In keeping with a unique and unprecedented year, I’ve changed up this latest edition of my Year in Bedlam overview of the movie releases of the previous twelve months. Rather than confining my picks to theatrical or DVD releases, as I usually do, I’ve opened it up to all formats, and added in short films (a necessity, as my favorite film of the year was a short).
One notable aspect of the films of 2021 was what seemed like a record number of “okay” movies. Movies, in other words, that I didn’t feel strongly about one way or the other. Whatever the culprit (Covid jitters? Politics? Studio interference?) ambition and audacity were in short supply this past year. Hence, those films that did evince those things, such as ANNETTE and BENEDETTA (flawed productions both), I graded on a curve.
Among the 2021 films I didn’t see were LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, HALLOWEEN KILLS, NO TIME TO DIE, THE HARDER THEY FALL, GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE and most of the year’s Marvel offerings (the one I did get around to viewing I didn’t care for). Otherwise, though, I tried to be as thorough as possible in my viewing, with preference given to the obscure and offbeat, as evidenced by my number one choice…
The Best
1. THE BONES (LOS HUESOS)
A fourteen minute astonishment from Chile’s Joaquin Cocina and Cristobel Leon (of THE WOLF HOUSE), who’ve created an altogether dazzling black and white animated reverie that purports to be a restored relic from the early 1900s. Mixing Claymation, traditional animation, puppetry and stop motion, it depicts a puppet girl performing an arcane ritual involving a collection of severed human heads and limbs (belonging, apparently, to some deceased politicians). The opening scenes suggest the abstraction of Patrick Bokanowski or the Brothers Quay, while the latter ones are redolent of FRANKENSTEIN—or, rather, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN in the sense of uncanny romance that comes to predominate.
2. DUNE
The cinema of the spectacle gets a good airing in this, the second mega-budgeted feature to be adapted from Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterpiece DUNE. Director Denis Villeneuve has been criticized for putting pictorial splendor before character development, but when you have visuals as impressive as those on display here is that really a drawback? Villeneuve also deserves credit for respecting his source material (especially in light of Apple TV’s FOUNDATION, which all-but discarded the Isaac Asimov stories it purported to adapt), resulting in a film that mostly satisfies, with my major complaint being that it only dramatizes the novel’s first half, and so concludes on an unresolved note.
3. ANNETTE
The most sublimely nutty movie musical in some time, featuring songs performed by non-singer actors and a puppet. The first English language film by France’s wildly iconoclastic Leos Carax, ANNETTE initially seems like an eccentric love story, with the participants being Henry (Adam Driver), a shitheel comedian, and Ann (Marion Cotillard), an opera diva. It seems Ann is having an affair with a much younger conductor (Simon Helberg) and Henry is dissatisfied. Following the addition of a child they name Annette, who happens to be a marionette, Henry, after shocking the audience at a comedy show by claiming to have killed Ann, does just that on the deck of a cruise ship. Then, when Annette is revealed to have an angelic singing voice, Henry decides to turn her into a singing sensation with the help of Ann’s conductor boyfriend, but the latter ends up meeting the same fate as Ann, precipitating a climactic confrontation between Annette and her father. The music by Ron and Russell Mael is quite strong, mixing symphonic tones with more intimate guitar riffs, and Carax’s choreography is straightforward and unaffected; he tends to favor naturalism in his performers, and the same is true of his singing and dancing scenes, which are performed while walking, swimming and, in one scene, during oral sex.
4. TITANIC SINKS IN REAL TIME
This extremely meticulous CGI depiction of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (based on the findings of the book ON A SEA OF GLASS by Tad Fitch) can lay claim to being the definitive filmic treatment of this subject. Lasting 2 hours and 43 minutes (the exact time-span of the sinking), and taking place amid an eerie silence, it’s a curiously compelling watch, and almost certainly a better use of your time than the only slightly longer James Cameron movie on the same subject.
5. BENEDETTA
As a Film Comment critic wrote about the critical reaction to this nunsploiter from the now 83 year old Paul Verhoeven, “mileage varies depending on whether it’s taken as a film from the director of ELLE or the man behind SHOWGIRLS.” Those two extremes are well represented in BENEDETTA, a prestige item that is, conversely, every bit as trashy and exploitive as anyone could desire. The title character (Virginie Efira) is sold to an abbey where she comes to imagine herself the literal bride of Jesus Christ, and experiences erotic feelings for a new recruit to the abbey (Daphne Patakia). From this fact-based material Verhoeven has fashioned an exploitation epic with pointed jabs at the hypocritical puritanism imposed by the Catholic Church. Lacking is the kinetic energy of Verhoeven’s Hollywood fare, but what isn’t lacking is the melodramatic edge and dark humor of nearly all his films, as is evident in the CGI riddled hallucination sequences and copious onscreen bloodletting. The true saving grace is Ms. Efira, who anchors the film quite strongly, and is ably supported by Patakia and (especially) Rampling, whose world-weary gaze and slyly impish demeanor are just as unsettling in their way as the sex and violence.
6. THE AMUSEMENT PARK
No, this rediscovered George Romero mini-feature is not the “masterpiece” many have been saying it is, but neither is it the “nothing” movie Romero himself allegedly proclaimed it. Rather, it’s an alarming evocation of the rigors of old age, set in a surreal amusement park whose every element appears to be arrayed against the hapless elderly protagonist (Lincoln Maazel). Painfully obvious it may be, but the anti-ageist message, bequeathed by the film’s evangelical backers, registers loud and clear.
7. LICORICE PIZZA
It’s good to see Paul Thomas Anderson, following a string of uncharacteristically esoteric films, returning to the time and milieu he knows best: the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s. LICORICE PIZZA is a lighthearted and affectionate lark set therein, featuring an industrious high schooler (Cooper Hoffman) pursuing a sexy 25 year old gal (Alana Haim). It’s the latter who, in a most unusual development for Anderson (who isn’t known for writing strong female roles), comes out ahead in terms of charisma, character development and screen time. Anderson’s script, alas, doesn’t do either of his central performers justice, being needlessly choppy and confusing. Narrative progression was clearly not one of Anderson’s chief concerns, with his typically grandiose, show-offy visuals being the major driving force, and luckily they, together with Haim’s performance, are sufficient.
8. WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR
An exhaustive documentary exploration of the roots and manifestations of “folk horror” in film. A buzzword that became quite popular in genre circles during the 2010s, folk horror can encompass nearly any horror movie ever made. A film doesn’t have to be set in a rural environment to be folk-themed, which points up the fundamental flaw of WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: its canvas is far too broad. The creator was Kier-La Janisse, of HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN. That 2012 book, a thorough examination of the portrayal of disturbed women in horror cinema, proved Janisse does nothing halfway, and that same obsessive spirit is evident in this 194 minute film. Featured is extensive commentary by a highly eclectic selection of talking heads that encompass academics, filmmakers and folks sporting tattoos and heavy metal t-shirts, tied together via animated snippets by Ashley Thorpe and cult legend Guy Maddin, and innumerable film clips from WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), THE WICKER MAN (1973), THE STONE TAPE (1972), THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984) and several dozen more films. Janisse’s all-encompassing approach ensures that not every film brought up gets its proper coverage (to do so would require a runtime of at least ten hours), but she’s turned out a documentary that’s enormously enjoyable and informative despite its shortcomings. This is, in short, a rare example of a filmmaker attempting too much rather than, as is increasingly becoming the case nowadays, too little.
9. SAINT MAUD
Think WISE BLOOD crossed with REPULSION. That’s how this British made horror fest plays, with its title character being a young hospice nurse (Morfydd Clark) finding her spiritual convictions blossoming while caring for a dying woman (Lily Knight). Maud actually comes to view herself as a saint, and adjusts her outlook and behavior accordingly, leading to outright insanity. The final scenes, in which writer-director Rose Glass depicts Maud’s delusions in the form of CGI, were an ill-advised addition, but until then SAINT MAUD is powerfully contained and uncompromising, and expertly performed by Ms. Clark.
10. THE POWER OF THE DOG
The first feature in twelve years by New Zealand’s Jane Campion, who’s created a film that’s a mite annoying (the glacial pacing and uneventful storyline are downright perverse), but also oddly compelling. Featured is Kirsten Dunst as a widowed restaurateur in 1925 Montana who marries into a family that includes Benedict Cumberbatch as a bullying—but, as gradually becomes clear, quite soulful—asshole. The exotic Kiwi scenery is never a very convincing stand-in for Montana, but Campion deserves credit for the tough-minded atmosphere that (unlike so many westerns these days) doesn’t present the Wild West as some kind of progressive haven but, rather, a profoundly bleak and unforgiving environ. It’s no stretch to call this the best Kiwi western since UTU.
11. THE HUMANS
With this highly atmospheric film, adapted by writer-director Stephen Karam from his Tony award winning 2015 play, we have a new contender for the Ideal Dysfunctional Thanksgiving Movie. Like the others, which include PIECES OF APRIL (2003) and KRISHA (2015), THE HUMANS is a modestly mounted drama about familial strife becoming especially pointed on Turkey Day. Depicted is a wealthy family (whose ranks include Beanie Feldstein, Amy Schumer and Richard Jenkins) gathering for Thanksgiving in an ancient Manhattan apartment. From the start the vibe is affectionate but strained, an effect enhanced by the ominous atmosphere of the house, in which creaking doors, leaking pipes and crumbling walls predominate. This mirrors the fraying family dynamic, as day turns to night and long-simmering generational divides and personal resentments rise to the fore. Karam never quite succeeds in rendering this quintessentially stage-bound material cinematic, but he does give his filmic components a memorable workout.
12. CRYPTOZOO
The most shocking thing about this feature-length animated oddity? That it wasn’t made in Europe or Asia, but, rather, right here in the US of A. Commencing with a naked hippie impaled by a unicorn’s horn, followed by said unicorn getting its head bashed in by the hippie’s outraged GF, CRYPTOZOO won’t ever be mistaken for a Disney film. It’s a staunchly adult oriented exploration of the freakier edges of mythology and folklore, with crude-but-inventive animation that flaunts its two-dimensionality, favorably recalling the surrealist collage art of Max Ernst. Definitely a one-of-a-kind film.
13. THE CARD COUNTER
Writer-director Paul Schrader’s recent comeback, which began with FIRST REFORMED (2018), continues apace with this stylish and provocative yarn. THE CARD COUNTER is not among Schrader’s best films, but hits its mark due to skilled work by Schrader and his collaborators, and also an arresting lead performance by Oscar Isaac. He plays an Iraq War veteran haunted by his time at Abu Ghraib who makes his living as a professional gambler. Yes, it’s yet another variation on Robert Bresson’s PICKPOCKET by Schrader, with Isaac assuming the part of that film’s title character, as well as Richard Gere in AMERICAN GIGOLO, Willem Dafoe in LIGHT SLEEPER and Ethan Hawke in FIRST REFORMED. The material is worth re-experiencing due to all the expertise on display, and also Tiffany Haddish as Isaac’s highly quirky and unexpected (and so quite interesting) love interest.
14. NIGHTMARE ALLEY
The second film to be adapted from William Lindsay Gresham’s classic 1946 novel was this overambitious production by Guillermo Del Toro. The setting is the late 1930s, wherein a good-looking drifter (Bradley Cooper) becomes embroiled in the doings of a sleazy carnival; there he discovers a talent for grifting, creating a nightclub act in which he pretends to be psychic. The act brings enormous fame, but also arouses the suspicions of a corrupt psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who becomes Cooper’s unlikely partner in crime, and also the primary catalyst in his inevitable downfall. Del Toro’s best films, like PAN’S LABYRINTH and THE SHAPE OF WATER, tend to be grounded and contained, but NIGHTMARE ALLEY is over-stylized and inauthentic. Far more affecting is Del Toro’s unerring eye for the freakish, which, together with his undoubted reverence for the source material—whose famously bleak ending (unlike in the 1947 NIGHTMARE ALLEY) is transferred to the screen intact—makes for a film that qualifies as a conditional success.
15. MOTHERLY
Maternal madness from Canada’s Craig David Wallace, of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL fame (and THE LAYPERSON’S GUIDE TO MODERN LIVING non-fame). Made for roughly what ETERNALS spent on a single week’s catering, MOTHERLY features a distraught woman (Lora Burke) and her young daughter (Tessa Kozma), a pair of disgruntled acquaintances and some dark secrets, all contained in a secluded farmhouse over the course of a single night. The film may seem a mite disappointing in light of the wildness and creativity of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL, but it’s also skillfully made and absorbing, with a (literally) killer twist.
16. THE MAKING OF ROCKY VS. DRAGO
A more accurate title would be THE EDITING OF ROCKY VS. DRAGO, as that’s what this 93 minute iPhone lensed documentary shows. Specifically, director John Herzfeld (of TWO OF A KIND and 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY) shows us an elderly Sylvester Stallone preparing the director’s cut of the 36-year-old ROCKY IV (in which, as you may recall, Rocky went up against Soviet super-boxer Dolph Lundgren and single-handedly ended the Cold War) in a Sunset Boulevard editing suite, providing a lively and consistently fascinating lesson in the mechanics of filmmaking. I do not, however, agree with all the “improvements” Stallone makes—dammit, I liked the (now-excised) robot!
17. A QUIET PLACE PART II
A sequel to A QUIET PLACE that offers more of the same—which, given the savvy with which that film was made, is not an entirely bad thing. Emily Blunt is back as a widower who, together with her two children and the world’s best behaved infant, is harassed by aliens who hunt humans via sound. Blunt and the kids figured out how to kill the aliens at the end of the previous film, but find themselves faced with new problems when they venture out of their home and fall in with a former neighbor (Cillian Murphy). Blunt’s husband John Krasinski returns to the director’s chair and, as in the earlier film, keeps the proceedings tight and contained, with no intrusive subplots or extraneous elements (such as a romance). The result is an undeniably gripping viewing experience, although, again, there’s really nothing here you won’t find in the first QUIET PLACE.
18. ATLANTIS
ATLANTIS may purport to be science fiction, but its depiction of the devastated landscapes left in the wake of the war between Russia and the Ukraine is very of-the-moment. The year is 2025 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict has ended(!). The film concerns a band of Ukraine soldiers stationed at an American-run manufacturing plant whose employees are all completely miserable, as are the undertakers tasked with identifying and disposing of the many corpses that turn up. There’s no real story to speak of, with the meticulous filmmaking by writer-director-cinematographer Valentyn Vasyanovych taking center stage; the film is comprised of 28 rigorously composed wide shots that are invariably held for long periods, with great attention paid to fore and background action. It’s all faultlessly carried off, but this is a work that exists to be admired rather than enjoyed.
19. VAL
I was surprised at how moving this documentary, a puff piece on actor Val Kilmer, turned out to be. The film, consisting largely of home movie footage shot by Kilmer himself, goes ridiculously easy on its controversial subject (whose on-set misbehavior is legendary even by Hollywood standards), but the overall theme, of the struggle to create art amid all-but-insurmountable obstacles (which here take the form of profit-driven Hollywood gatekeepers, a costly divorce and throat cancer that has robbed Kilmer of his ability to speak), is one to which we can all relate.
20. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
The latest in a long line of avant-garde interpretations of Edgar Allan Poe’s immortal tale, and of quirky film projects from composer Philip Glass. The latter’s 1988 opera provided the soundtrack for this Boston Lyric Opera created filmic collage, in which the particulars of Poe’s tale are conveyed via stop motion animated dolls, along with a great deal of 1950s-era documentary footage and modern TV news clips. Perfect this politically minded film isn’t, but jazzy and imaginative it definitely is.
21. OPERATION VARSITY BLUES: THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL
In which documentarian extraordinaire Chris Smith provides an incisive look at the college admissions scandal that gripped the nation in 2019. The focus is on Rick Singer, the slimy mastermind of a scheme in which wealthy folk shelled out enormous sums of money to get their kids into prestigious colleges. Viewers hoping for dirt on the scandal’s most prominent players Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin will be disappointed, as Smith’s major focus is on Singer, and how an above-board tutoring gig somehow devolved into an insanely twisted criminal enterprise whose after-effects are still being felt.
22. ADRIENNE
The late actress/director Adrienne Shelley (1966-2006) is celebrated in this alternately inspiring and deeply sad documentary, made by her husband Andy Ostroy. His portrayal may err a bit on the worshipful side, but I say Ostroy can be forgiven for that, as his wife does appear to have been a pure-hearted individual whose life was cut short far, far too soon. Appearing in this film is seemingly everyone who ever knew Ms. Shelley, including her family, filmmaker Hal Hartley (who gave Shelley her break in the early nineties indie features THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH and TRUST), the cast of the Shelley directed film WAITRESS (2007) and (speaking of unbelievable truths) the guy who killed her, interviewed in the prison where he’s currently interred.
23. IN VITRO
This Arabic language sci fi short is undeniably pretentious, but also impressive. The setting is the town of Bethlehem in the wake of a massive oil spill that has devastated the region. Amid this calamity two female scientists, an old woman who lords over an underground bunker and her much younger successor, discuss issues of memory and nostalgia. These dialogues don’t really go anywhere very interesting, but the film is of interest due to the extraordinarily atmospheric black and white imagery and effective use of split screen photography, which here emerges as far than a mere gimmick.
24. THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
With this filming of the Bard’s MACBETH writer-director Joel Coen (formerly of the Coen brothers) does essentially the same thing Orson Welles did with the material (and got criticized for) back in 1948: he presents it in the form of a filmed play. This means highly artificial, detail free set design and extremely concentrated black and white visuals. Many of Coen’s visualizations of William Shakespeare’s imaginings are brilliant (such as the contortionist witch who multiplies herself), and many of them not-so (the forest-coming-to-Dunsinane scene is pathetic), but overall the film is a success, with terrific acting by Francis McDormand and Denzel Washington, who in an intriguing contrast to most screen Macbeths under (rather than over) plays the role.
25. HOUSE OF GUCCI
A glorified TV movie, but a good one. It’s a Ridley Scott directed depiction of the fall, and eventual resurrection, of Italy’s Gucci fashion empire, due in no small part to the toxic attentions of one Partizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), an overambitious outsider who married into the family and took it downhill quite dramatically. The film lacks the visual splendor of Scott’s best work, and is further marred by a litany of fake Italian accents from a cast that includes Adam Driver, Al Pacino and Selma Hayek, but it’s near single-handedly redeemed by Ms. Gaga, who’s fantastic in a role that functions as equal parts Dorothy Gale and Lady Macbeth.
26. JAKOB’S WIFE
It’s great to see that Barbara Crampton, a longtime horror movie icon, is still active. She plays the dissatisfied wife of a rural minister (filmmaker Larry Fessenden in a performance that’s nearly as strong as Crampton’s) who, after an encounter with a feminine creature, becomes a blood-drinking seductress. The results are a tad misconceived and uneven, but I recommend the film, if for no other reason than to see Crampton and Fessenden give what will probably be remembered as the performances of their lives.
27. UNDERGODS
British science fiction whose defining trait is bleakness. That’s definitely the word for UNDERGODS’ creepily underpopulated industrial dystopia. Here several unfortunate people attempt to salvage doomed relationships, and in so doing languish, go crazy and get killed. Well-wrought, but the film could have stood to be much livelier.
28. BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON
The idea of placing Batman in the midst of a 1970s chop-socky pastiche is irresistible. A feature length cartoon that flaunts its R rating, SOUL OF THE DRAGON is nothing special, treating its subject as a supporting character in a story about several former pupils of a missing martial arts instructor teaming up to track down their master. There is, at least, a great deal of bloody action, packed into an economical 83 minutes.
29. THE SUICIDE SQUAD
The turning over of the SUICIDE SQUAD franchise to the demented Troma alumni James Gunn was a decidedly unexpected development, and has resulted in a film that showcases the two extremes of Gunn’s aesthetic. This is to say that it contains intense bloodletting and cloying cutesiness in near-equal measure. Speaking as one who much prefers the former element, I was moderately satisfied by this depiction of the Suicide Squad summoned to bust up a South American dictatorship, which entails oodles of violence and sassy dialogue, as well as a garishly over-the-top aesthetic that constantly reminds us we’re watching a comic book movie. There’s even a Kaiju toward the end in the form of a giant starfish that attacks a major city, although here, as in much of the rest of the film, the proceedings are marred by something that’s become all-too-common in modern cinema (comic book inspired and otherwise): an overdose of CGI.
30. THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL (LE BAL DES FOLLES)
A reasonably potent French-made addition to the woman-unjustly-incarcerated-in-an-insane-asylum subgenre (examples of which include THE SNAKE PIT and FRANCIS). In fairness, the woman in question (Lou de Laâge), living in the late 19th Century, does act authentically nutty, claiming she can speak with ghosts and comparing herself to Joan of Arc, although her fate seems unduly harsh. The film is well directed by actress Mélanie Laurent, who also plays (and gives herself too much screen time as) a sympathetic nurse who comes to believe Laâge’s claims.
31. CENSOR
The 1980s “video nasties” craze, in which several horror-themed videos were subjected to censorship in the UK, is aped in this slick but imperfect British import. About a dedicated woman censor (Niamh Algar) in the nasties era whose reality is upended quite severely by a film she’s charged with examining, CENSOR is marred by the fact that the clips shown of the films-within-the-film are amateurish and plain lousy, and so not at all worthy to be placed alongside actual video nasties like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Otherwise, though, CENSOR isn’t bad.
32. BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION
A reasonably diverting 1990s set thriller that starts off like BLOW UP, with a videographer (Harry Shum Jr.) becoming obsessed by a series of pirate videos that cut in on TV broadcast signals. Shum’s ensuing investigation takes the material in a very RING-like direction, with various creepy folk turning up and Shum’s own behavior growing increasingly erratic. Director Jacob Gentry favors bombastic music cues and a very unadorned, straightforward style, which makes it all the more puzzling that he ends the film on such a confounding and inclusive note.
33. SNORE
The latest short film from the UK’s Luther Bhogal-Jones (of KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK and GOONIGHT HALLOWEEN), a cheerfully twisted puppet pastiche in the mold of MEET THE FEEBLES. The story, about a ruthless businesswoman and a hapless male underling battling pig creatures, is total nonsense, but the film, as we’ve come to expect from Bhogal-Jones, is technically impressive, with puppetry that’s quite skilled given the low budget. Plus it only lasts ten minutes, so it won’t put you out too much.
34. MAJOR GROM: PLAGUE DOCTOR (MAYOR GROM: CHUMNOY DOKTOR)
Further proof that foreign nations, in this case Russia, are capable of turning out cinema that’s every bit as crass and shallow as anything produced in Hollywood. MAJOR GROM: PLAGUE DOCTOR, adapted from a graphic novel, involves a masked superhero, a renegade cop and lots of ultra-kinetic, gravity-defying action. It’s completely ridiculous, but, like the Hollyweird epics it replicates, provides a great deal of check-your-brain-at-the-door fun.
Recommended DVD/Blu-ray Releases:
BLIND BEAST
This Edogawa Rampo adapted horrorfest from 1969 remains one of the most mind-roasting cult films ever made, and is now available for the first time (in the US, at least) in an extras-packed Blu-ray.
THE BORROWER
I’ve always liked this 1991 sci fi-horror fest from director John McNaughton (who was coming off the seminal HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER), which plays like a grittier take on THE HIDDEN (1987).
DEVI
A dark drama that is, if you ask me, the most interesting film made by India’s Satyajit Ray. This newly minted Criterion version is very likely the absolute best DEVI has looked since its initial release, and, in a breakthrough development, contains fully readable English subtitles.
THE INCREDIBLE SHIRINKING MAN 
It may seem hard to believe that this self-explanatorily titled 1957 classic took until 2021 to be given a proper DVD release in its native country, but I say better late than never.
INGAGI
Not a particularly good movie, but the 2021 INGAGI Blu-ray is nonetheless one of the most important home video releases of the century, if for no other reason than as a chance to finally see what all the shouting over this fabled 1930 film, long believed to be lost, was about.
MELVIN VAN PEEBLES: ESSENTIAL FILMS
More Criterion goodness: a collection of the late Melvin van Peebles’ self-directed films, including the classic SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG (1971), presented with Van Peebles’ long-sought-after laserdisc audio commentary.
MIRROR (ZERKALO)
Yet another Criterion must-own, a newly digitized version of Andrei Tarkovsky’s hallucinogenic 1975 masterpiece that’s a huge improvement over the crummy Kino DVD with which we formerly had to make do.
SATANTANGO
Obviously this snail paced eight hour head-scratcher, from Hungary’s foremost arty auteur Bela Tarr, isn’t for everyone, but for those of you who can take it this Blu-ray will be a worthy investment.
SON OF THE WHITE MARE
The first-ever North American release of this psychedelic animated masterpiece from Hungary’s late Marcell Jankovics. Now if only someone would put out an NTSC Blu-ray of Jankovics’ later, and similarly confounding, film THE TRAGEDY OF MAN…
SURF II
Dumb movie, but this Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray contains some amazing extras, including a commentary track by the one and only Eddie Deezen.
The Worst
1. GRIZZLY II: REVENGE
Here it is, the legendary Hungarian made sequel (to 1976’s GRIZZLY) that was commenced in the early 1980s. It went on to become one of the most monumental film productions in its country’s history, yet remained unfinished until last year. Now that it’s finally been unveiled I’ll have to say that GRIZZLY II is every bit as appalling as I was expecting, with a barely-glimpsed mutant grizzly bear loose at an outdoor concert (thus allowing the filmmakers to pad the film with footage of crappy eighties rock bands) and a cast that includes George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen, all of whom were at the beginning of their respective careers, and a slumming Louise Fletcher, who was clearly nearing the end of hers.
2. BRITNEY VS SPEARS
A prime example of what passes for documentary filmmaking these days: a painfully narrow-minded opinion-piece masquerading as a muckraking expose. Its subject is the pop star Britney Spears, and the stifling conservatorship under which, until last year, she was placed. I’m on Britney’s side in this fight, but not because of anything in this film. As in recent docos like ALLEN V. FARROW and MALFUNCTION: THE UNDRESSING OF JANET JACKSON, the picture BRITNEY VS SPEARS paints is one sided to a near-hysterical degree, presenting Britney Spears (who’s never heard from directly) as a goddess and her father (who likewise goes un-interviewed) an evil man whose apparent aim was to bolster the Patriarchy. Director Erin Lee Carr, an admitted Britney fanatic, withholds any factual evidence that conflicts with her verdict (of the unstable behavior that led to the conservatorship all we’re shown is some reckless driving) and lets her worshipful attitude get the better of her in the final scenes, in which a legal statement by Britney is treated with all the solemnity of a divine sermon.
3. THE FRENCH DISPATCH
I’m admittedly not too partial to the films of Wes Anderson, outside his initial works BOTTLE ROCKET and RUSHMORE, whose budgets were too slim to permit the type of self-indulgence for which he’s become known. That’s certainly on display here, in a film that’s so hermetic and self-absorbed even my Anderson loving friends have been forced to admit that it’s a near-unendurable slog. About an American newspaper situated in an absurdly overstylized French city run by Anderson’s muse Bill Murray, it actually plays like Peter Greenaway at his most conceited and obnoxious.
4. COMING 2 AMERICA
No, I wasn’t expecting much from this sequel to COMING TO AMERICA (1987), but this movie is inexcusably bad. As predicted, it recycles the first film’s narrative, in which Eddie Murphy as an African prince settled in Queens and found love while working in place called McDowells, but with Murphy assuming a supporting role. The lead is taken by Jermaine Fowler as his American son, who like everyone else in this movie is constantly traveling back and forth between Africa and America (so nobody’s really “coming” anywhere). The always-game Leslie Jones as Fowler’s sassy mother provides the only true laughs in this supposed comedy; truly, it’s she who should have had the lead role.
5. ONE DECEMBER NIGHT
Or: the Bruce Campbell Hallmark Movie. The Groovy One plays one half of a “legendary” broken up music duo, with Peter Gallagher as the other. Off-setting them is the standard Hallmark heroine: a very photogenic young woman (Hallmark regular Eloise Mumford) who happens to be Campbell’s daughter, and is tasked with setting up a reunion concert. In so doing she gets Campbell and Gallagher to put aside their differences and perform, learns some valuable life lessons and, of course, finds romance. This movie is somewhat divergent from the standard Hallmark formula in that there are no cute dogs or baking contests, and Campbell, in contrast to most Hallmark movie performers, appears to be enjoying himself greatly.
6. PREY
Five businessmen on a forest jaunt and an unseen shooter: that about sums up this no-frills German Netflixer from 2021. The stripped-down approach taken by director Thomas Sieben has the effect of honing the suspense, and also the violence, which like the film overall is harsh, fast and unapologetic. The wilderness scenery is quite evocative, but also monotonous, with virtually every scene looking the same. On that note, nearly all the Caucasian protagonists resemble each other, with their only major points of distinction being the different colored outfits they wear. The characters’ interchangeability might be more forgivable if any of these guys were the slightest bit interesting, but that, I’m afraid, is not the case.
7. OLD
A case in which everything that could go wrong apparently did. An adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan of the graphic novel SANDCASTLE by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, OLD’s problems start with its protagonists, a disparate group of people in whom I failed to develop any interest whatsoever. These folk become trapped on a scenic beach where they all find themselves growing older at an extremely accelerated rate. Shyamalan, in an evident effort at rendering this tightly contained account cinematic, includes a lot of distracting camera movement that accomplishes little aside from calling attention to itself. The inevitable twist ending, for its part, is a predictable flatline.
8. THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
A troubled production that was supposed to be unfurled in 2019 but ended up pushed back two years due to extensive reshoots and a scrapped music score (with Danny Elfman redoing the work of the original composers). Sorry, but the movie still sucks. An ersatz thriller about an agoraphobic woman (Amy Adams) living in a vast Manhattan brownstone (how she can afford to live in such a place despite doing very little in way of actual work is left unrevealed) who believes she witnesses a murder in the place next door, it hits all the expected Hitchcockian beats: Did Adams actually see what she thought she did? Is she crazy? Is someone trying to drive her crazy? I’ll confess I lost interest by the time it all ended. Director Joe Wright doesn’t evince much talent for thrills or suspense, leaving us with an obvious and implausible film. Amy Adams deserves credit, I suppose, for delivering such a boldly uninhibited, make-up free portrayal of slack-dom (this is a rare movie whose couch potato heroine actually looks like she’s been lounging around for weeks on end), but again: the movie sucks.
9. BEING THE RICARDOS
Sorry to go along with the crowd, but this film has problems that start with the rather severe miscasting of its lead roles. It purports to be about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz of I LOVE LUCY fame, but I never found Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem the least bit convincing in the roles (with J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda faring much better as Lucy and Ricky’s TV sidekicks William Frawley and Vivian Vance, a.k.a. Fred and Ethel). Kidman’s fumbling recreations of Lucy’s more famous TV moments, such as the iconic grape stomping gag, are downright pathetic. Another issue is with writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s structuring of his script, which supposedly takes place over the course of a single week, yet the events it interweaves, such as the government’s investigation of Lucy’s alleged communist ties and the break-up of her marriage, actually occurred over a much longer timespan, leaving us with a film that tries way too hard to cram in far too much.
10. THE SWARM (LA NUÉE)
Hailing from France, THE SWARM was put together with a great deal of savvy by director Just Philippot (of the impressive 2018 short ACIDE), but ultimately just isn’t very good. The subject is locusts bred for sustenance, an interesting idea with a resonance that stretches far beyond the screen (it’s very likely how we’ll all be getting our food before too long), but Philippot’s focus is on surface-level scares. The locust breeder is a single mother who’s quite dedicated, allowing the insects to drink her blood. This makes for some memorably gross close-ups, such as a locust nibbling at a wart and larvae emerging from a wound, which are far more shocking than any of the major set-pieces. The major problem, however, is one that afflicts a lot of modern French films: the fact that all the characters are unlikeable. That’s particularly true of the Suliane Brahim essayed protagonist, whose impotent rages and crying fits may be true to life but do very little in terms of audience identification.
11. KATE
A prototypical example of the new brand of female centered action moviemaking that has become prevalent in recent years. This means a woman protagonist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who’s 1). smarter and tougher than everyone else, 2). quite pretty but never shows any overt sex appeal, nor any romantic longings (as to do either might diminish her standing), and 3). given, in what has already become a cliché, a sweet little girl sidekick. The story involves Winstead getting poisoned early on, leaving her with 24 hours to enact revenge, but there’s no suspense given that she’s essentially superhuman, and the knowledge that any injury or death to the heroine might upset the progressive noisemakers on Twitter.
12. TICK, TICK…BOOM!
I decided early on in 2021 that I’d only subject myself to one of its many Broadway pastiches. This means I skipped IN THE HEIGHTS and WEST SIDE STORY, but elected to suffer through TICK, TICK…BOOM!, director Lin Manuel Miranda’s song and dance packed film about Jonathan Larson, who created the supposedly generation defining RENT. The aim, it seems, was to show how Larson’s outer life working odd jobs to make ends meet had a much greater influence on his development than his inner one, but Miranda’s highly overwrought depiction of “reality” never feels very convincing. Worse, Andrew Garfield overacts quite shamelessly as Larson, coming off as merely obnoxious rather than the life-loving genius he’s supposed to be.
13. TWO (DOS)
The logical successor to THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE: a Spanish made Netflixer from 2021 whose title refers to its protagonists, a man and a woman (Pablo Derqui and Marina Gatell) who awaken naked in a strange room with their stomachs stitched together. Talking things over, they conclude that 1). they’re being monitored by an unseen someone, and 2). both are equally responsible for their misfortune. It seems director Mar Targarona and his screenwriters, in the manner of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE’S Tom Six, were so impressed with their core concept they didn’t bother to develop it much. The film, which is filled with flashy camera tricks, never really goes anywhere very interesting, with a gruesome but unexciting twist-free conclusion that fails to justify the ennui of the preceding 70 minutes.
