Happy New Year, Viscerals!

Have you limped to the finish line, as we have? It feels more like we're celebrating the end of two years, of 2020-times-two, a double-sized issue of clustercuss du pandémie, of lengthy lockdowns followed by extreme socialisation -- of a world seemingly trying to pack two years worth of events into the last two months of the year -- ending with a hair-trigger game of COVID-test-Russian-Roulette, as every place you visit could find you abruptly canceling plans to stand in a line (or sit in a car) for hours on end then getting results back two days later only to discover what you already knew: you were fine. It's a weird new world, and folks shouldn't be shocked if some of us need a goddamned nap. 

But some incredible things happened to us this year, too. Our new feature film, Apparitions, scored a distribution deal to be released on DVD and VOD in the UK and US by 4Digital Media, thanks to our sales agents at OneTwoThree Media (it'll be out February 15, 2022 in the US, with a UK date still to be announced), with smaller streaming-based deals in Malaysia and Benelux (the combined region of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg -- no, I didn't know that was a thing either). In a development neither of us never dreamed would occur, Pez and I bought our first home together, a lovely apartment in a location we've loved for years and sees us geographically closer to many of our friends. And to close out the year, Apparitions had its World Premiere screening in our hometown, in front of many cast and crew members, at a cinema we've attended as patrons hundreds of times, as part of the program of what is arguably Australia's top genre film festival, Monster Fest! The folks who run the fest -- Grant, Jarret, Ben, Kim and so many others -- treated us beautifully and the screening (and post-film Q&A, which saw Pez, our star Cate O'Connor and I chatting to Jarret) was a dream evening. The response to the film was overwhelmingly positive -- the audience really got into it, gasping, laughing and cheering at the appropriate moments! -- and, as you can see from the photos below, a fine time was had by all. Our deepest thanks again to the folks at Monster Pictures for making this happen!

So, after a year in which we've felt battered and bruised yet blessed, what movies took my fancy, I hear you ask? Read on...

While #lockdownlyfe persisted throughout 2021, this year wasn't quite as much of a bounty as 2020 was for new discoveries, but there were some absolute bangers and revelations.

As I limit my year-end top 20 lists to feature films, my absolute favourite first-time watch of the year isn't technically eligible: Michael Apted's astonishing document of 14 "average" Brits across their entire lives, from age 7 to 63 (thus far), in the films 7 Up (directed by Paul Almond), 7 Plus Seven, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, 56 Up and 63 Up (all directed by Apted, whose passing on January 7th prompted us to finally throw this on; all episodes are currently available in Australia on the SBS On Demand streaming platform). Frequently funny, moving, insightful, aggravating and never less than absorbing, Apted used this series as a way to examine class in the UK -- does a person's social class or free will determine their life's path? -- and while he's been criticised at times for certain lines of questioning as the series has continued (mainly around gendered lines, or trying to "cast" certain people in clichéd roles), for the most part he lets his subjects have the floor on who they are, why their lives have taken their course and where they aim to be. It must be incredibly confronting to have your life held up to the world every seven years to see how far -- or, worse still, not -- you've come each time, like a notched height chart on a door jamb for all to see, but these folks are wonderful for coming back and doing it every single time, even when some clearly have an agenda for doing so (like, say, a Bulgarian charity or a local folk band to promote), and they're never less than honest. I'm not surprising anyone by saying it's a landmark work, but it really is an essential document of what it's like to be a human (of a certain ethnicity, as all but one of the participants are white; one of the series' few major missteps) in the modern world. 

20. PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS trilogy (1996-2011)
An unspeakably horrifying child triple-murder leads to an a horrifying miscarriage of justice, robbing three teenage boys of their young lives, rounded up simply for being different in their Arkansas hive of Christian repression, with only a coerced confession connecting them to the crime in any way. Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky get astonishing access to the charged teens, the families of them and the victims, and both defence and prosecution teams, allowing some folks enough rope to hang themselves, exposing the state's case for the reasonable-doubt minefield it is and revealing the poor, bewildered kids at the centre of this whole sad, emotional, discriminatory circus. All three films make a poignant, scary document of growing up different in a small rural town under the thrall of religion… and these kids were white… and straight. Could you imagine if they were black or gay under the same circumstances? I suspect they may not have survived this long. There have been a lot of dark, disquieting mirrors turned upon America’s heartland in documentary, but this is certainly one of the most exhaustive, and damning.

19. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1940)
I’m no Austen scholar — and I should admit now, I’ve never seen any other screen version of this story (Bridget Jones’ Diary aside) — but I adored this! Laurence Olivier is note-perfect as Mr Darcy, Greer Garson is a fun Elizabeth Bennet, and this is clearly a studio production that’s had the full arsenal thrown at it, but there’s also a genuine joy and warmth running through it all, as well as the expected Austen wit (delivered via the typewriters of Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin). Its truncated adaptation and lavish-but-apparently-not-period-accurate costumes may rub purists the wrong way, but for anyone else, this is a real Golden Age gem which should be much wider seen.

18. THE RITE (1969)
This lesser-known made-for-Swedish-TV chamber play is a superb hidden gem among Ingmar Bergman's filmography, a riveting close-up dramatic parry-and-thrust between its cast of four, driven by evolving motives and shifting perspectives, examining artistic temperaments, state-imposed censorship, the morally outraged and the often complex psychological relationship that ensues between them and those they wish to ban. Like much of Bergman's work, it's often disarmingly funny and unpredictable, leading to a final performance piece that's startling in its form and retribution. If you're even vaguely into Bergman, seek this out.

17. STARDUST (2007)
A delightful modern screwball comedy in fantasy fancy dress, Matthew Vaughn's film is a very Neil Gaiman spin (adapted from Gaiman's novel by Vaughn and his regular screenwriting cohort Jane Goldman) on fairytale lore that’s cheekily inventive, with massive set-pieces and lavish design aplenty, unleashing an all-star cast who are clearly having a ball — especially Pfeiffer and De Niro, the latter in a surprising role which sees him more nimble, energised and, well, awake than he’d been during each decade either side of this — alongside a murderers row of UK comedy legends.

16. WORD IS OUT: STORIES OF SOME OF OUR LIVES (1977)
Beautiful, essential document of gay men and women expressing the truth of their lives and experiences to camera in a safe space, something incredibly brave for them to submit to in mid-1970s America, seeing at that time (depending upon where you lived) you could still be fired from your job or run out of town due to being gay. Not only a snapshot of lives at a certain period of time, but also a reclaiming of image, a breaking of stereotypes and a celebration of people seeing a long-overdue change in attitudes and legislation finally beginning to shift, daring to envision a future in which they can openly be themselves. Candid, affectionate and frequently amusing, the filmmaking is basic and unfussy as the interviews themselves are deservedly placed centre-stage, and, for this perspective alone — gay filmmakers documenting ordinary gay Americans — it's a landmark.

15. THE HOT ROCK (1972)
Hilarious, slow-burning heist-comedy-thriller, adapted by the great William Goldman, from on a Donald Westlake novel, about a professional (Robert Redford) surrounded by knuckleheads, trying to lift a diamond from a museum for a prissy African aristocrat (the amazing Moses Gunn). Once you realise what this is really up to — that it's not about one heist, but rather a domino effect of heists committed to fix the fuckups from each heist before it — that it becomes seriously delightful, and thrillingly fresh within the heist sub-genre. I wasn't wild about Quincy Jones' score at first — early on it seems to work seperate from, not in concert with, the film — but in the second half, it's pitch perfect. The film is also full of glorious NYC locations and attitude, and throws increasingly wacko elements into the mix (which I won't reveal here) as each robbery gets more absurdly difficult from the last. 

14. THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)
My top "Shocktoberfest" Halloween discovery this year, this (along with The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein) confirms director James Whale's role in perfecting the horror-comedy in damn near its earliest form. Others had tried, but Whale not only displays an attention to his characters and their interaction uncommon for horror of the time (or since), but a cheeky mean streak that makes the laughs sting. The entire cast are wonderful, the writing is sharp, the cinematography and sets are as shadowy and atmospheric as any of the best Universal chillers and, as audiences in '32 struggled to grapple with, impressively ahead of its time in the way it deploys satire and shifts tones between drawing room mystery, nascent screwball comedy and spooky funhouse horror -- and all in a brisk 72 minutes. 

