Hacksaw Ridge - Holy Shit!/10 Best film of the year. Starts out like Steven Spielberg's "Forrest Gump goes to WWII", but once the actual fighting starts, it becomes one of the most horrifically intense movies I've ever seen. You won't believe this is based on a true story. And when you inevitably check out the wikipedia article about the protagonist, you won't believe they actually TONED DOWN his battlefield heroics. Also, Hugo Weaving is terrific in it, his performance will help you get through the sappy bits.
Cold War 2 - Really cool cops & gangsters Hong Kong movie. Well trodden territory, but this one has family intrigue and backstabbings on Shakespearean levels. I never saw the first movie, but I didn't need to in order to enjoy this film immensely. Great performances all around, with a particularly strong performance from Tony Leung Fa-Fai. If you're even a little into Hong Kong movies, you should check this one out!
Zootopia - I hate CGI animated movies almost as much as comic book superhero shit, so I didn't expect too much from this. But somehow, this one was one of the best movies I've seen this year - which isn't saying much, since this was a particularly awful year in movies - but nevertheless, this one was really fun!
Honorable mentions (=mostly crappy films that had one good thing going for it):
Blood Father - Mad Mel is at it again! The guy's presence makes this one more of a Mad Max movie than Fury Road could ever hope to be.
Elle - Paul Verhoeven's first film in over a decade. I wasn't too impressed, but it wasn't bad either. Maybe it'll grow on me upon repeat viewings.
De Palma - Basically a guy in a chair talking about his movies for 100 minutes. Basically a DVD bonus feature rather than an actual movie. Still more enjoyable than 85% of films I've seen all year.
Batman v Superman - I only watched this in order to find out if it could possibly be any worse than Captain America Civil War. Imagine the comic book guy from the Simpsons making a film about Jesus Christ wearing a Superman costume and the result being a complete trainwreck - that's Batman v Superman! Not good in ANY sense of the word, but the sheer, pretentious po-facedness of it made it somehow strangely compelling. Mark my words, this will be rediscovered as some bizarre work of art in a few years. It also helped that I saw an airline version of it, which was shown in the old-timey 4:3 aspect ratio, which included significantly more information at the top and bottom of the frame. The 2.35:1 version found on the DVD and Blu-ray looks absolutely dreadful, even the director of photography chimed in (on Twitter, I believe) that this is not the version he would like to see released.
10 Cloverfield Lane - John Goodman is a fucking fantastic actor/10
The Neon Demon - Possibly the most embarassing, adolescent rubbish I've seen this year (minus the superhero shit, which is the most adolescent rubbish by default). Normally, my go-to adjective to deride a film like this would be "pretentious" - but this one is simply too dumb to even qualify for a label like that. But the visuals were nice. And the soundtrack! Cliff Martinez' score is hands-down my favourite album of the year, recalling the works of early-synth pioneers like Tomita (who sadly passed away earlier this year). Skip the movie and get the soundtrack!
Hands-down the worst piece of shit I've seen this year:
Captain America: Civil War - Instead of a long winded rant about how this is one of the worst things I have ever seen, I will simply copy/paste one of the most memorable quotes according to IMDB:
[i]Scott Lang: Ca... Captain America...
[shakes Steve's hand vigorously]
Steve Rogers: Mr. Lang.
Scott Lang: It's an honor. I'm shaking your hand too long. Wow, this is awesome!
[turns to Wanda]
Scott Lang: Captain America! I know you, too. You're great!
[sighs, then grips Steve's muscles]
Scott Lang: Jeez... Uh, look, I wanna say, I know you know a lot of super-people so... thinks for thanking of me.
[Steve grins]
Scott Lang: [to Sam] Hey, man!
Sam Wilson: What's up, Tic-Tac?
Scott Lang: Uh, good to see you. Look, what happened last time was...
Sam Wilson: It was a great audition, but it'll...
[chuckles]
Sam Wilson: It'll never happen again.
Steve Rogers: Did he tell you what we're up against?
Scott Lang: Something about some... psycho assassins?
Steve Rogers: We're outside the law on this one, so if you come with us, you're a wanted man.
Scott Lang: Yeah, well, what else is new? [/i]
This cost 250 million dollars to make. It made over one billion at the box office. It has an 8.0 rating on IMDB.
Post edited December 21, 2016 by fronzelneekburm