Worst of 2021 - End of Year Report

Swine after pearls, here are the 10 films that either disappointed, annoyed or mortified me in 2021. In descending order, have a gander at some of this shite.

[Check out the full reviews by clicking on the title]

10. Clue (1985)

Found this on a streamer and kind of wish I hadn't. The cast has a lot going for it - Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd - but none of them can rise above the forced energy and boring story. Films based on board games, eh? A product of its time.

9. The Toll (2021)

This was a huge disappointment. An interesting cast, including Michael Smiley, Iwan Rheon, Annes Elwy (best in show) and Paul Kaye, couldn't save the material. It was trying to be many things all at once, but sadly none of the angles worked. The novice writer and director will hopefully learn from this ambitious mess.

8. Death Note (2017)

This Netflix adaptation of the Japanese manga, then anime, then three (!) live action Japanese films, was entirely unnecessary. Really, how much of one slightly naff idea do we need? I guess it was made for the subtitle-averse crowd, but honestly, fuck them anyway. Sometimes I look back and wonder why I even chose certain films. This was one of those moments.

7. Candyman (2021)

We selected this as a prize for winning a film quiz at the Perth Girls' School Cinema. Mistake. Incoherent, dull, NOT scary (aside from some squirmy body horror bits) and just cack-handed. Some of the messaging was admirable but it didn't really have any focus and the director, Nia Da Costa, let it be overrun by functional murdering and a confusingly rushed ending. No, the Candyman can't.

6. The Goya Murders (2019)

This fell apart pretty quickly. A Spanish police thriller (?) about a dude who kills his victims and arranges the crime scenes to look like Goya prints, it plays out like overboiled spuds. There are two police officers who have their own problems - templated, colour-by-numbers shit - a perplexing motivation for the perp (I don't even remember it, to be fair), and a climax that was presumably meant to shock but, in fact, seems overly brutal. A script full of bollocks, nothing makes sense. Dire.

5. Spawn (1997)

An obscure director, mostly known for visual effects, has turned out a real stinker with this film (ironically, with terrible effects). Part of a glut of minor comic book adaptations in the 90s (The Rocketeer, The Shadow, Tank Girl, etc.), this was one of, if not alone as, the worst of the lot. Martin Sheen and Nicol Williamson (famous Shakespearian stage thesp) chew off as much meat as they can locate, and possibly my least favourite 'actor', John Leguizamo does his thing - irritate. Awful tripe.

4. Legend (1985)

Chimpanzee that! A Ridley Scott film in the best AND worst list of 2021. Imagine for a moment, going from your debut, The Duellists, to Alien, to Blade Runner and then....to this. Forgettable guff about an evil wizard (I think) who wants to do something or other but Tom Cruise is in the way and ummmm, well, it's hard to recall. This might have been cutting edge in the mid-80s, but it certainly hasn't aged well. Oh, and oddly, it's the second film in this list with Tim Curry in it. He had a busy 1985.

3. Annette (2021)

What a pile of pretentious crap. It seems to have its fair share of supporters, mainly in the critic circles, but I haven't seen a film for ages that spilt the critics and the punters like this did. So, it's a musical drama (almost totally 'sung-through') with a great central pairing in Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver. The issues aren't with them, but with the 'too cool by far' script by the Mael brothers (of the band, Sparks). It's repetitive and dull, and they try very hard to be tossers. They succeed. In fact, they give tossers a bad name.

2. The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds (1965)

I actually gave this so-called film a nest icon instead of a star rating because I don't really classify it as a film as such. But that's getting into the whole 'what is art?' area, so I'll just say this is a real Barry Crocker. The guy behind it all, Bert Williams (he directed, wrote, starred, produced, etc.), plays some kind of agent dispatched to the swamps to find someone and things go pear-shaped. All well and good plot-wise, the problem is Williams clearly had no budget and, it would appear, no talent either. The whole experiment is one of the worst things ever put on celluloid, student films included.

1. French Exit (2020)

But worse than a film that isn't really even a film, comes this horrid turkey. Around 5 minutes in, I knew I was going to hate this. Rich, entitled, snobby Americans talking like nobody outside of 'literature' - what a recipe! Story - Michelle Pfeiffer and her son, Lucas Hedges, lose all their money and decide to move to Paris. People appear out of paper-thin logic to muddle the narrative. Then there's a talking cat that's supposed to be whimsical, I guess. Ah, fuck this, I'm getting angry writing about it....

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Ghost Cat Anzu (Me & Kid)

Here's a nice surprise. I find Japanese anime to be hit and miss, and the first look at this boof-headed feline didn't promise too much, but Ghost Cat Anzu knocked the bails off. It riffs on the Ghibli theme of children being forced to grow up quicker than they should, with 11 year-old Karin (Noa Gotô) as our focus. Her dad's a bit of a scally and he does a runner while visiting his father at his temple home in a sleepy town, leaving Karin alone with kindly grandad and huge, anthropomorphic cat, Anzu, voiced by Mirai Moriyama. Karin wanders the town, waiting for dad to return and meeting various locals, while being casually monitored by Anzu. The pace is a little pedestrian but the shenanigans make up for this. Anzu is pulled over by the police and told he needs a license to ride a scooter, though he protests that he's not actually a human, so surely these rules don't apply. He works as a masseur but also takes a gig to scare birds away from the river, roping Karin...

Bird

This is such a fine film and going in blind might just be the best way to see it. It's not that it's a twisty, spoilery mystery, just that sometimes knowing nowt about a film is the best way to appreciate it. Zero expectations and all. So if you want the same groundwork that I had, read no more. . . . . Ok. If you're still reading, let's kick off. This is Andrea Arnold's sixth feature and I really have to see more of her work. It's set in the Kent town of Gravesend, and boy, is that a suitable name for this place. Not far from London, on the river Thames, seems like it's wall to wall chavs out there. Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and half-brother, Hunter (Jason Buda) in a graffiti covered squat. Pissed off that Bug wants to get married to newish girlfriend, Kayleigh (Frankie Box), Bailey rebels and follows her brother and his mates on a small-time vigilante mission. Things get messy, she does a runner and ends up sleeping in...

The Wolves Always Come at Night

My first taste of the Perth Festival schedule for the coming season was a 'hybrid' film called The Wolves Always Come at Night , directed by Gabrielle Brady. The term 'hybrid' really just seems to mean tweaking the traditional methods of documentary production, in this case, adding some clearly set-up shots and situations, but also, calling on the subjects to help in the writing process. This film is about a family of goat farmers in Mongolia whose difficult existence is made even harder by an unforeseen event that forces them to relocate to the city. The family are led by mother, Zaya Dashzeveg and father, Davaa Dagvasuren, and Brady made the film with their input in mind. She says; Our intention was that Davaa and Zaya have agency within the making of their own story. So, in working together as co-writers, we were able to shape the story together. They would share ideas for what could be filmed and I would translate this into the cinematic language for the film. It...

Audrey

This Perth Fest entry is a very black comedy with a large splosh of Muriel's Wedding about it. Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie Van Beek) has high hopes for her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) to succeed as an actress. Ronnie had some of her own fame years before in Australian TV and is now stage-mothering Audrey to within an inch of her life. But Audrey is a proper arsehole to everyone, including her sister with cerebral palsy, Norah (Hannah Diviney), and her romantically conflicted father, Cormack (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), so when Audrey's melodramatic antics see her slide off the roof of the house and into a coma, the family have mixed feelings about the situation. Ronnie incongruously decides to pose as Audrey in order to be accepted onto the acting course she had her signed up for. Nobody seems to notice, Norah begins to be more accepted by Audrey's friends (and boyfriend), and Cormack turns his meekness around, reinvigorating his sex life with Ronnie. The family feel guilty...

