Category: Features

2017’s Movie Report Card: Grading the Year in Film

2017’s Movie Report Card: Grading the Year in Film

Posted by | Dec 30, 2017 |

Commencement Address If 2017 made one thing clear, it’s that I don’t think we can play by the same rules anymore. David Shreve always began these posts by assuring us we survived the year, in what was both a note of congratulations, a sigh of relief, and an acknowledgement that such a feat wasn’t easy, and not everyone could claim to have done so. Yes, we survived 2017, but I think this year it became increasingly important that we did more than survive. We fought. When I think of this year in film and in life, I think of...

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The 25 Best Movies of 2017 Chosen by the Staff of Audiences Everywhere

The 25 Best Movies of 2017 Chosen by the Staff of Audiences Everywhere

Posted by | Dec 29, 2017 |

Here it is. Our hardest post of the year. Our picks for the best movies of 2017. After we polish the scuffs, wipe up the blood, and serve the list, it’s hard to see just how hard fought these rankings can be. Wars are fought over these collective lists. Factions are developed, stands are made, friends are betrayed. But in the end, while collecting a loose consensus might prove to have a negative social effect on our team, the entire process stands in testimony to just how strong this year’s film contributions have been. We feel very strongly about...

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The 15 Best TV Shows We Watched in 2017

The 15 Best TV Shows We Watched in 2017

Posted by | Dec 29, 2017 | |

Look. We missed some. We know. There’s a reason this list is called “The Fifteen Best TV Shows We Saw in 2017″ and not “The Fifteen Best TV Shows of 2017.” We are waist deep in the golden age of television, with instant streaming services elevating the serialized storytelling form not just to unprecedented heights, but unmanageable breadth and depth. In a moment in which the longform TV binge experience is preferable to the cost-ineffective cinematic experience is preferable to many, it is impossible to see everything that’s being discussed at the work water cooler, even with a multi-person...

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The Best New Albums We Heard In 2017

The Best New Albums We Heard In 2017

Posted by | Dec 28, 2017 | |

Yeah, we love movies, but like most cinephiles, we love lots of art forms. Moreover, we think it’s as imperative as ever to celebrate as many forms of entertainment and creativity as possible. We need to seek joy, catharsis, and beauty wherever we can find it and we need to document, shape, and contest the current cultural climate with every story and art form available to us. So maybe it’s a bit out of turn for a movie site, but we still would like to share with you the best music albums we heard in 2017. — All the...

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We Will Move On From Logan and The Last Jedi

We Will Move On From Logan and The Last Jedi

Posted by | Dec 28, 2017 | |

Spoilers for Logan and Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2017 killed your childhood superheroes. It’s hard to believe that it was just within these past five years that The Avengers grossed over a billion and a half dollars worldwide, effectively triggering the explosion of popularity of superheroes movies, and that Disney resurrected the Star Wars film franchise and released three new films (all of which grossing more than a billion dollars also). Because of this, as 2018 dawns upon us, I think it’s important that we stop to appreciate the fact that in 2017, Hollywood killed the Wolverine and...

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Five Great Almost-Films from 2017

Five Great Almost-Films from 2017

Posted by | Dec 28, 2017 | |

It’s end-of-year list season here at Audiences Everywhere, and that means its time for my annual Almost Films post! What do I mean by that? Who knows! It’s never had a hard and fast definition. Basically, this is just the place where I talk about things I liked this year that don’t have a place on any of our official year-end lists. Usually that amounts to web creations of various mediums. It’s included everything from podcasts to video games in the past. I’ve got a good crop of stuff this year, so enjoy! 17776 Our first entry comes to...

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The Best Documentaries We Watched in 2017

The Best Documentaries We Watched in 2017

Posted by | Dec 27, 2017 |

2017 was a year much of the elemental social frameworks we’d taken for granted as indestructible took a sucker punch, but we learned two valuable things on the mat: those supports may not be unbreakable, but they’re enduring enough to hold—for now, at least—and that after a hit, something novel sometimes gets shaken loose. That was the case with the field of documentary films this year as filmmakers toyed with narrative, Netflix took a few risks that paid off, and the anger and the laughter felt so good in equal measures. These were some of our favorites that managed...

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10 Transcendent Scenes from Less-Than-Transcendent 2017 Films.

10 Transcendent Scenes from Less-Than-Transcendent 2017 Films.

Posted by | Dec 27, 2017 |

A lot is missed when we measure movies in good/bad binary or pass fail metrics. At the end of the year, between our “best” and “worst” lists, film culture often excludes discussion on great filmmaking that falls somewhere in between. Movies are complex, all of them, and our standardization tendencies often sell us short on the final conversation. That’s why, before we file away 2017, we want to have a quick look back at the best scenes from movies that didn’t break the famed tomatometer. Here are some of our favorite scenes from less-than-perfect movies this year. The Boss...

