Top Twenty Movies of 2016, Part 1 (#20-11)

It's always interesting for me to see how the overall quality of the year in film affects my selection process for annual "Best of" lists. Strong years can make it easy to decide on a top twenty, but makes ranking them a chore. Years such as this, on the other hand, feel pretty settled in terms of what's the best (don't expect me to deviate too much from the median when it comes to my top two), but then fleshing out the rest of the list is more taxing.

For me, my #14-9 slots were constantly shifting as the year progressed, and will likely continue to do so long after this publication. #20-15 feel almost arbitrary, as all of them are largely flawed efforts that wouldn't even figure into my consideration during a stronger year, but boast specific assets and memorable hooks that help them to stand out.

I don't mean to cast shade here. The point of articles like this are to celebrate, not to denigrate. And anyone who claims that there aren't at least 20 movies worth celebrating any given year clearly doesn't watch enough movies.

First, a few shout-outs to titles that just missed the cut:

-To The Lobster for the originality of its deadpan dystopia

-To Moana for its grand musicality and gorgeous Pacific scenery

-To Queen of Katwe for its earthy slice of life wrapped in a sports movie

-To The Red Turtle for its painterly magic realism
-To The Salesman for its gripping moral complexity

-To Tanna for its vibrant cultural snapshot of native Melanesia

-To Toni Erdmann for its droll father-daughter absurdism

-To Tower for its powerful alchemy of testimonial, reenactment and animated abstraction

A now, the back half of my Top Twenty[-one] Movies of 2016 [UPDATED]:

My Award Nominations: Leading Actress

Yesterday I bit the bullet and committed to five nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Trying to do the same for the leading ladies was even more brutal. Forget five to ten Best Picture nominees... Let's apply that rule to Best Actress instead!

FYC: My Nomination Wish List as Oscar Polls Open

Ballots were mailed today to the Academy's 7000-some-odd voting members,
so now is the natural time for me and Oscar bloggers everywhere to deliver our impassioned last-minute "For Your Consideration" pleas on behalf of the underrated and overlooked of the awards season thus far.

Mind you, I don't circulate in any circles of influence on such matters, but that shouldn't stop any of us from professing what potential goodies we'd luuuuuv to unwrap on nomination morning (our Christmas, y'know). AMPAS could do a lot worse than to at least give these longshots an honest chance:

Actors

While the depiction of Chiron in Moonlight is undoubtedly a cumulative piece between three actors, it's Trevante Rhodes' iteration that has critics most frustrated for being unable to gain any attention outside a bevy of Best Ensemble citations. True, there doesn't seem to be much room for Rhodes in a Best Supporting Actor conversation that's been utterly dominated by costar Mahershala Ali, but why not take advantage of a thin year and place him the category where he belongs: Best Actor. The same logic should be extended to Dev Patel in Lion, screen time be damned. Who's going to argue that the characters these men play aren't the leads of their respective films?

'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).