If I'm being real, I feel like 2017 was a pretty damn good year for movies (despite a few obvious low-points); there was certainly a lot to talk about in the realm of cinema, so before I get to my rankings, I think it'd be best to reiterate some ground rules:
- I don't get paid to do this blog. It's purely a hobby of mine and a lack of both time and finances prevents me from seeing everything that comes out in a given year. By no means should you expect anything professional or definitive; the opinions expressed here are purely my own, so take them with how ever many grains of salt suits your fancy.
- Not every movie I discuss here has to have come out in 2017; this is a look back on my year, specifically on the movies I watched in 2017.
- I'm only featuring things I've watched for the first time. That means nothing like Spectacular Spider-Man or Prince of Egypt (though they may receive an Honorable Mention at the end).
So without further ado, let's get right to it!
The Haruo Nakajima Award for Most Fun Monster Movies I Watched in 2017
We lost a lot of talented people in 2017, one of the most underrated being Haruo Nakajima, the original suit actor for the Godzilla movies (as well as countless other kaiju films of the 50's, 60's, and 70's). However, we also got two tremendously enjoyable giant monster movies this past year in the form of Shin Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island. It does my heart good to see these kinds of larger-than-life creature features making a comeback in such a big way, especially when they're done with so much care. Shin Godzilla was a stellar return to form for the king of the monsters, yet it still managed to innovate in so many important ways. It's not often that my reaction to the last shot of a movie is "WAIT, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?", but I sure wish it would happen more often. Meanwhile, Kong: Skull Island was simply a blast, a monster romp that knew exactly what it wanted to be and exactly what it wanted to do. Inspired by everything from Apocalypse Now to Princess Mononoke, it's a prime example of how much a little care, effort, and imagination can bolster a project that, in less passionate hands, could have turned out totally unremarkable. I feel like these movies didn't really set the world on fire with mainstream audiences, but they both represent the kind of commitment to vision that I'd like to see out of more big-budget blockbusters moving forward.
The Spooky-Scary Award for Best Horror I Watched All Year
Horror is, without question, easily one of my favorite genres. Rarely do I find a pair of horror films (back-to-back, no less) of such quality as The VVitch and Get Out. These are two of my absolute favorite films I watched this entire year, films that I plan to enthusiastically revisit time and time again in the future. The VVitch is a positively stunning effort for a first-time director. Low-key and slowly paced, it's not exactly in line with the majority of modern horror films. Jump scares and obnoxious musical stings are replaced with a genuine atmosphere of creeping, natural dread that stuck with me well after the credits stopped rolling. Make no mistake, this is a masterpiece in the same league as The Shining and The Exorcist, and I honestly have no idea how Robert Eggers expects to top it (though he has my sympathies). Get Out, meanwhile, definitely errs more on the side of satire and outright comedy than pure horror, but it was still a very clever, well-crafted, and effective film. Jordan Peele's sense of subtlety and foreshadowing is the rich glue that makes this film such a blast (especially on repeat viewings). It feels like a loving throwback to things like The Twilight Zone and They Live, wrapped up in an eternally topical bundle of modern sensibilities. I simply can't recommend either of these enough; they represent so many of the things I love about the horror genre and I hope to see more from both Eggers and Peele in the future.
