Category Archives: Year of Release

Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele’s debut feature film, Get Out, was a film that I originally wasn’t going to review. I liked the movie well enough, but it wasn’t one that I felt comfortable writing about. I only do so now because it will likely be nominated for Best Picture and could get as many as ten nominations. This is kind of crazy for a movie released in February. It certainly isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Its Academy Award nominations, 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and $175+ million in box office revenue off a $5 million budget confirm that this is one of the most surprising and successful movies ever. It may be THE most successful horror movie of all time if you measure it by those four factors alone. It’s a movie that keeps you engaged and entertained from its very first scene (think a toned and shorter version of the first scene in Scream), powers its way through a unique plot that you’ve never seen on film before, and keeps you on the edge of your seat through its bold and unpredictable final act.

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Phantom Thread (2017)

Daniel Day-Lewis (The Last of the Mohicans, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) is the Brett Favre, Sugar Ray Leonard, or Michael Jordan of acting. I say that for two reasons. He’s the best at what he does (and there aren’t many out there who would disagree, and even if they tried, they wouldn’t have much of a foot to stand on), but also because he threatens to, and often does, retire from his craft, only to, after a non-predetermined set of time, return to peak performance. He retired from stage acting in 1989 when he walked off the stage during a production of Hamlet. After 1997’s The Boxer, he took up cobbling for five years (where he made exactly one pair of shoes before Martin Scorsese pulled him out of retirement to star opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Gangs of New York, a film that netted him his third Best Actor Oscar nomination at the time. He then went into hiding for another three years before

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I, Tonya (2017)

Boy, do I have a completely different opinion of Tonya Harding after seeing Craig Gillespie’s (Lars and the Real Girl, The Finest HoursI, Tonya. The movie revolves around the 1994 Winter Olympics when her main competition for a gold medal that year (Nancy Kerrigan) had her knee taken out after a 1993 skating session in Detroit, MI, by someone on Harding’s payroll. Kerrigan’s recorded screams of “Why?! Why?!” that were then shown in media outlets worldwide still resonate in our heads. Harding became the punchline of every late-night talk show host’s monologue. Unlike any other time in history, we had a physical, life-altering altercation between two of the best competitors in their sport. Even without all the facts, we identified Kerrigan as the protagonist and Harding as the antagonist. And rightfully so. However, it is made clear from the film’s first scene that what we were about to see was a “mostly true, wildly contradictory” account of what happened. Yes, Gillespie only gave us one side of the story. Still, it’s a side that makes us think of Harding as an extremely sympathetic, misinterpreted, and even likable character who was, perhaps, as much a victim as Kerrigan was. I have a newfound affinity towards Harding that I hadn’t had in the 24 years since the nearly 25 years since the incident happened.

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Darkest Hour (2017)

Before I start the review for Darkest Hour, we should get one thing out of the way. Gary Oldman (Sid and Nancy, The Dark Knight Rises) will win this year’s Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Whoever the other four nominees can skip the ceremony. Buried in thick coats of makeup and padding that make him unrecognizable, Oldman (who was only six years younger in real life than the many he was portraying on screen was at the time of this movie but who takes better care of himself physically than the man he is portraying) pulls off one of the most remarkable actor character transformations in recent memory in his portrayal of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His performance will be compared to Colin Firth’s portrayal of King George VI (who ironically was a character in this movie) in 2010 The King’s Speech, a role in which he earned numerous awards, including the coveted Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Oscar.

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All the Money in the World (2017)

You know it’s a great year for actresses in a leading role when Michelle Williams (Blue ValentineManchester by the Sea), arguably the most outstanding actress of her generation, gives one of the best performances of her career and won’t even get a sniff when it comes to an Oscar nomination. But that is what we had in 2017. We have a year that, as a whole, hasn’t produced many great movies, nor has it given us many great performances for actors in a leading role. Still, it has given us so many excellent lead actress performances that the likes of traditional heavyweights Williams, Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game), Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes), and Jennifer Lawrence (mother!). Williams gives one of the top five performances of her career in Ridley Scott’s (The Last Duel, The MartianAll the Money in the World. But it likely will be forgotten for two reasons.
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