Category: by Sheila Benson

by Andrew Wright, by David Coursen, by Jay Kuehner, by John Hartl, by Richard T. Jameson, by Robert Horton, by Sean Axmaker, by Sheila Benson, Contributors, lists

Parallax View’s Best of 2016

Written by Editor January 1, 2017

Welcome 2017 with one last look back at the best releases of 2016, as seen by the Parallax View contributors and friends and a few special invitations.

Sean Axmaker

1. Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
2. Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
3. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
4. Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie)
5. Sully (Clint Eastwood)
6. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
7. Neruda (Pablo Larrain)
8. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
9. American Honey (Andrea Arnold)
10. Our Little Sister (Kore-eda Hirokazu)
Could have made the list on another day: Arrival, Don’t Think Twice, Hail, Caesar!, Jackie, La La Land, The Lobster, Love & Friendship, Moonlight, The Neon Demon, The Witch

Pure moviegoing joys of the year: Sing Street (John Carney), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi)

Performance of the year: Isabelle Huppert in Elle

Worst film of the year (in a year when I managed to skip most of what everyone else has branded as terrible): Nocturnal Animals

Also a list at Village Voice, plus lists of Best Restorations / Revivals of 2016 and Best Blu-ray/DVD Releases of 2016

Sheila Benson

1. Moonlight
2. Paterson
3. Toni Erdmann
4. Manchester by the Sea
5. I, Daniel Blake
6. Elle
7. Loving
8. The Handmaiden
9. A Bigger Splash
10. Aferim!
Also a list at Village Voice

David Coursen

It includes only films screened in D.C in 2016. Numbers 5-7 were shown only once; the others had more extended runs.
1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Mountains May Depart
3. No Home Movie
4. Moonlight
5. The President
6. Sieranevada
7. Behemoth
8. Little Men
9. Remember
10. Sully
Honorable Mention: Mustang, Certain Women, The Handmaiden

No D.C. venue saw fit to screen the monumental Out 1: Noli me Tangere, so it’s not included. But even in the diminished format of a Netflix streaming and with all the ludicrous writhing and moaning, it’s such a grand and heroically ambitious muddle that I likely would have made it a rather incongruous neighbor of Moonlight.

John Hartl

Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
Indignation
13^thCaptain Fantastic
The Lobster
Hell or High Water
A Man Called Ove
The Innocents
La La Land
A second 10: Florence Foster Jenkins, A War, Love & Friendship, Family Fang, Take Me to the River, Arrival, Weiner, Southside With You, Snowden, Sparrows.

Robert Horton
(originally published in Seattle Weekly)

1. Aquarius
2. Our Little Sister
3. The Fits
4. Cemetery of Splendor
5. Things to Come
6. Everybody Wants Some!!
7. Sully
8. Paterson
9. Green Room
10. Aferim!
Runner-ups: My Golden Days, The Lobster, American Honey, Les Cowboys, Certain Women, Disorder, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, The Love Witch, Love & Friendship.

Richard T. Jameson

I have some key 2016 releases to catch up on, so this alphabetical listing simply celebrates ten films I liked a lot.
American Honey
Aquarius
Arrival
Cemetery of Splendor
Elle
Green Room
Hell or High Water
Manchester by the Sea
Paterson
Sully
Things to Come

Oh … that’s eleven. OK, so it’s eleven.

Jay Kuehner
(originally published on IndieWire)

1. Toni Erdmann
2. Cemetery of Splendor
3. Aquarius
4. Kate Plays Christine
5. Neon Bull
6. Happy Hour
7. Right Now, Wrong Then
8. Homeland: Iraq Year Zero
9. Certain Women
10. Moonlight

Moira Macdonald
(originally published in The Seattle Times)

In alphabetical order:
Arrival
Fences
The Handmaiden
Hell or High Water
The Innocents
La La Land
Loving
Maggie’s Plan
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Other movies I loved, any of which might have made the first list on a different day, were L’Attesa, Certain Women, Christine, Dark Horse, Don’t Think Twice, Finding Dory, Little Men, Love & Friendship, Our Little Sister, Southside With You, Tower.

