I’ve gotten into some of the prevailing themes that tie a
lot of 2019’s cinematic releases together over the course of these lists. The
overwhelming sense of disappointment, the harbingers of what could be even
worse movies to come out in the new decade, the inevitable efforts that manage
to defy just how much of a letdown the year turned out; that kind of thing. But
the main thing I got out of 2019 was that it was the end of the decade that
made me the critic I am today.
It has been a wild ride these last ten years, and not only
has this blog gone through some major changes in that time in regards to format
and length (why I ever thought a 1000-word minimum for my reviews was a good
idea is beyond me; I blame Principal Vernon), it has exposed me to films that have helped to shape
and give form to my perspective of the entire world. And man, did 2019 give me
a lot to think about in that regard, to the point where it might hold some of
the most personally formative features of my entire ‘career’. So let’s close
out our look at this bizarre year with a countdown of my top 20 favourite films
of 2019.
The winner of the coveted Best Worst Film Of The Year award,
this was easily one of the giggliest sits I had over the last twelve months. I
almost feel bad for just how expository my review for it turned out, as this
really is the kind of film that’s best entered into as blind as possible. All I
knew about it going in was that it was an early contender for worst film of 2019,
it had a twist that broke sanity over its knee, and it gave Armond White
another chance to condescend about how much the plebeians just didn’t ’get’ the
genius of it all.
However, I still stand by my review for it because this film
truly is that bonkers and consistently baffling that I needed to get it
all down on paper, if only to convince myself that this was an actual movie and
not just the product of a particularly cracked-out fever dream. I put the
appropriate spoiler tags in the review proper, so hopefully it didn’t complete
ruin the experience for anyone else, because I genuinely want more people to
see this magnificent train wreck for themselves.
At a time where the larger conversation regarding comedy has
shifted towards offence being the only thing that matters, every part of my
humour-chasing brain commends this film for setting the record straight. Yet
another example of why Mindy Kaling is one of the best comedic talents to break
onto the cinematic landscape, her writing pokes at the modern state of stand-up
comedy, late-night talk shows, and how mining the discomfort of reality can
unearth some real gems as opposed to the prevailing talk-shit mantra. I’ve
reached the point where I have no real issue with either approach on principle,
but when everyone seems convinced that edgelord shit is the only form of comedy
that even counts anymore, I genuinely appreciate films like this that show just
how short-sighted that perspective is.
Also, Emma Thompson and John Lithgow made for two of the
best performances of the year, and their additions of true-blue drama just made
everything else warm that much closer to my heart of hearts.
As far as the atmospheric experience that cinema can offer,
this one felt more unique than most. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest kaiju
afficionado out there, but based on just how hard-hitting this entry was, I’m
definitely open to checking more of the canon. The latest feature from the
Legendary Pictures revival of the classic giant monsters, this felt like the point where I got
the appeal of bringing these iconic creatures to the big screen here and now.
Watching this film felt like being right there with the
human characters, watching monsters beyond our comprehension wage a war beyond
our understanding. The main thread behind kaiju cinema is the idea of how these
are more than just monsters, but gods, and this is the film where that
effect made itself wholly apparent to me. It’s an incredibly humbling
experience, and considering how chaotic the forces of nature have been in my
neck of the woods lately, its depiction of man at the mercy of nature really
hits home for me.
For a filmmaker who has made an entire career out of a
decidedly postmodern approach to horror, a production like this felt like the
ultimate test of Mike Flanagan’s skills. And as what should rationally be the
final example of why people need to stop sleeping on the man’s work, he managed
to do something that not even Stephen King himself was able to pull off. He
delivered with a nicely atmospheric piece of psycho-horror, with all kinds of
emotional weight behind it to boot, that not only worked as a follow-up to one
of the greatest horror flicks of all time, but even managed to reconcile its
place as one of the most legendarily contested book adaptations of all time.
That is one hell of a hat trick, and for the film that I
most looking forward to all year, I am immensely pleased that this turned out
as well as it did. It’s moody, its visuals pay due service to Kubrick’s Shining
in a way that does more than mere fanservice, and for a script that started out
from hack extraordinaire Akiva Goldsman, Flanagan’s rewrite really nails down
themes of addiction, family strain and personal power that show him hitting new
heights for material he’s already shown tremendous understanding of.
Undoubtedly, this is one worth checking out, and it wraps up a fantastic decade
of work from one of my new favourite filmmakers.
Easily the best romance film I saw all year, the film’s key
strength is in just how confident and subdued it is. It shows a breadth of
artistic merit, emotional impact and subtextual depth, and yet because it’s all
presented in such a smooth and tightly-layered fashion, it makes this level of
finesse seem deceptively easy. And since the core romance is shown with so much
natural build-up and refreshing lack of melodrama, it made for one of the most
effective love stories of the entire decade, overall and in the annals of queer
cinema. I honestly haven’t fallen this hard for a romance flick since Call Me
By Your Name, and only time will tell if this proves to be as impactful on my
own understanding of love as that one turned out to be.
Cinematic violence framed as its own sublime artform.
Another satisfying addition to what is quickly becoming one of the genre’s
finest series. A chance to really hammer home how long people have been unfairly
clowning on Keanu Reeves’ chops as an actor, especially as an action lead. A
film so on-point with its approach to action that it made for not only some of
the hardest hits of the decade but also some of the funniest. Seriously, that
horse stable sequence is fucking glorious.
This film is all of these
things and more, but most importantly, it’s a sign that no matter what comes
next, Chad Stahelski is keeping the flame alive.
Yes, even with all my bitching about how Disney has changed
the industry for the worst, this film still made the list. That really is a
testament to just how masterful this production truly is, as it manages to take
what is already one of modern animation’s shining jewels and manage to carve even
greater nuances out of it. It maintains a lot of what makes the original Frozen
so much fun, from the spirited performances to the giddy soundtrack to the splendorous
animation, while adding to it a level of thematic sophistication that feels
like the culmination of just how daring ‘family films’ have become.
Its look at Nordic nationalism, its impact on the world and
how difficult it can be to even come to terms with its place in our own history
managed to visualise some incredibly difficult and abstract ideas, in a way
that both kids and adults could digest. Its treatment of its own title made for
one of the most striking thematic touches I’ve ever covered on this blog as
well, treating cultural and personal memory like a river, one that we freeze in
place to examine, analyse and, hopefully, come to grips with. For a sequel to a
film that everyone on Earth seems to have memorised in its entirety, this is
one hell of an impressive effort and one of Disney’s best efforts during their
single most scattershot year in their company’s history.
The newest addition to one of horror’s quirkiest sub-genres,
Ari Aster one-upped his work on Hereditary with a film that dived even further
into the murkiness of the human psyche. And what a mesmerising dive it is, starting
out as an uncommonly trippy slasher flick that, through its copious layers of
Pagan thrills and Ugly American analyses usually reserved for amazon cannibal
movies, turned into one of the most shockingly effective break-up movies I’ve
ever witnessed. While the rest of the world has been losing their minds over
Marriage Story, I can’t help but think that this film’s truest worth as a look
at trauma and phenomenally fucked-up relationships could end up falling by the
wayside. Then again, when its depiction of toxicity is this fucking
heart-rending (Florence Pugh has officially made the shortlist of actors to
keep a very attentive eye on), chances are that this will stick around to
puncture the hearts of moviegoers for years to come.
2019 turned out to be a surprisingly good year for
music-tinged biopics, and this was one hell of a powerful effort in that
regard. A gorgeous melding of hardened reality and tempered artifice that only heightened
how much that dichotomy played into the life of its subject, Judy might be one of
the best biopics of all time through the sheer virtue that it doesn’t make the
same mistake that so many others fell into. Namely, that it didn’t try and play
off the suffering of its artist as if it was worth it for the sake of their
art.
Instead, through Renee Zellweger’s high-point performance of
Judy Garland, the film expands its scope further than her contributions to art for
their own sake and brought in her place as one of queer cinema’s true icons, making
an appeal that what she brought to the audience and the larger conversation is
something we would gladly return in multitudes because it means that damn much
to us. It’s an unrelenting display of empathy and compassion that, as it
depicts the final year of the late Judy’s life, blends so many artistic
disciplines together to not only highlight Judy’s own range of talents (and by
extension, those of Renee herself) but to create a beautiful singularity of
art, one that does as much justice to its many mediums as it does to the legacy
of one of America’s most beloved artists.
Easily the most joyous jukebox musical in a year full of
them, this is the kind of film that could come about through literally involved
being on their A-game. Director Dexter Fletcher gave a look at just how good
Bohemian Rhapsody could have turned out if he had been involved with it from
the beginning instead of that other guy, writer Lee Hall burnt out so much of
his aptitude for cinema-grade musicals that it helps make sense of how his
efforts in Cats turned out as bewildering as they did, and Taron Egerton adds
another notch to his growingly impressive repertoire with a sonically and
dramatically fulfilling depiction of the life and times of a true pop music
legend.
It didn’t pull a single punch, it left no corner of Elton
John’s tumultuous story uncovered, and it left the audience without a single dry
eye when all is said and done. As someone who absolutely loves seeing licensed
music in the hands of capable filmmakers, this was an utter delight to behold.
Even with my pre-established weakness for comic book movies,
nothing could have really prepared me for just how fucking hard I fell for this
particular feature. As a conclusion to Marvel Studios’ strongest phase yet,
with a myriad of great blockbusters and even a few genuine cultural gems in its
composition, as the culmination of everything the studio had produced to date,
and just as a great superhero caper in its own right, this film managed to
stick the landing better than a hefty swathe of what came before it. I mean, looking
back on Avengers: Age Of Ultron (and especially Justice League), managing to
deliver a satisfying pay-off of this magnitude is insanely difficult, something
that makes this film’s efficacy shine even brighter.
And now that I don’t have to worry nearly as much about
spoilers as I did when writing my initial review, I can officially reveal the
true extent to which I fucking love this movie. It’s a time travel heist movie
featuring superheroes, gods and space mercenaries, one that’s built on tightly-constructed
continuity and long-form character arcs. This film was basically made for me, and
it serves as a shining example of why my love for this genre has existed long
before the MCU came into being and will likely persist long after it.
And yet, even with all that said, it wasn’t even the best
comic book-adjacent film I saw in 2019.
One of the most hotly-contested features of the entire 2010’s,
I went into this with what I felt was a healthy degree of scepticism, wanting
to serve as a solid middle ground between the frankly alarmist hostility
towards it and the head-over-heels fanboy reactions on the other end. Fat lot
of good that did, since not did I end up adoring this film to pieces, what I
love about it goes beyond comic book genre trappings.
As someone with quite a few mental disorders that often
stand in the way of me even being able to function on some days, this film’s
depiction of the mental health industry, its effect on the affected, how
hereditary conditions play into the larger condition, and just how fucking dire
things can turn out when those same affected are left behind by the system, felt
like a somewhat murky pat on the back that there are other people out there who
get what this shit feels like. That shot about the worst thing about
having a mental illness is still one of the most hard-hitting moments I’ve ever
encountered over the course of writing for this blog.
While so many others wound up taking away that this was an
example of glorifying the mentally ill, I only saw an example of the worst case
scenario, one that we should all be working towards preventing and yet only
seem content with letting happen while we all lecture each other for not doing
anything. But rather than fixate on the worst that someone could potentially
get out of a film like this, I want to focus on the best that we could get from
it, and if we spent more time walking the walk in regards to mental health, that
best could be a lot closer than we think.
After the middling-to-all-out-dreadful year Australian cinema
had in 2018, it certainly came back with a vengeance in 2019, resulting in some
truly powerful pieces of cinema. And with this particular feature, its power
proved so strong that it rubbed a few people the wrong way. Like, ‘you’re a whore and should be ashamed of yourself for making this’
kind of wrong way. The more things change, eh?
And admittedly, while not in any way deserving that kind of
treatment, it is definitely a confronting work, as it holds no qualms in
showing colonial-era Australia at its ugliest and vilest. It depicts the
treatment of the early convicts and the native Aborigines with equal power,
highlighted further by how it exposes the sadistic opportunism at the heart of
the British colonialists at the heart of their shared pain. It’s an unrelenting
look at humanity at its darkest, but that only goes to further show the importance
of humanity at its brightest, kindest and most empathetic. Australian
culture is codified by how the populace seems scared to even admit its own
history, and with this feature, writer/director Jennifer Kent makes it
crystal-clear that we need to acknowledge what happened so that we don’t
make the same shitty mistakes in the future.
This film does for traditional animation what Spider-Man:
Into The Spider-Verse did for computer animation: It tapped into the medium’s
past incarnations to give a vibrant blueprint for its future. What Sergio
Pablos managed to accomplish here is nothing short of brilliant, as the
combination of traditional animation of old and environmental techniques that
have pushed modern CGI into new levels of artistry is so fucking finely-tuned,
it almost makes one question why every animated movie doesn’t look this good.
To compound on the film’s insane visual chops, it also
accomplishes a minor miracle in its storytelling in that it managed to make me
vibe with a narrative that is dripping in modern-day cynicism. Its approach to
the story of the man who would become Santa Claus might be one of the finest
examples of results>intent I’ve seen in any medium, using the arc of
a perpetually self-centred postman to show that goodwill has the power to
change the world, all while indulging in darker humour and slapstick along with
genuinely impactful moments of pathos for Klaus. It’s already the embodiment of
what Christmas means in the modern era, and the fact that it’s a genuine ground-breaker
for its artistic medium only adds to just how marvellous this is.
Time to briefly step away from the feeling of euphoria the
best of 2019 could offer and get into what I’m called the Existential Crisis
Bracket, a trinity of films that affected me in such an unprecedented way, they
basically made me rethink everything I thought I knew about myself, my society
and the hobby that spend most of my time devoted to. And to kick things off, we
have an incredibly strange and complex puzzle of a film that looks at Hollywood
celebrity culture and basically tears down its self-ascribed feeling of
importance, making the audience question just how ‘important’ any of this truly
is. For someone who spends a lot of time writing about the deeper meaning
behind pop culture, this one genuinely confronted me with the futility of my
own lot in life.
And yet, I am absolutely in awe of David Robert Mitchell for
getting that visceral of a reaction out of me, especially since the film itself
is such a stunning work of art all on its own. The performances, the
deeply-textured writing, the myriad of reference points that touch on
practically every incarnation of popular art, not to mention the metatextual
narrative of a man trying to sort through a grand-scale cultural conspiracy
that puts the audience in the same position of trying to figure out the larger
scheme of things. It’s a film devoted to exposing the darker underbelly of the
industry it sits in, but in the process, it made me feel even happier about my
chosen expertise as, without it, I wouldn’t have been able to experience one of
the most intense artistic experiences of my life so far.
Now for the film that made me reconsider the society I live
in, and indeed my own actions within it. Watching this puts a greater context
to director Ken Loach’s statements about the current state of Hollywood, in
particular how much MCU has changed the way films are made and marketed, as his
depiction of a family at the throes of a larger capitalist system makes it hit
home just how much treating individuals as product dehumanises our own species.
It’s incredibly pointed in the statements it makes, but because it keeps
everything in the perspective of a single family and their individual stakes
and reactions to their situation, it holds back from being entirely didactic
and instead results in a potently melancholic offering.
As for the personal effect it had on me, it finally got me
to realise just how unhealthy my approach to my own work has been over the
course of this blog’s lifetime. It got me to identify how many times I’ve
willingly put my own wellbeing aside for the sake of writing these reviews, and
how retroactively horrified I am at myself that I found doing that to be worth
bragging about. In the face of people under the iron-clad heel of capitalism
and putting their entire sense of individuality aside just to survive, I feel
like a fool for thinking that same behaviour attached to a far-less-pressing
line of work was worth glorifying. And yet, as I’ve been writing these lists, I
and the rest of my household have been in the midst of a particularly nasty
stomach bug. It’s gonna take a bit more time for my workaholic tendencies to
smooth out completely, but I’m at least at the point where I can see them for
what they are, and I have this film to thank for that.
