Televisor

#10. Gemini Man Of all the dumb shit Ang Lee has put his name on, Gemini Man has to be the worst. And of all the dumb shit Will Smith has put his name on, this is still better than Collateral Beauty. Gemini Man’s folly comes from it’s extremely stereotypical plot, it’s dull and boring characters, and everything about it is just so obvious! This is easily the most by the numbers movie I have seen in a very long time. But that’s fine, because like Avatar, the big selling point is its incredible special effects. But unlike Avatar, the effects here are just okay. I mean, it looks good, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen from Rogue One just a few years back. Not the kind of thing I’d really lean on. So in the end, we got a decent looking film that in literally every other regard, is just like every Liam Neeson movie within the last couple years except even more dull. Great job guys, definitely worth the 20 year development process.

#9. Playmobil: The Movie Remember The Lego Movie from 2014 and how surprisingly great it was? Remember The Emoji Movie from 2017 and how unsurprisingly terrible it was? Now remember Playmobil from when you were a kid and your aunt hated you? Yeah, what if they made something much worse than The Emoji Movie based on the ripoff Legos starring what’s her face from Split?... And it’s nothing like you’d expect. Here’s a shocker, it’s a musical and is about humans who transform into these things and it’s a lot worse than you’d expect. The music sucks, the characters suck, and the whole spy thing that the trailer was all about lasts as long as the trailer itself. This has to be false advertising, I’d say we sue but how much money could On Studios possibly have, especially after this humungous bomb. What a waste of time, money, and thought.

#8. Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil Disney is on a rampage to ruin every single one of your favorite animated movies as a child. This is more or less here as a representative of the fad as a whole. Fuck The Lion King and it’s extreme lack of creativity. Fuck Dumbo for treating its audience like a bunch of morons who can’t handle what made the original so iconic and need basic morals jammed into their heads. Fuck Lady And The Tramp for thinking the basic story isn’t enough to entertain and need to throw in some goddamn chase scene right at the end. And fuck Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil for being so being so stupid, boring, and lame! This is like looking at a #Girlboss poster but dumber and more boring. The last act is the only interesting part and that is just too moronic to work. Please Disney, please stop. And audiences, stop seeing them! This includes me, what the fuck?!

#7. Unplanned Have y’all seen Son Of The Mask where what’s her face has a baby and when looking at the ultrasound, the baby starts doing that Looney Tunes frog dance? That’s significantly more realistic than how fetuses are portrayed in Unplanned. Just tinier babies instead of the little not alive things they are. You can be prolife or prochoice or pro-whatever-the-hell, but if the movie itself can’t tell the difference between these two very different things, how can anyone trust its judgement on the issue? A piece of art should make you think, reconsider your previous thoughts on the matter. These Christian propaganda films are actively bad for you, they only make you more sure of your own thoughts on the matter rather than making you think harder about it. Maybe if the filmmakers actually gave a shit about the issue and did a little bit of research, maybe we’d get a decent film. It could be prolife even, I don’t care as long as it’s good. But this is propaganda that’s only interested in getting you on its side, no matter what. Lying to the audience, making shit up half the time, sucking beyond belief. All just part of the game, who cares as long as the viewer hates Planned Parenthood by the end of it. What a cynical piece of shit.

#6. Norm Of The North: King Sized Adventure It isn’t one of my end of 2 years worst of list without Norm Of The North. The first one just barely made the cut back in 2017, but in hindsight, I’m very glad I inevitably did that because the franchise has become a staple of my lists ever since. But also, I guess I didn’t see that many bad movies in 2019 because King Sized Adventure is easily the best Norm movie so far. The characters are more fleshed out, the plot is actually kinda interesting, and I think I laughed once. What keeps this on my list is the typical Norm Of The North stuff: terrible animation, awfully unfunny jokes throughout, extremely annoying characters, and my expectations for Lionsgate being much much higher. But at least with NOTN 3, I could justify it as a film for a much younger audience. But even as that, I think you’d be better off with something more like The Addams Family (2019) or Wonder Park. There’s really no good excuse for even a movie for kindergarteners to be this bad. But I do definitely look forward to covering Norm Of The North: Family Vacation next year, can’t wait!

#5. Airplane Mode Fuck you Logan Paul. I feel like I can’t go that hard on Airplane Mode, it’s just too fun. Not to watch, but to imagine being apart of. Even though very few of the jokes land, I believe everybody on set was just enjoying themselves so much and thought every joke was super funny that the very rare times one lands, it lands hard. I’d say I laughed about 3 times throughout, an abysmal amount for any 90 minute feature, but those 3 times, I laughed pretty hard. Honestly, if it wasn’t making a complete mockery of Airplane!, one of the greatest comedies of all time, it might’ve not made my list. But also, fuck Logan Paul. Fuck all of these dumbass influencers in this! I’ve always been more of a Jake Pauler myself anyways.

#4. The Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls Remember the original Benchwarmers? No really, do you, because I’ve seen it a couple times now and I still don’t remember what happens in it. Baseball or something, I don’t know; maybe it was funny, maybe it wasn’t. But its much belated sequel definitely isn’t. I sure hope you like nut hitting jokes, because that makes up a good 80% of this movie. If not, I hope you like very racist and sexist jokes stolen right out of Adam Sandler’s trash can. If not, I really hope you like predictability, because from the very first goddamn shot, you’ll be able to tell how the rest of the movie is going to go. This whole flick just feels so cheap, but in a bad way. Things like the live action Kim Possible movie or The Banana Splits Movie feel cheap, much at least try to make it work. This just feels like everyone was given a script and a ham sandwich as payment from some studio and were subsequently forced at gunpoint to make this piece of garbage. No one is trying because nobody cares. Unlike the previous entry where some jokes work simply because the people working on it believed they were funny, there’s not a single good joke to be found in Benchwarmers 2 because a good joke couldn’t possibly exist in this atmosphere. If the person telling the joke doesn’t think it’s funny, nobody else is going to either and you can just feel the disregard and lack of care from everyone on set for this garbage. Fuck this movie and can everyone stop making sequels to movies from 20 years ago for a quarter just to make a cheap buck on Netflix? Please?

#3. The Haunting Of Sharon Tate Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood was kinda just an okay movie. Probably my least favorite of all the Tarantino films I’ve seen, but it was still pretty good. The Haunting Of Sharon Tate is like if an insane person saw that movie and was told to make something like that. Absolutely no respect for the families of nor for those whose lives were lost on that horrible day. Followed by days if not weeks of the titular character having visions of what’s to come like she’s That’s So Raven. But in a way, I can see the attempt to shift power back to Sharon and friends, there’s a scene in which they beat the shit out of the Manson people and that I’d imagine was suppose to be a “hell yeah” kinda moment like it was in Once Upon A Time. But instead of feeling like Lizzie McGuire just overcame literally anything, the I was instead thinking, “Oh thank god, the movie’s almost over.” Which isn’t the right emotion you’d want your audience to feel when seeing a real life grizzly murder take place. But at least there was an attempt, unlike...

#2. The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson Oh no, Daniel Farrands (director of #3) is at it again with another murder but one much more recent. One in which the (probably) murderer is still alive and very much in the spotlight. One in which fucking it up can be a whole lot worse than that of one from the ‘60s. And in one where there wasn’t even anything close to an attempt to be respectful to the memories of or the families of the victims. Apparently, Nicole Brown Simpson was so easy that even a cross country serial killer could fuck her. Did you know that her favorite hobby was eerily foreshadowing her own death and walking for several hours to nowhere? Honestly, what bothers me most about this movie isn’t even the blatant disrespect, it’s that it was building up to some stupid and cartoony murder where OJ Simpson and the Cross Country Killer team up to murder these two like they were the Joker and Harley Quinn. But then it happens and... nope, just OJ. Lame.

Before we get to #1, here’s some runners up:

Cats Honestly, I’ve come to kinda love this movie. How can you not enjoy something this dumb and insane? Besides, I do love musicals enough to find this at least a little fun. C’mon, tell me you weren’t humming the music to yourself for months afterwards. No? Well I was.

The Jesus Rolls Did The Big Lebowski really deserve this? I know the fandom for it has gotten a little out of control. I’d admit, as much as I enjoy Big Lebowski, I don’t love it enough to go to Lebowski Fest. And I’m not insane enough to pretend to like this fever dream of a remake of a French film that’s vaguely related to a movie a kinda like just because John Turturro thinks it’s cool.

