Tag: 4 out of 4

Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities is currently playing in Houston and tickets can be bought here.

If I were to say that me and Cirque Du Soleil go way back, that would be a bold faced lie. In my life I have gone to the circus, but the last time was probably around 1st grade. And it was a small one. So no circus that is all about the achievements of the human body like Cirque Du Soleil. Although, a year or two ago, I went to Sea World, and saw a sort of water gymnast animal thing that might have been close enough.

Needless to say, I was stoked at the opportunity to get to see my first CDS performance, titled Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities. The topic itself is fascinating to me, as I have been to a real “Cabinet of Curiosities” a few years ago.

The cabinets used to just be eccentric collections of stuff that people showed off, which helped evolve into the modern museum. But the title can still be used, especially if the stuff doesn’t have a real theme and is just a lot of weird and interesting figures.

So my first Cirque Du Soleil performance, technically my second circus, and technically my second cabinet of curiosities. Clearly I am over qualified to write about live spectacles.

It is like the cast of Little Nemo AND Finding Nemo collectively fucked a steam engine.

The before show was not reason enough to really show up too early, outside of getting better parking spots. They had a small event to showcase the opening of the tent, but it is not something worth breaking your back over to get there in time. But a good time for photos, souvenirs, and making sure you know where the pissers are.

The seating area was a bit smaller than I imagined as well, because damn it, I have a big imagination. Tightly packed chairs, not a lot of leg room or places for you to put your cups. But they are stadium seating with a few big walk ways so the performers can do pre show antics with the crowd. The start of the show is a bit of a start soft as well, with characters doing minor activities for a good 10 plus minutes while people get to their seats and finish their conversations.

The first real part of the show gives us a nice glimpse into their band and singer, setting the tone and sound for the rest of the show. The opening act then throws character after character onto the stage, to fill the viewer with a sense of wonder. Wondering what each person will end up doing, or if they are just a background character, of course. Technically they start the focus with banging on sticks and a juggler, which sounds like nothing new, but it feels like a grand party.

After that we get a series of weird and awesome tricks, displays, and athleticism. And weird shit! And honestly, it was all a blast.

I looked up official names, but my initial description names make me laugh more. We had a woman who just struggled so hard to ride a bike correctly, a group of contortionists who were freakishly erotic, while also reminding me of Beyonce and Hand Models. But the two top performances of the first half involved upside down mirror worlds and a guy standing on some shaky shit. Well, technically both of them should have involved standing on some shaky shit.

Why stand on shaky stuff, when you can fake fly?

While waiting in the bathroom line, I figured it would hard for the second half to be as entertaining as the first, but that is because I apparently used to be a dumb shit nostalgic fool.

Because the second half was so goddamn amazing. And that is whre the Finding Nemo elements come in, along with a little bit of Steve Zissou.

We get a giant net with trampoline level bounciness to drape the stage. And on that net is of course men in raincoats. What is that? No, they are actually strange fish men, and they got mad hops. I have never seen trampolining that precise, in terms of height, types of spins, and even the way they were able to stop was a sight to behold.

After that is some yo-yo tricks, some “Siamese twins” on ribbon ropes, some hand puppets, and then our striped strong dudes. Like some Popeye side character, they danced and jumped their way onto the stage.

This one I just needed to get a picture of for the review because I could not believe it. A big part of their choreography involved them putting their hands together, jumping on their hands and flinging them through the air. Again, words fail me, but the amount of height they got off of this maneuver just felt unbelievable. I wondered if you could photoshop live video in front of your face. It flowed so well and it sort of felt like looking at a classic video game double jump in real life.

Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities is worth the money to see. They put on a show, I smiled the entire night, and I want to see it again and again. There are people out there who can do amazing things, and you just gotta sometimes go underneath a tent to find them.

They seriously have put Mario to shame.

Wow, how do you introduce a tale as old as time? Something as true as it can be? You just gotta speak from the heart.

I do love the animated Beauty and the Beast film. It celebrates intelligence! It has one of my favorite introduction songs. Gaston is fascinating, with his own great song. But I have always had issues for it. So I better get it off my chest now:

The main takeaway from Beauty and the Beast is bullshit. The prince was punished for not seeing someone’s true beauty, so he was turned into an ugly creature. To learn his lesson, he needs to fall in love and be loved in return, with a nice kiss too, before he turns 21. (Which of course means he was punished as a kid, joy). So how does it eventually happen? By getting the perfect person in his life. She is smart, kind, but also the hottest chick in the village. To really drive the point home, she should have been not matched the perfect standard of beauty. It is kind of crap. Shrek and Shallow Hal end up driving the point home better.

