One of the (many) wonderful choices that being retired allows is the ability to see movies whenever you want — during the week, during the day, two in a row on the same day, or 15 over four days at a film festival.
And we’ve done all of the above.
Most of the end-of-the year lists of “Best” Films have been published already, and most come from critics who review films/books for a living.
I don’t have any special film knowledge and just tend to write about how much I liked various films for whatever reasons. Below is a list of many (tho not all) of the films Ellen and I saw in 2016, largely ones that I rated three stars or higher (out of a system of 1-5 stars). If Ellen had a different rating from mine, I have put her ratings in parentheses.
As I was constructing this post, I thought of adjusting a few of the ratings (up or down) but decided to leave the ratings the way I made them a day or two after seeing each film.
These starred categories are somewhat arbitrary, but generally the five and four and a half star films are pretty close, and I enjoyed those tremendously. The four star ones were all good, but I had some (minor) reservations. The three star ones were more problematic films for me but still may be worth checking out. Three starred ones were even more problematic. If a film did not make it into one of these categories, I did not write a review (The Lobster, for example).
If you click on the linked titles below, you will get to my mini-review of that film on MillersTime. For four of the more recent ones, however, I have not yet written about them.
I have also attached a link to a listing of these films that you can print out in the event you like to do that sort of thing.
Five Stars *****
Ixcanul (Ellen ****)
Four and a Half ****1/2
Queen of Katwe (Ellen *****)
20th Century Woman (Ellen *****)
Lion (Ellen ****)
Human Figures (Ellen *****)
Four Stars ****
La La Land (Ellen *****)
The Oath (Ellen ****1/2)
A Man Called Ove (Ellen ***)
Moonlight (Ellen ****1/2)
Eye in the Sky (Ellen *****)
The Innocents (Ellen *****)
Viva (Ellen ***)
Three and a Half Stars ***1/2
The Edge of Seventeen (Ellen ***)
Things to Come ***1/2 (Ellen ***)
I Am Not Your Negro (Ellen ***)
Elle (Ellen *****)
Three Stars ***
Tampopo (Ellen ****)
Toni Erdmann (Ellen *****)
Do Not Resist (Ellen ****)
To see the above films in a spread sheet for printing, Click Here.