10 Movies I Liked Just Fine from 2017

34. The Little Hours



This should have been really funny. It's some of my favorite comic actors in a farce about a medieval convent. There's Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Nick Offerman, and even Paul Reiser whom I didn't get enough of in Stranger Things 2.

And there are some good moments, but the whole thing was shot improv style and it really could have used a script. As it is, the humor relies way too much on the idea that its funny when nuns swear and take drugs and have sex. I mean, that is funny, but the film leans way too heavily on it when actual jokes would have been better.

Fred Armisen steals the show and nudges it up into this list instead of the Didn't Like category.

33. Kingsman: The Golden Circle



The Kingsman sequel pretty much repeated my experience with the first one. It's a great idea with some super fun characters and set pieces, but Matthew Vaughn always takes the joke (or the violence) two or three steps beyond where I want it to go.

That said, I'm impressed that Hanna Alström's character from the first movie is not only still around, but a major part of the new film. Her return was a nice surprise and added some emotional depth that I didn't expect. But there are some other characters from the first movie that I was extremely disappointed to see dropped and not all of the new characters had enough to do either. It's a strong mixture of fun and disappointment.

32. The Mummy



This one would have been disappointing had the extremely negative reviews not lowered my expectations. But it was still frustrating considering the hopes I had for the Tom Cruise-starring launch of the new Universal Monsters series.

I have no problems with old dudes in action movies, but the script clearly thinks that Cruise is at least 20 years younger than he is. And contradictory to Universal's marketing claims, it's not actually scary. It's an adventure story that has more in common with the 1999 Mummy than the 1932 one.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing and I had a good enough time with it. It's not the strong start to the Dark Universe (hate that name) that I wanted, but it's a harmless, mostly engaging summer flick.

31. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter



I'm generally a fan of the Resident Evil series, thanks mostly to the first couple of entries. Resident Evil was as good as I feel like I should expect from a movie based on a that kind of video game and its sequel was even better. As the series progressed, it got increasingly wacky, but mostly enjoyably so. The only one I really don't care for is Retribution (the next to the last), which is everything that I don't want in a movie based on this kind of video game. But I always enjoyed the cliffhanger endings and watching writer/director Paul WS Anderson struggle to resolve them; almost as much as I looked forward to his finishing the series and completing the story.

I wish that The Final Chapter was a stronger ending than it is, but it circled back around to previous entries in a fun way and didn't completely fall apart. A whackadoo ending to a whackadoo series and that's good enough for me.

30. xXx: Return of Xander Cage



I was a huge fan of xXx when it came out. The Bond series was struggling (Die Another Day came out the same year) and Xander Cage was different enough from my favorite spy that I could embrace his ridiculousness without resenting that he wasn't more grounded. I fell so hard for the character that I never saw State of the Union, even though I like Ice Cube just fine. Which is all to say that I was ready and eager for the Return of Xander Cage.

Unfortunately, when I rewatched xXx to get ready for this, it hadn't aged well. Since it came out, Matt Damon (Bourne Identity came out the same year as Die Another Day and xXx; what a weird year for spy movies) and Daniel Craig have redefined what I'm looking for in spy heroes. Xander's hyper-masculinity didn't cut it anymore.

I was feeling the same way about the first half of Return of Xander as every single character gushed about either wanting to work or sleep with (or both) The Legendary Xander Cage™. But once the movie dropped that and settled into a cool team of extreme spies on a cool mission, I got into it and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

It's a shame that Toni Collette doesn't have any more to do than just look really serious the whole movie, though, because she's an awesome actor. But the rest of the characters are fun and I especially enjoyed the competition between Vin Diesel and Donnie Yen.

29. Beauty and the Beast



Between this and Last Jedi, I'm not sure which is the most divisive movie of the year. I have friends who raved about this and others who hate it with white hot passion.

