The Worst Acting Performances of 2017 [5 to 1]

Emma’s shade-throwing at bad acting continues! Read 10 to 6 here. I like to think I was relatively measured in my snark before. As we’re now onto the bottom five, I can’t promise to be so kind! Ehehe.

05. Johnny Depp, Murder on the Orient Express

As the sketchy art dealer Ratchett, Depp’s character is killed off early on, leaving Kenneth Branagh’s sleuth the rest of the film to piece together whodunit. The Johnny Depp of old, the Depp we saw in Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one, not the 34897 laboured sequels after), Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands would have seized this role with aplomb and made an indelible impression in his limited screen time.

My top 10 films of 2016 [10 to 6].

I know it took me long enough to compile this list, but I had to wait until Handmaiden got its UK release before I felt my 2016 list (going by US release dates in order to calibrate my list with all the bloggers I love) was well-researched enough.

Three films which ran Aquarius very close were Hell or High Water, Someone to Talk To and Certain Women. They would take 11-13 places on the list, naturally. 14th would go to Peter Berg's Patriots Day, mind, so you can take my recommendations with a pinch of salt.

10. Aquarius

Film review: JOURNEY TO THE WEST 2: THE DEMONS STRIKE BACK [西遊伏妖篇] (Tsiu Hark, 2017)

When we first came to England, my family didn’t have that much money and so despite loving films, TV and all things multimedia from a young age, I didn’t actually own that many VHSes. One of the few videos I did possess were episodes of 西游记 [Journey to the West], taped off the TV.

An extremely popular Chinese children’s novel, it’s had many adaptations, from TV show to film to plays. Even though I recognise that, were I to watch said episodes now, I would pick up on its low production value, campy acting and all-too-convenient deus ex machinas at the end of almost every episode, I loved that show as a kid, and I still regard the concept of it with fondness.

For that reason, when I clocked that the Chinese cinema-friendly Odeon Panton Street were screening Journey to the West 2, I leapt at the chance to see it, despite not having known about Journey to the West 1’s existence. I knew the general construct pretty well (a Buddhist monk, accompanied by three disciples possessing magical powers, the most prominent being monkey Sun Wukong, carries out his life calling to capture demons), so figured I’d be able to follow the plot despite not having seen the first.