Well, that year sucked. And we got a long fight ahead of us until it gets better, so.
. . . Let's talk about some fun movies, huh? And some bad ones. And some surprising ones. And - well, you know the drill by now.
Usual Disclaimer: As is the norm, there are still many 2017 films that I haven't been able to see yet. Notables like Call Me By Your Name, Coco, The Post, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, & Lady Bird could easily have found their way onto this list, but between fatherhood and not-living-near-limited-release-territory-hood, I haven't caught up on everything.
But, on the other hand, whittling this thing down from 30 was hard enough as it was, so. Here goes:
This One is Cheating:
YOUR NAME
So, this is a new category this year, but one that I think may stick around. Sometimes movie releases are weird, and so a film that technically "came out in x year" will be literally impossible to see until the next year. Case in point: Your Name, an anime film from acclaimed director Mokoto Shinkai (The Place Promised in Our Early Days) that didn't hit U.S. theaters until 2017 even though it released in Japan and in the UK the year before.
But I'm including it anyway, hence "This One is Cheating." Because Your Name is fantastic, easily one of the best animated films of this decade (and this decade has seen some doozies) in a year that was sorely lacking in that department, and that deserves spotlighting. It starts off as a body swap comedy when two high school students - Taki, a boy in Tokyo, and Mitsuha, a girl in a remote mountain village - inexplicably switch places Freaky Friday-style, but then it takes a heck of a turn midway through and keeps you on an emotional roller-coaster until the very end. Not only is there the solid character details and sense of beautiful melancholy that Shinkai uses to great effect in work like 5 cm Per Second, but it's easily one of the most strikingly beautiful anime I've ever seen.
Your Name is very much worth your time.
Biggest Surprise:
Holy crap, was anyone expecting this to be as great as it was? This was a banner year for horror films, full stop, but arguably the most exemplary movie of that trend was the long-awaited feature film adaptation of Steven King's "unfilmable" best-seller. I had no real hopes or expectations for this going into the year, but between a legendarily-effective marketing campaign and a personal revisit of the book, I was more than ready to have Pennywise scare the crap out of my by the time it opened.
And not only did he, creating one of the most iconic movie monsters in the process, but he wasn't even the best part of the film! It gets a lot right, but the movie's single greatest achievement is the way it brings to life the Loser's Club of children who decide to take a stand against the shape-shifting evil. Director Andres Muschietti found a dynamite cast and created an immediately believable bond between them that would have carried the film even if everything else had been rubbish.
As it is, the whole package is one of the best horror films in what will be remembered as the genre's best year in a long time.
Biggest Disappointment:
Look, this isn't fun for me. I know it seems like I've been on the hate train for this particular slate of films for years, but I was "all in" for Man Of Steel leading up to that movie's release. I LOVE these characters and think they could be legends of the silver screen. But each subsequent entry has just been a massive bummer. And while Justice League isn't the absolute trash that Batman v Superman was, it still wasn't good.
And that's a huge disappointment. Even with the knowledge that this entire production was going to be a slow-motion course-correction from a film that audiences pretty much hated, even with the last-minute change in directors followed by extensive reshoots, you always hope for the best. And even if the "best" this film could have hoped for was to be a live-action riff on one of the DC Animated direct-to-video movies, you'd hope that it would be emulating one of the good ones.
Instead, the first ever film featuring the legendary Justice League, who's heroes have had comics and animated TV show runs that rank among the best storytelling the genre has to offer, just kinda lies there, limply rehashing beats from other, better team-up films.
It didn't help that it only came 5 months after a truly great DC movie, either.
And that's a huge disappointment. Even with the knowledge that this entire production was going to be a slow-motion course-correction from a film that audiences pretty much hated, even with the last-minute change in directors followed by extensive reshoots, you always hope for the best. And even if the "best" this film could have hoped for was to be a live-action riff on one of the DC Animated direct-to-video movies, you'd hope that it would be emulating one of the good ones.
Instead, the first ever film featuring the legendary Justice League, who's heroes have had comics and animated TV show runs that rank among the best storytelling the genre has to offer, just kinda lies there, limply rehashing beats from other, better team-up films.
It didn't help that it only came 5 months after a truly great DC movie, either.
The Worst:
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
Some day, someone is going to finally deliver a truly great King Arthur movie, and how lucky is it that someone has already provided them such an exhaustive list of how not to do it?
