The basu! Guide to the Movies

2020 #Top10Films (1-10) 1. A White, White Day (Hvítur, hvítur dagur) 2. Quo Vadis, Aida? 3. Minari 4. First Cow 5. Collective (Collectiv) 6. Dear Comrades! (Dorogie tovarishchi) 7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always 8. Martin Eden 9. Sorry We Missed You 10. Soul - - - #Top10Movies #movies

2020 #Top10Films (11 - 21) Another Round (Druk) Night of the Kings (La Nuit des rois) TIME Wolfwalkers Judas and the Black Messiah Gunda Feels Good Man Promising Young Woman Nomadland Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre) TENET - - - #Top10Movies #movies

2020 #Top10Films (Misc) 3/3 Best Rom-Dram: Two of Us (Deux) / My Octopus Teacher Most Netflix: Mank / Malcolm & Marie Best Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves: The Perfect Candidate Best (Overgrown)Boy Meets World: The King of Staten Island Best Daily Show: Irresistible Best We-Need-More George Clooney: The Midnight Sky Most 2020: Greenland / Little Fish Most Neon-Noir: The Wild Goose Lake (Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui) Best (Elevated)Horror(As Metaphor For…Hoarding😱): Relic Most Nerve-Shredding: The Outpost Most Action: Extraction Most Superhero: Project Power Best Inevitable Disney Live-Action Remake: Onward Best CU Launch: The Invisible Man (2020) Best Nic Cage: Color Out of Space Best At the Drive-In: The Wretched Best College Batchmate: 1BR / Silk Road Best Wait, Is It TV Or Is It HBO: Bad Education Best Quibi(RIP): #FreeRayshawn Best Bollywood: Shikara - A Love Letter from Kashmir / The White Tiger Because I'm a Sentimental Old Fool: Bad Boys for Li...

2020 #Top10Films (Misc) 2/3 Best Initials: MLK/FBI Best The Kids Are All Right: Boys State Best Life-Flashing-Before-Your-Eyes: 17 Blocks / Beastie Boys Story Best Documentary-ish: The Painter and the Thief / The Mole Agent Most Holy Bleep: 'Til Kingdom Come Most Herzog: Fireball - Visitors From Darker Worlds Most Inspirational: Crip Camp / John Lewis: Good Trouble / Slay the Dragon Best Good Boy: Love and Monsters Best Old Guys Rule: Let Him Go Best Western: News of the World Best Boomer: Greyhound Best Millennial: Palm Springs Best Rom-Com: The Broken Hearts Gallery / Superintelligence - - - #Top10Movies #movies

2020 #Top10Films (Misc) 1/3 Best 2019 Film Watched in 2020: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) Best Acting: The Father Best You *Can* Go Home Again: Borat 2 / Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Most Awards Season: Sound of Metal Most Terrifying: The Dissident / The Assistant Most Homesick: Uncle Frank Best Play: One Night in Miami Best Eva Green: Proxima Best Kate Winslet: Ammonite Best Tahar Rahim: The Mauritanian Best Delroy Lindo: Da 5 Bloods Best Chadwick Boseman: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Best Rosamund Pike: I Care a Lot / Radioactive Best Coen Sis: Blow the Man Down Best Tarantino: Bacurau Best David Lynch: What Did Jack Do? Best *Indie*: The Vast of Night Best Debut: Once Upon a River - - - #Top10Movies #movies

2021 #Oscar Picks  Who Will Win (Who  Should  Win) Picture: Nomadland (Minari) Director: Chloe Zhao, Nomadland (Lee Isaac Chung, Minari) Actor: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Anthony Hopkins) Actress: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman (Andra Day) Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah (LaKeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah) Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari (Maria Bakalova) Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman (Minari) Adapted Screenplay: The Father (One Night in Miami / The White Tiger) Foreign Film: Another Round (Quo Vadis, Aida?) Documentary: My Octopus Teacher (Collective) Cinematography: Nomadland (Judas and the Black Messiah) Animated: Soul (Wolfwalkers) Editing: Sound of Metal ( 🤷‍♀️ ) Score: Soul (Minari) Song: Speak Now, One Night in Miami (Eurovision) Sound: Sound of Metal (Mank) Visual Effects: Tenet (Tenet) Production Design: Mank (The Father) Costume Design: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Mank) Makeu...

#QuoVadisAida? 🤭 Holy [Bleep]! Holyyyyy [Bleeeep]! Shattering, devastating, unflinching, blood-boiling, nerve-racking cinematic triumph that will have your heart thumping out of your chest until the bitter end…and then the epilogue will splinter it into a million pieces. Look, I know, I know, when you're dealing with subject matter such as this, it's a little, uh, crass, to discuss the craftspersonship behind it, but it is a movie, after all, so… my goodness, *stunning* writing and directing by young Zbanic(give her *all* the #Oscars), distilling something as massive as this historical backdrop into something as universally relatable as the travails of a single family all the while keeping you in the loop of all the machinations going on, or more accurately, *not* going on behind the scenes by the powers-that-be. It's all aided by the precise editing, deliberately, and inexorably building up to the ending. And the cinematography: textured, well-lit, meaningful closeup...

#TheFather Yup, the hype you've heard is true, the acting is *extra*ordinary: Poots, Colman, &, of course, the one, the *only* Hopkins! What a film debut for young Zeller(wait, he's already a well-established, award-winning playwright, jeez, over-achieve much🤩!), six #Oscars noms right off the bat, helped, of course, by the great Hampton(full disclosure: I only know his estimable film output…sheesh, I gotta get more cultured😜). And the production designer…that London flat, holy [bleep]!, such stuff as real-estate-dreams are made on. Oh, yeah, the acting, look at this point *every*one loves Colman, the World's Worst Kept Actors'-Actor Secret, and she is absolutely vital here, good g*d she breaks your heart(and chills you for an #Amour-second😨). But, dude, how about ray-of-sunshine Poots(finally given a chance to act in her mother tongue)?, in fact, that Bathrobe Whisky Scene will be studied in acting workshops for decades to come. But, dude, this th...

#Minari Wonderful, just bl**dy wonderful! So achingly beautiful it breaks your d*mn heart! Full marks to Chung for having the confidence in the audience to let this genteel movie wash over you, instead of having it hit you over the head. A lovely, nuanced, little film that doesn't resort to easy, cliched stereotypes(trust me, you'll know the lack of them when you don't see them), and that takes the auto out of autofiction, so instead of navel-gazing, you have a piece of work that speaks to all of u.s. …er, I mean, us, us😇! Talk about the invisible art of editing, the gentle rhythms here, well, to use a sports cliche(c'mon man, hasn't the film taught you anything?), lets the movie come to you. Just open your heart and let it in. The central ensemble fits together like a perfect jigsaw. Man, Yeun(TBH's fave on #TWD from the *very* beginning), following the Joseph Gordon-Levitt hit-TV-to-indie model, a CU has to be next, no? And, good lord, Youn is so ...

#SoundOfMetal Good, clean, #Whiplash-meets-#ChildrenOfALesserGod Awards-Bait fun. Don't think too hard about cute stuff like plot mechanics, character motivations, character decisions, logistics, etc. etc. etc., just marvel at the how precisely the young filmmaker crafted this in a (#Sundance?)lab for maximum Festival/Awards/#Oscars impact. He could teach a whole MasterClass on that(may as well, no?, everyone seems to be teaching everything on ye olde MC these days). More than Acting-With-A-Capital-A, I truly am a sucker for The Rylance School of Underacting-With-A-Capital-U-And-A that Ahmed seems to excel in. It truly is a remarkable thing: stare longingly off camera with a blank expression and let the critics fall over themselves trying to fill in the, ahem, blank. Works…every…time. And Cooke's accent, I'm always surprised to find out she's British, she sounds pukka American to me. Kudos to Becker and the sound design, principally because there's so mu...

#TIME A simply extraordinary documentary that will move you beyond words. I think it was the late, great #RogerEbert who remarked that the, uh, remarkable #UpSeries wasn't merely about time, but it was time itself. Man, is that observation so apt here. Time - the mesmeric, no-talking-heads, you are there editing rhythms, it completely pulls you into the family's world so you acutely feel the individual impact that an abstract, and nebulous?, a concept as the criminal justice system has on people. The black and white cinematography is incredible, really, making the whole film film out of time, timeless, and those long, slow, ominous zooms…and speaking of editing, I missed the #Oscars bylaws disqualifying documentaries from the editing category…I mean, if there was a film that deserved an editing #Oscar nom, it's this one. But, yeah, it's all at the service of the remarkable woman at the center of it all and her quest: Fox Rich. Charismatic, relentless, firm, ...

#Voyagers Good, clean #LordOfTheFlies YA poli-sci-fi fun. Expert craftsmanship, especially when you consider the budget for indie-sci-fi's. Beautiful work by the DP(well-lit scenes so you don't have to squint, imagine that?, and those richly saturated colours!), composer(not resorting to easy sci-fi tropes), and esp the drool-worthy production design(that, too, on a budget!). And, to top it all off, expert sound design by Hsu, the hardest-working (sound)man in the indie film biz👏! And the kids?, well, they're certainly all right, highlighted by a terrific villain in Whitehead, kid's a keeper. - - - #NeilBurger #PaulHsu #ScottChambliss #EnriqueChediak #TrevorGureckis #FionnWhitehead #TyeSheridan #LilyRoseDepp(#VanessaParadis's kid!, boy time moves fast😳!) #ChanteAdams #ViveikKalra(#BlindedByTheLight!) #IsaacHempsteadWright(#GoT!) #ColinFarrell(yes, that CF, be still TBH's beating heart!) @voyagersfilm @lionsgate @neil.burger

#MaRaineysBlackBottom Good, clean, sturdily-made stage-to-streaming-screen fun. But if it's ultimately remembered for the final part of Boseman's cinematic legacy, then that's a fine thing to be remembered for 😔 Man, you could write a thesis untangling all the stuff that's roiling underneath😳… BTW, Santiago-Hudson, have you seen his one-man #LackawannaBlues?! That's one of the all-time theatrical experiences! That ensemble fires on *all* cylinders: Coyne(love that guy, ever since the shortlived #Alcatraz, which was also the first time I saw someone called, oh, I dunno, #RamiMalek🤩), Domingo(dude's fantastic in his inimitable slow-burn way), Paige(a lot of easy charisma), Turman(completely stealing the show in #Fargo, which reminds me, I gotta finish it!), and, of course, Davis, once again just laying waste to all before her…powerhouse. But, yeah, Boseman, man, Boseman. Before his untimely passing I think the mainstream audience was mostly aware o...

#GodzillaVsKong Good, clean monstermano-a-monstermano-meets-#IceAge-3-meets-#PacificRim fun. What's that line film critics use?, a movie for our time, of its time?, well, given *every*thing that's happened, this certainly is that, no? It's always good to see Hall, Dennison(WilderKid!), & Eric Northman, but, man, do Tyree Henry and esp Hottle steal the show. Look, I know this thing is what it is, but a pat on the back for the producers to actually go out and find a hearing-impaired kid to play the part of a hearing impaired kid. Kid's a natural, and hopefully Hollywood will allow her to have the career she deserves. Okay, now back to our regular programming…right, Godzilla vs. Kong! Two giant titans battling it out for the future of the #MonsterVerse, er, I mean, our *uni*verse, our universe. Which Warner Bros. IP's gonna join the royal rumble for the next installment? Baby Kong vs. Lil' Zilla? New Bats v. New Supes? Scooby vs. Scrappy? Streaming ...

RIP #BertrandTavernier One of the all-time great French directors, and an affable, endearing, accessible film historian, who taught the world. Sadly, I caught up with him towards the end with his seminal (and, uh, honestly, a "cheat" for someone like me) My Journey Through French Cinema. That was the springboard for me to seek out his films, and idiot that I am, I sorta lapsed after his most well-known ones. It's a never a good idea to judge anyone by their "greatest" hits, but I was so taken in by the ones that I saw, focused on the characters, letting the story develop organically, until the end when you realise you've been taken on an incredible emotional journey without even realising it. The work of a true master, no fancy pyrotechnics, just a seamless world that we felt we were just peeking into. Now that those pesky variants are circulating, and it may not be bad idea to stay at home a little while longer, why not do yourself the favour ...

RIP #BertrandTavernier One of the all-time great French directors, and an affable, endearing, accessible film historian, who taught the world. Sadly, I caught up with him towards the end with his seminal (and, uh, honestly, a "cheat" for someone like me) My Journey Through French Cinema. That was the springboard for me to seek out his films, and idiot that I am, I sorta lapsed after his most well-known ones. It's a never a good idea to judge anyone by their "greatest" hits, but I was so taken in by the ones that I saw, focused on the characters, letting the story develop organically, until the end when you realise you've been taken on an incredible emotional journey without even realising it. The work of a true master, no fancy pyrotechnics, just a seamless world that we felt we were just peeking into. Now that those pesky variants are circulating, and it may not be bad idea to stay at home a little while longer, why not do yourself the favour o...