2017 Year End Report: Best Supporting Actress

There really was a lot of great work done in this category this year – and sadly, I think much of it has been overlooked.

 

Runners-Up: Mary J. Bilge in Mudbound is a tower of strength and integrity in her debut acting role – the smart, conscience at the heart of the movie. Elle Fanning in The Beguiled plays perhaps the smartest of the women in The Beguiled – or at least the one who knows how best to get what she wants. Betty Gabriel in Get Out takes a tiny role, and makes it unforgettable. Kristen Dunst in The Beguiled is great as the most repressed of the women in The Beguiled. Fatine Harduin in Happy End plays the 13 year old daughter, who is responsible for her mothers death (accidentally, or are on purpose) – and becomes part of a family she barely knows, and doesn’t much seem to care for her. Melissa Leo in Novitiate seems at times to be in her own movie here – and she goes wonderfully over-the-top in a not for all tastes, but certainly stranger performance. Tatiana Maslany in Stronger is quietly impressive, taking what could have been the boring “supportive girlfriend” role and imbibing it with something a lot more interesting. Elisabeth Moss in The Square only has a few scenes in this two and half hour sprawling satire – but you won’t forget them – a comic marvel. Ella Rumpf in Raw is full of energy and punk, as the older half of a sibling rivalry that turns bloody.

 

 10. Naomi Aicke in Lady Macbeth

Naomi Aicke gives one of the best performances of the year, even though her character, Anna, barely says a word. In this film, Aicke’s Anna is the maid to Florence Pugh’s Katherine – who sees almost everything going in inside this expansive house, and yet can never say a word about it. There are class dynamics at work of course, but also unspoken racial dynamics as well, as Aicke has to sit and watch in horror as to what is happening, and not say a word to protect herself. It is a devastating portrait that gives a different view of a largely ignored type of domestic servant.

 

9. Bria Vinaite in The Florida Project

Vinaite plays Halley, the unemployed, single mother to little Moonee in The Florida Project – and it says something about her performance that even though she does some horrible things in the movie, and isn’t a very good mother, than you still really do feel for character – and like her right up until the end of the film. Vinaite was a non-professional when director Sean Baker cast her, and she brings real humanity to her role throughout – and runs the spectrum of emotions. It is a portrait of life on the margins – and Vinaite does a brilliant job in her first ever role.

 

8. Allison Williams in Get Out

As Rose, the girlfriend of the main character, Williams is the character who I think most white viewers relate to the most – her parents are well-meaning, sure, but they make some boneheaded comments. But Rose is woke, right? She’s the real good white liberal we all right? Which is, of course, what makes her ultimate betrayal hurt all the more. Williams is playing off the persona she built up over the years on Girls, and is a perfect vision of millennial self-importance and ironic hipsterism. She’s also evil, and does that brilliantly as well. A great performance.

 

7. Natalie Portman in Song to Song

Natalie Portman’s role in Terence Malick’s Song to Song is a small one – it’s basically an interlude we witness, as Michael Fassbender’s version of Satan seduces, corrupts and destroys this Texas school teacher in a matter of about 10 minutes. Portman falls apart wonderfully in this film, and shows us everything we need to know about this woman in a just a few short minutes. Malick’s recent approach doesn’t do a lot of actors any favors – it makes them all kind of blend together, as they are cast for how they look and move more than anything else. Here though, Portman stands out and delivers one of her best performances – and certainly one of the most underrated of the year.

 

6. Nicole Kidman in The Killing of a Sacred Deer

There is probably no other actress with the star power of Nicole Kidman who so consistently takes risks – working on daring projects, with strange directors – and the results are usually great. Her latest is her work in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer – which stands with her best work. Lanthimos’ style requires actors to drain a lot of emotion out of their dialogue, and do a lot, with less. Kidman does so much manipulation in this film, just with her eyes, and the few words she says to her husband – played by Colin Farrell (there is also the tremendously funny and horrifically awkward hand job scene as well, but I digress). For some reason, Kidman doesn’t seem to rank as high as other actresses in terms of the admiration we have for them in terms of her risk taking, and ability to fit in any movie. That should change (and the Kidman Bracket game by Guy Lodge this year helped, I think) – as here, we have another great performance by Kidman.

 

5. Taliah Lennice Webster in Good Time

In her first screen role ever, Webster is asked to keep up with Robert Pattinson, delivering one of the very best performances of the year, for a huge chunk of the middle of the movie – and succeeds wonderfully. In the film, she plays Crystal, the teenager granddaughter of a woman who has unwittingly let criminal Pattinson into her home. Throughout their time together, they will run the gamut of emotions, and he manipulates her time and again, and she doesn’t quite realize she is being used – until the last moment together, when she realizes everything – and stays silent anyway, knowing what will happen if she speaks. A great performance, from an actress I want to see more from.

 

4. Allison Janney in I, Tonya

There are some actors and actresses, who do brilliant work on TV for years, and never get the perfect role for them to cross over to movies. Until I, Tonya Allison Janney was one of those actresses. The 6 Time Emmy Winner (and 13 time nominee) finally gets her prime movie role as LaVona- the monstrous mother of Tonya Harding. Without LaVona, Harding probably never would have been as good as she was – but she also wouldn’t have crashed and burned so spectacularly. Janney nails the complicated relationship there – supportive and yet, a woman who sacrifices for her child, and abuses her. She is also downright hilarious from beginning to end. We’ve all known for a long time than Janney is as good as any actress out there – she just finally got a movie role to match her TV work.

