Unplanned

It was in August of 2016 at the Students for Life of Illinois (now weDignify) Leadership Retreat in Champaign, IL that I first was given a copy of Abby Johnson's memoir Unplanned. I had heard of the book beforehand and the real-life story behind it fascinated me, but it wasn't until that month that I actually sat down and read the whole thing cover-to-cover. And when I did, I was incredibly moved and inspired by it, and I even said to myself after I was done reading it, "I could totally see this as a movie." Now, full disclosure: I was raised by two pro-choice parents and, for the first sixteen years of my life (or at least from the time I was eleven, which is when I first heard the word "abortion"), I just kind of blindly accepted their view as gospel. But then around the time I was sixteen, I began to make friends with people who were pro-life and hearing their views on abortion inspired me to research what abortion actually is; and when I saw what it is, and when I heard testimonies from post-abortive women who spoke at length about the physical and emotional damage abortion inflicted on them...there was really no turning back for me. So just on that level alone, I was very intrigued to see Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon's film adaptation of Johnson's memoir.

But then just over a month ago, I was given the opportunity to go to a free advance screening of the film at the beautiful Pickwick Theater in Park Ridge, IL. And it was there, literally a minute before the film was about to begin, that I heard it was going to be R-rated. When I heard this, I almost immediately felt of two minds about this. On one hand, I know a lot of Christians who draw a hard line about not going to see R-rated movies, and it would be silly not to acknowledge the sick irony that, in some places in the U.S. (i.e., New York, Oregon, Washington, Maine, etc.), a 13-year-old girl can get an abortion without parental consent but isn't allowed to see this movie without an adult. But on the other hand, I really appreciate the fact that, for once, a movie is being made about abortion that isn't whitewashed, phony, or sugarcoated, and that actually portrays it for what it is. Back in October, I reviewed a film called Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer, and as much as I liked that movie as a police procedural and courtroom drama, it played it pretty safe by hiding the gruesome natural of Kermit Gosnell's crimes. Unplanned is much more raw and realistic than that movie was, and that is where much of its power lies.

Much like the memoir it is based on, the film opens in medias res around September 2009, with Abby Johnson being asked by a fellow Planned Parenthood clinic worker to assist in the ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old unborn child. While staring at the ultrasound monitor as the abortion is being performed, Abby notices something horrific: the baby seeming to struggle and move away from the vacuum tube. Then, the powerful vacuum is turned on, ripping the baby apart as it is sucked up the tube. Upon seeing this, Abby immediately leaves the room and goes into the bathroom, where she begins sobbing, as her eight years of working for Planned Parenthood and assisting women in obtaining abortions begin crashing down on her and she realizes that she can no longer do this.

We then flashback to eight years earlier to 2001, when Abby is a student at Texas A&M University and she visits the Planned Parenthood table at a college volunteer fair. The people working at the table tell her that Planned Parenthood seeks to help women obtain health care and reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies through birth control. Being attracted to this mission, she agrees to visit one day and begins to volunteer as a clinic escort, walking women from their car to the door and trying to help block out the voices of the protestors outside, who were mostly loud and angry and confrontational toward the women walking into the clinic.

As time progresses, Abby rises in the ranks at Planned Parenthood, becoming their "community services director" and eventually the director of the Bryan, Texas clinic that she first volunteered at. The film guides the audience through her eight years at the clinic, including her counseling sessions with women coming in with unplanned pregnancies, her encounters with a local group called the "Coalition for Life" that would peacefully pray outside the clinic, and her ever-burgeoning romance with a college friend named Doug, who disapproves of her job but yet supports her, loves her, and eventually marries and starts a family with her. This film also depicts Abby's previous relationship with a selfish, abusive man named Mark, which resulted in two unplanned pregnancies that both ended in an abortion, the second one an RU-486 abortion that's depicted via a disturbing, bloody flashback that's among the most raw, powerful sequences I've ever seen in a "Christian" film (it's right up there with the scourging scene in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ).

All of this builds up to the moment in which Abby witnesses the abortion that opens her eyes to what it actually is. And once this happens, the film definitely shifts gears into being a full-on Christian film about redemption and standing up for what you believe in, all of which are things that personally speak to me and that will definitely speak to this film's core audience. This is a deeply affecting film that rises above the cliches and limitations of the faith-based genre to deliver something raw, mature, powerful, and surprisingly well-written and acted.

Writers/directors Konzelman and Solomon (whose past credits include the first two God's Not Dead films and another PureFlix Christian drama called Do You Believe?) have definitely taken off the training wheels and kid gloves for this film, something that I've been waiting for filmmakers in this genre to do for a while now. Rather than presenting a watered-down Sunday school message filled with on-the-nose dialogue and high-school-drama-club-level acting, what they present here is, essentially, the deeply personal conversion story of Abby Johnson. Much like last year's I Can Only Imagine, Unplanned filters its message through someone's personal story, showing how the themes of faith, suffering, forgiveness, and redemption play out in real life rather than in the imaginations of Christian screenwriters. And they are played out in such a way that moved myself (and many in the audience I saw it with) to tears.

For starters, I loved the scenes with Abby and her boyfriend/husband Doug. With most of these scenes being taken right from Johnson's memoir, they are among the most authentically written scenes I've seen in a "Christian" film. The unconditional love that Doug shows Abby even though he disagrees strongly with her job is incredibly inspiring and it goes to show how simple grace and empathy can transcend politics and ideology when it comes to the people you love. And even Abby's relationships with Shawn Carney and his wife Marilisa portray a level of empathy even when they're adversaries so that when Abby goes into their office sobbing out of guilt and shame, it doesn't feel cheap or forced or a sell-out or anything like that; rather, it is real, deeply emotional and incredibly powerful, because up until that point, Shawn and Marilisa had shown nothing but grace and kindness toward Abby, so that she didn't feel scared to go to them once she realized she wanted out.

Another area in which this film transcends many of the other films of this genre: the performances, particularly that of Ashley Bratcher, who plays Abby in the film. I had never even heard of her until this movie, but she is really outstanding here. Rather than play up the melodrama that many actors do in films like this, she gives a very nuanced performance, convincingly portraying Abby at all points in her journey and allowing the audience to buy her eventual breakdown and conversion that the entire movie is building towards. And the supporting performances are also surprisingly convincing, most notably Robia Scott (Jenny Calendar from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who plays Abby's boss during her days at Planned Parenthood. Her cold nature never feels too forced or over-the-top even if some of her dialogue can be a little on-the-nose at times (specifically in one scene after Abby leaves Planned Parenthood and becomes pro-life), and she ends up providing a deeply chilling foil for Abby.

Even on a pure production level, this is head-and-shoulders above many other movies of its type. The cinematography is well-done and adds tension to many crucial scenes. The editing is consistent throughout and always works in favor of the story. The production design is impressive with a great attention to detail that reflects Abby's memoir (and its all the more impressive considering how the filmmakers legally weren't allowed to show Planned Parenthood's logo at any point). But ultimately, the number one reason this film resonated with me so much is because of how it never shied away from the grim reality of abortion. Right out of the gate, Konzelman and Solomon allow you to witness the moment where it hit home for Abby and it is really powerful. Given how many movies nowadays (i.e., Obvious Child, Grandma, the upcoming Saint Frances, etc.) are attempting to portray abortion as "normal" and/or "empowering" in an attempt to promote it (all the while hiding the actual reality of what it is), it is of the upmost importance to educate people on the reality of abortion so that it's no longer minimized, and so that those who oppose it (like myself) know what it is they oppose, and also so that those who support it know exactly what it is they support.

Of course, once reviews for this film started coming out there were numerous people who immediately dismissed as "anti-choice propaganda" and even people who tried to discredit Abby's story and paint her as a liar, all of which is to be expected from people who can't stand to hear a single negative thing about Planned Parenthood or any abortion-related story that flies in the face of their narrative. But as film critic Matt Zoller Seitz from RogerEbert.com said a while back, American cinema “is supposed to be a populist art form representing the body politic as it is, not merely as the industry wishes it could be.” While yes, this is from the same production company that made God's Not Dead and it's not quite up to the level of films like Eighth Grade and Roma quality-wise (some parts of Unplanned were too visually glossy for my taste and I could have done without the abundance of voiceover), this is still a very impressive and important film that provides a perspective far-too-rarely seen on film. Regardless of whether you agree with Abby Johnson or not, her story is one that needs to be told and her perspective is one that is unique among those who oppose abortion.

