Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) | Directed by Josh Greenbaum

 4.5/5

Josh Greenbaum’s Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar is an outrageously delightful treat from beginning to end – from the precisely composed and sublimely delightful opening credit sequence, to the multiple musical numbers and the joyous conclusion. Everything about the film’s world is just slightly heightened and off-kilter – creating a charming and awkward comedy that will either click for you or that you’ll find totally off-putting. The film functions as a loving parody of the midlife crisis comedy – usually given over to male protagonists – and by putting two women at its center, it playfully interrogates the things we expect single women in their 40s to want out of life. Greenbaum’s use of visual repetition throughout the film to show Barb and Star’s co-dependence is delightful, setting them on their journey of self-discovery. The spy subplot is a bit over-the-top and unnecessary, but it does give us the delightful performance from Jamie Dornan. With equally wonderful performances from the film’s co-writers, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, it’s one of the best (and silliest) comedies of the year.

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The American Sector (2020) | Directed by Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens

 5/5

Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens’s The American Sector is an astonishing work of nonfiction filmmaking, a patient and well-observed portrait of American society and values. The filmmakers travel the country and hold their patient camera on fragments of the Berlin Wall, while capturing snippets of off-screen conversations from visitors to these monuments or at times directly interviewing the individuals who have procured, maintain, or come as tourists to these relics of the past. In embarking on this project, Velez and Stephens’s camera have transformed these enormous slabs on concrete into windows that let us peer inside our country’s soul. The filmmakers give us space to make connections between the divided Germany of Cold War years and our own deeply divided nation, and it’s hard to avoid thoughts of our own borders and the ways so many fiercely attempt to keep out our neighbors to the south. Then there are the strange ways Americans attempt to either present or possess history – all on full display here. Without making any grand statements or giving us a thesis in bullet points, this may well end up being one of the most profound cinematic portraits of the American psyche to come out in recent years.

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In The Heights (2021) | Directed by Jon M. Chu

 3.5/5

Jon M. Chu’s In The Heights is an incredibly charming, visually dazzling musical filled with an infectious joy that’s nearly impossible to resist. So much of the source material translated well from stage to screen, but there were a number of places in which – even if you’re unfamiliar with the stage production – story points and character beats felts as if they were missing or out-of-place, keeping the narrative from being as satisfying as if could have been. The framing device that has been inserted into the story is the film’s biggest misstep, emotionally manipulating the audience and attempting to raise the stakes through narrative deception. Still, the cast is excellent across the board and it’s a delight to see the ways Chu places these the musical numbers in conversation with the entire history of movie musicals. There’s still so much work to do in terms of BIPOC representation , and it’s wonderful to see an almost entirely Latino cast in a major motion picture – it’s something to be celebrated. But it’s also important to note that Afro Latinos, who make up a significant part of the neighborhood depicted in film, are absent from the main cast. Again, there is so much to enjoy about this film, in spite of its flaws and imperfections. It’s one that I’ll undoubtedly see again and again.

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) | Directed by Michael Chaves

 2/5

Michael Chaves’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It suffers from the same problems that plague the rest of The Conjuring franchise – the filmmakers believe that computer generated monsters are the most terrifying thing imaginable, and that enough misdirected jump scares can make up for themes that are never fully explored or developed. The biggest problem that all of these films have is that they want to have their cake and eat it too – they make feints at being serious horror films with something important to say, but they never actually follow through with any of the ideas or themes that could give these films any weight or substance. Instead, they rely on the cheap scares and computer effects that become less effective with each iteration. While this installment may not rely on the haunted house tropes of previous films, the remix of conventions is so slight that you can still feel all of the plot points coming at every turn. If Chaves and his writers hadn’t tipped their hand so early, this had the potential to be a compelling mystery about faith and doubt. But since we know right away that supernatural forces are at work, any chance for substance or nuance is lost. This would all be fine if the film was willing to lean into the schlock, but it takes itself so seriously that it’s hard to have the “good time” you sense the filmmakers are trying to engineer.

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Shiva Baby 2020 | Directed by Emma Seligman

 5/5

Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby is a fantastic, gripping comedy about what it’s like to feel out-of-place in your mid-twenties and about the constantly shifting power dynamics within relationships. Seligman creates a claustrophobic atmosphere throughout the film and constantly ratchets up an unbearable amount of tension as the film progresses. Tight closeups on our protagonist’s face as she’s in conversation with people we don’t see, the unsteadiness of the handheld camerawork as the tension ramps up, and the horror movie score all work together to keep us on edge. Seligman understands that, as funny as young adulthood can be, it can also be comically horrific for young women navigating parental expectations, the norms of any tight knit community to which you might belong, predatory men, and the prospect of finding your way forward. It’s a sharp, funny, painfully honest about what it means to be a young woman today.

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Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) | Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

 5/5

Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema is a gorgeous and deeply moving cinematic experience. It’s a collage of moments and moods, references to previous Japanese films, historical facts and little known incidents, emotional beats and character digressions that all add up to a profound meditation on war, violence, and the power of cinema. The film is densely layered and textured, peppered with literary and cinematic allusions, the screen filled with poetry and historical footnotes that intrude upon the frame – all of which collide in a dizzying time-travel musical fantasia. And yet, with all of the historical and meta-textual references, the film manages to maintain a sense of playfulness and joy, moving toward its powerfully emotional and moving finale. His final film, you can see Obayashi pouring his considerable passion and energy into each frame – and how important he sees the film’s themes and ideas. As the film explores different genres and periods of Japanese cinema, we’ve given the impression that war and nationalism are not just problems of the past, but that these are deeply ingrained problems that need to be addressed on a human level. This is exquisite filmmaking, a work that deserves close examination.

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Downstream to Kinshasa (2020) | Directed by Dieudo Hamadi

 4.5/5

Dieudo Hamadi’s Downstream to Kinshasa is a riveting and gut-wrenching documentary that follows a group of disabled Congolese civilians seeking reparations for atrocities committed by Rwanda and Uganda which left over 1,000 Congolese civilians dead and more than 3,000 wounded. Since their own government has done nothing for more than 20 years to seeking justice on behalf of the victims, the survivors decide to make the long trek to Kinshasa to make their case in person. This is among the best of what cinéma vérité has to offer, Hamadi’s patient camera observing the survivors and their struggle for justice without any showy editorializing or maudlin romanticizing of their disabilities. The film is frank and honest, but there is also a warmth and empathy throughout. We see it in the little moments of connection between the survivors that a film focused solely on the issues might be tempted to leave on the cutting room floor. By cutting to scenes of a theatrical production that the survivors have created to educate others about their situation, Hamadi is also able give us the interiority and background that you’re normally only able able to achieve through the use of talking head interviews or direct addresses to the camera. It’s a really nice touch that allows the survivors to tell their stories as they would like them told. Along with some of Hamadi’s other documentary work, he’s begun to create an essential portrait of the Democratic Republic of Congo through cinema. Hamadi is a masterful documentarian whose work deserves to be more widely known.

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Summertime (2020) | Directed by Carlos López Estrada

 5/5

Carlos López Estrada’s Summertime is a glorious film – a vibrant, joyous, and energetic ode to art, creativity, and that earnest sincerity and passion for justice and equity that seems to define young people in their late teens and early twenties. Even though the film is comprised of a series of vignettes anchored by spoken word poetry, it’s astonishing to see how effortlessly the sequences weave in and out of one another, how narrative through lines emerge, and how perfectly certain beats and moments echo one another throughout the film. López Estrada shoots and edits the film with as much energy and life as the poetry (and the city) that he’s capturing, and all of the first-time film actors are stunning – not just in performing their own work onscreen, but also in building and performing the characters they present within the film. This is one of the most delightful and moving films of the year – a film that begins with isolation and loneliness, and ends with a true sense of community and connectedness.

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In the Same Breath (2021) | Directed by Nanfu Wang

 5/5

Nanfu Wang’s In the Same Breath continues the filmmaker’s probing inquiries into Chinese society, this time exploring the ways the government refused to cooperate with the rest of the world at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wang’s primary focus is on China’s propaganda efforts at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she traces how, while lockdown efforts may have done a better job of containing the virus than here in the US, the state propaganda machine exacerbated the crisis and led to things being much worse for the entire world. She also draws an uncomfortable line between propaganda in China and that misinformation that runs rampant here in the US, showing that Americans don’t have the moral high ground either. There are so many candid and powerful interviews from inside Wuhan, so many striking images and heartbreaking moments that we just haven’t seen much of yet from the COVID-19 crisis. The film’s ending sneaks up you, presenting a vision of how many lives could have been saved in the past year if there had been better transparency and cooperation between China and the US (especially if we hadn’t had a US president at the time so devoted to disinformation and propaganda designed to make himself look better). It’s an incredible work from one of our great documentary filmmakers, wrestling with important questions.

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Mogul Mowgli (2020) | Directed by Bassam Tariq

 5/5

Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli is a gorgeous, deeply moving film about familial expectations, the pursuit of your dreams and your art, and the way chronic illness can bring the forward momentum of your life to a standstill. Tariq slowly introduces surreal imagery and elements throughout the film, creeping into Zed’s everyday experiences – a brilliant and haunting way to visually represent the sense of being unable to trust or control your body anymore. And by layering the push and pull of the father’s faith and his flight into Pakistan during the Partition of India, Tariq adds in rich complexity and nuance to the narrative as the film explores parental support and expectations, ruminating on all that we inherit from our parents – the qualities and traits we find admirable and those we resist. Tariq’s tight framing – the close-ups, pushing Zed out of the frame at times, makes the entire film feel so intimate and raw. Of course, it also helps when the film is anchored by an incredible cast – especially Riz Ahmed, whose performance is so incredibly open and vulnerable. This is a deeply moving film, one that leaves you with more to discover and ponder about disability and family and dreams long after the film has ended.