 

3. Michelle Pfeiffer in mother!

One of the great, underrated performances of 2017 is Michelle Pfeiffer in mother! as a nameless woman, who shows up with her husband (Ed Harris), and precedes to pretty much destroy the place. To keep with the movie’s Biblical themes, Pfeiffer is playing some unholy cross between Eve and the Serpent, coming along to both revel in the garden, and destroy it. Pfeiffer has often taken long breaks in her career, so it’s nice to see her reappear with something like this – it’s seductive, certainly, but it’s also a study in an extremely annoying woman who just will not listen. It’s silly that Pfeiffer doesn’t have an Oscar at home already (I mean, come on), and sadly this year won’t change that – but that doesn’t stop this from being some of the best work of her career – and one of the great performances of the year.

 

2. Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird

Laurie Metclaf has been a favorite of mine since her days on Roseanne (one of the first TV shows I took seriously). She is always great, but much like Janney, she never really got the movie role to show it. As Lady Bird’s mother, she gets that chance. The two of them go at each other hard – never quite realizing how much they have in common, and just how much they are hurting each other, while at the same time, letting that love shine through. It’s a great performance, because it’s an honest one – this isn’t a mother knows best movie, because she makes almost as many mistakes as Lady Bird does – just like a real parent. Like Janney, we’ve known for years that Metcalf is capable of greatness – it’s just nice to see a filmmaker take notice.

 

1. Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread

As Cyril Woodcock, Daniel Day-Lewis’ sister, is Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville gives a masterclass in background acting through many of her scenes. She plays the woman who keeps her famous, genius brother’s schedule in tact – and basically controls everything he does, even while not letting on that is what she is doing. She sees everything, and throughout the film, you often see her in the background, observing everything – a Mrs. Danvers-like character. Yet, throughout the movie, her role gets more complex as well – and her Cyril is not the evil, domineering woman we initially think she is. At first, she is deliciously cruel as she sizes up Vicky Krieps’s Alma, but as the film goes on, she grows to respect her, and even defends her to Reynolds. She is the brains behind the brains, the one who controls everything. Manville, who has been a great actor for a long time now (one of the greatest recent Oscar injustices is that she didn’t get nominated for her heartbreaking turn in Mike Leigh’s Another Year) – but here, she takes things to another level. Perhaps the performance is too subtle, too quiet for awards season – but it will be remembered for years.

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2017 Year End Report: Best Ensemble Casts

There were quite a few strong ensembles this year, many of them true ensembles, where no one really stands out from the crowd.

 

Runners-Up: Baby Driver has a great cast, yet they were still in danger of being overshadowed by all of Wright’s pyrotechnics – but they do not allow it. The Big Sick is a terrific comedic ensemble – everyone plays off of each other brilliantly in a way that enhances the comedy. Blade Runner 2049 has Gosling as a well-cast lead, Ford as damsel in distress, and several fine roles for women – Ana De Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Mackenzie Davis and Carla Juri in particular – making it more than just another blockbuster. The Disaster Artist has a large, and very committed cast, who get on the right wavelength from the start. Dunkirk has a large, excellent cast – and even if some of them seem interchangeable, that’s by design, and helps to show the epic scale – and lets those few that do stand out (like Rylance) do so all the ore. It has a mostly young cast, and they are more than convincing as friends, and really deliver the emotional wallop the story needs. It Comes at Night has a cast whose paranoia gets ramped up the longer they are trapped in their together – a definite example of the sum being even better than the individual parts. Lady Macbeth has a terrific central performance by Florence Pugh – but there is so much going on, mostly quietly, in the supporting cast. Logan Lucky has a mostly great cast, having a hell of a lot of fun, in Soderbergh’s heist film. The Lovers has two terrific leads in Tracey Letts and Debra Winger – and everyone else supports them nicely. mother! Requires everyone to get on the same bat shit crazy level – and it’s a miracle they all do. Novitiate has an almost all female cast, who as young nuns (and those ones supervising them) who create a wonderful atmosphere, of faith and love – and confusion about both. Okja has probably the most international cast imaginable – and they all go for broke, which is kind of required in this one. The Shape of Water has a very specific sense of style, and yet the performances never get lost under Del Toro’s style – something that usually happens. Thor: Ragnarok had a lot of people in it – even for a super hero movie – but everyone gets their moment, and everyone gets on the same wavelength.

 

10. Mudbound - Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jonathan Banks, Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Rob Morgan, Kerry Cahill, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lucy Faust, Henry Frost, Dylan Arnold.

Mudbound’s ensemble cast is interesting to watch work – mainly because the story of two families sharing the same land, is essentially one of matched pairs – like the mothers play by Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige, who have a lot in common with each other, but never directly discuss it. It’s interesting to see the ways these people are so similar, and so far apart – and it’s something the cast innately gets, and subtly underlines in the way they perform their lives. I love the way Jason Clarke delivers “suggestions” that sound friendly, but carry the weight of commands – or how Garret Hedlund and Jason Mitchell, the two WWII vets, get each other, but say little. It is a great ensemble cast – doing great work, so that no one performance stands out over the others. That is what great ensembles do.

 

9. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) - Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Marvel,

Emma Thompson, Grace Van Patten, Candice Bergen, Rebecca Miller, Judd Hirsch, Adam Driver.

It can be difficult to gather a cast of celebrities, and then get them to play a convincing family unit – but it’s a trick that Noah Baumbach and his cast pull off in The Meyerowitz Stories. Dustin Hoffman gives his best performance in 20 years as the self-centered patriarch – an artist who is a master in own mind (but no one else’s) – and the trio playing his kids – Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel – all do a great job of showing the effects of having someone like that as your father (Sandler has the best role, and reminds you how good he can be when he wants to – Marvel is so good, I wish she was given more to do). The film is filled out with nice work by Grace Van Patten, as a sheltered millennial, Candice Bergen, as a Hoffman ex-wife, and Adam Driver as an ego-driven celebrity in one great scene. The sign of a good ensemble is when you can say that Emma Thompson is your weak link (not her fault) – and mean it.

 

8. Good Time - Robert Pattinson, Buddy Duress, Benny Safdie, Taliah Lennice Webster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi, Necro, Peter Verby, Saida Mansoor, Gladys Mathon.

What immediately stands out when you watch Good Time is Robert Pattinson’s great performance in the lead role – he is essentially the center of every scene in the movie (except the first and last), and he delivers a career best performance as the slippery con man criminal, using everyone around him. It’s one of the very best performances of the year. Yet, we shouldn’t forget the rest of the cast, who create full characters, often with just a scene or two – like co-director Benny Safdie, as Pattison’s disabled brother, or Buddy Duress, who wakes up in a place he doesn’t know and doesn’t know how he got there, or Jennifer Jason Leigh, so desperately trying to hold onto her only friend, or Barkhad Abdi, just trying to do his job. Best of all of them is Taliah Lennice Webster, who plays the teenage girl whose house Pattinson hides out in – thinks she builds a real connection with him – right up until her truly sad final moment in the film. Good Time is a great movie – and while Pattinson gets the bulk of the credit on the acting end – he’s far from alone there.

 

7. The Post – Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce

Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy, Michael Stuhlbarg.

The ensemble cast is one of The Post’s biggest assets. There is no doubt that Streep is far and away best-in-show here – it’s her best work in a decade or more – and she anchors the movie brilliantly, with an able assist by Tom Hanks, twisting his nice guy-ness just enough. The supporting cast has to do quite a bit of heavy lifting as well though – especially since the (overall strong) screenplay sometimes hits things a little too hard with the dialogue – yet the cast never flinches away from it, and sells it brilliantly. This is one of those movies in which nearly every person you see is a famous character actor – and they all do exemplary work, mostly together, which is what an ensemble is supposed to do.

 

6. Get Out - Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephen Root, LilRel Howery, Richard Herd, Erika Alexander.

Get Out does just about everything right and the cast is often overlooked – but it shouldn’t be. The lead, Daniel Kaluuya gives one of the best, understated performances of the year – not being quite sure what to make of the micro-aggressions he faces on the weekend to his girlfriend’s parents. The supporting role are all perfectly filled – Allison Williams is the perfect “good liberal” white woman, playing off her own images, Bradley Whitford does something similar with his West Wing image, and Catherine Keener is creepy and effective. Then every small role – Lakeith Stanfield, scared throughout his small role, Betty Gabriel, heartbreaking as the family maid are particular standouts. Jordan Peele deserves credit for so much of Get Out – the writing, the direction is perfect – and part of that is getting great performances out of the entire cast.

 

5. Lady Bird – Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Beanie Feldstein, Timothee Chalamet, Lucas Hedges, Lois

Smith, Jordan Rodrigues, Odeya Rush, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Marielle Scott.

The ensemble cast of Lady Bird is one of its great strengths – particularly because of how each of the larger cast relate, in different ways, to Saoirse Ronan’s title character. Yes, Ronan is at the center of the movie – and she is brilliant as always – but I loved how her mother, played by Laurie Metcalf, has an agonizing, push/pull relationship with her daughter, how Tracy Letts tries to remain the good guy – and hide his own pain – or the perfection of the teenage female friendship with Beanie Feldstein. Even the two idiot teen boys in her life play off of her perfectly. Some ensembles are great because there are lots of scenes with lots of people – this isn’t that – it’s more of a series of two handers, but each perfectly sketches their relationship with the main character – and brings out different sides of her.

 

4. The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Bill Camp, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone.

The degree of difficulty for an ensemble cast has to be increased when working with a director like Yorgos Lanthimos – who wants his cast to speak mostly in a flat, affectless, monotone voice – and yet, still convey something to the audience. It’s not something every can do – or at least not well. We already knew that Farrell could do it – he gave a career best performance in The Lobster last year – but the rest of the cast here also does a lot. Nicole Kidman continues to be one of the most risk taking of actresses around – and she is chilling at times here – and Barry Keoghan, as a little psycho, is perfect. Also great though is young Raffey Cassidy, as a teenage girl in love (her singing a pop song is maybe the most haunting moment of the year) – and even Alicia Silverstone, who completely nails one scene. When a director requires this kind of dedication and commitment from his cast, it can go wrong. Here, it’s the reason this bizarre film works.

 

3. The Beguiled - Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice,

Addison Riecke, Emma Howard.

Colin Farrell in another lead role in this ensemble category – and he is utterly great in the film, charming and sexy, and creepy and evil, all at the same time – he outdoes Clint Eastwood, in what was one of Eastwood’s least characteristics roles. And yet, when it comes to the ensemble of The Beguiled – it really is about the women – from young Oona Laurence, in love with Farrell as only a young girl can be (and heartbroken like one as well), to Elle Fanning, who damn well knows what she’s doing, to Kirsten Dunst, who is heartbreaking here, and the MVP, Kidman, who brings less crazy, more control to the role than the great Geraldine Page did. You feel the energy from that house, from the opening scene, to its last. I don’t think this is Sofia Coppola’s best film – but it may be the best ensemble cast she has ever had.

 

2. The Florida Project- Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Bria Vinaite, Christopher Rivera, Caleb Landry Jones, Macon Blair, Karren Karagulian, Sandy Kane.