Dark Phoenix The X-Men franchise has gone seriously downhill ever since... well, Fox I guess. The original trilogy was good but then X-Men Origins and Last Stand came out and it desperately needed a reboot. And the that was good until it wasn’t and then BOOM, Dark Phoenix. The absolute dumpster fire to cap off a very on again, off again franchise that does at least end it with a boom. Still better than Origins and more interesting than Apocolypse.

Doom: Annihilation Between Doom, The Angry Birds Movie 2, and Sonic being pushed back, 2019 had its hands full with terrible video game to movie adaptations. But where Sonic turned out to be a pretty decent flick and Angry Birds 2 was mostly harmless, Doom: Annihilation turned pit to be much, much worse than what anyone expected. How do you turn a movie based on Doom, one of the coolest and most bad ass video games of all time, in which the plot revolves around hell demons murdering everybody on Mars, boring? The 2005 adaptation was bad enough, but at least it was fun, this is just so dull and lifeless. I can’t imagine Annihilation satisfying anybody’s Doom fixated blood lust.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes was a docuseries that really grabbed the public’s attention. And how could you blame them? It was a fascinating look inside the mind of one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. But making a movie based on the life of Ted Bundy is a completely different issue with its own whole set of problems. How do you portray a famously hot and charming villain without making him too sympathetic or lovable to the audience? Well, maybe only showing one murder near the very end of the film doesn’t help. Maybe actually portraying this real life murderer as a bad guy would help. Maybe just being a better made version of #3 and #2 won’t help.

Countdown Some premises are just too stupid to make work as an actual movie. Which is why I was initially really excited for Countdown! Based on the trailers, it looked like the kind of horror flick that knew what it was and was going to have as much fun as possible with its ideas. Like what Happy Death Day 2U was, with its insane but pretty fun sci-fi twists. Countdown is no Happy Death Day, in fact I’d have to apologize to those movies for not really liking them. They’re way smarter and funnier than this piece of garbage. If your horror movie isn’t scary, then make it humorous. If it isn’t humorous, then make it enjoyable. If it isn’t enjoyable, then tell a good story. If it’s not telling a good story, then we’re all fucked. This seems to be trying to do a little of all of those, but keeps falling on its face when the only decent part is the couple of scenes with Tom Segura. Just a terrible waste of time,

Yesterday The big problem with Yesterday, and Rocketman to an extent, is more of a personal one than anything else. I just don’t like the music in them. For Rocketman, I’m just not a fan of Elton John’s work. I like Benny And The Jets and a few songs from Lion King, but that’s it. Every time I started getting into that movie, it’d be interrupted by some awful song that I’d have to then bare for a few minutes. Yesterday is different because I actually love The Beatles’ music, I’ve been a big fan of theirs since I was a kid. And because of that, I don’t really want to watch a movie in which some moron stumbles his way through playing some terrible karaoke covers. I think I could probably sing them better, and that’s saying a fuck ton.

Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise Of Skywalker I may be a Last Jedi lover, but even I know this was a terrible idea. Suddenly shifting direction, directors, and concepts with an extremely safe and extremely rushed script meant to please fans who were going to hate this movie anyways. Hey Disney, news flash, Solo bombed because nobody wanted a Han Solo prequel, especially when Last Jedi was still in theaters! Hey Disney, news flash, but Last Jedi actually got a ton of critical and fan praise. Maybe instead of listening to the loud minority and making a compromised piece of dog shit that neither side was going to like, instead lean in to pleasing those who’re still on board this Star Wars train. Goddamn, I’m so tired of Star Wars now!

Teen Titans Go! Vs. Teen Titans I know what it sounds like, but the issue here isn’t the Teen Titans Go! crew. They did a fine job all things considered, really stuck to what people liked about their style and did it well enough. but as a humungous fan of the 2003 series, I cannot overlook this, why are the classic Teen Titans portrayed like this? Why are they being called the serious ones, their show was like 80% comedy! Sure, they’re serious compared to the Go! team, but Spies In Disguise was more serious than them. And why are they apparently animated by those animated greeting card people? Why do they look like that? Where is their charm? Has the Teen Titans Go! people not seen a single episode of the original series? GOD!

Don’t Fuck With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer I know its a miniseries, but I feel the need to mention at least one documentary and Letterboxd counts it, so here we go. A bunch of terrible Facebook sleuths making a mockery of the actual police isn’t very fun to watch. This just isn’t a fun story at all, I don’t know why its made in a way that even tries to be so. It’s titled “Don’t Fuck With Cats,” how can I not expect at least a little enjoyment out of this. But instead, I got something super fucking frustrating! These people are terrible detectives and so are the actual goddamn detectives. Neither of them seem to do much or be all that helpful. The show will start talking about some thing in the background that’s sure to be the smoking gun, but was just a trick to trick them. This happens all the time, why are we wasting our time with this? What’s the point? Why was this documentary even made? Who cares?!?!

