2021 Movies, more or less in descending order of preference 

West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021): 5/5

Spielberg crafts a deliriously vibrant, touching movie out of Kushner’s observant script and six or seven great songs (despite a huge lull in Act Three). Full of CGI and auto tune, and oh so perfect. Yet for once I take great pleasure in the perfection. I watched most of it twice and I’m prepared to watch it again right now.

 

The Killing of Two Lovers (Robert Machoian, 2021): 4/5

Constructed largely of majestically long, penetrating, theatrical one-takes. Our protagonist is trying to hold his family together while he himself is falling apart. I loved how the viewers are thrown back and forth as whether our protagonist is awesome or a monster.

 

Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar, 2021): 4/5

Compelling drama and good pacing. Plus amazing production design and music. Like Antonioni, it’s a pleasure just to be in that environment. It’s been a while since I had seen Penelope Cruz in a Spanish movie, and I had long forgotten how good she is.

 

A Hero (Asghar Farhadi, 2021): 3.5/5

Carefully steps the viewer through the many, tiny moral gradients that lie between innocence and guilt, between freedom and incarceration. However, where this arrow is landing is clear from the first frame, so it is also often tedious, frustrating and hard to watch. A slow-motion car wreck. The last shot is really great. 

 

The Souvenir, Part 2 (Joanna Hogg, 2021): 3.5/5

A meditation on a filmed life and an infinite-mirror of self-reflection, with bursts of surrealism comparative to Bunuel and Lynch. Our protagonist is still the weakest link. Probably not a popular opinion in these parts, but I preferred this one to the original.  

 

Nightmare Alley (Guillermo del Toro, 2021): 3.5/5

As usual, the production design is indeed the thing. The characters are merely floating like babies in jars within it. Still Cooper can act. And in a satisfyingly classic noir move, the protagonist is sado-masochistically drawn to the femme fatale, indulging and drowning in his desires. Should have gotten it down to 1:55 though, including jettisoning at least half of the carnies which added up to nothing. The last shot is among the best of the year. A mixed bag but better than Fishfuck: the Movie.

 

House of Gucci (Ridley Scott, 2021): 3.5/5

The basic decision to make all these really good actors perform Italian accents ends up being completely disastrous, ensuring that all the performances are theatrical and broad. Yet the storytelling is swift and the milieu and production design of Milan and New York in the late 70s goes a long way. Better than The Last Duel on every level. 

 

Quo Vadis, Aida (Jasmila Žbanić, 2021): 3/5

Bureaucratic horror, somewhat akin to Night and Fog from the point of view of a Polish mayor. 

 

Red Rocket (Sean Baker, 2021): 3/5

A tough watch, like all of Baker’s movies. Ethically and morally a skin-crawling horror movie. Enjoy!

 

For the Sake of Vicious (Reese Eveneshen and Gabriel Carrer, 2021): 3/5

A low-budget horror movie that starts out as a kidnapping drama, then unexpectedly turns Into a confusing and particularly prolonged and brutal home invasion bloodbath. Wild!

 

Nighthouse (David Bruckner, 2021): 3/5

Overpraised.  It has some moments of effective haunted house-ery, but also a lot of muddy depression and grief stuff. Maybe my least favorite Rebecca Hall performance; here she is In full Madeline Stowe mode. 

 

About Endlessness (Roy Andersson, 2021): 3/5

A succession of tableau displaying mostly mundane and everyday despair. The mise en scène gives it a god’s eye view, but this god is despairing and powerless. 

 

Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, 2021): 2.5/5

It's a refugee story. It’s a coming out story. It’s a combination refugee and coming out story. 

 

 

I watched some non-2021 movies as well

 

Walking Tall (Phil Karlson, 1974): 3.5/5

A well-made, non-arty bro-Western drive-in movie. A good ole boy who is also very liberal with regard to race feuds with some gooder, older boys with mafia-like connections to the big city. Joe Don Baker is a force of nature—no matter what he does, I believe him. Plus boobs, and you got yourself a pretty satisfyingly tale, morally black-and-white and Old Testament-y. 

 

Permanent Vacation (Jim Jarmusch, 1980): 2.5/5

A young man wanders around a burned-out New York City, encountering a series of eccentrics and crazies. There’s a dance sequence and some reciting from books, and he goes to see Nicolas Ray’s The Savage Innocents. French New Wave is … a bit of an influence. 

 

Heaven Knows What (Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, 2014): 3/5

Just dopey junkies, but in terms of emotional complexity, tension and drama, it’s mile beyond, say, Permanent Vacation. 

 

El Sur (Víctor Erice, 1983): 3/5

Girl grows up with a severely depressed father. “The South” of the title represents his mysteriously powerful past. I understand that Erice intended a whole additional act where she traveled South. Gorgeous browns and soft whites. 

 

The Naked Island (Kaneto Shindō, 1960): 3/5

A metaphorically weighted family farms a desert island, which means they endlessly cross the mile to the mainland for buckets of water and carry them up a steep hill to the plants. No dialogue but plenty of Wages of Fear-type drama with the water. A cross between Man of Aran and the Myth of Sisyphus. 

 

The Gunslinger (Henry King, 1950): 3.5/5

Bob Dylan’s review of this movie, as heard in his song “New Danville Girl” (1984): 

“I wish I could remember that movie just a little bit better

All I remember was that it starred Gregory Peck.

He was shot down in the back by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself.

The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.

Well the sheriff beat that kid to a bloody pulp.

As the dying gunfighter lay in the sun and gasped for his last breath,

‘Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square.

I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death.’

Well, I keep seeing this stuff and it just comes a-rolling in.

And it blows right through me like a ball and chain.”

 

Yearning (Mikio Naruse, 1964): 3.5/5

60s-type melodrama compatible to Sirk, complete with soapy Western music under the most dramatic scenes. Thematically, it also involves changing mores and societal expectations for women and widows in the post-war. 

 

A Woman of Paris : A Drama of Fate (Charlie Chaplin, 1923): 4/5

Here’s something I did not know. In 1923, Chaplain wrote and directed a drama—sharply drawn, swift and of course displaying his usual social satire and keen observations. In scope it reminded me of two books I recently read, The House of Mirth and Sentimental Education. Chaplin also wrote the music, but after 10 minutes I replaced it with the new post rock/minimal classical album by a London band named Caroline, and it was pretty sublime.

 

Scream (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, 2022): 2/5

Some chills but even more clever fan-service. 

 

Marry Me (Kat Coiro, 2022): 2.5/5

J Lo is good. Owen Wilson on the other hand looks and acts like a 50-year-old lady. He seems amazingly uncomfortable and it ruins the movie’s chi.