The Top Ten Movies of 2019!

I'll tell you upfront: the 11th edition of this list is Disney-heavy. I literally forced myself not to include Aladdin or Frozen 2 on the list because it would have just made it ridiculous how many spots they had on here and I don't get paid by Disney to give them every spot. (If anyone from Disney would like to pay me to include more of their movies on the list, I'll happily kick the 3 non-Disney movies off this list and start belting out "Let it Go" ASAP)

These lists are interesting to me because they don't always end up lining up with which movies were my favorite when the year is over. Emily is encouraging me to reorder last year's list with how I ended up feeling about them when it was all said and done but there are always a few surprises and sadly disappointments. (A great example: probably the best movie I've seen in 2018 was Paddington 2.)

The truth is that this year's list was one of the hardest lists to make because of how great these movies look. There are movies on the bottom of the list that could have easily been on the top of the list in other years. Without further ado, list #11:

1. Star Wars: Episode IX (December 20th)

To anyone who knows me, this shouldn't be a surprise. I loved The Force Awakens in 2015 and while I don't understand the irrational hatred from some of The Last Jedi, my immediate response to seeing it was: it'll depend on how they finish the series. I've written about this before but I think the biggest weakness that these Star Wars films have is a lack of overarching vision between the movies. Without a finale to put it in context, The Last Jedi kind of felt like a movie made by someone who didn't really enjoy The Force Awakens. At the very least, it did not feel like the continuation of a story-line but a new direction. I am hopeful that the return of JJ Abrams as director (he also directed The Force Awakens) will put some cohesion between the three movies. I'm also hopeful we'll get an answer to the question that's been on everyone's mind: is Chewbacca related to Luke Skywalker?

2. Avengers: Endgame (April 26th)

Star Wars is the only movie that could have possibly kept this from the top spot and even then it's my enthusiasm just short of obsession of Star Wars that is probably blinding me to the truth that this movie belongs there. Although the trailer of this movie would ruin Avengers: Infinity War, I'll avoid spoiling it and tell you to go watch it on Netflix before finishing this blog. I've never seen a movie where I immediately wanted to see its sequel. They did such a great set up with Infinity War that it's only the track record of Marvel films that leads me to believe they can deliver a follow-up that won't feel disappointing. Based on the trailer of Endgame, it looks like they just might do it.

3. Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 5th)

Spider-Man: Homecoming might be my favorite Marvel movie. Besides growing up as a Spider-Man fan (I had a single paperback, black and white copy of a story line between Spidey and Doc Ock that I read so many times that the front cover came off.) that movie just felt so pure in its storytelling and framing. Without going into spoilers for Infinity War, I'm not sure where they'll go with this story but Tom Holland is such a convincing high school Spider-Man that it'll be worth the ticket regardless of what they decide to do.

4. Toy Story 4 (June 21st)

Have you ever been to a concert where no one was asking for an encore but the performer came out and did one anyway? Meet Toy Story 4. I love the Toy Story movies. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are perfect. Toy Story 3 was way better than it had any business being. It felt like they were bringing things to a close. And yet, we're getting Toy Story 4. The key to whether an encore is worth it is if it adds to what came before. Knowing Pixar, I think this will. Just for existing, this movie is a good reminder that just because a chapter comes to a close does not mean our story is over. I'm interested to see what they do and I'll try my best not to hold it up too much to Toy Story 3's near-perfect standards.

5. The Lion King (July 19th)

The first movie I can remember seeing in the movie theater was Home Alone 2 but the first movie I can clearly remember wanting to see and then being blown away by the experience of seeing it was The Lion King. Director Jon Favreau has already proven with The Jungle Book that he can take a classic and make a movie that adds value without being a shot for shot repeat of the animated version. Just the fact that they brought back James Earl Jones as Mufasa is enough to get me in to see this one!

6. Downton Abbey (September 20th)

I love America. I also have a very strong affection for the UK. (If they made a Great British Baking Show movie, it'd be on this list!) Downton Abbey was one of those shows that I assumed I wouldn't like so I avoided when it started gaining popularity. After flying through the first couple of seasons, this show was probably the one I would look forward to the most every year. The stories were just so well done and it was such an interesting setting (the upper-class in the WWI-1920's UK) that it felt like a book I couldn't put down. The show wrapped up neatly in 2015 but much like Toy Story, it is so good that you don't mind an encore that you weren't necessarily screaming for.

7. Captain Marvel (March 8th)

The way that Infinity War wrapped up was perfect marketing for the upcoming non-Avengers Marvel movies because it feels like you need every puzzle piece to how the story will resolve that you can get. I've only become acquainted with Captain Marvel in the past couple of years but the decision to set this movie in the 1990s with a CGI de-aged Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is interesting enough that I think this will be worth the ticket regardless of how much it points to Avengers: Endgame.

8. Dumbo (March 29th)

The second animated-classic-live action- remake on this list, Dumbo was not one of my favorite movies as a kid. Oh, I watched it plenty of times but it scared me. (Those pink elephants!) This movie looks so interesting with it's art deco vibe that I'll overcome my fear of pink elephants to give it a try. You can't always judge a movie by its trailer but all of the trailers they've released for Dumbo make it seem exactly like the heart-warming, original take on the animated film that you'd hope it would be.

9. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (February 8th)

The first LEGO Movie was great. It was funny, it was original, it couldn't be topped. We live in a world were "couldn't be topped" is a challenge not a warning to movie studios (See Toy Story 4 and Downton Abbey) so here's a sequel. (Seriously, if you've seen the first one I'm not sure how you end the movie the way they did and still have a sequel?) Chris Pratt is at his Andy Dwyer finest as Emmett and I think that this will fall in that same category where it may not reach the greatness of the first movie but it'll be worth seeing anyway.


10. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (May 31st)

Finding the movie for the 10th spot on this list was harder than the other 9. First, I never watched the last Godzilla movie. Second, it's not a genre that I normally would be interested in. (I did see the 1998 Godzilla movie in the theaters though and it is not easy to rewatch now but I loved it as a kid.) The main draw to this one is that it seems to know that it's going way overboard (for an American Godzilla at least) with the number of monsters in the movie but it's gladly pushing that envelope. To top it off, you have Eleven from Stranger Things and Gary Hobson from Early Edition so that alone is worth rounding out this list.

Why I Deleted* Twitter and Subscribed to the Chicago Tribune

The age of life expectancy in the United States has declined for the third straight year. This is out of the ordinary. So out of the ordinary that the last time it happened was during World War I. They had an excuse when it happened that time (WWI and a flu pandemic) but experts are confused as they look at our relatively peaceful circumstances in 2018. Two of the largest factors in this decline are suicide and opioid addiction. Even if these are the main causes of this decline, we're still left to ask: why?

Ben Sasse argues strongly in his book Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal that the main contributor to our increasing despair and even why so many are turning to opioid abuse stemming from a single issue: chronic loneliness. As most people can recognize, loneliness is not just the lack of people around to whom you are connecting; it is a lack of connection to people even when there are people around you. Loneliness has been a problem since the Fall of Man but it seems to be getting worse at an increasing speed.

Why do Sasse and others believe that this loneliness is expanding so rapidly? It stems from our increasing lack of "rootedness" in our communities and the disappearance of  tribes that have traditionally given us our place of connection. This blog post could go in a thousand different directions from here: churches that are so large that people come in and leave without connecting with the people around them, a lack of connection to neighbors out of increasing fear of strangers and bad intentions, etc. The biggest impact that this idea had on my own life is the place I have allowed my iPhone to shape my news consumption and keep me from living in the present with the people around me.

Twitter can be an extremely impressive tool and one of the great things that it does is allow news to travel at speeds never seen before. While many once saw the advent of cable news as bringing the news to the world at instant speeds, we now can have "reporters" giving us accounts with handheld cameras and word processors in their back pockets in the form of their phones. I have prided myself in knowing more about the news than most other people, knowing more facts about an issue or debate and knowing it fast.

Unbeknownst to me, I was doing more than increasing my knowledge on the issues; I was overloading my brain with the need for instant facts, regardless of whether or not I understood their context. Before we started getting all of our Amazon packages within two days, we started to believe that actions needed to occur instantaneously.  If someone replies to a text 30 minutes later rather than 2 minutes later, were they trying to send a message of being upset? If an investigation into a sitting President's administration goes on for two years, does that mean that the investigator is being unfair rather than thorough? We expect instant results, and when we don't get them we are unsatisfied.

Constantly checking Twitter for the latest news was shaping the level of importance that an individual story deserved, and it was keeping me from placing my focus on the real people around me. Should we become hermits who stay away from news and just trust that the world will work itself out in our ignorance? I would say no. While there is a danger of being "overinformed" or rather "fast food informed" through overindulging in internet or cable news, being informed about the major issues in our country, state and local communities is a vital part of actually being connected to each other. I care about what's happening in my local community not because of whether it benefits or hurts "my team" but how it benefits or hurts my neighbor. I can't know what will benefit or hurt my neighbor unless I know what is going on, and unless I know my neighbor.

