Odd Couples (The Year in Review 2020)

In a year where lockdown threw us into unusual social configurations - "support bubbles", anyone? - there's a good chance you spent a significant amount of time hunkered down with one person - a relative, a friend, a roommate (hopefully a tidy one!) - in front of your favourite streaming service or gaming console. A similar phenomenon played out on those very screens, as a remarkable number of the year's best creations featured pairs of people thrust together by circumstance and forced to make the best of it. From a pair of ragtag bakers, to a pothead detective and his sidekick, to a couple of small-town radio geeks, this was a year for close friendships and odd couplings - right down to the best co-operative video game I've played in a long time. Here, then, are my picks for the best of an otherwise not-best year.

FILM

I have a soft spot for FIRST COW, the last movie I had tickets for before #2020 shut down my favourite cinema (and, uh, all the other ones). That said, this intimate character study, about a pair of hardscrabble travellers trying to eke out a living at a 19th century trading outpost, is ideal home viewing. John Magaro and Orion Lee, neither of whom you have heard of, put in fine performances as Cookie and Lu, friends who steal milk from a rich man's dairy cow in order to kickstart their very small-time bakery business. That director Kelly Reichardt is able to craft such a moving and at times tense drama out of these seemingly small stakes is testament to her feel for this milieu, previously visited in her seminal Meek's Cutoff.

While THE VAST OF NIGHT plays like a lost Twilight Zone episode (replete with opening voiceover and fake TV distortion effects), it owes just as much to classic space invader cinema. In particular, Vast works as a kind of unofficial remake of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, even as it's set about twenty years earlier, in the 1950s apple-pie-and-sock-hop USA that Encounters director Steven Spielberg actually grew up in. Like a certain other Spielberg classic, Vast does an incredible job of raising tension despite showing little, if any, of the alien threat that may or may not be menacing a small town. The film's period-accurate lingo, and charming fascination with old-school technology - just check out those deliberately long takes of phone operators working the lines, or characters winding up audio reels - only add to the feel that this was a labour of love.

Some may knock the moral posturing of THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, Aaron Sorkin's righteously angry account of the events surrounding the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention. But to write it off as liberal fan service misses the point: sometimes it's fun to see the good guys win, especially when they make fools of the bad guys - in this case, the combined weight of a racist, conservative, U.S. justice system - in the process. Sacha Baron Cohen and Jeremy Strong, as a kind of pothead Laurel and Hardy version of Yippie cofounders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, are the best parts of a wonderful ensemble cast. And while it's billed as a drama, 7 is also one of the most consistently funny movies of the past year.

TELEVISION

Alex Garland's 2018 Oscar Isaac dance-fest Ex Machina gets a spiritual sequel in DEVS, a near-future sci-fi thriller starring Sonoya Mizuno and Nick Offerman (and Sonoya Mizuno and Nick Offerman). Like its predecessor, Devs imagines the consequences of a revolutionary technological advance - in Machina, humanlike A.I.; in Devs, something far stranger - and those who dare to play with it. Although Devs's central conceit (no spoilers!) is infinitely less plausible than Machina's rogue AI, it still makes for an interesting and thoroughly entertaining thought experiment, especially when lead character Lily (Mizuno) comes face-to-face with herself and the choices she's made.

Cate Blanchett shepherded the Phyllis Schlafly bio-series MRS. AMERICA into existence, and her devotion to the woman, if not her politics, is on fine display in her starring role. Schlafly, who died in 2016, has long been derided/heralded - depending which side you're on - as the "first lady of the conservative movement", and Blanchett makes the most of this queen of anti-feminists in an unapologetic, largely unsympathetic performance that nevertheless succeeds in making Schlafly human. They say know your enemy: Schlafly's last published work was "The Case For Donald Trump".

GAMING

The only thing missing from GHOST OF TSUSHIMA is a virtual Toshiro Mifune, scratching his beard and gruffly barking orders at a gang of misfit rōnin. In his place, we get Jin Sakai, the title "Ghost", a samurai who betrays his honour code and embraces some historically dubious but highly entertaining stealth tactics more suitable for a ninja. While this heavily fictionalized 13th century waraji-and-kimono epic bears only passing resemblance to the real thing, you'll be too blown away by the photorealistic Japanese landscapes and brilliant swordplay to care.

Retro sequels are a dime-a-dozen these days (perhaps $0.25 a dozen is more accurate), but STREETS OF RAGE 4 stood out from the moment I got my hands on it. The co-operative gameplay is superb, and the graphics and soundtrack manage to simultaneously look modern but feel retro. Of course, the addition of unlockable 16-bit sprites and the original Streets soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

I loved Carrion, but there's only one 2020 video game that truly captures what it means to be an unstoppable horror movie killing machine, and that game is MANEATER, aka I, Jaws. As far as I'm concerned, Maneater is perfect: it lets you control a giant shark, it throws you into combat against killer crocodiles and one very angry Shamu, and you can most definitely eat yachts. Gloriously scientifically inaccurate and aggressively entertaining, it's the perfect game for anyone looking to blow off some of that 2020 steam.

COMPLEMENTARY CANADIAN CONTENT CHAMPION'S CHALICE (CRONENBERG EDITION)

Over the years, I've made a habit of closing out my annual reviews with my favourite Cancon creations. This time out, I'm slightly shaking things up with one regular award plus an honourary prize to my favourite Canadian cameo-maker of 2020, the one and only Mr. David Cronenberg.

Elevating what's been an otherwise terrible season of the worst Star Trek series (and yes, I've seen Enterprise), Cronenberg shows up for about three total scenes of Star Trek: Discovery, all while wearing his trademark glasses in a future where the need for prescription eyewear has long since been eradicated. (There's even a joke about it.) Rumour has it Cronenberg may join Michelle Yeoh on the long-gestating Section 31 spinoff series, to which I say: beam me up! (And yes, "long-gestating" is a body horror pun.)

Cronenberg is also the best part of Disappearance at Clifton Hill, a Niagara Falls-set neo-noir that ought to be a lot better, and weirder, than it actually is, given its plot of missing kids, kitschy Québécois tiger trainers, and a pathological liar who turns to scuba diving podcaster Cronenberg for investigative guidance. You can probably skip this one, or simply fast-forward to the Cronenberg scenes.

As for our regularly scheduled award, a nice big Maple Prize goes to vantablack comedy THE KID DETECTIVE, the year's other weirdsville Canadian neo-noir - only this one is actually good. Adam Brody stars in the title role, a former small-town celebrity who's still at it as a 30-something private investigator desperately trying to relive his glory years. This North Bay, Ontario-set film is so deadpan it's practically comatose, and while that might be a turn off for some, its played-so-straight-it-reverts-to-funny style will find an audience in anyone who loved Inherent Vice, Computer Chess, or the early/self-aware seasons of Riverdale. Three maple-flavoured doobies out of four.