Ryo Fukui MY FAVOURITE TUNE (1995)

Great jazz often sounds Christmas-y to me, the spirit of joyful serendipity, solitude and laughter, bon temps and good cheer.

LANDLINE dir. Gillian Robespierre (2017)

Jenny Slate is in I'd-watch-anything-with-her territory and John Turturro is some kind of king.

LADY BIRD dir. Greta Gerwig (2017)

Just about as good a bildungsroman as you're going to see.  A Wonder Year.  Perfectly captures the mood the few years after 9/11, small city life in its sun-dappled perfections, family life as the cause of and cure to houndstooth-sized trauma and psychoses.  Cast is roundly terrific and direction by Ms. Gerwig is astonishing. Her writing, the cinematography of Sam Levy and editing of Nick Houy make this a swift, joyful, wise and very funny film that reflects perfectly that transformative year. Stephanie once got to open the castle gate that legend says Richard Lionheart entered immediately preceding death for water from a well.  It looked heavy but swung as smooth as time.

PS
Between the triple use of Dave Matthews Band here and its repeated use on the last two seasons of COMMUNITY, for scenes of communal relief and joy, I've had to do a lot of soul-searching.  So much rejection of the band, on the part of me and presumably others, came from petty despising of their fans- mostly harmless, well-adjusted kids. It is not flattering to look back on.  The character of Kyle hit so close to home, though Lord I wish I had that hair back then.

GAME OF THRONES S7 (2017)

Bummer but they took a major step back.  They've been rushing more and more each season and it finally caught up with them.  Crossed a silliness line.  Also, the Euron Greyjoy pirate ambush scene was by far the worst thing the show has ever done, it looked like an outtake from 300, Good Lord I hated it so. Just felt like such a tremendous waste of momentum.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (2017)

Not sure I've ever seen a movie trying to be so many things to so many people.  Civil rights/underdog sports/period piece comedy/moody midcentury drama///

Buoyed by Steve Carrell, who makes enthusiasm look noble