Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2021

Cure (1997)

dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa Watched October 27

A muted procedural that first seems to focus on the mundanity and unknowability of evil (think Zodiac, maybe Memories of Murder) before slowly morphing into something that had the hair on the back of my neck standing up: Unadulterated dread lurking in the shadows, often visible to the viewer for short but horrific moments before it becomes apparent to the characters. Kurosawa does so much with these long takes, sometimes following characters side-to-side, but most hauntingly allowing them to move along the z-axis, affording him the luxury of motion in the frame without the necessity of pans or dollies. In these moments he almost succeeds in making time stand still. I caught myself afraid to breathe.

Beneath it all is a kind of droning bed of ambience––creaks, groans, rattles, and whistles––that will have you ready to crawl out of your skin by the end.

Sometimes movies have to grow on you; sometimes they punch you right in the mouth.

Old Joy (2006)

dir. Kelly Reichardt Rewatched December 20

"No more Sid's. End of an era."

Old Joy is a movie that's very small in actuality but resonates on such a deep level that I have a hard time explaining everything I love about its 73 minutes. It's a mournful letter to friendship and youth and a meditation on little moments that seem uneventful but have the power to reverberate. It hammers home my belief that the only reason we don't spend time panicking over the slippery slope of time is that humanity would cease to function if we did. Everything changes so fast, and no matter where we're headed, it always seems like we're going there too quickly to bear.

On a filmmaking level, it's almost stunning how little it's doing. It's impossible to believe that a film of this type and this power spends so little time talking while still bludgeoning its beats like thunderclaps.

So much is unspoken, yet not in a flashy way. Old Joy is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, and there isn't a singular moment in which it draws attention to itself. On second viewing, a simple opening note of that Yo La Tengo score nearly wiped me out before, later, a close-up of a slug seemed to hit like an atom bomb.

I think everyone needs movies like this that seem to connect on a spiritual level.

Certified Copy (2010)

dir. Abbas Kiarostami Rewatched October 22

So fun to revisit. As a huge lover of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, the very setup of this is immediately alluring. The magic of Linklater's work is that it strips everything away to lay bare a kind of truth. Sure, some stakes are unspoken, but the films provide space for clarity, which is what makes them so magical: wounding, intoxicating, heightened realism.

But this has taken that same structure and filled it with trap doors and funhouse mirrors. After my first watch I was immediately anticipating my second, though foolishly I'd hoped a return might provide some level of deeper understanding. But Certified Copy is an impossibly tough nut to crack, though one masterful enough to beg for the challenge.

Fallen Angels (1995)

dir. Wong Kar-wai Watched October 20

This is something like Wong Kar-wai’s Terrence Malick film: A multi-focal plot-shunner swirling in handheld wide angle around a series of characters clearly connected to one another yet unmistakably alone. (There's even a character who spares a few moments to twirl around in what's ostensibly a curtain.)

Wong recognizes the simultaneous comedy and tragedy of the fact that beings who need connection to survive are so damn bad at it and uses this to create friction in whiplash tonal shifts. An absurdist scene involving an ice cream truck heist melts into a character shooting up a room full of people. A confession of love snaps into a character lathering someone's hair full of shampoo. A son videotapes his dad peeing, but when he catches his father watching it back and feeling a reflection of his own paternal love, he says he doesn't understand it.

There's just so much crammed in here: the intractable presence of fate, movies as vehicles of communication and totems of the past, the idea that we may never understand someone until they've gone, and the ever-present possibility that connection just may happen. Even with someone we've been rubbing elbows against without a spark.

The Call (2020)

dir. Lee Chung-hyun Watched October 19

I've got some notes on the gaudy special effects and at least one of the performances, but ooooooweeeeee. Incredibly disappointed I didn't hear about this last year, as it would've almost certainly made my top ten. It's probably my own fault––something I heard about and overlooked. But it still totally slipped through the cracks.

It's not a time travel movie, yet it totally is, and really impresses in its ability to cut between timelines and deliver information with satisfying sequence, which is the key to these. It's a story of someone quite literally in a hostage situation with the past, and it brings all the hallmarks I've come to love from Korean films: recurring motifs, precise cinematography, and a deliciously black heart. This is probably more of a thriller, but it brings a wicked horror bite.

25th Hour (2002)

dir. Spike Lee Watched September 14

When people talk about tragedy inspiring great art, they mean this. In the epicenter of an unbreakable fog of malaise, Lee paints an intimate portrait of the changing world through smaller stories of fate, regret, and mourning of a future that will never come. It's all sweaty and bloody but without an ounce of sexiness movies so often serve with it. It feels like the type of grime that will never wash off, making it perhaps the perfect 9/11 movie and the one I didn't know I was missing.

Grainy, fractured images layer over a score composed like a funeral dirge as the entire cast, even a dog, deliver perfectly bruised performances.

I find Spike Lee to be pretty hit or miss, but this is firmly in the hit category.

Unforgiven (1992)

dir. Clint Eastwood Watched September 13

Certainly brilliant in execution. Sweeping vistas, gorgeous music, incredible star power, and classic split diopter shots examining faces that have seen the worst of the Old West. It's even, oddly enough, really funny.

Yet it's the themes that really sizzle. A parable of men forced to grapple with the desert that lies between how they see themselves and how the world does. It's the best kind of thing: very simple but containing multitudes.

Contact (1997)

dir. Robert Zemeckis Watched September 5

This is just Interstellar before Interstellar. We love a beautiful mess, don't we, folks?!

I'm not sure this is even good in the traditional sense. There are a lot of competing ideas, more than enough poorly conceived CGI, tons of exposition, and enough Zemeckis sentimentality to fill an ocean.

Yet I loved every instant of it. Big, bold, and star-gazy from start to finish with some technical stunts that hold up and several really satisfying reveals, centered around the legend Jodie Foster and a presciently strange Matthew McConaughey performance.

Love across the cosmos; God in a satellite dish. Contact rules.

The Vanishing (1988)

dir. George Sluizer Watched May 8 and September 3

One of the most perfectly assembled movies I've ever seen. Everything has a meaning, either serving the plot or further coloring in a portrait of torment, grief, and guilt. Nonlinear structure has been used by everyone by now, but here's an example where it serves the film. It is the film.

The magic here is how Sluizer manages to make the inevitable totally shocking. It’s a mystery that ultimately reveals every single answer without sacrificing an ounce of suspense, an impossible stunt.

Deep Cover (1992)

dir. Bill Duke Watched August 14

"I think you know that there's no such thing as an American anymore. No Hispanics, no Japanese, no blacks, no whites, no nothing. It's just rich people and poor people. ...the three of us are all rich, so we're on the same side."

A mythical neo-noir cast in neon like a prelude to Belly.

For some reason I hadn’t seen many movies from my birth year before 2021, but this is immediately near the top, along with Unforgiven.

Song to Song (2017)

dir. Terrence Malick Watched September 20

I expected to give this an appreciative nod and move along, much like I did with To The Wonder. Instead, I was gobsmacked.

Song to Song is the best I've seen from Malick's ephemeral period, and actually reveals his fascination with creating these fractal portraits of stoic people. It's an imploding story of unhappiness and longing but it's backed up by an actual plot, character investment, and theme. The collage assembly is shoot-from-the-hip, sure. But there's a reason for it, finally.

And even by Malick standards it's almost criminally beautiful while also breaking free from rigid formality that occasionally threatens to bind up his movies in a sort of art-museum perfection. Some of this was shot on a GoPro, which almost feels like an in-joke to people who come for cinematic Ansel Adams.

City of God (2002)

dir. Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund Watched August 8

The world in a movie.

Why isn't this talked about as one of the greatest gangster movies ever made? Just an incredible blend of style and substance with an array of sympathetic characters and clear, weighty stakes. I don't know what it could've done better.

This has been on my list since I've been old enough to be aware of movies outside of Hollywood, and I'm ashamed it took me so long to finally take the plunge.

Persona (1966)

dir. Ingmar Bergman Watched July 24

Me, alone on my couch at 1 a.m., 55 years after this movie was released: "HOLY CRAP, DUDE."

Blow Out (1981)

dir. Brian De Palma Watched July 20

As much as I love films that start off unassuming and slowly build trust before sweeping you off your feet in the closing minutes, there's something exhilarating about quickly determining you're in the hands of a master with a good story squarely in their sights. It doesn't happen often.

Perhaps even more rare are movies like Blow Out that are grand in ambition yet absolutely confident in their approach and clear-headed in their destination. Its construction doesn't cut corners or pull punches, yet its ideas are obvious and distilled.

Sweeping aerial shots butt up against intimate closeups. Tire screeches fade into a romantic score. Life is taken in the shadow of our celebration of liberty. America rolls on.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

dir. Rob Cohen Watched June 27

I watched the Fast and Furious series this year. Well, the first seven of them. It’s not that I ever held anything against them, it’s just that I missed the boat as they were happening and it just felt like something I was destined not to take part in.

Much to my delight they’re almost universally enjoyable on an impressively consistent basis, even as the ethos of the franchise sees monumental shifts more than once.

The first isn’t the most bombastic, but it still might be my favorite, threading the needle between “This was made in 2001. Cool!” and “This was made in 2001. Yuck!”

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

dir. Jim Jarmusch Watched June 21

This shares my deeply held belief that winter in Cleveland is no less dreary than anyplace else.

I need my Cleveland card revoked for waiting this long to watch this.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

dir. Christopher McQuarrie Rewatched June 5

I saw this in theaters when it came out, loved it, and still vastly underestimated its mastery. I ambled into it late at night this summer and felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart with a shot of adrenaline. The stuff that was shot on IMAX cameras delivered maybe my best-ever home viewing experience. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that kind of theater magic outside of a theater before.

This truly might be my favorite action movie of all time. It’s that good.

Oldboy (2003)

dir. Park Chan-wook Watched May 30

If Memories of Murder is said to be the Korean Zodiac then maybe Oldboy is the Korean Se7en. It's a bleak story of a man out for justice who ultimately discovers he's been wholly, horrifically outmatched.

It's just a tour de force, stunningly styled from start to finish, always hiding one more trick up its sleeve and one more unexpected artistic execution, slowly leveling up until you're completely blown away.

And it is absolutely demented.

Margin Call (2011)

dir. J.C. Chandor Watched April 3

I'm a sucker for a boardroom dramas and this really aces the mood––dimly lit high-rise offices, haggard rich dudes realizing their days are numbered––and layers on a superb ensemble cast. Beyond the obvious Kevin Spacey performance lies Stanley Tucci in a wonderfully minor role and a Paul Bettany, who is quickly climbing my list of all-time underrated dudes. Zachary Quinto? So great here. Penn Badgley? I love a handsome teen star stepping into an adult drama.

It’s not Michael Clayton (what is?), but it’s filling that same niche.

Belly (1998)

dir. Hype Williams Watched March 27

Any time your movie is written by someone who doesn't really write and acted by people who don't really act, it's gonna suffer. But, miraculously, it manages to stick a landing, and Hype Williams' style is unreal in movie form. I don't think I've ever seen a movie without a wasted frame. Every single shot is composed and colored for music video-style instant gratification.

This is 90% hyper-stylized bravado, and it works. For all Williams doesn't understand about feature films, he knows how crucial the first and final 10 minutes are. In Belly, they dazzle.

Rear Window (1954)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock Watched March 27

I should've watched this in 2020. It might've made quarantine feel cooler. I've never seen a one-location movie feel so cozy without feeling confined and drawing so much excitement without ever leaving the room. And if the superb plotting isn't enough, there's just something intensely appealing about all these suspenseful shots framed in curtains, brick, and fire escapes.

Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly are impossibly attractive.

This year Netflix released The Woman in the Window, a movie clearly aping this premise (which I am okay with) while wholly misunderstanding its power (which I am not okay with). It made me appreciate this a lot more by proving great stuff just doesn’t age.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

dir. David Lynch Watched March 20 and March 22

I basically never watch movies back-to-back, but I was way late to this party so maybe I was making up for lost time. I watched this at two in the morning and had to return a couple days later.

The pacing of this movie is sublime, which can be owed to David Lynch, his actors, and his editors. It's like watching a movie on 95% playback speed, which is both exhilarating and agitating. Everything moves just slow enough to clearly be "a choice." Every scene seems to last a minute too long, every cut a moment slow, every line delivered a beat late. I was absolutely grabbed but then moved through the story a hair slower than I'd like, in a good way. The patience here is just incredible.

I have no idea how Naomi Watts wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award. This is such a difficult balancing act, requiring so much of her, and she just crushes it.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

dir. Steven Spielberg Watched March 14

I can't believe this movie exists.

I have the faintest memory of seeing at least a portion of this back when it came out, likely on a Blockbuster VHS. Yet I only reencountered it by crawling Letterboxd. I kinda can't believe it doesn't have more cache. Not because it's good (though I think it is), but because I think it's so marvelously large and strange and special.

I have such a soft spot for large-budget weirdness, especially of this era. Kubrick stargazing and Spielberg sentimentality are such a good match.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

dir. Peter Weir Watched March 6

Dudes rock. Imagine sailing the high seas with the boys, playing some violin, drinking some booze, discovering some new species, performing surgery on yourself, and making pulp of your enemies. The dream.

It's so incredibly well-crafted—a Swiss watch of a movie. 140 minutes is certainly not a brief runtime, but there's a ton squeezed in here, all of it ultimately working in its favor.

I have so much respect for this brand of film, even if I can't quite explain what it is. It's large in scale and scope, modern in its execution, yet it's also rock solid in its assembly, lending it a sort of timelessness. This movie would fly in 1984, 1991, 2003, or today. We could probably use more movies where nine figures are spent with such a steady hand as this, yielding as much substance as style, never drawing attention to its own ambition.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

dir. Jon M. Chu Watched February 6

For as unique as this story is for American audiences, the mechanics are tried and true—maybe even a little trite. Despite those ordinary, clunky rom-com trappings, it's one of the most fun movie watching experiences I've had in a while (especially that first half, pre-conflict). This is the world's greatest tourism ad. I feel absolutely trapped in America.

Stalker (1979)

dir. Andrei Tarkovsky Watched April 12

I legitimately don't know what to put here. Trying to jot down a few thoughts seems silly.

Just magnificent and stirring.

The Kid Detective (2020)

dir. Evan Morgan Watched January 19

The Kid Detective is completely without pedigree, which makes its easy sturdiness all the more surprising.

The tone here is incredibly odd—a kind of irreverent surrealism that keeps you pleasantly off balance. It's straddling a few moods that I think I'd find grating but this manages to strike a balance that just absolutely works for me. (Some smarty pants Netflix Original series is going to try to ape this to lesser success and I'm going to hate it with every fiber of my being.)

A debut feature! Hell yeah. What a fascinating, fun little movie. I'm bummed I didn't watch it last year. It would've made my top 10 of 2020.