Close Encounters of the Third Kind/A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Steven Spielberg is among my favorite living filmmakers, and I somehow hadn’t seen two of his finest movies before this year. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was his first major hit post-Jaws, and it may be the pinnacle of optimistic science fiction filmmaking, offering praise of what people are now and hope for what we can become in the future. Its curious, childlike characters are motivated almost exclusively by the primal desire for understanding, knowledge, and connection. It’s also visually stunning, with Spielberg’s expert blocking and framing doing most of the narrative heavy lifting, and it balances thrilling setpieces with human drama and humor. Read more here.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is another sci-fi masterpiece with a little more nuance in its views of humanity –– perhaps because it was originally conceived by Stanley Kubrick. Spielberg’s Pinocchio/Blade Runner mashup, which follows an android child through a bleak near-future landscape, effectively combines the spectacle and wonder of the filmmaker’s early work with the heart-wrenching dramatic sensibilities of his later career, resulting in an emotionally-charged work of science fiction that stands out in the director’s esteemed filmography. Spielberg presents a dark vision of the future without losing his signature sense of hope –– it’s frightening, but also distinctly warm. This nearly paradoxical bittersweetness is what makes A.I. so great — it assumes the worst in humanity, while also hoping for the best. The film grapples with scientific ethics, the meaning of life, the complicated dynamics between parents and children, and what it means to be human, all while balancing fear and optimism without tipping too far in either direction. Read more here.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is available for rental at any digital retailer. A.I. Artificial Intelligence is available on Amazon Prime Video.
High Fidelity/Grosse Pointe Blank
I did not expect John Cusack to join the ranks of my favorite movie stars this year, but here we are. He occupies a unique space between an everyman like Tom Hanks and a superstar like Robert Downey Jr., which allows him to seem like the coolest guy you could conceivably know in real life, while also playing characters with massive, realistic flaws.
In High Fidelity, his Rob is overwhelmingly snobby and selfish, yet never fully loses our sympathy, because Cusack plays his pretentiousness as a stumbling block instead of a virtue. His portrayal of the quintessential elitist man-child is a perfect encapsulation of the mentality of so many emotionally-stunted men. Of course, it helps to have a sidekick like Jack Black, whose character mirrors many of Rob’s negative traits and amplifies them to hilarious extremes, thus making our protagonist look better by comparison. The plot itself is pretty odd, essentially remixing the rom-com with elements of the hangout movie, which results in some strange transitions and off-kilter pacing. But it makes up for it with its unique conversational style and hilarious characters, and the intentionally unromantic conclusion presents a uniquely nuanced take on love and commitment that should please everyone who hates rom-com tropes. Read more here.
Cusack is also wonderful in Grosse Pointe Blank, a hilarious black comedy in which he plays a hitman who reluctantly revisits his hometown for a high school reunion. He acts phenomenally unhinged, with a sociopathic disregard for human life, but his insane romantic chemistry with costar Minnie Driver keeps him in our good graces. The film feels like a twisted sequel to the classic high school comedies of the 1980s, and actually has several solid action sequences, too. Read more here.
High Fidelity is available on HBO Max. Grosse Pointe Blank is available for rental at any digital retailer.
Fantasia/Fantasia 2000
My brother and I have moved through most of Disney’s animated catalogue for the entirety of lockdown. Our shared favorite, by far, is 1940’s Fantasia, by most artistically ambitious and experimental Disney movie. Its wordlessness and focus on abstraction places it beyond any of the company’s other features. Fantasia emphasizes and perfects the most basic elements of art — sound, shape, color, and motion — to push the entire animated medium forward. This movie drew me into a relaxing yet deeply engaging trance in the first ten minutes that didn’t let up until the conclusion. It’s a beautiful embodiment of raw creativity in action, and I wish Disney (or any major studio) had the guts to produce something as risky and artistically-minded as this today.
Disney did try to recapture the magic of the original Fantasia with Fantasia 2000, appropriately titled for its release at the dawn of the new millennium. The shorts in this one seem a lot more kid-friendly because of their strengthened focus on narrative and characters, as opposed to the artistic abstraction of the previous film. I don’t think this entry is nearly as strong as the first, but it remains one of Disney’s most creative projects to date, and I sincerely hope that the company will make more Fantasias to explore the potential of the animated medium. The “Rhapsody in Blue” segment is one of the best sequences Disney has ever created. Read more here.
Fantasia is available on Disney Plus. Fantasia 2000 is available on Disney Plus.
The Stranger/Chinatown
Most film buffs credit John Huston with the invention of film noir, beginning with his directorial debut The Maltese Falcon. Few remember, however, that he also did an uncredited rewrite of 1946’s The Stranger, a movie that he was set to direct until he dropped out to join the military. Orson Welles went on to direct (and star in) the thriller-noir, which follows a UN agent in his search for a Nazi war criminal in a small Connecticut town. Welles’ magnificently shadowy imagery brilliantly matches the dark story, and the acting is great across the board. Read more here.
