Best Movies of 2017

Scott Hardie | December 1, 2017
The ballots are open. You have until December 31 to cast your votes. I can't wait to see what you all choose. :-)

What do you make of 2017's movies?

Erik Bates | December 6, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 8, 2017
Yeah, I'm once again disappointed in how few movies I've gotten around to seeing. I used to see something like 50-70 new movies every year in addition to classic older movies, and now it's a banner year if I get around to seeing 10. It's partly due to Kelly and I being able to agree on so few titles (we wind up with so many superhero movies because it's one of the few genres we can both enjoy), and partly due to TV being so good that I feel completely sucked into television lately, and partly due to having a busier social life with less time to devote to my old love of movies. Samir, you have kids; I don't know how you find the time! I'll try to see a few more films before the end of the year (we already have our Last Jedi tickets), but I wouldn't be surprised if the crappy Dark Tower makes my top-ten list because I never got around to seeing an eleventh film. :-(

Erik Bates | December 8, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 8, 2017
I've thought about offering Thorough Television Reviews, but I doubt I would have enough to say about individual episodes to make it worthwhile, and TC scratches my itch for discussing an entire season or series at a time. But other people's experience could well be different. Is there a lot of interest in trying TV reviews on this site?

Samir Mehta | December 8, 2017
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Erik Bates | December 8, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 13, 2017
I don't know; I just fear that a TV reviews feature wouldn't get used, and I don't want to have a section of the site sitting around not getting used. We barely have any movie discussions despite there being a simple form right there on the page to start one. (Technically the form suggests the title to me and I start the discussion, but it has gotten exactly zero submissions in the year and a half since I created it.) I would feel obligated to write TV reviews myself to keep the feature alive, and I have enough to do. I'll keep the idea in mind to revisit if the site grows to the point where enough people might participate. Thanks for suggesting it!

Erik Bates | December 13, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 30, 2017
Last call for votes! The voting closes at midnight tomorrow night. The outcome will be displayed on Monday.

I see Wonder Woman popping up on lots of end-of-year best film lists (here and elsewhere), and it has me questioning my assessment. I liked all four superhero films that I saw this year, but I considered Wonder Woman to be the weakest of the bunch, with its weightless and dimensionless all-CGI mess of a finale, and its surrendering too much of the screen time and point-of-view to the male love interest in what should be the lead woman's movie. But I'm also a Marvel fanboy from way back when, growing up on Spider-Man and other Marvel comics, so could I be blinded by my brand loyalty? It's possible. I don't consider Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 or Thor: Ragnarok to be anything other than fun popcorn entertainment, neither having a scene as important as Gal Godot dropping the cloak and climbing up out of the trench in full Wonder Woman costume in her movie's landmark battle scene, finally doing for women what men had taken for granted for so long... but i do consider both of those sequels to be more fun and more entertaining and better all-around than Wonder Woman. And I've been hard on Marvel before, considering most of its "phase one" movies to be mediocre and giving a really negative review to one of its "phase two" movies. Now that Marvel has finally achieved a consistent excellence in its "phase three" films, I have to be honest and rate all three of this year's MCU films higher than DC's because that's what I really thought of them. If that risks making me a biased Marvel fan, all I can do is acknowledge the possibility.

Scott Hardie | January 1, 2018
The final tally has been revealed. I'm very pleased with the list; those are some good movies! As I've said after other recent years, the list is heavy on superheroes, but so is Hollywood these days.

Speaking of superheroes, I'm surprised that Erik's #2 pick Wonder Woman didn't make our top ten. It was almost #10 on my ballot but got knocked out by a last-minute viewing of Logan. Diana's movie was definitely the most ground-breaking and discussable superhero film of the year.

Erik, Evie, Samir, thank you very much for contributing reviews and filling out ballots! I really enjoy our little annual tradition. :-)

Erik, I'm sorry that you're under-represented in the quotes. I was so tempted to quote you as saying "Not much more to say here" about Split, but I feel compelled to be fair to that movie no matter how mad I was at M. Night Shyamalan. :-)

Blade Runner 2049 was without a doubt the most challenging film that I saw this year, fully engaging my mind and my emotions for nearly three hours. It's a huge achievement and deserved its place on my ballot. La La Land was the only other title that even came close to accomplishing what it did. To have starred in both of them, Ryan Gosling has excellent taste in choosing parts.

Erik, last year you were disappointed not to have been able to name La La Land the best film of the year. I hope this year makes up for it.

I am curious where The Last Jedi would have wound up if Samir had seen it in time, and ditto for Coco with Evie, but to me the biggest miss was probably Samir's #2 choice Get Out, which I ran out of time to see before the deadline; I have the DVD in a Netflix envelope in front of me as I type this. I suspect it would have easily made our combined top ten. Oh well; I accepted years ago that some good films just can't make the cut.

Anyway, great year all! I'm looking forward to next December's voting already. :-)