Top 15 Movies of 2016

After such a long ride of ups and downs, it's hard to believe that 2016 is nearly over.  Before we head to 2017, it's time to look back at the best movies of 2016.  This year  has been stuffed with blockbusters, but it also has some big surprises, so I've decided to break this down into a top 15 list, with some honorable mentions to kick it off.  

10 Movies to Look Forward to this Summer

              With May quickly drawing to a close this week, I'll use this opportunity to look forward at what we can expect for the rest of the summer, including the big blockbusters and the small films that might sneak up on us.  I'll give you the top 10 movies worth looking forward to this summer as well as brief descriptions of why they're exciting.

TOP 10 MOVIES TO BE EXCITED FOR

10:  The Conjuring 2

            Horror sequels are not usually a safe investment for quality, but The Conjuring 2 might be one of the few exceptions.  Conjuring 2 opens another real world case file and brings the Warren Siblings to London to investigate a family taunted by spirits.  The original Conjuring is an inventive and unique horror movie, often breaking free from the cliches that dominate modern horror movies.  The spinoff, Annabelle, however, fell right back into the cliches of jump scares and stupid protagonists.  The proper sequel brings back director James Wan as well as Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel) and Patrick Wilson (Fargo) as the real-life Warren Siblings, famous 20th century paranormal investigators. 

            The trailers so far have been intense and intriguing, teasing another tense and haunting horror from mastermind James Wan.  I am really excited to see how this movie turns out, but the uncertainty of horror sequels and the failure of Annabelle holds this movie back at the bottom of the list.

9: Warcraft

            Based off the smash hit videogame franchise, Warcraft is an action fantasy epic that tells the story of a magic portal suddenly connecting the world of Humanity with the world of the orcs.  As war wages and both species face impending doom, leaders must come together in a confrontation that will decide the fate of both worlds.

            This movie may not seem enticing for some, but it marks a significant turning point in the industry.  If Warcraft can work, videogame movies will inevitably take off, possibly spiking living into a form of adaptation that has failed so regularly.     However if this movie fails, it will be one of the biggest nails in the coffin for videogames movies.  With a big budget and popular source material, studios and fans alike are watching Warcraft to set the course for what could be the next breakout blockbusters.  

8: Sausage Party 
NSFW

            "Dude, what if, like, food could, like, talk?"  This thought probably flowed through the substance-fueled mind of Seth Rogan.  Rogan didn't let the idea fade away though, because he turned it into the upcoming R-rated animated comedy, Sausage Party.  In this comedy, a group of talking, anamorphic foods are bought from a grocery store and realize that coming home with humans isn't the Valhalla experience they expected when they watch their friends get chopped up, cooked, and eaten.  After this realization, the food must work together to escape humanity before they become their next meal.

            The trailer promoted a lot of reaction when it first dropped, mostly for the insanity of the premise and the profanity of the imagery.  It ushered in plenty of laughs but also plenty of questions about just how the premise can hold up and if Rogan's fondness for crazy adult content can carry over into an animated format.  We'll have to wait all the way until August 12th to find out if this movie will taste fresh or end up overcooked.

7: Secret Life of Pets

            Animated movies come in many forms.  This time it's in the form of talking pets with various conflicting personalities who are forced to get along in order to defend their blissfully ignorant owners from vengeful animals left abandoned.  While it is not the most original premise, the trailers have caused genuine laughs from adults and children alike.  The simple premise could be a doorway into relatable and cute comedy and visuals as well as a potentially significant message about the necessity of caring for and about the animals we live with.  

            With stars like Louis C.K.. Kevin Hart, and Ellie Kember, this comedy has the potential to capture the well-rounded family fun that animation strives for.  Gather up the kids and grandparents and head to the theater on July 8th to see this movie for yourself.

6: Independence Day: Resurgence

            One of the defining action films of the 90's is Independence Day where an alien race with far superior technology invades the United States on - you guessed it - The Fourth of July.  20 years later, humanity is ready to strike back as they have taken the technology left behind to create their own super-powered weapons, preparing for an all-out war.  With most of the cast returning (minus leading man Will Smith, whose character supposedly killed off between the films) and promising action scenes in the trailers, this movie could end up being a popcorn hit of the summer for those desperate to overdose on adrenaline and nostalgia all at once.  This year, we celebrate our Independence Day a little early on June 24th.
     

  5: Free State of Jones

            Matthew McConaughey's acting resurgence has dominated movies and TV alike for the last few years, and his American Civil War period drama could continue this praise.  In Free State, McConaughey plays a Confederate soldier gone awol who leads a slave rebellion to establish an independent state free of slavery.  The trailers show some intense imagery of a dark time in American history and tease a powerful cinematic experience.  

            While many social speakers are hoping for an end to slave movies, this could be a critical hit from a genre with mixed relevancy.  McConaughey could help carry this small drama surrounded by blockbusters into a big hit for those looking for a break from massive action.   The movie opens against Independence Day on June 24th.

4: Lights Out

            James Wan horror hits twice on this list with Lights Out.  The reason this fairly obscure horror movie has made it so high on the list is because of the short film it is based on.  The original Lights Out is an independent short film which won several awards in 2013 and 2014.  Running less than 3 minutes in length, this movie featured terrifying but simplistic imagery showing a woman facing off with a creature who is only visible when the lights are off.  Horror director James Wan picked this short film up and turned it into a full length feature  on the same basic premise.  

            Lights Out is a small horror project opening against two fairly large studio pushes, so it may not be a financial hit, but it has high potential to be one of the best horror films of the year from a director who understands the genre fluently.  Lights Out will be keeping us up at night starting July 22nd.  

3: Finding Dory

            Everyone remembers Ellen's Dory from Finding Nemo, even if she does not remember much herself.  In this long-awaited sequel over ten years in the making, Dory goes off on her own adventure of self discovery as she attempts to find her long-forgotten family on the other side of the ocean.  Along for the swim are returning characters Marvin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Roylance) as  well as new characters played by Idris Alba and Bill Hader.  Pixar's sequels range from the incredible Toy Story 2 to the intolerable Cars 2, and hopefully Finding Dory can find it's place in the middle.

            Finding Nemo was a huge hit when it was released, and Ellen has been pushing for a sequel since practically before the movie even came out. Ellen and fans have had their wish granted with Finding Dory, but can it live up to the dreams of the children-turned-adults who loved the original?  And can it capture the imaginations of modern kids in a much different entertainment age?  We'll have to just keep swimming until June 17th to find out.  

2: Jason Bourne

            Matt Damon is back in the lead role that redefined his career.  This time, Bourne is back in action with his memories returned, but, as Alica Vikander's character tells him in the trailer, "Just because you remember everything, doesn't mean you know everything."  Bourne's action-packed ride for answers seems to promise an exhilarating return to form for the franchise that slightly lost its way with Bourne Legacy back in 2012.  

            The trailers were intense and have earned some excitement from fans of the original Bourne trilogy.  I'm hopeful that Paul Greengrass behind the camera and Matt Damon in front of it will be enough to return the action thriller to its roots when it races into theaters on July 22nd.  

1: Suicide Squad

            Many superhero movie fans feel upset after Batman v Superman let them down back in March.  Others, however, maintain their positivity and excitement.  All of these fans will be in theaters to see Suicide Squad, the off-the-wall team up movie that brings DC's biggest villains together to take on covert assignments from the government.  This is a win-win situation, giving the government a group they can blame their mistakes on and the villains shorter prison sentences in exchange for successful missions.  

            The trailers have made headlines and heavily impressed audiences.  Margot Robbie continues her climb into blockbusters with her take on Harley Quinn, but she has hard-hitting talent at her back with Will Smith as Deadshot and Jared Leto unleashing his infamously maniacal take on The Joker.  The biggest draw for this movie relies on just how important it is for the future of the DC Universe.  With Batman v Superman underperforming critical and financially and a big shakeup behind the scenes, Suicide Squad is the big chance Warner Brothers needs to push their franchise in the right direction.  If done well, this could save public interest in the DCMU, but if done badly, this could bury DC and force them to pull backwards and shift their franchises tremendously.  

            This may not turn out to be the best or biggest movie of the summer, but it will inevitably be one of the most talked-about and important.  The squad assembles on August 5th.

            There's my list, now where is yours?  Are you excited for these movies?  What did I leave out that you can't wait for?  Check back next week for a list of the movies you should be avoiding this summer.

            If you like what you've read, you can read even more including movie and TV reviews on my Blogspot, The Film Fan Awakens.  I recently reviewed Captain America Civil War and am reviewing Game of Thrones weekly.  

            You can also follow for instant updates on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheFilmFanAwakens and @FanFilmAwakens on Twitter.  I'm Tristan Mayer from The Fan Film Awakens and thanks for reading!

Note: All images and video used in this article are the property of their respective studios and creators.  They are reproduced here under Fair Use for criticism and commentary.  

Naked With the Devil: A Review of 'The Witch' (2016)

          When I watch movies, especially horror movies, I turn off the lights and try to get really engrossed into the film, absorbing every detail and feeling that comes with it.  For a little while, I was making it fine through The Witch, appreciating the imagery and characterization, but not feeling truly terrified.  "This is a lot of buildup," I thought, "I wonder how they'll pay this off."

          By the halfway point, as lightning and thunder raged outside my window, the lights were back on and I felt the overwhelming need to take a cold shower...

          The Witch is a horror drama written and directed by Robert Eggers and follows a family of Puritan pilgrims and their increasing fear of a Witch potentially lurking in the woods surrounding their farm.  After receiving a lot of buzz out of Sundance back in January 2015, the movie had a lot of excitement.  However it's release was held off for over a year, ultimately released quietly in February 2016 up against superhero hit Deadpool.  Delayed into a month that is usually the dumping ground for garbage horror movies like The Forest and Ouija, The Witch seemed destined to fail despite its buzz.  

         However The Witch is far from a failure, managing to be engrossing and intelligent as a drama all while providing the building tension and disturbing imagery great horror films are known for.  While it has some flaws, The Witch truly is a great movie examining complex and classical themes behind the veil of a terrifying horror film feeling like The Thing meets The Crucible.

         The Witch will be released on BluRay and Digital this Tuesday, May 17th.  Below, I will break down the movie while remaining spoiler-free outside of the first few minutes.  At the end, I will talk about what my pros and cons of the movie overall.

THE OLD NEW WORLD

         Akin to the classic witch stories like The Crucible, this movie takes place in the early 1600's, as Puritans flee religious persecution in England by taking desperate pilgrimages to the growing New World.  Among them is a family of seven who have recently been excommunicated from their Puritan plantation, forcing them to live on a small, secluded farm on the outskirts of a massive forest.  William is a bible-quoting roughman desperate to feed his family.  His wife, Katherine, is an protective and grieving mother.  Their oldest child is Thomasin, a blooming teen girl beginning her transition into womanhood.  Her brother, Caleb, is a conflicted young boy stuck between his youthful innocence and his need to grow quickly into his father.  The youngest are two inseparable young twins, Mercy and Jonas, more interested in playing games with the family's black goat than listening to their family.  

         Most notable, however, is a young newborn infant whose mysterious and sudden disappearance kicks off the film.  When he vanishes while Thomasin is playing with him, the religious family begins to turn towards the supernatural as an explanation for their despair.

A CORRUPT NATURE

        As dedicated Puritans, the family believes that all humans are cursed with an internal darkness.  A corrupt nature that only faith in God and Christ can fight against.  This conflict between darkness and light inspires deep devotion in the characters, believing that God and Satan are both eternally battling over their souls and that their prayer and actions help turn the fight - one way or the other.  

         When the infant vanishes along with a plague coming up in their crops, the family believes they are being cursed by a Witch of the Wood, who they fear lurks out in the forest that surrounds their home.  The family turns towards their faith and devotion, falling deeper into prayer.  As their crops continue to fail and questions continue to go unanswered, the family's paranoia and tension rises, causing them to turn slowly against each other, unsure of who should hold the blame for their problems.

LIVE DELICIOUSLY

         One of the most interesting themes of this film is the constant conflict between the natural temptations of life and the repression of those temptations that a Puritan outlook provides.  The temptations towards hedonistic pleasures like sex and self-indulgence haunt all of these characters throughout the movie as they struggle between the battle of good and evil within them.  

         The young brother, Caleb, is at the age where he is first entering puberty, however his family's religious life has caused him to repress his natural urges, resulting in even more sexual confusion than a normal young boy experiences.  There are multiple scenes where he is shown peeking at his older sister's chest, clearly unsure of how he is supposed to feel towards woman and sex as well as his own family.  He is a very young boy needing to become a man, going off on hunting trips with is father trying to take up the mantle to help his family.

         His father, William, is attempting to hold his family together all while trying to hold on to his own faith in times of struggle.  His fundamentalist interpretation is what earns his family banishment in the first place, and he clearly holds some self-hatred over his guilt for this.  In order to assert himself as the leader of the the family, he regularly heads out into the forest to hunt for food, against his family's wishes.  As the most faithful member of the family, he is very conflicted when his efforts continue to fail and he desperately prays for guidance.  Late in the movie as he begins to become more and more desperate, his actions all make sense as a father under enormous pressure and a Puritan facing evil.

         The mother, Katherine, has lost her young child and is obviously in mourning.  However her grief is repressed and challenged as her family refuses to accept a straight answer for the disappearance.  The suppression of her grief and lack of conclusive answers causes her to fade away into absence, being reclusive into her room to sob alone.  Often, when under any amount of pressure, she unleashes fury onto her family.  The one most often on the receiving end of these outbursts is her oldest daughter, Thomasin.

        Thomasin also faces her own temptations as she begins her full transition into womanhood.  She is still youthful, but her increasingly absent mother forces her to step up into a motherly role in the family.  She has to watch over the young twins and do household chores, all while fearing that she could be sent off to another family to be married.  Her conflict between the maturity of adulthood and youthful curiosity is a major motivation for her actions all the way through her story arch.  

