2021 Top Ten (Categories) - #2

2. The Gold Standard

My top 15 and what I felt was the best of the year. Yes, there’s one more category after this. We’ll get there and it will hopefully make sense. These were the cream of the crop. I think they’re all genuinely great movies, and I loved them.

A woman named Trish is a woman you can count on.

Not everyone is into this soul douche of a movie and that’s understandable. You are either on its wavelength or you aren’t. Some people really connected with LICORICE PIZZA this year; I connected with this one instead and I’m so happy I did. The two main characters started as minor characters in the BRIDESMAIDS script (written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who also wrote BARB & STAR) – I think one of the ladies was meant to be Maya Rudolph’s mom and Wiig and Mumolo got carried away and ended up having to cut them. The plot is so absurd – two middle-aged women go on vacation for apparently the first time in their lives and get caught up in an evil villainess’s scheme – but you don’t watch this for plot. You watch it for the vibe. The strut-past-the-pool-in-a-tube-top-and-full-jewelry vibe. The manifest-a-sea-spirit-named-Trish vibe. Absolutely ridiculous from start to finish, it gets laughs from its subject matter without ever looking down its nose at the characters. (Streaming on Hulu and available to rent on other streaming platforms.)

And then there were two.

Not sure even how to categorize this (movie? television?), but again, what even are the rules here? Made from more than 50 hours of unused footage from LET IT BE, this is an eight-plus-hour documentary about the few weeks that the Beatles spent writing and recording songs for the album Let It Be (and a few that ended up on Abbey Road). It’s a loving tribute to the “90 percent perspiration” that goes into any kind of art and it’s a much more nuanced look at the relationships among the band than the conflict-focused LET IT BE. Some of the footage is scandalously inappropriate (who thought it was a good idea to bug a flower arrangement???) and some I cannot believe the filmmakers in 1970 decided was not important enough to use (name me a better moment in a film this year than Paul McCartney pulling “Get Back” out of the ether). Perhaps my favorite moments were watching John and Paul get along. And when Billy Preston came in like some much needed oxygen. Oh, and the fashion – Paul’s vests, George’s turtleneck and boots, and oh honey, Glyn Johns’s coats. I love that so many people devoured this and discussed it at the same time. And that finally people are realizing how unfairly fans and the media have treated Yoko Ono. (Streaming on Disney+.)

You can be surprised what the human brain can edit out when it can’t handle the truth.

This was one where I only really knew the setting and a bit about the main character (woman who works as a censor for the BBFC during the “video nasty” era), while the actual premise and what was going on was a complete mystery to me. That’s a good way to go into it and watch things unravel. It doesn’t really have anything to say about the video nasty phenomenon; that’s just the setting and the world that the main character lives in. It also clearly informs her character because despite her job she does seem drawn to sleazy horror films, the likes of which she regularly puts restrictions on. I really loved the turns this movie takes and how it submerges us in this one woman’s psychosis and how she uses her job to deal with unresolved family issues. One of the great horror films of the year. (Streaming on Hulu and available to rent on other streaming platforms.)

Well done, my brave knight. Now … off with your head!

It took a while for me to warm to this because I reread the poem before I saw the movie and I got very hung up on the creative leaps taken in the script. And then I realized the newness and the changes were the entire point and that director David Lowery is making this story his own and exploring something quite different. The visuals are astonishingly gorgeous, and Dev Patel humanizes the character of Gawain remarkably well. I love that Gawain is reimagined here as a clearly flawed character who is not yet a knight but who wants to be and wants to accomplish great deeds. But he hasn’t thought through what that really means and what it means to be a great hero, a leader, a king. The flash-forward to what Gawain’s future could be is brilliant, as is the abrupt, answerless ending, which puts us squarely in the same perspective as Gawain, full of questions. Questions that aren’t answered here because they remain unanswered in our own lives. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

It’s almost like stealing people’s data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing.

Hands-down my favorite animated film of the year and one of my favorite “family” films of the last at least 20 years. It’s National Lampoon’s VACATION meets THE TERMINATOR with beautiful animation (the character design reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter fanart of Heather Campbell, who went by the name Makani online), and I love seeing a Real Family as opposed to just a Dysfunctional Family. Katie and Aaron and Rick and Linda are so painfully real and relatable it’s almost hard to watch. And the movie absolutely nails the embarrassing family dynamic but also the subtle relationship things, where you say things just to make the other person happy and stop them probing further. I love how, once the action climax begins, we’ve spent so much time with these characters that nothing they do seems out of nowhere or implausible (given the already ridiculous hyper-action setup, of course). Seeing this family work through their issues and see each other’s strengths is a tonic. I don’t often get invested in movies about families and family dynamics, but this absolutely won me over. Also, Rick reminded me so much of my own dad that it was impossible not to love this. It also gave me the title for my #1 category. (Streaming on Netflix and available to rent on other streaming services.)

