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Baumer's best 42 films of 2016 (and 12 worst) and Ruk's breakdown of 2016 films (Finished!)

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6 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

Still waiting for Baumer before I post more of my list. But, in the meantime, let's play a little guessing game!  I'm going to give you the first line of the write-up I did for each of the next 5 movies on my list and you guess which 2016 movies I'm referring to. Be warned, one or two might be a little deliberately misleading. And I'm just plain cheating for one.

 

45:  "<Film Title> is the sort of a homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days."

 

44: " This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much."

 

43: "Really internet, really?!"

 

42:  "Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t)."

 

41: "I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick."

 

Take your guesses!

41 is kinda impossible to guess.

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1 hour ago, Goffe said:

41 is kinda impossible to guess.

Yup. That's why I called it cheating.

 

I will give one extra clue though, just to make things fairer. 41 is an animated movie.

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31 minutes ago, rukaio101 said:

Yup. That's why I called it cheating.

 

I will give one extra clue though, just to make things fairer. 41 is an animated movie.

I thought of Your Name at first, but a lot people are talking about that movie.  My next guess would be April and the Extraordinary World, then I remembered you saying you liked it very much. 

 

I think I will go with Miss Hokusai.

Edited by Goffe
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On January 12, 2017 at 4:10 AM, rukaio101 said:

48. Sadako vs Kayako

But while the movie is terrible, it’s terrible in an entertaining way. And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters? ...The answer is, of course, no,

 

XS5LK.gif

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22 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

Still waiting for Baumer before I post more of my list. But, in the meantime, let's play a little guessing game!  I'm going to give you the first line of the write-up I did for each of the next 5 movies on my list and you guess which 2016 movies I'm referring to. Be warned, one or two might be a little deliberately misleading. And I'm just plain cheating for one.

 

45:  "<Film Title> is the sort of a homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days."

 

44: " This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much."

 

43: "Really internet, really?!"

 

42:  "Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t)."

 

41: "I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick."

 

Take your guesses!

 

Now you see, this one is SO obvious, that I think it might be a double-bluff here.  We're supposed to think it's delibertely misleading when in fact you're counting on us to think it's misleading.

 

I'm on to you, rukaio101. :ph34r:

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I can rarely muster the intellectual effort to write a coherent review of a movie and never really thought out a consistent method for rating them. However, I think I might ponder the 40 or so films I saw in the cinema last year and simply rank them. 

 

So I may further hijack this thread. 

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#38

Mechanic Resurrection

Directed by:  Some guy

Starring:  Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones

Box office:  125 million

 

 This is one of those films where you know exactly what you are and aren't going to get.  You aren't going to get endless dialogue or well developed characters.  Motive for actions might be a hair above a horror villian carrying out his revenge.  What you will get is beautiful people in little clothing, action with fists, feet and lots of people losing their lives, crazy stunts and a visual feast for the eyes.  Jason Statham does not disappoint here and for my money, he is my go to guy when it comes to action films.  He has charisma and he has the moves and the body and charm.  I could watch him kick someone in the face every day of the week.  Then you have Jessica Alba in a bikini and suddenly I can't remember the plot of this film.  Oh well.  Who cares?  This was a lot of fun.

 

Image result for mechanic resurrection

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Welp, since Baumer's apparently going to be held up and it doesn't look like anyone else is going to take a shot at guessing, I might as well continue my list.

 

45. Pete's Dragon

 

pd_teaser_1-sheet_v2alt_lg.jpg

 

Pete’s Dragon is the sort of homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days. And, honestly, while I feel a bit guilty for not putting this movie higher, since there's really not much actively wrong with it, I just thought it was alright. Well made, but just alright. Well paced, well told, but just alright. There weren't any major notable flaws, but it was just alright. Maybe I just don’t have a heart, but eh. Even Karl Urban can’t save this movie from mediocrity for me.

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44. Deepwater Horizon

 

deepwater_horizon_ver10.jpg

 

This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much. I will say it’s a good disaster movie with good performances, build-up and tension. But the overall movie itself just struck me as underwhelming. There’s a lot decent build-up to the Deepwater incident, but said incident really doesn’t feel like it goes on long enough to truly enjoy.

 

To compare with an admittedly lesser disaster movie, The Finest Hours, that movie had a relatively decent sideplot with the sailors on the damaged ship trying to keep afloat long enough for the Coast Guard to arrive. It made the disaster and the hardships the sailors had to go through feel longer and greater. With Deepwater Horizon, it was mostly just ‘explosion happens, everybody not killed gets off without too much significant difficulty’ with a halfassed sideplot for Wahlberg to go switch off something that doesn’t really feel that exciting. It’s a disaster movie where the disaster feels kinda lacking. I suppose that's kind of the weakness in a 'based on a true story' movie. If the material isn't there, it's difficult to stretch out.

