A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
If there is a unifying trait to my favorite films of the year, it’s that I either saw them in a theater, or that they offered the kind of visual storytelling that richly merited viewing them on a theater screen. Wonderful as streaming is, there’s a seismic visceral impact to meeting a movie on its own terms, in a darkened theater. And the ten films that most rocked my world in 2021 richly deserved presentation in that forum.
Any truly personal and genuinely ambitious film that manages to get made in this safe-bet, profit-driven cinema landscape deserves a round of applause. And The Blazing World, actor Carlson Young’s feature film directorial debut, possesses both ambition and a decidedly personal touch in spades.
Scores of film buffs in the west know and love Tunisia, whether they realize it or not. The North African country’s enjoyed a rep as a popular location for outside movie productions for decades. Its arid but picturesque deserts provided suitably exotic backdrops for scores of international hits, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Star Wars series, The English Patient, and many more.
SIFF’s midnight screenings comprise some of my favorite experiences in a movie theater (usually The Egyptian) over the last two decades. That made looking at the 2021 Fest’s crop of WTF (Weird! Terrifying! Fantastic!) entries a bit of a bittersweet experience.
Expect some goofy, cheap genre fast food fun, served up with a smidge of polish and not much else, and you won’t be disappointed.
Martha: A Picture Story (2019 | Australia | 82 minutes | Selina Miles) Everyone’s a photographer now. And thanks to our cell …
The Mimic (2021 | USA | 82 minutes | Thomas F. Mazziotti) The Mimic doesn’t feel very much like a modern movie, …
I Blame Society (2021 | USA | 85 minutes | Gillian Wallace Horvat) Dark times tend to give birth to dark comedies. …
Sator (2020 | USA | 86 minutes | Jordan Graham) Mark Twain offered one of the most cogent pieces of advice on creating …
Hunted (2020 | Belgium | 87 minutes | Vincent Paronnaud) Hunted, a brand-new thriller debuting on Shudder today, takes what could’ve been …
