According to Letterboxd I watched 301 movies in 2021, although that figure does include short films and a couple of TV series, which are a bit of a cheat. Nevertheless, it was a lot. Yet I still managed to miss seeing a bunch of things I suspect might’ve made the end of year cut, like The French Dispatch, Spider-Man No Way Home, Coda, Candyman and Licorice Pizza. Anyway, here are my 2021 favourites.
Top 10 Movies of 2021
1. Dune
Denis Villeneuve’s reverent vision of Frank Herbert’s masterpiece was rich in detail and stunning to look at. It was everything I wanted from an adaptation of my all-time favourite book.
2. Nine Days
Edson Oda’s otherwordly debut really struck a chord. In asking us to resist the temptation to see only the bad in life, it argues ‘simple pleasures’ are a misnomer because experiencing them is meaningful. Simultaneously uplifting and sad without ever becoming saccharine, it’s a truly unique, engaging and often beautiful existential drama.
3. The Suicide Squad
Although it’s half an hour too long and basically The Expendables with monsters, The Suicide Squad was genuinely funny, gloriously foul and thoroughly enjoyable. A great surprise and I liked it a lot.
4. Pig
Cage Ragers will be disappointed that Pig contains none of the wackiness that might be assumed from its synopsis: a hermit truffle hunter tracks the thieves who stole his pig. Instead, it’s a melancholy indie about a broken man and the unusual world of fine dining. Pig’s slow unfold is very worthwhile and Cage is expertly restrained.
5. Mad God
I’m still not entirely sure what to say about Phil Tippet’s inventive, stunning, utterly deranged stop-motion nightmare. An animated atrocity, three decades in the making, consisting of a threadbare plot and an eyeful of wretched, disturbed imagery. Truly, a horror movie in every sense. You have never seen a film like it.
6. The Green Knight
Arthouse medieval fantasy sees Dev Patel off in search of an Arthurian Swamp Thing. I thought this looked fantastic, was kind of pretentious (in a good way) and I dig its big weirdo energy.
7. Love and Monsters
Although a 2020 movie for most of the world, this didn’t see an Australian release until it hit Netflix in April. Love and Monsters’ giant bug apocalypse and great big heart transcended its simple quest plotline, and it was a heck of a lot of fun.
8. You Cannot Kill David Arquette
A little unsure about the release dates for this documentary as it was sent to us for review this year as a digital release but I have a feeling it was already streaming on Stan. Nevertheless, this was a highly entertaining documentary about David Arquette’s return to the wrestling ring and his search for redemption. Proving You Cannot Kill David Arquette… but you can beat him to a bloody pulp!
9. Kate
In fairness, I’m sure Kate isn’t ending up in a lot of ‘Best Of’ lists, but I really had a surprisingly good time with this tale of a poisoned assassin racing against the clock to exact bloody revenge. Although it shamelessly steals from bozo-action masterpiece, Crank, I really didn’t care that much because it felt more like homage than theft. Kate is a solid slice of genre revenge / action and frankly, I could watch Mary Elizabeth Winstead kick peoples’ ass all day long.
10. Don’t Breathe 2
The last half hour of Don’t Breathe 2 is so heroically berserk, that it takes an average home invasion thriller and catapults it into the stratosphere. You can’t help but sit back and tip your hat to a film that suddenly decides to detach itself from any delusions of believability. It’s kind of stupid, but I really enjoyed it.
2021 Vision: favourite first time watches
Possessor (2020)
Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott head up a great cast in this trippy, hyper-violent piece of sci-fi horror. An irresistible concept - corporate assassins ‘possessing’ the innocent in order to carry out hits – and some impressive visuals make Possessor well worth is reputation and, for my money, one of the best horror movies of the 2000s.
Tigers Are Not Afraid [Vuelven] (2017)
Melding fantasy elements with real life horror and a Devil’s Backbone vibe, Tigers Are Not Afraid is part supernatural horror, part drug war drama and I liked it lot.
Samurai Cop (1991)
I’m always wary of anything that’s been cretinously dubbed ‘so bad it’s good’, but there is so much to unpack in Samurai Cop: spectacular dialogue, bizarre reaction shots, weird ADR / dubbing voices, double entendres that don’t work, Robert Z’Dar hiding inside a hospital trolley, some truly inept gun fights, a weird woollen lion’s head, a foot chase undermined by a neighbourhood dog running along the fence line, a stuntman’s wig falling off, and… finally… a Gerald Okamura love scene that you cannot ever unsee! Samurai Cop delivers!
Scanner Cop 1 & 2 (1994/1995)
What if you took David Cronenberg’s Scanners and shoehorned it into an action cop movie? The Scanner Cop movies assure us that this is a great idea and you know what? They’re right, because there’s loads of great gore and gloopy practical effects; the best photofit ID scene in cinema history; and in Scanner Cop 2, the villain cranks everything up to eleven, takes a bath in the middle of the movie for no reason! Absolutely bonkers, in all the best ways.
Nemesis (1992)
Sitting somewhere between Hardware, The Terminator and Blade Runner, Nemesis has great practical effects, Brion James doing a terrible German accent and a marvellously po-faced turn from Oliver Gruner. It has a ridiculously vague plot - some data has been stolen! - and it slipped under my radar for years. But it’s a total banger.
Worst of 2020
Willy’s Wonderland works better as an idea, than as a film you actually have to sit down and watch, besides Tammy And The T-Rex already did the whole animatronic gore thing and it was a lot stupider and a lot more fun.
I really loved Kong Skull Island a hell of a lot, so it was painful to discover how abjectly dreadful Godzilla vs Kong is. There were too many characters, an endless succession of pulled-from-thin-air plot exposition (was it written by a child?) and some unforgivably dull monster fighting. Also I’m no computer expert, but even I know you can’t download a rock!
Monster Hunter did everything wrong: from its terrible console CGI, to putting Ron Perlman in a laughable wig and dragging his dignity through the mud. And that’s before we even ask what the point of having Tony Jaa in your movie is, if all his fight scenes are so close in and edited so tightly that they are completely incomprehensible? Or point out how many better movies Monster Hunter stole its ideas from (hint: it’s loads).