 

But, honestly, there was a lot of good stuff to balance it. The set-up was excellent, the acting good (and it’s hard not to love Kurt Russell) and the disaster itself isn’t bad, just underwhelming. And that’s kinda how I’d describe the movie overall. Good but underwhelming.

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43. Ghostbusters

 

ghostbusters_ver6.jpg

 

Really internet, really?! This was the movie you wanted to get into a tiff about? ‘Cause, in hindsight, all that drama felt like a hell of a lot of fuss over nothing. (Well, okay, partial lie. Hindsight be damned, it felt like a hell of a lot of fuss over nothing while it was happening.)

 

The movie is just okay. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, it’s just okay. Some jokes land, some don’t. It’s no Spy, but it’s not Adam Sandler either. It’s just an alright comedy. There was really no need to make such a fuss about it.

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On 1/14/2017 at 5:40 AM, Porthos said:

#42

 

Now you see, this one is SO obvious, that I think it might be a double-bluff here.  We're supposed to think it's delibertely misleading when in fact you're counting on us to think it's misleading.

 

I'm on to you, rukaio101. :ph34r:

:ph34r:    :ph34r:    :ph34r:

 

42. Godzilla Resurgence

 

k1hjwb8.jpg

 

Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like the Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t). Sure ATJ could've been replaced by a cardboard cut-out and there was a lot of annoying teasing with its battles, but Godzilla 2014 had some genuinely amazing sequences, a real sense of scale and destruction and ultimately, I felt the positives far outweighed the negatives. This movie also had a lot of positives and negatives but in comparison to Godzilla 2014, to me this movie just felt… okay.

 

On the positive side, it is definitely a lot more balanced in terms of quality. Unlike Godzilla 2014, both the human side of the story and the Godzilla side are relatively interesting to follow. But the dry political discussions do start to get tired after a while and the relatively limited budget does show in Godzilla's rampage with some questionable CGI scenes. Certainly, there are some standout scenes like Godzilla's atomic breath, but nothing quite on the same level as Godzilla's arrival in Florida. Hell, the reason I keep bringing up 2014 Godzilla is because on it's own, there's really not that much I can say about this movie. It was decent but that's about all.

 

Maybe Resurgence is a lot more of a satisfying movie to fans of the original Godzilla, but it's still the 2014 movie all the way for me. Also, Imma say it, original form Godzilla in this movie looks silly as hell. Look at this googly eyed goober.

 

shin-godzilla-big-googly-eyes.jpg?w=800

 

That not terrifying, that's just adorable.

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3 minutes ago, rukaio101 said:

:ph34r:    :ph34r:    :ph34r:

 

Curses! Foiled again! :kitschjob:

 

Spoiler

Afterwards, I actually tracked down what you graded R1. That's when I figured it was in fact proooobably a bluff after all. :blush::lol:

 

Not that you gave it a stellar review, but it didn't seem to be a film in the 40s for the year. :lol:

 

Edited by Porthos
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41. Psychonauts: The Forgotten Children

 

MV5BNDkzNjgyMTYtMGFiZi00MmFjLTgwOGEtNzhm

 

I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick. At the London Film Festival, I had the choice between going to see this dark Spanish Animation about an island on the brink of dystopia and the critical darling, potential Animated Oscar nominee, My Life as a Zucchini. I chose this. Why? Because I am an idiot who should not be trusted with hard decisions. But, as much as I regret not going to see Zucchini… I can’t honestly say I regret watching this either.

 

See, this movie is flawed. Undeniably so. The pacing is wacked to all hell because it constantly goes off on side stories and the main story feels underdeveloped as a result. Really I’d say it should’ve been an anthology film. Not to mention, it occasionally feels more like it’s being dark to be ‘edgy’ rather than because the darkness really serves a point. The main character is an anthropomorphic bird who's a drug addict. There’s a nuclear-ish disaster shown in the opening sequence that really doesn’t have much to do with anything else in the story. One character hears voices in her head telling her to kill which, while giving a few genuinely creepy moments, doesn’t really have any major effects on the plot. It just feels a bit over-the-top in its darkness. Plus there's a ton of backstory that feels like it really should've been explained better. Honestly, it’s the sort of movie where I get the impression I should’ve read/watched some side material first.

 

So, after all those problems, why is this movie this high on the list? Because, for all the plotting/pacing problem, there’s a hell of a lot of memorable and inventive imagery on display here. Genuinely, a lot of this stuff really stayed with me and it has a real fucked up visual inventiveness and style that you really don't see much in animated movies these days. And, again I suggested this movie should’ve been an anthology and that's not an insult. Because that’s because some of the segments, on their own, are actually really really good. There's one story about a pig boatsman with an ill, overbearing mother and one about a pair of father-son scavenger mice and one about a dog soldier and they're all really good with genuinely effective and heartwrenching endings. They just struggle to fit into the 'whole' that is the film.

