Top 10 Week: Films of 2017

#10: The Post
The Post, Steven Spielberg's take on the Pentagon Papers story, is a conventional film in many ways but that doesn't make it any less powerful. Ostensibly a story about the press exposing the lengths to which the US government has gone to mislead the public about the Vietnam War, what The Post is really doing is using that as a framework in order to tell a story about how women struggle as they try to navigate worlds dominated by men. This is a film about a woman who is treated as if her power is merely ceremonial as the men around her shut her out and shut her down and treat her like nothing more than a nuissance, and how she develops a sense of agency and learns how to wield her power. The beats may be conventional, but the result is fantastic.

Top 10 Week: Performances by Women in 2017

#10: Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West
In Ingrid Goes West Aubrey Plaza goes all in as she plays a desperately unhappy woman who is obsessed with the lives of people she finds on Instagram. Though the film itself is darkly comedic, and finds some humor in the lengths that Plaza's character goes to in order to insinuate herself into the life of an Instagram influencer, Plaza's performance is a disturbing portrait of a person deeply in the throes of a mental health crisis, her behavior becoming increasingly unmanageable as the story carries on. It's a frightening performance because it never feels like a "performance;" it feels like a window into an incredibly damaged soul with an incredibly cracked perspective on the world. In taking on the role, Plaza eschews vanity and goes the distance.

Top 10 Week: Performances by Men in 2017

#10: Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water
In a film full of marginalized characters, Michael Shannon's government official is the symbol of social power. He is the type of character that the world has been tailored to satisfy, so imagine his growing rage through the course of the film when he is repeatedly denied what he wants and everything that he values is undermined. Shannon's character is everything corrupt and wrong about social power and the way that it excludes everyone who doesn't conform to its rigid ideal, and Shannon does absolutely nothing to soften the character's sharp edges. He's a villain in all his irredeemable glory, built upon layers of privilege, which makes the film's resolution all the more satisfying. Shannon isn't known for playing warm and fuzzy characters in the first place, but when he's allowed to play an unapologetic SOB he's particularly great.

Top 10 Week: Scenes of 2017

#10: No Man's Land, Wonder Woman
And with that, a hero is born. If you're a man, it may be difficult to fully understand why this scene spoke to so many women; after all, male characters get to do things like this so often that it probably feels perfunctory to this kind of story. The opportunity for women to see female characters on the big screen get to be the hero has been fewer and far between. This isn't just a crucial moment in the movie, where Diana/Wonder Woman gets to show what she's capable of and the men around her decide it's worth following her lead, nor merely an encapsulation of everything that the character stands for - compassion, fearlessness, inspiration - or even just an instantly iconic pop culture moment. It's a moment that meant a lot for a lot people seeing it, and isn't that what going to the movies is all about?

Top 10 Week: Posters of 2017

#10: Kong: Skull Island
You could argue that it's a bit no the nose in trying to evoke Apocalypse Now, but honestly it's just so refreshing to see the poster for an action movie try something other than the omnipresent "floating heads" advertising strategy that even if this is a little bit derivative, it still feels fresh and different.

Top 10 Week: Runners Up and Extras

Before we get to the runners up, I just want to take a few moments to recognize some things that don't fit into the categories that make up my "best of" lists. I also want to note some of the movies that I wasn't able to see prior to making my lists, which might have changed the rankings: Call Me By Your Name, A Fantastic Woman, Faces Places, BPM (Beats Per Minute), Wonderstruck, Novitiate, The Square, and God's Own Country.

Extras

Most Fun I Had at the Movies All Year: Thor: Ragnarok
Perhaps the most purely, gleefully entertaining movie of the year, I still kind of can't believe that a movie this weird was made with a superhero-level production and marketing budget. All praise to Marvel for stepping back and letting Taika Waititi do his thing.

