This is a really fun list. Rogerebert.com contributors each talk about a different great performance from 2016. I wrote about Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight. You can read the full list here.
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I was so blown away by Moonlight that I have no words for it. I just keep telling people – go see it, go see it. It isn’t like any other movie out there, period. And I have never left a theater feeling so at peace. It’s been three weeks and I’m still thinking about it.
When Roger Ebert called movies ‘machines for empathy’ this is what he meant.
If I had to pick a ‘favorite’ Chiron it would be Ashton Sanders (I believe he is a prodigy, and I interested in seeing The Retrieval now) but there isn’t a weak point in the whole movie. It’s perfect.
// And I have never left a theater feeling so at peace. //
I know just what you mean. And when does THAT happen?? I read a couple of pieces in LGBT pubs that were disappointed in the ending – but to me that says more about the writers than about the film. Falling into bed with someone is not the be-all of personal expression. Tender affection – which also equals acceptance of that part of himself that IS sexually/emotionally attracted – is even more of a revolution – and something the world needs more of in general. I actually couldn’t believe the movie ended when it did … I was blown away.
Ashton Sanders was incredible. That scene on the beach is one of my favorite scenes of the year.
The movie really isn’t like anything else and I have a hard time describing why – so, like you, I just say to people, “Go see it.”
Moonlight. My God.
Right??
I keep thinking about it. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was seeing his face. The three actors do such an amazing job, they blur in my mind. Trevante Rhodes, my God. Those lines, how he says them… It kills me.
It’s just heartbreaking. He reached out to me on Twitter to thank me for this piece and my heart skipped a beat!!