Tenet Review

If you didn't get the news, theaters are now open in many places around the world and new movies have started to sneak their way into theaters. And while the first couple movies I've reviews since the reopening, "Unhinged" and "The New Mutants," have felt more like sacrificial lambs thrown into the fire, "Tenet" feels like the first real movie in theaters. Or, rather, the first big movie that's taking a risk by being released. I can guarantee you that every studio is closely monitoring the progress of "Tenet" right now to see if it can actually earn money at a time when not all theaters are open yet and those that are open are working at a limited capacity with lots of restrictions in place. And even if theaters didn't have these restrictions, are people ready to come back to theaters? So many questions surrounding this release that will set a precedent going forward. With Warner Bros. themselves also being next up to bat with "Wonder Woman 1984" in early October, are they going to stay put there? What about the likes of "Black Widow," "Soul" and "No Time to Die" in November? All of that will depend on how "Tenet" performs this month. And if you feel safe enough to go out and support it, "Tenet" definitely has my stamp of approval as a movie that deserves to be seen.

You might think that of course this movie has my stamp of approval. It's a Christopher Nolan movie! Unless you've been around the block for a bit. While I genuinely love Nolan as a filmmaker, as shown by me naming "Inception" as my top film of the 2010s, he's been on a tad bit of a losing streak since "Inception." While "The Dark Knight" is also my favorite superhero movie, "The Dark Knight Rises" gets a bit worse every time I watch it. "Interstellar" and "Dunkirk" weren't that great, either. "Interstellar" had a solid first two acts, but falls apart in the final act. And "Dunkirk" was a nice idea for about 30 minutes, but then I got really bored. But if you're a filmmaker and those three movies are the worst that you've done, I'd say you're still doing a pretty good job. Even the best slip up every once in a while. With "Tenet," I was really hoping that it would be the movie to bring him back to top-notch filmmaking. And while I would initially say that it accomplished that, there's also a whole lot to process with this movie. Like many of Nolan's movies, it's something that requires repeat viewings to fully understand. And I've only seen it once. So I have to give the disclosure that I don't yet feel qualified to give it a perfect analysis, nor am I sure when I'm going to be at that point.

What is the movie about? Well, that's the other difficult thing. First off, this is the type of movie where it's best to know as little as possible going in. So even writing a review is a tricky. It's the type of movie where I tell you that it's good, so go and see and we'll discuss afterwards. And I totally recommend that. I'm going to keep things as vague and spoiler-free as I can. But it might be best to just close this and come back and read after you've seen the movie. The other reason why it's a difficult thing to describe is because the plot itself so layered and complex. The most simple way to put is that one timeline is going backwards and another timeline is going forwards. And certain people are trying to stop a certain thing from happening before the world goes kaboom. If you've seen the trailers, you've seen examples of this. They are shooting a gun, but the bullet unshoots and goes back into the gun or they're driving down the road and the car in front of them car rolls around and uncrashes. Why is all of this happening? Well, they spend the whole first half of the movie dumping scene after scene of exposition on you. Most of it bounced right off my brain and into oblivion. I want to go back and watch it, but with subtitles so I can do better at remembering. 

The reason why I had a hard time remembering everything that they were saying was partly due to a thing that a lot of people have brought up in their reviews. The sound mixing is a bit off on this one. They'll be talking in a room and suddenly the score starts coming on, signifying that something important is being said or something is about to happen, but the score goes a bit too loud so that you literally don't know what is being said. You want to rewind it and listen closer, but you're in a theater, so you can't. But since the sound design has caused you to miss that part of the conversation, when things get back to normal, your brain just wanders off because you feel like you just walked in during the middle of a conversation where the first part that you missed was vital to what is being said. And yeah, that's a problem. But the other issue here is that I think my brain just wasn't prepared. I tried to pay attention, but it's also like when you're in a lecture and your professor gets so carried away with some tangent or concept that is just really beyond your ability to be able to understand. So your mind wanders for two seconds and that immediate disconnect derails the whole thing. You no longer have the ability to catch up, so you give up and stop trying, which leads to a really rough lecture.

I've delved through some YouTube comments of reviews or other internet discussions where a lot of people said that this ruined the experience for them. I don't want to conclude that off of just one showing. Just because I didn't understand the professor's lecture, doesn't make it a bad lecture. Or maybe my neighbor was talking too loud and I didn't hear part of it. That's also not the professor's fault. But with this analogy, the professor has the lecture recorded and posted online. I can go do my homework and maybe take a practice test, then go back and listen to the lecture again and perhaps it'll make a lot more sense. And that's my thoughts with "Tenet." I feel like there's some excellent stuff in here that could make this one of the most mindblowing movies I've ever seen. "Could" being the key word here. I just don't know. But I got enough out of it the first time around that I feel like a second viewing... or a third... or a fourth... or a fifth... or a sixth... is really going to cause something to connect and that will be the ultimate viewing experience. This is not a new thing for Nolan. He likes to challenge his audience and not babysit them or hold their hands to guide them to where he wants them to go. I really appreciate that. The result is a movie that keeps on giving. 

But for a first viewing experience, it's really challenging. They'll be talking and talking and talking and talking. Then we'll jump to the next scene where they start talking and talking and talking and talking. And then they'll start talking and walking and talking and talking. Then a thing happens, and I was like, oh that's cool. But then they'll start talking and talking and talking and talking. By this point, my brain has been on brain overload and starts shutting down. Suddenly I panic because I feel like I missed part of the movie. And then a lot of things start happening and I'm like, crap. I failed because I have no idea why they are doing these things that they are doing. And then I got really nervous because the thoughts arose in my brain that I might walk away from this movie being disappointed. And I can't handle the online pressure of having to write another less than stellar review of a Christopher Nolan film. But then we finally arrive to "the moment." Characters are making decisions and these decisions start impacting things from the past. Suddenly my mouth is gaping wide open and I'm being thoroughly entertained by these things and really having my mind blown by these fascinating concepts that Nolan has decided to throw together into one film.

And if you're reading this review without having actually seen this movie, this might be the strangest review you've read from me because I just spent paragraphs talking about a whole lot of nothing and it probably hasn't helped you much. But it is what it is. When I saw the movie Monday, my initial post on Facebook was that this is the most Nolany film I've ever seen. The man has spent two decades now perfecting his craft and this is where he decided to take everything he's ever done and create this big, epic piece of art that combines everything he's learned and experimented with. And if you think "Inception" or "The Prestige" were complex and difficult to understand, "Tenet" makes those movies look like an episode of "Sesame Street." There are so many moving pieces and intricate parts with layers and layers detailed concepts and a look at time that I've not seen before. Now this doesn't necessarily make the movie better than his previous work. But it definitely is his most complex film. It's his most detailed and intricate work of art that feels like he's been building to for his whole career. As you can tell, it's a giant puzzle that I feel I've only scratched the surface on. I'm excited at the idea of being to continue to learn new things from it for years to come.

Again, I don't want to get too caught up in any negatives here until I've had a chance to digest it a bit more and explore it's world again, but I think that one thing that might hold it back a touch is its slight disconnect with the characters and their motivations behind everything. This feels like a movie that gets so caught up with its high concepts and technical marvels that it kinda forgets about some of the filmmaking basics such as characters. I mean there's a lot of them, but John David Washington is the lead role and they didn't even bother to give him a name. He's just "the protagonist" on the cast list. You don't really get to know who he is or some of the struggles he's going through. He's just a vehicle to move these concepts forward. And he meets Robert Pattinson at some point. He's actually given a name. But we don't know much about him, either. They begin a strong friendship and their characters go interesting places. But I don't feel there's much emotional depth to them in comparison to Leo's character in "Inception" or all the deep, rich themes between Batman, Joker, and Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight." And because of this, neither of them is given the opportunity to really shine like they have in recent films, even though both of them do a solid job. 