14. RED NOTICE
A movie whose plot and attitude are adroitly summed up by the 20 word Netflix summary: “Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot chase each other around the globe in this fun and funny action adventure.” Johnson is a cop and Reynolds and Gadot are thieves, and there’s a twist near the end, but there’s really no point in going into much detail, as the whole thing is so lightweight and nonsensical it might as well be a parody. The leads are attractive, and attractively costumed (Ms. Gadot in particular), but with no evident chemistry between them (Johnson attempts to assume, without success, the same dynamic with Reynolds that he does in his movies with Kevin Hart) it doesn’t much matter.
15. BLACK WIDOW
It certainly seemed like a good idea: a standalone Marvel movie headlined by Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow (one of the only worthwhile reasons, I feel, to sit through the AVENGERS movies). Unfortunately the moviemakers dropped the ball. I’m not familiar with the comic book iteration of Black Widow, but as presented here she’s too stoic and one-dimensional; as is often the case with modern action movies, I found myself drawn to the comic relief sidekicks (Florence Pugh and David Harbour), who evince far more depth and likeability than the heroine. The action sequences are, as you might guess, grand and elaborate, but also extremely calculated and mechanical, and so never too exciting.
16. GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE
Essentially a feminized JOHN WICK, with Karen Gillan as a babe assassin kicking lots of ass, and eventually getting together with a band of like-minded gals whose ranks include Angela Basset, Lena Hedley and Michelle Yeoh, to kick even more ass. The solo directorial debut of Navot Papushado (of BIG BAD WOLVES), the film is too single-minded and repetitive to sustain interest, with the fight scenes all tending to look the same.
17. JOLT
Yet another of those new wave female actioners that have become so popular. This one stars Kate Beckinsale as a woman with severe anger management issues who has to shock herself in order to keep from brutalizing people. But when a guy she likes (Jai Courtney) appears to be killed she decides to use her anger to her advantage, embarking on a revenge spree in which a great deal of butt is kicked. Beckinsale looks delectable as always, but doesn’t even try to take any of this dopiness seriously, wise-cracking her way through a lot of cookie-cutter action scenes (a nifty hospital tracking shot aside) filmed on an all-too-obvious studio backlot. She, and most everyone else involved in this film, can do better.
18. STOWAWAY
A most unexpected Netflix sensation: a highly atmospheric but only sporadically compelling outer space drama with Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim as cosmonauts on a mission to Mars, and Shamier Anderson as a stowaway on their spaceship who precipitates a thorny moral dilemma. The cast brings an enormous amount of conviction to material that, frankly, needs it a great deal.
19. DON’T LOOK UP
A curious thing about this ultra-expensive Netflixer: it looks shockingly cheap (due no doubt to the fact that its stars’ salaries ate up much of the budget), which certainly doesn’t do much for a film that relies heavily upon special effects. It’s a satire, and an extremely hamfisted one, about a rogue comet heading for Earth. A pair of astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) attempt to warn the world about this impending menace but find themselves unable to get anyone in the government, media or private sector to take them seriously due to concerns about public perception and conspiracy theories. The story was obviously intended as a metaphor for climate change and/or covid, and comes complete with Dicaprio delivering an impassioned televised shout-a-thon of a type that only ever seems to occur in movies like this one.
20. MEMORIA
The films of Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul tend to affect me in different ways. Some (such as UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN REMEMBER HIS PAST LIVES) I find charming, and others (such as MEKONG HOTEL) seem downright insufferable. MEMORIA, I’m afraid, leans toward the latter category. Incredibly simple-minded, it features Tilda Swinton as a woman periodically assailed by a loud booming sound that nobody else seems able to hear. She embarks on a search for the source of the noise, an odyssey that as presented by Weerasethakul entails a lot of teeming wide shots held for interminable periods of time, shots in which Swinton is often crowded out. Eventually, though, she gets her wish, in a downright goofy scene that showcases Weerasethakul’s love of grade-B sci fi. That mixture of up and down-market elements worked well in BOONMEE, but isn’t nearly as harmonious here, given that there’s no real story to speak of and the heroine is largely a cypher.
21. SPENCER
In which filmmaker Pablo Lorrain attempted, after JACKIE (2016), another artier-than-thou take on an iconic political figure. I know many of you detest JACKIE but I say it worked, as it appears to have been conceived as a dreamy reverie. SPENCER, by contrast, is quite conventional in its conception, being about Lady Diana and how she was driven to near madness by the strictures and regulations placed on her by the royal family. Lorrain visualizes this in lots of lengthy (and boring) depictions of a mopey Diana trudging through opulent scenery. Kristen Stewart was well cast, as she positively radiates unease (and looks amazing in the many 1980s designer outfits she sports), but I never found her attempts at a posh British accent convincing in the slightest.
22. ARMY OF THE DEAD
Netflix’s 2021 summer tent-pole was this Zack Snyder directed zombie blow-out containing a reported $70 million worth of elaborate production design, explosions and state-of-the-art CGI. How disappointing, then, that the film, for all its flash and fury, is quite unremarkable in most respects, being essentially ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) with zombies. Snyder, riding high from the March release of ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, also conceived this tale of the heist of a Las Vegas casino by a band of quirky mercenaries (including Dave Bautista and Tig Notaro) in the midst of zombie apocalypse, just as the city is about to be nuked. The action is plentiful and well handled, as is the requisite slow motion carnage, and Snyder isn’t squeamish about putting his protagonists in harms’ way, and/or killing them off indiscriminately. The editing could have stood to be tightened (the film is at least an hour too long), as could the script, a hodgepodge of not-always-harmonious elements that loses all semblance of plausibility in the final scenes (fact: you cannot outrun, much less outfly, an atomic bomb blast!).
23. I CARE A LOT
There are many good things to be found in this woman centered thriller, which makes it all the more frustrating that it fails so spectacularly. The culprit? A narrative that grows so hellaciously implausible it might as well take place in the Land of Oz. Rosamund Pike plays a woman who makes her living by becoming the legal guardian of old people with no ties, with she placing the coots in nursing homes and then cleaning out their homes and bank accounts. As a cautionary expose of America’s flawed conservatorship system this film’s early scenes outdo anything in BRITNEY VS. SPEARS, but then, when it’s revealed that Pike’s latest mark (Dianne Wiest) has ties to a dangerous underworld figure (Peter Dinklage), ridiculousness sets in. Pike is revealed to be an expert marksman and an apparent acrobat, and possesses an uncanny ability to always be in the right place at the exact right time, yet somehow manages to miss a lot of telling signifiers (such as the fact that the name Wiest goes by belongs to a woman who died decades earlier, something it takes Pike’s alleged criminal mastermind until the film’s halfway point to learn). Pike does a good job, but the script does her no favors.
24. SPACE SWEEPERS (SEUNGRIHO)
This, Korea’s first-ever space epic, is the latest in the wannabe Hollywood blockbuster craze that has swept Asia. Like NIGHT WATCH and THE WANDERING EARTH, SPACE SWEEPERS presents a highly elaborate CGI-packed spectacle in service of an only semi-coherent narrative. The highly involved premise involves the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to pollution; a portion of humanity has retreated to a space station, where a crew of so-called Space Sweepers sell space junk. Boring is something this film isn’t, as it contains both foot and spaceship chases, laser shootouts, explosions a’plenty, a great deal of overwrought sentimentality (too much, if you ask me) and a vast multi-ethnic cast. All this comes at the expense of competent storytelling, with the events having a very disconnected feel that furthers the overall impression of a film that tries way too hard for commercial viability.
25. TITANE
The major shock item of 2021 was this exercise in body horror from France’s Julia Ducournau, the closest thing that exists to a female David Cronenberg. I admittedly never found Ducournau’s previous feature RAW, which was supposed to be the major shock item of 2016, all that shocking, and I doubt any cult film buff will be too upset by it or TITANE. It begins with a little girl named Alexia surviving a car accident that leaves her with a titanium plate in her head. She grows into a sexually confused stripper whose major relationship is with the car in which she was injured all those years ago; so passionate is this courtship that Alexia is impregnated(!) by the vehicle, causing an inhuman something to grow inside her belly and the development of a most unfortunate taste for mass murder. The proceedings are suitably arty and ambiguous, but the murder scenes are quite silly, accompanied as they are by patently unreal sound effects, while the final scenes close things out on a less-than-invigorating note, (SPOILER ALERT!) never providing us with a good look at the mutant baby whose birth is given such prominence. That’s a mistake Mr. Cronenberg would assuredly never make.
26. THE GUILTY
If you haven’t seen the 2018 Danish language film THE GUILTY (DEN SKYLDIGE) this Americanized remake might seem cool. If you have seen the original film, alas, this new version probably won’t do much for you. As in the earlier film, it takes place late one night in a cramped dispatch office where a disgraced policeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) receives a call from a woman (Riley Keogh) who claims to have been kidnapped. This sets in motion a twisty drama in which Gyllenhaal becomes obsessed with tracking down the woman, and in the process ends up having to face down his own demons. Good work from Gyllenhaal and director Antoine Fuqua, whose skilled efforts keep one’s attention riveted, but it’s all (literally) been done before.
Looking Forward…
ALIEN ON STAGE
A comedic documentary about an amateur UK stage production of ALIEN that’s gotten a lot of positive advance notice.
AS IN HEAVEN, SO ON EARTH
The word on this film, a centuries-spanning conspiracy thriller that mixes puppetry and live action, has been quite promising.
BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES
Japanese lunacy about a TV set that shows images from two minutes into the future. It could be good.
BIG BUG
Look for this one on Netflix next month. It’s the return of France’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the type of comedic sci fi-horror cinema with which he made his name, being about (I’m told) a robot uprising in the year 2050.
DARK HARVEST
I know little-to-nothing about this film other than the fact that it’s an adaptation of the similarly titled horror novel by Norman Partridge, which by itself is more than enough to whet my interest.
THE FOUND FOOTAGE PHENOMENON
A documentary about just what the title promises: the found footage movie craze, which includes THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and a ton of other films.
GUNS 3: ALIAS BILLY THE KID
I’ll most likely regret choosing to highlight this, the second sequel to 1988’s YOUNG GUNS (I think you can guess why the first part of the title has been excised), which was directed by that film’s headliner Emilio Estevez.
MAD GOD
This hallucinogenic stop motion wonder has been in the works for over thirty years. The feature directorial debut of special effects legend Phil Tippett, MAD GOD has already wowed people on the festival circuit, and is indeed an impressive and confounding piece of work (yes, I’ve seen it).
THE NORTHMAN
The new film by Robert Eggars (of THE WITCH and THE LIGHTHOUSE), an “epic revenge thriller that explores how far a Viking prince will go to seek justice for his murdered father,” starring Alexander Skarsgard and Anya Taylor-Joy.
PHI 1.618
A quasi-animated feature by Canada’s Theodore Ushev, who spins a dark tale of a dystopian future. A future cult item for certain.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
Another sure-to-be-regretted choice, but I can’t help but be intrigued by this sequel to a movie that was of paramount importance to anyone who grew up in the eighties (whether they admit to it or not).