Movie Preview: February 2017

The first month of 2017 is in the books and it closes having come just $50 million shy of becoming the third straight January to hit the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office. Leading the way were December holdovers "Rogue One" and "Sing" followed closely by January expansion "Hidden Figures." The top January release was the surprise run of M. Night Shyamalan's "Split," which grabbed $81 million in it's first two weeks in theaters. "La La Land," the favorite to win best picture at the Oscars after a record-tying 14 Oscars nominations this past month, rounded out the top five having earned $78 million of its overall $110 million so far in the month of January. Now we head into February, which historically speaking is one of the worst months of the year. Since 2010, the only months to have a lower average at the box office have been September and October. This is most likely due to the holiday holdovers dying down, forcing the box office to rely mostly on the new releases, which typically aren't too strong in the first two months of the year. This February should have a strong showing on the weekend before Valentine's Day, but may struggle the other weekends, leading to a box office that should average out as a normal February. Let's dive in and check it out!

February 1st - 3rd-

The first weekend of February will see two new releases limp into theaters on one of the worst weekends of the year for the box office as most Americans will be watching the Patriots face off against the Falcons in Super Bowl LI instead of heading out to the movie theaters, making this essentially a two-day weekend. As such, M. Night Shyamalan's "Split" should be able to fend off the newcomers, pulling off the unexpected three-peat on top of the box office. Leading the newcomers will be the horror movie Rings. The Ring franchise began in the late 90's with the Japanese film "Ringu," which spawned several other sequels and spin-offs before being remade in America in 2002 with "The Ring," which impressed with $129.1 million domestically. "The Ring Two" didn't do quite as well three years later, but still pulled in $76.2 million. Now the real question is do people really want this franchise back or is this just a quick attempt at a cash grab? The movie has bounced around like a ping-pong ball on the calendar before settling in on this weekend and, as of the publishing of this post, has a mere 7 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 30 reviews. The general premise with this franchise is that if you watch a certain video, you die seven days later unless you can find the way out. 

Looking like it may be dead on arrival will be STX Entertainment's sci-fi film The Space Between Us. This is another movie that got bounced around a bit as it was initially slated for a summer 2016 release before being postponed to December. Realizing that releasing a sci-fi film on the same weekend as "Rogue One" and one weekend before "Passengers," STX smartly pushed it back again to this weekend. Turns out it may not have made much of a difference anyways as this is looking to debut outside the top five, despite being released on an already poor weekend in just under 3,000 theaters. Hurting it's cause are the abysmal reviews which currently stand at 16 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 65 reviews counted. The movie stars Asa Butterfield as a the first human ever born on Mars who isn't able to come to Earth until he's 16 years old. When he finally gets the chance, with the help of a girl played by Britt Robertson, he is able to experience the wonders of Earth for the very first time.

February 10th - 12th-

With Valentine's Day landing on a Tuesday this year, it's the weekend before Valentine's Day that Hollywood has loaded up on with three wide releases that should make a huge impact at the box office and hold well throughout the month. It'll be the family-friendly movie against two adult-targeted movies and it looks like the family-friendly movie will be the one that will win out, and that is The LEGO Batman Movie. It was 2014 that essentially proved that big-budget movies CAN do well in February when "The LEGO Movie" opened to $69.1 million on it's way to $257.8 million total. Since then Hollywood has been more confident in scheduling big movies in February with "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Deadpool" also doing well in the past two years. Despite not getting an Oscar nomination for best animated feature, "The LEGO Movie" was one of the most well-liked animated movies of 2014, with the character of Batman being one of people's favorite parts. Now that version of Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, will be getting his own movie that looks to poke fun at the long history of the character with many of the classic Batman characters showing up in some form. This will be the first of two LEGO Movie spin-offs this year as "The LEGO Ninjago Movie" is currently slated for September.


As I just mentioned, a year after "The LEGO Movie" opened to $69.1, the worldwide phenomenon that was "Fifty Shades of Grey" broke the February opening weekend record with an $85.2 million opening. The previous record was held by "The Passion of the Christ," which opened to $83.8 million late in February 2004 and played very well throughout that Easter season. "Fifty Shades of Grey" only held that record for a year as last year "Deadpool" opened to $132.4 million. The popularity of "Fifty Shades of Grey" in 2015 means that the world will be graced with the entire trilogy, which continues with Fifty Shades Darker. Given the strong negative reaction towards the first movie from everyone that didn't read the books, this sequel won't win any new audience members and thus probably won't hit the box office level that its predecessor hit, but fans of the franchise will still turn out in droves, especially since this is the only romance movie option this Valentine's Day. The novels began as a "Twilight" fan-fiction and are now well-known for their erotic sex-sequences that implement BDSM. The movie franchise is scheduled to conclude next February with "Fifty Shades Freed."

Looking to come in third place on the weekend, but certainly not be ignored will be John Wick: Chapter Two. With "The LEGO Batman Movie" targeting family audiences and "Fifty Shades Darker" targeting the adult female audience, there will be something for everyone this weekend as "John Wick: Chapter Two" will be targeting the adult male audience looking for an action movie. "John Wick" arrived in theaters in October 2014 with almost no anticipation and only opened to $14.4 million. However, despite the lack of anticipation and small opening weekend, reaction to the movie itself was very positive as the movie surprised a lot of people by how good it was. This led to a healthy hold at the box office as it finished with $43.0 million. The positive word of mouth continued to spread as the movie gained a bit of a cult following post-release. This reaction was good enough for everyone involved to feel comfortable moving forward with the sequel, which has been highly anticipated ever since it was announced. Online buzz for the film is currently very strong. All things considered, this should make for one of the highest grossing weekends in February to date.

February 17th - 20th-

And that's about it for February. The rest of the month is our typical February fare. Movies that studios don't care much about so they throw in February just to see if they can earn a quick buck or two before they focus on their movies that they actually have confidence in. Leading the way in this is The Great Wall. In talking about this movie, one can't help but think of last February's "Gods of Egypt," a white-washed, effects driven movie with a bizarre plot and laughably written characters. "The Great Wall" isn't necessarily a white-washed movie. It's a Chinese-themed movie about the Great Wall of China with "European" travelers played by Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe leading the way. It does have Chinese actors everywhere else, though, so there's a plus. Otherwise the movie tells the fictional story that they built the Great Wall of China... to fend off a horde of monsters? Like I said, an effects driven movie with a bizarre plot thrown in February that looks like a major flop waiting to happen. I don't know if anyone is actually excited for this, but some might go see it just so that they can laugh at how dumb it is. Or hey, maybe it will surprise us all!

The second throwaway movie of the weekend is Ice Cube's Fist Fight. If you've ever had a burning desire to see two of your high school teachers get in a fist fight after school, then Warner Bros. has made your dream movie. Or not. Because that would also assume that you've also dreamed that one of these teachers was Ice Cube and the other one was a scared wimp. Because this is a movie where Charlie Day plays a teacher who gets his fellow teacher, played by Ice Cube, fired and now Ice Cube is angry and wants to pick a fight. Seems like the perfect role for Ice Cube given that he always seems to have a forever angry look on his face even when he is happy. Now Ice Cube has been on a role recently as his two "Ride Along" films both opened over $35 million around this time of year. And he's also played roles in the recent Barbershop sequel as well as 21 and 22 Jump Street. Plus, the movie "Straight Outta Compton" put his backstory in the spotlight. So it's feasible that this could end up as the highest grossing new release of the weekend. Although I imagine neither will come close to dethroning "The LEGO Batman Movie." It might even be a battle for third or fourth place.