The main conflict comes more with the main girl they meet along the way, played by Elizabeth Debicki. It's her husband, played by Kenneth Branagh, that is the antagonist of the film and there's some emotion there. But when the supporting characters have more emotional depth than either of the main characters, that might be a slight problem. But I don't want to get too caught up on that. The real star of this movie are these high concepts that he builds. Messing around with the timeline is Nolan's specialty with movies like "The Prestige," "Inception," "Memento" and even his last two movies, "Interstellar" and "Dunkirk." And the idea here in "Tenet" with one timeline going forwards and the other going backwards is genuinely fascinating. And I want to get into it more, but that part I don't want to touch too much because it's the last act of the film that really shines here and even suggesting that makes me feel like I've said too much. Maybe this is a movie that I will revisit at some point on this blog. I don't know yet. But I definitely am excited to revisit this movie itself. A grade seems a bit foolish to give because that's definitely going to change, but a tentative 9/10 seems right, with the potential of it being in the top half of my Nolan rankings.  

The New Mutants Review

It's hard for me to believe that "The New Mutants" is actually a real movie that came out in theaters. I even purchased a ticket and watched it with my own eyes. For a long time I was convinced that the movie was a myth and that I'd never get to see it. In fact, in a strange way I'm almost disappointed that it finally came out because being in a constant of waiting for it was kinda fun. Every time it got closer to coming out, it got pushed back again. Continuing to follow it was almost like a game of a donkey chasing a carrot that's tied to a string above. But the donkey finally caught the carrot. So now what are we supposed to do?It's like when Leo finally won his Oscar. What's the internet supposed to talk about now? For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, the first trailer for "The New Mutants" was published on YouTube on October 13, 2017. It's actual U.S. release date ended up being August 28, 2020. Josh Boone and Knate Lee, the screenwriters for the movie, with Boone also being the director, started working on this back in 2015, shortly after the release of Boone's "The Fault in Our Stars." The initial release date was April 2018. So yeah, this movie has been on quite the journey and Disney finally releasing it feels like something done out of obligation.

The idea behind this movie is one that I was actually intrigued by. It was advertised as a horror film within the X-Men universe. That's a brilliant idea. We've had so many superhero movies come out as of late that if studios are going to keep releasing them, which they are most definitely planning on doing, they need to come up with ideas as to how to make the genre fresh instead making the same three movies over and over a thousand times. Out of all the genres that have been played around with in regards to superhero movies, the horror genre is one that hasn't really been explored much. But when you think about it, it's an idea that can be done quite easily, especially when it comes to mutants with strange powers that they're not used to. So I was excited for this when I saw the trailer back in October 2017, nearly three years ago. But yeah, then it started to keep getting postponed, which always has me nervous. Fox pushed it back twice, the first time from April 2018 to February 2019, then again to August 2019. Reportedly it was because they wanted to reshoot the movie and make it scarier. Lean more on the horror element. The last two times it got postponed wasn't the movie's fault. Disney bought Fox, then shuffled their whole schedule. Then the pandemic happened.

Now in watching this movie today, this feels like an odd piece of cinematic history and really is a sign that Fox had no idea what they were doing with the X-Men. They never really had much of a direction to begin with. The first two X-Men movies were a huge success, but then they crashed it into a brick with with X3. Then they tried to reboot things by telling the origin stories of all the characters. But after everyone hated "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," they did a full on reboot with "X-Men: First Class." That was going good as well, until they again crashed it into a brick wall with "X-Men: Apocalypse." In the meantime, they started throwing all sorts of things at the wall to see what stuck. They scored huge with the likes of "Logan" and "Deadpool," but failed mightily with "Dark Phoenix." But when seen as a whole, Fox's X-Men universe can only been seen as a giant mess, even though some of the entries are pretty solid. And "The New Mutants" really just feels like one of Fox's backup plans that could've worked had they actually committed to it. But Fox never committed to anything, which is why Disney now owns them. And Disney definitely didn't want this, which is why I believe they're using this as experimental bait to see if people will show up to theaters again during COVID.

Through all of this, I feel the most bad for director Josh Boone, who seems like he was personally committed to this idea of his, but was never given much of an opportunity by Fox or Disney to do anything with it. He is a competent director. I liked "The Fault in Our Stars" back in 2014. And I also believe that "The New Mutants" is a competently made film with some great ideas. I think the biggest flaw is that Fox has been so clueless with the X-Men that we've seen the premise of a mutants origin story done in just about every movie they made. I'm ready to take the next step and see where a team of mutants can actually go, but Fox could never get that plane off the ground too far before it crashed back down and they had to keep starting over. So here we are. Another mutants origin story. But given the challenge of having to do this restart yet again, Josh Boone did a pretty good job. The horror element gives it a unique perspective of it being a darker, more eerie take on it with a lot of mystery and unanswered questions involved. In fact, this is a very small and isolated film. Outside the occasional flashback or vision, the movie only has six characters. Our five mutants locked in an abandoned lab with their doctor that's supposedly there to help them with their powers.

With this small, isolated setup in mind, I think the movie effectively built towards an interesting climax. Our lead mutant is a young girl named Danielle Moonstar, played by Native American actress Blu Hunt. In the beginning of the movie, she awakes to her little town or village being attacked by a bear demon thing. Her father rescues her and tries to save the day, but everything gets destroyed and everyone dies but her. Next thing she knows, she wakes up in this facility where someone has found her and discovered she is a mutant, but they haven't figured out the extent of her powers. So after this traumatic experience, Danielle, or Dani, has to figure out how to live with these four other mutants, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Maise Williams, Charlie Heaton and Henry Zaga, with Alice Braga playing their doctor. I think this is a solid group of mutants and the movie takes its time to introduce us to these characters, none of whom seem to want to be there, but all of whom are fairly interesting. We slowly get to learn about the backgrounds of all of them and why they are there and it adds more of a connective link to our cast. And I think all five actors in this do a great job of trying to bring their characters to life. This is the beginning of something pretty solid.

Which is why the whole thing is disappointing because you know it's not going to go anywhere. Josh Boone wanted this to be a trilogy when he initially started working on it. I would've loved to see that come about. Anya Taylor-Joy, Maise Williams, and Charlie Heaton are three up-and-coming actors who deserved to be part of something bigger and use this as another stepping stone for their careers. I didn't know Blue Hunt or Henry Zaga before seeing this movie, but I was impressed with both. But yet when the studio doesn't care about the property and the studio itself gets sold in the middle of production to another studio that doesn't care, it's hard to get to excited about anything here. It's like watching the pilot episode to a TV series that you know already got canceled. The emotional weight of a pilot episode or an origin story is not there when you know going in that you're never going to see these characters again. The movie actually does tie into the X-Men. In fact, part of the plot has to do with these mutants thinking they're being trained to be X-Men. I don't know if this is a spoiler, but there's also ties to the Essex Corporation, which was teased at the end of Apocalypse and in other places, but has now been completely abandoned because Disney is going to completely start over with mutants.

