2017 in the Ground: Groove and Swing

We don't JUST ramble about Star Wars here at Norwegian Morning Wood, sometimes we even listen to music. 2017 was...not great. The cats at the top made some pretty killer albums, but generally singles tended to blur together. The Summer Jam 2017 was actually a decent ride, though. "Despacito" as far as Global Pop Hits go, is pretty damn decent. Let's start with the most popular or notable singles of the year:

And let's just BOLD my Top Ten as we move through the year. You don't want to see all this repeated anyway, and most of what I loved made it into the zeitgeist, or at least my personal zeitgeist.

"Caroline" - Aminé
"Blood in the Cut" - K. Flay
"I Don't Wanna Live Forever" - Zayn ft. Taylor Swift
"Bad and Boujee" - Migos
"iSPY" - Kyle ft. Lil Yachty
"Humble." - Kendrick Lamar
"That's What I Like" - Bruno Mars
"Chained to the Rhythm" - Katy Perry
"Green Light" - Lorde
"Heavy" - Linkin Park ft. Kiiara
"24K Magic" - Bruno Mars
"DNA." - Kendrick Lamar
"Issues" - Julia Michaels
"The Cure" - Lady GaGa
"Feel It Still" - Portugal. The Man
"Redbone" - Childish Gambino
"High" - Sir Sly
"Bad Liar" - Selena Gomez
"It Ain't Me" - KYGO ft. Selena Gomez
"Sign of the Times" - Harry Styles
"Uh-Huh" - Julia Michaels
"Despacito" - Daddy Yankee
"911" - Tyler the Creator
"Woman" - Kesha ft. Dap-Kings Horns
"Bodak Yellow" - Cardi B
"Shape of You" - Ed Sheeran
"Young, Dumb, and Broke" - Khalid
"Boys" - Charli XCX
"Slow Hands" - Niall Horan
"Feels" - Calvin Harris ft. Pharrell, Katy Perry, Big Sean
"Stay" - Alessia Cara
"Who Dat Boy" - Tyler the Creator ft. ASAP Rocky
"Body Like a Back Road" - Sam Hunt
"1-800-273-8255" - Logic ft. Alessia Cara, Khalid
"Rake it Up" - Gotti ft. Nicki Minaj
"Strip that Down" - Liam Payne ft. Quavo
"Havana" - Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug
"Look What You Made Me Do" - Taylor Swift
"Thunder" - Imagine Dragons
"Rockstar" - Post Malone ft. 21 Savage
"Sorry, Not Sorry" - Demi Lovato
"Praying" - Kesha
"No Limit" - G-Eazy ft. ASAP Rocky, Cardi B, French Montana
"Gucci Gang" - Lil Pump
"Bad at Love" - Halsey
"Lemon" - N.E.R.D. ft. Rihanna
"Love." - Kendrick Lamar
"Call Ticketron" - Run the Jewels

That's one decent crop.

Artist of the Year:

I was taking a walk the other day

There are a lot of good people in the running on this one. Katy Perry really tried to have a great year and totally failed. Taylor Swift did better, but is way too partisan. Lady GaGa opened up awesome at the Super Bowl, made a really egocentric movie, and released a few kickass singles that didn't really catch on. Bruno Mars dominated early and held on like somehow only Bruno Mars can do now.

Selena Gomez is silently our runner-up. She keeps making incredible beats that don't seem to get proper recognition and at one point was featured or starring on two massive tracks this summer. "Bad Liar" was a weird ass video, but she's still amazing on it.

But really, this is the year of Kendrick Lamar. He'll get his Best Hip-Hop Album Award from Norwegian Morning Wood a little bit later, but he had a massive crossover hit with "Humble.", some harder tracks here and there and was a non-stop presence in the music world. This was a good year for a lot of newcomers, too, so we might as well announce the-

Newcomer of the Year:

This is the least boob-centric pic I could find

Fifth Harmony breakout Camila Cabello diversified herself and made us question why we were never able to distinguish her from the rest of that group. There are so many other hot artists to come out of 2017. Post Malone had a couple huge hits, Logic is on the scene, Alessia Cara has one of the greatest new voices. It's hard to even remember that prior to 2017 no one had heard of the Migos.

In addition to Camila breaking off from Fifth Harmony this was the year that all the One Direction boys blasted off. They've all made far more tolerable tracks than they did together, which is certainly all about them having some more autonomy and older perspective. Harry Styles we kind of new would be the best, and he was, but Niall Horan is also cranking out great stuff now.

