2025 at the Movies

Every holiday season, it is important that we all keep in mind the things that are truly important. Like cataloging the movies we've seen as if it was some kind of contest.

The usual disclaimer: My lists are not necessarily in order of best to worst. Movies that have the same number of stars can probably be reordered depending on how I feel and what kind of day it is. But a four star movie is unambiguously better than a two star movie. If you disagree with me, let me know. There is no shame in being wrong!

2025 movies

This was a very good year for seeing movies in theaters. This year, I saw 23 new releases, and three old films in theaters. 

Most of my top movies this year are on lots of people's lists of acclaimed movies. But I think one of the top movies this year was overlooked by many: Novocaine was very funny, and extremely well made. Go see it. 

The biggest disappointment of the year was Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. It is not necessarily a bad film. But the huge drop off in quality from the previous five Mission Impossible films was almost shocking. 

Luckily, most of the new movies that I saw this year were able to deliver on their premises. And some were actually great. 
★★★★ Sinners
★★★★ Wake Up Dead Man
★★★★ Novocaine
★★★★ Nosferatu (2024)
★★★★ Marty Supreme
★★★★ F1
★★★½ Superman (2025)
★★★½ Last Breath
★★★½ Wolfs [on TV] 
★★★½ Zootopia 2
★★★½ The Phoenician Scheme
★★★½ Thunderbolts*
★★★½ Death of a Unicorn
★★★☆ The Fantastic Four: First Steps
★★★☆ The Running Man (2025)
★★★☆ Predator: Badlands
★★★☆ Jurassic World Rebirth
★★★☆ The Naked Gun (2025)
★★★☆ The Comeback Trail [on TV]
★★★☆ Captain America: Brave New World
★★½☆ Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
★★½☆ Cleaner
★★½☆ The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
★☆☆☆ Flight Risk
★☆☆☆ The Legacy of Schwarzkopf [on TV]
★☆☆☆ The Brutalist (2024)

Older Movies

This year, I watched a number of Jackie Chan films, since I had heard that the first two Police Story films were amazing. They were both pretty great! But the movie that impressed me most was Miracles. It is a delightful fish out of water crime comedy with great action scenes and a fantastic script. 

★★★★ His Girl Friday (1940)
★★★★ Back to the Future Part II (1989)
★★★★ Sunset Boulevard (1950) [in theater]
★★★★ Jaws (1975) [in theater]
★★★★ Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
★★★★ Miracles (1989)
★★★★ The Muppet Movie (1979)
★★★★ Road to Perdition (2002)
★★★★ Airplane! (1980)
★★★★ Carrie (1976)
★★★★ Mary Poppins (1964)
★★★½ Police Story (1985)
★★★½ Extra Ordinary. (2019)
★★★½ The Wages of Fear (1953)
★★★½ My Favorite Wife (1940)
★★★½ Foreign Correspondent (1940)
★★★½ The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967)
★★★½ The Walk (2015)
★★★½ Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
★★★½ Muppets Treasure Island (1996)
★★★½ When Ladies Meet (1941)
★★★½ Police Story 2 (1988)
★★★½ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) [in theater]
★★★½ Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
★★★½ An American Werewolf in London (1981)
★★★½ Trading Places (1983)
★★★½ The Founder (2017)
★★★½ The Fog (1980)
★★★½ Vengeance (2022)
★★★☆ Back to the Future Part III (1990)
★★★☆ The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
★★★☆ Stagecoach (1939)
★★★☆ Lady Be Good (1941)
★★★☆ Twentieth Century (1934)
★★★☆ My Dinner with Andre (1981)
★★★☆ Sherlock Jr. (1924)
★★★☆ Saturday Night (2024)
★★★☆ Smart Money (1931)
★★★☆ The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)
★★★☆ Juror No. 2 (2024)
★★★☆ Naked Gun 33 1⁄3: The Final Insult (1994)
★★★☆ Young Frankenstein (1974)
★★★☆ Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
★★★☆ The Pentagon Wars (1998)
★★★☆ The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)
★★★☆ See How They Run (2022)
★★★☆ Ginger Snaps (2000)
★★★☆ Lady Killer (1933)
★★★☆ The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)
★★★☆ Field of Dreams (1989)
★★½☆ Starship Troopers (1997)
★★½☆ King Solomon's Mines (1950)
★★☆☆ Sleepaway Camp (1983)
★★☆☆ Volunteers (1985)
★★☆☆ Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
★★☆☆ The Nitwits (1935)
★★☆☆ Dragon Seed (1944)
★★☆☆ The Suicide Squad (2021)
★½☆☆ Cool as Ice (1991)
★½☆☆ The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011)
★½☆☆ Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (2018?)
★☆☆☆ Friday the 13th (1980)
★☆☆☆ Chopping Mall (1986)
★☆☆☆ Popcorn (1991) 

In Memoriam of the Theater from My Youth

This year has also been somewhat tough. The theater I frequented in high school closed for good this August.

In 2021, I discovered that it had maintained excellent presentation quality through covid when many other theaters cut maintenance budgets. So, whenever I went to see a movie in my home town, this theater was my first choice.

The theater originally opened the same day as Spider-Man (2002), and I am pretty sure I was there that weekend.

On the summer a close family member passed away, I went to see Ratatouille and Hot Fuzz five times each at this theater. It is where I took my wife on many of our early dates. And it is where my friend who worked there made me see Transformers (2007). So, I guess some of the memories there weren't as important. But Transformers wasn't the theater's fault!

In 2025, it closed the Monday after The Naked Gun opened. So, I was there to see it off. It will be missed. 

Closing Thoughts

Overall, 2025 was a pretty good year for me to see movies. But with 91 total for the year, it was a step down from last year's 102. Hopefully, in 2026 I will be able to prioritize the important things in life over things like family, work, and friendship.

Brightline and Frequent Service between MCO and Disney Springs

Brightline was in the news recently for signing a deal with Miami-Dade County to provide them with the rights to operate a commuter service on the Brightline right-of-way into Miami Centrail Station (source). Would a similar service be provided on the new rail right-of-way between Disney and the Orlando International Airport (MCO)? Or is this a one-off because Miami is such a lucrative market?

Source: Brightline Presentation to CFX on March 11, 2021

The benefits of running a train every 15 minutes between MCO and Disney may have a decent case based on potential revenue. Such a service definitely won't collect all the trips that Disney's Magical Express (DME) used to provide, and it certainly wouldn't collect all the trips from Uber or rental cars. But the market for four trains an hour is more than four times the size of the market for one train an hour, simply because the average wait would be so much shorter. 

The costs of running trains every 15 minutes are greater than the costs of running a train every hour, as is the current plan for Brightline. But crucially, the extra costs have a smaller cost per train. These costs above the cost of running hourly service include:

1. Signals to allow closer train operation
2. Trainsets to serve the extra runs
3. Fuel to run the trains
4. Staff to operate the trains
5. Maintenance costs of the trains
   

Item 1, signaling, is fairly inexpensive. It is even less so especially in a low complexity environment with few stations, junctions, and low intersecting train traffic such as either proposed route. The Brightline presentation to CFX on March 11 indicated that this costs approximately $80,000 with the current design (page 24).

It is not clear what the maximum frequency of service can be supported by this signaling system. But we also know that Brightline is already planning on this capability because they are actively courting SunRail to run a service that would need to utilize these additional signals. Even still, assume that a signaling system necessary to operate trains every 15 minutes is three times as expensive as what they are currently planning to build, that is still only be an extra $160,000.

Item 2, additional trainsets, is difficult to calculate, because Brightline did not release the cost of their train orders from Siemens. However, based on the information I could find online, one might expect a single trainset to cost approximately $10 million. It would take approximately 15 minutes to travel between MCO and Disney Springs, so it would require three trainsets (in addition to the trainsets that provide the baseline hourly service Brightline is currently intending to operate) in order to provide 15 minute headways on this segment. This would mean it would cost approximately $30 million extra to provide this service.

Item 3, fuel costs, can be calculated assuming a fuel efficiency of 1.1mpg (source). Brightline's preferred alternative route is 16.7 miles (source page 24). So six additional one-way train runs is 100.2 miles every hour or 110.2 gallons of diesel per hour. If diesel is $3.75/gallon, that is $6,613.20 per 16 hour day, or $2.4 million per year in additional fuel costs.

Item 4, staff, can be calculated assuming a two person train staff. The 90th percentile salary of a train conductor in Florida is $66,270 (source), while the same for a train engineer is $98,960 (source). If the fully burdened cost of this staff is three times the salary, and there are three shifts of each staff person per train (in order to allow breaks and the like), the total annual labor cost of this service would be $1.5 million.

Item 5, maintenance costs, can be estimated at $4.34 per train mile (source). This works out to be about $2.5 million per year.

In other words, for an initial capital investment of $30.2 million and an additional labor cost of approximately $6.4 million per year, there could be a reliable, congestion-free way to get between the airport and Walt Disney World.

DME used to carry 2.3 million passengers per year (source). So if this train service with 15 minute headways could carry one quarter of the trips that DME used to carry, that would be 575,000 trips per year. Ignoring the capital costs, the break even cost at this ridership level would require a one-way ticket price of $11.13.

Is this a complete no-brainer to build at this break-even point? Not really. But it is well within the realm of having a plausible business case to build. That's for sure.

Will Disney Want to Replace Disney's Magical Express Buses with Brightline Trains?

Recently, the intercity passenger railroad company Brightline announced that they made a deal with Disney to have a train station at Disney Springs as a part of their planned Orlando to Tampa route. 

Image source: Brightline presentation at ART Educational Series - Strengthening Central Florida's Global Gateways on 12/3/2020. See a recording of the presentation here.

Since this announcement, there has been speculation that this would allow Disney to discontinue the bus-based Disney Magical Express (DME) airport transportation service and replace it with a Brightline train service. In many forums, any discussion of this possibility has received push back from people who are concerned about perceived difficulties to riders in navigating such a system, along with questioning the costs to Disney of using such a system.

The concerns about Brightline being less convenient than DME for most domestic arrivals seems overblown to me.

As far as the quality of the passenger experience is concerned, depending on train frequency, there is no particular reason to expect a two seat train + bus ride to take longer than the current one seat bus ride, because the bus portion of the trip would use the existing Disney Springs to hotel buses (potentially at a higher frequency justified by of higher demand). Even without higher frequency bus service, the travel times for a two seat train + bus ride are likely to be shorter than the existing DME service because there would be fewer intermediate stops, higher speeds, and less impact from highway congestion.

What would be the advantage to Disney of a train + bus airport connection? In addition to a higher quality guest experience provided by smoother ride, fewer delays, and more legroom, such a system has the potential to be provided at a lower cost than a bus connection.

How could something this infrastructure-heavy possibly be more cost effective than buses?

Brightline is planning to build this train line to connect Orlando and Tampa via Disney Springs. Their internal studies apparently indicate that there is enough intercity passenger demand to justify creating such a service. In addition, it is my understanding that the new Brightline track is owned by FEC, the Florida East Coast Railroad. FEC is a freight railroad that runs along the east coast of Florida between Jacksonville and Miami.

If Brightline allowed FEC to run freight trains along the right of way between the Florida east coast and Tampa, it would allow them to compete with CSX, the other major freight rail operator in Florida for access to Orlando and Tampa. This freight service alone could go a long way to pay for the infrastructure costs of adding and maintaining this new rail line.

Additionally, the non-Disney Orlando to Tampa passenger travel demand would go a long way to justifying the costs of building this infrastructure.

Therefore, it is extremely likely that in order for Brightline to justify a passenger train service to Disney, they only need to justify the costs of paying for the marginal cost of the train sets and the labor to run the trains between the two stops. These costs could be bundled into a price to charge Disney for offering the service for free to Disney resort guests.

For Disney to save money by switching from Bus to Train transportation between the airport and the resort, I believe that the cost of a train per passenger is likely to be similar to the cost of a bus per passenger. So the main differentiator would be whether Brightline could move more people with fewer employees than Mears, the current operator of the DME buses.

To illustrate how this saves labor, let's imaging a simplified model of the current Bus Only system:

In order to provide a reasonable level of service, each of the Disney Springs to Resort buses (orange in the diagram) operates at a 20 minute headway, requiring 2 buses and 2 bus drivers who can transport up to 50 guests one way in 20 minutes. This creates a maximum capacity of 150 passengers per direction per hour.

Each of the two Airport Bus to Resort routes would operate at a 20 minute headway as well. Each bus requires 1 driver who can transport up to 50 guests one way in 60 minutes. In order to provide a reasonable level of service, the buses operate at a 20 minute headway, meaning that 6 buses and 6 bus drivers are required with a maximum capacity of 150 passengers per direction per hour

In this scenario, there are 24 buses and 24 bus drivers serving all resorts A, B, C, D, E, and F. The passenger travel time from any resort to Disney Springs averages to 30 minutes (including a 10 minute average wait). The passenger travel time to the airport averages 70 minutes (including the 10 minute average wait).

A simplified version of the Train + Bus system would have the following characteristics:

The buses between Disney Springs and all of the resorts have the same characteristics as in the Bus Only system.

The Airport Train to Disney Springs would require 1 driver who can transport up to 240 guests one way in 20 minutes. (Note that additional passenger carriages can be added to the train sets to increase capacity without increasing drivers.) In order to provide a reasonable level of service, the trains operate at a 20 minute headway, meaning that 6 trains and 6 drivers are required with a maximum capacity of 720 passengers per direction per hour.

In this scenario, there are 12 buses 6 trains and 18 bus or train drivers serving resorts A, B, C, D, E, and F. The passenger travel time from any resort to Disney Springs averages to 30 minutes (including a 10 minute average wait). The passenger travel time to the airport from any resort averages 60 minutes (including the 10 minute average wait for the train and a 10 minute average wait for the bus).

Note that bus and train schedules could be coordinated to reduce the transfer time to less than 10 minutes if needed, or that additional buses may be run between Disney Springs and each resort if ridership demand is high enough. This would lower wait times for the bus and average travel times as well. So the time savings could be increased by another 5 minutes quite easily.

I would not expect the Brightline express service between the airport and Disney Springs to use advance reservations or advance seat assignments. Instead, I think it is most likely that passengers would select a seat upon arrival at the train station or that the train would not offer assigned seating. In my experience riding trains in Asia, seat selection for a frequent service train line is not generally made in advance.

Guests who chose to bring their baggage on the existing Brightline trains have a baggage parking area in each train car, keeping it comfortably out of the way.

In summary, a two seat ride would reduce labor by 25% and reduce travel time to the airport by 15%. The train portion of the ride would also have less potential for traffic delays and would be a more comfortable ride than the bus.

Factor in the other benefits including increased visitation to Disney Springs and a higher quality experience between the airport and WDW makes Disney's side of the agreement look pretty easy to justify if the price is right.

2019 At The Movies

In accordance with the prophecy, it was well into January before I had an opportunity to think about all the movies I saw last year. As always, my ratings are influenced by more than just the movie (I am only human after all.) So you may find movies in a weird order. If you think any movie rating is crazy, let me know about it. 

2019 Movies

Shazam! ****

Good Boys ****

Booksmart ****

Knives Out ****

Spider-Man Far From Home ****

Frozen II ***1/2

Avengers: Endgame ***1/2

Tag (2018) ***1/2

Aladdin (2019) ***1/2

Klaus ***1/2

Toy Story 4 ***1/2

Spies in Disguise ***1/2

Fast & Furious Pressnts: Hobbs & Shaw ***

Stuber ***

Long Shot ***

Jumanji The Next Level ***

Men in Black International ***

Secret Life of Pets 2 ***

Lego Movie 2: The Second Part ***

Captain Marvel ***

Dark Phoenix ***

Missing Link ***

Stan & Ollie ***

Dora and the Lost City of Gold **

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) **

Holmes and Watson (2018) **

Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grinderwald (2018) **

Haunt **

Vice *1/2 (2018)

Most of the movies on the 2019 list were seen in the theater, although  Booksmart, Aladdin, Klaus, Long Shot, Lego Movie 2, Dora, The Spy Who Dumped Me, and Haunt were seen in a home viewing situation. Tag, Stan & Ollie, Holmes & Watson, Fantastic Beasts, and Vice were seen on a plane. You can infer what you want about the impact of seeing these films outside the theater on my opinion of them. None of the films I saw outside of the theater that I rated low were particularly critically acclaimed, with the exception of Vice. But I believe that the positive reception of Vice was more politically motivated on the part of the professional reviewers. I found Christian Bale's performance to be Saturday Night Live-quality with over-exaggerated lip smacking. But the worst crime of this movie is that it was boring. The twist about the narrator was interesting, but ultimately meaningless. And I was very disappointed that a movie by the maker of The Big Short was so dull, despite the possibly more straightforward source material. 

I was happy to see a fun DC comic book movie, and this year had two excellent coming of age comedies. And Knives Out was definitely a highlight of the year. 

I finally got around to seeing a Fast and Furious movie. It was good fun! No wonder they have made so many of them. I still hate the naming convention, though. 

The list of older movies I saw this year includes any movie I saw all the way through for the first time or any movie I saw for the first time in a long time.

