36th Shadows Awards: Happy New Year!

There's an even wider variety than usual in my top 10 this year, but all of these are films I simply couldn't forget, mainly due to the sheer skill of the filmmakers. Pablo Larrain brought unusual depth and complexity to his exploration of legacy and celebrity in Jackie; Gianfranco Rosi's Fire at Sea is a timely documentary, a heart-pounding adventure and a heart-rending drama at the same time; Damien Chazelle's La La Land is a joyous celebration of love and aspiration in a city known for making and crushing dreams. Those are just the top three, and I feel as strongly about all the movies in my top 50 this year. (Long lists happen when you see some 500 movies a year!) Full lists and then some are ON THE SITE...

BEST FILMS

1. Jackie (Pablo Larrain)
2. Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi)
3. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
4. Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes)
5. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
6. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
7. Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight)
8. It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
9. The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz)
10. Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari)

DIRECTOR

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

WRITER

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

ACTRESS 

Isabelle Huppert (Elle, Things to Come)

ACTOR

Geza Rohrig (Son of Saul)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Naomie Harris (Moonlight, Our Kind of Traitor, Collateral Beauty)

SUPPORTING ACTOR 

Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)

WORST FILMS

1. The Boss (Ben Falcone)
2. Ride Along 2 (Tim Story)
3. Stonewall (Roland Emmerich)
4. Assassin's Creed (Justin Kurzel)
5. Inferno (Ron Howard)
6. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (Jake Szymanski)
7. The Greasy Strangler (Jim Hosking)
8. Bad Santa 2 (Mark Waters)
9. London Has Fallen (Babak Najafi)
10. Warcraft (Duncan Jones)

Critical Week(s): With a little help from my friends

I'm catching up on two weeks of film-watching here, since I took last week to write about theatre and TV instead, and also because screenings have been rather thin. There were two big sequels shown to UK critics: Finding Dory is an enjoyably colourful and slightly less satisfying follow-up to Disney/Pixar's 2003 hit, while Now You See Me 2 is an entertaining and somewhat convoluted continuation of the 2013 heist thriller about magicians. 

And then there are the pre-established properties: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie brings the beloved sitcom characters to the big screen more than 20 years after they first appeared for a film that's better than anyone expected. And The Legend of Tarzan is an odd hybrid of a sweeping period epic and a silly action blockbuster, with an unusually strong cast. As for original stories, Ira Sach's Little Men is an exquisitely observed family drama, and Thomas Vinterberg's The Commune is a complex look at relationships in 1970s Denmark. I also caught up with the seriously stunning, unmissable Italian immigration doc Fire at Sea and the offbeat, segmented arthouse drama Like Cattle Towards Glow, exploring the link between lust, love and violence.

Coming up this week: the Ghostbusters remake starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, the animated sequel Ice Age: Collision Course, Dave Franco and Emma Roberts in Nerve, Pedro Almodovar's new drama Julieta and Michel Gondry's Microbe and Gasoline.