#10. Searching Back in 2014, the world was introduced to a new form of filmmaking that told a story via the screen of the main protagonist’s computer in Blumhouse’s Unfriended. Kind of like a modern day found footage film. And while I was one of five people who really liked Unfriended and its 2018 followup Unfriended: Dark Web, I think Searching is the penultimate of what this newfound sub-genre is able to accomplish. Similar to what Cloverfield was able to do for found footage, Searching was able to use the computer screen film style to heighten the tension and breaks down a part of the audience’s suspension of disbelief to create a horrific experience for anyone who witnesses it. Which also puts a ton of pressure on the lead, John Cho, as even a moment of bad acting can break this fragile fourth wall. Pressure that Cho overcomes like it was nothing. All of this combines into an incredible experience that keeps its audience on the edge of their seats and constantly on the brink of a heart attack. I’m almost certain that Searching will be considered an important piece of 2010′s film history. #9. Bad Times At The El Royale In 2011, Drew Goddard set himself apart as a director with a very unique and interesting vision with his landmark piece A Cabin In The Woods. In 2018, he did it again with, in my opinion, an even better film, Bad Times At The El Royale with a fascinatingly put together and complicated story featuring some of the best acting from such a star studded cast I’ve seen in years. From Jeff Bridges playing against the Big Lebowski type most are familiar with to Jon Hamm definitely playing towards his Richard Jewell typecast to Dakota Johnson making up for all three Fifty Shades Of Grey movies with quite possibly her best performance. Bad Times At The El Royale is one of the most uniquely made mainstream movies I’ve seen in a while with several scenes told several times from different perspectives and each character breathed life into them with such interesting backstories. My only real problem is that the whole thing with half the place is in Nevada and the other half is in California doesn’t really go anywhere but it’s made up for as soon as Chris Hemsworth shows up to ham the hotel up. Incredibly entertaining and amazingly fascinating, this is a movie that threatens you with a good time. #8. The Favourite I appreciate that powdered wig period pieces are coming back into style with shit such as Beauty And The Beast (2017), The Age Of Adaline, and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. But among the failures of this once well respected sub-genre are good stuff too, for instance, The Favourite, a movie that actually remembers that British people spell some words with a “u”. One of my personal Favourite cliches of films nowadays is having a cast in which literally everybody is an asshole, see #9 and #1. And what I really like particularly with this is that old time-y movies about royalty can be really intimidating to hurdle, even now I have to hype myself up to watch something like Downton Abbey. But this overcomes it by being really entertaining with some great performances from the entire cast, especially Emma Stone showing once again why she deserves an Oscar! And the directing from Yorgos Lanthimos is so good, it actually makes me want to check out The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. The Favourite is a magnificently smartly fun picture that can satisfy both the most bored audience member and the most pretentious film critic. #7. Love, Simon Look, we all have biases. Some lead people to rave about how BlacKkKlansman is the best movie of the year because of how well it portrays black culture and their relationship with the police and evangelical racists. Some lead people raving about Crazy Rich Asians because it had the balls to fill its cast with Asians and Asian Americans. For me, an (at the time) openly bisexual 18 year old who masks most of my anxiety and fears with a very thin facade of comedy, Love, Simon really spoke to me while also entertaining the hell out of me. The script knew exactly when to be funny and when to be serious, when it should have a heartfelt scene and when it should go on a random tangent, and even when it’s trying to be funny or go on a tangent, it gives incredible insight into the main protagonist’s psyche. And for those moments, the context is everything. I remember cringing pretty hard at the whole “coming out as straight” bit in the trailer, but laughing my ass off when it showed up in the film. And Nick Robinson, who plays the titular character, kills it and I think he’s going to go places very soon. All of this culminates at the end, when the emotion is high and I (along with the rest of the theater) are on the edge of our seats, and Love, Simon got me to shed some tears. #6. Ralph Breaks The Internet Of the two million Disney movies released in 2018, this sequel is the highest one ranking on my list. And of the one million animated films released in 2018, this is actually the lowest one ranking on my list. Which kind of surprises me because you wouldn’t think so on the surface. On one hand, it’s just a sequel to a video game movie that lost Best Animated Picture to Brave, how is Wreck It Ralph 2 doing better than the emotional rollercoaster that was Christopher Robin or the long awaited and ton of fun that was The Incredibles 2. But then again, anyone who knows me knows that Wreck It Ralph is one of my favorite Disney cartoons, so how does it barely creep above the smart while not being funny at all Smallfoot or the only surface level hilarity that is Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation? Well, in some sense it’s much better than the original: with superior animation, a cooler concept, and finally realizing that the focus should be entirely on the real star, Princess Vanellope Von Schweetz. On the other hand, it doesn’t even come close to matching up: the humor is a tad sub par, too much is really going on, and considering the very cool concept, it should’ve done more with it. But did I still watch it a ton as soon as I could: absolutely. So who really won here: me for being a little disappointed or Disney who made a very entertaining film? The sixth spot feels about right to me. #5. Annihilation Between J.J. Abrams’s batshit crazy Nazi-zombie experiment Overlord, Steven Spielberg bringing his amazing talent to Ready Player One, Netflix throwing their hat into the “ripping off Big Hero 6″ ring with Next Gen, and do I even need to mention Marvel, 2018 was a damn good year for sci-fi in the middle of a decade that was, as a whole, great for the genre. And while Annihilation isn’t the last we’ll see from science fiction on the list, it is the one that’s here largely because of that. Flatly, I love how the science in this movie works; in general, I tend to prefer my sci-fi very grounded and that is how Annihilation works. I could kind of see how something like this bubble can exist and everything inside it really working this way. But what I really love about this film’s science is that it is a borderline horror flick. Once Natalie Portman walks through into the anti-Wizard Of Oz, the shit that goes down is horrifying. All of a sudden: up is down, left is right, and nobody knows what time it is and I loved it! This kind of gaslighting horror that I don’t see a whole lot of lately really throws the audience through a loop because for once, we don’t know what’s going on either. And for a film to really go so far just to confuse people, I have to at least respect. And to do it so well with some amazing acting on just about everybody’s part, I must love! Annihilation is a serious experience that I wished I was able to catch on the big screen. #4. Sorry To Bother You In 2018, Donald “Childish “Lando Calrissian” Gambino” Glover released his major #1 single, This Is America. Whether you love it or you hate it, you have to admit that it was saying a lot in such a unique way. The world that music video took place in was a nonsensical cartoon to somehow represent the plight of African Americans in the United States. I’m not gonna pretend like I totally understand because I definitely don’t; the point is that the portrayal struck a nerve with a lot of people and, personally, it did feel like a proper way of showing it. And Sorry To Bother You does something very similar, portraying the African American plight in a humorous, cartoonish, and unrealistic way to counteract the very serious, down to earth, and realistic parts. Do black people need to completely show themselves as white to get anything done; maybe not but we all know that people in general are much friendlier and nicer to those who sound like their ideals, usually meaning white. Are we, as a nation, (spoilers) turning poor (and considering how blacks are predisposed to being lower middle class because of reasons relating to how capitalism works, most of the blacks of the world) people into horses; I sure hope not but big companies and better off citizens do tend to think of the working class as just objects to do shit for them. Sorry To Bother You brings up a lot of the problems prevalent in modern society, especially those that directly relate to African Americans, in a palpable and entertaining way is ingenious and amazingly well done thanks to the overwhelming talent of Boots Riley and I cannot wait for his next big project. It’s definitely the best racial relations film of the year, beating out other great films like Monsters And Men, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Oath. #3. Isle Of Dogs 2018 is a year that really threw me through a loop as far as films went. When I went to see Isle Of Dogs, I was certain that it’ll be the best movie of the year, absolutely no competition. Then, later on, when the #1 film came out, I was certain that would be it. Then the #2 spot came out and made me question everything all over again. Anyway, Isle Of Dogs is Wes Anderson being very Wes Anderson-y while combining it with the same kind of claymation he used in the fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox and the traditional culture of Japan that’s oh so lovable. And as much as I love the Anderson style, the animation used here, and how Japanese culture is portrayed, involving my favorite animal brings my appreciation over the top. I am so down to get a million more films in which the theme of the picture is that dogs rule. This really is the kind of film that I love just about every aspect of, and though it might mostly be on a surface level way, I really don’t have anything bad to say about this film. It’s almost boring how much I enjoy this, I don’t have much to say except please watch it. It’s so good! #2. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Back in 2012, the world as a whole was introduced to a pair of directors mostly known for animation named Phil Lord and Chris Miller when they directed the surprise hit 21 Jump Street and its followup 22 Jump Street. The world then got to know them a little bit better when they seemingly single-handedly jumpstarted the beloved The Lego Movie franchise. Then in 2018, everyone learned that no matter how crazy, Lord and Miller know what they’re doing when their firing spelled doom for the financial flop that was Solo: A Star Wars Story. So when the pair brought their producing and writing talent to a Sony Animation made Spider-Man movie just a year after The Emoji Movie, I think most people were expecting to enjoy it if only because that snippet at the end of Venom was really well animated. But I don’t think anyone was expecting an Academy Award winning film. Whenever I went onto my Twitter for a solid month, all I saw were people exclaiming how Into The Spider-Verse was their favorite movie of the year and then again for another month after the Oscars took place. All of a sudden, Disney Marvel, Warner Bros. DC, and Fox X-Men (rest in peace), have a brand new and major competitor... and for good reason, this movie is incredible. I immediately accepted it as easily the best Spider-Man movie ever, but took a few watchings for me to accept it as the second best film of the year and a few more to accept it as my Phil Lord and savior. It is so much fun, so entertaining, so enjoyable with such great characters, amazing writing, and hilarious comedy all wrapped with a brilliantly animated bow. Another film I really have nothing bad to say about, this is just a fantastic film through and through. Before we get to #1, here’s some Runners Up:

4. Let’s start from the beginning: I’ve been watching Star Vs. for a few years now when a good friend of mine recommended it to me. At first I was resistant because the advertising for it at the time was god awful, but luckily I was convinced otherwise and been loving it ever since.

5. The show premiered when I was a teenager, going through all the cliche teen shit. So seeing a show that portrayed the overly dramatic life of a teenager without being one of those stock teen dramas was a good change of pace.

6. In particular, I remember being amazed that it could be so relatable while still being able to have it’s upbeat and fast-paced fantasy/sci-fi action sequences and world while also having a good mixture of mature and juvenile humor. I mean, all of that would seem to work against each other and yet this show made it work in spades.

7. Actually, the way Star Vs. uses it’s fictitious setting to complement its down-to-earth characters while juggling great humor reminds me a lot of a different Disney property: Guardians Of The Galaxy. GOTG, I think, is the perfect film to study if you want to ever write for sci-fi or fantasy because director James Gunn understood that you can have as wild and crazy of a world as you want but you still need to write your characters as genuine as possible. If you don’t, you’ll get something like Avatar (the movie); a film that everyone remembers liking because of the incredible world and even better effects, but no one can name a single character or plot-point. The universe still needs to be grounded by the characters or else it’ll become forgettable and un-relatable. Star Vs., thankfully, does not have this problem. I love the characters, their trials, their tribulations, all because they feel real despite the world in which it takes place.

8. That isn’t to say there isn’t a reason to set a story in a fantastical world or that there isn’t an issue with being too relatable. If anything, the world of the show helps to make it more entertaining, less monotonous, and more unique. Without it, Star Vs. would be another Pretty Little Liars or Zoey 101 or Dawson’s Creek or any other boring teen drama out there. They’re practically identical because they start off too similarly! They all follow around relatively normal teenagers in a relatively normal world with their relatively normal life and god do none of them stand out. So Star Vs. separates itself by still keeping its characters pretty wacky and the universe as crazy as Daron Nefcy’s imagination!

9. Even by a storytelling perspective, this makes more sense because there is objectively more that can be done! By the end of Zoey 101, Zoey and her lame crew basically did everything they could do without jumping the shark too much. In comparison, there are countless adventures Marco and Star could go on even past the series finale.

10. And because the number of future adventures are countless, part of the tragedy of the show ending is that we (the audience) don’t get to experience them alongside these characters we’ve learned to love so much. Keeping that door open leaves a much longer lasting impression on the audience, as apposed to the ending of Zoey 101 in which... wait, what happened again? I don’t remember. Anyways!

11. I love the comedy in this show! From the very beginning, the humor was very lighthearted and yet mature because it had to be. It had to have a tinge of maturity to it because the target audience isn’t little kids like it would be for a show like My Little Pony or SpongeBob. Star Vs., with it’s doomsday atmosphere and constant teen drama, was definitely geared more towards older children/preteens. The ones more likely to watch a show like Gravity Falls or Rick And Morty and this audience will not tolerate childish humor. They can appreciate it sprinkled in here and there but if used too much, they’re taste will sour. This is because as they are maturing to to start maturing into adulthood, there is the natural need to separate from childish things with the added childishness of wanting to totally separate from it. That’s why on The Loud House, a punchline could literally be poop and why that is not something you’d see very often on Star Vs.

12. With that said, the show still needed the humor to be incredibly lighthearted because otherwise this show would be so depressing! The worlds in which these characters live in and know are constantly changing, evolving, and almost blowing up. For Christ sake, many important characters die in this finale! The only one who died in Gravity Falls was the villain and in this, the villain isn’t even one of them! Seeing Marco and Star still be able to crack jokes to one another and making each other laugh keeps spirits high. God knows Hekapoo can’t do that now!

13. Speaking of Marco and Star, I have been a hardcore Starco defender from the very beginning despite the show constantly trying to convince me otherwise! There are so many perfect pairings in this cast that any one of them could’ve worked if Nefcy were top change her mind. If it ended with Star x Tom or Marco x Janna or Star x Janna or Marco x Hekapoo or Marco x Tom or Marco x Kelly it would’ve worked perfectly well.

14. But lets not kid ourselves, it was always going to end with Marco x Star. Their relationship and chemistry is unmatched, they might be the only couple in existence to say a joint line like “With or without magic, we were always meant to be together,” work and come off as not only sincere but true. I don’t even believe in the whole “soul mate” mumbo-jumbo, but I’d be damned if they are not that!

15. I audibly squealed in delight when they finally got together. It was like the build-up of four season culminated in one scene.

16. Though it wouldn’t really surprise me if I was alone in this assessment because I am a sucker for a good romantic movie. I saw La La Land in theaters, I cried at Love, Simon, I actually really love Love Actually. And though I do think Star Vs. pulled off relationships better than most, take my opinion with a grain of salt because the build-up itself was a little grating.

17. I have a huge issue with “will-they, won’t-they” stories! It’s the same issue I had with The Office and Friends and The Big Bang Theory and Sailor Moon and That ‘70s Show and every other show that has this dumb trope! Of course they’ll get together because otherwise I wasted several hours of my life wondering about it! Star Vs. isn’t as bad about this as most others but it’s still there and it’s still annoying.

18. It does this better than most because of three main components: it’s relatively short, we get plenty of Star and Marco being all lovey-dovey with each other once they do get together, and they do have genuine chemistry together. They have so much chemistry that Star’s ex literally told Marco that they were clearly into each other. If only they could’ve avoided the trope.

19. Okay, this next point is a little personal but it did effect my feelings towards this show’s finale so I think it’s kind of important that I mention it. Around the time the Star Vs. was ending, I was just entering my first real relationship and around the time I watched this finale, we lasted long enough that we could start taking the relationship a little bit more seriously. Now before anyone says anything: everything’s going great (she actually made me my header) and I am absolutely still in a honeymoon phase with her. But I think you could imagine how a lovesick teen just entering a serious relationship would be effected by this show that ended with lovesick teens so in love that they’d happily sacrifice themselves for the other.

20. I may or may not have also been high while watching this and that may or may not have effected my viewing experience. Don’t be a narc!

21. I love what this last season did with Ludo. Push away the fact that they somehow keep talking Alan Tudyk into these rolls he clearly does need to do and yet still does a great job at it (did you know he was King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph? Why? Why did he do that? Why is he so good in it? This guy’s casting decisions are so weird). The character of Ludo was a generic comic relief villain (see Doofenshmirtz) but was usually fine if only because he made for a good contrast and was way more interesting compared to Toffee (played by Michael C. Hall, another actor who does not need this job). But season four made Ludo a million times more interesting by showing his obsession with the wand exactly what it is: and unhealthy obsession that he needs to get over. And I like where he’s left by the end, clearly still not doing too great but is making strides to get better. As someone who has known many addicts in my life, this hit home a little.

22. Actually, I think a large part of season four was specifically meant to fix the first two mediocre seasons. Just look at my new favorite episode of the series: Britta’s Tacos. In this episode, Star and Marco find themselves back on Earth after a year of being on Mewni and catching up with all of their friends and seeing what’s changed. Watching this episode, I was reminded that as good as the first couple of seasons were, the latter half of the series was a ton better! The characters, character arcs, stories, everything, everything was better once they went up to Mewni. So seeing them go back to Earth and challenging the writers with rewriting their past characters to be more interesting showed just how much the series has improved. Could you imagine characters as uninteresting as those nerds I don’t even remember the names of being introduced in the much more interesting latter seasons? I couldn’t! So I appreciate that they went back and made sure every character in this show was interesting... except for Toffee, he still sucks.

23. And of course, the character that improved the most, hands down was absolutely Jackie Lynn Thomas! She was as bland and boring as a love interest got and that bothered me from the very beginning. How is it that in a show this imaginative and unique they still felt it necessary to use this tired cliche. So bringing her back, the writers had to do something to make her more interesting and it was apparently really easy. All they had to do was keep the character herself basically the same but now she’s a lesbian. And somehow, just adding that one extra layer made her feel so different, so interesting, so complete. I think that’s what it was, she just felt like an incomplete plot point and giving her a girlfriend completely separates herself from being important to the plot and adds that extra layer to make her seem more finished as a character.

24. I’m actually really surprised by this recent trend of LGBTQ+ characters in kids cartoons. You’d think that of all mediums, kids cartoons would be the last to fully integrate a controversial minority but they’ve been some of the first. Steven Universe really started this trend but I feel like The Loud House was the first to show and say it outright. Star Vs. doesn’t do it that well (and I’m willing to bet that was because of higher-ups over at Disney) but I appreciate the sentiment anyways. They never call Jackie and her girlfriend a couple or show them kissing, the most they do is have them hold hands and though I guess that’s enough, I wish they were able to go further. Whatever, I already wrote about why this representation in kids media is important, go read that.

25. For a while, Star was my favorite character in this show. I just have a real soft-spot for upbeat female badasses (and I am very happy this has become more of a trope recently), I think Janna might’ve taken the throne. It’s not that Star stopped being interesting or anything like that, I just really love Janna and her “Jannanigans”. Plus, I do really like the “cute girl who’s into weird shit” trope too. She’s not my favorite version of this trope (see Raven from 2003′s Teen Titans), but she was always a delight whenever she was on screen.

26. Tom is probably the most obvious example of “boring character was made interesting” that the show has. In the beginning, he was the standard bad boy archetype but, over time, was given more personality and started working off the other characters much better. Sure, he and Star worked great with each other as to be expected, but I think the real standout relationship he had was with Marco. I have never seen bromance as strong as what those two have. Their little musical number at Queen Moon’s cornonation turned talent contest might have been the greatest piece of animation ever made (change my mind). And this I know people agree with me, I cannot exaggerate just how much literally everyone I have ever spoken to loves Marco and Tom. It just works so strangely, it has to come off as genuine.

27. I think the series was supposed to go on for another season. I say this because Kelly was too good of a character to waste like they did! She was a great character with tons of personality and amazing chemistry with Marco that was seemingly building up to something... only to drop the ball at the end. She isn’t given much to do, she doesn’t have a final scene with Marco, she isn’t even given a good ending. The most we got was Ponyhead theorizing what her life would be like just to cheer up Star. If that was all they were going to do with Kelly, that’s just a waste of perfectly good build-up.

28. It’s very strange how on the nose these metaphors in the show got at times while still seeming perfect. I guess it had to be on the nose so that the younger audience could catch on to them but I’m not sure what the’ll do with the knowledge that magic=nuclear power. Also, the monsters kind of changed metaphors, originally they were clearly meant to be Native American stand-ins but later on they kind of changed into African American stand-ins. Not that they’re histories (in America) are all that different but it was a noticeable switch. It’s not like Zootopia where any given animal could represent any number of races depending on the scene in question, this was definitely what Star Vs. was going for and I’m not sure if it totally worked. It didn’t NOT work, I guess.

29. I actually don’t like the whole “blowing up the magic” thing. It was something Star made up in a temper tantrum and goes totally against the theme. The whole time, the show was going on about how important integration is and how “separate but equal” doesn’t work and whatnot. So destroying the only way they know how to travel through different dimensions seems contrary to that point. I get that drastic times need drastic measures but I get the feeling that in a theoretical season five, Star and Marco would work to bring back the magic. Or maybe find a more scientific way to travel through dimensions... like some kind of portal gun. We already know this takes place in the same multiverse as Rick And Morty, it’s not that crazy an idea.

30. Another reason I think there was originally going to be another season is because the whole “Mewmans are humans” thing that came right out of nowhere! I mean, it makes total sense and I’m totally down with this plot point but it seems like that would be a much bigger deal than the characters make it out to be. My god, they don’t even let Marco finish explaining this. How the hell did that cave painting get to Earth if they didn’t run into Glossaryck until they got to Mewni! Explanation please!

31. I wish destroying the magic didn’t also mean killing off Glossaryck and Hekapoo. I don’t really care about any of the other characters literally made out of magic, but those two are just so likable and such fan favorites, it’s just a shame to see them go. Though I do really like that they’re reaction to the whole thing seems to just be a mild shrug. I get the idea that since they’ve lived for millennia which would make them more okay with dying. It’s easier to live a full life if you can’t die.

32. I like how Mina’s story ends: defeated and yet still refusing it. Her whole speech about having good ideas really says something, like these issues will never be fully defeated because everyone thinks that they’re right. It’s a bit more of a bittersweet moral than “bad always loses because they’re bad” but is an important lesson that I think kids need to learn. Especially in this political climate. Good god, just end me!

33. Holy shit, I’m up to 33! My Wakfu one only made it up to 25 and I am nowhere close to done yet!

34. A psychotic part of me really wishes the finale had Star and Marco die in each other’s arms in the Magic Dimension. It’d be the ultimate show of love as they’re sacrificing each other for one another and be the ultimate ending. I mean, what more is there to care about after the main two characters are dead? It’d be very bittersweet and much more emotionally taxing on the audience but it’d also be more classic. Like Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde, they’re love was just too strong for this world.

35. With that said, that part of me is absolutely wrong! Having their dimensions merge was clearly what the series was building up to with it’s hopeful tone, the power of love being a big theme, the message of integration, and (of course) the promise they made to Meteora and Hispanic Meteora. It seems so obvious in hindsight and yet I still didn’t see it coming, I guess that’s a sign of a really good plot twist.

36. My god, everyone is such a dick to Queen Moon. Like let her be in love you jackasses. I had such a hard time liking anyone who worked against her (which is why I really like that Hekapoo had reservations on both sides the whole time) and this includes Ex-Queen Moon. I really can’t grasp my mind as to why she thought this was a good idea, it clearly wasn’t from the very beginning. Maybe if the show gave her time to explain herself I’d be singing a different tune but she never really does and I have a hard time forgiving her even after her apology.

37. This is just a reminder that Starco is best ship. Repeat, Starco is still best ship.

38. The ending reminds me of Titanic. I mean, two young lovebirds meeting each other, growing closer, and falling in love all the while a looming threat of destruction and death is above them. The epic scale of their problem being brought down to earth by the almost normal love story happening in the midst of it all. Their ever ready willingness to sacrifice everything for each other. Their world forcing them to cling to each other for protection. The grand scale of everything around them making their love seem grander than it would be without it. Yeah, there are more and probably better examples I could turn to for comparison (Romeo And Juliet, Les Miserables, Spartacus) but Titanic was the first one to come to mind and I’m sure my subconsciousness has a good reason for that.

39. I continue to have problems with this finale but I get the sense that I’m nitpicking because this was still an amazing end to a great show. When I think about this ending, the first word that comes to mind is deserves. This is the ending that the story deserves, that the characters (minus Kelly) deserves, that the show itself deserves. It really is a fantastic finale and I’m so grateful that I got to experience it.

40.

#10. Baby Driver In a few decades, Edgar Wright is going to be considered one of the best directors of all time. It’s going to be: Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Edgar Wright. Baby Driver, though not as energetic as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World nor as hilarious as Hot Fuzz, is objectively his best directing project. How Baby’s mind boggling driving goes along perfectly with the music he’s playing looks incredible the entire way through, never relenting & always exciting! And if this was all it had, it’d still be an amazing movie but not “top 10″ worthy. But it has Oscar-worthy performances from Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx, & even Kevin Spacey (a terrible person with lots of talent), a gripping narrative, & amazing looking special effects that’ll make Transformers: The Last Knight blush! If anything, the reason why it’s only at #10 is because, at the end of the day, I’d still prefer to watch Shaun Of The Dead... again...

#9. Coco Pixar has been on a serious roll ever since they got through their shitty phase. Inside Out made my 2016 list, Incredibles 2 is probably going to make my 2018 list, & even Cars 3 was way better than it deserved to be! Coco is Pixar showing that not only are they back & going to stay, but could make movies that should suck & yet is still amazing! Every dumb movie cliche is on full force in this: the family that hates music but it’s the main protagonist’s passion & his family just doesn’t understand, but through a wacky & heart-warming adventure through his family’s history, maybe they’ll blah blah blah blah blah... It even rips off The Book Of Life to a good extent! Yeah, this movie isn’t great because of its twists & turns. It’s great because even though you know exactly what’s going to happen from beginning to end & yet it’s still gripping, interesting, & fun with gripping, interesting, & fun characters that you’d want to run around a million cliches with! It was a blast to watch in theaters & definitely worth sitting through Olaf’s Frozen Adventure to see.

#8. Get Out I’m not even going to pretend like I know what it’s like to be black in America. It’s pretty clearly not something I will ever understand as I can actually hide my minority-ness. So, a movie like Get Out, as great as it is, I find generally pretty hard to relate to what happens in them. But I will say that Get Out, as a film, is absolutely thrilling, exciting, & at times scary. I was worried about this character & concerned about what he was going through; when things start not making sense, I’m right there with him! That’s what a good horror movie should do & that kind of horror is in low demand nowadays. Even It, a movie that almost made the list, didn’t engross or engage me as much as Get Out did! The directing of Jordan Peele & the acting of Daniel Kaluuya are on full display & only makes this chilling movie even more so! A great start to a great comedian’s great directing career!

#7. Gerald’s Game Though, as a horror movie, I find Get Out far more engaging & engrossing than Gerald’s Game, I do think it’s far better made with a much better basis, story, & acting. What I really love about Gerald’s Game is how it tells its plot. It’s not new to tell your story out of order (Pulp Fiction, Mulholland Drive, every Christopher Nolan movie), but very few do so as well as this! From the beginning, its unique & universally horrifying concept makes sure you’re paying attention & holds on to it with equally unique & universally horrifying events told in the perfect order to have it make sense throughout but not entirely so until the very end. It starts off on the perfect note & holds it throughout! Fascinating & universal, Gerald’s Game is the perfect engaging drama!

#6. Molly’s Game A biopic that doesn’t tell the whole truth, just how much did happen & to whom is the whole reason why I found myself intrigued with Molly’s Game. The great story told fascinatingly with incredible performances is why I love Molly’s Game. The film itself feels like a particularly great poker game: just when you think Molly’s up, just as quickly, she can fall back down. At the end, you’re just concerned if she’ll end up broke by the end of the night! And just like a great poker game, it’s hard not to get engaged with every little thing that happens in this film & it requires Oscar-worthy performances from everyone, especially Jessica Chastain! Incredibly engaging & engrossing, it’s the perfect movie for critics!

#5. I, Tonya I already praised Molly’s Game for how it tells its mostly true story, but I, Tonya is about a famously inconsistent story from & about inconsistent people. I don’t know why, but I find that everyone in this movie has their own stories & they’re probably all lying very interesting & it makes for a great story. It’s kinda like if you took every good element from every Alice In Wonderland adaptation & put them all into its very own movie. Like if the story itself had a couple of decades to edit itself into the best version it possibly can be. Add in the marketing of it maybe being true: taking all the intrigue of a “based on a true story” of something so outrageous while not feeling like it disrespects its audience enough to think they’d believe it. And it helps that its story is based on one of the most interesting parts of modern American history & it has 2 of the best performances of the year (Margot Robbie & Allison Janney). Put them all together & you get the 5th best movie of 2017!

#4. The Shape Of Water Beauty And The Beast is one of the most timeless & universal stories ever told, hence why there is so many versions of it. Everybody can relate to the idea, feeling, & fear of being neglected, ignored, & hated & for many people at many points in history, that fear was a reality. The original story is so universal, it can be read as being a peasant at the turn of the 18th century just as much as it can be about being gay at the turn of the 21st century & that’s why it has persisted for so long. The Disney animated film of the same name from 1991 was revolutionary for many reasons, but its incredible story is largely why it became the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. So, The Shape Of Water actually winning with this story is not only deserving, but it’s probably my favorite telling of the classic. Guillermo Del Toro had already made a name for himself by directing the critically praised Pan’s Labyrinth, the audience pleaser Pacific Rim, & creating the hit series Trollhunters: Tales Of Arcadia. The Shape Of Water is plausibly his most praised work & possibly his best work. The chemistry between the 2 mute leads is incredible & it becomes even more so after you realize that it’s all without talking! And that fact makes the villain seem even more villainous when every little thing he says is hate filled. And the amazing directing of Del Toro is what brings it all together, making it a worthy Best Picture winner.

#3. The Disaster Artist Another biopic with a possibly untrue story, The Disaster Artist shows that James Franco & Seth Rogan don’t need cheap sex jokes or obvious drug jokes to be funny. In fact, they can make a movie about an already obscure film that only nerds know about & can make a decent hit! Hell, maybe they can also get it nominated for a few Oscars & make it on my Top 10 list! I was ready to call this duo dead after The Interview made only obvious jokes, The Night Before was ungodly uninteresting, & Sausage Party was straight up unfunny. But The Disaster Artist brought a breath of fresh air, a movie for movie nerds & not just the kind that Google what really happened in the Infinity War comics. Ones that keep up with Nostalgia Critic & Cinema Snob because they’re still pretty big guilty pleasures & hope that they’ll eventually review Where The Dead Go To Die. The kind that already knew that The Room exists, love the fact that The Room exists, were immediately excited when Greg Sestero released his book, & were even more so when James Franco said he wanted to make a movie about it! I do my whole shpeal about how true to life the Franco bros. performances are & how great the directing was. But really, the reason I put this above The Shape Of Water & I, Tonya is because I’m a nerd. That’s mostly it! It’s not even my favorite movie about movies, that’s still Ed Wood.

#2. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Stepping back & looking at the empire & universe Marvel has created, it’s impressive & incredible just how huge & lucrative it has become. And it wouldn’t have become so if it didn’t have the films to back it up. When the first Guardians Of The Galaxy came out, it was Marvel trying to send the message that they can make a film out of one of their most obscure properties & not only make it a humongous hit, but also make it so good that it ends up on the 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list! And with its sequel, they pumped up everything that made the original great tenfold, added in some heartwarming moments to make sure you don’t leave the theater dry, & a much more interesting villain! And by god is Ego such a fascinating & engrossing villain, especially compared to the nothing of a character that made up Ronan. The way it covers its themes of family & parenthood is clever & amazingly well done. You’re right there with Peter Quill, wondering when to side with his dad or his best friends; whether or not a few good deeds redeems the torture of a childhood he had thanks to Yondu. And that kind of inner thought process is largely thanks to the incredible writing & directing of James Gunn, who is irreplaceable. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is now my 2nd favorite Marvel movie & 2nd favorite movie of 2017. #RehireJamesGunn

Before we get to #1, here are a few runners up:

Wonder Woman I didn’t realize it until after the fact, but 2017 was a really good year for superhero movies. Spider-Man: Homecoming was an amazing comeback for my favorite hero, Thor: Ragnarok somehow made Thor more likable, even Justice League managed to not piss me off! But, arguably, the most important of these was Wonder Woman which showed that not only can female led superhero movies make money, but also be very good!

Paddington 2 2014′s Paddington surprised both critics & audiences with its genuinity, heart-warming-ness, & immensely likable lead character, gripping everyone. When Paddington 2 came out, it immediately got 100% on RottenTomatoes, & that is a serious rarity. To the point where I first thought it was a fluke, like it got almost entirely middling reviews resulting in a 100% on a movie that generally averaged with 6/10s. Leaving the theater about 2 hours later, I can agree that it not only deserves that 100%, but it’s way better than the first movie! And I love the first movie!

Call Me By Your Name This was actually a really good year for Oscar nominated films. Most years, I don’t even consider most of the nominated movies because they tend to be a little pretentious, long, & boring. Which does have a place, just not the type I tend to watch a million times like the films I do put on my lists. But this year, my list is filled with Oscar winners & I actually wanted to include more like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Dunkirk, & All The Money In The World. I think Call Me By Your Name is at least more interesting than most of these if only for the background of being about 2 bisexuals, one being a kid. It can get a little pretentious, long, & boring but definitely worth watching!

The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) Meyerowitz Stories is Adam Sandler’s stab at an artistic movie after nobody saw Ridiculous 6 & Punch Drunk Love continues to garner praise from just about everyone. It’s the beginning of a new kind of Sandler movies as he gets used to his new home on Netflix & realize what kind of movies that kind of audience wants to see. I really hope that he continues to make these kinds of movies in the years to follow!

John Wick Chapter 2 On the side of action movies that aren’t based on comics, the John Wick movies continue to be exciting, action packed, & most importantly, fun! I had fun when I watch these movies, which is something I don’t say about the darker side of modern action movies. I haven’t had this much fun watching an action movie like this since Die Hard!

mother! On the battle of is this movie pretentious garbage or exciting drama; nominated for both an Oscar & a Razzie; do I love or hate mother!... I actually fucking love these kinds of movies! The kind that makes no sense as you’re watching it but every sense after the fact. Movies like Black Swan, Mulholland Drive, & The Cure For Wellness. So I might be biased towards this kind of movie, but I loved it!

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Talk about toxic movie topic, I also really loved The Last Jedi! I actually thought it was a clever film that completely subverted my expectations at every moment. I love that Rae’s parents turned out to be nobodies, it’s such an interesting twist on this build up & arguably the most daring take they could’ve have after the millionth fan theory stated that it’s Luke & Leia. I loved where it left our heroes, at their bleakest moment, paralleling The Empire Strikes Back! I genuinely loved this movie & I’ll admit, I don’t totally get what all the hate is about! But whatever, my list, my runners up, nyeh nyeh.

Bill Nye: Science Guy Here’s my documentary entry... & it was a hard pick between this & Jim And Andy: The Great Beyond but I did inevitably pick this one because Bill Nye is a personal hero of mine. I’m a science dork, I’m subscribed to ASAP Science, I grew up with Bill Nye. I find his journey fascinating, this documentary very well made, & I can’t wait for the next season of Bill Nye Saves The World.

World Of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden Of Other People’s Thoughts I really hope Don Hertzfeldt catches on with more movie nerds. Just between this, the first World Of Tomorrow, It’s Such A Beautiful Day, The Meaning Of Life, Rejected, & every other film he’s created, he’s easily one of my favorite directors. Making some of the most thought provoking & intelligent films I’ve ever seen. If I included short films, this would be a serious contender for #1! Please watch this, just the phrase “The Burden Of Other People’s Thoughts” makes this worth watching!

Loving Vincent Fuck! I didn’t even get to include the pretentious animated film of the year? This is the only movie I can think of where literally every frame is a painting & it looks beautiful! Throughout, you can tell the people making this are genuinely passionate about Vincent Van Gogh & that’s what really drives the movie. I also want to take this time to mention My Little Pony: The Movie, which is my “I love this animated movie way more than most people probably should” of the year & I didn’t even have room in the runners up for it!

#10. A Bad Moms Christmas Bad Moms (2016) was a surprise hit with both audiences & critics: with interesting characters, some really funny moments, & a clever moral; it wasn’t anything that would win an Oscar, but if it was on, I wouldn’t complain. A Bad Moms Christmas on the other hand: has annoying as hell characters, obvious humor, & the same damn moral from the first film! In a world with the MCU, which is constantly trying different & unique things, especially with their sequels in hopes to make them stand out, this kind of cheap, cash-grabby sequel with no heart or care put into it simply has no place. If this came out in the ‘80s or ‘90s, it’d be un-notable among Caddyshack 2 & A Christmas Story 2. But in today’s day & age, these kinds of sequels are a relic of a time once left & forgotten & for good reasons. It’s unfunny, uninteresting, & just straight up awful! If I wasn’t keeping track of these movies, I would’ve easily forgotten about it.

