Best Movies of 2017
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
New Year’s Eve is just around the corner.
Once again, the Cassandras are predicting the end of Hollywood, and the death of movies. Certainly, it’s been a trying year. Politically, the change in US president combined with the widespread use of social networking as a news source has spearheaded a widespread attack on journalistic integrity. And the exposure of sexual harassment in movies and TV meant a loss of credibility in the Hollywood infrastructure. Brexit – if it goes through – could damage cultural production in both Europe and the U.K. The big studios are consolidating like crazy. Disney just bought Fox, and a Timewarner/Comcast merger is in the works. Net neutrality is out the window. Finally the big studios are releasing their movie plans years in advance, which seem to consist solely of cartoons, space movies, superheroes and comedies based on bad TV shows. And in Canada the government signed a sweetheart deal with Netflix, saying the media giant should produce Canadian content… but only if they feel like it. No pressure! And no tax on your Netflix bill!
Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Then how come there were so many fantastic movies this year. So many I can’t possibly put all the great ones on my list of the best of 2017.
But here goes, in no particular order – my list of movies that played in Toronto – either in theatres or at film festivals in 2017. These are all movies that moved, surprised and delighted me in some way. (Not included: documentaries and animation.)
First two movies that were made the previous year but finally reached the big screen in 2017:
I, Daniel Blake is Ken Loach’s deeply moving look at an ordinary guy screwed by by British austerity measures.
Certain Women is Kelly Reicharts look at women out west who don’t quite get it right.
Honourable mentions to the surprising crime drama Good Time, the subtle A Ghost Story, and the funny Wilson.
Next some genre movies I really liked:
Get Out is a dryly funny and satiric horror movie played out against the backdrop of the American racial divide.
Verónica is a Spanish movie set in the early 1990s about a teenaged girl in Catholic school who lets loose demons when she plays with a Ouija board during a solar eclipse.
Now some fantastic movies that opened in the fall and are still playing.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is a cutely violent story of a woman – played by 
Frances McDormand – trying to bring to justice the unknown killer of her daughter.
Call Me Your Name is a flawless take on first love in Italy in the early 1980s. It’s not the sappy sentimental story it looks like in the trailer, but an intelligent and subtle drama.
The Shape of Water is about a mute cleaning woman working in a government lab in the Cold War 1960s who falls for a man who is part fish.
There are many more great movies – like Ladybird, Florida Project, Wonderstruck, Happy End, 
Thelma, BPM and The Square – that should also be mentioned.
Here are some movies made in 2017 but scheduled for release in the new year, that must be seen.
Lean on Pete is a touching and realistic tale of a kid and the horse he takes care of, setting off in a journey in unknown territory.
Loveless is a heart-wrenching story of a kid in Moscow who runs away from home after he 
overhears his parents say neither of them wants him.
Foxtrot is a sharply satiric comedy drama that looks at a middle aged couple who discovers their son — who works at a military checkpoint – might be dead.
A Fantastic Woman is about a woman whose life falls apart when her lover dies, and his family 
discovers she is a transwoman.
Sweet Country is set in the Australian outback in the early 20th century. Its a classic western, but told for once from the indigenous point of view.
And finally, The Captain, is a fast moving, jaw-dropping, absurdist drama about a German deserter at the end of WWII. He puts on an officer’s uniform, totally changing his identity, status and sense of morality.
As usual, I had a whole year to decide but end up scribbling down my choices right before I record it. So I’m sure I left out a lot of great movies, but hopefully you will catch some of these.
Once again, the list:
The Captain, Sweet Country, A Fantastic Woman, Foxtrot, Loveless, Lean on Pete, The Shape of Water, Call me By Your Name, Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri, Veronica, Get Out, Certain Women, I Daniel Blake.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Life in Nature. Films reviewed: The Gardener, Certain Women
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s spring film festival season continues. LGBT films, shorts and documentaries from around the world are featured at Inside Out beginning next week. Get into shape in June with CSFF, a new festival featuring Canadian Sports docs and shorts. Toronto’s Japanese Film Festival brings the newest dramas, thrillers and samurai hits served up with sake tasting at the Japanese cultural centre. And contemporary Italian cinema is showcased at the ICFF.
April showers bring May flowers, so this week I’m looking at slow-paced movies set against natural beauty. There an arthouse drama in rural Montana, and a look at the gardens in Quebec.
The Gardener
Dir: Sébastien Chabot
The Cabots are a famous upperclass American family. You’ve probably heard the ditty about Boston:
…the home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
This documentary is about those Cabots, and what one man in 
particular created. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the family has owned a huge tract of land in the Charlevoix region near Quebec city for their summer estate. It’s an area of bucolic fields and breathtaking views overlooking the St Lawrence. But Francis 
Cabot (1925-2011) decided to do something more with it. He designed Les Quatre Vents, the four winds, an amazing private garden. It’s planted with perennials that bloom throughout the year, leading to waves of yellow, violets, greens and reds in sequential seasons. Cabot believed gardens should not be sterile units of symmetrical topiary, but a sensuous experience. The gardens are 
filled with smells of flowers, buzzing bees, trickling streams flowing past vast fields. It is divided into different sections, each one revealed as a surprise when you turn a corner or, cross a bridge. Gorgeous black and white horses, foliage from the Himalayas, a moonbridge reminiscent of Suzhou and a traditional Japanese 
garden complete with a hand-crafted teahouse.
If you’re expecting a hard-hitting documentary, look elsewhere. this is not an expose about the family’s history in Salem Massachusetts or its roots in the slave trade. Rather, it’s very much an homage or a tribute to the magnificent garden that one man created. If you love gardens and consider them symphonies, this one takes you on a guided tour through it all with commentary from its late creator. It’s less of a film than an experience. I had never heard of Les Quatre Vents before I saw this film, but now I want to go there.
Certain Women
Dir: Kelly Reichardt (Based on stories by Maile Meloy)
Laura (Laura Dern) is an established lawyer in a tiny town in Montana. Much of her time is spent on a single case where the plaintiff, an older man named Fuller (Jared Harris) was screwed by his former boss. He was injured at work, affecting his vision, but because he accepted a token payment, leaving him high and dry and unemployable. She told him way back that his case is unsinkable, but he keeps coming back to her office… maybe for a different reason? Meanwhile, 
Gina (Michelle Williams) is dead set on buying a ranch, Her husband Ryan (James le Gros) and her teenaged daughter aren’t interested, but Gina refuses to give up. She will buy that house! But at what personal cost?
And nearby, a young law student named Elizabeth (Kristen Stewart) finds herself teaching a night class at a school four hours away from her home. The students are all teachers who want answers to their own petty legal disputes, but Elizabeth knows nothing about education… or teaching. The one bright spot is a boyish rancher (Lily Gladstone) who shows up out of boredom – she’s like a lonesome cowboy who never sees anyone except horses and dogs. After class, she offers to drive Elizabeth to the local diner so they can talk. And after a few meetings, the lonesome cowgirl shows up not in her pickup but 
on horseback. “hop on!” Could this be the start of a romantic relationship with the doe-eyed rancher?
Certain Women is another fine, modern-day take on the classic Western (from a female POV) by the great director Kelly Reichardt. It’s actually three separate stories whose characters briefly appear across the plots. For example, the movie opens in a cheap hotel room where Laura just had a noonday rendezvous with a bearded man (but you don’t find out whose husband he is until later.) Set against the breathtaking mountains and dusty roads of smalltown Montana, it feels like a C&W song come to life. It’s slow paced but never boring. It has that rural feel – things happen more slowly out west. This is a touching drama littered with unrequited love, and driven by the Certain Women of the title: people who make big decisions for selfish reasons, without realizing how much it hurts the people around them.
Certain Women and the Gardener both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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