#not a scam. just a young person barely making it and taking care of elderly grandparents full time while studying

[lilith-of-rivia]

III

The Whisper in the Stars 

Pairing: Geralt Of Rivia x Elf OC

Word Count: 2,251

Warnings: cursing? 

MASTERLIST

I woke the next morning to the sun coming threw the curtains, rudely shining directly into my eyes. It was the first time since we left home I had awoken in a bed and warm, and not on the floor of the woods. It was also the first time in many, many years I had woken to a man's arms around me. I didn't know when or how his arms had made their way around my waist. His chest to my back, and his breathing soft and calm on the back of my neck. The warmth of it makes my skin crawl. I wanted nothing more than to ravish in his touch. But I figured the witcher wouldn't be too happy about the sleeping arrangements once he woke.

Softly and carefully, I removed his hands from around me making him stir. His eyebrows furrowed together and I quickly stood up looking at him. His eyes were now open, but barely. His lips twitched into a half-smile.

"I hope I didn't offend you, princess." His voice was even deeper than normal and gruff with sleep.

"You didn't witcher. I just wanted to get a start to the day. Maybe wander around town, look for new clothes for Ciri and Dara." I said with a smile. He sat up placing his feet on the ground, I could hear his body cracking.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped your boundaries last night." I blurted. Knowing how many male elves I had been with in the past, hated when I didn't go their pace, whether it was slower or faster.

"I wouldn't have let you, little elf if I didn't want it. I enjoy your company. We all do. And your heartbeat is a great lullaby." I couldn't help but smile as I walked over to him, his golden, warm eyes looking up at me. I new the witcher never showed this emotional side to others very often, and it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"It's a good thing you stumbled upon us then." I bent down a tad and kissed his forehead. His eyes never left my face. I was more drawn to this creature than I had ever been to any man in my life. And after 1,389 years there had been plenty of men.

"Common get dressed and come with me." He nodded standing up, putting his shirt back over his head. I grabbed my dagger, sliding it into its sheath and tying my top.

Once he had his boots on we exited the room, to find Dara and Ciri sitting in a group of kids on the ground below the inn. They were playing some form of game. All laughing and smiling. It warmed my heart to see them being able to be kids. Legolas was sitting on the stairs, willing something onto his new bow. I couldn't tell what type of pattern it was but he was extremely concentrated on it. Jaskier was sitting on a log not far from Ciri writing in his book.

"Would you like to come and get some new clothes with me?" I asked walking up behind the two, kneeling down.

"Oh yes, I'd love to." Ciri cheered and jumped up Dara following.

"Thank you for letting us play!" She said to the group of kids who all smiled and waved at her.

"There was a jeweler merchant set up across the clothing shop. I'm gonna stop in there." I told Geralt who looked at me with a brow cocked.

We walked into the jewelers to see an elderly man talking to the elder that had "greeted" us. Their heads turned as we walked threw the door. The man behind the table stood and smiled brightly at us.

"Good day, Geralt of Rivia and friends. How can I help you today?" He greeted and smiled. Geralt looked down at me as I walked up to the counter, Ciri at my side.

"I have something to possibly trade," I said and pulled out the necklaces I had been wearing. I broke the chain around my neck and let the ring fall into my hand and placed it on the counter.

It was a golden ring with gold leaves that came together around a stone native to my homelands. The man took it, looking at it with eyes wide.

"This stone. Where did you get it? Why are you giving it up?"  The man asked and looked at me. I could now feel Geralt's presents behind me as he examined the ring.

"Its a stone called Adamant, a white jewel. It's one of the most valuable jewels to my people. But it hasn't meant a thing to me in many, many years. It was an engagement to a betrothal about 500 hundred years ago, I only kept it due to the value I know it holds. I'm only willing to give it up for the right price." Ciri was now holding the ring. Looking at it closer.

"I have a queen who would kill for a peace like this." The jeweler said and pulled out a chest, full of coins.

"I'll give you 3,000 Orens for it." He said as he started to weigh the gold coins. I had very little knowledge of the currency of this land so I looked to Geralt.

"Does that seem fair to you?" I asked and he titled his head to the side, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I've killed monster for 3,000 orens. I feel you could do better man. If this queen is willing to kill for a peace like that, I do not believe you will only be selling it for that amount. Do not try and scam the woman." He said, his voice gruff and his eyes set in a glare. He slowly moved closer to me, his chest nearly touching my back.

"Try again." He growled.

"The highest I can go is 5,000." The jeweler said now looking even more intently at the ring. I looked up at Geralt and he nodded.

"Deal." He smiled and started to fill a pack full of coins before handing it to me. With a quick thank you, we exited the store and I tied the sack of coins to my belt.

***

"So you were betrothed?" Great asked quietly as we sat and watched the woman who gave me my clothes measure and dresses Ciri.

"I was, a long long time ago. Before my father realized I wanted to marry for love. Not for the kingdom. And I was also a fierce warrior even then. My father thought my talent would be wasted on the elven king who just wanted a bride to produce his kin. I kept the ring tho. Thought it'd come in handy one day. And it did." He chuckled softly.

"I never took you for the settle down and marry type anyway." He said glancing at me.

"I'm only open to it, with the right person. Someone willing to treat me as an equal and not just want me for my uterus. Unfortunately, many higher up elven men in my home only care about spreading their seed and continuing their line. My father was the first in many years to not go threw with a betrothal." I now met his eyes.

"I'm not a housewife. I'm not a trophy wife. I want to be a wife who's known for defending herself and her family. And not just a woman pregnant all the time." I said and he smiled a little.

"I believe any man would be lucky to have your hand in marriage little elf." He was so close to my ear as he whispered and it made me shiver.

