In 2021,
Supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol to delay the certification of Joe Biden as President;
The COVID 19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc;
Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters Tournament, becoming the first Japanese player to win a major golf championship;
Space X and Blue Origin launched space tourism flights;
Benjamin Netanyahu was ousted as prime minister of Israel;
Eighty-two year old, former Mercury 13 member, Wally Funk became the oldest person in outer space;
The 2020 Olympics (postponed for a year because of the global pandemic) were held in Tokyo;
Hurricane Ida struck new Orleans;
El Salvador became the first country to accept bitcoin as legal currency;
For the first time, light was observed behind a black hole, confirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity;
Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor was born;
While Michael Apted, Sheldon Adelson, Phil Spector, Hal Holbrook, Cloris Leachman, Cicely Tyson, Christopher Plummer, Leon Spinks, George Shultz, Mary Wilson, Chick Corea, Larry Flynt, Rush Limbaugh, James Levine, Yaphet Kotto, George Segal, Jessica Walter, Beverly Cleary, Larry McMurtry, Bertrand Tavernier, Prince Philip, Bernie Madoff, Helen McCrory, Walter Mondale, Michael Collins, Olympia Dukakis, Norman Lloyd, Charles Grodin, Eric Carle, Ned Beatty, John McAfee, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Donner, Sonny Chiba, Don Everly, Charlie Watts, Ed Asner, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Norm Macdonald, Colin Powell, Dean Stockwell, F.W. de Klerk, Stephen Sondheim, Lina Wertmüller, Anne Rice, Joan Didion, Jean-Marc Valee, Desmond Tutu, E.O. Wilson, and Betty White died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 2021:
10)The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Recent high school graduate Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) struggles to connect with her technologically averse dad, Rick (Danny McBride).
To recharge their relationship, Rick decides the family will escort Katie to film school on the other side of the country.
During the drive, a rogue AI program (voiced by Oliva Colman), launches a plan to take over the world. The Mitchells become humanity’s last line of defense.
The cast is top notch, Maya Rudolph as the Mitchell matriarch, Fred Armisen and Beck Bennet as flawed robots, real life couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend as the Mitchells’ nosy neighbors. A cameo from Conan O’Brien.
Colman is one of the breakout stars of the first quarter of the twenty first century and she delivers.
It’s predictable, but fun. With their clever films focused on family dynamics, Sony Pictures Animation is taking the mantle Pixar previously held as the most consistently dependable animation studio.
9) Loki
Using Loki’s escape with the tesseract in Avengers: Endgame as a starting point, this series explores the implications of the “Time Heist,” introducing variants into the MCU. Much like the multiverse, this provides writers a way to adapt characters or hit reset when something isn’t working.
Comic books introduced these creative escape valves years ago to reconcile continuity errors caused by multiple creative minds working in the same sand box. It’s a natural way for the MCU to reinvent itself, although it must be used judiciously to avoid cheapening the emotional stakes.
Hiddleston’s Loki is a perfect marriage of charm and character. Few actors can skirt the line between villain and underdog as effortlessly. In essence, he’s a wrestling heel from the glory days of the early twenty first century.
Owen Wilson is always delightful and it’s fun to see him in the MCU as Mobius, a worker for the Time Variance Authority. His scenes with Hiddleston sparkle with the energy of a master improv class. He provides comic relief, but also a warm familiarity.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw does excellent work as the mysterious Ravonna Renslayer.
Jonathan Majors is a star in the making and his brief appearance as He Who Remans (likely to become Kang the Conqueror) is electric.
The best parts of the show are the Loki variants which arrive after our Loki is pruned: Alligator Loki, Kid Loki, and Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant). Grant dressed in a vintage 60s Loki costume getting a heroic send-off is a nerd wet dream.
Loki’s romance with Sylvie (a female Loki variant) is delicious and broaches many taboos in a cheeky way.
This is how you reinvent a beloved character and expand the scope of a well established world.
8) Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Underachieving Katy (Awkwafina) is blissfully unaware her fellow parking valet Shaun (Simu Liu) is actually Shang-Chi, the son of ageless Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung). After Shang-Chi’s mother, Ying Li, was murdered, Xu became the ruthless leader of the the Ten Rings crime syndicate. Unwilling to kill as his dad commanded, Shang-Chi ran away and assumed a new identity. When Shaun is forced to resume his previous life in order to rescue his sister, Katy joins him.
Their journey leads to a mythical village, Ta Lo, where they team up with Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), who previously impersonated the leader of the Ten Rings in Iron Man 3.
There are dragons, a hundun, magic, and archery. It’s a spellbinding film which draws heavily from Chinese mythology.
I love Awkwafina. She arrived at the right moment and seems well equipped to seize it.
Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung are superstars in their native land and anyone who cares about arthouse or foreign cinema will recognize them, it’s nice to see them with an opportunity in an American blockbuster.
Benedict Wong’s Wong has bloomed into an MCU fan favorite. It was a masterstroke to bring Slattery back, instantly making Iron Man 3 a more important film.
This movie did a lot to expand the scope of the MCU and make it more worldwide (which is good for business), without pandering.
7) Dopesick
The miniseries tells the fictionalized story of the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma which introduced Oxycontin to American consumers in the mid 1990s. Driven by greed, and aided by shady business practices, they rode this “wonder drug” into a billion dollar industry.
It’s an amazing and despicable story.
Michael Keaton is revelatory as Samuel Finnix, a doctor who reluctantly prescribes Oxycontin to his patients in Appalachia and then, after an accident, is prescribed the drug himself. His descent into addiction and subsequent recovery is harrowing, heartbreaking, and beautiful.
There’s a scene where he’s in rehab and invites Billy Cutler (Will Poulter), the salesman who first convinced him to sell the drug, to visit. When a repentant Billy apologizes for the role he played in pushing Oxycontin, Finnix quickly forgives him, then slyly asks if he can hook him up with some Oxy. It’s one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve seen this year.
The movie has an obvious anti-Sackler agenda and wants us to hate the family, particularly Richard. I’m not sure it’s a completely fair portrayal, but I think it’s largely honest. The bigger issue to me is not one family, or one individual, but a system where regulators can freely and frequently go to work for the people they once regulated. It’s a system ripe for rampant corruption and conflict of interest. This film should alarm us all, because of what we allowed to happen, how easy it was, and how much of the absolutely corrupt system remains unchanged.
Peter Jackson took the voluminous footage The Beatles recorded during the Let It Be studio sessions (previously mined in a little seen eponymous film) and reworked it into an epic miniseries about one of the most consequential musical groups of the twentieth century. To his credit, Jackson does not editorialize and rarely interjects himself into the narrative, except when footage was absent (during trips to George’s house to convince him to rejoin the band).
It captures the personality of the four Beatles. Ringo’s detachment. Paul’s struggles for control. John’s big visions. George’s “I just want to play guitar” ethos. It illuminates what caused their infamous breakup. Spoiler: it’s not Yoko’s fault (she’s barely there).
The movie is a stunning portrait of a time, the creative process, the cult of celebrity, and the power of music.
When the mysterious Green Knight interrupts a meeting of Arthur’s Round Table, young Gaiwan makes a rash promise. He accepts the Knight’s offer to attack and beheads him, but the Green Knight merely picks up his head and leaves. Gaiwan is now pledged to find the Knight and receive a comparable blow in a year.
During his journey, Gawain finds a friendly lord and lodges with him for a few days. He has an affair with the lady of the house and briefly loses his magic girdle.
Eventually, he receives his promised payback, and may or may not succeed Arthur as king.
I remember the first time I read the poem. It was so modern and weird, with sensibilities much closer to the twenty first century than the fourteenth.
Dev Patel is well cast as Gaiwan. Between this and her role in the Sex and the City reboot, Sarita Choudhury is having an overdue moment. Alicia Vikander ably pulls double duty as Essel and the Lady. Joel Edgerton brings a much needed gravitas as King Arthur.
David Lowery is one of my favorite directors working today. His films are inventive and self assured, infused with a modern fairy tale aesthetic. I didn’t particularly like Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, but I loved Ghost Story, his updated version of Pete’s Dragon, and The Old Man and the Gun.
Arthur Leander dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Afterwards, news reports indicate a deadly virus is spreading around the world. When she can’t locate her parents, Leadner’s young costar Kirsten Raymond is taken in by Javeen, a member of the night’s audience. They seek temporary shelter with Jeevan’s brother, Frank, but are stuck with him for months.
Among her only remaining possessions, Kirsten keeps a copy of a graphic novel Arthur had given her, written by his first wife.
When Jeevan and Kirsten reemerge into the world, they’re separated. Kirsten joins a troupe of traveling theatrical players and, twenty years later, her path converges with Clark Thompson (Arthur’s former best friend), Elizabeth (Arthur’s second wife), and Tyler (Arthur and Elizabeth’s son), and reconverges with Jeevan.
A little bit Walking Dead, a little bit Lost, a little bit Cloud Atlas. This is a mesmerizing, thoughtful miniseries about interconnectivity, fate, and the power of art. There are wonderful insights into the value of parents and role models and a sharp reminder that good people can do bad things and bad people often do a lot of good.
Lori Petty is always welcome, and David Cross is very good in a semi-dramatic role. Timothy Simons (most famous as Jonah from Veep) does great work here. However, the series shines because of the trio of sublime performances of Mackenzie Davis as grown up Kirsten, David Wilmot as Clark Thompson, and Caitlin Fitzgerald as Elizabeth.
The jaw dropping twists and turns never felt cheap or exploitive, but seemed a natural development of a world shrunk by the effects of a catastrophic event.
Adapted from an Emily St. John Mandel novel, this miniseries follows the world as it collapses and rebuilds after a swine fly epidemic. Released during the COVID 19 pandemic, it feels like it was written with current events in mind, but the novel is remarkably several years old.
Attempting to guarantee a future with his friends, Peter Parker enlists the help of Dr. Strange. Unfortunately, this opens multiple portals to other universes and villains from previous Spider-Man movies join forces to attack the MCU version of everyone’s favorite neighborhood Spider-Man. To combat this threat, our Peter Parker (Tom Holland) enlists the help of previous film versions of the character: Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.
It’s a full movie with countless cameos and callbacks. Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman get the treatment they didn’t quite get in their cinematic debuts. Alfred Molina is excellent as Doc Ock. Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin steals every scene. The famous line about great power and responsibility gets a reprieve from an unlikely source. Maguire was an excellent revisit, but Garfield’s reappearance was the movie’s highlight. He was an excellent Spider-Man, who missed out on his opportunity because of Sony’s epic mismanagement of the character. If he had been in the MCU, he would be a megastar.
This is a comic book fan’s dream: multiverses, magic, variants, and the inevitable arrival of beloved characters from other film franchises now united under the Disney banner.
It’s a great time to be a nerd.
2) Maid
Alex (Margaret Qualley) is a smart young woman in an toxic relationship with Sean, the father of her child. Her mother, Paula (Andie Macdowell) suffers from extreme mental health issues and escaped an abusive relationship with Alex’s father, Hank, when Alex was a child.
Hank has sobered up and created a happy life with his new wife, but Alex’s past trauma makes reconciliation impossible.
Sean is also an alcoholic and Hank sponsors him in a support group, seeing himself in Sean’s struggle. As a result, he frequently takes Sean’s side in his arguments with Alex.
Alex struggles balancing her ambition, poverty, trauma, and her mother’s mental health create a harrowing and infuriating account of what it’s like to be poor in America.
Based on Stephanie Land’s memoir, everything rings true: the failed attempts to escape abusive relationships, the inability to make money, and the asinine requirements which make it impossible to get desperately needed assistance.
The real life daughter / mother relationship between Macdowell and Qualley adds another layer of verisimilitude; you can feel the lived in familiarity onscreen.
Qualley is an almost guaranteed superstar in the making. From The Leftovers to Fosse/Verdon, she is an endlessly fascinating performer.
MacDowell has had a lengthy, successful career, and she’s the primary love interest in my favorite film (Groundhog Day), but her work here completely changed my evaluation of her career.
I can’t imagine this being adapted into a conventional movie. There’s too much detail and fullness to be winnowed into a two hour window.
I will think of, and reference, this film constantly when I think about the poor in America or hear politicians railing about our welfare system. Centrally planned social safety nets are underfunded, abused, and often ineffective, but you get the sneaking sensation they may be the best we can do.
When a new priest arrives at St. Patrick’s Church on Crockett Island, the lives of everyone living on this remote island are turned upside down.
Mike Flanagan’s recent output (including Doctor Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House) is top notch. His work uses horror as a template for intense character studies and as a vehicle to explore penetrating philosophical / spiritual questions. Hamish Linklater is wonderful as the conflicted priest with a lot of secrets. Samantha Sloyan is chilling as the dyed in the wool true believer. I loved Rahul Kohli as the Muslim sheriff trying to find his way in a close knit Christian community. Flanagan’s wife, Kate Siegel, is fantastic as the film’s emotional center, Erin Greene. Zach Gilford, best known for Friday Night Lights, is a breathtaking revelation as Riley Flynn who returns home after a prison stint for killing a woman in a drunk driving accident.
When vampires and supernatural beings show arrive on Crockett Island, some immediately subsume this new information into an existing paradigm, while others cannot adapt to the ground shifting beneath their feet.
It’s a a scary miniseries about the supernatural, but it’s also about blinding, all-consuming ideology, which is potentially the scariest thing of all.