FOF Best of 2021
Updated: Nov 22, 2022
SKIMMING THE FAT AND THE ART OF SELF-PROMOTION
If you've been following along these best of lists for a year or so (or even, gasp, all the way back to 2013), you know my prologues usually feature two things: Some sort of summarial commentary on the state of film and entertainment culture at large, and various strands of self-deprecating claptrap concerning how I don't really do this for a living. (Actually, three things if you count the parenthetical jokes). This year, however, I'd really like to avoid most of that. Sure, I've got plenty to say about box office numbers and the streaming wars, the mass migration to prestige TV, the loss of "the middle" in new releases, and so much more. But honestly, all that serves to distract from the heart of the matter - the pictures, the art itself. Though this crop of flicks does not reach the heights of a few years in the 2010's (you'll soon learn I've only got one 5 star picture in this bunch), it is still worlds better than the COVID-affected batch from last year. *tl; dr - Let's foreground the movies themselves.
Furthermore, and more importantly, I'm a work in progress. My (hopefully) confident words belie an insecurity about my credentials for this sort of thing. The only place the reader really sees this creeping out are in my stupid opening salvo jokes. My best friend called me out on it last year. It went something like: "Dude, you're BEST when you lean into all your knowledge. You know a shit ton about movies. Act like it." He was right. So I'm rolling with it. Film is one of my few great passions in life. I spend hours on this stuff. In it, I see the Divine. I think these little review blurbs are well worth your time. And honestly, if something sparks your interest, I'd encourage you to click on the at length reviews where I get after it in detail. Before I'd say they may suit your fancy. Now I'm telling you, I think they're quite good. As always, I welcome the "takes" of all comers. (Unless all your favorite films are Marvel movies! Dang...I did it again). On with the show...
#21 The Suicide Squad
It is difficult to properly convey just how MUCH better of a film this James Gunn' vehicle is than the dumpster fire that is David Ayer's 2016 Suicide Squad. I mean, if we're being honest, can we even call that picture Ayer's own baby? Hardly. That thing got chopped up, fussed over, and studio-influenced until it was a masticated mess. It's tonally awful. It doesn't cohere. The list goes on. Death by a thousand papercuts.
Enter this baby. Imagine if you could grab the cool characters from that piece of hot garbage, swap out a name or two and shove it into Gunn's gloriously violent yet riotously hilarious vision. Guardians of the Galaxy at play in DC land. Yeah, it's as good as you would imagine it - funny, so over the top in its bloodletting, and featuring star thespians like Viola Davis dialing it up to 11. It's a stupid comic book movie, to be sure. But I love a work that can sideline DC's typical fare, i.e. mordant self-seriousness, for this delectable confection. I guess if DC can't beat Marvel at their own game, well, they'll just poach their directors. The result? A subversive comic book film - there, I said it.
#20 The Last Duel
There are some people who might see this picture (or even just glance at a blurb review of it) and decry it as an abject failure. An overlong hot mess of preachy woke themes with bad haircuts and misogynistic buffoonery. Truth is, I understand from which their arguments arise, and they're partially correct. Maybe Ridley Scott's choice to append a #metoo message to a medieval knight's saga does not land its systemic critiques as seamlessly as it would like, but this is also Ridley Scott totally in his wheelhouse. The Last Duel grabs Rashomon's multi-perspective storytelling device (please see that Kurosawa masterpiece IMMEDIATELY) and thrusts us into the world in which its director is most comfortable.
There is a take that sees Damon's mullet and Affleck's ridiculously dyed blonde curls and goatee as preposterous. But these dudes are just hamming it up and having a ball. Alongside them is maybe our best working actor right now, Adam Driver as the tall and positively menacing antagonist Jacques Le Gris. Also, can we please just put Jodie Comer in everything? She imbues this character with quiet confidence, outer beauty, intestinal fortitude, and justified horror in equal measure. The first two acts give us the tales of the men dueling (Damon and Driver), before the third puts Comer in the driver's seat. I have to say, despite the critiques, I was genuinely moved by her performance, the terrors she suffered, and the system which enabled it. Oh and then in the end, Ridley Scott just drops in 20 minutes of two men in full knights regalia trying to knock each other's heads off. It may be A LOT of film, but it does not want for ideas, action, and timely themes.
#19 Dune
Look, this Denis Villenueve is just something else. There are few directors working today who can erect such edifices of sight and sound as the visionary French Canadian. His worlds are mammoth, titanic in scope and production design, yet also housing these intricate philosophical inquiries. Dune certainly is no exception. It’s sci fi with a painterly touch, and the kind of welding of cutting edge CGI and masterful practical effects of which Mr. Spielberg would be proud.
The cinematography is a wonder to behold here, as is the sound design. The score is the work of the ubiquitous Hans Zimmer totally in his bag, building a fantastical universe and creating his own instruments when moments called for it. The sets are equally impressive, as well as the costume design and the MASSIVE list of major actors. If you know anything about the history of this topic, Dune has long been considered the “un-filmable novel.” As much as I love many of the works of the affectionately odd David Lynch, his psychedelic adaptation in 1984 did this descriptor no favors. Yet here we have it - the first half of an epic which belongs on the big screen and deftly builds an entire world from its source material. You probably guessed I loved everything technical about this picture. Why then is it near the bottom of my list? Well, let's just say that that all important notion of connection with a film's characters is a different story.
