10 Best Movies of 2017 (Pre-Awards Season)

Has it been a year already? I guess it’s time for my third (!) annual anti-Oscars retrospective, wherein I totally-objectively rank all of the movies that came out from January through August. This year had a particularly strong crop of not-artsy movies, and I’m actually going to have to go ahead and number my honorable mentions (11-20) before diving into the real top 10. I’ll try to keep the reviews brief, as 20 is a helluva big number when we’re only talking about 8 months worth of content. Could there really be, on average, about two and a half great movies per month? Read on and find out! That sounds like click-bait, sorry. But number 5 will shock you! P.S. As always, I was unfortunately not able to see every single movie despite my Herculean efforts to do so. Maybe next year with MoviePass it’ll be easier. Apologies to Beguiled, A Ghost Story, Trainspotting 2, Good Time, Detroit and anything else I’m forgetting. P.P.S. I didn't enjoy War for the Planet of the Apes as much as everyone else did. Not sure why, just didn't love it.

Lastly, before I begin, I think everybody should do the same 2017 Dane Dehaan-double-feature I did and watch A Cure for Wellness and Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets back-to-back because they are both visually spectacular and otherwise just insane trainwrecks of movies. Easy on the eyes doe. Okay onto the list:

Honorable Mentions:

20. Wind River - coming off two hits (Sicario and Hell or High Water), writer Taylor Sheridan makes the jump adequately to director for this bleak and bloody crime movie that takes place on a Native American reservation. It stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, aka two actors who are better when they’re not playing Avengers.

19. The Lego Batman Movie - The Lego Movie had no right to be hilarious and great, and this (first) spin-off movie reaaaallly had no right to be hilarious and great, and somehow they did it. While not quite as awesome as its predecessor, that’s still an impressive feat.

18. Logan Lucky - Soderbergh’s un-retirement movie is fun and slick, but Ocean’s Eleven it is not. There are quite a few plot holes if you start to think about it, which you probably shouldn’t. Enjoy Channing Tatum and Adam Driver planning and executing a heist at a Nascar track in West Virginia.

17. Baby Driver - While quite fun, Edgar Wright has set the bar so damn high for himself that this can’t really be considered him in top form (Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim get that honor). This movie was well-written and brilliantly directed, but the stakes felt weird and the wink-wink-this-is-a-movie nature of it made it difficult for me to care about the characters.

16. War Machine - I’ve heard this described as a kind of spiritual sequel to Dr. Strangelove for the modern age, and that’s a good thing. Strong performances abound in this satire that looks at what America has done wrong in the war in Afghanistan. It’s both funny and super depressing.

15. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - Let’s get this out of the way: this movie is dumb. But it’s also insanely fun action and the score is maybe the best of the year (sorry Nick Cave). Turn your brain off and enjoy.

14. Spiderman: Homecoming - Marvel continues to amaze me by refusing to let me stop going to their movies. I’m sick and tired of the MCU and I’m really sick and tired of Spiderman reboots, but somehow they dragged me back in! And by making it a John Hughes-esque high school comedy, they actually made this feel pretty funny and fresh. Whatever Kevin Feige is feeding his cadre of writers, I want some.

13. Kong: Skull Island - Yet again, here’s a movie that is a reboot of a reboot, and it’s shoehorned in a cinematic universe to (re) boot! It should not work, it should not be good, but by putting this one in an Apocalypse Now-type Vietnam setting, it really feels exciting and different. Plus Sam Jackson hams it up with the best of them in his fight against a giant gorilla. Speaking of giant animals and hamming it up...

12. Okja - Bong Joon-ho’s movies are perfect for this list because they feel so anti-Hollywood. They’re fun and bizarre and totally bonkers. This movie (about a giant pig being rescued from a slaughterhouse) is quite good but it basically made me quit pork, which is delicious, so I knocked points off. Damn you, adorable giant pig!

11. Logan - In the era of oversaturated superhero movies, there’s really only one option: make a totally different kind of superhero movie. Deadpool kicked the door down by making a successful R-rated raunch-fest, so why not make a gritty, bloody, cuss-filled R-rated drama? And make it star Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, two of the original X-Men who kicked off the modern superhero era almost 20 years ago? And make it thoughtful and satisfying? Why not!?

Top 10:

10. Atomic Blonde

If you’re only going to see one John Wick movie this year, make it Atomic Blonde. While John Wick 2 was pretty fun, the senseless murder got a little repetitive by the end. By keeping the kill-count lower, Atomic Blonde makes each action sequence a little more meaningful. Granted, there is still a lot of devastatingly violent carnage in this movie, and I’ve heard others complain that it got monotonous as well. But I didn’t feel that way- I thought the direction was top-notch and the hyper-stylized Cold War-era Berlin kept the neon visuals interesting. And Charlize Theron might just be a better John Wick than Keanu.

9. It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night is a phenomenal title, but it has nothing to do with this movie. Nothing ever comes at night, spoiler alert. Anyways, this one is about a mysterious and extremely contagious disease that has apparently turned the world into a grueling dystopian wasteland. I say apparently because the film barely ever leaves a little house in the woods where a family has holed up. Things get mighty tense in this little shelter, where you can never be totally sure of anything or truly trust anyone. While it’s fairly light on true horror elements (whatever that means), this one has no shortage of extremely suspenseful moments. Stretch your knuckles beforehand, they’ll be white afterwards.

8. Wonder Woman

It’s unfortunate that Wonder Woman has to be a statement rather than just a movie, but you can’t fault the movie for the circumstances of the world that produced it. Those circumstances, by the way, are this: there have only been about 4 (depending on how you count them) superheroine movies ever, and there have been no female-led superhero films since 2004’s atrocious Catwoman. The 13 years in the interim have given us no less than three dozen male-led superhero movies, including 15 in the MCU since 2008. That’s a sad state of affairs, revealing that movie executives don’t trust audiences (of either gender) to come out to support a female lead. Boy were they wrong. Wonder Woman is not a perfect movie, but it is so great and (at the risk of sounding high-falutin’) important to see an empowered female kicking some evil ass for once that the audience turned out in droves and it became one of the few real hits of the summer. People cried and cheered in my screening, myself included. It felt good. It felt right. It’s 2017 goddammit. Time for some equality in our spandex.

7. The Big Sick

Between Hello My Name Is Doris and The Big Sick, Michael Showalter is really making a play to become the rom-com director to beat. Big Sick is rarely laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it is genuinely funny and the true-story nature of it gives it some added emotional heft. I also really appreciate a falling-in-love story that doesn’t exclusively concern white people. Good job Hollywood.

6. Free Fire

Why did no one hear about this movie? Why did no one see this movie? Am I taking crazy pills? Ben Wheatley’s most-accessible movie is also his most-hilarious, although it’s not strictly a comedy. This gun-deal-gone-wrong scenario takes place almost entirely in one bullet-filled warehouse, which is a fun and interesting choice. There are generous helpings of both gore and wry & dry British wit, which go surprisingly well together. Brie Larson. Cillian Murphy. Armie Hammer. Sharlto Copley. Are you not sold yet?

5. Brigsby Bear

These lists have tended to include one genre-defying movie, and this year that spot belongs to Brigsby Bear. How/where to even begin trying to explain this? A young man emerges from an unnecessary fallout shelter and has to try to rejoin his family and society, but he misses a children’s TV show that was produced entirely for him, so he sets out to continue making the show. That… sounds pretty weird and bad, so it’s frankly astonishing that writer/star Kyle Mooney was able to turn this into both a hilarious comedy and a resonating drama. He has some help from fellow SNL alums including the Lonely Island gang (who produced), but this is not your typical SNL fare. It’s weirder, and maybe better.

4. Dunkirk

One of my chief complaints with Christopher Nolan movies is that I can never understand what the hell anybody is saying (looking at you, Bane), but the director solved that problem in this movie by almost entirely getting rid of the dialogue. It was a bold choice, especially for a film that employs a unique time-jumping narrative device, but it totally works. This movie is completely about suspense- when are the enemies going to strike next, and where? Can the soldiers make it home, and how? Can the allies from home make it to save the soldiers, and how? Dialogue isn’t really necessary to convey fear; the harrowing looks on these boys’ faces more than does that job.

