The Viewer's Commentary

I’m starting to think that there’s something to my elders’ arguments that the world is becoming a worse place the more time goes on. 2017 was worse than 2016, for sure. At least for me. … And probably for the rest of America, come to think of it. But, you know, as disappointing, horrifying, sad, and stupid as the whole year was, it’s not like there weren’t some bright spots throughout the year, particularly in the world of film.

Of course, I’m actually mostly kidding about seeing the world as getting worse and worse, but it’s worth pointing out that 2017 was the first year in which I did not break a new record for most movies watched over the previous year, and it’s unlikely that I will be able to amend that by the end of this year in review series, either, even taking into account that I will continue to add movies to that list until the very end.

2017 was also the year I learned to be a lot more discerning due to financial and personal matters – I recently lost my grandpa after a two month long fight with an infection we became aware of in October. Yet it was also probably the year in which I rewatched the most films while they were still in theatres, just because I liked them so much. (Probably because the rest of the year was so miserable…) As a result, I didn’t have nearly as many “bad movie nights” as I did in years past, either because I just didn’t want to spend the money or because I was already in a bad mood, and if I was going to watch a bad movie, I sure as heck wasn’t going to do it without the help of a guy and his robot friends to provide color commentary… or lots of beer.

Again, though, this was actually a pretty darn good year for watching some pretty darn good films if you knew where to look – or if you had patience, as was often the case for me, as the most expensive theatre near me was usually the only one to carry certain films for a few weeks. (Thankfully, I, Tonya appears to be exiting that exclusivity window by this weekend, so yay!) It was a particularly good year for Disney, who apparently made so much money that they decided to assimilate Fox, which is great for their Marvel universe, Star Wars, and their bottom line, but probably also pretty detrimental to the film and television industry as a whole. … Ugh, there I go getting negative again! Seriously, though, it wasn’t a bad year at all, and I actually am grateful that my local theatres are showing more and more non-mainstream films like Lady Bird, Ingrid Goes West, and The Lost City of Z instead of making me wait for DVD, VOD, or just outright pay friggin’ $14.00 for a ticket.

So, yeah, like with previous years, I’ll be writing a series of articles covering both the films I watched and even the films I didn’t, which you will be seeing first. I won’t be able to cover all of those, of course, but I’ll try to cover the ones that standout to me and maybe even watch a few as I go along and throw them on the final lists of viewed films, even. The list of films I haven’t seen will be divided into three sections of roughly the same number of films each (ex: 25 films across January – May, 25 across June – October, and 25 across November – December). The lists of ilms I have seen will similarly be published in three parts: first a chronological list of films that were neither awful nor great, a ranked list of the worst films I saw, and, finally, a ranked and genre-categorized list of my favorite films of the year (because I don’t believe in making great sci-fi flicks, period dramas, indie comedies, and superhero flicks against one another unless it’s based on the level of dislike I had for them).

Here’s to hoping 2018 both doesn’t suck as much as 2017 while still providing just as many pleasant surprises, if not more.