Year in Review: 2021

It's a common truism in film discussion that sequels can never really live up to the original. Many have bemoaned the lack of ambition inherent in franchise follow-ups, but I am going to go out on a limb and declare that I'm relieved that the sequel to 2020 took things a little easier.

I guess that this year was also a sort of sequel for Films and Feelings. Was this a better year for my blog? I hope so. It was certainly a busy one. This harvest of essays, totaling thirteen, included the following:

-"A Quiet Place: Scaredy-Cats Taking Back the Horror Movie" An essay contextualizing "A Quiet Place" within the larger horror genre, drawing attention to the film's many deviations from the genre's template.

-"Toy Story 4: Pixar's Tribute to Regression" A rant about the creative and philosophical laziness inherent in "Toy Story 4."

-"The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Clash of the Titans" A retrospective on how studio meddling sabotaged the 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans."

-"Do I Actually Hate the Disney Remakes?' A User's Guide" An interrogation of the most common complaints against the Disney live-action remakes.

-"Systemic Heartbreak in From Here to Eternity" A study of what the adaptation process of "From Here to Eternity" reveals about society's feelings toward growth on an individual and institutional level.

-"The Many Fathers of Harry Potter" A study of the contributions each director made to the Harry Potter movies.

-"Mamma Mia: Musicals Deserve Better" A rant about "Mamma Mia" as a reflection of the uphill battle musicals face in being taken seriously.

-"No, Disney Didn't Ruin Kipling's The Jungle Book" A case study of the scholarly resistance Disney often faces for adapting pre-existing texts, featuring their animated film version of "The Jungle Book."

-"Superhero Fatigue" A response to elitist dismissal of the modern renaissance of superhero movies.

-"The Paradox of The Graduate" A reflection on "The Graduate" and its contradictory place within film discourse, especially as an item of rebellious 1960s film.

-"Wicked vs Maleficent" A comparison between "Maleficent" and "Wicked," with a special focus on how either text critiques both society and the film it is adapted from.

-"My Criminal Father Surrogate: Masculinity in A Perfect World" A reading of Clint Eastwood's 1993 film, "A Perfect World," that focuses on society's insecurities surrounding masculinity and fatherhood.

-"How Disney Liberated the Musical Genre" A tribute to the Disney animated musical's impact on musical films.

These all represent hours of meditating, writing, researching, second-guessing, and revising. A LOT of revising. Singling out a favorite is impossible: I'll just say that the essay I'm proudest of is always the one I just finished.

My biggest new essay from this year was my Toy Story 4 rant while my biggest piece over all was my review of The Tomorrow War. A surprising number of essays also had quite a bit of carry-over from last year. (To the kindly soul who keeps going back to my "Eternal Sunshine" essay, I hope you're out there living your best life.) That little piece of information is actually particularly comforting to me. It's nice to know that your passion project has some longevity.

Meanwhile, my review count has exploded this year (seventeen reviews in 2021) now that studios are finally releasing movies again. Owing to my desire to support my local movie theater, I foresee that my reviews will continue to favor those released theatrically, but I think movies released on streaming will continue to find their way onto this blog.

I also remember confessing last year that I wasn't sure about how often I would put out more "Professor's Picks" posts. This year I'm confessing that, even with that incredibly low bar, I still ended up not producing nearly as many as I'd anticipated. It's sad, especially since I've recently started to appreciate how they allow me to discuss film in a fuller capacity, and I hope to do better this year. (Which shouldn't be too hard.)

A teaser for my next essay. Any guesses?

Looking forward, I've already blocked out the dates for when I want to have all my pieces up in 2022, and have even marked some of the topics I want to hit this year. The first of such essays is projected for February 15.

Yes, you read that correctly, I made the decision to skip January's essay this year. This owing in large part to the extraordinary amount of content I had to write last month, and also I just needed to come up for air. Following that gap, though, expect my essays to come at my regular monthly interval.

Rust and Bone (2012)

There are still some corners of the film world that I haven't explored very thoroughly yet. In addition to engaging more with classic cinema, I also want to try spotlighting more international and indie films. I think commentary on the mainstream is fun, and even important in a lot of ways, but I also want to acknowledge cinema in all of its breadth and scope.

