(Sigh)
These last few years have been rough. They look like they're gonna keep getting rough, thanks America. (Fake smile, fake thumbs up.) But, as bad as this year apparently is, it still, as of yet, wasn't as bad as 2020.
For me, it's felt like 2020 never really ended. Partly because, I've been so busy with life and life changes that I am only now getting around to doing my Top Ten Lists, which is kinda weird; I think people would've thought that the pandemic would've allowed me to catch upon everything, but honestly, it really just made me dive more into stuff from the past that I had missed. In fact, the more reviews of recent films I see, in general, I feel like the less intrigued I am by them. They're not bad, in fact, my worst list, when I do that, is gonna seem fairly pedestrian,- I mean, based on what I watch, which is always the caveat to these things, if you think I missed something, or put something that shouldn't be on here, comment sections' all yours, but yeah, perhaps, this is the time I started really losing my love of cinema, and how could you not at that point?
Yeah, 2020, on top of everything else, ended the argument about whether or not you absolutely needed to see a movie in a movie theater or not, and the people who watched them streaming on their cell phones, defiantly won. In fact, the pandemic really redefined what exactly is a "Movie" and the lines between cinema, television, streaming, tiktok, whatever, all that became more and more blurrier than ever before. Whether that should be the case be or not is one thing, but frankly, now that even major streaming services are referring to legendary directors rightly or wrongly (it's wrongly) as "Content Creators", yeah, this ancient argument was ended and covered with a mask. And you know what, thank god it is. I was sick of it, I'm glad I lost that one.
Anyway, what was the best film that came out this year? What even was cinema in this most horrible of years? Well, I always have the last word, no matter how long it takes, so, one last look at the year of hindsight, from the one year that we just didn't look back from. (And besides, if I don't do this now, let's be real, I'm probably never doing it. [Sigh]) Also, spoilers, I think this might be a controversial list, arguably my most controversial list, especially when we get to the top of it, 'cause-eh, hmmm, I got a few things to say that I've had building up for awhile, even though this is late, this might be still be intriguing. This is not the list everybody else had, I'll say that.
So-eh, alright, let's count it down!
THE TOP TEN FILMS OF 2020!
NUMBER 10:
I actually had a bit of a difficult time narrowing this down to ten. I think I could make a pretty good argument depending on the day, for about, seven different films that I could've put on this list that didn't make it, but figuring out the order for much of the list was tricky, especially this bottom half. As it does mean something that, I don't watch everything I'd like to right away, and when I used to care and rushed through these lists, there's always a chance something would inevitably slip through. I'm sure there's films from this year, I haven't gotten to, in fact I know I haven't seen a lot of them, a lot of them are still on my Netflix queue, which-, used to be my DVD queue, but has since just become a long list of films I may or may never get around to. There was one film I got to so late, like, after I made a previous list that would've made my Top Ten that year. It was so long after that I didn't write a review for it. It was called, "I, Daniel Blake", a British film by the great Ken Loach, about an old guy who's just trying to get his pension, but keeps getting bumbled around by the inept British welfare system. It's pretty tough to watch, but I also happen to watch it, around the time I watched Loach's next film, the equally difficult-to-watch, "Sorry We Missed You".
10. Sorry We Missed You
My Original review:
I don't know what the term for it is in the UK, but in America the term, "Independent Contractor" or some official variant of it, comes up a lot. To some extent, it's a natural progression of what's been termed the current "Gig Economy", but in other situations, it's an employment status that sounds more promising then it actually is. It's sold on the false notion that you'll get to be your own boss, while still clearly working at the behest of someone who seems to be able to just exploit labor more then most. It's basically modern-day sharecropping, only instead of working on a farm, they're delivering packages to everybody, and it's basically creating a world of Jobs. Well, jobs too, but I meant Job, as in the Biblical Job. (Pun unintended)
This is not surprising as a subject matter for Ken Loach, the legendary British neorealist director. He made a film a couple years ago that I didn't get to see in time for a review called "I, Daniel Blake", a powerful strike back to his neorealist roots that showed the struggles of a guy trying to get his pension after having a heart attack. Had I gotten to the film sooner, I would've put it on my Best of the Year list, and it was one of Loach's best films in general. I kinda caught onto Loach late, and usually with his more mainstream movies like "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" and "The Angels' Share" good movies, but they never particularly appealed to me. I still have to get to a lot of his earlier works like "Kes" or even some more acclaimed recent stuff like "Looking for Eric" and "Sweet Sixteen". Still though, going back to this more stripped down, more non-actors and more down-to-Earth simple tales of the downfall of the lower and middle class is probably where he's at his strongest. With England still reeling from the effects of Thatcherism, and in this case, the '08 Stock Market crash,
It's in this setting that we meet and follow Ricky (Kris Hitchen) a longtime worker who lost his job right as he and his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) were about to pay off a house. She works as a home caretaker for the disabled and elderly, Ricky, after years of odds of hardworking jobs, gets a delivery truck, working supposedly as his own boss, which basically means that, you work for me, and the me in this case is Maloney (Ross Brewster) the personification of human exploitation. He runs the local branch of PDF, a not-so-subtle reference to that one company that delivers stuff that you're thinking of. He works fourteen hours a day, six days a week, and he has to sell the family car to afford everything he needs, which is what his wife drove from work to work with.
It's hard to describe all the details of what happens next, it's basically what you'd expect, as the roughness of the job exhausts him, and eventually his family. He battles everything we expect, everything from annoying customers to struggling to stay awake on the road to even getting attacked and beaten up. Meanwhile, his family really struggles. Their teenage son Seb (Rhys Stone) really begins to act out, and the more Ricky seems to work, the more Seb acts out, always more and more disgusted with his father who is barely there. His ennui is frustrating both Seb's mother and his little sister Liza Jae (Katie Proctor), and as he acts out, his father begins to act out as well, disturbing the family even more, and he doesn't quite have the capability to self-analyze and reassess himself and his priorities, and I can't blame him. Financial struggles often take precedent and financial struggles and work struggles breed the situation for the cracking of the family unit. At the end, the family is begging him to not go to work, but he has to go to work. It's very "Young Goodman Brown" to be honest, fees are just piled up and eventually you're either in indentured servitude without a family or in debt without a home.
"Sorry We Missed You" is purportedly a loose sequel to "I, Daniel Blake", I wouldn't be surprised if these movies are apart of a trilogy of some kind or anything, they definitely feel like they exist in the same universe, but you don't have to see one to see the other. (Although I highly recommend both) Perhaps this film is a little weaker then "I, Daniel Blake," but only because it's more frustratingly predictable. Daniel Blake was a man with nothing to lose so his rebellion at the end felt righteous, but we don't get any of that here; we get a family caught in the same circle of poverty. "Sorry We Missed You" is a brutal mirror to our society, but it's an essential and important one that needed to be made and absolutely needs to be seen.
Yeah, this is a brutal one. It's striped down, it's bare bones, it's not a story we haven't seen or heard a billion times over, it's not even done in a different way, it's just done in today's modern times, and that's the ultimate tragedy. You know, we knew to inevitably separate religion from government, but we still haven't separated business from government yet, and whether that's socialism or whatever, this is a modern picture of capitalism and led to, and it's not any close to seeming any different any time soon.
NUMBER 9:
Well, that's a downer way to start, but let's go to something more fun than capitalism in it's horrific modern British form. How about the surreal, flawed, early bumblings of capitalism in it's American form!
9. First Cow
Kelly Reichert's "First Cow", isn't my favorite of hers, that's "Certain Women", but this one seemed to touch a nerve, and I think I just enjoy it's unique and yet, quite believable tale from the Western frontier of a couple of scam artists trying to get ahead and make it rich in the early days of the Gold Rush.
My original review:
I admit to not always vibing with Kelly Reichardt's works, but I've been coming around more and more to her approach to storytelling and the stories she tells. She never takes the angle that most people would take; she's always looking around for more intense, quiet narratives of people and their surroundings finding different, off-the-beaten path avenues to,- well, not always success, but living. In recent years, I've admired "Meek's Cutoff" from her, which feels and looks like actually traveling along the Oregon Trail. (The computer game made it seem way more fun) but I didn't think she had made a really special film until her last feature "Certain Women", a multinarrative that followed three different stories of groundbreaking women finding their own paths to love and success in Montana. I don't know why she's attracted to the frontier areas of the country, in the past and its current remnants, but the part that always fascinated me around that time was the people who found success, not following the crowds of mostly miners, like during the various gold, silver and oil rushes, but those who saw all those people heading to a particular part of the country and thought stuff like, "There's a customer base." One of my favorite westerns is Robert Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller", a film about a woman who opens a brothel in a frontier town full of mostly men for instance, and in hindsight, even though I haven't always liked Reichardt's work, (I seem to be the only person out there who's just outright allergic to "Wendy and Lucy" for instance) there's a lot of Altman influence in her work, moreso then I first realized.
"First Cow" takes place mostly in the Oregon Territory, and follows an East coaster somewhat-appropriately named Cookie (John Maguro), who makes his way out west as a cook on a team of fur trappers. He meets up with a Far East Coaster King-Lu (Orion Lee), who's caught himself in his own pickle as he's a fugitive from Russians in the area.
They eventually start working and living together, trying to find work and they end up prospering by Cookie making biscuits by stealing milk from the only cow in the area. Yeah, the area's so newly being built and founded, only the local governor, known only as Chief Factor (Toby Jones) has a cow. He was trying to bring the cow up with a bull and her calf, but they died on the journey up. They manage to pull it off by sneaking in at night and stealing the milk, Cookie often talking to the cow, having some pretty in depth conversations at times. (I mean, he's talking with a cow's imagined voice, but you know, it's the Frontier, you gotta find some way to keep yourself entertained.) Anyway, claiming an Ancient Chinese Secret for being able to produce the oily cakes, they begin to sell. They talk about trying to save up enough capital to head down to San Francisco, which was the booming West Coast multicultural capital of the West at the time and start a bakery. Things get complicated of course, especially after the Chief Factor hears about the biscuits.
I like stories like these; perhaps it's America's romantic fascination with the image of the Outlaw that also quantifiably started in places like these during the same time, but western tales are really about the building of a new world, a new community and whatnot, but I like the idea of the people who run along those paths, but aren't quite apart of it. They stick out, 'cause they can see a different opportunity then the same one everyone does, and "First Cow", based on the Jon Raymond book "The Half-Life" does that in a wonderfully Kelly Reichardt way. I imagine these guys, either together or on different paths, perhaps making it to San Francisco as they dream of and pulling the same biscuits schem, or some other scheme, in every area along the way. There's some other good performances here, Reichardt-favorite Lily Gladstone is Chief Factor's Wife a young Native American woman who works as a translator between Chief Factor and the Native American Chief Totillicum (Gary Farmer), Alia Shawkat has a small narrative role in the beginning and the movie also marks the final appearance of the great character actor Rene Auberjonois. "First Cow" doesn't create a romantic look in this time period but gives us insight into the worlds of those who tried to take advantage of it. Some of them were just as successful or unsuccessful and many of the goldminers of that time and these stories are some of the most fascinating out there. Kelly Reichardt might be the best filmmaker out there for this kind of tale and it shows.
Who knew biscuits would cause so much of an uproar?
I still, must confess, that I have no idea why people like "Wendy and Lucy", when they think of Kelly Reichardt. IDK, you can call me a dog-hater or whatever, I don't get it, it's her worst film, but it's the one held up as her best, and she is so much more interesting than that film. "First Cow" is one example, "Certain Women" is an even better example. She has this wonderful, southern gothic eye, and just finds new worlds and situations to put this perspective onto, that I've found more and more fascinating with each film. And "First Cow" is her most, like "fun", movie if you can call it that.
NUMBER 8:
(Sigh) You know, this was so long ago. I don't remember, what won Best Picture this year?
Oh yeah, "Nomadland". Hmmm.... I kinda was a little lukewarm on that one. I think I've come around on it, and I'm certainly not denying Frances McDormand's performance, but yeah, that's one of the strangest Oscar-winners in recent years. A neorealist indy from a female Asian director, who's strangely intrigued by life on the margins in the American West. So, yeah, a natural director choice to make a superhero movie. Still, um, in a weird year, we should have a weird Oscar winner, if not a weird Oscars. (Soderbergh, you were still wrong for not ending with BP, but the rest of the show wasn't bad.) But, I think I enjoyed a more inspiring choice about America instead.
8. Minari
Yeah, I didn't hate the Oscars this year, but I wouldn't say I was inspired by them either. This was the only Best Picture nominee that made my Best List, Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari". and it's a beautiful American tale of a Korean-American family trying to make it in the farmland of Arkansas.
My Original review:
If I'm being completely honest, up until now I'd been fairly underwhelmed by this year's apparent group of Oscar contenders. I'm not terribly surprised by that, since this is just a strange year for movies in general, but I thought it'd be more, on the surface, more interesting, obtuse and, for lack-of-a-better-word, indy collection of narrative films that managed to finish and somehow by hook or by crook, sneak into this year's collection of the so-called best films of the year, but . "Minari" is one of the first ones though that I did truly find inspiring and compelling. It's the first feature I've seen from Asian-American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, and it tells a quiet, patient tale of a Korean family's struggle to adapt to several life-changing moves, including a literal move, from California to a large mobile home in Arkansas, where the family patriarch Jacob (Steven Yeun) is intent on building a small garden/farm on the land he just purchased, hoping to begin to grow Korean vegetables in America.
This takes some work, and it's not an easy start. For one thing, they live in a mobile home in a part of the country that now sees tornado on a somewhat-regular basis. Both parents, still have to work a job separating baby chicks; this especially frustrates Jacob's wife Monica (Yeri Han).
The movie really focuses on their youngest son David (Alan S. Kim) their young seven-year-old whose both trying to begin his independent tantrum streak as an elementary school student, while also not only getting used to a new school, and an entirely new culture which isn't necessarily kind, but also, getting used to his Korean grandmother Soonja (YOUN Yuh-jung). She's traveled from Korea to watch the kids, David and her older sister Anne (Noel Cho). Most of the real meat of the movie, which is mostly shown through David's perspective is basically him trying to get along with his grandmother and the subtle, loving friendship they have as they both struggle with this new condition and learning to cope with it, and each other. It's actually quite sweet when David isn't hurting himself of otherwise being a brat, eventually they start to become major parts in each other lives, almost like a new front in the house against the parents who are still constantly fighting between themselves, sometimes out in the open, sometimes silently.
It's hard to describe "Minari" in some ways it's episodic and expected narratively, even when its not expected, you know the kinds of cringe you gotta get through, like when they all decide to start going to the local church and try to fit in and make friends. It doesn't come at you in expected movie ways though. Conflict feels like it getting setup all the time, but its often avoided or drifting away; in fact, conflict is not used as conflict but as steps in the evolution of these characters as they grow and evolve into this world. It's emotionally stirring and genuinely refreshing to see our expectations undermined. This is how slice of life narrative, as well as most fish-out-of-water stories should be told. There's wonderful performances all around, especially YOUN Yuh-jung as the Grandmother who manages to be an old school hardass and a generous and understanding nurturer, especially to David. Perhaps this is one of those rare family films that actually feel like it's about a real family. I don't know enough about Chung's earlier work to know where this seems placed in his ouevre, but I'm looking forward to diving in now; I want to hear both what else he has to say and what else he's said before now.
Yeah, "Minari", um, I haven't revisited it, since I first watched, but it's one of those movies that, even just thinking about it, you get this sense of ethereal hominess to it. It reminds me, kinda like a movie that might've been made in the '70s or something, but with a more modern interpretation, and with more intriguing layers than just, a family taking a chance on a new life and career. You get that with "Sorry We Missed You", but if that's how a Ken Loach approached the subject, this is how I feel a Terrence Malick in 1977 would approach it. Or, a Lee Isaac Chung, a different newer voice, from a different culture that's just as much Americana, as say, "Days of Heaven", or something.
