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charliejrogers · 7 years

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Best of 2017

Below is my list of the 40 best movies of 2017. Why 40? Because that’s all the movies I saw. In full disclosure, I have a life and must attend school so I didn’t get to see every notable release this year, so if you’re wondering why Thor: Ragnorok, Coco, Mother!, Jumanji, Justice League, I Tonya, Disaster Arist, or Blade Runner aren’t on the list… it’s because I didn’t get to see them. And also in full disclosure, I did get to watch the first half of Battle of the Sexes but fell asleep for the second half. That fact is not indicative of that film’s quality - I was just really tired when I saw it - but it didn’t feel right rating a movie I’d only seen the first half of. So without further ado, here’s my list.

0.5/4.0 Stars

40 The Little Hours

1.5/4.0 Stars

39 Guardians of the Galaxy 2

2.0/4.0 Stars

38 Beauty & the Beast

37 Okja

2.5/4.0 Stars

36 The Trip to Spain

35 A Ghost Story

34 Kong: Skull Island

33 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

32 Dunkirk

31 Logan Lucky

30 American Made

29 Lost City of Z

28 Phantom Thread

3.0/4.0 Stars

27 It

26 Lady Macbeth

25 Ingrid Goes West

24 Call Me By Your Name

23 Spider-Man: Homecoming

22 Detroit

21 Brad’s Status

20 Logan

19 Wind River

18 War for the Planet of the Apes

3.5/4.0 Stars

17 Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

16 The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected

15 Get Out

14 The Post

13 Wonder Woman

12 The Lego Batman Movie

11 Darkest Hour

10 The Beguiled

9 Mudbound

8 Shape of Water

4.0/4.0 Stars

7 Sanctuary

6 The Big Sick

5 The Florida Project

4 Baby Driver

3 Columbus

2 Good Time

1 Lady Bird

Do you disagree with the list? Well check out below to see my thoughts on each of the films.

40 The Little Hours

This movie is wholly terrible. It’s jokes include extended sequences of rape, sexual manipulation, and cruel beatings. Please don’t let the truly all-star cast fool you, this movie sucks.

Movies that had probably had some great scenes but were overall not satisfying: (1.5-2 stars)

39 Guardians of the Galaxy 2

The sophomore slump hit Star Lord & co. hard. Compared to the grand set pieces of the first film, the isolated focus on Quill and his father really hindered the fun, action-packed hi-jinks fans expected from the first film. The soundtrack almost single handedly prevented this from being an outright terrible movie.

38 Beauty & the Beast

It will be interesting in the long run to compare the quality of these live-action remakes to the animated originals. Jungle Book was great, but it helped that it’s source material was a superficial 60s musical with lots of room for expansion. Beauty & the Beast was heralded as a masterpiece back in 1991, even being nominated for an Oscar for best picture. Not best animated picture. BEST PICTURE. The Emma Watson version? Not so much. It’s boring.

37 Okja

Snowpiercer is an awesome movie. It’s perfectly paced world building combined beautifully with its creative action sequences (creative both in terms of plotting and in filming). The second English-language film from director Bong Joon-Ho? Nowhere as good. Maybe I’m too jaded… but I didn’t feel any real connection to the titular Beast (the hippo/cow named Okja) or the dangers it faced. And Tilda Swinton (who was fantastic in Snowpiercer) is too abrasive and, frankly, too odd to be taken seriously as a person. And that’s to say nothing of Jake Gyllenhal’s lunatic of a character. Skip it.

Just shy of being good, but are Solid movies.(2.5 stars)

36 The Trip to Spain

It’s kind of hard to fault Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in any meaningful way, since anyone who has seen the first two movies in this trilogy knows exactly what to expect (and really, who but anyone who has seen the first two movies would see this?). They know to expect impressions of famous British actors by two very talented impression artists. They know to expect two actors playing irritatingly arrogant caricatures of themselves. And they know to expect a movie devoid of plot, purpose, and interesting dialogue. That said, you come for the impressions, and Coogan and Brydon will always deliver on those (Mick Jagger and David Bowie being my two favorite additions to the duo’s repertoire.) just don’t expect much else.

35 A Ghost Story

This whole movie seemed to walk the line between a solid indie movie and a parody of a self-important movie. The central gimmick of the film involves Casey Affleck spending the vast majority of the film under a white sheet following his character’s death as the character’s ghost continues to pine after a love lost. When the film focuses on the futility of grief (particular in scenes where Rooney Mara is involved), it is moving. When it tries to make larger philosophical statements about what it means to inhabit land, it gets silly.

34 Kong: Skull Island

I watched this movie hoping to see some cool action sequences of King Kong and dinosaurs. It delivered, though no dinosaurs, but “Skeleton Walkers”. Cool Vietnam War-era atmosphere. The Samuel L. Jackson character is so angry towards Kong as to defy logical sense and the plot is threadbare, but John C. Reilly does wonders when he enters the film midway for comic relief.

33 Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

I wanted to like this movie more. I tried to like it more. It has so much going for it: A pair of knock out performances by Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson, often fascinating and engaging dialogues and monologues a la the Coen Brothers, and an intriguing premise in a mother trying to discover her daughter’s murderer. It falls apart for me because many of the supporting characters are more caricature than people, especially the insufferable bigoted police officer played by Sam Rockwell. The film is far more interested in developing the character of this unwatchable man than in ever dealing with the McDormand character’s grief, and Harrelson exits the film far too early. There are individual scenes that shine, but the sum of the film’s parts falls flat.

32 Dunkirk

I like Christopher Nolan. I really do. That said, I haven’t liked anything that he’s done since 2010. Dark Knight Rises was bloated, and Interstellar somehow doubled down on the bloat. Dunkirk, while beautifully shot and containing some truly gripping looks at the brutality of war, just never clicked with me. I particularly found the film’s tripartite structure, jumping between three stories whose chronological length differed significantly, more distracting than revelatory.

31 Logan Lucky

Appropriately nicknamed “Seven Eleven,” Steven Soderberg’s first heist movie since the Ocean’s trilogy adapts the standard caper film tropes to a down-to-Earth, working-class West Virginia setting. It’s unclear throughout if Soderberg is mocking his blue collar characters’ way of life or celebrating it, and the humor, particularly in scenes between Channing Tatum and Adam Driver, never quite clicks. But Logan Lucky probably includes the most intelligent, clever, and fun-to-watch heist in any movie. Period. If only the movie were even half as smart and entertaining as the heist it is about.

30 American Made

Doug Liman, The Director of American Made, so badly and clearly wants people to confuse this film with something from the Scorsese catalog. But this is a poor man’s Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas. It tries to glorify and legitimize the life of a criminal, and it hits all the highlights. It’s loosely (very loosely) based on real life smuggler Barry Seal. There’s clever heists and crimes. Shady dealings. A big budget plane crash into a suburban neighborhood. And all of it is shot and directed with a fun, vivacious energy. The problem is that this film fails to hit the hard emotional punches. There’s no equivalent to Joe Pesce “getting made” or even a real sense of come-uppance that eventually hit Jordan Belford. There’s a montage in this movie of Tom Cruise scared to start his car due to fear it’s been rigged to explode. What could have been a tone-altering sequence for the film that would bestow a great deal of gravitas, is used for laughs. And that’s about all you need to know about this movie. It’s entertaining and probably worth watching, and Tom Cruise is as cocky as ever in the lead role, but there’s nothing under the surface.

