Thursday, September 14, 2017

The Rape of Recy Taylor, Mike Maynard, Four Play, Summer 2017 and More

Currently receiving rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival, my former boss Nancy Buirski's new documentary The Rape of Recy Taylor is soon being released, and it's sure to make quite an impression. Per Deadline's exclusive article on the film, the story is as follows: "This is the true story of a 24-year-old wife and mother who was gang raped in Alabama by six white men in 1944. The doc highlights the black women who waged war to take back their bodies and their dignity, and by speaking up helped inspire the civil rights movement that was to come." I had the honor of working on the extremely powerful film, both as one of the assistant editors and as the voice of one of the assailants. Despite the fact that I lent my voice to an unsavory human being, I'm thrilled to have a significant amount of voiceover material in the film (along with my friend and fellow actor Tommy Bernardi, who voices another of Ms. Taylor's perpetrators). The film was recently named by Variety as one of twelve hot titles likely to spark bidding wars. The Rape of Recy Taylor makes its North American premiere next month at the New York Film Festival, where I very much look forward to seeing the finished film. It just received a rave review from The Hollywood Reporter, and Nancy received the HRNS Special Prize for Human Rights at the Venice Film Festival. Nancy also had a great screening of her film The Loving Story this February on Valentine's Day, which was a particularly meaningful event for all involved.

Going back a little bit, Nancy's last film By Sidney Lumet (on which I was an associate producer and assistant editor) made its broadcast premiere on PBS/ American Masters on January 3rd. There was so much great press surrounding its broadcast, including this amazing review from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post interview with Treat Williams, star of Lumet's Prince of the City (1981), who participated in an interview after the broadcast with Buirski (I was part of the production team on the interview). The film is now available for purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

I want to tell you a little bit about Mike Maynard, who passed away on August 27th of this year. Mike was undoubtedly the most devoted supporter and champion of the Red Dragon Players at Austin High School, and, according to his obituary, attended 98 productions in total over his many years as our loyal friend. I say "our" because, although it's been eight years since I graduated from Austin High in 2009, there is a lifelong bond for many former students to this wonderful theatre department, and Mike was a major part of it all. I was in over twenty productions at Austin High, and I can guarantee you that Mike came to every single show, likely even more than once.

Billy and Annie Dragoo, our beloved theatre directors, would always tell our class the day after a performance what Mike thought of the production. I'm not sure I know the origins of his devotion to the department, but I know he and Dragoo became very close, and his opinion meant a great deal to everyone. I remember he was a particular fan of the play Someone Who'll Watch Over Me in 2008, in which I performed alongside the amazing Lucas Loredo and Ben Stelly. Mike continued to be a huge supporter for me personally after I graduated. Last year, when I was fundraising for my series Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, Mike chipped in and helped make the film possible with a contribution. It was such a generous act, and I was profoundly moved. I last saw him when I was in Austin in May at a performance of Shrek at Austin High, and he was as ebullient and spirited as ever. I can't claim to have known him incredibly well, but his presence was always felt in the department, and he will be greatly missed. You can read his obituary here from the Austin American-Statesman.

I'd also like to mention my mother's godmother, Vera Lee Giles, who passed away earlier this year. She was a truly loving and vivacious woman, and I have such fond memories of various poker nights and Christmas celebrations at her house in Austin. I saw her earlier this year at her home, and as always, she was a force to be reckoned with.

I've travelled twice to Charlottesville this summer to visit my girlfriend Sophia's family, and it's a beautiful town. I stayed in colonial Williamsburg with my mom and dad several times when I was much younger, and also travelled near Marshall, Virginia to shoot some key scenes for Alex Fofonoff's feature Blood & Thunder, but I loved getting to experience another part of Virginia. The second time visiting Charlottesville over Labor Day weekend was considerably different than the first time, given the horrible tragedy that occurred in early August when a Neo-Nazi terrorist drove his car into a crowd of protestors, killing a young woman. I imagine the mood of the city has changed considerably after that terrifying act of violence, and I truly hope it is not a harbinger of any more violence in other cities in which these abysmal human beings choose to hold their white supremacist rallies.

Earlier this summer, I signed on to direct a new film that I did not write, which is a first for me. The writer (and producer, and lead actor) is Ben Krevalin, a talented guy who is a friend of a friend. I attended a reading of his piece, currently titled Four Play, and I was very excited by the prospect of directing the film. This cast includes a number of incredibly talented people, including Justin Danforth, who starred in Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue - I simply cannot wait to work with him again - and two amazing actresses, Lizzie Stewart and McLean Peterson. Ben successfully raised over $15,000.00 this summer through an IndieGoGo campaign, which you can see here, and we begin production the first weekend in October. It's a incredible opportunity to be in post-production on one film and simultaneously directing another new one.




On June 28th, there was a great screening of my film Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding at Anthology Film Archives as part of NewFilmmakers New York. I screened my movie Jake the Cinephile there over three years ago, and it was great to be back. We had a nice-sized crowd with some folks who hadn't seen the movie before, so that was very gratifying.

At the end of May, I made a big apartment move - my first in four years - with my roommate Bobb, to another location in Brooklyn (which is not too far away from our old place). My mom, Gretchen, came up to New York, and we had a chance to do some fun things. We made our way to the Longacre Theatre to see the musical adaptation of A Bronx Tale. I was particularly interested in the production, as it was co-directed by my hero Robert De Niro, who directed the film on which the musical is based  (which, in turn, was based on an autobiographical, one-man play by Chazz Palminteri). Not only was I impressed by the musical, I was very impressed by the box seats we acquired (how that happened, I'm not sure - I picked up discounted rush tickets on the day of the performance). I also saw the musical Groundhog Day, which was a delight. The lead actor, Andy Karl, was pretty unbelievable, in a physically demanding and highly comedic performance. Sophia, her father and I also sweat Sweat by Lynn Nottage on Broadway earlier this year, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama - another excellent production.

I'm continuing the monthly meetings for my Fellowship with producer Richie Jackson, which is going very well. I had a great birthday last month - my twenty-seventh, which is hard to believe - and I was surrounded by dear friends. I caught a screening early in the day of Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, which was masterfully directed and performed - I wouldn't expect anything less from Bigelow (and Annapurna Pictures, for that matter).

