Ghost Cult begins our “2021 End of Year Guest Post Extravaganza” with a slew of posts from bands, industry, PR pros, and more! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. In this edition, Philly Byrne of Gama Bomb shares his favorite movies of 2021! Purchase and stream Gama Bomb music here!
PG: Psycho Goreman
For my money, this was the best movie of 2021: director, writer, effects man and Sam Raimi-in-waiting Steven Kostanski had a totally lunatic vision for a horror sci-fi movie that could make your toes curl with laughter, and he pursued it with a DIY mindset that really paid off. It’s about two kids who dig up an ancient, insane galactic warlord monster, who they then take control of. Everybody learns something along the way, and lots of people get killed. It’s my kind of film.
Get Back
I’ve loved the Beatles since the Anthology came out when I was a kid, and while they’re The Most Famous Band Ever there was a period of a few years where they felt like a dusty, quaint thing in a fast-moving culture. Peter Jackson’s masterful handling of hours of footage and audio from the Let It Be sessions has brought the band back to life, back to culture and back into people’s hearts. I found watching their writing process massively inspiring – they’ve literally helped me write new songs. Spooky.
Dune
For a long time it seemed Bladerunner had birthed cinema’s last instant, iconic sci-fi screen world, leaving every other movie to play dress-up in its clothes – but Dune proved it possible. Making the cerebral, exhaustive book this digestible and entertaining is the stuff of miracles, and the entire cast and crew know it. Dune is a few hundred people’s masterpiece, and it shows.
Ghostbusters Afterlife
Sure it can never top the original, but Jason Reitman (son of Ghostbusters director Ivan) has done the home team proud with this kinda-sequel. It uses the energy of 80s kids’ movies without merely copying them, and importantly sets us up for a new possible franchise, free from the shackles of the OG series. Busting, it turns out, still makes me feel good.
The Father
This movie probably had the most misleading poster ever, with Olivia Coleman and Tony Hopkins smiling and hugging as though it was the feelgood movie of the summer, and not a harrowing portrayal of mental decline from the POV of the charming, successful Hopkins as he succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease. It’s drama that veers into horror at moments – a movie that stays with you.
Riders Of Justice
Mads Mikkelsen is on a God damn roll right now: he was in last year’s best movie Another Round (or Druk in Danish) and this year delivered another killer in this uniquely hilarious revenge rampage movie about a soldier whose wife dies in a bombing, only for him to decide he’ll kill the biker gang who might be responsible. Anything else is a spoiler, but it’s the only killing spree movie you’ll see this year with so much good vibes.
Promising Young Woman
For its limitations, Promising Young Woman was a movie of the moment. It’s a rape-and-revenge story with smart twists and a sharp left-turn in the last act, but Carey Mulligan elevated the film from genre filler to a memorable statement on the #MeToo years.
The Suicide Squad
In one of the most spectacular polarity changes in movie history, this sequel / reset / clean sweep brought in James ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Gunn to fix everything wrong with the original (and boy was there plenty wrong with that movie) by making a funny, eccentric action flick with some real heart. The project suffered from being released while the Covid-shy public were still avoiding the cinema and didn’t get the credit, or the receipts, it deserved, but it’s well worth a second look.
Nobody
Is there anything Bob Odenkirk can’t do? If there is, he’s not met the limit just yet: Nobody is a gritty, knowing take on the ‘family man with a dark past’ shooter genre where Mr. Goodman proves he has action chops galore. Inventive violence and a supporting role by the iconic Christopher Lloyd as his shotgun-toting retiree dad only add to the fun.
No Time To Die
I expected very little from this last outing of Daniel Craig as Bond, but got much more than I bargained for: fresh writers joining the team and the pressure to perform caused by the last film being, well, shite, resulted in a pacy, funny, character-driven Bond movie that took some risks. It has a lot of flaws, but those are mostly things you can chuckle at if you like Bond movies.