Final cut

TTV critics Joe O'Shansky and Jeff Huston pick their favorite films of 2016, plus the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle's annual awards

Joe O’Shansky’s favorite films of 2016

The year in film was a Catch-22. A good year for original and invigorating cinema, especially of the genre variety. A very bad year for some of my favorite stars, who seemed to topple one after another like mortal dominoes.

It goes without saying all the films on this list deserve your attention, though they are by no means the only ones that do. I would also highly recommend the likes of “American Honey,” “La La Land,” and “Author: The JT Leroy Story,” among a plethora of other films that didn’t quite make the cut. Happy New Year.

1 // Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan’s peerless, tragi-comic melodrama feels like contemporary American literature written for the silver screen. The story of a divorced father returning home to bury his brother and face his demons is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Casey Affleck. No other movie this year was so well crafted by a filmmaker with a meticulous vision.      

2 // Green Room
Writer/ director Jeremey Saulnier followed up his gritty “Blue Ruin” with this stunning, tension-soaked thriller. A punk band playing a gig at a neo-Nazi compound witnesses a murder. Barricading themselves in the green room, they must overcome their fear and a squad of ruthless killers in order to survive. The late Anton Yelchin gives a career-best performance, and Saulnier’s intense direction feels like Walter Hill for a new generation. Scary because it’s kind of real. 

3 // Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Sam Neill plays the unwilling guardian of a portly juvenile delinquent (Julian Dennison), on the run from the law through the backwoods of New Zealand in director Taika Waititi’s latest gem, a quirky and adorable comedy. With his signature style, Waititi captures Neill’s and Dennison’s comedic chemistry with Disney Down Under-style adventures. After first viewing, I watched it again almost immediately.

4 // Moonlight
A spiritual cousin to Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” that didn’t take thirteen years to make, “Moonlight” is a moving triptych about Chiron, a gay black boy coming of age in the South. Writer/director Barry Jenkins affords his characters a rare dignity, delicately rendering a series of moments that add up to a lovely, tragic portrait of a young man trying to understand himself. 

5 // Swiss Army Man
Written and directed by the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) in their feature debut, “Swiss Army Man” Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe giving career-defining performances as a suicidal castaway and a farting corpse. Essentially an arthouse buddy-comedy riff on “Weekend at Bernie’s,” the film is beautiful, sincere and flat-out absurd. One of those films you never forget.

6 // Everybody Wants Some!!
The trailers made Richard Linklater’s sort-of sequel to “Dazed and Confused” seem like an unnecessary return to the well. But I couldn’t have been more surprised by how “Everybody Wants Some!!,” in addition to being wickedly funny, achieves an emotional relevance that belies its horny college baseball player conceit. Linklater is an alchemist at turning his memories into our own.

7 // Arrival
“Arrival” transcends the genre hook of its sci-fi roots. The surface plot is compelling and moody, as Amy Adams attempts to bridge the linguistic gap between humans and extraterrestrial visitors, but director Denis Villeneuve entwines that with an emotionally resonant tale of loss, grief and the fragility of time. 

8 // The Handmaiden
“The Handmaiden” finds Park Chan-wook back in the psychosexual vengeance territory of “Oldboy,” transposed to a parlor drama-thriller played out at a mansion in 1940s Korea. The byzantine plot twists are expertly woven with Park’s eye for the theater of the erotic. This is masterful filmmaking.

9 // Captain Fantastic
Matt Ross, who plays Gavin Belson on HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” should be better known as a writer and director. “Captain Fantastic,” his sophomore feature, is an audacious socio-political critique of American society in the form of a warm family adventure. Viggo Mortensen’s performance as an obstinately radical father is the troubled heart of this funny, poignant, texturally rich film. 

10 // The Witch
Robert Eggers’ directorial debut, a period piece about religious piety colliding with unexplained dark forces in 17th century colonial New England, seemed to divide horror fans. Many found it insufferably slow-moving. But, for my money, Eggers made an atmospheric, eminently creepy, supernatural drama filled with darkly iconic images. The studied script is steeped in period authenticity, down to the antiquated language, and carried by great performances—particularly Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin, the eldest daughter, who is the last human to see her baby brother alive. Released last January, “The Witch” stuck with me all year long.

Once more, with a feeling

Jeff Huston’s favorite films of the year

With the caveat that Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” was never screened for Oklahoma-based film critics, while also acknowledging that it pained me to keep “Sing Street” on the outside looking in, here are my choices for the 10 best films of 2016. 

10 // Loving
Based on the true story of an interracial couple’s fight for the legalization of their marriage in the late 1950s, this low-key dramatization is masterful for avoiding Oscar-bait grandstanding. This is a lamenting cousin to the likes of John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” with Richard and Mildred Loving as the Joads of the Jim Crow era.

9 // Hell or High Water
No film from 2016 better captured the disenfranchisement of rural white working class people than this modern day neo-Western, of an anger aimed at a rigged system that fueled the populist phenomenon of Trump and Bernie.

8 // Weiner
Documenting disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner’s self-destructive attempt at a political comeback, this is an absolutely fascinating study of a narcissistic train wreck of a man. 

7 // Moonlight
Writer/Director Barry Jenkins’ poetic triptych of a young African-American man coming to terms with his sexuality and drug-ravaged environment. Each chapter plays like cinematic diary entries in a film that never preaches from a soapbox, humbly told by a filmmaker seeking catharsis for his young subject—and for himself. 

6 // Manchester by the Sea
When Hollywood manufactures tearjerkers about tragedy, grief, and loss, it gives us fraudulent insults like “Collateral Beauty.” But real artists like writer/director Kenneth Lonergan, along with Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams doing career-best work, give us the truth in small masterpieces like this. 

5 // Arrival
Director Denis Villeneuve’s philosophic sci-fi takes at least two viewings to fully appreciate. A cinematic Rorschach test with thematic undercurrents involving existence, linear perception, and the infinite, it’s all rooted in the emotionally wrought journey of a mother (Amy Adams) and the choices she makes. 

4 // Swiss Army Man
There’s nothing remotely conventional about this bizarre dark comedy. Infamously dubbed “The Farting Corpse Movie” at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Daniel Radcliffe’s cadaver is the cipher for Paul Dano’s id that’s in existential crisis. This is magical realism that wrestles with loneliness, and hopes for resurrection. 

3 // La La Land
An artful old-fashioned song-and-dance eye-popper of two people falling in love while pursuing their dreams in cynical L.A., imbued with a melancholy spirit that feels more off-Broadway than on. Like “It’s A Wonderful Life,” the inspired final sequence asks us—in its own bittersweet way—which dreams are most important. 

2 // O.J.: Made in America
Few works have so comprehensively captured the racial division that tears at the heart of our nation’s moral fabric. Director Ezra Edelman uses the ultimate anecdote of the O.J. Simpson murder trial to hold a mirror up to how we got here, and then punches us right in the gut. This sprawling eight-hour saga, broken up into five parts, is a monolith of documentary filmmaking.

1 // Jackie
A mesmerizing masterpiece. With an eye for expressionism, director Pablo Larraín paints a psychological portrait of Jackie Kennedy in the days following JFK’s assassination. Natalie Portman is the Method-level avatar through which Larraín’s aesthetic grieves and resonates. “Jackie” is a singular immersion into the fragile yet resilient psyche of an iconic figure in the immediate aftermath of an American tragedy. 

One final shout-out to a banner year for first-time filmmakers: along with the Daniels duo behind “Swiss Army Man,” Trey Edward Shults defied micro-budget constraints with the haunting “Krisha,” Robert Eggers made Salem Witch horrors all-too-real in “The Witch,” Kelly Fremon Craig channeled John Hughes and Cameron Crowe in the R-rated coming-of-ager “The Edge of Seventeen,” and Richard Tanne’s “Southside With You” imagines Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date with less hagiography and more cultural context than most fawning Hollywood veterans would’ve been capable. 

Oklahoma Film Critics Circle announces 2016 awards

The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, a statewide group of film critics, announced its 11th annual list of awards earlier this week, naming the musical “La La Land” the best film of 2016. 

“La La Land” director Damien Chazelle was also recognized as the best director of the year. 

This is the second time the OFCC has recognized the 31-year-old Chazelle. “Whiplash,” which Chazelle wrote and directed, was named one of the best films of 2014. 

In addition to “La La Land,” the Top 10 Films of 2016 recognized by the OFCC are “Moonlight,” “Manchester by the Sea,” “OJ: Made in America,” “Arrival,” “Hell or High Water,” “Jackie,” “Green Room,” “Kubo and the Two Strings” and “Sing Street.” 

“OJ: Made in America,” the eight-hour film produced by ESPN, was also awarded Best Documentary. 

The widest margin of victory of any category was for Casey Affleck for his performance in “Manchester by the Sea,” while the smallest margin of victory went to Affleck’s co-star, Michelle Williams, who barely edged out Viola Davis’s performance in “Fences” for best supporting actress. 

Not surprisingly, “Manchester by the Sea” also won Best Ensemble, narrowly beating “Moonlight.” 

Mahershala Ali was name Best Supporting Actor for “Moonlight” and Amy Adams won Best Actress for her work in “Arrival.” 

OFCC members are Oklahoma-based movie critics writing for print, broadcast, and online outlets that publish or post reviews of current film releases. Media outlets include The Oklahoman, Oklahoma Gazette, Tulsa World and The Tulsa Voice. TTV film critics Joe O’Shansky and Jeff Huston are members, along with TTV editor Joshua Kline. 

Readers can find the complete list of awards—as well as frequent film reviews and articles—at oklahomafilmcritics.com.

2016 Winners

Best Picture - La La Land

Top 10 Films
La La Land
Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
OJ: Made in America
Arrival
Hell or High Water
Jackie
Green Room
Kubo and the Two Strings
Sing Street

Best Actor - Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Actress - Amy Adams, “Arrival”

Best Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Supporting Actor - Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”

Best Director - Damian Chazelle, “La La Land”

Best Original Screenplay - Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Adapted Screenplay - Eric Heisserer, “Arrival”

Best Animated Film - “Zootopia”

Best Documentary - “OJ: Made in America”

Best Foreign Film - “The Handmaiden”

Best Ensemble Cast - “Manchester by the Sea”

Best First Feature - Robert Eggers, “The Witch”

Best Body of Work - Amy Adams, “Arrival,” “Nocturnal Animals,” “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”

Most Disappointing Film - “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”
 

For more from Joe and Jeff, read their conversation about the best films of 2016.