And while I'm not going to descend into wishful thinking and hope that the most ardent pro-choicers reconsider their stances because of this film, I do hope for this, above all else: that people, regardless of their stance on abortion or their political affiliation, give this movie a fair shot. Don't write it off, sight unseen, because of what you assume it to be. Leave your expectations at the door and just sit and listen to Abby's perspective and story. Because who knows, you might even walk out enlightened and with a broader perspective if you do. And for that reason alone, I strongly recommend this film.

My Top 15 Favorite Films of 2018 (plus 20 runners-up)

2018 was a very interesting year for me in many ways. I turned twenty-one years old in February (a milestone marked by trip to Las Vegas with my parents and a bunch of friends), I became a college senior, and I did three film-related internships in the span of six months. Two of these internships were in Los Angeles, where I lived for three months as a part of DePaul University's LA Quarter program. Being given the opportunity to live there, I took full advantage of it by going to as many film screenings as I possibly could, and as a result, 2018 became the year where I saw more movies than I ever have in a single calendar year. Because of that, and just because there have been a lot of great films by unique artists with unique voices this year, I had a very difficult time picking slots in my top 15. There were quite a few great movies I was forced to leave off as well as a few I was surprised made their way in. But overall, I really do feel like this is a strong top 15 that showcases the films this year that made an impact on me for one reason or another.

And just like I said when I made my 2017 post last year, these 15 films I'm about to list (and the order in which I list them) may not be what some would consider the BEST films of 2018; but rather, they are my personal FAVORITE films that, for one reason or another, impacted me as a student of film and as an aspiring filmmaker and that, in my opinion, speak in some way to the broader world we all live in. So, without further ado, here are my top 15 favorite films of 2018 from 15 to 1:

#15. Chappaquiddick -- One of the most overlooked and unfairly ignored films of the year, this film came out back in April and really flew under the radar, which is a shame because it's an incredibly fascinating and well-acted historical drama about a true story that I had never even heard of. For those who don't know the film's story (like me earlier this year), in July 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy was driving at night with a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne who had worked for his deceased brother Robert F. Kennedy when he drove his car off of a one-lane bridge and into a pond. He then freed himself, swam to safety, left Kopechne to drown in his fully-submerged car, and didn't report the incident for ten hours afterward. Having recently re-watched the film on Netflix (where I would strongly recommend you all to check the film out), I was struck by just how great Jason Clarke is in the film as Ted Kennedy. Everything from the New England accent to the mannerisms to his interactions with the family lawyer (played by a very impressive Ed Helms) is pretty much spot-on, and if it were up to me, he would be a surefire Best Actor contender. As well, the screenplay from Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan manages to successfully walk the line between humanizing Kennedy without ever letting him off the hook for his despicable act of cowardice. In a time where political scandals are fairly commonplace, it's helpful to watch a film that depicts a particular scandal that got too overlooked at its time, and in particular how the subject of said scandal got away with his actions and became an icon for the Democratic Party. But regardless of your political persuasion, Chappaquiddick is a very compelling and well-done historical film that you should seek out as it will likely both enlighten and anger you.

#14. First Man -- Speaking of overlooked 2018 movies set in July of 1969, here's a film that I was really shocked underperformed as much as it did. After Damien Chazelle directed two of the very best films of the last several years (Whiplash and La La Land) and after Ryan Gosling has consistently proved to be one of the greatest actors working today, I was very excited to see these two collaborate once again on a film depicting one of mankind's greatest achievements, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. This is an excellent, suspenseful, and surprisingly emotional film that takes a story we've all heard a million times -- that of the Apollo 11 mission which resulted in Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to set foot on the lunar surface -- and focuses on an aspect of it that I didn't know about, which is Neil Armstrong's personal journey and the sacrifices that he and the other men around him made to allow this achievement to happen. Gosling is absolutely outstanding in the film, playing an emotionally reserved man who can communicate so much with a simple glance or gesture (there's one particular scene when he's talking on the phone at the White House that's incredibly devastating), and Claire Foy is equally impressive as his wife, a role that could have easily been a sounding board but is instead a complex character struggling with her role as a '60s housewife who fears of becoming a single mother should one wrong thing happen on one of her husband's missions. But what ultimately elevates this movie from being really good to something truly special is the Moon landing sequence. Set to Justin Hurwitz's roaring score, we see Neil Armstrong step onto the lunar surface, utter his famous words, and then (spoiler alert) we see him leave a keepsake from his deceased daughter on the Moon. It is a beautiful moment that brought me almost to tears, and it's followed by a great wide shot of the American flag on the lunar surface that should shut up any stupid and unwarranted controversy regarding that particular aspect of the film. So yes, this is easily one of the best narrative biopics of the last few years and is a must-see for anyone interested in space or American history.

#13. First Reformed -- I first saw this film at the Chicago Critics Film Festival earlier this year with one of my good friends, and having just watched it a second time on Amazon Prime, I can attest to it being one of the most thought-provoking and haunting movies of the year, and I'm really glad that the critics are helping to push this into awards season. Having watched the Schrader-written Taxi Driver for the first time just weeks before my first viewing of First Reformed, I definitely caught on to many of the parallels between the two films, and especially between the protagonists in the two films. Reverend Ernst Toller (played in the best performance of his career by Ethan Hawke) is as much of a damaged and lonely man as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, one who descends into insanity after coming under the spell of a radical environmental activist. While Schrader has openly said that this film reflects his anxieties about climate change, the film on its own observes Reverend Toller's despair from a cold, detached perspective while taking into account Toller's health problems (including alcoholism and possible stomach cancer) and his grief over the failure of his marriage and the death of his son in the Iraq War, and as a result, Schrader creates a film that is at once political and apolitical, one that paints an unsettling picture of what loneliness and isolation can do to a person that is on the level of both Taxi Driver and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska". While this film is definitely not for everyone, I would highly recommend it to those up for a challenging film that will leave you thinking about it long after the credits roll.

#12. The Favourite -- Upon seeing Yorgos Lanthimos' previous film, the outstandingly wonderful and unsettling The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I couldn't wait to see what he had next up his sleeve. And while this is definitely a much more accessible and straightforward film from him (even more than his first English-language film The Lobster), it still has that great, twisted blend of black comedy and gothic horror, this time mixed in with historical drama and eighteenth century British politics in a very unique way that really shows a range for Lanthimos that I wasn't sure he had. Working with a terrific screenplay from Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, Lanthimos provides a brilliant showcase for Olivia Colman, playing Queen Anne in spectacular fashion, as well as Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as the two women jockeying to be her "favourite," who each manage to play their parts authentically and without ever hitting a false note. But out of the three main performances in this film, I was particularly impressed and enraptured with Emma Stone, who shows a side of herself as an actress that she hasn't gotten to before and continually proves herself to be one of the best actresses on the face of planet Earth. In addition, the cinematography from Robbie Ryan is some of the best I've seen in this year and truly adds to the uniqueness of the film as a whole, and the production design and costume design are almost certainly going to win Oscars. And while I still haven't gotten to see Mary Queen of Scots yet, I highly doubt that there is a better historical drama this year than The Favourite, and I personally can't wait to watch this film again and pick up on all the little details Lanthimos puts in here.

#11. Monrovia, Indiana -- I'm sure a lot of you reading this list right now just got to this and are like, "Wait, what is this?" I'll admit, I surprised myself by putting this on my list instead of some other films that you'll see later missed the cut. But nonetheless, I saw Frederick Wiseman's quiet, contemplative, beautiful vérité documentary Monrovia, Indiana at the Laemmle Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills, CA where it was playing for one week at the beginning of this past November and it hit me in a lot of ways I didn't expect. I had first learned about Frederick Wiseman in my History of Cinema class at DePaul last year, when my professor Eric Marsh showed us one of his earliest films from the last 1960s called High School, so I was familiar with Wiseman's singular style and sensibility going into this movie. For the 99.999% of people reading this that aren't familiar with Wiseman, he's an 88-year-old documentary filmmaker who's making documentaries about specific places for over fifty years. In all of his movies, there's no voiceover, talking heads, or non-diegetic music and you don’t follow any specific people through this film; rather, he paints beautiful, full, sometimes epic pictures of these specific places so that by the end, even if you've never been to that place, you feel like you know it like the back of your hand. And that absolutely applies to this film. I saw elements of the two Northwest Indiana towns I grew up in (Highland and Crown Point) as well as Windsor, New York (a small rural town in Upstate New York where I’d go a lot as a kid) in the town of Monrovia. Numerous people depicted reminded of people I’ve met in my life. And many of the seemingly-random sequences in this film (particular a wedding about midway through and a funeral that happens at the very end) are quietly powerful and beautiful. It’s a movie where barely anything “happens” but yet you feel like you’ve just witnessed full lifetimes. And, perhaps most refreshingly, Wiseman never turns his nose up at any of the people in this town. Watching it in a Beverly Hills theatre with a few others sitting around me, I really got the sense that Wiseman was doing a lot more than painting a picture of this town; he was trying to get liberal elites living in coastal cities to feel empathy for those in rural red-state America who have different values and who most likely voted differently than them, and in this day and age, that is really the most important thing anyone can do. So yeah, I really, really, deeply loved this movie. Like First Reformed, it's definitely not for everyone, but I found it incredibly rewarding. 