Okay, no more of that. I also appreciate that Gaston is set up as a typical old school Disney Prince, who just wants love because they are beautiful, so it sort of shows Disney going away from their older film tropes.

What I am really getting at is that I am excited for the live action version of Beauty and the Beast. I was not excited for the live action Cinderella, because the plot of Cinderella is shit and celebrates obedience to mean people and doing chores until a prince can take you away. Fuck that.

Give that bitch a book. Bitches love books.

In some nondescript village in old timey France, there was a castle. None of this is Paris, we know that for certain. There was a prince (Dan Stevens), who lived in the castle, and he was mean. He was so mean to some haggy bitch, that the haggy bitch turned him into a really hairy dude and all of his servants into utensils and shit. What in the fuck!

Now years later, they have almost given up hope at becoming human again. The Beast has to not just fall in love, but have someone love him back. They are depressed, cold, and a spell was put on the area for people to forget about their existence. So that doesn’t help either.

Thankfully, there is a really freaky girl in that poor provincial nearby town. Belle (Emma Watson), a girl who was trained to use that brain of hers, an inventor, a girl who likes books and is somehow still decent looking. Some shit goes down with her dad (Kevin Kline). He finds himself locked up in this castle forever. Thankfully, their horse was also trained to use its brain and he is able to take her to the castle and HOLY FUCK, A BEAST!

Using that goddamn brain of hers, she is able to trick her dad into taking his place, planning to escape in the future. You know, because she is so youthful. But then she falls in love. Oh, way too early. A lot of strife happens. But after a good old fashioned food orgy, she starts to love the place, and thinks about calling it home. Plus, it can clean itself, with the magical slave item army and all.

Also starring Ewan McGregor as a candelabra, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a duster, Ian McKellen as a clock, Emma Thompson as a teapot, Stanley Tucci as a piano, Audra McDonald as a dresser, Luke Evans as a tall, dark, strong, handsome brute, Josh Gad as his miniature life mate, and also Hattie Morahan as a begger.

Gaston’s face cannot be shown because Gorgon Reviews is not a big enough website.

Remember Cinderella? That film I already mentioned? Again, it was okay. It was colorful. Shit story. Good dresses. A terrible idea for a first run. It was like the Universal Monsters series trying to give us Dracula Untold as the start of their shared Universe. But now they gotta get The Mummy to save their asses. Yes, I recognize we have had a few other live action films since Cinderella, but this is the first one since then to be about a Disney Princess!

Beauty and the Beast delivers, and it delivers hard.

Of course, we get the best parts from the original. Bonjour is fascinating, with a village of real people, and we still get the “Please Let Me Through!” line. Be Our Guest is an explosion of extravagance. The Gaston song starts off awkward for me, but grows into its own, feels like a giant party, and has a few surprises. (Although, the chorus of that song is also almost impossible to understand)

But we also get a whole lot new! An expanded introduction, more backstory on the Beast and Belle’s lives before the film and their parents, bigger connections to the castle and the village and why it is a big surprise, Belle being a stronger female character, and more. AND! Alan Goddamn Menken, the Disney musical genius, came back to rewrite some of his songs from two decades ago, plus a few new ones. Three at that. Day in the Sun and Evermore are great additions to the film and Evermore had me crying. And don’t worry, the Human Again song added to the animated film does not take place in this movie.

I am annoyed that at the timing of this review, I have to wait a week to hear some of the newer songs again, just to see if I like them as much as I am writing.

Beauty and the Beast is not just a remake. It is also a re imagining. With more backstories, more lines for side yet important characters, everyone feels more fleshed out. Even Gaston and especially LeFou. We get some good call backs, and good changes to match the times. It was an incredible job done by the team, who treated their source material with respect, and really matched what made the first film great 26 years ago.

For most films I try to avoid the trailers and ads and just go in blind. For Get Out, I did see the opening trailer, and I did feel like I understood a lot about the film, things I would have liked to not guess on.

Going into the film, I had my whole theory ready on why the events of the film would happen. It is a horror, mystery, and potential for comedy, and I was worried the trailers gave it all away. (Don’t worry, they didn’t).

Either way, the trailer did a good job of hyping up the film. Add on the excitement of Jordan Peele directing his first film ever, and writing this one on his own. He wants to show he has the chops to create content on his own.

Aw, look at the happy couple.

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is a photographer, good dude, and he is black. Don’t worry, his color matters. Because he is dating Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) a white woman for a few months now. And he has agreed to go and visit her parents home for a weekend, and no, they don’t know she is black.

