Ryan Oliver's Top 10 Films Of 2016 - Page 2 of 2

Everybody Wants Some!!5. “Everybody Wants Some!!”
It has been scientifically proven that Richard Linklater‘s “Everybody Wants Some!!” will lower blood pressure and cure moodiness. Linklater’s special gift of making his own personal experiences universally relatable is on full display in this so-called “spiritual sequel” to “Dazed and Confused.” No characters overlap between the two films, but the archetypes do, as do the existential questions of what does life mean after high school (or before college, in this case). Me personally, I did not play baseball, I did not go to college in the eighties, and yet, I was able to point out my own college experiences within the film (especially between a relationship that forms in the final leg of the film). There’s virtually no plot, but that is irrelevant when a film is this straight-up entertaining and emotionally involving. Like he did with ‘Confused’ and “Boyhood,” Linklater is able to draw on our nostalgia in the most constructive way possible. He doesn’t pander to the audience so much as he reminds you of the things you felt at that point in your life, instead of just giving you back the things you liked to watch in your youth.

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4. “The Handmaiden”
Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of Sarah Waters’ “Fingersmith” is likely the strongest use of the cinematic form to come out in 2016. Despite being adapted from a novel, the way Park utilizes different perspectives and withholds information from characters in said perspectives could only work as a film, and boy does it work. It would be nothing without terrific performances from Min-hee Kim and Tae-ri Kim at the film’s center, for they give it a heart underneath the frequent crosses and double-crosses. It’s difficult to discuss without giving too much away, but know that there are images that will be burned into your mind forever. But amidst the film’s fucked-up-edness, it’s also Park’s most playful and humorous endeavor (though I will also go to bat for “Stoker” in this department any day of the week) and one of his best films period.

moonlight3. “Moonlight”
You guessed it, another top 10 where “Moonlight” shows up near the top. There’s not too much else that can be said about Barry Jenkins’ masterful sophomore feature that hasn’t already been said, but it’s a cinematic experience that if it doesn’t live up to the sky-high hype on first viewing, give it time to simmer. Like “American Honey,” James Laxton’s beautiful camera work rarely ever leaves the perspective of Chiron (played at three stages by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes), except during the first segment. The film isn’t as overtly exciting as “Kicks,” but that doesn’t mean that “Moonlight” is a downer either. It’s essentially like Chiron in the film’s final segment, a tough exterior with tenderness brimming on the inside. In a time where our country is divided, this is the type of movie we need, one that is deeply empathic and eye-opening to an experience that isn’t everyone’s. I don’t usually put a lot of stock in the Academy Awards, but if “Moonlight” wins Best Picture, they’ll go up a notch in my book.

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2. “The Witch”
It’s hard to believe that “The Witch” is the debut film of Robert Eggers. It’s a movie that feels like at least a fourth film from a filmmaker, it’s made with that much artistry and control of the craft. While it can be enjoyed as a straight descent-into-madness genre piece, it also raises a lot of questions with regards to religion, and how there’s a hypocrisy when it comes to being completely Puritan. While comparisons to “The Shining” surfaced upon the film’s release (and rightfully so), there’s another film that “The Witch” draws cues from while also being uniquely original, and that is John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” There are times when members of the family get so manic that it’s hard to tell if it’s merely their own paranoia, or if they are being possessed. That behavior shifts from character to character, sometimes in the same scene. It’s a relentlessly terrifying experience that is full of dread, but also full of an exciting new cinematic voice. I’m not one to throw the “M”-word around, so I will do my best to avoid it, but when your first film warrants that kind of praise, you are on the right track to greatness.

1. “Manchester By the Sea”
It will be nearly impossible to talk about Kenneth Lonergan’s masterpiece (dammit, I couldn’t avoid that word for this one) objectively, as there is one line of dialogue that nearly destroyed me. As Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) drives around his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) after his father (Kyle Chandler) dies, Patrick asks Lee, “Can you drive me over to Sandy’s for band practice?” I was two years younger than Patrick when I lost my mom, and my dad drove me everywhere, including my friend Nic’s for band practice. And that line, said so nonchalantly, captured perfectly on film for the first time for me, the accurate, melancholic, non-B.S. version of the grieving process. Lonergan gets at what so many films fail to understand, is that we’re nothing but human. Situations happen beyond our control, some potentially preventable, but we’re still all human, and we’re all imperfect. Every scene, and every scene transition, is a miracle (another damned “M”-word), because when you’ve seen hundreds-to-thousands of movies, you keep waiting for the blow up, waiting for the rallying monologue, waiting for the moment of reconciliation. They never come, and it’s perfect. Each time you think the film will let you down, it doesn’t. It also balances the pileup of heartbreak with humor that grounds the film even further down to Earth. The cast — Affleck, Hedges, Chandler, Michelle Williams — are all amazing, the writing is strong, and the direction is so good you don’t quite notice how good it is. Sure, it isn’t showy. Yes, there is baggage to the film with the sexual assault allocations against Casey Affleck. But judging purely as a film, there isn’t one this year that has come close to moving me like “Manchester by the Sea.”

Best of the Rest:
Again, it was difficult to narrow this list down to just ten picks, for there were ten more that could have also easily made this list. Among them, Paul Verhoeven’s provocative “Elle,” David Lowery’s lyrical and lovely “Pete’s Dragon,” Na Hong-Jin’s gripping “The Wailing,” Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s loving tribute to “De Palma,” Gareth Edwards’ thrilling “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Jeremy Saulnier’s relentless “Green Room,” Denis Villenueve’s cerebral “Arrival,” Ciro Guerra’s meditative “Embrace of the Serpent,” Shane Black’s Raymond Chandler-esque romp “The Nice Guys,” and Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone’s wall-to-wall hilarious “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.”

In addition to these great films that missed the list, other very good films I enjoyed include “The Jungle Book,” “Hell or High Water,” “Sing Street,” “Men & Chicken,” “Loving,” “10 Cloverfield Lane,” “Zootopia,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Born to Be Blue,” “Wiener-Dog,” “Sunset Song,” and “Morris From America.”