Other Top Ten Lists.
With the release of The Disaster Artist came a preponderance of articles heralding The Room as "The Worst Movie Ever Made." That specific phraseology troubles me for several reasons. The first (and least important) is that it's simply not true. Part of the charm of The Room is the baseline competency which serves to highlight its deranged aspects by contrast. It's clear that Wiseau threw a decent amount of money at the thing, and that there were at least a handful of bored but capable professionals working on it. There is an endless wealth of bad cinema out there. Using any criteria you could think of, I guarantee I could find a "worse" movie than The Room. It's arguably the most famous bad movie ever made, but it is not the worst.
The second thing I take issue with is our culture's continued insistence on extremes, binaries, polemics. Something is either good or evil, smart or dumb, best or worst. "The Room: One of the Many Bad Movies Ever Made" just isn't as eye-catching a title. Clickbait preys upon the easily beguiled. The sooner we can move toward a place of nuance and admit that things can be many-layered and multifaceted rather than singular and objective, the sooner we can properly converse with each other.
Finally, I hate that calling The Room the worst movie ever made is totally in violation of the spirit of the thing. The dopamine rush that comes with being a part of a consensus feels good, but we shouldn't be watching bad movies to fit in. Everyone's favorite movie, favorite bad movie, and least favorite movie should all be deeply personal, not adherent to some sort of quasi-objective regulating groupthink. Every time someone is ashamed to admit their favorite, or sheepishly refers to their preferred media as "guilty pleasures," we have lost an opportunity for empathy and celebration.
This is why top ten lists are heinous. They are so often used as a tool to exert critical supremacy over the taste of others, either by the author or by a reader. The audience consumes a list and fires back accusations of, "What, no _____???" The author gets defensive and feels the need to tear down other art to legitimate the art that they chose to feature. The cycle repeats.
Top ten lists are bankrupt for the same reason awards shows are bankrupt: It is ultimately absurd to compare different works of art based on an often arbitrary set of standards. The act of wielding one film to cheapen the impact of another is so counterproductive to the reason these lists were created to begin with.
Yet I still make top ten lists for two reasons. When top ten lists are made with openness and love, the year-end proliferation of them functions as a celebration of incredible art. Not only that, but we learn about each other. It reveals a lot about the critic-as-person to see their ten preferred films. It should be invigorating to step into another perspective, not frustrating. Reading a top ten list is a time to open yourself up to new ways of experiencing the world--something that the best movies do better than anything.
The other reason is more selfish. For me, making top ten lists is a lot of fun. There are tough calls to make, sometimes agonizing; it reminds me of the tournaments I used to wage with my favorite action figures. I love them all, but someone needs to come out on top. The act of culling--or to put it more generously, curating--can be engaging the way puzzles are engaging. Putting together a top ten list is a feat of trying to fit each piece into its truest or most aesthetically pleasing place.
So we come to the movies of 2017. In some ways I found the year in cinema disappointing. I didn't encounter any perfect 10 movies, and the list of films that gripped me to my core ended up being a bit slight. That being said, I doubt that it's fair to complain. Every year contains a wealth of brilliant cinema if you know where to look.
Rather than quibbling about the quality of the year's films, let's talk about their qualities. Or, to put it in a not obtuse way, what did the films of 2017 have in common? What were they trying to say? What was their texture?
A quick glance at my top ten made the answer immediately apparent. 2017 was the year of cinematic anxiety. These movies are like walking into a nerve grinder, one that plays expertly on our collective hopes and fears. I know some folks can't stand nervewracking cinema, but I love it. Anything that stabs to the core of us can elucidate so much about ourselves and the world around us. 2017 was dark, and so were its movies.
Some films I missed that could have figured into what follows:
The Disaster Artist, The Post, Call Me by Your Name, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Good Time, Landline, It, The Lure, Personal Shopper
And a few awards for the less inspiring movies I watched this year.
Untoward Awards
Most Disappointing: Brigsby Bear
Most Inane: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Most Nonsensical: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Most Generic: Justice League
Most Infuriating: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Most: mother!
