They are two of the fall award season’s most star-studded and discussed films. David O’Russell returns to directing for the first time since 2015 with Amsterdam, a massive production spanning two continents and set in a post-WW1 period of free-spirited decadence and simmering fascism. And Olivia Wilde’s tabloid-fodder retro-mystery Don’t Worry Darling, which pits Florence Pugh against The American Dream in a ‘50s milieu that demands a blind eye be turned to hideous misogyny.
Prior to release, they were both singled-out as Oscar frontrunners and in all likelihood will still factor, albeit in below-the-line categories like costume design, art direction, production design. Both are stunning films to look at, their imagined worlds rich with colours and camera tricks that provide some giddy visual moments. Pugh might jag a Best Actress nomination for her gutsy turn, too. But critics have been a bit down on them as a whole - Don’t Worry Darling has some passionate advocates, but is topping out at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes; Amsterdam, slightly worse off at 35%.
I’m in the Fresh Tomato crate on both, while also certainly acknowledging that both films are flawed in ways they shouldn’t be (especially Amsterdam, which is O’Russell at his most wildly self-indulgent). What I find particularly fascinating is that they are mainstream studio projects that give full-flight to entirely constructed realities constructed to address the most pertinent social issues of contemporary Western society. Yes, I wish they were better films, but I’m glad they are being made at all. (Pictured, right: from left, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy in Amsterdam)
Don’t Worry Darling imagines a manicured suburban paradise built to serve the male employees of The Victory Project, a secret undertaking that starts to smell to Alice (Florence Pugh) like a global domination cult based on the principles of patriarchal superiority. She’s married to the upwardly mobile Jack (Harry Styles), one of the key offsiders to the Hank Scorpion-like Victory Project boss, Frank (Chris Pine), who demands the ladies of his utopian America just lay back and enjoy the spoils of their husband’s worklife, no questions asked. Wilde and scriptwriter Katie Silberman work in some fantasy elements to shade the film in cool scifi-ey, genre beats, but the message finds an urgent clarity - ladies, fight back, kicking and screaming, or lose your voice entirely.
Amsterdam bounces back and forth between 1930’s NYC, the European theatre of conflict in 1917 and the titular bohemia of 1919. Two wounded soldier buddies (Christian Bale, John David Washington) bond with a French/not-French nurse (Margot Robbie) in a friendship pact that carries them all the way to the soulless strengthening of corporate greed in a booming pre-WWII U.S. economy. From that dark seed, the ties that bind fascism and capitalism are sown. There are a multitude of eccentric sideways deviations in O’Russell’s ‘cuckoo’ farce, affording a whole lot of stars (Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Ed Begley Jr, Robert de Niro, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift) some flavoursome bit parts. But mostly, Amsterdam is a nutty, noisy narrative about the birth of Trump’s America.
The end-goal impact that Wilde and O’Russell were working towards is to be found in two landmark films that remain relevant today. Don’t Worry Darling recalls The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes' 1975 original, and definitely not Frank Oz’s 2004 misdirection), which conjures a similar well-to-do American middle class designed to continually strengthen the patriarchy. And both films want to expose the horrors of modern life in the way that Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol did in 1998 with The Truman Show, the visionary takedown of the entertainment sector’s most shameless exploitation model, the then newly-minted world of reality TV. (Pictured, above: Katharine Ross in The Stepford Wives)
Neither Don’t Worry Darling nor Amsterdam nail it with precision, but they do indicate that smart, ambitious, high-end social commentary is still on the studio agenda. Audiences may need a little more convincing; at time of writing, O’Russell’s US$80million folly is bombing, while Wilde’s starry vision is waning after a strong first week. And there are factors out of the industry’s control that are in play, like the difficulty more adult-skewing pics are having in drawing audiences post-COVID. But both films suggest that at least some of the Hollywood hierarchy take their role as arbiters of the world’s most popular and influential artform seriously.
Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF) has unveiled its 2022 program, a mammoth undertaking that will bring over 130 sessions and exclusive events to the Coffs Harbour region over 16 jam-packed days, from Thursday 21st April to Friday 6th May, 2022.
Building on the success of its 2021 Festival, SWIFF has cemented itself on the Australian film festival circuit as the premiere regional film event. In addition to hosting over 80 different feature films in 2022, SWIFF is looking to break its attendance record with the addition of its new Storyland music festival, taking place on Saturday 23rd April at Park Beach Reserve, headlined by Courtney Barnett and Hiatus Kaiyote.
SWIFF Artistic Director, Kate Howat says, “People are ready to embrace shared arts experiences again. Seeing the enthusiasm for the festival has given us license to grow bolder though, both in the addition of Storyland, and in the comprehensive film line-up we’ve made for all the film tragics out there, just like us.”
SWIFF audiences will be among the first in Australia to witness The Northman (pictured, right), the latest epic cinematic masterpiece from the visionary director, Robert Eggers (The Witch, 2015; The Lighthouse, 2020), featuring an all-star line up of Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Claus Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe and, in an exciting return to the big screen after a 20-year absence, Icelandic superstar Björk.
Reinforcing its status as a truly international film event, works from 40 countries feature in this year’s World Cinema program, making it the most culturally rich line-up in SWIFF history. Highlights of the program include Kogonada’s trippy sci-fier After Yang, with Colin Farrell, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar frontrunner, Drive My Car, Sebastian Meise’s Venice Best Film winner, Great Freedom; Julia Ducornau's auto-erotica Palme d'Or winner Titane; and, the great Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, A Hero.
Already established as a festival dedicated to local sector representation, SWIFF ‘22 will comprise a line-up of the very best in new Australian films. These include the AWGIE Award winner Ablaze, directed by Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus, and Ithak, the story of John Shipton, father of imprisoned Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in his fight to save his son. John Shipton, Gabriel Shipton and director Ben Lawrence are guests of the Festival.
Honouring one of the most audacious filmmakers of all time, Paul Verhoeven’s catalogue of films will take centre stage in a seven film retrospective at SWIFF. Among them are the groundbreaking 1992 blockbuster Basic Instinct; the nihilistic classic, Robocop; the rarely-seen early works Spetters (1980) and Flesh+Blood (1985, and starring festival patron, Jack Thompson); and, his latest shocker, the religious satire/nunsploitation pic, Benedetta. The strand offers a unique insight into the work of a pure provocateur whose heady cinematic cocktails mix violence, sexuality, and ambiguity, with lashings of social commentary.
The program will also showcase an extensive line-up of documentaries including the Oscar-nominated Flee, a thrilling vision fusing animation and archival footage to tell the story of a gay Afghan refugee; the Australian Premiere of Sam & Mattie Make a Zombie Movie (pictured, right), the story of two New England teenagers with Down syndrome who write and shoot their first feature film; and, the self-reflexive I Get Knocked Down, from Chumbawamba founder and anarcho-punk rocker, Dunstan Bruce.
Closing SWIFF’22 will be Everything Everywhere All At Once, by visionary filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels (Swiss Army Man, 2016; The Death of Dick Long, 2020), a hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure starring acclaimed actress Michelle Yeoh and the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis.
SWIFF Live returns with two film screenings accompanied by live music on stage. In Beautiful Dark: The Music of Twin Peaks, the iconic music of David Lynch’s masterpiece will be performed by Beautiful Dark, a 7-piece ensemble band, taking audiences on a journey through Lynch’s strange and mysterious world. And in an exclusive partnership with The Surf Film Archive, SWIFF ‘22 will present the World Premiere of That Was Then, This is Now, collaborating with Australian director Jolyon Hoff alongside live music composers Headland, to screen on Saturday 30th April at the CHEC Theatre.
SWIFF’22 is proudly presented by Ashton Designs, with Storyland made possible by the Australian Federal Government’s RISE Fund, and the NSW State Government through the Regional Event Acceleration Fund, Create NSW, and Regional Arts NSW.
Jane Campion’s creepy, complex western The Power of the Dog nestled into the laps of Academy members, leading the 2022 Oscar nominations pack with 12 nods. Other contenders fell in line with award season trajectory, with the space epic Dune landing 10 nominations and the retro-spectacles West Side Story and Belfast both nabbing seven. Those four frontrunners will be joined in the Best Picture race by CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, King Richard, Licorice Pizza and Nightmare Alley.
With her Best Director nomination, Campion (pictured, below) becomes the first woman in Oscar history to earn two directing nominations, her last being in 1993 for the The Piano. She won the Adapted Screenplay award that year, an honour she is in line for again in 2022.
Other milestones established with the 2022 nominee list include the second deaf nominee in Oscar history (CODA’s Troy Kotsur in the Supporting Actor category); Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast haul, making him the only person to earn seven Oscar nominations in seven different categories (in addition to Belfast, he’s been nominated previously for Hamlet, Henry V, live-action short film Swan Song, and My Week With Marilyn); and, Being the Ricardo’s Javier Bardem and Parallel Mother’s Penélope Cruz becoming the sixth married couple to be nominated for acting in the same year.
There were two “What the f*** just happened?!?” omissions from the nominee list. On the crest of an award season wave, Lady Gaga was bumped for Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, with Oscar favouring Kristen Stewart for Spencer (who had missed SAG and BAFTA consideration in recent weeks; pictured, below) and Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (considered a waning outsider by Oscar analysts). And Denis Villeneuve found himself being Beresford-ed by the Academy, with Dune’s ten nominations not including a Best Director mention (perhaps Part 2 of the saga will rectify that).
The Academy also chose not to pander to high-profile commercial success as a means by which to reverse sagging viewership. Blockbuster status did not bolster the nomination count for No Time to Die (three, including a Best Song nod for Billie Eilish plus Sound and Visual Effects) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (a sole Visual Effects mention).
In fact, studios will be hoping that nominations will re-energise the box office takings of several of the nominees. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story will head back into theatres nationally, hoping its cumulative box office of US$36million will surge on the back of its seven nominations. Other films looking for the ‘Oscar Bump’ include Guilleremo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley (4 noms with US$11million banked); Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard (6 noms with takings of $15million); Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (3 noms against US$13million so far) and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s arthouse hopeful Drive My Car (4 noms with US$950k from a very limited release).
The 94th annual Academy Awards will be held on March 27 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, with the in-person ceremony to be televised on ABC in the US and Foxtel in Australia.
The full list of 2022 Academy Award nominees are:
BEST PICTURE Belfast (Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Producers) CODA (Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi and Patrick Wachsberger, Producers) Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers) Drive My Car (Teruhisa Yamamoto, Producer) Dune (Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve and Cale Boyter, Producers) King Richard (Tim White, Trevor White and Will Smith, Producers) Licorice Pizza (Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers) Nightmare Alley (Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale and Bradley Cooper, Producers) The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier, Producers) West Side Story (Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers)
BEST DIRECTOR Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza); Kenneth Branagh (Belfast); Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog); Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car); Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)
BEST ACTRESS Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye); Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter); Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers); Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos); Kristen Stewart (Spencer)
BEST ACTOR Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos); Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog); Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick … Boom!); Will Smith (King Richard); Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter); Ariana DeBose (West Side Story); Judi Dench (Belfast); Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog); Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Ciarán Hinds (Belfast); Troy Kotsur (CODA); Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog); J.K. Simmons (Being the Ricardos); Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN Cruella (Jenny Beavan); Cyrano (Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran); Dune (Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan); Nightmare Alley (Luis Sequeira); West Side Story (Paul Tazewell)
BEST SOUND Belfast (Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather and Niv Adiri); Dune (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett); No Time to Die (Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey and Mark Taylor); The Power of the Dog (Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb); West Side Story (Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy)
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Don’t Look Up (Nicholas Britell); Dune (Hans Zimmer); Encanto (Germaine Franco); Parallel Mothers (Alberto Iglesias); The Power of the Dog (Jonny Greenwood)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CODA (screenplay by Siân Heder); Drive My Car (screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe); Dune (screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth); The Lost Daughter (written by Maggie Gyllenhaal); The Power of the Dog (written by Jane Campion)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Belfast (written by Kenneth Branagh); Don’t Look Up (screenplay by Adam McKay; story by Adam McKay & David Sirota); King Richard (written by Zach Baylin); Licorice Pizza (written by Paul Thomas Anderson); The Worst Person in the World (written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier)
