Laterblogs: Pew Pew: The Best Blowy-Uppy Films of 2016: A Careless List

Laterblogs #1: I wrote this AT THE END OF 2016 and then didn't post because I didn't know how to end it. I've just re-read it though, and I think it's solid.

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Look, there's going to be a ton of film blogs and listicles out there right now telling you how Son of Saul was incredible and La La Land is going to sweep the board at the Oscars but honestly, I just want to watch things blow up and try to forget about literally everything that happened last year. 

So here, ranked worst to best, are some of those films. Spoilers.

8) Suicide Squad

Boo-icide Squad, more like, what a terrible - no, I didn't see it. No plans to. 

7) Batman vs Superman

Look, you don't need to me to list all the reasons why this film was bad. The internet has done that again and again and again. In fact, skip all of those links and just read this open letter to Warner Bros that poses the greatest question of our times: why are you still letting Zack Schneider make films? So I won't go into great detail on this one, but for god's sake, Batman branded people. They shot Martha Wayne IN THE FACE. Which feels like some kind of harsh metaphor.

6) X-Men: Apocalypse

Oh man, this film was so bad. I straight up laughed when Michael Fassbender's wife and child got killed. I did. I laughed right out loud in the cinema. I'm not proud of it. But I'm not ashamed either.

James McAvoy, heroically flying in the face of all logic, was still having the time of his life though, so for that simple bit of human joy it ranks higher than Bats vs Supes.

5) Deadpool

Billed itself as an "alternative" Valentine's Day movie, and it sort of was but, like, in the way that Hot Topic is "alternative". It was funny and Deadpool spoke to the camera and swore a lot, and there was lots of creative violence, and at one point Ryan Reynolds regrew his hand and for a while he had a little hand like a baby, but it obviously wasn't actually *subversive* in any way. It's still basically the tale of a white man trying to dude-punch another white man while a white-passing lady (Morena Baccarin) wears not many clothes.  Also there was this whole bit where Morena Baccarin wanted to fuck Ryan Reynolds in the ass because it was International Women's Day and truly, that is what the feminists want, and then he didn't let her. Like, come on Ryan, just let Morena Baccarin fuck you in the ass.

4) Captain America: Civil War - April 29

Cap Mur Civ War was, essentially, very entertaining filler in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It does a job. It gets us from A to B. From a united group to a disunited one. From a world of structures and binaries (SHIELD v HYDRA) to a world of chaos where anyone could be the bad guy, even when - psych - they think they're the good guy. 

AND IT'S ABOUT THE TIME YOUR GAY DADS HAD A REALLY BIG FIGHT. I think at least 60% of the film was just Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers looking at each other soulfully and sometimes shaking their heads a little in a manly, soulful, world-weary way. It's actually better to think about the film as a big old domestic because if you try to engage with the politics of it (Tony wants the Avengers to sign some accords saying they'll be accountable to the fictionalised UN and Steve doesn't want to do this because...'Murica? Idk. They do debate this. They debate this thorny, complicated, divisive issue for a whole scene before the punching starts. Again, feels like a harsh metaphor.) for one single second, you end up going "wha-bu-OBVIOUSLY YOU SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE. YOU HAVE LITERALLY KILLED INNOCENTS, HOWEVER INADVERTENTLY. EVEN NOLAN'S BATMAN USED HIS EXECUTIVE-POWER-BUSH-ADMINISTRATION-METAPHOR-PHONE-SATELLITE-SPYING THING VERY, VERY RELUCTANTLY." But don't think that, because Cap is the hero.

Anyway, it there was a scene where all the Avengers plus Spiderman just beat the crap out of each other, so it scores higher than Deadpool.

3) Doctor Strange

*surprised Jerry Seinfeld voice* This was really good! This was a really good movie! Because the trailer looked dumb af. Actually the things about the trailer than worried me were still the things that worked least well in the actual movie (casting of Bendytoots Cumberbritches, TSwints all dressed up in vaguely orientalist garb, Mads Mikkelsen as the same character he's played since Casino Royale) but it was also offbeat and wry and trippy and seemed to hold actual levels of, like, disdain for its main character before he enrolled on A Better You Through Tibetan Magics course. 

And tbh it was worth the price of admission for the stinger alone, which promises that in the future Bothering Cummenpatch will team up with Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) to find Antony Hopkins (Odin or maybe Loki pretending to be Odin so maybe Antony Hopkins doing an impression of Tom Hiddleston that I hope made him cry), and my soul rejoiced.

2) Ghostbusters

AKA THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME THIS YEAR. *ducks* Oh man, I do not laugh out loud in cinemas (except when Michael Fassbender's family gets it, obvz) but I was doing my embarrassing Alone Laugh through the whole of this. Look, I'm not a diehard fan of the original - it's a classic and it's enjoyable and blah blah Your Childhood but it shits on its (two) female and (one) POC characters. I inevitably here have to say that the 2016 film's treatment of Leslie Jones, both onscreen and offscreen (a thundering silence surrounding the campaign of Twitter abuse she received, orchestrated by real life B-list Disney villain Milo Yiannopoulos) was shitty. And we shouldn't be afraid to hold things we love to account, and I did love this. I loved Melissa McCarthy, I loved the smart bundling of Kristen Wiig into a straight man role so she couldn't do too much damage, I loved the world discovering a whole new sexuality in Kate McKinnon's queer-coded maverick Holtzmann licking her guns. And I loved Leslie Jones too, and it breaks my heart that there will be no sequel because I think she would have got a more central role out of it. 

1) Rogue One

ROGUE M'FUCKING ONE. Eh? EH? Yeah. Let's end this shitshow of a year with the tale of a group of *forgotten misfits* who ALL DIE in the service of a greater cause. This film should be the model for your 2017: no-one gives a crap about you but you should do good stuff anyway because you might end up taking down the Death Star, inadvertently, after you have died. And then be the subject of a movie where people come out going, "That was really good but I really thought we were going to find out about the Bothans? Where were the Bothans?" In Episode VI, as it turns out, which I obviously knew and didn't have to Google because I'm a bad Star Wars fan. Anyway, Rogue One is probably the best war movie I've ever watched.