2019 was neither the best of years, nor the worst of years
for feature films. A few films that the
professional critic class praised to the hilt – like The Irishman, for
example, I found quite disappointing (see my review). Others that didn’t make
my Top Ten were quite good, and had I been a slightly different mood when going
through the ranking process, might have supplanted a couple that made it. Many of these films have already been
reviewed on this blog (and I’ve provided links); others have not. So, with the Oscars a mere eleven days away as this is written, here are my nominees for best movies of 2019: [For my friend Larry Lee's 10 Best list see Reflections on 2019.]
1.
Pain
and Glory – Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar – starring Antonio
Banderas.
There are very few truly great movies. This is one. Most years, 2019
included, maybe one or two films qualify for that kind of accolade. In my October
2019 review, I said that Pain
and Glory is that rare movie that leaves you “joyously exhilarated from
the sheer pleasure of the experience.”
It is a visually gorgeous film that is also evocative, contemplative, emotionally
honest, insightful and even poetic at times in its expression of human desire,
pain, familial love, sexual-romantic love, regret, and artistic expression. It also features great acting – including what
is probably the best performance of Banderas’s career. The story, concerning an aging, ailing
auteur, not unlike Almodovar himself, is about ambition and disappointment, aging
and remembering; hope and despair. Almodovar has made a number of truly
wonderful movies, and Pain and Glory ranks with the best
of them.
Oscar nominations include: Best International Feature and
Best Actor
Available on disk and streaming on many
services, including Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
2.
Marriage
Story – Written and directed by Noah Baumbach – starring Scarlett
Johansson and Adam Driver.
Compared with all of the other American films nominated for Best Picture
this year,Marriage Story is the only contemporary domestic drama. This is a category that seemingly has fallen into disfavor with American studios, which is a
shame. In my
review, I called Baumbach’s movie “sweet, devastating, compassionate,
rewarding and beautiful.“ That still stands. I should add that it is also
powerful. The title reflects the director’s intention to tell the story of a
contemporary marriage, using as a prism the couple’s experiences and
recollections as they go through a difficult divorce. It is an interesting
technique, and – more importantly - it works, aided by what are probably the
best, most daring performances of Johansson’s and Driver’s respective careers.
Baumbach’s terrific screenplay is intelligent, honest and incisive. The movie
is funny and sad, reflective and emotionally stirring, ultimately heartwarming.
It’s also a not so subtle indictment of a legal system that often, if
inadvertently, can turn good, caring people into adversarial combatants,
serving the egos of the lawyers as much or more than the interests of their
clients and their children.
Oscar nominations include Best
Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress [Laura Dern]; and
Best Original Screenplay.
Available streaming on Netflix.
3.
Little
Women – Written and directed by Greta Gerwig – Starring Saoirse Ronan,
Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Laura Dern
Gerwig’s follow-up to her splendid
Lady Bird (2017) is a terrific adaptation of the revered Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women, about the four March family sisters Beth,
Amy, Meg and especially Jo (Ronin), together with their mother ‘Marmee’ (Dern),
Aunt (Meryl Streep) and handsome young male friend ‘Laurie’ (Timothee
Chalamet). The Marches are each smart
and attractive in distinctive ways, but they are increasingly poor, what with
Dad off to tend to wounded Union soldiers in the Civil War. This, of course, doesn’t
help the all-important marriage prospects for these young women. For Jo, at
least, marriage isn’t the primary thing – that would be her focus on writing: more
than anything, she wants to be a successful author. For a young woman in the
mid-19th century, her sex is a bigger impediment to a writing career
than poverty is to her matrimonial chances.
Gerwig emphasizes the feminist
perspective of the story, without losing sight of the charming, melodramatic
ordeals of Jo and her sisters. She has taken a few liberties in the telling,
such as starting the tale near the end and using flashbacks to fill in the
rest. While the look of the picture has a traditional feel, the mode of telling
and some snappy updating of the dialogue (without irony or patent anachronisms)
make this a Little Women for our times. The acting throughout is
excellent. Ronan’s Jo and Pugh’s Amy are standouts. The story, especially Jo’s
yearning and determination, are timeless.