But he heads up. They are in a rich mansion by a lake, very secluded. His friend Rod (LilRel Howery) is watching his dog, and he hopes they don’t get upset. But hey, they don’t! After all, her dad (Bradley Whitford) would have voted for Obama for a third term, so he can’t be racist. The mom (Catherine Keener), is a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis and is willing to help him quit smoking.

Hypnosis! Yay!

Despite their totally not racist antics, they do have two people who work at their house, who happen to be black. Georgina (Betty Gabriel), their maid, and Walter (Marcus Henderson), their groundskeeper. And they act very strange. Like they have no real personality, like they are…trapped.

Nah, white people can’t be that crazy. Right?

Featuring Caleb Landry Jones as the brother, Lakeith Stanfield as the first victim, and Stephen Root as a blind art dealer.

Should he get out or are they just out to get him? Who knows!

Get Out is amazeballs and that is not a word I get to use to often in a review. Last year we had an early horror film get a 4 out of 4, and it was The Witch, for feeling truly evil, authentic, and scary. Get Out is a horror film with tense scenes, but it is wildly different.

First of all, yes, it has comedy elements. It isn’t a horror comedy like Scary Movie 5, which is not horror, and also not comedy. Some of the scares will make you laugh, for being ridiculous. Some of the scares though will make you cringe back. And some of the scares are deeper than that. They are the societal pressures that are ever present today coming out and haunting us.

Get Out is extremely topical, with the current level of race relations in America. It refers to the past and calls out those who are not outwardly racist, but still end up being racist to some degree. The minor way people will act different if there is a minority present, like a change of language or your choice of dinner conversation.

And honestly, in the third act when it becomes a sort of revenge flick, the deaths are graphic, unexpected, and they had me clapping along with others ready for some of that juicy justice.

Get Out is funny, frightening, and fucking relevant. But what really brings the whole thing together is LilRel Howery. He is the single greatest thing to happen to the TSA since…well, he is the single greatest thing to happen to the TSA. Because literally nothing else before this has been great for the TSA. But they finally have something they can look on and be proud about. A fictional movie character.

This year for the Oscars, I was able to see 0 out of the 5 foreign films before they were announced. Yeah, yeah, I suck. And for the most part, I decided I didn’t even want to review them all if I saw them, only if I liked them enough to feel inspired to write.

Which brings me to A Man Called Ove. Which I clearly loved. A Swedish film, originally called En man som heter Ove, based on a book, it was surprisingly nominated for TWO Academy Awards. The obvious Best Foreign Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Whoa, a double threat.

I have started to learn the Swedish language, technically. I mean, I did some lessons on Duolingo. So Sweden and I already have that connection going. This film is going to be the beginning of a beautiful film relationship, I can tell.

Ack! Kids in the relationship so quickly!

Ove (Rolf Lassgård) has lived a long and potentially lonely life, so now it is time to end it. He is just angry at everything in the world. He lives in a small community in a house alone. And people these days just cannot seem to follow the rules! There is a small road outside his house where driving is not permitted, and people keep driving there, for instance.

And just when he is finally ready to end it all, a family moves in nearby. A Persian woman, Parvaneh (Bahar Pars), pregnant with two kids, and their husband, a Swedish man. They keep bothering him, needing assistance or other things. Just as he is trying to off himself, watching parts of his life flash before his eyes, they get interrupted or he gets let down by faulty equipment.

Can’t an old man just die already?

But soon he gets too involved with the families around him again. He gains responsibilities, he has things he must take care of, despite just wanting to be with his wife again in the afterlife. Oh yeah, he was married. And they have a few tragic events in their life as well.

Can Ove finally get to move on in peace?

Also starring Tobias Almborg, Ida Engvoll, and Filip Berg as young Ove.

First the kids, then the cat, then the other kid, then the gay kid. What a to do list!

A Man Called Ove gives me everything I want in a movie. Appropriately timed flashbacks, tragedy, an emotional connection, a cranky old man, annoying neighbors, and proof that old dogs can learn new tricks. Okay, okay, those are all very specific to this movie, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

Lassgård was able to carry this movie mostly with a grim look on his face. And you know what, the viewer will most likely agree with everything he complains about, despite everyone else in the film thinking he is being ridiculous. He is a strong actor, and the guy who plays his younger self does a good job.

I did find myself a bit annoyed at some of the neighbors too, they did bug the shit out of him and he had every right to be angry.

I don’t have much else to say on the film, outside of it being entertaining, a nice comedy drama, and a well acted romp out of Sweden.

Guess what? I liked The Visit. It creeped me out a bit, had some humor, but overall was a good balance and a decent story. It had a twist, but didn’t really make or break the movie on the twist, so it didn’t get hated for it either.

