Fight Club

Fight Club is a sexist portrayal of workplace dissatisfaction. I don't care to hear arguments about why women are inessential to the Fight Club plot because I don't care. I understand that it's just a story and it's completely fantastical but I still have a lot of issues with this movie and a lot of it has to do with the lack of women in this movie as well as its representation of the only female character.

Tallulah

Once the audience realizes the main plot of Tallulah, the movie really becomes a question of who is going to get in trouble for this, because in this (a little bit ridiculous) movie, there is just no way it'll end with the child being returned to her mother while also none of our main characters getting in legal trouble. That said, I do think this movie does a good job at keeping the audiences attention even though the ending is pretty predictable.

Cafe Society

Cafe Society is an amazingly entertaining movie. I love the way Woody Allen tells this story; there's so much more to make an interesting story out of when the timeline of the story covers a whole half a lifetime. Woody Allen proves that it's absolutely okay to only hit the main parts and the story still works.
He does an amazing job directing his actors-- there is so much good chemistry between them and the intended vibe flows seamlessly throughout the movie because all the actors are on the same page.

Captain Fantastic

This is hands-down the best movie I've seen all year. I cannot recommend Captain Fantastic enough. I was thinking about this movie for weeks after I'd seen it, purely because it's filled with so much that I want to aspire to. It's something I've never seen before and it's executed in a way that was completely new to me. A family living in the wilderness and completely independent of the outside world although they are totally aware of it-- I can't think of a better plot to convey the important messages that Captain Fantastic does. It is my quintessential family film. Nothing in this movie was bad. I probably loved this movie so much because I agree with pretty much all of the ideology that is presented to be our main characters' beliefs. I love that they only use bows and knives to kill animals. I love that, while they have intense physical training and are incredibly fit, they also have scheduled time to meditate. I love that they are taught to resist 'the man' but in a smart and non aggressive way. I love this hippie, hyper-intelligent, rouge family and you should too.

Swiss Army Man

My roommate and I have been waiting for Swiss Army Man to come out since before 2016 even began. I was so excited to see this movie I checked my Fandango app almost every week starting in April even though I knew the release date. Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe together in the same movie? Just thinking about it was blowing my mind. As much as I was neutral about Ruby Sparks, I love Paul Dano. And I watched "Thorns" and realized Daniel Radcliffe is so much more than his Harry Potter persona. This kid is a weirdo and Paul Dano is a weirdo and I was dying to see them in a movie together. I showed the trailer to this movie to so many people I created a niche group of people who were obsessed with this movie at my college. Every weekend I was hoping there would be some cool, early release around me that I could go see. My friends and I were so hyped to see this movie and let me tell you, it did not disappoint.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I knew how this movie was going to end before I started watching it, and I meant to watch this movie because I felt like I wanted to cry, I just didn't think it would be nearly as sad as it actually was. The main character is the son of some level of Nazi commander and they move to a new house with a concentration camp basically in their back yard. It's not like, right there in their backyard but they can smell the people burning and they can see the smokestacks and the smoke that comes from when they burned the Jews. So this  little boy naturally wants to go exploring and finds this concentration camp but of course he doesn't know what the hell it is. He finds this little boy sitting by the fence and he's wearing the uniform Jews had to wear in concentration camps and that's where the name The Boy in the Striped Pajamas comes from. This movie doesn't end well at all and I suggest if you have any love for children don't watch it. Don't even try it because you will want to die at the end of this movie.