The bulk of the acting citations that Sean Baker’s The Florida Project are getting seem to be centered on Willem Dafoe and young Brooklynn Prince – and there is good reason for that, since both are great. Dafoe, who more often than not, has played various creeps and psychos, here is deeply empathetic, as the manager of a low rent motel, who truly does want to help out all those who “live” there – but has limits – it’s those limits that sadden him. And Prince gives one of the greatest child performances I have ever seen in a movie – precisely because she gets to act like a child. But really – the entire cast is great (and probably bigger than I list here), because they all build a sense of community in the film – a messed-up, sad, dysfunctional community, but one just the same. From Bria Vinaite, as Prince’s mother, struggling to survive, to even one scene wonders – like Macon Blair, as an angry man who thinks (rightly) that he’s been scammed – the cast doesn’t hit a false note.

 

1. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Peter

Dinklage, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Clarke Peters, Zeljko Ivanek, John Hawkes, Brendan Sexton III, Nick Searcy, Sandy Martin, Amanda Warren, Darrell Britt-Gibson.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is a dark movie about flawed, violent people – who little by little, show incremental growth. It is also a vicious comedy, in which Martin McDonagh’s snappy, profane dialogue has to be delivered at full speed for effect. The cast for the film is virtually perfect – from McDormand as the righteously angry mother of a murdered girl – who by the end has perhaps gone too far to ever come back, to Sam Rockwell, a vile, violent cop, who has a sort of Biblical awakening, and moves to undo some of the pain he’s caused, to Woody Harrelson, as a cop who really is just trying his best. The supporting cast is wonderful – Peter Dinklage is hilarious as a man in love with McDormand, Caleb Landry Jones does his creepy, slimy thing (well this time – he doesn’t always) – and the likes of Lucas Hedges, Clarke Peter, Zeljko Ivanek, John Hawkes and Brendan Sexton III all have memorable moments. Yes, this is the type of film that is made for ensemble awards – but that doesn’t mean that this one doesn’t deserve it.

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2017 Year End Report: Top 10 Films of 2017

A very fine top 10 this year. And no further intro is needed.

 

10. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

If you are going to do a movie as metaphor, than dammit, you have to go as far with it as Darren Aronofsky does in mother! The film is one of the most daring high wire acts of the year, about a husband and wife (Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence) living an idyllic life, in their country house that she is restoring for them, so he can concentrate on his writing. But people just will not leave them alone – and just keep coming, and destroying everything. I’ve read a number of different theories on the central metaphor (and that’s just from Aronofsky – shut up Darren – let the film do the talking for you), although I think the obvious one is the one that sprang to me for me, although there are layers upon layers of others. Aronofsky has always been a daring filmmaker, and mother! is one of the most daring films a major studio has released in years – they likely won’t again, and that’s a shame. I understand if you hate mother! – but I loved every over-the-top moment, and admired everyone involved for swinging for the fences, and mainly, connecting.

 

9. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest exercise in discomfort and pitch black comedy is this film, based (loosely) on Greek mythology, in a story of a surgeon (Colin Farrell) who when presented with a difficult moral choice (he has to choose to kill one of his two kids or his wife, or they’ll all die) decides essentially to do nothing. It is a study in his inactivity, and disbelief to what is happening, and his faith in his profession to be able to fix whatever is wrong. This is all done in Lanthimos’ signature, flat, nearly emotionless style with long, languid camera shots and movement, flat delivery by a great cast, who nevertheless reveal great things about themselves in doing so, and often disturbing imagery. The whole cast is great – Farrell is almost as good here as he was in The Lobster, from Lanthimos last year, and Nicole Kidman shows why she’s one of the best, and most risk taking, actresses working. Its newcomer Barry Keough (seen, ironically enough, as the personification of selfless, naïve heroism in Dunkirk) who steals the movie, as the young man who puts Farrell in this position. Lanthimos continues to make some of the most thought provoking, disturbing and unforgettable films of anyone currently working.

 

8. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

Greta Gerwig’s solo directing debut is this deeply felt, deeply humane, deeply funny film about a high school senior, who goes through her final year of high school, wasting time with two different boys, the drama club, friends who aren’t really her friends, and fighting – non-stop – with her mother. This probably sounds like a typical high school comedy, and yet it isn’t – it’s deeper than that, because it gets all of these relationships exactly right, and grounds them in real emotion and humor. Saorise Ronan is great in the lead role – she can be bratty and obnoxious, but she’s also smart and funny. Laurie Metcalf is even better as her mother – who really does want the best for her, but doesn’t always know how to express that. The rest of the cast is great. Gerwig has been a special talent for a while now – she is often the best thing about the movies she stars in, and her writing work on two Noah Baumbach films has helped that filmmaker a great deal. Now, behind the camera, she proves to be a natural – precisely the kind of filmmaker we need more have right now. Lady Bird is a brilliant film.

 

7. Raw (Julia Ducournau)

Julia Docournau’s debut film Raw is the bloodiest female coming of age horror film ever made – a film that made one person pass-out when it played as part of the Midnight Madness program at TIFF in 2016. It’s almost too bad that is the reputation the film has gotten however – since the film really is much more than a gross-out horror film. It tells the story of a brilliant, teenage girl (Garance Marillier, in one of the year’s great performances) who goes off to vet school a strict vegetarian (because of her parents), and soon hungers for raw meat – her appetites become harder and harder to ignore, until she can no longer resist. There is a moment, late in the film, where Marillier – who we have felt great sympathy for – directly challenges the audience to still feel that sympathy for her, indicting us in the process. I’m not entirely sold on the very last scene – but other than that, Raw is a genre masterwork – and will be remembered for a long time to come.

 

6. A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

David Lowery’s A Ghost Story is a low budget stunner – a film about grief and longing, love and death, all told in a haunting fashion. The film follows a young couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) – who live in a house together, than he wants to stay in, and she wants to leave. When he dies, he returns to the home – under a sheet, like a child’s ghost costume – and watches her, and then the others who come and go from the house after – all the time waiting for something. Score by wonderful, melancholy music, the film moves forward through time, and then back – and then brings us full circle again. The strange effect this has on a viewer cannot be totally, adequately described. Yes, it’s cliché to call A Ghost Story haunting, but that is what the film is – it’s one that never leaves your mind, and grows as you think about it, and revisit it.

 

5. Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri has become one of the most controversial films of the years, with people arguing about the films racial politics. While I understand the arguments against the film – that it redeems a racist cop that it focuses exclusively on white characters, while making the few black characters one dimensional – I don’t agree with them. I think Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is a story about violent, revenge and anger – and the cycle that continues them, and how they poison everything they touch. Frances McDormand is great in the lead role (which I don’t see at all as a heroic one) – a woman who will do anything to try and find the man who raped and murdered her daughter, no matter the cost to all those around her. Woody Harrelson is just as good as the dying Sheriff, who really does do his best, but whose vision is too short sited. Sam Rockwell completes the triptych of great performances as a Deputy, who we both revile and feel empathy for (though that doesn’t excuse his action, or redeem him – I think he’s brought to almost biblical lows, and is forced to see himself in a different way). Add to that the most quotable screenplay of the year, and some virtuoso sequences (Rockwell getting beat up in the bar), and you have a film that is at once entertaining, and troubling – it makes you laugh, and then punches you in the gut. The shifts in tone are masterfully handled, and I find the film a fascinating portrait of white people in America – the type of people who would deny they are racist, but have never really examined those feelings, because they live in an almost all white area. Whether intentional or not, I find that aspect one of the best in the movie – and make this film one of the best of the year.

 

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

Jordan Peele’s Get Out may not (quite) be the best film of 2017 – but it is probably the film that best represents 2017 at this moment. Peele knows his horror films inside out and backwards, and has crafted a film that works in the same vein as films like Rosemary’s Baby or The Stepford Wives – the slow dawning horror of the main character, who knows something isn’t right, but cannot quite put his finger on it (or, won’t say it out loud). He has also, however, crafted the most incendiary critique of American race relations since Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in 1989 – a film that shows that perhaps even more dangerous than out and out racists, is the kind hearted liberal, who doesn’t really understand black people, but couch their discomfort behind a veil of nice platitudes. The film is scary on a horror movie level – but even scarier on a deeper level, as Peele’s themes start to emerge. The film is meticulously crafted, and has great performances – especially by Daniel Kaluuya (it really did take second viewing to fully appreciate all that he is doing in this film). Get Out is the type of film that will last – that will be discussed for decades to come, and is the perfect film to kick off the Trump years.

 

3. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

The most deeply empathetic film of the year, is Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. The film takes place at a seedy, rundown motel in the shadow of Disney Land in Orlando, where the residents do what they have to in order to survive. The film concentrates on a single mother (Bria Vinaite) and her 6 year old daughter (a truly remarkable Brooklynn Prince) and their lives. As Prince travels around with her friends, in a world only 6 year olds can truly inhabit, her mother gets more desperate, and does more extreme things in order to get by. In one of the great performances of the year, Willem Dafoe plays the motel manager, a man who really does care for the people who stay at his motel – and does his best to help them – but he still has a business to run. This is a film that never steps wrong, never feels more than wholly authentic (even the fantasy ending), and mixes the happiness that Prince feels now, with the sad realization that this vital child, will likely not stay this way forever. A truly great film.

 

2. Good Time (Josh & Ben Safdie)

In terms of pure energetic, propulsive filmmaking, nothing topped The Safdie brothers Good Time this year. The film has the look and feel of a 1970s Sidney Lumet New York, but undeniably has its sites sight on modern time, this crime thriller about white privilege is the great crime film of the year. Robert Pattison, giving the year’s best performance (you heard me) stars as one of a pair of brothers who rob a bank, and the try to escape on foot – he gets away, his mentally disabled brother does not. This sets up the bulk of the film, which is one long night as a descent into hell, as he tries to break his brother out of the hospital he was transferred to when he was beat up in jail. Pattinson’s character keeps getting away with everything, keeps seeing others – mostly black – people take the fall for him, as he continues to fall deeper and deeper into the whole he makes for himself. The Safdies are among the most exciting young filmmakers around – specializing in films that make you somewhat like their main characters, and then expose them as clearly awful as the film moves along. Fans of gritty, 1970s style film can do no better than this film – a modern version of those classic films.

 

1. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

There is a reason why Paul Thomas Anderson is the best filmmaker currently working – and it’s on full display in Phantom Thread. No one creates films that are as meticulously crafted as Anderson – where every detail from the beautiful costumes, to the set design, to the cinematography (by Anderson himself) – which is designed to look like an old Merchant Ivory film, to the smallest inflections by the actors (Lesley Manville should win an Oscar for her background acting alone in this film) – and yet, still feels so raw, fresh and alive. Phantom Thread is a bizarre mixture of Hitchcock, Ophuls and Kubrick – a demented love story between two people, who are the surface are anything but. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a great performance ( a fitting farewell if this truly is his last work) – as a man who needs everything to be just so, or else he loses it – and Vicky Krieps is perhaps even better as his latest lover – an enigmatic woman who keeps things close to her chest. Gradually the depths of their relationship – their sick connection – is revealed, and yet the movie doesn’t explain away all of its mysteries. It is the type of film that snaps into focus in its final minutes, and yet doesn’t feel like a cheat at all. It is somewhat strange to me that in a year, in which most of the best films, speak to something larger in society right now, that Phantom Thread – which really doesn’t – is the year’s best. But it is – masterfully directed, written and performed – a film to get lost in, over and over and over again.