Last and most certainly least on this weekend will be A Cure for Wellness. This is the second of three February horror films following "Rings" and preceding "Get Out." This sees director Gore Verbinski return to the director's chair for the first time since the epic financial disaster that was "The Lone Ranger." After Verbinski directed the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, that whole crew was brought on to do "The Lone Ranger" and they were given a budget way higher than they should've been given, causing Disney to lose a buttload of money on the project. That's the end of that story. No surprise he now returns doing a low-budget horror film instead of another big-budget blockbuster. Speaking of "Rings," the last time Verbinski directed a horror film was "The Ring" in 2002, which was a major success. So there's a positive for this movie. The movie stars Dane DeHaan as a young executive who is sent to a wellness center in the Swiss Alps and realizes that the "cure" they are given there really isn't a cure.

February 24th - 26th-

Our final horror film of the month could actually be a sleeper hit and that is Get Out. This movie comes from the mind of Jordan Peele, one half of the comedy duo Key and Peele. This will see the comedy genius go in a much different direction in his directorial debut from his usual comedic outings as this is definitely not a comedy. The movie stars Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams as Chris and Rose, an interracial couple who decide it's time to meet her parents. Rose never told her parents that she is dating a black man, which becomes a major problem. When they arrive, Chris is somewhat relieved to see another black man there, but when Chris approaches him, the man yells at Chris to "Get out!" The movie debuted this past month at the Sundance Film Festival and came out of that with a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes after 16 reviews, meaning the Sundance crowd loved it. Sundance doesn't always translate into mainstream success, but that's definitely a great start that should get people curious after the strong negative reaction to the trailers turned a lot of people off.

The final two movies of the month are two smaller movies that look like the could also be dead on arrival. The first of the two was a late addition to the calendar and that is Collide. The cast in the movie is big as it stars Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley. The tagline here is "How far would you go for the one you love?" Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones are in love and Felicity Jones gets kidnapped by a ring of drug smugglers led by Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley, so to save Felicity Jones, Nicholas Hoult is forced to get involved with these guys in an effort to save her life and now we have a big action thriller dumped in the end of February. Let's just say that it looks like these four actors lost a bet and were forced to do this movie. This was released in a small handful countries last year that included China, Japan and Germany in which it made just under $3 million total.

And finally we will end this by talking about the movie that has a high probability of making the least amount of money this month and that is the animated film Rock Dog. In this movie, the sheep live in harmony, but the dog that was bred to guard them would rather be a rock star than a guard dog. One day, a radio falls from his sky that gives him the motivation to go to the city to live his dream. Based on the animation and the story, as well as the lack of a major animation studio putting this together, this looks like it was made as a direct-to-DVD animated film aimed at three-year-olds that got thrown into theater last minute. This is distributed by Summit Entertainment, which also distributed the animated film "The Wild Life" this past September, which opened to $3.3 million and made $8.0 million total. That's probably a good range for this movie. Other comparisons from last year that come to mind include "Norm of the North" ($6.8 million/$17.1 million) and "Ratchet and Clank" ($4.9 million/$8.8 million).

The Founder Review

 

This past summer I was really anticipating the August release of "The Founder." It starred Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc and was the story of how McDonald's came to be the giant fast-food empire that it is now. I like Michael Keaton. I always have. And his last two live action movies that he starred in (discounting his voice work in "Minion") both won best picture at the Oscars, that being "Birdman" and "Spotlight." Could he make it three in a row with "The Founder"? Would the Oscars feel bad for not giving him the "Birdman" win and completely snubbing him in "Spotlight" and give him the gold trophy for "The Founder"? I wasn't sure, but I thought these were real possibilities and so I was excited to see the movie. Then they did something that angered me and postponed this from August to December at last minute. That made sense if they were going to promote this to the Oscars. But then they pushed it back again to January. No, they didn't give it a qualifying run in December and expand it in January. They just put it in January. I don't know if it was somehow eligible for the Oscars, but it certainly wasn't promoted if so and it got zero nominations. I think Weinstein dropped the ball there, but it's whatever. It's almost six months later and now I finally got to see it, so all is well!

I'll be honest, I wasn't 100 percent sold on the premise of the movie alone. I was sold because it starred Michael Keaton and was directed by John Lee Hancock, director of "The Rookie," "The Alamo," "The Blind Side" and "Saving Mr. Banks." I'm not sure if I've seen "The Alamo" from 2004, but the other three are all good movies, the best of the bunch being "Saving Mr. Banks." Turns out he has yet another good film to add to his resume, because "The Founder" was a movie that I really enjoyed. Although for different reasons than I was expecting going in. I thought this was going to be a happy, feel-good movie about a man who was struggling as a businessman until he finally struck gold with his McDonald's idea and changed the world. Or at least the food industry with the idea of having fast-food chains across America. That's not quite what this movie is, though. As it turns out, Ray Kroc was a pretty scandalous guy. Yes, he was a struggling businessman and yes, McDonald's was a revolutionary idea that he gets a lot of deserved credit for. But he got from Point A to Point B is a bit shady. Nothing illegal. But definitely morally questionable. That's why I found this fascinating.

I'm not going to dive deep into spoilers with this film, but I will discuss a lot of the themes of the movie that I didn't know much about going in. If you want to know nothing about this film, feel free to stop reading right here and go see the movie for yourself. I'm totally fine with that. Just know that the movie gets my stamp of approval because of the ethical discussion that it will most assuredly cause after you see it. If you see it with friends, then you're going to have quite the interesting discussion afterwards. If you see it by yourself, then you have a lot to think about and ponder over after seeing this movie. That's what I loved about this. If you're still with me at this point in the review, let's carry on and dive into some of this stuff. If you're like me and you were wondering why the founder of McDonald's was a man by the name of Ray Kroc, well it's because Ray Kroc didn't really come up with the idea of McDonald's or the fast-food system. Dick and Mac McDonald, two brothers, came up with the idea of McDonald's and Ray Kroc stumbled upon it when the brothers purchased several of his milk shake mixers and immediately became involved.

The big controversy with this movie was what Ray Kroc did when he became involved with the McDonald brothers. Ray Kroc's idea was to franchise this restaurant out and have millions of locations around the world. The brothers had tried doing this, but weren't pleased with the results, so they were fine with keeping the number of locations to a minimum. They allowed him to expand the franchise, but since they were the owners, they were very strict with what they allowed him to do and this led to the two sides butting heads on numerous occasions. We obviously all know the final result of this this feud given that there's a McDonald's on practically every street corner in the United States, but it's how it unfolds that makes this movie so intriguing. Michael Keaton does a very good job at playing this eccentric man full of energy and ideas that will go to any length to be successful. He's very persistent and that's how he succeeds. He's not necessarily a super genius or a super human. He's simply an average man who is persistent in his goals and never gives up. In many ways, that's an inspirational lesson for us all. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary tasks if they put their mind to something and never give up.

But at the same time, how far should one be willing to go to achieve their goals. What's the opportunity cost? If you have the opportunity to be monetarily successful in life, what are you giving up to get to that point? And is it worth it? Is it better to be a successful millionaire who owns the biggest fast-food chain in the world or is it better to be content with simply owning one family restaurant and being happy as a family? I'm sure you get where I'm going with this, but in spelling it out, you begin the movie by rooting for Ray Kroc to succeed. He's been struggling in life to this point to no avail and you want to see him catch his lucky break and make it. But partway through, he almost becomes the villain of the movie with the McDonald brothers being the two you are rooting for. Thus you can almost call this movie a tragedy in how it works itself out. Ray Kroc is so persistent in his goal of making McDonald's a franchise that he lets the idea consume his whole soul and he does some despicable things in order to accomplish this goal. Nothing illegal. But very morally questionable. Meanwhile you start to feel really bad for the McDonald brothers because you see their vision slipping from their hands due to how crazy this Ray Kroc has become in achieving his personal goals.