As is, the movie is fine on its own. Like I said, there's a lot of good setup here. A grew to care about the characters and enjoyed learning about their backstories. Blue Hunt and Maise Williams develop a relationship that's a solid core to the film. And I do think the horror setup works decently enough. I wish they would've leaned into that a bit more as it never evolves beyond simply being a bit creepy and strange at times. This is not a scary film and it's more of a superhero action flick than a true horror film. Part of the premise does involve the main characters having to relive their worst nightmares, which starts chasing them down. If that sounds like "IT," that's because it kind of is, but the sequences, which I did enjoy, reminded me more of a "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," which was a solid PG-13 horror film from last year. So if you combine "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" with an X-Men origin story, you have "The New Mutants." It's perfectly acceptable. And the ending battle with the demon bear is a really entertaining. It's just disappointing because this is never going to go anywhere, so it was hard for me to really care. But hey, if Disney wants to prove me wrong and bring these characters back, I won't complain. My grade for "The New Mutants" is a 7/10. 

Unhinged Review

Oh hey look! It's a movie review from this blog! This is my first review since "Onward" in March and first post of any sort since May. I brainstormed a lot of things in my head as to what to do during COVID months, but ultimately I wound up doing nothing and now I'm feeling all sorts of rusty. But the movie theaters opened up, so it's time to get back into the groove of things. Now the first thing I'll say is that if you don't feel like venturing out to the theaters again, I totally understand. I spend a lot of time hiding in my own little corner so that I don't have to deal with people who aren't being careful. And for some of you, your local theaters aren't even open yet. But in my area they are and I've been dying to have some sort of semblance of normalcy return to my life, so I've snuck out to the theaters a couple of times already. The first important thing that I will note is that I was impressed with all of the things that my local Cinemark is doing to keep people safe. Theater capacity is limited. Masks are required. They do a lot of sanitizing and cleaning. There's a whole bunch of stuff implemented. I felt safe. Again, if you don't feel safe, that's totally fine. But either way, I'm going to start getting some reviews out for you again. And we start out with one that, well... not the most optimal choice. 

On the one hand, it's kinda disappointing that my first theatrical experience in nearly six months was such a bumpy ride. But on the other hand, it makes total sense that this is the movie to be the guinea pig. "Unhinged" is a road rage thriller from distributor Soltice Studios. Never heard of them? Well, join the club. They're a brand new distribution company and this is their first release. And in a normal year, this is the type of thriller that comes out and is nearly dead on arrival. An unrecognizable studio. A no-name director. A horribly written movie that makes no sense. Critics would trash it. And it wouldn't make any money. But hey, Soltice Studios took advantage of the situation to stake its claim as the first new theatrical release and that got it attention. Smart move, I'd say. It opened to $4 million, which is normally not a great total, but as one of the only options for people who want to venture out, it's bound to have long legs, which is probably closer to the type of business we're going to see. Small openings and a long theatrical life. It might be like back in the 80s when the box office was a lot more backloaded and movies just stayed in theaters for forever. And hey, if this ended up as a financial disaster, no tears shed. Might as well experiment with the trashy films, right?

But OK, the one thing that this movie has going for it is that it stars Russell Crowe. Everyone loves Russell Crowe, right? He seems like a very nice guy and he's a great actor. Just don't let him sing in your movie. But this time around, he's very much not a nice guy. In fact, he's a crazy, evil psychopath that murders his ex-wife and her new boy thing that she left him for and burns down their house. That's how this movie opens. It definitely sets the stage for what's coming next. He's a ruthless, soulless monster that's full of rage and out for vengeance. And is somehow able to not get caught, despite being very non-subtle in his approach. So when poor young Rachel is just having a really bad day and honks at a guy who doesn't move when the light turns green, something I would personally do every single time, that guy is Russell Crowe and he decides to give her the worst day of her life. And that's our movie. When I say Rachel is "young," I mean 30s. A young mother. Going through a divorce. Accidentally sleeps in. Loses her best client. Gets stuck in traffic taking her teenage boy to school. So she just kinda loses it when Russell Crowe doesn't move at the light. I don't blame her, really. But this vendetta this guy decides to hold against her for this act is a bit baffling.

I think the biggest problem with this movie is a conflict of tone. The general premise is that of a slasher flick, essentially. A psychopath killer is hunting down this girl and killing people in the process. I mean, it's not a horror film. I'd definitely classify it as thriller. But it has the slasher vibe to it where the intensity of the film is hinged on a killer wandering around town killing people. And if it were to own up to it's absurd status as a B-level thriller that's just out to be a gory bit of fun for a certain, then maybe it could get a pass. But it doesn't own up to that. The movie takes itself super seriously. After the opening scene of "The Man," as he is credited (he doesn't get a name in the movie) killing his ex-wife and her new man, then burning the house, we get this weird montage during the opening credits full of stock footage of road rage stuff, as if the movie is trying to tell us the dangers of road rage and how violent this country has become because of that. Then it proceeds to be such a serious movie as if the writers and director made this movie to give us all a warning that if we're not careful, something like this might happen to us, too. So if the movie is going to decide to take itself super seriously, then I have to return the favor and give it a serious review instead of kicking back and enjoying. 

In giving it a serious review, the whole thing is absolutely absurd. Our main girl Rachel starts us off by making every wrong decision in the book. Not only is she completely incompetent in her daily routine as if she hasn't figured out how to do this thing called life yet, but everything leading up her run-in with this guy just makes your eyes roll. My favorite part is when she reveals to her son that she disabled her lock screen on her phone, then later leaves it in the car while she's going into the gas station, while also leaving her car unlocked. So of course that means the guy steal her phone and use it as leverage to make her follow his every command. That's the type of stupidity it comes to with this writing. On the flip side, the man deciding to traumatize this random woman makes zero sense, either. I mean, if we set him up as a ruthless psychopath, it doesn't make much sense that he would be so broken and fragile that he would completely lose his mind when someone honks at him at a green light. I mean, if we're going to set this thing up, then we've got to come up with a better inciting incident that would make for a more believable case of road rage. Give this guy a better reason to chase after a random civilian that would make for an actual intense plot.

To this movie's credit, though, it's not all a terrible mess. Russell Crowe makes for a rather terrifying presence. He pulls off crazy psychopath rather well. When he's getting angry at the girl and chasing her around, he does make you rather nervous. But then he puts on his nice face when he's walking in to "meet" the girl's friends, which makes for an intense moment because you know that this isn't going to end well. So I give him credit there for trying to make a good villainous presence. It's not his fault that he says the words the script told him to say or do the things that the script asked him to do. And our main girl Rachel is played competently by Caren Pistorius. Her making every dumb decision in the book wasn't the fault of the actress. Again, this all comes down to a screenplay that is just horrendously bad. But had said screenplay been good, the movie could've worked with Russell Crowe and Caren Pistorius both doing a fine job. And on a technical scale, the movie is competently made and filmed. The chase sequences are good. When action sequences were needed, they were choreographed and filmed well. So there's a lot of building blocks in place that could've made this a really good thriller. But when the core of the film is just such an awful stench, none of that really matters.