Nightcrawler

NIghtcrawler made me feel the same way American Psycho and A Clockwork Orange made me feel. I felt slimy afterwards and I felt like the friends I watched it with and I should go do something good in the world-- contribute to society. This movie was a piece that made me think a lot about something I have never even thought to consider before-- crime scene videography. It also makes you think about the gross underbelly of media in general and just how slimy it might be. The key to this movie is ti makes the audience think "is this really what's happening out there?" This movie is completely bonkers. I genuinely believe Jake Gyllenhaal is a little bit crazy because after watching Donnie Darko and now this; I was shocked. He is, in addition to probably being a little bit crazy, an amazingly versatile actor who commits to everything he does. Every little crazy thing he did in this movie was 110% believable; that's why it was so jarring.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd is a funny, scary Les Miserables. The dark aesthetic, the time period, the returning-criminal-looking-for-redemption character, the poverty, the weird daughter dynamic, the singing-- all reminded me of Les Miserables, however, it was dark and freaky. It also started out as a musical, like Les Miserables. The ending of this movie really reminded me of Crimson Peak, or of a dark Guillermo Del Toro ending.
I didn't know what I was expecting this movie to be. All I knew going in was that there was a barber that killed his clients and, who I thought was his wife, made meat pies out of them and their business was booming. That's all I thought I knew about this movie, and then Sacha Baron Cohen showed up and Alan Rickman is the main villain and I was confused but also simultaneously pulled in. Also like Les Miserables, I was not expecting so much singing in this movie. More so in Les Miserables, but still there are a lot of songs that get thrown in at weird times. It's weird to compare Sweeney Todd to Les Miserables but the comparisons reveal some interesting similarities.

Spotlight

Spotlight is a movie that throws you against a wall, coddles you when it realizes you're hurt, then punches you in the face when it sees it's just a few scratches--it is absolutely brutal on your emotions. I did not actually want to see this movie, I didn't think it looked that interesting. Granted, I didn't actually know the extent of what this movie was exploring. I was not aware of just how big this story was. I think Spotlight executed this touchy topic really appropriately. It's done with a lot of care; that isn't to say that they tiptoed around the reality of the situation. There were parts where some of the things discussed were hard to listen to, but they were handled with a sensitive tone. I guess what I am saying is so many words is that, despite the situation being pretty gruesome and, frankly, gross, the information presented was not done to gross out and appall the audience. It was more to inform and the events were not exploited in order to increase shock value for the audience. I think that was extremely respectful, while also trying to inform the audience of the reality.
This movie points a spotlight on the section of the Boston Globe called "Spotlight" that in 2001 investigated the sex-abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church and attempted to expose those who are committing these crimes, and in fact, the Spotlight team divulges more than they ever thought they would.

The Revenant

This movie was goddamn phenomenal (and based on a true story). The shot composition, the landscape, the dialogue (or lack thereof), the way the storyline is pieced together, the actual execution of filming--it's all amazing. Leonardo DeCaprio is amazingly expressive in this movie and his lack of dialogue does not impede on his ability to emote and tell the audience what is going on. I thought if there was going to be one weak performance it would have beenWill Poulter, who is usually cast as the villain in YA movies. He actually played his character phenomenally well. Adding to the amazingness of this movie was the fact that every performance was on point. They were all on target with the tone of the movie; not one of the performances diverted from the vibe everyone else was giving off. Every actor was on it in every scene. This movie did an incredible thing where they pulled all these actors who have had a big few years as side-characters or as co-stars (with the exception of Leo DeCap) and put them all in a parts where each of their talents are exemplified and made into an incredibly compelling performance. It was so breathtaking how brutal this movie actually was as well; the director makes you sit through a whole lot of hard things only to deliver redemption to the audience in the last hour.

The Big Short

The Big Short is a really inventive movie; it's like The Wolf of Wall Street mixed with Too Big To Fail. It was super funny and super dark-- often at the same time. The Big Short's most impressive accomplishment is making our mysterious stock market seem understandable to the normal movie goer. With all the talent that's packed into this movie there's no real place for weak performances, however, I was surprised how Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling were advertised as the main characters when really I thought Steve Carrell and Christian Bale were the actual main characters and Brad Pitt was just there to aid two characters played by virtually unknown actors. Ryan Gosling reminded me of a less egotistical version of Leonardo DeCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. I wouldn't have been so confused in the beginning if the previews and trailers for the movie reflected the actual cast and their roles. In the trailer I saw it showed two of the main characters played by lesser known actors once together and one alone. In both shots they just look like bank executives and neither of them speak at all so I didn't appreciate it when these two guys were all in my movie when I really just wanted to see the four big wig names.

