2016 Movie Wrap-Up

As regular readers here know, Barb and I go to a lot of movies – generally one a week. That doesn’t mean we see everything, of course, so view these lists in that context. No particular order within categories.

Here we go:

BEST MOVIES

Hail, Caesar!

The Nice Guys

Star Trek Beyond

Hell or High Water

Doctor Strange

MOVIES WE WALKED OUT ON

The Boss

Bad Moms

Ben-Hur

The Magnificent Seven

Keeping Up with the Joneses

MOVIES WE WALKED OUT ON & MAYBE SHOULDN’T HAVE

Captain America: Civil War

Kubo & the Two Strings

MOVIES WE SHOULD HAVE WALKED OUT ON

Girl on the Train

Conjuring 2

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

BEST MOVIE WITH BRENT SPINER

Independence Day: Resurgence

WORST MOVIE WITH BRENT SPINER

Independence Day: Resurgence

MOVIES THAT WERE BETTER THAN THEY HAD ANY RIGHT TO BE

Zootopia

Gods of Egypt

Legend of Tarzan

Deadpool

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

MOVIES THAT WERE WORSE THAN THEY HAD ANY RIGHT TO BE

Finest Hours

Ghostbusters

MOVIES WE ENJOYED BUT BARELY REMEMBER

Keanu

X-Men: Apocalypse

Central Intelligence

MOVIES THAT DID THE JOB

The Infiltrator

Masterminds

Rules Don’t Apply

Allied

BEST MOVIE WITH THE GROWN-UP KID FROM PERDITION

Everybody Wants Some!!

MOVIES THAT WE DIDN’T SEE BUT HATE ANYWAY

13 Hours

Dirty Grandpa

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Office Christmas Party

PRETENTIOUS TWADDLE

Arrival

The Witch

Nocturnal Animals

A few comments, since I didn’t review all of these films here over the year.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR just wore us down. We left with half an hour to go, generally ready to swear off super-hero movies. DOCTOR STRANGE, then, was an intelligent surprise. So was DEADPOOL, and I understand why anyone might not like its over-the-top nilhistic approach, but we both liked the kick to the seat of the pants it gave to super-hero movies.

ARRIVAL is slow and full of itself, and I found its big surprise obvious. THE WITCH was an unpleasant ride to nowhere. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS is misogynistic and generally unpleasant, with only the story-within-the-story having any merit, most of that coming from the always interesting Michael Shannon. RULES DON’T APPLY is an interesting and quirky return to film by star/director/writer Warren Beatty, a loving though occasionally acid valentine to Hollywood and a disguised autobiography. GODS OF EGYPT we watched at home in 3-D and had fun – no apologies forthcoming.

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Our local weekly paper, Voice of Muscatine, did on the Grand Master award.

Here’s a good review of The London Blitz Murders.

J. Kingston Pierce gives a nice mention to the complete version of Road to Perdition published by Brash Books. Order that yet?

Nice words about the Quarry TV series as one of the year’s best literary adaptations.

And here the Quarry show makes another “best of” list.

Finally, be sure to check out the Quarry Facebook page.

M.A.C.

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And this just in!

QUARRY: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON

Available February 14, 2017 on Blu-ray™ & DVD

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