If you're feeling vaguely blogged out, I can't say I blame you. I also tend to feel the exhaustion down into my overworked fingertips by the time I get to the end of the big February blog week, with Oscar rearing its inevitable leviathan head, forcing me to keep my own deadlines. But what can I say? For better or worse, spending entirely too much time writing overly elaborate movie posts in February is who I am. This is my fifteenth year of doing it, and no force on this or any other earth can stop me. And why should it? The Oscars are silly, they're serious, they're too much and not enough and why should anyone care? But for all their flaws, they set the pace, and the wild-eyed, movie-crazed community that has sprung up around them is one of the best parts of my day (because yes, you can in fact follow the Oscars every single day of the year! Count your lucky stars that I'm not inflicting that on you). So here I am. I've got a whole bunch of thoughts about my precious little gold men, and I'm ready to unleash them in a confetti and red carpet-laden torrent.
So let's do it! If you're here, you know what you're in for, and what we're all in for is glorious. Do note that I tend to predict more for fun than I do accuracy. There are plenty of places online if you want the best odds on what wins every category, but over here we try and guess when the Academy might release the hounds.
Best Picture
The nominees:
1917
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Still some uncertainty here, despite what some sources might tell you. Easy money says that 1917, the last movie out of the gate and the one that built its momentum at the perfect time, takes a quick win here. And that's certainly likely--the movie is obviously well-liked, it the right shade of noble manliness to appeal to the Academy, and it's got a snazzy technical hook to keep it in the conversation. But there are a number of nominations that a movie is supposed to get if it wants to win best picture (specifically, best director, screenplay, film editing, any acting nomination, and the Screen Actors Guild best ensemble category). Plenty of movies have won best picture after missing one of these nods, but no movie has ever won having missed more than one. And, wouldn't you know it, 1917 missed three. So bear in mind that if you call 1917 for the top prize, you're predicting something completely unprecedented.
Of course it only complicates matters that 1917's biggest competition, Parasite, would be equally unprecedented, as no film not in English has ever won best picture. Still, Parasite has *huge* pockets of support (it won the Screen Actors Guild ensemble prize as well as the American Cinema Editors prize--the first time a non-English film has won either of those prizes). If we want to spend any time talking about the old/new Academy (i.e. the pre-#oscarssowhite Academy and the 3.000 new members they've invited in the past few years in an attempt to diversify), here's where we do it, as voting for Parasite now--an already beloved movie--would make a huge statement about the kind of institution the Academy wants to be.
Other than these two? There's a sliver of a chance that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, once the presumed frontrunner, ekes out a win based on its overall likeability (voters vote for best picture with a ranked system, which means that being well liked is just as important as having a lot of passionate support). And Jojo Rabbit, for whatever infernal reason, has had a huge energy surge in the past 10-ish days (aka exactly when the ballots were due). I don't think it'll happen, but we still (for now) live in the shadow of a Jojo Rabbit best picture win.
Will Win: 1917
Could Win: Parasite
Should Win: Little Women
Should Have Been Here: One Cut of the Dead
Director
The nominees:
Bong Joon-Ho-Parasite
Sam Mendes-1917
Todd Phillips-Joker
Martin Scorsese-The Irishman
Quentin Tarantino-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
1917's flashy one-take concept probably guarantees Mendes his second Oscar, but if the Academy really gets in a Parasite mood, Bong Joon-ho could become just the second person to win best director for a non-English film (after last year's Alfonso Cuaron/Roma). Tarantino's also a vague threat for the sentimental vote, but this is mostly Mendes' award to lose.
Will Win: Sam Mendes-1917
Could Win: Bong Joon-Ho-Parasite
Should Win: Bong Joon-Ho-Parasite
Should Have Been Here: Nadav Lapid-Synonyms
Actress
The nominees:
Cynthia Erivo-Harriet
Scarlet Johansson-Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan-Little Women
Charlize Theron-Bombshell
Renee Zellweger-Judy
The narrative will be the same for all the acting categories: there's one ironclad frontrunner, and any of them missing would be a huge upset. Each of them has won all of the four major televised awards thus far (critics choice award, golden globe, screen actors guild award, british academy award), and only one person has ever lost the Oscar after doing so. Your frontrunner here is Zellweger--so strange that no other narrative got any breathing room this year, given she already has an Oscar, and neither she nor the film is particularly beloved. Still, what can you do?
Will Win: Renee Zellweger-Judy
Could Win: Scarlet Johansson-Marriage Story
Should Win: Scarlet Johansson-Marriage Story
Should Have Been Here: Lupita N'yongo-Us
Actor
The nominees:
Antonio Banderas-Pain and Glory
Leonardo Dicaprio-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver-Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix-Joker
Jonathan Pryce-The Two Popes
One of the only mercies this year is that, despite its monstrous nomination tally, Joker is unlikely to win that much. That said, the ones it might win are categories it will probably steamroll. Case in point: Phoenix here.
Will Win: Joaquin Phoenix-Joker
Could Win: Adam Driver-Marriage Story
Should Win: Adam Driver-Marriage Story
Should Have Been Here: Willem Dafoe-The Lighthouse
Supporting Actress
The nominees:
Kathy Bates-Richard Jewell
Laura Dern-Marriage Story
Scarlet Johansson-Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh-Little Women
Margot Robbie-Bombshelll
Ok, this is the one place where we might anticipate a bit of nasty, nasty chaos. Laura Dern's Oscar seems assured, and you'd be silly not to predict her. However. Marriage Story has taken a huge dive--once the frontrunner, now no one seems to talk about it, or even like it. And some people are mystified that Dern's role is the Oscar-winning performance. Enter Jojo Rabbit, a movie that has been gaining steam, and Scarlet Johansson, who is nominated twice this year (and 7 out of 11 double nominees have won Oscars in their year). So...who's to say? It's not smart to bet against any of the acting frontrunners, but this might be the place for anarchy.