This film is garbage. It's confusing and silly if you're not familiar with the Arthurian mythos, it's confusing and aggravating if you are, and any way you slice it, it's just awful film-making. That the movie takes a version of Arthur that's grown up among the lower class and then does absolutely NOTHING with this origin factoring into Arthur as a revolutionary character in terms of class relations (remember, he had a special round table so that "every man sitting at it would be equal") feels like one of the least of the film's problems says a lot. This is a film that doesn't even bother to establish basics like clear inciting incident or the broadest character motivation until damn-near an hour in, a movie that spends huge chunks of its already-excruciating running time on story threads that could be lifted out without affecting a thing, and a film that treats its female characters so disposably that the female lead doesn't even have a name.
Even in the pantheon of bad King Arthur movies (spoilers: it includes most of them), this stands out as a truly legendary turd.
The 10 Honorable Mentions:
John Wick Chapter 2, The Villainess, War for the Planet of the Apes, Thor: Ragnarok, Girls Trip, Dunkirk, The LEGO Batman Movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Kong: Skull island, Split.
At least 3 of these were close to making my Top 10. War for the Planet of the Apes brings one of the best sci-fi trilogies in modern cinema history to a satisfying and emotional close, The Villainess feels like the origin story of the best nemesis Black Widow never had while being at once a white-knuckle action film and a heartbreaking personal drama, and Girls Trip is the type of raunchy comedy that's been so in vogue for so long that it's easy to forget how special it can be when rooted in great characters and brass-tacks storytelling as well as a near-constant stream of gut-busting gags.
Oh, and if you haven't seen Split and also somehow haven't had it spoiled for you. . . see Split.
Runners-Up:
LOGAN / BLADE RUNNER 2049
Any other year and these two would be in my Top 5, easily. Logan is an emotional sledgehammer so potent and raw that I've been legitimately terrified of revisiting it since my daughter was born. It's a film that, on its own, is a brilliant western-style deconstruction and celebration of superheroism in general and the character of The Wolverine in particular while also carrying additional weight by the years Jackman spent inhabiting the role, and it passes the mantle on to a set of claws more than worthy. Blade Runner 2049 is less intimate and more a mood piece, but a stunningly beautiful one. And it still packs a potent wallop in delivering the message of "you are not special, and that's why you matter" as well as featuring one of the greatest moments of Harrison Ford's entire acting career. Both of these movies are films that, by all rights, shouldn't exist, but their genres are undoubtedly stronger because they do.
THE REALLY GOOD STUFF
10. WONDER WOMAN
There are blockbusters, and then there are cultural events. Wonder Woman is undoubtedly a true pop culture phenomenon, arguably the breakout success of the year and easily the single strongest star-making, flag-planting, "this is what we are about" declaration of purpose to hit the superhero zeitgeist since Iron Man in 2008. Gal Gadot proves perfectly cast as the title heroine (conveying a warmth and idealism matched only by her power and bravery), the No Man's Land sequence is damn-near unmatched in terms of confluence of character, action and theme in the genre, and there really is nothing quite like watching this film with the dawning comprehension that you are seeing the birth of an empowering icon to an entire generation (if not more than one) of girls desperately hungry for one.
Even if 2017 hadn't been a year desperately in need of a woman who would be both a shield against the guns of fascists and a sword for truth and justice, this would have been a treat. As it stands, it's truly wonderful to watch her stand for all of us.
9. LOGAN LUCKY
And on the complete other end of the spectrum, a film that received very little fanfare, didn't do much business at the box office, and - in spite of the stakes being a heist of hundreds of millions of dollars - is at its heart a story about a single family trying to shake some bad luck.
Steven Soderbergh is no stranger to capers, but where Logan Lucky could have easily been Dixie Ocean's Eleven, it always chooses to make a smarter and more interesting choice than that reductive summation would allow. The central cast are just as cracking to watch bounce off each other as Danny, Rusty, Linus, Tess, Saul, and the gang in the Ocean's films, but there's an immediate pathos that's built with Channing Tatum's Jimmy Logan that never quite stuck to Daniel Ocean, and Rebecca Blunt's sharp screenplay artfully dances around the titular family, their criminal compatriots, and their would-be marks with a pace that's just quick enough to leave the audience guessing how they'll pull their heist off, but without ever feeling cheap in the execution of everyone's plans.
Also, Daniel Craig as Joe Bang has to be seen to be believed.
8. mother!