BEST ANIMATED SHORT Affairs of the Art (Joanna Quinn and Les Mills); Bestia (Hugo Covarrubias and Tevo Díaz); Boxballet (Anton Dyakov); Robin Robin (Dan Ojari and Mikey Please); The Windshield Wiper (Alberto Mielgo and Leo Sanchez)
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT Ala Kachuu — Take and Run (Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger); The Dress (Tadeusz Lysiak and Maciej Ślesicki); The Long Goodbye (Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed); On My Mind (Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson); Please Hold (K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse)
BEST FILM EDITING Don’t Look Up (Hank Corwin); Dune (Joe Walker); King Richard (Pamela Martin); The Power of the Dog (Peter Sciberras); Tick, Tick … Boom! (Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum)
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING Coming 2 America (Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer); Cruella (Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon); Dune (Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr); The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh); House of Gucci (Göran Lundström, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Encanto (Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer); Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie); Luca (Enrico Casarosa and Andrea Warren); The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Kurt Albrecht); Raya and the Last Dragon (Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Osnat Shurer and Peter Del Vecho)
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy and Nathan Truesdell); Attica (Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry); Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sorensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie); Summer of Soul (Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein); Writing With Fire (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh)
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Audible (Matt Ogens and Geoff McLean); Lead Me Home (Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk); The Queen of Basketball (Ben Proudfoot); Three Songs for Benazir (Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei); When We Were Bullies (Jay Rosenblatt)
BEST ORIGINAL SONG “Be Alive” — music and lyrics by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (King Richard) “Dos Oruguitas” — music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto) “Down to Joy” — music and lyrics by Van Morrison (Belfast) “No Time to Die” — music and lyrics by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (No Time to Die) “Somehow You Do” — music and lyrics by Diane Warren (Four Good Days)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Dune (Greig Fraser); Nightmare Alley (Dan Laustsen); The Power of the Dog (Ari Wegner); The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bruno Delbonnel); West Side Story (Janusz Kaminski)
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE Drive My Car (Japan); Flee (Denmark); The Hand of God (Italy); Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan); The Worst Person in the World (Norway)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Dune (production design: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos); Nightmare Alley (production design: Tamara Deverell; set decoration: Shane Vieau); The Power of the Dog (production design: Grant Major; set decoration: Amber Richards); The Tragedy of Macbeth (production design: Stefan Dechant; set decoration: Nancy Haigh); West Side Story (production design: Adam Stockhausen; set decoration: Rena DeAngelo)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Dune (Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer); Free Guy (Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick); No Time to Die (Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould); Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver); Spider-Man: No Way Home (Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick)
A musical based on the people’s princess, a tone-deaf and toothless social satire and a former global superstar now just in it for the cash are in the critical crosshairs of the voters of 2021 Golden Raspberry Awards, aka ‘The Razzies’.
Leading the nominations with 9 Razzie mentions is director Christopher Ashley’s Diana the Musical (pictured, below), Netflix’s excruciating adaptation of the lambasted Broadway bomb (it shuttered after 40 performances in the wake of brutal reviews). Coke Daniel’s privileged white-woman takedown Karen, a project that seemed like a good idea at the time but which somehow proved more offensive than the ‘Karens’ it portrayed, came in second with 5 nominations.
In a first for the organisers, the 2021 Razzies will honour actor Bruce Willis with his own category, the bald capitalist having released no less than eight films in the last calendar year, each worse than the one before. Once one of international cinema's biggest names, Willis has resigned himself to roles that sometimes take only hours to shoot for projects that are never likely to surface anywhere other than physical media dump-bins in electronic superstores. Nevertheless, such comitment was deemed worthy of mention by the awards body, no doubt due in part to Willis' long Razzie history; he has two trophies to his name (1999 Worst Actor; 1992 Worst Screenplay) and a further five nominations.
Major Hollywood studios were determined not to miss out, providing such dregs as the Amy Adams potboiler The Woman in the Window, from 20th Century Fox (5 nominations); Stephen Chbosky’s misguided musical effort, Dear Evan Hansen, courtesy of Universal (4 nominations); Warner Bros. product placement extravaganza, Space Jam: A New Legacy (4 nominations); and, Mark Wahlberg’s execrable actioner Infinite (3 nominations), which Paramount pulled from its theatrical schedule and cynically repackaged to launch its own streaming service.