Huston helped shepherd the revival of the genre he created when he appeared in Chinatown, a brilliant neo-noir directed by notorious monster Roman Polanski. That filmmaker’s involvement makes me wish the movie was worse, but I can’t deny its excellence: Jack Nicholson’s slimy swagger is perfectly suited to noir, Huston shines as the shadowy mogul at the mystery’s center, the beautiful long takes and set design make the world feel lived-in and artful, and Jerry Goldsmith’s simmering score is an all-time great. The film embraces the dubious morals of its genre and projects them onto the real world. It may not tell a completely true story about the origin of Los Angeles, but the film provides genuine, harsh truths about the foundations of modern civilization. I choose to ascribe a lot of this greatness to screenwriter Robert Towne, whose script is tight in construction and epic in scope. His dialogue is rich, the narrative is engrossing, and the subtext works on every level. Read more here.
The Stranger is available on Amazon Prime Video. Chinatown is available for rental at any digital retailer.
My Best Friend’s Wedding/Notting Hill
In what feels like an endless sea of Julia Roberts rom-coms, two stand out as legitimately great. I firmly believe that the actress gives one of her best performances in My Best Friend’s Wedding, which follows Roberts’ character as she tries to terminate her friend’s engagement on the eve of his wedding. On paper, her character is manipulative and cruel, but she’s effortlessly likable because of the actress’s natural sincerity and surprising knack for physical comedy. She’s flanked by two incredible supporting performances. Cameron Diaz brings charm and depth to another character that’s fairly one-dimensional at face value — her well-rounded performance makes the central love triangle much more compelling and conflict-riddled than the average rom-com. And Rupert Everett has more fun than anyone, as his carefree confidence has a gravitational pull that sucks in both viewers and fellow performers. While the characters might seem thin on paper, the dialogue is rich. There’s a rhythm and a rightness to the conversations that sets the film apart. Read more here.
In Notting Hill, Writer Richard Curtis and director Roger Michell take a simple concept — huge celebrity falls for average Joe — and milk it for all its worth, finding unique humor and genuine sweetness the situations it presents. Hugh Grant is at an all-time high here, perfectly delivering self-deprecating humor while taking the fantastical surprises of the plot in stride. He makes a ton of half-funny jokes, and immediately looks like he regrets opening his mouth, which ends up being way funnier than any quip. Meanwhile, Roberts is ridiculously charming and communicates a lot without saying very much. It’s like Roman Holiday for the ‘90s. Read more here.
My Best Friend’s Wedding is available on Netflix and Hulu. Notting Hill is available on HBO Max.
Speed/Snowpiercer
Two of the best action movies I discovered this year were high-velocity transit thrillers. Speed is basically just Die Hard on a bus, which makes sense because it was directed by that movie’s cinematographer, Jan de Bont. Keanu Reeves stars as a bomb disposal officer who, along with a ragtag team of civilian passengers, must keep a public bus moving faster than 50 miles per hour to prevent it from exploding. It’s a ludicrous premise that’s straightforward enough for a 5-year-old to understand (slow down = blow up). Dennis Hopper makes a great puppetmaster of a villain, and Sandra Bullock is perfect as a passenger shoved into the driver’s seat. It’s masterfully is paced, and follows its ridiculous concept to every logical conclusion. You’d expect a movie with 80 minutes on a moving bus to get repetitive or stale, but Speed consistently throws new conflicts and creative solutions into the mix without overwhelming you. Read more here.
A much darker but equally fast-paced endeavour, Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer follows the last fragments of humanity on a high-tech bullet train after the world freezes over. Bong channels the socioeconomic frustration that made Parasite so great into a more conventional action thriller –– the movie sees a working-class rebellion move forward through the socially-stratified train. At first, the characters appear to be pretty clear-cut, archetypal cutouts that fit nicely into the traditions of both the dystopian sci-fi and heist genres — there’s a reluctant leader, a brainy hacker, a quippy sidekick, a wise elder, and so forth. Similarly, the story seems like a well-executed, straightforward us-versus-them revolution narrative. Then Snowpiercer reaches its midpoint, and suddenly, most assumptions about the characters and the story need to be re-evaluated. Seemingly flat characters reveal incredible nuance, and several twists in the plot make you question everything that preceded. Read more here.
Speed is available for rental at any digital retailer. Snowpiercer is available on Netflix.
Mistress America/The Meyerowitz Stories
Noah Baumbach is quickly joining the ranks of my favorite contemporary directors. He made one of the best movies of last year, Marriage Story, and his 2013 Greta-Gerwig-starrer Frances Ha is one of the best of the decade. Mistress America, also starring Gerwig, is a zanily charming movie about a first-year college student bonding with her twentysomething-year-old future stepsister. It’s a celebration of found family, a meditation on the creative process, and a reflection on the inadvertent crumbling of friendships, all wrapped up in a college coming-of-age dramedy. In just 84 minutes, Baumbach creates a beautifully awkward world, overflowing with fully-realized, memorable characters who all deserve hate and love, often simultaneously. Lola Kirke perfectly embodies the emotional tug-of-war between confidence and insecurity that every freshman faces, and Greta Gerwig grapples with one of her most challenging characters: a woman who’s more pathetic and mean-spirited than the actress’s usual likable persona. Read more here.
2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is similarly great, and boasts Baumbach’s starriest cast. Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller all play members of the titular family who grapple with the difficulties of adult familial relationships. Baumbach packs a ton of gentle, honest wisdom into the script. It’s a great reflection on how a lifetime of little moments can create familial rifts and generate unspoken conflict, and it also has a lot to say about the importance (or lack thereof) of legacy and success. Nearly every scene shifts in mood but maintains a consistent tone, deftly swerving from comedy to drama without missing a beat. Read more here.
Mistress America is available for rental at any digital retailer. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is available on Netflix.
The Deer Hunter/Awakenings
Robert De Niro gave two of his most tender performances in jarringly different movies. In 1978’s The Deer Hunter, the actor plays a hardened smalltown steelworker who survives the Vietnam War, only to face devastation from its more extreme toll on the people he loves. Michael Cimino’s emotional epic takes its time establishing a warm community, which makes its inevitable shattering even more tragic. The film creates a beautiful sense of friendship between De Niro and his excellent costars (including Christopher Walken and John Cazale) that subsequently feels horrible when it’s pushed away by trauma. It’s a harrowing movie about the random brutality of war. And a very young Meryl Streep is here, too. Read more here.
Penny Marshall’s Awakenings gives De Niro a substantially different role: a catatonic man who suddenly regains full control and consciousness of his body. It’d be an easy performance to overdo, but despite the physicality of the role, the actor’s emotional output is tastefully understated. A less prudent actor would make this character into an over-the-top caricature, and possibly win tons of awards for doing so. De Niro, on the other hand, embodies a simple gentleness and curiosity that deeply enhances the overall movie. And Robin Williams is equally good in a role that could not be further from his manic comedic persona — he’s a quiet, well-meaning doctor with social anxiety and a massive heart. The actor is so movingly natural, with subtle idiosyncrasies and his unmatchably comforting smile. The overall movie is something of a miracle: its incredible true story is a prime candidate for Oscar-baity heavy-handedness, but Marshall never takes that bait, instead allowing natural performances to tell this remarkably human story. Read more here.
The Deer Hunter is available on Peacock. Awakenings is available for rental at any digital retailer.
A Trip to the Moon/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Two of my favorite silent discoveries come from opposite ends of the era. Georges Méliès’ 1902 short A Trip to the Moon is one of the first cinematic breakthroughs in the history of the medium. Perhaps the first science fiction film, Méliès’ project also serves as a magnificent display of innovative visual effects and a cheeky satire of European imperialism. The stylized design of this film is absolutely amazing — the sets and the costumes look magical and inventive, perfectly suiting the escapism of the movie. It’s remarkable how dynamic this is, especially considering its complete lack of camera movement. I was surprised to find myself immensely moved by this piece — it’s hard not to love Méliè’s team’s creativity, passion, and unwavering belief in the cinematic medium. Read more here.
If A Trip to the Moon was one of the silent era’s breakthroughs, then F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is perhaps its sweetest swan song. Released in 1927 –– the same year that The Jazz Singer broke the sound barrier –– Murnau’s hopelessly romantic film captures the forces that pull us apart and hold us together. The dark allure of the urbanized future and the warm familiarity of the nostalgic past, each embodied as a romantic interest, fight for the spirit of the central unnamed man, nearly ripping him apart. The conflict suddenly ends about thirty minutes in, when he realizes that the battle is only as binary as he allows it to be. It’s not an entirely satisfying resolution (or even a believable one). But what follows is so earnestly romantic and beautifully captured that the abrupt problem-solving barely affects the overall movie. Rarely has Murnau’s technical wizardry made for such an accessible, hopeful experience — in the second half, he basically abandons all title cards and dialogue to make way for an unbelievable wave of stunning images that celebrate the power of love and community. He captures brilliant performers on extravagant sets with hauntingly gorgeous lighting and his signature brand of slick photography, and also elegantly uses one of cinema’s first built-in musical scores to accentuate his themes. Read more here.
A Trip to the Moon is available on YouTube. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is available on YouTube.
