TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

There's no witty opener to be found here. I want to be as straightforward and honest about Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name as Call Me by Your Name was straightforward and honest with me. This is the most piercingly honest depiction of first/falling in/romantic love I have seen in a very long time, perhaps of all time. If I would have postponed my top five list of 2017, this would have surely made the mark. The premise is so simple it begs you to question its gimmick: maybe they're on Mars the whole time? There is nothing deceiving about this film, and its pureness in relation to its characters is what makes it one of the better I've seen in the past decade. Oliver (Armie Hammer) comes to stay with Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) as a research assistant for a summer in northern Italy in 1983, along with Perlman's wife Annella (Amira Casar) and son Elio (now Oscar-nominee Timothée Chalamet). The relationship begins: and that's the movie. Spread out leisur...

My film studies professor would never forgive me if I called Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird "real" or "relatable." "'Real' as compared to what?" she would say, her face scrunched up. "Relatable as compared to who?" So as to not disrespect her good name by copping out with generalizations, I'll call Lady Bird humble, hilarious, and easily one of 2017's finest films. It's a coming-of-age movie not devoid of cliches, but also not devoid of a massive heart. Saoirse Ronan stars as the titular character, whose birth name is Christine. The deviation from the religious-sounding name is intentional: Lady Bird goes through the motions of Catholic school but she's no saint. She argues with her tough-love mother (Laurie Metcalf, who all but has the engravings of her name on the Oscar statue), romances with her theatre castmate Danny (the recently Oscar-nominated Lucas Hedges) and goofs off with her best friend Juli...