Friday, December 31, 2021

Films in 2021

THE INVESTIGATION: Released as a 6 part series but plays like one in-depth 4.5 hour movie. I gained more respect for actual real life detective work watching this than anything I’ve ever seen. Incredible series. Forward thinking, intelligent work executed with style and grace. Søren Malling as the man in charge of the case wears the world in his eyes, what a fantastic actor. Episode 3 alone is better than everything else I saw last year. Tobias Lindholm has never written or directed anything less than phenomenal. On HBO. 

PROCESSION: The best documentary this year is a heavy duty real life psychodrama that takes us deep into the souls of traumatized men and is one of the most insightful and revealing films about suffering/healing I have come across. Powerfully collaborative filmmaking led by Robert Greene. On Netflix. Abolish the Catholic Church now. 

THE NORTH WATER: Another "TV series" that was better than any movie this year. Andrew Haigh’s follow up to the severely underrated film Lean On Pete is a five hour masterstroke; an epic adventure of the finest mythic caliber imaginable. Jack O’Connell is phenomenal and Haigh is without a doubt the strongest talent in British cinema. 

DUNE: Saw once on the biggest screen possible (1.43 IMAX at Citywalk) and again at home. If "dreams are messages from the deep" Denis Villeneuve again lets us know anything is possible with the power of imagination. A vision of messianic prophecy resonating through spacetime. 

THE BEATLES GET BACK: Mind blowing deep dive into their creative process. Watching Paul get lost in writing music as everyone else stands around is mesmerizing. Yoko is the epitome of cool. Reaches a hysterical crescendo when the baby-faced chin-strapped bobby's show up. Interesting to watch in the context of the separate albums they were making outside of the film at the time (McCartney crafting his solo debut as John and Yoko release their freaked out experiments and Harrison's controversial Moog album). 

COLLECTIVE: This is the best kind of documentary: on the ground as it happens, no talking heads whatsoever, and serving as a record of extremely important work. In this case, of a Romanian news team uncovering and exposing enraging corruption. And the fire footage they suddenly hit you with near the beginning is as scary as anything I’ve ever seen. On Hulu.  

QUO VADIS, AIDA?: A UN Base in Srebrenica 1995 is the setting for this intense true story of displacement and massacre. A slow onset of panic builds to a harsh pinnacle of sorrow. On Hulu (for the most part I think Hulu chooses their foreign and art films well). 

LAST CHANCE U BASKETBALL: I found this 8 part documentary series on an east LA jr college team deeply inspirational; full of individual heartfelt human stories. Coach Mosley throws every form of logic, motivation and prayer possible at these kids to help them push their lives in the directions they are meant to be going. On Netflix. 

ANTEBELLUM: Went in knowing absolutely nothing about this and haven't heard anything about it since. Wild original filmmaking. Grapples with the legacy of slavery in a direct and artful way. I thought it would have been stronger without the twist/reveal. 

THE ALPINIST: Wonderful documentary about a fearlessly tapped-in psychedelic mountain climber literally doing the impossible in his own humble way. Whether tragically confused or deeply inspired - a soulful, thought provoking life is revealed. Inevitability hits hard, no matter what. On Netflix.



note
I was shook when I heard Kim Ki-duk died of Covid in December of 2020. Apparently he was in Riga, Latvia where he had moved to find financing for his films and presumably get away from the controversy in Korea. 
A few of my favorites of his:
Mobius
3 Iron
Spring Summer Fall Winter & Spring
Crocodile
Arirang
The Isle
The Bow
Pieta
One of the most far out, renegade, brilliant beyond genius visionaries cinema has ever seen has left the stage!