Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) | Directed by Jason Woliner

 4/5

Jason Woliner’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm takes the techniques that Sasha Baron Cohen used in the first Borat film to uncover the racism and bigotry in average Americans and applies them to explore the deeply rooted misogyny and sexism across American society. In having the Borat character and his daughter, Tutar (played brilliantly by the incredible Maria Bakalova), navigate the expectations for young women in American society, the film provides cringe-worthy moments in real-life interactions with social media influencers, finishing school instructors, beauticians, and more revealing the depths of American misogyny – including a pastor at a crisis pregnancy center who is more concerned with stopping an abortion than he is in protecting a minor whom he is led to believe is the victim of sexual abuse. On the other hand, we’re also shown glimpses of genuine kindness and empathy, encouraging Tutar to push back against societal expectations. This all gives the film a more coherent focus than expected and provides some lovely moments between Cohen and Bakalova. The films is certainly not for everyone, especially considering just how uncomfortable so much about the film is for the comedy to the structure to the filming techniques. However, it is helpful to have reminders that the sexism and bigotry we have seen come to the surface in Trump’s America have long been baked into our country’s fabric and these sentiments have long been harbored by many of our fellow citizens. And every once in a while, we need a Borat to draw them out.

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Criss Cross (1949) | Directed by Robert Siodmak

 4.5/5

Robert Siodmak’s Criss Cross is a gripping noir – dark, tragic, and fatalistic. Burt Lancaster’s performance is exquisite – like so much of his work during this period – and it’s incredibly satisfying to see his character drawn deeper and deeper into the plot’s darkest recesses due to his own stubbornness, pride, and misguided impulses toward heroism. It’s nice to see the all-too-often sexist trope of the femme fatale reframed by providing reasons throughout for that character’s apparent selfishness. The twists and turns of the plot are delicious, and the heist at the center of the film is absolutely stunning. Siodmak definitely knows how to shoot noir – the rich black-and-white photography, the gorgeous compositions, brilliant use of light and shadow – all of it works together to create such a rich and potent atmosphere that hangs over the film from the first frame to the last. I could have done without the extended flashback and voiceover narration, but that’s a minor complaint in such a fantastic film.

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Hocus Pocus (1993) | Directed by Kenny Ortega

 1.5/5

Kenny Ortega’s Hocus Pocus is a tonally inconsistent, narrative mess that relies on childhood nostalgia in order to gloss over its more problematic elements and technical deficiencies. There are vestiges of the darker and more serious, teenage version of this film before it went through countless revisions and became the goofy comedy it is now – leading to strangely incongruent tonal shifts that careen from slapstick comedy in one moment to the gruesome and macabre in the next, all punctuated by sexual comedy that is wildly out-of-place in a children’s film. It also doesn’t help that Ortega shoots the entire film with a flat, ’90s-television banality that only amplifies the paint-by-numbers story beats and the insufferable blandness of our child “hero.” But even worse, the film traffics in horribly sexist tropes, and the “save yourself” ethos embraced by the children toward the end feels very emblematic of the worst aspects of American individualism. I will say that Sarah Jessica Parker is outstanding – it’s too bad the rest of the film isn’t up to snuff.

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The Mummy (1932) | Directed by Karl Freund

 4/5

Karl Freund’s The Mummy is a haunting, atmospheric classic of horror that I’ve always undervalued when thinking about the original Universal monster movies. But upon rewatch, I love the layers Freund and his writers work in for us to unpack in the film’s exploration of colonization, gender, and identity. The film sets up archetypal and traditional masculine heroes to fight the titular monster, but they’re all completely ineffectual and ill-equipped to face-off against their supernatural foe – the traditional Dudley Do-Right is little better than a puppy dog, and the professor’s knowledge may help them know what they’re facing, but it does nothing to protect them. The film’s true hero is a biracial woman who exists as both colonized and colonizer. And it’s only through the embrace of her dual identity, through her appeal to an ancient goddess, that the monster is defeated. Freund takes limited effects and creates an eerie, haunting atmosphere through his effective use of cross-cutting, camera movement, and skilled performers. There are so many intriguing layers to unpack here – even as the film is more problematic in the way it handles issues of race and ethnicity. It’s always a pleasure to discover that a film you saw years ago is even better than you remembered, and The Mummy is one that I will undoubtedly return to Halloween after Halloween.

Mother (1996) | Directed by Albert Brooks

 4.5/5

Albert Brooks’s Mother begins by making you think you’re watching the story of a middle-aged writer learning to cope with his overbearing mother, but by the time of the movie ends, Brooks has so quietly and subtly shifted our perspective that we barely realize until the credits roll we’ve been meant to identify with the mother all along. It’s an incredible magic trick of narrative storytelling and a stroke of genius that subverts our expectations for these male, mid-life crisis comedies and turns so many of the genres sexist tropes on their head. As is so often the case, Brooks allows himself to play a character who thinks he’s the smartest and most self-enlightened person in the room – but by the end we see just how shallow, selfish, and deluded he really is. It’s a delightful comedy that, like so much of Brooks’s work, has much more going on than its surface would lead you to believe.

Minari (2020) | Directed by Lee Isaac Chung

 4.5/5

Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari is a gorgeous and painfully honest film about the immigrant experience. So many of these stories romanticize the immigrant experience and the big dreams that cause families to seek out a better life. But Chung is a far more subtle and nuanced filmmaker. Drawing from his own experience as the child of immigrants, he clearly shows how the father’s stubbornness and pride, a mistaken belief that financial success will solve all of his family’s problems, leads to a willingness to lose his family for the sake of his dream. A lesser filmmaker would have drawn a simplistic hero/villain dichotomy here, but Chung allows for the messiness in family dynamics to be on full display, acknowledging the hurt and pain that can build up between spouses over the years due to unmet expectations, extreme poverty, and emotional withholding. And through it all, he never loses any warmth or compassion for his characters – in part because of the stellar performances of the entire cast. It is a little disappointing to see the film dip briefly into overwrought melodrama toward the end – everything else is so quiet and understated – but the film pulls back and manages to avoid falling into some of the pitfalls that the trope it embraced could have led to in its final moments. Even with that minor quibble, this is an astonishing film – one of the best of the year.

Rebels of the Neon God (1992) | Directed by Tsai Ming-liang

 4.5/5

Tsai Ming-liang’s Rebels of the Neon God is an absolutely mesmerizing story of disaffected Taiwanese youth that combines elements of social realism with a French New Wave sensibility. But at the same time, Tsai maintains such a disciplined and almost formalistic use of framing and composition rather than the loose, free-flowing camerawork we’ve come to associate with “realism.” While so many films that echo New Wave sentiments end up making disaffection and alienation seem cool and aesthetically pleasing, Tsai shows the emptiness and desperation for what it is – a meager existence on the margins of society. It’s beautiful, haunting, and deeply moving in its exploration of isolation and loneliness. And there’s something incredibly powerful in its symbolism of young people adrift, searching for connection, turning to endless diversions in order to stem the rising tide of hopelessness.

The 40-Year-Old Version (2020) | Directed by Radha Blank

 5/5

Radha Blank’s The 40-Year-Old Version is an absolutely brilliant comedy – one of the most effortlessly charming films of the year. On the one hand, it’s a biting satire of the ‘poverty porn’ white audiences and producers want from Black artists. And yet, in the midst of the satire, there’s an honest exploration of what it means to find your voice as an artist when everyone around you is encouraging you to compromise. Blank also looks at the ways that refusing to face loss and grief can hold us back and acknowledges the struggle to break through as an artist once you reach middle-age. Blank takes these themes and weaves them together into a richly layered narrative without a wasted moment. The fact that Blank, playing a fictionalized version of herself, allows her character to be as broken and dysfunctional, as selfish and hurtful as she is at points in the film, is a testament to her honesty as a filmmaker and performer. Her use of 35mm, black-and-white film is gorgeous, capturing a warmth and texture in every scene, while still allowing for a world that has lost its inspiration – with color only punctuating in brief bursts as she envisions the play she’s trying to write or as she remembers her mother’s art. And as she turns to hip-hop as a form of uncompromising self-expression, not only is the music fantastic, but the film avoids falling into the easy clichés of the traditional musician narrative. Blank is a phenomenal filmmaker, crafting a delightful film that manages to subvert narrative expectations, while still managing to be a crowd pleaser.

Phantom Lady (1944) | Directed by Robert Siodmak

 4/5

Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady is a thoroughly compelling noir, filled with gorgeous camerawork and direction throughout – especially with some of the night sequences in which our protagonist follows her leads under cover darkness and shadow. It’s refreshing to have a noir in which our primary viewpoint character is a woman, though I wish the hadn’t taken so long to introduce her and get into the meat of the film. There is an absolutely delightful sequence in which she sits on the same barstool night after night, intimidating a bartender as she tries to get information about a murder. It would have been nice if the film didn’t give away so many of the pieces to the mystery as early as it does, but that’s a minor complaint in a film that is such a pleasure.

The Invisible Man (2020) | Directed by Leigh Whannell

 4/5

Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is a chilling and deeply effective horror film that remains far more grounded and naturalistic than the genre often allows. Whannell’s use of empty space and static shots to build tension is especially masterful – there are sequences in the first half of the film that will undoubtedly stand alongside the great moments in horror. By reframing the narrative as an exploration of abusive, controlling relationships and the ways abusers gaslight and isolate their victims, the film takes on additional modern resonances that are extremely satisfying, and it’s especially nice to see the film situate us in the viewpoint of Elizabeth Moss’s character, rather than that of the titular ‘monster.’ It’s also nice to see such an honest depiction of the way wealthy men (and tech bros in particular) use their money and privilege to isolate themselves from the consequences of their toxic masculinity. Moss is excellent, of course, but the entire cast turns in stellar performances. There are a few predictable plot beats throughout that feel more perfunctory than inspired, and Whannell doesn’t quite stick the landing as well as he seems to think he does, but it’s still so satisfying to see a horror film exploring ideas and issues as deftly as this one does.