre expecting something along the lines of Eastwoodâs âUnforgivenâ or âLetters from Iwo Jimaâ, youâll be disappointed, but if you just want a solid, likable movie, this wonât Sully your expectationsâŠIâm sorry for that one.
55. Christine â An amazing, simultaneously magnetic but also hard-to-watch performance by Rebecca Hall as 1970âs reporter Christine Chubbuck, and a very raw portrayal of depression, but ultimately feels pointless as it says nothing about Chubbuck or her mental state, as if the film is keeping her at a distance when it should be holding us down face-first into what she was truly feeling, making the ordeal feel kind of exploitative, when you think about it. If you know her story, the scene you spend the whole movie anticipating is done excellently, however.
54. Certain Women â MINIMALISM. Itâs either your type of thing or it isnât. âCertain Womenâ is three loosely-connected stories about women who live in Montana, and itâs as grounded and un-flashy as a film can get without being a home movie. Itâs one of those films thatâs about normal people and their everyday problems, and makes it all seem profound. To me, it worked well for the most part. I was engaged by the nicely composed cinematography and the good performances. The three stories vary in quality. Laura Dern plays a small-town lawyer who gets caught up in a hostage situation, and this is the most straightforward of the three, but also quite engaging. Michelle Williams plays a mother who wants to build her dream home in the woods but faces ambivalence from everyone in her life, and hers is the weakest story, if only because it feels so short and anticlimactic (even by this movieâs standards).Â
The third story is surprisingly the best, with a ranch hand played by newcomer Lily Gladstone who forms a bond with a young law school graduate played by Kristen Stewart, and itâs an affecting and nuanced look at loneliness. Kelly Reichardtâs direction is modest and very low-key, but itâs empathetic and creates a good sense of atmosphere. This movie is also slower than watching paint dry at half-speed, lacks any overt drama and is very light on plot, so itâs one of those movies youâll either completely love or wonât care for at all. I liked it, because Iâm an edgy contrarian, and because I like a movie that gives its characters breathing room and trusts the audience to be smart enough to get their own thematic value out of it, so itâs worth your while if youâre not feeling too sleepy. Plus, thereâs an adorable corgi in it, so automatic recommendation from me.
53. Manchester by the Sea â Reading the reviews and seeing all the award nominations, youâd think this mostly plotless exploration of grief is the desperately-needed salvation of cinema. When the credits rolled, however, all that hype ended up giving me was a resounding âWait, thatâs it?â.
The film is about a Boston janitor with a tragic past whose brother dies, and he goes back to his coastal New England hometown to handle his brotherâs affairs and break the news to his son. As the janitor, Casey Affleck delivers one of the best portrayals of grief Iâve ever seen. Even before you know his story, his eyes and demeanor subtly hide an ocean of pain and heartbreak, and he pulls it off so naturally you often forget youâre watching an actor. Equally as good (and possibly better) is Michelle Williams, who plays his ex-wife. The filmmaking crime of the century is only putting her in the movie for like 5-10 minutes, where focusing more on her and Affleckâs relationship would have made the movie infinitely better, in my opinion. The guy who plays Affleckâs nephew is alright, given that his and Affleckâs relationship is the core of the movie, but nothing to write home about other than one really good breakdown scene. Everyone else ranges from âpassableâ to âclearly acting for the first timeâ to âdistracting cameo from Matthew Broderickâ.
I donât wish to imply that the movie fails in any major way. I wasnât a fan of how often the movie tried to be funny (âfunnyâ in that New England way where characters swear a lot), and there is a glaring overuse of music, but it wasnât a deal-breaker. I suppose that outside of a small handful of powerful scenes and moments, âManchester by the Seaâ felt like it was missing that emotional gut-punch it aimed for. It peaks halfway through in a flashback where we see what made Affleckâs character the way he is, and the movie only comes close to matching it during the last scene between Affleck and Williams. Donât get me wrong; I understand the intention of making the film understated, so as to show a realistic depiction of grief, where people kind of just continue going about life and trying to not think about it. However, it goes a bit too far in this direction, to the point where I didnât care for the mundanity of their lives and wanted some crying and goddamn emotion. This may be an over-simplification of how I feel, but basically, the movie is 10/10 when Affleck and Williams are onscreen together, an 8/10 when itâs just Affleck, and a 5/10 or a 6/10 when itâs any other combination of actors.
52. A Bigger Splash â Seems like itâs going to be a mature meditation on romance and desire until Ralph Fiennes shows up 5 minutes in, steals the entire fucking movie away from both the director and the rest of the cast, rubs his dick on the print, then sets it on fire while giggling to himself and dancing around naked. One of the best performances in a career filled with great performances. Movie goes downhill significantly in the last 30 or so minutes.
51. The Love Witch â Clever satire of gender dynamics as seen through the eyes of a love-addicted femme fatale witch. PERFECTLY nails the old-school Technicolor horror/sexploitation vibe. The art design, camerawork, hair/makeup, and even the way the actors behave is spot-on. Bravo to director Anna Biller and all involved as far as the technical aspects go. Story is at first detrimentally slow and the movie is far too long, but it picks up in the second half. Feels a bit too written, as if the characters occasionally stop being themselves and become mouthpieces for the writer/director.
50. Hardcore Henry â Let it not be said that there is no innovative filmmaking these days. Russian musician and music video director Ilya Naishuller was given a few million dollars to make a balls-to-the-wall action film filmed entirely from the first-person perspective of the main character. The most impressive thing about the stupidly-titled âHardcore Henryâ is how much mileage it manages to get out of its first-person gimmick, and how surprisingly well-made it is. Actual stunts are performed, effects are mostly practical (aside from a few bits of awful CGI), and you always feel like youâre in the body of the main character. The action scenes are fun and inventive, thereâs a good deal of humor (I liked the bit with the overlapping subtitles), and Sharlto Copley gives a great performance as several incarnations of the same man with different personalities and looks. The plot is completely shit, and gets a bit too bogged down with exposition at times, but itâs never too intrusive. I suppose the biggest concern there is with this movie is if you can handle the filming technique, because the constant movement of the camera, especially during the action scenes, can give you motion sickness. I got a headache and a bit of nausea while watching it, but it could have been from the McDonaldâs I had just before seeing it, so Iâll give it the benefit of the doubt. I think that it works much better on a small screen instead of a movie theater either way, and even while on the verge of throwing up, I had a good deal of fun with âHardcore Henryâ. If youâve ever used a VR headset while on meth, it should give you a good idea of the experience.
49. Hail, Caesar! â The Coen Brothers are my favorite filmmakers. So strong is their output that even their âbadâ movies are good movies by any other standard. I donât wish to imply that âHail, Caesar!â is one of their âbadâ ones, but itâs definitely on the lower end of their spectrum. The promotional material led me to believe that it would be a comic thriller about a 1950âs Hollywood fixer (a âproblem solverâ for studios) who teams up with a number of colorful showbiz people to rescue a kidnapped leading man. While the basic plot is there, the movie feels more like a leisurely series of vignettes about the colorful characters, loosely-connected by the fixer asking them for their help. Itâs all amusing, colorful, and beautifully shot by eternal Oscars bridesmaid Roger Deakins, but it feels like itâs missing any sort of narrative thrust or stakes. The Coens donât seem to be going for that sort of film, and it feels intentionally meandering and light, so the film is better if you go in expecting it. The writing is entertaining, but while the film is certainly hilarious in parts and never boring, some comedic bits feel stretched out for far too long (such as the scene with the religious leaders), which is unusual for the Coens.
The whole endeavor is less about plot and more about being a fun tribute-by-way-of-pisstake to Old Hollywood. It reminds me a bit of their earlier work âBarton Finkâ, albeit broader, sillier, less existential, and much less cynical. We see old-fashioned editing rooms, grand movie sets, a wonderful musical number, Communism, etc. The Coen Brothers made a film that feels nostalgic towards a simpler era of filmmaking, while still acknowledging that even back then they made crap films. The biggest selling point in the movie is itsâ all-star cast. I canât remember the last time a movie had this many big-name actors attached to it. Sadly, due to the light nature of the story, a lot of them feel like glorified cameos, even if there isnât a weak link among them. George Clooney is in top-form in the role of the kidnapped actor, the type of buffoon the Coens always seem to make him play. Channing Tatum is great as a tap-dancing musical star. Completely stealing the show is up-and-comer Aldren Ehrenreich, who plays a dopey but sweet cowboy actor, and who is so naturally funny, likable and charismatic here that I donât have a single doubt about him becoming huge in the near future.
It just goes to show that even a lesser Coen Bros. film is still vastly better than the best work by most directors. While slow and kind of pointless overall, âHail, Caesar!â is still a funny, gorgeous, and charming homage to the Hollywood Golden Age, one that rewards attention and repeated viewings, and welcomes them as well.
48. Finding Dory â Not on par with âWALL-Eâ or âUpâ, but entertaining and nicely emotional. Feels like a welcome return to form for Pixar after so many years of disappointments. Bonus points for being the good kind of sequel, one that not only works on its own but actually adds new dimension to the original. Kind of disappointing, because before seeing the movie I was all ready to say âFinding Dory? More like FOUND IT BORINGâ. Nice message about family and taking care of a family member with special needs. Looking forward to âFinding Marlinâ, where we see Marlin as an alcoholic going through a midlife crisis as he tries to singlehandedly raise a crippled son and his mentally handicapped friend.
47. Deadpool â One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is characters breaking the fourth-wall. I donât mind a film being cheeky, but a movie occasionally pausing itself to acknowledge that itâs a movie annoys me to no end. I say this because âDeadpoolâ actually does fourth-wall breaking right, making it a key part of the humor and tone and story rather than an occasional âlook at how clever and ironic we areâ moment.
One would think because of this that âDeadpoolâ is just an endless series of self-referential jokes. It mostly is, but thankfully thereâs an actual story, a bicycle for all the colorful tassels to hang on. Donât get me wrong; the story is generic as hell. Itâs still your typical superhero origin story, albeit one helped greatly by the nonlinear structure, alluding to Deadpool as an unreliable narrator. Also helping is a surprisingly engaging romance aspect, thanks to Ryan Reynoldsâ and Morena Baccarinâs great chemistry and that the romance is a key part of the main characterâs motivations (and that the girl feels like an actual character, not just a crowbarred-in love interest like almost every other comic book movie). One of the best scenes in the film is a montage of them âcelebratingâ various holidays.
Reynolds is perfectly cast as Wade Wilson, a role that his whole career since âVan Wilderâ has been building towards. He effortlessly captures the characterâs smarminess and gallows humor, but also makes him just likable enough to root for. Baccarin shows enough personality and comic timing that I certainly wonât mind seeing her having a bigger role in the sequel. The action sequences are the highlights. Tim Miller (in his directing debut) shows a clear aptitude for this, making the fight scenes bloody, funny, and visually creative, doing more with $60 million than most directors can do with $200 million.
Your enjoyment of âDeadpoolâ will come from whether you like its sense of humor. Given the sheer amount of jokes the film flings at the wall, a number of them are going to fall flat. However, to me a lot of them did land, and the movie is quite funny despite being a bit too in love with itself, and any comedy film that doesnât give away its best jokes in the trailer (especially with a marketing campaign like this film had) is worthy of a recommendation in my eyes.
46. Blood Father â This is the best Liam Neeson movie that Liam Neeson never made. The action is tense and hard-hitting, the cast is good, and the movie is a very lean and efficient 88 minutes. However, thereâs some distractingly bad editing at times, the plot is typical Liam Neeson fare (daughter is in trouble with criminals and seeks out her estranged ex-con dad to help out) and the dialogue is pretty wonky and overly reliant on swearing. Also, the girl is fairly annoying, but I suppose it suits her character so I wonât judge her too much for it. What makes the movie work is Mel Gibsonâs performance. Looking increasingly like a shredded, captivity-era Saddam Hussein, Gibson is a volcano almost constantly on the verge of eruption. He plays a pissed-off man better than anyone, but he also showcases a good deal of humor and heart, able to convey more with his demeanor than most actors can with an entire monologue. Plus, watching him bite a guyâs ear off before head-butting him repeatedly is great fun. While Gibson is definitely better than the filmâs B-movie material, he sells the hell out of it, elevating everything around him and making up for a lot of the movieâs flaws (you get the feeling itâd be much better if he directed it, as well). âBlood Fatherâ is not quite the Mel Gibson renaissance-marking comeback I keep hoping for, but itâs good enough to recommend. Hereâs hoping we donât have to wait another few years to be reminded how great of an actor he is. Canât quell the Mel.