-Check out my full review of Dune here
#18 The Night House
Return visitors will note that I'm definitely a horror stan. (Not so subtle plug - check out my Top 38 North American Horror Films list). I have to say, I'm just kind of baffled by the lack of love all around for this film. Rebecca Hall proved this past year that not only is she great behind the camera (See: Passing), she's still a totally committed and nuanced performer in front of it. The Night House, like all effective horror, works on multiple levels. First, there is the visceral, stalker material, where a recently deceased spouse seems to be communicating from beyond the grave. Bruckner's atmosphere is consistently unnerving, and beyond all else, just downright eerie. This should be news to no one - spooky thrillers work best when they are, wait for it, SPOOKY. This one is chilling throughout.
But this is also a film about loss and despair, the kind of crushing grief which would leave a woman grasping at anything to see her lost love again. One could actually argue the film works best as a psychological meditation. Moreover, in Hall's search for the truth, The Night House takes on mystery and procedural elements as she begins uncovering clues and truths which may portend a very different man than the own she thought she knew. Of course, this all comes crashing together in a third act which will elate many and puzzle others, but will genuinely shock all involved.
#17 Spider-Man: No Way Home
Well folks, we have arrived at the crossroads. Here is the moment where a man must look himself in the eye, reach down deep inside himself, and render his most honest verdict. For this last Spider-Man movie exists at a collision point of two warring worlds in my mind, nay my very soul. On the one hand, there is the Marvel machine, that oh so well-oiled juggernaut that has churned out box office hits one after the other since 2008. In so doing, it has completely turned the industry on its head. IP is now king. Non-IP, ie original storytelling, genre filmmaking, the glorious "middle" of the films of yesteryear, has all but been erased from the movie landscape. I could go on. I won't. (For now). On the other hand, there is the kid in me. Indeed, the child in all of us. The pure visceral experience of motions and sounds on a big screen. The unbridled joy of feeling real human stakes in a world of fictional faces and heroes' costumes.
So which one was your dear writer? Well, the answer is kinda both. I could probably talk myself into hating this picture. I'm well aware of what it means for our future as cinephiles if people stayed at home for nearly two years and then just went out a billion strong for this baby. But honestly, I won't. Because that wouldn't be true to me. What's authentic is Spider-Man: No Way Home is about the most fun I've had at the movies in decades. It made me laugh. It made me cry (legitimately). It even ingeniously (at least I'm choosing to read it this way) managed to recycle and repurpose pretty crappy characters from even more awful movies into this kind of kaleidoscopic world. The metaverse, my friends. Apparently it's here. We probably should be scared, it's true. But I couldn't help but just feel delight and unfettered joy throughout the entire affair. Give Andrew Garfield ALL the awards, please.
#16 Shiva Baby
When I get the opportunity, I really like to shout out impressive projects by first time directors. I'm happy to do so again here, because what Emma Seligman has accomplished in Shiva Baby is nothing short of remarkable. Because I think my rather short review linked below describes it well, I'll simply crib a little bit from it now. The story of Shiva Baby is simple enough - A young Jewish girl, feeling a little aimless as she nears completion of her college degree, begins hooking up with sugar daddies. Unbeknownst to her, however, one suitor which she has taken a special shine to shows up at a shiva our leading lady is attending with his gorgeous wife and young child in tow.
Shiva Baby is a kind of chamber piece. The film is short, to the point, and exists almost solely in the claustrophobic space of this one event. But rather than limit the scope of the proceedings, this serves to highlight even more Seligman's chops as a director and writer. The dialogue is acid-dipped and blackly hysterical. The score is not even really "music" proper at all times, often consisting of eerie sounds that are all about mood and feeling. As events transpire, the picture becomes so insulated that the camerawork itself begins to transcend realism. Shots zoom, shake, and twirl as this girl's world begins to unwind. Rachel Sennott and Polly Draper (as mother and daughter) carry the film on their backs, and their work is effectively breathtaking. In the end, I love a film that constantly threatens to come apart at the seams. Shiva Baby is a wild ride that leaves a pretty indelible first impression.
-Check out my full review of Shiva Baby here
#15 A Hero
Asghar Farhadi is the master of the "gray area." His films build these complex morality tales on the backs of ethical dilemmas which just happen to take place inside the realm of Iranian civil law. A Separation, his clear masterpiece in my eyes, explored the trials and tribulations of a couple wrapped in their own egotism, torpedoing towards divorce. A Hero, by contrast, concerns a man in debtor's prison for an unpaid loan from a one-time family friend, who on a two day leave of absence finds a bag of money. He is soon lauded for returning it to its rightful owner. Then, the complications begin.
It would not surprise me one bit to learn that Farhadi was a hell of a Jenga player. For that's what his own version of world-building is all about. He presents the viewer with a seemingly simple question, or a deceptively obvious ethical choice. Then slowly he adds layers upon layers of intricacies. For one, it turns out that characters are tied to other characters by past harm and irresponsible behavior. Furthermore, because Farhadi's works are so tied to the culture from which they arise, he also traffics heavily in honor/shame dialogue and gradations of goodness. Soon, he's built an edifice so impressively barbed and interconnected that removing any single piece would topple the whole construction. A work that would be as at home in a college philosophy class as a mega-streamer, A Hero dives headlong into the world of regular people and thoroughly dissects what it means to be the titular "hero."
#14 Encanto
I think many of us parents have had the experience. Our kids want to see this or that picture, or they have a school field trip to the theater. So, being the great caregivers we are, we take them. We grab the popcorn, we flash the tickets, and we stroll down the hall to our destination, glancing longingly at title after title of adult fare as we pass. Then we take our seats, still slightly bitter that we passed on that rated-R banger next door, and our eyes are assaulted with all those big-eyed, 3-D characters for which Disney is so lately well-known. Now, I can't say that I'm being entirely truthful in this little reverie, because I've always been a big-time animated film fan. (It's actually more like, oh I've had kids. Now I won't be the creepy older guy alone at the multiplex!) But you get the point.
In any case, I was not expecting a ton from Encanto that day. Imagine my surprise then, when I was so thoroughly enchanted! (See what I did there?) Encanto belongs to this latter phase of Disney filmmaking where the "villains" lie more inside the protagonists' own skulls than in any outward threat. In this case, it's about a girl who just can't seem to find her gift. All of this then gets punched up with thrillingly vibrant animation and a list of syncopated Lin-Manuel Miranda tracks which stomp, snap, and move us in our bones. We're also treated to a full corps of fully realized characters, from the older sister tired of carrying everyone else's burdens to the younger sibling who just wants to shed all this perfection and make something ugly and REAL for a change. (There's Bruno too, but we don't talk about him). Encanto should be lauded for how it so consciously frontlines female characters and its clear-eyed message of accepting our core identities in the face of the pressures of external performance. The miracle is not our gifts; it's us.
-Check out my full review of Encanto here (some spoilers ahead)
#13 The Tragedy of Macbeth
The way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world: People who love Shakespeare and complete dumbheads. No, I'm of course kidding. (Kinda). But I DO feel that there are two kinds of Shakespeare watchers. By that I mean, there are the purists (the words alone!) and those who like their bard with a little extra sauce. You know, they need their battles bloody and their landscapes majestic. They want their actors gesticulating wildly and really "selling" the dialogue. (I see you, fan of Fiennes' Coriolanus at the back). At the back of their minds the questions whisper searching for meaning - Do I really get what's going on here? Or, the ultimate insult: Will I be bored?
Ethan Coen heard these folks and then frankly just decided that he really didn't give a damn. He eschewed on location filming for a giant soundstage from which the entire picture was captured in a mesmerizing black and white. His staging and cinematography have the effect, as he noted, of placing the viewer in a world that seems somewhere between here and no place at all. It's absolutely captivating given the themes of omens and their effects on weather and atmosphere. He goes on to make other changes too. He casts the titular couple as a bunch of old-timers not seeking the kind of ambition we've seen in other renderings, but more a lasting sense of legacy. Most importantly, to the return to the top, Coen entirely FOREGROUNDS the dialogue. He strips away every other encumbrance and lets the bards words ring out in a quiet space. This may not be for many, but it is entirely MY kind of Shakespeare. This is not to mention the fact that there are 5-10 shots which are so incredible that they will remain etched in your brain forever, and a performance by Kathryn Hunter as the witches which is one for the ages.
-Check out my full review of The Tragedy of Macbeth here
#12 West Side Story
If we're all honest with ourselves, very few people wanted this picture. Why mess with a classic? Can the original EVER be topped? Heck, could this even be good enough to justify its existence? The queries swirled. We huffed and we puffed, and we never touched Spielberg and Kushner's vision. Then we saw the film...and that old wily minx freaking blew it out of the water! He traded more static shots for complete virtuoso camera movement in cinematography. He played the hits, but gave us real Hispanic actors (using their own native tongue) in scene after scene. He added a gentrification motif to somewhat "modernize" the tale. Most importantly, he didn't screw up what made the original great!
I watched the original picture and this new classic back to back on consecutive nights. I would highly recommend the exercise. I could go point-counterpoint on what I preferred about each (and the problems that persist in both) for hours. You just can't top Rita Moreno's tour-de-force performance in the original, but Zegler is a vastly superior Maria, for instance. (Psst...and she actually sung her own songs). But I'll save you all the comp time. Bottom line - it looks fabulous, sounds better, and as it ages, may prove to be every bit the masterpiece of its predecessor. Which is to say - it's great. (Except Ansel Elgort. He's not great. On or off camera. But we'll forgive it here).
