Whoever came up with this premise deserves a raise and more chances to pitch ideas, because I found this film refreshingly original. A breath of fresh air with some gassy odours mixed in, so to speak.
Kate Plays Christine (Greene, 2016)
Kate Plays Christine is all about the ethical concerns of this kind of memorialising. It wonders aloud why Christine Chubbuck mattered if not for the way she died, and the answers are hard to come by.
Life, Animated (Williams, 2016)
This is not just a documentary about a boy with autism. It’s also a film about seeing the world through film, and that’s something we can all attest to.
Captain Fantastic (Ross, 2016)
This is one of those films that’s quirky for the sake of being quirky, with a family of survivalists subsisting in a forest and living something of a utopian lifestyle where questions are always answered, debates encouraged, classic literature consumed, and campfire music-making a mainstay.
Indignation (Schamus, 2016)
Indignation is handsomely mounted, an old-school picture without pretensions of being anything else, and still it breathes and heaves with all the pinpoint accuracy and dribbling irony of Roth’s pen.
The Witness for the Prosecution (Jarrold, 2016)
Wilder’s version is already a classic, and while this BBC adaptation is not quite at that level, it succeeds in doing a great deal with very little.
Kubo and the Two Strings (Knight, 2016)
Undoubtedly the best animated film of 2016 in the way it combines superlative stop-motion with an engaging, thoughtful story.
Everybody Wants Some!! (Linklater, 2016)
So… I’m in that group that went into this movie not expecting to like it much, but ended up really liking it/borderline loving it. This is a testament to Linklater’s gifts.
The Eyes of My Mother (Pesce, 2016)
Goodness is this film gruesome. There’s death, there’s torture, there’s kidnapping, there’s psychosis—and it’s all elegantly framed and put together with a tastefulness that seems at odds with the story.
13th (DuVernay, 2016)
Ava DuVernay’s 13th looks and feels like something criminology professors will be screening to their students in perpetuity, yet why should that matter in the end?
The Neon Demon (Refn, 2016)
The Neon Demon? Oof. I didn’t know you could say the word “dull” in so many colours.
Julieta (Almodóvar, 2016)
I really do admire the care and attention Almodóvar put into this, as well as the fantastic acting from the two leads (especially Suárez, whose face is nigh-unforgettable).
Cemetery of Splendour (Weerasethakul, 2015)
Weerasethakul’s modus operandi seems to require being as oblique as possible, but here I did not mind it so much. If nothing in the diegetic world makes sense to the characters, then I don’t expect the audience to be blessed with revelation.
Tower (Maitland, 2016)
Tower documents the 96 minutes of utter hell that was unleashed on the University of Texas at Austin on August 1st, 1966.
Midnight Special (Nichols, 2016)
Midnight Special is trying to tell something more ambitious in scope, yet Nichols doesn’t go out of his way to make it ambitious. And so you’re left watching it, maybe pleasantly, maybe impatiently; when the end comes, it neither jolts nor astounds. It leaves nary a mark.
