Feature

101 reasons 2016 wasn't quite as shit as we all thought it was

Ali Gray,
Matt Looker,
Becky Suter,
Ed Williamson,
Rob Young

30th December 2016


The Jungle Book's new version of 'I Wanna Be Like You' finding a rhyme for 'Gigantopithecus'



Also, every other single thing about Christopher Walken playing a giant singing and dancing gangster monkey, to be honest.

The Doctor Strange jumping meme



To think, this entire gif is less surreal than the trippy scene that ended up in the movie.

The sweet, lunatic idiocy of the xXx: Return Of Xander Cage teaser, a trailer for a film that doesn't give a single solitary shit what you think



A post-truth movie for a post-truth world: I am legit more excited about the return of Xander Cage than I am the return of Jesus Christ.

'Sabotage' appearing in another Star Trek movie, because why not

A Beastie Boys song at any time, in any movie, is always a welcome addition. Even more so when that song is Sabotage and it's accompanied by swarms of CGI destruction. No, it doesn't make any sense in the film, and yes, this scene is basically a two-minute music video about pixels. Still, it's a nice callback to when the same song is used in the first Star Trek reboot.

Maybe, in the spirit of this list, you were expecting that we would have gone with the film's progressive move in showing Sulu as openly gay and married in Star Trek's liberal future world, but that scene wasn't soundtracked by one of the best songs of all time.



The heartbroken clam in Finding Dory



There is no video of this on YouTube, so instead imagine me, an adult man, the only person laughing at a silly voiced-clam in a cinema full of people. There's something inherently hilarious to me about this single-serving scene in Finding Dory, which does nothing to advance the story: it's simply an excuse for director Andrew Stanton to voice a loud-mouthed clam whose wife left him. I just laughed out loud again when I wrote that.

Paul Feig ragging on Shane Richie on Twitter







This was the only Ghostbusters-related drama I was willing to entertain this year.

Deadpool's baby hand gag



I sort of wish it didn't come gift-wrapped with the inevitable wanking gag, because of all the jokes in Deadpool, it's this sight gag - the least crude - that was the funniest: "It's the exact size of a KFC spork."

Nic Cage's quiet year

Relatively speaking. This clip from The Trust was played on rotation on Christmas Day in my house.



Next year: the film where he plays the guy who tried to kill Osama bin Laden!




The Revenant is the perfect example of how filmmaking genius can so easily be undermined by other factors. If we weren't all so hung up on Leo eating his own method acting, or the ridiculous idea of sexual assault by grizzly bear, or just how terrifically long and traumatic the whole viewing experience is, more people might have taken notice of the incredible visual achievement Iñárritu delivers here.

The movie's major accomplishments are in marrying artistry with technique to offer a cinematic experience that no other movie has offered. Unless, of course, you count Iñárritu's own Birdman, a film that unfortunately undercut The Revenant's fluid camerawork and invisible editing by using similar techniques a year earlier. Heralded then as an extraordinary feat, the remarkable effects can't help be slightly more overlooked a second time round, but they should be no less impressive by any other filmmaker's standards. Coupled with the choice to shoot in the most remote of locations using only natural light, and you have a film that combines transcendental beauty with technical mastery.

The only real obstacle in all of this is the gruelling experience of actually watching the film. But, even if DiCaprio howling at mud for three hours isn't your thing - and there is enough here to argue that he is chomping on the scenery as much as raw bison livers - Tom Hardy also gives one of the best performances of a career, which, let's face it, contains more best performances than a Broadway run of Crufts. If all else fails, that non-consensual bear scene really is awesome.

We all laughed as Ben Affleck quietly contemplated his decision to devote a good decade of his life to an ill-conceived and mishandled superhero franchise, hahaha you fucking IDIOT CLOWN lol



Donald Glover was cast as Lando Calrissian



"Han and Lando fighting Va-aader!" [chest-clap]

The tagline for London Has Fallen, the terrible movie we didn't realise we needed so badly this year



For all its awful generic action and hugely racist overtones, London Has Fallen at least gave us some things to laugh at, such as the hilariously named head of Scotland Yard, Chief Kevin Hazard, and the fact that Gerard Butler's grotesque jock Mike Banning can't even drink a glass of water without swearing gratuitously to no one ("I'm thirsty as FUCK!").

The genuine plaudits, however, go to whichever Marketing bod came up with this poster tagline. For full effect, say it out loud in Ross Geller's British accent.



The scene in Allied where Brad Pitt yells "FUCK!" in the face of a blind man



Let me paint you a word picture. After a year of happy marriage to French spy Marion Cotillard, Canadian spy Brad Pitt is told by British spies that they suspect her of really being a German spy. It's a whole big spy thing. But, obsessing over the possibility, Pitt personally flies a plane to France with a photo in hand and meets with Matthew Goode who can identify whether or not Cotillard is the woman she says she is.