#10. Green Book -- One of the most unabashed crowd-pleasers of the year, this is another film that, like Monrovia, Indiana, seeks to generate empathy via the central friendship at its core, that of Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga, an Italian-American nightclub bouncer-turned-driver and bodyguard, and Dr. Don Shirley, the famed jazz pianist who Tony Lip is hired to accompany on his tour of the Deep South. Their friendship is one of the most beautiful and fun-to-watch friendships I've seen in any movie this year, and a lot of that is due to both co-writer Nick Vallelonga (Tony Lip's son in real life) bringing a refreshing honesty to the writing of this film (with help from co-writers Brian Hayes Currie and Peter Farrelly), and the performances of Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. Both of these actors embody the men they play so fully and beautifully that I never once felt like I was watching two people act, and Ali is almost certainly destined for a second Best Supporting Actor is Oscar as he proves himself once again to be one of our best working actors. And Peter Farrelly...I mean, wow, for the guy who co-directed Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary to come out of nowhere and make this film is easily one of the biggest surprises of the year. And while it's not exactly fair to compare the directing in this movie to, say, Yorgos Lanthimos' directing of The Favourite, it's still very good and makes me really curious to see how he follows this up. So yes, I adore this movie, and I honestly cannot see why anybody wouldn't like it, and you will most definitely want to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken after you see it. ;)

#9. Leave No Trace -- Speaking of big surprises from this year, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Debra Granik's Leave No Trace when I saw it at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May, and I was absolutely blown away by it. It's a quietly powerful and beautiful film about a father and daughter living on the outskirts of society and what happens when their lives suddenly get derailed...and that's about as much detail as I want to go into in terms of the plot, because the best way to see it is how I first saw it: knowing as little about it as possible. But let me just say this: if it weren't for a certain teenage actress that I will be bringing up at a later point on my list, Thomasin McKenzie's performance in this film would far and away be the best child/teenage performance of the year. She is so powerfully convincing as a young girl being forced into a situation by her well-meaning but troubled father who she desperately wants to help but can't. It's an incredible discovery and I can't wait to see where she goes from here. So yes, if you've never seen or even if you've never heard of this movie, please do yourself a favor and seek it out immediately. It will definitely leave a trace in your mind...I'll show myself out.

#8. Thoroughbreds -- Now here's a perfect example of a great independent movie that was basically dumped by its distributor all the way back in March, made no money at the box office, and then is pretty much forgotten by every major critics group and awards voting body now at awards season. It's really a shame, because having seen this twice now (once in March and a second time over the summer with my friends Nicole Brumley and Rebecca Queen), this is really one of the best teen thrillers to come out in quite a while. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Cory Finley (who, shockingly, had never even been on a film set before the first day of filming for this movie), this film tells the story of two teenage girls named Lily and Amanda who together plot to murder Lily's stepfather at Amanda's request (since Amanda is basically an emotionless sociopath), with the help of a local drug dealer, played by Anton Yelchin in his last film appearance. This is one of those movies (like a couple others that will come up later on this list) that you're shocked is from a first-time filmmaker because of the amount of skill and mastery on display. Finley's use of long-takes and 2-shots are incredibly effective and the way he helps to create this cold and unsettling mood throughout while still making the film entertaining is really quite impressive. And the performances he gets out of Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke (who play Lily and Amanda) are outstanding on so many different levels, particularly Taylor-Joy, as her character's slow descent into a sociopathic nature very similar to Cooke's is handled hauntingly and masterfully. Cooke is also showing to be one of the best actresses of her generation, as she embodies her character so convincingly and plays off of Taylor-Joy so well that you almost become convinced she doesn't have any feelings in real life either. And Anton Yelchin...I really don't have any words to say except that, if there were any justice in this world, he would get a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in this film. He is so, so great in this movie and just knowing that he wrapped it fourteen days before his death is so heartbreaking. He definitely would have gone on to a long, great career had he not been taken from us so young. But anyway, if you haven't seen this movie (and I'm guessing most of you haven't), please rent it and watch it immediately. You will not regret it.

#7. Welcome to Marwen -- I never expected to say this about a Robert Zemeckis movie starring Steve Carell released at Christmas, but this is easily the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned film of the year. I really have no idea why it's been getting slammed by a lot of critics other than for the fact that it is very sentimental and maybe it had more fantasy sequences than certain people were expecting, but I absolutely loved this movie. Like I posted on my Facebook page right after I saw it at a special screening co-hosted by Nick Digilio of WGN Radio, it's one of the best recent movies I've seen about the creation of art. And as a screenwriter with Asperger's Syndrome who has struggled with loneliness and isolation, this movie spoke to me on so many different levels, from the way Zemeckis beautifully blended fantasy and reality to the heartbreakingly authentic way Steve Carell portrays this broken man who builds this world in his backyard as his way of expressing himself and working through his trauma. And on top of that, this is also a great movie about addiction, something co-writer/director Robert Zemeckis also tackled in his movie Flight from a couple years ago. While this deals with it in more of a fantastical way than that film did, it still works beautifully in the world of this story and it all builds up to a great climactic scene that pays off so many different set-ups and also includes a wonderful homage to Zemeckis' own Back to the Future. But at its core, what this movie's really about, and why everybody needs to see it, is the healing power of art and storytelling and using fantasy to help you come back to reality. There's even a scene about halfway through the film between Carell and his neighbor (played with great softness by Leslie Mann) that illustrates this beautifully, and it is so cringe-y but yet feels so authentic and real that you can't help but feel for both of them in that situation. I could go on and on about this movie, but I really encourage people to seek this film about despite its low Rotten Tomatoes score, and I'm very thankful that critics like Nick Digilio and Erik Childress and Richard Roeper understand this movie and are going out of their way to champion it. It's really a beautiful film.

#6. If Beale Street Could Talk -- I have to admit, I wasn't the biggest fan of Barry Jenkins' Moonlight when it came out. Granted, I did love it when I first saw it, but it ended up being fairly low on my end-of-the-year list that year and I did not think it deserved Best Picture over La La Land. However, from the moment my eyes graced the beautiful cinematography and my ears heard the magical score that open If Beale Street Could Talk, I immediately fell in love with this movie. While Moonlight was a very specific, personal film that was a bit hard for me to relate to, Beale Street is very much a universal story of love mixed in with a very specific story of racial injustice and the daily struggle of being an African-American in this country. Much of the same lyrical devices and cinematography that Jenkins loves to use is on display to wonderful effect here, capturing the lyrical feel of this particular narrative, and the cinematography and framing devices and the use of colors and lighting that Jenkins uses...I mean my God, is it remarkable. And the performances from Stephan James and Regina King are great, but KiKi Layne, whose feature debut this is, is truly astonishing. Her voiceover is so beautiful and her intimate love scenes with Stephan James feel so real and not forced at all and she truly captures what it means to be in love with somebody and to be willing to do anything to strengthen those bonds. And I'm not even getting into the score, which is the best of the year and the competition isn't even that close. So yes, Barry Jenkins has made a remarkable and beautiful film here, and I hope Annapurna expands this wide and proud because it needs to be seen, and it needs to be seen on the big screen.

