Image: New Line Cinema
A couple of films just miss out on my Top 10 favourite films of the year. First up is IT (dir. Andy Muschietti), the new adaptation of the mammoth Stephen King novel. I’m not a big horror fan but fortunately the film wasn’t too scary. Sure there were plenty of jump scares, some of which were excellent, but there wasn’t enough variety in timing and set-up of each scare for them all to be unexpected or surprising. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the acting from the Losers Club and Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise as well as the visual effects and score.
At Leeds International Film Festival, I had the opportunity to see Joachim Trier’s new film Thelma starring Eilie Harboe – a fascinating psychological thriller with an excellent lead performance from the young norwegian (review here). I also saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir. Martin McDonagh) and Western (dir. Valeska Grisebach) which were both excellent but were not released in 2017 in the UK. Look out for them on future lists!
Wonder Woman (dir. Patty Jenkins) was enjoyable though flawed (see my review here) as was War for the Planet of the Apes (dir. Matt Reeves) which prompted a fun discussion of third films in trilogies. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright) was good not great (see Edgar Wright’s Films Ranked) and both La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle) and Hacksaw Ridge (dir. Mel Gibson) surprised me with their directing and acting chops (as well as some seriously catchy music from the former).
Disappointing Films
Each year I try really hard not to watch rubbish films but sometimes a few slip through the cracks. This year I had the displeasure of seeing Victoria & Abdul (dir. Stephen Frears), Mudbound (dir. Dee Rees), and Free Fire (dir. Ben Wheatley); all of which were in some ways boring and dull. Free Fire was an experiment in squeezing as much tension as possible out of a single location – a bold ambition but ultimately unsuccessful. Wheatley is now 0 for 2 on his latest two films in my books (High Rise similarly dreadful). Here’s to hoping he’ll hit the heights of Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field in England again soon. Mudbound showed potential but lacked focus (and sadly its Oscar buzz is purely down to the subject matter rather than the craft on show). And Victoria & Abdul was just plain ‘dul’.
The Draff 