Best Films of 2019
By Hope Madden and George Wolf, MaddWolf.com This has been a fascinating year for movies. While we had some great […]
This has been a fascinating year for movies. While we had some great sequels and superhero adventures, 2019 has offered a beautiful abundance of original films and this may have been the single best year for documentaries since ever. Favorites returned to form while new voices pushed the artform in gorgeously necessary directions.
Here are our 25 favorite films of 2019.
1. Parasite
Every time you think you’ve pinned this film down—who’s doing what to whom, who is or is not a parasite—you learn writer/director/master craftsman Joon-ho Bong has perpetrated an impeccably executed sleight of hand. Just when you think Bong’s metaphoric title is merely surface deep, a succession of delicious power shifts begins to emerge.
As the Kims insinuate themselves into the daily lives of the very wealthy Parks, Bong expands and deepens a story full of surprising tenderness, consistent laughter and wise commentary on not only the capitalist economy, but the infecting nature of money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEIwFAQ-Rec&t=16s
2. Toy Story 4
Talents new and veteran gel to combine the history and character so beautifully articulated over a quarter century with some really fresh and very funny ideas. Toy Story 4 offers more bust-a-gut laughs than the last three combined, and while it doesn’t pack the emotional wallop of TS3 (what does?!), it hits more of those notes than you might expect.
Between Forky’s confounded sense of self and Woody’s own existential crisis, TS4 swims some heady waters. These themes are brilliantly, quietly addressed in a number of conversations about loyalty, devotion and love. To its endless credit, TS4 finds new ideas to explore and fresh but organic ways to break our hearts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiIUN-7qhE&t=74s
3. Apollo 11
A majestic and inspirational marriage of the historic and the cutting edge, Apollo 11 is a monumental achievement from director Todd Douglas Miller, one full of startling immediacy and stirring heroics.
There is no flowery writing or voiceover narration, just the words and pictures of July 1969, when Americans walked on the moon and returned home safely. This is living, breathing history you’re soaking in. And damn is it thrilling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKM8YpTmVw
4. Jojo Rabbit
Brazen, hilarious, heartbreaking, historical and alarmingly timely—Taika Waititi’s Nazi satire is a unique piece of cinema. As we follow the coming of age tale, would-be Nazi youth Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis, amazing) uses his imaginary friend, Hitler (Waititi, hilarious) to bolster his flagging self-confidence.
Waititi uses the story of Jojo, his imaginary friend, his deeply loving and supportive mother (Scarlett Johansson, perfect) and the Jewish girl hiding in the closet (Thomasin McKenzie, a star in the making) to ask how we can undo all the hate and fear society feeds us. The answer is tender, funny, clever and one of easily the best films of 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4McUzXfFI&t=6s
5. The Irishman
The 3 ½ hour running time opens patiently enough as Rodrigo Prieto’s camera winds its way through the halls of a nursing home, establishing a pattern. We will be meandering likewise through the life and memories of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), “house painter.”
Martin Scorsese’s sly delivery suggests that he’s interested in what might have happened to Hoffa, sure, but he’s more intrigued by memory, regret and revisionism in the cold glare of time. The result is sometimes surprisingly funny, with a wistful, lived-in humor that more than suits the film’s greying perspective. De Niro’s longtime partnership with Scorsese makes it even easier to view Sheeran as an extension of the director himself, taking stock of his legacy in film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHXxVmeGQUc&t=5s
6. Marriage Story
For years, Noah Baumbach’s films have probed characters struggling to live up to an image of themselves. It’s what he does, and now Baumbach has written and directed his masterpiece, a bravely personal and beautifully heartbreaking deconstruction of a marriage falling apart.
Tremendous performances from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver cement our immersion into the lives of two people valiantly trying to retain some control over the process of splitting up. Will you need tissues? Oh yes. The story of Nicole and Charlie’s marriage will put you through the wringer. And every frame is absolutely worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHi-a1n8t7M&t=3s
7. Amazing Grace
Already a living legend in January of 1972, Aretha Franklin wanted her next album to be a return to her gospel roots. Over two nights at the New Temple Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Aretha recorded live with the Reverend James Cleveland’s Southern California Community Choir as director Sydney Pollack rolled cameras for a possible TV special.
To see Franklin here is to see her at the absolute apex of her powers. taking that voice-of-a-lifetime wherever she pleases with an ease that simply astounds. Even with the recording session stop/starts that Elliot includes for proper context, Aretha’s hold on the congregation (which include the Stones’ Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts) is a come-to-Jesus revelation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkKOIQwTiKE
8. The Souvenir
The Souvenir rests at the hypnotic intersection of art and inspiration, an almost shockingly self-aware narrative from filmmaker Joanna Hogg that dares you to label its high level of artistry as pretense.
The Souvenir is finely crafted as a different kind of gain from pain, one that benefits both filmmaker and audience. It is artful and cinematic in its love for art and cinema, honest and forgiving in its acceptance, and beautifully appreciative of how life shapes us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Al2nC0vzY&t=87s
9. 1917
The danger in crafting a film with one extended take – or the illusion of it – lies in the final cut existing as little more than a gimmick, spurring a ‘spot the edit’ challenge that eclipses the narrative. With 1917, Sam Mendes jumps that hurdle in the first five minutes.
It is WWI, and two young corporals (Dean Charles-Chapman and George MacKay) are tasked with traveling deep into enemy territory to deliver a message that will keep thousands of soldiers, including one messenger's brother, from certain death. Mendes’s effort is absolutely thrilling and completely immersive, with ballet-worthy camerawork and pristine cinematography (Roger Deakins, natch) that never seems to blink. You won’t want to either, it’s unforgettable.
https://youtu.be/UcmZN0Mbl04
10. Joker
Todd Phillips offers an origin story that sees mental illness, childhood trauma, adult alienation and societal disregard as the ingredients that form a singular villain—a man who cannot come into his own until he embraces his inner sinister clown.
Joaquin Phoenix is a god among actors. His scenes of transformation, his scenes alone, his mesmerizing command of physicality, and in particular his unerringly unnerving chemistry with other actors are haunting. Remember when we thought Nicholson could never be topped? Then Ledger did it. And now Phoenix makes this the darkest, most in-the-moment Joker we’ve seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGdXyXwPXo
11. The Farewell
Writer/director Lulu Wang finds poignant truths in an elaborate lie, speaking the universal language of “family crazy” while crafting an engaging cultural prism. As our window into this push and pull of tradition in the modern world, Awkwafina makes her "Billi" a nuanced, relatable soul.
While Wang’s script is sharp and insightful, her assured tone is even more beneficial. Even as the film feels effortlessly lived in, it never quite goes in directions you think it might. Wang doesn’t stoop to going maudlin among all the whiffs of death, infusing The Farewell with an endless charm that’s both revealing and familiar.
Funny, too. No lie.
https://youtu.be/RofpAjqwMa8
12. Uncut Gems
In what amounts to a two+ hour panic attack, Benny and Josh Safdie do more than clarify Adam Sandler’s acting prowess. Uncut Gems articulates the dizzying, exhausting, terrifying and exhilarating cycle of addiction in a way few films have ever been able to.
It’s also an incredibly potent character study. Sandler’s NYC jeweler and gambler is a live wire, and Sandler’s particular gift is not only to articulate that quest for the thrill, but to underscore it with a tenderness that feels achingly sincere. If you’ve seen Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish or Funny People, you are among the few who realized Sandler could act. But did any of us know he had this in him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTfJp2Ts9X8
13. Little Women
Just when you think, “They’re making this movie again?” Greta Gerwig steps in and gives this beloved story a fresh, frustrated perspective. Self-discovery, camaraderie and empathy still drive the piece, but Jo’s fiery independence has more meaning, Marmie’s self-sacrifice contains welcome bitterness, Aunt March’s disappointment feels more seeped in wisdom, and spoiled Amy is an outright revelation.
Gerwig’s writing, respectfully confident, brings conflicts more sharply to the surface in ways that reflect the characters’ bristling against unfair constraints with a clear eye. But her real strength seems to be in casting. Lady Bird’s Saoirse Ronan is impeccable as ever, as are Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts and Meryl Streep (naturally). But it’s Florence Pugh, having a banner year with Fighting with my Family and Midsommar in her rear view, who entirely reimagines bratty Amy, turning her into the character we can most understand. In all, this remarkable filmmaker and her enviable cast make this retelling maybe the most necessary version yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST2-4db4ic
14. Us
Us is far more than a riff on some old favorites. A masterful storyteller, writer/director Jordan Peele weaves together moments of inspiration not simply to homage greatness but to illustrate a larger, deeper nightmare. It’s as if Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland turned into a plague on humanity.
Do the evil twins in the story represent the darkest parts of ourselves that we fight to keep hidden? The fragile nature of identity? “One nation” bitterly divided? You could make a case for these and more, but when Peele unveils his coup de grace moment (which would make Rod Serling proud), it ultimately feels like an open-ended invitation to revisit and discuss, much like he undoubtedly did for so many genre classics.
While it’s fun to be scared stiff, scared smart is even better, a fact Jordan Peele has clearly known for years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tzFRIQfwXg
15. The Lighthouse
Director/co-writer Robert Eggers follows The Witch, his incandescent 2015 feature debut, with another painstakingly crafted, moody period piece. The Lighthouse strands you, along with two wickies (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, both mad geniuses at work), on the unforgiving island home of one lonely 1890s New England lighthouse.
This is thrilling cinema. Let it in, and it will consume you to the point of nearly missing the deft gothic storytelling at work. The film is other-worldly, surreal, meticulous and consistently creepy. And we’ll tell you what The Lighthouse is not. It is not a film ye will soon forget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyag7lR8CPA&t=19s
16. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
More than just a story of gentrification, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a multi-layered visionary feature debut for director/co-writer Joe Talbot. Set against the changing face of a city and the nature of male friendship, we follow along with lifelong friends Mont (Montgomery Allen) and Jimmie (Jimmie Fails, Talbot’s longtime collaborator whose story is the basis for the film) as they stake a claim for the majestic home where Jimmie was raised.
Funny and touching with a knack for keenly unique observations, TLBMISF seems to exist in its very own time and space, intent to lay bare a melancholy but endlessly loving soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0FnJDhY9-0
17. Midsommar
Just two features into filmmaker Ari Aster’s genre takeover and already you can detect a pattern. First, he introduces a near-unfathomable amount of grief. Then, he drags you so far inside it you won’t fully emerge for days.
In Midsommar, we are as desperate to claw our way out of this soul-crushing grief as Dani (Florence Pugh). Mainly to avoid being alone, Dani insinuates herself into her anthropology student boyfriend Christian’s (Jack Reynor) trip to rural Sweden with his buds. Little does she know they are all headed straight for a modern riff on The Wicker Man.
