This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2021

surprised I'm not seeing The Souvenir Part II mentioned, despite its reviews.

in awards, that is

i suppose i will be seeing west side story with my gal in the theaters on christmas. We did little women when it came out and it made her very happy; methinks this will be much the same vibe of my just drinking my soda and radiating neutrality.

― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Monday, December 13, 2021 9:37 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I'm considering seeing WSS for my first movie in theaters since Little Women on New Year's Day 2020. My wife loved LW, but has no interest in WSS, so I expect I'll be going alone.

Side note: has anyone ever bought a DVD or DVD set from dvdcoming.com?

My group:

Alright folks, it's time to announce our collection of nominees for 2021. A complete list will be available on our site soon and the winners will be announced next week! pic.twitter.com/l84VHcnrO0

— Florida Film Critics (@FLFilmCritics) December 15, 2021

I wash my hands of anyone who voted for the Lucy farrago

Is there a story behind why some categories have only three or four nominees?

Speaking of washing hands of things ...

ANNOUNCEMENT: The nominations for the Minnesota Film Critics Alliance Awards will be presented Jan. 28, 2022. The awards will then be presented Feb. 13, 2022.#AwardSeason #AwardsSeason #FilmTwitter #MNFCA

— The Minnesota Film Critics Alliance (@MNCritics) December 14, 2021

I am not affiliated with this group and will not answer for the image they give Minnesota.

Lack of run-offs.

xpost

I DO see your hands all over the preference for the other Hamaguchi movie tho.

https://media.giphy.com/media/cwLsS6PzQf8A0/giphy.gif

https://www.screenslate.com/articles/best-movies-2021-first-viewings-discoveries-and-individual-ballots

Including a ballot from our own obscurist Tape Store!

First Viewings:
“Strike City” (Tom Griffin and John Douglas, 1967)
"I Don't Know" (Penelope Spheeris, 1970)
The Selection (Gyula Gazdag, 1970)
The Resolution (Judit Ember & Gyula Gazdag, 1972)
“Sea Space” (William Farley, 1972)
"A Day More" (Vlatko Gilić, 1972)
Pictures of the Old World (Dušan Hanák, 1972)
"Children of the Fields" (Robert M. Young, 1973)
We’re Not the Jet Set (Robert Duvall, 1977)
Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983)
Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra, 1985)
Mix-Up (Francoise Romand, 1986)
Just Like Weather (Allen Fong, 1986)
Kamikaze Hearts (Juliet Bashore, 1986)
Motel (Christian Blackwood, 1989)
Strangers in Good Company (Cynthia Scott, 1990)
These Hands (Flora M'mbugu-Schelling, 1992)
Double-Blind (Sophie Calle & Greg Shepard, 1992)
Ruby In Paradise (Victor Nuñez, 1993)
“The Trained Chinese Tongue” (Laurie Wen, 1994)
Goshogaoka (Sharon Lockhart, 1997)
Bubble (Steven Soderbergh, 2005)
"Daga’a" (Shadi Habib Allah, 2015)

Film Comment is counting down the year-end poll results:

Welcome to our official Best of 2021 Countdown! Follow along as FC Co-Deputy Editors Clinton Krute and @devikagirgayi discuss the results of our year-end critics’ poll with @bealoayza, @BilgeEbiri, & @edogoesboating. pic.twitter.com/oaNVowFWoM

— Film Comment Magazine (@FilmComment) December 17, 2021

Here's FC's full list:

01. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Colombia/Thailand/UK/France/Germany/Mexico/Qatar)
02. Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
03. The Souvenir Part II (Joanna Hogg, UK)
04. Annette (Leos Carax, France)
05. Days (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France)
06. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, Australia/New Zealand)
07. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
08. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze, Georgia/Germany)
09. Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, France/Netherlands)
10. Undine (Christian Petzold, Germany/France)
11. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude, Romania/Luxembourg/Czech Republic/Croatia)
12. The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes, USA)
13. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany/Belgium/Sweden)
14. El Planeta (Amalia Ulman, Spain)
15. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
16. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
17. The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, USA/UK/China)
18. The Inheritance (Ephraim Asili, USA)
19. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
20. Titane (Julia Ducournau, France)

Pretty shit year for American movies, based on the evidence of this poll and Sight & Sound's.