The Awesome Mix Award for Best Use of Established Music in 2017
After the first Guardians of the Galaxy took the box office by storm with its "bombastic action sequences set to pop music" approach back in the summer of 2014, it seems like every blockbuster under the sun is out to give it a try (though some are far less successful than others). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baby Driver show how to use this stylistic trick the right way. Anyone can slap a popular song over a given sequence without any finesse or nuance, but that doesn't mean it'll work. Why was Fortunate Son playing when we were introduced to Killer Croc? Was the implication that he served in Vietnam? When music is added to a sequence with no rhyme or reason, it comes off as totally shallow; as though the filmmakers are banking on the audience dully exclaiming "HEY, I KNOW THAT SONG" before declaring it the best movie of the year. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baby Driver are two films that make it extremely evident that a lot of care and discretion was used when making selections for the soundtrack. The Brandy sequence in Guardians (between Kurt Russell and Chris Pratt) is the first breadcrumb James Gunn gives us, illustrating the parallels between the soundtrack and the events of the plot. After some investigation, the true genius of the film begins to reveal itself (such as how the opening sequence, set to ELO's Mr. Blue Sky, foreshadows the climax). Meanwhile, the visual flair Edgar Wright uses in tandem with the sound design of Baby Driver is just something to behold; watch the opening sequence a few times and see if you can't pick up on all the extraordinarily subtle details in the background and dialog (spoiler alert, it's going to take a good couple viewings to even spot most of them). These are two films that take what many use as nothing more than a cheap gimmick and turn it into a multi-sensory experience; when filmmakers put this kind of thought, care, and hard work into these subtle details, the end result is all the more satisfying to watch. Take note, this is how it's done.
The Hugh Mungous Award for Most Pointless Controversy
I'd hoped we could leave all the endless internet slap-fighting over garbage that doesn't matter in 2016 with the bombed-out corpse of the Ghostbusters remake, but alas, 2017 was no stranger to pointless controversy and squabbling either. Despite enjoying Patty Jenkins' sincere take on an iconic superhero with Wonder Woman, the lead-up to the film's release was so intolerable that I actually added "wonder woman" to my list of blocked keywords on Twitter. First we had complaints about Gal Gadot's hairless armpits and the news that the Alamo Drafthouse planned to host woman-only screenings during the opening weekend. We saw Wonder Woman symbolically inducted into the UN as an ambassador for peace and women's rights, only to have that title revoked for being conventionally-attractive and white. Then the film came out and we had to endure the sour grapes of countless critics who championed Wonder Woman as the most important film of 2017, only to find themselves disappointed by the heterosexual romance and lack of misandry. It was an absolute mess; all of this anger and vitriol over a totally okay superhero movie marketed to children. Similarly, we have the eternally divisive fan reactions to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Some fans proudly declared "NOT MUH LUKE" and labelled the film as (somehow) worse than the prequels. Others displayed such a fanatical devotion to this flawed, messy sequel that it's a wonder Jedi haven't emerged as a real-world extremist group. Either you're a Disney shill who's been paid off by the Mouse, or you're an unapologetic racist who "just didn't get it". Both sides are pathetic, both sides are wrong, both sides need to stay in 2017, because I will be damned if I have to go through this all again when Black Panther comes out next month.
The Poochy Award for Plot Points
That Died on the Way Back to Their Home Planets
One of the biggest problems with building films around the framework of a cinematic universe is the danger that not every detail will eventually carry over into anything that matters. We watched Age of Ultron all but ignore the character development present in Iron Man 3 and Captain American: The Winter Soldier; this is the price of attempting to tell a long-form narrative between dozens of different creative teams, generating a clash between studio direction and artistic intent. Sometimes, however, it's not entirely the studio's fault. Sometimes a a bad idea is just a bad idea; such is the case with Spider-Man Homecoming's Michelle (played by Zendaya). This character almost made Homecoming a shoe-in for Most Pointless Controversy, but it just missed out for the simple fact that, in 10 years, I'm willing to bet people will still be arguing about The Last Jedi; not a soul will have anything to say about the character of Michelle. She was used exclusively to drum up clickbait drama before the release of the film, only to amount to barely more than nothing. We get a quick gag in which she mentions that her friends call her "MJ" and that's it. Based off of Kevin Feige's explanation, I wouldn't be surprised if this character was nothing more than a stress test to see what the studio could get away with from a stunt-marketing standpoint. Michelle was hardly the breakout star of Homecoming, so I doubt we'll be seeing "MJ" in any kind of major capacity down the line (especially since Gwen Stacy has already been confirmed for the sequel). On the other hand, we have Justice League. As in, all of it. The entirety of Justice League is, as far as I'm concerned, dead-on-arrival at this point, it's absolutely pitiful how little public faith WB appears to have in their own franchise. We can't officially declare it until Aquaman comes out (since that's been in active production for a while), but the writing is on the wall. The days of the DCEU (at least, in its current iteration) are numbered. With the Flashpoint movie around the corner, I wouldn't be surprised if major parts of this cinematic universe are retconned out of existence, with a number of major roles recast in favor of actors who are much less expensive and emotionally broken than Ben Affleck (and that's assuming WB doesn't just cut their losses and reboot the entire miserable mess a few years from now).