So yeah, like I said, this is a strange return to the theaters. And I could definitely see in hindsight that there's absolutely no risk involved here in making this be the first movie for people to return to. If it fails, it was a bad movie anyways. If it succeeds, then money was made off of a bad film that otherwise would've done nothing. But hey, it was my ceremonious return to the theaters and it was fun being back. And maybe it was also good that this was my first review back because there's other movies that are certain to get more attention when I write a review of them. I can use this thing as practice so that I'm more in the groove when better movies that people will more interested in my opinion of. But all that aside, if you're looking for a movie to go see in theaters, by the time I finally got this typed and submitted, there are other options. We have "The New Mutants," "Tenet" and "The Personal History of David Copperfield" that I'm certain will be better than this one. The latter two I will be seeing soon and the first one I have indeed seen. Or you can go see classics such as "Raiders of the Lost Arc," "Jurassic Park," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Goonies," all of which have been hanging around in theaters as place holders. "Unhinged" for me gets a 5/10. 

Streaming Reviews: The Clone Wars, Tiger King, The Chosen

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 7

I’ve learned in my limited experience with Star Wars TV shows that Star Wars is a thing that may belong best in series form rather than on the big screen. Or at least I think that’s the direction I think Disney should go here. Because how many people do you see angrily complaining that “The Mandalorian” or “The Clone Wars” ruined their lives? At the very least, it would give me a breath of fresh air because the number of people hate watching an entire show that they haven’t enjoyed from day one is a lot lower than the butthurt fanboys who feel obligated to terrorize and yell at every director who attempts to do a Star Wars thing on the big screen. And if there are people hate watching a series just so they can look cool to all of their so-called internet friends, then what in the frack are you doing with your life? That’s a lot of wasted time on something that you don’t enjoy.

OK, rant against Star Wars fans out of the way, “The Clone Wars” isn’t something that I jumped on board with right away. Not that I had anything against it. I just never got around to it. I binged through the first three seasons a couple summers ago. Got stuck in the mud at the beginning of season four, then finished seasons four through seven this past month. I timed that really well because I didn’t have to wait six years to see the final season.

In regards to said final season, I will say I was finding it rather strange that they allotted themselves just 12 short episodes to wrap this thing up, then spent most of their time dragging their feet with story arcs that meant nothing to the overall plot. Because, yeah, this season is split into three sections. There’s three different story arcs, split evenly into four episodes each. The first four are classic “Clone Wars” stuff. Fun and enjoyable. But it didn’t feel like “final season” material. The second four episodes are even more confusing because, while we do learn what Ahsoka was doing following her falling out with the Jedi in season five, it was a story arc that really meant nothing and had little emotional impact.

But those last four episodes is why we’re all here. I’m a bit confuzzled as to why we didn’t start there and expand that specific story out into 12 episodes, but it is what it is. Without saying too much, these are the four episodes that connect “Clone Wars” to “Revenge of the Sith,” then continue through “Sith” by showing us what was happening to Ahsoka while Anakin was busy killing younglings and all the Jedi were busy dying by the cheapest cop-out in cinema history with Order 66. Yeah, I have my issues with “Revenge of the Sith.” It’s the best of the prequels, but it’s also extremely rushed. Mr. Lucas was so busy playing with his fancy computers in the first two movies that he ran out time to tell a proper story. Instead of expanding to five or six movies, he used Order 66 as a plot devise to consolidate three movie’s worth of content into about 10 minutes, simply because he ran out of time to finish the plot naturally.

Yet the thing that is so impressive here is that “Clone Wars” has this magic ability to take a big pile of dung and transform it into a beautiful treasure. Watching Ahsoka deal with all the clones during Order 66 was beyond captivating. And it led to a finale that was some of the best work I’ve seen in television. Like, seriously, the final 5-10 minutes of “Clone Wars” season seven is perhaps one of the best moments in Star Wars history. Movies or TV.

Tiger King

I mean, what is there to really say about “Tiger King” at this point? It’s a docuseries that had perhaps the most impeccable timing. The filmmakers filmed it over the course of several years, captured the most bizarre story we’ve seen, and just happened to release it right at the beginning of a global pandemic where we all have nothing else to do but sit in our rooms and watch Netflix. It might be hard to capture lighting in a bottle twice like this, but that’s an excellent formula for completely taking over the internet. There’s so much “Tiger King” chatter that I’ve started to see those memes pop up that say, “I have not watched a single episode of ‘Tiger King.’ I bet you can’t repost this.” As if that’s a proud statement. To which I reply, “What in the frack are you waiting for? Check it out!”

Because, yeah, the most fascinating thing about “Tiger King” is that it’s so insanely bizarre, yet there’s no one to really latch onto. Usually documentaries have some sort of angle they’re pushing or agenda they have. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They go in with a purpose and they create a narrative based on a story they want to tell. I don’t know exactly what was in the heads of the filmmakers behind “Tiger King,” but it seemed to be more along the lines of “This is a weird group of people. Let’s start filming and see what happens.” And they hit a goldmine. On one side you have a lady who probably killed her husband and spends her time hypocritically preaching “Save the animals!” when she is in fact using them for pretty much the same exact purposes as the others. And on the other hand you have a crazy redneck who owns a bunch of big cats that he should not have and got caught red-handed in his attempt to kill his lady rival of his who continues to ruin his life. And in the middle, you have a whole bunch of other weirdos who just add to the wonkiness.

And that’s the beauty of it all. Everyone’s crazy. There’s no “hero” or “protagonist” to root for. And the story just devolves into madness, proving that truth is stranger than fiction. And now we have three separate “Tiger King” shows in the works? Yeah, they’re going to milk this for all it’s worth and I’m not sure that’s a good thing, although the idea of Nic Cage starring as Joe Exotic in a “Tiger King” series is highly amusing to me. But even if we all get super sick of “Tiger King” when all is said and done, it doesn’t change the fact that this one of the strangest and most bizarre documentaries I’ve seen. Definitely worth the watch.

The Chosen

No good transition from Joe Exotic to Jesus, but “The Chosen” is a series I’ve been hearing all sorts of buzz about, yet I was oddly hesitant to jump in and experience it. And most of that has everything to do with the studio that is distributing it. VidAngel. I’ll make this short because I could go on a long rant about how VidAngel drives me crazy and how I want nothing to do with them. The thing is, they shout from the rooftops about their whole focus is family-friendly content and that they want to bring filtered content to people who don’t want all the trash that Hollywood includes, yet they have a bad case of not following the rules. Do you know why VidAngel completely exploded? No, it’s not because of filtered content. It’s because they provided a super cheap streaming service with all sorts of movies that you couldn’t find on any streaming platform. I mean, why spend $5 renting a movie on YouTube or Google Play when you could rent it on VidAngel for $1? They had a huge section of movies that they labeled something to the effect of “movies you can’t find anywhere else.”

Yet I’m the bad guy when I looked at their business model and thought it was a big load of horse manure. All the studios rightfully brought them to court for breaking every copyright law in the book, yet all they could do the whole lawsuit was play the victim card by claiming the studios were shutting them down because the studios don’t want filtered content. No, that’s not true at all. I mean, Disney was their biggest enemy, yet Disney is all about family-friendly content. It’s just that you gotta play by the rules. Like it or not, the studios own the films and they reserve the right to say whether or not someone can stream them or not. And yet again, I’m the bad guy among my friends when I claim I’m with the studios the whole time. What VidAngel was doing was 100 percent illegal. And that’s why the end of the very long lawsuit resulted in a jury ordering VidAngel to pay $62 million of damages just this past June.

