Josh’s Favorite Movies of 2021 — Part Five!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my look back at my favorite movies of 2021! Click here for part one, click here for part two, click here for part three, and click here for part four! And now, we’ve finally arrived at my FIVE favorite movies of 2021…!
5. Judas and the Black Messiah — This riveting film tells the story of the murder of Fred Hampton, the charismatic chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther party in 1969, by members of the Chicago police, working with the FBI. The film is anchored by two spectacular performances: Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton, and Lakeith Stanfield as Bill O’Neal, the Black Panther member who was actually a mole for the FBI and whose actions helped lead to Hampton’s murder. Both men deliver towering, magnetic, deeply moving performances. This film should be required viewing in every American History class in the United States. I was blown away by this story and the incredible skill of Shaka King (director and co-writer) and his collaborators in bringing it to life. This film will make you mad. It should. (Click here for my full review.)
4. The French Dispatch — Once again, I was mesmerized by a new film from Wes Anderson. I adored this loving salute to writers, those unique individuals who invest themselves fully in a story and do their best to capture the essence of who and what they witness using only the written word. (Many of the characters in the film, writers for the fictional French Dispatch, are loosely based on actual writers for The New Yorker.) I loved the film’s clever structure (vignettes that mimic the different type of feature articles found in a magazine like The New Yorker), and the film featured one spectacular actor after another, including but by no means limited to: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright, Owen Wilson, Adirne Brody, Mathieu Amalric, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Liev Schreiber,Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens, Wally Wolodarsky, Lyna Khoudri, and many more. Whimsical and moving, this is a great film. I loved it. (Click here for my full review.)
3. Tick, Tick… Boom! — Lin-Manuel Miranda’s electric directorial debut was written by Steven Levenson (who won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Dear Evan Hansen), adapting the musical by Jonathan Larson (best known as the creator of Rent). This autobiographical story was based on Mr. Larson’s pre-Rent days as a dirt-poor waiter living in New York City and struggling to break through into the world of musical theater. Andrew Garfield is tremendous in the leading role as Jonathan Larson, carrying the film on his energy and depth of feeling. I loved the film’s playful narrative structure, in which we jump between a recreation of Jonathan Larson’s 1992 performance of his show Tick, Tick… Boom! and the dramatic week in Jonathan’s life in 1990 that the show was about, while any the same time many of the musical numbers dip into enjoyably playful flights of fancy that move from reality to fantasy and back again. The cast is phenomenal, the music is terrific, and most of all I was deeply moved by the film’s all-too accurate depiction of the often-painful process of attempting to create art. (Click here for my full review.)
2. Spider-Man: No Way Home — The absolutely audacious Spider-Man: No Way Home is extraordinary, a ferociously entertaining new installment in the ever-expanding MCU and this version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man (once again played so beautifully and note-perfectly by Tom Holland, who has been playing this role in the MCU ever since 2016’s Captain America: Civil War). It’s also a beautiful and brilliant love-letter to the entire cinematic history of Spider-Man. Hopefully you all know this by now (if you haven’t yet seen this film STOP READING NOW) — No Way Home brings together characters and story-lines from both the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films and the Marc Webb/Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man films. It is deliriously great fun to get to see Willem Dafoe back as Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin (from 2002’s Spider-Man), Alfred Molina back as Doctor Octopus (from 2004’s Spider-Man 2), Thomas Hayden Church back as Flint Marko/the Sandman (from 2007’s Spider-Man 3), Rhys Ifan back as the Lizard (from 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man), and Jamie Foxx back as Electro (from 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2). But even more extraordinary was getting to see both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprising their roles as their versions of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. I was shocked and delighted by how substantial a role both Mr. Maguire and Mr. Garfield had to play in the film’s third act, and I was deeply moved by the film’s efforts to bring closure to their individual stories and film series. (I was truly moved watching Andrew Garfield’s Peter’s reaction to being able to save Zendaya’s M.J., after being unable to save Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy back in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.) There’s so much to enjoy in this delightfully stuffed film. Benedict Cumberbatch is terrific as Dr. Strange — it’s super fun to see him again paired up with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker (after their fun interactions in Infinity War). I got emotional with the brilliant and beautiful way the filmmakers finally brought the classic “with great power…” line into the MCU, and the inevitable and tragic fate that soon befalls the person who speaks that line. I loved the way the film utilized J.K. Simmons (back as J. Jonah Jameson after killing in that role in the Raimi Spider-Man films), I loved seeing so many of the supporting characters in the previous MCU Spider-Man films each given a moment to shine, I was overjoyed to see Charlie Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock from the Netflix Daredevil show… I could go on and on. The great miracle of this film is that it’s so packed with characters and plot, and yet the film never feels bloated or confusing or unwieldy in the way so many previous bad blockbuster sequels have (cough Spider-Man 3 cough). This film gave me everything I could have possibly wanted, and more. (Click here for my full review.)
1. Dune — Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of my very favorite novels. I adore it and have read it many times. I had high hopes for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation, and Mr. Villeneuve and his team did not disappoint. Dune Part One is a masterpiece. It is a magnificent piece of work. It is stunningly gorgeous. I love the design of this Dune film. I love the space-ships (the Guild Highliners are stunning and I fell immediately in love with this film’s interpretation of the Ornithopters), I love the sets, I love the costumes, I love the props. Everything looks perfect for the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune, while also being very original and unique looking, rather than falling into the familiar pattern of previous sci-fi films (many of which themselves were influenced by Frank Herbert’s Dune novel). That’s an incredibly tricky balance, but Mr. Villeneuve and his team found it. Within these beautiful sets and locations, Mr. Villeneuve and his team found beautiful shots. Every frame of this film is meticulously well-composed. The film is HUGE. It’s epic in scope. The cast is extraordinary: Oscar Isaac, Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Charlotte Rampling, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Chang Chen, Babs Olusanmokun, and so many more — each are absolutely note-perfect and create fully-realized, interesting and complex characters even though many of them only appear for a few scenes. Hans Zimmer’s score is magnificent; haunting and memorable. The film digs deep into Frank Herbert’s universe; they have produced a remarkably faithful adaptation that is able to respect the richness of the world of Dune while also compressing and simplifying the story and the vast cast of characters to present it all in a way that is clear and easy to follow. The film is long, but it is masterfully paced and never lags. I was hooked in right from the first frame and on to the last. I could have easily watched three more hours of Dune immediately. My only complaint: do I really have to wait years for the second half of the story??? (Click here for my full review.)
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