Can't Remember: Ghost in the Shell
Most Improved: Logan
Sophomore Slump: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Kindred Spirits: Raw + mother!
Kindred Names: Logan + Logan Lucky
Best Names:
3. Atomic Blonde
2. Get Out
1. mother!
Worst Names:
3. Your Name
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
1. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Worst Superhero: Justice League
Worst Adaptation: Ghost in the Shell
Worst Sequel: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Worst: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Honorable Mentions
Star Wars: The Last Jedi - I tried so hard to keep this movie in my top ten list for reasons of cultural relevance, but the middle third slumps too much for me to justify its inclusion. Regardless, in addition to all of its cinematic merits (which I consider to me very many), The Last Jedi managed to do two incredible things. The first is the film's meteoric impact. Although the vast majority of general audiences were on board, The Last Jedi aggressively sliced through the Star Wars fandom. It created a sort of a religious reckoning, akin to the protestant reformation. Although there are some exceptions, it was very much a symbolic battle between conservative and progressive orientations towards the intellectual property--a divide that is beautifully mirrored in the text of the film.
The other incredible thing is that it made me care deeply about a Star Wars movie, something that I didn't think would ever happen again. My Review.
The Big Sick - If I didn't believe that dismissing entire genres is ridiculous, I would say that I dislike romantic comedies. The Big Sick is exactly the reason why such broad, sweeping statements are ridiculous. The movie does so much, so well. By the end of the film I had fallen in love with all of its characters, which made it even harder to watch them encounter seemingly insurmountable tribulations. Not only is it honest to god hilarious throughout... not only does it take a heartwrenching turn that never once skews into melodrama... but it also functions as an all-time great exploration of family and cultural divides.
The LEGO Batman Movie - The LEGO Movie was a terrible idea. And yet, it was one of the best movies of the year, pulling off some shockingly original conceits while doubling down on the nuts and bolts fundamentals of its meta-narrative. The LEGO Batman Movie was a terrible idea. And yet, it was one of the best movies of the year, pulling off some shockingly original takes on the iconic character while doubling down on the nuts and bolts fundamentals of its empathetic characterization. It's also in the top three Batman movies of all time.* Sometimes lightning does strike twice. My Review.
*along with The Dark Knight and Batman: The Movie (1966)
John Wick: Chapter 2 - The sequel to the now infamous John Wick didn't feel as tight, or as invigorating, or as novel as its predecessor. Director Chad Stahelski knew that it never would, so he replaced those things with mythic grandeur and a goddamn impressive cavalcade of brilliant action setpieces. I can't say as I'm familiar with an American film series that features such simultaneously stunning, elegant, and brutal action choreography. My Review.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - I have since come to understand that there are some serious critiques of this film, specifically the way it deals (or refuses to deal) with its racial politics. I understand where these critiques are coming from and would sincerely like to hear more from people who feel this way. My experience of the movie, however, was a powerful one. The film repeatedly sets you up to feel like you understand a character, or their protagonistic/antagonistic role in the narrative... then undercuts that understanding in favor of more nuance. Three Billboards is funny, shocking, and deftly performed, but most of all it is an exercise in empathy, an exploration of the awful shit humans do to each other, and whether or not there is any way to stop.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer - When I mentioned 2017 as the year of cinematic anxiety, this film was among those foremost in my mind. From the get go it is clear that something is very wrong; it's in the framing, it's in the dialogue delivery, it's in the grating score. We just don't know what is wrong. And even when that part of it is cleared up, the answer is so strange and esoteric that we don't feel any relief. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a formless nightmare made manifest.
The Shape of Water - How great is it that a movie about fish love is getting legit awards attention. My Review.
I watched 45 movies released in 2017. Here are my top ten.
10. Logan
Don't be what they made you.
Logan features the best trio of central performances in any comic book movie, ever. The trappings surrounding them are very good, sometimes great, but it is the titanic presence of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Dafne Keen that makes the film so special. There is a reservoir of deep heartbreak that comes with saying goodbye to these icons, a heartbreak that is intensified by Mangold's willingness to delve into more adult themes than we're used to from a movie like this. By "adult themes" I don't mean swears and blood (though those additions suit the Wolverine quite nicely); I mean the fact that Logan is able to have an open, honest conversation with a child about the temptations of suicide. I mean Xavier's unflinching portrayal of senility and crushing guilt. And of course, the film's greatest gift, its insistence on providing a complete, self-contained narrative that doesn't feel the need to cling to its big name characters for serialization purposes. In an X-Men universe that has proven extremely variable in quality, more often than not veering towards garbage, Mangold's ability to end this particular saga with dignity and gravitas feels almost miraculous.
Original Score: 9
9. The Beguiled
Bring me the anatomy book.
The Beguiled is a sure-handed movie--Sofia Coppola directs the hell out of it. The lion's share of the film creeps ahead with agonizing subtlety. Then, what for quite a while seems like a subdued exploration of southern repression takes a wicked twist into suspense. It's a structurally delicious movie, with Colin Farrell in yet another late career knockout role as the catalyst for all sorts of tensions--mostly sexual. Every element of the southern boarding school setting is lush and exacting, with its suffocatingly feminine production design thoughtfully framed by cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd. But you would be remiss if you let the soft surfaces fool you: there is fury and violence roiling beneath.
8. War for the Planet of the Apes
Son will know who was father.
So concludes one of the great knock-out trilogies of modern sci-fi. The franchise hit its stride with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but War is in every way the more thoughtful, philosophical entry. Whether you're looking to map on Biblical allegory or Marxist/Leninist revolutionary ideology, War proves rich and rewarding. I tried to write about this movie a few times, but never quite managed to figure out how. The truth is it's one of the most essential movies to come out in 2017, a genre flick that uses a story of talking monkeys to speak to the deep sicknesses in our culture, and the deeper hopes in our heart. The message is not a kind one--the Planet of the Apes series never has been one to pull punches--but that makes the palpable humanity of our ape heroes all the more inspiring.
On that note, somehow too little has been said about the incredible effects work on display in this trilogy. The narrative potency rides on the back of the effects artists' work, and on Serkis and co.'s artful motion capture performances. I cannot off the top of my head think of another modern property that pulls off such vital visual effects with such success.
On that note, somehow too little has been said about the incredible effects work on display in this trilogy. The narrative potency rides on the back of the effects artists' work, and on Serkis and co.'s artful motion capture performances. I cannot off the top of my head think of another modern property that pulls off such vital visual effects with such success.
7. Phantom Thread
I want you flat on your back. Helpless, tender, open, with only me to help. And then I want you strong again.
Phantom Thread is a textural movie. When I consider a movie's texture, I consider the way it feels when it passes across your eyes and runs through your head. How does the fabric fold and stretch, how does it sounds when it shuffles about, or rips. What is its consistency. How is the experience of living inside this world.
That is all especially fitting given the subject matter. Paul Thomas Anderson has taken the story of a dressmaker and his lover in 1950's London, and woven it into one of the most compelling treatises on marriage I have ever encountered on the big screen. Yet it's not bombastic like There Will Be Blood, it's not philosophical like The Master, it's not absurdist like Inherent Vice. It is textural. It provides a context, inserts us into that context, and allows the meaning to radiate outward from there. The film is exquisite, subtle, transportive, and one of the finest character studies of the year.
6. Lady Bird
-Lady Bird, is that your given name?
-Yeah.
-Why is it in quotes?
-I gave it to myself, it's given to me by me.
There are a few moments from Lady Bird that I return to again and again in my memory. In one such moment, Lady Bird and her mother are in a thrift store looking for a prom dress. As they sift through the clothing rack, they are bickering about something or other. Their words are nasty and they refuse to make eye contact. Then the mother pulls a dress, holds it up, and asks, "Do you love it?" Lady Bird's face lights up, and the tenor of the interaction has completely shifted in the span of a tenth of a second. The performances are entirely convincing, and the shot is framed so that a vast empty space dominates the frame above a seemingly endless sea of colorful clothing racks. It is a perfect cinematic moment.
