It's That Time Again: 2017 in Film

Part 1: The Overall Picture

Well here we are another film year has pretty much come to a close and in this first part I like to write about my overall thoughts on the year in film as a whole.

And well it hasn’t been a bad year in movies but certainly not one I would want to say was a favourite of mine which is a far cry from the great period of 2011-2015 which I would put up there with great periods of movies.

The reason I feel this way is that after a while a lot of the releases that came my way started to feel a bit of the same in that there was a lot of animated films, blockbusters and big franchise revivals and those tended to get more airtime down my way than some of the smaller ones others have talked about and reviewed.

And it was those smaller ones and especially documentaries that I missed this year now sure some of them like mother! and Battle of the Sexes came but they also went very quickly before I could get a chance to see them although from what others said I didn’t miss very much so easy come easy go.

But that was this year and we look forward to 2018 but before we delve into that I must talk about my best and worst of 2017 cause you see Fun isn’t really something one considers when writing this list but they do put a smile on my face.


Part 2: The Worst of 2017

Ah the worst lists a real pleasure of mine every single year mainly because I get to take one more shot at 5 films that took a day out of my life that I’ll never get back.

And we start at number 5 with:

Daddy’s Home 2: Now part of me was looking forward to this movie it had some fun previews going for it, it had a cast in Mark Wahlberg, John Lithgow and Mel Gibson and it was coming out at Christmas time so it became my main Christmas watch this year apart from Christmas Vacation.

Instead all I could say coming out of it was BAH HUMBUG! as it reaffirmed some of my Grinch tendencies at Christmas time but there are deeper problems here.

First off the film is just not funny or fun at all with far too much reliance on slapstick humour that is poorly timed and filmed and after a while becomes borderline abusive with poor John Lithgow a man who can be very funny becoming far too often the butt of snowballs, pratfalls and other embarrassing moments though Will Ferrell fares little better.

But the real sin here is the casting of Gibson and the humour that comes with him way too often it isn’t funny and in what is essentially a PG rated family movie (the first film was M rated) it often made me feel very uncomfortable sitting there in my seat and given Gibson’s own history in the last decade or so these jokes which would be bad with any other actor feel a lot worse when coming out of his mouth and whatever good will he got back with Hacksaw Ridge which I thought was a great film has now evaporated.

And look I am someone who can separate an artist from their work very easily but given everything going at the moment in regard to that point and whether it is a liberty all of us as film fans may have to give up albeit grudgingly in order to see real change in Hollywood going forward all of this becomes more uncomfortable to admit and/or talk about than I myself certainly would like to as this man as well as others have made films I love and have inspired me as a writer/storyteller and as a person.

4. Suburbicon: George Clooney’s return to the directors chair since the Monuments Men in 2014 boasts some very impressive credentials; An interesting story, a script co written by the Coen Brothers and a cast with the likes of Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac what could possibly go wrong?

Well almost the whole damn thing went wrong as this movie was awful to sit through at the cinema, its performances were incredibly weak Damon and Moore in particular stink to high heaven, Oscar Isaac can’t do anything to lift it out of the muck and the script is a mess and a half.

And once again just like the Monuments Men Clooney can’t balance the darkness and the light and focus on what story he wants to tell I mean you have a fascinating story of the first black family ever to move into a white neighbourhood which should open up a range of fruitful storytelling to hold up as a mirror to a contemporary audience and what the fuck does he focus on instead?

This boring as batshit black comedy about the Mob and owing money to them and insurance fraud and none of it not one scene of it is in any way interesting to watch and in the home invasion scenes early on I just wanted Damon to take off the glasses rip the shirt open Superman style and turn into Jason Bourne and kick the living shit out of the robbers instead he mopes around the damn film looking miserable and Moore is way way to cartoonish and it doesn’t fit in the film at all.

But my biggest disappointment is with Clooney I like this guy a lot he’s charismatic and great to watch but as a director he’s incredibly hit and miss and I’m beginning to lose my patience with him Money Monster was a welcome return to form but goodwill only lasts so long if it isn’t followed up with another success.

3. Alien: Covenant

Of all the picks on this list this is the one that I take no pleasure in having here mainly because a very good friend of mine really liked this movie but this was not a good film at all.

I love Ridley Scott he’s one of my favourite directors Blade Runner is one of my top 10 favourite films Black Rain is severely underrated and I loved his previous film the Martian so this should’ve continued that film’s upward curve.

Well it didn’t for three reasons first the film just isn’t that scary all of the scenes with the Alien we’re just sitting around in our seat waiting for as the sense of mystery that worked so well in 1979 because we didn’t know what to expect because Alien was just a new Sci-Fi film we went to because we loved Star Wars here I felt like just get on with it.

Which leads me to reason number 2 the characters, all of them are boring and unmemorable now go back to particularly James Cameron’s Aliens from 1986 that film is chock full of memorable characters not just Ripley but Newt, Hicks, Hudson (RIP Bill), Gorman, Vasquez, Burke, Bishop, Apone all of them have great personality and terrific lines and as a result when the Aliens come and their fighting for survival you care about whether they make it out alive or end up cocooned.

That doesn’t happen here I didn’t care less about any of them and when they do start dying horribly I’m like “Here they are nice juicy humans come and get them Here Muty Mutant” I don’t care about them and the performances even Michael Fassbender fluting himself didn’t do a bloody thing for me,

And lastly this story is pathetic and sitting through it gave me vibes of sitting through the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy all over again and by that I mean your watching this boring backstory that is told in a way that is so complicated you just don’t care and you can also feel the high arrogance of Ridley much like you did with George and now this great franchise has yet another failure to put on its bow its time this creature was put out to pasture as its days are over.

2. Passengers

Now this had some potential to be a pretty good Sci-Fi flick you had Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence and a terrific premise of this man who is woken from hypersleep following a routine error in space and has to live out his days alone and watch everyone else sound asleep without a care in the world and sure you can wake someone else up to have some company but that comes with some very very murky territory.

Territory that this movie does not navigate in any way shape or form that is even remotely tasteful and all involved squander a great idea as a result and it doesn’t help having Pratt cast in that role as you just don’t believe him doing those horrible things and to then turn around watch him be Star Lord again in Guardians 2 made this feel worse.

As for Lawrence she does what she can but this film just goes off the rails so quickly that any kind of goodwill you might have still had a sliver of just gets flushed out of the airlock as the lovers reunite and their ship starts to malfunction and sink and well it may as well be playing on the soundtrack:

Don’t let the shippp sink out in spaaace,
Although I search my soul,
Its always your hurt feelings I see,
Your just another section of our ship,
To have to fiiiixxxxxxxx.

But losing you out there,
Is like the ship sinking out in spaaaceeee…

It literally gets that bad and when it was over I was like YUCK and I walked out of that cinema on that day with a very very very bad taste in my mouth.

And now we come to the number 1 single worst film not just of this year but in any year as far as I’m concerned and that is:

The Snowman.

Yep this was the worst movie experience of this year and probably of all time for me it is that bad and it didn’t have to be for you have:

- A great cast consisting of Michael Fassbender, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, JK Simmonds and Rebecca Ferguson
- A good director in Tomas Alfredson
- Martin Scorsese as Executive Producer
- Houssen Amini as one of the screenwriters
- Thelma Schoonmaker as one of the Editors

Mr and Mrs Film Lover this gives you all the clues of a great hit and yet it is absolutely pathetic on every single level.

I mean when I was sitting there watching this pile of shit I felt like my time was being wasted as this is horribly put together in terms of its editing there’s no rhythm or flow to any of the scenes and none of them feel like they go well together, flow from one story point to the next in a logical progression and far far too often rely on the old editing trick of filming a simple drive shot and then having the actors do some ADR work over it in post production to cover any missing gaps.

But what is truly staggering is that not one of these distinguished people ever bothered to sound the alarm and go “Ah guys something is very very wrong with this movie and we need to fix it before releasing it” now Alfredson did say in an interview that he did not get to shoot 10 to 15 percent of his shooting script but why didn’t he notice there were major problems when he was editing the fucking movie and Ms Schoonmaker is one of the worlds finest film editors where was she in all this I mean this is just pathetic all around.

And my blame doesn’t stop there where the fuck was Universal Pictures and all of its management teams and executives why couldn’t THEY see this trainwreck coming and allow Alfredson the time he needed to shoot those crucial pages I mean studios have a sixth sense at least the smart ones do for knowing when their film isn’t working they sometimes restrict press showings, have late review embargoes or don’t do much in the way of advertising it just defies belief for me that nobody could see that this was not a film to release in this form.

But these things happen I guess but on the bright side I had a definitive worst film so now I can throw those turkey bones and focus on the positives because now Happy Days are Here again, the skies above are clear again, let us sing a song of cheer again.


Part 3: The Year’s Finest

Well we’ve taken out the rubbish and now it is time to talk about the favourites the 5 films that really connected to me the most this year even if they didn’t really connect with others as much.

With that out of the way let’s start with number 5 and it’s:

Wonder Woman: All the world was waiting for her and the power she possessed.

Now I will freely admit I was deeply nervous going into this movie mainly because the DC Cinematic Universe has not really done very much for me from Man of Steel which was fine but not a patch on Richard Donner’s Superman movies to Batman V Superman which was a 3 hour slog (a 3 hour slog) and then Suicide Squad which not only was a total mess but unforgivably took the abusive relationship between the Joker and Harley Quinn and glamourised it into something romantic.

Talk about Barf City.

But then I saw Wonder Woman and what a refresh this movie was not terms of a frantic DC Universe run by it seems a pack of Homer Simpsons who want it all: The Terrifying Lows, The Dizzying Highs and the Creamy Middles this was Patty Jenkins knowing the film she wanted to make, the story she wanted to tell and yeah Zack Snyder gave her some guidance with the action scenes but this was her film through and through and Warner Brothers were smart (well this time) to stay out of her way.

And much like Donner’s Superman and Bryan Singer’s X-Men work it has great action, storytelling, characters and those fundamental filmmaking rules come first and all of the quips and powers and comic references and isms that dominate so many of the films in this genre nowadays even good films like Thor Ragnarok come second.

