Which is my fortune cookie way of saying that my public facing writing is virtually zero at the moment, and I am more than OK with that, but one little tradition that I didn’t want to drop was this: a roundup of my favourite films of the year.
2020 was tough, but in many ways 2021 was tougher. At least in 2020, we recognised that we were living in strange, uncertain and scary times and reacted accordingly. This year, our goldfish hivemind has us all acting like everything is normal, when it manifestly isn’t. These are still strange, uncertain and scary times. The cognitive whiplash of Orwellian doublethink is headache-inducing but, hey, the pubs are open.
Fortunately, we still had the manifold pleasures of film and the ability to run open armed toward escapism: “the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy”. Below, in no particular order, are the sixteen films that, above all others, gave me refuge from our unpleasant realities.
Another Round (Druk) (Thomas Vinterberg)
Mads Mikkelsen and friends tackle mid-life ennui by microdosing with booze. An intoxicating, life-affirming and even-handed look at the joys and perils of alcohol consumption, plus I have a soft spot for films that end with an impromptu dance number.
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) (Radu Jude)
Never the film that you expect it to be from one segment to the next, beginning with history teacher Emi’s explicit homemade sex tape that kickstarts the meandering narrative, to barbed observations about contemporary and historical social mores in both Romania and the wider world, to the prurient judgmental hypocrisy and sexism of a group of parents, Jude never stops asking the question about what in this world is truly vulgar, and he never loses his sense of humour whilst doing it.
Candyman (Nia DaCosta)
One of those rarities where you can’t truly appreciate what the film has achieved until the end credits roll. Smart, stylish social commentary with visually striking kills and scares, this is a very worthy successor to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original.
Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond)
Set during the UK’s Video Nasty era, this would make for a killer double-bill with Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio - a fetishistic, scrungy, nostalgic, tactile billet-doux to the obsolete audio-visual artefacts of a bygone age and the horrors contained therein.
Copshop (Joe Carnahan)
Gun Creek would have been a far better title for this than Copshop. It doesn’t wear its influences lightly, from the rousing funk of Lalo Schifrin’s Magnum Force theme tune at the beginning to the overarching riff on John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. This doesn’t make it any less fun. Toby Huss is a shotgun blast of fresh air when he arrives, and Alexis Louder is an absolute badass standing muzzle-to-muzzle against a menagerie of scumbags. Also, as a general life rule, you can never have too much Curtis Mayfield.
The Harder They Fall (Jeymes Samuel)
A Western that has more style than substance, but Samuel pulls it all off with such infectious elan. Inexorable (Fabrice du Welz)
Shot on Kodak Super 16mm, this murky “Nanny from Hell” thriller gleefully swims in the slipstream of the great Hollywood films noir (there’s a “thanks to” credit to John M. Stahl and Gene Tierney at the end) and Benoît Poelvoorde is always a pleasure to watch.
The Medium (Banjong Pisanthanakun)
This slow-burn Thai faux-documentary horror about a family curse and the malevolent creature that comes with it is slathered in creeping dread that escalates incrementally with delicate, never dull, pacing.
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)
A Korean family fight to build a life in the Ozarks in this beautifully told story anchored by charming performances from Steven Yeun, Youn Yuh-jung, Alan Kim and Will Patton.The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Michael Rianda / Jeff Rowe)
As smart and sassy as this is, the thing that earns it a spot on my Favourites of the Year list is the endlessly rewatchable Attack of the Furbys sequence. "Behold! The twilight of man".Nobody (Ilya Naishuller)
Bob Odenkirk's fantastically fucked-up face is one of my favourite images of 2021. Arguably, this is John Wick without the puppy, but I’ve watched this twice now and it remains a brutal, bone-crunching, badass blast. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)
A riff on Groundhog Day’s infinite time loop premise that isn’t afraid to take it further to even darker places, all dressed up as an Andy Samberg comedy as it vacillates between the playful and the profound. Riders of Justice (Retfærdighedens ryttere) (Anders Thomas Jensen)
The second excellent Mads Mikkelsen picture of the year. A deconstruction of the revenge thriller, with added ruminations on causality, coincidence and camaraderie, and the bloodletting is leavened with hearty helpings of humour and heart. Mikkelsen is that rare performer who can convey vulnerability and stoicism simultaneously. Every bit as good as Another Round.Spider-Man No Way Home (Jon Watts)
The word “crowd-pleaser” is both overused and underrated. It has become fashionable in some quarters to bash the Marvel movies and their ongoing success (which, amongst other things, shows a lack of understanding that a rising tide lifts all boats), but it is genuinely exhilarating to sit in a full house on opening night hearing the whoops, weeping and applause because the crowd has been pleased. And in 2021, 148 minutes of the shared experience of unalloyed joy was something to celebrate. It puts me in mind of the words of Joel McCrea in Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels: “There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.” Most big budget studio films fail to achieve this (how often have we walked out of a weightless, consequence-free visual effects spectacular with a mild shrug?), but Marvel’s hit rate is impressive. Up with Kevin Feige, up with Martin Scorsese, and down with divisive clickbaity sound-bite scavengers who keep stoking the fraudulent flames of bullshit pop culture wars.The Suicide Squad (James Gunn)
On the other end of the spandex spectrum, I saw this on opening night in the almost empty art deco environs of the Curzon Mayfair. It takes a particular set of skills to put your authorial stamp and sensibilities on pre-existing characters at this budget level, but Gunn has nailed it more than once now, getting large studios to shell out millions so that he can cast Sylvester Stallone as a monosyllabic shark god in a film that ends with a starfish kaiju. Lots of fun.
Ultrasound (Rob Schroeder)
My highlight of this year’s FrightFest, and I don’t really want to say anything about it. You need to see this one cold. It may or may not be sci-fi. Or horror. And it is creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky. And it’s got Vincent Kartheiser out of Mad Men in it. And it’s great. But that’s all you are getting out of me.
That’s all for 2021. 2022 beckons. We made it!
