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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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10 Best Movies of 2021 (So Far)

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Can you ever really go home? Millions of cinephiles are likely asking themselves this as summer 2021 winds down with doubt again lingering over their favorite movie houses. For a time, theaters were once again open for big business in the U.S. and UK, and remain so in at least one of those venues. But box office reports paint an ambiguous future, and many casual moviegoers clearly remain reluctant about returning to the cinema.

Nonetheless, it’s still good to be back in those old familiar places, as well as to have an ever expanding list of options to discover on streaming. Compared to last year, 2021 feels like a sunny balm, particularly now that the heaviest hitters and biggest surprises of July and the dog days of summer have landed.

It’s why we typically save our “mid-year” ranking for that deep breath between the end of summer escapism and the awards season push that begins in September. There have been some real treats on the 2021 calendar, so whether you’ve seen the entire list below or are looking for something you missed, sit back and enjoy a collection of the best movies of 2021. So far.

10. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo wrote and star in this bizarre, brightly colored, and utterly joyful comedy that defies expectations throughout. The two are middle-aged best friends who take their very first vacation to Florida together to visit the idyllic Vista del Mar.

But it’s not all cocktails and banana boats. Behind the scenes, super villain Sharon Fisherman (also played by Wiig) has an evil plan for the resort. With shades of the best of Austin Powers (though far more sincere) Barb and Star is a good natured friendship comedy through a surrealist lens, which could scratch an itch for anyone missing a bit of beach time this year.

9. Psycho Goreman

Unexpected gem of the year surely goes to this utterly bonkers grue-filled cosmic horror B-movie which is also really funny and kind of sweet at the same time. It follows annoying little shit Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) who bullies her brother Luke (Owen Myre) mercilessly. After defeating him in a game of “crazy ball,” Luke’s punishment is to dig his own grave (!) but instead the pair discover an artifact which turns out to be the key to controlling a universal evil imprisoned on earth for trying to destroy the galaxy.

So of course Mimi names him Psycho Goreman and forces him to hang out with her family and friends despite his insistence that he will bathe in their blood the moment he is freed. From Steven Kostanski, the director of 2016’s The Void, Psycho Goreman is a spot-on blend of brutal slaying and hardcore gore, a cosmic plotline involving an alien council and a wholesome family comedy. An unexpected delight.

8. Cruella

Emma Stone is a punk rock designer in the mold of Vivienne Westwood in this vibrant London-set comedy, which is on paper a prequel to 101 Dalmatians. But in reality, take it as a standalone and you’ll have way more fun.

Up and coming fashionista Estella manages to impress one of the leading designers The Baroness (Emma Thompson) and secures a coveted job at her world famous fashion house. But when Estella discovers a dark secret relating to her own past, she takes on the outrageous alter-ego Cruella to destroy The Baroness by out-fashioning her at every opportunity.

Packed with banging tunes and great dresses, Cruella is a high energy spectacle but it’s the sparring of the two Emmas that brings the real electricity. Forget any future she might have as a puppy killer, in her own film, Cruella is a legend.

7. In the Heights

The sunniest film to hit theaters this season, Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights was as sugary sweet as the frozen Piragua Lin-Manuel Miranda hocks around this movie’s block. Based on the Hamilton composer’s earlier Tony winning musical, the picture was the rare thing: a Broadway adaptation that actually soars as high as its stage production and (rarer still) the first Hollywood blockbuster with an all-Latinx cast.

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How Cruella Got That Crazy Expensive Soundtrack

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In the Heights: You Need to Stay for Post-Credits Scene

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The film came under fair criticism on social media for not being as inclusive as it could be, but that shouldn’t be the last word on such a big-hearted achievement. From the buoyant performances which have already opened doors for Anthony Ramos and Leslie Grace’s immense charisma, to the Latin, salsa, and hip-hop infused melodies which celebrate a culture long left out of the Hollywood image of American life, In the Heights is a jubilant celebration. There really hasn’t been a giddier time at the multiplex this year. Plus, those “96,000” and “Carnaval del Barrio” sequences really are fire.