After Dara and Ciri were equipped with new clothes and shoes, I walked to the woman who was now placing all her tools back. Placing my hand in the bag of coins I pulled out a handful and placed it on her table.

"For everything you've done. We appreciate it so much." She smiled and took the money off the counter and I turned to leave.

"Oh, my dear don't forget your cloak and new knickers." I turned to her again and she handed me a bag full of I'm guessing the new nickers which I was more than happy about. And she wrapped the cloak around my shoulders.

"Its a sheep's wool cloak. It'll keep you plenty warm out on your adventures with the wither. If you're ever around again. Don't hesitate to come to see me. Good luck young one." I smiled and she leaned up and kissed my cheek before pushing me towards Geralt and the kids who were waiting by the door. The cloak was beautiful. It was black all over but the inner fabric was a beautiful blood red.

As we exited the shop Jaskier and Legolas were walking up to us, Legolas had two new horses by his side. He handed me the reins of a beautiful black mare. She was stunning. Her main was thick and her tail was almost to the floor.

"The town elder said these were the ones he was willing to give up." I placed my hand gently on her nose and she leaned into it.

"Hello, lovely," I whispered softly, she huffed in response. I softly pressed my forehead to her snout and closed my eyes. Feeling her bond connect with my own. She had never had a true owner, I could feel her sadness and wanting for a real person to care for her. Not to just be a show pony to the town.

"Vega..." I whispered. She huffed again.

"Such a pretty name," I whispered again and stepped back from her. I slowly walked around her petting her as I went.

"I wish I could do that," Ciri said looking at me as she pets Vega's nose.

"I know you have talents of your own. Embrace those, don't be jealous of someone's abilities when you've been gifted by the gods with your own." I softly kissed her head.

"You will soon come to master those powers and become a very fearsome warrior like Geralt." She smiled wildly at me.

"Or like you." I couldn't help but smile at her words.

"I'm nothing compared to the Witcher of Rivera but I'm more than happy to teach you anything you ask." I heard Geralt hum softly before he turned and walked towards the inn. We all followed behind him, and I tied Vega to the post outside next to Roach.

We all went to our rooms to collect the items we had left in. I grabbed all the new clothes I had acquired and placed them in a bag rolling it with a blanket and, grabbed my swords placing one in my sheath on my belt and the other next to the door. I walked over to the bath and picked up the lemon-scented bar soap and looked at Geralt who was putting his armor on.

"Would it be bad if we took this. I'll leave them a coin." He chuckled softly not looking in my direction focusing on trying to tie his gauntlets that were studded along the outsides of them. I walked over to him and gently took his arm and rested it on my thigh while I tied them for him.

"I didn't need you to do that, princess." He said looking at me as I finished his other arm.

"No, but it was painful watching you struggle, witcher," I said with a smirk and stepped back.

"I'm taking the soap. You can smell pretty bad some days. What does Jaskier say, Onions?" I asked with a laugh and he just grunted, rolling his eyes.

We walked out of the inn and down to the horses. I placed my second sword in the sheath on the saddle and my pack on the end of it, strapping it in. My bow and quiver were also strapped onto the saddle. Not too long after I finished everyone else had their belongings packed to their horses. We all went to the well in the center of town and filled our water packs.

"Where to next?" Jaskier asked as we walked to the horses, Geralt mounting Roach after helping Ciri and Dara onto their own. I followed suit, mounting Vega after untying her lead.

"Where ever the monsters take us. Hoping to find a village willing to house us for when winter hits. I don't want you all out and open to the harshness of the snow this winter." He said as he begins leading Roach to the main road us following.

"Well, I think we should let Apha do all the talking. She's nicer than you Geralt." Jaskier said before he jumped into song as we left the town behind us.

"Toss a coin to your witcher-"

"No Jaskier!" Geralt yelled behind him. But the bard continued, Ciri and Dara joining laughing while they sang. I couldn't help but giggle at the Witcher's stone-cold glare. I gently poked his arm as we rode side by side and he looked at me.

"Where the monsters take us?" I asked, his lips twitched and I could see a shadow of a smile.

"Yes, little elf. Are you with us." He also glanced back at Legolas who was pulling up the rear to make sure no one was falling behind. He heard of course. With his enhanced hearing. He nodded to Garelt wordlessly.

"We're here Garelt. Where ever the monsters take us."

[rickstexaschick]

Rick’s Texas Chick Chapter 3

This was originally posted on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183545/chapters/35213036#workskin

Later that night when she joined them for dinner, Beth casually mentioned that her father had left town on business – at this the two teens had snickered but nothing else was said.  If she was disappointed at Rick’s unexpected absence, she hid it well.  She good naturedly answered all their questions about her previous life in Texas.  Her career, why she’d moved.  At least, she’d given them the answers she was willing to give, up to that point, considering that she’d barely known these people for barely 24 fucking hours.  It was the truth, just…a version of the truth---as her ex would like to say, when it was to his advantage to give the truth ‘versions.’

Truth was, she’d repeatedly opened herself up to mistreatment and abuse by total assholes.  Too trusting, too willing to believe their lies, desperately hoping that the umpteenth time would be the charm.  Instead it was always another charmer, a man willing to lie and scam his way into her heart before swiftly dumping her for greener pastures.  Leaving her to lick her wounds and try again.

This last time had been the final straw.  It almost wrecked her career.  At least, it had made it so she felt like she had to leave, which basically accomplished the same thing.  So, here she was, starting over not only personally but professionally, and almost 2400 miles away from home, to boot.

Fuck, any further west and she’d have ended up out in the middle of the goddam Pacific Ocean.

She’d picked this area because an old friend had semi-retired and moved out here several years earlier.  A psychotherapist, Ana knew he4 personal struggles with relationships.  Ana had always been like a sister to her.  She felt closer to Ana than to her own sisters—each of whom were much older than she, and fully engrossed in their lives and marriages, with grown children and grandchildren.

So, when her elderly parents died, months apart, it precipitated a spectacular emotional meltdown, resulting in the subsequent break-up of her own long-failed marriage, almost ruining her career in the process.  Well, after that, staying around for any more of a shit show had just seemed pointless.  She’d taken some time off and came up to visit Ana.

The beauty of the area had always enchanted her; and the possibility of starting all over here, where she would at least know one person, held huge appeal for her.  She’d researched jobs in the area and found a few worth applying to, one faculty position and a couple at private practices.  She emailed them an updated CV, including a list of professional references----close friends from work and professional organizations back home who knew and understood her situation, and in whom she knew they could be trusted to give a stellar referral to any prospective employer.

No embarrassing tales starring her as the jilted spouse, her angry confrontation with her husband in his office at the hospital, and how their combined screaming and yelling had brought the hospital security on the run.  In the end, she’d taken an extended leave, then ultimately did leave.  So, when it was time to apply for other positions, her work friends were willing to do anything to help her in her efforts to get away and move on with her life.

For this last relationship, her failed marriage, had surely been the worst.  Riddled with more punishing emotional abuse than any of her previous relationships, not to mention the infidelity.  But the physical abuse he’d begun to heap on towards the end, trying to break her…she’d barely had the courage to weather through it.

Then, when her parents had passed away, well, that had just about done her in.  The fact that so much had taken place at her work, in front of everyone: her boss, her colleagues, the staff.  And him cheating on her with staff nurses who worked in the ER at the same damn hospital----it was the classic betrayal.

She shared none of this with her new neighbors that first night at dinner, of course.  Only relating that she’d had a career opportunity at the Medical Center, another faculty position, and it was too much of a good chance to relocate to an area where she’d always wanted to live.  No mention of Ana, though why, she wasn’t sure.

She was happy to talk about her cats, of course----rather pointless, not to.  And was sincerely pleased when Beth had shared that she was a vet, albeit a large animal one and specialized in horses.

Morty asked her if she’d had horses, and she’d smiled kindly at him and told him no.  That, in fact, very few people in Texas owned a horse, unless they lived on a ranch or participated in amateur horse shows and rodeos.  It probably wasn’t all that much different from around here.

She’d had to stop herself from committing her classic blunder of overstepping the initial overtures of friendship and completely baring her soul and opening up her life and home to them like it was a Holiday Inn to come visit whenever they wanted.  Just because this family, and their missing elderly patriarch, were nice on the surface didn’t necessarily mean all was totally as it seemed.  She needed to remain cautiously at a distance until she’d become more settled in and had gotten to know them better.

She had no idea that Beth had sized her up while listening to her, and had understood that there was far more to her story than what she was letting on.  Thoughtfully taking in the dark circles of fatigue underneath her eyes and the lines etched in her face, Beth realized that there was more going on with her than someone who had just executed a 2400 mile car journey alone with 4 cats.  Despite her easy manner with Summer and Morty, ready smile, and friendly Texas drawl, there was a deep-seated pain in those eyes.

Beth wondered what her father would make of this woman, whenever he decided to return.

********

The weeks quickly passed.  Her furniture arrived a few days after she did, and she had taken a few weeks to get moved in and settled before she began working at her new job.  It usually took several months for new credentialing at a hospital to go through, so she used that to her advantage to stay home and tackle some projects around the house.

After that the days seemed to fly by.  Ana came around a few times, but for some reason, after her first few weeks there, Ana had gradually slipped back out of her life, just as if they were living 2400 miles apart again.  So, that small hope of friendship and support had not bloomed as she’d hoped it would, when she’d first made plans to move out there.

She had always found change difficult, and was slightly abashed with herself for making such a spectacular one during such a vulnerable time in her life.  But this part of the world was so beautiful, and the climate so much more pleasant than the heat and humidity of Houston.  She found herself wondering why she hadn’t moved to the region years earlier.

Oh well, she reminded herself not for the first time:  Things happen for a reason.

Like, your abusive husband cheating on you and forcing you to leave the job you loved.

Or, your beloved parents dying so close together.

She quickly shook this sad train of thoughts from her mind and thought instead about the Smith family.  Rick had recently returned after another week’s absence, looking much the worse for wear.  He’d completely ignored her, kept to himself in his garage, and she was too preoccupied with getting on with her new life to think much about it.

Ana hadn’t liked him the few times she’d come over to visit, and wasn’t shy about it.

“I don’t know...  I don’t like that guy, something about how he sits in that garage all day and is always looking over here.  He’s watching you.  It’s creepy.  Be careful.”

But she scoffed at Ana’s concern – hell, half the time he wasn’t even home.

And besides, after his abrupt departure from her house that first night, and the manner of their next encounter, she’d thought it best not to attempt any further efforts at friendship, anyway…

…It had been about a week since she first arrived.  Rick, Beth, and Summer had been in the kitchen one morning before school, he’d just returned the day before from his unannounced trip.

“So, how’s life li-urp-living across the street from the crazy cat lady these days?”

“Grandpa Rick!  Don’t talk about her like that.  We like her.  She’s a nice person.”

Beth sighed.  “Summer, go get ready for school.”  She waited for her daughter to leave the room before continuing.  “All I’m going to say, Dad, is that I think she’s had a pretty rough go of it.  That’s why she left Texas.  So, be nice to her, ok?  You know: try not to be yourself for a change.”  Beth turned to stack dirty breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

Rick grumbled in reply.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“And, she’s not as young as she looks,” Beth continued, ignoring him and gesturing with a dirty spatula.  “I think she’s even older than I am.  She was a nurse for a long time, then went back to school to become an NP….”

