Sunday, January 30, 2022

the 2021 jdb film awards!

Greetings all. After much thought and contemplation, I decided I'm ready to share my personal winners and nominees for the 2021 jdb awards for film!


VISUAL EFFECTS



DUNE


I wasn't dazzled by Dune as a movie (or part of a movie), but I was dazzled by its special effects--a wizardly conjuring of plaintive, nightmarish imagery that leaped between the magnificent and the minutiae.

Director Denis Villeneuve's films continue to spellbind.



nominees


ANNETTE (three cheers for Baby Annette!)

THE FRENCH DISPATCH

THE GREEN KNIGHT

A QUIET PLACE PART II



SOUND




MEMORIA


Just because a movie is primarily about SOUND, doesn't necessarily make it a shoo-in here. But the use of sound is transfixing, surprising, scary, and meditative in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film. The scene where Tilda Swinton, almost desperately, tries to explain and recreate the thumping sound she's plagued with hearing with the help of an audio engineer, is particularly my favorite.




nominees


THE ANCIENT WOODS

THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS

THE LAST DUEL

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND




MAKE-UP & HAIR





TITANE


As in Julia Ducournau's other film Raw, the make-up and prosthetic work hits a nerve as well in Titane, so to speak, and digs into the film's feverish thematic and visual ferocity.  




nominees


CRUELLA

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

SAINT MAUD

THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY 



COSTUME DESIGN



Jacqueline Durran, SPENCER 


"... what is useful is a dissonance between the costumes and what’s happening to the person." - Durran





nominees


Jenny Beavan, CRUELLA

Trayce Gigi Field, BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR

Paul Tazewell, WEST SIDE STORY

Janty Yates, THE LAST DUEL



ART DIRECTION / PRODUCTION DESIGN



THE FRENCH DISPATCH 


Wes Anderson movies are usually all about the aesthetic, and it's difficult, as much as I found this particular film itself somewhat uneven, not to be awestruck by the movement and vitality of the sets and backdrops. 

This is the third win from a Wes Anderson film in this category, the other two being Moonrise Kingdom & The Grand Budapest Hotel.






nominees


THE FATHER

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

WEST SIDE STORY



SONG



"Seize Printemps," SPRING BLOSSOM


Felt a little underwhelmed by original song choices this year, the twinkly fleeting title song ditty performed by Suzanne Lindon, remarkably also the film's director, writer and actress, was a surprising hit of melancholy.





nominees


“Fight for You,” JUDAS & THE BLACK MESSIAH

"Tigress & Tweed," THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY



ORIGINAL SCORE



Jonny Greenwood, SPENCER 


Once I heard that tumbling piano motif trying to break out and also going in circles, much like the film's central character, I was totally slung into the movie. Later, the motif takes on new dimensions. The score also features distressed jazz and gothic organs. Another dazzling effort from Jonny Greenwood.



Jonny Greenwood also won here in 2017 for Phantom Thread.




nominees (The film score isn't dead! I loved all of these for their inventiveness and musical textures.)


Alexandre Desplat, THE FRENCH DISPATCH

Daniel Hart, THE GREEN KNIGHT

Mica Levi, ZOLA

Clint Mansell, IN THE EARTH



FILM EDITING



Yorgos Lamprinos, THE FATHER 


While Florian Zeller's source material offers a lot of richness and ambiguity, The Father doesn't really work as a film without the cryptic nature of Lamprinos' editing which brings us into a chilling state of mind, even when we are trapped in limited spaces and rooms.




nominees


Olivier Bugge Coutté, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

Jarosław Kamiński, QUO VADIS, AIDA?

Joi McMillon, ZOLA

Claire Simpson, THE LAST DUEL



CINEMATOGRAPHY



Eduard Grau, PASSING 


There were quite a few notable movies this year shot in black and white, but Grau's work on Passing is particularly sublime--both in its visual beauty and its thematic underpinnings.





nominees


Bruno Delbonnel, THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

Claire Mathon, SPENCER

Andrew Droz Palermo, THE GREEN KNIGHT

Ari Wegner, for amazing work on two very different films THE POWER OF THE DOG & ZOLA



DOCUMENTARY



SUMMER OF SOUL (...OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)


Few films felt as ALIVE this year as Questlove's doc as it mines and seamlessly assembles rousing concert footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. 




nominees


ASCENSION

FLEE

PROCESSION

TWO GODS



INTERNATIONAL FILM




THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD 


"The fragmentation of it is what’s fun to me. You can be in the moments. I always imagine a movie is a record with different songs on it, and I want it to only be hits — as you always do. We are trying to ride the structure of the scenes, rather than just create a plot." -Joachim Trier




nominees


BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN

QUO VADIS, AIDA?

THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY



ADAPTED SCREENPLAY



Rebecca Hall, PASSING


"Writing the Passing script felt like working out the movie. The longer I spent with it, the more the vision, the images, even the sound design, began to be clear in my head — like how quiet it needed to be. It was always a tricky book to adapt, because it’s incredibly subtle and incredibly ambiguous. I wanted to keep that ambiguity alive. I didn’t want to signal anything too strongly. But I also wanted to leave an audience with a lot of possible interpretations." -Hall





nominees


Ben Affleck, Matt Damon & Nicole Holofcener, THE LAST DUEL

Jane Campion, THE POWER OF THE DOG

Ryusuke Hamaguchi & Takamasa Oe, DRIVE MY CAR

Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller, THE FATHER



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY




Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD 


"Since we wrote it for Renate, she contributed quite a lot. We showed her an early draft and she provided feedback. It’s a delicate thing to talk about these days. We’re having very valuable conversations that we must have about ideas of gender and representation in art. I have to say that I’ve written men and women before — old and young people who are quite different from me — but I believe as an artist that’s my duty: to try to be truthful and, from myself, try and find a way to understand someone that is not myself, which is the character. The dialog you have between actors and collaborators, that’s the place where we explore something together and question things. It’s not like I’m sitting on a high horse pretending to know the answer. I wanted to tell this story. I always feel that I am all of the characters and I am none of the characters. It was fun because I loved Julie as a character. She means a lot to me." -Trier




nominees


Paul Thomas Anderson, LICORICE PIZZA

Asghar Farhadi, A HERO

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY

Fran Kranz, MASS



ENSEMBLE




RED ROCKET


The mixing of non-professionals and professionals works wonders once again in a Sean Baker movie. The vivid cast and the way they play off one another really ignites Red Rocket.

This is the second win here in this category from a Sean Baker picture, the other being Tangerine.




nominees


LICORICE PIZZA

MASS

THE POWER OF THE DOG

WEST SIDE STORY



SUPPORTING ACTRESS



Ruth Negga, PASSING


I was so stunned by this performance--from her breathtaking first appearance to the intricate balancing of a tricky character throughout.

"Clare fascinated me and repelled me at the same time... and I wanted to understand her." -Negga




nominees


Olivia Colman, THE FATHER

Ariana DeBose, WEST SIDE STORY

Kirsten Dunst, THE POWER OF THE DOG

Mia Wasikowska, BERGMAN ISLAND



SUPPORTING ACTOR



Anders Danielsen Lie, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD 


"...art and culture is like our collective memory, and that will remain after we're gone. I think on a more personal level of the character, the speech is also realization that all you have left as you grow older is the memories and memories of past experiences. All the things that you have been through in your life is ultimately what remains and that constitutes your identity, who you are. It's almost as if it's impossible to understand yourself if you don't have any memories, any stories about your life. There's a melancholy of the passage of time in the character. In this film, I think it's a recurrent theme in the Oslo trilogy and in Joachim Trier's movies. The monologue or the speech in the script, you never really know when you shoot the movie, what ends up being focused, thematic representation of something." -Anders Danielsen Lie



nominees


Colman Domingo, ZOLA

Troy Kotsur, CODA

Vincent Lindon, TITANE

Kodi Smit-McPhee, THE POWER OF THE DOG



ACTRESS


Martha Plimpton, MASS 



While Mass functions as an ensemble chamber drama, Martha Plimpton's singular, devasating performance stuck with me all throughout the year--its ache and torment, the spoken and the unspoken. It's also exciting see such a talented actor I've loved for decades get a great part to work with.


