As a companion piece to my Top Ten list, every year I write a post to discuss some of the other major films that got a lot of attention, in order to give some context to my own choices. I find that writing this type of analysis is helpful when working out how I feel about my list and the year in film as a whole. It's also a lot of fun. Please note that I will not be writing about films listed among my honorable mentions, including "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar," "Red Rocket," and "The Green Knight," which I've already written individual posts about anyway.
Let's start with the foreign films, which had a very good year. "Drive My Car" is probably the biggest title that didn't really work for me. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's filmmaking style is very sedate, approaching delicate personal introspection with a self seriousness that I don't care for. "Drive My Car" is very well made, but so humorless and self-obsessed that I found it difficult to sympathize with the main character. I much prefer "The Worst Person in the World" from Joachim Trier, who freaked me out so badly with "Thelma" a few years ago. I loved the messiness of the heroine's life and the inventive, playful nature of the filmmaking. Unfortunately the ending fell short, so it didn't end up among my favorites. Celine Sciamma's "Petite Maman" was similarly a beautifully shot and conceived film that felt too slight in the end to put on the same level with some of the others.
I've already written about how I don't think that "CODA" deserves Best Picture. I still like the film, and I hope that more people get a chance to see it, but its appeal is not because it does anything particularly new or particularly well. Other award season favorites include "Belfast," and "Nightmare Alley," both passion projects for Kenneth Branagh and Guillermo Del Toro respectively that I found very watchable, but also very indulgent. I'm glad that they got to make these films, but at the same time I hope that they got whatever they needed to get out of their systems so that they can move on to better projects. "Being the Ricardos" and "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" are pretty average biopics from the usual suspects, and I didn't think either deserved the amount of praise that they got.
Among the critical favorites, "Spencer" is a more interesting Pablo Larrain film than "Ema" or "Jackie," with a different take on the Princess Diana narrative, but I didn't like Kristen Stewart's performance. "Annette" and "In the Heights" are both fun, and clearly involved a lot of effort, but musically and stylistically we aren't on the same page at all. Among the smaller titles, "Passing" and "Zola" are wholly original features from talented newcomers. They offered some great performances and personal touches, but I wanted more than what either of them were offering.
Animated films had a good year. While I liked "Encanto" and "The Mitchells vs. the Machines," both films are too rushed and busy for me. My favorite cartoon feature of the year is "Luca" because it's a film that lets me actually take in all of its beautiful little details and lush atmosphere, without putting me in the middle of an action scene or motormouth song number every five minutes. "Flee" is great, and the use of animation is a wonderful way to get around the privacy concerns, but I just wish the execution could have been a little better.
The blockbusters aside from "Dune" have been only so-so. And "Dune," as I've explained before, is only half a movie and it doesn't feel right giving it too much praise until I see the whole story. "No Way Home" gets points for the boggling logistics involved, but the animated "Spiderverse" really did this plot better ages ago. I will give "Free Guy" a shout out for committing to being a video game movie on a level that nobody else has yet.
Films that just missed out on my honorable mentions include "The Lost Daughter," "Shiva Baby," "The Card Counter," "I'm Your Man," and "Pig."
And that's my 2021 in film.
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