The Best and Worst of 2017...so far

My track record tells you that my official list of the best and worst movies of 2017 is still a long way off. I mean, I'm still putting together my list for 2016. So much for this being a timely blog.

Before I give my "official list" for any year 2004 or later, I wait until I've seen at least 100 of the movies released that year and all of Oscar's nominees for Best Picture. By the end of that actual calendar year, I've tended to be about 30 to 40 movies deep. Thanks to streaming services, Redbox, and the internet, that number is rising. I stood at 44 at the end of last December. Today, I'm at 64, easily more than any other year to this point. Of course, I have lots more to see. That said, I want to do something. As I have in recent years, I put together what I think are the movies I consider the best and worst of the ones I've seen so far. If you're looking for a particular movie that isn't here feel free to ask me about it in the comments. Chances are, I probably haven't seen it yet, though. Let's get to it.

The Worst...so far

10. All Eyez on Me - This Tupac biopic wastes a nice performance from its lead by merely giving us reenactments of a string of highlights, never bothering to let us get to know its subject as a person away from the spotlight. (Full Review)

9. The Mummy - Universal Studios wants to reboot its classic monster franchise. This isn't actually a bad idea. However, they have no idea how to do it, and it shows. The Mummy throws Tom Cruise into a bunch of cgi with a bad story and we get another failed attempt (after Dracula Untold) at getting this thing off the ground.

8. Everything, Everything - This is pure, cliche sick kid romance that tries to overcome its triteness with a completely nonsensical and unbelievable twist. (Q & D Review)

7. Transformers: The Last Knight - We get another round of giant robot slamming into each other and making things explode around a plot that's way too convoluted. Why? Because you keep going to the theaters to see it. Before you call me a hypocrite, I saw this for free. It wasn't necessarily a voluntary thing, but it was free, nonetheless. (Q & D Review)

6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - Speaking of convoluted plots, we get another one here. When you finally figure it out, it makes no sense. To make matters worse, the humor doesn't work and the whole thing is a bore. It's been clear for quite some time that this series has run its course. Disney just needs to let it die.

5.  #realityhigh - Take your classic ugly-duckling-to-beautiful-swan story and inject it with a dollop of social media beef, but fail in most areas of storytelling and you'll get this movie. It's lazy, predictable, and shallow while pretending to be the opposite of all those things.

4. Naked - Marlon Wayans does Groundhog Day, on his wedding day. In this version, our hero repeatedly wakes up naked in a hotel elevator and has to make it to the chapel to get married. It quickly grows repetitive and stale as the writing, nor the star, is up to the task of making the looping scenarios work. (Q & D Review)

3. Smurfs: The Lost Village - For the third installment of this franchise, we go full-blown animation. The big problem with this is we don't get the best part of the series, to this point, Hank Azaria as Gargamel. Instead, Rainn Wilson mans the role. I generally like him, but he doesn't hold a candle to what Azaria was able to accomplish. The bigger problem, though, is a lame, generic story ripped from the Saturday morning cartoon. Instead of it being a 30 minute episode, it's stretched to an hour-and-a-half without adding anything worthwhile to all that padding.

2. Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack - Yeah, they made another Bring It On. No worries, though. This seems to have zero to do with any of the previous movies. Some mysterious, underground cheer squad...hahahahaha...I can't even type that with straight fingers. Ahem. Anyhoo. Some mysterious underground cheer squad is putting our resident heroine through the ringer and challenging her team some all-important cheer-off, or something. It's even worse than it sounds. Note to self: avoid any future movies with "#" in the title.

1. XX - This horror anthology gives us four stories by four female directors. They try to terrorize us with female-centric stories. Unfortunately, none of them work in the least. I take that back. The first segment is okay, the second is not as good, but not terrible. The last two. No. Just no.

So Bad They're Awesome!

Unforgettable - Confession: I'm a sucker for psycho stalker movies. Almost all of them are terrible, but hilariously so. This is no exception. Katherine Heigl gets to play the nutjob chasing after Rosario Dawson's man. That's right. Rosario f'n Dawson! Swoon.

You Get Me - I did mention my affinity for psycho stalker movies, right? Here's another one and it's beyond awful. I laughed all the way through this thing. This time, Bella Thorne gets to play the crazy. Yeah, THAT Bella Thorne, lol.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage - Vin Diesel returns to this Bond-inspired franchise and everything goes bang while defying the laws of physics (full review). Speaking of Vin Diesel and defying the laws of physics...

The Fate of the Furious - We start with a broken down car winning a race while on fire and driving in reverse and end with a submarine chasing a bunch of suped up automobiles across the top of glacier. Yeah, seems plausible. Between those things, anything goes, obviously. (Full Review)

Most Disappointing

XX - I had such high hopes for this movie. After all, it's not every day we get a horror anthology created entirely by women. On top of that, critics enjoyed it to the tune of 73% on the tomato meter. Sigh.

All Eyez on Me - I've been looking forward to this since 2009's Notorious.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - I was hoping this would be the next great sci-fi franchise. The material seems ripe to make this a reality. What I got was great visuals, but overall, a big pile of meh.


Alright. Let's get to the good stuff.

The Best...so far

10. I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore - Melanie Lynskey stars as a woman who finds herself way over her head, but tired of being walked on by people. Her only help is an equally over his head Elijah Wood. It works as a straight-forward vigilante flick, but works better as what it truly is, a darkly humorous movie about people who just can't take it anymore. (Q & D Review)

9. Atomic Blonde - Simultaneously retro and forward-looking, brooding in plot and gleeful in its violence, and features some of the year's best and most savage action scenes. Charlize Theron shines in every part of it. (Full Review)

8. Wonder Woman - It takes the first female-led superhero flick by a major studio in quite some time, and the most famous lady hero of all-time, to give the DC Extended Universe it's first genre classic. Wonder Woman achieves this by ditching the oppressive tone of Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice to give us a hero that actually seems to have hope for mankind and is a person we actually like. (Full Review)

7. What Happened to Monday - In a future where families are forbidden to have more than one child, a set of septuplets has somehow made it to adulthood, basically through the use smoke and mirrors. Suddenly, the jig is up and the ladies are quite literally fighting for their lives. Noomi Rapace is great as all seven of the sisters. The story puts forth all sorts of intriguing ideas and is wonderfully executed. (Full Review)

6. The Lego Batman Movie - Imagine a Batman movie that fully acknowledges that fans of the character have likely seen every previous live-action Batman movie, makes a ton of fun of them while still being respectful of them, and tells a great story that adds to the character's lore. That's what this movie is. (Full Review)

5. Detroit - Director Kathryn Bigelow delivers this film based on a real-life tragedy that took place during the riots in Detroit in 1967. The storytelling is gripping, and sadly, still highly relevant. She wrings some very emotional performances out of her cast. The last act lets up a bit,causing some to downgrade it a bit, but this part is no less poignant than the rest. It does what great art does: makes us uncomfortable. (From Charlottesville to Detroit to Durham)

4. Mudbound - Speaking of making us uncomfortable, this time director Dee Rees does the deed with her take on World War II-era America. It's a place that famously fought for freedom abroad while denying it at home. Framed through the intertwining stories of two families, one black and one white, it refuses to let us off the hook and ably parallels the America we live in today. (Full Review)

3. Logan - Contrary to all we know about Wolverine, and what he knows of himself, the face of the X-men finds himself broken, battered, and aging. The one thing keeping him going is that he is taking care of his father figure, Charles Xavier, who is in worse shape than he. Hugh Jackman turns in a gut-wrenching performance. Logan is the most mature superhero flick ever made, and quite possibly, the best. (Full Review)

2. War for the Planet of the Apes - The last movie of the current Apes trilogy gives us everything its predecessors do, and more. It's incredibly emotional, steeped in metaphor and parable yet never loses us, and perhaps miraculously, uses an ape to teach us about humanity. (Full Review)

1. Get Out - Like number two on this list, Get Out also speaks in metaphor a great deal. The magic is not that it combines this with an entertaining surface, but that each level offers enough depth for us to swim around in. Billed as horror, it functions just as well as social satire, and is unsettling in both veins. (Full Review)