Movie #24 of 2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) My favorite sort of prequel, that slots neatly into the existing continuity without the need for retconning AND enhances the viewer’s appreciation of certain elements in the original material. Rogue One is a little clunky, especially towards the beginning, but it’s still a phenomenal …
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Movie #23 of 2016: Die Hard (1988) Another old favorite that my wife hadn’t seen (and another “Christmas movie” in that it’s set around the holidays, although that’s honestly not such a huge part of the film). This is a classic for a reason, with great performances from young Alan Rickman and Bruce Willis and …
Movie #22 of 2016: Bad Santa (2003) A family favorite that my wife had never seen before (and that I hadn’t watched in probably ten years). I don’t really have any interest in seeing the new sequel – which looked pretty awful from the trailers – but the original is a non-stop laugh riot. Very …
Movie #21 of 2016: Hamilton’s America (2016) This documentary is a fun look at the Broadway musical sensation as well the real-life history of US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. It’s informative enough on that last count that I could see schoolteachers getting away with playing it to their classes, and it’s charmingly bipartisan in having …
Movie #20 of 2016: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) This movie is a little clunky at times, and definitely not in the same league as The Wrath of Khan or even The Voyage Home. But it mostly all works, and it’s still way better than Star Trek I, III, or V. It’s not …
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Movie #19 of 2016: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) Much like The Search for Spock, it seems like not a whole lot happens in this film. It’s basically just Spock’s brother trying to recruit the Enterprise crew into joining his weird cult thing, with no real stakes or clear reason for bringing back …
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Movie #18 of 2016: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) I really used to think people were joking about the Star Trek movies, when they said that the even ones were good and the odd ones were bad. But that’s honestly exactly how it’s been shaping up so far. I was expecting Star Trek …
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Book #17 of 2016: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) I feel as though this movie just kind of… happened, without much happening. It’s frustrating that it basically undoes the ending of the previous film too, which retroactively weakens that one somewhat. And it spends practically the whole runtime getting to that point …
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Movie #16 of 2016: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) Hands-down the best Star Trek adventure I’ve seen yet (which means it was better than the first movie, the three Chris Pine ones, and all of TOS and TAS). Part of me wonders why they even bothered to make more Trek after this, …
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Movie #15 of 2016: Terminator Genisys (2015) I definitely understand where all the criticism of this movie is coming from. It is bleeding plot holes left and right, to the point where the whole thing makes no sense even by the very loose standards of the Terminator franchise. But that being said, there’s a whole …
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