He rolled his eyes; like he cared.  And went out through the open side door leading off the kitchen and into the garage, only to come face to face with her, the stricken look on her face telling him she’d overheard everything.

He’d had the grace to look guilty.

The expression on her face changed from one of pain and embarrassment to anger.  She was holding a pan containing what looked like a large coffee cake of some kind, a pair of pot holders protecting her hands.  She tossed the pan onto his work bench.  It landed with a clatter, sliding along the surface and knocking tools onto the floor.

“Baked this for y’all.  An old family recipe.”  She turned to leave, then stopped and turned back around.

“And I’m 49.  Next time y'all want to know something about me, just ask me.  I hate gossip.”  She marched across the street without a backward look.

tbc

[aion-rsa]

The Best Movies of 2020

https://ift.tt/34YpJ4d

Thank goodness that’s over, right?

To say 2020 was a challenging year is like announcing the Hindenburg had a rough landing. In a period that’s transformed how billions live their lives, there isn’t one person, family, business, or industry that wasn’t impacted significantly by upheaval. And that includes going to the movies.

Just 12 months ago, moviegoers were turning out by the millions to see their favorite space adventures in theaters. Now they’re watching them, and everything else, on streaming. It’s an astonishing journey we’ve detailed further here, but even if our relationship to how we experience films is changing, the fact remains cinema is as vital a form of escape and inspiration as ever. And even in 2020, as Hollywood studios largely abandoned multiplexes to fend for themselves, there also remained excellent motion pictures. Some were released on Netflix, some experimented with premium video on demand, and a rarified few still entered theaters.

Here’s 25 of them.

25. Host

This Zoom horror movie, completed from start to finish in 12 weeks during the middle of a pandemic, might be the movie that sums up 2020 better than any other. But it should also be noted that it’s genuinely very good. The feature debut of Rob Savage runs at just 57 minutes (how very 2020, as in any other year its halfway house runtime might have hurt the movie’s chances), and in that time it sees a group of friends attempt to carry out a séance over Zoom. However, something goes wrong (or is that right?) and a malign entity enters the call.

Performed by a group of women, and one man, who already know each other really well, it’s the easy shorthand of their friendship that elevates this and helps the audience to instantly care. Meanwhile it’s the ambition and inventiveness of Savage and writers Jed Shepherd and Gemma Hurley which increases the scale of this beyond a lockdown found footage movie and into territory where complicated stunt work was involved. First and foremost though, it’s scary. Like really scary. How very 2020. – Rosie Fletcher 

24. Minari

There is currently a bit of controversy over the Golden Globes categorizing Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari as a “foreign language film.” If that stands, it will be a genuine shame, and a greater slight, for this is an all-American story. A semi-autobiographical reverie for its writer-director, Minari depicts a family of Korean-Americans who immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and are now trying to make it as farmers in rural Arkansas in the 1980s.

A beautiful ode to childhood, and both the hardships and joys of the immigrant experience, what’s most rewarding about Chung’s film is its quiet intelligence at working from first the perception of a child named David (Alan S. Kim), and then also from the vantage of his parents and their increasingly frayed marriage (a mutually raw Steven Yeun and Yeri Han). It even has a deep reservoir of understanding for the more complex sorrows of grandmother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung). Minari is a sophisticated multigenerational snapshot of a distinct group of American lives, and it’s among the best films of the year, however you categorize it. – David Crow

23. Kajillionaire

Miranda July’s ethereal scammer dramedy carries the con-artist torch from Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 masterpiece, Parasite, and once again allows audiences to live vicariously through a scrappy family surviving on society’s margins. But unlike Bong’s Kims, Kajillionaire’s Dynes (Robert Jenkins and Debra Winger) are far from sympathetic; they’re poisoned by their warped take on the American Dream.

Evan Rachel Wood turns in one of 2020’s most stunning performances as their strange daughter, Old Dolio: fierce yet naïve, raised to regard all relationships as transactional and so utterly at a loss as to how to navigate her attraction to their new co-conspirator Melanie (Gina Rodriguez). Old Dolio’s roughness contrasts beautifully with the surreal wonder of July’s dreamy motifs—here, soap bubbles representing the fragility of a life that could change with one puncture.

No one could have predicted that this year would implode worse than a scam gone wrong, nor that even the most well-adjusted families would have to grapple with setting uncomfortable but life-saving boundaries with loved ones. Yet here we are, and somehow July’s hopeful story came to us at exactly the right time: We can delight in Old Dolio breaking toxic patterns, and the elder Dynes learning that letting go of something valuable can be more beneficial than squeezing the life out of it. – Natalie Zutter

22. The Assistant

One of the year’s most unassuming but devastating films is writer-director Kitty Green’s seamless foray from documentary (Casting JonBenet, Ukraine is Not a Brothel) into a classic “inspired by true events” feature. Those true events are the Harvey Weinstein scandal, as the film follows a day in the life of a low-level assistant (Julia Garner) in a prominent Hollywood executive’s New York City office. The Weinstein-like character is never directly seen, and Jane is one of many peons who sketch out the space around his considerable form, as they arrange his midday hotel reservations and restock his private stash of erectile dysfunction medication. 

Read more

TV

The Best TV Shows of 2020

By Alec Bojalad and 9 others

Games

The Best Games of 2020

By Matthew Byrd and 3 others

Yet out of the whole office, Jane is both the most valuable and the least valued: first one in, last one out, she has devoted all of her waking hours to streamlining this powerful man’s day—which includes covering over his gravest sins with regard to the pretty, impressionable young women she ushers into his office.

