Month: March 2018

Fantastic Mr. Fox came out in 2009. It was not my first Wes Anderson movie, but it was the first Wes Anderson movie I really, really loved. Not saying I hated everything before it, no. In fact, at that time, I only had seen one of his movies which was The Royal Tenebaums. I maybe saw it too young and was not ready for its quirks, and still haven’t seen it for redemption, but I didn’t love it. The fox though? Yes. Every one of his movies since then? Yes.

But this is something different and special. This is 9 years later, and another goddamn animated stop motion movie. Can he recreate the magic of Fantastic Mr. Fox but with Isle of Dogs? More talking animals?!

At least with his last one, it was based on a previous book. But this is a new idea, based on dogs, a culture that isn’t his, and a sort of throwback to a cinema that he loves. I was certainly excited again, especially given how much shit 2017 gave us for the animated category.

Can I have all of these doggos? Please tell me no doggos actually die.

Set in the fictional future of some world that is similar to our own, we have to go to Megasaki City to find our story. In this city, the new mayor, Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), is from a family with a long hatred of dogs. They are cat people and want to get rid of dogs forever! Well, that is great, because these dogs are gaining some sort of dog virus and snout flu, which has the ability to transfer over to humans! He declares that all dogs in the city must be sent over to Trash Island, in order to quarantine them until a cure can be found. Speaking of cures, Professor Watanabe (Akira Ito) thinks he is really close to getting a cure and hopes everyone will wait. But mobs be mobbin’, yo. And the dogs start getting sent that very night.

And now, a few months later, the island gets a non furry visitor. Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), a young boy who is ward of the mayor, has crashed a tiny plane in the island, in hopes of finding his old dog Spots (Liev Schreiber) location. Although dogs cannot speak any form of human language, we the viewer are happy to note that the film translates their language into English! Yay!

He finds a group of alpha dogs to help him on his quest. These dogs include Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldbloom).

Can these dogs find the missing dog for this little human boy? Can they also cure the dog flu, and put an end to this corrupt mayor? Well, maybe. I don’t know. Or if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.

Also starring the voices of Courtney B. Vance, Tilda Swinton, Yoko Ono, Ken Watanabe, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, and F. Murray Abraham.

The human has thumbs so he can do some interesting things with them.

I loved, loved, loved Isle of Dogs. A lot, very much so. Before I get into those details, lets talk about the controversy.

You see, there is a lot of talk of white savior complex, cultural appropriation, and more going on with this movie. It is set in a fictional future dystopian-esque Japan, or at least one city in Japan. And coming from a place of white privilege and all of that, I can honestly say I really don’t see it at all. The white savior thing just seems like it would be assumed by people who read a plot outline, not watched the film, because it is no where close to the normal problematic levels. The other issues I just also really can’t see well. I can’t say that they aren’t true, because I certainly don’t speak for Japanese people or their culture, but I can say that I didn’t really get that vibe at any point, and didn’t affect me negatively either for this movie.

Back to the film! Holy shit dogs!

What a totally immersive story. There were little quirks here and there that could remind you of it being a film, especially when it came to the various translation methods, but I just wanted to live there and run around and frolic despite all of the bad things that were going down. The dogs in particular all have their own personality and jokes that surround them, for good quick laughs.

I really enjoyed that I couldn’t understand the entire film. The Japanese characters spoke Japanese, and didn’t always have a reason to be translated or subtitled, and during those times, well, if you knew Japanese you could follow 100%. The audience was required to watch the facial expressions and to hear obvious key words to make sure we could follow. It was great to not get everything super dumbed down.

Isle of Dogs is an interesting adventure, a unique tale, and a story that just seems to have so many tiny perfect details that it would be fun to watch over and over again. Until though, I will just settle for a rewatch of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Josef Stalin was a dude who a lot of people respected, a lot of people feared, and lot of people hated. But at least he got the trains running on time in Italy, right?

Wait, that was Mussolini? And Mussolini was in Italy?

Stalin was in goddamn Russia? Oh, well, fuck, close enough. Communists are communists, am I right?

Either way, The Death of Stalin is a satirical look at his death, and the power vacuum that existed in the Soviet Union after the fact. A topic you (like me) probably know next to nothing about, and after you see a film like this, will assume you know a lot that is probably not true.

He peed his pants. That is smelly.

In 1953, in the Soviet Union, everything was nice and grand. People are alive, until they are not. People are living their lives normally, until their not. Josef Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) is a generous man who rules with an iron fist, sure, but hey, its a hard job being in the top. He has a big cabinet of faithful advisers, from Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), and Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale).

He also has death/torture lists, that are frequently updated. You know, traitors and such. The army runs out, grabs them, imprisons them or kills them just because Stalin heard a whiff of untrustworthy behavior. Not too fun to be caught up in that.

And then? Well, then Stalin just had to go and die. And now, we have a group of men who all want to be leaders, while also want to be sure Stalin is dead before they take over the power vacuum. This cabinet of individuals has to try and work together to make sure their country doesn’t fall apart, and that they don’t backstab each other before the best man actually gets the job.

Also, while dealing with the religious fanatics, the normal people, the army, the special army, the prisons, and lists, and ugh, the family of Stalin.

Also starring Andrea Riseborough, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Paddy Considine, Paul Chahidi, Paul Whitehouse, and Rupert Friend.

If they all stand around the casket, then the only one that can backstab them is Zombie Stalin.

The Death of Stalin is a strange movie to come out, one that is really hard to describe. Because it is weird. It is sort of Monty Python-esque, sort of silly, while still maintaining a very strong and serious vibe. I am laughing out loud in the theater due to how absurd the whole thing feels and how awkward the characters are.

It is quite obvious that there is no way the events are accurate as shown in this movie. It is very wonky and similar to maybe the Three Stooges, with a bit less slapstick. At the same time, it still felt realistic and natural for these men to be freaking out and being awkward, given the situation they are in. They know everyone of them is ruthless. They have been living in a ruthless time. They are used to a period where people would die for saying the wrong thing, and when you want to be on top, you might end up saying the wrong thing.

Overall, this is not the sort of film that everyone would love. A bit bizarre, a bit funny, while also maintaining a lot of deadpanning and dry humor. And somehow, still, piss humor.

This film has definitely intrigued me about this moment in history and it has wanted me to learn more!

A few years ago, Oscar Winner Guillermo del Toro directed a fun little giant monster movie named Pacific Rim, that was meant with not real acclaim, but most people admitted it was at least a bit fun.

I remember going to the opening night release, a theater full of guys, and my now wife being the only (presumed) lady in the audience. It was a fun experience. It had a lot of fun characters and great actors, some of which hammed it up sure, but they put an end to the goddamn apocalypse.

This next film, Pacific Rim: Uprising, has no del Toro directing it, was put off of the line up indefinitely a year back, and is just now finally coming back. It is set later, so we can have a mostly new cast, and uhhh, I dunno. I guess it is about monsters and robot stuff still.

I think I will just refer to them now as battlebots.

Set ten years after the first film, the humans have won the war, no more alien sightings, and they are just living their lives. Some areas have never been rebuilt on the coast, others are back to normal. The Jaeger program is still kicking around, building a few machines and training new recruits just in case another attack comes. But for the most part, they don´t do a lot.

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) thought about living up to his father´s legacy, but instead he would rather live in an abandoned city, stealing Jaeger parts and other items for junk food and dollar bills. Hey, YOLO and stuff.

But during a theft gone wrong, he ran into a younger girl, Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) who built her own very tiny Jaeger on her own stolen parts, small enough to be run by a single person, not two! They get into trouble, arrested, and now Jake has a choice. Join the Jaeger Pilot program (again!) or, you know, jail. His older ¨sister¨ Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) is sort of leading the thing again, so she gave him that totally not forced option.

Long story short, this movie has a lot of cadet training, and worrying about the future of the Jaeger program. Will they switch to drones? Why waste money at all? What did the Kaiju want? And why is there a rouge Jaeger running around, kicking ass and killing people? Oh wait, what?

Also starring Burn Gorman and Charlie Day reprising their roles, along with other newcomers like Tian Jing, Jin Zhang, Adria Arjona, and a loaf of bread. I mean Scott Eastwood.

Well, if anything Eastwood is an incredibly attractive looking loaf of bread.

¨Hi, my name is Pacific Rim: Uprising! Allow me to make a film full of boring cliches and not a lot of fun action!¨

Boring cliches you say? Well, we got a son who doesn´t want to associate with his dad´s trade beside his knack for it. We got in general, cadet training programs of teenagers (with attitude!) who aren´t doing as well as hoped. But you know by the end, those same kids are going to have to be the ones who save the day. The band of misfits who struggled and grew together, not only learning how to be heroes, but to…love.

Other mistakes this sequel wanted to make was killing off old characters in dumb ways just so we can focus on the fun spunky youths more. It took WAY too long to get to some goddamn robot versus monster fighting action, which is what we signed up for in this film franchise. We had to see robots fight for each other for awhile, and obvious plot twists instead. Timing was very strange throughout the film, with the implication they did a lot of things fast that felt like weeks of work, despite having a huge time crunch to do it.

But hey, I won´t completely shit on it. Here are some pros. 1) The final fight was long (and really our only robot/monster battle), but entirely during the day, so you know, you could mostly understand what happened. 2) The Jaeger battle armor to control them didn´t have boob plates for the ladies. And, 3) There was a bit of talk about geology! Not a lot of it, and not necessarily accurate, but still, geology, what fun!

I was relatively excited going in to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi, even with them deciding to drop the iconic episode numbers. For Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it was clear it was a step in the right direction, even if it wasn’t too original. And Rouge One was great.

But the people who let me see things early switched to a different PR company, specifically to the one company that I didn’t have. I found out late November when the change occurred, which made it clear that I wasn’t going to be seeing Star Wars 8 early at all. And at that point, all the pre-sale tickets had already happened for early showtimes.

So if I was going to see it, I knew I would have to wait at least a week after the fact, maybe longer. And then I waited longer, I waited to see how many times I could keep putting it off. I didn’t see this movie until mid-February, still on a nice big screen. And that is why it was never reviewed, and why I decided eventually to wait to put it as the final movie in my “2017 Movies I should have seen last year” list!

“I’m a Jedi master, bitch!“

I don’t feel like tagging all of the many characters who are in this film, at least naturally through this review, so I will post them all at the end.

Yay Luke Skywalker was found by Rey! Boo, she is avoided because Luke wants to be alone and doesn’t think the Jedi should be apart of the world anymore. He wants to die and let the Jedi order die with him.

While she convinces him that he is stupid, the Resistance are getting fucked over by the Empire, First Order. A lot of ships are running around, people dying, pew pew pews. And the resistance has to run and get away to not die.

And that is the movie.

Starring, of course, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Frank Oz, Billie Lourd, Joonas Suotamo, and Jimmy Vee.

Also starring newbies to the galaxy, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Amanda Lawrence, Justin Theroux.

Yeah, but how many of those dozen plus names can wield a light saber and shoot out red dust!

Star Wars 8 clocks in at around 2.5 hours, because apparently we can never get enough Star Wars. It is the longest Star Wars film yet, cracking the other top place holders by about 10 minutes. And boy did it sure feel long.

You see, it is made apparent from this film that this trilogy is in no way planned out. We have a lot of plots that were set up from the first film that end completely out of nowhere in this film. Characters die off, questions get answered, and most of it is extremely disappointing.

The worst part of the film is a subplot that has a few characters going on a mission alone, in order to find a character in a casino. It lasts very long in terms of the overall movie and again, none of it feels justified or worth it by the end. It felt like this movie had filler, which is inexcusable given its rather long run time. That isn’t even getting into the really awkward Leia scene.

The only reason this film didn’t get a 1 out of 4, is because the ending was pretty rad. It still seemed to have a lot of poor plot developments, making what felt a side plot last the entire goddamn film. It was very character focused, even though a lot of the characters they decided to kill off. I just cannot help but think of the poor merchandise that was sold for the first two films that never really amounted to much.

Justice League promised to be The Avengers, but for the DCEU. Obvious comparisons are obvious.

Unfortunately, unlike Marvel, most of the films that led up to Justice League were either shit or average. The only one to break the mold a bit was Wonder Woman, but it still couldn’t fully escape the terrible grasps of these franchises by having a completely shit and eye sore ending.

So I didn’t go out of my way to see Justice League. One of those fool me four times, shame on me sort of things. It didn’t help that it had behind the scenes director changes, a lot of issues with reshoots, and extreme studio interference. Clearly another great film to fit the theme week of ones I should have watched last year.

Is this the whole team? Eh, close enough.

Batman (Ben Affleck) really wants to bring all these super people together, to fight off giant threats that they cannot do on their own. Remember Superman (Henry Cavill)??? He totally died, but didn’t die as they made clear at the end of the last movie, so they gotta work together to beat future gods.

Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is generally on board. They just have to find more people. These people beings who will eventually go by their names of The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Aquaman (Jason Momoa).

Unfortunately, the next biggest threat is just some god dude from the Wonder Woman mythos. His name is Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), who is maybe where the band got their name from. He was here a long time ago, got defeated by the races of men, Amazons, and the Merfolk. There were some power cubes that they all split up to defend, and now he is back, wanting all three cubes, to have so much power.

So their goal is to prevent him from getting all the cubes, and once he still gets them, then hopefully defeat them and split up the cubes. Pretty basic plot.

Also starring Amber Heard, Amy Adams, Joe Morton, Jeremy Irons, J.K. Simmons, Connie Nielsen, and Diane Lane.

It was hard to find a good picture of the villain. Clearly I still failed.

When it comes to Justice League, there are so many places you can point to in order to determine what went wrong. And you’d be right! All of those reasons are why this movie was so poor!

First of all, Steppenwolf. What a goddamn terrible villain for us care about. Some CGI’d dude who is just super strong, and oh no, he might destroy the world. He has no great backstory, and he doesn’t even feel threatening on any scale. Sure, they show he is strong, but also, he doesn’t feel like a real threat. Not one bigger than Ares in Wonder Woman at least.

