the morning after

A good year.

the 2016 jdb awards

Here are my personal film awards for the movies of 2016!

A look back at the previous year where Carol won 6.

Picture

MOONLIGHT

"You know, it used to be that watching a film was a very special occasion, the same way flying was. Before, if you took a flight from New York to L.A., most of the windows would be open. Now we get on planes and we just close them because we're so used to what it feels like. I think the same thing has happened with cinema. We've gotten so used to certain story forms. I think our movie is formally and structurally unorthodox. And I think it's why people's reactions have been so genuine, because the movie that we gave them is not more of the same. I guess it's more of us in a certain way. But people don't know who the fuck we are, so that's a unique thing." -Director Barry Jenkins

Nominees

AQUARIUS

CHRISTINE

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

HELL OR HIGH WATER

LA LA LAND

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

TONI ERDMANN

20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Director

Ciro Guerra, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT 

"I started with a script that was very concerned with scientific fact, being true to history, and it was, with all things, very clear. Everyday was marked, every location was set, and all the stories were just tremendously clear. But as I started sharing it with the indigenous peoples and discussing it with them, I realized this was doing something of a disservice, that this was not the way the script needed to work. So, it became more and more infused with Amazonian storytelling, with their myths, and then I realized it was no longer important to be accurate. I came to understand that imagination and dreams were as important to them as any fact." -Ciro Guerra

Nominees

Maren Ade, TONI ERDMANN

Damien Chazelle, LA LA LAND

Barry Jenkins, MOONLIGHT

Kenneth Lonergan, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Actor

Casey Affleck, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

"The idea of being the person at the center of it was daunting in some way, because it’s a really challenging part, having to convey an awful lot of the interior life of a person with almost no opportunity to speak to that. It really just has to be palpable in the way that he behaves, and the tone he takes with people, and the very, very few moments when he cracks. That was tough.

I also know Kenny’s writing is so good that there’s a lot to discover in the movie. It’s not something you can clearly see at first glance. You have to read it again and again, and hopefully by the time you’re on set, shooting it, you have a sense of what’s happening that is deeper than just the words that are being spoken." -Casey Affleck

Nominees

Colin Farrell, THE LOBSTER

Ryan Gosling, LA LA LAND

Peter Simonischek, TONI ERDMANN

Denzel Washington, FENCES

Actress

Rebecca Hall, CHRISTINE

"For me, it just felt so significant to humanize this person, because on a really sort of straightforward level, I think it’s easy to humanize characters in art that are heroic or kind, or even the ones who have terrible things happen to them, but are good victims. I think it’s crucial to try and humanize the ones that we’d all rather look away from, or that frighten us, or the ones you don’t understand." -Rebecca Hall

Nominees

Annette Bening, 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Krisha Fairchild, KRISHA

Sandra Hüller, TONI ERDMANN

Isabelle Huppert, ELLE

Supporting Actor

Trevante Rhodes, MOONLIGHT

"Being a black person in America right now is shit, being a homosexual in America right now is shit, and being a black homosexual is the bottom for certain people. That’s why I’m so excited for people to see Moonlight. I don’t feel like there’s a solution for our problems, but this movie might change people. That’s why you do it — because you feel like you’re doing something that matters. This is someone’s story." -Trevante Rhodes

Nominees

Tom Bennett, LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

Jeff Bridges, HELL OR HIGH WATER 

Lucas Hedges, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Nilbio Torres, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT 

Supporting Actress

Paulina García, LITTLE MEN

"I wanted her to be a woman who tried her very best in moments of turmoil, she’s living in a very extreme situation, pressured to make life-changing decisions she is asked to make as soon as possible." -Paulina García 

Nominees

Robyn Fairchild, KRISHA

Naomie Harris, MOONLIGHT

Rachel Weisz, THE LOBSTER

Michelle Williams, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Original Screenplay

Maren Ade, TONI ERDMANN

"I always want that when there are two characters, there are two sides. I don’t like identification when you don’t feel free anymore. But you feel free because you can decide which one of the characters you identify with, and it’s even freer because these characters have not decided on things themselves—this is really important for me. On the other side, I come as close as possible to their conflict. It’s not like I say I want identification—some films do this, that’s not my main intention—it’s more that I want to try to create the situation where I can look behind the characters, or that there is always something more going on than the things they say. People ask me how I create this awkward feeling and so on, and I think that more than the film itself being awkward, this sense of awkwardness more comes out of the fact that you maybe find yourself in the characters. For me a film has to be something where you walk around a little bit, so identification without freedom doesn’t work for me." -Ade

