2016

2016

1. Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

2. The Wailing (Na Hong-jin)

3. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman)

4. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)

5. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo)

6. Silence (Martin Scoresese)

7. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)

8. The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)

9. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)

10. Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Love)

Honorable Mention: The Witch (Robert Eggers), The Handmaiden (Park Chan-Wok), Arrival (Denis Villeneuve), Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford), Gimme Danger (Jim Jarmusch), Hail, Caesar! (Coen Bros)

No thx:  Moonlight, Manchester By the Sea, The Lobster, Blair Witch, The Girl on the Train

Also, here's a half-formed idea I started writing about The Wailing back in the summer:

One of my favorite aspects of Macbeth, and one that never fails to unsettle me, is that it appears to posit a universe that is inherently malevolent.  At the end of the play, we are provided an illusion of moral order, as the diabolical Macbeth is finally disposed of by the good Christians Malcolm and MacDuff.  But behind this denouement of seemingly divine justice, there reigns the unchecked authority of the Witches, left to spin their nasty webs and pluck at the fates whichever cruel way they choose.  The Witches, the real villains of the play, get no moral comeuppance, no divine punishment for their machinations.  In the end, the universe of Macbeth is neither ultimately benevolent or innately indifferent but actively evil; the witches reign supreme within it.  I felt a similar way at the end of The Wailing, and without giving spoilers, those who've seen it hopefully know precisely the feeling I mean here.