We don’t fool people, Stan. They fool themselves.

I love the original with Tyrone Power and my hero Joan Blondell, and I was very excited to see what Guillermo del Toro would do with this material. Both films are based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham (which I always read as Lindsay Graham LOL) and it’s a story that seems tailor-made for del Toro’s sensibilities. This is on the longer side but it doesn’t feel it to me. There are two distinct settings in the film — the carnival world and the Big City world. I prefer the former and it seems more detailed and lovingly drawn to me, but the latter is fabulous and feels like it’s straight out of a classic black-and-white movie. This is an absolutely stacked cast – Bradley Cooper. Toni Collette, David Strathairn, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenbergen, Holt McCallany (again!), Tim Blake Nelson, Clifton Collins, Jr. and Supernatural’s Jim Beaver – and a beautifully made film, with frames that look like paintings. Bradley Cooper is rightfully being recognized for his work here, which may be a career best performance. Everyone will point to his work in the final scene, which is genuinely incredible and I was actually surprised he had that in him, but his high-wire con man act throughout the rest of the film is spectacular as well. (Still in theaters.)

It's easy for a Negro to pass for White. I'm not sure it would be so simple for a White person to pass for Colored.

Tessa Thompson plays Irene, a light-skinned Black woman who runs into an old friend Clare (Ruth Negga). Clare has been passing for white for some time now, long enough to have married a white man (Alexander Skarsgaard) who has no idea his wife is Black (which I guess is a good thing because he’s hella racist and calls his wife a vile racist nickname as a “joke”). The more time the women spend together, the more complex their relationship becomes, especially when Irene begins to suspect something is happening between her husband (MOONLIGHT’s  André Holland) and Clare. The black and white photography looks wonderful but it’s not just a decision to make the film look stylish; it has purpose in the narrative. This is the first feature directed by actress Rebecca Hall, who has her own family history with the notion of “passing.” The ending is a bit ambiguous (as it is in the novel on which the film is based), but I’m not sure it’s actually meant to be up to the viewer to decide what happened. It feels like the movie does come down on one side, and a careful and thoughtful viewing of the events make it fairly clear. (Streaming on Netflix.)

They’re not real. You get that, right? None of it is real. The critics aren’t real … the customers aren’t real … because this isn’t real. You aren’t real. Derek, why do you care about these people? They don’t care about you, none of them. They don’t even know you, because you haven’t shown them. Every day you’ll wake up and there’ll be less of you. You live your life for them and they don’t even see you. You don’t even see yourself. We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.

This was compared to JOHN WICK a lot when it was released, but it feels like the exact inverse of that movie. Instead of seeking revenge on behalf of his animal, Nic Cage’s Rob just wants it back and he’ll go to extreme lengths to do it but he’s not a violent person. He is willing to endure violence to get information he needs but he has other tools in his arsenal to persuade people to help him. I love the structure of the movie, with each section presented like a course in a meal. I love the slow reveal of who Rob is and the realization that oh, he’s not just a chef, he was a master chef. People know him. Despite his haggard current appearance, people still have regard and respect for him and who he was to the city. Personal tragedy has caused him to withdraw from society but he’s still who he is and has all that matters to him (until some punks steal his truffle pig). The “restaurant scene” has gotten a lot of attention, and rightly so, but my favorite bit of the film is when he finally comes face-to-face with the last remaining person he thinks can help him and, instead of beating him up or threatening him for answers, he cooks him a meal and it’s honestly like he’s a wizard casting a spell. I know everyone loves Wild and Crazy Cage, but it’s easy to forget that he’s a legitimately great actor who can play a lot of different kinds of characters. I love seeing him restrained like this. And part of why the restaurant scene is so great is that he’s taking this guy apart in the gentlest of ways – without yelling, without pounding his fists, just holding a mirror up to the guy and asking “Is this really what you want?” Beautifully written, beautifully acted, and beautifully filmed. (Streaming on Hulu and available to rent on other streaming platforms.)

When my father passed, I wanted nothing more than my mother's happiness. For what kind of man would I be if I did not help my mother? If I did not save her?