And that is what M. Night needed to do. He needed to take the twists focus away from his film, because they lived and died by how good the twist became. He can still do twists, but he had to make sure he had a great film regardless of twist.

I was looking forward to see Split. I didn’t see any trailer, any synopsis, just a director and the main actor in a poster. I was excited because I wanted to believe.

I was excited to see M. Night finally kick some ass again.

I was basically as giddy as a school girl, like this little boy here!

Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) is your regular, average, teenage girl. Well, except she has black hair, so that makes her moody. She goes to detention a lot, has unreliable parenting, has run away before and is a person who likes to keep to herself. But she was invited to a classmate’s party, because it would be weird to invite everyone BUT her. After everyone else had left, Casey’s ride isn’t there, so she gets a ride home with the birthday girl, (Haley Lu Richardson), her other friend (Jessica Sula), and the dad.

But the dad doesn’t get in the driver’s seat. Next thing the girls know, they wake up in a locked room underground, and this creepy guy, Dennis (James McAvoy) is talking strangely and threatening them. There is talk about…a beast?

Long story short, turns out that Dennis is more than Dennis. He is Patricia. He is Hedwig. He has 23 different personalities. He has been mostly non threatening, sees a shrink (Betty Buckley) and everything, but it looks like some of his personalities have taken over and have other plans. The girls are going to have to work with their kidnapper if they hope to escape their kidnapper.

Also featuring some flashbacks with young Casey (Izzie Coffey) and her dad (Sebastian Arcelus) and uncle (Brad William Henke) out hunting.

Dennis is super cereal all the time, and also enjoys young girls dancing for him. Your average joe.

I ended up really enjoying Split. Like, like liking Split. It just shocked the hell out of me.

First of all, it is a very strange movie. I am not going to say that it is accurate scientifically or anything, but based on the universe M. Night created, it totally fits and is plausible. But it is still very weird, while keeping the aura of mystery and thrills, all wrapped up in a psychotic bow.

A lot of cool things happen along the way thanks to the story, but in all honesty it is just McAvoy and Taylor-Joy carrying it. The other two girls are forgettable characters because they are to the side. The psychiatrist is interesting, but not the best. The flashbacks serve a purpose, but don’t end too shockingly. But McAvoy playing the many different roles pulls it off flawlessly. He saw what Tom Hardy did in Legend and thought he would try and 22 up it.

I have now seen Taylor-Joy in only two films, The Witch being the other one, and it amazes me how well she plays a struggling but capable female victim lead. Her roles have not been screaming girl who somehow survives, they have depth to them, fears, and presence.

Split delivered something I hope to see in every movie I watch. It gave me something unique. It gave me a film full of its own mythos. It gave me performances I want to see again and again. And it gave me hope. Not hope for mankind or anything. But just hope in films, because when the credits rolled, I found myself even giddier than when I originally walked to my seat.

When I first saw a poster and heard the title for A Monster Calls, my first thought was to ignore it.

I mean, come on, it sounds and looks immediately like just a horror film. A horror film about some big mysterious beast terrorizing a family possibly. I didn’t look into the cast, I just let it slip my mind.

And then the weirdest thing happened. A lot of people started talking about how awesome it looked and how excited they were to see it. Oh, maybe it is a high quality horror? So I gave the trailer a look, and hey, it looked awesome, and it was a fantasy/drama, not a horror at all!

Here at Gorgon Reviews, we would like to let this serve as a PSA to not just a film entirely on its title and poster.

And to watch all films with your tiny children. Every single one.

Conor (Lewis MacDougall) isn’t having the best of times. He is aloof at school in class, getting picked on by bullies, and he is having strange nightmares of a church crumbling in a graveyard, ground splitting open, and falling. Very scary.

And it turns out his mom (Felicity Jones) is dying of the cancer. A strong one, they are trying treatments, but she is weak and she has been weak for awhile. She is in and out of the hospital. Conor’s grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) checks after him when his mom is sick, but she is strict, mean, no fun at all. And his dad? Well, the dad (Toby Kebbell) now lives in America, with his new wife and a kid, with no room for Conor should his mom pass on.

Needless to say, it is raining shit down on Conor. All he has going for him is his emo art. And then at 12:07 AM, a giant tree creature appears outside of his bedroom window. This monster (Liam Neeson) says he was summoned and is here to heal. But first, he has to tell Conor three stories over the next few days. After that, Conor has to tell him a story. He has to tell him the truth. He has to tell him his nightmare.

Also starring James Melville as the bully, and he looks familiar, but he is literally in nothing else except for some short named Grace.

And that bully is about to get fucked the fuck up.