Review: Phantom Thread (2017)

* * * *
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville

Generally speaking, I'm not a person who thinks that spoilers matter. What happens is much less interesting to me than how it happens, particularly since plot twists tend to be so telegraphed anyway. I knew that there was some sort of twist to Phantom Thread but I didn't know what it was (and not for lack of trying, as the giddiness with which some reviews talked around the twist piqued my interest, but Movie Spoiler didn't have a write up for the film yet and Wikipedia's entry for it was still just a couple of sentences that only gave the basic premise). I'm glad that I didn't because in a million years I don't think I would have guessed that the plot would take the turn that it does until it was already veering into that other lane, and that realization that it was taking that turn (and then the turns that flowed out of that one) was one of the great pleasures of watching the movie. I think that Phantom Thread, a meticulously put together movie in every respect, is a film that can be enjoyed even if you go into it knowing where it's headed, but it's a lot more fun if you go into it cold. So if you're planning to see it, stop reading here, because spoilers lie ahead.

Review: The Post (2017)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks

The Post is not a movie that will surprise you, but there's pleasure to be had in a classic tale told in a classic fashion. Is it accurate to the way things actually happened? I'm sure the New York Times would have something to say about that, and in the end I'm not sure that it matters, unless you want to split hairs over whether plot or theme represent what a film is truly about. What it tells is a well crafted story, one which is engrossing and often rousing, and which has been fashioned in a way to make it as relevant to the moment that we're currently living in as possible, even as it hits all of the expected beats. It leads with its talent - which is, of course, considerable both off screen and on, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks - and lets that do most of the work. After all, how wrong could a movie with that triumvirate go? I'd say it doesn't really go wrong at all.

Review: The Shape of Water (2017)

* * * *
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, beauty and the beast. There's nothing new about stories of women seeing past the beastly exterior of a monster and falling in love with the soul that exists beneath the surface - movies called "Beauty and the Beast" are, at this point, a subgenre in and of themselves - but a filmmaker as creative as Guillermo del Toro, who is dedicated to mixing the sinister with the beautiful, leaving you at once enchanted and unsettled, is able to make an old formula feel fresh. The Shape of Water is a wonderful fairy tale for adults, impeccably put together on a visual level, masterfully unfolded on a narrative level, and built around one great leading performance and four great supporting performances. If you only see one movie this year about a woman falling in love with a fish man, make it The Shape of Water.

Review: Get Out (2017)

* * * 1/2
Director: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener

Better late than never. At a time of the year when movie pundits debate which film best encapsulated the cultural feeling of 2017, Get Out seems to have the edge on claims of capturing the zeitgeist, though it may have an uphill battle in terms of gaining actual industry recognition, given that Hollywood is a very conservative industry that just happens to be full of prominent liberals who represent the exact kind of "white liberalism" that this film so perfectly skewers. Even when the industry does embrace it, a la the film's two Golden Globe nominations (though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association may better be described as "industry adjacent"), it does so in a way that suggests it doesn't really get it. I mean, Musical or Comedy? Get Out's final dialogue exchange is actually pretty hilarious, but there's really nothing funny about what Get Out has to say about race and violence.

Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

* * * *
Director: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson

We are living in an extraordinarily angry time (or maybe it just seems that way because the internet makes that anger inescapable) and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri functions like a snapshot of that overriding cultural emotion. It's a film about people who are angry about circumstances they cannot change and who, without any productive outlet for that emotion, have nothing but the violence and pain they're capable of inflicting so that the outside world is as chaotic as they feel inside. If you're familiar with McDonagh's previous features In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, you'll be prepared for the violence of Three Billboards and for the fact that the film often finds a comedic beat or two in the midst of that violence, but what sets this film slightly apart from those previous two is how deeply felt it is on an emotional level. It's angry and then that anger begins to fade into despair and it just leaves you feeling wrecked in the best possible way.