Like a Bergman inspired homage to bad breakups, this terror is deeply-rooted in the psyche, always taking less care to scare you than to keep you unsettled and on edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0&t=44s
18. Monos
On a mountaintop that rests among the clouds, eight child soldiers guard an American hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Yes, you’ll find parallels to Lord of the Flies, even Apocalypse Now, but filmmaker Alejandro Landes continually upends your assumptions by tossing aside any common rulebooks on storytelling.
Landes never gives us the chance to feel confident about anything we think we know, as the powerful score from Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie) and an impeccable sound design totally immerse us in an atmosphere of often breathless tension and wanton violence. In just his second narrative feature, Landes crafts a primal experience of alienation and survival, with a strange and savage beauty that may shake you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=disclpVzoMQ&t=34s
19. Knives Out
Knives Out is writer/director Rian Johnson’s Agatha Christie-style take on the general uselessness of the 1%. And it is a riot. As it is a whodunnit, little should be spilled about the film except these names: Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, Toni Collegge, Jaeden Martel and Don Johnson. Wow!
Johnson proves that you can poke fun without abandoning compassion. More than that, he reminds us that, as a writer, he’s shooting on all cylinders: wry, clever, meticulously crafted, socially aware and tons of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOg3AoRc4nI
20. Little Woods
Nia DaCosta’s feature directorial debut, which she also wrote, is an independent drama of the most unusual sort—the sort that situates itself unapologetically inside American poverty. This is less a film about the complicated pull of illegal activity and more a film about the obstacles the American poor face—many of them created by a healthcare system that serves anyone but our own ill and injured.
But politically savvy filmmaking is not the main reason to see Little Woods. See it because Tessa Thompson and Lily James are amazing, or because the story is stirring and unpredictable.
See it because it’s what America actually looks like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HxRrJk48sg&t=22s
21. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
It’s Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s clearest love letter to cinema both great and trashy. Spilling with nostalgia and packing more sentiment than his previous 8 films combined, Hollywood is the auteur’s most heartfelt film.
Not that it isn’t bloody. Once it hits its stride the film packs Reservoir Dogs-level brutality into a climax that’s as nervy as anything Tarantino’s ever filmed. But leading up to that, as the filmmaker asks us to look with a mixture of fondness and sadness at two lives twisting toward the inevitable, he’s actually almost sweet. In strokes stylish and self-indulgent, Tarantino is bidding adieu to halcyon days of both flower power innocence and the Hollywood studio machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q55A7ZQ7uf8
22. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Celine Sciamma follows up the vitally of-the-moment indie Girlhood with this breathy, painterly period romance only to clarify that she is a filmmaker with no identifiable bounds. In the 1790s on a forbidding island in Brittany, Marianne (Noemie Merlant) arrives to paint the wedding portrait of Heloise (Adele Haenel), but since Heloise is not marrying voluntarily, she will not sit for a painter. So, a ruse is developed: Marianne pretends to be simply a companion as she steals glances then sketches from memory into the night.
What develops along with the startlingly beautiful intimacy between the women is a thoughtful rumination on memory and on art, on the melancholic but no less romantic notion that the memory, though lonesome, is permanent and perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-fQPTwma9o
23. Rocketman
Driven by a wonderfully layered performance from Taron Egerton – who also handles his vocal duties just fine – the film eschews the standard biopic playbook for a splendid rock and roll fantasy.
Writer Lee Hall penned Billy Elliot and Dexter Fletcher is fresh off co-directing Bohemian Rhapsody. Their vision draws from both to land somewhere between the enigmatic Dylan biopic I’m Not There and the effervescent ABBA glitter bomb Mamma Mia. In the world of Rocketman, anything is possible. And even with all the eccentric flights of fancy, the film holds true to an ultimately touching honesty about the life story it’s telling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vO8E2e6G0&t=4s
24. Ad Astra
Daddy issues in zero gravity? There’s that, but there’s plenty more, as a never-better Brad Pitt and bold strokes from writer/director James Gray deliver an emotional and often breathless spectacle of sound and vision.
The film’s mainly meditative nature is punctured by bursts of suspense, excitement and even outright terror. Gray commands a complete mastery of tone and teams with acclaimed cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema for immersive, IMAX-worthy visuals that astound with subtlety, never seeming overly showy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA&t=9s
25. Dolemite Is My Name
“Dolemite” was the brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore, who created the character for his standup comedy act in the early 70s, where cheering crowds led to the urge to take Dolemite to the big screen.
Leading a terrific ensemble that includes Craig Robinson, Keegan-Michael Key, Kodi Smit-McPhee and a priceless Wesley Snipes as the “real” actor among these amateurs, Eddie Murphy owns every frame. This film wouldn’t work unless we see a separation between Moore and his character. Murphy toes this line with electric charisma, setting up the feels when Moore’s dogged belief in himself is finally rewarded.
Dolemite Is My Name tells a personal and often hilarious story, but it’s one that’s universal to dreamers everywhere.
FYI: Trailer NSFW
https://youtu.be/Ws1YIKsuTjQ
Honorable mentions: High Life, Pain & Glory, Waves, Hustlers, Honeyland, Ford v Ferrari
" ["post_title"]=> string(18) "Best Films of 2019" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(18) "best-films-of-2019" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2019-12-29 20:58:42" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-12-30 01:58:42" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(63) "https://wnnd-fm.sagacom.com/?post_type=saga_on_air&p=16025" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(11) "saga_on_air" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [1]=> object(WP_Post)#5125 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(15901) ["post_author"]=> string(2) "66" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2019-12-28 11:22:35" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-12-28 16:22:35" ["post_content"]=> string(23848) "by Hope Madden and George Wolf, MaddWolf.com The decade's almost over, what the? Hard to believe, but true! So, let's run down our picks of the best flicks from 2010-2019: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) To say that George Miller has stepped up his game since he left us at Thunderdome would be far too mild a statement to open with. Mad Max: Fury Road is not just superior to everything in this franchise, as well as everything else Miller has ever directed. It’s among the most exhausting, thrilling, visceral action films ever made. Unsurprisingly, the great Tom Hardy delivers a perfect, guttural performance as the road warrior. As his reluctant partner in survival, Charlize Theron is the perfect mix of compassion and badassedness. Hardy’s a fascinating, mysterious presence, but Theron owns this film. Fury Road amounts to a film about survival, redemption and the power of the universal blood donor. Clever, spare scripting makes room for indulgent set pieces that astonish and amaze. There’s real craftsmanship involved here – in the practical effects, the pacing, the disturbing imagery, and the performances that hold it all together – that marks not just a creative force at the top of his game, but a high water mark for summer blockbusters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJnMQG9ev8- Toy Story 3 (2010)
- 12 Years a Slave (2013)
- Take Shelter (2011)
- The Tree of Life (2011)
- The Master (2012)
- Selma (2014)
- Moonlight (2016)
- The Act of Killing (2012)
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
- Drive (2011)
- The Revenant (2015)
- Boyhood (2014)
- Roma (2018)
- Toy Story 4 (2019)
- The Witch (2015)
- You Were Never Really Here (2017)
- Get Out (2017)
- Parasite (2019)
- The Irishman (2019)
- Django Unchained (2012)
- Dunkirk (2017)
- Black Panther (2018)
- The Babadook (2014)
- Young Adult (2011)
Little Women
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Just when you think They’re making Little Women again? Greta Gerwig steps in and gives this beloved story of a fresh, frustrated perspective.
Gerwig’s presentation tosses sentimentality to the wayside, thankfully. The vibrant retelling brims with empathy, energy and laughter as well as those prickly emotions that dwell within a family.
In fact, settling into those very petty realities of sisterhood is a conscious choice Gerwig makes with her retelling. Those who’ve always controlled what we see may see nothing of value in so mundane a story as that of four somewhat coddled, routinely bickering sisters on the precipice of adulthood, but who says those men are right?
Gerwig understands and illustrates the political, economic and often lonesome choices to be made, couching those in the equally honest tensions of disappointing your sisters when you choose.
Gerwig’s writing, respectfully confident, brings conflicts more sharply to the surface in clear-eyed ways that reflect the characters’ bristling against unfair constraints and expectations.
Self-discovery and camaraderie still drive the piece, but Jo’s fiery independence has more meaning, Marmie’s self-sacrifice contains welcome bitterness, Aunt March’s disappointment feels more seeped in wisdom, and spoiled Amy is an outright revelation.
Saoirse Ronan, Gerwig’s avatar in the brilliant Lady Bird, is impeccable as ever. It’s her sometimes frenetic, sometimes quiet performance that delivers Louisa May Alcott’s own sense of lonesome independence.
Ronan’s flanked by superb supporting work including that of Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts and Meryl Streep (naturally). But it’s Florence Pugh, having a banner year with Fighting with my Family and Midsommar in her rear view, who entirely reimagines bratty Amy, turning her character into the sister we can best understand.
In all, this remarkable filmmaker and her enviable cast make this retelling maybe the most necessary version yet.
https://youtu.be/AST2-4db4ic
Uncut Gems
by Matt Weiner, MaddWolf.com
There’s something acutely familiar right now about watching a consummate New York macher unable to help himself as he pursues more and more wealth, drawing everyone around him into his increasingly unstable house of cards until it all collapses.
But Uncut Gems, the latest panic attack from the Safide brothers (Josh and Benny, who also co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Ronald Bronstein), captures so much more than our current moment. For one, there’s the career-great performance from Adam Sandler. His take on Howard “Howie” Ratner buzzes seamlessly from typical Sandler ease to pathetic helplessness to manic moments of triumph.
Howie is a fonfer extraordinaire—a b.s. artist whose jewelry business in the Diamond District functions to help him continually feed his sports betting debts and keep his mistress (Julia Fox) happy with a Manhattan love nest. Whatever scant love and money are left over go to Howie’s family on Long Island (a point that sets up maybe the greatest music cue of the year, and one of the funniest moments in a movie that’s full of them).
When Howie gets caught up in his latest round of juggling debts, family drama and especially a rare Ethiopian black opal—a mysterious MacGuffin that transfixes anyone who sees it—the race is on to come up with enough money to appease his debtors while chasing the high of that one big score.
As Uncut Gems takes place in the long-ago days of 2012, that score revolves around a Celtics playoffs run. The Safdies throw a bone to New York sports with a Mike Francesa cameo, but it’s Kevin Garnett playing himself who almost steals the movie as one of Howie’s more fateful customers. Celebrity and proximity to power infuse Howie’s life almost as much as gambling—the Weeknd also puts in a memorable turn as an important buyer, and lends his moody, drug-fueled R&B to the soundtrack as well.