We've known for a long time that the attention of the masses tends to cluster around specific islands of film. Just so, the rate at which audiences are diverting more attention to fewer projects alarms even the most sour of commentators, and a part of me hopes that I can help diversify our interests. I want this to be a space where we not only look at favorite films, but also perhaps discover new favorites as well.

Thanks everyone for all the support. I hope to be doing this for a long time.

--The Professor

Final reminder that In the Heights was the best thing we got from 2021

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Thawing Disney's Frozen Heart

As a millennial Disney fan and film student in utero, I often thought about what it would have been like to be there when Aladdin or The Little Mermaid , or even “Snow White” or The Jungle Book , premiered to the culture. It’s one thing to grow up and realize you have a piece of film history with you here in your living room. It’s another to get to watch the culture transform as it engages for the first time with something And I have this envy for a great many cinematic works. Like, what I would give to go back to 1946 and tell those losers who dismissed It's a Wonderful Life how they had no idea what they were sleeping on. But the Disney canon’s place within the culture is also specific. Their commitment to delivering hopeful stories to an audience that believes itself beyond such frailties as faith or kindness is unparalleled, and that makes their contributions worth studying and celebrating. And so I didn’t take it for granted during that period in late 2013/early ...

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Clash of the Titans

Anyone else remember the year we spent wondering if we would ever again see a movie that wasn't coming out in 3D? T hat surge in 3D films in the early months of 2010 led to a number of questionable executive decisions. We saw a lot of films envisioned as standard film experiences refitted into the 3D format at the eleventh hour. In the ten years since, 3D stopped being profitable because audiences quickly learned the difference between a film that was designed with the 3D experience in mind and the brazen imitators . Perhaps the most notorious victim of this trend was the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans . Why am I suddenly so obsessed with the fallout of a film gone from the public consciousness ten years now? Maybe it's me recently finishing the first season of Blood of Zeus on Netflix and seeing so clearly what Clash of the Titans very nearly was. Maybe it's my evolving thoughts on the Percy Jacks...

REVIEW: Supergirl

Some will say, "We don't need another edgy superhero!" But that's not what makes the utter mediocrity of DC's new Supergirl so devastating. People were saying "We don't need another X superhero" since 2012, and the post-Infinity saga stupor we've slogged through was not triggered by piling one-too-many superheroes onto the camel's back. The Flash sucked because its perversion of the butterfly effect theory was convoluted and ham-fisted. Black Adam sucked because nobody on that film knew what a moral dilemma actually looks like. "Love and Thunder" sucked because, despite what everyone thought in 2017, Waititi's style only barely worked in "Ragnarok" and was not going to work in a script which feels like it was farted out half-past midnight. Supergirl had none of those issues. The real tragedy of Supergirl is that it so easily could have worked. Drifting around the universe has mostly worked for Sup...

Some Much Needed Love for Megamind

Following this year's Oscars ceremony, filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directors of The Lego Movie , penned an op-ed for Variety bemoaning the stigma around animated films. They report taking issue with Naomi Scott, one of the presenters for best animated film, saying that animated films are some of the most formative experiences a kid has, and that kids tend to watch these films over and over, further noting "I think some of the parents out there know exactly what I'm talking about." Lord and Miller seemed to take this as implying that adults can't appreciate animated films, saying "Surely no one set out to diminish animated films, but it’s high time we set out to elevate them." I didn't personally find Scott's observation that kids make their parents watch the same animated films over and over again innately demeaning--certainly not any more than Schumer joking that her toddler made he...

REVIEW: The Wild Robot

I think I must have known that Chris Sanders had another movie on deck, but I guess I had forgotten it was coming out so soon. For whatever reason, when I saw his name at the end of the credits for The Wild Robot , out this weekend, I was caught off guard ... and then realized that it actually explained a lot. The basic premise felt broadly reminiscent of Lilo & Stitch , and there was at least one sequence that definitely recalled How to Train Your Dragon , both of which Sanders co-directed with Dean Deblois (executive producer on this film). With his latest offering for Dreamworks, Sanders cements his position as a titan in the world of animation. The movie sees ROZ, a shipwrecked robot stranded on an island completely untouched by humans. One would think that such an Eden would be bereft of the squabbles that humans seem so happy to create, but the animals of the island revile this new intruder and put up every fence they have. The only thin...

Finding Nemo: The Thing About Film Criticism ...

Film is a mysterious thing. It triggers emotional responses in the audience that are as surprising as they are all-encompassing. As a medium, film is capable of painting stunning vistas that feel like they could only come to life behind the silver screen, but many of the most arresting displays on film arise from scenes that are familiar, perhaps even mundanely so. It’s an artform built on rules and guidelines–young film students are probably familiar with principles like the rule of thirds or the Kuleshov effect–but someone tell me the rule that explains why a line like “We’ll always have Paris,” just levels you. There are parts of the film discussion that cannot be anticipated by a formula or a rulebook, and for that we should be grateful. Arrival (2016) But the thing about film–and especially film criticism–is that film critics are not soothsayers. Their means of divining the artis...

Reveling in the Mixed Messages of Miss Congeniality

In book ten of Metamorphoses, Greek poet Ovid tells the tale of Pygmalion, a talented sculptor living in the height of ancient Greek society. According to the story, Pygmalion’s sculpting prowess was so impeccable that one of his pieces, a marble woman he christened Galatea, was said to be the lovelier than any woman of flesh and blood. Pygmalion was so taken by his creation that he brought her exotic gifts, kissed her marble cheeks, even prepared a luxurious bed for her. Pygmalion so pined to be loved by Galatea that he prayed to the goddess Aphrodite to allow Galatea to reciprocate his love and affection. Aphrodite was apparently in a good mood that day, so she granted Pygmalion’s wish, giving life to Galatea, whom he then wed. The story of Pygmalion is in essence the story of a man who creates his own idealized woman out of whole cloth (or more appropriately, marble), endowing her with all the traits that he finds appealing or alluring. The story also provides a m...

REVIEW: WICKED - For Good

I'm conflicted about how to approach this review. I know everyone has their own yellow brick road to the myth of The Wizard of Oz as a whole and the specific Broadway adaptation that brought us all here. I don't want to write this only for others who are familiar with the source material. Even so, I can't help but review this from the perspective of a fan of the Broadway show--someone who has been tracking the potential for a film adaptation since before Jon M. Chu's participation was announced for the ambitious undertaking of translating one of Broadway's most electric shows onto film. I can't help but view this from the vantage point of someone who knew just how many opportunities this had to go wrong. And it's from that vantage point that I now profess such profound relief that the gambit paid off. We truly have the " Lord of the Rings of musicals ." What Jon M. Chu and his team have done here with these two...

Saying Goodbye to Stranger Things

There's a quote from critic Mark Caro that I think about a lot. I shared it back when I did my critical survey of Pixar movies . Writing about Finding Nemo , Caro wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 2003 , "Classic film eras tend to get recognized in retrospect while we take for granted timeless works passing before our eyes. So let's pause to appreciate what's been going on at Pixar Animation Studios." I think that captures the aspirations of all active-minded media consumers. Or at least, it ought to. "This good thing won't last forever, so savor it before the sun goes down." Modern Times (1936) But this is also a very hard mindset to access in an online culture that is always seeking to stamp labels and scores on a thing before we shove it on the conveyor belt and move on to the next parcel. It's something I have been thinking about for the last year or so as the completion of the Stranger ...

REVIEW: Project Hail Mary

The elements in Project Hail Mary are all mostly straightforward and build to a fairly familiar end: drop an average Joe into an extraordinary situation where he is required to be extraordinary also, and watch extraordinary things happen. This is proven territory. And I spent most of the time drafting this review trying to decide whether that was a point for or against the film, helmed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller--and whether that made a difference for a non-franchise piece like this, the exact kind of film we need to succeed at the box office in order to have a healthy landscape. I think the answer to that question is honestly bigger than any one film, even a reasonably well-done one such as this. But I will say that a movie like Project Hail Mary gives me some hope, and it's my wish that the film continues to find people who will receive it with zeal. And I hope that the people who do will continue to search for other films that they...

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