As soon as I finish this column, I'm going to fill out my official Big Shot Movie Man ballot for the best films of 2021.
It's a responsibility I take seriously, even as I recognize how little my opinion matters. I don't even think of movies as necessarily better or worse than other movies; the whole idea of art as a competition is repellent. I don't think filmmakers should care about awards or that critics should be complicit with studio marketing campaigns. But it is my job to see the movies, and there are a lot of movies I wouldn't get a chance to see if I didn't vote in these polls.
Besides, other people's lists are interesting. I want to know what films my colleagues like best. People generally like to read lists, to compare their experience with others. And I welcome the content -- we have a tradition of filling out late December and January editions of this section with the best of lists of contributors and friends of the program. I intend to continue that tradition this year.
My wife, Karen -- who founded this section more than 20 years ago and edited it for its first decade -- also votes in various critics' polls. The most elaborate of these is the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, a group that asks its members to submit nominations in early December, and sends out a ballot asking members to choose between nominees sometime later.
In addition to awards for achievement regardless of gender (Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Screenplay Adapted, Best Documentary, Best Animated Film, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Film Music or Score, and Best Non-English-Language Film), AWFJ also presents a number of "female focus awards" in categories such as Best Woman Director, Best Woman Screenwriter, Best Female Action Star, Best Animated Female, Best Breakthrough Performance, Best Newcomer, Women's Image Award, Actress Defying Age and Agism, Lifetime Achievement Award, and Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry) and some "special mention" awards (Hall of Shame Award, Actress Most in Need of a New Agent, Movie You Wanted to Love But Just Couldn't, Most Egregious Age Difference Between Leading Man and Love Interest, and Sequel or Remake That Shouldn't Have Been Made Award).
I am exhausted just from writing that paragraph. I'm glad I didn't have to come up with nominees for all those categories.
Anyway, Karen sent that in; then she started on her ballot for the Southeastern Film Critics Association, a group I also belong to (as does our regular contributing critic Keith Garlington). SEFCA's deadline for voting is Sunday. Karen has already submitted her ballot. She has seen everything she's going to have a chance to see before the deadline, and understands that it's helpful to the ballot counters if at least some of SEFCA's 50-something members get their ballots in early.
(She knows this because I was one of those ballot counters for five years. You're signing up for a lost weekend when you take on such duties.)
Basically, her only regret was that she didn't see Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" before balloting. We didn't get an advance screener, and though it opens today we have plans that will preclude our seeing it before the voting deadline. Every year there are a few movies that slip past us -- it's unreasonable to think that you can see everything. (I suspect the DVD of "Copshop" that showed up this morning will go unwatched for awhile.)
So you do the best you can. Here's what Karen came up with:
TOP 10 MOVIES
1. "The Power of the Dog" 2. "The First Wave" 3. "This Is Not a War Story" 4. "The French Dispatch" 5. "Summer of Soul" 6. "Lamb" 7. "The Lost Daughter" 8. "Drive My Car" 9. "Pig" 10. "The Humans"
BEST ACTOR
1. Benedict Cumberbatch ("The Power of the Dog") 2. Jude Hill ("Belfast") 3. Will Smith (King Richard)
BEST ACTRESS
1. Olivia Colman ("The Lost Daughter") 2. Kristen Stewart ("Spencer") 3. Lady Gaga ("House of Gucci")
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Jesse Plemons ("The Power of the Dog") 2. Jeffrey Wright ("The French Dispatch") 3. Woody Norman ("C'mon C'mon")
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Kirsten Dunst ("The Power of the Dog") 2. Jessie Buckley ("The Lost Daughter") 3. Tilda Swinton ("The French Dispatch")
BEST ENSEMBLE
1."Belfast" 2. "The Humans" 3. "Mass"
BEST DIRECTOR
1. Jane Campion ("The Power of the Dog") 2. Maggie Gyllenhaal ("The Lost Daughter") 3. Wes Anderson ("The French Dispatch")
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. "Belfast" (Kenneth Branagh) 2. "The French Dispatch" (Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola) 3. "The Hand of God" (Paolo Sorrentino)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. "The Lost Daughter," Maggie Gyllenhaal 2. "The Power of the Dog," Jane Campion 3. "Drive My Car," Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe
BEST DOCUMENTARY
1. "The First Wave" 2. "Summer of Soul" 3. "The Sparks Brothers"
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
1. "Lamb" 2. "Drive My Car" 3. "Petite Maman"
BEST ANIMATED FILM
1. "Luca" 2. "Encanto" 3. "Flee"
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. "The Power of the Dog" 2. "Belfast" 3. "C'mon C'mon"
BEST SCORE
1. "The Power of the Dog" 2. "Licorice Pizza" 3. "Spencer"
Karen was at a loss to come up with a nomination for SEFCA's annual Gene Wyatt Award for the film that "best evokes the spirit of the South," and I'm at a similar loss. I have one or two possibilities, but neither seems to be the sort of Southern film the award was meant to honor.
There have been recent years when movies that had a tangential connection to the South have been honored, so something will emerge this year but there's been nothing like, say Jeff Nichols' "Shotgun Stories" or Scott Teems' "That Evening Sun" (both Wyatt Award winners) that jump out this year.
So the lid is off the annual Top 10-apalooza. If you've got a list, send it along and we might print it.
Email:
pmartin@adgnewsroom.com