I lost my Dad on January the 11th of this year. Derek Wain passed away following a bout of pneumonia in his care home aged 66. Had he lived a few months longer, I suspect in his weakened state he would have been likely to succumb to the covid-19 virus that has ravaged care homes up and down the country, especially in the UK epicentre of the virus (London), where my Dad lived. My Dad suffered from early-onset dementia as a result of alcohol abuse that plagued the majority of his adult life.

We had a complicated relationship that was not always identifiable as a father-son connection. My parents divorced when I was an infant and I would usually see my Dad two or three times a year for a week at a time or a long weekend. I would travel from Teesside and my Dad would travel from London, meeting somewhat in the middle at my grandparents’ house in Leeds. I can’t pretend I remember a great deal from our time together when I was younger beyond trips to the swimming pool and the cinema. My teenage experiences with my Dad are the first I can remember with clarity, and in retrospect the first warning signs of his addiction to alcohol. We would go out for food frequently, inevitably to a pub that had a menu and when we weren’t eating out, we usually spent time in snooker halls. Anywhere where my Dad could get a pint. I won’t pretend I don’t have fond memories of these times, because I loved (and still love) playing snooker and I loved just spending time with him even if the relationship never felt parental.

Over the better part of ten years since, I have been in a state of diluted resentment towards my Dad. Despite my misgivings about him, I resented that he wasn’t in my life more. I wanted the relationship that most people got with their Dad growing up. I appreciated that I had experienced a good upbringing that many people would envy, but all the same I resented what I had missed out on. My Dad was not someone who made longstanding connections and relationships with many people. You could argue he didn’t have any real friends. His personality traits made relationships difficult for him. My Dad was quick to snap out, easy to agitate and often savagely criticised or put down other people without fair cause. I should note that my Dad was rarely anything but genial to me personally, but I’ve seen enough of his interactions with others and heard enough stories from other people for that to be fair comment. So it wasn’t his friends or social life that kept him in London. Neither was it his work. At different times, I’ve known my Dad to be a carpenter, joiner, private members’ club concierge, bus driver and a delivery driver. Those are just the jobs I know about. Aside perhaps from his time as a concierge in a Mayfair private members club, a period in which he claims to have known the snooker legend Steve Davis and have beaten in a single frame shoot-out, his various jobs could have been found more or less anywhere else in the country. So perhaps you can see why I had resentment as to why he chose to live 250 miles away.

My Dad’s addiction to alcohol led first to a significant mental breakdown around 2007 in which he dropped almost entirely off radar for the better part of three years, living from what I can gather between various institutions and hostels. I will never get the full story regardless of how much I dig. His phone had been cut off, his flat repossessed by the bank and he had always been a Luddite when it came to technology, so was untraceable via the internet. I only know what I know thanks to his eventual social worker who got in contact with me following two years of failure on my part to find him. From what I understand, he disassociated for a time period and could barely remember who he was, hence the difficulty in finding him. The breakdown he experienced was probably the result of an untreated personality disorder that he was never officially diagnosed with, or at least this is the opinion of various social workers who have worked patiently with him, and an opinion I’m inclined to agree with. So perhaps my resentment has been unfair. Perhaps my Dad used alcohol as a coping mechanism for a problem he was not getting the right help for, for problems that until relatively recently were not taken seriously enough. As far as I know my Dad never sought help for his mental illness and I suspect this is probably true of many men of his generation. I can relate. There will possibly be people reading this who have known me very well for a long time who know little or next to nothing about my Dad. The fact that my Dad was not entirely at fault for his often selfish decisions and actions is honestly of little comfort. If anything, the revelation feels like an invalidation of my thoughts and feelings.

After a period of stabilisation, my Dad lived out his final years in a care home in London. Were it possible I could have cared for him personally or at least relocated him further North I would have, but I was advised against it on many occasions. His dementia left him with perfect recoil of the past, seemingly up to the point of his breakdown, but left no sponge to make new memories. Every time I visited him he would ask about how I was doing at university and I rarely had the heart to correct him that it had been over a decade since I’d been. This period was probably the longest time he’d been sober in 30 years.

So why am I writing about this on pop culture website? Don’t I have a personal blog or a diary? The answer is no to both, but bear with me, because the art of cinema provoked this article.