#9. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul Growing up in the early to mid-2000s, I grew up with the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books. I remember being very excited when the movies came out, & to this day, the books & movies continue to be (at the very least) guilty pleasures. The Long Haul book kept with the spirit of the series, being about a relatively un-notable piece of someone’s childhood, mixed with the feeling of being of nostalgic reminiscing while keeping with the spirit & imagination of a preteen. Its lack of reliability & humor that made past books more enjoyable made The Long Haul my least favorite DOAWK book, but it was still notably timeless as it had little to no potty humor or modern technology that tends to ruin perfectly nice children’s media. The DOAWK movies tend to have the same feel, like it’s just as relatable for children at the time as it would be for kids 50 years from now. What made the films so enjoyable, as opposed to the books, is the spot-on chemistry & acting of the cast. Everyone seemed believable in their roles, Zachary Gordon felt like a genuine kid making genuine kid decisions how a genuine kid would act in a genuine kid filled world. The Long Haul movie is absolutely nothing like these. It relies heavily on bad potty humor, horrendous acting, scenes too out of this world to ever seem believable, & characters who act nothing like any human being. The Rodrick in book & first 3 movies was a dumb older brother who compensated by bullying around his younger brother while still being somewhat caring towards him by giving him honest advice (even if it’s bad). The Rodrick in this would have a hard time breathing & walking at the same time. There was way too much use of modern technology, making it unrelatable to older audiences & cringy to younger audiences, who’re smart enough to know that the old farts making this probably never met a child before. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul was an unfunny, annoying, & unrelatable slog! #NotMyRodrick

#8. Bigger Fatter Liar Coming about a decade too late, Bigger Fatter Liar is mostly unfunny & annoying. It’s a repeat of the first movie except less funny, less interesting, & less Frankie Muniz. I cannot over-exaggerate how much I hate these kinds of sequels: the kind that takes a great comedy, strips any of the humorous moments, repeats the plot point-for-point, mostly repeats the jokes point-for-point, & adds nothing of interest or value. This is why Vacation made my Top 10 Worst 2 years ago, this is why Bigger Fatter Liar makes my list now. Just like Vacation, it takes a bunch of ingenious build-ups from their original film & fucks up the punch-line by being too over-the-top. Now, going over-the-top isn’t inherently bad (Ghostbusters & Spaceballs are 2 of my favorite comedies & their very over-the-top), but it can be easily overdone, & when it is, you get The Big Bang Theory. I guess what I find most perplexing is who is this made for? Anyone who grew up with Big Fat Liar are too old to be interested in an obvious cash-grab & younger children who might’ve been shown it by their parents aren’t going to be shown it because their parents are smart enough to not show it to them! I can only assume its target audience are people like me, who go out of their way to find the worst movies they possibly can, & this is a damn good contender.

#7. Snatched There really are few things in the world as hard to watch as a bad comedy as so far, it’s made up my entire list & Snatched isn’t going to be the last. Snatched is one of those comedies that has some serious tone issues. You’re supposed to laugh even after Amy Schumer & Goldie Hawn are kidnapped & probably almost raped! I’ve heard of dark comedy, but that’s a hard sell especially since it isn’t a dark comedy! It has generally pretty light humor in it that you’d see in A Bad Moms Christmas or The House, & though those movies are also quite terrible, Snatched puts them in the context of one of the really bad Scary Movies. This film offers the kind of balls you’d see in Deadpool or The Hitman’s Bodyguard but instead gives the least daring comedy in years. It’s humor is safe but doesn’t have the context of a safe film.

#6. Woody Woodpecker I’m going to be entirely honest... I never really liked Woody Woodpecker. I never found him funny or enjoyable, he’s always been just annoying. Now take the concept of a classic character who’s only personality trait is being annoying & make an entire annoying movie around him with the animation that’d make some of the D-list Blue Sky movies look like Pixar & you get the Woody Woodpecker movie. A movie that literally nobody needs to see! The story is... well, who cares? It’s a Woody Woodpecker movie in the style of The Smurfs, who cares about anything in this? You wanna know how bad it is? Guess... you’re right. How about the comedy... you’re right. It has so few twists & turns that if you simply imagine what it’s like, you’ve seen it. Congrats, you saw the 6th worst movie of 2017.

#5. F The Prom Say what you want about the Smosh movies or the Shane Dawson docuseries, but at least they’re naturally creative people doing creative things. Sure, Ghostmates is horrendously edited, but at least it’s made by people with experience at making popular sketch comedy with an actual audience. The Mind Of Jake Paul probably didn’t go as deep as it should’ve, but at least it’s made by someone who’s used to having to be energetic & humorous on the spot & has an audience who likes his stuff. The Fine Bros. have limited experience at being creative. All of their hit series (Kids React, Elders React) have been based around other people’s creative reactions to someone else’s creative content. And I’m not saying that doesn’t take some hard work; they must have a talent at finding people-pleasers, getting the kinds of reactions to make a compelling opinion, editing them together as to not fuck up their opinions nor the original content, & marketing that to the right audience. That’s why I think they’d make for decent producers, but creative types they are not. That’s why their more creative series like Emo Dad & MyMusic ended as failures with little fanfare. F The Prom was directed & written by the Fine Bros. & watching it, you can tell that everything I just said was true. It’s just a knockoff of The D.U.F.F. which was a knockoff of The Breakfast Club! Why would you want to be The D.U.F.F.? The critical bomb no one saw because it’s nothing like anyone’s high school experience? They both have all the tellings of an ‘80s high school (queen bee cheerleaders, bully jocks, bullied nerds, etc.), which is fine, but then they threw in cell phones & emojis to relate to modern day teenagers. Doing so alienates older audiences who didn’t have sexting when they were in high school & alienates modern teens who don’t have these kinds of cliches anymore. It’s funny that they have a hit series called Teens React because they pretty clearly didn’t ask any of them what modern high schools are like! I was hoping that The Edge Of Seventeen would bring on a wave of great teen movies & Eighth Grade would bring on a wave of great YouTuber movies. But I guess the Fine Bros. had the worst YouTuber movie & 2nd worst teen comedy ever still in them.

#4. CHiPS Okay, I didn’t realize that this list would be made almost entirely of bad comedies, we just happen to be in a bad age for comedy so you’ll have to deal with me typing “unfunny” a little bit longer. CHiPS is cheap & unfunny garbage that I wish I never saw! Every joke was just “sex this” & “sex that” which is fine in moderation & with good writing, but this has neither! It’s trying to be 21 Jump Street but doesn’t understand that what made that so great was it’s clever humor to parody the original franchise & reboot movies as a whole, not just cheap sex jokes! You want to get drunk? Take a shot every time they mention sex, you don’t even need other rules, you’ll be dead 10 minutes in! There’s no cleverness, no nuance, nothing of substance to make it even worth talking about! And that’s why it’s #4!

#3. Let There Be Light Here’s the obligatory Christian movie, I’d stop including them if they stopped being so badly made. The writing, acting, story, cinematography, everything (& I mean everything) seems like they were done by people who don’t know how to make a movie because they were. Christian movies aren’t made to be interesting or Oscar contenders, they’re made to propagate their shitty ideals. That Christianity is good, all other religions are bad. It is, quite literally, propaganda. Which isn’t inherently bad. What is bad that it’s in the service of hatred towards the other (whether it be Atheists, Muslims, gays, etc.) & it’s really badly made. And don’t think that I hate all Christian movies just on principal simply because I myself am a bisexual Atheist. I love Angels In The Outfield, Field Of Dreams, & VeggieTales just as much as everyone else. I hate bad Christian movies that open with 9/11 for literally no reason other than to say “fuck Muslims”. I hate bad Christian movies that support hating others rather than love & acceptance (like what Jesus Christ preached). I hate bad Christian movies that hate me because of how I was born for no reason other than because an old book told them to. There, have I made my point yet? Can these movies please stop being made?

#2. Pitch Perfect 3 I know it’s weird to follow up “this movie hates gay people” with Pitch Perfect 3, but I saw this in theaters surrounded by a bunch of middle-aged women who seriously need to get laid laughing with that kind of annoying theater-people laugh every time a character literally named Fat Amy said “I’m fat, ppppffffttttt!!!!” I have never had such a negative theater experience & the fact that I still had to sit through a movie as bad as Pitch Perfect 3 didn’t fucking help! I can’t stand this movie! It’s annoying, frustrating, unfunny, cheap, & all around bad... but so was A Bad Moms Christmas & Snatched & they were delegated to #10 & #7 respectively. What made Pitch Perfect 3 particularly awful to sit through? Well I wish death upon the audience I saw this with, but there is one more thing... The Pitch Perfect movies weren’t ever, well, perfect but they were perfectly fine, harmless films. There’s a few decent laughs, I like Princess Poppy in them alright, I think the singing was genuinely good. But what separates those films from their sequel is their basis in reality. The Pitch Perfect films always took place in a very realistic, very grounded reality. Pitch Perfect 3, on the other hand, opens with all of the main characters tied up on a Bond-esc villain’s boat, about to be murdered because Fat Amy is his daughter & reasons. If that isn’t jumping the shark, I don’t know what is! And I would accept this if it was fun, but it’s not. In fact, it’s barely focused on until the last half hour when it’s entirely that. The rest of the film is just a less funny Pitch Perfect. Wouldn’t be good, but not 2nd worst movie of 2017 bad. But it’s just so unfunny & the story so convoluted & the audience that annoying! I hate everything in this, I can’t imagine anyone liking this! Fuck this movie!