The CGI is a travesty. And so much of the film is just drenched in it. From the terrible Amazon horse fight scene, to the climatic battles, this one just reeks of cheap graphics.

Our characters come together and never feel like a team. It is clunky. Aquaman is shown as badass and strong, but never really embraces the powers unique of Aquaman. I have no idea if I care about Cyborg still, which is less a human with powers and more a…robot. But then again, Batman is on this team, so whatever.

And fucking Superman is in this movie. Once he finally shows up, he basically does most of the work on his own. They point out that he is indeed faster than The Flash, and the strongest, and can do no wrong. Steppenwolf is a villain who can kick most of the Justice League’s ass. Unfortunately, the one he cannot can also do it on his own.

Justice League is just a farce of a great movie. It is amazing how the DCEU just hates its characters so much that it continuously pumps out these mediocre or worse films.

Kingsman: The Secret Service was a strange breath of fresh air in 2014. A strange mix of Bond parody while maintaining its own serious qualities of a film. It wasn’t outright joke-y, but it did have plenty of jokes and extremes when comparing itself to Bond films.

I mean, outside of its very stupid ending (Which again, was just going to extremes), it almost felt like a perfect film. So many people were excited about Kingsman: The Golden Circle, heck, I was too. I just…didn’t see it.

So again, we find ourselves with a perfect film for “Things I should have watched and reviewed last year,” a theme title too long to tag, especially since I keep changing the wording. All of that is part of the theme title. It came out during a stronger time for movies, so the makers were certainly confident in their own work, that’s a good thing.

Just like they are confident enough to feature a lot of people wearing glasses.

A lot has changed for The Kingsman group since Galahad (Colin Firth) died and the whole world ending stuff from the first film. For example, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is now in a committed relationship with the Princess Tilde (Hanna Alström). Merlin (Mark Strong) is getting in more of the action now too, and we learn he loves John Denver, how quaint! John Denver was featured heavily in Free Fire and Logan Lucky as well, so 2017 was like a love song to him, but you know, with movies.

Either way, they are going to have to deal with The Golden Circle, the world’s biggest drug organization. Why do they have to deal with them? Because they are planning something big soon to take out most of the world’s inhabitants. You know, like the last movie had a similar thing going on. But also because the organization took out basically all of the Kingsmen, except for Eggsy and Merlin, including their headquarters. That is totally not cool.

Following some clues, they head to America, to find The Statesmen, the American version of their organization. They are disguised as a brewing company in Kentucky. Well, disguised, and also do make the alcohol. In fact they have cute code names that are alcohol based. We get Tequila (Channing Tatum), Ginger Ale (Halle Berry), Champ/Champagne (Jeff Bridges), and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal). The two sides agree to work together, after some shenanigans and reveals to help bring The Golden Circle down, before calamity and stuff.

Also starring Julianne Moore and Elton John.

America has more cowboys and cowboy accessories.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is 141 minutes long. 141 minutes long. The last one cracked two hours as well, but at no point did it crack 2 hours like this film. Sure, both run times include the credits, so we can subtract about 8 from each and still wonder what the hell was so important in this film for it to be so goddamn long.

And one of the biggest issues with this film is that it certainly drags and just has too much extra information that really doesn’t add a lot extra to the plot. It is in desperate need of some editing.

The characters still maintain some of their charm. I think too much of the film is spent trying to bring back some memories of a character. The action is okay, the overall plot isn’t. It feels way too similar to the plot of the first film, given the goals associated with it.

Overall, this is an average movie and not really worth the time it was given. Outside of Merlin, the other characters really don’t have much growth that you would expect in a sequel. It didn’t feel as funny or unique as the first film either. Basically, it is a lamer and longer version of the first film, pure and simple.

Blade Runner is often considered one of the best science fiction movies ever created, and it came out in the 1980’s. Oh well, back then we had a lot of classic films that people love forever, so what do I know.

I didn’t see it until over a year ago, mostly because I knew that this sequel, Blade Runner 2049 was coming out, and I wanted to make sure I got it. Well, I knew why Blade Runner was considered a great film, but not my cup of tea. I was a bit excited about Blade Runner 2049 as well, because of the director only. After many great films like Sicario, Prisoners, Enemy, and Arrival (one of my top films of 2016), I would watch anything that Denis Villeneuve touches.

So why did I wait so long? I don’t know, because I suck. But I did wait so long, and then it got nominated for boatload at the Oscars. I did watch it before the ceremony, and wrote this review, but wanted to save it for my theme week, where I finally reviewed things I should have definitely reviewed in 2017.

In the future, we will have robots that look like Ryan Gosling!

K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner, not an agent who works for the Men In Black, but I can see why you get them confused. K is a replicant, and he knows he is a replicant, and his job as a Blade Runner is to find older models of replicants. He has to hunt them down, sometimes to kill them, sometimes just to bring them in. I have already almost hit my quota of saying the word replicant!