Shortly before the start of the Covid-19 lockdown I visited the cinema to see the latest Pixar offering Onward, starring the voice cast of Chris Pratt, Tom Holland and Julia-Louis Dreyfus among others. Any readers who also listen to the podcast will know that I gave it a good review, commenting that while it was perhaps not the finest film Pixar had ever made, it was well-directed, with good performances and hit the right emotional notes. This was a cop out. Onward had a huge emotional impact on me and might be one of the most intense cinematic experiences I have ever had.

The plot of Onward centres on two brothers who live in a world in which the inhabitants are all magical creatures such as elves or centaurs. Their world has been left devoid of much of its former magic thanks to technology. There are spoilers ahead, this is your warning. On the 16th birthday of the younger brother (voiced by Tom Holland), both brothers receive a magical staff from their long-deceased father with the magical power to bring him back for one day only. The older brother (voiced by Chris Pratt) experienced some time with their Dad before he passed away, while the younger brother experienced nearly none. Inevitably the brothers fuck the spell up and accidentally only bring back his lower half, leading to a quest to find another magical stone in time to bring back the rest of him before the spell wears off. The narrative for the most part is formulaic, with ups and downs and an inevitable huge fight between the brothers leaving their quest in apparent tatters. At this stage the younger brother begins to cross things off his list of things he wanted to do with his Dad that now could not happen. One by one he crosses items off before realising that he had experienced most of the very usual father-son experiences through his older brother. The brothers find the magical stone later in the film with minutes to spare, but a dragon attacks (the details as to why aren’t important). The younger brother makes the selfless decision to hold off the dragon with his new-found magical abilities so his older brother can finally say his goodbye to their Dad. For one of only a few occasions at the cinema I was in tears. I have never had a brother and my Dad did not die till I was 32, so my experiences don’t match up with the characters of Onward, putting aside the dragons and wizards, but the emotional core of the film resonated with me. I did not experience the normal experiences most sons experience with their actual father, but I was never without people to guide me and I did have a father-figure that I didn’t appreciate well enough at the time in my Step-Dad Mike.

Reading the plot of Onward or actually watching the film may not stir anything emotionally in you personally. I stand by the criticisms of the film being largely formulaic and often unoriginal. It doesn’t match up to the quality of Inside Out. Quoting Mark Kermode quoting Roger Ebert, films are like a machine for creating empathy. That empathy is often empathy towards a narrative you have nothing in common with personally, but perhaps peaks when even an element relates to your personal history. I experienced a release of resentment having watched the film. I didn’t forgive my Dad, because perhaps he wasn’t a well enough person to have been at fault, but I let my resentment towards him go and now I’m left with the better memories. Onward was a profound experience for me because I brought my own personal history to the cinema with me.

2017 was perhaps the year of the noble failure for cinema. Failure from a variety of perspectives. Blade Runner 2049 failed, from a commercial standpoint, to ‘wash its face’ – the brilliantly simple industry analogy for a films net gross covering both its budget and marketing. Get Out failed to preach to anyone but the choir, judging from the continuous attention received by the ‘alt-right’ in the race relations conversation. The Death of Stalin failed to receive a significant cinematic audience in the one nation that needed to see it most. Oh, and Moonlight, well Moonlight failed to even get a best picture award without a ludicrous gaffe. Yes, 2017 was the year of the noble failure for cinema. Great art is often neglected in its own time, be it from a commercial perspective, a critical one or simply an inability to instantly enter the zeitgeist. 2017 was the year of the noble failure for cinema, but it was also a year that I am convinced will be remembered with reverence.

Matt Reeves appeared to bring the curtain down on this most resistant of franchises with a third act as impressively poignant as it is bombastic. Caesar, the messianic leader of the apes, leads a desperate struggle for survival against human forces determined on their extinction. Andy Serkis, the granddaddy of mo-cap, brings life and a sense of humanity to his performance as Caesar. An artificial computer-generated skin may layer Serkis during this performance, but the dignity and pathos he manages to project deserve recognition. The Apes franchise has always had the whiff of B-movie absurdity, but Reeves (and originally Rupert Wyatt) have achieved a rare feat in blockbuster film-making by maintaining the original concept and instilling a new sense of gravity. I cannot help but think of Richard Donner convincing audiences in 1978 that a man could fly. Taking in over $1.6bn at the global box office for the combined series, the Apes franchise is continued proof that intelligent popcorn entertainment has a market. Serious monkey business (sorry, not sorry).