#5. Widows -- I always have a soft space for whenever a movie can effectively portray the city of Chicago for all its exterior beauty and internal violence and corruption, but there have only been a very, very small amount movies that have been able to do that (obviously The Fugitive and Chi-Raq being the most obvious one to come to mind). Well, Widows might now be the go-to movie about this topic, as it is one of the best and most realistic portrayals of the city of Chicago I have ever seen on film. It is really one of those great movies that works on every single level: as pure popcorn entertainment, as a multi-layered commentary about a certain brand of politics and corruption unique to the city of Chicago (we're not called the Windy City because of the weather), as a showcase for some of the best actors working today, and as an outlet for an acclaimed arthouse filmmaker (Steve McQueen) to take some of his best tricks into the mainstream heist-film realm. And I'm not exaggerating when I say nearly everything in this movie works. The way McQueen and his co-writer Gillian Flynn juggle all these different characters and storylines never feels messy or forced, and they allow opportunities for all the actors playing them to shine. And to talk about how great all the different actors are would almost require an entirely separate blog post. But I'll just say this: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki (who, by the way, is the absolute breakout star of this film), Cynthia Erivo, Colin Ferrel, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Daniel Freaking Kaluuya are all outstanding in this film. Every single one of them. Outstanding. And I'm not even getting into McQueen's directing and cinematography, which is pitch-perfect nearly the whole time, including one scene that features the best tracking shot of the year by a mile (I won't give it away, see it for yourself). I could talk for hours about this movie, but please do yourself and the city of Chicago and Steve McQueen a favor and seek it out. Even just on the most surface of levels, it's a damned entertaining movie. 

#4. Won't You Be My Neighbor? -- There have been some great documentaries this year (the aforementioned Monrovia, Indiana, as well as Minding the Gap, Free Solo, and Three Identical Strangers) but no one will ever be able to convince me that any documentary in 2018 is as beautiful, moving, or profound as Won't You Be My Neighbor?. I saw this film at the Laemmle Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills this last September with my LA roommate Francisco Casanova, and we were both sitting there for a good portion of the film with tears in our eyes. While I didn't really grow up watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on TV like a lot of people did, I knew about him and the show from my parents and it ultimately didn't really matter when watching the movie. Director Morgan Neville does a remarkable job at introducing you to the life and philosophy of Fred Rogers in a way that appeals to everyone regardless of how or when you grew up. Especially as someone who's struggled with feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing, it's incredibly moving to see someone like Fred Rogers use his platform to tell thousands of children that they have value regardless of who they are and where they came from, and to never do it in a false or condescending way. In many ways, he used his platform to spread the love of Jesus Christ in a way that impacted thousands of more people than he would have if he would have become a pastor (as was his original life's goal), and that is incredibly inspiring to me as someone who is both a Christian and an aspiring filmmaker. I could go on and on, but ultimately this is an amazing documentary that brilliantly captures a man who dedicated his life's work to being an example of Christ's love to children all over the world, and everyone should absolutely see it.

#3. A Star is Born -- This was really one of the handful of movies I've ever seen where as soon as it was over, I knew I had seen something that would be remembered years down the road as a classic love story. Like Thoroughbreds and another movie I'll be mentioning in a little bit, this film is one that represents a stunning debut for its first-time filmmaker, and one that shows incredible skill and mastery of the craft right out of the gate. As the co-writer, director, and star of this film, there are so many ways Bradley Cooper could have failed miserably and yet he succeeds in pulling off a grand cinematic tightrope walk, as this film has an outstanding screenplay, beautiful direction, and two of the best lead performances I've seen this year. I mean...for Lady Gaga to come right out of the gate and give this beautiful, heartbreaking, soulful performance is almost unbelievable, and she absolutely deserves to be a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar. And in addition to co-writing and directing this film with incredible skill and mastery, Cooper also gives an incredible performance as Jackson Maine, the alt-country singer/songwriter who discovers Gaga's Ally in a drag bar and helps her rise to superstardom while struggling with alcoholism and pill addiction. As has been said many times over, the chemistry between Cooper and Gaga never once feels forced or anything less than genuine. When these two look into each other's eyes, and especially when they first sing the movie's signature tune "Shallow" together, you can feel their chemistry and love for each other emanating off the screen in a way that makes you fall head-over-heels for both of them. And that's not even to mention the film's ending, which I didn't see coming (namely because I haven't seen any of the other incarnations of this story) and it completely devastated me. But in short, everything about this movie worked for me, even the parts that came off to other critics as cliched. This movie deserves every bit of box-office clout and Oscar consideration it's been getting, it deserves to be talked about years from now as a modern classic, and I can't wait to see what Cooper the director and Gaga the movie star do next.

#2. Roma -- From the moment the screening of this film concluded at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, I knew it had to be #2 or #1 on my list. Sitting there at the film's Los Angeles premiere at the historic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, it took a while for me to really process why this film struck me as so significant, and why exactly it so profoundly moved me, but after seeing a second time back home in Chicago with my parents, I was finally able to put my feelings into words. In some ways, watching Roma reminded me of the experience I had watching Boyhood over four years ago. While this didn’t quite have the same personal impact on me that Boyhood did, it has that same epic yet intimate feel that Boyhood had, and it feels just as intensely personal to Cuarón. One of the film’s producers said in the Q&A that Roma is almost an exact recreation of Cuarón’s childhood, and I would go even further to say that this film is the perfect summation of Cuarón’s career, with various moments in the film serving as subtle callbacks to Cuarón’s previous films (including one scene that brilliantly and cryptically alludes to Harry Potter, since Cuarón directed Prisoner of Azkaban). Like many of my favorite films, everything in this feels genuine and real, from the dialogue to the individual scenes to the performances by a cast of almost entirely unknowns (especially Yalitza Aparicio, who’s almost certainly bound for a Best Actress Oscar nomination). And on top of that, this film is beautifully photographed in black-and-white, with an amazing use of wide shots that look stunning on a large movie screen, and the sound design is so incredibly immersive that Cuarón really makes you feel like you are in Mexico City in 1971 without ever having to resort to the handheld camera that so many filmmakers rely on for the “immersive” style. All of this to say, Roma is a magnificent piece of filmmaking, and I absolutely hate that a lot of people will probably watch this on their smartphones. This is a film that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible with the loudest sound possible, so if any of you reading this find an opportunity to experience Roma in a movie theatre rather than in your living room or God forbid on your smartphone, take it without thinking twice. (And, shameless plug, the Music Box Theatre in Chicago is doing 15 showings of it in 70mm starting Jan. 9 and concluding Jan. 13. For showtimes & advance tickets, go to https://bit.ly/2UIbz0h). If any movie released by Netflix deserves to be watched this way, Roma is unquestionably it. It is a remarkable cinematic triumph from one of the greatest filmmakers alive.

And...#1. Eighth Grade -- As you can see from the rest of my list, there have been many, many great and powerful films that have come out of 2018. And normally, when looking at that crop of films, it would be really difficult to pick out just one as being "the best" or even "the favorite". But ultimately, there was one singular cinematic achievement this year that hit me in a way that only a handful of movies ever have, and that is Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade. From the moment I saw this magnificent film at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in May, sitting next to my parents and one of my good friends, I knew this was a special film. Having been a bullied middle school student who turned to watching films and writing screenplays in order to work through my own loneliness and isolation, to see a film that perfectly encapsulates that experience and those feelings is something truly beautiful and all-too-rare and incredibly profound. And I can finally say, after all these of being haunted by my own middle school experience, that this is the most realistic portrayal of being a lonely, isolated middle school student that I've ever seen, and the competition isn't even close. What Bo Burnham has done with this film is something incredibly special and significant. He has made a film that can help those kids like me at 13 who feel like their not worth anything and that nobody likes them that their struggles are really universal. Even now at 21 there are times where I feel like I'm alone and that the whole world is against me, and Burnham himself even said that this movie is really a reflection of where he's at now, and that is really quite beautiful. But in addition to all of that, what also makes this movie incredibly significant is how it uses this micro perspective (that of the main girl, Kayla) to reflect on the entirety of Generation Z, the upcoming generation that has never known a world without the Internet. Texting and social media is almost religious for teenagers now, and the fact Burnham is able to beautifully show how we shouldn't be at all surprised by the level of anxiety teenagers and adults are constantly feeling now is something that is very important. As great as technology can be, it is also helping to aid our current mental health crisis in a way that needs to be addressed. And of course, let's not forget the actress who carries this entire movie on her shoulders: Miss Elsie Fisher herself. Oh my God, is she spectacular in this film. Her acting and Burnham's screenplay together make the character of Kayla the most three-dimensional, fully realized cinematic character of the year. And so much of the emotions she feels throughout the entirety of this film are conveyed on only her face in a way that is heartbreaking to anyone who has ever faced social rejection or is struggling with depression and/or anxiety (which I feel like should be most everyone reading this right now). 

