2017 will go down as a year of very underwhelming movies. The nine films nominated for Best Picture were, by far, the poorest collection since 2009, when a decision was made that up to 10 movies could be nominated for Best Picture if they got enough votes. My Top 10 list has three of the nine movies for Best Picture (#5 The Shape of Water, #6 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, #10 Get Out). It’s hard for me to make a case for my Top 3 (Wind River, Hostiles, Life) receiving a Best Picture Nomination. While great, these movies differ from what the Academy is looking for. But Battle of the Sexes (co-directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris) has everything the Academy looks for in a Best Picture nominee. It’s a period piece that looks very much like a period piece. It’s based on a true story and follows that story exceptionally closely. It has a definite protagonist and a definite antagonist. It has fantastic acting by its leads. It has a strong ensemble cast. It has a little bit of comedy, quite a bit of drama, and quite a bit of unexpected suspense. And its true story changed the course of history. It’s easily the most deserving movie that was not picked by The Academy (most say I, Tonya was the biggest snub), and it’s better and more deserving, in my opinion, than all of the selections.
Category Archives: Year of Release
Hostiles (2017)
The very first scene of Scott Cooper’s (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace) under-the-radar Hostiles lets you know one thing right off the bat. We get a 10-minute scene where a four-person group of Comanche warriors comes rolling out of nowhere and attacks a family of five in the brutalist of fashions before burning down the ranch and taking off with their horses. After this scene, the title Hostiles pops up on the screen, and we quickly know that we are in for something different than Will Smith’s Wild Wild West. This movie is not for the weak at heart. If you do not like tragedy, this film is not for you. If you have the stomach for, sometimes, senseless killing, characters who carry anger so deep that it burns their souls and guilt so heavy that it tears lives apart, then this movie could be for you. If you crave a good old-fashioned western, this movie will suffice. And if you want to see A-listers like Christian Bale (The Fighter, The Dark Knight Rises), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, A United Kingdom), Jesse Plemons (The Post, Other People), Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird) and Ben Foster (Hell or High Water, Lone Survivor) continue to cement their names in Hollywood then you can’t go wrong with Hostiles, easily one of the five best movies of 2017. Though it’s unlikely to dethrone Wind River for me, it’s doing its best to make a case in the 11th hour.
Roman J. Israel Esq. (2017)
Denzel Washington (Training Day, American Gangster) vulnerable? Sure, we’ve seen that before. While there are more exceptions than rules, we have seen Washington play roles where his character doesn’t always have the answers or is susceptible to outcomes beyond his control. These films include Flight, Man on Fire, Out of Time, John Q, Fences, and He Got Game. But scared? Outside of John Q, I don’t know if there’s a movie where one of his characters has been so frantic that he is completely hidden from the confident and poised Denzel that we expect and love. All of that changes in Dan Gilroy’s Roman J. Israel Esq., his follow-up directorial performance after blazing onto the Hollywood landscape with 2014’s Nightcrawler.
The Glass Castle (2017)
2017 has been a year that started as strong as any year in recent memory when it comes to movies. From the January and February box office smashes of Split (which I didn’t like) and Get Out to the successful continuations or reboots of franchise movies such as Kong: Skull Island, Alien: Covenant, War of the Planet of the Apes, and Logan to the captivating Life and Wind River, we had about ten movies heading into September, whereas in a typical year, we might have half that many. Now, if I asked a typical moviegoer to name five non-animated movies released before September, the five could not include any of the ones I have just listed. They may have said Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Dunkirk, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Transformers: The Last Knight. Wonder Woman was fun and well-made, but it offered nothing that any other superhero-origin movie hadn’t already provided in the last ten years. Spider-Man Homecoming, I didn’t even give it a chance.
An Education (2009)
Set in 1961 England, Carey Mulligan’s (Shame, Drive) breakout performance in Lone Scherfig (One Day, Their Finest) is a movie that resonates in a way that is entirely independent of its time frame and location. Does this mean it’s a timeless classic? Well, when I think of timeless classics, I think of films that are very different from An Education. This beautiful film was on pace to be a timeless classic, one where everything is fine and dandy and one that I probably would not have enjoyed as much if not for a late twist. The setting of 1960s Europe doesn’t pique my interest. If, as I write this in 2018, in my early 40’s when I am much more into the independents than the big blockbusters, the synopsis for this film doesn’t attract, I can only imagine what I thought going into it back in 2009. I’m unsure what piqued my interest in this movie or even got me past the first 15 minutes.