Movies are an amazing art form. The best movies can function, as Roger Ebert famously wrote, as an “empathy machine,” drawing us fully into the lived experience of other people, seeing things through a difference perspective and maybe even forcing us to re-evaluate how we perceive our world and others.
But that is only *one* of the important things that a movie can do. A movie can also completely validly have the primary purpose of entertainment. And that is what we have with Lego Movie 2 – the most pure joy that I had watching a movie in 2019.*
* Well, the most outside of rewatching Into the Spider-Verse, but it is no shame to come in second to an all-time great.
It’s frankly amazing that the filmmakers could manage to make a viable sequel to the first Lego Movie, which seemed to depend so much on the freshness of its look and the narrative twist of it being an expression of a kid’s imagination. But thank goodness that they were up to the challenge, as this is the extremely rare follow-up that is better than a great first movie. There is just enough character development, an actual narrative reason to have a second movie, great performances, and OMFG some utterly fantabulous music.
I could watch the freaking *credits* of this movie again right now and the smile would never leave my face.
It has most of the usual Tarantino flourishes – hyper-realized dialogue, stylized violence, thoughtfully realized period settings, inarguable casting choices – with fewer of his more distracting tendencies. But the most striking thing about Once Upon a Time is how surprisingly generous the writer/director is. Even since Pulp Fiction more or less resurrected Travolta, he’s had a talent for letting his stars shine, but here he lets them do it more on their own terms.
Brad Pitt will almost certainly win a deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this performance, but it’s not for bringing Quentin’s language to life or being in outrageous and dangerous situations – really, the big fight at the end is the least significant part of his performance. Instead Tatantino lets Pitt just use his ineffable charm and charisma – his movie-star-ness – to make this everyman character someone we want to know more about.
The magnanimity also extends to Sharon Tate, who is allowed as a character to just revel in herself and her place in the world in such a way that rewriting history to spare her just seems like a kindness.
My #5 2019 movie and Tarantino’s best since Kill Bill Vol 1, at least.
The first and (so far) last Halloween movies have the perfect approach to a stalker horror villain. We know the name Michael Myers, and we know just a tiny bit of backstory about him, but he is fundamentally unknowable. He is the implacable evil that lurks around the corner and in the shadows of the room. His motivation is to kill you. There is no reasoning with him, there is no tricking him – you can run (in which case he’ll likely find you) or you can fight (in which case he’ll likely beat you).
This return to fundamentals is combined with a jarring portrait of what a history of being the subject of violence can do to someone; Laurie Strode knows one thing for sure in her life, and that’s that Michael is going to always be right around the corner, ready to try to kill her again (and again and again). This focus has ruined her life, and she knows it’s ruined her life, but it’s not a choice that she’s making. She isn’t rationally weighing the odds that Michael will escape and come after her and her family – she can’t stop obsessing over it.
And so, when the impossible happens and Michael escapes from yet another high-security mental institution, you can see that she’s terrified….but also there is satisfaction. She was *right* to have worried. It’s ok that she barely has a relationship with her daughter because now, due to her trauma, three generation of Strode women are actually prepared to fight the monster.
A true bravura performance by Jamie Lee Curtis, masterful suspense direction from David Gordon Green, and a great script.
So, here we are – 138 movies down, these are the 14 films that I saw in 2019 that I will defend to the death as great. Not all are cinematic masterpieces, but that is not the only criteria by which a movie can be judged. I’m going to narrow down to 10 and then do slightly longer (not wrestling-with-Joker-length though) reviews of my top 10.
You may not like all of these…just know that if that’s the case, you are objectively wrong.
14 – Apollo 11 (2019)
Breathtaking. This story didn’t need any overlaid narration….so they didn’t give it any. We were capable of great things once as a country….I hope we can one day get there again.
Thanks to Sundance for putting this on a big screen for me when I otherwise would’ve seen it on my TV, and for getting me into documentaries in generally really. #7 in my ranking of 2019 releases.