Lady Bird strings a great deal of these perfect moments into a larger story about what it means to find one's individuality while still remaining part of a family unit. It feels truer than just about any other movie I've seen on that subject, and its ability to slice through artifice is perhaps its finest quality.
Lady Bird strings a great deal of these perfect moments into a larger story about what it means to find one's individuality while still remaining part of a family unit. It feels truer than just about any other movie I've seen on that subject, and its ability to slice through artifice is perhaps its finest quality.
Original Score: 8.5
5. The Florida Project
These are the rooms we're not supposed to go in... but let's go anyways!
There is no 2017 film as full of life as The Florida Project. It knows exactly what it is. It swaggers. Director Sean Baker grips us by the hand and whisks us into his simultaneously mundane and fantastical world of children desperately seeking ways to entertain themselves in the rundown motel complexes outside of Disney World. Just as Lady Bird is true to the experience of family, The Florida Project is true to the experience of children, and to accomplish that it requires something of an anarchic narrative structure. That's not to say the movie is alienating; The Florida Project is a piece of remarkable warmth and humanity. It loves every single one of its characters, whether they are in the spotlight or at the edge of the frame.
4. Raw
Then we had our first kiss. And I understood...
The slowly burgeoning trend of female directors breaking into horror cinema is the best thing that could have happened to that genre. Julia Ducournau's coming of age film is about a girl who, shall we say, experiences some change of appetite upon arriving at veterinary school. The movie is gorgeous, grotesque, and engrossing, hooking us in from the peculiar opening scene to the horrifyingly matter-of-fact ending. I mentioned cinematic anxiety earlier, and here begins the streak of my very favorite movies of the year being the ones that completely wrecked my nerves. Raw is mesmerizing; you won't be able to look away, but you may need to peek through parted fingers.
3. mother!
Me? I am I. You? You were home.
If there's a controversial pick on my list, this is it. Folks hated mother! To be honest, I can hardly blame them. Aronofsky's latest is a deliberately unfriendly, in-your-face movie. Every aspect of its construction is meant to frustrate, stress, and disorient. Jennifer Lawrence is at her career best as the titular mother!, and Aronofsky's refusal to use any wide shots that aren't from her perspective lands us square in her world of paranoia and crisis. It's a movie that starts with intimate psychological strife, and expands outward until its subject matter becomes the entire history of humanity.
Original Score: 9.5
2. Dunkirk
*indiscernible yelling*
I never thought Nolan would top Memento, perhaps not even The Dark Knight. Dunkirk does so with flair. In a time when nobody really cares for another goddamn World War II movie, in a time when that brand of jingoism is more sour than ever, Nolan somehow manages to give us an entirely new flavor. Rather than focus on politics, camaraderie, tragedy, the will to prevail, or any other such war movie cliche, Nolan makes his project one of abject terror. Dunkirk may be toe to tip the most specifically cinematic war film. It's entirely experiential, from Nolan's signature in camera practical effects to Zimmer's signature droning score, each perfectly suited for this material. Dunkirk pulls of a number of dubious choices--a score of never ceasing intensity, enemies who are never seen, characters who we barely recognize, dialogue that we rarely hear, a big name star who spends most of the film silent and in a mask--and it does so in a way that is entirely necessary to the point of the whole thing. I was truly exhausted by the end of Dunkirk, physically, emotionally, spiritually. But I was elated from the privilege of having seen such spectacle on the biggest of screens.
Original Score: 9.5
1. Get Out
Oh no, no. No. No no no no no no no no no no no no.
The best movie of the year was Get Out. Maybe not in terms of some minute-to-minute quality diagnostic, but certainly in terms of what it accomplished. When's the last time a piece of social satire, a horror movie no less, so entirely captured the zeitgeist to the point that now, almost a year later, it's actually garnering serious awards attention? Jordan Peele made the leap from sketch comedy to feature directing in a way that is unheard of yet entirely natural. Get Out is worthy of every ounce of praise it has received, and then some. Not only is it a crackerjack social thriller, and a damned terrifying horror movie, but it opened out an enormously important dialogue about race in America. And Peele doesn't wield his discourse like a blunderbuss (except for those moments when the art requires it)... he operates the social commentary with exacting precision. Get Out doesn't conclude that racism is bad. It starts there, a priori, and proceeds to interrogate what racism is, how it is, where it is, why it is. The film is a deep dive into America's psyche, all the more incredible for how its sheer quality precluded it from the sort of backwards backlash that we saw over and over again last year.
Original Score: 9.5
0. Twin Peaks: The Return
We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream.
From a Variety article:
The original Twin Peaks series was an unparalleled, game-changing show that unfortunately also dealt with highly variable quality over the course of its two season run. The sole commonality between all of that series' very best episodes was that David Lynch directed all of them. It should then come as no surprise that the entirely Lynch-directed and Lynch + Frost-written 18 hours of The Return is constantly groundbreaking, consistently mindbending. I couldn't even dream of knowing where to begin talking about this behemoth.
Even still, months later, I am falling down rabbit holes. Twin Peaks is the actually gratifying version of LOST--an endlessly interpretable text that refuses to resolve into something conclusive and disappointing. Even having only watched it once (except for that episode), I still regularly play through memories (visions?) of an immense litany of standout moments. Perfect cinematic gems of image and movement and texture that stab into the mind, replete with crackling ambiguity. Even still, months later, I try to connect seemingly disparate elements of the show, not with the hope of figuring out The Return, but with the hope of gaining some fresh and electrifying way to figure out the universe.
I should hate to imply that The Return is completely ponderous, though. It is also at times genuinely funny, at times brutal and gory, at times pandering and nostalgic, at times abrasive and antagonistic. Lynch refuses to allow The Return to settle into any sort of predictable rhythm. Wild genre and tonal shifts become the fabric of the thing, keenly crafted so that at no point in the entire 18 hour run do we have any idea what is going to happen next. Never have I been so entirely along for the ride as I was with The Return; David Lynch dreamed a world, and now I too live inside that dream.
When asked what he meant when Lynch had once called the new "Twin Peaks" an 18-hour movie, he said, "I meant it was an 18-hour movie."I considered considering Twin Peaks: The Return in my considerations based on this quote alone, but it is so different than anything else--anything else--that slotting it into a cinematic top ten list would feel disingenuous. So suffice it to say: Twin Peaks: The Return is the best piece of media I have consumed this year.
The original Twin Peaks series was an unparalleled, game-changing show that unfortunately also dealt with highly variable quality over the course of its two season run. The sole commonality between all of that series' very best episodes was that David Lynch directed all of them. It should then come as no surprise that the entirely Lynch-directed and Lynch + Frost-written 18 hours of The Return is constantly groundbreaking, consistently mindbending. I couldn't even dream of knowing where to begin talking about this behemoth.
Even still, months later, I am falling down rabbit holes. Twin Peaks is the actually gratifying version of LOST--an endlessly interpretable text that refuses to resolve into something conclusive and disappointing. Even having only watched it once (except for that episode), I still regularly play through memories (visions?) of an immense litany of standout moments. Perfect cinematic gems of image and movement and texture that stab into the mind, replete with crackling ambiguity. Even still, months later, I try to connect seemingly disparate elements of the show, not with the hope of figuring out The Return, but with the hope of gaining some fresh and electrifying way to figure out the universe.
I should hate to imply that The Return is completely ponderous, though. It is also at times genuinely funny, at times brutal and gory, at times pandering and nostalgic, at times abrasive and antagonistic. Lynch refuses to allow The Return to settle into any sort of predictable rhythm. Wild genre and tonal shifts become the fabric of the thing, keenly crafted so that at no point in the entire 18 hour run do we have any idea what is going to happen next. Never have I been so entirely along for the ride as I was with The Return; David Lynch dreamed a world, and now I too live inside that dream.
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