In 2017 we witnessed the toppling of the Old Guard in Hollywood. In addition to #MeToo and #TimesUp challenging the status quo of powerful men abusing women (and other men) for their own pleasure, I think we saw a distinct shift in who gets to tell stories. Consider that this year a woman (Greta Gerwig) and a black man (Jordan Peele) are both nominated in the intensely white and male category of Best Director for the Academy Awards. That feels HUGE to me.
This isn't to suggest that Hollywood hasn't had moments in the past where diversity blossomed--it absolutely has. The late 80s/1990s were an amazing time for independent film and creative storytellers like Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino gave us some of their greatest work. But to paraphrase Colin Jost: Life is a roller-coaster. Sometimes you're screaming in joy, other times you're throwing up in your own face. Life, politics, and art are all similar in that their trajectory isn't linear and always progressing toward something "better".
However, 2017 feels special. We finally got our Wonder Woman. We got to watch four black women throw down and stand up for each other during a girls trip to New Orleans. We got a peek into living hand-to-mouth in Florida. We got to watch Timothee Chalamet ejaculate prematurely in not one, but two movies this year. It's been a wild ride, to say the least.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by my list (as well as the honorable and dishonorable mentions below it). Because I haven't seen a lot of the "traditional" Oscar bait this year (skipped The Post, Darkest Hour, All the Money in the World, and--yep--The Last Jedi) there's room on my list for a couple surprises. I hope you enjoy, and see you in 2018.
***
11) Phantom Thread
PT Anderson's latest film is a scary movie without the scares. It has all the elements of a spookfest, including multiple creepy houses and a vaguely sinister protagonist in an overly close relationship with his sister. But instead of an update on the Hitchcock film Rebecca (which is where I thought the movie would go), we get a twisted little love story. They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and that axiom is taken to a surprising conclusion in this bizarre and beautiful movie.
10) The Shape of Water
This genre-blending fantasy from Guillermo del Toro, a mastermind of creature features, is shrouded in shades of green--the color of envy and the color of rebirth. A strong cast lead by Sally Hawkins playing a mute woman bring an unlikely story to life: an aquatic creature is captured and tortured by Michael Shannon's zealous military officer in a government facility during the Cold War, but the creature finds a soulmate and a savior in Hawkins' Elisa. The Shape of Water is a fairytale for adults about how none of us--whether we have scales or skin--truly "fit in". We are all outsiders looking for someone, man or monster, who truly understands.
9) The Disaster Artist
The Disaster Artist is one, long inside joke for fans of Tommy Wiseau's magnetically awful 2003 film The Room. James Franco portrays Wiseau, a man who defies all labels except "bat-shit banana-pants". Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero, the young actor Wiseau teams up with to make their Hollywood dreams come true. If no one will hire these two (admittedly awful) actors, then by God they'll write, direct, and star in their own piece of crap movie! Not many people can boast that they achieved the American dream, but against all odds, Tommy Wiseau did just that: through sheer force of will and a mysteriously bottomless bank account, Wiseau created one of the worst movies of all time, and here we are not 15 years later watching a movie about the making of that shitty movie. It's inspiring. Go for your dreams, kids.
8) Logan (second review down)
Wolverine--redeemed? After a number of mildly crappy X-Men movies, including what I've heard (haven't seen) is the truly awful X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's immortal--and eternally tortured--superhero gets a film worthy of its gritty, violent namesake. I watched Logan at a friend's house, not really expecting to be impressed because I'm not a "superhero movie person". But between the gratuitous violence (I love me some gratuitous violence), Dafne Keen playing the adorable mini-Wolverine, and Patrick Stewart in a heartbreaking role as an ancient and infirm Professor X, I was mesmerized. There's a scene at the very end of the movie where Jackman says something like "Oh, this is what it feels like", and you don't know if he means "this is what it feels like to die" or "this is what it feels like to love." Sniff. Godspeed, Wolverine. Godspeed.
