One thing about our annual top 10 lists that we have to deal with every year is that eligibility gets a little more complicated each week as we move through the media we cover. Despite the Grammys bizarre rules, picking albums is easy: did it come out between January 1 and December 31? Then it counts, even if the album had a single or two from the year before. TV shows get a little more complicated, since some shows have seasons that start in the fall of one year and the spring on another, for example. And then movies are the most difficult, because a lot of indie movies have multiple release dates: do we go by festival debut? Limited release in LA and New York? Wide release? If they’re foreign films, do we go off their home country’s release or when they came out here?

For the most part, we’ve just done whatever the big critics did, which, living in Seattle, often meant making a lot of trips to the art house theaters in December and January to catch up with the indie darlings critics saw in the bigger cities, at festivals, or on screeners. But that was not the case in 2020! The theaters stayed closed after March 2020 and didn’t become a part of my life again until F9 saved cinema in June of 2021. For the first time ever, it just was not possible to see a lot of the most beloved movies – including major Oscar pictures – until their digital release in 2021. So (and I warned John and Colin I’d be doing this) I’m making a one-time exception to my own list eligibility rules and expanding the field to any movie that was released for the first time IN A WAY I COULD SEE IT in 2021. Does this have anything to do with the fact that I’m still skittish about going back to theaters and haven’t seen a lot of beloved 2021 movies? MAYBE.

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After the big black hole of nothing that was movies last year, 2021 couldn’t help but feel like a step up in comparison. But regardless of that, this did feel like an especially great year for movies, possibly because so many good ones were delayed and finally released under the best possible circumstances. Though of course, those circumstances still weren’t perfect, since there are plenty of movies I wasn’t able to see since Omicron forced me to spend a lot less time over the holidays in movie theaters than I was planning on. Also, as is the case even in a normal year, some arthouse or foreign films are just an ordeal to see or they don’t get released properly until February.  So to the likes of Red Rocket, The Worst Person In The World, Parallel Mothers, and The Souvenir: Part II, guess we’ll have to acquaint ourselves some other time. Continue reading →

2021 was a good year for movies… I think. I didn’t see a lot of ‘em. There was a window where I felt safe going to the movies. Heck, there was a day last summer where I went to a mall to see a movie and neither the theater or mall required a mask. Not because they were being negligent, because people thought masks weren’t necessary anymore. It always feels like two steps forward and one step back with COVID. Or maybe that’s one step forward, two steps back?

Fortunately, there were solid releases on streaming. How fun was that HBO Max same-day release stunt? I’m missing that already. How else would I have had the opportunity to see such classic as Space Jam: New Legacy or Mortal Kombat (in my underwear.)

There’s a lot I haven’t seen yet that I know would be on this list. Licorice Pizza and West Side Story for sure. A few others on streaming I wish I’d made time for like CODA and Summit of the Gods. And a couple I have no idea how to watch, The Worst Person in the World and Petite Maman.

Because this list feels incomplete to me, I decided to at least make it fun for myself. Instead of the usual paragraph after paragraph of plot recap and half-assed analysis, I’ve made checklists for each movie. Bite size pieces of plot recap and half-assed analysis for each movie. Did I devise this plan out of laziness? Sort of. But I think it’ll be fun. Let’s give it a shot.

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