Though I was rarely in a theater, I saw a lot of movies in 2017. Like most people these days, I found the majority of the films I watched on various streaming services. As time goes on, theatrical release dates mean less and less compared to when the flicks hit Netflix or Amazon. So, in keeping with my usual custom, and to reflect the catch-as-catch-can way that modern people actually consume films, I’m not confining myself to flicks released in 2017. Instead, I throw the doors open to any film I saw for the first time this year, regardless of release date. I also feel that ranking the movies from 1 to 10 is a kind of pointless “apples to oranges” exercise, so I’m simply listing them in alphabetical order. And we’re off: here are the ten best movies I saw for the first time in 2017.
All Is Lost (2013) – I stumbled on this flick randomly one night last winter, expecting to get bored pretty quickly and move on. Boy, was I mistaken! This slow-moving but completely mesmerizing film stars Robert Redford in an almost dialogue-free role as a solo sailor who finds himself adrift at sea following a collision with a half-submerged cargo container. The film follows Redford’s nameless character as he struggles to keep his boat afloat and tries to manuever it back to civilization, an endeavor that proves to get more daunting and harrowing as the film progresses. The sailor’s isolation, claustrophobia and hopelessness is conveyed through masterful cinematography and an astounding performance by Redford. He may not have much dialogue, but the long-time movie icon manages to express everything he needs to through his eyes, gestures, and body language.
Baby Driver (2017) – Edgar Wright’s car chase opus was a master class on merging images and music. Wright stakes out his territory from the very start with a wild heist/pursuit scene set in perfect time to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” Every gunshot, tire squeal, and door slam is synced with the soundtrack, getting us inside the head of tinnitus-plauged getaway driver Baby from almost the opening shot. It seems that Baby was in a tragic accident as a kid and has constant ringing in his ears which can only be masked by playing music on his earbuds all day long. This ingenious conceit enables Wright to sync the whole movie up to Baby’s internal soundtrack. I can safely say that no one has ever melded music, rhythm, and action better than Wright does here. It’s probably a little more violent than it needs to be, since the bulk of the film is played in a pretty breezy, fun tone. And one of the characters probably rises from the dead a few times too many. These are ultimately fairly minor quibbles, though, when the vast majority of this movie is so unique, so fun to watch, and so amazingly well done. The Fast and the Furious guys better step up their game next time, because Wright set a new standard for vehicular action with Baby Driver.
Born to Fight (2004) – This gloriously bizarre, overtly nationalistic action flick from Thailand was easily the craziest thing I saw all year, and is probably the movie I recommended to more people than any other. The whole thing is insane, telling a wacko story about a group of Thai athletes who are on a friendly mission to a rural village when it happens to get overrun by a crazed, militaristic drug kingpin. He has a missle aimed at Bangkok and it’s up to the intrepid gymnasts and soccer players to fight back and save the country. The flick stars a whole host of real-life Thai sports heroes, all of whom are more than willing to engage in chop-socky silliness involving their various specialties–like the soccer star who has to kick things at the villains or the gymnast who fights people on a balance beam. Born to Fight also features the most dangerous-looking stuntwork that I’ve ever seen, with guys getting tossed off moving semis or running motorcycles straight into trucks. Trust me, you’ve never seen anything quite like this. No one has. For a taste of the insanity, check out this montage of action clips (try to ignore the music).
Deja Vu (2006) – Tony Scott’s gritty thriller/time-traveling romance is one of the most original films I saw all year. Denzel Washington is in full crusty cop mode as the film starts, tasked with investigating a terrorist bombing on a New Orleans ferry. It turns out that the FBI has invented some kind of ultimate surveillance tool, a computer that can see what happened four days ago anywhere on Earth. While using the computer to look back into the events preceding the bombing, Washington finds himself becoming attracted to one of the terrorist’s first victims (Paula Patton). He vows to save her, but his attempts to manipulate the timeline have unintended consequences. For me, this is Scott’s best film, as his impressionistic, kaliedoscopic style fits perfectly with the action of the story. Despite the plot’s ludicrous nature and sci-fi trimmings, the film plays as a believable action thriller throughout, with some fine performances from Washington, Patton, and Val Kilmer, among others.
