Sasha Stone‘s Awards Daily is conducting a Best of 2017 poll. Critics, columnists, industry people, etc. I was asked to submit my top five or ten within a fenced-off area — i.e., a cutoff release date of July 1st, and no festival favorites that haven’t been released yet. The results will be posted sometime on Monday.

So I ignored the rules about no festival films and the 7.1 cutoff and submitted the same films I posted a couple of weeks ago — (1) Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name, (2) Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick, (3) Matt Reeves‘ War For The Planet of the Apes, (4) Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, (5) Cristian Mungiu‘s Graduation, (6) Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square, (7) David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, (8) Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper (even though I fundamentally regard this Paris-based ghost story as last year’s news as it premiered nearly 14 months ago at the ’16 Cannes Film Festival) and (9) Jordan Peele‘s Get Out.

Explanation/retort: The Guadagnino has been praised extensively. Everyone who knows or reads anything is aware that it’s a major film, so why exclude it because the megaplex knuckle-draggers haven’t seen it yet? What in blazes have they got to do with anything? Why confine your eligible films to those seen by the lowly, popcorn-munching ticket buyer?

“Hah…can I quote part of your response in the article?” the poller guy said. “By the way, I agree with you. 47 of the 48 lists thus far have had Get Out. It doesn’t look like that movie is going away come awards season.”

“It’s a good but overpraised John Carpenter film in the vein of They Live,” I answered, repeating myself ad infinitum. “Thumbs up, yes, but calm down. The Get Out praise is largely about 45-and-over white critics (and, down the road, white Academy members) wanting to seem socially attuned and benevolent. If a white guy had directed it, I doubt it would even be in the awards conversation, much less the finals.”