My 10 favorite movies of 2020
Paramount
Full disclosure: In this year, with so much loss and uncertainty and and and and, I just didn’t have the attention span for the slow burns. There are a lot of acclaimed movies this year that really, really, really take their time, and I just couldn’t do it. That’s not a commentary on the work itself but a recognition of my own preferences at this time, so feel free to put an asterisk or five next to the titles on this list as you see fit.
That said, these are the ones that made the biggest impact on me in 2020, a terrible year for the world and a strange, limited year for movies. It doesn’t feel definitive at all, not in the way a Top 10 always has before, but we’re all doing the best we can right now so here goes!
1. Spontaneous
What sounds like midnight movie fodder -- high school seniors are exploding, and no one knows why or who will be next -- becomes a daring and spectacular genre mash-up for this era. Terrifying, funny, full of heart and incredibly sad, “Spontaneous” could be a metaphor for school violence, or COVID-19, or just your everyday aneurysm out of nowhere. In a year where connection to others feels so valuable and fragile, and in a period where literal generations are growing up feeling like their chances of growing old are slim, I’m blown away that this strange, difficult movie, starring Katherine Langford (“13 Reasons Why”) and Charlie Plummer (“Looking for Alaska”), exists and so deftly accomplishes the inherent hope and fear of 21st century America. Overlooked and amazing.
2. Rewind
An unshakeable portrait of sexual abuse's impact on a family, history as the source of explanations, and personality being at the mercy of experience and trauma, the 83-minute "Rewind" features home movies and family interviews in a way that overwhelms with its storytelling clarity and heartbreaking power. A courageous, devastating work from director Sasha Joseph Neulinger, with revealing, tragic children's drawings that must be seen to be believed.
3. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Does it feel like it’s happening on stage? Somewhat, yes. Does that matter? I say no. In any form “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” taken from August Wilson’s play, is electric, a combination of exceptional music and riveting conversation, commenting on institutional racism, identity, self-actualization, creative ownership and the exploitation and commoditization of talent that are set nearly 100 years ago but plenty relevant today without having to be blunt about it. In his final performance Chadwick Boseman is remarkable: strong, wounded, hopeful, angry, determined, scared. A perfect match for the lively, jazzy blues, designed to take troubles away but, as Ma Rainey (Viola Davis, also fantastic) says, originated as a means to understand and reconcile with the world. “Black Bottom” cooks and simmers, wonders and fights. Forget the abysmal “Soul”; this is the heart of music, and the experience that drives it.
4. Straight Up
I wrote a full review of this hilarious, quick-witted romantic comedy, so I’m just going to leave that here.
5. The Truffle Hunters (opening in early 2021)
Intimate, a little strange and very beautiful, "The Truffle Hunters" shares the personality of its aged subjects and their target as they search for valuable mushrooms in obscure Italian countryside locations, trusty truffle-finding dogs in tow. Find me someone who doesn't want to go to these places, spend time with these people and taste/smell these truffles, and I will show you someone who does not know how to embrace life. This documentary of food and fulfillment is a joyous, engrossing trip toward something simple and pure -- especially when seen as a boderline erotic exploration of the satisfaction that can exist in frequent solitude.
6. The Invisible Man
Writer/director Leigh Wannell wrote the original “Saw” and several other installments, so it’s saying a lot that I’m able to praise just how impressively executed his update of “The Invisible Man” is. Starring Elisabeth Moss, the film blends some of the year’s best cinematography and special effects with a gasp-inducing story of abuse, and one woman’s insistence that everyone else is wrong to think she is no longer being hunted. Crisp and menacing.
7. Kajillionaire
I’m a much bigger fan of writer/director Miranda July’s other films (“Me and You and Everyone We Know,” “The Future”), but those are both so brilliant that it’s hard to keep hitting that level every time. “Kajillionaire” feels messier, less deliberate, but its story of grifter parents (Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger) and the daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) paying the price for their unsupportive quirks still delivers several quintessentially July-ian scenes of astounding, unique power. Flaws and all, it’s a welcome opportunity to think and debate.
8. Banana Split
This movie is so funny and so fun and, again, I’m going to leave the full review here for more praise.
9. The Surrogate
Best to go into this thought-provoking drama knowing only the basics -- a couple hires their friend to act as a surrogate for them, and a diagnosis of Down syndrome during the pregnancy has a large impact on everyone involved -- so you can best appreciated how writer-director Jeremy Hersh gives room for many perspectives without judgment or pretending to know the answers to hard questions. Jasmine Batchelor is really good in the title role, and the movie is another that’s very worthy of conversation afterwards.
10. Pieces of a Woman (arriving Jan. 7, 2021 on Netflix)
No one can be prepared for unimaginable heartbreak. I’m not sure what a movie can do with that either. “Pieces of a Woman,” however, is what “Manchester by the Sea” should have been. It revolves a story around life-shattering tragedy but spends its time in the period shortly after, when grief is most explosive, most impossible. That’s really all I want to say about this, other than that Vanessa Kirby is extraordinary in the film and deserves any acclaim she receives. Not a perfect script, but a courageous, challenging examination of the aftershocks of devastation.
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