This movie isn't anti-McDonald's. Even if it was, it's nothing McDonald's couldn't handle as their history has never been short of controversy. What this movie is is a reflection of corporate America. The business world is a dangerous world with a lot of harsh realities. It would be unfair to paint the business world as being all rainbows and butterflies. It's not just about having a good idea. It's about the persistence and the execution of that idea. Ray Kroc wasn't the one that had the initial good idea. That was the McDonald brothers. But it wasn't the McDonald brothers that ended up being successful with their initial idea. It was Ray Kroc because he took their idea and ran with it. Their is a constant debate about big business vs. small business. Companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart may get a lot of flack, but there is a reason why they are successful. Are you going to always shop at the small, local grocery stores or are you going to go to Wal-Mart and save money? McDonald's has become synonymous with America, but it's never been all rainbows and butterflies. It's that moral ambiguity that really made me enjoy this movie. Michael Keaton, John Lee Hancock and company did a remarkable job at putting this idea on the big screen.

In the end, I enjoyed the journey that this movie took me on. I will admit that the first half of the movie was fairly by the numbers and nothing special, but given that I was expecting a happy, feel-good movie about how to be successful in life against all odds, I really appreciated that this movie ended up as a morally ambiguous film that turns the idea of success into a very gray area. I wouldn't put this performance on the level of "Birdman" or "Spotlight" for Michael Keaton, but yet he does a great job at portraying this complex, eccentric character that makes a lot of questionable decisions on his road to success. Keaton also has a great supporting cast around him led by Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from "Parks and Rec") and John Carroll Lynch as Dick and Mac McDonald. This was a great movie feud that had me rooting for the McDonald brothers even though I knew what the outcome of the movie would be. I'm not actually sure what year this movie technically belongs in, but I'm calling it a 2017 film since that's when its theatrical release began. Although I don't think that really matters since it's not quite good enough to make it onto an end of year list, but it's definitely worth seeing if you like morally ambiguous films. I'm giving "The Founder" an 8/10.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage Review

If you have no idea what the "xXx" movie franchise is, let me get one item of business out of the way. I don't know if anyone was thinking of this, but in case you were, "xXx" refers to extreme sports in this instance. As in the X Games or X-treme sports. Skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling in the winter. Biking, skateboarding, BMX in the summer. That sort of thing. Not the XXX movie rating given to heavily pornographic films. These movies are PG-13 rated "turn off your brain" action films about extreme sports athletes recruited by the government to save the world. They are really dumb movies, but that's their goal. When you know you are a dumb movie franchise and you own it and run with it, you can be super entertaining. Think "Sharnado." A really awful movie. But an intentionally awful movie that is super entertaining because of it. I fully recognize that not everyone is on board with these types of movies. Some people absolutely hate "Sharknado" and I get it. Call it an acquired taste if you will. But I dig them. If done right. There's definitely a different set of standards to judge movies like this by and if done wrong, they can be cringe-worthy like "Zoolander 2." But in my opinion, "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" is a dumb movie done right and I had a blast with it.

As far as my history with this franchise, I did not see the first two movies in theaters back in 2002 and 2005 respectively. I watched them in summer of 2010 or 2011. My younger brother was leaving for the summer for some sort of Army thing and he requested that I hold onto his movie collection until he got back. As a part of his collection, he owned both "xXx" and "xXx: State of the Union." I watched both of them that summer. "xXx" was a unique experience for me. For a good portion of the first half of the movie, I thought the movie was really stupid with no entertainment value. I almost turned it off and moved onto something else. But either the movie started getting better or something happened to my brain cells because I started really enjoying it. By the end of the movie, I was grinning like a little two year old. I put in the "xXx: State of the Union" shortly after and hated it. Zero entertainment value. The big problem was that they killed off Vin Diesel and replaced him with Ice Cube. Wrong move. Ever since the movie was released, rumors of Vin Diesel returning for a third movie existed, but it never came to fruition. Until now. 12 years after "State of the Union" hit theaters. It was more of a six or seven year wait for me, but I am so glad this movie finally happened.

The undeniable comparison to the "xXx" franchise is "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. The original movie "The Fast and the Furious" was released in 2001, a year before "xXx." Both movies were dumb, over-the-top movies starring Vin Diesel and I had a similar reaction to both films. At first I was not bought in, but by the end, I was completely sold. I'll dive deeper into "The Fast and the Furious" franchise later this year when "The Fate of the Furious" comes out, but a quick overview is that Vin Diesel left in the second movie and the quality went way down. The third movie had no returning cast and was completely useless. In the fourth movie, everyone returned and the franchise returned to its guilty pleasure status of being a fun, dumb movie. Then something crazy happened as "Fast Five" was not dumb at all, but extremely epic and one of the best heist movies ever. "Fast and Furious 6" was straight up entertaining and "Furious 7" was not only super entertaining, but also super emotional as Paul Walker died before they finished filming. "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" doesn't hit the levels of films five through seven in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, but I would say it's on the line of the fourth film as it successfully gets the franchise back on track.

If I'm being honest, Vin Diesel is not that great of an actor. I don't ever think he's going to be the type of guy that's ever getting an Oscar nomination for his acting skills, but the man has a lot of charm and charisma. He completely carried the first "xXx" and "The Fast and the Furious" movies on his back and when he left both franchises, it's no coincidence that both franchises went downhill. It's also no coincidence that his return to both franchises is what got both of them back on track. This type of dumb action film is his thing and he does a great job with them, even if he's not much of a stunt person. He's also perfect as the voice of Groot in "Guardians of the Galaxy" as he manages to put so much personality into a character who only has one line of dialogue. So yeah, I love Vin Diesel. I was angry when they killed his character in "State of the Union." An Ice Cube led "xXx" movie just was't the same. Ice Cube is a rapper turned actor who is a horrible actor with no charm and charisma. He looks and sounds like he's going to punch someone in the face at any given moment and I find him really annoying. Almost every Ice Cube left movie has completely turned me off. I know a lot of people love him as a rapper and actor, but he's a man I just don't get.

As far as plot goes, I'm sure you caught this by now, but Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage. And he's back. That's all you really need to know. They tried to put some sort of script together for this movie, but I honestly don't think they ever got past a first draft. They never really explain how he faked his death, we're just supposed to accept the fact that he did and has been hanging out in some exotic place for like 11 years or so. I don't really remember how they found him or why he specifically was needed for another mission, but he is. The mission involves a thing called Pandora's Box, which apparently controls satellites and is being used to crash satellites into various parts of the world, so they need to hunt down the box. The military tries to give Vin Diesel a team of soldiers to work with, but he's like, "Screw you," and dumps them off a plane, then recruits his own team of extreme sports people and they're off to save the world! In other words, we spend a lot of time focusing on Vin Diesel returning and then we set up a team like they have in "The Fast and the Furious." That's kinda cool. They're trying to make this even more like "The Fast and the Furious" and I'm totally down with that. After we do both things, crazy stuff happens. And that's essentially the whole movie.

