Rick’s flick picks from 2020
It’s been a strange year for the movies in 2020. When the COVID19 coronavirus pandemic hit, one of the first industries to feel its wrath were the movie theaters. Gone were the days when screening rooms were packed at opening night showings. No more jockeying for the best seats. No more scooting down the aisle, arms loaded with sodas, popcorn and Twizzlers. Then, the lights go down. Someone says shhh (usually me). And then the trailers start …
Now, it’s kind of hard to match that in your living room with people heckling the dialogue, phones ringing, hitting pause for bathroom breaks. Actually, that used to happen anyway except for the pause button. Still, it was that shared experience I miss and am hoping somehow things will return to “normal” sometime next year. I hope.
Movie studios were putting out content though, but obviously the venue was now digital and streaming via your smart TV, computer screen or phone. While many movies were completed pre-pandemic, what they streamed to us was not bad. There certainly was a lot more to choose from.
What follows is a list of 10 movies I particularly enjoyed reviewing (see “Streaming now” weekly on the Taos News website) because they were entertaining, visually exciting, and most of all, thoughtprovoking. I invite you to add your own favorites this year.
Now, turn down the lights and let’s imagine …
Shirley
In what is surely an Oscarworthy performance, Elisabeth Moss portrays horror author Shirley Jackson (“The Haunting of Hill House”) with enormous attention to detail, working intensely to reveal the author’s complex motivations and the gothic inspirations for her work while managing to hold center stage as a morose, alcoholic agoraphobe with an uncanny ability to manipulate things in her midst toward peculiar ends of her own device.
Since the screenplay by Sara Gubbins is based upon a novel by Susan Scarf Merrell, its literary license is so broad as to make this more a singular cinematic expression than a strictly faithful interpretation of any specific period in Jackson’s life. If taken as a work of art, imagine it painted as a colorful abstract rendered in gestural splashes of impasto, bright and ecstatic in some areas, but cool, mysterious and dark as night in others.
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The anti-war riots during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago may have been 52 years ago, but they still resonate with the recent violence in America’s streets to protest police brutality. “The whole world’s watching” is a chant that resonates loud and clear across those decades, and while this one event was sparked by the hundreds of thousands of United States soldiers killed during the Vietnam War, the other carries its legacy of sorts as the Black Lives Matter movement stands up for justice in the face of extralegal killing by police right here in America. Writer-director Aaron Sorkin, whose TV series “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom” became virtual primers for how Washington politics and major TV media are run, takes a crack at making history relevant to today and does a pretty fine job of it.
Little Fires Everywhere
Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) and Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) couldn’t be more different. Mia is a black, single fine artist who lives a nomadic existence with her teenage daughter, Pearl (Lexi Underwood}, taking odd jobs here and there to get by. There have been times when she and Pearl have lived out of their car. Elena is white and is a reporter for a small newspaper in affluent Shaker Heights, Ohio. But, her main role has been the wife of a successful lawyer and raising her four children according to a rigid plan she concocted when she was young. Where their paths converge is when Mia rents an apartment from Elena, and considering herself to be progressive Elena goes out of her way to engage Mia as kind of a fashionable new friend. But, as we shall see, presumptions can have enormous consequences. Netflix miniseries directed by Liz Tigelaar.
The Queen’s Gambit
This Netflix miniseries is based upon a 1983 novel by the late Walter Tevis. The seven episodes are directed by Scott Frank, who created the show with Allan Scott. The story is executed with intelligence, wit and a high level of consistent visual artistry. Although made as a miniseries, it ranks as a long-form piece of cinema. Highly recommended.
Bombshell
The 2019 film, streaming now
on Hulu and Amazon Prime, was directed by Albuquerque native Jay Roach, who has done a fair number of comedies on top of his more topical fare. Here, he focuses primarily on what happens to Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron in amazing lookalike makeup), Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and a fictional character named Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) as they simply try to do their jobs within the highly toxic atmosphere of Fox News. Very topical, especially in light of the recent elections.
Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins once said, “The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them.” Audiences who see “Raise Hell” will have plenty of chances to do
just that. The acclaimed journalist epitomized the classic image of a hard-drinking writer pounding away at a typewriter, cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth, speaking truth to power, and blazing a trail with little time to suffer fools. Known for her acidlaced quips and unfailing ability to reduce the powerful to tears, Ivins was a unique force in American media. But, she was much more than that, as director and co-writer Janice Engel reveals in her 2019 documentary.
John Lewis: Good Trouble
When we first see U.S. Rep. John Lewis, he is being readied for an on-camera interview in a stage setting. He is calm and collected. Then, he looks directly into the camera to say, “I feel lucky and blessed that I’m serving in the Congress, but there are forces today trying to take us back to another time and another dark period.” Then, after a beat, he continues. “We’ve come so far. We’ve made so much progress, but as a nation and as a people we’re not quite there yet. We have miles to go.” Lewis passed away July 17, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the greatest warriors for civil rights, he will truly be missed. Documentary directed by Dawn Porter.
Five Who Came Back
This miniseries directed by Laurent Bouzereau takes a look at the work of five esteemed Hollywood film directors — George Stevens, Frank Capra, John Huston, John Ford and William Wyler — who followed their sense of patriotic duty when World War II broke out and joined the U.S. military. It is narrated by Meryl Streep. The modern viewer may gain some insight into how these men were engaged by military brass to produce work it could use to persuade recruits and present a positive image of the war effort to the American public. In so doing, it helped create the modern and highly refined propaganda industry, seen today in terms of advertising, promotion and most pointedly in political campaigns.
Children of the Sea
Japanese animation director Ayumu Watanabe brings to the screen one of the most beautiful films in recent memory. But, the beauty of his film isn’t only measured by the striking visuals that are constant showstoppers. It is also a fascinating and meaningful tale of the relationship between creatures occupying the largest living mass on earth, the sea, and the universe stretching far beyond our tiny planet. The film, now streaming on Netflix, was adapted from the manga of the same name by author Daisuke Igarashi and features a gorgeous film score by award-winning composer and longtime Studio Ghibli collaborator Joe Hisaishi (“Princess Mononoke”).
Sputnik
When a mysterious military officer transporting a leading psychologist to examine the survivor of a spacecraft malfunction refers to the situation as an “incident,” you know something ominous is about to unfold. That’s one of the first hints that the Russian-made 2020 sci-fi thriller “Sputnik” is going to be out of the ordinary. Easily comparable to “Alien” or “The Thing,” director Egor Abramenko goes a step further by applying high level storytelling and production values to unspool a tale as if none of those blockbuster epics ever existed in the first place. In doing so, he reaffirms the scary alien genre. Stars Oksana Akinshina.