My Top 10 of 2021

Yesterday we went through my Top 10 favorite first-time viewings in 2021 (that weren't 2021 releases).  Today, we'll get into the 2021 releases.  This isn't a popular sentiment to share in certain sections of the internet, but I was generally bored by cinema in 2020.  While I'm not someone that always needs a lot of happy endings or giant effects, having all small, independent films got to be a bit monotonous, and perhaps more damning, there simply weren't that many truly spectacular movies, and the ones that were suffered from not getting the bright pop of a big-screen (think of how much better Mank or Nomadland would have looked in your local cineplex).  That wasn't the case in 2021.  Not only do I think this year was an improvement over last year, I am thrilled to say I saw eight of the below (10, err, 11) films on the big-screen, which in at least a couple of cases made all of the difference.

I am a one-man operation here with a full-time day job, and so there are inevitably a few films that I missed here.  I have every intention of seeing, specifically, Drive My Car & Flee (arguably the most critically-lauded movies that I didn't have the chance to get to), but weather and sheer exhaustion meant they missed the cutoff by a few days.  I did, however, see over sixty movies from 2021, and below are the ten best (alphabetically) of the bunch.  

Honorable Mention

Bo Burnham: Inside

dir. Bo Burnham

In an era where streaming overlaps so frequently with film it's hard to grasp the difference between what is and isn't cinema.  My gut says, by the strictest definitions, that this was intended to be "television" and as a result I'm not going to rank Bo Burnham's vital, bold, revolutionary comedy special in this Top 10, but know that if it was a movie it surely would've not just made this list, but would've sat at the top of it.

My Top Ten

Bergman Island

dir. Mia Hansen-Love

Part Certified Copy, part The French Lieutenant's Woman, with just a sprinkling of Scenes from a Marriage to stay on theme, Bergman Island is a thoughtful look at how we are haunted by art, and the way the tales we create for ourselves mirror our real-life relationships.

CODA

dir. Sian Heder

Takes a formulaic story and fills it with warmth & heart in unexpected ways.  The entire cast shows up (it's difficult to single out a member of the main quartet, though you'll crush hard on Daniel Durant) in the year's best ensemble.

Dune

dir. Denis Villeneuve

Oh yeah, that's what I've been missing.  Big-scale moviemaking of the highest-order, Villeneuve brings Frank Herbert's seemingly unfilmable movie to life with excellent world-building, superb effects, & a slew of superstars ready to embrace the picture's iconography.

Encanto

dir. Byron Howard & Jared Bush

Lin-Manuel Miranda's score is of course the centerpiece here ("We Don't Talk About Bruno" became a pop culture phenomenon for a reason), but what left me invested in a way I haven't been for the Mouse House since Coco was the myriad details the filmmakers put into every corner of the picture-it's a familiar story, but it feels anew with such well-drawn side characters.

The Green Knight

dir. David Lowery

The Green Knight plays a lot with form (this is less Howard Pyle and more Terrence Malick), but it truly shows what the meaning of honor is (what it's worth and its artificial constructs).  Dev Patel is marvelous (and sexy as hell) as our lead hero, and Alicia Vikander proves all of her Oscar naysayers wrong with a complicated (but perfectly executed) dual role.

Licorice Pizza

dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

By far the year's most "cinematic" movie.  I am always intrigued with PTA, but am not always in love...Licorice Pizza is one of those times where adoration is involved.  Alana Haim sings onscreen (excuse the pun)...a born actress from the opening scene.

The Power of the Dog

dir. Jane Campion

Completely enthralling, a slow-burn enigmatic tale that will keep you guessing right up until the final moments.  Benedict Cumberbatch takes what could've been a fatally miscast role and gives the performance of his career, and Kirsten Dunst & Kodi Smit-McPhee are up to the task of aiding him to that chilling finale.

Quo Vadis, Aida?

dir. Jasmila Zbanic

Quo Vadis, Aida? is at its best when it's showing the cruelty of fate.  A real-life story that plays with the tension of a high-stakes thriller (you will grip your armrest), it captures the immediateness of war in a way that few films before it have been able to achieve.

West Side Story

dir. Steven Spielberg

I never had a doubt that Steven Spielberg would make a good remake of arguably the 20th Century's greatest musical, but what I was unsure of was if he'd make it feel "needed."  Turns out, Spielberg is able to bring a modernness (without it ever feeling tacked on) to this tale, and is aided by a solid ensemble cast, particularly Mike Faist & Ariana DeBose.

The Worst Person in the World

dir. Joachim Trier

Trier captures one woman's life, the up's and down's in amazing detail.  But what makes Worst Person's story so mesmerizing is the way that he doesn't take time to let us second guess.  Like real life, Worst Person gives us a story about people who aren't ready to make decisions that they must make, and will affect the rest of their lives.  Few films can give us such stakes without feeling manipulated.

Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)

Film: Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)

Stars: Bo Burnham

Director: Bo Burnham

Oscar History: Is it eligible?  You could make a sincere argument that if they're going to allow something like Luca to be eligible, this should be too, but I'd assume this is more of an Emmy play (and I suspect it'll compete).

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

While YouTube has had its occasional crossover stars, most obviously Justin Bieber (a figure so famous we don't think of him as being a YouTube figure in the first place), in terms of the world of acting (rather than music), the platform has struggled to have its figures achieve genuine, "I'm no longer a YouTube star in a movie, but actually just a movie star" success.  Bo Burnham, though, appears the most likely to change that.  The guy who got his name out there first for writing quippy, bawdy, and boundary-pushing songs in his attic decided instead of taking the easy cash-grab when it came to moving into mainstream film, he would put in the time on a project he worked on for five years, Eighth Grade.  The movie was the right move-Burnham earned raves for the film, including from yours truly, and followed that with a key supporting turn in the Best Picture nominee Promising Young Woman, for which he was excellent (and should have been cited for an Oscar).  Burnham seems to be opening up more doors for himself, in venues not typically allowed for YouTube figures, and will next be seen in Oscar winner Adam McKay's TV miniseries about the LA Lakers (the lanky actor will play Larry Bird).

(Spoilers Ahead) But Burnham has not entirely left behind the kid singing in his attic, which is what happens with his latest venture Inside, a movie that navigates across genre with ease but is difficult to pin down: is it a comedy special? documentary? concert film?  It's impossible to quantify.  Essentially, the movie itself is focused on Burnham actually filming a special during long stretches of the pandemic, capturing in real time what it was like to create a large-scale, solo project, during quarantine.  The film, as it goes further, becomes a meta-commentary on Burnham's ability to handle the project while his mental health waivers, to the point where the word "trigger warning" is definitely appropriate for the film itself.  We see Burnham grappling with his mental health issues, particularly around anxiety, coping with issues such as aging, world affairs, and the inherent loneliness of a year alone, all while continually interspersing with musical numbers talking about, well, all of these issues.  The film's end result is one of hope, as he eventually leaves his house (just like we have been doing the past few weeks), but likely forever scarred by the experience.

Burnham's Inside, as I mentioned above, is difficult to pin down.  This is, for my money, more than a mere "comedy special," as while there is a brilliance that can happen within that confine, this feels more like a performance piece, morphing into a proper movie.  It's impossible to know with Burnham, who has spent years cultivating a specific type of onscreen persona, what is real and what is imagined.  He will show a deep sincerity in one scene, and then almost instantly snap back into a comic figure, trying to stop you from boxing him in (perhaps as an entertainer, but more perhaps as a defense mechanism).  This will make it difficult, I'm sure, for people obsessed with awards, to know where to classify what Burnham is achieving (I know I'm going to have issues with it), but if you can move beyond that and just appreciate, you're in for a treat.

That's because what Burnham is doing here is extraordinary, one of (if not the) best things I've seen so far this year in the world of entertainment.  The film starts out quite funny, and borrowing from past Burnham specials (which are all very good-I'm an ardent admirer), with songs like "White Lady Instagram" which blends the absurdity of our performative lives with, in a long soliloquy toward the end of the song, the way that we use Instagram for a cover for what we're actually feeling.  As the film progresses, though, it becomes much more than his past work.  We see an artist crafting an increasingly meta Jenga tower, a figure struggling with the pandemic & the isolation it causes, but also admitting that it's not just the pandemic-the laser focus of spending a year inside makes us see some of the worst about our lives, the things we had put out-of-sight but couldn't when forced to spend so much time with ourselves.  Burnham watches a video of himself as a young man, singing one of the songs that, upon rewatch, might not be appropriate for a straight, white man to sing, and then doing a number called "Problematic" about his struggles with having lived a life so openly on the internet.

The film hits its climax, in my opinion, when Burnham trots out "Welcome to the Internet" after a particularly daunting breakdown, one that feels less staged & more a result of his quarantined status.  The song is marvelous, with Burnham taking on the role of a mad carnival barker (complete with round sunglasses in a dark room adding to the claustrophobia), singing about the wonders & horrors of living a life on the internet, where we can never truly escape.  "Apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime" he trills alongside how the internet ranges from pasta-cooking tips to behavior that borders on sexual assault...but where the only true offense is not continuing to engage with the platform further & further & further.  It's a dark number, and while the rest of the film allows for some hope, it's this song that sticks with you in the hours after you watch it, giving us little respite from the daunting knowledge that the internet is going to, always, get you back.

The result is a sophisticated, all-timer one-man show, with Burnham in peak comedic, musical, & dramatic flare.  It's difficult to see this not becoming a defining chapter in Burnham's career if he does continue to deliver on this promise of becoming a proper star (either as an actor or filmmaker)-it has that kind of "genius has arrived" appeal that announces a new generational talent, where even those who weren't fans beforehand will stand up and take note.  Inside, better than anything I've read or seen, captures the abject horror of the past year's isolation, loneliness, & fear...and the way that it doesn't feel like, even as we "return to normal," that this is a normal we should have been able to accept to begin with.

OVP: Promising Young Woman (2020)

Film: Promising Young Woman (2020)

Stars: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Chris Lowell

Director: Emerald Fennell

Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actress-Carey Mulligan, Film Editing, Original Screenplay*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Few films this year have I watched and thought "this would be a total zeitgeist hit if movies were in theaters" more fully than after I finished Promising Young Woman.  Though it's in theaters, most people are still going to be seeing this at-home, away from water coolers & cocktail parties where it could be the center of discussion in the same way that Gone Girl was a few years ago, and that's a darn shame.  Promising Young Woman is a captivating feature, one that ruthlessly shifts genres from one scene to the other, and is a confident, incredible debut (seriously-how is this a debut film?!?) from Emerald Fennell, best-known to most audiences for her work on Call the Midwife and The Crown.  Few films this year have felt so relevant & iconic as you were watching them as this comedic thriller.

(Spoilers Ahead...and I mean it-don't read this if you haven't seen the movie) The movie is about Cassie (Mulligan) a 30-year-old woman who was once pursuing med school with a strong academic caliber, but now lives with her parents, working at a coffeeshop & regularly visiting nightclubs in a state of inebriation...or so we're intended to believe.  Though this was apparent if you saw the trailers, Cassie doesn't actually visit these nightclubs with the intention of hooking up or becoming intoxicated, but instead into seeing which guy will try to bring her home, and potentially try to have sex with her in her inebriated state (and then shows them afterward to be the creeps that they are for trying to hook up with a drunk girl, and lets them know they aren't "nice guys").

This all comes to a head when she realizes two things.  The first is that a guy from her past, Ryan (Burnham) is back and is interested in her romantically.  Cassie has not been open to dating a man in a serious way, but his charm & candor wear her down, and they begin dating.  Ryan lets her know that Al Monroe (Lowell), a fellow classmate of both of theirs, is back in the country about to get married, and Cassie knows that Al raped her (now-dead) best friend, who is the inspiration for her nightly bar trips.  Slowly, Cassie chooses between enacting revenge on those people who helped cover up for Al (including an old school dean and a former classmate, played by Alison Brie) or letting go of this anger & focusing on her relationship with Ryan.

Promising Young Woman puts a lot of care into every scene & every direction it takes.  Up until this point, it's an odd movie in that it seems to have two different stories that clearly cannot meld successfully.  Cassie has enacted revenge on all of these men, and likely needs to move on from this in order to have a healthy relationship with another guy, but she also has not gotten the catharsis she had from her friend Nina's death.  The movie upends what we'd expect (that she'll let it go, and that Ryan will be the guy who convinces her not "all men are bad") when we see a video of the sexual assault, and it turns out that Ryan was there that night.  Cassie then blackmails Ryan into giving her the location of Al's bachelor party...where she goes intent on revenge, but this backfires with a second twist, where Cassie is murdered by Al, and then eventually burned by Al & a friend before a failsafe plan Cassie had created leads to Al's arrest.

The movie sounds long, but it's not-it uses its screen-time judiciously and in service to its plot.  The care shows in aspects you wouldn't always consider.  The movie's soundtrack is crazy good (you'll want to download Paris Hilton's "Stars are Blind" afterward...this might be the best thing to ever happen to her music career), and the casting is sublime.  Fennell seems to have made a point of hiring "nice guy types" like Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Sam Richardson to play the guys who try to date rape Cassie, to underline how we need to reconsider the benefit-of-the-doubt we give to boys-next-door in these stories.

The story might be offputting to some (particularly if you're invested in Bo Burnham's manic pixie dream guy, the twist with his character is a sucker punch), and there are flaws in the character arch's of this film if you think about it too much (particularly since we have no concept of who Cassie is without her Nina revenge story, other than she was once a "promising young woman"), but I don't think you'll care.  I know I didn't.  The film is so persistent, underlining difficult passages with ease, and is aided by a universally strong cast & script.  As a result, Promising Young Woman is that rare creation indeed-a pop culture phenom that actually lives up to its hype.

Eighth Grade (2018)

Film: Eighth Grade (2018)
Stars: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson, Jake Ryan, Luke Prael
Director: Bo Burnham
Oscar History: Fisher landed a Golden Globe nod for her work here, but it didn't quite take off with Oscar.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

It is always amusing to me that of all of the tropes you regularly see in film, the one that is most banal and continual tends to be high school films (give or take sports movies).  High school movies, though the technology and clothing options change, seem to be consistently the same, with some underdog coming into their own alongside the vapid, underwritten popular girl, hot guy, and inevitable dork or group of dorks that make up her support group.  This is the case for Eighth Grade-despite being a heightened realism and showing some of the pitfalls of being a teenager in Generation Z, we are left with Kayla (Fisher) on a journey similar to so many who have come before her ranging from Sam Baker to Cady Heron.  What's unique about Eighth Grade is the care that Bo Burnham brings to his creations, particularly the exceptional work of Fisher and Josh Hamilton as her father, giving us raw, lovely performances that elevate a plot we know by heart.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around Kayla, a girl just about to finish middle school and enter high school, who is a largely invisible student raised by a doting, dorky father named Mark (Hamilton), as her mother had abandoned them years earlier.  Kayla has no real friends, and as a result most of her internal identity seems to be formed through social media.  She has a YouTube channel, where she puts together basic (but perhaps meaningful for a 14-year-old) advice videos where she implores those around her to have self-confidence and pride even though she cannot muster this herself.  She has a crush on a boy in her class named Aiden (Prael), who is cute but also a bit of a jackass as we learn as the film progresses (we learn about halfway through the film that he's only interested in Kayla when she reveals that she'll send him dirty photos).  The film shows her slowly realizing that she can be who she is and still love herself, and find some sort of self-worth even in an existence where she doesn't feel appreciated or adored.

The film is heartbreaking, and occasionally devastating to watch.  Kayla, unlike most high school movies of this nature, doesn't come with a best friend at the beginning of the film that she can rely upon, another dork that is her steady rock-Kayla's only real constant source of support is her father, who struggles to understand why this little girl he loves so much doesn't have more friends and is sullen & distant to him.  Burnham's choice to put Kayla by herself makes the film feel a bit more alien than you'd expect from such a picture (though he indulges other tropes like her finding that unlikely friend in the end and her telling off the pretty, popular girl at the graduation), but it's a smart choice.  You spend much of the picture worrying about Kayla, as her lonely existence makes you concerned that this is a girl that could struggle with suicide or self-harm.  Burnham litters the film with allusions to the callousness of modern life for teenagers (the school shooting drills, the intense need for validation on social media), but perhaps most daunting is how intensely lonely Kayla is, how she tries desperately to fit in with almost anyone around her in hopes that they can make her feel "normal," which is clearly her goal in life.

This makes for some sharp observations in the back half of the movie, when Kayla befriends an older girl named Olivia (Robinson), whom she hangs out with at a mall, and the truly disgusting scene afterwards where Kayla has an interaction with an older boy who pressures her to become sexual with him.  It's a creepy scene not only because it feels too plucked out of reality (I instantly thought of several guys I graduated with who were not popular in our grade and would try and date younger girls since girls their own age wouldn't date them), but also the way that Kayla is taught to react.  She says no, but spends the rest of the car ride apologizing to him even though he's the one being a creep. She even begs him not to tell their mutual friend, assuming what she did was wrong despite the fact that he was the one in the wrong.  Burnham's script is so smart in its observations of what it's like to be a 21st century teenager, always expected to act the same way as the sunny, happy figures you see in YouTube videos (the Zoella's, the Bethany Mota's, etc) and not prepared to handle the darker side of a world on-display.  Burnham's care with his writing, putting little nuggets that might not be noticeable to younger audiences (the way Kennedy's mom is clearly thirsty for Kayla's dad), is so choice and specific it's hard not to be impressed.

That smart script wouldn't work without two very strong lead performers, and Burnham got them in Fisher and Hamilton.  Fisher is naturalistic, to the point where you'll be forgiven for assuming that she is playing herself (I'm assuming she isn't, though I admittedly haven't seen interviews with her yet).  Her Kayla is invisible but doesn't understand why she is, and doesn't deduce ways to change others' perceptions of her.  The notes of glee when she finally gets a tinge of happiness in her life (look at the scene where she prays to God that he make tomorrow good for her, even if she has to have a bunch of awful days afterward) are exact and marvelous-a lesser actor would have indulged in articulate histrionics that Kayla isn't capable of, and bravo to Fisher for resisting such temptations.  Hamilton may be even better as her dad, trying to find a way to understand his daughter.  Naturally handsome, it's possible he doesn't relate to this girl because he was the kind of guy the popular girls went for (like I said, the Kennedy's mom bit is choice), but that struggle to relate to the most important person in his life, who doesn't want to know him, is something you rarely see in a father-daughter relationship.  Hamilton has this marvelous monologue at the end of the film where he has to try and convince his daughter that she doesn't make him sad; this has to be a parent's worst nightmare, seeing this person who makes your heart brim with love admit that she doesn't view herself that way.  Hamilton's impassioned, bold pleas that she understand that she's the best thing that ever happened to him should be corny, but thanks to his groundwork aren't.  Cinema is brimming with depictions of a parent loving their child unconditionally, but few can show it as a confusing emotion, something that overwhelms you and is difficult to explain.  Hamilton achieves that late in the picture, and it's spectacular.

Overall, Eighth Grade is a well-made movie with smart writing and a routine plot.  Though it'll be claimed as thought-provoking by critics who are too far-removed from Kayla's culture that they don't understand, say, the "no one uses Facebook" comments from Kennedy to her mother, it's in reality just a well-made high school movie.  That's not an insult, as those are hard to pull off, and I'm thrilled to see what comes next from Burnham, Fisher, and Hamilton.

OVP: The Big Sick (2017)

Film: The Big Sick (2017)
Stars: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Bo Burnham
Director: Michael Showalter
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

2017 has been, cinematically, a massive letdown in my opinion.  Yes, yes, I'm aware that if you try hard enough you can find good movies in any year, but let's be honest here-even by using that metric it's still been a bit of a heartbreaker at the pictures so far this annum.  That being said, film years always have their ways of throwing in a surprise or a picture that I didn't anticipate enjoying so fully, and this summer that has become The Big Sick, an unexpectedly moving look at the relationships between parents and children, even in the case where they aren't your parents.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Kumail (Nanjiani, whose name after texting it throughout the summer I think I have finally mastered spelling), a comedian who is stuck between his career aspirations (he seems to clearly be headed to bigger and brighter success even if he's in the "struggling" portion of his run), and his personal life, which is a combination of young Pakistani women that his parents are intent to set him up on a date with, and his true love Emily (Kazan), who as a white girl that was not chosen by his parents, stands against his parents' personal beliefs.  The film takes a turn when Emily discovers that he's been hiding her from his parents and breaks up with him, because she feels he's been leading her on, and then she goes into a medically-endused coma before they can reconcile.  The movie, instead of sticking to Kazan, follows Kumail's relationship with her parents Beth and Terry (played by Hunter and Romano, respectively), which is fraught since they dislike her over his treatment of their daughter, and then slowly they warm to him as they fall in love with the man that he hoped to be for Emily, but never could be.  It's a wonderful movie, one of the better romantic comedies I've seen, and probably my favorite of Judd Apatow's movies (which I always find to be good, but never have the lasting power that this particular film had in my mind).

Perhaps the weirdest aspect of the movie itself is that Emily is really a secondary character, more a plot device than an actual part of the screenplay.  Normally that would be a problem, and it perhaps contributes to the final third of the picture being its least successful part, but it also means that we spend more time with Kumail's relationship with Emily's parents, and with his own parents, which makes for a really interesting new chapter in the romantic comedy.  After all, if you're married you end up spending decades of your life as an additional family member with parents-in-law and siblings-in-law that you never chose for your life.  These people ingratiate themselves in your life in a major way, and yet there are very few movies that explore this weirdly forced relationship in a natural way, rather than just the condescending mother-in-law.  It doesn't hurt that Nanjiani has ace chemistry with Hunter and Romano (who are both wonderful, to the point where I hope this isn't the last time they're together onscreen).  Kumail gets to realize things about himself with them that he hadn't before, and we see him fall in love (platonically, of course) with these people and realize where his love for Emily comes from.  It makes the later scenes where Emily wholly rejects him, making him realize that he'll be losing three people he loves instead of one, all the more devastating.

Like I said, I didn't wholly love the movie (I never felt like Kazan fully understood her character's actions), but it's arguably the sweetest movie I've seen all year, and yet it's still pretty sharp.  There's a great scene with Vella Lovell who plays the only Pakistani girl from a cavalcade of women that his parents try to set him up with that clicks with Kumail later in the picture where she confronts Kumail, realizing that he won't ever love her since he loves Emily, coming to terms with her own loneliness that knocked me off my feet (Lovell, who also plays the hyper-chill Heather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, shows herself to be a pretty versatile actor completely abandoning what I'd expected from her here).  We also see the cruelty and desperation of being a struggling comedian (there's a running joke about Kumail's roommate not being a good enough comedian to ever be successful even though he hasn't realized that yet, which becomes a bitterer pill later in the picture when we make the connection that since Nanjiani did become successful in real life, there are so many whose dreams are crushed in that pursuit).  All-in-all, it's a movie with layers, where the romance is essential to propel the plot, but arguably the least interesting conversation in which the picture engages.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Did anyone else really like the movie, or are you all still wounded by an Apatow allergy?  Where do you hope that Nanjiani goes next with his career, as he'll likely get another leading role after this movie?  And do you think that Holly Hunter might get her fifth Oscar nomination for the film (or that it could land in Original Screenplay)?  Share below!