13. HOWARD'S END (1992)
12. ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985)
11. REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993)
In what might be the year's biggest shock development, 2021 was the year I became... a Merchant-Ivory fan? I'd long written their films off as stodgy stiff-upper-lip costume bores (mostly due to others' films of the same settings and sub-genres), but this was the first time I'd seen any... and I was astonished. Howard's End starts out as a funny and delightful portrait of a good-natured family of British oddballs on the fringes of aristocracy, before edging into a cutting indictment of a more modern form of privilege, one able and all too willing to destroy those who might want to share the wealth. Room With a View is a breathtakingly shot, frequently hilarious romantic comedy about a woman who finds that embracing life's chaos may just bring happiness, with one of the most unexpected (triple!) male nude scenes you'll ever see. Perhaps my favourite of the three, Remains of the Day is a tale of bottled-up passion that is quietly devastating, yet also a beautiful dissection of class, servitude and (especially pertinent today) how people in rich and privileged bubbles can find themselves seduced by fascists. Their films are so beautifully crafted, so surprisingly lively, the way director James Ivory, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and creative producer Ismail Merchant dig into British class traditions with affection and disdain in equal measure, and explore bygone eras to reflect timeless truths, is strong, always compelling and, shockingly, ferociously entertaining.

10. VANYA ON 42ND STREET (1994)
Louis Malle's final film as director sees him filming a bunch of actors rehearsing a play in an old Broadway theatre... but what a play (Chekov's blindingly witty Uncle Vanya), what actors (a roll call of America's finest stage and screen thesps) and what a theatre (the then-abandoned New Amsterdam Theatre). Warm and inviting to start, settling into a groove quickly and riveting to the end, this is a beautiful way of doing a Vanya for screen without all the period bells and whistles, getting in close and intimate with the actors and their characters as only cinema can, lit subtly but beautifully and shot on 35mm. Among the excellent cast, Larry Pine and Brooke Smith are revelations (why don't more films give these two more to do??). What I'm saying is, this was a delight and I could watch a series of them.

9. LORNA (1964)
From its zooming opening shot onwards, Russ Meyer's "Drive-In Tennessee Williams" melodrama, seething with passion, hate, lust and desperation, delivers a (double-barrelled, of course) shotgun blast to the face, shot in stunning black-and-white, supported by the astonishing physique of young Lorna Maitland (real name: Barbara Ann Popejoy) and the surprisingly good performances of its supporting cast. It's all pitched to the back wall, shouty, sweaty, campy and heaving, with ample shots of ample Lorna frolicking, but when its ending arrives, the desolate feeling of loss and poignancy it leaves you with might be its biggest shock of all. One could write volumes about the sexual / gender politics of this film, Meyer, his characters and the way it reflects 1960s post-war America, especially in regards to religion, patriarchy and poverty. I'd love to know how this hit its audience in '64. Right between the eyes, is my guess.

8. PARTING GLANCES (1986)
This indie New York-set gay rom-com-drama was the sole feature by its writer-director, Bill Sherwood, who died of AIDS in 1990. From the jump, there's a terrific command of tone, a snap to the dialogue and a natural authenticity to the relationships and performances, which only levels up when Steve Buscemi (in just his second film role) enters the fray... and it's all steeped in a sublime '80s New York City vibe. As the lead couple grapple with one of them moving to Africa for work, not to mention the wrecking ball their AIDS-stricken friend (Buscemi, the ex of the guy staying home) represents, most of the characters end up at a party, one of those Soho affairs filled with the art and queer crowds, that goes for a good half-hour... and it's pure bliss, filled with intimate conversations, pickup attempts and eccentricities. (And the closest I came to missing parties during lockdown.) Funny, romantic, snappy, insightful and adorable as hell.

7. MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
Bong Joon-Ho's early procedural, loosely based on a real-life case (unsolved until 2019!), displays the exquisite tone-shifting skill that most defines and distinguishes South Korean cinema, with Bong at the pointy end of that pack. (Plus, y’know, Song Kang-Ho.) As well as obsession, frustration and sloppy policing, the way this film explores the casual police brutality of the region in scenes that are built as comic set-pieces, daring us to laugh while clearly wanting us to understand how suffocatingly awful the whole system is/was, is so audacious and confronting. Likewise, it skilfully folds in the story of emergent female Officer Kwon (Ko Seo-Hie) to reflect Korea’s casual sidelining and, eventually, (still?) begrudging acceptance of women as being equally skilful and valid in assuming positions of authority, contrasting her with the abused, discarded victims (even having her dress as one to flush the killer out). Superb filmmaking.

6. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017)
Kicking off with the best opening sequence of any Marvel film, James Gunn proves that Guardians of the Galaxy was no fluke, delivering the humour, dynamics and thrills that made the original work so well, while imbuing it with an even more resonant subtext about what it means to be a family, a parent, a son, and why you probably shouldn't idolise or pin your hopes on an absent parent (or leader) — the emotional bombs this film drops are shockingly moving — adding new members of this most oddball family of misfit toys, while deepening and even re-characterising others. It's also colourful, hilarious — another masterclass in mining comedy from character — and brilliantly reverses the "Chosen One" trope in a way that feels earned, while thumbing its nose at a tired convention. Sure, it runs about 10 minutes too long, but this is a pure delight that stands shoulder to Groot with the first film. Bring on Vol. 3.

5. CITY LIGHTS (1936)
Decided to break into some long-long-overdue Chaplin, and was richly rewarded. His fifth feature is resolutely silent of dialogue -- sound was already a regular fixture of movies by that point — and shows just how sophisticated his storytelling had become. Essentially a romantic drama about a blind woman in love with a kind vagrant she believes to be rich, but punctuated by brilliantly constructed and staged set-pieces that, a decade-and-change earlier, would’ve powered their own one-or-two-reelers. But what really lands here is the emotion; again, Chaplin proves the master of crafting the simplest of emotional stories, built upon a premise that might have sounded creaky even then, ripe for unbridled sentimentality, and making them feel honest and essential — even, at times, borderline distressing — before giving the audience what seems like a happy ending, but is actually something far more powerful: a glimpse at hope.

4. MONA LISA (1986)
Big-hearted and bruising crime-adjacent drama with complex, conflicted, painfully human characters who reveal the best and worst of themselves (often in the same scene); in other words, the kind of film they don't really make for cinemas anymore. Hoskins has never been better, as the old-world chancer who struggles with the (under)world he's been released into, his place in this world and the beguiling sex worker he's been charged to look after (Cathy Tyson, in an incredible performance that matches Hoskins beat for beat). Not to mention Robbie Coltrane, a delight as a mechanic and budding detective novelist who Hoskins seeks counsel with, and Michael Caine, whose ice-blue eyes have never seemed so cold as he eschews his usual ingratiating tricks to inhabit one calculating prick of a gangster. Imbued with heart, humour and hurt, this marks a still-unsurpassed high point for director/co-writer Neil Jordan.

3. THE KID (1921)
There's a case to be made that Charles Chaplin is cinema's greatest-ever filmmaker. "Beauty in simplicity" personified, his debut feature film, as Hollywood’s first true multi-hyphenate — he wrote, produced, directed, starred and composed the score — is a perfectly calibrated, timelessly charming winner (even with those oddball dream sequences). A slapstick comedy that pulls double duty as a “social issues picture” isn’t the easiest thing to pull off, but Chaplin walks the line superbly, putting on a masterclass of comic staging while harnessing the megaton secret weapon that is Jackie Coogan (as the “kid” of the title), who plays every scene with a mischief and emotional honesty (as does his co-star and director) that counteracts all sentiment with truth — and, always never far away, hilarity. Perfectly paced and always relevant, 100 years on, The Kid remains a peerless family comedy.

2. NIGHT MOVES (1975)
My kind of movie in every way: hazy mid-'70s L.A./Florida mood, electric dialogue (see: any acerbic sentence that tumbles from Jennifer Warren's mouth), full of grounded characters in heightened situations, a tight plot, a world just on the right side of skeezy, populated by oddball burnouts, and culminating one of those downbeat '70s endings which defies easy resolution and seems the only way out. Gene Hackman's Harry Moseby is a great lead; an ex-NFL star turned private eye, struggling to fit the role of husband that marriage has demanded of him, yet no longer the dashing ex-sportsman his wife married, but a broken-down, cynical guy who spends long nights snapping cheating partners and chasing runaways across state lines. Moseby's moral enough to sidestep the advances of a flirtatious teenager (a fun Melanie Griffith) and chide her gross stepfather for lusting after her (Stepfather, leering at Griffith: "There oughta be a law." Moseby, disgusted: "There is.") but not above sleeping with that guy's wife (Warren, who's magnetic), which, given this is a neo-noir, might not be the best idea he ever had. Just about perfect.

