Happy July everyone!  Box office returns are up 9% compared to last year (15% if you just look at April – June) and this is mostly thanks to back to back Disney juggernauts (Avengers, Black Panther, Incredibles 2, Han Solo).  So theater owners are raking in the dough at the moment but I would say actual movie quality is slightly down thus far.  More than ever, the most interesting movies are avoiding Disney release dates like I avoid leg day.  It’s hard to wait out competing with Avengers in April if Han Solo and Incredibles 2 are slated in the consecutive months following it, not too mention Black Panther owning most of February and March.

Is this the right strategy?  I’m skeptical.  People that are down to go see a movie like Lady Bird are going to see it whether superheroes are flying around in the next room or not. Sure there’s some overlap in the two audiences, but if anything there’s way more overlap with Lady Bird and other December releases like Call Me By Your Name than there is with summer blockbusters. Why wouldn’t an indie awards contender want to go head to head with Disney and own the summer amongst the “elites”?  It’d be like if a Michelin star restaurant was afraid to set up shop next to McDonalds.  It’s two very different products.

So anyways, I’ve been a little bored with the 2018 slate thus far. Here are some nits to pick for a few titles I haven’t had the time to write about:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – Strike one was using the same music in the trailer that freakin’ Moonlight used.  I mean….. come onnnnnn.

Strike two was having the second and third acts take place pretty much exclusively indoors.  Such an unforced error.   I’m not gonna give it a Strike 3 because the two action sequences in the first act are admittedly quite great.

Deadpool 2 – Confession, there’s a chance this movie is better than its grade. I accidentally went to the open caption screening (subtitles) and it was very distracting being able to read every joke before it was said.

Thoroughbreds & Unsane – Unique, interesting movies with mostly unsatisfying endings.

Hereditary – Much more unsettling than scary.  High quality filmmaking but not a fun watch.

Isle of Dogs – Fell WAYYY short of my Fantastic Mr. Fox expectations.

Borg vs McEnroe – This would have been good if it was just a McEnroe movie.  Shia Labeouf was born to play that hothead, but he’s a supporting character at most in this.

It’s not all negative though, here are some positives that I haven’t had the chance to write about:

Game Night – The best full-fledged comedy since 2016’s Popstar.

Solo – You know what, Alden Ehrenreich’s Harrison Ford impression is pretttty pretttttty good!  Unfamiliar?  He was the MVP of the Coen Bros. Hail Caesar.

Isle of Dogs: While not as good as Wes Anderson’s last stop motion feature, this is still a very cute movie and looks fantastic.  This clip sums it up.  Good boy!

Set it Up – A charmingly corny, throwback rom-com made by Netflix.  If you’re sick of the daily news cycle, this is a light and well deserved break from our sky is falling reality.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado – LOL, this is not a break from our sky is falling reality.  Needless to say the sequel to 2015’s brilliant Sicario is oh so unapologetically not PC, a perfect R Rated action thriller, and the best movie of the year so far.

Q3 Most Anticipated:

1. The Predator
2. Mission Impossible: Fallout
3. BlacKkKlansman
4. Sorry to Bother You
5. Eighth Grade

Rated Greg’s Top 5 TV Shows of 2018 (thus far)

1. Cobra Kai – Season 1
2. The Americans – Season 6
3. Atlanta – Season 2
4. Vanderpump Rules – Season 6
5. Dark – Season 1

The best show on TV isn’t on HBO or Netflix.  It’s not on Showtime, or FX, or Hulu, or Amazon Prime.  It’s not on AMC, it’s not on Starz, and it’s definitely not on broadcast TV. Not Cinemax.  Not Sundance.  Not Crackle.  It’s not on Shudder, or Dickface, or Freeform, or even Bravo (do you know which one I made up?).  No, the best show on TV is on Youtube.  It’s called Cobra Kai.  Have you heard about Cobra Kai?  Have I texted you about Cobra Kai yet?  Have I cornered you at a bar to talk about Cobra Kai yet?  No?  Ok, stay with me here.

It’s easy to be VERY skeptical of a Karate Kid reboot these days, what with seemingly everything from our childhood being brought back into popular culture in some form or another with minimal actual use for it (how have the Perfect Strangers not gotten in on this?).  For the most part it all just seems stale and sad.  Why would a check in on the Karate Kid THIRTY-FOUR years later be any different?  For one thing the two main actors, Ralph Macchio and Billy Zabka, haven’t been in anything since this heights of this franchise, unless you count playing themselves in separate cameos on Entourage and How I Met Your Mother, respectively.  And the other thing, the show is on Youtube Red.  WTF is Youtube Red?  Who wants to sign up for yet another streaming service?  Shouldn’t they just stick to movie trailers and those funny sports lip sync bits?

Anyways, I was just as skeptical as you are right now.  But then I saw the trailer for Cobra Kai…… and you know what it looked fairly promising!  And then I noticed Bill Simmons and Shea Serrano tweeting nice things about it.  And finally I realized the first two episodes are free on Youtube.  Ok what the hell I guess I HAD to check it out, after all Rated Greg has seen the original Karate Kid more times than any other movie in his lifetime.  If he could withstand an awful Point Break remake, he can handle this and brush it off if it sucked.

Well….in a whisper…….Cobra Kai didn’t suck.  In fact, the first two episodes didn’t just not suck, but they were pretty good!  Good enough for me to actually sign up for Youtube Red (which was way more confusing to figure out than it should be btw), knowing that I could watch the eight remaining episodes for free as long as I cancelled within 30 days. Diving deeper into the modern day All Valley, I kept expecting the rest of series to run out of steam but it was quite the opposite, each installment becoming better than the last.  Certainly the most surprising thing is that Cobra Kai has the production value of equal or even better than a lot of the Netflix options.  It became clear to me that maybe this wasn’t a show that all the streaming giants passed on after all, but rather something that Youtube probably threw a lot of money at in order to step up their game in original content.  Good for them.  It’s still annoying as hell that this isn’t on Netflix, but it’s a barrier of entry that I will definitely pay for when the already announced Season 2 is released, if just for that given month.

10 More, Non-Spoiler Things I Liked About Cobra Kai:

1. I liked that they took the antagonist of the original and completely turned him into the sympathetic figure decades later.  One of the running jokes of the sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’ was that Barney Stinson always assumed that Johnny Lawrence was the actual Karate Kid, not Daniel-san.  But it in the end it was a joke, an SNL skit in a way……whereas the creators of Cobra Kai absolutely pull this premise off.  Don’t believe me?  Just watch this clip.
2. Despite turning Johnny into the protagonist, they didn’t turn Daniel LaRusso into a full fledged villain, which was the right call.  But they did give him JUUUUST enough asshole tendencies that a self-made hot shot car dealer in southern California might have developed, especially one that managed to not have one friend his own age in high school for some reason.
3. They didn’t make this grumpy old men. While Johnny and Daniel-san crossing paths once more is the jumping off point of the series, at least half if not more of the series is devoted to a new class of high school kids intertwined within the old rivals’ lives.
4. The fact that Johnny exclusively drinks Coors Banquet.  I guess Youtube needed to pay for that production value somehow.
5. They’re constantly referring to and showing footage from the 1984 original.  That along with the same musical cues is a crane kick to the face full of nostalgia.
6. In case you were curious, you can curse on Youtube Red.
7. It appears that the new class of karate kids actually know how to fight.
8. Except for the finale, each episode is under 30 minutes.
9. The character “Hawk”.
10. The aforementioned second season on the horizon.

Disclaimer: Cobra Kai is heavily dependent on one’s appreciation for the 1984 Karate Kid. If you grew up with that movie then you’re pretty much guaranteed to like this. If it was before or after your time, I still believe you’ll think this show is “cute” at the bare minimum, but you probably won’t fully get it.

You know how most Pixar movies operate on two different wavelengths?  One for the kids in the theater and one for the adults that drove them there?  I think that Marvel has been employing a similar tactic for their immensely successful superhero factory.  They make movies that satisfy the hopes and dreams of the comic book nerds, but secondly through the use of humor and A-List talent, these farfetched films will also suffice as an entertaining night out for most adults.  While she’d certainly have reservations, I don’t think even my Mom would hate movies like Spiderman: Homecoming, Black Panther, or Thor: Ragnarok.  I really don’t, for the recent string of Marvel has either been really funny, really interesting, or both.