I almost feel like I could write a whole book about this movie, but I'll just leave you with this: this is a beautiful, profound, moving, and special film that I would love to share with the entire world. I was lucky enough to get to see this a second time after the Chicago Critics Film Festival screening over the summer with my good friends Tim Clasquin and Claire Lostutter, and when we were traveling back from the theatre, I just kept quiet and let the two of them talk about how much the film impacted them and spoke to their own struggles. To see how it impacted them like it impacted me was really what validated my choice of this as the #1 movie of 2018. Thank you, Bo Burnham, for making us all feel not alone and for sharing this beautiful piece of art and poetry with the world. I cannot wait to see where you and Elsie Fisher go from here.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And, for anyone who's curious, here's a list of 20 runners-up, i.e. films that are really, really good (and, in some cases, great) that just missed the cut for my top 20, listed in alphabetical order:

Annihilation

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Beautiful Boy

Black Panther

BlacKkKlansman

Bodied

Free Solo

Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer

Hereditary

Isle of Dogs

Madeline’s Madeline

Minding the Gap

A Quiet Place

Ready Player One

Support the Girls

Suspiria

Three Identical Strangers

22 July

Vice

Wildlife

Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer

(NOTE: I first saw this movie at a special sneak-preview screening back in February in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I wrote my thoughts on it back then, but since the film is getting a theatrical release this weekend, I'm just sharing them now.)

As we get full-steam into Oscar season and people are rightfully lining up to see some of the year's best movies like First Man (which I hear is superb) and A Star is Born (which I know is superb), oftentimes there are much smaller films with smaller marketing budgets and theatrical releases that fly very under-the-radar. Such is the case with veteran character-actor Nick Searcy's second directorial effort Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer (his only other directorial effort, Carolina Low, made some waves in the mid-90s), which appropriately enough is based on a true story that flew very under the radar earlier this decade. For those who don't know, Kermit Gosnell is a former abortionist who operated an abortion facility in Philadelphia for over three decades, and in 2013 was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of three infants who were born alive during late-term abortions and involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman during a botched abortion, although the 280-page grand jury report found that Gosnell had "routinely delivered babies alive, cut their necks with scissors, and stuffed their bodies in freezers and jars."

If you read that above sentence and are shocked that you had never heard of this story before, you have good reason to be. As this film shows a lot in its second-half, there was a large reluctance in the mainstream media to report on the Gosnell case, for really no other reason other than the fact that it was an "abortion doctor" on trial, and it didn't fit the narrative many people have of "safe and legal abortion," despite the fact that the abortions Dr. Gosnell performed were neither safe nor entirely legal (he was also convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion). But, contrary to what you might believe given the current climate, this film isn't interested in political grandstanding. At its core is a deeply compelling true-crime story that shows both Gosnell's horrific crimes and the general public's willful ignorance to them with almost-equal disgust but without really resorting to preaching, and it will leave you with much to think about regardless of your views on abortion.

The film opens like a typical police procedural, with Detective James Wood (played by Dean Cain) working with the DEA and the District Attorney's "Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit" on a drug-trafficking investigation in late 2009. Following reports of illegal prescription drug activity coming from Dr. Gosnell's facility, he and the rest of his assembled team quickly learn about Gosnell's disgustingly unsafe and unsanitary operation, with the nail in the coffin being that a woman named Karnamaya Mongar had recently died following a botched abortion and no police report was ever filed on it. With this, along with numerous other health and medical concerns, Wood and his assembled team raid Gosnell's facility and find a quite-literal house of horrors. In addition to blood-stained floors and cat feces lying around, perhaps the most haunting thing that the team finds on this raid is the remains of aborted babies, most aborted illegally after 24 weeks gestation, in bags, milk jugs, cat-food containers, or stuffed in freezers. In one particularly horrifying moment, the investigators find a row of jars containing severed feet from aborted babies, practically on display. And all of this is real, and is detailed quite graphically in the actual grand jury report of this case.

One of Gosnell's victims

Horrified and disgusted by Gosnell's practice, Wood successfully encourages Assistant District Attorney Lexy McGuire (played by Sarah Jane Morris) to pursue murder charges against Gosnell (played by Earl Billings). After a nearly year-long investigation, Gosnell, his wife, and other clinic employees are charged with murder and various other felonies. Once Gosnell pleads not guilty and enlists a ruthless attorney (played effectively by Nick Searcy himself) to defend him, the trial begins.

And this is where the film becomes particularly interesting and, in many ways, self-aware. Numerous people that McGuire comes across, including Philadelphia D.A. Dan Molinari (played by Michael Beach), attempt to dissuade her from taking up this case, saying that the pro-choice media will vilify her and that pro-life groups and lobbyists will attempt to use this case as an excuse to successfully work towards outlawing abortion. As the trial itself gets underway, we learn that Pennsylvania's former governor Tom Ridge (a pro-choice Republican) had specifically ordered inspections of all of the state's abortion facilities to cease due to fears of them creating "a barrier to women seeking abortion services." The judge in the case proceeds with caution for a similar reason, not wanting the trial to become about the legality of abortion.

But one of the most shocking things about the proceedings, as I hinted at above, is the almost complete lack of attention it got from the mainstream media. As McGuire and Wood and the D.A. are headed to the courtroom, they're preparing themselves to be swarmed by reporters, only to find empty rows of seats in the courtroom that had been reserved the press. Blogger Molly Mullaney (played in a small but memorable role by Cyrina Fiallo) at one point during the trial takes a picture of the empty press seats and tweets it, causing it to go viral which results in major reporters finally showing up as the trial draws to a close.

The empty rows of seats reserved for the press at Gosnell's trial

And in terms of recent true-crime movies that I've seen, this is definitely one of the most impressive of the lot, especially considering the low-budget, which admittedly can sometimes make it seem a bit like a TV-movie. But director Searcy, who's clearly learned from some of the top filmmakers working today (in addition to his role on the TV show Justified, he was in two of last year's major Oscar movies, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), handles this material with great restraint and integrity, especially in regards to the performances. Searcy is very much an actor's director, and while there really aren't any name actors in this movie, he still manages to get impressive performances out of pretty much all of them.

Sarah Jane Morris, who effectively becomes the film's protagonist once she decides to pursue the charges against Gosnell, embodies her role convincingly and shows her character's struggle with the moral and ethical implications of this case in a subtle but deeply effective manner. Similarly, Dean Cain is well-suited for the role of a Philadelphia police detective and, despite a few forced acting moments, is pretty strong throughout, especially during the raid of Gosnell's clinic. His facial reactions to the horror inside the clinic are some of his particularly strong moments.

But perhaps the most haunting and powerful performance in the whole film is Earl Billings as Gosnell himself. The moments, especially early on, with him and the investigators are actually really unsettling. And having heard some tapes of Gosnell himself speaking, Billings definitely nailed the sociopathic aspects of his character and speech patterns down to a T. It's clear that Gosnell truly believes he did nothing wrong, and even as he's being criminally investigated and convicted, he still keeps a smile on his face and cracks jokes, which of course makes it easy for any actor to portray this character like a cliche villain, but Billings thankfully doesn't do that. In fact, he gives one of the most chilling villain performances I've seen all year.

Earl Billings as Kermit Gosnell

All of this is aided by a well-written screenplay from Andrew Klavan and husband-and-wife writing/producing duo Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney that sticks almost entirely to the facts of this story without making it an "agenda" film. And when it does sometimes get a little heavy-handed, especially when addressing the mainstream media's effective "blackout" of the Gosnell trial, it does it in a way that's unmistakably sincere and effective. Now, as I hinted at previously, there are times throughout the film where it can't really help but feel like a TV-movie or an extended episode of Law & Order, particularly during the trial scenes. And as with most films of this type, there are certain (mainly technical) things that probably could have been fixed with a bigger budget and more prep-time, but Searcy impressively manages to maneuver around most of them and ends up with a very impressively-made film as a result.

I know there's probably a lot of people who won't see this film for the simple reason that they think it's "anti-choice propaganda," especially given that the film was written, directed, and stars people who generally lean conservative and pro-life. And I will admit, going into this movie, I was worried that it wasn't going to be that good quality-wise (especially given that I had recently seen the painfully bad pro-life movie "Alison's Choice" on Amazon Prime), but Searcy and the whole team behind this movie really proved me wrong. This is a very impressive film about a deeply important story that should shock and enlighten everyone regardless of whether they're pro-life or pro-choice. 

And if this movie has a "message" outside of telling this true-crime story as it actually happened, it's this: preventing criminals like Kermit Gosnell from harming women and children is something that should unite everyone regardless of their stance on abortion or their political affiliation. For that alone, I would highly recommend that everybody seek this movie out.

My Top 15 Favorite Films of 2017 (plus 15 runners-up)

While I failed to do a big end-of-2017 Facebook post as I had done at the end of 2016 and 2015, I do have to say that, looking back on 2017, it was definitely a transformative year for me in a lot of ways. Not only did I finally enter my 20s, but I also walked 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, I got to work on a feature-length film where I made a ton of connections and realized why I'm going into my chosen field (film), and I made it a point to see as many films as possible this year in the theatre. By doing this, I've really come to realize that, despite the negative headlines about the state of the film industry (and there have been a lot this year), there really have been a lot of great films by unique artists with unique voices in 2017. When compiling my end-of-year lists, I usually do a top 10 with 10 runners-up, but this year, I had an unusually difficult time narrowing down a top 10, so I just decided, for the first time ever, to do a top 15 because I do think my 11-15 are just as worth praising and writing about as my top 10.

And also, I have to say just for clarification: these 15 films I'm about to list (and the order in which I list them) may not be what some would consider the BEST films of 2017; but rather, they are my personal FAVORITE films that, for one reason or another, impacted me as a student of film and as an aspiring filmmaker and that, in my opinion, speak in some way to the broader world we all live in. People's opinions on films are subjective, and especially now that we live in the era of Rotten Tomatoes where people who have dissenting opinions on films often get ridiculed and name-called, I feel like I have to make the distinction that these are my personal FAVORITE films of 2017, but they may not necessarily be the BEST. So, without further ado, here are my top 15 favorite films of 2017 from 15 to 1:

#15. The Book of Henry -- I just made a Facebook post about this a few days ago after I re-watched it last week, and I reviewed it in full back when it came out in June (you can read my review here), but like I've said repeatedly, this is (in my opinion) the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned film of last year. Most people know how rare it is to see an original, adult-oriented, character-driven drama come out in the middle of the summer amidst dumbed-down manufactured superhero films, so when I saw this, it was so refreshing and moving and invigorating that a film like this can still get made with big-name actors and a director who had just done Jurassic World two years before. You can obviously read more of my in-depth thoughts about the film at the two links above, but I still encourage people to seek this film out despite what they may have heard from others. It's a truly unique piece of art that demands to be seen and understood, since most film critics clearly did not understand it.

#14. Baby Driver -- The absolute best action movie of this year and the last several years. I first saw this film in the Spanish city of Logroño this summer when I was walking the Camino de Santiago, where it was dubbed in Spanish and my enjoyment of it was lessened considerably. However, I finally got to see it in English when I came back to America and it was everything I wanted it to be. Not only was this film chock-full of some of the best car chase sequences (plus an epic foot chase sequence) I have ever seen on film, but it also actually has brains and is really sweet and has a couple very emotional moments. After seeing Ansel Elgort play the moody pretty-boy love interest one too many times, it was definitely refreshing to see writer/director Edgar Wright cast him in a role where he was really able to prove himself as a serious actor, and Lily James (who's had a really good year with this and Darkest Hour), is just plain lovely as his love interest Debora. And while I know that one of the supporting actors featured prominently on the poster has been revealed to be a very very very problematic figure since the release of this film, I don't think that should sway people from enjoying it, especially with the sound cranked up as it also features one of the best soundtracks of the year. Seriously, the way that the action sequences in this film are edited to the music is unbelievably brilliant. So yeah, if you haven't seen this film, watch it and crank the sound.

#13. The Big Sick -- One of the most unabashed crowd-pleasers of the year, this film was quite a surprise for me when I came back from Spain this summer. A deeply personal film for its screenwriter/star Kumail Nanjiani (who plays a fictionalized version of himself in the film), you can feel his passion for the film and story in every frame, all the way down to how authentic his interactions are with his love interest Emily (a fictionalized version of Kumail's wife Emily V. Gordon, who co-wrote the screenplay with him, played empathetically by Zoe Kazan) and her parents (both played brilliantly by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter, the latter of whom deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination). While I'm not quite as over-the-moon about this film as I was back when I first saw it, or as some people (namely my Dad) still are, I still think it's by far one of the best romantic comedies in recent years, and I can't wait to see how Kumail and director Michael Showalter follow this up.
P.S. The Big Sick also contains the hands-down funniest scene in any 2017 movie. I was literally in pain I was laughing so hard. All I will say about it is it involves Kumail's character going to a drive-thru, but that scene alone is enough of a reason to watch this movie if you haven't already.

#12. Columbus -- While this film was initially screened at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May, I didn't get a chance to see it until September when it played again at the Music Box Theatre with writer/director Kogonada in attendance, but I was so glad I did, because this is truly a quiet masterpiece of a film that is heavily influenced by Richard Linklater (one of my all-time favorite filmmakers) in all the right ways. The film focuses on two people in particular, one a Korean-born man stuck in Columbus, Indiana, where he's caring for his terminally-ill father, and the other a young woman from the town who is smart enough to leave but wants to stay. Being from a small town in Indiana myself (although one about three hours from Columbus), I found myself feeling like I knew the geography and the loneliness and isolation of the people there. The conversations between Jin (the Korean man) and Casey (the young woman from the town) are some of the most beautiful and authentic conversations I've seen on film this year. When I first saw this back in September, I posted that Haley Lu Richardson (who plays Casey) had given the best performance of 2017. While I wouldn't say that now, I do think she has given one of the top five performances of the year (which she won't be nominated for, sadly), and I do think much of the emotional strength of this film comes from her performance. I hope to see her in many, many, many films to come and she alone is enough of a reason to seek this film out.

#11. I, Tonya -- One of the quotes on the poster for this film that I think brilliantly sums it up is the one that reads "a hilarious tragedy," because that's pretty much what it is. I was lucky enough to watch this with a big crowd that was laughing one moment and stunned to silence the next. But unlike a lot of the people in that crowd, I knew next-to-nothing about Tonya Harding or the infamous attack on Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 (I was born in 1997), so I went into the film pretty cold. But as soon as the film started, with the recreated interviews featuring Harding (played by Margot Robbie), her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (played by Sebastian Stan), and her wickedly evil mother (played by Allison Janney), I was instantly enthralled. And while there are definitely some hilarious moments and lines (an observation delivered by Bobby Cannevalle shortly after we see the attack on Nancy Kerrigan is in contention for Best Line of Movie Dialogue in 2017), the story itself is very tragic, just to see a woman who had been abused and hated her whole life finally get to a position where she's loved and admired, only to get abused and hated once again and to have everything she's worked for her entire life be taken away from her because of something she didn't want to have happen. Margot Robbie is absolutely astonishing as Tonya Harding, and Allison Janney deserves all of the Oscar buzz she's been getting for her turn as Tonya's hateful mother. I really hope Neon (the film's distributor) continues to go wider with this because more people need to see this film. Someone at the screening I went to said they think it's the best film Martin Scorsese never made, and I would wholeheartedly agree. It could very well be the Goodfellas for my generation.

#10. The Killing of a Sacred Deer -- I don't exactly know what I was expecting from this film when I saw it back in October, but it was not what I got. I had seen writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos' previous film, The Lobster, which I liked but didn't love, but this one is totally on another level above that film. This one is set in modern America (Cincinatti, specifically, and the surrounding suburbs) and it stars Colin Ferrel (again) as a renowned cardiovascular surgeon named Steven who is in a strange relationship with a teenage boy who we later find out has lost his father after Steven performed surgery on him some years ago. What follows could be characterized as a psychological horror film, a black comedy film, and a really twisted revenge film, but it is something that has to be experienced in order to even try to understand it. Colin Ferrel is stunningly great in this film as a man trapped in an impossible situation (there's a great scene midway through involving an allusion to Groundhog Day, a much lighter film about a situation not uncommon to the one Ferrel finds himself in), but the two standouts for me were Barry Keoghan as Martin, the teenage boy, and Raffey Cassidy as Kim, Steven's daughter. Keoghan in particular is so haunting and creepy and convincing that I think he deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance (which he won't get, sadly), and Cassidy, who I had previously seen in the underrated Tomorrowland two years ago, doesn't get a ton to do, but her scenes are some of the most memorable in the film, and I would actually pay to see a sequel to this film focused exclusively on her character. Since this is an A24 film, I really hope it comes up on Amazon Prime soon, because people (especially horror fans and fans of weird arthouse cinema) need to see this film. I personally can't wait to watch it again.

#9. Dunkirk -- While this list is of my personal favorite films of the year, if I were making a list of "Greatest Cinematic Achievements of 2017," this film might have to be #1 on that list. I have repeatedly said that Christopher Nolan is the best Hollywood blockbuster filmmaker working today, and when this film was released in theaters this summer, that fact was only cemented in reality. What Nolan has managed to achieve with Dunkirk is a film that provides both bells-and-whistles spectacle with a deeply horrific and emotional real-life story. Getting to see this in an IMAX theatre is an experience that will forever be frozen into my brain, as it allowed me to not only watch this war film, but to really feel it, to feel like I was on the beach at Dunkirk and on the water and in the air. This also marked the only time I have ever said I was glad at the lack of character development in a film, because the film didn't need it. Withholding backstory and individual traits from these characters allows the audience to see any one of them as themselves, or their son, or their brother, or their father, or their friend. It's truly a remarkable piece of art, one of the greatest war films of all time, and...yeah, it's a masterpiece. Christopher Nolan is a true master of big-budget filmmaking, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

#8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri -- I'll admit that I hadn't seen writer/director Martin McDonagh's other two movies before this one (In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, both of which I intend to watch soon), so I didn't really know what to expect from this, but what I got was one of the most brilliantly written and acted films I've seen in a long time. The way McDonagh blends pitch-black comedy and searing drama in this film is something to deeply admire, and the way he never gives you any hint at where the storyline is going is absolutely stunning. Frances McDormand doesn't quite match her Oscar-winning performance in Fargo, but she comes damn close, playing a woman who possesses such deep righteous rage that you can't help but be on her side. Likewise, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell both deserve to be in the conversation for Best Supporting Actor, with Harrelson playing the police chief character with such humor and sadness that you almost instantly fall in love with him, and Rockwell's performance is something else entirely, as he quite literally disappears into his role of a psychopathic racist cop with an almost-unsettling realism...and yet he's not just a one-dimensional villain, because that would be both boring and not realistic. He actually has an unexpected arc that helps bring the film to a really beautiful and perfect conclusion. So yes, I absolutely love Three Billboards, and I personally think it deserves an Oscar for its brilliantly written screenplay, which is one of the very best of the last eighteen years (at least).

#7. The Disaster Artist -- Oh, hai Mark. So, I'll admit, I hadn't seen The Room until just about a month ago, when my friend Will Ackerman let me borrow his Blu-ray copy of it to watch at home so I could see The Disaster Artist. And the 24-hour timespan in which I watched both The Room and The Disaster Artist for the first time was one of the most fun timespans of my entire 2017, and it just happened to fall during a week-long break from a feature film I had been working on. That last part is really significant in terms of how this film specifically impacted me because it's really a movie about filmmaking and the creative process. Watching Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero (brought beautifully to life by brothers/creative partners James and Dave Franco), two passionate aspiring artists, decide to make their own movie and fail spectacularly while attempting it, is one of the funniest and saddest things I've seen this year. While I in no way aspire to be the next Tommy Wiseau, there is still something to admire about a man who is so passionate about his craft and passionate about telling a story that literally no one understands except him. And while I know that James Franco has been revealed to be a very problematic figure in the last week or so, he still gives one of the best performances of the year in this film, disappearing into the role of Tommy Wiseau with such pinpoint authenticity that I forgot he was James Franco when watching it. His brother, Dave, is also terrific as Greg Sestero, serving as the POV character for much of the film. So while it definitely enriches the experience to watch The Room before seeing The Disaster Artist, I do believe the film works just on the level of being a hilarious and sort-of-sad look at filmmaking and the creative process, as well as a story of friendship and two people helping one another achieve their artistic dreams. So, this is pretty much a must-see film if you're a film student.

#6. The Shape of Water -- This is an absolutely magnificent work of art. Now, I admittedly haven't been the biggest supporter of Guillermo del Toro's work (I personally think Pacific Rim is a slightly-smarter Michael Bay movie and Pan's Labyrinth is a good but not great dark fantasy film), so I wasn't expecting to be nearly as blown away by this film as I was, but boy was I. What del Toro has really crafted here, beyond the initially off-putting premise of a mute janitor in Cold War-era Baltimore falling in love with a captured amphibian, is a story of loneliness and isolation, as well as human relationships and the ability (or lack thereof) to effectively communicate your feelings to one another. One of the first films that came to mind after I first saw it was Spike Jonze's Her, a film that also put some people off due to the unusual love story at the center of it. Sally Hawkins delivers one of the absolute best performances of the year (one that could/should potentially win her an Oscar) as the mute janitor at the center of the story, and all of the supporting performances are phenomenal as well, from Richard Jenkins' subtle but powerful role as the caring neighbor, to Octavia Spencer's comic relief co-worker role (she's awesome in literally everything), to Michael Shannon once again proving how effective he can be in villainous roles as the evil Colonel Strickland (although he can also be effective in, well, everything, because he's one of the greatest actors on the planet). del Toro has really crafted something special and beautiful in this film, and I am so glad it's getting as much attention as it has been this awards season. It deserves every bit of attention it gets.

#5. A Ghost Story -- I have to say, as much of an astonishing masterpiece as this film is, I really regret not being able to see it in a theatre. It really frustrated me when I was forced to miss seeing this at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May (a screening that my parents and a lot of my fellow DePaul friends got to go to and I didn't) and when it came and went from theatres this summer while I was in Spain. But when I did finally get to watch it (in my bedroom, on my laptop), I realized how it's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen about time and memory and the preciousness of life and how little time we all have. I've never seen a film that so beautifully shows how, when we're young, time moves so slow and it seems like we have infinite hours to spend in this life, but then as we grow older, everything moves so fast until we can't take it anymore. In some ways, it reminded me of a more expressionist take on Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," and specifically how that treats the transience of human life. There isn't much more I want to say about this film, as its truly something you want to watch knowing as little as possible, but I truly hope that I eventually get to see it in a theatre, because I do think it will have a much larger emotional and aesthetic impact when I have to sit in a dark theatre and watch it without any distractions or interruptions. Chicago theatre owners/people who do special screenings in movie theatres, please program this ASAP.

#4. Call Me By Your Name -- Can I please ask everyone reading this a favor? Strip away whatever preconceived notions you have about this film. Knowing about the controversy that this film has generated in some circles, I decided to hold off any judgment of it until I actually saw it, and when I did see it, I left the theatre overwhelmed with emotions. While I have not read the book that this film is based on, screenwriter James Ivory and director Luca Guadagnino have crafted a beautiful, emotional, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of first love and coming-of-age set against the backdrop of Italy in the summer of '83. Having spent the better part of this past summer in a similar European country (Spain), I was instantly transported back there from the first frame of this film, as I remember the beautiful lush landscapes and the centuries-old houses and the cobblestone streets and the wine-and-cigarette-laden outdoor meals, and of course, the romantic longing that comes with being in your late-teens/early-20s and how much more vulnerable you become when you're an ocean away from home. While the central romantic relationship between Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer may be off-putting for people who only know about the film through headlines and ignorant judgments from certain pundits who haven't seen it, I'm here to say that it is entirely consensual and should not raise concerns from anyone. In fact, I thought that Chalamet and Hammer both had a lot of chemistry together and their scenes together (especially midway through the film) are some of the most romantic scenes of the year. In terms of the performances, I will just say right now that Timothée Chalamet in this movie gives my favorite male performance of the year (yes, even more than Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour and Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread). He embodies a teenager on the brisk of manhood struggling with first love and loneliness and isolation so beautifully and profoundly that I could feel his pain for much of the film, and the final shot of this film is one of the most heartbreaking final shots of any movie I've ever seen. If it weren't for Oldman and Day-Lewis, I'm pretty certain Chalamet would be a frontrunner for the Best Actor Oscar. Armie Hammer has also never been better as Oliver, a man who projects all the confidence and attractiveness of the archetypal all-American hunk while hiding a lot of pain underneath, and Michael Stuhlbarg gives an incredibly moving performance as Chalamet's character's father, especially in the scene where he delivers hands-down the best movie monologue of 2017, one that hit me right in the gut. So like I said, please put aside whatever worries you might have about the content of this film, and please go see it. It is one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long, long time.