6. Zola

Based on a “true” story which was told via a series of tweets posted back in 2015 (and the subsequent Rolling Stone article that brought the tale to prominence), Zola is a stranger-than-fiction saga seen through the lens of social media. An ultra contemporary, experimental, low budget comedy-thriller with a backdrop of abuse and sex trafficking, the film is as willfully uncomfortable to watch as it is massively entertaining.

From the jump, Zola (Taylour Paige) is a Detroit waitress and part time exotic dancer who meets a customer named Stefani (Riley Keough) and agrees to take a trip with her to Florida to hit up strip clubs where Stefani promises they’ll make a lot of money. With them are Stefani’s feckless boyfriend (Succession’s Nicholas Braun) and her obviously dodgy roommate. Sometimes told through spoken tweets with switches in perspective, this marks director Janicza Bravo as a compelling new voice, and her cast of leads as nothing short of captivating.

How much of what you’re watching actually happened? Well, that’s the elusive quality of social media…

5. Judas and the Black Messiah

Fred Hampton was murdered with the consent and planning of law enforcement at both federal and local jurisdiction levels. That Judas and the Black Messiah made this common knowledge would be reason enough for consideration. Yet that director Shaka King tells Hampton’s story so thrillingly here elevates his film into one of the most compelling crime dramas in years—only with the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO program being the primary criminal element.

Told from the perspective of the man who spied on the Black Panthers and eventually facilitated the raid that took Hampton’s life, Judas radiates a despairing quality which somehow can still feel electrifying whenever Daniel Kaluuya’s powerhouse performance takes center stage. Which is pretty much any time the Black Panther chairman takes the microphone. Kaluuya deserved his Oscar, but LaKeith Stanfield’s paranoid turn as Bill O’Neal, the poor bastard coerced into being a snitch while still a kid, is what gets under your skin and walks beside you after the credits roll.

4. Pig

Are there really folks out there who wandered into a screening of Pig and assumed they’d get the Nicolas Cage knockoff of John Wick? I like to think so, just as I love to imagine what they said to each other afterward. To be sure, Michael Sarnoski’s Pig sounds on paper like something in that ballpark: Cage plays a hermit living in self-exile from his past life when ruffians steal his beloved… truffle pig. In response, he comes down from the mountain, ready to reengage with the old ways.

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Judas and the Black Messiah Remembers Fred Hampton Was a Man of His Words

By Tony Sokol

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The Suicide Squad Character Guide, Easter Eggs, and DCEU References

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Yet when you realize those old ways involve being the greatest chef in his state—and reengagement means partaking in a fight club that’s far more pitiful than it sounds and simply cooking gourmet meals—the more apparent it is that this is a sophisticated, nuanced allegory about grief and self-identity. Anchored by Cage’s best performance in a long, long time, Pig is a gentle and revelatory experience that slowly unpacks its brilliance piece by piece, vignette by vignette. For those coming in wanting fast food, this probably will be a disappointment. For all others, it’s a resplendent five course meal.

3. The Suicide Squad

For once the marketing wasn’t kidding. Writer-director James Gunn does have a horribly beautiful mind, and we at last get to see it fully unleashed on a superhero property. Yes, the filmmaker made many cry over a CGI tree and talking raccoon in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, but perhaps not since Logan has a storyteller seen such free rein over valuable studio IP. Gunn didn’t waste it.

The Suicide Squad plays very much like the men and women on a mission ‘60s capers its director grew up on, but that structure is channelled here through a filthy and deranged sensibility. How else can you describe a picture that makes you want to cuddle a land shark who just swallowed a bystander whole? The Suicide Squad does that and more while providing a showcase for sure things like Margot Robbie’s irresistible Harley Quinn, as well as the dregs and rejects of DC Comics who ultimately steal the movie: David Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2, namely. Box office be damned, this is one of the best superhero films ever made and will be a classic in the years to come.

2. The Green Knight

When you hear the name “King Arthur,” certain elements spring to mind. It’s one of those classic properties which have been adapted, exploited, and parodied with killer rabbits ad nauseam. Even so, it’s safe to say you’ve never seen the lore become as foreboding and startling as this. Reimagined through the gaze of writer-director David Lowery, the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at last takes on a trippy and witchy connotation. An interpretation that pulls as much from medieval paganism as it does obsessions with chivalry and Christian virtue, The Green Knight successfully reinvents its Arthurian quest into a journey toward certain doom.

