Doug's Favorite Movies of 2021

Nobody

Dune 

Belfast

Licorice Pizza 

The French Dispatch 

The Sparks Brothers 

Free Guy 

Summer of Soul 

Honorable Mention: 

The Last Duel 

Bo Burnham Inside 

Mulan

The King's Man

Downton Abbey meets The Suicide Squad. Ralph Fiennes, 59, dresses nicely, carries an umbrella, and kicks everyone’s ass in this enjoyable but sometimes weird, spy-tastic action movie. British people, as we all know, are superior, and manage to maintain their composure despite fighting some of the weirdest, non-British creeps and perverts one can imagine. Tea will be required! Lengthy segments in the trenches of World War I are brutal but breathtakingly filmed. Filmmakers dodge numerous war-movie tropes to render fresh, unyielding, and creative ass-kickery keeping your adrenaline jumpy and jolty. It’s long, and sometimes the pacing feels off. But heads roll, so you can’t ask for much more.

Don't Look Up

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Adam McKay and his cast of A-listers swing for the fences in this super-duper pointy sharp satire of media culture in a time of worldwide disaster. The premise is worthy and the attitude is poignant. Efforts to goof on specific people sometimes tank, like Mark Rylance’s over-cooked, narcissistic billionaire. The plot and story are distracted by the personal relationships and marital affairs, which seem pointless and dull compared to the comet hurling towards Earth, but maybe that’s the point. This mines laughs as much as it bombs, but it gets an “A” for trying; and taking the piss out of us for being so apathetic. I wonder: was Dr. Strangelove considered so implausible at the time?

Being the Ricardos

Nicole is good here as Lucille Ball, but not so much as Lucy McGillicuddy-Ricardo. Javier Bardem, as much of a pro as he is, is completely miscast. Desi could smile! He could sing and dance! The Hollywood story and setting is fascinating; a worthy tale told expertly by Aaron Sorkin about a dark period in Hollywood history. It really didn’t need the flashbacks or the flash forwards, which just gum up the main story. It’s worthwhile as an interesting history, but it’s not mind-blowingly revelatory otherwise.

The Matrix Resurrections

I definitely need to watch this again. It’s a lot to process. Trinity and Neo are ordinary folks in this. Not super-cool, monotone, sunglass-wearing, gun-foo ninjas. But ordinary schlubs. But Neo knows something is amiss. His life in the Matrix is filled with dreams and glitches. Efforts to make this snarky and media savvy yield mixed results. Some of it’s fun, but some of it’s… oblique. Neil Patrick Harris throws out a lot of curve-balls as a manipulative therapist, but who is he really? The architect? Could somebody please call me and explain. The fighting and chasing is, as always, top notch. Images of brainwashed citizens falling from the sky, leaping to their deaths, are terrifying. And the love story between Trinity and Neo is still sweet and solid. But my brain needs a little more resolution than this story provides.

Nightmare Alley

Part carny nightmare and part noir nihilism, the colors and designs of this jump off the screen. It’s beautiful. Every frame is a perfect composition. But the story is a drag. There’s very few heroes and no redemption of any kind. That’s the way the noirs go, I suppose. This will get lost in film history, I think. There’s nothing uplifting at all, unlike The Shape of Water, despite the explosion of technique.

The Matrix Revolutions

A lot more Jesus-y in this final chapter. For some reason, Neo must kung fu with Agent Smith a lot in the Matrix to save Zion, to the point where he must make a “pact” with “the machines” to destroy Agent Smith in a Karate fight, because? If we’re completely baffled by the plot, then the gun-foo will be less suspenseful. It won’t matter who wins and who loses. There’s too much woo-woo philosophy and computer programming analogies in this, and it’s entirely possible to just get lost. The visuals are still stunning, but the fun is less fun.

Matrix: Reloaded

A lot more time and a lot more money yield a lot more bang-bang-bang for your buck. All of the philosophical blah-blah-blah and all of the rules muddy the simple fact that this is a rescue movie. Rescue the dude with the key. The “Zion” scenes are actually boring, and only fill in the back-story, which is ironically in the future. You often wish the Wachowskis would just cut to the “gun foo.” Eventually they do with beautifully directed and edited action sequences, massive in scope. It’s satisfying, but it takes way too long to reveal that like most movies, it was always a love story.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

** SPOILER-MAN **

It’s a game of superhero “top this.” Cram in all the heroes and all of the villains from all of the movies in an enormous super-powered Altman movie. It’s all about multi-dimensional entrances. Who will swing in next? It’s like an acrobatic Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. It’s fun, action-packed, long, and emotional. It fills your eyeballs with so much information that there’s no possibility of realizing what’s missing from the mix. Women, for example. They couldn’t at least dust-off Elizabeth Banks? For the ticket price, you couldn’t get more bang for your buck. It’s a hoot watching the multi-verse escapees banter about; comparing notes, etc. Of course, all of this was done already in the superior, animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, not that it’s a competition. All spider-people are welcome.

Eternals

The Eternals are the “bizarro” Avengers. They’re not human, they’re not interesting, they’re not funny, they’re not on Earth to help humanity, and they rarely take action when needed. Mostly, they stand in a circle, or sometimes a half circle facing the camera, and they discuss what they should do next to stop the monsters that are coming out of the ground for some reason. And although they’re not allowed to care about humans for some reason, they have to stop the monsters that are killing the humans for some reason. But they’re diverse, which is nice. Gemma Chan tries her best to remain stoic as the group leader, and Kumail Nanjiani dances as fast as he can as the comic relief. Angelina Jolie, a big movie star, has almost nothing to do. One wonders, when they’re standing in a half circle deciding what to do, why they don’t ask the big movie star. The big movie star ALWAYS knows what to do. But she’s kinda checked out, standing there in her pretty costume and her pretty hair, and just thinking about other stuff. As they’re fighting supernatural forces, there’s a goofy, middle-aged, Bollywood videographer following them around. He’s, like, the MAN. I want to know about HIM.

Ms. 45

Early Abel Ferrara movie in which an alluring, young, mute woman gets raped one too many times and decides to “open up a can.” A fascinating, timeless performance from Zoe Lund. Otherwise a pretty cheap and dated revenge yarn.

Night of the Juggler

A ranting psycho kidnaps James Brolin’s daughter and he “ex-cops” his way through the shitty neighborhoods of New York to find her. It’s pretty hammy, and has the production values of a CHIPS episode. Nevertheless, it’s got a recognizable cast of 80s-era tough guys and a nice turn from Julie Carmen. Suffice it to say: it ain’t Shakespeare and the title is terrible.