Best movies of 2021 (the year we stopped watching Coca Cola commercials in movie theaters)

COVID has been around for a 24 months, and we're all now settled into the situation where Netflix and the gang have replaced most of our live cultural activities (theaters are open again but the relentless advertising creates an experience far inferior to seeing things on the "big" Netflix TV screen).  

AMC cajoled a plastic-surgeoned Nicole Kidman to try to convince us of the propaganda that live movies are a superior experience.  That's how much trouble they're in. When she turns to the camera, you think you're watching Aliens. I'm so thankful--imagine COVID without the art we've streamed.

Given the deferred launch dates of the new hybrid film distribution models, here are the rankings of the best movies that first became widely available to North American markets in 2021 (ignoring the actual release date):

1. Drive My Car--you'll smile knowingly to yourself every time you see a red Saab after watching this luxurious "you can't tell the difference between life and art" tale.  Full of moments of intense beauty, topped by the "we'll find peace together when we're dead" soliloquy from Uncle Vanya performed by a mute actress. We've never seen that scene done better, and never will.  And, as we learn, Waiting for Godot also works well when the actors are speaking different languages.  The chauffeur didn't save her mother after a landslide, and the protagonist didn't save his wife.  Is that enough to connect?
2. The Power of the Dog--this proves Jane Campion can make an Academy Award winner even without Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter.  She gives the story away before the credits role, but you don't even notice it as the "Montana" ranch life enters 1925 and the men take off their shirts and weave rope.  Soon, you're in the middle of an epic myth, between a Yale-educated cowboy full of explosive energy and an effeminate boy who doesn't know how to rinse out his own jeans. Because it's Campion in control, there loser of this western standoff doesn't even stand a chance, and gets every last poisoned drop of the justice he, perhaps, deserves.  Wow.  One more GREAT COVID movie, released hybrid, so you don't even have to watch 20 minutes of Coca Cola ads to see it!!!
3. My Happy Family--Manana lives with her kids, husband, and parents in Georgia--and the daughter wants to get pregnant and add a fourth generation.  This may be a typical southern-Asia family setup, but at 52, she can't take it any more and moves out to live by herself in an apartment across town. The result? She learns that everyone else places their own needs and perspectives far ahead of hers--so perhaps it's fair to say she could not have survived without leaving (the previous resident of the new apartment committed suicide so the audience is aware of the risks). Where does a solo 52-year old woman fit into the social structure of Georgia? Watch this movie and a stunning lead performance and you'll find out.  (First screened in 2017 but no release in the US until Netflix picked it up in 2021).
4. Don't Look Up--This is an A+ tragicomedy about our sad-sack United States of America. Meryl Streep plays Donald Trump while her followers wear "Don't Look Up!" hats. That should be enough, but you also have Arianna Grande playing herself, Mark Rylance playing Larry Ellison/Elon Musk, Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio playing Michigan State astronomers who discover a killer comet, and the news media led by Tyler Perry ignoring every single one of them. Musk deters as government effort to destroy the comet and then completely fucks up his own private replacement. Who dies alone when the end comes? Not the scientists...(and watch out for oversized roosters).
5. In and Of Itself--this film is constructed by combining takes from multiple nights of Derek Delgaudio's off-Broadway/LA "magic" show of the same name. It's storytelling and magic at its pinnacle. While you question your own reality, you see nearly all of the audience experience authentic wonder, amazement, tears and joy. I don't want to know how he did it...I want to know that there's someone so skilled that it's possible TO perform In and Of Itself.  First, fill in this blank:  "I am..." Now, sit back and watch what happens. Promise me you will!
6. West Side Story--My dad played the role of Tony in local theater productions while I was in high school, so I have a "personal" relationship with the play. If Spielberg (or Kushner) had messed with it much, I doubt I would have enjoyed this at all.  But surprise--they kept a light hand, honoring some of the best of what the play offered when it originally became the new Romeo & Juliet.  Most importantly, this version celebrates the Bernstein score and the Sondheim lyrics--I'm not so certain now that the original choreography really needed another surfacing (snapping your fingers does not communicate "cool" in the least any more), though Spielberg honors Jerome Robbins fully too. So, I sat back and fell in love again with One Hand, One Heart, and dreamed of something better during Somewhere (There's a Place for Us), and filled with excitement during the Tonight montage crescendoing toward hopes for hot nights, tribe violence, and enduring love.  Then as now, we know those hopes will be crushed by the sound of police sirens and the glares from some of our neighbors. But for this brief moment, high on that secret 4th floor fire escape...
7. Nine Days--If Terrance Malick still had a brain, he would have made this movie about which of us is fit to live.  The central character has an answer: only those who are tough enough to survive should be chosen.  But, after one of his elected flock commit suicide (to his surprise) he comes to understand that his rule disqualifies a group of people who are heroically gentle, considerate, kind, and thoughtful.  Maybe society won't be so great with only the stoic survivors around.  This self-education leads to a transcendent finale, acted out to Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."
8. Wild Indian--a rare work of art that lets indigenous actors play roles that aren't allowed (if that's not clear, think about the implications of a Native American playing a violent drunk character). Michael Greyeyes is wonderful, and there's strong support from two white characters played by Jessie Eisenberg and and Kate Bosworth.  The teenage Makwa commits a crime that's witnessed by Teddo.  That crime sends both of them on seemingly inescapable journeys. 
9. Parallel Mothers--You can always count on Pedro Almodovar for capturing moments of transformative passion, a near-pathological fixation on the concept of motherhood, subtle eroticism. and elements of the fantastical. Oh, and Penelope Cruz thank god. This movie has all that, plus for the first time, it confronts the war crimes committed by the fascists in Spain at the beginning of the Civil War.  Mass graves contain baby's rattlers, buttons, wedding rings, and much more--all separated from the survivors. History will scream out the truth no matter what oppressive governments do to silence it, the movie declares at the end. Sometimes you need an Almodavar to turn up the volume.
10. A Promising Young Woman--this is a fable (pink carpets, chapter headings, a leading character named Cassandra--dead giveaways) that proposes that all men are irredeemable scoundrels at heart--and women will turn against each other rather than rock the sexist boat.  Carrie Mulligan, Bo Burnham (Mad Men etc), and Alison Brie (Glow etc.) interact, not nicely.  Cassie plays drunk, but springs back to consciousness the minute some well-meaning guy goes for her panties--which is basically every fucking time. The reason: her best friend was abused on webcam and eventually died...and all the nice guys watched.  So, there's a Carrie-like power of retribution that plays out with a human bonfire and a porn shop nurses' uniform. The film is a bit of a mess, but we talked about it for hours afterwords...so it deserves a watch. Margot Robbie produced.  (The film was released in 2020 but was largely not available for streaming until 2021.)
11. CODA--COVID seems to be generating a lot of plucky success stories.  Makes sense.  We don't have to look far to find the opposite of hope.  In this Massachusetts fable, a young hearing girl, a "child of deaf adults," learns to sing because no one can hear her when she belts out spirituals along with the original artists on the radio.  She's so talented she tries out for Berklee School of Music...but that leaves her fisherman father and brother without a hearing crew member--which the Coast Guard frowns upon.  She has to chose between her aspirations and the families (fishing) nets, and in the end, everyone behaves beautifully and we all share the sign language version of Judy Collin's version of "Clouds."
12. Minari--A sweet "recollection of childhood on a farm" story in which bible thumpers and Korean immigrants do something that would be impossible if the protagonists were Black.  In other words, they get along--finding water, planting vegetables, drinking "mountain water," and eating church social pudding. Grandma knows best, even after her stroke, and her relationship with her grandson strengthens his heart, and ours. 
13. Uncle--Welcome to agricultural Denmark. Kris' mother died when she was 14, and her despondent father committed suicide shortly thereafter. It's hard for a young woman with this history to feel she has value, but she ends up running a farm with her uncle.  The two of them live a life of daily repetition, so much so that words are barely necessary. At least Kris feels "important" when she's overzealously helping her uncle. Drama ensues when the local vet challenges Kris to take up her studies again--she clearly had a gift for animal care. And then there's a love interest, which culminates in one of the most tender "dates" ever recorded on film. Will Kris spin free of the farm and become a happily married vet?  (This film released in film festivals in late 2019, but was not available in North America until 2021.)
14. I'm No Longer Here--A wonderful film, even if it leaves you with little hope.  What do a bunch of really sweet kids from Monterey (just across the border in Mexico) do to stay alive?  One choice is to illegally immigrate--but that means you're alone, your culture (in this case the Cumbia dance tradition) is lost, and you're cold and starving.  Plus, you always know you're eventually going to run into the cops--which means immigration pens and forced return home.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200. The other choice is to stay--but that means you're most likely to die as the result of gang violence. (Or, you can join the Catholic Church--which means you're ignoring reality.) All three options land you where you started...in a violent broken wasteland. 
15. Flee--This Sundance Film Festival release centers around Amin, a handsome, thriving academic who immigrated to Denmark as an orphaned refugee.  He's about to get married to his (gay) partner but of course the transition is bringing up all the things he survived...and we're talking lots of blood and hiding in corners.  The film uses animation to try to give us some distance on the trauma, which leaves us open to marvel at the poise and beauty of the central character--it's preternatural.Via flashback, we see how totally debauched both the Russian and US presence in Afghanistan has been for those who had to dodge the bullets day in and day out. 
16. Another Round--Director Thomas Vinterberg and Mads Mikelson teamed up for The Hunt years ago...Don't Stand So Close to Me on steroids.  Here, the result is equally as likely to involve squirming when Mads and three Danish friends decide to test a discarded theory that they'll be more creative if they keep their blood alcohol above .25 continuously.  Three of them already have drinking problems, so the extra boozing doesn't make any of them more attractive--though it improves their teaching. Eventually, based on the scientific results they're recording, they up the dose--until finally all four can see that the test creates counterproductive results. They stop--well, three of them do. One is now an addict and commits suicide. What did the research prove???  (Released in Sept 2020 at TIFF, and this film won the best foreign feature Academy Award for 2020, but not generally available in the US until February 2021).
17. No Time to Die--Bond reflects. Bond procreates. Bond dies. Bond looks back sadly on his muddled past. You could argue that the James Bond franchise was killed off by the last film, but no, Daniel Craig is back, apparently three years after filming, to prove that he is absolutely the last best hope for Bond and the world. It's great, but you have to suffer through some revisionism to create this version of 007--sentimental, and loyal to best friends (turns out it was Jeffrey Wright all along, which we realize as the ship sinks...). Best line in the film: "You said you've been training for three months???"
18. Heroes Don't Die--Joachim is accosted on the street by an elderly Slavic man who thinks he's a Bosnian soldier who died before the worst of the wartime atrocities on August 21, 1983.  Since that's his birthday, Joachim--who may or may not be sane--decides he's the reincarnation of this soldier Zoran.  Adele Haenel, the face of French cinema's #MeToo movement, is his close friend and a filmmaker, so she decides to offer her documentary services as an act of generosity. It's pretty clear Joachim isn't reincarnated...but every one they meet--most powerfully an elderly hermit with some old military uniforms--immediately understand and go along with either the ruse, or the narrative. Your call--either way, generosity, kindness, and an homage to the dead abound.
19. The Disciple--you'll enjoy long conversations after this film about the nature of art, what it means to succeed as an artist, and mostly about the nature of gurus and mentorship relationships. A lonely 30-something classical tradition in the Indian Anwar tradition is told that he'll never glimpse excellence until 40--but that's getting close and the gap between reality and exceptation are impossible for anyone to miss.  Lost competitions, insults to his guru, and bad performances later, our protagonist is forced into a new plan. This film made several "best of 2021 list," which it does not deserve...but it was still interesting and thought provoking.