1. BETTY BLUE (1986)
Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1986 magnum opus of young love, hedonism, artistic inspiration and mental illness may be an acquired taste for some, but (seen in its 185-minute director's cut) I found it exquisite in every way; deeply human, breathtakingly shot, disarmingly funny and ultimately heartbreaking. Novelistic in design, it is structured into vignettes, detours into oddball narrative sidebars which illuminate character, and gives every character an inner life, etched with warmth and empathy, even if the sense of dread that threatens to blow their world apart never truly leaves. Beatrice Dalle is astonishing on debut as the initially bratty, increasingly bipolar Betty and Jean-Hugues Anglade is beautiful and open-hearted as her devoted boyfriend, who believes if he just loves her enough, gives her everything she needs and stays by her side, it will be enough to hold her together and save her, not knowing he's on a hiding to nothing. It's a five-course meal of a film that, if you vibe with it, will hit you like a ton of bricks.

...and now... for the main event... 

Given Melbourne cinemas were, again, closed for much of the year, and my taste for films skewing more toward older fare this year, I wound up seeing 82 new release films in 2021, the least I've seen in recent memory; much less than 2020's 90, and even less than my previous lows in 2018 and 2017 totals (85 each year). 

I've not yet gotten to see Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, Being The Ricardos, Belfast, C'mon C'mon, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, Encanto, Eternals, Flee, The Green Knight, The Hand of God, A Hero, House of Gucci, King Richard, The Last Duel, The Lost Daughter, The Matrix Resurrections, Memoria, Nightmare Alley, Passing, Petite Maman, Quo Vadis Aida?, Red Rocket, The Scary of Sixty-First, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Stillwater, Spencer, Summer Of Soul, Val, The Velvet Underground, West Side Story, Zola or many other buzz titles you might be thinking about. (Remember, this is Australia, we still get most stuff months later than its host nation. I've included a list of what I did see at the bottom of the page.)

As always, I define a "new release" as a feature film (60 minutes and over) intended for theatrical, streaming or home video release which had its premiere paid public release (via cinemas, streaming, VOD, home video, festivals or galleries) in Australia during 2021.

To give you an idea of where my head is at, I only loved 15 of the 82 new films I saw this year, as opposed to 30 of 90 last year; across the board, I found 2021 a much less exciting year for cinema than 2020.

​So... may we start?

Molly Reynolds's elegiac documentary about one of Australia's greatest-ever actors, David Gulpilil (who sadly passed away just month's after the film's release), My Name is Gulpilil; Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass' charming tale of friendship in the COVID era, Language Lessons; Jane Campion's darkly mesmerising, two-films-for-the-price-of-one western The Power of the Dog; and a double-feature of musicals: Jon M. Chu's effervescent, disarmingly moving adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes' stage musical In The Heights and Leos Carax's screen vision of Sparks' cheeky, mad rock opera, Annette, headlined by another stunner of a performance from Adam Driver.

#20: SET!
Expected a standard-issue, Netflix-style quirk-doc, and a slow start had me worried… but was delighted when it soon became the best Christopher Guest film not made by Christopher Guest. Even though it’s dealing with real-life people, in its singularly bizarre milieu (competitive table setting) it finds exactly the kind of behavioural comedy, obsessive commitment, unchecked narcissism, artistic ambition and surprising skill Guest’s films are known for — and, in many of its subjects, a big-hearted sweetness those films sometimes lack. I suspect competition-based subcultures share many a thread of DNA, but director Scott Gawlik’s ability to give these folks the space to be themselves, without mocking them — the humour and editing choices are driven by human drama and all-too-recognisable competitive behaviour and quirks — shouldn’t be underrated. A delight!

#19: BLACK WIDOW
Marvel's return to cinemas is appealingly ground-level, builds its characters economically, introduces a terrifying threat and, in perhaps the film's biggest surprise — considering Cate Shortland's very non-action background — the action scenes are exciting, even visceral, for this kind of blockbuster. Johansson finally gets the send-off she deserves, and her dynamic with her nutty makeshift family of super-spies (Florence Pugh is outstanding as ever, David Harbour is a joy and Rachel Weisz beautifully droll) is the backbone of the movie, leading to one or two of the most emotional scenes in any of these films (thanks to Pugh). While the usually terrific Ray Winstone is badly miscast and the final showdown features a typically implausible sky-jump sequence with far too much blurry CGI, Shortland and the writers deftly weave in pertinent themes of control, abuse and misogyny in a way that never feels overbearing. 

#18: THE CARD COUNTER
Is Paul Schrader becoming a romantic in his old age? While not quite up to the dizzying, devastating heights of 2017's First Reformed, this is still a terrific entry into Schrader's studies of outsiders living ascetic lives: William (Oscar Isaac), a professional gambler who once spent too many years doing the unforgivable for his country, Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a young man marked - perhaps irreparably - by his father's misdeeds, and La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), a gambler's agent looking for the next big thing, but perhaps, more urgently, for something deeper. The circuit of second-and-third-tier casinos they inhabit is perfectly designed and beautifully drawn, Tell's military past harrowing and his relationship with La Linda is subtly built and quietly powerful. While some of the dialogue sounds a bit first-drafty to the ear, the three leads deliver knockout performances to sell the heck out of it. Like all Schrader films, this goes to dark places, but you'll be pleasantly shocked and satisfied by where it ends up. If there's hope for these three, is there hope for us all?

#17: BLOOD RED SKY
Starts shakily as it builds its situation, but revs up to be a hugely enjoyable Euro-genre flick, leveraging its bonkers concept to help itself to some gnarly gore, but also treats its mad situation with disarming gravity, leading to an unexpectedly emotional conclusion. The cast really commit to their roles — there is some terrific physical movement work here — and the film gives its three heroes some nice personal moments as the script heaps on the thrilling complications. It's physically impressive too, with great use of its double-decker plane set, awesome creature makeup and an explosive finale. The laws of physics aren't always followed to the letter, but the action is tight and bruising, the blood flows copiously and I really wanted Elias, Farid and Nadya to be okay at the end, more than you can say for most Netflix Originals; when firing, it plays like a German vampire take on Train To Busan. Perfect Saturday night Netflix fare.

#16: FRESHMAN YEAR (aka SHITHOUSE)
Big-hearted, charmingly sincere indie about a lonely freshman guy who’s not clicking with the college experience, missing his close-knit family intensely (for reasons that become clear later). So great to see a college-set coming-of-age story from the view of a guy who’s sensitive (perhaps a bit too sensitive), instead switching up college movie tropes. Although I never went to University, this particular kind of loneliness and isolation felt very familiar from workplace experiences as a twentysomething, not to mention the whole fumbling with social customs when it comes to love, sex and attraction in your early 20s. Interesting mix of a languid hang-out rom-com and a cringe comedy, with two leads who merge and collide in different ways over a few days. Debut filmmaker-actor Cooper Raiff shows a knack with directing actors and crafting characters, unafraid to make himself look as silly and childish as he is sweet and earnest. (Didn’t need that epilogue, though.)

#15: ROSE - A LOVE STORY
Small UK indie that is well-performed (by actor-screenwriter Matt Stokoe and real-life partner Sophie Rundle) and surprisingly sweet take on a certain kind of horror film, here more about caring for a partner with a chronic illness, or (something particularly relatable over the last two years) the way couples create their own rituals and ecosystems to cultivate a sense of love and safety. Once a third person enters their world (Olive Gray, also very good), their cloistered existence is both disrupted and enriched, but with the outside world comes outside problems, and it's only a matter of time before it all heartbreakingly comes apart. Loved the way debut director Jennifer Sheridan plays the premise completely straight, with the focus placed upon relationships and an all-too-timely sense of isolation and fragility. 

#14: SUPERNOVA
Along with Rose - A Love Story, one of two films about long-term couples that struck a huge chord with me this year. Loved the relationship between Firth and Tucci, as actors and characters, which felt honest and lived-in as they contemplate the unimaginable, watching one’s love slowly lose themselves to the ravages of dementia. Plays every moment to just the right level without ever succumbing to histrionics or melodrama; Tucci’s face, in particular, speaks volumes. Sure, obvious metaphors are trotted out now and again, but there’s enough quiet grace, affectionate humour and relatable grief for a loved one who still lives — all anchored by those leads — to be effectively devastating.

#13: THE SUICIDE SQUAD
The demented mind of James Gunn is set loose among DC Comics' universe of characters, and this US$185 mil blank-check bonanza is, from its WTF opening to berserk climax, perhaps the purest distillation of his entire career, and even his personal evolution, to date. For all its head-bursting violence, it's packed with a disarming amount of warmth and humanity, particularly toward the animals among them — the fate of so many characters hinges upon how they treat animals — so it makes sense the film's MVP is Nanaue, aka King Shark, a big adorable puppy encased in a nigh-invulnerable Shark's hide, staring out at the world behind small black eyes with a child's wonder and impeccably, hilariously voiced by Sylvester Stallone. How many modern blockbusters serve as a sly rebuke to America's interventionist policies, or pleas for animal rights, or are populated by thorny, murderous assholes experiencing moments of clarity to find some inner peace among all this mayhem? Leave it to Gunn to find community, hope and grace in the most garishly ultraviolent of places. It's a hoot.

#12: NOBODY
Gloriously smashing, ultraviolent action comedy which sees the director of Hardcore Henry and the writer of John Wick — borrowing from, but equally taking the piss out of, his beloved action trilogy here — teaming with the enormously against-type stunt casting of Bob Odenkirk as a baked-in badass attempting to live a quiet suburban existence, which gives this toxic fantasy of one seemingly average dude fucking up macho dickheads, violent bullies and murderous Russian crime lords the Looney Tunes treatment it needs to make it hilariously thrilling, guilt-free fun. The violence is look-away grisly but also cartoonishly absurd, the plot springs lots of well-worn but no less darkly delightful surprises and I could watch Bob O, RZA and Christopher Lloyd tear it up as an action trio in 7 more movies.

#11: TITANE
With lashings of visual and aural style and David-Cronenberg-ian zeal; her films don’t really homage his -- rather, the fascination with and attention to the strength, fragility and terror of the body, the destruction of human/machine or sexual binaries and boundaries, the effect of the psyche on the body to a supernatural extent — these are in Ducournau’s bones. From the opening shot, she conditions us to the skewed world she’s created and the preposterous situations to follow; we feel like we’re in safe, tonally assured hands, with something to say. There’s a ton in the folds of this movie’s flesh — from exploring (and detonating) gender roles and expectations, to various kinds of trans-ness, to body dysmorphia, to our intimate relationship with our machines — but the heart that beats beneath this film, sustaining all the oddities, blood and viscera, is a story about two profoundly lost people who find one another, albeit in the most fucked-up of situations. By its pitch-perfect final shot, it's downright touching. Of course, none of this holds at all without the flat-out incredible performances by Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon. Très exquis.

#10: ANOTHER ROUND
Beyond its catchy premise — that we've too little alcohol in our blood and our lives would be more manageable, or more successful, if we operated with a 0.05% blood alcohol content at all times — this is actually a quite small, gradually affecting story about four friends struggling with middle-age who, through this experiment, each discover what their personal voids are, how difficult they are to fill, and where their hard limits are. Even when convincingly playing a everyman school teacher, Mads is ridiculously handsome and charismatic, but this is also one of his quietest and saddest performances, amongst a flawless ensemble. It wraps up a little too neatly in the end, and some may be surprised at how small and perhaps seemingly inconsequential its story is, but it's a knowing, funny, bittersweet and always entertaining delight.

#9: THE SPARKS BROTHERS
Wright's best film since Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, this is an absolute banger of a doc tribute to this most distinctive of musical duos. It's crafted with a nerd's zeal and attention to detail, which, along with a shipload of entertaining interviewees as well as the brothers Mael themselves, powerfully communicates what Wright sees in these oddballs and clarifies their place in recent music history, but also reminds us that what Wright's filmmaking has always done best is enthusiasm. Joie du Cinema is how I've always described his work, and this is no less so. Plus Sparks' tunes are friggin' awesome (that is, if you love a bit of Operatic Art Rock, like me) and this will have you plunging into a musical rabbit hole afterwards. It's almost perfect, until the doc brings the brothers' story to the present day, wraps up beautifully... then dishes out another 15 minutes of interviews reiterating what we've just seen and heard over the last two hours. Never has an edit been so screamingly obvious; snip off that quarter-hour, and you've got the very model of a major music documentary.

#8: COLLECTIVE
Like watching All The President's Men unfolding in real time -- then a political drama (think The West Wing, but if Josh Lyman was constantly stymied by bureaucracy, Fox News and actual gangsters) -- this fly-on-the-wall account of the political and criminal fallout after a fire tore its way through a chronically-unsafe Bucharest nightclub is a riveting page-turner of a movie, by turns upsetting, shocking, mordant, hopeful and depressing. Each new piece of information just piles upon an ever-expanding clusterfuck that defines not only Romania, but all nations where money, self-protection and favour systems hold sway over actual policies or citizens' lives. Director Alexander Nanau and his documentary team keep themselves unobtrusive, garnering a significant measure of trust from the journalists and "Minister-I-Am-Vlad" that couldn't have been easy to earn. A brilliant, thorough work of investigative, observational filmmaking that exposes the rotten heart that too often beats below our systems.

#7: P.S. BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE
A simply beautiful documentary revealing a sadly little-known — but kind of intoxicating to discover — era of drag performance that existed on the uneasy fringes of a society that still outlawed many homosexual acts but, paradoxically, also became a magnet for celebrities, tourists and those-in-the-know; an era recalled by the performers themselves, first in letters written to an old friend and confidant (who has a rather surprising identity; anyone who spent the 90s and 00s reading Hollywood trades -- like me -- will get a big surprise), and then in new interviews, as the subjects were tracked down by the filmmakers, based upon information in the archive. Has a playful approach to mystery as well, holding out to reveal certain identities and pieces of the puzzle. So many fascinating stories told by such wonderful people reclaiming the lives they had to conceal for so long.

#6: LICORICE PIZZA
Francois Truffaut by way of the San Fernando Valley; a collection of gorgeous, memorable vignettes, it’s episodic, novelistic, affectionately observed and beautifully characterised, about two sweet kids — one who can’t get to where he’s going fast enough, the other fumbling for meaning and affection at high speed — who find their world sporadically, hilariously, invaded by Hollywood crackpots who couldn’t function anyplace else. Beneath all this, it serves as a subtle snapshot in time of the everyday prejudices and limitations women and gay people were subject to not so long ago, and the kind of bizarre shit that heterosexual white men of considerable wealth and privilege could get away with at will (casual racism, drunken motorbike stunts, coke-induced rage mania, and so on). A sheer breezy delight that only ever drops the ball (for me) in the last 30 seconds. 

#5: JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Stirring, striking, arrestingly cinematic work by Shaka King, giving this powerful, tragic story the urgency and gravity it deserves. Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stansfield and Jessie Plemons are brilliant all round (especially Kaluuya), but the film’s cruise missile is Dominique Fishback as Deborah Johnson, wife of Black Panthers Chairman Fred Hampton, who’s so incredibly natural, unsentimental, full of heart and steel. A tragedy of not only young, important lives snuffed out far too early, of not only how the dream of America so often only favours the white and wealthy-to-middle-class, but also a tragedy of how large capitalist systems (like law enforcement) use the people they’ve excluded and withheld so much from to betray each other and break their cases. Confident and enthralling from frame one to its hugely upsetting ending, this is a vital, even revealing, document of a revolution, driven by underclasses everywhere.

#4: WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR
After a few disappointing film documentaries in recent years, along comes this revelation, the very best film syllabus / primer / analysis I’ve seen in years. Director and cult film hero Kier-La Janisse displays such a deep love and appreciation for her subject, the film is never didactic, never meanders, is exhaustively thorough, gets into the cultural roots of it all, expands the definition of what "folk horror" is thought to be and taught me things I didn’t know, with so many wonderful talking heads. You'll come away with a giant to-watch list afterwards. 192 minutes of bliss. 

#3: ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI... 
Regina King makes a smashing directorial debut, adapting (and visually opening up, with cinematographer Tami Reiker) Kemp Powers' tantalising "What If?" play about one very real meeting. Deeply researched — while it fudges Sam Cooke’s timeline for dramatic effect, it’s otherwise admirably accurate — Powers finds a way into capturing the men's voices without falling into caricature, and Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Leslie Odom Jr as Cooke, Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown and Eli Goree as Muhammad Ali are all perfect, as magnetic and charismatic as required, while finding the humans behind the icons. It's also disarmingly fun, just as funny as it is thoughtful and emotional, and their conversations, challenging each other like fighters, are absorbing and complex, coming from a place of love and respect, as well as the responsibility thrust upon four African-American men on the cusp of unprecedented power and influence, reckoning with how to best utilise that for their people. 

#2: FIRESTARTER: THE STORY OF BANGARRA
Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin's thorough, increasingly intimate account of the history of Australia's landmark premier indigenous dance company, and the three Page brothers — Stephen, Russell and David — who drove it through 30 years of cultural expression, growth and redefinition, mirrored against the growing consciousness of White Australia’s injustices towards Blak Australia. It's as stirring, inspiring and emotional — in its latter stages, almost uncomfortably so, as you feel like you're seeing Stephen come to a breakthrough in real time — as any film I've seen in a long while. Perfectly showcases not only how important Bangarra's work is and has been, but also the energy, grace, skill and visual style of this work — an essential portrait of Blak Excellence if there ever was one — an inspired group of talented artisans swirling around three charismatic, gifted, lovable and troubled siblings with vision and incredible heart.


...and finally...
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...and that's all, folks! Thank you for patiently reading my voluminous nonsense for another year. 

From us at Cinema Viscera, we wish you (again) all a much happier, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.

Love and cinema,
Paul Anthony Nelson

Well, Viscerals...

...we did it. 

WE SURVIVED 2020!

Before we get into it, I just want you - yes, you, all of you reading this - to take a second to pat yourself on the back. Congratulate yourself. We just made it through the most socially, economically, physically and spiritually challenging year seen on a global scale in the last half-century. Considering what the news cycle looked like at times this year (not to mention, in our case, some personal tragedies hitting close to home), just getting through this year in one piece, with family, friends, career intact, is one hell of an achievement. Because at times, admit it: just once this year - even for a second - you suspected that perhaps we wouldn't, not this time. Like me, you probably brushed that thought aside pretty swiftly, but the thought did occur. 

But, somehow, we all got to the end - some of us rattled, some of us traumatised, some of finding we actually preferred the world to take a breather for a while, all of us disrupted in one way or another - and we might be stronger for it. I, for one, hope the world retains some of the lessons it learned under lockdown or social restrictions: an appreciation of small pleasures, a reconnection to the natural world, satisfaction in solitude, an awakening to the systemic forces that have shaped our world, an acknowledgment of one's unearned privilege, a renewed commitment to learning and fighting for the equal rights of all, a renewed sense of community (even in isolation), a rejection of consumerism for consumerism's sake (despite those cheeky online purchases we all made at times!) and just slowing the hell down. I hope. 

Naturally, because of all this, our checklist of creative milestones was a lot skimpier in 2020. However, because I live with and love a creative dynamo, we still got things done: Pez created and wrote Cinema Viscera's first two ventures outside of film and video - the five-part audio sitcom podcast Moving On and the web comic The Others, which is 16 instalments (and two fairytale interludes) into its 19-part run. From the moment Melbourne went into its first lockdown, way back in March, we had a hankering to make a film in iso, with Pez as the cast and me as the crew. I battled with a story concept for weeks upon months for a feature idea, which became a mini-feature, which became a short, which collapsed entirely... and it wasn't until Pez (again) had a wonderful idea for a short film for Halloween, that we finally made something. She wrote Interference in late September, we shot it over four nights in mid-October and released it to our subscribers on October 31st... literally four days after our city's lockdown ended.

A silly spooky horror-comedy short about a medium winding up as the vessel for a decades-dead domestic dispute, Interference is now available exclusively to our Patreon subscribers at all levels. Oh, and we've been working on writing a brand new feature and rewriting another script we've had on the go for years (both horror movies!), and we've penned the first five stories for an upcoming multi-genre anthology feature all set around Christmas, currently titled December, for which we had our first cast read. Oh, and we're in the process of finding distribution and finishing funds for Apparitions, targets toward which we shuffle ever closer, with some good news hopefully on the horizon very soon... (Oh, and I also recorded my very first blu-ray audio commentary as a "film historian"!) 
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In the midst of all this, we got to see some movies. Some of them were even new. But given the peculiar circumstances of 2020, we got to spend the majority of our year deep-diving into the past, which made this following pre-emptive countdown the hardest yet...

When Melbourne's first social lockdown began, Pez and I saw it as an opportunity, not only to take the chance to see heaps of films we've always wanted to see but never got the chance, or to dive deep for inspiration for future projects, or to finally crack open that awesome Ingmar Bergman Criterion Collection box set, but also (perhaps inspired by screenwriter Daniel Waters' interview on Josh Olson and Joe Dante's excellent The Movies That Made Me podcast) to designate themed movie nights for ourselves every night of the week: Macabre Mondays ('80s slashers and horror in general), TV Tuesdays (working through TV series, two episodes a week), "Why The Fuck Have I Not Seen This?" Wednesdays (long-overdue first-time views of famous, awarded or cult classics), Auteursdays (moving through a particular filmmaker's filmography), Fucking Primal Screen Fridays (our tongue-in-cheek term for the night we allocated for watching films I had to watch to review on Primal Screen, the radio show I co-host on Monday nights on Melbourne's 102.7 RRR FM), the sparingly-used Subculture Saturdays (which could be used for anything from sub-cultures to sub-genres to any thematic link, really) and Supersized Sundays (double-and-triple-features linked by pretty much anything we choose). 

Essentially, all this means is, we watched a crap-ton of old movies this year, much, much more than usual. 

In all, from the 444 feature films we watched this year, 193 were movies made between 1932 (Thirteen Women) and 2017 (1922) that I was watching for the very first time. Due to the sheer volume this, I very much considered widening my standard Top 20 list of new-to-me discoveries to a Top 30, but I didn't want to keep you all day... so it is with a heavy heart that I had to leave out Elim Klimov's Come and See, Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon, Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, Peter Collinson's The Italian Job, Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract, Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage, John Badham's Saturday Night Fever, Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Jean-Pierre Melville's The Red Circle, Nicolas Roeg's The Witches and Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage... and another 13 films right behind those! 

So without further ado, here are the Top 20 new-to-me older films, made at least three years ago or earlier, that meant the most to me in 2020:

20. Even before the pandemic hit, we had started doing mini-retrospectives of directors' careers and Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay's work was particularly revelatory to me. I'd loved her most recent film, You Were Never Really Here (which made this very list in 2018) and had never seen her first two films before. I found Ramsay's smashing, beautiful and affecting feature debut, Ratcatcher (1999), immediately established her gift for depicting the subjective reality of her characters, while presenting a Scottish social realist film that both stands in line with and transcends other films of its ilk, with frankness, affection and emotional grace. (Vale, little Snowball.) As for her second film? Stay tuned...

19. So, in the 1960s and '70s, actor Anthony Perkins and writer-composer Stephen Sondheim were famed throughout the Hollywood community for devising and organising incredible murder mystery parties for their friends. The two delighted so much in designing these complex mysteries that they decided to write a screenplay (the only produced film script either ever wrote)... and it's kind of awesome. Directed by Herbert Ross, The Last of Sheila (1973) is a brilliantly structured, ridiculously enjoyable mystery confection that also pulls no punches in satirising their Hollywood friends. Consistently funny, fast-moving, thoroughly unpredictable and stacked with an all-star cast in darkly delightful roles (my MVPs: Richard Benjamin and Dyan Cannon). It’s damn near perfect... and would be much higher on this list except for one truly bizarre plot point, regarding a dark secret one of the characters has in their past. It’s crazy how much this secret is hand-waved and not paid off, and it’s genuinely distracting for the last act of the film. It doesn't ruin the movie, but this choice will definitely leave you scratching your head. Ah, the ‘70s... 

18. Stage director William Oldroyd's stunner of a feature debut, Lady Macbeth (2016), presents like a period romantic drama, but actually turns out to be the best undercover Film Noir I've seen in ages, with Florence Pugh's Catherine absolutely a femme fatale in the best of ways, in a period I've never seen this kind of thing set in before (could this be Paleo-Noir?); it's all about women strapped into a vile patriarchy much like the corsets they're pulled into, and one woman whose spirit will simply not allow her to settle for this. Shot and designed with brutally beautiful precision (that blue dress of Catherine's is almost a character in itself), rich with dark humour, life and simmering anger, and if you ever needed confirmation that Pugh is among the very best actors working right now, look no further. 

​17. Speaking of which, they sure don’t make ‘em like Three Days of the Condor (1975) anymore. (Well, the closest they come nowadays is for UK TV in 6-episode seasons, but I digress.) This low-key spy thriller is so subtly crafted, so immersive in the workaday reality it creates, instilling tension and thrills without having to blow a single thing up or tack on overblown spectacle — this is just a man and (soon enough) a woman running for their lives from a country so obsessed with its own power, so paranoid to hold on to it, that it wages war on its own citizens, even its own operatives. So much about the way this shakes out and wraps up feels either remarkably prescient, or reveals how little has actually changed. Stars Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson and Max Von Sydow are terrific, and director Sydney Pollack keeps it tight and focused (in a way his later films really aren’t), anchored by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel’s wonderful script. It’s a great stealth Christmas-set holiday movie, too. 

16. The Firemen's Ball (1967) is the very best of director Milos Forman’s early Czech films; a murderously dry, timelessly riotous satire of government institutions and the absolute mess of totalitarian rule his nation was experiencing, seen through the prism of a fire department’s shambolic attempt to honour an esteemed ex-president... which sees a raffle where prizes keep disappearing, a beauty contest the women keep fleeing, and men in charge who can't keep from floundering. Even with the underlying anger beneath it, it never stops being funny and builds to a handful of genuine laugh-aloud moments. One of the best satires of bureaucracies ever made (packed into an astonishing 73 minutes!), from this it’s not hard to see why ‘70s Hollywood would soon greet Forman with open arms.

15. Norman Jewison's seminal Best Picture Oscar-winning police thriller In The Heat of the Night (1967) is the best kind of defiant socially-motivated storytelling, giving audiences a kickass lead character, a compelling detective story where it’s not the responsibility of the oppressed to change the white guy’s mind — Sidney Poitier's Virgil Tibbs drives the story, he just wants to get the case closed and leave this cracker-ass town — and where a character’s changing attitude feels organic and genuine; Rod Steiger's sheriff becomes a sidekick, having his beliefs dismantled just by watching Tibbs be a human being (and a brilliant detective). Tibbs never acquiesces or extends the olive branch; it’s not on him. But while racial politics certainly underwrite every scene and Poitier’s every measured gesture or reaction (and that epic slap), it never overwhelms the nail-biting search for a killer in this festering, overheated town. More than 50 years on, it’s still a landmark in the way Hollywood looked at race on film, the proto-“buddy cop” picture, a police procedural to rival any detective show you're watching right now and “They call me MISTER TIBBS!” still elicits chills.

14. I'd avoided Lewis Gilbert's Alfie (1966) for so long because I'd expected it to be some kind of freewheeling "cheeky chappy" sex comedy... but, girl, was I delighted to be so wrong. Playing like a proto-Fleabag in many ways (although Alfie is much, much less sympathetic), this is a terrific, unexpectedly dark character study, beautifully written by Bill Naughton (based on his play), driven by an electric, layered performance from Caine. Given this looks at a particularly sad kind of toxic "love 'em and leave 'em" male sexuality, Caine's unique charm is essential to making Alfie watchable, believable or darkly relatable; we even feel for him when he experiences a moment or two of clarity. The women drawn into his orbit — played by Millicent Martin, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, and especially Vivien Merchant and Shelley Winters — are all beautifully drawn and feel painfully, defiantly real. I'd like to think that Alfie has learned from these experiences by the story's end, but I've got a grave feeling they will only compound his worldview, which might be the most horribly honest ending of all.

13. The undisputed jewel in the 1970s Pam Grier ‘Blaxploitation’ crown, Jack Hill's Coffy​ (1973) is a film that has everything: a great sleazy fake-out opening, a continually propulsive narrative, a powerful social conscience, a willingness to get down and dirty, an iconic leading character, kick-ass action scenes, scumbag villains, gritty cinematography and staging... all of which is the cosmos orbiting the birth of a new star. While Grier had presence and beauty from day one, her acting and combat physicality took a few films to follow, but here is where it all comes together, and it’s a sight to see. Watching Coffy wreak her righteous rampage of revenge through this landscape is always thrilling, sometimes funny and sometimes surprisingly emotional, and, as a unit, the troika of Grier, Hill and co-star Sid Haig never hit harder, looked better or shone brighter.

12. It’s a shame writer-director Matthew Bright’s career ran into a Tiptoes-shaped iceberg because his directorial debut, Freeway (1996), is a clever, surprisingly faithful, very-1990s National Enquirer-style reinvention of the Little Red Riding Hood story that has SO much going for it: a genuine affection for its characters, subverting those characters and the film's genre conventions at every turn, a wonderful lead who is as surprisingly sweet as she is fierce (I dig Witherspoon in this even more than in Election) and a boldly confident command of tone that struts the line between camp and cool. Please come back, Mr. Bright, all is forgiven!* How had I never seen this before??
(*Caveat: I’ve not seen Tiptoes).

11. With the true-life adaptation Fruitvale Station (2013), director Ryan Coogler makes a bruising, beautifully composed debut, following young Oscar Grant (brilliantly played by Michael B. Jordan) along what will be the last day of his brutally abridged life. Cooler goes for a lived-in verité feel and largely achieves it, despite some coincidences and contrivances (some of which, like the moments on the train before it's stopped, are speculations upon what might have happened) which leave it feeling a bit writerly at times, but the performances, cinematography and behaviours depicted within these events make it all feel so relatable, so heartbreakingly and, in the end, terrifyingly real. An airtight, moving portrait of how systemic racism and overzealous policing cut far too many young lives short.

10. Shoot The Moon (1982) blindsided me. An unjustly obscure drama from the late, weirdly underrated Alan Parker — arguably the best director to emerge from the British advertising scene of the late 1970s — and penned by Bo Goldman (no slouch himself), the two put a lot of themselves, honest and terrible, into this drama of a couple whose divorce after 15 years of marriage wreaks emotional havoc upon them and their four daughters. One of the very best films ever made about divorce, like most of Parker's films it's naturalistic 95% of the time and explosively heightened for the other 5%, capturing the simmering furnace of emotional violence that divorced couples hold within as the process upends their lives... or, more aptly, what they thought their lives would be. Diane Keaton and Albert Finney deliver career performances, but it's Dana Hill, as their eldest daughter, who slices your heart to bits. The way it lulls you into a sense that, just maybe, everything's going to be okay... and then slaps you open-handed with one hell of a wild (but earned) ending, is something that absolutely leaves a mark. One of the great American dramas of the 1980s.
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9. Ingmar Bergman was almost a decade deep into his career as a film director, but relatively new to comedies, when he wrote and directed Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), the film that would make his name on the international stage: an enduringly brilliant battle-of-the-sexes comedy that could go toe-to-toe with any Hollywood screwball comedy Howard Hawks or Ernst Lubitsch could cook up. Gunnar Björnstrand and Eva Dahlbeck had already formed a terrific duo in Bergman's previous stab at comedy, A Lesson in Love, so he has the good sense to deploy them here as a divorced couple still engaged in emotional combat. Staggering in its emotional maturity, openness and willingness to tackle subjects like partner-swapping, sexual freedom, divorce and infidelity with such a frank, jocular, non-judgmental gaze, it plays like Swedish Billy Wilder. It may not be immediately apparent from its period trappings or, well, Bergman's reputation for chilly emotional gravity, but this is one of the most purely enjoyable films I saw all year.

8. The very definition of a good story well told, albeit one written and directed by giants (David Mamet and Sidney Lumet), The Verdict (1982) stars Paul Newman as a drunk, down-at-heel attorney deciding to fight a negligence case against a foe with resources as bottomless as their arrogance, because it's the right thing to do, and it's never too late to make your life worth a damn. Newman gives one of the all-time great performances, but Jack Warden — one of the very best supporting actors there ever was — almost matches him. Lumet's rep as an "invisible" director makes me watch out for his directorial choices more keenly; Newman having trouble getting his coat on during an argument -- leaving him perfectly split in two visually with his black overcoat on one half, lighter suit on the other -- or the way certain scenes are lit to highlight seemingly inconspicuous spaces, or the choice of that one crane zoom. The choice to follow its deeply satisfying ending with an odd coda (which itself ends abruptly) seems unnecessary, not telling us anything we didn't already know. Other than that one small gripe, this is perfect dramatic cinema.

7. The feature debut from French New Wave star director Jacques Demy, Lola (1961), follows a quintet of romantic souls through the city of Nantes, all holding some kind of unrequited desire for someone else. Anouk Aimée is magnetic as the titular character, but everyone's great; their interactions so natural, affecting and even amusing, shot in ravishing dusky black-and-white. Sealing the deal, though: I don't often relate this strongly to film characters, but the life of the male lead, Roland (Marc Michel), reminded me so much of my own twenties it was scary; always running late for barely tolerable office jobs, constantly falling for women who weren't interested in the same way, briefly thinking awfully of them before quickly realising that I was the problem, and never missing a chance to melancholically wander the city, hoping for an artistic adventure to emerge. (Let's just say I'm very grateful my thirties happened.)

6. While I am only a recent convert to the broken, intoxicating booze-poet reportage of Charles Bukowski, after seeing the all of his works adapted to film, Barbet Schroeder's Barfly (1987) is, by far, the closest anyone's come to capturing it on screen. Taken from the only original screenplay Bukowski ever wrote (which combines elements from his life, novels and poetry), this film nails the qualities that make his writing leap off the page, that make his work transcend masturbatory gutter-gazing to become darkly hilarious truth and punchily poetic outsider art, with the same economy and spirit. Mickey Rourke is terrific as Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski, as is an admirably de-glammed Faye Dunaway, who throws herself into this character in a way we barely got to see after the '70s ended (reminding us what a brilliant actress she could be when she's on song). From the circular loop of its opening and closing scenes, to the genuinely dingy apartments and bars, to the raucous, mordant humour, this gives you everything you'd want from a Bukowski story on film without having to live it: the freedom that comes from rejecting modern capitalist society's rules and dogma, alongside the sadness of spiralling into substance abuse and dependence. Friggin' loved this.

5. In what must be one of the greatest film directorial swan songs of all time, Hollywood legend Joseph L. Mankiewicz's stunning two-handed whodunit Sleuth (1972) pits the greatest version of late-career Laurence Olivier versus the greatest version of straight-outta-Swinging-London Michael Caine, seeing them verbally (and occasionally physically!) slugging it out in a potentially deadly tennis match of psychological gamesmanship, inside a gloriously overstuffed mansion with enough creepy automatons to haunt anyone's nightmares, slinging brilliant dialogue at each other from the poison pen of Anthony Shaffer, who never stops springing surprises... some of which you'll see coming, some you really won't, and others you'll just delight in seeing roll out, taking some pretty fun shots at masculinity all the while. Sure, it clocks in at a hefty at 138 minutes, but never, for a second, does it lack story or momentum. It seems amazing that this is from the same director as 1951's All About Eve, yet, upon reflection, it makes absolutely perfect sense — the two would make a fascinating (but lengthy!) double. A delight. 

4. Ah, to disappear from your own life. This ever-tempting notion lies at the heart of Lynne Ramsay's elusive, intoxicating second feature Morvern Callar (2002), as Samantha Morton's title character finds her boyfriend dead at Christmas and, almost unconsciously, little by little, burns her old life down and transitions into a new, wildly unpredictable one, driven by grief, anger, unrealised dreams, youthful exuberance and pure sensation. One of the more fascinating explorations of rage and reinvention I've seen, underscored by a glorious mixtape of a soundtrack, as every scene pulsates with Ramsay's exquisite skill with capturing her characters' subjective reality. Track this one down.

3. A flat-out wonderful debut from Wes Anderson, Bottle Rocket (1996) shows his command of filmmaking craft from the jump, but is clearly still finding his voice, even though traces of it are here: a young man trying to impress a larger-than-life father figure, affectionately funny portrayal of people who think they have all the answers but don’t, and a Helvetica title card! More than anything, this film struck me as a comedy version of Mean Streets – let’s call it Mild Streets – so I was delighted to be reminded afterwards that this was one of Martin Scorsese’s favourite films of the 1990s. It unleashes Luke and Owen Wilson (the latter co-wrote the script with Anderson) onto an unsuspecting world, taking the shape of a sub-genre that so many young ‘90s filmmakers kicked off their careers with (the post-Tarantino caper film) and bending it to Anderson's own oddball will. Even if a few key moments of the plot are seemingly discarded (was there really no blowback whatsoever to those first two robberies?), this was a pure delight. 

2. Like seeing Network for the first time, nothing prepares you for how horrifyingly prescient Elia Kazan's A Face In The Crowd (1957) is about the world and political culture we live in today. Griffith is brilliant on debut as a hee-hawing maniac who all too happily transforms into a demagogue before our very eyes, as is Patricia Neal, as a local radio gun who gradually realises she’s unleashed a monster, and a low-key, smart-aleck Walter Matthau, terrific as the film's conscience. Director Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg nail this in every way, from the manipulative dogma disguised as folksy wisdom, to the anti-intellectual “common man knows best” patter to the news media, TV industry and ad buyers being completely seduced by Rhodes’ confidence and popularity. Then, as now, psychopaths succeed. The ending suggests Kazan and Schulberg may have given the American people a little too much credit (to be fair, they needed to live another 60 years to see Trump in action to witness how much shit the US public will willingly take) and, if they were saying this six decades ago, why haven’t we learned never to trust a vainglorious lunatic?! 

1. Astonishingly, even in its cut form and watched on VHS(!!), Ken Russell's controversial classic The Devils (1971) is still an outstanding, provocative masterpiece of cinema, where each department seems to top the next in terms of boundary-shoving excellence to tell an endlessly compelling, infuriating historical story, one which sadly never loses its relevance. Both the parts and the whole are stunning, from its attention-snatching opening pageant with its gender-fuck aesthetic, to the horrifying finale where the authoritative forces of corrupt religious piety do their damnable worst. Oliver Reed has never been better, Vanessa Redgrave has never been more detestable (or pitiable), Derek Jarman's all-white design of Loudon tells its own story, making for a dramatic future-past backdrop that signals a utopia but also foreshadows and barely keeps out the dread and hypocrisy beyond its walls. Everything about this film just works in one ecstatic concert. It's now one of my missions in life to see this fully restored and on the biggest, loudest screen possible. Even in this broken form, it's braver, more powerful, critical and painful than all but the greatest of films. 

Given Melbourne cinemas closed in March and didn't open again until November, it may have seemed at one point like we wouldn't see too many new release movies... however, due to a lot of complimentary tickets to the online version of this year's Melbourne International Film Festival (I was part of their short film judging panel) and films being moved to streaming and Video-On-Demand platforms such as YouTube and AppleTV+, I wound up seeing 90 new release films in 2020 -- less than 2019's 115 but, somehow, more than 2018 (85) and 2017 (85) and only slightly less than 2016 (97)! So it was actually quite comparable to recent years, no Bell Curve required. 

As always, for this list, I define a "new release" as a feature film (60 minutes and over) intended for theatrical, streaming or home video release which had its premiere paid public release (via cinemas, streaming, VOD, home video, festivals or galleries) in Australia during 2020. 

Amazingly, I loved 30 of the 90 new films I saw this year, every film mentioned here received four stars or more from me (only the top 4 received four-and-a-half stars), and only 16 of 90 received two-and-a-half stars or less. Given the clustercuss the rest of this year was, I'm as shocked as anybody that 2020 was actually a terrific year for cinema.

​So... let's jump in, shall we?

30. Dark City Beneath The Beat (seen at MIFF 68 1/2) - Vibrant, poignant and invigorating collage of life in the Baltimore projects, from the point of view of black folks who use music as a way to not escape from their socioeconomic plight but to transcend it, to enrich their neighbourhoods and give people young and old an outlet and a future. Lots of colour and movement against a backdrop of courage, defiance and love, all packed into an economical 65 minutes, with pumping beats and thrilling dance (especially the crazy-legs stuff).

29. Palm Springs (seen on Amazon Prime Video) - Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) meet at a wedding, when a detour to a mysterious cave suddenly finds them repeating the same day, over and over again. While this may sound familiar, this candy-coloured, hugely affable, consistently funny rom-com spins the Groundhog Day idea in clever directions, acts as a showcase for its two likeable leads, makes a decent metaphor of the idea of true love and long-term relationships as a repeating time loop, while even more successfully -- if inadvertently -- feeding into the 2020 zeitgeist of time loops and scarily similar days. Surprisingly robust story logic, too! Lots of fun.

28. Farewell Amor (seen at MIFF 68 1/2) - Full of experience, truth and love, and often light of heart despite the subject matter, about a man who, after 17 years, is finally able to afford to bring his family from Angola to his new home and life in New York, only to find his wife absorbed in religion and his now-grown daughter a stranger. The best kind of indie movie, exploring huge themes on a small canvas, where conflict arises from the differing expectations they all have from one another. There are no villains here, just humans trying their best under difficult circumstances. 

27. Emma. (available on VOD) - This pleasantly surprising new adaptation reminds us that, while the rom-com finds its roots in Shakespeare, Jane Austen is the grandmother of the form. Autumn De Wilde makes a strong feature directorial debut, pitching the wit, farce, entanglements and poignancy at just the right levels, while empowering her costume and set design team to go full Wes Anderson, with colour-blocking, floral prints, wallpaper and picture frames all integral to illustrating the story, which often, charmingly, makes it all look like a graphic novel in motion.

26. Shiva Baby (seen at MIFF 68 1/2) - Emma Seligman's film might play like a maxi-sized bottle episode of a sitcom, but it’s a brilliant, breathless one, ratcheting up anxiety as it hurls a delirious amount of minute-to-minute challenges at its (excellent) lead, who remains at this shiva like it's The Exterminating Angel, bound by the duty and fear of being a good daughter to her Jewish family, something at which she already feels like she fails daily. At 77 minutes, this whips through twice the plot and complications of two-hour Hollywood comedies, but never skimps on fleshing out its characters. Mazel tov!

25. For Sama​ (seen on VOD) - A first-person documentary of life, birth and death during wartime in Syria, shot with blunt honesty, defiance, profound sadness and confusion and even the odd touch of gallows humour. It is frequently upsetting, but a necessary, matter-of-fact look at a part of our world that suffers grave inhumanity inflicted upon its people on a daily basis; where children casually rattle off names of bombs, makeshift hospitals built from rubble see 300 patients a day and nobody flinches at the sound of explosions. Probably avoid if you're feeling emotionally fragile.

24. Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen (seen on Netflix) - Sam Feder's documentary about the history of transgender representation on screen is Exhibit A as to why we need to share the mic around to all artists who wish to express their authentic truth. Pretty much every major trans actor and filmmaker is featured here, taking us on a journey through American cinema history to see just how thoughtless, damaging and transphobic portrayals of trans characters have been; seeing trans artists describing having to sit through all this, what they've been taught to think about themselves, or the portrayals that meant the most to them, or what inspired them to blaze their own trails, is poignant, inspiring, sometimes even very amusing, stuff. It's almost entirely Hollywood-centric, ignoring some terrific portrayals of trans experiences outside of America (only 2017's A Fantastic Woman is mentioned), but is essential viewing nonetheless.

23. Birds of Prey, or the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (seen in cinemas) - Director Cathy Yan fires all the glitter cannons of style and bombast at this, a winning DCEU take on sisterhood and solidarity, and Margot Robbie clearly relishes playing Harley, her brand of adorably brutal anarchy now down to a tee. Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina make hilariously douchey/creepy villains, Mary Elizabeth Winstead's badass, delightfully awkward Huntress is glorious and Yan and Second Unit maestro Chad Stahelski (John Wick) orchestrate the most breathlessly kinetic, bone-snapping action scenes I've seen in a major studio film in ages. The best DCEU film so far, by a huuuuuge distance.

22. Boys State (seen on Apple TV+) - Every year, a thousand 17-year old boys from Texas gather to form a mock government from the ground up, to educate themselves about the political process or, in many cases, to kick off nascent political careers. The kids directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine choose to follow are superbly picked; the charismatic Bush-like kid ready to play to the crowd, the budding political operative relishing the opportunity to use any means necessary to get his guy across the line, the eloquent public speaker who may be better utilised in defence of social justice, and the thoughtful young left-wing candidate who might beat the odds in this hive of Deep South conservatism. It's primarily a fascinating character study; politically, it confirms what we already know but shows in stark relief just how easily the dirty tricks, smear campaigns and obfuscating semantics our politicians indulge in come to these kids. If you're looking for hope in the system to improve on its own accord, you won't find it here. (Also, apparently there's a Girls State that happens in parallel to this every year, and now I want to see the doc about that.)
​
21. Atlantis (seen at MIFF 68 1/2) - Shot in a static tableau style with the actors masterfully blocked within the frame — only a handful of shots move, and there are only 28 in the entire thing — this examination of the scars left by war, where corpses are continually dug up and identified, now-useless industries abandon their workers and special military skills are now only good for shooting at immovable targets or one’s own brain once the PTSD depression gets too overwhelming. The story and its characters are revealed in a beautiful, observational style, and it might be the bleakest movie with the most believably (relatively) hopeful ending I’ve seen in a while. It’s not always subtle (an intimate sex scene in the back of a truck filled with cadavers speaks volumes) but, for all the quiet grim purpose this film moves with, it does have a steady momentum and perfectly composed ugliness that is weirdly beautiful.

#19: Born To Be
​(seen at MIFF 68 1/2)
Transgender people are heroes. Regardless of what stage of transition they are in, the territory they traverse emotionally, psychologically and physically every single day is positively Herculean. This documentary is such a beautiful illustration of this, a fly-on-the-wall look at the brave people awaiting, undergoing or recovering from gender affirmation surgery at the recently established Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, and Dr. Jess Ting, the brilliant, quirky surgeon who spearheads the unit. Aside from his genius innovations in the field, Dr. Ting also serves as a gentle avatar for cis audiences perhaps unfamiliar with the transgender community's lives and struggles, guiding us through his awakening and affection for his patients, who are lovely, generous, candid and often disarmingly funny. Tania Cypriano's film is never exploitative nor reductive, it is admirably discreet and avoids platitudes; a portrait of people navigating a journey toward their true selves and some measure of happiness. A wonderful film.

#16: Sound of Metal
​(seen on Amazon Prime Video)
Films this beautiful, thoughtful and tender aren't normally this nervy, punchy or visceral, but first-time feature director Darius Marder pulls off quite a feat with this searching character study of a metal drummer and former heroin addict who suddenly loses his hearing, forcing him to reluctantly seek help at a remote institute for recovering deaf addicts, where he must face what terrifies him most: silence, and his own thoughts. Marder wrote the story with Derek Cianfrance, director of Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond The Pines, with whom Marder shares a restless indie energy, attention to character detail and rich humanity. Riz Ahmed has been carving out one of the best careers of any actor of the last decade, but this might be his finest work so far, and Olivia Cooke gives an intelligent performance. It's a film that has a huge sensitivity to, and involvement of, the people it portrays, which only makes the drama deeper, more specific, and more affecting. Keen to revisit this in a cinema, as the sound design and visuals are something else.

#14: The Platform
​(seen on Netflix)
Smashing sci-fi allegory for the way we build societies, the ways we're incentivised to screw each other over, made with vision, style, brutal efficiency... and heart. Extols the virtues of social activism but isn't rose-coloured about its ability to change a damn, either, which felt truthful in this messed-up capitalist casino we find ourselves in. Loved trying to unpack the world of this (even though it may not all completely hang together), but even outside of this, it's a gripper. Just take what you need, folks. The thing you love most is right there, after all. 

#12: One Cut of the Dead
​(seen on blu-ray; available on Shudder)
For over two years, I'd heard so many great things (and precious few spoilers) about Shinichiro Ueda's film from US movie podcasts and review sites, and the wait has been maddening. Finally, it became all too much for me, so I bit the bullet and bought the limited edition UK blu-ray... and I'm delighted to say it fulfilled all my expectations, and then some. What starts out as an amusing -- if ever-so-slightly shambolic -- one-shot zombie movie set inside a factory in Japan becomes something entirely different once the director calls cut on that half-hour take... it becomes something thrilling, hilarious, wonderful, even big-hearted. I won't go too deep into it here, but if you've ever worked on a film set, even one day in your life, you need to treat yourself to this film. Even if you find the action of the first half-hour overly familiar, please stick with it: you will be rewarded with one of the most disarmingly charming movies you'll see this, or any, year.

#6: First Cow
​(seen at MIFF 68 1/2)​
Lovely, sensitive frontier drama (and low-key heist film!) about two gentle men finding friendship in an emerging America already ruled by brutes. Because it’s directed by Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women), characters are developed subtly through small gestures and shared moments, and her and co-screenwriter/novelist Jon Raymond have created two wonderful people here in Cookie (John Magaro) and King-Lu (Orion Lee), who can’t help but earn our affections almost immediately. Between its sweet central relationship, class commentary, painterly compositions, surprising suspense and lasting poignance, this is among Reichardt’s very best work in an already strong career. Oh, and that cow is adorable.​​​

#2: Promising Young Woman
​(seen in cinemas)
Emerald Fennell conjures a miracle debut as writer-director, writing compelling characters, managing tonal shifts with astonishing skill befitting a veteran (albeit with a young director's confidence) and has the bravery to go thematically where others fear to tread. Carey Mulligan has never been better, and the casting of affable male character actors as self-proclaimed "nice guys" behaving horribly as well as genre/comedic actors in dramatic roles (especially Clancy Brown & Jennifer Coolidge as Mulligan's parents) is brilliantly canny. Perfectly illustrates the the sexual landscape women must navigate daily simply for being themselves, craven young men who hide behind niceness to take advantage of vulnerable women (and tell themselves otherwise) and people of both genders who keep these systems in place, whether through convenience, profit or fear, but does it all through a thrilling, funny, horrifying and exhilarating genre ride. Forget those pose-throwing, surface-level, subtext-free agenda pieces you've seen of late: this film, and Fennell, are the real deal.

#1: ​The Lighthouse
​(seen in cinemas)
With astonishing control of atmosphere and two remarkable performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, writer-director Robert Eggers follows up, and somehow bests, his stunning 2015 debut The Witch with this minor miracle of a movie — seriously, how did this get financed in today’s landscape? Bless you A24 and Regency — giving us a feverish, hilarious satire of all sorts of modes of masculinity, luscious 4:3 black-and-white cinematography, the most bewitching atmosphere of dread this side of David Lynch and Carl Theodor Dreyer (with a splash of Buster Keaton?) and the most bracingly convincing cinematic descent into madness seen in years. No film this year was more immersive, more otherworldly and more appropriate for the enforced cabin fever and elastic experience of time most of us would experience in the year to follow. It's the cinematic trip of this last year, and one I look forward to revisiting. 

...and that's all, folks! If you've gotten to this point, thank you for patiently reading my voluminous nonsense for another year. 

From us at Cinema Viscera, we wish you all a MUCH happier, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.

Love and cinema,
Paul Anthony Nelson
xo