45. The Brothers Grimsby (AKA Grimsby) - Itâs been a while since weâve gotten a comedy from Sacha Baron Cohen. His stuff other than âBoratâ has gotten a mixed reception, but Iâve always felt that that as a comic he has excellent timing and creativity, and even when not doing his famous âinteracting with real people while in characterâ routine, the guy knows how to put together a joke. In a comedy world filled increasingly with endless cameos and cringe-worthy improv humor, itâs relieving to see a comedian that can still write a solid gag and perform it well.
Cohen plays Nobby, a trashy but kind-hearted English football hooligan who lives in Grimsby, a town so squalid that on a sign it says that its sister city is Chernobyl. Heâs spent decades searching for his long-lost younger brother Sebastian (played by Mark Strong), and upon finally finding him he discovers that Sebastian is a highly-trained secret agent who is involved in stopping an elaborate terror attack. Naturally, shenanigans ensue which results in the two brothers teaming together to save the world. The plot is basically âWhat if James Bond had a fuckup brother?â
Some of the humor is as gross-out as it can get, getting plenty of use out of genitals and bodily fluids (thereâs one sequence involving elephants that I donât think Iâll ever forget). Quite a bit of the humor is based around English class differences, which may go over the head of American audiences, but I quite enjoyed. And some is just tastelessness and over-the-top comedic violence. Sometimes it doesnât work, but I found myself surprised at how much did. Thereâs a good deal of set-ups and payoffs to the jokes, which I found refreshing, like someone actually spent time to craft the comedy in this film. Iâll say that I laughed pretty often, and I was never less than amused. Strong and Cohen have excellent chemistry together, and the film is at its best when it focuses on the two and their exchanges, with Strong proving to be an excellent straight-man to Cohenâs ridiculousness. It even has a nice little subplot about the two brothers bonding and coming to terms with why they were initially separated that even pays off during the climax.
The movie is a little over 80-minutes and moves at such a fast pace that even if a certain gag doesnât work, it quickly moves past it. The trade-off to this is that when a gag does work, itâs not given much time to play out. I full-heartedly believe that brevity is the soul of wit, and itâs not a huge issue, but I do wish some of the jokes had a bit of breathing space. Probably the movieâs biggest sin is completely wasting its supporting cast. Penelope Cruz, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, and Ian McShane all feel like bit players who are there just for plot purposes. Maybe that was intentional, to play the film like a straight-faced James Bond film with Cohen there to single-handedly derail it, but why cast talented, well-known actors in such useless bit parts?
I still recommend the film for being genuinely, unapologetically funny, and while a lot of its jokes are in bad taste, they never feel mean-spirited or overly edgy. They come from Cohenâs desire to shock you into laughing, but it feels self-aware and innocent enough that youâre more amused and bewildered rather than offended. Still, if gags about AIDS, incest, bestiality, casual gun violence, lower-class scum, and things being shoved into asses donât sit well with you, then âThe Brothers Grimsbyâ is not the bland, PG-13, all-inclusive safe-space you want, you precious snowflake.
44. Operation Avalanche â Starts off slowly and ploddingly but before long, it overcomes itsâ potentially-gimmicky premise and occasionally unconvincing façade to become a surprisingly engaging and creative foray into âhistoricalâ found-footage bolstered by writer/director/star Matt Johnsonâs deft storytelling and clear passion for filmmaking, with an unexpectedly excellent car chase to boot.
43. Loving â Jeff Nicholsâ âLovingâ is an account of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who were arrested and then exiled for being married in 1950âs Virginia, and whose case to return home eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. Given the material and the convenient title, youâd think this was blatant Oscar-bait all the way through, but for the most part itâs not. Jeff Nicholsâ empathetic direction and the strong, restrained performances by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the two leads make this film feel human instead of exploitative. Nichols makes an interesting choice to keep the movie very personal and focused on the couple, with the broader Civil Rights Movement only briefly mentioned. I actually liked this approach as it makes you feel the pain and struggle and love of the characters first, and then by extension see how damaging prejudices (both institutional and personal) can be to people.
The film doesnât completely escape Oscar-bait trappings, however. It still has the comedy-actor-playing-a-dramatic-role in the form of Nick Kroll as the ACLU lawyer assigned to the Lovings. Heâs not bad or anything, but he feels a bit distracting and the role doesnât amount to much. The music is fine, but it still has those corny inspirational cues at moments of triumph and perseverance, places where I think silence would have been much more effective. My biggest complaint is that itâs a Jeff Nichols movie and Michael Shannon is only in it for one scene. It's an important and good one, but you really wish heâd be in the movie more or maybe thatâs just me because I LOVE MICHAEL SHANNON, HOLY SHIT. I've come to the conclusion that the quality of a Jeff Nichols film is often in direct proportion to how much Michael Shannon is in it (seriously, go see "Take Shelter" if you haven't already).
The best part of âLovingâ is the two leads, who share a quiet but powerful chemistry, both of them reserved people whose love for each other you can feel in the littlest gestures and who donât need any obvious histrionics or even words to show their feelings to the audience. Itâs the solid core that makes the movie good, elegantly guided by Jeff Nicholsâ confident and mature direction, even if the rest of it isnât all that remarkable. Not quite a âLovingâ for me, but eaily a âLikingâ.
42. Deepwater Horizon - Iâve liked Peter Berg as a director ever since his underrated action-comedy âThe Rundownâ, starring The Rock back when he was still billed as âThe Rockâ. He shows an aptitude for action, pacing, and getting good performances out of his actors, but lately, heâs had a really bad case of hero worship. This, âPatriotâs Dayâ and âLone Survivorâ all have a frankly fetishistic view of real-life bravery, all ending in a text commending the bravery of those involved and including the names of victims, etc. This always felt like a cheap trick to me, one meant to elicit tears and nods of approval from middle-aged audience members who donât go to the movies that often, rather than properly characterize his heroes. He gets around this somewhat by casting good actors who are likable enough that we care for them in spite of the weak writing and schlocky sense of patriotism. It all just feels weirdly exploitative of the real-life tragedies that the films depict.
As for the movie itself, itâs quite good. It starts with the prerequisite buildup on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, showing negligence on the part of some of the management and the BP executives (read: strawmen), while showing the intelligence on display by the regular, blue-collar engineers and oil rig workers. I donât deny that things were actually like this (truthfully, I donât care enough to look it up), but it does feel pretty clichĂ©d in movie form. Then the disaster hits, and thereâs a solid 40-or-so minutes of the rig blowing up while the crew scramble to try to contain the situation and evacuate. This part is great. Bergâs technical skill is on full display, helping you follow the characters and whatâs going on despite a lot of them speaking in mostly technical terms and the setting feeling like being trapped in a maze thatâs on fire. Itâs fantastically gripping, edge-of-your-seat stuff, helped by the theater-shaking sound design and convincing visual effects.  The film ends with some tearful family reunions and heart-wrenching breakdowns when the survivors get back home. Iâll say that if I walked out of the film RIGHT after the screen faded to black, I would have a higher opinion about it.
If you like or at least donât mind the hero-worship stuff, Iâll say that Deepwater Horizon is one of the yearâs best-crafted thrillers, a disaster movie where the disaster actually feels scary and real as opposed to the dumb fun of something like âSan Andreasâ. Iâm not against paying respects to the dead or to the bravery involved, but I think it should be done within the context of the film and the script, not forcing the audience to stay an extra five-minutes as some sort of memorial service that we paid money to attend.
41. Rams â This film is about a pair of Icelandic brothers who own neighboring sheep farms. They havenât spoken to each other for 40 years due to implied but never explicitly-stated petty squabbles and stubborn jealousy, but are forced to work together to save their sheep when their flocks suffer from an outbreak of scrapie, a fatal degenerative disease that affects sheep and goats. This film is very affecting, low-key filmmaking, deftly handling heartbreaking drama, touching bonding, and even some surprisingly funny (albeit-bleak) comedy such as a scene where one character transports another to a hospital. It makes great use of the âshow, donât tellâ filmmaking rule. Many scenes have little to no dialogue, but all serve a purpose in terms of plot or characterization or insight. The plot of sheep farmers trying to protect their flock may seem like a hard-to-relate-to storyline, but the film has universal themes of family and loss, and its observant and sympathetic storytelling makes the film accessible to anyone, even if they arenât familiar with sheep mating procedures.
40. Kubo and the Two Strings - Laika has always been an overlooked animation studio, most known for making the wonderfully creepy âCoralineâ, but finding little success in terms of box office even while their films are all quite good. Take âKubo and the Two Stringsâ, a flawed but highly original and absolutely stunningly animated film that only managed to make a little over its production budget back, while âZootopiaâ made over a billion dollars. Such is life.
The film itself is about a one-eyed boy named Kubo who is hunted by a vengeful demon and must team up with a magical monkey statue and a beetle-man to find some mystical MacGuffins that can help defeat it. It starts out very well, showing the boyâs daily routine of using his magic guitar and origami to tell stories to the local villagers. After shit goes inevitably down, itâs still quite compelling for a while, bringing a melancholy flavor to the boyâs journey and his interaction with his two companions. The problem is that the actual plot is pretty uninteresting, especially after the predictable late second-act plot twist, and while I can appreciate that the conflict resolution in the third act doesnât just end by one character beating up another, the actual manner in which itâs resolved is pretty dumb.
The reason to see âKubo and the Two Stringsâ is its gorgeous stop-motion animation. I had to smack my mouth a few times to remind myself that I wasnât looking at high-quality CGI. Itâs reassuring to learn that Laika is owned by the billionaire former CEO of Nike, so the studio isnât exactly hurting for cash and can continue to focus on making their original and creative and beautiful movies without needing to dumb them down for most audiences, but itâs still a little depressing when good, accessible films fail to find their audience. While flawed (and nowhere near as good as âCoralineâ), âKubo and the Two Stringsâ is worth checking out if you love stop-motion animation as much as I do and youâre just waiting for the next Aardman film to come out.
39. April and the Extraordinary World - In an industry almost completely dominated by 3D CGI-animated films, itâs somewhat refreshing to come across a traditionally-animated 2D film. âApril and the Extraordinary Worldâ is a French film set in an alternate-history 1940âs where the worldâs foremost scientists of the past several decades have gone missing, causing crucial technological innovation to not happen and for the world to continue relying on coal and eventually wood-burning steam power. In a world on the brink of war for resources, April is a young French woman whose parents are two of the missing scientists, and we follow her and her talking cat Darwin as they attempt to solve the mystery behind the disappearances.
I want to start off by mentioning the art style. The characters are the simple but expressive beady-eyed 2D people youâd expect from European animation, but the design of the bleak steampunk world and the technology is amazing. However, and this is what I really like about the film, while it shows how cool-looking steampunk technology can be, it also criticizes it for being completely retarded and impractical and damaging to both the environment and to people, cosplayers be damned (Europe is completely treeless and characters have to wear gas masks if theyâre outdoors for too long). The characters (especially the talking cat) are spunky, entertaining, and even have their fair share of depth. The film carries a nice message about using science and optimism instead of violence and negativity to solve the worldâs problems. This feels more like the film that âTomorrowlandâ should have been, before it got Lindelofâd.
However, it does have kind of the same problem that âTomorrowlandâ did, in that the third act gets pretty stupid. Itâs certainly not as bad or as nonsensical as it was in that film, and while the plot twist and eventual revelation are actually built towards instead of just dumped on us, it does get rather silly and I sort of lost interest. Without spoiling too much, it does end up relying on that tiresome âin order to save humanity, we have to destroy itâ sci-fi clichĂ© that was dumb even back when âThe Terminatorâ did it.
Still, on the whole, I was surprised by how much I liked âApril and the Extraordinary Worldâ. While it certainly loses some steam near the end (pun originally unintended), itâs still engaging and surprisingly entertaining enough for the duration of its running time to warrant a recommendation.
