Zach Gayne's Favourite Screen Relics of 2017

The Contenders

Before we get started, here is a list of 15 films that vied for best-of positions, and (not that much) earlier in the year, held them. They are works scattered from all categories (three from each) that I nevertheless cannot recommend enough. So, like a mathhole, with three ‘contenders’ + five ‘runners up’ + two ‘best-ofs’, what I’m essentially providing is five separate Top 10s in five distinct categories, scattered recklessly for my amusement. To quote a resolution from earlier this year, and one I’ve surely proclaimed on this day for the past four-15 years, “next year, so help me, I won’t get so worked up about screens”…. NOT. Onwards….

Cult: Raw, Thor: Ragnarok, Tragedy Girls

Rock/Perf Art: Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, I Called Him Morgan, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond

TV: Easy, Feud, Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

Doc: City of Ghosts, The Road Movie, Tokyo Idols

Mainstream Narrative: The Florida Project, A Ghost Story, T2 Trainspotting

Cult/Midnight

Apocalypse Kong: Skull Island

With the disappointment of Peter Jackson’s self-serious King Kong (05) still stinking up the air, from nowhere, we have been given Kong: Skull Island; a mashup that crosses monster classic with a Vietnam film aesthetic for some reason. I suppose it’s because they’re going to battle in a foreign land, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a good enough reason to exploit a tragic war, but in this case somehow works thanks to a quite funny, clever screenplay and the hearty dose of smash-smash we should’ve seen the first time around.

Get Out

It’s such a treat to see a modern horror film so proficiently doing what the genre does best: exploring a social nightmare in outlandishly nightmarish over the top terms. Get Out is extremely funny, smart, suspenseful, and biting in a way that demonstrates the real encompassing strengths of horror as the great variety show.

I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore

Melanie Lynskey has never been better as a citizen who no longer feels at home in this world of shit; dog shit; shit neighbours; shit manners; shit everywhere. One neighbour, hysterically played by Elijah Wood, proves to be one of the good ones and together they take on the Babylon in an incredibly entertaining attempt at vigilante justice. Is there anything Macon Blair can’t do?

Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West may not be the first thing you think of when you hear ‘Cult’, but that I’d gladly watch it at midnight is a testament to its wickedly black sense of humour and on-point modern satire. Who wouldn’t want to see Single White Female play out in 2017 on Instagram? With a script and performances as dead on as IGW, I, for one, emphatically would and will again.

Lemon (pictured above)

Like a winking German art film, Janicza Bravo’s lol-bleak downward spiral tale of a sick soul sinking in la la land is as amusingly cryptic as it is vicariously painful. Thankfully the discomfort of a thespian protagonist undergoing a Dostoyevskian breakdown in sunny LA is so much more delightful than it sounds. Bravo and Gellman’s dismantling of Isaac is an abstract joy. If you haven’t already, do check it out and also this interview with Lemon’s creators from Sundance.

Rockumentary/Portrait of Artists

Chasing Trane

Yes, Chasing Trane is a pretty by-the-book Rockumentary - the kind found on cable - but I’m good with that. Coltrane’s rise to prominent artistry is an incredibly inspiring story of what can be accomplished with drive, faith, and astral perspective. The John Coltrane story is as watchable as his music is hypnotizing.

The Last Five Years

David Bowie left us without warning. When the day came we were unprepared. But he was prepared. As it turns out, when Bowie realized that “earth was really dying”, rather than commit himself to his “five years left to cry in”, he undertook two musical undertakings in the privacy of his peers, creating two five-star albums that meditate on existence and leaving it all behind in profoundly sad ways. That this film exists to present us with his final lonesome journey is something of a miracle. I consider Lazarus to be the most powerful dirge I’ve ever seen and heard.

Long Time Running

Like Five Years, we have another account of the departure of a holy soul. This one hits home literally, as The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie was a local hero, one dearly beloved by much of my home and native land for good reason. Downie had a special soul and, with his band of loyal knights, he exercised his voice in magnificent outpourings. Long Time Running captures the farewell tour, not only of his band, but of the golden poet as well, especially considering Downie’s determined eye-to-eye goodbyes with every soul in his tearful audience, desperate to connect with him one last time. It doesn’t make sense to evaluate Long Time Running as a film. It exists for a higher purpose and is therefore invaluable. It exists as a home movie that a lot of Canada can feel a part of. This is the magic of Gord, his cohorts, and his universe.

For the outsider, I would recommend this film. I’m not sure what the experience will be like for you and I’m certainly curious, but before you watch - and I hope you do - please first have a good look at the very last career spanning Tragically Hip concert. You don’t have to watch all four hours, for the unvested viewer the essential final hour could suffice, but FYI, this is easily one of the most important filmed Canadian events of my lifetime and I’ve seldom felt so connected to my country doing what can only be described as collective celebratory grieving.

Mansfield 66/67 (pictured above)

Monroe satirist and extravagant 50s exhibitionist, Jayne Mansfield’s legendary meeting with satanist Anton Lavey may not be an entirely true story, but the very fact that it was, at one point, perceived as a good publicity stunt for Mansfield to pledge allegiance to the devil, is in itself enough of a story to make for one of the year’s most entertaining documentaries. Lovers of Hollywood lore, particularly of Anger’s ‘Babylon’ persuasion, will especially find delight in this film, and that will help a certain audience, which I include myself part of, to forgive the filmmakers’ unfortunate camp reenactment angle, which distracts from much stronger material.

As for the sincerity of Mansfield’s intentions in seeking out the company of Anton Lavey and his merry band of black magicians, to quote John Waters, who appears alongside Mary Woronov, Kenneth Anger, and other gluttons for gossip, “I don’t care if it’s true, I just like to picture that - I like the picture”.

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World

Do not underestimate the Native American influence on rock and roll. From the informative proto-delta blues stylings of Charley Patton, to the window-smashing rumpus banned-instrumental roar of Link Wray, to the distinct raunch of Toronto’s Robbie Robertson, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World, makes an epic argument for the profound influence of native culture in the roots music lineage, usually reserved exclusively for African Americans. Rumble, of course, takes nothing away from the African American influence, rather it rightfully suggests the overlooked fact that Natives were just as embedded in the disenfranchised voice of the marginalized, who defined a sacred counter-culture.

Television

American Vandal

As both a true crime diehard and a spiritual supporter of the high school genre, I found American Vandal to be the most surprisingly enjoyable, ticklingly clever, and ultimately poignant offering to come from Netflix's seemingly random lineup. In the end, AV is an impressively tragic tale that reaches deeper than the mere, albeit intriguing, mystery of the 27 felt penises.

Black Mirror

I was very happy with my five TV choices until Black Mirror came along and forced me to bump Easy, a realer-than-most show, which met the promise of its first season, while expanding on its potential ten fold. It’s a smart ensemble with loads of wit, midlife insight, and most impressively, heart, and until Charlie Brooker came along and blew my mind AGAIN, it had squeaked into my favorites.

Had BM 4 resembled the uneven BM 3, there’d have been no issue, but Season Four delighted me time and again. From its very funny opening ode to its forefathers, to its technological allegories on overbearing parenting, lowered expectations in the dating realm, the drawbacks to progress in security, and so on, Black Mirror lives up to its high standards with a currently unsurpassed extremism in the field of science fiction. In a TV season still stained by the disposability of Stranger Things Season 2, it’s nice to see a little WOW!

Bojack Horseman: Season Four

One of the heaviest contributions to this year’s television slate, existentially speaking, came in the form of talking horse funnies. But seriously, Bojack Horseman’s universe of an animal society playing out in a very real Hollywood - satirized with biting truth and sadness, wherein personal worth and star currency are perpetually confused - is as tear-inducingly bleak as it is a hysterically funny cartoon.

She’s Gotta Have It

I’m not easily won over by remakes, sequels, prequels, or reimaginings, which is all the more reason I found myself taken by Spike Lee’s proof that some concepts can actually, genuinely benefit from a modernization. It’s still not my favourite Spike joint, as the original wasn’t either - it’s unabashed preachiness has simultaneous strengths and weaknesses - but a Mars Blackwell for the times is well worth yours. I especially dug the freewheelin’ editing.

Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus (pictured above)

Like a graphic novelist undertaking holy nonfiction - Robert Crumb on the Blues, or perhaps on Harvey Pekar, or Harvey Pekar on the Beats - Mike Judge’s too-good-to-be-true 2017 television offering belongs in the same glorious lineage. Watching Judge join this tradition with subjects that so clearly amuse him to his bones, is just as enjoyable an experience for his audience as it is for its creator... and educational to boot! Tales from the Tour Bus is a priceless window into stranger-than-fiction stories with legendary anti-heros from the heartworn south.

Documentary

Faces Places

An adorable ode to creativity that winds up down a road of retrospect that left me gobsmacked. I saw this film in a movie theater full of women about Agnes Varda’s age, all of whom, I imagine, were watching with a delighted sense of vicarious wish fulfillment as Agnes photographed the world with a lively 33 year old artiste. Looking around, I was the only 33 year old creative type living vicariously through the fedora-sporting photographer, roaming the countryside with an 89 year old legend. So do I post this on ‘missed connections’? “I sat on the balcony wearing a winter blue hoodie. You were 89 with a keen eye and a palpable sense of wanderlust. Let’s get lost?”

Mommy Dead and Dearest

For us true crime zealots, particularly the kind that love the image of a young John Waters as a courthouse spectator mainstay, Mommy Dead and Dearest is as wtf a true crime story as you could hope for. Yes, it’s a bit icky, given that the tale is a tabloid writer’s fantasy, but if you can live with that… watch it. Mommy Dead and Dearest is a ‘less said the better’ ordeal.

Nathan For You: Finding Frances (pictured above)

As a television show, Nathan For You is somewhere on the list of my all time favourites, yet this year’s fourth season was not my favourite. BUT it did provide one revelation and that was its total non-sequitur; the standalone 83 minute film, that I’m saying, yes, is a film! It does not fit in with what NFY does episodically, but blazes its own trail in its quest of love, loss, and regret as seen through the rear-view lens of a life misspent. It also features a musical number called “Ding Dong Daddy”.

In The New Yorker, of Finding Frances documentary kingpin Errol Morris wrote, “What’s the difference between a bad impersonator and a meta-impersonator? Or between true love and delusion? What makes something real? That we believe in it? That we can convince others to? These questions all come to a head in Fielder’s season finale. Maybe we are all poseurs pretending to be real people. Or possibly the other way around. The series, and this episode especially, is a perfect imitation of life. I mean, a perfect imitation of an imitation of life. However you want to describe it, it is some of the most interesting “reality”-based work yet made.”

Spectacolo

Monticchiello Plays Itself aka Spettacolo is an enchanting film about living theater that stayed with me long after I first saw it in May. At Hot Docs, I wrote, “In Spettacolo, Jeff Malmberg along with co-director Christina Shellen, without speaking the language of their subjects, succeed in capturing Monticchiello’s most cherished and defining tradition with grace and a subtle curiosity into its remarkable history. Spettacolo ends up reaching far deeper into the nature of creation and the fans that flame it than most films about art and performance are capable of.

Wormwood

Far more than the ‘Twin Peaks: movie or television show’ debate, I was quite torn about how to classify doc stories told in chapters, like The Keepers or Wormwood; especially considering I classified OJ: Made In America as the best documentary of last year.

In any case, Wormwood, like Made In America, was screened theatrically, so let’s allow Errol Morris’ unbelievable tale of a son’s lifelong saga to uncover the CIA’s shady disposal of his father, only to discover too late just how much the CIA took from his life. Also, I just allowed for Morris’ new fav, Finding Frances, so... who’s cares.

Mainstream Narrative

Good Time

With a 70s sense of realism lost to the world of the heist film, Good Time reflects the grit of the genre without leaning on pastiche or treading played-out ground, while dancing in territory one might think tapped. Instead, Good Time is a hefty breath of fresh air that offers a hard-boiled street crime classic, in the true-story vein of Edward Bunker, with a hard-hitting dose of wild pacing, character, desperation, and heart. Heist films don’t get more gripping or touching than Good Time.

I, Olga Hepnarova (pictured above)

If you’re fortunate enough to know nothing about this film, my recommendation is to go in completely blind. I loved this character piece and the performance of its protagonist long before the film dropped my jaw to the ground.

I, Tonya

The early-mid 90s were oddly fraught with a plethora of wtf news stories, as if magically manifested by a National Enquirer tabloid huckster to cram into the fresh demands of the 24 hour news cycle. Coverage was divided between the enraged football hero who viciously murdered his wife to the enraged wife who castrated her husband in his sleep, to the unseemly, grimy world of women’s figure skating. One artist of the day wrote an accurate summary of the times in a topical chart-topper .

I, Tonya bottles this uproarious madness, all the while lending its protagonist an aura of insightful empathy and social context. The film also features the following lines of dialogue, Tonya Harding: “Shit is a dish best served cold” followed by the straight-faced retort of Shawn Eckardt: "Revenge is a dish best served cold. Shit is a dish best served… never.”

Lady Bird

It’s amazing what hype can do to the perception of a film. In the fall, Lady Bird was one of the most refreshing coming of age films I’d ever seen. Now, I’m pretty sick of hearing about it, frankly, which I imagine will get worse before its gets better with the upcoming award season.

That said, I cannot, will not, hold this against one of the most charming debut films I’ve ever seen - a fact that isn’t the least bit surprising coming from one of the most charming on-screen presences to come along in a while. It’s no shock to see Greta Gerwig’s acting voice translate so seamlessly to the written word. Perfunctory haters be damned, my review stands!

Wilson

And the Laura Dern Award for best performance by Laura Dern in a film or TV show featuring Laura Dern is… Laura Dern in Wilson! Here’s my review from all the way back in January, when I felt Wilson to be the best dern flick of the whole Sundance lineup!

10. The Disaster Artist (Cult)

I really went back and forth on letting into this into ‘the ten’, but how can I not give one of the two midnight spots to a film that so entertainingly represents the ultimate midnight film of my generation. At SXSW, I wrote, “Wiseau has been touring The Room for some time and it’s always been complicated deciphering to what extent we’re laughing with vs. at the filmmaker. But rather than jumping on the making-fun aspect of our fanhood, Franco finds a kindred spirit in Wiseau and approaches the material with a knowing sense of what it's like to dream big, and also what it's like to have big dreams become the object of ridicule. The Disaster Artist is not only far funnier than you might expect, it’s also far deeper than a film about the worst movie of the 21st century has any right to be.”

Yes, it’s steps down from Burton’s masterpiece, Ed Wood, but the comparison really is setting the bar awfully high. In its own right, The Disaster Artist is a smart, even moving, anti-docudrama that fires from all cylinders.

9. Kedi (Documentary)

One trend to be found in 2017 involved the souls and spiritual implications of a meaningful, even sacred, relationship between humans and animals. You could find the theme in Brett Morgan’s Jane Goodall documentary, you could find it in the film Lucky, which features a monologue, oddly enough, performed by David Lynch; a beautiful soliloquy lamenting the loss of his ancient turtle that is among the finest monologues of the year.

Kedi goes a multitude of steps further into the subject with its insider journey into the world of Istanbul’s society of street cats, as represented by eight feline protagonists. Like people, these cats exhibit unique personality traits, and of course, independence; especially considering how, in Istanbul, rather than the cats belonging to owners, they seem to belong to entire towns, or they’re at least as entitled to their streets as its citizens are.

Unlike your cutie kitty vid, Kedi is a beautifully shot, thrillingly first-person meditation on existence, community, our place in the universe, and then some, told with the assuring poetry of nature. Released in April, Kedi is a film I’ve already returned to on several occasions and will continue to lose myself inside.

8. Nirvanna The Band The Show (Television)

This local treasure churned out not one but two seasons of A+ next level television in one year! It's not just for their chutzpah wherein comedy constantly ensues in the most public of fashions for their viewers' delight that makes NTBTS such a soaring comedic success, but the style of comedy Johnson and Bird have taken almost a decade to develop, not to mention the rhythmic execution achieved by the entire production team.

For a show that operates on such a hyper level of referential parody - like an Escher painting, any given episode could contain an ouroboros of obscure 90s layers - the overall picture is one of artful originality. Like a pre-teen Ernie and Bert scheming their way into a hysterically specific zeitgeist, the duo’s antics take the buddy sitcom into bravely hyperreal territory.

