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| Ralph Fiennes gets his ya-ya's out. [Fox Searchlight] |
Since I compile this list for my personal blog and not for any other sites or publications, I follow my own rules, which means I count DVD and Blu-ray debuts, though I only listed a few. This is because I review more home video than theatrical releases. Links lead to my reviews for or podcast contributions to Cinema Squabble, Daily Projections, SIFFBlog, and The Stranger (some might have also appeared in East Bay Express and Portland Mercury). My reviews for Video Librarian live behind a paywall or by way of a print subscription.
The Tops
1. A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino)
It irks me that Guadagnino swiped a title that David Hockney already used for one of his most famous paintings, especially since there's no correlation between the two, but the quality of his film (an idiosyncratic adaptation of Jacques Deray's 1969 La Piscine) helps to assuage the irritation. If Grand Budapest Hotel offered a looser Ralph Fiennes than anyone had seen before, A Bigger Splash shows how far the guy can go. Pretty fucking far, apparently.
2. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
3. Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Koreeda)
4. Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie)
5. Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
6. The Fits (Anna Rose Holmer)
7. Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
8. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
9. Little Men (Ira Sachs)
10. The Love Witch (Anna Biller)
Note: I live in Seattle, so some of the films, like Paterson and Silence, that might have made my top 10 are missing, because they haven't opened here yet. A few screened for critics towards the end of 2016, but they weren't assigned to me, so I'll have to wait until 2017.
Runners-up
11. Hail, Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)
12. Sunset Song (Terence Davies)
13. Kaili Blues (Gan Bi)
14. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)
15. Fences (Denzel Washington)
16. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
17. Evolution (Lucile Hadžihalilović)
18. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)
19. The Witch (Robert Eggers)
20. Hello, My Name Is Doris (Michael Showalter)
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| Channing Tatum gets his Gene Kelly on. [Universal] |
Second Runners-up
21. Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)
22. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman)
23. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
24. Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Løve)
25. Maggie's Plan (Rebecca Miller)
26. 10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg)
27. A Bride for Rip Van Winkle (Shunji Iwai)
28. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi)
29. The Invitation (Karyn Kusama)
30. In a Valley of Violence (Ti West)
Note: For some reason, In a Valley of Violence, a serio-comic take on the spaghetti western, has attracted less attention than most every West film to date, and that's a shame, because John Travolta gives his best performance in years. Based on his recent projects, he won't top it any time soon, though Ethan Hawke, the film's true star, proves just as convincing as a gunslinger in West's film as a novelist in Rebecca Miller's (sorry to say I missed his turn as Chet Baker in Born to Be Blue). And although Keith Harris won't approve, I'm listing Ara-
bian Nights, a trilogy, as one film. The three aren't just designed to go together, but that's how some theaters have been screening them. Don't ask me to pick a favorite--I won't do it!
Top Documentaries
1. Fire at Sea / Fuocoammare (Gianfranco Rosi)
2. No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman)
3. Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
4. Something Better to Come (Hanna Polak)
5. De Palma (Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow)
6. T-Rex (Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari)
7. NUTS! (Penny Lane)
8. Breaking a Monster (Luke Meyer)
9. Tickled (David Farrier and Dylan Reeve)
10. Author: The JT LeRoy Story (Jeff Feuerzeig)
Note: I'm surprised and disappointed that Fire at Sea hasn't make it onto more end-of-the-year lists. To make the film, Rosi operated as a one-man crew and embedded himself into the life of Lampedusa for months. The results are beautiful, disturbing, and incredibly timely. And it made the Oscar short list, so it still has a chance at a best doc nomination.
