Standing in Your Doorway: Spider-Man 2

by Rob DiCristino

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Film Crit Hulk has a general maxim for screenwriting: “the end is the conceit.” Essentially, a film’s climactic beats should be more than just the resolution of the story; they should be the culminating point of whatever theme or thesis the film is trying to sell. Think about Sarah Connor driving into the storm or Tony Montana being cut down in a hail of gunfire. Think about “I’m finished!” or “We must not allow a mineshaft gap!” They’re great lines and striking visuals, but they’re also the moments that put the ninety-plus minutes that preceded them into a larger, more resonant context. They’re calls to action, morals of the story. It seems like a simple enough thing — why tell a story if you’re not making some kind of point? — but too often people, you know, do that. But a film doesn’t have to be artsy-fartsy awards bait to be an intellectual exercise; trashy exploitation and big-budget crowd-pleasers can be just as profound as anything else. Take Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, the greatest superhero film ever made.*

Peter Parker (Toby Maguire) is in a bit of a funk. His best friend Harry (James Franco) hates him, his aunt May (Rosemary Harris) is bankrupt, and his responsibilities as Spider-Man are keeping him out of the sweet, sweet embrace of Ms. Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). His rent is late. His paper is overdue. He can’t even deliver pizza correctly. He’s keeping so many secrets from those he loves that it’s getting difficult to re-member why he became Spider-Man to begin with. It’s in this moment of need that Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) urges Peter to think of his abilities as a gift to share with his fellow man rather than a burden to bear all alone. When Octavius goes bad and threatens the city with a mad science project, Peter learns to refocus his energy and finally lets go of the weight he’s been carrying all this time. When he does, he finds that his real strength comes with a clear conscience and the love and understanding of those around him. More importantly, he discovers the sweet, sweet embrace of Ms. Mary Jane Watson.

Spider-Man 2 doesn’t just give us a villain that actually matters; it gives us a capable and intelligent Female Love Interest with real efficacy. Of course she’s damseled to an extent (she spends a lot of the last act hanging pants-less from rafters), and that’s not great, but she’s redeemed in the end when she brushes off Peter’s self-involved White Knight bullshit and makes a decision for herself. She won’t be protected. She won’t be ignored. She won’t let someone else choose her destiny for her. If the man she loves is Spider-Man, then she will love Spider-Man, too. But it’s hardly perfect: evoking The Graduate, Raimi gives Mary Jane a final moment alone to reflect on her decision, and we learn Spider-Man 2 has far more on its mind than “love your family and it’ll all be okay.” That love costs, it turns out. That love is dangerous and uncertain and holy shit did I really just give up crazy astronaut sex and Thanksgiving dinners with J.K. Simmons for a broke photographer who just discovered Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

Because, again, the end is the conceit. Peter is still failing college. Aunt May is still being evicted. And does J. Jonah Jameson know Peter stole his son’s girl? That’s going to be awkward. Anyway, the point is that Mary Jane’s dramatic gesture evokes the same trust and shared responsibility that defines Peter’s arc throughout the film. The people in his life are stronger when he trusts them with the truth: Aunt May finally gets some closure and decides to pack up and move on after Peter confesses his role in Ben’s death. The people on the L-Train line up to protect him (and swear not to tell anyone what he looks like) when they realize he’s just a kid in a suit. Doc Ock finally sees the monster he’s be-come when Peter reveals his identity in his last moments. He lets go of that same single-minded obsession that drove Peter to give up the Underoos (symbolized by those creepy raptor arms that whisper things to him) and decides to honor the man he was when he was part of a loving family. Even Harry is affected by Peter’s revelation. It sends him into a tailspin toward insanity and evil, sure, but it’s better than being stuck in perpetual angst.

Spider-Man 2 is a great superhero film because it examines the very meaning of super-heroism. It argues that no super-person (or any person, really) can exist in the space be-tween two mutually-exclusive identities; neglecting one will always weaken the other. More than that, it argues that we’ll never truly connect with the people in our lives unless we let them share our burdens. It’s a masterful threading of theme, character, and plot, as well as a powerful metaphor for the growing pains of new adulthood. Going out into the world alone is a terrifying proposition that’s made all the worse by the complexities of clandestine crimefighting. There needs to be a balance: Spider-Man can’t exist without Peter Parker, and neither of them can exist without the sweet, sweet embrace of Ms. Mary Jane Watson. “It’s wrong that we should only be half-alive, half of ourselves,” she says, freeing Peter from a life lived in segments that never connect. They’re both free, in a way, rushing head-first into an uncertain future.