That prevailing mood is a defining feature of Uncut Gems. There’s the nonstop anxiety, but the Safdies and Sandler punctuate it with plenty of humor—and pathos. The Safdies are in a class of their own when it comes to drawing you in and making you care deeply about terrible people. Howie might be enjoying more outward success than Connie from the Safdies’ last movie Good Time, but it’s just as illusory. All debts must be paid.
And as with Good Time, the Safdies serve up subtle (and not-so-subtle) reminders that our actions have consequences, even for those who seem to have put together a successful life around assiduously evading them.
The film opens with a scene of misery thousands of miles away from Howie’s cocooned suburban Long Island life. It’s a non-sequitur worthy of the Coen brothers, our other great chroniclers of anxiety and morality.
But the threat goes from menace to promise that none of us are immune from consequence, and the Potemkin lifestyles of the elite are built on shaky foundations. It doesn’t take much for it all to come crashing down.
https://youtu.be/vTfJp2Ts9X8
Spies in Disguise
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
The Christmastime animated feature Spies in Disguise (based on a short called Pigeon: Impossible, which is an altogether superior title) is a mash note to science, weirdos and peace. I can get behind that.
Will Smith is the voice of Lance Sterling, America’s top spy. Lance is cool. He’s daring. He’s unstoppable. And he flies solo.
But when an evil nemesis (the always welcome Ben Mendelsohn) outwits him, he turns reluctantly to nerdy gadget officer Walter (Tom Holland) for help.
Walter turns him into a pigeon. Naturally.
The ensuing fish out of water (pigeon out of air?) comedy is clever enough to keep your attention. It’s equal parts fun, good natured and funny without becoming overly sentimental.
Besides Smith, Holland and Mendelsohn, Spies boasts impressive and interesting vocal talent choices: Reba McEntire as the head of the agency, Rashida Jones as the lead investigator and Karen Gillan as another techy in the agency named Eyes.
The movie looks good. In fact, in certain scenes—particularly those in Venice—the film looks great. It also carries with it a healthy message, one that writers Brad Copeland and Lloyd Taylor articulate without preaching.
The film is more charming than outright funny, relying on its leads’ natural charisma and fun chemistry, but it does offer more than a handful of chuckles. The wee ones at our screening laughed a good deal, while the slightly older tots laughed on occasion but seemed entertained throughout.
It’s also a film that won’t make parents want to wait in the lobby.
https://youtu.be/9eY2W7uUkDE
" ["post_title"]=> string(64) "Movie Reviews: "Little Women," "Uncut Gems," "Spies in Disguise"" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(37) "movie-reviews-little-women-uncut-gems" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2019-12-25 15:06:37" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-12-25 20:06:37" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(63) "https://wnnd-fm.sagacom.com/?post_type=saga_on_air&p=16017" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(11) "saga_on_air" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [3]=> object(WP_Post)#5131 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(15991) ["post_author"]=> string(2) "66" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2019-12-18 09:27:57" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-12-18 14:27:57" ["post_content"]=> string(14272) "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Not that long ago in a galaxy near and dear to us, J.J. Abrams brilliantly re-packaged our Star Wars memories as The Force Awakens. Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi took an opposite approach two years later, bringing a challenging and welcome nerve that sent a clear signal it would soon be time to move on.
Abrams is back as director and co-writer to close the saga with The Rise of Skywalker, which ends up feeling less like a course correction (which wasn't needed) and more like a sly meeting of both minds. The fan service is strong with this one, indeed, though it never quite smacks of panicked fanboy appeasement.
In fact, the echoes of Johnson's vision only make Abrams's franchise love letter more emotionally resonant. We were told this goodbye was coming, and now here it is, so grab hold of something.
And that doesn't mean just tissues (though you may need them), as Abrams delivers action that comes early and more than often. From deep space shootouts to light saber duals amid monstrous ocean waves, the heart-racing set pieces are damn near non stop and seldom less than spectacular.
But let's be real, this is the Rey and (Kylo) Ren show.
We knew their fates would collide, we wanted that collision, and here we get it, propelled by two actors in Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver who are able to fully embrace the weight of their respective arcs. As all our questions are eventually answered, Driver and Ridley never let us forget what drives their characters: the closure of identity.
And from a new hope to the last hope, it is precisely those bloodlines and destinies that have always driven this entire franchise. Abrams makes sure he honors that legacy with a satisfying sendoff bursting with fandom in nearly every frame.
Yes, you'll find some awkward dialogue and underused characters, but that's not a bad scorecard considering all that The Rise of Skywalker throws at us. From welcome hellos (Lando!), to sad goodbyes (Carrie Fisher's is handled with heroic grace), political relevance ("there's more of us" in the resistance) to stand up and cheer moments, this is a one helluva farewell party.
https://youtu.be/14EztMXh5vQ
Cats
by Christie Robb, MaddWolf.com
People say that you’re either a cat person or a dog person. I’m a cat person, but definitely not a Cats person. But if you are, there’s a lot to enjoy in the new film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical based on poems by T.S. Eliot.
How else could you possibly get tickets to see a show with this cast? Taylor Swift. Idris Elba. Rebel Wilson. James Corden. Jennifer Hudson. How else can you watch a feline Dame Judi Dench curl up convincingly in a basket? Or glimpse Sir Ian McKellen lap from a bowl of milk?
A movie is a very egalitarian way to enjoy a Broadway musical. This one is about an assemblage of cats who have gathered together under the full moon to decide which one of them will be chosen to be reborn into a new life. Their best life. They pitch their case by singing the song of themselves. There’s very little in the way of traditional narrative structure although director Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) does tinker around with the play a bit to try to tease one out. It’s more like a musical revue designed around a central theme.
Initially concerned about falling into the uncanny valley of CG feline effects on the actors’ familiar faces, after some early creepy moments I got used to it. The realistic tail twitches and subtle changes in the angle of an ear serve to give additional cues as to the interior life of a cat that mere facial expressions alone can’t provide. (The opportunity to see emotional reactions through closeups is another advantage of a screen version.)
Occasionally the feline illusion is broken (most often by Swift and Elba) and instead of seeing a cat you are confronted with a dancing furry naked person with Barbie-doll genitalia. But most of the time, it works.
Wilson and Corden are amusing. Watching Francesca Hayward (principal ballerina at the Royal Ballet) dance the role of Victoria is a delight. But the true star of this show is Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, a former “glamour cat” now old and suffering through hard times.
As in Les Mis, Hooper has his cast sing live, and it is Hudson's performance of the signature song “Memory” that far outshines every other musical number here. It's likely what you’ll be humming as you walk out of the theatre, and the one thing you'll most remember about these Cats.
https://youtu.be/FtSd844cI7U
Bombshell
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Bombshell, Jay Roach’s depiction of the unrepentant sexual harassment that poisoned the work atmosphere at Fox News, is equal parts cathartic and depressing.
Buoyed by strong lead performances in a trio of unerring talent—Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie—the film also leans on an incredible and sizable ensemble to deliver a surprisingly nuanced look at the shades of grey, of complicity and responsibility when it comes to sexual harassment.
“It’s no one’s job to protect you,” Theron’s Megyn Kelly tells newbie Kayla (Robbie).
“It’s all of our jobs,” she disagrees.
No surprise the script comes from The Big Short scribe Charles Randolph. Roach’s film benefits from the same kind of thoughtful, informative, funny and “can you believe” this approach, but Bombshell lacks much of the rage and outright comedy of an Adam McKay film.
Like McKay, Roach left comedies behind in favor of headier, sharper, more political material. Also like McKay, his comedic sensibilities breathe some life into the efforts, helping this film serve the dual purpose of entertaining and informing. And, like McKay, Roach knows how helpful a well-placed comedian can be.
Kate McKinnon actually does a lot of the film’s narrative heavy lifting. (Is it wrong I wanted her to play Rudy Giuliani as well?) As a Bill O’Reilly producer who befriends Kayla and helps her better understand the Fox New world, she allows Roach to make salient points about the network and the way it’s run, but because McKinnon is naturally funny and incredibly talented, it feels organic.
Her character’s position when it comes to rocking the boat also offers a clear-eyed take on why toxic work environments can go unchecked for so long. Since McKinnon’s character is in many ways the one the audience will most relate to, this is a sly and successful maneuver to keep us from feeling too superior and enabling us to better empathize with characters we may not like as well.
Enough cannot be said for the work of Roach’s makeup department, especially that of prosthetic make up designer Kazu Hiro. Theron’s imperceptible prosthetic—along with her own posture and voice work—turn her into an alarming replica of Kelly. Ditto Nicole Kidman, and John Lithgow, whose performance as Roger Ailes also delivers a wallop.
Not that any of this matters if the three central performances lacks in any department. They don’t. Characteristically, Theron, Kidman and Robbie deliver exceptional work, each willing (as they always are) to depict a woman who is not always (or, in some cases, is rarely) likable but who deserves respect and empathy for their suffering and courage.
Wisely, Roach and team don’t get swept away by the bracing change and empowerment of victory. Indeed, Bombshell’s final act is a smack I still feel. But its power is its honesty.
https://youtu.be/B2G9-KhBek8
A Hidden Life
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
"Sign this paper and you'll go free."
"I am free."
One man's moral courage provides the anchor for A Hidden Life, writer/director Terrence Malick's affirmation that a life well-lived is a beneficial one, no matter how small the spotlight.
Malick brings his dreamlike focus to the story of Franz Jagerstatter, a conscientious objector who refused to fight with the Nazis in World War II.
Franz (August Diehl) and his wife Frani (Valerie Pachner) are living happily in an Austrian farming village with their three young daughters. The work is hard but the peasant villagers share a strong communal spirit, still untouched by the winds of war.
Malick showcases the mountain landscape with his customary visual brilliance, teaming with cinematographer Jorg Widmer to envelope us in an expansive and idyllic old world setting among the clouds. But those clouds soon turn literally and figuratively stormy, and as Hitler's rhetoric is parroted by the villagers, Franz's commitment to conscience turns him into a prisoner and his family into outcasts who "sin against the village."
Franz finds little comfort from his church elders, who urge appeasement and seek a compromise. But even an assignment away from the front would require an oath of allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi cause - a line Franz refused to cross.
The hushed voiceovers, forced perspectives and dreamlike imaging that served Malick so well in his masterfully personal The Tree of Life here seem a bit ill-fitting when paired with someone else's legacy. A frequent return to lingering shots such as clasped hands thrust into the air lose resonance with repetition, creating a subtle tedium that betrays the nearly three hour running time.