On a mission, K finds the remains of a replicant child. Like, not one that was created, but one that was birthed out. People didn’t know that replicants could birth replicant children. This is a game changer. Now K is told by his boss (Robin Wright) to find the baby and hide the truth, b ecause if this gets out, people will start warring again.

Of course with a secret this big, different sides are going to come together after this knowledge. Some toe hide it, some to let it out to the public, some to steal the technology for their own nefarious slave making purposes.

And K is starting to question what it means to be a replicant. He wonders if he can deny orders. I mean, he is called a replicant, not a repliCAN, so you’d think he would accept his limitations.

Also starring Ana de Armas, Barkhad Abdi, Carla Juri, Dave Bautista, Edward James Olmos, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, and Sylvia Hoeks.

“Wanna know why they call this place the Brown Town?…Racism.”

I said it before and I will say it again. Tron is not a good movie. Tron: Legacy is definitely not a good movie. Avatar obviously wasn’t a good movie. But they were all very pretty movies (for their time). Some both pleasing to look at and to listen to, while offering mostly shitty plots and maybe shitty acting.

Blade Runner 2049 has a shit plot. It is long, not too exciting, not as deep as its predecessor, and a bit convoluted for my tastes. But it is really pretty to look at.

It is visually stunning. Its cinematography is gorgeous. Its choices were so well thought out and given a loving touch that it is hard to look away. Well, it would be if I ever felt engaged. Because the acting was poor, the twists were mostly expected, and it doesn’t feel incredibly original. But it was still pretty to look at.

I don’t really understand how this made best of the year lists for people, maybe they were just blinded by the flashy lights and visuals, or riding the hype of one of their favorite films over the last few decades. But Blade Runner 2049 is all flash, no substance, and an incredible waste of my time.

Ghost in the Shell came out a whole year ago, March in 2017. The oldest film on my list of things I should have totally seen last year. And reviewed. And this time there are just no excuses.

I mean, it came out on DVD and Redbox in the summer. Plenty of time to catch up to it. The only reason I didn’t see it was straight up apathy.

I didn’t see the original anime, but the controversy behind it makes sense. Good old white girl playing an incredibly Japanese role. Well, she is a robot, but that barely makes it okay. I went into this film not too stoked, but hey, maybe it is pretty.

This is the strange robot nakedness that gets certain jollies off.

In the future (!), humans have started to add robot parts to their bodies. Or special programs. Things to make them stronger, smarter, better eye sight, whatever. Normal helpful things. But one corporation decided to go further. They made an entirely awesome robot body, all the strongest best technologies. They just need a human brain to put inside of it to make it work.

Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson) is almost killed in some cyber terrorist attack, her body mangled beyond repair, but she is still alive. Heck, her parents were killed in the same attack. So Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) think she is a perfect subject to put into the shell, to keep her alive.

And they can’t just let anyone be in this fucking amazing body. They decide to make her part of the counter-terrorism force. To hunt down crime and put a stop to it with her sexy robotic body. Basically, a sexy RoboCop.

Anyways, Mira doesn’t remember a lot about her past. But she is now going against a hacker with her small team, so you know she is totally going to get mind fucked.

Also starring Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Chin Han, and Peter Ferdinando.

Sort of hard to find an actual Japanese element in this film at times.

Sure, yeah, Ghost in the Shell is a pretty film. Not like gorgeous as fuck, like Blade Runner 2049, but not ugly either. Instead, it is mostly just a mass of CGI and lights and technology. It is technically pretty, but it feels empty. Like…like a shell of a movie.

In terms of plot, it is very hard to follow and specific. It is certainly not entertaining. It feels like a goddamn chore to get through it. I obviously watched it in the comfort of my home, so I was able to pause it and do other things multiple times, because I didn’t want to just pass out throughout the whole film.

I wanted to sleep during the movie, but I knew I needed to know how bad and pointless it was.

Another film that wants to be deep, most likely shitting on the source material all the way through it, and just feeling like a waste of time. How much of a waste of time? Well, less than two hours thankfully. But this film is a travesty to science fiction.

This year has been harder than others to truly keep up my commitment to a year in shitty film.

Now, I was disappointed in a lot of films this year. A lot of films didn’t go as good as expected, but it took me a long time before I got enough 0 out of 4’s. I had my normal end of the year squeeze. That magical sweet spot time where I have to first watch the rest of the probably great movies, make a list of potential shit movies, watching them all before I get to the award movies I missed.

And in that list we have films that I still didn’t get to, and now just won’t. For example, I am so fucking done with Sharknado, it won’t be watched again by me, so no Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. It just isn’t even fun to write about. On a similar fifth in the series note, I honestly just refuse to watch Transformers: The Last Knight. That is 2.5 hours of my life, dealing with a franchise that has not improved in several films. I need time to do hobbies as well!

Other films I didn’t get around to, that might have been bad: A Bad Moms Christmas, 47 Meters Down, Rough Night, Snatched, Amityville: The Awakening, and Sleepless.

Instead of just choosing a few of the ones that didn’t make the list, here are all the other 0 out of 4 films for the year. They should be noted! These films include Unforgettable, The Shack, My Bakery in Brooklyn, A Dog’s Purpose, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, You Get Me, and of course, Cars 3.

Starting off this list with probably the only thing to be on my worst of the year list, and nominated for an Oscar. The Boss Baby wasn’t even nominated for an abstract technical award, like Suicide Squad was. It was nominated for BEST animated film.

And the only reason that is true is due to the fact that they changed the voting for animated films. Now everyone in the academy can vote for things, before nominations, in the animated category. So the biggest names will get nominated, and less awesome foreign flicks.

That is the only way to describe why The Boss Baby was nominated. Because it is straight animated trash, but not the worst animated film of the year.

Speaking of animated trash, we have a sequel next. The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature was so bad they delayed it over a year to add character to the list!

And guess what. Just like the first film, it is full of non funny jokes, piss poor animation, even pissier poorer plot, and an ending that will leave you scratching your head. This is a good ending? One that we are supposed to show kids? The fuck, animated movie people. The. Fuck.

Ah good, this list isn’t just animated films (although, roughly 1/3 of it is). 2017 was by in far one of the best ever years for the horror genre in recent memory. But don’t worry, not everything was a success.

Wish Upon takes the very overdone genre of “be careful what you wish for!” and turns it into a extremely tame horror film, with elements of the Final Destination franchise thrown in for lawls.

It doesn’t work. It feels stupid. And that is just because it IS stupid.

Oh but what about the funny films? The ones that should make you laugh and be hopefully amusing enough to warrant a grin now and then on your face? Well, Fist Fight is not that that kind of movie.

I watched this movie with a blank face the entire time. It failed to elicit a single grin, a guffaw, or even mirthless chuckle.

It is about two dudes going to fight, one of them not wanting to fight, and eventually, a fight happens. Shrug emoji everyone. This is the WORST LIVE ACTION COMEDY film of 2017!

Almost to the top 10, but on a regular year, I could imagine this one actually have making it closer to the bottom. Kidnap was supposed to come out years ago, but delays in bankrupt companies made us wait.

And now that we have waited, we realize that Kidnap is a terrible thriller. It is ass. It is bad. It is The Call 2.

Halle Berry should be upset about this sort of film coming out, but I think she enjoys doing these movies. That is the only reason we would keep being at this point with her. This is the WORST THRILLER film of 2017.

Hooray, the top ten! Now we get another horror film, this one is not American made. I happened to be one of the few people in the world to enjoy the movie, Unfriended. It gave me social media scares!

Friend Request is a movie that tries to do a similar thing, but in a dumber way. We get to have angsty college students, death scenes you can barely understand due to poor lighting, and a message comparable to Walk Up not Walk Out.

I just…its so bad everyone. I can’t believe it even made it to theaters. This is the WORST HORROR film of 2017.

It is so hard to describe The Book of Henry. It starts off feeling like a family film, one that goes into some very dark and again, stupid, territory. I feel like stupid is the theme of this list.

This is a plot line featuring an absurdly smart individual, one that isn’t in anyway believable and is annoying throughout the film, especially after he dies. It deals with serious real topics, while shitting all over plausible things to do in these scenarios. It was frankly painful to make it through this film, that I thought would be good the first time I saw a trailer for it. Silly me.

There is no way you have heard about Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, but I don’t need to make sure films are well known to be on this list. I am not some goddamn Razzies publication.

This film I saw at a film festival, which was never going to be in theaters otherwise. It is a straight to DVD film by a guy who does a lot of these sorts of films. It relies on an attractive woman lead, pretending this movie deals with serious sci-fi elements. But it is poorly made, quickly put together, and something that can easily help you nap. I guess that is a positive.

Oh good, the third animated film to make this list! I think the fact that The Star came out and was god awful (pun intended) is the only reason why The Shack didn’t make the list.

It is a retelling of Jesus’ birth, but from the point of view of animals, on their way to the manger, where he was born. It is a comedy film, I guess, and it is religious, of course, yet it is all around painful. It features the cringiest line in film this year, which I put in the full version of the review.

Normally superly religious movies that are really bad always make the list, but this year wasn’t a terrible year for religious movies. I mean, we got mother! Next year however…

Ghost in the Shell is the last movie I have seen from 2017 to make this list. It is one I never wanted to watch, but also one I didn’t assume would be on this list. I honestly didn’t.

