There’s nothing provocative about The Tender Bar. Even the bits that fell flat didn’t do so in a way that were so egregious I could get angry about them. I just wish that Clooney and Monahan had brought more to the production than just a general easygoing vibe that refuses to challenge and goes out of its way to not offend.

The toil and trouble of mounting something this surrealistically ambitious pays off, and as the fire burns and the cauldron bubbles, the charm of Coen’s adaptation is firm and good. Heck, I’d go so far as to call The Tragedy of Macbeth downright spectacular.

Guillermo del Toro’s ambitious adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel Nightmare Alley might be the most visually stunning motion picture I’ve seen this year. If only I felt the same about the film’s emotional components.

Kidman is extraordinary.

Drive My Car is one of 2021’s best films.

Spielberg reasserts himself as one of the great visionaries of the past fifty years, hitting the streets of West Side Story with him an absolute pleasure I’m going to be singing the praises of for a very long time.

Scott dares the audience to accept what he is doing, no questions asked, making House of Gucci a lethally deranged haute couture treatise on avarice, fashion, family and fame I’m going to be thinking about for a long time to come.

King Richard is one of 2021’s best films. See it at once.

Belfast filled my heart with joy, and there’s nothing better than that.