LISTIN' THE NIGHT AWAY...

A Safe and Prosperous and Happy New Year to everybody! Check out my 2025 Top Ten Movies List...

...online at Phoenix Magazine.

Compare and contrast to this year's honorees from Phoenix Film Critics Society...

...of which I am always proud to remind everyone I'm a founding member.

barbenheimerflowermoonemmaryanjustken…

The Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I'm an enduringly proud founding member...

...has announced its 2023 Award winners and Top Ten list. As always, some of the selections represent my voting--I'm especially glad my colleagues agreed with me about Da'Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers--others do not, but there's a lot of good acting and moviemaking represented on this list.

While I'm on the subject, I think the PFCS Awards need a name. The Pheenies? The Nixies? The Dry Heaties? Just spitballing...

I'll post my own Top Ten list after the New Year. Happy Holidays everybody!

BELFAST AND THE FURIOUS

Phoenix Film Critic Society, of which I'm always proud to note that I'm a founding member, has announced our 2021 award winners. Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical drama Belfast...

...won Best Picture, Best Director and three other awards; the new version of Dune also won five awards. Check out the full list here. As always, some of it reflects my voting, some doesn't, but there are lots of movies worth seeing on the list.

CRITICAL ATTITUDES

The Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I am always proud to point out I was a founding member, has announced our 2018 Award Winners. Peter Farrelly's Green Book had four wins, as did Alfonso Cuaron's Roma.

As always, some of the winners reflect my voting, others do not, but there are a lot of movies worth seeing among them. I was especially delighted that Bart Layton's brilliant American Animals took "Overlooked Film of the Year."

I plan to post my own Top Ten list early in the New Year.

THE PRESENT TENS

Time once again for that grandly unimportant end of the year tradition: The Top Ten Movies List. Here are the ten movies that, at the moment, seem most deserving of recognition:

10. The Big Sick--Kumail Nanjiani plays a Pakistani-American stand-up comic and Uber driver in Chicago. His white grad student girlfriend Emily (Zoe Kazan) breaks up with him when she learns that he hasn't told his strictly traditional family about her (they want to arrange a Pakistani bride for him). Then when Emily becomes gravely ill, Kumail bonds with her parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) while she's in a medically-induced coma. Directed with a light but warm touch by Michael Showalter from a script by Nanjiani and his real-life wife Emily Gordon, this gentle, low-key comedy-drama left me feeling much better. (I never got around to running a review of it on the blog, however; I promise I'll be more brief with the rest of my selections.)

9. The DisasterArtist--James Franco gives the performance of his career so far as Tommy Wiseau in this comedy about the making of The Room. This movie seems to work even for people who have never seen Wiseau's bad-movie classic.

8. Colossal--Anne Hathaway gives one of her best performances in Nacho Vigalondo's brilliant expansion of the possibilities of the giant-monster picture.

7. The Lego Batman Movie--It's more coherent than some of the superhero flicks it sends up, and it's certainly far funnier.

6. Loving Vincent--Supposedly the first fully painted animated movie, this exploration of Van Gogh's death is both visually ravishing and also a watchable and touching drama.

5. Trophy--Not everyone will be able to watch this graphic examination of big-game trophy hunting, but it isn't just sensationalism; there's a real effort to get at the psychology (and politics) underlying this horror.

4. Step--It's almost impossible to watch this documentary about the members of the step team at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and not feel invested in their futures. 

3. The Shape ofWater--Just your basic amphibious-man-meets-girl story from Guillermo del Toro. Get out your hankies.

2. Get Out--Jordan Peele's horror melodrama about race as a hijack-able commodity is dazzlingly imaginative yet traditional.

1. The Lovers--Hardly anyone seemed to pay attention to this ingenious comedy about infidelity folded back onto itself, so I think I'll let it top my list.

