Marcelo's Top Ten Movies of 2021
Déjà vu. It all seems familiar. Again. At the end of 2021, Covid was on the rise, films were getting pushed back, and anxiety came back in fashion. And, in terms of cruel coincidence, my mother got Covid again at the end of 2021, after having it for the first time at the end of 2020, (she’s doing fine now, thankfully). 2021 didn’t have the ending we hoped for.
The year wasn’t all bad. Vaccines earlier in the spring made it possible to actually go out to watch movies safely again. Overall, things were seemingly going back to some type of normal. I went back to the theater (masked and vaccinated), trying to make up for lost time—retro screenings, new releases, I watched it all. Call it excitement mixed with relief, or call it pure desperation; my year-end total was the highest it's been since I’ve started logging films (for over a decade now). The monkey paw curse was in full effect, though—I think 2021 was one of the best years for movies in my life, but the why has a lot to do with 2020’s release date changes and the many months away from public spaces, which made the return in 2021 feel that much sweeter.
This write-up was going to be a lot more positive if I had written it a few weeks ago, making it harder to write. It’s 2022 and I’ve stopped going out to movies with the excitement I once had, and my mental health isn’t where it should be—that being said, it’s early February 2022 and two new releases are already contenders for next year’s list. I’ve learned something from doing this for a few years now, though: these year-end lists are mainly for the people writing them. Don’t get me wrong, I hope others read this and get something out of what’s highlighted—whether it’s discovery, agreement, or anger, come what may. But it’s a selfish process; a time capsule for the writer to capture the good of the last calendar year. No matter how I’m feeling now or in the future, this list is a reminder for me of why I love movies and why I keep relying on them for comfort. And like 2020, the films of 2021 provided that much needed comfort—these are the films that got me through the year.
And now for some honorable mentions before my top ten.
Nightmare Alley, Licorice Pizza, Last Night in Soho
In the midst of the most turbulent times in modern history it’s no surprise some of the best filmmakers today decided to look back in their respective films of 2021. Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s brutal take on morality set in the early ‘40s, is a loving tribute to film noir—the black and white version is extraordinary. The ‘60s are presented by Edgar Wright in Last Night in Soho, which transports its lead character back to a beautiful recreation of Soho during those vibrant times. The film ends up being a cautionary tale on cherishing the past—the glossy exterior is just that, a façade covering up pure horror. Paul Thomas Anderson, meanwhile, sets Licorice Pizza in 1970s Los Angeles, warts (tasteless jokes about race) and all. A love/crush story of two young people trying to figure things out; it’s simple yet zany and, in the end like many of Anderson’s films, it hits deep. All of them go beyond loving nostalgia trips, and for me it was a joy to escape to another place and time for two hour stretches.
Pig, The French Dispatch, Dune
While society crumbles, humanity tries to survive. In Pig, Nicolas Cage gives one of the best performances of his career, which is saying a lot. Playing a truffle hunter whose pig is stolen, he makes his way back into civilization after years of self-exile in the woods of Oregon to find his animal friend. Cage’s character has a long piece of dialogue about the future that is equally haunting and beautiful, summing up the pre-dystopian world we’re all trying our best to live in. Meanwhile, Wes Anderson continues to create films about humanist characters in an anti-humanist world; his latest, The French Dispatch, ends up as one of his most touching films. Through the lens of his eccentric characters, the film asks why art, in its many forms, is important to us—Jeffrey Wright’s final moments are especially striking. The equally-as-visionary director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of (half of) Frank Herbert’s Dune is similar to his other sci-fi masterpieces. He’s a master at creating a massive world around his main character’s fragile humanity. It may not be the entire story, but what we see in Dune: Part One is a tragic tale of how to reign in a capitalist society—all it takes is losing a part of yourself along the way. No matter where or when they take place, these three movies each show us how important it is to keep your humanity in a decaying world.
And now for my top ten of 2021, presented just like my last lists, in double features.
No Time to Die / Tick, Tick... Boom!
“We have all the time in the world…” A ticking clock rings throughout both No Time to Die and Tick, Tick... Boom!. In Daniel Craig’s final turn as James Bond, the wait may have been long (before Covid it already had its fair share of delays thanks to behind-the-scenes turmoil) but Cary Joji Fukunaga’s entry makes for a thankfully, satisfying finale. No Time to Die’s love story is one about mistakes made and time wasted, again evoking On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Spectre had its own nods to that classic). But this time, with its use of Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World," it feels completely warranted—like many Bond films, this one ends with a countdown to destruction, but the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been. Not wanting to spoil it (it’s been out for months, but still), I’ll just say the movie not only pays its dues as a solid Bond entry and a fitting tribute to Craig’s run, it innovates the franchise, too. The spy genre has always been a favorite of mine, and No Time to Die gets right what it means to be a movie spy—there’s always a price to be paid in such an occupation. It’s on par with another beautiful spy movie that made my list a few years ago—Mission: Impossible - Fallout. No Time to Die truly is the end of James Bond for Daniel Craig and everyone in the cast and crew makes the most of the time they’re given.
Tick, Tick... Boom!, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut based on the autobiographical musical by the late Jonathan Larson, also addresses the sanctity of time. Andrew Garfield, in what might be the performance of the year, plays Larson, a playwright on the verge of 30 who’s having trouble finishing his latest work. Watching the musical, we know he’s six years away from writing one of the most important plays in history, Rent, which would end up being his last work before his death. It’s the familiar story of a struggling artist, worried he isn’t good enough, frustrated he hasn’t hit it big yet, and dealing with heartbreak in its many forms. Garfield’s uninhibited performance elevates an already excellent musical adaptation. Miranda’s directorial debut feels assured, not only because he knows how to make full use of Garfield’s talents. Each musical number is staged and presented with tender loving care—the cafe brunch sequence alone is a tribute to Broadway the likes of which I’ve never seen. Rarely are two artists as suited for each other as Larson and Miranda, each aware that creativity and mortality go hand in hand, with an ever-ticking clock acting as a metronome.
Halloween Kills / The Suicide Squad
Ultraviolence permeates through Halloween Kills and The Suicide Squad, yet each uses its respective gore in distinct ways. Halloween Kills is bleak. Made before the pandemic, director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s sequel to the legacy sequel to John Carpenter’s classic is a boldfaced attack on the cultist rightwing Trump party. Unstoppable killing machine Michael Myers terrorizes the citizens of Haddonfield, in effect creating a sweaty, blood-crazed mob lead by a middle-aged balding white man who are out to hunt him down. Their chant, “Evil dies tonight!” is the equivalent to “Make America Great Again'', yet now in the midst of a pandemic, it works to reiterate the obvious: humanity is destined to tear itself apart. Michael Myers is essentially Jason Voorhees now; the gore factor is pushed to its boundaries as the unstoppable killing machine makes his way through the town—which may have been a tipping point for fans of the more subdued Carpenter classic. Yet the darkest element of the film comes from the towny mob. Subtlety isn’t something you come for in a movie like Halloween Kills. The deaths are more effective and crueler than previous Halloween films because there’s a sense of chaos and despair rarely seen in blockbuster horror movies, and for that Halloween Kills should be celebrated.
The semi-sequel/reboot of Suicide Squad, cleverly titled The Suicide Squad, has about the same level of gore as Halloween Kills yet James Gunn’s film is a lot more more hopeful. The Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died” sets the tone, playing under the opening credits, after we’ve just witnessed several characters get slaughtered in the film’s opening action sequence. The huge difference between this and the 2016 original is that writer-director Gunn does more to make you care about each main character's death, and trust me you’ll get plenty of death. While delighting in the R-rated sandbox he hasn’t played in since directing Super in 2010, Gunn makes his most refined film, blending together every thematic element he’s been interested in over his entire filmography. The Suicide Squad has the kind of heart similar to Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, yet it feels more pure, untethered to whatever counts as family-friendly good taste nowadays. It’s the one movie of 2021 that features gleefully gruesome head explosions and heartfelt moments that made me cry—that, my friends, is cinema.
The Matrix Resurrections / C’mon C’mon
There’s hope in and for the future. The Matrix Resurrections takes place 60 years after the events of the The Matrix trilogy and after a robot civil war which leads to programs/robots and humans joining forces against robot overlords who are using humans as batteries once again—it’s a lot. Neo learns of all this after he’s once again pulled from the loop of servitude in the new version of Matrix. It’s disheartening for him, seemingly placed right back where we saw him at the start of the first Matrix movie. But change has occurred; in the new human safe haven IO, programs/robots help shape a better tomorrow with their human counterparts. Progress is felt thanks to the sacrifices made by Neo and Trinity’s death—a déjà vu moment like a war general asking for volunteers for an important mission plays differently now than before in the Matrix trilogy. Death and violence isn’t dealt out as severely as before—notice Neo and Trinity don’t have guns in the climax of Resurrections. The final scene plays like a “remake” of the Wachowski’s original, but in Lana’s Resurrections we’re promised a new day with a sky painted with rainbows. The film ultimately says that the progress we’re looking for may not come right away, it’s slow-moving, and what we do now will reverberate through the years.
Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon takes place in the here and now and, while it’s not set during a pandemic, the future isn’t looking too bright. Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny, an audio producer who interviews kids in different cities asking them how they see the world and how they see the future. The world of tomorrow lands at his front door when his sister, in a bind because of issues with her husband, asks Johnny to take care of his young nephew, and he agrees to bring him along as he works from city to city. Turns out the nine-year-old is surprisingly capable of maneuvering through the difficult situation he finds himself in—one scene finds the kid looking up advice in an article online on how to deal. While the future doesn’t inspire hope, it would appear kids these days have a better shot in handling the complexities of life. The film is also filled with excerpts of great writing and art of all kinds—perhaps the most important thing C’mon C’mon exemplifies is the ease of access to information in the modern day. Mills addresses how technology has not only improved our way of life, but has helped our collective spirit—it may sound naïve, considering we’ve seen the downsides of connectivity, but that shouldn't take away from its message. It’s hard to have hope for what’s ahead, but when it’s presented as sincerely as C’mon C’mon, I breathe a sigh of relief.
The Green Knight / No Sudden Move
The system sure likes to take it out of you. The Green Knight, David Lowery’s adaptation of a 14th-century poem, is a tale of a man going through trials and tribulation all for a blood-thirsty system. Dev Patel’s Gawain desperately wants to be a knight but he doesn’t understand what it actually takes to be one. On his quest to face off against the titular Green Knight, he fails just about every test of merit—from getting tied up and robbed at the start of his journey to being seduced over a girdle—the magical realm doesn’t hold back on the wannabe. After all the Coen-esque situations he finds himself in, the final showdown plays similarly to Miller’s Crossing. In the face of death, Gawain cowers at the sword to his neck and his ultimate fate—what’s a true knight to do in the face of such things? It’s in the acceptance of his fate in the grand scheme of things that finally brings the film to its logical end—the reveal in who exactly is pulling the strings makes it all the more clear. That “honor” every knight must have is tied into their willingness for self-sacrifice but when it’s asked of Gawain in the seemingly trivial game set up by the Green Knight, it reveals the abject absurdity of that ask. Lowery has made his most visually stunning film to date, too—a beautiful tapestry on which we see what it means to have true honor and what that costs.
But, what happens when you follow your own set of rules in a land devoid of honor? Set in 1950s Detroit, No Sudden Move sees Don Cheadle’s low-rung gangster Curt Goynes in need of money to leave town, so of course he takes on one last seemingly simple job. Of course, there are no simple jobs in hard-boiled neo-noirs. A blackmail scheme turns deadly and Curt gets his hands on a document sought after by the most powerful people in Detroit. He negotiates the trade of the document for a payout—after he climbs the ladder in the hierarchy of corporate crime, he finally makes a deal for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the wake of the gentrification in the ‘50s of old Detroit by the same companies he now has under his thumb, Curt looks to “get what’s his”. Steven Soderbergh crafts another underdog story with No Sudden Move, and in true ‘70s thriller fashion (literally taking a page from Network), the good guys don’t win in the end, or at least not in a Hollywood happy ending fashion. Soderbergh continues to play with his own visual style—the wide-angle lenses in No Sudden Move warp around the edges of the frame, thematically playing into how the world around Curt is just as warped. It’s not only Curt who gets pulled through the wringer, it’s everyone involved, and that fact that anyone gets out alive is a true win.
Annette / In the Heights
Two very distinct films, both musicals, each having so much of what I want in terms of expressive, transformative cinema. There’s nothing resembling normal in Leos Carax’s Annette. Sparks provides the story and songs in this tale of love and murder, co-starring a wooden puppet portraying Baby Annette. Yes, Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, and Simon Helberg all act alongside an inanimate object, and boy does it work. Annette is about performance—Driver plays a stand-up comedian, Cotillard is an opera singer, and Helberg is a conductor—and the pure sense of the theatrical is what you see on screen. Everything is heightened, from the stage show by Driver’s “comedian” to Annette’s rise to fame as a singer (Baby Annette is a baby after all), yet the film never really veers into parody. It’s funny, sure, but the story is ultimately operatic. The opening song, "So May We Start", is one of my favorite moments in film in 2021—we’re invited into this world by the cast and crew, saying that they’ll “sing and die” for us. And they do. The most important set piece takes place on a boat that doesn’t look real and yet, thanks to the absurdity of the puppet Annette and the over-the-top performances by Driver and the rest of the cast, I can’t take my eyes off the screen. It’s rare to see such audacity and pure exploration of the elements of drama and how it affects us. It’s all summed up in the final musical performance which takes us away from the familiar “staged” moments we’ve witnessed. The real breaks through, making for one of the most heart-wrenching moments of any movie I’ve seen in the last year. Annette is pure cinema magic.
It’s surprising to me, a not-so-big musical guy, that three musicals ended up in my top ten, and it’s even more surprising that one in particular has remained my number one through all of 2021—In the Heights. Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton play is a vibrant celebration of community. It’s also the movie I connected with the most in 2021. It’s the story of immigrants trying to make their dreams come true in Washington Heights, and it doesn’t sugarcoat the very real struggles they go through in accomplishing “The American Dream.” The centerpiece for me is "96,000", a song in which members of the neighborhood share their hopes of having a winning lottery ticket, all set in the middle of summer at the public pool. Each character gets to shine, their dreams laid bare, and Chu executes the best film scene of the year with the cast and dozens of extras dancing and swimming to the music. The single shot of the year in my opinion is Melissa Barrera floating in an innertube in the middle of the pool while synchronized swimmers splash around her—it’s the peak of exuberance in frame. Each musical number is unique in In the Heights, from love songs to anthems celebrating Hispanic culture, the staging is never repetitive and makes use of the cinematic language lacking from any stage production—”When the Sun Goes Down” has two gravity-defying lovers dancing on the side of a building, a purely magical moment reminiscent of Singin' in the Rain. And there are other numbers, like "Paciencia y Fe", that go beyond anything I’ve seen in other musicals, or other films, period. On a technical standpoint In the Heights is a masterpiece, on a purely emotional level it’s a reminder of why I love movies.
