Favorite newish movies
It’s a golden age for documentaries. Enjoy it before Disneymoth hires Questlove to direct Black Panther: The Musical: The Series.
Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, 2020) Prime
Time (Garrett Bradley, 2020) Prime
Collective (Alexander Nanau, 2019) Hulu
Summer of Soul (Questlove, 2021) Hulu
Uncut Gems (John & Benny Safdie, 2019) Netflix
The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles, 2018) Netflix
Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo, 2011)
Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018) Hulu
Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019) Prime
The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016) Prime
Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020) Prime
Best new-to-me old movie was Hud. Paul Newman, what a scoundrel!
Ten favorite TV episodes (Small Axe doesn’t count)
Caveat: my TV watching is extremely haphazard and incomplete. Having said that, I May Destroy You seems like it goes very high up the all-time single-season list? It’s very good at capturing how being a good person and living a moral life are not as aligned as one might wish, and how trying to be both in a society where plenty are trying to be neither requires a degree of callousness, if not cruelty. Also, it’s pretty funny (though not Jackie Daytona funny.)
I May Destroy You: Happy Animals (HBO)
I May Destroy You: It Just Came Up
I May Destroy You: Would You Like to Know the Sex?
What We Do in the Shadows: Baron’s Night Out (Hulu)
What We Do in the Shadows: On the Run
The Great: The Great (Hulu)
Doom Patrol: Therapy Patrol (HBO)
The Mandalorian: The Rescue (Disney)
Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time (HBO)
The Andy Griffith Show: The Manhunt
Ten most worthwhile or at least interesting music videos of the year, and no, Lovers Rock doesn’t count here either
Top ten things I saw in person
Picasso/Matisse room, Cleveland Museum of Art
Chinese ceramics room, Cleveland Museum of Art
Terminal Tower, Cleveland
American Painting: The Eighties Revisited, Cincinnati Art Museum
Diego Rivera: “Pan American Unity”, SFMOMA
Rodin Galleries, Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Lands End, San Francisco
National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis
Athena Parthenos, The Parthenon, Nashville
Bass Pro Pyramid, Memphis