The Danish Girl

I was really unhappy that this movie has only received the equivalent to a C rating. Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander gave incredible performances. I personally think Alicia Vikander gave a more diverse performance but Eddie Redmayne's performance was an incredible one in the way that he portrayed two people who, in a way, had two completely different personalities. I don't know how accurate this movie is when it comes to Lili Elbe's relationships, but since it is based off a novel 'm assuming most of the main conflict is accurate.

The Shining

This movie was an abomination as an adaptation to the book by Stephen King. I respect the shit out of a good Stephen King movie-adaptation, or that is, I would, if there was one that I could actually like remotely, or even at all. The only Stephen King adaptation I've ever loved was The Stand, which is a three part, 90 minutes each, Netflix series so they could get every damn detail correct. That's my favorite book ever and thank jesus it was good or else I would have cried. I know now that when (if) I watch a Stephen King adaptation that I should not expect much past 'meh'.

Trumbo

Trumbo does a great job showing the injustice of the blacklist throughout the late 40's and the 50's. I've always been interested in the time period because, in the way I have always looked at it, the persecution of communists seemed so incredibly unconstitutional, so much so that I always thought I was missing a part of the story; luckily (or unluckily), I wasn't missing anything and my assumptions about the status of the blacklist are actually quite true. Through Dalton Trumbo's story, audiences can see the greater implications of the blacklist and the persecution of communists in America at the time of the Cold War.

Everest

"Never Let Go" the movie poster says, even though they all let go. I saw Everest with two other people and they loved it, however all I could think about was why in the world would anyone want to do that? Especially when they have a family; what in the world is so fun about this thing that looks horrible even when shit doesn't hit the fan? My roommate let me know that people don't do it because it's fun, they do it because they have something to prove to themselves, which just led me full circle to think what about this could be so meaningful people would risk their lives to the degree that 1 in 4 people die on Everest. Despite this very logical stream of thoughts, a bunch a people went to summit Mount Everest in 1994 and pretty much all of them die.

Black Mass

When I saw the trailer for Black Mass, I saw a clip of the scene where Jimmy (Johnny Depp) is just casually shooting an automatic gun in broad daylight in a parking lot, and at that point, the main reason I wanted to see Black Mass was to watch that scene. I wanted to see that scene and I wanted to see Johnny Depp in all that makeup (just a step under Steve Carell in Foxcatcher). I was not disappointed. I have previously talked about how much I enjoy violence in movies and I have now realized there is a difference between Quentin Tarantino's over the top to the point of ridiculousness violence, and this serious, cringe-y, very much real violence that came up in Black Mass. Not saying I disliked the violence in Black Mass, I just couldn't derive any joy from it, especially because the people who are killed in this movie are people who are a threat of gangsters, so they aren't doing bad things and in no way deserve to die unlike the amazing violence that takes place in, specifically, Inglorious Bastards.

Instructions Not Included

For some reason this movie has a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes it "rotten". Instructions not Included is the cutest, funniest, most amusing father/daughter film I've seen. It certainly isn't a family film in cases where children would be watching it, but I watched this with my mom and we both really liked it. It certainly isn't award winning, but it provides for some decent plot twists and an unapologetic tearjerker ending, which some might call cheap, but I thought it was really smart. Yes, most of the movie is a goofy and cute documentation of how a father would do anything for his daughter, and the whole movie is sort of misleading about what the reveal will be at the end, but the last 30 minutes, I would say, has the most abrupt change in tone from the rest of the movie, and if you have any heart at all, you will cry.