Now We Have a Competition!
December 4, 2017 10:14 AM   Subscribe

Top 25 Films of 2017: a perfectly edited video montage of David Ehrlich's annual favorites (SLVimeo). Via kottke.
posted by Maecenas (16 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have only seen one of these. I believe I shall watch the rest.
posted by Diablevert at 10:38 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Whaaaaaaaaaat no The Square?
posted by mit5urugi at 10:55 AM on December 4, 2017


The ones I've seen, I can vouch for, particularly:

All These Sleepless Nights
The Lure
Baby Driver
The Big Sick
Good Time


I so badly want to see Call Me By Your Name. I've heard nothing but rapturous praise.

I'd include Menashe and Raw in my personal list.
posted by naju at 10:55 AM on December 4, 2017


(Standard "MeFite Says Nope" disclaimer in effect:)

This list does not include Thor: Ragnarok, The Shape of Water, or The Last Jedi,* and is therefore invalid.

*who gives a shit if The Last Jedi hasn't been released yet. IT GOES ON THE MOTHERFUCKING LIST.
posted by tzikeh at 11:32 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


It opens with MANIFESTO, which reduced me to gross tears during the Dada sequence in the middle of the park ave armory
posted by The Whelk at 11:50 AM on December 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


Frustratingly, most of these played in my city for a week (if at all) before disappearing.
posted by octothorpe at 12:01 PM on December 4, 2017


I would personally have included 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Those on the list I have seen (and also vouch for):

Baby Driver
Get Out
The Big Sick
posted by Maecenas at 12:09 PM on December 4, 2017


What a great montage; it makes me want to see most of the ones I haven't seen!

cw: rickroll
posted by languagehat at 1:42 PM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


My two favorites of the year, 3 Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri & Dawson City: Frozen Time, didn't even make the list, but then my next two favs, A Ghost Story & The Florida Project, made the top five. Soooo, not sure what to think. It's an alright list I suppose.

pats list on head

I am happy to see stuff like Good Time, Get Out & The Big Sick getting some love as none of them are traditional awardsy type movies.
posted by mannequito at 1:44 PM on December 4, 2017


I generally like this kind of thing, but in this case i found the music (choices) distracting. YMMV.
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:55 PM on December 4, 2017


Oh gawd yes OHenryPacey, the music choices are atrocious and literal, and seemingly dictate the order in places ("I'm Every Woman" covering both MOTHER! and LADY MACBETH? Hmmm).

It also kills me that PHANTOM THREAD is on this list due to a limited release in November and I'm not going to see it until February 2018. Humph. It's a real eye opener for how late the UK gets wide releases, because I think of TONI ERDMANN as Best of 2017 when apparently it was everywhere last year...
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:31 PM on December 4, 2017


Ugh the music in this thing. Personally, I prefer John Waters' idiosyncratic list (I know there is some overlap).
posted by Ashwagandha at 3:55 PM on December 4, 2017


Oh gawd yes OHenryPacey, the music choices are atrocious and literal, and seemingly dictate the order in places ("I'm Every Woman" covering both MOTHER! and LADY MACBETH? Hmmm).

To be fair to Ehrlich, he limits himself to songs that were featured in 2017 films, so the possibilities are somewhat limited. It's not like he picked the songs from the whole of music history. It would have been pretty funny if he had found a way to use "Crash Into Me" from Lady Bird but I think he did OK. Not as good as some previous years, maybe, but "atrocious?" It makes me sad to see people shitting on him for that.

I never agree on the whole with his picks for the best films of the year (my top three right now are Nocturama, Personal Shopper and Brawl in Cell Block 99) but I do find it very rewarding to get a chance to see some of these movies through his eyes. The specific choice of images and how he's inspired to cut them against the music really help me understand what he got out of films that I didn't like at all, and I definitely appreciate that he goes the extra mile to make this montage every year. (Hell, more like the extra 100 miles.) This shit is not easy.

I am happy to see stuff like Good Time, Get Out & The Big Sick getting some love as none of them are traditional awardsy type movies.

I like Get Out and The Big Sick but they are both assuredly going for all the awards and isn't the latter, at least, absolutely an "awardsy-type movie?"
posted by Mothlight at 10:36 PM on December 4, 2017


He saw The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and apparently it didn't make his top twenty-five. Sheesh.

This video is great, though, both because it always fascinates me what songs wind up having been featured in movies over the course of the year-- never predictable and not something I follow-- and also it really points out just how non-visual a film The Big Sick is. It's great, but so, so much of it is dialogue-- he's only able to find one vaguely-interesting-looking shot from it. That's the sort of thing I wish film criticism using video would get into more.

Points for managing to choreograph the Baby Driver cars to different music than the original, too, and for fading Professor Marston and the Wonder Women into Wonder Woman.

All points removed for apparently not having liked The Shape of Water, which I have such high hopes for and which has seemed, with most critics, to be bearing them out.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 10:43 PM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


I like Get Out and The Big Sick but they are both assuredly going for all the awards and isn't the latter, at least, absolutely an "awardsy-type movie?"

There's a difference between a movie being pushed for awards and a movie being designed to be pushed for awards, which is what is meant in this instance. Get Out is a horror/thriller and The Big Sick is a comedy, and those are two genres which typically do poorly at the Oscars.

also it really points out just how non-visual a film The Big Sick is. It's great, but so, so much of it is dialogue-- he's only able to find one vaguely-interesting-looking shot from it.

I totally agree that The Big Sick isn't a visually-focused film, but there's reason for that: it wants you to focus on its characters and what they're saying, because it's a comedy. Beautiful visuals can work in character-driven films and the list has a few great examples of that, but it's easier to use great visuals in drama than it is in comedy and especially in dialogue-driven comedy.

Anyway, right now my top ten list for the year is

A TAXI DRIVER
LADY BIRD
COLUMBUS
THE BIG SICK
OKJA
GET OUT
LOGAN
JOHN WICK 2
DUNKIRK
BAD GENIUS

And I suspect that WONDERSTRUCK, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, FLORIDA PROJECT, THE POST and PHANTOM THREAD will collectively have a decent chance to knock the latter half of the list off the top ten. When something as bold as GET OUT doesn't even make my top five? yeeeeesh such a good year for movies.
posted by mightygodking at 12:13 AM on December 5, 2017


Oooh, I admired Columbus but also it made me itch. Every frame a painting, yeah, but it started to feel really mannered to me. Basically the first few scenes completely alienated me, and then the interaction between the lead characters won me over, and then the oppressive aestheticism of the thing lost me again. (I'm not a big Kubrick fan, either.) I'm in the tank for Personal Shopper, Nocturama and Brawl in Cell Block 99 and the rest of my list remains in flux as I catch up with stuff from earlier in the year.

I'm dying because I missed Faces Places when it played locally and now I'm not sure I'll be able to see it before the end of the year.

Also, the countdown makes A Ghost Story look pretty good, I thought, and I still need to catch that.
posted by Mothlight at 1:52 PM on December 5, 2017


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