So forgive me for being hesitant to support anything that VidAngel does. There’s kinda some bitter feelings there. Lucky for me I discovered there’s a free app where you can watch “The Chosen” without paying a dime. And even though they try to guilt trip you into paying for each episode, all guilt wipes away when I see the VidAngel logo in the beginning of the credits. But hey, you didn’t just come here to listen to me rant about VidAngel. You wanted my thoughts on “The Chosen.” And honestly, even with VidAngel aside, I wasn’t 100 percent sold on “The Chosen.” It’s a bit of a weird thing to put into words because I consider myself a devout Christian. It’s just that there’s such an oversaturation of movies and shows that have done so that you have to forgive me for wondering what this one will bring to the table that the other 156,987 haven’t already done. If you know what I mean.

What I will say about this that I really liked is how authentic it felt. The casting of Jesus himself is probably the best part of this series. Most other shows about Jesus do a great job of making everyone else look Middle Eastern, but Jesus often looks like he came straight from the United States or The U.K. I mean, I get it. They want to make him stand out a bit because he’s the Son of God. But some of his biggest opponents at the time didn’t buy into him because he was one of them who was now claiming to be the Messiah. Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah “hath no form of comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2 KJV). Yet often people make fun of movies about Jesus for portraying him as the “Hot Jesus.” See the issue there? Yet in this series, Jesus looked so much like everyone else that even I had a second take when he first showed up. Was that really Jesus?

The other thing I really liked is how young the apostles were. Oftentimes Peter, James, and John are portrayed as old men. Or at least men in their 40s or 50s. Yet in this series they looked like they were in their late 20s or early 30s. That’s also genius. Because you really see the naivety of their characters. Peter especially. He’s so gung ho about following Jesus, yet he has absolutely no idea what he was doing. He has all the heart and all the spirit, but he’s a child in the gospel. Jesus has to spend a lot of time teaching him and being patient with his mistakes. And when Peter’s appearance is more like a very young man who just grew into adulthood rather than a seasoned adult with decades of experience as a husband and father, it’s a lot more believable. I also like how much Peter’s brother Andrew is used in the show. He’s one of the apostles in the New Testament, but is rarely mentioned.

As far as the rest of the series goes, it’s perfectly acceptable. They spend a lot of time on the early stages of character development. And that’s certainly a positive on many fronts. But it’s also a slight hindrance because by the end of the first season, we’ve barely progressed the plot forward. Jesus’ first public miracle, changing the water to wine, begins the second half of the season. Jesus’ sermon or teaching directed at Nicodemus in John 3 is the second to last episode. At this pace, they could make 50 seasons of this show before they finally got to the end of the gospels, especially if each season is only eight episodes. And there’s a LOT of time spent of Nicodemus, Matthew and Peter’s wife. Not that those were bad arcs. The contrast of Nicodemus vs. Matthew was rather fascinating. It’s just that they could probably pick up the pace a bit in future seasons and I wouldn’t complain too much.

Speaking of future seasons, there’s another element here that’s both of positive and a bit of a hindrance. This movie has the visual and technical feel of a show that a lot of time and money was dumped into. I definitely appreciated that. But I also think that they could’ve pulled off the same or similar thing without spending so much money. I don’t know how much they put into season one, but they’ve spent the last year begging for funding for a second season. And it’s $10 million that they’re asking for. According to their app, they’re only $4 million in. And the first half of the first season showed up in April 2019. I’m not so sure a completely crowd-funded project is the best business strategy, especially if they want to do seven seasons. But they don’t really have a whole lot of options at the moment. I mean, their distributor just got ordered to fork over $62 million in between the debut of the first and second half of the initial season. So some rich Christian billionaire just needs to fork over $100 million to them so that it doesn’t take them 100 years to fund all seven seasons.

Best of the Decade Part 2: DrogeMiester's Top 50 Movies of the 2010s

Here's the moment you've all been waiting for. The second part of my best of the decade list. I honestly didn't split this in half solely for the sake of building suspense. My reasoning was mainly that a giant top 50 list would be so large that no one would read the whole thing, so splitting it in half seemed more manageable. And again, I waited this long between posts, not to build suspense, but because typing up that whole thing was exhausting, so I needed a break. But I'm not going to lie, the suspense has been kinda fun. The first part of this sparked so many questions with movies that weren't there. Was it because they were in the top half of the list or because they missed out entirely? Well, now we have the answers. And said answers are sure to present more questions, so feel free to fire away. But I will make one note here that I tried to focus this list on the movies that made more of a lasting impact on me rather than the movies that were enjoyed in the moment, then quickly forgotten, which is why you've seen more of the dark and emotionally heavy films. I've also completely abandoned my year end lists, which you may have already noticed. But nevertheless, there's no real rhyme or reason here. Just my favorite movies, whatever that may mean.

25- Split

As I've referenced once or twice, the specific order of this list isn't necessarily something that I'm completely married to. All of these movies are so good and somewhat interchangeable that their presence on the list is what means the most rather than the order I placed them in. Point in case, when I saw that "Split" was ending up in the 20s, I purposely slotted it at No. 25 so that I could use its picture as the social media preview because it's a great representation of my taste in movies. If you ask me what my favorite movie of all time is, I'm going to dance around that question and throw in something about me preferring to compartmentalize into eras or genres rather than a "best of all time." But then I'll concede and say Hitchcock's "Psycho." And Split is, well, a modern-day "Psycho." Not just in tone and style, but both Norman Bates and Kevin Wendell Crumb are villains who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. "Split" is just "Psycho" on steroids because Kevin has 24 different personalities in his head while Norman just has two. Is that concept realistic for actual D.I.D.? Well, maybe not. But in the context of this being in Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" universe, it makes perfect sense as a supervillain origin story. I just wish "Glass" would've been better.

24- Star Wars: The Last Jedi

And this is where all of you laugh at me close this list, right? Because how dare someone enjoy "The Last Jedi." I mean, didn't we all band together and decide prior to the movie's release that we were all going to trash this as the worst movie of all time? Yet here I am, not only breaking away from that by claiming it's a good movie, but I'm including it on a top half of a best of the decade list? Yep. You'd better believe it. And at least you have to give it to me for sticking to my guns and not giving into peer pressure. I'd say I'm just being facetious here, but I'm actually kinda serious on that last point. After the initial wave of hatred came in from the butthurt fanboys, I think people went in with the idea that they were supposed to hate this movie, so they came up with the worst excuses as to why they were disappointed. It's all pathetic in my opinion. Now in hindsight, the sequel trilogy did suffer as a whole from being a bit directionally compromised. JJ and Rian played a game of telephone with the trilogy rather than being in sync with their ideas. But I personally liked Rian's style more. I would've loved to see him do the entire trilogy instead of just the middle chapter. That would've been phenomenal. But I've always gravitated towards Rian's style, so are you really surprised? 

23- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

There's only one thing that I really need to say about the second chapter of this epic trilogy. Apes on horses with machine guns. Am I right? But OK. I'll say more. This is a movie that takes the complex and fascinating themes of the first one and builds on that. After a large percentage of the human race gets wiped out by a virus (uhhh... yikes!), the human characters in this, led by Gary Oldman, are simply reverting to drastic measures to save their race. They aren't the villains of the movie, but there's definitely some questionable things done. Yet can you blame them? No. Their race is going extinct. Then we have the apes. Caesar loves humans. He has a lot of respect due to his connection with his former owner. But he's also going to do what he has to in order to protect his race. Yet it's not just humans vs. apes in this movie. There's some conflicting ideas among the apes as certain of them start questioning Caesar's leadership, which leads to the most fascinating and memorable aspect of this movie. Koba vs. Caesar. If you want to talk about one scary ape, that's Koba. Again, he has solid motivation. But he's fierce and terrifying. As much as Andy Serkis rightfully gets praise for his portrayal of Caesar, Toby Kebbell deserves more credit for his portrayal of Koba. 

22- The Avengers

The movie event of the decade? This is definitely one of those unique movies that completely changed cinema. It was a risky idea to decide to build a cinematic universe, but high risk led to very high reward to the tune of $22 billion worldwide through 23 movies in the MCU thus far. Such a high payout has led every other studio to scramble to figure out how to compete as everyone is trying to build their own cinematic universes or major event films. And it's all because "The Avengers" worked. As a lifelong fan of the superhero genre, it was an absolute joy to be a part of that experience back in 2012. And I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey ever since. With "The Avengers," I watched it five or six times in theaters, being super giddy and excited every single time going in. Even to this day, this stands as an absolutely solid movie that's very well constructed. Yes, there was five movies building up to it, but even for those who skipped those five, the movie itself gave every character his or her moment as they slowly built up the team and the chemistry. This all leading to one of the most entertaining movie finales in cinema as they team up to fight off Loki's alien invasion in New York City. We're not quite done with the MCU, though, so strap in for more!

21- Prisoners

This might come as a slightly surprising entry for people who follow me closely simply because I've just not talked about this movie too much. I don't think I ever reviewed it and there's not been too many opportunities to talk about it, but once you dive into what this movie is, this will make complete sense as to why it's here. As one who's watched all 319 episodes of "Criminal Minds" and binged all of "Mindhunter" in, like, a day, crime dramas are kinda my thing. Few crime dramas have been as perfectly executed as "Prisoners." The movie stars Hugh Jackman as a father who goes completely mad when his daughter gets kidnapped and he doesn't believe the police are doing enough to find her. Hugh Jackman has done a lot of amazing work in his career, so when I tell you that his performance in "Prisoners" is the best individual performance in a movie that he's given, that should mean something to you. Although the more impressive element to this movie is the director. Every movie that Denis Villeneuve has done has been a different genre or subgenre, but he's managed to make top-notch films in every single one of those genres. He seems to have a perfect knowledge of exactly what every individual movie needs. And that's rather mindblowing.

20- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

It took me a long time to come to the realization that "The Winter Soldier" is a better movie than "The Avengers." And to this day it remains an interesting debate. Do you go for the movie that changed the movie world and made all of us superhero fans shout for joy or do you go for the movie that has the better plot and better story? As you can see, it remains close for me, but I have ultimately gone for the latter. This is the movie that most definitely put Captain America on the map as his first movie wasn't all that great. I mean, sure, "The Avengers" certainly helped. But this movie was something else. The emotion here is sky high as he realizes that his sacrifice from the first movie was ultimately for nothing and that his friend Bucky is alive, but has his mind wiped and is being used as a super soldier to attack him. Then, of course, we have the inner workings of Hydra coming to light as it's revealed that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised with Hyrda agents working in their ranks for quite some time. It's worth mentioning the brilliant performance of Robert Redford as the very underrated villain Alexander Pierce, leader of Hydra. With the decade being littered with all kinds of superhero movies, "The Winter Soldier" still stands out as one of the better ones.

19- 1917

This past year was quite the excellent year for film as "1917" is one of three movies to make this top half of the list. In fact, "1917" barely slid in at the last moment, coming out it limited release in December 2019. Most human beings, myself included, saw it in theaters THIS decade instead of last. But it still counts and is absolutely worth a mention as one of the best and most surreal war films I've ever seen. It takes the fancy camera trickery used most notably in Hitchcock's "The Rope" and 2014's "Birdaman," that of presenting the illusion of the movie being filmed in one shot, and makes the best use of it that I've personally seen. As we follow two young soldiers during World War I on a very important mission to warn the Allies that they're about to walk into a trap, this camera trickery gave me the illusion that I was walking right along with these two soldiers in a sort of quasi Virtual Reality scenario. I've watched and enjoyed a lot of war films, but I've never seen a war film where it made me feel like I was right there in the battle. That added a new level of intensity as I began to fear for my own life, not knowing at all what was around the corner. The final war film of the decade was definitely the best one to come out, at least in pertaining to historical war films.

18- Gravity

This is a tricky entry. My favorite movie of 2013 easily won that title mainly due to the theatrical experience it provided me. Back when the world still cared about 3D, this was probably the best usage of 3D as it was more than just a gimmick or a visual treat this time around. The 3D of this movie was an important part of the film's narrative as it gave the illusion that you were up in space with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. That 3D element combined with fantastic sound design provided what was certainly one of the more unique theatrical experiences as it felt like quick the personal achievement on my part that I made it back down to Earth when the movie was finished. But I will admit that, prior to creating this list, I had not seen "Gravity" since October 2013. That made it one that I had to rewatch in preparation. Does it hold up seven years later when being watched on my tiny computer screen? Actually, yes. Sure, it's a much different experience, but this movie still has a solid narrative and one of the decade's most memorable soundtracks that makes this a haunting space film. Because, yeah, this movie is quite terrifying as it puts on display the unforgiving nature of outer space, thus effectively ruining dreams of many hopeful future astronauts.

17- Ex Machina

Alex Garland is a filmmaker who is definitely on my radar after both of his first two directorial efforts made my top 50 of the decade, this one and 2018's "Annihilation." Of the two, "Ex Machina" is most definitely the standout. The funny thing about this is that on paper this doesn't sound like anything that special. A dude made a robot and he invites another dude up to his secret place to participate in an experiment regarding said robot. I mean, how often have we seen a premise regarding Artificial Intelligence and how that's maybe not the best idea in the world for humanity to play around with that? Yet despite a familiar premise, it's the execution here that provides for a rather stunning experience. This is a very meticulously crafted film that leaves you on the edge of your seat for the entire film with your heart pounding in your chest. Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleason provide solid work as our two human characters, just months before they reteamed as Poe Damron and General Hux in this little known film called "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." But it's Alicia Vikander as the A.I. named Ava that owns the screen. She actually won an Oscar that year. Personally, though, I like to pretend it was for this movie rather than "The Danish Girl." 

16- Logan

The X-Men had a bit of a wild journey this past decade. After crashing and burning in 2006 with "X-Men: The Last Stand," then failing to ignite in 2009 with "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," they officially got rebooted in 2011 and things were going good for a while until they crashed and burned again, then finished the decade being owned by a completely different studio as Disney bought Fox. But nevertheless, going along with the ride the entire time, beginning in 2000, was Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Say what you want about the X-Men. I have my fair share of harsh words. But everyone loves Hugh Jackman's legendary performance as Wolverine. And he provided quite the swan song in 2017 with "Logan," the Wolverine movie that everyone had been begging a long time for. "Deadpool" opened the door for this project's success and "Logan" rather quickly took advantage and sprinted across the finish line. But yet the most impressive thing is that, even though the movie had every right to be this bloody, insane gore-fest, the movie had a lot of restraint as it told a dark and dreary tale of a character once strong and proud, who now seemed to be the last strings of his journey. This is a movie that completely superseded its comic book genre and became a glorious and haunting film.