7) Life
Oh hey, bet you don't remember this random sci-fi horror movie from the spring! But I do, because it was one of the scariest movies I saw all year (in a year filled with freaky-ass movies. See #6 and #3). A space station filled with sexy people, including my bae Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds (not my bae) is terrorized by an alien life form. What starts out as tiny, cute lil creature named "Calvin" quickly grows in size and strength, breaking loose from its container and feeding on any warm bodies available, be they a lab rat or a human. Life was surprisingly gory and intensely claustrophobic. It may not win any awards this year, but for a genre film, it was excellent.
6) mother!
OH HEY GUYS remember that movie that was advertised as a Jennifer Lawrence horror movie but actually turned out to be a highly metaphorical film about 1) the environment, 2) the Bible, and 3) how hard it is to date an artist? And also a baby gets eaten in one scene? Well, I fucking remember it and it damn well deserves a place on this list for sheer balls-out audacity. Darren Aronofsky's truly bugfuck movie mother! is actually, in my opinion, pretty entertaining. It starts out as a film about a couple (Lawrence and the much older Javier Bardem) living in peaceful splendor until an annoying couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up and things slowly go to shit, culminating in the house party from hell. Read my review if you're too scared to see the movie and want to know exactly what happens. All I can say is that it was one of the most memorable movies of the year, hands down.
5) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
AKA "fuck da police", aka "RAPED WHILE DYING", Three Billboards was one of the more controversial movies to come out this year. The tone is kind of all over the place. It's a movie where a teenage girl was raped while...well, you know...and then burned to a crisp and yet it's also...a comedy?!? Blame director Martin McDonaugh, whose last film, In Bruges, was similarly depressing and hilarious. Also: Peter Dinklage is in it mainly to be mocked as a little person, a cop who beats up black people gets a redemption arc (that ends with possible murder), and the word "cunt" is thrown around like gangbusters. This all makes for a very unpleasant film. And yet. I respected it for what it was, which was a movie that so clearly portrays the unique and horrid grief of a parent losing a child. Not to mention the acting, which is wall-to-wall fantastic. Perhaps Three Billboards, with its grief and its violence, and its naked hope is not the movie The United States of America wants in 2017, but the movie it deserves.
4) The Florida Project
This little indie gem snuck up on me out of nowhere. Directed by Sean Baker, The Florida Project is about families living in crappy motels (illegally, sort of) and their children, whose innocence and sense of fun collide with the brutal realities and indignities of living hand-to-mouth. The cast is filled with unknowns, with the exception of Willem Dafoe, in a beautiful and humanistic role as Bobby, the motel manager and in loco parentis to the kids, whose moms are often, well, less than nurturing. The Florida Project is a test in empathy: it shows what living below the poverty line can look like, both the good and the (mostly) bad. This is not a movie about pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. Basically, if you're a shitty person, you'll look down on the adult characters as entitled freeloaders. If you're a good person like me you'll see the humanity underneath the trashy clothes and empty 40oz bottles of malt liquor. And, boy, the ending of this film will break your heart.
3) Get Out
I don't think any movie had a greater impact on pop culture this year than Jordan Peele's directorial debut. And I'm including The Last Jedi, which had a lot of talk surrounding it that amounted to a hill of beans at the end of the day. Get Out was a horror movie released in mainstream theaters about middle-class racism. It suggests that all those good intentions of "woke" white people only serve to hide the savagery underneath. How we white people would kill, rape, and sell black people in a minute if just given the chance. The film slapped white people in the collective face and, boy, do we ever deserve it. Released mere weeks after the inauguration of a blatantly racist president (in a long line a racist presidents) who won perhaps due to Russian interference but was definitely helped by the insidious, repulsive racial impulses of white America, Get Out stripped us naked to expose the ugly truth: that the election of a black president means fuck all in this garbage country that masquerades as "Christian". Do I sound bitter? I am bitter. And thank you, Jordan Peele, for giving us a film that allows both black and white viewers to explore and channel that bitterness and fear. We really needed it. Oh, and the movie was really good, too!
