A middle-aged person who’s thoroughly accustomed to their life of relative solitude is called upon, briefly or maybe for an indeterminate period of time, to caretake a child. That’s the animating premise of countless movies, and it is the basic … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number One
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson could have made a straightforward concert film with the footage he was given, and the finished product could have still been one of the highlights of the cinematic year. With hours upon hours of footage from the … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Two
In its storytelling particulars, Shiva Baby is tightly contained and rendered with exquisite efficiency. Most of the film takes place among the grieving noshers at a shiva, where college student Danielle (Rachel Sennott) twists and cringes as a fleet of … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Three
The Lost Daughter, the feature directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal, is dense with the anxiety of simply living. Adapted, by Gyllenhaal, from a 2006 novel by Elena Ferrante, the film follows Leda (Olivia Colman), a college professor who is on … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Four
Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman is made with a refined elegance so pristine that it can give the impression that the filmmaker simply landed upon it, despite ample evidence that painstaking craft was employed. For instance, the film is reliant on … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Five
As guided by first-time feature director Lin-Manuel Miranda, tick, tick…BOOM! is a thrilling tribute to the act of creation itself. Miranda, working with screenwriter Steven Levenson, adapts Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical stage work of the same name with a resolute determination … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Six
Directors Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas distinguish themselves as masterful storytellers with the documentary Writing with Fire. Like other crafters of nonfiction cinema, they had the good fortune to come upon a story worth telling. According to the filmmakers, it … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Seven
The defining achievement of Steven Spielberg’s version of West Side Story is that it is inadequate to the point of flat-out inaccuracy to term the film an adaptation or a remake. Yes, the work is taken directly from the enduring … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Eight
Director Todd Haynes adheres to many of the standard practices of musical documentaries in The Velvet Underground. In tracking the history of the monumental band that toiled in Andy Warhol’s Factory, transformed rock music, and inspired countless descendants who sometimes … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Nine
Flee is both an animated film and a documentary. That simple statement of fact is integral to understanding the unique power of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s film. The story told is that of Amin Nawabi, and he tells it himself. Interviewed … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Ten
Coffee for Two 