Three Great Films Closing out 2016: Moonlight, Manchester By the Sea, and Arrival - Entrepreneur Generations

I've been trying to go to the movies once a week or so lately, as the best movies of the year are coming out, and I've been privileged enough to see a trifecta of great films over the last few weeks: Moonlight, Arrival, and Manchester by the Sea. Great films are made by great scenes, and I've tried to write a spoiler-free (or, if there are any spoilers, they are minor) remembrance of some of the best scenes in these three great movies here:

Trevante Rhodes as adult Chiron.

I've written about Moonlight extensively, and time passed has not dimmed that film's impact on me. Thinking about Chiron's struggles, especially building up to the Part III, where the underrated Trevante Rhodes (deserving of an Oscar nomination) has buried the little boy we met in Part I under a wall of muscle and a facade of gold teeth and a gun, and we see that buried persona emerge, slowly and tentatively, through those eyes and those stilted, sad, and sweet conversations with Kevin. The specificity of Chiron's journey is what makes it so moving: a specificity, which, ironically, makes the film feel universal, like the best art does. And the film's lighting -- black and brown people have never looked so beautiful onscreen; the cinematography is gorgeous -- hearkens right back to the title. I don't think there will be a better film this year, although I've yet to see Fences and, of course, a few more. Great Scenes: The "Am I a faggot" scene in act 1, especially Janelle Monae's look; the confrontation between Mahershala Ali and Naomi Harris act 1; the happy walking shifting when confronting his manic mother in Act 2; the angry-walking scene at the end of Act 2; the beautiful scene on the beach in Act 2; the note-perfect, evocative scenes in the restaurant and in the apartment scenes in Act 3.   

Amy Adams as a linguist communicating with aliens.

Arrival also proved itself excellent, and, for me, it was a worthy successor to 1997's Jody Foster-starring Contact, one of my favorite films of the 1990s. I loved that film's thoughtfulness about what might happen if there were extraterrestrial life, and Arrival follows along a similar slant; indeed, if aliens did come from another planet, they probably wouldn't be little green men who say "We come in peace." In fact, one of the first things we would have to figure out is how to communicate with them; that's where star Amy Adams comes in, as she is a highly regarded linguist who the Feds call in to try to communicate with one of these pods, which have parked themselves around 100 feet up in the air in twelve locations around the world. The result is a thought-provoking exploration of communication and translation, and how this both unites and divides humanity. Like Gravity but doing it better, Arrival includes some backstory of the Adams character and her daughter, who dies in the film's opening sequence and is later seen through flashbacks. The film's conclusion wraps everything up satisfyingly, with gushes of emotion and a thought-provoking script twist that made me want to watch the film again almost immediately. Great work by all involved. Great scenes: opening sequence; Adams strips off her orange suit; the bomb scene; the child's drawing scene; the final sequence with the China general.

Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck

And last night, I watched Manchester by the Sea at The Charles, a surprisingly and unexpected Monday night trip to the movies. I've wanted to see the movie since I first saw the trailer, and realized that it was from Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote and directed the superb You Can Count on Me, which I saw in 1999 and count as one of my favorite films. In the interim, he made the movie Margaret, which was caught in the development hell and was released years late, and I haven't seen it yet. Manchester by the Sea has been getting lots of good buzz, especially for Casey Affleck's lead performance. He plays Lee Chandler, and, as the trailer tells you, his world is upended when his older brother (played by Kyle Chandler in flashbacks) dies of cardiac arrest and leaves his teenage son in Lee's guardianship. Lee is sullen from the beginning of the film, and that sullenness grows as he settles into Manchester (from Boston, where he has been living about 90 minutes away); there, people stare and whisper about him, and his sullenness calcifies into aching grief. We know something has happened to him, and that he carries some sort of guilt, but we don't know what it is. There's a huge flashback reveal halfway into the movie, though, and we realize why Lee carries the weight that Affleck's performance reflects. The film mostly revolves around the relationship between Lee and his foul-mouthed nephew, Patrick, played by Lucas Hedges, who is superb, as they navigate the grief of losing Patrick's father, while Lee tries to negotiate the weight of guilt that he is forced to shoulder. The result reminded me of You Can Count on Me, only less optimistic than even that sad film; Lee's growth is incremental, but it's there, and because we have spent so much time living in the relentlessness of both his guilt and how the gloom of Manchester hangs on him like the proverbial albatross, his final actions feel totally authentic, which make the payoff rich even though parts of your heart might want more. The film was certainly a tearjerker, but those tears are well-earned; a scene involving frozen chicken (and also the scene which could win Hedges an Oscar) had me stifling sobs, and another, involving Michelle Williams in one of the best scenes of the year, sees two characters with broken hearts trying to make the other's a little less broken; it's so sad, these characters and their pain is so real. The end result is a wholly satisfying movie, although the only one on this list I didn't immediately want to see a second time; living in this melancholy again too soon, was just too bleak. Great scenes: Fishing flashback; Flashback revealing heart condition; "Basement business" scene; the funny "This could be good for both of us" scene; Lee weeping into after his bar fight; the aforementioned Michelle Williams & Affleck scene.

In fact, after three fairly methodical, thought-provoking, and gut-wrenchingly poignant films, I'm glad Rogue One and La La Land come out to theaters soon.

from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/2giwipf Three Great Films Closing out 2016: Moonlight, Manchester By the Sea, and Arrival - Entrepreneur Generations

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