2021 Capsule Reviews

The Last Duel

rating: *****

review: You can tell how lousy critical standards have gotten when a movie that would've been universally acclaimed twenty years ago, been hailed as innovative, and boasted career-defining performances is instead derided, ignored, shunned.  This is a masterpiece.  Besides Matt Damon and Adam Driver you've got Jodie Comer in a career-making role as each of their perspectives is tracked, separately, until the truth (Comer's) closes out Ridley Scott's spectacle (no one has come remotely close to matching him in terms of consistent achievement in historic epics).

The French Dispatch

rating: *****

review: Wes Anderson's most laconic film is basically a glorified anthology, in which he's clearly indulging himself.  Another great film that in any other era would've been celebrated as such.  This is what you get when the pandemic is still happening and streaming services are hogging all the attention.  No perspective.

The Courier

rating: ****

review: My biggest surprise discovery of the year would've been standard acclaim material in any other era: Benedict Cumberbatch in a spotlight as he suffers the depravities at the height of the Cold War.  If I hadn't randomly decided to watch it in the theater early in the year, I probably would never have known it happened at all.

The Green Knight

rating: ****

review: David Lowery has been one of the premier artistic directors of the modern era, but it somehow took for this for the mainstream to notice, and even then it wasn't hailed as the huge achievement it really is.  A classic retelling of a classic tale.

No Time to Die

rating: ****

review: The second and only other time critics actually liked Daniel Craig as Bond (Skyfall, basically a desperate attempt to justify Judi Dench in the franchise) is basically also the only time I didn't.  The audacity of No Time is that it dares to complete the story, which Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace had originally suggested was this version of the character's hallmark.  This, then, is the first time the story has an ending, that James Bond has an actual arc.  It's the Dark Knight Rises of 007.  It's a new wrinkle in the mythology.  

Boss Level

rating: ****

review: Qualifying as one of the miracles of the pandemic was the actual release of the much-delayed Boss Level from Joe Carnahan, which was the first of a one-two punch from him for the year.  A classic example of the time loop genre.

Snake Eyes

rating: ****

review: If not quite The Dark Knight, this is probably the closest we're liable to see anytime soon to G.I. Joe being taken seriously as a cinematic property.  Another unfairly dismissed film from the year.

Die in a Gunfight

rating: ****

review: What I'd like to consider an easy candidate for cult status, a retelling of Romeo & Juliet that also recasts the gang film genre into something more artistically ambitious.

Last Night in Soho

rating: ****

review: A spellbinding time travel experience that combines the unique charms of Edgar Wright and Abya Taylor-Joy.

Settlers

rating: ****

review: For my purposes I include only cinematic releases.  I'm not sure this was, but I don't really care, as it's worth the exception.  A fine space western centering around a young girl struggling to survive terrible circumstances.  Worth considering for cult status for anyone who bothers to seek it out.

Needle in a Timestack

rating: ****

review: Another genre spectacle, this time from John Ridley, involving more time travel hijinks in innovative ways, someone changing the timeline trying to find their perfect reality, and finding poignant results.

Judas and the Black Messiah 

rating: ****

review: Explosive drama featuring a standout lead performance from Daniel Kaluuya that would have been instantly iconic in any other...

The Mauritanian

rating: ****

review: The trilogy of great historic dramas concludes with this look at Guantanamo Bay.  Add Tahar Rahim to the list of those robbed of their just acclaim from the year.

Free Guy

rating: ****

review: This was basically Ryan Reynolds' audition for the Disney version of Deadpool.  A very rare original blockbuster idea for the modern era.

Belfast

rating: ****

review: Kenneth Branagh has been successfully navigating an era in which his kind of career shouldn't still exist, so he got to make a personal film along the way, a throwback to the kinds of movies they were doing back in the '90s.

Dune

rating: ****

review: Denis Villeneuve has stepped away from his solo auteur status to embrace his unique role as a successful director of auteur blockbuster adaptations.  An incredible ensemble of acting talent came along for the ride in this first installment.