But there's no real contest. 2017, welcome Cardi B. I don't even really like her voice, it's too harsh for me, but her turn on "No Limit" is solid as hell. Going from stripper to global superstar is no small feat, and by September this woman was in charge of the world. "Bodak Yellow" was a massive song and I'm excited to hear her take a lozenge and come out with something else.

Albums of the Year:

ROCK

I had trouble finding a good Rock album this year. Rock is dead, I suppose. Portugal. The Man did some great stuff, and if you count Harry Styles, which you could, there's some really interesting directions this year. Queens of the Stone Age made some good shit that no one listened to, but there's better stuff out there.

That better stuff is Father John Misty's Pure Comedy. Somehow more commercially popular than his previous I Love You, Honeybear, it's also less catchy and more subversive. He winds around folk poetry, requiring a keen ear and an open heart, flirting with pretension and sometimes crossing that line, but generally crafting earworms in addition to the most socially and spiritually conscious album of the year.

Key Tracks: "Total Entertainment Forever", "Leaving LA", "So I'm Growing Old on Magic Mountain"

HIP-HOP

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. There was a lot of good Hip-Hop this year but no one is proving themselves the master that Kendrick is. I had high hopes for Tyler the Creator's Flower Boy because the singles were so strong, but the album left me wanting. Kendrick meditates on some big ideas, both personal and political, always weaving his own place in the world and connecting it to the album at large. Kendrick expresses his loneliness, desperation, demons, and hope over the sickest beats of the year.

Key Tracks: "FEEL.", "LUST.", "HUMBLE."

Runner-up: Jay-Z, 4:44. Jay-Z doesn't seem to be getting a lot of credit at year's end here. I have a conspiracy theory that DAMN. for all its majesty is better suited for sympathetic white critic ears while 4:44 throws the gloves off and attempts to be a completely black album for black ears. A lot of it can barely be considered rapping, which is why it's tough to single-ize. I mean, is your big track, "The Story of O.J."? That's not nearly radio-friendly. Jay-Z writes a confession to match Beyonce's Lemonade anger and it holds up if not nearly as listenable. That might be why he's favored making short films with barely a few lines of music and more focused on the black experience. It's amazing what an artist can decide to do when he no longer cares about money or sales, and this is a monumental step in a direction away from "Big Pimpin'", even if some of the message gets too obfuscated and symbolic for its own good.

POP

Overall Album of the Year: Rainbow by Kesha. Yes, she dropped the $ and made the most simultaneously hopeful and painful album of the year. This album works in context because you know it came out of such fire but Kesha is phoenix-ing hard. She neglects auto-tune completely and creates a new sound totally free from her party-anthem ways (okay, there's a bit of "stardust" in there). It's refreshing, lovely, and beautiful. Kesha throws off all shackles and judgments and shows us that we too can be happy with who we are, resilient, proud, and beautiful, too. It's a trip.

Key Tracks: "Bastards", "Hymn", "Praying"

Runner-up: Lorde, Melodrama. I guess I never thought that Lorde actually left us, but damn it's been a while since Pure Heroine. I think this is because Randy Marsh never left us. Melodrama is an older (yeah - 21 instead of 17), and that blase attitude towards pop culture is still there, but re-energized and focused like an older artist can reflect on. Yes, an old 21-year old artist. She puts aside any concern she'd be one and done and adds a lot of great radio hits as well.

Music Videos of the Year:

Charli XCX's "Boys" will make you gay, but is also so fun and playful. Also will make you gay. Somehow this has every cute boy in the world.



Kendrick Lamar - "HUMBLE." because of course it's addictive and engaging - money, ho's, and popes:



Tyler the Creator - "Who Dat Boy" Somehow a lot of Tyler got on here despite not doing all that much this year. This is also a video I can't stop watching due to its brutality, identity-playing, and the surprisingly charismatic turn by ASAP Rocky. And Tyler's incredible physical acting.



Portugal. The Man - "Rich Friends" I love a good video gimmick, and this is a creative use of pop-ups and Dennis Reynolds.



Young Thug - "Wyclef Jean" So, Young Thug actually had a great year, but this amazing video speaks for itself. Watch the #1 video o the year:

2017 in the Ground: Other Movie Stuff

We recounted our Top Movie Moments earlier today, but there's so many more superlatives we need to discuss. Let's get to it, then get the hell out of 2017!