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2017 Year End Report: 20-11

I’d be happy with any of these 10 in the top 10 – but there just wasn’t room.

  

 20. Logan (James Mangold)

Every once in a while, the debate reignites, when someone says that superhero movies are just this era’s version of the Western. The comparison falls apart, for the most part, because the Western genre contained many more multitudes than the superhero genre has – John Ford, Anthony Mann, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood all made great Westerns, and all are very different in almost every man (and that’s just scratching the surface). But if you really wanted to make the comparison, than James Mangold’s Logan is the film to start with – the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight, and the only one to really try something altogether different with the genre. It helps that Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart were, in essence, done with X-Men – which allowed Mangold to structure this film as a final installment – and that both actors are doing career best work here as well. It really is akin to Eastwood’s Unforgiven – with a more heroic main character – and aside from an overly long trip to a farm, it pretty much nails the genre perfectly, and will hopefully point future filmmakers in a bold, new direction.

 

19. Blade Runner: 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

There are a lot of nits you could pick with Blade Runner 2049 – mainly having to do with the absorbent runtime, and confused storytelling in places – and yet, for sheer awe-inspiring filmmaking craft on this scale, Blade Runner 2049 is tough to beat. Villeneuve and his crew made one of the most visually stunning films of the year – and really did seem to take seriously the world created in Ridley Scott’s original, and the way you can build on top of that. Ryan Gosling anchors the film with a solid performance, I quite liked Harrison Ford essentially playing a damsel in distress in the last act – and I liked how they used the various female characters. But really, this is about the filmmaking – and it’s tough to argue that on this skill, we had a better looking or sounding film at the multiplex this year. The flaws will fade – the film will last.

 

18. Lucky (John Carroll Lynch)

Lucky is such a small, intimate film that I think it becomes easy to overlook it at this time of year. The whole film is essentially the late, great Harry Dean Stanton – playing a 91 year old atheist, walking around his small town, day in, day out, grappling with his own morality, and interacting with various characters who really do care about him, but don’t really know him. No one knows him – he’s outlived his contemporaries, has no family, and spends his routine, going about his routines, and not thinking about what’s next. It is a great performance by Stanton – truly one of the best of his brilliant career. He is perhaps the only actor you could have done this movie, and not made it overly sentimental or sappy. The sequence in the middle of the film, of him spending a long night by himself set to Johnny Cash, is one of the best of the year. Lucky doesn’t bowl you over like some films do – and it’s all the better for that.

 

17. The Square (Ruben Östlund)

Ruben Ostlund’s Palme D’Or winning The Square is a big, bold, art world satire that seems to morph and shift from scene to scene – some of them are over-the-top outrageous, and others are more down to earth. The film runs the risk of being just a strange series of vignettes looking for a purpose – except that Claes Bang’s performance in the lead role, as the lead curator at a Swedish modern art museum – keeps the whole thing on track – while the movie may seem all over the place, his character is consistent from scene to scene – as he grows increasingly exasperated, as he digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble, while never quite understanding how he got there. It is a great performance, in one of the more provocative films of the year.

 

16. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadanino)

The year’s most romantic film, is this love story between an Italian teenager (a wonderful Timothee Chamalet, in a star making performance) and a visiting American student (Armie Hammer). Set in the long, lazy, hazy summer in Northern Italy, where there is nothing to do but sit around, and the film is at its best in the first half, as these two circle each other, being wary, holding back their feelings and desires – and yet undeniably attracted to each other. The second half, when they finally give way to those desires, is intimate and quietly moving. The film really is quite simple in many ways – it is about the importance of going through things like this, even if we know they must end, because it’s better than being closed off (a brilliant Michael Stuhlbarg delivers the year’s best monologue near the end, making this point clear). Director Luca Guadanino has once again made a sensual, beautiful film – and a devastatingly emotional one.

 

15. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is about a group of women and girls, holed out by themselves in a boarding school in the South, during the Civil War – and what happens when a man (Colin Farrell) enters their lives, even if he is a Yankee. Farrell plays what is essentially a con man – sizing up the different women, and pretending to be exactly what each one of them wants – a father figure, a sexual object, husband material, etc. – and tries to play each of them. Of course, he can only do that for so long, before the women will find out, and essentially get angry. This is the closest thing to a genre film Coppola is ever likely to make – it isn’t the horror film that Don Siegal and Clint Eastwood made in the 1970s, but something that falls directly in line with everything Coppola has done before. It got lost in some controversy this summer, but don’t let that deter you – it’s one of Coppola’s best.

 

14. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

Olivier Assayas’ haunting Personal Shopper is a ghost story, of a sort, but it’s really a study of grief and longing. It stars Kristen Stewart – once again proving she’s one of the best actresses in the world – as a woman whose twin brother dies of the same heart condition she has. Racked with grief, she goes about her job picking up fancy clothes for a model around Paris – but starts to receive strange text messages that may be from her dead brother. The film is slow moving and methodical, slowly gripping you, and getting you to the edge of your seat (never have those three little dots on the iPhone text app been more nerve jangling). Personally, I would like the film more (perhaps even enough to have it on the top 10) if the ending hadn’t gone a little too far in trying to solve things – but that’s a very minor complaint, about an overall masterful film.

