Sunday, December 31, 2017

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)

22 comments:

  1. I disagree with you on XX on only one point--I liked the second story the best, then the first. Completely agree that the last two (especially the third one) are terribly weak. The fourth one had a great premise and...just didn't take it anywhere.

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    1. Yeah, we're splitting hairs there, so no argument from me.

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  2. I haven't seen any of the films you listed as the worst (thank God) while I have no interest in Unforgettable largely because I hate Katherine Heigl. Of your best of list so far... four of these in Get Out, Logan, The Lego Batman Movie, and Wonder Woman as I liked all of them a lot. Right now, my worst film of 2017 that I have seen is Fifty Shades Darker as I had to write a rant about it on my Letterboxd account. It pissed me off in how stupid and misogynistic it is.

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    1. I didn't even bother with Fifty Shades Darker and don't plan on seeing it. On the other hand, I am going to check out your Letterboxd rant.

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  3. Pirates is defintitely one of the worst kovies I have seen this year. I stull have to catch up on some movies, but enjoyed the movies I’ve already seen on your best list.

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    1. Yeah, Pirates is bad, very bad. Glad you enjoyed the others.

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  4. I haven't seen most of your worst and so bad they're awesome, but those I've seen (The Mummy, The Smurfs, Unforgettable and Pirates of the Caribbeans) were bad.

    Atomic Blonde didn't work for me, and I'm yet to see Mudbound and Detroit, but I loved the others.

    And Happy New Year!

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    1. I really hope you get to see Mudbound and Detroit soon. I think they're both dynamite.

      Happy New Year!

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  5. I'm woefully behind on this year between circumstances and indifference to what's been coming out, if I've seen a dozen from 2017 I'd be surprised. But I have seen two on your best list, Atomic Blonde and Wonder Woman. I didn't love either but liked Blonde slightly more. Neither was bad though.

    Sadly I have seen two pieces of total trash from the year-Baywatch and Snatched. I had hoped Baywatch would be fluffy escapist fun-instead it was headache inducing idiocy. Snatched was even more disappointing since it brought Goldie Hawn back to the screen-she should have stayed away if this humorless disaster was the best that was offered. And I've discovered I hate Amy Schumer who has no discernible talent I can see beyond being a vulgar classless spectacle.

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    1. Baywatch was bad, but I think these are worse. Haven't seen Snatched, but I'm in no hurry given how much I dislike Trainwreck. That will likely be a Mrs. Dell call. I'll see it if she wants to, but otherwise I probably won't bother.

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  6. I have only seen Logan which is excellent and so mature for a superhero movie which is so much more than that. I’m glad I missed the bad flicks and I still need to see Wonder Woman and Atomic Blonde. Happy New Year!

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    1. Logan most certainly transcends its genre. Hope you get to see the others soon. Happy New Year!

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  7. War for the Planet of the Apes is probably my favorite blockbuster of the year, glad you loved it too. Get Out definitely was memorable and vital, 2017 was a strong year for subversive horror(4 of my top 10 so far are in that genre). Managed to avoid your worst :) Wishing you a Happy New Year Wendell!

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    1. War has so much more depth than just about any blockbuster out there and more than we deserve given that it's about talking apes. The whole trilogy astounds me in that regard. The last few years have been really good for horror, especially for the subversive and/or independent type. Keep avoiding those bad ones up there. Happy New Year!

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  8. I may watch Mudbound today. Logan is still on my number 1 but it's a tie with Wind River. Overall it's pretty great year in movies, 3 10s for me and a lot of 9/10

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    1. It was an excellent year for movies. I hope 2018 will be even better.

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  9. Yay for Get Out! It's fun to watch but continues to grow upon reflection, and the performances are amazing. Plus it kept subverting my expectations, which I love.

    I've also seen I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (which I liked, but not nearly as much as I'd expected to), Wonder Woman (Hooray!), What Happened to Monday? (loved it!)

    And I saw You Get Me. I watched it basically expecting it to be a suckfest, and it still fell short of my expectations. LOL. Damn that movie was bad! But it did have comedic value.

    I keep putting off watching Mudbound for some reason. I think it's because I loved the book AND I'm expecting to be blown away by this director's work. Part of me is afraid it won't measure up to sky-high expectations. :-) Plus evenings are often my work time. *Sigh*

    Happy New Year, and thanks for what you do. :-) You're my favorite blogger.

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    1. Haven't read the book for Mudbound, so I can't say how it compares to that, but it is an excellent movie. Thank you for the kind words. They mean a lot to me. And thanks for reading!

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  10. The only one of your picks for worst I've seen is The Mummy, but if there are 8 movies worse than The Mummy, those must be very bad movies indeed.

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  11. Great lists. I wish Detroit had a better life. It came and went so quickly, and that’s a shame. It made me so uncomfortable as well, but that middle portion was some of the most tense filmmaking I’ve seen in years. Damn hard to watch though.

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    1. Just about all of it was tough to watch. It definitely deserves to have longer legs than it did.

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