CLAYTAYLOR21

As an unfortunate soul who was yet to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, I can safely say that The Royal Tenenbaums is my favorite of Wes Anderson's films. The bleak humour blended with the wonderful performances from an incredible cast bring to life a family struggling to figure out their purpose in the world. Watching them reconcile with one another is really special, and Wes Anderson's style is perfect for this story. This is a movie with a lot of heart that is an extremely enjoyable watch despite its dark themes.

Bad Trip is a good time that is made even better by the fact that, outside of the central characters, all of the reactions are genuine because of the hidden camera style. A few of the pranks were really disgusting and hard to watch, and this isn't a movie that will evoke any sort of emotion in you. The scenes that had only the main characters were also pretty underwhelming and definitely the weakest part of the movie. The best part was seeing the crowd reactions, so I wish they wouldn't have strayed away from that so often. However, even with these flaws, it is quite funny and worth a viewing if you've got 90 minutes to burn.

Mass is a special film that I've never seen anything like. Fran Kranz outdid himself in his directorial debut writing one of the best scripts of the year. He also got marvelous performances out of his actors with Jason Isaacs being the standout to me. The combination of the powerful writing and emotional performances makes this story heartbreaking to watch and impossible to forget. I was also very impressed with the cinematography and editing. For a one-room film with four people sitting around a table, there are numerous incredible shots where they show one character's reaction to something someone else is saying or they show two characters reacting to a comment in completely different ways. This is a marvelous movie about forgiveness and acceptance that is, in my opinion, essential viewing for anyone.

Jessica Chastain is incredible in this movie. Her transformation both visually and personally is absolutely incredible. She perfectly captures the persona of Tammy Faye Baker, a women who is struggling with a manipulative husband and drug abuse but is still trying to remain a good and true person through it all. Chastain even sings, which was a skill I had no idea she possessed. Easily one of the best performances of the year. Supporting her is Andrew Garfield who gives what may be his third best performance of the year, but is still very very strong. The makeup and hair team outdid themselves on this one. Had I not known that it was Chastain and Garfield going into it I would've never figured it out. The prosthetics absolutely transform them and render them unrecognizable. I also adored other technical aspects of the film. It's very appealing to look at. Unfortunately, the writing and story don't hold up to these other strong points. It's hard to figure out how the film's central relationship between Tammy Faye and Jim works when you are constantly cutting three years into the future. There was also a ridiculous amount of product placement for Diet Coke that really bugged me. Additionally, there are a lot of religious themes that didn't work the best for me personally. These issues really hurt the movie's standing in my mind, but I still definitely think it's worth a watch if only for the powerhouse performance of Chastain.

Now that I've seen this movie three times, I finally feel ready to write a review for it. The Power of the Dog is simply outstanding. It's one of the most beautiful movies of the year featuring heartstopping cinematography of sweeping landscapes and a tonally perfect score from Jonny Greenwood who is, in my opinion, the best composer working today. This absorbing atmosphere takes you into a slow burn of a story with four characters that all have loads of depth. The main focus is on Phil Burbank, played flawlessly by Benedict Cumberbatch, as he inflicts his masculine wrath upon his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. The interactions between these four creates a tension-filled ride despite there being little action for much of the film. On first viewing, my only flaw was that I wasn't able to grasp the ending, but on rewatch I was able to catch onto all of the foreshadow and clues that lead up to the shocking climax. Overall, I believe The Power of the Dog to be the best film of 2021, so if you can handle a slow burn please give it a shot.

The Suicide Squad is fantastic. It's filled with great characters with Ratcatcher 2 and Peacemaker being my personal favorites. It's super funny as jokes run on for minutes and just get better as they continue. There's also some great action sequences. One scene that prominently features Harley Quinn was one of my favorites of all of 2021. Despite its silliness and spoofs, this movie still retains a lot of heart, mostly because of the wonderful Ratcatcher 2. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves superhero movies, particularly ones that feature a heavy dose of comedy.