29 Lost City of Z

The is the most action-less adventure story ever told. The life of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) and his explorations through the South American Amazon plays out at about the speed of a turtle. I’m not gonna say I was ever bored, because I wasn’t, but I was kind of waiting the whole movie for something exciting to happen and it never does. The film makes being captured by natives look as routine as a DMV visit. The movie is divided into a few key locations. There’s Britain where Fawcett spends so little of his life and where his wife (Sienna Miller as a progressive woman railing against the monotony of housewifery) and children lives. There’s The Amazon, and there’s briefly France for Fawcett’s stint as an officer in WWI. As you’ll be unsurprised if you’ve glanced at my review of Wonder Woman below, that the WWI section was my favorite. Perhaps it’s my fault for expecting something more out action of this film, but I think it even fails on the grounds of what it tries to be: a character study. Fawcett’s character is so thinly drawn and his motivations so weak, that when his son (Tom Holland) calls him out on it it’s a breath of fresh air - but then his son and wife later validates his motivations and the movie makes him out to be an unqualified hero - a champion of viewing Natives as more than savages. Fawcett did incredible things in his life, sure, but I don’t think he’s any hero. I don’t know - the movie could have been better.

28 Phantom Thread

The first half of this movie I consider excitingly British-boring, like an episode of Downton Abbey or The Crown. High class British people of the past dealing with first world problems, if well acted, well costumed, and well written, will always be entertaining to me no matter if what’s at stake is who will marry whom or, in this case, whether a dress will be ready on time. But the first half of the movie particularly shines because Daniel Day-Lewis plays the stereotypical controlling genius who society forgives because he’s so brilliant to the T. He’s insufferable, petty, emotionally stunted, and a joy to watch. And the whole first half of the film builds to a moment where Lewis’ girlfriend, a meek waitress played by Vicky Krieps, calls him out on all his bullshit. In the midst of the #MeToo era, her speech railing against his dominating, controlling behavior feels entirely appropriate. And as an audience member you expect the movie to go in a certain direction in the second half… and it doesn’t. At the risk of spoilers I won’t say more, but your response to film’s plot in its second act will be the deciding factor about whether or not you enjoy this film. For me, I did not, which is a shame because I liked the first half so much.

Good, not great movies:(3 stars)

27 It

I have never seen the original It movie or read the book, but based on the infamous boat scene that circulated virally on YouTube and the premise of a killer ghost clown… I wasn’t too pumped to see It. I happily had my expectations reversed. It is perhaps unfair to say the movie borrows from Stranger Things since that show definitely borrows heavily from Stephen King, but it’s hard to deny the similarities between the two 1980s set stories of kids against a cosmic beast. It featured incredible performances from its teenaged cast, with Jaeden Lieberher truly shining as the lead, but overall the movie felt overly long and oddly enough lacking the tension required of a remarkable thriller. Plus, I had far too many questions leaving the theater about the nature of Pennywise and so on for it to qualify as having a completely coherent plot. But as far as coming of age movies disguised as horror movies go, when It focused on the kids and less on Pennywise it was entirely engrossing.

26 Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth was a fascinating little film out of the UK about the extents (often violent) one woman would go to achieve freedom in an incredibly oppressive patriarchy. At just 22 Florence Pugh turns in a masterful performance of a woman wracked with guilt but full of pride in her freedom. She’s at once both sympathetic and monstrous, and watching her go from one to the other is worthy of the film’s Shakespearean title. Only complaint was that the movie, despite being only 90 minutes still felt it dragged a little in places.

25 Ingrid Goes West

What an interesting movie. Aubrey Plaza still seems to be playing the same Aubrey Plaza character she’s played in literally everything she’s been in, but this time it’s different. Rather than accepting Plaza’s character’s usual eccentric behavior as just par for the course, in Ingrid Goes West, these same behaviors are frightening. Obsessive, sociopathic, paranoid. That is the character Aubrey Plaza plays as her Ingrid travels Westward with the inheritance from her mother’s demise to emulate and become Taylor Sloane - a wonderfully basic Elizabeth Olson - someone she found on Instagram - avocado toast and all. As a movie that tries to make a statement about the ill-effects of social media on society, the movie falls flat. But viewed in the line of movies like Taxi Driver, Nightcrawler, etc. that is, movies that present the inner workings of sociopaths, Ingrid Goes West is an admirable demonstration of what Travis Bickle would look like in 2017. Also, poor O’Shea Jackson Jr. All his character wanted was to talk about Batman - and instead Ingrid ruins his life. Sad!

24 Call Me By Your Name

I’ve struggled to rate this movie fairly. One the one hand, I found it kind of boring. I found what the characters and movie deemed a meaningful relationship between Elio and Oliver to be based on little more than the fact that both were open to male on male sex. Their dialogue was supposed to come off as playfully hostile and full of sexual tension, but i just saw Oliver, played by Hammer, playing hard to get a little too well. Maybe I just wasn’t picking up the signs, but to my eyes it never seemed like Oliver ever liked Elio. On the other hand, it was a beautifully shot movie, included a scene about IndoEuropean etymology, and another about Greek bronze sculpture. Plus, Michael Stuhlbarg’s heartbreaking speech towards the end (you know which one) almost single handedly prevents this from being rated lower on this list. Thus, I left the movie thinking a lot, which is always a sign that the movie had done something right. Particularly it raised questions about and shed light on the nature, often awkward, of coming out. And for that, I recognize the movie’s importance and beauty. But that doesn’t mean it was my favorite movie to watch this year.

23 Spider-Man: Homecoming

Now for something completely different. Spider-Man: Homecoming is the definition of a mindless, fun summer blockbuster. Tom Holland shines it what is essentially a high-school action movie. It had cool action sequences (Washington Monument) and laughs (thanks Martin Starr - perhaps the best person to to cast as a nerdy high school teacher - , the school’s PA announcements, and the film’s new Spider-Man sidekick… some kid named Ned). Plus the movie’s villainous twist was legitimately a surprise in the best way. That said, Michael Keaton’s Vulture had some questionably plausible motives, with the theme of forgetting about the working class feeling a bit cliche in this film. It’s a real issue, but the movie didn’t really treat it like one. Still, I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Prom as Marvel’s first take at a high school movie was a success, even if it did little to reinvent the wheel.

22 Detroit

Detroit is a movie that tests your endurance and tolerance for brutality. Based on the historical Algiers Motel incident during the contentious race riots in 1967 Detroit, the movie is less about the incident as it is director Katherine Bigelow’s recreation of the event itself. This movie is like if you pieced together all of the scenes from a recreation typically found in a true crime documentary, and then left out the documentary narrative piece. As a result, the movie has little nuance (besides a beautiful opening animating sequence detailing the Great Migration.) Instead viewers are “treated” to two hours of raw violence. It’s not entertaining, and it’s hardly art, but it is engrossing. It stretches the imagination that some people could be so cruel and that more could be so permissive of such cruelty seen here, but at the end of the day 3 black teens ended up dead and nine others beaten… so I can grant Katherine Bigelow some leeway in how the lead racist cop in her film is portrayed as being the devil incarnate. It’s a powerful movie - just not one you’ll want to watch again.

21 Brad’s Status

If your biggest fear is that you’ll never satisfy your life’s largest ambitions… Brad’s Status is the movie for you. Ben Stiller as Brad is a guy who by all measures has a fine life - a loving wife, comfortable job, and a smart kid… any complaint he has is, by definition, a first world problem… but when he sees his old college buddies go on to become uber-successful… well, anyone is bound to get jealous. The movie is a great look at the emptiness so many feel with the direction of their lives, and Ben Stiller as Brad is perfectly cast as an understandable neurotic. While the movie does a great job of setting up Brad’s dilemma over his lack of status, it perhaps “solves” the issue a little lazily. It turns out his “successful” friends? They’re all jerks, crooks, or unhappy… so again we learn that money corrupts… an answer which doesn’t entirely satisfy the audience… or Brad.