Best Trailer of the Year:

I hardly ever watch movie trailers. I know enough about what is going to come out to usually form an opinion, and if there's something like Annihilation (2018) that I'm like "What the fuck is this weird shit?" then I'll watch it, but usually I'll just go to the theater or rent the shit. For the record, Annihilation should be a solid runner up. But there was one trailer I watched over and over and over again, and that was THOR: Ragnarok (2017), which was perfect, dastardly, sets some sincere stakes (and unfortunately gives away the best, and most marketed character reveal):



Also props to Atomic Blonde (2017), IT (2017), Infinity War (2018), Valerian and the City of Something Planets (2017), and Isle of Dogs (2018). I really loved the Run the Jewels use in Black Panther (2018) and the ruggedness of Michael B. Jordan, but kind of whatever on that, to be honest.

Best Soundtrack:

Let's call this the collective songs chosen to prop up a film. Now, solid contenders include Baby Driver (2017) for its perfect sync-up moments and heavy emphasis on music or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) for pushing the same gimmick as its predecessor while finding its own niche. No flick, though, found such harmony and perfection in melding soundtrack to its period and tone as Atomic Blonde did while thumping through an onslaught of 80s Euro-trash hits, where each needle drop laid a beautiful sonic companion. I wouldn't go out and buy the soundtrack or even listen to it casually, but within the film, it's a golden supplement.

Best Score:

I listened to the Blade Runner 2049 (2017) score on loop while writing my excessively long take on the film and it became a part of my soul. I am totally going against the grain and saying this improves on Vangelis, who only plays one fucking note the whole movie. It's intimidating, beautiful, nostalgic, and futuristic, all an incredible feat.

As you can tell, I've been crying.

Actor of the Year:

When I was thinking about this I didn't even consider The Rock, even though he was in three huge (or trying to be huge movies - Fate of the Furious, Baywatch, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle). Has his star faded? Tom Holland showed up in movies big (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and small (Lost City of Z) that were both great. Hugh Jackman seemed to have a great year until no one cared about The Greatest Showman, and I was even thinking Adam Driver based on a ridiculous range between doofy (Logan Lucky) and dire (The Last Jedi).

None of these feel like 2017, though, right? Actor of the Year instead belongs to the newcomers - Daniel Kaluuya, Timothée Chalamet, Ansel Elgort, and Bill Skarsgard. These four are the faces of horror, romance, action, and uhh...clown horror respectively. The image of Kaluuya crying is the most iconic of 2017.

Actress of the Year:

I had a lot of internal debate over Actor of the year and decided to give it to the newcomers. There was no such inner monologue over Actress of the Year. The winner was clear, as is the overall actor who owned 2017: Gal Gadot.

My girl ate the last fry!

She was only in two films this year and played the same character in both, but this just felt like her year more than anything else. There were others like Nicole Kidman (The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Big Little Lies) and Saiorse Ronan (Lady Bird) who had some great years, but Gal just dominated. Other newcomers who are going to rock the hell out of our world for the next few years include Sofia Boutella, Ana de Armas, and Tiffany Haddish.

So, that's it, folks. Those are all your movie moments and other paraphernalia wrapped up in a bow. Do you agree with this nonsense? Does Dunkirk, Call Me By Your Name, Coco, The Disaster Artist, and The Big Sick deserve more credit? Sound off below!

2017 In the Ground: Movie Moments

We'll get to our official Top 10 very soon, but today it's time to recount all the great singular moments that happened on screen this year. This is oftentimes a nice way to highlight fucked up crazy shit that happened in otherwise terrible films, and this year is no different. There was a lot of zaniness on screen this year that deserves a shout-out. Of course some of these were actually pivotal moments in big great films. Mostly, though, this is properly ridiculous. Here are my fifteen favourite scenes:

Justice League: Flash vs Superman

Listen, there's one good moment in Justice League, and you won't find it acknowledged anywhere else. His whole resurrection is dubious, but that one little eye movement and Ezra Miller's "Oh shit!" face is incredible subtlety in a movie otherwise devoid of it.

