My Top 20 Movies of 2017, Part 1

As is my tradition, once I've seen most of the major film award contenders for a given year, I compile my Top 20 rankings. I always feel like doing 20 rather than 10 gives a broader sense of what the year in film looked like, and gives me a chance to spotlight movies I really enjoyed, but maybe just got outplayed by the ten films appearing on everyone else's list.

Of the big award contenders, I believe the only major one I haven't seen is Call Me By Your Name. There may be one or two more that I'm forgetting, but overwhelmingly I've seen enough that I feel comfortable standing by this as my take on the year in film.

11. Coco - After all this time I shouldn't be surprised when a Pixar film turns out to be beautifully emotional. I guess I got lulled in by the incredible visual design brought to this Day of the Dead story, and let down my guard. A young boy with dreams of being a musician finds himself in the afterlife on the Day of the Dead, and tries to find his great-great-grandfather, whose abandonment of the family in favor of music years ago has made being a musician an unacceptable career choice in that household. There are several points where we're sure we're ahead of the movie, only to have those expectations subverted. And if "Remember Me" doesn't win Best Original Song at the Oscars this year, the Academy has no heart.

12. Lady Bird - I'm told this movie is even more powerful if you're a young woman who had a tense relationship with your mother growing up. I'm pleased to report that's not a necessity for enjoying Greta Gerwig's feature directing debut, about a teenage girl in her final year of high school chafing against her hyper-critical mother and her desire to escape Sacramento when she goes off to college. Saoirse Ronan makes Lady Bird uncomfortably relatable even when she's doing unsympathetic things like ditching her friends for the cool kids or clearly showing shame about her home situation. It's a less showy film than most of the competition this year, but it understands its characters and the actors all really give these relationships a sense of history.

13. Colossal - This movie turned out to be much more than I expected. The initial hook is that Anne Hathaway plays a down-on-her-luck drunk who moves back to her hometown and finds than when she goes on her benders, her actions control a Godzilla-like monster that's currently terrorizing Korea. So we're geared up for this movie where the theme seems to be how a person's self-destructive actions have consequences for others and then the film takes this amazing turn. Her "nice guy" childhood friend played by Jason Sudeikis starts to reveal a resentful, controlling side. It's a turn that spends the whole movie hiding in plain sight. It's not a left turn that invalidates everything that came before - it's the thing we should have noticed sooner, but we're so used to accepting it in real life that it barely registered on our radar. This was one movie that really surprised me with its cleverness, and while it's not for everyone, it probably deserved a bigger audience.

14. Baby Driver - I'm still waiting for Edgar Wright to top the pinnacle of Hot Fuzz, but Baby Driver is another solid case of the writer/director taking an established genre (in this case, a heist/car chase movie) and doing it his way. The opening getaway sequence is a masterful work of stunt-driving, pacing and editing, and even if the rest of the movie fell short, I would have felt I got my money's worth. Are a few of the characters perhaps too cliché? Maybe, but the actors all work to elevate the archetypes. (John Hamm as a banker turned criminal is possibly the most entertaining member of the game, the right mix of sleazy, quietly caring and way in over his head.) And yeah, Kevin Spacey's in it, which makes for awkward viewing now, but his part is such a stock Spacey role that I bet you can FF most of his scenes and still follow what's going on.

15. Molly's Game - Sorkin has a knack for taking subjects that seem unfilmable and finding a compelling way in on the page. Not many people would have found a way into Moneyball or the story of Facebook's founding. The film is the story of how former Olympian Molly Bloom got into the world of underground poker and came to run one of the most exclusive high-stakes games until the shady people she was associating with brought her to the attention of the FBI. There's a rough patch or two, but a supporting turn from Kevin Costner really helps add the emotional stakes and underline that what she achieved really was an accomplishment. Jessica Chastain brings real steel to the role of Molly, and while it's not the first time she's played an assertive woman, Molly is uncompromising in a way that renders her extremely formidable. As good as Sorkin's writing and directing is, this is Chastain's film and she gives us the right avatar for the year of "Women are sick of your shit."

16. The Lego Batman Movie - And now for something that was just straight-up fun. This year's superhero films bounced between deep, serious explorations of heroism and aging... and total blasts of pure, unashamed fun. There are Bat-fans who recoil at anything they perceive as disrespecting or undermining the ultra-serious nature of the character and his "important" mythos. But then you remember this is a story about a guy who wears a cape and a batmask to beat up cackling criminals and you realize there's plenty of absurdity, and this film embraces every minute of that. I love Will Arnett's interpretation of Batman and I hope it spawns an entire franchise.

