10 Best Movies of 2016 (Pre-Awards Season)

I did one of these last year and really had fun with the anti-Oscars retrospective, so I'm doing it again. It's time to look back at the funny, quirky, scary movies that populated the cinemaplexes from January to September and subjectively decide which ones are unquestionably the best. I don't think I'm voicing a contrarian opinion when I say 2016 released an unusual number of terrible movies. From the sullen and bloated Batman v. Superman to the deluge of hollow, derivative sequels (looking at you, Zoolander, X-Men, Independence Day, Jason Bourne, and more) there was plenty of trash. But tucked away amidst those clunkers were more than a few precious gems, particularly in the pulp-thriller genre. In fact, there were too many for a 10-Best list and it was tough to whittle this down. Also, yet again I have to apologize to the handful of movies I haven't yet seen (Swiss Army Man, Don't Think Twice, High-Rise, probably more). Lastly, I was surprised to find that a couple of movies from my Most Anticipated Movies of 2016 list (Hail, Caesar and Kubo and the Two Strings), while serviceably enjoyable theater experiences, did not impress me enough to make this list.

Worst of the year: Suicide Squad (side note: woof.)

Purposeful omissions: Captain America: Civil War, Hush, Finding Dory, Midnight Special

Honorable mentions: War Dogs, Deadpool, The Neon Demon, Hello My Name is Doris, Jungle Book

VIP honorable mentions that probably should have made the list: Zootopia, The Nice Guys

C'mon Joe really??! Zootopia and The Nice Guys don't make the list?? Anyways, here it is.

10. Creative Control

I can totally see why some people dislike this movie. There are parts of it that I don't like. The protagonist is a manchild (check) creative type (check) in hipster Brooklyn (check-check) who can't take responsibility (check) for his plethora of mostly first-world issues (check). So the skeleton of this movie looks like a lot of other movies that I've grown pretty tired of, but there's more going on here. The main character David is an ad executive who is given a new product (augmented reality glasses a la Google Glass) to design a campaign for. The glasses begin to cause him trouble because he can basically re-write his life to better suit his tastes, mostly by pretending his best friend's girlfriend loves him, instead of having to deal with his actual problems. A drug addiction storyline is probably unnecessary, but I absolutely loved all of the stuff involving the glasses. The real world is about to have to deal with some of these big questions that new technology will introduce, and I'm glad to see movies that are beginning to explore these near-future concepts. Plus I'm a sucker for the mostly colorless, hyper-modern design of the film. The thing looks good.

9. Everybody Wants Some!!!

Really, this entry should be a two-way tie with The Nice Guys. In both, a seasoned (white guy who mostly makes white-guy movies) director adds an entry to their already impressive list of movies that I love. In The Nice Guys, Shane Black revisits his wonderful frenemy action-comedy genre, this time using Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling to great effect. In Everybody Wants Some!!!, Richard Linklater makes a "spiritual sequel" to Dazed and Confused following a just-arrived college freshman as he moves into the baseball house. Both are pretty great, but EWS!!! gets the edge because, as usual, Linklater has made me nostalgic. The boys in this movie are idiots (and often quite sexist) but they ride by on an earnest desire to have fun, impress their friends, and get the girl(s). It probably helps that Linklater makes these movies as period pieces in the 70s and 80s; a lot of the hazing, underage drinking, and sexual advances would not be tolerated so well today, and they shouldn't be. But when I watch these movies my nostalgia gland flares up for these (nonexistent) halcyon times and I can't help but have a lot of fun. Frat hard, bros.

8. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

The Lonely Island boys are back with a new set of incredible songs presented in a perfect satire of the modern pop music scene. This movie is about dicks, literally and figuratively, and it's damned funny. While the number of cameos verges on gratuitous, the movie is heavy on jokes and most of them land. You pretty much know what you're in for by now with Andy Samberg and company: raunchy, absurd gags and ingeniously catchy songs. Often about dicks. Take it or leave it.

7. Sing Street

Hot on the heels of Popstar is another musical, Sing Street, from the guy who made Once and Begin Again (side note: all of these movies are about musicians who write music, not everyday people who randomly break out into nondiegetic show tunes in the middle of the street. For that, you'll probably have to wait until La La Land). Anyways, Sing Street is a lovely coming of age movie about a kid who starts a band to impress a girl. Heard that one before? Like so many movies on this list, this one is all about the execution and damn are these songs good. The kids in the band are riffing on their favorite 80s musicians, so the songs have an (intentionally) derivative quality, but in this context that isn't a bad thing. The songs sound familiar and by the end of the movie you can almost sing along. By the time you've listened to the soundtrack an additional 40 times like I have, you'll definitely be able to sing along. Bottom line: the movie is enjoyable enough and the songs are brilliant. P.S. There's an older brother character who knocks a monologue out of the park so keep an eye on that actor, Jack Reynor. He's got a shlubby Chris Pratt-esque likability.

6. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Director Taika Waititi is on a blazingly hot hot streak. Fresh off last year's hilarious What We Do In The Shadows and before gearing up for next year's intergalactic buddy comedy Thor Ragnorak, Waititi managed to sneak in the quirky little Hunt for the Wilderpeople. This movie, about a troubled foster child and his reluctant adopted father as they evade authorities in New Zealand's bush, is as heartwarming as it is funny as it is bizarre. Sam Neill and his beard are at the top of their game. So is newcomer Julian Dennison playing Ricky Baker, the bad boy who needs a loving family, however nontraditional it might be. While the actual hunt goes on a tad longer than necessary, this movie is a unique, fun adventure with a solid emotional core. 

5. The Witch

The Witch aka The VVitch is the horror movie that everybody is talking about. It's 2016's version of It Follows or The Babadook. Does it live up to the hype? I'd say that depends on what you go in looking for. This movie has less jump scares than the other two I just named, but that definitely isn't a bad thing. This one is all about atmosphere: depressing, starving, sickly 16th century New England. Not Salem, mind you, but just some backwoods location where a family has decided to build a small farm and try to sustain themselves. The dialect and costumes are completely convincing and engrossing. Even without a supernatural element this would be a bleak and tense setting for a film. With that element the movie becomes haunting. I need to see it again before I say anything definitive, but this is definitely one of the better horror movies of the twenty-teens. Don't sleep on this one, or probably after seeing it.

4. Tickled

There's very little I can say about the HBO documentary Tickled without spoiling the experience. The basic premise is this: documentary filmmaker David Farrier (who specializes in eccentric subjects) finds an online video of a supposed "competitive tickling match" in which a group of athletic guys tickle one shirtless athletic guy who is tied down. The video interests Farrier who tries to reach out to the media company who produced the video. He immediately starts getting attacked by this company with litigious threats (and offensive slurs, and more) who tell him to cease and desist or face expensive legal consequences. Needless to say, this only intrigues him and his team more so they being to look into the shadowy organization bankrolling these bizarre videos. I won't say any more than that, except that if that doesn't sound like a meaty enough premise, let me assure you that it is. The rabbit hole is very deep. And evil. And obsessed with tickling. I'm shivering just thinking about it.

3. 10 Cloverfield Lane

What is this movie, and where did it come from? A sneaky, out-of-nowhere sort-of-sequel to a shakicam monster movie that came out in 2008... intended to be made by Damien Chazelle... starring John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Before you even start to talk about the crazy-awesome premise, this movie has some 'splainin to do. *Googles furiously* Okay it turns out that Damien Chazelle was working on a movie about a girl trapped with a weirdo in his survivalist bunker when he (Chazelle) got the call to go work on his dream project, Whiplash. So Bad Robot decided to turn the movie into a "spiritual sequel" (since when is that a thing?) to Cloverfield despite sharing no characters, storylines, or even filmmaking techniques. It doesn't sound like the greatest idea, but somehow it really really works. John Goodman is terrific as the 'is-he-good-or-is-he-bad' survivalist, and really sells the tagline "Monsters come in many forms." It's a tense little bottle movie that may or may not kick off a whole franchise of one-off sci-fi films in the so-called Clover-verse. This one is better than the original (which was pretty good!) so I hope they keep on churning them out, continuity be damned.

