Jamie's Non-Competitive List Of Really Good Movies (2017)!

by Jamie Marshall  

I don't think there's any argument at this point that 2017 is going to go down in history as one of the most important years in film. In a year that seemed dead-set to kick us in the teeth at every possible juncture, where the box office tanked and Hollywood lost its last remaining shred of glamour, we watched more interesting, uplifting, confusing, questionable, unforgettable movies than have hit us in a good long while. Even the bombs seemed to have a certain game-changing magic to them, with Ghost In The Shell finally turning the issue of Hollywood white-washing from thinkpiece fodder to a national conversation, The Mummy burning itself alive as a warning of everything that could possibly go wrong with a modern blockbuster, and Justice League proving just how much money a studio is willing to throw away to prove a point. So here I am, about two months late on the draw, with my top however-many-I-ended-up-putting-on-here movies, assembled in no particular order because movie fans have gotten a bit crazy about their favorite film beating up all the other films, and this shit is supposed to be fun. (Disclaimer: There are plenty of smaller-release movies missing from this list that would probably be on here if I had been able to see them, notably The Disaster Artist and Lady Bird, and plenty more I don't even know about yet and will discover in the years to come.)

Between Anger And Rage: On THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

"We're all dying", says Frances McDormand as grieving mother Mildred Hayes, at the start of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.  She's told by nearly everyone she knows that besmirching the good name of a man with terminal cancer is shameful and petty.  After putting her teenage daughter in the ground, burned to death and sexually assaulted, in that order, she has little regard for the sob stories of authority figures.  Her town's dying police chief, the priest who begs her to find forgiveness in her heart, even the local news team, they're all complicit in the same system . The system that failed to find her daughter's killers.  That created men who could commit such heinous acts on a fellow human being.  That led to her daughter walking alone on that particular road, on that particular night, under just the right circumstances where one could get away with murder.  To hell with any God who would set up so perfect a tragedy.

BOP Recommends... The Woman

Directed by cult favorite Lucky McGee, of May and The Woods fame, the premise of The Woman may not inspire much confidence at first glance.

Set deep in the American south, it focuses on the Cleek household, a tight-knit family led by its affable, smiling patriarch, Chris. While on a hunting trip, he finds a woman wandering through the woods, wounded and foraging for food. Realizing that she's feral, Chris does what any good citizen would do: Knock her unconscious, chain her up in his basement, and tell his family that it's their Christian duty to teach her the ways of civilization... whether she wants it or not.