MY TOP 5 FAVORITE FILMS OF 2017!
My New Years resolution? Pay more attention to this blog! If you look back on the posts, there's a six month gap between my Oscar predictions and my first review of the year, July's All Eyez on Me (which actually does make a spot one of these lists below). I'm going to be probably stepping away from the predictions this year. A friend of mine has sparked my interest in creating a YouTube channel where I can post reviews, not necessarily like the ones on this blog, but I'll keep y'all updated.
This list was intentionally late, because I wanted to make sure I saw all of the films that I wanted to to make the best possible list. My last semester of college starts tomorrow, and I'm confident I saw all of the 2017 movies that I really wanted to. Though it pains me to exclude films I've loved like LEGO Batman, The Big Sick and Mudbound, I wish you all a productive 2017 and hope 2018 has even better cinema to come!
5. LOGAN LUCKY
A complete left-field surprise for me in 2017. Nothing about this movie's trailer, featuring an Eminem-blonde Daniel Craig, Adam Driver with a prosthetic arm, and a NASCAR robbery screamed out to me. But this honestly had the most airtight script of the year, even though its author might not exist/be a pseudonym for director Steven Soderbergh. Something about Channing Tatum and Driver doing southern accents cracked me up, the deadpan comedy and amazingly easy-to-follow heist plot had me completely invested, and Farrah Mackenzie as the littlest Logan will positively warm your heart. I caved into watching this film after my friend told me it was a "perfect movie." It's not quite there, but it's close.
4. GET OUT
Since the East/West college football sketch was released, I have been tirelessly in the corner of Jordan Peele. His Hitchcockian thriller with a satirical bite (more of a chomp if you're a white person watching it) boosted my respect for him even higher, which I didn't think was possible. Peele's not afraid to dip into the sci-fi absurd, because he earns our trust in dropping us in such a real, not-racist racism world that you accept whatever comes. Daniel Kaluuya, who already had wowed me in "Black Mirror," brings real leading-man gravitas to the unfortunate Chris. This was the only theater experience I had where the audience cheered at the climax, and I too hope to be cheering when Jordan Peele walks up on Oscar's stage come March.
3. MOLLY'S GAME
A glorious mix of Steve Jobs and The Big Short, I don't know why I wasn't excited to see this at first. Aaron Sorkin has written some of my favorite films of this current weird decade (the twenty-teen's? I dunno...), and he's topped himself in his directorial debut with the story of Olympian skier-turned poker queen (she doesn't like poker princess) Molly Bloom. This is a story that was begging filmed, not to mention that the book it's based on is featured in the film, because what happens after its publication was almost as interesting as the events Bloom chronicled in her book! I'm still toying whether Jessica Chastain was good or glorious in the title role, but I have no shakiness on the fact that Idris Elba, Michael Cera and Kevin Costner were the Holy Trinity of supporting performances. Of course, the real star is the rat-a-tat Sorkinspeak, the dialogue making this film's two and a half hours feel like an episode of "West Wing" without commercials. This movie exceeded every single expectation I carried, and since it's brand new now, GO SEE IT!
2. LADY BIRD
If you've ever had a mom, you'll love this movie. That's a roundabout way of saying Greta Gerwig's directorial first outing is just about impossible to dislike. Though the wonderful Saoirse Ronan's title character may be a little pretentious, the movie never is. Besides Timothée Chalamet's hilariously snobby Kyle, these people feel so genuine. It also gratefully doesn't have a cemented plot, rather letting the audience get acquainted with Lady Bird's highlights, rarely dawdling on cliched coming-of-age showstoppers like prom or virginity loss. Laurie Metcalf does not play the mother of the year, but she probably plays your mother: imperfect, unintentionally hard, endlessly loving. Lady Bird is the best high school movie to come out this century, even though, like our protagonist, our century has just turned 18.
1. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
My expectations for a Martin McDonagh-helmed project are always going to be sky-high after he blew me away with In Bruges, and Three Billboards comes so dangerously close to earning a spot in my all-time top ten. Nothing about this movie is easy, with its foul-mouthed, tough love protagonist played with true grit by Frances McDormand. Its initial villain, the aggressively stupid Officer Dixon (the equally wonderful Sam Rockwell), has the single greatest character arc of 2017, and after years of cheering him on, I have confidence Rockwell will finally get the Academy Award he's deserved for years of eclectic work. As I noted in my review, everything about Ebbing is ratcheted up to be the coldest, meanest town you've seen on screen. Somehow amongst the brilliant dialogue and earnest characters McDonagh is able to find the heart. Though I'm sure it would make a just as compelling play or novel, this movie demands to be seen.
Read on to see my honorable and dishonorable mentions! (HINT: Tupac Shakur and a fish-man may be involved)
HONORABLE MENTIONS (in alphabetical order)*:
This list was intentionally late, because I wanted to make sure I saw all of the films that I wanted to to make the best possible list. My last semester of college starts tomorrow, and I'm confident I saw all of the 2017 movies that I really wanted to. Though it pains me to exclude films I've loved like LEGO Batman, The Big Sick and Mudbound, I wish you all a productive 2017 and hope 2018 has even better cinema to come!
