Kevin's Top Ten Films of 2020
“One of the things I love most about this life is that there's no final goodbye. You know, I've met hundreds of people out here and I don't ever say a final goodbye. I always just say, ‘I'll see you down the road.’"
It’s hard not to view this year in movies in the context of the year of 2020. Many of these features are what we turned to when things went the worst. They took us far away from the present or sometimes felt like reflections of our current state.
The year graced us with a David Fincher feature Mank that looked back through Old Hollywood as the current Hollywood saw a resounding flux in the business. In tandem, Kitty Green’s The Assistant distilled the claustrophobia and trauma of a pivotal MeToo scenario in the same industry. The dense puzzle of I’m Thinking of Ending Things distracted from the ongoing news cycle. And films like Nomadland showed some of the people who suffer most in our current economic system.
Broadway went to the big screen in big, eye-catching ways with Hamilton and in more individual and touching manners with What the Constitution Means to Me. The hearing loss of Sound of Metal’s Ruben had us reconsidering what matters most to us, and recognizing that after some moments, things are likely to never be the same again.
It is crushing that none of my favorite films screened in a movie theater this year. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an abundance of excellent entries to talk about. So without any further ado…
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Honorable Mentions
Nomadland, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Mank, The Assistant, Hamilton, What the Constitution Means to Me, Sound of Metal, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Soul
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10. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
When most 93-year-old men begin to tell you what’s wrong with the world, you ignore them. But David Attenborough is not most men. After nearly 70 years delivering globe-spanning documentaries on the extraordinary diversity of the natural world, A Life of Our Planet brings its ongoing destruction to our feet. Quite simply, the way in which humans live is eroding the planet. The consequences are available for all to see. Damage during fire season in California increases each year. “Once-in-a-lifetime” floods in the Mid-West happen now with more frequency. This year’s Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record. A Life of Our Planet begins as Attenborough’s personal testament to the loss of our planet’s wild places in his own lifespan. It ends, however, with Attenborough’s pleas for substantial change to make our ways of living on this planet more sustainable. Although Attenborough’s infectious adoration for nature is in top form here, the darker edge to A Life on Our Planet encapsulates the urgency of the problem in a compelling, and sometimes hopeful, manner.
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9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Eliza Hitman’s sparse and stark Never Rarely Sometimes Always is nothing short of horrific. In it, we witness the obstacles Pennslyvanian teen Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) endures to gain access to a safe abortion. After her own methods to induce her miscarriage fail, she crosses state lines to New York City. Through it all, Hitman’s focus is unwavering. Autumn is fully centered; her choice is never questioned. Instead the veneer of quiet resilience in Flanigan’s performance exposes the cracks in the system that funnel those most in need into more precarious circumstances. When a particularly effective scene between Autumn and a Planned Parenthood counselor arises, Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ often-hidden heart strings are plucked.
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review on the film here.
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8. First Cow
With past work like Meek’s Cutoff, director and co-writer Kelly Reichardt returns to familiar territory with First Cow, a film set during the early 19th Century settling of Oregon by non-natives. History class may have led us to believe such a backdrop would be full of adventures, but First Cow forsakes this notion and produces a compelling glimpse of the bond between a chef, Cookie (John Magaro) and resourceful immigrant King-Lu (Orion Lee). The pair stumble upon the lucrative job of baking oily cakes for their small town but the cakes require the stealing of milk from the only cow in the area, owned by a wealthy and influential figure. In a befittingly minimal style that Reichardt has become known for, Cookie and King-Lu’s produce such authentic chemistry together that I found myself being swept up by the lumbering current of First Cow in a surprising way. Reichardt seems to realize that sometimes knowing our history means revising our misconceptions about it.
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review on the film here.
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7. Lovers Rock
One of two Small Axe films included on this list, Lovers Rock contains the human connection many of us are missing right now. As an audience, we experience the West Indian community of early 1980’s Britain via a single house party. The turnable and speakers are set up for reggae, the living room is cleared for the swaying of bodies to music. The dance floor becomes infectious in director Steve McQueen's picture as discrete groups intermingle before taking the plunge and pairing off. McQueen’s camera finds the contact between arms and torsos in a tender manner. The living room feels like an entire universe unto itself, an oasis of locked eyes, swaying hips, and whispers in ears. Through the haze of the constant smoke, we bask in joy, in delight, and in the powerful community as the dancers escape with music. The pairs on the dance floor crooning in unison, declare “I’ve been wanting you. For so long, it's a shame.”
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review on the film here.
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6. Mangrove
The Mangrove 9 find themselves on trial in 1970 London, accused of inciting a riot during their protests about the police targeting local Caribbean restaurant The Mangrove. Do the nine fight the charges and risk the full punishment if they lose or plead guilty and hope for a more lenient sentencing? Nothing in their life so far has given them any indication that the British justice system will be impartial in their trial, no matter their decision. In fact, the phrase “faith in the British justice system” is met with near unanimous laughter by the nine. Perhaps they laugh because they know the police harass their friends and family while simply walking back from the grocery store. Or maybe it’s that when community members disappear, the local jail is where they usually can be found, suspiciously abused and released with no charges. Or maybe every attempt of escalating these issues to local law enforcement, national law enforcement, and local representatives is met with disbelief. Whatever it may be, the Mangrove 9 seem to laugh because they tire of perpetual injustice. Director Steve McQueen, with the help of a stellar performance from Shaun Parkes as Mangrove owner Frank Crichlow, capture the zeal of those who feel wronged. They’re in the streets because their fight isn’t over.
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review on the film here.
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5. My Brother Jordan
There has been so much loss this year, and most times it is hard to quantify it all. But films like My Brother Jordan allow us to measure the influence a single life can have on so many. The majority of its hour runtime is devoted to home videos of Jordan Robinson, in many ways your average white, suburban youth. Jordan played high school, then college, basketball. Jordan loved those close to him, and was loved so dearly in return. Then Jordan was lost, and in his place seemed to be a mile long crater. My Brother Jordan is painstakingly assembled in clips and voiceover by one of Jordan’s living brothers Justin. Justin paints a portrait of Jordan so vivd that you ache for a loss you didn’t bear before hitting play. Love lasts longer than life and it’s a beautiful, if harrowing, thing to see on the silver screen.
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4. Shirley
Josephine Decker’s twisted tale of horror author Shirley Jackson’s is thrillingly horrible. Shirley herself would take that description as a compliment. Newly married Fred and Rose find themselves living temporarily in the home of Shirley (Elisabeth Moss) and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg). Unbeknownst to them, they have been ensnared in a cat and mouse game of artist and muse as Shirley works on her highly anticipated new story. Breaking from nearly every biopic norm, Shirley has something rotting at its core that hasn’t quite reached its surface — like one of those brooding flowers that fantastically blooms once per decade. As you crowd around it for your view, a stench creeps in from the dazzling petals. It wafts over you in waves until it can’t be ignored any longer. You’ve forgotten about it's beauty and your full attention is now devoted to that odor. You can’t look away, insidious as it is.
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review on the film here.
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3. Minari
The American Dream may have never have seemed so nuanced or small-scale than in Lee Isaac Chung’s tender Minari. Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) has brought his family to 1980’s Arkansas to start a farm growing Korean crop. His wife Monica is apprehensive about the sudden change from their California home, and worries for the effect on their children and their grandmother who cram into the sweltering mobile home in the middle of the grassy field. But Jacob persists, suspecting that if he can get his initial batch of vegetables sold it could mean all the difference for his family. Bolstered by Emile Mosseri’s endearing score and Yeun’s compelling stoicism, Minari’s search for finding a place in one’s own family and country is absorbing as anything I saw this year.
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2. Time
Most 21-year-old stories with the criminal justice system in this country do not end well. In a way, Time is no different than most of those stories. It highlights the average injustice in the judicial system. The country is more concerned with locking away lives than reintroducing them back into society. But with Fox Rich’s never-ending perseverance to see her husband released from his sixty-year sentence we see how commonplace this story has become, especially for minorities who are disproportionally effected by the system. The perseverance of Fox, in the face of everything, is endless. Through decades we see footage of her fight alongside her tenacity in raising her family. In a year where heroes were found in the everyday workers of grocery stories and health care employees, Fox Rich carves out her own chunk of admiration.
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1. Dick Johnson is Dead
Some movies feel like small miracles for existing. Like some confluence of events lined up perfectly and a camera happened to be rolling. Kirsten Johnson’s ode to her father feels like one of those. Dick Johnson, the man, is 86 and has dementia. The disease took his wife years ago, and now his daughter, and acclaimed documentarian, Kirsten Johnston is shepherding his father down this life path with all that is entails. With the time they have left together, they have chosen to film a series of cinematic deaths of Dick. We see him tumble down stairs to his demise. An air conditioner lands on his head leaving catastrophic damage. The vignettes are meant to be cathartic and are effective to a point. But the camera continues to roll behind the set of the staged death. We see Dick become confused at moments while filming his series fake demises. The look of recognition in seeing his daughter is absent at times. Both Dick and Kirsten are aware of these moments, and continue to trudge on. There’s no time to waste.
We know our most loved ones will pass eventually and we will have to endure that pain. Dick Johnson is Dead does not shy from the searing pain of losing a loved parent, but it also basks in the enduring joy of having them in your life. Such an emotional spectrum is truly mighty to behold.
In an interview describing the film, Kirsten Johnston “What I’m trying to do is accompany my father to the edge of this cliff, right?” Johnson continues. “At some unexpected moment, he’s going to drop off the cliff and then he’s gone. We’ve walked along the cliff; he fell off the cliff. But he’s only fallen five feet down. He’s hanging by a branch. I am standing at the top of the cliff, looking at my father five feet down holding on to a branch. And I’m saying, ‘I can’t come get you. You’ve got to stay there.’ It’s like, Are you kidding? No human should have to do this. And yet this is what humans have to do, right? At a certain point, you have to stay at the top of the cliff.”
There’s not much more to be said after that. Dick Johnson is Dead is a wrecking ball of a film.
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Cinema As We Know It’s Best of 2020 Lists
All our favorites from the worst livable year on record
