I still vividly remember being a teenager and feeling like the year 2000 was so far away. Then we got there and the expectation reset for 2020. The time before hitting these milestone years was filled with anticipation and deep wonder for what our lives would be like and how the world would have changed. In the early 2000s, I made the mistake of trying to plan how my life would turn out, with all my hopes and dreams going in a completely different direction than I could have imagined. This led to too much time spent longing to go back and start it all over again. The best movies of 2019 identify deeply with this idea of coming to terms with who and where you are, for better or worse. How does one move forward when your feet are still pointed back? It's a loaded question, one that was explored in a variety of exciting, tragic, and hilarious ways. Every year has a abundance of good movies, but I felt a deeper connection to this one, maybe due to it being on the heels of a new decade. The path goes both directions...I am hopeful about discovering which one points ahead. I wish the same for you.
Lee
Movies Logged: 106
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Avengement, The Beach Bum, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Clemency, Cold Feet, Cold Pursuit, The Dead Don't Die, Diane, Ford v Ferrari, Happy Death Day 2U, Honey Boy, Hustlers, In Fabric, In the Shadow of the Moon, IT: Chapter 2, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Lighthouse, Midsommar, Queen & Slim, Ready or Not, Richard Jewell, Rocketman, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Terminator: Dark Fate, Vision Portraits
30-21
30) Altantique (Atlantics) dir. Mati Diop
29) Booksmart dir. Olivia Wilde
28) Ash Is Purest White dir. Jia Zhangke
27) Dragged Across Concrete dir. S. Craig Zahler
26) Dolemite Is My Name dir. Craig Brewer
25) Homecoming: A Film by Beyonce dir. Beyonce Knowles, Ed Burke
24) A Hidden Life dir. Terrence Malick
23) Crawl dir. Alexandre Aja
22) J'ai Perdu Mon Corps (I Lost My Body) dir. Jeremy Clapin
21) Little Women dir. Greta Gerwig
20-11
20) Ad Astra dir. James Gray
19) Transit dir. Christian Petzold
18) High Flying Bird dir. Steven Soderbergh
17) Fast Color dir. Julia Hart
16) High Life dir. Claire Denis
15) Uncut Gems dir. Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie
14) One Cut of the Dead dir. Shinichiro Ueda
13) Border South dir. Raul Paz Pastrana
12) 3 from Hell dir. Rob Zombie
11) Toy Story 4 dir. Josh Cooley
TOP TEN
10) Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory) dir. Pedro Almodovar
A career best Antonio Banderas reflects on his childhood and film directing career in this stunningly beautiful semi-autobiographical portrait of aging from one the world's finest filmmakers.
9) Under the Silver Lake dir. David Robert Mitchell
Modern day Los Angeles attempts to give purpose to a life solely lacking in this delightfully twisty and unpredictable slacker noir. Everything means something is you make the effort...even the minimal amount.
8) Aniara dir. Hugo Lilja, Pella Kagerman
There were a handful of exceptionally cerebral sci-fi movies in 2019, but none of them stuck with me (and haunted me) as heavily as this one. Aniara is an existential nightmare, a journey beginning with hope that slowly and terrifyingly declines the other direction. Of the many complex questions the movie asks, the one that I have yet to shake is, at what point do the machines we've created to bring us comfort realize there is no longer any comfort to give?
7) Glass dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Who could have guessed that the final chapter in Shyamalan's superhero trilogy would be the most emotionally and politically rich? Glass was, for me, the boldest and most challenging big screen blockbuster of 2019, a movie that takes huge chances and pulls most of them off effortlessly.
6) The Irishman dir. Martin Scorsese
A master storyteller, with the help of three cinematic icons, tells an epic saga of a life that felt well lived until it was reflected upon. Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) proudly recounts the details of his career, but the further he brings us to the present, the deeper we understand how sorrowfully it will end for him. The Irishman features a performance from Joe Pesci that is as terrifying as his turn in Goodfellas (but for completely different reasons) and a final shot that has burned itself into my brain for oblivion.