While not being a particularly scary slasher flick, Scream is still a fun movie because of the uncertainty of the situation. It's a lot of fun to try to figure out what will happen next, and many of the characters function as solid red herrings until the big reveal. I also liked the relationship between the two sisters quite a bit as they provided the movie with a little bit of heart. I was genuinely rooting for them both to make it. Aside from them a lot of the characters are pretty shallow and undeveloped, and, as someone with no nostalgia for the franchise, the shoehorning in of past characters felt a little unnecessary. Nonetheless, Scream is an entertaining and self aware horror flick with loads of great meta humour.

I actually liked the first three installments of this series, so going into it I wanted to like this one too. Unfortunately, this is by far the worst of the four movies. It failed to hold my attention for its already short 87 minute runtime, and I didn't laugh once at the humour(mostly slapstick). The animation is decent and the main story about Drac, Johnny, and Mavis is kinda cute with solid messages for the kids about honesty and acceptance, but this is not quite enough to redeem this movie. I get that its intended audience is kids/families, and maybe it would work for them, but for me it was uninteresting and unentertaining until the climax(which was easily the best part of the movie).

I didn't know going in that the King's Man was a war movie, and that aspect of the film surprisingly mostly worked for me. I enjoyed seeing the depiction of key historical events, and the one battle scene shown was one of the best in the movie although it was pretty outlandish that they made it out that everything that happened during the war occured because of two secret spy organizations that were pulling the strings. In addition to being a war movie,this was also, of course, a spy flick. A lot of the slower espionage scenes didn't work for me and felt like a slog, but when the fighting did begin it was a lot of fun. There was spectacular sword fighting choreography throughout with some longer takes than you usually see in today's cut happy cinema. The action sequence at the climax was also spectacular. It was unlike anything I've seen in a movie before, and I thought it was very well executed. I thought the King's Man was a really good time. It doesn't have much emotional payoff or intriguing thematic beats, but it does what is expected and does it well.

The Tender Bar is a really well acted and shot movie with some great themes about dealing with conflict, finding a purpose, and the importance of family. Unfortunately, it falls short of its full potential because of a thoroughly uninteresting and scattered plot that never fully grabbed my attention. I also despised the usage of voiceover in this film as it felt like it was only included to explain things to the audience that shouldn't have needed explaining. Even with all of these problems, I'm still giving The Tender Bar a mixed review rather than a negative one because I genuinely did enjoy parts of this film. The first half hour where JR is still a child was engrossing. I thought that Ben Affleck, the acting standout, was particularly able to shine here. I was also a fan of some of the cinematography as creative shots were used to make dialogue filled scenes more interesting. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but if you like slower dramas then give this one a shot.

It appears that lots of people are loving The Lost Daughter, but unfortunately it just didn't work for me. I found myself uninterested for large portions of the first two acts, and once I became invested I didn't have anyone to root for because all of the characters in this film are despicable. I also felt that there was an overuse of symbolism which took me out of the movie further because I wasn't able to figure out what the symbols were meaning to stand for(this is probably more of a me problem than the film's problem). Additionally, I didn't feel that any of the themes were relatable to me personally, so I didn't feel much payoff from the emotional moments. The only thing I really liked about this film was the performances. I loved Dakota Johnson particularly, while Olivia Colman was great as always. Ed Harris and Jessie Buckley were very good as well. The Lost Daughter takes plenty of risks with an intriguing storytelling technique, but it never all came together for me.

Coda is a simple yet beautiful film about a family of deaf people with one daughter who doesn't share their condition.. This daughter, Ruby, is blessed with a beautiful singing voice that her family can't appreciate. The highlight of the film is the emotional chords it strikes in the third act. I constantly cried for the last thirty minutes because of the powerful screenplay and the perfect performances that demonstrated familial love perfectly. Emilia Jones and Troy Kotsur were the two standouts and both are deserving of award nominations for their tremendous turns. The movie is also extremely funny with the writers leveraging the story's concept to create a lot of laugh out loud moments in the film's first act. My only real problems with CODA are that it has an extremely predictable plot and one character whose inclusion felt unnecessary in Ruby's boyfriend Miles. Fortunately, these problems don't take anything away from the strong emotional beats, so this film made an extremely strong impact on me and will have me thinking about it for days to come.