WHAT I LOVED

• The characters.  Horror movies so often rely on fodder characters who are set up only with the most basic template of personality so that they can be killed off quickly.  This movie fearlessly broke that convention by making every single member of the family feel real and complex, all while leaving enough mystery around them all so that we do not know entirely who to trust.  The characters are broken and desperate and their actions all make sense because of it.
• The religion.  Religion is always a fascinating topic for me in media.  It can also be a really sticky subject for some people who are devoted to their religion and do not want to see belief belittled.  This movie was a fascinating portrayal of Religion with its pros and cons.  It managed to portray a mostly outdated interpretation of Christianity without making it seem dumbed down or idiotic in the way that many movies can.
• The ending.  This is spoiler free so I won't talk about the ending here, but it was truly satisfying and terrifying and filled with imagery that will fuel my nightmares.  

WHAT I LIKED

• The setting.  The old New England setting makes for some really stark images and provides a genuine way to separate the characters from the rest of the world.  The limited scope can make the early scenes of the movie feel a little boring, but all ultimately feels like the story worked perfectly with the setting.
• The mystery.  The constant building of tension and questions is fascinating as I begin to question just what is happening and what is real along with the characters.  By the end, it is impossible to fully trust anyone and unpredictable where the story could go.  While a certain reveal near the beginning of the movie weakens this mystery a bit, the finale is fully satisfying with the answers it gives and doesn't give.
• The soundtrack.  The music of the movie is composed by Robert Eggers and his work here is brilliant.  The way it sets a constant tone of foreboding danger and tension without relying on the cheap quick booms found in so many horror movies today is phenomenal.  It constantly left me feeling uneasy even in simple scenes.  The only reason it is on the LIKE list instead of the LOVE list is that there are a few moments where it felt a little invasive and made it hard to focus on what was really going on in the scene.
• The directing.  Robert Eggers wrote and directed this movie and his visual eye shines brightly here.  He is not afraid to hold a shot for a long time, even a shot that other directors might not have included at all.  There were a couple times where the shot was framed and held in such a way that it looked like it could have been a detailed painting of New England  farmland.  Many directors like Alfonso Cuaron are known for this style, however Eggers manages to execute it in such a way that it is often seamless.  However this is not always the case.  There are times where the shots can make early parts of the movie feel long.  There was even a moment where I got up and checked my player because I thought it had frozen.  This popular style usually works best when it isn't noticeable, and this movie sometimes crossed that line.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

• The very beginning.  While it ultimately feels worth it, the first 15 minutes or so can feel fairly unclear and inconsistent and made me begin to wonder what the movie was trying to do or what it was really even about.  The family is excommunicated from their plantation in the first minute with very little explanation and I would have liked to have spent a little more time there if only to juxtapose with the emptiness of their farm where the movie is spent.
• The early reveal.  This might be considered a spoiler, but it happens within the first 10 minutes so it is a very early spoiler. Right after the baby vanishes, we are shown a scene from a distance of a woman with the baby and some disturbing images of what she has done to it.  While it creates some of the most memorable images of the early half, it feels out of place and ultimately belittles the tension in the family.  We know there is a Witch so when the family looks for other explanations it is hard to get invested when we know the truth.  It is possible that this scene was a dream or imagined scenario by Thomasin or one of the other characters, but I think the movie could have benefited from not showing this.

WHAT I HATED

• The Marketing.  It is more than likely not the choices of the director, but much of the marketing gives away many of the key surprises and moments of the movie.  This may be hindsight bias because I watched the trailers after the movie, but it feels like if you watched the trailers and followed their online marketing you were robbed of the surprises and some of the tension.  Normally I would attach a trailer at the start, but I could not find one that did not give away more than one specific reveal.  So if you are reading this and have not seen any of the trailers, I would say to avoid them.

IF SHE WEIGHS THE SAME AS A DUCK...

        The Witch was a truly incredible movie worthy if the critical praise it received.  It's flaws are noticeable but minor and it ultimately adds up to a smart and thoughtful character drama all within a disturbing horror film.  It examines complex themes of religion and paranoia and provides a satisfying and very memorable finale to a first act of somewhat slow buildup.  It is a movie that I will not soon forget and can recommend to horror and drama fans alike looking for something unique and refreshing from a genre that is so often repetitive and dull.  

        The Witch is out on Tuesday so if you pick it up, let me know!  For those of you who have seen it, what did you think?  Try to keep comments spoiler free.  What are some other indie horror films you would recommend I check out?  

        I'm Tristan Mayer from The Film Fan Awakens.  You can follow my work here on Blogspot or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheFanFilmAwakens .  Thanks for reading!