All of the new releases I saw in 2017 ranked in order from most best to least best:
1. The Florida Project
The hidden homeless
Childhood in Disney’s shadow
It’s fun till it’s not
2. Wind River
In the Mountain West
A hunter hunting hunters
Land and life stolen
3. Get Out
An innocent trip
Black bodies looted en masse
It’s a metaphor
4. Lady Bird
Teen angst in the house
Growing up and fitting in
Loving and leaving
5. First They Killed My Father
Think of the children
Cambodian genocide
Life disregarded
6. Detroit
Heinous policemen
A real life horror movie
And it happened here
7. I Am Not Your Negro
In Baldwin’s own words
A synthesis of his time
Still rings true today
8. Raw
First year at vet school
Gets a taste for raw flesh
It does not end well
9. Baby Driver
Drives in his own lane
Stays running, running away
Car chases and jams
10. The Shape of Water
She saw him for him
They kept him locked in a lab
He was a swamp man
11. It Comes at Night
Locked up in the woods
Something is coming for them
Who, or what, to trust
12. Coco
A boy on a quest
His family torn by music
Remember your love
13. Gook
Rodney King Riots
A Korean-owned shoe store
And those in between
14. mother!
A couple in love
House guests driving them apart
Then shit goes crazy
15. The Killing of Sacred Dear
A curse or something
Either way, kids are dying
Pants-less spaghetti
16. Dolores
Civil rights hero
A leader often ignored
Damn you sexism
17. The Square
Confusing high art
It’s all pretty much a mess
Monkey man dinner
18. Brigsby Bear
When all that he knows
Is a show only he’s seen
Adjusting is hard
19. The Salesman
Domestic tension
Between actors in Tehran
Then violence abound
20. Toni Erdman
A high-strung daughter
And her idiot father
Bond and reconnect
21. Lucky
A man up in age
Living his life day to day
A lost turtle too
22. Landline
NYC, 90s
Sisters, one newly engaged
Parents not helping
23. Patti Cake$
Outcasts in Jersey
Writing and rapping all day
Little breaks are big
24. Thor: Ragnarok
Standard Marvel film
With a quirky Kiwi twist
Which made it quite good
25. Marshall
Meet Thurgood Marshall
And his begrudging partner
Fighting for justice
26. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO
An angry mother
In a podunk Midwest town
Stirs up some big shit
27. Molly’s Game
Fate brought her poker
And with Sorkensian wit
Rise to top, fall hard
28. A Ghost Story
A young couple split
He comes back home as a ghost
And unstuck in time
29. Dunkirk
With their backs to the sea
And the war, Europe, near lost
People came for them
30. The Disaster Artist
One great delusion
Made a bizarro classic
Intention be damned
31. Step
Step in Baltimore
High Schoolers finding their way
Their futures ahead
32. Rough Night
Bachelorette party
A mansion, a dead stripper
Neighbors not helping
33. Dean
Experience grief
When life is never the same
Because she is gone
34. Paterson
Bus driver, poet
Beautiful words, that notebook
Same bar every night
35. Crown Heights
A man imprisoned
A crime he didn’t commit
The system has failed
36. Hidden Figures
Pushing the space race
While fighting for all their rights
The unsung heroes
37. The Little Hours
A medieval tale
Of some rabble-rousing nuns
The priest is quite mad
38. Murder on the Orient Express
A detective, a train
A murder, many suspects
And still yet, a twist!
39. Logan Lucky
Two brothers down south
Plan a get-rich-quick caper
With a little heart
40. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
A war that’s in space
Someone is the last Jedi
Oh wait, no they’re not
41. The Glass Castle
Dysfunction at home
A nomadic upbringing
Affects all her life
42. I, Tonya
Skating at her peak
Runs with a crowd of nitwits
There goes her career
43. The Wall
War in the desert
Only him and a sniper
A wall in between
44. Colossal
After a drunk night
She controls a big monster
Relationships fraught
45. Split
One identity
Disassociated with
Three unlucky girls
46. Neruda
Communists poet
In Latin America
His words were his life
47. The Lost City of Z
On a search for Z
Amazon’s El Dorado
Wait, it might exist
48. Wonder Woman
With our world on edge
A war said to end all wars
One woman stands up
49. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
A lot like the first
Not as interesting or fun
Seems like a cash grab
50. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
A fixer can’t fix
Only seems to make it worse
Inconvenient friends
51. Blade of the Immortal
The man cannot die
But he sure does kill others
With his giant blade
52. Menashe
In Orthodoxy
His son taken from him by
His community
53. Downsizing
Matt Damon gets small
Moves to a microcosm
And then to Norway
54. Ingrid Goes West
Obsession with fame
Life viewed through a phone’s filter
So what is it worth?
55. The Founder
An empire born
Built with grit, chutzpah, and greed
Gluttonous indeed
56. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Tale as old as time
Girl meets beast, beast captures girl
Then they fall in love
57. Sleight
He has a talent
But he also pushes weight
Uh oh, here’s trouble
58. The Circle
Just take a great book
And squeeze all the life from it
And that’s The Circle
Slam Zuckert is a municipal bureaucrat. He sees a lot of movies and reads a lot of books and sometimes writes about them. His favorite movie is There Will Be Blood, his favorite mathematician is Georg Cantor, and his least favorite mathematician is Leopold Kronecker.
Keep it Going Louder 