2021: The Best and the Rest (BONUS: Best of 2020 too!!)

Normally, around mid-to-late January, I post my "The Best and the Rest" of the year. Last year I did not do this because 2020 was so wacky and I saw so few recently released movies.

In 2021, I started going back to the theatres around July (fully vaxxed!) and so even though 2021 was not the most awesome year for movies (in my opinion) I think I have enough content to do a "Best of" for 2021.

But since I'm looking back over alllll the movies I watched (in theatres or On Demand) this year, I figured why the fuck not go back another year and have a "Best of" for 2020 as well? It might be a small list, but that's ok!

So here it is folks: The Best and the Rest of 2021 AND 2020. Enjoy!

***

My top 8 movies of 2021 + honorable mentions:

8. Pig

Michael Sarnoski's Pig is a poetic film that explores how grief can cut us off from other people. Nicolas Cage plays Rob Feld, a once celebrated chef who has become a recluse living in the woods after his wife's death. His only companion is a truffle-hunting pig. But when that pig is stolen, Rob has to emerge from his cocoon of loneliness and interact with society once again. 

Pig is a strange film filled with tender moments that show how all of the emphasis we put on things like work ethic, talent, money, and power are just a facade we use to cover up scary and unsightly emotions that we SHOULD be actively processing and working through. It is only by facing the potential loss of his porcine friend that Rob can finally accept and move on from the loss of his wife. A beautiful, delicate film.

7. Saint Maud

Directed by Rose Glass, Saint Maud is a horror film about the depths some people will go to fulfill what they feel is God's will. Private palliative care nurse Maud (a glorious Morfydd Clark) is a devout Catholic who literally begs God to show her His will. She takes up an assignment to care for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), once a gifted dancer and now dying of lymphoma. When Amanda reveals that she is an atheist, but shows interest in Maud's religious beliefs, Maud takes this as a sign that her purpose is to save Amanda's soul before she passes away.

Predictably, this does not go as planned and, in fact, drives a wedge between Maud and Amanda. Amanda seems almost cruel at times: mocking Maud's religion in front of other people and flaunting (or maybe simply openly enjoying) her erotic dalliances with a female sex worker. However, it is Maud who clearly oversteps her boundaries and ends up spiraling into religiously motivated self-harm.

I really loved the nuances of Saint Maud. It's hard not to feel sympathy for the poor girl, who is clearly filled with all the wrong things (shame, self-loathing) and not enough of the right things (purpose, balance). The film teases whether Maud's visions of God and interactions with God are really happening or just all in her head, which touches on the greater question of whether ALL human interactions with God are just in our confused, desperate human minds. Even the final frame of the film, which is probably the most haunting single second of film I saw this year, can be read ambiguously. I highly recommend this excellent psychological horror film.

6) The French Dispatch

Though not Wes Anderson's best film, The French Dispatch merits a place on this list because the fact of the matter is that even the crappiest WA movie is going to be better than 70% of all movies released this year anyway. The director's color-drenched palette, attention to minute detail, and cast of beloved actors will always be a pleasure to watch over and over again.

Anderson's latest takes place in the small (fictional) town of Ennui, France, where a group of American writers and journalists work to put together the final issue of The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. Their founding editor, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray), has passed and this will be their final publication. The film is actually a series of short films tied together with the frame story of the creation of this concluding issue. 

Of the four short films, easily the best is the last one: "The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner", which stars Jeffrey Wright as Roebuck Wright, a character who is a clear homage to James Baldwin. Wright is a food writer about to partake in a delectable dinner alongside The Commissaire of Ennui (Mathieu Amalric). However, the dinner is interrupted when it is discovered that the Commissaire's son has been abducted by a gang of criminals and held for ransom. This final chapter in the movie is the funniest and the most emotional. 

5) The Power of the Dog

This tense Western drama is Jane Campion's first feature-length film in 12 years, and what a return it is! The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemmons as Phil and George Burbank, wealthy, ranch-owning brothers in 1920s Montana. The Burbank brothers could not be more different: George is soft, genteel, and gentle. Phil is hard, crude, and cruel. When the brothers and the ranch hands they work with stop at an inn run by widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her effeminate teenage son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil delights in mocking Peter's lisp and the fact that he made paper flowers as table decorations. George later comforts Rose as she weeps in the kitchen. Not long after, George and Rose are married.

