It’s always at least half-way
into the next year before I can compile my comprehensive list of favorite and
recommended films from the previous year, but this time round it seems a
particularly long time past, from an entirely different epoch. It will take me a little time still to round
up a few stragglers that may shoulder their way onto either list.
If “edge of your seat” is a
cinematic experience you seek, then you might like Uncut Gems (MC-90,
NFX ), Ben and Joshua Safdie’s unsavory scramble through a
NYC demimonde of jewelers, gamblers, loan sharks, muscle men, party people,
hipsters and hoopsters. Is it a
thriller? Is it a comedy? Is it a character study of a man with no
character? Adam Sandler is a diamond
district dealer, an adrenaline junkie who’s forever putting everything he’s got
(and more) on the line, always looking for a big score to settle his
debts. Very little about him is likable,
but he does create a whirlwind of energy in his wake. The Safdie brothers are known for their
on-the-fly style of shooting, but here a bigger budget means a larger canvas on
which to inscribe their manic energy.
They look at the intersection of Jewish culture and Black culture in the
arena of sport, with solid supporting performances from Lakeith Stanfield and
Kevin Garnett as himself, off the court and on (from the 2012 NBA
playoffs). So there’s plenty here to
keep you watching, but likely stuff to turn you off as well. Just sayin’.
I gather that I had the
perfect approach to Where’d You Go, Bernadette (MC-51, Hulu), not
as an adaptation of a popular novel, but as the latest from one of my favorite
directors, Richard Linklater. As such,
and with a dynamite title performance from Cate Blanchett, good supporting
roles, and excellent locations, I liked it much more than the Metacritic rating
would suggest. Cate/Bernadette was a
genius young architect in LA, and is now a sort of mad housewife in Seattle Antarctica .
Adapted from a popular
Brazilian novel, Invisible Life (MC-81, AMZ) is a vivid melodrama
about sisterhood oppressed by patriarchy, surprisingly directed by a man, Karim
Ainouz. The film is long and lush,
intense and elliptical, following two devoted sisters who lose track of each
other in 1950s Rio, and spend their lives trying to find each other again, all
the while suffering abuse from men, from their father on down. Somewhat lurid and explicit, the film rides
on the performances of the two actresses, who are completely believable as
sisters, together and apart. A fine
immersion in the colors and culture of Brazil
Another view of Latin
American womanhood, Too Late to Die Young (MC-80, CC) is an
autobiographical film from Chilean Dominga Sotomayor, recreating a summer
interlude (i.e. around New Year’s Day) on an artistic commune up in the hills,
immediately after the fall of Pinochet, when everyone from dogs to teenage
girls to married adults was lunging toward freedom and the pursuit of
happiness. It’s a mood piece drenched in
specific memories, rather than a story as such, fascinating but not compelling
to watch.
I didn’t regret watching The
Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (MC-87, NFX ), but I wouldn’t advise you to unless you have substantial patience
and tolerance for real-time, continuous-take cinema. We follow (quite literally) two First Nations
women in the Canadian West, one a pregnant and abused teenager, and the other a
sympathetic career woman who takes her in and tries to steer her toward a
shelter. The latter is played by
Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, who also wrote and directed. She’s thoughtful and sympathetic, and not put
off by the younger woman’s acerbic recalcitrance. The push and pull of their transient relationship
is involving and thought-provoking, even while the filming seems rudimentary,
though sophisticated in the attempt to seem like one long unbroken take.
This has become a theme for
me lately (and ironically), finding film adaptations more congenial than many
reviewers did, because I had not read the book.
It’s almost axiomatic that if you really love a book, you’re going to
see the gaps and flaws in its cinematic manifestation. But if you’ve got nothing invested going in,
you won’t be disappointed and can see how the film stands up on its own. And I’m here to tell you that Just
Mercy (MC-68, AMZ) is a better film than you may have heard. Adapted from the beloved memoir of Bryan
Stevenson, of the Equal Justice Initiative, by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short
Term 12), this legal drama is graced with Michael B. Jordan as the young
Stevenson, and Jamie Foxx as the first unjustly-convicted person he would get
released from death row. They are
excellent together and apart, and the supporting cast is also very effective. The film’s theatrical release may have been
mistimed, but its multi-channel streaming availability could not have come at a
better moment. Okay, maybe it’s only
halfway on the path from In the Heat of the Night to the realities of
the surging Black Lives Matter movement, but it’s an honorable way-station on
the road to freedom and justice.
Subtract the Hollywood gloss,
and take a look at the solid documentary True Justice: Brian Stevenson’s
Fight for Equality (HBO), which is mostly told in his own voice, and covers
his career up through five Supreme Court wins to the opening of the EJI’s
National Memorial for Peace and Justice (and lynching museum) in Montgomery, AL.
