Sam’s Top Ten Movies of 2019

It’s almost hard to believe how far movies have taken us in a decade, and I could bring up an endless amount of metrics to show it. For example, we received twenty-one feature films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yet over only three movies we observed the complete arc of a boy coming of age with his dragon. In only one movie did we watch a boy coming of age over twelve consecutive years. Cloud Atlas pulled us through generations, Interstellar catapulted us across the universe and back, and the Minions continue to lead us further from God each day.

The power of film is the ability to collapse or expand time and space, in turn expanding our consciousness (thank you, Arrival). The biggest trick cinema pulled on me this decade was allowing me to experience over a century of stories from across any number of different nations and cultures, covering more ideas and situations than even a million imaginations could hold. At end of 2009, I was mainly interested in whatever Pixar or Seth Rogen was doing. By the end of 2013, I was so curious about movies I started this blog. In 2019, I can say film was the most pervasive and consistent force in my life over these ten years, and has vastly changed the way I see the world. That change in vision is why I named this blog 20/20 Film, and it’s why I’m still eager to post my top 10 going into the year 2020.

It’s funny, but looking over my list of this year’s best films, the word “distance” kept coming up. At the end of a ten-year journey, it makes sense that I as an individual, maybe we as a culture, are using cinema to measure the seemingly insurmountable chasms that exist in our world. Physical, temporal, economic, emotional or philosophical – almost all of 2019’s best movies stare across the great divides that have shaken our culture and fractured our globe. They ask what it might take to bridge them over the next decade, and they certainly assert through their sheer power that no distance is out of imagination’s reach.

Here are my top 10 movies of 2019:

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10. Spider-Man: Far From Home

I tend to see most of the superhero movies that clog theaters yearly, but very few inspire me as works of art. Yet for some reason this is the second year in a row Peter Parker finds his way onto my top 10 list. This is a testament both to Sony’s efforts to turn things around after years of spinning their wheels, and to Marvel’s commitment to fresh storytelling even after the gargantuan Avengers: Endgame concluded an unprecedented experiment in franchise film-making. I tried to find a way to take this movie off my list, but at the end of the day I have to be honest with myself: this is my favorite MCU entry since the original Iron Man in 2008, and my favorite live-action Spider-Man film. I also think it’s genuinely the best and most deceptively innovative blockbuster of the year.

Spider-Man: Far From Home nails the tricky balancing act that the franchise has long swung for, working both as a breezy action film and an earnest coming-of-age story. Throughout the film, director Jon Watts plays with the physical distance between Tom Holland’s Peter and Zendaya’s MJ, in order to to encapsulate the vulnerability of young love while blowing it up to a suitably ‘epic’ scale (doesn’t young love always feel larger than it is?) I found myself caring more about Peter Parker’s interpersonal dynamics than whether or not he defeats the villain… because by this point, we all know the villain will lose. This is where movie goes even further, using its villain (Jake Gyllenhaal, giving it his Gyllen-all) to comment on the fake stakes of these movies in a genuinely subversive way.

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9. Fyre

Chris Smith’s Fyre was one of 2019’s earliest releases, dropping on Netflix on January 18th, mere days after Hulu launched their own film (Fyre Fraud) about the same ill-conceived and 100% fraudulent  music festival that literally left hundreds of attendees stranded on Pablo Escobar’s island in the Bahamas. The early battle between these two documentaries was already a harbinger for a year that would see intense jockeying for dominance between a number of new streaming services like Apple TV+ and Disney+, with about a million more on the way. Despite arriving on screens so soon into the year, what’s surprising is that Fyre still stands out in retrospect as one of the ‘most 2019’ movies of 2019… maybe less of a surprise when looking back at Smith’s innate ability to connect his cinematic subjects to the present moment in unexpectedly profound ways.

As much as it’s a true crime expose, this film also works as a disaster movie. Nobody is physically hurt, but that’s exactly the point. As a look at social media exploitation, Smith shines a light on predatory behavior allowed to go on far too long because the perpetrators are given enough digital distance that maintaining a poker face becomes obsolete. If the seminal Catfish started the decade with a bang, Fyre shows what happens when a Catfishing scenario is amplified to thousands. The film being co-produced by the same company that helped perpetuate the crimes depicted is just another layer to how much of a wild west the internet can still be. A twisted, Schadenfeude-heavy look at the dark side of ‘influencer culture’ and false advertising, the movie manages to be exceptionally accessible without resorting to easy observations.

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8. Knives Out

When talking about Rian Johnson’s gleeful whodunit, which doubles as an astute parable for the deadly divide between haves and have-nots, there’s the urge to toss out the phrase “they don’t make them like this anymore.” To do so would not only be dangerously banal, it would be wholly inaccurate. Sure, Knives Out utilizes plenty of old-fashioned genre tropes, but it’s a movie that could only be made in 2019. It is a product out-of-time, at once a beautifully rendered love letter to Agatha Christie-style mysteries of the past, and a reminder that we should not necessarily allow the the past to define our future (Johnson got shouted down two years ago for conveying that same vital message in his Star Wars film). It’s simultaneously forward-thinking and backwards-looking writing, and as a result it lands perfectly in the present moment.

Knives Out fires on all cylinders: the narrative mechanics are astoundingly fresh, the pacing is excellent, the ensemble cast is the year’s absolute best (highlights being Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas and Toni Collette), the framing and set design is astonishing in both its grandiosity and its winking thematic functionality, and composer Nathan Johnson finds the perfect calibration of old and new to underpin it all. The film never quite reaches Alfred Hitchcock-levels of surprise or suspense, but it’s never anything less than fully engrossing. That a project this entertaining is also able to pummel audiences with such a direct dosage of meaning is another example of how Johnson isn’t merely ‘throwing back’; he’s charting a new course for mainstream filmmaking.

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7. The Lighthouse

Cramped and cold, The Lighthouse is an unforgettable bout of second-hand cabin fever that descends rapidly into unpredictable levels of madness, especially for a director only on his second feature. The Witch‘s Robert Eggers clearly loves the atmospherics of horror with all his heart, but he understands that stringently following the genre playbook can limit the potential of the deeply eerie, frigid ambiance he would like to seep into your bones. Instead, he throws genre aside (until he finds a good enough use for it) and instead emerges with a grotesque concoction that might not be brilliant, but it is so original and uncompromising that it may as well be. It’s a cold splash of sea spray to the face, and though that won’t be everyone’s idea of a good time, it makes for an invigorating jolt.

On one level, the film is fairly basic. Take two men, trap them on a tiny island, have a ball. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe give tour de force performances in enigmatic, meaty roles that have them spouting some of the most outlandish and quotable lines of the last few years. The script is play-like in its construction, with two very different but equally volatile people given zero distance from each other. The result is a slow-burning powder keg of humor, terror and emotional catharsis that ends up at a conclusion that, against all odds, seems utterly inevitable in hindsight. Bolstered by Eggers’ emphasis on authentic set design and claustrophobic cinematography, The Lighthouse is an instant classic… even if it’s impossible to nail down why or how.

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6. Paddleton

Netflix made some great decisions this year, but they also continued to make a lot of baffling ones. Besides for the objective crime of cancelling BoJack Horseman, they tossed Alexandre Lehmann’s newest movie out into the ether way back in February with zero fanfare. Every time a big new show or film comes to the service, you have a fair amount of people confused as to why they didn’t see the film pop up on their specific landing page. The problem here is that the movie was so egregiously ignored by the company that the staff probably didn’t even realize it was there to advertise. To be fair, the premise of two socially inept friends who eat pizza all day, except one of them has cancer and the other is Ray Romano, maybe isn’t the easiest to market. But letting this movie escape any sort of spotlight is a wrong that I am happy to have a chance to right.

Like The Lighthouse (I would never think about making this connection if they weren’t next to each other on this list), Paddleton relies almost solely on the power of its two lead actors (Romano and Mark Duplass) as the layers of their relationship slowly unravel via an odd, bitter mixture of drama and comedy. The tone hews close to the tried and true Sundance-style mumblecore indie formula, and that will not be comfortable for many. However, I was rewarded for my patience with one of the rawest emotional experiences I’ve seen in a movie this year. The script is daring in its look at death and disease, and playing with the surprising psychological gaps that can form between someone with plenty of time left and someone with little of it. I know I’m not exactly selling it here, but you might just find your new favorite hidden gem – I know I have.

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5. The Farewell

The plot of Lulu Wang’s The Farewell revolves around a premature funeral disguised as a wedding. That might sound grim, but Wang plays the same reversal twice, crafting a movie about the joys of life disguised as a movie about the terrors of death. There is no antagonist in this elegant script other than the ever-present specter of death, but the movie manages to feel as gripping and cathartic as any CG-laden battle scene 2019 could throw at us. The hook is that Billi (Awkwafina, in a career-stretching role) and her entire family have converged in China to see the family matriarch Nai Nai one last time, even though Nai Nai is the only person there who doesn’t know she’s dying of cancer. The vast, lonesome distance between what the characters feel and what they can say in this situation (accentuated by the physical dislocation Billi feels as a Chinese-American back in her birth country) creates tension so thick it practically deserves its own credit.

The Farewell is a rather minimalist production but it’s astoundingly well-rounded, with arresting shot composition from Anna Franquesa Solano, a mesmerizing score by Alex Weston and a stand-out performance from Zhao Shuzhen as Nai Nai, the woman of the hour. The direction is muted in such a way that it’s impact is allowed to sneak up on the viewer over time, rather than winking at them to clutch a box of tissues the entire time. As with Paddleton, the movie is an expert example of taking some of the most serious subject matter and drawing consistent and unexpected laughs out of it. This is perhaps the most accomplished and life-affirming American ‘tragicomedy’ since 2011’s 50/50, and Wang achieves this feat by sticking to elemental storytelling practices rather than trying to force laughs or tears. As a result, she earns both from the audience.

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4. Toy Story 4

Though this decade saw Pixar struggle to hold onto their perch atop the animation landscape, it’s fascinating to compare the two Toy Story movies that book-end the decade. Many (including myself) saw 2010’s Toy Story 3 as the prime example of how to conclude a trilogy, so (compounded by Pixar’s output of underwhelming franchise follow-ups like Cars 2, Monsters University, Finding Dory and Cars 3) Toy Story 4 had a lot working against it. It had to not only prove the third film wasn’t the spotless ending to the narrative, but that it could provide an equally satisfying finale in its place. Only, the genius of this movie is that it didn’t have to do any of that. Toy Story 3 is still the ending of the trilogy; Toy Story 4  works as a hilarious, heartfelt epilogue that reminds us that a great ending doesn’t mean one shouldn’t strive for a great new beginning.

If the first three films were the fully-realized portrait of the relationship between a boy and his favorite toys, Toy Story 4 might as well have been titled “Woody,” as it turns its attention to the psychology of Tom Hanks’ plastic cowboy independent from his owner for the first time. In a way, Woody’s arc in this movie is like a conversation with fans over it’s own reason for existing – we will always have the good times, but it’s dangerous to define ourselves by what came before (forming a surprising thematic kinship with Knives Out). The movie uses this idea of the dangers of nostalgia in smart ways, placing a good portion of the movie in an eerie antique store to illustrate what happens when the past is put on a (literal) pedestal. The film’s strengths, meanwhile, lie in the new – mainly Forky, who is not only a great new character but a symbol of determining one’s own meaning and choosing a reason to exist rather than searching for a predetermined one.

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3. Apollo 11

Apollo 11 isn’t only one of the most important documentaries of the decade, it’s an essential text that should shown in every classroom, and that each human should see once before they die. The label ‘awe-inspiring’ is rarely so accurate, as awe is the inescapable reaction to this movie’s impeccable reconstruction of the Apollo 11 Moon mission. It’s well worth pointing out that director Todd Douglas Miller also edited the film, as there’s no better an example of a film’s editing being the dominant force in a story. We all know that we got to the moon, but the way Miller cuts the footage together – the way he paces the film to demonstrate the tremendous effort, horrifying risk and species-defining success the mission still represents 50 years later – is nothing short of masterful. You are made to experience the distance between Earth and the Moon in a way that puts human existence into perspective – I imagine the movie provides a tiny dosage of the same wonder the astronaut’s themselves must have felt.

It helps that the movie was literally five decades in the making, consisting largely of never-before-seen archival footage, some of it on staggeringly beautiful 70mm film. While the film appears to be hyper-focused on the technical details of the mission (and with good reason), an extra layer of depth is added through little inclusions that vividly demonstrate what the culture of the time was like, transporting the audience not just to the Moon but to 1969 in a truly immersive manner. While there are jaw-dropping shots from Kennedy Space Center, such as the giant Mobile Launcher Platform that held Saturn V before takeoff, some of the most memorable moments consist of close-ups on faces or large shots of crowds eager to witness the pinnacle of human technological might. It’s as though someone shot the footage specifically for a 2019 audience, a sign of Miller’s ability to select every single shot with painstaking care.