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The Green Knight: Why David Lowery and Dev Patel Reimagined Arthurian Legend

By David Crow

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The Green Knight Ending Explained

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As the central figure on that mission, Dev Patel reveals superstar charisma and the ability to completely command the screen. His version of Gawain, the wayward nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris), is vain, cowardly, selfish, and somehow wholly sympathetic as he searches for Ralph Ineson’s Green Knight: a godlike creature who has promised to behead Gawain when they meet again. Through it all, Lowery and company craft a sumptuous world that in every shot looks like the most transportive Dungeons and Dragons cover you’ve ever seen. The atmosphere is oppressively brooding, and it will not appeal to everyone. Yet like the very best films released by indie distributor A24, there is a touch of mad genius at work here that demands to be seen and then seen again.

1. Inside

As arguably the best piece of art to come out of 2020’s torments, Bo Burnham’s Inside was not marketed or even conceived of as a film. Nevertheless, it slowly transformed into one throughout its months-long production process, which forewent mere sketch humor to reveal an undeniably cinematic, experimental, and ultimately bleak heart. In other words, it’s a perfect distillation of how all mediums are blurring into that loathsome word: content.

Through heavily edited, conceived, and revised set-pieces, the film’s director, star, writer, and composer lays his insecurities and vanities bare. Filmed inside Burnham’s home studio space, Inside is the result of the young filmmaker behind Eighth Grade becoming acutely aware he’s regressed to his early resources as a teenage YouTube star: a camera, a music keyboard, some synth programs, and hours of idle boredom.

Within those numbing hours, Burnham built something both reflective and suspicious about technology, the internet culture which gave him his career, and even his own self-image. With a catchy songbook of synthesized bangers, many of which echo ’80s pop ballads, Burnham crystallizes better than any typical three-act film the anxieties and delirium of a year spent mostly at home. He also provides a scathing critique of how our concepts of communication and identity have been co-opted and undermined by tech companies whose products incite division for profit—all while still releasing his film on the biggest streaming platform in the world. It’s a challenging, self-loathing, and haunted piece of work that will invariably become a time capsule for its moment in history.

Runner ups that almost made the cut: Annette, Black Widow, Coda, Mr. Soul, No Sudden Move, Raya and the Last Dragon, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It, The Sparks Brothers, Val.

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foundcarcosa · 7 years ago

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cciv.

1. Predict what your life will look like a year from now. >> I doubt there will be much different about my life in August of 2018. Sparrow will undoubtedly have settled into a more permanent place of employment, so our quality of life may have shifted (in the financial sense), hopefully for the better. We’ll probably still be living here, so no major changes to my worldstate are predicted. Anything else, I can’t possibly predict with any confidence.

2. What is the nicest compliment you’ve ever been given? >> All compliments are good compliments.

3. What makes someone a best friend? >> I don’t have an answer for that. It varies from person to person, anyway. I get soulmate and best friend and life partner and the rest of those superlative hierarchical terms all confused, to be honest. --In which case, Can Calah fits all of them by default.

4. Are you young at heart, or an old soul? >> I have always existed in a state of temporal liminality, making all age-related terms erroneous.

5. How is your blog a reflection of yourself? What do you think people assume or know about you by looking at your blog? >> It’s a reflection of myself because I strictly curate things that appeal to me personally. I have dedicated this space to myself, to the expression of the innumerable facets of my being and their intersections, and it has performed ably in that capacity. And it’s funny you should ask that, because about an hour ago someone I know informed me that they tried to give someone they know a description of my blog and this is what they came up with: “I honestly don't fucking know, they either are God (tm) or wanna fuck God(tm) and probably would foursome The Diety of their choosing, Idris and Matthew Macone-whatever in the Matrix just for the aesthetic and the #thirst tag.” So I imagine that’s largely the impression I give.