2021 films I enjoyed, but which didn't quite make the top cinema rankings

1. The Lost Daughter--the film's OK...it has one problem. It's about mothers and daughters.  Even Maggie Gyllenhaal as director can't fix that fundamental flaw.
2. Fire in the Mountains--set in a Himalayan village, a mom struggles to carry her wheelchair-bound son to western medics and school--against the wishes of her idiot husband who insists that a spiritual exorcism is the only solution. Eventually dad steals the money she's raised by hosting tourists, and gives it to the creepiest shaman you've ever seen.  Faced with no other choices, the mom joins the ritual (with a vengeance!) and voila, the kid walks.  Side note--the shaman is a creep, the western doctors are crooks, and the local politician accepts sexual and financial favors with no intention to ever repay his debts. It's amazing it takes the mom so long to start frothing and shaking at the end.
3. Get Back--Lots to be learned but eight hours kinda fails to get out of the weeds. We learn that Yoko hung around all the time without doing much. And it appears that Paul really was the musical magician and perhaps the only adult in the room. This is how the songs got built.
4. Skatergirl--back to the sweetness trope for mid-COVID cinema.  Dad's really a clod, and mom's a pushover. OK, that's familiar.  Daughter's a Bengali who somehow gets interested in skateboarding. Who doesn't love a Bollywood arranged-marriage vs the Olympics film, right?  I do.
5. One Night in Miami--first, it was a photo, taken by Malcolm X, on the roof of a black-only hotel in Miami, of his friends Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown.  Then it was a play, imagining the philosophical discussions that might have taken place between these four on the night Clay beat Sonny Liston for the first time.  Now it's a movie.  The result is a 3x5 card series of set-pieces rehashing familiar aspects of each character--whether Sam Cooke's music was political enough, whether the Nation if Islam was a religion or a gang, etc, etc.  This is interesting as education, much as last year's Chicago 7--but it's not a great film, and perhaps should have stayed as a very curious photo captured on a new Rolodex. 

The worst 2021 films so far

1. The Velvet Underground--Wow, where to start. There was this short window from maybe 60 til 65 when NYC had musical significance it wouldn't get back until Blondie. This film looks back to that period, and makes Lou Reed, John Cale, Andy Warhol--and NYC itself--seem smaller than they were (partially by more or less ignoring Dylan). The avant garde looks staged and dumb. Anyway, '65 came along and the whole thing got crushed. The Beatles and the Stones from one direction.  The Mamas & the Poppas and then The Beach Boys from the other.  Poof.
2. French Dispatch--Wes Andersen goes from "cleverly loopy" to "I've lost control of my storytelling." What a waste of talent.  And, no, I don't mean Jeffrey Wright playing James Baldwin.  I mean the idea that this is any sort of reflective study of The New Yorker during it's journalistic European-facing heyday. Quel disastre...
3. No Sudden Move--if you're like me, you so want to love Don Cheadle and Benecio del Toro that you'll probably last 21 minutes before you give up on this stylized fluff.
4. Phoenix (FONIKS)--(released in North America in 2019 but generally not available). I wouldn't steer anyone away from this film--it has a lot of visual interest and family drama. But, in the end it's kind of a hot Norwegian mess which currently has an average 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  A 14-year old daughter (played by an actress who appears to be 23, creating some unnecessary and confusing Lolita moments) and her younger brother suffer through having two divorced parents who are both artists--media, and trumpet.  The mom (Maria Bonnevie, who also plays Mads Mikelson's wife in the 2021 Druk) can't get out of bed for a job interview, and we all know where that's going to end (on the end of a rope, in case you're still guessing). Dad reappears on his way to Brazil but it turns out he's really going to jail for 3 months in Oslo for drunk driving.  Lolita and her brother end up sitting on the couch, watching TV.  I suspect this is based on a memoir--otherwise the fake science fiction moments and fantasy scenes (I always wanted to be onstage with my dad!) make no sense whatsoever.  A rare Scandi backfire.
5. The Worst Person in the World. Joachim Trier abandons his artistic vision to peer down the blouse of the main character in this movie.  The judges at Cannes must be old white men because they gave the actress, Renate Reinsve, the best actress award.  But, she's neither the worst person in the world, nor interesting. The film supposedly adds value to the "An Unmarried Woman" genre by examining the Oslo middle class, but I'm not interesting in parenting or decorating as film topics, either. 

2021 films I chose not to see (yet)

1. The 355 (8% on Rotten Tomatoes, despite the incredible cast
2. Licorice Express
3. House of Gucci