Oscar nominations include:
Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Pugh), Best Adapted
Screenplay (Gerwig)
In wide release.
4.
Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood –
Written and directed by Quentin Tarentino – Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad
Pitt, Margot Robbie
Tarentino has had a thing for revenge motifs, at least since the huge
success of Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). He
found further success incorporating this into his two ahistorical period films Inglorious
Basterds (2009) which appropriated holocaust atrocities to set up a
fantasized over-the-top fiery Hitler assassination, and Django Unchained
(2012) with its appropriation of some of the most horrific tropes of racism
and black slavery in antebellum Mississippi to set up a wild Hollywood
extravaganza of revenge on an evil slaveholder.
I feared the worst with Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood,
which, it was said, appropriated the Manson gang’s 1969 Sharon Tate murder for
his story. And yet here the ahistorical element works, because Once Upon A
Time has a fairytale ending that the Brothers Grimm would likely have
approved. Like all Tarentino projects, the movie is smartly stylish, yet as I noted
in my August
2019 review, I was pleasantly surprised to find it so relaxed and funny.
This is an idealized homage to the Hollywood scene of 1969 - featuring two of
our finest male actors at the very top of their game, DiCaprio believable as an
insecure, fading, TV-cowboy actor and Pitt phenomenal as his laid back,
unruffiable stuntman buddy. As I said in my review, these two are worth the
price of admission by themselves. Plus, there’s Margot Robbie as Tate, a
beautiful flower-child actress. If you haven’t seen this one, do. (Remember: it
is a fairy tale, not a documentary).
Nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best
Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.
Available on disk and streaming on many
services, including Amazon, iTunes and
Vudu.
5.
Jojo Rabbit – Written and directed
by Taika Waititi – Starring Scarlett Johansson, Thomasin McKenzie, Sam
Rockwell, and newcomer Roman Griffin Davis
This is a funny, yet haunting new film by the wonderful (though not yet
well-known) New Zealand director Waititi, whose previous efforts include the delightful Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) and the irreverent Marvel hit
Thor: Ragnorak (2017). Waititi
has a light touch, especially welcome here, where the story is a coming of age
fable about a 10-year-old boy, Johannes - called Jojo - in late 1944 Germany.
Jojo is filled with childish patriotism. Indeed, his imaginary friend is Der
Fuhrer himself (a brilliant touch, as you’ll understand if you’ve seen the
film)! The thing is: Jojo is really a sweet, lonely soul whose essence is
completely at odds with the inherent evils of Nazism. When he meets a Jewish
teenager in hiding, he begins to confront a harsh reality and his own humanity.
As I explain more fully in my
December review, while these topics sound heavy (and are), they are rendered
in Waititi’s inimitably appealing and entertaining style – without losing sight
of the necessary point, which is not just to provide the new 21st
century generation a “light” history lesson. Rather, this often comedic film
underscores the importance of truth in the face of disinformation, the madness
of cult politics, and importance of tolerance - rendering all this in a most
refreshing way through the eyes of an innocent child. Pretty great stuff.
Nominated for 6 Oscars, including: Best Picture, Best Supporting
Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay.
In
fairly wide release.
6.
Parasite – Written and directed by
Bong Joon Ho – Starring Kang-ho Song, Yeo-Jeong Jo
This South Korean film – by the
director of Okja (2017) and Snowpiercer (2013) – has been the
surprise 2019 hit of the international (i.e. foreign language, which is to say
subtitled) film category. It is a genre hybrid labelled as “comedy, crime,
drama”; and one could add a pinch of horror to the recipe as well. Mostly it’s
funny, then intriguing, then edge of your seat thrilling - in a claustrophobic
sort of way. And very, very entertaining.
The premise is a little bit like
last year’s hit Shoplifters by Japanese director Hirokazu Kor-eda, in
that it is concerned with a struggling working-class family of grifters; but
whereas Kore-eda’s movie is gentle and heartwarming, Parasite is
unrelenting and a little disturbing. It is loaded with surprises, too – so I
won’t go into the plot, other than to say it is concerned with a culture clash
between the struggling hardscrabble family and a privileged executive-class
bourgeoisie one - which starts when the college student son of the former scores
a job as an English tutor to the teenage daughter of the latter. After that,
this is one of those “you have to see it yourself” sorts of stories. Beautifully
structured, perfectly filmed, lovely acting.
Oscar nominations include: both
Best Picture and Best international Picture, plus Best Director and three more
In wide release.
7.
The Two Popes – Directed by
Fernando Meirelles, Written by Anthony
McCarten – Starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce
This is also something of a
surprise hit, being a two-hander which centers on a long conversation between
two Catholic priests. You would think this would not be very cinematic, and –
unless you are fascinated by the Catholic hierarchy – not particularly
interesting. You’d be wrong on both counts. The first man is Pope Benedict XVI
(born John Ratzinger) who famously resigned the papacy in February 2013 (the
first pope to do so in 600 years), played by Hopkins; the second is Argentine
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (played by Pryce) who, as it transpires, will
eventually become Benedict’s successor, the current Pope Francis. Somewhat
nominally, the protagonist is Bergoglio.
The conversation takes place at
the point when Benedict is privately considering retirement. There are multiple
reasons for this - both personal and political (exploding scandals regarding ecclesiastical
sexual misconduct and its coverup). One of his concerns relates to who would
replace him as the new pope. The most likely candidate seems to be Bergoglio. The
two men are opposites temperamentally and philosophically – Benedict being very
conservative respecting church doctrine and in personality; Bergoglio known as
a man of the people, a liberal, and no fan of Benedict. Meeting at Benedict’s
behest, two things happen most unexpectedly: Number one, the two men gradually
open up to one another - debating their different viewpoints, but more
importantly discussing their aspirations, their fears, their respective life
experiences, their spirituality - and somehow forge a deep understanding.
Number two, their discourse is remarkably enthralling and pulls us in; it’s
intimate, intellectually stimulating, touching, compassionate, rich. The
fabulous, intelligent screenplay by McCarten should not have been a surprise: he also wrote The Theory of Everything
(2014) and Darkest Hour (2017). Then there is the superlative acting by
the two leads.
Nominated for three Oscars:
Best Actor (Pryce), Best Supporting Actor (Hopkins) Best Screenplay.
Streaming exclusively on
Netflix.
8.
1917 – Directed by Sam Mendez, Written by Mendez and
Kristy Wilson-Cairns – Starring George MacKay, Dean Charles Chapman, Benedict
Cumberbatch.
This movie is remarkable for a lot of reasons. It’s a brilliant piece of
filmmaking about a couple of British soldiers in WWI plucked from the trenches and sent on a harrowing, event-filled, impossible mission to deliver a life-or-death message across no man’s land - seemingly shot in one long take, which ratchets up the intensity and
keeps us gritting our teeth and clutching the edge of our seats. As I noted in my
January 13th review, it’s not your ordinary war movie. There are
no big battle scenes, for example.
Instead it is a thrilling, gutsy and gritty close-up adventure; one
that’s superbly written by Mendez and Wilson-Cairnes and evocatively acted by
the two leads, with a strong supporting cast of top-rank actors: like Andrew
Scott, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Richard Madden and Cumberbatch. With Roger
Deakins as Director of Photography, you can expect that the cinematography
would be good. It is more than that - it
is striking. Deakins (Blade Runner 2049,
Skyfall, No Country for Old Men, Fargo) makes the devastated battlefield
landscape look dramatically beautiful even as we simultaneously register it as
sadly horrific. The score by Thomas Newman – alternately haunting and spare,
richly melancholic, or bright and urgent – augments the story. It’s a stunning cinematic experience.
Nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Cinematography
In
wide release.
9.
