Awards Contenders In Brief - Hell or High Water

True sleeper hits feel like a total rarity these days. So when a film becomes one, it feels like a bit of an event. David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water was a genuine sleeper hit this summer, which could have been because the Summer of 2016 was a pretty dire time for movies, let alone completely original stories, let alone westerns. So it's pretty big that this film stuck around like it did, made the money it made, and made it all the way to the Oscars with four nominations.

And really, if I'm being honest, it's pretty much perfect. Taylor Sheridan's screenplay is as notable for what it does as it is for what it doesn't do. It doesn't give us the whole story right off the bat, doling out bits and pieces of the plot throughout the entire running time. It doesn't provide any easy answers for us or for the characters, putting those that survive the main action (this is a western crime drama, you know there's gonna be some deaths) in a morally compromised position and not giving any real sort of closure. It also doesn't stay in one genre - it's a western, but feels modern; it's a crime story, but doesn't feel like a thriller; it's a slow, thoughtful drama, but it's also funny as hell. And it is perfectly paced. Sheridan, with help from director David Mackenzie, is also really good at social commentary - I don't think I've ever seen a film that so perfectly captures the desolate desperateness of America's more rural areas while showing exactly why conservative politics that put big business first are precisely what they DON'T need. This is easily one of the best screenplays of the year, an utter delight from start to finish.

But also, if I'm being honest, there's nothing particularly new or surprising here. Just a solid story told exceptionally well. There's a lot to admire in the performances - who would have guessed Chris Pine could make stoic masculinity so compelling? Props to the casting department, who made perfect choices all the way down the line - especially in how they slowly accumulate detail until it feels like we know these characters completely. It's an incredibly smart film that doesn't "feel" smart. It's just one helluva ride.

Awards Contenders In Brief - Moonlight

There's been a lot of talk of representation in the movies this year, especially in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite. It initially seemed like Nate Parkers' Birth of a Nation would be the film carrying the flag all the way to the Oscars, but in its place has been Barry Jenkins's Moonlight. Which is fitting given how important LGBTQ issues have been recently.

Moonlight is the story of a young black man growing up in Miami. His mother is a crack addict. He's constantly beat on at school. So one day, when drug dealer Juan finds him hiding out in an abandoned crack house, he doesn't speak much. Juan and his girlfriend Theresa become like surrogate parents as he grows up. Moonlight is told in three parts, each titled for one of our main character's names: Little (his childhood nickname), Chiron (his given name), and Black (the name he adopts as a young adult). The structure is important, as the film is basically about Chiron's search for identity, his quest to become who he is.

Alongside Chiron's story, we get the story of his best friend Kevin, who mirrors Chiron in a lot of ways. Where Chiron has difficulty expressing himself, Kevin is super talkative. Where Chiron is insular, Kevin is outgoing and seemingly friends with everybody. While Chiron is still figuring out who he is, Kevin has, and knows enough to be able to repress it when he has to.

Moolight is easily the most beautiful film of the year, and not just visually. Thematically, this is one of the most impactful films of the year, and the screenplay (adapted from an unproduced play by Tarell Alvin McCraney) deals with it beautifully. The first time I saw Moonlight, I worried that the character of Juan was a bit too idealized in how he responds to Little, but this recent second time through revealed how fully realized the surrogate father relationship between the two of them is. The screenplay has some beautifully written scenes, but the final scene of the first part, where an outburst from his mother has prompted Little to ask Juan the dreaded "what's a faggot?" is as perfect as it gets.

Moonlight is a perfect three-act play, but it's given gorgeous cinematic life by director Barry Jenkins and his team, especially cinematographer James Laxton, who crafts each image with uncommon care. Seriously, every frame of this could hang on the wall in an art gallery. And the score by Nicholas Britell gives perfect voice to Chiron's character and journey. And I haven't even said anything about the cast, who give the greatest ensemble performance of 2016. Yes, Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali have gotten the lion's share of the awards attention, but the performances of the three Chirons and Kevins are just incredible, somehow feeling like one character instead of three. Together, the three actors playing Chiron give the performance of the year.

I don't have enough words in my vocabulary to describe how beautiful this movie is, how meaningful it is, both in general and to me personally. Moonlight is everything the movies should be: In telling the story of people we rarely if ever get to see onscreen, it can mean the world to so many, and give understanding to so many more. It is, no exaggeration, a film that has the power to change and even save lives.

Awards Contenders In Brief - Fences

Sometimes, films are just performance pieces, and that's okay. Such is the case with Fences, Denzel Washington's adaptation of August Wilson's stage play. Plays do not always have to be "opened up" for the screen, especially when the material is strong and you have great actors tearing up the screen in every scene. This film version of Fences is dynamic and engaging thanks to the script (credited posthumously to the playwright himself) and the performances, especially those at the center.

Viola Davis and Denzel Washington create an entirely believable relationship that is thrillingly alive in every moment - there is never even one second where you don't want to be watching them. This is the best work Washington has done in ages, breathing fiery life into the character of Troy Maxson. And Davis is every bit his equal, taking everything we have seen of her in various roles on screens large and small and mixing them together into the most incredible performance by an actress this year (just don't let the campaign fool you - SHE IS A LEAD, and deserves recognition as such).

All told, this is easily the finest acting ensemble of the year, but thankfully Washington is no slouch in the director's chair, either. The direction here isn't flashy, but it's still smart and restrained, constantly emphasizing how the characters are either boxing themselves (and others) in or breaking out. And the few instances where the play has been "opened up" are well-chosen and beautifully shot. This is as ideal an adaptation of this play as one could hope for, containing a superb cast doing career-best work all around. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

Awards Contenders In Brief: Jackie

Natalie Portman is a great actress, but even in her best roles she is often highly mannered, very tightly controlled. Which in many ways makes first lady Jacqueline Kennedy the part she was born to play. Thankfully, the film Pablo Larrain has built around her is a true marvel, rising to heights most biopics can only dream of.

