Films watched 2016

Best crime drama

Legend - Tom Hardy excellent at playing both Kray twins and very funny.  Best line: a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar…

Best action movie

Black Sea - Jude Law and associates as submariners in search of Nazi gold.

  

Best foreign crime drama

Suburra - Italian tale of gangsters in Rome and Ostia.

Best Kid’s film

Big Hero 6 – American/Japanese collaboration.  Surprisingly few of the latter credited as compositors/digital artists.

Best Biog

Miles Ahead – very amusing film about Miles Davies.  A hoot!

Best Bollywood

Veer - historical romp that flits between India and England (extensive use of Greenwich, and featuring Dover castle).  Also featured some excellent man earrings.

Best Cheap Brit Flick

Re-directed - Vinnie Jones has a riot in Lithuania.

Best Brit comedy

Golden Years: Grand Theft OAP – nice gentle comedy about old people robbing banks.  Good cast too. 

Best Foreign comedy

Look Who’s Back – Hitler time-travels to present day and gets mistaken for a stand-up comedian.

Best Shakespeare

Macbeth - very atmospheric 2015 version.

Best re-telling of an old classic

In the Heart of the Sea – Excellent re-telling of Moby Dick.  A great whale and lots of manly antics. 

Best Brit horror

Stonehearst Asylum - lunatics take over the asylum, with a twist…

Best foreign horror

Asmodexia - amazing Spanish film about an exorcist and his granddaughter, with an extraordinary twist!

Best comedy horror

Frankenstein’s Army - hilarious tale of Nazi Frankenstein creatures being discovered by Russians at the end of WW2.  I hadn’t laughed so much in ages although methinks the actors playing the monsters (Zombots) had the most fun dressing up in junk and acting like Lindsay Kemp. 

Best fantasy

Alice Through the Looking Glass -  awesome shiny CGI and a very funny Sacha Baron Cohen.

Best blockbuster sci-fi

The Martian – a veritable Ridley Scott masterpiece.  Most excellent, even by his standards.

Best British sci-fi

High-Rise - really good period details and true to Ballard, despite the iffy reviews.

Best Russian war film

Come and See - weird old Russian film, set in Belarus in WW2.  Made some valid points about the effects of war, unbelievably made in 1985 when Russia was still communist. 

Nordic Noir

Order of Disappearance - great title; decent film.

Most educational

The Last King -  educational and scenic Nordic offering, with snow, Christmas trees and pretty horses.

Funniest Guardian film

Lost in Karastan (funny Guardian film)

Best Western

Wild Horses - modern western about an old git and a missing persons search.  The main characters are played by Robert Duvall and his daughter – both excellent.

Best post-war German

Labyrinth of Lies - good but not cheery story of Germans being in denial about Auschwitz.

Best Irish

Odine - sweet tale of a fisherman who catches a woman in his net.

Best Zombie flick

Pride and prejudice and Zombies - very clever and quite amusing but not enough zombies.

Most unwatchable

Exorcist – House of Evil.  Terrible!  I was expecting a follow-up to the original exorcist but it turned out to be a really cheap effort with jerky frames and bad acting.

Films watched 2015

Best Epic - Exodus - Gods and Kings.  Ridley did not let us down

Best action flick - Fast & Furious 7.  Ridiculous but entertaining as ever

Best repeat - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Last year’s film of the year and still awesome!

Best has-beens caper - Expendables 3.  Excellent lark although the plot rambles a lot in the middle.  Banderas is a gem and the end fight scene in a ruined Russian hotel resort is a hoot

Most original plot device - The Dying of the Light.  Nic Cage as aged CIA agent in pursuit of aged terrorist, both with health issues.  A novel idea well executed 

Best Arnie romp - The Last Stand.  Arnie as sheriff foils baddies in shit stick Arizona

Oddest Arnie flick – Sabotage.  Like three different films stuck together: i. everyday tale of a weary DEA squad; ii. A whodunit; iii. A Colombian-set western

Best Statham flick – Hummingbird. Jace shows he can actually act as a down and out ex-soldier

