Films Watched 2017

Overall Best

Film of the year

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – wonderful!  Well worth seeing on the big screen.  Vol. 1 is also still awesome.

Close second and third

War for the Planet of the Apes – although the amount of actual warfare is a tad disappointing.  Welcome re-run at Christmas with all that snow and dead coke trucks.

Blade Runner 2049 – just forget it’s Ryan Gosling!

Christmas cracker

Children of Men – the traditional annual viewing.   Now fully appreciating its prophetically post-Brexit genius,

Brit flicks

Best crime

We Still Kill the Old Way – good idea, ace cast of aged gangstas (Ian Ogilvy excellent) and fab script.

We Still Steal the Old Way – welcome sequel.  It also makes sense to see the two films as a set.

Best Welsh offerings

Devil’s Bridge - Essex boys get terrorised by a Welsh Nationalist.  What’s not to like?

Crow - interesting tale of crow people vs English knob.  You can guess the rest…

Worst Brit

Ghost Ship – very cheap.  Extensive use of Charlestown harbour & museum but severe lack of the actual haunted ship.

sci-fi/fantasy

Best

The Great Wall - ace monsters and brill colours

Funniest

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same -filmed in b/w, cheap effects include backwards alien talking, and a tin foil spacecraft.  Hilarious!

Best dialogue

Independence Day: Resurgence – (“Where’s the UFO?”) “Over the Atlantic.” “Which part?” “All of it.” 

Best use of wide angle

UFO - strange, cheap Brit flick made in Derby. Notable also for Jean Claude Van Dam making a surprise appearance.

Most interesting ideas

Arrival - not the best alien invasion film but interesting non-linear concepts of time and use of asemic writing.

Most fun

Suicide Squad – an ace Harley Quinn. 

Comedy

Best

War Dogs - amusing tale based on a true story of two guys gun running in Iraq.

Weirdest

Swiss Army Man - Harry Potter as a dead dude with magic powers – very odd!

Darkest turn

The President – set in fictional Eurasian country, starts out very funny but takes a very dark turn.

War films

Best WW2

My Way – amazing true story of Korean guy who ends up in Japanese, Russian and German army in WW2

Funniest

Railroad Tigers - a band of Chinese heroes fool the idiot Japanese.

Most Avant-garde

The Keep – very odd, early Michael Mann effort featuring Nazis, a demon, and music by Tangerine Dream.

Saddest

Across the Water - true tale of Jews escaping Nazi Denmark; made me cry.

Best historical war

Shaolin - Hong Kong/Chinese collab set in the warlord era circa 1912-28.  Features the amusing Jackie Chan as an old cook. 

Best modern war

The Siege of Jadotville - true story of UN Irish soldiers in the Congo. 

Hyena Road - Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan enjoy nice cinematography and good dialogue. 

Westerns

Best

The Free State of Jones – excellent.

Best cinematography

Jane Got a Gun – not the best western but ace cinematography.

Most relaxing

The Keeping Room - one of them relaxing violent Westerns.

Best oldie

Django Kill –original actual spaghetti western; an odd do with strange music.   Where Tarantino gets his ideas from.

Most erratic snow

The Hateful 8 - better than Tarantino’s last effort but erratic snow got on the nerves and comparisons with old spaghetti westerns now inevitable.

Best Mythical/biblical

Best

Chi-Raq -a ‘Spike Lee Joint’.  Lysistrata transported to Chicago.

Daftest

Gods of Egypt - utterly daft but very enjoyable with some awesome sets and CGI.

So bad it’s good

Land of the Pharaohs – so bad it was hilarious! 

Weirdest

Left Behind - weird premise of The Rapture with Nic Cage as heroic pilot.

Historical

Best

The Physician – really good tale of a young apprentice who goes to study medicine in the middle east in the middle ages.

Best epic

For Greater Glory (Cristiada) - Catholic repression in 1920’s Mexico.  Very educational.

Most over-long

Silence - good but very long Scorsese effort.  I joked it was like a follow up to The Last temptation. 

Grimmest

Mudbound - grim tale of 2 families in Mississippi.

Best pre-pirate Depp

The Man Who Cried -  Johnny Depp as a gypsy pretending to ride a horse in Nazi Paris.

Crime/ heist flick

Best

Hatton Garden the Heist -  gently comic tale of how the old geezers did the job.  (Not the big release).

Shiniest

Now You See Me 2 - slow start but the pace picked up with some good tricks at the end; prompted me to suggest that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) should learn to do magic for real.

Most amusing caper

The Heist –hapless men try to steal a painting.

Grimmest

Freight - violent tale of people trafficking in Leeds.

Best script

Live by Night - good story by and starring Ben Affleck.  Script was great and so are the sets.

Worst wig

Southern Fury - violent mobster action with Nic Cage in bad wig.

Action/thriller

Best

XXX: Return of Zander Cage - ridiculous but fun

Best Statham

Mechanic Resurrection - Statham in classic daft but a laugh mode.

Best political thriller

The Company You keep – Robert Redford looking good for his age.

Worst

Marauders - good concept of robbery by AI but badly executed – rubbish in fact; possibly Bruce Willis’ worst film ever.

World cinema

Best

Dhoom 3 – most excellent; possibly best of the trio even if they did nick the plot from The Prestige.

Most original

White God - mongrel dogs get revenge in Budapest.  Some great scenes and handy tips for training dogs to fight.

Best Russian

Admiral – story of the guy who effectively ran the place while the soviet regime settled down; it was interesting to see the change in perspective now they’re not commies any more.

Best Antipodean

Hunt for the Wilderpeople – lovely, gentle NZ comedy set in the 1980’s.

Best Japanese anime

Miss Hokusai -cartoon about a famous artist and his daughter.

Horror

Best

Underworld Blood Wars – contains ace wafty witchy white vampires.

Resident Evil: the final chapter - tied up all the ends nicely.

Zombie

Best

The Girl With All the Gifts – Great, if a bit slow in places.  An excellent turn by Glenn Close as evil old major.

Best low-budget

Plan Z –low budget Brit flick set in Scotland, by and starring one man.

Funniest

Sleeping Beauty - dark re-telling of the fairy-tale, set in Bulgaria with monsters and zombies.

Real-life/biopic

Best

Ip Man - true tale of the man who inspired Bruce Lee

Most old men

Deepwater Horizon – we couldn’t decide if it was an action film or trying to have a social conscience; maybe due to all them big actors now looking about 90.

Funniest

Gold – amusing tale of an idiot prospector.

Best kids

BFG – good old-fashioned kids’ movie

Pete’s Dragon

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! 

Review of Films Watched During 2013

Best film (all categories)

Beasts of the Southern Wild– A great film with brilliant stroy-telling, excellent child acting and ace music

Most entertaining

Dark Shadows - Very funny, especially Jonny Depp’s English-speak 

Best script

Argo - ‘Argo fuck yerself’ being the best line

Worst film (all categories)

Rock of Ages - Absolutely terrible film.  I was even driven to write review on Lovefilm to warn others!

Close second and third

Dredd – Atrocious!  Cheap and rubbish plot

Django Unchained - very disappointing. Not nearly as funny as expected and Sam Jackson is actually blacked up – WTF!

Best British film

Sightseers – An interesting premise and quite funny 

British film with worst casting

The Sweeney – Quite an entertaining if silly film but what is Plan B doing in it?

Worst British film

London Boulevard – What was Keira Knightly thinking?

Best foreign film

Tulpan – The first Kazakh film I think I’ve ever watched. Interesting and entertaining

Strangest foreign film

Yamada (The Samurai of Ayothaya) – A weird Thai martial arts do

Best life-affirming

The Concert - A gently funny, life affirming affair

Close second

Live and Become – An interesting story about an Ethiopian boy who goes to Israel

Best Nordic noir

King of Devil’s island – Brutal and stark real-life tale of grimness

Shiniest sci-fi

Oblivion - Quite good for a clap trap sci-fi film despite starring tiny Tom Cruise

Weirdest sci-fi

Prometheus -  A strange film; which started life as a tie in to Alien but took on a life of its own. (One thing you can say for old Ridley though, whether it’s an historical epic or a sci-fi romp, the plot is going to be ludicrous – see Robin Hood as aired on Boxing Day 2012 for details)

Weirdest Zombie film

Deathwatch - WW1 zombie trench horror; funny and yucky in equal measure

Funniest Zombie film

Cockneys Vs Zombies – as well being very funny, lovely to see a bunch of OAPs stickin’ it to The Man! 

