The contenders

TTV critics talk the year’s best in film

Jeff Huston: Well, Joe, we’re in that fun time of year again for film critics, which can also be overwhelming: awards season. 

It’s this glorious onslaught of movie screenings and screeners that studios are hoping to use to gain some awards traction, and if they can get jokers like us buzzing about them then that boosts their campaign efforts. We’re seeing a lot of movies right now, but aren’t quite ready for official Top 10 lists as a few contenders remain unseen by us (Scorsese’s “Silence” chief among them). 

Joe, in your mind, what’s the film to beat right now for the year’s best?

Joe O’Shansky: While things can change, as of this writing it is writer-director Kenneth Longeran’s moving and memorable “Manchester by the Sea.” Fueled by a powerful performance from Casey Affleck, and stellar turns by Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, Gretchen Mol, and Kyle Chandler, Longeran has crafted a novelistic melodrama whose dry (often hilarious) sense of humor leavens the proceedings with an unlikely naturalism, considering the sometimes awful shit that befalls them. Being from back east myself, the characters and their world feel like a place remembered in dreams.

Lonergan’s direction is pitch perfect, weaving their arcs and the underlying narrative with the grace of a tai chi master. While there are a joyous number of great films this year “Manchester” stuck with me in a way it apparently did not with Sam Jackson. (I get it. Even on Long Island there were black people. And this movie doesn’t get much whiter.)

Which film this year was the apple of your eye?

Jeff: There’s not a clear frontrunner for me, but not for lack of options.

“Manchester by the Sea” is certainly right there, a small American movie by a renowned American playwright that feels like a Great American Novel. And it’s absolutely devastating in the most worthwhile way. The other two garnering major buzz right now are “Moonlight” and “La La Land,” and both live up to the hype.

But if I wanted to be a true iconoclast, I’d have the guts to go with “Swiss Army Man.” Easily the year’s biggest surprise, I was not expecting the Sundance “Farting Corpse Movie” to become a poignant existential search, let alone offer up Paul Dano’s career-best work. It’s a magical realism fable that wrestles with loneliness and loss but then hopes for resurrection, and it’s also the year’s biggest risk taker from first time directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

And speaking of directorial debuts, 2016 was as strong in that regard as any year I can recall. Along with “Swiss Army Man,” movies like “The Witch,” “Krisha,” “The Edge of Seventeen,” and “Southside With You” (a.k.a. the Obama love story) all heralded very promising filmmaking careers, the first two of those four achieving a distinct auteurist signature.

Joe: Don’t forget to add “The Eyes of My Mother” to the first-timer list. Not only one of the creepiest and most stylized films of the year—not to mention deeply disturbing—but from a dude who’s only been able to legally drink in bars for five years (he’s just 26-years old—say that in a Michael Caine voice). Considering some of the great film debuts from directors to keep an eye on this year, 2016 has been an embarrassment of riches.  

I couldn’t agree more about “Swiss Army Man,” though there’s an ephemeral quality to its quirk that undercuts a true emotional connection (for me, at least). You used the term “magical realism fable” which made me realize there are a few films like that this year that are either on my list, or nearly made it there. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” and “The Lobster” in particular, and to a lesser degree “The Witch,” join “Swiss Army Man” in that realm.

So I take your last response to mean that you haven’t found your favorite film of the year yet?

Jeff: Right. I’m still waffling. The year’s best are so distinctly different in what they are and why they excel that I’m finding it difficult to commit. Another one vying for my cinephilic affections is “Jackie,” the Jacqueline Kennedy biopic set during the week following JFK’s assassination. It plays like a full-on surrealistic mind meld yet never once resorts to an internal monologue voice over. Natalie Portman’s performance isn’t just transcendent but actually transcendental, and Chilean director Pablo Larraín goes beyond dramatization to conjure an id in its most fragile yet resilient state. It’s hypnotic, and downright brilliant.  

Joe: “Carol” made my list last year, yet I’m never in the mood for it. “Jackie” is great, yet, again, I’m not sure it’s something I’ll watch as a perennial compulsion. 

Because I know I’ll see some of them again, perhaps many times (“Fury Road” seemed to break the Oscar boundary in this regard), I’m a genre guy. Is it the best, or just a favorite? 