The Unpoppable Bubble Award for Best Superhero Stuff of 2017
On a more positive (yet still superhero-themed) note, we have my absolute favorite comic book films to come out in 2017, Logan and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Tonal opposites, perhaps, but these are the two superhero movies that, I feel, exemplify that the genre still has more to offer beyond firing blue beams into the sky. I never thought I would be one of those suffering from superhero fatigue, yet here we are. My excitement for Infinity War, a film I've literally been waiting a decade for, is lukewarm at best. I didn't even bother watching The Defenders. Hell, I didn't even bother watching The Punisher. I haven't even seen the trailer for season 2 of Jessica Jones. It's all just becoming too much, we've eaten so much delicious Marvel-branded candy that we've become sick of it. It dawned on me around the time I saw Baby Driver that it was the first film I had seen in the theaters in 2017 that wasn't a comic book adaptation, a sequel, or a sequel to a comic book adaptation. But whenever the looming death of cinema gets me down, I take comfort in knowing that all is not lost; we can still get genuinely effective, well-made films out of this blockbuster fad. Both Logan and Guardians made enough of an emotional impact on me that I still think about them to this day. If you're like me and harbor the occasional fear that the MCU is slowly revealing itself as the outcome of a monkey's paw wish, give these two a look. There are still stories to be told, but it takes a talented filmmaker (like James Gunn and James Mangold) to make them into stories worth telling.
The Bill Finger (Not Bob Kane) Award for
the Only Good Film of 2017 to Feature Batman
This is the only category on this Retrospective with only one winner, simply because I find it so insane that, out of all of the DC movies featuring Batman to come out in 2017, the best one was the animated comedy where the caped crusader is portrayed by a plastic building toy and voiced by Gob from Arrested Development. The LEGO Batman Movie is many things. It's a heartwarming family film, a hilarious comedy, and a gorgeously-put-together display of computer animation. Above all else, it's also the best portrayal of Batman and pals since The Dark Knight. There's something about that fact that I find hilarious in a cosmic sort of way. If you went back in time to 2007 and told everyone "ten years from now, a movie about Batman LEGO sets is going to be way better than a movie about the Justice League", not a soul would believe you. Hell, they probably wouldn't believe that a LEGO Batman movie would even exist. Yet here we are. It's a grand old time and, aside from most of the first two acts of Wonder Woman, it was the only bit of mercy WB decided to show us DC fans in 2017. Here's hoping with Aquaman and Batman Ninja coming out later this year that 2018 is a damn sight better.
The Martyr Award for the Worst Things I Made Myself Watch This Year
You know, this was supposed to be fun. When I put this blog together, I thought "huh, well if I only watch stuff that looks interesting, there'll be way too many positive reviews, and things will get boring, so I should watch some really terrible stuff every month, just to mix it up!" What an idealistic fool I was. But now it's tradition, so I can't escape it. I bet you thought Ivan the Incredible was gonna be here, didn't you? Surprise, for as horrid as that was, at least there was a sort of mean-spirited entertainment one could get out of it. It wasn't a good trip by any means, but man was it a trip. Dragonball: Evolution and Jurassic School, on the other hand, represent everything I hate to see in film. There's something to be said in defense of movies that are so bad they're good (more on that later), but I can't abide laziness. Both of these are just such boring, bland, cynical cash-grabs; if I had to say anything nice about either of them, I feel like Dragonball has the potential to be a blast with the proper company and potent enough refreshments. Jurassic School is just hopeless, such a gross scam of a movie that it actually makes me angry. This blog is something I look forward to making each week, but it's movies like these that really put me through my paces, so I guess I've at least got that to be grateful for.
