Look, There's Only Dogshit in, Like, a Third of the Cake: Best Movies of 2017

Movies did not have as solid of a year as video games. That's a pretty tall order, though, and it also doesn't take into account that film culture is much less exclusionary and shitty than game culture (though, as this year demonstrated, it's still a very shitty culture). Nevertheless, there were still a lot of really interesting movies last year. Which is great, because there was definitely a need to do anything but live life as normal last year. Here we go! Top 10! Yeah!

10. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Who would've thought that they'd make a good Spider-Man movie again? Not me. Not after Sony threw away what I maintain is the most underrated superhero movie series so they could have Andrew Garfield pout and skateboard and get his girlfriend killed. But it turns out that when the fate of your movie studio is hinging on making a Spider-Man movie that doesn't suck, you stop fucking around and just...do it. Spider-Man: Homecoming is great because it doesn't try to set up every single Spider-Man villain, or set up Peter Parker fighting Loki, or start with Peter Parker saving the whole city. It's about a dumb kid who wants to be a hero and also wants to go to a homecoming dance, and is forced to choose between the two. It's small-scale. We need more of those in our superhero movies.

9. Wonder Woman

There are some scenes so good and powerful and important that they can carry an entire movie. Wonder Woman's No-Man's-Land sequence is one of those scenes...except the rest of the movie is pretty dang good! The last third, when it matches up with the dumb aesthetic of the rest of the DCU movies, isn't super great, but by that point, you don't care. You watched Wonder Woman fuck up a clock tower with her shield and deflect machine gun bullets. You could've just shown Gal Gadot eating a sandwich between takes for the rest of the movie and this would still be one of the best of the year.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2

2017 was the year where it became clear where the best part of the MCU was: the spacefaring kissboys. The first Guardians of the Galaxy was a stunning breath of fresh air, a tease of how weird and awesome comic book movies could be if they just stopped giving a fuck about things that don't matter and doubled down on great characters. The sequel doubles-down further, with a plot that's much more driven by character and introspection than the travelogue of the first movie. Also, the soundtrack slaps. Also also, this movie has the fourth coolest single action sequence of anything this year, just behind Wonder Woman and two other movies we haven't talked about oh fuuuuuuuck

7. Logan Lucky

Who doesn't love crime? Especially grand larceny, the coolest and most victimless of crimes. I can't tell you who doesn't love crime, because to the best of my knowledge nobody hates crime, but I know who fucking loves crime, and that's Steven Soderbergh. Logan Lucky combines one of the best heist-movie directors of all time with the rare southern setting that's neither patronizing nor demonizing. It's just...itself. And there's a part where Daniel Craig makes a bomb out of gummy worms. It rules.

6. Atomic Blonde

Oh, hey, the coolest action sequence of the year! The setup of Atomic Blonde is basically "what if James Bond was a woman, and also a period-piece," and it turns out that's a really good premise. Charlize Theron does an amazing job, James McAvoy is pretty good, and the John Wick team brought their A-game. There's a fight scene in this movie that should not only earn Theron some sort of award for going to the fucking mat for a movie, but is probably my new go-to on great western hand-to-hand combat sequences.

5. Colossal

I love all of the movies on this list, but there's a pretty big gap between how I feel about 10-6 and how I feel about 5-1. Each of these movies had something that made me completely lose it, and with Colossal, that was the leads. Well, it wasn't just the leads, but this is a movie that you should know as little as possible about (although it does deal with alcoholism and emotional and domestic abuse, so, if that's a problem, be aware of that) so I'm going to limit my praise to Anne Hathaway's incredible performance as one of my all-time favorite kaiju, and Jason Sudekis revealing that he can actually play a character other than that one guy from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

4. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

You might recall from my 2015 list that I gave Force Awakens best picture that year, and I 100% stand by that. It says a lot about how great the movies were this year that The Last Jedi, which I prefer to Force Awakens in almost every way, didn't even crack the top three. I love this movie for having the best lightsaber fight since Luke vs. Vader in Episode VI. I love this movie for creating a sequence so breathtakingly awesome that I want it tattooed on my body. I love this movie for systematically dismantling what a Star Wars movie can be, and in the process redefining who Star Wars is for. But most of all, I love this movie for taking risks. I love Force Awakens, but it's easy to love Force Awakens. It shook things up where it mattered (the "Rey is a Mary Sue" stuff was always full of shit, but even if it were true it's invalidated by every picture of little girls dressed up as Rey), but in just about every other way it was old-school Star Wars, but shinier. Last Jedi, on the other hand, brings the demographic shakeup of the movie into the actual narrative and shakes up the presentation, using new structures, cinematography, and character dynamics. This results in a movie that has a lot more low points than Force Awakens - there are parts of the movie that are problematic and should be talked about a hell of a lot more than they are - but one where the highs are so, so high.

3. Thor: Ragnarok

As much as I love Last Jedi, I have to admit: the spacefaring kissboys just killed it this year. Thor: Ragnarok did a lot of great stuff: it gave us an amazing new female hero in Valkyrie, it brought the Hulk back, it turned the otherwise not that great Thor series into a must-watch tale of recognizing privilege and finding ways to make amends, it made me laugh really, really hard, and it had a fish guy with knife hands. But more than anything else, this movie was a gigantic middle finger to the "movies have to be dark to be cool" crowd. Jack Kirby is still spinning in his grave, but the unapologetically, enthusiastically techno-camp visuals of Thor: Ragnarok running circles around a fucking Batman and Superman movie that looks like garbage has him spinning at only three rpm. That's an all-time low!

2. The Shape of Water

If nothing else, I love The Shape of Water because it was the eleventh movie I saw this year that I felt comfortable putting on this list, which meant I could safely bump Bright from the #10 spot and not have to deal with the #discourse.Thank goodness Shape of Water is also one of the most well-realized subversive fairy tales ever made to boot! Guillermo knows characters, writing, and apparently fish-fucking, and he delivers it all in a stunning movie about love and marginalization. If you even need another reason to love this weird, beautiful gem (which you shouldn't), the sexy fish what has sex in this movie is played by Doug Jones. No, not that Doug Jones, but it was a really close election. If there's even a 1% chance Doug Jones beat Roy "I hate my horse" Moore because some confused Alabamians thought they were voting for a sexy lagoon monster, this movie should sweep the Oscars.

Best Picture: Get Out

So, before anything else, can we acknowledge that THIS IS JORDAN PEELE'S FIRST MOVIE????HOW IS IT THIS GOOD????
I don't even know what to say about Get Out. Unlike most movies that are clearly the best of their respective years, it came out way back in February, so people a lot smarter than I am have had a lot of time to talk about how great it is. We've had people pick apart how it focuses on a type of racist that media normally ignores; we've had people pick apart how cleverly it takes apart so many kinds of racist behaviors that people don't like to talk about; we've had people talk about how it tricks you into thinking one thing is the plot and then surprises you with something way, way better; we've had people talk about how it does all of this and is still one of the best horror movies in years. The only thing I have left to say that I haven't seen a lot of people discuss is that this movie is so good, it made me briefly like the TSA. I'm serious. That takes once-in-a-generation talent.

Wow, that's a lot of good movies, huh? Surely this is it, though, right? What, did TV have a great year too? Do I have to bust out another rambling list next week?
Crap.