Not that Malick's latest doesn't deliver emotional power, it certainly does, most pointedly during Franz's visit with a church artist. Suffice to say the exchange features some of Malick's most brilliantly concise dialogue, using one man's honest introspection to frame another's moral quandary in a heartbreakingly beautiful new light.
Try hard, and you can imagine Malick working in a purely historical context, giving a deserving salute to a lesser known man for all seasons.
But on its face, the film presents a climate that is all too familiar, one where a rising tide of hate divides families, reduces religious tenets to twisted rationalizations, and where blind rage requires no subtitles. A Hidden Life is at its best when those stakes are clear, and Franz's unwavering conviction is a sobering history lesson.
https://youtu.be/qJXmdY4lVR0
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by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Recent box office totals have sent a pretty clear message: if you want a butts-in-seats reboot, you gotta come with a strong new hook.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle got it right two years ago, and now most of that gang is back for The Next Level, which is smart enough to add a few new wrinkles (plus some trusty old ones) for freshness.
We catch up with our four young heroes a year removed from high school and trying hard to keep in touch. Over Christmas break from college, Spencer (Alex Wolff), Martha (Morgan Turner), Bethany (Madison Iseman) and Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain) make plans for a meetup, but Spencer doesn't show.
Hearing those familiar drums, the other three quickly figure out he's been sucked back into Jumanji, and decide to go after him. I mean, they beat it once, right?
New game, new rules, brand new hook.
Bethany is left behind, but two new players aren't: Spencer's grandpa Eddie (Danny DeVito) and Eddie's ex-best friend Milo (Danny Glover). Know what else? Everyone gets a new avatar.
Well, not Martha, she's still badass Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). But this time, it's Eddie who gets the smoldering heroic intensity of Dr. Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), while Fridge is portly Professor Shelly Oberon (Jack Black), Milo is diminutive zoologist Moose Finbar (Kevin Hart) and Spencer is newly-added cat burglar Ming Fleetfoot (Awkwafina).
The next level mission: free Jumanji from the evil clutches of Jurgen the Brutal (GOT's Rory McCann), or die trying. Game on!
Watching the four adult stars channel teenagers in the first film was a blast, but the avatar switches here are the smart plays, and the body swaps don't stop once the game begins. Some of the gags do settle for low hanging fruit (i.e. old people are easily confused) but plenty others are clever and inspired.
The film itself even gets in on the switcheroo spirit, with fewer solid laughs but a markedly better adventure. Welcome to the Jungle's riffs on The Breakfast Club make way for director Jake Kasdan's set piece homages to Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones, Kingsman and even Peter Jackson's King Kong in a thrilling escape from angry mandrills.
Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers do not return, which I'm guessing is a major reason the life lesson feels don't land as smoothly this time. But Kasdan and his team hit the big shots. They give us a reason to be interested in a return to Jumanji, and plenty of fun once we get there.
https://youtu.be/F6QaLsw8EWY
The Two Popes
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
How funny is it that Hannibal Lecter is playing Pope Benedict XVI?
That’s not the only sly jab Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) takes at the pomp and scandal of the papacy in his latest, but the punches come early and make way quickly for a tone of reconciliation.
Indeed, The Two Popes may be more forgiving than many people will appreciate. Or accept.
But it’s hard to fault the casting.
Anthony Hopkins is better here than he’s been since his Oscar turn as the flesh eater. Frail and humorless (but trying!), Pope Benedict becomes a recognizable figure, one whose solitude and study have isolated him from the people he’s meant to protect and lead.
Jonathan Pryce is perhaps better than he has ever been. An ever reliable “that guy,” Pryce has built a career on versatility, never so showy he outshines the lead, never so unfussy as to be easily ignored. That facility with chemistry elevates his performance here, and as the “everyman’s” pope, Pryce becomes the vehicle for the audience.
Together the two banter back and forth, easily turning Anthony McCarten’s lofty theological and spiritual dialog into passionate conversations between two peers.
The Two Popes offers considerably more nuance than The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour or Bohemian Rhapsody, although McCarten will never be chastened for writing an unforgiving screenplay.
What he’s done with this script is imagine what the dialog between these two men might have been like as Catholicism moved headlong toward a pivotal event unseen for 600ish years. A bit like The Two of Us, Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 2000 fictional conversation between Lennon and McCartney (a pair the popes mention more than once), this film is a smartly crafted fantasy of the behind closed stained glass meetings that might have led to the changeover.
The humor is undoubtedly the brightest surprise the film has in store, but Meirelles keeps the film quick and interesting, his filmmaking simultaneously intimate and elegant. The missteps come as he refocuses attention on the future Pope Francis's rocky past. These sequences drag, boasting neither the visual flair nor the vibrancy of the modern footage.
It’s hard not to also mark as a weakness the way the film simultaneously admonishes and reflects the Church’s tendency to be too forgiving of clergy.
Still, The Two Popes is hard to resist. In the end – especially at the end – the film is almost criminally charming.
https://youtu.be/BeqdEuZcN5k
Richard Jewell
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Richard Jewell is a film Clint Eastwood has reportedly been trying to direct for years, and no wonder. It's the story of a heroic man forced to fight against bureaucrats and parasites who question his heroism, which seems to be Clint's favored genre.
Jewell, of course, was a hero at the Centennial Park bombing during the Atlanta olympics in 1996. A security guard who first spotted the bomb and was helping clear the scene when it exploded, Jewell was later named as the FBI's prime suspect, and had his life turned upside down for months until the feds gave up.
It's a pretty clear case of a man wronged, and a compelling story clearly worthy of a film. But while Eastwood and writer Billy Ray tell much of it well, their zeal for painting broad-stroked villains is hard to overcome.
After years of standout supporting roles (I, Tonya, Black KkKlansman) Paul Walter Hauser takes the lead as Jewell and grounds the film with a terrific and often touching performance. As suspicion around Jewell grows, the bonds created with his lawyer and his mother (Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates, both great) show Eastwood and Ray at their nuanced best.
The law and the press don't get off so easy. That's not to say they should get a pass, far from it, but Atlanta Journal reporter Kathy Scruggs is drawn so one dimensionally, Olivia Wilde might as well be twirling a mustache every time she's onscreen.
The Journal is currently threatening legal action over the depiction of Scruggs (now deceased, as is Jewell) trading sexual favors to an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) for info, but the film's slut-shaming isn't reserved for just one reporter. They're all whores.
And in case you miss the strategically placed sticker in the lawyer's office that reads "I fear the government more than I fear terrorism," Eastwood returns to it more than once. That's grandstanding, not character development, and ends up undercutting a layer we could have gotten so much more intimately solely through Rockwell's performance.
Richard Jewell's story is a good one, a tragic one, and a cautionary tale that deserves telling. And the film it deserves - the one where a common man finds the will to fight for his dignity - is in here, you just have to wade through some blanket scapegoating to find it.
https://youtu.be/gSMxBLlA8qY
Black Christmas
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
In the history of cinema, the number of bad, misogynistic horror movies is too high to count. I literally cannot count that high. So, even though Black Christmas is not a good horror movie, it’s somehow comforting to know there is now at least one bad feminist horror flick.
Co-writer/director Sophia Takal (writing alongside April Wolfe) puts a new spin on Bob Clark’s seasonal classic. (Well, Clark also directed A Christmas Story, but I’m talking about his 1974 original Black Christmas.)
Christmas break is upon the Hawthorn College campus and students are slowly trickling home. Any sorority sisters left at school will wish they’d made other plans.
Clark’s bloodier yuletide gem remains relevant because it’s a pre-slasher slasher, meaning that it doesn’t entirely follow the formula because there was no formula for slashers in 1974. Many consider Black Christmas to be the first of that sub-genre, so it subverts expectations because, when it was made, there were none. Fun!
The second reason people return to it annually is the creepy ass phone calls that still somehow manage to be chilling.
Takal definitely frustrates with phones, although not to nearly the same chilling effect. But she does manage to give the formula a switch-up.
Imogen Poots leads the cast as Riley, and we know Riley is the film’s hero because she has the most to overcome. Poots is a reliable performer, though she struggles to give Riley much character. Still, you see flashes of her talent, especially in an infuriating conversation with campus police.
Aleyse Shannon leaves a more interesting impression as activist/bestie Kris, and Cary Elwes makes a welcome, oily visit as the professor you really, really hate.
Unlike the ’74 original or the unwatchable 2006 reboot, Takal’s Black Christmas is PG13, so don’t expect any real scares or envelope-pushing violence. Where Takal takes chances is with the message that rape culture has to be burned to the ground.
The film is a blunt instrument, but there are moments in the dialog that are both cathartic and funny. Female characters are treated with sincere scrutiny and empathy (except in the film’s prologue, which is just disappointing).
And yet, the leap in logic between “let’s go to the cops” and “here’s my supernatural theory” is so grand, so bold, so ludicrous that you almost have to admire it. It absolutely sinks the movie, there’s something applause worthy in the wrong-headedness of it.
The plot ends up killing Black Christmas, which is too bad. Takal threads some audacious take downs of bro culture throughout a film with a lot of insight. It’s just not a very good movie.
https://youtu.be/gF4yRYbo1WE
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The Aeronauts
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Director Tom Harper wastes little time in taking The Aeronauts into the wild blue, but I'm not complaining. Once we're up there, I didn't want to come down, no matter how many knots my stomach was twisting into.
Based on some of the true-life events outlined in Richard Holmes' book Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, screenwriter Jack Thorne imagines how a spunky daredevil balloon pilot heroine might have helped pioneering London meteorologist James Glaisher break the world altitude record in 1862.
Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne crafts Glaisher as a politely determined man out to prove to his shirt-stuffed, muttoned-chopped colleagues that it just might be possible to predict the weather.
What Glaisher needed was to take temperature and humidity readings at the highest level of the atmosphere. If he failed, the ribbings from the boys at the Royal Society would be fierce. But if he prevailed, he would take the first step toward scaring the crap out of your mom on the 6 o'clock news.
And yeah, also make a huge scientific advancement.
While history remembers Glaisher's partner was actually balloonist Henry Coxwell, for these narrative purposes it is defiant aeronaut Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones). She's haunted by a tragic memory from the past, but won't let that - or the usual boys club baffoonery - deny her destiny as a "creature of the sky."
I take no issue with the liberties taken. This isn't a documentary, Jones is an Oscar nominee who shares a sweet brother/sisterly chemistry with Redmayne, and her character adds a welcome layer of mischief to a backstory that badly needs it.
Most importantly, as the focus quickly settles on two people in a balloon gondola, Amelia brings a sharp contrast to James that just makes the ride more fun and - thanks to the breathless visual gymnastics - sometimes downright terrifying.
Seriously, this film should come with a trigger warning for acrophobics, because Harper (Wild Rose, TV's Peaky Blinders) and cinematographer George Steel unveil some truly awe-inspiring, anxiety-inducing set pieces begging for IMAX, or 70mm, whatever you can find.
The Aeronauts may give gentle reminders about the importance of science, but it pounds a visual fist in defense of the big screen. The film's ultimate calling card is not the story but the ride (in real time, no less!), and a smaller canvas just will not do it justice.
Strap in tight, and enjoy the thrill.
https://youtu.be/Rm4VnwCtQO8
Dark Waters
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Todd Haynes hasn’t written one of his own films since 2007’s I’m Not There, a biopic that refuses to fit neatly into that genre (making it a perfect fit for its subject).
The director’s collaboration with other writers has been both sublime (Carol) and spotty (Wonderstruck), the content sometimes feeling as if it simply is a mismatch for his own often gorgeously subversive vision.
So, yes, it’s a bit of a shock to witness the filmmaker who depicted Karen Carpenter’s battle with anorexia via Barbie dolls (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story) tackle the blue collar true story of a corporate defense attorney who grows a conscience and hits DuPont Chemical where it hurts the most.
Shooting again in southern and central Ohio, Haynes turns in the buttery glamour of Carol for a grimmer image of America.
Dark Waters sees Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott, a good guy who also happens to be a corporate lawyer. I guess he’s proof those two concepts need not be mutually exclusive.
A keep-your-head-down kind of colleague, Bilott is confronted at work by a friend of his grandmother back home, a curmudgeonly West Virgina farmer (Bill Camp) who is offering VHS proof that his cows are being poisoned.
The corporate lawyer in Bilott wants to ignore this problem. The salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner in him cannot.
Few actors play the scrupulous good guy as reliably or believably as Ruffalo, who leads the film with a quiet, fragile dignity.
Anne Hathaway co-stars as Bilott’s conflicted wife Sarah. It’s a small and somewhat thankless role for the Oscar winner, but she gives it some meat and, better still, a much needed edge that strengthens the film.
She’s not alone. William Jackson Harper (Midsommar) continues to prove that he’s really good at playing a d-bag. Meanwhile, veteran “that guy” Camp offers a perfectly off-putting, guttural performance. A number of other sharp turns in small roles, including those by Tim Robbins, Bill Pullman, Mare Winningham and Victor Garber, help Haynes shade and shadow what could easily have become a paint-by-numbers eco-terror biopic.
He can’t entirely break free, though, and Dark Waters in the end—however stirring, informative and timely the tale—feels far too safe to be a Todd Haynes film.
https://youtu.be/jvQUIt0BWcU
Waves
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
"Seize the day," Tyler’s (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) literature teacher reminds each student as they leave her classroom.
In a constant loop during weight training, Tyler's wrestling coach barks, "There are no second chances and there is no f*&^ing second place!"
Even at home, Tyler’s relaxing moment alone with his loving stepmother Catharine (Renee Elise Golsberry) is interrupted by a very stern father (Sterling K. Brown, remarkable as always) reminding him that if he expects to achieve all that has been set out for him – wrestling at state championship level, securing a scholarship – he’d better get back to work.
Trey Edward Schults’s Waves is quick to show us that Tyler has it all: a loving and financially comfortable family, grades, talent, friends, and a gorgeous girlfriend (Alexa Demie). If there is time to enjoy it, there’s certainly no time to live it, to give into it, or to give anything without the clear expectation that it is forwarding something for himself. High expectations, high demands, high rewards, everything focused on Tyler, everyone focused on Tyler, Tyler focused on Tyler.
Waves sometimes feels like a less contrived, more Floridian view of Julius Onah’s Luce, the scab-picking indie in which Harrison proved himself a blistering and commanding lead. Are the demands put upon the brightest and most talented African American high school males too high? Are those supporting these young men deriving too much from their success to actually offer clear-eyed guidance?
Says Dad to an increasingly desperate Tyler, “We are not afforded the luxury of being average.”
While much of the drama leading to this moment could be generalized to most any adolescent male buckling under high expectations, this moment between father and son separates the narrative as one dealing specifically with the black American experience.
In 1968, George Romero famously cast Duane Jones as the lead in his groundbreaking zombie film Night of the Living Dead only, according to the filmmaker, because Jones was the best actor to audition for the part. The film's enduring success has less to do with Jones's talent (though that is evident in every frame) and more to do with the political power the film derives from seeing a black hero in this particular effort.
Schultz cast Harrison Jr. as the male lead in Waves because of his work with the remarkable talent in his previous effort, It Comes at Night. The white filmmaker's script itself is semi-autobiographical, and there's a superficial tidiness to Schultz's cultural shift that Romero's film didn't suffer.
It's not enough to topple the film by any means, but the shorthand and stylized moments that remark on the cultural shift from the story of a white adolescent male on a collision course with destiny and the story of a black young man on that same course feel specifically introduced and placed, while much of the rest of the film offers an uneasy authenticity that keeps your attention.
From Schults’s dizzying opening sequence, Tyler’s breathless youth in sunny south Florida is simultaneously exhilarating and reckless, a reality underscored throughout the film by Drew Daniels’s whirligig camera and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s furious score.
What separates Waves from other chronicles of the frenzied fall of an idealized adolescent is his follow-up act, one in which the fallout of Tyler’s destruction implicates everyone who loves him, including his quiet sister Emily (Taylor Russell).
The point of her narrative is the redemptive nature of forgiveness. Here Schults uses the same camera movement and score to note again the hand-in-hand nature of freedom and danger in adolescence. But here, we sense things may not end up as dire.
Like Schults’s first film Krisha, Waves is embroiled in family issues as well as addiction, though this time the issues and the sociological context concern American blackness—questionable territory for a white filmmaker, even one as irrefutably talented as Schults. Perhaps thanks mainly to remarkable performances by Brown, Russell and especially Harrison, Waves rings mainly true.
https://youtu.be/V5z3cr8AB5g
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by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
It’s interesting that three of the most deliciously watchable films of 2019 exist to question the societal value of the rich. Earlier this year, the action-comedy bloodbath Ready or Not pitted one regular schmo in a bridal gown against a mansionful of one-percenters looking to end her life.
Too bloody for you? How about Joon-ho Bong’s masterpiece of social commentary, Parasite? Who, exactly, is it living off the blood of others?
Rian Johnson follows this path with the hoot and a half that is Knives Out.
If you only know Johnson for his brilliant fanboy agitator The Last Jedi, you should give yourself the gift of every other movie he’s ever made, Looper and Brick, in particular. This guy is an idiosyncratic storyteller, one who balances style and substance to create memorable worlds you aren’t ready to leave when the credits roll.
Knives Out is his own Agatha Christie-style take on the general uselessness of the 1%. And it is a riot.
Christopher Plummer is Harlan Thromby, the recently and mysteriously deceased mystery novelist whose family is in a pickle. Though they believe their gregarious patriarch offed himself, the notion seems unlikely however clear the death scene seems to make it.
Renowned gentleman detective Benoit Blanc (that’s a name!), played by a priceless Daniel Craig, joins two police detectives (LaKeith Stanfield and Johnson go-to goof Noah Segan) to dig into the affair.
As little as possible should be said about the plot, as it is a whodunnit, but at the very least it’s appropriate to acknowledge this cast.
The spoiled and entitled are played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Jaeden Martell (from It), Toni Collette as well as Michael Shannon and Chris Evans and their sweaters. Each finds a memorable character and each clearly has an excellent time doing so.
Credit also Ana de Armas as Marta, the homecare nurse and anchor for the story. De Armas has previously been cast primarily for her looks (Blade Runner 2049, War Dogs, Knock Knock), but proves here that she can lead a film, even a film with this strong an ensemble. Her Marta is wholesome but funny, gullible but smart. Her chemistry with Craig is enough to generate some interest in their next collaboration. (Well, that and the writing.)
Johnson proves that you can poke fun without abandoning compassion. More than that, he reminds us that, as a writer, he’s shooting on all cylinders: wry, clever, meticulously crafted, socially aware and tons of fun.
https://youtu.be/qGqiHJTsRkQ
Marriage Story
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
If plot is what happens and story is how it happens, there's no better title for Noah Baumbach's latest than Marriage Story.
For years, Baumbach's films have probed characters struggling to live up to an image of themselves. It's what he does, and now Baumbach has written and directed his masterpiece, a bravely personal and beautifully heartbreaking deconstruction of a marriage falling apart.
Adam Driver is Charlie, a New York stage director. Scarlett Johansson is Nicole, an L.A. film actress who made the switch to NYC live theater when she married Charlie and they welcomed son Henry (Azhy Robertson).
We meet Charlie and Nicole in counseling, taking part in an exercise that reminds them why they married and reminds us how skilled Baumbach is at not only writing wonderfully organic dialog, but in bringing it to the screen with layer upon layer of authenticity.
Tremendous performances from Johansson and Driver cement our immersion into the lives of two people valiantly trying to retain some control over the process of splitting up.
Nicole hurts deeply but wears a brave face, unsure of how to approach a future without Charlie, but unable to deny that life with him has meant she "got smaller." Johannson has never been better, successfully mining Nicole's mix of pain and defiance with silent tears and impassioned outbursts alike.
Here's something I've said a lot this year: Driver is one the most consistently impressive actors around. His skill at finding the human center of his characters is subtle but unmistakable, and here Driver never lets you abandon Charlie, most importantly when his refusals to face reality seem like cathartic soul-baring from Baumbach himself.
We see the details that make up the work of a marriage, and the subtle cracks that weaken the relationship and begin to pull two people apart. And with the break comes the battle for child custody and the business of divorce.
But even as their two opposing lawyers (Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, Oscar-worthy herself) bleed the couple's finances and turn the fight dirty, Baumbach never gets petty. When you think the film is taking sides it makes a subtle change in direction, slowly building toward the brilliantly executed emotional tsunami you know is coming.
Will you need tissues? Oh yes. The story of Nicole and Charlie's marriage will put you through the wringer. And every frame is absolutely worth it.
Late in the film, Charlie's out with a group of theater friends and ends up joining a pianist to sing Stephen Sondheim's "Being Alive." So we have a theater guy going through a tumultuous divorce taking time to sing a Broadway classic about the risk of commitment. It's a sequence that could have easily devolved into self-indulgent excess, but instead only confirms the depth of Baumbach's reach.
He lets another writer's words brilliantly refocus what Charlie and Nicole will always mean to other, and like everything else in Marriage Story, it feels real, true and necessary.
