Last Weekend We Got To See The Academy’s Chosen Few. This Week It’s My Turn With This Year’s Edition Of The Shaynies
What was your favourite movie last year. It’s a question I hate. Every year Hollywood releases hundreds of movies, a number that is only going to go up with the advent of streaming originals. And now more than ever in its history, Hollywood is offering a diverse range slate of genre and content. How do you compare science fiction movies to comedies? Or dramas? The question has become as absurd as it is limiting.
So that’s why my annual list is broken down into categories, with a few extras thrown in for good measure. So read, enjoy and feel free to criticize of offer your own suggestions.
Favourite Action Movie: Not only did John Wick Chapter 2 match the stylized action of the first, but it somehow improved on it. JW was a slick, suave action number that somehow managed to be classy at the same time. While I don’t know how many other tricks they can have up their sleeve for John Wick 3, I have to admit, I’m kind of looking forward to the upcoming Continental TV show. The first John Wick proved showed you never mess with a man’s dog. This one showed why you never want to piss of Keanu Reeves.
Favourite Animated Movie: Make no mistake, Pixar’s Coco was hands down 2017’s best animated movie. I was rooting for it to win the Oscar for best animated feature and thrilled when it walked away with the W. But this list is about my favourites from last year and The Boss Baby takes that particular title for 2017’s animated fare. I loved Coco, but I adored Alec Baldwin’s precocious, smug and lovably snarky baby CEO to no end. The political situation south of the border was threatening to give me a drinking problem by the time The Boss Baby hit theatres, so the laughs this movie provided were welcome medicine.
Favourite Comedy: Central Intelligence won this category a few years ago based purely on the chemistry between Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson (more on them later). The Hitman’s Bodyguard owns it this year because of the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson. And Salma Hayek stole no shortage of scenes as Jackson’s hard hitting, bone breaking and foul mouthed girlfriend. Everything else about The Hitman’s Bodyguard ranged from adequate to OK, but the leads (and the chemistry between them) made this movie a solid watch that was at times knee slapping hilarious.
Favourite Comic Book Movie: We got spoiled with some incredible comic book movies last year, which made picking this category’s winner pretty tough. But at the end of the day Wonder Woman rose to the top. DC’s Amazon princess has always been one of my favourite super heroes and Gal Gadot’s performance was not only pitch perfect, but her depiction of Diana’s evolution from Innocent to Hero was spot on as well. Rather than being a simple origin story, Wonder Woman also depicted Diana’s transition from innocence to bitter knowledge and director Patty Jenkins vision for that journey was as accurate as Gadot’s portrayal. Truth be told, Wonder Woman had a lot of mediocre moments but the portrayal of the hero and her journey connected to audiences around the world in a way that no other DC movie had before.
Or since.
Favourite Drama: I don’t know if Dunkirk qualifies as a drama, but what struck me the most about Christopher Nolan’s WW2 epic was how honestly it portrayed the men whose story it told. It was fearless and unflinching. The same men who were cheering the rescue of a fallen comrade one scene were greedily clawing their way over the wounded and dying the next. It showed men rising to unimaginable occasion and buckling beneath the same pressure. Dunkirk revealed how men behave in a nightmarish scenario where certain and brutal death seem inevitable, and it did it without judgement. No other movie in 2017 offered such powerful commentary.
Favourite Horror Movie: For a low budget movie released in the dog days of August, you wouldn’t expect Annabelle: Creation to capture many imaginations. But not only did it captivate, it creeped a lot of people out of their seats and skins in the process. One of Warner Bros. most profitable films last year (it grossed over 100 million on a paltry budget of 15 million), Annabelle: Creation cemented the Conjuring-verse’s place at the top of Hollywood’s horror food chain. Artfully cranking up the tension at just the right moments and using old style chills, Annabelle even pulled off some scares during broad daylight. For fans of spine-skating tingles, this one was worth checking out.
Favourite Science Fiction Movie: I didn’t expect to like Blade Runner 2049 for a variety of reasons. But I was blown away by the quiet efficiency of the story, the stunning visuals, the world building and the nuanced performances. Blade Runner was long and it moved pretty slowly at times, but it had a story to tell and developing Ryan Gosling’s replicant K managed to reveal more about the movie’s bleak future than any special effects or dialogue. It was a trick I’d never seen pulled off before. Blade Runner wasn’t for everyone, but if you’re a science fiction fan who appreciates smart, subtle storytelling and have the patience to wait it out, Blade Runner was worth it.
Favourite Popcorn Movie: Coming in just under the wire at the end of December, Jumanji Welcome To The Jungle was another one of 2017’s pleasant surprises. I was looking forward to seeing Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson recreate the chemistry that made Central Intelligence so much fun a few years ago, but while they successfully recreated that magic they took a back seat to Jack Black as the stereotypical teenaged valley girl. Jumanji had a few other things going for it, but it’s stars were definitely the reason to buy a ticket. If you were looking for a movie that gave you permission to switch your brain off for a few hours and just sit back, Jumanji was it.
Guilty Pleasure: While The Great Wall didn’t find much of an audience in North America, it enjoyed considerable success internationally, particularly in the Middle Kingdom (where it took place). Despite its considerable budget, The Great Wall wasn’t the best action movie of 2017 (I gave that nod to John Wick 2), but it told a solid fantasy-action story about medieval European adventurers/smugglers/thieves stumbling upon China’s centuries long battle against extra-terrestrial demons. The colours, set designs and grand scale action choreography were all top notch and the accusations of whitewashing were overblown and undeserved (the white protagonists were bumbling, illiterate con men put to shame by and eventually inspired by the Chinese). There was plenty of cheese in The Great Wall, but the good easily outweighed the eye-rolling bad.
Overlooked Gem: King Arthur Legend of the Sword was a victim of bad timing. It already had some bad hype after switching up its release date at least once (usually a sign that the studio or director have little to no confidence in a movie) and coming out on Mother’s Day weekend with virtually no strong female characters wasn’t the best idea either. Add that it came out the week after the blockbusting Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 (which successfully sold itself as a family friendly, comic book sci-fi adventure) and it just seems that the calendar itself conspired against this movie, which wound up being one of 2017’s biggest bombs. Yet Guy Ritchie was able to tell an entertaining and fresh King Arthur story that told Excalibur’s origin, the creation of the roundtable and the story of the young Arthur’s ascension to the throne. There was plenty of action, magic, special effects, good guys vs. bad guys fisticuffs and street level intrigue. And Jude Law was devilish as the film’s big bad Vortigen. King Arthur Legend of the Sword was a big budget good time that seemed to check off all the major boxes for a summer tent pole release that just failed to find an audience.
Scene Stealer: I was originally going to give this one to Salma Hayek for her turn in The Hitman’s Bodyguard until I saw Elton John in Kingsmen: The Golden Circle about a month later. The Piano Man chewed up every ounce of scenery he was in, his combustibility was hilarious and he even starred in one of the movie’s trademark hyperkinetic action scenes. Not only did he pull it off, but he made it look easy. If they ever make another one of these (a dubious prospect considering the movie was lucky to break even), I’d be the first one to sign the petition they bring Elton back. Warning, the following scene is definitely not safe for work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ffSJZg1QI
Best Scene: Part of Wonder Woman’s success last year was that it seemed to dovetail perfectly with the rise of the #Metoo and #Timesup movements. When women took a firm and loud stand against sexual harassment, inequality and systemic misogyny, it signalled the end for powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, Bret Ratner and many, many others. Wonder Woman became a rallying cry for many, a catalyst of sorts and you couldn’t help but feel the scene where Diana reveals herself and rises from a trench to break the back of the German army was symbolic of the cultural and political shift happening in Man’s World.
You may not agree that this scene was 2017’s best, but it was definitely the most symbolic. And maybe the most relevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlwHKphUU_Y
Breakout Performance: Gifted was sometimes a difficult movie to like. While I enjoyed the premise of a six year old girl who was a once in a lifetime math prodigy being raised by an uncle who only wants her to be treated like a normal kid, neither the idea nor a lot of what happened in the movie was original or fresh. You could see some of the plot points coming ten miles away. But the reason this movie made my heart smile was McKenna Grace, who played the six year old genius in question. Grace tackled the brilliant yet defiant, stubborn and precocious Mary with fearless abandon, selling her role better than most actors with decades more experience. If Grace doesn’t have an Oscar or two on her resume soon, someone somewhere should be fired.
Performance of the Year: I think I may have been the only person on the planet not blown away by Split. But I was blown away by James McCoy’s brilliant portrayal of multiple personas sharing the same body. Sometimes creepy, sometimes hilarious, McAvoy even played some of the identities impersonating others and the audience was completely in the dark. And he somehow made it all believable. Each identity had its own body language, speech patterns, voice and so on. Not to take anything away from the outstanding performances the Academy recognized this year, but how McAvoy didn’t even get a nom for his job is a mystery onto itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUg4zmvMKY&index=3&list=LLXK5bVFsH1ZnnvvC5t0CmxQ
