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2016 EOTY Entertainment Lists • Page 6

Discussion in 'Entertainment Forum' started by OhTheWater, Dec 6, 2016.

  1. I've got Bigger Splash, Love and Friendship, and Aquarius sitting on my hard drive, so I'll try to watch those soon. Will also hopefully get around to catching La La Land and Manchester by the Sea at a local theater sometime next week. Might not get to see Silence until January :/

    As someone who doesn't really play CoD or that many first-person shooters in general, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Infinite Warfare campaign.
     
  2. Morrissey Dec 25, 2016
    (Last edited: Dec 28, 2016)
    Morrissey

    Trusted

    2016 ended up being a stronger year than it seemed at first; the stratification of decent movie to a three-week period in the winter becomes more and more frustrating. It may have seemed helpless, what with countless sequels and prequels and reboots and awards bait, but if you were willing to watch a movie in another language or without a conventional plot, there was plenty to discover.

    However, before the top ten is revealed, a bottom five is in order. One cannot appreciate the highs without suffering through the lows; one cannot eat in a fancy restaurant every night or win in every contest. This list is incomplete for multiple reasons; firstly, there was no need to sit through CAPTAIN AMERICA SIX or STAR WARS 12 because there are things that are best moved on from at a certain point. If the list came out in a month, more likely there would be such films as THE FOUNDER, JACKIE, and COLLATERAL BEAUTY. All these lists are incomplete by definition, so here are the five most painful experiences. Three of the five films are talented directors who made the mistake of taking their localized expertise abroad, one is a music video stretched to painful lengths, and the final is a director who is consistently odious.

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    5. AMERICAN HONEY
    DIRECTED BY: ANDREA ARNOLD

    All of Arnold's technical filmmaking shines here, and at times it can be quite poetic. However, it is obvious that Arnold has spent little time in the United States, and even less outside of New York and Los Angeles. The misfits are part of a stereotype we had not seen since BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD; the idea of making these people poets and hidden intellectuals while simultaneously showing off their poverty and low stakes. The ringleader standing there in a Confederate bikini is a classic example of a European trying to "understand" America and doing nothing close.

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    4. POP STAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING
    DIRECTED BY: AKIVA SCHAFFER AND JORMA TACCONE


    The Lonely Island has never been that funny; a handful of songs can amuse with their absurdity but they are too interested in being actual pop stars than satirists (the hologram of the Maroon 5 singer is an example of trying to have it both ways). Here, we are treated to a retread of SPINAL TAP, but without the wit. The best gags are physical gags, which does little to highlight the absurdity of modern fame. Who exactly is supposed to be satirized here?

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    3. LOUDER THAN BOMBS
    DIRECTED BY: JOACHIM TRIER


    Trier's previous films have very closely bordered the line between sincerity and sap, but here he goes fully overboard to the latter. In case you did not know that the characters were depressed or broken, he dresses them up in muted colors, gives them hairstyles that suggest they are just rolling out of bed, and sits his camera back in the pseudo-objective remove that many directors try before moving past to better things.

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    2. THE LOBSTER
    DIRECTED BY: YORGOS LANTHIMOS


    Lanthimos has been able to make compelling statements about all of us despite focusing on decidedly weird stories. In THE LOBSTER, we see the extreme end of trying to protect children, and in ALPS, we see the futility in trying to guide people through loss. Perhaps the subtitles hid some of the silliness of his earlier work, but here he gives us caricatures without humanity, surely intended to be a hip remove but instead making it impossible to care about the characters. The mild amusement of the hotel disappears to the forest portion, which seems like it takes forever to finally end and with nothing to say along the way.

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    1. THE NEON DEMON
    DIRECTED BY: NICOLAS WINDING REFN


    There is a great episode of the show SOUTH PARK, where Kyle's father starts driving an electric car and becomes so self-obsessed with his supposed altruism that he begins smelling his own flatulence. Inevitably, he moves to San Francisco, where everyone is doing the same, in love with the worst of themselves. Nicolas Winding Refn would belong in this episode.

