If the film community selected a top 200 English language films in 2016 (scribble edition)

While working a call center job, I decided to use my free time to make a list of what I would predict would be the top 200 English-language films if a number of expert film critics and consumer revoted in the year 2016. Yes, I'm sure if you were working in a call center you would do a crossword puzzle/word search or your nails but when you're a certified film obsessive this is what you do.

Rather than retype the results, I will repost it in its original chicken scratch form. The cutoff year is 2010.

Some of my points of reference, recent EW polls, Empire Magazine's latest polls and IMDB have placed more of a premium on sci-fi films and downplayed the pervasiveness of musicals. The resurgence of the cerebral sci-fi film w the successes of "Martian" "Gravity" and "Arrival" certainly have helped this trend as well as the receiving of "Star Wars" as not a complete disaster. 

Only the most recognizable musicals like "Sound of Music" "West Side Story" and "Singing in the Rain" make my top 100 with "Meet me in St Louis" clocking in at 102 and that could be wishful thinking on my part. It's a very significant film historically and even "La La Land" takes some cues from it, but for some audiences, it still might be overly quaint. Astaire and Rogers are still relevant but I would imagine significant vote splitting among their eight collaborations together. Similarly, vote splitting would dilute the consistently even filmographies of Preston Surges and Douglas Dirk so that there would be no clear winners. 

Similarly, a new class of Western is more en vogue these days that would align more with Peckinpah, the Coens and Tarantino than the classic Ford prototype. Namely, more violence which is why "Magnificent Seven" "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (particularly for the buddy humor angle) would all move up while "Shane" and "Stagecoach" fall out of the top 100.

It's also worth noting that films that champion political truth of satirize the falsity of our medical government landscape such as "All the President's Men", "Network", "Reds" (commonly regarded as the directorial masterwork of the overtly political Warren Beatty) and "The Conversation."

Feel free to comment on my list if you can make out the handwriting.

10 Best Ensembles of 2015

1.       The Martian: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wiig, McKenzie Davis, Donald Glover, Bodinger Wong

An excellent group of actors with a few names you don’t normally see in television (Davis and Glover) all acting with that same walk-and-talk urgency that keeps the mood of the film tense but leaves room for comic levity. Matt Damon had the most overtly comic performance but Sean Bean and Kristen Wiig deserve a bit of credit in that department as well

2.       Spotlight: Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Brian D’Arcy James, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Billy Cudrup

Another film with strong actors all on the same page in terms of the requisite intensity needed to carry the film. While Mark Ruffalo ended up the only male actor getting a nomination, it would not have looked out of place to see Keaton, Scheiber or Brian D’Arcy James pop up on Oscar nomination day. Each of the five leads provided a different energy even though their character descriptions  (serious-minded journalist battling evil) must have looked exactly the same on paper to form a five-man band of sorts.

3.       Trumbo: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Elle Fanning, Alan Tyduk, Louis C.K., Helen Mirren, Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Portnow,  John Goodman, Stephen Root, David James Elliott

In my opinion, Cranston was a bit too broad and caricatured to merit an Oscar nomination in his category, but he certainly fit the serio-comic tone within the context of his film well. The portrayals of Hollywood icons untethered from the baggage of their on-screen personas like Eddie G Robinson (Stuhlbarg) and John Wayne (Elliott) were particularly interesting performances and Helen Mirren had a lot of staying power as the vindictive columnist Hedda Hopper. Perhaps the biggest surprises were Louis C.K.’s tender performance as fellow troublemaker Arlen Hinds and Elle Fanning’s mature performance as Trumbo’s faithful-yet-frustrated daughter.

4.       Brooklyn: Saoisre Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Emily Bett-Rickards, Eileen O’Higgins, Jenn Murray, Jim Broadbent

A relatively generic love story doesn’t just n

ab a Best Picture nomination in a competitive race like 2015 without solid acting from its leads and background cast. This was Ronan’s first role as a mature grown-up, Cohen’s beak-out, and a cementing of Gleeson’s filmography as someone with range and an ability to melt hearts.

5.       Love and Mercy: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti, Bill Camp, Jake Abel, Erin Drake

Any sort of forced awkwardness in the adult love story (would he really merit a second date in those circumstances?) was smoothed over by the chemistry between Banks (whose impressively coiffed hair contrasted well with her ability to see inner beauty) and Cusack. Paul Giamatti plays a memorable villain in his overbearing guardian capable of terrifying tirades when threatened and Bill Camp’s soulless father provides a parallel in the past timeline. Credit also goes to the four actors who doubled the Beach Boys and one of the best performances of the year in Paul Dano’s tortured genius portrayal of a young Brian Wilson.

6.       Big Short: Steve Carrell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Brad Pitt, Marissa Tomei, Melissa Leo, Finn Whitrock, Rafe Spall, Karen Gillan

The sheer amount of talent and the way it is used puts this up there. Bale, ordinarily paying intense and ready for violent, is a new kind of revelation here as an unconventional genius who plays heavy metal drums during the workday and likely resides on the spectrum. Carrell has been showing range and talent for a while (particularly under the direction of Adam McKay) so he’s not that much of a surprise here but it’s still a fine performance. If there’s a reason this falls just short of the top five, it seems Brad Pitt is just shoe-horned in for star power and it might have been nice to see a treasure like Melissa Leo in an expanded capacity.

7.       Hateful Eight: Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Birchir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Channing Tatum, Bruce Dern

Whether a Tarantino film hits you the right way or not, it’s hard to deny how masterful he is at casting. His films have relaunched many a career (even John Travolta counts here), engineered many breakout performances (Christophe Waltz stands out but don’t forget Daniel Bruhl, Melanie Laurent or Diane Kruger from that same movie), and maintained a stable of repertory players (Tim and Eli Roth, Michael Madsen, Samuel L Jackson, etc) that add to the trademark of each film. 

8.       Straight Outta Compton:  Corey Hawkins, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Paul Giamatti, Aldis Hodge, Keith Stanfield, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr.

It’s not particularly easy to get cast recognition for a group of actors this unknown (except Paul Giamatti, whose name sticks out there like a sore thumb) and there are extra points there for mimicking each of the rappers.

9.       Youth: Harvey Keitel, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano

A film that has offered the meatiest film roles Jane Fonda and Harvey Keitel have received in decades and Michael Caine isn’t too shabby in it either. The film didn’t live up to its potential on the awards circuit but not for lack of its acting.

10.   Sicario: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Daniel Kaluuya

Emily Blunt’s raw performance is the stuff of an action heroine. Think Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty” but directly in the line of fire. On top of that, Benicio Del Toro had a good run on the awards circuit, Jon Bernthal  (who would land a role in “Daredevil” a year later) steals a scene or two  and many of the minor players (the Mexican crime lord and family) provide for a solid multi-cultural cast.

Are the Oscar Best Picture Picks Duds? Defending the Academy

As long as there are movie fans and those movie fans have access to the internet, you will always hear complaining that the Oscars get it wrong. I'm not sure if it's a non-conformist streak in my character or a love for playing devil's advocate, but I often like to take the opposite point of view that by golly, those Oscars often get it right like no one else!

One thing people need to acknowledge by the very nature of its large membership, a voting  body like AMPAS will naturally veer more towards some kind of consensus with few extremes. If you put the 1,000 most vocal critics of the Oscars in a room and asked them to vote for their Best Pictures of the year, I would bet money that their most idiosyncratic choices would cancel each other out and you would be left with the commonalities like The Martian, The Revenant, and Spotlight. 

When we look at the main criticisms leveled at the Academy, the same contradictory criticisms often pop up: They either don't reflect the views of the public, or they don't acknowledge the more experimental fare below-the-radar. Otherwise, everyone points to a few bad choices over the years and just uses that as proof that the Academy is terrible.

Personally, I think the Best Picture nominees in the past few years do a good job of balancing populist picks, artier films, ambitious experimental stuff, and straight genre stuff that's done well. I wouldn't want them to go too indie because I feel like films should resonate with the public and even if the best film by critics' views was something that screened for two weeks in Toronto and Tribeca, it's not something the public will enjoy being a part of on Oscar night.

So here's my expanded case:

For the Populists:

• Avatar is the highest grossing film ever and it got nominated, and ET, Exorcist, Sound of Music, Godfather, and Titanic were all box office record breakers of some sort.
• Nominees Rain Man, Forrest Gump, ET, Saving Private Ryan, Avatar, Toy Story 3 and American Sniper were all the top grossing film of their year
• Nominees Martian, American Sniper, Gravity, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, The Help, True Grit, Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Inception, District 9, Up, Blind Side, Avatar, and Ingloruious Basterds all won their opening weekends in the 10-picture era
• Among others that haven't made any of those lists list Mad Max: Fury Road, Spielberg's films (War Horse, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies), Wolf of Wall Street, The Artist, and The Fighter have all been crowd-pleasers

For the art house crowd:

• Films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amor, District 9, Brooklyn, Winter's Bone and Room were all films that had very, very little chance at finding a widespread audience before Awards Season boosted them.
• Nearly every popular visionary film director out there: Michelle Haneke, Wes Anderson, Thomas McCarthy, Richard Linklater, Steve McQueen, Kathryn Bigelow, Lisa Cholodenko, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky, the Coen brothers (4 times) and Neil Blokamp have all gotten a turn at the bat with Best Picture nominations. A few years ago, you could have said, some of the more interesting film directors like Wes Anderson or Alfonso Cuaron or Richard Linklater have never been nominated. But no longer.
• Last year, you two films that had never been done before stylistically in Boyhood and Birdman and this year Revenant and Room were both stylistically very original.

For the socially-conscious crowd:

• Six films in the expanded BP era-Selma, Precious, Help, 12 Years a Slave, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Blind Side- have had black narratives and black casts and the majority of those have had a black director. Each of those black directors got a major boost that allowed them greater creative freedom on their next projects.  While one can conceded that  Blind Side might be geared toward glorification of the white protagonist in the story at expense of the black protagonist, that is not the case with the other five films. I would also argue that Blind Side does teach us  something about the black experience. After all, Michael Oher (the film's subject) is a real person.
• Another nominee, Life of Pi, tells a story set in another 3rd world region: South Asia.
• Three of this year's eight films feature a woman protagonist
• Spotlight is about a struggle against the ultimate patriarchal society. Big Short is about the uneven distribution of wealth and economically disadvantaged.
• Last year, we had a film about a physically disabled person, a film about a gay person, a film with a black theme, and a film about a broken family
• The year before, we had a feminist film (Philomena), a film about transgender righs (DBC), a film with a black narrative, an action film with a female protagonist (Gravity), a film taking place in the 3rd world with an illuminating look of the struggles of people in the Global South (Captain Phillips), and another film about the effects of the rich on the financially disadvantaged (Wolf of Wall Street)
• Of the last six Oscar-winning directors, one has been a woman, four have come from a non-English speaking country, one has been East Asian, two have been Mexican