Older Movies 

Irma La Douce (1963) ****

Bringing Up Baby (1938) ****

The Muppet Movie (1979) ****

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ****

The Maltese Falcon (1941) ****

Palm Beach Story (1942) ****

The Third Man (1949) ****

The Music Man (1962) ****

Attack the Block (2011) ****

White Heat (1949) **** 

The Thing (1982) ****

West Side Story (1961) ****

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) ****

Mad Max 2 (1981) ****

Scream (1996) ****

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) ****

Top Hat (1935) ***1/2

The China Syndrome (1979) ***1/2

Strike Me Pink (1936) ***1/2

Baby Face (1933) ***1/2

Dial M For Murder (1954) ***1/2

Gidget (1959) ***1/2

My Favorite Wife (1940) ***1/2

Strangers on a Train (1951) ***1/2

Desk Set (1957) ***1/2

Funny Girl (1968) ***1/2 

Hot Millions (1968) ***1/2

Bachelor Mother (1939) ***1/2

The Bachelor (1925) ***1/2

The Lost Boys (1987) ***1/2

Sleeping With Other People (2015) ***1/2

The Descent (2006) ***1/2

The Three Caballeros (1944) ***1/2

The Little Hours (2017) ***

Mission: Impossible (1996) ***

The Candidate (1972) ***

Move Over, Darling (1963) ***

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) ***

Penelope (1966) ***

Lifeboat (1944) ***

Saludos Amigos (1942) ***

By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953) ***

Ice Station Zebra (1968) ***

Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948) ***

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) ***

Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) ***

Designing Woman (1957) ***

Meet John Doe (1941) ***

The Big Sleep (1946) ***

Escape from New York (1981) ***

Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989) ***

Unfinished Business (2015) ***

Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940) ***

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) ***

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) ***

Bye Bye Birdie (1963) ***

Sabrina (1954) ***

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) ***

In Person (1935) **1/2

The Three Musketeers (1946) **1/2

Horse Feathers (1932) **1/2

A View to a Kill (1985) **1/2

The Freshman (1990) **1/2

Promise Her Anything (1965) **

Moonraker (1979) **

Luxury Liner (1948) **

The Quiet Man (1952) ** 

Octopussy (1983) **

Jaws 2 (1978) **

A Fine Pair (1968) *1/2

Mad Max (1979) *1/2

2018 At The Movies

Every year, I like to put together a list of all the movies I saw in the previous year.

A small number of movies on the 2018 list were released in December 2017, but I watched them in 2018. Some of them were released in the US earlier than December, but I saw them in the theater in Japan in 2018. Many American movies released in Japan come out several months after their US premieres. So, even though Coco was released in mid-November in the US, I saw it in its second week of release in Japan in February.

This year, I am trying something new and am creating a second list of movies that were released before 2018. This list contains any movie that I saw for the first time in 2018 (or saw for the first time as an adult in 2018) in addition to the new release movies I saw last year.

Movies I saw on a plane may not have been seen in the best of possible circumstances. I used movies to keep awake for the flights so the jetlag wouldn't be as bad. Maybe these movies are better than I thought? I was particularly tired when I watched the movies that are ranked lower on my lists. Because of this, I have noted these movies with a (+).

As always, the movies are ranked on a scale from zero to four stars.

(Movies of 2018)

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse **** (Why haven't you seen this yet? It's amazing! I've seen it in theaters twice already!)

The Death of Stalin **** (+)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout ***½

Deadpool 2 ***½

The Disaster Artist ***½ (+)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ***½ (+)

Incredibles 2 ***½

Coco ***½

Ralph Breaks the Internet ***

Ant-Man and the Wasp ***

Halloween (2018) ***

First Man ***

Ready Player One ***

The Greatest Showman ***

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ***

Aquaman ***

The Post *** (+)

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom **½

A Futile and Stupid Gesture **½

Darkest Hour **½ (+)

All the Money in the World **½ (+)

Avengers: Age of Ultron **

Mary Poppins Returns **

The Happytime Murders **

Christopher Robin **

Nutcracker and the Four Realms ½

(Other movies I saw for the first time in 2018)

Poltergeist (1982) ****

Gone with the Wind (1939) ****

The Walk (2015) ****

Arthur (1981) **** (+)

Soapdish (1991) ****

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) **** (I saw this in 2017, but it somehow didn’t make it on the list for that year)

The Women (1939) ****

The Imitation Game (2014) ****

Vivacious Lady (1938) ***½

What About Bob? (1991) ***½ (+)

Goon (2011) ***½

Backdraft (1991) ***½ 

The Conjuring (2013) ***½

The Blair Witch Project (1999) ***½

Marshall (2017) ***½

It Should Happen to You (1954) ***½

Walk, Don’t Run (1966) ***½

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ***½ (+)

War Dogs (2016) ***

High Society (1956) ***

Trick ‘r Treat (2007) ***

American Hustle (2013) ***

Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949) ***

Summer Stock (1950) ***

Sully (2016) ***

Pillow Talk (1959) ***

Keanu (2016) ***

The Adventures of Tintin (2011) ***

Dunkirk (2017) *** (+)

Father of the Bride (1950) ***

The House (2017) **½

Father’s Little Dividend (1951) **½

The French Connection (1971) **½ (+)

Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017) **½

Brainstorm (1983) **

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) **

X Men: Apocalypse (2016) ** (+)

The Rock (1996) ** (+)

Brigadoon (1954) *½

Antz (1998) *½

The Black Hole (1979) ½

The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark (1980) [zero stars]

 

I love talking about movies, so I would be happy to hear how I am wrong! Let me know.

2017 At The Movies

I post to this blog relatively infrequently. This is mostly because the posts here tend to be about creative work that I do in my very limited spare time, and lately I haven't had enough time to make enough progress to be worth posting about. So, as an experiment, I am posting my thoughts about the movies I saw last year. If people find this sort of thing interesting, I may decide to post about my other interests as a way to fill in the very long gaps between major project updates. In other words, I am considering adding more filler!

In many popular discussions about the movie industry in 2017, there was a theme about how people are not going to the movies any more. Certainly, this summer was one of the least attended in recent memory. And movies continue to be a much smaller industry than video games. A lot of the discussion about the poor summer box office seemed to focus on the role of TV streaming services and other changes in the way people like to see movies.

This is probably true to some extent, but I think a far more important factor is that there was a huge hole in the big studios release schedules. I like to go to the movies a lot, and for a period between mid-July and November, there was no new movies released that looked particularly appealing.

Disney, the box office leader for 2017, released zero movies between Cars 3 (June) and Thor (November). The number two studio Warner Brothers, released a few genre pictures in that same time frame and did quite well with 'It', but mostly had an unimpressive slate. The US Domestic Box Office was down by the equivalent of only two or three moderately successful movies. And the overcrowded holiday period probably is hurting some of the current releases that may have done better earlier in the year when there was less competition.

In particular, I feel like this year was lacking in medium-scale comedy films. The only pure comedy movie I saw this year was Fist Fight, which left theaters before I got a chance to see it. But usually I see more than one of this type of movie. And it just felt like there weren't any made that stuck around.

Below is a list of movies I saw in 2017, listed approximately by how much I liked them and scored on a scale of zero to four stars (although I apparently don't see zero star movies).

**** Wonder Woman
**** Baby Driver

***1/2 Thor: Ragnarok
***1/2 Star Wars The Last Jedi
***1/2 Shin Godzilla
***1/2 Logan Lucky

*** War for the Planet of the Apes
*** The Boss Baby
*** Murder on the Orient Express
*** Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2
*** American Made
*** Despicable Me 3
*** Beauty and the Beast (2017)
*** Dunkirk
*** The Mummy (2017)
*** Fist Fight

**1/2 Star Trek Beyond
**1/2 The Lego Batman Movie
**1/2 Logan

** Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
** X-men Apocalypse

*1/2 Kong: Skull Island

* Hot Pursuit

You may notice a few movies from 2016 or 2015 on this list. I saw them in 2017, so sue me.

Also, note that there are a small handful of movies that I wanted to see but so far have eluded me. I have not yet had the opportunity to see the following:

Coco
The Disaster Artist
The House
Goon: Last of the Enforcers
The Little Hours
The Post

I decided on my movie ratings on the day I saw the movie. As I compiled the list, I allowed myself to adjust the ratings based on how well the movie aged in my head. For instance, Shin Godzilla went from a *** movie to a ***1/2 movie, because the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the movie and liked how it was partially about the difficulty of making coordinated decisions about group actions. Likewise, Baby Driver and The Boss Baby got better the more I thought about them.

Not all movies got better with time. War for the Planet of the Apes, Kong Skull Island, and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 went down in the ratings the more I thought of them. Of course, movies that I saw very recently like Star Wars The Last Jedi and Dunkirk may not stick in my mind either. So I guess I am less confident about my thoughts about them.

So, am I a monster for liking Fist Fight better than Logan? Did I miss any other movies that I didn't list here that I should see? And why didn't you go see Logan Lucky?