As much as I consider Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich to be one of the most irritating, obnoxiously self-regarding and fundamentally untrustworthy critics around, I have to give him credit for this year-end summary of 2016 films + his own favorite 25. It feels more thoughtful and is much better constructed than any number of run-of-the-mill flash-cut year-end wankathons that surface every December on YouTube and Vimeo. This is the first time I’ve considered the idea that there might be a emotional, flesh-and-blood person behind Ehrlich’s fickle, ivory-tower spewings. Which reminds me: I’ll have to soon rethink and re-order my top 26 films of 2016 list, now that I’ve seen Silence but without having seen Passengers, Collateral Beauty and the almost certainly dismissable Rogue One, which I won’t see until Monday.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2016: A VIDEO COUNTDOWN from David Ehrlich on Vimeo.

I’ve been wondering if I should remove The Founder‘s Michael Keaton, whose performance I admire but who hasn’t been gaining any Gold Derby or Gurus of Gold traction, and replace him with Paterson‘s Adam Driver, whose bus-driver poet is noteworthy in a quiet, meditative way. All I needed was a little push, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the critics org that loves to eat as much as vote, gave me one when they handed Driver their 2016 Best Actor trophy. Everybody has Manchester By The Sea‘s Casey Affleck and Fences‘ Denzel Washington in the top two slots. Tom Hanks and Ryan Gosling are in there just to round things out.

If my thought dreams could be seen, they wouldn’t put my head in a guillotine. They would go “oh…glad you think so…fine!” But not until the embargo lifts.

Ezra Edelman‘s O.J.: Made in America, the ESPN doc that award-givers have celebrating as if it’s a regular theatrical feature, is almost certainly going to win the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary. I think that needs to be understood and accepted. The Academy’s doc shortlist of 15 was announced today:

Cameraperson, Big Mouth Productions
Command and Control, American Experience Films/PBS
The Eagle Huntress, Stacey Reiss Productions, Kissiki Films and 19340 Productions
Fire at Sea, Stemal Entertainment
Gleason, Dear Rivers Productions, Exhibit A and IMG Films
Hooligan Sparrow, Little Horse Crossing the River
I Am Not Your Negro, Velvet Film
The Ivory Game, Terra Mater Film Studios and Vulcan Productions
Life, Animated, Motto Pictures and A&E IndieFilms
O.J.: Made in America, Laylow Films and ESPN Films
13th, Forward Movement
Tower, Go-Valley
Weiner, Edgeline Films
The Witness, The Witnesses Film
Zero Days, Jigsaw Productions

While discussing Emma Stone‘s highly-touted performance in La La Land (Summit, 12.9), Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil calls it a partial “problem” given that Stone is playing a deliberately two-dimensional role…perky and happy and dancing around…you don’t get a lot of gravitas and soulful reflection.” Not true. Mostly she’s coping with soul-crushing rejection, despair, anxiety and frustration in Damian Chazelle‘s musical, and it shows on her face in every frame. Stone’s only 100% “perky and happy” moment is when she goes out with her girlfriends to a Hollywood party in Act One; there are also a pair of romantic dance numbers but that’s not “perky,” dude.

Yesterday (12.5) a Huffpost piece by Jennifer Brucceller, titled “Bernardo Bertolucci Misses The Mark In Response To Last Tango In Paris Rape Scene Controversy” and subtitled “He doesn’t seem to understand why people are outraged,” earned special attention. Or a certain passage did, I should say:

“Regardless of whether or not [Maria] Schneider knew of the violence, it should be noted that any addition to the scene, such as the butter, which was not previously agreed upon by Schneider, can be considered assault. Bertolucci doesn’t seem to understand that.”

What?

Bruceller’s use of the phrase “such as the butter” suggests a problem with the substance. Let’s suppose Bertolucci and Marlon Brando had decided that butter wouldn’t work as the lubricant of choice, and that it would be better to go with Johnson’s Baby Oil. Or with Crisco shortening, Mazola corn oil or mayonnaise. I don’t even know what I’m talking about, and that’s partly Bruceller’s fault.