I'm solidly in the middle. It's completely unnecessary in that what little it adds to the cartoon is inconsequential backstory to answer questions that no one was asking. But it's still fun to see live-action interpretations of these characters; especially the household items. And I'm never going to complain about seeing Luke Evans strut around being comically manly.

28. Alien: Covenant



As a sequel to Prometheus, it's an improvement. The characters still do stupid things for the sake of the plot, but the story is more clear this time and it's just generally more exciting and scary.

But as a prequel to Alien, I question its right to exist. It answers questions that I've been curious about, but I'm not sure that I actually wanted the answers to. Or maybe it's answering them in a way that I'm not satisfied with. I had a good time with it and would put it third in a ranking of the whole series (I'm still in the camp that doesn't forgive Alien 3), but that's a low bar and it's certainly not a return to greatness.

27. My Cousin Rachel



To talk about this, I'm going to have to spoil it, so be warned. If you're interested in seeing it, skip my commentary. If you like historical drama, gothic stories, or just Rachel Weisz, even though I didn't love it, it's worth checking out.

My Cousin Rachel is a gothic romance based on a book by Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn). And it's additionally intriguing because it's gender-swapped, with a naive male in the lead and a woman who's oppressing him. Maybe.

The problem is that the film (and the book, as I understand) leaves some question about whether the title character is actually manipulating the lead or if it's all in his head. I'm generally cool with ambiguity, but My Cousin Rachel (at least the film version) springs it on you at the end like it's a plot twist. The fun of a movie like this is realizing before the hero does that he's being manipulated, so there was never any question in my mind that possibly he wasn't. If the film was bold enough to say at the end that it was all in the hero's head, that would be pleasantly shocking. But simply putting a question mark on it wasn't enough.

Otherwise, though, great performances and I love the gloomy Cornwall setting.

26. The Hero



I haven't full processed this one yet. I just watched it at the end of the year and I've still got the Netflix disc at home so that I can watch it again with commentary. My initial reaction is that it's extremely well acted and lovingly shot, but that all of that is making a mediocre story seem better than it is.

Sam Elliott is one of my favorite actors and it's rare that he gets to play the lead. In fact, I'm not sure if I've ever seen him do it. He is amazing in this and not just because of his voice and mustache. There's one particular scene where I'm pretty sure my jaw literally dropped.

The problem is that he's playing a character I feel like I've seen many many times before: the dying, absent father looking for some absolution before he goes. The movie puts a pretty great twist on this by also calling into question his career choices and making him think about what he might do differently if he gets a second chance. But I'm not sure that's enough.

Really gonna have to try this one more time.

25. Snatched



I enjoyed Trainwreck enough that I was interested in more from Amy Schumer. And I thought it would be nice to check in with Goldie Hawn as well.

Snatched has some plot setup that gets in the way of the jokes for a while, but once the movie gets rolling it's super funny. And it is indeed great to see Hawn back in action. The surprise of the movie was Ike Barinholtz as Schumer's brother, but all of the supporting cast have big, funny moments.

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

Who's In It: Josette Day (pretty much this unless you're way more familiar with French cinema than I am) and Jean Marais (Fantomas, Stealing Beauty)

What It's About: Adapts the classic fairy tale in which a beautiful woman (Day) is held prisoner in the castle of a terrifying beast-man (Marais).

How It Is: I love that Jean Cocteau opens his adaptation with text that reveals his sincere love for the story and refuses to apologize for it. He basically says, "Get on board or don't watch." And then he presents a straightforward version of the story that's imaginatively designed (all those arms and living statuary!) and gorgeously shot. Calling it magical is not hyperbole.

Currently, Cocteau's is my favorite adaptation of the story, at least until I can revisit the George C Scott TV movie that I remember so fondly from childhood. I don't actually expect Scott's to dethrone this one, but I feel a deep need to compare.