Jeff: Personal taste is an inevitable influence (I had “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” somewhere on my list last year), but something like genre or rewatchability never really enters my equation, particularly since annual lists are such a “creature of the moment” anyway.

Regarding that time capsule factor, if one element beyond artistic merit does come into play for me it’s probably relevancy. That’s where documentaries resonate, and in the year of #BlackLivesMatter a powerful trilogy organically emerged: “O.J.: Made In America,” “13th,” and “I Am Not Your Negro.” All made by black filmmakers, they examined and capture the reality of race in the United States from three specific vantage points, cultural, historic, and iconic, respectively.

But then back to fiction, you look at something like “Moonlight,” which ended up being a much more resonant work in the year of #OscarsSoWhite than what had initially been anointed (“The Birth of a Nation”). Of course “Moonlight”—along with the beautiful, intimate lament of director Barry Jenkins’ filmmaking—also transcends both artistry and relevancy to tap into something universal. 

Joe: “Moonlight” was stunning in that regard. A non-homogenized mirror of Linklater’s “Boyhood,” made with more honesty and intoxicating style, which didn’t take thirteen years to create. “Birth of a Nation” is fine. The bombast worthy of a Mel Gibson joint (there are a few ironies there) more or less subverts the subtlety that story deserved.

Among the documentaries I have seen this year, “Author: The JT Leroy Story” is at the top (sorry, Herr Herzog, though I love you). JT Leroy is/was the teenage boy alter-ego for the decidedly middle-aged female writer, Laura Albert, who took the late 90s/early aughts literati by storm, only to fall from grace once they realize they’d all been catfished. The details are too numerous to get into here. A cultural critique, an exploration of mental illness, and a love letter to how far you can go in this country on inherent talent while fearlessly bullshitting everyone. It’s the kind of distinctly American story you can’t make up.

I still have some catching up to do. “La La Land,” “Silence,” and “American Honey” all come to mind. Is there still anything left on your must-see list?

Jeff: Scorsese’s “Silence” is the big one. I’ve seen the other Oscar hopefuls and they range from decent (“Fences”) to hyperbole-inducing (“La La Land”). In the meantime, if there’s one guarantee I can give to the movie-going masses from 2016, it’s this: if Disney is above the title, see it. From “Zootopia” to “The Jungle Book” to “Pete’s Dragon” to “Moana” and, yes, Spielberg’s sadly-underseen gem “The BFG,” no Hollywood brand machine did better in animation or live action over the past year, not even corporate cousins Pixar and Marvel. People, have yourself a merry little Christmas with any of those.

Full Circle

A brief rundown of what’s happening at the Circle Cinema

OPENING DEC. 21

Jackie
Natalie Portman gives a transformative performance in this hypnotic biopic about First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, set during the week following the assassination of JFK. Co-starring Billy Crudup, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Hurt, Portman’s mesmerizing portrayal has garnered Best Actress nominations from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild. Rated R.

OPENING DEC. 25

Fences
Based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis reprise their Tony Award-winning roles as a 1950s low-income Pittsburgh African-American couple whose family is in crisis.  Washington also directs. He and Davis have received nominations from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild, along with a cast nomination by SAG as well. Rated PG-13.

Lion
The tear-jerking true story of a 5-year-old Indian boy who gets lost over a thousand miles from home, is adopted, and grows up to search for his birth family. Nominated for 4 Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture (Drama). Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel are nominated for their supporting turns by both the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild. Rated PG-13.

OPENING DEC. 30

A Man Called Ove
Based on a novel that’s been on the NY Times best-seller list for 44 weeks, this Swedish import is the tale of a grumpy 59-year-old man. He still tries to look over his neighborhood with an iron fist despite having been deposed as the community’s president years earlier. A small accident caused by new neighbors leads to an unexpected friendship.  Rated PG-13.

STILL PLAYING
Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Loving, Nocturnal Animals, and The Eagle Huntress. Final day for White Christmas is Sat., Dec. 24.

SPECIAL EVENTS

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
A Circle tradition for the 11th consecutive year, close out the old or ring in the new at one of these two late night special event screenings of the cult classic starring Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon. As usual, audience participation is encouraged! Circle Cinema will have prop bags for sale at the concession stand. *No throwing objects at screen and no water guns* (Fri. Dec. 30 & Sat. Dec. 31, 10 p.m.)