floating heads

If a film is enjoyable but not essential, will you choose to watch it even if you’ve still got 10 hours of Mindhunter to catch up on? That’s a question every person must answer for themselves. Despite the encroaching sinkhole of TV, I still tried to see as much as I could in 2017: 91 films in the theatre (27 of those repertory) and around 75 new releases total. Like most years, I loved films both big and small. But unlike previous years, where I would rank a film immediately after viewing it, this year I allowed myself a little more leeway when making my Top 10. This year I tried to choose films that stuck with me more than ones that I had enjoyed in the moment but mostly forgotten about as December rolled around. These are the films that wouldn’t let go.

1. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson) 

2. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

3. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

5. A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

6. Good Time (Ben & Joshua Safdie)

7. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

8. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

9. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

10. Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

11. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh), 12. The Shape Of Water (Guillermo del Toro), 13. Logan (James Mangold), 14. IT (Andy Muschietti), 15. Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts), 16. Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer), 17. Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts), 18. Raw (Julia Ducournau), 19. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino), 20. The Post (Steven Spielberg).

Looking out at the cinematic landscape on January 1st and trying to handicap which films you’ll end up connecting with is always a fools errand  (see: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009), but also a fun one. So with a mix of naivete and enthusiasm here are the films I’m looking forward to most in 2018.

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese) Deniro. Pacino. Pesci. Keitel. Scorsese. (TBD)

2. Roma (Alfonso Cuaron) In the last 12 years Cuaron has only made 2 films: Gravity and Children of Men. This simply cannot stand. For his latest he returns to a smaller scale Y Tu Mama Tambien territory. (TBD)

3. Widows (Steve McQueen) Four Chicago women decide to take fate into their own hands in McQueen’s (very unexpected) follow-up to his Best Picture-winning 12 Years A Slave. (Nov 16)

4. First Man (Damien Chazelle) Biopics are boring but sometimes you have an make exceptions. Hopefully Chazelle’s La La Land follow-up, which stars Ryan Gosling as young astronaut Neil Armstrong, will be one of them. (Oct 12)

5. Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino) A re-imagining of the Dario Argento horror classic from the filmmaker behind Call Me By Your Name and A Bigger Splash. (TBD)

6. The Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird) The original just might be Pixar’s best but with a 14-year gap between films and writer/director Bird seemingly cajoled into returning, can they recapture the magic? (Jun 15)

7. Creed 2 (Steven Caple Jr.) The first film is the best Rocky movie and has become one of my most rewatchable movies of the decade. Fingers crossed that Caple Jr. will be able to fill Coogler’s massive shoes. (Nov 21)

8. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) In the Oscar-winning Moonlight filmmaker’s highly anticipated follow-up, a woman in Harlem desperately scrambles to prove her fiancé innocent of a crime while carrying their first child. (TBD)

9. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) After knocking it out of the park with Creed, here’s hoping Coogler will be allowed to bring an actual directorial vision to the Marvel Universe and not just allowed to color in the margins. (Feb 16)

10. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard) There is no way this can be good, right? (May 25)

11. Apostle (Gareth Evans) A man attempts to rescue his sister who's been kidnapped by religious cult. From the director of The Raid. Bones will be broken. (TBD)

12. The Girl In The Spider’s Web (Fede Alvarez) I didn’t care at all for the Swedish original but after Alvarez’s Panic Room-esque Don’t Breathe, I’m oddly excited to see if he can follow in the Fincher’s footsteps again to make a satisfying Dragon Tattoo follow-up. (Oct 19)

13. The Old Man & The Gun (David Lowery) An aging bank robber pulls one last job in this improbable true-life folk tale which features Robert Redford, Elizabeth Moss, Tom Waits, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Keith Carradine and more. (TBD)

14. Hold The Dark (Jeremy Saulnier) Green Room proved Saulnier has the chops to make a balls-to-the-wall thriller. His latest centers on a writer hired by the parents of a missing 6-year-old to track down their son in the Alaskan wilderness. (TBD)

15. Isle Of Dogs (Wes Anderson) It’s always nice to see Wes Anderson getting out of his comfort zone. JKJKJK. (Mar 23)

16. Avengers: Infinity War (Russo Bros.) It’s disappointing to see the biggest superhero film of all time being directed by guys who who film action scenes like they’re from the early 00s TV show Alias but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯? (May 4)

17. Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg) The book is nerd catnip filled with references to Spielberg films so it’ll be interesting to see the man himself pay himself homage though the CGI videogame visuals in the trailer do concern me. (Mar 30)

18. The Predator (Shane Black) While I’m not at all interested in another Predator film, I am very interested in another Shane Black film, so they kinda balance each other out. (Aug 3)

19. New Mutants (Josh Boone) X-Men as a teen horror movie? Sure, why not. (Apr 13)

20. Under The Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell) A long-in-the-works modern noir thriller set in Los Angeles starring Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough from the director of It Follows. (TBD)

I saw around 75 movies this year and while these may not have been the absolute worst that 2017 had to offer, they were definitely the worst films that I saw.

1. Justice League (Alan Smithee) A visually hideous, narratively incoherent, tonally jarring, bungling of the best comic book characters of all time. WB should be ashamed for releasing this, arguably the worst comic book film in 20 years.

2. The Mummy (Alex Kurtzman) Watching an actor who was once the world’s biggest movie star flounder so charmlessly in this calculated studio product was an experience I won’t soon forget. Tom Cruise, meet rock bottom.

3. Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes) I’ve always admired Haynes as a filmmaker but been a little cool on his films. This one, however, did not work for me. At all.

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker) The kids are cute but I think I’m good on the Spring Breakers/American Honey trashbag Americana for a while, thanks.

5. Fifty Shades Darker (James Foley) The first one was kind of a fun throwback to the erotic thrillers of the 80s and 90s but this one was completely awful.

6. Live By Night (Ben Affleck) Whatever this was supposed to be, it needed like 6 more months in the edit to figure out, instead Affleck’s period crime thriller came and went quickly and quietly. 

7. Suburbicon (George Clooney) A tone deaf mishmash of vintage Coen Bros. and half-hearted lip service for a more Woke 2017.

8. Fist Fight (Richie Keen) As far as plane movies go, it was no The Intern.

9. Life (Daniel Espinosa) A second rate Alien retread whose cast is way too good for the material (though it’s almost redeemed by the downer ending).

1. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy (Pure Comedy, Total Entertainment Forever, The Memo)

2. Lorde - Melodrama (Homemade Dynamite, The Louvre, Writer In The Dark)

3. St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION (Los Ageless, New York, Slow Disco)

4. Queens Of The Stone Age - Villains (Head Like A Haunted House, Un-Reborn Again, The Evil Has Landed)

5. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream (Oh Baby, How Do You Sleep?, Call The Police)

6. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding (Holding On, Nothing To Find, In Chains)

7. HAIM - Something To Tell You (Want You Back, Kept Me Crying, Right Now)

8. The Shins - Heartworms (Painting A Hole, Half A Million, Heartworms)

9. Spoon - Hot Thoughts (Hot Thoughts, First Caress, I Ain’t The One)

10. The National - Sleep Well Beast (The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness, Born To Beg, Carin At The Liquor Store)