Best films of 2021

I... obviously found this impossible, because it FEELS like with lockdown, I should have seen all the films on my watchlist. I did not. I was STILL hoping to see Riders of Justice tonight, but ended up working till 9p. But we're drawing a line in the sand. I'm sure I'll keep watching a few I need to see over the next few months. 

Past Years: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

1. The Power of the Dog

2. tick, tick... BOOM!

3. The Worst Person in the World

4. The Green Knight

5. The Souvenir Part II

6. Bergman Island

7. Licorice Pizza

8. Spencer

9. Matrix Resurrections

10. I'm Your Man

It feels like there's a strong theme in here. Three very meta films, one with a meta sequence that makes me cry, and a couple playing with storytelling.

The rest of the pretty posters here.

2022 Oscars Aftermath

Update 3/12: Let's re-use Lydia here. As expected, the two best nominated films walked away with nothing. I did very badly! My 2nd worst year, and not in a fun, 'Moonlight the worthy film upsets' way. 16/23. BUT! 21/23 with spoilers, so only Production Design was a real 'upset' and I had that in third place, alongside Brendan for Actor (and once Elvis lost makeup and costume, it became clear Austin wasn't going to win, either.)

[Whoops! Forgot to post the links to past years: 2021: 20, 2020: 17, 2019: 19 (Bong!), 2018: 20, 2017: 15 (Moonlight!), 2016: 17, 2015: 21, 2014: 20, 2013: 18, 2012: 17, 2011: 17, 2010: 17, 2009: 20/21? I currently match most Oscar pundits on 17/23 categories, so that'll probably be what I get for 2022. (WEIRDLY, the ESPN contest has WILDLY different picks than most award sites, so I'm curious to see it that populism translates in what wins, or if I have a chance of doing particularly well there because I'm picking more of the Oscar-watchers picks.)]

Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin - Spoiler
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once - Will Win, Did win
The Fabelmans
Tár - Should Win
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Oscar Predictions 2022

This is a weird year: 1) I have not stayed on top of the race, 2) I'm expecting my favorite film to walk away with nothing and 3) I'm giving myself till the end of the month to finish catching up on 2022 films, so some of the 'shouldas' might have looked different in a couple weeks. And yet, despite all this, I care very strongly about some of these categories! (short doc! Cinematography always but especially when a woman has a real shot! OBVIOUSLY SONG.)

[Ed update 3/12: whoops! Forgot to post the links to past years: 2021: 20, 2020: 17, 2019: 19 (Bong!), 2018: 20, 2017: 15 (Moonlight!), 2016: 17, 2015: 21, 2014: 20, 2013: 18, 2012: 17, 2011: 17, 2010: 17, 2009: 20/21? I currently match most Oscar pundits on 17/23 categories, so that'll probably be what I get for 2022. (WEIRDLY, the ESPN contest has WILDLY different picks than most award sites, so I'm curious to see it that populism translates in what wins, or if I have a chance of doing particularly well there because I'm picking more of the Oscar-watchers picks.)]

Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin - Spoiler
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once - Will Win
The Fabelmans
Tár - Should Win
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Shoulda Been a Contender: RRR, Bones & All, Decision to Leave, 

Weirdly, gold derby has Banshees in 2nd place, which I did not foresee, so I'm putting it as spoiler. I thought Tár would have that. I do think EEAAO has the momentum to sweep a lot. In fact, I think MOST awards will be going to EEAAO and All Quiet (which I have 0 interest in seeing because every critic I respect says it's not good and the original is better and I love the original). I'm pleased something weird is going to win a lot, but I didn't love it, and it makes for a kind of boring lead up. All Quiet won the BAFTA, and the European contingent is strong, but EEAAO won the PGA and SAG. 

2022 Oscar Nom predictions

Well. 

Let's see how this goes. Last year was a minor disaster (79/120 outright, 108/120 with spoilers). Here's 2020 (84/118 outright, 110/118 with spoilers), here's 2019 (88/124 outright, 113/124 with spoilers), here's 2018 (91/121 outright, 113/121 with spoilers) and here's 2017 (90/122 outright, or 118/122 with spoilers).

Let's change things up and do Best Picture at the end, because it's the worst to format. That said, there's a good chance All Quiet on the Western Front might come in and sweep a bunch of things. It didn't make every shortlist, but it already made quiet a few. 

[Ed: update 1/24 with correct answers in bold. Anything missed in italics. 

In short: I am SO good. Totals: 91/120 - my highest outright score yet! (Both in percentage and tied for total number.) 114/120 with spoilers (my second best year.)

Perfect categories: Actor, Supporting Actress, Makeup, VFX, sound. !!!

Missed 6: Andrea Riseborough (after I thought about putting her in as a spoiler), Ruben Ostlund (total left field), The Red Suitcase, How do You Measure a Year, Stranger at the Gate, (all shorts) Triangle of Sadness (left field pick for Best Picture!! More below).] 

Editing

Quick note: Why the fuck are the ACE Eddie nominations coming out AFTER the oscar noms?

So that makes things a lot harder. Let's go:

Elvis (BAFTA, CCA)

Top Gun Maverick (ditto)

Everything Everywhere (BAFTA, Indie, won the CCA)

All Quiet on the Western Front (BAFTA)

TÁR (CCA, runner up at the LAFC)

Spoilers

Banshees (BAFTA)

Avatar (CCA)

Aftersun (Indie, Won the LAFC and Brit Indie)

Babylon (CCA)

Fablemans (good shot at a Best Picture nod)

Updated Top 100 songs

In looking through the archives for something else, I came across my top 100 songs from March, 2017. I thought it would be fun to update to see what has changed. (And, as I noted in my 2022 mixes, that Orville Peck song leapt into my top 20.)

To be clear - these are not my desert island songs (although that list could probably use a refresh), but the ones that have the most plays in my iTunes. The caveats being: the play count starts in September, 2005 (so middle school/high school/most college counts aren't in there (or there would be a LOT more RENT)), and for the first few years - ipods didn't sync play counts to iTunes. And, as you'll see below, iTunes match sometimes gets confused, and I end up with a couple duplicates (which I can't combine because I often don't realize until years after different dupes have been assigned to different playlists.) Still - here's a rough play count from the past 16 years. 

Still 17 Garbage songs, although a couple titles have swapped around. Green Day/American Idiot songs have dropped from 13 to 11 (and several Green Day songs swapped for American Idiot ones) and AFI/Blaqk Audio dropped from 13 to 10. 

Gained 2:
Tori Amos

Last of the Mohicans soundtrack

Dropped 1:

Amanda Palmer 

Kaiser Chiefs 

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson 

Gaga

Metric

iio

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Muse

Gained 1:

Poe 

QotSA 

Bear McCreary

Fiona Apple

Florence + the Machine

Hozier

Orville Peck

Stoker soundtrack

Handmaiden soundtrack

Still a little surprised Hole and Cranberries are missing (but mostly because iTunes doesn't have pre-2005 counts). Not surprised a few more soundtrack songs are on, since I often put on my movie score playlist when I'm working. 

The final song (Boulevard - American Idiot Cast) has 209 iTunes plays. And at some point (recently! And I did not catch it/that is not what prompted this post) the most listened to song - the Kiss from the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack - hit 1,000 listens and now stands at 1,008. (The next closest is I Think I'm Paranoid at 522.)

The full list (both lists, new; dropped since 2017):

2022 Reddit television survey

Whee! Let's do an old school list review post, as I gear up for all things end of year/oscars. Reddit's tv survey came out with the favorite 100 tv shows, favorite new shows, and favorite miniseries. Here we go - bolded I've seen at least 1 season:

1. Breaking Bad. The best.

2. Better Call Saul. I desperately need to watch this. 

3. Game of Thrones. Blech. I tapped out at Sansa's rape. The showrunners so clearly didn't know what they were doing. 

4. The Wire. I had to take a break in S4 and I've still never finished it. I need to. 

5. The Office. S2 is so good. I watched it up till Michael left and a few episodes after. 

6. Community. Never finished. Not sure how I feel about the movie. I loved a lot of episodes, but the behind the scenes drama made it chaotic at times. 

7. Parks and Recreation. Love.

8. It's Always Sunny. I love it so much. 

9. Succession. I need to watch. But I watched the first episode at a particularly inopportune time. 

10. Sopranos

11. Avatar

12. Andor. Very high on my to watch list. 

13. Arrested Development. The original seasons were often brilliant. They should have left it at that.  

14. Severance. Great. Sad about the long wait till S2. 

15. Seinfeld

16. Chernobyl. Amazing. 

17. Stranger Things. Meh. S1 was fine. Never had any interest in watching more. 

18. Good Place. Love. 

19. Mr. Robot. Loved S1. S2 was a slog. I've been told 3 & 4 are great, and I want to finish it, but... I don't really remember the salient points. I need a recap. 

20. The Expanse. I've been told this is great, but it seems like such a high barrier to entry. 

21. Lost. Love

22. Ted Lasso. Love.

23. Leftovers. Need to watch. 

24. Mad Men

25, The Boys. Started this. Jack Quaid is great. I like what it's doing, and I obviously want to see Aya Cash in S2, but... I'm not finding any urgency in watching the next episode. 

26. Bojack Horseman. God this just got more and more depressing. Often great. I made it through S4. 

27. Futurama

28. Rick and Morty. Love. 

29. Band of Brothers

30. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Love. Although I'm not sure I'll be able to rewatch it.  

31. Black Mirror. I've seen a couple of episodes and loved them, but I need to see the rest. 

32. Star Trek: TNG. Love.
33. Dark. I keep hearing good things about this. 

34. Simpsons. Obviously love. 

35. 30 Rock. Love

36. Buffy. Love. Spike is the best. 

37. Fleabag. Love love love. 

38. South Park. I think I watched through S20. 

39. Battlestar Galactica. Meh - I tried to get into this and didn't like it. 

40. House of the Dragon

41. Firefly. It's good (but it's no Farscape). 

42. Schitt's Creek. Love. 

43. Scrubs. Watched through S7. 

44. Doctor Who. Love (although I need to catch up on the most recent season.)

45. Curb Your Enthusiasm

46. Taskmaster. OBVIOUSLY love. 

47. Mandalorian

48. Friends. Love. 

49. Arcane. Literally never heard of this. 

50. What We Do in the Shadows. Love the film, do not like Matt Berry. Watched most of S1 and couldn't continue. 

52 Films by Women - 2022

Hey - Sight & Sound is up to a grand 11 (up from 2 a decade ago.)

The time has come to clear out my list for 2023. 12/50. Yikes! Still not watching as many films as pre-pandemic, but lordy do I need to watch some more (features) this year. (Jeanne Dielmann plays the Roxie next week!)

My shorts are super high this year because Sundance was screening a bunch of past favorites for an anniversary. 

2021 here (20/36; although it should have been 21/37 because I forgot to include Yael Farber's Maccers (because the INEXORABLY STUPID MODS AT TMDB removed it and I missed out Shepherd's Song, which was a lovely short, but one tied to my day job so I didn't review it). 2020 here (23/4), 2019 here (15/25), 2018 here (22/20).

Features

The Matrix Resurrections (2021; Lana Wachowski) - 4.5 stars. Loved this. Bold, subversive, sexy. 

The Eternal Daughter (2022; Joanna Hogg) - 4 stars. Why doesn't Joanna get the recognition she deserves? Double Tilda, and the final self-reflective film in a loose trilogy, it takes excavating memories to the gothic.

Mothering Sunday (2021; Eva Husson) - 4 stars. Loved this too. A house maid sleeps with the younger (and surviving) son of the manor house before he's due at an engagement luncheon in 1924. (It skips time to her later life as well.) 

Saint Maud (2019; Rose Glass) - 3.5 stars. There's a verse in Edward Gorey's The Listing Attic that goes:

A clerical student named Pryne

Through pain sought to reach the divine

    He wore a hair shirt,

    Quite often ate dirt,

And bathed every Friday in brine. 

Salomé (1922; Alla Nazimova & Charles Bryant) - 3.5 stars. BEAUTIFUL.