3. Ingrid Goes West

This movie will likely end up being an interesting time capsule for this particular moment due to its extreme reliance on how people use Instagram today as a plot device. It might not hold up, especially if people forget about Instagram the way they’ve already started to forget about Vine and MySpace and etc. But for now, this is a masterpiece effort in satirizing the social media age. Why are we compelled to make our lives look more glamorous than they are? Why are we so offended when people don’t react to our offerings the way we expect them to? How can we be self-satisfied in an era when it’s normal to boast and show-off? These are just some of the questions my little group discussed as we left the movie. Ingrid Goes West has a couple of rough narrative issues, but it nails a lot of the hypocrisy that plagues all social media users, and especially those living in hyper-guilty Los Angeles. I had to do some soul-searching after leaving the theater, and that can never be a bad thing. P.S. O’Shea Jackson as the Batman-obsessed landlord steals every scene he’s in.

2. Get Out

When people ask me why I like horror movies, I tell them it’s not really about being scared (although I do appreciate that). It’s more because horror movies have no problems breaking down expectations and trying something radical. Characters can die, stories can veer off into strange territories, and big philosophical themes can be explored. Granted, not every horror movie manages to do all this, but the great ones strive for it. Enter Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out. This is what I’m talking about. This is what we need more of. It’s part social commentary, and it’s even part comedy, but it’s definitely a horror film. The atrocities that the characters endure are exaggerated to be sure, but the daily bullshit that black people in America have to deal with is exquisitely thrust into the spotlight as well. It begs to be looked at, aired out. Often if a movie is just a delivery mechanism for a message or a moral, the viewing experience suffers. Not so in this case. This movie rocks, and it manages to be thoughtful and inspiring too.

1. Raw

When people ask me why I like horror movies, I tell them it’s not really about being scared…. Wait, I can’t give the exact same review for my top two movies on this list? Well, a lot of what I said up there for number 2 applies to this one as well. This is definitively a horror movie, there’s no question, but it’s also a movie that uses horror to examine what it’s like to grow up and move away from home and feel pressured to try new and dangerous experiences. Some movies use romance in a similar way, this one happens to be about a vegetarian cannibal starting veterinary school. A classic tale really. All kidding aside, this movie has some of the boldest direction and breathtaking performances I’ve seen in years. It turned my stomach for sure, but it also made me think. If you can handle watching some really gross stuff, I can’t recommend this movie highly enough. Just don’t eat beforehand.

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. 

10 Best Movies of 2015 (Pre-Awards Season)

With movies like Suffragette, The Danish Girl, and Brooklyn out now or soon, you know that we're knee-deep in awards season territory. The last couple months of the year play a comically over-sized role in determining what films will find space on the "Best Of" lists that appear every December like a swarm of attention-seeking reindeer. Unfortunately, top 10 lists are a zero-sum game and the Oscar-contenders generally push out a bunch of quality movies that have played between January and September. But comparing June movies to December movies is a bit like comparing a Dr. Pepper to a Malbec- they're both great but for totally different reasons. Pleasure versus sophistication. Upper versus downer. Consistent versus unique. Hot damn, that metaphor worked better than I expected. Anyways, with that in mind I've decided to compile a Pre-Awards Season Best of 2015 list that features movies with guns, drugs, sex, and swear words- you know, the empty calories that we all crave. Lastly, for reasons only I understand (there wasn't enough room on the list), I've decided to count Sicario as an awards-season movie even though it has guns, drugs, sex, and swear words and came out before The Martian.

[full disclosure: I haven't seen every movie that came out in 2015. My apologies to Shaun the Sheep]

Purposeful Omissions: Fast & Furious 7, Avengers 2, Terminator Genisys, Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible 5, The Gift

Honorable Mentions: Trainwreck, Straight Outta Compton, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Cartel Land

10. While We're Young

This movie made my soul cringe. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play an aging childless couple, trying to figure out where they fit in society. Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried play twenty-somethings hell-bent on making art while living wild and free. Both couples are deeply flawed, and somehow both couples act as a mirror to me, the not-so-young creative-type laden heavy with both dreams and regrets. People act foolishly when they pretend to be young, or pretend to be wise, or pretend to be anything other than what they really are, and this movie showcases that foolishness to hilarious and traumatizing effect. I didn't know whether to laugh or sob. Sadly, the conclusion of this film doesn't tie everything together tidily but the journey there was strong enough to merit a spot on this list. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's dry wit prevails again.

