Happy new year, everyone!
I’m Dev, and today we’re looking back at the awesome year in film that was 2017.
Superhero movies continued to dominate the landscape,
we got some hugely anticipated sci-fi sequels along with great new IP,
and horror movies proved shockingly successful.
There were standout films in every genre,
but we’ve come up with our own list of favorites for NowThis Nerd’s very first
Best of 2017 Awards
We’ll start with our first category,
Best Superhero Movie
Six very different superhero movies hit theaters this year,
not including Captain Underpants,
and each one brought something new to the table.
‘Wonder Woman’ shocked the world with a phenomenal debut,
and ‘Justice League’ turned out to be a flawed film that still laid the foundation for a better cinematic universe.
[OFFSCREEN CACKLING]
Over at Marvel, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ was basically more of the same,
but it’s still a fun-ass time.
[SCREAMS AND DEADLY WHISTLING]
‘Thor: Ragnarok’ might be the funniest superhero movie we’ve seen yet,
Hey! We know each other! He's a friend from work!
And we’re not just talking about some Whedonesque quips,
Hey Sparkles! Here's the deal: You wanna get back to Assburg...
ASGARD!
Instead, ‘Ragnarok’ was built from the ground up as an over-the-top, irreverent comedy
that still captured the action and excitement of the original comics.
That's what I call a contender!
‘Spider-Man Homecoming’ took the fun new Peter Parker from ‘Civil War’
Okay so the craziest thiing just happened, right?
I was in a fight with Captain America and I stole his shield and threw it at him...
Oh, he's big now, I gotta go!
and gave him an awesome villain and great supporting characters,
all without beating us over the head with another origin story.
Peter...
[LAUGHING]
It was the highest-grossing superhero movie in a packed year,
but that’s not enough to put it on the same level as our winner,
Logan
James Mangold took a character that never really found a voice outside of the X-Men ensemble,
and ushered him into the sunset with a haunting, beautiful sendoff.
It’s a more mature story than we’re used to in movies like this,
more of a classic Western or Film Noir than your standard superhero stuff.
Patrick Stewart gave a powerful last performance as Professor X,
and Dafne Keen stole the show as Logan’s badass little clone Laura.
[SLICING AND SCREAMING][
Most superhero films in 2017 were great movies,
but ‘Logan’ was honest-to-god excellent cinema.
And it was the perfect funeral for Hugh Jackman’s iconic, 17-year portrayal of Wolverine.
You don't be what they made you...
Up next is our award for
Slickest Sci-Fi
Believe it or not, some movies came out in 2017 that weren’t about people in tights punching each other.
I guess superhero movies are technically science fiction,
but this category is for sci-fi films that don’t involve spandex.
‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ brought the reboot trilogy to a satisfying conclusion.
It’s a somber meditation on the nature of war and the legacies we leave behind,
and the excellent motion-capture performances make for a powerful end to Caesar’s story.
The elephant in the room has to be ‘The Last Jedi,’
the most controversial addition to Star Wars since midi-chlorians.
What are midi-chlorians?
No spoilers here,
but if you’d like to know more, we have a whole video addressing the issues fans have with it.
We thought it was an amazing film,
though we still need a little more time to digest before handing it such a prestigious award.
Our runner-up is ‘The Shape of Water,’
Guillermo del Toro’s fairytale romance about a fish-man and the woman who loves him.
It’s the film Del Toro has been waiting his whole life to make,
and his loving homage to ‘The Creature From the Black Lagoon’ stands on its own,
thanks to an amazing animatronic suit and brilliant nonverbal performances from Doug Jones and Sally Hawkins.
It’s a gorgeous movie, but it doesn’t reach the same level as our winner for best sci-fi,
Blade Runner: 2049
Usually, when a sequel comes out so long after the original,
it’s hard not to expect the worst.
I mean, I’m still heartbroken by Triple X: The Return of Xander Cage.’
I'm Triple X.
But ‘2049’ defied all expectations as a mesmerizing,
extremely worthy sequel to an all-time classic.
Ridley Scott gave Denis Villeneuve his blessing to carry on the legacy of ‘Blade Runner,’
and 35 years later, he delivered a follow-up that’s so much more than a replicant of the original.
We didn’t pick ‘2049’ for its compelling mystery,
Jaw-dropping visuals,
or phenomenal synthy soundtrack.
It’s because it crafts an incredibly cohesive, hermetic world that you absolutely believe in,
thanks to Villeneuve’s use of miniatures and practical sets.
Unfortunately, just like the first ‘Blade Runner,’
‘2049’ failed to attract a mainstream audience,
but for nerds like us, it was everything we wanted out of a sci-fi film.
Up next is the award for
Hypest Horror Movie
If you’re a fan of our channel, you probably know that we are super obsessed with horror films,
Shout out to Kya.
and 2017 was an extremely good year for the genre.
We had the usual slate of sequels, like ‘Annabelle: Creation,’ ‘Jigsaw,’ ‘Rings,’ and yet another ‘Amityville’ movie.
Stop making these. They don't make money. They're really bad.
None of them were particularly great, but compared to some of the original horror that came out, well…
It’s hard to be worse than ‘The Bye Bye Man’
Of course, scary movies aren’t usually critical darlings,
But this year a few of them bucked the trend to become legit great movies outside of the genre.
From across the pond came ‘Raw,’
a French horror film about a vegetarian girl who develops a craving for human flesh at veterinary school.
Yeah.
The nuanced horror was actually pretty secondary to the main plot,
which is an accurate representation of college binge culture,
just with cannibalism instead of keggers.
‘Raw’ pretty much came out of nowhere, just like ‘Split,’
the story of a serial killer with multiple personalities that give him supernatural powers.
‘Split’ proved that M. Night Shyamalan still has some great scares in him,
and the shocking ending has me looking forward to one of his movies for the first time in a while.
Speaking of Shyamalan, our winner just replaced ‘The Sixth Sense’ as the highest-grossing horror movie of all time:
It
The adaptation of Stephen King’s epic novel is one of the best movies ever made from his work,
even if it’s not a one-to-one translation.
Director Andy Muschietti understandably split the 1,300-page book into two halves
and brilliantly updated the setting to tap into our raging ‘80s nostalgia.
The King-inspired ‘Stranger Things’ phenomenon renewed America’s love affair with pottymouthed kids getting the crap scared out of them,
but ‘It’ set them against a cosmic horror that makes the Demogorgon look like a Care Bear.
It’s hard to top Tim Curry’s legendary performance as Pennywise from the original TV miniseries,
but Bill Skarsgard’s feral take on the killer clown was the perfect movie monster for 2017.
‘It’ just missed the mark for our final award,
The Best Movie of 2017:
Get Out
Now I know what you’re thinking-- Shouldn’t this be a horror movie?
Don’t blame us,
the Golden Globes nominated ‘Get Out’ in the category for best comedy or musical,
and who are we to argue with Hollywood?
Either way, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut is so much more than any one genre.
On the surface, it’s a highly-effective horror story about a community with a twisted secret.
It’s also an extremely sharp satire, which is no surprise considering Peele’s origins.
I said 'biiiiiiiitch' I'm the man of the house!'
You said 'bitch' tho?
But most importantly, ‘Get Out’ is a biting piece of social commentary that captures the moment in time that was 2017.
It’s a subversion of the horror genre that creates fear from the real experiences us black people face on a daily basis,
and it takes aim at so-called allies who want the experience of people of color without the suffering.
Fairer skin has been in favor for the past couple hundred years, but now the pendulum has swung back.
Black is back in fashion.
Even without the analogy, it’s still an extremely scary movie,
but it’s our top pick because it’s the perfect parable for last year’s insanely fouled-up politics.
Hopefully 2018 will be a more peaceful, understanding year.
We can’t wait to see what it has in store for us all,
but when it comes to movies,
it’s gonna be hard to top the sheer amount of quality that was 2017.