Licorice Pizza is pure unadulterated fun. This all starts with the fantastic central characters. Gary Valentine and Alana Kane are two of the most fun characters of the year. They are both well-written and fleshed out while being brought to life by great performances from Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman. Watching these two grow up together while having fun and wreaking havoc on Hollywood was an absolute joy. The only problem I have with this film is the discombobulated story. It's all over the place without any real focus. This was mostly fine with me because of how much fun I was having, but it probably would've made the conclusion a bit more satisfying had the plot been just a bit more structured. I still really enjoyed the movie and would definitely recommend anyone to check it out.

House of Gucci is a movie that had a lot of good things going for it but couldn't quite put it all together. First of all, the leading performances from Adam Driver and Lady Gaga were both spectacular. Gaga was extremely entertaining as she took on the persona of the merciless Patricia while Driver gave a much more subtle but equally terrific performance. Unfortunately, I felt that these two were really propping up the movie and preventing it from being a disaster. Jared Leto gave one of the worst performances of the year as an over-the-top man-baby, and this character destroyed what was an otherwise intriguing atmosphere. I also really disliked the third act. It felt like Gaga's character had suddenly disappeared, and the climax was extremely underwhelming. The movie ended almost immediately following this climactic event and the lack of a falling action made the ending feel extremely unsatisfactory. I think that House of Gucci is worth a viewing because of the star turns from its leads, but the rest of the film left me disappointed.

In a year that has featured a plethora of westerns, Old Henry is another decent addition to the genre. The best part of the film is easily the third act which features multiple twists and plenty of action. Unfortunately, this couldn't completely make for the pacing issues in the first two acts, which are extremely slow. The main emotional tentpole of the story should be between Henry and his son, but this fell flat for me because of some bad acting from the boy cast as the son. This film is still worth a view because of its dynamite third act and a great performance in the titular role from Tim Blake Nelson, but it certainly isn't a masterpiece by any means.

Swan Song, a film that unfortunately doesn't seem to be getting the buzz it deserves, poses ethical quandaries that are important to consider as technology continues to evolve. The main character, played be Mahershala Ali, is faced with many of these questions as he tries to make an impossible decision. While all of the acting is wonderful, the standout performance is easily that of Ali, who brings the character of Cameron Turner to life and makes all of the key moments extremely emotional. This is especially true of the climax, which brought me to tears. I do think that this event could have worked even better if Cameron hadn't yet made up his mind, but it was still one of the most impactful scenes I've seen in a movie this year. Swan Song is also beautifully shot as it showcases natural landscapes as well as futuristic technology. My only major flaw with the film is that there was one character whose inclusion to the story felt unnecessary and didn't exactly match the tone, but this character's presence was minor, so it wasn't too big **** changer for me. Swan Song is an emotional character study that will leave viewers asking themselves questions about what they would do if they found themself in Cameron's position.

Being the Ricardos isn't Aaron Sorkin's strongest work, but it's still a good film. Nicole Kidman gives one of the year's best performances as Lucille Ball, and old reliable Javier Bardem is also great as her husband and co-star. The biggest problem with this movie for me was the nonlinear plot structure. There were flashbacks that felt unnecessary to the story's themes and events, and the inclusion of these scenes made the movie feel slightly disconnected. This was really unfortunate because I felt invested in the storyline and probably would've rated this film very highly if not for these moments. Even so, I still enjoyed Being the Ricardos and would especially recommend it to those that are fans of Sorkin, Kidman, or I Love Lucy.

Those Who Wish Me Dead is a fun film with lots of action, great visuals, and powerful performances, particularly from Angelina Jolie and Jon Bernthal. The pacing isn't always perfect as the story moves very quickly at times, but feels rushed at others. This movie also ran into a problem that many modern blockbusters face in that it felt like the characters were incapable of injury despite being in almost certainly fatal incidents. Even with these flaws, this is still a decent movie that is worth giving a view, even if it's for no other reason than having a chance to look at Montana landscapes.

It felt like the plot of Sing 2 existed to give the film an opportunity to squeeze in hit pop tunes rather than those songs being in the movie as a way to advance the plot. This is the film's biggest issue as the characters all feel one dimensional and impossible to connect with. The constant pop music also really took me out of the movie. At times it felt more like listening to the radio than watching a film. The animation is also extremely standard for Illumination as it fails to make any improvements over its predecessor in this vein. I laughed at a few of the jokes, but the comedy was generally very simplistic and underwhelming. Overall, this is a fine movie to watch with the family, but it certainly isn't up to par with the best animated films of the year(Encanto, The Mitchells vs The Machines, Luca).

Don't Look Up is a hilarious yet bleak satirical comedy that certainly is not lacking in things to say. The film highlights important and currently relevant themes such as social media, "political activism", and corrupt leadership. It also features great performances, primarily those of DiCaprio and Lawrence. It seemed that the immense stakes of the story took a bit away from the lead characters and left them feeling a bit underwritten, but much of this was made up for by the terrific lead acting. They made emotional moments that shouldn't have worked some of the best parts of the movie. I also found that most of the comedy really hit for me with Jonah Hill in particular being a highlight in this respect. My one other flaw was that the film had a few side plots that seemed a bit extraneous, but many of these wound up having at least some pay off. In summary, Don't Look Up is hilarious and extremely topical in today's world. I would absolutely recommend giving it a watch.

Encanto is an immaculately animated film with numerous intriguing dynamic characters. Each of the musical numbers is great and necessary in establishing these characters. All of this culminates in a sweet familial tale. Unfortunately, I feel that the story could've used a bit more time on one specific relationship, and the sudden change in one character's demeanor came without necessarily feeling earned. Other than that I really enjoyed this film and think it is one of the best animated features of the year.

Ron's Gone Wrong's biggest problem is that it is about 30 minutes longer than it ideally should be. Many of the side plots are boring and take the attention away from the intriguing and heartfelt relationship between Barney and Ron. Even so, there are some genuinely great moments between these two leads. Those moments along with some terrific animation make this a worthwhile but not obligatory watch for animation fans.

After the first 75 minutes, I thought that The Card Counter was an intriguing but messy film. Then the third act arrived, and my mind was changed completely. The twists and surprises were extremely impactful and will leave me pondering the film for weeks to come. I also think that Oscar Isaac gave a terrific performance as William Tell, who may just be the most interesting character put to screen this year. The cinematography in this film is also fantastic. My only critiques would be the lifeless performance of Tye Sheridan as well as some unclear character motivations.

Nightmare Alley is one of the most thought provoking films I've ever seen. It grabs your attention with stunning circus visuals in the first act, and never lets up with beautiful cinematography prevalent throughout. The powerhouse performances of Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett keep you on your toes, even during the second act, when the plot slows down significantly. Finally, the third act is an absolute thrill ride with a clever ending that will leave you reconsidering everything you've seen. This fantastic conclusion is the icing on the cake for another terrific addition to Guillermo del Toro's body of work.

An incredibly fun film that remains entertaining throughout despite its gargantuan run time. In one of the MCU's most emotional entries to date, Tom Holland gives his best performance yet as Spiderman, and Willem Dafoe is outstanding in his return as the Green Goblin. I also loved a few of the action sequences, particularly one that took place in the mirror dimension. A few decisions some of the characters made didn't make sense to me-especially Doctor Strange-and, as is commonplace in Marvel movies, there was an overabundance of CGI, but those are small nitpicks in what was an otherwise great film. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!