9. Dope

This is a loose film. The script is not tight. Things happen that aren't obviously motivated. Characters make odd choices. Even the genre label falls somewhere between bildungsroman, heist, fish-out-of-water, and probably a few more I'm forgetting. That being said, it was an original, forward-thinking, highly-stylized genre movie featuring a cast of interesting and relatable characters. The basic plot is three nerd-ish high school friends need to figure out how to sell a lot of drugs in order to get a girl, get into college, and not be killed. Classic high school antics, I know. But the whole thing has an amazing 80s hip-hop vibe, despite taking place today (and even having a whole subplot devoted to bitcoins). The setting, the costumes, the music, and the performances worked together wonderfully, even when the story elements and pacing were a bit off. Plus A$AP Rocky has acting chops, who knew?

8. Me and Earl and The Dying Girl

I know this movie has some shmaltz in it and I don't care, I had a great time with this one. The misfit kids who swede their own versions of classic foreign and arthouse cinema are always going to be okay in my book. Most of this movie feels like a cross between Wes Anderson and Phil Lord & Chris Miller- careful compositions and absurd situations. This sort of kids-dealing-with-death coming-of-age concept isn't altogether original so in a movie like this you really have to nail the execution. Well, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon nailed it. The core cast is pretty green behind the ears (as evidenced by their unpolished, rambling Q&A answers I heard after the movie's LA premiere) but they all did a great job and the supporting players were excellent. Having Brian Eno do the score never hurts either. 

7. Inside Out

In today's Hollywood landscape I can't help but give points to a film simply for being an original property. This year gave us Fast & Furious 7, Mission Impossible 5, Terminator 5, Jurassic Park 4, and Marvel Cinematic Universe films 11 and 12. Not to say I didn't like a lot of those films; sequels and reboots and boardgame adaptations can (and do) make for great movies. But yeah, I was impressed by the sheer originality and maturity of Inside Out. It's not my favorite Pixar movie by a long-shot, but it might be the most unique. The world inside a girl's mind is a complex and beautiful place, at times alternating between jolly and terrifying. The abstract journey of Bing-Bong is museum-worthy art in my humble opinion. The movie is not without its problems (the protagonist is very upset by some first-world issues, for example) but overall it's an impressive endeavor and a thoughtful semi-experimental film. Not necessarily a winner for children (this ain't Cars) but that just adds to my fondness of it.

6. The Martian

This is Ridley Scott's biggest movie. Take a second and consider that. The 77-year old director who made Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and more made his most profitable movie this year. That's insane! This movie is not quite as good as some of those I just listed, but it is the only PG-13 one of the bunch so I guess that helped it a lot. This movie stuck pretty close to the beloved sci-fi novel it's based on, but not to a fault. In all honesty, the movie was probably a little better than the book because the visual spectacle was handled with aplomb. It pleased fanboys and newcomers. Matt Damon made a great stranded astronaut-hero, and my one negative note is the casting of Kristen Wiig and Donald Glover (???). Also Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara and Michael Peña were under-utilized, but I actually agree with that choice; if anything I'd like to spend even more time alone with Damon on the red planet. He's dreamy.

5. It Follows

The concept is simple enough: if you have sex with someone who is afflicted, they pass the affliction unto you and it follows you until it kills you. The affliction is manifested as a walking (never running) human of indiscriminate age, sex, and relation to the victim. It can only be seen by the afflicted (and the audience, of course). Throughout this movie the audience learns to never trust a walking human in the background, because more often than not that human is the awful eponymous "it." My ass was on the edge of the seat, my knuckles were clenched and white, and my eyes ceaselessly searched each frame for the monster. Even though the actual scenes of violence were ultimately underwhelming, the pure unbridled tension that existed throughout the movie made it successful. The protagonists' clueless attempts to mitigate the monster were a clever touch as well, and the soundtrack still gives me chills. And they said original horror was dead.

