2020. The year we all found out who our friends are. It was just last January when CNN asked So Man-fung Peter, "Geomancy Consultant and Globetrotter," for his thoughts on the coming year, and he said, "You should be able to accumulate some wealth, especially if you're self-employed or an entrepreneur." and "To alleviate the impact of negative thoughts, you should travel more." Ah, so quaint.
I don't know about you, but here at Panther Pictures, LLC, we lost a lucrative contract to Covid-19, and scuttled a long-awaited production that we'd finally greenlit and had already spent four months ramping up. Right after casting the leads. But in the same year, we successfully tackled a production that had been abandoned 15 years earlier, and paid off several old debts. All in all a no gain/no loss situation, and considering that as of January 2021 the average tenant owes 4 months in back rent, we were luckier than most.
Like most of the entertainment industry, we experienced several delays in our plans--including a delay in this, our list of the Best Films of 2020. But with the 2021 Oscar ceremony not happening until April 25, and qualifying film releases stretched to February 28, 2021 (instead of being cut off on Dec. 31st 2020), a late January release of our choices doesn't seem so far off. After all, our 2015 picks didn't drop until February 13, 2016.
So, with all the usual disclaimers and rules and attitude, here is the Panther Pictures, LLC, list of the #TenBest Films (those things that come in sequels instead of episodes) of 2020. #PPLLCTenBest2020 #TenBest2020
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The Banker, Romulus Entertainment, Directed by George Nolfi
There seems to be an entire subgenre of independent films, or more properly "prestige films," that are made with stars from large $100 million productions, showing their acting chops in quiet $10 million movies. The thinking being, I suppose, it will be easier to notice their talent without all the distracting CGI explosions. The Banker stars three such actors, whom you may not recognize (*eyeroll) without the Marvel logo. Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson play black entrepreneurs who want to invest in property in white neighborhoods in the 50's and 60's, and who find a way to go from being jacked around by The Man to pulling the strings behind the scenes when they enlist Nicholas Hoult to, "be us, to the rest of the world." The story of how they pull it off, go on to purchase 3 banks, and still remain friends during the subsequent Congressional hearings, is one for the ages, and a great example to rest of us about how to encourage one another (or how not to) in the pursuit of our American dreams.
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The Midnight Sky, Anonymous Content, Directed by George Clooney
There were a lot of people looking forward to this, and then a lot of those same people panning it when it finally came out in streaming rather than in theaters. From the moment I heard about this production in the trade papers, I knew what it was going to be like, and I was interested in it anyway. George Clooney plays Depressed George Clooney (as seen in ER and The Descendants) playing a bearded man playing scientist. The last member of a scientific outpost, keeping the lights on after a vague global catastrophe. Incidentally, vague catastrophes are the best kind; this is one of those stories where it isn't important *what* happened as long as we understand that *something* happened. His only companions are a HAM radio and a little girl whom he tells not to trust him and maybe find someone else to rely on (which of course she can't). His feelings for her are wrapped up in his feelings about an old relationship, and so on and so on. All of this must take a back burner, however, when he realizes that a deep space mission is on its way back with what may be the last of humanity on board, and if he doesn't warn them to steer clear of earth the probe that's looking for whales will destroy them, too. Wait...let me re-read that...
So anyway he has a journey to make to the top of a mountain where a long-range transmitter resides. You get the idea. It may be predictable but it is also sad and hopeful in the face of crushing despair. So, you know, perfect for this year.
Also the best use of "Sweet Caroline" this decade.
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Mank, Netflix Studios, Directed by David Fincher
A movie about the writing of Citizen Kane, structured much like Citizen Kane. But whereas Citizen Kane tells the story of a man as seen through the eyes of his friends, Mank is the story of a man seeing his friends through the eyes of his script for Citizen Kane. Herman Mankiewicz, the "mank" in question, both realizes this connection and stubbornly refuses to acknowledge it honestly to those friends. And that's really all I have to say about it, except that it proves, like Some Like It Hot before it, that female exploitation scenes are somehow more palpable in black and white. And I really have no idea what that says about myself and my relationship with cinema. Well, I have some idea. But I'm saving it for when I write the next Citizen Kane.