5. LOGAN LUCKY
4. GET OUT
Since the East/West college football sketch was released, I have been tirelessly in the corner of Jordan Peele. His Hitchcockian thriller with a satirical bite (more of a chomp if you're a white person watching it) boosted my respect for him even higher, which I didn't think was possible. Peele's not afraid to dip into the sci-fi absurd, because he earns our trust in dropping us in such a real, not-racist racism world that you accept whatever comes. Daniel Kaluuya, who already had wowed me in "Black Mirror," brings real leading-man gravitas to the unfortunate Chris. This was the only theater experience I had where the audience cheered at the climax, and I too hope to be cheering when Jordan Peele walks up on Oscar's stage come March.
3. MOLLY'S GAME
A glorious mix of Steve Jobs and The Big Short, I don't know why I wasn't excited to see this at first. Aaron Sorkin has written some of my favorite films of this current weird decade (the twenty-teen's? I dunno...), and he's topped himself in his directorial debut with the story of Olympian skier-turned poker queen (she doesn't like poker princess) Molly Bloom. This is a story that was begging filmed, not to mention that the book it's based on is featured in the film, because what happens after its publication was almost as interesting as the events Bloom chronicled in her book! I'm still toying whether Jessica Chastain was good or glorious in the title role, but I have no shakiness on the fact that Idris Elba, Michael Cera and Kevin Costner were the Holy Trinity of supporting performances. Of course, the real star is the rat-a-tat Sorkinspeak, the dialogue making this film's two and a half hours feel like an episode of "West Wing" without commercials. This movie exceeded every single expectation I carried, and since it's brand new now, GO SEE IT!
2. LADY BIRD
If you've ever had a mom, you'll love this movie. That's a roundabout way of saying Greta Gerwig's directorial first outing is just about impossible to dislike. Though the wonderful Saoirse Ronan's title character may be a little pretentious, the movie never is. Besides Timothée Chalamet's hilariously snobby Kyle, these people feel so genuine. It also gratefully doesn't have a cemented plot, rather letting the audience get acquainted with Lady Bird's highlights, rarely dawdling on cliched coming-of-age showstoppers like prom or virginity loss. Laurie Metcalf does not play the mother of the year, but she probably plays your mother: imperfect, unintentionally hard, endlessly loving. Lady Bird is the best high school movie to come out this century, even though, like our protagonist, our century has just turned 18.
1. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
My expectations for a Martin McDonagh-helmed project are always going to be sky-high after he blew me away with In Bruges, and Three Billboards comes so dangerously close to earning a spot in my all-time top ten. Nothing about this movie is easy, with its foul-mouthed, tough love protagonist played with true grit by Frances McDormand. Its initial villain, the aggressively stupid Officer Dixon (the equally wonderful Sam Rockwell), has the single greatest character arc of 2017, and after years of cheering him on, I have confidence Rockwell will finally get the Academy Award he's deserved for years of eclectic work. As I noted in my review, everything about Ebbing is ratcheted up to be the coldest, meanest town you've seen on screen. Somehow amongst the brilliant dialogue and earnest characters McDonagh is able to find the heart. Though I'm sure it would make a just as compelling play or novel, this movie demands to be seen.Read on to see my honorable and dishonorable mentions! (HINT: Tupac Shakur and a fish-man may be involved)
HONORABLE MENTIONS (in alphabetical order)*:
- The Beguiled. If this would've been released about five months later, it surely would've been Oscar bait. Auteur Sofia Coppola takes her time with this boarding school of girls and the fascinating foreigner Corporal McBurney (the best I've seen Colin Farrell since In Bruges!). I loved it so much I argued in a project last semester that Coppola actually crafted a horror film. Whatever genre it is, it's a success.
- Detroit. Another completely overlooked gem, including by me, too lazy to review it. No film has sat in my gut the way Kathryn Bigelow's thriller did. The motel sequence, which takes up the majority of the movie, was more white-knuckle than the entirety of Zero Dark Thirty. Perhaps in the #BlackLivesMatter climate audiences didn't want to see such an intense mirror held up to today's current circumstances. Stomach your white guilt and check this one out.
- The Shape of Water. It looks like Guillermo del Toro is poised to win the Best Director prize this year, and that's largely because this movie feels like his singular vision, his passion project. I think critics love it just because of how del Toro and one of the best casts assembled in 2017 (a mute Sally Hawkins, a sensitive Richard Jenkins, a loco Michael Shannon!) pay homage to the magic of movies, in a movie totally not about movies. I know this honorable mentions list is alphabetical, but Shape of Water is definitely number six.
- All Eyez on Me. The icon 2Pac deserves a much more fitting tribute than a film that feels like a direct-to-BET special.
- Justice League. The DCEU finally had a triumphant showing in Wonder Woman, but, not wanting to appear too confident, released this extremely over expensive mess, a poster child of studio meddling and pandering. The ensemble has flashes (buh-dun-tss) of chemistry, but I challenge you to even remember the name of the video-game villain of the week who was going to destroy the world.
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