The Monk and the Gun

This Bhutanese comedy drama is part of the Perth Festival and it follows the country's attempts to move from a monarchy to a democracy in 2006. In the small town of Ura, a novice monk, Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk) is tasked with finding two guns for his Lama, played by real life monk Kelsang Choejay. He's not told why but he gets on with the job. At the same time, a 'fixer/tour guide' from Thimphu, Benji (Tandim Sonam) gets a gig driving a newly arrived American, Ronald (Harry Einhorn) around the country in search of a particularly valuable US Civil War rifle. You might be able to see where this is going... This is satire in deep cover. It might even be satire adjacent, such is its mildness. This is not a bad thing. At times I felt like I was experiencing an old Ealing comedy, or maybe a low-key Ken Loach. The government sends officers around the country to run a mock election to show people how to vote, and one of them, Tshering Yangden (Pema Zangmo Sherpa) wanders through...

Timestalker

Here's an odd little number about reincarnation and love across the ages, or more to the point, dawning self-determination. Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars as Agnes, a woman besotted with Aneurin Barnard's Alex. Always. In many different time periods. We kick off in 1688, where Alex is about to be executed before Agnes steps (trips) in, and saves him. We zip forward to 1793, Alice this time bored of her pampered lifestyle in a manor house with pets, wigs and servants. Oh, and a disgustingly oafish Nick Frost for a hubby, George. But who's the stalker in time? Is it Agnes? She's the clear favourite. Or the object of her desires, Alex, who for the most part, isn't too keen on reciprocating? Is it the boorish George, who does physically stalk in one of the episodes. It may even refer to the peripheral figures of servant, friend & potential lover, Meg (Tanya Reynolds) or wily Scipio (Jacob Anderson - Grey Worm from Game of Thrones ). To be fair, it's hintin...

Merchant Ivory

Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically. The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...

Lee

Biopics are tough to get right. For every Lawrence of Arabia , there's a Diana , for every Raging Bull , there's an Ali . The film Lee shines some natural light of the life of renowned war photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. She gives it full welly in this - physically and emotionally nude, with camouflage painted boobs, close-ups with no make-up, moles, wrinkles, rage and tears. It's very much the kind of 'brave' performance that the Academy loves to reward. The film starts with Miller crustily answering questions to a young man in 1977, and as she remembers things from her past, we head to flashback territory. It seems a fairly cack-handed framing device until we realise why it's happening. A modicum of research reveals that the film is a pretty accurate retelling of Miller's life - first her carefree bohemian days in pre-WW2 France (including her intro to future hubby, Roland Penrose, played by Alexander Skarsgård), then how she started with...

Gladiator II

There's a lot to enjoy in this sequel to Sir Ridders' original from 2000. The film picks up about 16 years after the end of the first one, where we find Rome ruled by a pair of foppish twats, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Tasked to expand the empire, General Acacias (Pedro Pascal) leads an attack on Numidia in North Africa, coming up against Paul Mescal's Verus. Once this speccy set piece is over, now-widower Verus finds himself on route to the fighting stadia, where he catches the eye of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a kind of antiquity Don King. Verus is driven by rage, hungry for revenge on those who killed his wife, but there seems to be more to his story. And those familiar with the original (or anyone who's read anything online about this film) will probably know what, but I'm not about to drop the cat bag. It's beautifully shot by lenser supremo, John Mathieson, especially one silvery sequence near the start where Deaths arrive on a...

Sand Land (Me) (Kids)

Popped down to Palace cinema in the city for a packed screening of Sand Land , part of the Japanese Film Festival Australia . Created by Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame), this started as a manga book series in 2000. It seems this film was made slightly before, or at the same time as a TV series covering similar ground. That ground being a Mad Max style wasteland where the water supply is controlled and sold by a rotund King (Chafûrin). An old, local sherriff, Rao (Kazuhiro Yamaji), suspects there's a source of water in the desert a few days drive away and so decides to investigate. Knowing he'll need help, he approaches the gang of demons who live nearby. The demons chosen to accompany Rao are the keen Beelzebub (Mutsumi Tamura) and the less enthused Thief (Chô). The trio head off but are soon beset by issues, including enormous sand snakes, marauding punks and the King's military units. As their vehicles tyres were punctured by said punks, Rao commandeers a tank, set...

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