Skip to main content

Movies, Movies, Movies


We're a little over a quarter-way through the year, the Roger Ebert Film Festival is about to kick-off, and so I thought it would be a good time to take stock and rank the 2016 films I've seen thus far. It's been an interesting year....


1. Hello, My Name Is Doris

The three leads -- Sally Field, Max Greenfield and Tyne Daly -- turn-in such delightful performances in this gem of a film. Doris, an eccentric sixty-something woman, develops a crush on her thirty-something co-worker, and awkward hilarity ensues. Really sweet movie.


2. 10 Cloverfield Lane

Look up the word "taut" in the dictionary, and a still from this film should accompany it. An engrossing, stage play-like tour de force from the three main actors, combined with great direction and pulse-pounding music, makes this an edge-of-your-seat experience.


3. Eye In the Sky

Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman (in his last live-action role) headline this tense political thriller about the use of drone warfare in the Middle East. Despite prepping myself for its agenda and expecting some ham-fisted moralizing moments, the movie actually really, really works.


4. Deadpool

Most of you have probably seen this R-rated superhero flick already. It's a nice break from the norm. I didn't think I'd like Ryan Reynold's sarcastic shenanigans, but the movie won me over. From the opening Juice Newton song, to the Bea Arthur shirt, to the Fawlty Towers and Sinead O'Connor references, everything just works.


5. Midnight Special

Another odd film from director Jeff Nichols (though a good kind of odd). The man who brought us Take Shelter and Mud (and who has been at Ebertfest multiple times), brings us an entrancing story of a father, his young son with special powers, a multi-state road chase, and characters with humanity and depth.

The rest....

6. Hail, Caesar!
7. The Witch
8. The Boy
9. The Forest
10. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice
11. Knight of Cups


Here's to the movies still to come in 2016!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing).  It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....
Post a Comment
Read more

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.
5 comments
Read more

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what ...
Post a Comment
Read more