WEEKEND POST
Year in Review: 2017’s best TV shows, movies, food and much more.
What thrilled us, challenged us, made us cry and helped us through the difficult times in 2017? The best in TV, movies, food and much, much more
Exactly 381 feature films will have opened theatrically in Toronto by the end of the calendar year. That sounds like a lot – until you consider that, in New York City, arthouses and multiplexes across the five boroughs will have been besieged over the same period by nearly three times that number. Studios, distributors and independent filmmakers alike have reason to press and pressure their way onto New York screens: a one- week theatrical engagement in the city – whether procured by merit or by cheque – is the surest way to secure a prominent place on cable video- on- demand platforms and the only way to clinch a coveted review in the Voice or the Times.
But in Canada, the market seems less motivated. There are fewer reasons, opportunities and occasions for movies to grace cinemas on their way to the VOD and home video market than ever before – and increasingly it seems studios, distributors and filmmakers either do not or cannot bother. In this country more than most, 2017 has been the year of the digital film.
What happened? To begin with, the titans of the VOD realm loom larger than they used to: Netflix and Amazon now have the means to make and acquire movies of real consequence, and the breadth of customer base to bestow them an audience. Over the last several months Netflix alone has released a staggering volume of world- class cinema directly to its platform: madcap animal- rights parable Okja, stark historical drama Mudbound, urbane intellectual comedy The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). Each of these films premiered at international festivals to enthusiastic acclaim. Each of these films will take its place on year-end best- of lists and earn bevies of awards. And yet not one of these films screened in a movie theatre in Canada. Some of the year’s most celebrated motion pictures: available exclusively on your TV or laptop at home. This is a far cry, is it not, from the time, not so long ago, when “direct to TV” carried the irredeemable stink of disaster?
At the same time, it remains as difficult as ever for filmmakers and the distributors who adventurously represent them to find willing homes for work that falls outside the strict mainstream. Torontobased director Daniel Warth’s rapturously lauded new indie Dim the Fluorescents was picked up earlier this year by FilmsWeLike, the local distributor perhaps most responsible for furnishing the country’s arthouses with alternative cinema – but Warth and the company ultimately parted ways after the latter could not find a movie house interested in programming the picture. (The film had a small run at the Carlton Cinema in December.) A similar fate befell Dustin Guy Defa’s marvellous comedy Person to Person, one of the year’s best American films, which skipped theatres and “opened” on iTunes this fall. Not for lack of effort (and distributors such as FilmsWeLike ought to be given credit for trying), it can sometimes seem impossible to get even great movies onto the big screen.
This, of course, accounts for the recent surge in movie series across Toronto and elsewhere – programs like MDFF Presents endeavour to bring new films of note to the city for one- night- only screenings that have the anticipated glamour of a special event. Alex Ross Perry’s Golden Exits played to a sold- out crowd at the TIFF Bell Light- box on a Tuesday evening in November: in lieu of a fullblown theatrical engagement there or at any other cinema in town, it enjoyed a one- off road show en route to its ultimate destination on VOD. It’s been a thrill to experience these programs, so many of them curated with flawless taste. On the other hand, it’s telling that we so badly need them – and they remain a testament to how irrevocably the theatrical landscape in Canada has changed.
Any cinephile worth their salt will agree that watching a movie in a cinema beats watching one at home every time – no matter the cost, commotion or logistical headaches that follow. But an interesting result of this shift toward digital premieres has been the more or less universal acceptance of what you might call the Netflix Experience: though the platform has its shortcomings, sitting through Mudbound or The Meyerowitz Stories at home really isn’t so bad. It’s amazing how quickly the instantaccess wide release has come to seem normal; and it’ s amazing, too, how much more widely talked about and celebrated even tiny independent films tend to be when they hit Netflix or Amazon Prime in an unceremonious flash.
The fact is, more people have seen Mudbound now than ever would have seen it had it played at the Lightbox instead, and by many, many magnitudes. That doesn’t mean good riddance to theatres – I would greatly prefer to have seen Mudbound on a bigger screen had I been given the opportunity, and if cinemas of old are on their way out, the disappearance of the tradition is one I will deeply lament. The point is simply that things have changed, already and momentously.
Three hundred and eigthy-one movies still opened theatrically in Toronto in 2017. One can only imagine how many fewer will screen in 2027.
IN CANADA, 2017 HAS BEEN THE YEAR OF THE DIGITAL FILM.