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2016’s Loving is the latest of several films about the Lovings.

True romance

Director Jeff Nichols, who made two excellent movies in Mud and Take Shelter, released a very good movie earlier this year called Midnight Special.

Here, in late 2016, he has released another excellent one. He’s two-for-two in 2016.

Loving, written and directed by Nichols, recounts the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose interracial marriage was ruled illegal by the state of Virginia in 1958, banning them from the state and sending their lives into constant turmoil. Put on probation with the threat of 25 years in prison if they were caught together in Virginia, they were forced to live a good portion of their married life in exile.

The movie covers their lives from the time they decide to get married due to Mildred’s pregnancy, through the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional in 1967. So that’s nine years that two people lived their lives in America as convicted criminals simply for being two consenting adults who married. The law banning interracial marriage was abolished in many other states as a result of the ruling, and the Loving case was used as an argument in last year’s ruling to allow for same sex marriage.

Simply put, when it comes to the institution of marriage and what it stands for here in the states, you might not ever find a more historically important couple than Richard and Mildred Loving.

Joel Edgerton, who delivered a terrific performance in Midnight Special, is a sure Oscar contender as Richard. His face is one of constant pain and confusion, as if always saying “Really, you have to be kidding me!” The moments when Richard gets to smile and laugh in the film are like drinking a pitcher of iced water while another is being poured over you on a 110-degree day.

Ruth Negga, a relatively unknown actress, is equally wonderful as Mildred, a woman who must sneak the birth of her baby in Virginia under the stress of possible arrest. Like Edgerton, hers is a performance of quiet reserve, made all the more powerful by her expressive face. The absolute beauty of these performances is that Edgerton and Negga always convey the love between these two people, no matter what the situation is. The real life couple went through a world of absolute shit to be together, and this movie makes you believe the reason why. The Lovings truly loved each other. Put Nichols on the list of today’s most consistently solid directors along with the likes of Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and, yes, Martin Scorsese. I can’t include Spielberg on this list. He’s still one of my favorites, but he did make Hook, The Terminal and The BFG, so his consistency isn’t quite on the level of Loving those mentioned above. Apart from writing 12345 screenplays that are damn near perfect—every film he’s directed Director: Jeff Nichols he’s also written—Nichols’ Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga movies are testaments to beautiful visual craftsmanship and, of course, fine acting. Along with Edgerton and Negga, there’s Michael Shannon—a blessed Nichols staple—as a friendly photographer, Marton Csokas as a despicable cop, and Nick Kroll as the Lovings’ resourceful lawyer, and they are all first rate. It’s time to take note of cinematographer Adam Stone, who has shot all of Nichols’ movies. He shows that his talents can be applied to decades past, and effectively so. Big props to David Wingo as well, who has scored all of Nichols’ movies. Nichols has officially been putting together one of the better filmmaking teams currently working at it. It’s downright amazing that Loving was Richard’s birth name given what he and Mildred would go on to stand for. As for the movie, Loving will stand as not only one of 2016’s best, but undoubtedly as one of its most important. Ω

3The Accountant This plays out like a deranged Batmanwith-a-calculator action flick. Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff, a high functioning autistic man who has managed to harness his extreme intelligence with numbers and physical tics down into the strangest of professions. By day, he’s your average accountant helping a farm owner find tax loopholes to save a few thousand bucks. At night, he’s some sort of accountant ninja who can take out a room full of mob guys with a dinner knife and some totally Batman forearm blasts to the face. Christian takes jobs laundering books for dirty folks all over the world and, while he does have a modest, sparsely decorated home, he also has a mobile man cave—or, should I say, Batcave— that keeps all the spoils of his riches—money, gold, Jackson Pollock paintings and, yes, collector’s items like Batmancomic books. During one job, trying to find missing money for a prosthetics company led by John Lithgow, he takes a liking to fellow accountant Dana (the invaluable Anna Kendrick), and they conspire to find the missing money, which, of course, wasn’t really supposed to happen.

4Arrival Director Denis Villeneuve has made one of the year’s best science fiction films. Amy Adams stars as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics teacher crippled by visions of a daughter who died of a rare illness. She lives a life of seclusion, where the only thing she really does is teach her class and mope around her lakefront home. (Man, that must be one abnormally high paying teacher’s gig.) During class, a bunch of phones go off, a student instructs her to turn on the TV, and, bam, that’s how she discovers the planet seems to be getting a visit from an alien force. Strange giant pods have parked themselves all over the planet, and nobody knows their intent. A solemn military man (Forest Whitaker) shows up in Louise’s office and informs her the world needs her. She has a sense of purpose again. It isn’t long before she’s inside an alien ship trying to talk to the “Heptapods,” large elephant looking aliens with seven legs. She’s joined by a science officer played by a surprisingly low-key Jeremy Renner. The movie is drawing comparisons to Spielberg’s CloseEncountersoftheThirdKind. It’s a very different type of film from that one. If you’re looking for some sort of action pic, you will not find that here. This is a sci-fi movie that gives itself time to breathe.

3Doctor Strange The latest Marvel movie is certainly one of the weirder ones, with Benedict Cumberbatch starring as the title character, a sorcerer who can cast spells and slip through passageways in time. It’s an origin story, showing how Strange loses his surgeon’s hands in an accident, travels to India, and learns about the mystical arts from The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). I have to admit, I didn’t always follow exactly what was going on in this movie, and I found some stretches a little convoluted and boring. When the movie soars, it soars high, and Cumberbatch winds up being a decent choice for the role, even with his weird American accent. Director Scott Derrickson (Sinister), who looked like an odd choice for a Marvel movie with his horror film pedigree, acquits himself nicely. The movie often plays like a Matrix-Inceptionmashup with a little bit of CrouchingTiger,HiddenDragonthrown in for good measure. The special effects are first rate. DoctorStrangeis a bit of an oddball character, and he’s supposed to factor into future Avengersmovies.

4The Edge of Seventeen Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig makes an impressive debut with this darkly funny take on the life of a modern day high school outcast. Hailee Steinfeld gives her best performance since TrueGritas Nadine, a highly intelligent teen going through an awkward stage when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her brother (Blake Jenner). Nadine is a practitioner of brutal honesty, which basically gets her ostracized at school and in trouble with her family. The only one who really stops to listen is her teacher (a hilarious Woody Harrelson) who actually has no choice given his profession. Craig’s screenplay is first rate, and her directing results in some great performances. Steinfeld is good enough here to be considered for her second Oscar nomination, while Jenner (who starred in this year’s EverybodyWantsSome!!) is equally good. This one draws comparison to the best of John Hughes, and I would call the movie a good companion piece to TheBreakfastClub. It’s good to see Steinfeld getting a role she very much deserves and exciting to see a new voice like Craig’s on the scene. Kyra Sedgwick is also very good in a supporting role as Nadine’s mother, while Hayden Szeto does excellent work as a high school boy who hasn’t mastered the art of properly asking somebody out. (His performance is all the more impressive because he’s over 30 playing 18.)

2Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Peter Yates returns to helm the next chapter in the HarryPotteruniverse, a prequel called FantasticBeastsandWhere toFindThem, the title of a textbook Harry studied at Hogwarts. The film takes place well before Harry’s time, as the world of wizardry comes to New York City in the 1920s. Unfortunately, Beastsstruggles with some of the same problems as the first, lackluster HarryPotter. It’s a sometimes good-looking movie with a screenplay that never takes hold. It’s all over the place, with no real sense of purpose other than setting up future movies. It’s nothing but an overblown place-setter. In place of Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry, we get Eddie Redmayne’s Newt, author and caretaker for a variety of “fantastic beasts.” The film opens with him coming to New York toting a suitcase with a variety of beasts bursting to get out. Some of them do, indeed, escape and wreak havoc. Most notably a little platypus-looking thing called Niffler. There’s a fun moment when Newt opens his case, and drops into it like it contains a staircase. It reveals a vast home for the creatures inside, where he feeds them and plays. And that’s it, really. The movie is a big setup for the occasional sequences involving Redmayne interacting with special effects. The creatures might look relatively cool, but none of them register as great characters that move the plot along. Dan Fogler is pretty good in a supporting role as somebody who befriends Newt.

4Hacksaw Ridge Mel Gibson directs his first movie in a decade and—surprise—the sucker bleeds. It bleeds a lot. As a director, Gibson stands alongside the likes of Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg and Peter Jackson as a master of body horror. Yes, I will go so far as to say his latest, HacksawRidge, is an all out horror film in parts. His depiction of a World War II battle makes George Romero’s DawnoftheDeadlook like Zootopia. The movie tells the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a battlefield medic and the first of three conscientious objectors in U.S. warfare history to receive the Medal of Honor. The dude refused to pick up a gun, or any weapon for that matter, during his time served in Okinawa. That didn’t stop him from braving the battlefields with comrades, eventually saving the lives of 75 men battles. Much of the film’s first half is devoted to Doss’ backstory, a troubled childhood with his alcoholic World War I veteran father (a good Hugo Weaving) and an eventual romance with future wife Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer). The early goings in the film are handled well, although schmaltzy at times. When Doss goes to boot camp and faces off against commanding officers like Captain Glover (Sam Worthington) and Sgt. Howell (Vince Vaughn), the film starts to get very interesting. Due to his Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, Doss refuses to pick up a rifle, and this gets him into all sorts of jams. After a detour for a court-martial hearing, Doss and his infantry mates are deployed to Japan. When the action switches to the scaling of the Maeda Escarpment a.k.a. HacksawRidge, the movie becomes perhaps the most grueling war movie experience ever made.

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NOVEMBER 19, 2016 – JANUARY 22, 2017

LEAD SPONSOR The Bretzlaff Foundation

MAJOR SPONSORS Clark/Sullivan Construction; Eldorado Resorts; Sandy Raffealli, Porsche of Reno

TALK Collector Barbara L. Gordon on A Shared Legacy

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 / 2 PM

$12/$8 MEMBER Tickets at NevadaArt.org

This exhibition is drawn from the Barbara L. Gordon Collection and is organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia.