After having to watch the bulk of our films from our living rooms in 2020, the slow but sure return to cinemas in 2021 was more than welcome. And the year rewarded us with many Top 10 list worthy contenders. I’ve narrowed mine down to the list below. You can also check out fellow film writer Chris Piper’s list here, as well as my 2020 list here. Now stop reading lists, and go seek these out!
The 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival concluded yesterday, and announced its awards on Saturday. Those can be found here, but we have a final wrap up, too – nine capsules highlighting some of the Festival offerings – six dramas and three documentaries. Check them out below, and see you next year!
The dullest hours are spent with this rote seafaring rescue tale
T.S. Eliot famously wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” but, for the movie-going public, January is the harshest. The embarrassment of riches that is the late fall quality Oscar contender rush is now just a faint memory, and theaters are filled instead with middling fare that studios don’t know what to do with. Case in point is director Craig Gillespie’s The Finest Hours, which had two previously scheduled release dates before finally opening nationally today – never a good sign. A dull, paint-by-numbers mess, the picture’s suitability as a January wasteland offering makes perfect sense, but the fact that it boasts a wealth of talent both in front of and behind the camera is both puzzling and disappointing.