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Top 20 Films of 2017

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To go out on a limb (although all are welcome to join), I would say that 2017 has been the best year of film releases in as long as I've been deliberating each 'year in film'. Not only in terms of the quality but also in the range of genres, styles and voices. I'll limit myself to 20, but I could've easily gone to 30+ and found films that I have a lot of time for and may have made lists from previous years. As ever, I've gone by UK release dates (theatrical where available). Full reviews (where available) are linked in each entry.

BFI LFF 2017 - THELMA - Dir. Joachim Trier

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A father and his daughter Thelma walk across a frozen lake; she pauses momentarily to watch the silvery fish slinking through the icy water below. Later, a fawn crosses their path; the father raises his rifle to shoot, but turns it towards his daughter just ahead of him. He holds his aim but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It’s a brilliant opening – one of the year’s best – to Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s fourth film Thelma , his first foray into genre cinema. It’s unsettling and gives Trier a blank canvas on which to map out his chilling sci-fi drama; the unexpected should be expected at every turn.

BFI LFF 2017: EX LIBRIS - THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (Dir. Frederick Wiseman)

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A three and a quarter hour documentary about a library may not sound like the most enticing of prospects and yet, Frederick Wiseman’s glimpse into the comings, goings and inner workings of the New York Public Library is riveting and absolutely worth taking the time to savour. As libraries go, the New York Public Library with its 209 branches is a million miles away from the stuffy village sites that would spring to my mind. Wiseman takes his camera to many of the locations found on the streets, corners and in the suburbs of the continuously unfurling city. He’s there simply to observe how people use the facilities available to them and how the management work to continually provide their patrons with the means to live, learn and connect with the wider world.

BFI LFF 2017: BAD GENIUS - Dir. Nattawut Poonpiriya

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Now here’s that rarest of things, a film you never knew you wanted: a high-school exam heist thriller. Whilst Hollywood faces continuous accusations of lacking ideas, Thailand has delivered Bad Genius: an inventive and thrilling caper that has already wowed audiences on home soil and across much of southeast Asia. Keen to settle in quickly at her new school, Lynn (newcomer Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) begins to tutor her new friend Grace (Eisaya Hosuwan). Tutoring quickly turns to cheating and as Grace’s grades improve, more of Lynn’s classmates want her to provide the answers to their exams, and they’re willing to pay good money for her help.

BFI LFF 2017: PRINCESS CYD - Dir. Stephen Cone

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There’s a specific joy that comes from watching a film with no preconceptions and being completely won over by it and, in the modern era of lengthy marketing campaigns, it is becoming an occurrence to savour. The film on this occasion was Princess Cyd , from Chicago based writer and director Stephen Cone. Jessie Pinnick stars as teenager Cyd, who travels to Chicago to spend the summer with her aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence), a famous novelist. Cyd and Miranda haven’t seen each other since the funeral of their mother/sister almost a decade ago.

BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview - Part 2

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A total of 242 feature films will screen at the 61st BFI London Film Festival in October; 242 films including 28 World premieres, 9 International premieres and 34 European premieres. The previously announced  Breathe  and  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  will bookend the festival and there are many treats in-store for the days in between.  In Part 1, I looked at the films from the main competitions and gala screenings. Outside of the competitions and galas, other films are placed in one of the following strands:     LOVE                   DEBATE                   LAUGH   DARE                    THRILL                     CULT JOURNEY               CREATE                   FAMILY   EXPERIMENTA                             TREASURES Click any of the strand names to explore each one if full on the BFI website.  Here are some picks from my first perusal at the full line-up; click on the title of each film to go to the BFI festival page for

BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview - Part 1

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A total of 242 feature films will screen at the 61st BFI London Film Festival in October; 242 films including 28 World premieres, 9 International premieres and 34 European premieres. The previously announced Breathe  and  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  will bookend the festival and there are many treats in-store for the days in between. Here are some picks from my first perusal at the full line-up; click on the title of each film to go to the BFI festival page for the film.

6 = 1 + 5: How Disney could be set to leave the rest of the major studios behind.