Note: If you can, see the French-dubbed version. The English voice actors are good, but the movie and lip-sync feel off by not being in their original language. For the record, this is the only time Iâll ever say that something (other than bread) is improved by being French.
38. Mascots â To me, a mark of a good comedy is if it makes me laugh a lot. By that criteria, Christopher Guestâs latest mockumentary about a professional mascot competition and its participants is a good comedy. Thereâs not much to say about this film if youâre familiar with Guestâs other improv-heavy comedy films, and structurally itâs very similar to âBest in Showâ. Itâs not as good as that gem, partly because it feels like a more manufactured scenario, a parody of a part of culture and a competition that doesnât feel real in the first place (as opposed to the biting satire of the very real world of professional dog-shows), and partly because Fred Willard is only in this for like 5-10 minutes instead of 40-45. Guest regulars Eugene Levy and Catherine OâHaraâs absences are also felt.
Still, what I like about Guestâs style of comedy that I despise about the Judd Apatow/SNL style of improv is the timing. He knows how to edit his jokes and his characters to keep them funny, and he knows when to let a joke go, as opposed to letting it linger and rot. The fact that he doesnât write screenplays or hold any rehearsals for himself and his cast pretty much means that he films them performing improv and leaves in whatever is funny. Despite the aforementioned absences, the cast here is still great (with standout performances by Parker Posey, Susan Yeagley, and the guy who fucks from âSilicon Valleyâ), the movie has plenty of laughs and a surprising amount of poignancy and sweetness, and some of the actual mascot routines in the latter half of the movie are both hilarious and even breathtaking, particularly one involving an expressionist modern-dance about feminism and art in an armadillo costume.
37. The Accountant - One of the most entertainingly uneven films Iâve seen in a long time, âThe Accountantâ tries to be a character study, a corporate thriller, an operator-style action film, a family drama, a quirky comedy, a PSA about autism, and it even flirts with being an odd-couple romance. It never really comes together in the traditional sense, but Iâd be lying if I said it wasnât a blast watching it try.
The plot is about an autistic accountant who in his secret-life uncooks finances for some of the worldâs most dangerous people, and how a seemingly simple assignment in auditing a robotics firm becomes dangerous and blah-blah-blah. This movie has far too much plot and little of it is worth caring about. Where it works surprisingly well is in the character study of the main character, Christian Wolff (who sounds like a name belonging to a character in a cheap erotic novel you can find in airport shops). You see his upbringing, the circumstances that led him to his current career, and his routines in trying to deal with life with high-functioning autism. I (cheekily) said from the start that Ben Affleck is perfect casting for an ass-kicking autist but heâs actually, genuinely, unironically good in a committed and fleshed-out performance that wouldnât feel out of place in a more serious movie about adults with autism.
In trying to do the other aspects, however, the movie kind of falls apart. The first act is a mostly straightforward setup that you could be forgiven for thinking that it wonât even be a thriller. Wolffâs awkward bluntness around neuro-typicals is played for mild chuckles, because of course it is. Only at the end of it do we see that heâs a badass operator once heâs betrayed and people try to kill him. The second act where a government agent played by J.K. Simmons gives us a 10-minute exposition dump is pretty dull. Thereâs a hint of some romance between Wolff and a young accountant whose life he saved played by Anna Kendrick, but thankfully itâs never fully realized (âGosh, I find your lack of social development and the way you cleanly killed the men who attacked me soooo sexy.â)
Itâs only in the third act where he goes out to get the people who are after him where the movie becomes a wonderful nirvana of schlock, the âJohn Wick meets Rain Manâ asploitation I hoped it would be. Iâm not going to spoil too much, but it has the two funniest plot twists of any film this year, a solid 5 minutes where a caretaker at a home for autistic children gives a PSA about caring for people with disabilities, and a hilarious and completely unnecessary villainous monologue for the ages, courtesy of a paycheck-loving John Lithgow. My only complaint at that point were that there were no accounting-related one-liners in the film, including but not limited to:
- I just depreciated YOUR LIFE
- Don't write me off as a loss just yet
- They must be held accountable
- She's becoming a liability
- He's likes torturing people. He's accrual man
- A character named General Ledger
I donât know. I chose a dull major, alright?
36. Moonlight â ClichĂ©d dialogue and an annoying tendency to skip over some important/interesting events in the main characterâs life, but empathetic performances, a great cast, and a good understanding and balance of the movieâs story and itsâ theme of identity. Iâm a bit of a tough nut to crack, emotionally speaking, so I feel like the subtle approach from this movie didnât affect me as much as it did the many people who hail this film as the Second Coming of Christ.
35. Kill Zone 2 â Insane, jaw-dropping, balls-to-the-wall fight scenes that are too often hampered or outright interrupted by that silly and intrusive âplotâ nonsense that unfortunately characterizes most post-Jackie Hong Kong kung-fu films. Still, any film that has Tony Jaa doing a flying double knee through a bus windshield and into the driver gets a recommendation from me.
34. Anthropoid â âWar is not romanticâ.
Iâve always held a soft spot for well-made genre films, and âAnthropoidâ, a World War II thriller that, despite a title and poster that look like they belong to some sci-fi horror movie, is certainly that. âAnthropoidâ is about a historical real-life mission by the Czech Resistance to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi official in occupied Prague. What I like about this movie is how solemn it is. None of the good guys are clear-eyed heroes who live happily ever after. These are anxious, grimly-professional saboteurs. Most of the resistance members question over whether killing one man is worth the possible consequences it would bring to the Czech people, while the two leads soldier on, determined to follow their orders. Cillian Murphy and the guy from â50 Shades of Greyâ (Jamie Dornan) make for a likable pair of leads, and the characters feel human instead of movie-ish. Even during their romances with two local Prague women, it feels less like forced Hollywood trite and more like people trying to comfort each other in a hopelessly bleak environment.
The movie starts slow, but builds well to the more thrilling stuff. Interestingly (minor spoiler), the assassination attempt only occurs halfway through the movie, with the second half being the fallout and repercussions. A more generic movie would have ended with the assassination, before including text commending the bravery of the Czech Resistance and how their mission was successful, but âAnthropoidâ instead shows and talks about the horrible things the Nazis did in retaliation, including killing thousands of Czech civilians, before showing what happens to the Resistance members involved in the assassination. I wonât ruin it, but the last half-hour of the movie is pretty devastating stuff.
Thereâs nothing particularly wrong with Anthropoid, as long as you donât mind the slow build. It doesnât really strive for greatness or deep meaning in any way. Itâs just a well-made, well-acted, tense, bleak, and morally grey look at an important event in World War II and how it (and war in general) affects people. Bonus points for the cast actually making an effort to speak with Czech accents, instead of the usual historical non-British movie done entirely with British accents.
33. The Siege of Jadotville â Hey, speaking of solid genre flicks starring Jamie Dornan! I love a good war film, so when I heard that when Netflix produced one set during the Congo Crisis of the 1960âs, a refreshing change from the usual âpopularâ wars like WWII, âNam, and Iraq/Afghanistan, my ears perked up. The plot is about an Irish company of UN peacekeepers who are sent to the tiny town of Jadotville in the resource-rich Congo during a period of upheaval and civil war. Murky politics and other UN operations in the area make things worse, and in retaliation the rebel government and French/Belgian mercenaries send a massive force to attack the isolated Irish troops.
Thereâs about 40 minutes of setup, in which we see the soldiers (led by Dornan), most of them still teenagers, at home before they get shipped off, we get a broad overview of the political climate in the Congo, including the coup leader and the UN representative sent to assist the central government (played by a shitty hairpiece with a Mark Strong attached to it), as well as the situation that led to tits going up for the peacekeepers. The remaining hour of the movie is the titular week-long siege, with the Irish defending a tactically disadvantaged position with limited food, ammo, and water against a very numerically superior enemy.
All of this is very well-crafted, with good pacing and editing, especially during the battle scenes, which are tense, harrowing, and filmed in a way that you actually get a solid idea of the geography of the siege. History, and even the movie at one point, both say that there were 150 UN troops at Jadotville, but it never seems like there's more than a few dozens of them. It's not a huge issue, but a little distracting.
The characters are pretty thin, with only a handful of the soldiers actually having names, and the writing is nothing special. Itâs efficient in the sense that it gets the necessary information across and doesnât intrude on the story, but it does have the usual clichĂ©s you see in a war film. The soldiers are portrayed as brave, noble, and heroic, while the UN leaders and generals are shown as callous, selfish, and incompetent. After some reading into the history, I found that this is not untrue, but it still feels like a conventional audience-pleasing dynamic. To the filmâs credit however, it does a nice job of showing how morally grey the conflict was, without really claiming moral superiority for either side, but still makes you care for the UN soldiers at the heart of it. Even the trademark ending text is done tastefully and respectfully.
If you want a compelling, well-crafted war film and have a Netflix subscription, then âThe Siege of Jadotvilleâ is worth checking out. Between this and âAnthropoidâ, Jamie Dornan has proven himself a capable (and wonderfully mustached) leading man, and in my eyes has done a good job getting his reputation back to ârespectableâ after âFifty Shades of Greyâ and...oh, there's two sequels to it coming out? Well, here's hoping for more good war films from the lad afterwards.
32. Doctor Strange â Same-old shit from Marvel, in terms of writing and story, but at least contains enough beautiful visuals and creativity to take away a good deal of the staleness. Bonus points for having a climax that is the exact opposite of a typical superhero destruction-fest.
31. The Magnificent Seven â At a film festival like TIFF, which is mainly meant for foreign, independent, arthouse films and prestige pictures, âThe Magnificent Sevenâ, a remake of John Sturgesâ 1960 original and an unapologetic, old-fashioned Western, stands out. As a genre-film aficionado, that appealed to me enough that I saw this movie even though it would come out in theaters a few weeks later.
And Iâm glad I did. âThe Magnificent Sevenâ is just plain, loud, over-the-top fun. If you see the trailer, the movie is exactly what you think itâll be like. A woman seeks frontier justice against the power-hungry coal baron who terrorizes her town and murdered her husband, and pays a bounty hunter (Denzel Washington, who looks like he was born to play a cowboy in this movie) to go after him. He recruits 6 more outlaws, killers, and warriors to aid him in his quest to protect the honest townsfolk from the evil businessman and his army. Whiskey is drunk, guns are drawn, banter is exchanged, and lots of people get shot and blown up. Antoine Fuqua (an expert in making solid genre flicks) keeps the movie paced well, gives the characters breathing space to flesh out a bit, and makes the action loud, exciting, and well-filmed. No shaky-cam bullshit here, just good, efficient filmmaking with lots of nice Western vistas.
The cast is strong, especially Washington and Chris Pratt (who I worried would be out of place but acquits himself well here), along with solid supporting players. The writing is nothing special, but gets the job done, although there are some unfortunate missed opportunities at character development and payoffs, especially when it comes to Ethan Hawkeâs (fabulously named) Goodnight Robicheaux, a former Confederate sharpshooter who hung up his guns. Also, a minor issue, but the film severely overplays how effective a mid-19th century gatling gun is.
Thereâs nothing altogether remarkable about this remake from a quality standpoint, but in a year filled with failed reboots and sequels and unremarkable superhero films, a good, solid personality-filled Western shoot-em-up about a multicultural team of badasses teaming up against the evil establishment is more than a welcome breath of fresh air.
30. Everybody Wants Some!! - Richard Linklaterâs spiritual sequel to âDazed and Confusedâ feels very much like a Richard Linklater film. Thereâs not much plot; itâs just about a college freshman baseball player and his teamâs escapades over the weekend before the semester starts in the fall of 1980, as they hang out, go party, try to get laid, and attend their first practice. Thereâs no real structure to this film. Itâs meandering in typical Linklater fashion, where the movie is more about the characters, the setting, and the dialogue. If you donât mind this sort of thing, âEverybody Wants Some!!â is a very enjoyable movie. The characters and performances are on point, the banter is entertaining, the music is great (used especially well during a scene where the characters drive around town singing âRapperâs Delightâ) and even when Linklater waxes philosophical as he sometimes tends to, it feels less pretentious and more like the characters being themselves. When they talk about life, man, theyâre often drunk or high or sleep-deprived, which feels like a nice bit of self-awareness from Linklataer. It even gets a bit inspirational at times, as the themes of finding out your identity and place in life and making the most of your short time on this Earth hits home surprisingly well. Funny, charming, and likable in every way that âBoyhoodâ wasnât, âEverybody Wants Some!!â marks a welcome return to form for Richard Linklater, which is amazing considering it didnât even take TWELVE YEARS to make.