The "And I've Got the Ticket Stubs to Prove It" Award for Worst Movies of 2017
Like I said at the start of all this, 2017 was (all things considered) a damn good year for movies. That said, even the best year isn't exempt from its low points; and my God, where these some low points. Alien: Covenant is the latest in the exciting saga of me gradually losing any and all faith in Ridley Scott as a filmmaker. It feels like Scott only learned the most superficial of lessons from Prometheus; RedLetterMedia wants to know what the black goo was? Let us explain! People were upset there was no xenomorph? Here's the cheapest-looking, least exciting xenomorph in the history of the franchise for exactly the last 20 minutes of the film! Everyone says the scientists acted like idiots? Well now they're not scientists anymore, so they can be as stupid, shortsighted, and incompetent as the plot requires! It's seriously an insultingly stupid movie; it doesn't feel as insufferably full of itself as Prometheus and Michael Fassbender continues to prove himself one of the finest actors of our time, but there's only so much that can be done to salvage such a broken concept. And there's still two more sequels on the way. Meanwhile, we also have DC making their second-annual appearance in the Worst Of category with Batman and Harley Quinn, an animated abomination so heinous that I had to get a buzz going just to finish it. I honestly feel bad about lumping Covenant in with something as horrendous as Batman and Harley Quinn; there's a fair power gap between the two. At least Covenant, braindead as it is, has a handful of decent ideas that it occasionally executes in a serviceable way; that's infinitely more than I can say about Batman and Harley Quinn. To be totally transparent, the title of this category is a bit of a misnomer, in that I didn't even pay to watch Batman and Harley Quinn. Despite this, I still want my money back. It's bad.
The "So-Bad-It's-Good" Award for Guiltiest Pleasure of the Year
There's something really special about finding a movie that's legitimately worthy of the title "so bad it's good". You can't get that kind of magic with a movie that goes out of its way to be bad; if it's sincere and it's entertaining, the end result is often something sincerely entertaining. I was so surprised to see just how many people behind Netflix's westernized adaptation of Death Note legitimately believed in it; the idea of taking a famous anime property and setting it in an American high school is riddled with red flags for a reason (just ask Dragonball: Evolution). But the end result is something so hilariously entertaining, I just can't hate it. It's got everything one could want; an interesting concept wasted on a nonsensical story, laughably over-the-top performances (complete with melodramatic monologues), absurd choices in music, and Willem DaFoe. Death Note may have been the film I recommended most to people in 2017 and I'm not even joking; that's how funny it is. Meanwhile, we have another film that I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. This one came right at the end of the year when I was positively swamped with Reviews, so it didn't get it's own blog post. Here's the jist of Fate of the Furious, the first Fast and The Furious film I've ever seen; Vin Diesel starts committing crimes for Charlize Theron and Tormund Giantsbane with his car, so Kurt Russell recruits The Rock and pals to use their cars to capture Vin Diesel, but his car is better than their cars. Then we get to the climax, where Charlize Theron (in her blonde dreads) remotely pilots a nuclear submarine while Jason Statham rescues a baby from a private jet and The Rock kicks a torpedo into a car full of Russian soldiers. It's insane. I could criticize the cheesy performances, or the over-the-top plot, or the action setpieces that took my suspension of disbelief, curbstomped it, and dissolved the corpse in a vat of quicklime. I could do any number of those things, but I'd just be shouting into the void. This movie knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn't care what anyone has to say about it, and that's why I absolutely goddamn loved it. I'll admit, I was hesitant to watch this at first, but by the time the credits rolled, I wanted to give it a standing ovation for being one of the most unironically entertaining things I had ever seen in my entire life. I get it now. It's about family.