Last summer, I assistant-directed a short film entitled Mouse, written and directed by the very talented filmmakers Celine Held and Logan George. It was a wildly fun two-shoot that also presented some unsavory smells - as we had several real dead mice on set as props. This short film has been tremendously successful, premiering at SXSW in March (and following that premiere with several other major festivals) and then receiving a Vimeo Staff Pick in June. As I write this, it has been viewed by nearly 400,000 people on Vimeo. Here's the short below - I think you'll find it quite hilarious and disturbing in equal measures, and also masterfully made.


Mouse from ELO films on Vimeo.

Speaking of excellent films on which I worked, this year also saw the online premiere of Mike Cheslik's hilarious, wacko cartoon web series L.I.P.S. (or The League of Interplanetary Process Servers). I was the assistant director on this series three years ago, shortly before the production of Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding (Mike was, in turn, my assistant director on that film, and his girlfriend Ani - who produced L.I.P.S. - was my producer). Filmed largely in a green screen studio, L.I.P.S. is another amazingly funny piece by Mike, and I was honored to play a small role in the series, as well, as a character with probably the most exciting name you can imagine - Relaxed Eyeball Dweller or [Indistinguishable Dissonant Noise]. I'll never get a better character name than that, period. Per Mike's synopsis, the series is about the League of Interplanetary Process Servers' finest agent attempting to deliver 30 subpoenas throughout the universe in ten minutes. Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (a hysterical human being) and Allison Frasca (who is one of the leads in Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue), L.I.P.S. has screened at many film festivals around the country before premiering online. Here it is in its full glory:


L.I.P.S. from Mike Cheslik on Vimeo.

One major highlight from this past May was attending the 44th Chaplin Award Gala honoring Robert De Niro, organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It was a great opportunity to celebrate the great man - from the nosebleeds, granted. Presenters and speakers included Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, Harvey Keitel, Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas, Whoopi Goldberg, Barry Levinson and Ben Stiller. Afterward, in the lobby, I saw Michael Mann hanging around. It was that kind of night.

It's been quite a year for De Niro, who, in addition to the Lincoln Center tribute and the performances of A Bronx Tale, was a part of a Tribeca Film Festival talkback with the cast of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II as part of the film's 45th anniversary. This resulted in one of the greatest reunion pictures of all time, with De Niro, Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. I can't believe I missed it. It's worth watching the full 90-minute talkback here. In February, his new film The Comedian, directed by Taylor Hackford, was released. The film overall has its problems, but De Niro is fully committed, and it's a joy to see him share scenes once again with Keitel. Then, in May, he gave his best performance since Silver Linings Playbook (2012) in Barry Levinson's The Wizard of Lies, the fascinating and absorbing true story of Bernie Madoff. The film was made for HBO, but it has more quality and substance than most theatrical releases. I don't understand how this wasn't a major studio film.

And then, the big news - Scorsese's mob epic The Irishman recently went into production. It's currently shooting in New York (including in front of my old Broome Street apartment, apparently), and as expected, the film stars De Niro, Pacino, Keitel, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano and Stephen Graham (Pesci was apparently a hold-out, but he came out of retirement). I feel quite certain that there is nobody on this planet more excited for The Irishman than me. And it's already rumored that, following The Irishman shoot, De Niro and Scorsese could make Killers of the Flower Moon next year with Leonardo DiCaprio (that's very speculative, though).

There were some recent deaths of artists who meant a great deal to me, chief among them Sam Shepard. One could organize the greatest theatre and film festival in the world with the written works and performances of Shepard. Start with The Curse of the Starving Class, A Lie of the Mind and Buried Child, then move on to Days of Heaven (1978), The Right Stuff (1983) and Mud (2013). Then, for the great supporting performances, go on to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Baby Boom (1987), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Pledge (2001), Midnight Special (2016) and Out of the Furnace (2013). What a talent. I participated in a reading of The Curse of the Starving Class last December with my good friend and fellow Red Dragon Player Cora Walters, in which we played Weston and Ella. That text is absolutely incendiary from start to finish. And then there's Jerry Lewis. I just watched his brilliance performance again in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1983) in July. He was a genius in every film - the two I enjoyed most (at my grandmother's house in Hallsville, I remember distinctly) were The Nutty Professor (1963) and The Disorderly Orderly (1964), which has an ending so funny I remember nearly crying.

Earlier this year, there was another heartbreaking loss - one of the greatest of all directors, Jonathan Demme, passed away. I met Demme when I was twelve years old at the Austin premiere of The Truth About Charlie (2002) at the Paramount Theatre. I gave him a copy of my weekly film review article in the West Austin News, and I told him how much I loved The Silence of the Lambs (1991). He laughed and was surprised that someone my age had seen that film. I believe my mother must have interjected in there, saying she supervised my seeing it. I saw him again last year at the Tribeca Film Festival for the panel after the By Sidney Lumet screening - I remember giving him his badge and seeing that same smile that emanated generosity. He was such a great filmmaker - from the crazy energy and life of Something Wild (1986) to the haunting melancholy of Philadelphia (1993), from the reinvention of a film classic with The Manchurian Candidate (2004) to the reinvention of his own career with Rachel Getting Married (2008) - and that's not even getting to his music documentaries!

Then there was the cinematographer whose images have inspired me more than any other photographer - Michael Ballhaus. We shared a birthday, which I discovered rather recently, and that brings me great joy. He photographed many films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (I'm ashamed to admit I haven't seen any of those films yet), and then moved on to American films, collaborating with Scorsese on seven pictures - After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002) and The Departed (2006). His cinematography was exhilarating, to say the least, and the fact that he never won an Academy Award is astounding. He shot many other films (I recently re-watched Robert Redford's Quiz Show, and there again was his energetic camerawork), and it's truly sad we won't see another Ballhaus-shot film again. Here's Scorsese on his frequent collaborator.

Another major Scorsese collaborator, Frank Vincent, passed away this past Wednesday. He gave iconic performances in three Scorsese pictures - as Billy Batts in Goodfellas (1990), Salvy in Raging Bull (1980) and Frankie in Casino (1995). His interactions in these films with Pesci were particularly memorable (the two actors had a long history together, even working as a comedy act in the 1970s). He starred in countless other films, including Do the Right Thing (1989) and Cop Land (1997). There aren't many actors who were in four of my top thirty favorite films, but Vincent was one of them. Now go home and get your f#$%ing shine box! 

Bill Paxton, a Texan, was a welcome presence in so many films, and a great director, too, as he proved with the under-seen Frailty (2002). Robert Osborne was the face of Turner Classic Movies and a trusted voice in cinema. John Hurt, the brilliant star of The Elephant Man (1980), passed away this year, as well. He had just given a great supporting performance last year in Jackie, and always was a pleasure to watch in films as varied as Alien (1979), Heaven's Gate (1980), Owning Mahowny (2003), V for Vendetta (2006), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Snowpiercer (2014). Time Magazine film critic Richard Corliss died, too - in addition to being a great critic, he wrote a fascinating book titled Conversations with Scorsese, which is exactly that. The late Martin Landau was so memorable in, among many other films, Ed Wood (1994), North by Northwest (1959) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

Speaking of Scorsese, the Museum of the Moving Image held a career retrospective of his work this spring, and he was the subject of an incredible exhibit at the museum that was, quite simply, overwhelming in its thoroughness and one of the most extraordinary exhibits I've ever seen. Because I was heavily in the midst of pre-production on Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, I only visited the exhibit twice (which seems sacrilegious to a die-hard Scorsese fan like me). In fact, there were both Scorsese and Robert De Niro retrospectives going on in New York at the time, and I had to be making a movie right during them. At the Scorsese exhibit, I found I couldn't possibly absorb everything it had to offer. I could have gone back five more times, at least. The first time I went, I followed it by attending a screening of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) in 35MM with Sophia and her friend Erin (who works at the museum), followed by a Q&A with its Oscar-winning star (and one of the greatest actresses of all time) Ellen Burstyn. The second time I went, I followed it by attending a screening of The Last Waltz (1978) in 35MM, which was introduced by Scorsese himself. I had never seen either of these masterful Scorsese films on the big screen, so that was a real treat. The film I wish I had seen in 35MM was Bringing out the Dead (1999), one of Scorsese's best and less talked-about films - it's not the kind of movie that screens often theatrically, so I may have missed my chance on that one.

For this post's final mention of a Scorsese screening, Sophia and I went to an outdoor screening of my favorite film, Goodfellas, earlier this month at a place called the Knockdown Center in Queens. I couldn't help but thinking - we weren't that far from where the events in the film took place. There was live music before the screening and during a brief intermission. All in all, it was a nice time.

It's been a particularly good summer at the cinema (aside from poor audiences, who simply can't stop talking during films), with several new pictures from auteurs that make going to the movies such a pleasure. The best of the best included Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (look for my upcoming review); the aforementioned Detroit; the Safdie Brothers' Good Time (Robert Pattinson is on fire, starring in two of the year's best films - the other being The Lost City of Z); David Lowery's A Ghost Story, a profound meditation on the nature of time, with a wonderful Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara; Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled, which won her the Best Director prize at Cannes; Wind River, another winner from Taylor Sheridan, this time directing in addition to writing, and with a killer performance from Jeremy Renner; Ingrid Goes West, 2017's answer to The King of Comedy and the perfect use of Aubrey Plaza; Patti Cake$, a real surprise (after not connecting with the first twenty or so minutes, I did a huge 180 turn and was won over); Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, full of energy and music; Michael Showalter's The Big Sick, with a perfectly cast Ray Romano and Holly Hunter; the Netflix release of Bong Joon Ho's very entertaining Okja; and Ana Lily Amipour's batty and wild The Bad Batch. All in all, a pretty great bunch of films. And that's not even discussing the spring highlights, chief among them James Gray's exquisite The Lost City of Z (the best film of the year and one hell of an adventure - my full review is on its way, but for now, read this Vulture piece on Gray) and Terrence Malick's Song to Song, which I thought was even stronger than his Knight of Cups (2016) and To the Wonder (2013), both of which I loved.

But I haven't gotten to the two biggest surprises, for me, of the summer - Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky and Dave McCary's Brigsby Bear, both movies I now adore. I'll be posting full reviews of both in the near future, but let me just say that Logan Lucky, in particular, is an absolute pleasure. In fact, I think my favorite performance and movie character of 2017 so far is Daniel Craig as Joe Bang.

There are lots of movies I can't wait to see this fall, including new films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Lynne Ramsay, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen. Here are trailers for three films in particular I know I'll love - Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying and Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).

The awards season this past year was a crazy one, but a lot of worthy films won well-deserved accolades in the process. I was overjoyed that Casey Affleck and Kenneth Lonergan both won Academy Awards for their monumental work on Manchester by the Sea, and Emma Stone and Viola Davis won Oscars for outstanding performances, as well (for La La Land and Fences, respectively). And although I would have personally picked Manchester by the Sea for Best Picture, Moonlight is a spectacular choice (the infamous botched announcement overshadowed the importance of the film's win - although I will continue to defend Warren Beatty, who had nothing to do with it so far as I can tell).

The major omission by nearly all awards bodies was the exclusion of Martin Scorsese's Silence, a film that deserved so much more. It was nominated for one Oscar - a well-deserved nomination for Best Cinematography - but should have easily received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Andrew Garfield, who was actually nominated for a different film, Hacksaw Ridge), Best Supporting Actor (Liam Neeson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Production Design. Glenn Kenny's piece on the strong simplicity of Silence is worth reading, as are many other articles on Scorsese and his process.

Until next time - and remember, as always, to shut the hell up during movies.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue

Over the course of the past year and a half, I’ve been doing everything I can to make my latest film, which I first wrote in September of 2015. I wanted my friend and collaborator Mike Wesolowski, who played the lead role in my thesis film You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory, to not only star in the film, but also to help me re-write and refine the piece. Together, we embarked upon the creation of my sixth film, Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue.

Last summer, after going through dozens of drafts with Mike – meeting together in all corners of New York City to get the script right – I launched an IndieGoGo campaign and officially announced pre-production on the film, with the intention of shooting in October 2016. You can view our promo video below.



As hard as I’ve tried to stay in the ‘short film’ arena these last few years, I’ve reached a point where the themes I want to explore no longer fit within the confines of a twenty-minute-or-less story. Thus, Harvey’s Last Night On The Avenue is my largest scale project to date. A five-part web-series, the story takes place over the course of one long night, as we follow a sensitive young man named Harvey, who joins a group of his friends on a bar crawl the night before he moves from New York back to his hometown in Texas. The picture follows him and this ever-growing group as they hop from bar-to-bar in Brooklyn.

Harvey, an obsessive and socially awkward person, ruminates over many of his minor social faux pas that he perceives as huge errors. As the night goes on, he accrues more and more faults in his mind, and becomes increasingly unable to connect with the people around him. He even keeps a tape recorder in his backpack, and frequently retreats to the bathroom to confess his ill-advised behavior into the recorder.

But Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue isn’t only about the outcast – it’s about the dynamic of the entire group. Each character has his or her own unique set of goals — we have fun watching the whims and aspirations of a large number of twenty-somethings out on the town, struggling to function in their own way.

Stylistically, this film has the feel of hang-out movies such as Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) – films that are built around a large number of vivid supporting characters, rely on a small number of varied settings, and take place over a short span of time (in this case, one night). Despite these influences, Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue is unique in that it’s a story told from the perspective of someone on the outside of the fun. As the film goes on, we fall further away from connecting with the charismatic supporting characters. And as Harvey becomes increasingly removed from the situation, we gain more and more insight into the psychological factors behind his behavior.

In many ways, this series is a continuation and expansion of the character from my thesis film - someone who feels so bad about every single action he takes, he can only survive by confessing to another person (that film concerns a young man who compulsively confesses every detail of his anti-social behavior to his mother).

I think Mike and I both responded to the intense morality of the character he played in my last film. Naturally, we wanted to return to this character and explore him beyond the confines of a twenty-minute short film – and in particular explore why this person feels the necessity to confess his behavior. Where did this compulsion come from? What psychological factors are present when someone can’t get through an evening with friends without obsessing over their sometimes harmless and sometimes inappropriate social errors? Whereas my thesis film took place largely in an apartment with Charlie and his mother, Mike and I thought we should put our new character out in the wild for the entirety of this project. Let it all take place in social settings, where this character feels deeply anxious and trapped – which is why we ended up with a bar-crawl script.

So there's this tension the whole movie - between wanting to be part of the fun, and needing to reckon with the part of ourselves that questions each and every decision on a deeply moral, micro level.

And we felt strongly that a web-series was the right format for this idea. Because the screenplay moves from bar to bar throughout the course of one night, we realized that the story breaks up very nicely into individual episodes. And we weren't familiar with a web series in which each episode returns to the same, long painful night again and again. We felt this could be a very unique way of telling this particular story, especially as our lead character continues to return in his mind to events from the same ongoing night.

Originally, my producer, cinematographer and I estimated that the film would cost close to $30,000.00. We were planning to shoot over a period of two weeks in October, with ten shooting days and two rest days. But even though the shoot was planned in a relatively inexpensive way, it was clear I couldn’t quite raise enough money to make it happen. The IndieGoGo campaign brought in over $5000.00, but I was trying to raise as much as $15,000.00. Much of the budget came from the sheer length of the shoot – renting camera gear, grip/electric equipment, and production vehicles adds up significantly over the course of two weeks. And that doesn’t include food, which, for a crew of more than ten people and a cast of fifteen, is a significant expense. And then there were the locations – seven of our ten shooting days were at bars.

Despite our limited budget, I wanted this series to feel energetic and alive, and pulse with the intensity of the lead character's emotions. What we lack in resources, we will make up for in pure energy – that was my motto. Even as an October shoot date seemed foolhardy, I soldiered on – thinking that somehow we would be able to do it.

Before long, it became clear that we would be better served and prepared by shooting in the spring, and so I made the decision to move our dates. This would allow us a little more time to find the proper locations and to plan the logistics of the shoot – and, ideally, find more money.

During the winter, Mike and I scaled back the script to fit a more modest budget, and we were ultimately thrilled with the result. Through tightening the script to a leaner thirty pages, we found a way to shoot the series in five days rather than ten. Suddenly, the shoot seemed viable – we could make the series in a more cost-effective way that fit our budget.

But there were further complications ahead. In January, I lost most of my original crew to other jobs and circumstances beyond their control, which was a major setback. Luckily, I had a cast who was dedicated to the script and wasn't going anywhere, and so there was still a team behind this thing pushing it forward, by any means necessary. Along with Mike, we had some of the finest young actors in New York City – including Justin Danforth, Matthew K. Davis, Connor Delves, Aubrey Elenz, Allison Frasca, Taylor Marie Frey, Michael Galligan, Justine Magnusson, Max Pava and Jamie Wolfe. Many of them came directly from the Atlantic School of Acting at NYU, where Mike studied alongside them.

Then, I received some wonderful news in January that helped us immensely - I was one of four recipients of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, which includes a mentorship from the very successful producer Richie Jackson and a $5000.00 stipend, which went straight to this web series. You can view my bio for the Fellowship here, and read more about the fellowship here. Suddenly, the shoot didn’t seem so crazy. My mom, Gretchen Kyser, made a huge contribution to total up the funds needed. I wrote my contributors and let them know we were a full go for our spring shoot! (In case I haven’t said it before, I cannot thank the contributors to my IndieGoGo campaign enough. They helped make the series possible.)

As soon as I could, I found a new team – the extraordinary producer Alex Fofonoff (director of the feature film Blood and Thunder, in which I starred) had already been helping me scout locations during the summer, and his stepping in and taking charge of the project really saved us. Then, the immensely talented cinematographer Kevin Dynia joined the crew, along with assistant director Matthew James Reilly, sound mixer Nick Chirumbolo, and script supervisor Lain Kienzle.

In the months leading up to the shoot, I storyboarded the entire film and met with Kevin consistently to shot list the film. Alex and I locked down locations, insurance and all other logistical challenges – and I rehearsed with our large, magnificent cast (Mike now lives in Chicago, and so we did a large cast rehearsal without him before he arrived, and then individual, smaller rehearsals once he was in town).

In the end, we had a terrific shoot - four different bar locations (Beauty Bar, The Starlight, Phoenix and Syndicated), an extraordinary night of exteriors, and an on-set energy unlike any I've ever seen. We scheduled and planned the film the right way, and the work paid off - it was as smooth a shoot as you could hope for, especially considering the scale and ambition of the series.

