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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Will "Wind River" Find a Second Life?

by Nathaniel R

Last night word spread round that this summer's sleeper success Wind River, about a rape/murder investigation on an reservation, had possibly found a new lease on life. It was a Weinstein Company release this summer -- their only "hit" this year actually -- and that connection was thought to have obviously doomed its chances this awards season following Harvey Weinstein's banishment from Hollywood after the numerous sexual harrassment and rape allegations. 

If you remove that associative stain, though, the film is, in essence, a non-genre sleeper hit aimed squarely at adults and thus theoretically Oscar compatible...

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What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Aug 25th-27th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1. THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD $10 (cum. $39.6)	1. 🔺 T2 in 3D  $.5 on 386 screens ALL TIME FAV
2. ANNABELLE CREATION $7.3 (cum. $77.8)	2. 🔺  A GENTLEMAN $195k NEW 135 screens
3. 🔺 LEAP! $5 NEW	3. MENASHE $172k (cum. $973K) 103 screens REVIEW
4. 🔺 WIND RIVER  $4.4 (cum. $9.8) REVIEW	4. 🔺  THE TRIP TO SPAIN $132k (cum. $284K) 56 screens

5. LOGAN LUCKY $4.3 (cum. $15) REVIEW	5. 🔺 PATTI CAKE$  $105k  (cum. $197k) 59 screens
6. DUNKIRK $3.9 (cum. $172.4) PODCAST | TOM HARDY	6. MAUDIE $91K (cum. $5.7) 96 screens REVIEW
7. SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING $2.7 (cum. $318.8)  REVIEW	7. AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL  $80k  (cum. $3.3k) 127 screens  REVIEW
8. 🔺 BIRTH OF THE DRAGON $2.5 NEW	8. 🔺 GOOK $75k   (cum. $109k) 22 screens
9. THE EMOJI MOVIE $3.7 (cum. $76.4) REVIEW	9. 🔺 COLUMBUS  $68k (cum. $242k) 22 screens
10. GIRLS TRIP $2.2 (cum. $108) REVIEW | PODCAST	10. STEP $66k (cum. $972k) 118 screens
🔺 = new or significant expansion numbers from box office mojo

In a lame weekend All Saints, Leap, and Birth of the Dragon were the only new wide releases. To fill in that gap several films expanded including Ingrid Goes West, Good Time and Wind River though only the latter was sufficiently rewarded for doing so. The weekend was so dire that Wonder Woman and Despicable Me both took the opportunity to add back tons of theaters (earning $1.6 million each with that gambit). 

The most exciting indie release this weekend was the gay Sundance-winning drama Beach Rats (review coming soon). It opened in only 3 theaters (it would have been #11 in the limited release chart above) but to a strong per screen average so expect it to come to other cities soon. 

Weak Weekend Box Office - Did You Go To the Movies?

It was a rather tepid week and weekend at the box office aside from some milestones further down the list. Wonder Woman continues to break records despite falling out of the top 15. In its 12th weekend its just passed by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (if you don't adjust for inflation) making it the top grossing origin story superhero film. In other happy news for fans, both Girls Trip and Baby Driver passed the important $100 million mark this week. The Girls Trip figure isn't as unusual as the internet seems to be  pretending -- how quickly people forget that The Color Purple, Hidden Figures and The Help, which all centered on black women, were megahits and two of those in the very recent past! But the Baby Driver milestone is rarer. It's a first for director Edgar Wright who has had a devoted fanbase for years but never quite crossed over in this way. More after the jump...

Weekend Box Office (Aug 18th-20th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1. 🔺 THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD $21.6 NEW	1. AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL $300k (cum. $2.9) 514 screens  REVIEW
2. ANNABELLE CREATION $15.5 (cum. $64)	2. A TAXI DRIVER $266k (cum. $842k) 41 screens
3. 🔺 LOGAN LUCKY $8 NEW   REVIEW	3.🔺 INGRID GOES WEST  $265k (cum. $438k) 26 screens REVIEW
4. DUNKIRK  $6.7 (cum. $165.5) PODCAST | TOM HARDY	4. 🔺  MENASHE $230k (cum. $715k) 86 screens REVIEW

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Review: Wind River

by Lynn Lee

It should come as no surprise that writer-director Taylor Sheridan, currently hot in Hollywood after his Oscar screenplay nomination for Hell or High Water, is an actual, bona fide cowboy.  Perhaps that’s why his work feels like such a throwback—to an era in which quietly capable men, silently toting unspoken burdens, took on the joyless task of meting out frontier justice.  At the same time, he’s shown a canny gift for placing such old-school archetypes in a distinctly modern, of-this-moment social and political context, making their struggles feel unexpectedly timely or, rather, timeless.  That gift is on ample display in his new film, Wind River, which is now in wide release after nabbing the best directing prize in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes earlier this year.

Set on a remote, wintry Indian reservation in Montana, the film marks the third installment in a loose trilogy of Westerns penned by Sheridan (the first two being Sicario and Hell or High Water), though Wind River is the first one he directed...

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