In Peterloo (MC-66,
AMZ), Mike Leigh sacrifices his greatest strength, character development, to
make an angry and all-too-relevant social statement. Even in his other historical films, like Topsy-Turvy
and Mr. Turner, despite the immaculate rendering of period detail,
the emphasis is on characters and relationships. But here the historical rendering is in
service of a political reckoning, in commemoration of the 200th
anniversary of a massacre by the British military of peaceful protestors in Manchester Lancashire , carrying colorful banners demanding suffrage and repeal of the Corn
Laws, come to hear a celebrated London Waterloo
I can’t rouse myself to
comment on Rocketman (MC-68, Hulu) except to say that it was okay
as this year’s version of Bohemian Rhapsody, a musical
biopic of a singer of whom I was never a fan but could hardly avoid some
familiarity with. Perhaps Rami Malek was
more engaging as Freddie Mercury that Taron Egerton as Elton John, while
director Dexter Fletcher perhaps refined his style from film to film, so it’s a
close call between them, but I wouldn’t urge either on the uninitiated.
I was late to the party of Leonard Cohen adoration, so I was happy to fill out his backstory with Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (MC-69, Hulu), which tells of his relationship with the Norwegian muse he lived with on a Greek island through much of the Sixties. Nick Broomfield’s documentary elevates her memory, though it remains mostly Leonard’s story, which I was happy to revisit, interesting to me even if the film itself is hardly essential. It might be too cursory for the devoted fan, or too obscure and minor for the uninitiated, but it suited me just fine.
I was late to the party of Leonard Cohen adoration, so I was happy to fill out his backstory with Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (MC-69, Hulu), which tells of his relationship with the Norwegian muse he lived with on a Greek island through much of the Sixties. Nick Broomfield’s documentary elevates her memory, though it remains mostly Leonard’s story, which I was happy to revisit, interesting to me even if the film itself is hardly essential. It might be too cursory for the devoted fan, or too obscure and minor for the uninitiated, but it suited me just fine.
Safe to say that motorsports
are not my thing, so the cars provide little attraction, but some of the people
involved in Ford v Ferrari (MC-81, HBO) induced me to watch and
enjoy the film. If the whole business of
rowdy boys with their big shiny toys wears a bit thin, Christian Bale and Matt
Damon are there to add dimension and shading to the fraught friendship between
two men, who combine their engineering and driving prowess to the mission of
dethroning Ferrari from its dominance over international racing. With uneasy corporate sponsorship by Ford,
they meet their match at the LeMans 24-hour race in 1966, with the race itself
taking up most of the second half of this movie, which certainly moves but is
also quite moving (and very true to history, as I found out on Wikipedia
afterwards). Credit director James
Mangold on all counts, though the corporate infighting between the cowboys and
the suits pads the running time without adding much substance, even if Tracy
Letts has a fine turn as Henry Ford II.
The concept of “pushing the envelope” may have little resonance for me,
but Bale and Damon make me appreciate their automotive quest.
An altogether grimmer buddy
movie is 1917 (MC-78, dvd), which is essentially a nightmare in a
hellscape. If you’re into
first-person-shooter video games, you may find it entertaining. The immediacy is striking, and it’s not a bad
film, technically speaking. The
direction by Sam Mendes and cinematography by Roger Deakins cleverly simulates
real-time, one-continuous-shot documentation, as two Lance Corporals (George
MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) are assigned to carry a vital command message through
the trenches and across no-man’s-land, into burning villages and down raging
rapids (and on and on and on). The
unknown but appealing leads encounter a host of familiar faces up the chain of
command – spotting them is part of the game-play. This ain’t War and Peace, this is war
straight up, no chaser. Its fundamental
mendacity (pun unintended, but apt) is revealed in an obligatory scene with a
woman and baby (of course! At least he
doesn’t sleep with her in the five minutes they spend together, though there is
an exchange of bodily fluids.) I
appreciate the you-are-there feel of this film, but if you really want to know
how it felt to be there, I recommend Peter Jackson’s documentary They Shall
Never Grow Old.
Having seen virtually all the
films I could or would see of Metacritic’s compilation of the top films of 2019, I’m ready to pronounce my favorite films of the year in comparison
with theirs.
My Favorites
(It would take repeat
viewings to choose among my top three, all of which I loved – and two of them
by filmmakers who were also making a baby at the same time.)
The Irishman (#3)
Marriage Story (#4)
Little Women (#6)
Portrait of a Lady on
Fire (#2)
Diane (#17)
The Farewell (#9)
Wild Rose (#71)
Non-Fiction (#99)
Pain and Glory (#12)
A Hidden Life (#100)
Worth Seeing
Booksmart (#34)
Knives Out (#49)
Just Mercy (NR)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (#75)
Atlantics (#26)
Peterloo (NR)
Parasite (#1)
Where’d You Go,
Bernadette (NR)
Sword of Trust (NR)
The Souvenir (#5)
Invisible Life (#48)
Transit (#46)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Ford v Ferrari (#60)
Uncut Gems (#7)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Woman at War (#59)
Wild Pear Tree (#22)
The Body Remembers When
the World Broke Open (#14)
Top Docs
Honeyland (#24)
American Factory (#23)
One Child Nation (#29)
For Sama (#8)
Apollo 11 (#13)
Expect to love when I finally
see:
63 Up (#11)
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