Top 10 Films of 2017

As we enter the new year of movies, it is tradition among critics and pundits to look back on the best films of the previous year. I will admit that 2017 was not a fantastic year for cinema, but the films that stood out really stood out because of the risks they took. The world is changing, and Hollywood is not immune to that change. The best films of 2017 are examples of that. Whether it’s rising new talent telling unique stories, or established filmmakers challenging themselves and audiences with new experiences.10. Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve) – Making a sequel to one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time was never going to be an easy task, but Dis- I mean, Fox saw something golden when they hired Denis Villeneuve to revisit Replicants and their struggle for life and agency. The cinematography by Roger Deakins is the perfect lens to reintroduce audiences to Los Angeles of the distant future, and the objects of his shots remind us that this is the same world featured in the original Blade Runner (1982), but evolved 30 years into its future and now more noticeably split from our own timeline. The cast, led by Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, further sells the idea that artificial intelligence populates this universe just as much as organic life, and the overall product gives us an evolution to look forward to in a potential third installment. Whether we get that third film or not, Blade Runner 2049 is a must-see for sci-fi fans of any era.9. Coco (dir. Lee Unkrich)/Your Name (dir. Makoto Shinkai) – In a year where most animation was utter garbage, it was nice to know that audiences could still count on the industry’s biggest powerhouses to deliver quality entertainment: Pixar and anime. And both of their offerings this year are real tear-jerkers. In Coco, the emotional weight comes from a small family story made grand by setting it in the Land of the Dead, but it never loses sight of its cultural roots. The song “Remember Me” is used to great effect here, sung with the same lyrics but different meaning each time it’s played, creating a memorable musical experience that will be reinterpreted again and again for years to come.But this wasn’t the only wonderful animated offering we got, for in Your Name we were given a grand epic made small and intimate thanks to its use of animation. Gorgeous shots never let us forget the size of the story, but the focus is more on the characters of Taki and Mitsuha. The science or magic or whatever is not the main draw of the plot, but rather a plot device to enable these characters to go on this journey of self-discovery that ultimately impacts the lives of everyone around them. It’s a truly timeless story that could never be recaptured in any remake, but many will find their own interpretation of this magical experience.8. mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky) – It’s safe to say we all knew we were gonna get something disturbing and controversial when we walked into a Darren Aronofsky film. What we didn’t know was just how surreal this film would be. Everyone has a different outlook on it, but the most common seems to be that it’s an allegory to major events in the Bible (the Fall of Man, the Great Flood, etc.) from the perspective of the earth as if it was a living thing. That living thing in this instance is played by Jennifer Lawrence, who the cinematography proves you can never get enough of. Aronofsky’s humanization of God, played by Javier Bardem, is both relatable and antagonistic, and while that would seem like an obvious turn-off to many Christian viewers, I actually think it’s one of the film’s greatest strengths. Aronofsky is no stranger to challenging our views on everything from drugs to sports, and while this one certainly won’t convert everyone to whatever his viewpoint is, the fact that people are still talking about what it means proves that while we may not completely understand mother!, it did something right.7. The Disaster Artist (dir. James Franco) – Very rarely will you see a biopic told as a straight-up comedy. But when the subject is Tommy Wiseau, the mastermind behind The Room (2003), you don’t really have a choice. The star of this film is James Franco in both the director’s chair and the lead role, and he understands Wiseau about as well as anyone is capable of understanding him. He nails the weird eccentricities that Tommy is known for, but he also keeps him grounded in some level of humanity that reminds us that, despite many of our suspicions, he is not an alien from a spoon-obsessed planet. Whether you’ve seen the best worst movie ever made or not, The Disaster Artist is the funniest movie of the year, and well worth a double feature.6. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir. Martin McDonagh) – Probably the most timely film of the year, this tale of sexual assault being forced in the forefront of the establishment’s agenda is carried entirely by its performances. Frances McDormand leads the film as a deceased rape victim’s mother who sets up three billboards to draw attention to her case and force the local police department to do something about a rapist still out there. While it does serve as a story about going after sexual assault, it’s also a story about anger begetting anger and how that unhealthy cycle needs to end in order to move forward. Because of this, the timeliness of the film rings even more because its focus was on its own story and themes rather than grabbing an Oscar. It most certainly will be going for Oscars, but in this case that’s icing on the cake that is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.5. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright) – Fresh off of not making Ant-Man (2015), Edgar Wright brings us his own American heist film with a killer soundtrack and phenomenal car chases. He absolutely deserves an Oscar nomination for pairing every action beat with a musical beat and still making it stand on its own. All the work that went into the cinematography, editing, and sound design paid off in even slower date scenes between Baby and Debora. Speaking of, the romance is believable enough to get us invested in the long-term personal stakes for Baby as well as the immediate stakes of each action scene. The thrills never stop, but there’s still time for the audience to breathe in between chases and gunfights, ultimately leading to a symphonic creation of sight and sound. If you’re looking for the most vibrant experience of sight and sound, then hop in and take a ride with Baby Driver.4. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan) – If there’s one director whose body of work continuously takes high-concept stories and tells them in artistically unique ways, it’s Christopher Nolan, and his latest film is more proof that he can still reach new audiences. The film tells its story from three perspectives (land, sea, air) over three different time periods (week, day, hour), and somehow weaves them together in a heart-pounding tension-filled epic. Though the characterization may be thin in some areas, it gives us everything we need to know about the characters and their struggle to survive the onslaught from Nazi Germany. Watching this movie, you will feel like you’re on the beach with the soldiers, or in the air with the Spitfire planes. When everything collides together in the finale, you will leave the theater (because this movie deserves to be seen on the big screen) truly exhilarated and breathless. Dunkirk may not be rooted in anyone’s personal story, but its truth comes from the experience.3. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig) – A coming-of-age drama written and directed by an actress who has never quite caught on with anyone? Who’d have guessed this would be as big a hit as it is? Whereas most actors who try their hand at directing are already super famous, Greta Gerwig was kinda just there, popping up on screen but never standing out enough to attract attention. But behind the camera, she has heads turning because she understands pacing and character development, and uses her storytelling gifts to move so much along at such a fast rate while still keeping it natural. Though her script is strong, she has enough faith in her actors (particularly Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf) to let them carry certain scenes with little-to-no dialogue. And this is the first movie she’s directed on her own, so it’ll be interesting to see what Gerwig does with her career following Lady Bird.2. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele) – A horror-comedy directed by half of Key and Peele? Get out! All jokes aside, this is a truly horrifying experience in the most unexpected ways. Without giving too much away, it would’ve beeen so easy to make the villains pure racists who just want to systemically kill non-whites, but the conspiracy lies so much deeper than that and makes us feel truly sick thinking about them. Part of that actually comes from the comedy, and this is where Jordan Peele’s background kicks in. Instead of going for a completely serious horror tone, Peele infuses the right jokes in all the right places, and not all of them are laugh-out-loud jokes that you would expect from sketch and stand-up comedy. The truth behind it is some people think their jokes are genuinely funny when they’re really offensive, and that’s what makes the scares work here. Everyone’s in on the joke, except you and Chris Washington. So if you’re looking for laughs and scares, Get Out is a movie that you definitely should’ve seen by now.1. The Shape of Water (dir. Guillermo del Toro) – For the final entry on this list, we take a look at something that is both risky and conventional. I say conventional because it’s a standard “Beauty and the Beast” love story set in a different setting, and we’ve seen it done before in many different settings. But Guillermo del Toro knows exactly what changes to make in addition and where to go even further. Despite possessing a familiar humanoid build, the beastly aspects of the fish man are straight-up beastly, and anything that eats a cat can’t be human. And instead of the beast who is “cursed”, it’s the beauty. How? Why? We don’t really know, but there are hints dropped that I can’t write about here without spoiling too much. But those theories paired with the ultimate resolution sink it deeper into that “Beauty and the Beast” model, and that makes it an interesting role reversal. Of course the setting is utilized very well in 1950s suburban America, paying homage to traditional societal models of the era as well as creature features and Biblical epics of the time. And all of it is acted out by the year’s best cast, led by Sally Hawkins’ mesmerizing wordless performance. Honestly, there’s almost too much to be said about The Shape of Water, but I encourage you all to see it for yourselves and see what’s so beautiful about it.

