Instead of waiting for my year-end Top Ten list, I keep a running list throughout the year: Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. At year’s end, my list usually is comprised of 20-25 films with an Official Top Ten. I’ll also be updating my list throughout the year as films become available to stream or to rent on DVD. Right now, my list includes:
The Memory of Water
Eye in the Sky
Magallanes
Chevalier
Weiner
Frank & Lola
Take Me to the River
Lost Solace
Green Room
I usually start my list in April or May, and I don’t think that I’ve ever waited until July before. I guess that’s because none of these early-in-the-year releases have popped out at me like Ex Machina from last year, Boyhood or Ida from 2014, Blue Is the Warmest Color or The Hunt (2013), Winter’s Bone (2010) and the like. But these are all really, really excellent films.
Eye in the Sky and Take Me to the River are available streaming or on DVD right now, (see Best Movies of 2016 – So Far for details) and Frank & Lola will be in theaters later this year.
I’m self-conscious about how many of these films can’t be seen right now (or maybe ever) because they don’t have US distribution. I really try NOT to be precious and list a bunch of super obscure films. I’m particularly wringing my hands over three gems from Cinequest – The Memory of Water from Chile, Magallanes from Peru and the Canadian indie Lost Solace. But I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to find the rest of the movies on my list by year’s end.
I’m still waiting to see many, many contenders for my year-end list, including film festival favorites Loving, Manchester By the Sea, The Birth of a Nation and Toni Erdmann. I also reserve the right to reshuffle the list.
Free State of Jones effectively combines the elements of political drama, romance and war movies into an absorbing Civil War drama, one which connects the dots between the 19th Century and the 20th and beyond. With a sizzling Matthew McConaughey.
NUTS!is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans.
Zero Daysis a documentary on a jaw-dropping hacker mystery – who and how was able to get Iranian military computers to destroy the hardware for their own nuclear weapons program.
All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance. It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before. All the Way is still playing on HBO.
Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.
My Stream of the Week is the perfect companion film to Weiner – it’s the inside story of ANOTHER campaign – one of Anthony Weiner’s opponents in the same 2013 mayoral election. Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayor is an extraordinarily evocative political film, it’s only 30 minutes long and you can watch it for free here at the NYT.
Tonight Turner Classic Movies explores “America in the 70s” with four of the best films EVER – All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Network and The Conversation – along with the time capsule thriller Klute.
And on July 13, TCM presents the John Sturges masterpiece Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy investigating a disappearance in an especially hostile, racist and sinister town. Besides having Tracy at his best and being a great looking movie, Bad Day at Black Rock is notable for its menacing crew of Bad Guys – Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin.
Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK
NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans. Yes, a huckster named J.R. Brinkley really did surgically place goat testicles inside human scrota – and, more astonishingly, this actually became a craze in the 1920s. Now that’s enough of a forehead slapper, but there’s more, much more and that’s what makes NUTS! so fun.
Brinkley’s story is one that leads to celebrity mega wealth and a colossal miscalculation. Improbably, Brinkley’s wild ride touched Huey Long,William Jennings Bryan, Rudolph Valentino, Buster Keaton, June Carter Cash and Wolfman Jack. There’s a radio empire, a Gubernatorial election and a dramatic, climactic trial.
“Dr.” Brinkley at work in NUTS!
Director Penny Lane tells the story with animation (different animators for each chapter, but you can’t tell) seamlessly braided together with historical still photos, movies and a final heartbreaking recording. NUTS! tells a story that is too bizarre to be true – but really happened. It makes for a most entertaining movie.
I saw NUTS! earlier this year at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). It opens in Bay Area theaters today.
The important and absorbing documentary Zero Days traces the story of an incredibly successful cyber attack by two nation states upon another – and its implications. In Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, the centrifuges used to enrich uranium began destroying themselves in 2010. It turned out that these machines were instructed to self-destruct by a computer worm devised by American and Israeli intelligence.
No doubt – this was an amazing technological triumph. Zero Days takes us through a thrilling whodunit non-geek audience. We learn how a network that is completely disconnected from the Internet can still be infected. And how cybersecurity experts track down viruses. It’s all accessible and fascinating.
But, strategically, was this really a cyberwarfare victory? We learn just what parts of our lives can be attacked and frozen by computer attacks (Spoiler: pretty much everything). And we learn that this attack has greenlighted cyberwarfare by other nations – including hostile and potentially hostile ones. Zero Days makes a persuasive case that we need to have a public debate – as we have had on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons – on the use of this new kind of weaponry.
Director Alex Gibney is one our very, very best documentarians. He won an Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side, and he made the superb Casino Jack: The United States of Money, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer,Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,Going Clear: The Prison of Beliefand Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine.
Gibney’s specialty is getting sources on-camera that have the most intimate knowledge of his topic. In Zero Days, he pulls out a crew of cybersecurity experts, the top journalist covering cyberwarfare, leaders of both Israeli and American intelligence and even someone who can explain the Iranian perspective. Most impressively, Gibney has found insiders from the NSA who actually worked on this cyber attack (and prepared others).
Zero Days opens tomorrow in theaters and will also be available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vusu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox and various PPV platforms, including DirecTV.
Here is the perfect companion film to Weiner – it’s the inside story of ANOTHER campaign – one of Anthony Weiner’s opponents in the same 2013 mayoral election.
Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayor is an extraordinarily evocative political film, it’s only 30 minutes long and you can watch it for free. It’s the story of Christine C. Quinn’s bid for New York City mayor in 2013. At the start of the race, Quinn was the heavy favorite. She was the City Council President and a dominant force in Manhattan’s Democratic establishment. She would have been the first woman and the first openly gay Mayor of New York City.
Then, as happens in politics, two things went wrong. First, she had positioned herself as the Democratic partner and heir to Republican Mayor Bloomberg, which helped her immensely in the years of Bloomberg’s popularity in New York; but by the time of the 2013 primary, Bloomberg had become very UNPOPULAR among Democratic primary voters. Then, as voters looked to an anti-Bloomberg alternative, one of Quinn’s opponents, Bill de Blasio unleashed a killer campaign commercial, featuring his teenage son Dante, that crystallized the aspirations of the electorate. Quinn sank like a rock in the polls, and de Blasio shot upward. This was one of those moments in a political campaign when there is just nothing a candidate can do to stop a popular tsunami.
As Hers to Lose opens, we see Quinn – just after her defeat – explaining that she granted access to the New York Times documentarians so they could record her victory. She is composed, but her eyes are filled with pain. Quinn had dedicated years of her life to running in this race, suffering political and personal attacks, enduring long hours and living in a fish bowl; to see this film is to appreciate how much she put into the contest and how helplessly she watched her lead slip away. At its most searing, Her to Lose chronicles the never-ending torrent of abuse hurled at Quinn by haters – especially the single issue opponents of horse-drawn carriages, who hang around her building so they can revile her as she begins each day; as one might assume, this vitriol takes its toll.
You can view Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayorhere at the NYT.
Stellan Skarsgård stars as the chief money-launderer for the Russia Mob in Our Kind of Traitor, and Skarsgård completely dominates the movie with his always robust and often hilarious performance. Who knew that the familiar Skarsgård could be so funny? After all, he usually plays a character that is brooding or menacing.
Skarsgård had already amassed over 50 screen credits at age 35 when the American art house audience really noticed him in Breaking the Waves (1996), He played an amiable and lusty seafarer who transforms the mousy Emily Watson with his joie de vivre, before he becomes a heartbreakingly suicidal paraplegic.
Emily Watson and Skarsgård in BREAKING THE WAVES
Although I hadn’t remembered him, earlier, Skarsgård appeared in The Unbearable Lightness of Being(1988), where he played The Engineer who had a one-night stand with Juliette Binoche’s Tereza. Then, in 1990, he played the Russian sub captain in The Hunt for Red October.
After Breaking the Waves came Insomnia, Good Will Hunting, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and lots of really bad Hollywood movies where he’s the best thing in them – primarily dramas, thrillers and action films where he’s the intensely stolid or sinister presence.
