Top 10 Films of 2016

It's pretty rare that I see a movie and immediately think, "That's the best film of the year." Usually such evaluations take time to coalesce. Often, as in the spectacular year of 2015, my favorites will become eclipsed by even greater cinema that comes along later. But not this year.

The minute I saw "Hell or High Water" late in the summer, I said, "Here's the standard against which every other film will be judged."

Nothing ever came along to beat it, although the unfairly maligned "The Birth of a Nation" came closest.

2016 was an above average year for film. I saw a lot of ambitious work, a lot of entertaining movies. Some may question the appearance of a super-hero gross-out comedy, "Deadpool," on this list. It's there because it belongs.

On the flip side, neither "Moonlight" or "La La Land," which seem to be running neck-and-neck during the early going of the awards season, appear here. I find them both worthy films, but ones I had trouble engaging with on an emotional level. Most Overpraised is the only contest they'd win in my mind.

So here is my Top 10 list for the year, along with some other films worthy of mention.

1. Hell or High Water

Is it a neo-Western? A crime potboiler? Morality tale? Commentary on our Great Recession times? All at once, I think. An impeccable cast -- Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham -- lead us through a gritty and seemingly inexorable convergence of grim men shambling toward a violent reckoning. Bleak, unsparing, magnificent.

2. The Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker's career seemed ready to blow up, then it exploded in the face of old allegations of rape during college (of which he was acquitted). I'll judge a movie based on the movie, and using that scale "The Birth of a Nation" is a major triumph. Parker stars, wrote and directed a somewhat fictionalized version of the Nat Turner slave revolt with grace and startling power.

 3. A Monster Calls

Practically nobody's seen this movie as I write this, so I'm hoping it finds an audience in the new year. Based on the novel by Patrick Ness, it's the tale of a young boy coming to grips with the terminal illness of his mother (Felicity Jones) through the intrusion of a mystical tree-like creature (Liam Neeson) that comes to visit him in nightmares. Will be dismissed by some as a "children's movie," but it's surprisingly bold in its depiction of grief and loss.

4. Everybody Wants Some!!

1980s nostalgia seems to be peaking, and there's no better place to start than Richard Linklater's spiritual successor to "Dazed and Confused." It's the tale of a group of college baseball players drinking and carousing in the days leading up to the start of school. Sound like a piffle? It's a spot-on observation of life at a particular place and time. Best ensemble acting of the year.

5. Manchester By the Sea

Somebody asked me if there's a theme to emerge from this year's movies, and I said that a surprising number of the best films had the subject of grieving or loss at their center. Looking over this list, I can see that in a number of my favorites. Casey Affleck gives the performance of his career as a tight-lipped janitor whose life is turned around when he's unexpectedly named the guardian of his nephew after his father dies. Essentially a 2+ hour tone poem by writer/director Kenneth Lonergan.

6. Sing Street

Easily the most romantic film of the year, John Carney's tale of a smart, alienated kid in 1980s Ireland who finds his path forward in life through forming a band. It starts off strictly as an attempt to impress an older girl, but turns into a form of rebellion and learning. Great songs, great cast, great time.

7. Fences

As I said in my review, I'm generally turned off by stage-to-screen adaptations, because they're so stiff and forced. Not "Fences." Denzel Washington directs and stars in a version of the play penned by August Wilson himself, looking at the lives of a black family in 1950s Pittsburgh. Washington plays the patriarch, a loving and freewheeling man who wants to keep the Devil at bay, but has plenty of demons plaguing him on the inside. With Viola Davis, equally terrific.

8. Kubo and the Two Strings

Easily the best animated film of 2016, "Kubo" is a brand-new story that somehow feels like an ancient Japanese parable. It's the tale of a one-eyed boy who lives on the edge of a small village who tells stories using his magical banjo and pieces of origami paper that spring to life. When he's separated from his mother by members of his own sorcerous family, he goes on an epic journey of discovery along with a protective monkey and a strange bug-like creature.

9. Deadpool

"Deadpool" is one of the most original and certainly brashest takes on the superhero genre, which is starting to enter middle age with this year's crop of flicks that largely groaned under their own weight. Ryan Reynolds plays a criminal brought back from the (mostly) dead, who launches his own one-man revenge saga interspersed with lots of lame jokes and filthy jokes. To cap it all off, Deadpool comments about the movie as he's starring in it. So smart, so entertaining.

10. Patriots Day 

Another film that won't see wide release until later in January, "Patriots Day" is part drama, part crime procedural that takes us through the day of the Boston Marathon bombings and up to the capture of the domestic terrorists responsible for it. Mark Wahlberg plays a cop -- an amalgam of several real men -- who's with us every step of the way. A film that shows us how ordinary people achieve heroism.

Best of the Rest

It's hard to exclude any of these films from the Top 10, as I cherished every one of them for making my cinematic year richer. Here are 14 honorable mentions, in alphabetical order:

The BFG

Born to Be Blue

Captain Fantastic

Christine

Elvis & Nixon

Hacksaw Ridge

The Handmaiden

Krisha

The Light Between the Oceans

Maggie's Plan

Moana

Our Little Sister

Swiss Army Man

Weiner

Video review: "Everybody Wants Some!!"

If you’d have told me six months ago that by the mid-point of 2016 my favorite movie would be a plotless paean to college sex, beer and rock ‘n’ roll, I’d have called you a moonbat.

But here we are.

“Everybody Wants Some!!” is writer/director Richard Linklater’s ode to his own college days in Texas, where the members of the baseball team carouse, chase girls and philosophize about their hedonistic existence. It stars a bunch of unknown actors in a true ensemble performance where no one character dominates, but something like a couple dozen each get a share of the limelight.

Set in the four days before classes start, we fellow the players roam from room to room and party to party. They drink, dance, imbibe and partake of other earthly pleasures. There really is no story, but somehow from this aromatic stew of encounters emerges a recognizable theme of young people stepping out into the world and finding themselves.

I hesitate even to name any of the cast, since pointing out one brings up other names that should be mentioned, but here goes. Finnegan (Glen Powell) and McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) are senior ball players determined to win the championship come spring, and party hard until then. One is brutish and blunt, the other a silver-tongued cad, but together they’re bona fide leaders who set the tone for the rest.

Jake (Blake Jenner) is a freshman pitcher and our entry point into the bacchanalia. He’s not so much the main character as the locus of activities; we follow him around and discover this world as he does. Zoey Deutch plays the smart, sassy woman he meets on the first day and lackadaisically pursues from there on.

Set in 1980, the movie is so effective at evoking a time and place: coming down the off-ramp of the 1970s, itself a sort of mellowing of ‘60s ideals and chaos, coupled with the upbeat energy of the 1980s and a consequence-free atmosphere before AIDS and hard drugs killed the party for good.

Essentially an unofficial sequel to Linklater’s 1993 “Dazed and Confused” breakout, “Everybody Wants Some!!” is offbeat filmmaking at its best. Grab a brew (or something harder/smellier), kick back and drink it all in.

Bonus features are a bit lacking, probably due to the film’s poor box office showing. The DVD has exactly no extras, so you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray to get them.

This includes “More Stuff That’s Not in the Movie” -- deleted and extended scenes; “Rickipedia,” based on one character’s fount of knowledge; “Baseball Players Can Dance,” a montage of the various music scenes, “History 101: Stylin’ in the 80s,” a featurette looking at the clothes and culture of the era; and “Skills Videos,” which features some of the abilities the actors had to hone for their roles (beyond chugging, that is).

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Everybody Wants Some!!"

"This is one of the best days of my life ... until tomorrow."
                                                             --McReynolds

My God, I just loved the hell out of this movie.

Writer/director Richard Linklater is nearly unmatched in his skill at evoking a specific time, place and mood. His 1993 breakout film, "Dazed and Confused," looked at slacker high school kids in Texas circa 1976. Actually, it didn't just examine them, but plopped us right into their midst, attuned us to their vibe, made us feel like part of the crowd.

His newest -- and, I think, best -- film fast-forwards a few years to 1980, as those kids (or ones very much like them) move on to college. "Everybody Wants Some!!" is a haze of partying, drinking, doping, dancing and sex that unexpectedly segues into mystical profundity, as young people grow up fast and start to figure out who they are, even before classes start.

It's also a sports movie, but in the same sense as "Bull Durham," in that the real action happens off the field. We never even glimpse the baseball team at Southern Texas University playing in a game, just a single practice. Yet the sport remains central to the men's identities and outlook.

If it's possible for a movie to be all about sports without actually containing any, then this is it.

This is simply one of the best executions I've ever seen in ensemble acting, both as written in the screenplay by Linklater and played by a huge group of largely unknown actors. Each of the dozen or so players focused upon comes across as distinct and authentic. Even the shy freshman who becomes the target of jokes has his moment in the sun. Even the god-like seniors have instances of shortcomings.

The film is also a tiny bit autobiographical. Linklater played college baseball himself, and knows the rhythms and cadences of the team's speech and behavior like second nature. We see how they constantly bust on each other, turn everything into a competition, chase girls with the abandon of the pre-AIDS era. Yet they're supremely self-aware of their jock-itude, to use a made-up word they would probably embrace if they heard it.

These are the cool kids, but we witness how hard they work to make it look effortless.

You want a summary of the plot? I'm not really sure there is one. Set in the four days before classes begin, we follow the team as they migrant from party to party, prowling for girls, listening to music, smoking weed and dancing to different kinds of music.

They're rock 'n' roll guys in their souls, but disco is what the ladies want to dance to, so they put on their Tony Manero shirts and tight pants and shake their groove thing at the Sound Machine club. After that venue no longer becomes viable (for reasons you'll see), they move their act to the new urban cowboy saloon, and later a punk rock concert and theater student party. They joke about changing their clothes like camouflage to fit in -- wherever there's women, beer and a good time to be had.

I'd like to introduce you to all the characters, but I'd need to start a whole other review. Hours afteward, they're still living inside my head.

Jake (Blake Jenner) is the ostensible main character, a straight-arrow type, pitcher from a small California town. After some obligatory hazing, he's quickly assimilated into the motley crew, though pitchers as a rule are made to stand apart. Their job, after all, is to make them fail at theirs.

McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) and Finnegan (Glen Powell) are the seniors who unofficially run the team, different as night and day but united in their mission to win the championship come spring, and have a good time until then. McReynolds is a genuine pro prospect, strong as a bull and twice as intense. Finnegan is the resident philosopher/philanderer, a man without a plan who can talk himself into or out of any situation -- feminine undergarments, mostly.

There's also the insufferable wacko transfer pitcher (Justo Street) rumored to have a 95 mph fastball; the hick roommate with girlfriend problems (Will Brittain); the even-keeled black guy who takes Jake under his wing (J. Quinton Johnson); and Willoughby, the resident hippie who gives spacey ruminations on telepathy, guitar chord progressions and finding your inner freak.

(It doubtless sounds better after a few deep bong hits.)

Beverly (Zoey Deutch) is the smart girl who arrives at college with a typewriter in her car trunk; she blows off the seniors' enticements but favors Jake with a compliment, which later turns into the start of something.

There's a lot more I'd like to say about "Everybody Wants Some!!", but time and space run short. I haven't even mentioned the early '70s muscle cars the players all drive, the diverse smorgasbord soundtrack of period music, the snug T-shirts with piping on the sleeves and collars that show off the lean bodies. So much to experience, and think about after.

Mostly, what I'd like to do is go see the movie again, right now.