Top 10 Films of 2017

Garrett Stiger

Garrett is an entertainment professional living in the Los Angeles area.

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20 Responses

  1. North says:

    As a rabid Marvel fanboy I’m incensed that no MCU films made it to your list. Objectively, however, I agree since the MCU offerings are rock solid entertainment products but not exactly artistically ground breaking. It rankles having a DCU movie on there even if it’s merited.Report

  2. InMD says:

    I’ve been meaning to see your top 2 (I’m hoping next weekend I can get to the Shape of Water but it may need to wait for on demand).

    It didn’t get much attention but I thought Trainspotting 2 was pretty good. Not a classic like the original, and it would have been better if Kelly MacDonald got more than a cameo. Still there were some interesting meditations on aging and grappling with the past even as it gets further and further in the distance.Report

    • Garrett Stiger in reply to InMD says:

      I’ll have to check out “Trainspotting 2.” In my experience, more Kelly MacDonald never hurt anything.

      Let me know what you think of “Lady Bird” and “The Shape of Water.” As you can see, I’m very positive on them. Thanks for reading!Report

  3. pillsy says:

    OK, definitely gonna watch It and Logan ASAP now.Report

  4. Maribou says:

    I think our tastes are fairly different – or rather have some overlaps and a whole lot of not-overlaps – but I always really appreciate how transparent your reviews are. I can get a pretty good idea if I’m likely to like something from how you describe it. A skill I admire.Report

    • Garrett Stiger in reply to Maribou says:

      Thanks very much! What are some of the films that stood out to you last year?Report

      • Maribou in reply to Garrett Stiger says:

        @garrett-stiger I don’t get out to the theater nearly as much as I would like anymore, so I don’t really have opinions on many 2017 films… That said, The Last Jedi is definitely one of those spots where our tastes overlap.

        I’m in the middle of watching a nearly-wordless (but grown-up) animated film called Louise by the Shore right now, and it’s quite fascinating. An old woman misses her train back to the city and ends up living alone (completely, magical realism-ly alone) in one of those seaside cottage towns in France… it’s a fable of sorts but I’m not really sure what it means. It’s beautiful though, and beautifully scored.Report

  5. George Turner says:

    I can’t agree with the selection of Dunkirk because it got so much so wrong. Unlike what the movie portrays, about a third of those evacuated were French, only about 6,000 of the 350,000 evacuees were taken by small boats, virtually all of the small boats were crewed by Royal Navy officers, they’d been shuttling back and forth for over a week, the town of Dunkirk looked more like Stalingrad from all the bombing, and the air support was from Hawker Hurricanes, not Spitfires.

    As an interesting aside, Churchill’s famous “We will fight on the beaches” speech is often depicted in movies, with characters leaning closer to their radios to hear Churchill’s stirring oration. That never happened. The British public didn’t hear Churchill deliver that speech until sometime in the 1960’s because he only delivered it to Parliament, and Parliament wasn’t set up for radio broadcasts. He didn’t record the speech until 1949. But so many movies have used the “broadcast” so often that British began to misremember, think they Churchill deliver the speech live during the war instead of hearing a BBC news reporter reading the speech he’d delivered to Parliament.Report

  6. The only one of those I’ve seen is The Big Sick and enjoyed it thoroughly (while expecting not to). I’m gonna bookmark this post and come back to it when I’m thinking of movies to Netflix when they become available. Thanks for writing it!Report

  7. I don’t get out to the movies much either. Of the ones I have seen, Coco stands out. As I said in a brief review here, I thought it was wonderful and the best Pixar movie in years.Report

  8. Chen Geller says:

    George Turner: I can’t agree with the selection of Dunkirk because it got so much so wrong. Unlike what the movie portrays,about a third of those evacuated were French,only about 6,000 of the 350,000 evacuees were taken bys mall boats,virtually all of the small boats were crewed by Royal Navy officers,they’d been shuttling back and forth for over a week,the town of Dunkirk looked more like Stalingrad from all theb ombing,and the airsupport was from Hawker Hurricanes,not Spitfires.

    To my mind, adapting a historical event is much like adapting a novel: you make the necessary adjustments to fit it onto the screen. Outside of the most rudimentary contour of the plot – everything can be trimmed, changed or made-up for the sake of the adaptation.

    That’s not to say that I disagree with your disregard for the film. Its a great big-screen experience, but in being so oriented towards the big screen, I feel like it loses the staying power that films achieve by token of being enjoyable on the small screen, as well.

    Really, my favorites are a toss-up between War for the Planet of the Apes and Logan, but than I’m a sucker for well-staged poignancy in film, much more so than strong visuals or even efficient storytelling.Report

    • I’m with you, Chen. I view history as a jumping off point for storytellers. Though @george-turner, I can certainly appreciate why dramatic alterations would be frustrating, particularly if it’s about a subject matter which you care about deeply.

      Chen, I had the pleasure of seeing “Dunkirk” in IMAX. I would be interested to see how it holds up at home. I suspect you’re right, that it’ll lose a little something. Much as I loved “It” (clearly), I found that to be the case with that film. Not to say that it has the scope of “Dunkirk,” but it’s such a rewarding film to watch with a large audience.Report