The Business/Pleasure Award for Favorite Movies I Watched for This Blog
and
The Rock and Rule Award for Underrated Animation
Take anyone who says "animation is for children" and show them these two films. Kubo and the Two Strings remains my deepest regret of 2016; rather than paying to see Kubo in theaters, I saw... another movie, and it's haunted me ever since. I can only hope that I'm able to make amends by never, ever shutting up about how spellbindingly brilliant this movie is. The geniuses at Laika continue to demonstrate why they are the name in modern stop-motion; the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that went into making something like Kubo is the stuff of Renaissance-era legend. I don't want to gush too much over the animation, lest I give the impression that visuals are all Kubo has to offer. There's some films where I want to boil them down to their sheer essence, the artistry and effort and imagination that gave it being, and inject it into my veins; Kubo is one such film. We also have Wizards, from animation legend Ralph Bakshi. This is the film that really sparked an interest in 70's animation for me. While it may be too obtuse for some, I was hooked on its incredible art design and insanely original story right from the get-go. There's so much to dissect and explore with Wizards; it's a movie that doesn't start to show its full hand until the viewer cares enough to take a look for themselves, and that's something that I treasure (whenever I'm lucky enough to find it).
The Best of the Year Award for Best Movies of 2017
As if there was any doubt how this was gonna turn out. I apologize if anyone is disappointed that my Best of 2017 picks are two films already featured in the Retrospective, but come on now. Logan is, without question, my favorite film of 2017 (hell, it's my favorite film of the past several years). It took nearly 20 years of superhero iconography and used it as a jumping-off point to tell a story that was small in scope, yet with incredible emotional weight to it. It's just perfect. The culmination of Logan's journey after all this time, the conflict between the hero he was built up to be and the weapon he never wanted to become. His relationship with Xavier and the Professor's struggle against the steady march of time. The mutual fatigue of these two main characters, their temptation to just give up and die, and the fleeting hope that helping Laura could be the last good thing either has a chance to do. It's all just so perfect. The more I think about it, the more I fall in love with it. Baby Driver, conversely, takes the silver medal this year, which is nothing to be ashamed of by any means. True, I had my nitpicks with the story (and it's tragic that such an excellent film will always have to be associated with Kevin Spacey), but at the end of the day, Baby Driver is pure art. Edgar Wright continues to prove himself as one of the most talented directors of our time, instilling all of his movies with a distinct comedic flair and attention to detail, managing to mix scenery, music, humor, drama, and action in such a stylish, seamless, yet altogether human fashion that you might as well just say it's magic and call it a day. These were my two favorite films of 2017; if 2018 has anything to offer that even comes close to these two, then we've definitely got something to look forward to in the new year.
So without further ado...
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all so much for stopping by each week. I seriously can't properly articulate how surreal and wonderful it feels whenever anyone tells me that they read what I write on this blog, and I don't think I'm ever going to get used to it. 2017 has been a big year from me; I graduated college, got a new job, and started working towards a Master's Degree. There's been a lot of changes and there have been times where the transition has hardly been smooth; I missed more deadlines this past year than I would like to admit, yet you all stuck with me through thick and thin. In 2017 alone, Jurassic Mark has received nearly 100 Thousand page views. At this time last year, we were right around 8,000 total. Again, I can't properly articulate how that makes me feel, so I'll simply say this.
Honestly, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart; thank you for reading.
And here's wishing you and yours a happy, safe, prosperous 2018!
And like always, here's a list of Honorable Mentions that just didn't make the cut for one reason or another: The Disaster Artist, Over the Garden Wall, Dunkirk, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Tarzan, Clue, The Prince of Egypt, Pete's Dragon (2016), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and Fargo.
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