Zazie Beetz Archives - Awesome Friday!

20 December 202116 March 2023

2021 in Film: Matt’s Favourite Performers of The Year

It has been a hell of a year and a hell of a year for film. The second year of the ongoing worldwide pandemic has been a bit of a roller coaster, with wave after wave of COVID once changing the film landscape. Theatres re-opened, but people have only really gone back for the biggest blockbuster titles, and even then, the numbers are a bit soft.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been many a literal ton of films this year, though. I set a new personal record, having seen nearly 180 films released in 2021, and let me tell you that most of them are good!

To break down my favourites a little more this year, I’ll be dividing things up into three lists, one for my favourite performers, one for my favourite films, and one for the best of the rest. There are navigation links at the bottom of each page to the others.

Without any further ado, let’s get started with my favourite performers of the year!

5 November 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘The Harder They Fall’ is a bloody good time

A preacher says grace with his family. He has a kind voice and is revered by his wife and young son. Their pleasant dinner is interrupted by a knock at the door from the preacher’s past. The stranger on the other side, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sporting two gold pistols, joins them at the dinner table. The preacher begs, but the stranger shoots him and his wife several moments and then uses a razor to carve a cross into the young boy’s forehead.

This is the opening to The Harder They Fall; it sets the stage for a film that will all at once be a revenge picture, a colourful and bloody action picture, a history lesson, and a damn good time at the movies.

15 August 202117 January 2022

Awesome Friday Movie Podcast: ‘Nine Days’ & ‘Marvel’s What If…’

Greetings programs, and welcome to episode five of the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast!

10 August 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Nine Days’ is a beautiful achievement

This year, it’s a common theme that the films I truly love have been ones I expected to like but –for whatever reason– did not expect to love. Films with high concepts that I did not expect to leave me with tears in my eyes or with a renewed urge to look inward and assess my life and being. Nine Days is the third such film this year. A beautiful achievement from director Edson Oda (in his debut feature, no less), Nine Days treads a unique path to an emotional catharsis that will leave you with a renewed sense of hope.

5 October 201914 August 2021

Review: ‘Joker’ is a joke without a punchline

Let’s get this out of the way: I did not like this movie. Todd Phillips has made a movie about a horribly abused man who lives in a world full of assholes and who also has mental health issues and who also has a condition who also has some terrible impulses and through the course of the movie starts acting on those impulses, and places the blame literally everywhere but on him, but doesn’t really make a compelling argument about any of these ideas.

Joker is an essay without a thesis or a joke without a punchline. There’s a lot going on but no actual payoff. I couldn’t tell you who Joker is actually for, but I worry that one of the worst crowds on the internet is going to hold it up as inspirational.

In a word: yikes.