I will admit that this took a while to get going for me. I went in with a lot of excitement. I admit that I was probably more excited than I should've been, but whatever. I enjoyed a few of the opening scenes and then spent a lot of time being fake excited before I realized I wasn't having as much fun as I wanted to be having. Then the movie tried to do too much story and wandered a bit. I started to get worried, but then I remembered the same thing happened with the first movie, so I decided to be patient. In the meantime I tried for a while to understand this overly complicated plot involving Pandora's Box, but then I was like, "Screw it" and completely turned off my brain and relaxed in my chair. Eventually the same phenomenon happened with the first movie where either I lost too many brain cells and thus started to be entertained at dumb things that happened or the movie itself may have gotten better. I don't know which one it is, but I loved the second half of this movie. It's exactly what I wanted it to be. This new team even grew on me as the movie went along. I loved Ruby Rose and Donnie Yen most, but the others were cool, too. Eventually. The plot completely changed like three times. Almost without warning. But that was whatever.

As far as a recommendation goes, this one is easy. If you loved "xXx," then you should see this movie. You'll probably love this, too. If you somehow also loved "xXx: State of the Union," you should definitely see this because it is miles better than that movie. If you think this franchise is dumb, then I don't why you would bother with this third movie. It's not going to convert you. A lot of critics have pointed out just how poorly made this movie is when it comes to all the filmmaking aspects like plot, dialogue, acting, editing, etc. And they're right. If someone calls this an awful movie that they hated, I'm not going to dispute any of their specific points. For me I was able to somehow look past all of that and have a good time, anyways. This is not on the level of the most recent three "Fast and Furious" movies. But it is on the level of the first and fourth "Fast and Furious" movies as well as the first "xXx" movie. They aren't that great. But I enjoyed them anyways. That's why they are called guilty pleasures. "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" gave me everything that I was hoping for in a "xXx" movie and I hope they continue with this franchise because I'm on board. Financially it hasn't done well in the United States, but overseas is currently saving it, so that's good news. My grade is an 8/10.

Hidden Figures Review

Oscar nominations were announced earlier this week and sneaking into the lineup for best picture was the movie "Hidden Figures." I don't make my own predictions as to what's going to get nominated. I make predictions for what I think is going to win in February right before the awards are given out. But I do follow predictions year round from various places and "Hidden Figures" was a movie that was on the fence. Sometimes there's a movie that sneaks into the race last minute based that wasn't on many people's radars in the months leading up to the nominations and this year "Hidden Figures" was that movie. Two months ago no one was talking about "Hidden Figures." Right now a lot of people are after strong reviews led to a phenomenal January box office performance where it dethroned "Rogue One" from the top spot and remained there for two weeks and now is about to hit $100 million at the domestic box office. This weekend "La La Land" and "Hidden Figures" will be the 27th and 28th 2016 releases to hit that $100 million domestic mark. And do you know what? I'm happy for "Hidden Figures" getting all this attention. It's a very family-friendly, feel-good movie!

In case you are wondering, I did manage to see "Hidden Figures" before I made my top 10 best movies of 2016 list. And no, it didn't make that list. But that's not an insult to the movie. That's just a compliment to how good of a year 2016 ended up being. In terms of 2016 Civil Rights themed movies, I prefer "Loving" over "Hidden Figures," but not by much. "Loving" did make my list at No. 9 while "Hidden Figures" was a part of my honorable mentions at No. 16. I'm sure you've heard of it by now, but in case you haven't, "Hidden Figures" is a biopic focusing on three black ladies in the 1960's working for NASA. The focus of the movie is mainly on mathematician Katherine Goble, played by Taraji P. Henson, but we also get side stories along the way focusing on Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monáe, and Dorothy Vaughan, played by Octavia Spencer. This is the point in history where the United States was trying to get a man in space. John Glenn was the man. NASA needed some extra help and Katherine Goble was extremely influential in making that happen due to her top-notch math skills. Yes, math is cool. And useful. Math put a man in space!

One thing that I really loved about this movie is that it told a story that I didn't know much about. I think everyone knows that John Glenn in 1962 became the first American to orbit the Earth. Speaking of Glenn, talk about a timely tribute to the man considering he passed away just a month ago. But the movie doesn't focus on that John Glenn story that we all know. The movie focuses on all the behind the scenes stuff that made that happen. I don't know if you all knew this story of Katherine Goble. If you did, give yourself a pat on the back. Being that I'm not a historian, I didn't know about this and given the title of the movie, "Hidden Figures," the prediction here is that not many do. The movie tells the story of the "hidden figures" that made a huge difference. Like "Loving," this isn't a movie that shoves Civil Rights in your face. Not that doing so is a bad thing. That can be super effective. But this movie tells a simple story about some black ladies that made a difference in a time where a lot of people weren't allowed to make a difference. I personally really enjoyed watching this movie because it was super informative. I might not be a historian, but I love myself a good history lesson if done right. We may know the end goal, but I enjoyed learning what got them there.

Another thing I loved about this movie is that they weren't afraid to stick with the PG rating. We have an annoying stereotype with the MPAA that R is for adults, PG-13 is for teenagers and PG is for kids. G rarely exists and thankfully NC-17 is a rarity as well. I don't really like this. There's a lot of movies that are either R or PG-13 just because they want to target an older audience. I've seen countless number of movies that are almost PG in content, but because they're afraid that no adults will watch their movie if they're PG, they throw in some useless strong language just to get their R or PG-13. If the language or other content is essential to make your movie more emotional, then fine. Watered down movies are annoying, too. But if you have a movie whose subject matter doesn't need any "adult content," why not just have the guts to keep it out? Let's have more PG movies for adults like "Hidden Figures." Because why not? Destroy the stereotype. Yes, this movie is PG. But no, it's not for kids. Not that it's inappropriate. It has a bit of mild language and that's all. It's just a movie that younger kids are going to be bored if they watch. And that's perfectly fine. We have "Moana" and "Monster Trucks" for kids. We have "Hidden Figures" for adults. All under one rating. Genius, right?

If you're wondering why your kids will be bored with this movie, it's because that most of this movie is a math movie. Parts of it do drag on a bit, but not too much. For the most part I found it fascinating. All throughout grade school we were all forced to learn math. And as we did so, the big question that many of us asked is how is this math going to be relevant to us in real life. This movie helps answer that. Most kids have a dream of being an astronaut and going to space. While a very small percentage of kids with that dream grow up to actually follow in the footsteps of John Glenn, growing up to be like Katherine Goble, using math to send people to space, is a realistic option. Maybe you don't work for NASA specifically, but there are a lot of cool job opportunities that you can have by being good at math. While math teacher is a very respectable option, that's not the only option out there and I think this movie does a fantastic job at showing us that math is cool. I'm more of a words and numbers person rather than a math person, thus I didn't understand most of their formulas and equations even though I recognized most of the symbols, but I still found it fascinating.

Of course I can't end this review without talking about the acting. There's been friendly debate as to who in this movie deserved the Oscar nomination. Octavia Spencer is the one who got it. I think the most deserving of the main three girls was Taraji P. Henson. Her character was the focus and she did the best job. As such, she would be in the lead actress category, which was the much more competitive category. I wanted her to get a nomination there, but who do you take out? Thus we go to the best supporting actress category. In there we have Octavia Spencer vs. Janelle Monáe. The Oscars went with Octavia Spencer. I would've picked Janelle Monáe. I thought she gave the much more impressive, in-your-face performance. That woman had attitude and I loved it. I also don't think we should overlook the men in this movie. Kevin Costner has made a lot of great underrated career choices of late with the likes of "Draft Day," "McFarland, USA" and now this. Him and Jim Parsons provided a good balance of personalities in this with Costner being more open black ladies helping them with Parsons being more hesitant letting them in. Had Costner been given a best supporting actor nomination, I would've been fine with that. He had a lot of excellent moments.