Pig

rating: ****

review: The very rare exception to the modern rule that you probably won't personally be interested in Nicolas Cage's further career if you liked him in his earlier stages when he was doing serious material.

Zola

rating: ****

review: I found Taylour Paige to be exceptionally magnetic in this small-scale drama based on a series of tweets.

Copshop

rating: ****

review: If you loved Robert Rodriguez's early films you'll probably enjoy this second Joe Carnahan romp from the year.  Both are also excellent showcases for Frank Grillo, by the way.

Sing 2

rating: ****

review: I came for U2, but it was actually Coldplay that stole the movie for me.  Also some typical but enjoyable animated material around the music.

Death of a Telemarketer

rating: ***

review: Silly and yet enjoyable.  Haley Joel Osment pulls in a supporting role!  He looks like a teddy bear these days.  Put a few more years on him and I think he can use that for a career revival.

Chaos Walking

rating: ***

review: Spider-Man and Rey help each other survive a weird planet.  I think this was interesting.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

rating: ***

review: Maybe if they make enough of these they'll just let Tom Hardy exist on his own wacky terms with his goop doppelganger.

Old

rating: ***

review: M. Night Shyamalan rediscovering his classic footing.  A minor but welcome addition to his filmography.

Every Breath You Take

rating: ***

review: A nice actors' drama revolving around Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, and Sam Claflin.

The Little Things 

rating: ***

review: Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malik in another throwback to the '90s.  Well worth watching these guys work alone.

House of Gucci

rating: ***

review: Come for a much more odd Leto turn in a supporting role, stay for Adam Driver and Ridley Scott in a second, minor triumph to bracket the year together.  Marvel that Lady Gaga doesn't seem as wildly out of place as she did, when not singing, in A Star Is Born.

 King Richard

rating: ***

review: Destined to be known as the movie that led to the Oscars moment, this is also Will Smith's latest attempt to be taken seriously as an actor.  He got the Oscar to show for it.  But he kind of blew the moment anyway.

Our Friend

rating: ***

review: Affleck again, this time with Jason Segal, whose star potential is once again lost in a year that saw no point in paying attention to cinematic releases.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

rating: ***

review: If anything, this gimmick-infused belated sequel knew even better how to be frivolously enjoyable than the first one.

City of Lies

rating: ***

review: Well, it was still mandatory to shun Johnny Depp at this point, so there was no way anyone would admit this Biggie Smalls movie was worth anything.

F9

rating: ***

review: Very surprisingly for me, since I kind of got over John Cena and his shameless mugging years ago, but I think he proved a worthwhile addition to the series.

The Matrix Resurrections

rating: ***

review: I love the original trilogy, all of it.  This is a worthy and clever coda.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

rating: ***

review: Basically this whole era of Spider-Man only exists because the MCU was looking for a boost of interest.  Otherwise it's really had no clue how to justify itself.  This incredibly gimmicky third entry finds it in shamelessly bringing back characters and actors from the prior two.  But it works.

In the Heights

rating: ***

review: No one has a better grasp of smug self-satisfaction as Lin-Manuel Miranda these days.  The storytelling is decent.  He needs to work on writing actual songs.  He's capable.  He just doesn't want to.

A Quiet Place Part II

rating: ***

review: I still haven't seen the first place.  Presented no discernable problem to enjoying this one.

Mortal Kombat

rating: ***

review: A fine pivot into a more serious direction for the franchise.

Profile

rating: ***

review: Far more movies than you'd think believe the gimmick of presenting themselves solely from the lens of social media exist.  This one's worth watching.  It revolves around the horrors of terrorists recruiting unwitting victims.  This one is using herself as bait.

Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

rating: ***

review: Both of these films are enjoyable throwbacks with excellent casts.

Voyagers

rating: ***

review: I'm not overly fond of material that actively seeks to make its audience uncomfortable, and so that's the weakness of this one (it costars Colin Farrell, although he's dispatched relatively early) about teenagers stumbling over themselves to survive a long journey in space.

Black Widow

rating: ***

review: The much-much belated solo film from one of the characters who debuted earliest in the MCU is fairly standard material for the franchise(s).

Nomadland

rating: ***

review: Periodically the Oscars insult the demographic it otherwise abhors by lavishing praise on movies that star Frances McDormand.

Wrath of Man

rating: ***

review: I wasn't really into Guy Ritchie earlier in his career, but I am now, and this was a fine way to help segue to what I consider 2023 being a career year.

Naked Singularity

rating: ***

review: I'll be honest; I really just need to watch this one again.  Mind-bending spotlight for John Boyega.

Reminiscence

rating: ***

review: Between this and The Fountain, Hugh Jackman seeks to corner the market in sleepy high concept dramas.  But it's nice to see him in something, anyway.  Always likeable.

State Like Sleep

rating: ***

review: I actually liked this one starring Katherine Waterston.

Lansky

rating: ***

review: A fine minor mob movie featuring Harvey Keitel and Sam Worthington.

Spiral

rating: ***

review: To get me interested in the Saw franchise again, you really do need an infusion of Chris Rock.

The Virtuoso

rating: ***

review: A nice spotlight for recent Star Trek renaissance actor Anson Mount.  His narration as the start of the movie is itself worth watching to experience.  I guess I just like his voice.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

rating: **

review: Really, even before the climax proves to be an exact copy of the original, I wasn't as wowed as I expected to be by this.

The Suicide Squad

rating: **

review: I'm hoping James Gunn isn't as enamored with his weirder tendencies with his further DC duties than he allowed himself to be with this one.

Till Death

rating: **

review: Proof that Megan Fox is still hot even if she's handcuffed to a corpse.  So there's that.  Really not that bad.  Just not much compared to other movies.

Those Who Wish Me Dead

rating: **

review: There's really nothing wrong with this Angelina Jolie vehicle, either.  Just needed more, I guess.

Godzilla vs. Kong

rating: **

review: I actually haven't seen the whole thing, but from what I did see it seemed much more interested in continuing one of the two monster movies series than both.  But it's both anyway.

Midnight in the Switchgrass

rating: **

review: The latter-day Bruce Willis has now been explained, so we all understand what's happened to the quality of his acting and career.  I caught this one since it was filmed and had its premiere here in Tampa, and has an interesting title.  Will watch again at some point to see if it's worth anything.

Lady of the Manor

rating: **

review: For years now critics have been trying to convince me that Melanie Lynskey is worth more than the character of Rose in Two and a Half Men.  I think this movie officially convinced me otherwise.

Crisis 

rating: **

review: An excellent cast.  Not the firebrand it otherwise wishes it were.

Licorice Pizza

rating: *

review: I'm just not a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, I guess.  I find him needlessly indulgent.  This particular version of his work stars the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is no Philip Seymour Hoffman, but Paul Thomas Anderson will indulge his belief that he is anyway.

The Flash (2023) Review

the rating: ****

the story: Barry Allen attempts to rewrite his own history, and instead breaks the timeline.

the review: It's going to be completely impossible for anything resembling a reasonable popular consensus on the DCEU to exist for years, decades.  Its proximity to the height of the MCU created a huge distorting effect in much the way DC and Marvel in the comics have competed for top placement for sixty years.  Simply put, their coexistence could not be reconciled by the mere weight of pop culture.  The Flash is a last attempt to conclude the DCEU, in the most dramatic way possible, and to my mind a hugely successful one, although it has features that are admittedly hard to appreciate.

Chiefly, its special effects, especially the crucial depiction of the Speed Force, where Barry Allen watches outside regular time the effects of his speedy travels.  After the high water mark of Quicksilver's appearances in the X-Men movies, the superpower of speed was always going to be difficult to depict in a truly satisfying way.  Actually, The Flash opens with a scene that tops them, improbably saving the lives of a bunch of babies while looking like it's the last thing on his mind.  I work with babies.  This is the kind of scene that will win easy bonus points for me.  Otherwise, Barry looks unreal on his feet, in ways Spider-Man never did slinging through New York City in the Sam Raimi movies that set the new bar for the genre twenty years ago.  But it's because, dude's ability is running.  This is never going to look awesome.  Not if you're forced to depict it.  

There's really no way around that.  But the story itself is absolutely killer.  Geoff Johns first wrote this story in the breakthrough event comic Flashpoint, which has already been adapted twice, once in the Flash TV series (third season) and the animated movie Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, which like the comic depicted Barry brutally electrocuting himself with lightning to try and get his speed back.  For me this is iconic material.  For me, when Barry has to say goodbye to his mom at the end of the film, it means more than Rocket Raccoon, the b-plot in his starring role for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, gets some kind of comeuppance.  It's earned.  

And around that, you've got Barry, the version of Barry Allen that could only exist as portrayed by Ezra Miller, essentially first and foremost essentially starring opposite himself.  And then you've also got Michael Keaton returning as Batman.  This was heavily promoted in exactly the opposite way as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield showing up in Spider-Man: No Way Home (uh, spoiler?), since you can't hide such a crucial point.  In a lot of ways, it's almost the whole point.  We're in an age where seeing old stars in old roles is supposed to be the selling point.  This isn't even nostalgia but awareness that some franchises were abandoned, or changed, too quickly.  Keaton only made two Batman movies, and while one of them isn't as fondly remembered as the other, everyone was always bummed he didn't appear in the other two.  It's the same impulse that brought Connery back to Bond, eventually, at least for one more movie (even if it's technically unofficial), forty years ago.  This is really nothing new.

The movie climaxes on Barry's fight against himself, a third version who couldn't let go.  It's not really the fight with Zod, the deaths of Batman and Supergirl, although this part of the movie is directly addressing the DCEU, the controversial way Man of Steel ended, the "original sin" that needed erasing a decade ago.  Most MCU movies only ever have the one kind of ending.  Guardians 2 had "Mary Poppins," which is what redeems it for some fans.  That's a rare exception.  Usually the villain is meant to be the villain, and the hero just needs to defeat them.  They don't really learn anything.  They just move on to the next one.  For a long time, that formula worked, and a DCEU trying a different narrative was cognitive dissonance: "That's not what these kinds of movies should be doing!"  They're supposed to be emotionally simplistic.  Their ambition is just building to Thanos!  

In a lot of ways, the implosion of the DCEU resulted in something far more interesting.  The Flash might have been envisioned in its basic shape this way all along, but it has far greater symbolic meaning.  You get to see all those digital cameos, and even the official ones, because this is an ending.  Its story takes on greater resonance for it.  Barry needs to let go, and figure out that it's better that way.  Same, The Flash.  Same.

Asteroid City (2023) Review

the rating: ****

the story: Young achievers are unexpectedly at the heart of an unlikely alien encounter.

the review: So I've really gotten into Wes Anderson, finally, and predictably it's just when critics have gotten over him.  I mean, they've been over him for at least a decade, and I didn't get into him, really, until a few years ago, so it's not that surprising.  Of course I had to see Asteroid City.  Of course it was likely that I would enjoy it.  I expected to like it more, but I definitely liked it.  The appearances of Tom Hanks and Steve Carell actually created a kind of uncanny valley, that breaks the typical mold of total control on Anderson's part.  Most actors who appear in his films fit the mold perfectly; Hanks can't help but be Hanks, and the same is true of Carell.  Everyone else (Owen Wilson is atypically absent, but Jason Schwartzman, another longtime collaborator, is back in a starring role) very much fits in nicely.

"You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."

That's how the movie ends.  This is not a spoiler.  Just as Amsterdam ends with each of the principle characters reciting the eponymous city name to the audience, and Cradle Will Rock builds to the climactic moment from the 1937 play it's built around, Asteroid City concludes with the cast of stage actors reciting this line.  How much you appreciate the movie is likely tied to how much thought you put into it.  The movie preceding it plays out along two separate tracks: one is a presentation of a play, and the other as if the play were happening in reality and not on a stage.  Schwartzman's character pulls himself out of the play when he struggles to understand why his character chooses to burn his hand on a grill, and so clearly Anderson's intent is for his audience to figure out his intent, too.

"You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."  There will be plenty of speculation about it for those interested, and so maybe this review isn't really the place for it, but the story pretty happily busies itself with the story of Schwartzman's character in the story trying to have an honest reckoning with himself and his young family, something he's been avoiding for the past few weeks.  Eventually an alien shows up (an absolutely perfect moment, a perfect marriage of Anderson's best live action and stop-motion instincts).  Around all this, as Anderson movies tend to go, a niche community (well, in this case, two) is explored, although it's not really the point, but how the community(s) reacts to circumstances.  

Me, I'd choose, if forced, to interpret the point of Asteroid City to warn against comforting complacency, that in order to make progress you have to challenge yourself.  But this isn't possible unless you're first willing to admit your complacency.

At any rate, Hanks and Carell are the signifiers that although this acts and behaves like a typical Anderson movie, it really isn't.  He is very obviously trying to make a point.  It's very possible this will raise Asteroid City's value for me, later, when I will have more fully digested the results.  But it's certainly another excellent effort on his part.

Marlowe (2023) Review

the rating: ****

the story: Private detective Philip Marlowe searches for a dead man.

the review: Some movies get dismissed by critics seemingly without their ever having watched them at all.  I assume Marlowe was simply because it was another Liam Neeson movie in the era of Taken, when he's chosen to star in an endless series of movies of that ilk.  The other reason would be the pointless crusade of the media to protect Old Hollywood by immediately rejecting anything that could possibly evoke it.  Raymond Chandler's Marlowe was of course the character Bogart played in The Big Sleep, one of his Big Three roles alongside The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.  

At its heart Marlowe is of course evoking classic film noire, but not as obviously as, say, the Sin City movies.  It isn't shot in black and white, for instance.  The storytelling beats are all there.  The end of the movie evokes Maltese Falcon, even Raiders of the Lost Ark, making a joke of the whole idea of the maguffin, since the real point was exploring the nasty secrets of Hollywood (apparently no way to make a living making movies these days).  Having recently rewatched The Third Man, I couldn't help but think of Marlowe as more that kind of movie, although of course its inversion, since Third Man famously stars Orson Welles, whom we don't see until about the third act, whereas Neeson is obviously the star of Marlowe and its "third man" is another very capable Mexican actor doomed to be ignored by mainstreatm modern Hollywood (hello, Die in a Gunfight!), who just so happens to sound like Brad Pitt.  The whole point of casting Neeson in a movie like this is to draw on the Taken mystique, to find Marlowe credible in all his story beats.  But Marlowe is otherwise nothing like Taken.  In fact, most of Neeson's Taken movies try to find some interesting variation.  I remember Unknown finding interesting things.  Marlowe has more in common with A Walk Among the Tombstones than Taken.  But critics want Neeson to star in another sad Irish epic like Rob Roy or Michael Collins, or Schindler's List.  Forget that they ignore stellar work in Silence, A Monster Calls.

The director is the reliable Neil Jordan, the screenwriter William Monohan, neither of whose work deserves such casual dismissal.  Neeson has Jessica Lange and Diane Kruger as his dames to kill for, the likes of Danny Huston (born for this role, possibly his best iteration of it, in such a pure state), Alan Cumming, even Colm Meaney, Adawale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (playing the role Dennis Haysbert did in the second Sin City, but a heroic version).

This is a version of classic Hollywood, sure, but the version that was possible to make in 2023.  You don't win any points by claiming "they did it better back then."  There are so many versions of so many stories told over so many thousands of years, you don't win points by stating, "they did it a hundred years ago."  Characters like Marlowe are liable to disappear if they don't resurface every now and then.  Eventually no one will care Bogart played him.  If he's no longer relevant, it doesn't matter.

This is an excellent way to bring him back around again.  If the critics want to contradict themselves and claim there's no point bringing Marlowe back and that it's just another forgettable post-Taken movie for Neeson...It's their loss.  For the art of film, this is everyone's gain.  A movie I was very pleased to press "play" again when there were things I missed.