I am so deeply honored and humbled by the hard work of our cast and crew members. We had two actors, Mike and Taylor Frey, fly in from Chicago and Los Angeles specifically for the shoot, and we called upon the talents of many local actors and filmmakers to help tell this story. We had two amazing actors who were part of the beloved Austin High theatre department, Aubrey Elenz and Zach Gamble, and renowned filmmakers running the set at a remarkable pace.

I feel confident in saying that this will be the strongest work I've made to date, and I owe so much of it to the extraordinary ensemble of actors in this piece. Every one of them added such vitality to this project, and I find myself cracking up and genuinely moved while watching the dailies.

Mike and I first started working together on this script well over a year ago, and almost exactly a year ago, we embarked upon casting the project. I can’t thank those who stuck with us from the beginning enough. It wasn't an easy road - from postponing our original shoot dates in October, to reassembling much of the team earlier this year - but I wouldn't have changed a thing about the way we pulled off the shoot in the end.

I will start working on editing the picture as soon as possible, and I feel confident, given the effort put into the film, that we will have a fantastic final product. Expect many more updates to come.

In addition to all of this news about Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, I also want to share some news about my previous film, Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding. Last year, this short film was named an Official Selection of the 2016 Black Cat Picture Show in Augusta, GA, and the 2016 Hudson Valley International Film Festival in upstate New York. The movie screened at both festivals in August, and Lucas Loredo won Best Supporting Actor in a Short Film at the Hudson Valley International Film Festival!

In June, the film will screen at NewFilmmakers New York at Anthology Film Archives, which is always an amazing place to screen a movie (I screened my film Jake the Cinephile there three years ago on probably the largest screen on which I’ve seen my work).

In addition, a clip from Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding screened on WJBP NewsChannel 6 in Augusta, Georgia, as part of the promotion for the Black Cat Picture Show. You can see the clip (featuring my co-star and dear friend Lucas and me) here at 0:34!

Monday, January 9, 2017

The Best Films of 2016

The last year has not been very good. The movies have been all right – the first five on this list are unquestionably masterpieces – but life has been uneasy. For me, it’s been a long year of broken computers, horrible cinema audiences and even worse politics.

I think I know what I need to do this next year. Be a little less guarded, and try to open myself up in real conversations with people. Tell people what I mean more, and, when appropriate, what they mean to me. I’m not very good at this. As they say in My Dinner with Andre, “We can’t be direct, so we end up saying the weirdest things.” I feel like that. Like my whole life is a series of regurgitated responses and I’m not really saying what I mean. I also want to absorb the content of things more. Take a few more chances. Let’s hope the New Year brings that.

I sometimes find myself at a distance from a lot of movies – they’re not affecting me like they used to. Most of that has to do with the distractions. Here are the films that broke through the noise.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for all of these films.

1. Silence (Martin Scorsese)

There are so few good films about religion – particularly ones that ask questions rather than give answers. In Martin Scorsese’s Silence, a powerful question is posed: is it right to renounce one’s faith if such an act ends the suffering of others?

In the seventeenth century, two Jesuit priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver), travel to Japan to find their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who has reportedly renounced Christianity under torture by the Japanese. Upon arriving in Japan in a search for Ferreira, the priests give hope to a village of persecuted Japanese Christians, but it’s not long before Rodrigues is captured and held before the Inquisitor (Issei Ogata). The Japanese demand that Rodrigues step on an image of Christ and renounce his faith, and in return, they will release the persecuted Christians they hold captive.

If renouncing his religion means suffering will end for so many people, isn’t that the right thing to do? Is it selfish to cling onto faith when the only person you’re saving is yourself? And is the Christian gospel something truly to be shared in every nation? These are some of the many questions Scorsese asks here.

The character of the believer plagued with doubts has been seen before in Scorsese’s work – namely in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), in which Jesus Christ (Willem Dafoe) struggles to accept his position as the savior of mankind. If Jesus is both God and man, then he must be susceptible to man’s temptations – that is the conceit behind The Last Temptation of Christ. Here, in Silence, you have a Christ-like figure tested again and again, and though he succumbs to a kind of defeat by the film’s end, his faith is still there – hidden, dormant, silent.

Andrew Garfield makes every moment of doubt and uncertainty real for us – he’s likely to get nominated for Best Actor this year for Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, but he should be nominated for this film.

This is the most austere, serious picture Scorsese has ever made. The explosive camerawork, rapid-fire editing and brilliant use of popular music – which are among the qualities that first drew me to the filmmaker as a young boy – are absent here. The questions the film asks are so pure, the suffering of its lead characters so intense on its own, that any kind of kinetic, whiplash-inducing filmmaking would betray the subject matter. Don’t think for a second that I’m dismissing either style – after all, Scorsese’s last film, the exhilarating The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), is the best film of this decade – although Silence may very well give it a run for its money.

This is the film Scorsese has wanted to direct for nearly thirty years, and it’s understandable why it was so difficult to make. Based on ShĂ»saku EndĂ´’s novel, the subject matter of Silence is unlike anything else being released in Hollywood’s current climate, particularly with this kind of budget and such a wide release. It was awe-inspiring to hear the silence in the cinema as it played – there was a real reverence for the passion of this filmmaker and his images onscreen (I hope everyone is as lucky to get this cinema experience – sadly, I doubt that will be the case, as today’s audiences are conditioned in such a way that people won’t know what to do with a film as meditative as Silence). Scorsese recently said he hasn’t watched much in the way of current cinema because the images don’t mean anything anymore. Here, they mean something.

His films, as Thelma Schoonmaker once said, are all about immersing the audience in a particular world and making you feel it. Here, you feel the inner torment of Rodrigues at every turn, but there is also an interesting remove here that I haven’t often seen in a Scorsese picture. Many scenes unfold with a straightforwardness that suggests a viewpoint other than the two priests – almost a divine presence observing these events and remaining silent throughout the suffering.

The silence in the title ostensibly refers to the silence of God as Rodrigues and others endure their pain. But there’s another kind of silence near the film’s end – the silence of the priests who give up their devotion to God. And yet, in the final haunting image of the film, we see how in their silence, there is a kind of prayer all its own.

