Film
Best Films of 2021
BVC shares some of his favorites from the past year. By Br yan VanC ampe n
You think you’ve seen it before: a dysfunctional family battles an army of robots. But “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” is as funny, well-structured and surprising as the best Pixar movies. Katie Mitchell is a classic misfit who can’t wait to escape her suffocating family and go to film school. Her dad cancels her plane ticket and decides to take her across the country on one last family road trip. They stop at a dinosaur-themed rest stop when the robots attack. The way the plot unfolds is half of the fun. Two minutes into Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s completely bugnuts “The Spine of Night,” an epic fantasy battle royale fought over the influences and power of a strange blue plant, you know this is a love letter to the adult animation of “Heavy Metal” (1981), Ralph Bakshi’s rotoscope style in “Wizards” (1977) and “The Lord of the Rings” (1978), and bizarre sci-fi curios like “Zardoz” (1974). Not for children and not safe for work, it’s pretty well wall-to-wall beheadings, eviscerations and male and female nudity. Gelatt and King serve up what they love with no apologies or half measures. COMEDY
The French Dispatch. (Searchlight Pictures)
ACTION
In Ilya Naishuller’s “Nobody,” Bob Odenkirk fails to protect his family during a home invasion. As he pursues the burglars and ends up killing a Russian Mafia thug, this anonymous schlemiel morphs into John Wick, giving “Nobody” a black comic edge that wouldn’t work with Liam Neeson. Odenkirk wrote for “SNL” and co-created “Mr. Show”; he got cast in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” and became a dramatic actor in films like “The Post” and “Little Women.” Now he’s the midwest Jason Statham. Joe Carnahan’s “Copshop” is pulpy, classic “Spam in a Can” action, with various police officers and criminals involved in a siege inside a Nevada police station. In a cool cast led by newcomer Alexis
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Louder, Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo, Toby Huss (“42”) steals the movie as a cackling, crooning assassin. “Copshop” earns comparisons to “Die Hard,” ANIMATION
“Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train” is one of the boldest, craziest blasts of kinetic energy I’ve ever seen. Five demon slayers board a Harry Potter-esque train in order to combat any attacks, and the helpfully color-coded slayers end up being put to sleep and imprisoned in their own dreams. I especially liked the way that each character’s emotional state is reflected in different animation styles; each slayer has six to eight different ways of being perceived.
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We need a new adjective to describe Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up.” “Pitch black” is inadequate for McKay’s polarizing comedy. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play low-level astronomers who are tasked with telling the world about an impending “planet-killer” meteor. The world ignores the problem and gets back to tweeting. The phenomenal cast includes scene-stealers Cate Blanchett as 2021’s version of Faye Dunaway in “Network,” Mark Rylance and Jonah Hill. Meryl Streep’s venal, shallow POTUS is her revenge on Trump for dissing her on Twitter. Shawn Levy’s “Free Guy” was my favorite summer film. A riff on “The Truman Show” centered on the gaming world, Ryan Reynolds plays a background bank teller in a massive 360-degree video game who realizes that he’s in charge of his own destiny. Movies like this never get credit for ensuring that their screenplays are creative, hilarious, logical and surprising. “Free Guy” is bursting with comedy, cool ideas and a great cast that includes Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh
Ambudkar and the always hilarious Taika Waititi. The framework for Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” is simple: we’re seeing the layout of the last issue of the title magazine, and the individual stories — a cycling tour, a mad work of art, a kidnapping — are played out for us. The narrative welcomes stylistic flourishes like black and white cinematography and animation. “The French Dispatch” has the most ridiculously stacked cast of all time: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, Jeffery Wright, Owen Wilson and Frances McDormand, and the day players are A-list stars like Elisabeth Moss, Edward Norton and Willem Dafoe. “Mandibles!” is weirdo fun from French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux (“Rubber”) — Abbott and Costello for the croissant crowd. Grégoire Ludig and David Marsai get an offer to transport a suitcase by car for a pile of cash. When they carjack a vehicle to make the trip, they discover a fly in the trunk that’s as big as a pit bull. Everything is shot and presented in a minimalist, realistic fashion. It all feels convincing and genuine, which makes the absurdity pop. COMIC BOOK
Destin Cretton’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is packed with cool stuff: an atmospheric fairy tale prologue depicting a stunningly beautiful courtship battle, reminiscent of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and grand spectacle and fantasy in its action sequences. The movie finds fresh ways to stage the usual comic book tropes like training sequences, establishing a cool costume and the like. There’s a fight scene set on a bus that is the best thing of its genre since 1994’s “Speed.” “Shang Chi” feels like pretty woke entertainment, supporting its mix of fresh faces and veterans with a good sense of humor. Ben Kingsley’s hambone actor Trevor Slattery from “Iron Man 3” has a “Planet of the Apes” speech that’s the funniest moment of 2021. Jon Watts’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is off the chain. When I wasn’t laughing, I had a big goofy grin on my face for most of the time. The whole world now knows that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is ol’ Web-Head, so he asks Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell
