The Films of 2021

[MitchPerrywinkle]

I haven't seen any other posts about The Inheritance (let alone its own dedicated thread), but I just finished watching it on the Channel and found it one of the most beguiling works of political cinema I've seen in quite some time. The clear (and acknowledged) influence of La Chinoise on the film's formal aesthetic is an important textual connection Ephraim Asili links with his own docudrama hybrid, though it would be grossly reductive to label his feature debut a Black American riff on Godard's black comedy. The cultural and historical specificity Asili imbues into his non-narrative on the living situation of a commune in Philadelphia is keenly perceptive to the way micro and macrocosmic iterations of artistic and political engagement take place. The film's employment of didactic quotations are, in Asili's eyes, as crucial as two people coyly flirting through a murmured conversation about the power of Max Roach's music. Nestled within these ideological ruminations is a pragmatic understanding of the difficulty in living together, one which nevertheless does nothing to dispel the persistent (if wary) optimism of a domestic (and, by extension, societal) schema which induces an active engagement with the past as an organically fluid tool for empowerment and expression. I can see how the abrupt ending might give critics the impression of a film struggling to make any definitive statement within the loose parameters Asili sets for himself and his subjects. But of course a lack of a definitive answer for an ongoing struggle for economic and racial justice is entirely the point. What makes The Inheritance a richly empathetic (not to mention intellectually rigorous) gem is how the point lies in the labor undertaken to sustain such spaces for discourse and messy cohabitation to take place. To quote the Angela Davis book featured in the film's penultimate scene, freedom is a constant struggle. That struggle, and the effusive joys it generates, are all embedded within the everyday. Thank goodness we have Asili's camera here to capture these moments in a way which still respects the autonomy of this community and the agency, as well as human fallibility, of its members.

If you haven't seen it yet, don't sleep on it. This is one of the best American Independent films of the year.

[knives]

Freaky is such a delightful movie it almost makes me not sad to live in a world without a third Happy Death Day. The new milieu of high schoolers is weirdly refreshing providing fresh jokes (I’m straight is the hardest I’ve laughed in a while) and the slasher stuff is very effective and scary. Vaughn also took me for a major surprise giving a sensitive and sweet performance that use his giant body perfectly. It’s easily his best work.

[diamonds]

Any fans of Jacques Rozier ought to give À l'abordage! (aka All Hands on Deck) a look. At ~90 minutes it doesn't have Rozier's sprawl, but its shambling summer vacation narrative offers some of the same kinds of pleasures in the way of group interaction and behavioral observation. A patient, gentle, warm comedy, and a pleasant little surprise.

[Finch]

Slumber Party Massacre 2021 (not seen the original) was a fun 90 or so minutes. The girls are resourceful and not complete ciphers and the writing isn't horrible, apart from a few on-the-nose lines. The male gaze in these films is gender reversed and you get lingering shots of men's asses and bodies instead. Shout! Studios were producers. I had more fun with this than Jason Blum's and David Gordon Green's recent horror sequels.

[therewillbeblus]

Freaky is such a delightful movie it almost makes me not sad to live in a world without a third Happy Death Day. The new milieu of high schoolers is weirdly refreshing providing fresh jokes (I’m straight is the hardest I’ve laughed in a while) and the slasher stuff is very effective and scary. Vaughn also took me for a major surprise giving a sensitive and sweet performance that use his giant body perfectly. It’s easily his best work.

This was delightful, with Vaughn particularly given free rein to do great comedic work. I appreciated discovering the film's central conceit in real time so I won't spoil it here, but the title's elimination of a single word allows it to function as both a clear horror and comedic homage to that lighthearted surreal concept. Per usual, Landon finds a way to take a contrived, tired idea and transform it into limitless fresh possibilities within a reflexive genre that itself oscillates between humor and genuine fear. I definitely want a third Happy Death Day, if only because I need more Jessica Rothe in my life and want to see him take his imagination deeper into no-man's'-land of genre destruction, but it's certainly promising to see how creative Landon can get outside of that particular sandbox (but still a temporally-bound structure). The film's many nods to classic horror bits are occasionally a bit too on-the-nose, but other times emanate as inspired instances of happenstance when not sharply defined. I'm with knives all the way on this one- I laughed a ton, and when I wasn't laughing I was smiling with steady glee.

[knives]

I can’t remember if I posted comments here, but a while back I watched Landon’s first feature and while that’s a rough around the edges anthology film it has a lot going for it that all the same makes you appreciate how much he’s since improved.

[Never Cursed]

Nitram (pronounced "nit-ram," not "ni-tram" as I initially thought): Disappointing adaptation of the events leading up to the Port Arthur Massacre that unfortunately mistakes emotional grotesquery for insight. This appears to be a controversial film in its home country, with such figures as the leaders of regional leftist political parties voicing their discomfort with it, so I want to make it clear that I don't think the work is insensitive or that it treats its subject with problematic superficiality. That said, Caleb Landry Jones' vague aggressive malaise is taken to such hyperbolic heights so quickly and frequently that his character's outbursts become exhausting through the film's inability or unwillingness to explain them. The central character is obviously afflicted with mental illness, feelings of social isolation, and a family that refuses to engage with these issues at the roots, but the film makes no effort to understand Nitram beyond the archetypal effects of his problems, either. And sure, that could be the point, that the causes of mass violence are illegible to even an objective observer, but why spend so much effort on crafting a character study (which this clearly is; there aren't any real scenes without Landry Jones) when the character permanently remains at arm's length?

SpoilerShow

Along these lines, the film's abrupt ending is supposed to function as a violent denial of closure, a deliberately non-committal answer to the film's basic question of motivation. That's a noble goal, but its accomplishment means that the movie fails on a more basic explanatory level.

[Walter Kurtz]

Ehrlich. IndieWire. American Underdog. And the best line from any review written this century------

"Is American Underdog a good movie? Not even a little bit, but that’s kind of like saying “The Power of the Dog” is a bad microwave toaster."

This review also features my favorite last paragraph in any film review for a long, long time. Warner was a great QB, though, with cajones the size of Texas. Having played the position I rather think it's the cajones rather than god that is most helpful for success. But hey, I also believe... whatever works for you!

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/12/ameri ... 234686634/

[brundlefly]

Ehrlich. IndieWire. American Underdog. And the best line from any review written this century------

"Is American Underdog a good movie? Not even a little bit, but that’s kind of like saying “The Power of the Dog” is a bad microwave toaster."

This review also features my favorite last paragraph in any film review for a long, long time. Warner was a great QB, though, with cajones the size of Texas. Having played the position I rather think it's the cajones rather than god that is most helpful for success. But hey, I also believe... whatever works for you!

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/12/ameri ... 234686634/

"Dennis Quaid is definitely another actor who appears on screen."

Thanks for linking this. It made me sad that Chuck Shazam was cast to play my personal football hero, sadder that Paquin was available enough to play Brenda, and downright depressed to know that I am doomed to watch this somehow someday. Gleefully derisive reviews help. Warner is a good man and was a great quarterback, though I'd argue that without the devilish cojones of Mike Martz (who sold his soul to move up and draft quarterbacks as practice squad wide receivers) and the transformative blessing that is Marshall Faulk, his feel-good story wouldn't have its winning ring. A more delicious I, Tonya angle to his opportunity would be disingenuous -- Jesus shattered Trent Green's leg for me! -- but I'm sure that particular movie would throw for 500 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 3 easy-to-ignore red zone interceptions.

[cdnchris]

It was clear from the production companies that popped up it was a Christian movie, but the trailer that played before Spider-Man for American Underdog made sure not to push any Christian angle and just push it as a, well, underdog story, coming out all the blander.

[Walter Kurtz]

...would throw for 500 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 3 easy-to-ignore red zone interceptions.

Warner always ranked very high on my "TD's + INT's = EXCITEMENT!" score.

I fell into 'like' with him the first season when he stood tall with a LB blitzing at him full speed and he hit Holt or Bruce 55 yards away in the hands on a TD as he was completely levelled. Cajones + Stupidity = 7 Points!

[Walter Kurtz]

... coming out all the blander.

Too bad they didn't get a brundlefly screenplay that did a Damn Yankees/I Tonya version with a club-wielding Michelle Williams reprising Gwen Verdon.

[The Curious Sofa]

Agnes is Mickey Reece's follow up to Climate of the Hunter. I enjoyed the offbeat quality and 70s daytime soap aesthetics of Climate of the Hunter and while the same deadpan humour and camp sensibility are present in Agnes, it's a far more polished, professional looking film. I can see how horror fans would feel mislead by the publicity (there is a lot of rage-downvoting on IMDb), the first half is a parody of possession & exorcism films and its being sold as more of a straight horror film than it turns out to be. The way it dives right into the possession mayhem at the start is hilarious but half way through Agnes takes a sharp turn and morphs into a surprisingly sincere drama about trauma and loss of faith.