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2017 Star of the Year: Greta Gerwig

2017 Star of the Year: Greta Gerwig

Posted by | Dec 26, 2017 |

Greta Gerwig brings a distinctly millennial character to her acting, full of realism, dry humor, and vulnerability, but without the same level of self-pity or biting cynicism that makes many of the young adult characters of our time feel grating or unlikable. Decidedly of her time, there is an unashamed sweetness in her acting that grounds often-messy characters in truthful humanity. Her acting style, with its awkwardness and downplayed humor, is easily undervalued. But to every character she plays, Gerwig brings a unique energy. In the past several years Gerwig has performed in and written some of the most...

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Criterion Discovery: Desert Hearts

Criterion Discovery: Desert Hearts

Posted by | Dec 23, 2017 | |

Background: An important yet overlooked milestone in lesbian cinema, Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts (Spine #902) arrives to the Criterion Collection. Story: While awaiting the completion of her byzantine divorce proceedings at a Nevada ranch, uptight English professor Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) is captivated by free-spirited sculptor Cay Rivvers (Patricia Charbonneau). Despite being the late 1950s, Cay is an out, unapologetic lesbian who openly flirts Vivian. Though initially hesitant to reciprocate, Vivian embraces Cay and the two make love. Their fledgling relationship is challenged when Cay’s surrogate mother Frances Parker (Audra Lindley) tries to separate them, but the two end...

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What Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Says About Power

What Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Says About Power

Posted by | Dec 22, 2017 | |

What does it mean for something to be “too big to fail?” That phrase vaulted into popular consciousness after the 2008 financial crisis and how the big banks at fault were bailed out by the federal government. But the term is actually a bit misleading. Big corporations fail all the time. They fail to provide the services they purport to offer to us, they fail at earning our trust, they fail at being transparent. We know better now, that perhaps the more apt phrase to describe behemoth corporations may be “too big for consequences.” There’s no such thing as...

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The Girls Are Back in Town in Ocean’s 8 Trailer

The Girls Are Back in Town in Ocean’s 8 Trailer

Posted by | Dec 19, 2017 | |

Here’s the first trailer for Gary Ross’s Ocean’s 8! This definitely looks like an Ocean’s movie and seems to largely stay on brand with Soderbergh’s trilogy, though it would have been nice to a woman take on the directing duties to further distinguish it from the boy’s club antics of the Clooney led films. Still, Ocean’s 8 has a great cast and looks like it will be a solid addition to the hesit franchise. Hopefully this will form a trilogy of its own and provide a much-needed women led franchise. Ocean’s 8 will be released on June 8th, 2018....

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The War Resumes in Teaser for Sicario Sequel Soldado

The War Resumes in Teaser for Sicario Sequel Soldado

Posted by | Dec 19, 2017 | |

Here’s the first trailer for the Taylor Sheridan penned Sicario 2: Soldado. Soldado means solider, and while prior commitments prevented Emily Blunt and Denis Villeneuve from returning for the sequel to their 2015 hit, new director Stefano Sollima shows he’s got the stuff to continue the war. The second installment in Sheridan’s planned trilogy sees the cartel war between the U.S. and Mexican border escalate and further morally corrupt returning characters Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). Also joining the cast are Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener. While it’s impossible to replicate the talents of Villeneuve...

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Peter Jackson Introduces New Epic Saga in Mortal Engines Teaser

Peter Jackson Introduces New Epic Saga in Mortal Engines Teaser

Posted by | Dec 18, 2017 | |

Peter Jackson who helped define 21st century epics, with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has returned with another ambitious project in the form of an adaptation of Phillip Reeve’s award-winning Mortal Engines quartet. This time though, Jackson is screenwriter and producer, while visual effects artist, Christian Rivers, who has teamed up with Jackson through his entire career, takes the director’s helm. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where mobile cities wage war with one another for dwindling resources, Mortal Engines reunites much of the crew from the Middle-Earth saga, and brings together a cast of newcomers and familar faces like Hugo...

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Ranking the Films of Steven Spielberg

Ranking the Films of Steven Spielberg

Posted by | Dec 18, 2017 | |

Originally published 12/18/2016 What do you do to celebrate the 70th birthday of a director who has, at some point, across generations and decades, inspired every single writer on your staff? When the director in question is almost unquestionably a royal figure in the kingdom of cinema magic, and he happens also to have an even thirty films on his directing filmography, and if you’re as obsessed with needlessly ranking things as we are, you make a list. So, to celebrate the milestone moment in the life of Steven Spielberg, we have ranked the directors films. 30. 1941 Spielberg’s first...

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