Film General : Top 5 movies of the year?

Top 5 movies of the year?

I'd go:

1) Nocturnal Animals
2) Silence
3) Sully
4) Hell or High Water
5) Me Before You

BARTYOUWANNASEEMYNEWCHAINSAWANDHOCKEYMASK?!?!

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

Voyage of Time
La La Land
Allied
Fences
Arrival

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

Pretty impressive that you saw Silence and Nocturnal Animals as those were pretty late releases. I heard Silence was excrutiatingly long and I'm guessing people only saw it because it was by Scorsese?
I hear Nocturnal Animals is pretty cool. I've seen 32 films so far. From best to worst:
For me:
1. Eye in the Sky, Gavin Hood-Extremely economic storytelling, and theatrical in its execution, provocative in its dedication to showing nuance.

2. My Name is Doris, Michael Showalter-Sally Field's sweet spinster character is the perfect remedy to check our ageist tendencies but this is also a bit of a psychological thriller wrapped in a misplaced comedy of errors.

3. Don't Think Twice, Mike Biribiglia-It has a great balance between its ensemble and really captures that world. A very loving film.

4. Hidden Figures-An uplifting film but one that’s generally earned despite a couple moments where the film erroneously steers towards schmaltz. It walks that fine line between historically faithfulness, go-for-broke sentimentally and grittily realism. Taraji P Henson gives the best performance of the year IMO.

5. Hell or High Water-A great exercise in genre experimentation: Tackling the
housing crisis by moving the Western forward in time 120 years.

6. Mascots, Christopher Guest-The best thing about this film is that it exists at all if you read the news article a few years back that Guest didn't feel he had anything more to give to the genre he practically created. This isn't a game changer but it's a joy to see so many rich comic stories merge together like this for the first time in a decade.

7. Lion, Garth Davis-The first half had a really dark look at life in the streets of a third world country like 1990s Calcutta. The second half could have done a better job or picking and choosing which scenes were most relevant to an equally gripping second half. This is the most emotional film I’ve seen regardless so the sentimental effect overflowed past any sloppy positioning.

8. Fences, Denzel Washington- Does Troy represent the popular image of the African-American man? Is he to blame for his ill fortunes or is he a product of society? The fact that he and his situation are complex enough that you can argue so well either way makes this such a provocative work of art. The film embodies what’s best about theatrical adaptations from the poetry in the dialogue to the thoroughness to which the actors do their legwork. The film also boasts the year’s best ensemble IMO.

9. Star Trek Beyond, Justin Lin- Very much enjoyed the smaller scale in story as it allowed the characters more quiet moments of character development and pairings that showed new angles. This was balanced by special effects that wowed me in an era where every blockbuster has a budget larger than many 3rd world countries

10. La La Land-I still support it for a best picture win. It was extremely innovative and, like “Whiplash”, very thematically coherent.
11. Aquarius-It's a foreign film (I watch very few foreign films) about a woman in her 60's struggling in Brazil against a corporation who wants to tear her house down. A very solid character piece that like "Hello My Name is Doris" is a celebration of an elderly woman in defiance of the way society tries to (literally and figuratively make her obsolete)

12. Popstar: Never Stop Popping, The Lonely Island team- Laughter speaks: It was just plain hilarious. Lonely Island can get random and scattered in 3 minute clips, so it works to their advantage in their format to be able to develop their riffs over a longer running time.

13. The Lobster: Satirizing both the problems with pressure to couple up and overly conservative societies, the film has thematic currents against both sexual obsession and sexual chastity which is really interesting. Colin Farrell is really interesting and the ensemble is filled with all kinds of interesting characters. Has some wierdly dark moments.

14. Alice Through the Looking Glass: It’s kid-oriented, but surprisingly coherent and complex storyline-wise and works on a kid’s level. Visually quite wonderous.

15. Arrival-Didn’t appeal that much to me beyond the deep sciencey premise. If you buy Amy Adams’ performance, then you’ll feel the film on an emotional level

16. Deepwater Horizon, Peter Berg (?)-I just like a good disaster film. I like the idea of how these people will all be bonded by that accident. And hey Jane the Virgin, Penny Lane, and Earl Hickey's little brother were in it!

17. Now You See Me 2-I think adding magic tricks is a great way to reinvent the heist genre (like adding history professors as in National Treasure). The story twisted and turned too much for me to care and the sexual chemistry between Lizzy Caplain and Dave Franco was forced (I don't think either of the Franco brothers has an easy time with romance) but it was pretty fun along the way.

18. Ghostbusters, Paul Fieg-Serviceably funny. Unlike the original Ghostbusters, the new characters all have comic traits which helps

19. Tallulah-A Netflix film with Ellen Page and Allison Janney. I thought it's most interesting element was that this despicable character played by Ellen Page is unapolagetically the protagonist. The movie is kind of a ticking time bomb. You have no idea how long she'll get away w/this ruse of stealing someone else's baby but you're bracing for the explosion.

20. The Bronze-As an Olympics enthusiast, I enjoyed the exploration of what happens to Olympics stars after their big movement. The love story was sweet and I liked that Melissa Raunch's character had to grow but she never really had to bend her own personality that much to get to a happy place w/her dad, her gymnastics and her boyfriend. Some of the humor's bread and it had the grossest sex scene I've seen in a while

21. Special Correspondents-Ricky Gervais is curiously nowhere near as bold in film (Ghost Town, Invention of Lying, this) as he is with TV series. I have no idea why, but I can't say that these films aren't pleasant if you don't take away the high expectations, and Gervais' character is likeable and kind of sweet.

22. Sing Steet,John Carney: Not as memorable as the last Carney film I saw ("Begin Again") but a pretty sweet film about a kid reinventing himself through creating an 80's band. It has a strong sense of place and a sweet love story. Reminder of how cruel certain schools can be.

23. Captain Fantastic, Matt Ross-Stretches reality a little bit in the form of this superdad who can keep his kids extremely isolated and turn them into extreme geniuses with abnormal levels of obedience (except one of the six kids) but an interesting film.

24. Race: A pretty generic sports film but with a lot of chemistry between the characters and interesting historic detail

25. Batman vs Superman, Zach Snyder-I'd classify this as not awful. Tonally it was pretty consistent. Batman's kind of dark and Superman kind of got there too and Jesse Eisenberg was nice and playful with his part. I don't know if the film had much to say though but I've seen worse...

26. Eddie the Eagle, Derek Fletcher-Pretty generic with a few sweet moments

27. X-Men Apocalypse, Brian Singer-I'd watch this no matter what because it's one of the only series I really am attached to, but they were going through the motions here. They needed to decrowd the landscape a bit and have given Acopalypse some personality. Special-effects wise, Psyloche was one of the highlights.

28. Gold-The big twist had no foreshadowing and came way too late in the movie for me to care. The film could have at least tried to make the gold trade interesting but instead it's capitalism porn: the stuff you see in Wolf of Wall Street, Big Short and American Hustle

29. Zootopia-I heard it had an interesting message but I wasn't really interested in being preached too by a Pixar-like cartoon. Found it boring with a few spare jokes here and there

30. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot-Getting tired of Tina Fey playing Tina Fey: 40ish woman feeling down on herself bc she's on the verge of no longer being able to meet Mr. Right in time to have kids who is always surrounded by idiots. And this is supposed to be about a serious war?

31. Keanu-I like Key and Peele a lot but this felt like swing and a miss for me. They've done stuff way more nuanced and complicated than here. So they're forced to act like gangsters? That's a 5-minute skit, not a movie.

32. Suicide Squad-Oh, the horror! Why did I watch this. It felt like a violent video game specifically made for 12-year-old boys.

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

Silence was very long but I'd say it was worth it. And it wasn't a stereotypical "Western man good, Asian man bad" type of film. It brings up genuine questions and scenarios that make you ask what you would do in the same place.

Nocturnal Animals is the best movie I've seen in quite some time.
BARTYOUWANNASEEMYNEWCHAINSAWANDHOCKEYMASK?!?!

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

I've seen 50 2016 films so far and already have an amazingly great top 5, probably the best I've had at this point in many, many years -

1. La La Land - best of decade and likely century so far
2. Paterson
3. Silence
4. Moonlight
5. Manchester by the Sea


Here's to the fools who dream

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

1. Arrival
2. Silence
3. The Edge of Seventeen
4. Hell or High Water
5. La La Land

Re: Top 5 movies of the year?

Manchester by the Sea
Arrival
Moonlight
Hell or High Water
Everybody Wants Some!!




The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow.
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