In an old Simpsons episode Bart Simpson enters his high school class room as his teacher, teaching History class, utters the immortal words: “…Calvin Coolidge´s second mandate was, if anything, MORE uneventful”.
It applies mutatis mutandis to 2017: not that there isn´t lots of stimulating cinema out there, it´s just that I don’t seem to get to see it that often. Limitations, in spite of circumventions, of the Chinese market contributed to an very insufficient screening sample this last year. I´ve yet to see the latest Burton and Eastwoods, to name but 2 favourites. So to conclude 2016 was much like 15 and 14, only perhaps less so: little outstanding, many usual suspects, mostly Tinseltown and the habitual unhealthy dose of SF.
Furthermore, the established Top 10s (Cahiers, FF, S&S) indicate a suspicious unanimity, of which I´ve seen next to nothing and of what little I´ve seen, with the exception of Maren Ade´s delightfully off the wall if a bit deliberately zany Toni Erdmann, didn´t impress me much. The rest includes names either unknown or unloved (van Sant, inter alia).
So much so that I was of a mind to reduce this year´s TOP10 to just a handful of titles. Upon further reflection I decided that after all a TOP10 has to consist of ten so I compromised: the following list consist of 2 groups, starting with The Rest and proceeding to The Best, the latter being the deserving and the former the repêchage. So hereunder the
MacMahonian TOP10 films 2016:
It applies mutatis mutandis to 2017: not that there isn´t lots of stimulating cinema out there, it´s just that I don’t seem to get to see it that often. Limitations, in spite of circumventions, of the Chinese market contributed to an very insufficient screening sample this last year. I´ve yet to see the latest Burton and Eastwoods, to name but 2 favourites. So to conclude 2016 was much like 15 and 14, only perhaps less so: little outstanding, many usual suspects, mostly Tinseltown and the habitual unhealthy dose of SF.
Furthermore, the established Top 10s (Cahiers, FF, S&S) indicate a suspicious unanimity, of which I´ve seen next to nothing and of what little I´ve seen, with the exception of Maren Ade´s delightfully off the wall if a bit deliberately zany Toni Erdmann, didn´t impress me much. The rest includes names either unknown or unloved (van Sant, inter alia).
So much so that I was of a mind to reduce this year´s TOP10 to just a handful of titles. Upon further reflection I decided that after all a TOP10 has to consist of ten so I compromised: the following list consist of 2 groups, starting with The Rest and proceeding to The Best, the latter being the deserving and the former the repêchage. So hereunder the
MacMahonian TOP10 films 2016:
The Rest: 10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards): I know, I know, but what can I do? Rogue tells the exact same story as Star Wars (George Lucas 1977) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (JJ Abahams, 2015) but narratively and dramatically improves on both, validating The MacMahonian hawksian credo oft stated in these pages: formulas don’t get exhausted, talent does; Gareth Edwards seems poised to dethrone JJ Abrahams as our action director of choice. 9. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee): Ang Lee has fans and detractors, on balance The MacMahonian holds with the former. Billy Lynn was treated unkindly, may be unbalanced, and certainly pales in comparison with the similarly intended American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014) which duly graced these pages and this list, but it is a worthy, forceful and ultimately disturbing film, a sort of Iraq War pendant to Vietnam´s Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979) and The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1980). 8. Rudderless (William H Macy): a bit older but I only got to see it last year, Macy´s directorial feature debut addresses a borderline unadressable theme (how does a parent cope with the loss of a teenage child who the police shot dead because said child was halfway through performing a high school amok mass shotgun massacre?) with remarkably understated poignancy, in no small measure thanks to the chiseled iconic histrionics of Billy Crudup, playing the father. 7. Toni Erdemann (Maren Ade): everyone´s favourite for this year, original and touching, half-mellowing my lack of enthusiasm for (or inability to join consensual eulogy of) most contemporary German cinema, Toni, but for a to me occasionally slightly overdone zaniness, portrays forcefully the unportrayable dynamics of personal relationships, at the same time introducing a formidable rival to Chewbacca. 6. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve): a worthy mixture of familiar SF film iconography, from 2001, a Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1967) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steve Spielberg, 1977), with a linguistic twist and adequate pathos, virtue of soundtrack and art design rather than plot [although it does feature a time-bending twist to trump Inception´s (Chris Nolan, 2010)], plus the ubiquitous Amy Adams courtesy of a director very much on his way up – he´s finishing a sequel to Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), more on this soon on these pages. The Best: 5. Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford): out with the fashion in with the guts – sort of: Tom Fords 2nd feature features a crime thriller within a melodrama, texture and plot strangely reminiscent of both David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock (or maybe rather Robert Burk´s cinematography for the Master in the 50s) featuring with plenty of close-ups the aforementioned Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon, all outstanding. 4 The Revenant (Alejandro Iñarritu): for the laziness of me the only title in this list so far I got around to reviewing last year and to which January 2016 review I equally lazily refer you to, compounding on the laziness by ending a sentence with a proposition. 3. As Mil e Uma Noites (Miguel Gomes): with a lot of pleasure and zero bias list I a film from home, reviewed by The MacMahonian July 12.16. 2. Anomalisa (Charles Kauffman and Duke Johnson); Who said animation is inadequate for adult drama? Nobody? Oh! Ok… reviewed by The MacMahonian July 12.16. |
…and The MacMahonian best film of the year is:
1. The Hateful 8 (Quentin Tarantino)
Allusions of Tarantino fatigue may not be totally impertinent and were bound to come sooner or later but his films are still unrivaled in making the viewer (at least this one) leave the theater with a twinkle in the eye, tongue-in-cheeked and jaw-dropped, simultaneously. If the intention was to make me be first in line for the next one, it worked.