And now for the truly personal shit, with a film that hit
such a raw nerve with me, I actually scared myself a little with just how
honest my write-up for it turned out. I had rarely if ever talked about my own
history with dissociative episodes connected to my anger issues before this,
and yet when confronted with one of the most Jungian psycho-thrillers I’d ever witnessed,
I finally felt ready to admit to my own fractured psyche. It was a rough sit, and
I definitely felt like something deep within my soul has been unlocked in
response, but even beyond my own unique reaction to it, this is still a film
worthy of something that truly psychedelic in response.
A phenomenal showing of just how much can be accomplished on
a smaller budget, this mixture of Fight Club-style suppression, Lovecraftian
body horror and a starkly challenging yet resonant depiction of mental
illness serves as a terrific debut for writer/director Adam Egypt Mortimer, and
another central pillar to Elijah Wood’s growing pedigree as a terrific film
producer under SpectreVision. It outclasses even the likes of Joker for raw
cerebral scar tissue, serving as the grimdark remake of Drop Dead Fred the
world didn’t even realise it needed. Part of me wonders just how much of my
inner edgelord this film ultimately appeals to, but with how
scary-in-a-way-few-things-are this is, I honestly don’t even care. Or, at
least, I don’t care enough to love this thing any less.
The pinnacle of what Australian cinema was able to achieve
in 2019, this independent feature managed to get an even stronger reaction out
of me than even the Existential Crisis Bracket did. I went and saw this on
official detail for FilmInk, with a sizeable amount of the production crew in
attendance, and I was so achingly moved by this film, I basically ran up to the
director and asked if I could hug him. He thankfully obliged, and I made it a
point to say that I would do all I can to make sure more people see this thing,
so hopefully I can make a good case for it here.
As far as depictions of the social disability model at work,
this has got to be one of the most powerful out there, with its central
performance from Olympic gymnast and budding actor Chris Bunton serving as the
nucleus for the film’s startling understanding of not just Down’s Syndrome but
disability across the board. When it got to mentioning functional labels in
regards to disability, easily one of the biggest headaches in the entire
discourse, I honestly felt like I had just been seen.
It’s exceedingly warm in its characterisation and humour,
with its story about an able-bodied man basically lying to everyone that a
disabled person managed to knock him out telling so much truth about the
reality of living with a condition that I am all kinds of thankful for this
film’s sheer existence. Add to that its more dream-like touches, taking a fully
abstract and impressionist view on the myriad of ways that a disability label
can affect one’s sense of identity, and its existence as a healthy counterpoint
to what the highest-grossing Aussie film did with its own Down’s Syndrome cast
member, and you have a beautiful film that I think has the potential to do a
lot of good for public perceptions regarding disability, Down’s Syndrome
especially.
In a year where both Marvel and DC were working on some of
their greatest works to date, this film still won out as my personal favourite
superhero flick. The usual ‘mileage may vary’ caveat exists for this as it does
for a lot of M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography, even his undisputed classics,
but someone who has seen the man deliver some truly atrocious excuses for
cinema and his recent comeback, this tickled my itch for comic book
storytelling more than anything else in 2019.
Some may point at the film’s framing, which basically takes
the main characters from Shyamalan’s Unbreakable and Split and puts them
through an extended psychiatric session designed to make them believe that they
have no superpowers, and question why this made more of an impact with me than
the thrilling bombast of Endgame or the chilling confrontation of Joker. And
honestly, it all comes down to what I love about superhero yarns. I like
sideways takes like this, ones that play around with the typical formula to wax
philosophical about the nature of superheroes and their greater impact on the
human race; it’s basically the reason why Vertigo remains my favourite comic
book brand, as their finest output got a lot of mileage out of examining the
theological and psychological underpinnings of the lavishly ludicrous world of
superheroes. Or, in more simple terms, I come from the Grant Morrison school of comic book appreciation.
As a follow-up to one of my all-time favourite superhero
films with Unbreakable, and its own surprisingly effective follow-up Split,
this years-in-the-making team-up warmed its way into my heart the easiest of
any I saw over the course of the 2010’s… but in the face of the Disney
monopoly, my appreciation for this film has taken on a whole new dimension. At
a time when Marvel/Disney dominates the industry, and DC/Warner Bros. are
starting to get their shit together and making their way into equal ubiquity, third-party
alternatives to their respective universes are needed more than ever. Yes, this
production has its own connections to Disney as well as Universal, but as an
original superhero work not directly attached to a pre-existing comic book, it
serves as a precedent for the current thirst for this genre to be fulfilled in
ways outside of the Big Two’s output.