17. It - I rarely find a good horror movie that manages to be genuinely unsettling rather than simply relying on shock and gore to keep the audience off-balance. Thus, it figures this film comes from New Line, which was also behind The Conjuring and Lights Out. I've never read the book or seen the miniseries, which allowed me to go into this fresh. I won't deny there are some problematic elements, but the creators assembled an incredibly strong cast of young actors and Pennywise is the perfect foil for them. I don't know what Bill Skarsgård looks like out of makeup, and I don't want to, for fear of it diminishing Pennywise's psychological impact.

18. War for the Planet of the Apes - Put a gun to my head and I'll tell you I preferred the previous entry in the series, but that doesn't diminish how effectively this film puts us on the side of the apes and makes us by into mo-cap CGI creatures as living, breathing actors. Not once during this film did I think about how Caesar's really just a collection of 1s and 0s in a computer. You'll feel more for the ape deaths in the film (even the ones that are basically "Women in Refrigerators") than you will for the humans, and that might be the greatest visual effect of all.

19. Spider-Man: Homecoming - It's become fashionable to bash the Sam Raimi movies, but I love that version of Spider-Man (well, more the first two films than the third, but still...) When starting the third Spidey continuity in 15 years, Marvel wisely skipped over the origin and surrounded Peter with a supporting cast we'd not met in previous films. Michael Keaton proved to be a perfect choice for the Vulture, particularly in one scene where we can see the gears turning as he realizes his daughter's boyfriend Peter is actually Spider-Man. Tom Holland reminds us of what we all knew during Captain America: Civil War, he's the right man to play every-teen Peter Parker, bringing the perfect mix of youthful earnestness and enthusiasm. It feels fresh even though we've seen Peter in five previous solo films, embodied by two other actors.

20. Gerald's Game - Longtime readers know I'm a sucker for limited location thrillers. This film has a doozy of one when a wife handcuffed to the bed as sexual foreplay finds herself trapped there after her husband suffers a fatal heart attack. She's handcuffed at both wrists, in a cabin far from any help and anyone who will hear, and she's growing more fatigued by the minute. As she weakens, she grows delirious, seeing hallucinations and something that she perhaps only thinks are her imagination. This would have placed higher on the list if not for an unnecessary epilogue that drags out resolution when the film really needs to end and get out.

Oh, and there's a really graphic scene that it makes me wince to even allude to, but just about any other review of this film has you covered in that regard. Suffice to say, I wasn't expecting the film to go there and it might be more painful to watch than the hobbling scene in Misery.

So that's 11-20. Come back tomorrow for the top 10.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: film or business plan?

As always, there are spoilers all over this thing, so be warned as you dive into the post.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is less of a filmmaker's labor of love and more of a naked business plan for IP exploitation in perpetuity.

As much as I'm immersed in the business end of filmmaking out here in L.A.. I always do my best to put that perspective out of my head while I'm watching a film for the first time.  It's unavoidable that at some point down the line, one will be compelled to look at the work from a more corporate standpoint, but the last things I should be thinking about during my initial viewing are spinoff potential and franchise vitality.  And yet, here we are.

ASM2 goes to great lengths to establish tendrils that will likely not only connect to the two (yes, TWO!) already-announced sequels, but also the VENOM and SINISTER SIX spinoffs.  And unfortunately this comes at the expense of its own story. The reason for these spinoffs is clear: Sony's rights to Spider-Man will last only so long as they continue to produce films set in that universe.  If they ever stop producing films for a specific length of time (I believe it's five or six years, but don't quote me on that) the rights to the character revert back to Marvel, who is itching to exploit the property.

Thus, Sony finds itself in a very literal case of "use it or lose it."  This is what motivated the entire reboot in the first place.  The first three SPIDER-MAN films took in nearly $2.5 billion worldwide, with the third film actually being the most successful.  This is a valuable property and it would have been an impeachable offense for ANY studio head to let that windfall revert back to Marvel as a result of disuse.  Fans may bitch, but that's the reality of the situation.  There is no scenario sort of brain damage where anyone at Sony should consider letting Marvel have Spidey back.

Every now and then, I see some fans bitching that Sony should just sell Spider-Man back to Marvel.  Again, there's probably no sum that Marvel would be willing to pay that would make such a transaction profitable.  Let's forget the fact that Marvel is dirt cheap - why would they lay out a large sum of cash for Spider-Man when if Sony was really THAT disinterested in making further movies, the rights would revert to Marvel for nothing.  I lay this out mostly to make the case that Marvel's not going to pay for Spidey, and Sony's not gonna sell.