On the other hand, here are ten other movies that could have found a place on the list:

Downsizing

I, Tonya

Menashe

Kong: Skull Island

Wonder Woman

Happy Death Day

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Molly’s Game

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Lady Bird

Here are some more that didn't seem like complete wastes of time:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Only the Brave, The Trip to Spain, The Post, Darkest Hour, Churchill, The Greatest Showman, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Murder on the Orient Express, Logan, Thor: Ragnarok, Dunkirk, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Hero, The Exception, All Eyez on Me, Stronger, It,  Ferdinand, Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent, Wilson.

And let's not forget the Phoenix Film Critics Society 2017 award winners, notably Best Picture winner The Shape of Water.

A Safe and Happy New Year to all from Less Hat, Moorhead!

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

Opening today:

Passengers—Jim and Aurora are passengers on the ultimate red eye, a huge, luxurious interstellar ship on a 120-year voyage to a colony planet. Both of them are awakened from their pods way too early, with ninety years of flight left—Jim first, Aurora about a year later.

They can’t figure out how to put themselves back to sleep, but since Jim’s played by Chris Pratt and Aurora is played by Jennifer Lawrence, it isn’t surprising that they find a way to pass the time. The course of true love doesn’t run smoothly, however, and neither does the spaceship, and eventually perils arise that require derring-do and sacrifice.

This science-fiction romance, directed by the Norwegian Morten Tyldum from a long-postponed script by Jon Spaihts, is lavish and visually elegant. The ship, which resembles a giant corkscrew as it twirls its way through the void, is like a high-end shopping mall, spa and resort on the inside. As solitary confinements go, it’s above average.

And Pratt and Lawrence are rather visually elegant, too. But their characterizations are flat and uninteresting. About midpoint, Jim takes an action that makes it hard to like him, but it’s also just about the only true interpersonal drama that Passengers offers.

The dialogue is most of the problem. Michael Sheen appears as a robot bartender, spouting mindless platitudes in the grand tradition of his profession, and this would be droll if most of Jim and Aurora’s lines weren’t equally banal.

Passengers is cleverly imagined, and it has its moments, like a scene involving a swimming pool and the loss of gravity, that show some sci-fi panache. But overall, it’s slow going, the sort of film that’s only worth watching, say, on a long flight. And even then, only if you can’t get to sleep.

The Phoenix Film Critics Society has announced its 2016 award winners! La La Land led the field, taking seven awards, and Manchester by the Sea, Hell or High Water, Moonlight and Hacksaw Ridge were also among the winners.

Clearly most critics got more out of La La Land than I did, but I was glad to see Linus Sandgren honored for that film’s superb cinematography.

Check out the complete list of winners here.

NOMS, & NOM-NOMS

The Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I’m always proud to note I’m a founding member, has announced its 2016 award nominations. Like every year, some of these represent my nominating, others don’t, but there are a lot of worthwhile movies on this list.

  

Check out the December issue of Phoenix Magazine…

 

…now on the stands, for my “Four Corners” column on worthwhile chain restaurants. It’s on page 135, or here.

RIP to John Glenn, of whom I once caught a glimpse when he was riding in the Fiesta Bowl Parade, departed at 95. RIP also to Van Williams, passed on at 82, one of the handsomer guys ever to appear on TV, even when his face was half-covered by the mask of the Green Hornet...

Kudos to MeTV this past Saturday for airing the “crossover” episodes of Batman featuring the Green Hornet as “Visiting Hero” and Kato (Bruce Lee) as “Assistant Visiting Hero.”

With the Star Wars movie Rogue One opening…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s acknowledge this multilegged creature…

…from Monsters, the intriguing low-budget debut of Rogue One director Gareth Edwards.

THE NOT SO HATEFUL TEN (PLUS)

Proud though I am to be a founding member of Phoenix Film Critics Society, the Society’s choices for Best Picture are not always the same as mine. This year, however, we agree—both PFCS and I lead our list with Tom McCarthy’s gripping Spotlight. The rest of the PFCS awards for 2015 may be read at phoenixfilmcriticssociety.org; my Top Ten list is here:

Spotlight—The title refers to a team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe who, in the early 2000s, uncovered evidence both that priestly child abuse was far more widespread than was previously understood, and that the city’s Archdiocese had consciously and systematically covered it up. Like several of this year’s best movies, this drama directed and co-written by Thomas McCarthy has depressing and infuriating subject matter. But it also has a superb ensemble cast led by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Billy Crudup, Stanley Tucci and Liev Schreiber, and a low-key tension that leads to potent emotional payoffs.

2. The Big Short

3. Inside Out

4. Brooklyn

5. Carol

6. Straight Outta Compton

7. Bridge of Spies

8. The Martian

9. Ant-Man

10. Creed

This is the version of my list that ran in print last week; since then I’ve caught up with a couple of flicks that almost certainly would have dislodged some of the selections above: Anomalisa, for one, and also Taratntino’s blood-soaked Jacobean western The Hateful Eight, which I got to see in the “70mm Roadshow” version he’s suckering format nerds like me into coughing up fifteen bucks a ticket for.

The “Roadshow” is shot (by the great Robert Richardson) and screened in actual, no-kidding Ultra Panavision 70, plus it has all the retro trimmings they used to give big “event movies” back in the ‘60s—an overture, an intermission, and even a full-color program. Plus, the movie itself is a highly entertaining Grand Guignol black comedy, even at three hours, and it has a classic, snaky musical score by the great Ennio Morricone. If the 70mm version is playing in your area, I’d recommend.

Other movies I enjoyed this year, to one degree or another, include: Chi-Raq, The Revenant, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Woman in Gold, Grandma, Steve Jobs, Concussion, Jurassic World, It Follows, Learning to Drive, Trumbo, The Good Dinosaur, Being Knievel, The Visit, Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect 2, He Named Me Malala, Lila & Eve, Jupiter Ascending, Spectre and Pawn Sacrifice. Also, not many people here in the Valley seemed to notice Zhang Yimou’s period drama from China, Coming Home, starring the great Gong Li, but it was powerful.

Oh yeah, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That one wasn’t bad, either.

THE ROBOT SHUTS UP...

…and puts its top back on, alas…

 Your Humble Narrator is displeased to report that the Village Voice nerd-culture website The Robot’s Voice (formerly Topless Robot), to which I was a frequent contributor for the last two and half years, has been closed. I hope its editor, Luke Thompson, finds himself up to new mischief soon.

The Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I’m a proud founding member, has announced its 2015 Award Winners. I’m especially happy with this year’s Best Picture winner, which had my vote. My own Top Ten list will follow shortly after the New Year.

Here are some reflections on Christmas music that have occurred to me recently:

“Santa Baby” is a really impressive piece of songwriting, with a spectacularly complex, intricate rhyme scheme. Also, did you know it was written by the niece of Jacob Javits? Also, all versions of this song except Eartha Kitt’s should be banned from the airwaves. Madonna’s coy bimbo version withers embarrassingly beside Kitt’s sedate, unhurried vocal, a perfect counterpoint to the infantile acquisitiveness of the lyric.

There have been many delightful versions of the duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” But the older I get, the more it starts to sound like a creepy date-rape song, especially in the line “Say, what’s in this drink?"

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is rousingly performed, but something has always bugged me about it, and I think it’s this: It’s insulting. She keeps saying she doesn’t want much this Christmas, she isn’t asking for much, and then she says the trifling little insignificant thing she wants is…you. Gee, thanks.

R.I.P. STAN

RIP to my friend and Phoenix Film Critics Society colleague Stan Robinson, passed on yesterday at 68.

Stan had become a film reviewer for AZ Weekly after he retired from a long career on the production side of movies and TV; he worked, in various capacities, on movies ranging from Passenger 57 to Van Sant’s To Die For to Psycho IV: The Beginning.

But he was at least as much a movie fan as a movie maker—he was one of the happiest and most devoted screening rats I’ve ever known, never missing anything if he could help it. He struggled with poor health and other challenges over the last few years, always with an inspirationally upbeat attitude. He was a really sweet guy, and we’ll miss him.