2. The Lobster

Many of the movies on this list stick to pretty tried and true formulas: boy tries to get girl, supernatural entity terrorizes family, etc. That is not the case with this movie by Yorgos Lanthimos. The Lobster takes place in a universe where single people are turned into an animal of their choosing if they aren't able to find a new mate within 45 days. Our hero David (played by the perfectly doughy Colin Farrell) is left by his wife and decides to become a lobster. This movie is described on Wikipedia as an absurdist dystopian dramedy, only so they wouldn't have to make up an entirely new genre for it. Whatever type of movie you want to categorize it as, it's great. The performances are excellent, the satire surrounding the various tropes of both single people and couples is biting, and the look and sound of the movie are both top-notch. The only complaint I have is that for such a strong concept the resolution isn't totally cathartic, but I can forgive that because I truly enjoyed the bizarro ride. Also, let Colin Farrell play more understated characters! He is perfectly pathetic here in his best work since In Bruges. Don't put him in Daredevil and True Detective, give him subtlety, give him nuance, and let him shine.

1. Green Room

Balls to the wall doesn't begin to describe this movie. In his follow-up to Blue Ruin (also terrific, by the way), director Jeremy Saulnier puts a punk band in a rural neo-Nazi bar where they accidentally witness a murder. Believe it or not, the Nazi outfit (and they are a tightly run outfit, not just a ragtag crew) doesn't take kindly to witnesses. The rest of the movie is a bloody, brutal game of cat and mouse. Everything about this movie spoke to me, from the spectacle to the tone to the pacing and of course, the casting. I'd be remiss to not mention the late Anton Yelchin in one of his last amazing character roles, and the brilliance of having Patrick Stewart play the leader of the Nazis is pretty unrivaled. The stakes are high in this one and the violence is gruesome; people are injured or killed with just about every weapon you can think of. Timid stomachs should go elsewhere to get their kicks. But for those who can take it, this is about as much fun as I've had in a theater since I saw The Raid. Call it action, call it thriller, call it what you want- it's a hell of a wild ride.

The Best Movies I Watched In January 2016

January is known to be a dredge month for film releases, so it was a perfect time for me to catch up on some recent releases that I had missed as well as a few classics that have been on my "To-See" lists for far too long.  I'm only going to write about three in detail, but some of the other movies I watched were damn fine as well.

Other great movies I watched:  Paddington, The Wicker Man, The Philadelphia Story, Room, The Revenant, On The Waterfront, James White

The Great Beauty

God almighty is this film pretty. This movie won the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2014 and even without having seen the other nominees I can say it was deserved. This movie is so artfully composed I can only compare it to films like Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi- but those are avant-garde screensaver-type movies and this one actually has an elegant plot. The story of an aging writer/socialite enjoying frivolities and managing malaise recalls La Dolce Vita in a good way; this isn't quite theft or even homage of that famous tale, but rather something of an update. Malaise persists, after all, to the modern age. Protagonist Jep Gambardella is trapped in that all-too-real place where he recognizes how devoid of meaning his life is but he cannot seem to stop himself from enjoying the distractions. In director Paolo Sorrentino's version of Rome, the distractions are just too beautiful to be ignored. I am now officially angry at myself for not catching Sorrentino's Youth, released this past awards season. Put it on the To-See list!

Mustang

Son of Saul is the horse to beat for this year's Foreign Language Oscar, but gosh darnit I want more people to see the Turkish masterpiece that is Mustang. I can recommend this one whole-heartedly to anybody. The movie tells the story of five sisters growing up under the guardianship of a few tradition-minded (ultra-conservative) aunts and uncles. The girls feel trapped in their current environment and act out in rebellious ways; some of these transgressions are minor and others have severe repercussions. Comparisons to The Virgin Suicides are inevitable, but this story seems so embedded in Turkish-ness (and indeed, much of the story by writer-director Deniz Gamze Ergüven is based on her own experiences) that it really should be judged on its own merits. The film's transition from lighthearted coming-of-age tale to emotionally-devastating social critique is so seamless that I didn't notice it until I realized I was weeping. Walking out of the theater I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry and in the end I was too emotionally exhausted to do either. This is the real deal.

The Intouchables

I started The Intouchables and was really ready to hate it. I despise the trope where a young, poor, black man is paired up with an old, rich, white guy and over the course of the movie the two teach each other how to get the most out of life. Even writing that sentence kind of gave me the heeby-jeebies. That plot was maybe okay for movies made in the 70s and 80s, but not in 2011. Anyways, long-story-short the aforementioned trope is the exact plot of this movie and somehow, through the sheer charisma of the two leads, I could not help but fall in love with it. Almost nothing surprising happens in this movie; things play out in the plot about how you expect they should. The only surprise is the acting chops and hilarious antics of the two suddenly-best-friend guys, and I got swept up in how genuine their relationship felt. I'm still mad at myself for enjoying this so much, but I was powerless against it. This movie proves that compelling characters can overpower a lot of otherwise weak or even offensive elements. I hope they make a sequel, just so I can keep hanging out with these two. 

12 Most Anticipated Movies of 2016

Sorry, I couldn't whittle it down to 10.

Note: This list purposefully excludes all sequels, reboots, and superhero movies. This does not mean I'm not looking forward to Deadpool, X-Men Apocalypse, Dr. Strange, Bourne 5, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Finding Dory, Independence Day 2, Captain America: Civil War, Ghostbusters, Gambit, Star Trek 3, or Star Wars: Rogue One; this list is just highlighting the littler guys who don't make quite as many headlines but are still sure to be compelling cinema.

12. Midnight Special - March 18

The trailer for this one is... strange, which is the only reason this movie isn't ranked higher. If I didn't know anything about the plot and had just heard that Jeff Nichols (director of Mud and Take Shelter) was making a sci-fi movie starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, and Adam Driver, you'd have me. In fact, you do have me. Silly-looking glowing eyes or not, you have me. Plus apparently Nichols has another movie coming out in 2016, but let's just take it one at a time for now.

11. La La Land - July 15

Damien Chazelle is the acclaimed director of Whiplash so his next movie was always going to be on my radar, trailer or no trailer. Based on the intensity of that previous dramatic outing, I was surprised to hear that his upcoming release was going to be a musical-comedy. Color me intrigued. Plus Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are the best on-screen couple (yeah I said it, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper) and Whiplash star / Oscar-winner JK Simmons is back for more. It's unclear if he'll be throwing cymbals at people's heads this time around.

10. Kubo and the Two Strings / Moana - August 19 / November 23

I know, I know, ties are lame. But both of these animated films feature an adventure centered around a young person on the high seas, battling epic adversaries in gorgeously realized environments. Kubo is brought to us by Laika, the Portland-based stop-motion animation company that is pretty damn close to batting a thousand; their previous works include Coraline, ParaNorman, and Boxtrolls. Meanwhile, Moana (pronounced Mo-ah-na) is brought to us by Disney animation who has basically no right to be making films of this high quality while Pixar is under the same umbrella corporation. Disney's last few efforts include Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and of course the unstoppable juggernaut that is Frozen. Nothing to shake a stick at, so expect big things from these two (as well as an inevitable onslaught of lunchboxes and figurines).

9. A Monster Calls - October 14

Comparisons to The BFG are going to be inevitable when both trailers feature a kid being pulled out of a window by a giant hand- but that is probably where the similarities in these two films stop. This fantasy movie is being directed by one of the most capable people imaginable, the extraordinarily talented Juan Antonio Bayona. Bayona previously directed the technically-dazzling The Impossible as well as one of my favorite horror movies of all time, The Orphanage. His name has been attached to big franchises like Jurassic World and World War Z but in the meantime we'll keep taking the suspenseful and fantastical adventures he's been humbly churning out every few years.

8. Passengers - December 21

[there's literally not a single image for this movie yet]

Passengers is one of those scripts that has been bouncing around Hollywood for quite some time with various producers, directors, and stars attached. More often than not, those sorts of films end up not getting made or getting made poorly and being swept under the proverbial rug. Not this time. The sci-fi story about a passenger (!) on an extended space-flight who wakes up from cryo-sleep a few decades early has landed Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as the leads. They're arguably the two biggest and most charismatic young action stars of our day and age, so if they can't draw you into a theater nobody can.

7. The Nice Guys - May 20

A Shane Black movie is always going to have gangsters and jokesters. Violence and humor. Usually a dash of Christmas. This red-band trailer makes it seem like The Nice Guys is not going to be the one to break the mold- and that's not a bad thing. There aren't enough entertaining and clever writers like Shane Black around, and Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe look like they're going to make a great pair of reluctant partners. This could be Kiss Kiss Bang Bang round 2, and there's nothing wrong with that.

6. The BFG - July 1

Admittedly, I'm very sad that I'm not the person to bring Roald Dahl's beloved children's classic The BFG to life (I had always planned to make it an animated film in the style of illustrator Quentin Blake). But if somebody else is gonna do it, I'm glad it's Spielberg. People have started to take Spielberg for granted lately, but that's only because his product is so consistently high-quality. Granted, people were a bit divided on Tin Tin but I personally liked it and for this one he's steered clear of the uncanny valley. Remember, this guy brought us ET, Jaws, and the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. A big friendly giant should be no problem.

5. Keanu - April 29

[this movie comes out in 3 months and there are no promotional materials??]

Not much is known about this movie at this point other than it's about a cat who is abducted by a street gang. But really, the plot is secondary- the reason(s) I'm interested in this are its creators, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, fresh off the conclusion of their incomprehensibly consistent and hilarious sketch show on Comedy Central. I never thought I'd see a show in this format that would make me laugh as hard as Chappelle's Show, but these two guys managed to pull off that feat. Their brand of humor is the perfect combination of low and high-brow, managing to mix severe social critiques with absurd slapstick and they can do it all seamlessly in one bit. Expectations are high for this one.

4. The Witch - February 26

Horror movie trailers are becoming an event in their own right, with the internet going nuts last year over Goodnight Mommy and it seems that crown is being passed to The Witch (sometimes stylized as The VVitch) in 2016. This movie got nothing but stellar reviews at Sundance last year with people praising the tense atmosphere and total lack of gimmicky jump scares. Now the rest of us plebeians are finally going to get a chance to see it and blast our low-brow criticisms all over the YouTube comment sections. 

3. Everybody Wants Some - April 15

I don't know why it took me so long to realize I'm a huge Richard Linklater fan. I've seen Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Bernie, and I think a few more but it was only after Boyhood last year that I started putting it all together. Boyhood really, really struck a chord with me. I realized Linklater has an unique insight into seemingly mundane, everyday situations in a way that elevates them. The movies are art because everyday life is art, when you look at them/it the right way. I know that sounds highfalutin but I don't know how else to describe the feelings I associate with his movies- I'm sure he could explain it better. Anyways, after seeing Boyhood I binge-watched all three Before Sunrise movies and they made me feel all of the feelings; I've been intending to write an article breakdown on that experience but I don't know if I'm up to the task. Maybe it's better to just sit back and emote naturally instead of dissecting every shot, line, and cut to the point where the feelings die. Ah, the struggles of blogging about film. Anyhoo, Everybody Wants Some is out April 15th- maybe I'll have an answer by then.

2. High-Rise - unspecified

I hate to put a movie on this list that doesn't have a specified release date, because I know how wacky distribution schedules can be and who knows if this movie will even make it out in 2016? That being said, hot damn am I excited for this movie. My friends and I were recently lamenting the lack of notable stylistic auteurs who are up-and-coming in the film world today- where are the Tim Burtons and Terry Gilliams of the 21st century? Ben Wheatley doesn't quiiite fit on the same bill as those two wackos, but he definitely has a strong personal voice that is reflected in every film he has released. Most people I talk to love Kill List, and while I appreciate that movie my favorite of his is definitely Sightseers. So gruesome, so lovely, so strange. His movies feature incredible character actors in totally bizarre situations, and this J. G. Ballard adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston is definitely in that vein. It's hard to figure out what's going on from this trailer, and that's quite alright with me.

1. Hail, Caesar! - February 5

The Coen brothers are my favorite living directors, so their movies will always find a home at the top of my most-anticipated lists. I cannot think of any other directors who have as firm a grasp on comedy as they do on drama. The same team that created Inside Llewyn Davis, No Country For Old Men, and Blood Simple also created Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Art Thou?... It's amazing, unheard of, and unrivaled in my opinion. It's been a few years since this duo released a comedy, but they're coming back in a big way with the cast (George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, and Jonah Hill, to name a few) of Hail, Caesar! so expectations couldn't really be higher. I'll admit that the dregs of February is an odd-time to release this sort of movie, so lets hope that it's the studio trying to take advantage of a scheduling-hole rather than a sneaky-dump of a film they don't have faith in (btw, Sneaky-Dump- band name, called it). I tend to forgive even the least-beloved Coen bros' efforts, however (anybody remember The Ladykillers?), so this movie would have to be a real hot piece of garbage to not win my affections. Here's hoping that it's up-to-par.


Whew! That's it. I'm sure there are plenty that I forgot and even more that will pop up that I haven't heard of yet.