Sweet Smell of Success
Blu-ray l DVD
Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick
Written by: Clifford Odets
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Jeff Donnell, and Sam Levene
Release Date: July 4, 1957

They live by night. It is odd to see Sydney Falco or J.J. Hunsecker out during broad daylight. They do the bulk of their work when the moon comes up. It would be an apt comparison placing their names in the same sentence as Dracula. They prowl the city streets confidently, with an abundance of swag and an overwhelming sense of determination guiding them towards their blood – the one thing that keeps them alive: gossip, which evidently leads to crushed souls all around.

The best of cinema this year dwelled on loss. It isn’t a subject many flock to the theaters for, but it proves to be a subject worthy of many good films and a few great ones this year. Loss can be overused and melodramatic. Loss can also be depressing. There is a niche of films, though, that use this subject with an exact purpose: to overwhelm its audience with emotion and to cause us to ruminate on what we just watched.

The loss of a father in Columbus provokes a relationship that could last a lifetime. The loss of a sibling in Personal Shopper could impact a soul for a lifetime. A ghost in A Ghost Story has lost his life and has the misfortune of seeing life zoom by others, witnessing them losing what they love. And in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a mother’s loss ignites a strand of violence that cannot be altered. Below are more films dealing with loss.

Here are my Top 30 Movies of 2017…

We are more than half way through the year and we haven’t been exposed to many great films. Naturally, at this point of the year, there may have been a handful of pictures that would have had a profound influence on its viewers initially. One or two have had such an impact (A Ghost Story and Wind River), while others could replicate that same feeling with multiple viewings (the majority of the films on this list). But the majority of the year’s pickings are lacking distinction. We’ll be looking forward to the next few months. Until then, here are my picks for the best movies of 2017 so far.

The Red Shoes
The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Starring Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Leonide Massine, Robert Helpmann
Theatrical Release Date: September 6, 1948

– How would you define ballet, Miss Neston?
– Well, one might call it the poetry of motion perhaps, or…
– One might. But for me it is a great deal more. For me it is a religion. And one doesn’t really care to see one’s religion practiced in an atmosphere…such as this.

In what seems to be a film paying the highest tribute possible to the world of ballet, we are taken aback when the film ends when we realize what it really has been about the entire time. The Red Shoes is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s tale about a girl who finds a pair of red slippers, puts them on, and cannot stop dancing. The film’s narrative approaches that subject and then ventures away from it.

Regret and “what if” scenarios consumed many of the narratives on this list of my Top 30 Movies of 2016. Grief isn’t so much a novelty in cinema. It has been confronted thousands of times before, but the way it was handled this year was remarkably beautiful. The year’s best films didn’t hide the fact that their specific characters were going to face mighty obstacles that threatened to suffocate them. It seemed very intimate and personal watching how these films perceived their characters confronting grief and confusion. It’s as if the directors of these films know us so well. They capture what it is to be human.

The two brothers in Hell or Hight Water are beaten down by our financial institutions…what if they robbed them back? Regret and confusion follow a young boy around until he is a grown man in Moonlight, and still no signs of either ever leaving. What if Captain Sullenberger obeyed protocol and turned the airplane around instead of landing it safely on the Hudson River? We probably wouldn’t have the movie Sully. And what if O.J Simpson willingly admitted to murdering his wife we wouldn’t have the sprawling eight-hour documentary O.J.: Made in America. And an overwhelming amount of regret is the central theme in Right Now, Wrong Then.

Here are my Top 30 Movies of 2016…