Nominees

Efthymis Filippou & Yorgos Lanthimos, THE LOBSTER

Kenneth Lonergan, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Mike Mills, 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Taylor Sheridan, HELL OR HIGH WATER

Adapted Screenplay

Whit Stillman, LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

"The good thing about adapting good material is that you don’t have that horrible phase of either the blank page or the blank page filled with total nonsense that you need to throw out. So you start actually with good stuff, and then the problems come later. The problem is in how to use the good stuff so it works." -Stillman

Nominees

David Birke, ELLE

Ciro Guerra & Jacques Toulemonde Vidal, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

Barry Jenkins, MOONLIGHT

Rebecca Miller, MAGGIE'S PLAN

Ensemble

MOONLIGHT

Nominees

FENCES

HIDDEN FIGURES

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

Foreign Film

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

Nominees

AQUARIUS

ELLE

THE HANDMAIDEN

TONI ERDMANN

Documentary

CAMERAPERSON

"I'm a documentarian of the old school, pre-the-internet, pre-smartphones when everyone has become a cameraperson. And we can't control what happens to the images that we shoot. So it really set me thinking about all of these ethical dilemmas that have always existed for me. But they have a different meaning now than they ever have before." -Director Kirsten Johnson

Nominees

13TH

THE WITNESS

Cinematography

David Gallego, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

"This is the first movie that we’ve done together, though he was an assistant cameraman on my previous film. He’s also my wife’s brother so we’re close and have been friends for a long time. He’s learned his craft the long way, from the camera loader to the focus puller to the camera assistant to the lighting assistant. He knows how to perform every function on the camera crew. He’s done it all and knows it inside out on a technical, detailed level. He has also developed such an eye, which is not about doing things pretty, but about storytelling and how every image should tell a story. He has a sensibility for that.

Also, with regard to this movie, I have to say that I have never seen anyone work so hard. He was just unbeatable. We would all be destroyed by the middle of the day’s shoot, but he would be there whenever I’d ask him to do something difficult. He was like the enemy in Terminator 2. He was relentless. That had a large part to do with the movie coming into being. He became a leader and pulled us all through in a way because he believed in it so much. For all the crew it became a personal experience. This movie demanded of everyone whatever they did in any other movie times ten." -Director Ciro Guerra on cinematographer David Gallego

Nominees

Chung-hoon Chung, THE HANDMAIDEN

Edward Lachman, WIENER-DOG

James Laxton, MOONLIGHT

Emmanuel Lubezki, KNIGHT OF CUPS

Film Editing

Joi McMillion & Nat Sanders, MOONLIGHT

"When we first did it, we were just going scene by scene and then when we watched it all together, we found there’s a rhythm and flow in one section that needed to be applied to the second act or vice versa." -McMillon

Nominees

Nells Bangerter, CAMERAPERSON

Tom Cross, LA LA LAND

Leslie Jones, 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Jake Roberts, HELL OR HIGH WATER

Art Direction / Production Design

THE HANDMAIDEN

Nominees

CAFE SOCIETY

CHRISTINE

JACKIE

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

Score

Justin Hurwitz, LA LA LAND 

"The way that Legrand married the jazz to the orchestration and had big band elements but also had the lush strings and winds and counterpoints was really a huge inspiration to me. My challenge on this movie was how do I be inspired by some of my favorite movies and musicals but do my own thing? I took certain approaches like the jazz for the orchestration, but ultimately tried to compose and orchestrate in a way that would sound like this movie and not like those older movies." -Hurwitz

Nominees

Nicholas Britell, MOONLIGHT

Hauschka & Dustin O'Halloran, LION

Abel Korzeniowski, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

Cliff Martinez, THE NEON DEMON

Song

"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," LA LA LAND

"This song is optimistic, but also there’s pain in it. And Mia’s life isn’t resolved at the end of this. There’s something nice about not tying it up with a bow and making it too tidy at the end. This song is really special for me and I’m just so proud of it. I think it’s exactly what we envisioned this scene and this song would be. When Damien and I first started developing this, we had this musical we wanted to make. Nobody was letting us make it. We were so passionate about it and there didn’t seem to be a path to realize that dream of making La La Land. So we were feeling a lot of the same things that the characters in this movie are feeling: having these dreams, but not having permission to make your art yet. I still feel like a dreamer. I don’t feel accomplished yet, really. I don’t feel like I’ve arrived. I’d like to think that will always be the case because if I stop feeling like a dreamer, then I don’t think my music is going to be very good." -Hurwitz

Nominees

"Another Day of Sun," LA LA LAND

"City of Stars," LA LA LAND

"Runnin'," HIDDEN FIGURES

"Someone in the Crowd," LA LA LAND

Costume Design

Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

"So this is a little novella the she wrote, one of the first things that she wrote so it’s set earlier than most of her big novels like Pride & Prejudice and all of those. So we decided to set the film a little big earlier also, like late 1780s or 1790s, so the fashion between 1790 or even the mid 1790 really changed quite dramatically, a lot of it was influenced by the French revolution, historical events that were happening at the time. So that was the main that we spoke about at the beginning, is this going to work if we set this a bit earlier especially for Jane Austen when people already expect certain types of dresses. I really kind of pushed for setting it in the late 1780s. It’s a comedy as well, these big dresses, these really lend themselves to.. there’s such a drama about those costumes, I just felt  that it would really add to the performance, the door would open and she went swoosh into the room (laugh) and this huge dress o my gosh, these dresses are built for something like this, for drama and comedy and fun." -Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh

Nominees

Madeline Fontaine, JACKIE

Sang-gyeong Jo, THE HANDMAIDEN

Emma Potter, CHRISTINE

Mary Zophres, HAIL, CAESAR!

Make-Up & Hair

THE HANDMAIDEN

Nominees

DEADPOOL
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS
THE NEON DEMON
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

Sound

LA LA LAND

Nominees

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

KRISHA

MOONLIGHT

THE WITCH

Sound Editing

KRISHA

Nominees

CHRISTINE

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

LA LA LAND

MOONLIGHT

Visual Effects

THE JUNGLE BOOK

Nominees

ARRIVAL
KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

dan braun's top 10 films of 2016

Dan Braun has offered his Top 10 Films of 2016! Nice, wide array of films.


1.            Silence
2.            Manchester by the Sea
3.            La La Land
4.            Elle
5.            Paterson
6.            The Handmaiden
7.            Toni Erdmann
8.            O.J.: Made in America
9.            Certain Women
10.          The Lobster


Honorable Mentions: 20th Century Women; American Honey; Aquarius; Arrival; A Bigger Splash; Café Society; Cameraperson; Captain Fantastic; Cemetery of Splendor; De Palma; The Edge of Seventeen; Everybody Wants Some!!; Evolution; Fences; The Fits; Gimme Danger; Green Room; Hacksaw Ridge; Happy Hour; Hunt for the Wilderpeople; I Am Not Your Negro; I, Daniel Blake; Indignation; Jackie; Julieta; Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids; Knight of Cups; Krisha; Love & Friendship; Loving; Maggie’s Plan; Midnight Special; Miles Ahead; Moonlight; Mountains May Depart; Mustang; The Neon Demon; Neruda; Newtown; The Nice Guys; No Home Movie; Nocturnal Animals; Our Little Sister; Patriots Day; The Salesman; Sing Street; Sully; Things to Come; Tower; Zero Days.


A look back at his lists from 2015 and 2014.

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

films in grief

Grief can be a gauzy, center-less thing and also a distinct and crisp thing with a hot core. Two notable films of the year reflect characters in stages of grief. One character's loss is known only to a small town, the other's is known to the world. At times, they seem to be in control with a sane, buttoned-up appearance and at another time, swinging at air--out-of-control. To paraphrase one of their quotes: where is the line between reality and performance?

Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Pablo Larraín's Jackie delve into characters in the aftermath of tragedy. Larraín's film brings us intimately to Jackie Kennedy in the hours and days after her husband's assassination. We follow her closely in the closed door rooms of the White House and on the plane to and from Dallas. The film reels in unsteadiness, in stultifying, claustrophobic-ness, unusual narrative-cutting with Mica Levi's see-sawing strings adding to the discomfort of these large, immaculate, heavily-curtained rooms, packed cars and planes. As the Zapruder film has forever imprinted in American memory, there can be danger in open air as well. So the movie doesn't let up much when we go outdoors--feeling the uneasiness of Jackie at Arlington Cemetery trudging mud in kitten heels, around D.C. gardens with terse exchanges with a priest, and of course the funeral procession itself, an event of much mind-changing and deep concern (placards of Lincoln's own procession figure in a fascinating moment).

