I first watched my favorite 2017 film three months into 2018, on a small seatback screen during a flight from Florida to California. Less than ideal conditions, which makes my ecstatic reaction to The Florida Project even more legit.
I have since watched Sean Baker’s film two more times under better conditions, and those viewings have only solidified my opinion that this is not just the best movie of last year but one of the best of the decade so far.
Recently I stayed home from work with a nasty cold and took advantage of the bed rest to sneak in a delightfully fun double feature.
First up was Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde, directed by David Leitch (more on him later). It’s a stylish, violent Cold War spy thriller that further cements Theron’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s most versatile talents.
I’m all excited to see her in full frumpy housewife mode in the upcoming Tully, and here she is doing many of her own stunts as an international woman of espionage, definitively answering the question of whether James Bond would work as a woman. Theron’s Lorraine Broughton would kick James Bond’s ass.
Ty Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated writer of 2016’s Hell or High Water, made his debut as a writer-director last year with the underseen and underrated Wind River.
Inspired by the alarming rate of sexual assault on Native American women on reservations. the film follows a rookie FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) and Fish and Wildlife hunter (Jeremy Renner) as they investigate the rape and eventual death of a young woman in the frigid hills of Wyoming.
I’m a sucker for a good crime film, and Josh and Ben Safdie’s Good Time is one of the best I’ve seen in years.
Starring a phenomenal Robert Pattinson as a desperate bank robber, and co-director Ben Safdie as the mentally disabled brother he’s trying to protect, Good Time is both an adrenaline rush and a surprisingly nuanced character study.
Pattinson disappears into his role as volatile crook Connie — we’re a long way from Twilight. It’s hard to make you root for a guy this morally compromised, but he pulls it off.
Three and a half months into 2018, I’m still catching up on the 2017 films I missed in theaters. This week I’ll write about a few of them.
By the time I got around to Call Me By Your Name, I had heard so much about it that it was impossible for me to have anything close to a pure experience. I’d read fawning reviews and brutal takedowns. My daughter loves it while my nephew hates it. I read about the father’s closing scene so often that I relented and watched it on YouTube long before I watched the rest of the film.
Meet Me In Montauk 