Most pointless remake – 13. The budget was so low Statham couldn’t afford a shave.  The basic premise appeared farfetched and the characters’ actions often seemed implausible.  When we watched the original –13 Tzameti (a Georgian tale) it made a lot more sense and rendered the American remake totally pointless

Best film with one character on screen - Locke - Tom Hardy in a car on the phone

Most complicated plot - Cleanskin.  Even after reading the Wikipedia entry, I was perplexed

Most disappointing title - In the Electric Mist.  Adapted from the book ‘In the Electric Mist with confederate Dead’ which sounds way cooler. Also, a disappointingly pedestrian plot

Grimmest film set in South Africa- Zulu.   Cape Town set escapade with Forest Whitaker and Orlando Bloom in scruffy loser cop mode 

Creepiest Christmas film – Calvaire.  Unsettling Xmas fare with shades of Deliverance

Best Horror film location - Chernobyl Diaries.  The characters seemed incidental to the ghostly post-nuclear meltdown backdrop

Most imaginative Zombie film plot - Fallen Soldiers.  Interesting Napoleonic war undead caper

Best low budget horror – Vampire. Imaginative Belgian low budget offering; funny and entertaining.  We guessed it was crowd-funded as the production values improved during the film

Best film based on real events - The Devil’s Double.  Story of the madness of Sadam Hussein’s son.  Inappropriate partner laughter during the first viewing distracted me from some excellent scenes

Close second - the Iceman.  True tale of a Mafia hit man.  I especially liked his ice cream van-driving colleague who used it to get rid of evidence; made a change from selling drugs

Best sci-fi sequel - Monsters – Dark Continent.  Set 10 years later and very different.  More like a war movie with cool monsters

Cutest robot film – Chappie.  Impossibly cute South African robot.   Good story with obvious undercurrents of Robocop 

Close second - Robot & Frank.  Lovely, funny, quirky little film about an old ex-con and his robot helping him do crimes

Best British sci-fi – Narcopolis.  Really good low budget tech-noir

Best Australian sci-fi – Predestination.  Interesting time travel tale with awesome turn by Sarah Snook.  Might even be the best Aussie movie I’ve ever seen

Most disappointing sci-fi – Franklyn.  Billed as futuristic steampunk flick but a missed opportunity and more could have been made of the device 

Most puzzling sci-fi - Ex-Machina.   Better than expected. The puzzle was why feminists were up in arms about it as the men get their comeuppance at the end

Best Western - The Homesman.  The excellent Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank in a sort of Western road movie

Most relaxing Western - All the Pretty Horses. Very calming adaptation f the Cormac McCarthy book

Best shoot-out - Open Range.  Fantastic final gunfight scene

Best WWII flick – Fury.  Very realistic and engaging.   Young actor Logan Lerman (previously known as Percy Jackson) is outstanding

Best British WWII flick - The Imitation Game.  Really good despite suggesting that Turing invented the computer

Best feel-good WWII film - Free Men.  Muslims save Jews in the Grand Mosque de Paris during the war.  Surprisingly relaxing with not many Nazis in it

Best Russian film – Citadel (Burnt by the Sun Part 2.2).  Last instalment of the epic series.  Apparently unpopular in Russia due to an unfavourable portrayal of Stalin.  Odd for two reasons:  firstly, he came across as a bit of a card, and secondly I didn’t think they still cared. 

Best costume drama - The Devil’s Violinist.  Entertaining tale of the notorious Paganini

Best jazz film – Howl.   The Allen Ginsberg obscenity trial with imaginative use of animation

Most thought-provoking German film - Stations of the Cross.  A devout catholic girl sacrifices her life for Jesus.  Austere young priest gives best argument ever for renouncing the trappings of Satan

Most worthy watch – Leviathan.  Russian sticks it to the man with grim results

Unexpectedly good - American Sniper. An interesting narrative from Mr Eastwood

Most impossible to watch - The Iceman (not to be confused with film of same name cited above).  After trying for hours to get it to play, we got 5 minutes into this tale of a 500 year old coming back to life and couldn’t continue it was so bad!