This is about as close to perfect as any film was able to
get over the course of 2019, and a solid reminder that the shit that writer/director
Rian Johnson has gotten over the last couple years has only served to make his
creative fire burn even brighter. I mean, beyond how his experiences with
Fandom Menace trolls became inspiration for one of the linchpin characters in
this film’s larger examination of racism in America.
Everything that this production aims for, it manages to hit
the bullseye with such grace as to make it look effortless. As a whodunit, it
builds on the clichés of the genre to create one of the finest cinematic examples
of the genre since the Clue movie. As a study of multiple characters, its
measured writing and invigorating performances leaves everyone with an
undeniably human fingerprint, from Ana de Armas’ central performance to Daniel
Craig with yet another perplexingly effective American accent.
As a film tailored to be enjoyed with multiple viewings, it
puts even Edgar Wright to shame in just how insanely thought-out every aspect
of the story and production is, with everything down to the phonetics of the
character names adding to the larger point. And as a satire of the American
Dream, it managed to be so effective that it overrode my general apathy towards
commentary like this, breathing new life into a subject that feels more
relevant now than ever.
And as a film in its own right, it shows an understanding of
the medium and its capabilities that could only manifest through the eyes of a
true master of the craft, making for Rian Johnson’s greatest cinematic effort
to date. In fact, this film is so freaking good that I’m almost nervous about
what the man has in store for his next production, as the mere thought of him
somehow improving on something this well-crafted might well give me a heart
attack from all the excitement.
With every film I have ever and likely will ever look
at in my reviews, my approach is always informed by my personal understanding
of cinema as a form of art therapy. A form of fiction (or fact, in the case of documentaries
and the like) that, through the capacity for emotional impact that few other
mediums can grasp, has the ability to touch the human soul and heal it. And
over the course of this list alone, I’ve given a number of examples of how the
films I watch can have a profound effect on me, whether it’s reassurance of my
understanding of the universe or even making me question whether I actually
understand it in the first place. And this film, more so than possibly anything
I’ve covered on here before, highlights the almost-shamanic power of cinema.
A metatextual depiction of an aging filmmaker reflecting on
his life and past work, I went into this without knowing that much about
writer/director Pedro Almodóvar, other than he and Antonio Banderas previously
collaborated on The Skin I Live In and I kept seeing ads for it while watching
Delicatessen for a podcast (yeah, among all the other things that have happened
in the past year, I’ve finally stepped into the realm of movie podcasts). And
because that, this film’s place in my heart might even have a chance to grow
even further once I delve deeper into the man’s filmography, which itself is a
great accomplishment because my reception of this film is already this
high.
It’s a showing of how art, both for the artist and the
audience, has the capacity to heal great wounds and make sense of the events in
one’s life, something I always try and advocate for where I can because I
believe that cinematic art truly is that powerful. In fact, in the face of just
how confronting a lot of 2019’s better efforts got, this film stayed in the
back of my mind as an anchor to pull me out of any existential dead-end I found
myself in. Because every film on this list, even the ones that affected me in
less-than-ideal ways, gave me a chance to learn something new about myself and
my surroundings; I wouldn’t give that up for anything in the world, and knowing
that there’s definitive proof that someone else out there gets the healing
power of art only makes me even more certain that my work will continue.
Which itself is ironic because this film is such a great
argument for cinema therapy that I almost feel like I need never brush on the
subject again; it’s like Pedro walked in on me in front of a giant whiteboard,
covered in mathematic equations, wiped all of it off the board and replaced it
with a single equation that explained everything I had spent years trying to figure
out. This is the Unified Field Theory of cinema, and makes for not just a truly
brilliant film but also one of the most important works of art of the entire
decade, if not the history of the cinematic medium. If I can convince my
readers to check out only one film on this list… honestly, I’d still say to check
out Kairos, but for a better understanding of how I personally view art in its
many forms, this will likely be a reference point that I’ll keep well in mind from
here on out.
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