I spent 2019 living in both Calgary and Edmonton, but it would be apt to say I also spent the year in movie theatres. I found a lot of joy in spending time in the theatres of both cities as both a social and a solitary pastime, catching a flick after work or on a sleepy weekend afternoon.
2020 was much different year, for obvious reasons. I saw six movies in theatres last year: three were before the pandemic began (Dark Waters, Knives Out, Portrait of a Lady on Fire) and three were during the summer lull after the first wave (Little Women, Into the Spiderverse, First Cow), during those few weeks when things didn’t feel actively terrible 100% of the time. At this point, with variants and a menacing third wave, I wouldn’t even think about stepping foot in a movie theatre until I’ve had my jab. Sorry, Christopher Nolan. Only a few months more.
Anyway: my year in movie consumption largely took place at home, a setting that robs films of some of their power. My favourite new film of last year was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a movie whose smouldering longing is so completely disarming on the big screen that it would feel wrong to see it any other way. In that sense, I wonder which films lost their impact for me sitting at home, fighting the urge to check Twitter or dealing with a barking dog. It’s far from an ideal way to consume these movies, but has nonetheless been a comforting constant over the last 13 months.
With the Oscars this weekend, I wanted to document some thoughts on the films of the last year-plus and the things I found meaningful.
Best narrative feature:
As noted above, I thought Portrait of a Lady on Fire was the great achievement of the last year-plus. It’s a personal, interior love story that feels monumental in scope. Its great images, of waves and flames and watching and being watched, are indelible.
Among the eight official Best Picture nominees, I think the strongest is Sound of Metal, Darius Marder’s great meditation on how we cope with profound change. I also loved Minari, a film whose strength lies in its narrative commitment to children, the way they see and experience their rapidly changing worlds and how they are impacted by their parents’ efforts to create and become something against odds.
While good films, I didn’t connect in a significant way to Mank, The Father or Nomadland, but I did think Mank was severely underrated, as an admittedly convoluted period piece that still sustains the deep dread that propels all of Fincher’s great movies. Promising Young Woman and Trial of the Chicago 7 are enjoyable enough but deeply flawed. Judas and the Black Messiah, unfortunately, is a mess, muddling a narrative that is very worthy of adaptation.
Among films unrecognized in awards season, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is my favourite. It’s essentially a procedural about the process of accessing an abortion as a minor living in America, and it shows the human impact of navigating through this arcane system, which constantly punishes its users for daring to seek help, in such a compassionate way.
Best performance:
I thought Riz Ahmed and Paul Raci gave the most visceral performances of the year in Sound of Metal, as competing avatars of frustration and contentment. Jesse Buckley carries I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a film I was otherwise lukewarm on. Alan Kim gives the only good kid performance ever in Minari. And Sidney Flanigan is brutal in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, carrying a deep trauma made all the more tragic by her youth.
Best doc:
American Utopia, the David Byrne concert film directed by Spike Lee, was the source of a lot of joy this year. I was lucky enough to see two dates on Byrne’s stage tour; watching it on-screen was special, but especially so at a time when these types of communal experiences are indefinitely on hold. It’s a kinetic performance, one captured perfectly by Lee, and its great moments — “This Must Be the Place,” “Toe Jam,” “Slippery People,” “Road to Nowhere” — are transcendental.
Dick Johnson is Dead is affecting as a document of a family processing grief in real time. Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson’s previous movie, Cameraperson, captured discreet moments of turmoil and grief with an immense empathy, but this is something else entirely. One particular scene, a mock funeral, is especially impactful.
Nothing this year was more enjoyable than The Last Dance, which has got to be the greatest sports documentary of all time. And it achieves what all docs should set out to do, which is constantly make you think: how did they manage to get this on camera? Or, how was this something that actually happened? Dennis Rodman is the best.
I still mean to watch Collective, which is about as far up my alley as a movie could be.