Before we get to #1, here’s some runners up:

Sandy Wexler I think both I & Adam Sandler are tired of the general Adam Sandler shtick. Encapsulated by the fact that I didn’t include this on my list & Sandler releasing critically praised films such as The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) & 100% Fresh right after this. There’s nothing of note or particularly interesting about Sandy Wexler when compared to Grown Ups or Pixels. It’s another bad Adam Sandler movie, the same as any other, I’m just happy that they seem just about over.

Wish Upon I heard a lot of people consider this film so-bad-it’s-good but I didn’t enjoy its awfulness quite that much. But I did enjoy it just enough to keep it off of the list. There’s lots of accidentally funny moments in this, just not as many as I was hoping.

The Emoji Movie I know a ton of people put this as their worst movie of 2017... but I don’t know. Maybe it’s because people hyped it up too much by the time I got to see it or maybe because I’m a sucker for fast paced animation but I enjoyed this film way too much to put it here. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s that bad. Mostly mediocre, I guess. Same goes for Duck Duck Goose & Gnome Alone.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales 2017 was not a very good year for mediocre movie franchises. Between this, Tom And Jerry: Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, & Transformers: The Last Knight, all being god awful & not making much money, maybe it’s the end to these 3 not very beloved series... or Bumblebee will make a bunch of money & nobody will learn any valuable lessons.

What The Health I have no problem with vegans, if anything, I think they’re objectively correct in their arguments, I just like medium rare steak too much! Just please don’t make shitty documentaries with shotty evidence & bad science! This one in particular made me so mad that I stopped watching it half way through & I would’ve put it on the list if I included documentaries!

All Eyez On Me Joke’s on me! I thought Straight Outta Compton would’ve brought a new wave of great music biopics, but apparently it only brought along terribly boring & overly long music biopics with 2018′s Bohemian Rhapsody & 2017′s All Eye’s On Me. The longest 2 & a half hours of my life!

Death Note As a huge fan of the Death Note anime & manga, this is practically blasphemy!... but there is still a lot of creativity & cleverness in it. Granted, those are all from the anime & the worst parts are whenever it tries to be original. But, granted again, if it was just the anime there’d be no reason to watch it. I feel like the people working on this were given a bad hand & probably did the best they could... but it still sucked. I strangely feel very similar about Beauty And The Beast.

Despicable Me 3 I think I just have a really low tolerance for annoyance. I cannot stand being annoyed, I’d rather be tortured! And that is the fatal wound of the Despicable Me franchise. I like the first 2 films just fine, but between this & Minions, I think it’s doomed to annoying purgatory!

47 Meters Down Shark movies are more dead than the shark at the end of Jaws: totally terminated & yet still showing up in films. 47 Meters Down is another hackney entry into a tired genre.

Happy Death Day I feel like I’m alone in hating this film. People praise it for being funny & clever while I bash it for being void of any entertainment & doing the same shit that got overused a decade ago.

3. I think I should’ve watched The Search For The Six Eliatrope Dofus first. I think the characters reference what happens in that a few times & whenever they did, I was like “what the fuck are they talking about?”

4. I don’t know why they changed the English voice cast, but it wasn’t a very good idea. It took me a few episodes to get used to them, & though I did get used to it & they did a fine enough job. Just not as good as the original cast.

5. I think this is why half of the words change pronunciation. Iop & Ruel are pronounced like how they’re spelled, which sounds like a good thing, but I always felt like pronouncing them like “Yop” & “Ruul” sounded more realistic. Adding that extra syllable is creating more work for whoever’s saying it & I think in a world that’s supposed to seem like it’s existed for millenniums, those kinds of words would’ve been shortened down to 1 syllable. I wouldn’t be complaining if that’s not how they were pronounced in the first 2 seasons.

6. Adamai is a surprisingly good villain. Of course, I think he’s much better as a protagonist, but as the antagonist; he’s a menacing figure that every member of the Brotherhood Of The Tofu have a history with, & the animation does a great job at showing the struggles he has when fighting them & vice versa.

7. I fucking hate the Dragon Ball Z-esc design for Adamai! It could just be my general disliking of DBZ, but that design really doesn’t do anything for me.

8. I think they made Adamai a bad guy because Oropo isn’t a very interesting main antagonist. Granted, it’s not like this show is known for its great villains (in fact, Oropo is by far my favorite of the them so far), but he ends up being pretty disappointing. Particularly because the framework is there for a great villain: a connection to the heroes, a memorable plot, a great motivation... it just never comes together for a very interesting villain.

9. I think it’s because most of that stuff isn’t really focused on until the last couple of episodes, making him uninteresting for most of the season & when it’s finally focused on, it’s too little too late.

10. Evangelyne & Percedal are great parents! This really is the natural continuation of their relationship after they had their “happily ever after” at the end of season 2. And whenever they’re on screen together, they have so much romantic chemistry it literally kills me.

11. I fucking love they’re kids too! It’d be so easy to make them one-dimensional slabs to motivate Percedal, but they have just as great & interesting personalities as any other member of the Brotherhood. Of course, I prefer Elely mostly because we spend more time with her, but I also just prefer her character type.

12. I don’t like that they have Eva, probably the most badass protagonist, as the “damsel in distress”. I get that they don’t want a pregnant character out in the front lines of battle, but still.

13. Every season has a fake-out death: S1 had Percedal & that lasted for a few episodes into the next season, S2 had a scene & a half of Ruel faking a heart attack, & S3 had Evangelyne almost die. It was kinda ingenious: for a minute, it genuinely had me worried, wondering if they had the balls to kill off a pregnant main character. Good thing they didn’t, probably for the best.

14. Holy shit, they actually had the balls to show a baby’s birth! I’d imagine they’d have an easier time getting that death past Netflix!

15. I haven’t looked up what the consensus is on this, but I’m willing to bet I have a controversial opinion on this: I actually really like the romance between Amalia & Yugo. It feels very genuine & natural; they have a ton of chemistry between them. Unlike with most romances, where it’s pretty obvious they’ll end up together by the end, I honestly didn’t know if that was the route they were going to take because Yugo still looks 10!

16. Keeping Yugo looking 10 was a great way to add more tension & drama to the already dramatic & tension-filled story.

17. Past seasons have had a good mixture of dramatic & comedic elements, but this season pumped up the drama & backed off of the comedy. I guess this is expected since this is the first season made by Netflix & their shows have been significantly more dramatic than most cable TV animated shows, largely because they’re meant to be binge-watched instead of once a week.

18. Netflix also tends to strip down its shows to the bare minimum for the story it’s telling. This is normally a good thing, but I think Wakfu was one of those shows that utilized filler episodes really well to show more of a connection & backstory of the characters. Basically, I wanted more filler episodes.

19. I don’t know why Ruel was in this. I get that he’s one of the main characters & they try to have him seem like he has a point by throwing in his wife for no real reason. He’s getting too old to fight & he doesn’t throughout most of the season. I’d bet he’d end up staying behind to babysit Eva & Dali’s new baby next season (if there is one).

20. Each of the demigods the Brotherhood fight are interesting & unique in their own right, they all feel like they’ve always existed & were merely waiting to be introduced in the show rather than feel like they were invented in a day for their exact episode.

21. The show in the past has always felt like it was aiming for a pretty young audience (like “Baby’s First Engaging World”), but between the focus on more dramatic elements, all of the couples getting together, & Adamai’s new design; I think the new target audience is closer to older children/young teenagers. Those just old enough to be nostalgic over anime like Dragon Ball Z & Naruto but just young enough to embrace the more childish nature moments of past seasons. A natural evolution of this long-running franchise.

22. The world & universe this show has spent the better part of 2 seasons to build is built up even more throughout the entirety of season 3. It really feels livable, like you could just walk right into your TV & right in this world! This is an element that’s really hard to nail (only done well in the most prestigious of franchises with huge fanbases like Star Wars & Harry Potter... & My Little Pony) & it does so perfectly!

23. This is easily my favorite season of the show so far, building upon the incredible blocks already created by the first 2 seasons.

24. I really hope there’s a 4th season! There’s been word from random websites & blogs by so-called writers saying there will be one either 2019 or 2020. I do think it’s inevitable considering the show is at peak popularity & critical praise & this season ended on a cliffhanger. I just want it before I die of old age!