by Adam Riske
I saw a lot of movies this year. Next year: Less!
Note: Movies I saw in an empty theater are marked with an asterisk.
3D Movie I Saw with 5 Star People: Terminator 2: 3D with JB and Jan
90 Minute Movie that Felt Like 3 Hours: The Little Hours
Aggressively Average: Okja
“And That’s the Twist!”: Split
Angriest I Got During a Movie: It Comes at Night
Best Action Sequence: The opening car smash-up in John Wick: Chapter Two
Best Actor in a Movie No One Saw: Demian Bichir, Lowriders
Best Actress in a Decent Movie: Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day
Best Airplane Movie: Going in Style (2017)
Best CGI: Undead sharks, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Best Delayed Sequel: Last Flag Flying
Best End/Post Credits: The Disaster Artist
Best Horror Movie: Get Out
Best Looking Bad Movie: A Cure for Wellness
Best Looking Good-ish Movie: Blade Runner 2049
Best Movie No One Saw: Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer*
Best Musical Moment: “Intermission” by Blur and “Hocus Pocus” by Focus in Baby Driver
Best Netflix Movie: Win it All
Best. Original. Screenplay: Wish Upon
Best Original Song: “Remember Me” from Coco
Best Soundtrack: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Best Stunt Casting: Alicia Silverstone, The Killing of a Sacred Deer*
Best Supporting Actor in a Movie I Liked: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ingrid Goes West*
Best Weirdo Caleb Landry Jones Performance: American Made
Best WTF Character: The librarian, The Bye Bye Man
Better than I Expected but Still Not Great: Power Rangers
Biggest Disappointment: The Fate of the Furious
Coma: Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Complete Nonsense: Rough Night
Creepiest Experience: Jim Carrey 2017 in Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
Decent: T2: Trainspotting
Double Decent: Stronger
Douchebag-iest: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Dumbest: Sleight
Dunkirk Priority Ranking: 1. The 70mm 2. The IMAX 3. Winning Oscars 4. Summer Box Office 5. Honoring the soldiers (It’s a good movie, though)
Fuck Everything: Beatriz at Dinner
Funniest Movie: The Big Sick
Funniest Performance: Ellar Coltrane as Mercer in The Circle
Good-ish Movie. Great-ish Nap: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Great Movie I Don’t Care About 5 Months Later: War for the Planet of the Apes
Hand! Gerald’s Game
How Many Bullets Do They Have? Wind River
I Call Bullshit: If Roman J. Israel, Esq. were an HBO mini-series, people would like it
I Can’t Believe I Saw: The House
I Don’t Like Movies Anymore: Snatched
If 2017 Were a Person: Jason Sudeikis, Colossal
It’s a Perfect Movie: Birth of the Dragon
It’s Fine: The Beguiled (2017)
It’s Funny: Thor: Ragnarok
I Wish I Liked It More: Brawl in Cell Block 99
I Wish I Was On Set to See Them Filming: Just Getting Started
Lifetime Achievement Award: Hugh Jackman, Logan
Like a Biopic from 1957: All Eyez on Me
Like a Comic Book Movie from 1997: Justice League
Like an Indie from 2000: Personal Shopper
Meh: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Mike Pomaro Consoled Me After My Shitty Celebrity Encounter with: Thomas Ian Nicholas
Most Annoying: The Lego Batman Movie
Most Confusing: The kids in It don’t seem to care it’s the summer of Batman (1989)
Most Depressing: Detroit
Most Exciting Gefilte Fish Falling Out of a Truck Scene: Menashe
Most Generic: The Dark Tower
Most Heartfelt: All Saints
Most Inspiring: Wonder Woman
Most Like a VR Experience: 47 Meters Down
Most Perplexing Ensemble: Table 19
Most Precious: Columbus
Most Random Death: Flatliners (2017) – you know which one if you’ve seen it
Most Redbox: The Belko Experiment
Most Screenplay: The Meyerowitz Stories – it must be over 1,000 pages
Most Self-Impressed: Spider-Man: Homecoming
Most “Watch It at 4:43pm on an Overcast Sunday”: Thank You for Your Service
Movie I Want to Hug: Lady Bird
Movie I Like More than Most People: Life (2017)
Movie that Hates You: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Movie that Wants to Curb You: The Mummy (2017)
Never Stop Never Stopping: Chadwick Boseman playing historical figures, Marshall
Not Entirely Unsexy: Grapefruiting, Girls Trip
Now! That’s What I Call New Wave! Atomic Blonde
Outlier: I didn’t like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Patrick and I Were the Only Ones in the Theater for: Friend Request
Pleasant Just Barely: The Incredible Jessica James
Pleasant Surprise: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Ran Out: The Great Wall (the first time I heard Matt Damon’s accent)
Should Be Studied in a Museum: xXx: The Return of Xander Cage
So Lost She Should Be On a Milk Carton: Brie Larson, Kong: Skull Island
Somebody Say a Prayer for Me: The Foreigner
Stop The Rock. Can’t Stop The Rock. He Won’t Stop: Baywatch
The Passion of the Lawrence: mother!
