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JUST WHAT WE NEEDED, ANOTHER BEST OF 2016 LIST: THE FILMS
Because you can’t possibly have enough “Best Of The Year” lists on the Internet.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: If yr favorite movie of 2016 isn’t here, it’s likely because (1) I didn’t get a chance to see it, (2) it hasn’t been released in Hong Kong yet, or (3) I did see it but didn’t like it as much as you did. Also, if some of these seem kind of old, it’s because their release date was 2015 for yr country, but 2016 for Hong Kong. See?
Also, I didn’t actually watch that many movies in 2016, due to the aforementioned change in work schedule. I’m hoping to change that this year.
TOP TEN DEF FILMS OF 2016
1. A Perfect Day
2. The Big Short
3. Rogue One
4. Ghostbusters
5. Eye In The Sky
6. Hail, Caesar!
7. Trumbo
8. The Hateful Eight
9. Zootopia
10. The Mermaid
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Star Trek: Beyond
Happiness
The Secret Life Of Pets
The Nice Guys
THE FILM I DIDN’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE ELSE DID
A Bigger Splash
MOST POINTLESS REMAKE
The Magnificent 7
MOST POINTLESS SEQUEL
Independence Day: Resurgence
MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOLITICIZED FILM OF 2016 THAT I SAW
Ghostbusters
WORST FILM I SAW IN 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence
======================================
TOP TEN DEF FILMS OF 2016 (EXTENDED MIX)
1. A Perfect Day
This film from Spanish director Fernando de León de Aronoa follows a team of NGO aid workers in the Balkans in the aftermath of the Bosnian war in 1995. The film has gotten mixed reviews for various reasons – possibly from too many people comparing it to M*A*S*H, which is both inaccurate and unfair – but I enjoyed it. It’s an interesting take on the difficulties of trying to help people in a war zone without relying on obvious brutality or excessive emotional cheese to get the point across, and the bleak, understated humor works without trivializing the situation. But what really sells it is the cast – every character is believable thanks to the actors.
2. The Big Short
You wouldn’t think Michael Lewis’ non-fiction books would make good films. But they do. First Moneyball, and now The Big Short, in which a small group of financial investors who realized the supposedly solid US housing market was based on fraud and on the verge of collapse, bet against it and made a fortune. It all works thanks to a combination of top-notch acting and the ability of the screenwriters to simplify the complex financial situation without dumbing it down (the gimmick of using actual celebrities to break the fourth wall and explain the wonky bits is particularly inspired). And the film smartly acknowledges openly that it’s making up some of the dramatic details but the overall story is true. It’s not a trick that would work with every “based on a true story” film but it works here. This is the best film about the 2008 economic crisis I’ve seen so far.
3. Rogue One
The first Star Wars standalone story, in the sense that it’s not directly concerned with the Skywalker saga. But it’s still connected to the main story arc by way of telling the story of how the rebels acquired the plans for the Death Star. It’s a pretty good story (although it gets a little clunky by the final act), but the film’s biggest achievement is creating a film that takes a vastly different approach to the Star Wars universe and yet feels a part of it. It’s also the first one to acknowledge the moral ambiguities of warfare and the inherent difficulties of running an underground alliance (both of which had been raised in various Extended Universe books in the past). For all its flaws, it’s a really good Star Wars film.
4. Ghostbusters
Is it as good as the original? Of course not. But Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon are a great team and make the whole thing fun to watch (especially McKinnon, who is lots of fun as gonzo mad scientist/Spengler-substitute Holtzmann). And while the very basic plot elements of the original are intact, the reboot surprisingly stands on its own – which is why it’s a shame the film resorts to in-jokes and fan service at times. It’s meant as homage, I suppose – and the cameos are sort of a way of passing the baton – but they’re mostly unnecessary. Then again, so is a Ghostbusters reboot. But if it must be rebooted, they picked a good way to do it.
5. Eye In The Sky
Gavin Hood’s thriller on the political and moral complexities of drone warfare. Hood does a great job of building up the tension as the politicians and military brass monitoring the operation bicker over the operation, with the politicians constantly passing the buck to avoid responsibility as the military looks for ways to bend the rules of engagement. But remarkably – and admirably, in my book – the film explores the tactical, moral and political aspects of modern drone warfare without really taking sides or resorting to Hollywood cheese. Each side gets its say and there are no easy answers – and the film wisely declines to offer a solution, leaving it to the audience to decide for themselves.