6. Make a five song playlist that sums you up as a person. >> Death is the Road to Awe, Clint Mansell (from the soundtrack to The Fountain); Gethsemane, Vanden Plas (a cover of the Jesus Christ Superstar song); Starboy, The Weeknd; Break On Through (To the Other Side), The Doors; Blazing Star, Dethklok. There are a lot of songs that could contribute to a comprehensive profile of me as an [infinite singularity of] individual[s], considering I’ve been looking for myself in songs since I knew how to look, but you asked for five, so.

7. Do you have a Facebook? >> Yes. You’re welcome to add me on it. It’s largely stupid memes and me complaining about the most random shit.

8. What’s the most annoying thing about the person you like? >> Which one? (What kind of ‘like’? Be more specific.)

9. You ordered pizza last night, and have been looking forward to eating the leftovers all day. You go home and the box is still in the fridge, but someone has eaten all of it and it’s empty. What do you do? >> That’s impossible. First of all, Sparrow doesn’t even like the same kind of pizza I do. Second of all, she’s scatterbrained all right, but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she wouldn’t leave an entire empty pizza box in our small-ass fridge. Try again.

10. What’s an inanimate object in your house that holds significance for you, and why do you find it so significant? >> The empty bottle of Baron Samedi Rum that sits on my desk holds significance for me (obviously, seeing as I never keep things that have no clear purpose, like empty liquor bottles). I bought it in New Orleans and it reminds me of O’Dim. It is perfect. (I’ll get rid of it when we finally move. After all, I won’t need these fragile pieces of home once I’m actually there.)

11. How do you look right now? >> Like a snack. (How am I supposed to answer this???)

12. What is one of your bad habits? >> Drinking, I suppose.

13. What were you doing at eleven last night? >> I think I was on tumblr, or some other part of the internet.

14. Are you sure that you were born in the right era? >> Does it matter?

15. You know at least one person named Michael. Tell me about him. >> He’s married to Sparrow’s sister, he studied film, he likes sour beer, and he used to be a skater. I don’t know much about him personally, it’s mostly just factoids that don’t knit together into a full picture very well.

16. You’ve got the TV on, but you’re not really watching. What channel is the TV on? >> I don’t do that. Sparrow is more likely to do that, and it’d probably be some HGTV show on Hulu.

17. What’s an inside joke you share with your friends? >> The first thing that popped into my head was #sunfuckers incorporated, honestly.

18. Name a song that never fails to make you happy. >> No song is 100% successful at that, obviously, but Blood Red Summer by Coheed and Cambria has a strong track record. Very bright, very vibrant, probably about something either horrific or sad (deceptively fun-sounding songs about interstellar war and sundered family dynamics and lost/broken love -- all amindst vague cosmic horror -- is kind of their thing, after all).

19. If you had to diagnose yourself with any mental illness, which would it be? >> ASD is my self-diagnosis.

20. Would you like to reconnect with any friends that you’ve lost contact with? >> I wouldn’t be opposed to it.

21. Name at least three things you could stand to cut out of your life. >> Whatever it is, I probably won’t be cutting it out of my life any time soon, so there’s no point in even pretending otherwise.

22. What is “normal”? Are you normal? >> I assume that the most practical working definition for ‘normal’ is ‘consistently compatible and compliant with the beliefs, morals, and behaviour systems of one’s society’ -- if so, I feign ‘normal’ with varying success. Mostly I am content with being a quiet but adamant outlier.

23. Biggest turn ons? >> Expansive and adaptable consciousness. Abnormally high levels of curiosity and mirth. At least two (2) tentacular appendages.

24. Do you practice what you preach? >> What I preach is usually integral to my being, so I can’t help but practice it. What I parrot is often a different story. (Parroting, I’ve found, is useful in the successful maintenance of a person suit. I don’t parrot much here, so don’t worry. It’s mostly for the benefit of people less fortunate in the cognition and analysis department who unfortunately have the ability to make my outlier life difficult.)

25. Would you prefer to live in a city, the suburbs, the countryside, or the mountains? >> I’d prefer to live in the Garden District of New Orleans.

26. Give me the story of your life in six words. >> It is without beginning or end.

27. Would you rather be alone doing something you enjoy, or doing something you don’t like with your best friends? >> I will always choose to be alone doing something I enjoy. Additionally, anyone who considers themselves a friend of mine would prefer I not do something I don’t enjoy simply for the sake of keeping them company.

