Cine Rambles End of Year Film Awards - CREYFA 2021

Well, it's that time again (or slightly past it); time to assemble my five favourite films of the year just gone and explain exactly what about them got me all hot and bothered.

But you know what? Looking back through all the 2021 releases I've seen, it doesn't feel overly representative to talk about just the five best films. What about everything else? The dross, the surprise hits, the flawed yet strangely fascinating?

So this year, I'm shaking things up a bit. I'm introducing the Ciné Rambles End of Year Film Awards!

Or CREYFAs for short. And yes, until someone comes up with something better, that is the acronym I'm sticking with.

Considering the amount of time I’ve spent documenting the Oscars on this blog and calling out which of their picks are and aren’t worth honouring, it only feels right for me to cut the middleman entirely and just create my own awards ceremony, with blackjack and hookers and some actual sincerity for once.

But unlike the Oscars, here both the best and worst films of the year are equally eligible to pick up an imaginary statuette, and even some films I haven't seen will get a chance! Oh wait. Scratch that, guess it's exactly like the Oscars, then.

We’ll be starting with six categories this time round but depending what films I've got to work with each year, the number of awards and even the awards themselves might fluctuate in future ceremonies. Cynics might say an award isn't really worth much if the awarding body makes the awards up each year to match the films they most want to talk about, but to them I'd say: too right! How very astute of you. Now sit down, shut up, and stop taking the fun out of this.

 

The 'Apocalypse? Wow!' Award: Biggest Surprise of the Year

And yes, that is the extent of the quality of this year's jokes. I suggest you buckle up, sonny. First up, the biggest surprise of the year, awarded to the film that most exceeded my original expectations for it.

This year, that award goes to The Father, which I may have given an undue slating in my Oscars post, based almost entirely off looking at the poster and IMDb blurb, a rather tried-and-true method over here at Ciné Rambles. Originally this looked to me like a film of already-acclaimed actors Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Coleman chewing scenery in an otherwise-unremarkable-looking stage-to-film adaptation skirting dangerously close to Oscar bait. However, upon finally getting to see it (months after it stopped being Oscar-relevant, naturally), I was pleasantly surprised to find a genuinely engaging, enjoyable and even emotional film that didn't feel nearly as baity as it originally threatened to be.

I still stand by most of what I said previously in terms of it being an acting film: a lot of Anthony Hopkins just showcasing himself for most of the runtime, but you know what, when you have an actor as talented and engaging as Hopkins, maybe that's not such a bad thing. And you know what, I'll even go so far as to say his performance merited the nomination. The win? Debatable.

It's also worth noting the rest of the cast, including Olivia Coleman, Mark Gatiss, and Imogen Poots, were all very good: it would be unfair to call this solely a Hopkins vehicle.

The Father is also very nicely directed by Florian Zeller, who directed the original stage play, so it's clear he knows exactly what he's doing with this story. Hopkins may be a great actor, but the performance we get from him here is definitely a joint effort, and the results are incredibly satisfying. One of the standouts for me is the scene where Hopkins introduces himself to his new carer, Poots, which features one of the most effective deployments of the F-bomb I’ve ever seen on film, enough to cause the audience in m y screening to visibly flinch en masse, conjuring a stronger reaction than I’ve seen from actual horror films.

The other standout is the ending, which despite being somewhat inevitable, was still genuinely sad and heart-breaking, and gave me the emotional punch it really needed to in order to earn its place here. While this may still seem like bait on paper, the insincerity I'd expect from that isn't really here, but instead the beating heart of something genuine and human.

 

The 'Citizen Kane Criterion' Award: Biggest Disappointment of the Year

So this is the inverse of the above: the film I had the highest hopes for relative to how much I ended up enjoying it, and this year’s winner is Nobody.

This Bob Odenkirk-led action film promised to be the next John Wick, with producer David Leitch in tow to back up its claim, but unlike that series where the titular character is the world’s best assassin, Nobody was pitched (at least to me) as John Wick if he were just a regular everyday suburban deadbeat dad who’s been pushed to the edge by his miserable life and finally snapped. Cool, love it. Great idea. There’s real potential in taking that raw one-man-army action and transplanting it into the story of an everyman who must learn to become a badass assassin rather than just being one from the get-go. It'll make for a tenser, down-to-earth scenario, which will in turn make the action all the more engaging and exciting.

There’s just one teeny tiny little catch: it’s all a bunch of LIEEESSSSSS!

Not only is Nobody not at all like how it was pitched to me, which in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, but it doesn’t really do anything else of equivalent quality or interest, and so what’s left is a an inferior, less interesting John Wick clone.

It starts off as described, sure, with Bob Odenkirk doing a fine job playing a middle-aged dad to a couple of kids who don’t really respect him and a wife who has no time for him, stuck in his routine at a dull job and always wishing he could stand up for himself but never having the balls to actually do it.

However, and Spoilers Ahead I suppose, it is then revealed Bob has a shady past working for the government where he was, guess what, the greatest assassin who’s ever lived. You know, exactly like John Wick. So, there goes the USP, straight through the window, pulling my interest in the film out with it like a magician’s handkerchief, not for a second realising how interesting that would have been to explore.

See, it’s not Nobody as in he’s a nobody, it’s Nobody as in he’s Nobody; he doesn’t exist on official records and if he told you who he was, he’d have to kill you. What a clever fucking twist. Bet you’ve never seen a highly skilled secret agent killing loads of people before; much more interesting than a grounded, down-to-earth every-man, right?

And now, out of nowhere, he's got a basement full of guns and traps and gold bullion, because now we’re not even pretending this isn’t discount John Wick, and off he goes to take down the Russian mafia because why not, essentially. Odenkirk of course knows how to effortlessly outsmart and outshoot all the goons sent after him, and he assembles a group of old partners to rig up his office building for a final disappointing shoot-out, and that’s your lot. And in comparison to the famed bus sequence earlier in the film where, little did I know, the quality and brutality of the action would peak, this climax definitely feels like a damp squib, both in threat and spectacle.

With the starting point of a nobody and an end goal of a one-man army, there were probably several ways this arc could have been done and Nobody has managed to choose the least interesting one. Even having no arc at all and just beginning and ending as the same badass, ala Commando, would have been at least more satisfying and allowed both me and the film to just focus purely on the slightly shit action sequences. But no, Nobody tries to have it both ways, with Odenkirk already knowing how to be an action badass from minute one, but just deciding arbitrarily not to be one until the plot deems it necessary, boiling down his arc from being about his transformation and the emotions and circumstances that drive it, to instead being about his decision to use skills he has anyway.

And his refusal to use said skills is the only reason the inciting incident happens in the first place, so why not just have him be defenceless for realsies in the beginning and make the plot more straight forward, about ten times more convincing and a hundred times less boring?

End of Spoilers

It's not a woefully bad film: there’s still some decent action and choreography in there, and Odenkirk’s performance is brilliant. It’s just that complete failure of character development that gets me, and when I realised the direction the film was heading in, my interest completely deflated. I know a lot of other people really enjoyed this, so maybe there’s some key aspect I’ve missed, but I’m in no hurry to go back and check.

 

The 'Kylie' Award: The Film I Can't Get Out of my Head

This one’s a bit harder to concretely define, because this isn’t so much about the quality of the film as it is about how much I’ve thought about it since watching it. Which can get confusing because, of course, the best films of the year are generally pretty memorable, but that's not quite the same as a film that you find yourself constantly name dropping in conversation without realising, or one you keep returning to during idle research, or one that ends up right at the top of your Bluray wishlist.

None of which necessarily make it the best film of the year, and in this case, it's not even cracked my top ten (rewatch pending), but sometimes, you've just got to honour those quirky outliers.

And no, I definitely didn’t spearhead this entire format change just to mention this one film.

That would be ridiculous.

So Annette is a rock opera written by Sparks and directed by Leos Carax (of Holy Motors fame) and while it isn't quite one of my top picks of the year, it's got to be one of the most intriguing I've seen.

Of course, part of that is down to it being a musical, which offers it a unique advantage in lodging itself in one’s brain over other films, but it also helps that said music is written by Ron and Russell Mael, who are insanely talented and clearly instrumental (ha) to the success of the concept. The soundtrack has been on hard rotation since I saw Annette back in November, and I believe it's only a matter of time before this album joins the ranks of the other great rock operas like The Wall and Quadrophenia.

Annette follows the relationship between famous opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard) and satirical comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver), and the birth of their child, Annette, who develops miraculous singing abilities. As Henry’s career falls apart, the relationship in turn breaks down, and both partners find themselves exploiting Annette’s gift to fulfil their own goals: reviving McHenry’s career and exacting Ann’s revenge on Henry.

Beneath the surface layer of a quirky, if dark, musical about a singing baby dwells a story of fame, addiction, and the corruption of familial relationships under the scrutinous eye of fans and gossip magazines. And like all great musicals, not only is the soundtrack enjoyable to listen to in isolation, but with every repeated listen more little details and motifs are revealed that glue the whole thing together into a satisfying, cohesive musical work.

It’s maybe a little on the flabby side at two and a half hours, but other than that, I can’t really remember any specific criticisms I had for Annette. As previously mentioned, it didn’t place in my top five of the year, and until I started writing this, it only just cleared the top fifteen. 2021 has had its fair share of entertaining films, and while my ranking broadly represents my opinion on Annette within the first twenty-four hours after seeing it, the film seems to be a bit of a grower, fermenting and maturing as it sloshes about your mind in the months after seeing it. It’s also possible that I love the soundtrack more than I loved the film as a whole, which is what happened with Rocky Horror Picture Show, and while I’ve seen the film only once, I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve listened to the soundtrack albums, so a rewatch is definitely in order.

Meanwhile, soundtrack or not, for all its charm and wry idiosyncrasies, there’s really no other film this year that’s stuck out quite so much in my mind as Annette. Except, maybe…

 

The ‘Mean Girls’ Award: Best Film Over All

It’s Dune; and I’m sure this comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who’s listened to this year’s Oscars podcast where I’m pretty sure I outright stated Dune was my favourite of the year. Woops. But in my defence, I think this was still a pretty easy prediction for anyone who knows me and my love of sci-fi.

The novel is a monolith of science fiction/fantasy literature that’s inspired almost every story that’s succeeded it in the genre, and after decades of failed attempts and claims of being ‘unfilmable’, Denis Villeneuve, director of Blade Runner 2049, has finally brought a definitive adaptation to the big screen. It’s been one of the most highly anticipated films of recent years, at least for me, and while David Lynch’s previous attempt had been a bit of a cult disaster, there was an underlying optimism in the lead up to Dune that things were going to work out this time. And wouldn’t you know, they actually did.

One of the most significant differences between Villeneuve and Lynch’s approaches is the decision to split this adaptation into a two-parter, with the action ending roughly two-thirds of the way through the rather chunky tome. That does leave Dune with the inevitable but nonetheless unfortunate problem carrying a lot of the story’s world-building, set-up and jargon-busting while not really having a proper conclusion of its own.

Detractors of the film tend to cite one or both of these reasons for why it doesn’t work for them, but honestly considering the wealth of lore that needs to be established, I think Dune strikes a fine balance between checking off its expositional responsibilities and keeping things moving. As a near-enough Dune virgin going in, I didn’t face any real problems understanding what was going on, which others familiar with the book had warned me of, and yet the film never felt like it was lecturing or dumping information on me.

Instead, Dune refreshingly puts a lot of trust in its audience’s intelligence, only sneaking in as much exposition as it can reasonably get away with within the verisimilitude of the scenes, while leaving the rest for the audience to put together through contextual clues and intuition.

But why are we talking about exposition in a film as visually exciting as this? Villeneuve and his team have rendered visual a living, breathing sci-fi universe worthy of the novel’s legacy. Each planet has a distinct texture and atmosphere, and every building, vehicle and item has an authentic, lived-in feel that adds to the setting’s believability and immersion. Dune is sonically fantastic too, with Hans Zimmer’s score drumming up a primal tension in the films’ many action scenes, shifting to nomadic mystery as Paul explores his new home of Arrakis.

Really, the lack of an ending is Dune’s only major flaw, with its last scene in particular being by far its weakest. Between a clumsy wasted reveal and a final line from Chani that’s barely a step above saying ‘to be continued’, the final minute or so reeks of studio meddling, and I look forward to the day the Dune director’s cut staples the entire second film on top of this scene to create one big five-hour epic.

Despite its length, Dune felt perfectly paced to me, and if Part Two were to maintain this same quality, I would have happily sat through both parts back-to-back, which for someone like me who balks at 180+ minute runtimes is high praise. For now though, I’m just relieved that Part Two got greenlit in the first place, and I look forward to it taking home this award in 2023…and hopefully not dining on these words.

 

The ‘Mean Girls 2’ Award: Worst Film Over All

The worst thing about the winner of this award is that it’s not even bad enough to really get mad about. Oh, it’s bad. Believe me, it’s atrocious, but it’s a film so vapid and devoid of insight or intent that it barely even left an impact. It’s not insidious or malicious, it’s just a pit that money and time fell into, and thanks to two very awful friends of mine, ninety minutes of my time has fallen in too.

He’s All That is a pointless, gender swapped remake of the 90s comedy She’s All That, wherein an ““influencer”” has her internet cred ruined, and decides the best way to rectify this is to take the token quiet kid at her school and manipulate him into becoming a ““popular”” kid (read: attempt to rewrite his personality to fit the mould of what she and her influencer friends arbitrarily decide make someone popular rather than allowing him to be himself and get on with his life unmolested).

You can tell it’s a remake of a 90s film cause the sexual politics have been copied over wholesale, resulting in a film that not only feels behind the times, but derivative of every other film from that era that’s done the ‘highschool makeover’ plot and since been condemned to the annals of time. And for a film whose central plot element is the transformation of the main guy from minds-his-own-business shut-in to generic compliant ‘popular’ kid, they can’t even keep his character consistent, often leaping from one of his personalities back to the other within the same scene, sometimes mere lines apart, killing any believability of the one story tentpole that’s supposed to be keeping this whole circus from collapsing.

The main character is an unlikeable vapid shell, her love interest’s arc is laughably inconsistent, the plot itself is devoid of stakes and carries an arguably harmful message about manipulation and popularity, and if you think there’s going to be anything interesting happening on the technical side of things, then you really have not grasped what kind of film this is. But I think this sums everything up best:

This film boasts Kourtney Kardashian as one of its stars, playing the protagonist’s agent (why the fuck does an influencer have an agent?) and the way these scenes are written suggest she was intended to be there in person. Instead, Kourtney interacts with the protagonist exclusively via the telephone, occasionally cut with shots of her blandly reciting her lines while sitting on a bench in what is almost certainly just her garden, with a look on her face like she’s counting down to the exact second that her agreed time is up so she can kick the crew out and get on with her breakfast. There’s something so deliciously pathetic about a film like this that not only can’t get hold of one of the more popular Kardashians, the patron saints of vacuous undeserved internet fame that this film is so clearly fawning over, but the one they do settle for is so devoid of shits to give about the production that she doesn’t even try to hide her contempt for it as she gives the bare minimum possible performance.

But again, no anger. No rage or rant, just a complete void of a film that will sink beneath the waves of time and vanish from our collective consciousness. No tears, no trace, just the infinitely stretching abyss ahead of it.

 

The ‘Jonesy’ Award: The One that Got Away

And to close us out, this is the award for the most significant release of the year that I missed, just so no-one can accuse me of forgetting it. There’s plenty of high-profile titles I didn’t see this year: some got wide streaming releases that I was never arsed to get around to, and others I absolutely would have seen had I been given half a chance without having to trek to a tiny arthouse cinema in central London. But for this year's winner, much like the prime suspect in a murder case, I had both opportunity and motive.

It’s Another Round, a film that was not only critically acclaimed, but also loved by my peers, appealed to me personally, and even had a theatrical run in a cinema relatively close by that I like and have been to on several occasions. So, what happened?

Well, it’s still a bit of a drive, and for a release as relatively high-profile and broad-appealing as Another Round, I was holding out for a release at a cinema I could walk to, a release that never came, and while I was semi-expecting Amazon or Netflix to pick it up towards the beginning of quarter four, alas, it never happened, and I was left empty-handed. So here’s your trophy, Another Round: it’s shaped suspiciously like a hand-written apology to Mads Mikkelsen explaining why I chose the re-release of End of Evangelion over him.

 

And that's that: the end of the first annual CREYFAs. Wasn’t that fun? As far as ceremonies go, it certainly feels slicker than the Oscars, and you didn’t even have to wait a month to find out the results! You got to wait seven instead!

While I'm pretty happy with my selections, the format inevitably dictates I can't mention every film here that deserved a shout out, both the good and the bad, so if you're wondering about any specific titles or you're just generally curious, you can see my full 2021 ranking over on Letterboxd, as well as previous years’ rankings and my viewing stats if you’re really nosey.

And if there’s anything you think I’m missing, keep in mind the CREYFAs are adopting the old top 5 eligibility rule: feature films that went on general UK release (or closest thing to) in the year of 2021. So, while I finally managed to make it to London Film Festival last year, the one film I saw there wasn’t eligible for this list since it didn’t go on mainstream release until March of this year.

I’m sure I’ll write at least one more thing before the end of the year, so stay tuned for that, otherwise I’ll see you back here for CREYFA 2022. And maybe this time I’ll get it out while people still care about 2022…

Ciné Rambles' Top 5 Films of 2020

Well, it's certainly been an interesting year. One for the history books. I won't dwell too much on this year's cataclysmic events like I'd ususally do in these intros, since I'm sure everyone's acutely aware of them already, not to mention exhausted by them. Suffice to say, it's been a year of hardship and suffering, and a reinforcement of some of the uglier sides of the human condition, from both the politicians who run our countries and from the otherwise normal people who cannot think of anyone other than themselves.

So I don't know about you, but I could do with a bit of cheering up this festive season. This year more than any other, escapism has been high in-demand, and while the ball landed squarely in television's court this year, there have still been a number of standout films worth celebrating from the desolate remains of what was once a pretty promising 2020 release slate: the shiniest of the cinematic gems that kept us going through the strife.

Last year's rules are still in play, so only films that begun their wide UK release in 2020, and while I did make a reasonable effort to catchup, there will of course be films I missed (although I think this year's list is pretty agreeable). And if you're intereseted to see how the rest of this year's films stacked up, you can peruse the full ranked list here.

5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Céline Sciamma

Perhaps a little lower on the list than most people would have gone for, but hey it's still on the list, what do you want from me. This film seems to have really struck a chord with a lot of people, and while I did really enjoy it, I probably should preface that I don't quite love this film as others do, or at least not yet. My opinion may climb on a rewatch, but for now, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a really solid fifth place.

In any character-focused romantic drama, it's the acting and direction that make or break the film, and I think a lot of Portrait's success is down to these two crucial elements. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel are phenomenal as the leads: their passion for each other is so believable, and their interactions throughout the film are brimming with a really genuine chemistry that's often quite rare in the genre.

Céline Sciamma's direction, too, pulls all the elements together to create a film that feels surprisingly relaxed, even calming at times with its beautiful beach-side setting and small, intimate scale. And yet beneath it all, every scene is loaded with emotion, both joyous and melancholy alike, be it in subtle subtextual flickers or in powerful frissonic creschendos. The final scene in particular left me with a bittersweet pit in my stomach, and even, almost, some tears.

So any reason why it's not higher up the list? No, not really. Potentially a bit of overhype may have crept in, as I only managed to see this last month and I've been hearing about this film since at least February. I mentioned at the top, I suspect my thoughts may improve further on a rewatch, and it's certainly something I'm looking forward to. Now I just have to wait for the Criterion bluray to get a region B release... (pretty please).  8/10, High Recommendation

 

4. Tenet - Christopher Nolan

Tenet will probably end up making a lot of other people's lists just out of sheer lack of competition, but even in a busier year I think I'd find it difficult to leave it off. It's without a doubt the weakest film here objectively speaking, but something about it just keeps drawing me back in: I've really not stopped thinking about it since I first saw it, and that was four months ago. We have discussed Tenet on the podcast, and I will be doing a big ol' post going into more detail on my thoughts at some point next year, so for now I'll try my best to summarise.

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Tenet, and I'd probably agree with most of them. The characterisation is laughable, in fact we don't so much have characters as we have cogs to turn the plot. We have a villain who wants to destroy the world because he's evil, and a man who wants to stop him because he's been told to: it's all a bit lacking in emotion and human motivation. The plot and time travel mechanics are frequently obtuse and either underexplained or not given enough time to be taken in, and yet the film constantly patronises its audience for not being able to keep up, in a way that's quite reminiscent of Primer, a film which thoroughly pissed me off for this exact reason.

And yet, Tenet also has some of Nolan's best action sequences yet (and that's saying something), both on smaller scale scenes like reversed one-on-one brawls, all the way up to a for-real plane crash and a truly breathtaking truck heist. Underneath it all, we have what might be my favourite film score since Blade Runner 2049, maybe even better than. From The Mandalorian to this, Ludwig Göransson is fast becoming my new favourite film composer, and here his soundtrack pulses with a frantic energy that pushes every action scene into overdrive, imbued with backwards rhythms and ticking clocks and looped sirens; it's the Dunkirk score on crack, an ever-present reminder that time is running out and every precarious, death-defying scenario could bring everyhing crashing down. POSTERITY, 747, TRUCKS IN PLACE, FAST CARS, RAINY NIGHT IN TALLINN. If you haven't already, go listen to these tracks and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Tenet is everything you've come to associate with Nolan's films, but pushed to the extreme, both the good and the bad. The result is a film that I, and many others, have found a lot of issues with, and yet I just can't ignore how much this film excites me every time I think about it. That's got to be worth something, right? 8/10, High Recommendation

3. Soul - Pete Docter

A pretty late entry in the year, but it counts. While Pixar has made their fair share of mediocre sequels and Good Dinosaurs over the past few years, they still have the capacity to deliver phenomenal animated features, and Soul is up there with their best.

A comparison to Inside Out, director Pete Docter's last film, is pretty inevitable, as on paper both films are on different sides of the same coin: one exploring the human mind and one exploring the human...well, soul. It's not really fair to judge either film as a comparison to the other, since they are doing their own distinct things, but since I did rewatch Inside Out this Christmas period anyway, I figured I should probably mention it.

I still really enjoy Inside Out and it retains a lot of that emotional power it had on my first viewing, but I do like Soul more. For me, a big part of it was that I went into Soul expecting a big sad moment like in Inside Out and other recent Pixars like Coco and Onward, and was pleasantly surprised when I realised Soul didn't have one and, more to the point, didn't need one.

Soul is a lot more of a relaxed, easy-going experience, and I actually really appreciate that. In some ways it feels like a more mature film: there's almost something quite transparent about the way Inside Out tries to pluck at your heartstrings, while Soul has realised that it doesn't need to be emotionally devastating to be profound or memorable. In fact, despite dealing with concepts of life and death and even the meaning of existence, Soul's story feels very low-key and almost unburduned by the weight of its existential concepts. Instead, Soul's message is all about appreciating the small details of life and the value of simply being, and existing in the world.

There's also some gorgeous animation on display, particularly in the Great Before, where entirey metaphysical concepts are rendered visually in a way that live action could never even attempt. Even the Great Beyond, a relatively simplistic design inspired by A Matter of Life and Death, through its animation and sound design mananges to fully communicate a truly unnerving existential dread while still maintaining a beautiful, yet disquieting simplcity not unlike a black hole.

Soul is exactly the kind of meaningful, optimistic content we all need right now, and it made me want to just lie down in a field somewhere and take in the smell of the grass and the currents of wind moving across my face and listen to the birds sing in the distance. Which was quite a shame considering the circumstances. 9/10, High Recommendation

 

2. The Lighthouse - Robert Eggers

Man, it feels like I watched this film in a different era, let alone a different year. I saw this for the first time when I met a friend for the afternoon in London: we saw it with about forty other people crammed into the tiny screen at BFI Southbank centre, a sold-out screening. Inconceivable now, but back then it was just a normal year.

Considering how 2020's release slate was all but wiped out from April onwards, it's probabaly no surprise that the top two slots came from the first quarter of the year, which I suppose is unusual considering often it's the end of the year when the big hitters are released. 2020 became less a year of anticipating which film would shine brightest and more if there was anything left to compete with these early champions that set the bar so high.

The first of these was The Lighthouse, which quite prophetically is all about being confined to a small building and isolated from the rest of the world. Broadly speaking a horror, but thats proabably a debatable point depending on how you define the genre, and The Lighthouse kinda straddles several genres anyway.

The best way to decribe it is a film of textures. The movietone ratio and black and white photography go hand-in-hand with the production design and period dialogue to give the film this air of scratchy authenticity, that only amplifies the opressive atmosphere created by the purgatorial setting. Special mention also goes to the film's haunting, nightmarish soundscape that drenches every scene with an encroaching malaise: the roar of the waves, the creaking of wooden floorboards, the thundering fog horn, the screams of seagulls.

Together, it creates a powerful paranoia that imbues every scene with symbolic suggestion. Is it just an argument about cooking? Just a fight with a seagull? Just a lighthouse, even? Or is there something more mythical at work beneath it all. Soon the lines between reality and insanity are blurring, and you know nothing good can possibly come from this as the characters hurtle towards their fates.

The Lighthouse is rich in potential meaning, but while there is plenty of room for audiences to discuss and debate their intepretations, the film still works on a literal level as a tale of deteriorating lucidity amongst men trapped at sea, so while it's still definitly closer to art-house than mainstream cinema, it retains a level of accessibility that not only endears itself to general audiences, but will keep them coming back for more. 9/10, High Recommendation

 

1. Parasite - Bong Joon-Ho

Surprising absolutely no-one. I mean, even if Corona hadn't happened and this year's original lineup of films proceeded as planned, I'd still be willing to wager Parasite would be sitting here on top. Seemingly every viewer and critic on the planet has unanimously adored this film and as far as I'm concerned it's with very good reason, because it's really not that often that a film as finely crafted as this one comes around. Not only is it a masterfully-assembled, genre-defying work of cinema, it's even managed the rare triumph of being accessible and appealing enough to the western masses to find mainstream success without sacrificing any of its artisitc integrity at all, instead merely telling a well-told story that is recognisable and translatable across all nations and still exciting at the same time, to the point that even people who don't watch foreign/subtitled films gave Parasite a shot. Even the Acadamy loved it enough to give it the first ever Best Picture award for a non-english language film, and they're not exactly known for their diverse taste in film.

I do insist on keeping these top fives spoiler free, and so if you want to hear some more in-depth and specific comments I have on the film, you can watch our Parasite discussion from the podcast here, and if you haven't seen Parasite yet you absolutely should check it out, no questions asked. In the meantime, I'll do the best I can here.

There really are very few things to speak ill of, and overall it's one of those beautiful experiences where the more you think about any given detail, the more meaning and intricacy and subtext you discover. The one thing I will say is that on the second watch the film becomes a little unbalanced pacing wise; after quite a significant event which feels like it should be more of a midpoint, we go almost immediatly into the climax, which still works but considering how fresh and drastic the shift in status quo is, it feels like maybe a little more down time inbetween these moments, perhaps playing with the new precarious scenario, could help break up the tension a bit and even out the last half hour, pacing-wise (Hopefully that made sense for the people who've seen the film). But this is a minor quibble on an otherwise near-impeccable product. Any other element you care to name is phenomenal. The ensemble cast? Fantastic. Cinematography and editing? Beautiful. Production design? Exquisite. The writing? *chef's kiss* And at the centre of it all is a director wielding complete elegant mastery over his craft. 

Bong Joon-Ho is up there with Park Chan-Wook as one of the finest directors of South Korean cinema, and while Parasite is far from his first hit, this definitly feels like a consolidation of all his past achievements into one magnum opus that's put him squarely in the spotlight. And now the world watches and waits for his next move with breathless anticipation. 9/10, High Recommendation

And so the gaping maw of 2021 lays ahead, promising more misery and frustration, no doubt. For me, this year will be a game of 'how many of the delayed 2020 films are gonna get pushed back to 2022', with a bonus round of 'count the dying breaths of the golden age of streaming'.

Well, who knows what state the world and the film industry will be in this time next year. It's an incredibly hard time to be optimistic, but I'm sure no matter what happens, we'll all find our own ways to pull through, and the ever-enduring human spirit will defeat the roughest of what the year has to offer.

For what it's worth, I wish all of you readers a happy and prosperous 2021, and a great big thank you as always for reading (and listening), and I hope you'll return for many more ramblings in the new year!

Ciné Rambles' Top 5 Films of 2019

So we draw to a close on another year, and with it, another decade, as people with a smart-arsed sense of humour are very keen to point out. No, sir, I'm only throwing the one stone, the glass walls should hold. To be honest, I felt 2019 was a strangely underwhelming year for film; where normally most of the year's top five is pretty straightforward, and usually, at least one film becomes a new favourite of mine, 2019 comparatively hasn't delivered as much.

Now as always, the defence is that the cream of 2019's crop, things like Parasite or The Lighthouse or 1917 will probably come to define the year in retrospect, but I've decided this is a game I am finally sick of playing. I'm not indulging a load of films that feel they're too good to bother releasing in the UK in the year they claim to hail from, and would rather show up fashionably late just to show that they can get away with it, whilst still being judged alongside all the good films that actually did come out on time. The one student who's always tardy shouldn't be absolved from punishment just because his homework was really good; in the real world, punctuality is everything. They won't hold down a job long if they don't show up when they say they will.

Nick, are you trying to punish Hollywood release schedules like they're trouble-making scoundrels and you're some kind of matronly school teacher again? Lose the wig and the riding crop and get on with the blog.

OK, well how about this. From now on, I don't care if you've been on general release in America for months, I am from this point on only counting films that have had a general UK release within 2019 as 2019 films. Film festivals don't count, so yes, even though a lot of these films get shown at the London Film Festival which is open to the public, that's still not general release so it will not count. For anyone who follows my Letterboxd, I have updated my previous years' ranked lists to allow for this new rule, which has caused some shakeups in the 2015 list, if nothing else.

And if it turns out Parasite is the greatest thing since marmite toast, then brilliant, well done. Good for it. We can hear all about in the top five of 2020 list, but this year's list will not be touched. You're a 2020 release now, Parasite. Well, you should have thought about that before you stapled an arbitrary number of months onto your release date. Why we're being forced to wait this long for a film that's already been translated and is months into its general run in America is ridiculous. And they wonder why pirating is on the rise.

Anyway. It's New Year's Eve, now. Warmth and love and celebration and alcohol poisoning. Hurrah. Top five of 2019. Go!

5. Ad Astra - James Gray
One of this year's surprise gems, I went in pretty much expecting a run-of-the-mill space exploration with Brad Pitt's nice, big marketable face slapped all over it, but what I wasn't expecting was an artful and meditative retelling of Apocalypse Now with some stellar visuals and atmosphere to boot. It's definitely far from perfect, though: it feels like the studio hands have been meddling at certain points in fear that a mainstream audience won't get it. A moon buggy chase sequence feels particularly out of place, and there's a tacked-on happy ending as well as plenty of voice-overs from the main character, explaining exactly what he's thinking, which remind me of the original cut of Blade Runner. Like that film, I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of years down the line we get a director's cut of Ad Astra with all the strange additions trimmed off, lifting this to become a new cult classic. Another one of these oddities is an ongoing device about Brad Pitt's heartbeat never rising above 70bpm, which is apparently supposed to show he's depressed, but is such a laughably mechanical approach to showing depression it sounds like it was written by a robot. But ultimately, underneath all the dodgier elements and creative decisions, there is a heart of classic hard sci-fi, which beats with ideas of existentialism and the human condition. The further Pitt travels from Earth into space, the weaker the signs of human life become, our attempts to commercialise space thwarted by the sheer scale of it, and its these kinds of emotions and images where the film really shines. I hope Gray turns his hand to sci-fi again soon, because I can see real potential and passion in this, and with just a few improvements, we could be onto something great here. 8/10, Medium Recommendation

4. The Favourite - Yorgos Lanthimos
"But that's a 2018 film, Nick".  No, it's a 2019 film now. It may claim it's a 2018 film, but that's because it's a liar. UK general release was on the 1st January 2019, therefore it's a 2019 film. Maybe if it had come out a day earlier I would have let it keep the 2018 title, but then it wouldn't have made my top five last year, so maybe coming out this year was advantageous after all. Sorry, I'm supposed to be talking about how much I like this film, aren't I? It's not you, The Favourite: it's Parasite that's pissed me off. I'm still as sore as I was at the time about The Favourite's poor performance at the Oscars, besides its one Best Actress win which it completely deserved, because this film seemed far and away one of the better of the main contenders this year. Lanthimos' films are generally pretty weird, with a particular idiosyncratic edge, and The Favourite is no different, translating his bizarre stylings into the stately homes and frivolities of 18th-century royals. The performances and style, as well as the surprising amount of humour, are what really makes this film work so well, and elevate it above the usual period drama ranks into something special. Not to mention Horatio, the fastest duck in the City. Move over Colman, he's the real MVP of this film. 8/10, Medium Recommendation

3. Joker - Todd Phillips
Yes, I'm putting it this high on the list. No, I still wouldn't call it a masterpiece, and in a more interesting year this probably wouldn't have made the top five either, but as I said in my review, it's still a good film, and it's definitely left an impression. Whether you agree with the film's message or even on what the message is, it's difficult to deny that it's a very well made film, and I don't think people would be reacting as strongly to it if it weren't so thoroughly absorbing and atmospheric. 8/10, High Recommendation

2. Midsommar - Ari Aster
Ari Aster is definitely one of the directors whose career I'm currently watching with keen interest, along with Chazelle and Villeneuve among others. A comparison with last year's Hereditary is pretty much inevitable, and while Midsommar is more consistent, I think Hereditary still had a deeper effect on me. There's a level of micromanaged perfection in this film that reminds me of Refn, where every shot seems to have been meticulously polished and tightened, right down to the steadiness of the camera as it glides through the environment. It's not an easy film to get fully on board with: its plot I feel is meant to be interpreted more metaphorically than literally, which isn't unusual for horror, and I think it'll be one of those films that starts to click into place a bit more on rewatches, but if nothing else this film has an absolutely suffocating atmosphere. It captures an overpowering sense of isolation, despite the characters being trapped in a field and surrounded by apparently helpful villagers. It creates a horror of boundaries, about a clash of cultures where the monsters aren't acting out of malice but merely enforcing their own traditions and practices, ones that are so alien to our own culture as to seem inhuman entirely. It almost seems like a comment on how Americans seem to perceive other cultures and the outside world, as creatures to be feared that are plotting against us, when they're the ones being intruded upon, and they're just trying to welcome you to their custom. I wouldn't say it's a scary film, as such, more intimidating and at points uncomfortable, but in a good way. Aster seems to have found a new spin on horror that works for the modern age, and as we enter the new decade, I cannot wait to see where it takes him next.  8/10, High Recommendation

1. Knives Out - Rian Johnson
Another film that I was not expecting to be anywhere near as good as it was, Johnson's Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit is an excellently written romp. As a lot of people have already said, it's kinda difficult to talk about without going into detail on the plot, and this is not the kind of film you want spoiled for you. What I will say is that not an inch of this script is wasted, and every little moment has some significance later on, in a way that I found very satisfying as a writer. It's a film that's very self-aware and is able to throw even the smartest of viewers off the scent incredibly early on, so while you're distracted with what seems like the solution, you don't even notice all the other clues being established that point towards the true answer, even when some of them are staring you right in the face. It's an all-star cast, and there's this brilliant sense that each of them are loving every second of it, chewing the scenery and each getting their moment to shine in their malicious brilliance. Not all the jokes land, and there are definitely characters that I wish got a bit more to do, but overall this was a really slick and enjoyable thriller, and the final shot had me beaming ear-to-ear, which has historically been a good sign. 9/10, High Recommendation

And there we go, end of a decade. A shining sea of possibility stretches out before us as we enter the 2020s. What sights will this decade bring? First man on Mars? First woman on Mars? Hell, first everyone on Mars, as we all flee our doomed planet and let the politicians fight over what's left.

"Don't feel sad, Timmy. Yes, the Earth got destroyed by global warming, but we have Mars now, and it's got blackjack and hookers... and we even had time on the way over to collect every single copy of Cats and jettison them into space where they fucking belong."

Happy new year.

NB: For those interested, you can see my full 2019 ranking here

My Top 5 Films of 2018

Well, there goes another year drifting off into the distance like an unsecured dinghy being swallowed up by the ocean. 2018 has somehow simultaneously gone way too quickly and dragged on forever at the same time. I'd hesitate to say it was a good year, fine perhaps sums it up better. At the very least, it's been a year of milestones: I finally passed my driving test, I got my first part-time job (well, it's temp stuff but you know), rented my first flat and even organised my first holiday without my family. On the more creative side of things, I've written my longest screenplay yet (27 pages, soon to be topped) and directed my longest and most ambitious film yet, Heartbreaker (link here) which while still needs work, has been a massive learning experience for me.

But enough about my personal life, you're here for my annual top 5, aren't you? And while the blog has been pretty much dormant this year, I couldn't miss my New Year's tradition, and I have been watching a fair few films this year. Sadly not as many as I'd have liked: between heavy uni work, the usual cruel UK release schedule and the fact I literally just forgot to go to the cinema this last term has led to my film intake being a little lower than last year. Suffice to say there'll be a lot of catchups for next year, but in the meantime, here's my top 5 of 2018.

Updated Top 5 of 2017
5. Baby Driver
4. Logan
3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
2. Dunkirk
1. Blade Runner 2049

5. Hereditary - Ari Aster
Well, I started writing out my thoughts on this film like I normally would for one of these entries, but it quickly became a fucking wall of text, so you know what, Hereditary is getting its own post early next year because I want to go in-depth with this mother. For the time being though, my opinion is essentially thus: this film was nearly at the Number 1 spot, it shaped itself up to be one of the most powerful, subversive and maybe even revolutionary horror films of the decade, and a personal favourite of mine, only for it to completely ruin itself in the final act and undo all of its hard work. Again, further details to follow, but consider this Number 5 spot an honorary place for the film this nearly was. 8/10, High Recommendation

4. Deadpool 2 - David Leitch
About the only Marvel character I have any care for at the moment, both movies have made it into my top 5s of their respective years which is pretty impressive really. I'd say this is an improvement on the first film: it's the same trademark brand of intelligently childish and self-aware humour but this time around, everything's been ramped up a notch, from the action scenes to the characters and jokes and even the overall theme of the film is darker and more nuanced. Yeah, it's not really as high brow as some of the other choices on this list but you know what, this was a barrel of laughs from start to finish and I enjoyed it immensely. 8/10, Medium Recommendation

3. A Quiet Place - Josh Krasinski
Look everyone, it's our good old friend the Avatar effect, where a good film is praised and enjoyed by everyone only to be inexplicably shat on by everyone from seemingly nowhere because someone must have decided that it had enough praise. I understand films being overrated, and even receiving backlash after an initially good reception, but Jesus people, no one was comparing it to Citizen Kane. Luckily for me (I suppose?) I made a point of seeing it as soon as I could after first hearing of it so as to minimise the hype effect, and probably achieved some kind of personal best in the process: I first heard if it on a Monday morning when I checked my Letterboxd rushes, was convinced to check it out by Monday afternoon and saw it Tuesday evening. And you know what, it was pretty damn good. Yeah, fine, it wasn't a masterpiece but you can't deny it was at least a unique breath of fresh air from our usual horror offerings. As you'd expect from something like this, the sound design is impeccable, and you really felt every single noise and the dread that each brought. I also really liked the attention to detail and world-building in terms of the methods the family had to eliminate noise such as the sand pathways and felt-lined board game pieces. And finally, can we just take a moment to appreciate the building of tension, with the stair nail if nothing else. Probably one of the most agonising Checkov's guns I've seen for a long time, from the moment it was set up I could not stop thinking about it until it's eventual payoff, and while in the end it felt a little disappointing, they say it's about the journey rather than the destination, and what a hell of a journey. 8/10, High Recommendation

2. Incredibles 2 - Brad Bird
After the rather disappointing and unnecessary Finding Dory, the phrase 'Pixar sequel' was one of dread to my ears, and while the upcoming Toy Story 4 still has me screaming 'no', I'm now a little happier that at least one of them has had a reason to exist. Incredibles 2 was not only a very fun and well-made continuation of the story, but really explored and developed its characters and their relationships in new depths, and even managed to tackle contemporary societal and familial issues without feeling preachy or getting in the way of the story or its entertainment value. With some spectacular action setpieces that surely trump the original's and the expansion and development of the world it created, Incredibles 2 aims to be bigger and better than its predecessor, and for the most part, succeeds. While both have strengths in different areas, I found myself getting more engaged in this one than the first, but a lot of people still prefer the original and I can completely understand why. Either way, it's hard to deny that this was an incredible (ayy) film and a shining example of how to do a sequel right. 9/10, Medium Recommendation


1. Isle of Dogs - Wes Anderson
I've always had a bit of an awkward relationship with Wes Anderson. Like basically every other even remotely hipster film student, I really love Anderson's visual style: his approach to symmetrical composition and pastel colour palettes, but I've rarely enjoyed the films themselves. That is except for two, one is The Grand Budapest Hotel and now the second one to join these ranks, Isle of Dogs.  I really was not expecting to love this film as much as I did, but everything about it just worked so perfectly and hit me in all the right spots. Firstly, I have a big ol' soft spot for animation, stop motion especially. And the animation in this film is absolutely fantastic and bursting with energy and creativity. Of course, Anderson brings his trademark compositional style and colouration, but this time it combines with a feudal Japanese art style to make a visually breathtaking film where every frame's a painting. The plot is suitably tongue-in-cheek but still surprisingly complex with multiple threads running at once and all of them work well off each other. And finally, a shoutout to one of my favourite details: considering the film is set in Japan with mainly Japanese characters, all the human dialogue (where applicable) is spoken in Japanese, only being translated where it makes sense in-universe (such as a TV translator during a broadcast). As a result, there are several scenes with the human characters where Anderson relies on old fashioned silent film techniques for conveying information to the audience, utilising both the scenery and character gestures and expressions to get the important details across. It's an unusual choice but it absolutely pays off and really adds to the rich cultural immersion of the film. 9/10, High Recommendation

And so we enter 2019, the year where flying police cars patrol the smog-covered, urban jungle of LA if Blade Runner is to be believed, or where biker gangs battle it out amongst the neon streets of Neo-Tokyo, according to Akira. Well, who knows, a lot can change in a year. I'm expecting to bring the blog back in the new year, as hopefully once I finish uni I'll be able to get back into writing these posts again: there's plenty of old, unfinished drafts kicking around and plenty more new stuff to discuss. Until then, I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!