An early and serious contender for 2017’s Best Picture is a movie that may have yet to find its way to a theater had it not garnered so much critical acclaim. Dee Rees’s (Pariah) Mudbound is an original Netflix movie. Had it not been for The Academy of Motion Pictures’ rule of all Oscar-nominated films to be available to the public via movie theaters, who knows where it would have landed? This is not Netflix’s first movie to receive so much praise that the movie had to be released in the theaters. 2015’s Beasts of No Nation faced a similar fate. However, Beasts of No Nation‘s kudos faded as Oscar season approached, and the movie ultimately did not receive a single nomination. The same won’t be the case for Mudbound, which very well could earn a Best Picture nomination as well as nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Jason Mitchell Detroit, Straight Outta Compton), Best Supporting Actress (Mary J. Blige), and Best Adapted Screenplay to name a few. Of course, it’s an early prediction, and I have yet to see any of the other contenders, but this does feel like a poor year for movies. I would be shocked if Mudbound is not nominated for Best Picture, and I would be surprised if it doesn’t win at least one award in one of the other categories before cinema’s biggest night of the year is complete.
Continue reading Mudbound (2017)
Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2017
Wind River (2017)
There are so many takeaways from Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River that I don’t even know which one to bring out first. Though flawed, this is the best movie of 2017 through the first eight months of the year. It is an epic masterpiece that might be missed by the typical moviegoer who is so overwhelmed with the commercialization of movies like Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and War of the Planet of the Apes that they might not even know it existed, let alone a movie that it might be interested in seeing. In a 2017 Hollywood that has seen a massive uptake in remakes, reboots, sequels, and prequels, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to find originality in a story and then, if you do, for that originality to come out in a way that encourages you to see it again and, hopefully, has a lasting impact on your life. That is what Sheridan, an incredibly gifted screenwriter, has done in his first film behind the camera. The memorable Sicario and Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water are already to his screenwriting credit. It’s unlikely that Wind River will receive the same box office success as his first movie or the same critical acclaim come Oscar season as his second, but this is one hell of a directorial debut.
Life (2017)
Wow! Life > Alien!
Yup. You heard that right. 2017 is off to a tremendous start! January, February, and March typically combine for movies’ worst quarter of the year. I’ve been reviewing movies since 2010, and each year has confirmed this belief. I didn’t anticipate 2017 feeling differently, but it is slowly happening. First, there was the surprising Split, which I wasn’t a fan of, but one that did fantastic with audiences and critics. Then there was Logan, one of my five favorite Marvel movies ever at the time of this writing. Sprinkle in the surprise hit Get Out, the quality reboot Kong: Skull Island, and the live-action smash success Beauty and the Beast. You already have five movies that won’t necessarily be up for awards at the end of the year but will be remembered as success stories for 2017.
Logan (2017)
James Mangold’s (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) Logan is about to set the standard for the next wave of superhero movies: the death of a significant character. In an age of film (particularly superhero ones) where we’ve seen sequels, prequels, and reboots, we have yet to see the story’s beginning, middle, and definite conclusion. We’ve seen plenty of superhero movies that COULD be a conclusion story, but we’ve all learned that we think the end isn’t the end unless we see that character killed off. And even then, we don’t know. When there is the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars to be made, who are we to believe that the end is the end? Often, the end is determined by a crappy movie in a series that doesn’t resonate with audiences or critics. Sometimes, that movie can be a concluding story, but often it is not. But (spoiler, but not really) based on what happens at the end of the film, I don’t expect to see him back. I probably will in another fashion, but that can be an argument for a different day. Until then, I’ll continue to sing the praises of Logan. At the time of this review, I have it as one of the top five Marvel movies ever.
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Kong: Skull Island was my most anticipated movie in the first quarter 2017. And while it won’t be up for any end-of-year honors and won’t end up on my year’s top ten list, I found Kong: Skull Island to be a very engaging, exciting, and, if possible, original. While it wasn’t perfect, this movie was fantastic. As excited as I was to see it when I initially saw the trailer, I wasn’t feeling it the day of my viewing. Even with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 79%, I still felt like I would be disappointed. Since seeing it in the theater, I haven’t watched the most recent King Kong movie (the 2005 one starring Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody). I remember liking it a lot. But I don’t remember many of the details. I do remember it being extremely long. It honestly felt like it should have been two movies, which is why I haven’t watched it since, even though there has been a copy of the DVD on my bookshelf for the last decade.