THE VERY BEST OF 2016

“Consumed with worry.”
An epitaph for 2016. A prophecy for 2017.






BEST SONGS:
01 Prince – Moonbeam Levels
02 All Hail The Silence – The Alarm
03 Carly Rae Jepsen – Cry
04 Beyonce – Sorry
05 Ladyhawke – Wild Things
06 Sia – Waving Goodbye
07 Rihanna – Love on the Brain
08 Pet Shop Boys – The Pop Kids
09 Kevin Abstract – Runner
10 Solange – Don’t Wish Me Well
11 Kelly Clarkson – It’s Quiet Uptown
12 Brendan MacLean – Never Enough
13 Childish Gambino – Redbone
14 Shooter Jennings – Love Kills
15 Beyonce & The Dixie Chicks – Daddy Lessons (Live)
16 Plumb – Smoke (Dave Aude Remix)
17 Celine Dion – Encore un Soir
18 Tan – Telephone Tan
19 S.W.I.M. featuring Natasha Giannaraki – Anazatisi (Never Find It)
20 Puro Instinct – Peccavi
21 Britney Spears – Make Me
22 Kanye West – Fade
23 The Weeknd – I Feel It Coming
24 Lady Gaga – Diamond Heart
25 Julian Winding – The Demon Dance
26 Giorgio Moroder featuring Karen Harding – Good For Me
27 Brendan MacLean – Tectonic
28 The Lonely Island featuring Emma Stone – Turn Up The Beef
29 Book of Love – All Girl Band
30 Kiiara - Gold



BEST ALBUMS:



01 Beyonce/Lemonade
02 Solange/A Seat at the Table
03 Ladyhawke/Wild Things
04 Carly Rae Jepsen/E Mo Tion Side B
05 Brendan MacLean/Funbang1
06 Childish Gambino/“Awaken, My Love”
07 Shooter Jennings/Countach (For Giorgio)
08 Kevin Abstract/American Boyfriend
09 Pet Shop Boys/Super
10 Tan/Musik City
11 Jean-Michel Jarre/Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise
12 Celine Dion/Encore un Soir
13 The Weeknd/Starboy
14 Tegan and Sara/Love You to Death
15 Azealia Banks/Slay-Z






BEST TV:
Channel Zero: Candle Cove, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Lady Dynamite, Not Safe, Other Space, Search Party, Stranger Things, Yuri on Ice



WORST FILMS:



01 PATRIOT'S DAY
02 INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE
03 DON'T BREATHE
04 SUICIDE SQUAD
05 EYES OF MY MOTHER
06 INCARNATE
07 SHUT IN
08 YOGA HOSERS
09 THE DISAPPOINTMENTS ROOM
10 RATCHET AND CLANK






BEST DIRECTOR



Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cemetery of Splendor)
Anna Biller (The Love Witch)
Robert Eggers (The VVitch)
Karyn Kusama (The Invitation)
Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Evolution)
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)
Oz Perkins (I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House)
Joel Potrykus (The Alchemist Cookbook)
Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room)
Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier)
Paul Verhoeven (Elle)
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)






BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY



David Birke (Elle)
Eric Heisserer (Arrival)
Jeong Seo-kyung and Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden)
Whit Stillman (Love and Friendship)



BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY



Anthony Bagarozzi and Shane Black (The Nice Guys)
Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (The Invitation)
Yorgos Lanthimos and Ephthymis Philippou (The Lobster)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
Ephthymis Philippou and Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier)
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias (Little Men)



BEST COSTUME DESIGN



Colleen Atwood (The Huntsman: Winter’s War)
Erin Benach (The Neon Demon)
Anna Biller (The Love Witch)
Sarah Blenkinsop (The Lobster)
Sonia Grande (Julieta)
Linda Muir (The VVitch)









BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN



Anna Biller (The Love Witch)
Doug Chiang and Neil Lamont (Rogue One)
Thomas S. Hammock (Blair Witch)
Craig Lathrop (The VVitch)
Lisa Soper (Clown)
Patrice Vermette (Arrival)



BEST 3D



Doctor Strange
Ghostbusters
Kung Fu Panda 3
The Legend of Tarzan
The Mermaid
The Secret Life of Pets



BEST EDITING



John Axelrad and Kayla Emter (Miles Ahead)
Christopher Barwell (Under The Shadow)
Julia Bloch (Green Room)
Job ter Burg (Elle)
Joan Sobel (Nocturnal Animals)
Joe Walker (Arrival)



BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY



Natasha Braier (The Neon Demon)
Manuel Dacosse (Evolution)
Greig Fraser (Rogue One)
M. David Mullen (The Love Witch)
Jack Pettibone Riccobono and Shane Slattery-Quintanilla (The Seventh Fire)
Linus Sandgren (La-La Land)






BEST ORIGINAL SCORE



Mark Korven (The VVitch)
Mica Levi (Jackie)
Cliff Martinez (The Neon Demon)
Max Richter (Morgan)
Suzuki Keiichi (For The Plasma)
Adam Wingard (Blair Witch)



BEST ORIGINAL SONG



Equal Rights (Popstar)
The Great Beyond (Sausage Party)
The Riddle of The Model (Sing Street)
Waving Goodbye (The Neon Demon)
Wiener-Dog (Wiener-Dog)
You’re Welcome (Moana)



BEST VISUAL EFFECTS



Arrival
Beyond The Gates
Blair Witch
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
The Mind’s Eye



BEST DOCUMENTARY



I Am Not Your Negro
No Home Movie
The Seventh Fire
13^th
Tickled
Tony Conrad: Completely In The Present



BEST FILM WITHOUT A U.S. DISTRIBUTOR



All The Cities of The North
The Death of Louis XIV
Found Footage 3D
The Lure
Nocturama
What’s The Matter With Gerald?



BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR



Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Tom Bennett (Love and Friendship)
Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!)
Joe Mangianello (Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday)
Kyle Mooney (Zoolander No. 2)
Makis Papadimitriou (Chevalier)






BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS



Olivia Colman (The Lobster)
Greta Gerwig (20^th Century Women)
Lily Gladstone (Certain Women)
Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash)
Janelle Monae (Moonlight)
Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys)



BEST ACTOR



Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea)
Colin Farrell (The Lobster)
Ryan Gosling (The Nice Guys)
Ty Hickson (The Alchemist Cookbook)
Aharon Traitel (Tikkun)
Anton Yelchin (Green Room)



BEST ACTRESS



Sonia Braga (Aquarius)
Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Sandra Huller (Toni Erdmann)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Narges Rashidi (Under The Shadow)
Emma Stone (La-La Land)
Anya Taylor-Joy (The VVitch)






BEST PICTURE
01 The Alchemist Cookbook/The Lobster
Deeply profound meditations on identity in the face of a society that just doesn’t make any sense. Rebellion from opposite ends. To win is a concept inevitably defined by those from whom power derives.
02 Arrival/La-La Land
As always, genre fare tells us exactly where the heart and soul wants to live. Better ways, sprung from the humanity that so often limits us.
03 Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday
The kindest, sweetest, most versatile love story of the year.
04 I Am Not Your Negro
One of the greatest American thinkers and critics speaking across time; visceral and wrenching and deeply painful. We haven’t learned a thing.
05 Aquarius/Cemetery of Splendour/The Nice Guys/The VVitch
The act of excavation. Inspecting the foundation. The places where conspiracies build, and restless spirits are drawn in. Every space is a mystery.
06 Clown/Tikkun
The social contract cannot abide monsters. Whether by grotesque action or mere contrary existence, a being which pushes out from within makes that which is established nervous and uneasy; ideology can never be a supportive caress. Deeply upsetting and uncompromising, political visions.
07 Elle/Lemonade/The Love Witch
We think we know a woman’s story by its trappings. By its means of presentation. But women’s stories are not so easily bound by facile first impressions. Further investigation is warranted. Multiple viewings yield untold rewards. There is so much more than a cursory glance can reveal.
08 Chevalier/Everybody Wants Some!!
Exceptional and kind films which deal with male socialization and patterns of interaction while never descending into macho foolishness.
09 Green Room
Human decency in an all-night battle to the death with highly-bureaucratized and weaponized racist bullshit. A business plan does not make an abhorrent ideology any more palatable or acceptable.
10 The Neon Demon
Sleek abstractions that careen the Grimmest fairy tale tropes, cautionary Hollywood excesses, and videogame structure off of one another. Playful and portentous, with a militant chromatic philosophy; when the color blue finally showed up for its close-up in the final scene, I gasped.









2017 FILMS I ANXIOUSLY AWAIT

ALIEN: COVENANT

THE BEGUILED

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

COLOSSAL

DARK NIGHT

GET OUT

A GHOST STORY

HIGH LIFE

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE

KEDI

LIFE

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

PREVENGE

(Re) ASSIGNMENT

ROXANNE ROXANNE

SEQUENCE BREAK

SILENCE

SUSPIRIA

WONDER WOMAN

XX

Thank you for reading this far.