So how did I decide to be informed without constantly overindulging in internet/cable news? I'd like to reintroduce you to the local newspaper. I know the newspaper as an industry is going out of business. I know that people tend to trust sources of news that they agree with rather than the traditional news media. Yet, there is still value in hearing from people with whom you disagree and in keeping the structure of being in control of when the news comes to you. My news comes sometime before I wake up at 5am since the Chicago Tribune has not yet been missing from our front porch when I go check on it. Sometimes I have time to read the paper before heading to work while other times I don't get a chance to read it until I get home. The truth that the internet/cable news industry doesn't want you know: almost all news does not need to be known immediately and most news is clearer if you wait a little after it happens.

I don't imagine that everyone has the problem with Twitter that I do. Whether its Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Candy Crush, Fortnight or old-fashioned "web surfing," the temptation to get lost in our digital world is a constant one for almost everyone. Every day and increasingly, every minute is a choice of whether to be present and find our community with people or to settle for the false sense of community that we receive from our digital devices. I'm not advocating for chucking our phones and computers out the window but we must realize that they will either be a tool that we control for specific purposes or an oppressive master to which we subject ourselves.

Case in point: I still have a Twitter account. I like following Ben Sasse (although he tries to limit his Twitter usage as well), Lin-Manuel Miranda (we don't agree on politics but I almost always appreciate his perspective and attitude on life), Haley Byrd (the best/funniest congressional reporter on Twitter) as well as actual real-life friends. What I found while clearing out the number of people I follow on Twitter is that most of my actual real-life friends haven't tweeted in years or don't tweet very often. I deleted the Twitter app off my phone but still allow myself to check it occasionally (it's hard to go from 40-50 times a day to zero) but I'm hoping that by keeping myself from the draw of the constant news cycle that I can be more rooted in my community while keeping informed.

What to do now? Maybe I'll go see if I can find those real-life friends who haven't been tweeting...

(Right after I tweet about this blog post)




*Full disclosure: I deleted the app off my phone, but I still have a Twitter account.

Preparing Well for 2020

The 2018 election hasn't even happened yet and already the wheels of the 2020 Presidential election are beginning to churn. You could argue that they never stopped churning after 2016, but politicians will start campaigns, visit the early primary states, and people will start attaching themselves to a candidate. You could argue that 2016 was the ugliest campaign season in the last 100 years. I'm fairly certain that I was unfriended - or at the very least unfollowed - over politics, and I know that I'm not alone.

2020 has all of the signs of being even worse. While this sounds depressing, it can also be a chance for all of us to think about how to engage each other better before we get tied up in the mess of the election. If we think and plan ahead about "how" we speak to each other, when we get to the specific "what" we speak to each other, we can hopefully leave the election season less divided. Here are a few things that I hope we can remember that will make this possible:

1. Rudeness is not persuasion.

This is something that I thought most people understood, but I found out the hard way that wasn't always true. I would share a link to a story about a specific politician or a political issue and a couple of people would respond with personal insults or over the top accusations. Not only did this never cause me to consider adopting their position or politician, I doubt it encouraged anyone on the outside to do so either. 

I imagine it may have made those people who were rude feel better about themselves, but it hasn't been lost on me that I haven't heard from those people since the election of 2016 ended either. 

2. You're much more likely to influence someone over coffee than over the internet.

Even if you avoid being rude to other people on social media over politics, there's another issue that occurs: political overload. If you aren't the one running for office yourself, your Facebook wall, your Twitter feed, or your Snapchat snap, shouldn't be completely full of political memes or links to why you don't like the the other candidate. It isn't that you shouldn't advocate for your positions or candidates, but there is a point when the flow of memes causes people to stop paying attention. Comments are usually full of either people who already in agreement with you or the people from the previous section who just like arguing.

This doesn't mean that it isn't worth persuading people! Our form of government is founded on the idea of ideas being debated and considered. We've become so polarized that people rarely consider ideas that come from outside of their political tribe. It would help the health of our country if people tried to convince each other of their positions in a non-social media forum. This will help us build the depth of our ideas by having to defend them in more than a couple of sentences, and it will help us see something else important-- the next point:

3. People are more than their political beliefs.

People on either side of the political divide tend to define people by cut and dry labels: liberal, leftist, far-right, conservatives. Some labels we embrace as part of our identity while others we bestow on others without bothering to ask if they would consider that label for themselves or not. The truth is that while labels are easy and in some cases generally helpful, they can also have a harmful effect - causing us to forget that people are more than their political beliefs.

We're at the point where we politicize everything from the restaurants we do or don't eat at to which sports we watch. When we politicize people, we lose that there is a multitude of our personalities, talents, interests and virtues that have little to do with what political tribe we belong to. The harm, then, is to ourselves when we miss those things and don't allow ourselves to view people as people. As Christians, we believe that all people are created in the image of God, and so for a Christian to politicize a person, you are diminishing your ability to recognize that their identity is not rooted in politics but in their status as a being created by a loving God.

