Belle

 A beautiful emotionally rich anime exploring a virtual world where a shy schoolgirl can become a globally famous singer and become involved with a rageful beast and those who would hunt him. If it's not quite at the level of Summer Wars, the directors previous exploration of virtual universes, it still plays strong as an individual story of heroism and strength

King Richard

 Very much Oscar bait stuff for Will Smith including downplaying tricky elements of the story like the Jehovah's witness faith or the extra children that this film doesn't want to focus on, but it does effectively choose an appropriate place to start and finish, some interesting insight into the overlap between sport and race and an insight into raising children in a hothouse climate

Scream

 A solid follow up in the series that combines teen drama, film criticism and mass murder. If the teen drama feels a little flatter it might be that I'm further from being a teen than i was during the first four films and that the back-to-basics plot line ultimately doesn't really give the newbies much more to be than potential locations for knives to go or suspects, but it's still reasonably solid with a slightly higher taste for gore than the mid range sequels

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

 This doesn't exactly add a lot to the original, it's very much a case of playing the hits, although McKenna Grace gives it every bit of charm it has outside "remember the first movie". The climax does do the criminal job of wasting JK Simmons on a barely-there cameo, as well as going excessively sentimental in the last five minutes in ways that are kinda unnecessary. For all that whining I did kinda enjoy the wallow in nostalgia (not just the original, there's also an overlay of mid 80s Spielberg Amblin House Style in there too).

Red Rocket

Only loses half a star because they never show where the kolaches are in the donut shop and as someone who is about two years away from his last visit to a Texas donut shop I needed the visual hit. But otherwise this is an excellent study of a sociopath, after Sean Baker's last two films spent time with impoverished sex workers in LA and Orlando we get a fast talking, similarly impoverished sex worker in Texas City Texas, constantly about three seconds away from dooming everyone around him to disaster. Fortunately this is largely a comedy so the radius of the disaster largely just hits himself, with only one other victim.  The Trump analogy is never too laboured and remains an undercurrent rather than an overwhelming text, and the tension is maintained well.

Top ten of 2021

A list of ten films I really liked that released in Australia in 2021 in Cinemas and I got a chance to see. Noting there are a couple of films that may be worthy that I didn't see this year due to release dates, and some of the films I'm listing came out overseas in 2020, never the less they count as 2021 releases for my purposes. For what it's worth, I saw 235 films this year, 135 new ones, 100 old ones. I'd rate 199 of them as "good". You can read the full reviews of all of them on letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/simbot/films/reviews/

Another Round - An illustration of four men in midlife crisis attempting to deal with their lost youth through irresponsible behavior, with a great climactic final scene showing off Mads Mikklesen and his amazing legs.

Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra - a really great movie about a family, a culture and a movement - capturing modern dance and fame and its effect on three brothers. It's a really engrossing story with captivating dance footage and a real heart to it. 

Lapsis - A look at the modern gig-culture world through a sci-fi lens that has a specific unique look as it deals with the encroachment of big business on our lives and the increasing mechinisation of human beings.

Malignant - Probably the nuttiest left turn of a film this year, probably only the last third really belongs on this list but the last third was so much fun that it drags the film onto my list despite the somewhat laboured setup. It's one of those "you just have to see it to believe it" kinda films. 

Minari - A sweet family tale of finding a place in the world and holding onto it, as a Korean family moves to a small rural town and tries to establish their place, it's gentle, funny and a great outpouring of soul. 

Pig - Nicholas Cage only occasionally makes great movies - too often he's overacting in films that never really use his talents correctly. But in this case he's happened upon a solid script and has shaped his performance enough to give space to the rest of the performers around him - lifting Adam Arkin and Alex Wolff into strong performers rather than just sidelines to his main attraction. It's a great old-fashioned noir storyline in an unusual setting, and is incredibly pleasurable.

Riders of Justice - A really great look at the "old guy revenge" movie through giving space to the nerdy guys doing the research, thoroughly delightful. Although eventually Mads Mikklesen ends up busting up bad guys, it's not entirely a film in love with retribution so much as finding support structures around you.

Summer of Soul, or when the revolution could not be televised - A great doco about a period that's been visited a lot, from an angle that hasn't been seen much - the late sixties music scene through the eyes of African Americans, and the culture that surrounded them. 

Tick Tick ... Boom! - This is a particularly-me-kinda film - I'm aware the extreme earnestness of a 29 year old white guy declaring "I'm the future of American Theatre" is something that most people are going to find slap-worthy, but ... well, I was 23 and just leaving university when I first heard "Rent" and it kinda captured my heart before my brain had a chance to intervene. And this captured my heart too, particularly with Andrew Garfield's no-shame-whatsoever performance and the great capturing of the location and era. 

Titane - A wild pleasure, bringing us into a character who seems wildly unhinged and a situation that's somewhat absurd, and making us care about them and their choices - it's eventually almost a family bonding story through some very weird methods. 

Near Misses (just outside the top 10) - Luca, Supernova, The lost Daughter

Least Loved - A Call To Spy, Creation Stories; Every Breath You Take; Occupation: Rainfall

New To Me Favourites - Black Book, Black Narcissus, Chunking Express

New To Me Favourites (Insanely Fun but ridiculous edition) - Man's Best Friend. 

Swan Song

A nice small-scale story of the last era of gay men in a small country town, as an unashamedly flamboyant hairdresser sets out on one last mission. It's a bit rambling and sentimental but it's delightful