So 2017 is over, which means it’s time to rank everything, leaving us a clean slate leading into the new year. As such, here is a ranked list of everything I’ve watched this year, organised from best to worst:
The Top Ten
1. My Life as a Courgette (French Version with Subtitles)
A French stop-motion film in which a child accidentally kills his alcoholic mother and is sent to a children’s home, wherein he gets into fights, makes friends, falls in love and mourns deeply. It’s a small, melancholic, wistful thing, and is truly, deeply beautiful. Not only the best cartoon of 2017, it’s the best film of 2017.
2. My Life as a Courgette (English Dub)
I loved the original language version of My Life is a Courgette so much, I ended up going to the same art house cinema the next day to watch the English version. The big bonus it has over the original is Nick Offerman who gives a more multifaceted performance than his French counterpart does. It does censor some of the riskier jokes though, somewhat lessening the raw honesty of the original script. That said, you can’t really go wrong with either version: both are masterpieces.
3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
This is just balls-to-the-wall fun. A hedonistic space opera about the need to combine masculinity with emotion, told through racoons, baby trees, David Hasselhoff, ELO… It’s Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who done as a two-hour spectacle using more money than the BBC spends in a year. The best Marvel movie I’ve ever seen, and (with the exception of Thor: Ragnarok) quite frankly the only good one.
4. mother!
The love-it-or-hate-it film of the year, mostly because it’s an art film that got sold as a horror film, resulting in a certain amount of understandable buyer’s remorse from certain sections of the audience. Taken for what it is though, it’s a fascinating, unique and clever piece of work. I don’t wish to spoil anything about it; just know that it was great and you should give it a go with as open a mind as you can.
5. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Visually stunning, cleverly directed, character-driven drama with some surprisingly cutting political bits in the second act. You know it’s doing something right because the alt-right and the fanboys are furious about it. (more…)
FNORD 