6. Hail, Caesar!
In which the Coen Brothers pay tribute to 50s Hollywood films by way of a fake story about a real person – studio fixer Eddie Mannix, whose main job was to cover up the scandals of the studio’s stars. The Coens’ Mannix is not as sleazy or ruthless as the real one, but he does spend the film dealing with various problems, the centerpiece of which is the disappearance of Baird Whitlock, the lead actor in the eponymous film, who has been kidnapped by Communist screenwriters. The story meanders somewhat, but that may be intentional, as one of the goals for the Coens here was to create scenes from some of the big genres of post-war Hollywood, from musicals and singing cowboys to sword-and-sandals Biblical epics – which they do with stunning accuracy. The fact that they wrote their own “classic” film scenes instead of recreating existing ones is an achievement in itself. It may not be their best film, but it may be their best technical achievement.
7. Trumbo
Biopic of Dalton Trumbo, the infamous Hollywood screenwriter who secretly wrote Oscar-winning screenplays while being officially blacklisted by Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist witch hunts. Like most biopics, Trumbo fudges some facts and glosses over certain details – and it makes no secret whose side it’s on as Trumbo faces off with congressmen, John Wayne and gossip queen Hedda Hopper. But it’s not exactly hagiographical either – Trumbo has his flaws, particularly when it comes to his family relationships. And at the heart of it is an interesting story of how Trumbo got around the blacklist. Anyway, I’m a sucker for stories about censorship and Commie witch hunts, so I’m with the choir this film preaches to.
8. The Hateful Eight
The eighth film by Quentin Tarantino, and the first of his films that I found it hard to get into. Like all his films, it looks great, has good acting, good dialogue and plays with the narration structure a little when it suits Tarantino to do so. The gimmick here is essentially a single-room mystery where no one is what they seem and the characters have to figure out what’s really going on. The problem for me is that – as the title implies – every single character is an awful person, which is another way of saying there’s no single character you hope makes it out of the situation alive. It’s actually pretty good, but it’s just too mired in the worst qualities of humans for me to really enjoy it. It’s one of those films I’ll probably only watch once.
9. Zootopia
One doesn’t usually associate buddy-cop films with animated kids films, but Zootopia is just that. Naïve idealist country bunny Judy realizes her dream of becoming the first bunny to join the police force in Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live together in relative harmony. But no one takes her seriously, and to prove herself, she takes a case to find a missing otter, with some unwilling help from Nick, a con-artist fox who is her only lead to the otter’s whereabouts. It probably says a lot that only an animated film with anthropomorphic animals could get away with using a buddy-cop formula as a vehicle to denounce racism, sexism, xenophobia and exploiting fear for political gain. Given current events, it’s arguably one of the more subversive films of the year.
10. The Mermaid
Steven Chow’s latest film, in which a mermaid is sent to assassinate a greedy billionaire whose development company has savaged her people’s home. It’s pretty much the usual Chow template – the selfish but redeemable protagonist, the goonish leading lady, cheesy CGI and a juxtaposition of madcap humor and senseless, cruel violence that, like most of Chow’s latter-day work, tends to lean more towards the latter. So it helps if you think of it more as a fantasy action film with comedy bits rather than a comedy film with action bits. That said, it’s also Chow’s most message-driven film – which is saying something, considering this is ostensibly a mainland Chinese-produced film that not only criticizes greed-motivated land development but also makes fun of China’s growing (and in some cases irresponsible) population of millionaires.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Star Trek: Beyond
The good news about Beyond is that they’ve stopped trying to rehash old stories and have started telling their own. And while this particular story isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it’s one that you can easily imagine being part of the Star Trek series. Also, the actors have really settled comfortably into their roles – especially Chris Pine’s Kirk – to the point that you do feel you’re watching the same characters you grew up watching on TV (more or less). Of all the reboot films, this one feels the most Trekky. And yet, I had a hard time getting into it. It’s basically yet another story that involves OTT action pieces connected by rapid problem-solving to get to the next action piece. It’s actually pretty good as Star Trek movies go, but it would be better if they spent less time on OTT blockbuster action and more on the actual characters.
