In a typical year, we don’t get most of the really good movies
until after Labor Day. Comparatively speaking, maybe that will still be true of
2017, but the first 2/3 of the year has seen an uncharacteristic embarrassment
of riches. Just right now, on Labor Day weekend, at the multiplex a mile from
my house, are eight (8!!) films with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of over 80%. That
is unheard of for this time of year.
Now, there’s certainly a case to be made that the increased ubiquity of Rotten Tomatoes in determining the choices of moviegoers has led to
less dissension among critics (because it singles them out more obviously and
calls their against-the-grain opinions into question more savagely), and
perhaps great Rotten Tomatoes scores are easier to come by than they ever have
been before. But even still, I believe we’ve probably already seen three or four Best Picture nominees this year (rare for pre-September releases), and
2017 has undoubtedly been the best year for action cinema since the heydays of
the early-‘90s.
Indeed, I had initially planned on just writing a Top 20 of
the year so far, but my initial list of 38 possibilities meant cutting down to
20 was just too difficult.
1. Get Out
I won’t bury the lead; Get Out is
the most interesting movie about race that I’ve ever seen. It’s also among the
movies I’ve spent the most time wrestling with in my head. At its most
uncomfortable core, it’s a film about white fascination with the bodies of
black men, and the need to evaluate and control those bodies for our own use—be
it sports, labor, or even the pervasive fantasies of “bbc” porn (*not* a
reference to the British Broadcasting Corporation). I’m confident in saying Get Out will be studied and dissected
for generations.
2. The Big Sick
When I saw this at Sundance, I
heard a packed theater in Utah laugh hysterically at a Pakistani immigrant
making a 9/11 joke. That’s how I knew I was watching something special. The Big Sick works so well because it
hits on so many elements and themes that are universal to the human experience—love,
family, tradition, immigrants, forgiveness, parental expectations, healthcare,
and having to spend time with your ex-girlfriend’s parents while she’s in a
coma. We’ve all been there. This true story is funny, sad, touching, and uplifting.
3. Good Time
As a big believer that the last ten minutes of The Last of the Mohicans are as utterly perfect as cinema gets, it
makes sense that Good Time would so
enrapture me. It’s all propulsive score, kinetic editing, and adrenalized
characters running across New York. But in this case, the score is electronic
(and incredible), and the New York we get is a dirty part of Queens. This is as
stylish as a crime movie can get without sacrificing its lowlife authenticity.
4. Atomic Blonde
2017 had already given us Baby Driver’s
incredible action soundtrack and John Wick: Chapter 2’s incredible neon
action set pieces (read about both a little further down), but Atomic Blonde somehow combined both.
Charlize Theron, as a spy in Cold War–era Berlin, in fight scenes choreographed
as impossible long takes and tracking shots, set to ‘80s Europop songs (New
Order, Depeche Mode, Bowie, etc.). Yes please. I only wish the totally
superfluous lesbian sex scene had been cut so I don’t feel quite as
predictable for loving this movie so much.
5. Detroit
At the heart of Detroit is a
centerpiece scene of police interrogation and brutality that’s probably over an
hour long, and despite how harrowing it is to watch, it’s so equally intense
that turning away didn’t even occur to me. I was too locked in its thrall. Most
filmmakers wouldn’t have the confidence to hold a movie’s collective breath for
that long, but Kathryn Bigelow is as much “not most filmmakers” as anyone can
get. This movie will anger some people, but that’s okay. Provocative art should
be divisive sometimes.
6. Baby Driver
After Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Shaun
of the Dead, director Edgar Wright clearly has a knack for making me fall
in love with movies that I wasn’t sure would be my cup of tea. Baby Driver’s genius is all in the
tunes, and Wright perfectly nails making them not seem too cool for their own good. More than anything, the movie sounds
like someone with great taste just left their iPod on shuffle—there’re a few
classics, several deep cuts, and a few kitschy things that absolutely aren’t
getting apologized for. Nor should they be.
7. Spider-Man: Homecoming
We’d already gotten two Spider-Man movies this decade—in 2012 and
2014—and the second one felt so stale that the series was prematurely
cancelled. Seeing Marvel resurrect the franchise just three years later, and
somehow making the freshest, liveliest superhero film in years, is a
mini-miracle. What Homecoming gets so
right (and what none of the five previous Spidey films really attempted) is
that it’s a high school movie more than anything. It’s Marvel’s best attempt
yet at fusing a superhero flick with a traditional movie genre.
