THE REEL DEALS
Top 10 films and honorable mentions of 2017
Itwas the year of the “sunken place” (“Get Out,” indeed) and “Wonder” titles (the smash hit “Wonder Woman,” surprise hit “Wonder” as well as the less wonderful “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women,” “Wonderstruck” and “Wonder Wheel”). “Thor: Ragnarok” gave dullard Thor a comic makeover with more punchlines than punches, although I enjoyed Cate Blanchett's Hela best of all. The Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein scandals broke a dam that needed breaking, but also destroyed indie-film industry titan The Weinstein Co. in the process. Sally Hawkins fell for the Creature from the Black Lagoon in “The Shape of Water,” and nerds everywhere sighed. The long-awaited “Blade Runner 2049” did not leave much of an impression. “Dunkirk” wowed millennials, even though it was “old.” Youth-driven hit “Baby Driver” had a mostly vintage soundtrack.
Writer-director Jordan Peele leaped to the front ranks with aforementioned smash “Get Out.” Eightyyear-old director Ridley Scott of “All the Money in the World” took on a Herculean task and proved to be, well, Hercules. Three-time Oscar winner Daniel DayLewis retired with “Phantom Thread” (sure he did). “Star Wars: May the Cash Be With You,” I mean, “The Last Jedi” is raking in Imperial currency. A mouse gobbled a vulpine trickster with Disney-Fox merger. Here are my 10 best films of the year with honorable mentions.
“The Shape of Water”
— Guillermo del Toro's antivivisection Gothic romance with Sally Hawkins as a janitorial worker who falls for a flirty Gill-Man makes horrorscience-fiction buffs swoon in pseudo-bestial “Beauty and the Beast” rapture.
“Dunkirk” — For all its faults (indistinct, undeveloped characters, that silly and gratuitous back and forth chronology), Christopher Nolan's IMAX WWII epic is the year's most aweinspiring spectacle.
“Darkest Hour” — This Joe (“Atonement”) Wright historical drama is the perfect “Dunkirk” chaser, Churchill vs. Hitler. Gary Oldman (“Sid and Nancy,” “Dracula,” “Prick Up Your Ears,” “True Romance,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) delivers yet another iconic performance.
“The Post” — Was there ever a dictator who did not hate a free press? Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and an equally stellar supporting cast make this real-life Pentagon Papers newspaper drama from Steven Spielberg the year's most relevant and riveting film.
“In the Fade” — Fatih Akin's German-language terrorist drama boasts a stunning turn by Diane Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds”) as
a grieving wife and mother who goes on a crusade to make her family's killers pay for their crime.
“Dawson City: Frozen Time” — A brilliant, brilliantly edited documentary from Bill Morrison about a cache of nitrate films unearthed in the Yukon in which dazzling, if also damaged, images from the past return to haunt and entertain us.
“Frantz” — Francois Ozon's post-WWI romance is an achievement of rare and delicate beauty, a love triangle in which one of the three “angles” is a dead German soldier and another the young Frenchman who killed him. Previously adapted to the screen by Ernst Lubitsch, this is Ozon's best film.
“All the Money in the World” — This Ridley Scott drama about the 1973 kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III with Mark Wahlberg and a great Michelle Williams and Christopher Plummer is a gripping, globe-hopping cautionary tale about wealth.
“Lady Bird” — This somewhat familiar comingof-age indie film soars on the wings of Saoirse Ronan's lead performance, Laurie Metcalf's intractable mother and writer-director Greta Gerwig's razor sharp dialogue.
“My Journey Through French Cinema” — Bertrand Tavernier's deeply insightful and poignantly personal tribute to French films reminds us of the debt we owe to the artists who created the masterworks of French cinema, and what an impact these films have had and continue to have on our lives.
Honorable Mentions — “Get Out,” “War for the Planet of the Apes,” “A Fantastic Woman,” “Thor: Ragnarok,” “It,” “Faces/Places,” “Call My by Your Name,” “Coco,” “I,Tonya,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” “The Divine Order,” “Novitiate,” “Kedi,” “Columbus” and “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.”