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2. Marriage Story

Before 2019, each and every one of Noah Baumbach’s narrative films have centered on a person or people who are stunted to the say the least. He’s one of the undisputed kings of unlikable protagonists both young and old, woman and man, but his insistence on making us care about people we shouldn’t particularly aspire to has always been admirable. With Marriage Story, Baumbach not only perfects his brand of vulnerable humor, he pushes himself into new territory by telling the story of two genuinely good people who are driven to terrible behavior by the callous ‘industry’ of divorce. It’s only natural this would make for his most empathetic and believable film to date, with help from excellent and evenly-matched lead performances from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, with memorable support from Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda.

As is usually the case with Baumbach, the writing is the main attraction. He has explored divorce before, but never with this level of incisiveness and heart-wrenching authenticity. He methodically build a case study for what happens when an extreme, emotionally charged situation is met with equally extreme apathy from just about everyone else, expertly breaking down familiar scenarios that are easy to shrug off as ‘dirty laundry’ when viewed from the outside. One of the smartest moves was to set the story on both U.S. coasts as an external manifestation of the emotional distance forming between Nicole and Charlie and the tug-of-war they’re forced into playing. The breakdown in communication and decency, often a deep-seated feature of Baumbach characters, is here treated as a force out of any one person’s control, but never out of one’s ability to grapple with.

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1. Parasite

I’m going to be honest. This year wasn’t the best for movies in my opinion. There were plenty of very good ones, but only a small handful of truly great films (hence, Spider-Man on my list). However, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite singlehandedly redeems 2019. That would be the case even if it were the only movie to come out this year; it’s really that good. Sure to be one of the defining films of the 2010s years from now, this Korean masterwork is so confident, so clear in what it needs to say, so uninhibited by the desire to fit into a box, that it defies any expectation one could bring to it. Drama, comedy, horror, social commentary – this movie does everything without ever feeling cluttered, thanks to an intense focus that Bong has been working towards his entire career. There are comparisons to be made, such as Get Out or Bong’s own Snowpiercer, but there’s also the sense nothing so singular should ever have escaped someone’s head with such clarity.

Endlessly entertaining but so universally meaningful that one can feel the heartbeat of the entire world echoing in its tragic, heightened depiction of class inequality, Parasite does not pull a single punch. Putting aside its metaphorical value, the movie is directed, shot and edited with about as much skill as you can find in the arts. It’s an efficient thriller in its own right, thoroughly crowd-pleasing in spite of its dour themes and sometimes shocking content. In addition to the superb (and often insanely funny use of imagery) and a showstopping sequence in the center that’s more intense than the entirety of most movies, there’s also an exceptionally skilled cast backing everything up. All told, this movie sets a new bar for the medium by blindsiding the audience with a societal struggle so familiar and heartbreaking it almost defies words.

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As always, there are more than 10 movies from 2019 that deserve a look. Among those that didn’t make my list, I’d like to mention At The Heart of Gold by Erin Lee Carr, Joker by Todd Phillips and American Factory by Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert. I would also like to give a shout-out to media that do not qualify as feature films, but would certainly be near the top of this list if they did. These are unmissable experiences that I would recommend to anyone: HBO’s Chernobyl (created by Craig Mazin, directed by Johan Renck) and I Am Easy To Find (directed by Mike Mills).

See you in 2020!

Sam’s Top Ten Movies of 2018

Looking over my list of favorite films of 2018, I am shocked yet relieved to see the amount of optimism present. It isn’t that all of these are ‘happy movies’; in fact most of them deal with pain or trauma in some way. However, most refuse to revel in that anguish, finding life-affirming paths to catharsis and, or at least a willingness to keep moving forward. It has been noted that this year has been marked by films that deal with the social strife we have been facing for a couple years by simply portraying kindness and compassion on screen in all its glory. Certainly, this can be seen in some of the most popular and acclaimed films of the year: Paddington 2, The Incredibles 2, Crazy Rich Asians and RBG (as well as a few of the films of my list) are all examples of movies unafraid to weaponize positivity and illustrate the best in people.

Another detail I noticed is how friendly my list (and those that just missed my list) is towards new filmmakers. Four of the films on my top 10 are from first-time feature directors (including my #1), mingling alongside many masters of their craft, who in 2018 put forth some of the best work of their long careers. This dialogue between new talent and old talent looks a lot like a dynamic shift, in which a new generation of storytellers are speaking up and providing impassioned takes on the world as they see it now. Taken together, cinema in 2018 had a lot to say about what it takes to do the right thing, and where some go wrong along the way. While not without excursions into darkness, a message of hope persevered at the movies this year, and there is solace in that, at least.

Here are my top ten movies of 2018:

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10. Mid90s

I did not expect Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s to be much more than a pretentious vanity project, with Hill (known for silly comedies such as Superbad, 21 Jump Street and This is the End) recreating bits and pieces of his childhood for no other reason than because he had the means to do so.  I was shocked, then, to find his film is not merely an empty nostalgia exercise, but a soulful and achingly believable depiction of hazy male adolescence. The film follows teen skaters reckoning with preconceived notions of masculine identity and what those ideals mean for who they want to be. Though the protagonist is young, naive Stevie (a breakout role for Sunny Suljic), Hill gives ample time and attention to all the members of the skate group, building multiple interior lives to sell the idea that these boys have found in each other — and in skateboarding — what they couldn’t in their broken families and socioeconomic strife.

Hill demonstrates acute directorial skills in the way he thrusts audiences into Stevie’s small shoes through smart camera choices. There are moments where Hill shoots Suljic in stark close-up (the effect amplified by the 4:3 aspect ratio, pretentious in concept but powerful in execution) to demonstrate Steve’s growing self-confidence in moments of what feel to him like larger-than-life triumphs. Other times, Hill pulls the camera out and we realize how physically diminutive and fragile Stevie is, how out-of-place he is in a world where physical pain is a constant presence, on and off the board. Hill uses sly framing such as this to show how one kid can feel big, small, terrified, invincible, broken, reborn… all over the course of one summer. Comedy and drama is balanced wonderfully to complete an acute portrait of teen angst and brotherhood on the fringes of society, placed in a tactile ’90s time capsule that is composed and authentic.

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9. Tully

Director Jason Reitman re-teams with screenwriter Diablo Cody for the third time following 2007’s indie hit Juno and the brilliant-yet-divisive Young Adult (2011) for their best collaboration yet. Tully is a smart, touching and darkly comedic look at motherhood, with a creative twist that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but certainly leaves a lasting impression. Charlize Theron gives one of the best performances of her career as Marlo, a mother of two with another on the way, struggling to keep it together with little help from her aloof husband. Solace comes in the form of night nanny Tully (Mackenzie Davis), who reminds Theron of the independent young woman she once was. Marlo is reluctant to let Tully too far into her life, but their bond grows in fascinating ways over the course of a movie that is equal parts hilarious, tragic and graceful.

The relationship between Marlo and Tully always feels somewhat stilted, which leaves the audience uncomfortable and may feel like a bizarre miscalculation by Reitman and Cody.  By the end, however, the strained bond between these two women is revealed to be a calculated, purposeful decision meant to hammer home the script’s powerful and universal central themes. Much of Marlo’s journey is about her struggle to accept that she can no longer access the life she has lost now that she has children, and Davis’ Tully is central to that quest. The film’s bold, unexpected finale allows for a warmth and wisdom that Reitman and Cody never quite achieved with their previous projects, and it feels like the ending to a loose trilogy of sorts: If Juno was about learning to grow up, and Young Adult was about what happens when one refuses to do so, Tully is about accepting that one has already grown up, and that there is peace in that acceptance.

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8. Three Identical Strangers

Tim Wardle’s first feature film Three Identical Strangers is an admittedly traditional documentary, with what feels like a never-ending series of twists crammed into a story that already begins in ‘stranger than fiction’ mode. The film starts by recounting the fateful days in 1980 in which three young men discover that they each have two identical brothers they didn’t know existed. Their lives are forever altered as they become ‘The Triplets’, minor celebrities of sorts, who revel in a coincidence so wild one could not dream it up. As the story progresses, Wardle keeps peeling back layers and throws into question what ‘coincidence’ really means in this oddball case, and what the implications of the brothers’ surprise reunion are. The movie ends up broaching heady moral questions far removed from the fully entertaining fantasy that kicks the story off.

It’s Wardle’s skill in guiding the audience from having fun into full-on thought-provoking territory that makes for such a thrilling, visceral ride. The sense of discovery – and the joy and outrage that can come with it – is felt by the audience along with the brothers as they recount their entire jaw-dropping odyssey. This is one of those superbly engrossing documentaries that gets its hooks in early and does not let go until after the credits roll. Wardle doesn’t break any ground formally, using a usual blend of talking heads, archival footage and filmed recreations, but the structure is sculpted to perfection to ensure the story never drags and the audience is always in the head-space the film wants them to be in. It’s a commanding movie, but also an inviting one. It entices audiences with a single, intriguing ‘what if?’, but leaves them with multiples ‘whys?’ to chew on.

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7. BlacKkKlansman

2018 was a banner year for cinema featuring an astute look at race relations in the United States from multiple intriguing perspectives, be it (among others) Barry Jenkins’ gorgeous Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk, Boots Riley’s visionary Sorry to Bother You, or Carlos Lopes Estrada’s brilliant Blindspotting. In comparison, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is one of the least subtle takes on the African American experience this year had to offer, but it’s also the most direct, impassioned and effective. This is a blunt weapon of a film; Lee has never been one to tip-toe around racial injustice, but he is angrier than ever, and it shows. This may be his most vicious, no-holds-barred movie over a long career, but it’s also one of his funniest. He and his co-writers oscillate between violent terror and an almost slapstick comedic sensibility, which is one of the hardest things for any movie to accomplish. Lee makes it look easy.

It’s clear the film takes liberties in adapting Ron Stallworth’s memoir about his infiltration of the KKK despite being a black man, but this wild true story is a jumping-off point to create a literal metaphor for the racial division in our country, specifically with regards to the 2017 Charlottesville rally and ensuing murder. By the end, the Southern, ’70s period piece trappings dissolve, so that what has happened onscreen becomes a convincing fun-house mirror for the brutal reality of hatred and ignorance that exists in the present. With easily the most blindsiding, poignant conclusion of any movie this year, BlacKkKlansman is an absolute masterwork from Spike Lee, and a notable return to form. With exceptional performances from John David Washington, Adam Driver and Topher Grace (as KKK Grand Wizard David Duke), and a monumental score from Terence Blanchard, this is one of 2018’s most auspicious and essential creations.

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6. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

Believe it or not, Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is the most daring feat of animation Hollywood has released since the dawn of CGI with 1995’s Toy Story. This will never not sound like an overstatement but, despite featuring a superhero who has six previous movies to his name, it doesn’t take long to realize that this film is something truly special, even revolutionary. It’s a dynamic visual experience that houses a rock-solid, emotional story with a unique message that resonates now more than ever. Perhaps taking cues from animated greats such as The Lion King, the movie is also unafraid to be dark and dramatic. Death occurs in this PG movie, and it is treated with the sort of gravity an R-rated superhero flick like Deadpool 2 wouldn’t go near. Here, the iconic Spider-Man mantra “with great power comes great responsibility” is taken to surprising new territory, supposing ‘with great loss comes infinite possibility’.

The movie was produced by Phil Lord & Chris Miller and co-written by the former, and their fingerprints are all over this creation. They continue to create on the cutting edge of animation as they did with the cult TV series Clone High and 2014’s The Lego Movie. As with all their projects, the key to Spider-Verse‘s success beyond its extraordinary animation is its sense of anarchic fun, letting the audience in on the innate ridiculousness of the whole endeavor (the plot involves multiple Spider-men from alternate dimensions banding together). For all the maturity of its themes, the movie never forgets its main goal is to entertain. Not only are the characters in the film self-aware, they are self-aware of their self-awareness, and this allows for a playfulness and reflexivity many in mainstream comedy try to imitate, but few can master. Rounded off with a thunderous score, eye-popping action sequences and an amazing voice cast, this film raises the bar for both CGI animation and the over-saturated superhero genre.

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5. Minding the Gap 

As with Mid90s, Minding the Gap follows a group of friends who attempt to escape familial havoc via skateboarding. This remarkable debut from Bing Liu is a powerful documentary that pierces into three real lives and seemingly leaves no emotional rock unturned. Liu is fearless in his willingness to uncover his and his friends’ vulnerabilities, which is all the more fascinating because vulnerability is a trait often looked down upon by young men in their Rust Belt community. Bing, Keire and Zack are very different individuals, yet the similarities between their lives paint a wider picture of how toxic ideals of masculinity can echo through generations and break apart families and psyches. It’s a revalatory look at the different ways people deal with abuse, with Liu using his camera as a physical and metaphorical shield to reckon with his own demons.

