It seems almost unreal that 2020, this tumultous year, is coming to an end. There are positive signs on the horizon when it comes to Covid-19--vaccines, with more on the way!--though we are still not out of the woods. The same is true with the US as a whole; it remains to be seen if DJT will leave office peacefully, since he has continued to claim the election was stolen--it wasn't, he lost handily--and the recovery, on every level, after four years of his tenure, particularly the horrendous year that just concluded, will require a herculean effort. I did keep watching movies during December (Criterion featured an Afrofuturist-focused curated set to end the year) and here they are:
Crumbs* (Miguel Llansó's post-apocalyptic trip across the Ethiopian desert)
My Culture
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Afronauts* (a reimaging of the space race from a Zambian perspective)
White In, Black Out* (one of Brazil's most exciting young Afro-Brazilian filmmakers, from Brasília & a revelation)
Robots of Brixton* (a short triumph from Kibwe Tavares)
Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jane* (documentary about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & his wife Lady Jaye's ongoing Pandrogyne project)
The Awful Truth* (classic screwball film centering on divorce & featuring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne - what's not to like)
Zombies*
Once There was Brasilia* (another Adirley Queirós film that rocked my world)
The Changing Same* (a gem from Cauleen Smith)
Entertainment* (Rick Alverson's portrait of a truly bizarre, broken comedian)
The Becoming Box (Afrofuturist short)
Hannah Arendt* (severe but effective, from Margarethe von Trotta)
Torch
Jonah* (Kibwe Tavares's short featuring Daniel Kaluuya and playing off the Biblical story)
Holiday* (Katharine Hepburn is so peppy & brittle in this film it's unreal)
1968 < 2018 > 2068* (Keisha Rae Witherspoon's 7-minute meditation on the future)
The Go-Between* (one of my favorite Joseph Losey films, starring Julie Christie, with a Pinter screenplay, and tackling the potentially dire ramifications of the intersections of class and desire)
The Eloquent Peasant* (Chadi Abdel Salam's short set in around 2160 BC)
To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues's take on a trans woman's attempt to grapple with her past and present)
The Undoing (a Ryan Crepack film I didn't full vibe with)
Four Women* (Julie Dash - I wish she'd gotten so much more money & support to direct so much more)
Illusions* (a Julie Dash fave)
Pool Sharks* (WC Fields)
The Golf Specialist (WC Fields)
Queen Sono* (I enjoyed the series but felt it should have been extended)
Cat People* (I saw the 1982 version when it debuted & later the Jacques Tourneur version, which was this one - I like it better than the update)
The Legend of Rita* (another Schlöndorff political thriller that was really well written & directed & gave a sense of the stakes of ultraradical politics)
The Ogre (nowhere near as good as the Tournier novel)
Tchoupitoulas* (a documentary about seeing New Orleans, from the perspective of three young Black New Orleanians)
Wild Strawberries* (Bergman is so severe but so talented)
Caché* (a Haneke psychological thriller that's unsolvable through logic)
The Best Man* (the Schaffner film from 1964, written by Gore Vidal, based on his play, not the later romantic comedy starring Taye Diggs, which I also love)
The Public Enemy* (Jimmy Cagney, in one of his best roles, as a White street hustler who attempts to rise in the world of organized crime)
The Comedy* (I cannot state enough how disturbing this film, by Rick Alverson, truly is; it is White male trolling elevated to the level of art)
The Body Beautiful (Ngozi Onwurah's short about her White mother's experience with breast cancer)
The Chase (Brando & Jane Fonda, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Horton Foote & Lillian Hellman - still fell a bit flat for me)
My Favorite Wife (more Cary Grant & Irene Dunne)
Industry* (series)
Cheer* (series)
Catharsis (I think this is the Cédric Prévost film about filmmaking and spectatorship--but I can't remember beyond writing the name down)
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