29. Love & Friendship â Not being a big fan of hoity-toity costume dramas and having never read any of Jane Austenâs work, I really didnât think this Austen adaptation would appeal to me. However, following the initial 10-15 minutes where my brain adjusted to the Regency-era English, I found that I really enjoyed this film. Itâs a comedy of manners centered on a widowed socialite (played by the never-better Kate Beckinsale), a cunning and manipulative woman who is well-known as the best flirt in London, and her attempts to get her daughter married to a wealthy suitor as she herself juggles those in her social circles. I found myself loving the barbed interplay between well-written characters. The cast is uniformly excellent, with a strong performance by Beckinsale and a show-stealing turn from Tom Bennett as a wealthy but utterly gormless suitor, the kind of man who keeps talking even when he doesnât know what heâs talking about, and who is completely enchanted by the âtiny green ballsâ at dinner (peas). The whole movie is kind of plotless, with very little narrative drive and it feels like important character developments are often skimmed over (two characters have a pleasant conversation in one scene and are married like, 5 minutes later). The whole movie feels very light, albeit very watchable. Watch it for the excellent cast, the lovely sets and costumes, and for the genuinely hilarious writing, but donât expect to be all that invested in what happens. The whole thing feels like a dinner party with much wittier and politer versions of your extended family, albeit just as catty and spiteful.
28. Captain America: Civil War - By now most people have acknowledged the problems with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While most are solid superhero flicks, they all feel kind of safe and sterile, films marked-tested to appeal to as large an audience as possible. While this leaves less room for error, it also limits how good they can become. If all you want is good actors wearing ridiculous costumes punching each other and destroy expensive CGI environments while mumbling groan-worthy quips, the MCU has got you covered. Those of us who want them to approach something like Raimiâs Spider-Man films or Nolanâs first two Batman films are often left wanting. Sometimes it has gotten better than the norm. The first half of âCaptain America: The First Avengerâ was excellent before it became kind of a rushed mess in the second. Shane Blackâs âIron Man 3â felt like the only genuinely auteur-driven film in the whole MCU (if only because so much of the humor is based on what Black and Downey Jr. accomplished in âKiss Kiss Bang Bangâ). âCaptain America: The Winter Soldierâ is still the high point of the MCU, a terrific and surprisingly character-driven action thriller that barely felt like a superhero flick. The point Iâm laboriously trying to get to is that while âCivil Warâ for the most part takes itself seriously and actually approaches âWinter Soldierâ levels of greatness, it canât help but fall back on the lame, quippy, fanboy-masturbating sameness that has defined this cinematic universe since Joss Whedon first got involved with the franchise.
The plot is that a mysterious man frames Captain Americaâs friend Bucky for a terrorist attack, while Tony Stark feels guilty about collateral damage caused by the Avengersâ various battles and wants to sign some UN accord to make the Avengers government regulated, and tries to hunt Cap down when he goes rogue to try and protect Bucky. Itâs pretty convoluted stuff if youâre not already caught up on the franchise, but not too difficult to follow. My main concern going into this film was that itâd be more of an âAvengersâ film than a âCaptain Americaâ film. Capâs films have a good track record, while the two Avengers movies are kinda crap. Thankfully, the heavy focus is on Cap and his efforts to protect Bucky from an increasingly hostile and angry Tony Stark. Despite what the marketing tries to say, the whole UN accord business feels minor at best, only there for a #WhoseSideAreYouOn hashtag to appease the autists who want their precious comic-book to be faithfully adapted. The story is surprisingly engaging, and while the aforementioned mysterious man is the real villain and does an effective job, the role of antagonist is actually filled really well by Iron Man. The characters are given enough room that pretty much everyone in the ensemble gets a moment to shine, the pacing is good, and (despite the Russo Brothersâ annoying use of shaky-cam and fast editing) the action scenes are solid and actually serve a purpose. It was almost a great âCaptain Americaâ film. And then Spider-Man shows up.
Spider-Man was added to this film halfway through filming due to Marvel striking a deal with Sony Pictures for the rights to the character, and his crowbarring into the movie is really obvious. Thereâs a whole half-hour of the movie that heâs in, where from introduction to the big punch-up at the airport to his exit, it feels like a completely different film, filled with the aforementioned light-hearted quippy humor that pretty much completely dissolves all tension, momentum, and conflict that movie had done a pretty good job building up to that point. Itâs not bad in and of itself, but it feels like it suddenly became an âAvengersâ movie, a big-budget re-enactment of a 10-year-old boy playing with his action figures. The only reason I donât despise this part of the movie is because it at least has a few genuinely funny moments (most of them courtesy of Paul Ruddâs Ant-Man). The film recovers fairly well from this, and actually serves up a strong and pretty emotional climax that isnât just wanton CGI destruction, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth, like I was bukkakeâd by neo-nerd hipsters while sleeping and managed to clean myself off but the stains on my soul remained.
Look, Iâve said a bunch of negative (and some disgusting) things about this movie and the MCU in general, but âCivil Warâ is overall a good movie. The character work is strong, itâs occasionally funny, the cast is mostly terrific, and itâs definitely in the upper-echelon of this franchise. But the things that hold this series back (the sameness, the dull visuals, the lack of stakes, circlejerking, etc.) hold this movie back as well. Who knows? Once theyâre done with this phase of the MCU, they can actually start to experiment and not just make the same kind of movie over and over, because letâs face it; people will come see these anyway. Hell, give me a She-Hulk movie directed by David Lynch, or a blaxploitation-style origin story about Nick Fury starring Michael Jai White, or a musical romantic-comedy about Squirrel Girl directed by George Miller. I donât know. Iâd rather see any of those than ANOTHER GODDAMN SPIDER-MAN REBOOT.
27. Train to Busan â Pretty much what youâd expect, plot and character-wise, from a zombie movie, but damned if South Korea doesnât possess some of the finest film directors in the world, and Yeon Sang-Ho brings his A-game to revitalize an appropriately undead genre. Great cast, intense and creative set-pieces, and a nicely emotional focus on character. Iâm not Korean, so Iâm not sure if thereâs any satire or message involved (the film does seem like a pretty accurate depiction of South Korea when StarCraft II servers go down). Somewhat dragged down by iffy CGI and the hair-pulling stupidity and dickheadedness of main human antagonist, who makes âThe Walking Deadâ Season 2-era Shane seem like a rational and believable fellow.
26. Fences â Little more than a filmed play, but a well-filmed one bolstered by good writing and knockout performances from Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. About 20 minutes too long.
25. Arrival - Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has been making quite the reputation for himself in recent years for his mature and well-crafted thrillers. While I find his movies just a touch overrated, I do admire a lot in them, from the technical craft to his ability to command strong performances out of all of his actors. This yearâs âArrivalâ continues that trend, marking his most mature film to date and one of the extremely rare mainstream hard science-fiction movies to come out these days. This is not a movie about laser battles and space explosions and sticking your tongue down the throats of hot human-looking alien babes (Iâm excited for âMass Effect: Andromedaâ, alright?), but about communication.
Several banana-shaped alien spacecraft touch down at random points around the earth without any apparent motive or pattern, and countries around the globe bring experts together to try and communicate with them. The plot centers around linguistics professor Amy Adams, who is brought in by the military along with a physicist played by Jeremy Renner to head into the alien craft in America to try and set up communications with the aliens. Itâs a neat perspective to see one of these alien contact movies from someone trying to understand them rather than fight them, and Amy Adams turns in another strong performance as a woman who is experiencing a personal crisis while being at the very center of a worldwide phenomenon. The rest of the cast is good too, but this is her movie to command, and she does so with ease.
While Villeneuve no longer has Roger Deakins as director of photography to rely on, he and his new DP Bradford Young make this a very strikingly beautiful movie, filled with bleak subdued colors but with an astonishing sense of scale. The scene where Amy Adams enters the alien craft for the first time is outstanding, with the camera work, lighting, and environment doing a genuinely amazing job conveying howâŠwell, alien the ship feels. I also like the design of the aliens themselves (a sort-of cross between the facehuggers from âAlienâ and the Reapers from âMass Effectâ), a refreshing change from the humanoid aliens you typically see in sci-fi.
The plot is surprisingly brainy, primarily concerned with the process of establishing of communication and later a very different perception of time and choice from how we typically perceive them. Itâs not too difficult to wrap your head around this stuff, but you do have to pay attention, because this isnât a movie that dumbs itself down or holds your hand.
As much as I admire and enjoyed the movie, I do have a criticism, and itâs that the whole thing feelsâŠcold. I donât just mean the color palette or the really strong air conditioning in the theater where I watched it. I mean emotionally cold. Iâve heard a lot of people praise how emotional the film is, but it didnât really affect me all that much. Even the scenes with Amy Adams and her daughter, no matter how Malick-y theyâre shot, felt mostly like salad dressing to try and make the audience connect with the main character. Even when you (no-spoiler) find out the plot significance of these scenes, I liked it much more on an intellectual level than on a gut-level. Also, and this part is hard to explain without spoilers, but thereâs a love story thatâs pretty crucial to the theoretical concepts later in the film that feels comically underdeveloped, like weâre supposed to believe these people fall in love despite working with each other for a few days and rarely talking about anything other than work (and because theyâre attractive movie stars, of course). Plus, there are quite a few annoyingly clichĂ©d characters, like the fear-mongering radio talk show host, the weary and no-nonsense military man, and a Chinese officer named General Shang who apparently rules the entire country of China without answering to anybody.
Despite these niggles, I still liked âArrivalâ a lot. It attempts (and in my mind strongly succeeds) to present a realistic scenario of what alien contact would be like in todayâs political and cultural climate, and again, itâs really refreshing to see a science-fiction film where science, communication and peace are used for conflict resolution as opposed to violence. Itâs really ambitious on both a thematic level and a technical one (the special effects in this movie are some of the most seamless and believable Iâve ever seen), and even the problems I have with the writing donât distract from Denis Villeneuveâs directorial talent. Hereâs hoping he doesnât screw up the new âBlade Runnerâ.
24. Shin Godzilla â Lacks the awe-inspiring visuals and sense of scale of Gareth Edwardsâ âGodzillaâ (which I forgive because this had like 1/10th the budget), but makes up for it with a richer story and sense of humanity. Whereas that film is about our powerlessness at the hands of giant monsters, this one is more about working together to overcome it. What begins as a bureaucratic farce eventually gives way to the Japanese government putting aside any squabbles and politics to focus on saving the lives of its citizens from a giant, rampaging lizard. Itâs kind of inspiring to see a movie like this where a government tries to prevent destruction instead of causing it (with a not-so-subtle pisstake of the Americans, whose contribution to the efforts amounts to little more than bombing and almost nuking Tokyo). Plus, Godzilla himself is awesome here, looking and acting like a genuine monster, and pulled off with a nice mix of practical and digital effects (other than his initial form where he looks like a retarded CGI iguana with googly eyes). Kickass soundtrack, as well.
23. War on Everyone â âIâve always wondered; if you hit a mime (with a car), does he make a sound?â Michael Peñaâs character wonders out loud at the start of the movie, right before he and his partner (and driver) find out. Within one minute of the movie, you already know if itâs for you or not. âWar on Everyoneâ is about two cops (Peña and Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd) who are as corrupt as they come. They regularly blackmail and beat up suspects, take bribes, and drink on the job. They never really try to justify this behavior. Their attitude can be best summed up by a line SkarsgĂ„rd says before getting into the driverâs seat of a car while piss-drunk; âLetâs go fuck some scumbags.â Thereâs some plot about their investigation into a robbery/murder orchestrated by the guy from those shitty âDivergentâ movies who looks like discount-Toby Kebbell, but the plot feels like an afterthought. Itâs more so about the two characters and their antics and their musings on life, greatly enlivened by the excellent performances and chemistry of the two leads, as well as the cracking, pitch-black funny script from writer/director John Michael McDonagh (who also made the fantastic Irish gems âCalvaryâ and âThe Guardâ). This feels like if McDonagh made a Shane Black film. Itâs not a powerful meditation on faith and morality like âCalvaryâ and itâs not a great character-study like âThe Guardâ, but âWar on Everyoneâ shows that even a lower-tier McDonagh film is still as hilarious and biting as they come, and it even comes with a bit of heart and soul. Still, definitely not recommended to the easily-offended. It feels kind of pointless, but I could listen to McDonagh characters talk shit to each other all day.