#3. Phantom Thread -- I really debated on where to rank this film. On one hand, part of me thinks it should be #2 or #1 because it's Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, and it's an absolutely gorgeous masterpiece of filmmaking, but on the other hand, part of me thinks it should only be like #4 or #5 until I get to see it again, because I know there's a lot of things I missed and it's only going to get richer with each viewing. But nonetheless, I'm ranking it #3 even though it might go up on my second or third viewing, not just because PT Anderson is one of the greatest filmmakers alive and Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors alive, but also because it's a brilliant film about craftsmanship and the creative process and the artist-muse relationship, brought equally to life by Vicky Krieps as Alma, the woman who upends the life of legendary British dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (played by Day-Lewis). While I expected Day-Lewis to be phenomenal as he always is, Krieps is really the revelation in this film, as she goes toe-to-toe with Day-Lewis in every scene of this film, and gives a performance that is 100% worthy of an Oscar nomination. But other than Day-Lewis and Krieps, the other main star that isn't on screen is Jonny Greenwood, whose hypnotic score adds so much to this film that he should get a credit right alongside the two leads. And of course, there's Paul Thomas Anderson, one of my two favorite living filmmakers (the other being Richard Linklater). He is just such a gift and inspiration to the craft of cinema, and while he has made his share of challenging films that might not be accessible to the casual moviegoer (*ahem* The Master), he has also made two of the greatest movies ever made in my opinion (Magnolia and There Will Be Blood) and is always someone who seems to be pushing the medium of cinema forward in various ways. And while Phantom Thread is definitely his most straightforward and accessible film of the last ten years, in that it actually has a linear narrative and also contains significantly more humor than his last several films, it's still very challenging in different ways, with its hypnotic mood and portrayal of a toxic relationship. I'm going to refrain from saying much more about this film, as it's truly something to be experienced (especially at the Music Box Theatre on 70mm), but please, please, please go out and support this film. Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius and a treasure to cinema, and his films need to be seen and supported. I can't wait to see what he does next.

#2. The Florida Project -- From the moment I saw this film in a special preview screening at the DePaul CDM Theatre with writer/director Sean Baker in attendance, I knew this had to be my #2 or #1, because for me, this film perfectly embodies one of my favorite Roger Ebert quotes, which is that "the movies are a machine that generates empathy." While this film doesn't have much of a plot to speak of, what it does have is incredibly compelling characters at its center, characters that may be fictional, but are too real in the people they embody. Our focus character, a six-year-old named Moonee, is a composite of numerous little girls just like her, living on the outskirts of society with a mother who can't properly raise her because she, too, lives and acts like a child. The numerous characters we see living at Magic Castle, a welfare motel outside of Walt Disney World, are real people, people who have been pushed to the brink by society and are doing whatever they can to avoid being out on the street, and a man named Bobby, who runs this motel and is essentially everyone's glorified caretaker, is a composite of the numerous men and women who are practically forced into these positions and are doing the best that they can. What Sean Baker has done with this film is no less of an accomplishment than what Christopher Nolan did with Dunkirk and what PT Anderson did with Phantom Thread; Baker has structured a beautiful and heartbreaking, but also entertaining and often funny, film around a real-world problem that most of society and the media likes to ignore, and thanks to his incredible writing and directing skills and the amazing actors he managed to recruit, he made it feel 100% realistic. The two actors in particular that carry this film are Willem Dafoe as Bobby (who I really hope wins his long-deserved Oscar for this; he is magnificent) and the adorable and amazing Brooklynn Prince as Moonee, who at the age of six has delivered a child performance for the ages. After I saw this film for the second time, I said that Moonee is the heart of the film, and Bobby is the soul. When these two are together on screen, serious cinematic magic happens that can put any "magic" in any Disney film ever made to utter shame. And not to forget about the film's other major discovery, Bria Vinaite, who plays Moonee's immature and childlike mother Halley in a tragically realistic performance. But seriously, everything about this film works in its favor. Even the ending, which some people have had issues with, is absolutely beautiful and profound and deeply moving, and I encourage everyone who may have missed this movie during its theatrical run to please go and seek it out. It's not an easy watch, but it's an incredibly necessary and important film that I think even has the power to increase awareness about the hidden homeless. It's a real problem, and I'm thankful that a powerful film like The Florida Project can be used as a tool to increase awareness. So go seek it out!

And...#1. Wonder -- As you can see from the rest of my list, there have been many, many great and powerful films that have come out of 2017. But, ultimately, one of them really stood out to me above the rest, and it took the second viewing of it for it to do so, and that is Stephen Chbosky's Wonder. When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was kind of worried about it. Granted, Chbosky had done only one film, and it happened to be one of my favorite movies of all time (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), but Wonder looked like it had a very cheesy after-school-special feel to it. But then I actually went and saw it during its first week in theatres, and wow, did it knock me for a loop. While it may not have the same prestige factor that The Florida Project and The Shape of Water both have, it is still very much of a profound film about isolation and loneliness, both social and familial. There are numerous, numerous smart choices that Chbosky and his screenwriters made that propel this film to the powerhouse of emotion and intelligence that it is, but one of their smartest choices was showing the audience the perspectives of the numerous characters that inhabit the main character (Auggie)'s life in some form or another. It really drives home the movie's central and most powerful trait: empathy. With this film and Perks under his belt, Chbosky has really shown himself to be a master of empathetic filmmaking, the best kind of filmmaking there is and the kind of filmmaking that I want to pursue because, at the risk of stating the obvious, there needs to be much more empathy in our culture. Like my friend/roommate Pat Stineman said, if everyone in the world saw this movie, the world would be a better place, and I don't think he's wrong.

The performances in this film are spectacular all across the board. Jacob Tremblay is continuing to prove himself to be one of the greatest child actors on the face of the Earth, and he embodies the role of a child with a facial deformity with such truth and compassion that you felt for him every single step of the way. Owen Wilson has never been more likable in a film than in this one, playing the role of the fun-loving father with a level of delicacy not seen in any movie with Owen Wilson since maybe The Royal Tenenbaums. Julia Roberts likewise plays the mother with a levelheadedness not seen in many recent Julia Roberts movies. But for me, the absolute standout performance here is from newcomer Izabela Vidovic as Auggie's sister, Via. I had never seen her in anything, but she is absolutely astounding in this film. While most of her performance is quiet and understated, you can feel her loneliness and isolation in much the same way you can feel Auggie's; obviously it's different, but it's still valid. But there's a scene just a little over midway through the film that takes place during a performance of "Our Town" that is absolutely devastating and that propelled Vidovic's performance as Via to be my favorite female performance of 2017. She is that phenomenal and if there were any justice in this world, she would have the Best Supporting Actress Oscar locked up.

So yes, I could continue to go on about why Wonder is my favorite film of 2017. But ultimately, a lot of it comes down to the fact that I have been struggling with loneliness and isolation lately and this film so beautifully and accurately captures what it's like to feel isolated. By the second time I saw it, I teared up probably four or five times during this film, which I can't really say about any other 2017 film (except maybe The Florida Project). But at the end of the day, Wonder is just a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, important masterpiece of cinematic art that needs to be seen by every human being alive. Maybe once that happens, the world will become a better place.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And, for anyone who's curious, here's a list of 15 runners-up, i.e. films that are really, really good (and, in some cases, great) that just missed the cut for my top 15, listed in roughly the order in which I thought of them (the ones that are hyperlinked are ones I've reviewed on here before):

• Last Flag Flying
• Wind River
• Mother!
• Coco
• It
• Get Out
• Good Time
• Brad's Status
• Darkest Hour
• Logan
• Lady Bird
• Patti Cake$
• Logan Lucky
• Blade Runner 2049
• The Blackcoat's Daughter