edition of a fistful of popcorn and i am thrilled to be joined by our regular panelists bob brown marilyn campbell and carol well well tonight is we're taping in the third week of january the oscars are going to the nominations are going to be announced tomorrow so to set the tone we are going to talk about our top ten favorite films of two thousand sixteen and the way we're going to do it is each of us individually is going to give his or her own list there will be we are sure many many overlaps and so will all join in at the end of recitation of our lists and talk about the films in more depth what we liked what we didn't and so and what props even what's not on the list ok so that's the those are the ground rules and bob can we start with your list ok should preface by saying i only saw i think about fourteen or fifteen films all year ok all the films that we discussed on the show and maybe one that we didn't ok so it's a limited list you have to understand i'm picking from what number three hell or highwater number for manchester by the scene number five heart of a dog number six the lobster number seven it was which you know but it was the document it was it was nominated for best documentary last you know heart of a dog also a documentary our little sister sent said song certain women arrival moonlight manchester by the sea la la land and thirteenth gunderson documentary of ok these are pretty much in the order in which i like them starting with the first manchester by the sea moonlight love and friendship our little sister al la la land hell or highwater loving florence foster jenkins and embrace of the serpent thank you and i also wanted to say that i haven't yet seen but they may have been on my list it's only fair to say i haven't seen fences twentieth century women silence arrival patterson hidden figures tony erdman and tony are and i think would probably end up all of our lists so with having said that mine are in the order from ten back down to one and since i seven the sky six don't think twice by jackie for having three more ny to la la land and one manchester by the same ok so there's a lot of overlap i heard of i think i heard some idiosyncratic choices know she wanted to go see us and find i wasn't expecting much but i like heart warming and it was sweet but it wasn't too sweet they were still and you know stephen frears is you know he's almost always worth going to s he may not not every movie of his is my favorite because he as a director is not so much a writer he directs other people's writing or movies that other people write but  yeah and i had trouble limiting my list and i sort of threw off movies that were enjoyable but not especially groundbreaking in terms of technique and i was so i would agree that for its foster well but it didn't do anything new in terms of cinema cinema tog or fi or or or the the way the plot was constructed or anything like that so so a lot of films going well it's on my extended leave after five where have where i have hung for there will be people also which is yeah i charmed yeah and a tale of love and darkness which is as sad film but a great want to bring it up is because i have been he more and more people say i want to stand what that big deal was at that moment came over to me when i was reading lunch out i and some friends and she came over just needed to tell me that people are having this sort of the dust is the sparkle is settling and people are now i think that it happens with a lot of films that are very well reviewed and hyped and everywheres that people have such high expectations the only one about showbusiness i think also people in the business were really pumped that a film that is a sort of throwback to the classic musical is of the big big film out of the character if you know gene kelly's movies the moving rose that the character well but i don't agree with that but i think the characters are more superficial more more stock can you know more characters that are we you know i always think marilyn about you know you have brought up in the past the screen actors guild gives an award for best ensemble and i so wish these award shows would do that because here was and the drug dealer who was really at such an on stereotypical person in this that's what i loved about this movie and i wanted to hear what you said i love the fact that this was we have stereotypes about people who are drug dealers who are in the projects and you know me may not even want to see films about it the so up ended that and they were so gentle i think that one of the reasons so my list is not only that but also that i thought it yes i actually as i was watching the movie i felt very sad because in some ways a sad story but thinking about it later i thought i thought better and better of it or there not anyone else's but i think when we did the show on it we all like that is certain women which also has a three part structure true that also has characters some characters appearing in in in the different segments but not the main focus of the segment though that's another interesting way of constructing a story that doesn't center on one person but tries to give you a whole sort of rich variety of characters same person ultimate control and the story was not predictable as you went along you didn't know where it was going to go so it always kept you kind of on the edge of your seat wondering where was going to go what was going to happen i think keeping that kind of tended balance which made it a very effective and casey affleck was able to to work with that in such a way i can't think of another actor who would have been as good to do that reason why it's called the towns there it's rooted in that in that way the sea is part of the the whole d n a of the town people's relationship to  the fishing industry people's relationship to each other small town what happens when something happens that can't be forgotten and i think that that that was also one of the reasons why it works so well you know this is a town  he's very forget about someone who couldn't forgive himself he's very forgiving he's very perceptive of character there i go again and just beautiful on the issue of loss something we all i also want to bring up another film i think is at least two of our lives that are a little sister so i love that which also takes place in a in a seaside village where in fact it's also about loss it's about how how the sisters cope with losing their common father and how they accept a new member of the family into the family and how that new member the family becomes part of that community in ways that are really that was beautiful  i and i would like to i'm glad you mentioned that because i looked up the the box office on all these films that are on my list anyway and of all of them are little sister had the lowest box office i guess and as i say i think it had a very limited release and it's probably the one that even if you do follow movies you know i'm going to have heard about and haven't seen and i would urge people to rent it well i believe that somewhere i saw it somewhere one of the venues in town either the banking you don't see powerful women in the way she numbers are a man's world right is what that story's about but you also don't see the traditional hollywood comeuppance at the end right like we did in the big  short or you know films or enron smartest guys you that we don't have that here it's just the perpetuating cycle of ambition and competition and greed and it's just going to keep on going well unfortunately she has a comeuppance right if i remember the movie correctly everyone have that oh no no i i meant to have it on their power project ok you and i did then what was your reason to go i found it so intriguing i wasn't sure what was going on i wasn't sure why she acted the way she did but i found it so interesting and i bought it i bought it and it also it was both funny yes and announced first right she's she's just tailor made for her perfect and i heard her interviewed by charlie rose after i saw you know and she said she finds acting so much fun pack yeah yeah but she felt that the the character was feeling her way through faith she wasn't sure where she was going she wasn't sure what she was doing but she was just acting by instinct and that's interesting that's because i think when we discussed it on the show we saw her as a more manipulate you have certainly in parts of it seems that way that you started to but you're right in the sense that we get a sense as we're going through the film we're  actually at the end ok do that one thing that was on my list i didn't hear anybody else was on the list and i and we looked at it at the time was don't think twice the one about the improvisational comedy group we all love that you know i see that i didn't help but get in there and the relationships start to fray you know interesting ways but it was all done in such a it was interesting though you say that because in fact they're all very very different people and maybe the more amazing thing was that they stayed together maybe rather than they broke up because they were being really different but maybe that's what makes a good improvisational troupe and very much looking forward to seeing i think you'll enjoy action and i just want to we only have a a few minutes left and i wanted to do what marilyn just said which was to talk about i couldn't get the moment because i had too many but the documentaries which i'm just going to quickly say what i loved the ones i saw wiener you go huntress hooligan spiral amanda knox and where to invade next but the one that changed my life is thirteenth which we discussed on last week's show this is the one about the thirteenth amendment and if you see no other film this year see that i was lucky abolished except if you've been charged it's seven as a punishment for the commission up a crime and you've been charged and you've been convicted yes and so it's been it's a way of getting it's like it's on the continuum from slavery to  we were i think so at that same showing we were lucky enough to have have it moderated or a discussion right afterward by a professor i'm sorry i forgot or knew how benjamin who is amazing the way that she  which is also a documentary by a woman with a very fragmented structure and you have to put it together yourself and i thought that was a great life and we want to say something about our listeners chime in on our facebook page well not yet do you have a best list yes and so you should like not only like us but like our list so pleased to visit the facebook page but in the just quickly summing up you think it was a good year for movies i think it was a good year for movies what i saw i also also would like to the viewers choices next time that's a great idea that's a grand idea i guarantee you have you have a sense of whether this is a good year for me i certainly found a lot of movies i liked oh yes it was a good year but you know what i can always find at least ten  very very good years so i'm always mystified we're going to say this is a good or a bad year for movies nobody mentioned captain fantastic by the way well that's not the khan movie i go to so i thought you were going to have that on your list i must say to see jackie which i think is tremendous i don't know marilyn might not agree with me they're the only two saw it so i don't think it was the greatest but it was an interesting movie but we have some what i have to say that one of the wonderful advantages we have is venues here in princeton where we can watch movies that are foreign or independent and a very small box office but they do come here and that's where you see some of the most interesting films around it including spills by the very young people student film festivals and they write they are twenty sixth the denton film festival people are showing the oscar shorts the once again nominated best documentary shorts animated shorts live action shorts and so why don't you plan to go there with us ok thank you so much for joining