Happiness
This is an indie Hong Kong film in which hothead jerk Chan Kai-yuk gradually ends up taking care of his landlady Tse Yuen-fan, who is diagnosed with dementia. I’m probably biased here because I currently live with my mother-in-law who has a similar condition (though not as severe as the character in the film), so I identified a lot with the overall situation. And for the most part the film avoids a lot of the tearjerk cheese that films like this often deploy. The main problems for me were (1) Carlos Chan plays Chan Kai-yuk too much like a stereotypical Angry Young Guy who glowers at everyone, and (2) the film’s love interest angle relies on a very unlikely coincidence. Even so, Kara Wai is brilliant as Tse – I’d recommend seeing it for her performance alone.
The Secret Life Of Pets
From the people who gave you Minions, this animated film shows us what our pets may or may not get up to when we’re not home. In this case, a terrier named Max suddenly finds himself with a new roommate – a big shaggy dog named Duke. Their animosity towards each other somehow leads to an adventure in NYC that includes encounters with Animal Control, a feral cat gang and a cult of abandoned pets who hate humans. As animated films go, it’s entertaining enough, but it’s not especially innovative (a number of people have noted it’s essentially the same basic premise as Toy Story).
The Nice Guys
Shane Black’s buddy-cop film set in 1977, in which unethical and unlucky private-eye Holland March reluctantly teams up with freelance enforcer Jackson Healy to find a missing teenager who may be connected to the death of a porn star. People have been raving about this, but I felt that Black tried too hard to play up the Sleazy 70s Anything Goes LA scene. Also, the eventual plot uncovered by March and Healy is just ludicrous. On the plus side, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are a brilliant team, and I do give credit to Black for setting up some action-film clichés as a feint to take you in an unexpected direction. It’s somewhat overrated, but it does have its merits.
THE FILM I DIDN’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE ELSE DID
A Bigger Splash
Luca Guadagnino’s latest film has been billed as a mystery, crime drama, erotic thriller and psychological adult drama, depending on the source. In reality, any of those labels only really described the last 30 minutes. Everything else leading up to that is an unremarkable relationship drama in which rock star Marianne Lane – vacationing on a remote Italian island with her lover Paul – is unexpectedly visited by her producer/former lover Harry Hawkes and his recently discovered teenage daughter. Critics raved about it, but it bored me. To be sure, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes are fantastic, but it’s a predictable story that takes way too long to become interesting.
MOST POINTLESS REMAKE
The Magnificent 7
Antoine Fuqua’s take on the classic Western isn't exactly a straight remake, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, either. The cast is fine, but the villain Bart Bogue is as one-dimensional as it gets – so much so that it hurts the storyline, because having a one-dimensional pure-evil villain is the only way you could justify his strategy to take over a mining town. Meanwhile, the action scenes are pretty much the usual clichéd shoot-em-up gun-porn typical of the Wild West genre.
MOST POINTLESS SEQUEL
Independence Day: Resurgence
Twenty years later, the aliens are back with an even bigger mothership and it’s up to everyone who didn’t die in the first film and isn't Will Smith to save the day. The first film was ludicrous but fun – this sequel is just ludicrous on pretty much all levels. Jeff Goldblum is the only real highlight, and all he really does is do his Jeff Goldblum thing, and even then he looks like he’d rather be doing it in another movie. There’s not really any of the rapport that the characters had in the original, and the subplot between the main young characters is silly teen-angst cheese. It ends with an obvious set-up for another sequel that sounds like it will be even worse than this one.
MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOLITICIZED FILM OF 2016
Ghostbusters
Possibly no film in recent memory has arrived with so much sociopolitical baggage, specifically in terms of (1) being a reboot of a very beloved 80s pop-culture staple (as well as one of the best Hollywood comedies ever made), and (2) the main characters all being replaced with new characters who are also all women. On those two points alone, it’s fair to say Ghostbusters 2.0 was never going to get a fair shake either from fans of the original or the kind of people who think casting female action leads in what used to be male roles is some kind of evil feminist plot to enslave all men and pussify America or whatever it is they think feminists want to achieve.
WORST FILM I SAW IN 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence
See above. Seriously, it wasn't very good. The film basically proves that I’ll watch almost anything on a long-haul flight when I’m bored enough.
The balcony is closed,
This is dF
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: If yr favorite movie of 2016 isn’t here, it’s likely because (1) I didn’t get a chance to see it, (2) it hasn’t been released in Hong Kong yet, or (3) I did see it but didn’t like it as much as you did. Also, if some of these seem kind of old, it’s because their release date was 2015 for yr country, but 2016 for Hong Kong. See?
Also, I didn’t actually watch that many movies in 2016, due to the aforementioned change in work schedule. I’m hoping to change that this year.
TOP TEN DEF FILMS OF 2016
1. A Perfect Day
2. The Big Short
3. Rogue One
4. Ghostbusters
5. Eye In The Sky
6. Hail, Caesar!
7. Trumbo
8. The Hateful Eight
9. Zootopia
10. The Mermaid
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Star Trek: Beyond
Happiness
The Secret Life Of Pets
The Nice Guys
THE FILM I DIDN’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE ELSE DID
A Bigger Splash
MOST POINTLESS REMAKE
The Magnificent 7
MOST POINTLESS SEQUEL
Independence Day: Resurgence
MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOLITICIZED FILM OF 2016 THAT I SAW
Ghostbusters
WORST FILM I SAW IN 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence
======================================
TOP TEN DEF FILMS OF 2016 (EXTENDED MIX)
1. A Perfect Day
This film from Spanish director Fernando de León de Aronoa follows a team of NGO aid workers in the Balkans in the aftermath of the Bosnian war in 1995. The film has gotten mixed reviews for various reasons – possibly from too many people comparing it to M*A*S*H, which is both inaccurate and unfair – but I enjoyed it. It’s an interesting take on the difficulties of trying to help people in a war zone without relying on obvious brutality or excessive emotional cheese to get the point across, and the bleak, understated humor works without trivializing the situation. But what really sells it is the cast – every character is believable thanks to the actors.
2. The Big Short
You wouldn’t think Michael Lewis’ non-fiction books would make good films. But they do. First Moneyball, and now The Big Short, in which a small group of financial investors who realized the supposedly solid US housing market was based on fraud and on the verge of collapse, bet against it and made a fortune. It all works thanks to a combination of top-notch acting and the ability of the screenwriters to simplify the complex financial situation without dumbing it down (the gimmick of using actual celebrities to break the fourth wall and explain the wonky bits is particularly inspired). And the film smartly acknowledges openly that it’s making up some of the dramatic details but the overall story is true. It’s not a trick that would work with every “based on a true story” film but it works here. This is the best film about the 2008 economic crisis I’ve seen so far.
3. Rogue One
The first Star Wars standalone story, in the sense that it’s not directly concerned with the Skywalker saga. But it’s still connected to the main story arc by way of telling the story of how the rebels acquired the plans for the Death Star. It’s a pretty good story (although it gets a little clunky by the final act), but the film’s biggest achievement is creating a film that takes a vastly different approach to the Star Wars universe and yet feels a part of it. It’s also the first one to acknowledge the moral ambiguities of warfare and the inherent difficulties of running an underground alliance (both of which had been raised in various Extended Universe books in the past). For all its flaws, it’s a really good Star Wars film.
4. Ghostbusters
Is it as good as the original? Of course not. But Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon are a great team and make the whole thing fun to watch (especially McKinnon, who is lots of fun as gonzo mad scientist/Spengler-substitute Holtzmann). And while the very basic plot elements of the original are intact, the reboot surprisingly stands on its own – which is why it’s a shame the film resorts to in-jokes and fan service at times. It’s meant as homage, I suppose – and the cameos are sort of a way of passing the baton – but they’re mostly unnecessary. Then again, so is a Ghostbusters reboot. But if it must be rebooted, they picked a good way to do it.
5. Eye In The Sky
Gavin Hood’s thriller on the political and moral complexities of drone warfare. Hood does a great job of building up the tension as the politicians and military brass monitoring the operation bicker over the operation, with the politicians constantly passing the buck to avoid responsibility as the military looks for ways to bend the rules of engagement. But remarkably – and admirably, in my book – the film explores the tactical, moral and political aspects of modern drone warfare without really taking sides or resorting to Hollywood cheese. Each side gets its say and there are no easy answers – and the film wisely declines to offer a solution, leaving it to the audience to decide for themselves.
6. Hail, Caesar!
In which the Coen Brothers pay tribute to 50s Hollywood films by way of a fake story about a real person – studio fixer Eddie Mannix, whose main job was to cover up the scandals of the studio’s stars. The Coens’ Mannix is not as sleazy or ruthless as the real one, but he does spend the film dealing with various problems, the centerpiece of which is the disappearance of Baird Whitlock, the lead actor in the eponymous film, who has been kidnapped by Communist screenwriters. The story meanders somewhat, but that may be intentional, as one of the goals for the Coens here was to create scenes from some of the big genres of post-war Hollywood, from musicals and singing cowboys to sword-and-sandals Biblical epics – which they do with stunning accuracy. The fact that they wrote their own “classic” film scenes instead of recreating existing ones is an achievement in itself. It may not be their best film, but it may be their best technical achievement.
7. Trumbo
Biopic of Dalton Trumbo, the infamous Hollywood screenwriter who secretly wrote Oscar-winning screenplays while being officially blacklisted by Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist witch hunts. Like most biopics, Trumbo fudges some facts and glosses over certain details – and it makes no secret whose side it’s on as Trumbo faces off with congressmen, John Wayne and gossip queen Hedda Hopper. But it’s not exactly hagiographical either – Trumbo has his flaws, particularly when it comes to his family relationships. And at the heart of it is an interesting story of how Trumbo got around the blacklist. Anyway, I’m a sucker for stories about censorship and Commie witch hunts, so I’m with the choir this film preaches to.
8. The Hateful Eight
The eighth film by Quentin Tarantino, and the first of his films that I found it hard to get into. Like all his films, it looks great, has good acting, good dialogue and plays with the narration structure a little when it suits Tarantino to do so. The gimmick here is essentially a single-room mystery where no one is what they seem and the characters have to figure out what’s really going on. The problem for me is that – as the title implies – every single character is an awful person, which is another way of saying there’s no single character you hope makes it out of the situation alive. It’s actually pretty good, but it’s just too mired in the worst qualities of humans for me to really enjoy it. It’s one of those films I’ll probably only watch once.
9. Zootopia
One doesn’t usually associate buddy-cop films with animated kids films, but Zootopia is just that. Naïve idealist country bunny Judy realizes her dream of becoming the first bunny to join the police force in Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live together in relative harmony. But no one takes her seriously, and to prove herself, she takes a case to find a missing otter, with some unwilling help from Nick, a con-artist fox who is her only lead to the otter’s whereabouts. It probably says a lot that only an animated film with anthropomorphic animals could get away with using a buddy-cop formula as a vehicle to denounce racism, sexism, xenophobia and exploiting fear for political gain. Given current events, it’s arguably one of the more subversive films of the year.
10. The Mermaid
Steven Chow’s latest film, in which a mermaid is sent to assassinate a greedy billionaire whose development company has savaged her people’s home. It’s pretty much the usual Chow template – the selfish but redeemable protagonist, the goonish leading lady, cheesy CGI and a juxtaposition of madcap humor and senseless, cruel violence that, like most of Chow’s latter-day work, tends to lean more towards the latter. So it helps if you think of it more as a fantasy action film with comedy bits rather than a comedy film with action bits. That said, it’s also Chow’s most message-driven film – which is saying something, considering this is ostensibly a mainland Chinese-produced film that not only criticizes greed-motivated land development but also makes fun of China’s growing (and in some cases irresponsible) population of millionaires.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Star Trek: Beyond
The good news about Beyond is that they’ve stopped trying to rehash old stories and have started telling their own. And while this particular story isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it’s one that you can easily imagine being part of the Star Trek series. Also, the actors have really settled comfortably into their roles – especially Chris Pine’s Kirk – to the point that you do feel you’re watching the same characters you grew up watching on TV (more or less). Of all the reboot films, this one feels the most Trekky. And yet, I had a hard time getting into it. It’s basically yet another story that involves OTT action pieces connected by rapid problem-solving to get to the next action piece. It’s actually pretty good as Star Trek movies go, but it would be better if they spent less time on OTT blockbuster action and more on the actual characters.