Zombie film with daftest plot

World War Z - I mean, no way would planes still be flying about during a world-wide Zombie apocalypse!

Best Nazi Zombie film

War of the Dead – but still not a patch on Dead Snow which is still my all-time favourite Nazi Zombie flick 

Best vampire film

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter – surprisingly entertaining

Best Vampire/Zombie hybrid

Stake Land - Low budget vampire/zombie western. Imaginative and with cool music 

Best Western

Wyatt Earp’s Revenge - Very good and an excellent portrayal of Doc Holliday

Best comedy Nazis

Iron Sky - Very funny film. Comedy Nazis in space. Fantastic!

Strangest undead- Nazis- but- not- Zombies

Bloodstorm – Norwegian film featuring not-dead Nazis at the centre of the earth, with a weird terminator Hitler – completely bonkers!

Best action flick

Fast & Furious 6 – A glorious romp through shiny London

Close second

Iron Man 3  - Totally barmy but entertaining. Ben Kingsley is ace

Most disappointing action flick

A Good Day to Die Hard - disappointingly not Christmassy

Token thriller flick

Abduction - okay and keeps you guessing, but a disappointingly fizzly end

Best historical romp

The Great Revival – Chinese government funded epic about the start of the CCP. Revisionist but interesting

Best re-telling of a Greek myth

Wrath of the Titans - Better than Clash of the Titans, in spite of what the reviews say. And rattles along at a fair old lick

Best pre-historic epic

AO The Last Hunter - Good except for the totally unnecessary voice over

Best WWII film

Days of Glory – Very grim but good film about Africans fighting for France

Close second

The Round Up - not cheery but some excellent funny child acting

Worst anti-Nazi film ever

Army of resistance – I wanted the goodies to die as much as the Nazis. Terrible!

Best satire

God Bless America - Gun-rampage satire with a few twists

Most convoluted

Cloud Atlas – Very nice to look at but contrived and far too long 

Close second

Trance - Quite good and shiny with great music but a bit convoluted

Greatest missed opportunity

Jonah Hex – A great premise and some brilliant crows but far too short – and it’s not often I say that

Weirdest Bollywood

Endhiron – a sort of Bollywood sci-fi in Tamil. Incredibly daft but a lot of fun, if a bit long.

Weirdest James Bond movie

Skyfall  – The oddest James Bond I’ve ever seen! 

Best portrayal of a has-been

This Must Be The Place - Very good and funny in a nice gentle way

Best re-retelling of Moby Dick

Age of the Dragons – Interesting and imaginative

Craziest kids’ film

Puss in Boots - Excellent animation and funny dialogue

Worst kids’ film

 Hunger Games – Absolute rubbish and far too long. I just couldn’t accept the basic premise and it is so lame and predictable

Best blast from the past

The Final Programme – re-released in September 2013, it really is an odd do and very of its time

Worst CGI

Doomsday Prophecy - Very cheap TVM with worst CGI ever, but a laugh

That-franchise-has-run-too-long now

Resident Evil – Retribution - Same old bollocks

Most disappointing watch

Dark City - As recommended by bloke in pub. A very strange movie in which Keifer Sutherland talks... In... A... Really... Annoying... Staccato,,. Fashion... All...The way... Through

Most revisionist

Angels of Evil- Okay to watch but trying to make out some 1970’s Italian gangster was like some cool Baader Meinhoff dude was annoying. Some good clothes though

Most overrated

A Field in England – I must admit I didn’t really get it; the film or the rave reviews