Liu also serves as cinematographer and editor, and in both aspects the film is pristine. The outstanding, fluid skate footage suggests a level of grace and control that directly juxtaposes the ugly, volatile realities of the subjects’ past and present, and the equally fluid way the film plays around with chronology (Liu shot over the course of many years) provides audiences a deeper intimacy with each of them. The film tackles increasingly thorny subject matter that is especially resonant in a post-MeToo world, but it does so with such care and compassion that, again, it’s hard to believe this is the work of a first-time director. More accurately, this feels like the work of a master filmmaker in the making, like a young Errol Morris or Frederick Wiseman. Bing Liu is a name to watch, as is his Hulu Original Documentary, available on that streaming platform now.

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4. Roma

Acclaimed director Alfonso Cuaron has always been fascinated by the thin line between life and death, most significantly in 2006’s Children of Men (where the entire human race hangs in the balance) and his previous film Gravity, which followed an imperiled astronaut on a quest to survive. With Roma (his greatest creation), Cuaron takes a big step back in terms of scope, yet his musings on life and death feel no less grand. The film is a semi-autobiographical look back on Cuaron’s childhood in 1970’s Mexico City from the prospective of his nanny, here named Cleo and played by one of the year’s many breakout performers, Yalitza Aparicio. Cleo seems at first to be a straightforward or even listless protagonist, but as the film unfolds we get luminous glimpses into her inner being, revealing nuanced, heartrending and just plain beautiful character building.

The most astounding thing about the film, however, is the near-flawless cinematography, handled by Cuaron himself. This is one of the most dazzling movies of the decade, with some shots being absolutely mind-boggling in their choreography and density. The images feel at once meticulously composed yet wondrously chaotic, capturing life on a roaming scale from mundane to earth-shattering. Vivid is perhaps the best word to describe the film as a whole, celebrating life and death as one glorious kaleidoscope where incredible things unfold and can only be truly experienced in the moment. The naturalism of his filmmaking, with unobtrusive cutting and a gently roaming camera, further aids this paradoxical idea of life as something that must be experienced, not watched. As such, it’s exactly the type of film that actively makes you want to go and live.

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3. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Morgan Neville’s enthralling, good-natured and occasionally misty-eyed Fred Rogers documentary is a work of proud traditionalism. Old-fashioned documentary methods such as talking-head interviews and archival footage are employed and revitalized to tell stories of the past with a positive, forward-thinking spin. There’s very little gimmickry or embellishment at play here, and while this simple and unvarnished filmmaking could be seen as lazy or generic, what makes Neville’s film so powerful is how seamlessly he forms an honest bond with his late subject. Neville doesn’t just understand what Mr. Rogers stood for, he manifests the man’s spirit back onto the screen. And he does so through the people who knew Fred Rogers best. This works because, in a sense, the people who knew Fred best are Mr. Rogers. At least, that’s what he might have thought.

The neighborhood, the castle, the trolley, the jackets… these were all channels through which a genuine connection could be made, through which an open and sincere conversation (so rare, it seems, these days) could be started. And so, in this film, Neville simply stages conversation the way Fred would have wanted, talking about social issues through the lens of Rogers’ groundbreaking kids’ show. The wealth of astounding archival footage allows Neville to make it appear as though the ghost of Fred himself has chosen certain clips specifically for 2018 audiences to see. The effect is manipulative in exactly the right way, letting Fred speak to today’s world when we need his message of kindness and compassion more than ever. We may never have another man like Mr. Rogers, but Neville has made sure that the message can live on beyond the man.

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2. Shoplifters

Shoplifters is a staggeringly complex and absorbing drama from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, revolving around a family of scoundrels who come across a stray girl from an abusive family and decide to save her, by essentially kidnapping her. This moral quandary is intriguing enough to hold a film together on its own, but Kore-eda continuously reveals more and more about the characters’ circumstances, both past and present, until the shocking final scenes in which everything must be re-contextualized and re-processed. Though there are enough twists and turns to fill a thriller, the movie is remarkably patient, more concerned with illustrating a convincing and heartwarming bond between the various family members than anything else.

This is one of the rare films that stays with you long after you leave the theater, and this is solely because of the characters and their respective performances. There is not a single sour note among the entire cast, from the natural child actors Miyu Sasaki and Jyo Kairi, to those who Kore-eda has worked with in past films, especially the patriarch played by Lily Franky and the sly grandmother played by Kirin Kiki. Sakura Ando may be the standout here, her unreadable expressions (she seems to smile and frown at the same time) encapsulating the film’s gutsy moral ambiguity. By the end of the film, you don’t feel like you have merely spent time with this family, you feel like you’ve been initiated into it. To complete the film is to be taken from them, a kind of heartbreak all its own.

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1. Eighth Grade

No film this year – maybe this decade – has so effortlessly placed me into the psyche of a film’s protagonist as Bo Burnham’s directorial debut Eighth Grade, an instant teen classic that will stand as a voice of a generation for many of today’s internet-obsessed kids. Burnham’s smart, hilarious script follows awkward/earnest Kayla Day’s final days of middle school, as she attempts to come out of her shell while preparing for ninth grade and feuding with her equally awkward/earnest father played by Josh Hamilton. Like many kids her age, Kayla struggles with a weight she can’t see or understand, and she copes with this — again, like many kids her age — through social media. Specifically, Kayla creates YouTube videos in which she teaches others how to ‘be themselves’ or ‘be confident’. Nobody watches these videos, so she’s really only teaching herself.

Burnham’s direction is crafty, careening around Kayla to demonstrate the wooziness of feeling young and alone in one’s head. Burnham’s screenplay masterfully demonstrates  how, to a child, trivial interactions can feel like huge, deadly mountains to climb. Yet it’s Elsie Fisher’s performance as Kayla that serves as the film’s most awe-inspiring triumph. She’s a young actress playing a young girl, who in turn is playing many different roles in her attempts to fit in and find some sense of happiness and security. She overthinks, then she tries not to overthink, but this just causes her to overthink more… that Fisher is able to reach all these levels inside her character’s head and still portray the character as such a believable, singular presence is nothing short of amazing. The combination of her performance and Burnham’s sharp writing makes this the most incisive depiction of social anxiety ever put to film, and one of the great coming-of-age movies of our times.

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As usual, there are many more than 10 worthwhile movies that came out this year. Among those that didn’t make my list, I’d like to draw special attention to Blindspotting by Carlos Lopez Estrada, If Beale Street Could Talk by Barry Jenkins, A Quiet Place by John Krasinski, Shirkers by Sandi Tan, Leave No Trace by Debra Granik, The Tale by Jennifer Fox, Widows by Steve McQueen, Game Night by John Francis Daley & Jonathan M. Goldstein and Free Solo by Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.

See you in 2019!

Review: “Black Panther”

It’s impossible to overstate the intensity of the discussion built up around Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther, technically not the first black superhero movie but certainly the first mega-budget blockbuster directed by an African-American and featuring a predominately black cast beyond just the titular hero. Two weeks after its release, a bulk of the hype and the conversation has died down, although moviegoers continue to add to its box office reign in a big way. If there’s one factor that was impossible to deny before it even came out, and that is even more clear after seeing it, it’s that the film works best as an emblem of black representation and a symbol of black agency, and as an accessible but layered exploration of the multitudes of ideals, viewpoints and experiences that exist in black communities across the world.

That a Marvel movie can serve as the vehicle for these types of loaded, emotionally intense concepts is at once absurd and yet not all that surprising. There’s no more efficient way of reaching the widest possible audience than through a big accessible Disney blockbuster, despite the fact Marvel Studios (18 movies in at this point) is not often known for its attempts to grapple with challenging social issues or engage audiences with political metaphor (usually it’s just handsome actors punching things and stopping alien laser beams). Thus, the praise for Black Panther should be leveled mainly at director Ryan Coogler (of Fruitvale Station and Creed fame) for taking the well-worn Marvel formula, overlaying a vivid, unique sci-fi world, and then populating it with well-realized, relatable characters and heavy, grounded themes.

The unspoken goal of science fiction has always been to present an idealized or cautionary future in order to direct our collective imagination towards an optimal society. Believers in the real-life power of art would argue that in science fiction we first see the world as we hope/dread it will be. Then, somewhere down the line, real-life advances will be mapped onto those subconscious visions. Unfortunately, the continent of Africa and the African diaspora have been largely absent from the science fiction conversation over the decades. Coogler lays bare the injustice of this exclusion by demonstrating how far just a single powerful, badass depiction of an African future worth believing can go to spark the imaginations of generations of Africans and their descendants around the globe to seek to make this vision of strength and unity a reality.

Coogler is a believer in the power of movies to inspire real change, and that he was able to weaponize the unwieldy Disney machinery to this end is magnificent. Yet for all the ground it breaks, Black Panther harbors many of the Marvel franchise’s old flaws, ultimately making it Coogler’s weakest film on a technical and narrative level. Scenes proceed in a jarring, disjointed fashion well past the film’s first 30 minutes, by which point any decent plot should have found its central focus. Marvel is known for leaning heavily into its humor, but comedy has never been Coogler’s strong suit and the jokes here often fall flat, either because of faulty timing or faulty delivery. The effects, especially when it comes to green screen sets, are wildly inconsistent and sometimes atrocious, a shame given how richly detailed the architecture and costumes are.

Where the film really excels is in its casting, which goes a long way towards bringing a very bloated laundry list of characters to life (as thin as most are on the page). Lupita Nyong’o, Daniel Kaluuya, Danai Gurira and Andy Serkis are some of the highlights, but Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole take care to make sure absolutely everyone gets at least one memorable moment to stand out. The list of supporting characters goes on and on: Letitia Wright (an instant fan favorite), Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Martin Freeman, Sterling K. Brown, etc. One could argue that this mammoth roster is part of the reason the plot is often so unfocused, but there’s no denying the grandeur and scale that this multitude of stars brings to the screen.

The real story in terms of the characters is the main hero and villain. Chadwick Boseman’s regal stoicism as T’Challa, young king of the fictional, high-tech African nation of Wakanda, may rob him of some of the personality of his co-stars, but his composure and selflessness makes him a much needed counterpoint to some of Marvel’s other leading men, such as Robert Downey Jr.’s cocky Tony Stark or Tom Holland’s bumbling Peter Parker. More importantly, his dignified aura serves as an excellent contrast to Michael B. Jordan’s stand-out performance as the film’s central antagonist Erik Killmonger, who arrives in Wakanda from Oakland to claim the throne for himself. Jordan brings with him a brash, swaggering pathos that launches Killmonger to the top of Marvel’s pack of villains, which are usually bland, goofy or a combination of the two.

Killmonger works so well because he embodies the film’s ability to represent something real and vital for audiences, which is a radical (but increasingly common) concept for mainstream movies. Though the plot comes down to simple ideological questions — if or how Wakanda should share its secret technology with the rest of the world — there’s a real sense of pain and frustration in Jordan’s performance, and Erik’s desire to weaponize that technology. Coogler (like T’Challa) ultimately chooses to focus on overcoming generations of injustice through pride and unity rather than by indulging Killmonger’s reasonable but misguided desire to turn those injustices on the perpetrators. If this dichotomy is admittedly simplistic, the context in which it takes place is shockingly nuanced for a blockbuster, especially in how it’s used to explore the fraught relationship between Africans and the descendants of those taken from the continent long ago.

In all, I was about as let-down by the narrative elements of Black Panther as I usually am by entries in the Marvel series, and more than a little surprised by how spotty the special effects were, given the estimated $200 million budget. The original Guardians of the Galaxy contained much more convincing CG and green screen work back in 2014. It’s a real bummer that a place as conceptually bold and as lived-in as Wakanda couldn’t receive best-in-class treatment. Yet the film comes alive in its best moments thanks to a tremendous cast of lovable characters, many moments of pulpy action (such as two waterfall brawls that recall Coogler’s Creed), a badass blend of science fiction/fantasy concepts, and its ability to speak to human history and experience like no Marvel film and very few blockbusters before it.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Sam’s Top Ten Movies of 2017

2017 was a year of uncomfortable confrontations. Outside of movie theaters, we’ve witnessed a head-on collision between political and social ideologies growing ever more vastly opposed and aggressive in that opposition. In the film industry and the larger media, ugly truths that have lurked in the shadows for decades have come to light, sparking a movement in the direction of justice and healing for the victims. A lot of unpleasantness, hostility and outright hatred has risen to the surface across our culture, and it’s no surprise then that the movies that defined the year have reflected these aggressive clashes. Grand blockbusters such as Wonder Woman and Dunkirk lit up the box office with depictions of courage and strength in the face of great adversity and darkness, while movies like Mudbound, Detroit and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri shined an uncompromising light on how little progress our society has made.

Yet this year we also embraced movies that reflected not our darkest fears and most urgent battles, but our inextinguishable hopefulness, compassion and joy. The Florida Project and Lady Bird captured the magic of growing up at its most vibrant and emotionally in-tune. The Disaster Artist provided an encouraging take on the value of  unbridled creative freedom and collaboration. And Baby Driver, Spider-Man: Homecoming and John Wick: Chapter 2 reminded us that there’s still space for escapism when we need it most. So make no mistake: though a lot of the year’s emblematic films tackled the most painful issues of the day (and often in equally painful ways), silver linings were in no short supply. My top 10 movies list starkly demonstrates this balance, with a mixture of the unrelenting ugliness that lies before us, and the intense persistence that keeps us striving for a lovelier and stronger tomorrow.

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10. Logan

Every year sees the release of numerous superhero flicks all vying for box office supremacy (to recap this year’s offerings: The Lego Batman Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League), but Logan stands apart from the rest. Director James Mangold, who previously made the breezy but brainless The Wolverine, is no longer content with churning out mindless, violent spectacle that will inevitably be lost in an endless current of identical product. Instead, he turns his attention inwards and explores what makes the genre tick and why these types of movies so often seem stuck on autopilot. This is a dark, gory and surprisingly self-aware Western-inspired story anchored by Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, who each give career-best performances in roles they originally took on seventeen years ago. With a haunting score by Marco Beltrami and desolate landscapes worthy of Cinemascope, Mangold has made something at once familiar and yet completely foreign.

Logan can be read in quite a few different ways. It’s most obviously a swan song for the generation of X-Men films that helped kickstart the world’s most popular movie genre at the turn of the millennium, and two of the great acting talents who made this possible. It’s an introspective breakdown of the superhero genre itself in the tradition of the revisionist Western, commenting not only on its own cursed existence to a cycle of violent conflict, but our wider society’s. It’s a character study of a broken man who must come to terms with his own aging and the inevitable deterioration of himself and those around him. It can even be seen as an allegory for demographic shifts in the United States, especially in the second half. Any one of these themes would be enough to elevate the film above any other superhero film of recent years, but the staggering amount of depth and nuance Mangold sneaks in, all while maintaining a breathless action-packed narrative, is a true accomplishment in blockbuster reverse-engineering.

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9. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) 

Director Noah Baumbach is known for his dry, acerbic wit, his films often featuring deeply unlikeable characters and themes of misanthropy, self-loathing or both. While his girlfriend and muse Greta Gerwig kickstarted her own directing career in a big way this year, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) shows little has changed in terms of Baumbach’s main creative interests. His newest film revolves around two estranged brothers played impeccably by Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, both screwed up in differing ways after growing up under the vice of their pretentious, narcissistic artist-patriarch Harold, played by Dustin Hoffman (himself embroiled this year in accusations of repugnant and callous behavior). Harold Meyerowitz may be one of Baumbach’s most impenetrable, detestable creations, but the way in which Sandler and Stiller’s vulnerabilities reflect years of dispassionate parenting and obvious favoritism allows for easy audience empathy, and makes for the writer-director’s greatest achievement in character building.

As usual with Baumbach’s work, this is a talky movie, but dialogue remains energetic and propulsive throughout. Hilarious, searingly truthful lines fly like bullets, respecting the audience’s intelligence to catch what they can. The film subsists on awkward, ego-deflating humor milked out of constant flareups of passive aggression and insecurity from across the Meyerowitz clan. However, more now than ever Baumbach reveals a softer side that imbues the film with moments of striking beauty and warmth. Whereas his similarly-themed The Squid and the Whale provided only the faintest glimmer of hope that its young protagonist could escape or learn to grow beyond his father’s poor example, here the director envisions an almost naively optimistic way out in the form of the next generation of Meyerowitz: Eliza. Played by relative newcomer Grace Van Patton, Eliza feels different from any other character Baumbach has written, even the flighty Gerwig ones. She serves as a ray of originality and hopefulness, positing that even from the wreckage of a deeply dysfunctional family can grow something new and wonderful.

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8. The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water is a fairytale of uncomfortable truths and a romance of immense sensitivity. The film’s picture-book narrative and art-deco style take the best elements from director Guillermo del Toro’s diverse array of past movies and pieces them together into his most complete and fulfilling work yet. The story focuses on a government facility that is (maybe not so secretly) housing a humanoid-reptilian creature found in the Amazon. The story is as much about all the different people working at the facility as it is about the Creature from the Black Lagoon-inspired monstrosity being held there. Exploring the lives of these human characters reveals a gorgeous and vaguely surreal 1950s-set world bogged down by the harsh reality of racial discrimination and constricting social norms. As usual, Del Toro uses fantasy and monster-movie tropes to pull apart troubling ideologies without becoming too preachy. In the process, he blends the elegance and emotionality of Pan’s Labyrinth with accessible humor and thrills.

Though the distinctive, evocative production design and convincing creature effects vie for the spotlight, the movie belongs to its cast, and specifically to Sally Hawkins as mute protagonist Elisa, who falls in love with the feared creature and eventually mounts a daring mission to release him from government captivity (making it a perfect companion piece to this year’s Okja). Populating Elisa’s world are friends (Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins, both immensely sympathetic and charming presences), foes (Michael Shannon gives the most vibrant and vicious villainous portrayal since Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa), and those whose intentions are less clear (Michael Stuhlbarg plays a conflicted Russian spy, adding a wrinkle of timeliness to the plot). Last but not least, Doug Jones (the actor, not the senator) gives del Toro another ethereal turn as the pivotal ‘monster’, who may or may not be an ancient God. Paired with Andy Serkis’ work in War for the Planet of the Apes, Jones’ helps make 2017 a poster year for motion-capture.

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7. Get Out

The conversation over whether Get Out is a comedy, horror film or something else entirely is well beside the point for director Jordan Peele. His masterful, self-assured directorial debut is the year’s most striking and accessible indictment of modern racism, probing the more cerebral side of bigotry. While filmmakers like Detroit‘s Kathryn Bigelow were more concerned with showcasing brutal physical violence against African Americans, Peele’s more nuanced approach explores the existential dread that comes not from the muzzle of a gun, but from the lingering feeling of being perpetually unwelcome in one’s own country and in one’s own skin. In a year where racism has often been framed as belonging exclusively to those who defend statues of racist leaders or actively want to turn back the clock, Peele turns his attention to liberal racial bias. He confronts those who may say they “don’t see race,” but in the grab bag of identity politics end up other-ing people of color in similarly detrimental, though not always as overt, ways.

Peele’s background in sketch comedy means the heavy subject matter is always tempered with heavy doses of humor and pulpy horror tropes, which keeps it from drifting too far into intellectual territory and keeps it from becoming preachy. It’s a film made for blockbuster audiences (as its box office success proves), but with a meticulously calibrated message worthy of academic study. This balance is not achieved without some jarring tonal jumps (the comic relief scenes with Lil Rel Howery  feel like they’re from a different movie), but Get Out‘s accomplished balancing act is hard to overstate, especially for a first-time director. Hilarious, visceral, cunning and consistently surprising, the movie also features several excellent performances, especially from lead Daniel Kaluuya as Chris (trapped at his white girlfriend’s family estate) and from Betty Gabriel as Georgina, ‘the help’. Fantastic sound design and evocative lighting round out the most unique and vital mainstream film of 2017.

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6. T2 Trainspotting

Having been dumped into a few U.S. cities in the middle of March all but ensured T2 Trainspotting wouldn’t show up on many year-end lists. It was rejected by audiences, who likely assumed it was another shameless, unnecessary, nostalgia-baiting sequel to a classic that was fine on its own. But that right there is the genius of T2 Trainspotting: it is that shameless, unnecessary, nostalgia-baiting sequel… and it knows it, too. The film is about four middle-aged Scottish friends and former heroin junkies, who now live in the shadow of a glorious and responsibility-free past they (and director Danny Boyle) can’t possibly hope to recapture. Their story is no longer the wild odyssey the original was. Instead, they find themselves stuck in a darkly humorous, gloriously pathetic, deceptively stirring contemplation on nostalgia, addiction and the intersection between the two. You don’t need to know or care about the original 1996 Trainspotting, only that the story it tells is as revered by the characters who ‘lived’ it as by fans of the actual film.

The movie is shot and cut with a naive, overeager confidence that mirrors our lovably flawed, over-the-hill anti-heroes as they vigorously chase their own tails. All four leads, Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner, clearly knew exactly what kind of film they were making: not a cheap cash grab capitalizing on a beloved property, but a bracing inquiry into why beloved properties get capitalized on in the first place. At a time when western society is ravaged by an epidemic of nostalgia (be it the angry fervor of MAGA or the throwback escapism of Star Wars, It, Blade Runner 2049 and whatever comes next), it’s poetic that a film about former addicts coming to terms with their flaws encapsulates our collective addiction with all things “past”. Danny Boyle lets us have our drug but confiscates it too, not with the smarmy, uber-ironic attitude of all the retooled, rebooted meta-debris out there, but with a tenderness and sincerity that provides comfort as we slide toward pop-culture overdose.

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5. A Ghost Story

Speaking of movies that are preoccupied with the unattainable past, David Lowery’s A Ghost Story provides a powerful and unique meditation on the emotional power physical spaces gain over years, decades, centuries, etc. Instead of tackling nostalgia, Lowery focuses on nostalgia’s cousin, sentimentality. The result is an entrancing, singular romance narrative in which the only obstacle between Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara’s lovers is the irrevocable passage of time. Lowery alternately widens and condenses the scope of the narrative to demonstrate how something, be it a relationship or a physical home, can at once be deeply personal and simultaneously much bigger than any one (or two) people. There’s a sense of awe to the fluidity with which the film flows, but the central romance is always just visible enough to keep audiences invested in something they can see and hear, in between the many intangibles that Lowery wishes to impart.

There’s a free-spiritedness (no pun intended) to the film’s sparse construction, which recalls the shoestring style of student filmmaking. For example, much of the film (which takes place mostly in a single house) features Casey Affleck as a ghost, not created using CGI wizardry but a simple white sheet with eye-holes cut out. Additionally, there’s a long, navel-gazing, existentialist monologue in the center of the film. And then there’s the several-minute-long sequence of Rooney Mara eating pie… and nothing else. If these and other qualities of the movie rightfully garner accusations of pretentiousness, they also unquestionably demonstrate the emotional heights a filmmaker can achieve when applying well-earned skills (in his case working on bigger films such as Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon) to the crazy ideas of an uninhibited creative force not yet jaded by the constricting forces of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and storytelling.

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4. mother!

“Distressing,” is among the more euphemistic adjectives one could employ to sum up Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, an unambiguous biblical allegory and environmentalist plea starring Javier Bardem as God and Jennifer Lawrence as the long-suffering Earth. Alternatively, one could call the film “confrontational”, “disorienting”, “ferocious”, “infuriating” or perhaps in the context of a greater cultural movement of 2017, “abusive”. It’s a sledgehammer of a movie created to generate harsh emotions, but remember what Inside Out taught us: all emotions have value, even the dark, uncomfortable ones Aronofsky brings to the surface here. Many find the film flat-out loathsome from beginning to end, while others stay with it until various points that arguably go too far. There is no denying the validity of either experience, but for those who can stomach it, mother! reaches a place of raw truth and power that few films ever manage to articulate, weaponizing cinema to shake the audience to their collective core.

The film’s blunt and uncompromising approach to its message does away with traditional characterizations or subtext. In fact, there are no characters in the film, only symbols. While the actors and their behavior come across as unnatural as a result (comedically so at times), they are elemental in their construction and purpose within the story. More widely problematic are plot threads (such as a yellow medicine or slimy squid-monster) which remain a mystery even when looked at through the lens of straight-up biblical subtext. However, submit to Aronofsky’s oddities and you will find yourself whipped up in an anxiety-inducing whirlwind of pure filmmaking craft. This is as much a straight-up horror nightmare as a timely, incendiary commentary on cycles of violence, masculine egomania, and the pain and cruelty that can come out of the creative process. mother! is the most divisive and intense filmgoing experience of 2017 by far.

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3. The Beguiled

Director Sofia Coppola has always been a strong visual filmmaker who often fails to provide an engaging enough narrative backbone to effectively prop up her reliably beautiful production design and understated performances. Luckily, she effortlessly, gracefully overcomes this former weakness with The Beguiled, a tense, lavish Southern Gothic set at a Virginia girls’ school during the Civil War. Based on a 1966 book which was adapted once before by Don Siegel, Coppola retains her usual affection for ornate costumes and set dressing while masterfully gifting her characters with an equal sense of vivid life and hidden darkness. Run by protective Miss Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman at her most intense), the school’s students are played by the most talented actresses of various ages: Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys) and Oona Laurence (Pete’s Dragon).