Every phone conversation or behind-closed-doors meeting is intentionally muffled so that Jane herself can hardly hear it, let alone the audience. These murmuring pockets invite the viewer to fill in the blanks, imagining the worst possible scenario. The film never gets explicit, but Jane’s dawning realization and horror at her complicity is unsettling enough. Even more so when her attempts to flag this unimaginably inappropriate behavior get undermined by the self-protecting hierarchy of the company. The Assistant is more character portrait than anything else, and it treats its archetypal figure with more sympathy than her real-life counterparts might have earned, but its depiction of seemingly harmless eccentricities snowballing into an unconscionable abuse of power is a must-watch. – NZ

21. His House

This Netflix original horror movie took people by surprise when it landed on the service. The feature debut from Remi Weekes, His House is a clever, nuanced political movie that leans hard into horror tropes, working both as a commentary on the treatment of refugees in Britain and as a seriously frightening ghost story. Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country) and Sope Dirisu (Gangs of London) play a Sudanese couple who escape the violence of their own country only to find themselves hemmed in by the bureaucracy and judgement of the UK. Placed in a decrepit home that they can’t leave, they are haunted by spirits they brought with them while facing the nightmare of a country that pretends to care but barely sees them as people.

Read more

Movies

His House and the Horror of “Otherness”

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

The Best Horror Movies of 2020

By Rosie Fletcher and 4 others

The performances across the board, including a supporting role from Matt Smith, soar, and the production design is unique, haunting, and at times very beautiful. This is a powerful first film from an exciting new voice, a must-watch for genre lovers, and a showcase for a strong, if not often told, social message that talks about culture, society, and gender. It’s about the demons we see and the ones we do not. – RF

20. Emma.

Jane Austen’s fourth novel, and the last published in her lifetime, has been filmed many times. But director Autumn de Wilde’s version is the best one, perhaps because she is the first woman to helm a straightforward adaptation. Leaning into Austen’s own designs for the book, where the author mused she would “take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” Emma. embraces the mischievous and sardonic side of Austen’s wit, and her heroine who was gifted with being “handsome, clever, and rich” from the word go.

Filmed with supreme confidence and a sumptuous color palette of bright pastels in brighter natural lighting, Emma. is vibrant and often veers cheerfully near screwball comedy. This approach is only buoyed by Anya Taylor-Joy, who began a strong year of work with this multifaceted and exceedingly rich portrait of Ms. Woodhouse, in the most magnanimous sense. She and her director searched for “questionable intent” in the material while still crafting a warm film that bubbles with life. It also enjoys a wonderful soundtrack thanks to a collection of actual 18th and 17th century English folk songs, and a puckish score by David Schweitzer and Isobel Waller-Bridge. – DC

19. The Father

Director and screenwriter Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own stage play stars Anthony Hopkins as Anthony, an elderly English man suffering from the onset of dementia. Olivia Colman is his daughter Anne, who is planning a move to Paris to live with her partner, and is desperately trying to find a new caregiver for her father. People drift in and out of the narrative under different names, Anthony’s spacious apartment seems to change around him and time itself seems to bend before we realize we are seeing almost all the events from Anthony’s point of view—which means that none of what we see can truly be trusted.

Read more

TV

The Best TV Episodes of 2020

By Alec Bojalad and 8 others

Books

The Best Books of 2020

By Kayti Burt and 6 others

This makes what could have been a conventional drama about illness and memory into something brilliant and terribly heartbreaking, with Hopkins and Colman giving performances that are nothing short of titanic and Zeller’s cool, controlled direction making the emotional cost even more profound. The final scenes of this nearly perfect film will leave you devastated, even if this awful disease has never impacted your life personally. – Don Kaye

18. Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal gives us an up-close, immersive look at what it feels like to suddenly go deaf, and to realize that massive life changes don’t have to portend the end of what it means to live. Riz Ahmed is excellent as Ruben, a recovering drug addict who drums in a heavy metal duo alongside his girlfriend, singer/guitarist Lou (Olivia Cooke). The two tour the indie rock circuit in a beat-up but cozy RV that also serves as their home, but their gypsy lifestyle is upended when Ruben abruptly loses his hearing.

Director Darius Marder (who co-wrote the script with Abraham Marder) does not give into sentimentality even as Ruben moves through grief, loss, denial, anger, and self-pity, all the while clinging to the possibility that he may find a surgical way to restore his hearing. His journey also takes him to a home for deaf people in recovery (headed up by the marvelous Paul Raci, whose own real-life story involving deafness is remarkable), and eventually opens his heart and mind. The excellent sound design is the final touch on a captivating and highly original story. – DK

17. The Personal History of David Copperfield

After exposing the sheer absurdity of modern politics in films and series like In The Loop, The Death of Stalin, and Veep, Armando Iannucci found solace this year in creating this earnest, light, charming adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, David Copperfield. The film still tackles Dickens’ persistent themes of class, privilege, poverty, and human rights, although in far less scathing fashion than Iannucci is known for. Casting his project in colorblind fashion has also allowed the director to subtly modernize the piece while grounding it firmly in 1850s England.

Some of us may get a bit lost in the onrush of characters and events in this fast-paced film, as Iannucci breezes through a lot of the book’s events. But the story itself, and the multitude of vivid, colorful, oddball characters who are led by an enthusiastic Dev Patel as David, are so timeless and relevant to the human condition that only diehard loyalists to the original text may find something to grumble about. The rest of us can enjoy a delightful adaptation that we might not even know we needed. – DK

16. Bad Education

For his whole career, Hugh Jackman has been celebrated for his consummate showmanship. Whether it is as ambassador for a major superhero franchise or the song and dance man who can win Tonys at the same ceremony he’s hosting, his charm is irresistible. So imagine his delight when director Cory Finely presented him with Bad Education: the movie where his ability to ingratiate turns into something sinister and perfectly apt for the year it was released in.

Based on a 2004 New York Magazine article about the largest school embezzlement scandal in history, Bad Education plays like a dark comedy about American greed, as well as prologue for the 21st century hucksterism that was to come. Filmed with the same clinical nihilism found in Finley’s Thoroughbreds, this film is so much larger in its landscape of apathy of self-delusion. And at the center of it is Jackman’s affable Long Island school superintendent, a man who hides dark secrets and a bottomless pit of narcissism, both of which allow him to tell any lie that keeps him on top. Hence why watching his house of cards fall is pretty satisfying, especially these days. – DC

15. Small Axe

Steve McQueen’s latest effort, an anthology of short films set around Black communities in 1970s and ’80s Britain has been the source of some debate. Should these be looked at as individual films or can the work only be considered as a whole? We don’t have a satisfactory answer either, but Small Axe is as thoroughly compelling as the rest of McQueen’s work, and two films in particular, Mangrove and Lovers Rock are standouts.

Mangrove is the longest, most traditionally “feature length” entry in Small Axe. Gifted with urgent, authentic performances to tell the story of the Mangrove Nine, it’s also (like the rest of the films in the anthology) an effortlessly immersive recreation of its era, even as its subject matter resonates uncomfortably with today’s headlines. But while the other movies that comprise Small Axe are shorter than many features, they’re no less powerful. The immensely beautiful Lovers Rock, with its haunting reggae soundtrack and beautifully filmed party scenes, serves as a reminder of so much of what we’ve lost and taken for granted in this pandemic year, and the intimacy that can be found in crowds. It’s essential viewing, and both a snapshot of a moment in time and a reminder of something else we’ve lost to this pandemic year. – Mike Cecchini

14. Tenet (READERS’ CHOICE)

In a tumultuous year, no blockbuster has had quite as much controversy surrounding it as Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. The director was notoriously adamant that his film should be the one to lead moviegoers back to cinemas worldwide, a quixotic (some might say selfish) endeavor that might’ve undercut the ambition of a movie that blends the action and spectacle of the wildest James Bond movies with elements of time travel, quantum physics, and Nolan’s famed attention to detail.

But lost in all that controversy—and perhaps in its nigh-incomprehensible plot—is the fact that maybe, were the world not in the midst of a deadly pandemic, Nolan was right.

Perhaps more than any other blockbuster of the last year or more, Tenet was clearly designed with the cinematic experience in mind. Action set pieces, filmed in gorgeous locations that would be spectacular on their own, take on the quality of magic tricks as events and performances are “inverted” by the film’s central, mysterious technology.

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Tenet Ending Explained

By Chris Farnell

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Tenet’s ‘Inversion’ Logic Explained

By Chris Farnell

Even Nolan’s notorious penchant for emotionally distant main characters is undercut by performances from John David Washington and Robert Pattinson that bring this about as close to a buddy action movie two-hander as you’re ever likely to see from the director. Whether you ultimately view Tenet as a smarter-than-your-average thrill ride or a puzzle that can only be unlocked via repeated viewings, it still deserves, even demands, your full attention. – MC

13. One Night in Miami

Regina King has been in the business of making movies for nearly three decades. Who knew she could also be such an astonishing director? Yet with her first theatrical feature, she announces undiscovered talent in this sweltering, jubilant film that interrogates what life is like at the intersection of Black art and Black commerce in America.

With screenwriter Kemp Powers adapting his own stage play, One Night in Miami imagines a fictional account of an evening where Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), and the man who would soon be Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree) walk into a 1964 motel room. Their conversations about the challenges of Black celebrity in a world that pulls them both toward the desperate need of social equity and the more comfortable appeal of white-friendly affability, is one that is still going on to this day. But it’s told here with bombastic performances and a visual flair that is so kinetic it overcomes the admittedly stagebound limitations of the film’s conceit. – DC 

12. Soul

What does it mean to have soul? How do you feed it? Joe Gardner, the Jamie Foxx-voiced protagonist of Soul, thinks he has the answer in the keys of his music, but the beauty of this latest Pixar film is it lives within the ambiguous places that aren’t be so easily defined. As yet another sophisticated offering from co-director Pete Docter, who previously co-helmed Inside Out, Soul pushes Pixar back toward its ambitious best, finding a way to convey complex ideas in an adventure with universal appeal.

With dazzling animation that leans into abstract concepts about life, death, and a weird transient state between the two, the film asks big questions in a way a child can appreciate, if not fully understand. To be sure, it’s the rare kids’ movie that gingerly suggests there is happiness in the seeming pointlessness of existence. It also benefits from ascendant music by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste on the piano. In fact, realizing Nine Inch Nails penned one of the great Disney scores might be 2020’s most pleasant surprise. – DC

11. Saint Maud

The directorial debut of Rose Glass did the festival circuit in 2019 and was due to land in cinemas in the spring. Instead it was pushed back to October in the UK, mid-pandemic. So perhaps it didn’t get the fanfare it would have garnered in a normal year. Set in a rundown seaside town, the movie sees young palliative care nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark) become obsessed with her patient Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), who is dying of cancer. After a highly traumatic incident, Maud has found God—a God she believes talks directly to her and has made it Maud’s mission to save Amanda’s soul.

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Saint Maud and the True Horror of Broken Minds and Bodies

By Rosie Fletcher

A nightmarish horror of shifting perception, where bodies and minds are in conflict, this is a movie packed with indelible imagery, not least the devastating final scene. Ehle is excellent as the former dancer whose body is letting her down, but Clark is a revelation as the tiny, fierce Maud, all self-flagellation and buttoned up piety until she’s not. – RF

10. Nomadland

Utilizing both actors and real people, director Chloé Zhao (The Rider and Marvel’s upcoming Eternals) chronicles the lives of America’s “forgotten people” as they travel the West, searching for work, companionship, and community in the years following the Great Recession. A brilliant Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman in her mid-60s who lost her husband, her house, and her entire previous existence when the town she lived in—Empire, Nevada—vanished off the map following the closure of its sole factory.

