[imagesource: A24]

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the past year has been entertaining, but we sure did get a hell of a lot of entertainment to distract ourselves with.

There were a handful of major blockbusters finally released this year after much umming and ahing due to the unprecedented nature of the past two years.

Among those and the other well-covered flicks of the times, there were loads of smaller movie gems to uncover.

We have done numerous lists over the past year touching on the best movies of 2021, as well as movies that are underrated.

But still, there has been so much to discover, and so the list-making continues.

Besides the Palme d’Or Cannes Film Festival winner Titane by Julia Ducournau about a female killer who has sex with cars, or the already controversial Parallel Mothers with Penelope Cruz, let’s take a look at the other movie gems, courtesy of Huff Post’s deep-diving.

Starting with those in black and white:

C’mon C’mon

Joaquin Phoenix’s voice sounds laced with poetry in this film, or it could just be the black and white compositions. Either way, C’mon C’mon looks beautiful:

Starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny, a radio producer tasked with taking care of his nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) for a few weeks during a family crisis, writer-director Mike Mills’ lovely and tender dramedy is about how it’s OK to not know what you’re doing.

We’re all just trying our best. It’s a wonderful change to see Phoenix playing a warm and pleasant person, and the relationships between Johnny, Jesse and Viv (Gaby Hoffmann), Johnny’s sister and Jesse’s mom, are real and lived-in.

Passing

Based on Nella Larsen’s influential book of the same name, the choice to cast this film in black and white is a little bit more menacing.

About two women masking their blackness, the story is as much relevant now as it was in the Harlem Renaissance when it was first published:

…the narrative, adapted and directed by Rebecca Hall and starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson, says as much about the phenomenon of passing for white as it does about our inability to look at our own relationships with identity before passing judgment on someone else’s.

Through gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, Hall sensitively peels back the layers of her heroines’ complex humanities.

Together Together

This is not a love story in the typical sense, but it is about healthy relationships:

…writer-director Nikole Beckwith’s “Together Together” is decidedly singular, challenging our cultural obsession with pairing people for the purpose of romance as it follows the relationship between a single man (Ed Helms) and his gestational surrogate (Patti Harrison).

Beckwith gives her protagonists space to pursue their individual aspirations — for her, it’s using the money to go to college; for him, it’s fatherhood — as they enter a mutually beneficial nine-month relationship that will irrevocably shift their lives.

It’s different and in this time of seemingly endless reboots and sequels that is welcomed.

Language Lessons

Zoom has been all the rage over the last year, so this film is a fun way to reflect on that:

Natalie Morales’ fantastic directorial debut manages to make the format of “two people talking on Zoom” fresh rather than formulaic.

Co-written by and co-starring Morales and Mark Duplass, the two-hander follows the profound friendship that develops between Spanish immersion teacher Cariño (Morales) and her student Adam (Duplass), whose Zoom sessions become a much-needed source of connection for two lonely and broken people.

Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir

Amy Tan is the heralded author of The Joy Luck Club, a highly influential book that chronicles the personal side behind Asian-American history.

This introspective documentary from the late director James Redford explores all that is Amy Tan:

While hard at work on her next story, Tan ― unexpectedly even to her ― begins excavating passages from her past as she embarks on a self-reflective journey.

It results in an at times harrowing and ultimately cathartic experience unraveling family trauma and criticism of her own books and prominence as a political Chinese American voice. It’s tremendous to witness.

A little something for everyone in the above list, we reckon.

Get that ‘to watch’ list updated and you’re good to go for when our summer weather turns iffy.

[source:huffpost]