Thursday, December 15, 2016

Riske Business: The 2016 Binness Awards

by Adam Riske
I sure hope 2017 is better.

Allows Me to Still Defend John Travolta: In a Valley of Violence

Angriest I Got During a Movie: Dirty Grandpa, The Lobster, High Rise, Sausage Party

Animation That Touches Your Head: Zootopia

Animation That Touches Your Heart: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Audience Experience: Don’t Breathe

Best Performance in a Movie Not Enough People Saw: Ethan Hawke, Born to Be Blue

Best Performance in a Movie That You’re Fine if You Never See: Jonah Hill, War Dogs

Best Song: “Drive It Like You Stole It” from Sing Street

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked: John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked Much Much Less: Dan Fogler, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Biggest Disappointments: 31, Blair Witch, Keanu

Biggest Waste of Pop Culture Calories: Ghostbusters (2016)

Decent: The Conjuring 2, Hacksaw Ridge, Snowden

Deserved a Better Fate than it Got: The BFG

Does Everything Right: Green Room

Does this Count for a Top Ten List? It Rules: O.J.: Made in America

Funniest Movie: Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Funniest Performance: Ryan Gosling, The Nice Guys
Funniest Scene: “What don’t you want?” in Hell or High Water

Give Me a Break: Lo and Behold: Reveries of a Connected World

Good but Not Great for Me: Manchester By the Sea

Good Except for the First Few Minutes Which are Unforgivable: Joshy

I Can’t Believe I Actually Saw… Alice Through the Looking Glass, Now You See Me 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

I Dunno…I Liked The Songs??? Is that Good Enough?: Moana

I Had a Happy Childhood so I Don’t Need: Pete’s Dragon (2016)

I Loved it and then I Calmed Down: Don’t Think Twice, Finding Dory

I Mean…I Guess… The Handmaiden, Morris From America

Indies to Seek Out: First Girl I Loved, I Am Not a Serial Killer

I Only Remember the Airport Scene: Captain America: Civil War

It’s Fine: De Palma, Emelie, Hush, Jason Bourne, The Program, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, Southside with You

It’s Good but I Don’t Really Know Why: The Fits

I Wished I Liked it More: Everybody Wants Some!!

Just Didn’t Do It for Me…I Don’t Feel Bad: The Neon Demon

Just Didn’t Do It for Me…I Feel Bad: Beyond the Gates

Kevin Hart is Bad: Central Intelligence

Kevin Hart is Really Bad: Kevin Hart: What Now?
Kevin Hart is the Worst: Ride Along 2

Like Trying to Read a Book Written in Portuguese When You Don’t Know the Language or How to Read in General: Warcraft

Maybe Jeff Nichols Isn’t Awesome? Loving, Midnight Special

Meanest Movie (But Good): Nocturnal Animals

Meh: Arrival, Barbershop: Back in Business, The Edge of Seventeen, The Finest Hours, Into the Forest, Lights Out, Morgan, Southbound

Most Romantic: Moonlight

Movie I Liked a Little More Because Jan Likes it: The Shallows

Movies I Like More than Anyone Else: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Nerve, Wiener-Dog

Movies that Hate You: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad

Movie that Starts Fine and then Falls Off a Cliff: Rules Don’t Apply

Nope: Abattoir, The Boy, The Forest, My Blind Brother, The Magnificent Seven (2016), Mechanic: Resurrection, Office Christmas Party, Pet

Not Yet Released Indies to Seek Out: The Blackcoat’s Daughter, The Other Half, War on Everyone

Performance that Made a Meh Movie Good: Kristen Stewart, Café Society

Pleasant Surprises: Bad Moms, Deadpool, Deepwater Horizon, How to Be Single, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Weiner

PTSD From My Own Life Experience: Goat

Reminded Me Alden Ehrenreich was Also Really Good in Tetro: Hail, Caesar!

Scariest Children: Those twins in The Witch
Scummiest Movie: Triple 9

Scariest Movie: Trash Fire

“Shocking” Movie that’s Not Shocking at All: Tickled

So Bad it Becomes Funny: Bleed for This, The Girl on the Train, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

So Bad it Becomes Insulting: The Accountant

So Much Better than it Had Any Right to Be: Ouija: Origin of Evil

So Much Fun: Star Trek Beyond

Stab Me in the Fucking Scrotum: X-Men: Apocalypse

Starts Out Good and Then Decides to Kill Itself: Me Before You

Sweetest Movie: Life, Animated

These are Getting Better: The Purge: Election Year

Tom Hanks Movie Power Rankings: 1) A Hologram for the King 2) Sully 3) Inferno

Walkouts: Demolition, Hardcore Henry, Jane Got a Gun, The Legend of Tarzan, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Whatever: Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Swiss Army Man

Why is Everyone Wowed by the Last Shot of this Movie? It’s Implausible!: The Invitation

Wished I Liked it More than I Did Because it’s Heart is in the Right Place: Yoga Hosers

Worst CGI: Independence Day: Resurgence

Would Have Been an Oscar Contender in 1998: Money Monster

WTF: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

30 comments:

  1. so many questions about some of the picks.

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    1. Go for it. I'll answer any of them.

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    2. hhmm, where to start... why were you angry at the lobster and high rise?

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    3. http://www.fthismovie.net/2016/05/review-high-rise.html

      http://www.fthismovie.net/2016/06/riske-business-why-lobster-really.html

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    4. Ok, sorry about that, i should've checked ifnyou had a review first :)

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    5. No need to apologize. I just figured it was easier to send the links then try to remember what I was feeling at the time I wrote them.

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  2. I wish, just once that someone would show up the receive the Stab Me In The Scrotum Award.

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  3. Alphabetical perfect

    2017 will be better because it is the year we get Xtro on Bluray

    Dreams fullfilled

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  4. you know when everybody say this year was a great year for movies... every year. i don't feel that for 2016. not that there was no good movies at all, i just feel it was a stupendous MEH of a year. the bad overshadowed the good in a big way.

    but i like warcraft and x-men apocalype, so it might be just me

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    1. Even the good movies were less good than in most years.:-\

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    2. I really liked Warcraft too! Unfortunately, I can't join you on that limb with Apocalypse.

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  5. I agree with SO many of these. John Goodman is the best in 10 Cloverfield Lane. The. Best. I think he and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (my new movie crush) give my two favorite performances of the year.

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  6. Your list of walkouts was brilliant. Also thank you on the Jeff Nichols thing. i thought I might be the only one (though Mud was fantastic).

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    1. Midnight Special, I think, is better than Loving. The former I dislike mainly because of story issues. Loving, on the other hand, is like a movie that went so out of its way to remove cliché that it accidentally took out all emotion. It's so misguided that it feels like there's more scenes of Joel Edgerton cementing bricks than there are of him talking to his wife.

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  7. Adam, I know you have been interrogated about your increase in walkouts this year, so I will continue to prod. Considering that you sat through Office Christmas Party and Alice Through the Looking Glass, what constitutes a walkout exactly? Like, what about these films made them more abandonable than your “Nope” and “I Can’t Believe I Actually Saw…” categories. Genuinely curious. Maybe a topic of discussion for the year-end podcasts.

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    1. I'll go movie by movie. Probably the easiest way to answer.

      Demolition - I was getting aggravated that the movie was super indie twee/Fox Searchlighty. It didn't resemble reality after a while even though it was supposed to be a grounded drama.

      Hardcore Henry - The way it was shot was giving me a headache.

      Jane Got a Gun - The movie was incompetent by the way it was edited together. Such a Weinstein compromised movie. It's no one's vision. It felt test marketed to death.

      The Legend of Tarzan - I was at a dine in theater and the check came with about 30 min left. I was bored at the time and didn't mind not knowing how the whole thing was going to resolve.

      Mike and Dave - Adam Devine was driving me crazy and I have an allergy to dirty comedies that think it's funny just to curse and say dirty things as if that's the joke unto itself.

      Miss Peregrine - I was by myself in an empty theater at a 10:30pm show. By 11:30pm I knew the movie wasn't going to work and was getting worse and worse. I thought going home to sleep was the more appealing option.

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  8. Ethan Hawke was excellent in Born to Be Blue. He really nailed Chet in those latter years of his life, plus it was very convincing that he at least learned to play some of the pieces which trust me, it ain't easy to learn unless he has some prior experience with a trumpet. There's too many close up shots with him playing the correct notation for me to think it was all edited. If so, it's brilliant editing then a la final scene of Whiplash.

    You actually didn't hate any of the movies in my top ten (you were meh on one of them) so that's a change. I also thought The Accountant and Mag7 were a lot of fun though so what else is new :)

    Quick question: When you walk out of a film, is that when people realize you aren't wearing pants?

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  9. Anything you're still really looking forward to seeing in the last couple weeks of the year? I got to see La La Land last night and that one hit me pretty hard. I'd like to see Silence but don't think that it's opening wide enough for me to have a chance at seeing it until January. Paterson maybe?

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    1. So many movies this year that are technically 2016 are coming out in January. Kind of a bummer.
      Just saw Rogue One which I liked. Seeing La La Land in 20 min. I'll see Fences and catch up on a few things.
      Oh I saw American Honey and Jackie recently. I liked both quite a bit.

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    2. Rogue One followed by La La Land is the same double feature I did. I liked Rogue One well enough, but La La Land has stuck in my head a lot more and the ending in particular.

      Haven't seen American Honey or Jackie yet. I'll probably have to sit through Assassin's Creed though which I expect to be the biggest waste of a good cast since that Huntsman sequel but I'm willing to be surprised.

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  10. Adam if you are on the best of podcast please bring up BFG I can't believe Patrick or no one reviewed it I mean it's Spielberg how can you skip it and it's really good

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  11. I nominate Green Room for the "Hmm interestin.. OH Jesus Christ!" award.

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  12. I really recommend I Am Not A Serial Killer. It's really quite sad an haunting and strangely beautiful, I thought. Bummed I couldn't see it in a theatre. I'd be interested to know what you think.

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  13. I actually have seen O.J.: Made in America included on multiple movie top ten lists for this year.

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  14. Clearly Adam did not like 2016 and I'm ok with that.

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  15. Adam, I feel the same way about beyond the gates. Shh, don't tell Patrick.

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