Will Win: Laura Dern-Marriage Story
Could Win: Scarlett Johansson-Jojo Rabbit (though I was planning on predicting a surprise Scarjo win until the last possible second--I'm just not brave enough)
Should Win: Laura Dern-Marriage Story
Should Have Been Here: Jennifer Lopez-Hustlers (shoulda been you, Jen)
Supporting Actor
The nominees:
Tom Hanks-A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins-The Two Popes
Al Pacino-The Irishman
Joe Pesci-The Irishman
Brad Pitt-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
No intrigue here. Pitt wins in a lazy walk.
Will Win: Brad Pitt-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Could Win: Joe Pesci-The Irishman
Should Win: Brad Pitt-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Have Been Here: Song Kang-Ho-Parasite
Original Screenplay
The nominees:
1917
Knives Out
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Probably a fight between Parasite and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, depending on which the Academy decides needs more recognition. I don't imagine that 1917 will win here, but watch out if it looks to sweep.
Will Win: Parasite
Could Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Win: Parasite
Should Have Been Here: One Cut of the Dead
Adapted Screenplay
The nominees:
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
The Two Popes
Another tough-ish call. Do we get to see Greta Gerwig with an Oscar in her hands, or does Jojo Rabbit's late-breaking energy win the day? Or does The Irishman rally at the last minute? It's probably one of the first two, but just flip a coin.
Will Win: Jojo Rabbit
Could Win: Little Women
Should Win: Little Women
Should Have Been Here: Hustlers
Production Design
The nominees:
1917
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
One big question for all the craft categories--should we expect 1917 to sweep, or should we expect some of the other best picture nominees to give it trouble? If we believe the second option is true, then look for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's big LA '69 vibes to carry the day here when pitted against the mostly outdoor shenanigans of 1917. It'd be nice to dream that Parasite has a chance, but it might be too contemporary, and the Academy rarely looks at non-period pieces in the design categories.
Will Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Could Win: 1917
Should Win: Parasite
Should Have Been Here: Midsommar
Costume Design
The nominees:
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Once again we've got Once Upon a Time in Hollywood looking to unseat another best picture nominee, this time the big civil war gowns in Little Women. As is becoming a theme, look for Jojo Rabbit to upset here if its big energy translates into actual wins.
Will Win: Little Women
Could Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Win: Little Women
Should Have Been Here: Booksmart
Visual Effects
The nominees:
1917
Avengers: Endgame
The Irishman
The Lion King
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
Maybe one of the toughest categories to predict? Or at least one with the widest possible spread of winners. Generally, if a best picture nominee gets in here, it wins, unless more than one best picture nominee gets in (like this year's 1917 and The Irishman), in which case all bets are off. Still, either of those could carry the day, based on how popular they are (and 1917 is looking to be popular). That said, neither even remotely resembles the bigger, effects-driven pictures that tend to win here. The Lion King could echo The Jungle Book's 2016 victory for essentially the same concept (photoreal animals), and it's easy to forget that, despite being an atrocity against all cinema, The Lion King is one of the highest grossing and widely seen films of the year. Which brings us to Avengers: wildly popular, obscenely profitable, and never embraced by the Academy. Maybe Oscar decides that now's the time to reward the Marvel gang, or maybe they decide to continue their decade-long indifference.
Will Win: 1917
Could Win: The Lion King
Should Win: Avengers: Endgame
Should Have Been Here: Detective Pikachu
Makeup and Hairstyling
The nominees:
1917
Bombshell
Joker
Judy
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
This is presumably Bombshell's to lose? Celebrity lookalike makeup and showy prosthetics tend to win out here, and Bombshell has both in spades. Look for 1917 to upset here--if it wins this, then be prepared for it to have a huge night.
Will Win: Bombshell
Could Win: 1917
Should Win: 1917
Should Have Been Here: Midsommar
Film Editing
The nominees:
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Joker
Jojo Rabbit
Parasite
Ok, this is *definitely* one of the hardest of the night, as any one of these movies could win. Look to Ford v Ferrari for the easiest answer--it's got lots of showy car-race scenes, and apparently enough people loved it to get it a best picture nom, so. Editing giant and legend Thelma Schoonmaker cut The Irishman, and the Thelma love/the respect for the immense degree of difficulty involved in shaping a 210-minute movie might win out. Parasite might have the showiest editing, and everyone who sees it praises it for its pacing and suspense. Joker could take the award on account of a vague pro-action movie bias in this category, and Jojo Rabbit, like in so many other categories, could capitalize on its late-breaking popularity here. So watch your screens! If Ford or Irishman (and probably Joker as well) wins this, it means nothing for the big races. Parasite winning this doesn't automatically mean it'll win best picture, but it's hard to imagine Parasite winning best picture without triumphing here first. And if Jojo Rabbit wins, then all bets are off--go hug the ones you love, because Jojo will be coming for all the big awards.
Will Win: Joker
Could Win: Parasite
Should Win: Parasite
Should Have Been Here: Uncut Gems
Cinematography
The nominees:
1917
The Irishman
Joker
The Lighthouse
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Finally, after the tough categories, something easy: 1917 wins this in a walk. No way anything else takes it down.
Will Win: 1917
Could Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Win: The Lighthouse
Should Have Been Here: The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Original Score
The nominees:
1917
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
Also a (fairly) easy call? Joker's got all the steam it needs to come out on top. Again, if 1917 is going to dominate the evening, than a win here would be an early indicator.
Will Win: Joker
Could Win: 1917
Should Win: 1917
Should Have Been Here: The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Sound Mixing
The nominees:
1917
Ad Astra
Ford v Ferrari
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The only question--are Ford v Ferrari's very loud car races enough to push past 1917, the best picture frontrunner in a category that is traditionally very war-friendly? Maybe, but probably not.
Will Win: 1917
Could Win: Ford v Ferrari
Should Win: 1917
Should Have Been Here: The Lighthouse
Sound Editing
The nominees:
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
Copy and paste the argument from above. It's always tempting to call a split in this situation, with each movie taking one sound award, but there's no easier way to screw over your prediction success than to all the wrong split, so I'll stick with 1917 and call it good.
Will Win: 1917
Could Win: Ford v Ferrari
Should Win: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
Should Have Been Here: The Lighthouse
Original Song
The nominees:
"I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away"-Toy Story 4
"I'm Gonna Love Me Again"-Rocketman
"I'm Standing with You"-Breakthrough
"Into the Unknown"-Frozen 2
"Stand Up"-Harriet
Oof, what an atrocious batch of nominees (and tough luck this year for song titles not starting with "I"). Conventional wisdom suggests that the Rocketman song wins, both for Elton John love and to recognize a movie that might have seemed under-recognized. I suppose "Stand Up" could win as a 'we're not voting for you for best actress, but we still like you" prize for Cynthia Erivo (who co-wrote the song), and "Into the Unknown" might win by default in a year with no particularly exciting options.
Will Win: "I'm Gonna Love Me Again"-Rocketman
Could Win: "Stand Up"-Harriet
Should Win: "Stand Up"-Harriet
Should Have Been Here: "Glasgow"-Wild Rose
Animated Film
The nominees:
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
I Lost My Body
Klaus
Missing Link
Toy Story 4
Another tough category--anything but How to Train Your Dragon has a shot. Toy Story was the lackluster frontrunner for most of the season, with most people assuming that voters would autopilot-vote for Pixar in a year without a clear frontrunner. But then Missing Link won the golden globe, Klaus won the British academy, and I Lost My Body and Klaus dominated the Annies (the Oscars of animated movies) while Toy Story was shut out entirely. So now who knows? It's a free for all, and when there's a free for all, the winner is all too often the easiest choice. But who knows?
Will Win: Klaus
Could Win: Toy Story 4
Should Win: I Lost My Body
Should Have Been Here: Frozen 2 (which wasn't great, but I liked it and you can't stop me)
International Film
The nominees:
Corpus Christi-Poland
Honeyland-North Macedonia
Les Miserables-France
Pain and Glory-Spain
Parasite-South Korea
Easy choice--whenever a non-English language film is has a shot in the major categories, the win here is a given.
Will Win: Parasite-South Korea
Could Win: Pain and Glory-Spain
Should Win: Parasite*
Should Have Been Here: Atlantics-Senegal
*I haven't seen Les Miserables or Corpus Christi
Documentary Feature
The nominees:
American Factory
The Cave
The Edge of Democracy
For Sama
Honeyland
Whooo boy, no idea. Honeyland might have the edge, as it's the only movie here nominated in any other category, and it's critically beloved. But both For Sama and American Factory have won the lion's share of industry awards. Search me.
Will Win: Honeyland
Could Win: American Factory
Should Win: abstain (I've only seen Honeyland and American Factory, despite all of these being readily available online. I'm so bad at watching documentaries.)
And there's that! I've got 1917 as the big winner of the night with six Oscars to its name, and with at least two more possible wins waiting in the wings. Still, I've got Joker winning three just to remind us that everything is terrible.
We'll see how it turns out! The Oscars begin on Sunday at 6 PM mountain time, so tune in then to see how furious or happy we all get to be!
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Friday, February 7, 2020
Best of 2019, part 3; craft categories
And now the part we've all been waiting for (wherein 'we' means me and 'have been waiting for' means 'have been putting off or unable to do because of other work'): that blessed moment of the year where I get to sing all of you sweet songs about weeping cellos, oozing prosthetic fantasias, and alphabet sets sutured together with white midnight lights. I am talking, of course, about all the movie stuff that everyone needs but never gets the amount of ink it deserves: the crafts! Do you love Star Wars? What kind of movie would it be without the loudest and most jubilant opening score in movie history? You say you want to watch Marvel movies? Where would you be without the army of patient artists spending hours of their life casually animating realistic Incredible Hulk dick physics? We don't have movies without all the people below the line, their names lighting up empty theaters after we've all ducked out of the credits. Well, the hell with that. I deeply, deeply love these parts of moviemaking, and what's more, I love writing about them more than all other parts. Don't ask me why I liked a screenplay or a performance, but please ask me what my favorite dress in Little Women was, or why I want the makeup crew for Us to do all my Halloween looks. Ask me these questions every time you see me, and I will be your very best friend. Until you see me next, however, allow me to take a minute (or many minutes) of your time to regale you with all the movie details that I loved this year. And there were so many of them, so get ready for me to be really goddamn positive.
In interest of putting a face on some of these things, I've added some visuals to the lists. They should enlarge when you click on them, but I make no promises, as my technical skills are less than garbage.
Note: I didn't include pictures or videos for film editing or the sound categories, because I don't really know how to capture film editing compellingly in a way that didn't wast either my time or yours, and I don't have the resources to make audio clips for the sound categories (which I would love to do every year #soundeditingforever).
Production Design
5. Shadow-monochrome yin-yang fantasies, a perpetually cold and dripping world, everything falling off a jet black cliff at sharp angles.
(source)
4. The Lighthouse-much credit has been given to another film whose sets were famously built from scratch (which we'll certainly get to in a moment), but less has been said about the equally mind-boggling achievement of construction for The Lighthouse, in which everything you see on screen was physically constructed for the movie. It's a proper little maritime hell, full of coal dust and fetid mattresses, pocketed by walls built to let the wind in.
(source)
3. 1917-gets that the world needs to feel like a primordial hellscape, all mud and bones and rats trapped in coiled wires. It's somewhat rare to get a war movie that feels as lived-in and as resolutely hideous as this one.
(source)
2. Midsommar-incredible detail on each wall, an entire history of sunny sacrifice and ursine frolics on every surface, combined with those malevolent arches and the ubiquitous and unknowable Great Big Yellow Triangle.
1. Parasite-the biggest design story of the year, when it was revealed that all of the spaces in this movie, from the massive Kim home to the entire (floodable) street on which the Parks live, were built from scratch for the movie. That wouldn't be as impressive as it is, of course, if the spaces themselves aren't the character-defining horror opuses that they are--the Kim house's cube monstrosities and the grey sewage chains that float that linger in the walls of the Park apartment.
(source)
Honorable mention: the wonderfully over-decorated murder mystery mansion of Knives Out
Costume Design
5. Little Women-beautiful character work here, tracking Emma Watson's fancy/not-fancy/fancy-but-apologetic finery, Florence Pugh's growth from resident chaos spirit/foot model to debutante, and Saoirse Ronan's vaguely mannish anti-marriage duds.
