I’m gonna start my coverage of the best that the movies had to offer this decade although I don’t think I’ll have a list of my favorites of the decade that I can stand by until March at the earliest, especially since I have to do a 2019 lists first. But I’m gonna start now with genre or category-specific lists to not just dump everything at once.
Today, we are starting with the following music-specific categories: Best Musical, Score, and Songs Written for Motion Pictures.
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It takes a long time to get a movie made: Martin Scorsese had been thinking about making Silence for over 30 years and had various false potential production starts; Fences was once slated to be made in the ‘90s with Eddie Murphy as the lead; and Damien Chazelle had wanted to make La La Land since before he made Whiplash. So, given how long it takes to make a film it’s obvious that they could not have predicted how much the world would change on November the 8th of the year they were ready to be released.
Following the events of this particular day, I went through a patch of depression that was unlike anything that I had gone through before. During this time I kept thinking why should I bother with movies, television, music, or art in general when the world was crumbling right in front of our eyes and so many people were celebrating it. Yet, I kept on watching because I had nothing else, but just about everything felt tainted.
The first film I watched in theaters since then was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I had to drag myself out of the house, and I had to treat my self to a large popcorn and soda (which I never do). The film is not particularly great but watching a simple good versus evil story on the big screen where the good guys win while I’m gorging on salty popcorn and a sweet Coca-Cola was cathartic. That right there is how the real world should work, and I felt like standing up and cheering at the most basic of triumphant moments.
Since then, I cannot look at movies in the same way. Moana and Hidden Figures no longer are just movies about extraordinary women of color doing extraordinary things, but rally cries for real women of color to stand up and do even more extraordinary things. Moonlight is now a call for empathy and understanding. Even Star Trek Beyond, with its world where races and species of all kinds live in harmony feels like a daring future to strive towards.
This of course cannot be said of every film in 2016, let alone my top 25 (Everybody Wants Some!! Is still just about bro-dudes doing stuff and I love it for it), but that’s okay. Even so, art will never be the same, at least through my eyes. Continue reading
I haven’t done a “Best of the Year So Far” post for the last few years out mainly due to laziness, but this year I felt inspired. I’m not going to do write-ups though- I’ll leave those for next year if the films I list are good enough to make it into the top 25.
Why do I do this in August rather than the end of June like everyone else? Well, it is mostly because by I’ve only seen very few of the year’s films offerings, mostly the stuff that gets easily to Kansas. However, I still like to do it right before Fall festival season starts to see how the year has shaped up before the studios take out their heavy hitters.
So, how has the year been? As someone who has not ventured out into the multiplexes a lot, it has been alright. I’m very happy with my top 10 so far and it would make for a very solid year-end list. In fact, I’m certain that at least my top 2 will not move very much, if at all, as I watch more films.
You know, what it’s been a good year for? Male supporting performances. After the top 10 I highlight some superlatives in the categories that I usually do in my lists of the best films of the month, and when it came to this category, I couldn’t narrow it down to a couple of choices. Same for Best Actress, but given that usually there’s not much going in the Best Supporting Actor category, I’m more impressed.
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A Journey Through Cinematic Heaven and Hell 