top 10 films of 2016

A rough year in many respects but not, in my opinion, for film.

A look back at '15.

10.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Expecting a light coming-of-age yarn, I was surprised how deep this picture went. The characters, especially its women, and the '79 Santa Barbara setting are so lovingly realized by the cast and Writer / Director Mike Mills. 

9.

CHRISTINE

Unnerving slice of life of Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall, in a searing performance), a fluff piece, small-city Florida news anchor, who committed suicide on live TV. 

8.

HELL OR HIGH WATER

Broadly entertaining, nimble neo-Western noir of two brothers robbing from and avenging banks in Texas while two aging police chiefs are on their trail. Lots of fun bit parts (especially the tellers and the waitresses) and Jeff Bridges in full ham mode.

7.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

Deliciously tart Austen adaptation shows off the genius of her writing and also fits like a glove for Writer / Director Whit Stillman's deft observing of social status shenanigans. Kate Beckinsale's wry and biting comic performance was a surprise for me as was Tom Bennett's bright, hilarious supporting turn as the film's doddering fool.

6.

AQUARIUS

I was completely absorbed in the subtle complexities of this story of a Brazilian woman (an amazing Sonia Braga) fiercely determined to stay in her apartment (and to preserve all its material and family history) despite threats from condominium developers. The ending is unforgettable.

5.

TONI ERDMANN

Maren Ade's funny drama of an uptight corporate shark (Sandra Hüller) and her silly, dilly-dallying, but deeply concerned father (Peter Simonischek) takes its time, and maneuvers itself in unexpected ways.

4.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

I was gutted by Kenneth Lonergan's tragedy and Casey Affleck's perfect portrayal of bottled-up grief, but also oddly elevated that I had witnessed such a finely-crafted and performed film.

3.

LA LA LAND

Damien Chazelle's dreamy, just so slightly-exaggerated L.A. musical. An enjoyable, scrappy little bauble for most of its running time until its brilliantly-executed and bittersweet finale elevates it to a whole new level.

2.

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

I left the theater feeling completely changed  and haunted by Columbian writer / director Ciro Guerra's beautifully shot, eerie and intoxicating film on the ravages of colonialism. 

1.

MOONLIGHT

Moonlight is a quiet, quaint picture that ends up packing a powerful punch. The ensemble cast is sublime. Writer / Director Barry Jenkins' triptych structure is as daring as it is elegant. 

The best of the rest:

The Handmaiden, Elle, Fences, Wiener-Dog, Krisha, Little Men, Lion, Morris from America, Goat, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Everybody Wants Some!!, Maggie's Plan, Hidden Figures, The Witch, The Lobster, Finding Dory, Jackie, Divines, Other People, Cameraperson, Neruda, The Fits, Nocturnal Animals, Cafe Society, 13th, The Witness, Weiner, Knight of Cups, The Nice Guys, Hail, Caesar!, The Shallows, Cemetery of Splendor, Don't Breathe, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Hello, My Name is Doris, The Family Fang, Hush, Yosemite, Take Me to the River

-Jeffery Berg

if it bleeds, it leads

I am listening to Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" to try to get into striking the right notes for this review; "I Wonder..." is a song with an ebullient sound that's wrapped up in longing is so sarcastically and dramatically placed in Antonio Campos' tart, upsetting, and completely engrossing Christine, the devastating chronicle of Christine Chubbuck who, in 1974, committed suicide on a live TV broadcast. For myself, the title of the film instantly conjures John Carpenter's movielization of Stephen King's killer Plymouth Fury horror show and yet the reference doesn't completely miss the mark as Campos' vision sometimes mirrors Carpenter, with elegant, moodily-lit compositions and a claustrophobic portrayal of a tormented outcast. The time period and subject matter also conjures Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 biting news satire symphony masterpiece Network (Chayefsky claims to have started writing the film before Chubbuck's death). Though Christine is more internal and less extravagantly-realized.

Rebecca Hall, with theatrics in her marrow--daughter of an opera singer and a famed theater director--is oft-forlorn, pale and tenderly expressive in her roles. She has winningly run through many parts in this early century of somewhat hapless, humanized misfits. As Chubbuck, a TV news reporter of lite-local Floridian stories who wants to move up in the ranks, she's obviously game to this larger-than-life role--a woman with an awkward gait thundering through green and mustard yellow-tinged early-70s decor, delivering emotionally sea-sawing monologues hardened by a Northeastern accent, as a virtual stampede through celluloid. And yet with Hall's knack for tenderness and subtle humor, it's impossible to say she overplays the part. Hall is completely possessed and the audience is wound-up within her psychosis. After my screening when she appeared onstage for an interview, polished and limber, with her soft British lilt and cute bob haircut, it was a breathtaking contrast, even for someone familiar with her work already. She is surrounded by a seasoned, affecting ensemble (mostly theater actors) including J. Smith-Cameron as her mother, whom she lives with, and Maria Dizzia as Christine's closest friend. It's heartbreaking watching these characters try their best to reach out to Christine, but who just can't quite connect. As a slightly arrogant colleague, Michael C. Hall plays a sort of love interest who takes her on a date to a group therapy session (a strong scene)--but it's unclear whether Christine is really in love with him or is just trying to create a story-line to "normalize" her life in the eyes of others. Even though the film is full of details and the many acutely constructed scenes of conflict, I appreciated the ambiguous nature of Craig Shilowich's script, which alludes to, rather than shows, another life Christine previously had in Boston. The sexism Christine faces and her cryptic intelligence are richly realized. In her puppet shows for hospitalized children, which would perhaps be sentimental and clunky in the hands of another actor, Hall is moving and terse in her simple reenactments of how to deal with a cruel world.