 

13. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk really is a masterclass in structure – expanding and compressing three different timelines – on the beach, in the air, on the water – so they play out simultaneously, really is a brilliant strategy for Nolan. The film is all about the moment – the here and now – of what happened placing us alongside all of the different players in the rescue mission as it plays out. It is, in some ways, Nolan’s simplest film in a long time – a straight ahead war movie – and yet, structurally, it is one of his most complex. It’s also his shortest in a while, which helps because it would have been difficult to maintain this level of suspense and action for much longer than the 106 minutes he does. Inevitably, it does lose something on the small screen – so hopefully this is one of those movies that theaters keep bringing back, so audiences can see it how it was meant to be seen.

 

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

The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back – and the only one since then to do some genuinely surprising things with its narrative. If The Force Awakens was all about fan service – given them exactly what they want – than The Last Jedi is about smashing those expectations – setting them up, and then twisting them in surprising ways. The action is the best we’ve seen in a while, the writing is clever and funny – but also brings a few different layers to what could be one dimensional characters, and the acting is the best we’ve seen in these films for a while. If we are now in an age when we’re going to be getting a new Star Wars movies every year, than we need filmmakers like Rian Johnson willing to come in and smash the mythology, to come up with something completely different. That is what makes The Last Jedi so good.

 

11. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

Baby Driver is one of the most flat out, entertaining films of the year – from the opening car chase, right into the films many musical moments and other action sequences, this is Edgar Wright at perhaps his shallowest (his last film, The World’s End had some genuine insight into it characters – something he doesn’t bother with here) – but most high octane. The film is a jolt of adrenaline for two hours, and the film never slows down long enough for you to register its implausibility. It’s just pure entertainment, expertly crafted by Wright and his team, and acted by his great cast.

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Year End Report - Films 33-21

I normally stop at 30, but I added some at the last minute. I saw more than normal, so a few extra won’t hurt.

 

33. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

It would have been easy to make a movie that points and laughs at Tommy Wisseau, and his movie The Room – which has been called the worst movie of all time. The film really is that bad, and Wisseau is an odd character, with a strange accent, and you could make a funny – if cruel – movie at his expense. But James Franco clearly sees something in Wisseau – perhaps a little bit of himself – in Wisseau’s determination to make his movie, and stick to his vision, no matter what anyone says. Franco isn’t arguing the movie he made is good – but his film does make you question what art is, who gets to define it, and what success means. And it’s all wrapped up in one of the most entertaining films of the year, with Franco himself giving a great performance as Wisseau – and the rest of the cast fully committed to making this film as gloriously fun as it is. Yes, it is extremely entertaining – and will play alongside The Room forever in midnight screenings – but there’s a little more here than that, and it is what makes the film special.

 

32. Happy End (Michael Haneke)

Sure, Happy End is minor Haneke – I know he disliked it when people said that the film played like his greatest hit, but it kind of does – taking elements from films like Benny’s Video, Code Unknown and Amour (among others). Still, Happy End is pure Haneke – and somewhat more challenging than some of his other work – he doesn’t judge these characters as harshly, or punish them in the same way. That doesn’t mean the rich family at the heart of the movie are good – but they are somewhat more relatable. They are self-involved, and selfish – acting out of pure self-interest, and not seeing what should be obvious to them. The youngest and the oldest steal the show – 13 year old Eve (Fantine Harduin), who does horrible things, and posts it on social media, and 85 year old Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) – perhaps a version of his Amour character – who wants nothing more than to die. Haneke doesn’t connect the dots here – he lets you do that. It may not surprise or shock as much as his best work – yet even minor Haneke is better than major almost anyone else.

31. Graduation (Cristian Mungiu)

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation mainly flew under the radar this year, which is a shame, because the film is a masterclass in screenwriting and situational ethics. The film is about a father, whose high school senior daughter is attacked right before she’s going to take her final exams – which she needs to do well on, in order to get into school in England, and have a way out of Romania. What he does from there to ensure her future just gets subtly, and slightly worse, with each passing scene until he is in over his head. The director behind the Palme D’Or winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, has returned with another film that is a portrait of his country, but grounded in these specific characters. An exceptional drama.

 

30. Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)

I struggle a little to understand why it seemed like the whole world ignored a new Todd Haynes film this year – because even if Wonderstruck is probably near the bottom of his impressive resume, it’s still a technical stunner – and a film that builds to a stunningly emotional climax. The film is a duo of stories involving dead children – one in 1920s and the other 50 years later, both set in New York. Haynes has great fun aping silent film aesthetics in the 1920s segments, and 1970s tropes in the other segments – aided, as always, by impressive art direction, costume design, Edward Lachman’s brilliant cinematography, and one of Carter Burwell’s best scores. The film perhaps takes a little too long getting to the climax – which, among other things, takes Haynes back to the style of Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, and ends the film with a wonderful, emotional climax. No, the film doesn’t live up to Safe, Far From Heaven, I’m Not There or Carol – then again, few films do. This one deserved a lot more attention than it got.

 

29. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

Even if, like me, you never really believed that Steven Soderbergh was going retire completely, it was still a welcome sign to see him return with this summer’s Lucky Logan – one of the year’s best, pure entertainments. No one quite makes a heist film with as much ease as Soderbergh does – and thankfully this “Ocean’s 7/11” as they call it, in the movie, actually spends time with the heist, rather than just goofing around like the second two Ocean’s films. Here, Channing Tatum and Adam Driver played brothers, who decide to rob a race track – with the help of an eccentric bomb expert (Daniel Craig), and others. The cast is chock full of interesting actors, doing interesting work (and Hilary Swank, doing – well, no one’s quite sure, really). Sure, the film coasts along on its ample charms, but when it’s this much fun, who is really going to complain?