2) Lady Bird
Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson is 17 going on 18 in 2002, the year this coming-of-age film is set. I myself was 16 going on 17 that same year. And while I didn't lose my virginity or join the high school theatre department in 2002, I *did* love Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me", fell for a guy who wasn't interested back, and fought with my mom a lot that year. Greta Gerwig's 80% hilarious, 20% heart-string pulling film about a teenage girl (played by the luminous, even under acne makeup, Saoirse Ronan) figuring out who she is and who she wants to be is so honest and sensitive without being schmaltzy or fake. Lady Bird does something rare: it honors teenager-hood rather than mocking it or putting it on a pedestal. While excellent teen movies do exist, so many depictions of teens feel off. The actors playing the teens look too old and too sexy (teens aren't sexy. They may be sexual, but sexy they ain't. I know. I was one). Their conversation is either overly simplistic or overly mature. Their world is filled with mortifying pranks and hideous back-biting. But in Lady Bird, teens--especially teen girls--are allowed to be teens: they're falsely confident, often thoughtless, incredibly horny, and 100% real. Gerwig manages to inspire one of the best onscreen portrays of the mother-daughter bond I've seen (Lady Bird's mom is played by a revelatory Laurie Metcalfe). The deep love, the sniping, the passive-aggressiveness, the protectiveness. It's all there, and it's beautiful and will make you cry and want to call your mom. Which you totally should, by the way.
1) Call Me By Your Name
I'm not sure where to start with Luca Guadagnino's exquisite Call Me By Your Name. I think I need a bulleted list to explain what is so gott-damn amazing about this movie:
- The gorgeous scenery. The film is set "somewhere in Northern Italy" in 1983 and the cinematography is infused with sunlight and shadow. You feel like you're there. This movie is a fucking spa for you eyeballs, designed to relax and mesmerize you.
- Also mesmerizing: the Sufjan Stevens and classical music-heavy soundtrack which elevates the film without overwhelming it.
- The performances are, to a one, excellent. But Timothee Chalamet playing 17-year-old Elio is truly outstanding. Basically, this dude perfectly captures what it's like to be a deliriously horny and very emotional teenager (the movie covers a lot of the same emotional ground as Lady Bird--which Chalamet is also in!). It makes sense that his performance is so spot on, given that Chalamet was only just out of his teens when he filmed this movie. There are some things he has to do for the role that are pretty brave and would come off as campy and ridiculous in the hands of a less gifted actor. But Chalamet makes even the most embarrassing aspects of being a teen look honest, raw, and beautiful.
- As I was watching CMBYN, I didn't want it to end. Even with good movies, I often find my mind wandering to other thoughts like "what restaurant should I have dinner at after the movie". It's rare for a movie to feel like flow to me, and when it was over, I ran home to download the book that it was based on as well as the soundtrack. Leaving the audience wanting more is a sure sign of a great film.
I could say more, but you can just read my review for a fuller picture of CMBYN. I was blow away by the film, and not just because (ok, maybe a little because) hot dudes make out in it.
***
Honorable Mentions:
I, Tonya
The Big Sick
***
Best Movies I Watched Streaming/That Weren't Released This Calendar Year (But You Should Totally Watch Them Because They're Great):
The Love Witch
Force Majeure
The Blackcoat's Daughter
***
Worst Movie of the Year:
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Director Yorgos Lanthimos directed my choice for Best Movie of the Year 2016 and now here he is at the bottom of the ladder in 2017. Sometimes you just fly too close to the sun.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a creepy, pretentious piece of garbage--and I *love* creepy and pretentious movies! But I didn't buy what Deer was selling. The cast is utterly deadpan for no reason other than I guess it seems artistic? Seriously, there's a scene where Colin Farrell tells his son that he once jerked off his sleeping father. Yeah, you read that right. Jerked. Off. His. Sleeping. Father. JESUS. DON'T TELL YOUR KID YOU JERKED OFF YOUR OWN FATHER. It's just bad parenting. Deer is emotional torture porn and it's not even GOOD emotional torture porn like Sophie's Choice or Requiem for a Dream. Sitting through an emotionally devastating movie is an act of trust on the part of the audience--we endure it for a satisfying payoff of some sort. And at the end of The Killing of a Sacred Deer it feels like you were the butt of some weird joke...only you're not, because the real joke is this ridiculous film.
Try harder, Yorgos. You're better than this trash.
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