A-listers to feel the Razzie sting include Ben Affleck for his “I’m going to be in my own movie!” performance opposite Matt Damon in Ridley Scott’s dud, The Last Duel; Jared Leto (pictured, left), only recognizable by the brazen, Leto-esque self-belief that he could pull off his ‘jowly Guiseppe’ role in Ridley Scott’s other dud, House of Gucci; and, the once high-flying Amy Adams, who earned two noms, for Dear Evan Hansen and The Woman in the Window.
The 42nd annual Golden Raspberry award ceremony will be held on March 26, the traditional ‘Oscar’s Eve’ slot that The Razzies have made its own.
Full list of nominees:
WORST PICTURE Diana the Musical (The Netflix Version); Infinite; Karen; Space Jam: A New Legacy; The Woman in the Window
WORST ACTOR Scott Eastwood / Dangerous; Roe Hartrampf (As Prince Charles) / Diana the Musical; LeBron James / Space Jam: A New Legacy; Ben Platt / Dear Evan Hansen; Mark Wahlberg / Infinite
WORST ACTRESS Amy Adams / The Woman in the Window; Jeanna de Waal / Diana the Musical; Megan Fox / Midnight in the Switchgrass; Taryn Manning / Karen; Ruby Rose / Vanquish
WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Amy Adams / Dear Evan Hansen; Sophie Cookson / Infinite; Erin Davie (As Camilla) / Diana the Musical; Judy Kaye (As BOTH Queen Elizabeth & Barbara Cartland) / Diana the Musical; Taryn Manning / Every Last One of Them
WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR Ben Affleck / The Last Duel; Nick Cannon / The Misfits; Mel Gibson / Dangerous; Gareth Keegan (As James Hewitt, the Muscle-Bound Horse Trainer) / Diana the Musical; Jared Leto / House of Gucci
WORST PERFORMANCE by BRUCE WILLIS in a 2021 MOVIE (Special Category) Bruce Willis / American Siege; Bruce Willis / Apex; Bruce Willis / Cosmic Sin; Bruce Willis / Deadlock; Bruce Willis / Fortress; Bruce Willis / Midnight in the Switchgrass; Bruce Willis / Out of Death; Bruce Willis / Survive the Game
WORST SCREEN COUPLE Diana the Musical - Any Klutzy Cast Member & Any Lamely Lyricized (or Choreographed) Musical Number. Space Jam: A New Legacy - LeBron James & Any Warner Cartoon Character (or Time-Warner Product) He Dribbles on House of Gucci - Jared Leto & EITHER His 17-Pound Latex Face, His Geeky Clothes or His Ridiculous Accent Dear Evan Hansen - Ben Platt & Any Other Character Who Acts Like Platt Singing 24-7 is Normal Tom & Jerry the Movie - Tom & Jerry (aka Itchy & Scratchy)
WORST REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL Karen (Inadvertent Remake of Cruella deVil); Space Jam: A New Legacy; Tom & Jerry the Movie; Twist (Rap remake of Oliver Twist); The Woman in the Window (Rip-Off of Rear Window)
WORST DIRECTOR Christopher Ashley / Diana the Musical; Stephen Chbosky / Dear Evan Hansen; “Coke” Daniels / Karen; Renny Harlin / The Misfits; Joe Wright / The Woman in the Window
WORST SCREENPLAY Diana the Musical / Script by Joe DiPietro, Music and Lyrics by DiPietro and David Bryan Karen / Written by "Coke" Daniels The Misfits / Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Robert Henny, Screen Story by Henny Twist / Written by John Wrathall & Sally Collett, Additional Material by Matthew Parkhill, Michael Lindley, Tom Grass & Kevin Lehane, from an “Original Idea” by David & Keith Lynch and Simon Thomas The Woman in the Window / Screenplay by Tracy Letts, from the Novel by A.J. Finn
For most of 2021, old Sydney town was COVID shuttered. Not since…last year, actually…has the cinema experience been such a truncated, compromised one. The US summer blockbusters earned perfunctory, catch-me-if-you-can releases (The Suicide Squad; Malignant; Space Jam) or were bumped again (come in, Top Gun Maverick?). Some finally landed, like No Time to Die and Dune, though with question marks over whether they maxed-out their box-office potential or felt a little ‘fatigued’. It would be the streaming services that thrived in 2021 - sixteen of my Top 20 films were watched in my ‘critic’s cave’.
Which made not a shred of difference to the quality of 2021 films. As I write this, Spiderman: No Way Home is smashing box office records on the back of great reviews. The award season is taking shape with films like Licorice Pizza, Spencer, The Tragedy of Macbeth, King Richard and Belfast entering the fray. And the streamers continue their push for critical relevance and commercial dominance, offering films like Don’t Look Up (Netflix), Finch (Apple+) and Being The Ricardos (Amazon Prime).
So let’s get on with celebrating the films that provided a jolt of exhilaration (and a handful that sucked) in this shit of a year...
1. CODA (Dir: Sian Heder; USA, 111 mins) Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only able-hearing member of a deaf family. She’s got talent, is smart, and is destined for a life beyond the family’s struggling fishing business, but stepping away from her role as a Child Of Deaf Parents… And so Sian Heder’s wrenching drama is set in motion, charting a deceptively simple journey that breaks down one’s expectations of a film that pitches like a ‘Movie of the Week’ but plays out like…well, like the year’s best film. Wait for the bait-&-switch moment at Ruby’s school concert; it reduced your cynical, ‘seen-it-all’ film reviewer to a sobbing wreck.
2. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Dir: Joachim Trier; Norway, 127 mins) Julie is someone we’ve all known, or may have been - an unsettled, impetuous twenty-something trying to understand how she fits into everyone’s expectations of her life. Serious romance, cohabitation, marriage, kids…blah, blah, blah. Joachim Trier’s film is a journey with Julie which subverts, even defies, the well-trodden path to society’s version of maturity. We are engaged with every honest frame of this transcendent story because of Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve; her ‘Julie’ is and will remain a touchstone film character for the ages.
3. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (Dir: Edgar Wright; UK, 116 mins) All the key indicators were in place - director Edgar Wright, primed to bring his command of the camera to the visually propulsive setting of London in the ‘60s; two actresses, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tommasin McKenzie, duking it out for ‘it-girl’ status; and, above all else, an original high-concept genre piece. The result was a giddy, thrilling, slightly daft but pulsating chiller that both honoured and challenged the ‘stylish slasher’ sensibilities of classic Hitchcock and De Palma.
4. SHIVA BABY (Dir: Emma Seligman; USA, 77 mins) A perfectly directionless Jewish twenty-something (the wonderful Rachel Sennot) finds all the tensions in her life colliding under one roof at the titular funeral service in Emma Seligman’s masterpiece of discomfort. This comedic, white-knuckle emotional journey somehow emerges as a romantic, sexy, bittersweet snapshot of millenial uncertainty.
5. ADRIENNE (Dir: Andy Ostroy; USA, 98 mins) Adrienne Shelley was a ‘90s indie darling, the toast of Sundance after the Hal Hartley films The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, and on the verge of breakout success as director and co-star of Waitress, when she was murdered. Her widower Andy Ostroy reconciles the loss of Adrienne through a multi-tiered recounting of her career, their life and, in the most heartbreaking of many heartbreaking sequences, a meeting with her killer.
6. ANNEES 20 (Roaring 20s. Dir: Elisabeth Vogler; France, 85 mins) In the midst of the 2020 COVID outbreak, filmmaker Elisabeth Vogler choreographed this single-shot miracle through the streets of Paris, capturing how the human spirit fronted up to, adapted in the face of and ultimately beat down the loneliness of the ‘new normal’. Sublime steadicam artistry (by the director herself) and a vivid collection of Parisian persons make for a snapshot of a time that will never be recaptured; by definition, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
7. PETITE MAMAN (Dir: Céline Sciamma; France, 72 mins) How a little girl deals with grief and the friendship she strikes in the realm of the fantastic proves the perfect premise for Céline Sciamma’s latest study in profound connection. The material is weighty but the lightness of touch is masterful; you’ll cry for days afterwards, as Sciamma and her two wondrous leads achieve deeply resonant moments that refuse to let go of your thoughts and emotions.
8. PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (Dir: Sion Sono; US/Japan, 103 mins) Why did it take so long to smash together the cinematic psyches of Japanese punk-auteur Sion Sono and G.O.A.T. Nicholas Cage? Because their hyper-stylised, vengeance-fuelled, dystopian Eastern-western is a work of fearless originality and W.T.F. creative choices that make it an adrenalized, bewildering blast (Ed. - For the record, Pig was #21 in ‘21; Cage had a great year.)
9. DUNE (Dir: Denis Villeneuve; USA, 155 mins) It all looked good in the planning. Denis Villeneuve’s track record (Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, especially) indicated he could do spectacle with intelligence; the cast were all hot-button names with talent to boot. Of course, we said all this back in ‘84, too. This time, though…grandeur, depth and the promise of more to come.
10. BENEDETTA (Dir: Paul Verhoeven; France/Belgium, 131 mins) Early coverage zeroed-in on the ‘nun-sploitation’ angle of Dutch stirrer Paul Verhoeven’s latest, in particular luminous leading lady Virginie Efira depiction of sapphic experimentation and self-pleasuring. But Verhoeven has much more on his mind (no, really); Benedetta is a brutal take-down of institutionalized religion and the ease with which the ambitiously immoral can exploit the zealous masses.
THE NEXT TEN BEST: 11. VERA DE VERDAD (Dir: Beniamino Catena; Italy/Chile, 100 mins) 12. WEST SIDE STORY (Dir: Steven Spielberg; USA, 156 mins) 13. LA PANTHERE DES NEIGES (The Velvet Queen. Dir: Marie Amiguet; France, 92 mins) 14. ILARGI GUZTIAK (All The Moons. Dir: Igor Legarreta; Spain, 102 mins) 15. TED K (Dir: Tony Stone; USA, 120 mins) 16. MEDUSA (Dir: Anita Rocha da Silveira; Brazil, 127 mins) 17. BERGMAN ISLAND (Dir: Mia Hansen-Løve; France, 112 mins) 18. FREE GUY (Dir: Shawn Levy; USA, 115 mins) 19. THE COLONY (Dir: Tim Fehlbaum; Germany, 104 mins) 20. DORAIBU MAI KA (Drive My Car. Dir: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Japan, 179 mins)
THE WORST FILMS OF 2021: For every exhilarating discovery on the streaming channels, there were piles of steaming dross to scroll pass. Shame on Disney+, for over-extending old franchises with greenlights for the terrible HOME SWEET HOME ALONE and the shamefully uninspired MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION. With cinemas opening erratically and distributors unwilling to commit theatrical films, straight-to-video product was deemed worthy of multi-screen releases - the turgid Jeremy Irons-Diane Keaton rom-com LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS and the Bruce Willis D-grade scifier COSMIC SIN found themselves in wide circulation. As the pandemic ebbed, exhibitors made space for some Hollywood product, but there was little excitement for misfires like SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (featuring some Razzie-worthy shout-acting from Chris Rock); the numbing banality of VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE; or, the official death knell of YA-lit 'Hunger Games' wannabes, CHAOS WALKING. But it is from the bottom of the sequel barrel that we scrape the year’s most idiotic film; an inconcievable ninth dip into the well of fake family melodrama and CGI stunt work, overseen by producers who thought launching a car into outer space was a good idea. F9 dipped considerably at the box office (it's the lowest earner in the franchise since 2011’s FAST FIVE), although probably not enough to kill off this knuckle-headed insult to cinema.
Simon Foster
I’m in the Fresh Tomato crate on both, while also certainly acknowledging that both films are flawed in ways they shouldn’t be (especially Amsterdam, which is O’Russell at his most wildly self-indulgent). What I find particularly fascinating is that they are mainstream studio projects that give full-flight to entirely constructed realities constructed to address the most pertinent social issues of contemporary Western society. Yes, I wish they were better films, but I’m glad they are being made at all. (Pictured, right: from left, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy in Amsterdam) 
The end-goal impact that Wilde and O’Russell were working towards is to be found in two landmark films that remain relevant today. Don’t Worry Darling recalls The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes' 1975 original, and definitely not Frank Oz’s 2004 misdirection), which conjures a similar well-to-do American middle class designed to continually strengthen the patriarchy. And both films want to expose the horrors of modern life in the way that Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol did in 1998 with The Truman Show, the visionary takedown of the entertainment sector’s most shameless exploitation model, the then newly-minted world of reality TV. (Pictured, above: Katharine Ross in The Stepford Wives)
