Another movie year is about to come to a close tomorrow night at the 89th Annual Academy Awards, but before the Academy crowns the Best Picture of the year out of its 9 nominees, for the 4th consecutive year(2013, 2014, 2015) my brother and I present our lists of the 10 Best Movies of the Year. This year we're both also including 10 honorable mentions, quickly ranking them from #11 to #20.
From our Top 10 lists, we agreed on 4 films, and only one of those is a Best Picture nominee, Manchester by the Sea. My brother has one additional Best Picture nominee in his Top 10, Hell or High Water, and I have two more, La La Land and Moonlight. In all, I have 7 movies on my list that received at least one Oscar nomination this year, but my brother only has 5 such films. One of those nominated films that he included, OJ: Made in America, is a documentary, the first time that either one of us has ranked one in the Top 10 since we started making these lists. I included a different documentary that wasn't nominated for an Oscar in my honorable mentions section.
Speaking of the snubs, from that group the one that we feel most deserved to be nominated was Sing Street, which appears in both our Top 5s. Each of us has one more movie in our Top 5s that got completely shut out of the Oscars party, and that ironically enough also got snubbed from the other's list here. His movie that I didn't like as much is Don't Think Twice, and my movie that he didn't find as fascinating as I did is The Handmaiden. But hey, that happens, even amongst brothers. For the 2nd consecutive year my #1 movie of the year didn't even make his Top 10.
We all have different preferences that we take in to the movie watching experience, which also occurs at a different point of all our lives, creating an absolutely unique emotional reaction that no one else could ever understand. But like I said last year, the truly great movies, the ones that stand the test of time, are the ones that are able to transcend those differences and connect with all of us. Which movies did my brother and I think accomplished that this year? Let's find out now, starting with my brother's list of the 10 Best Movies of 2016 ...
Honorable Mentions
20) The Jungle Book
19) The Wave (a Norwegian Dante's Peak)
18) Sausage Party
17) How to be Single
16) Zootopia
15) Lion (That kid tho! Great performance!)
14) La La Land (Filmmaking-wise: a masterpiece ... story-wise: ehhh)
13) The Nice Guys (Funniest movie of the year)
12) 10 Cloverfield Lane (Missing the opportunity to nominate John Goodman for the first time in his career is a shame here)
11) Green Room
Maybe I’m just a sucker for Richard Linklater movies but the guy just gets doing movies about people just “being”. He’s like the Seinfeld of movie directors, his movies don’t have to be about anything for them to be great and make the audience connect. The before trilogy dives into relationships better than most movies ever made just by watching 2 characters talk for almost 6 hours, “Boyhood” just follows a kid and his family through his adolescence, and now with “everybody wants some” you get reminded of all those 1st week of college feels. (P.S: Shout-out to one of my fav scenes of the year, the boys riding in the car and singing along to rapper’s delight… brilliant scene!)
From our Top 10 lists, we agreed on 4 films, and only one of those is a Best Picture nominee, Manchester by the Sea. My brother has one additional Best Picture nominee in his Top 10, Hell or High Water, and I have two more, La La Land and Moonlight. In all, I have 7 movies on my list that received at least one Oscar nomination this year, but my brother only has 5 such films. One of those nominated films that he included, OJ: Made in America, is a documentary, the first time that either one of us has ranked one in the Top 10 since we started making these lists. I included a different documentary that wasn't nominated for an Oscar in my honorable mentions section.
Speaking of the snubs, from that group the one that we feel most deserved to be nominated was Sing Street, which appears in both our Top 5s. Each of us has one more movie in our Top 5s that got completely shut out of the Oscars party, and that ironically enough also got snubbed from the other's list here. His movie that I didn't like as much is Don't Think Twice, and my movie that he didn't find as fascinating as I did is The Handmaiden. But hey, that happens, even amongst brothers. For the 2nd consecutive year my #1 movie of the year didn't even make his Top 10.
We all have different preferences that we take in to the movie watching experience, which also occurs at a different point of all our lives, creating an absolutely unique emotional reaction that no one else could ever understand. But like I said last year, the truly great movies, the ones that stand the test of time, are the ones that are able to transcend those differences and connect with all of us. Which movies did my brother and I think accomplished that this year? Let's find out now, starting with my brother's list of the 10 Best Movies of 2016 ...
Honorable Mentions
20) The Jungle Book
19) The Wave (a Norwegian Dante's Peak)
18) Sausage Party
17) How to be Single
16) Zootopia
15) Lion (That kid tho! Great performance!)
14) La La Land (Filmmaking-wise: a masterpiece ... story-wise: ehhh)
13) The Nice Guys (Funniest movie of the year)
12) 10 Cloverfield Lane (Missing the opportunity to nominate John Goodman for the first time in his career is a shame here)
11) Green Room
10) OJ: Made in America
Documentary? Miniseries? Film? Whatever it is, it's brilliant! OJ: Made in America is the greatest thing the ESPN 30 for 30 series has ever produced. In what was one of the first glimpses of reality TV and the 24/7 news cycle and its impact, the OJ Simpson trial changed how we consume content(can you imagine this trial being covered today!?). What director Ezra Edelman does so beautifully is how he sets up all the players, angles, scope, and magnitude of what is one of the more important moments in American culture history. It's almost 8 hours long, but it HAS to be 8 hours long to get to the bottom of every little detail, and thanks to its brilliant narrative and smooth pace you won't even notice it.
9) Everybody Wants Some!!
8) Barry
For the 2nd year in a row I have a Netflix original movie in my top 10 (Beasts of No Nation last year). These people do more than good tv shows people, start noticing! Unlike the more cheesy, formulaic, typical date movie “Southside With You”, “Barry” really takes you into the depths of the young adult that was Barack Obama in his years living in NY. A great character study, with a bit of a dark side to it, that shows the internal and outer struggles we go through in our developmental and formative years that are needed to create that empathy, self-awareness and well-rounded traits to use in future endeavors (something our current president clearly lacks).
7) The Edge of Seventeen
“I think some deranged part of me likes thinking I’m the only person with real problems, as if that makes me special.” I have to admit I was a little biased towards this movie since I got of glimpse of the trailer oozing with its coming-of-age/John Hughes style goodness. Edge of Seventeen takes a while to get going but it gets its point across in between its -I’m a rich, smart/witty, suburban, teenage girl, who has a family and friends that love her, but I’m going through some shit so my life is ending- melodrama, and by the time it does its very good… which is just the point and by the end Nadine understands just that. The 2nd half of the movie is much better than the first where we really see future star Hailee Steinfeld show her range. The movie is simply about showing us a 17 year old who goes through things that just about everybody goes through when they’re 17 (which is why Woody Harrelson’s character is so great here… he sees this and just lets this girl vent without judging or trying to give her the big speech no 17 year is ever interested in hearing).
6) Hell or High Water
Ben Foster never disappoints, last year he was brilliant as Lance Armstrong in the underrated “The Program” and now he’s great again here in a performance that should have been nominated for best supporting actor. Hell or High Water is non-stop action from start to finish that’s very easy to watch and a lot of fun with a cast of actors at the top of their game. A throwback to old school heist movies, this one just won’t disappoint.
5) Don't Think Twice
Why was this movie not talked about more this year!? “Don’t think twice” is the hidden gem of year, and yeah you can be a “hidden gem” when you have a 99% rating on rotten tomatoes. In a bit of an autobiographical spin, the director Mike Birbiglia plays one of the 6 members of a comedy improv group of friends who deal with success and jealousy in different ways. It’s a realistic tale about goals and dreams and how sometimes we may not achieve them all but we have to find happiness and complacency in our own realities. It has heart, laughs, and underrated performances (Gillian Jacobs is amazing AS ALWAYS and Keegan-Michael Key gives the best performance of his career in a role that was tailor made for him)
4) Nocturnal Animals
A story within a story that needs great editing and filmmaking in order to work or else it could unravel quickly and you’ll be lost, “Nocturnal Animals” does none of that and finds the right balance in its differing narratives. There’s the outside of the novel Amy Adams is reading, and the inside of the novel where Jake Gyllenhaal’s character sees his family harassed and eventually murdered by a group of madmen (led by the brilliant, should’ve been nominated, Aaron Taylor-Johnson). What’s makes Nocturnal Animals great is its underlying chilling tone and back and forth jumping from outside the novel to inside and the subsequent ride which we are taken with these wonderfully acted and layered characters.
3) Captain Fantastic
This was definitely the most interesting movie of the year for me, right from the start when we’re introduced to this family living in the wilderness you’re hooked for the duration of the film. The culture-clashes encountered on the family road trip to their mother’s funeral are where the movie really stands out and finds its groove (the scene where Ben’s 6 year old daughter schools her teenage cousins on the Bill of Rights is both laugh out loud funny and genius!). You’re so fascinated and intrigued with how this man is deciding to raise his family but at the same time you’re frustrated with how much he is doing wrong and how stubborn he is (there has to be a balance!).
2) Manchester by the Sea
The most powerful and emotionally charged film of the year, “Manchester by the Sea” is brilliantly executed with its editing style that cuts back and forth in time to tell the story of a broken man who has to come back to life after the death of his brother to take care of his nephew. What the movie is really about is the NEVER ENDING process of grief and forgiving yourself for acts of your past, something that is summed up in a beautiful scene where Lee (Affleck) says to his nephew the words “I can't beat it. I can't beat it. I'm sorry” and you proceed to fight off tears for about the 28th time in the movie but it still finds room for small bits of humor and heart in its melancholic universe that round it out perfectly.
1) Sing Street
“Your problem is that you're not happy being sad. But that's what love is, Cosmo. Happy sad.” You think of John Carney’s previous films (Once, Begin Again) and the first thing that comes to mind is the music, but in Sing Street he takes his game to a whole new level and that’s not to discount the music which is still second to none and deserved at least 2 songs nominated (“Up” and “Drive it like you stole it”). His -quotable at every turn- screenplay here is fantastic, a story about pitting you’re hope and dreams vs reality, sprinkled in with poignant subtle humor, a sweet young love story, and one of the more genuine brotherly love stories ever captured on film (seriously, Jack Raynor steals every scene he’s in and deserved a best supporting actor nom). A coming of age masterpiece, Sing Street is a mid-80s period piece dream as it perfectly captures the music, style and characters of that time in a story we can all identify with from our teenage days.
And now, my 10 Best Movies of 2016 ...
Honorable Mentions
20) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi does it again)
19) 10 Cloverfield Lane
18) Bad Moms
17) Gleason (bring tissues)
16) The Nice Guys (genius comedic acting from Ryan Gosling)
15) Swiss Army Man (most ballsy movie I've seen in quite some time)
14) Zootopia
13) Toni Erdmann
12) Morris From America (that final father & son scene in the car is an instant classic)
11) Hell or High Water (I'll echo my brother: What does Ben Foster have to do to get an Oscar nom?)
10) Moonlight
My brother mentioned Boyhood above in his description of Everybody Wants Some!!, but if one movie from 2016 reminded me of Richard Linklater's universally acclaimed coming of age tale, it's Moonlight. This one features a similar concept, the story of a young boy's life as he goes through adolescence and enters adulthood, but with 3 key differences: first, as you can see from the poster, the main character here is black, second, he's gay, and third, he's played by three different actors as he grows older in the movie, differing from Boyhood's 12 year gimmick using the same cast. There is another major difference between these movies, and that is the style in which they're presented. Where as Linklater uses his patented "just being" approach to tell his coming-of-age story, Moonlight's director Barry Jenkins elevates his coming-of-age story with impeccable technical filmmaking, featuring some of the most beautiful cinematography of the year.
Unfortunately, as with Boyhood, I had some problems with the flow of the story as it shifted from one segment to the next, particularly the inferior 3rd act of the film, which caused me to rank it a bit lower than most people. However, from the second this movie ended I knew I had experienced something truly special, flaws and all.
9) I, Daniel Blake
A simple, but powerful, film that anyone who's ever had to deal with government bureaucracy can relate to. It features two great performances by Dave Johns as title character "Daniel Blake", who's stuck in welfare limbo, and Hayley Squires as "Katie", a young, single mother of two who is struggling to put food on the table for her kids and herself. Director Ken Loach uses a bare-bones approach that sucks us completely into the lives of these people, almost blurring the line between fiction and documentary. There are at least three scenes in this film that I would say are among the most heart-wrenching I've seen from this decade, let alone 2016.
8) Jackie
The most divisive film of 2016. My brother, for example, says he hated it. But I loved it! From the first sound of Mica Levi's mesmerizing score, I was hooked. Everything else after that worked for me. The two standouts are Natalie Portman, who carries this film with her excellent portrayal of America's most glamorous first lady, and director Pablo Larraín, whose vision can be sensed in every detail of this film, from the back-and-forth editing, to the great screenplay that takes us behind the scenes of those hectic post-assassination days in the White House, to the perfect recreation of the era through the sets and costume design, and finally, to the great performances he got from what was one of the best, and most overlooked, ensemble casts of the year. I was 100% on board for the ride the whole time.
7) Captain Fantastic
I'm gonna agree with my brother here. "Interesting" really is the perfect word to describe this film. The "Cash" family, father "Ben"(Viggo Mortensen) and all 6 of his children, were one of my favorite movie characters of the year. The screenplay from writer/director Matt Ross is one of the most inventive of the year. It's a shame that it didn't get nominated for an Oscar. Actually, apart from Mortensen's Best Actor nomination, the movie didn't receive any other nomination. Don't make the mistake the Academy made of overlooking this one-of-a-kind film. It's been out on DVD & Blu-Ray for a while, so check it out.
6) Nocturnal Animals
Another polarizing film that makes my Top 10, only this time my brother agrees with me. He has it ranked 2 spots higher than me, but just the same you'll find many people who saw this movie who'll say they didn't like it at all. The majority of the Academy seems to be on the side that's against the film, giving it only one Oscar nomination for Michael Shannon's terrific performance(is there any other kind from him?). Some nominations that I think this film deserved include: Tom Ford for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for pulling off the best David Lynch film that David Lynch didn't direct, Joan Sobel for Best Editing for maintaining the perfect pacing that this movie needed for it to work, Abel Korzeniowski for Best Original Score, which I would've chosen as my favorite of the year if not for La La Land, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Laura Linney for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.
5) Sing Street
John Carney does it again! With his musical movies, Carney has direct access to the happy place inside my brain, and Sing Street may be his best film yet. His movies(Once, Begin Again) are pure magic, and this one is no different. It's a beautiful coming-of-age story, that's also a love story, and a great meditation on brotherly love, set in 1980's Dublin, with catchy original songs mixed with popular rock hits of the era. The fact that none of this movie's original songs received an Oscar nomination is a flat-out travesty. My brother already mentioned "Up" and "Drive it Like it You Stole it", so I'll raise him "Brown Shoes", particularly relevant with the bullies the entire country is faced with today, "Beautiful Sea", "To Find You", and "Go Now", which provides the perfect inspirational message for the film's ending.
4) Kubo and the Two Strings
An instant animation classic in my book! Kubo and the Two Strings features some of the most beautiful cinematography of any 2016 film I saw. It's animation as if it were filmed by 3-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki. It's full of awe-inspiring shots one after the other from the opening scene to the last. It actually became just the 2nd animated film ever, the other being 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. I would've also nominated it for Cinematography and Production Design. Add to that a great story about the influence of past generations on our children, and vice versa, and a quest for the main character that includes funny talking animal sidekicks plus some awesome fight scenes that pay tribute to classic asian cinema, and you get a film that had me tearing up at the end from the sheer brilliance that I had just experienced.
3) Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan is officially the master of presenting grief on screen. I just saw his previous film before this one, Margaret, for the first time this week, and I had already seen his first film, You Can Count on Me, and I have to say, I feel terrible for this man without knowing him because something horrible must have happened for him to be able to write about pain, and sadness, and suffering, and regret, so perfectly. I had a lump in my throat the entire time I was watching this one. From the trailers I knew something bad was gonna happen in this film, and as soon as I saw those kids in the flashback in Casey Affleck's and Michelle Williams' home, I knew where this was going. I have two kids, man. This movie was way too emotionally draining for me to the point where I don't think I'd ever watch it again. But that one time was enough.
2) The Handmaiden
This one had it all for me. The interesting story that you think is going one way until it isn't, with interesting characters whose intentions are never clear. Three excellent lead performances that bring all those characters' eccentricities to life. And most importantly, a production value that was arguably the best from any movie I saw in 2016. Chan-wook Park's direction here is flawless. The cinematography is beautiful, the editing, also jumping back-and-forth in time and from one character's perspective to another's, is perfect. The sets, the costumes, the score, the sound, all extraordinary. I was completely pulled into this movie's world. Any other year, I would have no problem placing this movie at #1 in my rankings. But in 2016, there was one movie that I liked just a little bit more.
1) La La Land
If you know me, you know I love musicals. So it comes as no surprise that I would love Damien Chazelle's love letter to classic musicals. But what really made me love this movie though, isn't the old, but the new. You know what's gonna be the best part of a musical 100 times out of 100? The music! And the music in La La Land couldn't be better. From the show(and traffic)stopping opener, "Another Day of Sun", to the terrific party scene of "Someone in the Crowd", to the delightful dancing duet "A Lovely Night", also the lovely piano duet "City of Stars", and finally, in what is arguably Emma Stone's best career on screen moment to date, the beautiful and heartfelt "Audition(The Fools Who Dream)". In between those five All New original songs, there is Justin Hurwitz's soon to be Oscar winning Original Score, which is simply magical as it takes us up into the stars with "Mia"(Emma Stone) and "Sebastian"(Ryan Gosling) as they're falling in love, and later takes us on a It's a Wonderful Life-style journey of what their life together could've been like if they had done everything right in their relationship instead of letting their career aspirations divide them. Does it have its flaws? Of course it does. All movies do. But no other movie from 2016 transported me into its world like La La Land did. I applaud Damien Chazelle for even thinking that making this movie was possible. I had my doubts about him after Whiplash, but not anymore. I'll be anxious to see how he raises the bar after this.
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