2016: The Year in Review

A wallflower 2016 certainly was not, wouldn’t you agree.

But it was a most interesting and intriguing year, one in which new voices were heard, and quieter stories triumphantly bubbled up to the surface, and, for that matter, not a minute too soon or too late, too.

So here’s to that – to that, at the very least – and to 2017.

10 Best Films of the Year (in alphabetical order):

13th
Captain America: Civil War
Eye in the Sky
Hacksaw Ridge
The Invitation
Jackie
Loving
Moonlight
O.J.: Made in America
Swiss Army Man

Honorable Mention (tie): Lion and Queen of Katwe

Best Directors: Ava DuVernay (13th), Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge), Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Pablo Larraín (Jackie), Jeff Nichols (Loving)

Best Supporting Actors: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), Ralph Fiennes (A Bigger Splash), John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane), Dev Patel (Lion) Daniel Radcliffe (Swiss Army Man)

Best Supporting Actresses: Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Margo Martindale (The Hollars), Helen Mirren (Eye in the Sky), Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad)

Best Actors: Paul Dano (Swiss Army Man), Joel Edgerton (Loving), Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Denzel Washington (Fences)

Best Actresses: Kate Beckinsale (Love & Friendship), Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane), Gillian Jacobs (Don’t Think Twice), Ruth Negga (Loving), Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Photos: Focus Features (Loving); Fox Searchlight Pictures (A Bigger Splash); Fox Searchlight Pictures (Jackie).

The Song of 2016

The song of 2016, obviously, necessarily, powerfully is...Beyoncé’s “Formation.”

The surprise single – which dropped the day before last winter’s Super Bowl and which Queen B defiantly and confidently performed at the big game before dropping her latest game elevator, LEMONADE, in the spring – had it all:

A bold feministic message.

A declarative and definitive acknowledgement of self.

And a contagiously sick beat.

It was a long-con rally cry for a year that’s not yet over and, best of all, for a story – a history...a herstory – that’s yet to be fully written.

“Formation” is not only the song of the year. It is the song of the future.

Time to get, ladies people everyone. Time to get.

Indeed, time to slay: