Hey, great picks and great episode! I had a feeling you would both choose Phantom Thread as your numbers one, and wasn’t disappointed. PTA is truly the best filmmaker of his generation, and will go down as one of the all time greats.
David and I both have the same films in our tops 4, which I find interesting (though in a slightly different order). My top 10 of 2017:
1) The Florida Project
2) Phantom Thread
3) The Shape of Water
4) A Ghost Story
5) Downsizing
6) 1945
7) Battle of the Sexes
8) The Post
9) Columbus
10) Star Wars: The Last Jedi
My number one with a bullet last year was Killing of a Sacred Deer. I enjoyed Phantom Thread a lot, too. Number six for me.
Tyler spoke of how he didn’t like movies that led with their agenda, and I thought Shape of Water did exactly that. I’m a Trump-hating liberal, but I found SoW’s endless spoonfuls of sugar lovingly fed to me by del Toro to be nauseating by the end of the two hours. Virtue signaling at its worst. It didn’t even make sense narratively that the story even had to happen, once we learn just how powerful the creature is.
I have the opposite take on Thin Red Line: Malick squandered the natural opportunity war stories provide for a film in order to look at nature. That approach worked in Tree of Life, but not Song to Song (I don’t think Malick is particularly interested in music either).
Previously when Tyler was wondering what other right-wing film critics were out there, I mentioned Steve Sailer, although I suspect Tyler wouldn’t like his politics that much. He actually gave a positive review for Black Panther, and was particularly pleased by T’Challa’s “Wakanda first” politics. This is because he interprets cocentric loyalties as both natural and in a sense conservative (though anti-American varieties are often thought of as being on the left), although the popularity of nationalism in much of the third world suggests to him the world as a whole may be getting excessively right-wing.
But T’Challa sees the error of his ways with the “Wakanda First” (and only) xenophobia. That’s what the movie is about, that he and his father were wrong.
Really don’t see what other people see: Song to Song, Shape of Water, Dunkirk
Haven’t seen yet: Three Billboards, I, Tonya, Lady Bird
Feel like I need a rewatch in a better mood: A Ghost Story
Honorable mentions: Phantom Thread, On Body and Soul
10. mother!
9. Tokasikajuttu
8. The Allins
7. Get Out
6. It Comes at Night
5. Big Sick
4. The Beguiled
3. Blade Runner 2049
2. Good Time
1. The Florida Project
I love how David is a champion for the kind of arty, esoteric foreign films that are usually harder to see (I’m thinking Ghost Tank), but then his favorite movies at the end of the year are Oscar fare like La La Land and Shape of Water. I’m not knocking David’s tastes, I just find it amusing.
I think you’re confusing grand works of cinema that even the Academy can’t ignore with stuff that feels specifically designed as “Oscar fare.” The Shape of Water is the former and something like maybe Darkest Hour (which I actually did like) is the latter.
Shape of Water is certainly better than Darkest Hour, but the relationship feels so arbitrary. It’s like we’re supposed to know these two are in love because they’re outsiders and they have a cute montage together. It certainly feels more Oscar bait-y than say, Pacific Rim. I also just didn’t feel much of an emotional connection, but that could be because I shovel poop for a living 😉
Hey, great picks and great episode! I had a feeling you would both choose Phantom Thread as your numbers one, and wasn’t disappointed. PTA is truly the best filmmaker of his generation, and will go down as one of the all time greats.
David and I both have the same films in our tops 4, which I find interesting (though in a slightly different order). My top 10 of 2017:
1) The Florida Project
2) Phantom Thread
3) The Shape of Water
4) A Ghost Story
5) Downsizing
6) 1945
7) Battle of the Sexes
8) The Post
9) Columbus
10) Star Wars: The Last Jedi
So did David not consider The Death of Stalin a 2017 film, or was it just not in his top 10?
Just didn’t make the top ten.
– David
My number one with a bullet last year was Killing of a Sacred Deer. I enjoyed Phantom Thread a lot, too. Number six for me.
Tyler spoke of how he didn’t like movies that led with their agenda, and I thought Shape of Water did exactly that. I’m a Trump-hating liberal, but I found SoW’s endless spoonfuls of sugar lovingly fed to me by del Toro to be nauseating by the end of the two hours. Virtue signaling at its worst. It didn’t even make sense narratively that the story even had to happen, once we learn just how powerful the creature is.
I have the opposite take on Thin Red Line: Malick squandered the natural opportunity war stories provide for a film in order to look at nature. That approach worked in Tree of Life, but not Song to Song (I don’t think Malick is particularly interested in music either).
Previously when Tyler was wondering what other right-wing film critics were out there, I mentioned Steve Sailer, although I suspect Tyler wouldn’t like his politics that much. He actually gave a positive review for Black Panther, and was particularly pleased by T’Challa’s “Wakanda first” politics. This is because he interprets cocentric loyalties as both natural and in a sense conservative (though anti-American varieties are often thought of as being on the left), although the popularity of nationalism in much of the third world suggests to him the world as a whole may be getting excessively right-wing.
But T’Challa sees the error of his ways with the “Wakanda First” (and only) xenophobia. That’s what the movie is about, that he and his father were wrong.
Really don’t see what other people see: Song to Song, Shape of Water, Dunkirk
Haven’t seen yet: Three Billboards, I, Tonya, Lady Bird
Feel like I need a rewatch in a better mood: A Ghost Story
Honorable mentions: Phantom Thread, On Body and Soul
10. mother!
9. Tokasikajuttu
8. The Allins
7. Get Out
6. It Comes at Night
5. Big Sick
4. The Beguiled
3. Blade Runner 2049
2. Good Time
1. The Florida Project
I love how David is a champion for the kind of arty, esoteric foreign films that are usually harder to see (I’m thinking Ghost Tank), but then his favorite movies at the end of the year are Oscar fare like La La Land and Shape of Water. I’m not knocking David’s tastes, I just find it amusing.
I think you’re confusing grand works of cinema that even the Academy can’t ignore with stuff that feels specifically designed as “Oscar fare.” The Shape of Water is the former and something like maybe Darkest Hour (which I actually did like) is the latter.
– David
Shape of Water is certainly better than Darkest Hour, but the relationship feels so arbitrary. It’s like we’re supposed to know these two are in love because they’re outsiders and they have a cute montage together. It certainly feels more Oscar bait-y than say, Pacific Rim. I also just didn’t feel much of an emotional connection, but that could be because I shovel poop for a living 😉