22. 10 Cloverfield Lane - I will try to be as spoiler-free as possible in this review. Honestly, if you STILL havenât seen it and want to, just go watch it and know that it definitely comes recommended.
Iâll admit it; even though I wasnât a huge fan of the shaky-cam monster-athon that was âCloverfieldâ, the mysterious and vague trailer for â10 Cloverfield Laneâ got me properly hyped up as I tried to figure out the connection between the two movies. In an unusual twist, most of the movie is only tangentially a work of science-fiction. The plot is about a young woman named Michelle who runs away from home as some vague disaster occurs. Sheâs knocked out, and wakes up in an underground survival shelter run by a paranoid survivalist named Howard, along with a young guy named Emmett. Howard says that there has been a massive attack, but Michelle is skeptical and is unsure if Howard is trustworthy or crazy.
The bulk of the film is in the bunker, as the trio try to cope with the various realities of living in a survival shelter, including each other. This entire section is excellent. Deftly alternating between lighthearted bonding, uncomfortable comedy, and pressure-cooker intensity, debut director Dan Trachtenberg shows he is an expert when it comes to tone, pacing, and atmosphere, further enlivened by Bear McCrearyâs terrific score. Even better is the main trio of actors, all of whom play off of each other well and really flesh out their characters. The guy who plays Emmett displays a dopey likability that suits the character well, while Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes Michelle much more intelligent, tough and compelling than your average "horror" protagonist (I use that term broadly). Powerfully commanding the whole movie is John Goodman, who easily makes Howard sympathetic at times and genuinely terrifying at others. This is a brilliantly batshit performance by one of our very best character actors, and even if the rest of the production wasnât up to par (which it definitely is), he alone would make this film worth watching.
The reason this movie isnât higher on my list is because of the last 10-or-so minutes. Without going into detail (and the trailer gives this away anyway), Michelle leaves the bunker by the end. Itâs like the entire film gets wrapped up and ends satisfyingly, but then it goes on for another 10 minutes that feels like a completely different movie with a whiplash-inducing change in tone. Itâs all still skillfully made and well-acted, but the effect just feels bizarre if youâre watching it for the first time. At first I thought the sequence was there to connect it to the first âCloverfieldâ and make it a semi-sequel, but itâs too vague for me to buy it.
Maybe it is all some continuous âCloverfieldâ universe, or better yet, itâs an anthology film series in the vain of âThe Twilight Zoneâ or âBlack Mirrorâ, one where talented up-and-coming directors make unique sci-fi thrillers. If thatâs the case, itâs best not to read too much into the ending, and to just try and accept the movie as a standalone despite the jarring tonal shift at the end. One thing I actually quite liked about the ending is that it satisfyingly concludes Michelleâs character arc, making her a surprisingly well-developed protagonist that has actually grown by the end. Maybe if I watch this again (and I do plan to), Iâll like it more and probably give it a higher spot on the list, but even on a first impression, â10 Cloverfield Laneâ is an engaging and balls-tighteningly tense thriller with a top-notch cast and production working at the top of their game. John Goodman is so good, man.
21. London Has Fallen â Holy hell, where do I even begin? Rare is the movie where I honestly cannot tell if itâs trying to be a comedy or not. It has a serious post-9/11 depiction of terrorism, but it treats all the bad guys like cannon fodder to be disposed of in spectacular ways. It has some lines about the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, but these lines are throwaway at best and never brought up again. It tries to somewhat humanize its villains, but it also has Gerard Butler executing a wheel-chair bound terrorist before going on a tirade about how theyâll never win and that America will still be standing in a thousand years (not sure if the Third Reich comparison is intentional).
The action scenes are competently shot/staged, if unremarkable (despite a fun CGI-assisted long-take shootout). The script feels like it was either written in a weekend or improvised on the spot by Butler and company. In fact, I feel like this wasnât originally written as a sequel to âOlympus Has Fallenâ. None of the previous movieâs events are referenced, and all the recurring cast members (save for Butler and Aaron Eckhart) feel like glorified crowbarred-in cameos. Itâs absurd to have a White House cabinet of Oscar winners/nominees and give them all a collective 5 minutes of screen-time. Iâm pretty sure Oscar-winner Melissa Leo doesnât even have any lines. Iâm sure the paycheck was nice, at least. The first 15 minutes or so are fairly boring, even if things pick up considerably afterwards.
The one indisputable quality this movie has is Gerard Butler. Butler gives a genuinely jaw-dropping performance as bloodthirsty and very likely insane Secret Service agent Mike Banning (our hero, naturally). Mike Banning is the type of guy who reacts to getting shot in the shoulder and the birth of his child with roughly the same facial expression. Mike Banning is the type of guy who despite being very proficient with and usually having convenient access to firearms, frequently elects to brutally stab the bad guys numerous times with a combat knife. (âWas that really necessary?â President Aaron Eckhart asks after Banning slowly stabs a terrorist in the ribs to death while making his brother listen via walkie-talkie. âNoâ, Banning bluntly admits.) Even from the peaceful initial scenes of him accompanying the President on a jog or talking to his wife, you can tell something is very off about him. We as the audience are of course expecting/awaiting shit to hit the fan, but Butler is nearly trembling with anticipation to start murdering terrorists during these scenes. Butler makes almost every bit of dialogue sound like a badass one-liner, on one occasion offering the President a glass of water while saying âI donât know about you, but Iâm thirsty as fuckâ, spewing the word âfuckâ out of the side of his mouth like a shotgun blast. Even on the off-chance that the movie isnât taking the piss, Butler most definitely is. Iâm not being ironic when I say that this is one of the great comic performances of our time, and the success of the movie (for me) is due to the movie being centered around Butler and his hilariously absurd machoism.
The director of this movie is an Iranian who escaped his war-torn home to Sweden as a boy. This, coupled with Butlerâs performance, Butler and Eckhartâs borderline-homoerotic bromance, the ridiculous one-liners and speeches, and an indefensibly heroic portrayal of drone-warfare, makes me feel like âLondon Has Fallenâ is really one big satire of U.S. foreign policy subtly disguised as a stupid, offensive action movie, something conservative idiots will applaud, liberal idiots will condemn, and fun, smart, attractive people will appreciate and enjoy for what it is. I saw this and âGods of Egyptâ with a few friends as a sort of once-in-a-lifetime Gerard Butler double-feature, and I had a grand time.
I felt like I could smell this movie, and I like that. Watching âLondon Has Fallenâ is like sex; You wouldnât want someone walking in on you during, and youâll probably want to take a shower afterwards, but once you get past the initial foreplay, itâs a great time from start to raucous, bloody finish.
Wow, that metaphor got gross in a hurry.
20. The Witch â I put off watching âThe Witchâ because every time in the past few years that people heralded the newest âgreat, modern horror filmâ (It Follows, The Babadook, etc.), I found them to be massively overrated and even a bit disappointing, even despite their good qualities. After finally seeing it, I can safely say that itâs definitely one of the best horror films in years (which isnât saying much, but still).
The story is of an early 17th century Puritan family who get exiled from their village and set up a farm in an isolated area near the woods. Strange supernatural things start happening to them, and the movie becomes the gradual degradation of their mental states, as they start to blame and fight amongst each other, not unlike my beloved âThe Thingâ.
This is a very atmospheric, slow-burning kind of horror. The emphasis is on creeping dread rather than murdering attractive 20-something teenagers. For a first-time filmmaker, director Robert Eggers shows an excellent grasp of pacing, tone, and visual storytelling. Once you get used to the historical Ye Olde English manner in which the characters speak (subtitles are recommended), the writing is surprisingly quite good, with well-defined characters with clear conflicts and motivations. The acting ensemble is terrific. The whole movie is pretty much just two parents, a teenage daughter, an adolescent boy, and two young children, and they are all fantastic. Seriously, as someone who despises children (both in real life and in film), this is some of the best child-acting Iâve ever seen.
My problem with the movie is that (and this is kind of a spoiler, but it happens early in the film) I was hoping that it wouldnât be clear whether or not the supernatural stuff is actually happening, or if the family is just losing their minds because of some clever metaphor or allegory. But no, itâs revealed pretty early on that it is actually supernatural stuff, which takes away some of the surprise and the suspense. The music is the kind of discordant âunnervingâ string-heavy stuff youâd expect in a horror movie, and I often felt that silence would be much more effective during the scenes itâs used in. Â Also, without giving away anything, the ending is pretty silly. It wraps up the story and the character arc of the lead character (the teenage daughter), but the manner in which it does it felt kind of over-the-top. You know what, though? I honestly thought we would get some shitty, cop-out, cut-to-black ending 5 minutes earlier, so itâs not that big of a deal. Iâll take a retarded ending over a non-ending any day of the week.
âThe Witchâ is a horror movie for those who donât like horror movies, and one that treats its audience with intelligence and respect, and (the last few minutes notwithstanding) is actually satisfying and builds well to its climax. As someone who doesnât care much for horror movies, I would say that âThe Witchâ lives up to the hype, and is well-worth checking out. Also, best (and surprisingly similar) use of a goat since Sam Raimiâs âDrag Me to Hellâ.
19. Nocturnal Animals â A problem a lot of movies have for me in particular is when theyâre tonally or stylistically inconsistent, feeling like two separate movies at odds with each other. Tom Fordâs âNocturnal Animalsâ is a rare example of a movie with strikingly different stories complementing each other and actually improving the end product. The film is about a LA art exhibitor played by Amy Adams, who has an unhappy personal life despite her successful professional life. One day, her long-estranged ex-husband sends her a copy of his upcoming novel, a violent thriller about a family man terrorized by hillbillies in West Texas. The movie cuts between the novelâs story, Adamsâ current life, and her past relationship with the ex-husband.
Tom Ford showed with his debut âA Serious Manâ that he was great at filming and telling a story about people in rich houses being sad, as he does here, but also displays an uncanny talent at filming a gritty desert-set revenge tale. The parallels between the real life story and the novel are very finely drawn, and while I found the novel sections much more gripping than the Amy Adams story, the seemingly-disparate styles and tones never clash and instead fit really well with each other, creating a movie that is more than the sum of its parts. For a fashion designer, itâs surprising how good of a writer and director Tom Ford is, and he shows that âA Single Manâ wasnât just beginnerâs luck.
Also helping the movie is the fantastic cast. Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances as both the ex-husband and the protagonist of the novel story, and Amy Adams shows incredible nuance and subtlety, reminding us why she is one of the best actresses working today. Michael Shannon steals the show for me (yes, I love him and Iâm biased, shut up) as a shady detective in the novelâs story. All the supporting players are great as well, even if their roles arenât as meaty.
My main complaints are that the dialogue is sometimes silly, some of the supporting characters are pretty one-dimensional and cartoonish (Amy Adamâs current-day husband played by Armie Hammer is a distant businessman who has to go away to New York to âmake that very important saleâ), and that the editing is a little wonky and overdone at some minor points. I initially had mixed-feelings about the ending, feeling that it was a bit anticlimactic and expected more to happen, but after thinking about it and how it ties to the movieâs themes and character relationships, I like it a lot more in retrospect. Unlike the movie, I canât think of a good way to wrap this review up, but Iâll say that âNocturnal Animalsâ is engaging, unique, and worth checking out, so letâs move on.
18. The Wailing â Its imposing length and frustrating lack of resolution/clarity can be hard to overcome for some people, but this South Korean supernatural horror flick is (in terms of acting, writing, directing, pacing, editing, themes, and just plain scariness and dread) the best and most effective horror film in quite a while. Like a bloodier and more emotionally tormenting version of âThe Witchâ.