Wow, Benedict Cumberbatch is a real sumbitch in this movie, and I don’t mean that in a good, endearing way. He and Jesse Plemons play brothers – Phil and George Burbank, respectively. When George takes a bride, Phil just isn’t having it and makes his displeasure known in many ways, none of which are terribly subtle and all of which are objectively psychological abuse (the piano vs. banjo scene is seriously one of the scariest scenes in any movie this year). This movie examines toxic masculinity in a few different forms (as well as what it could be covering for), not just in Phil’s relationship to his new sister-in-law, but also her son, his late mentor Bronco Henry, and even his brother. The ending has boggled a lot of people, and it’s difficult to explain why without spoilers, but if you watch it back again it’s easy to see the breadcrumbs that have been laid for you. In the end, you find yourself actually crying over this absolute bastard, and then you realize who you’re really crying for and the movie takes on another layer of heartbreak. (Streaming on Netflix.)

It’s not easy killing another man. Especially the first time.

Man, I love a complicated revenge movie and this is a good ‘un. Mads Mikkelsen continues to be involved in interesting projects and roles (his performance in last year’s ANOTHER ROUND was devastating) and goes on an absolute *journey* in this movie. In the beginning, his wife and daughter are on a train that collides with another train and his wife is killed. He is approached by a group of men, led by a mathematician who is convinced that the train collision was deliberate and the men start investigating, trying to find out who is responsible and help Mikkelsen’s character Markus get revenge. This movie is a fascinating and frequently humorous take on revenge and the ripple effect of seemingly small and insignificant events. Mikkelsen is predictably great, as is the rest of the cast, and a huge part of why it works so well is the lovely chemistry they all have with each other. And I love that, after all they experience through the course of the film, they’re all kind of bonded for life with a “well, that happened” story that they can’t ever tell to anyone else. (Streaming on Hulu.)

Amanda: Am I indecent? / Maud: No, you are lost.

Some of the best horror movies are about religion and faith and how something that is intended as a good thing can be a corrupting force. This movie’s main character, who calls herself Maud, is a private palliative care nurse caring for a woman named Amanda, who is suffering from stage four lymphoma. Maud (whose real name is Katie) formerly lost a patient and subsequently became a devout Catholic. She feels strongly that she has been called by God to save Amanda, whose behavior and demeanor she strongly disapproves of, and her growing obsession with Amanda eventually becomes abusive. Maud’s relationship with God is rather frightening and leads her to do some truly shocking things (if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll remember her sticking tacks in the bottom of her shoes and walking in them). Much of her problem seems to be that she’s obsessed with her own self-importance, which is fed by her twisted view of God and what she thinks He wants from her. She’s inflated herself so much that she can’t deal with things not turning out like she expects because she thinks what she expects comes from God. The ending is pretty brutal, so much so that I found myself laughing at it as the only way of registering my shock. This is one of my favorite kinds of horror movies because there’s nothing actually supernatural going on; the horror comes from human nature and what people are capable of when they can’t accept challenges to their firmly held beliefs. (Streaming on Paramount+ and available to rent on other streaming platforms.)

It wasn’t just about the music.

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson directed this documentary drawn mostly from footage taken at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Never heard of it, you say? Perhaps that’s because all of the cultural bandwidth in the last five decades has been focused on that other music festival that took place the same year in Woodstock, NY. The Harlem Cultural Festival took place over six weeks that summer, intended as a celebration of Black excellence, and it was a feat of scheduling, with some of the biggest names at the time in Black music of all flavors. Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, The 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Sly and the Family Stone, and many many more did sets on a small stage in what was then Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). There are several incredible musical moments – Nina Simone and Mahalia Jackson were the standouts for me, personally – and the filmmakers take great pains to explain the context of each one and why they were so significant. The festival had long been considered an obscure moment in musical history, and one of my favorite parts was seeing all these people who were there now watching the footage and remarking that it felt so validating to see it because it meant it was real and they were really there and hadn’t just imagined it, and I never saw so clear a case of people who’ve been gaslighted by erasure in popular culture finally being vindicated by evidence. This isn’t just a documentary; it’s an essential historical record. (Streaming on Hulu.)

All pop music is rearranged Vince Clarke or rearranged Sparks. That's the truth.