Films about sad events tend to resonate in those that have experienced similar sad events. For me? I really don’t know anyone close to me who has died from or even received cancer (yet). So I figured it would be a sad experience, but not one I could relate to.

And I was wrong. By the end, I was bawling, over several scenes. Watching the young boy deal with his grief, acting out, fighting, running away, it all made sense. And of course the mom dies by the end. This film is about a boy dealing with his mom’s incurable cancer. The feelings that will wash over you are universal, even if you don’t have the cancer details. Of losing your mom, of not having enough time, about how you might deal with months of agony knowing that you aren’t the one in real pain.

The cast is small, but the three main stars are wonderful. MacDougall has to carry the film with every scene focused on him, and he does a phenomenal job. Jones is only there a few scenes, but her scenes are still just a powerful when they need to be. I was surprised to see Weaver in this movie, let alone with a British accent, but I think she did an okay enough job. Her transition in the boy’s eyes was a nice touch.

I do think it is funny that Kebbell is in this film, known for his work in a motion capture suit, but he also doesn’t even play the Monster. Neeson does an incredible job a the voice of the Monster, giving it that gruff, wise, and intimidating voice that really helps tell the story. The stories he tells are also wonderful. The water color adds so much character to the stories. After the first one was over, I was initially annoyed the Monster didn’t have to tell 10 long stories just to watch more.

The film is visually impressive, well acted, and it will get you right in the feels. That is a perfect film for me.

I don’t need a long introduction anymore, I have done a few of these already! I don’t even have a significant list of missing films to talk about, even better!

So you know the drill, here are some honorable mentions. Honorable what?

Straight up, I had a lot of 4 out of 4’s this year. But I can’t just list like 10 movies here like some jackass. So here are a few movie, The Conjuring 2, Hacksaw Ridge, Midnight Special, The Light Between Oceans, Captain America: Civil War, Lion and The Edge of Seventeen.

It should also be note that I didn’t put any documentaries on this list, it was too hard. But my favorite from 2016 include 13th, Nuts!, and Tickled. See, only… shit, that was ten movies.

There has to be some controversy in a top list and part of the reason to go to 15 is to have more weird shit in it. Which is why I wanted to put The 9th Life of Louis Drax up here, a movie where I might be the only one to really love. It is a dark film, about a serious subject. But it is also light from the point of the view of the kid. Finally, it has the best acting I have seen from Aaron Paul outside of Breaking Bad.

Okay okay, here is a true story. I really liked Moonlight, I did! I just also watched it at a 10:30 screening, after an already long day, and maybe fell asleep a couple of times during it. A slow burner for sure, but what I saw and felt was pure. It probably should be higher, but I can only comment on what I saw, and for the most part, this is completely my fault. Hopefully sometime in the future I will see it again and might regret having it this “low”, but alas, I am the only person to blame.

Moana has a lot going for it. Music by Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of the main reasons. The music is catchy and so well produced and layered (except for Shiny, fuck Shiny). He could probably win an Oscar from over half of the songs if it wasn’t such a strong music year.

The animation is wonderful, the story comes from an underrepresented part of the world, the lead is strong, The Rock makes everything better, and just, gah, it is so good.

Manchester By The Sea is another film that I am surprised landed just outside of my top 10. After watching it I was so overcome with emotion that it took me quite a long time to finally write the review. I was also overcome with emotion during the picture and sort of on the edge of my seat. Affleck gives one of his best performances, and we probably say that about him every year.

And of course, Manchester By The Sea probably has one of the most tragic scenes in film this year, including comparisons to Lion and Nocturnal Animals.

I am a bit disappointed Hunt For The Wilderpeople didn’t finish in my top 10, but alas, blame Silence. Hunt is one of the few foreign films that made the list (because I didn’t watch a lot), and gave an incredible adventure story, set in New Zealand. Turns out the country is beautiful, they should set more adventure stories out there. Taika Waititi gives a hilarious story, big in nature, small in cast, about growing up and kicking ass.

I had to think long and hard about whether Kubo and The Two Strings was the best animated film of the year, or would that honor go to Moana. And as I type this, I was able to see Moana twice but never revisit Kubo, which makes me sad, but I still gave Kubo that honor. Kubo doesn’t have music, and has quite terrible names for its side characters, but it has a strong story and some of the best stop motion animation I have ever seen. The story is fully captivating, along with some good lessons and twists along the way. Laika continues to raise the bar with its film quality, and I frankly can’t imagine where they go from here.

This is the best animated film of 2016!

I was definitely skeptical going into A Monster Calls, with a Groot like being, a Horror sounding name, and a concept I couldn’t relate fully to. But I was quickly taken away by the imagination of the story, the many stories the monster told, and how well the kid, MacDougall, acted.