Following the (unwelcome) arrival of Colin Farrell as an injured Confederate Corporal, each woman at the school responds to the exceedingly rare presence of a man in their lives in equally fascinating ways. Coppola does a fantastic job of revealing each of the characters’ goals at an organic and engaging pace, something she has struggled with in past films such as the hopelessly meandering Marie Antoinette and excessively ponderous Somewhere. Here, the ambiguity surrounding the Corporal’s intentions imbues the film with a paranoia that has gained additional effectiveness in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and ensuing domino chain. It all unravels into a violent, blackly comedic climax that builds beyond one-note ‘femme fatale’ tropes into something more complex, psychological and empowering. Coppola’s screenplay is the tightest of the year, and The Beguiled stands as both her most entertaining and substantial film since 2003’s Lost in Translation.

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2. Good Time

Good Time is not just a movie you watch; it’s one you get caught up in. It’s all but impossible not to, thanks to the dynamic, propulsive direction of wunderkinds Benny and Josh Safdie (the former also plays a prominent supporting role in the film). With this film the Safdie brothers have made the swift leap into the upper echelons of up-and-coming auteurs who will hopefully be making movies for decades to come. Doused in alluring reds and peppered liberally with menacing shadow, the look of the film is as transfixing as it’s brilliant, lost-in-time score by musician Oneohtrix Point Never. And as if they needed any more ways to keep your eyes and ears hooked in, Robert Pattinson gives an unrecognizable, powerhouse performance as scumbag hustler Connie Nikas. His one-night crime odyssey leads to all sorts of wild chases and intense escapes, with New York City presented as a gigantic funhouse ride Connie’s been on more than a few times.

Look again and you’ll find something deeper than sheer spectacle. Without pointing it out — specifically because the main characters often take little notice of it — the Safdie brothers build a stealthy critique of white privilege into their thrilling crime-flick framework. Many of the characters Connie interacts with are people of color, such as an immigrant security guard played by Captain Phillips‘ Barkhad Abdi and an impressionable teen girl played by newcomer Taliah Webster. Connie callously manipulates these characters and disposes of them when he can no longer use them. He’s able to dodge trouble and evade suspicion through his whiteness, sometimes in a calculated manner and other times in bursts of spontaneity. The film would be an invigorating slam-dunk without the shrewd social commentary behind it, but the extra heft makes for a truly must-see crime movie for the current day, and an instant classic.

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1. The Big Sick

Every movie on this list has dealt in some way with darker aspects of humanity: Logan and mother!‘s cyclical violence, The Shape of Water, Get Out and Good Time‘s racial injustices, the stuck-in-the-past melancholy of A Ghost Story and T2 Trainspotting and the dysfunctional, interpersonal dynamics found in The Meyerowitz Stories and The Beguiled. Luckily, the best film of the year also happens to be the most joyous. The Big Sick is a romantic comedy in a classical sense, but it feels fresh and new thanks to the buoyant, consistently funny autobiographical screenplay by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. Nanjiani also stars as himself (alongside Zoe Kazan in Gordon’s place), adding a sense of authenticity to the proceedings that would be difficult to replicate otherwise. Aided by solid direction from Michael Showalter and a perfect ensemble of supporting players, and The Big Sick makes for superb entertainment with sudden bursts of heartbreak and an overarching, universal emotional honesty that’s tough to beat.

On a conceptual level the film shouldn’t work at all, mashing two wildly different premises together with apparent abandon. Kumail struggles to keep his relationship with Emily (and his wider abandonment of Islam) a secret from his Pakistani parents, who want him to enter an arranged marriage. Just when this plotline seems to be heating up, an infection sends Emily into a medicated coma, where she remains for a bulk of the film. Instead of devolving into an unfocused mess in Emily’s absence, the story brilliantly shifts to a different kind of romance: one between Kumail and Emily’s parents, played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. Romano in particular is the movie’s secret weapon, a beaten-down, mopey guy who manages to say something awkwardly hilarious every time he opens his mouth. Using Kumail’s relationship with these two as a stand-in for his unfinished emotional business with Emily results not only in one of the most interesting rom-coms ever, but one of the funniest and most charming comedies of the decade.

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As usual, there are many more than 10 worthwhile movies that came out this year (after all, there are more than 300 to choose from). Among those that didn’t make my list, I’d like to draw special attention to The Disaster Artist by James Franco, The Florida Project by Sean Baker, Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan, Phantom Thread by Paul Thomas Anderson, Band-Aid by Zoe Lister-Jones, Stronger by David Gordon Green, Lady Bird by Greta Gerwig, Call Me By Your Name by Luca Guadagnino and Raw by Julia Ducournau.

Additionally, you can check out my full ranked list of all the movies I’ve seen that came out in 2017, as well as my own personal ‘awards’ for the year by clicking this link.

See you in 2018!

“Filmography 2017”: A Mashup of 300 Films of the Year

“Maybe for you there’s a tomorrow… So much time you can bathe in it. So much time you can waste it. But for some of us, there’s only today.” These words come from this year’s film Before I Fall, one of over 300 films from 2017 that appear in my video “Filmography 2017”, which you can view above.

When I was a senior in high school and still unsure of what I wanted to study in college, I stumbled upon Gen Ip’s “Filmography 2010”, a 6-minute mash-up of that year’s movies on YouTube. The video sent my imagination reeling, and my appreciation of film as an art form exponentially increased. Though I can’t claim this was the sole reason I ultimately decided to study film, it’s safe to say Ip’s video changed my life in a profound way.

When you take the individual works of art – each made by so many individuals – and put them together, you get a vivid look into the collective imagination of our world, the shared dreams and fears of society. Seven years later, I’ve decided to pay my own homage to this idea with “Filmography 2017”. I hope you enjoy.

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Full list of films in order of appearance:

1. Suburbicon (dir. George Clooney)
2. Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
3. Last Flag Flying (dir. Richard Linklater)
4. A Cure for Wellness (dir. Gore Verbinski)
5. T2: Trainspotting (dir. Danny Boyle)
6. The Glass Castle (dir. Destin Daniel Cretton)
7. The Case for Christ (dir. Jon Gunn)
8. The Meyerowitz Stories [New and Selected] (dir. Noah Baumbach)
9. XX (dir. Jovanka Vuckovic, Karyn Kusama, St. Vincent, Roxanne Benjamin)
10. Raw (dir. Julia Ducournau)
11. After the Storm (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
12. Lovesong (dir. So Yong Kim)
13. Personal Shopper (dir. Olivier Assayas)
14. Visages Villages (dir. Agnes Varda & JR)
15. Goodbye Christopher Robin (dir. Simon Curtis)
16. Brad’s Status (dir. Mike White)
17. A Family Man (dir. Mark Williams)
18. Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo (dir. David Fairhead)
19. The Sense of an Ending (dir. Ritesh Batra)
20. Alien: Covenant (dir. Ridley Scott)
21. Ghost in the Shell (dir. Rupert Sanders)
22. Good Time (dir. Ben & Josh Safdie)
23. Polina (dir. Valerie Muller & Angelin Preljocaj)
24. A Question of Faith (dir. Kevan Otto)
25. Happy Death Day (dir. Christopher B. Landon)
26. Tulip Fever (dir. Justin Chadwick)
27. A Quiet Passion (dir. Terence Davies)
28. The Mummy (dir. Alex Kurtzman)
29. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (dir. Luc Besson)
30. The Founder (dir. John Lee Hancock)
31. Wish Upon (dir. John R. Leonetti)
32. Daddy’s Home 2 (dir. Sean Anders)
33. Victoria & Abdul (dir. Stephen Frears)
34. Wonder (dir. Stephen Chbosky)
35. Frantz (dir. François Ozon)
36. The Fate of the Furious (dir. F. Gary Gray)
37. The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (dir. Errol Morris)
38. David Lynch: The Art Life (dir. Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Rick Barnes, Jon Nguyen)
39. Obit (dir. Vanessa Gould)
40. Kong: Skull Island (dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
41. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (dir. Rian Johnson)
42. Gifted (dir. Marc Webb)
43. The Star (dir. Timothy Reckart)
44. Kedi (dir. Ceyda Torun)
45. The Breadwinner (dir. Nora Twomey)
46. Maudie (dir. Aisling Walsh)
47. Leatherface (dir. Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo)
48. Home Again (dir. Hallie Meyers-Shyer)
49. Catfight (dir. Onur Tukel)
50. Marjorie Prime (dir. Michael Almereyda)
51. My Friend Dahmer (dir. Marc Meyers)
52. The Transfiguration (dir. Michael O’Shea)
53. My Scientology Movie (dir. John Dower)
54. The Mountain Between Us (dir. Hany Abu-Assad)
55. Split (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
56. Collide (dir. Eran Creevy)
57. Antarctica: Ice and Sky (dir. Luc Jacquet)
58. Woodshock (dir. Kate & Laura Mulleavy)
59. The Lost City of Z (dir. James Gray)
60. All Saints (dir. Steve Gomer)
61. Downsizing (dir. Alexander Payne)
62. A Dog’s Purpose (dir. Lasse Hallstrom)
63. Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent (dir. Lydia Tenaglia)
64. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (dir. Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk)
65. Born in China (dir. Lu Chuan)
66. The Snowman (dir. Tomas Alfredson)
67. Jane (dir. Brett Morgan)
68. Strange Weather (dir. Katherine Dieckmann)
69. Salt and Fire (dir. Werner Herzog)
70. In The Fade (dir. Fatih Akin)
71. The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker)
72. The Boss Baby (dir. Tom McGrath)
73. Mine (dir. Fabio Guaglione & Fabio Resinaro)
74. The Shape of Water (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
75. Jigsaw (dir. The Spierig Brothers)
76. Radio Dreams (dir. Babak Jalali)
77. The Bad Batch (dir. Ana Lily Amirpour)
78. Flatliners (dir. Niels Arden Oplev)
79. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig)
80. Stronger (dir. David Gordon Green)
81. Person to Person (dir. Dustin Guy Defa)
82. BANG! The Bert Berns Story (dir. Brett Berns & Bob Sarles)
83. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright)
84. A Ghost Story (dir. David Lowery)
85. Landline (dir. Gillian Robespierre)
86. All Eyez on Me (dir. Benny Boom)
87. Donald Cried (dir. Kristopher Avedisian)
88. Despicable Me 3 (dir. Pierre Coffin & Kyle Balda)
89. Rock Dog (dir. Ash Brannon)
90. ‘Til Death Do Us Part (dir. Christopher B. Stokes)
91. Carrie Pilby (dir. Susan Johnson)
92. The Other Side of Hope (dir. Aki Kaurismaki)
93. Paris Can Wait (dir. Eleanor Coppola)
94. Monster Trucks (dir. Chris Wedge)
95. Logan Lucky (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
96. Folk Hero & Funny Guy (dir. Jeff Grace)
97. Cars 3 (dir. Brian Fee)
98. Baywatch (dir. Seth Gordon)
99. Wolf Warrior 2 (dir. Wu Jing)
100. CHiPS (dir. Dax Shepard)
101. Underworld: Blood Wars (dir. Anna Foerster)
102. xXx: Return of Xander Cage (dir. D.J. Caruso)
103. Spark: A Space Tail (dir. Aaron Woodley)
104. My Little Pony: The Movie (dir. Jayson Thiessen)
105. The Nutjob 2: Nutty by Nature (dir. Cal Brunker)
106. Kung Fu Yoga (dir. Stanley Tong)
107. Atomic Blonde (dir. David Leitch)
108. I Do…Until I Don’t (dir. Lake Bell)
109. Buster’s Mal Heart (dir. Sarah Adina Smith)
110. Only The Brave (dir. Joseph Kosinski)
111. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (dir. Joseph Cedar)
112. The Space Between Us (dir. Peter Chelsom)
113. Battle of the Sexes (dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
114. Birth of the Dragon (dir. George Nolfi)
115. Sleepless (dir. Baran bo Odar)
116. The Greatest Showman (dir. Michael Gracey)
117. Goon: Last of the Enforcers (dir. Jay Baruchel)
118. Justice League (dir. Zack Snyder)
119. The Ottoman Lieutenant (dir. Joseph Rubin)
120. Thor Ragnarok (dir. Taika Waititi)
121. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele)
122. Spider-Man: Homecoming (dir. Jon Watts)
123. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (dir. David Soren)
124. The Lego Batman Movie (dir. Chris McKay)
125. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (dir. James Gunn)
126. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (dir. Jake Kasdan)
127. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan)
128. American Made (dir. Doug Liman)
129. The Great Wall (dir. Zhang Yimou)
130. Leap! (dir. Eric Summer & Eric Warin)
131. The Emoji Movie (dir. Tony Leondis)
132. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (dir. Joachim Ronning & Espen Sandberg)
133. Fist Fight (dir. Richie Keen)
134. The Foreigner (dir. Martin Campbell)
135. Rupture (dir. Steven Shainberg)
136. Girls Trip (dir. Malcolm D. Lee)
137. The Lego Ninjago Movie (dir. Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan)
138. Power Rangers (dir. Dean Israelite)
139. It (dir. Andy Muschietti)
140. Wonder Woman (dir. Patty Jenkins)
141. The Dark Tower (dir. Nikolaj Arcel)
142. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (dir. Paul McGuigan)
143. The Last Word (dir. Mark Pellington)
144. Columbus (dir. Kogonada)
145. Lemon (dir. Janicza Bravo)
146. California Typewriter (dir. Doug Nichol)
147. American Assassin (dir. Michael Cuesta)
148. Happy End (dir. Michael Haneke)
149. Friend Request (dir. Simon Verhoeven)
150. Colossal (dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
151. Super Dark Times (dir. Kevin Phillips)
152. I, Tonya (dir. Craig Gillespie)
153. Manifesto (dir. Julian Rosefeldt)
154. Their Finest (dir. Lone Scherfig)
155. Unlocked (dir. Michael Apted)
156. Kidnap (dir. Luis Prieto)
157. Unforgettable (dir. Denise Di Novi)
158. Free Fire (dir. Ben Wheatley)
159. The Book of Love (dir. Bill Purple)
160. Hostiles (dir. Scott Cooper)
161. Graduation (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
162. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
163. Same Kind of Different As Me (dir. Michael Carney)
164. Killing Ground (dir. Damien Power)
165. Crown Heights (dir. Matt Ruskin)
166. Marshall (Reginald Hudlin)
167. Detroit (dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
168. Step (dir. Amanda Lipitz)
169. Whose Streets? (dir. Sabaah Folayan)
170. Trophy (dir. Christina Clusiau & Shaul Schwarz)
171. Phantom Thread (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
172. It Comes At Night (dir. Trey Edward Shults)
173. The Devil’s Candy (dir. Sean Byrne)
174. mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
175. Beauty and the Beast (dir. Bill Condon)
176. Going in Style (dir. Zach Braff)
177. BPM (dir. Robin Campillo)
178. God’s Own Country (dir. Francis Lee)
179. Mudbound (dir. Dee Rees)
180. City of Ghosts (dir. Matthew Heineman)
181. The Little Hours (dir. Jeff Baena)
182. Keep Quiet (dir. Joseph Martin & Sam Blair)
183. Menashe (dir. Joshua Z. Weinstein)
184. Novitiate (dir. Margaret Betts)
185. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (dir. Steve James)
186. Ingrid Goes West (dir. Matt Spicer)
187. All the Money in the World (dir. Ridley Scott)
188. LBJ (dir. Rob Reiner)
189. The Post (dir. Steven Spielberg)
190. Ex Libris – The New York Public Library (dir. Frederick Wiseman)
191. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the House (dir. Peter Landesman)
192. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (dir. Paul W. S. Anderson)
193. 11-8-16 (dir. Don Argott, Duane Andersen, et al.)
194. Wonderstruck (dir. Todd Haynes)
195. Alive and Kicking (dir. Susan Glatzer)
196. Lowriders (dir. Ricardo de Montreuil)
197. The Only Living Boy in New York (dir. Marc Webb)
198. Risk (dir. Laura Poitras)
199. The Shack (dir. Stuart Hazeldine)
200. 47 Meters Down (dir. Johannes Roberts)
201. Thelma (dir. Joachim Trier)
202. My Cousin Rachel (dir. Roger Michell)
203. Phoenix Forgotten (dir. Justin Barber)
204. Score: A Film Music Documentary (dir. Matt Schrader)
205. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (dir. Angela Robinson)
206. Beach Rats (dir. Eliza Hittman)
207. A Woman, A Part (dir. Elisabeth Subrin)
208. Rings (dir. F. Javier Gutierrez)
209. Darkest Hour (dir. Joe Wright)
210. Blade of the Immortal (dir. Takashi Miike)
211. The Beguiled (dir. Sofia Coppola)
212. The Book of Henry (dir. Colin Trevorrow)
213. Wind River (dir. Taylor Sheridan)
214. The Void (dir. Steven Kostanski & Jeremy Gillespie)
215. Murder on the Orient Express (dir. Kenneth Branagh)
216. The Bye Bye Man (dir. Stacy Title)
217. Trespass Against Us (dir. Adam Smith)
218. Life (dir. Daniel Espinosa)
219. Berlin Syndrome (dir. Cate Shortland)
220. Smurfs: The Lost Village (dir. Kelly Ashbury)
221. John Wick: Chapter 2 (dir. Chad Stahelski)
222. Geostorm (dir. Dean Devlin)
223. Transformers: The Last Knight (dir. Michael Bay)
224. Kingsman: The Golden Circle (dir. Matthew Vaughn)
225. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (dir. Guy Ritchie)
226. Wonder Wheel (dir. Woody Allen)
227. The Promise (dir. Terry George)
228. Megan Leavey (dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite)
229. Thank You for Your Service (dir. Jason Hall)
230. The Belko Experiment (dir. Greg McLean)
231. Gook (dir. Justin Chon)
232. War for the Planet of the Apes (dir. Matt Reeves)
233. Annabelle: Creation (dir. David F. Sandberg)
234. The Blackcoat’s Daughter (dir. Oz Perkins)
235. 9/11 (dir. Martin Guigui)
236. Human Flow (dir. Ai Weiwei)
237. Bushwick (dir. Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion)
238. My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (dir. Dash Shaw)
239. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir. Martin McDonagh)
240. The Dinner (dir. Oren Moverman)
241. The Wall (dir. Doug Liman)
242. Logan (dir. James Mangold)
243. The Man Who Invented Christmas (dir. Bharat Nalluri)
244. Blind (dir. Michael Mailer)
245. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (dir. Dan Gilroy)
246. The Zookeeper’s Wife (dir. Niki Caro)
247. The Hero (dir. Brett Haley)
248. Lucky (dir. John Carroll Lynch)
249. Beatriz at Dinner (dir. Miguel Arteta)
250. The Circle (dir. James Ponsoldt)
251. American Fable (dir. Anne Hamilton)
252. The Fencer (dir. Klaus Haro)
253. Snatched (dir. Jonathan Levine)
254. How to Be a Latin Lover (dir. Ken Marino)
255. Pitch Perfect 3 (dir. Trish Sie)
256. Table 19 (dir. Jeffrey Blitz)
257. Boo 2! A Madea Halloween (dir. Tyler Perry)
258. The Limehouse Golem (dir. Juan Carlos Medina)
259. The Layover (dir. William H. Macy)
260. The Trip to Spain (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
261. 3 Idiotas (dir. Carlos Bolado)
262. Dean (dir. Demetri Martin)
263. Song of Granite (dir. Pat Collins)
264. Tommy’s Honour (dir. Jason Connery)
265. The Disaster Artist (dir. James Franco)
266. Little Boxes (dir. Rob Meyer)
267. Rough Night (dir. Lucia Aniello)
268. Night School (dir. Andrew Cohn)
269. One  Week and a Day (dir. Asaph Polonsky)
270. Ferdinand (dir. Carlos Saldanha)
271. Patti Cake$ (dir. Geremy Jasper)
272. Brigsby Bear (dir. Dave McCary)
273. Wilson (dir. Craig Johnson)
274. The Commune (dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
275. The Square (dir. Ruben Ostlund)
276. A Fantastic Woman (dir. Sebastian Lelio)
277. Song to Song (dir. Terrence Malick)
278. Just Getting Started (dir. Ron Shelton)
279. Forever My Girl (dir. Bethany Ashton Wolf)
280. Everything, Everything (dir. Stella Meghie)
281. Fifty Shades Darker (dir. James Foley)
282. Princess Cyd (dir. Stephen Cone)
283. Churchill (dir. Jonathan Teplitzky)
284. Father Figures (dir. Lawrence Sher)
285. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (dir. David Bowers)
286. Coco (dir. Lee Unkrich)
287. I, Daniel Blake (dir. Ken Loach)
288. A United Kingdom (dir. Amma Asante)
289. Loving Vincent (dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman)
290. Molly’s Game (dir. Aaron Sorkin)
291. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (dir. S. Craig Zahler)
292. Chuck (dir. Philippe Falardeau)
293. Call Me by Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
294. The Big Sick (dir. Michael Showalter)
295. The Lovers (dir. Azazel Jacobs)
296. Band-Aid (dir. Zoe Lister Jones)
297. Lady MacBeth (dir. William Oldroyd)
298. Sleight (dir. J.D. Dillard)
299. 3 Generations (dir. Gaby Dellal)
300. Before I Fall (dir. Ry Russo-Young)
301. Breathe (dir. Andy Serkis)
302. Gilbert (dir. Neil Berkeley)
303. I Am Michael (dir. Justin Kelly)
304. The House (dir. Andrew Jay Cohen)

*Notes on inclusion: films were eligible for ‘Filmography 2017’ if they received a theatrical release, wide or limited, in the United States within 2017. This disqualifies Netflix original films apart from a couple exceptions which received day-and-date limited theatrical releases.

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Music used in Filmography 2017:

Zummuto – Your Time

Sunbears! – A Lovely Tuesday Afternoon in June

Arcade Fire – Windowsill

Mondo Cozmo – Hold on to Me

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Review: ‘Baby Driver’

Once again, it’s a summer of inevitabilities in Hollywood. Superheroes are perched at the top of the box office. A flare in Minions merchandise signals a new Despicable Me entry. There’s a new Transformers, and yes – it’s very bad and extremely long. Studios will try to restart properties nobody cares about anymore, like The Mummy or Pirates of the Caribbean, and then they’ll wonder why they can’t succeed.

Even Wonder Woman, loudly celebrated for its ability to break new ground with its female lead, devolves into typical blockbuster slush towards the end. And then there’s the most obvious inevitability, which I’m demonstrating right now: critics complaining about an industry that has abandoned taking risks on original concepts, especially when it comes to big, mainstream entertainment. Enter Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, a movie so intensely old-fashioned in its craft yet cutting-edge in its energy and wit, that it serves as a powerful adrenaline shot for a sequel-fatigued theatergoing public.

Edgar Wright has long been known as one of the finest and most vivacious writer-directors working today, even if his cult hits Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World have never had the kind of box office heft to give studio executives much trust that he could draw the attention of anything wider than a niche, hipster audience. Baby Driver handily puts those doubts to rest, with a lovably despicable cast of characters and gloriously old-school action.

This is a crowd-pleaser in every sense of the world, a music-infused heist film merges the beating heart and tapping toes of La La Land with the white-knuckle car chases of a James Bond film and the aggressive, self-reflexive humor of Tarantino. At its center is the fantastic Ansel Elgort as Baby, a quiet yet goodhearted getaway driver with a constant ringing in his ears to go along with the violent, psychotic musings of the scumbag criminals he’s forced to work (portrayed by such charismatic faces as Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm).

Baby’s skills as a driver, his ability to get down and dirty without ever betraying his central values or sacrificing that which matters most to him (which includes his many iPods and his girlfriend Debora, played by the immensely charming Lily James of Cinderella fame) makes him an instantly iconic protagonist, and also reflects Edgar Wright’s own convictions as the director of intensely idiosyncratic entertainment. Anyone who followed his troubled and ultimately unsustainable collaboration with Marvel on what was supposed to be his Ant-Man will know that, like Baby, Edgar Wright can play the game as well as anyone but will not surrender his own principles and standards.

Baby Driver is a fun film, but it’s fun in Wright’s own special way. Manic, dynamic editing, obscure pop culture references and that particularly British style of fast-paced dark comedy are given the Bullitt treatment with old-school car chases and wacky stunts shot with minimal CGI (and it shows). It’s all set to a constant pulse-pounding soundtrack that’s perfectly synched with the action. This not only offers a portal into Baby’s enigmatic conscience, it lets the audience know it’s okay to have fun, to not take it too seriously. Paradoxically, this makes the pivotal moments of suspense and emotion feel even more pronounced, because Wright lulls viewers into a false sense of silliness.

The simplistic nature of the “just when I thought I was out…” narrative is perhaps best-suited to Wright’s already-dizzying style. Whereas Scott Pilgrim was radical in both form and content (and bombed at the box office as a result), Baby Driver employs a more traditional construction to avoid alienating viewers who might otherwise find his work disorienting. Even though there are segments that drag significantly and it occasionally falls victim to infuriating tropes such as ‘the villain who just won’t die’, the end product is an accomplished mixture of what Wright always does best, and what studio blockbusters can do best when they’re fully committed to original, audacious ideas.