NUMBER 7
Well, it wouldn't be 2020, without COVID.
7. Totally Under Control
There's actually a lot of documentaries on this list, this was the last one that I added. At first, I figured I'd be waiting for the next couple years for docs on how massively we fucked up COVID, but somehow, cinema finds a way, and there actually were quite a few docs on the pandemic, as the pandemic was going on. My favorite, and I think the most crucial one came from the great Alex Gibney and friends, "Totally Under Control", which goes into detail of just how bad America, in particular, Trump and the administration, completely fucked us over and left us unprepared and ill-equipped to handle the pandemic.
My original review:
I knew I was waiting for something before I released a Top Ten List for 2020. Other than, getting around to watching all the movies that I need to watch, no, what I needed was to watch this film. A film, about the COVID pandemic itself, and all the ways that, America, the Trump administration, really screwed up the response. And made by, arguably the pre-eminent documentary filmmaker of our times. Alex Gibney's films are probably the modern standard for expose documentaries. Ever since his breakthrough "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", he's put out some of the most talked about and important documentaries of our time. He puts out documentaries so often that you can blur over how well-made and written some of the best ones of his are. I think his last great one for me was "Going Clear", which took a really good deep dive into the inner sanctums of Scientology, and that along with Leah Remini's TV show spurred up a lot of the current criticisms of the so-called "Church". "Totally Under Control", takes a look at just how Trump and America really botched up the entire COVID outbreak, something I think, especially now, we need to reminded of. The GOP and the Trump administration, admonished and despised the expert opinions and dismissed those who insisted on saying that the situation was as bad as it was. They made everything political, all the way down to masks, and slowed down testing in order to make it seem like there was less of the disease out there. Not to mention, getting rid of all the safeguards and plans that the Obama administration specifically laid out for him. While other countries came together and limited their death tolls and managed to find ways to even not be so confined during the pandemic, their ineptness killed people at astonishing rates. It was the equivalents of a 9/11 a day of deaths at their worst, and it is very fair to say that Trump killed lots of Americans.
And just to be clear, the movie does show that Obama's team wasn't always perfect when they had to deal with other coronavirus outbreaks. Oh yeah, pandemics are much more common than people realize. H1N1, SARS, MERS, all these were during Obama's administration, but they listened and trusted the experts and put plans into action. Got tests out, corrected and acknowledged their errors quickly. A lot of stuff that Trump just refused to do, under some misguided belief that things would get better. (Also, I didn't realize that they were also coronaviruses. Yeah, if you don't know this, "Coronavirus" just means that two viruses were combined together)
Meanwhile, Trump sees one social media post from a doctor dealing with too many patients to count and tries Hydrochloroquine and it gets a little immediate results, but then they try to publish that, or Ivermectin as wonderdrugs. It's like, he just wanted a quick fix, instead of just, following the procedure, but they couldn't give any credit to those who came before, and they couldn't also make it seem like it was as bad as it was, because there's an election out there to win, and he believed the economy was good enough to stay elected, if they could just make the COVID, go away. (Not that the economy was actually doing that good at the time, or even that Trump did anything to make it good, but whatever, when you're that dumb, even the economy can't help you.) They even started making the government bid alongside the states for supplies, thinking the free market is the savior of everything. (Boy, there's a lot of the GOP's positions that I don't understand, but man, that one that trust the free market as much as they do, just completely befuddles me.)
Gibney, along with co-directors Opehlia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger compiled a pretty exhausted and fully realize doc, shot during the pandemic on multiple continents, to tell the story of COVID-19, and how the U.S. should've stepped up, was capable of being the example for the rest of the world, and instead fell to pure incompetence and arrogance. Look, I hate just spewing vitriol towards the Trump administration, but frankly there's little other ways to put it. He said it was "Totally Under Control", when clearly it wasn't, and literally, the day after the this film was completed, was the day Trump got COVID. And somehow, the worst of it all still came after all this with him.... (Sigh)
Look, at this moment in time, I'm just not gonna say anything else other than, if you haven't seen this film yet, (And based on election results a lot of people didn't) watch it now. I understand if you weren't able to while you were in the middle of it, but this is the documentary that's gonna be shown in classes for years, to show exactly what went wrong and who and how we did completely bumble this, and for that alone, this needs to be watched.
NUMBER 6:
Okay, so "Totally Under Control" is a documentary, but it does have a narrative. It's telling the story of the pandemic and how the reactions to that pandemic, globally came about and shows why some governments were more prepared and adaptable at it, and why others were not. That's something that, kinda gets forgotten about history, and even recent history, is that, it's, well, a story. What historians of all types do, is to constantly take into considerations the events of the days and craft a narrative of how those things happened. And, there's nothing wrong with that, on the surface, it's what we do, to some degree it's what we have to do to make sense of things, but when crafting a narrative, what happens often, and this may especially be so when you're using a more limiting storytelling medium like film or television, is that some parts of the story, get edited out, and/or others, get more focused. Again, not always a negative in of itself, some things are more important and other things are less important. However, in all storytelling, there is potential biasness at play. Sometimes, the biasness can be incidental and harmless. Other times though, it can be more malicious, and there are several forms of this kind of editing, including, outright censorship.
6. Coup 53
Yeah, this one's complicated, but then again, as much as we try to just tell a simple story, history is never not complicated.
My original review:
In 2013, the United States formally recognized their involvement in the 1953 coup to overthrow the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. It was the first, but by far, not, the only time that the United States and their intelligent agencies would be involved in the overthrow of foreign governmental powers and install, puppet dictator leaders who would do what they ask, most of which involved selling and using of their natural resources, in this case, oil. If you remember British Petroleum for the Deepwater Horizon oil tankard spill, well, they got the majority of their oil buy taking and controlling Iran's oil reserves.
In fact, somethings that's kinda overlooked is that, the United Kingdom actually had a lot more to do with the overthrow of Iran then America did, and had more monetary interest in the overthrow then we did, and it was more of a concern and note then the history books now indicate; apparently Eisenhower ran on not only ending the Korea conflict but also the Iran issue. (Truman, didn't want to overthrow democracies)
Talig Amirani has been a documentary filmmaker for years but he's been an expert on Mosaddegh for perhaps longer and has been utterly fascinated with how important and world-changing his overthrow and installing the Shah has influenced and change his life and the world, particularly the Middle East over the years. He's a duel UK-Iranian citizen and knows both cultures well, and how the story of Mosaddegh's removal is told in both the Middle East, and the West, and wants to get as much of the actual history down as possible. Unfortunately, for those who actually know how history is written and rewritten, this can be a much taller order then we realize.
"Coup 53" is a more unusual documentary then most, in that it follows Taghi as he's making the movie, something that, believe it or not, is very Iranian. Iranian New Wave moviemaking is often about the deconstruction and reveal of the filmmaking process, and here we begin with him, and then we see him going to several other sources and talking heads about the coup, most notably, some people who were involved with the documentary series "End of Empire".
"End of Empire" was a documentary series by the BBC in the '80s that was about, well, essentially everywhere that England used to rule. I saw a meme on Facebook not too long ago about how more countries in the world have a holiday for their Independence from Great Britain then for any other holiday on Earth; I doubt that's actually true, I'm sure New Year's and probably Christmas has a little more influence, but you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. Anyway, Iran or as it was formerly known, Persia, actually isn't one of those countries, technically, but there was an episode of "End of Empire" on it anyway. It does discuss the coup, but not to the effect that Taghi would prefer or expect. It is a British production after all..., but he begins investigating the documentary itself. Eventually, he finds some transcriptions of interviews that didn't make it into the film, and some unused footage as well that actually discussed such things as the kidnapping and murder of his Chief of Police, Mahmoud Afshartoos, an original attempt at a coup that failed, and the successful one that installed the Shah. Most notably, a person named Norman Darbyshire, an MI-6 operative stationed originally in Iran before Mosaddegh as a defense mechanism threw out the entire British embassy and he then orchestrated, basically the entire coup in exile in Cyprus.
So, essentially what Taghi and legendary editor Walter Murch decide to do is not only investigate and piece together the missing pieces of the old documentary, including reshooting the Darbyshire interview with Ralph Fiennes portraying him, and getting the actual filmmakers who were involved with the film there. There's also some impressionistic animated sequences that document some of the eyewitness events being told by the interviewees of both this documentary and from the unused and/or recreated footage from "End of Empire".
Essentially, "Coup 53" is about how narratives, for documentaries and yes, history are created and told. The truth never is simple, and much of it is either undocumented, repressed from the public, unknown to the public, or often has to be investigated years later to find out. Nowadays, there's more avenues to report the news then ever, and we're more cognizant and aware that the first drafts of history are rarely if ever the complete stories but even still, things get forgotten, parts get rewritten, or reimagined, timelines get misplaced, and there's only so much room you can fit in a textbook, or a documentary, especially if you don't want to tell those parts of the story.
All documentaries and movies are bias, anybody who asks for an unbias perspective is either an idiot troll who knows better or an idiot who doesn't. "Coup 53" makes us exceptionally aware of that fact by placing the ways that history was kept from us into the forefront. While we may be able to actually uncover the real history of the world by sorting through hundreds of papers in specifically select boxes that have been storage away and kept for years, some/much of it, we're still not be in possession of for one reason or another, are we actually going to seek out and get these stories out there, or are we just gonna keep telling the more comforting tales of history that we're familiar with, that have been forced down our throats and sanitized with soap and corruption?
Anyway, I'd go on more rants, but smarter people then me already have, the big thing is that "Coup 53" isn't just one of the best documentaries out there, it's one of the most important. It shows and tells us history that should be more pressing and told then they are, and how and why it's not been told until now. There's ways to deconstruct the medium of filmmaking to make a bigger point through documentary and this is one of the best and most successful uses of it. This is the kind of movie that's both a must-see for cinephiles as well as history buffs; arguably, this should be a classroom staple documentary.
Yeah, "Coup 53", is a fascinating and complex documentary, about a complex part of modern history, it's-, at least right now, it's fairly unique, which is part of why I'm putting this high,- there's documentaries that have tried to fill in gaps with actors before, but I don't think I've ever seen one about filling in gaps of other documentaries before. I would not be surprised, if in the future, we're going to see, more movies like this though. Usually you watch old documentaries like that, and you know, or look up stuff about them now, and you realize, "Oh, they didn't say this part," or "They didn't talk about that", and sometimes they just edit it out, or other times, you can honestly say that they probably just didn't know about them yet. But especially with certain subjects, their really could be more nefarious hands at play, and we just didn't get the whole story at first, and only now, are we that we are actually able to see the entire tale, especially when it does come to major historical events like this,- like this is the good use or going use of going back through your old films and changing your edits. As we get closer to the fullest drafts of history possible, the more we should be doing stuff like this, and I hope we do get stuff like that soon.
NUMBER 5:
Okay, so, I have not liked the Emmys in recent years. There's a lot of reasons for that, most of it has to do with the current voting system. I've given it a fair amount of time, and whether or not I agree with the decisions they make, I basically hate it. I wish they'd go back to voting panels, that watch all the nominees in particular categories, and then give them a weighted vote, combined with the popular generic vote that not goes out to all Academy members within a branch. It's led to a lot of quirks, like TV series just sweeping the awards in their category regularly, just because it was the most popular show at that moment, sometimes finding that show, after it had been on and ignored by the Academy for years. I know all these awards are simply nothing more than a reflection on what everybody's wants to praise at the time, but there were steps taken to curb it, so that the most popular thing didn't always win, and now that those steps aren't in place, it really does feel like that now. One of the more curious streaks of Emmy dominance, in the acting branch in recent years, as well as throughout the awards was one actress who, literally had been on television, basically all my life, suddenly out of nowhere, just getting a butt-ton of recognition. I'm not even complaining, it was just perplexing. And that actress was, Regina King. I love Regina King, but suddenly she was an awarded for a Miniseries or Movie four times out of five nominations in a six year span. She won for obscure TV movies that I'm not even sure she watched, much less the more mainstream and popular fare. And when she was not winning an Emmy, she took a break from that, and won a Supporting Actress Oscar for "If Beale Street Could Talk". And that was a great performance I might add, not one I would've honored, but-, like, I don't know if everybody in the acting branch suddenly just decided she was the greatest actress alive and decided to honor her relentlessly or what? I think, she's just one of those actresses who's been around long enough and worked with damn near everybody for so long that, basically she won half those times for just, being really beloved and popular in the Acting Branch, and there's nothing wrong with that btw. She has been great, and around forever! Like, do you guys know how long Regina King's been around? This long:
Yeah, she was on "227"! And basically, she's been working steadily ever since. That's how long she's been around. And only recently, did they let her direct.
5. One Night in Miami...
I'm not sure why she never directed until now, but we really should've let her direct earlier, 'cause goddamn, what a debut. She didn't waste it and gave us an actor's showcase. Adapted from the Kemp Powers play, "One Night in Miami..." takes place the night after Cassius Clay won the title from Sonny Liston and let us be a fly on the wall of a hotel as four of the biggest and most important African-American leaders of all time, talk about the struggles of the past, and the struggles ahead of the movement and America, right at a crossroads for them and for America.
My Original review:
I think at some point every writer, especially any writer with any fascination with playwriting at all, eventually comes up with an idea for a story about famous people sitting in a room and talking to each other. I knew a few people who've done stories like this, and I've thought about it occasionally. Sometimes these ideas are more contrived then others, (They're all contrived of course) but the best of these are so beautifully contrived that you just want to believe that they really did happen. Perhaps it's for the soul, the philosophical soul that we want things like these to have happened. In that respect, it's no surprise to me that Regina King chose "One Night in Miami...", the Kemp Powers stage play to be her first directorial feature. She's been directing a lot more then we realize, mostly in television up until now; of course, she's also been acting for a lot longer then we realize. Now, every award show basically recognizes the fact that Regina King should be honored for everything that's remotely good that she's in, but I don't think most people realize exactly how long she's actually been around. She was a regular on "227", like, every year of the series, before she ever made her feature film acting debut, which was frickin' "Boyz N the Hood"!!! She's quietly had one of the greatest acting careers for the last three decades-, no longer then three decades, and that fact makes it a little more shocking that she's only now gotten a shot at directing a feature film.
Despite all I've said, I'm still a little surprised that this is the project she picked. Not sure why honestly; I guess it's just that I never thought this would be the kind of subject Ms. King would have chosen, but I don't know; perhaps it's just that this is a masculin film. There's barely a female character in "One Night in Miami..." not that it needs one, and I'm certainly not complaining; it's one of the best films of the year, so yeah, if she finds a project to direct next time that's just as good, it could be a cast of amoebas for all I care.
The night in Miami, is February 25th, 1964, the night Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) became the youngest Heavyweight Champion in the world after Sonny Liston (Aaron D. Alexander) didn't come out for the seventh round. Most of the movie takes place in the hotel room at the Hampton Inn, and after the fight, he's brought a few friends over for a small celebration. Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), spokesman for the Nation of Islam of course, not a surprise to anybody who knows what happens next in Cassius's life, Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), the biggest name in team sports at the time as the dominant Cleveland Browns running back and one of the most political of figures as well, right at the beginning of his film career, as well as a brief respite as a boxing commentator, and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom, Jr. in a particularly special performance from him) one of the greatest singers of all time, and one of the biggest pop stars of the days and one of the greatest and most important singer-songwriters of all-time. He was a guest of Cassius for the fight and the four men, have some deep-rooted thoughts and conversations for the time, while also debating on what's the best way to celebrate Cassius's victory. Malcolm, who doesn't drink and is married, has brought two packages of, ironically vanilla ice cream. Cassius wants to celebrate a little on his last day before joining the Muslim faith, so perhaps his last night of drinking. Jim and Sam want to head back to the Fontainebleu, where Sam and Jim, and the rich white people mostly hang out and Sam performs at occasionally.
I don't want to go over everything they talk about and how they talk about it, but just want to encourage those to lay back and enjoy the discussions and conflicts between them. It's a look at both where these particular icons were at at the time, and a discussion of where the African-Americans identity and purpose means for the future. I kept thinking about how two of these men would be gone within a year from this moment, and how only Jim Brown is still alive today; one of the last major figures left of the Civil Rights Movement of this era that's still around. It's an imaginary look into the past, but also a look at the leaders of those who'd laid the roots for the future of the modern Civil Rights/Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements. Those who fought on their own, and those who worked for change within the system.
"One Night in Miami..." is just a fascinating and inspiring film; one of the better versions I've seen of these imaginary conversations between important figures at major dates and times. It's an appealing and inspiring debut for King and this, along with "Soul" which he wrote and co-directed, introduces Kemp Powers as a stunning new, inspiring voice in American cinema, hopefully for years to come. Movies like these should usually be good, but they're rarely this good.
Yeah, "One Night in Miami...", that's the movie, that, as a writer, I wish I wrote, and I can imagine, any actor, wanting to play any of these roles, either on stage, or in this film. I tend to be one of those people who thinks film adaptations of play, actually should be, more narrow, as opposed to opening up the world of a play, 'cause I like, those rare moments when film can emulate the stage, and give us, the feeling of watching a play. I will say, and I don't know, if this was apart of the stage play or not, but, at the end of the movie, they do recreate a scene, of Sam Cooke, on, I think it was "The Tonight Show" in fact, and he performed that, for the only time publicly, his best and most political song, "A Change is Gonna Come". Or course, Sam Cooke was killed shortly that performance, and NBC didn't save the tape of that episode, and is now considered lost media. So, essentially, what King and Powers, did, is basically, giving us back, that performance that's long been lost, and not only giving us, a possible peak, at this rare moment in history, but giving us back this moment; that was one of the most powerful moments of the year in cinema for me. And all the performances are amazing, but Leslie Odom, Jr. as Sam Cooke, to me, gave the best performance, and I thought he should've won the Oscar for that, over Daniel Kaluuya for "Judas and the Black Messiah," that was the supporting performance that I distinctly remembered the most from this year. That's my big Oscar hot take from this year, Leslie Odom war robbed.
NUMBER 4:
(Sigh, incredibly long pause. Sniffling breathing.)
Okay, (gulp)-. When I posted my review of this film originally, I refused to give it a star rating. I will not be giving a rating for it here either. In fact, I will not be discussing this movie, in any additional detail. I will simply repost my original review and note that it lands on this spot on the list and nothing more, other than to say that, if you haven't seen it, please watch it when you get a chance. Thank you.
4. The Reason I Jump
My original review:
I have been dreading getting around to this film, probably more then any other film I've ever seen.
I'm not sure how that statement is going to sound to some of you, both to those familiar or unfamiliar with my personal life. No, I have not read NAOKI Higashida's book, "The Reason I Jump", but I have definitely heard of it. NAOKI's memoir was written when he was thirteen years old, and was translated to English a few years after, and was the first detailed account ever of what it was like to be a non-verbal person with severe autism. I've talked sparingly about it before, selected links below:
but for those unfamiliar, my brother Robbie is severely autistic and is especially non-verbal. When I'm home, I'm watching him. Even now, as I write this. He needs 24-hour care and at times I've documented some of the tolls that's taken on me. So, if you're asking to yourself, "David, is this is a subject that's so personal to you, and provides something so precious as insight into what your brother might be thinking and trying to communicate and how he thinks among other things, why wouldn't you seek out and read this book?", well, here's the answer: fear.
Excessive horror and fear. Fear of learning about everything that me and my family have been doing wrong, everything we could've done better, things that maybe we should've done more of to help Robbie be better, things that maybe he would've liked and appreciated, realizing things that he was trying to say and now doesn't try to say anymore because we were just too unable to grasp what his problems was. These are thoughts that have constantly crossed my mind, often, like apparently NAOKI describes in his book, the difficult manner in which time and memories don't work in a straight line for people like him, and memories can come flooding back and emotions can overcome me in thinking about some of these events. (It's possible, though I've never been officially diagnosed, [And I don't plan on finding out for sure] that I myself may have some form of autism or more likely, Asperger's Syndrome, so some of these revelations could even relate to me.) That kind of overwhelming sweeping emotion and pain, and just utter disappointment in myself, it's something that I frankly, made specific efforts to avoid.
And now that I've actually gone through this movie, which is based on the book, which is periodically told to us through narration while also following several families around the world and the autistic people in their lives, now I've got to thread a new needle, where I don't give details of every memory that gets evoked in this movie, every behavior I recognize, every recall of a heartache that I've suffered and floods back to me, and yet still talk about how much those details are so important and distressingly accurate and emotionally overwhelming in their effectiveness. I come to film and entertainment often for the escapism, and this movie can seem like a shotgun blast to the heart of my real life, and more importantly, not only do I not want to describe all these painful thoughts and memories to you guys, even if I did, I wouldn't want all of you to be burdened with my emotional traumas.
It also means, that I don't know how to review this movie. I think it'll be a fascinating curiosity to most of you, and I think that's good. For me, I can explain in great details why things like bubbles and trampolines or just waiting in the car are triggers for me. I can maybe give an anecdote or two of some of Robbie's more troubling misadventures I've had with him through varying periods of his thirty-one years on Earth, like the ways Naoki describes wanting to go out and keep going, or in our world, the reasons why every door in the house has multiple locks on them, but no matter how I describe that, you're not gonna be effected by it the same way I am.
And also, that still would make this review, more about my emotions and feelings and you know, I can describe those anytime, just like any of you can talk about them. My brother and others, they cannot. Naoki himself even, while becoming an accomplished author since the book came out, he still struggles. I don't know if my brother will ever be able to use a letterboard like some of the people in the film eventually learn to use to communicate, or maybe at one time in his life, if we able to put more effort into teaching him, we could've, but...- like I said, I don't want to discuss my own disappointments or failures that this film can stir in me. The film is about trying to understand what's going on in the mind of someone like him, and if NAOKI doesn't represent Robbie or the autistic nonverbal person you know, I'd say that right now, this successfully represents people like them better then anything else I've ever seen. I hope in the future, this movie will be looked at as the first open door into not only understanding this kind of severe autism, but the first step in eventually finding a world where this kind of autism is accounted for and understood enough by everyone that everyone will eventually not only will we be able to communicate well with non-verbals like NAOKI and my brother, but that it'll be natural for all of us to do so because of how we've adapted the world to make it more adaptable for them to live and experience it.
(Note: I've forfeited my rating for this film, only the second time I've ever done that, after "Life, Animated" which not-so-coincidentally was also a documentary about a person with autism. It's not a fair comparison, but "The Reason I Jump" is a far better film and an absolute must-watch, but yeah, my biases might be too deep for me to properly rate this film, so I'm not going to.)
NUMBER 3:
To get back to the Oscars and "Nomadland" for a second, Chloe Zhao won the Oscar for Best Director, only the second woman to do so at the time, but Emerald Fennell, the director of "Promising Young Woman" was also nominated that year, making 2020, the first time the Oscars nominated two women in the Best Director category in the same year. I remember when you can count on one hand how many female directors had been nominated, and frankly this was a year they could've and arguably should've had more. Regina King would've been nominated in my world, but-eh, there was one female-directed feature that year that I think even topped all of those.
I'm not surprised it wasn't nominated, despite this being this filmmaker's most accessible film, it was still a tough and brutal watch. But it's a necessary one, probably more necessary even now than when it came out, and it felt extremely prescient at the time.
(Sigh, long pause)
I-eh, I thought I could segue into talking about abortion better here, but I guess not....
3. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
The farther we seem to get from getting Roe v Wade back on the books, Eliza Hittman's "Never Rarely Sometimes Always", feels as much like a cry of desperation as it does a warning. It tells the story of two teenage cousins who have to travel to New York City in order to get one of them an abortion, and ending up stuck over the weekend in the city, as the procedure is revealed to be more difficult than they at first believed, as they now have to traverse the city in order to fine, or earn, money for the abortion and the bus ride home.
My Original Review:
The first time we see Autumn's (Sidney Flanigan) bare back, she is in a locker room changing from her checkout uniform into her regular clothes and we see her adjusting her bra strap, loosening it, with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) zeroing in on her shoulder with concern. The next time we see it, she's undressing from her clothes, into a medical gown, and we're looking closely at her exposed skin, on her back and everywhere else we can see, for any kind of unusual indention or remnants of some kind of past cut, scrape or bruise.
Only recently with "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" has writer/director Eliza Hittman caught the attention of mainstream Hollywood, but she's been on my radar for a while. Her debut feature, "It Felt Like Love" was a shocking and disturbing look into the world of an under-developed teenage girl who's desperation to keep up with her supposedly more sexually-adventurous and knowledgable classmates leads her to making some really dangerous decisions and behaviors. It was almost like that scene in "Leaving Las Vegas" where Elisabeth Shue's character ends up with the frat college boys, only completely lacking the self-awareness of the penance she's subjecting herself too, and replaced a teenage girl trying to have sexual experiences, and also the whole movie. "It Felt Like Love", went to theaters unrated (I suspect it would've gotten a hard NC-17 otherwise); her follow-up "Beach Rats" was given an R rating but was still pretty out there as it followed a young gay man on the beaches of Brooklyn during summer vacation who was struggling with both meeting his homosexual desires for both sex and a relationship, while also trying to save face against some of his more jockish and probably homophobic-to-a-bashing-degree friends. They're two of the most brutal and graphic depictions of youths in films in recent years.
Comparatively, "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" is far more digestible to an audience, although that could just be because we're comfortable with the idea of abortion in society, at least the majority of sensible people should be by now, despite attempts by more-then-their-should-be to turn back the clock and return us to the era of women dying from failed coat hanger abortions. Autumn tries to punch her stomach a few times when she finds out that she's pregnant.
She lives in a suburan area of Pennsylvania, a state that is shockingly still pretty behind-the-times on abortion laws; in fact this is the second movie I can think of in recent years about a teenage Pennsylvania girl who's pressured into not getting abortion by her surroundings and has to cross state lines in order to get an abortion without being forcefed some ridiculous propaganda from the inept so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers of the area and doesn't have to be forced to only have an approved abortion with their parents signature. The other movie was "Lebanon, PA", which is actually a real county in what James Carville would call the Alabama middle section of the state. That was more of a cute indy, but Hittman is out for the gritty realism.
We don't know exactly why Autumn is seeming separate from her parents; it could just be normal 17-year-old girl stuff; there's only a scene or two at most where her parents are even present, and I don't think she says ten words to them. She doesn't seem to have to explain it to Skylar, who, seemingly on a whim and instinct, once she finally reveals to her the problem, immediately takes her to New York. They don't have much money, and the whole time there, they seem to get pestered all over the streets and subways of New York. Nothing that's apparently unusual to them; the first time we see a character react to Autumn, it's some kid from her school making a blowjob hand gesture towards her, like that one scene in "Boogie Nights". She throws a glass in his face and we don't know anything else.
When things get rough and they have to stay in New York two extra days cause apparently she's more pregnant then the store-bought test at the Pennsylvania center said she was, and at the amount of weeks she is, the abortion is a 2-step, 2-day procedure. So, in between, there's a devastating and unbelievable single-take interview sequence and procedures that in a just world would easily give Sidney Flanigan an Oscar nomination. In light of this development, we see Skylar and Autumn reluctantly meet up with Jasper (Theodore Pellerin), one of those guys on the ride up they ran into who couldn't possibly get the hint that they're not interested, but for needing money to get home and/or to pay for the treatment with, maybe they can put up with him.
I'm reminded of something that I was taught by an old Literature professor of mine, about how all men's fairy tale are about overcoming a feat of strength, while classically, women's fairy tales are about them losing their virginity. I can't say that I don't have a male gaze, I do, but that disturbing dance between conqueror and prey that's embedded in our sexual DNA and promoted and approved of by society has rarely felt so disturbing. One of the last scenes in the movie is Autumn, privately grasping for Skylar's hand who's sacrificing herself and her body to this fairly disturbing and empty-headed guy in order for Autumn to essentially rid herself of whatever reminder's left from someone for whom she probably also put herself in such a voluntarily (or perhaps not) vulnerable position. Sex is the weapon young women have against the world and I don't honestly know whether I should be relieved that at least they have that tool, or pissed off that we've developed a world where it has to be their weapon they have to use.
Eliza Hittman's created her most thought-provoking work yet; I don't know if it's my favorite of her work so far, but this young filmmaker has been nothing but provocative, and she's become one of the most interesting American directors out there and few have explored youth sexuality in its modern brutal transition phase in smart, observant ways like her. This is a powerful one. I know I'm making it sound like some brutal hard-to-watch piece of American neorealism, which it is, but this is too good a film to ignore and overlook, but more-than-that, it is intense! It's more watchable then I'm letting on as it's subtlety thrills us. It's an intense ticking clock but the way she tells these stories...; she is making quintessential American character pieces and they are some of the richest characters out there. You become engaged in what they'll do next and you care about how they're gonna pull all this off. Don't just overlook this because of the subject matter and aesthetic; this is a great entertaining film. It's a film that, for adults, is gonna provide or reveal shocking insight into the struggles of our youths, and it's probably a movie that kids should watch as well. I know it's rated R, screw the MPAA on this one, kids at that right age, and probably younger if we're being honest, should absolutely watch this film and probably Eliza Hittman's other films as well. They may read them as cautionary tales, but they only are until they happen.
NUMBER 2:
At some point, the film world had to discuss the big elephant in the room. 2020, will always be the year of COVID before anything else. I don't think we've even fully grasped just how much it's truly effected the film industry. Every film production going on was effected by it; it could not be ignored. There were and have been several attempts to try to capture and grasp the moment, some more successfully than others. There was a lot of creativity in that, but-, eh, I think in retrospect most of it's only gonna remind us of the time as oppose to document the moment.
There was, one movie, that wasn't a documentary, that did manage to find a way to put the COVID pandemic into it's proper place in the moment. Oh-eh, forgive me here, if I'm unsure of a proper movie title, I defer to the Academy, and I guess when it was submitted for consideration to them, they hadn't shortened it yet,.... Anyway, I'm as surprised as anybody that this film makes my list, much less, this high, but thank god, the best film to tackle the pandemic was this one. We needed to laugh.
2. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan
My Original Review:
I also jumped the queue again to watch this movie before I watched a favorite Youtube essayist discuss it; in this case, it was Lindsay Ellis's that made me get to this now. I'm glad she did though. And to be honest; I was already debating about when was the best time to get around to "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" myself, since the reports of Rudy Guiliani's "involvement" in the film seemed particularly timely. The movie itself is timely. Maybe I wasn't paying that close attention, but this film seemed like it was sprung on us out of nowhere. I wasn't expecting it, nor was I particularly wanting a sequel to "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan". It'd been years since I last revisited or even thought much about that film, and I really hadn't paid that much attention to Sacha Baron Cohen's comedic work lately. Or really ever, despite the fact that I absolutely loved "Borat..." and hell, I gave five stars to "Bruno" and I seemed to be the only one who liked that one, but still, I really wasn't too familiar with his comedic ouevre.
Like, I knew the Borat character originated on "Da Ali G Show", which I honestly never watched. I remember a few British classmates of mine in film school who said they were kinda tired of him and were a bit annoyed he had made it to America. I only knew about Ali G through from that one Madonna music video and...,- I swear to God, until I literally just looked it up right now, I didn't realize that Cohen actually was Ali G. Seriously, I'm so blind to this I thought Cohen was an Ali G side actor who created Borat and that became big from the show; I didn't realize Ali G was also him too!
(Very long pause)
Wow, he just spent 20 years fooling me and I didn't even notice. Oh-kay, I definitely get it now. I get how, some people can be totally lured into these pranks of his. I'm a little surprised he brought back Borat to do it, and the fact that he even could is really surprising honestly. He mentions it at the beginning that the movie was popular and that it would be hard to do his work undercover here, and we see that a bit early on with clips of him trying to hide his face from fans who recognize him instantly. I guess that's another reason I didn't pay that much attention to Cohen before, despite how hilarious and in hindsight foreboding his interactions with other Americans has been over the years, I never fully embraced this prank style of humor over the years. Lindsay Ellis's video, which I mostly agree with about how the humor or the Borat character, as well as Cohen's prank style of humor actually works better today then it did at the time. She brings up Tom Green, who was big around the time Ali G broke, and I always hated him even as a dumb teenager, but she also mentions in a positive comparison, Nathan Fielder's work in "Nathan for You" about how the people on that show would open up more to Nathan as they trust and appreciate his supposed business advice. She does have a point about that, but I never liked or thought much of "Nathan for You" either. I guess I just never felt sorry for anybody fooled by Cohen because they were often doing it to themselves while Fielder, I always thought he was taking advantage of people who actually were in desperate need and he comes in with a camera crew and the pose of being an expert to help out their struggling businesses, and-eh, it always rubbed me the wrong way. (Although in hindsight, I guess any business owner that gets convinced to sell poo-flavored ice cream probably deserves to have their business fail, but yeah, even still, I think he crosses a line that I don't like.)
I mean, look at the sequence where Cohen, literally spent five days in character, with QAnon conspirarists during the beginnings of the COVID pandemic. He's not taking advantage of them, in fact in the narrative, he's getting help from them since he has no place to go, and they think they're just helping out a confused foreigner trying to find his daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova). They might have some, truly horrendous and disturbing views on Democrats, like they're worst then the Pandemic, fuck these guys, but on the same token, they're not actively trying to physically hurt anybody. They actually end up helping Borat find her. They also point out how some of the supposed beliefs he's been taught from his country and about the world that are wrong. Hilariously wrong, but still wrong, and correctly. Just because they believe in Pizzagate or whatever insane thing QAnon is saying exists now, doesn't mean they should let Borat be wrong about the horrors of female masturbation.
That's the big difference to me, when Cohen is pulling these stunts and pranks on others, it's to reveal their true selves more or less. There's a famous scene in the movie that shows Cohen at an event where he sings a song at a right wing rally that goes through as many offensive and racist right-wing beliefs you can think of. Now, in real life, apparently they caught onto the joke eventually and the event coordinators tried to denounce Cohen's song and act, but he did catch on video several people singing along and cheering such sayings, and even one person giving the "Heil, Hitler" salute.
(Sigh)
Thinking back on the original "Borat" film, I remember laughing a lot at some of the better sketches and segues, but I kinda figured at the time that the comedy in the movie would actually age pretty badly. It has, but not for the reasons I figured it would. I thought the prank jokes would just seem particularly mean-spirited and those who fell for it, well, I wouldn't feel sorry for them exactly, but I figured that we'd look back on that film and ponder how stupid we were, and now I look back at that film, and watching this one, laughing loudly stil, but laughing at how truly stupid we are.
That's basically the movie; I haven't described too much of the plot which is a bit surprising since this movie actually has one; it even has characters and character development, and it's really well done. Frankly, I think it's better to be surprised, but I do want to showcase Maria Bakalova's performance as Borat's daughter who's traveling with him to America this time around. She arguably gives a braver performance then Cohen does, and they get to go into details, like some of the disturbing revelations of how people think about sex and sexual politics and norms. She has some very funny sequences with a Christian women's health place where she's being refused to get help having a baby removed (Not what you think, while also being exactly what you think, but not what you're thinking.), and having a touching, yet disturbing father/daughter dance at a Southern Cotillion, I think. My favorite stuff though is when she gets advice and help from her babysitter, who was both the only African-American character I remember in the film and also probably the most genuinely nice and uncorrupted character they manage to fool; well her and a couple old Jewish ladies that Borat runs into at a synagogue during his lowest moment, and it's really telling how the ones who were the most ostracized based on the history of their race are the ones that are the most instantly accepting and helpful, and just seem like the nicest people around; the best of America, the ones not corrupted by the toxic culture or political misinformation.
"Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" is a funny and sharp look at the modern climate, and just how easily it can and has boiled up in society and just how easily it can truly be undermined, both by corruption at the top, but also from a particularly inventive, intelligent and ambitious prankster, and for that reminder, I say thank you, "Borat". Also, thank you for shortening your film title this time. Apparently the original title was "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan". Eh, that'd be fun to keep saying of course, but I'm glad it's shortened.
NUMBER 1:
My number one film of 2020, is a documentary.
I don't know why that feels strange to say. I mean, I've often put documentaries on my Top Ten Lists, and this is the fourth one on this list, but yeah, for some reason, up until now I never had a documentary at number one. I could've; "Hooligan Sparrow" came close one year. "Samsara" or even "How to Survive a Plague", both of them easily could've been number one that year. Eh, just couldn't quite do it then, but 2020 was such, an exception of a year.... Every standard and rule that we had to go by, basically went out the window, so naturally, putting a documentary at number one this year, yeah, why the hell not? Hell, the biggest TV shows were documentaries, that year! People cared more "Tiger King" than whatever the hell superhero movie was supposed to be released that year that's been lost to time.
Yet, even for a documentary, this is still, not a normal choice. For one, I don't believe people think of this film as a documentary, some might argue it isn't one; they'd be wrong, but they might say it isn't. In fact, some people could argue that this should not even count as a feature film of any kind at all. Even accounting for the pandemic forever changing our true stances on the necessity of the theater-going experience, this one, for some might still be debate-worthy.
Still, I don't know what you guys think of or remember about what you were watching while we were all stuck in our homes, but...,-, when I think of 2020, what we had, what we needed the most, and the thing that actually gave us the most of what we needed and craved the most, from an entertainment level, from an artistic level, from a soulful level, from an inspirational level, the piece of art that we had, that actually helped us get out of it, and should've been the most influential to our life and world once we actually got out of it the most.... There is only one option for number one.
(Long pause. David gets up from his desk, and walks over to a piano keyboard. He cracks his knuckles and stares for a moment before playing.)
F♯, F♯-F♯-F♯-F♯, F♯-F♯, F♯, B♯, E, A♯
A♯, E, D, C♯
(Large, sly smile)
Oh yeah, I'm going there.
1. Hamilton
Oh, I can already see some people reacting to this one. How does a bastard, orphaned, streaming movie that's just a filmed production of a Broadway blockbuster, get all the way up to the top film of 2020?
I can hear some of you guys thinking, "This is a movie?" Yeah, it's got an MPAA rating, it was supposed to be released in theaters. Even if that wasn't enough, I think the argument that, I was on the other side on for years, died when the pandemic killed the movie theaters.
But it's just a filmed production of a Broadway; it's not even a filmed adaptation!
(Shrugs)
Yeah, so. I don't want to see a filmed recreation of "Hamilton", like it's "Wicked" or something, that'd be terrible.
I did write a "review" of "Hamilton" but I didn't really talk about the film much. I bitched mostly about how we don't get enough Broadway productions released on professional film, which it should. Theater is a different experience, and frankly, especially on the Broadway stage, a more expensive and timely one that most Americans can't get to see, and sometimes waiting for it to get a film adaptation isn't the same as seeing it on stage. Most people think that film is a chance to open up a theatrical production, and not limit it to the three walls of a stage, look at "Wicked" right now for instance. I mean, arguably, that's a work that in theory should work better on film than the stage; it's actually shocking it worked as well on the stage to begin with. But I still disagree with this in general; I'd rather see more of this instead. Wouldn't you all have preferred say, a similarly excellent documentary recording of "The Producers" with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick than the film that we got? Some things are better on stage and I think it's more impressive and more valuable if film can actually capture, even a little, the feeling of actually being in the theater! And it's not as easy as just setting up cameras and lighting, when it's done badly, it can be rough. Theater people won't care, 'cause they'll watch bad illegal bootlegs of any production they can find but, if it's a bad professional film recording, it can be brutal; like I didn't like "Julie Taymor's A Midsummer Night's Dream" production and she's a theater person who did adapt to filmmaking pretty well in the past, (And admittedly, I'm not big on that play) but that should work better just recording the stage production, yet it doesn't. This is not as easy as it looks. Hell, the Razzies, a couple years after "Hamilton", named "Diana" a film production of a flop Broadway musical, the worst film of that particular year. Granted that was a bad musical anyway, but like, this can be really be done badly, I'd argue it's harder to do it this way and be this successful at it.
But okay, but it's still just a recording of a performance, it's barely a film, the Academy doesn't consider it one?
Yeah, the Academy's wrong on this one. And not just because it was streaming, even if it was released in theaters it still wouldn't have been Oscar eligible, but A. just because I defer to them sometimes doesn't mean I'm beholden to them, they don't decide what a movie is, I do, but B. at one point in their history, "Hamilton" would've been considered. They didn't make that rule until after a filmed version of James Whitmore's one-man-show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry" earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. And hell, once upon a time, Pauline Kael tried to insist Richard Pryor get an Oscar nomination for one of his stand-up feature films. And so what if it was streaming, everything was streaming in 2020, like I said, any argument now about movies needing to be in theater is just outdated and arcane now, even by the greats.
Yeah, but, okay, let's say you want to argue that "Hamilton", really, you know, it's nowhere near accurate, and that's not even counting the casting and the rapping, right?
Oh yeah, I know. I mean, this movie's full of bad inaccuracies too, there's a lot of historians that actually can't stand "Hamilton" for that reason. Like calling Alexander Hamilton, an "Immigrant", LOLOLOLOLOL! Yeah, no he wasn't. Yeah, this movie does beat history up pretty badly actually. Hey, did you know New York was still a slave state when Hamilton died, and he definitely was involved in selling of slaves, if not owning them, so that rap battle is a little hypocritical too. Hell, they even got major character's names wrong! It's pronounced, "Maria" Reynolds, like in "West Side Story", not "Mariah," as in Carey". I know it's spelled that way, but no, it was Maria. Yeah, that said, I don't care.
So okay, all that, and you're still putting a Disney-produced and distributed Broadway play, that's arguably shouldn't be considered a film at number one!? Really?!
Oh, here's thing, I'm going further than that....
"HAMILTON" IS THE ONE OF BEST FILMS THIS CENTURY!!!!!!!!!!!
"HAMILTON" IS THE ONE OF BEST FILMS THIS CENTURY!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, I mean it too!
It should be on any shortlist. There are days I might put it number one. When I did my Top Ten hypothetical Top Ten List for Sight & Sound a couple years, I seriously almost put "Hamilton" on there. I saw Indiewire's list, what'd they name, "A.I. Artificial Intelligence"? Good movie, but "Hamilton"'s better. This is one of the greatest artistic achievements of all-time. I don't even like comparing it to other feature films, or even other Broadway shows, to me it's more equivalent to like, Zhang Yimou's production of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies, something like that! It's a brilliant example of finding a way to tell the story an entire nation in a single grandiose act of art.
Yes, it's the story of America's birth as told by America today, but it's so much more than that. It's arguably the greatest and most important musical to ever hit Broadway, and yet, it's messages are as timeless and important now more than ever. At a time where we seem to politically be fluctuating more and more between the insane and the sensible, between fascism and anarchy, "Hamilton" reminds us that, indeed, history has it's eyes on us, and it will be written down. And whether the American democracy survives or not, what will stand is whatever everybody did in order to protect it, or destroy it, and that goes for both or all sides. How we tell that story matters, and who tells that story matters. "Hamilton" more than an amazing play, is a story of a Puerto Rican New Yorker, and a bunch of people from as many different races and ethnicities as they could find, using their skills and arts, all coming together to tell the story of a bunch of white British slaveholders and rebels who dared to form a new country and new form of government, in search of equality and democracy for all. And it wasn't easy then, and it's a struggle now and it's hard to not see parables to today, and it's hard to not wonder, just how we will tell the stories of today, a couple hundred years from now. Frankly, the reasons "Hamilton" is number one, is because, well, A. in a time of pandemic when we had nothing to do but catch up on everything we missed, I found myself just watching "Hamilton" on a loop instead of looking for anything else, 'cause why bother, when I got "Hamilton", nothing's topping this, and B. 'cause frankly, if we were more inspired by the messages of a movie and story like "Hamilton" I think we'd be better off as a people and society.
I'm so tired of everything being so goddamn cynical about this country, especially in our media. That might be why I can really get around to liking things like "Succession" or "Game of Thrones" or "House of Cards" or even "Veep", it's because I don't want to give a shit about these capitalist owners who we've decided to just let control the world, fighting behind-the-scenes for power, without any real care about what they actually would like to do or want to do with it. It's not entertaining, it's just "Lifestyles of the Rich & Obnoxious", trying to turn the world into "The Handmaid's Tale", 'cause it'd be better for their businesses. I don't want to see reenactments and reminders of what the government is turning into, I want to see what the government should be like. People who vehemently and passionately disagree with each other, but are honestly trying to run a country to make it better for everyone else. And for those who are only their to seek power for themselves, getting destroyed by their own hand. How we tell our stories matter, and who tells our stories matter! I think if we all took that to heart, things would be a helluva lot better than they are now.
So, if this is my one shot, I'm not throwing it away. The best film of 2020, number one with a Bullet, is "Hamilton". You want to come at on this one, I'll see you on the dueling ground.
In the meantime, here's a list of Honorable Mentions:
FEATURE FILMS (Honorable Mentions)
"Bacurau"-Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho
"Beanpole"-Kantemir Balagov
"Beans"-Tracey Deer
"Better Days"-Derek Tsang
"Calm with Horses (aka The Shadow of Violence)-Nick Rowland
"Da 5 Bloods"-Spike Lee
"The Father"-Florian Zeller
"The Forty-Year-Old Version"-Radha Blank
"His House"-Remi Weekes
"The Invisible Man"-Leigh Whannell
"Judas and the Black Messiah"-Shaka King
"Kajillionaire"-Miranda July
"La Llorona"-Jayro Bustamante
"The Life Ahead"-Edoardo Ponti
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom-George C. Wolfe
"Miss Juneteenth"-Channing Godfrey Peoples
"Moffie"-Oliver Hermanus
"Nomadland"-Chloe Zhao
"On the Rocks"-Sofia Coppola
"Palm Springs"-Max Barbakow
"Promising Young Woman"-Emerald Fennell
"Quo Vadis, Aida?"-Jasmila Zbanic
"Servants"-Ivan Ostrochovsky
"Soul"-Pete Doctor and Kemp Powers
"Sound of Metal"-Darius Marder
"To the Ends of the Earth"-Kiyoshi Kurosawa
"The Trial of the Chicago 7"-Aaron Sorkin
"The Vast of Night"-Andrew Patterson
"The Whistlers"-Corneliu Porumboiu
"The White Tiger"-Ramin Bahrani
"The Wolf House (aka La Casa Lobo")-Joaquin Cocina and Cristobel Leon
"Wolfwalkers"-Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart
DOCUMENTARIES (Honorable Mentions)
"76 Days"-Weixi CHEN, Hao WU and Anonymous
"All In: The Fight for Democracy"-Lisa Cortes and Liz Garbus
"Assassins"-Ryan White
"Billie"-James Erskine
"Born to Be"-Tanya Cypriano
"Boys State"-Amanda McBain and Jesse Moss
"Collective"-Alexander Nanau
"Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution"-James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham
"Dick Johnson is Dead"-Kirsten Johnson
"The Go-Go's"-Allison Ellwood
"MLK/FBI"-Sam Pollard
"MR. SOUL!"-Melissa Haizlip and Sam Pollard
"Our Time Machine"-S. Leo Chaing and Yang Sun
"Rebuilding Paradise"-Ron Howard
"Rewind"-Sasha Joseph Neulinger
"Time"-Garrett Bradley
"Welcome to Chechnya"-David France
"Zappa"-Alex Winter
