Well then.
What a goddamn year we have all had since the last time I posted something here. It feels gauche to try and sum up everything that's happened in some pithy but respectful way before pivoting to something miniature like my movie year, but it also feels gauche to pretend that nothing happened at all, so I'll split the difference by trying to mime the apocalypse and then sitting quietly in my apartment for a year and assume that y'all get what I mean.
Now, my year in movies is certainly a tiny little drop in a large and very sad bucket, but it's my drop, and this space is my own dumb bucket, so I assume that if you're here, you're willing to shrink your world to a scale in which all this can feel relevant. And what a year for movies it was and wasn't, where the question of whether or not cinema was going to scrape through 2020 in any kind of meaningful form reared its ugly head. Well, yes and no. It turns out that cinema, like roaches, cargo shorts, and Denny's, is here to stay, no matter how hard we all try to make them go away. The dire predictions that movies themselves would cease to be, dissolving into the ether with one final, defeated wail, seem to be have been exaggerated. That said, moviegoing as a concept might still be on its last legs. There's a debate to be had on streaming vs. the theater experience, but I don't want to have it, so I'm gonna just cross my fingers and hope.
As to the year itself: I acknowledge that posting a dump of 'Best of 2020' lists in mid-March seems poorly timed, but movie schedules (and my own silly whims) are inevitable, so here we are. Partly, this delay comes from multiple release date delays, where the biggest prestige-y releases moved from November-December to January-February (some of which still haven't opened yet in an accessible way) (I am glaring at you, The Father--I'm rooting against all your Oscar hopes just because making people wait til April is a heinous crime). Partly, the delay mirrors the Oscar/prestige movie season calendar. Normally, I'd post these lists a couple weeks before the Oscars (mid-February) and call it good. Following that metric, I theoretically have until mid-April to match my own yearly traditions, but I didn't want the grim specter of these lists and the very minor pressures they exert following me around another month (truly, I have the hardest life).
But the biggest delay was me. Simply stated, this year took away most of my movie-loving oomph. I know that I have an immense level of privilege to have been paid to work from home for the past year, and that neither the violence perpetrated by the past regime's policies, nor the social inequities (currents that were always there) fought over last year were targeted at a cis white man like me. My shit was easy, and I recognize that, but nevertheless the general malaise of being a person in 2020 was enough to take me out of the movies, enough so that I legitimately believed that I wasn't going to do these for 2020. But then, something dumb and wondrous happened: the Golden Globes released their nominations at the beginning of February, and I realized that I'd hardly seen anything nominated. And I would be damned all the way to Mega-Hell before I let the Golden Globes have more informed opinions than I did about the movie year. Imagine.
So, I got my ass in gear. At the start of February, I'd seen 19 movies from the 2020 calendar year. Now, 5-ish weeks later, I'm sitting on 74. Which, strangely, is tied for the second highest number of movies I've seen from a year when it's time to sit down and write some lists (thus definitively proving, for now and all time, that grad school has had a stronger negative effect on me than the actual apocalypse). While there are still some glaring omissions in my viewing, I feel great about how far I've come, and am thrilled to have resurrected something that I loved. The world is gonna have to try a whole lot harder to keep me from wasting your time and mine with thousands of words about why Barb and Star is masterpiece we need right now. (Note to the universe: this is not an invitation. I am very tired and am doing my best.)
2020 was an...eclectic movie year, to say the least (and should we expect anything less?), so I imagine and hope that these lists will also be a little goofy. But horrific year or no, there were plenty of stellar options if you were willing to look around--and since the multiplexes were swallowed by the earth and the big blockbusters and Marvel movies shrunk into the night, the only way you saw anything at all this year is if you were willing to look. And if you didn't know where to start, then it's your lucky day! I have a metric shit-ton of opinions, and all of them are objectively correct. And what's out there is really wonderful--I've got 25 movies that all feel like they need to be in the top 20 (or even top 10), and no idea which ones make it in. Chaos!
If you're new here (which is certainly not the case, as the only people still reading already signed a blood pact with me decades ago that requires them to come back), then here's how the format works. I'll rattle off my top 20 of the year, while doing my very best not to lovingly drown brevity in my bathtub. This means I've imposed a two-sentence limit on myself per film, because a) I am very old, and my withered hands can only type for so long before blowing away in the wind, and b) I will at least pretend to respect your time, if not my own. All that said, I break this rule every single year (and have already disrespected brevity to an upsetting degree), so we'll see how it goes. After that, I'll offer some more thoughts on the best scenes and the worst movies of the year, if you still need something to read.
(You know what? We are all sitting in our homes in quiet desperation, begging for any kind of distraction for even a moment. I gotta stop apologizing for giving you something to read. You're welcome. I have venmo and cashapp.)
In interest of transparency, here's a list of the movies I saw this year. It's difficult to identify exactly where the holes in my viewing are (though international fare is always a big sticking point), given the whole movie year could be reduced a flat list on a couple streaming websites, but here we are. Sorry to Driveways, The Father, Beanpole, Shirley, She Dies Tomorrow, French Exit, Kajillionaire, Swallow, etc. Also, a note on Small Axe: I've decided that, since it was conceived of as a TV offering and was made as such, and director Steve McQueen is on record saying that he intended it to be TV, I'm gonna go ahead and call it TV and say none of the individual films of the series are eligible here. And I think that's fine? Lately, we seem to do this thing where if something on TV is good enough, we stop saying it's TV and give it honorary film status. Why? I think it's ok for things to be themselves. There may be a perception that TV implies a lesser quality, but I don't know if we need to perpetuate that. And, of course, the distinction (or lack thereof) between streaming and theatrical releases further confuses this, particularly in a year where all theatrical releases are hypothetical. I'm definitely not saying that if you've got Small Axe as a film or films, you're wrong. You're probably right! But I'm an obstinate young thing, so here we are. This also applies to TV films like Bad Education, miniseries like I May Destroy You or It's a Sin, etc.
Here's what I saw:
#Alive, Ammonite, Amulet, And Then We Danced, Another Round, The Assistant, Bacurau, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Birds of Prey, Black Bear, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Calm with Horses, Collective, Crip Camp, Da 5 Bloods, Dick Johnson is Dead, Emma., Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, First Cow, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Gretel and Hansel,Happiest Season, Hillbilly Elegy, His House, I'm No Longer Here, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, The Invisible Man, Judas and the Black Messiah, Let Them All Talk, The Life Ahead, Lingua Franca, The Little Things, La Llorona, Love and Monsters, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Mank, The Midnight Sky, Minari, Miss Juneteenth, Monsoon, Mulan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, The New Mutants, News of the World, Nomadland, Onward, One Night in Miami, Palm Springs, Pieces of a Woman, Possessor, The Prom, Promising Young Woman, Relic, The Rental, Ride Your Wave, Sorry We Missed You, Soul, Sound of Metal, A Sun, Tenet, Time, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Underwater, Undine, The Vast of Night, Vitalina Varela, The Way Back, We Are Little Zombies, Welcome to Chechnya, Wild Mountain Thyme, Wolfwalkers, Your Name Engraved Herein
Alright, without further ado (a crushing blow to big fans of ado), let's get to it!
(just a heads up: a piece of these here and there might be stolen from my letterboxd review, because either a) I liked what I wrote there and thought it would add something here or b) was being very lazy)
(second heads up: I'll list where these movies are available to stream. Some of these titles are available to rent on Amazon, but I'd like to take a second to encourage you to observe the Amazon boycott in support of unionizing workers that lasts through Saturday, March 13th.)
Honorable mentions: I'm going to break tradition this year and give five, five! honorable mentions ("what?" you shriek, clutching your pearls), because movies #25-12 are all at basically the same level, and could switch orders at the slightest provocation. So, although they didn't grab a somewhat arbitrary top 20 slot, I'm still grateful for the stillness and horrific accountability of La Llorona, the warmth and character of Miss Juneteenth, the wounded placelessness of Monsoon, the romance and motion of And Then We Danced, and the night terrors of His House
20. The Vast of Night (dir. Andrew Patterson)
A comforting (maybe too comforting?) blend of intimacy and spookiness, complete with a couple of long takes (and an ending) that are pretty dazzling in their confidence and execution. I admire the ambition of this small-scale sci-fi, drifting somewhere between a radio play and a one-take movie.
(streaming on Amazon Prime)
19. The Invisible Man (dir. Leigh Whannell)
Lots of horror films carrying the weight of their own allegories this year (two of which, His House and La Llorona, are in the honorable mentions and absolutely deserve your time) vying for attention, but I've given the slightest edge to this claustrophobic take domestic abuse (and maybe that edge only comes from the fact that I saw this in theaters). A claustrophobic and ingenious spin on the source material that contains some of the most shocking moments of the year.
(streaming on HBO max, rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc.)
18. Wolfwalkers (dir. Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)
One of the most beautiful animated movies I've ever seen--the rare kind of work that feels like it's taught you things about your imagination that you didn't know. The color, the music, the expressive lines that melt into abstractions during emotional scenes, all pulling together to create remarkable and distinctive constellations.
(streaming only on Apple TV, unfortunately)
17. Minari (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)
Such an intimate and striking portrait of a family doing their best--cliché to call something quintessentially American, but it fits here. Remarkable work from one of the best ensembles of the year: can't recall anything that's quietly taken my breath away like the way Steven Yeun and Yeri Han look at each other/the camera in a crucial scene near the end.
(rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc., for a hefty fee)
16. Emma. (dir. Autumn de Wilde)
Surprised by the staying power of this sassy Easter basket Jane Austen adaptation, but it's stuck with me all year: the way it 'opens up' Jane Austen and makes it modern without seeming to strain for it, the way it braids music into and out of the onscreen action, the way it navigates multiple tonal shifts from farce to romance to (light) tragedy and back in the space of a single scene. Throw in the precarious, eye-popping costumes and the most ravishable male cast this side of Magic Mike and there you go.
(streaming on HBO max, rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc.)
15. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (dir. Josh Greenbaum)
The unhinged, wholesome antics we all needed from a 2020 comedy, where the beaches are magic, the hair is big, and Jamie Dornan sings to seagulls and it feels right. Like Trish rising from the sea, Barb and Star gave us a world of goofy wonder when those qualities were needed most.
(rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc., but for a fairly significant fee)
14. Wild Mountain Thyme (dir. John Patrick Shanley)
Why yes, I do have 2020's lurid, critically reviled fever dream about horny sad farmers with destinies in my top 20--you can thank your lucky goddamn stars that it's not in my top 10. A totally singular experience that I started watching and enjoying ironically, but soon forgot to be ironic about it--very stupid, very silly, very overwrought, puzzling, romantic (I guess), and totally perfect, with what is arguably the single most surprising sentence in the history of film, or possibly the English language.(rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc.)
13. The Forty-Year-Old Version (dir. Radha Blank)
What a total delight this movie is, and a singular effort from Radha Blank, who writes, directs, produces, acts, raps, and rocks the hell out of an evening gown/tux jacket combo. One of the funniest movies of the year, and one of the sweetest, all while never losing the little seeds of anger and grief that motivate the protagonist.
(streaming on Netflix)
12. One Night in Miami (dir. Regina King)
Another movie anchored by a fantastic cast, this one essentially a four-hander playing four icons taking a moment to sit and reflect. A little stagy, but the staginess preserves and accentuates how the energy ebbs and flows between everyone, different peaks and match-ups growing organically out of the last.
(streaming on Amazon Prime)
11. Relic (dir. Natalie Erika James)
Such an ugly and upsetting movie that nevertheless retains a degree of tenderness, crawling over broken glass and down a well to find itself again. An taut and hideous horror movie, a look at love across generations, and the closest we'll probably ever get to a Danielewski/House of Leaves adaptation--plus one of the best endings of the year.
(rentable on Google Play and Youtube)
10. Promising Young Woman (dir. Emerald Fennell)
Where to even start with this one? The casting is fantastic, the kind of casting that illustrates what an invisible art looks like when it screams at you, and the whole ensemble is great, the framing/costuming/color choices are wild, and every single needle drop is on point. So how the hell do I feel about the rest of it? I'm honestly not sure. We can debate if the ending is successful or if it's wish fulfillment (or if it's successful because it's wish fulfillment), and we can talk about the film's ratio of respectful to exploitative in regards to using sexual abuse to drive a storyline, and we can talk about whether the movie wants to give us a girl-power revenge fantasy, or if that's just what the advertising tried to sell--we can talk about all these things, but I don't know that it makes a difference. It's ridiculous to say that the conversation, and not its content, is the point, but to an extent...maybe? Love it or hate it, people who see this movie have thoughts. It's a scream of thereness about something that makes people avert their eyes. Massive, strange, disturbed and disturbing. I don't even know if I like this movie, but I've thought about it more than most of the movies I've seen in the past year. Go get it Paris Hilton!
(rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc. for a hefty fee)
(Take that brevity! Get in my bathtub and start drinking!)
(I don't know.)
9. Lingua Franca (dir. Isabel Sandoval)
A lovely lowkey movie in which warmth and anxiety sleep in the same bed. I love how sensual and observant this movie is, due no doubt to Sandoval's careful attention to the choreography of bodies, individually or together, and attention to the holes in a life that stillness fills, for better or worse.
(streaming on Netflix)
8. Nomadland (dir. Chloe Zhao)
A gorgeous and delicate portait that Zhao carves out of the silent spaces of the American West. It's tough to make big and empty feel positive and necessary, and even more tough to do so with a series of little moments of fullness. Nomadland is a kinetoscope of grief, of the way that endings grow out of beginnings, and vice versa, and deserves all the accolades it's been receiving. The way we experience so little of the people on screen beyond the little events of their day--what it's like to refurbish a van, to be a line cook, or to sit quietly in the desert and wait for nothing. There's a quietness here that feels rare, both in movies and in the world at large. Plus, it's one of the most visually stunning movies of the year: I think this is the first movie I've seen from last year where I felt truly gutted that I didn't see it on a big screen.
(streaming on Hulu)
7. Bacurau (dir. Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonca Filho)
Absolutely bonkers: what a joy to get something this angry and unhinged. I hesitate to say anything at all about this movie, since it's best experienced when you've got absolutely no idea what you're in for, but if you want some idea, gird your loins for a murderous Udo Keir, UFO drones, sudden horrific violence, soup, corruption, drugs, etc. (not necessarily in that order). The kind of movie where you need to scrape your jaw off the floor every few minutes. It's drunk on its own audacity, and rightfully so--a furious festering wound scraped into the landscape by the colonial legacy, the influence of a gleefully corrupt and and despotic government, erupting in a moment that lasts a second and a century.
(streaming on the Criterion Channel, rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube, etc.)
6. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (dir. Bill Ross, Turner Ross)
I'm still staggered and astounded by this one, which I rented on a whim months ago. A documentary about a local bar closing at the height of the recession (that was filmed recently in a bar that is not closing, populated by non-actors found in other bars), Bloody Nose... has more authenticity and empathy growing out of its pockets than it knows what to do with. This isn't to say that the bar, or its patrons, gets romanticized or idealized, just that they occupy space, and all the monstrosities and joys that that entails, at least for one night.
(rentable on amazon, google play, youtube, etc.)
5. Dick Johnson is Dead (dir. Kirsten Johnson)
Another documentary with a tightrope premise: what if the filmmaker films her aging father until he dies for real? Holding time in your hands like it's made of silk, and trying not to let it wrap around your hands, in case you start to believe that it can stay there. For whatever reason, I think about the old TV stars and their families all the time--how nice, or maybe not, it must be to have hours and hours of proof of who they or their loved one used to be. Or maybe watching it makes the passage of time just a little too sharp. Or hey, maybe no one has actually ever gotten any catharsis from watching, I dunno, the the 70s run of All My Children. Anyway. More documentaries with a dancing Jesus in them.
(streaming on Netflix)
4. Time (dir. Garrett Bradley)
Three documentaries in the top 10 is certainly a rarity for me, but that's the kind of year it is. Astounding how an 82-minute movie can make time and waiting so tangible. No, maybe that's not entirely accurate. It's not that the film makes the passage of time manifest; it destroys it entirely, crushing it under an industrial press, so that children rub shoulders with teens rub shoulders with adults, and the distinctions don't matter because they all happen in the same hypothetical negative space. Bradley's look at the punishing effects of incarceration on one family underline the utter injustice of what its subjects experience by feats of subtraction. I've read reviews that wanted this movie to show the passage of time more concretely and chronologically, but why? The footage we see shot across decades spills into two pools--waiting and not waiting--and every moment that belongs to waiting sutures itself to the rest. At any rate, it's a poignant and necessary movie--take 90 minutes and watch it.
(streaming on amazon prime)
(Just wanted to step in and marvel not only at the relative strangeness of having three documentaries in a row, but also at how they're all, in their own way, about figuring out how to pass time, or to let time pass you)
3. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (dir. Eliza Hittman)
Another movie to make you feel quietly angry and bolstered, but at what cost, on a Friday night (and what does anyone want, if not that?). The film's "Rural Teen Abortion Odyssey" logline doesn't really do much work as far as selling it is concerned, and I can't honestly claim that the movie isn't essentially what you're expecting. Still, if you're in the mood for some bracing realism, you'd be hard-pressed to find something better than Hittman's muted journey out of hell to a slightly larger hell, and then back again. Never Rarely... never overstates its case, nor tries to sensationalize things to get the audience inside. Instead, quiet moments cascade like a tidal wave in a snow globe--there's no real escape to be had, but you do what you can. But when the movie does decide to punch, it punches hard: the scene from which the movie gets its title is as powerful and upsetting as anything I saw in movies this year. And for all the exploitation and the pain, there are tiny moments of strength, if not joy. Holding a friend's pinkie around a corner isn't nothing, and the film sings when its two teenage protagonists see and understand each other.
(streaming on HBO max, rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube etc.)
2. First Cow (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Dreams, like baking, are hard: everything has to go exactly right at the exact right moment, with the exact right materials, and even then, it still might not matter. This is even more true when trying to bake (or dream) in a world excited to watch you fail, and ready to help you along the way. If Minari is the year's quintessentially American movie, then First Cow is its relative from 200 years prior, old bones waiting in the dirt to remind people of their own size. Reichardt's film is one of the most precisely controlled and carefully observed of the year: think of the way the entire film changes when Toby Jones looks sideways toward the camera, nothing emphasized or underlined except the way that slide re-builds a hierarchy that had been coming down, or the way the camera lingers on a crestfallen young worker who doesn't get to buy himself a biscuit, and how this moment of spontaneous empathy curdles into something worse as the film progresses. Throw in the evocative, minimalist design and some disgustingly pretty cinematography, and you've got the recipe (heh) (I've got to drop this already tenuous baking thing) for something truly special. I do wish that the film allowed itself to be more explicitly queer (the director herself said that she only sees the two men at the center of the movie as friends, but like...I don't know), but I still love it for what it is: a lonely forest poem about what it's like to get crushed by capitalism.
(streaming on Showtime, rentable on Amazon, Google Play, Youtube etc.)
1. Sound of Metal (dir. Darius Marder)
At first, I wondered if I only loved this movie because it happened to be the right movie at the right time. And certainly, that contributed: it was the first movie I watched to break my months-long movie slump, and deals with a character who loses something he loves, and has to learn how to love it differently, or find something new. Granted, I'm not in any way comparing anything that's happened in my life to the challenges that this character, or anyone in the deaf community, have faced; I just mean that this movie was well primed to reach someone who was feeling a little empty, and was wondering how to re-examine that emptiness. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the immersive sound design (surely one of the technical achievements of the year), or the skull sessions between Paul Raci and Riz Ahmed's characters, or the film's large ensemble of deaf actors. Sound of Metal is a ragged, driven, frenetic work that is totally absorbing from the first shot to the note-perfect ending. But if we're being honest, I mostly just want to talk about how I felt watching it. How it helped me remember what I love about movies, and how to step outside of and then back into myself, and how happy and thankful I am that something got me there. Thinking about when I was baptized as a kid, standing in chest-high water and thinking on the way down that the pastor could easily drown me if he wanted to, everyone looking on and me with no way to stop it. Anyway, I don't know that the experience made me better or worse, but I didn't drown, at least not on that day.
(streaming on Amazon Prime)
Well there we go! I've only been working for three-ish hours! It's worth briefly pointing out how films have directed by women have dominated the conversation this year. For my part, this is the first year where films directed by women have made up the majority of my top 20.
Now, I'm going to grab a snack, and then, if you've got more in you (and you've left already, so why wouldn't you?), I'll run through the best scenes and worst movies of the year.
(I'll try to link to the scenes on Youtube, but no promises)
(Also: I generally avoid endings on this list, so as to avoid spoilers, but I've ended up picking a few with spoilers anyhow, so watch out--I'll mention the ones that I think give away too much)
10. Face Reveal-Welcome to Chechnya
Because of the danger that openly queer Russians/people from Chechnya if their identities were made public, Welcome to Chechnya employs digital face-masking effects, allowing the emotions and expressions of its subjects to come through without compromising their safety. When one of the subjects decides to go public with the story of the abused he faced at the hands of Chechen authorities, his disguise melts away--it's a powerful and upsetting moment that underlines what's at stake.
(The only version of this available on youtube was recorded directly off of someone's TV, but here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNC3hBCgERA)
9. Stars are Blind-Promising Young Woman
On first blush, it's a total oasis--a ridiculous pharmacy singalong to Paris Hilton's "Stars are Blind" that is unapologetically joyful in a difficult film. In retrospect, it's...something else, but I love it both for the silliness and the way it morphs into a different experience later.
(No clip, sadly, but hey, go listen to the song! It's a banger.)
8. They're Up There Right Now-The Vast of Night
This movie is great at sticking its audience in a tense or uncomfortable situation and then making them stew in it for a while, and this late-movie confession, in which our intrepid investigators visit an old woman who claims to know about aliens. It's a great mix of paranoia and possibility--neither the characters nor the audience knows how seriously we should take this story. It helps that actress Gail Cronauer sells the absolute shit out of this moment.
(A brief clip of a long scene. Maybe a little spoilery? But I think it's fine--it doesn't give away anything I didn't already write. Also, I, uh, do not co-sign the description at this link, but it's the only version on Youtube, so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKP1xp8AZ7A )
7. Human Resources-The Assistant
An infuriating and defeating piece of an angry, upsetting movie. Believing that her boss (a Harvey Weinstein stand-in) is taking advantage of a new young hire, Julia Garner's character goes to human resources to see what it is she can do. It's a masterclass in how entire systems are built to protect and maintain abusers, and how easy it is to be trampled underneath them.
(The second half of the scene, in which the HR guy stomps down on her complaint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=972P9XLWyoE
6. The Restaurant-The Invisible Man
Huuuuuge spoilers here, but I couldn't not include it, so. One of the more surprising scenes of the year.
(Again, big spoilers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGHpgXgpSh4)
5. Edgar's Song-Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Look, when Jamie Dornan bursts into song about scampering up a palm tree, I have no choice.
