Well, another year down the crapper. We saw Nazis march in the street of the USA and learned that three super charged hurricanes causing destruction in five states and Puerto Rico STILL wasn’t enough to convince some that climate change is real. We endured the first year of having a Twitter troll as President while watching all of our ally countries electing leaders who were not only intelligent but young and attractive. The year began with over 5 MILLION women worldwide marching to show defiance and ended with the voices of countless victims being heard, crying out for justice against those who long abused power to conceal the vile monsters they always were. Meanwhile in Alabama, you can apparently run for Senate while being a racist, xenophobic, homophobic pedophile and that STILL somehow isn’t enough to dissuade people from voting for you.
Also, people are arguing over Star Wars. That somehow ranks pretty high on how fucked up 2017 was.
Well, let’s see how the rest of the year stacked up on my list:
(in no particular order)
FAVORITE TV SHOWS OF 2017:
‘Big Mouth’ (Netflix)— Holy shit, was this a pleasant surprise. With co-creator Nick Kroll starring in a cast that includes John Mulaney, Jessi Klein, Jason Mantzoukas, Maya Rudolph, Jenny Slate, Fred Armisen, AND Jordan Peele, there are so many things that could’ve gone wrong…instead, it’s one of the most BRILLIANT animated satirical comedy series since ‘South Park’.
‘The Deuce’ (HBO)— This show kinda slipped under the radar for a lot of viewers and watching it can be frustrating since there really isn’t a overall “plot,” which is kinda the point. It’s from the same people who created ‘The Wire’…you know, that one show everyone who’s ever seen it won’t shut up about how BRILLIANT it is? Well it’s essentially the same kind of storytelling set in the backdrop of the seedy sex trade of early-1970’s New York City…its Scorsese sans Scorsese.
‘Stranger Things 2’ (Netflix)— Full disclosure: I wasn’t a terribly big fan of the first season of this show…a bit overrated and I felt the pacing was uneven. But it’s sophomore season completely turned me around and I found myself loving every minute of this more refined 1980’s nostalgia trip featuring the boys of Hawkins, Indiana
‘Glow’ (Netflix)— Speaking of the 80’s, this show took ‘Stranger Things’’s nostalgia for the Reagan Era to a whole new level with a cast and storyline so funny, heartfelt, and inspiring, I found myself gleefully cheering by the end of episode 10, only to be followed with the agony of realizing I had finished the series and must wait for season two. Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, and Marc Maron deserve NOTHING BUT PRAISE for this show.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: ‘Game of Thrones (Season 7)’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’, ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’, ‘The Good Place’, Ken Burns’ ‘The Vietnam War’ miniseries.
WORST TV SHOWS OF 2017:
‘Rick and Morty (Season 3)‘ (Adult Swim)— We waited nearly two years for season three to FINALLY premiere…and when it finally did, good God, was it a huge disappointment. Blame on the overhype or McDonald’s notoriously dropping the proverbial ball with the whole Mulan Szechuan sauce debacle (although it probably didn’t help that so many of the show’s fans out there are immature fucking losers who completely miss the point of Rick Sanchez) we but I feel creator Dan Harmon’s real-life divorce and further descent into alcoholism may have played a hand in the show’s underwhelming third outing. It just felt like there was something missing through all ten episodes and I have come to fear that the show may never regain the same footing it once had. To me, this is Harmon’s ‘Community’ all over again.