The irony of the AM radio soundtrack and homages (Karen Carpenter appears on Chubbuck's wall) runs deep and haunting throughout. Chubbuck herself was reportedly a Roberta Flack devotee and had her music played at her funeral. "You fill up my senses," Christine belts with John Denver on the radio of her VW bug--a happy glimmer until she stiffens up again in worry from her perceptions of a driver next to her. It's the best use of period music I've seen in a picture lately. And like the costuming by Emma Potter, it feels organic, of its time and of Christine's universe. Although the film can be blunt and exacerbating, especially seen through Chubbuck's eyes, we aren't bludgeoned with Nixonian references and yet we feel the cynicism, distress and confusion of the era: a move to more sensationalism in news coverage; the mistreatment of women in the workplace; a gun store owner pitched in unwarranted fear; all of this is still easy to relate to for Americans in some respects in a doozy of an election year. And while the film looms largely in the gloom of Christine's psychosis and desperation, Dizzia figures in a dark and moving coda with a fitting, plaintive sing-a-long to the "Mary Tyler Moore" theme. What is bliss in these slices of time and where can it be found? ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

christine

Looking forward to seeing Christine. Rebecca Hall looks amazing in it.

christine: one cold-blooded hotrod by spencer blohm

However silly the premise may seem, the 1983 film Christine is a classic of the modern horror genre — a work that blends the supernatural world with the industry of modern life. While the novel was a success, as many of Stephen King’s works have been, the idea of bringing it to the big screen would require a deft touch. Enter John Carpenter, who by this time, had gained quite a reputation for being able to harness and use tension and fear in his films with offerings such as Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing.

If Carpenter hadn’t become involved, the film could have ended up just another failed 1980’s B horror film, forgotten by the masses and ironically celebrated by the aficionados of bad film. However, Stephen King and John Carpenter both shared certain artistic and societal ideas, and their sensibilities complemented each other well.



Christine is, superficially, the story of an alienated young man who comes into possession of a fifties Plymouth that has a mind of its own. What’s more, it has a penchant for murder. At its core, Christine is about the inanimate becoming animate, the idea and meaning of the soul, and the idea of an unstoppable enemy who is untouched by the methods one would usually rely upon to vanquish a foe.

Historically speaking, the concept of “the Other” has existed for quite a long time, but the first truly modern incarnation of this idea was in the silent masterpiece Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang in 1927 it was the first film to truly posit the idea of a creature that while not human, maintains a notion of humanity. It didn’t merely set a precedent for a film like Christine — it set the precedent for all contemporary film. Similar in fashion to the eponymous vehicle of Christine, the Robot, or as it is called in the film, “Maschinenmensch,” causes nothing but pain and sorrow for those associated with it and in the end is destroyed to protect not only the protagonists of the respective stories. While both the villains in each story are machine at their core, Metropolis’s antagonist is not known to be a robot, while the 1957 Plymouth Fury in Christine is obviously just that — a car imbibed with the angered spirit of a human being.

Yet another shared source of inspiration for Carpenter and King were the EC horror comics of the fifties — particularly the stories by Ray Bradbury. Christine is reminiscent of a Bradbury story that was used by EC entitled “The Coffin,” which deals with a killer coffin that has been engineered to seal itself and bury itself six feet under. Bradbury’s work commonly dealt with many themes that are recurrent in both Carpenter and King’s work: denigration of the environment, cultural insensitivities manifesting in horrendous ways, and, to tie it back in to Christine directly, autonomous technology. Bradbury was famous for saying that “People want me to predict the future. When all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it.” This ethos seems to be simpatico with the personal philosophies of Carpenter and King. And where Bradbury’s eco-conscious The Martian Chronicles stories helped to create for a world where energy consumers are becoming more conscientious, Christine evidently failed to instill a deep enough fear of automated cars, as they’re currently being developed!

The future can look bleak in these films and novels of course, but these works do have one thing in common; the victory, or perceived victory as is the case with Christine, of the “true” humans. The Robot Maria is destroyed after the masses realize what they have wrought by following her, the vehicle in Christine is destroyed after the connection is made between suspicious deaths and the possessed car, and Bradbury’s automated house on Mars burns itself to the ground when it’s left to its own devices. The hope that human ingenuity and our connections to each other will always provide us the means to survive is the backbone of these stories — the technological aspects simply a modern day representation of “the Other.”

-Spencer Blohm

stephen king minimal alt movie posters by nick tassone

via Nick Tassone

troubled teens of horror by karen g.

And you thought your high school years were bad.  Here’s a look at some supernatural horrors (old and new) to help put those awkward teenage years into perspective.  One thing we learn from these teens…never judge a book by its cover.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Fright Night (1985)

Carrie (1976)

Idle Hands (1999)

Ruby (1977)

Tamara (2005)

Christine (1983)

Deadly Friend (1986)

The Uninvited (2009)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

To the Devil A Daughter (1976)

976-Evil (1988)