Overall if you haven't seen this movie yet, I'd definitely give it a shot. It got a best picture nomination as well as a best adapted screenplay nomination and the aforementioned best supporting actress nomination for Octavia and I'm certainly not upset. I think this along with "Fences" and "Moonlight" got a little extra boost at the Oscars this year due to last year's "Oscars so white" controversy and if that's the reason it got into the race, then so be it. This is an excellent movie for the Oscars to get behind that a lot of people have reacted positively to. This is a great story that I didn't know much about heading into this movie, so I appreciated the educational opportunity that this movie gave me and I also loved the focus on math. This movie made math seem cool and it showed one of many great opportunities that knowing math can provide you in life. I also liked the more low-key approach to the Civil Rights discussion as it showed a great story of what three black ladies were able to accomplish at NASA in a day and age that didn't provide them with a lot of opportunities. That was cool. In terms of Civil Rights movies, I wish "Loving" would've gotten as much attention with the general public, but I'll take this. My grade for "Hidden Figures" is a 9/10.

A Dog's Purpose Review

Riding a huge wave of controversy into theaters is the movie "A Dog's Purpose." I'm going to be honest, I wasn't planning on seeing this movie right away and getting my review out this quick, but that controversy changed my mind. I studied the situation and quickly became super mad. But in the opposite way as most people. If you didn't hear, there was a TMZ video that I have linked there that shows what appears to be a dog being abused on set. A dog trainer is trying to force the dog into water, but the dog doesn't want to go in the water. Then the video cuts to a shot of the dog in the water, which makes people assume the dog got thrown in against his will just so the filmmakers can get their shot, which in the movie is a police dog rescuing a girl who is drowning. Pretty horrible, right? WRONG! If you actually study the situation, reading both sides of the story, you'll quickly come to learn of a bigger picture that paints a much different story. But because we live in a hypersensitive world where people are essentially begging to be offended, thousands if not millions of people apparently refused to do their quick research and basked in the glory of being offended. Which frustrates me to no end. So I "rebelled" against this protest and saw it as soon as I could.

The first red flag for me was that this was a TMZ video. TMZ lives for controversy. They'll immediately release anything controversial that people send them without thinking too hard about it. The second red flag for me was that PETA threw a fit. PETA always throws a fit at the smallest things. They would prefer if all animals used in movies were CGI as they oppose any trained animals being used on set. So a TMZ/PETA led controversy is never going to immediately convince me that something is actually wrong. So I watched the video myself and read what both sides had to say about it and this one is easy. Here's an article you can read if you want more details, but my quick summary is that they had a dog named Hercules who loves the water and joyfully did all the water stunts in the movie. When the dog does jump into the water, they have platforms underneath and a scuba diver there protecting him, so the dog is perfectly safe in the water and under no distress. One day on set they tried to get Hercules to perform the stunt on the other side of the pool. It's not that the dog hated water, he just didn't want to jump into the pool from a different spot. The filmmakers acknowledged that mistakes were made in trying to show the dog that the water was OK because the location was the problem, but even so, the dog was never forced into the water and was never abused.

End of story. This is a movie where their goal was to create a love letter to dogs and dog owners. I have all the confidence in the world that they treated their dogs well and weren't abusing dogs in order to make a quick buck. I do believe that whoever leaked this video to TMZ was probably interested in making a quick buck by giving this video? Why do I say that? First off, if someone on set shot the video with their cell phone because they were concerned about what was happening, why didn't they release the video 15 months ago when they shot it? Because yes, this video is from 2015. And it is heavily edited to make it look like something different is happening. When you watch, there is never a moment where the dog is thrown into the water. The trainer holds the dog down a bit and tries to show him that the water is OK, which reminded me of the times where I gave my dog a bath, but they don't throw him in. Instead there is a jump cut to the dog in the water, which was probably taken from a different time when the dog happily jumped into the water to perform the stunt. I stayed for the end credits and the statement of "no animals were harmed during the making of this film" was there. Thus it has the Animal Humane Society's stamp of approval. And I believe that. So if you were excited about this movie, go see it. Because no dogs were forced into turbulent water. No dogs were harmed.

Now that we have that out of the way, how about the movie itself? Let me start by saying that if you were one who wanted to boycott this movie, but you already saw the trailer, then joke's on you. You already saw the movie. Because the whole fetching movie is in the trailer. We just have a two-minute version of the movie free online and a two hour-version of the movie you can choose to go pay for. That's super frustrating for me. Some movies feel the need to spoil everything in their movie in order to get people in the theater. Thus I try to be less trailer savvy than I used to. If I miss a trailer for a movie, good. I don't like the feeling of watching a trailer where it looks like I watched the whole movie, then I go see the movie and have no surprises because everything was spoiled in the trailer. That's exactly what this movie's trailer does. It's advertised as a movie where a dog is living with a kid who grows up to become a high school student, then when the dog passes away, he gets reincarnated into other dogs with different purposes before he finally makes it back to this kid who is then a full-grown man. Well the scenes with the kid are the first half of the movie. The reincarnated begins in the second half and returning to the owner is literally the final act of the movie.

What this means is that if the trailer got you excited, then I'm positive you'll enjoy this movie. If the trailer made you think the movie was going to be dumb and silly, then you don't need to go see this movie. It's that simple. Personally I thought the movie had it's fair share of flaws, but it was a cute, little movie that I enjoyed. Josh Gad, aka Olaf, is the narrator in this movie, speaking the mind and thoughts of the dog as he lives his many lives. Essentially the angle here is that the dog is narrating the movie. I was one who thought Josh Gad was brilliant as Olaf in "Frozen." He was quirky, funny and had perfect comedic timing. For the most part I think he did fine as narrator for this dog. He didn't really make me laugh very much and his voice didn't always fit the dog that was on screen, but I think he did a good job of portraying the thoughts of the dog as his human lived his life. I've often pondered on what is going through the mind of my pets as I'm living my life. I've had a few dogs and many cats in my life, as well as quite the assortment of other pets, this movie did a good job of making me think of my pets, thus this was a very emotionally effective movie. If you currently own a dog, you're going to want to go home and give your dog a big hug after seeing this movie.

I wasn't a huge fan of the reincarnating thing. I thought that was a silly idea that didn't really work. I think they should've either told the story of a lot of different dogs with different narrators whose voices match each dog while finding a way to tie in the narrative so that it's not just a bunch of short stories or simply tell the story of one dog who lives a long life of 10-15 years or so. Both of those ideas would've made for a better movie. There was also a lot of human drama that didn't work well for me. I suppose I won't spoil those aspects of the movie, but our main kid, whose name is Ethan, goes through quite the journey in his life and a lot of decisions made by him and other cast members didn't make much sense as certain story arcs were either clunky or forced. Then we have the idea that the dog literally goes everywhere with Ethan. He's there at his football games. He's with him on every single date. He goes to the town with him and is sometimes even around school. The movie does this so that we can see every aspect of Ethan's life, but it wasn't realistic. No one takes their dog everywhere they go. Had the whole movie taken place in their house with some sharp dialogue, that could've also been a really interesting idea, but as is it was a bit silly.

