STEWART IN, GAGA OUT IN ACTRESS RACE; DENIS DUDDED FOR DUNE; DOG’S DAY BECKONING COME OSCAR NIGHT.

Jane Campion’s creepy, complex western The Power of the Dog nestled into the laps of  Academy members, leading the 2022 Oscar nominations pack with 12 nods. Other contenders fell in line with award season trajectory, with the space epic Dune landing 10 nominations and the retro-spectacles West Side Story and Belfast both nabbing seven. Those four frontrunners will be joined in the Best Picture race by CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, King Richard, Licorice Pizza and Nightmare Alley.

With her Best Director nomination, Campion (pictured, below) becomes the first woman in Oscar history to earn two directing nominations, her last being in 1993 for the The Piano. She won the Adapted Screenplay award that year, an honour she is in line for again in 2022.

Other milestones established with the 2022 nominee list include the second deaf nominee in Oscar history (CODA’s Troy Kotsur in the Supporting Actor category); Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast haul, making him the only person to earn seven Oscar nominations in seven different categories (in addition to Belfast, he’s been nominated previously for Hamlet, Henry V,  live-action short film Swan Song, and My Week With Marilyn); and, Being the Ricardo’s Javier Bardem and Parallel Mother’s Penélope Cruz becoming the sixth married couple to be nominated for acting in the same year.

There were two “What the f*** just happened?!?” omissions from the nominee list. On the crest of an award season wave, Lady Gaga was bumped for Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, with Oscar favouring Kristen Stewart for Spencer (who had missed SAG and BAFTA consideration in recent weeks; pictured, below) and Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (considered a waning outsider by Oscar analysts). And Denis Villeneuve found himself being Beresford-ed by the Academy, with Dune’s ten nominations not including a Best Director mention (perhaps Part 2 of the saga will rectify that). 

The Academy also chose not to pander to high-profile commercial success as a means by which to reverse sagging viewership. Blockbuster status did not bolster the nomination count for No Time to Die (three, including a Best Song nod for Billie Eilish plus Sound and Visual Effects) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (a sole Visual Effects mention).

In fact, studios will be hoping that nominations will re-energise the box office takings of several of the nominees. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story will head back into theatres nationally, hoping its cumulative box office of US$36million will surge on the back of its seven nominations. Other films looking for the ‘Oscar Bump’ include Guilleremo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley (4 noms with US$11million banked); Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard (6 noms with takings of $15million); Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (3 noms against US$13million so far) and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s arthouse hopeful Drive My Car (4 noms with US$950k from a very limited release).

The 94th annual Academy Awards will be held on March 27 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, with the in-person ceremony to be televised on ABC in the US and Foxtel in Australia.

The full list of 2022 Academy Award nominees are:

BEST PICTURE
Belfast (Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Producers)
CODA (Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi and Patrick Wachsberger, Producers)
Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers)
Drive My Car (Teruhisa Yamamoto, Producer)
Dune (Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve and Cale Boyter, Producers)
King Richard (Tim White, Trevor White and Will Smith, Producers)
Licorice Pizza (Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers)
Nightmare Alley (Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale and Bradley Cooper, Producers)
The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier, Producers)
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers)

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza); Kenneth Branagh (Belfast); Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog); Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car); Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye); Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter); Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers); Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos); Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos); Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog); Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick … Boom!); Will Smith (King Richard); Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter); Ariana DeBose (West Side Story); Judi Dench (Belfast); Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog); Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ciarán Hinds (Belfast); Troy Kotsur (CODA); Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog); J.K. Simmons (Being the Ricardos); Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Cruella (Jenny Beavan); Cyrano (Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran); Dune (Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan); Nightmare Alley (Luis Sequeira); West Side Story (Paul Tazewell)