I hate the term "cash grab," which is what annoyed fans fling too often at franchise films.  "They only made this movie to *gasp* MAKE MONEY!" they cry.  I don't know many movies that don't have some financial incentive behind them.  Studios aren't in the business of trying to burn cash.  Despite all the financial motivations I laid out above, I'm sure all of the creatives involved are genuinely trying to make a good movie.

That said, the intention to build a long-term franchise too often override organic storytelling here.  In particular, some late developments in the story are rushed so that we can get a taste of Oscorp basically being a villain factory from which the SINISTER SIX will spring.  I feel like the final action sequence with the Rhino is misplaced and may have worked better as an introduction to the third film.  By dictating that the film ends with this point, it may have also accelerated Harry Osborn's story too much, given that his fall from grace has to share time with another villain.

Basically, this plays less like a major chapter in an ongoing epic and more like a midseason episode of a television series.  Though some major revelations are tossed into the light and a significant character dies, it lacks the emotional engagement of Raimi's work.

Raimi's own films did their fair share of developing plotlines across several films.  The most notable of these was Harry Osborn's arc, which saw him blaming Spider-Man for his father's death in the first film, learning Peter was Spider-Man and finding out the truth about his own father by the end of the second film, and finally acting upon his revenge in the third film.  This slow-burn approach worked because it was surrounded by other material that played as self-contained.  There's a sense of resolution in each of Raimi's first films that we don't get here.  More than that, there's a strong unity of plot and theme in those films.

ASM2 feels incredibly disconnected in places.  The villain this time around is Jamie Foxx's Electro, an Oscorp scientist who's mutated in a lab accident and gains powers that allow him to channel and control electricity.  I don't read the Spider-Man comics, save for the first dozen or so volumes of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, so I have no idea how accurate Electro's depiction is when compared to the source material.  Here all you really need to know is he's a nerdy guy who stars off as a mega Spider-Man fan.  When his powers bring him into conflict with Spider-Man, he's convinced the webslinger is jealous and feeling betrayed, he swears vengeance.

It's a pretty simple arc and it's biggest crime is that it doesn't add up to anything larger.  It doesn't contribute thematically to any other plotline in the film.  It feels like Electro could have been swapped with any villain in the rogues gallery and as long as their presence led to action sequences, the net effect would have been the same.

Even when Electro teams up with a villainous Harry Osborn it seems more like a case of that character being the muscle most easily accessible to Harry - not because there's anything really tying the characters together.  Of course, this conjurs memories of one of the weakest points of SPIDER-MAN 3 which has the exact. same. "You hate him? I hate him too! We should work together!" motivation for the team-up.  That's not a good thing.

I went in with my expectations knocked way down after hearing some early bad reactions. Naively, I thought this would be an asset and that I'd walk out saying, "That wasn't nearly as bad as it was made out to be.  I'll say this, after having spent the last month watching some of the worst superhero movies ever made (for some forthcoming posts on Film School Rejects), I feel obligated to say we don't have a debacle here on the level of CATWOMAN, WOLVERINE or X3.  That said, this film is a disappointment and probably is the weakest SPIDER-MAN film yet.

Yes, even weaker than SPIDER-MAN 3.  I'm not saying that film is any kind of unappreciated gem, but I think most of the people still calling it out as terrible haven't revisited it since its release.  The memory of its flaws has likely eclipsed some of the more enjoyable moments of the film.  Five years from now, when people revisit SPIDER-MAN 3 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 with fresh eyes, I wouldn't be shocked if most people realized they enjoyed SPIDEY 3 more.

That's not to say that there are high points.  In fact, Electro-related stuff aside, the first 2/3 of the film have a fair number of high points, including a nifty over-the-top sequence of Spider-Man stopping a plutonium theft on the way to his graduation.  The film's not a total loss, even if the third act's sins overshadow much of the film's virtues as you depart the theatre.

Chief among the highpoints are Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.  I'm not sure if their storyline is really as good as Garfield and Stone make it play.  Basically, Peter feels guilty about seeing Gwen because he promised her dying father he'd stay away from her to keep her safe from his enemies.  Yes, it's the old "I love you, but we can't be together because noble reasons" plot, but these two have such sharp chemistry in their scenes together that most of the time you won't care.

This is one case where the script knows the thematic payoff it's going for. So much is made of Peter's conflict and guilt that it's pretty clear we're going to get some version of "The Night Gwen Stacy Died."  Unfortunately, we get a rushed execution of the idea that almost feels tacked on.  Harry's screentime is limited due to the Electro storyline.  While the second act sets up his degeneration and his desperation to find a cure - a quest that eventually ends up turning him into the Green Goblin - the third act seems to reach its climax with Electro's defeat.