4. There is benefit to listening to opposing viewpoints without responding.

When we do listen to the viewpoints of others we often feel the need to respond quickly with our own point of view. Pastor John Piper recently explained why he doesn't share his political opinions on a specific issue, and it caused me to pause. His reason: he doesn't have the expertise or wide-ranging research to speak authoritatively about most political issues. This flies in the face of how I normally operate. Normally my process is: read something about an issue (or at least read the headline), think I know about that issue, tell other people what to think about that issue. The truth is that if I actually want to be responsible with my political viewpoints, I need to start with a lot more listening and understanding along with pushing myself to actually look into multiple viewpoints before deciding that I know everything there is to know.

The other option is this: I don't need to have an opinion on every political issue or politician! Sometimes it's enough to say: I'm not sure what to say about this and want to keep from speaking out of ignorance. Not speaking can actually be more helpful to other people than deciding that a half-baked political opinion needs to be shared.

5. This is NOT the most important election in your lifetime.

I love reading about history. The biggest thing I often walk away with after reading a historical biography is that as much as things have changed, there's so much that hasn't. Basically as soon as the country began, people were viewing issues through party lenses and using media sources to communicate their spin. Another thing that hasn't changed is that people almost always view the current election as the most important election in their lifetime. 

The number one perpetrator of this viewpoint: politicians. If they can convince people that this election will either cause the survival or destruction of the country, state, city, water reclamation district, etc. then they can get people to actually show up and vote. While this might seem like a simple political tactic, what it does is cause tribal identity to intensify. When you think that the other side is going to destroy your community, why wouldn't you huddle up with your "team" to protect yourself?

The truth is that this country tends to moderate itself over time. When one party has control of multiple branches, or when one of the parties becomes more liberal or conservative, balance sets in, and the other side gains in power to offset. That doesn't promise that this will always occur, because no country has the right to eternally exist (just ask the Roman Empire) but it should help us recognize that much of what seems like urgent life-or-death power struggles have been happening for 200 years and will probably keep happening as long as we have a two-party system.

In politics, winning isn't everything.
The 2004 election was the day after my 18th birthday so I didn't vote that year. Well over half of my primary or general election choices lost in the following 14 years. We can be fooled into seeing politics as a game to win or a battle to fight. What politics actually is, is an opportunity to bear the sword of government in a very small way ourselves. What this means is that we need to take our votes seriously as an action that has influence beyond our own interests, but also that the very action of voting carries meaning itself. I imagine that as long as I don't vote for a minor party or an independent (which I have!) that over time the balance of "winning" will be closer to 50%. Sometimes we "win" and sometimes we "lose," but we've only truly lost when we view our identity and the identity of others in their political views rather than viewing ourselves and others as full, complex, changing human beings.

The Top 10 Movies of 2018!

We're in the era where everyone makes lists (almost all of the ranking of Star Wars are Originals, New ones, then Prequels...) but I am proud to say that this is the 10th annual edition of this list. I'm not big into resolutions but this year seems like it might actually be the one where I finish editing and publishing the several blog posts I have in my drafts that I claim I "don't have time to finish." I'm finally done with school, I'm still waiting to see where God leads us job-wise so I'm probably out of good excuses not to write more often.

I do have thoughts other than what movies I'm looking forward to, I promise!

Until then, here are those movie thoughts:

1. Avengers: Infinity War (May 4)

I grew up as a fan of Batman and Spider-man so I'm not a Marvel-only sort of person but when it comes to the movies, Marvel has a huge advantage: patience. In a lot of ways this movie is the culmination of 10 years of movies all building into one major showdown. DC, on the other hand, tried to recreate this dynamic on the quick and ended up with Batman v Superman (aka one of the few movies I've ever had to force myself to finish.) This movie is overloaded with characters but they've characters that you've gotten a chance to know and so there's payoff when a character is put in danger: you actually care what happens.

2. The Incredibles 2 (June 15)

Pixar has made many great movies but arguably one of its best was The Incredibles. It's a superhero movie without relying on any knowledge of who the characters are coming into the story and ends up with a really interesting discussion about family and what the actual ramifications would be of the damage that superheros tend to leave while battling supervillians. Brad Bird hasn't made a bad movie (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, even Tomorrowland) so there's good reason fans have been clamoring for a sequel since the original debuted 14 years ago.

3. Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25)



This movie has had more problems than most. Lucasfilm hired the directors of The Lego Movie but then fired them after they'd finished most of their filming. Enter Ron Howard. Ron Howard has made some great movies (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man) and some bad movies (most of the Da Vinci Code movies.) I can't say that I particularly cared where Han Solo came from since the beauty of finding him in A New Hope is that he's an established scoundrel. What I am interested in is catching the joy and the wonder of the original trilogy. If Ron Howard has one thing going for him, it's that he's been a fan of Star Wars from the beginning, even going to the point of defending Jake Lloyd's performance in The Phantom Menace. (While Jake wasn't great, he didn't write the script of that movie.)