Even if you aren’t affected in real life by Cancer (yet), the overall themes of grief, of losing a loved one, of losing your mother, are still pretty universal. A Monster Calls is a hard film to swallow, but it is still worth giving it at least one watch.

Do you like strong acting? I said DO YOU LIKE STRONG ACTING, MOTHERFUCKER? Well, then watch the fuck out of Fences!

Washington has still got it, Davis and Henderson are treats as well. From the pages of the play to the screen, they make those words their bitches, giving meaning behind all of the lines and tell a quite tragic tale about an old timey family. I own the play, have seen it performed before (by shitty people, I admit) but this performance really takes the cake. They won Tony’s for this performance, so you can tell they really know their stuff.

The Witch is a film that came out extremely early in the year, one that I had my doubts about, but delivered on almost every level. The Witch is dedicated to its story and the director pulls no punches. The costumes are authentic, the dialogue is correct to the period, the actors all feel like a real family and it feels like the film is actually evil. There is scary and there is terrifying, The Witch is definitely in the latter.

Technically my favorite Horror film of 2016, but maybe not the scariest film of 2016.

Fresh off the presses, I knew I couldn’t make this list until I saw Silence. Based on the director, the actors, the story, I just knew it would be a sham if it didn’t have the potential to be included. That’s right. The potential. I am not saying it was guaranteed, I was just saying there was a chance.

And damn it, I am glad I waited. It was fully immersive and more importantly it told a wonderful religious story that didn’t suck, didn’t grind anything into your face, and really just felt like something that is practically universal. Garfield is a great actor, its been true for years, and he had an amazing year.

If years were only six months long, Sing Street would be my favorite film of 2016. The music is amazing and the film is emotional. It isn’t just about a boy trying to impress a girl with a makeshift 80’s band. It is about family and brotherly bonds. It is about escaping your comfort zone and stepping up to authority. And yes, it is also about great music. I love Up, it is the best song, I don’t are what anyone says.

And it is a shame that I don’t get to call it my favorite musical of 2016.

Swiss Army Man the most original, most out there, and by golly, one of the most fun film of the year. And not only is it a delight to watch, it has a banging sound track. Montage is great, Radcliffe and Dano singing is great, it is just fully immersive and amazing.

There is nothing like Swiss Army Man and it will be a long time before something else as original comes along. My favorite comedy film of 2016.

Arrival gets to be THE Sci-Fi movie of the year, not without a lot of pressure from Midnight Special. Sci-Fi films can mean a lot of things, but Arrival comes from an area of love, guilt, and surprise. It starts you off sad and crying, and the tears come even harder for the finale. A smart film, a great drama, and a wonderful performance by Amy Adams. I honestly cannot say more without giving it away.

Speaking of Amy Adams, yes she stars in Nocturnal Animals as well. How does she do it?! Is she in the number 1 film also?! (Nope). Even though she is the lead, Nocturnal Animals is more than just one actors performance. The terrible ness of the story in the story, the beautiful shots, the revenge, the double revenge, the great supporting performances, the tension and the real fears.

I mentioned that The Witch was my favorite Horror film of the year, but not the scariest. Nocturnal Animals is a Drama/Thriller, and it is my favorite of those genres of the year and definitely the “scariest’ film of the year for me.

What can I say about La La Land that hasn’t been said by everyone else in the world at this point? Holy fuck, this is a great movie. After Whiplash, Damien Chazelle decided he was going to top it on almost all fronts. It is still jazz focused, but it is now a romance instead of a sort of Drama Thriller. We get to see scenes to remind us of musicals of old early on, with flashy colors, long shots, and big sets. But the film soon morphs into a more modern approach, with only a few songs, repeating riffs, less flash and more style. A wonderful combination of the past and the new in one big whirl of cinematic glory.

Shit, after I saw it, I went out and had to see it a second time with my wife. If it shows on IMAX in my area I will watch it a third time. I bought ticket for my school’s choir teacher and wife to go see it. That’s how much I love it. Go see La La Land and learn to love and think logically yourself too.

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, a few musicals, foreign films that speak English, two animated films, no super hero movies, and a lot of drama.

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

What’s that? Do you hear that? Shhh, listen!

That’s right, that is the sound of Silence, blistering in the wind.

It is also the sound of Martin Scorsese, old and still not giving a fuck. He is making movies that he wants to make and he is making him epic. When his last film came out, The Wolf of Wall Street, it was hacked down to 3 hours from a much larger length. And the same was true for Silence.