28. Tell me something you think would surprise people. >> As a child, I was deathly afraid of thunderstorms. (My theories on this vary. Either way, my fear completely disappeared without fanfare sometime in adolescence; there is a memory I hold of being 13 and watching a summer storm in North Carolina with avid fascination, and suddenly thinking, Wait, aren’t I supposed to be afraid of this?)

29. Is your current hair colour your natural hair colour? >> Yes.

30. Why is your favourite band your favourite? >> My favourites are my favourites because they express things I keenly recognise and often do not have words for.

31. Name something that you miss. >> Her.

32. Share five goals that you want completed in the next thirty days. >> Um... I’d like to finish at least two more Loremaster sub-achievements on WoW, get my Norn up to at least lvl50 on GW2, watch the rest of Queen Sugar, finally nut up and watch Moonlight, and get my end of the Reddit/SyFy Gift Exchange done.

33. What do you do when you can’t sleep? >> Read, usually. Or watch some episodes of an Adult Swim show (or something equally low-commitment).

34. If you were told you were going to have three daughters, what would you want to name them? >> Whatever names come to me when I am holding them, or whatever names Sparrow wants to give them. What I hate is that you have to name them then and there -- I prefer the ritual of naming to be closer to toddlerhood.

35. How do you feel when someone says something mean/disrespectful towards your favourite band/musician? >> I don’t feel anything, usually. Being a Creed fan as a teenager has given me a blessedly thick skin towards that sort of thing, trust me.

36. What’s the funniest film you’ve ever seen? >> I really liked Life (the Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence flick), Caddyshack (it’s so fucking weird in that older-film sort of way but I lost my shit at so many scenes that I have to give it its due), and The Secret Life of Pets (I guess I’m the perfect demographic for that kind of ridiculousness). Oh, and Kung Fu Hustle. I know there are a few others but I forget them now. Comedy movies that really amuse me are almost harder for me to find than horror movies that don’t make me roll my eyes out of my head.

37. What’s your favourite children’s TV show/movie? >> My favourite children’s movies are The Pagemaster and The Prince of Egypt. The Neverending Story gets honourable mention just for being so damn iconic. My favourite children’s programming is The Amazing World of Gumball, Steven Universe, and some stuff I’m probably forgetting but trying to dig around in the pile of countless forms of media I’ve consumed over time in order to answer these questions is really not how I want to spend my night.

38. What do you do when you can’t sleep and you don’t have your phone? >> Why wouldn’t I have my phone, though...? I guess I’d get up and do something else.

39. What is your purpose in life? >> Whatever it is, I assume I’m fulfilling it.

40. What’s one thing you cannot live without? >> Aside from the “duh” answers, I will say mental stimulation and variety. I couldn’t live in solitary confinement with absolutely nothing to do, I’d probably lose it faster than the average (if I don’t figure out a way to kill myself).

41. Put the seven deadly sins in order of the one you commit the most to the least. >> Superbia, Acedia, Gula, Avaritia, Luxuria, Ira, Invidia.

42. What’s something that’s on your bucket list? >> Skydiving. Natch.

43. Have you ever been told you look like a famous person? If so, who? >> The only two famous people I’ve ever been compared to (to my face) are Grace Jones and Harold Perrineau.

44. Can you cook? If so, what are your favourite dishes to make? >> I can cook well enough not to starve. I haven’t gotten to a point where I enjoy cooking, though. Maybe one day.

45. What was the last decision you regretted making? >> Meh.

46. Whose opinion of yourself do you value the most? >> Can Calah’s. Sparrow’s, as far as corporeal human beings are concerned.

47. Anything that makes you angry? >> There is nothing that is consistently guaranteed to make me angry. I usually experience anger as a cumulative “last straw” kind of thing. Which can make it seem “out of the blue” to others, I realise. But at least it’s infrequent.

48. Age you get mistaken for? >> Anything from late teens to early twenties, appearance-wise. Online, anything from late teens to... mid thirties, I think.

49. When was the last time you paid for music? >> I think the last album I bought was The Buttress’ Behind Every Great Man.

50. Night or day? >> Both, please. And the spaces in between.

#surveysofsamedi

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