4. Mary Poppins Returns (December 25)

Mary Poppins is a classic. The story of how they made that movie (Saving Mr. Banks) was an intriguing movie on its own. While this movie will have the difficult task of trying to hold up to that classic without Julie Andrews in the role, it will have the fantastic talent of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, Moana) taking the Dick Van Dyke-type role in this sequel as well as contributing to the music. I love going to the movies on Christmas Day and I have a strong feeling that this will be a great trip to the movies next year.

5. Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-it Ralph 2 (November 21)

Wreck-it Ralph is probably underrated when it comes to animated classics from the past few years. It's heart-warming, funny and original. It's not surprising that they decided to make a sequel that takes Ralph out of the arcade and into the internet. The jokes of the original movie felt fresh without being gimmicky and I'm hopeful that the same can be said after watching this one.

6. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (November 16)



After 8 movies, it seemed like there would always be a Harry Potter movie coming out every few years. The first Fantastic Beasts movie did a good job of feeling like it was part of that world without feeling like a Harry Potter movie. It felt much darker, actually. I'm actually hoping that they take a move toward the tone of the Potter series as they introduce Jude Law as a young Dumbledore and a strange looking Johnny Depp as the main non-Voldemort foe of the wizard world: Grindlewald.

7. Black Panther (February 16)

Thor: Ragnarok paid off this year by letting itself be something different from the majority of the Marvel films and I think that Black Panther might be able to do the same with its own tone and vision. Black Panther was one of the highlights of Captain America: Civil War and it'll be fun to see him take center stage as well as see the return of Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis from CA: CW as well.

8. Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6)



I waited for the Redbox release of the original Ant-man movie as I wanted to keep up with the overall story of the Marvel films but did not have a strong interest in a movie about a hero who could shrink to the size of ants and ride them around. What I found after watching the movie was that it was hilarious and that Paul Rudd was the superhero I never knew I needed to see. As a fan of LOST, it was great to see Evangeline Lilly in that film and I'm looking forward to her getting her chance to join the world of superheroes herself.

9. Christopher Robin (August 3)


This is a live-action movie starring Ewan McGregor as an adult Christopher Robin who is confronted by his friends from the Hundred Acre Woods to reconnect to the magic of his childhood. I love Winnie-the-Pooh and think that the series of animated films are some of the wittiest that Disney has produced. I'm not sure how this will translate to a live-action movie but I was skeptical of the live-action adaptations of The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast and those were fairly entertaining. It seems like they're taking a risk with the story line so there's a chance they could produce something that rises above being "another live-action remake" of a Disney classic.

10. Ready Player One (March 30)

I read this book awhile back and didn't really like it. If you enjoy movies from the 1980s (I do) then you'll find plenty of references and callbacks. The main problem with the book is that it felt like there wasn't much left besides the references and callbacks. What this movie does have going for it is the king of the 1980s movies himself: Steven Spielberg. The trailers haven't made me feel like there is much there besides what was in the books but if anyone can elevate this above the book, it's Spielberg. Finally, they have the DeLorean from Back to the Future so it'll always have that going for it.

Thanks for reading!

The Top 10* Movies of 2017!

As much as many of us wanted to get out of 2016, there were some pretty good movies last year. I only saw 7 out of my 10 list for 2016 but most of the ones I didn't see were on the bottom of the list anyway. Captain America: Civil War and Rogue One were pretty darn good times at the movie theater and a few movies (Zootopia, Jungle Book) turned out to be even better than I was expecting.

This list can seem trivial but I want to take a second and talk about the impact that movies can make. For some people 2016 was a great year, for others it was a year of disappointment. A trip to the movies can be an opportunity to escape to another world. I don't think we should watch movies with our brains turned off or not have standards for the content that we're consuming, but a chance to see truth, love, human nature and heroism played out before us is not something we should take for granted. I often think of the scene with Sam and Frodo in The Two Towers as a scene of heroism and virtue on display. These trips to escape shouldn't make us deny that the world we live in is still as messy when we leave the movies as it was when we went in but they can remind us that there is something better remaining.

Without further ado, the 9th Annual list of the 10 ten movies I'm looking forward to next year:

1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15th)

I put The Force Awakens on the top of the 2015 in the hope that it could possibly live up to my expectations. Although it's become passé to call it a great movie, I felt like it was the necessary framework to set up a new trilogy. Regardless of what people say now, they did a great job of creating new characters that I want to know more about without making it feel like the "Next Generation." When you combine that with a chance to see Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia one last time, there's no way that any other movie could top The Last Jedi for the top of this list.

2. Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7th)

There's been one thing that has been on my "things I hope happen but am not counting on" list for the last several years and it's a chance to have Spider-man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I loved the first 3 Spider-man movies and probably counted Spider-man along with Batman and The Flash as my favorite childhood superheroes growing up but the most recent two Spider-man movies were largely forgettable. Well acted but seemed to lack a reason for existing. Enter 2016 where Spider-man is finally allowed to crossover to the MCU and I'd argue he easily stole the show in Captain America: Civil War. I'm excited to see what they can do with a Peter Parker who feels like he's in high school and one who knows and works with The Avengers.

3. Dunkirk (July 21st)

Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, etc.) Enough said.

Just kidding, Nolan directing is enough for most movies to reach my top 5 and although I'm not the biggest fan of war films, this looks beautifully captured and focuses on a piece of history that I would know about if I'd seen the 1958 film but I haven't so I can go in not knowing exactly what to expect. A Christopher Nolan film is like a painting and in the world of sequels and spin-offs, it's a treat to be able to watch.

4. Beauty and the Beast (March 17th)

This would normally make the list on its own but having Emma Watson (Hermonie from the Harry Potter series), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey), Ian McKellen (Gandalf from Lord of the Rings), Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars prequel trilogy) and several others make this a potentially better movie than it has a right to be. There are people who groan every time that Disney announces another live-action version of one of their animated films (they're seriously doing every single one of them) but Cinderella and to an even greater degree Jungle Book were able to come at a familiar story with fresh eyes so I don't think being an adaptation is enough to scare me away from this one.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5th)

I wanted to see the first one on the basis of enjoying the aforementioned MCU (see Spider-man), it looking a little like a Star Wars movie and the fact that it starred Chris Pratt (Andy from Parks and Rec.) While it isn't the style of movie for everybody, I was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was and the fact that it was a movie with a talking raccoon and a semi-talking tree. All signs point to this sequel being just as fun this time around.

6. The LEGO Batman Movie (February 10th)

In case it look like the only comic book movies I enjoy are Marvel, DC made the list! Batman was the scene-stealer in The Lego Movie and this movie looks hilarious as well. The Lego Movie blew away expectations by knowing how to not take itself too seriously while at the same time having a story that you actually cared about. This movie may live up to that or it might feel like a little Lego Batman goes a long way but it's worth checking out.

7. Thor: Ragnarok (November 3rd)

Thor might be a character that works better with The Avengers than he does on his own but the first Thor movie introduced a world that is so dramatically different from Iron Man, Captain America and the Hulk. Combined with the fact that we finally get to see what The Hulk has been up to since the end of the second Avengers movie and I can say that it'll be worth watching.

8. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 26th)

The first POTC was awesome. It was such a huge event that it seemed like you couldn't escape seeing it wherever you went. The 2nd one was a little over-the-top but still fun. The 3rd one seemed like it had a hard time sticking the landing of the trilogy. I seem to remember the 4th one being fun but only saw it the one time I went to the theaters to see it. It's been 6 years since then and I have hope that they can recapture what made the 1st movie so great.

9. Jumanji (December 22nd)

Speaking of a large time gap between movies, the original Jumanji came out in 1995 and starred the late, great Robin Williams, Cubs fan Bonnie Hunt, future Spider-man alumna Kirsten Dunst and David Alan Grier. This time around we've got Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black. I'm biased toward anything connected to Grand Rapids-native Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express is a must-see at Christmas) so I'll give this one a shot as well.

10. Cars 3/Despicable Me 3 (June 16th/30th)

This list ends in a tie. I really enjoyed the first two Despicable Me movies but bad reviews kept me away from the spin-off Minions. The first two Cars movies are probably my least favorite Pixar movies but kids love them. For DM3, Steve Carell as Gru is reason enough to go see it. For Cars 3, at least it has Randy Newman back doing the music...


Movie that I saw in 2016 but is opening nation-wide this Friday (January 6th) that you should not miss:

I had never heard about this movie until the end of 2016 but had a chance to see it at one of the few theaters that released this in 2016 in order to qualify for the award shows. If you love history, space or a combination of the two this movie is for you. We saw this on Christmas and I would put this on the list of "important" films to see. It was an entertaining drama but it told a story that we need to know. If there was one thing that 2016 showed us its that if we desire to get out of our echo chambers and bubbles, it's important to see movies that show us what life is like for people that are not entirely like us. I'm glad that life for everyone is much different now but this movie reminds us that it's important to learn and grow from things that happened in history rather than trying to ignore that they happened.

And since there isn't a Star Wars Episode VIII trailer yet, enjoy this instead:

The Top 10 Movies of 2016!