(source)
4. Shadow-again, totally astounding what this movie accomplishes with its colorless palette-dragon armor, mentally unstable robes, and peasant guerilla chic.
(source)
3. Hustlers-a decade's worth of finery for multiple colliding worlds--the pop performative panache of the club, the undercover evening gown armor when out on the take, and that fur coat. Plus, SWIMONA.
(source)
2. Dolemite is My Name-Zany, bordering on totally insane work here. The colors like an unhinged easter basket! The hats the size of several planets! Garish and vibrant peacockish and strangely practical--a color wheel rioting across the highway.
(source)
3. Booksmart-'the costumes are the jokes' is an *extremely* difficult concept to land, but Booksmart manages to let its audience know exactly who and what they're dealing with every time we see a new outfit, while still managing to be one of the funniest parts of the movie. And what costumes! Who wouldn't want to go out for a night on the town in one of those navy jumpsuits, or the dresses that look like they were bedazzled by the devil, or the slinky vintage murder mystery gown with the plunging neckline, or a Jareds, Jareds all the way down T-shirt?
(source) (which is a good read on costuming for high school comedies, incidentally)
In interest of putting a face on some of these things, I've added some visuals to the lists. They should enlarge when you click on them, but I make no promises, as my technical skills are less than garbage.
Note: I didn't include pictures or videos for film editing or the sound categories, because I don't really know how to capture film editing compellingly in a way that didn't wast either my time or yours, and I don't have the resources to make audio clips for the sound categories (which I would love to do every year #soundeditingforever).
Production Design
5. Shadow-monochrome yin-yang fantasies, a perpetually cold and dripping world, everything falling off a jet black cliff at sharp angles.
4. The Lighthouse-much credit has been given to another film whose sets were famously built from scratch (which we'll certainly get to in a moment), but less has been said about the equally mind-boggling achievement of construction for The Lighthouse, in which everything you see on screen was physically constructed for the movie. It's a proper little maritime hell, full of coal dust and fetid mattresses, pocketed by walls built to let the wind in.
3. 1917-gets that the world needs to feel like a primordial hellscape, all mud and bones and rats trapped in coiled wires. It's somewhat rare to get a war movie that feels as lived-in and as resolutely hideous as this one.
(source)
2. Midsommar-incredible detail on each wall, an entire history of sunny sacrifice and ursine frolics on every surface, combined with those malevolent arches and the ubiquitous and unknowable Great Big Yellow Triangle.
1. Parasite-the biggest design story of the year, when it was revealed that all of the spaces in this movie, from the massive Kim home to the entire (floodable) street on which the Parks live, were built from scratch for the movie. That wouldn't be as impressive as it is, of course, if the spaces themselves aren't the character-defining horror opuses that they are--the Kim house's cube monstrosities and the grey sewage chains that float that linger in the walls of the Park apartment.
Honorable mention: the wonderfully over-decorated murder mystery mansion of Knives Out
Costume Design
5. Little Women-beautiful character work here, tracking Emma Watson's fancy/not-fancy/fancy-but-apologetic finery, Florence Pugh's growth from resident chaos spirit/foot model to debutante, and Saoirse Ronan's vaguely mannish anti-marriage duds.
4. Shadow-again, totally astounding what this movie accomplishes with its colorless palette-dragon armor, mentally unstable robes, and peasant guerilla chic.
3. Hustlers-a decade's worth of finery for multiple colliding worlds--the pop performative panache of the club, the undercover evening gown armor when out on the take, and that fur coat. Plus, SWIMONA.
2. Dolemite is My Name-Zany, bordering on totally insane work here. The colors like an unhinged easter basket! The hats the size of several planets! Garish and vibrant peacockish and strangely practical--a color wheel rioting across the highway.
3. Booksmart-'the costumes are the jokes' is an *extremely* difficult concept to land, but Booksmart manages to let its audience know exactly who and what they're dealing with every time we see a new outfit, while still managing to be one of the funniest parts of the movie. And what costumes! Who wouldn't want to go out for a night on the town in one of those navy jumpsuits, or the dresses that look like they were bedazzled by the devil, or the slinky vintage murder mystery gown with the plunging neckline, or a Jareds, Jareds all the way down T-shirt?
Honorable mention: festive murder-wear and the massive May Queen dress in Midsommar
Visual Effects
5. 1917--subtle but essential: all the planes, tanks, explosions, and nightmares stretching into infinity needed--as well as all the careful painting to remove all the film-making apparatuses--to create the look the movie's going for.
(source)
4. Ad Astra-atmosphere swan dives, moon fights, mars launches, and edge-of-the-system man caves--everything you need to sort out your daddy issues in space.
(source)
3. Godzilla: King of the Monsters-I'm sorry, like I'm not gonna get real excited about watching Godzilla slap King Ghidorah with an entire city? I can only be who I am, and who I am loves watching big ol' monsters slap each other in glorious HD.
(source)
2. Detective Pikachu-I was initially skeptical about this movie's look, but the finished project ended up with just the right combination of cuddliness, plausibility, and the sweet sweet dreams of a 10-year old me.
(source)
1. Avengers: Endgame-Was there any other choice? It's a bit of a week year for this category, but that doesn't mean the capper for (this part of) the Avengers era is any less deserving of the accolades. There's so much muchness, but it's always legible and, at its best, kind of breathtaking.
(source)
Honorable mention: I dunno, the spaceships, I guess, in Star Wars: Episode IX--The Rise of Skywalker
Makeup and Hairstyling
5. Captain Marvel-another vaguely underpopulated category this year, but I'll make some room for the crunchy popcorn skrull effects. Brie Larson's 90s feathering, and Annette Bening's functional computer haircuts.
(source)
4. Judy-I'll admit that it is fully weird that we're two in and I've yet to find something I'm super passionate about? Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, or maybe it's an off year. But sure, I'll pay my respects to Judy's Judy transformation.
(source)
3. Us-Now we're getting somewhere! Minimalist work, but extremely effective, delineating the lines between under/over-worlders, helping us (heh) track the differences between the characters and their doppelgänger while drawing our eye to all-too-present similarities.
(source)
2. Midsommar-Do I have this hear just for those horrific exploding falling old people heads? I mean, it's part of it, but that would discount the last-act corpse arts and crafts, the body-altering arts and crafts that look like they've been cobbled together by a child with a passion for interior design, the other great gore moments, the incest prosthetics, and all the festive braids.
(source)
1. 1917-it's strange--gore, wounds, and other horror elements are one of the most fundamental things movie makeup delivers on the regular, but it's the aspect of makeup that least frequently gets rewarded (at least in the face of old-age makeup, celebrity impersonation makeup, and heavy prosthetics). So I'm thrilled that a movie like 1917--for which gore makeup is absolutely essential--is getting some recognition. My favorite thing about this movie is the tangible, corporeal rot and filth of it all--everything is bodies and open wounds and blood and dirt mixing together into some kind of inescapable slime. And then imagine having to make sure that, since the movie pretends to take place in real time, you have to keep those effects looking completely continuous for the entire movie. Add in the subtle work to imply exhaustion as the movie goes on, and you've got a worthy winner.
(source)
Honorable mention: natty period dos in Little Women
Note: I feel like I should mention why I kept Bombshell out of this category, as everyone who sees that movie talks about its (soon to be Oscar-winning) makeup. Simply put--I don't know what we gain from making the characters look so much like their real-life counterparts. Sure, it's well done (or not, as John Lithgow/Roger Ailes kind of looks like Jabba the Hutt....which, ok, maybe is well done after all), but to what end? Do we really get more from this movie because Charlize Theron looks so much like Megyn Kelly? So yes, the technique is impressive, but I'm not sure it served the movie--or at least it didn't serve my experience of the movie, and this is my party, so here we are.
Film Editing
5. Synonyms-hope you're not tired of me talking about how this movie looks and feels wild and unique, cuz here I go again! The pacing of this film is so bizarre (in a good way), scenes spilling into and over each other and then off the screen with seemingly little guidance, everything cut to the relentless rhythm with which the main character rattles off his synonym lists.
4. Little Women-does a stellar job of sorting through the film's two periods and jumping between all of its major storylines, keeping all of the plates happily spinning without losing the audience.
5. Hustlers-knows when to pile on the energy and when to dial down again to take a breath. The multiple montage moments (being friends with Ramona, drugging guys, etc.) are all phenomenal.
2. Uncut Gems-This movie wants to punish you with tension, it wants you to feel sick to your stomach--and the edit is how it gets there. Uncut Gems goes from 0-100 in all of ten seconds and knows to never take its foot off the gas.
1. Parasite-arguably the high-wire act of the year, in which comedy, drama, and horror are all wound together into a candy-colored tripwire and tossed out in front of an unsuspecting audience. Each scene--even the quietest ones--manage to seem a little breathless, a little manic, as each moment stacks on top of the one before it until the whole jenga tower falls in one unholy cacophony.
Honorable mention: the languid, vaguely upsetting rhythms of Transit
Cinematography
5. 1917-Points, I suppose, for the degree of difficulty, but I'm more interested in the shifting shadows and colors of the night run, the way the sunrise pops, or how face drained of color fade into the wood, or the obsessive kinetic movement that all but knocks actors down in the final battle scenes.
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4. The Lighthouse-like a series of haunted daguerrotypes, all dank and perilous squares, greys shot through with a hateful wight light.
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3. Synonyms-A movie whose visual appeal is exceptionally difficult to capture in a picture or gif, as it's all about motion--the way that the camera tears the city apart looking for something, anything, the way characters, objects, locations drift in and out of the frame, and never exactly where you'd expect. It's the way the visuals mirror the main character's belief that the Seine is a test, and looking at the river's famously beautiful banks will keep you from discovering the truth about Paris, and so you have to avert your eyes from everything that you're expected to see.
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2. Atlantics-the sea, a solemn verdigris affair, the club, all green fireflies easily scattered, and the rest world, trapped in an ochre haze.
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1. The Last Black Man in San Francisco-life through a lens--or a few lenses, really--everything color and softness and fantasy, and time speeds up and slows down however we want it to, holding gilded age where and when it can, even when its pillow-eyes catch catch on a rusted nail or a pile of dead fish.
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Honorable mention: the alternating warm and perilous real-life tableau in Honeyland
Original Score
5. Atlantics-an unnerving and unsettling (or maybe resettling) synth soundscape from first time composer Fatima Al Qadiri--a perfect lilting elegy woven into the sea.
4. Parasite-a strangely under-celebrated element of the movie that's totally integral to its success. The Vivaldi strings chase the onscreen characters like cackling little shoulder devils.
3. Uncut Gems-an 80s educational video meets an 80s drug-fueled trip through space and smashes together into this utterly bananas mix of chanting, drums, electronica, and madness.
2. Monos-I know I've said it before, but Mica Levi has to be the most talented and/or innovative composer working in movies now, right? Just listen this movie's mix of whistles, flutes, wind sounds, low strings, and screaming electronic sounds. The result is something that feels like the voice of nature itself--the mist-bedecked mountains crying to the child soldiers scampering about them. This was almost my #1 pick (and I did have it there for most of the year, and I almost changed it back right now just listening to some of the tracks), so definitely don't miss checking this music out. (The movie itself is...good? I respect it more than I like it. Don't watch it if you're not interested in watching a whole bunch of kids die.)
1. The Last Black Man in San Francisco-ultimately, though, I couldn't give it to anything but this, one of the most beautiful compositions for movies in this (and plenty of other) years. This score has so many voices--sometimes it's lush and open, sometimes it's nothing but a few furious woodwinds chirping at each other. The vocal and choral selections are out of this world, and when everything coalesces--. It's something else. Really, this whole album should be in your playlist, but since I can't put all 26 tracks here, I will say I am extremely fond of the progression of "They lost the house?" into "Rock Fight," building, crescendoing, and then dropping all in the space of three-ish minutes.
(this takes you to a playlist that will play both of these tracks back to back. And if, y'know, you just let the playlist keep going, what harm will that do?)
Honorable mention: periennial not-bride bridesmaid Thomas Newman's propulsive work in 1917
Sound Mixing
5. Little Women-whole worlds evoked sonically, the throaty gasps of empty houses, resentment scraping across the ice, the impersonal everywhere-ness of the big city contrasted with the open sounds of The World We Wanted--and everywhere the girls' voices, tying the threads together by virtue of their own constant voiced thereness.
4. Hustlers-this could have gotten in just on its most notable sound flourishes--the way that sound processes and shapes the present-day conversation, and the way all audio but the hidden wire drops away in one pivotal scene--but Hustlers has more than that. A club that *actually sounds like a club* but is still audibly legible, constant shifting group dynamics organized by volume, and just the right levels for the near-constant needle drops.
3. 1917-in its bones, 1917 wants to be a horror movie more than it wants to be a war movie, and the sound mix is where this most obviously shines through. Consider the haunted emptiness of No Man's Land that segues into It's Only a Rat jump scares, then punctuated by some old-fashioned explosive chaos. I love how quiet this movie is (only really ramping up for its final battle scene). Consider one scene (vague so as to avoid spoilers) in which some sudden violence happens. When that violence happens, it's quiet and mundane, and the scene continues to sound quiet and mundane, despite the drama and desperation on screen--just like the in the real world, horrible things happen quickly and quietly.
2. The Nightingale-speaking of horrible things! The Nightingale is one continuous doomsday tapestry where you aren't the only thing screaming in the night--there's a whole world singing its sorrow songs to a inky black sky like a sponge. Trauma punctures the silence, but it's never really silence--if the bugs aren't screaming, the birds are, and if it's not them, it's everyone else.
1. The Lighthouse-no man is an island, but two men and a very mean bird certainly are. A soundscape that makes it all too easy to believe that anyone listening to this every day would go insane: all sea howls and guttural gales and that screaming foghorn that does not let up for even one minute for the entire movie.
Honorable mention: the sea sure is a scary place in Styx
Sound Editing
5. They Shall Not Grow Old-of the WWI sound triumphs in theaters this year, I've got to give the edge to Peter Jackson's docu-archive-chimera that recreated the soundscapes of hundreds of archive newsreels and silent film footage from the period in order to bring them to some kind of life.
4. Midsommar-for the wet, meaty slap, like the sound a seal make when it jumps into a boat, of the old man's exploding head alone, but also for the subtle moans of nature, the polite, confused swallowing of pubes, and the oh-so-satisfying primal crackle of roasting a bear suit.
3. Avengers: Endgame-I suppose at some point I've got to stop putting Avengers movies in this category, but who I am I to say no to those optimistic little time travel pops, the stentorian, city-sized rumble caused by every Marvel character in the known universe standing on top of each other, or the biblical scrape of Captain America's shield ripping apart?
2. Shadow-not entirely unlike Midsommar, this one gets in for some of its more delightful carnage sounds, like a baby helicopter careening through a city made out of overripe fruit. But there's still more to love--the inevitable clang of ridiculously sized glaive slamming into an umbrella made of knives, or the weaponized thrums of a gu zheng singing that sound characters make when they want to kill the person next to them.
1. The Lighthouse-a bevy of curséd pots, bells, sea stars, effervescent fuckable light bulbs, old man farts, and slimy rocks are dropped into Poseidon's whirling anus and they all rattle about until they can tear themselves apart.
Honorable mention: someone please be proud of me for finally not default-nominating the Star Wars movie in this category every year. ...But I'm still giving Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, because I have an addiction, and the first step is admitting I'm powerless and that my sound editing preferences have become unmanageable.
Original Song
5. "Into the Unknown"-Frozen 2-be forewarned, this category is fairly sparse (at least from the movies I've seen), so gird your loins for a whole bunch of Frozen 2, whose soundtrack, while not as good as the original, still might not deserve the drubbing it got. Who doesn't get at least a little amped listening Elsa singing about driving her car off a cliff or whatever?
4. "Lost in the Woods"-Frozen 2-Look, I love this deeply stupid 80s power ballad parody, and you can't stop me. Jonathan Groff gets his big Disney moment, backed up by a choir of singing reindeer while he does his best REO Speedwagon impression. How could I not want that?
3. "Stand Up"-Harriet-I didn't totally love the movie, but whoo boy can Cynthia Erivo sing, and this song smartly lets her do just that. A rousing and gorgeous send-off for the movie.
2. "Willow"-High Life-Robert Pattinson should be required by law to sing an end credits song for every movie he's in, and that's the objective true. That's science. High Life is a fairly bonkers movie, and by the time you hit the end credits, RPatz singing about centipedes feels as right as anything could. In all seriousness, this is a lovely and lilting song, and I've listened to it more than I have almost any other movie song from 2019.
1. "Show Yourself"-Frozen 2-I'm sorry, what else did you expect? One of my favorite scenes of the year, a massive, to-the-skies roar that absolutely titillated the closeted baby gay in my past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md7dK5-qvHc (Note: this link is the lyric video, but if you want the scene, I link to it in the first Best of the Year post.)
Honorable mention: what a missed opportunity it was that the Academy didn't nominate "A Glass of Soju" so we could see them frantically try to stage a Parasite music number.
SUPER honorable mention: the best movie song of the year, without a doubt, objectively, is "Glasgow" from Wild Rose. It's a stone-cold banger and a huge emotional piece--it can make me vaguely teary, and I haven't even seen the movie. But, tragically, my rules keep me from nominating something from a movie that I haven't seen. So know that had I not been lazy and seen Wild Rose, it would absolutely be at the top of this list. At any rate, give it a listen yourself--I've listened to it more than any other movie song this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-l-Ly0ly4M
Well, that's the end of the lists for the year, believe it or not (and I definitely can believe it, given the work I've put off/the time I've put in/the hurt in my stupid, aging hands). I'll be back before the Oscars to post some final predictions, but this is (for me, at least) just about the end of the 2019 cinematic year! Come Sunday it's New Years Oscar eve, and then I can finally get with the rest of the world and acknowledge that we're supposed to be living in 2020.