#11 Titane
I'm just going to warn you upfront that this film is graphic and decidedly weird. If that is not your "thing," then stay far away from this one. With its Cronenbergian body horror, violence that is somehow amusingly macabre, and pruriele depiction of humanity's connection with...well, metal...it is not particularly for the faint of heart. Titane is a film of two decidedly different parts. The first is a story about an underground car dancer for gearheads who after suffering a childhood accident, has become her own version of a psychotic serial killer. As such, the first 40 minutes of the film are visceral and explicit, displaying a series of grisly and nonsensical to the point of being blackly comic murders. It shows us a woman who is lost and utterly disconnected from the family in which she was reared.
But then things change. Soon, the protagonist (we'll call her Alexia) has gone underground, finding an opportunity (with some physical alterations) to pose as a missing youth. What follows is what can only be described as the most jacked up journey of found family and belonging that has just about ever been rendered on a screen. Agathe Rousselle is mesmerizing as Alexia. Vincent Lindon is equally as captivating as the pained father and chief of a local fire station. Titane really does all kinds of things in its relatively brief runtime. For starters, director Julia Ducournau's directorial chops are on full display in the picture's unique visual flair. She opens the film on a terrific oner (extended single shot) which takes us through one of these underground car shows. Later, she uses lighting so creatively in a sequence which rivals Glazer's Under the Skin in both its oddity and unbelievable use of shadow. But really this is a picture about trauma and anger, blurred gender identity, and the sometimes untapped potential in all of us to find our shared humanity. It is a film that's not for everyone. In fact, it's not for most people. But it is freaking awesome, nonetheless.
-Check out my full review of Titane here. You'll want to read this one. It's good!
#10 The Souvenir: Part II
Movies about making movies. I'm just such a big fan of so many of them. The two parts that make up The Souvenir are really something else. On the one hand, they depict a certain kind of poshy, British miserabilism. On the other, they're high art genius. The films taken together are a kind of matryoshka doll. The first contains an account of a young film school student working on her first creative project. She is slowly sidelined from this by the arrival of a captivating but egomaniacal older gentlemen who oozes high society charm but traffics in lowlife addiction. Lost in the throes of the romance, the first film ends in a kind or mordant tragedy. Of course, in the second film (here come the dolls) our leading lady is now trying to mount a film about the first film and the events that transpired there. And sitting over all of this is the fact that these tales are based on the autobiographical details of the amazing director Joanna Hogg.
At the time of the first film's release, I praised Honor Swinton Byrne's performance in her first major role. If anything she's only better and more confident here. The film moves back and forth between what is captured inside the set of this new film and Julie's own coping with the difficulty of her life (Her real-life and the character's mother Tilda Swinton helps her along with this process). Despite its more brooding nature, I loved The Souvenir: Part II for how it so impressively captured the creative process and for its unique choices in various sequences. For instance, at one point near the denouement, Julie shows her new film to a gathered group in a theater. What we're then treated to is an extended dreamlike excursus through various sets and costumes. It is unclear whether what we are watching is actually the film in question or something playing on the "screen" of her mind. It is decisions like this, and others besides, so triumphantly brought to life in artistic ways which make The Souvenir: Part II a sure choice for this year's top 10.
#9 Red Rocket
The discerning reader will note that the term "red rocket" is often a "humorous" stand in for a male dog's genitalia. Yep, that's pretty much as good a starting place as any for this little stick of dynamite on celluloid. I cannot really describe my initial viewing experience of this film as anything but one of growing disgust. Mikey Saber, the leading man portrayed by Simon Rex, is a complete abomination. He views every single person he encounters as a transaction, and when you're the guy on the run from your old life as a porn star, that is a great many people. Now this isn't really anything new with director Sean Baker. In fact, Red Rocket is the last in a triumvirate (thus far) of pictures which explore the rough and tumble, the down and out lives of marginalized, little-seen people, many of whom turn to some kind of work in the sex industry to make ends meet.
As in his other work, there are whole piles of uncouthness here. Baker utilizes many non-professional actors to tell his tales. In this case, they are drug users and peddlers, and an estranged wife and mother-in law who lounge around the house not doing much of anything. Mikey hoodwinks and bamboozles each of them over the course of the first 90 minutes. But things change when he meets a girl at a local donut shop. I'll leave the longer review to describe the rest of the story elements, the distinct milieu of the film's setting as well as its terrifically hazy, shimmering cinematography. But let me just answer this possible query: What changed to make me love a picture that is so bleak and headlined by such a cuckold? Well, the realization that Mikey is every bit as broken as the folks around him. And a final 30 minutes which packs such a wallop of comeuppance and involves zero pandering or glorification. I love Red Rocket for its courage to hold no punches in its depiction of the horrors of an exploitative industry and the suitcase pimps who seek to take advantage of it.
-Check out my full review of Red Rocket here. It's worth it.
#8 Pig
Pig is the film that you never even knew you needed. It is what happens when you take one of the most underrated actors of a generation and place him inside a peculiar world of truffles, a prized pig, and the upper-echelon culinary culture of the Pacific Northwest. Robin Feld is a bedraggled, grizzly man who lives alone with his only porcine friend. He is a man who bears deep pain on his face, the stress of loss on his very visage. Then one day that pig goes missing, and the man who dwelled alone must make his way into the most unique underworld you've ever encountered. But this is Nic Cage. He's surely about to kick some tail and take some names, right? Ah, you must watch and see.
For a film with such an odd name, this may be one of the most easily watchable on my list. We're expecting a kind of John Wick-esque revenge tale, and what we're granted instead is something else entirely. More so a rumination, if you will, on grief and love and the powerful toll taken on those who have lost much. It's one of the most terrific examples of genre subversion I have seen in quite some time. But Pig does not stop there. The film also features a few sublime sequences on the passions and interests people wish to pursue in contradistinction to the counterfeit identities we all settle for in order to make ends meet. It's a scathing indictment on false living explored inside of a very niche society. But really it is about the notion of revenge and whether it takes more courage to kill a man or reach out to him as a fellow human being. Oh and by the way, it's just about the most impressive Nic Cage performance I've ever seen. Don't be fooled by the goofy name, Pig is a deeply felt exploration of life that is well worth your time.
-Check out my full review of Pig here
#7 Licorice Pizza
For me, Licorice Pizza is proof positive that even "lower tier" Paul Thomas Anderson is better than most of the rest. In my mind, this is nowhere NEAR his very best pictures, but it is still one heck of a good time. Everything should start and end with just about the best performance I watched onscreen all year: Alana Haim as the wondrous Alana Kane. She is nearly matched by her co-partner in crime, a newcomer in his own right, Cooper Hoffman. Hoffman is the young dreamer, the child actor who hustles his way to what he wants. Haim is the older gal who, still unsure of her place in the world, is swallowed in Hoffman's nascently rising orbit. The two are really just finding good times, building businesses from the ground up on a silly idea and a prayer, and reveling in the San Fernando Valley of the 1970's.
All of the usual PTA "stuff" is glorious. The writing is terrific. The needle drops find some of the great deep cuts of 70's rock n' roll. The picture is populated here and there with A-list actors doing little bit parts. Sean Penn, Tom Waits, and most impressively, Bradley Cooper each get their day in the sun. Of course, as you may have read, the picture is not without its detractors for the age-gap in its central romance and some not so subtle ethnic stereotypes. I do not wish to dismiss this. In fact, I think they hurt the film. I would have personally preferred if matters moved in the direction of the subtler connections and longing of a film like Lost in Translation. Even so, this is one of the best offerings I found this year, from a masterful director. It's a fun watch and, perhaps, the introduction of a new star of the silver screen. (Her snub at the Oscars is BEYOND inexcusable).
#6 Drive My Car
Look, I get it - this film is 14 hours and 46 minutes long. But I assure you, it will only feel half that length. No I am, of course, kidding. What Drive My Car actually is is a rather unique animal. Imagine a near three hour picture of almost pure understatement that nonetheless manages to be entirely entrancing. This is the wonder of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's tale. For starters, I am just so impressed with the construction and format of this work. Many lesser directors would have opted for a straightforward narrative interspliced with flashbacks of past table-setting matters. Hamaguchi instead gifts us a 41 MINUTE prologue which just lays all of the film's past at our feet. It's almost novelistic in its approach, because we're then able to enter inside the mind of the protagonist, knowing why he behaves as he does and what motivates his actions.
Drive My Car is many things. It's a road movie. It's a story about two people from entirely different "walks of life" who've suffered great loss and now find each other in the present moment. It also kinda has that "movie about making movies" thing as well, only here the protagonist is a stage actor and director who is mounting a production of Uncle Vanya. The film deftly commingles events from the famous Chekhov play with actual happenings in the character's lives. In this way it nods to personal titans for me like 8 1/2 and even Mulholland Drive (though tonally this is QUITE different). Drive My Car contains four different languages in its exploration of what it takes to move on and really just...LIVE. It also has just about the best final 30 minutes of anything I've seen in ages. One sequence between the director and his driver, a young lady with her own checkered past, is just earth-shattering. Another, during the actual production of Uncle Vanya, features sign language. No one is signing a gut punch, but they as may well have, because it will leave you entirely breathless. Repeat viewings of this behemoth may haul it even further up my list, but for now, I've just got to honor the creative finish and life-affirming chops on display.
#5 The Beatles: Get Back
Throw away your copies of King Arthur right now, because THIS documentary is the freaking Holy Grail, my friends. Oh man, I just can't get over what viewing this doc is actually like. In 1969 the Beatles were, you know, going through some things. At 25, George Harrison was beginning to feel himself a little bit. He was feeling undervalued for his own artistic contributions. John, meanwhile, had fallen in step with Yoko Ono, and the two would never be torn asunder. His interest in the group waxed and waned as the years progressed. Then there was Paul, the dude standing there with duct tape and loads of genius just trying to hold the whole thing together. And I think we're all a little Team Ringo, the deceptively simple, but definitely gifted man with a smile on his face because every day he woke up as a member of the Beatles.
Why am I telling you all this? Because you get to see all of it on full display in Get Back. See the four guys were feeling their feelings and a little aimless. So what did they do? Well, they holed up in a study and gave themselves a deadline - three weeks (or so) to make a new album which they'd birth to the world alongside a live concert. They russled up an amatuer director, Michael Lindsay Hogg, and they made a film called Get Back. The picture kinda languished in relative obscurity for decades. Then along came Peter Jackson (yeah, you know, the dude from those Hobbit flicks).
Jackson compiled more than 50 hours of video footage and another 160 of audio. He spent four years with a creative team piecing picture and sound together until he rolled out this almost 9 hour documentary! And this, my friends, is about as glorious as it gets. It's four guys in a room, just being, you know, a band. Playing original songs, then detouring into some goofy voices and a whole litany of 60's rock cover tracks. Then dialing themselves back in and banging out the hits. Because this group, you see, is not only just four dudes in a rectangular space. It's also the greatest rock band of all time! I loved The Beatles: Get Back for oh so many reasons (please read about them below), but most of all for the way it answered so many of history's lingering questions about their dissolution. For how it let us peek behind the curtain at their own unique personalities, and though splintering, the powerful bonds that existed between them. I've simply never seen a music film like it.
-Check out my full review of The Beatles: Get Back here
#4 The Worst Person In The World
I suspect if one were to approach me in 10 years and say, "which of the pictures on this Top 20 is your favorite NOW," The Worst Person in the World may head the list. It really just has SO much going for it. On the one hand, it's kind of like the best romantic comedy I've ever seen (it even has a glorious meet-cute). On another, it is an episodic telling of the trials, triumphs, and pitfalls of a young woman's growing life in the world. It is brutally honest in its depiction of the arrested development of grown ups searching for vocation and for love, but really for knowledge of self. Renate Reinsve is another performer who is SO undeserving of the cold shoulder she seems to have gotten from every awards body on the planet. Her performance is effortlessly wide-ranging, depicting everything from the elation of new love to the excruciation of deep grief.
But the craft of the film is as impressive as its actors and themes. I've already mentioned the story being told in 12 brief episodes, but I'll add now that the writing is so on point. It is at once incisive as it displays one of the best-written break up sequences I've ever seen, and then so timely as it explores a writer's conflict with a reporter on the nature of art and censorship. Moreover, there is one memorable sequence which freezes time and takes off into the surreal. Director Joachim Trier just has so many "balls in the air" in The Worst Person in the World, yet he has seamlessly woven this tapestry together into a portrait. It is a picture of a woman that many of us could recognize, struggling with the inner wars we wage on a daily basis. Oh, and it features a deliciously tongue-in-cheek title about the kinds of highs and lows of which we are all capable.
#3 The Power of the Dog
I suppose I should start this one by saying that I think this is almost certainly the best picture I've seen all year. It is a whole whose many disparate parts are all exceptionally top-notch. I find Jonny Greenwood's score to be just so profoundly unique in its kind of twangy disarming nature. Three of the four leads are doing near career best work (I only exclude Plemons here because, well, he's not in the film much, and he's done better work elsewhere). But this is really about the ascendancy of director Jane Campion. She's got everything humming in this one. The atmosphere and tone are spot on, even in the film's moderately paced first hour. Then the picture really takes flight as Phil Burbank (Cumberbatch at his very best) and young Peter become entwined. The last hour is positively fantastic, but the final ten minutes are utterly rapturous. It is the kind of ending twist which will almost knock you over, one which will have you wanting to press play all over again.
I, for one, did press play again a few months after my initial viewing. It was this second appraisal which really brought the "best picture" appellation to the fore. While I found the film a tad slow on initial watch (it is a kind of anti-Western Western, after all), a repeat viewing revealed many Easter eggs and subtle details which one misses on the first pass. In the end, there are some pictures which bowl you over with all the feels. You want to stand next to them and simply embrace them for their resounding pathos. But there are others which keep you at a calculated distance, then wear you down over time, disarming your defenses until you're left standing a bit naked and can only exclaim, "I'm beholding a masterpiece." The Power of the Dog is that latter kind of picture.
#2 Mass
Look, I'll be honest, sometimes you just watch a film that rocks you to your core. This is just about the exact opposite reaction to a film as what I experienced in The Power of the Dog. Mass is a lean, mean, life-transforming machine. It isn't overlong or overstuffed. It's expertly written (I call it one of the best screenplays I've seen in a decade in my longer review linked below) and even better in its rendering by the four principle actors. In truth, it's a little difficult to talk about this film without falling into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say it's like a kind of stage play, where two families are gathering in a sacred space. We realize very early in the proceedings that a great tragedy has befallen these families. They've experienced deep loss, and their lives have become intertwined in the unfolding of this drama.
I admire Mass for so many reasons. First, in its structure. The picture begins with the most awkward of encounters, as some church staff bumble and bump into each other as they attempt to prep an area for the arriving families. The message soon becomes clear - What is about to occur is extremely DIFFICULT and utterly uncommon. It will involve pain, the rehashing of trauma, and skull-drilling discomfort. Then about an hour grief session ensues, before a similar kind of disconcerting epilogue which unearths one final groundbreaking revelation. More than the structure, what is deserving of adulation in Mass is the way writer/director Frank Kranz has managed to take a largely uniquely American headline and flesh it out with real lives and families. Kranz' material is one which pushes upon a great many hot button issues in the public and political spheres of our country. Yet, what is perhaps MOST remarkable about the film is how it never stops feeling "lived in" and authentic. Kranz never resorts to overmoralizing or preachiness. He lets the story, the characters, and the rich words they share stand on their own. In the end, Mass is no real play at all. It is rather a sacred rite of grief and the sharing of humanity (in all its traumatic forms), a deeply personal drama about loss, found grace, and the first lights of reconciliation.
-Check out my full review of Mass here
#1 The Green Knight
Though I've truncated my full reviews of the other 20 films into little bite-sized blurbs, I've opted to let my words on The Green Knight, my best picture of 2021, stand in full. Here they are for your reading pleasure:
In The Green Knight, we’re introduced to a world which is at once wholly familiar to us, yet altogether new. We witness its scenes in a kind of growing reverie, beginning to piece together its various thematic strands against its jaw-dropping visuals and sound. New puzzles appear along the way - ancient customs like the beheading game and an exchange of winnings - within the film’s episodic structure. We finish this picture and its emphatic finale, and as the credits roll, I would surmise we come to one of two conclusions. 1 - What in the actual hell was that? (Including thoughts like, “Where were the battles?!” and “Why was this so LONG and slooow?”) 2 - I may have just gotten my hands on a daring masterpiece.
Needless to say, I was in the second camp. I finished The Green Knight and began to think on its meaning. I sat in silence. Then I messaged a friend. Next I popped online and before I knew it, I had fallen down a rabbit hole where I had read more than 2 articles about the original context of the 14th century chivalric romance, the ways the picture collides and diverges with the source text, and what it really all meant. Another hour later I had made up my mind - The Green Knight is a near perfect execution of the vision of its masterful auteur David Lowery.
While the themes of this picture interest me most, it’s probably wise to get down to brass tacks first. I just cannot get over how well captured this film is. It is as though Lowery and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo put their heads together and conceived each and every shot. They are scrupulously detailed and often permitted to linger for longer than expected. The effect is to allow us to luxuriate in this world and its foreign atmosphere.
This, of course, is wedded to one of the better scores I can recall. Old chamber choral pieces and wordless numbers with instruments from the time all mix to form this immersive tapestry which gels so well with the “action” onscreen. Moreover, Lowery captures all of these natural sounds, the wind to go along with all of the film’s fog, the crunching of walking steps, the creaking of a cage on a pole, and, most notably, the kindle cracking-like movements of the Green Knight himself.
There is power in the sights and sounds of The Green Knight to be sure. The real chef’s kiss for me, however, is the way that Lowery chooses to both adopt elements of the original poem and take a fork in new directions as well. In doing the latter, he manages to actually (re)examine the notion of mythmaking ITSELF (which actually may come closer to the heart of the 14th century text than could have ever been imagined).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. At this point, it’s important to pivot to some brief details about the original story. There, we find Sir Gawain, a brave, heroic figure, who is already a member of the roundtable. At a banquet around New Year’s, the entire court is approached by a green knight who offers the challenge of the “beheading game.” In short, you strike me, come see me in a year and I’ll return the blow. Gawain, chivalric knight that he is, accepts and lops off the challenger’s head. To everyone’s surprise, the man gets up, grabs his dome and heads out (no pun intended) until another day.
Let’s speed this up a little. Around a year later, Sir Gawain heads off to the Green Chapel to meet the knight. Along the way he meets a series of characters who test his mettle, i.e. whether he has developed the various moral traits that truly denote bravery and chivalry. This culminates in an encounter with the Lord and Lady of a castle. Cue up the exchange of winnings - a handshake agreement whereby the Lord brings Gawain everything he catches out on the hunt so long as the knight returns in kind whatever the Lady gives him in the castle. Three days of sexual temptation later (in which Gawain receives kisses from the Lady each day and a certain sash on the last, but ultimately rebuffs her), our knight is on his way. He returns the kisses to the king but keeps the sash to himself.
Soon he meets the Green Knight, who feigns hitting him twice and delivers a nick on the neck the third time. This is revealed to be a punishment because he’s held back the sash from the Lord. Oh by the way, the Lord reveals..I’m the green knight! The message is clear: You showed bravery throughout the quest but you kinda blew it on the exchange, so you have to go home with the sash around you marking your failure forever. #shame. The end.
English Lit majors will surely see some missteps in my recounting here, but this is the basic gist. Lowery’s tale starts with a hero’s journey as well. Only this time around, Gawain is altogether different. He’s young, foolhardy, and aimless. When we first meet him, he is stumbling out of a brothel. A real lothario. You know, a kind of immature Arthurian F-boy. So the quest this time around takes on a deeper proving ground. Gawain is not yet great, merely living inside his own dreams of grandeur. Lacking foresight, he naturally steps up, cuts off the knight’s head, and watches in abject terror as the green figure rights himself and departs.
At this point, I’d like to take a brief detour to highlight our cast. Dev Patel is incredible in this film. He has to portray a character who is at best a little green (see what I did there), and at worst downright impetuous. The hero’s journey involves a transformation from fear to courage, from balking against destiny to a kind of humble acceptance. It’s all right there in his face and movements. Of course, Alicia Vikander continues to be both a physical and performative knockout here as well. And I love how Sean Young grants us an Arthur who is over the hill, his questing days long behind him, wisdom standing in its place. Yes, the Green Knight’s portrayal is also magnificent, but it is Patel who really anchors the film.