*You heard me.

Cinema Bestius: The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush and I go waaaay back.

#14 – The Gold Rush

I will leave it to my readers to decide how precocious (Popecocious?) I was as a lad, but in the spirit of the season I offer this vignette. I remember wishing and wishing and wishing and wishing for a Super 8mm movie projector from the Sears Catalog at Christmastime. I was eight years old. This would have been 1970; home video and cable television were not part of my world. The local library (my second home) had many 8mm films that patrons could check out on their library cards. This was back when the AV Department consisted of vinyl records, microfilm of newspapers and magazines, and me.

Santa came through. I got the projector, though I would have to wait for my February birthday to get the screen because “Santa was not made of money.” In the meantime, I hung a bed sheet in the basement. I lived down there for the next seven years, screening films I had checked out of the library. My two favorites were Nosferatu and The Gold Rush. I would say conservatively that I have seen those two films three or four hundred times apiece. Such was my devotion to this hobby that I still remember the distinctive aroma that came from running celluloid past that impossibly hot projector bulb.

It was the musky, pervasive, plastic-y smell of happiness.

The Plot in Brief: Chaplin’s tramp character (here called The Lone Prospector) is lured to the snowy Klondike by the promise of gold. He meets and befriends two other prospectors, Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain) and Black Larsen (Tom Murray), both of whom will play a big part in his future. The tramp also meets and falls in love with dance-hall girl Georgia (Georgia Hale). Will the tramp strike gold? Will he win the girl’s heart? What does a leather shoe taste like when it is boiled and eaten?

I think that The Gold Rush is Chaplin’s best film. Sure, there are plenty of nominees for that position. In a previous lifetime, I taught a high-school Film Studies class and felt it was my duty to introduce students to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Like many silent-film-loving teachers, I would assign a compare/contrast paper inviting students to discuss the two filmmakers.

Representing Chaplin, I alternated between showing The Gold Rush and The Kid. The Kid is terrific, mind you; the climax of that film always made the more sensitive kids cry. I can also hear people making a case for City Lights or Modern Times or the Mutual Shorts, but…

The Gold Rush is Chaplin’s best film because it most effectively integrates everything he did best: incorporating pathos into an otherwise comic narrative, focusing on Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” character without sacrificing the larger narrative, and showcasing Chaplin’s astounding skill as a physical comedian. The love story is integral to the plot and does not seem an afterthought. The comic sequences and gags emerge organically from the story. The happy ending does not seem like a dream or a cheat or a mere shrug of Chaplin’s shoulders.

The recent BFI monograph on the film goes into fascinating detail regarding the film’s twisted provenance. The Gold Rush was released in 1925; Chaplin later prepared a sound version in 1942, featuring a new score he had written himself and narration replacing all the inter-titles. When this version proved to be a hit, Chaplin let the silent version’s original copyright lapse. It fell into the public domain, which led to decades of compromised versions of the original being shown and sold. Distributors made copies from copies; ignored Chaplin’s rigid quality control standards; and screened, copied, and sold prints and VHS tapes that quickly became eyesores and fodder for Walgreen’s $1 bin. This fascinating monograph ponders the changes wrought to Chaplin’s original and asks probing questions about what the “official” version of any film can ever claim to be.

The quality of The Gold Rush that first attracted me—and keeps me riveted more than forty years after my first viewing—is simply Chaplin’s comedy. Laboriously worked out in multiple takes, these scenes are without peer in the world of silent comedy. Such was Chaplin’s obsession with getting it right that, when filming the famous Thanksgiving Banquet scene—during which the Prospector and McKay are trapped in a snowbound shack and resort to eating a leather shoe—Chaplin filmed take after take after take. The fake shoes that Chaplin and Swain ate over and over again were made of black licorice; unfortunately, no one on set realized that licorice is a laxative. The production had to shut down for a few days while Chaplin and Swain “worked it out.”

The three best sequences in the film are the banquet scene described above, a party scene where Chaplin transforms dinner rolls into dancing shoes and performs the “Oceana Roll,” and the famous tipping cabin sequence. Some critics have accused Chaplin of sloppy filmmaking, focusing more on performance than on sets, lighting, or camera work, but the tipping cabin gives lie to that criticism.

The Lone Prospector and McKay have been drinking, but awaken the next morning to observe a curious phenomenon. The floor under their feet feels funny. Unbeknownst to them, the cabin has been transported while they slept by a windstorm, depositing them on the brink of a huge crevasse. The cabin teeters precariously, held in place by a single rope, anchoring it to a rock. What follows is one of the funniest and most exciting sequences in all of silent cinema. Every time one of them moves, the cabin shudders closer to its doom. Then Charlie gets the hiccups. (This sequence is also a handy metaphor for what every day of our lives seems like here in the early 21st century.)

The Gold Rush’s three miracles: an awesome synthesis of hilarity and heartbreak, tremendous supporting performances, and gag sequences that are still laugh-out-loud funny 91 years after the fact. This is a funny, funny film.

In nomine Chaplin, et Charlie, y spiritu little tramp, Amen.

Review: Rogue One

by Patrick Bromley

It's the first standalone Star Wars movie! If by "standalone" you mean "entirely dependent on another Star Wars movie."

Rogue One, the newest movie in Disney's current Star Wars model that will put out at least one film a year, alternating between "episodes" in the larger continuity and self-contained "side" stories, is in many ways a big experiment. It eschews the opening title crawl and John Williams' score, maybe the most iconic of all movie music. It is darker and grittier than any Star Wars movie that precedes it, focusing heavily on the "wars" part of the title. It is, to its great credit, the most diverse movie in the series; there is only one white face in the ensemble of heroes, and it belongs to a woman. It breaks from the tradition of the franchise in a number of ways, which is why it's too bad that it isn't willing to break even more. Rogue One makes A New Hope a better, richer movie but sacrifices itself in the process.

For those who have not yet seen the movie, I won't indulge in spoilers or really even divulge many of the plot details. Suffice it to say that the film takes place in the weeks prior to A New Hope, when the rebel alliance plans a secret mission to steal the plans for a new weapon the Empire is preparing called the Death Star. I think we all know how that works out.

I have spent the weekend reading reactions to Rogue One online, and they are overwhelmingly positive. I have read fans declare it is their new favorite Star Wars movie, or the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. People love this film. So I guess let me apologize up front for not sharing those views, since I know that between this being a Star Wars movie and the amount of affection people have expressed for the movie, I understand how a less-than-glowing reaction can feel personal in a way that puts us on the defensive. I have no intention or desire to shit on anyone's enjoyment of a new Star Wars movie. I am truly glad that people are loving this movie, and the comments I've read about inclusion and identification are legit moving. At the same time, I can only report my honest reactions. This is not, as the kids are fond of saying, a "hot take." This is just me saying that I did not love Rogue One.

I'll admit to having my doubts in director Gareth Edwards. He made an interesting debut with Monsters, prompting me to wishing to see what he could do with a real budget at his disposal. Then he got a real budget to make Godzilla and I realized some wishes shouldn't be granted. I don't think Edwards is what's wrong with Rogue One, though; he does a good job with shooting and balancing the action, and that's the stuff in the movie that works best. I can't say as I agree with his decision to once again drain the fun out of an iconic science fiction property, but that's just a question of taste. I like the cast and I'm all on board for the idea of a "men on a mission" ensemble entry in the series. And yes, this is that, but not in a way that I found particularly satisfying. Most of these actors don't have real characters to play -- they have costume designs and designations, but not characters. Donnie Yen, the biggest standout in the group whose first fight scene against a group of Stormtroopers is the action highlight of the movie, is blind. And spiritual. And that's it. He's actually better defined than some of the other characters, like Wen Jiang, whose defining trait is that he's Donnie Yen's friend, or Riz Ahmed, who is a pilot. Ben Mendelsohn is an incredible actor, but his Orson Krennic might be the worst villain the series has ever seen, again not because he's actively bad but because there's just hardly anything there (and what there is offers only echoes of previous better bad guys). Even the central character, Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso, feels mostly like a cipher -- another in a long tradition of Star Wars characters who defines herself in relation to who her parents are. She's tough and she's capable, but also a bit of a blank. It's hard to come off The Force Awakens, with its likable, realized characters that were the best thing about the movie, and accept the "types" that Rogue One offers.

