Retrospective 2016 – A Year in Film

August

Late Summer Meh…

Image sources: Entertainment One, 20th Century Fox, IFC & Pathe

The last full month of the season threw up a slew of largely underwhelming comedy releases of varying quality; from the decent like Ricky Gervais’s cringetastic return to “Brent” in ‘David Brent: Life on the Road’ and irreverent pop “mockumentary” ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’, to instantly forgettable fare like ‘Bad Moms’ and ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’. Once again it was left to independent and foreign film to rescue the cinematic month, through unique films like Brady Corbet’s darkly reflective and prophetic drama ‘The Childhood of Leader’ and typically quirky and morbid Todd Solondz comedy ‘Wiener-Dog’, as well as Pedro Almodóvar’s latest female-centric drama ‘Juieta’.

Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do?

Image sources: Warner Bros.

The “bad guys” got their shot at the superhero spotlight this August with the release of the much anticipated, opinion-splitting and frankly disappointing big-budget blockbuster ‘Suicide Squad’. Director David Ayer’s flashy comic-book antihero ensemble piece follows on the heels of ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ in launching DC’s “Extended Universe”, as it moves to catch Marvel, in an effort that’s been met with mixed reactions but healthy box-office returns. We now await 2017 to see what the next steps in the Warner Bros. masterplan looks like with the release of ‘Wonder Woman’ in June and ‘Justice League’ in November.

Those We Lost

Image source: Universal, 20th Century Fox & Warner

August this year meant the passing of veteran American actor David Huddleston (85) (Blazing Saddles, The Big Lebowski) and diminutive British actor of R2-D2 fame Kenny Baker (81) (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Time Bandits). We also suffered the loss of Hollywood legend and comedy giant Gene Wilder (83) (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein) this month.

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