Honestly, I have not seen any terrific movies this year that just… shot out to me and changed the way I looked at life the way, say, Moonlight did. What I will say is that I did watch a lot of movies from the year, more than I thought.
A-/B+
Dune I’m waiting for part 2 to make a more secure stand on this one, but having not seen the David Lynch version let alone read the books, I’m kind of going into this wild. The orientalism is a bit wild — though apparently it was supposed to be anti-orientalist? But like Matrix Resurrection and to a lesser extent Spider-Man NWH, this is a film about imagining new beginnings against predictions
Matrix Resurrection: Everybody who hates this movie is a monster. SNS.
Spider-Man: No Way Home: Of course, it was a thrill ride and though little in it was a complete surprise for those of us analyzing every leaked peak, there were not only a few surprises but the anticipated guest stars got this nerd literally clapping in the movie theater. The biggest surprise, however, was responsible for a necessary shift from Peter Parker: Tony Stark’s Shadow to Peter Parker: Great Responsibility. The last third of this piece was Spider-Man’s origin story more than any radioactive bite could ever be.
Summer of Soul: I wish this was a set of three two-hour long movies like Get Back.
No Sudden Move: Soderbergh heist movies are just pure joy. Brendan Fraser plays out of character and I love it — and Benecio del Toro — absolutely.
Luca: A sweet tale of racing merboys trying to fit in. Disney + also released a short epilogue and it’s just as endearing as the film, which apparently Pixar put together in a bit of a hurry during the pandemic.)
B:
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Tony Leung absolutely S A V E D this movie with possibly the greatest human acting performance in the MCU. Morris also scores along with his on-screen partner, Ben Kingsley. Add in Michelle Yeoh doing her ballet fighting and I can’t say no. Bonus points for the Jackie Chan homage in the bus scene and grids.
Get Back: The Beatles may be overrated, but not by much. And this rolling and very long documentary does a good job of showing their chemistry and comaradie, some of the tension, and a hell of a lot of work that was put into this complex-but-sometimes-goofy songs. While it has some of the same attributes you’d find listening to deluxe album versions of many of these records from the 60s where you hear the gradual upgrading and upkeeping of these ditties — including the titular ‘Get Back’ which started out parodying anti-immigrant slogans until Paul and the group thought better of it — the real treat is just seeing how much fun John and Yoko, Paul, Ringo and George are together, even despite the rifts they were facing head-on.
Raya: The Last Dragon
Justice League: Snyder Cut: I’m not much of a Snyder fan, to put it simply, but this version was infinitely better — and more zonkers — than Whedon’s version. So many (too many?) alternate timelines, but this version wasn’t 99.9% about Superman saving the day. Two of my favorite characters, Cyborg and Flash, were not just heavily underutilized in Whedon’s cut, they added literally nothing; that crime is undone here)
Don’t Look Up: It’s cynical, but unlike many detractors, I don’t see the stupidity coming from the common people but from the government, and specifically the United States corporate-friendly government. Watching Trump then Biden fail to deal with this pandemic and dozens of Washington regimes fail to do anything about the coming climate catastrophe, this sounds too familiar. I don’t think it served a positive influence in a way that Vice or Big Short seemed to, but neither of those movies changed the course of racial capitalism either, so… That power is in our hands.
B-/C+
Black Widow: Most of the MCU movies have found their lives through snatching genres. This is their first foray into the super-spy world. Try making sense of it outside of an homage to James Bond movies and we’re stuck with Russian=bad?
El Cuartto: A Puerto Rican strangers-in-a-room comedy about DHS detentions marred by overly-broad generalizations and characters.
Bad Trip
Judas and the Black Messiah: Why oh why did Chairman Fred get this treatment? Why is the protagonist of this story — the one whose perspective we see through and whose feelings we’re manipulated into feeling through — the informant who got Hampton killed? Why do the filmmakers go to extra steps to make the FBI look.
Gunpowder Milkshake
Billie Eilish: The World Is a Little Blurry: Ok, honestly I fell asleep a little watching this, but my kid was engrossed, and what I caught was good. I’m unfamiliar with her work, but it looked honest)
My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission: First time I set foot in a movie theater in at least a year and a half. The things I do for my daughter…Anyway, Deku is a hero and it’s good to see him struggle in order to win. We need some of that painful optimism.
C:
Suicide Squad: Who knew the most pro-imperialist comic book movie of the decade would come not from Marvel but DC? Fun and well-made, but full of anti-communist, “banana republic” tropes, fighting alongside gusanos to beat the eeeevillllll revolutionaries, and then see the US’s special weapon unleashed on the people.
Tom & Jerry: Sweet. My teen daughter did not grow up on the cartoons and was largely introduced to them through Itchy & Scratchy, but she insisted we watch this — and cheered for their friendship all the way through.
Mitchells Vs the Machines: Barely remember this one)
Godzilla V Kong.
Finding Ohana. Hawaiian Goonies remake, with less Orientalism but more imperialism. Hawaiian warrior ancestors such as the protagonist’s dead father are pictured as US military hawks — happily working for the same who colonized them rather than present and past activists who’ve resisted colonization.
Rita Morena: Just a Girl: Didn’t realize all that Morena had been through in her life; very informative, but not an exceptionally-made docu.
C-
8-Bit Christmas: An 80s nostalgic retread of Christmas Story.
D/F: (So bad I watched halfway through but didn’t finish, which is one advantage of catching nearly every movie in streaming)
Red Notice: Talk about formulaic! Not to mention the Rock and everybody’s favorite IOF Woman are just terrrrrrrible actors.
Coming 2 America: Should’ve left the anti-African trash in the 80s.