    Tomorrow, the top ten.
     
    OhTheWater likes this.
  3. WordsfromaSong

    Trusted

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really care for The Lobster.
     
  4. I didn't love The Lobster either, but I think it's far from the worst I've seen this year. Popstar doesn't rank high in regards to all movies from 2016, but it ranks high among the comedies imo. Neon Demon is one of my favorite films this year.

    Cap3 and Rogue One were great blockbusters. Rogue is probably my favorite movie of the year tbh.
     
  5. brandon_260

    Trusted Prestigious

    Love those movies (except Louder than Bombs which is bad and The Lobster which was a lot worse on second viewing).
     
  6. domotime2

    Great Googly Moogly Supporter

    looking at my list for 2016...damn....after like 5, i think they're all mostly shit or flawed.

    I liked Arrival, Witch, Green Room and Conjuring 2...that's pretty much it.
     
  7. Anthony_

    A (Cancelled) Dork Prestigious

    I still have a couple more to see but Arrival and Green Room will probably be in my top ten as well. Didn't see The VVitch because it was spoiled for me and haven't seen either of The Conjurings despite repeated entreaties from my friends who are bigger horror fans than me.
     
  8. Morrissey Dec 28, 2016
    (Last edited: Dec 28, 2016)
    Morrissey

    Trusted

    Every year, there is a scramble to see everything before the end of the year. Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, you simply are unable to see the independent and foreign films that are given limited releases. This year, PATERSON, SILENCE, NO HOME MOVIE, and CAMERAPERSON highlight the biggest omissions. However, there is still plenty to celebrate this year.

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    10. THINGS TO COME
    DIRECTED BY: MIA HANSEN-LOVE


    Life is intricately tied to our connections, and when these are uprooted people are forced to re-examine their priorities. When a woman loses her husband and her children are in adulthood, what is left? While a man might be expected to date a younger woman, as her husband does, women past forty are routinely brushed aside in this regard. Thus, one must look inward and find new ways to express identification and meaning. It can appear sad or bizarre to the outside world, but reading and giving up your cat can actually be the answer.

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    9. AQUARIUS
    DIRECTED BY: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO


    Incredibly, the post-recession global political landscape did not lead to a renewal of social democratic principles. Instead, it ended up leading to even more flagrant corporate inhumanity, grabbing what was left as people worried about their own economic well-being. In major cities throughout the world, it has become nearly impossible for anyone from the working-class to even afford to live in these cities. There is very little that can be done; individual resistance to a corporate entity is an exercise in futility. The common person is at a disadvantage in manpower, economics, but also in ethics; corporations will do anything while people are constrained by their morality. The film is ultimately more hopeful about defeating these interests, and it shows how people that have been cast aside by society can be motivated simply by having nothing left to lose.

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    8. CERTAIN WOMEN
    DIRECTED BY: KELLY REICHARDT


    There is a great Bright Eyes song called First Day of My Life, where Conor Oberst sings "Remember the time you drove all night just to meet me in the morning?". However, this does not always end well.

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    7. ELLE
    DIRECTED BY: PAUL VERHOEVEN


    In the last few years there has been a movement in film criticism called vulgar auteurism, which suggests that mainstream big-budget filmmakers are working as artistically as arthouse directors typically referred to as auteurs. This is wrong, of course; auteurism was never about quality but authorship, rendering the vulgar monicker obsolete (also, these directors are bad at making movies and should not be treated seriously). The man who inspired them is obviously Verhoeven, but Verhoeven knows how to make meaningful commentary within genre filmmaking, and here he does it again. It is not a coincidence that the main character works in violent video games; the industry promotes the most extreme types of nihilistic violence and then becomes extremely offended when anyone suggests that perhaps those images affect the children that interact with them. Verhoeven is directly connecting our relationship between media violence and our justification for our own heinous activity.

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    6. RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN
    DIRECTED BY: HONG SANG-SOO


    What if life had a do-over?

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    5. KNIGHT OF CUPS
    DIRECTED BY: TERRENCE MALICK


    You can chart when people started taking Terrence Malick for granted with the point in which he started releasing films on a normal schedule. It highlights how intensely shallow film criticism is; if the incredible TO THE WONDER did not come out in the five years between THE TREE OF LIFE and KNIGHT OF CUPS, and if VOYAGE OF TIME and WEIGHTLESS were not coming so quickly after, then this film would have been heralded as a major work. Malick has once again made a deeply autobiographical and nakedly emotional work about loss and how people can become permanently damaged.

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    4. TONI ERDMANN
    DIRECTED BY: MAREN ADE


    A deeply dark drama about the horrors of dehumanization of capitalism disguised with fake teeth and bad wigs. The film does not make judgments like so many similar films do, but instead highlights the emptiness of the postwar era, both in the dedicated businesswoman daughter and the forgotten retired father. Even if one tries to stay out of the system, it still ends up having an impact.

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    3. MOONLIGHT
    DIRECTED BY: BARRY JENKINS


    Homosexuality in film has progressed in large strides since BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and now we get to see how sexuality and race can intersect in ways that the wealthy white suburbs ignore. Our childhood trauma is different from person to person, but it ultimately shapes us and our adult insecurities and weaknesses. Closure is rarely something that people can achieve, and here we see that it often raises more questions than it does answer questions.

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    2. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR
    DIRECTED BY: APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL


    Too often films are described as dream-like, but with Weerasethakul it actually is accurate. His films make no effort to resolve questions or to move at any sort of pace other than the glacial, instead focusing only on the immediate experience. Like Malick, a filmmaker people are starting to take for granted while he continues to release important films about Thai history and human connections.

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    1. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
    DIRECTED BY: KENNETH LONERGAN


    Naked emotional rawness is very hard for filmmakers to achieve without seeming false, but Lonergan has proven himself a master in portraying the effects of trauma. Like he has in his previous films, Lonergan focuses little on the dual tragedies at the heart of the film, instead focusing on the ways in which we try to deal with it. It also resists the temptation to show resolution; sometimes people never get past those stages of grief in any meaningful way. It is a daring downer, something that would have ended with an adoption and a rekindled romance in any other mainstream film.
     
    dadbolt, Joe and WordsfromaSong like this.
  9. I watched 150 movies in 2016, 96 of which were released or made available this year. I ranked them on letterboxd. I love blockbusters, so they tend to rank high on my list. No apologies ha.
    2016 Films Ranked

    Excluding the big blockbusters, my top 10 would've looked like:
    1. Arrival
    2. 10 Cloverfield Lane
    3. La La Land
    4. The Witch
    5. The Neon Demon
    6. Everybody Wants Some!!
    7. Swiss Army Man
    8. Edge of Seventeen
    9. Divines
    10. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

    I didn't get a chance to see Manchester by the Sea, Moana, Moonlight, Fences, Elle, Toni Erdmann, Right Now Wrong Then, Aquarius, or Jackie. I suspect a couple of them might have ended up high on my list, but alas.

    Favorite TV shows:
    1. Horace and Pete
    2. Westworld S1 (HBO)
    3. Game of Thrones S6 (HBO)
    4. iZombie S2 (CW)
    5. Stranger Things S1 (Netflix)
    6. Better Call Saul S2 (AMC)
    7. BoJack Horseman S3 (Netflix)
    8. Atlanta S1 (FX)
    9. The Americans S4 (FX)
    10. Mr. Robot S2 (USA)
    HM: Black Mirror S3 (Netflix)

    Got deep back into video games this year after getting a PS4. Played through all these and thought they were varying degrees of fun to great:
    Battlefront
    South Park Stick of Truth
    Uncharted 1, 2, 3, 4
    Last of Us (Remastered)
    Tomb Raider
    Modern Warfare / Infinite Warfare
    Oxenfree
     
  10. Morrissey

    Trusted

    I used to see 150-200 films from each year, but now I usually get to around 60-75. More selective choices and video games have taken up the slack.
     