Significant credit should go to Sony for taking such a bold risk. After disastrous attempts to build a rebooted Spider-Man universe around Andrew Garfield and to restart the dormant Ghostbusters franchise, it’s heartening to see them investing in genuinely exciting adult blockbusters, including an action-musical-comedy-heist film. Even more gutsy, Sony invested in Edgar Wright, a director who’s never made profitable films and who’d just had a messy break-up with Disney over his unwillingness to compromise with the studio’s mandates. But he has made good films, and it’s a wonderful thing that this still means something to Hollywood, especially during a summer of such inevitability.

Score: 4 out of 5

Review: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”

The first several minutes of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 act as an exhilarating kick-off for 2017’s summer movie season. The colorful, confident and comedically satisfying opening credits sequence makes it clear that director James Gunn’s goal is to recapture the flashy freshness of his 2014 predecessor, only turned up to eleven. The scene (featuring a winning combination of adorable Baby Groot and Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky”) is packed with Guardians’ trademarks: outsized personalities, witty banter, imaginative sci-fi spectacle, nostalgic musical choices and an overall anarchic sense of fun. It is about as good as a first impression can get.

It doesn’t take long, however, for that confident veneer to fade and Vol. 2 to reveal itself as a movie exceedingly burdened by its precarious place in the superhero movie landscape. It is not only the sequel to a surprise hit praised for its inventiveness, but also the fifteenth film in an interconnected cinematic universe often criticized for its precise lack of inventiveness. It’s a lose-lose situation, as Gunn can’t possibly match the original’s novelty while simultaneously giving fans more of what they liked about it. He (and the Disney brass) ultimately choose to go the route most blockbuster sequels take: it doubles down on the familiar and simply pretends that it has something new to show.

This isn’t to say there aren’t fresh elements to the film, or that they aren’t some of its main assets. Though Vin Diesel’s Baby Groot is clearly a Disney ploy to insert the cute, easily marketable side characters found in their animated films, his toddler-like behavior and the reactions they elicit from the team is used to smartly build on the idea of the Guardians as a real family. Meanwhile, the hilariously naive insectoid Mantis, played wonderfully by French actress Pom Klementieff, fits perfectly within the established crew, providing a few moments of the genuine sweetness that the first film did so well, but that the returning cast never quite recapture within their own flimsy arcs.

The script’s fatal miscalculation is that it splits up the entire cast for a large chunk of the film. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis chat, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Yondu (Michael Rooker) bicker, sisters Gamora (Zoe Seldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) brawl, and Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord bonds with long-lost father Ego, played by the ever-charismatic Kurt Russell. Breaking the cast up like this is a good idea in theory, as it allows Gunn to zero in on several specific relationships. In practice, it’s a complete disaster. Because the story jumps from one subplot to the next like an overstuffed, expensive sitcom episode, none of these threads are given nearly enough space or time to develop. An identical mistake was made in last summer’s similar sci-fi adventure Star Trek Beyond.

As a result, the plot progresses at a snail’s pace and the characters are unable to develop naturally. The Star-Lord/Ego storyline, ostensibly the emotional core of the movie, devolves into a guided tour of exposition on Ego’s fake-looking planet right in the middle of the film. Gamora and Nebula’s arc is a total waste of time, the Drax and Mantis relationship is cute but inconsequential, and though the Rocket/Yondu thread features one of the film’s few set pieces, the conflicts they face act mainly as a shameless setup for the already-announced third installment. Worse yet, the film ultimately tries to insert Yondu into Star-Lord’s storyline for emotional impact, but because the characters spend such a vast majority of the film apart, this falls totally flat.

The only upside to the script’s inert structure is that it gives Gunn an excuse to focus even more intently on the freewheeling humor that made the first film feel so alive. There are moments in Vol. 2 that blow its predecessor out of the water in terms of comedy, such as an extended gag in which Star-Lord tries to find tape in the midst of battle and another round of unexpected ’80s pop culture references. Unfortunately, here too the movie is strained by the expectations that come with its heritage. Gunn tries to double, triple, quadruple the jokes, and the emphasis should be on tries, both because he doesn’t always succeed and because he is trying really, really hard.

Comedy is extremely subjective, no doubt, but there are some jokes I can’t imagine anyone over the age of 14 would find funny (such as Rocket’s relentless, gratuitous insults) and there are others that are, quite objectively, not even jokes. I might have run out of fingers trying to keep count of how many punchlines consist of Drax simply giving a hearty laugh. Groot’s constant puppy dog eyes are also constantly played for laughs: When Shrek‘s Puss and Boots used the same tactic, the humor came from the fact that he was actually a smooth-talking Spanish lothario character using his cuteness for gain. Here, the whole joke is simply that Baby Groot is adorable. It’s true, but it’s not funny.

Another area of overcompensation is in the special effects. There are grander vistas, bigger explosions and a larger death count, but it all falls victim to inconsistent special effects. Disney continues to excel at creating lifelike CGI characters, with Rocket’s fur animations and Groot’s expressiveness being a noticeable step-up. The detail on spaceships and weaponry is equally impressive. On the other hand, the colorful vistas, especially Ego’s Eden-like home world, are extremely unconvincing, with shockingly poor green screen effects that recall the artificiality of some of Disney’s most subpar recent works like Maleficent and Tomorrowland. Compared to something like The Jungle Book, it never feels like the characters and the space exist on the same plane.

Everything culminates in a particularly loud, weightless and incoherent climax, uninspired even by Marvel standards. Even if the emotional content hadn’t been particularly underwhelming throughout, it’d be drowned out by all shouting, flashing lights, and debris. When this predictable final battle finally comes to an end, there’s a hasty scramble to end on a touching note. The problem is that up until this point the attitude of the characters and the film as a whole is that nothing really matters and life is disposable, but the audience is suddenly asked to care very earnestly about someone. This feels both unearned and tone deaf.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 tries painfully hard to not just live up to expectations, but to blow them out of the water. The result is a strained affair in almost every regard, from the character dynamics to the effects to the comedy. Quantity takes very clear precedence over quality to the detriment of both. There are good things about the film – the performances are still charming across the board, and the soundtrack is perhaps even better than the first. Still, this movie drops the ball where it really counts, ending up as a poster child for the type of well-intentioned but poorly-executed blockbuster sequels that the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves would likely mock relentlessly.

Score: 2 out of 5

Review: “The Fate of the Furious”

The Fast and Furious franchise is one of Hollywood’s undisputed oddities. The schizophrenic naming system is its most obvious idiosyncrasy, but the series’ overall quality is just as unpredictable. These films range from unbearably bad (2 Fast 2 Furious) to regular bad (Fast & Furious) to mediocre (Fast & Furious 6) to decent (Tokyo Drift) to legitimately good (Fast Five), so in a way part of the excitement comes from not knowing where the next one’ll land on the scale. It’s been a white knuckle ride watching a series duct-taped together with flimsy characters, inconsequential plotting and gratuitous butt-shots, careen closer and closer to self-parody and ignominy with each increasingly ridiculous installment. Almost miraculously, these movies always manages to remain more or less on course, reveling in their own wild inconsistencies.

What began as a rather low-key story about Los Angeles street racers has evolved into balls-to-the-wall action spectacle of the most explosive caliber; the laws of physics have long since disappeared in the rear view. Full of wholesome camaraderie and impossible stunt work, the most recent entries are like a cross between Ocean’s Eleven and Brosnan-era Bond. Many long-running series fret over how to avoid jumping the shark, but Fast and Furious takes a different path by coming up with bigger and bigger sharks to jump over. The Fate and the Furious, the eighth film since 2001, shows no signs the franchise is going to pull back on the snowballing sense of scale. For instance, the ‘shark’ this time is a nuclear submarine (as close they’ve come to jumping over an actual shark).

Long has it been established that the franchise revolves around ‘family’, with Vin Diesel’s Dom as head patriarch, a deceptively wise Jesus figure with a revolving door of ethnically diverse disciples. Every time he opens his mouth, the word “family” spills out like the most wholesome of Tourette’s symptoms. It’s a punchline by this point, but the unabashed hokeyness of Vin’s family mantra has become the series’ greatest strength. The conviction with which Diesel delivers his proclamations of unity, not to mention the genuine chemistry between the entire cast, is wildly effective in keeping audiences invested in the characters. In the absence of any serious stakes (at least three characters have died and come back to life in some way) or true emotional substance, Dom’s sweet, uber-cheesy value system is the glue that holds the whole rickety enterprise together.

This is important to note because, after a ludicrous opening sequence in Havana that harkens back to the series’ street racing roots, long-time series writer Chris Morgan throws a curveball that threatens to disrupt the very core that makes these movies work. One moment Dom is helping icy blonde stranger Cipher (Charlize Theron) with car trouble. Next thing he knows he’s betraying the rest of his crew, stealing a deadly EMP device and fleeing aboard Cipher’s high-tech airplane. At first the lack of explanation for Dom’s uncharacteristic turn is uncomfortable, decimating the lovable meathead figure before our eyes. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for his motivations to be made clear, and audiences are able to take a sigh of relief: family is still the filmmakers’ top priority.

With Dom on the dark side, it’s up to the rest of his family to bring him back to the light, and also to deliver a tangible sense of team spirit in his absence. As usual, most of the laughs come from wise-cracking Roman (Tyrese Gibson), who’s especially on-point when mocking the new blank slate pretty-boy played by Scott Eastwood (aptly named ‘Little Nobody’). He’s second-in-command to their equally-bland new team leader, government operative Mr. Nobody, who’s at least afforded a semblance of charisma by the great Kurt Russell. Another fun new dynamic is the hostile, strangely adorable relationship between DSS agent Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and former villain Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), which gradually blossoms from bitter aggression into sweet, sweet bromance.

While the self-serious ‘DOM HAS TURNED ON FAMILY’ twist threatens to bog the story down with extraneous plotting (you know, the stuff that has always mattered least in these films), the substantial dose of comic relief from the family (rounded out by Ludacris’ Tej, Nathalie Emanuelle’s Ramsey and Michelle Rodriguez’ Letty) provides exactly that: relief. The lovable, dopey interplay assures the movie stays planted firmly at the intersection of dumb and badass. Oddly enough, the worst new addition is Charlize Theron, who’s usually the best part of anything she’s in. The ice queen shtick is tired, and she doesn’t do anything new or interesting with it. The franchise has always been full of archetypes, but they’re usually hilariously archetypal; Theron is just plainly so.

Why am I still talking about the characters, though? This is a Fast and Furious movie and the main attraction will always be the high-octane set pieces. Fate‘s action sequences may not be the best-executed in the franchise’s long history, but they are some of the biggest and most creative nonetheless. Of special note is a spectacular mid-film section in which Cipher hacks hundreds of cars to incite a self-driving stampede through the city streets of New York (only slightly more terrifying and dangerous than your average drive through NYC). It’s these types of moments, void of all logic, that reminds us that blockbusters are at their best when they embrace the impossible. Ditto with the wacky submarine climax, complete with Tyrese wake-surfing on a Lambo door across a frozen river.

There are two main reasons that the action doesn’t live up to its predecessors: first, though director F. Gary Gray (coming off of Straight Outta Compton) does a great job handling the Nos-fueled car chases, he struggles with the on-foot scenes, far too choppy when compared to James Wan’s excellent hand-to-hand brawls in Furious 7. It’s odd that the camera never has any problem following the near hyper-speed vehicles, but comes down with a heavy case of the shakes when trying to keep up with Jason Statham’s legs. The second problem is that, as the size and scope of the action increases, so too does the need for CGI. As a result, there’s a noticeable reliance on computer-generated artifice over practical effects, which means the film will not age as well as the last few have.

The movie’s other main issue is its length, which could have easily been cut down if not for the desire to introduce new characters such as Helen Mirren as Jason Statham’s foul-mouthed mum. While the newbies each have their moments, the movie never makes the case for why it was necessary to include Mirren, Eastwood or Russell, except to inject some new blood and set up for… whatever crazy title they come up with for the next movie. The best F&F films are those that have leaned on brevity rather than trying to be some sort of giant Avengers ordeal that’s overly concerned with the future.