This is a movie where the whole time you're waiting for violence to break out. Phil's personality seems ripe for sadism and I kept waiting for him to do something monstrous like assault Rose or beat up Peter...but I can tell sensitive viewers that the only thing to be wary of in this movie is the depiction of animal violence (this DOES take place on a 1920s ranch, so seeing Phil whip a horse and castrate a bull is, well, to be expected). I will say that appearances can be deceiving, and that Phil's over-the-top masculine bluster and arrogance may be what blinds him to real danger that lurks under his nose...

4) Zola

Zola was the first movie I saw in theatres since March of 2020, so it holds a special place in my heart. It's also a fucking wild ride. Directed by Janicza Bravo and based on a series of tweets from Aziah "Zola" King, the film follows Zola (Taylour Paige), a waitress and sometimes-stripper who befriends Stefani (Riley Keough), also a sometimes-stripper. The two women form an intense and instant bond that, frankly, doesn't bode well. Stefani convinces Zola to take a "hoe trip" down to Tampa, Florida where they'll spend a weekend dancing in a particular club where Stefani claims that can make up to $5,000 a night.

The first sign of trouble is when Zola gets in the car driven by Stefani's "roommate", a man whose name we don't find out until over halfway through the movie. Played with panache by Colman Domingo, this man turns out to be Stefani's pimp. After Stefani and Zola finish dancing, they find out that he has placed an ad on Backpage.com offering men, well, you know. When this turn of events was revealed, I leaned over to my boyfriend and whispered "Oh, this is a horror movie."

Well, not quite. But if you're of the female or femme persuasion, you'll probably have a pretty specific set of feelings watching Zola and waiting for things to get real ugly. Thank god, it never gets quite that dark, but from the moment this man reveals his true nature, Zola is a rollercoaster ride of a movie--more dark comedy than thriller, but still tense and nerve-wracking nonetheless.

Zola is one of the most underrated films of the year and I highly recommend it.

3) Dune

Dune is easily the most engrossing film I saw this year, as well as the most visually stunning. While other films might be "better" in terms of acting or writing, Dune is the one that made me forget that time was passing. This adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic speculative fiction novel is directed by Denis Villeneuve and has a very "2021" cast: Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, and Oscar Isaacs are just very "in" right now. Chalamet really captures that "reluctant Chosen One" vibe as Paul Atreides, the son of a Duke and a witch, who is coming into both political power as well as supernatural abilities.

I'm not going to give a run-down of the plot, which is honestly pretty standard sci-fic epic stuff involving warring factions fighting over a valuable planet, I'll just name a couple scenes or aspects of the film I particularly enjoyed:

• The cinematography was awe-inducing to the point of terror. I saw this movie on the big screen and, honestly, it's a rare movie I would have shelled out to see in IMAX. The big-ass spaceships, the sandworms, and even the creepiness of Baron Harkonnen were not just visually stunning, they were straight-up scary! Like Zola, Dune is another non-horror horror movie in many ways.
• The world-building, and in particular the descriptions of how the Fremen survive on their sandworm-infested desert planet.
• The "box of pain" scene and the scene where the Duke of Atreides is captured by House Harkonnen. Both of these scenes went beyond sci-fi spectacles to capture the actual emotions of the characters. The box of pain scene also led to this meme, which is priceless:

2) Annette 

Annette is a weird fuckin' movie. It's a Greek tragedy rock opera. It elicited so many different feelings in me: laughter, sadness, anger, horniness, confusion, and cringey-ness/embarrassment. There's a puppet-baby that sings. Howard from The Big Bang Theory is in it. I could go on.

Directed by Leos Carax, who is known for his visionary films, Annette is about the relationship between aggressive, masculine comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and elegant, delicate opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard). The two are a classic star-crossed pair who seem totally wrong for each other, yet are drawn to one another (the intense sexual chemistry might have something to do with that). They have a daughter, Annette (the aforementioned puppet), and Ann's career skyrockets as Henry's flails. Henry becomes an alcoholic, which inadvertently leads to an accident that causes Ann's death.

After Ann dies, Annette develops an unusual talent: she has her mother's astonishing singing voice. Henry, being The Worst, immediately exploit's the tot's talent for money, much to the consternation of Ann's musical Accompanist (Simon Helberg) and secret lover, who may or may not be Annette's real father.

See what I mean by Greek tragedy? 

The music, which is written by the musical duo Sparks and performed by the actors, is pretty good, especially the opening song "May We Start" and Ann and Henry's duet "We Love Each Other So Much". I regret not seeing the film in the theatre, where I think it would have made even more of an impact on me. But made an impact it did, and I couldn't stop thinking about weeks later. 

1) Bo Burnham: Inside 

Look, I know that this is a Netflix comedy special and not a "movie" per se, but Inside was, hands down, the best piece of non-episodic media I watched in 2021. I'm calling it a movie. 

Over the next 5, 10, 20 years, we're going to be looking back at these plague years and certainly movies and TV will reflect the unique awfulness that is the COVID-19 pandemic. But with Bo Burnham's masterpiece, the reflection is coming from inside the house, so to speak. He captured the feeling of the pandemic specifically and the feeling of living in the 2020s more broadly. With gentle pokes at Instagram, harder prods at Jeff Bezos, and downright depressing lamentations about climate change, Bo Burnham's Inside is about so much more than being stuck at home: it's about how to go on living in "the end times".

Are we in the "end times"? Fuck if I know. People always think it's the end of the world. The disciples of Jesus thought the dude was literally coming back any day now after he died. I'm sure when Hitler rose to power, people thought this would surely be the end. Sure, "things are different this time". Climate change suggests that our species will be beset with constant hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves, tsunamis, and other natural disasters that will eat away at the edges of our planet, killing the poorest and most vulnerable first before turning on those of us more fortunate. The only survivors will be billionaires who escape in their dick-rockets to planets afar. Can you believe that after 300,000 years of human existence, Elon fucking Musk is going to be repopulating the human race? ELON MUSK. It doesn't bear thinking about. 

But Bo Burnham dares to think about it, and sing about it. His songs range from the mundanity of sexting to the profundity of "That Funny Feeling". Yeah, I know he's a white privileged guy who jokes about having done nothing by age 30, when in fact he directed an award-winning film at age 27, but I truly, in my soul, think that Inside is a work of genius. Like, I know it sounds cheesy to make proclamations like that, but sometimes a movie or book or other piece of media just captures the fucking zeitgeist, ya know? And those aren't always the "best" or most "critically acclaimed" pieces of media, but they're something more than that: they're the beating heart of a moment in our shared history.

Inside is funny, it's beautifully filmed, and it's haunting. The fact that it's gentle, not cruel or ugly in the slightest, only makes its wounding touch feel all that more painful and poignant.

***

Honorable mentions: 

Judas and the Black Messiah, The Green Knight, Licorice Pizza

***

My top 7 movies of 2020* + honorable mentions

*Note: some of these movies were technically released in 2019, but either I saw them in the theatre in (early) 2020 or they were released on streaming in 2020 and that was the first time I saw them. 

7) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 

I mean, do I even need to explain why this movie made this list?

Oh, I do? Well, for one thing, I watched it three times within two weeks after it was released. It's downright hilarious, even if the cringe comedy made me want to hide under a blanket during some scenes. And it's actually a much kinder, gentler version of Borat, even as it mocks its subjects. 

Look, I didn't see a lot of new movies in 2020, so Sasha Baron Cohen's over-the-top mockumentary gets a place of honor here. And Maria Bakalova's performance as Borat's daughter, Tutar, is a work of comedic genius.

6) Portrait of a Lady on Fire 

One of the inspirations for the SNL skit "Lesbian Period Drama", Portrait of a Lady on Fire is indeed a slow burn. In the late 1700s, artist Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is commissioned to paint a portrait of Heloise (Adele Haenel), who is preparing to get married to a nobleman. This isn't a marriage of love, but one of duty. After Heloise's mother leaves for an extended period of time, the two women become closer and closer.

And then they fuck, and then Heloise has to get married. I mean, that's basically the movie. It's really more about atmosphere than plot. But boy, is that atmosphere thick and gorgeous. And even though the conclusion is foregone, the film still packs an emotional punch, especially the final scene. 

