Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
I am not even remotely close to having watched everything from 2021, but I’ve slowly been making inroads into the list and with nothing immediately popping to mind this week, I thought I would take a look at five films that I’ve seen so far this year that are my favorites. This isn’t close to a definitive list and I’m certain some or even most of these titles might not make my final top ten of the year.
The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion tells her most potent story in almost three decades in her adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel about a pair of ranch-owning brothers in 1925 Montana. The central of these two figures is Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank, a controlling and manipulative man who resents his brother George (Jesse Plemons) marrying the former inn owner (Rose) who brings along her effeminate son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to live with them on the ranch. The film explores Phil’s hyper-masculine personality, which is a facade for his lost and lonely character.
Cumberbatch is terrific as are Smit-McPhee, Dunst, and Plemons, each delivering some of the most complex characters to date. Campion’s eye for shot composition gives the entire film a painterly veneer while the fascinating narrative underlying it explores how each individual handles the stresses around them, whether it’s Phil’s increasingly domineering attitude, Peter’s cold calculation, or Rose’s descent into alcoholism. It may well be one of the most compelling dramas of the century so far.
Oscar-Nominated Shorts Program
Maybe this one’s a bit of a dodge, but it’s a pleasant one. Early this year, as is their custom Shorts TV released the Oscar-nominated short films covering three categories for documentary, animated, and live-action short film. These films aren’t typically broadcast in US theaters except for some animated programs that release attached to a feature-length animated film, so they would still have been new to a lot of audiences even if they were playing festivals in 2020. There were 15 titles in total, five in each category. Some were great, some were good, and a couple were mediocre at best, but none of them were ultimately disappointing.
As usually, the animation program was the best with a slightly higher average rating than the other two categories. If Anything Happens I Love You, which ended up winning the Oscar, was head-and-shoulders above the rest. It was a look at grief in the days and weeks following tragedy and it worked perfectly. Among the live-action short films, Feeling Through and The Present were the best, the former looking at an interaction between a poor black teen and a blind white man while the latter exposed the harsh realities facing Muslims in Israel. The Academy chose Two Distant Strangers, which was good in its focus on the challenges facing the Black community at the hands of the police, but it was ultimately just a little too structured. In the final category, it was Colette, a film about a French resistance fighter visiting Germany and the concentration camp that killed her brother. The film is filled with raw emotion and was the ultimate Oscar winner as well.
Belfast
Kenneth Branagh’s black-and-white feature about a working class family in Northern Ireland in 1968 is filled to the brim with strong performances from a cast comprised of Jamie Dornan, Ciatriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, and newcomer Jude Hill. The question that faces the family in the film is what to do about the rising violence in and around their neighborhood as British Protestants and Irish Catholics face-off to determine the fate of the small country within the United Kingdom.
Branagh’s own personal history may have influenced his screenplay for this project and that familiarity helps isolate what makes this story feel so authentic. Although it is ostensibly black-and-white, Branagh uses color in interesting ways, opening with a look at present-day Belfast before transitioning into black-and-white then tossing in a couple of color movies the family goes to see in the theater and a stage play of A Christmas Carol. The whole affair is a lived-in message piece that goes to great lengths not to blame anyone for their beliefs, but to cast doubt on the most fanatical who would destroy peace in order to obtain power.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
The second feature film to release in 2021 that was part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, director Destin Daniel Crettin takes the Wuxia martial arts style of filmmaking and applies it to the MCU debut of its first Asian superhero. Embodied by the talented Simu Liu, the film takes the audience into a mystical world not far removed from those previously witnessed in Doctor Strange and in the Iron Fist Netflix series. Herein, Shaun/Shang-Chi (Liu) finds himself drawn into an eternal struggle between the forces of good an evil taken human form in the guise of his mother and father. Shang-Chi’s father Xu Wenwu, played by the tremendous Tony Leung, currently possesses the legendary Ten Rings, a set of powerful trinkets that imbue the bearer with supernatural strength and combat prowess.
The film co-stars Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, and Michelle Yeoh is a new direction for the MCU. While the film hews closely the Disney formula, the end result still feels fresh thanks to Crettin’s measurable skill in finding a compelling path through oft-traveled waters while infusing the universe with a moviemaking style that Disney has started embracing with more purpose in recent years, its live-action Mulan adaptation a fitting example. While the promise of the MCU finding a new course through familiar territory is a fleeting one, Crettin’s film, for one shining moment, gave audiences that distinctiveness.
Black Widow
Before Shang-Chi hit cinemas, Black Widow was the first film in the new phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to release. While the film follows Scarlett Johansson as the titular heroine, finally getting the stand-alone film she’s deserved since Natasha Romanoff was introduced over a decade ago. Director Cate Shortland shows her predominantly male predecessors how to make a relatable and exciting action adventure film.
The story is set prior to the events of the last two Avengers films as Natasha and others are in hiding from the US Government who want to bring them to trial for their violation of the Sokovia Accords that bar superhero efforts without prior approval of the government. The film also introduces the Russian agents who acted as Natasha’s family during her early teenage years. They include Rachel Weisz as her “mother” Melina, David Harbour as her “father” Alexei (aka Red Guardian), and Florence Pugh as her younger sister, who may not have realized that she was an agent at the early age. The film follows Natasha as she tries to locate the notorious Red Room where agents like her were trained to be lethal killing machines with embedded aversions to harming their masters.
Shortland’s film combines the Marvel formula with the filmmaking style of the spy thriller. The end result is a tense, exciting adventure that Johansson deservedly dominates, but Pugh is almost her equal and more than satisfies our craving for a suitable replacement for Johansson’s estimable presence in the franchise itself.
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