Top Twenty Movies of 2016, Part 2 (#10-1)

And then there were ten. I've tried my best not to squawk about it too much over the course of the year, but I stand by the opinion that 2016 was not a vintage year for film. I do, however, think it may be the year wherein the importance of film (and our cultural sphere, in general) was clearer than ever.

Many might dismiss the pageantry of awards seasons and the minutia of 'Top Ten' lists as utterly frivolous in a year with so much noisy social and political unrest, with much larger (and disheartening) things happening outside the cinema bubble. But such tumultuous times are when we should cherish the movies even more.

The right movie at the right time can have tremendous power; It can soothe the vexed mind with magical escapism, it can educate by giving exposure to unseen people or issues, and it can provide connection to worlds we may never have known we could connect with. These ten movies do all that and then some. Congratulations to them, especially the top five, which represent my personal nominations for Best Picture of 2016.

WGA Nominees, plus thoughts on Hidden Figures

The Writers Guild of America sounded off today, and the Original Screenplay category is loaded with contenders that are probable Oscar nominees. Mind you, that's because two of them (Moonlight and Loving) will be competing in the Adapted Screenplay category for the Academy Awards. Accordingly, the WGA's Adapted Screenplay lineup is fleshed out with some contenders which stand little chance of landing a corresponding Oscar nod.

Original Screenplay
HELL OR HIGH WATER, Taylor Sheridan
LA LA LAND, Damien Chazelle
LOVING, Jeff Nichols
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, Kenneth Lonergan
MOONLIGHT, Barry Jenkins, Tarell McCraney

Adapted Screenplay
ARRIVAL, Eric Heisserer
DEADPOOL, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
FENCES, August Wilson
HIDDEN FIGURES, Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS, Tom Ford

Thank God Moonlight was moved to this category for Oscar purposes, because this (with the notable exception of the superb Arrival) is a weak group. Here's my question: Does Moonlight now being considered an adaption disqualify the original playwright Tarell McCraney from what would otherwise be considered a nomination-eligible writing credit on the screenplay? The move might have guaranteed an Oscar for Jenkins, but effectively robbed McCraney of the nomination. I'll be interested to see how AMPAS rules.

January is for Oscar Movies

Gonna be tough to keep up with the storm of guild announcements, televised awards shows, personal year-in-review posts and late-breaking Oscar players over the next two months. I'll just have to figure out a way.

For those last minute stragglers, I won't have the luxury of exercising my full review muscles (consider my La La Land piece a holiday indulgence), but I'll deposit my abbreviated thoughts here throughout the month.

My first screening of the new year was Denzel Washington's realization of the long dormant Fences adaptation, scripted by its original playwright August Wilson some time before his 2005 death. The screenplay itself doesn't take much advantage of the opportunity for other forms of exposition besides dialogue, but Washington's direction is sturdy, unobtrusive, and has a more cinematic eye.

Review - La La Land

We all know the how the showbiz story goes: Boy and girl meet, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl's careers diverge. It's a sturdy formula that the movies have retooled and retold a million times, from the silent escapades of Show People to the melodramatic tumult of A Star is Born (all three of them, and counting) to the worldly post-modernism of Annie Hall to the silent escapades of The Artist – Funny how things come full circle.

Point being, if you want to play that old song again, you need to riff; Improvise; Make it special. Fortunately for hopeless romantics everywhere, 32 year old writer/director Damien Chazelle is indeed a special talent, who has now performed a spectacular riff on the 'Hollywood love story' in La La Land;
A dazzling musical ode to a city, to a genre, and to anyone who ever dared to dream large and love larger.

It was Chazelle's sizzling sophomore feature Whiplash that put him on the map two years ago, snagging a trio of Oscars and topping this critic's 'Best of 2014' list. So when it was announced that his next dream was to make an original movie musical – that rarest of beasts – I was on board. All pretense of objectivity aside, I probably loved this film before the ink was dry on the first draft of the screenplay.

Thoughts on 'Lion' and Others [Updating...]

Within minutes of this posting the Critics' Choice Awards will start, the first televised awards show of the season. But since it's happening a month earlier than it normally does, it will hardly count as the most significant awards news of the upcoming week. Tomorrow will see the unveiling of the Golden Globe nominations, followed by SAG nominations on Wednesday.

As all this happens, more contenders begin creeping out of their limited release hidey holes. I caught up with one such contender this afternoon, The Weinstein Co.'s big hopeful Lion, which hasn't been that healthily represented in first half-dozen-or-so critics awards, but the Academy will rectify that.
The movie is pretty great.

'Manchester', 'Moonlight' and 'La La Land' Lead Early Critics Awards

It has begun. Awards season is "officially" underway after what has been a busy seven days of early -- and I mean ridiculously, unnecessarily early -- precursor citations. The main takeaway: In a studio year as lack-lustre as 2016 was, it looks like critically acclaimed indies will be leading the race, namely Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Damien Chazelle's La La Land, while some sneak-peek twitter reactions to Scorsese's recently screened Silence paint it as a major last-minute lurker that could crash the party.

The National Board of Review got the ball rolling last Tuesday, handing Manchester four prizes including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. Moonlight trailed with a pair of wins for Jenkins' direction and Naomie Harris' incredible performance.

The New York Film Critics Circle followed up two days after with three prizes apiece for both Manchester and Moonlight, but at the eleventh hour voted in favour of La La Land as Best Film (not an unprecedented move for that group).

That same day, La La Land went on to dominate the Critics Choice nominations with 12. Again, Moonlight had a prominent showing with 10, Manchester with 7 (Full list of nominees will appear at the end of the post with some quick takes).

The LA Film Critics Association rounded out the week by naming Moonlight the best of the year just this afternoon. The film also won Best Director, Supporting Actor and Cinematography. La La Land only earned a single prize from the west coast crew (for music), but was runner-up in five other categories, making it the most represented title in the group's day of announcements. Hmmm... were they afraid giving it multiple wins would smack of homerim?

'Manchester' Expands Just Before Awards Start Dropping

As November winds to a close we find ourselves on the eve of awards season, which is even earlier than usual this year thanks to the National Board of Review's ridiculously premature awards announcement slated for Tuesday. Many of the titles we'll be hearing over the course of the next month from regional critics groups and the like won't even be available to the public until the last possible week of 2016, with presumed heavyweights La La Land, Fences and Silence all bowing at Christmas (or much later depending on where you live). Might this allow the established love for the marvelous Moonlight to shine through when Oscar balloting starts? One can only hope.

But another modest indie that might challenge Barry Jenkins' humanist portrait for the lion's share of critical prizes is Kenneth Lonergan's much-buzzed-about Sundance hit Manchester by the Sea, which began its gradual expansion this weekend. Much has been written about how emotionally devastating the picture is, made all the more palpable by its chilly New England environs, but audiences may be surprised to discover it's practically a comedy of manners built upon grief. Lonergan is less interested in telling a tight, tidy story than he is in simply sitting us down with these characters and trusting us to find fascination in the varied -- at times amusing -- ways they respond to tragedy (which of course, is never tight and tidy anyway).

Loving the Arrival of Strange Trolls

The first half of November is well in the books, and brought with it were a handful of releases that could figure into the Oscar race, albeit in limited ways.

Loving was a mainstay on many prediction lists for most of the year, even after the soft though respectable impression it left at Cannes. But having now been seen by a greater number of domestic press and audiences, it's looking more like a fringe contender. Jeff Nichols' telling of the story of interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving -- who fought and won a groundbreaking Supreme Court case to have their marriage recognized in Virginia in the 1960s -- eschews the obvious Oscar-bait hooks of its premise and takes a far more low-key look at their shy personal lives.

'Moonlight' Gains Foothold by Being Out the Gate (Relatively) Early

The biggest Supermoon in 70 years may have astronomers flocking to their telecscopes this weekend, but a far more luminous object has cinephiles flocking to their arthouses as Moonlight continue its expansion in its 3rd week of release.

Barry Jenkins' soulful sophomore feature is every bit as exquisite as you've read, but I can understand its cautious release strategy; A triptych character study about a young gay black man struggling with his singular and fluid sense of self is, admittedly, a tough sell. But those willing to believe that crises of identity are universal to all people -- as Jenkins clearly does ("In the moonlight, all boys look blue...") -- will find themselves hard pressed not to be moved by the poignant and painful discoveries of Chiron's childhood, youth and adulthood.

Will the Best Pic Contenders Please Stand Up?

The agonizing wait for Oscar movies to finally show themselves towards year's end is annual gripe of mine. While some years aren't as bad as others, 2016 has thus far proven to be exceptionally back-ended, with nearly every predicted Best Picture contender waiting until the last two months of the year (three months if you include the inevitable January roll-outs) to debut to the public. Only next weekend's limited release of Barry Jenkins' festival darling Moonlight provides us with the faintest hope of a Best Pic nominee that dares to drop before November.

How did it get to be this bad? Looking back over the young expanded Best Picture era, every slate has contained at least two or three films that bowed in October or earlier -- heck, some from the summer and spring -- that would have been absolutely pulverized by the competition had they waited for the winter glut. I fear that fate may be lurking for some of this year's late-breaking gems, whatever they may be. The season's barely underway and already I can tell this is going to be one of my biggest pet peeves.

September Festivals and Releases Offer Oscar Season Warm-Up

For journos and festival globetrotters, Oscar season officially kicks off in early September with the unveiling of several potential contenders at Venice, Telluride and Toronto (big takeaway is that Damien Chazelle's La La Land -- my most anticipated film of 2016 -- seriously has the goods). But for Oscar hobbyists like you and me, September is merely a warm-up period; A chance to read up on all the festival players and ease out of blockbuster mode, as more adult fare that may not have what it takes to go all the way look to cash in on summer fatigue.

Review - Kubo and the Two Strings

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not a return to full reviews for me, I'm afraid. Just an exercise to shake some of the rust off. It'll be back to capsules for awards season movies.

In a bustling village square, in some unnamed era of pre-Imperial Japan, a boy wearing an eye-patch and a baggy samurai robe drops a pile of paper on the ground and strums a power chord on his shamisen. As though by instinct, the crowd turns, silences, and gathers 'round with barely-contained excitement.
“If you must blink, do it now,” instructs Kubo (for that is his name), literally commanding the attention of his audience.

As he plucks the strings and taps harmonic on his instrument, his paper springs to life, folding itself into intricate figurines that run, jump, fly and do pantomimed battle with each other, acting out the drama as Kubo narrates a tale of adventure and heroism for the delighted onlookers.

We are (shrewdly) given no explanation of this sorcery, and honestly, we're too bedazzled to care. Just like the throng of villagers rapt by Kubo's paper players, when we sit down to a Laika feature we are being treated to the most elaborate puppet show ever imaginable. Or at least until Laika – the stop-motion animation studio behind this thrilling illusion – imagines a way to make it more yet elaborate for their next trick.

Is It That Time Already?

Has it really been four months since I've posted something? Yikes. Time to scrape the lime deposits off my knuckles and start typing again.

You must excuse my silence this past summer. For once it had nothing to do with professional obligations (those will take their toll soon enough), and everything to with having little to say in regards to the summer movie scene.

Let's face it: This was a lousy summer at the movies.

March palette cleansers

New releases will be low on my list of priorities for the next few weeks, but anything I do happen to see in the 'Oscar off-season' (three so far) I'll mention here.

2016 predictions coming later this spring.