Catching up with 2016
I finished up two more of the more critically acclaimed movies of 2016 today with Sing Street (2016) and Jungle Book (2016).
Sing Street is a movie very similar to one I've wanted to to write. It's a movie about a Irish teenager in the '80's who starts a band to impress a girl. The music and the story are so great that I was okay with it being a story about a guy in a band just to impress a girl. My vision of a band movie is more autobiographical of having a band because a group of friends had nothing else to do so they made music. My vision of a movie like that is more of a garage band where there's nothing else to do and where love songs get made fun of within the band.
Jungle Book is a pretty impressive film of animation mixed with one live action actor. The story telling is really interesting. It's more like the storytelling of old Disney movies like the original movie as it has a number of sequences that are seemingly there just for fun to see the main character run through and interact with the jungle. Everything is wrapped up in the end in a pretty tight plot. The little boy who is the only live action character seems like a great casting choice because he still has a lot of little boy mannerisms with his face and arms that are also like the animated version of the character in the original. It's good to see such a complex movie that seems to speak right to younger kids but is easily entertaining to anyone who sees it.
And now that I've made it through 2016, here are the top fifteen movies that I have seen of 2016.
15. Ghostbusters
14. Sing Street
13. Hamilton's America
12. Moana
11. The Nice Guys
10. Joshy
9. Hail, Caesar!
8. Doctor Strange
7. Arrival
6. Captain America: Civil War
5. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
4. Star Trek Beyond
3. Rogue One
2. O.J.: Made In America
1. Midnight Special
Unfortunately 2016 wasn't the biggest year for great movies, but the movies at the very top of the list were especially enjoyable. Oddly, my list is top heavy with science fiction and musicals but no science fiction musicals.
There are a few highly rated 2016 movies that I still have not seen but have a realistic shot at making the list when I do: La La Land, Moonlight, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Everybody Wants Some, Love and Friendship, Sully, Kubo and the Two Strings, Loving, and Silence. I'm probably more likely to keep the fun action movies in the bulk of the list.
There were a few surprise movies that I really enjoyed that didn't land so well with critics. My top sleeper movies of the year are:
Hail, Caesar!
Ghostbusters
The Magnificent Seven
Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Yes, I liked Ghostbusters. It's a fun action/comedy and really the worst thing about it was Bill Murray showing up to gnaw on scenery. I especially recommend seeing it on Blu-Ray because they have some of the effects spilling over the black bars to create a fun little 3D in 2D effect.
Finally, the worst movies from 2016 that I saw this year are not worth speaking of. I was pretty good at self-selecting to avoid bad movies with the exceptions of a couple of movies from the DC Universe.
