The Pitters' Place

In no particular order:

Swiss Army Man
The Conjuring 2
Kubo and the Two Strings
Manchester by the Sea
The Witch
Green Room
The Edge of Seventeen
The Lobster

(maybe Moana if I see it)

I'm not sure how much negative you give for a movie being formulaic, but Moana still has a lot of familiar aspects to the Disney Princess formula. There's even some jokes about it in the movie.

That said, Moana is what Merida should have been. The movie's story is not tied to her gender, there's no romance, and the context of her actions is connected to her responsibility as the next in line to lead her people.

Edge of 17 & Kubo might just be the only two from yours that make it onto mine.

Well, I'm still in love with How to Train Your Dragon and it's about as formulaic as it can get.

Those aren't even real movies.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was one of the only films I actually saw this year but it was also the only film I needed to see this year bc it was perfect. I might be seeing Moana on Christmas Eve since we do a family cinema trip and I usually get to pick the film on account of being a spoilt pampered baby and I don't think I can get away with picking Fantastic Beasts again and everything else looks shit.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Well, I'm still in love with How to Train Your Dragon and it's about as formulaic as it can get.

This is a good opinion and you should feel good.

My love of HTTYD is my best character trait.

aels wrote:Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was one of the only films I actually saw this year but it was also the only film I needed to see this year bc it was perfect. I might be seeing Moana on Christmas Eve since we do a family cinema trip and I usually get to pick the film on account of being a spoilt pampered baby and I don't think I can get away with picking Fantastic Beasts again and everything else looks shit.

Everything else probably is shit.

Rogue One was pretty great.

This may or may not change (I have 52 movies to sift through and reconsider):

10 Hacksaw Ridge
9 10 Cloverfield Lane
8 Lights Out
7 Moana
6 Hell or High Water
5 Arrival
4 Kubo & the two strings
3 Zootopia
2 Edge of 17
1 La La Land

Honorable mentions: Swiss Army Man, The Nice Guys.


Also note, if we went back to the 5 nominess for best picture, I would be comfortable in nominating those numbered 1-5

Swiss Army Man
The Conjuring 2
Kubo and the Two Strings
Manchester by the Sea
The Witch
Green Room
The Edge of Seventeen
The Lobster
10 Hacksaw Ridge
9 10 Cloverfield Lane
8 Lights Out
7 Moana
6 Hell or High Water
5 Arrival
4 Kubo & the two strings
3 Zootopia
2 Edge of 17
1 La La Land


Out of all of these Ive seen
The conjuring 2/arrival/ 10 cloverfield Lane and Zootopia.

The Conjuring 2 was no where near as scary as The Conjuring and was pretty forgettable.
Zootopia was cute - not amazing but funny enuff, liked the message and was pretty well executed .. but I wouldn't rate it all that amazingly.
I really enjoyed 10 cloverfield lane, mostly because John Goodman was amazing in it - don't know if its one of my fav's of the year but its a very good movie that does manage to keep you guessing, the end felt jarringly out of place - but that didn't bother me greatly.
Arrival was brilliant. Loved the look and feel, good premise right down to the symbolic circular language - not sure how I feel about the whole "Language rewires your brain to transcend space and time" .. but meh - it was still a good movie.

Awww... I looked at your list and was gonna congratulate you for having good taste, and then realized you just copied and pasted my list.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Awww... I looked at your list and was gonna congratulate you for having good taste, and then realized you just copied and pasted my list.

Lol - yeah, given I disagreed with the one movie on your list that I have actually seen - I doubt that we'd be in sync on our tastes anytime soon.

there are a couple on your list that I do want to see that I haven't seen yet - particularly Moana / The witch and The Lobster .. I am absolutely surprised that you liked Conjuring 2 tho - I mean, it was alright but not as good as the original and not a notable example of the genre.

To be honest - This year didn't really offer up a list of truly notable movies to my recollection, I did really like Arrival but it was still ultimately a bit disappointing, I really enjoyed the Martian until I read the book (and that was a 2015 movie anyways).
I think my fav movie of the year would probably be "Eye in the sky" - which was surprisingly involving

I don't know why I liked Conjuring 2. Maybe I was just in a good mood. I remember I didn't like the first one at all, and I wasn't expecting the second one to be any good, and it was actually better than the first one and surprisingly scary at parts, so I was pleasantly surprised. That painting scene and the one with the old dude in the rocking chair... I mean, come on, you have to admit those were good.

I agree that this was a pretty bad year for movies. Most of the better movies that came out were just "pretty good" at best. (To be fair, I haven't seen Moana, La La Land, Rogue One, or a bunch of others yet.) The only one I've seen I would classify as great was Swiss Army Man.

Moana is great, you should all go see it.

Toxic masculinity won't let me see a Disney princess movie in the theater.

She's not a princess. She's the chief's daughter.

So all those dozens of reviews that called it a princess movie were misleading? How could that be?

I was being facetious because she gets into an argument with another character in the film about whether she counts as a princess. Disney have a very confused idea about what counts as a princess since they think that Mulan is one.

I've never seen Mulan, but I thought what counts as a princess is... pretty straightforward? Like, it's a pretty simple idea? I thought it's any rich conventionally pretty female who goes against her traditionalist parents' wishes and falls in love with a rogue-yet-handsome scoundrel with a heart of gold. Or is that not how it goes? I'm confused.

Mulan does go against her parents' wishes but she does not fall in love with a rogue and also she is not from royalty nor does she marry into royalty, which I consider a key part of princessing.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Toxic masculinity won't let me see a Disney princess movie in the theater.

She makes it very clear she's not a princess, meta jokes aside. Plus The Rock being in it should counter any toxic masculinity.

Oh, and aside from Aladfin, Flynn, and Naveen, I don't consider the princes rogues.

And there is no romance in Moana, which means it breaks the falls-in-love with thd rogue, which would be creepy anyway as she's a 16 year old human terb and he's an over 1000 year old demigod.