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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REVIEW: HOPPERS

In the 1950s under the threat of nuclear warfare, Hollywood premiered such exercises as The Day the Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds where an alien power would pass judgment on humankind, holding its fate in its hands. Here in the 2020s under the shadow of such threats as climate change, Hollywood sends to be our judge ... beavers. Let me back up ... Daniel Chong's new film from Pixar Animation, Hoppers , sees Mabel (Piper Curda), a college student whose self-appointed mission is to preserve the glade where she used to find sanctuary with her now deceased grandmother. Her biggest opponent is hometown boy and beloved mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), who has designs to plow over the glade in order to open his new freeway--estimated to save travelers four whole minutes of commuting. Mabel gets her golden opportunity when she uncovers secret technology pioneered by her professor which allows a human to rem...

The Official Story: When Oppression Hits Home

This last month, Wim Wenders, the director behind movies such as Wings of Desire (1987) and Perfect Days (2023), made a statement at the 76th Berlin Film Festival that’s been scratching at me. In his words, “Yes, movies can change the world. Not in a political way. No movie has really changed any politician’s idea, but … we can change the idea that people have of how they should live.” Wenders was speaking specifically on the subject of film festivals taking active stances on things such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, further describing, “Cinema has an incredible power of being compassionate and empathetic. The news is not empathetic. Politics is not empathetic, but movies are. And that’s our duty.” I think the dressing of this verdict was supposed to be optimistic, but the sentiment reminded me of something that actress Jennifer Lawrence said also very recently on why she’s pulled back from using her official platforms to speak out against the Trump Administrati...

Social Utopia in Raya and the Last Dragon

I think every filmmaker hopes that their film will change the world for the better, but how to measure that when the exact effects a film has on society are impossible to quantify? Did Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman instigate #MeToo, or were both just natural products of the shifting social dynamics that had been morphing for a long time? Maybe we're just kidding ourselves when we put our faith in movies to heal the wrongs of the world. After all, Kramer vs Kramer has been out for over forty years now, and some dads still struggle to prioritize love and attention for their kids. I'm also thinking of Raya and the Last Dragon. Disney's 59th animated film takes place in a fictional world known as Kumandra, a land that was once home to the benevolent and majestic dragons. In the film’s prologue we learn that the dragons disappeared thousands of years ago to seal away an ancient evil know...

REVIEW: ONWARD

The Walt Disney Company as a whole seems to be in constant danger of being overtaken by its own cannibalistic tendency--cashing in on the successes of their past hits at the expense of creating the kinds of stories that merited these reimaginings to begin with. Pixar, coming fresh off a decade marked by a deluge of sequels, is certainly susceptible to this pattern as well. Though movies like Inside Out and Coco have helped breathe necessary life into the studio, audiences invested in the creative lifeblood of the studio should take note when an opportunity comes for either Disney or Pixar animation to flex their creative muscles. This year we'll have three such opportunities between the two studios. [EDIT: Okay, maybe not. Thanks, Corona.] The first of these, ONWARD directed by Dan Scanlon, opens this weekend and paints a hopeful picture of a future where Pixar allows empathetic and novel storytelling to gui...

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 ." I'll give last year's movie the edge for having a slightly...

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...

The Many Fathers of Harry Potter

Despite being a Harry Potter fan for most of my life, I didn’t make it to "Harry Potter Land" at Universal until November of 2019. Some relatives invited me on a SoCal theme park tour, a trip which also saw my last visit to Disneyland before the shutdown. And when you and a bunch of other twenty-somethings are walking through a recreation of Hogwarts for the first time, you inevitably start playing this game where you call out every artifact on display and try to trace it back to whatever movie or even specific moment the mise en scene is trying to invoke: There’s the greenhouse from "Chamber of Secrets." Now they’re playing the “Secrets of the Castle” track from "Prisoner of Azkaban." Here we are loading in the Room of Requirement from "Order of the Phoenix." From start to finish, the attraction, like the franchise from which it spawned, is just one giant nostalgia parade. See, t he Wiza...

REVIEW: The Electric State

It's out with the 80s and into the 90s for Stranger Things alum Millie Bobby Brown. In a post-apocalyptic 1990s, Michelle is wilting under the neglectful care of her foster father while brooding over the death of her family, including her genius younger brother. It almost seems like magic when a robotic representation of her brother's favorite cartoon character shows up at her door claiming to be an avatar for her long-lost brother. Her adventure to find him will take her deep into the quarantine zone for the defeated robots and see her teaming up with an ex-soldier and a slew of discarded machines. What starts as a journey to bring her family back ends up taking her to the heart of the conflict that tore her world apart to begin with. This is a very busy movie, and not necessarily for the wrong reasons. This just a movie that wants to impart a lot. There is, for example, heavy discussion on using robots as a stand-in fo...

REVIEW: AVATAR - Fire and Ash

The "Avatar" chapters have generally renewed their interest to the masses based on which exciting new locale and which new culture whichever film opts to explore. Following that dance, "Fire and Ash" introduces yet another Na'Vi clan, this one hailing from the scorched plains under the shadow of an erupted volcano. But their biome is decidedly less spectacular than the lush jungles of the Omaticaya or the rich coral reefs where the Metkayina dive. Between the ashen grounds of the volcano clan and the metallic fortress of the humans, this is comfortably the most monochromatic of the three Avatar films. And yet, Avatar: Fire and Ash is no less gripping for it. And this is where the internet really starts to reckon with what us fans of the franchise have always kind of known: that the many screensavers offered by the Avatar world ... they have been nice . But these films would have never made the impact they have if th...

(Almost) A Love Letter to the "Percy Jackson" Movies

Maybe it's just living through a pandemic-stained world rife where each election feels like a last-ditch effort to rescue liberty from the oblivion, but I'm sometimes nostalgic for the days when the most traumatic thing in my life was a poor adaptation of a favorite book. My generation will remember the film adaptation of the popular YA fantasy book Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan with something like embarrassment, if not outright lividity. The book follows a young teen, Percy Jackson, who discovers that the gods of ancient Greece not only exist, but also sire modern day heroes. As a child of one of these gods, Percy is continually drawn into their Olympian-sized conflicts wherein he gets to prove himself every bit as much a hero as Hercules. Each installment of the five-book series reads like a theme-park ride through Greek mythology as the teens travel across the country battling ancient m...

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