Rating: 4 out of 5 noble man-monsters

Jane Eyre (1943)

Who’s In It: Joan Fontaine (Rebecca, Ivanhoe), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Muppet Movie), Margaret O'Brien (Little Women, The Secret Garden), Agnes Moorehead (Citizen Kane, Bewitched), and a very young Elizabeth Taylor.

What It’s About: After a childhood of abuse, a young woman (Fontaine) hopes for change as governess in a house with a brooding master (Welles) and dark secret.

How It Is: I don't know how I've missed this adaptation for so long, but it was cool to watch so closely after Rebecca, Fontaine's other big gothic romance. She's fantastic in it and Welles is awesome, too. They have chemistry and O'Brien is delightful as Rochester's (Welles) ward Adele. They make a nice family that I hate to see struggle with the weight of Rochester's baggage.

Agnes Moorehead is beautifully cold as Jane's cruel aunt who sends Jane's life into a dangerous spiral. And I get a kick out of 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor playing the only friend of young Jane, because she and Fontaine would go on to play romantic rivals nine years later in Ivanhoe.

The sets in Jane Eyre are magnificent and there's a ton of mood around the whole thing. It's a really cool production. My only complaint is that it rushes through the story a bit, so some of the emotional punches aren't as powerful as they could be, but it's an excellent introduction to the story. I'm eager to rewatch Cary Fukunaga's 2011 version now and compare.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cantankerous cavaliers

Rebecca (1940)

Who's In It: Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Clash of the Titans), Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe), George Sanders (The Picture of Dorian Gray, All About Eve, The Jungle Book), Judith Anderson (Laura, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), Nigel Bruce (Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes), Reginald Denny (Madam Satan, the Bulldog Drummond movies from the '30s, Batman: The Movie), C Aubrey Smith (Tarzan the Ape Man, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back) and Gladys Cooper (The Black Cat, My Fair Lady)

What It's About: A young bride (Fontaine) moves to her husband's (Olivier) estate and contends with the figurative ghost of her predecessor.

How It Is: Another one we just covered on Mystery Movie Night, but I don't mind talking about it again. I love this movie so much.

It's a smart - really smart - gothic romance with some great twists and turns. But even when I know what's coming after having seen it so many times, I always find something new about a character or just the way that Hitchcock's telling the story. And it's so beautifully shot and wonderfully acted by everyone involved.

I go into detail about my favorite cast members in the MMN episode, but I'll say again here that Fontaine and Olivier are awesome together and make me want them to figure things out even while it's clear that they aren't a natural fit for each other and have a lot of work to do. Oliver's charming, but also heartbreaking as he's not dealing well with the trauma of his previous marriage. Fontaine is naive and childlike to a fault. They both have characteristics that the other needs, but neither knows how best to support the other. It's great to see them (and it's mostly Fontaine) work through that.

The best part for me is watching Fontaine's character grow and seeing how that affects her relationship with Maxim (Olivier). The movie doesn't hit me over the head with it, but suggests her maturing in subtle ways and I love to find new clues every time I watch.

Rating: 4.5 out 5 evil ladies' maids

Jamaica Inn (1939)

Who's In It: Maureen O'Hara (1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Black Swan, Rio Grande), Charles Laughton (The Old Dark House, Island of Lost Souls, 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and Robert Newton (Disney's Treasure Island, Blackbeard the Pirate).

What It's About: A young woman (O'Hara) moves in with her aunt (Marie Ney) and uncle (Leslie Banks) in their remote, coastal inn and discovers that the place is the headquarters to a ruthless gang of land pirates.

How It Is: I talked about this one at length on Mystery Movie Night recently, but the short version is that I'm very fond of this gothic romance/spy thriller. I'm still looking for a print where I can understand all the dialogue, but I like the story enough that I'm willing to struggle through that even with the lousy print I've got.

