Movies I've Seen in 2016

[shadowfireflame]

Happy New Year! Here is my annual list to help myself keep track of what I've seen.

Previous years: 2013, 2014, 2015

::: Animation :::

• Finding Dory (all right but had issues)


• Hotel Transylvania 2 (cute and funny, like the first one)


• The Little Prince (very sweet and beautifully animated)


• Over the Garden Wall (slowly builds to an interesting conclusion)


• Steven Universe (superb; read my full review here)


• Zootopia (best animated movie of the year in my opinion)

::: Documentaries :::

• Amanda Knox (great documentary that reveals so much police incompetence and sexism in her case)


• Before the Flood (Leonardo DiCaprio takes on climate change intelligently—you can watch this on National Graphic for free!)


• Boom Bust Boom (Monty Python’s Terry Jones takes on capitalism…using puppets, animation, and silly songs)


• Capitalism: A Love Story (great Michael Moore documentary)


• Catching the Sun (about solar energy)


• (Dis)Honesty: the Truth About Lies (interesting documentary about deception and building a more ethical world)


• Frontline: The Choice (about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, makes her a bit more relatable and him less relatable)
  
• The Mask You Live In (about what causes toxic masculinity and how to change it)


• Planet Earth (and Planet Earth II) (beautiful and thoughtful BBC documentaries)


• Poverty, Inc. (excellent documentary about why traditional paternalism in foreign aid hurts those in poverty and a better way to help local economies to lift people out of poverty)


• Prescription Thugs


• Requiem for the American Dream (hard-hitting interview with Noam Chomsky about the sad state of wealth and power in the U.S.; rage-inducing)


• Rise of the Continents (entertaining documentary about the stories geology tells)


• Sharkwater (sad documentary about shark finning)


• The Story of Maths (BBC history of math[s])


• Super Powered Owls


• Trophy Kids (parents who push their children to devote their lives to sports)


• Vanishing of the Bees (systematic pesticides lead to bee colony collapse disorder)


• Where to Invade Next (great Michael Moore documentary about how America should use Europe’s example to improve the country)


• Why We Love Cats and Dogs (surprisingly emotional Nature documentary)

::: In-Theater Movies :::

• Arrival (whoa, best movie of 2016 in my opinion)


• Captain America: Civil War (great movie! I saw it twice in theatres!)


• Deadpool (lots of fun, a great parody of the superhero genre)


• Doctor Strange (with Benedict! Trippy and fun)


• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Pretty good but ultimately disappointing. Could have been good, but instead felt like they were trying to make two different movies: one about politics and one about fantastic beasts)


• Ghostbusters (fun movie and lots of chemistry between the four leads, especially Kate MacKinnon and Leslie Jones)


• Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (very funny film that actually has something important to say about institutionalized sexism)


• Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (the Lonely Island mockumentary; very funny!)


• Sherlock: the Abominable Bride (amazing, love that it was in theaters! Saw it twice!)


• Star Trek Beyond (better than the first two, and Sulu has a husband! Awesome!)


• Star Wars: Rogue One (fun! I like the direction these are going in and I love the diversity in the cast)


• Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (with Tina Fey; full review here)


• X-Men: Apocalypse (yikes, not good)

::: Other Films :::

• 10 Cloverfield Lane (good slow-building suspense)


• 99 Homes (good but could have been better)


• Adam (with Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, about Asperger Syndrome)


• Against the Sun (with Tom Felton! Great WWII survival story)


• Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (hate-watched to see if it was as bad as reviewers said. It was. So, so bad.)


• The Boss (with Melissa McCarthey and Kristen Bell; pretty funny)


• Boy (New Zealand Maori family drama by Taika Waititi, who did the very funny What We Do in the Shadows)
  
• Brooklyn (sweet story of an Irish immigrant to America)


• The Brothers Grimsby (can’t believe Mark Strong got involved with this; it wasn’t bad though)


• Central Intelligence (with Kevin Hart and Dwane Johnson, very funny! I hope it gets a sequel)


• Concussion (honestly, this could have hit a whole lot harder, pardon the pun)


• The Conjuring (quite scary and unusual presentation, focusing on ghost detectives)


• Creed (not a fan of Rocky, but I like the main actor, Michael B. Jordan)


• Daddy’s Home (funny Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg movie)


• Dave and Mike Need Wedding Dates (silly but funny; Aubrey Plaza is amazing)


• Dirty Grandpa (with Robert DeNiro and Zac Efron, not good)


• Earth to Echo (pretty good found-footage alien movie similar to E.T.)


• Eye in the Sky (thought-provoking drama about military drone strikes)


• Fantastic 4 (yikes, no fun at all and certainly nothing fantastic. Almost works as a prologue to a story that never comes)


• The Game (very messed-up movie with Michael Douglas)


• The Hateful Eight (takes a while to get going but comes together in the end)


• Keanu (funny Key & Peele movie with an adorable kitten)


• Killing Charlie Countryman (too slow and random for me but has Mads Mikkelsen in it, which is always a good thing)


• Krampus (a disappointment; could have been a fun comedy or horror movie, but instead went the way of being neither)


• The Legend of Tarzan (2016) (engaging show-don’t-tell style…right up until the third act, when everything takes a nosedive plot-wise and rushes to the end)


• The Man Who Knew Infinity (about a groundbreaking Indian mathematician at Cambridge during WWI, an inspiring story but could have been presented more meaningfully)


• Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World (great movie and casting choices! I’m reading the book series right now, which has heightened my enjoyment)


• Midnight Special (fascinating sci-fi movie like E.T. with wonderful acting, tension, and atmosphere)


• Muriel’s Wedding (sweet 1994 movie)


• New Waterford Girl (sweet movie set in rural Nova Scotia)


• The Night Before (a story about men realizing the importance of emotional labor)


• Now You See Me 2 (amusing and entertaining if implausible, loved the scenes in Macau and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe was in this)


• Pan (bad; really, really bad…Captain Hook is for some reason a cowboy…)


• The Program (with Ben Foster, about the Lance Armstrong doping scandals)


• The Revenant (with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy)


• Ride Along 2 (I love Kevin Hart and Ice Cube in this)


• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2016 Fox remake, creepily sanitized and not enjoyable even though Laverne Cox tries her best)


• Room (best picture of 2015, in my opinion)


• Score: A Hockey Musical (as weird as it sounds)


• The Shallows (tense thriller as long as you accept the premise that there is an obsessed shark)


• Shrek the Musical (on Netflix; they did a good job)


• Sicario (about the abuse of the CIA with the drug war in Mexico; not what I expected)


• Sisters (cute, love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler)


• Source Code (intriguing premise and very good acting)


• Straight Outta Compton (interesting but missed an opportunity to more deeply explore many issues)


• Take Shelter (with Michael Shannon; strange and ominous)


• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (awful, even worse than the first movie)


• Triple 9 (about a gang of criminals and crooked cops who are blackmailed into doing jobs by the Russian mafia; amazing cast)


• Trumbo (I’m glad Hollywood covered this story)


• Warcraft (standard fantasy in many ways but takes some interesting risks)


• War Dogs (not a bad take on U.S. military contractors, though I felt Nicholas Cage’s Lord of War was better)


• The Witch: A New England Folktale (interesting horror film about a devout Puritan family in the 1600s)

::: Film (Non-English) :::

• The Handmaiden (by the fantastic Park Chanwook; brilliant and tense lesbian drama!)


• Look Who’s Back (German mockumentary about Hitler coming to the future, very politically relevant)

::: TV / Drama :::

• 11.22.63 (good time-travel drama with James Franco, based on Steven King’s JFK novel)


• Cuckoo (amusing “Father of the Bride”-style British comedy starring Americans Andy Samberg and Taylor Lautner)


• The Daily Show with Trevor Noah


• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Service (zany fun but dark show from Douglas Adams, and Elijah Wood’s acting is great)


• Empire


• Frank Herbert’s Dune (2000 mini-series; couldn’t really get into it)


• Fresh Off the Boat


• Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (very funny)


• Hannibal (season 3)


• House of Cards


• Inside Amy Schumer


• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (utter brilliance)


• Making a Murderer (a must-watch addicting documentary that will make you insane with rage and horror)


• Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (campy lesbian Australian detectives! Love it!)


• The Shadow Hunters (bad, but better than the Mortal Instruments movie!)


• Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (brilliance as always)


• Stranger Things (very creepy and well-done Netflix series that blends many supernatural horror ideas; great child actors)


• War & Peace (excellent new BBC miniseries)


• Westworld (superb sci-fi/Western HBO drama, one of the best new shows this year)