5) Knives Out dir. Rian Johnson
My third time seeing Rian Johnson's absolutely delightful Knives Out, I was still discovering new clues and relishing in off screen dialogue I had somehow missed the previous times. This is the year's biggest entertainment, a meticulously crafted, brilliant performed whodunit with razor sharp dialogue and an unexpectedly sweet story at its center. I can't wait to see it again.
4) Her Smell dir. Alex Ross Perry
There were a lot of amazing performances by women in 2019, but Elisabeth Moss's work in Her Smell towers highest of all. The movie is a searing portrait of an out of control rock star, played by Moss, whose self destructive behavior is at its most critical. We see her at her very worst, with director Alex Ross Perry refusing to let us look away, and then through her recovery. Both parts are intensely powerful, though the emotional core shines through most as Moss's character, Becky, tries to heal herself. In a year filled with incredible final scenes, the one here is a gut punch and leads up to a last line that is well earned and deserved.
3) Marriage Story dir. Noah Baumbach
A triumph of writing, performance, and direction, Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story is his best film to date, a thoughtful look at how two people who love each other, but are not a good match, do their best to navigate a divorce without drawing blood, something that proves impossible as they get deeper into the process. We witness as they each slowly unravel, leading to them saying things they don't mean and making decisions they didn't plan to make. It's often very difficult to watch, though we never doubt they want what's best for each other and for their child. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, two of my favorite actors, will have a hard time topping their performances here, and they're aided by a stellar supporting cast including Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Julie Hagerty. Like many of Baumbach's movies, it's heart-wrenching and occasionally very funny.
2) Parasite dir. Bong Joon-ho
No one mixes comedy and horror quite like Bong Joon-ho. The shift is jarring, but never without purpose. In Parasite, he and his acting muse Song Kang-ho, along with a top notch cast, have created one of the very best indictments against the 1% that I have seen. Scathing, unpredictable, and often jaw droppingly crafted (there's a sequence in the middle of the movie that is one of the most beautifully staged and edited of the year...hell make that the decade), Parasite is unflinching in its vision of the danger that comes with wealth...and what happens when those who don't have it get a taste. The less you know going in, the better. I was polarized.
1) Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood dir. Quentin Tarantino
I saw Pulp Fiction opening day in the theater, and the charge I got watching it was like nothing I'd experienced before. I was clearly in the hands of someone who loved the movies and wanted to share that with me in any and every way possible. With every movie since then (and Reservoir Dogs before it), Quentin Tarantino has continued to do that. Mileage may vary to be sure, but the passion for filmmaking, storytelling, and character has always shined through. If Pulp Fiction seemed like the perfect movie to be made by a cinema obsessed 31-year-old, Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood serves the exact same purpose for him at 56. It feels like Tarantino's entire career has been building to this, his magnum opus about the place where dreams are made during a time when the tide was shifting. The movie vividly and lushly captures the sights and sounds of Hollywood in 1969...we don't just experience it, we live in it. When Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) drives through the city, radio blaring, we can feel the wind blowing through his hair and the intensity of the neon lights that hit his eyes. At the center of the story is a friendship between Cliff, an aging stunt man, and Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a former TV star struggling to stay relevant and recognized. The movie is set against the backdrop of the Manson murders, most specifically the time leading up to when his followers killed Sharon Tate and a group of her friends. Margot Robbie plays Tate in the movie, and it's an astonishing performance in that we witness a snapshot of the life of a happy, caring person through very little dialogue. Instead, we see Sharon dance, we see her sleep, we see her pick up a hitchhiker, share a conversation, and then part in a warm embrace. But the peak of our time with Sharon comes when she discovers a movie she's in is showing and she watches it with an audience. The joy on her face as people react to her onscreen (the footage of the real Sharon Tate is used) is one of the best moments in any Tarantino movie. I mentioned that the movies of 2019 were ripe with stunning final images, but the one that concludes Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood has stayed with me the longest. It's a moment that's as comforting as it is haunting, crafted by a filmmaker who's spent a career bringing us characters he loves, but this time has done it with more humanity and warmth than ever before. The movie is a sublime marriage of writing and direction...often times Tarantino's obsession with dialogue can overshadow his images. Here, what we see often speaks louder than what we hear. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is a career defining movie. If Tarantino indeed only does one more movie, it will have mighty big shoes to fill.
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(c)Hell and Beyond, 2020.
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