Nathaniel's Top Ten of 2017

by Nathaniel R

Better late than never. If you've been wondering why your TFE host has been so in and out of the proceedings this season, let's just say life has proved significantly challenging offline: the end of a decade-plus relationship, homelessness (not the dramatic kind but the sleeping on friend's couches kind), a long bout with the flu, a new side gig, etcetera). So this list carries a bit of melancholy with it as 2017 was one of the hardest years of my life. (If you also had a rough year: I feel you. Hugs in solidarity). Due to all of this I didn't see as many films as is my preference and couldn't rewatch the key films I usually would have before "voting".

But in the end you have to move forward.  Time changes everything... and time changes all top ten lists also! Some of these placements that you scratch your head about now, you'll either understand in ten years time OR I'll join you in scratching my head about them with a "what was I thinking?" blush. Top ten lists are but time capsules.

People change for better and worse. Circumstances shift dramatically or perception does. The movies of 2017 helped me understand all this, many of them zeroed in on definitive months in someone's life, others hopping around in time, and still more juxtaposing the past with the present...

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16 days til Oscar. Ranking the 16 Animated Feature Winners

by Nathaniel R

which movies willed this category into existence?

With just 16 days to go until Coco wins Pixar its 9th Academy Award for Best Animated Feature let's look back over the first 16 years of the category. (Yes, that's right math geniuses, Pixar has won a full 50% of the animated Oscars thus far.)

The History, Chronologically

1988-2000 The category didn't exist until 2001 but it wasn't just created on a whim. The previous dozen years which included the renaissance of Disney, the sizeable popularity influence and beauty of what was happening in Japanese animation, the explosion of new animation studios all over the map, and the rise of Pixar in particular, all led us to the inevitable: an Oscar category for animated features...

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Ride on the Link Train

news
• Coming Soon first image Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked
• TMZ Meryl Streep files for trademark claim on the use of her name. Wonder what prompted this?
• WSJ Is the Star Wars franchise slipping in popularity? (This seems like a lot of panic for nothing since the movies are regularly grossing a billion)  

• Variety Bernadette Peters off to a great sales start taking over for Bette Midler in Hello Dolly! on Broadway
• Tracking Board Juliette Lewis joins the cast of the next Sam Taylor-Johnson movie A Million Little Pieces 
• The Wrap Oprah responds to her action figure from A Wrinkle in Time
• Tribeca Film Matthew Eng, who co-writes our "Months of Meryl" column, interviewed the queen herself! Check out his chat with Streep about her work on The Post.
• AV Club Sam Raimi likely to direct the Kingkiller Chronicles which already has Lin-Manuel Miranda attached for the music

opinion
• Film Mixtape Our own Chris Feil's top 15 films of the year: Lady Bird, Raw, Personal Shopper, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and more...
• Advocate Sir Ian McKellen on the 30th anniversary of his coming out
• Fandor "What if Pixar made Phantom Thread?" <-- SPOILERS in that article, major ones, so be warned. I'm not sure what to make of this piece. I love the concept and the header image and the cartoon being described but it's basically like 2 separate articles shoved up against each other since they keep leaving the imaginary film for multi-paragraph detours into the real one.
• Cinematic Corner Sati picks her 35 best shots of the year

exit video

Nicole eats "micro-livestock" aka bugs for Vanity Fair's secret talent theater. Jason made me lol with his response to this video:

Nicole Kidman dislodged her jaw and swallowed Lars Von Trier whole one time on the set of Dogville so bugs ain't shit"

GLAAD Nominees, Iceman, and Professor Marston

by Nathaniel R

This just in. The GLAAD nominations for portrayals of the LGBT community are out. This is a different group than the critics group that I vote with (the one from lgbt entertainment journalists) and their focus is less on quality -- or it has been in the past -- than on battling homophobia and fighting for inclusion. Their full name gives you their raison d'etre history: the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. They've made significant blunders in their years (supporting I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry would still rankle if anyone still remembered the film) but let's not hold that against them since we love that their purview is so wide (music, comic books, everything) and their purpose admirable.

The film nominees go like so...

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Ranking the Golden Globe Presenters

by Jorge Molina

Oh, what a night. The Golden Globes delivered the head-scratching, Twitter-blowing night that we expect every year. Of the many things we can count on (apart from drunk speeches and Meryl being nominated), is that they are the award show that puts the most thought, or at least has the most fun, pairing up their presenters. To various degrees of success. 

So check out this second annual ranking of the Golden Globes presenters after the jump, evaluated in terms of banter, chemistry, relation to the award given, and presentation...

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