‘Friends from College’ (Netflix) — This show is the parallel opposite to ‘Big Mouth’ where despite being co-created by Nicholas Stroller (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’, ‘Neighbors’) and featuring a solid cast of Keegan-Michael Key, Cobie Smulders, Fred Savage, and Billy Eichner, it’s a premise that should’ve worked but instead fails in every way. This dramedy about a group of middle aged Harvard alumni “friends” is banal, mean-spirited, and utterly pointless, with its characters so unlikable and self-absorbed that they make the gang from ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ look like the Dunphys from ‘Modern Family.’ I’m all for irreverent comedy fearing sociopaths doing inadvertently misanthropic deeds, but this seemed to have left out the “comedy” part. I was baffled to hear this show got renewed for a second season, but that was back in August and since then no updates have been heard. One can only hope Netflix walks back on their decision and quietly snuffs this dreck…
‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ (Showtime) — I’m sorry…I just couldn’t. I LOVED the original David Lynch/Mark Frost series and I was ecstatic for its long awaited return, but the show went full Lynchian the moment the first episode began…and to paraphrase the line from ‘Tropic Thunder’, you never go FULL Lynchian. Maybe I’m just not as strong as some other fans, but watching Kyle MacLachlan act like a lobotomized Dale Cooper for the first eight-*goddamn*-episodes was a test in patience that I failed miserably before giving up the show entirely. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit I threw in the towel before making it past episode eight. Don’t bother telling me it eventually comes together…I was told the same thing would happen after the fifth episode. I found it irritating how the original show’s quirky humor seems missing from this outing, which is one of the many things that made the characters so endearing. Also, how do you do a Twin Peaks show where less than 20% of each episode actually takes place in Twin Peaks? About the only positive thing the show achieved was it retroactively made ‘Fire Walk With Me’ a more coherent and enjoyable film.
‘American Horror Story: Cult’ (FX) — This wasn’t the worst AHS season and to be honest I didn’t hate it all that much…however, what initially started as a social commentary on middle America under the Trump presidency, about midway through turned into a sendup on how the Alt-Right and SJWs are more alike than they care to admit with fear-based fundamentalism. Heavy-handed, maybe…but like previous seasons, ‘Cult’ plays musical chairs with the characters and their moral compasses, so the audience has a tough time in deciding who to root for. Evan Peters plays an Adderall popping sociopathic cult leader who initially is inspired by the fear caused by Donald Trump winning the election, only to later gain inspiration from the amphetamine-included hallucinations of Charles Manson. On the other hand, Sarah Paulson is the uber-feminist whose grocery list of phobias make her borderline insufferable to her wife Alison Pill and to the audience as well; the first episode she screams in agony at Trump winning, but we later find out she voted for Jill Stein…ok, NOW she’s insufferable. I liked where it was going with its characters being shades of gray…but then it chickened out by its climax that seem to say “Just Kidding, the other side is WAY Worse!” Godamnit…
DIS-HONORABLE MENTIONS: ‘Iron Fist’, ‘Inhumans’, ‘The Defenders’…basically everything Marvel did for TV this year (minus ‘The Punisher’)
FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2017
‘Get Out’ (Universal)— If there’s one lesson to learn watching Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, it’s that white people have no idea how TERRIFYING they are to black people and other people of color. Never has a movie been so good at subverting expectations that I’m afraid to rewatch it in fear that it won’t have the same impact as the first viewing. Its mix of psychological horror with darkly satirical social commentary make it the best black comedy horror since ‘An American Werewolf in London’. As I’ve said, I haven’t rewatched the film since it was in theaters and that’s partially because the version Amazon has on-demand features the “ALTERNATIVE ENDING“. I remember the film’s ending being surprisingly upbeat and was curious if that was itself an alternative ending; sure enough, the alternative ending matches the film’s grim tone which Peele had originally intended as an allegory for America’s current political climate. I’m all for bleak endings especially in horror films, but this may be the one time I genuinely don’t want a downbeat ending. I’ll eventually gather enough courage to check it out.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ (Marvel/Disney) — At this point the MCU films have to be graded on a curve since Marvel has yet to release a “bad” movie. In any case, ‘Vol. 2’ is on equal footing with ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ in Marvel’s “sequels that are better than the original” league. The film somehow manages to supersede its predecessor by not only being funnier and more exciting, but also having more emotional depth with its surprisingly deep take on toxic masculinity, childhood abuse, sibling rivalry, and dysfunctional family dynamics. I felt all the feels.