Andrew Wright
(originally published in Salt Lake City Weekly)

1. Paths of the Soul
2. The Fits
3. Shin Godzilla
4. Elle
5. Hell or High Water
6. Green Room
7. The Witch
8. Tower
9. Manchester by the Sea
10. Arrival
Also a list at Seattle Screen Scene and links to reviews of select films here

Filmmakers

Megan Griffiths (director, Eden, Lucky Them, The Night Stalker)
(originally published in The Talkhouse)

1. Moonlight
2. American Honey
3. Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell
4. Uncle Kent 2
5. Free in Deed
6. 13th
7. Captain Fantastic
8. Manchester by the Sea
9. Lamb
10. The Lobster

John Jeffcoat (director, Bingo: The Movie, Outsourced, Big in Japan)

This is one bizarre list. It shows I have kids and I didn’t get out much in 2016! And that TV continues to stay strong (sorry I cheated with the TV shows).
Captain Fantastic
Deadpool
Storks (biggest surprise, I may have been drinking)
Doctor Strange
Cameraperson
Minimalism
Rogue One
Goliath
Silicon Valley
Stranger Things (my favorite)

Jennifer Roth (executive producer: The Wrestler, Black Swan, Laggies, Blood Father)

Alphabetical order because I kind of liked them all equally.
Certain Women
Gimme Danger
Green Room
Hell or High-water
I, Daniel Blake
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Paterson
Sing Street
Weiner

Lynn Shelton (director, Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, Laggies)

There were many films that I didn’t get a chance to see this past year so this list comes from a limited survey. That being said, I feel very strongly about every one of them.
Moonlight
13^th
The Lobster
Victoria
Arrival
American Honey
Moana
Kubo and the Two Strings
Hell or High Water
Atlanta *
*this is not a movie, it is a TV show on FX, but it is so anti-television in its cadence and cinematography and writing that I felt a very strong urge to include it in this list.

Rick Stevenson (director, Magic in the Water, Expiration Date, The Millennials)

La La Land
Captain Fantastic
Moonlight
Hell or High Water
Fences
Hidden Figures
Manchester by the Sea
Love & Friendship
The Lobster
Silence

Programmers

Beth Barrett (Interim Artistic Director, SIFF)
(originally published on IndieWire)

In no order, here are 10 works that really affected me in 2016:
Tower
La La Land
Stranger Things
Captain Fantastic
Moonlight
Tickled
Kedi
Midnight Special
Arrival
The Handmaiden
Every year I resolve to see more, champion more unknowns, and challenge myself more. Going into 2017, I resolve to make sure that the stories of the world keep getting seen.

Courtney Sheehan (Executive Director, Northwest Film Forum)
(originally published on Seattle Screen Scene)

1. Kaili Blues (Bi Gan)
2. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
3. Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi)
4. A Rendering*
5. Los Sures (Diego Echeverria)
6. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sangsoo)
7. Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
8. No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman)
9. Crumbs (Miguel Llansó)
10. Tower (Keith Maitland)
Not yet released: Lily Lane, Ma, Rat Film, The Challenge, Kino Otok, The Black Pin, My Own Private War, Starless Dreams
Recalling 2015’s best unreleased films, all of which subsequently played Seattle in 2016 except for The Event: Above and Below, Cemetery of Splendor, Men Go to Battle, Uncle Kent 2, My Golden Days, A War, The Event
*The only short on this list, by LIMITS, or Seattle-based choreographer/dancer Corrie Befort and sound artist/musician Jason E. Anderson. Video shot and edited by Adam Diller.

More Seattle lists:

Mike Ward has been polling Seattle film critics for the Seattle Film Awards for a few years. The winners for 2016 will be announced in early January. UPDATE: Winners announced January 5.

Seattle Screen Scene invited film critics for their own compilation.

Polls / Lists

Village Voice
Time Out London
Slant
Sight and Sound / BFI
Roger Ebert.com
Indiewire
Film Comment

Other lists

2016 additions to the Library of Congress National Film Registry
Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell’s Ten Best Films of … 1926
A Year of Loss (David Hudson remembers those we lost in 2016)

by Sheila Benson, Commentary, Contributors

Oscar, You’re Breaking My Heart (but you always do)

Written by Sheila Benson January 16, 2016

I have no proof whatever that when the final ballots were tallied, late at night at the Academy, and the prospect of a second year of the dreaded hashtag #OscarsSoWhite hung over the room, considerable thought was given to The Messenger of this news. Messengers.

I do know that it was really nice to see that Guillermo Del Toro and Ang Lee were given the first swath of nominations to read. The second list was handled by redoubtable Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and John Krasinski.

It was a gallant show of inclusiveness, before the truth was out and hellfire rained down from every side.

– Sylvester Stallone but not Michael B. Jordan? So, who was Creed about, an old, slow white guy from Philly?