BEST SOUND
Belfast (Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather and Niv Adiri); Dune (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett); No Time to Die (Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey and Mark Taylor); The Power of the Dog (Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb); West Side Story (Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Don’t Look Up (Nicholas Britell); Dune (Hans Zimmer); Encanto (Germaine Franco); Parallel Mothers (Alberto Iglesias); The Power of the Dog (Jonny Greenwood)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA (screenplay by Siân Heder); Drive My Car (screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe); Dune (screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth); The Lost Daughter (written by Maggie Gyllenhaal); The Power of the Dog (written by Jane Campion)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Belfast (written by Kenneth Branagh); Don’t Look Up (screenplay by Adam McKay; story by Adam McKay & David Sirota); King Richard (written by Zach Baylin); Licorice Pizza (written by Paul Thomas Anderson); The Worst Person in the World (written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Affairs of the Art (Joanna Quinn and Les Mills); Bestia (Hugo Covarrubias and Tevo Díaz); Boxballet (Anton Dyakov); Robin Robin (Dan Ojari and Mikey Please); The Windshield Wiper (Alberto Mielgo and Leo Sanchez)

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
Ala Kachuu — Take and Run (Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger); The Dress (Tadeusz Lysiak and Maciej Ślesicki); The Long Goodbye (Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed); On My Mind (Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson); Please Hold (K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse)

BEST FILM EDITING
Don’t Look Up (Hank Corwin); Dune (Joe Walker); King Richard (Pamela Martin); The Power of the Dog (Peter Sciberras); Tick, Tick … Boom! (Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum)

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Coming 2 America (Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer); Cruella (Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon); Dune (Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr); The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh); House of Gucci (Göran Lundström, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Encanto (Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer); Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie); Luca (Enrico Casarosa and Andrea Warren); The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Kurt Albrecht); Raya and the Last Dragon (Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Osnat Shurer and Peter Del Vecho)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy and Nathan Truesdell); Attica (Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry); Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sorensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie); Summer of Soul (Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein); Writing With Fire (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Audible (Matt Ogens and Geoff McLean); Lead Me Home (Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk); The Queen of Basketball (Ben Proudfoot); Three Songs for Benazir (Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei); When We Were Bullies (Jay Rosenblatt)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Be Alive” — music and lyrics by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (King Richard)
“Dos Oruguitas” — music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto)
“Down to Joy” — music and lyrics by Van Morrison (Belfast)
“No Time to Die” — music and lyrics by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (No Time to Die)
“Somehow You Do” — music and lyrics by Diane Warren (Four Good Days)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Dune (Greig Fraser); Nightmare Alley (Dan Laustsen); The Power of the Dog (Ari Wegner); The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bruno Delbonnel); West Side Story (Janusz Kaminski)

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Drive My Car (Japan); Flee (Denmark); The Hand of God (Italy); Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan); The Worst Person in the World (Norway)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Dune (production design: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos); Nightmare Alley (production design: Tamara Deverell; set decoration: Shane Vieau); The Power of the Dog (production design: Grant Major; set decoration: Amber Richards); The Tragedy of Macbeth (production design: Stefan Dechant; set decoration: Nancy Haigh); West Side Story (production design: Adam Stockhausen; set decoration: Rena DeAngelo)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune (Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer); Free Guy (Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick); No Time to Die (Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould); Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver); Spider-Man: No Way Home (Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick)

BRUCE, DIANA AND KAREN LEAD 2021 RAZZIE NOMINATIONS

A musical based on the people’s princess, a tone-deaf and toothless social satire and a former global superstar now just in it for the cash are in the critical crosshairs of the voters of 2021 Golden Raspberry Awards, aka ‘The Razzies’.

Leading the nominations with 9 Razzie mentions is director Christopher Ashley’s Diana the Musical (pictured, below), Netflix’s excruciating adaptation of the lambasted Broadway bomb (it shuttered after 40 performances in the wake of brutal reviews). Coke Daniel’s privileged white-woman takedown Karen, a project that seemed like a good idea at the time but which somehow proved more offensive than the ‘Karens’ it portrayed, came in second with 5 nominations.

In a first for the organisers, the 2021 Razzies will honour actor Bruce Willis with his own category, the bald capitalist having released no less than eight films in the last calendar year, each worse than the one before. Once one of international cinema's biggest names, Willis has resigned himself to roles that sometimes take only hours to shoot for projects that are never likely to surface anywhere other than physical media dump-bins in electronic superstores. Nevertheless, such comitment was deemed worthy of mention by the awards body, no doubt due in part to Willis' long Razzie history; he has two trophies to his name (1999 Worst Actor; 1992 Worst Screenplay) and a further five nominations.  

Major Hollywood studios were determined not to miss out, providing such dregs as the Amy Adams potboiler The Woman in the Window, from 20th Century Fox (5 nominations); Stephen Chbosky’s misguided musical effort, Dear Evan Hansen, courtesy of Universal (4 nominations); Warner Bros. product placement extravaganza, Space Jam: A New Legacy (4 nominations); and, Mark Wahlberg’s execrable actioner Infinite (3 nominations), which Paramount pulled from its theatrical schedule and cynically repackaged to launch its own streaming service.

A-listers to feel the Razzie sting include Ben Affleck for his “I’m going to be in my own movie!” performance opposite Matt Damon in Ridley Scott’s dud, The Last Duel; Jared Leto (pictured, left), only recognizable by the brazen, Leto-esque self-belief that he could pull off his ‘jowly Guiseppe’ role in Ridley Scott’s other dud, House of Gucci; and, the once high-flying Amy Adams, who earned two noms, for Dear Evan Hansen and The Woman in the Window. 

The 42nd annual Golden Raspberry award ceremony will be held on March 26, the traditional ‘Oscar’s Eve’ slot that The Razzies have made its own.

Full list of nominees:   

WORST PICTURE
Diana the Musical (The Netflix Version); Infinite; Karen; Space Jam: A New Legacy; The Woman in the Window

WORST ACTOR
Scott Eastwood / Dangerous; Roe Hartrampf (As Prince Charles) / Diana the Musical; LeBron James / Space Jam: A New Legacy; Ben Platt / Dear Evan Hansen; Mark Wahlberg / Infinite

WORST ACTRESS 
Amy Adams / The Woman in the Window; Jeanna de Waal / Diana the Musical; Megan Fox / Midnight in the Switchgrass; Taryn Manning / Karen; Ruby Rose / Vanquish

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams / Dear Evan Hansen; Sophie Cookson / Infinite; Erin Davie (As Camilla) / Diana the Musical; Judy Kaye (As BOTH Queen Elizabeth & Barbara Cartland) / Diana the Musical; Taryn Manning / Every Last One of Them

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ben Affleck / The Last Duel; Nick Cannon / The Misfits; Mel Gibson / Dangerous; Gareth Keegan (As James Hewitt, the Muscle-Bound Horse Trainer) / Diana the Musical; Jared Leto / House of Gucci

WORST PERFORMANCE by BRUCE WILLIS in a 2021 MOVIE (Special Category)
Bruce Willis / American Siege; Bruce Willis / Apex; Bruce Willis / Cosmic Sin; Bruce Willis / Deadlock; Bruce Willis / Fortress; Bruce Willis / Midnight in the Switchgrass; Bruce Willis / Out of Death; Bruce Willis / Survive the Game

WORST SCREEN COUPLE
Diana the Musical - Any Klutzy Cast Member & Any Lamely Lyricized (or Choreographed) Musical Number.
Space Jam: A New Legacy - LeBron James & Any Warner Cartoon Character (or Time-Warner Product) He Dribbles on
House of Gucci - Jared Leto & EITHER His 17-Pound Latex Face, His Geeky Clothes or His Ridiculous Accent
Dear Evan Hansen - Ben Platt & Any Other Character Who Acts Like Platt Singing 24-7 is Normal
Tom & Jerry the Movie - Tom & Jerry (aka Itchy & Scratchy) 

WORST REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL
Karen (Inadvertent Remake of Cruella deVil); Space Jam: A New Legacy; Tom & Jerry the Movie; Twist (Rap remake of Oliver Twist); The Woman in the Window (Rip-Off of Rear Window)

WORST DIRECTOR 
Christopher Ashley / Diana the Musical; Stephen Chbosky / Dear Evan Hansen; “Coke” Daniels / Karen; Renny Harlin / The Misfits; Joe Wright / The Woman in the Window

WORST SCREENPLAY 
Diana the Musical / Script by Joe DiPietro, Music and Lyrics by DiPietro and David Bryan
Karen / Written by "Coke" Daniels
The Misfits / Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Robert Henny, Screen Story by Henny
Twist / Written by John Wrathall & Sally Collett, Additional Material by Matthew Parkhill, Michael Lindley, Tom Grass & Kevin Lehane, from an “Original Idea” by David & Keith Lynch and Simon Thomas
The Woman in the Window / Screenplay by Tracy Letts, from the Novel by A.J. Finn

THE BEST FILMS OF 2021

For most of 2021, old Sydney town was COVID shuttered. Not since…last year, actually…has the cinema experience been such a truncated, compromised one. The US summer blockbusters earned perfunctory, catch-me-if-you-can releases (The Suicide Squad; Malignant; Space Jam) or were bumped again (come in, Top Gun Maverick?). Some finally landed, like No Time to Die and Dune, though with question marks over whether they maxed-out their box-office potential or felt a little ‘fatigued’. It would be the streaming services that thrived in 2021 - sixteen of my Top 20 films were watched in my ‘critic’s cave’.

Which made not a shred of difference to the quality of 2021 films. As I write this, Spiderman: No Way Home is smashing box office records on the back of great reviews. The award season is taking shape with films like Licorice Pizza, Spencer, The Tragedy of Macbeth, King Richard and Belfast entering the fray. And the streamers continue their push for critical relevance and commercial dominance, offering films like Don’t Look Up (Netflix), Finch (Apple+) and Being The Ricardos (Amazon Prime).    

So let’s get on with celebrating the films that provided a jolt of exhilaration (and a handful that sucked) in this shit of a year...   

1. CODA (Dir: Sian Heder; USA, 111 mins) Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only able-hearing member of a deaf family. She’s got talent, is smart, and is destined for a life beyond the family’s struggling fishing business, but stepping away from her role as a Child Of Deaf Parents… And so Sian Heder’s wrenching drama is set in motion, charting a deceptively simple journey that breaks down one’s expectations of a film that pitches like a ‘Movie of the Week’ but plays out like…well, like the year’s best film. Wait for the bait-&-switch moment at Ruby’s school concert; it reduced your cynical, ‘seen-it-all’ film reviewer to a sobbing wreck.

2. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Dir: Joachim Trier; Norway, 127 mins) Julie is someone we’ve all known, or may have been - an unsettled, impetuous twenty-something trying to understand how she fits into everyone’s expectations of her life. Serious romance, cohabitation, marriage, kids…blah, blah, blah. Joachim Trier’s film is a journey with Julie which subverts, even defies, the well-trodden path to society’s version of maturity. We are engaged with every honest frame of this transcendent story because of Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve; her ‘Julie’ is and will remain a touchstone film character for the ages. 

3. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (Dir: Edgar Wright; UK, 116 mins) All the key indicators were in place - director Edgar Wright, primed to bring his command of the camera to the visually propulsive setting of London in the ‘60s; two actresses, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tommasin McKenzie, duking it out for ‘it-girl’ status; and, above all else, an original high-concept genre piece. The result was a giddy, thrilling, slightly daft but pulsating chiller that both honoured and challenged the ‘stylish slasher’ sensibilities of classic Hitchcock and De Palma.

4. SHIVA BABY (Dir: Emma Seligman; USA, 77 mins) A perfectly directionless Jewish twenty-something (the wonderful Rachel Sennot) finds all the tensions in her life colliding under one roof at the titular funeral service in Emma Seligman’s masterpiece of discomfort. This comedic, white-knuckle emotional journey somehow emerges as a romantic, sexy, bittersweet snapshot of millenial uncertainty.

5. ADRIENNE (Dir: Andy Ostroy; USA, 98 mins) Adrienne Shelley was a ‘90s indie darling, the toast of Sundance after the Hal Hartley films The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, and on the verge of breakout success as director and co-star of Waitress, when she was murdered. Her widower Andy Ostroy reconciles the loss of Adrienne through a multi-tiered recounting of her career, their life and, in the most heartbreaking of many heartbreaking sequences, a meeting with her killer.

6. ANNEES 20 (Roaring 20s. Dir: Elisabeth Vogler; France, 85 mins) In the midst of the 2020 COVID outbreak, filmmaker Elisabeth Vogler choreographed this single-shot miracle through the streets of Paris, capturing how the human spirit fronted up to, adapted in the face of and ultimately beat down the loneliness of the ‘new normal’. Sublime steadicam artistry (by the director herself) and a vivid collection of Parisian persons make for a snapshot of a time that will never be recaptured; by definition, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

7. PETITE MAMAN (Dir: Céline Sciamma; France, 72 mins) How a little girl deals with grief and the friendship she strikes in the realm of the fantastic proves the perfect premise for Céline Sciamma’s latest study in profound connection. The material is weighty but the lightness of touch is masterful; you’ll cry for days afterwards, as Sciamma and her two wondrous leads achieve deeply resonant moments that refuse to let go of your thoughts and emotions.

8. PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (Dir: Sion Sono; US/Japan, 103 mins) Why did it take so long to smash together the cinematic psyches of Japanese punk-auteur Sion Sono and G.O.A.T. Nicholas Cage? Because their hyper-stylised, vengeance-fuelled, dystopian Eastern-western is a work of fearless originality and W.T.F. creative choices that make it an adrenalized, bewildering blast (Ed. - For the record, Pig was #21 in ‘21; Cage had a great year.)

9. DUNE (Dir: Denis Villeneuve; USA, 155 mins) It all looked good in the planning. Denis Villeneuve’s track record (Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, especially) indicated he could do spectacle with intelligence; the cast were all hot-button names with talent to boot. Of course, we said all this back in ‘84, too. This time, though…grandeur, depth and the promise of more to come.

10. BENEDETTA (Dir: Paul Verhoeven; France/Belgium, 131 mins) Early coverage zeroed-in on the ‘nun-sploitation’ angle of Dutch stirrer Paul Verhoeven’s latest, in particular luminous leading lady Virginie Efira depiction of sapphic experimentation and self-pleasuring. But Verhoeven has much more on his mind (no, really); Benedetta is a brutal take-down of institutionalized religion and the ease with which the ambitiously immoral can exploit the zealous masses.

THE NEXT TEN BEST:
11. VERA DE VERDAD (Dir: Beniamino Catena; Italy/Chile, 100 mins)
12. WEST SIDE STORY (Dir: Steven Spielberg; USA, 156 mins)
13. LA PANTHERE DES NEIGES (The Velvet Queen. Dir: Marie Amiguet; France, 92 mins)
14. ILARGI GUZTIAK (All The Moons. Dir: Igor Legarreta; Spain, 102 mins)
15. TED K (Dir: Tony Stone; USA, 120 mins)
16. MEDUSA (Dir: Anita Rocha da Silveira; Brazil, 127 mins)
17. BERGMAN ISLAND (Dir: Mia Hansen-Løve; France, 112 mins)
18. FREE GUY (Dir: Shawn Levy; USA, 115 mins)
19. THE COLONY (Dir: Tim Fehlbaum; Germany, 104 mins)
20. DORAIBU MAI KA (Drive My Car. Dir: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Japan, 179 mins)

THE WORST FILMS OF 2021:
For every exhilarating discovery on the streaming channels, there were piles of steaming dross to scroll pass. Shame on Disney+, for over-extending old franchises with greenlights for the terrible HOME SWEET HOME ALONE and the shamefully uninspired MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION. With cinemas opening erratically and distributors unwilling to commit theatrical films, straight-to-video product was deemed worthy of multi-screen releases - the turgid Jeremy Irons-Diane Keaton rom-com LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS and the Bruce Willis D-grade scifier COSMIC SIN found themselves in wide circulation. As the pandemic ebbed, exhibitors made space for some Hollywood product, but there was little excitement for misfires like SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (featuring some Razzie-worthy shout-acting from Chris Rock); the numbing banality of VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE; or, the official death knell of YA-lit 'Hunger Games' wannabes, CHAOS WALKING. But it is from the bottom of the sequel barrel that we scrape the year’s most idiotic film; an inconcievable ninth dip into the well of fake family melodrama and CGI stunt work, overseen by producers who thought launching a car into outer space was a good idea. F9 dipped considerably at the box office (it's the lowest earner in the franchise since 2011’s FAST FIVE), although probably not enough to kill off this knuckle-headed insult to cinema.

THE BEST TELEVISION OF 2021

A funny thing happened at the Screen-Space office in 2021 - I watched a lot of television. More precisely, I was called upon to review a lot of television, mostly as one half of the Screen Watching podcast. This site has always been film-focussed, but that’s largely because when Screen-Space launched nearly a decade ago, there was no Netflix or Apple+ or Amazon Prime. Back then, we went to the cinema, bought the DVD, caught anything we’d missed on our exciting new pay-TV channel. Good times…

Screen Watching’s other-half is Dan Barrett, the boss of the TV-centric site Always Be Watching (amongst many other projects) and an opinionated enthusiast for all things televisual. If I was going to keep up with his small-screen babblings, I needed to watch more than just Major League Baseball and Seinfeld repeats. So, with COVID’s grip upon society ensuring that sofa time was always the best option, I’m weighing in with the inaugural Screen-Space Best of Television 2021...  

1. ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING (Hulu (US) / Disney Star (Aust), 10 eps; starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez) Not such a surprise that comedy veterans Steve Martin and Martin Short should pull off the years’ most wry, witty, laugh-out-loud hilarious romp; a classy whodunnit farce that slyly satirises everything it touches, from apartment etiquette to podcast obsession. The big surprise is that they let Selena Gomez steal the show, the actress the perfect comedic foil to Martin and Martin’s ‘old guy’ schtick.

2. MIDNIGHT MASS (Netflix, 7 eps; starring Hamish Linklater, Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas) Horror’s most accomplished and assured new voice, Mike Flanagan skewers blind faith and zealotry in his smalltown horror masterpiece. The deliberate pacing of his reveals left behind those that like their frights more frantic, but this is his deceptively simple modus operandi - establish setting, then introduce character, then pose a mysterious threat, then…BOO! The comparisons to the King classic Salem’s Lot are unfair, because Midnight Mass is better. 

3. PHYSICAL (Apple+, 10 eps; starring Rose Byrne, Rory Scovel, Deirdre Friel) As a satire of the ‘Greed is good’ mantra of the 1980s and the Reagan-esque nationalism that inspired overspending and wilful over-indulgence in the name of capitalistic growth, Physical is a masterwork. As the unravelling housewife who parlays her love of aerobics into social acceptance and financial independence, Rose Byrne is a whirlwind of anxiety, dark energy and ever-expand(ex)ing self-worth.

4. THE CHESTNUT MAN (Netflix, 6 eps; starring Danica Curcic, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, David Dencik) For those who thought the Scandi Crime wave had had its day in the endless sun, The Chestnut Man reinvigorated all the recognisable tropes with crackling tension, horrific violence and the best ‘reluctant partner’ chemistry since the heady days of Scully and Mulder. 

5. SUCCESSION Season 3 (HBO Max / Binge, 9 eps; starring Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook) No family has done cold-hearted and calculated with this much twisted glee since The Ewings; the #MeToo plotline and how it threatened to derail The Roy Family empire inspired a rare degree of cut throat-razor dialogue and boardroom tension. In Adrien Brody and Alexander Skarsgård, nailed the 2021 ‘Best Use of a Guest Stars’ honour.

6. VIGIL (BBC, 6 eps; starring Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Adam James) There is a pulpy daftness to this submarine-set murder mystery that is occasionally glimpsed on the radar, but when producer Tom Edge’s plotting stays on course it is the most gripping adventure-thriller that the small screen offered up all year. As the investigating detective sent on board, despite having her own recent watery tragedy still on her mind (really?), Suranne Jones is Sigourney-esque in her presence.

7. DOPESICK (Hulu / Disney+ Star, 8 eps; starring Michael Keaton, Kaitlyn Dever, Rosario Dawson) Op-ed rants by John Oliver only go so far in conveying just how insidiously callous Purdue Pharmaceutical and the cartel that owns it, The Sackler Family, were in lying about, spreading and profiting from the social horror they caused with OxyContin. Director Barry Levinson paints a heartbreaking picture of the smalltown, blue-collar lives that The Sackler’s destroyed for financial gain. Does for the opioid crisis what The Day After did for nuclear proliferation.

8. WANDAVISION (Disney+, 9 eps; starring Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn) As a journey through TV culture, Disney+’s first small-screen MCU narrative was inventive, charming and, with Olsen and Bettany allowed greater dimensionality to explore their big-screen bit-players, proved a better-than-expected canon add-on. But it was the acuity with which it explored Wanda/Scarlett Witch’s grief and PTSD that made it significantly better than we had any right to expect.

9. INVASION (Apple+ TV, 9 eps; starring Golshifteh Farahani, Shamier Anderson, Shioli Kutsuna) That hoary ol’ scifi trope, the ‘alien invasion’, gets a supremely polished, truly international makeover in Apple’s understated but gripping multi-strand narrative. A grab-bag of influences (War of The Worlds; Independence Day; Arrival) are used to superb impact; in  a great cast, Golshifteh Farahani as the betrayed wife/warrior mother is sensational.

10. THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT (HBO Max / Stan, 8 eps; starring Kaley Cuoco, Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez) Never seen The Big Bang Theory, so The Flight Attendant was quite the jump-off point for me and Kaley Cuoco. As the sexed-up, boozy stewardess whose life careens dangerously close to catastrophe at every turn, she is a revelation. The production’s profound understanding of alcoholism and Cuoco’s unhinged version of someone in denial and under threat is white-knuckle, character-based black comedy at its best.

There were some big hits (White Lotus; Nine Perfect Strangers; Mare of Eastown) and critical favourites (Hacks; The Underground Railroad; Muhammad Ali; The North Water; The Reservation Dogs) that I just couldn't fit into the viewing schedule. But there were also a handful that I count as highlights, even if they couldn't budge the ten best...

BEST REALITY: THE HILLS: NEW BEGINNINGS Season 2 (MTV, 12 eps) 
Heidi, Spencer, Audrina, Brody, Justin…they’re all still spoilt LA brats, but by 2021 they are spoilt, brattish thirty-somethings, and the seriousness of such themes as family, addiction, wealth (or lack of it), infidelity and honesty are coming into sharper focus. Dismiss their surface sheen as glaringly shallow, but MTV’s stable of in-house reality stars mined some darker emotions in Season 2, and the television (however manipulated) was compelling.

BEST INTERNATIONAL: KATLA (Netflix, 8 eps)
A fissure in the Earth’s surface caused by the eruption of the titular volcano unleashes creatures of Icelandic folklore in Baltasar Kormákur’s slow-burn, bleak, nightmarish study in isolation, paranoia, memory and grief. The year’s best final frame cliffhanger.

BEST LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: TASKMASTER (BBC / UKTV, 10 eps)
The well-established U.K. franchise hit its stride in 2021. At first, the mixed-bag of semi-celebs fronting the eleventh go-around of the Greg Davies/Alex Horne cult hit seemed an oddly mismatched bunch; by episode 6, and Mike Wozniak’s career-defining/ruining shock admission (“It’s an absolute casserole down there”), the season proved a series’ highwatermark. 

BEST AUSTRALIAN: DIVE CLUB (Network 10 / Netflix, 12 eps)
What pitched as a teen-dream trifle emerged as a stylish, sophisticated drama, impeccably crafted and brimming with complex characters against a gorgeous backdrop. The title conjures pre-teen Saddle/Babysitter Club-style misadventures, but the dramatic meat on its bones more closely recalls the best of Dawson’s Creek or Party of Five.

And while I don’t want to dwell on the worst TV of the year (it was LA BREA), I do want to address why two of 2021's biggest TV hits left me cold. 

I cannot reconcile the preposterous premise of TED LASSO with sufficient suspension of disbelief to find it charming or funny. The character is annoyingly cloying, a downhome doofus inconceivably tolerated by everyone in England. On the back of its success, expect a Yes Minister reboot featuring Forrest Gump. 

And the phenomenon that is SQUID GAME? The show is well-made, stocked with some interesting characters and handsomely produced, but its genre inspirations weigh heavily on its shoulders. Everything from Battle Royale to The Hunger Games to The Running Man has trodden this well-worn path to better effect. 

READ THE SCREEN-SPACE TEN BEST MOVIES OF 2021 HERE (Coming Soon!)

THE BEAUTIFUL EYE OF HALYNA HUTCHINS

The death of Ukraine-born cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, on the set of the film Rust in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is tragic beyond measure. A young family, including her husband Matthew and their son, have lost a loving mother; her professional community have lost an emerging talent of limitless potential (only 5 percent of the American Society of Cinematographers membership are female). Future generations of filmgoers are left with the stunning images from her 27 credits to date - a remarkable number, given she came to her craft after an early career as a broadcast journalist.

To honour Hutchin's artistry as a DOP, we present a gallery of frames from her features and short films and thoughts collated from the public social media posts of her friends and co-workers...

BLINDFIRE (Dir: Michael Nell; starring Brian Geraghty, Sharon Leal | 2020) A police officer responding to a violent hostage call kills the African American suspect, only to learn of his innocence. Sensing a set-up and facing repercussions, he must track down those responsible while examining his own accountability and the ingrained racism which brought him to this point.

"It is with a sad and heavy heart that I say goodbye to an incredibly talented and wonderful person...I was lucky enough to witness a rising star who was full of passion, creativity, generosity and a love for filmmaking. Her tragic death is a senseless loss and hard too fathom." - Howard Barish, President / Executive Producer of Kandoo Films, makers of Blindside. 

ARCHENEMY (Dir: Adam Egypt Mortimer; starring Joe Manganiello, Amy Seimetz | 2020) Max Fist claims to be a hero from another dimension who fell through time and space to earth, where he has no powers. No one believes his stories except for a local teen named Hamster.

"I’m so sad about losing Halyna. And so infuriated that this could happen on a set. She was a brilliant talent who was absolutely committed to art and to film." - Adam Egypt Mortimer, Director: Archenemy.

TREACLE (Dir: Rosie Westhoff, starring April Kelley, Wilder Yari | 2020) Two friends, Belle and Jessie, go on a weekend away to help Jessie get over a recent breakup. Road tripping through California over the course of 24 hours, lines begin to blur when the always-heterosexual Jessie in her drunken, post breakup loneliness kisses bisexual Belle.

"Halyna was an absolute joy to collaborate with, bursting with unique ideas, and would go above and beyond in achieving them. She was an integral part of what still remains the best experience of my life. Thank you for the memories. The industry has lost the brightest of stars." - April Kelley, writer/star of Treacle

SNOWBOUND (Dir: Olia Oparina, starring Anya Bay | 2017) A group of erotic party attendees wake up naked in the snow. In the nearby cabin they find a dead girl and a message: In order to survive, they must decide who is responsible for the girl's death and murder that person accordingly.

"My best friend passed away. The pain is unbearable, and nothing can fill that space that is now empty without my loving, supportive, and understanding Halyna...Halyna’s shot every one of my films. When no one trusted us with a feature film, Halyna and I teamed up and made our own, for no money, with a crew of friends...My dear ribka, you will always be in my heart." - Olia Oparina, director of Divination (2016); Marcel Red What You Did (2016); I am Normal (2020); Snowbound (2017).

(re)UNITE (Dir: Anak Rabanal | 2018) Can a clinical method to accelerate emotional intimacy begin healing the social rifts exposed by the 2016 Presidential Election one conversation at a time?

"You will be missed and treasured and your legacy lives on not only in your work but in the people you inspired us to be with the way you lived your life — fearlessly and passionately." - Anak Rabanal, director of (re)UNITE.

The America Film Institute has established The Halyna Hutchins Memorial Scholarship Fund, issuing the statement, " As is profoundly true in the art of cinematography, words alone cannot capture the loss of one so dear to the AFI community. At AFI, we pledge to see that Halyna Hutchins will live on in the spirit of all who strive to see their dreams realized in stories well told."

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