(Tragically, the scene itself isn't on youtube, which is a bummer, cuz it's great, but here's the song itself, anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCe4votU-8A)
4. Chain Gang-One Night in Miami
Leslie Odom Jr.'s Sam Cooke flips a disastrous concert on its head. Such a great moment--the ensemble gets to shine together, Leslie Odom Jr. gets to flex his vocal muscles, and the moment itself, Cooke reconciling with Malcolm X, is indelible.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMP_a1MhANA)
3. Real Stillness-Sound of Metal
Near the end of the second act, Riz Ahmed's character makes a decision that leads into direct conflict with Paul Raci's mentor. I won't talk about the details (spoilers), but this scene is a showcase of some of the year's most powerful acting. If you haven't seen this movie, go watch it! (...but not right away, as it's only available on Amazon, and I'll re-encourage you to participate in the Amazon boycott that lasts until the 13th.)
(no clip)
2. A Funeral-Dick Johnson is Dead
Going against my no end/near end scenes principle to include this one. I won't say anything, for fear of spoiling it, but I'll just say that it made me cry like a baby, and then laugh, and then cry again. What a great movie.
(no clip)
1. The Titular Scene-Never Rarely Sometimes Always
This scene hits like a truck. Sidney Flanigan's pregnant teen has to answer some personal questions with 'never,' 'rarely,' 'sometimes,' and 'always.' What follows is a rare moment of emotional vulnerability (intended or not), and a window in the world that pushed her into the place she is now. It's a massive and painful feat of writing and acting.
(clip tw: discussions of physical/sexual assault. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfZ15TaQ3ZM)
And finally, the worst movies of the year! While I don't want to dwell in negativity, there can be some joyful catharsis in burning down the things that don't spark joy. So let's burn some things! Do note that I avoided a lot of the movies that were widely regarded as bad, so this can just as easily stand as a most disappointing list. Still, shockingly, Hillbilly Elegy isn't gonna make this list. I'm flabbergasted too. But rest assured--it'd probably be #6.
5. Black Bear
How did this happen, and more importantly, what does anyone see in this? I hate calling a movie pretentious (lots of movies are pretentious, and so am I), but it's hard to think of a movie more obsessed with how great it is. Dumb, self-assured, weird about women. Not even Aubrey Plaza can save this.
4. The New Mutants
Look, the X-Men were such a pivotal part of childhood and adolescence that I'm gonna drag myself to every last one of these--I trudged out to a multiplex in Prague in February to catch an 11.00 pm showing of Logan just so I didn't miss it in theaters--but why does that have to be a punishment? What a waste of a decent premise and interesting and underused characters this movie is.
3. The Little Things
This is apparently Oscar-bound, and I have trouble classifying what kind of crime against humanity that is, as it fits so many categories of crime against humanity. Terrible acting! Hopelessly derivative! Only in death can women be good! I swear if Jared Leto gets an Oscar nom for this I am going to eat my own arm.
2. Mulan
Is this a better film than The Little Things? ...Maybe, but it is still atrocious, and Disney deserves to be punished, so here we are. These live-action remakes are inherently artistically bankrupt, but this version also has the good/bad sense to remove everything that was interesting and worthwhile about the original and replace it with literally nothing. Throw in a deeply unnecessary chosen-one narrative: Mulan isn't special because she's loyal, or brave, or caring, she's special because she is literally the most magical person in China, and always has been. Just thinking about this makes my heart race with righteous fury.
1. The Prom
Speaking of righteous fury: what the ACTUAL GODDAMN SHIT was anyone involved with this thinking? I'm not gonna beat a dead talentless comedian by reiterating that James Corden's performance is one of the worst in the history of cinema, and how you can see little gold statues dancing in his eyes during his big crying moment, what a monstrosity, and telling Ryan Murphy that his stuff is bad only makes him stronger. But like...had no one edited a feature film before being involved with this movie? Or been near music? God I hate this movie so much. It is so, so stupid. And so poorly made! Someone put Ryan Murphy in timeout, wherein 'timeout' means 'inside an active volcano.'
And there you have it! I'll be back tomorrow with performances, screenplays, and directing, wherein I'm sure I will use too many words to say either too much or too little. But in the meantime--what do you think? What movies did I miss? What deserves another chance?
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