The movie's pacing is also weird, with a first half that's handed over to a lot of "go there, do this" that amounts to pretty much nothing. The screenplay credited to Tony Gilroy and Chris Weitz (yikes) spins its wheels a whole bunch to seem busy, devoting a big chunk of the running time to a mission in which the characters have to locate another character so they can talk him into helping them find another character so he can help them do this other thing; not only are there at least two steps too many here, but it just fails to add up. No new information is offered, the characters don't change. There's time for some additional fan service -- something this movie really doesn't need any more of (are these supposed to be Easter Eggs for Star Wars fans inside the Star Wars movie?) -- but it isn't until the mission proper begins that the movie truly comes to life.

Here we get the biggest and longest action sequence in Star Wars history, one that takes place partly on the ground and partly in the sky (so it's a lot like the climactic sequence of Return of the Jedi, but don't mention that to the most die hard fans because you might as well be comparing to the prequels...which, this being a prequel, is also a little bit like). While our knowledge of the franchise means we all know how this battle will turn out, it is to Rogue One's credit that the sequence manages to still be engaging and exciting. It's also this stuff that makes those few lines of dialogue about the price paid to steal those plans in Star Wars carry much more weight, as this is the movie in which we really get to see the cost of the sacrifice made by so many. Does that work as a standalone movie? I'm not so sure, since we need to be familiar with Star Wars and how all of this pays off for the film to have the proper emotional impact. It ends on what is structured as a cliffhanger but really exists just to tee up Episode IV with more fan service, including another instance of some CGI on which Gareth Edwards leans heavily despite the fact that the technology is not there yet. While it is more successful in its goals than the entries that tell us about the Clone Wars or that time Anakin Skywalker met Obi Wan Kenobi, Rouge One still exists ultimately to fill in backstory rather than expand the world of Star Wars.

Maybe the biggest bummer of the reception to Rogue One is that it has already made it ok to shit on The Force Awakens, I guess because this movie is "darker" and "edgier" -- it's the Star Wars for cool kids -- or because this movie is carving out its own path by not including a Skywalker (even though it does) or by telling a standalone story (even though it doesn't). I don't insist that everyone like TFA and I know there were a lot of fans who never got into it, but if Disney's new model is going to mean a shelf life of only a year for each new entry in favor of the shiny latest, it's going to make being a Star Wars fan a pretty big bummer. And I know the two movies don't necessarily need to be compared, but I will mention that while TFA has bigger problems than anything in Rogue One, it also has much higher highs. The things that are good in The Force Awakens are transcendent, whether it's a character or a beat of behavior or a line of dialogue -- these are the things that remind us of what it was like to love the Star Wars universe in the first place. I don't know if it's because Rogue One is trying to be different or because Gareth Edwards just doesn't know how to give a movie personality, but the whole thing feels weirdly indifferent. It's never actively bad the way the prequels could be at their worst, nor does it ever achieve the heights of the best Star Wars movies. It just sort of...is.

I'm happy to see director Edwards continuing with the more grounded aesthetic that JJ Abrams brought back with The Force Awakens; like the original George Lucas trilogy, this entry takes place in a "lived-in" universe. I like how many practical props and locations he uses, and with the exception of a couple egregious choices -- you know the ones -- even the CG is terrific. K2SO, a new android voiced by Alan Tudyk, is an impressive creation and one of the film's best characters, always looking like he's really in the scene even when we know he isn't. I like the way Edwards frames the film, too. It isn't just that he does away with the wipes; there is less epic fantasy scope and more of a real-world immediacy to the shot construction, less informed by classical westerns than it is by contemporary combat movies. For me, the movie is just missing a kind of life -- characters or moments that pop or a spirit to the whole endeavor. Some kind of...force.

Again, I'm sorry for not enjoying Rogue One more. I don't like to be the buzzkill that comes to the party and spills all the drinks and ruins everyone's good time. I'd love to see it again and realize I completely missed the boat the first time, but there wasn't enough spark to make me actually want to revisit it. I'm glad so many people got a new Star Wars movie that they love, and I do think this is Gareth Edwards' best movie to date even though I think it's still just ok. If nothing else, the movie makes me hopeful that we will start seeing big-budget blockbusters with different faces and ethnicities outside of the Fast and Furious franchise -- movies that more closely resemble the world in which we live. But if this one-a-year installment really is going to be the new model for the Star Wars universe, I'm looking forward to stories that don't take place with characters and events and timelines with which we are already totally familiar. It's a big universe. I'm ready for Star Wars to start thinking bigger.

Weekend Open Thread

I am with Bale Organa and Bale Organa is with me.

I know everyone will be jonesing to talk Rogue One, which is cool. We'll have a review up on Monday if you haven't already talked yourselves out on it. In the meantime, what has everyone been watching this week?

SIDE QUESTION: Who would play you in the movie of your life?

I Stream, You Stream Vol. 12

by Patrick Bromley

You've gotta have something to watch when you get home from seeing Collateral Beauty Rogue One.

I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016, dir. Billy O'Brien) One of my favorite horror movies of the year hit Netflix this week! Max Records plays a sociopathic teenager who takes it upon himself to investigate a string of murders taking place in his town. I don't want to say anything else. I love the '70s-inspired, shot-on-16mm beauty of this film, and both Max Records and Christopher Lloyd give amazing performances. This movie is so good. (Watch on Netflix)

O.J.: Made in America (2016, dir. Ezra Edelman) Speaking of so good, this five-part 30 for 30 documentary (which has been reedited into three parts for Hulu, but nothing appears to be cut out) is one of the truly great cinematic achievements of the year. Not only does it go into O.J. Simpson's murder trial in painstaking detail -- going all the way back to Simpson's rise to celebrity and his position as maybe the first post-racial figure in popular culture -- but also brings in years' worth of police brutality and civil unrest to paint a picture of just how so many factors conspired to create the media circus and subsequent acquittal. Seriously, this documentary is so comprehensive and so eye opening that I can't imagine there being a better one this year.  (Watch on Hulu)

Vigilante (1983, dir. William Lustig) This is available to stream on Brown Sugar, but I don't know if I would categorize it as "blaxploitation." Yes, Fred Williamson is in it playing the badass leader of a team of vigilantes who reach out to Robert Forster when his family is killed, but the Hammer is just a supporting character in Forster's story. William Lustig knows his way around this kind of gritty, New York-based violent sleaze and the film is incredibly entertaining when you're in the mood for it. I almost always am. (Watch on Brown Sugar)

Stories We Tell (2013, dir. Sarah Polley) This sort-of documentary about the family and lineage of actor/director Sarah Polley was on my list of favorite movies when it came out a few years ago. What reads like a vanity project on paper is actually a fascinating, funny and incredibly human treatise on the nature of storytelling -- the fictions that we pass down and the ways in which we do it. I can't think of another movie quite like it. (Watch on Amazon Prime)

Black Christmas (1973, dir. Bob Clark) 'Tis the season for the best Christmas horror movie ever made (sorry, To All a Goodnight) and a movie that's quickly becoming one of my favorite horror movies period. Debates about its role in helping create the slasher genre will continue for years, but none of that matters; what matters is that this movie is atmospheric and scary and brilliant and everyone needs to watch it this weekend for reasons to be revealed soon. Just saying. (Watch on Shudder)

Review: La La Land

by Patrick Bromley

Magic.

I have written at some length before about a type of film I have dubbed the "exploding heart movie," which is a movie that speaks directly to us in such a way so as to cause a kind of emotional overload, filling us with so much love and joy that it feels like we're going to burst. Everyone had different exploding heart movies, and everyone's exploding heart moments in their exploding heart movies are different. This, of course, is because we are all unique and beautiful snowflakes.