Natalie Portman acts up a storm in Jackie and it's an intriguing performance to watch in all its minute details. As Jackie never quite seemed comfortable on-camera (we flashback to her carefully constructed, televised White House tour), Portman's acting is visible as well, her voice practiced and rehearsed with a troubled sheen. As someone in shock, there is also immense responsibility on her character as she is determined to preserve her husband's legacy.

Portman is let down a bit by Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy, who is bizarrely accent-less and never really feels like Bobby except for his styled coif of hair. Perhaps the intention was to make Portman stand out in her gloom. Greta Gerwig is a warm presence as Jackie's secretary Nancy Tuckerman and is quite good in a glimmer of a period role that we aren't used to seeing her in. The costuming, by Madeline Fontaine, is gorgeous eye-candy; it's hard not to be seduced by the attire and the set design (even though filmed upon a soundstage, it really does feel you are within the White House confines) something of which Jackie herself was conscious and reverent of in preserving the history and aesthetics of her home. Like the film itself, a coda involving dozens of mannequins resembling Jackie and her simple but beautiful style as she departs the White House, insinuates the subsequent surface commercialism of her image and of her sorrow.

I wasn't enamored with Larraín's conceit of Theodore White's (played competently but blandly by Billy Crudup) Life interview at Jackie's home in Hyannis Port as a way of unfolding the story. Even though the refrains revealed a pithy side of Jackie's character in certain moments, the interview often felt redundant and repetitive. The flashbacks were much more deftly and intricately handled. In the immediacy of the assassination, events move so swiftly there isn't a moment to breathe, as we watch the new President being sworn in on the plane and Jackie walking about in a shocked daze in her blood-stained dress, everyone around her looking fearful and bewildered, unwilling to console her or unsure how to.

The film also has another subtext in its release year, when privacy continues to erode and in the aftermath of an obliterating election for Democrats. The fussy classiness of Jackie and the dashing, golden fable of "Camelot" (referenced many times) seems obscure now and so far away as Americans are about to hand over the White House to a crass and odious man who has publicly denigrated entire swaths of constituents for decades. Even if Jackie doesn't quite connect, its portrayal of grief is in the manifestation of the film's own discomfort and haziness, as another time in history is buried and reconstructed in knowing artifice once again. ***

Events move much more slowly in Lonergan's painterly character study Manchester by the Sea, the sort of once-in-a-decade movie that makes a harrowing emotional impact. Lee (Casey Affleck) goes back to his seaside Massachusetts hometown after his brother dies to help with his brother's son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Returning there and seeing his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) stirs up a painful past--a particularly horrific event in their lives on an icy night comes in lieu of a flashback sequence that is masterfully-directed--with a thundering, funereal Messiah soundtrack and deft editing (by the underrated Jennifer Lame)--but also raw in its realism. As Jackie sometimes does, the way Patrick deals with his loss is by means of distraction. It's uniquely realized and Hedges is particularly good with embodying the complexities of his character: a panic attack with slippery frozen foods conjures physical comedy, wryness and despair. His flat-footed, sophomoric trysts with girls adds some much-needed levity to the movie, even if they are the more generic moments of the picture. With symbolic references to thawing, the film shows how Lee's long inner suffering has chilled him to the point where he's unable to small-talk or connect with others in a deep way. And as many around Jackie seemed mystified by how to help or deal with her, those around Lee are confounded as well.

Affleck is astonishing. I was moved tremendously by his quiet portrayal of this laconic, pent-up man. As in Margaret, Lonergan, who also scripted, is in no hurry: he lingers on his characters and their painful, awkward situations in the way the best television dramas of today have the time to do. And yet, it's in the medium of film that Manchester's way of winding down to a conclusion feels so particularly affecting--Lee reaches out and says a simple statement that you know that it took a lot for him to say.

Williams provides a tearful scene in a small but pivotal appearance. As we also see Jackie, we also see her Randi as two very different people at different points of her life with a brazen New England accent. Even if Williams makes some transparent actorly decisions, knowing that she herself is someone who has experienced the loss of a husband at a young age, I couldn't help but be struck by an agonizing monologue where she attempts to connect with and apologize to her ex-husband.

Manchester by the Sea reminded me of Robert Redford's polished Ordinary People in its cinematic depiction of how people carry suffering in starkly different ways. Every so often a film can knock the wind out of you, which happened here on a, coincidentally, very windy day in New York. I wouldn't call that a pleasant experience but there is something rare and indescribably exciting when a movie has the capability of doing it. ****


-Jeffery Berg