A Ghost Story: Rooney Mara eats a pie

You ever want to watch Rooney Mara eat a pie for five minutes? Here ya go! A Ghost Story is all about making us feel Casey Affleck with a Sheet over his Head's eternal ennui and impotence, and there's no better scene in this film then watching someone you love eat a pie while unable to express the most basic communication. It's a parable for a lot of things, and I should love this movie because it does what it wants to do so well. Still...fuck that's a long time to watch someone eat pie.

IT: Bye Bye Georgie

This may not be the most memeable scene in the film, but certainly the most iconic. It somehow improves on dread from the 1990 Tim Curry version, and carries that feeling on for the rest of its run time. No other scene this year so thoroughly demonstrated everything the following movie was going to be.

Logan: "Someone has come along."

I couldn't find the scene because it's otherwise unimpressive in a film filled with knife-hands getting jammed through goons' heads, but whenever I think back to this film I remember this line. It means a lot for your everyday life - anyone can be a hero if they just choose to be instead of figuring someone else will do it. This or the dinner scene, exceptional for its peacefulness, not its violence, is where this movie shines.

The Fate of the Furious: Jailbreak



Hard pick between this or Jason Statham on a plane with a quiet baby, but in a film that somehow finally found a way to push its ridiculousness past the breaking point (misunderstanding Dom Toretto was a big one), this was a thrill.

Atomic Blonde: Stairwell Fight



There's a lot of incredible action scenes in Atomic Blonde that surround a plot that's thin as hell. None are better than this single-take (or cleverly edited) stairwell battle where you feel every hit, bruise, and panted breath more than any other flick in recent memory.

The Bad Batch: Bye Bye Arm

I still don't totally know how I feel about The Bad Batch, but I do know one thing - when Arlen loses an arm to cannibals near the beginning of the film it's a gross, sickening, uncomfortable moment in every possible way. Especially because her eventual love interest wants to eat it. This movie is fucked up.

Get Out: The Sunken Place



Get Out teeters on the edge of thriller/family drama for ages until it hits this scene, then suddenly the rug is pulled out and we're in full-blown horror, people. Instantly iconic and forever locked into one of 2017's best films. This is everything.

Thor: Ragnarok: Anytime "Immigrant Song" Plays

There's again no good link here - but as a rare case of actually getting the rights to Led Zep jam, after appearing in the trailer, "Immigrant Song" blasts first when Thor and Mjolner fuck up Surtur's day down in Muspelheim, and then comes again full circle when he full accepts his powers and lights up the world against Hela's minions. And that's not even the best part - Valkyrie struts like a fucking boss silhouetted by the Grandmaster Jeff Goldbum's Firework Orgy Ship. That sentence would seem really strange in any other movie.

War of the Planet of the Apes: Shit Throwing

At the end of all things, a decidedly underrated film, but it took us over fifty years to finally get here. Finally, FINALLY we have some apes flinging feces around. I loved it. And it served a story purpose!

Wonder Woman: No Man's Land

This was an early contender for Scene of the Year, and it's still breathtaking. Everything is perfect. We see the stakes, we hear the stakes as Diana and Steve debate, we see Diana's character full of love and compassion, that it fuels her strength rather than makes her soft. We, and the rest of the characters, too, then see Diana become Wonder Woman in full glorious battle attire. The music swells and she does what no man cannot while it symbolically and thematically becomes the greatest metaphor for Fuck You 2017.

Spider-Man Homecoming: The Father Talk

I genuinely did not see this coming. This was an amazing twist that totally makes every coincidence in this movie work. There's actually a really subtle moment about two minutes into this clip - the light turns green, lighting up Mike Keaton's face green in Vulture-y glory (green might as well be a color symbolizing all Spider-Villains [Goblin, Lizard, Scorpion, Mysterio, Electro, Sandman, Doc Ock - it contrasts really well]), as his voice takes a sinister turn while simultaneously showing that he's no longer paying attention to the road or his surroundings. From there it's out in the open and the already contentious boyfriend / father relationship is exasperated to its most extreme. Like Logan, a high-budget superhero film's best scene comes down to a simple conversation.

Blade Runner 2049: Holo-Orgy



There's probably some better scenes, but none that made me truly sit and wonder how the hell they did it. Having Ana de Armas in a sex scene helps. It's also weird as fuck. Ryan Gosling is put on leave after finding out he might be the Dream Child and failing his base test. His whole world's perspective is shattered and he comes home to a blurry orgy with his Google Home and a prostitute. Actually, this should be higher.

Girls Trip: Grapefruit



So this starts off easy enough. Simple relationship troubles. And even as Tiffany Haddish begins describing the grapefruit it seems easy enough. When she begins demonstrating, though, that's when all hell breaks loose and we meet our new breakout star of 2017.

Transformers: The Last Knight: Mark Wahlberg's Sword



That's right, baby! We went there. You want to talk about the most insane, moronic moment in film history? We've got ancient Medieval Knight Transformers about to execute a brainwashed Optimus Prime, but not so fast! Here comes Mark Wahlberg with a sword that somehow fucking deflects a 40 foot robot. I laughed outloud in the theater. No one saw this bloated mess, which is too bad, because this should have been a meme.

What are your favourite movie moments this year?!

2017 in the Ground: Best Films Seen in the Year 2017

This is something I started a few years ago - it's easy for anyone to make up a Top 10 list of all the films that came out in 2017, but that's not wholly accurate, is it? A more proper judge of my personal 2017 film experience is to rank every film that I actually saw for the first time this year. Most of these are still 2016/17 films because that's most of what I watched, but it's interesting to see what sneaks in.

For my mid-year list, check this out. What's interesting is how much my taste shifts constantly. At the very least, hopefully this offers an inspirational look at catching up on some flicks I've missed for the first thirty years of my life and you might be interested in!

Not enough zombie fighters just simply duct tape their wrists

#10: Train to Busan (2016)

This definitely came out of no where. I saw it on Netflix Streaming without thinking much more than "Korean zombies on a train," this could be a fun Friday night. Train to Busan was an amazing piece of action filmmaking that's also full of class conflict (what articulate zombie movie isn't?) and a very human struggle of a dude trying to get his daughter to Busan. I don't know what it is about Korea and train movies (see, Snowpiercer [2013]), but limiting the geography for maximum terror and action works really well.

#9: Silence (2016)

Marty Scorsese's excessively long meditation on faith and persecution in mid-19th century Japan is brutal, but also stuck with me for a long while. It's somehow one of his best-looking films ever but crafts tension, terror, release, faith, and spits on melancholic redemption brilliantly. It's a slog, one that I probably wouldn't watch again on that spicy Friday night, but it certainly deserves a look at one of the best things he's ever done in his extensive filmography, even if it stands out in time period, setting, and cast.

#8: (500) Days of Summer (2009)

This is another pretty innocuous flick that has stuck with me quite a bit. It's a wonderful romantic comedy that continually proves itself not to be. Its ending is ultimately saccharine, but the road to get there is long and heartbreaking. Joe Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are a couple who aren't right for each other in any way despite the former's inability to understand that. His grand gestures would be heart-throbbing in a Matthew McConaughey / Kate Hudson film. Here he's misinformed and delusional. He wants Zooey to be his manic pixie dream girl, but she's just a human. It's top to bottom underrated.

#7: Patton (1970)

This was my number one film at the mid-year point and it's still gargantuan with hardly a flaw, but probably not something I'm going to recall constantly with fond memories. It's all about George C. Scott giving one of the most insane performances of all time along in a dear love letter to America's greatest, most insane general. It's absolutely badass while also offering a sincere critique of how you can send a soldier off to die on some god-forsaken rock but you can't slap them.

Chad Radwell

#6: Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Last year Richard Linklater cobbled together this ultimate bro flick that had some solid fanfare but largely missed any significant recognition. I watched this. I don't know if I've ever seen a film with less of a plot, where nothing happens from beginning to end. There's hardly even any conflict. But dammit...this is the ultimate hang-out film. No movie on this list was as fun as Everybody Wants Some!! and that's a notable achievement. It helps having a supremely likable cast of beefcake baseball players getting black-out drunk three days in a row and while it's in a "simpler" time where 80s college movie-style rape was totally accepted, it never dips into creeper territory.

#5: Shame (2011)

Before Steve McQueen was adored for 12 Years a Slave (2013), he made this wild flick with Mike Fassbender. All of his patient and unflinching style is there as we focus on the worst sex addict of all time, which Fassbender plunges into without any sign of hesitance. The depths of his addiction are pretty clear at the outset, but grows worse the more curveballs are thrown at him, culminating in a festering hypocrisy towards his sister and everyone else around him that tries to care. He'd rather go on YouPorn than have any meaningful relationship, and that irredeemable nature is a total bummer. Opposite of Everybody Wants Some!!.

#4: Baby Driver (2017)

The first 2017 film to make this list, Baby Driver doesn't have the most complex plot or anything, but holy shit this is the most highly articulated film, maybe ever? Ansel Elgort is perfect and holds his own against an incredibly deep cast. It'll be forever tainted as one of Kevin Spacey's last movies before he came out as a gay rapist, but there's still a lot to love. The action sequences are wonderful with an added layer of musical inspiration, but my favourite scenes are the slower ones, the blossoming of an Atlantean Romance and the hope it inspires. I'll be talking much more about this one in my Best of the Year lists coming soon.

Showers not need apply

#3: American Honey (2016)

Here's a tiny film that made a few best of lists last year and was otherwise forgotten. It's a nearly three-hour epic that tells a remarkably simple story, but honestly, no other film this year stuck with me so much. It's so identifiable for my generation - lost, stupid, and wandering the world without purpose, hustling trying to make a living while being scammed and trying to scam others. We're a leech and damn, American Honey lends a sympathetic ear to that. It's a tragedy over anything else, and even when the characters find a moment of happiness your heart breaks for how pathetic and misguided they are. It's a wonderful film that's also pretty damn hard to get through even though ostensibly it's nothing like cancer or racism. It's a keen look at spiritual depression, which is a true tragedy in its own way.

When Bae says she doesn't want to watch Star Wars

#2: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

I had never seen this whole thing before, and dammit, this shoddy 40+ year old masterpiece was a fucking trip. I watched it the Sunday before Halloween and shit, this is a near-perfect movie. It's a terrifying look at a slightly alternate reality, where corpses hang out outside and a constant stream of murders are reported on the radio. Wait, maybe that is out reality... it works because its grungy insane aesthetic totally matches the mysterious, broken down horror of what's going on on screen. None of the prequels or reboots really understood that and go for overt creepiness instead. Nah, set in daylight, offer lots of cannon fodder, some goofy knife-wielding hitchhikers and we're all set. The unending screaming and horror during that dinner scene is a cinematic triumph of uncomfortable editing. Oh, and Leatherface dancing in the sunset is still the most iconic horror image ever.

#1: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

So, #1 most anticipated film, will be #1 of 2017, and the #1 movie I saw in the calendar year overall. The only film on this list that I actually caught in theaters, as well. I love everything about this. I spent 4200 words talking about how much I loved this (except still for that fucking Deckard temptation scene, which is a blight on this movie forever). Just like the original, it's been largely ignored both critically and commercially. We'll come around. Again.

What movies did you watch this year that didn't necessarily come out this year? Have you seen any of the above?

2017 in the Ground: Everyone's Best Movie List

I've been really seriously tallying up my end-of-year movie lists for a while now, and to be honest, the last couple years it's like the Christmas gift that I give myself. This probably has something to do with it - tracking and building anticipation for my personal media consumption analysis for an entire year is an awesome thing to look forward to.

Last year, though, I noticed something odd when I began to tally up the movies I loved. They were totally different than everyone else's. It was as if all the other critics had gotten together and said to themselves, "THESE are the movies we are looking at, you may pick from them." This led to a La La Land (2016) / Moonlight (2016) showdown, which was a compelling match between two really good flicks, but also two drastically underseen flicks among the general public that was both bait-y and alienating.

To be fair, I counted La La Land #7 last year and left Moonlight off because I couldn't really get into it - I've since come around and they'll both land in my updated 2016 list that'll drop in a few weeks. My point was more that we kept seeing the same handful of indie films over and over again, like Fences, Manchester by the Sea, and Toni Erdmann. To be precise, all good films but critics seemed afraid of branching out and finding some variety. It's as if they thought they'd be derided for picking anything else.

2017 is far far worse. After I watched Blade Runner 2049 (2017), I was sold on it being the best thing I'd seen in a long time. It's not even a remote consideration on any one's list. I'm flabbergasted.

Let's go through the Prototypical List of Best Movies to Choose From:

Phantom Thread

Faces Places

The Post

A Fantastic Woman

A Ghost Story

Lady Bird

Get Out

The Florida Project

The Shape of Water

Call Me by Your Name

Mudbound

A Quiet Passion

Dunkirk

Personal Shopper

Wonderstruck

The Post

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

That's pretty much the just of this, this, this, this, and this. Now, I don't mean to be a bitch, there's some cool variety to be found. Girls Trip and Wonder Woman pop up here and there, and the Vulture somehow also included Valerian and the Long Title About Planets that I Forgot, which is all kinds of campy and awesome. Colossal found its way as some honourable mentions, which is a film that I loved this year, and Okja creeps its way in, which is terribly underrated.