17. La La Land â Before some of you call for my beheading for placing âLa La Landâ this âlowâ on my list, let me begin by saying that I still enjoyed the damn thing. From a purely technical perspective, âLa La Landâ is hands-down one of the best films of the year. Damien Chazelleâs immaculate direction perfectly captures the nostalgic sense one gets from watching old Hollywood musicals. This, coupled with terrific musical numbers and game actors makes âLa La Landâ an easy movie to enjoy. The story, however, is where the movie is a bit shaky.
The plot is about a down-on-their-luck aspiring actress and jazz pianist who fall in love while pursuing their dreams, and struggle to deal with the reality of keeping their relationship together while their paths go in different directions. The movie goes for a contrast between a magical, cheery Hollywood musical and a more grounded, dramatic approach, but for most of the movie it doesnât quite gel as well as one would hope. I loved the first half of the movie, where itâs an extravagant musical about aspiring artists, but halfway through, it kind of jarringly becomes a relationship drama, with hardly any musical numbers, and this part seriously drags. Itâs only near the end where Emma Stone sings her big âGive me an Oscar, goddammitâ number that I even remembered this movie was supposed to be a musical. Itâs like the movie takes two different approaches to its material, whereas one middle-ground approach (keep the big musical bits throughout but make them gradually more dramatic) would have made the movie a lot better, in my opinion. It doesnât help that the two lead characters just arenât very interesting. Donât get me wrong; Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling try their damnedest here, but it feels more like two likable actors playing parts instead of real people with flaws and humanity, a feeling exacerbated by them not even having that good a chemistry.
If you can put up with an uneven viewing experience long enough, the film rewards you with one of the best endings Iâve seen in years, one where the themes, motivations, and songs are meshed together in a perfectly bittersweet sequence that actually makes up for a lot of the filmâs flaws, and the one point in the film where the aforementioned contrast between fantasy and reality is perfectly in sync with the filmmaking style. Itâs here where it stops being a movie about struggling artists and becomes something grander; a film about following your dreams but realizing that life never really works out the way you intend. This and the opening single-take number are ones for the ages, and make the film worth watching all by themselves. To put it in a one-sentence review, âLa La Landâ is still a case of a movie musical being really good in the first half but fizzling out in the second (something which happened in every one Iâve ever seen besides the âSouth Parkâ movie), but at least it recovers well enough to leave a positive impression.
16. The Shallows â Iâm as surprised as you that this âhot-girl-gets-attacked-by-sharkâ film is this high up on my list, but here we are. Blake Lively plays said hot girl, a medical student who travels to an isolated beach in Mexico as a sort of spiritual journey/tribute to her deceased mother, and before long gets sharkâd and stranded a few hundred feet from shore on some rocks during low-tide. I thought this would be the sort of cheeky, âPiranha 3Dâ-esque exploitation flick, but âThe Shallowsâ actually has enough confidence to take itself fairly seriously. The main character has intelligence and some depth and even an arc (as obvious as it may be), and sheâs buoyed by Livelyâs terrific and believable performance. The shark is intimidating and scary, even when itâs not onscreen. The film has a good sense of progression, gradually escalating the threat level before arriving at the admittedly over-the-top but highly entertaining finale. It has a scene of the main character performing surgery on herself, which for some morbid reason Iâve always enjoyed seeing in movies and shows. And to top it all off, thereâs a seagull that befriends the main character as sheâs stranded, played by an actual trained seagull whose reactions (and lack thereof) are hilarious and his role in the plot surprisingly affecting. This seems like a stupid thing to harp on about, but if there was an Oscar for Best Performance by an Animal, Sully the Seagullâs performance as Steven Seagull would easily take home the prize.
There are a few issues, like how the main character tends to speak too much to herself (i.e. the audience) about her situation, and while I didnât hate the very end of the movie, I do wish the film had ended a minute or two earlier right when it had a perfect moment to do so, instead of going on with an epilogue. However, given the expectations I had going in, director Jaume Collet-Serra uses Blake Livelyâs good looks and strong acting ability, the beautiful camerawork and setting, his storytelling skills, and an adorable seagull to blow those expectations completely out of the water (har-har).
15. The Handmaiden â Gorgeously filmed, lurid, and thoroughly entertaining Korean erotic thriller with strong performances, writing, and a wonderfully dark sense of humor (an attempted hanging scene yielded one of the yearâs biggest laughs for me). Strikes a good balance between artful grace and trashy pulp.
14. Silence â Of the 2016 films in which an accented and deeply religious Andrew Garfield has his faith tested by horrific violence committed by the Japanese, I like âHacksaw Ridgeâ more, but this is still a powerful and deeply personal look at faith from Martin Scorsese. A challenging movie, but rewarding if you put in the effort to understand it thematically. A bit overlong and repetitive in the middle portion (though this is probably intentional), and I feel like the movie would be better if Garfield and Adam Driver switched roles, but from the moment Liam Neeson comes back into the movie, itâs outstanding to the end.
13. The Dressmaker â In the early â50s, a bus rolls into a tiny, rural Australian town that looks like something out of a Western. Out steps Kate Winslet, accompanied by a Morricone-esque guitar and violin, immaculately dressed and carrying a sewing machine in her case, who proceeds to light up a cigarette and say âIâm back, you bastards.â
Two minutes in and you already know youâre in for a fun movie. Winslet plays a dressmaker who returns to her hometown after being banished as a child to care for her cantankerous mother (Judy Davis), and before long, dredges up a lot of bad blood among the townsfolk that hurt and humiliated her years ago. To say any more would be to spoil the wonderful weirdness that emanates from this film. âThe Dressmakerâ blends family melodrama, Western, comedy that ranges from the dark to the surreal to the slapstick, campiness, tragedy, romance, and revenge. Itâs a mess, sure, but it struts along with such confidence in itself and its source material that all these seemingly disparate elements miraculously work together, for the most part. It helps that Winslet and Davis are so excellent that they deftly maneuver through all these tones and keep you engaged in whatâs happening. Itâs tough to say what kind of person Iâd recommend this to, but Iâll say this; If youâve always wanted an Australian Western version of âTwin Peaksâ where the protagonist is a female couturier instead of a male gunslinger, then âThe Dressmakerâ will quench that extremely particular thirst.
A note on why I consider Kate Winslet to be one the best actors in the business: SHE IS A FOREIGN ACTOR THAT NAILS A PERFECT AUSTRALIAN ACCENT.
12. 20th Century Women â Mike Mills somewhat tones down the quirkiness from âBeginnersâ, but still delivers a personal, heartfelt, and funny portrayal of humanity, here subverting the typical coming-of-age story of his teenage boy self-insert protagonist by focusing the film on the women in his life and how their feminist strength and independence help shape him as he grows up. Fantastic performances from Annette Bening and Greta âLove of my Lifeâ Gerwig.
11. Moana â Beautiful visuals, wonderful music, top-notch voice acting, and a compelling and even touching story. I was pleasantly surprised by how long the movie took to set up the characters and their relationships and individual personalities before diving into the adventure. Even the stuff I normally find annoying in Disney movies (needless action scenes, cute animal sidekicks, hip modern references) are toned down here. Maui (voiced by The Rock, who has more charisma than the ocean has water, and a nice singing voice to boot) is extremely entertaining, but Moana is surprisingly a compelling character herself, someone who has aspirations and flaws and a sense of agency, as opposed to the usual dull Disney heroines who unwillingly fall into their fate before falling in love with Prince Flawless McGeneric. Great, empowering message (especially for young girls) about forging your own path in life. A million bonus points for not giving Moana a forced love interest. Another million points for Jemaine Clement as a giant, singing crab. Best animated film of 2016 by a wide margin. Disneyâs best non-Pixar movie since âLilo & Stitchâ. Probably my favorite Disney Princess movie. I donât care what anyone says; âMoanaâ was fucking lit.
10. Eddie the Eagle â One thing Iâve noticed about myself lately is how sick I am of âironyâ. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the âreplacing sincerity and any genuine feeling with some detached sense of humorâ sense. I think it was the inexplicable but somehow expected rise in popularity of a meme involving a dead gorilla that did it for me. But my point is, lately Iâve been finding myself watching movies otherwise labeled as âcornyâ or âcheesyâ by jaded, cynical and emotionally detached people, who do so just because said movies believe in their own stories without shame or self-referential humor. Well, fuck those people. They can rot in hell along with their precious gorilla.
âEddie the Eagleâ is about Michael âEddieâ Edwards, a British skier who despite having very little experience and natural talent managed through sheer determination and willpower to accomplish his dream of competing in the 1988 Winter Olympics. Eddie comes from a working class family with a loving, supportive mother and a stern, disapproving father. Despite being a talented skier, he is rejected by Olympic board members due to his uncouth and dopey nature. He realizes that he still has a chance of making it onto the Olympic team as a ski-jumper, since the British have not competed in the sport in several decades, so he runs away to Europe to start training, where he meets an alcoholic former ski-jumper-turned-snow-groomer that helps him train.
This film has pretty much every inspirational sports clichĂ© imaginable, from the plucky loser underdog, to the grumpy mentor, to the uplifting synthesizer music, to the late moments where the protagonist is at his lowest point and wants to give up, and so on. In many cases these would be negatives. However, the movie embraces these clichĂ©s instead of trying to shy away from them, and in doing so it feels so sincere and full of heart that it actually works. You acknowledge the unoriginality, but you find yourself rooting for Eddie to succeed so much that you just donât care. Dexter Fletcherâs direction is spirited and full of energy, the aforementioned synth music by Matthew Margeson is wonderful, and the two lead performances by Taron Egerton as Eddie and Hugh Jackman as his mentor are excellent. The movie isnât all that historically accurate. The real Eddie Edwards himself said that âonly about 5%â of the film is true, and even the tagline is âInspired by a dream come trueâ, rather than âBased on a true storyâ. But as a Huffington Post critic said, âYou can't believe most of it, but you can believe in it. That's a subtle but important difference.â
But do you want to know why this movie is so high up on my list? So many movies over the years have been praised as âemotionalâ and âtear-jerkingâ and to me ended up feeling manipulative and artificial (*cough*Room*cough*). âEddie the Eagleâ, however, with all its sincerity and heart and feel-good splendor, touched me so much that I actually cried at the end. I can count the movies that made me genuinely cry on one hand, and this is the only one that has ever made me cry tears of joy instead of sadness. If the ending scene at the airport doesnât melt your heart, then congratulations on not having one.
9. Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Due to my continual disappointment in my usual preferred genres of film in 2016, I started to branch out a bit and check out films I otherwise normally wouldnât, one of which is New Zealand coming-of-age comedy drama âHunt for the Wilderpeopleâ. The plot is about a young juvenile delinquent boy and his grumpy foster father who, due to odd circumstances, find themselves hunted by the law and escape to âthe bushâ, the vast New Zealand forests. We follow them as the two survive, get into various misadventures, and face off with an obsessed child services worker. To reveal any more would be to spoil this wonderful movie. Suffice it to say I enjoyed the hell out of it. Rarely do you encounter a movie that does adventure, buddy comedy, or tragic drama this well, let alone one that does all three, while at the same time showing interesting aspects of Kiwi culture and the beautiful landscape without feeling like a travelogue. The boy (Julian Dennison) starts off as annoying, but this is intentional rather than the fault of bad acting, and he not only grows on you but also shows a good deal of comic timing and emotional range. Sam Neill as the grumpy foster dad gives a career-best performance, showing the kind of depth I didnât expect from someone who I think Iâve only ever seen in the âJurassic Parkâ movies. Honestly, I recommend this film to pretty much anyone (that has access to subtitles). Itâs funny, touching, creative, and lovely to look at. Between this and âWhat We Do in the Shadowsâ, writer/director Taika Waititi has given me just the slightest bit of hope that âThor: Ragnarokâ will actually be good.
