War, Disasters and Quiet Passions: Jay Stone’s Top Ten Movies of 2017
Movies: Top Ten 2017
Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age gem, Lady Bird, garners big Stone praise amid a cluster of small diamonds about outsiders, loss and the elusive power of hope
By Jay Stone Lady Bird: Pretty well the best time I had at the movies this year came from this small, exquisitely observed story that we’ve seen a million times: a young woman comes of age in a small town, fights with her parents and dreams of glory in the big city. But writer/director Greta Gerwig — drawing on her own life — turns this familiar material into a sweet, caustic, and authentic tale of growing up, aided by great performances from Laurie Metcalfe as the exasperated mother and Saoirse Ronan as the complicated young woman. A true gem.
The Florida Project: Filmmaker Sean Baker takes a step up from his previous movie (Tangerine, which was shot on an iPhone) but doesn’t sacrifice any of the grit in the story of people living on the edge of the American dream, in every sense: they inhabit a ...
Jay Stone’s Top 10 movies of 2017
Lady Bird: Pretty well the best time I had at the movies this year came from this small, exquisitely observed story that we’ve seen a million times: a young woman comes of age in a small town, fights with her parents and dreams of glory in the big city. But writer/director Greta Gerwig — drawing on her own life — turns this familiar material into a sweet, caustic, and authentic tale of growing up, aided by great performances from Laurie Metcalfe as the exasperated mother and Saoirse Ronan as the complicated young woman. A true gem. The Florida Project: Filmmaker Sean Baker takes a step up from his previous movie (Tangerine, which was shot on an iPhone) but doesn’t sacrifice any of the grit in the story of people living on the edge of the American dream, in every sense: they inhabit a welfare motel within sight of Disney World in Orlando, Fla. A cast comprised of mostly first-time actors, lead by the preternaturally talented seven-year-old named Brooklyn ...
Small Wins, Big Tanks: Top Ten Movies of 2017
Movies: Top Ten Films of 2017
Film critic Katherine Monk looks back on a year without frontrunners or favourites, making 2017's top choices a truly personal matter with I, Tonya, Icarus and Wonder Woman landing on the podium, and plenty of other worthy contenders in the race.
By Katherine Monk
It seems the President and Harvey Weinstein eclipsed the klieg lights of the entertainment world: There is no artistic standout, nor crowd-pleasing frontrunner in the race for this year’s movie laurels as the recent Golden Globe ceremony proved. The five major awards were handed out to four films. No Moonlight. No Lala Land. Not even a Hidden Figures. The year 2017 will be remembered for the last-minute resuscitation at the box-office thanks to Star Wars’s enduring shock paddles, pulling a loser year into so-so territory in the home stretch with more than half a billion in receipts for The Last Jedi. Nonetheless, revenues were down 2.7 per cent ($11 billion US) over 2016’s $11.377 ...
The parents and children of TIFF
Movies: #TIFF17
Three movies the the Toronto film festival present different versions of the cinematic parent — Interfering Mother, Distant Father — with varying success
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — It was parent-and-child day at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is always interesting for those of us who are parents and wonder which of several cinematic categories we might fall into: Distant Father, Interfering Mother, Demanding Taskmaster (or –mistress), Indifferent Hippie or Kooky Eccentric. I think that’s all of them. We began with a terrific little coming-of-age title called Lady Bird, starring Saoirse Ronan — heroine of yesterday’s movie marathon and providing further proof here that she can do no wrong — as a rebellious high school student growing up in terrifyingly unhip Sacramento, Calif. She laughs with her best friend, dumps the friend for some new rich kids, dumps the rich kids for the old friend, meets a couple of boys who are variou...
