These are my favorite movies of 2016 edited in montage form. Sometime this week I’ll actually get around to finishing and putting up the list on the site, but until then, bonus points if you can name them all.
Category Archives: Movie Trailers
‘Hunt For The Wilderpeople’ Review
I saw two movies in theaters this week. One was the $130 million bloatfest that was Independence Day 2. The other was the New Zealand indie ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople.’ Hunt for the Wilderpeople, made for $128 million dollars less than ID4: 2, is the infinitely better movie between the two. Smart, funny, poignant and boasting a perfect rotten tomatoes score for the moment, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a great example of an applause worthy indie that will go under the radar because of bloatfests like Independence Day (although it looks like everyone is ignoring Independence Day in favor of Finding Dory, anyway). So, if you’re looking to support something small, offbeat and worthy of your hard earned disposable income this weekend, give some consideration to Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which should expand to most cities this Friday (7/1). Sam Neill and Julian Dennison are the truth.
Every Frame a Painting: How Does an Editor Think and Feel?
More Every Frame a Painting goodness. This has easily become one of my favorite youtube channels in the past year. Continually great stuff from Tony Zhou.
Sicario Trailer
Sicario is neither based off a book or science fiction, which is generally what I try to keep film content on this site limited to, but it is a really effective trailer (and not just because it uses a slight variation of the Prometheus trailer siren/screech), so here we are. I’m a big fan of Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s work in ‘Prisoners‘ and the supremely strange, mind bender that was ‘Enemy‘, so for him to once again team up with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins and cast Benicio, Jeffery Donovan and Emily Blunt instantly makes it must see territory for me.
Admittedly, the rash of cartel material in cinema lately has been pretty uninteresting to me, but the sense of dread in this trailer is just so heavy. It oozes with such a creepy, ominous tone that feels a bit like David Fincher remaking No Country For Old Men. I will be marking my calendar for this one. Sicario hits theaters September 18th.
‘The Wind Rises’ Trailer
The trailer for Hayao Miyazaki’s last movie, ‘The Wind Rises’, which hits US shores on February 21, 2014. It is the ultimate daydreamer’s movie and should be a solid swan song for the master animator.
The Elysium Trailer That Makes You Wish It Was Coming Out This Weekend
This is the second trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi epic Elysium. The first trailer for the film was perfectly fine, but the second trailer that debuted this week is definitely ‘next level, go see this opening day’ material. Along with revealing more about the story itself, the trailer sheds some light on Matt Damon’s character Max and his motivation to get outfitted in the world’s most uncomfortable looking super suit so that he can raid Jodie Foster’s off world summer home to save himself and for those with tearjearking sensibilities, a terminally ill little girl.
Sharlto Copley’s aptly named villain Kruger is fleshed out a bit too, as he seems to be some some sort of attack dog for Jodie Foster, dead set on keeping the riffraff out of her space Hamptons setup. Kruger seems to have inherited a comparable super suit (under closer inspection, Kruger may even be more machine than man) and cool gadgets to go along with it, but if I were placing bets on who is going to win the Copley v Damon brawl, I’d put my money on Jason Bourne every time.