  11. Doubt I'll watch as many next year as I did this year. I'll probably get around the 100 range. Didn't get a chance to seek out as much new music this year with all the time spent watching movies/tv or playing games. Still trying to find a balance.
     
  12. iCarly Rae Jepsen

    run away with me Platinum

    1-2 movies a week, usually one feels enough as is , I guess compared to most people it is
     
  13. brandon_260

    Trusted Prestigious

    Letterboxd tells me I logged 422 films this year, but that includes a bunch of shorts I logged too. But I haven't had much of a social life this year and watching films is pretty much all I do for fun aside from the occasional concert. Plus I've been out of work for most of the year, so I've had a lot of free time on my own.

    Or are we just talking 2016 releases?
     
  14. Morrissey

    Trusted

    I was just referring to 2016 films. I do not usually keep track of the rest.
     
  15. secretsociety92

    Music, Gaming, Movies and Guys = Life

    1. Arrival
    2. Captain America: Civil War
    3. The Nice Guys
    4. Kubo and the Two Strings
    5. Hail, Caesar!
    6. The Conjuring 2
    7. Star Trek Beyond
    8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
    9. Ouija: Origin of Evil
    10. The Finest Hours

    Probably garner some ridicule for this list but I'm not going to apologise for it. Been a solid year for me with most genres I love being satisfied (though the lack of a pure action film has been sorely missing) but there have been plenty of surprises as well. Denis Villeneuve for the second year in a row has made a film I absolutely adore and it was great to see an original Shane Black film at the cinema which is a first for me. The sequels all satisfied with one in particular being a big surprise in the form of Ouija: Origin of Evil as I haven't even seen the first due to the poor reviews it received at the time. Kubo and the Two Strings is by far my favorite animation not only of the year but maybe even since 2010. Finally Star Wars was especially surprising considering how lukewarm I felt towards The Force Awakens. 2017 will hopefully surpass this year because even it matches 2016 it will be great.
     
    Joe likes this.
  16. Cameron Dec 31, 2016
    (Last edited: Dec 31, 2016)
    Cameron

    FKA nowFace Prestigious

    A lot of my fav movies of the year were horror. Still haven't seen Manchester,Moonlight, or the Lobster.

    Movies:
    1) 10 Cloverfield Lane
    2) The Invitation
    3) The Wailing
    4) Keanu
    5) Hush
    6) Rogue One
    7) Fantastic Beasts
    8) The Conjuring 2


    TV:

    1) Rectify
    2) Game of Thrones
    3) Bojack Horseman
    4)Stranger Things
    5) Better Caul Saul
    6)Atlanta
    7) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
    8) The People vs Oj Simpson
    9) Making a Murderer
    10) Black Mirror
    11) The Flash
     
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  17. Night Channels

    Trusted

    Movies:

    Green Room
    Manchester by the Sea
    10 Cloverfield Lane
    The Witch
    The Invitation
    Hell or High Water
    Arrival

    TV:

    Rectify
    Mr. Robot
    Atlanta
    Silicon Valley
    Stranger Things
    Game of Thrones
    You're the Worst
    Better Call Saul
     
    Joe and Cameron like this.
  18. Cameron

    FKA nowFace Prestigious

    Also The Nice Guys is on my shelf. I haven't had time to watch it yet, but I'm sure I'll love it. KKBB is fantastic.
     
  19. SpyKi

    You must fix your heart Supporter

    Movies
    1. Creed
    2. Deadpool
    3. Captain America: Civil War
    4. Zootopia
    5. Fantastic Beasts
    6. Doctor Strange
    7. Green Room
    8. X-Men Apocalypse
    9. Rogue One
    10. The Purge: Election Year

    Tv Shows/Anime
    1. Kiznaiver
    2. Black Mirror Season 3
    3. Food Wars Second Plate
    4. Re:Zero
    5. Atlanta Season 1
    6. You're the Worst Season 3
    7. Erased
    8. Game of Thrones Season 6
    9. Vikings Season 4
    10. Broad City Season 3

    Haven't seen many movies outside of the blockbusters I saw in the cinema, I usually catch up on other stuff after the year is over and all these lists come out telling me what I should have seen, ha.
     
  20. Fronnyfron

    Woke Up Right Handed Prestigious

    I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen any Malick films. Any recommendations on where to start? I was going to go with Tree of Life and Thin Red Line.
     
  21. Cameron

    FKA nowFace Prestigious

    Video Games:

    1) Overwatch
    2) Uncharted 4
    3) Dark Souls 3
    4) The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine
    5) Bound
    6) Doom
    7) Dues Ex: Mankind Divided
    8) Titanfall 2
    9) Battlefield 1
    10) The Witness
    11) Abzu

    Still working my way through X-Com 2, FF XV, and The Last Gaurdian.
     
    SpyKi likes this.
  22. Morrissey

    Trusted

    The Thin Red Line is a great marriage of old and new Malick. The Tree of Life is his best film, but might be too much if you are not prepared.
     
    CarpetElf likes this.
  23. brandon_260

    Trusted Prestigious

    Badlands is probably his most straight forward. It wasn't the first I saw but it was the first I really had a grasp on. Basically any of the 4 before The Tree of Life are safe bets though.
     
  24. tucah

    not champ Prestigious

    I'm going to knock out the last few things from 2016 I wanted to see before I solidify my movie list (most notably Manchester by the Sea, which I'm positive will rank highly based on how much I like Lonergan's other works) but here's an unranked top 10 TV list.

    Rectify
    The Americans
    Atlanta
    Better Call Saul
    Veep
    You're the Worst
    Game of Thrones
    Black Mirror
    O.J.: Made in America
    Bojack Horseman
     
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  25. brandon_260

    Trusted Prestigious

    I posted this in some other EOTY thread yesterday but it seems this is the one we are more frequently using.

    Using 2016 premiere dates

    Best

    1. Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
    2. Aquarius (Kleber Filho Mendoca)
    3. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
    4. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)
    5. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
    6. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
    7. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
    8. Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Love)
    9. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)
    10. Allied (Robert Zemeckis)
    11. The Ornithologist (Joao Pedro Roridgues)
    12. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
    13. The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi)
    14 The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)
    15. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)
    16. Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
    17. The Dreamed Path (Angela Schanelec)
    18. Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)
    19. Werewolf (Ashley Mckenzie)
    20. Operation Avalanche (Matt Johnson)

    Still waiting to see Silence and 20th Century Women for big releases, Slack Bay, Staying Vertical, and a good dozen other films from festivals.

    Worst

    Sausage Party
    Weiner-Dog
    The Lure
    Swiss Army Man
    Southside With You
    Joshy
    Ma Rosa
    Hell or High Water
    La La Land
    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

    New Discoveries

    1. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
    2. Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996)
    3. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
    4. My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
    5. La Belle Noiseuse (Jacques Rivette, 1991)
    6. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
    7. Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho, 2003)
    8. The Celebration (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998)
    9. The Forest for the Trees (Maren Ade, 2003)
    10. Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984)

    Revised 2015 list (bolded films weren't on the list last year)

    1. Carol (Todd Haynes)
    2. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo)
    3. Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick)
    4. Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke)
    5. No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman)
    6. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
    7. Mistress America (Noah Baumbach)
    8. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
    9. Taxi (Jafar Panahi)
    10. Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)