 

28. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

For the most part, I am done with superhero origin stories – they’re all basically the same, and I just want them to get on with it already. But Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman is one of the best origin stories the superhero genre has produced in years. The film takes its time setting up its heroine – who is portrayed as undeniably a hero, but also unmistakably female (a flaw sometimes is they think if they just write female characters like male characters, they will be stronger) – and then puts the hammer down in the No Man’s Land sequence – one of the best action sequences in recent memory (it’s so good, it makes the already murky actual climax pale by comparison). You knew if you saw Batman v. Superman that Gal Gadot would kill it as Wonder Woman – she did the same in the not very good Justice League as well – but here, she really gets to shine. It doesn’t reinvent the genre – it’s a fairly standard edition in most ways – but it still feels fresh. Stop the rest of the DC Universe to course correct – but let Wonder Woman keep going.

 

27. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)

One of the most provocative films of the year, is this French film about a group of young, good looking, multi-ethnic terrorists, who carry out a series of bombings in Paris, and then hold up overnight in a closed department store waiting to make their escape. Director Bertrand Bonello never really identifies the cause they are “fighting” for – but that doesn’t mean the film lacks specificity. The film is about these young people, who don’t really know what they are doing or why. The direction in the film glides through the mall, without judging the characters, but showing them. It is a disturbing film, but one that will not leave your mind.

 

26. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

You have to be a certain kind of genre film lover to love a called Brawl in Cell Block 99, which runs 132 minutes, and spends more than 100 of those getting to Cell Block 99, and another 15 before the brawl begins. Once it does, sweet Jesus, is it worth the wait – it’s one of the most violent things you will see this year – but it is a slow burn. This is the kind of thing writer/director S. Craig Zahler does well – I liked his debut, Bone Tomahawk, a few years ago – but Brawl in Cell Block 99 is next level stuff – with a terrific performance by Vince Vaughn (who barely speaks in the film), as a guy who tried to go straight, gets sucked back in, and then gets arrested, and has to do whatever possible to save his wife. It’s a terrific performance, in a terrific genre piece that won’t please most audiences – although those who will like it, will find it.

 

25. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

One of the year’s great entertainments is I, Tonya – a film that plays as part media satire, part GoodFellas, and all energy. As Tonya Harding, Margot Robbie gives her best performance so far – a woman who you feel sorry for, even as we watch her do bad things. The film doesn’t shy away from its depiction of domestic abuse – at the hands of both her mother (a brilliant Allison Janney) and her husband (Sebastian Stan). The film wants to be an entertaining portrait of Harding’s life that reels you in with the tabloid headlines and gossip, than packs a bigger wallop than you expect it to. The film has a few rough spots here and there – but the three great central performances pull it through, as does Craig Gillespie’s direction – which is a wonderful example of tone management. Your mind on Tonya Harding won’t likely change after seeing I, Tonya – but your feelings may be more complicated.

 

24. War of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

The final installment of the new – and great – Planet of the Apes trilogy is probably not quite as good as the middle chapter (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) – although it comes surprisingly close, and does feature the best human performance in the series by Woody Harrelson, as a crazed, Colonel Kurtz like madman ruling over his own private fiefdom. The film is intense from the start, and really does become a war movie of sorts – one that completes the natural transition into the humans being the all-out bad guys. The arch of this series has really been quite remarkable – the complexity of Andy Serkis’ performance as Caesar is his career best work, and comes to a fitting conclusion here. I am often hard on franchise films – but this was one franchise done right.

 

23. Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd) 

In Lady Macbeth, we start out in complete sympathy with Florence Pugh’s Katherine – who, after all, is a young woman, married off against her will to a rich, cold man who leaves her for long stretches so he can go away on business, and barely pays her any attention when he is home – and his family is worse. So when she starts to have an affair, we understand. But through the course of the film, Katherine will keeping taking things farther and farther and farther – and you keep on her side we past the point where you should. Newcomer Pugh is fantastic in the lead role, and first time filmmaker William Oldroyd shows great promise – the film reminds you of the Daphne Du Maurier adaptations directed by Hitchcock. An under the radar film – but one that deserves more love.

 

22. The Post (Steven Spielberg)

The Post shows just how effortless Steven Spielberg can make this kind of prestige drama look. The film clocks in at just under two hours, and is never less than gripping, even though it’s essentially a film about a group of people talking in rooms to each other, and we already know the ending. Meryl Streep gives one her best performances as Kay Graham – publisher of the Washington Post – who has to decide whether to risk everything to publish the Pentagon Papers, after the New York Times is shut down. The film shows Spielberg, Streep, Tom Hanks – as Ben Bradlee – and the entire cast in top form, showing everyone else how to do this kind of mainstream, intelligent, prestige film for adults – and making it look simple in the process.

 

21. The Shape of Water (Guillermo Del Toro)

In many ways, it feels like The Shape of Water is the film that Guillermo Del Toro has been building towards his entire career. It isn’t his best film (that would Pan’s Labyrinth, with The Devil’s Backbone as runner-up), but the film that brings his various obsessions together, and wraps it all up in a package that is scary and romantic and funny, often at the same time. Sally Hawkins anchors it all, with a mute performance, in which she really does convince you that she would fall in love – and feel lust for – a monstrous fish man. The filmmaking is impeccable – the costume, art direction, cinematography and score are easily among the best of the year, and whole thing weaves a weird spell over you. A fairy tale for adults, that actually works.

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