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Best Movies I Saw in the Theater in 2017

 

This is a ranking of the best films I saw in the theaters in 2017. I didn’t see Get Out, The Disaster Artist, Blade Runner: 2049, Wonder Woman, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Lady Bird, or The Florida Project, as a result I can’t put these films in my rankings.
      4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
      This sequel was even funnier and more visually extravagant than the original film. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 also improved on the original film by introducing more emotional depth to the characters. Director and screenwriter James Gunn works very hard to entertain the audience with this film.  In fact, he may be working a little too hard to entertain us. This movie is loaded with so many jokes and crazy visuals that it’s kind of hard to keep up.
      3. Logan
       If this is truly Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s last hurrah as Wolverine and Professor X  then they’ve chose the perfect way to go out. Logan doesn’t hesitate to show the influences of films like Unforgiven and Shane. Logan rescued the Wolverine trilogy from mediocrity by having a phenomenal story and gratuitous violence that a character like Wolverine revels in. Logan also shows where the superhero film must go if it is to survive long term. Logan is a deeply personal movie with a minimal amount of CGI. If Marvel Studios were smart this is what they would do when they start the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
       2. It
       It was one of the most terrifying films I’ve seen in a long time. This adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name captures everything that made the first half of the novel so fantastic. Twenty years from now, Bill Skarsgard’s performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown will be regarded as one of the most terrifying performances in movie history. You can read my full review for It at this link.
1.     Dunkirk

        Dunkirk is the culmination of everything that director Christopher Nolan has done over the past several years.  I’ll go as far as to say that Dunkirk is one of the greatest war film of all time.  The fact this film got made at all is amazing. An American movie studio agreed to shell out $100 million for a war movie that doesn’t involve the United States military as the protagonists and is highly experimental in nature due to its editing. Dunkirk presents very accurately the horrors that an entire generation of young men had to face in World War II. Christopher Nolan shows that even though the Battle of Dunkirk was a major military loss for the Allies it was a moral victory because the soldiers at Dunkirk were heroically rescued by ordinary civilians. At its core that’s what Dunkirk is about. It’s about how ordinary people are capable great feat of heroism when they unite against evil.       
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