8. Paterson â Wonderfully understated, warm, and compassionate ode to the passion and creativity found in everyday life, making even the smallest mundanities feel profound and moving. No story arc or big dramatic moments to speak of; just the story of a quiet but observant bus driver/poet and his seemingly unremarkable but, well, poetic life. The relationship between Adam Driver and his wife (Golshifteh Farahani) is one of the most beautiful Iâve ever seen in a movie. Also; casting Adam Driver as a bus driver? Bravo, Jim Jarmusch.
7. The Nice Guys â I canât believe I used to not care for Ryan Gosling. Granted, for the longest time the only movie Iâd seen him in was âDriveâ, and itâs hard to take someone seriously as an actor when all the role asks of someone is to stare silently for uncomfortably long periods and occasionally hit people. But nonetheless, in recent years the guy has done phenomenal work and completely won me over as an actor, culminating in Shane Blackâs âThe Nice Guysâ, where he gives his best performance to date. He is shockingly funny and provides not only a lot of the laughs in this movie, but also a good deal of its heart. Heâs gotten a lot of awards attention for his role in âLa La Landâ, but to me this is the highlight of his career so far.
Gosling plays an alcoholic, bumbling private detective and single father who teams up with the low-rent enforcer who broke his arm (Russell Crowe) to crack a major conspiracy involving a missing girl and a dead porn star. Tagging along for much of the mystery is Goslingâs teenage daughter, played by Angourie Rice in one of the best child performances Iâve ever seen in a movie (damning with faint praise, but still, give her credit), easily holding her own in scenes with Gosling and Crowe, despite a few awkward line deliveries. The three leads are great and have excellent chemistry with each other and with the strong supporting cast, helped along by Blackâs hilarious dialogue, irreverent sense of humor, and his continuing growth as a director. I already harped on this in previous reviews, but itâs really refreshing to see a comedy that actually sets its jokes up before giving them a good payoff, especially one where some setups arenât initially obvious (a seemingly throwaway story about Richard Nixon ended up giving me one of the biggest laughs of the year later on).
Thereâs kind of a lack of urgency to the mystery that makes the pacing a bit lethargic. I didnât mind it much because the characters are so likable that you donât mind spending time with them, but itâs worth mentioning. While thereâs some character conflict and growth, I wish it tied into the plot a bit more. The lack of a clear antagonist for the first half of the movie also hurts. There are a lot of jokes and visual gags, and while most work, a few do fall flat. I feel like an extra rewrite and some tighter editing could fix most of these problems, and none of them are by any means a deal-breaker.
It feels weird to call this film âoriginalâ, since itâs more or less the same film Shane Blackâs been making for the past 30 years, but in an increasingly bland world of mainstream filmmaking, itâs so refreshing to see a unique voice like Black do his own thing with a great cast and a solid budget. Itâs a damn shame that a film which shouldâve led to some sequels instead just barely made itsâ production budget back. Put it another way; if you complain about a lack of originality in Hollywood but still paid money to see the latest superhero flick instead of âThe Nice Guysâ, please dip your head into a bucket of wet cement until the bubbles stop.
6. Hacksaw Ridge â Iâm willing to go on record and say that âHacksaw Ridgeâ is probably the most violent movie Iâve ever seen (at least the most violent since the last Mel Gibson movie). Considering this, only Mad Mel can make such an insanely violent film while also telling a moving story about one manâs faith and adherence to pacifism. The story is about Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector and pacifist who wanted to serve his country as a combat medic, and whose extraordinary rescue of over 70 soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa became the stuff of legend and earned him a Medal of Honor.
The movie has kind of a typical biopic structure, showing his early years as a troublesome lad who finds meaning in life with Christianity, to his young adult days where he tries to romance his impossibly attractive later-wife, before moving to the boot camp scenes where heâs persecuted by others for his refusal to pick up a gun, and finally to the war scenes. The transition between corny but solid, old-fashioned melodrama (or MEL-odrama) and the incredible, surreal, horrific war stuff may sound jarring, but in a very smart move, Gibson opens the film with a slow-motion montage of combat with a narration from Doss. This seems kind of clichĂ©d, but it sets your mind up to expect the stuff youâll see later, while at the same time taking away none of the impact.
Contrary to what some may think about the film and of Gibson going in, itâs not one of those shitty âChristians are good, others suckâ films that do remarkably well in the southern states. The subject of the film is deeply religious and the film has its fair share of unsubtle Christ-like imagery, sure, but not only does it not beat you over the head with it, it even feels earned after seeing what Doss is put through. Plus, if anything, itâs less about the strength of faith and more about sticking to your convictions even when the whole world tests you. Plus, itâs refreshing for a war movie to heroically portray a man who saved lives instead of taking them.
Despite being away from the directorâs chair for a decade, Gibson has lost none of his storytelling prowess or his penchant for striking imagery. The period and technical detail is fantastic (during one scene where you see through the scope of a Japanese sniper rifle, the film even got the scope right). Despite having to fill the late, great James Hornerâs (who couldnât do the film due to his unfortunate death in 2015) shoes, Rupert Gregson-Williams surprisingly turns in one of the strongest musical scores of the year. The mostly-Australian cast is excellent, with Andrew Garfield giving a career-best performance as Doss (at this point, I forgive him for âThe Amazing Spiderman 2â), as well as strong supporting turns from Vince Vaughn as the funny/tough drill sergeant, and especially from Hugo Weaving as Dossâs PTSD-ridden WWI veteran father. Weaving genuinely looks like a man who died in the trenches in France but whose body still returned home, turning to booze and anger to make him forget the trauma he experienced.
I would say that Hacksaw Ridge has all the makings of a great film but is slightly held back by some story choices. The film kind of ends shortly after Dossâs heroic exploits with some standard biopic text and interviews from his real-life former comrades. Itâs fine, but I think it would have had more impact to first show Doss returning home and reuniting with his wife and family, considering how prominent the theme of family was in the film. Also, there is one scene late in the movie involving Japanese officers, which I wonât spoil, but it feels forced and EXTREMELY unnecessary (I guess Gibson just has a thing for beheadings).
Still, considering how good this film is overall and how well itâs being received, Iâm happy to report that Mel Gibson is no longer persona non-grata in Hollywood, and that I absolutely look forward to whatever heâs making next. Welcome back, Mel. We missed you.
Note: Something I thought of after watching âHacksaw Ridgeâ; Mel Gibson could totally direct a âMad Maxâ film.
5. Hell or High Water - On an early Texas morning, a two men rob a pair of branches of the Texas Midlands Bank. While not without a few hiccups, the robberies go smoothly. The two men are siblings; calm and smart divorced father Toby (Chris Pine), and his loose-cannon ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster). They are trying to raise enough money to save their family farm by paying off the foreclosing bank with its own stolen money, while being hunted down by Texas Rangers Marcus and Alberto (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham), the former close to retirement. There are still a number of branches they need to rob in order to raise the needed amount. What ensues is one of the most mature and intelligent thrillers Iâve seen in a long time.
There is no black or white. Just two sides of the law. We understand both sides, and the motivation of each man. While the robbery scenes are thrilling and gritty, the movie actually shows a tremendous level of restraint. The pacing is deliberately slow, but the film is so well-made and well-written and so confident in itself that it never becomes boring, and it builds exceptionally well to its grip-you-by-the-balls climax. The movie spends a lot of time with the characters talking, with dialogue that feels both realistic and entertaining. The extremely underrated TV show "Justified" has instilled in me a joy in hearing Southern people talk shit to each other, and the movie doesn't let me down in that regard. The rural, neo-Western setting is wonderfully atmospheric and does a good job conveying how tough life can be in such a place (with a noteworthy supporting performance from Katy Mixon as a waitress who refuses to give back a large tip of stolen money to the Rangers).
Even though his character is pretty much a less alcoholic and more down-to-earth version of his Rooster Cogburn from the Coensâ âTrue Gritâ, Bridges still impresses with a soulful and highly entertaining performance. Similarly, while Ben Foster feels a bit typecast as the âwild manâ brother, he still knocks it out of the park with his confidence and screen presence. The biggest surprise is Chris Pine, tuning down his smirky charm and turning in his best performance to date as a man whose cool-headedness masks his desperation.
If I had to think of a flaw, it's that the film has a slightly-annoying over-reliance on licensed country songs in the first half of the movie...really, that's all I can think of. The slow pacing might be a turnoff for some people (some extremely thick people who very likely have ADHD and are virgins), but it pays off so well that I can't even consider it a problem for anyone with a three-digit IQ. If you are tired of action movies or thrillers being dumb, this is the movie for you. If you are tired of smart movies being dull, this is the movie for you. "Hell or High Water" is a diamond in the rough that is 2016, and deserves your attention.
4. Elle â I saw this movie solely because Paul Verhoeven directed a sizable portion of my childhood (Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers), and he has enough goodwill based on that alone that Iâll check out anything he makes. While his European films are noticeably different from his American action classics, one thing that hasnât faltered is his skill as a director and unique voice in telling provocative stories. âElleâ certainly has one hell of an opening. A wealthy middle-aged woman named MichĂšle is attacked and raped in her home in France. After the intruder leaves, MichĂšle calmly collects herself, cleans herself and her home, and goes to work the next day as if nothing is wrong. The rest of the movie is about her conducting her own investigation into finding out who attacked her as we learn about her feelings and why she doesnât notify the police, as well as her complicated relationships with her friends, neighbors and family.
I can definitely see a lot of people getting offended by this movieâs depiction of rape and its consequences on the main character, but considering how complex and unpredictable human beings can be, this is one of the most bracing, raw and honest depictions of the subject Iâve ever seen. Put it simply, this isnât your typical rape-revenge film. The excellent writing and Verhoevenâs strong command of the material and his cast elevates it beyond what I thought possible. The characters are very well-defined, with all their own quirks and needs and insecurities, and despite how uncomfortable the film can be, itâs also surprisingly very funny in how it presents them and their relationships with each other, especially during a fantastic Christmas dinner scene where all the characters and their animosities come together. There is a lot of gossiping, resentment, passive-aggressiveness and cuckoldry on display (itâs a French movie, so no surprise there). The film is certainly lurid, but everything from the story and performances to the themes and subtext is done so well that you canât stop watching. At no moment during its two-and-a-half-hour running time was I bored.
âElleâ is a film I wouldnât recommend to everyone due to itsâ length and subject matter, but thanks to the strong writing, Paul Verhoevenâs confident direction, and a stunning lead performance from Isabelle Huppert, this a bold, gripping, and surprisingly entertaining film that is absolutely worth going out of your way to see if you can stomach it. Plus, thereâs a really cute cat.
With that out of the way; please come back to America and make another gory, over-the-top action film, Mr. Verhoeven. Hollywood needs you more than you need it.
3. Sing Street â An Irish lad from a broken home in 1985 Dublin gets transferred to a rough, inner-city school. Soon he meets a mysterious girl hanging around outside the school, and in an effort to impress her, asks her to be a model in a music video for his non-existent band.
What follows is a coming-of-age story about artistic expression and love where the boy gathers anyone that can play an instrument (including the funniest part of the movie where they try to recruit âprobably the only black guy in Dublinâ), starts making music and videos, and slowly starts bonding with the girl. Itâs tough to make a movie set in 20th century Ireland feel optimistic, but writer/director John Carney deftly maneuvers between comedy and drama, makes the film simultaneously fantastic yet grounded, making the story of falling in love and following oneâs dreams feel believable and easy to root for.
From the tagline âBoy meets girl. Girl unimpressed. Boy starts bandâ, you can probably guess the general progression of the plot. This, coupled with the fact that I donât like coming-of-age stories, or musicals, or Irish people*, means that this film was facing an uphill battle from me. Imagine how goddamn good this film must be that itâs number 3 on my list this year. A cynic would say that it doesnât face much competition from an unremarkable year for film like 2016, but âSing Streetâ is a wonderful ode to the power of music and young love that would be great in any year, and I defy you to watch it without a smile on your face. Basically, if you possess a heart, a soul, a dream, a love for music, or a pulse, I cannot recommend âSing Streetâ enough.
*kidding. I love you, you pale, swear-y, chip-shop bombing drunkards.