So yeah, this movie is far from perfect. It definitely feels like a January release where a lot of the sub-par movies get put while the studios save their higher quality movies for later. There were a lot of story elements that felt forced just to get some emotion out of people and there's a lot dogs that die in this, which if you have a heart it might make you tear up because a pet dying is the worst, but there didn't need to be that many pet deaths in the movie. I didn't like the reincarnating element to the movie and Josh Gad tried to be funnier than he actually was, but overall the movie was fairly effective in what it set out to do. If you like dogs and you were excited to see this movie, then go see this. It's a cute, little dog movie told from the prospective of a dog, which is something that is fairly unique. Had they tightened up the script a bit or made another revision or two, this could've been a great movie, but as is it's fine. It's certainly not worth all of the controversy that was contrived by TMZ and PETA. No dogs were harmed in the making of this film and no terrified dogs were forced into turbulent water. I love dogs as much as anyone else, but the controversy is dumb, so just ignore all of that and go see the movie if you were interested in it. I'm going to give "A Dog's Purpose" a 7/10.

DrogeMiester's Top 10 WORST Movies of 2016

Earlier this week I gave you my list of my top 10 favorite movies of 2016. Now it's time to flip the script and give my top 10 least favorite movies of 2016. As I said in my best list, I didn't see every movie this year. When it comes to bad movies, this is especially true as there was quite a bit of movies that I simply chose to skip and I don't really feel bad about it. Yes, I do have enough followers that I try to see all types of movies, good or bad, and I do find pleasure in seeing a bad movie in order to warn people to avoid it. It's also fun to write a review that absolutely destroys a bad movie. It's just that sometimes I come across a weekend with several releases and I prioritize the better movies which causes some movies to fall by the wayside. I do my best to catch up with the highlights so I can have a good list here, but this year I had enough worthy contenders for this list that I decided that what I had seen was good enough. And of course there have been many times when a movie that everyone claimed was bad ended up being enjoyable for me, so I usually do my best to go in with an open mind. With all that said, out of the movies that I did see, here are my least favorite. Enjoy!

10- Alice Through the Looking Glass

If I'm being honest, I'm not really the best judge of "Alice in Wonderland" as a franchise in general. Disney's original animated film based on the book that I've never cared to read just feels like a teenage girl experimented with drugs for the first time and went on a bizarre acid trip. I don't get it. I've never liked anything to do with "Alice in Wonderland" and I certainly didn't like Tim Burton's horrifically awful 2010 live action remake that only made over $1 billion worldwide because it was the next big 3D aftar James Cameron's "Avatar" revolutionized the genre starting in late 2009. I know my stance on this is very controversial, but as it turns out, my opinions of this unnecessary sequel that was a major box office flop certainly hasn't been controversial. All my friends who do love "Alice in Wonderland" also hated this movie as it doesn't even have the crazy acid trip that it's predecessors have. This is a boring, lifeless piece of garbage that I literally predicted the whole plot to frame by frame. Disney should've titled it "Alice in Wonderlessland." The only thing good that came out of this is that "Just Like Fire" song by P!nk, even though it literally had nothing to do with the movie.

9- Gods of Egypt

This movie was dead on arrival when it hit theaters late February and was one of the first major flops of the year. That's because of the huge controversy surrounding its white-washed cast. This is a movie about Egyptians and Egyptian Gods and there are literally no foreign actors. Just a bunch of white Americans. But that's not even why the movie is bad. This represents everything wrong with Hollywood today. In addition to the white-washing, this also sexualizes every female character, is chalk-full of bad acting and has a horrific story line. This is one of those attempted blockbusters that the studios decided they only need to focus on fancy special effects in order to make a movie. Sure, I enjoy myself some good special effects, but when it looks like no one involved even gave one thought to creating a good movie to go along with those fancy, glossy special effects and ended up offending half the country in the process, that's really frustrating and I'm glad we united together to reject this film. The only reason this isn't higher is because it is the type of movie where you can put in and have a good time with your friends making fun of it "Mystery Science Theater 3000" style. I can't say that for some of these other attempted blockbusters that I'm about to talk about here in a second.

8- Assassin's Creed

Like this one. Man, this was a frustrating movie to endure. 2016 was the year that video game movies were supposed to turn the corner. Instead we had "Warcraft" and "Assassin's Creed" officially confirm that video game movies just don't convert well to the big screen. If any video game movies were going to make the transition, it was these two movies. "Warcraft" is lucky enough to miss this list, but "Assassin's Creed" isn't quite as lucky. This video game franchise has such good lore that should've made a fantastic film. They even had a good director and a perfect cast, yet they still couldn't get it right. This movie spends most of it's time in the present and barely any time in the past. It should've been the other way around. That's problem No. 1. Problem No. 2 is that I didn't care one bit about what was happening in the present. Problem No. 3 is that when they finally went to the past, the action sequences were so bad that they almost gave me a headache while I was watching them. They literally got nothing right in this film. And I would honestly rather sit on my couch and watch one of my friends play this video game for hours than be subjected to this movie again.

7- Independence Day: Resurgence

For some reason people were actually excited for this sequel. I wasn't. So many red flags went up during every phase of this movie's promotion, the first of which was that it was directed by Roland Emmerich. The man has proven time and time again that he does NOT know how to make a movie and the fact that so many people love the original "Independence Day" was probably more of a fluke. I was baffled at how so many people thought that this track record would magically change with an "Independence Day" sequel that was probably 17 years too late and DIDN'T include Will Smith, which was the main reason that original film actually worked. Sadly it turns out that I was right. This movie is an epic disaster. The story line makes no sense. None of the new characters are even worth caring about. The cast that does return looked bored the entire time. The action sequence nearly put me to sleep. We were only a part of the way through and I quickly found myself cheering for the aliens to just blow up the Earth and put us all out of our misery so we don't have to be subjected to any more "Independence Day" sequels ever again. I really hope the sequel that they setup in the last scene never comes to fruition. Luckily the box office receipts mean my wish might come true.

6- Ben-Hur

Here's a novel idea. Let's take one of the most iconic films ever made, throw it in the blender, chop it to pieces and put it back on screen to see if we can make some quick money with the brand name recognition. And let's hire the director of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" to try to pull this off. Yeah, no. Another one of Hollywood's major problems today is this trend of taking iconic masterpieces and remaking them in hopes of a quick cash grab. The 1959 "Ben-Hur" is one of the top 15 highest grossing movies ever when adjusted for ticket price inflation and one of my all-time favorite movies. No one wanted a remake. And thankfully no one saw the remake as it could only muster $26 million domestically off of a $100 million production budget. In theory this could've worked with the right director and the right script, but instead this goes down in history as the textbook example of what NOT to do with a remake. They literally took the heart and soul out of "Ben-Hur" with this remake. The major themes that make "Ben-Hur" so great were an afterthought. The movie had no life. No purpose. No meaning. The main focus was on the two major action sequences that it's nearly 60-year-old predecessor did better. That's embarrassing.

5- Me Before You

I'm going to spoil this movie. And if you don't want to read, you can jump to the next movie. Because I can't talk about this movie without talking about the ending. The boring and predictable Nicholas Sparks style of romance dramas are movies that I usually choose to skip. But for some reason all my friends wanted to see this movie a month after it came out, so I decided to be social and bit the bullet and went with my friends. And the experience infuriated me. Here we have a movie about a man who had everything. After an accident leaves him paralyzed, he's now lost everything. However, this amazingly attractive woman comes into his life and shows him that, despite his losses, life can still be enjoyed and lived to its fullest. What a great, positive message this movie could've shared. But instead this idiot of a character decides that life is still not worth it and commits assisted suicide. I don't need all of my movies to be wrapped in a pretty, little bow, but in this instance I left the theater feeling disgusted and horrified at what this movie was promoting and teaching. If life gets rough, just give up and kill yourself? What? Yet a lot of girls loved this movie. I don't understand why.