If you make the time for one nunsploitation film in 2021, skip the tired provocations of Verhoeven's Benedetta and watch this instead. I can't wait to see where Reece goes from here.

[brundlefly]

If you make the time for one nunsploitation film in 2021, skip the tired provocations of Verhoeven's Benedetta and watch this instead. I can't wait to see where Reece goes from here.

Glad you spoke up for Agnes. I wasn't not going to see it as I've come to treasure Climate of the Hunter -- a little bit of that kind of surprise can go a long way with me -- but the qualified and confused (and, as you say, angry) responses made me hesitate. And one of the things I admire about Hunter is that sincerity is in the mix there, as well. Just that its concern for fractured families and their abandoned, unstable members is woven well into its poses and goofs.

[The Curious Sofa]

If you make the time for one nunsploitation film in 2021, skip the tired provocations of Verhoeven's Benedetta and watch this instead. I can't wait to see where Reece goes from here.

Glad you spoke up for Agnes. I wasn't not going to see it as I've come to treasure Climate of the Hunter -- a little bit of that kind of surprise can go a long way with me -- but the qualified and confused (and, as you say, angry) responses made me hesitate. And one of the things I admire about Hunter is that sincerity is in the mix there, as well. Just that its concern for fractured families and their abandoned, unstable members is woven well into its poses and goofs.

Agnes too transcends its camp and absurdist elements and while the first half is very funny, I ultimately found it rather affecting.

[therewillbeblus]

Edit: moved over to dedicated thread

[knives]

French Exit is a strange film, and one that doesn't really deliver on its eccentric vision, nor earn its merit badge as an original work. Hedges and Poots really weigh down the film as vapid characters of the next generation whose banal energy likely has the opposite of the intended effect, by making the older compromised characters far more interesting and worthy as a fading presence, signifying the termination of something special rather than demonstrating an abnormal facilitation of the cycle of life. Or perhaps we're meant to understand that they all started out like these empty youngsters and that they too may grow more peculiar over time, peeling back onion layers of personality, or adding to bland ones, to reveal/form idiosyncratic reasons for living.

The problem is that everything is so vague and meandering without any existential or emotional payoff. Pfeiffer is terrific, and the film is worth seeing for her perf of false austerity meshed with madness, a kind soul with an enigmatic bite, though she's far too obscure to latch onto, and the film lays its full bet on her to provide meaning to the film. There are weird narrative inclusions of magical realism that should color this thematically or aesthetically within its absurd internal logic, but instead it's like watching a mashup of Buñuel's C-grade surreal gags edited into an unfinished The Royal Tenenbaums-aping domestic dramedy. The film can't find a tone, which could generously be reflexively read as an externalization of Pfeiffer's mental state, but since we don't even know what that is, this doesn't really work either.

Still, there are fun bit parts, and the blending of eccentric with relatable compassion lends itself well to the challenges properly expressing this, often by giving homeless people money or attempting to make connections in a manner that begins with accidentally putting up barriers rather than transcending them. The film doesn't make that clear enough or go with the idea full-tilt either though, so it's still aimlessly wandering in space looking for a home in one of its concepts. The best comparison might to be call this an anti-Desplechin film, for while that artist finds himself squatting transiently in countless homes via full-measured dedications to his many ideas, messy but with deep affection and confidence in his ethos, this film is just.. messy.

This nails a lot of my feelings quite well. I would add that Pfeiffer really does make the film so much more rendering her character as this very empathetic observer while the script treats her as more a Lucille Bluth. I’m not sure why, but the best parts of the film gave me an intense nostalgia that makes it love it so much more than its merits would suggest. Jacobs seems another rare mumblecore grad who consistently makes worthwhile films. Terri was absolutely brilliant for example.

[Finch]

V/H/S 94: I thought the first and especially the second film were enjoyable but passed on the third after pretty unanimous negative reviews. The framing story for the fourth film is tedious and the resolution a face-slapper. The first segment revolving around a female reporter and her asshole camera operator investigating a local legend called the Ratman is mostly quite good but the low budget shows in the practical monster effects and the tonal shift (the gruesome gag that ends this story is done well) at the end felt a bit jarring. The second segment which was written and directed by Simon Barrett has a black woman presiding over an empty nighttime wake for a man whose body has been dismembered was my personal favourite of the entire film. Slowly and steadily building the suspense to a macabre finale and the only time the film made me jump. The Indonesian segment by the director behind Headshot and other very violent Indonesian thrillers and horror films is the longest at 30 minutes. A mad scientist experiments with two captives, one male and one female, in the hope to create the perfect blend of man and machine but then his work gets interrupted by invading cops. The female victim who has already been transformed, then has to get out of this mess alive. This is quite a ride if you can stomach the extreme gore and it strikes some poignant notes among the carnage, but like the segment about the sect in the second VHS, it's also a bit exhausting. I couldn't get into the fourth story involving far-right agitators and would-be domestic terrorists: it felt like a feature squeezed into the shorter format and the pacing was off. I don't know, maybe it was a case of me having enough of assholes like these men from the real life news, but I shrugged at this last chapter and all that was left was the dreadful ending to the already poor framing story.

[Never Cursed]

CODA (capitalization intentional): By some distance the treacliest and most typical of this year’s American awards season offerings - moderately interesting premise obliterated under the weight of all the typical beats of an inspirational young adult drama. The film pretends to meander and meaningfully utilize its deaf actors in its early passages, but all of its narrative thrust functions to pull the movie directly into extreme tropiness. This is the type of movie where a period of hard work for our protagonist is communicated through a peppy montage set to I Fought The Law, and the type of movie where a character’s “super weird” music taste is signalled because they like The Shaggs, and the type of movie where, to show that a music lover is angry, they are seen aggressively playing a piano with a stern expression. I could go on and say that, in other words, it’s the type of movie that craves a cracker barrel/Downeaster Alexa-ass depiction of “real” working-class/culturally deaf family dynamics while running screaming away from anything approaching insight, but I’m honestly just more astonished that such a dinosaur mode of prestige filmmaking as this still persists into an age that increasingly regards filmmaking itself as a relic. (I admit I also rankle a little at any film that takes great pains to decry the unfair and stereotyped treatment of deaf people and, on the other hand, depicts a Latino choir director as a sassy effeminate whiner who liberally uses the phrase “dios mio!”). I don’t want to diminish the great work that the cast (particularly the parents) put in, but there really is no need to bother with this artifact of the past outside of obligations to the awards season.

[domino harvey]

It’s wild to me that THIS was the popular recent French film America decided to remake, because the only reason La famille Bélier existed was to give Louane Emera a star vehicle 100% catered to her strengths at the cost of everything else in the movie— and it worked very well on that level. But remove her, which a remake must, and there’s nothing there that hasn’t been seen countless other times unless they’ve shored up a lot of the source material for the remake

[knives]

I doubt it unless old people having sex jokes count as shoring.

[Never Cursed]

Hey, don't forget the Weinstein-produced remake of Intouchables (speaking of dinosaurs engaging with an industry that completely passed them by). Honestly, I'd rather have this mode of foreign film remakes (where it's basically impossible to tell that it's a remake and there exists the potential for original touches) over pointlessly slavish endeavors like the hypothetical Parasite HBO series (though of course what I'd really rather have is no remakes and just the increased promotion of the foreign-language originals)

[hearthesilence]

Has anyone else seen Alexandre Koberidze's What Do We See When We Lookat the Sky? It popped up on quite a few top ten lists and already played in the fall (at Lincoln Center and BAM) but fortunately there were a few end-of-year screenings elsewhere.

I won't spoil anything but I'm not sure what to make of it. I was quite taken with the first act, believing they were brilliantly pulling off the kind of romantic comedy fantasy that a filmmaker would have made if they never heard of Nora Ephron but learned everything about their craft through Robert Bresson's films. All the details painted of life outside of the two leads was exquisite, but deep into its 150 minute run, it really felt like the film was simply adrift, though pretty much by design as the narrator blatantly makes clear. I haven't checked out the reviews yet - I wanted to go in fresh - but anyone here have any impressions they want to share?

[DarkImbecile]

David Ehrlich’s Top 25 of 2021 video

[John Cope]

Zeros and Ones

A glance at the old IMDB clearly indicates that this movie was absolutely not what most viewers wanted to see or thought they were going to see and fairly or not then (and here I blame Lionsgate promotional material just as much) it was inevitably going to be dismissed with disdain. But of course Abel Ferrara was never interested in a conventional action-thriller genre picture as this was advertised. This is rather an ambient, textural, tonal piece, a mediation or tone poem backed up by great and creatively compelling substance however elusive and obscure that might be.

No small part of his accomplishment here is in exactly what many viewers seem to hate the most: the foregrounding and prominence of lockdown era allusions. This is only appropriate as Ferrara shot this during a time of lockdown in Rome and he does make allowances for it, integrating its reality into or accommodating it within the subject and ostensible focus of his film, albeit only vaguely but no more so than any other element involved. Still, that alone might have been enough to set some viewers off. While this is, again ostensibly, a military thriller of some sort or another that is never made clear and its obscurity is if anything profoundly pronounced. So, then, given that, the extreme emphasis upon masking and (gasp) even the consistent use of hand sanitizer probably sets poorly as what that does is upset or unsettle the usual depiction of a militaristic narrative as one of clear cut goals for strong and accomplished men; a heavy reliance on an element that emphasizes vulnerability or protective measures will inevitably interfere with someone's settled notions of masculinity.

Actually, watching this just brought back to my own mind again something I've been thinking about off and on for quite awhile now. All the enormous efforts that have gone into safety measures on movie and TV productions have gone into the service of producing work that defiantly avoids any acknowledgment of our prominent and prolonged present reality state of turbulent upset; what there is instead is a great effort to deny that reality exists and, as such, when someone looks back at this era in years to come and tries to get a fix upon it through its representation in media they will indeed be left with close to a great zero (perhaps Hollywood is waiting till all this can be safely contextualized as a "historic" piece). I guess much of this neglect has to do with our current conditions as a society beset by a rift between those willing to acknowledge it on same base ontological level and those who are not--that can kind of put the fear of God into the hearts of media investors.

Under such conditions then we should be especially grateful for what Ferrara has provided us with here: not just a film that does blatantly acknowledge the conditions of our reality (even as they are repurposed for his own specific ends and therefore not specifically related to COVID as such) but also a film that seeks to recognize a much bigger picture beyond the immediacy of the moment and these particular details. It is indeed a film that is defiantly obscure but that is appropriate for the elusive ineffability of what he is after here. The title refers to a fundamental state of both duality and binaries but it is not necessarily a state that cannot be surpassed and recognizing that is key to the sublimity of Ferrara's effort. And it is indeed an effort, a spiritual exercise in transcendence even or at least the effort made. The characters as analogues for this represent a world of confusion, of confused differentiation, not so much the twisting contours of a double agent spy plot in which sides don't matter and give way purely to power plays but representative instead of a world in which the clearly designated and supposedly competing ideologies themselves slide away from comprehension for the characters and ourselves; clear meaning slides away in other words and that is not irrelevant but critical. It opens up then to a multiplicity of meaning but not without threat and danger. This is then representative of a far more complex global world and Ferrara's film is one of the first I've seen to really take seriously the challenge of a multicultural world that is now incumbent upon us. The result of all that is that confusion and searching reigns supreme as center of all, another thing surely set to disrupt any inclination toward a trite triumphalism even as Ferrara never denies that the reality of such a moment is indeed a war state (and indeed acknowledges this as most other films seeks to downplay it). It is appropriate then that the characters represent a blur of undefinable and unfinalizable loyalties and commitments. The emphasis is upon the seeking, a state of being made more prominent or distinctive by situating it within a war state surrounding it.

Not insignificantly a character says, "The world is the hiding place for God," and that provides an ultimate lens or a lens of ultimacy through which to view all this. The film's portrait of fundamentals inevitably comes crashing back into the numinous, an absolute state which is indeed situated beyond what we immediately see and is only pointed to by that. The bare existence details of lockdown life, for instance, shift and take on the strangely surprising but surprisingly natural seeming cast of sacred rites or a certain sacramentality. This eases up on us slowly as it merges with the film's also slowly eased into consideration of ultimate concerns. The explicit religious content is then also surprisingly revealing as those scenes always function as directly related to whatever the other prominent narrative elements are without ever losing the distinctive details of their religious character. As such they too point to a fundamental inextricability between these seemingly disparate realms. Even the more inexplicable moments such as Hawke's sex scene at gun point can't help but allude to a larger world beyond the frame in which the significance or relevance of these acts can be contextualized and understood, a world we simply do not know. This consistent disconnected presentation, however, gives all the events and details the redolence of an unfathomable mystery.

This is a film finally about attempting to get past or go beyond the specifics of conflicting ideologies or even the specifics of distinctions themselves into a realm of reconciliation. That may be too hopeful to be anything other than utopian in spirit but for Ferrara at least it is the great philosophical and spiritual effort we are capable of that is worth the effort, that we are ultimately implicated by if we do not make the effort, positioned almost as a kind of divine directive for pursuit of the divine built into the unique character of human capability. It's an expansion of consciousness which attempts to overcome the conflict between perspectives, between binary opposition, even the very idea of the conflict itself through a reconfiguration that may only be able to be recognized rather than ever fully implemented but however it turns out it's the measure of the effort that counts.