There were SO MANY great music docs this year, but this was undoubtedly my favorite. The first time I became aware of Sparks was hearing “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” and not liking it at all (don’t worry, I have since come to my senses). The weird falsetto singing, the seemingly indecipherable lyrics … it was just too weird for me at the time. Then, through the incessant stanning of them by this film’s director Edgar Wright, I started listening to more of their stuff and absolutely fell in love, going so far as to fly out to Los Angeles to catch my last chance to see a show on their “Hippopotamus” tour in 2018. There was so much music to catch up on, I could only take it album by album (and I’m still working on it – most recent download was “Big Beat,” whose classic black-and-white cover inspired Wright’s filming of the movie’s interviews). The movie takes a similar approach, taking the viewer album-by-album through the Mael brothers’ history and the various incarnations of the band, sprinkled with interviews of Ron and Russell themselves, along with a parade of their fans, many of whom have gone on to their own great musical careers – Beck, Flea, Nick Rhodes and John Taylor of Duran Duran, Jane Weidlin of The Go-Gos (who sang “Cool Places” with Sparks back in the day), Weird Al Yankovic, Giorgio Moroder (who collaborated with them on the "No. 1 Song in Heaven” album), Jonathan Ross, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Patton Oswalt, Jason Schwartzman, Mike Myers, several former and current bandmates, any many more. It’s astonishing to see how a band so influential could still be so obscure, to the point that many still think the band isn’t actually real. But if you’ve never heard of Sparks, that’s a good way to go into this; you’ll almost certainly be a fan by the time it’s over.(Streaming on Netflix and available to rent on other streaming platforms.)

Jon? Steve Sondheim here. Rosa gave me this number, I hope it's okay to call you. I didn't get a chance to speak with you after the reading, but I just wanted to say it was really good. Congratulations. I'd love to get together and talk to you about it, if you have any interest. No pressure. The main thing though, is that it's first-rate work and has a future. And so do you. I'll call you later with some thoughts, if that's okay. Meanwhile, be proud.

The best possible choice Lin-Manuel Miranda could have made for his directorial debut and he nailed it. Like “Sunday in the Park with George” — the Sondheim musical which clearly inspired it (the musical and even more so the movie) — it is about the struggle of an artist to create. It is also about the difficulty of creating (and having the stamina to keep going) in a world where artists have to hold down at least one day job to keep a roof over their heads while they create. It is a semi-autobiographical musical written by Jonathan Larson, who is best known for creating RENT, which changed musical theater forever, and we are reminded from the very beginning that Larson never got to see the acclaim that eventually came to him and his work, because he died just before RENT premiered. We see him writing a musical called “Superbia,” which he hopes will be his big break. He struggles and struggles to put it together, while working at a cafe to pay rent, before a workshop performance that he’s depending on to get his name out there and get producers to want to put the musical into an actual theater. Of course, things don’t happen exactly like that, and I love that there's no sugarcoating that even though the workshop is a success that doesn’t mean his show is going to get produced. There are some really cool musical numbers in this. The big centerpiece is “Sunday” with all its Broadway cameos (I lost it at Bernadette and the hat), but my favorite is “Why,” which Andrew Garfield performs in an empty Delacorte Theater (the site of all of New York’s Shakespeare in the Park productions -- I kept looking for seats I've occupied). There were so many great musicals and music documentaries this year, and this movie feels like a perfect marriage of those two genres. (Streaming on Netflix.)

When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong... your love is your life.

A truly spectacular reimagining of the stage musical (not the movie, as the filmmakers are quick to point out). It is vibrant, it is full of amazing performances from a talented and diverse cast (yes, including Ansel -- I don't know what y'all are talking about), and with more than 60 years between this and the original, it has some essential perspective that the original stage version and film could not have had. This is nowhere more clear in the film than the opening shot, over a pile of rubble that would eventually become Lincoln Center but which, at the time this story takes place, is former low-income housing that thousands of families are being displaced from. This sets the stage for a film that has immense love for the original musical but knows where things could do with a bit of shaking up. Some of the songs are moved around or given to different characters, giving them a different impact. "Cool" is now a Tony number, earlier in the story, where he's trying to talk Riff and the Jets out of the rumble; "I Feel Pretty," which was moved up in the 1961 film, is returned to its original place, after the audience knows (but Maria still doesn't) what happened between Tony and Bernardo; perhaps most poignantly, "Somewhere" is sung by a new character, Valentina (Doc's widow, who now runs the store, and is played by the 1961 film's Anita, Rita Moreno), and instead of being a song of hope and naiveté between Tony and Maria, it is now a song of hard-won experience from a Latina who, like Maria, fell in love with a gringo. "Gee, Officer Krupke" has always been my least favorite number, because it feels so goofy and out of place, but this is the least silly version of it that I've seen and I actually liked it. I love how the movie uses New York City, and it *feels* like New York City, not a soundstage (there are lots of iconic landmarks, but perhaps my favorite is Tony taking Maria to the Cloisters, which could hardly be a more fitting setting for "One Hand, One Heart"). And it takes some time to build up some of the smaller characters, like Chino and Anybodys. If you love the '61 film and/or the original stage musical, I can't imagine you not loving this. (Still in theaters.)