There is a character, Kichijiro (YĂ´suke Kubozuka), who lies, betrays and watches his own family murdered while he rejects his faith and still lives. It’s an ongoing joke in the film that he constantly wants to confess to Rodrigues after he’s yet again done something wrong (in one instance, betraying Rodrigues and leading him to the Inquisitor).

But near the end, once all of the priests in Japan have renounced their faith and Christianity is spoken of no more, he is the only one to mention Christ to Rodrigues. Despite his constant wavering of faith, Kichijiro, in a way, brings Rodrigues’s awareness back to Christ.

And there is another question. Who is the nobler sufferer? The one who refuses to abandon his faith, or the sinner who apostatizes, again and again, and yet seeks forgiveness and continues to believe despite his sins?

Silence is a monumental achievement – the best film of the year.

2. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

Kenneth Lonergan’s follow-up to Margaret (2011), one of the greatest and most unheralded films of this decade, was always going to be one of my new favorite movies. But Manchester by the Sea overwhelmed me beyond my expectations with its raw power and heartfelt exploration of grief. There’s a sequence midway through this movie that goes down as one of the most powerful pieces of cinema I’ve ever seen.

I also really responded to the film’s lead character, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) – someone who, by his own admission, can’t beat his depression. He’s so disturbed and haunted by his past that, try as he might to be an outgoing person, ultimately he can’t fight against it.

The film does not end with failure, but with an admission that some people simply can never be the same. It’s in this way that the film understands grief in a more mature and honest way than most other movies out there. Both Lee and his nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), grow in unexpected ways, but their needs are incompatible. Patrick needs a guardian after the death of his father, but Lee simply can’t move back to his hometown – there will always be too many ghosts.

Even though the film is a slightly more contained character piece than Margaret, it is still bursting at the seams with fascinating supporting characters and a rich sense of location. At the center of the film is Affleck's lead performance, which is on another level from any other I've seen this year.

The scene in which he visits Kyle Chandler's body is so affectingly quiet and restrained - it's just one moment of beauty in a film full of them.

Here are a few more: the moment in which Affleck gently packs the pictures of his children one-by-one, after tossing his other belongings carelessly into a box. Hedges walking into the bedroom and staring at the pictures. Hedges visiting his father's body – so brisk and almost comical compared to the earlier scene with Affleck visiting the body. The scene with Affleck and the microwave - just staring at it, considering his past. Lonergan just knocks it out of the park, again and again, with these small, specific moments.

As usual, Lonergan builds a world of unbelievably complex characters with inner lives that extend far beyond the picture. I am in awe of him and what he has accomplished with this film, Margaret and You Can Count On Me (2000).

And it's worth mentioning that the flashbacks are as well implemented as I've seen in a film. They're quick and sudden, and so perfectly placed in the overall narrative, offering context and heartfelt backstory to the lives unfolding in front of our eyes. Manchester by the Sea is a beautiful film, and in a different year, it would have placed at the top of this list.

3. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)

The feeling of Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! lingered with me days after seeing it. It’s a deceptively powerful film, perhaps because underneath all of the good times and hard-partying, there’s a profound sadness that’s only revealed when it’s all over.

I'm amazed how similarly the film works as Linklater’s masterpiece Boyhood (2014) - there's really not much melancholy in the movie itself, but the experience of watching it and then leaving the cinema allows the sadness to slowly seep in afterward. Suddenly, you realize you can’t hang out with these guys anymore, and you want the good times to continue. The film’s cumulative power is so much bigger than I realized during the casualness of its individual scenes, and it isn’t until the final quiet moments of the picture, right before Let the Good Times Roll by The Cars starts playing, that the full impact of what you’ve seen hits you.

The moment that best hints at this sadness in the film is during the team’s baseball practice, in which Willoughby (Wyatt Russell) is quietly called off the field by the coach, told he has to leave the team, and shakes the coach’s hand (it’s later revealed he’s thirty years old and fudged his transcript to get back onto a college team – he simply wants to relive his glory years).

“Here for a good time, not a long time,” Willoughby says to the others in a down-to-earth manner as he’s called off the field, echoing the film’s tagline.

The other guys don’t know how to react, and we’re quickly whisked away from the potentially melancholy moment by the ridiculously bad sportsmanship of Jay Niles (Juston Street). It’s a technique that recalls something Martin Scorsese does in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), where Jordan Belfort briefly comes face-to-face with one of the deeply disturbing consequences of his lifestyle (a co-worker’s suicide) and then immediately brushes it aside and moves on to the next fun thing. These movies don’t want to linger in the melancholy, but we’re always aware it’s there, bubbling just beneath the surface.

In a strange way, Everybody Wants Some!! both doubles down on the partying in Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), and yet it’s somehow even more nostalgic and elegiac than that movie. It captures what you wish college was like, in its most idealized form.

Leaving the theater, I felt something I've experienced after some of the best moments of my life – when, after being surrounded by friends, the noise settles down and you slowly realize that that feeling won't return ever again – not that exact feeling, anyway. In a way, this feeling is what’s going to come over the characters in this movie in the near future. They’re all on their way to unremarkable adulthoods, and it’s doubtful the rest of their lives will live up to what they experience here.

The structure here is awesome – rather than cutting from one baseball practice to a wild party and then back to another baseball practice, we just get one long practice scene. By not cutting away from any one location too quickly, we get the most out of the hang-out feeling, like we’re really living in these scenes. Linklater and editor Sandra Adair give every scene breathing room – we’re not just jumping from one thing to another. And Linklater does such a good job of introducing fifteen central characters and helping us know and understand each of them.

And I’m amazed by how subtly Linklater is able to infuse a sense of melancholy throughout the movie. I think he partially does it through music, and by showing these characters charging ahead for their youthful goals that, sometimes, seem a little sad. Will they remember any of these frivolous games in ten years? Will any of this matter?

Take, for instance, the scene at the county-western bar, where the guys re-locate after Jay gets them kicked out of Sound Machine. One of them, Nesbit (Austin Amelio), rides the bar’s mechanical bull ferociously - and as the tune Driving My Life Away by Eddie Rabbit plays, I suddenly felt a great deal of despair.

It's something about the match between music, activity and the character's goal – he’s dead set on riding that bull as well as he can. And it made me deeply sad - for the character, for the thrills and highs we try to achieve every night as young people. It just reminded me of something. I don’t know what, exactly. Maybe it felt reminiscent of a time, place and feeling I've shared, and the truly insignificant goals we’ve all embarked upon that only distract from the larger loneliness of a given night on the town. That’s all here, in this one quick scene, with that song playing and Nesbit riding that bull.

Sometimes I think a movie is well made, but I resist connecting to it, or feel that it can’t be one of my favorites, because the characters aren’t anything like me, or the picture doesn’t mirror my own experience. But watching Everybody Wants Some!!, I was reminded that that’s not how great cinema works. Sometimes great cinema shows you what you wish your life could be, and makes you nostalgic for something you’ve never experienced. You respond deeply to the feeling of the picture without it necessarily reflecting anything in your life.

More than anything, this movie made me feel like I missed out. It’s what I imagine an alternate life could have been like, if I was just a little different from the way I am. A lot of what happens in the movie is almost like what my life growing up in Texas was supposed to be like. The characters in this film are the guys from my high school (in one case, quite literally), and I always felt a little left out of this kind of thing – which is why I want to make the version of this film from the outsider’s perspective (more on that in a different post). But Everybody Wants Some!! warmly invites you to be a part of the action for two hours. In Linklater's universe, we're all connected, if only for a short amount of time.

4. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

After seeing the film three times and finding each experience more rewarding than the last, there’s no question in my mind that La La Land is one of the most original and immensely lovable movies of the last several years. Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014) was one hell of a ride, but he outdoes himself here with a sprawling and ambitious musical that’s flat-out infectious in its energy.

What’s truly inspiring about La La Land is how impressive the film is on a technical level (those one-takes!) and yet how the visual wonders of the film take a backseat to the real feeling and emotion at the center of the picture. This is chiefly because the two leads are the endlessly charismatic and talented Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, and also because the original music both elevates the story and creates a feeling that’s exalting, sad, joyous and wistful all the same.

La La Land is also, among many other things, tailor-made for aspiring artists. In fact, the ending outright acknowledges the way in which we remember and romanticize our days of aspiration. Just as Whiplash offered a complicated ending that elevated everything that came before it, so does La La Land end on a similarly complex note. The film also asks the heartbreaking question – what happens when nobody cares about your art?

In the end, there’s no way Stone and Gosling’s characters can stay together and both realize their dreams. But they’ll always have that formidable time together in their memories, and perhaps even remember it in the Hollywood version of their choosing – which is the bittersweet Casablanca (1943) ending the movie deserves.

I must say that Stone in particular is just luminous in this film – her charm has never been so effectively used. Although it’s tough to pick between her and Natalie Portman (Jackie – see below) for Best Actress, I think I’d have to go with Stone – it’s the performance of a lifetime.

5. Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie)

I don’t have much to write about David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water, other than what about that damn movie! I mean, how about that moment when Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) – spoiler ahead – leans over in horror as his partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham), is shot dead? They’ve spent the whole film teasing each other and trading casual barbs, and then suddenly, in that one moment, we see how much Alberto really means to Marcus. It’s just about heartbreaking.

Or how about that shot when Toby (Chris Pine) stays in the restaurant and converses with the waitress, while we watch his brother, Tanner (Ben Foster), rob another bank through the window? I mean, how about that!

I loved this movie.

6. Fences (Denzel Washington)

Fences is a powerful, stirring adaptation of August Wilson’s masterful play, with two of the best performances of the year from Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Washington plays Troy Maxson, a garbage collector in 1950s Pittsburgh who once had great promise as a baseball player, but landed in jail instead. Davis is his long-suffering wife Rose, who stands beside Troy even as he begins a downward spiral.

Davis nearly brought me to tears with her performance here. I was reminded of why I loved this movie so much when she recently won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. She called her own father “the original Troy” – he was a man who “groomed horses, had a fifth grade education, didn’t know how to read until he was 15.” But “he had a story and it deserved to be told, and August Wilson told it.”

Yes, his story does deserve to be told. Troy is by no means a perfect man, but he’s stuck in a strange time in 1956, having come after his deceased father, who worked in the cotton fields, but before his son, who will undoubtedly have more opportunities than Troy. He works hard, puts food on the table and has raised his sons with Rose to be good young men – and yet his aspirations and dreams have been thwarted, which has turned him bitter and poisonous. Watching his disappointment turn into a full-out breakdown is heartbreaking, and Fences does justice to this all-American tragedy. Wilson created something on the level of Death of a Salesman from an African-American perspective, and it’s unquestionably one of the greatest plays of modern American drama.

What I also admired about Fences is that it doesn’t hide its theatrical roots – this is unquestionably a play adapted for film. Yes, it has only a few locations, but there’s nothing more cinematic than well-blocked scenes making excellent use of their space, and Washington stages the film wondrously. More than anything, though, the words matter here, and they absolutely sear as delivered by Washington, Davis and the rest of the cast.

7. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)

Arrival still reveals its many layers after several viewings. I thought I had a handle on it after seeing it the second time, but even then, I seemed to miss a key component of its mystery. It’s a triumph of mood and atmosphere, but also of ideas, with its concept of non-linear time being rather ingenious.

Amy Adams is outstanding here as Louise Banks, a linguist carrying an unknown weight as she attempts to communicate with one of twelve extra-terrestrial spacecrafts that have landed on earth. Her depression seems to make sense to us given flashbacks early in the film – until we realize that the specifics of her grief aren’t exactly what she (or we) think.

I’ll dive deeply into one plot specific that still eludes me (again, major spoilers ahead). With the aliens granting her the ability to view time in a non-linear fashion, does that give Louise the power to change the future if she wishes? I didn’t think about this after seeing the film twice, but upon another viewing, someone pointed out that there’s a key line that suggests otherwise. I look forward to watching this film again and discovering more – it’s that kind of picture.

This is really the career pinnacle for director Denis Villeneuve, who, with Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2014), Sicario (2015) and now this film, has become one of the best and most exciting new directors in Hollywood.

8. Jackie (Pablo Larrain)

Jackie should be celebrated, first and foremost, for being light years away from the by-the-numbers biopic it could have so easily been. The film makes an American tragedy an experiential drama that feels like a nightmare, and does such a terrific job of dramatizing how traumatic the assassination of President John F. Kennedy must have been for everyone involved – particularly Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman).