What I also love is that it not only has the best elements of a superhero film but also the feeling of a war film of good people laying down their lives for the greater good and that heroic spirit is felt in every frame of the film and it gave me hope that DC could make something of this series if they just stuck the course and stayed out of their directors way.

4. Paddington 2: This was a film that I had very high hopes for as I loved the first Paddington film, it was charming, heartfelt and had a great villain in Nicole Kidman so the bar was high for this sequel to jump.

And it jumped it with complete ease as this was a wonderful sequel to the first film and it was that rarest of birds in that it was better than the first film in almost every way, retaining the originals charm, heart and humour while doing what a great sequel should do which is to build on the strengths of the first film, deepen the character bonds and get going right away on a new adventure.

But this movie also has another great villain in Hugh Grant who is very funny, comically sinister and has a clear goal and is the main reason I feel this sequel exceeds the original film and both of these films I give enormous praise for having great fun villains in them and their presence enhances both of these films and for this sequel it made me so happy.

And when I’ve thought about this sequel it has made me think that this is the exact same feeling that I want and hope for from the rumoured Accountant sequel with Ben Affleck as if that one were to fall short like so many sequels do it will feel like for me a personal heartbreak but to do what that first film did for me again is going to be a very tough ask.

3. Split: This was for the longest part of the year my number 1 film as I could not get it out of my head I still can’t to some extent and even as the second half of the year got underway I thought that nothing would top it come the year’s end but 2 others did but before I reveal those let’s talk this movie.

Who knew that M. Night Shyamalan still had it in him to make great movies again because I honestly had given up on him completely he had had his success but a string of complete turkeys had made an awful lot of people lose faith in him but here he’s come roaring back with a story that returns to the style and tone of his 2 breakout films the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable.

And this film firstly combines the best elements of both very well Unbreakable was really ahead of its time as a movie commenting on the Superhero genre before there even was a genre to comment on plus it was a high concept type film while the Sixth Sense was more of a traditional horror film that also took time to highlight how children deal with abuse and trauma to some extent and both elements combine very well in Split.

And also much like Bruce Willis in those 2 films he had a leading man in James McAvoy that he completely trusted in and let loose which sometimes is all that’s needed for a character to be scary in a horror film and McAvoy is Academy Award nomination good here he’s powerful, imposing, a little scary but also funny at times in a creepy way and utterly captivating every scene he had I was beaming from ear to ear and glued to the screen I can’t wait to see him again in Glass in January 2019.

2. Kingsman the Golden Circle: Coming in at number 2 is Matthew Vaughn’s sequel to his 2015 sleeper hit Kingsman the Secret Service.

This was the most joyous fun I had watching a movie in a cinema all year and much like when I saw X-Men Apocalypse last year it was because I was loving being back in this world and with these characters again and Vaughn’s direction hasn’t lost a step here with its combination of high energy action, game performances and a willingness to go far out on the edge in terms of the villain and her goals something that is missing for me in most mainstream films nowadays.

The film also has a great use of music in some of its action scenes and a great cameo by Sir Elton John who elevates every scene he’s in and nicely parodies one of his hit songs in a key climax scene I know this did not get the best reviews but this was a film I really loved and would put on par with the first film.

And now we come to number 1 the top of the heap and really there could be only one this year and that is:

Dunkirk: Christopher Nolan’s World War 2 thriller was simply awe inspiring and after the Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar failed to do very much for me despite their great ambition this was a most welcome return to form.

And first off the way he tells this story is a very unique one within the War genre utilising 3 different time scapes and yet making each one synchronise seamlessly and ticking like a Swiss watch the use of dialogue is also very much on a need to know basis like those kind of operations would be and the decision to make this a ticking clock race for survival was a genius move as that is how it would have really felt for those trapped on that beach the enemy is getting closer and time is quickly running out to evacuate so Britain can stay in the war.

And secondly this is a master filmmaker like Christopher Nolan at the height of their power, the way he marshals his actors, his musical score, his cinematography, his sound design, his editing and his storytelling is why Nolan has such a devoted and passionate fan base around him and one that will also follow him on any movie he makes and power it to big box office success and in a world where directors perhaps aren’t as valued as they should be to see this kind of super stardom for a director like him is most welcome.

And also watching this movie I was in awe of it because of that precision and craftsmanship and when you see a movie like Dunkirk that not only has that great craftsmanship of filmmaking but combines with it great storytelling you just think to yourself “This is what this medium called Movies is really about.” And while they may let us down sometimes even those are worth for films like this one.

And so that was 2017 in film hopefully 2018 will be worthwhile as well after all we have Avengers: Infinity War to look forward to and everything I’ve seen from that film looks phenomenal and could very well be a height of the superhero genre that is hard to top because it has everything that Dragon Ball up to the battle with Freeza had:

- A great roster of well developed heroes
- Years of storytelling coming to a head

And a powerful villain who looks to have a big big impact and man oh man I cannot wait to see what transpires according to the Russo’s design so BRING IT ON.