CINEMATIC WONDERS NEVER CEASE TO A MAZE
Mick LaSalle saw a lot of movies in 2016. And you read his thoughts on many of them, his reviews often run in the Houston Chronicle. Here is his list of the year’s 10 best films:
1.“Knight of Cups”: Terrence Malick is developing a new kind of cinema, a cinema of ecstasy, using voice-over rumination, snatches of conversation and striking images to depict the action of memory and consciousness on screen. It’s not for everybody, but get onto the film’s wavelength, and it’s like a religious experience. This film, starring Christian Bale, was Malick’s most extreme, and it’s among his best. 2.“Hacksaw Ridge”: Mel Gibson loves gore, or maybe he’s so horrified by it that he can’t resist presenting it. In any case, this wellmade and well-acted true story of World War II, starring Andrew Garfield as a battlefield medic, features some of the most harrowing battle scenes every committed to film — scenes that make the first half-hour of “Saving Private Ryan” look like a yoga class. 3.“La La Land”: This lilting musical romance — an ideal combination of old Hollywood technique and modern sensibility — presents Los Angeles as a place to fall in love and find your dreams. But there’s a sober and adult edge to the film, which recognizes that dreams don’t always come true, and that even when they do, all gains in life come with a loss. 4.“
Fences”: Denzel Washington directs himself and a brilliant cast (including Viola Davis) in the best ensemble performance of 2016. The material is first-rate — based on the August Wilson play — but what’s particularly extraordinary is the way in which Washington takes a role made indelible by James Earl Jones and makes it his own, offering an equally stellar interpretation of one of the American stage’s great roles. 5.“
Elle”: French actress Isabelle Huppert finds one of her best showcases in this Paul Verhoeven film about a wealthy businesswoman who gets brutally raped but never reports it to the police. It’s a complex performance, one of the year’s best, in which Huppert is often quite funny, but in the most subtle and deadpan of ways. She turns what might have been an odd thriller into the darkest of black comedies. 6.“Manchester by the Sea”: Casey Affleck plays a working man who has been scarred by life, in this interesting and successful experiment from writerdirector Kenneth Lonergan that dares to suggest that sometimes emotional damage is permanent. Affleck’s performance is extraordinary. 7.“
Moonlight”: A young man grows up in a terrible place, in this lyrical and vigorously filmed movie by Barry Jenkins. Presented in three acts, it tells a compelling story about the preciousness of the spirit and the distortions that a pernicious environment can inflict upon a young soul. 8.“The Girl on the Train”: A drunken, lost woman (Emily Blunt) rides the train all day and fantasizes about the life of a young woman that she sees through the window, in this adaptation of the Paula Hawkins’ best-seller. It’s a brilliant mood piece, with an atmosphere of mournful eroticism. 9.“
Arrival”: Amy Adams is a linguist who is brought in by the government to try to talk to space aliens, who have invaded various points on the planet. Not the usual sci-fi adventure, this is a somber, thoughtful film about time and love and what matters in life. And Adams is superb. 10.“Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates”: This is the funniest film of the year, with comic gambits going back to the Restoration, and it’s right to acknowledge this kind of comedy for a change — the kind that actually gets laughs.