Top Ten Films of 2017

We pretty much knew last year’s Best Picture Oscars race was coming down to La La Land and Moonlight right after the completion of the Toronto International Film Festival in September. But while there’s something to be said about the strength of films able to ascend to frontrunner position, I can’t help loving the idea of heading into March without a clue as to who might win. Ask ten different critics what their favorite of 2017 is and I’d estimate hearing at least eight unique titles. There’s a level of excitement to this reality…

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Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2017

Below is my December 24th ballot for the 21st annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2017 calendar year. Each category is ordered according to my preferential rankings. Group winners are labeled in red. (We were only allowed to vote for one nominee per category this year, but I ranked them all like previous years anyway.)

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REVIEW: Jane [2017]

I wanted to do things men did and women didn’t. It was 1960 when Louis Leakey enlisted his animal-loving secretary Jane Goodall to spearhead a one-person study of the Kasakela chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania. She had no formal training or experience with the task, but that was part of her appeal. Leakey didn’t want preconceptions and misguided expertise to cloud what would have to be objective research. The only way to truly know the chimpanzees’ capabilities and by comparison those capabilities of our own early ancestors was through an outsider…

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