‘Blade Runner 2049’ (Warner Bros./Columbia) — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; ‘Blade Runner’ didn’t need a sequel. But in 2017 it got one and it’s better than it has any right to be. In fact, calling it a “sequel” feels like a cheap understatement when what it should be called is a “companion film” to the original, akin to ‘The Godfather Part II’. It’s a wholly original work of art that avoids the pitfalls of Hollywood’s latest “soft reboot syndrome” while offering a solid continuation of the story arc from the 1982 previously underrated masterpiece. Ryan Gosling excels as the neo-noir hero and Harrison Ford gives what is probably his most emotionally believable performance in the span of his 40+ year acting career. If you missed it in the theaters (and most of you did judging from the box office numbers), don’t miss watching it now.
‘Logan’ (Fox)— This past year saw a plethora of films that deconstructed their own mythos and/or genre, with ‘Logan’ being the forerunner. The movie is a gritty dismantling of the comic book superhero film trope in the same way that Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film ‘Unforgiven’ was a demythifying critique on the American Western. With a tone and setting so bleak, dirty, nihilistic, and misanthropic, it’s easy to forget the film comes from the same series that, among other things, had costumed superhumans fighting atop the Statue of Liberty. Hugh Jackman gives an uncompromising performance so profound that despite playing the role for over two decades, this is the closest he has ever gotten to faithfully portraying the titular anti-hero from the comics. Along with Patrick Stewart giving his final turn as Charles Xavier that is devastatingly soul crushing, it’s a relief to see the two biggest stars of the series finally get their long overdue swan songs. But it was the final shot at the end that managed to do what 17 years of mediocre X-Men films never could accomplish — fill my eyes with tears.
‘It’ (Warner Bros.) — 2017 saw the dawn of a Stephen King Renaissance after having spent the last two decades adapting his books into cheap tv-movies, miniseries and straight-to-video/DVD releases. The year had not one but TWO big screen King adaptations — one of them being good and the other featured Matthew McConaughey’s worst performance since ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4’ (watch this 28-second clip. You’re Welcome.) The good one was an excellent translation of the 1986 novel that managed to faithfully capture King’s magic to film while fixing some of the more “problematic” elements from the novel. Having the film focus solely on the characters as kids instead of featuring scenes of them as adults is a major improvement, especially compared to the 1990 miniseries we all grew up on. Speaking of which, compared to Tim Curry’s creepy yet campy evil clown, Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Pennywise is unnervingly terrifying with a more nuanced depiction of the villain as an otherworldly malevolent alien; Skarsgård is Heath Ledger to Curry’s Jack Nicholson. Hopefully the filmmakers can repeat their skilled craftsmanship for the yet unmade part-two…and get it done before King slips back into irrelevancy.
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ (Disney/Lucasfilm) — Never has film I’ve like made so exhausted in having to defend why I like it. Episode VIII has gone down as the most divisive Star Wars film to be released and has divided the fandom so drastically that you’d swear it was the 2016 presidential election all over again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to repeat this: the movie was good. Damn good. Was it flawless? Not even close, but no great film is. Do I agree with every decision it made? Absolutely not…but I respect director Rian Johnson’s bold tenacity to stand by his choices when faced with the backlash. Do I think it’s the best Star Wars film? No…but I believe it is ONE of the best films in the series. Episode VIII practically rewrote the book on subverting audience expectations which is why so many angry fanboys are quick to wreak havoc because their theories were proven to be wrong. Ironically, it seems many of these dissidents have completely missed the film’s entire message on how romanticizing the past and deifying your heroes will always lead to disappointment. As I previously mentioned, 2017 was the year of films deconstructing their own mythology or their entire genre, with ‘The Last Jedi’ disassembling Star Wars’ perfunctory tropes regarding everything being connected and having a special purpose. It’s kind of amusing when you realize that the film with the most nihilistic view on existentialism that came out this year is NOT ‘Logan’ but a Star Wars film. Lastly, I don’t care if you thought the Leia force gliding through the cold vacuum of space was stupid…this is the last time we will see Carrie Fisher not only as Leia Organa, but in any film, PERIOD. It’s been over a year and I’m still heartbroken over losing her. So lighten the fuck up, nerf-herders.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: ‘Wonder Woman’, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’
WORST MOVIES OF 2017
‘Baby Driver’ (Sony) — To paraphrase a quote I once heard, “music can be used to accompany, compliment, accentuate, enrich, identify, and inspire a film…but never to dictate one.” Basically what it means is that a film can have a good soundtrack, but having a good soundtrack doesn’t automatically make it a “good” film. That’s the problem with ‘Baby Driver’ — a film with about as much artistic vision as Pandora Radio. Nearly every film critic who reviewed it way too much on its “killer soundtrack” and completely overlooked that if you took away the music, you’d see how messy, dull, contrived, and uneven the actual movie was. It tries to be a cross between a Michael Mann crime thriller and a Nicholas Sparks romance drama…which goes about as well as you’d expect. I usually love director Edgar Wright’s work but ‘Baby Driver’ severely lacks the charm of his trademark dry British wit. And the soundtrack? It’s fine…if you like listening to a Spotify playlist of 70’s music on shuffle, created by a 23-year old hipster barista in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’ (Disney) — Aside from the original 2003 film, every ‘Pirates’ film released has been the cinematic equivalent of a popcorn fart: rotten, loud, crude, infrequent, produced by excessive consumption, and released for packed movie theaters to endure. But while the last three movies were raging dumpster fires, at their core they were still somewhat fun in a dumb but harmless way. ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ however is neither dumb fun nor an enjoyable inferno to witness — it’s just sad. Seriously, it’s not immensely godawful as much as it’s downright depressing. Part of this comes from watching Johnny Depp slog through the entire movie like a mentally deranged homeless man on a diet of Thunderbird wine and Dunhill cigarettes. We also see the most respectable actor in the franchise, Geoffrey Rush, visibly checked out yet still giving five-times the effort than Depp does. Javier Bardem shows up as a villain so bafflingly forgettable, you won’t even notice or care how he’s a complete facsimile of the last two villains in the series. Why are you still doing this, Disney? You have both Marvel and Star Wars basically putting food on your table, yet somehow you’re not satisfied until you have three franchises making the donuts? So you’d rather continue using an accused wife beater with a public image that plummeted like an anvil since last year and are completely fine with him being shitfaced 18-hours a day before showing up eight hours late to set where he is fed his lines through an earpiece?You know what…to say anything more about this bloated whale carcass franchise gives it way more attention than it deserves.
‘The Mummy’ (Universal)— This isn’t so much a movie as it’s a step-by-step visual playbook for film studios on “How *NOT* To Do A Cinematic Universe”. This year, Universal Studios redefined the old expression “putting the cart before the horse” with just two words: Dark Universe. The studio intended to beat Marvel at its own game by creating an expanded film universe around the iconic Universal Monsters with ‘The Mummy’ being the inaugural entry. The result is a nauseating hodgepodge of half-assed and half-baked ideas clumped together in what bears only a passing resemblance to an actual “movie”, with more effort being spent on the shameless world building of the Dark Universe than on the movie itself. And when the film isn’t being a two-hour teaser trailer for movies that haven’t even been cast yet, it swings back and forth frantically trying to decide whether it’s a horror film, an action film, a superhero film, or a sci-fi fantasy epic. Also at some point, Tom Cruise needs to come to grips that at age 55, he has stop using whatever Xenu-approved age reversing machine that’s making him look not a day older than 39. It’s unnaturally creepy for a man pushing 60 to look the way he does; he’s the first real-life human to enter the Uncanny Valley. Your wax figure at Madame Tussauds shouldn’t look older than you currently are. Everybody goes through a midlife crisis…but instead of buying a Porsche 911 and dating a 24-year old yoga instructor, Cruise had Russell Crowe in one scene refer to his character as “a young man” (despite Crowe being a year younger). That is the most hilariously awful line in the entire movie.
Also, to the surprise of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, it’s been reported that Universal’s Dark Universe is pretty much deader than both Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr.. This make it the second time in a row Alex Kurtzman has completely fucked up developing a cinematic universe for a major Hollywood studio; you’d think at least one studio exec would’ve caught on. Wonder who he’ll con next…
‘Mother!’ (Paramount) — There was a brief window of time where I along with many others believed Jennifer Lawrence was a “good” actor after she won the Oscar for ‘Silver Linings Playbook’. That window quickly shut after seeing her next performance in ‘American Hustle’. But there’s no further proof necessary for the Academy to reconsider awarding her the gold statue than her performance in ‘Mother!’. To be fair, she’s not the worst thing about this film…that honor goes to Brooklyn douchebag-turned-auteur filmmaker, Darren Aronofsky. For some reason, ‘Mother!’ was marketed as a psychological horror when in reality it’s a surreal black comedy with Biblical allegories as subtle as an Abrams tank soaked in kerosene crashing through a meth lab. Lawrence represents Mother Nature, her husband Javier Bardem is God, Ed Harris is Adam, Michelle Pfeiffer is Eve–you get the picture. As the story progresses, more and more people show up to Lawrence’s house claiming to be “fans” of her husband’s work, two brothers fight, others start recklessly remodeling the house, stealing belongings, debating the husband’s work, and so on. A baby is born, then killed by the followers who proceed in eating its flesh — there, I just spoiled the film’s most shocking and oh-so disturbing scene. BUT DO YOU GET IT???? DO YOU GET IT??? Uh, yeah, I get it. What I don’t get is how this pretentious septic tank explosion comes from the same director behind ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Requiem for a Dream’. Sorry, J-Law…your Hollywood relevancy clock struck five more minutes to midnight.
‘Rough Night’ (Sony) — If there is one film I saw this year that made me lose my shit for the most trivial reasons, it’s ‘Rough Night’. I’ll get to that in a second…
There were two films released this year both featuring a cast women going on a trip and cutting loose with comedic results — ‘Girls Trip’ and ‘Rough Night’. The difference between them was ‘Girls Trip’ featured a cast of predominantly Black women and with the women of ‘Rough Night’ were nearly all White — and while many are afraid to address the elephant in the room, it’s true that ‘Girls Trip’ had a larger audience of Black women than White and vice versa with ‘Rough Night’. Race demographics aside, I’ve had the misfortune of watching both films and I can confirm that both of them are atrocious trainwrecks…but ‘Rough Night’ was WAY worse. I honestly wish Hollywood would stop using ‘Bridesmaids’ as the template for every irreverent comedy featuring an all female cast as the bridal party run amok trope was already pretty dated when they did it back in 2011. ‘Rough Night’ instead is more of a loose remake of the 1998 Peter Berg-directed black comedy, ‘Very Bad Things’, in which a bachelorette party in Miami goes off the rails when one of them accidentally kills the supposed male stripper. The girls endure never ending obstacles while attempting to hide the body which doesn’t matter because the film ends with the most infuriating deus ex machina I have ever seen in the history of storytelling. It doesn’t matter what the ex machina is as it appears offscreen and is shamelessly described via exposition after the plot flashing ahead in the timeline. There are many dismal things I could point out in this film (e.g. What point was there for Kate McKinnon to be Australian?) but none of them come close to match how maddening it was to sit through the entire goddamn movie only for its cop out ending to insult the intelligence of myself and everyone in the theater.
GODDAMNIT, just writing about it makes me furious! Fuck this movie, fuck the time it took from me, fuck the time I spent writing its entry on this list, and fuck Deus ex Machinas.
DIS-HONORABLE MENTIONS: ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Alien: Covenant’, ‘Baywatch’, ‘CHiPs’
Well, that does it for now. I should have Part 2 — which lists the year’s best political comedy and Late Night hosts — hopefully finished no later than the first week of the New Year.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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