Page 6 January 12, 2017 EL SEGUNDO HERALD Entertainment Check It Out Film Review Cinemacy Editors Pick Their Top Films of 2016 Cinemacy Staff for www.cinemacy.com What we here at Cinemacy consider to be the best of 2016 represents a combination of the movies that had the greatest emotional impact on us, matched with movies that felt innovative or groundbreaking. Here are the films we consider to be last year’s best. Happy New Year! Morgan - The Lobster The name Yorgos Lanthimos should be on your radar. The 43-year-old director, born in Athens, Greece, is a visionary unlike any other in modern cinema. Bringing strange and surreal worlds to the big screen with such confidence, his past feature films, Dogtooth and Alps, have won numerous awards (as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film). In the ambiguously titled film The Lobster, Lanthimos sends up this idea to make a darkly absurd, yet hilarious and thoughtful look at the amount of artificial and confining rules and structures that humans have put into place to connect with others. The Lobster, which stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, takes place in a dystopian, near-future world where single people are apprehended, arrested and then taken to “The Hotel,” where they must find a romantic partner in 45 days or else (cue the absurd twist) be turned into an animal and released into the woods (it’s not so cruel--they get to choose which animal they would like to be turned into to live out the rest of their days). This is Lanthimos’ third feature film and first in English. In true Yorgos fashion, he finds the perfect balance between sharp-edged satire and romantic fable in such a way that makes The Lobster the best film of 2016. Ryan - La La Land Writer and director Damien Chazelle’s years-in-the-making passion project (he conceived the idea before making 2014’s drumtastic Whiplash), La La Land checked all of the boxes for me last year: an old studio-style throwback starring an irresistibly great Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of our times); a story of artists with both dreams and fears of making it big; a beautifully styled Los Angeles backdrop; a fantastic original score; and altogether incredible direction. All of it came together to achieve such a mastered vision of this modern musical. And even past its slick, lovely, fun and wonderful exterior is a real story and conflicted drama of what it takes to follow your dreams, especially when love--both the love for one’s work and the love for their counterpart--lies at the heart of it. The song and dance numbers are out of this world--literally so in a wonderfully choreographed dance in the famed Griffith Observatory’s Planetarium. With locations all over Los Angeles, I was so moved by the film’s spellbinding jazz music that not long after seeing the film I found myself with Cinemacy’s Editor, my sister Morgan, at Hermosa Beach’s Lighthouse Café for a Sunday Jazz Brunch to take in a location that’s featured in the film. And with a movie that climaxes to such an emotionally soaring level, and culminating with perhaps one of the most fantastically choreographed endings of the year, La La Land is the movie that rewards dreamers. And sometimes, people’s faith deserve to be rewarded. Nelson - Cameraperson Can you imagine a film exists that has the emotional range of 20 movies combined, the singular fingerprint of one artistic vision, speaks volumes about our current generation, and all while pushing the boundaries of what the cinema medium is capable of offering? I speak in grand levels about Cameraperson because it is worthy of being recognized as a top-shelf masterpiece. Director Kirsten Johnson has been a cinematographer for 25 years in documentary film and has worked all over the globe on everything from Citizenfour to the most obscure indie docs. In Cameraperson, she compiles footage from her entire career and organizes it as a memoir of her own life experience, both personal and professional. This is an experimental film by nature, but its ability to capture the emotional realities of people throughout her entire journey make it universally relatable. We jump everywhere from Bosnia to Sudan, and Brooklyn to Yemen. These images are pulled from the context of other stories--often of mass conflict and sometimes tragedy--but here, Johnson uses them to tell a biographical story of her own journey while miraculously also covering the human condition as a whole. When two outwardly different clips are juxtaposed together, a larger narrative unfolds that is exponentially more effective. I’ve never seen a film like it, and yet for all its boundary-pushing, it’s nonetheless engaging and emotionally enriching from start to finish. Jasper - 20th Century Women One of Mike Mills’ many talents as a storyteller is his gift for time and context. In this era of borrowed nostalgia, too often we stop short to define a specific time period by (L-R) La La Land (Lionsgate), Cameraperson (Janus Films), The Lobster (A24), 20th Century Women (A24). 88 Instruments By Chris Barton and Bears in a Band By Shirley Parenteau Reviewed by Katrena Woodson, Teen and Young Reader Librarian, El Segundo Public Library This week, I am going to review two picture books that touch on the topic of music and instruments. The first book is Chris Barton’s 88 Instruments. Louis Thomson illustrated this book beautifully with ink and watercolors. And Barton tells the story of a young boy who is visiting a music store with his parents in the hopes of choosing an instrument he is interested in playing. He is overwhelmed at all the choices before him and is not sure how he will be able to decide. The parents stand by patiently as the boy experiments with a wide variety of instruments. Each instrument, the boy discovers, has a distinctive, superlative quality: the accordion is “the squeeziest,” a triangle is “the easiest,” a trombone is “the slideyest.” As you may or may not have guessed from the title, the boy chooses the piano as the instrument he wants to learn how to play. This book suggests the importance of allowing a child to choose an instrument to which they feel a connection. This is a fun story that is appropriate for children ages three to seven. The second book for this week’s review is called Bears in a Band by Shirley Parenteau. This is another book in Parenteau’s Bears series. David Walker is back again as the illustrator and if I had to describe this book in one word, that word would be adorable. Walker’s illustrations are so cute and cuddly that I couldn’t stop smiling as I read the book. The book stars four little pastel-colored bears who want to use their instruments to play a noisy tune. But there is one problem: Big Brown Bear is sleeping… This story is packed with onomatopoeia, which makes it very entertaining to read aloud. If you were involved with a band, there is one thing that might bother you a little. In the story, slow baton movements are related to quiet and fast baton movements with loud--which isn’t accurate. However this charming tale is still a great read that is perfect to teach preschoolaged children that if we work together as a team, good things can happen. The El Segundo Public Library offers access to its collection of titles in a variety of formats, including traditional hardback, e-books and books on CD. To check out 88 Instruments by Chris Barton and Bears in a Band by Shirley Parenteau, or any other title on your to-read list, please visit the library to apply for your library card, or please contact the reference staff for further assistance. • See Film Review, page 13 88 Instruments by Chris Barton. Bears in a Band by Shirley Parenteau. Katrena Woodson. School Board from page 4 when an employee or a member of his or her family suffers from a catastrophic illness or injury. A current ESHS science teacher is the beneficiary of the catastrophic leave bank request. Superintendent Moore then noted upcoming events on the District’s informational calendar, including Monday’s day off to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Very brief Board member reports followed, with Watkins noting the value of the SoCal ROC program to the students in El Segundo, Like Us on Facebook as well as the work of the Fire Department in the community. An emotional Moore then gave the Superintendent’s report, thanking Anderson for her service to the District, saying that she “is a person who demonstrates intelligence, integrity, loyalty dependability, and a genuine desire to help others.” President Watkins then adjourned the meeting. The next regularly scheduled meeting is on the docket for Tuesday evening, January 24. •
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