Now, everybody’s got to start somewhere, and in 1973, Stellan Skarsgård’s second year making feature films, he starred in a cult Guilty Pleasure – Anita: Swedish Nymphet. As the title suggests, the story is about a 16-year-old girl (played by a 23-year-old actress) with psychological issues which compel her to have sex in random and unhealthy encounters. It’s completely trashy, but, of course, the appeal of Anita: Swedish Nymphet to US (male) audiences was lots of nudity and sex – still uncommon in American movies.
Skarsgård plays Anita’s counselor, who eventually cures her by making her his girlfriend.
But now’s the time to enjoy Skarsgård in Our Kind of Traitor, It’s not a great movie, but Skarsgård makes it damn entertaining. By himself, he’s worth the price of a ticket.
Skarsgård counseling a troubled girl in ANITA: SWEDISH NYMPHET
Mahershala Ali and Matthew McConaughey in FREE STATE OF JONES
Free State of Jones is the compelling story of resistance to the Confederacy and to white supremacy by Southerners during and after the Civil War. Matthew McConaughey stars as Newton Knight, an overlooked but quite singular figure in American history. It is little-known, but the Confederacy actually lost control of some Mississippi counties to poor white farmers who tired of fighting a war to benefit the rich slave-holders.
I am a pretty serious Civil War history buff, and I was planning to skip Free State of Jones entirely until I found out about writer-director Gary Ross’ commitment to taking the history seriously. In fact, Ross has posted a very impressive website which outlines the historical events and figures depicted in the movie and even links the primary historical source material. I’ve never seen such a credible effort by a filmmaker to explain how he got the history right. Here’s a New York Tines article about the movie, Ross and his website.
In the second act of his career, McConaughey has delivered brilliant performances in excellent movies (Mud, Bernie, The Paperboy, Killer Joe, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club,True Detective). Here, he positively sizzles as the intensely principled and determined Newt Knight. The rest of the cast is excellent, too, especially Mahershala Ali (House of Cards) as an escaped slave turned Reconstruction political organizer.
Free State of Jones effectively combines the elements of political drama, romance and war movies into an absorbing drama, one which connects the dots between the 19th Century and the 20th and beyond.
Naomie Harris and Ewan McGregor in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.
Our Kind of Traitor is a robust globe-trotting thriller, enlivened by a lusty Stellan Skarsgård and played out in a series of stunning set pieces. A meek Everyman (Ewan McGregor) is a tag-along on his high-powered wife’s trip to Cairo. Nursing a drink after a tiff with said wife (the sleek Naomie Harris from 28 Days Later… and a couple of Bond films), he is inveigled into joining a crew of partying Russians and becomes entangled in an intrigue that puts entire families at stake – including his own.
It turns out that our protagonist has been randomly plucked from the humdrum by Dima (Skarsgård), the top money launderer for the Russian Mafia, who is trying to get British intelligence to help his family escape from his murderous colleagues. The story having been adapted from a John le Carré novel, the dour British spy (Damian Lewis from Homeland) on the case is being hindered at every turn by a thoroughly corrupt British law enforcement and intelligence bureaucracy, with the rot reaching up to Cabinet level.
The very best thing about Our Kind of Traitor is Stellan Skarsgård’s performance. Dima is loud, flamboyant and profoundly course. Skarsgård has filled his career with brooding roles, but here he gets to play the life of the party, and he is hilarious – and steals the movie.
Our Kind of Traitor also looks great as it takes us from Russia (shot in Finland) to Cairo (Morocco) to Switzerland to London to Paris. Director Susanna White is a veteran (21 directing credits on IMDb), but Our Kind of Traitor is her first big budget action movie. The success of the film revolves around a series of spectacular set pieces, and White pulls it off masterfully.
Our Kind of Traitor isn’t as good as the best of his work (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, for instance), but it’s damn entertaining. I saw the final four plot twists coming, but by then I was hooked, so I still enjoyed the film. And, adapting to the post-Cold War world, le Carré may have become even more cynical.