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Barely a day goes by without an announcement of an upcoming sequel, remake or reboot (and even the occasional squeakquel) as the Hollywood studios scramble to find their next box office smash. Accompanying these announcements are choruses of exasperated sighs, pages of disgruntled tweets and cries of “Is nothing sacred?” from movie goers who are growing increasingly frustrated with the repetitive nature of the films making their way to cinemas from Tinseltown. Hollywood’s propensity for sequels and the like is nothing new, but there has been a noticeable change in the last year or so with studios becoming more aggressive (or perhaps desperate) in their pursuit of that lucrative pay day. Fox has reportedly invested a whopping $900 million in James Cameron’s three Avatar sequels. Before the first film had made its way into cinemas, Warner Bros. announced that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them would be the first of five new films in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding wo

Catfight - Dir. Onur Tukel

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Possibly more readily known as ‘That film where Sandra Oh and Anne Heche beat each other up’, Onur Tukel’s Catfight has plenty to offer beyond that initial premise, offering up a near farcical satirical look at the lives of pent-up New Yorkers. Whilst attending a birthday party that doubles as a celebration for her husband’s latest contract for the military, Veronica (Oh) bumps into former college friend Ashley (Heche), an artist serving drinks to pay her way. The exchange of pleasantries quickly passes by and their conversation re-opens some old wounds; moments later, some fresh wounds are opened too after an accidental collision leads to a bout of fisticuffs and some severe consequences.

Get Out - Dir. Jordan Peele

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Not so much a review, but some thoughts on Jordan Peele's 'Get Out'. Major spoilers lie ahead for both 'Get Out' and Edgar Wright's 'The World's End', you have been warned. Jordan Peele's debut is ultimately let down by a finale that's nowhere near as bold and fearless as the blistering hour or so that precedes it. The opening scene establishes the tone of the film brilliantly but also puts the audience slightly ahead of Chris (Daniel Kaluuya). That's fine at the outset, but it's about an hour later before Chris finds out and we are explicitly told what had been building up gradually since that opening. That build up is terrific but results in the film having to race towards its end just as it reaches the major turning point; the Armitage family no longer need to mask their true intentions for the first time in the film, but 3 of them are dispatched very quickly with no further interactions or conversations with Chris.

After the Storm - Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda

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If someone were to ask me what Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film is about, I could accurately, and most unhelpfully, say ‘Life’, which could make the film sound morosely ponderous when it isn’t in any way. Whilst the characters occasionally flirt with philosophical notions of what the meaning of life is, much to their own amusement and amazement, Kore-eda is much more interested in letting his characters participate in the life they’ve been dealt and to navigate a way through the joys and disappointments along the way.

Adult Life Skills - Dir. Rachel Tunnard

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A little quirk can go a long way on screen and thankfully Rachel Tunnard, who writes, directs and edits this feature length adaptation of her BAFTA nominated short Emotional Fusebox , balances the idiosyncrasies of her characters with an affecting story of grief and the difficulties in overcoming it. On the cusp of her 30 th birthday, Anna (Jodie Whittaker) spends her days and nights tucked away in her mum’s shed at the bottom of the garden. She has yet to come to terms with the death of her twin brother, but is forced into confronting her future when she has to look out for eight-year-old neighbour Clint (Ozzy Myers). There have been plenty of films with characters clinging on to their teenage years as the realities of proper adulthood rapidly approach, but Adult Life Skills posses an overwhelming sincerity that treats Anna’s troubles with the respect they deserve; there’s never the sense that she should just simply get over it. People react to tragedies in different ways

Neruda - Dir. Pablo Larraín

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The biopic has been a mainstay in cinema for as long as filmmakers have been looking for stories to tell, offering actors the challenge and responsibility of bringing a real person to the big screen. It is a genre unto itself with its own trappings and clichés, which have been effectively parodied in the likes of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story .  Pablo Larraín’s latest film is, in strictest terms, a biopic of Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, but that description belies the film and its approach to capturing a person’s life on film. Larraín has enjoyed a steady rise to prominence and acclaim across the world and with Neruda he has developed his capabilities even further to deliver an enigmatic and at times breathtaking challenge to the conventional biopic.

Free Fire - Dir. Ben Wheatley

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Beards, bullets and bloody-minded idiots collide in Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire : a lean, rollicking cinematic jolt to the senses. An abandoned Boston warehouse is the meeting point for an arms deal between Irishman Chris (Cillian Murphy) and cocksure South African Verne (Sharlto Copley); each accompanied by a band of merry henchmen and mediators to ensure the deal goes smoothly. After rumblings of deceit and unsavoury transgressions emerge, the palpable tension is broken by gunfire and a chaotic fracas in the rubble ensues.

The Good, The Bad and The Box Office

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26 films that collectively took less money at the U.S. box office than Suicide Squad did in just 3 days. A majority of box-office headlines each week focuses on the big hitters, the franchise entries and sequels whose performance in the opening weekend is often taken as an indication of long-term financial success. Will film X surpass film Y? Will film X cross $1 billion gross worldwide? Has film X met box-office expectations? Discussion of box office figures has gradually found its way into more and more online discussions, with larger box office takings often used as inherently flawed evidence to claim one film is better than another. Away from the big franchises, there isn’t the same level of discussion. The reporting on smaller films is available if you want to read it but there’s less understanding as to what those figures mean. Is a $5 million opening weekend a good result? Will the film make back its budget? Does that matter? In short, how much money d