2019 EOTY Entertainment Lists • Page 2

I’ve got just a few more films to knock out before I tackle my best of lists for 2019 & the decade. Last night I watched Toy Story 4 for the first time and ended up turning it off about 45 minutes in, I couldn’t stand the character Forky at all. His whole trash obsession became stale after the first couple times he ran, it got old real quick. Am I a terrible person? lol

For what it’s worth, I’m also of the opinion that 3 rounded up the series perfectly.

 

I enjoyed 4, but it's my least favorite one and 3 was the perfect ending to the series.

 

I saw Joker in Tetra’s post before I realized it was a worst of the year list and got nervous

 

I understand Jojo Rabbit not being for everyone, but the people who view it as an affront really puzzle me. I personally found it delightful both in spite of & because of its playfulness in the face of evil. But, I guess the nature of such evil is that not everyone can laugh & take it seriously at the same time.

A mix of laughter & sorrow is how I go through all the hardest things in my life, so I guess Taika’s sensibilities just work really well for me.

 

I know Chaplin was conflicted about how he handled the Great Dictator. It’s a tricky needle to thread.

 

I don’t know what general consensus is on Mel Brooks these days, but for what it’s worth, he recently praised the film.

 

I mean, I love the Great Dictator and Inglorious Basterds. I haven’t seen Jojo Rabbit so it’s less a commentary on its quality and more a reflection on satire of evil of that magnitude. It’s an interesting conversation.

 

Jojo Rabbit was too centrist but I'm Jewish and wasn't morally opposed to the concept

 

Every year, there is a scramble to see everything before the end of the year. Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, you simply are unable to see the independent and foreign films that are given limited releases. This year, LA FLOR, SYNONYMS, PAIN AND GLORY, and ASAKO I & II highlight the biggest omissions. However, there is still plenty to celebrate this year.



10. LITTLE WOMEN
DIRECTED BY: GRETA GERWIG

What a risk to make your sophomore feature an adaptation of one of the most influential books of the canon, with multiple film adaptations with iconic movie stars throughout history. Gerwig understands the risk of getting too wrapped up in adhering too close to the novel and borrowing too many tricks from the previous films, and she instead decides to offer her own feminist critiques of the way women were held down by the society they were in and how it has not changed as much as we want to believe it has. More than anything, though, the film exudes warmth for all of its characters, never judging them for their failings and making you root for them more than any pre-packaged Hollywood film can muster.



9. AD ASTRA
DIRECTED BY: JAMES GRAY

Space is hostile, part one.



8. HIGH LIFE
DIRECTED BY: CLAIRE DENIS

Space is hostile, part two.



7. A HIDDEN LIFE
DIRECTED BY: TERRENCE MALICK

Malick is always searching for answers beyond our physical surroundings. What, or who, is the Creator, what do we owe to that being, and to what extent will they save us? In a world that is turning toward darkness, what is the point of one protest, especially when we know it fails? It matters because it can stand as an example to future generations who are facing their own forms of brutality and authoritarianism. Whether it is Anne Frank or Oskar Schindler, these are the faces of light in an otherwise dreary disaster.



6. TRANSIT
DIRECTED BY: CHRISTIAN PETZOLD

Why do we keep putting off change? One last drink, one last cigarette, one last hamburger. We think that it is all up to us and that change will come when and if we want it. Even in a Paris descending into becoming an open city, Georg keeps finding himself intertwined with people and circumstances that delay his exodus from the city. Why would we fall in love in these circumstances? Our animal instinct to survive and our human instinct to form bonds with one another are in constant struggle.



5. MARRIAGE STORY
DIRECTED BY: NOAH BAUMBACH

There is a long history of empathetic characters in cinema, but the real trick is to make a film full of empathy where there is no one to blame. The husband is not an abusive alcoholic, and the wife is not an adulterous gold digger. Both of these people are dealing with the fact that they are growing apart, but more importantly they realize they had started their relationship by settling and had thus doomed themselves to either a life of unhappiness or an inevitable divorce. People require protagonists and antagonists, but the reality is much more complex.



4. UNCUT GEMS
DIRECTED BY: JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE

The Safdie brothers, more than perhaps any other filmmakers, know how to film constant motion. It can be a bit exhausting to watch, as characters are constantly moving and manipulating, the soundtrack humming, and the plot straying further and further away from its central conceit. Anyone who has gambled more than they should have will know that rush and how it is communicated in this film, as Howard throws up so many balls in the air that he knows how unlikely it is that they will land the right way. It is a drug just like any other, but perhaps more dangerous because of the way in which we glamorize it.



3. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
DIRECTED BY: CELINE SCIAMMA

We want the best in still images that represent us; people take hundreds of pictures of themselves nowadays and curate the best ones for their social media platforms. What are you going to express of yourself in the painting that will determine whether or not you are to be married to a stranger? While the photograph is mostly telling the truth, the portrait is more damning in that it represents what others think of you, which will never be what you see in yourself. Why would anyone want to be immortalized in that way, especially when you do not control the process? The painting is playing a role, like a woman who is being married off to a stranger must play a role. These sacrifices are made, but those who really saw us know when we are playing a part.



2. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD
DIRECTED BY: QUENTIN TARANTINO

Has any other filmmaker done more creatively with the limitations of working on true stories? We had the catharsis of Hitler's grisly death in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, but here it is more personal; instead of the most consequential war in history, it is a grisly murder scene that represented the end of an era. Both the ranch scene and the ending climax are the sort of masterful pace and suspense buildups that Tarantino has been doing for a long time, and even still you have to smile at the audacity of it all.



1. THE IRISHMAN
DIRECTED BY: MARTIN SCORSESE

Since GOODFELLAS, it seemed like Martin Scorsese had peaked as a filmmaker. He did not face the same sort of irrelevancy of Francis Ford Coppola, and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE has its adoring fans, but for twenty years it seemed like he was unable to push the medium forward he had done for so long. The decade brought a renewed Scorsese, experimenting with 3D in HUGO, transplanting the style of GOODFELLAS into the corporate world in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, and tackling the limits of faith in SILENCE. Here, though, he makes what could be a final statement, a film about how we only get so many chances and that we will pay for our sins, sooner or later. There is no true nobility in getting old, but if you live a life of meaning and personal connection you can spend those last years with people who love you. You can secure yourself financially and you can put down your opposition, but that loneliness is worse than dying for something much earlier.

 

They've done it again!

 

Still working on my movie write-up, but here's performances. Shameless self-plug:

The Top 20* Performances of 2019

 

I forgot about Beach Bum. Meant to watch that.

 

Nailed it. My list would be pretty much the same as yours, only I’d add Hye-jin Jang (Chang Hyae-jin) because she was my favorite performance in Parasite

 

https://boxd.it/2Mn8C

Tried to be honest with myself here and rank things based more on enjoyment than quality but hey, here are 30 films that came out this year

Little Women is a 2020 film because I haven’t yet had time to see it

 

The Top 20 Films of 2019: Part One