– Idris Elba nowhere in sight, unless you count Netflix ads.

– Straight Outta Compton? Not exactly the screener that . . .ummm, mature Academy voters bring out to share with poker cronies.

– Women? Don’t start. Freud said it best, “My god, what do women want?”

– Spike Lee? Maybe no one could pronounce Chi-Raq. In any case, he just got an honorary Oscar. . . in November, at one of those ceremonies that happen way, way off-stage. Check out his speech, every last minute of it.

Don’t even want to think what he’s saying today. No, actually, I do.

Continue reading at Critic Quality Feed

by Sheila Benson, Contributors, Essays

“The Citizen Kane of the digital era. . .”

Written by Sheila Benson February 11, 2015

That’s not me talking. That’s what the great editor (great friend) Dov Hoenig said about Birdman the other day, as his wife Zoe and I were trying to shorten the distance between London and Seattle over the phone.

My enthusiasms you can take with a giant grain of salt. Dov’s you should take very very seriously. The secret in the IMDb listing of his 40+ films, abroad and crucially with Michael Mann, is that it spans movies shot on film (Thief, Manhunter, Last of the Mohicans) and digitally (Heat, Collateral Damage) and he knows the virtues and frailties of both. Never heard Dov — impassioned but also measured and serious — be this swept away before and this seems the time to share his fervor.

What particularly revved me up was seeing Birdman a second time last week. I’d forgotten just what a deckle-edge comedy it is, with all its soulfulness. I think it’s a reflection of my inner Olive Kitteridge that I’ve held fast (for 3 months!) to not just popping in the screener so that my husband could see what I’ve been hyperventilating about, but insisting on a dark quiet theatre, so he could see it as it should be seen, in its full wonder. Worked, too; he has come back to moments from it, again and again.

Continue reading at Critic Quality Feed

by Sheila Benson, Commentary, Contributors, Television

Wait, wait! First the Golden Globes, THEN the Oscar nominations.

Written by Sheila Benson January 18, 2015

I know, I know: old and slow. My only possible defense is that we have either been guests or had guests since December 23rd, a sojourn involving passports, dear distant family, dear semi-distant friends and a last emotional good-bye at the airport yesterday. The cats barely know what lap to turn to, while I’m summoning up all my reserves to turn up in two matching shoes.

To get to those Globes: they were just Sunday and I know I’m behind on the newspapers, but where’s the outrage? Or even the irony over the results of the Globes TV Movies or Mini-series category? I’m talking about the sublime Olive Kitteridge, anchored by the unsparing eloquence of Frances McDormand, being beaten by the TV show Fargo. Let’s be honest, the initial good will of Fargo-the-miniseries would never have existed without our collective infatuation with McDormand’s singular character in, ummm, Fargo-the-film. (Just the memory of the actress’s back, squared in rectitude as she marched up to get her Fargo Oscar in 1997 is enough to kick off a smile.)

Continue reading at Critic Quality Feed

by Andrew Wright, by Jay Kuehner, by Kathleen Murphy, by Richard T. Jameson, by Robert Horton, by Sean Axmaker, by Sheila Benson, Contributors

Parallax View’s Best of 2014

Written by Editor January 1, 2015

Welcome 2015 with one last look back at the best releases of 2014, as seen by the contributors to Parallax View and a few notable Seattle-based film critics.

Sean Axmaker

My list this year is light on foreign movies, largely because I didn’t get out to as many festival screenings as I have in past years, and because many of the foreign language films placing highly on other lists have not opened in this corner of the world.

1. Boyhood (Richard Linkater, US)
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, US)
3. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, US)
4. Gone Girl (David Fincher, US)
5. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, UK)
6. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, US)
7. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
8. Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran)
9. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, Australia)
10. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, Iran/US)
And because this film turns it up to 11. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho, US / South Korea / France / Czech Republic) – high concept science fiction thrillers are always best when serving as metaphors for sociopolitical commentary. Amiright?

More honorable mentions (in alphabetical order: Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, Sweden), The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones, US), The Immigrant (James Gray, US), John Wick (Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, US), Locke (Steven Knight, UK), A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor, US), Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, US), Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, US), The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher, Germany), We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodyson, Sweden), What Now? Remind Me (Joaquin Pinto, Portugal)

Other published Top Ten Lists: Village Voice Film Poll, Keyframe
Also: Best of 2014 on Blu-ray and DVD

Sheila Benson

(as published in Village Voice)

1. Birdman
2. Foxcatcher
3. Mr. Turner
4. The Immigrant
5. Two Days, One Night
6. Leviathan
7. Nightcrawler
8. Force Majeure
9. Get on Up
10. Winter Sleep

Jim Emerson

(as presented at Frye Art Museum Critics Wrap)
1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
2. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
3. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
4. Calvary (John Michael McDonaugh)
5. The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones)
6. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
7. Happy Valley (Amir Bar-Lev)
8. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
9. The Immigrant (James Gray)
In a realm of its own, circling above the calendar year considerations: A Summer’s Tale (Eric Rohmer, 1995; first US release, 2014)

Robert Horton

(as published in Seattle Weekly)
1. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
2. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
3. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
4. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
6. Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier) and The Rover (David Michôd) (tie)
8. Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund)
9. The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones)
10. Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman)

Other published Top Ten Lists: Frye Art Museum Critics Wrap

Richard T. Jameson

1. Under the Skin
2. Only Lovers Left Alive
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel
4. The Homesman
5. Two Days, One Night
6. American Sniper
7. Birdman
8. Mr. Turner
9. Ida
10. The Better Angels

Jay Kuehner

(as published on Fandor)
1. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (Ben Russell and Ben Rivers)
3. Jealousy (Philippe Garrel)
4. The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher)
5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
6. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
7. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
8. Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
9. Story of My Death (Albert Serra)
10. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)
11. Like Father, Like Son (Kore-Eda Hirokazu)

Moira Macdonald

(as published in The Seattle Times)
(in alphabetical order)
Birdman
Boyhood
Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Life Itself
Like Father, Like Son
Love Is Strange
Mood Indigo
Selma

Brian Miller

(as published in Seattle Weekly)
1. Birdman
2. Boyhood
3. Ida
4. Whiplash
5. Frank
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
7. Force Majeure / Gone Girl (tie)
8. National Gallery
9. Snowpiercer
10. The Homesman

Kathleen Murphy

1. Under the Skin
2. Only Lovers Left Alive
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel
4. The Homesman
5. Ida
6. Mr. Turner
7. American Sniper
8. Two Days, One Night
9. A Most Violent Year
10. Force Majeure

Other published Top Ten Lists: Frye Art Museum Critics Wrap

Andrew Wright

1. Snowpiercer (Joon-ho Bong)
2. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
3. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
4. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
6. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
7. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
8. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
9. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
10. Cold in July (Jim Mickle)

Lists of lists:

Village Voice (poll and lists)
Roger Ebert.com
Keyframe Best Feature Films of 2014
Keyframe Daily Lists and Award 2014 Index

Polls
Film Comment
Indiewire Poll
Keyframe
Roger Ebert.com
Sight and Sound
Time Out London

Other lists
2014 additions to the National Film Registry
Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell’s Ten Best Films of … 1924
New York Times Year in Culture

by Sheila Benson, Contributors, remembrance

The remarkable Mr. Champlin

Written by Sheila Benson November 20, 2014

It’s rare that you can say that one person changed the trajectory of your life, and for the better. Charles Champlin, who changed mine in every way, died on Sunday. He was 88, and at the end he had Alzheimer’s but the earlier deviltry was that in 1999, he’d developed age-related macular degeneration that left him legally blind.

That must have been purgatory for someone whose life had been the graceful consideration of books and films, films and books. As the writer that he was, above all else, he wrote about his AMD too, in a sliver of a book, “My Friend, You Are Legally Blind.” Purportedly, it’s about ways to get the better of the disease; it’s really a look at lifelong gallantry.

The persona that Champlin presented to the world: a man foursquare as the aviator glasses that became his trademark, wasn’t all of him, not by a Hammondsport mile. The essential Champlin who could shift among a half-dozen settings and arrive intact and unruffled at each one, was compound-complex. He’d have to be; he was functioning as an editor, an essayist, a critic, most certainly a teacher, a lecturer, a sometimes author and a card-carrying devotee of the hurly-burly of Cannes. And, somewhere in all that, he and his extraordinary wife Peggy were raising a family of six.

Continue reading at Critic Quality Feed

by Jay Kuehner, by Kathleen Murphy, by Richard T. Jameson, by Robert Horton, by Sean Axmaker, by Sheila Benson, Contributors, lists

Parallax View’s Best of 2013

Written by Editor January 1, 2014

Welcome 2014 with one last look back at the best releases of 2013, as seen by the contributors to Parallax View and a few notable Seattle-based film critics.