But Mom would DEFINITELY hate the newest chapter, Avengers: Infinity War, the self described “biggest crossover event in cinematic history.”  This film appears to operate only on the nerd spectrum.  I mean, just take a look at this fucking guy.

That’s Thanos.  He’s a purple alien on a quest to collect six magical stones that will make him the most powerful being in the universe.  The only thing standing in his way is a ragtag group of superheroes that like to bicker in pressure filled situations.  Sound stupid?  That’s because it is stupid.  Avengers: Infinity War is……fine.  It’s fine.  I’m telling you it’s fine.  Fine at best.  If you’ve generally been into these movies I guess it’s worth your time to see what happens, however it’s certainly not worth your money (again, just your time).  There are a couple good jokes and I’ll admit it is kinda cool to see all of these famous faces and Chris Evans’s beard on the same screen, but that’s about it.

I rolled my eyes A LOT during the 150+ minutes.  I rolled my eyes at the Harry Potter-esque villains, I rolled my eyes at the borderline plagiaristic ending, and I definitely rolled my eyes every time Scarlet Witch refers to her new beau Vision as “Viz.”  You see, Scarlet Witch is a woman and Vision is a self-aware robot (I think?).  The two were just friends in 2016’s terrific Captain America: Civil War, but since then they’ve apparently entered into a perfectly normal, consensual sexual relationship.  To substantiate this curious development between machine and woman, the writers gave them pet nicknames for each other.  It reminded me of one of those couples that are a little too overzealous with the use of the term “babe” in public.  I told you this was stupid.    Grade: B-

Rated Greg’s Top 5 Movies with Real Life Couples

1. Seven (Brad Pitt & Gwyneth Paltrow)
2. The Place Beyond The Pines (Ryan Gosling & Eva Mendes)
3. A Quiet Place (John Krasinksi & Emily Blunt)
4. Cruel Intentions (Ryan Phillippe & Reese Witherspoon)
5. Days of Thunder (Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman)

You know that extremely tense sensation you get when you’re driving 12 miles over the speed limit, turn a corner, and happen to blow by a previously hidden cop car?  You spend the next eight seconds anticipating the worst and not wanting to look in the rearview mirror, but know that eventually you’ll have to look?  That’s what watching A Quiet Place is like.  90 straight minutes of held breath and peering through your fingers.

That may not seem like a fun time to shell out money for, but trust me it is. Going to the movies is supposed to be an escape, and this my friends is a HELL of an escape.  A premise that would seem silly on paper is executed to PG-13 perfection by director and star, John Krasinski.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Krasinski and his co-star Emily Blunt are married with children in real life, but regardless it’s impossible not to become very invested in the fate of this family right from the jump.  A lot of it reminded me of the best elements of Signs, The Walking Dead, and even Jurassic Park. Why are kid siblings in peril so much fun to watch?

I definitely recommend seeing this in the theater, but for the sake of your companions don’t order any candy or popcorn.  This film is meant to be watched in an environment in which you can literally hear a pin drop.  They actually made an announcement at the beginning of the movie to try and refrain from making much noise, which I’ve never seen before at this particular venue.  I’m glad they did, because A Quiet Place is basically a silent roller-coaster. Grade: A+

Rated Greg’s Top 5 Steven Spielberg

1. Saving Private Ryan
2. Jaws
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. Jurassic Park

For about 24 hours immediately following its premiere at Austin’s SXSW Festival, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One received exuberant buzz across the various internet waves, hinting that WB had a soon to be juggernaut for all ages on their hands.  However in the three weeks between that premiere and its wide release, a strong undertow of backlash has emerged calling bullshit on the SXSW in-the-moment championing.  Now, because we can’t have nice things the most popular movies usually come with an eventual backlash, but this one felt different, more fervent.  On The Ringer’s ‘The Watch’ podcast, Andy Greenwald went as far as calling Ready Player One evil.  I repeat, he called a movie ultimately meant for kids straight up evil.  This sure was a swift turnaround.  Did Roseanne get a hold of Spielberg’s Twitter account or something?