Textbook Mensch: Austin Stowell, Battle of the Sexes
That’s Hot: James Franco, Alien: Covenant
There’s Funny People in this but it’s Not Funny? Brigsby Bear
There’s Nothing Here for Me: Cars 3
Ugh! War Machine
Wait…That Was This Year? XX
Walkout: Transformers: The Last Knight (30 minutes in)
Weirdest Ending: The Trip to Spain
Whatever: Annabelle: Creation
Why There is a Critic/Audience Divide: A Ghost Story*
Worst Accent: Adam Driver, Logan Lucky
Worst Delayed Sequel: Jigsaw
Worst Final Minute in an Otherwise Very Good Movie: The Florida Project
Worst Final 119 Minutes: The Snowman
Worst Lead Performance: Dane DeHaan, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Worst Movie: A Bad Moms Christmas
Worst Movie I Saw with Mark Ahn: Free Fire
Worst Movie I Saw with Rob DiCristino: The Hitman’s Bodyguard
Worst Nose Makeup: Whatever is on Jennifer Jason Leigh’s face in LBJ
Worst Original Song About Shitting: “Making Poopy,” The Comedian
Worst Scene in Cinematic History: The movie theater ending of Daddy’s Home 2
Worth Existing for the “Ruin My Box with Crawdads” Meme: Fifty Shades Darker
WTF: Hangman, but more specifically Al Pacino’s performance
Some i don’t understand the category, some i don’t agree with you, but this is always an entertaining and a great reminder of movies i still have to see
ReplyDeleteI can’t wrap my head around the fact that The Return of Xander Cage came out this year.
ReplyDeleteI feel it might have come out a little too early, to walk home with ALL of the Oscar nominations.
DeleteI had a lot of fun with it, BTW. It does feel like an eternity ago.
DeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Free Fire. What is Ben Wheatley doing?
ReplyDeleteHey Adam,
ReplyDeleteSorry to go off-topic here, but did you hear about the Dark Crystal restoration and 4K release?
I did. Cool stuff!
DeleteI’m sad they still won’t put the workprint on the disk, as a bonus feature or something. It is a great version of the film
DeleteMy nominations:
ReplyDeleteBest Soundtrack: The Greasy Strangler
Best Satire (It's Satire, Right?): A Christmas Prince
Most Moving: Lucky only a few days after HDS's passing
Most Fun Theater-Going Experience: The Disaster Artist
Most Confused I've Been After Seeing a Movie: Tokyo Vampire Hotel
Most Out of Breath I've Been After Seeing a Movie: The Villainess
Funniest Awkward Moment: Claes Bang and Elisabeth Moss fighting over a condom in The Square
Best Finnish Movie: The Euthanizer
Big year for Caleb Landry Jones weirdness. Now I have to see American Made.
ReplyDeleteHe had a great year
DeleteVery nice Adam! I agree with nearly all of them (those I have watched). Especially, The Little Hours. What was that movie going for? Comedy, apparently. Nuns having sex could be funny, but there are so many long stretches where there was just nothing humorous, or otherwise, happening.
ReplyDeleteYou can't just curse and expect that to be funny. What a drag. Good thing Aubrey Plaza had Ingrid Goes West shortly after that because she's incredible in that movie.
DeleteNever even heard of The Little Hours before. Now I watched the trailer, and I wish I hadn't.
DeleteIt wasn't at all from a lack of talented actors. A few of them were quite funny, but played minor roles. Nick Offerman was great as always (I love his great comedic timing/delivery in everything), and I though Lauren Weedman (as his wife) gave a funny performance too.
Deletei'm starting Bad Moms Christmas right now, fully knowing what i'm getting into.
ReplyDeletebut damn. in mean, the first one was kinda boring, but pretty harmless i thought. but this one is just swearing (even kids) and saying crass things as much as possible, and just being mean to other people that are not them.
and you know, moms right, aren't they something! i expect the same level of crap from Daddy's Home 2
Oh Mr. Riske, I do believe I just had your baby. I'm crying up here. Thank you, you magnificent bastard.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome buddy. Happy Holidays!
DeleteJust to clarify, did you like Life more than you like most people or are you saying too few people actually enjoyed Life? ;)
ReplyDeleteGood catch. Both?
DeleteWell you're not alone there haha
DeleteBichir was super good in Lowriders. Did you see the tv series The Bridge? I don't really dig on seriel killer bizness but it was him, Diane Kruger, and lumpy old Ted Levine.
ReplyDeleteI missed it. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm really bad at keeping up with TV.
Deletewell there's way too much tv now, and it takes a million years to watch.
DeleteI’m honored to be included here, though I apologize for making you sit through that awful movie.
ReplyDeleteIt was worth it for #NoWalkouts
DeleteI saw that Norman movie. It felt weird the whole time, like I kept asking myself What IS this? I liked the Israeli guy character.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I dug about it. It doesn't feel like any other movie but it feels like every Richard Gere movie...if that makes sense
Delete#JusticeForMercer
ReplyDeleteYou know what's up
Delete