4- Norm of the North

I didn't actually see "Norm of the North" in theaters. Do you want to know why? It's because I was too embarrassed to walk up to the box office person and ask for a ticket to this movie. Even if I purchased my ticket on the machine, I would've still had to walk up to the dude who takes your ticket so he can rip it in half and tell me where my theater was. I couldn't even do that. I'm dead serious. So I watched it online several months later because I knew this belonged on this list and I was so right. This was such a stupid animated movie that it took me a few days to get through. I could only handle small segments at a time. This movie tries to be funny and cute, but instead makes you cringe every time they try. The story line of the movie tries to be creative, but is just awful. This tries to be politically relevant, but ends up not making any sense. I'd say this is the type of movie that is only useful for distracting your 2-year-old early in the morning, but I wouldn't even want to subject a 2-year-old to this movie. There's so many other shows on Netflix for young kids that are actually useful and somewhat interesting that I don't know why you would waste your time with "Norm of the North." And all you need to do is watch the trailers and you'll know exactly what I mean.

3- Nine Lives

Two kids movies in a row. I feel like a grumpy old man right now. And I was seriously tempted to put this at No. 1, but the group of kids that I saw this with in theaters actually laughed a lot throughout, so maybe that's worth something. But outside that, this movie is almost worth seeing so that you can witness the horrific atrocity that they put together. I was literally shocked at how bad this movie was as I was watching. First problem is that can you predict the entire movie just by looking at the poster. I mean, Kevin Spacey is a mean, grumpy old man that doesn't give his family the time of day and thus gets punished by getting turned into the family cat. You know how that premise is going to turn out. But that's not even half of the problem. The sound mixing, editing and visual effects are so lazily put together that it's rather shocking. Never once do you believe that Kevin Spacey's voice is coming from the cat that is on screen. They don't even bother to make the cat move and act like a real cat would. I was embarrassed for these filmmakers. Then we have the plot. I don't even know where to start. It leaves you dumbfounded the whole time. And the biggest surprise of all is that this comes from a respected director and includes respected actors. How did this even happen?

2- Zoolander 2

If you want to know an embarrassing secret of mine, I never saw "Dumb and Dumber" or "Anchorman" until their respected sequels came out. In both cases I watched the original and sequel back to back and enjoyed all four films a lot more than I probably should have. I had every intention of having the same experience with the "Zoolander" movies. Then when I watched "Zoolander," I hated my experience so much that I couldn't get myself to go see the sequel in theaters. So I didn't. That would've been too many brain cells lost in one week. I eventually bit the bullet and watched the movie on Amazon Prime a month or so ago. Ouch. I may hate "Zoolander," but I can understand why it's considered a cult classic. The sequel, though, I don't understand how any person on Earth could enjoy. The movie feels like a bad parody of itself. Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell - actors I do enjoy at times - were trying so hard to be funny, but I instead wanted to punch each of them in the face. I decided to keep track of how many times I laughed during the movie and I didn't even make it to two. That's how dumb this movie was. And my one laugh was more of a brief chuckle. I think the best performance in the movie is given by Justin Bieber. And he only has like a 30 second cameo.

1- God's Not Dead 2

With my least favorite movie of 2016, I officially look like one of those angry atheists that is mad that Christian filmmakers are putting out "religious propaganda" in order to convert people to Christianity. That couldn't be farther from the truth, though. I actually do consider myself an active Christian that tries his best to help people understand that God does live and that he loves everyone. But in doing so, I will definitely make an effort to steer non-believers far from this horribly offensive film franchise. The other movies on this list made it because they are simply bad movies. This one tops the list because, not only is it a bad movie, it's an offensive movie that paints Christianity in a bad light. All the Christians come off as pompous and arrogant. All the non-Christians are portrayed as evil, whether they be atheist, Muslim or whatever. As if you can't be a non-Christian and still be a good person living a successful, happy life. Then we have all logic and reason completely thrown out the window with the story they set up. We eventually get to a court case where we're trying to prove God's not dead. And their arguments in favor of God are honestly pretty bad. Not to mention that everything leading up to this court case is completely unrealistic and laughable. I love God. But I HATE this franchise with a fiery passion. It really needs to die. Please don't turn this into a trilogy.

DrogeMiester's Top 10 BEST Movies of 2016

It's that time of year again! Time to give you my end-of-year movie lists. Before I get to my worst, I'll start here with the best. To preface this, let me say that I did not see every movie this year. I did my best to catch all the major highlights, but there's so many movies that come out each year that it's literally impossible to see them all. Thus I realize that there may be some that I missed that could've made this list, but that's OK. I don't make it a goal to see every single movie ever made. Rather I make it a goal to keep going back to previous years and watching movies that I haven't seen in hopes that I will find more hidden gems that could've made a best of the year list. I also want to point out that 2016 was a phenomenal year for film. Yes, there were a lot of major disappointments, but there were also a lot of great movies that flew under the radar of the general public as well as a lot of great movies that came out in the last few months of the year that made 2016 a year to remember. Consequently, I was forced to leave off a lot of worthy candidates for this list, which made me sad. But after a lot of thought, I feel comfortable with these 10 and thus you can call them the best of the best. My 10 personal favorite movies of 2016. With all that out of the way, let's begin!

10- Doctor Strange

Out of all the end-of-year lists from others that I've seen, most have included "Captain America: Civil War" and/or "Deadpool." Thus I will start off with a major shocker. Neither of those movies made this list. I enjoyed both of them, but it was "Doctor Strange" that won my heart and wins my award for best superhero movie of the year. Personally I've been really impressed at the consistency of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seems like Marvel is daring themselves with each new movie they make to test their limits of what they can do while still pleasing audiences and it keeps working. Thus it seems they can do no wrong. With "Doctor Strange," they added a new element to their universe. Magic. And man was it fun. The whole second half of the movie felt like "Inception" on steroids with those visuals and I loved every minute of it. But that's not all. This movie reminded me a lot of "Batman Begins." I think Strange's story arc paralleled Bale's Batman in that movie both in terms of specific events that happened as well as in quality. Benedict Cumberbatch hit a home run with this character and immediately inserted himself as an A-list character in the MCU. We even set up a future villain for the franchise that could wind up as one of Marvel's best villains.

9- Loving

We had two major Civil Rights movies hit theaters in December and while "Hidden Figures" did win my heart and is currently owning it at the box office with its January expansion, I'm giving "Loving" the slight edge. For me this was a different approach to the well-covered Civil Rights genre of historical films. Instead of taking the bold, direct route equivalent of a preacher giving a pulpit-thumping sermon in front of a captive audience, this movie was like a good friend quietly entering the back door of your house, sitting down at your table and telling you a simple, yet profound story. Because it did that, this movie ended up speaking louder and more profoundly to my heart that most Civil Rights movies. "Loving" could've chosen to include plenty of powerful speeches or some intense court sequences. But it didn't. The focus here was on telling a beautiful love story between a couple that wanted nothing more than to just be together, raise a family and not bother another soul in the world. Yet because they were an interracial couple at a time and place where that was illegal, they weren't given peace and quiet and that was heart-breaking for me. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga both gave phenomenal performances and were easily one of the best on-screen duos of the year.