Zhao’s film quietly flows from despair to optimism and back to despair again, all while the hardscrabble lives of its itinerant cast (many of them actual nomads) is foregrounded against stunning, if lonely, vistas from the American countryside. Nomadland shows us both the best and worst of America at once: the cruelty of a nation that refuses more and more to take care of its own, juxtaposed with the decency and compassion one can find on an individual basis. Whether the latter is enough to overcome the former is one of Nomadland’s haunting, unanswered questions.  – DK

9. Wonder Woman 1984

A movie about flying and lying (even to one’s self), Wonder Woman 1984 came onto the pop culture scene at the very end of a very bad year. For many, the film’s muddled superhero logic and lackluster third act action scenes were enough to ruin the experience. For others, including many of us, the big budget earnestness of Diana Prince won the day. The film’s delights include charismatic performances from Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig as complex antagonists Maxwell Lord and Cheetah; a breathtaking Themyscira sequence; and Chris Pine pretending to ride an escalator for the first time.

Ultimately, however, Wonder Woman 1984 warrants a spot on this list due to its unexpected thematic priority. While many storytellers use a 1980s setting as an excuse to blast Blondie (fair enough), give the costume department free rein on shoulder pads (yes, please), or to harken back to an imagined simpler time (sure, whatever), director and co-writer Patty Jenkins uses it as a way to rewrite American history.

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If the 1980s was an era that saw economic policies shifting the power from government to Wall Street, then here is a superhero flick that goes back in time to imagine a different path forward, one in which America is able to avoid the path that prioritizes the few over the many. It’s a fantasy, sure—and one that is understandably too porous for some to enjoy—but it’s a particularly cathartic one for 2020. – Kayti Burt

8. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Adapted from August Wilson’s play by director George C. Wolfe (and not quite able to escape its stage origins), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is set during a heated recording session by the title artist–one of the pioneering blues singers of the 1920s–and her touring band. As tensions rise between Ma (Viola Davis) and certain band members, plus Ma and the white men, who of course own the record label, the band members find themselves at odds over the music they’re making and much more.

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While Ma and the events of the story may be fictionalized, the issues that come up—race, religion, money, and art—are not just universal but as relevant as ever in terms of the Black experience in America. Davis is a supernova as Ma, and the rest of the supporting cast is just as terrific. Yet the spotlight undeniably belongs to the late Chadwick Boseman in his final screen appearance. As Levee, the trumpeter who wants to go solo, Boseman radiates rage, pain, and frustration in a performance as incendiary as it is tragic. – DK 

7. Birds of Prey

Harley Quinn’s fabulous emancipation was just that—fabulous. As a fierce, funny, feminist ensemble piece with a quality cast that flipped on its head Harley’s dubious treatment at the hands of Mr. J in Suicide Squad, Harley herself, Margot Robbie, pitched the movie back in 2015. Birds of Prey shows a different side to Gotham City where a grubby underworld of people are trying to scratch together a living, and the only thing objectified in this female team-up is a bacon and egg sandwich (and what a sandwich it is). 

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Working from a script by Christina Hodson, director Cathy Yan’s film has a totally different flavor from anything that had come before from the DCEU. R-Rated, rude, and colorful, the movie sees the whole of Gotham out to get Harley now that she’s no longer under the Joker’s protection. But a young pickpocket, a stolen diamond, and Ewan McGregor’s gangster bring together a mismatched bunch in a joyful slice of anarchy that hits exactly the right notes. Superhero movies don’t get much more fun than this. – RF

6. Mank

The authorship of Citizen Kane has divided critics and film scholars for generations. So you can almost sense the glee boiling up in David Fincher as Mank wades right into the middle of it with a stylized and exquisitely crafted love letter to Herman J. Mankiewicz—and proverbial middle finger toward Orson Welles. One sympathizes, as Mankiewicz (or “Mank”) has been an unsung figure in film history: a member of New York’s 1920s generation of literary writers and journalists who bought into the allure of easy money in Hollywood but never got the credit he deserved for selling his soul.

Well, Mank attempts to return it with interest. A film that basks in demolishing Old Hollywood nostalgia, even with its black and white photography and heightened melodramatic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Mank recalls the ugly side of yesteryear, and the greed that slaughtered talent, be it for money as embodied by Louis B. Mayer, or ego as personified by the film’s vision of Welles.

Yet its elegy for Mankiewicz—portrayed with delicious self-loathing by Gary Oldman—and his generation of forgotten writers is what makes the film unexpectedly warm for a Fincher joint. As does Mank’s relationship with Marion Davies, an also overlooked movie star given spirited reconsideration by Amanda Seyfried in one of the year’s best performances. – DC 

5. Palm Springs

There must be something hypnotic about the banality of time loops, because to date the concept hasn’t produced a bad movie. Harold Ramis and Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day remains the paterfamilias, and prime original day, for the form. Yet that film’s many imitators have still pushed other filmmakers toward genuine inspiration. And that may have never been truer than for Palm Springs, a millennial reimagining of Groundhog’s exploration of a romance stuck on repeat—but with an ingenious added wrinkle.

Instead of one half a potential couple being oblivious to her role in a cyclical love story, both Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) are keenly aware of their shared Sisyphean hell. Worse still, they’re also trapped at a lame wedding. The small addition has massive creative repercussions, with director Max Barbakow and company lightly critiquing the implicit ickiness in Ramis’ film, as well as providing an opportunity for a true two-hander film between Samberg and Milioti. It’s Samberg’s best work to date, but Milioti is the real revelation as the woman who is our eyes and ears into a circular existence that is both horrifying and pleasant, romantic and exhausting. Like the film as a whole, this is a delightful nightmare. – DC

4. Da 5 Bloods

Hollywood’s great reckoning with America’s involvement in the Vietnam War may never truly end. But few films have gotten to the human cost of the war that lingers long after soldiers came home quite as emotionally as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods.

