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: "Kubo and the Two Strings"

“Kubo and the Two Strings” is my favorite animated film of 2016 so far, but it didn’t fare very well at the box office. I think people may have seen a story set in medieval Japan and dismissed it as anime. (Which in of itself is a terrible reason to avoid a movie.) So I’m genuinely hoping people will check it out on video, so more flicks like “Kubo” will be made.

Art Parkinson provides the voice of Kubo, a boy filled with loneliness and magic. With only one eye and a banjo, he trudges into town every day to spin his fantastic tales for the villagers, complete with sheets of paper that come to life, then returns to his seaside cave to care for his mother. A sorceress who fought a terrible long-ago battle with her own family, she’s nearly catatonic – but still has some magic up her sleeve

Later, Kubo is banished to the distant Farlands, placed on a quest to gather three mystic pieces of armor in order to take on the evil Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) – who happens to be his own grandfather. His aunts, known as the Sisters (Rooney Mara), are fearsome witches on the hunt.

Kubo’s only companions are Monkey (Charlize Theron), a protective charm brought to life as be his guardian, and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), a cursed former samurai trapped in the body of a bug.

The stop-motion animation is just astonishing, with a battle with a giant skeleton standing out especially. The depictions of ocean waves and crackling magic are astonishingly life-like.

Director Travis Knight and screenwriters Chris Butler and Marc Haimes continue the fine tradition of stop-motion animation – “Coraline,” “The Boxtrolls,” “The Night Before Christmas” – that’s seen a terrific run the last couple of decades.

Go see/rent/buy “Kubo and the Two Strings,” and let’s keep this ball rolling.

Bonus features are quite good, including a feature-length commentary track with Knight. The Blu-ray and DVD editions also come with three making-of documentaries, focusing the Japanese inspiration for the story, varied landscapes and the mythology behind Kubo.

Upgrade to the 3D combo pack and you add five more featurettes, including ones on monsters and music.

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Review: "Kubo and the Two Strings"

I think I was about halfway through the screening of “Kubo and the Two Strings” before I even realized it was stop-motion animation. The movement is so smooth, the backgrounds so dense and the action so unbound, I figured there was no way this could be the work of puppets slowly moved a frame at a time.

But Laika, the stop-motion studio behind “The Boxtrolls,” “ParaNorman” and “Coraline,” has made another gem with this lyrical story set in medieval Japan.

It’s about a boy, Kubo (voice of Art Parkinson), who has grown up as a virtual orphan near a tiny beach village. He lives in a cave with his mother, who exists in a seemingly never-ending daze, needing help even to eat. But in her more lucid moments she spins tales about the dark history of their family, including the death of his father, Honsou, a mighty warrior, and how as a baby Kubo had one of his eyes stolen by his own grandfather.

(Though the material is carefully presented not to be too frightening, the themes and action scenes may be too intense for smaller children. I would take my 5-year-old to see this, but probably not the 3-year-old.)

Kubo has inherited the magical gift of his mother, which he employs to tell variations on his mother’s stories in the village for money. Using a traditional three-string Japanese banjo, plinked with a triangular pick, and colored paper that comes alive at his beckon to turn into shape-shifting origami to illustrate his tales, it’s an astonishing blend of dazzling visuals and jaunty music. (Dario Marianelli provides the latter.)

Tragedy befalls when Kubo ignores his mother’s warning to never remain outside after sunset, when his grandfather, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), can see him. The boy finds himself exiled to the barren Farlands. His only companion is Monkey (Charlize Theron), a wooden charm he always carried that came alive via his mother’s spells. Monkey is very protective of the boy, and sternly urges him on his quest to retrieve the three pieces of magical armor necessary to defeat the enemy.

Along the way they encounter the Sisters, very creepy masked twins who are a disturbing amalgam of Japanese and European conceptions of witches, both voiced by Rooney Mara. They also run into this odd creature who looks like a man trapped inside a bug’s chitinous shell; he has no memory, other than insisting he was once a samurai who was cursed. Dubbing the forgetful fellow Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), he joins their little band.

The animation is just wondrous to behold. Several ocean scenes have a mesmerizing quality, especially once you realize there’s no water used. One encounter with a giant skeleton is particularly memorable, both for its fearfulness and intricacy.

“Kubo and the Two Strings” is not your typical animated flick. Though it’s suitable for (nearly) the whole family, it’s got an edge and a timelessness that goes far beyond the familiar cute-critters-and-life-lessons formula. It feels like an ageless Eastern parable, dreamed up by 21^st century American artists.

“If you must blink, do it now!” Kubo invokes at the beginning of each of his tales. Even a wink is too much magic to be missed.