8th annual list! I've decided to try and change things up with this year's edition by dividing it into 3 lists:

1. Movies I will probably see in the theater

2. Movies I will probably rent from Redbox

3. Movies that I want to see but I'm not sure when

Why the change? Well, for starters, I only ended up seeing 6 out of my top 10 list last year. (There are 2 waiting for me to Redbox them sometime in the near future.) Also, realistically I don't go to the movie theater as often as the crazy days of my youth. (I saw each of the three Star Wars prequels 3 times in the theater. I love Star Wars but I could have paid for Harvard if I'd held off a little.) Hopefully by breaking down this list into sections I can give more attention to the films I'm most excited about while still being able to feature the ones that have me interested... even if it doesn't have me interested enough to buy a $12 bag of popcorn.

Movies I will probably see in the theater

1. Captain America: Civil War (May 6th)

Sure, this looks like it's one Hulk short of a third Avengers movie, but I'm pretty psyched about Captain America and Iron Man facing off against each other. I'm not really sure why they turned Captain America into a libertarian and Iron Man into Bernie Sanders but the issue of superhero privacy is an intriguing basis for a movie.

2. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December 16th)

Two things: No, this isn't the sequel to the movie you just waited in line last weekend to see. It's a prequel to A New Hope (and technically a sequel to the prequels) about the Rebel Alliance's mission to steal the plans to the Death Star. Second, if The Force Awakens is any indication, this should be really good. I'm not sure if the overall tension is possible in a movie where everyone knows the outcome but they still make movies about other important points of history that everyone already knows about.

3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (November 18th)

I will give them credit for not mentioning Harry Potter in this trailer. But, seriously, it's a HARRY POTTER SPINOFF! (and I consider that a good thing.) The really intriguing part is that the script itself is being written by Harry Potter author JK Rowling (she merely provided the source material in  the HP films.) It's set in America during the 1920s so basically if there were a Downton Abbey/Harry Potter mashup, this would be it.


4. Finding Dory (June 17th)

Finding Nemo is one of the most enduring Pixar films out of their near perfect history and the highlight of that movie is, without a doubt, the Ellen DeGeneres-voiced Dory. I'm not sure if this will have the ability to hold up to the original movie but they definitely created a world worth exploring further.

Movies I will probably rent from Redbox

5. The BFG (July 1st)

This would probably be higher on my list if I had read the book but it's been awhile since Steven Spielberg has made a "kids movie" (2011's The Adventures of Tintin... and if you don't count that one, it'd be 1991's Hook) and if this is in the groove of E.T., it could be really good.

6. The Jungle Book (April 15th)

The director of Iron Man, Elf and uh... Cowboys vs Aliens brings you the live-action version of the Disney animated classic. On one hand, I'm pessimistic. (Do we really need a live action version of every Disney animated classic?) On the other hand, Bill Murray.

7. Zootopia (March 4th)

This could possibly be the funniest scene in the entire movie but it's a pretty funny scene. (Looking forward to the live-action remake in 2056.)

Update: This brand new trailer gives a better idea of the storyline and I think shows a lot of promise:

8. Star Trek Beyond (July 22nd)

This would be higher on the list if it were directed by JJ Abrams (but he was busy directing another space movie and couldn't complete his trilogy) but I really enjoyed Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness (and have seen way too much of each of the Star Trek tv series). This is one that could be really bad but if it turns out to be good, I will regret putting it this low.


Movies that I want to see but I'm not sure when

9. X-Men: Apocalypse (May 27th)

I LOVED X-Men: Days of Future Past but it's probably mostly because it was great having the original X-Men cast back in a time-travel movie. While I am a big Jennifer Lawrence fan, I just have a hard time getting excited about this one like I have the other X-Men films. Maybe it's because Poe from The Force Awakens is a bad guy that looks like he escaped from the Blue Man Group.

10. Doctor Strange (November 4th)

A Marvel movie about a guy who does magic? I'll admit that I'm not that up on my Doctor Strange comic books (I'm more of a mainstream Spider-man or Batman kind of guy) but this definitely seems like they will test the limits of what the average movie goer wants in a superhero movie. I still haven't seen Ant-Man but that made a ton of money so they must have some idea what people like.

Top 10 Movies of 2015!

It's hard to believe that we've arrived at 2015 already. Despite the lack of affordable hover cars or self-drying jackets, things are looking pretty good... at least when it comes to the movies. This top 10 list has been compiled, changed, reordered and finalized over the last several months. There are multiple movies on this list that would have been #1 if other movies weren't also coming out this year. If you're looking for a good post-Christmas present for me, AMC gift cards might be a good idea.

This is the 7th annual list of my top anticipated movies for the upcoming year and while I keep making a New Year's resolution to blog more often, maybe I should resolve to be consistent (since I'm doing a pretty good job of that already.)

