06 February 2018

The Best of 2017


This is the danger zone
This is where I came in
They know not what they do
Forgive them all their sins
    -- The brothers Gibb

I knew, just a few days into this new year, that it was time to reboot. After a hugely disappointing 2017 for movies -- and the movie industry -- I'd been feeling a significant shift coming on.

On January 3rd, at the end of a long day, I craved mindless entertainment. I settled on the revived version of the TV game show "Match Game." And there, in the seat once reserved for Charles Nelson Reilly -- top row, right -- was Mark Duplass. A lot of people don't know his name. He is a Mumblecore legend, and, with his brother, Jay, the face of independent filmmaking. He is a great actor and producer. And now he has achieved the level of amiably yukking it up on game shows.

Seeing him cavorting on network TV presented the perfect dichotomy: It upends notions of me as a film snob and elitist -- because I was, you know, wallowing in "Match Game" -- yet it reaffirms my old-school Mumblecore gangsta cred, going back a decade or so. It's a neat bow to tie on the end of an era.

It's difficult to recall a worse year for films -- and for moviegoing -- than 2017. Besides the unmasking of the Hollywood machine, there simply were not very many good films released last year. I had to stretch things to get a respectable Top Ten list (below). Worse, the string of disappointments from favorite filmmakers of the past runs even longer. That list (also below) includes less than sterling films from the likes of Sofia Coppola, Noah Baumbach, Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch, Greta Gerwig, Luca Guadagnino, Steven Soderbergh, Mike White, and Francois Ozon. Francois Ozon, alors! And I didn't even bother to go see movies offered up by old favorites: the Coen brothers, George Clooney, Alexander Payne, Darren Aronofsky, Yorgos Lanthimos or Paul Thomas Anderson. I've pretty much given up on Christopher Nolan.

There is one filmmaker out there who can consistently knock me out, and he made the only great film of 2017: Sean Baker, who followed up "Starlet" and "Tangerine" with another profound character study of the underclass, "The Florida Project." Nothing else was close to that gem, with a cast full of newcomers. All is not lost, but that's a lot of responsibility to place on one filmmaker.

There were plenty of disappointments to fill up a C-list. Rehashed stories, trite set-ups, played-out plots. Maybe I'm just an out-of-touch middle-aged white heterosexual male who just didn't understand the subtle brilliance of darlings like "Get Out" and "Call Me by Your Name," but I couldn't wait for either one to be over.

Too often in 2017, I was shut out while searching for a decent Sunday matinee. The arsty multiplexes clinged longer to middling indie releases, and a ripple effect seemed to starve the rest of the food chain, including the next option for distributors, our beloved Guild Cinema. Last month, I picked up the new two-month schedule for the Guild, turned to February, my Sharpie at the ready -- and I didn't find one title worth circling.

I do think think the Weinstein scandal is a symptom of many ills, beyond the sexual predation of some men. We've never nurtured a hotbed of mainstream fare here, but why did we give even scant attention to the extended "Ocean's Eleven" fraternity and their good ol' boy enablers? Even the indie crowd is turning insular and indulgent. And archly mainstream. (Damn you, Duplass.)

Why am I so cranky? Am I getting burned out? That could be a part of it. Or maybe it is just the nature of the grinding cycle of cultural consumption. I believe in turning new chapters and evolving. Weeding out old standbys. Meantime, I feel called to other duties. My long-running feature "Life Is Short" has taken on an extra yip of resonance. I've even been distracted from completing this essay in recent days.

I plan to continue this blog, but in abbreviated form. For the past five years, I've posted about three times a week, often writing full reviews. I will scale that back in frequency and quantity; there will be more capsule reviews than extended essays. It should, however, continue to fulfill its primary function: providing a guide to worthwhile films that you might otherwise overlook or never hear about. (Click away at the links below.) We might dip more often into the archives, searching out the gems we ourselves overlooked.

Maybe this will be a temporary lull, a way to wait out this rain delay, so to speak, like when WGN used to turn away from shots of the Wrigley Field grounds crew dragging the tarp onto the field to air highlights of Oakland A's World Series wins from the early '70s. Maybe it's just the way things are these days, now that my boyhood team, the Cubs, ended their World Series drought and exorcised decades-old angst. Maybe I just miss Charles Nelson Reilly.

Pardon me as I shuffle along the row of seats toward the aisle and the exit. This is the part where I came in.

THE TOP TEN

 

  1. The Florida Project - Master storytelling with a mostly rookie cast. A true feel for the human condition. Including, for the second year in a row, the best director, Sean Baker.
  2. Baby Driver - I know it's flawed, but I saw it on the big screen twice and fell for it each time. The most fun I can imagine having in a cineplex. Thank you, Edgar Wright, for the music and the mania.
  3. Dawson City: Frozen Time - A mesmerizing, meandering trip to the turn of the 20th century, to a gold-rush era and the origins of Hollywood.
  4. Donald Cried - Kris Avedisian's manic title character is riveting from beginning to end, as he makes life miserable for an old high school buddy who is back in town for a visit. Featuring the year's best screenplay by Avedisian.
  5. Lovesong - The wonderful Riley Keough drives this moody road movie about an unhappily married young mother rekindling a crush on her college pal.
  6. Suntan - From Greece, a harrowing depiction of a middle-age basket case going off the rails as he tries to recapture his youth while fixating on a beautiful young woman. This depressing exercise is somehow sexy and intoxicating.
  7. The Big Sick - An old-fashioned feel-good movie about defying family traditions and pursuing true love.
  8. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World - An impeccable documentary about unsung musicians of the modern music era.
  9. Brigsby Bear - This seems like it is too weird to work, but goofy Kyle Mooney pulls off one of the sweetest films of the year.
10. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail - Another meticulous documentary, from Steve James ("Hoop Dreams"), with a compelling story to tell about our nation's priorities.

BONUS TRACKS


     It took us a while to get to some leftovers from 2016. "Toni Erdmann" would have ended up in the top five on the 2016 list, if I'd seen it in time. Such a powerful father-daughter story -- quirky and uplifting, heartbreaking and soulful. And Daniel Burman, a true storyteller with heart, exploited the father-son dynamic for another of his charming little movies, "The Tenth Man." Meantime, Emmanuelle Bercot tore things up in "My King" as a woman paralyzed by rage in a frustrating marriage. And Denzel Washington was fantastic in "Fences."

JUST MISSED THE LIST

(Honorables mentioned)


MORE TOP DOCS



GUILTY PLEASURES


 

TOP PERFORMANCES


  • Kris Avedisian, bonkers in "Donald Cried."
  • Young Brooklynn Prince in "The Florida Project."
  • Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell going mano-a-mano in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."
  • Timothee Chalamet, mostly rising above the corniness in "Call Me by Your Name."
  • Cynthia Nixon, fascinating as Emily Dickinson in "A Quiet Passion."
  • Woody Harrelson with the hat trick in "Wilson," "The Glass Castle" and "Three Billboards."
  • Fred Armisen, fiercely funny in "The Little Hours" and "Band Aid."
  • Riley Keough, following up "American Honey" with a sorrowful turn in "Lovesong." 
  • Emmanuelle Devos as a mother obsessed with vengeance in "Moka."

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Some of our favorite directors didn't thrill us this time around)





COMING ATTRACTIONS

(Haven't caught these yet)

  • Columbus
  • Sieranevada
  • Ex Libris: New York Public Library
  • Brad's Status
  • Rat Film
Stay tuned for reviews of those five titles and plenty more, albeit in condensed form, as we hold out hope for 2018.

BONUS TRACK
Speaking of guilty pleasures, our title track:


 
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