Thus, when Harry comes swooping in on a Goblin Glider (though I'm pretty sure it's never named as such) it almost feels like an afterthought.  There's a real sense of "Let's get on with this. There's only 15 minutes left and we've gotta kill Gwen off."  Because of this, there's barely any effective build-up to Gwen's murder. Frankly, had Raimi's first movie decided to kill Mary Jane at the bridge, there would have been more set-up and emotional groundwork laid.

But here, his rage at Peter was rushed and his decision to punish him by taking away the love of his life feels too spur-of-the-moment.  You'd never know the comics consider this confrontation one of the most defining moments in Spider-Man history.  Something about the execution feels limper than Gwen's corpse and it's only later during a replay of Gwen's graduation speech that the loss and sorrow really kick in.  Peter watching that speech, mourning and making peace with her loss would have been a great way to end the film, perhaps with him picking up his Spidey costume.  The brief fight with the Rhino really mangles the tone there, though.

I like that Gwen gets her heroic moment before she dies, but it really bothers me how tossed off her death is.  Electro should have been a distraction that Spidey dispatched relatively quickly and then the REAL fight should have been between him and Harry.  The Harry/Peter battle doesn't feel nearly as mythic as the franchise demands.  Dane DeHaan does what he can with Harry as written, but he's not really given a character who's allowed to make sense.

I've spent so much time talking about other issues, that I haven't found a place for another big misstep - the need to make Peter's connection to the genetically engineered spiders more than just a coincidence.  We find out Peter's father was involved in the research at Oscorp that produced those spiders and we learn that thanks to some "fun with DNA" science, Dr. Parker implanted those spiders with his own DNA so that the only compatible test subject would be him or anyone who shares his DNA.  Gee, so I guess it's really convenient that the one person the spiders bite would affect happened to wander into their range one day.

I don't like this idea.  It makes Peter's superhero career almost too pre-ordained.  Not every hero needs to be some sort of child of destiny.  It's not the worst application of the "Chosen One" syndrome I've seen, but it springs from the same mentality.  In trying to explain away the source of Peter's powers, the result is a convoluted series of circumstances that ultimately seems to depend MORE on coincidence than the original happenstance.  And to be blunt, as crowded as this script is anyway, the LAST thing we needed was to get bogged down in a retcon of Spidey's origins.

This movie leaves me concerned about the future of the SPIDER-MAN franchise.  The best thing this series had going for it is no longer possible after the events of this film.  If the next film isn't able to replace the Peter/Gwen chemistry with something equally compelling, this installment will be remembered as the one that tarnished the franchise.

The 10 Greatest Comic Book Movies Ever Made

As I've said before, the bad thing about a decade coming to a close is the surplus of all the "Best of the Decade" lists. As I said before, the catagory of "Best movies of the Decade" is so broad that it's almost impossible to come up with a fair list, so I've decided to limit myself to subcatagories where I've reasonably seen most films that fall into them. This started as a list of the Top Ten Comic Book Movies of the Decade, but I soon realized that it was perhaps more fitting to do the Best Comic Book Movies of All-Time.

10) Superman Returns - This might be a controversial pick. It was released to strong critical reviews and generally positive fan reaction, but as time has passed, those fans have turned on it. I think it's a rather well-done movie that occasionally goes too far in its worship of the Donner films. (There was no need to make Lex's plot a "land scheme" again. If he'd just been obsessed with getting the Kryptonian technology, that would have been motive enough and it would barely have required changing anything major.) The script's biggest weak link is that it posits a thesis in Lois's article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman," then never really tells us what Lois's argument was. Thus, in the end, that position isn't debunked as effectively as it could have been. I know many take issue with the super-kid, and I could probably spend a whole blog post on that. Here's what I said at the time - thematically it works for this movie, and though I can see it being a problem in the sequels, I'm willing to wait to see how those future stories handle it before fully condemning it. Of course, now it looks like we'll never know.

9) Sin City - Based on co-director Frank Miller's graphic novels, this film is more a translation of the comic than the adaptation. Most shots directly duplicate frames from the various comics, and Robert Rodriguez's decision to use green screen to isolate the characters and put the environments in during post-production might be the most successful use of "green-screen filmmaking." The film looks unlike any other film out there, and though the ultra-violence might be a turn-off to some, the dark noir tone really works. Impressively, the directors not only managed to pull off the stylistic choice to include all the voiceover from Miller's comic - they got great performances out of actors who had been uneven in earlier roles. This was the start of Mickey Rourke's comeback, and the first time that Brittany Murphy didn't actively annoy me. On top of that, it was the first time Rosario Dawson impressed me, and even Jessica Alba does a good turn as stripper Nancy, bringing real vulnerability to the character. And those are the WEAKER actors in a cast that boasts Bruce Willis, Nick Stahl, and Clive Owen.

8) Spider-Man - At the time of its release, it was probably the best comic book movie since the original Superman film 24 years earlier. X-Men had already shown that it was possible to take comic book heroes seriously again, but Spider-Man goes one better by being remarkably faithful to the tone and look of the comics. The Spider-Man suit shows that superhero outfits don't need to be made out of black leather in order to look cool, while Sam Rami's direction evokes the feel and the composition of the comics. The second half gets a little goofy.. Willem Dafoe commands the screen with his over-the-top performance whenever he's out of costume, but the Green Goblin supersuit looks like something from a Saturday morning live action kids show.

7) Superman II - There are two versions available, the 1980 theatrical release mostly directed by Richard Lester, and the recently restored 2006 release directed largely by Richard Donner. The backstory: Donner shot 75% of this sequel while shooting the first film, but a dispute with producers over many issues led to his replacement and the reshooting of many parts of the film to the point where only about 30% of his material remains in the theatrical version. Though it still feels unfinished in spots, I prefer the Donner Cut for the faster pacing, the removal of many campy elements, and the restoration of some powerful scenes with Marlon Brando as Jor-El. However, in any incarnation, Superman II is a great film.

6) Batman Begins - The Batman series needed an enema after Joel Schumacher's wretched Batman & Robin in 1997, and this Christopher Nolan reboot certainly fit the bill. The hook: telling the early origins of Batman piece-by-piece, answering the questions of how he trained, where the Batmobile came from, the functionality of the costume. It's a testament to the power of this film that I've seen many, many different tellings of Bruce Wayne's parents' murder, but this was the only time that the murders hurt. It's brutal and powerful. Also, for the first time, there's a sharp distinction between how the lead actor plays Bruce Wayne and Batman.

5) Spider-Man II - The Spider-Man series gets its best villain in the form of Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus as the continuing soap opera of Peter and his love Mary Jane develops. Though portions of the plot are reminiscent of Superman II, this is a fast, fun film that feels true to the comic. More than that, the ending makes it clear that makers saw this as a continuing story - not just an episodic series of action films.

4) X2: X-Men United - Finally! A superhero film with seemingly non-stop action. Despite the parade of characters the screenplay has to accommodate, the story never feels over-crowded. With all the exposition out of the way in the first film, director Bryan Singer is free to just tell an exciting story at breakneck pace. There are several great action scenes but standouts are the opening siege on the White House, Magneto's incredibly awesome jailbreak, and the attack on Xavier's School for the Gifted.

3) Iron Man - The best superhero movies know how to make the hero interesting rather than taking the lazy route of making the villain broad and colorful and just using the hero as a straight man to play the villain off of. (See: any Batman film produced between 1989-1997.) Iron Man is much more about Tony Stark in a way that recalls Batman Begins. Robert Downey Jr. carries this movie and even if you're not into superheroes, you'll find him entertaining. The lone weak spot might be the lack of a truly intersting villain, but when Downey is chewing the scenery, you won't care.

2) The Dark Knight - One of the few comic book movies that can be called a "film" rather than a "movie." Aside from the animated series, this is the first time that the modern Joker has truly been captured in an adaptation. Jack Nicholson was fun to watch in the 1989 Batman, but one never believed his Joker was truly insane. Heath Ledger pulls that off and gives a truly chilling performance. Christian Bale more than holds his own, but the story really belongs to Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent - Gotham's "white knight" - who pays the highest price of all.


1) Supeman - The Citizen Kane of both comic book and superhero films, and the one without which there were be no others. The best-known comic book adaptation before this was the campy 60s Batman series, whose legacy was convincing audiences and filmmakers alike that superheroes couldn't be taken seriously. The slightly less-campy Wonder Woman series in the 70s did little to change that. It wasn't until Richard Donner came along and told Superman's origins with all the seriousness of a Greek myth that the stigma was broken. I've raved about this film elsewhere, and any praise that doesn't go to Donner surely goes to Christopher Reeve for creating a Man of Steel who can be earnest without sacrificing any of his presence. Without this film, there would be no Batman series, no Spider-Man series, no X-Men and probably no Iron Man either.