Review: Lady Bird (2017)

* * * *
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan

Lady Bird is the movie that most coming of age movies wish they were. It's funny and sharp and sweet, its characters are so well-realized that you want to both hug them and smack them, and its performances are so great that it's hard to pick which one is best, though Saoirse Ronan might get the edge by virtue of being the film's star and the focus of nearly every scene. As an actress, Greta Gerwig has long-since established herself as a darling of indie film, and as a writer she has established herself as a keen comedic observer of Millennial anxiety. Now she begins to make the case for herself as a director to be reckoned with, one capable of making the absolutely ordinary into something exceptionally compelling. Lady Bird is easily one of the best movies of the year and one of the best films of its type.

Review: Mudbound (2017)

* * * 1/2
Director: Dee Rees
Starring: Jason Mitchell, Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Mary J. Blige, Rob Morgan

Societies are built on bodies. This fact isn't exclusive to the United States, though it may sometimes feel that way because the legacy of those bodies continues to echo so resoundingly through its contemporary social and political climate. Dee Rees' historical epic Mudbound opens by acknowledging this through two of its characters digging a hole and turning up a set of chains followed by the remains of a slave, and then builds by demonstrating how the condition of slavery is perpetuated in spirit if not in name as it explores the relationship between two families, one black and one white, in the years just prior to and just after World War II. It's a great achievement, a period film that does not just have the look of something important, but actually is important, speaking not only to the past but also to the present. It's a vital, brutal, and engrossing movie.

Review: Lady Macbeth (2017)

* * * *
Director: William Oldroyd
Starring: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Naomi Ackie

"Aren't you bored, Katherine?" Man, is he ever going to regret asking that question, because yes she is and her quest to not be bored is going to ruin everyone. Loosely adapted from Nikolai Leskov's novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the film transports the action to Victorian era England, but approaches it with a sensibility that is not only thoroughly modern, but intensely relevant. Built around a stunning and sharp-edged performance by Florence Pugh, Lady Macbeth is a film that upends expectations and becomes increasingly enthralling as it winds its way towards a conclusion that is perhaps inevitable, but savage nevertheless. The feature debut of director William Oldroyd, Lady Macbeth is a wonderfully confident debut that succeeds thematically where many films have failed.

Review: Dunkirk (2017)

* * * *
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Brannagh

I cannot imagine seeing Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk in IMAX. I'm sure it's an incredible viewing experience, I have no doubt that certain elements of the film would actually be enhanced by being seen in that format, but I don't think I'd be able to handle the intensity of it. I had to stress eat my way through the regular theatrical format as it is. That's how immersive an experience Dunkirk is; it leaves you feeling breathless and worn-out, but also exhilarated and, despite the deep wells of despair open just beneath the surface of many scenes, hopeful. The story of the evacuation of Dunkirk is one of disaster, destruction, and death, on the one hand, and the miracle of ordinary people stepping forward to do an extraordinary thing on the other. It's an epic tale told here in intimate, searing detail, minimalist in its scope but maximized in its power. Dunkirk is a triumph of filmmaking destined to join the ranks of the all-time great war movies as a standard bearer of the genre.

Review: Personal Shopper (2017)

* * * 1/2
Director: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Kristen Stewart

It's far too early in the year to say whether Personal Shopper will end up on my list of the year's best, but I feel like I can confidently say that it's going to be one of the films I feel compelled to revisit later in the year, possibly more than once. It's a film that engrosses and fascinates and maybe frustrates just a little bit thanks to writer/director Olivier Assayas' refusal to play by movie rules as we know them and thanks to the questions which linger afterwards like a spirit determined to make its presence known. The film re-teams Assayas with Kristen Stewart after Clouds of Sils Maria and if anything it's even more enigmatic than that film and makes even better use of Stewart's skill set as a performer, leveraging that tranquility that sometimes plays like flatness by shaking it up so that even something as simple as the little blue bubble of a text message on a phone screen takes on a world of meaning and tension just because of how close it pushes her to the edge. Personal Shopper is the definition of a film that does a lot with a little.