Jump scares are cheap, a lingering sense of dread is built to last. My favourite horror-cum-thriller of the year and a welcome reminder that tired genres can still surprise. Set during an unexplained outbreak of a deadly virus, It Comes at Night is a survivalist end-of-world thriller that will linger at the base of your neck follicles long after you’ve finished watching. Drenched in an unsettling and claggy atmosphere of dread, the narrative concentrates solely on two families with understandable trust issues, guessing and second-guessing motives in the name of survival. Joel Edgerton is on reliable form as the stoic and patriarchal head of one family, continuing a rich vein of form with his customary understatement. It Comes at Night is likely only to be a footnote on a crowded genre page, but it is a considerable achievement for debut director and writer Trey Edward Shults.

Christopher Nolan continues to genre-hop, with a typically unconventional take on the war movie. Obsessed once more with time and the manipulation of it, Dunkirk confronts the historical concept and gradual mythologizing of the British stiff upper lip. Nolan’s soldiers just want a way out. The fight is lost and the only victory can be taken from getting away with as many pieces of themselves as they can carry. Nolan is both respectful of the event that Britain built its spirit of resistance upon, but ruthless in inspecting the reality of being cattle trapped for the slaughter. Un-showy performances all round, with special mentions to Mark Rylance and Cillian Murphy are the backbone of creating a believable portrayal. While not Nolan’s finest work, Dunkirk adds to an already varied canon.

As much a Western as anything else, James Mangold surprised both the comic book industrial movie complex and the wider cinematic community with this raw and unflinching conclusion to the Wolverine series. The near future has not been kind to Logan (or Wolverine). Living in a disused set of industrial buildings just over the Mexican border, Logan has become bound to a life of continuous struggle as he cares for the rapidly-declining telepath of mass destruction Charles Xavier. To make matters worse, his own powers of healing that have created an aura of invincibility are waning. Logan hurts and can be hurt. Not so much on the nose, as a punch to the nose, Johnny Cash’s overplayed, but undeniably haunting cover of ‘Hurt’ has never been more appropriate for appropriation. What is often missing from even the best of superhero movies is a sense of stakes, a sense of genuine danger to our protagonist. Logan convinces the audience that all cards are upon the table from the opening scene. A bold entry into a genre in dire need of caustic creativity.

The only entry on my list I have not seen in a cinematic format is typically one of the finest to look upon. Released to a limit run in cinemas, Mudbound is a Netflix-original production that most will only have had the opportunity to see on the small screen. Set following World War Two, Mudbound follows the contrasting receptions that two war heroes receive upon return. Class and more significantly, race, define the narrative in this withering and poetic production. Mudbound tightrope walks the viewer between differing emotions. Rarely have I been moved to tears and riled to physical-sensation anger by scenes just minutes apart. Dee Rees grounds the film in the economic reality of land ownership, with scenes of status quo racism often as impactful as Klan activity. Special mention must go to Mary J. Blige and again to Joel Edgerton as what might be considered a palatable racist; a man without malice and without determinable prejudice, but lacking in moral backbone. Mudbound makes the oft-argued case that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Armando Iannucci made a welcome return to the big screen with this adaptation of the same-titled French graphic novel. Interspersing wry satire, pure abyss-black comedy and belly laughs, it’s difficult to remember the last time I was this enthralled by a cinematic comedy. Semi-historical, The Death of Stalin creatively recreates the power vacuum and subsequent struggle between Stalin’s underlings in the wake of his untimely death. Singling individual performances amongst such a wonderful ensemble seems unfair, but Simon Russell Beale is a rare performer on the big screen and his reptilian portrayal of Lavrentiy Beria, snarling and contemptuous, is something to behold. The Death of Stalin is, at time of writing at least, banned in Russia, branded ridiculously as propaganda by certain institutions of the state. Looking at the film as piece of art rather than as a commercial venture, this feels like a final satirical flourish that Iannucci could not have planned better.

