Top Five Films of 2017

Well, 2017 was a rather interesting, surreal year for me, one I'd like to quickly forgot, but most likely never will.

It started in January with the presidential inauguration and just kind of snowballed from there over the next few months (busted TV, garage door and car) culminating in mid-June with my wife's sudden cardiac arrest.

I can tell you your whole life basically stops when you're standing over your best friend's unconscious body in the emergency room, one that had been so full of life just two hours earlier when she had left for work, wondering if you'll ever get the chance to hold or even talk to your companion of 17 years again. But miraculously she pulled through (they say it was most likely a blood clot) and things have slowly returned to normal. And God willing, things will stay that way.

I obviously didn't make it to the multiplex as much as I would of liked this year. But fortunately I was able to get caught up via disc and spend a little time at the theater in November and December. Below are five of my favorites from 2017.

1. Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig's autobiographical family dramedy is just a pure pleasure to watch unfold on screen and features outstanding supporting performances from both Laurie Metcalf and Tracy Letts. But the film belongs to the incomparable Saoirse Ronan who proves once again there isn't a character she can't slip on like a glove and make us fall in love with.

2. The Shape of Water: Guillermo del Toro's enchanting, visceral fable concerning a mute who falls in loves with a captured amphibious humanoid (think the Creature from the Black Lagoon) features nice supporting work from Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins but is really a showcase for the talents of Sally Hawkins, who along with her performance in Maudie this year is quietly cementing her status as one the best actors working today.

3. The Post: Steven Spielberg's entertaining, well-crafted take on the Washington Post and its decision to print the infamous Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s hums right along and features great performances by Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. It really looks and feels like a natural prequel to All The President's Men.

4. Phantom Thread: Paul Thomas Anderson's exquisitely rendered period tale of a London fashion designer and the common girl he falls in love with feels like a lost Kubrick classic, all anchored by a subtle-yet-masterful performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.

5. Wind River: Taylor Sheridan's cold, bleak, Wyoming-set thriller is a tightly conceived exercise in loss and redemption, featuring a haunting score by Nick Cave and a career-best performance by Jeremy Renner.

Rounding Out The Top 10: 6. Maudie 7. Wonder Woman 8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 9. Get Out 10. Hero

Most Overrated Film of 2017: Dunkirk: This "very British" war film from Christopher Nolan was indeed both technically proficient and immersive cinema. It was also cold, boring, unoriginal and devoid of any characterization. Watch, it'll probably win Best Picture.

Happy New Year!

Five Autumn Films Worth Falling For

I'm sure you can tell from my lack of posts this summer that I didn't spend much time at the local megaplex or screening the latest Blu-ray releases. No, I spent most of it caring for my wife, who suffered sudden cardiac arrest in mid-June at age 47. She miraculously was the one in ten who survive these kind of things and thankfully life is slowly getting back to normal.

So you can imagine after three months of hospital stays, scores of doctor visits and countless electrocardiograms, I'm more than ready to spend some time in a darkened theater getting lost for a couple of hours.

As usual, the studios will trot out more than 120 films between now and Christmas. Below are my five worth leaving the house for.

Blade Runner 2049: Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Prisoners) directs this long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's seminal 1982 classic that finds a new replicant hunter (Ryan Gosling) seeking out the long-lost Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) for help with another batch of manufactured baddies. (Oct. 6)

Wonder Wheel: Woody Allen's 1950s Coney Island tale of a housewife (Kate Winselt) who falls for a handsome lifeguard (Justin Timberlake), only to have her stepdaughter fall for him as well looks like vintage Woody and just the right thing to help us survive the holiday-shopping craze. (Dec. 1)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Carrie Fisher's last film and Luke finally speaks after 34 years. How many more reasons do you need? (Dec. 15)

Downsizing: I'm a sucker for anything from Alexander Payne. Yes, even a Honey I Shrunk The Kids-esque satire where scientists miniaturize humans to combat over-population. It got raves at the Venice Film Festival and features Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig. How bad can it be? (Dec. 22)

The Post: Spielberg, Hanks and Streep. Now that's a holiday trifecta worth betting a bundle on. (Dec. 22)

Five More That Should Be On Your Radar: It (Today); Battle of the Sexes (Sept. 22); Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Sept. 22); Murder on the Orient Express (Nov. 10); Phantom Thread (Dec. 25)

A Day Long Remembered: 40 Years of Star Wars

I was six in the spring of 1977. My parents were newly divorced and my mom and I had moved back to our old neighborhood to rent the house literally right next door to the one we had owned as a family of three just a year earlier.

I knew most of the kids from before, so making friends hadn't been a problem. But there was a bit of transition as my mom and I tried to forge a new life for ourselves that didn't include my father.

We both found comfort in movies, usually after errands on Saturday afternoons. I can remember seeing Rocky, Silver Streak and Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong on those days the previous winter, soaking up all the wonderful images and characters, forgetting the word "divorce" ever existed, at least for a couple of hours every weekend.

A new movie from American Graffiti director George Lucas was being teased by 20th Century Fox for release just before Memorial Day weekend of that year. It was a science-fiction adventure billed as "the story of boy, a girl and a universe a billion years in the making." It promised space battles, robots, aliens and a terrifying black-clad villain. It was simply called Star Wars (no episode reference or subtitle back then) and I made my mom take me that first Saturday of opening weekend.

From that pulse-pounding, ear-shattering opening scene where the mammoth Star Destroyer fills the screen as it pursues the tiny Blockade Runner, I was instantly hooked on the story of the farmboy son of a fallen Jedi Knight who fulfills his destiny and joins the fight against the evil Empire.

For the next two hours, I stared wide-eyed at the screen before me, captivated by one glorious scene after another, all enhanced by John Williams' magnificent, thundering score. It was the day I fell in love with the power of pure cinema and never looked back.

Star Wars officially opened on 32 screens May 25, 1977 to rave reviews and lines wrapped around the theaters. Audiences returned in droves for repeat viewings and over the next 13 weeks the number of theaters grew to over 1,000 with the gross reaching nearly $120 million, the most ever in that short a span.

The film held the top spot at the box office not just for the rest of the year but into early 1978 as well, with more than 60 theaters exhibiting it continuously for over a year. By the end of its initial theatrical run, Star Wars had grossed over $220 million, eclipsing 1975's Jaws as the highest-grossing film of all time.

To call Star Wars a cultural phenomenon would be a gross understatement. You really had to be alive at that time to experience just how popular the film was. I mean the brand and its characters were everywhere that summer: magazines, books, T-shirts, pins, you name it. Everyone (except my wife) had seen the film and wanted to talk about it.

And that was just the beginning. By early 1978 we started getting the toys from Kenner, TV specials (the Star Wars Holiday Special featuring Bea Arthur and Art Carney, anyone?), bedsheets, alarm clocks, the list went on. Seriously, from the summer of 1977 through the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, Star Wars was one big, omnipresent blanket that never lost its comfort or appeal.

Star Wars has built quite a legacy over the last 40 years: eight feature films (with at least three more on the way), a handful of television incarnations, theme-park rides, comic books, novels and any other merchandise they could slap a Wookie or Ewok on. It's a culture that's past down from generation to generation, something to share with our kids, and later our kids' kids.

For me, in addition to igniting my life-long passion for cinema, Star Wars will always remind me of my childhood and those years when it was just my mom and me. A time that could have been fraught with despair and insecurity, but instead was filled with awe and wonder. I don't remember worrying about anything back then, mainly because my mom saw to it that movies like Star Wars were always there to make sure I had better things on my mind.

Quick Blu Review: Streets of Fire

Walter Hill's Streets of Fire had all the makings of a hit in the summer of 1984: big-time action, a rugged hero (Michael Paré), a beautiful damsel in distress (Diane Lane), a menacing bad guy (Willem Dafoe) and an MTV-ready soundtrack. It also had the misfortune of opening on the same day as Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and a week before both Gremlins and the original Ghostbusters.

Promptly bounced out of theaters by the competition and quickly forgotten, the self-described "Rock & Roll Fable" has always held a special place in my heart. I actually saw it in the theater opening weekend as a 13-year-old and always loved its infectious music and undeniable style. Over the years more and more people have discovered its charms on home video and through revival screenings, elevating one of the more costlier and misunderstood flops of the '80s to revered cult status.

Set in "another time and place," a neon-infused '50s-meets-'80s city with no name, Fire tells the story of Tom Cody (Paré), a former soldier who returns home at the behest of his sister Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) to rescue former flame Ellen Aim (Lane), an on-the-rise rock singer who has been kidnapped by local thug Raven Shadduck (Dafoe) and his motorcycle gang the Bombers.

Cody is willing to help, for a price, and recruits Ellen's smarmy manager Billy Fish (Rick Moranis) and a down-on-her-luck drifter (Amy Madigan) to help. But freeing Ellen is the easy part, as the group is pursued by first the cops and eventually Shadduck, looking for a final, winner-take-all confrontation with Cody.

In between the action we get a lot of music and video-type set-ups, obviously meant to push the soundtrack, a growing trend at that time. The songs more or less drive the story, which is simple, concise and quickly paced. You know what you're getting for the most part with the film, but you wouldn't want it any other way.

Finally released on Blu-ray this week by Shout! Factory and sporting a new 2K scan, this is the best Streets of Fire has looked on any home-video format. Presented in its native 1.85:1 aspect ratio, all those great visuals now fill the screen like never before. Colors are bright and deep, while natural film grain is maintained throughout. There are a couple of discernible blemishes on the print, but they disappear quickly and don't take away from the presentation. Overall, a very nice transfer and light years ahead of Universal's 1998 DVD.

Both The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks are fully immersive and sound great at minimal levels.

Extras are loaded on a second disc and include music videos, five vintage featurettes and two feature-length documentaries, one from 2013, the other new to this set, that give fans an definitive, in-depth history of the film from concept to release.

Streets of Fire is a hard film to categorize - part Western, musical and gang picture all rolled into one - and maybe that's why it initially failed to connect with audiences in a crowded summer field 33 years ago.

Fortunately, new generations get a chance to experience a worthwhile film that was solely conceived to do nothing more than transport and entertain. Exactly the reason we go to the movies.

Quick Blu Review: Rumble Fish

Director Francis Ford Coppola seemed to have the Midas touch in 1970s: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now. Four films, 33 Oscar nominations, 11 wins, including two for Best Picture.

Each is considered a masterpiece of American cinema and established Coppola as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time before his 41st birthday.

Unfortunately the '80s weren't as kind to the venerable auteur as a combination of mounting debt, ego and a changing cinematic landscape set the Oscar winner on an inauspicious path most of the decade, dabbling in musicals, coming-of-age tales and a Back To The Future-like time-travel fantasy. 1983's Rumble Fish was one those films.

Based on S.E. Hinton's 1975 novel (Coppola also directed the 1983 adaptation of Hinton's The Outsiders) Rumble Fish focuses on the relationship between teenage hood Rusty James (Matt Dillon) and his former gang leader brother Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke).

While Rusty James craves the gangster lifestyle and matching his brother's almost-mythical reputation, Motorcycle Boy covets a quieter, more transcendental existence. Unfortunately, a local lawman (William Smith) is unwilling to forgive Motorcycle Boy's past transgressions and sets the film on course for a noirish finale.

The plot is really that simple. Along the way we get a gang fight here and there, an intimate moment or two between Rusty James and his girlfriend (Diane Lane) and a confrontation between the brothers and their old man (Dennis Hopper). The whole film seems kinds of cartoonish, complete with unengaging dialog and one-dimensional characters. The running time is a svelte 94 minutes but it frankly seems like another hour has been added.

The one bright side is Coppola's use of black-and-white photography, adding a gritty starkness to the Tulsa, Oklahoma exteriors and populating each shot with unconventional camera angles for a noir-like quality. Coppola appropriately called it his "art film for teenagers."

Newly restored in 4k, Criteron's recent Blu-ray release looks absolutely suburb. Presented in its native 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the black-and-white imagery just pops off the screen. Details are tight and crisp and that Tulsa grittiness has never looked more menacing.

The 2.0 surround DTS Master Audio track sounds great and both dialog and Stewart Copeland's score are clear and robust at minimal levels.

As usual with Criterion, the disc features a bevy of extras and highlights include a Coppola commentary, an alternate remastered 5.1 audio track, new interviews with Coppola, Hinton, Dillon and Lane and the music video for the Stan Ridgeway/Stewart Copeland single "Don't Box Me In," a song I forgot all about and actually remember liking when in was in heavy rotation on MTV some 34 years ago.

Rumble Fish is not Coppola's finest hour, but it does feature some nice visuals and reminds us that truly great directors always seem to crave taking risks, making the films that speak to them, whether audiences embrace them or not.

Tribeca Godfather Reunion To Stream Live On Facebook This Weekend

Fans of classic cinema will be excited to learn that this Saturday's 45th-anniversary Godfather reunion panel at Radio City Music Hall will stream live on the Tribeca Film Festival's Facebook page starting at 8:10 PM EST.

The landmark reunion will be moderated by Taylor Hackford and feature director Francis Ford Coppola along with stars Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. Fans attending the event will be treated to a screening of both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II beforehand.

Talk about an offer you can't refuse.

Remembering Jonathan Demme

I was sad to hear of Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme's passing today at 73.

Perhaps my best tribute would be to reprint the retrospective I wrote back in 2011 for the 20th anniversary of The Silence of the Lambs, for my money still the most frightening and expertly crafted thriller ever made.

Originally published February 14, 2011

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, arguably the greatest psychological thriller ever made.

The film opened on February 14, 1991 (yes, Valentine's Day) to favorable reviews, featured two respected actors (Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster) and was based on a bestselling novel. But it's a safe bet that nobody entering the theater that weekend had even the slightest inkling of just what they were in for the next two hours.

Lambs tells the story of Clarice Starling (Foster), a young FBI recruit who is plucked from training in Quantico to interview incarcerated serial killer Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Hopkins) in hopes of obtaining a psychological profile on serial killer Buffalo Bill (aptly named for the hide he collects from his victims) before he strikes again.

A psychiatrist in public life, Lecter is more interested in analyzing Starling than being any help to the FBI. But the fresh-face trainee proves to be a worthy adversary and eventually earns the respect and affection of Lecter who begins to throw little morsels of clues her way on just who Buffalo Bill might be.

As Starling follows the trail, Lecter's knowledge soon comes to the attention of a U.S. senator who believes Bill is behind the abduction of her daughter. Lecter agrees to provide more information but only to the senator in person. Soon he is transported to her home state for a face-to-face where Lecter sets in motion his elaborate plan for escape.

From its deft screenplay by Ted Tally, chilling score by Howard Shore, atmospheric photography by Tak Fujimoto and unflinching direction by Demme, Lambs perfectly balances crime, suspense and horror, enveloping you in a world few films of its type ever have. From Lecter's cell block to Buffalo Bill's lair, the film oozes such a raw creepiness that it holds you spellbound - mouth agape, heart in your throat - for the entire 118-minute running time. You want to to look away but you can't.

As masterfully crafted as the film is, it's the two lead performances that make it a film for the ages.

From her backwoods drawl to her youthful persistence, Foster embodies Starling heart and soul. She is our virgin eyes through this terrible world and we desperately need her to guide us to the light. At the beginning, Starling is just a raw recruit looking to make her dead father proud. By the end, she is a battle-tested veteran who's experienced things not even the most seasoned of agents could have ever imagined.

Hopkins' Lecter is quite simply the most terrifying and unsettling character in screen history. His evil is a subtle, refined one - cool, underlying, manipulative. You feel if you look or listen to him too long he'll have you doing things you never thought yourself capable of. But the character is so engaging and original that even as he's leaving a trail of carnage you can't help but root for him.

The Silence of the Lambs became a worldwide phenomenon, grossing more the $270 million and earning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay, the last film to sweep in all the top categories. The film spawned a sequel and two prequels but none of them came even close to duplicating the magic of the original.

So grab some fava beans and a nice Chianti, cuddle up with your Valentine and spend the evening with Hannibal and Clarice. (Yeah, my wife wouldn't go for it either.)