Happiness
This is an indie Hong Kong film in which hothead jerk Chan Kai-yuk gradually ends up taking care of his landlady Tse Yuen-fan, who is diagnosed with dementia. I’m probably biased here because I currently live with my mother-in-law who has a similar condition (though not as severe as the character in the film), so I identified a lot with the overall situation. And for the most part the film avoids a lot of the tearjerk cheese that films like this often deploy. The main problems for me were (1) Carlos Chan plays Chan Kai-yuk too much like a stereotypical Angry Young Guy who glowers at everyone, and (2) the film’s love interest angle relies on a very unlikely coincidence. Even so, Kara Wai is brilliant as Tse – I’d recommend seeing it for her performance alone.
The Secret Life Of Pets
From the people who gave you Minions, this animated film shows us what our pets may or may not get up to when we’re not home. In this case, a terrier named Max suddenly finds himself with a new roommate – a big shaggy dog named Duke. Their animosity towards each other somehow leads to an adventure in NYC that includes encounters with Animal Control, a feral cat gang and a cult of abandoned pets who hate humans. As animated films go, it’s entertaining enough, but it’s not especially innovative (a number of people have noted it’s essentially the same basic premise as Toy Story).
The Nice Guys
Shane Black’s buddy-cop film set in 1977, in which unethical and unlucky private-eye Holland March reluctantly teams up with freelance enforcer Jackson Healy to find a missing teenager who may be connected to the death of a porn star. People have been raving about this, but I felt that Black tried too hard to play up the Sleazy 70s Anything Goes LA scene. Also, the eventual plot uncovered by March and Healy is just ludicrous. On the plus side, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are a brilliant team, and I do give credit to Black for setting up some action-film clichés as a feint to take you in an unexpected direction. It’s somewhat overrated, but it does have its merits.
THE FILM I DIDN’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE ELSE DID
A Bigger Splash
Luca Guadagnino’s latest film has been billed as a mystery, crime drama, erotic thriller and psychological adult drama, depending on the source. In reality, any of those labels only really described the last 30 minutes. Everything else leading up to that is an unremarkable relationship drama in which rock star Marianne Lane – vacationing on a remote Italian island with her lover Paul – is unexpectedly visited by her producer/former lover Harry Hawkes and his recently discovered teenage daughter. Critics raved about it, but it bored me. To be sure, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes are fantastic, but it’s a predictable story that takes way too long to become interesting.
MOST POINTLESS REMAKE
The Magnificent 7
Antoine Fuqua’s take on the classic Western isn't exactly a straight remake, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, either. The cast is fine, but the villain Bart Bogue is as one-dimensional as it gets – so much so that it hurts the storyline, because having a one-dimensional pure-evil villain is the only way you could justify his strategy to take over a mining town. Meanwhile, the action scenes are pretty much the usual clichéd shoot-em-up gun-porn typical of the Wild West genre.
MOST POINTLESS SEQUEL
Independence Day: Resurgence
Twenty years later, the aliens are back with an even bigger mothership and it’s up to everyone who didn’t die in the first film and isn't Will Smith to save the day. The first film was ludicrous but fun – this sequel is just ludicrous on pretty much all levels. Jeff Goldblum is the only real highlight, and all he really does is do his Jeff Goldblum thing, and even then he looks like he’d rather be doing it in another movie. There’s not really any of the rapport that the characters had in the original, and the subplot between the main young characters is silly teen-angst cheese. It ends with an obvious set-up for another sequel that sounds like it will be even worse than this one.
MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOLITICIZED FILM OF 2016
Ghostbusters
Possibly no film in recent memory has arrived with so much sociopolitical baggage, specifically in terms of (1) being a reboot of a very beloved 80s pop-culture staple (as well as one of the best Hollywood comedies ever made), and (2) the main characters all being replaced with new characters who are also all women. On those two points alone, it’s fair to say Ghostbusters 2.0 was never going to get a fair shake either from fans of the original or the kind of people who think casting female action leads in what used to be male roles is some kind of evil feminist plot to enslave all men and pussify America or whatever it is they think feminists want to achieve.
WORST FILM I SAW IN 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence
See above. Seriously, it wasn't very good. The film basically proves that I’ll watch almost anything on a long-haul flight when I’m bored enough.
The balcony is closed,
This is dF