Discussing our favorite movies of 2021
Ahead of The A.V. Club's list of the best films of the year, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife talk about the ones that mattered to them most.
December is fast winding down, and here at The A.V. Club, that means one thing: We’re looking back on the pop-culture we loved these past 12 months. The site’s big staff list on the best films of 2021 goes up early next week. Before we unveil that, however, two of our contributing critics have sat down to discuss their own personal favorite films of this rapidly elapsing year. On the final, extra-long episode of Film Club before we all break for the holidays, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife run down their respective top-10 lists, seeing where they align and where they diverge, and waxing rhapsodic on the 18 different movies represented across both.
You can hear the entire conversation in the episode above, or read a lightly edited excerpt about Dowd’s number three pick, West Side Story, down below.
A.A. Dowd: Spielberg just throws himself into staging this as a musical. The musical numbers are just beautifully, brilliantly staged. He uses some of his signature tracking shots. He also uses wide takes. He doesn’t do the thing where he holds on the dancers for too long. I think one philosophy about modern musicals is that we should be given a good look at the dancing. Spielberg cuts a little bit, but he also doesn’t cut it into ribbons. We can always tell what’s going on.
Katie Rife: I like the “watching the choreo” approach. In The Heights did that a little more. They lingered on the choreo longer.