Speaking of something you have to see to believe. . .actually, you probably shouldn't see Darren Aronofsky's mother! And I'm not saying that to be a gate-keeping pompous ass - hell, I probably shouldn't have seen this movie. But having born witness to it, I can only stand in awe of the audaciousness of the conceit and the unarguable talent everyone involved showcased. Jennifer Lawrence has a grueling thankless role but commands the audience's respect, attention, and empathy in exactly the sort of performance that it feels like she's been saving up for over the last couple years of blockbuster peddling.
To call this film "divisive" or "incendiary" is very likely selling its potential for dissatisfying or even infuriating the viewer rather short. There are people who hate this movie and I absolutely cannot blame them, but I also can't help but marvel at how Aronofsky has approached this like a demon he needed to exorcise from himself, creating a meditation on creation and obsession, love and abuse, religion and cultism, and the simple fact that men are kinda garbage and don't deserve the shit that women go through for them.
7. BABY DRIVER
To those of you who know my deep and abiding love for the films of Edgar Wright, the fact that Baby Driver - arguably the purest expression of his passions as a filmmaker stripped bare of the genre-tweaking trappings of his previous films - doesn't place higher on this list should tell you a lot about how absolutely stacked this year was. And, if I'm being completely honest, recent revelations about the garbage person status of one Kevin Spacey have dimmed some of this movie's shine for me.
However, it's still a marvelous "one last job" crime film with a star-making turn from Ansel Elgort, a truly brilliant soundtrack that will stick with you long after you let up on the gas, and a murderer's row of great character actors. Baby Driver doesn't just deliver some brilliant thrills to thumping beats, it also takes several turns in how it metes out consequences that both underline and subvert the fairy tale vibe the film is going for.
Then there's the fact that it features some of the best vehicular action put to film this century. And - lest we forget - this century includes Mad Max: Fury Road.
6. COLOSSAL
Sometimes you just know you're watching something special, almost from the word "go." Others, you dip a toe into a story and by the time the finale act is rolling over you, you can't quite decide if you should be flattened by the experience or on your feet cheering. Colossal is a monster movie about depression and self-hatred, about substance abuse and destructive behavior, about how we deal with a crisis and how we choose to define ourselves.
Anne Hathaway brings her A-game to what could easily have been a broken and ridiculous premise, tasked with playing a painfully awkward character who walks the line between pitiable and pitifully unlikable, and then she goes toe-to-toe with Jason Sudekis and both of them damn near ascend to a completely new level. These are talents with roots in comic stories who bring the weight of trampled happiness to bear on their characters in a major way, and the sadness they conjure feels like it can only come from a place that was once filled with joy.
And yet, the film manages not to be dour and miserable, but genuine and painful on the road to something. . . well, bigger.
5. THE BIG SICK
This is the best romantic comedy since Groundhog Day.
If you know me, you may know that purgatorial stays in hospitals at the side of someone you love hits. . . a bit close to home, and the way this film handles its 2nd act digression into a very "shit just got real" stretch of a "based on a true story" narrative pushes that particular button rather hard and then holds it down. There are moments in The Big Sick that are almost painfully awkward or unbearably tense as you feel poised on the brink of unbearable tragedy, but the script - penned by the real-life couple on which the film is based - knows just when to bring in the warmth of humor or heartfelt human connection to get you through the next cold, dark night.
For all the genuine dramatic stakes at play in this story of "boy meets girl, boy and girl break up, girl is hospital-ridden and boy realizes he done screwed up," it is also very funny. There's a 9/11 joke (yes, you read that right) that is near-legend among fans of the film, but the extended tirade that Holly Hunter delivers against one of lead Kumail Nanjiani's comedy club hecklers had me rolling. And, much like Baby Driver, this film knows exactly how coy to play it with the ending it knows you want.
More importantly, it knows how to earn it.
4. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Vol. 2
Look, I said last year that I'll stop putting these damn MARVEL movies on my list when they stop being so damn good. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, as a pair, are my favorite things to come out of the MARVEL Cinematic Universe. I have no way of knowing if they would have hit me nearly as hard if they didn't seem to come at oddly appropriate times in my life (this one, about coming to terms with problematic father figures landing barely a month after I became a father), but here we are.
This film is brilliant. Where most superhero films - and indeed, most MCU movies - opt to go bigger and broader in scope for their second installment, Guardians Vol. 2 stalwartly looks inward, digging deep into every one of the characters introduced in the first film and tying their personal hangups and dynamics deftly into the new faces in support of a theme all about the rejection of toxic masculinity, the ending of abusive cycles, and the abandoning of the idea that lineage confers worth.
There are parts of this film that still crack me up, and at least one sequence that inevitably makes me cry, and I honestly can't ask for much more from a film than that.
3. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Here's a hot take - the Prequels didn't "ruin" STAR WARS the way many claim they did. That dubious honor belongs to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
I don't mean to say that those are bad films - they're great. But they poisoned the well of fandom with the ever-shrinking universe that they created and then cemented, turning a series of wild discovery into an ever-churning morass of fan theories about who would be related to whom, what the next predictable-but-loose-end-tying "twist" would be, and how everything would fit together like a puzzle piece picturing the smallest galaxy imaginable. Luke couldn't just be a farm boy, he had to be the son of the most powerful Jedi ever. Leia couldn't just be a princess, she had to be a long-lost twin sister. And so on and on.
Until now. Until The Last Jedi planted its flag as the first STAR WARS movie that wasn't about other STAR WARS movies in a very long time. This film upends a lot of expectations about the universe created by George Lucas more than forty years ago, but it does so with exactly the same spirit giddy creativity, cultural and political commentary, and looking wistfully to the sky in search of the next grand adventure.
STAR WARS is dead. Long live STAR WARS.
2. THE SHAPE OF WATER
Movies are dreams we have the privilege of remembering, those images we usually only hold onto for a few moments after waking are instead indelibly burned into our brains for us to relive over and over again.
So how absolutely wild is it that one of the most ethereally beautiful images of the past year involves a woman wanting to get down with a fish man?
Sometimes you get the feeling that Guillermo del Toro is practically making movies on a dare, seeing exactly how much of the macabre, the horrific, the monstrous, or the outright strange that he can cram into his films while still creating pictures of inarguable beauty. In his riff on Creature From the Black Lagoon meets Beauty and the Beast, he takes that conceit to its logical endpoint, in making the text of the film about finding the personal beauty in the unexpected or seemingly monstrous. He invites us into his world with a playful wink but a pure intention of sharing something wonderful that he truly loves.
May he never run out of dreams or places to share them.
1. GET OUT
If any one film perfectly encapsulated the overriding mood of 2017, it was this. Get Out wasn't just a socio-political horror film with its finger so deftly on the pulse that it practically became a movement in and of itself, but it's the type of capital-letter Arrival we haven't seen in the genre in a very long time. Jordan Peele made a name for himself in comedy, but arguably his greatest joke was kicking down the door of 2017 - a year of surprisingly great horror films from back to front - with the genre film to beat being from a first-time writer/director.
And no one beat it. This was the best movie I saw in 2017 when I first saw it in February and remained so until the clock struck midnight at the end of December. Successive viewings reward an observant viewer with just how many details Peele hides in plain sight, or how he'll seed character-defining moments in seemingly throw-away images, or exactly how tightly everything is wound that there's not a bit of wasted space to be found (even if you're just watching a character methodically eat cereal).
But what really puts Get Out ahead of the pack is how firmly puts you in the shoes of another person and then tells you to run like hell for the nearest exit even as you're completely unable to so much as look away. This movie plays like gangbusters no matter where you come from, and that's not just important these days - that kind of communicative ability is a damn survival skill. Peele makes you feel every moment with Chris and Rose and the parents and the party, and because of that, the film's finale isn't just a culmination in a single character's journey. It's a call to action.
"We handle our shit," it says.
Damn right. New year, new world, new rules. It's a scary world out there right now, but guess what - we can be scary, too. So let's handle our shit.
Happy 2018.
10. WONDER WOMAN
There are blockbusters, and then there are cultural events. Wonder Woman is undoubtedly a true pop culture phenomenon, arguably the breakout success of the year and easily the single strongest star-making, flag-planting, "this is what we are about" declaration of purpose to hit the superhero zeitgeist since Iron Man in 2008. Gal Gadot proves perfectly cast as the title heroine (conveying a warmth and idealism matched only by her power and bravery), the No Man's Land sequence is damn-near unmatched in terms of confluence of character, action and theme in the genre, and there really is nothing quite like watching this film with the dawning comprehension that you are seeing the birth of an empowering icon to an entire generation (if not more than one) of girls desperately hungry for one.
Even if 2017 hadn't been a year desperately in need of a woman who would be both a shield against the guns of fascists and a sword for truth and justice, this would have been a treat. As it stands, it's truly wonderful to watch her stand for all of us.
9. LOGAN LUCKY
And on the complete other end of the spectrum, a film that received very little fanfare, didn't do much business at the box office, and - in spite of the stakes being a heist of hundreds of millions of dollars - is at its heart a story about a single family trying to shake some bad luck.
Steven Soderbergh is no stranger to capers, but where Logan Lucky could have easily been Dixie Ocean's Eleven, it always chooses to make a smarter and more interesting choice than that reductive summation would allow. The central cast are just as cracking to watch bounce off each other as Danny, Rusty, Linus, Tess, Saul, and the gang in the Ocean's films, but there's an immediate pathos that's built with Channing Tatum's Jimmy Logan that never quite stuck to Daniel Ocean, and Rebecca Blunt's sharp screenplay artfully dances around the titular family, their criminal compatriots, and their would-be marks with a pace that's just quick enough to leave the audience guessing how they'll pull their heist off, but without ever feeling cheap in the execution of everyone's plans.
Also, Daniel Craig as Joe Bang has to be seen to be believed.
8. mother!
Speaking of something you have to see to believe. . .actually, you probably shouldn't see Darren Aronofsky's mother! And I'm not saying that to be a gate-keeping pompous ass - hell, I probably shouldn't have seen this movie. But having born witness to it, I can only stand in awe of the audaciousness of the conceit and the unarguable talent everyone involved showcased. Jennifer Lawrence has a grueling thankless role but commands the audience's respect, attention, and empathy in exactly the sort of performance that it feels like she's been saving up for over the last couple years of blockbuster peddling.
To call this film "divisive" or "incendiary" is very likely selling its potential for dissatisfying or even infuriating the viewer rather short. There are people who hate this movie and I absolutely cannot blame them, but I also can't help but marvel at how Aronofsky has approached this like a demon he needed to exorcise from himself, creating a meditation on creation and obsession, love and abuse, religion and cultism, and the simple fact that men are kinda garbage and don't deserve the shit that women go through for them.
7. BABY DRIVER
To those of you who know my deep and abiding love for the films of Edgar Wright, the fact that Baby Driver - arguably the purest expression of his passions as a filmmaker stripped bare of the genre-tweaking trappings of his previous films - doesn't place higher on this list should tell you a lot about how absolutely stacked this year was. And, if I'm being completely honest, recent revelations about the garbage person status of one Kevin Spacey have dimmed some of this movie's shine for me.
However, it's still a marvelous "one last job" crime film with a star-making turn from Ansel Elgort, a truly brilliant soundtrack that will stick with you long after you let up on the gas, and a murderer's row of great character actors. Baby Driver doesn't just deliver some brilliant thrills to thumping beats, it also takes several turns in how it metes out consequences that both underline and subvert the fairy tale vibe the film is going for.
Then there's the fact that it features some of the best vehicular action put to film this century. And - lest we forget - this century includes Mad Max: Fury Road.
6. COLOSSAL
Sometimes you just know you're watching something special, almost from the word "go." Others, you dip a toe into a story and by the time the finale act is rolling over you, you can't quite decide if you should be flattened by the experience or on your feet cheering. Colossal is a monster movie about depression and self-hatred, about substance abuse and destructive behavior, about how we deal with a crisis and how we choose to define ourselves.
Anne Hathaway brings her A-game to what could easily have been a broken and ridiculous premise, tasked with playing a painfully awkward character who walks the line between pitiable and pitifully unlikable, and then she goes toe-to-toe with Jason Sudekis and both of them damn near ascend to a completely new level. These are talents with roots in comic stories who bring the weight of trampled happiness to bear on their characters in a major way, and the sadness they conjure feels like it can only come from a place that was once filled with joy.
And yet, the film manages not to be dour and miserable, but genuine and painful on the road to something. . . well, bigger.
5. THE BIG SICK
This is the best romantic comedy since Groundhog Day.
If you know me, you may know that purgatorial stays in hospitals at the side of someone you love hits. . . a bit close to home, and the way this film handles its 2nd act digression into a very "shit just got real" stretch of a "based on a true story" narrative pushes that particular button rather hard and then holds it down. There are moments in The Big Sick that are almost painfully awkward or unbearably tense as you feel poised on the brink of unbearable tragedy, but the script - penned by the real-life couple on which the film is based - knows just when to bring in the warmth of humor or heartfelt human connection to get you through the next cold, dark night.
For all the genuine dramatic stakes at play in this story of "boy meets girl, boy and girl break up, girl is hospital-ridden and boy realizes he done screwed up," it is also very funny. There's a 9/11 joke (yes, you read that right) that is near-legend among fans of the film, but the extended tirade that Holly Hunter delivers against one of lead Kumail Nanjiani's comedy club hecklers had me rolling. And, much like Baby Driver, this film knows exactly how coy to play it with the ending it knows you want.