Alternately a heartfelt tale of friendship and identity amidst shared hardship and a raucous action movie, effortlessly connecting the dots between the racial politics of the Civil Rights era during the Vietnam War and the Black Lives Matter movement of today, Da 5 Bloods may be the most clear-sighted movie about the conflict ever made. The film’s emotional power is bolstered even further by a rousing Terence Blanchard score, as well as a significant chunk of Marvin Gaye’s era-defining masterpiece album, What’s Going On.   

Even at 156 minutes, Da 5 Bloods never overstays its welcome. Despite an action heavy third act that may seem incongruous with some of the film’s weightier themes, its characters are so powerful, and the performances so unforgettable, that nothing is ever lost. And while each of the film’s five leads (not to mention Chadwick Boseman’s almost ethereal “Stormin’” Norman Holloway, seen only in flashback) are terrific, none are more haunting than Delroy Lindo’s manic, tortured turn as Paul, a soldier still bearing the scars of war, both foreign and domestic. – MC

3. Promising Young Woman

Carey Mulligan plays against type in this candy colored fable of an avenging angel who goes to nightclubs and pretends to be wasted in order to shame the men who try to take her home and take advantage. It’s an ultra modern take on the rape-revenge subgenre with a very female gaze. Mulligan’s Cassie is a delicate clothes horse with multicolored nails who works in a coffee shop and lives with her parents—her brand of revenge is specific, personal, and highly female.

Despite the dark subject matter, this is an unashamedly fun film (um, until it’s not) with a killer soundtrack. It’s the directorial debut of actor Emerald Fennell (most recently seen playing Camilla in The Crown), who also wrote the picture, and she reveals an extremely distinctive style. A starry supporting cast also deliver uniformly excellent performances, including Bo Burnham, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Adam Brodie, and Alfred Molina, which makes this feel big budget glossy.

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But it’s Mulligan’s movie. It’s impossible to take your eyes off her, and she owns the screen as a powerful warrior, a vulnerable soul, and a heroine for our times. – RF

2. The Invisible Man

A Blumhouse redo of a Universal classic from the bloke who wrote Saw, on paper this wouldn’t be an obvious contender for a year-end best list. But then The Invisible Man isn’t an obvious movie. As the last film many saw at the cinema before lockdown landed, The Invisible Man is an incredibly smart take on the H.G. Wells story, which focuses not on the scientist who creates the suit that makes him invisible, but the woman he uses it to terrorize.  

He may be “the guy who wrote Saw,” but writer-director Leigh Whannell has proved himself incredibly adept at a certain kind of action/horror with this and Upgrade—both include thrilling sequences of people who aren’t in control of their own bodies. Here it’s Elisabeth Moss who is being stalked by her abusive ex-boyfriend. Whannell uses the conceit to great effect: It’s a movie about gaslighting, which has the audience scanning the peripheries of the scene at all times, keeping us on edge, just like Cece, and wrong footing us all the same.

Top notch performances and serious subject matter handled with panache make this a scary standout for any year. We can’t wait to see what Whannell does with The Wolfman… – RF

1. The Trial of the Chicago 7

“The whole world is watching.” That is the chant shouted throughout Aaron Sorkin’s second directorial effort, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and it echoes in our 2020 ears like the Ghost of Christmas Past. A little more than 50 years ago, the United States government put eight men on trial for protesting the Democratic National Convention—and the Vietnam War its presumptive nominee supported. This legal circus occurred even though the riot that broke out during the protests was started by the police. It would be understatement to note it all plays as eerily prescient today.

Beyond the loaded political subtexts though, the movie’s placement on this list reflects what happens when Sorkin’s screenplays achieve their greatest alchemy: With words being deployed in a courtroom as ruthlessly as batons were on a summer night in Chicago, each dialogue exchange in Chicago 7 is kinetic. The film defies the seemingly stagey quality of its legal setting, and not by just inserting flashbacks to a recreation of the 1968 riots (though they’re here too), but by turning verbose monologues into thrilling set pieces. Defense attorneys duel prosecutors; defendants defy a shockingly biased and corrupt judge; and believers in the system, like Sorkin himself, stare into the abyss of what happens when it fails.

All of these elements amplify the film’s vision of protestors from “the far left” running into the hard wall of mainstream resistance to change. It’s a showcase for Sorkin, his editor Alan Baumgarten, and the whole ensemble, particularly in one grueling sequence between Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Bobby Seale and Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman. The Trial of the Chicago 7 can be horrifying in places, and yet always engrossing. And most miraculously of all, it’s never cynical. That might be why it electrifies most at this moment. – DC

Other movies receiving balloted votes (in descending order): Relic, The News of the World, Uncle Frank, Never Always Sometimes, Class Action Park, Freaky, The Way Back, The Old Guard, Synchronic, The Devil All the Time, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Enola Holmes, Shirley, Unpregnant, Wolfwalkers, Rebecca, On the Rocks, MLK/FBI, Scare Me, The Lodge, Happiest Season, I’m Your Woman, Bill & Ted 3, The Platform, Monsoon, Possessor, Ordinary Love, Miss Juneteenth, Athlete A, How to Build a Girl, The Vast of Night, What the Constitution Means to Me, Muscle, Calm the Horses, Color Out of Space, Eurovision, Another Round, Misbehaviour, The Boys in the Band, Borat 2, Extraction, Midnight Sky, Zappa, The Half of It, Greenland, 7500, Onward, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Nest, Bad Hair, Capone, Project Power, New Order, The Gentlemen, Lost Girls, The 40 Year-Old-Version.

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