Top 50 for 2016 Part 3: 30–21
--
30. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (USA, dir. Oz Perkins): Netflix
In both of the years 2015 and 2016 Osgood Perkins, son of late horror icon Anthony Perkins, has directed one of the best horror films of the year. In 2015, his debut feature February played a number of festivals and was picked up for distribution by A24. Before that film even sees a release in the States (it’s being released this year under its new title The Blackcoat’s Daughter), his second film I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House was picked up by Netflix where it appropriately premiered the Friday before Halloween. This is a “haunted house” story pared down to the bone and then some, damned close to the marrow. Lily (Ruth Wilson) is an in-home caretaker hired to live with reclusive author Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss). The old 19th-century house is creepy enough, but Lily tries to read one of her charge’s best-known books–The Woman in the Walls, supposedly dictated to Iris by the ghost of a young woman murdered in the house–and her already fraying nerves begin tightening toward an inevitable breaking point. This is not a horror movie about thrills and scares, but one about creating an overwhelming atmosphere of oppressive dread. In that, it succeeds tremendously.
29. Everybody Wants Some!! (USA, dir. Richard Linklater)
The title of Richard Linklater’s follow-up to the ridiculously ambitious Boyhood begs for an Animal House-style illustrated poster. The film itself wouldn’t be entirely misrepresented by such a thing, either — it’s a loose, formless hang-out movie about a bunch of dudes who play college baseball. The fact that there’s hardly any baseball in the movie speaks a lot to its real focus, which is firmly on these young men and their commitment to talking shit at each other while drinking cold beer above almost anything else. On paper, this is the kind of thing that would read as excruciating and very possibly unwatchable to many people, myself included.
However, it’s all but impossible not to be charmed by this cast and their easygoing chemistry. It also helps that Linklater focuses very specifically on a particular point in time: The year is 1980, about a week before school starts, and these guys are feeling each other out as circumstances have thrown them all together on the same team. There are goofy hazing rituals and macho posturing, naturally, but Linklater can’t resist lining the good times with a hint of bittersweet melancholy and a reminder that those good times never last. Hell, it’s even the tagline on the poster: “Here for a good time. Not a long time.” Despite this deep tinge of mono no aware, though, this is still probably the best party movie of the year.
28. Der Nachtmahr (Germany, dir. Achim Bornhak)
Stumbling in the dark at an outdoor rave, high schooler Tina (Carolyn Genzkow) catches a glimpse of a little monster. Soon after, she sees it in her home raiding the refrigerator. Slowly, the reality of her daily life begins to give way to the possibility that this thing exists and is tied to her in some way. Her family and friends think she’s losing her mind, but would that be better or worse than the alternative? Der Nachtmahr is bizarre and exhilarating, coming on like Spring Breakers by way of Jan Svankmajer’s Little Otik. Its lurid colors and overpowering score are best experienced on as big a screen and as loud a sound system as possible; it’s truly a shame that it received such limited big-screen time in the States. The film’s dreamlike atmosphere and surreal imagery are striking and memorable regardless, and its curious story of a girl and her (possibly imaginary) monster is strangely touching.
27. The Neon Demon (France, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn): Amazon, Google, iTunes
Refn finally goes full Argento, for better and worse. While Only God Forgives recalled David Lynch in its expertly eerie use of space and quiet, The Neon Demon occasionally completely substitutes abstract visuals for narrative action. The “runway” sequence in this film is flat-out amazing, relying completely on montage to convey its lead character’s full transformation into a narcissistic monster. The lurid colors and splashes of gore recall Argento at his most evocative; the confused and conflicted narrative call to mind his less interesting work. That’s not to say there’s anything uninteresting about The Neon Demon, though — Refn plays with the well-worn trope of the ingénue eaten alive by Hollywood by constantly confounding expectations. That ingénue turns out to be as cold-blooded as the town trying to gobble her up, and instead of predatory men promising the world, she’s surrounded by women who view her as a potential conquest, a deadly threat, or both. Cliff Martinez’s score goes a long way toward establishing an icy tone that suggests he and Refn may be the best possible chance we may ever have for a great adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s Glamorama. While that will probably never happen, this is probably about as close as we’ll ever get.
26. Cemetery of Splendor (Thailand, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul): Amazon, Google, iTunes, Netflix
In an abandoned elementary school, a clinic has been established for soldiers who have been stricken with a mysterious illness that causes them to sleep almost all the time. Volunteer nurses sit and monitor the soldiers as color-changing lamps pulse in the night in hopes of soothing the men. A young woman named Keng (Jarinpattra Rueangram) has psychic abilities that allow her to communicate with the comatose soldiers, and volunteer nurse Jenjira (Jenjira Pongpas) begins spending time with Itt (Banlop Lomnoi) on the rare occasions he is awake. These understated surrealist elements come together beautifully in Cemetery of Splendor, a beautifully meditative film that is director Weerasethakul’s more than worthy follow-up to his Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010). Cemetery of Splendor is both a little more playful and a bit more tragic than Uncle Boonmee, with sumptuous cinematography and sublime moments of magical realism. This film’s final shot may be the most heartbreaking punchline of any movie this year.
25. Raw (France, dir. Julia Ducournau)
Justine (Garance Marillier) is an incoming freshman at the veterinary school where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) studies. The upperclassmen have aggressive hazing rituals, and when they insist Justine–whose entire family are strict vegetarians–eat raw meat as part of her initiation, she balks. Alexia pressures Justine into complying, and almost immediately Justine begins suffering major physical reactions. She soon learns she also suddenly has a taste for raw meat, including humans, and her relationship with Alexia curdles into a bitter rivalry. Raw is a brilliant debut feature for writer/director Julia Ducournau, a smart and surprisingly funny examination of burgeoning sexuality and the rift it can engender between close family members. In some ways it is reminiscent of John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, but it’s much more complex and nuanced than that film. Aside from some similarities to the themes they explore, the main parallel between the two films is that they are both defined by a pair of excellent lead performances by young women. Garance Marillier and Ella Rumpf are both fantastic, and they help catapult Raw into being an instant classic in female-focused horror cinema.
24. Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It (Niger, dir. Christopher Kirkley)
Writer/director Christopher Kirkley may be best known for his work with the music label Sahel Sounds, which released a compilation titled Music from Saharan Cell Phones in 2011. One of the artists on that compilation, Mdou Moctar, plays a fictionalized version of himself in this film, which is something of a remake of Purple Rain with a dash of The Harder They Come. Mdou arrives in the city of Agadez, where he wants to make a living as a musician. He meets some like-minded collaborators and begins a tentative romance with a young woman, but finds that the competition in Agadez is tougher than he could have guessed. The music throughout the film is fantastic, including a number of performances by Moctar and other real Nigerien musicians. None of them are career actors, but they have an easy charm in front of the camera. This is an engaging film from a part of the world rarely seen on the big screen, and an entertaining musical drama besides. It also doesn’t hurt that the soundtrack, performed by Mdou Moctar and some of the other artists who appear in the film, is also fantastic.
23. The Nice Guys (USA, dir. Shane Black)
Shane Black has spent decades crafting the kind of badass back-and-forth he basically perfected in Lethal Weapon (1987), and if his previous directorial effort Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) didn’t convince you he’s a master of the form, The Nice Guys just might. The brilliant comic chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe would make the film worth seeing on its own, but Black expertly bolts their characterizations onto a classic noir detective story that takes place in a fictional 1970s that takes the coolest parts of the decade and smashes them together. This is the Platonic ideal of the Hollywood action comedy, super fun and massively entertaining, packed to bursting with hilarious one-liners and impressively staged mayhem.
22. The Eyes of My Mother (USA, dir. Nicolas Pesce): Amazon, Google, iTunes
Young Francisca (Olivia Bond) lives on an isolated farm with her Mother (Diana Agostini), a Portuguese immigrant, and Father (Paul Nazak). Their quiet lives are upended when young drifter Charlie (Will Brill) wanders up to their house. Years later, Francisa (played as an adult by Kika Magalhaes) still lives on the farm, but loneliness and isolateion have taken their toll on her. The Eyes of My Mother is a quiet, spare film shot in beautiful black & white that will probably read to some viewers as pretentious. But debut feature director Nicolas Pesce uses careful observations and long periods of silence to build toward moments of gut-churning horror. At its most harrowing, the film rivals coldly observational psychological portraits of dangerously unstable individuals like John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The Eyes of My Mother is a fascinating work of art and an unsettlingly effective horror film.
21. Hell or High Water (USA, dir. David Mackenzie): Amazon, Google, iTunes
It’s easy to forget how great a pleasure it can be in cinema to simply watch a perfect cast expertly executing a great screenplay, regardless of how familiar the basic story in question might be. Hell or High Water is a prime example of this truism, a Texas crime thriller that brings together a top-shelf cast all working at the top of their game and that pays careful attention to the details that make the stage where its story is set so fascinating. After getting a pair of excellent takes on similar territory in 2015 — Jon Watts’s Cop Car and Alex R. Johnson’s Two Step — it’s starting to look like we’re in the midst of a renaissance of the form.
Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are brothers executing a carefully planned series of bank robberies. Tanner, always wild, enjoys playing the outlaw while straitlaced Toby frets under their mission’s ticking clock. Their trail is picked up by Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), a state policeman on the verge of retirement, and his long-suffering partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham). Taylor Sheridan’s excellent screenplay is a marvel of careful observation and great turns of phrase, and every actor on-screen delivers that dialogue to maximum effect to create deep shadings of character. Even the side characters in this film are utterly unforgettable, most notably a pair of waitresses who wait on the men in parallel scenes: Jenny Ann (Katy Mixon), sweet and slyly flirtatious with Toby and Tanner, and the “rattlesnake” (Margaret Bowman) who serves Marcus and Alberto at a small-town diner during their stakeout. This is damn near a perfect crime drama, and just about any other year it would have made easily made my top 10.
2016 Film Round-Up:
Honorable Mentions, Special Recognition, and Favorite Documentaries