Not much love for Wes Anderson’s new one; I gather it is just finally too much?

it's actually grown on me in memory, but it's certainly the wes andersoniest wes anderson movie i've ever seen

its stunning use of color and black and white and the different ways the images fill the frame are the attractions and the elements that really linger

I like the Film Comment list more than any of the others, and remember feeling that way for the last several years

Los Angeles weighs in, and between then, N.Y. and Boston (and in all likelihood the Nat'l Society), it's a clean sweep for Drive My Car.

Picture: DRIVE MY CAR
Director: Jane Campion, THE POWER OF THE DOG
Actor: Simon Rex, RED ROCKET
Actress: Penélope Cruz, PARALLEL MOTHERS
Supporting Actor: Vincent Lindon, TITANE and Kodi Smit-McPhee, THE POWER OF THE DOG (tie)
Supporting Actress: Ariana DeBose, WEST SIDE STORY
Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, DRIVE MY CAR
Cinematography: Ari Wegner, THE POWER OF THE DOG
Production Design: Steve Saklad, BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR
Editing: Joshua L. Pearson, SUMMER OF SOUL
Music Score: Alberto Iglesias, PARALLEL MOTHERS
Foreign-Language Film: PETITE MAMAN
Non-Fiction Film: SUMMER OF SOUL
Animation: FLEE
New Generation Award: Shatara Michelle Ford, TEST PATTERN and Tatiana Huezo, PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN
Career Achievement Award: Mel Brooks
The Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award: THE WORKS AND DAYS (OF TAYOKO SHIOJIRI IN THE SHIOTANI BASIN)

From some site telling me where I can see it: "If you’re looking for an introspective, character-driven road drama, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest film, Drive My Car, checks all of the boxes." Geez, I did a whole poll of such films. So I really want to see it--but can't, yet, as far as I can tell.

Love that Production Design win for BARB AND STAR

I'm considering seeing WSS for my first movie in theaters since Little Women on New Year's Day 2020. ...
― jaymc, Tuesday, December 14, 2021 11:38 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol @ this cockamamie idea. hopefully it comes to streaming before too long.

Good on them for recognizing Lindon too.

LAFCC loves hairpin turns with acting wins -- Penelope Cruz!

Someone from the CBC--don't know a thing about him.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/best-films-2021-1.6287609

He was doing fine until the last seven or eight.

I quite liked French Dispatch - I'd put it in the top 50% of his movies. But it wouldn't sway anyone who doesn't already like his style

Because Oscars are detrius, the Oscar shortlists...

https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/94th_oscars_shortlists.pdf

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
“Ascension”
“Attica”
“Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”
“Faya Dayi”
“The First Wave”
“Flee”
“In the Same Breath”
“Julia”
“President”
“Procession”
“The Rescue”
“Simple as Water”
“Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”
“The Velvet Underground”
“Writing with Fire”

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
“Águilas”
“Audible”
“A Broken House”
“Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis”
“Coded: The Hidden Love of J. C. Leyendecker”
“Day of Rage”
“The Facility”
“Lead Me Home”
“Lynching Postcards: “Token of a Great Day””
“The Queen of Basketball”
“Sophie & the Baron”
“Takeover”
“Terror Contagion”
“Three Songs for Benazir”
“When We Were Bullies”

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Austria, “Great Freedom”
Belgium, “Playground”
Bhutan, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Denmark, “Flee”
Finland, “Compartment No. 6”
Germany, “I’m Your Man”
Iceland, “Lamb”
Iran, “A Hero”
Italy, “The Hand of God”
Japan, “Drive My Car”
Kosovo, “Hive”
Mexico, “Prayers for the Stolen”
Norway, “The Worst Person in the World”
Panama, “Plaza Catedral”
Spain, “The Good Boss”

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
“Coming 2 America”
“Cruella”
“Cyrano”
“Dune”
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”
“House of Gucci”
“Nightmare Alley”
“No Time to Die”
“The Suicide Squad”
“West Side Story”

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
“Being the Ricardos”
“Candyman”
“Don’t Look Up”
“Dune”
“Encanto”
“The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun”
“The Green Knight”
“The Harder They Fall”
“King Richard”
“The Last Duel”
“No Time to Die”
“Parallel Mothers”
“The Power of the Dog”
“Spencer”
“The Tragedy of Macbeth”

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
“So May We Start?” from “Annette”
“Down To Joy” from “Belfast”
“Right Where I Belong” from “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road”
“Automatic Woman” from “Bruised”
“Dream Girl” from “Cinderella”
“Beyond The Shore” from “CODA”
“The Anonymous Ones” from “Dear Evan Hansen”
“Just Look Up” from “Don’t Look Up”
“Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto”
“Somehow You Do” from “Four Good Days”
“Guns Go Bang” from “The Harder They Fall”
“Be Alive” from “King Richard”
“No Time To Die” from “No Time to Die”
“Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” from “Respect”
“Your Song Saved My Life” from “Sing 2”

ANIMATED SHORT FILM
“Affairs of the Art”
“Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice”
“Bad Seeds”
“Bestia”
“Boxballet”
“Flowing Home”
“Mum Is Pouring Rain”
“The Musician”
“Namoo”
“Only a Child”
“Robin Robin”
“Souvenir Souvenir”
“Step into the River”
“Us Again”
“The Windshield Wiper”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
“Ala Kachuu - Take and Run”
“Censor of Dreams”
“The Criminals”
“Distances”
“The Dress”
“Frimas”
“Les Grandes Claques”
“The Long Goodbye”
“On My Mind”
“Please Hold”
“Stenofonen”
“Tala’vision”
“Under the Heavens”
“When the Sun Sets”
“You’re Dead Helen”

SOUND
“Belfast”
“Dune”
“Last Night in Soho”
“The Matrix Resurrections”
“No Time to Die”
“The Power of the Dog”
“A Quiet Place Part II”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home”
“tick, tick...BOOM!”
“West Side Story”

VISUAL EFFECTS
“Black Widow”
“Dune”
“Eternals”
“Free Guy”
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife”
“Godzilla vs. Kong”
“The Matrix Resurrections”
“No Time to Die”
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home”

Titane not even getting this far is the non-surprise of the season.

Our winners about to be announced.

The songs in Annette are terrible, but it would delight me to no end if one of them scored an Oscar nod.

Belfast getting onto the shortlist for best sound is a grim bellwether.

Shall we start surely will and I expect it to win

Beyonce and Jay-Z will cancel each other out, allowing Brian Wilson to win.

I'd love to see The Velvet Underground win, my own minor reservations aside. But it won't beat Summer of Soul (which I still haven't seen).

Memoria has leaked. Hell yeah dude.

i will likely cheat but watching weeraseethakul anywhere but the theater misses the point imo

I really liked the performances in Passing and The Lost Daughter, and those films were both interesting

Two lists for a niche cinema concern:

https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-best-action-scenes-of-2021
https://www.polygon.com/22859125/best-action-movie-scenes-2021

It's "better than" list time ...

Movie culture reached a turning point in 2021 where the glut of content, streaming or in theaters, overwhelmed concerns about quality, craft, and the destructive messages being sold to us. Film artists competed with virtue-signaling, and political distraction was confused with emotional and visual satisfaction.

This year’s Better-Than List is, more than ever, a reminder of the standards we must hold to keep our sanity and to maintain culture that preserves our humanity and morality. Every Better-Than choice offers alternatives to deceit, ineptitude, and nihilism.

About Endlessness > Dune, The Green Knight
Roy Andersson’s series of comic-tragic tableaux depict the modern Christian quest for salvation that is abandoned by Denis Villeneuve’s inexpressive sci-fi and David Lowery’s fractured mythology. Most sci-fi movies, like pseudo-myths, are about meaninglessness.

Annette > West Side Story
Leos Carax’s ravishing existential opera addresses artistic crisis, that creative challenge that Steven Spielberg’s remake turns into no-hope social-justice platitudes.

Coming 2 America > Judas and the Black Messiah
Eddie Murphy and Craig Brewer’s superior sequel hilariously corrects Hollywood’s fashionable, insulting race hustle. The year’s best Hollywood movie is a welcoming diaspora comedy.

Shoplifters of the World > Licorice Pizza
Stephen Kijak’s tribute to The Smiths captures the inextinguishable flame of pop-culture fraternity, going deeper than Paul Thomas Anderson’s clever ’70s period piece.

France > Drive My Car
Bruno Dumont’s media heroine reveals contemporary psychic turmoil while Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Chekhov imitation distracts from it. Dumont mixes genres to pungent effect while Hamaguchi tells the wrong story and lards it with “art.”

Summer of 85 > Belfast
François Ozon revisits ’80s AIDS-era innocence for a bold cultural confession, while Kenneth Branagh turns Irish ethnic conflict into totally inauthentic pop nostalgia.

Sin > Benedetta, House of Gucci
Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky’s awesome Michelangelo biopic explores the price and sacrifice of achieving greatness. Paul Verhoeven and Ridley Scott exploit the business of religion and fashion for shameless Euro-trash.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Army of the Dead, Army of Thieves > No Time to Die
Snyder finally got his chance to fulfill the visionary possibilities of pop myths, but the James Bond franchise-holders kill off the formerly fun, expressive brand.

Georgetown > The Card Counter
Christoph Waltz’s unsparing Beltway satire is more humane than Paul Schrader’s wallow in way-late recriminations about the Iraq War.

Love Is Love Is Love > Passing, The Lost Daughter
Eleanor Coppola’s wisdom about female experience is missing from Rebecca Hall’s and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s miserable tales about racial and gender identity. Coppola doesn’t fit the feminist model, she transcends it.

Saint-Narcisse > The Power of the Dog
Bruce LaBruce dares explore the mystique of sexual identity, creating his own, rich mythology, but Jane Campion demeans the Western genre as if to justify the misandry and homophobia of pseudo-feminism.

Sublet > Parallel Mothers
Eytan Fox forces a haughty New York Times journalist in Israel to rethink his place in the world, but Almodóvar’s bisexual melodrama turns his usual charm into a pretext for lamenting Spain’s Fascist past. Remarkable compassion vs. embarrassing guilt.

Licorice Pizza > The Worst Person in the World
Anderson’s wild, evocative anecdotes about freewheeling youth best Joachim Trier’s exploits that tirelessly defend self-obsessed Millennials. It’s the difference between romance and cynicism.

Dear Comrades! > The Tragedy of Macbeth
Konchalovsky’s view of recent Soviet history (featuring a powerful performance by Yuliya Vysotskaya) parallels the contemporary U.S. Communist threat, but Joel Coen traduces Shakespeare to flatter contemporary U.S. political trends. A vibrant history lesson vs. a lesson in thespian vanity.

Pig > King Richard
Nicolas Cage’s artisan-avenger makes Michael Sarnoski’s folktale a fable about personal conviction, but Will Smith misses the point in his latest egotistical biopic.

my eyes

So, Shoplifters of the World > Licorice Pizza > The Worst Person in the World?

Also, Pig > King Richard is nowhere near the bold critical stance that Armond seems to think it is.

Neither tbh are

Saint-Narcisse > The Power of the Dog
Summer of 85 > Belfast
About Endlessness > Dune, The Green Knight

or even

France > Drive My Car

The Hand of God was totally a Fellini homage, the big difference being the tragedy in the middle of the film, which was very understated

Most of the performances were voluble and very emotive, but Filippo Scotti as Fabietto, a teenager who becomes an adult over the course of the film, gave a subtle and fantastic performance

National Society makes it unanimous ...

Best Picture: DRIVE MY CAR (48 points)

Runners-up:
PETITE MAMAN (25 points)
THE POWER OF THE DOG (23 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Best Actress: Penélope Cruz, PARALLEL MOTHERS (55 points)

Runners-up:
Renate Reinsve, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (42 points)
Alana Haim, LICORICE PIZZA (32 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Best Actor: Hidetoshi Nishijima, DRIVE MY CAR (63 points)

Runners-up:
Benedict Cumberbatch, THE POWER OF THE DOG (44 points)
Simon Rex, RED ROCKET (30 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Best Supporting Actress: Ruth Negga, PASSING (46 points)

Runners-up:
Ariana DeBose, WEST SIDE STORY (22 points)
Jessie Buckley, THE LOST DAUGHTER (21 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Best Supporting Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (54 points)

Runners-up:
Vincent Lindon, TITANE (33 points)
Mike Faist, WEST SIDE STORY, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, THE POWER OF THE DOG (26 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Best Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, DRIVE MY CAR (46 points)

Runners-up:
Pedro Almodóvar, PARALLEL MOTHERS (22 points)
Paul Thomas Anderson, LICORICE PIZZA (20 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

(Best Director still to be chosen.)

Anders Danielsen Lie is the Hottest Man in the World.

Best Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, DRIVE MY CAR and WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (46 points)

Runners-up:
Jane Campion, THE POWER OF THE DOG (36 points)
Céline Sciamma, PETITE MAMAN (28 points)

— National Society of Film Critics (@NatSocFilmCrix) January 8, 2022

Anders Danielsen Lie is the Hottest Man in the World.

Up there. Just discovered Jonathan Bailey, who cuts a similar silouette, in the last week.

Anders Danielson Lie was very appealing in Reprise and Olso, August 31st, am looking forward to seeing Bergman Island and The Worst Person In the World

I never know how they make these determinations, but how is Ruth Negga a supporting actress in Passing? Wasn't she in almost every scene? Maybe I'm not remembering right.