13 – American Psycho (2000)
Freaking hysterical and, frankly, a considerably better job of portraying a complete psychological break than Joker. Bale’s performance is less flashy but just an convincing as a troubled soulless corporate lackey descending wholly into the depths of his own imagination. Having watched this just a few months prior, perhaps this was why I assumed Todd Phillips’s film was trying to work on the same themes?
12 – Widows (2018)
As Ocean’s 11 is the perfect modern heist movie, Widows is the best modern crime drama. It’s hardly surprising that Viola Davis is in complete command, but this was the movie (on the back of watching The Night Manager) that convinced me that Elizabeth Devicki is a force to watch, and Daniel Kaluuya putting his charm into murderous crimelord mode was chilling. The much-discussed twist didn’t really add much for me – watching these presumed-to-be-helpless women get down to business and take charge of the theft and their destinies was more than sufficient already.
11 – Untitled Amazing Jonathan Documentary (2019)
What is truth? Can we ever really know another person? What is the point of a documentary if we cannot actually figure out what another person is doing or why they’re doing it? Can we even truly know why we ourselves are doing the things we do? If not, what is even the point of anything?
This movie doesn’t actually ask these questions, but they were all I could think about after watching it. I don’t think I could summarize the plot of this documentary even if I wanted to, but I also don’t really want to because it is something that everyone should see with as little foreknowledge as possible. My #6 2019 release.
When I first saw Joker I thought it was great. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the best actors of his generation, and he knocked it out of the park with his twisted, unlikeable, pathetic performance. I honestly didn’t understand why so many people – including some critics that I tend to agree with and deeply respect – thought that this movie was close to an atrocity.
Then I realized that apparently the reason that they felt that way is that they experienced the film much, much differently than I did. When I watched it, it never occurred to me that the majority of what we were shown in the second half was actually happening in the reality of the film. Once Arthur stopped taking his medicine, he descended further and further into his own fantasies. There is just no plausible way that three asshole Wall Street bros know all the lyrics (not just the titular refrain, but multiple verses) to Send in the Clowns. But Arthur, who has been shown to have an interest in musicals does. Similarly, this broken man who can barely have any interaction with his co-workers can now suavely sneak in to a huge charity benefit and get a private audience with the richest man in town, who is also running for Mayor? And he shoots a Johnny Carson stand-in on TV and the reaction is a jubilant mob hailing him as a hero?
I can’t remember who first mentioned this theory to me, but I find it more plausible that Arthur died when he locked himself in his refrigerator than that everything we are shown actually happened. Is it more plausible that Todd Phillips (more on him later, but in all events a clearly very talented director) just *forgot* about Arthur’s pseudobulbar affect (the inability to stop mismatched emotional reactions) that was portrayed so convincingly in the first half of the film, or that the second half of the film is at least in large part occurring in Arthur’s head – a fantasy about him becoming what he wrongly thinks is someone who takes control of his life?
So in my watching, this was a story about madness – a man who has broken and descended into a fantasyland where reality is indistinguishable from his desires, which themselves lurch around from self-loathing to dreams of what he thinks is dominance.
The problem is, as I read more reviews after watching the movie, I started to understand where people were coming from on the other side.
For one thing, Todd Phillips seems to be quite a piece of work. While I do not subscribe to authorial intent in determining the meaning or experience of a film, he sure doesn’t seem like someone that would be trying to tell a nuanced story about an ill man whose delusions make him believe that horror is heroic. And his statements about the movie sure don’t back that up either.
More importantly, while I saw everything as dissociative imaginings, I have to concede that the movie is never clear about what is “real” and what is not. Obviously Zazie Beets’s character does not become a sympathetic girlfriend, since the film expressly shows us later that those scenes didn’t happen the way they were initially presented (which I thought was obviously anyway). But having done that, I note that it doesn’t take the same step with any of the other scenes. That could be that it would be tedious to do so having revealed that some things are the result of an untrustworthy narrator, but it also necessarily leaves us never knowing what is actually happening in the world of the film. As mentioned above, I think it’s compelling to think that nothing in the second half is happening as presented….but if that’s the case, what is the point? Why are we seeing a warped dominance fantasy without being expressly clued in that it’s not real, particularly when the film has taken the time to do so before. Is this really just giving Phillips plausible deniability for his misanthropic takes? I took the second half as depressing with Arthur falling more and more into unhinged fantasy….but that’s not what the movie actually *shows* us – it shows him being celebrated by a rapturous mob and getting everything he thinks he wants (even vengeance on Thomas Wayne with a shoved-in short retelling of the mugging-turned-murder of the Waynes).
In the end, I have to admit that I just don’t know exactly how I feel about Joker now. I loved it at the time, I have misgivings now, but in all cases it was very well made and extremely well acted (probably my vote for best male actor performance of the year). So call this my compromise position – #15 of the movies I saw in 2019 and #8 of movies actually released in 2019.
Tense in an “oh my God why can’t I look away” fashion (although not as tense as Uncut Gems, which is sadly ineligible for this list due to the stupid rules I made up since I saw it in early January 2020). You’re left to wonder what Robert Pattinson’s character could have done if he had a different upbringing and financial situation – everything he does here turns out wrong at almost every step of the way, but he has a cunning way of always working the angles that is almost impressive.
22 – Children of Men (2006)
Grimmer than grim, but compelling in its depiction of a society that has almost completely collapsed into barbarism due to hopelessness. Unfortunately completely believable in how people would act in the situation portrayed. I understand that some people see the ending as hopeful but I’m not sure how.
21 – The Machinist (2004)
Boy, we’re really on a roll of feel-good movies here aren’t we? Bale is difficult to look at – I wonder how much medical supervision he had as he completely wasted away for this role. Another mesmerizing performance as he makes you feel both his obvious pain and his confusion about what is happening at any given time. The ending is fairly predictable but is nevertheless a massive punch to the gut.
20 – Personal Shopper (2016)
A deep examination on the effects of loss and grief, featuring a breathtaking performance from Kristen Stewart. Nominally a ghost story and/or murder mystery, I found this to be entirely about her character’s longing for her beloved brother and her coming to grips with his death.
19 – Knives Out (2019)
Hooray, not all of today’s movies are depressing! As Agatha Christie as a movie can be that isn’t actually based on an Agatha Christie source. Everyone is having So! Much! Fun! The details of the central mystery aren’t that terribly hard to figure out, but who cares when you’re spending time with such enjoyable characters. With apologies to, you know, the characters who die, the stakes never seem too high to take away from the enjoyment. I do wonder how Rian Johnson is going to keep it as interesting in the sequels to come, but as long as he’s writing and directing them I’m in. #9 on my official list of best 2019 movies (The Lighthouse was #10).
18 – Upgrade (2018)
I am told that one of the hardest things for top-level cheerleaders is that in the midst of jumping, throwing, and all the other deep physical exertion they have to keep a big smile on their faces at all times. In Upgrade, Logan Marshall-Green has to not only engage in almost non-stop brawling, he has to look terrified about it the entire time.
I went into this movie expecting good fight choreography and a mild diversion, but to my amazement they actually had a compelling plot, a complex but believable mystery, and excellent acting performances as well. Definitely the biggest positive surprise of my year.
17 – Training Day (2001)
My favorite Denzel Washington performance, and that is a damn impressive thing. Propulsive – you can see how it is going to unfold as you watch but that somehow only makes it more compelling to see it happen. Denzel holds you captive in his culminating speech like few ever could.
16 – Brick (2005)
The concept of this hard-boiled-noir-detective-flick-but-set-in-high-school always sounded a little twee to me, but after loving Knives Out I figured I should give Rian Johnson more credit and give this a shot. It’s honestly amazing how well it works – a testament not only to Johnson but to Joseph Gorden-Levitt (who knew he had this in him??) and Nora Zahetner, who are most responsible for making their performances fit what should be a ridiculous premise while also being believable, full characters. I honestly can’t say how much this *shouldn’t* work…but somehow it does.
Up Next: It’s Complicated (1) [I wonder how obvious it is what this will be?]
Grade A-2 Prime, Suitable for All Home and Industrial Uses
Not a lot of deep thoughts about this grouping – title says it all. Generally these were shows that I enjoyed and/or appreciated enough to want to rant at other people about them, but not to the extent that I thought they were in contention for best of the year. Still – good stuff here, and all of you should see them.
31 – Captain Marvel (2019)
Pretty much the perfect example of the “Not High Art But Tons of Fun” category; in fact, so much fun that it transcended the limitations of that set of films. It’s honestly kind of amazing the caliber of actors that Marvel can get for these things at this point and Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson have an easy chemistry that is exciting to watch. In a normal and/or non-Sundance year this would easily have made my top 10 of movies released in 2019.
30 – Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
You don’t need me to tell you how great the stunning visuals are or how hypnotically imaginative del Toro’s direction and story are. I did feel like perhaps I needed to know more about Spanish authoritarianism to fully get the nuances of the real-world scenes but the logic of the plot is not exactly the point here.
29 – The Farewell (2019)
Awkwafina is great in this but Shuzhen Zhao as Nai Nai is the one who really should be winning awards. Thoughtful, funny, touching family drama – not something I would normally see but part of the reason I love Sundance is getting exposed to these sorts of movies.
28 – Hail Satan? (2019)
A fascinating look at true American heroes – protecting freedom of religion by consistently pointing out the tyrrany of the majority. So many people talk about America as being a “Christian Nation” and who want the Ten Commandments in every Courthouse and City Hall, without the slightest interest in understanding why that is in fundamental conflict with the foundational meaning of the country. This documentary isn’t afraid to notice that these people are also….unusual, without judging them for being so. A good treatment of a very important subject.
27 – Moon (2009)
Boy howdy is that a lot of Sam Rockwell(s). A mystery that you don’t even realize is a mystery for a while, with impressive acting by Rockwell somehow reacting to himself. It may have helped, watching in 2019, that I was never sure whether GERTY would break bad due in part to being voiced by Kevin Spacey. Unfortunately, the too-pat ending keeps it from being a classic.
26 – The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
The epitome of small-scale horror: what starts as a normal day becomes more and more unraveled as our protagonists become trapped and hunted for reasons that they cannot explain…but as they figure things out it becomes only more haunting. The atmosphere is just right and the performances felt lived-in and authentic, only deepening the tension.
25 – Zombieland (2009)
It’s difficult to make the end of the world fun, but somehow Zombieland pulls it off. Great casting – I’m a big Emma Stone fan and Woody Harrelson is almost always well used, and Eisenberg’s unflappability is put to good work here as well. It’s a fully-realized world where the zombies are a threat, sure, but there is more hopefulness than pure existential dread and somehow – I’m not sure how – they make it work.
24 – The Lighthouse (2019)
Hell is other people. The mermaid stuff was a little over the top for me, but otherwise this was an engaging workplace / roommate dramedy. Dafoe’s plaintive “You don’t like my cooking??” during a pause in an all-out battle between the men may have been the best single line reading of the year.
Some documentaries fit really well into other categories, either because they were truly tremendous (I have 3 more to come on this list after this post) or, you know, not (the several previously ranked). But today’s grouping is a cop-out and admission that I had trouble fitting some of the docs that I watched into my nice little groupings.
These films are all documentaries that I would wholeheartedly recommend but wouldn’t really call great for one reason or another. Well worth the time to watch but not something I’m going to put on and force you to watch when you come over.
36 – Fyre (2019)
This is the Netflix one, not the Hulu one that came out at almost exactly the same time. I decided to watch this one based on more favorable reviews and a questionable decision that Fyre‘s cooperation with the company that ran the promotions for the event was less morally culpable than Fyre Fraud‘s partial cooperation with Billy McFarland (who was in charge of the whole thing). The primary benefit of this version of the story is that there is a *lot* of footage from the promo company that breathtaking – the picture above is from when the festival-goers arrived, for example.
The schadenfreude is extremely strong and the doc does touch on a wide range of culpability – McFarland, obviously, but also the naivete of the pampered suckers who would sign on to a new too-good-to-be-true festival without having any assurances about how it would be pulled off. Amazing how many first-person interviews they had for this thing too – if you somehow haven’t seen it already, the Andy King interview is worth viewing this by itself.
35 – Jim & Andy (2017)
I’m still not sure whether the final message from this is that a certain level of fame can really mess with someone’s ability to perceive reality, or whether Jim Carrey is just one messed-up dude. The contrast between the interspersed reflective and meditative recent interviews and the footage of him just being an unrelenting ass on the set of his Andy Kaufman biopic is striking. Was he just committed to his art to an unhealthy degree or was “being Andy” throughout the filming just a way to escape himself while simultaneously having license to just not care at all what people thought about him?
34 – Jodorowski’s Dune (2013)
I am not at all sure that Alejandro Jodorowski’s filmed version of Dune would be any good at all – in fact, I strongly suspect it would be an utter disaster – but I would pay a lot of money to see it regardless. The scenes from his other movies don’t make me even remotely inclined to see them, but the talent that signed on to this film is incredible and their shared vision…well, it would definitely have been memorable.
33 – Free Solo (2018)
What an asshole. It is an inescapable conclusion of this film that Alex Honnold will either stop free climbing mountains soon or he’ll die doing it. Yet he won’t give his poor loved ones a straight answer, stringing along his long-term girlfriend that he’ll stop after this climb…no, wait, after this next one…well, one more…
Of course, it’s also an insanely incredible achievement. Almost literally unbelievable that a human being could conquer these mountains without the help of anything better than some baby powder. The tension between these two ideas is captured pretty well in the movie (leaning, as you would likely expect, more toward the latter), but I was still left just furious that he would put his friends and family through the stress for what is, ultimately, just an adrenaline rush.
32 – Brother’s Keeper (1992)
I struggle with how to feel about this film. It’s a non-unsympathetic portrait of a part of America that is entirely foreign to me in the rural, uneducated, extremely poverty-striken back woods of upstate New York, but ultimately the brothers are so different from my experience that I could never feel like I could truly understand them – which might have been the point. Did Delbert kill his brother? Would it have been entirely wrong if he had? Who are we to even try to judge that question?
31 – The Barkley Marathons : The Race That Eats Its Young(2014)
In a sense, this is a much less aggravating version of Free Solo. There is absolutely no reason for these men and women to try to complete the proudly near-impossible Barkley Marathon. There is no reward, no fame, no using it to advance yourself or your career, no sponsoring opportunities. But while they also push themselves far past the point of exhaustion, they’re not going to freaking die doing it. The combination of interviews with remarkably self-aware racers and footage of the crazy race itself made for compelling viewing.
Now, see, *these* guys know what having fun is all about
I try not to be too snobby about movies – I certainly think genre movies can be among the best films of a year, decade, etc. And if every movie was a deep examination of what it is to be alive it would become awfully tedious. But just because something is highly enjoyable, that doesn’t necessarily make it truly great. Thus, this category is movies that were tremendously enjoyable to watch but didn’t really stay with me much beyond the viewing itself. All of these are recommended without reservation to everyone.
44 – Lone Star (1996)
Watching this I couldn’t help wondering why Chris Cooper wasn’t a bigger star. Incredibly charismatic lead performance kept me at rapt attention during this comfortably slow paced multi-front mystery. The characters are all well drawn and the resolutions fully satisfying.
43 – Isn’t It Romantic (2019)
Few trailers have ever been as truly representative of the film. A classic of the loving satire genre without being written in too broad strokes to have its own gratifying storyline. Also further evidence that the Hemsworth boys should really be doing primarily comedies.
42 – Attack the Block (2011)
Winningly propulsive, solid SciFi action film with a decent sense of humor while still being grounded in a more or less believable world. It also helps that they managed to essentially find John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker for their big breaks.
41 – Venom (2018)
Juuuuuust the right amount of stupid. If it had tried to take itself even a little bit more seriously it would’ve been a failure and any sillier and it just would’ve been a ridiculous trifle. It seemed like everybody involved in the film (particularly Tom Hardy) was having a LOT of fun and it came through the screen to make this easy to love.
40 – Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
They spent too long pretending that Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio might actually be a good guy when it was obvious from the moment he was cast that he would be the villain. But Tom Holland and Zendaya are just delightful and the tone – zany madcap action comedy combined with teenaged angst – carries over from the first Holland Spider-Man and is utterly true to the character and fun to watch. Have to admit that I’m very curious how they’re going to handle the secret identity reveal in the next sequel.
39 – Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Honestly an amazing feat just to juggle all those characters and plotlines to end the crossover event of our movie-going lifetimes. But a fitting capstone to Iron Man and Cap, with quality character moments for almost every character of significance and as little narrative tricksterism as could possibly be expected.
38 – Little Monsters (2019)
I think that there aren’t many other movie rankings that would not have Us as their top-ranked 2019 Lupita Nyong’o vehicle. Nyong’o (see above, covered with…um…jam…from a…jam fight) isn’t called upon for the same level of gravitas in this zombie comedy, but it’s just a delight from start to end. Pray for Mr. Frogsy.
37 – Ready or Not (2019)
What most Blumhouse movies wish they were. Phenomenally zippy script, quality acting performances, humor that is genuinely funny without taking away from the action aspect of the movie, while also having a nice little dig at the 0.01%ers willing to let the world burn as long as they get theirs.
Up Next: Documentaries I Really Liked But Couldn’t Fit in Other Categories (6)
Surprising meld of various genres – horror, fauxumentary, family drama – all of which are done quite well. This movie likely benefited from low expectations as I had barely heard of it and just was in the mood for a horror flick when I put it on, but this was much better than….well, than it had to be.
50 – Wind River (2017)
Jeremy Renner can act? Who knew! Not that he’s *bad* as Hawkeye or anything, but he’s not exactly stretched in the role. This isn’t the feel good movie of 2017 but I was truly rooting for these characters not just to solve the mystery but to heal themselves.
49 – El Camino (49)
Completely unnecessary and ultimately doesn’t disclose anything about Jesse that we didn’t already know, but I was so very happy to revisit these characters again. Bonus for the in-depth examination of Todd’s complete amorality.
48 – Us (2019)
Lupita Nyong’o so deserved an Oscar nomination for her captivating two-character performance, and Us is spooky as hell, but it doesn’t fully hold together – what’s with the Hands-Across-America thing again? Still, whatever Jordan Peele wants to make next, I’m in.
47 – Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Intense and captivating, hyper-realistic ultra-violence. Extremely well shot, edited, and choreographed. Try not to think about the underlying politics, which are at least less prominent than some of Zahler’s other movies.
46 – The Invitation (2015)
Slooooowwwww burn mystery. Exactly what is happening here, and why? Is this as bad as it seems or just uncomfortable? The less you know coming in the better, so I’m not going to say anything further.
45 – Unsane (2018)
Fantastic tense psychological drama/thriller. Great performances and interesting direction from Soderbergh, as always. It would’ve been several categories higher if they had kept the question open longer about whether Foy’s character was truly crazy, but the action stuff and the realistic level of “why will nobody believe her?” stress in the second half was a decent runner-up payoff.
