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.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I will preface this with the fact that I do not like Star Wars. I've seen two of the originals, none of the prequels and I wasn't going to see this one but it happened to be playing at our local theater where we could get in for $1. I also happened to be craving buffalo wings and my friends wanted to see this movie so we went. If Adam Driver hadn't been Kylo Ren I would have felt no inclination to see it, but since I love Adam Driver in about everything he's done, I thought why not and I could get some awesome food out of it. I guess I can understand this being called the movie event of the year, but in no way is this the movie of the year.

Crimson Peak

Guillermo Del Toro has outdone himself again with this visual masterpiece. My friend had this movie and the second I found out dead people were involved I asked them if it was scary-- they said no and my official verdict is that they need to learn the difference between a scary movie and a not scary movie because this movie is just a step down from Mama. And in fact, the ghosts in this movie moved and interacted with the characters in a very similar way the ghost "Mama" did in Mama, so I'm beginning to think Guillermo Del Toro has a style to his demon or ghost characters and, while it freaked me out immensely, I really really enjoy it.

Mad Max Series

There is a movie theatre in my city where, if you go at 10:00pm and have a student ID, tickets are $1.00. They just finished a four week long Mad Max Marathon, showing the next Mad Max in the series each week. Me and three of my friends went every Friday night at 10:00pm for four weeks straight with everything building up to Mad Max: Fury Road in 3D. After seeing the first Mad Max we all kind of accepted that we were just going so that we could make it to week four aka Fury Road week. And honestly, if those tickets had been more than $1 each it wouldn't have been worth it, but they were, so it was an experience worth having.

Deadpool

Deadpool is an interesting specimen of movie because the main reasons I went to see this was 1. the action sequences were going to be amazing and 2. I want to support R-rated Marvel movies-- I was not expecting to really like this movie and yet, I really liked this movie. Most of the promo you see is a lot of sex jokes and that really turned me off of this movie pretty quick, but the majority of his jokes in the movie are just him being an asshole, and I find that super funny. I think this movie, or at least the humor in this movie, will likely be a hit or a miss for a lot of people.

Let Me In

This movie is an adaptation of the Swedish film Let the Right One In. The premise to both the films is that this bullied boy living in suburbia meets this girl who lives with her father but never really leaves her house, and they become friends. The whole thing takes a pretty drastic turn when the audience finds out (before the boy) that the girl is actually a vampire that doesn't age and her "father" is actually just a dude she met that she's been shacked up with and he kills people and gives their blood to the vampire girl so that she doesn't have to kill people.

Pan's Labyrinth

I don't necessarily have a favorite director, but every Guillermo Del Toro movie I've seen, I have been absolutely been amazed by. Pan's Labyrinth was my introduction to Guillermo Del Toro; I saw it in my 11th grade Spanish 4 class and at first, it freaked me the hell out. I then saw Mama and realized Guillermo Del Toro was involved (executive producer) and they kind of had the same sort of ending (come to think of it every Guillermo Del Toro has sort of the same ending). I've recently re-watched Pan's Labyrinth and I think that because I wasn't in a class being forced to watch it, I enjoyed it more, even though a lot of the parts still did/does still freak me out.

Ruby Sparks

This is the most creative romance film you'll come by. I don't like romance films. The Notebook is predictable, and my favorite part of Titanic is when the boat snaps in half. This movie frustrated me the way most romance movies do. The male protagonist is problematic, the problems that arise in the plot are largely blamed on the female protagonist, and the arguments that happen seem petty and are annoying. This movie is quirky and cute in a lot of instances; the same directors that did Little Miss Sunshine did Ruby Sparks. What I do appreciate about this movie is the way the relationship comes about. Calvin, the main character, is a writer, and to combat writers block, he writes nonsensically about this perfect girl; this perfect girl (Ruby Sparks) appears in real life, in his apartment the next morning, believing she is his girlfriend and completely unaware that she is the reality of his writing. The part of this movie that is gripping for me, is the fact that this story quickly switches to a movie about morality: Calvin's morality.