For those playing along at home, here are the movies that showed up most frequently in the lists:
The Lighthouse-8
Midsommar-7
Little Women-7
Parasite-6
Hustlers-6
As for wins, One Cut of The Dead won each of the two categories for which it was nominated (Picture and Original Screenplay), but three other movies also won two each: Parasite (Production Design, Film Editing), The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Cinematography, Original Score), and The Lighthouse (Sound Mixing, Sound Editing).
And that's that! Here's to a wonderful year of movies, and here's hoping for another one that's just as good! If, somehow, you're still reading, and have been reading, thanks so much! I do love the support, even if I write these just for the sake of writing them, and even if I constantly berate you in text for having the gall to sit down and read these things.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Best of 2019, part 2: acting, directing, screenplays
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person who cannot wait to spend 1000 words losing their mind about how the squashy melon sounds in Shadow and how makeup effects in Midsommar are essential to the survival of the human race is also someone who will struggle to find the words about why they liked watching Laura Dern in Marriage Story ('did you see her face? It moved! A lot! But then sometimes it didn't!'). For whatever reason, I'm always at a loss for words when it comes to writing about acting, writing, and directing--all the things that seem to loom largest when we watch movies. So if you're excited to hear my wax poetic about why Midsommar's triangles will save (or murder) us all, gird your loins, because that is definitely coming tomorrow or Thursday (depending on actual real world responsibilities). But today will be a bit of a reprieve from the crushing length of yesterday's nightmare post and the unseemly girth of craft category awards coming afterward. Instead of breaking down five entries for each category, this post (which, after three years running, is less an exciting new format and more just what I do now), will simply present my top five, followed by some brief category. Rejoice! For this post will only take an hour of my time and ten minutes of yours, rather than eon and a half that crept gently into that good night for yesterday's list blitz. The format works, and I'm sticking with it.
Alright, let's go: I've queued up the Last Black Man in San Francisco soundtrack (which whoo boy will we talk about that next time) and I'm ready for all my (and your) dreams to come true.
Note: I've scattered a few youtube clips throughout. No rhyme or reason as to which--just whatever I felt like going to find.
Best Actress
5. Florence Pugh-Midsommar
4. Awkwafina-The Farewell
3. Saoirse Ronan-Little Women
2. Scarlet Johansson-Marriage Story
1. Lupita Nyong'o-Us
Honorable mention: Renee Zellweger-Judy
Some great stuff here--Florence Pugh's dead eyes resolving into some kind of malevolent belonging, Awkwafina's constant subtlety and silence punctuated by brief big moments, and Saoirse Ronan (aka The Best Face in All Cinema) channeling emotion like a goddamn satellite. ScarJo is a great candidate for the win here, making good on the promise she made in 2003 with the Lost in Translation/Girl with a Pearl Earring double feature, bottling everything that's interesting about her on-screen presence and letting it hide and then find itself in Marriage Story. But the only real choice here is Nyong'o, who probably gives my favorite performance of the whole year--her dual role is by turns vulnerable and furious, a deeply physical, rusted metal convulsion. Champion work. (Seriously, watch this and just try not to get chills.)
Actor
5. Leonardo Dicaprio-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
4. Robert Pattinson-The Lighthouse
3. Willem Dafoe-The Lighthouse
2. Antonio Banderas-Pain and Glory
1. Adam Driver-Marriage Story
Honorable mention: Carloto Cotta-Diamantino
Special shout-outs to Dicaprio, who, after years of doing his best to make me sick of him, remembered that it's ok to have fun every now and again, and to the Lighthouse boys--I don't want to live in a world where we don't have Dafoe's "why'd ya spill yer beans" echoing in my head, or one without R Patz's wild-eyed dancing. Still, this comes down to the top two, who are neck and neck. It's almost impossible not to give it to Antonio Banderas' career-topping, uh, pain and glory, but I ultimately had to Adam Driver, if only for the way he says 'but I'll never be his father again' and then tries to paint over it.
Supporting Actress
5. Julieta Serrano-Pain and Glory
4. Idina Menzel-Uncut Gems
3. Laura Dern-Marriage Story
2. Zhao Shuzhen-The Farewell
1. Jennifer Lopez-Hustlers
Honorable mention: Florence Pugh-Little Women
With apologies to Florence Pugh (who is absolutely stellar, by the way), but these women feel like the right five. Pain and Glory sounds like the Antonio Banderas show, but it doesn't work without the supporting cast, including Serrano's brittle and vaguely dismissive mother. And I've already talked about how Idina Menzel is giving maybe the funniest performance of 2019, but it doesn't hurt to remind everyone that she is a legend (as well as her co-star Julia Fox), and there's no reason why the boys need to take all the Uncut Gems oxygen. Dern and Shuzhen are each spectacular in their own ways (be it Dern's grabby little sandwich hands or her casual dressing down of Judeo-Christian gender roles or Zhao's calisthenics and weary side-eye). But come on, like we weren't going to give Ramona, designer of her own denim swimwear line, business entrepreneur, mother of fur coats, and crime artiste extraordinaire this spot? This is a massive star performance, full of heart and range and staggering physical skill, and it's an absolute embarrassment that the Oscars passed over this.
Supporting Actor
5. Wesley Snipes-Dolemite is My Name
4. Song Kang-Ho-Parasite
3. Tom Hanks-A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
2. Joe Pesci-The Irishman
1. Brad Pitt-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Honorable mention: Asier Etxeandia-Pain and Glory
Wesley Snipes' character storming off set, fake intestines trailing in the wind, is the energy I'm striving to bring into 2020. I could also strive for Song Kang-Ho's dogged no-plan-is-the-best-plan realness (though it wouldn't end great for any of us). I could aim for the same kind of inscrutable kindness and two-way mirror connection that Hanks gets in A Beautiful Day...., and it'd probably be great for teaching, if not for real life. Heck, I could even try and be Joe Pesci, constantly reining it in, working to always be quieter and smaller. But I'm gonna have to go ahead and be Brad Pitt--the only guy in the room who knows exactly who he is, and what that means.
