Father Figures, the best and worst of 2017

Each day a new "year in review" piece. Here's Ben Miller...

I’ve been a father since 2012.  It’s one of the great joys in my life.  If you classified me as a person, father would be near the top of how I would want to be described.  I want to be a good father and I strive to be. 

But, generally, I don’t look to film for guidance.

Terrible fathers are a touchtone of cinema.  From Jack Torrance to Daniel Plainview, movie dads rarely get the chance to show how great they can be for their children.  2017 surprisingly provided us with a bevy of complex relationships between parents and their progeny, and the dads actually got a chance to shine.  Check out the top ten great dads in 2017 films.  (I also included five terrible fathers, because 2017 gotta 2017.)

TOP TEN GREAT DADS IN 2017 MOVIES
Spoilers for all of these films are included

01 Larry McPherson, Lady Bird (Played by Tracy Letts)
Lady Bird and her mother, the central figures in the film, aren't the only ones to benefit from Larry's warmth (we previously discussed this characterization here). Even when faced with a fruitless job interview, he smiles in the face of adversity, opting for a big bag of Doritos.  When his son comes in for the next interview, there is no animosity.  Larry straightens his tie, pats him on the shoulder and tells him to go get ‘em.  He does this while losing his job, providing for an extra person in his house, losing his daughter to college and suffering from years of depression.  God bless Larry McPherson. 

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Last Flag Flying: Sizing Up the Vets

By Spencer Coile 

In recent years, Richard Linklater has perfected the art of meandering. This is not an inherently bad quality to his filmmaking. On the contrary, recent efforts such as Before Midnight and Everybody Wants Some!! work so well because their conversations feel genuine,  real conversations happening to real people. The exchangesfeel improvised, even though they are not. When the dialogue works, Linklater captures all of the nuances of a single conversation: big and small. 

Last Flag Flying, the latest entry into Linklater's filmography, works similarly to many of his past projects. After the death of his son, Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell) turns to his Vietnam veteran buddies from years past, Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) to travel with him to bury his son...

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Box Office: Super-sized Thor and little films that could.

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Nov 3-5)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1.🔺 Thor Ragnarok  $121 REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN	1.🔺 Let There Be Light $1.6 on 642 screens (cum. $4)
2.🔺 A Bad Mom's Christmas $17	2.🔺 LBJ $1.1 on 659 screens
3. Jigsaw  $6.7 (cum. $28.8) .	3.🔺 Florida Project $663k on 189 screens (cum. $3) REVIEW
4. Boo 2! A Madea Halloween  $4.6 (cum. $42.9)	4.🔺 Loving Vincent $590k on 205 screens (cum. $3)
5. Geostorm $3 (cum. $28.7) .	5.🔺 Killing of a Sacred Deer $401k (cum. $908k)  REVIEW

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Podcast: Wonder Wheel, Wonderstruck, BPM, and Last Flag Flying

Nathaniel welcomes NYFF buddies and regular TFE voices Jose Solis and Murtada Elfadl to talk highlights from the fest, some of which are in theaters now! 

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Intro, NYFF, and The Mountain Between Us tangent
02:50 Steve Carell and Bryan Cranston in Last Flag Flying
07:00 Mixed feelings on Wonderstruck
14:30 Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel starring Kate Winslet and Justin Timberlake
22:10 The Rider, Western, Lady Bird - a year of great female directors
30:00 France's BPM (Beats Per Minute)
34:21 Thelma, Faces Places
41:00 Wrapping up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

NYFF Highlights

Middleburg Finale Pt 1: "Last Flag Flying"

Day 1 (Darkest Hour) and Day 2 (James Ivory, Mudbound, A Fantastic Woman) in case you missed them.

Saturday at Middleburg started really slow but then the tempo and key changed. And then it got chopped and screwed and tessellated... and became truly special. If you don't know what any of that means, it's okay; neither did I. I shall explain when we come to the topic of Oscar nominated film composer Nicholas Britell of Moonlight fame.

But first Last Flag Flying...

Richard Linklater is America's most distinguished auteur in the subgenre of movies in which a tight knit group of men just kind of hang out for two hours. He's back quickly after his delightful college baseball comedy Everybody Wants Some!! but this time he's trained his lens on three men his own age... 

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