Rated Greg’s take on Ready Player One is somewhere in between. There are a few set pieces that are quite good and look great on the big screen, CGI heavy as they are.  I know I’ve bitched about the over dependency on CGI action in 2018, but if you’re going to go that route whatever Spielberg orchestrates here is the way to go.  20+ years after the wonderfully aged Jurassic Park, his eye for chaotic fantastical action remains top notch even with the added technology.

That’s it though as far as the positives of Ready Player One.  It’s all very surface level.  I don’t know if this movie is evil, but I will agree that its message is on some bulllllllllshit. Ready Player One basically argues that if you’re not happy with the way things are going in your life, it’s perfectly fine to do nothing about it and focus entirely on an online fantasy persona.  Plenty of great movies tell audiences to embrace their inner strange (© Everybody Wants Some) but it’s entirely different to proactively coddle shut-ins afraid of reality.

There’s also the cheapness with how Ready Player One manifests its inherent nostalgia. The main selling point of the movie, at least to the 25-40 year old demographic, is “Come watch Ready Player One and relive your childhood. It contains a criss cross of over a hundred different pop culture stimuli from 1980 – 1995, all sharing the same screen for the first time.”  But, with one fantastic extended exception that I won’t dare spoil, there’s very little cleverness into how the movie enlists these avatars.  Why the fuck should I care that I spotted a Battletoad for a split second if there’s no context?  Is it supposed to make the audience feel special as they recognize each of the hidden Easter Eggs?  I don’t know, the whole thing just reminded me of Stan Marsh’s take on The Force Awakens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM2zcv5AfaM

And on top of that, the perfect 80’s/90’s pop culture mashup film already occurred last year in LEGO Batman.  Ready Player One, sir, is no LEGO Batman.  Grade: C

 

Happy April Fools Rated Greg readers!  Last year was an especially strong Q1 (Get Out, Logan) however traditionally there’s not a ton of great material released January – March, which appears to be the case in 2018.  Black Panther is obviously still having a moment (currently the fifth highest grossing movie of all time) but rather shoddy CGI action holds it back from BANGER status.  Den of Thieves is pretty decent but will only appeal to a specific type of dumb action film junkie.  Ready Player One has pockets of very enjoyable stimuli intertwined within an otherwise corny movie.  Annihilation, Unsane, and Thoroughbreds are all impressively made artsy at-bats but I wouldn’t exactly recommend them to a friend as great forms of entertainment.

And of course we have several shitty Netflix originals (they have some occasional good ones, but man they put out a lot of bad movies).  I feel especially duped by Veronica.  Does the below tweet by The Rock seem like a sneaky ad to you?  This is the main reason I checked it out, but upon closer examination I’m thinking Netflix had to pay him for this.

Oh well, onto Q2. There are some massive titles coming up as May and June are the heart of Blockbuster season. I’m sure Avengers, Han Solo, Jurassic World 2 will all be fine, but I CANNOT F’ING WAIT for Sicario 2.

Q2 Most Anticipated:

1. Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado
2. Under The Silver Lake
3. Hereditary
4. Deadpool 2
5. A Quiet Place

Rated Greg’s Top 5 Paul Rudd Performances

1. Brian Fantana – Anchorman
2. Cactus Bill – Mute
3. Chuck – Forgetting Sarah Marshall
4. Bobby Newport – Parks and Rec
5. Josh – Clueless

Netflix’s Mute is mostly a miss. Written and directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), the film follows a wordless Alexander Skarsgard as he roams a Blade Runner-type Berlin of the future looking for his missing girlfriend. There are some interesting ideas and the movie looks great, but for some reason it never really gets you going or pulls you in.  It’s just Skarsgard going door-to-door, intimidating and occasionally beating up various thugs who might know where his lover is. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that basically the plot of the Double Dragon arcade game?

Even with unlimited quarters, DD got old after a few levels and unfortunately the same thing happens here.  If there’s one and only one saving grace to Mute, I have to say it’s the relationship between Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux’s characters, Cactus Bill and Duck respectively, who are two best friend surgeons operating on the fringes of the Berlin criminal network.  These guys are honestly the only reason I wanted to post about this movie in the first place.  A good gauge as to the quality of a film is how often I think to look at my phone while watching it, which I did quite often during Mute, but every time these two popped up on the screen that phone went right back down.

While I was definitely disappointed with the overall product, I did leave thinking I would absolutely watch a 30-minute spinoff sitcom featuring the nefarious MD’s.  They’re that entertaining.  But what’s funny is, only after listening to a recent Marc Maron podcast with Duncan Jones did I learn that Rudd and Theroux were written as direct tributes to Trapper and Hawkeye from MASH.  So I guess they were purposely going for that type of aura.  MASH was before my time so it was lost on me, but in between moments of Maron repeatedly bringing up the director’s famous dead father, Jones talks about how he was always weirdly curious of what a sinister MASH would look like.  Apparently it’s fairly obvious to anyone who grew up with the show the moment Rudd and Theroux are introduced.  Anyways, I think he’s on to something.  If you enjoyed MASH you may want to check this out, while understanding that it’s not exactly a good movie.  Grade: C

Rated Greg’s Top 5 Unexpected Action Debuts

1. Bruce Willis – Die Hard
2. Will Smith – Bad Boys
3. Keanu Reeves – Point Break
4. Uma Thurman – Kill Bill
5. Liam Neeson – Taken

A few years ago, I watched this movie called Imperium about a young FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate a dangerous white nationalist group in present day Virginia.  This logline seemed like a promising enough thriller at the time….. until I realized that the tough guy with a gun was being played by none other than Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter).  It just didn’t work.  I believe Radcliffe to be a charming actor (shout out to the rom-com What If?) but not every movie star is meant to be an action star.  I mean, I don’t recall Matthew Broderick or Michael J Fox ever picking up a gun?  They may have well of casted Michael Cera.  It would have been the same result (perhaps it has something to do with child stars).

Where am I going with this?  Oh yeah, so a recent big release, Annihilation, brought on similar reservations because it had Natalie Portman wielding an assault rifle front and center on the poster.  This seemed like a bit of a stretch.  Isn’t she basically the same size as Anna Kendrick?  Fuck it though, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.  If director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, 28 Days Later) has faith that she can pull this off, I was willing to give Annihilation a shot.

Loosely based on a popular science fiction novel of the same name, Annihilation follows Portman and four other military-trained scientists as they brave a quarantined piece of land in the Everglades to investigate a cryptic occurrence of marines gone missing.  The first act is a mystery, the second act a horror, and the third a batshit, avant garde art film, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Did I mention the team of five is all female?  Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny round out the impressive starting 5.  Having male escorts on the dangerous mission into the wilderness isn’t even considered within the plot, which I think is cool.  And nor should it have been by the way, as you can officially add badass onto Natalie Portman’s acting resume after this film.  There are images in Annihilation that might provoke thoughts of an all-female Ghostbusters, but the dark and despondent tone will quickly push those thoughts right the fuck onto oncoming traffic.  If anything, I’d compare it to an all-female The Grey, one of the most underrated movies this decade (or at least the first two acts).

Two thirds of Annihilation is held down by three fantastic, perfectly executed scenes that I’ve thought a lot about since my first #moviepass experience at the PG Plaza theater. One includes the best use of Crosby Stills and Nash in a movie to my recollection, another involving a purely one of a kind animal attack as hinted in the trailer.   But because the third act is sooooo out there, I have a hard time recommending this film to just anyone.  It was publicized that even Annihilation’s distributor Paramount thought the film might be too smart for it’s own good, so much so that they hedged their bets on the financial prospects of the film, releasing it wide in America but selling the international rights wholesale to Netflix.  If you’re into really strange, off kilter stuff like 2001: A Space Odyssey or better yet Twin Peaks, sure give Annihilation a whirl, but Rated Greg has never been on that wavelength.   Grade: B+

A month ago you could have asked me to list 50 musicians that I’d like to see a documentary about, the Avett Brothers probably wouldn’t have been on that list.  It’s not that I don’t like their music, I just don’t think about their music…at all.  I’ve stuck more money into jukeboxes than I’d care to tally, but not one time did I ever stop on the Avett page for even half a second.  The sole reason I watched this documentary is because it was directed by Judd Apatow and produced by HBO.

They did a good job.  May It Last is really well done and as I was watching it, I realized the Avett’s have the perfect level of fame for a documentary.  I’ve heard of them and for the most part can tell if a song is theirs, but I also knew nothing about their personal lives or where they came from, so much so that I wasn’t even positive that they are actually brothers (they are).  The music scenes are fine, but I was much more drawn to the bits on family, North Carolina upbringings, and life on the road.  It’s a gentle and tender 100 minutes that will make you feel good.   If you like music docs and/or folk music you should check this out.  HBO On Demand.  Grade: C

When it comes to the Academy Awards, Rated Greg becomes Jaded Greg.  A four hour telecast with a history of championing mostly out of touch movies does not have me excited for Sunday night.  I mean, when’s the last time you thought about The King’s Speech, or even Argo?  I’ll admit last year did buck the trend and get things mostly right, but part of me fears the voters will reverse course faster than me in the produce section.  Nonetheless, here are my predictions for the 2018 ceremony.

Best Picture

• The odds-on favorite: Three Billboards (9 to 10 odds)
• What will win: Dunkirk
• What should win:  Get Out*
• What deserved a nomination:  I, Tonya

Years from now after there are Get Out video games, Get Out lunch boxes, and an annual Get Out college football bowl game, people will wonder how on Earth Get Out didn’t win Best Picture.

Best Actress

• The odds-on favorite: Frances McDormand – Three Billboards (1 to 25 odds)
• Who will win: Frances McDormand
• Who should win:  Margot Robbie – I, Tonya
• Who deserved a nomination:  Charlize Theron – Atomic Blonde*

I know I’m out on an island on this one, but I believe stunt work should be just as valued in the acting category as a powerful soliloquy.

Best Actor

• The odds-on favorite: Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour (1 to 25 odds)
• Who will win: Timothee Chalamet – CMBYN (in a shocker)
• Who should win:  Timothee Chalamet
• Who deserved a nomination:  Robert Pattinson – Good Time*

Pattinson showed 80’s De Niro level potential in Good Time.  I’m as surprised as you are.

Best Supporting Actress

• The odds-on favorite: Allison Janney – I, Tonya (1 to 6 odds)
• Who will win: Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird
• Who should win:  Laurie Metcalf
• Who deserved a nomination:  Bria Vinate – The Florida Project

Best Supporting Actor

• The odds-on favorite: Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards (1 to 8 odds)
• Who will win: Sam Rockwell
• Who should win:  Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project*
• Who deserved a nomination:  Ray Romano – The Big Sick

Not enough is being made that Willem Dafoe was pretty much the ONLY professional actor in The Florida Project.  Without him I don’t think that movie works nearly as well as it does.

Best Director

• The odds-on favorite: Guillermo Del Toro – The Shape of Water (1 to 10 odds)
• Who will win: Guillermo Del Toro
• Who should win:  Christopher Nolan – Dunkirk
• Who deserved a nomination:  Sean Baker – The Florida Project

Best Adapted Screenplay

• The odds-on favorite: James Ivory – Call Me By Your Name (1 to 14 odds)
• Who will win: Dee Rees – Mudbound
• Who should win:  Aaron Sorkin – Molly’s Game
• Who deserved a nomination: N/A*

This is the one category I have zero beef with.  The fact that they nominated Logan for a screenplay award sure throws a wrench in my “out of touch” accusation.

Best Original Screenplay

• The odds-on favorite: Jordan Peele – Get Out (1 to 2 odds)
• Who will win: Jordan Peele
• Who should win:  Jordan Peele
• Who deserved a nomination:  Taylor Sheridan – Wind River

Best Cinemetography

• The odds-on favorite: Blade Runner (1 to 8 odds)
• Who will win: Blade Runner
• Who should win:  Blade Runner
• Who deserved a nomination:  The Florida Project

Best Visual Effects

• The odds-on favorite: Blade Runner (9 to 10 odds)
• Who will win: War for the Planet of the Apes
• Who should win:  War for the Planet of the Apes
• Who deserved a nomination:  Logan

 

I also updated the 2017 Rankings below: