Movies I Watched in 2021

It has begun to give me great pleasure at the end of the calendar year in reflecting on what I have watched the 12 months prior. Seeing what sort of binges you went on, what actor or director captivated you for a time. What you have learned, and what scopes have been broadened as you play movie whack-a-mole checking one thing off a list only to discover three new related films as a result. Whiddling down a list to a top 100, then a top 50, and a top 10, and cross-examining through lines of the year versus other years. It’s an exercise in futility to properly rank anything. Yet the reflection brings back memories that may become harder to articulate as time passes, but remain fond nonetheless.

Entering 2021 I tried to write a little bit more consistently in order to document my knee jerk thoughts at the time they are fresh. My entries for the months of January, February, March, April can be found here, and within them are discussed some of the movies listed below.

My top fifty movies I watched in 2021, in the order I watched them:

• King of Staten Island (2020)
• Let Them All Talk (2020)
• First Cow (2020)
• Possessor (2020)
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

Bad Education (2020)

Not quite Dewey Cox level (what is) — but not a typical biopic. It exceeds leveles far past that in terms of being more than just a movie recounting a story, but actually having something to say. A career performance from Hugh Jackman. Do yourself a favour and watch it.

• Sound of Metal (2020)
• Another Round (2020)
• Ghost (1990)
• Ed Wood (1994)

Everybody Wants Some! (2016)

A fine addition to Richard Linklater’s hangout collection, Everybody Wants Some! is about a college baseball team…and that’s about it. There’s not much to say other than that the charisma of the characters elevate this movie from fun to extremely memorable. The sheer audacity to try and pull off a 20+ minute baseball practice scene, and succeed no less, gives this movie my ever resounding praise.

• Sense and Sensibility (1995)
• Master and Commander (2003)
• LA Confidential (1997)
• The Verdict (1982)
• The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

I was put onto the comedian/director Elaine May by the Blank Check Podcast, who covered her movies in the month of April. She only made four movies, with the phrase movie jail actually being coined about her after she made her famous bomb Ishtar in 1987. She only made four movies — A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and Ishtar. All quirky and unique, all worth watching. I could probably list three or four of these here (with Ishtar potentially being my second favourite), but I elected to put my favourite of the group with The Heartbreak Kid.

The Heartbreak Kid is about newlyweds Charles Grodin and his wife Jeanny Berlin (actually Elaine May’s daughter) on their honeymoon in Miami Beach. Grodin’s character Lenny ends up meeting Kelly, (played by Cybill Sheperd), and falling head over heels for her. What sounds sad in many ways — and it is played as a black comedy — is carried by the hilarious sarcarsm and complete buffoonery of the now late Charles Grodin. Lenny’s refusal to give up on Kelly, even with his marriage, and Kelly’s father bribing him $25 000 to leave his daughter alone, is pathetically uncompromising that it makes the movie work.

• The Empty Man (2020)
• Mad Max 2: Road Warrior (1980)
• Last Action Hero (1993)
• Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
• MASH (1970)
• The Last Detail (1973)
• The Omen (1976)

Christmas in July (1940)

As I’ve tried to delve into older movies, there are a few directors always cited as worthwhile. Frank Capra, John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Preston Sturges are a few of those names who’ve created many of the 40s and 50s movies you’re probably aware of. I ended up watching a whole bunch of Sturges movies as the were added to the Criterion Channel this past year. He interested me as his crewball comedies are often cited as greatly influencing the Coen Brothers and their comedic sensibilities.

Admittedly the comparison was lost to me at times, but after seeing a movie like Christmas in July, and recently rewatching a slew of Coens, it has become more apparent. The eccentric nature of many Coen characters — whether its protagonists, anatagonists or characters dropping in and out of scenes unnanounced,there is often an intentionally uncanny valley to it all.

Christmas in July already stuck out to me as one of my two favourite Sturges movies I watched in 2021 (the other one being Sullivan’s Travels). After watching The Hudsucker Proxy a few days ago (an early Coen movie which will no doubt be on my best of 2022 list) the comparisons became far more clear. There is clearly homage to Christmas in July in Hudsucker — as the sights and sounds of thousands of people incessantly mashing their typewriters in the post-industrialization era evokes visceral responses of stress.

To speak on the actual movie, Christmas in July is about office worker Jimmy Macdonald entering a contest for coining a coffee companies new slogan. His coworkers trick him into thinking he won. As you might imagine, hijinx ensue. It’s 67 minute run time means there is no wasted moment, and no dialogue not played for laughs. The truth about Jimmy’s slogan comes out with one of the best ending to a comedy I have ever seen.

• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Funny Girl (1968)
• The Player (1992)
• Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Baby Boy (2001)

As you may have been able to tell by my recent Licorice Pizza review, a lot of the problems suspended adolescence that spring out of LA are not terribly difficult to relate to as a late age millenial born in the GTA. John Singleton has his own personal black experience to spin the story, one where the immature 20-something Jody has issues of dealing with his daughter, his daughter’s mother and her new boyfriend, and his mother’s new boyfriend. Unequipped to deal with such emotion, the portrayal of Jody’s difficulties rang loud and clear. The continual generational struggle of African American men so and the lack of support from the rest of the world many receive leaves

Boyz in Da Hood is Singleton’s most famous work. It remains so singular and influential it’s hard not to mention. But it’s often cited in regards to him never reaching that level again after such an impressive debut at age 23. After watching most of his filmography this year, there are great elements of all of his movies portraying the young black American experience, in movies like Poetic Justice and Higher Learning. I think Baby Boy is easily his most complete film outside of Boyz.

• Days of Heaven (1978)
• The Mission (1983)
• Night Moves (1975)
• Blow Out (1981)

The Dead Zone (1983)

Cronenberg’s partial invention and popularization of body horror is well known to just about anyboy. I had seen The Fly (1986) last year and quite enjoyed it. I knew The Dead Zone fit a bill closer to traditional horror than body horror, but I did not know what to expect.

The movie blends the genres of horror, science fiction, and political thriller just about as seamlessly as any movie I can remember. Big Trouble in Little China (1986) is another 80s “scifi” movie that comes to mind as bizarrely but effectively prancing across genres. But if Big Trouble is Paradise by the Dashboard Light switching time signatures then The Dead Zone is 2112.

Incredible performances by both Christopher Walken and supporting character Martin Sheen — playing a hauntingly ambitious and superficial man running for the US Senate. It evolves the movie into a political thriller — a favourite sub genre of mine (see The Manchurian Candidate, The Parallax View, Blow out, etc.) This sets up a fantastically unpredictable ending due to the ballet of genres we’ve witnessed up to that point, and leaves you overwhelmed in a good way by everything the movie is speaking to.

• Body Double (1984)
• Tampopo (1985)
• Best in Show (2000)
• Barton Fink (1990)
• They Live (1988)
• The Secret of NIMH (1982)
• The Exorcist (1973)
• The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)
• The Perfect Storm (2000)
• Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
• Stalag 17 (1953)

It Happened One Night (1934)

The first ever romantic comedy. The first of only three films (along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Silence of the Lambs) to win all five major Oscar awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay). You probably know Clark Gable from Gone With the Wind. You probably know director Frank Capra from It’s a Wonderful Life.

It may not seem like it but there is a chasm of time between 1934 and 1954 in terms of the types of movies that are made. It Happened One Night remains timeless. Now sometimes referred to as the Seinfeld Effect, the conceptions of tropes can often feel outdated after so many copies spring up in its wake. Perhaps its the inherent nature of the genre being built upon tropes itself. Perhaps its the sheer talent of a director as renowned as Capra. Perhaps its the star power and chemistry of Clark Gable and Claudette Golbert. It’s probably some combination of the three that make the film have the charm of any great romcom as the couple inevitably likes and dislikes one another before realizing the emotion they have for each other is love.

• Bullitt (1968)
• Fanny and Alexander (1982)
• Out of the Past (1947)

I typically like to order these, but I am finding it especially fruitless. With such a variance of movies too, here is just a general top ten, in no order. Stay tuned for more on each.

• Sound of Metal (2020)
• Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
• The Exorcist (1973)
• LA Confidential (1997)
• Blow Out (1981)
• Days of Heaven (1978)
• Master and Commander (2003)
• Best in Show (2000)
• Barton Fink (1991)
• Stalag 17 (1953)