8- Kubo and the Two Strings

Now we get to my favorite animated movie of the year. And believe me, it was extremely hard for me to not include "Zootopia" on this list, which is honestly one of Disney's best and most relevant films. I thought for sure that would make this, but there ended up being just too many great movies this year. Instead we have a genre of animation that is criminally underrated. Stop-motion animation. Laika deserves to be in the discussion as one of the best animation studios in existence right now, but instead each of their movies struggles to get to $50 million because people just won't give stop-motion animation the time of day. Which is an absolute shame. "Kubo" has every emotion imaginable in it tacked onto an action/adventure film. So many great characters. Such a fun story. Several great action sequences. A surprising number of dark, scary sequences. And a ton of heart. And it was all done with clay. One tiny movement at a time. Had this been a 100 percent CGI animation film, the characters and story would've still made this the best animated movie I saw this year. Add in all the time and effort that was put into every scene and every movement and this movie completely blew my mind. If you are one of the millions that skipped "Kubo," fix that. Right now.

7- The Nice Guys

Summer 2016 was a disappointing summer for many people, myself included. We started off on a great note with "Captain America: Civil War," which just barely missed this list, by the way, but then we had blockbuster after blockbuster fall flat on its face. Hidden in May, though, was a summer movie that brought with it a ton of anticipation, but limited box office results. It was like everyone was excited to see it, but then decided to skip it for some reason. Shame on them, because this was easily the best movie of the summer and perhaps the most entertaining theatrical experience I had all year. Like seriously, I looked over all the movies I've seen this year and I couldn't think of one that provided more gust-busting laughter than this movie. There were points in this movie where I was laughing so hard, I had a hard time breathing. And that doesn't happen for me too often. On top of that, the action sequences in the movie were also the best of the year and they didn't stop coming. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe made for a surprisingly fantastic action duo. Add in a surprising amount of heart and emotion, as well as a pretty decent story, and this was one heck of a well-rounded movie. The type of movie that you could watch over and over and be entertained each time.

6- Hell or High Water

We've now moved on from the great movies this year to the heavyweights. Each of these next six movies could make an argument for best of the year in previous years and most of them I have seen as other people's No. 1 film of 2016. And for good reason. We start with a movie that came out nowhere in the middle of August to absolutely blow my socks off. I don't even really know what genre to classify "Hell or High Water" as. It feels like a modern western, action, crime drama, heist movie all wrapped in one giant bow, set in West Texas, an area where I lived for two years, which was kinda cool to see. What I really loved about this movie was that it was a heist movie that gave an equal amount of screen time to both sides of the heist and made you cheer on both sides. It's Jeff Bridges vs. Chris Pine and Ben Foster. There's so much gray area with all three characters, especially our two "villains." All three give Oscar-worthy performances that help the movie build up to an insanely emotional conclusion that left me floored. I didn't think this would be the type of movie that would get a bunch of attention during awards season, but it actually has and that has made me ecstatic.

5- Hacksaw Ridge

Believe it or not, the most spiritual movie experience of the year for me came with Mel Gibson's war movie, "Hacksaw Ridge." Say what you want about Mel Gibson as a person, but he really knows how to direct a movie. There's a lot of war movies that have been made, but few are constructed as well as "Hacksaw Ridge." The first half of the movie is spent solely on setting the stage and is essentially PG-level as we're just telling a story of a man who doesn't want to pick up a gun, but wants to go fight in a war anyways. There's so many well-written characters in here with various amounts of screen time that I honestly cared for everyone. Then we got to the point where we were marching to battle and suddenly it dawned on me that this is a Mel Gibson war movie. Things are about to get crazy. And that they did. The second half of the movie came like a tidal wave. It didn't hold back and it left no time for the audience to breathe. All of this sets the stage perfectly for an inspirational finale led by some crazy acts done by Andrew Garfield's character acting like a true hero, using God as his inspiration to move forward and save one life at a time. It was an amazing performance in an amazing movie that has helped me a lot since I've seen it. Well done, Mel Gibson!

4- Arrival

"Arrival" was the hardest movie to place. There was a point this year where I claimed this as my favorite movie before a certain two movies came out. There was another point while I was organizing this list that I had this as low as No. 8. I couldn't figure out what to do with it. So I had to go watch the movie again and pay extra close attention this time. Here's the thing. On the surface this is an alien invasion movie that moves super slow and doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about certain things. It's intriguing and mysterious with a haunting score and beautiful cinematography, but there's aspects of it that don't hold up upon further viewings. However, it's when you look beneath the surface that this movie shines. If you stop focusing on all of the alien stuff and start focusing on the many themes the movie brings up, this movie is genius. It has so many deep layers to it and when you start breaking down those themes and thinking about them, there's so much to unpack. If I were to scratch the surface a bit, we talk about the importance of communication and unity. The movie is a reflection of the current state of our government and how hypersensitive we can be. We also have interesting ideas about family, time and language presented. Another great movie from Denis Villeneuve.

3- The Witch

Up to this point, I bet all of my choices haven't been too surprising. I'm guessing this is where I throw a major curve ball that catches people off guard. "The Witch" was an independent horror movie released at Sundance in 2015, then finally got it's theatrical release in February of 2016. After I saw it, it immediately became my favorite movie of the year and it stayed that way for most of the year. This is a horror movie done right and as a fan of the horror genre, it was refreshing to see a horror movie that didn't rely on all of the frustrating horror tropes of our day. It was successfully creepy and intense without having any jump scares or over-the-top gore. But that's not why this is so high. This is honestly one of the most fascinating horror movies ever made. Is it a tragedy where an imperfect young girl trying her best to be good ends up embracing witchcraft because her stubborn, 17th Century, protestant parents push her too far away? Or is it a happy movie where an oppressed young female finally makes choices on her own, despite it not being the popular choice? This has led people on all sides of the religious spectrum to endorse this movie, from faithful Christians to Satanic worshipers. Not many horror films can claim that. Fascinating. And it only gets better over time.

2- Manchester by the Sea

You'll find a theme with my top two movies. Real, honest human emotion. Two stories that aren't tied with a pretty Hollywood bow on top, but are rather more representative of the human experience in ways that not many movies today are bold enough to go. When I wrote my review of "Manchester by the Sea," I made sure to stay far away from any spoilers and I will stick to that. If I put it simply, this is a movie about a man that has had a horrific tragedy happen to him and he deals with it in way that many people actually would instead of trying to sugar coat things to appease audiences or present the perfect Oscar-bait movie. That honest human emotion is what I really appreciated and was blown away by. Once you know the secret of what happened to this man, it is like a strong punch in the gut that sends you reeling throughout the whole second half of the movie. And once you've recovered, which might take a while, you are left in awe at the movie that was presented to you. Casey Affleck delivers a staggeringly phenomenal performance as this man that I hope wins him a gold trophy at the Oscars. And of course that performance would be nowhere without the beautiful Michelle Williams. When those two are on screen together, it is cinematic gold.

1- La La Land

Yeah this was easy. Last year I disputed for days in my head as to which movie I would award as my favorite movie and there were three movies that I had a hard time deciding from. This year that decision was essentially made in early November when I saw "La La Land" for the first time. Not only does Damien Chazelle bring back a genre that many of us thought was dead a long time ago, that being the Golden Age musical, but he also managed to make one of the most relevant films for our day. I don't know how Damien did it, but I sat in awe as I watched a movie that was essentially a portrait of my life. I'm not an aspiring actor or an aspiring jazz musician, but I saw myself in both Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. I have dreams and aspirations of my own and I've had a rough go at it. And I'm certain I'm not alone. Life throws a lot of curve balls at you and it's tough trying to figure out how to deal with it. When you are thinking of the greatest movies of all time, there's usually "the scene" in each one that you can point out. "La La Land" has four of those scenes. And when I re-watched the movie last week, two of them turned me into a complete emotional wreck. After taking a close look at each year of this current decade, I couldn't come up with a single movie that I like more than "La La Land." Thus I feel comfortable calling it my favorite movie of the decade.