My Top Movies for 2016....

plus some occasional notes... "Hail Caesar", Its an industry dominated by comic book options,schlocky uplift and video games, and mocking that trend sometimes requires that we dress up George Clooney as a Roman Centurion in a 1953 religious epic.... "10 Cloverfield Lane", You get the impression that John Goodman's phone doesn't ring much anymore with anything particularly challenging. So it was kewl to see him dominate the storyline in what could have easily been a M. Night Shyamalan knock off. "Weiner", Timely portrait of Anthony Weiner, horndawg & pathological narcissist and the numbing effect that has on his very necessary network of enablers. "Tickled" David D'Amato, notorious alleged on line vellication fetishist and stalker, gets his 15 minutes of malign fame. Since we are in the early stages of uploading our very minds into the internet, it seems appropriate to start making documentaries about our entirely curated "self presence" on line...and the weaponization of the same. "Bad Moms" I Laughed My Ass Off...I make no apologies. Mila Kunis & Kristen Bell need to be a new all estrogen comedy team, a'la Laurel & Hardy. I don't care if they are "Bad Lawyers", "Bad Manicurists" or "Bad US Representatives"....its all good to me, those dame got TIMING. And timing is in short supply these days. "Don't Think Twice" Best comedy I saw all summer hands down, caught the improv experience perfectly and the even more subtle process of "Plateau-ing" in your chosen field as well. "Florence Foster Jenkins" Best Movie About a Tone Deaf Opera Diva I've seen since Dorothy Commingore did "Citizen Kane". "Hell of High Water", If the scripts for The Star Trek Franchise Keep Tanking (and I think they will given that Regression to the Mean Rules Hollywood Like Tamerlane Ruled Central Asia) Chris Pine is gonna NEED to keep this movie on his Highlight Reel to Remind All and Sundry He Can Really Act. "The Lovers and the Despot". Dictators can be defied...Love Can Win Out Against The Whole World....and yes this was really a documentary. "The Beatles: Eight Days a Week" This was nothing revelatory, indeed at this point what would constitute a revelation about John Paul George and Ringo anyway? No I put this on my list simply because the famous Shea Stadium Concert (all forty minutes of it) was digitally remastered and included "as is". And THAT proved a revelation, none of those guys could hear their own music or themselves singing to say nothing of Ringo's Beat above that almighty adulatory din and STILL they didn't miss a note!! Practice Counts is my big takeaway.... "Arrival" Simply put the only other science fiction movie I saw this year that spoke to me, it got a little garbled and sentimental towards the end but kept its focus relentlessly on the "big picture" how do we communicate, indeed why do we do it....? Besides Amy Adams is often in bad movies but she is seldom bad herself in any bad movies.