2021’s movie slate is in the books. Covid certainly delayed a bunch of these films from releasing, so people could go back to the theater to experience them. After a year of not going to the movies, I certainly appreciate the privilege I have to see them again, with most of the Top 10 theater experiences I wholly enjoyed, beginning to end.
If there’s a theme to this list, it’s probably thank goodness for December! The year was looking mighty bleak until the best of what I saw started getting released right before the end. And also, props to movies led by women: 7 out of my Top 10 have awesome female leads, 2 of the others have multiple great supporting female performances, and the other has Maevis Staples and Gladys Knight cameos. Just a great year of movies for women all around!
What Booksmart wanted to be. The ladies of Fort William up & craft one of the great coming of age movies in recent memory. What makes this Scottish gem stand out is that the movie gives us 6 totally different girls with totally different points of view, taking us on specific and ubiquitous adventures simultaneously with them, exploring sexuality, friendship, and the future. Plus, the 90s setting gives the movie a wonderful soundtrack and simplifies the story to be just about young small town girls living in lonely worlds taking trains to the big city.
Someone once said that if your opening sentence of your story goes “And then the murders began” your story is immediately 25% more interesting. Well, what if your story starts “You wanna hear a story about how me and this bitch fell out? It’s kind of long, but it’s full of suspense.”? Well, what follows is an American tale Mark Twain would be proud of, with Taylour Paige’s Zola taken on an insane road trip to Florida by Riley Keough’s walking cultural appropriation Stefani. Within real life Zola’s tweet storm is a shockingly deep tale about lies we tell ourselves and the power of persuasion, while also an amazing mixture of satire, violence, sex, and suspense.
This movie is about revelations. Rebecca Hall is a revelation as a first time director. Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga are revelations showing the depths of their talent and range of their abilities, and the story is a revelation, telling a complicated tale of identity, anxiety, race, and power. It packs a wallop, but if you’re along for the ride, you’ll be rewarded watching one of the best of the year.
What a run for Netflix! Was it even possible for Sony to one up their incredible 2018 animated hit Into the Spiderverse? For me, that’s a resounding hell yeah with this joy of a film. This Netflix movie finds that perfect family entertainment working on multiple levels, as a stressful family road trip to college collides with an AI enslaving the planet, with the Mitchell’s the only family left to deal with the problem. It’s got a million jokes a minute, really fun side characters, and a big gooey heart, culminating in one of the greatest thought out punchlines to shutting down a computer that I have seen, that I teared up from laughing so hard.
The most modern movie made so far, is probably going to be the best Pandemic movie made, and continues Romania’s trend of amazing filmmaking. But this brilliant comedy is not about the pandemic, it’s about a sex tape, at least initially: a teacher at a decent school has her sex tape leaked to the public, and the kids/parents find out. What follows is a 3 part movie of daring, taking storytelling risks and culminating in one of the best sequences of the year: the parent teacher conference that drives home the movie’s point that life is a simultaneous mix of tragedy and comedy.
The winner of the streaming wars so far in 2021 is Hulu, releasing this Questlove jaunt. Unbeknownst to most of the population, there was another amazing summer festival in 1969 besides Woodstock: the Harlem Cultural festival, featuring amazing acts like Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Mahalia Jackson, and Nina Simone, among other great African-American, Puerto Rican, and other cultural acts that lived in Harlem at the time. Questlove takes the recently discovered footage of this amazing fest and frames it in the context of the black, Latino, and black Latino populations at the time, as well as the artists state of mind (as most are still alive). What we get is one of the great musical documentaries of all time, showcasing amazing talent that also has a powerful message and purpose: to celebrate and value culture to uplift the people inside of that culture that don’t get represented as much as they should.
I thought Steven Spielberg had lost his fastball after a mediocre decade of films. Well, turns out he just needed better material. Spielberg captures the essence of the 1961 musical while enhancing it in every single way, starting first and foremost with casting, you know, actual Puerto Ricans. Gracias a dios, because Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose brighten up the screen every time they show up, dancing and singing their way into your hearts. On top of the great acting is Spielberg’s superlative direction, capturing 1950s Upper West Side New York City in all its transition, big and small, Irish and Puerto Rican, but one whole melting pot of life.
A great Asghar Farhadi movie is a modern version of a fable. This one, his best since A Separation, slowly washes over you with its messaging. For anyone obsessed with celebrity, power, and money, this movie serves as a cautionary tale to those who happen to be thrust into the spotlight unexpectedly, and how quickly those 15 minutes of fame can quickly turn into infamy.
Sean Baker has gotten close to the mountaintop with me before, but he nails it here. Simon Rex is incredible portraying that guy everyone knows: the scheister. Filled with delusions and schemes, Rex charms his way into crashing at his ex wifes house in small town Texas in hopes to make it back to his glory (hole?) porn days in LA. What follows is what Baker has become a master of: showing the American spirit in all its shades and locations. Yes it can lead to a life of luxury, fame, celebrity, and crazy highs, but it also uses and abuses anyone who gets in the way of that dream will see how hollow the fame seeker and hustler actually is. Plus, his version of Texas City is a place we never see onscreen, but is so fascinating I hope we get the Texas City TV series with the amazing cast Baker put together.
Pedro Almodovar was already an amazing filmmaker, so saying that this is one of his best really means Parallel Mothers is something special. On its surface this movie is about two women (Penelope Cruz, Milena Smit) raising kids together. But the deeper you go, Almodovar’s story becomes richer and richer, finding an amazing mixture of soap opera, philosophy, drama, comedy, past, present, future, etc culminating in a completely satisfying moviewatching experience.
