The Long Road Out

Maybe this is the year that the film distribution model will change. The movie theater distribution network  has supported the big distributors and kept indie films hidden from nearly all viewers.  I won't miss it--though most of my friends still seem to long for the days of sticky seats and a very limited slate of major theater releases.  Could we at least have hybrid?  If COVID taught us anything, it's an awareness of how limited we've been by the six-plex model.   Here's what I have from the year COVID changed everything, including the film industry.  I'd like to thank Netflix.  It's been the central lifeline for so many of us as we struggled to replace our personal panoplies of cultural options.  The weight transferred to, essentially, one provider.  Netflix--you pulled through for us in 2020.  Best films of 2020 Nomadland-- it would be sufficient if the only thing this movie did was introduce you to your new mentors: Linda May, ...

I have a preference for complex characters who are not dressed up Hollywood style, in narratives that offer surprises or challenge genres.   If you agree, you'll love these movies as much as I do. Rolling ranking of top films of 2018, including two that start with "I am Not..." BlackkKlansmen-- there's so much to love about this film.   First, Spike Lee has once again done something wonderful after a period of what appeared to be intentionally amateurish efforts (OK, some would argue that he went off a cliff after the Original Kings of Comedy in 2000.  Anyway, it's been a long time.)   Then there's Denzel Washington's son, John David Washington, who acts as well as, and dances better than, his dad.  And there's the politics--in this happy story, the 1972 versions of the Charlottesville supremicists actually blow themselves up while trying to assassinate the black student leader at Colorado College.  And Adam Driver at his most wonderful--"I...

Top-ranked films of 2016 Louder than Bombs --not released in the US or UK until April (though elsewhere in 2015) this Westchester examination is in a league with  The Ice Storm .   People are really really struggling up there, it turns out, and sometimes finding transcendence.  Extraordinary Jesse Eisenberg, Isabelle Huppert, and David Strathairn...and not just saying this because the director Joachim Trier is Scandinavian... Embrace of the Serpent-- this is actually at 2015 release but no one saw it in the US until 2016--when it lost the Best Foreign Film award to Son of Saul .  It shouldn't have (no comments about the surprise that a holocaust film won out over a true original gem with radical environmental and racial politics).   The movie tells of  the relationships between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of 40 years.  The relationships show the vi...

All in all, it's been a decent year for films, commercial or otherwise, though we suffered through unusually thin gruel for the first six months of 2015.   My favorite films of the year, in descending order... 1001 Grams --Bent Hamer, of Kitchen Stories  fame, does it again--a loving look at characters literally trying to find the weight and balance of life as they lose parents and partners.  Hamer should really be on the list of smartest directors--with Mark Duplass, Lars van Trier, and a handful of others who actually care about their stories and characters.   Your soul does, in fact, weigh 21 grams--and you'll value every dust particle after watching this one. Embrace of the Serpent-- this is actually a 2015 release but no one saw it in the US until 2016--when it lost the Best Foreign Film award.  It shouldn't have (no comments about the surprise that a  holocaust film won out over a true original gem with radical environmental and racial politics). ...