7. Endless Poetry (Cult)

It is such a treat to have Mr. Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean-French treasure, back with us after some time away to offer more golden wisdom. 2013’s Dance of Reality came like a blessing from nowhere. As it turned out, Jodorowsky had lucked into some funding and with it he chose to explore his childhood, casting his adult son to play his own father. Three years ago at SXSW I was flabbergasted to find Jodorowsky in my presence, describing The Dance Of Reality to me as,”a kind of gift from God... to be able to go to the town I grew up and reconstruct it. It was a fantastic opportunity for me, for him, for everyone who worked on the film. It was a healing that cost $4 million…”

Now we have Endless Poetry, a spiritual sequel that paints a portrait of Jodorowsky as a young artist, told with an eye on grand scope, while pointing a playful magnifying glass at his own artistic emergence as a baby-faced, unsullied youth. Like an eagerly-unclothed Allen Ginsberg, Jodorowsky has always laid bare his soul in the most charmingly open fashion. Here is a poet who learned early on the strengths of stripping away absurd notions of masculinity, favouring instead the truth in vulnerability.

Endless Poetry, a work as nostalgically magical as Fellini’s Amarcord, never ceases to offer infinitely-original images in keeping with the best of Jodorowsky's wonderfully absurd conjurings. At 88 years young, Jodorowsky is still an artist with golden imagination, taking chances and crafting the works of an endlessly emerging filmmaker with prophetic vision and style for miles and miles.

6. Dawson City: Frozen Time (Documentary)

The ghosts of long-buried history dance again in Dawson City: Frozen Time to tell a story of another century with an honesty that can only be provided by plain images. That these moving images are also some of the first to exist makes for a time capsule words cannot describe, but poetry perhaps could. Like director Bill Morrison’s previous film, Decasia, poetry is exactly what’s at work in spirit and certainly in DC:FT’s construction.

I won’t go into the incredibly fascinating history of Yukon’s Dawson City and its famously lucrative, if not killer, gold rush, or how almost all of the silent period’s celluloid catalogue is basically lost to the casual disposal of its day. But I will remark on the brilliance of Morrison’s presentation of history through fragments of films strips that, despite being scripted, performed works of ancient proto-Hollywood, with magnificently artful repurposing, tell a million dated truths.

From its decaying subjects’ mannerisms, to the turn of the century sets deemed unremarkable at the time but today stand as glorious windows into a lost era we get to see accidently (because of a variety of random and dumb circumstances) Dawson City: Frozen Time is a revelation. The film strips, if seen in fragmented isolation, while cool, would tell a fragment of a story, but Dawson City: Frozen Time tells an epic of a story, with a visionary poetry that evokes a hypnotically addictive dreamscape. I could live in this film.

5. Wonderstruck (Mainstream Narrative)

Back in October, I called Wonderstruck, “both an awe-inspiring ode to the limitless potential of the imagination to drive our lives and a love letter to those invaluable things that stir within us feelings of, well, wonder; the sensation of awakening to boldly striking new worlds. It is a feeling evoked by countless energies and things, but some classic favorites explored in the film include museums offering windows into the alternate realities of the past via curated history relics, foreign sounds coming from the radio reinventing the listener’s young notion of ‘a song’, the big screen flickers, particularly as experienced for the first time, which in the film happens for Rose in an era when the medium was almost as young as she was, and lastly, New York City - the prototypical metropolis - as something of a magnificent Emerald City of Oz.”

One thing I’d like to add to my review is that few moments at the movies this year made me as happy as the introduction of Julianne Moore’s character walking the urine-saturated streets of 70s New York to the tune of Chauncey Gardiner roaming the same streets backed by the funkified ‘73 Deodato rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra in Hal Ashby’s Being There. It’s a perfect moment in a film brimming with perfectly defining movie-magic moments.

4. David Lynch: The Art Life (Artist Document)

Without a doubt, 2017 has been the best year to be a David Lynch fan. Not just because the return that nobody ever expected dropped like a miracle for 18 glorious weeks of our year, but because, for a filmmaker who has thus far carried himself in a shroud of mystery, 2017 has seen a shocking wealth of insider footage blowing Lynch’s life and process right out into the open.

In 2002, as a high school student, preparing for my David Lynch class presentation - with my freshly purchased, newly released Mulholland Drive DVD - was near impossible, considering Lynch refused to even play ball with chapter selection, let alone special features. Now with the fresh release of the Twin Peaks: The Return BluRay set, you can watch David Lynch direct his 18 part epic for five hours! I’ll repeat myself, you can watch David Lynch direct Twin Peaks for five hours!!

And then there’s The Art Life, a beautiful first person account of Lynch’s formative years, told with unprecedented access, insight and the rare first person poetics for nostalgia that only Lynch can offer. What’s next? An Autobiography? YES!!!!

My review of The Art Life from SXSW

3. Phantom Thread (Mainstream Narrative)

Another beautifully dressed P.T. Anderson love story that wears its heart in its sleeves with manic delight.My review.

2. Long Strange Trip (Artist Document)

Many will assume that it’s because of my love for The Grateful Dead that Long Strange Trip ranks so high up on my year end list. Well, yes, but not for why you’d think. When considering my all time favorite bands - the holy’s / the untouchables - it occurs to me that the greatest troupes are always accompanied by an incredible narrative.

In other words, my love for The Grateful Dead extends so far beyond their music, which I certainly adore, that the remarkable circumstances surrounding their formation, their anti-political, pro-kicks intrepid odyssey, is still enough to compel me after almost 20 years of fascination. Thus, you don’t need to be in love with their music to find worth and more than a little entertainment in this outrageous life story.

For the uninitiated, Amir Bar Lev’s appropriately four-hour, but never boring, documentary is the perfect gateway into a world many write off as insurmountable, thus undesirable to outsiders. For the seasoned admirer, Long Strange Trip will never cease to amaze with its skillfully selective presentation of a lifelong story brimming with content, all the while bringing new fascinations to light on a subject long considered tapped.

Here’s a look back at my own Sundance odyssey meeting some of the Dead family and speaking with Long Strange Trip’s director.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (Television)

Firstly, I’m going to use this space to praise the year’s greatest ensemble cast. To do so, I will not discuss their individually perfect contributions to Twin Peaks: The Return, but instead shout out some of their excellent outside performances that graced the screens of 2017.

Laura Dern as Diane Evans - Wilson, Big Little Lies

Michael Cera as Wally Brando - Lemon, Molly’s Game

Brett Gelman as Supervisor Burns - Lemon, DRIB

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Chantal Hutchens - Good Time

Jim Belushi as Bradley Mitchum - Wonder Wheel

Naomi Watts as Janey-E Jones - The Book Of Henry

Harry Dean Stanton as Carl Rodd - Lucky

David Lynch as Gordon Cole - Lucky

That the Twin Peaks gang have been able ‘to go home again’, while simultaneously meditating on the futility of such an act in a fashion worthy of the multifaceted vision they embarked on long ago, is a miracle of content, no matter what the medium. That said, few works have transcended their mediums quite as intrepidly as, first the ‘better than television’ show, and then its next-level-cinema prequel. So before I delve into The Return, allow me to first ‘jiao dai’ a few words on why I’ve always considered Twin Peaks to be the holy grail of, not television or film, but television and film.

It’s funny that Twin Peaks is still raising the television vs film debate considering its identity as an anomaly. Anyone already familiar with Lynch in 1989, prior to Twin Peaks, was flabbergasted at the news of an artist like Lynch, one who works in dark corridors of the mind in inaccessibly abstract fashions, would be hitting the boob tube. If Twin Peaks was the proto-show that paved the way for the modern TV landscape cinema-worthy quality, it is because it single-handedly moved it up in class ten fold, demonstrating what the medium could be capable of if trusted, or perhaps duped into, the right hands. Thus the brilliance of Twin Peaks on TV was the playfully satirical engagement with its medium.

Now in 2017, in a year that has reunited so many old gangs riding the safety train of nostalgia, Lynch has again joined forces with Frost to bring us the antithesis of the redundant reunion project. In The Return, Lynch and Frost revisit their timeless metaphorical mysteries while asking a slew of new questions, shrouding the answers in beautifully encrypted dreams that will resonate differently for each unique viewer... That is, when it isn’t busy being the most delightfully tickling content to hit any screen this year by a mile...

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