8. Wind River
After writing two great films, Sicario
and Hell or High Water, Taylor
Sheridan completes his trilogy on the American frontier with this, his
directorial debut. Like its predecessors, Wind
River is principally about a place (in this case, a Wyoming Indian
reservation), and the crime that develops from the collective struggles of its
inhabitants. Sheridan’s work explores how differing concepts of justice
manifest across disparate places, and that’s on full display here. He’s already
a contender for the best screenwriter of his generation.
9. John Wick: Chapter 2
As a piece of pure entertainment, Chapter
2 ups its predecessor with better fights and better locales. But John Wick: Chapter 2 also manages to
function as a sneaky piece of art cinema—most of it’s fights and chases are
filmed amid neon accent lights and reflective surfaces, making this (maybe) the
most interestingly shot mainstream action movie ever. One scene particularly
reminded me of Enter the Dragon’s
climactic mirror sequence.
10. Lady Macbeth
For as long as I can remember, my least favorite film genre has always
been British period pieces in which aristocratic characters wallow in ennui
about their boring, privileged lives. If you feel the same, then Lady Macbeth is absolutely the movie for
you. It’s basically Breaking Bad: “19th
century English countryside edition.” Or, think of it as the first Game of Thrones prequel; watch a normal
girl turn into Cersei Lannister in a brisk 90 minutes.
11. Columbus
The concept seems like pure
Linklater—two people at a personal crossroad meet in a city famous for its
architecture, and then they walk around, look at the buildings, and talk about
life. But the execution is much more like classic art house cinema—Ozu or
Bresson. The frames are perfectly composed, the camera barely moves, and the
film is quiet, pensive, and lyrical. It’s almost a visual work of modernist
theory, but done as a non-experimental, traditional narrative. That won’t be an
endorsement for everyone, but it’s really lovely.
12. A Ghost Story
Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara play a married couple living in a small
house. Then, he dies. He returns to their house as a ghost (with a sheet over
his head). As time passes, he silently observes his wife, and, eventually, new
tenants in the property. If this doesn’t sound interesting to you, then it
probably won’t be. A Ghost Story is a
meditation on the passage of time, and part of its arsenal is making you, the
viewer, fully experience that feeling of time passing. It’s slow, but that’s
the point. It’s also profound and beautiful.
13. Whose Streets?
There are (basically) two kinds
of documentaries—those that capture something as it’s happening, and those that
illuminate the past. Films of the first type rarely capture major events that
shake a nation, because you can’t normally plan for such things and filmmaking
takes preparation. Whose Streets?, a
first-hand account of the Ferguson riots following the shooting of Michael
Brown, is an exception. It’s an intense, heartbreaking, and monumental piece of
history. If you don’t understand the Black Lives Matter movement, please please
see this.
14. The LEGO Batman Movie
It’s hopelessly and depressingly ironic that, while DC won’t allow their
characters to be funny in their official films, when their parent company,
Warner Bros., makes a LEGO movie out of DC characters, it’s the funniest movie
of the year. DC wants their films to be unrelentingly dark, but The LEGO Batman Movie fully takes the
piss out of that darkness, and out of Batman’s entire (fictional) psyche. It’s
as epic a takedown of the character as could be imagined, but it’s done in an
incredibly loving, hilarious, and creative way.
15. Dunkirk
I fall in the minority who did not think Dunkirk was an utter masterpiece of cinema. It’s a survival story
in which I didn’t care about who actually survived, because the film only used
its characters as props. It’s the first Christopher Nolan film that didn’t care
deeply about psychology, and when the denouement came, I felt nothing. However,
as a piece of technical craftsmanship, Dunkirk
truly is a masterpiece, which is why I couldn’t possibly leave it off this
list. The air battles alone are worth the price of admission.
16. Raw
Seriously, I was the last person that ever thought I might like a
cannibal horror film. Raw premiered
at two different major festivals I attended and I stayed the hell away. Only
after great reviews and friends’ recommendations made me feel obligated to see
it did I begrudgingly do so. But damn, it’s great stuff. Really, it’s less of a
cannibal flick and more like David Cronenberg (in classic, pseudo-erotic
body-horror mode) directing a Chemical Brothers music video. It’s not for the
weakest of stomachs, but I handled it just fine.
17. Colossal
For a plot description of Colossal, I’ll leave it to how the
director, Nacho Vigalondo, first described it to co-star Jason Sudeikis (please
try to read this in a thick Spanish accent): “It’s about a woman who, every
time she drinks, a monster attacks South Korea.” In terms of plot, yep, that’s Colossal. But what it’s really *about*
are the ways jealous men attempt to control women, and how the women can break
free. It’s strange and kinda ridiculous, but it’s the best (only?) feminist
monster movie since Aliens. Anne
Hathaway kills it.
18. Wonder Woman
In some ways, because of the stakes, the best thing about Wonder Woman is that it doesn’t suck. But
that shouldn’t diminish the fact that it’s also really good! Every Marvel
superhero movie seemingly doubles as a comedy, and the other DC superhero
movies just represent a corporation’s idea of a 14-year-old boy’s idea of
psychological complexity. But Wonder
Woman succeeds at something that’s become a complete afterthought in comic
book movies—it’s actually inspiring. It allows its hero to feel purely heroic.
In 2017, we all need that.
19. Ingrid Goes West
When a disturbed young woman (played by Aubrey Plaza) becomes obsessed
with an Instagram “influencer,” she decides to seek her out IRL and be her
friend. Ingrid is hard to nail down
into a genre. It’s not so much a black comedy as it’s just a depressing comedy.
Like the great “Nosedive” episode of Black
Mirror, Ingrid Goes West is an
exploration of what the need for social media “Likes” is doing to us, and the
psychological problems that can emanate from it. At the very least, it’s a film
that might make you put your phone down for a bit.
20. I, Daniel Blake
When the titular Daniel Blake, a
carpenter in New Castle, can no longer work because of a heart condition, he
discovers the British welfare system is designed less to help people than to
deter people from receiving help. The winner of the 2016 Palme d’Or at the
Cannes Film Festival, this isn’t a movie with a happy ending, but it reflects
reality all too clearly. As we watch our own government continue to dehumanize
us, I, Daniel Blake is a
heartbreakingly relevant film about not letting the system steal your dignity
from you.
21. Patti Cake$
There are elements of Patti Cake$—about
an overweight Jersey girl with the talent and dreams of becoming a rap
star—that feel overly familiar. It’s an underdog story, and a story about
attempting to belong in a subculture that doesn’t want you. But Patti Cake$ knocks it out of the park in
two prime areas: the tunes are wonderful and potent, and the characters (and
actors) have a genuine earnestness in their search for acceptance that’s truly
affecting. If you’re looking for a crowd-pleaser, this is it.
22. Logan Lucky
After directing three Ocean’s
movies, and three movies with Channing Tatum, Steven Soderbergh came out of his
self-imposed feature-film retirement to combine his two favorite pastimes. But
somehow, Logan Lucky, which is
basically a redneck version of an Ocean’s
movie (set at a West Virginia NASCAR race instead of a Vegas casino), feels
more like a Coen Brothers movie—it’s all about the characters’ local dialect
and amusing drawl. But hey, anytime you can see a movie that combines
Soderbergh and the Coens (kind of), what are you waiting for?
23. Band Aid
At first glance, Band Aid seems
like one of those indie movies; you
know, the kind where you read the plot and just think it arrived off of a
bearded hipster assembly line. A husband and wife who can’t stop fighting
decide to turn their fights into songs and form an indie-pop band. With Fred
Armisen on drums, natch. But Band Aid isn’t
merely cutesy-funny (though it is that, too). There’s real emotion, pathos,
and pain explored here, and writer/director/star Zoe Lister-Jones is a
revelation of talent.
24. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
It’s a misconception that the
government didn’t go after any banks after the 2008 financial crisis. They did
actually go after *one*: a small bank in New York’s Chinatown called Abacus. But
why was this tiny, family-run operation being prosecuted while the Wall Street
executives behind the crash were just cashing their bonus checks? That’s what
documentary filmmaker Steve James (Hoop
Dreams, Life Itself) explores
here, in a powerful story about a small immigrant family literally taking on
the government. Telling stories like this is why great documentaries remain so
vital.
25. The Hounds of Love
When
I say this movie might not be for you, I mean it *really* might not be for you.
It’s an Aussie movie about a teenage girl who gets kidnapped by a couple to be
their temporary sex slave, but she starts playing her captors against each
other. It’s not a pleasant film (at all), but its style and use of music is
hypnotic. Yes, I know how awful it is to laud the style of a movie that’s
basically about rape and torture. But you have to love anything that does to
“Nights in White Satin” what Reservoir
Dogs did to “Stuck in the Middle with You.”
And now we’re off to the fall “good movie” season! Will any
of the above still be around for my end-of-the-year list? Stay tuned.
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