The Lollaboard's Favorite Movies of 2017 - Results

[Xamnam]

#10. Dunkirk
Total points: 276
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: #1 scoots, bitteorca

"He's shell-shocked, George. He's not himself. He might never be himself again."



"Duty is depicted as futile, and despite parroting Churchill’s spiritual motivation against darkness, Nolan typically evokes nihilism without any follow-through. Dunkirk feels dispassionate; it caters to pampered Boomers who never fought for or believed in a war or military service. Note the civilian armada approaching their countrymen: Each face is expressionless. Is this because Nolan rejects emotion, or does patriotic fervor embarrass him?" – Armond White

[andrewvb]

non-tarantino virtues is a great line

[Xamnam]

#9. Call Me By Your Name
Total points: 291
RT Rating: 96%
Highest List Rating: #1 – llamaoftime, iasm

"Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot."



"Now this tale of first love (based on a novel by André Aciman) too closely resembles the taboo of unequal sexual relations currently driving our culture’s moment of neo-Puritanism. What was calculated to appeal to pro-gay social sentiment and rouse intense compassion for a youngster’s coming-out is now exposed as a dishonest, weepy fusion of lechery and virtue-signaling." – Armond White

[Xamnam]

#8. The Big Sick
Total points: 298
RT Rating: 98%
Highest List Rating: #2 - doso

"What's my stance on 9/11? Oh um, anti. It was a tragedy, I mean we lost 19 of our best guys."



"“The Big Sick” contains a comedic subplot about the dullness of Kumail’s pet project, a one-man show that’s meant to introduce American audiences to Pakistani culture. Yet Kumail’s standup routines—for that matter, the whole movie—are almost as dull as that one-man show. “The Big Sick” labors under the curse of the relatable, the likable, the admirable. Despite the fact that the movie is rooted in personal experience, it seems impersonal—not universal, simply blank."– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

[totally]

i love kumail and emily but gosh do i not understand people who hardcore love the big sick

[Xamnam]

#7. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Total points: 303
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: #1 - Wretched

"What's the law on what ya can and can't say on a billboard? I assume it's ya can't say nothing defamatory, and ya can't say, 'Fuck' 'Piss' or 'Cunt'. That right?"



"The real offense is that McDormand can’t summon or imagine a look of hurting. Yet this failure is bigger than McDormand herself; she intuits a cultural mood and, as with congressional spoilsports John Lewis, Frederica Wilson, and Maxine Waters, who trade on civil-rights-era sympathies, her only expressive recourse is overly practiced rage. This emotional rigidity, in our contentious time, has taken the place of righteousness." – Armond White

[Xamnam]

#6. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Total points: 326
RT Rating: 91%
Highest List Rating: #1 - neader

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to."



"The Star Wars movies belong in the same category as Elvis Presley movies: They’re popular yet are all but unwatchable — except that the Presley pictures evince a human touch. The new, machine-tooled The Last Jedi is sufficiently busy (action scenes occurring every ten minutes) to make you grateful that it is, at least, agreeably paced, even if it isn’t really about anything." – Armond White

[irvred]

Armond is obviously awful but that LEGO Batman pull-quote is so hacky.

[Xamnam]

#5. Phantom Thread
Total points: 341
RT Rating: 91%
Highest List Rating: #1 – irvred, andrewvb, sthubbins, thebosma

"It's comforting to think the dead are watching over the living. I don't find that spooky at all."



"Phantom Thread is essentially a smart-ass retort to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), repeating Hitchcock’s basic plot of a psychotic male making over a common girl (James Stewart selfishly “correcting” Kim Novak) into his erotic ideal...Hitchcock’s film relayed a private tragedy that explored timeless anxieties; Anderson’s revision deliberately counters those conventions with a fascination for modern decadence." – Armond White

[sthubbins]

i like how anyone who started making movies in the 90s is still a snotty kid in Armond's eyes even though they're all like 50 now

[Xamnam]

#4. Lady Bird
Total points: 380
RT Rating: 99%
Highest List Rating: #1 – wanny, Munkivelli, totally

"Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?"



"It is a movie that fails on the most important level of maintaining empathy with its faux non-conformist protagonist of dubious intent. The film's failings are masked by an obtuse use of music, quick-cutting, and some over-leveraged emotional gesturing between the mother and daughter to play to a viewer’s heartstring as the lasting theme of the movie. Deceit is the actual theme of the movie." – Cole Smithey, "The Smartest Film Critic in the World"

[Deleted]

I thought for sure Phantom Thread was gonna take no.1

[andrewvb]

i figured get out would be 1 but phantom thread would be top 3. i guess it didnt have as wide a spread as lady bird and shape of water though.

[totally]

shape of water beating lady bird/phantom thread is disappointing

i'm stupid and can't think of what the other one in the top 3 is gonna be off the top of my head so i get to be surprised by that!

[Deleted]

I know what it is!

[Xamnam]

Mar 2, 2018 11:59:33 GMT -6 andrewvb said:

i figured get out would be 1 but phantom thread would be top 3. i guess it didnt have as wide a spread as lady bird and shape of water though.

Once we're done, I'll post the average votes for the top twenty, which I found pretty interesting. 

[irvred]

Blade Runner going upppppp

[Xamnam]

#3. Blade Runner 2049
Total points: 388
RT Rating: 87%
Highest List Rating: #1 - Timbo

"Mere data makes a man. A and C and T and G. The alphabet of you. All from four symbols. I am only two: 1 and 0."



"The replicants in Blade Runner 2049 present no political allegory (unless panic-stricken viewers see Antifa clones — inhuman despoilers of liberty — under every bed), but their conflict with K revives a problem that already existed in the first film, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: The man-vs.-robot concept is banal except to those who admire Dick’s dystopian fantasy as prophecy." – Armond White

[Deleted]

Denis gets robbed again.

[totally]

oh blade runner is cool i accept that

[Xamnam]

#2. The Shape of Water
Total points: 406
RT Rating: 92%
Highest List Rating: #1 - comso

Unable to perceive the shape of You
I find You all around me.
Your presence fills my eyes with Your love
It humbles my heart
For You are everywhere



"Mexican del Toro ignores the politics of his own nation. It’s the same career strategy as that followed by Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu (they brand themselves “The Three Amigos”), seeking the easy approval and esteem of those who enjoy seeing American political problems trivialized as escapist fantasy — as also done in Gravity and The Revenant. Del Toro fails to give his Creature from the Black Lagoon/Swamp Thing thing any characterization. It’s just a repugnantly eroticized figure of chain immigration." – Armond White

[sthubbins]

would be interested to see what would happen if we only counted the top 10s

[Xamnam]

#1. Get Out
Total points: 464
RT Rating: 99%
Highest List Rating: #1 - teekoh, doso

"If I could, I would have voted for Obama for a third term."



"But Kaluuya’s strongest historical associations must come from Peele’s subconscious: The actor’s dark-skin/bright-teeth image inadvertently recalls the old Sambo archetype. Kaluuya frequently goes from sleepy-eyed stress to bug-eyed fright. Surely Spike Lee would have recognized the resemblance to Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland, and Willie Best, the infamous comics who made their living performing Negro caricatures during Hollywood’s era of segregation. Peele seems too caught up in exploiting modern narcissism to notice old repulsion. Sambo lives matter. Question: Will Kaluuya’s wild-eyed consternation be equated with James Baldwin’s bug-eye perspicacity in I Am Not Your Negro?" – Armond White

[totally]

i can't decide if armond moving over to national review made his insane criticism lazier or if that was the direction he would inevitably end up heading in anyway

[Deleted]

I saw 5.5 of those movies. I live alone with two cats. What the hell do I do with my time?

[Xamnam]

i.imgur.com/fhexjv0.png

Out of 26 tallied lists:

On 18: Get Out
17: The Shape of Water
15: Blade Runner 2049, Lady Bird, The Big Sick

[sthubbins]

nice work xam. thanks for doing this

[Xamnam]

Mar 2, 2018 12:05:58 GMT -6 sthubbins said:

would be interested to see what would happen if we only counted the top 10s

i.imgur.com/PpTtuI1.png

[goodson]

was hoping i could push good time into the top 10 but eh!

chill list

[Deleted]

thanks for doing this xam. you did an okay job.