I'm a big fan of gothic romance anyway, but the sea elements make this one extra cool for me. And I love the sense of place in the inn itself. It's full of nooks and crannies, but I understand where they all are in relation to each other and it's fun to explore. Charles Laughton is delightfully over-the-top as Sir Humphrey and it's great to see a very young Robert Newton in a heroic role as a British spy who's infiltrated the gang. Newton's not especially memorable if you don't already know him as the future Long John Silver, but I got a kick out of him anyway.

Rating: Three-and-a-half out of five intrepid, gothic heroines.

7 Days in May | Arthur and Austen

King Arthur (2004)



This post is about stuff that we watched the week before our Britain trip. Didn't watch any movies while we were traveling.

One of the things I wanted to see in England was Hadrian's Wall, so what better way to celebrate and learn about it than the totally historically accurate King Arthur?

I kid because I love. Not many people like this version of the King Arthur story, but it's probably my favorite. It's a cool idea to set it during the Roman occupation of Britain with Arthur being a Roman officer and his knights are indentured soldiers from the conquered region of Sarmatia. They protect Roman interests in Britannia by manning Hadrian's Wall against the Celtic Woads. Merlin is a Woad and so is Guinevere.

Calling it "the untold true story" is ridiculous, but the movie is clever and fun and the cast is awesome. Clive Owen plays Arthur, Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot, and two of my personal favorites - Keira Knightley and Mads Mikkelsen - play Guinevere and Tristan. Guinevere kicks so much ass and Tristan is basically every fantasy RPG character I've ever created. There are tons of other great actors in it, too; more than I want to list.

On top of all that are some great set pieces and a thoughtful, touching exploration of loyalty and duty.

Northanger Abbey (2007)



We didn't get as many Britain Trip movies watched as we wanted to, but since one of our stops was Bath, we wanted to sneak in at least a Jane Austen. Austen spent time in Bath (though she didn't actually like the town much) and used it as a location in a couple of her novels. Northanger Abbey is one of those and since it's a commentary on gothic romances - a genre our whole family enjoys - it felt like a good way to introduce David to Austen's stories.

There aren't many adaptations of it, but the 2007 BBC version is pretty great with or without competition. It stars Felicity Jones (Rogue One) as the main character and does a great job showing how her world view is affected by the books she reads. If you've read the novel, you know that Austen wasn't a huge fan of gothic romance (I forgive her) and that Northanger Abbey isn't so much a parody of them as it is simply making fun. But to get there, the movie lets us into the main character's imagination and uses cool, gothic imagery to do it. It's the closest Austen gets to genre work, so it's a great introduction to her (even though the movie wasn't actually filmed in Bath).

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)



Technically, I watched this out of order since it's the second of Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, but I accidentally watched it last ('cause I forgot that Rio Grande was one of them and not just one of the billion other John Wayne movies named after rivers). Really though, I think it fits best as the final in the series.

The other two are in black-and-white, but Yellow Ribbon is in color, so it looks more modern. And John Wayne isn't playing the same character he does in the other two, but an older officer who's getting ready to retire. Ben Johnson, on the other hand, does play the same character he does in Rio Grande, but in Rio Grande he's a raw recruit and he's obviously more seasoned here. So if we're trying to put together some sort of chronology to this weird, extremely loose trilogy, Yellow Ribbon ought to come last.

It's a good film, but my least favorite of the three. The plot meanders and circles back on itself and I'm never super invested in the romantic triangle of Joanne Dru, John Agar, and Harry Carey Jr. I probably would've been more interested if Dru's character had been played by Shirley Temple from Fort Apache, but that's just because I love Shirley Temple. Dru does a fine job; it's just that Carey's character never really has a chance, so there's not really any tension around that part of the story. Mostly it's just Dru and Agar pretending not to like each other and Carey suffering the fallout from their shenanigans. Not that I feel bad for Carey, because he's pretty unlikable.

I also didn't feel the weight of bad orders like I did in the other two films. Wayne's superior officer does direct Wayne into questionable activity, but it's not like anything that Henry Fonda or J Carrol Naish make him do in Fort Apache and Rio Grande. But that also makes it the most pleasant of the three films. That's not a compliment (the grittiness of the other two are what I like most about them), but it's a true statement and John Wayne is typically charming (and in an atypical way for him) and Ben Johnson even more so.

The Gunfighter (1950)



Every Gregory Peck Western I watch makes him more and more my favorite Western star. In this one, he plays a gunslinger who visits a town for reasons I won't spoil. He has enemies hot on his trail, so the town marshal - who also happens to be an old friend of Peck's - is trying to get him to leave, but Peck insists on staying until his business is concluded.

Peck is awesome in it and it's another great movie that tears down the fantasy of gunfighting as a glamorous life. Unforgiven got a lot of praise for doing that as if it was some sort of new innovation, but the more Westerns I watch - like the original Magnificent Seven and even Young Guns II, for crying out loud - the more I realize how ununique Unforgiven was in that regard.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)



A classic and a favorite that I wanted David to see. It's too pretentious to be my all-time favorite '50s space invader movie (I like more cheese in them), but it's really well done and I love the design of the ship and of course Gort. It's an essential part of the science fiction canon.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | Crimson Peak

Guillermo del Toro and I obviously love the same stuff, so it's no surprise that he's also a fan of gothic romance. Crimson Peak is set in a crumbling castle in the mountains of northern England and features Mia Wasikowska as a young author who marries a charming, but darkly mysterious man played by Tom Hiddleston. And there's Jessica Chastain as Hiddleston's even more mysterious and dangerous sister.

It's a bit more graphic than I'm used to from the genre, but that's in the Hammer tradition, so it's not inappropriate and the movie works. If anything, it disappointed some horror fans who didn't know what to expect from gothic romance and pleased some folks who are typically skittish about horror. It's a great example of the genre, easily my favorite Del Toro film, and the perfect place to end this countdown.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

31 Days of Gothic Romance | A Series of Unfortunate Events

A dastardly count tries to control a young girl (and her siblings) for nefarious purposes, all under a wonderfully gloomy atmosphere. Lemony Snicket's 13-book series is classic gothic romance with a wicked sense of humor.

I haven't read the books, but I enjoyed the movie and was disappointed that it never spawned sequels. Fortunately (though Snicket would disagree), we have the Netflix series coming in January.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | Sleepy Hollow

If we were to define gothic romance by atmosphere alone, almost any of Tim Burton's films would fall into the category. But Sleepy Hollow is the most gothic romantic in the way it hits all the traditional themes and tropes. Like Great Expectations, it gender swaps the traditional roles, having an aristocratic woman employ ancient evil to menace Johnny Depp's perpetually frightened Ichabod Crane. There's also a great, old manor house and of course the coolest ghost ever.

Christina Ricci also looks especially appropriate as the angelically beautiful Katrina Van Tassel. She's not a traditional gothic romance heroine - wonderfully spending most of the movie making Crane wonder if she's his ally or enemy - but ends up playing another gender swapped role: the handsome young man out to rescue his love from the villain.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The Music

The word "gothic" was being used to describe particular rock bands long before what we think of as goth music was ever a scene. It was applied to The Doors in the late '60s, referring to the gloomy atmosphere of their sound. Critics have retroactively given the adjective to The Velvet Underground as well, referring to their dark, droning sound that was certainly influential to later, for-reals goth artists. So, like so much of what gothic literature and cinema had become in the '60s and '70s, the term as applied to music was first used as a description of mood, not themes.

That changed though as the psychedelic experimentation of The Doors and The Velvet Underground devolved into the rawer play of the punk scene, which then reconstituted into the post-punk movement that begat goth. By the '80s, bands like The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, and Bauhaus had set up shop in a dark, foggy corner of the post-punk landscape. From there they gave birth to groups like Flesh for Lulu, Gene Loves Jezebel, and the Cocteau Twins. The punks had been all about getting in your face with the revolution, man, but goth bands turned inward. They married atmospheric music to introspective lyrics as they wrestled with mysticism, religion, and death.