I saw Our Kind of Traitor earlier this year at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival at a screening with director Susanna White. If you’re looking for an intelligent summer thriller for adults, this is your movie.
It’s an exceptional week for movies about American politics.
All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance. It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before. All the Way is still playing on HBO.
Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner – it’s probably the best documentary of the year. Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating. It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.
Scroll down to read about two other great films of American politics coming up on TV: All the President’s Men and The Candidate.
If you like the espionage novelist John le Carré, you’ll enjoy Our Kind of Traitor opens today. It’s a robust thriller with a funny yet powerful performance by Stellan Skarsgård.
Also in theaters:
Love & Friendship – a sharply witty adaptation of a Jane Austen story with an adept turn by Kate Beckinsale.
The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a very funny mismatched buddy movie from the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise.
Julianne Moore, along with supporting players Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, shine in the amiably satisfying little romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan.
Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. 45 Years is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Set your DVRs for Turner Classic Movies next Friday, July 7, as TCM explores “America in the 70s” with four of the best films EVER – All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Network and The Conversation – along with the time capsule thriller Klute (after which 15% of all American women changed their hairstyles to mirror Jane Fonda’s “shag”).
Here’s a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. In the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, we meet the married couple Geoff (Tom Courtenay) and Kate (Rampling), a well-suited pair who share each others’ values sensibilities and senses of humor. They are planning a party to mark their 45th anniversary when Geoff learns that the body of his previous girlfriend (killed in a mountain climbing accident 47 years ago ) has been found preserved in ice. He is knocked for a loop, and then slides into complete shock. He becomes brooding, even obsessed about his old flame and his youth.
Kate tries to settle Geoff and be supportive. But she learns one thing about his old flame, and then a second, and suddenly she’s the one who become the most troubled. She says, “I can hardly be cross about something before we existed, could I?….Still…” She asks him a question that she shouldn’t have. Her feelings may or may not be justified or rational, but they are her feelings, and they become the facts on the ground.
Geoff is usually the one who gets to burst out with his feelings, and Kate cleans up after. But Kate’s feelings are so much more complicated than Geoff’s.
45 Years meditates on the power and durability of memories and then shifts into a study of relationships. We see intimacy without the sharing of all truths, and see how the truth can be toxic and destructive. We live based on assumptions, and when those are revealed to be not fully correct, well, you can’t unring the bell. Camera Cinema Club Director Tim Sika overheard a critic colleague describe 45 Years thus, “It’s about nothing until you realize that’s it’s about everything”.
Writer-director Andrew Haigh is a brilliant storyteller. He lets the audience connect the dots. Our involvement in 45 Years intensifies as we piece together the back story and as the characters learn about new developments. There’s a wonderful undercoating of early 60s pop, a great soundtrack that avoids seeming like a jukebox.
Charlotte Rampling is marvelous and gives one of the greatest performances of the year in cinema. Rampling is most searing in Kate’s unspoken moments, in which we see her anguish, amusement, unease, radiance and heartbreak. It’s remarkable that such emotional turbulence can be portrayed without a hint of melodrama.
toryteller. He lets the audience connect the dots. Our involvement in <em>45 Years</em> intensifies as we piece together the back story and as the characters learn about new developments. There’s a wonderful undercoating of early 60s pop, a great soundtrack that avoids seeming like a jukebox.
Charlotte Rampling is marvelous and gives one of the greatest performances of the year in cinema. Rampling is most searing in Kate’s unspoken moments, in which we see her anguish, amusement, unease, radiance and heartbreak. It’s remarkable that such emotional turbulence can be portrayed without a hint of melodrama.
Before you see 45 Years, I’d suggest a careful reading of the lyrics to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
I of course replied
Something here inside
Can not be denied
They, said some day you’ll find
All who love are blind
When you heart’s on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes
So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
To think they would doubt our love
And yet today, my love has gone away
I am without my love
Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
So I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes
[SPOILER ALERT – I think that the tipping point in their relationship occurs when Kate says, “Open your eyes”.]
I’ve also written a companion essay on the film. 45 Years is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
