Ballerina (2016)

In 2012, Ella Havelka became the first indigenous dancer in The Australian Ballet. For Australians, especially for the indigenous people, this is a big deal. There is a question mark from Ella herself: was her talent what got her in or her race? I'm guessing her talent as, if it were just a publicity stunt, she'd be featured more prominently in their performances. Since she's simply part of the "flock" rather than the star of their productions, it seems likely that she got herself there. And yet, it's definitely her race that got someone to make a movie about her. 

She seems like a lovely young woman with a drive to preserve the language and practices of her ancestors. She weaves baskets, regularly spends times with elders to practice her speech, and gives time and encouragement to young dancers. And, at the time this was filmed, she was actively working on a dance style that fuses native movement with ballet. But none of this, in my opinion, rises to the level of "let's tell her story!" This felt more like hearing someone talk at length about their lovely granddaughter who has a bunch of different hobbies.

C

The Infiltrator (2016)

Cranston plays Robert Mazur, a real-life Customs Official who got in deep with the Escobar drug cartel by offering money laundering services on a large scale. It's a solid movie with some decent thrills and flawless acting, but it came to far less than the sum of its parts. I never truly felt the danger, e.g. the biggest issue for Mazur and his pretend fiancé seemed to be that they were feeling bad about tricking their good "friends" the Alcainos, who were upper management in the cartel.

Basically: fine.

B-

The Accountant (2016)

Affleck is surprisingly good as Christian, an autistic man raised by a father determined to make sure his son could survive in an unforgiving world. With his natural affinity for patterns, numbers, and solitude, the brutal lessons provided by his father turn him into the perfect accountant for criminal organizations.

This boils down to a bunch of great fight scenes with a decent (if somewhat thin) plot underneath. Though both Gary and I enjoyed this it's very likely I'll forget it before the year is out.

B-

The Handmaiden (2016)

Hideko, a sheltered heiress, is targeted in a convoluted scheme to seduce and secretly marry her for her fortune. Key to the plan is Sook-Hee, a young pickpocket employed to be Hideko's handmaiden, but whose role is to convince her to fall for "The Count," a persistent suitor.

Very early on, I realized that I knew this story as I'd seen the British miniseries Fingersmith. Once I had that comparison in my mind, this one just couldn't measure up. The sordid side plots of Hideko being trained in the art of softcore reading sessions and as an eventual mate for her elderly uncle were especially nasty. But, for all that, it is still a visual feast & extremely well-acted.

B-

The Nice Guys (2016)

I don't know what was wrong with us in 2016 when we originally saw this in the theater, but this time around it was a hit. Gosling and Crowe are a fantastic duo, so maybe it was a case of dialogue being missed due to audience reactions? I really have no idea. 

Though I still think it's unusual to have brutality and  hilarity sharing scenes, this time I was much more receptive to it and even appreciated it. Rather than having the fun spoiled by blood, the violence was mitigated by comedy.

B+

Allied (2016)

Allied spy Max pulls an undercover assignment in Casablanca playing husband to Marianne, a French resistance fighter, during World War II. They fall in love, then move back to England where they marry and start a family. But is Marianne on the up-and-up?

This should've been romantic and thrilling, but it was just basic. Marianne's character in the Casablanca scenes serves as a "how to spy" tutor, which was not only annoying but also quite weird seeing as Max shouldn't need the help. And, somehow, none of the action scenes felt in any way dangerous. It was just so very meh.

C

London Has Fallen (2016)

Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is the president's top secret service agent, so when dozens of world leaders flock to London for the English prime minister's funeral, Mike is at the president's side and it's darn lucky he is.

The plot is pretty basic -- bad guys are killing all the world leaders they can -- but the action is truly spectacular. Landmarks are destroyed, inventive car chase gun battles go on for ages, bridges collapse, etc. There's barely a minute to breathe. I mean, it's not good but it ain't bad.

C+

The Wailing (2016)

In a small Korean town, a few incidents of formerly mild people becoming violent killers occur and Jong-Goo is one of the police officers sent to investigate. The cops soon focus in on a new-to-town Japanese man who has an occult-type set-up in his home. When Jong-Goo's own daughter becomes sick, he hires a shaman to cure her but knows that may not be enough.

Maybe this was good and it was my white inability to quickly distinguish the players that was at fault here. I mean, I know that was an issue (when they spoke of the Japanese man, I didn't know which one that was for quite a while), but I am pretty sure it wasn't the only issue. Basically, I was confused at times but, mostly, I was just bored.

C-

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

A father and son mortuary team take in a body after hours and are asked to find the cause of death by morning. She was found half-buried in the basement of a home where the middle-aged owners and a contractor had been killed. Oddly, she has no outer signs of trauma.

This started out promising... or maybe I was just fooled by the presence of Brian Cox. There are some cool discoveries as they work the autopsy, but it eventually gets to the standard horror stuff. Thunderstorm, jump scares, dead bodies going walkabout, etc. Disappointing.

C-

Solace (2016)

Tired detective reaches out to a psychic with whom he's worked in the past for help with a serial killer case, but his uptight partner doesn't think it's a great idea... and neither does the psychic. But, of course, he does come on board and help them solve the thing.

This is a mess. I think there could've been an OK story here (psychic realizes he's chasing someone with the same gift he has), but somehow everything came off as both dumb and sordid, which is one of the worst combinations.

D+

Bridget Jones's Baby (2016)

The best of the the three films. As with the other two, however, you have to be willing to suspend disbelief. I mean, is a billionaire actually going to screw a rando and then happily accept responsibility for her pregnancy without an absolute TON of paperwork? But, it's got charm enough to cover any "yeah right..." moments.

B-

Hush (2016)

It's a home invasion movie with a twist: the target is deaf. Another twist: the target is smart. One last twist: the killer is also pretty smart.

Rather than being terrified by this, I just dug it in terms of strategy. Yes, it's scary, but it's neither silly nor exploitative; it's "this is what's happening and this is how I'm handling it." Unlike most run-from-the-killer movies, this target's actions made sense.

I'd call it a perfect Halloween choice.

B+

Under the Shadow (2016)

In 1980s Tehran, Shideh is barred from continuing her education to become a doctor due her former activism. Her husband is called to serve his yearly duty in the army, so she's cooped up in her apartment with their young daughter Dorsa and the threat of air raids constant. After a missile bursts through the roof of their building but fails to explode, strange things begin to occur. Dorsa's favorite doll goes missing and a new child in the building tells her that she needs protection from djinns. Shideh often hears things and glimpses movement in her apartment. Dorsa has conversations with people unseen by Shideh.

The mood was oppressive and the overall effect one of true fright. Though there are a couple of jump scares, they weren't overused. Instead, we begin to feel dread and concern. When you add in the extreme patriarchal setting of Iran in the '80s, you have a recipe for a satisfying horror movie that doesn't rely on shocks.

B-

My Blind Brother (2016)

Bill has been living in the shadow of brother Robbie -- a blind local celebrity who completes sports-centered challenges for charity -- for more than 20 years. When the girl that Bill has a crush on starts working for then dating Robbie, Bill knows it's time for a change.

Kroll and Slate are extremely winning as the made-for-each other couple. Zoe Kazan as the best friend is also perfect. The script, however, makes Robbie TOO unlikable and refuses to just let us enjoy a full belly-laugh before laying on the angst. All of the pieces are there for this to have been something great, but it underwhelms.

C+

Hello, My Name is Doris (2016)

Doris is an older woman who has never lived for herself because she served as her mother's caretaker and companion. But, now that her mother's gone, she decides she's gonna go for what she wants: the new young guy in her office. It's so cringey -- you just want to reach through the screen and deliver a few home truths to Doris, who is basically a high-schooler in her twilight years.

She's a movie character that does not exist in the real world. She may as well be a coma patient who wakes up after 40 years and just picks up from where she left off, it's that ridiculous.

D+

The Confirmation (2016)

Alcoholic, unemployed guy is watching his kid for a day while his wife is on a couples retreat with her new husband. He lands a job and then discovers his specialty tools have been stolen, putting that job in jeopardy. He and his son then embark on a kind of half-assed quest to find the tools.

It's a drag and I'm not sure if anything could've saved it -- the story itself is fundamentally boring.

D+

Hell House LLC (2016)

A "found footage" movie covering a tragedy on opening night of a Haunted House event. The videos show the team readying an abandoned-inn venue for their tour. It's a creepy place and they're freaking themselves out... but there are also too many caught-on-video weirdnesses to be ignored. And yet, somehow the show-runner does ignore them.

Low-budget, inexplicable nonsense.

D-

Clair Obscur (2016)

A young wife is basically a servant in her own home. She sneaks cigarettes and watches the antics of girls her age across street with obvious wistfulness. She dreads the obviously painful sex with her much-older husband and resents the bossiness of her mother-in-law, who also lives with them. When she is found hypothermic on the balcony and the other two inside dead of possibly accidental causes, a young female psychiatrist is called in. Though the doctor is in what appears to be a modern marriage, e.g. her husband openly watches porn with regularity and she doesn't seem to mind, the new patient causes her to reassess her own life. 

I honestly had a hard time with this movie. My issues were mostly with the doctor's life. 1) I absolutely hated the sex scenes: they were too intimate -- too full of sounds I shouldn't hear. I don't really have anything against legal porn, but I hadn't planned on watching any when I started up this film. Also, 2) her methods seemed fairly questionable to me.

All of that said, I appreciated the fact that, though their lives appeared to be completely different, correlations could be drawn and acted on. I think that we often accept shitty -- but changeable -- circumstances due to "so many people have it worse" reasoning. We are each living our own lives and are allowed to work toward happiness.

C+

Special Correspondents (2016)

A bad-boy radio journalist and a technician are assigned coverage of an uprising in South America, but lose their passports and tickets on the way to the airport. So, they hole up across the street from the station and fake their on-location broadcasts -- eventually being forced to fake their own kidnapping in order to keep the fiction going.

The story is interesting and the dim restauranteurs who house the pair made me chuckle a few times. But, unfortunately, the script never really allows the situation to be played at full force. The technician's wife is a horrible opportunist, but we only see what the public does and must infer the rest. Kelly McDonald, as a love interest, is muted to the point of almost being non-existent. It's a missed opportunity with some truly surprising violence near the end. 

C-

Anesthesia (2016)

This is one of those "intersecting stories" deals where everyone's supremely unhappy with the exception of one couple... so, of course, tragedy's gonna strike to make sure they aren't happy either. There's a college-age cutter, a perpetually drunk wife with a cheating husband, a successful lawyer trying to get his old friend into rehab, a sick woman, etc. etc. It's a misery fest without purpose.

D+