It ended up around 2:41, making it just a few minutes shorter than American Honey, and thankfully the only two films to be pretty darn long this year. But on average, the movie lengths have still probably gone up. You know, thanks to the behemoth that is O.J.: Made In America.

And this is just a sign of the behemoth that Garfield’s hair will become.

In the mid-1600’s, we meet a couple of priests, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver). They are young and have strong hearts for Jesus in their Monastery in Portugal. From another Father (Ciaran Hinds), they find out that Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), their former mentor and teacher, was still alive in Japan.

But he was no longer there to try and and convert a nation. He apparently has actually denounced his faith and is living there a Buddhist now. Shocking rumors, for sure, but his last letter was from a long time ago, and about Christians being tortured and killed.

Strong in their faith, the two priests decide to head to Japan, a very anti-Christian nation. Not only to find the missing priest, but to see what became of his life, try their best to not get killed, and also maybe restore Christianity to the nation that was flourishing with followers just decades ago.

Including a major role from Yôsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro, a secret Christian with a weak mind, Issei Ogata as the main Inquisitor, and also Tadanobu Asano, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, and Yoshi Oida.

Speak softly, confess frequently, and carry a regular sized stick.

Silence, despite its gargantuan length, starts captivating very early on. You don’t get bogged down in Portugal. After two quick scenes and Ferreira’s letter, our boys are in China, meeting a guide to the island. And once there, they are basically smugglers, only able to come out at night, not sure who they can trust.

It is just a very tense film where it feels like anything can happen. Loosely based off of a real individual, the story is very personal and it made me start to feel like I was there with the priests. By having the point of view specifically with Garfield’s character, all of the fears and mysteries are revealed when he finds out the truth. The truth about Ferreira, about any of his friends when they are away, about who to trust, just everything. It is a great journey, even with large swaths of it involve him hiding up in some cave or shack or building.

The film also features some incredible shots of jungles, mountains, and seas. It is fully immersive in 1600’s Japan and creates a wonderful experience regardless of the story.

And yes, it is a film about Christianity and how right or wrong religion is at certain parts of the world. And no, it is never a problem. This year was a great comeback for “Religious films”. Yes, we had God’s Not Dead 2 and I’m Not Ashamed, the normal cheesy crap. But Miracles From Heaven ended up really average, which is something positive. And along with Silence we of course had Hacksaw Ridge.

Can you believe it? In a span of a few months, Andrew Garfield starred in two extremely good religious films about Christianity and someone sticking to his faith and principals against incredible odds and struggles. What the hell are the chances there, that two films like that, could get 4 out of 4’s? This is the direciton the genre needs to go, and Scorsese and Gibson gave a giant push in that direction.

I didn’t know a whole lot about Lion going into it. Well, I knew it had some sort of awards hype, and that I’d probably cry (yay!), but that was it.

Outside of it starring Dev Patel. And you know what? Dev Patel really needs a win right now.

Last year he had Chappie and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This year he had The Man Who Knew Infinity. Outside of The Newsroom and Slumdog Millionaire, he hasn’t had a lot of hits.

So really, I just hope it is good for him, as I know he is a great actor, he just doesn’t get to be in great films.

Is that the best Lion Face you got? I mean, I get the mane. But wheres the roar?

Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is just a little boy, around 5 year old, living in a small town in India. His mom (Priyanka Bose) is single, so she is a laborer, having to care for four kids. Saroo has an older brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) who he looks up to and convinced him to take him on a small work trip. On the way, Saroo got too tired, so Guddu had to leave him at the train station. As long as Saroo stays there, Guddu will find him after the job and take him home. But when Saroo wakes up he gets scared. He looks around and he is all alone. And he ends up asleep on an empty train, and when he wakes up, he is speeding along the tracks unable to get off for a couple of days. When he gets off finally, he is 1600 km from home in Calcutta.

Being five, he doesn’t know a lot about his home, his mother’s real name, or where he came from. After living on the streets, and eventually getting into an Orphanage, they still cannot find his family. But they have a family willing to adopt him. John (David Wenham) and Sue Brierley (Nicole Kidman). In Australia. In the Tasmania part of Australia. Pretty far away.

Needless to say, he obviously goes, now 7 years old for a whole new life. And 20 years later, he is going to college for Hotel Management. He is older, so that is why Dev Patel is in this movie. He has a girlfriend (Rooney Mara), he has basically forgotten about his past life. Until he sees a reminder in the form of a pastry he always wanted to try. Following the advice of a few friends, he uses this new thing called Google Earth (This was 2008) to find a theoretical circle of travel he might have come from and you know, slowly look over all of it for his home.