Though unwieldy and mercilessly idiotic, this franchise has battering-rammed its way into the hearts of filmgoers, myself included, through pure willpower and bombast. The longer the series runs, the harder it becomes to turn on the ‘Fast’ family. As long as the filmmakers continue to genuinely care about the characters as much as theatergoers do, the series will always have a strange innocence and amiability that most blockbusters try to avoid in an attempt to be taken serious. Since taking a Fast and Furious movie seriously is contradictory to their very existence, by all means: bring on the stupid.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

 

Review: “Beauty and the Beast”

Not to sound too cynical, but it appears Disney’s been actively testing our tolerance for remakes over the past several years. First, the Mouse House reworked its animated classics Alice in Wonderland (1951), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Cinderella (1950) into sparkly new blockbusters. Acceptable, as the originals films have admittedly grown outdated (especially the latter two, while Alice remains shockingly ahead of its time) and deserved to have the cobwebs removed. Then last year they released their reimagining of 1967’s The Jungle Book, a slightly less antiquated movie but one that is fifty years old nevertheless and provided ample opportunities for the company to show off their advances in immersive computer graphics technology.

Now Disney leaps ahead a few decades for their first (but certainly not last) live-action crack at the Renaissance era (their hugely successful string of hits between 1989 and 1999). As one might imagine, the original Beauty and the Beast still holds up exceptionally well, making it difficult for Disney to hide behind the excuse that kids these days simply can’t connect with it, an argument that could more reasonably be made for, say, the original Cinderella. As such, this Beauty from director Bill Condon is the most glaringly unnecessary Disney production mounted since Tim Burton’s horrendous Alice attempt. Luckily, they’ve learned much over the last seven years about how to best balance what still works from the originals with the aspects most in need of updating.

In particular, Beauty and the Beast’s simple yet effective romance remains mostly untouched. The relationship still goes from a captive/captor situation into a full-blown romance a bit too quickly while glossing over the disturbing implication of Stockholm Syndrome, but that was always an incredibly tricky dynamic which can likely never be full explored in a family friendly way… not to mention it’s patently besides the point. In a light and airy way, the chemistry between the actors works as expected.

Emma Watson has never been a top-tier actress, evidenced most severely in her overly-emotive Hermione performances in the middle few Harry Potter films. She has of course improved over time, but it’s still clear from her performance as Belle that she does fear and sadness far more convincingly than love or joy. She more or less has the look and the singing voice, but does not give as indelible a performance as Lily James’ Cinderella. Likewise, it’s hard to heap too much praise on Dan Stevens as Beast, mainly because he’s covered in CGI fur (very, very good-looking CGI fur, I might add). His eyes do much of the heavy lifting, and in that regard he was another good casting decision on Disney’s part.

Those disappointed that last year’s The Jungle Book either omitted or watered-down much of the original’s music will be glad to discover that the new Beauty and the Beast actually includes more songs than its 1991 predecessor, written by original composer Alan Menkin. None of this new material can hold a candle (no pun intended) to the returning favorites, but they do fit seamlessly in terms of tone, and give the characters’ simplistic internal conflicts an extra dose of sophistication.

But it’s a shame then that the visuals that accompany these musical numbers are irritatingly inconsistent. Opening number “Belle” gets things off to a rocky start with dull shot compositions that too closely mirror the animated version, as well as some obvious lip sync issues. More painfully is that the same problems plague the funniest and most energetic of the original’s songs, “Gaston”, leaving it feeling oddly limp and hokey. Neither sequence takes advantage of the live action switch nor any of the technological innovations of the last fifteen years, settling for a shrug-worthy rehash.

On the other hand, the two highlights of the entire film are the spectacular, dynamically shot “Be Out Guest” sequence with Ewan McGregor at the fore, and a recreation of the beloved ballroom-set title track, sung this time by Emma Thompson. While most remakes these days tend to ignite skepticism amongst weary audiences, these sequences exemplify Disney’s ability to evade such criticism by marrying old-fashioned earnestness with top-shelf technology. The creative magnificence of these soaring, lavish showstoppers makes it difficult to accuse the film of having little ingenuity, or to complain that the original simply ‘looks good enough’ and thus invalidates another go.

At the same time as they break visual ground, both songs demonstrate the company’s respect for the original, leaving the central tone wholly unchanged. McGregor and Thompson channel original performers Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury and attain the same warmth, while both scenes contain just enough callbacks to their 1991 counterparts to feel reverent without being redundant. Disney’s winning formula is to maintain the heart and soul of their older catalogue while modernizing primarily through external means (thanks to the best special effects and musical talent that money can buy).

In addition to gradually raising the bar for technical excellence, Disney has been working over the past few years to revise the outdated social values of some of their earlier works, mainly through a pointed emphasis on diversity and equality. Yet unlike animated hits Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia and Moana, the social justice efforts of Beauty and the Beast feel half-hearted, if not laughable. The highly publicized and supposedly revolutionary “gay moment” is less a watershed moment of acceptance and more a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod of admission.

Meanwhile, the racial diversity on display is nothing more than trumped-up tokenism, made all the more obvious due to the relegation of the extremely talented Gugu Mbatha-Raw to a thankless side role (who has technically played her own ‘Belle’, and better). I’m certainly not arguing that there’s something innately wrong with having all-white leads, but if Disney is going to keep acting like they’re the new face of inclusion, feeble winks aren’t going to cut it. It not only undermines their own apparent goals, it undermines the hard-working actors of color whose side they claim to be on.

The social issues are ultimately insignificant compared to the very real narrative ones that plague the film. The first act feels noticeably rushed in an attempt to get Belle to Beast’s castle as soon as possible. The most baffling addition is an added thread revolving around Belle’s mother, which doesn’t serve any discernible purpose other than to take up time that could have been better used to establish a better emotional connection between her and her father, her sisters and Gaston.

Speaking of Gaston, Luke Evans is well cast in the role but the character and his comic relief sidekick LeFou (played by Josh Gad) remain wholly tangential until the end. They inject a sense of vitality and humor thanks to witty banter, but are too out-of-sync with the main plot to serve as a tangible threat. These problems could just as easily be leveled upon the original, but it’s too bad Disney missed their chance to rectify them to create a more cohesive story.

The other comic relief characters are the cursed castle staff members headlined by candelabra Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) and Cogsworth (Sir Ian McKellen), and they are fantastic in every way. Their designs are clever and imaginative while their intentionally janky movements are perfectly animated to humorous effect. It’s true that their more ‘realistic’ look allows for limited facial expressiveness compared to the googly-eyed cartoon versions, but each of the voice actors (including Mbatha-Raw, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci and Audra McDonald) bring them to life by tempering the cutesy, wholesome dialogue with sharp delivery.

Beauty and The Beast does little to pander to audiences, refusing to force an unnecessary ‘attitude’ or the heavy-handed irony that’s in style these days. Like the modern Cinderella and Jungle Book, the movie is unafraid to be schmaltzy and simplistic because it believes strongly enough in the moral core of the story it tells. At the same time, it doesn’t rest solely on the original’s laurels by providing spectacle that begs to be seen on a big screen. Though inconsistencies in the narrative, performances and musical numbers keep this the lesser Beauty, Condon does an impressive job of threading the needle between old-fashioned and newfangled to create a crowd-pleasing hit of sweet, pretty nostalgia.

Score: 3 out of 5

 

 

Review: “Kong: Skull Island”

One of the smartest choices in monster movie history was made out of sheer necessity. In 1974, Steven Spielberg decided to shoot his film Jaws on the open ocean rather than in a tank on Universal’s lot. The filmmakers dragged three robotic sharks (collectively named ‘Bruce’) out into the Atlantic to proceed with a shoot that went 100 days over schedule. The production was a mess for several reasons, but one big problem was that the salt water began to distort and corrode the mechanical carcharodons. This posed a big problem for a movie that hinged entirely upon its ability to make audiences believe the shark was real.

So Spielberg made a decision that must have frustrated the engineers behind his aquatic animatronics: he would have to shoot the shark as little as possible. Thus, in many sequences Jaws is seen just below the surface or not at all, while John William’s iconic musical theme is constantly used as a stand-in for the benevolent fish’s physical presence. Though the simple result of unfortunate circumstances, keeping the shark hidden proved extremely beneficial. It forced Spielberg to adhere to an essential horror truism: a monster is much more frightening when left to the imagination. Instead of a waterlogged action-adventure film, a truly terrifying horror classic was born.

The restrictions that plagued special effects-centric movies in the 1970s have since been eradicated and it’s fitting that Spielberg himself had a hand in it. After the Jaws ordeal, he must have felt absolutely liberated by the ability to use sophisticated computer graphics for Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds, later cementing CGI’s staying power by producing 2007’s Transformers. These days, blockbuster filmmakers are free to imagine fearsome foes of any size or complexity, and display them however they choose. This poses an important conundrum for Hollywood monster movies: should they show off their convincing effects as much as possible, or do they stick with the effective techniques Spielberg perfected by keeping the monster obscured… on purpose this time?

For instance, Cloverfield purposefully kept its monster mostly under wraps until the end in order to better reflect the disorienting, incomprehensible anxiety of the 9/11 attacks. And say what you will about 2014’s Godzilla (I will, it’s overrated), its insistence on keeping the titular lizard marginalized added immensely to the impact of its impressive third-act rampage. In stark contrast, Warner Brothers’s Kong: Skull Island goes the Michael Bay route. This movie is a toy chest and director Jason Vogt Roberts just wants to show off his toys. We see the big monkey in all its glory early on, not to mention a handful of other insane, imaginative species that live on his island domain. This bombastic approach turns out to be at once a breath of fresh air and a case of sensory overload.

But it’s important to give some context first. Vogt-Roberts is the latest filmmaker to be handed a huge blockbuster after directing only a single indie feature (in his case 2013’s low-key coming-of-age comedy The Kings of Summer). This practice worked out for Warner when they hired up-and-comer Gareth Edwards, straight off of his low budget debut Monsters, to direct their Godzilla reboot despite his lack of experience. The massive box office success of that film earned him a job helming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and convinced Warner to set up an interconnected giant monster universe that contains Skull Island, a 2019 Godzilla sequel, and mash-up Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020.

So who can blame the studio for once again entrusting a young (and cheap) whippersnapper like Vogt-Roberts to create a sleek, modern King Kong story? At the very least the youthful energy he brings is on full display, reflected in an extreme visual dynamism. His camera spins, swoops and careens across the screen, jumping from character to character and location to location at a rapid pace. The production design is infused with dazzling colors and though the CGI doesn’t reach the industry high bar, Kong and the other huge beasts (including stilt-legged spiders, skeletal lizards and stone-horned buffalo) are inventive and evocative in their designs.

Vogt-Roberts seemingly aspires to be a Quentin Tarantino for a new age, drawing from an eclectic range of pop culture from his childhood: instead of exploitation and westerns, it’s anime and video games. These aesthetic sources are clearly responsible for his decision to keep the monsters in the spotlight. Video games rely on having the enemies in sight as often as possible, while the freedom of 2D animation has lent anime a long history of gigantic monstrosities. It’s exciting to see the rise of a new generation with distinctive influences, but Vogt-Roberts is no Tarantino (at least not yet). At times it appears he’s more interested in paying homage to his influences than creating a coherent vision, and while this leads to an astonishing kaleidoscope of style, there’s so little substance it hurts.

For all the differences between this film and 2014’s Godzilla, both suffer from terrible scripts that both commit the same major sin: too many characters with no space to flesh them out or take advantage of the actors’ skills. The first half hour of Kong introduces a horde of characters played by an insane amount of talent including Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Kebbell, and both Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins from Straight Outta Compton (two actors who deserve the blockbuster break). Everyone is given at least one moment in the spotlight, but one is not enough. Much of the focus ends up going to John C. Reilly (as a WWII vet stranded on the island for decades), whose wacky delivery fits the tone but steals everyone else’s screen time.

For a surprisingly long while, it’s possible to overlook the vaporous relationships and awkward dialogue because the visual bombast is strong enough to carry the movie on gonzo B-movie fumes alone. But the whole narrative crumbles hard in the final act, once it tries to ‘pay off’ emotional arcs that were barely even established in the first place. Suddenly, we’re asked to care about the well-being of these people, despite the fact that by this point half of them have died in abrupt and often hilarious ways. Certain characters are paired off by this point, but if you blinked at any point, you probably missed when and how these relationships happened.This awful storytelling manages to dull a terrifically badass climactic fight sequence with Kong at center stage because it constantly cuts to the dumb humans in the middle of the action.

Kong: Skull Island demonstrates the positives and negatives behind the Transformers approach to monster movies. CGI allows for a greater focus on the look and scale of whatever vivid creatures one can imagine, but it also encourages blunt storytelling that runs contrary to the genre’s suspenseful, legitimately frightening legacy. It’s a shame the movie doesn’t embrace its own insane frivolousness and jettison our attention on the human characters altogether, instead opting to emulate every other blockbuster by the second half. Vogt-Roberts leaks potential all over the screen (this is the clear result of a guy who’s been handed $185 million) and it’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here, but his Kong is another modern monster mishap. His successor would be wise to look to Spielberg for the answers.

Score: 2.5 out of 5