La La Land is writer/director Damien Chazelle's exploding heart movie, designed not just to speak to the emotions of the audience -- and boy, does it ever -- but to lay bare all of the joy and passion the filmmaker feels about making movies. The film has been described as a love letter to Los Angeles or to classic Hollywood musicals. I guess it's those things. To me, La La Land is a love letter to anyone who loves movies. It's Chazelle saying "I am lucky to make movies. I love movies. You, the audience, loves movies. Let's fucking love this movie together." It works. I fucking love this movie.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star in this Gangster Squad reunion as Sebastian and Mia, two budding artists trying to make it in Los Angeles. He's a piano player who dreams of opening his own old-school jazz club, in the meantime trying to get by playing Christmas carols in restaurants and filling in on keyboards for bad '80s cover bands. She dreams of being an actress, but like all would-be actresses is working as a barista in a coffee shop on the Warner Bros. lot. They meet, then meet again. After meeting a few times, they realize they like one another -- and, better yet, inspire one another to be better and reach further than either is doing on their own. Before you can say "they probably fall in love and sing and dance," they fall in love and sing and dance.

Yes, La La Land is a musical -- a sprawling, wildly ambitious, gorgeously photographed and perfectly choreographed musical. From the opening number, an astonishing single-take number in stuck traffic on the L.A. freeway, to "A Lovely Night," one of the most charming first dates in memory, to the breathtaking and gravity-defying "Planetarium" to the show-stopping "Audition" (the number that is likely to singlehandedly score Emma Stone a Best Actress nomination), nearly all of the musical sequences achieve one kind of transcendence or another. I won't argue that all of the songs themselves are great; there are standouts like "City of Stars," but others that faded from memory moments after they had finished. What does not fade is the exuberant energy with which Chazelle (and choreographer Mandy Moore [not that Mandy Moore]) stage the numbers, using them sometimes to advance the story but mostly to express emotions being felt by the characters that are too big to be expressed in words. This is the beauty of musicals, and what separates them from more "realistic" stories.

"But what if I don't like musicals?" you ask. That is your right. You are a snowflake. While I cannot predict what you, reader, will or will not enjoy (nor would I want to), I can say that I'm not 100% sure I love musicals either. But I do respond to both the emotion and the technical execution of every number in La La Land, nearly all of which made my heart explode more than anything else this year. Sometimes I was swept up in the beauty of the photography by Linus Sandgren, who shoots Los Angeles in a way that is painterly and romanticized while still capturing a realism and familiarity that other movies fail to achieve. Often I was moved by Chazelle's simultaneous expression of control and bravado -- he's made a movie bursting with big feelings that radiate off the screen but has done so in a way that is expertly staged and timed and edited. I've always liked movies that take big swings, and La La Land is nothing but big swings. Like Paul Thomas Anderson graduating from Hard Eight to Boogie Nights, Damien Chazelle has cashed in all the goodwill earned by his Oscar-nominated debut Whiplash to make a movie that is bigger and riskier but which once again concerns itself first and foremost with expressing an emotional state through form.

I know that La La Land isn't going to have the same effect on everyone. That's true of any movie, but especially true of exploding heart movies. For some, the story may seem too slight and the emotional beats too familiar. Maybe these things are true. Beyond the romance at the center, the film has a lot to say about the need to create, about the lasting impact of art, about the ways we can draw strength from those around us to do the things we maybe couldn't do without making these emotional connections. Besides, I have a hard time accepting the idea that human happiness is "slight," and while we may recognize the emotions being expressed on screen, I'm not sure I've seen them expressed in quite this way. Chazelle cuts right to the core of one our most basic emotions but then dresses it up in some of the most exciting, buoyant filmmaking I've seen all year. La La Land floats for two hours and refuses to come down even after the credits have rolled. This is classic movie magic.

Riske Business: The 2016 Binness Awards

by Adam Riske

I sure hope 2017 is better.

Allows Me to Still Defend John Travolta: In a Valley of Violence

Angriest I Got During a Movie: Dirty Grandpa, The Lobster, High Rise, Sausage Party

Animation That Touches Your Head: Zootopia

Animation That Touches Your Heart: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Audience Experience: Don’t Breathe

Best Performance in a Movie Not Enough People Saw: Ethan Hawke, Born to Be Blue

Best Performance in a Movie That You’re Fine if You Never See: Jonah Hill, War Dogs

Best Song: “Drive It Like You Stole It” from Sing Street

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked: John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked Much Much Less: Dan Fogler, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Biggest Disappointments: 31, Blair Witch, Keanu

Biggest Waste of Pop Culture Calories: Ghostbusters (2016)

Decent: The Conjuring 2, Hacksaw Ridge, Snowden

Deserved a Better Fate than it Got: The BFG

Does Everything Right: Green Room

Does this Count for a Top Ten List? It Rules: O.J.: Made in America

Funniest Movie: Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Funniest Performance: Ryan Gosling, The Nice Guys

Funniest Scene: “What don’t you want?” in Hell or High Water

Give Me a Break: Lo and Behold: Reveries of a Connected World

Good but Not Great for Me: Manchester By the Sea

Good Except for the First Few Minutes Which are Unforgivable: Joshy

I Can’t Believe I Actually Saw… Alice Through the Looking Glass, Now You See Me 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

I Dunno…I Liked The Songs??? Is that Good Enough?: Moana

I Had a Happy Childhood so I Don’t Need: Pete’s Dragon (2016)

I Loved it and then I Calmed Down: Don’t Think Twice, Finding Dory

I Mean…I Guess… The Handmaiden, Morris From America

Indies to Seek Out: First Girl I Loved, I Am Not a Serial Killer

I Only Remember the Airport Scene: Captain America: Civil War

It’s Fine: De Palma, Emelie, Hush, Jason Bourne, The Program, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, Southside with You

It’s Good but I Don’t Really Know Why: The Fits

I Wished I Liked it More: Everybody Wants Some!!

Just Didn’t Do It for Me…I Don’t Feel Bad: The Neon Demon

Just Didn’t Do It for Me…I Feel Bad: Beyond the Gates

Kevin Hart is Bad: Central Intelligence

Kevin Hart is Really Bad: Kevin Hart: What Now?

Kevin Hart is the Worst: Ride Along 2

Like Trying to Read a Book Written in Portuguese When You Don’t Know the Language or How to Read in General: Warcraft

Maybe Jeff Nichols Isn’t Awesome? Loving, Midnight Special

Meanest Movie (But Good): Nocturnal Animals

Meh: Arrival, Barbershop: Back in Business, The Edge of Seventeen, The Finest Hours, Into the Forest, Lights Out, Morgan, Southbound

Most Romantic: Moonlight

Movie I Liked a Little More Because Jan Likes it: The Shallows

Movies I Like More than Anyone Else: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Nerve, Wiener-Dog

Movies that Hate You: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad

Movie that Starts Fine and then Falls Off a Cliff: Rules Don’t Apply

Nope: Abattoir, The Boy, The Forest, My Blind Brother, The Magnificent Seven (2016), Mechanic: Resurrection, Office Christmas Party, Pet

Not Yet Released Indies to Seek Out: The Blackcoat’s Daughter, The Other Half, War on Everyone

Performance that Made a Meh Movie Good: Kristen Stewart, Café Society

Pleasant Surprises: Bad Moms, Deadpool, Deepwater Horizon, How to Be Single, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Weiner

PTSD From My Own Life Experience: Goat

Reminded Me Alden Ehrenreich was Also Really Good in Tetro: Hail, Caesar!

Scariest Children: Those twins in The Witch

Scummiest Movie: Triple 9

Scariest Movie: Trash Fire

“Shocking” Movie that’s Not Shocking at All: Tickled

So Bad it Becomes Funny: Bleed for This, The Girl on the Train, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

So Bad it Becomes Insulting: The Accountant

So Much Better than it Had Any Right to Be: Ouija: Origin of Evil

So Much Fun: Star Trek Beyond

Stab Me in the Fucking Scrotum: X-Men: Apocalypse

Starts Out Good and Then Decides to Kill Itself: Me Before You

Sweetest Movie: Life, Animated

These are Getting Better: The Purge: Election Year

Tom Hanks Movie Power Rankings: 1) A Hologram for the King 2) Sully 3) Inferno

Walkouts: Demolition, Hardcore Henry, Jane Got a Gun, The Legend of Tarzan, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Whatever: Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Swiss Army Man

Why is Everyone Wowed by the Last Shot of this Movie? It’s Implausible!: The Invitation

Wished I Liked it More than I Did Because it’s Heart is in the Right Place: Yoga Hosers

Worst CGI: Independence Day: Resurgence

Would Have Been an Oscar Contender in 1998: Money Monster

WTF: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk