Top Ten Most Looking Forward to in 2017

So 2017's prospects in terms of politics, I'll be honest, don't look too great at the moment (though there is some hope), but we should take what pleasures that we can.  Time for me to cast my eyes ahead over the next twelve months, and see what cinematic releases catch my interest.  (Assuming the world is still here to watch them in).

Top Ten Movies of 2016

Here we go, my attempt to extract a bit of positivity out of The Year of the Dumpster Fire in the form of the movies officially released in the UK this year.*  Now bear in mind, this is only of the movies I saw, I didn't catch everything, so this list may change a bit when I finally get round to seeing Swiss Army Man, I Daniel Blake, When Marnie Was There, Hell or High Water, Set the Thames on Fire, and quite a few others.  I will say that this was a tough call, there was A LOT of good stuff out this year, so much so that I could have done a top twenty if I wasn't so lazy. I've had to do quite a bit of soul searching over the last few weeks, if I gave it another day's thought this may turn out completely different, but at this moment, here are my top ten favourite films of 2016.

Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2016 - How did they do?

Well, 2016 is coming to an end, and THANK F*** FOR THAT!!!  I'm not going to get too deep into a discussion about this year, I do enough politics on my Twitter, here I'm just going to talk about movies.  So it's time for my regular three-part look at what I anticipated, what I most I enjoyed, and what I'm now looking forward to.  Let's start with my list of what I was looking forward to at the end of 2015 (how young and innocent I was back then!  We all were.).  As always, I'm going to leave out anything from that list that made it to my top ten of the year, so I'm not repeating myself.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2016 – Round Up

Well, time to take out the pumpkins, mop up the blood & entrails, and perform the yearly exorcism, another Halloween has been and gone.  Which also means my yearly Horror Movie Challenge is over too, and once again it has been a success.  This year I once again improved upon the previous, by two films this time for a total of forty four movies!  It should be noted that I did see other, non-horror stuff this month too, but doing this many has made me wonder how the hell the guys that go for 100 movies do it.  Have they not friends, family, lives?  Perhaps not, but there are still only so many hours in the day, and gore movies one can take in a single sitting.  I already plan to go through some nicer, happier things from my DVD pile over the next week to get out of the mindset, like Moomins on the Riviera.  But before I do though, let’s have on here both a final call for donations to Crisis, and a post mortem of the experience.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2016 - Play along at home! #OHMC2016

Time again for me to engage in that most mysterious of internet film geek traditions*, the October Horror Movie Challenge.  31 Days, at least 31 Horror Movies, NO EXCUSES!!!  Once again, I'm doing it sponsored for Crisis, so if you can spare a few pennies, that would be most generous of you.

This year though, I thought I'd preface the challenge itself with something that can help you play along if you so wish.  Finding the right titles to watch can be a bit of a minefield, because I will be the first to admit that, with the horror genre these days, there’s a lot of crap out there.  So here’s a very quick look at a few recent releases that may have flown under your radars, which are well worth your time (and a lot of these are available to stream or are cheap on HMV's shelves right now, so no need to go digging!).  What’s more, I guarantee that none of these end with either “they were dead all along” or “it was the lead character’s split personality”!

LOTNA's Favourite Movie Poll

Recently, for the League of the Non Aligned, I arranged a poll of our favourite movies.  The full results can be found here.  Here's also a little video montage I made as an introduction...

Fun with Maths! - "For the Fans"

OK, I don't want to keep going on about Batman v. Superman on here, I didn't even hate the movie really, there were bits I liked, but there's something I do want to tackle in regards to some of the response.  As I have previously said, if you liked the film, fine, that's your opinion, and I have mine, just because we don't agree on this, as it is art, one opinion doesn't really trump another.  So as such, this is against all those who are rabidly manning all the battle stations to defend the film.  One defence I've heard of this film, and indeed this is something that I have heard time and again when something with this devoted a fanbase doesn't quite work out, is that it's being made "for the fans".  This is something that turns up a lot in tweets at some critics, even if said critics are pretty publicly comics fans.  Right, time to use some good old fashioned maths to help prove why this argument is terrible, especially in this particular case...

Just One More Thing: Dawn of Just Plain Rude! (Touching on SPOILERS again)

So last night I posted about my thoughts on Batman v Superman, but there's something else about this movie I do have to discuss, but deserves it's own little point.  The stupid gang mentality that seems to have sprung up around the debate of the film.  Yeah, I touched on this a bit on the little "housekeeping" bit last time, but it deserves a bit more analysis here.  Thing is though, it's far from just one way, it's on both sides of the debate, so I'm actually going to start with the behaviour of those against the movie, just to show even though I didn't like the movie, I don't have a horse in this race.

Batman & Superman - Sharing the Blame (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!)

Having a look at my viewcounts, one of my most successful posts on here was when I had my rant about Man of Steel, so it seems fitting I should do a proper follow-up on here, for Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice.  Before I start though, housekeeping.  Yes, I have liked most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe output so far, but no I am not an absolutely uncritical fanboy.  For example, I am troubled by some of the stuff I've heard about happening behind the scenes (Patty Jenkins fired from Thor The Dark World, losing Edgar Wright, them constantly pushing back Captain Marvel...), and I was disappointed overall with Age of Ultron (see this for a bit more on why; I've actually gone off it further since then).  I just like movies that work, regardless of who's making them, so while I may compare and contrast a bit in here, it's not strictly a Marvel vs. DC thing, it's a what worked/what didn't thing.  Also, I have a history with these characters, I grew up with the DC animated universe, I have more affection for quite a lot of DC than Marvel overall.  As such, when I make my feelings clear, don't play the fanboy card to discount my opinion.  That's all this is going to be, an opinion, so if you disagree, that's fine, you have your opinion and I have mine, you don't need to change your mind based on anything a random internet no-one says.

Sorry for the preamble, it's just given the reaction in some quarters, you do have to raise the flame shields before you start.  (And I have some words to say about this mentality on both sides of the issue for another time).  Now all that's out of the way, time for the dissection!  (Seriously, SPOILER ALERT, I am going to reveal almost everything after the jump.)

Just One More Thing...: R-Right?

For the last few years, I’ve been contributing to a fanzine called The LOTNA’Verse, with my regular feature being the column Just One More Thing.  This is where I talk about current events in the world of geekdom, and generally get to exercise my inner Charlie Brooker.  The thing is, the ‘Verse only comes out every few months, and there are always things happening, so I’m starting to have some of these on here, to keep in practice.  I’ll save the right stuff for the actual issues, but this is on the point gonzo journalism, I want this fast, frequent, and unedited!  So, with this in mind, on the topic of massive stuff in nerd franchises, let’s talk Deadpool.