20 Logan

If Deadpool showed how an R-rated superhero could look if you think R-rated = potty-mouth… Logan decided to show us what R-rated means in terms of violence. The opening scene where our “hero” eviscerates some gangsters by the side of a desert road is phenomenally beautiful. And the movie remains as bleak throughout - as well as, perhaps surprisingly, very thoughtful. Every scene with Patrick Stewart was beautiful. Beautiful because of his performance, but also because of how smartly written and well-paced his character’s story unfolded. What do you do when a man who could bring the world to its knees with his mind… gets Alzheimer’s? That Stewart was not even in the discussion for an Oscar baffles me. I legitimately lose interest in the film the moment Stewart stops playing as big a role about ¾ of the way through. It’s still a good movie after that point, but the story of mutant kids revolting against their slave drivers holds less power and realism than the story of a powerful man coming to grips with his dementia.

19 Wind River

Hell or High Water was, for me, the surprise hit of 2016, and when I found out that writer Taylor Sheridan was both writing and directing this film I saw it as soon as I could. While the movie may drag in a few spots here and there, it’s a pretty powerful movie about grief. It shares many story beats with Three Billboards but frankly I think this film does a much, much better job of staying focused on what’s most important. No, not the moral awakening of some insufferably racist cop, but the injustice of a girl’s life being ripped away from her family. And, more importantly, the impact that has upon an already depressed community. I don’t know how many movies there are that highlight the ironic contemporary struggle of Native Americans to get by in what should be their own land, but i don’t think there are many others. And for that fact alone Wind River deserves to be seen. While I’ve thus far talked like this movies a masterpiece it’s not. It drags a bit, Jeremy Renner’s character is both a little boring and a little too unbelievably good at his job, and Elizabeth Olsen’s character is a little bit too unbelievably inept at hers. But Sheridan crafts scripts whose violence is so genuinely shocking (no doubt in one place due to a perfectly placed flashback towards the end of the film) that you actually drop your jaw. You’ve seen thousands of people get shot in movies, but never quite like here.

18 War for the Planet of the Apes

Of all the major blockbuster franchises to be churned out these days, few have had the boldness to be both entertaining and artful. The first 15 minutes of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes should be taught at all film schools as the prime example of world building without needing a single spoken word of dialogue. I think overall I liked the new War for the Planet of the Apes a little less than its predecessor, but still more than the reboot’s first entry, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. For starters, this is a long movie and it didn’t need to be so long. That said, it has some of the best symbolism and beautifully structured motifs of any major blockbuster out there. Caesar is at times a Christ figure, a new Moses, and a slave in revolt, and the movie does a fantastic job of never letting these themes lay on too thick. And for a movie about apes, most of the sympathy undoubtedly comes from Andy Serkis. He deserves some sort of award for his work as Caesar… his facial ticks say a million things and more. Combined with the cinematography of the icy blue winter fortress, it’s a beauty to behold. Had the movie been a little tighter, it could have been that much better, but as is there’s still much to enjoy.

Great, fucking movies:(3.5 stars)

17 Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

By far the most divisive film of 2017, The Last Jedi was… a fine film. Like for every illogical plot point, for every cringeworthily forced joke, for every time that Mark Hamil didn’t know how to act, for every unnecessary venture onto the casino Planet, for every time Leia was a force zombie… I still walked away from the movie feeling satisfied. The action was good and The plot included legitimate surprises. Rian Jonson is many things, but a poor plotter is not one of them. Plus I was just so attracted to the film’s overwhelming feeling of abject failure. Blockbusters are supposed to lift us up and give us hope… but this movie presented an interesting antithesis to all that, even more so than its spiritual predecessor Empire Strikes Back. This movie will and has already been picked apart to death… but I think if someone walked into this movie knowing little about the Jedi, the Force, or who shot first, they would find an entertaining blockbuster and that’s what I saw. Perhaps not the best Star Wars movie… but a fine film.

16 The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected

Adam Sandler can act? Who knew! I did! I’ve seen Click! Anyways, this was a very good movie all around. There are top notch performances from all of its leads, with a special shout out to the quiet Elizabeth Marvel and the terrifyingly unemotional Hoffman. The films plot focused on three adults’ differing relationships with their father (Dustin Hoffman) an overbearing father and aging sculptor who failed to achieve any success. The script is superb and beautifully crafted. The whole movie can be summed up in three scenes, with each scene showing a different of the three children running. In one, Sandler is running to catch up to his Dad, representing how his character always felt like he had to prove himself to his father. In another Stiller is running in front of his father, just as his character has tried to escape the overbearing smothering pressure of his father. And thirdly Marvel’s character runs from danger but her father plays no role - she unlike her brothers has managed to shed the shadow of her father. The movie has some missteps in failed jokes (Sandler’s daughter’s movies?) and is a little long which keep it from being an instant classic, but it’s very well done.

15 Get Out

The best horror movie In a decade isn’t much of a horror movie. There are few jump scares and there’s hardly a real enough sense of danger to raise the audience’s blood pressure. But as a drama that intends to say a thing or two about America’s racial issues, this is a damn good movie. The script is extremely well-crafted and the story’s mysteries unfold in such an organic way. You’ll have thought you have it all figured out at least 3 times before the truth is revealed, and the “truth” actually makes sense and appears unforced unlike the twists in many movies of this type. There’s an alternate ending to this film you can find online where Director Peele could have pushed this movie to make a stronger statement about race… I wish he had. He used a half-measure when he should have used a full measure. The movie as a whole can be a little slow at times… but the ending action sequence and the film’s tone and message throughout more than make up for it.

14 The Post

The best newspaper movies are those that are procedural. Films like Spotlight or All the President’s Men made you feel like you were part of the investigation, highlighting the excitement and importance of mundane tasks like combing through directories of priests or tracking down witnesses that ultimately lead to giant breakthroughs. The Post has none of this. The Pentagon Papers literally fall into the lap of the Washington Post and Nixon’s paranoia ensures that The Post will be the only paper with the opportunity to publish. So it’s not a newspaper movie in that it’s not about investigative journalism so much as about the people who run the newspapers and their commitment to the first amendment. As a result, it’s preachy and a little too on the nose for those of us bombarded daily with claims of fake news. That said, it’s still Spielberg so it’s incredibly well-crafted and entertaining and Meryl Streep is fantastic in drawing out the complexity of Kay Graham. And who doesn’t love seeing Bob Odenkirk and David Cross side by side?

13 Wonder Woman

The undersaturation of the movie market with movies about World War I is a shame. Compare it with World War II which has a minimum of 4 movies a year… always. But where WWII is so often portrayed as the heroic triumph of good over evil or dives into the heinousness of the Holocaust, rarely does it get the chance to just pause and question the brutality of war itself. World War I doesn’t have that problem. There was no Hitler, no Nazis, no Holocaust. Just rulers and treaties that led to the senseless loss of life. And it’s this that movies like Joyeux Noel, War Horse, and now Wonder Woman have captured beautifully. Yes, Wonder Woman is a movie about immortal beings and super heroes with lassos of truth… but at its root it’s about the disgusting fact that humans inflict mass pain on each other based on the lightest of pretenses. The movie has a villain… but humanity is the real evil. The plot was smartly put together, the scenery and costumes nail the period, and the budding romance between Chris Pine and Gal Gadot is a treat to watch. But it’s film’s depiction of the senselessness of war (embodied in Wonder Woman’s shell-shocked Scottish companion.) that really sold me. This movie was far more moving than it deserved to be for a silly super hero movie, but it deserves its praise.