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| Samuele Pucillo in Fire at Sea. [Kino Lorber] |
11. Hooligan Sparrow (Nanfu Wang)
12. Dogtown Redemption (Amir Soltani and Chihiro Wimbush)
13. Seven Songs for a Long Life (Amy Hardie)
14. Sinatra: All or Nothing at All (Alex Gibney)
15. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words (Stig Björkman)
16. Janis: Little Girl Blue (Amy J. Berg)
17. Danny Says (Brendan Toller)
18. Song of Lahore (Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Andy Schocken)
19. Llyn Foulkes One Man Band (Tamar Halpern and Chris Quilty)
20. Red Gringo / Gringo Rojo (Miguel Ángel Vidaurre)
Note: Seven Songs for a Long Life comes to PBS's POV on January 30, 2017. Don't miss it.
Missed docs: 13th, The Beatles – Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, Dead Slow Ahead, Don't Blink: Robert Frank, For the Love of Spock, Gimme Danger, Gleason, I Am Not Your Negro, Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids, Miss Sharon Jones!, Newtown, O.J.: Made in America, Peter and the Farm, Tower, and Weiner.
Top Reissues or Video Debuts
1. Private Property (Leslie Stevens)
2. Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey)
3. Fireworks Wednesday / Chaharshanbe-soori (Asghar Farhadi)
4. Los Sures (Diego Echeverria)
5. Belladonna of Sadness / Kanashimi no Beradonna (Eiichi Yamamoto)
6. Cornbread, Earl and Me (Joseph Manduke)
7. A Poem Is a Naked Person (Les Blank)
8. Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye)
Note: Cornbread, Earl and Me, a made-for-TV movie which made its Blu-ray debut in 2016, features the first on-screen performance from 14-year-old Lawrence Fishburne. He's a little rough around the edges, but it's clear the kid was gonna go places. Two years later, that place was the Philippines for the filming of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.
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| Conrad Hall shot the hell out of Private Property. [Cinelicious Pics] |
Also worthy of note (including docs and made-for-TV movies): 50 Feet From Syria, All the Way, An Autobiography of Michelle Maren, The Bronze, Café Society, Call Her Applebroog, Captain Fantastic, Closet Monster, Coming Out, Complete Unknown, Confirmation, The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead, Demolition, Denial, Don’t Think Twice, Dukhtar, The Edge of Seventeen, Elvis & Nixon, The Eyes of My Mother, Golden Gate Girls, The Handmaiden (except for the last part), I Am Thor, I Don't Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman, India's Daughter, Indignation, The Intervention, Jackie, Kate Plays Christine, L'Attesa, Lamb, Les Cowboys, Life After Manson, Lion, The Listeners, The Lobster, Look at Us Now, Mother!, Mad Tiger, A Man Called Ove, The Memory of Fish, Microbe & Gasoline, Midnight Special, Miles Ahead, Miss You Already, Money Monster, Morphine: Journey of Dreams, Morris From America, Mountains May Depart (see note on The Handmaiden), Neon Demon, The Night Stalker, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Older Than Ireland, Oriented, Other People, Portrait of a Serial Monogamist, Pushing Dead, Queen of Katwe, Remember, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Songs My Brother Taught Me, Southside With You, Strike a Pose, Sully, Summertime, Tag, Take Me to the River, Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents, Tiny, Too Late, Torrey Pines, The Trees, Uncle Kent 2, The Violin Teacher, We Are Twisted Fucking Sister!, We Are X, Wedding Doll, Where Have All the Good Men Gone, Wiener-Dog, The Winding Stream: The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music, Women Who Kill, Wondrous Bocaccio, and The World of Kanako.
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| Samiya Mumtaz and Saleha Aref in Dukhtar. [Geo Films] |
Note: I signed up for Amazon Prime this year, so that may help me to catch up with some titles going forward, but I don't have the time or the money for cable, Fandor, Filmstruck, or Netflix. Currently on Prime: Embrace of the Serpent and Krisha. The service also allowed me to catch up with TV shows like The Americans, Fleabag, Mr. Robot, and The Wire.
Endnote: The clip above isn't bad, but if you haven't seen Fiennes get down to "Emotional Rescue" (not on YouTube), you haven't lived.
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