It feels alive.
https://youtu.be/BHi-a1n8t7M
Queen & Slim
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
"I'm not a criminal."
"You are now!"
A white cop lies dead on a Cleveland roadside, while a young black couple is processing how a traffic stop escalated to the point of tragedy, and realizing they have a choice to make.
"Slim" (Daniel Kaluuya) is confident his actions were self-defense, but "Queen" (Jodie Turner-Smith) is a lawyer who knows what they're up against.
They must run. Now.
The feature debut for both director Melina Matsoukas (TV's Master of None, Insecure) and screenwriter Lena Waithe (Master of None, The Chi) has a righteous outrage that nearly burns through the screen. Working in beautiful tandem, they create a mix of gripping character study and urgent fable that speaks with brutal honesty about being black in America.
In Slim, we see the situation personally, while Queen is always there to remind him, and us, of the big picture, and why from now on, they can only go forward.
And from the moment we meet them - in the opening scene, out on their first date - Queen and Slim are real people we're drawn to. Through wonderfully authentic dialog, they get to know each other (Who eats too loud? Who prefers "fat Luther?") and we get to know them, all while they are running for their lives.
But honestly, it might still work if the two just worked in silence, as the chemistry between Kaluuya and Turner-Smith is a natural wonder. Her Queen is a smart, no nonsense woman who admits Slim wasn't going to get a second date. But Turner-Smith allows Queen's vulnerability to surface gradually, making her admission that she wants a man who will "cherish her bruises" all the more sympathetic.
Slim's arc is equally valid with Kaluuya, who shot to Oscar-nominated stardom in Get Out, again flashing an admirable depth. As Slim softens Queen, he in turn absorbs her defiance, ultimately accepting their roles as cultural freedom fighters traveling a modern day underground railroad.
The effective contrasts aren't limited to the main characters, as Matsoukas and Waithe populate their film with consistently resonant pushes and pulls, from romantic risk to shrinking options in wide open spaces.
A stop or two - such as Slim's unlikely encounter with a gas station attendant - break the spell, but only for a moment. This is an unapologetic and purposeful first feature, as much a complex story of joy and love as incendiary protest parable.
And like Queen & Slim themselves, it matters.
https://youtu.be/O7lBJE4AH1g
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by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Four year-old Ruby, bouncing in her seat and making friends while sporting a sparkly tiara, is here for it.
"The fun part is watching Elsa!"
From Ruby's lips to Mickey's ears, because the perfectly acceptable Frozen II seems overly calculated to be just that: perfectly acceptable to anyone and everyone who's even vaguely aware of the original from 2013.
Directors/co-writers Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck are back for round two, along with songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and the starring voices from the first adventure.
This new one is set in motion by a siren song that attracts Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel), calling her north to a magical forest that is holding captives - and secrets. With sister Anna (Kristen Bell), Anna's beau Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and goofy snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) close behind, Elsa sets off into the unknown to right wrongs and learn the origin of her magical powers.
"Into the Unknown," get used to it. A soaring ballad delivered with customary power by Menzel, it's served up not only as part 2's "Let It Go," but as just one of the many broadly-drawn themes the film leans on.
Don't give up, take one step at a time and do the right thing. Nothing wrong with any of those messages, but largely thanks to Disney and Pixar, animated films of the last twenty odd years have shown us how many more layers of resonance are possible - for children and adults.
And while families - especially the younger members - will find a fine holiday time to be had, don't expect the heights of Up, Inside Out, Zootopia, or even the original Frozen.
The songs are just a bit more bland this time, the laughs a little less frequent (although Gad does deliver some winners) and the animation not quite as rich or defined.
From start to finish, FII's journey seems interested only in the path of least resistance toward more of that Elsa/Anna feeling. And by that measure, it certainly succeeds.
"See you at the next Frozen! Are you gonna be here?"
Count on it, Ruby. Save me a seat.
https://youtu.be/Zi4LMpSDccc
21 Bridges
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Okay, huddle up.
Sometimes, your team comes in the underdog. They run the same old plays we've seen so many times, it's not hard to figure out the game plan. But stack that team with enough talent, and it just might succeed anyway.
Hut 21, hut 21...Bridges!
That's a cliched analogy, perfect for a cliched film. 21 Bridges lives in a familiar world of drug deals gone bad, hero cops who might be crooked, damaged cops who might be heroes, ticking clocks and killers on the run.
Chadwick Boseman stars as Andre Davis, a NYC detective with "cop in his DNA" since his father was gunned down on duty years ago. Andre has a reputation for being quick with the trigger, which is why Captain McKenna (J.K. Simmons) is happy to see him at a bloody Brooklyn crime scene.
Eight of McKenna's cops are dead, after surprising two drug runners (Stephan James, Taylor Kitsch) during a botched cocaine robbery. McKenna is confident Andre will enforce their right to remain dead, but the Mayor's ("he eats pizza with a fork!" - nice) flunkies make it clear hizzoner wants the perps alive for a campaign-friendly show trial.
But first, they have to find the two cop killers. Forced to accept help from narcotics officer Frankie ("fight me or use me") Burns (Sienna Miller), Andre is granted a five hour window to shut down every possible avenue out of Manhattan, flood the island with blue, and get his men.
Director Brian Kirk, a TV vet helming his second feature, has clearly seen a crime thriller or two. The aerial shots of the city and shaky cam pursuits are standard moves, but Kirk manages to add his own layers of grit and intensity without ever letting the pace bog down.
One half of the writing team, Matthew Michael Carnahan, has some impressive credits, and about half the time, it shows. But even when the dialogue reeks of recycled cop drama, the talent of this cast manages to put a shine on it.
Simmons adds his usual mastery to a role that could have easily been one-note, and Miller again proves how good she is at morphing into completely different looks and personalities.
But this is Boseman's film to carry, a nice break from his run of biopics and superheroics. The film's success at exploring the paradoxes of a life in law enforcement is due mainly to Boseman. He finds a mix of outrage and conscience for Andre that feels true, often when the story around him doesn't quite keep up.
There's not much freshness to be found in 21 Bridges, just the visceral satisfaction and forgettable fun of talent winning out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZDhunTrYA
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
My God, I love Fred Rogers.
I didn’t watch the show as a kid, preferring Under Dog, Scooby Doo and other dog-related animation. But the last time I cried, not from sadness but from gratitude and longing, was during Morgan Neville’s beautiful 2018 documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
I sobbed. In public.
When news reached the world that Mr. Rogers was due for a biopic, surely each of us realized in our own separate ways that Tom Hanks was A) perfect, and B) going to make us sob all over again.
No way that was just me.
Hanks doesn’t love Fred Rogers as much as he entirely accepts him, and that’s the magic of this performance. While the rest of us may look on Rogers and his deep, genuine and implausible goodness with suspicion or awe, it’s nearly impossible to accept him as one of us. Hanks does. He doesn’t plumb for human frailty, he takes Fred Rogers on Fred Rogers’s terms, and that’s why Tom Hanks has two Oscars already. His performance here is unerring, eerily so.
Truth be told, though, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is not really Fred’s story. Rather, Mr. Rogers is the transformative catalyst for cynical NY magazine writer Lloyd Vogel. Vogel is played by Matthew Rhys and loosely based on real-life journalist Tom Junod, whose Esquire article is the inspiration for the film.
Director Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) structures the film much like an episode from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, and that almost-surreal-but-not quality serves to underscore the absurdity of the situation as Lloyd sees it: Who is this guy? Is this really what he’s like?
That healthy skepticism and Rogers’s ability to break it down creates the thrust of the film, but it’s also a window for the audience to question, accept and then celebrate this lovely man.
With two films in two years, the late children’s programming icon is having quite a moment. It’s hard to be sad about that.
https://youtu.be/-VLEPhfEN2M
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by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
We'll know soon enough if there was high demand for a new Charlie's Angels film. But 16 years after the close of the Drew Barrymore version, Elizabeth Banks apparently thought she could bring the franchise a welcome freshness.
She was right, mostly.
As writer, director and co-star, she's a Banks of all trades, and just one of the Bosleys assisting a team of Angels. In this Charlie universe, "Bosley" is a rank, not a name, with famous faces such as Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou and even Michael Strahan as some manner of Boz.
But it is Banks's Bosley that is on the case when Angels Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Balinska) must protect Elena (Naomi Scott), a brilliant systems engineer who stands between bad guys and some lethal new technology.
Even with its updated vibe, Banks's vision seems more in line with the original TV series (12 year-old me was a big fan). Barrymore's films did bring some charm, but too often treated style as weapon of submission. The feeling this time is more of an easygoing wink-wink, with plenty of callbacks to franchise history and some well-staged battle angel set pieces.
There's plenty of girl power, too, and while these Angels aren't first to that party, they fit in quite nicely. They value friendships, they own their sexuality without being sexualized, they're skilled, strong and always ready to rib each other about awkward flirting or a love of cheese.
Even with the surprises and fake outs it holds, the spy story is a bit too slight to support a full two hours. But, no surprise, it is worth staying for credits that offer plenty of smile-inducing cameos.
Banks deals plenty of hands with Charlie's Angels, overplaying none but the running time. So while it's not a laugh riot, it is self-aware and amusing, its action heavy without undue disbelief and it feels like a reboot we needed, whether we realized it or not.
https://youtu.be/RSUq4VfWfjE
The Irishman
by Hope Madden and George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
In 1973, Martin Scorsese gave us Mean Streets, the tale of a fledgeling gangster contemplating the rungs that could lead him to the top of the NYC mafia. The film takes the point of view of the young man looking forward, and it boasts a supernaturally brilliant performance by Robert De Niro, then 30-years-old.
Scorsese’s latest, The Irishman, looks at a gangster’s rise through those same ranks, this time with the eyes of an old man looking back on his life. In another performance that will remind you of his prowess, a 76-year-old De Niro stars.
The 3 ½ hour running time opens patiently enough as Rodrigo Prieto’s camera winds its way through the halls of a nursing home, establishing a pattern. We will be meandering likewise through the life and memories of Frank Sheeran (De Niro), house painter.
“When I was young,” says Sheeran, “I thought house painters painted houses.”
Sheeran’s telling us his tale in much the way the actual Frank Sheeran told writer Charles Brandt (author of Scorsese’s source material) what may or may not have been the truth about his history as a mob hitman (it’s not paint he’s splashing across walls) and his relationship with Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).
Teamed with acclaimed screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List, Moneyball, Gangs of New York), Scorsese’s sly delivery suggests that he’s interested in what might have happened to Hoffa, sure, but he’s more intrigued by memory, regret and revisionism in the cold glare of time. The result is sometimes surprisingly funny, with a wistful, lived-in humor that more than suits the film’s greying perspective.
De Niro's longtime partnership with Scorsese makes it even easier to view Sheeran as an extension of the director himself, taking stock of his legacy in film.
The decades-spanning narrative could have easily made for a riveting Netflix series instead of one three and a half hour feature, but as the first act blends into the second, the film has you. The grip is subtle but it is more than firm, the epic storytelling and nuanced performances combining for an absorbing experience that takes your mind off the clock.
And what a joy to watch three powerhouses in the ring together.
Joe Pesci, playing against type as Russell Bufalino, the quiet mafia boss who mentors Sheeran, is as good as he's ever been. Pacino fills Hoffa with an electric mix of dangerous bravado, unapologetic corruption and dogged sincerity. And De Niro, like that aging fighter reclaiming his title, gives The Irishman its deep, introspective soul.
And while the trio of legends is commanding the screen, Scorsese uses a small supporting role to remind us he can still speak softly and hit hard.
As Peggy Sheeran, the elder daughter who has watched her father evolve into the man he is, Anna Paquin is piercing, and almost entirely silent. When Peggy finally speaks, she asks her father a direct question that carries the weight of a lifetime behind it, and serves as the perfect conduit to drive the film to its aching conclusion.
Away from the chatter of Scorsese's views on superhero movies or the proper role of Netflix, The Irishman stands as a testament to cinematic storytelling, and to how much power four old warhorses can still harness.
https://youtu.be/WHXxVmeGQUc
The Report
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Admit it. Own up to it. Hold yourself accountable. Then our country can move on.
Oh right, also, I saw The Report this week.
For his clear-eyed reminder of what post 9/11 America was like, writer/director Scott Z. Burns takes a page from Adam McKay’s book of outrage, leaving both tongue and cheek behind.
Daniel Jones (Adam Driver, who is having one hell of a year) is a Senate staffer working for Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening, eerily good). He’s been tasked with investigating the CIA’s post 9/11 “enhanced interrogation” tactics.
Among the heads of the CIA are Thomas Eastman (Michael C. Hall) and John Brennan (Ted Levine).
That Burns cast two actors known best for playing serial killers as CIA leaders is slyly hilarious and indicative of the contempt the filmmaker has for those responsible for this shameful page in US history.
The Report brims with rage, justifiably so, but Burns never stoops to melodrama, rarely even preaches. Much of his ire is delivered via Driver’s sullen stare. Driver is characteristically amazing. Though his performance is largely internal, it spills over with the ache and anger of a citizen who loves his country and cannot believe what he sees happening.
The entire cast—and it’s a big one—impresses, from bewildered CIA staff to opportunists looking to cash in, from battered inmates to White House Chief of Staff. With limited screen time, each performer establishes a character, not a cardboard villain or hero, and the contribution elevates the entire film.
Burns’s script stumbles periodically over exposition, but given the sheer volume of information he covers, it’s a fault that’s easy to forgive. Somehow he manages to contain in just under two hours what Daniels himself couldn’t fit inside 7000 pages.
Importantly, though the film does look to enlighten us on the corruption, greed and fearmongering that led the US to such sadistic measures, Burns wisely leans more heavily on a larger theme of admission and oversight as the only steps toward regaining self-respect and the respect of the world.
Timely.
https://youtu.be/ul5GFfMAvtg
Ford v Ferrari
by Matt Weiner, MaddWolf.com
Director James Mangold has a knack for turning the comfortable biopic formula into something genuinely gripping, even when it’s not surprising. In the case of Ford v Ferrari, the film manages to be both.
Anchored by contrasting performances from Matt Damon as the legendary racer and auto engineer Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as his prickly driver of choice Ken Miles, Ford v Ferrari condenses the staid American automaker’s quest to challenge Ferrari’s dominance in sports car racing as a way of injecting the company with a shot of glamor for younger car buyers.
The site chosen for that showdown is the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, a grueling endurance race that no American-made car had yet to win. Shelby previously notched a victory with an Aston Martin in 1959 before retiring as a driver due to health problems.
Although Shelby and Miles were accomplished designers and engineers, the story (by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller) uses a light touch when it comes to detailing the actual car building. There’s almost as much time spent in the boardroom as there is on the racetrack.
And the film is all the better for it, as the conflict turns out to be less about Ferrari and more between the misfits Shelby and Miles and the rigid executives at Ford. (The exception is Lee Iacocca, archly portrayed by Jon Bernthal as a budding Don Draper of Detroit).
But Ford v Ferrari is still a racing movie, and Mangold delivers when the action moves onto the track. In fact he probably deserves extra credit for heightening the tension during a 24-hour endurance race. How many tea breaks were there in Days of Thunder?
There are also the requisite glimpses of danger (this is a biopic), but the script—and especially Bale’s giddy Miles—bring out the meditative joy as well. It hasn’t been this entertaining to hear Bale yell at people in his accent since Terminator Salvation.
Miles and Shelby get a bit of the tortured artist treatment, but just a bit. The film is after something that in its own small way is more subversive: the friendship, love and respect these men have for each other. (Yes, the focus is almost entirely on men, boys and their toys, but at least Caitriona Balfe gets to do more than sketch the faintest outlines of a long-suffering wife. Barely.)
The film builds to the race in France, but Mangold is in top form when he’s remixing and interrogating Americana, from country in Walk the Line to the western in Logan. Ford v Ferrari continues these reflections on our most storied icons, and the world-weary characters who must bear those burdens for the myth to survive.
https://youtu.be/I3h9Z89U9ZA
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This has been a fascinating year for movies. While we had some great sequels and superhero adventures, 2019 has offered a beautiful abundance of original films and this may have been the single best year for documentaries since ever. Favorites returned to form while new voices pushed the artform in gorgeously necessary directions.
Here are our 25 favorite films of 2019.
1. Parasite
Every time you think you’ve pinned this film down—who’s doing what to whom, who is or is not a parasite—you learn writer/director/master craftsman Joon-ho Bong has perpetrated an impeccably executed sleight of hand. Just when you think Bong’s metaphoric title is merely surface deep, a succession of delicious power shifts begins to emerge.
As the Kims insinuate themselves into the daily lives of the very wealthy Parks, Bong expands and deepens a story full of surprising tenderness, consistent laughter and wise commentary on not only the capitalist economy, but the infecting nature of money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEIwFAQ-Rec&t=16s
2. Toy Story 4
Talents new and veteran gel to combine the history and character so beautifully articulated over a quarter century with some really fresh and very funny ideas. Toy Story 4 offers more bust-a-gut laughs than the last three combined, and while it doesn’t pack the emotional wallop of TS3 (what does?!), it hits more of those notes than you might expect.
Between Forky’s confounded sense of self and Woody’s own existential crisis, TS4 swims some heady waters. These themes are brilliantly, quietly addressed in a number of conversations about loyalty, devotion and love. To its endless credit, TS4 finds new ideas to explore and fresh but organic ways to break our hearts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiIUN-7qhE&t=74s
3. Apollo 11
A majestic and inspirational marriage of the historic and the cutting edge, Apollo 11 is a monumental achievement from director Todd Douglas Miller, one full of startling immediacy and stirring heroics.
There is no flowery writing or voiceover narration, just the words and pictures of July 1969, when Americans walked on the moon and returned home safely. This is living, breathing history you’re soaking in. And damn is it thrilling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKM8YpTmVw
4. Jojo Rabbit
Brazen, hilarious, heartbreaking, historical and alarmingly timely—Taika Waititi’s Nazi satire is a unique piece of cinema. As we follow the coming of age tale, would-be Nazi youth Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis, amazing) uses his imaginary friend, Hitler (Waititi, hilarious) to bolster his flagging self-confidence.
Waititi uses the story of Jojo, his imaginary friend, his deeply loving and supportive mother (Scarlett Johansson, perfect) and the Jewish girl hiding in the closet (Thomasin McKenzie, a star in the making) to ask how we can undo all the hate and fear society feeds us. The answer is tender, funny, clever and one of easily the best films of 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4McUzXfFI&t=6s
5. The Irishman
The 3 ½ hour running time opens patiently enough as Rodrigo Prieto’s camera winds its way through the halls of a nursing home, establishing a pattern. We will be meandering likewise through the life and memories of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), “house painter.”
Martin Scorsese’s sly delivery suggests that he’s interested in what might have happened to Hoffa, sure, but he’s more intrigued by memory, regret and revisionism in the cold glare of time. The result is sometimes surprisingly funny, with a wistful, lived-in humor that more than suits the film’s greying perspective. De Niro’s longtime partnership with Scorsese makes it even easier to view Sheeran as an extension of the director himself, taking stock of his legacy in film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHXxVmeGQUc&t=5s
6. Marriage Story
For years, Noah Baumbach’s films have probed characters struggling to live up to an image of themselves. It’s what he does, and now Baumbach has written and directed his masterpiece, a bravely personal and beautifully heartbreaking deconstruction of a marriage falling apart.
Tremendous performances from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver cement our immersion into the lives of two people valiantly trying to retain some control over the process of splitting up. Will you need tissues? Oh yes. The story of Nicole and Charlie’s marriage will put you through the wringer. And every frame is absolutely worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHi-a1n8t7M&t=3s
7. Amazing Grace
Already a living legend in January of 1972, Aretha Franklin wanted her next album to be a return to her gospel roots. Over two nights at the New Temple Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Aretha recorded live with the Reverend James Cleveland’s Southern California Community Choir as director Sydney Pollack rolled cameras for a possible TV special.
To see Franklin here is to see her at the absolute apex of her powers. taking that voice-of-a-lifetime wherever she pleases with an ease that simply astounds. Even with the recording session stop/starts that Elliot includes for proper context, Aretha’s hold on the congregation (which include the Stones’ Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts) is a come-to-Jesus revelation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkKOIQwTiKE
8. The Souvenir
The Souvenir rests at the hypnotic intersection of art and inspiration, an almost shockingly self-aware narrative from filmmaker Joanna Hogg that dares you to label its high level of artistry as pretense.
The Souvenir is finely crafted as a different kind of gain from pain, one that benefits both filmmaker and audience. It is artful and cinematic in its love for art and cinema, honest and forgiving in its acceptance, and beautifully appreciative of how life shapes us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Al2nC0vzY&t=87s
9. 1917
The danger in crafting a film with one extended take – or the illusion of it – lies in the final cut existing as little more than a gimmick, spurring a ‘spot the edit’ challenge that eclipses the narrative. With 1917, Sam Mendes jumps that hurdle in the first five minutes.
It is WWI, and two young corporals (Dean Charles-Chapman and George MacKay) are tasked with traveling deep into enemy territory to deliver a message that will keep thousands of soldiers, including one messenger's brother, from certain death. Mendes’s effort is absolutely thrilling and completely immersive, with ballet-worthy camerawork and pristine cinematography (Roger Deakins, natch) that never seems to blink. You won’t want to either, it’s unforgettable.
https://youtu.be/UcmZN0Mbl04
10. Joker
Todd Phillips offers an origin story that sees mental illness, childhood trauma, adult alienation and societal disregard as the ingredients that form a singular villain—a man who cannot come into his own until he embraces his inner sinister clown.
Joaquin Phoenix is a god among actors. His scenes of transformation, his scenes alone, his mesmerizing command of physicality, and in particular his unerringly unnerving chemistry with other actors are haunting. Remember when we thought Nicholson could never be topped? Then Ledger did it. And now Phoenix makes this the darkest, most in-the-moment Joker we’ve seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGdXyXwPXo
11. The Farewell
Writer/director Lulu Wang finds poignant truths in an elaborate lie, speaking the universal language of “family crazy” while crafting an engaging cultural prism. As our window into this push and pull of tradition in the modern world, Awkwafina makes her "Billi" a nuanced, relatable soul.
While Wang’s script is sharp and insightful, her assured tone is even more beneficial. Even as the film feels effortlessly lived in, it never quite goes in directions you think it might. Wang doesn’t stoop to going maudlin among all the whiffs of death, infusing The Farewell with an endless charm that’s both revealing and familiar.
Funny, too. No lie.
https://youtu.be/RofpAjqwMa8
12. Uncut Gems
In what amounts to a two+ hour panic attack, Benny and Josh Safdie do more than clarify Adam Sandler’s acting prowess. Uncut Gems articulates the dizzying, exhausting, terrifying and exhilarating cycle of addiction in a way few films have ever been able to.
It’s also an incredibly potent character study. Sandler’s NYC jeweler and gambler is a live wire, and Sandler’s particular gift is not only to articulate that quest for the thrill, but to underscore it with a tenderness that feels achingly sincere. If you’ve seen Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish or Funny People, you are among the few who realized Sandler could act. But did any of us know he had this in him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTfJp2Ts9X8
13. Little Women
Just when you think, “They’re making this movie again?” Greta Gerwig steps in and gives this beloved story a fresh, frustrated perspective. Self-discovery, camaraderie and empathy still drive the piece, but Jo’s fiery independence has more meaning, Marmie’s self-sacrifice contains welcome bitterness, Aunt March’s disappointment feels more seeped in wisdom, and spoiled Amy is an outright revelation.
Gerwig’s writing, respectfully confident, brings conflicts more sharply to the surface in ways that reflect the characters’ bristling against unfair constraints with a clear eye. But her real strength seems to be in casting. Lady Bird’s Saoirse Ronan is impeccable as ever, as are Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts and Meryl Streep (naturally). But it’s Florence Pugh, having a banner year with Fighting with my Family and Midsommar in her rear view, who entirely reimagines bratty Amy, turning her into the character we can most understand. In all, this remarkable filmmaker and her enviable cast make this retelling maybe the most necessary version yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST2-4db4ic
14. Us
Us is far more than a riff on some old favorites. A masterful storyteller, writer/director Jordan Peele weaves together moments of inspiration not simply to homage greatness but to illustrate a larger, deeper nightmare. It’s as if Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland turned into a plague on humanity.
Do the evil twins in the story represent the darkest parts of ourselves that we fight to keep hidden? The fragile nature of identity? “One nation” bitterly divided? You could make a case for these and more, but when Peele unveils his coup de grace moment (which would make Rod Serling proud), it ultimately feels like an open-ended invitation to revisit and discuss, much like he undoubtedly did for so many genre classics.
While it’s fun to be scared stiff, scared smart is even better, a fact Jordan Peele has clearly known for years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tzFRIQfwXg
15. The Lighthouse
Director/co-writer Robert Eggers follows The Witch, his incandescent 2015 feature debut, with another painstakingly crafted, moody period piece. The Lighthouse strands you, along with two wickies (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, both mad geniuses at work), on the unforgiving island home of one lonely 1890s New England lighthouse.
This is thrilling cinema. Let it in, and it will consume you to the point of nearly missing the deft gothic storytelling at work. The film is other-worldly, surreal, meticulous and consistently creepy. And we’ll tell you what The Lighthouse is not. It is not a film ye will soon forget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyag7lR8CPA&t=19s
16. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
More than just a story of gentrification, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a multi-layered visionary feature debut for director/co-writer Joe Talbot. Set against the changing face of a city and the nature of male friendship, we follow along with lifelong friends Mont (Montgomery Allen) and Jimmie (Jimmie Fails, Talbot’s longtime collaborator whose story is the basis for the film) as they stake a claim for the majestic home where Jimmie was raised.
Funny and touching with a knack for keenly unique observations, TLBMISF seems to exist in its very own time and space, intent to lay bare a melancholy but endlessly loving soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0FnJDhY9-0
17. Midsommar
Just two features into filmmaker Ari Aster’s genre takeover and already you can detect a pattern. First, he introduces a near-unfathomable amount of grief. Then, he drags you so far inside it you won’t fully emerge for days.
In Midsommar, we are as desperate to claw our way out of this soul-crushing grief as Dani (Florence Pugh). Mainly to avoid being alone, Dani insinuates herself into her anthropology student boyfriend Christian’s (Jack Reynor) trip to rural Sweden with his buds. Little does she know they are all headed straight for a modern riff on The Wicker Man.
Like a Bergman inspired homage to bad breakups, this terror is deeply-rooted in the psyche, always taking less care to scare you than to keep you unsettled and on edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0&t=44s
18. Monos
On a mountaintop that rests among the clouds, eight child soldiers guard an American hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Yes, you’ll find parallels to Lord of the Flies, even Apocalypse Now, but filmmaker Alejandro Landes continually upends your assumptions by tossing aside any common rulebooks on storytelling.
Landes never gives us the chance to feel confident about anything we think we know, as the powerful score from Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie) and an impeccable sound design totally immerse us in an atmosphere of often breathless tension and wanton violence. In just his second narrative feature, Landes crafts a primal experience of alienation and survival, with a strange and savage beauty that may shake you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=disclpVzoMQ&t=34s
19. Knives Out
Knives Out is writer/director Rian Johnson’s Agatha Christie-style take on the general uselessness of the 1%. And it is a riot. As it is a whodunnit, little should be spilled about the film except these names: Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, Toni Collegge, Jaeden Martel and Don Johnson. Wow!
Johnson proves that you can poke fun without abandoning compassion. More than that, he reminds us that, as a writer, he’s shooting on all cylinders: wry, clever, meticulously crafted, socially aware and tons of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOg3AoRc4nI
20. Little Woods
Nia DaCosta’s feature directorial debut, which she also wrote, is an independent drama of the most unusual sort—the sort that situates itself unapologetically inside American poverty. This is less a film about the complicated pull of illegal activity and more a film about the obstacles the American poor face—many of them created by a healthcare system that serves anyone but our own ill and injured.
But politically savvy filmmaking is not the main reason to see Little Woods. See it because Tessa Thompson and Lily James are amazing, or because the story is stirring and unpredictable.
See it because it’s what America actually looks like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HxRrJk48sg&t=22s
21. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
It’s Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s clearest love letter to cinema both great and trashy. Spilling with nostalgia and packing more sentiment than his previous 8 films combined, Hollywood is the auteur’s most heartfelt film.
Not that it isn’t bloody. Once it hits its stride the film packs Reservoir Dogs-level brutality into a climax that’s as nervy as anything Tarantino’s ever filmed. But leading up to that, as the filmmaker asks us to look with a mixture of fondness and sadness at two lives twisting toward the inevitable, he’s actually almost sweet. In strokes stylish and self-indulgent, Tarantino is bidding adieu to halcyon days of both flower power innocence and the Hollywood studio machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q55A7ZQ7uf8
22. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Celine Sciamma follows up the vitally of-the-moment indie Girlhood with this breathy, painterly period romance only to clarify that she is a filmmaker with no identifiable bounds. In the 1790s on a forbidding island in Brittany, Marianne (Noemie Merlant) arrives to paint the wedding portrait of Heloise (Adele Haenel), but since Heloise is not marrying voluntarily, she will not sit for a painter. So, a ruse is developed: Marianne pretends to be simply a companion as she steals glances then sketches from memory into the night.
What develops along with the startlingly beautiful intimacy between the women is a thoughtful rumination on memory and on art, on the melancholic but no less romantic notion that the memory, though lonesome, is permanent and perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-fQPTwma9o
23. Rocketman
Driven by a wonderfully layered performance from Taron Egerton – who also handles his vocal duties just fine – the film eschews the standard biopic playbook for a splendid rock and roll fantasy.
Writer Lee Hall penned Billy Elliot and Dexter Fletcher is fresh off co-directing Bohemian Rhapsody. Their vision draws from both to land somewhere between the enigmatic Dylan biopic I’m Not There and the effervescent ABBA glitter bomb Mamma Mia. In the world of Rocketman, anything is possible. And even with all the eccentric flights of fancy, the film holds true to an ultimately touching honesty about the life story it’s telling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vO8E2e6G0&t=4s
24. Ad Astra
Daddy issues in zero gravity? There’s that, but there’s plenty more, as a never-better Brad Pitt and bold strokes from writer/director James Gray deliver an emotional and often breathless spectacle of sound and vision.
The film’s mainly meditative nature is punctured by bursts of suspense, excitement and even outright terror. Gray commands a complete mastery of tone and teams with acclaimed cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema for immersive, IMAX-worthy visuals that astound with subtlety, never seeming overly showy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA&t=9s
25. Dolemite Is My Name
“Dolemite” was the brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore, who created the character for his standup comedy act in the early 70s, where cheering crowds led to the urge to take Dolemite to the big screen.
Leading a terrific ensemble that includes Craig Robinson, Keegan-Michael Key, Kodi Smit-McPhee and a priceless Wesley Snipes as the “real” actor among these amateurs, Eddie Murphy owns every frame. This film wouldn’t work unless we see a separation between Moore and his character. Murphy toes this line with electric charisma, setting up the feels when Moore’s dogged belief in himself is finally rewarded.
Dolemite Is My Name tells a personal and often hilarious story, but it’s one that’s universal to dreamers everywhere.
FYI: Trailer NSFW
https://youtu.be/Ws1YIKsuTjQ
Honorable mentions: High Life, Pain & Glory, Waves, Hustlers, Honeyland, Ford v Ferrari
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