5) The Invisible Man

Dropping into theatres in February of 2020, Leigh Whannell's adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic novel was a very happy surprise. This take on the titular invisible man is very loosely inspired by the novel and imagines the character of Griffin as Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a wealthy scientist and a gaslighting, abusive asshole to his girlfriend Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss). The movie opens during a tense, late-night escape as Cecilia drugs Adrian and manages to just barely make it out of their shared mansion and to her sister's car. A few weeks later, Cecilia receives word that Adrian is dead and left a significant amount of money to her...with the stipulation that she doesn't engage in any criminal activity. Hmmmm...

When Cecilia starts seeing things and feeling a strange presence, her sister and close friends think that she is just mentally unwell after escaping a very traumatic situation. But knowing that Adrian's field was optics, Cecilia believes that Adrian has faked his own death and is somehow spying on her. Well, it isn't long before Cecilia "engages in criminal activity"...or does she!? Ending up in an institution for the criminally insane, Cecilia must fight back against an invisible foe who is now more dangerous than ever.

The Invisible Man is an excellent horror-thriller and the modern take on the invisible man as an abusive boyfriend is the perfect way to explore how gaslighting works and how abusers can isolate their victims and not only make them appear "crazy" to other people--but to the victims themselves. 

4) Palm Springs 

What could have been a mediocre Groundhog Day rip-off turned out to be a wildly entertaining film that takes the time-loop concept and says "ok, but what if you were stuck living the same day with someone hot who you liked?" Andy Samberg plays Nyles, who finds himself stuck in a time loop while attending a wedding in Palm Springs. After hooking up with the bride's sister, Sarah (Cristin Milioti), Nyles inadvertently gets Sarah stuck in the loop as well. 

After patiently waiting for Sarah to get past the "disbelief" stage, the "blind rage" phase, and the "finding out you're unable to kill yourself in a time loop" phase, Nyles and Sarah start to have some really good times and even...fall in love. But when Sarah realizes that there is a scientific way out of the time loop, Nyles has to choose between his comfortable life living a beautiful, booze-filled day over and over in Palm Springs, but without the woman he loves, and possibly dying in an attempt to escape.

Folks have pointed out that unlike Groundhog Day, there is no moral way out of the loop. The characters literally have to use physics to escape, which is no easy feat. I really liked how at its core, Palm Springs is about stagnancy and whether it's better to live a comfortable life where nothing happens, or to take a chance on something greater but possibly get hurt.

3) Blow the Man Down

Blow the Man Down is clever, fun, female-fronted film that came out of nowhere in 2020. Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe play Mary Beth and Priscilla Connolly, sisters living in a fishing town in Maine who have just lost their mother and are about to lose their fishmonger business as well.

When Mary Beth kills a man in self-defense and discovers $50,000 in his home, she feels that their money problems have been solved. Level-headed sister Priscilla is not so sure. It turns out that the money belongs to Enid Nora Devlin (Margo Martindale, just perfect in this role), the owner of a brothel. And she wants it back. Plus, there's the whole dead body issue to deal with.

Blow the Man Down reminds me of those cozy mysteries people love that always seem to take place in a small town with lots of local color. Though the film is most certainly rated R, it walks an interesting line between cozy and dark. The Connolly sisters' mother was part of a group of matriarchs (played by some legendary actresses, including the aforementioned Martindale, June Squibb, Annette O'Toole, and Marceline Hugot) who rule the town and add to the "cozy" atmosphere. But between multiple deaths, blackmail, and prostitution, this movie ain't for kids. 

2) Parasite 

Ok, so a couple things. First of all Parasite *technically* came out in 2019, and it even won Best Picture for the 2019 Academy Awards. However, I didn't see it until January 2020 and I made my "Best of 2019" list before I saw it, so it didn't make the cut for that list and I can't stand for it to not be on ANY of my "Best of" lists, so it's going here.

Second, Parasite is a better movie than Promising Young Woman, so I feel weird putting it in second place...but I also feel weird putting it in first place because it's DEFINITELY a 2019 movie and Promising Young Woman is DEFINITELY a 2020 film. In any case, just know that I loved Parasite and it is worthy to be at the top of the list.

Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite is about class, money, and what people will do to survive. The film transcends categorization--it's a drama, a comedy, a horror movie, and a thriller. Although the plot is simple enough--a poor family all take positions at a rich family's home without the rich family knowing that the poor family is, well, a family--Parasite is one of the most unique, clever, and gut-wrenching films I've seen. The struggling Kim family's slow takeover of the wealthy Park family is insidious and creepy--not only do they lie and mislead the Parks, they also sabotage the current staff who work for the Parks in order to take over their places. Yet you can't help but empathize with and even admire the Kims in their willingness to do what they need to survive. Plus, the Parks are rich so it's easy to kind of hate them, even though they're not inherently bad people. 

Parasite pokes at that uncomfortable place inside of us that wants there to be a villain when the actual villain is...society itself. Dun dun dun! It's a film that says "don't hate the player, hate the game". And it's just a pleasure to watch the whole thing unfold, especially in the second half when a HUGE TWIST occurs (there were audible gasps in the theatre, and I'm pretty sure I heard someone say "whaaaaaaattt??" when the twist is revealed). 

Do yourself a favor and watch Parasite if you haven't already. It definitely deserved that Oscar.

1) Promising Young Woman

Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman disappointed and upset many viewers. It was advertised as a "fun" rape-revenge film in which Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) pretends to be drunk, lets strange men in bars take her home, and then as they go in for a lil' date rape reveal that she was sober the whole time! When I watched the preview I wondered "What does she do next? Does she cut their dicks off!?" 

She does not cut their dicks off, and in fact this whole section of the movie is much shorter than the preview would lead you to think. Promising Young Woman is as much about depression and the inability to move past grief as it is about revenge. It's a movie that doesn't strive to make anyone feel comfortable. And you know what? Good. Movies that tackle rape don't owe us "good" heroines and movies about revenge don't owe us a conclusion we get to feel good about. 

The main problems people had with PYW is that 1) Cassie puts other women in harms way in her quest for revenge and 2) (SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

(SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!)

Cassie is killed during her final act of revenge.

This REALLY upset some viewers as it suggested that Cassie had to die for the bad guys to be punished. Others scoffed at the idea that the bad guys WOULD be punished at all. So, in the end, we are left with a slightly unsatisfied feeling.

Good. This is a movie about rape culture. It should be unsatisfying and it should feel uncomfortable. If Cassie had been a perfect heroine who *only* hurt the bad guys and did it in a perfectly moral way and triumphed in the end...that would certainly be a satisfying movie! But it wouldn't be real. 

Promising Young Woman takes us to some dark places. Carey Mulligan is superb as Cassie Thomas, a woman who dropped out of medical school after her friend, Nina, was gang-raped and then killed herself. She is now a 30 year old living with her parents and working at a coffee shop. Even Nina's mom tells Cassie to "move on". While the living at home and working a job that probably pays shit is sad, but not the end of the world, Cassie's lack of friends reveal that this isn't just a temporary setback. This is complicated grief. This is depression. And when Cassie starts seeing the baby-faced, super nice Ryan (Bo Burnham, born the play this role), we can't help but hope that this may be a turning point for her.

But it's never that easy right? There's a scene where Cassie watches a video of Nina's rape that she didn't know existed before. Fortunately, the viewers can't see this video, but we can hear the voices of the men involved. So our hearts drop, just as Cassie's does, when we hear Ryan's voice on that video. The look on Carey Mulligan's face--the "I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised" look--just breaks our hearts. 

It's no surprise that Cassie's next move is suicide by frat boy. As she walks to the bachelor party of Nina's rapist, dressed in a sexy nurse outfit, we know that her self-preservation instinct is gone. Because she's walking into a den of predators who see her as a pair of tits and three holes. Because that's how these kind of men think. 

Promising Young Woman is an electric film that leaves a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. It's a film that elicits the "is it ok to laugh at this?" feeling. And it is ok to laugh at this, because when it comes to rape culture, sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from screaming. And I think that's also what makes A Promising Young Woman the perfect film for the laugh/scream year that was 2020.

***

Honorable mentions: Emma., Host, The Devil All the Time