And it drives him insane, taking over his life, making him leave his job, leave his girlfriend and talk a lot less with his family. A lot of strain. Given that this is a true story, you can figure out how part of this end.

Also featuring Divian Ladwa and Kershav Jadhav as the other son adopted by the Brierley’s, who has his own sort of problems.

They both lost their families, but Saroo lost his at a bigger scale.

Strangely enough, Lion is actually surprisingly similar to Slumdog Millionaire. An Indian boy has terrible things happen to him in his youth, but eventually something incredible happens to him, and he has to spend a lot of time searching for a loved one. Except Slumdog Millionaire, yes a drama, also has a lot of funny moments and is a romance. Lion is drama, straight through and through, and one that will just make you cry a variety of ways.

We get sad cries AND happy cries with Lion. And not just at a few points in the movie, but just sprinkled throughout it.

A lot of credit should be given towards Sunny Pawar, who was the star of the film for 40-50 minutes. You just feel so bad for the little kid, watching him wander around, escaping bad people, dealing with this shit, AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE. It is heart breaking. He does a wonderful job and will probably be overlooked.

Patel also did a wonderful job, dealing with the angst of remembering his past. And of course the moment where he makes it back home and finds his mother? Yeah, that is when the tears will start flowing. A shout out as well to Kidman, who plays a non-bitchy role for the first time in forever, who brought a lot of emotion as well.

Lion is a great story, well acted, and while it may be emotionally manipulative, it is a good sort of manipulative. Definitely one of the better journeys in film this year.

I do love it when a play becomes a film, assuming the play is a good one of course. I am a huge fan of dialogue, and plays usually give me good dialogue.

But what about a play I actually know? I don’t own a lot of plays, but I do own Fences. I never read the whole thing, but I had to read parts of it for a college level drama class. And the parts and themes that I saw I really enjoyed. So needless to say, I was pretty excited to see this coming out as a film.

And here is an even bigger reason to get excited. This play was actually given a revival in 2010 on Broadway, starring…Denzel Washington and Viola Davis! They both straight up won Tony awards for their portrayals. That means this film is them reprising a role they already kicked ass at, for the world to enjoy, six years later. That is pretty darn gosh nice of them.

And here are some other cast members because it is awfully hard to find pictures of anyone else.

Set in the 1950’s, we get to meet Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) and his friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson), getting done with work. It is Friday, pay day, they work on the back of a garbage truck, and Troy might be getting fired for asking about why no black men get to drive the garbage trucks.

But Friday means pay day, and drinking day, so it is a good day. Even when his old son Lyons (Russell Hornsby) comes to visit to borrow money. Even when his wife, Rose (Viola Davis) gives him an occasional hard time. Even when his son, Cory (Jovan Adepo) is seemingly throwing away his future by wanting to go to college for sports instead of getting a real job.

And his poor older brother, Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), who went off to World War II and got injured. Now Gabe has a metal plate in his head, isn’t all there, and receives a government check.

Nah, but Troy loves his life. No reason to mess it up, people respect him, and he will live out the rest of his life care free, assuming he ever shuts up.

Also featuring Saniyya Sidney.

And I didn’t even talk about the fence.

For those that didn’t know Fences was based on a play, I’d hope they’d realize in the first ten minutes. Characters just hanging out in the back yard, telling stories, giving long lines, and talking, talking, talking. For those who hate excessive dialogue, you will not enjoy this movie.

Not all play movies feel like a play, but this one certainly does. Over 90% of the film takes place in or around a single house, with characters walking in and out. I was a bit surprised how many different cuts and angles they threw into the film. These are people who have rehearsed these roles and done them many times over, so they could have done entire scenes in one long go, but Washington decided to embrace the movie aesthetic and let us get emotional shots and not just artistic long shots.

Acting of course was amazingly good. Washington gets nominated for Best Actor all the time, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he won it again. Casey Affleck for Manchester By The Sea is the favorite I believe, and either of them would be totally worthy of the big prize given their performances. And Washington wasn’t the only good part. Davis is a virtual lock for Best Supporting Actress.

But Henderson and Williamson also were pretty damn good, with a bit more limited screen time. Henderson also was in the Broadway version, so it is nice to see him still acting well. Fun Fact: Henderson was ALSO in Manchester By The Sea. Williamson did amazing as Gabe, a special needs character, but also you might remember him as Bubba from Forrest Gump. Apparently that is just a talent of his.

Fences is emotional and deals with a lot of themes. Despite being set 60 years ago, they all still resonate today. Troy is a terrible person and character, but at the same time, it all just seems to make sense given his upbringing. The Sins Of The Father trope is a strong one in stories, but it is illustrated excellently in this story an instant classic.