Here's the list!

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This movie was practically guarenteed the top spot on this list the moment it was announced. I can't really think of any movie that could knock this off of the top of the list (besides a Phineas and Ferb movie, of course) but everything they've released has indicated that this movie is going to be awesome. True, people thought that about the Prequel Trilogy but it seems that by including the things that people actually liked about the Original Trilogy (Luke, Leia, Han, Stormtroopers) that the chance of it actually turning out well is much higher.

2. Avengers: Age of Ultron

Marvel has not skipped a beat the entire time that they've been building their "Cinematic Universe" (including a talking raccoon and a Vin Diesel tree) and the only downside to this film is that as they're already talking about the third (and fourth) Avengers movies, this one seems to just be something to get through on the way to something bigger. I don't think that's true, I think this will probably be one of the most fun movie experiences of the year but I do think there's something to be said about letting one movie come out before you're building anticipation for the next one. But hey, call me old-fashioned.

3. Tomorrowland

Every once in a while a director builds up enough credibility that I want to see his (or her) movies without even knowing what they're about. Christopher Nolan is on that list but so is Brad Bird. Bird has directed some of the very best animated movies of the last 15 years (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille) as well as a Mission Impossible movie (Ghost Protocol) that was far better than a Mission Impossible movie has any business being. All I know about this one is what is in the teaser and that they've been very secretive about almost everything (it's co-written by LOST writer Damon Lindelof) and at least somewhat based on the section of Disneyland. Original moviemaking doesn't come by all that often and I like to reward those who tell fun, original stories.

4. Mockingjay- Part 2

 

 There isn't a trailer for this yet and they probably could skip releasing one and people would still show up. The only reason this fell to #4 is that I didn't really enjoy how the 3rd book ends so I'm a little biased against this already. The first three movies have been really great and in another year this would probably be on the top of my list. I will miss having a Hunger Games movie come out when these are finished. (I'm sure the movie studio or author will figure out some way to keep cashing in though.)

5. Jurassic World

When I was 14, seeing the poster for Jurassic Park 3 was enough to convince me I needed to see it. The Jurassic Park movies are not the best movies in the world (seriously, when will people realize that going to an island of dinosaurs is a bad idea?) but I've probably seen them more than any other movie series outside of Star Wars and Back to the Future. Even if they won't be in the running for Best Picture, they tend to be fun, scary movies that are a great escape during the summer months. Add in Chris Pratt and I'll overlook the lack of realizing that hanging out with dinosaurs (in the rain) will always end up badly.

6. Spectre






When the James Bond series rebooted with Daniel Craig, people were upset that he had the wrong hair color. I hope by now that people have realized that he was the best thing to happen to the Bond series. The last four films have been a larger departure from the other Bond films besides the aforementioned hair issue but they have placed storytelling much further toward the front of their purpose than ever before. Skyfall was not only one of my favorite Bond films, but one of my favorite films altogether. This one should be great. 

7. Minions

Arguably the best part of the Despicable Me movies are the Minions (no offense to Gru.) Yes, this movie will be full of slapstick humor but the writing (even in this trailer) is so clever that this is almost guaranteed to be funny. The story might suffer without having Gru along or they might be annoying as the focus of an entire movie but I'm willing to give them a chance.

8. Ant-Man

 

No, this isn't a movie about Zoolander's school for ants. This is the follow-up to the Avengers coming out earlier in the year and the end of their second phase of films before launching the 3rd (and final?) phase in 2016. Before doubting that a movie about a guy who can shrink to the size of an ant could possibly be any good, who would have thought that people would enjoy a guy that acts like a Spider? I have some doubts about this one but Marvel Studios hasn't screwed up yet.

9. Cinderella

Yes, I unashamedly put Cinderella on this list. Besides the fact that the cast has multiple members of the cast of Downton Abbey, this just looks like a quality take on the story. Yes, everyone already know the entire plot (and if you didn't the trailer pretty much goes through it for you) but this looks fun in the same vein as the Alice in Wonderland movie that came out a few years ago. True, there's no Johnny Depp this one but sometimes a lack of Johnny Depp can be a good thing.

10. (tie) Inside Out/The Good Dinosaur

Pixar last came out with a movie in 2013 and now they've got 2 coming in 2015. People focus on the fact that they've had a couple of stumbles but in my opinion a bad Pixar movie is still better than most other movies you could go see. The first movie deals with a creative take on what is going on inside of you emotionally and the second involves a world where the dinosaurs were never killed off. Both seem like fun ideas and while I hope that these get lumped in with the Toy Story, Wall-E, Up category of Pixar films, even something that falls a little short should still be a good time at the movies.