Top 10 Films of 2017

It is true that Top 10 lists are by their nature arbitrary, frivolous and wholly unnecessary. If you were to wipe my memory and force me to make this list again a month from now, there's no guarantee it wouldn't be considerably different from what you're reading today.

But it's equally true that these sorts of lists are fun to write and fun to read. They spur conversations and disagreements about what is right and wrong about today's cinema. In short, they get people talking about movies, which is quite possibly the only thing I like more than watching them.

I found 2017 to be a quite good year for film. I awarded four movies my highest rating -- 4 stars, 5 Yaps or an "A," depending on where it was being published -- at the time of their release, and have since upgraded one more to that level. I consider all them masterpieces, and saw at least a dozen more I would deem only a half-step down from that.

In making my top 10 list, I had a much easier time deciding on #1-5 than #6-10, particularly in deciding what would drop off the list. That's why I always make sure to also include a list of also-rans: films I adored that that didn't quite make the top 10. This year the counting of contenders runs to 18.

You'll notice that my list(s) are dominated by smaller indie movies this year. I offer no explanation or apology for this. In deciding my favorites, I deliberately try to avoid any overarching theme or bias. I likes what I likes. For whatever reason, in 2017 it was the low-budget, the offbeat, the overlooked.

So without further ado:

1.    Blade Runner 2049

I feared this film more than any other. I thought there was no way to do a sequel to "Blade Runner," one of my favorite movies, that was narratively and emotionally logical. I was wrong. It's a brilliant, beautiful, disturbing look into a future that is very different from what we have today, yet easy to see the pathway from here to there.

2.    Lady Bird

After more than a decade cementing her place as the queen of indie films, then apprenticing as a screenwriter, Greta Gerwig forcefully announces herself as an important new filmmaker. A look at teenhood that is very specific yet universal. Smart, brave and riveting.

3.    Brigsby Bear

At first I took this to be a quirky hipster comedy about a manboy who finds himself living in a strange and frightening new world. Instead, I found the most emotionally satisfying journey of any film in 2017. It's a story of overcoming our fears and reaching out to others.

4.    The Shape of Water

"Pan's Labyrinth" is probably still my favorite Guillermo del Toro movie, but this makes a strong case for second. Sally Hawkins is great, but the film also boasts a half-dozen supporting characters whose stories are just as distinct and compelling as the heroine's. Dark, offbeat, mysterious.

5.    Maudie

The year of Sally Hawkins. She'll get her Oscar nomination for "Shape of Water," but her work in this beautiful little indie about a meek Canadian artist was the performance of the year for me. And Ethan Hawke wasn't bad, either.

6.    The Florida Project

Willem Dafoe may well win his own Oscar for this movie, but for me it's one of the best examples of a terrific ensemble cast. An unflattering portrait of the underside of my hometown of Orlando, it resonates with strength and truth.

7.    Patti Cake$

Danielle Mcdonald wowed me as a girl who's been degraded her entire life, and spits back her resentment in the form of vicious volleys of rap lyrics. An audacious debut by filmmaker Geremy Jasper.

8.    Wind River

This bleak drama looks at two Caucasian protagonists working a murder case inside an insular Native American reservation. It's a story of outsiders and aliens, belonging and frontier justice.
 

9.    Baby Driver

By turns funny, jazzy and dangerous, "Baby Driver" is tonally all over the map -- yet somehow it all works. Ansel Elgort enhances his acting credentials as a young getaway driver with a few twists.

10.  The Post

Steven Spielberg's historical drama examines the bravery of Washington Post maven Katharine Graham and a few others in defying the White House to publish the Pentagon Papers, detailing the country's shameful history in Vietnam.

 

Other contenders

Any one of these films had a real shot at making my top 10 list. If you twisted my arm and made me pick a #11, it would have been "A Ghost Story," which I had on the list until the very end. "Stronger" or "Dunkirk" would be next. Listed alphabetically.

The Ballad of Lefty Brown -- Very offbeat Western in which Bill Pullman essentially plays the classic Walter Brennan "incompetent old coot" character, who takes over the story when the John Wayne type bites it.
Coco
Crown Heights -- The male performance of the year for me by Lakeith Stanfield as a wrongfully imprisoned man.
Dunkirk -- A different sort of war picture; not about individual heroes but the concept of heroism.
A Ghost Story -- Slow, deliberate, haunting. Not the sort of picture I usually go for.
Goodbye Christopher Robin
The Hero -- It looks like Sam Elliott's greatest role is being forgotten during the awards race. Pity.
Hostiles -- There is dour. Then there is grim. Then there is bleak. Then there is despair. Then there is "Hostiles." 
It Comes at Night
Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992
Paris Can Wait
The Promise
Stronger
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri -- Frances McDormand is amazing. So is Woody Harrelson, though it's Sam Rockwell who's being pushed for awards.
Tommy's Honour -- A drama about fathers and sons, Scotland and the history of golf. Another picture I didn't expect to adore.
A United Kingdom
War for the Planet of the Apes
Wonder Woman -- The superhero movie of the year.

The Underwhelmed

These are films that were widely praised, often by people whose opinions I respect, yet I found them on some level disappointing. Many I still liked, just not crazy about them. If there was one unifying theme in movies that let me down this year, it's that they were too long. I saw so many 140-minute films that could've been 96.

Get Out -- Yes, it's a smart horror film that also boasts snappy humor and social commentary. A pillar for our times? Please.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi -- I've liked all the Star Wars movies, though this is easily the weakest. I mean, an entire plotline set off by illegally parking your starship?
The Meyerowitz Stories -- Clever portrayals of people you don't think for a minute could exist in the real world. Also, I'm still confused: was the inside joke supposed to be that they're all actually shitty artists?
Call Me By Your Name -- The last 40 minutes or so packs an emotional punch. The first hour-and-fifteen should've been edited down to about 20.
Good Time  -- Chase, chase, chase, why, why, why? All existential peril with no interior life. 
The Big Sick -- Ray Romano and Holly Hunter were the best things about this.
Mudbound -- As depressing as "Hostiles," without anything compelling to make it worthwhile. During all the different characters' narration, I kept hearing Mr. Mackey from "South Park" droning, "Cuz racism is bad."
The Disaster Artist -- A funny movie with a spot-on impression by James Franco. And nothing more.
IT -- At least it didn't end in a preteen gangbang.
Lucky -- Harry Dean Stanton can act the hell out of anything. David Lynch cannot act, other than doing that one hard-of-hearing speech pattern he always does. As someone who's hard-of-hearing, I was offended.
Beats Per Minute
Marjorie Prime
Happy End -- "Hi, we're French and rich and awful, come spend two hours with us."
Thelma
Blade of the Immortal -- Martial arts movies are like baseball movies: they're better the less actual baseball/swordfighting it has. There's a great 84-minute flick in there somewhere.
Novitiate
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

The Best and Worst Movies of 2011

It’s hard to describe 2011 as anything other than a disappointing year for movies. Most years start out slow, see a few pleasant surprises in spring, the usual mix of mega-budget hits and misses during the summer, followed by the doldrums of fall, and a busy holiday season of Oscar contenders and blockbuster tentpoles.

But 2011 never achieved liftoff. A deserted February through April gave way to a particularly weak summer. And the late-year pickup in quality never materialized – not when the second Friday in December welcomed the fugly one-two punch of “The Sitter” and “New Year’s Eve.”

Still, some fine filmmaking took place, though audiences sometimes had to hunt around for it. Here is my take on Cinema ’11.

The Best

1. The Artist – The only movie to which I gave my top rating, “The Artist” is French, black-and-white and silent to boot, but it’s anything but a snooty art film. It’s a highly enjoyable ode to old-fashioned Hollywood, and the most purely rapturous emotional experience I had at any movie this year.
2. A Better Life – I very much enjoyed this little immigrant story by director Chris Weitz and writer Eric Eason when it first came to theaters – leaving quickly with hardly a trace – and it’s only grown in my estimation since. It’s an homage to “The Bicycle Thief” that leaves aside the politics of illegal immigration for a very human story.
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- A late addition to this list, the adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel about a precocious boy dealing with the death of his father (Tom Hanks) in 9/11 is one of the most emotionally gripping journeys of the year.
4. Moneyball – Another movie I don’t think got its due, this terrific look at the numbers men behind baseball contains what is probably the best performance of Brad Pitt’s career, and the best screenplay of the year. An in-the-park homer.
5. The Skin I Live In – Pedro Almodóvar’s most unique, vibrant film in years, this kinky potboiler about a plastic surgeon and his very special patient is simultaneously disturbing and thrilling. Alfred Hitchcock would be jealous.
6. Rango – A weird, twisted animated film ostensibly for kids, “Rango” was easily one of the most original movies of 2011. Johnny Depp voices a lizard caught up in a Western spoof with a little (OK, lot of) Salvador Dali stirred in.
7. The Descendants – Alexander Payne (“Sideways”) seems to be making films on a Kubrickian time table, but this black comedy starring George Clooney as a father vexed by familial trials was well worth the wait.
8. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes – What looked to be a hammy spin-off of an antiquated film franchise turned out to be the best movie of the summer, a cerebral prequel to a world of damned, dirty apes. With a terrific CGI motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis.
9. Margin Call – Unlike some critics, I don’t relish picking obscure films just to show off my snooty bona fides. But this little-seen drama by rookie director/writer J.C. Chandor, which gives a fictional take on the economic crash that launches the Great Recession, is top-notch. Think “Glengarry Glen Ross” moved up to the executive suite.
10. War Horse – Steven Spielberg returns to form with this sweeping epic about a horse who must suffer through the atrocities and vagaries of World War I, separated from the boy who loves him. I dare you not to shed tears.

The Others

Making lists of favorite things is fun, but it also means leaving off worthy films that didn’t quite make the cut. Here, in alphabetical order, is my lucky 13 of the rest of the year’s best.

“The Adventures of Tintin,” "Anonymous," “Arthur,” “The Beaver,” “Coriolanus,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Drive,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” “The Help, “The Iron Lady,” “Larry Crowne,” “Sarah’s Key,” “Welcome to the Rileys,” “Win Win.”

The Worst

Amid any triumphs, there are always catastrophes. The truth is I don’t see many of the absolutely worst movies of the year, since the studios don’t screen them for critics. And, frankly, I prefer not to take time out of my weekend to catch up on “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.”

But here are 10 of the most inadequate films I saw in 2011.

1. Green Lantern – An abject lesson in how not to make a super-hero movie. Start by trying to wrap decades of comic book mythology around the smirking star persona of Ryan Reynolds.
2. The Smurfs – This cringe-worthy remake of the 1980s TV cartoon follows in the “Garfield” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” mold.
3. Fright Night – A terrible remake of a not-particularly-good ‘80s vampire flick. That’s a whole lot of suck.
4. Red Riding Hood – A sexed-up take on the classic fairy tale. They lost me during the medieval lambada scene
5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – I’m no tween vampire hater; I actually gave a positive review to the previous “Twilight” flick. But this penultimate film is all exposition with no payoff.
6. Your Highness – Stoner comedy meets sword & sorcery. What an epic downer, man.
7. Friends with Benefits – Am I the only one who thinks Mila Kunis is a horrible actress? Her pairing with Justin Timberlake in this flaccid romcom didn’t bring sexy back.
8.  Kung Fu Panda 2 – I will always remember “Kung Fu Panda 2,” because before I could brag that I never walked out of a movie and never fell a sleep during one. At least I can still say I never walked out.
9. I Am Number Four – This YA sci-fi/romance is like a bad mash-up of “Twilight” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
10. Cowboys and Aliens – Certainly not a bad movie, but tops my list for biggest disappointment. Audiences wanted tongue-in-cheek fun; we got a dreary Western with lasers.

My Top 10 of '10

The year 2010 got off to a slow start cinematically, but picked up steam as we went along. By mid-June I was calling it the worst year for movies in at least a decade, but then late summer smiled on us with "Toy Story 3," "Inception" ... and even a "Twilight" movie that wasn't half bad.

A strong showing of Oscar-contending films in the latter months -- some of which won't hit local theaters until 2011 -- pushed the year into respectable territory.

Here are my picks for the best and worst of 2010.

THE WORST

First, the least.

In selecting the worst movies of the year, I should add the caveat that I haven't seen what are likely the absolute bottom of the barrel. A lot of the flicks that are truly awful, like the relentless annual issuing of a new "Saw" movie, are not screened in advance. It's a little game the studios and critics play: They know their movie stinks, so they don't show it to us, figuring no review is better than a bad review.

So these 10 films are the worst I saw in 2010, or at least that disappointed me the most.

1.   Yogi Bear -- I never thought I'd see a movie that made me look back fondly on "Garfield," but this aggressively awful CG-meets-live action romp sets a new high in low for kiddie fare.

2.    Machete -- Robert Rodriguez made a movie based on one of the fake trailers contained in the "Grindhouse" double feature from a few years ago. It's not nearly as much fun as it seems to think it is.

3.    Legendary -- WWE wrestler John Cena tackles a dramatic role in a movie about real high school wrestling. Tag this one out.

4.    Jonah Hex -- A silly comic adaptation of a bloody comic book, written by the guys who did those awful "Crank" movies.

5.    The Bounty Hunter -- Two likable stars, Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, in a cynical movie that manages to dredge up every cliché of both the romantic comedy and buddy cop genres.

6.   Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- This big-budget summer flick from Disney featured a bunch of Caucasian actors pretending to be Persians, and a plot that pretended to be coherent.

7.    Repo Men -- I give it credit for some bold ideas, but this strange movie about thugs who repossess bodily organs out of live people should've been recalled for a rewrite or five.

8.    The Wolfman -- Hollywood hasn't made a werewolf movie in ages. And after this howlingly bad effort, it probably won't again soon.

9.  The Book of Eli -- An admittedly great-looking movie set in a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone is looking for the last copy of the Bible. Audiences needed a lot of faith to make it through this one.

10.  Wild Grass -- This effort from celebrated filmmaker Alain Resnais is like a parody of every stereotype of European art films: Dense, impenetrable and deliberately off-putting.

 

THE BEST

10.  Tangled -- Some have dismissed it as just another Disney princess movie. If the house that Walt built can still make them this good, I have no problem with many, many more.

9.    Biutiful -- This lovely, dreary Spanish-language film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu is notable mostly for its strong performance by Javier Bardem as a street hustler burdened with a soul and a death sentence.

8.   Freedom Riders -- The best documentary I saw this year. Stanley Nelson's film takes what we think is a well-traversed piece of Civil Rights history, and continually surprises and enlightens us.

7.    True Grit -- Joel and Ethan Coen's oater of a Western is not so much a remake of the John Wayne film as an entirely new vision based on the same book. It's darker, more violent, and better.

6.    Blue Valentine -- A tragic romance story about two people falling in love, intermixed with the same couple's marriage dissolving several years later. Two amazing performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams -- a Sundance Film Festival favorite, and now we know why.

5.   How to Train Your Dragon -- The best animated film of 2010, and it had some healthy competition. "Toy Story 3" will win the Oscar, but I deem this DreamWorks effort superior because it created a whole new world, and contained a sneaky theme about overcoming disability.

4.    Inception -- Truly the most audacious, original and innovative film of the year. Yes, the settings and world-within-a-world theme are reminiscent of other films ("Blade Runner," "The Matrix"). But Christopher Nolan's intricately-layered storytelling left audiences amazed and gasping.

3.   Winter's Bone -- Cold and sharp, this outstanding drama from co-writer/director Debra Granik is set among the cloistered confines of poor hill people, but never once does it look down upon them or treat them as a zoological exhibit. Terrific performances by Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes.

2.    127 Hours -- The cinematic performance of the year from James Franco, and another bravura directing job by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Forget the grisly details about a trapped mountain climber who cut off his own arm. This is the story of a lost soul who was saved by the boulder that pinned him.

1.    The Social Network -- The "Citizen Kane" for Generation Y. In its portrait of a New Media mogul, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, this film from director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin may have taken as many liberties with the facts as Orson Welles did with William Randolph Hearst. But it's a dizzyingly smart, verbose film that highlights how computer code is rewriting the way we communicate.

 

THE REST

Making lists of your favorite things is fun -- except for the anguish of having to leave deserving films off. Here are 15 more movies (in alphabetical order) that didn't make my Top 10, but vied for a spot:


The American
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Fighter
Get Him to the Greek
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Kick-Ass
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
Morning Glory
Mother and Child
Rabbit Hole
Red Cliff
Salt
Splice
Toy Story 3