THREE, TIMES FIVE

Opening today:

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies—The third installment of Peter Jackson’s three-part adaptation—and embellishment upon—the Tolkien novel starts off big. The dragon Smaug, voiced by the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, wreaks havoc on a nearby fishing village and does battle with a valiant local boy (Luke Evans). While I sat there watching this sequence, I thought it was so strong that Jackson would have a hard time topping it, and as it ended I settled in for a long evening of droning exposition and wearying, incomprehensible-to-non-geeks prophesying.

I was wrong. Hobbit Part Two was better than Hobbit Part One, and for my money, Hobbit Part Three is the most exciting of the lot. Title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his pals the dwarves have taken occupancy in the dragon’s treasure-filled lair, and dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) is going all Treasure of Sierra Madre with gold-fueled paranoia.

Meanwhile four other legions—the elegant, aloof elves, the ogre-ish Orcs, the humans from the fishing village and more dwarves led by Thorin’s cantankerous brother Dain (the great Billy Connolly) converge outside the lair, each with its own agenda involving Smaug’s hoarded booty. At the heart of this bombast, and comically contrasted with it, is the modest sheepishness and goodwill of Bilbo, scurrying around trying to be honest and do the right thing.

When you get past the brilliance and intricacy of Jackson’s staging, I suppose all these tempestuous fight scenes don’t have anything deeper behind them than pro wrestling. But I liked how almost every positive thing that happens in this finale happens because members of different races reach out to each other.

Now that his Hobbit saga is (presumably!) complete, I really hope that Jackson puts the Tolkien on the shelf, at least for a decade or so, and tries something different. Almost anything different will do—a car chase movie, a bachelor party comedy—as long as it doesn’t involve broadswords and shaggy beards. Middle Earth has been very good to Jackson, but I hope that now this incredibly talented filmmaker will turn his attention, and his camera, back towards regular old Earth.

The Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I am always proud to note that I'm a founding member, has announced our 2014 Award Winners. As always, some of them reflect my voting—despite my gripes about Birdman, for instance, Michael Keaton had my vote—and others don't, but there are plenty of movies worth seeing on the list. I was particularly pleased to see the powerful and artful Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me take Best Documentary.

BEST PICTURE

Birdman

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2014 (in alphabetical order)

A Most Violent Year
Birdman
Boyhood
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Imitation Game
The Lego Movie
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR

Richard Linklater, Boyhood

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Michael Keaton, Birdman

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

J. K. Simmons, Whiplash

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game

BEST ENSEMBLE ACTING

Birdman

BEST SCREENPLAY WRITTEN DIRECTLY FOR THE SCREEN

The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST SCREENPLAY ADAPTED FROM MATERIAL IN ANOTHER MEDIUM

Gone Girl

BEST LIVE ACTION FAMILY FILM (Rated G or PG)

Into the Woods

THE OVERLOOKED FILM OF THE YEAR

Edge of Tomorrow

BEST ANIMATED FILM

The Lego Movie

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Ida

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Everything is Awesome," The Lego Movie

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Birdman

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Birdman

BEST FILM EDITING

Birdman

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Intersellar

BEST STUNTS

Edge of Tomorrow

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE ON CAMERA

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE BEHIND THE CAMERA

Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUTH IN A LEAD OR SUPPORTING ROLE: MALE

Jaeden Lieberer, St. Vincent

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUTH IN A LEAD OR SUPPORTING ROLE: FEMALE

Lilla Crawford, Into the Woods

SAY WIN

Phoenix Film Critics Society has announced our 2013 Award Winners...

BEST PICTURE

12 Years a Slave

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2013 (in alphabetical order)

12 Years a Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Mud

Nebraska
Philomena

Saving Mr. Banks

Short Term 12

BEST DIRECTOR

Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Lupito Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

BEST ENSEMBLE ACTING

American Hustle

BEST SCREENPLAY - ORIGINAL

Nebraska

BEST SCREENPLAY - ADAPTATION

12 Years a Slave

BEST LIVE ACTION FAMILY FILM (Rated G or PG)

Oz, The Great and Powerful

THE OVERLOOKED FILM OF THE YEAR

(TIE)

The Kings of Summer

And

The Spectacular Now

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Frozen

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Blue is the Warmest Color

BEST DOCUMENTARY

20 Feet from Stardom

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Let It Go," Frozen

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Frozen

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Gravity

BEST FILM EDITING

Gravity

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Gravity

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

The Great Gatsby

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Gravity

BEST STUNTS

Fast & Furious 6

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE ON CAMERA

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE BEHIND THE CAMERA

Lake Bell, In a World...

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUTH IN A LEAD OR SUPPORTING ROLE, MALE

Tye Sheridan, Mud

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUTH IN A LEAD OR SUPPORTING ROLE, FEMALE

Sophie Nelisse, The Book Thief

As always, some of them reflect my voting—I was especially delighted to see Lake Bell win Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera for her overlooked comedy In a World…—and some don’t, but it’s a list full of movies worth seeing.

Although Bruce Dern didn’t win Best Actor for his beautiful underplaying in Nebraska, the movie did win for Best Original Screenplay. So, just since Dern is one of my favorite actors…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod to any specimen of the Zanti Misfits…

…stars of the like-titled 1963 Outer Limits episode, in which the young Dern appeared as an Earthly Misfit who has an unhappy encounter with the alien exiles…

SMAUG ALERT

Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I am always proud to note myself a founding member, has announced its 2013 Award Nominations. As always, some of them reflect my nominating and some do not, but there are plenty of good movies on the list. The winners will be announced next week; my Top Ten list will appear here after the New Year.

In theaters this week is the next chapter in Peter Jackson’s multi-movie adaptation of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, with its grand new incarnation of the title dragon, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. So…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week let’s look back to an earlier version of Smaug, from the 1977 Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit…

…in which he was gruffly voiced by Western fixture Richard Boone.

PRIZE DOES MATTER

Phoenix Film Critics Society, of which I’m proud to note that I’m a founding member, has announced its 2012 award winners. Like every year, some of these reflect my nominating and voting, some don’t, but as always there are lots of movies worth seeing on this list:  

Phoenix Film Critics Society 2012 Annual Awards  

Best Picture

Argo

Top Ten Films

Argo

The Avengers

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Les Misérables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

Skyfall

Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Anne Hathaway - Les Misérables

Best Ensemble Acting

Moonrise Kingdom

Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Moonrise Kingdom

Best Screenplay Adapted from Another Medium

Argo

Best Live Action Family Film

Life of Pi

Overlooked Film of the Year

Safety Not Guaranteed

Best Animated Film

Wreck-It Ralph

Best Foreign Language Film

The Intouchables

Best Documentary

Searching for Sugar Man

Best Original Song

"Skyfall" from Skyfall

Best Original Score

Skyfall

Best Cinematography

Life of Pi

Best Film Editing

Argo

Best Production Design

Moonrise Kingdom

Best Costume Design

Anna Karenina

Best Visual Effects

Life of Pi

Best Stunts

Skyfall

Breakthrough Performance on Camera

Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera

Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Youth Performance in a Lead or Supporting Role - Male

Tom Holland - The Impossible

Best Youth Performance in a Lead or Supporting Role - Female

Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Assuming the Mayans weren’t right, my Top Ten list should be posted here shortly after the New Year.

NEIL COHEN (1963-2012)

Hyperbole is common when the subject is somebody who has just died. But I promise you that I would have listed my friend and Phoenix Film Critic Society colleague Neil Cohen without hesitation as one of the nicest, sweetest people I’ve ever known—a human mood-lifter—even if he hadn’t passed on Saturday night. Which, alas, he did.

Neil was an actor and playwright as well as a critic, a longtime veteran of the Murder-Mystery dinner theater scene, and he succumbed to an apparent heart attack, backstage during a show he was performing in. That he died doing something he loved so much is a great comfort.

RIP, Neil. Be seeing you, pal. I’m so glad I got to chat with you a little after the screening Thursday night. I’ll miss you enormously. If you ever feel like dropping in on a screening, go for it.

Here’s Neil as Rhoda in his notorious production of The Bad Seed some years ago. Something tells me he’d like to be remembered this way…