There’s no question that Portman’s performance here is extraordinary – she gives us a real window into this private woman’s world. And yet there’s so much else to love about this movie that risks being ignored – the beautiful conversations between Jackie and her priest (John Hurt); the supporting performances from Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup; the haunting score by Mica Levi; and the cinematography by Stephane Fontaine, all of which add to the mood of this piece.

Even the blocking in this movie has an unreal quality to it. Characters will sit in one position, talking to one another, and then with a quick cut, they’ll be in a completely different position in the same room. These kinds of choices give the movie an ethereal quality that helps us understand what this experience may have been like for Mrs. Kennedy. Jackie is such an interesting, unusual film, and the bold choices it makes only compliment Portman’s extraordinary work in the lead role.

9. Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick)

It's a miracle that a movie as contemplative as Knight of Cups exists in this day and age. Terrence Malick finds real beauty here in the decadence of Los Angeles, with locations as evocative as anything in his filmography (production designer Jack Fisk does amazing work, as always). Malick also benefits from having an incredibly strong, emotive lead actor in Christian Bale, who is fascinating to watch in every quiet moment of this film. He seems to relish Malick's style of filmmaking, inviting us to share his character's very real struggle without having anything close to a traditional scene of dialogue.

The scenes with Bale's father (Brian Dennehy) and his brother (Wes Bentley) are some of the best in the film. Cate Blanchett makes a memorable impression as Bale's ex-wife, in a sequence in which we come to understand so much about his character through his reactions to her work as a nurse.

It's interesting to see Malick film the modern-day emptiness of a heavily materialistic culture, partially because I'm so used to seeing the natural world represented in his films. This is only Malick's second non-period piece (after 2013’s To the Wonder), and I love seeing him capture our world in a way that emphasizes both the beauty and the trappings of a decadent wasteland.

Structuring the film in sections named after tarot cards fits so well with this story of a man on a quest to find meaning in his life and world. The experience of a hard-partying Hollywood player has never been put onscreen quite like this before, with so much contemplation as to what it all means and what role he's playing. There's a very memorable scene in which Bale's apartment is robbed and he's held at gunpoint. One of the burglars asks why there isn't anything of value in his home, and Bale doesn't have an answer.

As always with Malick, I found myself lost in Knight of Cups in a beautiful way, and I was made a little less aware of the current time and space around me. There's no way in his pictures to really know where we are structurally in the story, and so our minds are free to wander and take in the beauty of each moment. We simply exist in the space of the movie, and that is a wonderful thing.

10. Hail, Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)

I wasn’t sure what to put for #10. Should it be one of the films by two of my favorite directors – Clint Eastwood’s amazing, rock-solid Sully or Oliver Stone’s underappreciated Snowden? Or one of the two great films by Jeff Nichols (Midnight Special, Loving)? What about the funniest movie of the year, Shane Black’s The Nice Guys, or Andrea Arnold’s hypnotic American Honey?

I’m going with an early-year favorite – Hail, Caesar!, the latest parable from Joel and Ethan Coen. It’s at once a loving tribute to the Hollywood studio pictures of the 1950s and also a riotous takedown of the wobbly rules that keep the studio system in place.

And, as always with the Coens, it’s about much more. Josh Brolin, as studio head Eddie Mannix, seeks advice from a priest in the beginning and ending of the film. He’s morally conflicted about whether to take a new job with a large salary in the airline industry, or to stay at the studio and continue the more difficult job of managing out-of-line actors and overseeing the day-to-day business of moviemaking. But whether he likes it or not, there is a future coming his way that he can’t control, and one whose influence he can’t always slap out of his actors – or can he?

The Rest of the Best

11. Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols)
12. Snowden (Oliver Stone)
13. Sully (Clint Eastwood)
14. American Honey (Andrea Arnold)
15. The Nice Guys (Shane Black)
16. Swiss Army Man (Daniels)
17. Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson)
18. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee)
19. Weiner (Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)
20. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)
21. Allied (Robert Zemeckis)
22. The BFG (Steven Spielberg)
23. Café Society (Woody Allen)
24. The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)
25. Wiener-Dog (Todd Solondz)
26. The Light Between Oceans (Derek Cianfrance)
27. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
28. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi)
29. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
30. Miss Sloane (John Madden)

Other Movies I Loved and Admired:

Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone)
Rules Don’t Apply (Warren Beatty)
The Witch (Robert Eggers)
The Hollars (John Krasinski)
Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
Eye in the Sky (Gavin Hood)
Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (Terrence Malick)
The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker)
A War (Tobias Lindholm)
Bleed for This (Ben Younger)
Jason Bourne (Paul Greengrass)
Triple 9 (John Hillcoat)
Sausage Party (Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon)
Elvis and Nixon (Liza Johnson)
The Girl on the Train (Tate Taylor)
Money Monster (Jodie Foster)
10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg)
Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards)
Zootopia (Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush)

Best Director

Winner: Martin Scorsese, Silence

Runners-Up: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea; Richard Linklater, Everybody Wants Some!!; Damien Chazelle, La La Land; David Mackenzie, Hell or High Water; Denzel Washington, Fences; Denis Villeneuve, Arrival

Best Actor

Winner: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Runners-Up: Denzel Washington, Fences; Andrew Garfield, Silence and Hacksaw Ridge; Ryan Gosling, La La Land; Tom Hanks, Sully; Colin Farrell, The Lobster

Best Actress

Winner: Emma Stone, La La Land

Runners-Up: Natalie Portman, Jackie; Amy Adams, Arrival; Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane; Isabelle Huppert, Elle; Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water

Runners-Up: Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea; Liam Neeson, Silence; Peter Sarsgaard, Jackie; Ben Foster, Hell or High Water; Glen Powell, Everybody Wants Some!!; Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Viola Davis, Fences

Runners-Up: Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea and Certain Women; Lily Gladstone, Certain Women; Margo Martindale, The Hollars

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Manchester by the Sea

Runners-Up: La La Land; Everybody Wants Some!!; Hell or High Water; Hail, Caesar!

Best Adapted Screenplay: Silence

Runners-Up: Fences; Arrival; Sully