12 The Lego Batman Movie

Perhaps this of all the choices on this list will be the one to not age well… but when I saw this movie I was thoroughly pleased. Not only was it an entertaining and funny beyond a “kid’s” film, it was a parodic love letter to the Caped Crusader. I did not see 2017’s Justice League… but I can safely say this is the best Batman movie since 2008’s Dark Knight. The whole plot of this Lego movie is in fact a direct play on a line of dialogue from The Dark Knight. There the Joker tells Batman, “You complete me,” a line which in its context embodies a central theme throughout Batman lore: does Batman exist because Gotham is full of criminals, or is Gotham full of criminals because Batman attracts them. Here though, the line is taken at face value in its pseudo-romantic sense - Joker pledges his “love” for Batman and here he gets denied. And the world hath seen no wrath as a Joker scorned. It’s a funny set-up that leads to a fun who’s-who of villains from across the Batverse and beyond. The film is anchored in the now-classic Lego movie sense of humor. Special props to Will Arnett’s arrogant, self-centered turn as the lead and to Michael Cera’s bubblingly boyish Dick Grayson/Robin. The two have a perfect comedic give and take. It’s as if the whole movie is a side project of Arrested Development with a young George Michael Bluth playing along with the delusional fantasies of his Uncle GOB. Tobias would of course be Mr. Freeze - he already blued himself.

11 Darkest Hour

Who was Winston Churchill? I’m still not quite sure. The movie presented him as a drunk, surely, but also scared, crude, abrasive, confused, a little Alzheimer’s-y at times… but the least I can say is that he deserved my respect by the end of the film and that’s what the movie wanted from me. Gary Oldman is amazing in this movie and other people could speak more eloquently about his performance. But he’s not alone and Ben Mendehlsson as King George and Stephen Dillane as the preposterously prissy Lord Halifax deserve special praise. Lily James as Churchill’s secretary does not though… her role was kinda pointless… But what really caught my eye about this movie is it’s beautiful cinematography. The movie plays with light and dark so well - fitting for its title. Plus the movie tells the story of the Dunkirk travesty from such an interesting perspective. The knowledge of Hitler’s ultimate intentions today make it difficult to swallow arguments of the past that peace might have been possible, but the film does a great job of establishing tension in a conflict where everyone in the audience knows the resolution. There are times when you wonder along with Churchill whether peace might be worth pursuing. However, if you, like me, enjoy getting your history from film, You’ll likely be saddened as i was to learn that the scene where Churchill goes into the Tube and talks to the common folk for inspiration was all made up for the movie… still, the scene’s pretty magical to watch. So everyone plays their roles to the T and the pictures are pretty. If that’s not enough for you, just watch this as an antidote to watching the lifeless Dunkirk. Ugh. Fuck Dunkirk.

10 The Beguiled

This is an extremely moody, brooding film that sticks with much you longer than you’d think. It’s really a short, little movie at only 94 minutes long, but director Sophia Coppola packs that time full of lust-filled intrigue and tension. If you ever wonders what happens when a house full of sexually repressed women in the 1860s encounters a wounded soldier who’s happy to “please”… the answer is not a lot of good. This is not a porno. If anything this movie takes a male fantasy and turns it into a nightmare. Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, and Nicole Kidman play a fearfully tempting trio, each approaching the mysterious figure of Colin Farrell with their own motivations. Elle as a young woman exploring her sexuality, Kirsten as a woman sheltered for too long and yearns for the companionship, while Kidman as the older woman wants to feel love again… yet Colin cannot have all three and tries anyways… and the result is chilling and creepy reminder that you don’t mess with the heart of a woman. It’s Like Gone Girl in this sense, but better because this movie’s actually rewatchable and the perspective is entirely female-centric.

9 Mudbound

Somewhere online this movie is described as “literary in the best sense” and that’s about all you need to know about this movie. It’s a sprawling character-based epic that charts the lives of two families, one white, one black, whose lives continue to intersect while living in the 1940s rural South. Like much of the 19th c. and early 20th c. American literature, the big takeaway is that life in the country is miserable and prone to stagnation (a little stuck in the mud if you will). And Carey Mulligan’s role as a sophisticated woman forced into the staid life on the farm is practically a carbon copy of the main character in Willa Cather’s “Wagner Matinee” - and that’s a good thing. Mary J. Blige looks really cool with her sunglasses but also does a great job acting as the loving matriarch of her family - in fact the whole cast is pretty incredible. However the heart of the film is the friendship that forms between the veterans returning from WWII- one from each family. Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell carry well the invisible wounds of war and the movie does a great job of highlighting the great injustice and indifference our society all too often places upon the plight of veterans - especially those who are also racial minorities. It’s a movie both reflective of its period’s morals, and a reminder of how close in time we are to some of our nation’s worst racially-based hate crimes.

8 Shape of Water

Love comes in all shapes and sizes - a theme Hollywood has pushed on us for decades. But here the trite fairy tale truism is made fresh… precisely because director Guillermo del Toro does not hide the fact that his Shape of Water - though a movie for adults with rather graphic violence and sex - is a fairy tale. Its love is both unbelievable and beautiful. The film tries to say something about the civil rights movement and oppression in its portrayal of the stigmatized relationship between woman and fish monster… but I personally found those parallels a bit wonky. The film works best as a simple story devoid of overt politics. Few scenes this year are as heartwarming as two rain droplets dancing on the side of a bus window as it races through the night or a dance scene between a fish monster and a woman filmed in the black and white style of the grand musicals of Old Hollywood. The movie includes a heist (the best!), Communist intrigue, comedy, and an amazing villain in Michael Shannon. That guy’s face is made to be evil. Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Jenkins round out a superbly talented cast and the movie is a joy to watch. It was clear this was a work of love for delToro and though it’s not my favorite movie this year it deserves all the praise it gets. It’s a technical and moving marvel

Fantastic films (4 stars)

7 Sanctuary

Of all the movies on this list, I’m gonna bet this is the one you’ve never heard of. I’d never heard of it either. It was an accidental find hidden deep in the Hulu catalog which only attracted my roommate’s and my attentions because it was recently voted the best film in Ireland for 2017 according to some Irish critic’s circle. It was never even released in America. I like Irish film, and I loved this movie. It’s an ambitious project - at least by modern standards. A movie about people with intellectual disabilities, whose cast is mostly filled with people with intellectual disabilities, including like 4 people with Downs Syndrome. It’s part comedy, part rom-com, part romantic-drama, and throughout a tragedy. The movie struggles to find a fine line between viewing it’s largely adult cast of people with intellectual disabilities as people who need to be watched after and people who deserve independence and freedom. And that is not a fault of the movie… in real life finding that balance is hard. The movie has you laughing one moment, crying the other, but at all times forcing this viewer at least to challenge his perceptions of those with intellectual disabilities. It’s a powerful movie, an entertaining one, and one which I think all should see.

6 The Big Sick

Yes, this movie may have committed the worst of comedy movie sins - putting the best joke (the one about 9/11) in the trailer - but that doesn’t stop The Big Sick and it’s plot from surprising. I won’t spoil the plot because it’s best experienced first hand - but one thing I wish I knew going in is that this is fairly closely based on Kumail Nanjiani’s real life, who wrote the film with his wife Emily V. Gordon. I say this because when I first saw this my complaint was that the plot seemed too unbelievable and were this a purely fictional tale I’d be right - but truth is stranger than fiction. The movie has many thematic parallels with the second episode of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None in that the film presents the real pressures faced by children of immigrants to balance wanting to live a “normal” American life without seeming ungrateful or unappreciative of your parents’ culture and the sacrifices they have made to give their kids a better life. Kumail’s mother may be the “villain” from a plotting perspective, but the film is more nuanced than to portray her as heartless. In fact, the incredible love of a parent for their child is palpable throughout, and Ray Romano and Holly Hunter do wonders portraying a couple who though strained will unite to do anything for their daughter. Like life, the characters are realistic, the conflicts have no easy resolution, and it’s equal parts comical and emotional.

5 The Florida Project

Probably one of the best compliments I can bestow upon any piece of art is, “It reminds me of The Wire.” Yes, I am one of those people… deal with it. But what that to me means, is that this particular work of art manages to present an important social problem in a way that has no clear heroes or villains. Rather, it presents real, flawed humans dealing with a terribly shitty social construct. Here, the social construct is poverty - severe, depressing poverty. What are you supposed to do if you have no money, no home, no hopes for the future? You scam, you prostitute, you lie, you do anything to get by. But the characters in the Florida Project aren’t Robin Hoods or Aladdins - lovable thieves. No, they are often ugly people. This is a movie largely about “white trash” America - or rather people we cast aside without a second thought as white trash. However, what makes this movie so brilliant is that it grounds its message in the perspective of a child. Brooklyn Prince is damn near perfect in her role as the six year-old Moonee, the daughter of the aforementioned lying, scamming, destitute woman. By framing the move from Moonee’s view, director Sean Baker allows the movie to be at one moment light-hearted and the next moment heartbreaking. Like The Wire this movie deserves to be taught in any sociology class alongside any textbook. It’s an insightful look at the way the other half lives that’s full of empathetic humanity without providing its characters forgiveness carte blanche. And as entertainment it’s riveting.

4 Baby Driver

I am confident that this movie will not be as good on a second pass, as it’s more of a roller coaster adrenaline rush than artful film, and once you know all the twists and turns the fun will surely be lessened. But that doesn’t stop the first ride through the life of a bank-robbing getaway driver with a heart from being a hell of a good time. Like Patrick Stewart’s snub for Logan, I am legitimately surprised that there was never ANY talk of best director in the cards for Edgar Wright - though it’s probably a little more accurate to call him a choreographer than director as Baby Driver is, for all intents and purposes, an extended music video. Like Wright’s previous work in the Cornetto trilogy, the soundtrack is an eclectic mix of deep tracks from the mainly 60s/70s, but here the music does more than provide a backdrop to the action; it reflects and informs the action. Car chases are coordinated so that the best parts match musical crescendos. Take for example the foot chase towards to the end of the film set perfectly to Hocus Pocus’s “Focus.” The song alternates between a rocking guitar riff and a yodeling breakdown, and Wright appropriately sets the Chase parts to the guitar part and parts where Baby has to hide to the yodel. But calling it a music video perhaps robs the movie of the fact that it created an interesting cast of characters. Yes, it stars Kevin Spacey… but he’s creepy in this movie so at least art reflects life. But more of interest are Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm as two of Baby’s slightly unhinged compatriots in bank robbing. Ansel Elgort in the title role carries enough charm and heart to capture audiences, and Lily James as the Southern beauty with the heart of gold is just grungy enough to be the perfect match for Baby’s criminal nature. Few movies have ever been this fun to watch with incredibly coordinated car chases, and the plot carries enough twists and turns to keep audiences on their toes.

3 Columbus

This movie is one of those movies where I can’t really put into words why I liked it. The most obvious reason is the movie’s scenery. Set entirely in the small town of Columbus, IN, a real town renowned across the world for its collection of buildings made in the modernist style. The town is shot beautifully and even if the movie weren’t good otherwise, it’d be worth a glance for the pictures. However, the plot is good. It’s a two-for-one with two of my favorite themes. One plot deals with the coming of age of a teenaged girl who’s too smart to get stuck in a dead end town. The other deals with a son comings to terms with his troubled relationship with his father. As I said, the movie is slow and I won’t claim to fully believe that in real life a relationship would have formed between the two main characters - it’s a little forced. But the emotions of the movie are undeniably real and it never feels like melodrama. This is one of the few movies where upon watching I immediately wanted to watch it again.

2 Good Time

Unlike Columbus, I was happy when Good Time ended and did not want to watch it again. It’s not because it’s a bad movie - far from it. But it paints such an ugly, depressing, and frankly terrifyingly real view of humanity that you’re happy when it’s finally over. This is film at its most linear (aside from one notable flashback that ranks among the best flashbacks of all time) and that’s not a complaint. The film’s runs quickly from start to finish like a bullet. The story is one of survival, as Robert Pattinson’s Nicky tries to free his accomplice and brother from custody while avoiding the cops himself following a botched bank robbery. This is not a light hearted bank heist movie like the Oceans movies, Baby Driver, or the like. While Nicky’s attempts to evade detection are certainly clever, as the movie continues you find you aren’t rooting for the protagonist - I wasn’t at least. The movie plays with the idea that the cat & mouse trope so popular in literature is far from fun in real life. It’s a hell of an adrenaline rush, Robert Pattinson gives - i think - one of the best performances of the year, and the plot is damn near perfect - not a second is wasted.

1 Lady Bird

The amount a movie makes me cry sits in direct proportion to how much i enjoyed the film (Interstellar being the big exception). At the end of Lady Bird I was awash in tears. The movie depicts with such a razor-sharp accuracy just how hard being in a family can be. Just how contradictory it can be. How is it that you can hate what your mother does, says, and stands for, and still love her? How is it that you can be so relieved to send your daughter off to college and out of your hair but also cry the entire way home? The taut relationship between Lady Bird and her mother (played extraordinarily by Saorsie Ronan and Laurie Metcalf) is without a doubt the cornerstone upon which Greta Gerwig built her semi-autobiographical story. And in a world filled with nuanced stories of miscommunication between fathers and sons, it was so incredibly refreshing to see the mother-daughter relationship explored with the same respect. The key? Neither character is flawless. Yes Lady Bird is our protagonist, but she’s just a teen. The movie can not help but remind us that for all of her confidence and sophistication there’s just so much to this world she doesn’t understand. We see her engage in doomed sexual relationships, get into petty spats with her best friend, and generally just act immaturely. And her mother is no saint either. Yes, she undoubtedly makes great sacrifices for her daughter and her whole family. She is patient and loving with her husband who suffers from depression and struggles to find work. But she also has no interest in learning about her daughter - her thoughts, her feelings. She embodies the mantra “cruel to be kind” yet it’s sometimes hard to see when the kindness kicks in. The movie is honest, it’s funny, and at times heartbreaking. It’s the best movie I’ve seen since Boyhood in terms of showing what life in America is really like, and it’s a gem of a movie deserved to be seen by all.

#Oscars #bestof2017 #Movies #Lady Bird

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entrepreneursbloguk · 5 years

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New Post has been published on Entrepreneurs Blog

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Entrepreneur Quotes (99 Inspirational Quotes)

Being an entrepreneur is a journey, it can be challenging, frustrating, rewarding, disappointing and exhilarating. Here are 99 inspirational quotes for entrepreneurs. These inspirational quotes that will help you keep motivated along your entrepreneurial journey.

1. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.–Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple

2. “Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” –Confucius, Philosopher

3. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” –Albert Einstein, Physicist

4. “Stay self-funded as long as possible.” –Garrett Camp, Co-Founder of Uber

5. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” –Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

6. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” –Michelangelo, Artist

7. “Business opportunities are like buses: there’s always another one coming.” –Richard Branson, Chairman and Founder of Virgin Group

8. “Done is better than perfect.” –Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

9. “Any time is a good time to start a company.” -Ron Conway, noted Startup Investor, SV Angel

10. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” –Tony Robbins, Motivational Speaker

11. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” –Socrates, Greek Philosopher

12. “If you want to build a successful business, make sure you have three things—a big market opportunity, great people, and more than enough capital.” -Richard Harroch, Venture Capitalist, Author, and Entrepreneur

13. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” -Vince Lombardi, Famed Football Coach

14. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”-Mark Twain, Writer

15. “Everyone has an idea, but it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you with the idea.” –Jack Dorsey, Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Twitter

16. “It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business. And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.” -Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” Judge

17. “Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.” –Seth Godin, Author

18. “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’” -Dave Barry, Humorist

19. “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.” -Ted Turner, Entrepreneur and Businessman

20. “The price of inaction is far greater than then cost of a mistake.” -Meg Whitman, CEO of HP

21. “If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.” -Claire Cook, Author

23. “If you had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” -Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company

24. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” –Thomas Edison, Inventor

25. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” –Muhammad Ali, Boxing Champion

26. “Never tell your problems to anyone … 20 percent don’t care and the other 80 percent are glad you have them.” -Lou Holtz, Football Coach

27. “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life.” -Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker

28. “There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.” –Michael Dell, Founder of Dell Computer

29. “100 percent of the shots you don’t take, don’t go in.” -Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Legend

30. “Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.” -Dale Carnegie, Author and Motivational Speaker

31. “Make your team feel respected, empowered, and genuinely excited about the company’s mission.” -Tim Westergen, Founder of Pandora

32. “Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.” -Seth Godin, Author

33. “You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.” -Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

34. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” -George S. Patton, U.S. General

35. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” -Albert Einstein, Physicist

36. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

37. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” -John Maxwell, Motivational Speaker and Author

38. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” -Andrew Carnegie, Industrialist and Philanthropist

39. “Screw it, let’s do it.” -Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group

40. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” -Aristotle, Greek Philosopher and Scientist

41. “If you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” -Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

42. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein, Physicist

43. “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” -Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker

44. “Goals aren’t enough. You need goals plus deadlines: goals big enough to get excited about and deadline to make you run. One isn’t much good without the other, but together they can be tremendous.” -Ben Feldman, Actor

45.“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States

46. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” -Jerry Rice, Legendary Wide Receiver for the San Francisco 49ers

47. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” –Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon

48. “If you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” –Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook

49. “If you’ve got an idea, start today. There’s no better time than now to get going. That doesn’t mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100 percent from day one, but there’s always small progress that can be made to start the movement.” -Kevin Systrom, Founder of Instagram

50. “Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.” -Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker

51. “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” –Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart

52. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” –Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder

53. “Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.” -Albert Einstein, Physicist

54. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou, Author and Poet

55. “Whatever you do, be different—that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” –Anita Roddick, Founder of The Body Shop

56. “Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” -Billie Burke, Actress

57. “Simplicity is the key to brilliance.” –Bruce Lee, Martial Arts Expert

58. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars; I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” –Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

59. “The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” –Oprah Winfrey, Entertainer and Entrepreneur

60. “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” -Steve Martin, Comedian and Actor

61. “Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.” -Conan O’Brien, Talk Show Host

“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there.” –Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple

63. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” -Donald Porter, British Airways

64. “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” -Samuel Johnson, Writer and Editor

65. “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” -Jack Welch, Former CEO of GE

66. “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.” -Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple

67. “Social media is here. It’s not going away; not a passing fad. Be where your customers are: in social media.” -Lori Ruff, Chief Brand Evangelist

68. “People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want. They don’t do business with you to help you get what you want.” -Don Crowther, Social Media Expert

69. “Always deliver more than expected.” –Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google

70. “You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn’t going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You’re going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They’re not going to buy it unless they know about it.” -Herb Kelleher, Founder of Southwest Airlines

71. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” -Mark Twain, Author

72. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” –Brian Tracy, Entrepreneur and Author

73. “Do an evening review at the end of the day to reflect on what went well, and what you’d do differently next time.” -Marilyn Suttle, Author

74. “Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you sleep at night.” -Marian Wright Edelman, Activist

75. “You must take the time to do something that brings you joy. If you are saying to yourself, ‘I can’t do that because I have to pick up the kids, and run my business, and … and … who’s got time for fun? Are you insane?’ If you don’t have time for fun, you’ll be forced to take time for illness. Then what?” -Beth Ramsay, Author

76. “In business, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.” -Anonymous

77. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” -Colin Powell, U.S. General

78. “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” -Nolan Bushnell, Entrepreneur

79. “You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big, and live big.” -Andrew Carnegie, Industrialist and Philanthropist

80. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda, Star Wars

81. “Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” -Woody Allen, Actor and Director

82. “Business is like poker. You have to be able to read people. You have to understand the odds of a particular endeavor. You need to make calculated bets. And you have to get lucky.” -Richard Harroch, Venture Capitalist and Co-Author of Poker for Dummies

83. “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” -Charles R. Swindoll, Author

84. “What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.” -Simon Sinek, Author

85. “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.” -Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

86. “Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.” -Lee Iacocca, Former CEO of Chrysler

88. “Don’t wait for perfection. Life isn’t perfect. Do the best you can and ship. Real people ship, and then they test and then they ship again. Then you wake up one day and you have something insanely great.” –Guy Kawasaki, Entrepreneur

87. “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President

89. “Success … is no longer a simple ascension of steps. You need to climb sideways and sometimes down, and sometimes you need to swing from the jungle gym and establish your own turf somewhere else on the playground.” -Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn

90. “Be nice to geeks; you’ll probably end up working for one.” –Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft

91. “To have a great idea, have a lot of them.” -Thomas Edison, Inventor

92. “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” -Napoleon Bonaparte, Military Leader

93. “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” -Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple

94. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” -Albert Einstein, Physicist

95. “Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.” -Jim Rohn, Entrepreneur, Author, and Motivational Speaker

96. “Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are asking, what’s in it for me?” -Brian Tracy, Entrepreneur and Author

97. “When you’re first thinking through an idea, it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do.” -Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group

98. “Behind every adversity is an opportunity. If you lament over the adversity, you will miss the opportunity.” -Ajaero Tony Martins, Entrepreneur and Investor

99. “What business should you start today? One that you are passionate about, has a big market opportunity, can be up and running quickly, and that doesn’t require a lot of initial capital. Think Internet, apps, e-commerce, and mobile.” -Richard Harroch, Venture Capitalist, Author, and Entrepreneur

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andrewromanoyahoo · 7 years

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Behind Flake’s decision to bow out of Senate, a disillusioning, disheartening year

yahoo

On Tuesday afternoon, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, the most consistent Republican critic of President Donald Trump, stunned the political world by taking the floor of the U.S. Senate to declare that he will not run for reelection in 2018 — in part as a protest against what he called the president’s “reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior,” and in part because his feud with Trump left him facing a “narrower and narrower path to the nomination.”

Trump “is dangerous to a democracy,” Flake said. “When the next generation asks us, ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up?’ — what are we going to say? Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough.”

The decision was shocking —an act of intraparty mutiny without recent precedent in our painfully polarized political environment.

But it was also a long time coming.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., speaks with reporters after a vote in the Capitol in July . (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

For more than a year, Flake has repeatedly spoken out against Trump, refusing to vote for him in last November’s election and then, after Trump took office, admonishing his party’s new president on topics ranging from trade policy to the tone of his tweets.

Flake even spent several months secretly writing (and several more very publicly promoting) a book, “Conscience of a Conservative,” which compares Trump’s campaign to a “late-night infomercial” that was “free of significant thought,” then goes on to explain in pained, I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-do-this detail why almost none of what Trump stands for — banning Muslims, building a border wall — actually qualifies, in Flake’s view, as conservative.

Trump, for his part, took to calling Flake “toxic” and threatening to spend $10 million to bury him in a primary.

