Year in review: Top 5 mothers and daughters of 2017

A few more year in review list pieces coming (since we know the film year doesn't really end until awards seasons wraps). Here's Lynn Lee

If 2017 was a banner year for fathers in film, it was just as much the year of Complicated Mothers—from Frances McDormand’s justice-seeking Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO to Holly Hunter’s tart-tongued but soft-hearted Beth in The Big Sick to Mary J. Blige’s stoic Florence in Mudbound.  Within this trend was another that spoke especially personally to me: the even more complicated relationship between mothers and daughters.  We saw all kinds of mother-daughter relationships in 2017—tender, fraught, hostile, sometimes all of the above—portrayed with a depth and complexity we don’t get nearly enough of in relationships between women in movies. 

It’s hard to choose favorites, but the following were the mother-daughter screen pairings this year that I found the most compelling...

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"Swing low, sweet chariot... 🎵"

TV Riches. Here are just a few highlights...

Year in review lists/recaps each day. TV is too vast a topic for one list but here's a list of personal favorites from Spencer Coile 

2017 was a messy year. While we may be entrenched in cultural, political, and social turmoil, one area that keeps getting better is television. From the return of David Lynch's Twin Peaks and NBC's Will & Grace (proving that some revivals do work), to the rise of Hulu series, through  the continuation of prestige dramas from HBO, the golden age of TV continues. Because there's such a vast array of shows out there we all have our blindspots so please know that this is but a personal list and you should definitely share yours.  To make room for all of the excellent work put out this year, here are favorite individual and duo performances but let's kick things off with a tribute to the ladies via Ensembles... 

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Bathroom Break with "The Breakfast Club"

Chris here. The days of deleted scenes providing much intrigue have long since past, ever since they became par for the course on DVD extras and overspeculation fodder for message board. Seldom does long-buried footage emerge that really screams "gimmie!" but the Criterion Collection has just that and it's coming very soon: nearly an hour of extra scenes for The Breakfast Club... 

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Co-Star Chemistry - Please Bottle This!

Year in review / list mania each day. Here's Nathaniel...

This is our third year of highlighting that unpredictable spark between actors that can ignite greatness in a movie (see previously installments for 2015 and 2016 if you're so inclined). We had fun doing it before so we're going to keep on at it. If only we could bottle these formulas but the thing about great chemistry is that it can't ever be fully recreated even if old movies during the studio system teach us that the same pairing can generate similar energies again. Why Hollywood doesn't still try to repackage successful combos remains a missed opportunity both for pop culture impact and in-film loveliness. Just about the only films with recurring co-stars these days are franchises but that's a different kind of luck, since it would happen even if there was no actor-to-actor spark.

Okay here we go...

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