Best Picture nominee? Don’t Look Up? Really? This movie had a wide release in December. It earned less than $1 million at the box office and was out of theaters in under 2 weeks. Its 56% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes further suggests that this is different from a film the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences would deem one of its ten best films of 2021. Yet (sigh), here we are. The biggest tragedy might be that this isn’t a bad film but is being unfairly bashed for its association with the other nine movies up for Best Picture, arguably the worst collection of films for any year.
Category Archives: Year of Release
Titane (2021)
French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s (Raw) wildly uneven yet highly ambitious Titane is a frenzied, are-you-able-to-suspend-your-belief, adrenaline-pumping film that is not for the faint of heart or those who don’t handle queasiness in their filmgoing. With Rotten Tomatoes Scores of 89% (critics) and 85% (audiences), I find it ironic that I couldn’t identify ten people to whom I might recommend this film. Yet for the film purists who crave the originality that mainstream movies too often fail to deliver, you’ll find a bizarre take on humanity, richly laced with stylistic metaphors, that begins as a slasher flick before transitioning into something far more intimate.
Who You Think I Am (2019)
Obsessive catfishing 101. This could be the easiest way to describe the Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) character-driven vehicle, Who You Think I Am. Adapted from the novel of the same name, Safy Nebbou (Mark of an Angel) crafts a taut romantic drama with just enough suspense and twists to keep us actively engaged as we follow Claire (Binoche) navigate her way through the very real world of catfishing.
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
First things first. The Worst Person in the World is a terrible name for a movie, especially a slightly heavy drama that centers around the indecisiveness of a 30-year-old woman named Julie (Renate Reinsve) and those affected by her actions. The title of this movie suggested it would be some stupid comedy. It took 30 seconds of the trailer to realize that my initial perceptions were entirely wrong and that I had to see this film as quickly as possible. I ended up watching it the next day. It was a terrific decision. Ignore the movie’s dumb movie title. You should see this movie too.
Belfast (2021)
A coming-of-age story set in the middle of a civil war, Kenneth Branagh’s (Hamlet, Cinderella) Belfast tells the incredibly personal account of nine-year-old Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill) who, during the summer of 1969, witnesses the violent clash of his Protestant neighbors trying to eradicate his neighboring Catholic families in the middle of the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.