Knives Out – Written and directed
by Rian Johnson – Starring Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas
This is a pure genre film - specifically an Agatha Christie-like mystery
story. More specifically a manor house murder mystery – the kind where pretty much everyone has a motive to kill the rich old gent who owns the place. There’s no message, nothing particularly educational or morally instructive here. But Knives Out makes this list because (as I first
mentioned in my
December review) it is a perfectly executed motion picture gem. Not to
mention highly entertaining. It features a terrific Daniel Craig, here showing
his playful side as the detective Benoit Blanc – an exaggeratedly Southern
version of Christie’s idiosyncratic Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot. The supporting
cast is filled out by the likes of Michael Shannon, Toni Colette, Jamie Lee
Curtis, LaKeith Stanfield, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas.
In the tradition of its genre, Knives
Out is set a stately manor – the Virginia mansion of renowned (and very
wealthy) mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer, perfectly cast),
who is found dead and bloody the morning after his 85th birthday
party – which, as we’d expect, had been attended by his large,
less-than-loving extended family. Was it
a grisly suicide or, dare we say it, m-u-r-d-e-r? Everyone’s a suspect, of
course. The pace soon becomes urgent in a plot is loaded with surprising, often
amusing twists and revealing flashbacks. An intelligent screenplay, frequently
claustrophobic set design, inventive cinematography, and finely tuned construction
of the film support a satisfyingly airtight, edge-of-your-seat story. All of which has earned Knives Out
a nearly perfect 97% Tomatometer score
on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nominated for an Oscar in
the category of Best Original Screenplay.
In wide release.
10. Queen
and Slim – Directed by Melina
Matsoukas, Written by Lena Waithe – Starriung Jodie Turner-Smith, Daniel
Kaluuya
A guy (Kaluuya) who works at
Costco and a woman criminal defense attorney (Turner-Smith) are on a first date at an Ohio diner, brought together by an online match service. It’s not going particularly well; they seem to have little in common. Their conversation is awkward. On the drive home, the two share a tacit agreement that there won’t be a follow-up, so they’re able to lighten up a little. But when they’re pulled over by a cop with an attitude problem, things take a horrible turn. With the cop lying bloody on the side of the
road. The couple find themselves on the run, fleeing for their lives. It’s a
bit of a Thelma and Louise situation, except these folks are African American,
and their situation is fraught with American racial fears and presumptions. That’s
the set-up for an anxious, revealing and colorful journey; one that ties the characters
together, reveals a common bond, and determines their fate. They drive this way
and that through the South, seeking help and shelter from a variety of folks,
some black some white; hoping to find a way to freedom, if not redemption.
Along the way, although they do not seek this, they become celebrities of a
sort, à
la Bonnie and Clyde. It’s an “outlaw romance” as someone has dubbed it.
The two leads are terrific
depicting individuals (never, to my recollection, referred to in the film as
Queen or Slim, or any other names] who come to understand themselves
and to love one another through their fraught odyssey. The actors flesh out these characters along the way and hold our interest throughout.
Emotionally engaging and quite entertaining, this is a very good picture. But
it’s not a brilliant one. What gets this into my top ten are two related qualities.
It allows those of us who are not black to see the world through African
American characters’ eyes and to better understand their fear of a racially
un-neutral system in ways that speeches and protests cannot. And it has struck
a chord with many black viewers in ways that traditional Hollywood films about
race in America have not. That’s also a good thing. For example, check out the NY
Times Magazine piece by Carvell
Wallace, praising Queenie and Slim, calling it “a rare portrayal of black
people in our fullness – angry and frightened and hurt, euphoric and loving and
free.”
In
fairly wide release.
Honorable mentions:
How do we draw the line at ten films? What makes numbers 8, 9, and 10 so
much more worthy than the next several titles on my favorites list? Not much.
So here are a few other of my favorites from 2019 that you might just find on
other reviewers’ top ten lists, or maybe are on yours, and are definitely worth
checking out: [listed in no particular order][reviewed films highlighted]
·
Woman at War
·
Ford vs Ferrari
·
Joker
·
Honey Boy
·
The Edge of Democracy
·
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Awesome list! How about your top 10 of the 2010s? 😁
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