Mr Carnelian's Entirely Subjective Guide to 21st Century Cinema 2 - Electric Boogaloo

[Mr. Carnelian]

I don't know if anybody other than me remembers that the original of this ever existed, but I remember, and that's the important part

So, after a hiatus of over two years, I’m going to be picking this up again to bring it up to the current year.

The premise is I've picked one film that I've seen to represent each year of the 21st century – e.g. the pick for 2000 is a film that first came out in 2000, the pick for 2001 a film that came out in 2001, and so on – and done a post about each.

Whilst I personally consider all of these to be good films, I'd say this list is primarily films that I most associate with those particular years

The list so far has been:

• 2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• 2001: Legally Blonde
• 2002: Chicago
• 2003: Return of the King
• 2004: Howl’s Moving Castle
• 2005: Brokeback Mountain
• 2006: Pan’s Labyrinth
• 2007: Hot Fuzz
• 2008 Wall-E
• 2009: Moon
• 2010: Black Swan
• 2011: A Dangerous Method
• 2012: Skyfall
• 2013: Under the Skin
• 2014: Guardians of the Galaxy
• 2015: Mad Max – Fury Road
• 2016: Your Name
• 2017: Blade Runner 2049
• 2018: Annihilation

2019, 2021 and 2021 to follow in the near future. Feel free to wildly speculate on what my picks will be in the interim.

[krissy]

pretty nice list

have you read anihilation? amazing book series

[Mr. Carnelian]

pretty nice list

have you read anihilation? amazing book series

I haven't got around to it, but I mean to at some point.

[Mr. Carnelian]

2019: Parasite and Knives Out

Try as I might, in the end I couldn't pick between these two brilliant films.

Parasite and Knives Out explore similar themes of the dependencies created by wealth and the parasitic relationships that result. Both films also have a twist or two in store, and are best watched not knowing exactly how things pan out.

In Parasite, a poor family on the look-out for an opportunity deftly entwine their lives with those of a wealthy family, conning them into employing them all into positions of trust within their household. But, a hidden secret lying beneath their employers' idyllic existence brings everything crashing down. Tension builds throughout to an explosive and shocking final act. Standout roles are Song Kang-Ho and Jang Hye-jin as the poor parents, the first brilliantly portraying his character's descent into rage and desperation, the second her character's increasingly ruthless determination to hold their family's elaborate deceptions together even as they collapse around them.

Knives Out takes what at first seems to be a traditional murder mystery and inverts it, as the identity of the murderer is unveiled to the audience early on. Rather than "whodunnit", the question becomes "can they get away with it?". All the while, the toxic web of parasitic bonds between the family members and their deceased, wealthy father pose as much of a present threat to the murderer as the risk of discovery. In the lead roles, Ana de Armas is very engaging as the virtuous and intelligent Marta, whilst Daniel Craig delivers a grandiose and often hilarious performance as the private detective who leaves you guessing right up to the finale as to whether he's an eccentric genius or a bumbling idiot.

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[Wolf Kanno]

I have yet to see Parasite sadly, but Knives Out is definitely an awesome film and one of the best of the year. Definitely a sleeper film that flew under the radar for a lot of my movie friends. I love me some murder mysteries and the twists in this film are great. You should also mention the fun performance of Chris Evans, whom after spending years playing the cookie cutter boy scout Captain America plays a deliciously narcissistic asshole who revels in the chaos of the film.

My 2019 film would go to Jojo Rabbit though. Fun and hard hitting film about growing up in Nazi Germany. Great comedy that still sticks to some of the real life horrors experienced at the time and excellent acting all around, but Scarlett Johansen gets special props for her role as Rosie. The movie also had a killer soundtrack.

[Mr. Carnelian]

2020: Shadow in the Cloud

Unlike many of the films in my list, this one had a reception that might charitably be called "mixed". But, I found this romp to be the perfect anditote to the 2020 blues. Most film reviewers just don't get camp. I predict this film will become a moderate cult hit over the coming years.

It's 1943 and we open with Maude (Chloë Grace Moretz), an officer on a secret assignment, boarding a bomber on a routine flight to her destination. The crew see her as an inconvenience at best, immediately questioning the value of the confidential package which she is tasked to deliver. Forced to sit in the gun turret for the flight, she soon discovers that this flight will be far from the routine run that was expected.

The claustrophobic confines of the gun turret set the scene for a tense opening act, pulsing with paranoia. What is in the secret package? Why is Maude so desperate to prevent the crew from opening it? It soon becomes clear that it's not just the rampant sexism and open distrust of her male colleagues that our heroine has to contend with. To say that things escalate would be an understatement.

To fully express exactly how bonkers things become would be to rob you of the full value of this film, but if you're up for a wild ride, I couldn't recommend it enough. Even if its not your normal kind of thing, with a run-time of under 90 minutes, you've got nothing to lose!

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[Mr. Carnelian]

2021: The Green Knight

Folklore stories operate on multiple levels, few more so than the many tales of the Knights of the Round Table. At first glance, the story is often simple. Something happens, the world is thrown out of balance, drawing the knight into a quest. On their journey, they encounter obstacles which test their knightly virtues. They reach their destination, and defeat their enemy or retrieve the treasure. The rightful order of the world is restored, and the knight returns home triumphant.
But other meanings bubble beneath the surface. Folklore is always built upon other folklore - people, places and events within a story echo or stand in for older stories, for other mythological figures.

I say this as a preface because I can imagine someone watching The Green Knight and thinking something like, "Well, that was maybe a bit spooky in places, but not that much really happnened." But this is a film adaptation of one of the most symbolically dense of British Arthurian tales. The Green Knight is a film packed with imagery, metaphor and bold visual moments which are left to speak for themselves, eschewing easy answers. The focus is not on the events that happen, but how they happen and most importantly the meaning behind them.

A palpable sense of tension, suspense and dread suffuses the film. Much of this pervasive dread arises from the "game" Gawain enters into with the Green Knight of the title. The Green Knight barges into the court of Camelot daring someone to challenge him. The rules of his challenge are deceptively simple. His challenger may strike a blow with his sword anywhere on the Green Knight's person. But, a year later, the challenger must then allow the Green Knight to strike them back in the very same spot. Gawain strikes the Green Knight's neck, severing his head. The Green Knight, unperturbed by this decapitation, picks up his own severed head and declares that Gawain must travel to his domain, the Green Chapel, in one year's time so that the blow can be returned in kind.

Performances worthy of mention include Alicia Vikander. who does double-duty as two different characters (or possibly two different facets of the same character?). Firstly, Gawain's lower class love interest, who knows that she is doomed to eventually be thrown over in favour of a match with someone of Gawain's own social standing. Then, later in the film, she returns as a beguiling noblewoman/sorceress who seduces Gawain and then rejects him.

The lead role of Gawain is performed by the dashing Dev Patel, who is fast becoming one of my favourite working actors. He's extremely watchable throughout as a flawed young man trying to prove himself. In unskilled hands, the character of Gawain as portrayed here - a sort of Shakespeare's Prince Hal figure, but more hungry for glory - might be hard to sympathise with, but Patel makes him easy to root for even in Gawain's more questionable moments.
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[Wolf Kanno]

Sadly I have not been going to theaters lately due to Covid and a bunch of nasty personal life stuff happening the last two years, so I have really no movie insights for 2020 or 2021.

Though both these films sound pretty awesome and I've heard lots of great things about Green Knight.

[Mr. Carnelian]

The Green Knight is already on Amazon Prime, if you have that

[Wolf Kanno]

Sadly I don't.