But Goode is in a bad way. He is recovering from war injuries in an asylum and is confined to a wheelchair. That doesn't stop Pitt though. He shows Goode the photograph and, in response, he slowly turns his head and shows him that he has also been utterly and horribly facially disfigured and left blind as a result of his injuries. Pitt's tactful response? "FUCK!"

Patrick Wilson painting a satanic nun likes it's completely fucking normal in The Conjuring 2

Let me paint you another word picture. Vera Farmiga's spirit medium wakes up in the morning to discover husband Patrick Wilson painting at an easel. "Did you suddenly feel inspired?" she asks tenderly. "I wouldn't call it inspiration exactly. It's just an image I haven't been able to get out of my head all morning" he nonchalantly replies, before turning the easel around to reveal a perfect close-up portrait of an evil demon nun with glowy eyes and fangs AS IF IT'S PERFECTLY NORMAL AND NOT A SIGN OF IMPENDING DOOM.



Ricky Gervais not being in Mascots even though you'd think he'd probably be in Mascots



Throughout the entire running time of Christopher Guest's new Netflix-only movie Mascots, I realised I was bracing myself for something that I couldn't put my finger on. I was tense. Clenched. Prepared for something inevitable. But what? Then it hit me: it was surely only a matter of time before Ricky Gervais made a cameo. Of course! The inevitable Gervaising of white American improvisational comedy. Any second, Gervais would reveal himself - probably from beneath the helmet of an inappropriate mascot - and do a little look to camera, one that seems to say 'I am definitely friends with Christopher Guest'.

There's Ed Begley Jr. There's Jennifer Coolidge. Here comes Gervais, surely. Bob Balaban: standard. Gervais incoming. Fred Willard. G-minus 30 seconds. There's the Chris Guest cameo. Ricky is in the wings. Grinning. Or doing a 'spaz' face on Twitter. Here it comes...

But the moment never came. Heaven be praised. There was no room in Mascots for Ricky Gervais. Not even in a costume. I mean, I have already assumed that Ricky Gervais and Christopher Guest are friends. That's because Ricky Gervais almost certainly considers himself on an even keel with Guest and would seek him out so they could discuss the industry (which Ricky is a part of) and the unfair treatment of the press (which Ricky has suffered). But I'd also like to think that Guest sat down at home one night, perhaps after dining with Ricky, and put on an episode of Derek on Netflix.

Ten minutes later, he's on his laptop, doing a Find & Replace: change all mentions of 'Ricky Gervais' to 'Tom Bennett'. I'm so sure that this happened and it makes me so happy that I'm determined to believe it's the truth.

P.S. Mascots: not very good.

Henry Cavill frying eggs with his shirt off and his tits out in Batman V Superman



Clark: "How do you like your eggs?"
Lois: "Fertilised."
Clark: "My sperm would literally kill you. Scrambled it is."

Ralph Fiennes' dancing in A Bigger Splash



In a year where Sam Rockwell's dancing was sorely absent, someone had to step up. No one thought it would be 'Wreck-It' Ralph Fiennes, tearing it up like some sort of mad Jagger cunt.

This poster for High-Rise



Officially nicer than a building.




There are other, perhaps worthier, animated films that belong in an end-of-year round-up, like the superb Your Name or the excellent Kubo And The Two Strings, but do you know what Zootropolis has that these films don't? A scene in which business-suited hamsters make their daily commute to the big city via colourful plastic rodent tubes.

Because Zootropolis – just like every other pitch-perfect, high-concept Disney/Pixar film – sets up a big broad world and packs it full with every available punchline at every available second, and it excels in the detail. It's in yoga yaks and mafia shrews, in wolves that don’t know why they're howling and characters "addressing the elephant in the room" and, yes, it’s in the DMV being manned by sloths.

Of course, none of this is to mention the fun detective story at the centre of it all. Judy Hopps is the earnest, super-efficient, Leslie-Knope-alike police officer who enlists and then befriends cunning con-fox Nick Wilde – her literal opposite in nature – for an odd couple pairing that reaps real investment in their friendship along with the laughs.

So the film exceeds on both levels – in telling a fun caper and in exploring a world ripe with creative ideas and gags. Mostly though – and I can't stress this enough – it has business-suited hamsters make their daily commute to the big city via colourful plastic rodent tubes.

This joyous moment from Kubo And The Two Strings


Ali Plumb, Radio 1 Film Critic



Next time you feel euphoric, think of Kubo playing a magical shamisen that turns pieces of paper into moving origami birds that turn into wings and make him fly. Briefly.

Follow Ali on Twitter at @AliPlumb.

More:  Top10  2016
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