We’ve had a surge of universally acclaimed movies open in Silicon Valley: Darkest Hour, Novitiate and The Shape of Water, along with The Disaster Artist (which looks like a hoot and a half). The Florida Project and Pixar’s Coco have already been playing. Of the current crop, I’ve already added two Must Sees to my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far:
- Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Several are in theaters right now, and most of the rest are available on video.
Other choices:
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- The ambitious satire The Square.
- LBJ, an effective and engrossing Cliff Notes history lesson, with another fine performance by Woody Harrelson.
- Murder on the Orient Express is a moderately entertaining lark.
- Skip the well-cast, well-acted meandering to nowhere that is Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
My DVD/Stream of the Week is The Big Sick, the best American movie of the first half of 2017 and the best romantic comedy in years. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love. The Big Sick can be rented in DVD from Netflix and Redbox and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Movie Gourmet has no television recommendations this week. Go to a theater – this is prime time for movie going.