"She’s very tightly wound and balled up. She knows what has to happen and that she’s supposed to do something, do these things, say these words, but as she says in the film “I just don’t know if I can say it.” She’s in a battle with herself, and when it pours forth from her, it surprises her as much as anyone else. I don’t think she can even envisage saying the words until they are actually coming out of her mouth. And I think that’s the nature of that kind of experience, although I certainly never had anything near the experience that Gail is having. That’s what so hard for us as human beings, because we think of forgiveness or redemption or grace as some sort of achievement that we come to after doing all of this hard work, when actually it’s a process, and there’s an ebb and flow to it. It’s the opening of the door rather than the closing of it. That’s why I think “closure” is such a silly concept." -Plimpton


nominees


Jasna Đjuričić, QUO VADIS, AIDA?

Alana Haim, LICORICE PIZZA

Renate Reinsve, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

Mary Twala, THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION




ACTOR



Anthony Hopkins, THE FATHER 


Another performance of the ages from Hopkins.



“I just looked around the set... I saw on the nightstand a pair of glasses I wore, a book and the photograph of the two daughters. And it suddenly hit me, just in that moment, about the transitoriness of life, the fragility of life. All our little possessions, our glasses, our little things: when you’re dead, you’re gone forever and they are the stagnant last remains. And then they’re scrapped or sold or rot away somewhere in a cupboard and you think ‘that’s life'. It hit me so profoundly. We can’t prove the past exists. I can’t prove to you my mother and father ever existed; we have photographs, but did they really exist? Time is so peculiar.” -Hopkins


nominees


Nicolas Cage, PIG

Clayne Crawford, THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS

Benedict Cumberbatch, THE POWER OF THE DOG

Daniel Kaluuya, JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH



DIRECTOR




Jasmila Žbanić, QUO VADIS, AIDA? 


Extraordinary directing on a tight, tense picture. The final moments are haunting.



"The financing period was very difficult. Everyone said people don’t want to watch a film about genocide. And for a female filmmaker in the Balkans, where societies are still very patriarchal, it is ten times harder to position yourself to make a film. So, when the film premiered and the audience was in tears, I was surprised and beyond happy. It is great to see that audiences love films with difficult subjects as well." -Žbanić



nominees


Rebecca Hall, PASSING

Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION

Joachim Trier, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

Florian Zeller, THE FATHER



PICTURE




THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD


The most disarming picture I saw this year and an unexpected surprise. It hit me emotionally with a cumulative power I wasn't prepared for.



nominees


THE FATHER

LICORICE PIZZA

PASSING

THE POWER OF THE DOG

QUO VADIS, AIDA?

SPENCER

THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION

WEST SIDE STORY

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY




A look at my Top 10 films and other favorites of 2021.


A look back at last year's awards where NOMADLAND won Picture, Director & Adapted Screenplay.



-Jeffery Berg

Friday, January 28, 2022

jeffery berg's top 10 films of 2021



Putting 2021 behind me now... Here goes my top 10 films of the year. 





10. 

WEST SIDE STORY


Steven Spielberg's bold and entertaining take on this enduring musical isn't perfect, particularly in its deviation from Jerome Robbins' classic, subversive ballet-choreography to something more primal and physical, but it remains an exciting statement, and the sparky ensemble cast, specifically Mike Faist, Ariana DeBose and sweet-voiced Rachel Zegler, infuse these characters with new life on the silver screen. Per usual with Spielberg, the crafts are dizzyingly top-notch, but Leonard Bernstein's absolutely gorgeous score and the late Stephen Sondheim's book, are powerfully evoked and orchestrated in this new version. In a different time, it may have been the big event movie of the winter, but with fears of a new, rampant COVID variant and the lopsided excitement for the next Spider Man installment, the movie didn't perform to its expectations. Still, was a simultaneously rousing and tragic watch that I can't wait to see again.





9.

LICORICE PIZZA


I took a solo trip on Thanksgiving evening to catch this on 70 mm in the East Village (my old stomping grounds). It's also here I first saw The Master, now ten (!) years old. Licorice Pizza was an enveloping experience. Paul Thomas Anderson's film is a successful visual and tactile journey back to the early 1970s, but it also rides primarily on the absolutely phenomenal performance by newcomer Alana Haim, who does everything here so naturally and with panache. There are also funny and biting bits by familiar faces, particularly Bradley Cooper and Harriet Sansom Harris. These supporting players' characters tend to be so unabashedly awful and so of their time; meanwhile, Haim and Cooper Hoffman's duo navigates their swirling, confusing affection for one another.




8.

SPENCER


I've been kind of bummed to see the divisiveness that this film has conjured, but I really should not be surprised. It's a bleak outlook on Princess Diana's place within the royal family (and in our memories), and her dream-like, fantastical attempts to re-invoke her name and her past. It's also claustrophobic and repetitive in its chilliness (and very literal with everything), even though its all juxtaposed by sumptuous sets (still can't forget that teal-tiled bathroom!) and costumes. I also responded to the conflicts the film was having with itself: its seeming disgust with itself was fascinating to me. I was here too for Jonny Greenwood's vaulted, melodramatic score in all its variations. 




7.

THE POWER OF THE DOG


While this film didn't hit with the emotional sweep it seems designed to, it's still a devilish, thorny yarn, brought to life by Jane Campion's beautiful direction. It doesn't really need to be said, but Campion is just a such great director--and here, her actors all shine (even Jesse Plemmons in the quietest role) and the visuals are stunning.





6.


WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY


Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has been beyond praised by critics for this year's rambling, wistful Drive My Car, but this film spoke to me much more deeply and viscerally. I found its tryptic of stories incredibly well-written both in dialogue and structure. The performances, too, by the enigmatic ensemble were a highlight. The third story in particular has an airy note of the absurd and the melancholy. A really fantastic film.




5.

THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION


A truly unforgettable and disturbing film of people being moved to the margins until they cannot possibly exist any more. As many films in recent years, like the haunting Aquarius, the conflict of the promise of "progress" versus the soul is analyzed in a bracing way. Mary Twala, who passed away in 2020, is piercing, with a face that invokes so many stories.




4.

PASSING


I have long been a fan of Nella Larsen's work, so it was exciting to see an artist as thoughtful and rigorously intelligent as Rebecca Hall adapting this for the screen. Between Tessa Thompson and a breathtakingly good Ruth Negga, this tale of two women in 1920s Harlem is a glorious achievement. And the film is shot exquisitely and symbolically, but not in a distractingly overstated way, in black & white by Eduard Grau.





3. 

THE FATHER


This is considered more of a 2020 film, but because of the pandemic, it really didn't reach a screen for me until the early months of 2021. I somehow thought it was going to be a pearly, sentimental tale of a daughter taking care of her father struggling with dementia, but it was anything but. It's almost like a gothic Polanski horror picture as it delves into the state of dementia first hand, our sense of place and time constantly subverted and twisted. A confident and stunning directorial debut from Florian Zeller, based upon his play. The Anthony Hopkins performance and moving finale is one for the ages.





2. 


QUO VADIS, AIDA?


I'm realizing now that most of my list are pretty upsetting movies, or movies that deal with traumatic histories. But alas, we live in pretty traumatic times. Many of the greatest films of the year seemed to be able to capture the sensibility of now while also harnessing tragedies of the past. Tight and tense, Jasmila Zbanic's film plumbs the depths of the Srebrenica massacre through the lens of a translator.




1.

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD


Sometimes one can't logically explain how a movie is great because it just slams you in such an emotional way. I was humming along nicely with Joachim Trier's film and all its perfect performances, bittersweetness and idiosyncrasies, and then by the end, I was sucker-punched--alive, buzzing, wired, and terribly sad all at the same time. Rarely does this happen, and I'm so excited it did.




Other notable / favorite films of the year (in the sort-of order of preference at the moment):

The Green Knight, Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Mass, CODA, Rocks, Zola, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Two Gods, The Last Duel, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Flee, Bergman Island, Judas and the Black Messiah, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, The Killing of Two Lovers, Azor, Procession, The Humans, Test Pattern, Tick, Tick… Boom!, Ascension, 7 Prisoners, A Hero, The Velvet Underground, Candyman, Prayers for the Stolen, The World to Come, Shiva Baby, There is No Evil, Wrath of Man, Two of Us, Pig, The Fever, The French Dispatch, Luzzu, The Hand of God,  The Lost Daughter, The Alpinist, Attica, Drive My Car, C’mon C’mon, Memoria, House of Gucci, The Salt of Tears, Who You Think I Am, Val, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Copshop, Last Night in Soho, The Many Saints of Newark, Red Rocket, Nightmare Alley, The Night House

A look back at my Top 10 films of 2020.