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Love and Monsters, Paramount Pictures, Directed by Michael Matthews
A movie about massive monsters that feels paradoxically small and charming. There is a lot that this film has going for it: clever mutations of familiar animals, an examination of how we all respond to the survival instinct, Giant crabs, Puppy Love, and a puppy. Well, a grown up dog that is emotionally stunted. Dylan O'Bryan plays Joel Dawson who, along with the rest of humanity, has been living underground ever since giant creatures took control of the land. His brightest comfort is his high school girlfriend, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), who is now 80 miles away at a coastal colony. Joel realizes that there's nothing left for him to do but head out to find Aimee, despite all the dangerous monsters that stand in his way. It's real Romeo and Juliet stuff. Best Monster Love Story since Swamp Thing.
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Pressure Point (1997), Edgewood Studios, Rifftrax Version
Released in 1997, but added just this year to the new-for-2020 "Rifftrax Friends" subscription streaming service--which is exactly the streaming service the world needs right now. When an assassination attempt fails in a part of Chile that looks suspiciously like Vermont (I stole that line), government operative Sebastian Dellacourt (Don Mogavero) is blamed and thrown in prison. Engineering an escape, Sebastian soon discovers that his freedom was only won in order to frame him in a plot to blow up Congress...I think. It's kind of unclear what the phrase "the congressional building" really means, given that most of the helicopters land in open fields. There are some impressively squandered explosions and a fake Magnum PI Ferrari, but everything, every moment, is treated by director David Giancola as if Mogavero is on a trip to the hardware store. Maybe it was the bad directing, or the bad acting, or the bad writing; I couldn't tell. It was too beautiful to understand. Take that, HBO Max!
Starring Don Mogavero, written by Don Mogavero, in order to give us a world where male pattern baldness is just another CIA gadget.
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The Trial of the Chicago 7, Dreamworks Pictures, Directed by Aaron Sorkin
I have a hard and fast rule against reviewing or giving any sort of props to Aaron Sorkin's work, for deeply personal reasons. He knows what he did to my family. That's not an exaggeration or a joke. He knows what he did, and it was to my family. (Hollywood is, in its way, like a small town.) But this is a story that needed to be told and re-examined, and he did it very well. He knows courtroom drama. (Another reason my personal issue with him is so raw.) Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago turn violent (we've all seen the footage) and one of the most famous trials in history results--but what led up to it and how it was conducted feel brand new. I find myself examining it from the perspective of an observer in 2021, rather than 1968. Partly because I was born in 1973, and mostly because I watched it in the weeks after January 6, 2021. When is protest justified? Where does our free speech stop and where does incitement to violence begin? How much responsibility do we hold for our rhetoric, and what is the responsibility of those tasked with seeking justice? When does a trial stop being legal and when has it become political? Is any speech free anymore? Are our thoughts only ours to own? You better believe these are questions that resonate in 2021.
Dangit, Aaron we could have made beautiful music together!
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Rebuilding Paradise, Imagine Documentaries, Directed by Ron Howard
I watched Paradise, California burn down from afar, but it was just up the road (by California standards) from my own home. We saw and smelled the smoke. We see and smell it every year, 2020 was not the only year places burned. So it was with more than curiosity that I settled in to watch this one, at 2AM in my office when I should have been asleep--the overall emotion I felt was empathy. Ron Howard is a wonderful director (who knew?) and he unfolded the events in Paradise first in an immersive, social-media-drenched way (the way anyone who wasn't there experienced it), and then with a quiet desperation that went from anger, to denial, to bargaining, to depression. The final stage of grief may be acceptance, but Mr. Howard did not go there, because the citizens of Paradise have not gone there. They accept nothing but their faith in each other, and so they build again.
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2020 (A 1917 Parody), The Ascender Channel, Directed by Stephen Ford
I'm adding the first short film ever to my "Best of" list, because of the sheer talent it represents. The talent of the oppressed California filmmaker. This film's existence highlights the idea that 2020 was a year in which everyone found their circle of people to struggle with, laugh with, and rely on. In the run that these characters make for TP, the viewer is immersed in the oldest of feel-good movie cliché's--everything and everyone we need and love are the friends and neighbors who were there all along. I think I have something in my eye. Oh, wait, it's an ember from the fires.
Plus, as an homage to the movie 1917, this little film becomes a symbol of what we have lost, and what we know we will have again. Hopefully that doesn't include Murder Hornets.
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News of the World, Perfect World Pictures, Directed by Paul Greengrass
Like nominating Meryl Streep as best actress, Tom Hanks having a movie on a Ten Best list is a national tradition. This year, there were at least two choices, and Paul Greengrass' Western was the better one. Westerns are an American Passion Play, capable of reflecting whatever society has to reflect at the time they are made, and a grand mirror of the past's place in our present as well. That very generic statement means....what? Well, I don't know, because all that is for film historians to figure out in no less than 5 and not more than 15 years from the release of any given Western. But I can say that Greengrass directs as effectively as he ever directed any Jason Borne film, and that Hanks emotes as well as he ever has in any of his previous Ten Best-ers. Plus he has a beard, and is caring for an orphan. So it's pretty much the same movie as Midnight Sky. Yes, I think this movie is better than that one, but just as an aside I think both films would be better with their leading men reversed.
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The Outpost, Millennium Media, Directed by Rod Lurie
I'm well known for my distaste for exploitative nudity, vulgarity and foul language. I once wrote a prison movie with no cuss words in it. I believe most stories that are told in an R-rated manner never needed to be. I feel that way about the other two R-rated movies on my list. I do not feel that way about The Outpost. What the men who fought the Battle of Kamdesh went through, was told unsparingly, as it should have been. My best friend, two of my own brothers, and half a dozen of my cousins could have been there. Enough politics are attached to nearly every military engagement of the United States in the last hundred years, so as to micromanage every story arc ever told about every single one of them. But the most important statement to be made about all of those soldiers (in my view) is this: They were there. They believed what they were doing was the right thing to do. And they survived.
Anything else is just embellishment. Also, stay and watch the end credits.
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No honorable mentions this year, but I will list two massive disappointments. My own personal Razzies:
1) Wonder Woman 1984, Warner Brothers Studios, Directed by Patty Jenkins. Available on HBOMax.
We all understand the principle of the Spoiler Trailer, and the long-expressed lament that too many movies have too many reveals in their ads, to the point that there is no point in watching the movie. Why spend twenty bucks when those three minutes have already told you everything you need to know or could ever gain from the experience? "Oh, Rampage is like that? Well, okay nevermind; I'm off to watch Kong: Skull Island again."
The far superior trailer is the one that tells you nothing about what happens, while simultaneously milking your emotional need for the experience. "Looking for a good story? THIS is a good story. How good? Oh no you don't! You'll just have to wait." You know, like the new trailer for Little Things.
But there is a darker side to the Emotional Trailer. I call it the Emotional Manipulation Trailer. Where the flaming bag of an entertainment product is disguised as something shiny and new. Something rare and beautiful and jazzy and snappy. Something you cannot live without--which makes it all the more devastating when you bite into that ash sandwich.
Such was the trailer for Star Wars Episode 1, and such was the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984. New Order on the violin made me think I could dream again. New Order lied to me.
2) Mulan, Walt Disney Studios, Directed by Niki Caro, Available on Disney Plus
[Harrison Ford Voice] How dare you, sir? How dare you!
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So those are my pics for the best (American) movies of 2020. There are others being listed and liked out there, but in the world of today, this was all I could get within six feet of.
Eric C. Player is an independently poor filmmaker, and the president of Panther Pictures, LLC, incorporated in Salt Lake City, Utah, and operating in Fargo, North Dakota. He is a father, fan, storyteller, "Picker," Corvair driver and a graduate of BYU & Chapman University film schools. His films have played in theaters all across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and movies to which he was a contributing writer or producer are available on Netflix and Amazon. He has written and produced film and video content for over twenty-five years, and has been writing Chapter-Fiction since the sixth grade. His 2007 production, Nothing But The Best, was an Official Selection of the Newport Beach Film Festival. His 2016 short, Moment of Anger, received multiple honors including Best Short and Best Director at the Road House International Short Film Festival 2016 in Santa Monica, California. his 2019 short The Fruit was an Official Selection at the Los Angeles Cinefest. Eric C. Player on Imdb.
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