15- Mad Max: Fury Road

Every year provides its own set of challenges when putting together my end-of-year list. Usually, though, I can rather quickly identify the best of the bunch. However, 2015 was not that year. I struggled mightily as to what my favorite movie was. I eventually settled on a movie that was not "Mad Max: Fury Road," but yet with the help of time, "Fury Road" has definitely risen to the top as the most memorable film of that year. It's a movie that's really rather baffling in attempting to explain why. And it has nothing to do with nostalgia for me. I hadn't even seen a Mad Max film until I did a marathon of them the month this came out. The first two are decent. The third one is weird. But this fourth one is an absolute masterwork of filmmaking. And it's weird because this is such a simple movie. A group of misfits escapes the main group in an apocalyptic wasteland and the result is a movie that's essentially a big chase scene for two hours. But again, it's the execution that makes it work. The pacing is fantastic. The emotion is high. And the action sequences themselves are stunning, both in terms of the construction and choreography as well as the pure entertainment value. This is a movie that can be rewatched an endless amount of times and never get old.

14- The Babadook

Arguably the most disliked genre that I hear from my friends is that of the horror genre. For some reason the entire genre has a negative stigma with some people. And I find it quite amusing when said people watch a horror movie that they enjoy, but then immediately write it off as being a suspense or a thriller instead. This is a strange phenomenon to me that I could go off on a long rant about, but for the sake of not enough space here, I will forgo. The reason why I personally love the horror genre is that, when done right, it's a genre that has the potential to dive much deeper thematically than any other genre. "The Babadook" is a shining example of that. While, yes, there is a high level of entertainment value in the extreme levels of intensity that certain sequences bring. Namely, like, the whole second half of the movie. But this movie is way more than suspense and terror. It's an allegory for mental illness and depression. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a movie that dives deeper into the reality of depression than "The Babadook" as it uses a mysterious shadowy figure that they call the Babadook to explore the mind of a woman whose life has gone to Hell following the death of her husband. And for that, the movie leaves a lasting impression.

13- Parasite

Our most recent best picture winner is honestly one of my favorite best picture winners in quite some time. At least the best of this past decade. I'd have to check if there's anything between now and "Return of the King" that would be better. I'm also ecstatic at the idea of a foreign language film winning best picture. That was a great moment in Oscar history. As Bong Joon Ho said during his Golden Globes speech, if you can get over the one inch barrier of subtitles, there is a huge door open to you with many great films available to watch. That's me summarizing, not a direct quote, but you get the quote. If you skipped this South Korean film because you had to read subtitles, you're honestly missing one of the best movies of the decade. Bong Joon Ho is a fantastic director who really knows how to craft a film. I haven't seen all of his films, but another one of his films, "Snowpiercer," was also one that nearly made my decades list. I don't want to say a whole lot about "Parasite" because it's still fairly new and a lot of people might not have seen it, but nevertheless this is a brilliant combination of a lot of different genres that includes some extremely poignant themes that resonated quite strong with me. It's also one of the most intense films of the decade.

12- Django Unchained

In case you're keeping track, this is the second time in this post where I'm retroactively changing my favorite movie of the year. And this is a big one because it means that 2012's best movie of the year goes to Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" instead of "The Avengers." I binged all of Tarantino's movies prior to seeing "The Hateful Eight." That was quite the bloody marathon, but "Django Unchained" was one that completely blew my mind. Tarantino's second best film behind only the masterpiece that is "Pulp Fiction." In rewatching "Django," I noticed a trend with Tarantino. He has a liking of giving the metaphorical middle finger to dark times in history. In "Django" he did just that with slavery as the movie is about a black slave who gets free, becomes a bounty hunter, and uses that profession to completely annihilate the whole household of a rather brutal and mean white slave owner who wronged both him and his wife. But the movie is more than just a brutal, gore fest. It has the feel of a Western that just so happens to take place in the South and Tarantino implements the perfect amount of suspense and build-up using great acting across the board and super sharp dialogue. And, of course, it has one of the most therapeutic finales. 

11- Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Perhaps a surprise choice here that some may not be expecting to be so high? The reason for this placement is a combination of the astronomically high entertainment value of this individual movie as well as the overall achievements of the franchise as a whole. In pertaining to the latter, how many franchises can claim that they got progressively better with each film over the span of two decades without any sort of reboot? And how many of said franchises has a lead star who found the fountain of youth and is bound and determined to one-up himself in each movie? I'm not going to claim this is the ONLY franchise to achieve similar feats, but in a day where every studio wants a successful franchise, "Mission: Impossible" currently stands a gold standard. And Tom Cruise, man. Like, holy cow. There isn't anyone working today that compares. With "Fallout," specifically, he learned how to fly a helicopter so that he could shoot those scenes himself without any stunt double. Every movie he does something totally crazy and it's all him. And the man is 57 years old. With all of that in context, "Fallout" individually just happens to be one of the best action/spy thrillers to have ever been made. I challenge you to find a better sixth movie in a franchise.

10- Warrior

And now we're into the heavy hitters. The top 10 best movies of the decade. We begin this section by perhaps the most criminally overlooked film of the decade. "Warrior" did not do well at the box office and I haven't many people talk about it since. Yet everyone who I've successfully persuaded to watch it has been completely blown away. Quite honestly, I've never been into real life MMA or boxing, but in the cinematic world of that genre, I grew up loving the "Rocky" movies and I'm typically a sucker for other fighting movies. "Warrior" is in the MMA world and is the story of two brothers and their familial relationship as the enter the same MMA tournament. In terms of the MMA side of things, the fights themselves are exhilarating. Even in a recent rewatch, having known the outcomes of the fights, they are still intense and nerve-wracking. And very well choreographed. On top of that, the emotion the movie packs is intense. The two brothers and their dad have a very broken relationship that the movie explores in significant depth. The father is trying to right the wrongs of the past, but it's too little, too late in the eyes of both brothers. Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte star. Nolte got an Oscar nomination for playing the father. All three deserved one.

9- War for the Planet of the Apes

In a similar light as "Mission: Impossible," franchise achievement is what helps boost the final chapter in the new Planet of the Apes trilogy. Yeah, sure, the movie on its own is cold, dark and chilling. A fantastic movie. But the difference between a good trilogy and a great trilogy is how they stick the landing and "War" was a perfect capstone. And honestly, this has to go down in history as one of the greatest trilogies ever made. Seriously. "Star Wars." "Lord of the Rings." "Planet of the Apes." This trilogy is in that echelon. And the fact that they're all so interconnected, with a beautiful and tragic arc on both sides of the human and ape conflict, speaks volumes about how the finale wrapped everything together. But not just that. This trilogy was able to accomplish something that I don't know has actually ever happened. Create a prequel trilogy that is excellent AND ties into the original film. Because not only does this movie do a fantastic job at tying this individual trilogy together, but it also runs right into the original 1968 Charlton Heston "Planet of the Apes" film in a way that I was, quite frankly, not expecting. In fact, it gave that movie an origin story that made a lot more sense than the direct sequels to the original film, which initially established a weird time loop.

8- Lady Bird

One common theme that you will seem with some of these final films is that of life. As in movies about life really affected me. There's a couple of these major "slice of life" films here as well as movies that make you ponder about real-life themes and scenarios that consequently cause the movie to seep out beyond the confines of a fictional piece of art and thus have greater purpose than mere escapism. "Lady Bird," my top movie of 2017, is one of these direct slice of life movies. There's not specifically one particular story arc that the movie follows. Rather, it follows the journey of a high school senior as she lives out her final year with her parents and then moves off to college. Thus it might be a slightly nontraditional narration than your typical three-act structure, but the way all of it is framed and constructed by director Greta Gerwig is done in such a way that causes you to soak in so many different themes and messages along the way that hit home. In fact, I remember my drive home after initial seeing this was super emotional. I broke down and became homesick. I missed my high school. I missed my home town. I missed my family. I missed my friends. I missed the simple pleasures of life that I often took for granted. It was an extremely overwhelming experience.

7- Joker

To those who might have been somewhat surprised by my pick of "Joker" as the best movie of last year, and might again be surprised as seeing it as the seventh best movie of the entire decade, it all makes sense when you actually think about. "Joker" was the perfect storm of things that I love. I'm no major respector of companies when it comes to superhero or comic book movies, but if you make me choose, I've grown up with DC and have thus had a stronger overall connection to it than Marvel. I love the Batman universe. Joker is one of my favorite villains. And I love movies that are deeply psychological. Sure, I was as nervous as anyone when this was announced because I don't think Joker needed an origin story, And from the director of the dude who did "The Hangover" trilogy? Say what? But despite all the odds, this simply connected on every level. Some may have been critical due to it being too much like an old Scorsese movie. I think that connection made it beautiful. It's a dark and terrifying character study of a man who was rejected by society. Some also have claimed it's a dangerous film. To that I say... why? Because it's real? Remember what I just said in regards to movies about real life? Sometimes real life is dark, brutal and unforgiving.

6- The Witch

Is this an empowering movie about a young girl who is finally able to break away from the foolish traditions of her family and accept who she truly is? Or is it a tragic tale of a young girl who tried her best to follow what she knew was right, but was ultimately unable overcome the forces of darkness? Is it a movie that rejects Christianity as fraudulent and binding while painting witchcraft and devil worship as a delicious and exciting path? Or is it a movie that acknowledges the reality of the devil and paints a cautionary tale about what could happen to even the most faithful Christian families if they let down their guard? As a devout Christian myself, you obviously know the angle I choose to take on this one. A lot of horror movies can be unconventionally spiritual and profound in ways that traditional religious films are completely incapable of. But in an awkward turn of events, "The Witch" is a movie that was actually endorsed by modern Satanic worshipers, so what's the actual answer to what this movie really is? I don't know. And director Robert Eggers purposely chooses to not take sides or give any easy answers, which makes this one of the most fascinating and disturbing horror films I've seen. I can't really recommend this. But if you do see it, let's talk.

5- Toy Story 3

There's no easy transition going from "The Witch" to "Toy Story 3." Now just imagine the confused look on my face when I sat down and forced myself to pick which one was better. I think I stared at that screen for five whole minutes. But in continuing this theme about life, here's a quick snapshot into my younger life. I grew up with "Toy Story." In fact, I was around Andy's age when the original came out in 1995. We had Woody and Buzz toys growing up. That movie was one of the movies that was on a constant rotation in our house. That VHS was very well used. With all that in context, you're telling me that Pixar makes another Toy Story sequel during the summer before my first full year of college in 2010? And the movie is about Andy moving away to college and having to say goodbye to his childhood while giving his old toys away? Talk about timing there, Pixar. This is a studio that has excelled in pulling at your heartstrings in multiple different ways. Everyone has their own favorite Pixar film because Pixar is able to speak to each person on a personal level through at least one of their movies. "Toy Story 3" was that movie for me. Pixar probably would've had more representation on this list, but the other movies in my top five Pixar rankings came out in different decades.

4- Avengers: Infinity War

You can go ahead and peak at the top three if you want, but I'll just make the reveal right here. "Avengers: Endgame" did not make the cut. It fell entirely out of the top 50 for me. We can discuss that in more detail later on if you want, but for me it was "Avengers: Infinity War" that was the more memorable experience. Here's the thing. I really enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A LOT. They have their formula down and I'm a complete sucker for that formula. Yet there are some slight negative consequences to having that formula down so well. One of them is that it doesn't open the door for them too wide to be super crazy and bold. I'm not saying they need to. But that's just the reality of it. And I think that is why "Infinity War" is super memorable because it's the one Marvel movie where I had no idea what was going to happen. The tone is set early on when they kill off Loki right at the beginning. I spent the entire movie living in fear and terror that any one of the other characters who I've grown to love could easily get the ax at the hands of Thanos. Then they ended the movie by doing the unthinkable. Thanos won. He accomplished his mission. Then we spent a whole year on quite the extreme cliffhanger waiting for what the aftermath of all of it would be.

3- Boyhood

Some called this movie a gimmick. I wholeheartedly disagree. Sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but for me this was one of the most mind-blowing cinematic experiences ever. Yes, there's been plenty of movies made in the style of "Forrest Gump" where we watch our lead character grow up on screen. But usually they switch actors when they present the passage of time. "Boyhood" did not. Richard Linklater took quite the gamble when he chose to cast a fictional family, then spend the next 12 years filming a movie, wherein he would film for about once a week every year. The end result was the king of the "slice of life" movies because our main kid was a very young kid at the beginning of the movie and off to college at the end. And again, it was the same actor. We literally watched him grow up on screen. "But Adam, this movie had no plot!" Of course it did! Not a conventional one. But the plot can be summed up in one word. And you guessed it. LIFE. Life has many stories interwoven along the way and I enjoyed all of them. I was so invested in this movie that it was probably the shortest three hours of my life. We got to college and I was ready to watch the next 12 years of his life. It could've been a sequel we called "Manhood." What a journey that would've been.

2- La La Land

Does the fact that I interviewed director Damien Chazelle shortly after seeing this movie a month early for my internship at the time cause me to be biased towards "La La Land"? Abso-FREAKING-lutely! I mean, who said I had to be objective here? This is MY list. And I loved this movie so much that I probably ruined it for some of you, who then turned around and hated it because you didn't quite love it as much me and thus didn't understand the hype. But in fairness, you didn't interview the director after seeing it. All that said, I loved this movie before that interview. Me and my friend who I was allowed to invite were on Cloud Nine and were so excited to share this movie with the world when it came out to the public. Fast forward nearly three and a half years, and this movie was still super impactful for me last month when I rewatched in preparation for this. In fact, probably more so. In short, it's a movie about dreaming. But instead of drifting off into a fantasy world of rainbows and butterflies, it takes a -- yep, you guessed it -- real life approach to dreaming. Because sometimes life takes you in a much different direction than you anticipated. And sometimes you then reflect back on all the "what ifs" of life. And I've done all of that more than my fair share of times.  

1- Inception

I considered trolling everyone by putting something like "Cats" or "The Emoji Movie" at No. 1 just to throw everyone off. In all seriousness, I watched "La La Land" and "Inception" back-to-back last month in order to figure out in my mind which one of them was my No. 1. It was a difficult decision, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that "Inception" is really the only choice here. Christopher Nolan set a really high bar at the start of the decade. And although many movies came close, ultimately no movie was able to top "Inception." And it's a movie that's so beautifully complex that it's a gift to the world that keeps on giving. When I first watched this movie, my friends and I sat on a bench in Taco Bell and spent at least an hour or two simply trying to figure out what the frack we just watched. Ten years later, I can still have a similarly detailed conversation with friends and family after watching it. And I continue to gain new insights along the way with each watch. But it's not just the complexity factor in play, this is a movie that covers just about every emotion from being wildly entertaining to deeply depressing. And it hits a whole plethora of genres along the way. It's truly one of the most unique and thrilling cinematic experiences in the history of... ever.