But while the Beltway media tends to frame Flake’s feud with Trump as a personality clash, the truth goes deeper.

What were the forces and factors paved the way for Flake’s real-life Bulworth moment? I recently went to Arizona to find out.

***

In August, President Trump flew to Phoenix to rally thousands of his supporters.

The state’s junior senator was not among them.

Early that morning, Flake, 54, left his home in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, and traveled 120 miles south, to Tucson.

Technically, Flake’s road trip didn’t have anything to do with Trump. But the symbolism was striking. At first Flake’s press secretary told me the senator would not be participating in any public events while the president was in Arizona. The night before Trump arrived, however, she forwarded an invite to a small ceremony at the Pima County sheriff’s department. I wound up being the only national reporter in attendance.

At the event, police officers presented Flake with two awards commending him for the courage he displayed on June 14, when James Hodgkinson, an apparently deranged left-wing radical activist, opened fire on a team of Republicans practicing for the annual congressional baseball game.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. walks toward media gathered at the scene of a shooting at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va. on June 14, 2017, during a Congressional baseball practice where House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of La. was shot. (Photo: Kevin S. Vineys/AP)

“Without regard for his safety, Sen. Flake went to the assistance of wounded colleagues, potentially exposing himself to further danger during a dynamic and still unfolding situation,” said Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier. “His selfless actions and decisiveness likely saved lives.”

An emotional Flake insisted he wasn’t “deserving” of an award “at all, frankly.” But he did want to say a few words.

“I just remember thinking as the shots first rang out, seeing the bullets pitch off the gravel near the dugout: ‘Why? Why here? Why us? Who could look at a field of middle-aged members of Congress playing baseball and see the enemy?’” Flake told the assembled cops. “We have to stop ascribing the worst motives to our political opponents. It’s the language we use, the rhetoric we use. Obviously I’m a fierce partisan at times, when you argue on policy. But it ought to end there. Fellow Americans aren’t our enemies.”

If Flake’s cri de coeur was meant as a message to Trump, it didn’t get through. Before his big speech that night at the Phoenix Convention Center, the president was seen huddling with Arizona state Treasurer Jeff DeWit and former state GOP Chairman Robert Graham, both of whom are considering Senate runs in 2018.

Later, on stage, Trump couldn’t resist lashing out — first at Flake’s Arizona Senate colleague, John McCain, who is battling brain cancer, and then at Flake himself (without mentioning him by name).

“Nobody wants me to talk about your other senator, who’s weak on borders, weak on crime, so I won’t talk about him,” Trump said. “Nobody knows who the hell he is.”

President Donald Trump speaks at a “Make America Great Again” rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on August 22, 2017. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

***

It’s true (as I’ve noted before) that Flake and Trump are by background and temperament very much opposites. Trump is an Easterner, born and bred in Queens, N.Y., the son of a wealthy real-estate developer; Flake is a fifth-generation Arizonan who grew up on a cattle ranch in a small town founded by his ancestors (Snowflake, Ariz., pop. 5,576). Trump can’t ever recall asking God for forgiveness; Flake, an alumnus of Brigham Young University and a former missionary to South Africa, is as Mormon as they come. Trump is reflexively coarse and bombastic; Flake, with his formal posture, G-rated vocabulary and stern but kindly tone, can seem less like a 21st century Washington pol than a moralizing television dad from 1956.

Yet there’s more at stake here than style.

Over the last six decades, the story of the Republican Party has been the story of movement conservatism. Free-market economists such as Friedrich Hayek inspired William F. Buckley to start National Review; National Review fueled the rise of Flake’s hero and predecessor, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ripped the 1964 GOP presidential nomination away from the Eastern establishment (and wrote the original “Conscience of a Conservative”); Goldwater paved the way for Ronald Reagan, who was twice elected governor of California and president of the United States; Reagan begat generations of conservative Republicans who rallied around his gospel of limited government, muscular internationalism and Christian moralism, transforming the GOP in the process.

Among today’s Republicans, Flake is perhaps the purest distillation of this tradition: a former executive director of Arizona’s free-market, small-government Goldwater Institute who has spent five terms in the House and one term in the Senate fighting for earmark bans, spending cuts, entitlement reform, free-trade deals and the spread of democracy abroad (particularly in Cuba). His lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 93 percent.

Trump, in contrast, won the 2016 election by rejecting each of the three main tenets of movement conservatism. He trashed free-trade agreements and promised to preserve entitlements. He bad-mouthed NATO and vowed to disengage abroad. And he bragged about grabbing married women by the genitals.

“Of all the illusions Trump has dispelled … none is more significant than the illusion of the conservative movement,” wrote political science professor Samuel Goldman last year. “In state after state, voters indicated that they did not care much about conservative orthodoxy on the economy, foreign policy, or what used to be called family values.”

U.S. Republican Congressmen, Jeff Flake (L) and Mike Conaway (C) walk through Old Havana, December 17, 2006. Flake is leading a delegation of 10 Republican and Democratic representatives for a three-day visit to Cuba. (Photo: Reuters)

Flake’s 2018 reelection campaign was set to be the first real test of whether Trumpism could spread beyond Trump and take over the GOP. Flake, who was widely considered one of the two most vulnerable Republican senators in the country, had made it clearer than any other GOP incumbent that he opposed this path. As a result, the senator had already attracted one pro-Trump primary challenger in former state Sen. Kelli Ward, and early polls (all of them from small right-wing firms) showed Ward ahead by double-digit margins.

In Tuesday’s speech on the Senate floor, Flake predicted that the “spell” of Trumpism “will eventually break” and that his brand of movement conservatism will someday triumph.

“For the moment [Republicans] have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment,” Flake sighed. But “we will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better.”

But that outcome is far from certain — and Flake’s dramatic decision to step aside is a sign that so far, Trump has the upper hand.

If the president turns out to be a party of one — a celebrity-in-chief with no ideological coattails — then Flake and his fellow movement conservatives could recover. But if Goldman is right — if Trump has shown that rank-and-file Republicans care more about putting “America First” than, say, reforming Medicare — then movement conservatism itself could be a thing of the past.

After the awards ceremony in Tucson, I caught up with Flake in a hallway. He was rushing to his next appointment, but I was able to ask a couple of questions before he disappeared behind a closed door.

Given Trump’s success and support within the GOP, do you worry that the moment for movement conservatism is over? I wondered. Have Republican voters moved on?

Flake grimaced. “That’s my concern,” he said. “My fear is that this kind of populist, nationalist, antitrade movement is not a governing philosophy.” Another grimace. “I’m worried that it could take over.”

***

Spend a few days in Arizona with the GOP base, and you can see why Flake was right to worry.

By the time Arizona Republicans select their Senate nominee next August, Kelli Ward may no longer have the field all to herself. The White House has tried to persuade a more prominent Republican, such as Graham or DeWit, to enter the race, and even former sheriff of Maricopa County Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigrant hardliner who recently received Trump’s first presidential pardon, is claiming that he’s mulling a bid.

“I’m sure getting a lot of people around the state asking me,” Arpaio told the Washington Examiner earlier this year. “All I’m saying is the door is open and we’ll see what happens. I’ve got support. I know what support I have.”

Right-wing Flake challenger Kelli Ward poses with a supporter outside President Donald Trump’s Aug. 22 rally in Phoenix. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

But for now, Ward, a 48-year-old osteopathic doctor, is the only game in town.

As Flake was leaving the Phoenix area for Tucson, Ward, who lives in Lake Havasu City, made a beeline for the site of Trump’s rally. A dozen volunteers assembled in the lobby of the nearby Renaissance hotel, where an organizer passed out a bunch of T-shirts in Ward’s signature bright yellow. The logo on the front was an Arizona license plate with the words “TRUMP 2016” on one side and “WARD 2018” on the other; the back of the shirt said #MAKEARIZONAGREATAGAIN.

“They’re brand-new,” one volunteer boasted.

Outside, a line of eager Trump fans had already encircled an entire city block, even though the rally was still five hours away and the temperature was 106°F. Ward’s street team set up a folding table at the corner of Second and Washington and went to work. Goal No. 1: gathering the 12,000 or so signatures needed to get Ward on the primary ballot. Goal No. 2: convincing as many Trump voters as possible to wear yellow “Ward 2018” stickers.

“Any Kelli Ward supporters here?” shouted volunteer Susan McAlpine, a 64-year-old retired teacher with dangly earrings and a thick Boston accent. No response.

“Any Jeff Flake fans here?” she added.

“F*** Jeff Flake,” one man immediately snapped.

“Flake the Flake!” another chimed in.

“Might as well be a Democrat,” a third muttered.

McAlpine pulled me aside. “As soon as they hear the name Flake, they’re all like ‘WHAT?!?!’” she said.

By the time Ward herself materialized on the corner and began to shake hands and smile for selfies in (what else?) a bright yellow blazer, McAlpine & Co. had canvassed the entire block. More than half the attendees now seemed to be sporting WARD 2018 decals. Nearby, consultant Brent Lowder smiled approvingly.

Lowder’s presence in Phoenix is one of several early signs of how much has changed since Ward’s last campaign. In 2016, she attempted to unseat McCain and wound up losing the GOP primary by more than 11 percentage points. Ward made several rookie mistakes that year, plagiarizing a Mitt Romney ad, mocking McCain as “old” and “weak” and failing to fully dispel the opposition’s “Chemtrail Kelli” caricature (which gained traction after Ward hosted a town hall meeting in 2015 to discuss the conspiracy theory — a theory she says she doesn’t believe — that the trails of white condensation emanating from airplane engines are actually dangerous chemicals being dispersed by the government).

But the biggest difference between then and now is that back then, Trump seemed likely to lose the election. Now he’s leader of the free world.

The rise of Trumpism has, in turn, boosted Ward. On Aug. 9, the reclusive hedge fund billionaire and top Trump donor Robert Mercer sent $300,000 to Ward’s super-PAC. Two days later, Lowder and his partner, Eric Beach, signed on to run Ward’s campaign; they previously led the largest pro-Trump super-PAC in the country, raising $30 million during the 2016 election cycle. And on Aug. 17, Trump himself tweeted about Ward, stopping just short of formally endorsing her.

“Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate,” the president wrote. “He’s toxic!”

Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He’s toxic!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

The morning after Trump’s rally in Phoenix, Ward still sounded delighted — and surprised — by all the national attention.

“Our momentum has been YUGE!” Ward told a crowd of 100 local Republicans sipping coffee and nibbling cookies in the Navajo Room of Arizona’s Sun Lakes Country Club. “It’s been ‘big league!’ The media coverage alone — there were 3,000 hits about that tweet!”

Pacing back and forth between two life-size cardboard cutouts of Trump, Ward rattled off all the things she agreed with the president about: building the border wall, halting Muslim immigration, repealing Obamacare, ending sanctuary cities.

“Our race is going to be ground zero for the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” Ward said. “Do we want to be what we’ve had for decade after decade — the same thing that has gotten us into this position where we can’t get anything done? Or do we want to be the party of freedom and hope and opportunity? That’s what Donald Trump has offered us as president — and that’s what we have to continue in 2018. This is the new GOP.”

Suddenly, Ward’s phone rang. She raised her hand and shushed the crowd; the room went silent. It was Sean Hannity’s producer. Unable to resist a last-minute interview request — and the publicity it promised — Ward decided to take the call in the middle of her appearance.

For a few minutes, Ward just listened. Then she smiled. “Thank you!” she said. Ward covered the phone and turned to the crowd. “Sean Hannity just endorsed me!” she whispered. “Yay!”

After the event, I talked to Joyce Sample, a retiree from Chandler, about why she wasn’t supporting Flake.

Ward receives Sean Hannity’s endorsement in the middle of a campaign stop at the Sun Lakes Country Club in Sun Lakes, Ariz. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

“Trump is now his president,” Sample said. “As a Republican, it’s Flake’s duty to go along with him. He is not doing it. That’s why I don’t like Flake. He’s not being supportive.”

As the room emptied out and Ward posed for a final photo with cardboard Trump, I asked her to explain how “the new GOP” differs from the old GOP.

“Jeff Flake is a globalist,” she said. “He’s not about making sure the United States has as good a deal as everybody else. But the new GOP is about Americanism. That’s what Donald Trump is pushing the Republican Party toward — and that’s what’s at stake in this primary.”

But Flake would say Americanism is not conservatism at all, I suggested. In fact, that’s what his entire book is about.

“You mean his hit piece on the president?” Ward snapped. “It’s all very condescending. He’s basically tapping all of us on the head who are conservative and saying, ‘You don’t really know what conservatism is.’

“Things do change over time,” Ward continued. “Things work or they don’t work. You can’t be stagnant. You have to look at the direction you want to go and see if the path you’re taking is getting you there. And if it isn’t, you have to take a turn.”

***

A few days earlier, before the Trump tornado touched down in Arizona, Flake attended a breakfast hosted by the East Valley Chambers of Commerce, 20 miles southeast of Phoenix. The theme: “Good Government.”

The senator was in his element. Men in suits and women in heels tapped at their smartphones. A large screen hovering overhead listed nine corporate and institutional sponsors. Attendees held crisp copies of “Conscience of a Conservative,” which Flake happily signed as he made his way to the stage.

“Arizona tends to elect senators who stand on principle and are independent in their thinking,” said the executive tasked with introducing Flake. “Certainly, Sen. Flake is that.”

Sen. Jeff Flake signs a copy of his book Conscience of a Conservative at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Gilbert, Ariz. (Photo: Andrew Romano/yahoo News)

In his remarks, and in his responses to questions, Flake sounded like the same senator I profiled in 2015. He extolled the virtues of NAFTA, arguing that it “has been good for Arizona.” He described Trump’s “rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership” as “a big mistake that will haunt us for a long time.” He called for a grand, bipartisan bargain on the deficit, saying that the only way to produce a “sustainable” budget is to “work across the aisle.” He insisted that “when people talk about one solution on the border, they haven’t traveled the border” — and proudly reminded the audience that he was one of the main architects of the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013. On North Korea, he warned that “our allies need to know we are steady and predictable — in my mind, that’s what a conservative is.” As for foreign policy in general, “we need to lead, as we have in the past.”

“This vitriol we have, it’s preventing us from achieving conservative ends,” Flake concluded. “We’ve got to get away from calling our opponents ‘losers’ or ‘clowns.’ It just makes it difficult to work with them on big issues.”

Listening to Flake, it was hard to believe that recent polls have shown him with an approval rating as low as 18 percent. Perhaps that’s what happens when you refuse, in such a polarized era, to pander to your party’s base — and actively antagonize the president they adore.

Flake meets the press after his Chamber of Commerce event in gilbert, Ariz. (Photo: andrew Romano /Yahoo News)

You become a man without a country.

As we got to the end of that hall in the Pima County sheriff’s office, I asked Flake one last question: Has your reelection contest become a referendum on conservatism itself?

Flake chuckled nervously. “Whether it is or not, I am who I am,” he said. “This is what I think traditional conservatism is. And I do think people will rally around it — given the alternative.”

Flake can be very convincing. But this time, it didn’t sound like he was trying to convince me. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

On Tuesday, he finally revealed that he had failed.

_____