Returning to the narrative, Lowery’s tale becomes very episodic in nature. Yet, as it is captured, it’s never less than a very lush, meditative, and eerie picture. We witness several “tests” unique to this film. Amidst the aftermath of a desecrated battlefield, Gawain encounters the scavenger (in a terrific turn by Barry Keoghan) who falls upon him. Then, in a bit of genius, Lowery actually appends the separate story of Saint Winifred (and her own misplaced head) to this tale. This all culminates in a conscious retelling of the Lord and Lady episode when he happens upon their manor.
In each of these episodes Gawain is afforded a chance to show one of his virtues, albeit charity towards the poor or chastity against the temptations of the flesh. The point becomes obvious even in its murky telling - our knight just isn’t getting it. He has not yet arrived. Far from the noted Gawain of legend whose myth and legacy are sure, this young man is vein and self-concerned. Oh sure he revels in the notion of greatness, but he has completely missed the minute details of high character which will get him there.
After a rather sticky situation (if you’ve seen it, you’re with me) involving the lady, where Lowery makes quite explicit the sexual lust only hinted at in the poem, Sir Gawain at last has his protective sash. Convinced no harm could possibly befall him, he at last makes his rendezvous with the Green Knight. What follows are three or four absolutely breathtaking sequences. A masterful kind of forward look at the destiny that would follow should he utilize the sash’s magic to achieve greatness. And, at long last, a knight who begins to “get it.”
Both the original tale and Lowery’s telling wrestle hard with the polarities so prevalent in the 14th century: Christendom vs. paganism (represented here by the Green Knight and his naturalistic, earthbound aspect), order vs. disorder, and, of course, mythic greatness vs. moral goodness. Circling around these bifurcations are themes of self-sacrifice, temptation and desire, and chivalry. The trouble with Gawain is, in leaning heavily on magical protections or his own cowardly attempts to run away, he misses the truth: Life and death (not to mention sex) are all intertwined, and there is an inevitable aspect to each in life’s journey.
In fact, the Lady makes this last bit the most clear in her long soliloquy regarding the connection between both in the color green. (I’ve grown quite fond of Lowery’s insertions of a monologue on the lips of a key character about 2/3 of the way through each picture. Think The Prognosticator from A Ghost Story).
“But green is the color of earth, of living things, of life. And of rot. Yes, we deck our halls with it and dye our linens. But should it come creeping up the cobbles, we scrub it out, fast as we can. When it blooms beneath our skin, we bleed it out. And when we, together all, find that our reach has exceeded our grasp, we cut it down, we stamp it out, we spread ourselves atop it and smother it beneath our bellies, but it comes back. It does not dally, nor does it wait to plot or conspire. Pull it out by the roots one day and then next, there it is, creeping in around the edges. Whilst we’re off looking for red, in comes green. Red is the color of lust, but green is what lust leaves behind, in heart, in womb. Green is what is left when ardor fades, when passion dies, when we die, too. When you go, your footprints will fill with grass. Moss shall cover your tombstone, and as the sun rises, green shall spread over all, in all its shades and hues. This verdigris will overtake your swords and your coins and your battlements and, try as you might, all you hold dear will succumb to it. Your skin, your bones. Your virtue.”
This is what the knight at last comes to acknowledge, namely the inescapability of death. It’s as if the director queries: How do we approaching our own date with the Green Chapel? Do we face reality or run from it? As Gawain struggles through these reflections, themes of Christian goodness take center stage. The knight’s three temptations from the lady mirror the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness. He wants to be remembered as great, but loses sight of what virtue and honor really take. In a vision, Gawain sees through to the end of the hero’s journey to greatness and realizes that only chivalry, goodness, and honor are worth pursuing in life. And that ultimately leads to an acceptance of death. Hence Gawain's final decision. To come full circle, it’s in embracing that life comes through death that The Green Knight hews most closely to the Christian tree (and cross).
So in remaking and remixing the myth of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, David Lowery has actually pulled the curtain all the way back. He's put the process of myth creation itself under the microscope. We learn what it takes for Gawain to really be a man of legend, finding a name worthy of being written in the annals. It is far more than a rumor or conquest lauded in the corners of taverns. It's the full-spirited embrace of reality itself.
In the end, The Green Knight is unlike any other Arthurian tale we’ve seen captured on celluloid. To be sure, it is concerned with the notions of honor and the hero’s journey to maturity. But it’s David Lowery’s conscious and meticulous choices in pursuit of these themes which so set it apart. The garb, customs, and dialect may look and sound the same, but gone are the horses and battles waged with steel against steel. In its place, reflection. Meditation. An examination of true greatness. Yes, The Green Knight is unique in the telling of its Arthurian story. And it’s precisely in that rendering that it surpasses them all.
Honorable Mentions:
C'Mon C'Mon
Nine Days
The Rescue
The Humans
In the Earth
Bo Burnham's Inside
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