But let’s cut her a break. What Bruceller meant, I think, was that failing to tell Schneider about the butter in advance was the essence of what she called an assault. But does a refusal to confer and consult really live up to the definition of that term?

It seems to me that the term “assault” or “assaultive” should mean something that’s actually related to an assault as opposed to not showing respect by fully conferring in advance. That, to me, was Brando and Bertolucci’s uncool, uncaring act — declining to offer Schneider a chance to collaborate, mull it over, prepare, offer suggestions, etc.

If Joe Biden had somehow become the 2016 Democratic candidate for president instead of Hillary Clinton, he almost certainly would have won. Because he’s more recognizably warm and human than Donald Trump, and the Bumblefucks who went for Trump would have said “Biden talks plain and straight and has a heart…let’s give him a shot.” But Biden is 74 now, and I don’t think people will be hugely comfortable with a 78 year-old becoming the nation’s Commander-in-chief. The cut-off is 75, or Bernie Sanders‘ age. But if Biden runs anyway, he has to take care of that awful turkey wattle. Which is nothing these days. Neck wattle surgery is less arduous than having an appendectomy, akin to having a wisdom tooth removed. Biden had hair-plug surgery back in the ’80s so he knows all about this stuff.

Click here to jump past HE Sink-In

Manchester By The Sea costar Casey Affleck, director-writer Kenneth Lonergan during filming.

I called it 11 months ago at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and I don’t think I’ve put it any better since:

“Some Sundance movies are applauded and whoo-whooed, and others just sink in and melt you down. They get you in such a vulnerable place that your admiration is mixed with a kind of stunned feeling, like you’ve been hit square in the heart. Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester-By-The-Sea is one of the latter. It’s not an upper or a midtempo thing, but in no way is it a downer. It pushes the sad button more gently and effectively than anything I’ve seen in at least a couple of decades, and if you’ve got any buried hurt it’ll kill you.

“This is 2016’s first slam-dunk Best Picture contender, and it will definitely result, trust me, in Casey Affleck landing his first Best Actor nomination.”

But I failed to mention one important thing, and that’s the curious fact that Manchester is one of the funniest sad films I’ve ever seen. Filmmakers who’ve attempted funny-sad in the past have mostly used the age-old comic relief strategy. That’s not Lonergan’s game. He’s woven humor into sadness and vice versa like threads in a rope, and not hah-hah humor but the kind that’s laced with irritation or frustration — sardonic, testy, smartassy. Working-class New England humor. Some funny shit.

Never forget that humor is never about mirth, and always about the revealing of hurt or shame or rage. Manchester jokes never reach for outright hilarity (a grotesque concept considering the backstory of Casey Affleck‘s lead character, Lee Chandler) but they always land. Manchester might be the only film to operate on this level. There have probably been other films that have pulled off funny-sad in precisely the same way, but I can’t think of any.

A few observations along these lines:

(1) “Lonergan sidesteps sentimentality simply by treating characters with respect, as human beings with many dimensions, some of them contradictory. [The result is that] deep tragedy is shot through with some truly excellent comedic writing.” — Vox‘s Alicia Wilkinson;

(2) “Given the tragedy at the film’s heart, some will find the humor jarring. But great and constant sorrow can absolutely co-exist with belly laughs –— Lonergan knows it’s how we stay human. And humane.” — Joe Gross, Austin’s American Statesman.

Six and a half years ago I explained how Barry Lyndon is saddled with an unfortunate dead zone problem in its second half. A dispiriting chilliness. I happened to watch this portion of the 2011 Warner Home Video Bluray last night, and I was reminded how spot-on my 4.22.10 essay was. I’ve re-posted a portion of it:

“I’ve seen Barry Lyndon at least fifteen times. Possibly a bit more than that — I’ve lost count and who cares? It’s brilliant, mesmerizing, exquisite — a dry, note-perfect immersion into the climate and mores of William Makepeace Thackeray‘s novel, and, by its own terms, one of the most perfectly realized films ever made. But the problem — and this needs to be said (or re-said) with all the passionate but vaguely snobby Lyndon gushing going on these days — is that it turns sour at a very particular point.