This is probably the most controversial pick of my top ten, knowing that this film is forever associated with the alleged abusive behaviour of its star Casey Affleck. While the alleged behaviour is not said to have occurred during production of Manchester by the Sea, it haunts the legacy of what is otherwise an exceptional piece of filmmaking, and it has to be said, a towering performance from Casey Affleck. Lee Chandler is our solitary and ravaged protagonist, living in isolation away from his hometown of Manchester following an awful incident that leaves him unable to cope. The death of his brother Joe means Lee becomes the legal guardian of Joe’s teenage son Patrick, forcing Lee to remain in Manchester. Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea is a study of grief and guilt, shot compassionately and with real nerve. This isn’t a world where redemption can be found easily. Manchester by the Sea is brave enough to ask the audience to consider if there are some things in life you just can’t recover from. Irrespective of his alleged abuse, Casey Affleck fully embodies his character in a performance that I have rarely seen the likes of. Bleak and honest, but with traces of real beauty, Manchester by the Sea is an essential watch.

The majority of films on this list can be categorised with relative ease, but Get Out could sit comfortably within three genres. Part horror, part black comedy (pun honestly not intended, but it’s staying) and part thriller, Get Out was arguably the best surprise of 2017. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, an actor of real magnetic presence, we join Chris as he visits his white girlfriend’s wealthy family in the country. A pleasant time is had by all. The end. Hah. Get Out satirises the worst of wealthy white America, scything away at the façade of pleasantries that mask the reality of current race relations with wit and unpredictability. Never letting the audience sit comfortably, Get Out achieves a genuine disquiet that left me often out of sorts with my own emotional reactions to events on screen. This power to leave an audience suspended between mirth and unease is the real strength of the film. Without going into detail, for risk of spoilers, I wonder whether Get Out would have been even stronger with the ending flipped. Jordan Peele addressed the subject and said he couldn’t bear to end the film on the note in question. Despite the worldview on show, the film never relents to hopelessness and this feels like the right decision. Described by a fellow Stick Around reviewer as world-view altering, my only fear is that the people who need to see and correctly interpret Get Out the most, will either never see it or miss the point entirely.

An entirely worthy winner of the Best Picture award at the 2017 Oscars, in spite of the farcical nature of the ceremony and the fall-out that enveloped proceedings (sorry, not sorry). Moonlight is a special achievement that circumvented the trepidation I had before viewing. Beautifully shot by cinematographer James Laxton and meticulously orchestrated by director Barry Jenkins, we follow the coming-of-age of Chiron through three different stages of his life. Despite its weighty subject matter, dealing with race, LGBT issues and poverty, Moonlight is immensely watchable from start to finish with hyper-real performances in contrast with artistic direction. I was drawn into the narrative and I was reminded of Boyhood, a film I narrowly prefer, as we journey through the stages of what felt like a very real life. Barry Jenkins is clearly a superlative talent, capable of building a reality the audience is dropped right into, without need of exposition. I am not qualified or educated enough to discuss the reality of LBGT life in the African-American community, but it struck me that Moonlight approached the subject with a confidence and grace that could only have been achieved by an African-American LGBT director and an entirely African-American cast. This isn’t to say that an outsider couldn’t have achieved similar results, but Moonlight has a really authentic feel.

It gives me immense pleasure just not be disappointed by Blade Runner 2049. A sequel 35 years after an original, and an original that was never crying out for a follow up. When initially announced, the news of a Blade Runner sequel was met with fear as much as anything else. The original Blade Runner was a one of a kind science fiction film with great levity and intellectual class, never imagined as the first of a franchise. Blade Runner 2049 did not need to be made and nor was the news that it would be made met with welcoming arms by just about anyone, especially yours truly. Thank fuck it was. Blade Runner 2049 is a titanic, staggering achievement, taking the best elements of the original film and grafting on new ideas. Denis Villeneuve, director of recent sci-fi success Arrival, wasn’t an obvious choice, despite the quality of his work, but here he excels balancing raw entertainment with weighty concepts. Told with breath-taking scope visually and immense sound design, Blade Runner 2049 is a feast for the senses, with Roger Deakins surely a shoe-in for best cinematography at the Oscars. 14th time’s the charm, eh? Ryan Gosling is back to his stoic best as blade runner K, a replicant designed to hunt his own people. K's counterpart Luv, played with icy indifference by Sylvia Hoeks, forms the backbone of the film alongside him. What most makes Blade Runner 2049 such a success is the decision creatively, I assume consciously, to be a sequel and an original creative property simultaneously. It wasn’t welcome and it wasn’t needed, but Blade Runner 2049 is an instant classic, superb in just about every facet.