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Sunday, January 21, 2018

The 8th Annual Jarmo Awards

*HERE BE SPOILERS: the capsules for these awards occasionally discuss significant plot points, so be aware.*

That's right, everyone, it's time for the 8th Annual Jarmo Awards! For those who are new to the site, the Jarmos are like the Oscars, but with a few different categories and significantly less hoopla. This year features plenty of noteworthy achievements, some that will be familiar and some that have gone unheralded throughout the awards season. These are my personal favorites from 2017, based on what I viewed, so feel free to chime in in the comments and tell me why I'm completely wrong.

And...look, I know I say this every year, but if any of the winners want to come claim their reward, let me know and I will put something together for you. No one has done it yet, so come be the first! It's exciting! You'll have a bullshit entertainment award that no one else has!

BEST ACTRESS


Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Runner-up: Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman
Finalists: Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water; Jennifer Lawrence, mother!; Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Saoirse Ronan is very easily among the best actors working today, which she proves with her wondrous performance in Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird. Ronan has been turning in great work for years now, going back to her surprising Oscar-nominated turn in Atonement ten years ago. But Lady Bird McPherson is sneaky-best performance to date; I note "sneaky" because Ronan makes it look so effortless. Ronan makes all of Lady Bird's glorious contradictions come to life: a headstrong attitude that is as performative as it is honest, from her insistence that everyone call her "Lady Bird" (for no reason other than it's what she wants to be called) through her slippage between the theater kids and the popular girls. Ronan absolutely sells the idea that this is a young girl who thinks she knows exactly who she is yet constantly tries on different personas; she is, in other words, a teenager on the precipice of adulthood. And Ronan embraces that messiness in her performance. It's hard to believe Ronan is only 23; there are so many more great performances ahead of her.

BEST ACTOR


Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Runner-up: Hugh Jackman, Logan
Finalists: Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name; James McAvoy, Split; Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick

Horror performances, in general, don't get enough respect: too often characterized as just screaming and panic, the best reveal layers of character that aren't on the page and create a palpable sense of dread that the character might not make it to the end of the film (Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween and Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby immediately come to mind). But even among great horror performances, Kaluuya's work in Get Out stands out as one of the genre's best. As Chris, the boyfriend brought to his white girlfriend's (Allison Williams) home to meet her parents, Kaluuya never overplays his character's incredulity at the barrage of microaggressions he weathers from Rose's seemingly well-meaning parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). It's a performance that many people of color have called completely relatable, and Kaluuya wisely lets those moments sit on their own. Once the third-act reveal shifts the dynamic of the guest and his hosts, however, Kaluuya's performance maintains everything we already know about the character while shifting into his new role as "Final Girl" (to borrow Carol Clover's infamous term). Kaluuya, previously magnetic in small roles in films such as Sicario, fully deserves more leading roles in the future after earning his place in the Horror Acting Hall of Fame.

More winners after the jump.

The Entertainment Junkie's Top 10 Films of 2017

"Audacity" is the unofficial theme of my top 10 list for the past year. While it seemed like the world was burning for most of 2017, filmmakers produced a number of daring and delightful films that challenged viewers even as they entertained. Below are ten films that exemplify this theme, whether in subject matter or approach. And as always, this list is merely reflective of my own preferences in the films I saw this year. It is in no way meant to be definitive or all-encompassing, so please don't treat it that way. Enjoy it instead!

10. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright)


Seeing "A Film by Edgar Wright" conjures certain expectations. Best known for his "Cornetto Trilogy" with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End), Wright's name immediately conjures expectations of clever action comedies that have a sharp sense of editing and riff on popular genres. Baby Driver, however, is something else. First, it's not a comedy: even though it has funny moments, Wright flexes the genre skills he honed in his earlier satirical films. It's an action movie, but of the old-school variety: Baby (Ansel Elgort) is the getaway driver doing one last job before he's out of his debt to Doc (Kevin Spacey). It's also a musical, not in the sense that characters suddenly break into song, but that music is so essential to the film's style that the soundtrack influenced how Wright and his team assembled the film in the editing bay. The result is a film that buzzes along on its own livewire energy, proprolsively moving forward through a cast - including Jamie Foxx, Eiza González, and Jon Hamm - completely in tune with Wright's rat-a-tat rhythms. In a summer full of by-the-numbers blockbusters, Baby Driver was a welcome burst of ingenuity.

9. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan)


Speaking of blockbusters, the form's reigning maestro, Christopher Nolan, returned to multiplexes with a curveball from someone best known for making twisty sci-fi extravaganzas: a World War II film. It is always a mistake to assume Nolan would do something straightfoward, however. Focusing on the famed evacuation of British troops - surrounded by German forces - from the French commune of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) in 1940, Dunkirk is Nolan's most pure action film, going long stretches without any dialogue and many scenes where dialogue is barely intelligible. The film vividly conveys the chaos of battle and the scale of the evacuation, in large part thanks to Hoyte Van Hoytema's gorgeous 70mm cinematography (the larger format makes focus sharper within the image, effectively dwarfing characters on the expanse of the beach). The most impressive feature of the film, however, may be its nesting-doll narrative structure following the action from the point of view of soldiers escaping (Fionn Whitehead and Aneurin Barnard), British civilians in personal boats coming across the Channel for assistance (Mark Rylance), and fighter pilots protecting the evacuation from the air (Tom Hardy and Jack Loudon). With a persistently tick-tocking score from Hans Zimmer underlying each, all three threads eventually converge in an exhilarating climax that is at once classically Nolan and unlike anything he's done yet. That serves as perhaps the biggest twist of the film: it makes a well-worn genre feel fresh again.

Numbers 8-1 after the jump.