I just had no interest in what amounted to a whitewashing of a really fucking famous anime. Little did I know it would be as bad as it was. One of those hard to follow plots, attempting to go to a deep place while instead floundering in its CGI robotic horse shit.

Ghost in the Shell does nothing for the viewer. It doesn’t do anything, for anyone. The WORST SCI-FI film of 2017.

The Only Living Boy In New York is so bad and pointless, that I didn’t review the film until months after I ended up watching it. Why months? Because it was so bad, I forgot I watched it. I accidentally saw the email inviting me to see it, remembered it, hated myself, and then wrote the review.

It was so forgettable, it almost didn’t make this list.

It stars a character who know one will like, dealing with issues that no one cares about. It is some individualized hipster dream movie. I can’t believe this one exists, either.

Making fun of these films is almost unfair. They were not made to be good. They are a trashy product, based off a trashy product, that was based on a different set of trashy products.

Fifty Shades Darker is like the first film, but less BDSM, less plot, and more…boats. More goddamn boats.

This is the WORST ROMANCE FILM of 2017.

The Dark Tower was a very hard review to write, because it was one of those films that just didn’t make any goddamn sense while I watched it. Poor Stephen King, having his life’s work reduced to a CGI fantasy fest film that is only partly based on his works. Something that just feels like two hours of setting up a universe that already was set up in book form, and failing badly.

This might be a good movie for those who have read the material, who can recognize the characters, and see the reasoning behind this. But instead, we get a movie that is CGI full and plot thin. What was this about? I dunno, guns and a mirror world.

This is the WORST FANTASY film of 2017.

Just like the Fifty Shades series, I wonder why I even watch movies made by Terrence Malick. I guess part of me assumes if I watch enough of them, I might finally understand one. I might get the dialogue heavy conversations that float over the actions of sometimes related characters. I might get the whimsical dream nature of these movies.

But until then, they belong on this list, and continue to confuse and confound me. Fuck. Just, stop using these great actors in these confusing films. And who knows what is coming after Song to Song, but I am not looking forward to it, because they are bad movies that just feel like torture to me.

This is the WORST DRAMA film of 2017.

I could just put a big picture of a shit emoji to explain this, and everyone would get it. I don’t want to waste any words on The Emoji Movie, which came and went like a fart in the night.

It is forgettable, it is not funny, it is a stamp on a year of bad animated movies. That is all I have to say.

The Emoji Movie is the WORST ANIMATED film of 2017.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site! Check out my thoughts). Overall totals put four animated films on this list, but it could have been more. We have a few horror, some thrillers, some comedies, and some super serious drama films. At least one romance, two science fiction, and above all, a lot of crap.

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

Holy fuck. Today is the day. Today we have reached the biggest milestone yet. Because that is how numbers work, and each review is the biggest number yet, so of course milestone wise, that would increase as well.

Two. Thousand. 2000. Two thousands reviews on Gorgon Reviews!

I have been slacking a bit, mostly because I didn’t feel any inspiration, but my last Milestone Review was when I hit 1750, at the beginning of 2017, with the Resident Evil Franchise review. I figured that every 50 was getting me a bit burnt out, and most people didn’t care when they were that frequent. That is roughly one every 3 or so months. I figure after this one, I will just do every 100 a Milestone Review, to keep it fresh and fun for me.

But this is too much nonsense. I need to talk about the 2000th film. To catch you all up, I used to say that I didn’t review horror films, just to avoid The Human Centipede, which was popular when I first started writing. For my 1000th review, I changed all of that around and opened up the genre.

For my 1500th review, I did the second film, just as the third one was finally about to come out. And it made a lot of sense to me to make sure I saved The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) for when I hit this magical 2000 number, even if I really never wanted to see this film.

With all this backstory, I can say for sure right now that I have no idea what my 2500th film will end up being. I have nothing on the docket right now, but I have 499 movies to watch first before I have to make any hard decisions.

Hard decisions, like whether or not I need to make a human centipede.

In the second movie, the original film was just a movie. In the third film, the first two are both movies, and this one is totally set in the real world this time.

This time it is also set in a prison, in some Southwestern state. This is a prison of anarchy, of brutal prisoners, and a staff who doesn’t give a damn. Led by the Warden, Bill Boss (Dieter Laser), who yes, you would maybe recognize as the evil doctor from the first film. Don’t worry, that isn’t our only reunion! We also have the main assistant/accountant of the warden, Dwight Butler (Laurence R. Harvey), who was the sadistic security guard in the second film!

there are a few notable new people to the series though.

Don’t worry, this isn’t just a big sausage fest. We have a woman character! Her name is Daisy (Bree Olson). She is a secretary. She also has to give the warden blowjobs, gets generally sexually harassed all the times, is clearly just an object and not a person. And of course she is played by Bree Olson, known for her work in the adult industry.

Overall, this may have been better to be a full on sausage party. Then we wouldn’t have the unnecessary sexual violence against women also taking part in this movie.

And this time, the hammer is not his pistol.

Back to the prison. Man, these inmates are really pissed off at everything. In a mini riot, one of them stabs an officer, so the warden breaks his arm. That is the kind of justice they serve here. The prisoners unfortunately cause problem after problem, where the Warden decides on a whim what to do about it. Like random castrations, which he is happy to do personally. Or waterboarding but with boiling water.

Overall, the warden is a fucked up man. He has a jar of cut off Clitorises from Africa to snack on for strength.

Look, you came into this review knowing the movie would be a fuckshow.

All of these issues cause the governor of their state (Eric Roberts) to stop on by, demanding that the violence in this prison be put to a stop. It turns out that the prison has also been spending a lot of money, going almost bankrupt in the process, due to all their extra medical fees.

Good old accountant Dwight though has the solution. He has known for the whole film how they can save money, reduce fighting, and be heroes for the state! You see, Dwight is a fan of a certain two films, which are claimed to be scientifically accurate!

He just needs permission to turn the prison into one giant human centipede, and everyone will love them!

Do you really want to know where this blood came from?

No! There is no way this is plausible! It is just a stupid goddamn movie!

But Dwight insists. Hell, they even bring the director, Tom Six (Tom Six) of the first two movies (and yes, he wrote and directed this one) to be an adviser over the whole thing. He has ideas for them, as long as he can also observe and see it happen, because hey, seeing his film come to life would be cool.

They have other issues going on with this idea too. For example, prisoners eventually get to leave the prison. They cannot just make a permanent huge centipede. They have to be able to be removed from teh centipede when their time is up, meaning so taking out their knees, or permanently attaching mouth to anus. There are rules, damn it.

Good news, their doctors know how to make it all work, realistically!

Just needed a goddamn planning session, to brainstorm this shit.

Needless to say, the inmates were not too thrilled with the prospect of having to eat shit. They decided to show them that this is not okay, and have another riot! In the process, they messed up Daisy a bit too, and she certainly didn’t deserve any of that. She certainly didn’t deserve to be raped by the warden either, while in a coma after the fact.

I can’t even make jokes out of this shit.

But the film can, specifically shit jokes. Because not all prisoners are medically able to join the centipede. Due to weak blood, or constant Diarrheaing. But those aren’t real problems, they are just punishments for other people!

Either way, the 500 or so prisoners get put into the centipede! For those prisoners who have no chance at parole, they are put into an extra special Human Caterpillar, that doesn’t have those pesky limbs getting in the way of some good old fashioned mouth to anus action.

Caterpillar picture not included.

The governor shows up as soon as they are finished. He hears their pitch on how this will save them money on food, on walls, on staff, on riot induced hospital visits. Or even punishment based visits. And the governor is pissed. He thinks they should be locked up. They are certainly fired. This is fucked up, this is fucky, this is oh so so so so bad.

And they put poor Daisy in the chain accidentally, but no one except Dwight cares!

Just when the warden is going to go out in a blaze of glory, the governor has a change of heart. He thinks that it is swell and that they are geniuses.

Oh yay! Too bad that the warden still is a literal walking pile of feces, killing Dwight so that he can have the sole credit.

And now he can run his prison on his own, shirtless, firing his gun into the air and just taunting the prisoners with his loud mouth. The. Fucking. End.

Also featuring people like Clayton Rohner, Robert LaSardo, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister, and Jay Tavare as inmates or doctors.

They also have some permanent scars so everyone knows you were once part of the prison centipede.

The third and so far final act to this franchise is over 100 minutes long and manages to do something the other films could not. It is for the most part NOT about a gross human centipede contraption. Seriously, it is over halfway through the movie before the accountant is able to finally tell the warden his ideas. That means we have 50 minutes of a warden just being an overall asshole, to other assholes, and we as audience members just have to take it.

And what is the goddamn point? The other films were terrible for focusing on gross aspects, while being worse than torture porn, and poor acting. This one has the poor acting, and seems to focus on MORE gross aspects, just a more diverse set than previous editions.

This film is strange in that it ends on a mostly happy ending for the person who did this to the people. At no point does this version feel scary, it just feels like a waste of time. Bad guy is comically bad, while doing gross things, until he does a bigger grosser thing, the end.

Oh, but again, this one has one woman character, who is used as a sexual object, beaten, and raped, just for the lols. It is downright terrifying in that manner, especially as it is always played as a joke, which is the biggest shocking points of this whole movie.

The third film in this franchise is indeed, different than the first two. But in the end, it is just a different bad way to waste an evening with. Zero. Fun. Sir.