I don't think I've seen a biopic that is so on the wavelength of its subject AND so in tune with the time in which it was made. This is a film that could only have been made right now, and indeed, it is in many ways a film that NEEDED to be made right now, ruminating as it does on just what (or, indeed, who) makes a President's legacy when so many just want to push right on past him into the future, and also commenting on what the press demand of our public figures and why, and where exactly public figures will draw the line in their use of the media.

It is a fascinating film on many levels, all swirling around Portman's downright astonishing central performance. She gets the overly manicured voice and stiff mannerisms of Jackie down pat, going through every mix of emotions under the sun as she feels, suppresses, and works through her grief. But Chilean director Pablo Larrain doesn't let her do ALL the heavy lifting. He knows how to frame her to emphasize the loneliness even among many people, the fragility among such strength, the woman under the public face. Noah Oppenheim's smartly written screenplay provides the foundation, and Larrain constructs a mausoleum of American politics around it, with the White House as ground zero. And then he brings in Mica Levi for the score, providing the perfect notes for the despair, determination, and rage of a woman in mourning.

It's all too much to talk about. It must be seen, must be experienced on a big screen to fully comprehend how brilliant it is. This is one of the finest films of 2016, no doubt about it, and it deserves to be remembered for much more than its great leading lady.

Awards Contenders In Brief: La La Land

So you may have noticed that I don't really do reviews on this blog. Which may have struck you as somewhat strange, given that this is a movie blog and all.

The simple fact of the matter is, writing a full review, for me, takes a LOT of time. I endlessly obsess over wording and details and getting things perfect. And in the end, I'd much rather spend that time WATCHING movies, especially since there are so many I haven't seen.

But I DO post short review-like things on my Letterboxd page, so read some of my past ones there. Going forward, I'm going to try to post those here, under this new "In Brief" label, so that I don't feel bound to write a full-length review.

So of course for the first of these, I'm going to pick a movie that I actually COULD write a full-length review of.

La La Land is, quite simply, my favorite film of the year. But let's be clear: Y'all know my nom de internet. And you'll know just from watching any of the trailers for this movie that have been released over the past couple of months that this movie was basically created in a lab specifically for me. So my naming it my favorite film of the year should come as absolutely come as no surprise, and should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

I really say all of this because I desperately don't want to oversell La La Land. It's fantastic, but it's also slight, and if you don't like movie musicals, this very likely won't be the one to change your mind - especially if you're immune to the charms of Emma Stone and/or Ryan Gosling (although, I personally don't understand how anyone could be, but I have been made to understand that somehow such people do exist).

I also desperately don't want to spoil this movie for anyone. Nothing else I experience for the rest of the year (I know it's only a couple of weeks but just go with me) will come close to matching the experience of seeing La La Land for the first time, so I want everyone else to enjoy it just as much as I did - by knowing nothing ahead of time except what the trailers told me.

So, here it goes: Gosling is Sebastian, a jazz pianist with dreams of opening his own jazz club. Stone is Mia, an aspiring actress working in a coffee shop on a studio lot. They meet and eventually fall in love. That's all I'm telling you of the plot. But the plot doesn't really matter. As with all the greatest movie musicals, what matters is the style with which the story is told, and La La Land is full to bursting with some of the greatest style of any movie released in quite some time. It pays homage to nearly every musical the Hollywood studio system ever produced, and takes direct inspiration from the single greatest movie musical ever made, Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In so doing, it contains not one, not two, but three of the best single scenes of any film to be released in 2016, scenes of such bravura moviemaking magic that I actually applauded through tears in the theater.

Gosling and Stone have the chemistry of the greatest screen pairings - Hepburn & Tracy, Bogie & Bacall, Astaire & Rogers... to name a few - and that, along with their full-on charm offensive, is essential to making this movie work (it's almost impossible to imagine this working nearly as well with the original casting choices, Emma Watson and Miles Teller). It's a pleasure to watch them, because not only are they clearly enjoying themselves, not only do they make it look easy, but their faces are so open and honest that it's incredibly easy to feel for them. It's the kind of star power and chemistry that Old Hollywood used to cultivate with almost clockwork precision, but which has gone somewhat out of fashion nowadays. They also both have lovely, natural singing voices - they don't sound like professional singers, exactly, but the film is better off for it - and are wonderfully fluid dancers (bless Mandy Moore for her joyous choreography).

The score (music by Justin Hurwitz, lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul) is tuneful and romantic, with six original songs that you will be humming for weeks, and some lovely instrumental numbers. The film is as much about movie musicals as it is about anything else, so the music is very important. If I say that the film starts with its two weakest numbers, just know that they're still damn good, and each is shot so distinctively that it more than makes up for whatever the songs themselves are lacking.

I just... I have nothing bad to say about this film. Every single element works in perfect harmony together to create a perfect old-school movie experience. Everything about it has the look of one of the great MGM technicolor movie musicals, but it feels and sounds thoroughly modern. It is the perfect movie musical for the modern age - a perfect meeting of nostalgia with a contemporary sensibility. It is as much about the thrilling, transporting power of movie musicals as it is a perfect example of one, and as a lover of musicals, I couldn't possibly ask for anything more.

One week later, I'm still not over it. When my screening on opening night was over, I wanted to go straight to the box office and buy a ticket for the next available showing. I also wanted to go Monday after work, and also every day after that, because I just can't think of a better way to spend a little over two hours. And that's the highest praise I can give it.