More importantly, it knows how to earn it.
4. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Vol. 2
Look, I said last year that I'll stop putting these damn MARVEL movies on my list when they stop being so damn good. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, as a pair, are my favorite things to come out of the MARVEL Cinematic Universe. I have no way of knowing if they would have hit me nearly as hard if they didn't seem to come at oddly appropriate times in my life (this one, about coming to terms with problematic father figures landing barely a month after I became a father), but here we are.
This film is brilliant. Where most superhero films - and indeed, most MCU movies - opt to go bigger and broader in scope for their second installment, Guardians Vol. 2 stalwartly looks inward, digging deep into every one of the characters introduced in the first film and tying their personal hangups and dynamics deftly into the new faces in support of a theme all about the rejection of toxic masculinity, the ending of abusive cycles, and the abandoning of the idea that lineage confers worth.
There are parts of this film that still crack me up, and at least one sequence that inevitably makes me cry, and I honestly can't ask for much more from a film than that.
3. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Here's a hot take - the Prequels didn't "ruin" STAR WARS the way many claim they did. That dubious honor belongs to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
I don't mean to say that those are bad films - they're great. But they poisoned the well of fandom with the ever-shrinking universe that they created and then cemented, turning a series of wild discovery into an ever-churning morass of fan theories about who would be related to whom, what the next predictable-but-loose-end-tying "twist" would be, and how everything would fit together like a puzzle piece picturing the smallest galaxy imaginable. Luke couldn't just be a farm boy, he had to be the son of the most powerful Jedi ever. Leia couldn't just be a princess, she had to be a long-lost twin sister. And so on and on.
Until now. Until The Last Jedi planted its flag as the first STAR WARS movie that wasn't about other STAR WARS movies in a very long time. This film upends a lot of expectations about the universe created by George Lucas more than forty years ago, but it does so with exactly the same spirit giddy creativity, cultural and political commentary, and looking wistfully to the sky in search of the next grand adventure.
STAR WARS is dead. Long live STAR WARS.
2. THE SHAPE OF WATER
Movies are dreams we have the privilege of remembering, those images we usually only hold onto for a few moments after waking are instead indelibly burned into our brains for us to relive over and over again.
So how absolutely wild is it that one of the most ethereally beautiful images of the past year involves a woman wanting to get down with a fish man?
Sometimes you get the feeling that Guillermo del Toro is practically making movies on a dare, seeing exactly how much of the macabre, the horrific, the monstrous, or the outright strange that he can cram into his films while still creating pictures of inarguable beauty. In his riff on Creature From the Black Lagoon meets Beauty and the Beast, he takes that conceit to its logical endpoint, in making the text of the film about finding the personal beauty in the unexpected or seemingly monstrous. He invites us into his world with a playful wink but a pure intention of sharing something wonderful that he truly loves.
May he never run out of dreams or places to share them.
1. GET OUT
If any one film perfectly encapsulated the overriding mood of 2017, it was this. Get Out wasn't just a socio-political horror film with its finger so deftly on the pulse that it practically became a movement in and of itself, but it's the type of capital-letter Arrival we haven't seen in the genre in a very long time. Jordan Peele made a name for himself in comedy, but arguably his greatest joke was kicking down the door of 2017 - a year of surprisingly great horror films from back to front - with the genre film to beat being from a first-time writer/director.
And no one beat it. This was the best movie I saw in 2017 when I first saw it in February and remained so until the clock struck midnight at the end of December. Successive viewings reward an observant viewer with just how many details Peele hides in plain sight, or how he'll seed character-defining moments in seemingly throw-away images, or exactly how tightly everything is wound that there's not a bit of wasted space to be found (even if you're just watching a character methodically eat cereal).
But what really puts Get Out ahead of the pack is how firmly puts you in the shoes of another person and then tells you to run like hell for the nearest exit even as you're completely unable to so much as look away. This movie plays like gangbusters no matter where you come from, and that's not just important these days - that kind of communicative ability is a damn survival skill. Peele makes you feel every moment with Chris and Rose and the parents and the party, and because of that, the film's finale isn't just a culmination in a single character's journey. It's a call to action.
"We handle our shit," it says.
Damn right. New year, new world, new rules. It's a scary world out there right now, but guess what - we can be scary, too. So let's handle our shit.
Happy 2018.
As always you write so well and so deep in your thoughts but with great restraint. Lovely picks of pics. :)
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