i'm really pulling for The Big Sick, if only because i loved it so much. it's such an honest, heartfelt movie that was so clearly a labor of love for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. that everyone involved cares deeply about the story being told shines through in practically every second of that movie, and makes the whole thing an utter joy to watch.
i guess it's hard to beat Get Out though, in terms of cultural impact, not to mention sheer filmmaking brilliance. the way Jordan Peele turns a nearly 200-year legacy of racism and appropriation in American popular culture on its head is something i think we'll be talking about for a long time to come.
speaking of subverting legacies, the world is still digesting Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but i think that one might deserve a shot too, on the grounds that it's basically a film about Star Wars--a movie that dissects, inverts, and ultimately largely rejects much of a 40-year-old franchise. Rian Johnson has so much going on in that movie. he's honoring the films that we all love, telling a narrative both personal and poltical about a life (many lives) spent in relationship to Star Wars (that scene with rey and the mirrors is a gorgeous visual metaphor for cinema and fandom if i've ever seen one), while also steering, or trying to steer, the franchise away from its roots in subtle fascism and patriarchal capitalism. for more thoughts, articulated better than i can write them, look here and here, but if we're looking for a film that embodies 2017, a resolutely antifascist take on a deeply culturally-embedded mythos seems like it could at least give Get Out a run for its money.
but maybe it's too early to tell.
for my part, i was pretty underwhelmed by The Shape of Water. i think Guillermo Del Toro's done better work elsewhere (including doing a better job with the whole modern fable thing). Lady Bird was a stunning directorial debut by Greta Gerwig, with lovely performances pretty much all around, but i'm a little inclined to raise the stakes here, in true Canon fashion. is this a film that we'll be talking about in ten years? one with as deep a relationship to the past and future as those i've tried to make a case for above? maybe. i'm not really sure.
still need to see The Florida Project, Call Me By Your Name, Phantom Thread, and The Disaster Artist (among plenty others).
