TEN FOR '20

Weird in many far more important ways, 2020 was a weird movie year. For one thing, it was for most of us a vastly truncated moviegoing year; at this writing, I haven’t gone to see a movie at a theater, either a press screening or a regular commercial showing, since The Wife and I went to that new version of Emma in late March.

This is almost certainly the longest such stretch for me since I was a small child. I also haven’t been to a movie at any kind of public venue at all since I went to see Sonic the Hedgehog at the West Wind Drive-In in Glendale a few days later.

All the same, I’ve managed to see quite a few movies.

Via streaming, DVDs and the like, movies have been a major diversion during the months of lockdown, as well as the months since the relaxation of lockdown during which many of us still haven’t heard of a movie worth risking COVID infection to see on a big screen.

The releases of lots of big-budget, screen-filling movies got postponed, like the James Bond flick No Time to Die. So 2020 turned out to be a year for the sort of movies that critics often claim to wish would get more attention: low-budget indies, obscure festival bait and—especially—documentaries would get releases and notice they might otherwise have struggled to find.

This year we got Korean small-town horror with Zombie for Sale, micro-budget Great Lakes absurdism with Lake Michigan Monster, sexual awakening at church camp with Yes, God, Yes, and a comic Scottish Most Dangerous Game with Get Duked!

We got documentaries about everything from post-Soviet Russian hockey to Harry Chapin to the Moonies to the Church of the Subgenius to President 45’s psychology. And all of them got a marketing push that would have been all but unthinkable the year before.

Anyway, here are the ten films that, at this writing, seemed like they helped me pass this Plague Year most agreeably:

The Trial of the Chicago 7—Aaron Sorkin’s dramatization of the 1968-70 trial was as lively, funny, sad, cogent, thought-provoking and entertaining as anything I saw this year.

First Cow—The story of two guys trying to get ahead in the Oregon Territory in the early 19^th Century, directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt, is an austere and heartbreaking take on the American Dream.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always—More tough but touching naturalism, this follows a teenage girl in trouble as she and her best friend travel from small-town Pennsylvania to New York City. Sidney Flanigan gives one of the performances of the year in the lead.

The King of Staten Island—Pete Davidson co-wrote and stars in a semi-autobiographical comedy about a directionless young guy in the title borough, directed by Judd Apatow; Marisa Tomei plays his widowed Mom. The movie’s a little poky and shapeless, but it’s hilarious and good-hearted.

Desert One—The disastrous attempted rescue mission of the American hostages in Iran in 1980 is chronicled in this painfully honest documentary from Barbara Kopple, fleshed out with graceful animation by Zartosht Soltani.

Promising Young Woman—Carey Mulligan shines in this harsh but bracing and caustically witty rape-culture revenge shocker, an impressive feature debut for writer and director Emerald Fennell.

Kajillionaire—Maybe the strangest big-name release of the year, this deeply eccentric portrait of a family of the smallest of small-time grifters is made unforgettable by performances from Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger and Gina Rodriguez.

My Darling Vivian—This documentary about Vivian Liberto, the first wife of Johnny Cash, is narrated by their four daughters. It’s essential viewing for Cash buffs, but fascinating for anybody.

The Way I See It—Another documentary; this one about Reagan and Obama White House photographer Pete Souza’s awakening to political engagement. There are maybe too many corny inspirational anthems, but the subject’s photos are potent.

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm—The Candid-Camera-on-crack style of comedy practiced by Sasha Baron Cohen is, I must admit, not my cup of tea; I find it excruciatingly embarrassing to watch at times. But there’s also no doubt that Cohen, through the adventures of his “Kazahk” alter-ego Borat, makes highly trenchant and relevant satirical points, and Maria Bakalova, the young Bulgarian actress who plays Borat’s daughter, brings the movie an unexpected dose of genuine emotion.

Also worth sitting through this year: The Invisible Man, for Elizabeth Moss; the uneven Filipino historical drama Quezon’s Game, for its fascinating subject; Freaky, for Vince Vaughn as a teenage girl; Ham: A Musical Memoir for the singing of Sam Harris;  Lucky Grandma, for Tsai Chin’s badass performance; Radioactive, for Rosamund Pike’s badass performance; the live-action Punch and Judy show Judy and Punch; the overlooked Hitchcockian set-bound thriller 7500, for Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Yes, God, Yes, especially for Natalie Dyer; the rather hair-raising horror indies The Wretched and Homewrecker; tiny-budget dramas like Angelfish and Clementine; the near-miss showbiz tale The High Note; the near-miss psychology romcom Sunny Side Up; the near-miss biopic The Glorias; the near-miss sci-fi yarn The Vast of Night; the cheeky WW84; the intriguingly stylized school drama Selah and the Spades and the Irish supernatural comedy-thriller Extra Ordinary. Also, a bunch of worthwhile documentaries: Our Time Machine; Blessed Child; J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius; Boys State; the hard-hitting wildlife documentary Wild Daze and the dazzling Time.

While I’m at it, here are quick hits on a few notable flicks I hadn’t previously reviewed:

Hillbilly Elegy—Ron Howard’s adaptation of the J. D. Vance memoir is compelling  and well-acted in itself, especially by Glenn Close and Amy Adams, but politically evasive and timid in what it omits.

Mank—This chronicle of Herman Mankiewicz and the writing of Citizen Kane, a long-cherished project of director David Fincher and his late father Jack Fincher, has some superb acting and looks good, but it’s accuracy-challenged, and worse, appallingly slow and overlong.

On the Rocks—The latest from Sofia Coppola, this mild comedy-drama has rascally art dealer Bill Murray helping daughter Rashida Jones stalk her possibly-straying husband Marlon Wayans. Murray’s performance is another classic of avuncular mischievousness, and Jones is just as good, but the movie lacks urgency, like a piece of literary fiction that ultimately doesn’t feel like it’s about anything much.

The Prom—A gay high school student throws her Indiana hometown into a tizzy because she wants to go to prom with her girlfriend, and Broadway stars Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells swoop down uninvited on the town for what they hope will be a career-boosting protest of this intolerance. The tunes in this musical are unmemorable but pleasant, the stars have a self-deprecating blast; it’s sort of boring to say so at this point, but Streep is particularly marvelous. And Jo Ellen Pellman, as our heroine, is a wonder.

I also managed, at this writing, to have not yet caught up with several important films: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, News of the World, Tenet, Soul and Nomadland, to name a few. Any of these could have altered my list.

Happy New Year everybody; have a great 2021, at the movies and everywhere!

SCAM I AM

Opening this weekend at Harkins:

Kajillionare--To call the Dynes small time crooks is to insult small time crooks. The L.A.-based family--paterfamilias Robert (Richard Jenkins), Mom Theresa (Debra Winger) and daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood)--engage in the most pathetic, scrounging grifts imaginable, although Old Dolio tries to bring some parkour-style panache to them. The yields of these scams are, at best, the likes of neckties or gift certificates for a free massage.

The Dynes live in a basement office beneath a factory that produces bubbles; they have to clean up the foamy froth that comes seeping down the walls on a daily basis. This gets them a ridiculously low rent, on which, of course, they are nonetheless badly in arrears. Eventually the trio meets Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), an unflappable, free spirited young woman who more or less invites herself into the operation and throws everything into turmoil.

This is the set-up for this deeply eccentric comedy-drama by writer-director Miranda July. The story meanders, but the acting and left-field dialogue keep it coherent. Jenkins and Winger are so brilliantly, oppressively repulsive that the movie might be unwatchable without the fresh air that Rodriguez riotously provides.

The heart of the film, however, is Wood's Old Dolio--that wretched name is explained in due course--who has grown up isolated in the world of her pitiful chiseling parents. As a result she's a doleful, affectless blank slate in a track suit, with Rapunzel-length hair like her Mom (presumably to avoid the expense of haircuts). She's never experienced a minute of true love and affection in her life. The stillness and deliberation of Evan Rachel Wood's performance gives Old Dolio the radiant sadness of a silent-movie comic heroine; she's hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

The title refers to Robert's life aspiration: He's content to skim and survive, while everybody else, he contemptuously notes, "wants to be a kajillionaire." In its homestretch the movie seems to go completely crazy, yet July is able to turn Robert's grotesque meaning joyously on its head, and the final seconds of the film are beautiful and weirdly inspiring.

Shortcut--Here's how bad an idea taking a shortcut turns out to be in this scare picture: First, the charming Fiat bus piloted by a resolute driver (Terence Anderson) and carrying a quintet of bored British schoolkids gets hijacked at gunpoint by an escaped maniac (David Keyes) whose speciality, reportedly, is eating the tongues of his victims. But soon after, this guy's menace is far overshadowed when the bus is besieged by a fanged, squalling creature like something from Stephen King's remainder table.

Eventually, the kids end up in an abandoned underground network of tunnels, a military base of some sort. They seem pretty relaxed about the whole thing; rather than try with all their might to find their way out and back to civilization as quickly as possible, they split up and dawdle around, making time for squabbles and hints of teen romance. Eventually we get some fairly perfunctory backstory on the monster, and the kids team up in the manner of It for a showdown.

Big chunks of this movie, an Italian production in English directed by Alessio Ligouri, don't make much sense, not even horror-movie sense. But it's atmospheric, there are some scares, the actors are capable and attractive, and at just 80 minutes it doesn't tax our patience too much.

Available today on YouTube:

Public Trust--This documentary is about the efforts, which have gone on for many decades, of corporate raiders to pillage public lands in the United States. Director David Byars follows a variety of activists and journalists, working everywhere from Utah to Minnesota to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, long droolingly coveted by the oil industry. We see the slow, stubborn progress of the Lorax-like activists, their gratifying successes under the last administration, and their appalling setbacks under the current regime.

It's a well-made movie, firm and convincing in the presentation of its evidence. It's also often visually beautiful; it gives you a sense of what's at stake. But it's open to the same criticism as so many polished lefty documentaries: it's preaching to the choir. There's no position this film takes on this issue that I don't agree with, and, specifics aside, none that I wasn't already more or less aware of.

Much as I admired its tireless subjects, the principal effect it had on me was to boil my blood, and maybe raise my blood pressure. I doubt this will be seen by the people who most need to see it, and if it is, most of them will likely dismiss it as fake news. Vote. Vote. Vote.