4. Finders Keepers

Making a documentary must be a very anxiety-inducing endeavor. The characters you follow have to be pretty darn compelling for the movie to work, and you won't really know if they are interesting until you start shooting them. With that in mind, these filmmakers struck gold. The stranger-than-fiction premise hooks you right away: a man buys an abandoned storage shed and finds a human foot inside of it. Intrigued already, right? That sounds like the beginning of a mystery movie, but it's actually more of an intimate character study. Finders Keepers is about the embroiled legal (and moral) battle between a shameless glory-seeker who finds a foot and the self-destructive amputee who wants it back, with a healthy sprinkling of their eccentric families and friends who weigh in along the way. This is it folks; a true slice of Americana. There is a bizarre sense of the universal to be found in this very peculiar story. This is an A-grade documentary all the way through. 

3. Kingsman: The Secret Service

I love having fun in a theater. There's a childlike innocence to really getting onboard with a movie in a dark room full of perfect strangers, and I feel like I don't get to experience that emotion too often anymore. Kingsman did it for me. I guffawed openly. There's a real beauty to a successful parody, wherein a movie can poke fun at a genre but still be a worthy entry itself (Cabin in the Woods and Shaun of the Dead are the only others that come to mind). Spy movies have gotten either grim or campy (or both) lately, and those routes kind of suck. Even though it had its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, Kingsman managed to be a fun, funny, high-octane action movie. I would buy this lunchbox! Colin Firth in a scene with The Raid-level of violence and Samuel L. Jackson as a flamboyant supervillain can only add positively to a film like this. And as a wise man once told me, "it's always the old white guy" so keep your eye on Michael Caine. Does a movie like this need spoiler alerts?

2. Mad Max: Fury Road

Let me start off by voicing a contrarian opinion: I think Mad Max: Fury Road is over-rated. It is sitting at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes with over 300 reviews counted. The plot insomuch as one exists is weak. The characters are thin, and their decisions are mostly kinda dumb. Max is an empty shell of a protagonist, almost wholly lacking in motivations and even dialogue. Okay, whew, I got that out of my system. Now for the rebuttal: Fury Road is f*cking awesome. It is balls-to-the-wall insanity on a level not often (or maybe ever) reached in cinema. The monster-truck dystopia with an army of spray-paint-huffing fundamentalists is so gorgeously realized that it's hard to find fault in other aspects of the movie, because why are you looking at other aspects of the movie?! How, even?? There's a blind mutant playing a freaking flame-throwing guitar, and you're worrying about character development? You're nitpicking the script while the kid from About A Boy enters a raging electrical storm, screaming something about Valhalla? That's completely missing the point of this lovely day- I mean film. Charlize Theron is great. Tom Hardy, in his own mute way, is great. This movie somehow manages to appeal to the intelligentsia and frat boys alike. It is a miracle made of explosions, and I'll gladly kneel at the altar. The Holy Boom. Praise thee.

1. Ex Machina

I wasn't sure how I felt about Ex Machina when I first left the theater; it was definitely not what I was expecting. It was a small movie, almost more of a play really. From the posters and the trailers and the Tinder-based marketing scheme, I had expected something bigger. It was only later, once I had come to terms with the fact that the movie wholly takes place inside a mostly-empty compound in the middle of nowhere that I could start to assess just how wonderful it is. Two of my favorite character actors and a rising star get to chew scenery for two hours while talking technology, intelligence, and ethics. Some of my favorite topics! Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson aren't superstars quite yet, but soon enough they will be. They co-star in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and then Isaac is the big bad next year in X-Men: Apocalypse. These guys are going to be huge, and I can't think of any two actors at the moment who deserve it more. Gleeson is the personification of every guy who might end up in this situation: curious, naive, and unable to not fall in love with Alicia Vikander, even if she is a robot. Isaac is like a drunken, philosophizing version of the scientist from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Vikander is perfect as the metallic yet somehow soft and warm and inviting Ava. She came out of nowhere, but her 2015 (Ex Machina, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Danish Girl) shows just how capable she is in big roles. 

This movie is clearly more of a contained story than a harbinger of real things to come, but I still enjoy catching a glimpse into this possible near-future. Movies like Her, Frank & Robot, and Ex Machina are clearly sci-fi... but just barely. It will be mighty interesting in 25 years to look back on movies like this and see how close or far off they were from reality. In the meantime, filmmakers like Alex Garland (who also wrote 28 Days Later and Sunshine) will have to keep terrifying us with these twisted and fascinating possibilities.