Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: 2016 in films

1/13/2018

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The 10 Best Movies of 2016:

1. Captain Fantastic - Matt Ross + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Most Moving Movie of the Year + Best Drama of the Year

2. Arrival - Denis Villeneuve + Best Adaptation of the Year + Best Science Fiction Movie of the Year

3. I, Daniel Blake - Ken Loach + Best English Movie of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year

4. Moonlight - Barry Jenkins + Best Mega-hit of the Year + Best Miami Movie of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best American Movie of the Year + Sexiest Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Best Coming-of-Age Movie of the Year

5. Aquarius - Kleber Mendonça Filho + Best Brazilian Movie of the Year + Best Character Study of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year

6. Florence Foster Jenkins - Stephen Frears + Best True-Story Movie of the Year

7. Snowden - Oliver Stone + Best Biopic of the Year

8. Finding Dory - Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane + Best Sequel of the Year + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Blockbuster of the Year

9. The Autopsy of Jane Doe - André Øvredal + Best Horror Movie of the Year + Best Low-Budget Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best Witch Movie of the Year

10. Kung Fu Panda 3 - Alessandro Carloni, Jennifer Yuh Nelson + Best Comedy of the Year

Other great movies of 2016 (in alphabetic order):

After the Storm/海よりもまだ深く (Umi yori mo Mada Fukaku) - Hirokazu Kore-eda + Best Japanese Movie of the Year

Café Society - Woody Allen + Best Romcom of the Year

Hacksaw Ridge - Mel Gibson + Best War Movie of the Year + Comeback of the Year: Mel Gibson

The Jungle Book - Jon Favreau + Best 3D Movie of the Year + Best Animal Movie of the Year

La La Land - Damian Chazelle + Best Musical of the Year

Looking: The Movie, TV movie - Andrew Haigh + Best TV Movie of the Year + Best San Francisco Title of the Year

Nocturnal Animals - Tom Ford + Best Crime Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Most Stylish Movie of the Year

Zootopia - Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush

Good, recommendable movies of 2016 (in alphabetic order):

The Conjuring 2 - James Wan

Ghostbusters - Paul Feig

Lights Out - David F. Sandberg

The Lost City of Z - James Gray + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year + Best Adventure of the Year + Best Jungle Movie of the Year + Best Ensemble of the Year

The Neon Demon - Nicolas Winding Refn

Passengers - Morten Tyldum + Best Space Movie of the Year

Sausage Party - Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon

Star Trek Beyond - Justin Lin

Their Finest - Lone Scherfig + Best Moviemaking Movie of the Year

Wiener-Dog - Todd Solondz + Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year + Best Dramedy of the Year + Best Dog Movie of the Year

The Worst Movies of 2016:

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Gareth Edwards + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

2. A Monster Calls - J.A. Bayona + Most Deserved Flop of the Year

3. London Has Fallen - Babak Najafi + Most Tasteless Movie of the Year

4. Alice Through the Looking Glass - James Bobin + Most Expensive Flop of the Year + Worst Sequel of the Year

5. Warcraft - Duncan Jones

Other failed, poor or mediocre 2016 movies (in alphabetic order):

13 Hours/13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Hail, Caesar!
Pete's Dragon
X-Men: Apocalypse

[37 titles in total]

Notes:

The first update to the 2016 lists adds 14 titles to the mix, upping the reviewed total from 23 to 37.
At the top of the best-of list, Matt Ross' emotionally riveting Captain Fantastic reigns supreme. It is followed by Denis Villeneuve's sensational sci-fi drama thriller Arrival and new entry Ken Loach's indignation-fueled social realism drama I, Daniel Blake. The remainder of the list is filled out by a batch of great films: Other new entries; Barry Jenkins' triumphant gay coming-of-age drama Moonlight, Kleber Mendonça Filho's soulful Aquarius, followed by Stephen Frears' delightful Florence Foster Jenkins, Oliver Stone's highly topical biopic Snowden, Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane's excellent animation sequel Finding Dory, new entry indie horror, André Øvredal's terrifying The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and finally Alessandro Carloni and Jennifer Yuh Nelson's hilarious Kung Fu Panda 3.
Jon Favreau's magical The Jungle Book, Mel Gibson's forceful true-story war movie Hacksaw Ridge, Andrew Haigh's touching, romantic TV movie Looking: The Movie, and Woody Allen's deeply funny and poignant showbiz period picture Café Society get squeezed out of the top 10 in this update, which brings a bunch of greatness to the list.
Other terrific offerings of 2016 include: An unusual, very adult and very funny animation (Sausage Party), another fine Star Trek movie (Star Trek Beyond), a funny Ghostbusters reboot (Ghostbusters), a cool, super-hyped musical (La La Land), a violent, sophisticated crime drama (Nocturnal Animals) and an ambitious, impressive Amazonia epic (The Lost City of Z).
On the still short worst-of list we find big-budgeted blunders only, so far: Gareth Edwards' tentpole blockbuster for Disney, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story still is my least liked 2016 movie, probably because Star Wars in general is so close to my heart and this was the first Star Wars film that I found myself actively disliking. It is followed by new entry J.A. Bayona's amazingly misguided family fantasy flick, the disastrously bleak A Monster Calls and Babak Najafi's senseless terrorism actioner sequel London Has Fallen. Next is new entry James Bobin's career-stopping, hugely expensive flop Alice Through the Looking Glass and finally Duncan Jones' somewhat insipid computer game adaptation Warcraft.
Among the first-rate filmmakers who churned out sub-par efforts in 2016 are Bryan Singer (X-Men: Apocalypse) and Ethan and Joel Coen (Hail, Caesar!).

Notes on the 2017 Oscars:

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the awards for the first time, doing fairly well and bringing lightness and laughs to much of the evening.
The biggest winner was La La Land with 6 Oscars. It tied with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) the record for most nominations with 14. It won Best Director (Damian Chazelle, youngest ever, at 32), Actress (Emma Stone), Score (Justin Hurwitz), Song (City of Stars), Production Design and Cinematography (Linus Sandgren). Moonlight became the first all-black cast movie and the first LGBT movie to win the Best Picture Oscar. It also won Mahershala Ali the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, becoming the first Muslim to win an Oscar. It also won for Best Adapted Screenplay (Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney). Manchester by the Sea won Best Actor (Casey Affleck) and Best Screenplay (Kenneth Lonergan). Fences won Best Supporting Actress (Viola Davis). Hacksaw Ridge won Best Sound Mixing and Film Editing, Arrival Best Sound Editing, Suicide Squad Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Best Costumes and The Jungle Book Best Visual Effects. Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman won the Best Foreign Film Oscar ahead of Land of Mine, A Man Called Ove, Tanna and masterpiece Toni Erdmann. O.J.: Made in America won Best Documentary, and Zootopia Best Animation. The short Oscars went to The White Helmets (doc.), Sing (live action) and Piper (animated).
Honorary Oscars went to Jackie Chan, Anne V. Coates, Lynn Stalmaster and Frederick Wiseman.
The historic happening at the awards was a mix-up at the most crucial moment, when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, saluted for the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde, were to hand over the Best Picture award. A wrong envelope was passed to them, which made them first give the statuette to the La La Land people, before, two minutes later, crew members stormed on-stage and reversed the win to its rightful recipients, Moonlight. The bizarre event was an embarrassment for the whole production but also made it more talked about globally than it otherwise would have been.

2016 titles still on the watch-list:

Midnight Special (seen - good), Gods of Egypt, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Baskets (TV-series), King Cobra, War Dogs, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, It's Only the End of the World, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, American Honey, Elle, Spa Night, Sully (seen - bad), Undrafted, Why Him?, Hidden Figures, Shin Godzilla (seen - good), Paterson, The Salesman, Legion, Maudie, Chuck, Afterimage, Harmonium, Karate Kill, Killing Ground, Red Christmas, Hunt for the Wilderpeople (seen - great).

Previous annual lists:

2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess

What do you think of the 2016 lists?
What films of the year are your favorites and least favorites?
Is any essential title/s missing on the watch-list?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)

1/13/2018

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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