2021, an unquestioned improvement over 2020, has come with its challenges, but I’ve still had a rich year at the movies. Here are my favorite movie-going experiences of 2021:
- First, let’s acknowledge that The Movie Gourmet is back in theaters. On June 19, 2021, I saw The Sparks Brothers at the AMC Mercado in Santa Clara. The last movie that I had seen in a theater had been The Burnt Orange Heresy on March 5, 2020 in the California Theatre at the 2020 Cinequest. In the 472 days of COVID lockdown, I still managed to watch 329 movies and episodic series via streaming and screeners.
- But here’s the year’s topper – for the first time, I traveled to cover the Nashville Film Festival. NashFilmFest’s director of programming Lauren Ponto curated an excellent slate. My favorites were discovering the dazzling indie Poser and attending the pre-release screening of Old Henry with the filmmakers, including star Tim Blake Nelson. I also caught a couple of non-fest movies at Nashville’s excellent art house theater, the Belcourt. Of course, Nashville is a culturally rich city with epic barbecue; (I worship the ribs at Peg Leg Porker and the pulled pork at Martin’s Bar-Be-Que Joint).
- Along with Nashville, I discovered new films by virtually covering Cinequest, Frameline, San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. My favorite festival nuggets were Poser (Nashville), Lune (Cinequest), Summertime (Frameline and Cinequest) and Ma Belle, My Beauty (SFFILM).
- I discovered my favorite film of the year so-far, Riders of Justice (and I’m waiting for eveyone else to catch on to how good it is).
- I got to revisit some of my all-time favorite films: Lone Star, House of Games, The Commitments, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Point Blank. and the grievously overlooked One False Move.
- And then, I have this very individual obsession – seeing a movie as the only patron in a theater (just like William Randolph Hearst in his personal theater at Hearst Castle). One would think that this would happen more than it does because I see lots of obscure movies at sparsely-attended weekday matinees. But, almost always, there’s at least one more audience member, and I had only enjoyed two solos screenings in thirty-five years. Anyway, it happened TWICE in late 2021 – The Souvenir Part II at San Francisco’s Landmark Embarcadero and Benedetta at Berkeley’s Landmark Shattuck.