Since all film is subjective, what do you think? Did I miss anything great, or is there something on my list you don’t understand? Write your thoughts in the comments below and stay with Film Traffic for another year on the cinematic highway.

Stop, Go, or Slow Down: Blade Runner 2049

Harrison Ford (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark) as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner 2049.

Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick and directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator), the 1982 sci-fi dystopian film Blade Runner starred Harrison Ford as a futuristic cop called a Blade Runner tasked with hunting down a group of Replicants, androids built like humans but with superhuman strength, but are banned from Earth. The film was a box office bomb and critical mix-up at first, but has since gained a strong cult following since its influence on such films as The Matrix (1999), Akira (1988), and Ghost in the Shell (1995), as well as the many different cuts of the film that have been released over the years (the 2007 Final Cut is the best version to-date).

From left-to-right: Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, and Ryan Gosling on the set of Blade Runner 2049.

Because of this, a sequel was inevitable. But instead of Scott taking the director’s chair like in his Alien prequels, the task of helming this long-awaited sequel was given to Denis Villeneuve, who himself has had a mixed bag of films ranging from okay to terrible to great. Today, I am happy to inform you that Villeneuve has found his calling in sci-fi, because the quality of Blade Runner 2049 is much closer to that of Arrival (2016) than Prisoners (2013) or Sicario (2015).

The streets of Los Angeles as shown in Blade Runner 2049.

Obviously set in the year 2049, the film stars Ryan Gosling as K, a Blade Runner who is also a Replicant (not a spoiler, they say it in the first five minutes). After completing a routine job for the LAPD, K finds something that sets him on a path to find missing Blade Runner Deckard, all while trying to get himself out of a conspiracy that could spell the end of civilization as we know it.

Ryan Gosling (Drive, La La Land) as K in Blade Runner 2049.

I’ll say this right now, lower your expectations if you’re going to see this movie because of Harrison Ford because despite getting top billing next to Gosling, he’s not in the film much. In fact, he’s barely in it at all. But when he is onscreen, he’s still as rough and dry as he was in the original film. 90% of the film is owned by Ryan Gosling, and he sells every second of it, seldom losing his cool in even the toughest of firefights. Despite almost never smiling (he is a Replicant, after all), Gosling lets his face do all the acting for him, creating a character truly torn between the real and the artificial, as well as the meaning of both.

Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo) was the director of photography for Blade Runner 2049.

The world-building is still as strong as ever this time around. Roger Deakins’ work here reflects the style of the original while also standing out as its own work of art. The sets show a futuristic Los Angeles that is clearly the same city we saw in Blade Runner‘s vision of 2019 (from what I’m told it’s not that far off from LA in 2017), but 30 years further into the future: dark, gritty, and ravaged by natural and manmade disasters, but still populated with holographic advertisements, flying cars, and light-up umbrellas. The VFX team also did a great job bringing this technology to life, particularly with K’s holographic girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas). But despite all these technological advancements, the story still visits the same themes as the original (definition of life, meaning of memory, real vs. artificial), while also expanding upon them and integrating them further into the story. Re-visiting a cinematic world from decades past has never been more exciting.

Sylvia Hoeks as Luv in Blade Runner 2049.

My only major criticism about the film is about the villains. Whereas the first film had Rutger Hauer as the elegant yet tragic Roy Batty, this one features Jared Leto as manufacturer Niander Wallace and Sylvia Hoeks as his Replicant assistant Luv. Neither of them are particularly interesting, with Wallace’s sole motivation being increased profit and Luv only obeying every order he gives her. What made Batty so interesting was that he had nothing to lose that wasn’t already destined anyway, but everything to gain should he succeed in extending his lifespan. These villains aren’t bad, they clearly have motivation and desire, but they have little to gain or lose from their efforts, and they’re not especially memorable either. But when Gosling takes up 90% of the film and carries it from start-to-finish, it’s a sacrifice worth having.

A futuristic nightclub in Blade Runner 2049.

Overall, this is both a Villeneuve film and a Blade Runner film, and accomplishes both very well. I would be very excited now if they ever announced another sequel to expand upon this world, even if I have to wait until 2052 to see it.

Rating: GO