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) – Banksy’s film about street art and one obsessed fan was easily the best documentary I saw this year. The film meanders its way through the story of French street art fanatic Thierry Guetta, who falls in love with the form and decides to start filming guerilla artists as they work around L.A. It starts off as the tale of Guetta’s videotaping obsession, as he shoots over 10,000 hours of footage of artists making their marks on buildings and billboards. Guetta eventually meets up with Banksy and documents his preparation for a major exhibit. Right around here, the flick turns on its head as Banksy decides that Guetta doesn’t know what to do with all of that footage. Banksy decides to re-edit the footage himself and suggests that Guetta put on his own street art show to keep him occupied. Under the name “Mr. Brainwash,” Guetta starts producing his own Banksy-derivitive art and soon has a following of his own. Is any of this real or is the whole thing another elaborate Banksy prank? Either way, it’s a fascinating rumination on the meaning of art and who gets to be called an artist. By the end, you’ll be shaking your head at the sheer audacity of the whole endeavor.
Haywire (2011) – I had never even heard of this tasty little Steven Soderbergh flick until I happened to see its name in an article about movie fight scenes. The fact that Haywire was mentioned in the same breath as John Wick was more than enough of a recommendation for me. Make no mistake, this is no John Wick, but rather a taut, fast-paced thriller with a couple of kick-ass fight scenes. Former MMA fighter Gina Carano stars as a special ops assassion who’s run afoul of her employers and turns in a shockingly good performance opposite some real heavy hitters (Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, etc.). Soderbergh makes great use of Carano’s talents, featuring her in a handful of really tough, believable fight scenes. Her opening dust-up with Channing Tatum in a roadside diner kicks the film into high gear from the start, while her hotel room tussle with Fassbender ranks with the best fight scenes of the decade. I’m not sure why this flick came and went before anyone really saw it, but it deserves a following now that it’s popping up on just about every streaming service. It certainly turned me into a Gina Carano fan.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) – The original John Wick was a blast of pure action bliss, giving Keanu Reeves his best role in ages as the world’s most singlemindedly vengeful assassin. They really shouldn’t have killed his dog. The sequel took everything that was great about the original and pushed it even further, sending Wick on a European mission that features even more dazzlingly staged action set-pieces. The film’s cinematography and action choreography are second to none, showing Reeves mowing down baddies in long sweeping takes that bring home the brutality of the fights more than a thousand Bourne-style shaky-cam shots ever could. As in the original, the gunfights borrow heavily from the style of first-person shooter videogames, with bad guys popping out of every corner only to be mowed down by Wick’s incredibly accurate gunplay. It’s a very modern, easy-to-follow way to shoot such scenes and you can be sure that a thousand John Wick clones are in the offing. (Hello, Atomic Blonde!) They even found a way to bring in Franco Nero as the proprietor of the European version of the assassins-only Continental Hotel. Until this flick, I never suspected that New York City has a professional killer on literally every street corner. The whole thing builds to a great, satisfying finale and perfectly sets up the inevitable Chapter 3. I can’t wait.
Logan (2017) – Wolverine has long been one of the most popular Marvel characters, but every previous attempt to give him his own big screen starring vehicle has fallen flat. Enter writer/director James Mangold, who somehow managed to convince Marvel to let him create a moody, hyperviolent road picture around one of their most iconic superheroes. Hugh Jackman returned to the role for the ninth (!) time and delivered a shockingly heartrending performance as a down-on-his-luck Logan who spends his time drinking and caring for an aging, seizure-prone Professor X (Patrick Stewart) in their Mexican desert hideout. When a young mutant girl with similar powers to his own gets dropped in Logan’s lap, he gets reluctantly pulled into one last adventure. This is a glorious mish-mash of a movie, delivering wildly violent fight scenes, foul-mouthed road trip bickering between Logan and Prof. X, and some truly heartfelt scenes between Logan and the young mutant girl who may or may not be be daughter. The whole thing ends up as a surprisingly moving rumination on loss, aging, and dying, with Jackman turning in the best performance of his career. Roles like this never get considered for Academy Awards, but no one this year inhabited their character better than Jackman does here. By the time the credits roll over the poignant finale, Logan has transcended the confines of the superhero movie and become a uniquely moving experience all its own.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) – The funniest movie I’ve seen in some time, Popstar is the best mockumentary since the heyday of Christopher Guest. Andy Samberg stars as Conner4Real, a Justin Beiber-type pop icon who’s about to drop his latest album. Of course, nothing about the release or the subsequent tour goes according to plan, resulting in some truly hilarious scenes. His half-baked plan to stream the new album through refridgerators and other kitchen appliances is just the start of the madness. Samberg and his Lonely Island cohorts sparkle as Conner and his original band The Style Boyz, cranking out one memorably insane song after another. My personal favorite is the brief bit of “Turn Up The Beef” we get to hear, although “Humble” and “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)” are close on its heels. The flick is jam-packed with hilarious A-list cameos, from Questlove and Nas to Mariah Carey and Usher, and Samberg’s supported by a great cast including Sarah Silverman in a spot-on turn as Conner4Real’s publicist. It’s also got some of the most hilarious uses of male frontal nudity you’ll ever witness, so that’s something.
Star Wars, Ep. VIII: The Last Jedi (2017) – Now that the Star Wars flicks are coming out hot and heavy at the pace of one a year, you would think that the quality might slip a bit. There was no sign of slippage in Rian Johnson’s moody middle chapter, though. Like The Empire Strikes Back before it, The Last Jedi turned the series on its head and introduced weighty themes of failure and sacrifice into its otherwise zippy space opera. Johnson made quite a few old-time fanboys angry with his determination to “kill the past” (to quote Kylo Ren) and by letting women drive most of the action, but introducing a few new wrinkles to The Force and exposing Poe Dameron’s macho bluster are not cardinal sins. Could Laura Dern’s general have said something about her plan at some point, thereby saving countless lives and about 25 minutes of semi-pointless dicking around on that casino planet? Sure, and it would have probably helped tighten things up. That doesn’t detract from the fact that Johnson has delivered a bold, unique take on the Star Wars universe and set the stage for a truly grand finale in Episode IX. Mark Hamill shined as Luke, turning in a performance that all but erased the memory of going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters. Sometimes, the fanboys just need to get over themselves.
Other odds and ends from my year of films: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the stairwell fight scene in Atomic Blonde, in which Charlize Theron shoots and/or beats up a bunch of thugs in what seems to be one glorious tracking shot. The flick isn’t very good and makes zero sense, but that brutal fight is one of the best I’ve seen. . . Another gonzo action flick worth mentioning is 2007’s dizzyingly silly, ultraviolent Shoot ‘Em Up, which has a number of entries in the “Wildest Action Scene” category, including one in which Clive Owen does all manner of gun acrobatics while holding onto a baby and another where he engages in a shootout while continuing to have sex with his girl. Really wild. . . The strangest flick I saw all year has to be 1997’s Double Team, the Jean-Claude Van Damme/Dennis Rodman team-up you never knew you wanted. Van Damme and Rodman deliver their dialogue like they’re reading it phonetically off each other’s foreheads, while Rodman keeps having to force tortured basketball quips into the action. I guess that’s the kind of thing you do if you’re a crossdressing action hero who runs an illegal arms shop out of an Antwerp drag club. . . And the best “bad” film I saw all year? That would have to be Never Too Young To Die, a 1986 John Stamos/Vanity vehicle that manages to be even stupider than that description would have you believe. It’s almost worth watching just to catch KISS’ Gene Simmons at his most over the top as villain Velvet Von Ragnar, a hermaphrodite gang boss who wants to poison the city’s water supply. Nothing about the movie makes any sense, and you’ll never get the image of Simmons in semi-topless drag out of your mind. Still, it’s got Vanity in it!
Related: My Favorite Films of 2016 | My Favorite Films of 2015 | My Favorite Films of 2014
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