We also do see some big films like Get Out and Dunkirk earn recognition, which is rad. I just kind of think most of the rest of this is boring pretentious crap. Faces Places, get out of here.

Part of this rant is really just a prep - to let ya'll know that I know what the cinematic conversation is right now and how I plan on rejecting it entirely. I have no interest at all in the vast majority of this shit and my list is going to look totally insane in comparison. Of course, I reflect and morph and update each year after making a slew of terrible choices, but that's also what both watching films and creating long-lasting relationships with them is all about.

That more than anything ends up being how I judge films in the long run. Which films do I continually reflect on and adore for months afterwards. Which fall by the wayside? It's amazing the kind of time traveling that happens with some films. Sometimes I have no single recollection of a damn thing that happened. I watched The Magnificent Seven (2016) a few months back and can't tell you a single plot point. It's super possible that I just watch too many films and any slightly similar ones blur together, but there's also something to be said for distinctive, interesting filmmaking that sticks with you.

On the other hand, what does make a good film? Is it simply a compelling and logical sequence of events demonstrated through a craft that continually accentuates subtext and theme in addition to the plot played out on screen? Are films worth seeing once and analyzing for that merit in the moment without regard to the relationship we develop with them? Should films be thought of as "in the moment" films, where something super-relevant like A Fantastic Woman stands out, or does it stand out only because of its moment and not its craft? Or like Moonlight, does it do both? These are all questions worth asking and reflecting on when selecting a best of list.

For my money, I will mostly ride an overall feel, which comes about from craft, story, character, and in a grand sense, "what it's about." I always kind of think of this when considering big action blockbusters - of course we loved IT (2017) - the old film needed sincere updating and there were genuine thrills and an overall clear aesthetic, purpose, and narrative. Of fucking course no one saw The Dark Tower (2017), it alienated any fans it may have had by not staying true to its source and alienated any new fans by still being too damn fucking obtuse. This isn't hard to decipher. I should be a studio executive.

So that's where I'm coming from this year. I need to continue slamming movies and catching up over the next few weeks, and as it should be, I will post at the genuine end of the year, on the 31st with my Final List. Stay tuned, dear readers!

2017 in Film! Half-Year Personal Viewing Update

Well, we're about just past the half-way mark for 2017, so it's time we take a gander at everything I've ingested so far this year. You may of course check this out in glorious list form right here, but let's do a brief analysis:

Total Movies Watched: 112
First Time Viewings: 58
Repeat Viewings: 54

The near 50/50 split is pretty much in line with 2016 where I finished the year at 53% new movies. I also finished that year with 220 total, so 112 at halfway is a good pace to match that, although I'm actually down from where I was last year, where I had 114 total (62 new). That's really not all that crazily different, which is remarkable in itself.

Now, obviously we need to get down with some Top Ten lists for the year so far. Now, as a reminder, this isn't a 2017 list like most other websites. This is merely a list of the films that I have so far personally watched in 2017, which is far more accurate to my personal viewing habits, although likely fairly uninteresting to anyone else. I've made peace with this.

Here we go, with #1 at the top and #10 at the bottom.

Patton (1970)
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
Train to Busan (2016)
American Honey (2016)
Spotlight (2015)
O.J.: Made in America (2016)
Silence (2016)
(500) Days of Summer (2009)
The Love Witch (2016)

So, obviously, I'm catching up a lot with 2016 films, with 6/10 represented here. I'd say that's fair when judging only first-time viewings. The fun part is seeing which of these films make it until December. Last year only four of my Top Films halfway made the final Year List, and they were all totally out of order as my tastes changed.

I'll add four honorable mentions, three of which are 2016 films: Moana (2016), The Hustler (1961), War on Everyone (2016), and A Bigger Splash (2016) in that order.

Last year I also dished on all the terrible films I had seen, and this year is no different. Back in February I really committed to watching as many bad films as possible, but the worst was definitely Silver Streak (1976), which was shocking to me with huge expectations going in. That movie is fucking terrible until Richard Pryor shows up with about twenty minutes left and makes it awesome, yet ultimately irredeemable.

That's 2017 so far. What have you watched?