In that sense, a lot of goth musicians got back to the original meaning of gothic romance. They were fascinated with decay: both society's and their own. But they sang about these ancient troubles from a romantic perspective, finding beauty in the darkness like Belle in the castle of the Beast.

I haven't kept up with the goth scene and I've never adopted goth fashions, but I'm still a huge fan of goth music, especially the stuff I discovered as a kid. Here are some of my favorites.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | Gothic Tales of Love

Marvel also tried their hand at a gothic romance series, but in a different format. Instead of a comics anthology series, they published a black-and-white text magazine through their Curtis Magazines imprint. Since magazines weren't bound by the Comics Code Authority, Marvel had formed Curtis as a way to publish Mature Readers stories that wouldn't fly in the regular comics. In addition to classics like Crazy, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, and of course Savage Sword of Conan, there were less-successful attempts like Gothic Tales of Love.

Unlike some of Curtis' other black-and-white magazines that included comics in them, Gothic Tales of Love was all about text stories with some illustrations. Some of the stories were original, but others were reprints of what the editors thought were under-read, contemporary gothic romance stories. The True Love Comics Tales blog has some great posts about the magazine, including the table-of-contents of each issue and a full story (in two parts) from the first issue. (As long as you're perusing True Love Comics Tales, be sure to check out this post that serves as a gateway to complete stories from Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love and Sinister House of Secret Love.) You can also find the full, second issue of Gothic Tales of Love at Archive.org.

Even though Marvel went a different route with its gothic romance title, it had a similar result to DC's efforts. Gothic Tales of Love only lasted three issues before it was cancelled.

Interestingly, comics publisher Dell had tried something similar a few years earlier with a black-and-white magazine called simply Gothic Romances. It had also contained a mixture of reprints and original stories and had also lasted only three issues. It got a second chance by being renamed Gothic Stories, but that only carried it three more issues before its final cancellation.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | Haunted Love

DC wasn't able to get a gothic romance series off the ground for more than a few issues, but their low-budget competitor Charlton Comics got almost a year's worth of issues out of theirs. Interestingly, though, they did it in a couple of chunks. It launched in early 1973 as a bi-monthly series and lasted five issues until the end of the year. Then it went on hiatus for almost a year, picking up where it left off in late 1974 and going for another six issues.

Like the DC efforts, Haunted Love was an anthology comic and included work by some comics legends. Joe Staton did a few stories and Steve Ditko drew a couple as well. And also like Forbidden Mansion and Sinister House, Haunted Love expanded the definition of gothic romance to include any love story with a hair-raising, supernatural element.

For a taste of the series, check out the Charlton Comics Reading Library. It has the whole first issue, written by Nicola Cuti and Tom Sutton, and drawn by Joe Staton and Tom Sutton.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The Sinister House of Secret Love

About a month after the debut of Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, DC launched a companion series called The Sinister House of Secret Love. Like Dark Mansion, Sinister House featured young women in romance stories with a malevolent, sometimes supernatural twist. They even both featured artists Tony DeZuniga and Don Heck, but Sinister House also got comics legend Alex Toth for an issue.

It's that issue, #3, that my buddy Siskoid and his pals covered on an episode of The Lonely Hearts Romance Comics Podcast. It's an excellent episode of an excellent podcast and you should listen to it. You can also see some of the pages that they discuss on the LHRCP site.

Sadly, also like Dark Mansion, Sinister House was renamed and refocused after only four issues. It became Secrets of Sinister House, yet another horror-suspense anthology, though with a gothic-inspired cover for the first issue after the change. And true to its gothic romance roots, Secrets got a young woman as its horror host: Eve, who was cousin to Cain and Abel from House of Mystery and House of Secrets.