 

Ultimately, with a movie like Finding Dory or Pete’s Dragon, they’re fairly consistent throughout, but that just means they're consistently ‘alright’. This movie has a lot more low points than those movies and is less structurally sound, but its high points are infinitely more memorable. So I gotta give it credit.

 

Still wish I’d seen Zucchini though.

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6 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

:ph34r:    :ph34r:    :ph34r:

 

42. Godzilla Resurgence

 

k1hjwb8.jpg

 

Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like the Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t). Sure ATJ could've been replaced by a cardboard cut-out and there was a lot of annoying teasing with its battles, but Godzilla 2014 had some genuinely amazing sequences, a real sense of scale and destruction and ultimately, I felt the positives far outweighed the negatives. This movie also had a lot of positives and negatives but in comparison to Godzilla 2014, to me this movie just felt… okay.

 

On the positive side, it is definitely a lot more balanced in terms of quality. Unlike Godzilla 2014, both the human side of the story and the Godzilla side are relatively interesting to follow. But the dry political discussions do start to get tired after a while and the relatively limited budget does show in Godzilla's rampage with some questionable CGI scenes. Certainly, there are some standout scenes like Godzilla's atomic breath, but nothing quite on the same level as Godzilla's arrival in Florida. Hell, the reason I keep bringing up 2014 Godzilla is because on it's own, there's really not that much I can say about this movie. It was decent but that's about all.

 

Maybe Resurgence is a lot more of a satisfying movie to fans of the original Godzilla, but it's still the 2014 movie all the way for me. Also, Imma say it, original form Godzilla in this movie looks silly as hell. Look at this googly eyed goober.

 

shin-godzilla-big-googly-eyes.jpg?w=800

 

That not terrifying, that's just adorable.

My main problem with this movie is now I have wait until like 2018 for Evangelion 4.0. Ughhhhh

 

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40. Lights Out

 

lights_out_ver3.jpg

 

You know, honestly, I think it says something about the quality of horror movies this year if a movie this decent ranks as mid-to-low tier out of all I’ve seen thus far. It’s a solid movie with an interesting premise and some good characterisation and scares.

 

Admittedly, I was probably a little more freaked out than most people watching this because I personally actually have some mild fears of the dark, but even if you're not a wuss like me, there's still plenty to like. Decent tension, some inventive ideas, it's little wonder it broke out the way it did in the box office. Admittedly, it does suffer a fair bit from third act fatigue, where the finale wasn't quite as interesting or inventive as what had come before. And as more facts about the mystery come to light (heheh) the more it sounds... well... kinda silly and makes the threat less threatening. It's the whole 'Nothing is Scarier' ideal. An unknown spirit with unknown motives attacking for unknown reasons is far more frightening than, well... what actually happens. So that kinda cheapened it.

 

Still, there is a lot to enjoy with this movie. It may not be in the top tier of horrors released this year, but it's still a damn entertaining ride.

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39. Warcraft: The Beginning

(*awkward cough*)

warcraft_ver8_xlg.jpg

Yes really. No, I’m serious. I genuinely did kinda like this movie. I thought it was exciting, epic and had an ambition I rarely see in blockbusters these days. And I know almost nothing about World of Warcraft, so it's not like I have any prior attachment to the franchise. Buuuut, like Godzilla 2014, this is also a movie that, while I enjoyed it, I also entirely get why people hate it so much.

 

The main issue with the movie is, without a doubt, the first act. Which is one of the worst first acts I’ve ever seen in a movie. Like legendarily bad. Seriously, scenes jump about with no kind of pacing or intelligent transition, spewing confusing exposition after confusing exposition. While the orc side of things is relatively well done, it takes about 20-30 minutes to have any idea what’s going on with the humans or who any of these characters are or why we should care. And that latter bit is why I suspect the movie was so poorly received. The first act is vital in a movie to make us care about your characters and if you turn off an audience badly enough, they’re not going to switch back on to enjoy the rest of the film. And that’s a shame, because I honestly do think the rest of the movie is rather good. The characters are developed, sympathetic and there are a lot of genuinely tense and heartwrenching moments. And, quite frankly, we don’t see enough massive fantasy battles in modern blockbusters.

 

So yeah, I honestly enjoyed this movie, even if I do consider it clearly flawed. I know I’m in the clear minority for this, but I’d like to see where they take the story in later movies. Even if it’s only me and China who will be watching them.

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