2. Star Trek Beyond â After a strong start to a reboot of the storied franchise with 2009âs âStar Trekâ, the series took a nosedive with âStar Trek Into Darknessâ, the woefully misguided attempt to make the series dark and gritty. Because of this and the new director being Justin Lin, a man who has made four (well, three and a cameo) films about Vin Diesel sleepily growling about family in between scenes of supercars performing Cirque du Soleil acts, I wasnât all too excited for the new entry, even though itâd be written by talented comic actor and well-known nerd Simon Pegg. Who would have thought that Pegg and Lin would have been the ones that saved not only 2016 from being a shit year for blockbusters, but also the soul of the âStar Trekâ franchise?
The plot is about Kirk and the Enterprise crew getting stranded on a remote world after being attacked by a mysterious warlord while investigating a missing ship. Itâs a slick and self-contained adventure, making it feel like a long and big-budget episode of the series in the best possible way. I donât want to imply that this is the âStar Trekâ of yore. Itâs still a big, over-the-top space action film. But it has something that the previous two films (especially Into Darkness) lacked; spirit. The spirit of discovery, of exploration, of optimism. That despite the dangers in the galaxy, any problem can be overcome as long as all the species work together. Most importantly, it has an emphasis on character, actually slowing down at times to let them breathe and talk and joke with each other (yâknow, like theyâre people or something, and not just plot-devices). Thereâs a wonderful little scene at the start where Kirk and Bones share a drink to toast Kirkâs deceased father, and the tributes to the gone-but-not-forgotten Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin were beautifully done.
Itâs remarkable how well Lin and Pegg capture this âStar Trekâ spirit while still making an exciting, blockbuster action film. Lin brings his A-game to the action scenes, making them fun, creative, and natural as a story progression. You always understand why the action is happening, as opposed to a random fight being thrown in for its own sake. Thereâs a certain scene later in the film where a ship has to take on a swarm of smaller enemies with a familiar musical cue, and I cannot remember the last time I ever felt so much hype and childish glee in a movie scene.
I guess the villain is the same generic normal-guy-who-was-betrayed-and-wants revenge that the past two films had, but between the still-excellent cast (newcomer Sofia Boutella steals the show as an alien warrior/scavenger that Scotty meets), a strong soundtrack, awesome visuals, a fun story, involving action scenes, and that warm âStar Trekâ feel to it, âStar Trek Beyondâ feels like a jolt to the heart of a series that was in danger of becoming lost to soulless, studio-driven blockbuster territory. Assuming thereâs more to this series of films, I cannot wait to see where the franchise boldly goes from here.
1. Free Fire â This is the most fun Iâve had in a theater since âMad Max: Fury Roadâ. I wasnât a huge fan of Ben Wheatleyâs previous films, but among the material I didnât really care for, I saw an undeniable talent in his work. Here, itâs like he used his powers to make a movie precisely for me.
The film is about an arms deal that takes place in a warehouse between two groups of criminals that quickly gets out of hand after shots are fired in the exchange. The remaining 70 minutes of this 90-minute long movie is basically one really long shootout as everyone picks sides, betray each other, and get increasingly wounded while rarely ceasing their shit-talking. Think âReservoir Dogsâ as a comedy of miscommunication. In an amazing feat of filmmaking, Wheatley makes sure that this lengthy shootout set mostly in one large room isnât boring for a second. His smart, gradual escalation of events punctuated with a number of âholy shitâ moments and set pieces, held together by excellent editing, keeps the film exciting and darkly funny throughout. In between the big moments, characters take pause to hurl expletives at each other and ponder their own situation as they desperately try to get out of it, adding up to people you care about and are interested in even if theyâre all dicks. This is a brilliant example of how important pacing and characterization is to a film, especially to one with so little plot.
Also helping is the hilarious banter, delivered by a wonderful and colorful cast of characters played by a small but absolutely stellar cast. Everyone is great and play their characters perfectly, with a standout performance by Sharlto Copley as an unhinged, self-absorbed arms dealer who causes much of the conflict in the film. I knew Iâd love him as soon as a character says âVernon was misdiagnosed as a child genius and never got over it.â I also want to mention the sound design, which is some of the best in recent memory, with every bullet fired feeling like a loud jolt to oneâs system. The writing is highly enjoyable on a superficial level, and even carries a bit of depth with the shootout being a clever allegory for human nature and just generally what happens when idiots own guns.
âFree Fireâ is by far the best movie I saw this year, and when it gets a theatrical release, I implore you to go see it. The only complaints I can think of are that the ending is just alright, and after a certain point you start to wonder where some of the characters keep getting their ammo from. Time will tell if this film stands up to repeated viewings, but this was easily the funniest, craziest, and most entertaining film Iâve seen all year. Yes, my favorite movie of 2016 is a 2017 movie in which characters argue and shoot each other in a dirty warehouse for 90 minutes. Cinema isnât dead yet.
The â30 and Still Living in Parentsâ Basementâ Award for Biggest DisappointmentÂ
Nominees:
 ·        Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
·        Jason Bourne
·        Passengers
·        Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
·        Warcraft
Runner-up:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Winner:
Passengers
The âClever Marketingâ Award for Best Tagline
Nominees:
·        Elvis & Nixon â âOn December 21st, 1970, two of America's greatest recording artists met for the first time.â
·        Free Fire â âAll guns. No control.â
·        London Has Fallen â âPrepare for bloody hellâ
·        The Dressmaker â âRevenge is back in fashionâ
Runner-up:
The Dressmaker
Winner:
Elvis & Nixon
The âPostcore Avantwaveâ Award for Best Film Score
Nominees:
·        Bear McCreary â 10 Cloverfield Lane
·        Justin Hurwitz â La La Land
·        Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i - Moana
·        Matthew Margeson â Eddie the Eagle
·        Michael Giacchino â Star Trek Beyond
·        Rupert Gregson-Williams â Hacksaw Ridge
·        ShirĆ Sagisu â Shin Godzilla
Runner-up:
Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i - Moana
Winner:
Bear McCreary â 10 Cloverfield Lane
The "I'm Glad We Decided to Keep It" Award for Best Child Performance
Nominees:
·        Angourie Rice - The Nice Guys
·        Auli'i Cravalho - Moana
·        Ferdia Walsh-Peelo â Sing Street
·        Harvey Scrimshaw - The Witch
·        Julian Dennison - Hunt for the Wilderpeople
·        Kim Su-an â Train to Busan
·        Lucas Jade Zumann â 20th Century Women
Runner-up:
Julian Dennison - Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Winner:
Angourie Rice - The Nice Guys
The âIf Only the Rest of the Movie Was This Goodâ Award for Best Scene
Nominees:
·        Athens riot â Jason Bourne
·        Beach drowning â Silence
·        Captain America and Winter Soldier vs. Iron Man â Captain America: Civil War
·        Car chase â Operation Avalanche
·        Christmas dinner party â Elle
·        Climactic robbery/shootout/getaway â Hell or High Water
·        Desmondâs rescues â Hacksaw Ridge
·        âDrive It Like You Stole Itâ â Sing Street
·        Epilogue â La La Land
·        Entering the ship â Arrival
·        âHow Far Iâll Goâ â Moana
·        Police station â Manchester by the Sea
·        Sabotage â Star Trek Beyond
·        The un-destruction of Hong Kong â Doctor Strange
·        The 90-meter jump â Eddie the Eagle
·        Quicksilver and the exploding mansion â X-Men: Apocalypse
·        Warehouse rescue - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Runner-up:
Police station â Manchester by the Sea
Winner:
Sabotage â Star Trek Beyond
The âPig in Lipstickâ Award for Prettiest Movie
Nominees:
·        A Bigger Splash
·        Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
·        Doctor Strange
·        Hail Caesar!
·        Kubo and the Two Strings
·        La La Land
·        Moana
·        The Handmaiden
·        The Love Witch
Runner-up:
The Handmaiden
Winner:
Kubo and the Two Strings
The âPremium Methâ Award for Best Chemistry
Nominees:
·        Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani - Paterson
·        Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams â Manchester by the Sea
·        Chris Pine and Ben Foster â Hell or High Water
·        Gerard Butler and his knife â London Has Fallen
·        Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham â Hell or High Water
·        Michael Peña and Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd â War on Everyone
·        Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton â Loving
·        Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe â The Nice Guys
·        Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin â Deadpool
·        Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong â The Brothers Grimsby
Runner-up:
Michael Peña and Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd â War on Everyone
Winner:
Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams â Manchester by the Sea
The âHealed Broken Boneâ Award for Best Cast
Nominees:
·        20th Century Women
·        Captain America: Civil War
·        Everybody Wants Some!!
·        Fences
·        Free Fire
·        Hail, Caesar!
·        Love & Friendship
·        Sing Street
·        Star Trek Beyond
·        The Magnificent Seven
Runner-up:
Sing Street
Winner:
Free Fire
The âConvincingly Faked Orgasmâ Award for Best Performance
Honorable Mentions:
·        Andrew Garfield â Hacksaw Ridge
·        Ben Foster â Hell or High Water
·        Blake Lively â The Shallows
·        Chris Pine â Hell or High Water
·        Emma Stone â La La Land
·        Hugo Weaving â Hacksaw Ridge
·        Joe Alwyn â Billy Lynnâs Long Halftime Walk
·        Joel Edgerton â Loving
·        Judy Davis â The Dressmaker
·        Kate Beckinsale â Love & Friendship
·        Kate Winslet â The Dressmaker
·        Kwak Do-won â The Wailing
·        Mahershala Ali - Moonlight
·        Ruth Negga â Loving
·        Sam Neill â Hunt for the Wilderpeople
·        Viggo Mortensen â Captain Fantastic
·        Woody Harrelson â The Edge of Seventeen
Nominees:
·        Adam Driver â Paterson
·        Alden Ehrenreich â Hail, Caesar!
·        Annette Bening â 20th Century Women
·        Casey Affleck â Manchester by the Sea
·        Denzel Washington â Fences
·        Gerard Butler â London Has Fallen
·        Greta Gerwig â 20th Century Women
·        Isabelle Huppert - Elle
·        Jeff Bridges â Hell or High Water
·        John Goodman â 10 Cloverfield Lane
·        Michael Shannon â Nocturnal Animals
·        Michelle Williams â Manchester by the Sea
·        Ralph Fiennes â A Bigger Splash
·        Rebecca Hall â Christine
·        Ryan Gosling â The Nice Guys
·        Ryan Reynolds â Deadpool
·        ÂSharlto Copley â Free Fire
·        Tom Bennett â Love & Friendship
·        Viola Davis â Fences
Runner-up:
Gerard Butler â London Has Fallen
Winner:
Ryan Gosling â The Nice Guys
In regards to my final award:
The whole âFuck 2016â thing has been done to death, albeit not undeservingly, so thisâll be my only word on the matter. A lot of us had a rough year, dealing with political strife, global conflict, environmental issues, personal problems, celebrity deaths, âSuicide Squadâ, etc. Even in film, 2016 has felt like a bit of a downer, with many films I was looking forward to letting me down. However, there have been quite a few gems, especially in the latter half of the year, and a good number of these are off the beaten path, ones I actively searched for to find and ones I gave a shot even if theyâre the type of thing I wouldnât normally see.
My point is, we have to make an effort to get the good out of life. You can still find some gems while wading through a river of shit (which youâre going to wade through anyway), and Iâm not just talking about movies. Try something you normally wouldnât. Try to pick up a new hobby. Make some personal time for yourself, even if youâre swamped with work or school. Start exercising if you donât already (hell, try yoga). Donât just accept that life is shit; do something to make it less shit. Always strive to better yourself, because while thereâs no such thing as perfection (unless youâre Michael Shannon), it doesnât mean we shouldnât reach for it.
The mere fact that youâre reading this means that youâre actively trying to de-pleb yourself, or maybe itâs because you love me or maybe I just make you laugh sometimes. In any case, thank you for reading this year-in-review. As it has been for the past two years, writing this was fun and therapeutic. I wish you all luck in seeking happiness (and good taste in film, like mine), and for those of you who have a bad day somewhere on that journey, film is always there for you, including the following films which can cheer one up even on the rainiest days.
The âAncient Indian Burial Groundâ Award for Film Most Likely to Raise Your Spirits
Nominees:
Eddie the Eagle
Sing Street
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Everybody Wants Some!!
Moana
Runner-up:
Sing Street
Winner:
Eddie the Eagle
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