“In my eyes, Barry Lyndon is just a notch below great because of this dead zone section in the second half.

“It begins at the moment when Barry (Ryan O’Neal) blows pipe smoke into the face of his wife, Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson). Something happens at that instant, and from then on it’s ‘oh, odd…the energy is dropping, and I’m starting to enjoy this less.’ For another 30 to 40 minutes (or what feels like that amount of time), Barry Lyndon gets slower and slower, draggier and draggier, more and more morose — stately compositions, dispassionate observation, grim-faced tableaus.

I would like to stream all ten episodes of Paolo Sorrentino‘s The Young Pope right now. This weekend, I mean. Total binge-out. And you know it won’t diddle around like Westworld — it’ll have tension, an arc and an ending. Sister Mary (Diane Keaton): “Everyone is afraid of you.” Lenny, aka Pope Pius XIII (Jude Law): “That’s not exactly true (beat) but it will be.”

While 35% of my time at any Sundance Film Festival is split between screens at the Library, the Holiday Village, the Egyptian, the Doubletree (formerly the Yarrow) and the Prospector Lodge, 65% is spent watching the premieres at the Eccles. So with today’s official announcement of the 2017 Sundance premieres, two-thirds of my Sundance agenda has now been determined. Here are my Eccles favorites:

Beatriz at Dinner (Director: Miguel Arteta, Screenwriter: Mike White) — Beatriz, an immigrant from a poor town in Mexico, has drawn on her innate kindness to build a career as a health practitioner. Doug Strutt is a cutthroat, self-satisfied billionaire. When these two opposites meet at a dinner party, their worlds collide and neither will ever be the same. Cast: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow. Wait…Hayek as a poor immigrant?

Call Me by Your Name (Italy-France / Director: Luca Guadagnino, Screenwriters: James Ivory, Luca Guadagnino) — The sensitive and cultivated Elio, only child of the American-Italian-French Perlman family, is facing another lazy summer at his parents’ villa in the beautiful and languid Italian countryside when Oliver, an academic who has come to help with Elio’s father’s research, arrives. Cast: Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel, Victoire Du Bois.

The Discovery (Director: Charlie McDowell, Screenwriters: Charlie McDowell, Justin Lader) — In a world where the afterlife has just been scientifically proven, resulting in millions of people taking their own lives to get there, comes this love story. Cast: Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Robert Redford, Jesse Plemons, Riley Keough, Ron Canada.

Fun Mom Dinner (Director: Alethea Jones, Screenwriter: Julie Rudd) — Four women, whose kids attend the same preschool class, get together for a “fun mom dinner.” When the night takes an unexpected turn, these unlikely new friends realize they have more in common than just marriage and motherhood. Together, they reclaim a piece of the women they used to be. Cast: Katie Aselton, Toni Collette, Bridget Everett, Molly Shannon, Adam Scott, Adam Levine.

The award selections of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association prompted some forehead-slapping yesterday, but one thing they got right was almost giving their Best Supporting Actor trophy to Silence‘s Issey Ogata. I saw Silence with everyone else yesterday afternoon at Westwood’s Village theatre, and I can tell you that Ogata’s performance was the one everyone was buzzing about — more so (and I mean no disrespect in saying this) than the perfs by Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver or Liam Neeson. Ogata has that natural snap and pizazz, and I’m telling you that he has to emerge as one the five Best Supporting Actor Oscar contenders — he really does. If Academy members blow him off, their reputation will take a hit. Silence reviews are embargoed until Saturday, 12.10 at 8 am.

Renowned Japanese actor Issey Ogata, who steals Silence and runs away with it.