Director
5. Lorena Scafaria-Hustlers
4. Ari Aster-Midsommar
3. Mati Diop-Atlantics
2. Greta Gerwig-Little Women
1. Nadav Lapid-Synonyms
Honorable mention: Lulu Wang-The Farewell
Excruciatingly difficult category to narrow down this year, with seven different people all vying for the fifth slot, but ultimately Scafaria's sure hand and deft balancing of Hustlers' myriad tones won out (over Wang, as well as Bong Joon-Ho/Parasite, Robert Eggers/The Lighthouse, and Marielle Heller/A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, among others). Aster makes it for a similar feat, keeping Midsommar as simultaneously hideous and funny as it is. Any of the top three could have won, and I *almost* gave it to Gerwig, but I had to go with Lapid and Synonyms, a movie that moves and feels like it has angels trapped beneath its skin, and can only exorcise them by rushing forward.
Original Screenplay
5. Marriage Story
4. The Lighthouse
3. Parasite
2. Synonyms
1. One Cut of the Dead
Honorable mention: Knives Out
Interesting (if fairly dour) variety here, with Marriage Story's Bergman in LA riff rubbing shoulders with the arch high poetry and skulduggery of The Lighthouse and Parasite's architectural schemes and haunted basement reveries. Synonyms almost eked out the win here, given how its fascination with language collides with its brazen and bonkers storytelling, but I've had to give the edge to One Cut of the Dead for its punishingly funny script that always finds a new way to fold in onto itself.
Adapted Screenplay
5. The Irishman
4. Transit
3. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
2. Hustlers
1. Little Women
Honorable mention: Avengers: Endgame
A weirdly sparse category this year that makes room for a movie I liked but didn't love (The Irishman). Transit's beautiful framing of its characters by preserving its literary origins (seemingly against its characters' will) but changing the chronology earns a spot here, as does A Beautiful Day...'s gorgeous deconstructions of the biopic. Hustlers would be a worthy winner here, weaving a Shakespearean epic of rising and falling fates through a g-string. But Little Women is the right choice here, as Gerwig's script reinvents the novel, adds Alcott's own words and correspondence as dialogue, and opens the narrative for a humanist approach that gives everyone the heart they deserve.
And now we're done again! There's still one more big post more (coming tomorrow or Wednesday, depending), as well as a summary post and final Oscar predictions by the end of the week. So fear not--if you were concerned you wouldn't get enough of my movie ramblings, you can rest assured that I am intent on delivering you more than you will ever need.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Best of 2019, part 1: Top 20
Like almost everything else this past year, we're going to have to begin a little wonky. Up is down! Left is right! It's 73 degrees in February, Jennifer Lopez isn't nominated for an Oscar, and everything is fine and everything is terrible and who among us can tell when one becomes the other? Like time, space, and the concept of justice, my movie year (and the exhaustive lists that follow it) is just a bit sideways right now. If I were to follow the conventions that have guided my grad school years, I would have to start this post by talking about how (comparatively) few movies I made time to see this year, I would think some thoughts about how the thing you do for money--even if you love doing it--tends to cannibalize the things you do for joy, and then I'd vaguely gesture toward allowing the joy things to re-colonize the space from which grad school so thoughtlessly cast them.
But hey, guess what? This year, I'm sitting pretty on 85 movies. This isn't a press-time record (my book-keeping gets spottier the further you go back, but I'm reasonably sure I hit hit 90 movies in 2013 before the Oscars), and it's certainly not an all-year record (both 2011 and 2013 have got around 100 movies from that calendar year to their name), but it's a damn sight better than I've done in half a decade. I've no idea what I did to reclaim my time/the movies this year, but I made it work much better than I have since I was an undergrad. (The secret ingredient, it turns out, is watching a movie whenever you know you should be working on your dissertation.)
So where's the problem? I've got far more raw material than, say, 2016, when I somehow managed to dredge up a top 20 with honorable mentions having only seen 50 movies. The problem, dear reader(s), is that, for lack of a better phrase, I'm pooped. Maybe it's because, though I love the movies that came out this year, none of them swept me off my feet and declared themselves as inevitable, which means that I have no idea what my favorite movie of the year is, nor will I once I've written this list to its end. Maybe it's partly due to Letterboxd--these lists were once a precious, yearly phenomenon, in which everything I wanted to say about movies had to condense and erupt in one wild-eyed, week-long bout of frantic keyboard percussion. But now that Letterboxd is a thing, I'm jotting down my thoughts about movies every week. And maybe it's just that the entire structure of my life right now is [need to write a thing ------>choose not to write that thing.] But for whatever combination of reasons, I very strongly considered just not doing these lists--posting a top 25 to Letterboxd, calling it good, and getting back to what I really wanted to do (crying to youtube videos about Lord of the Rings).
But no--no way in hell am I going to break this 15 year tradition because I need more time to weep into my pillow while Merry and Pippin montage past my bleary eyes! Every other year, I'd be monologuing about saving the movies in my life, but this year I need to work on saving my passion. Dissertations are writhing, unholy and nebulous things, whose casual disregard for chronology and physics is truly staggering, but that doesn't mean every other part of my life needs to do the same. So my resolution this year isn't to watch more movies--it's to do more things with joy. So here I go!
As I mentioned earlier, I absolutely fecking love the cinematic year that was 2019. I know the consensus was that it was an off year, but what is anyone even seeing? I don't even know how to order my top 20. Hell, I just re-wrote the top 10 on the fly, changed 4 of the 5 movies in the top 5, and it all seems completely fine. There's such depth and variety here--if you couldn't find something to watch in 2019, you weren't looking very hard.
If you're new here (which is a ridiculous idea, because it implies that you are here to begin with, which is a terrible choice on your part), here's how the format works. I'll rattle off my top 20, while doing my very best to not to throw brevity down the stairs (even though he's waiting for me so politely and looks ever so throwable). I've got a self-imposed two-sentence limit to each entry, because a) I am old, and can only type for so long without my hands falling to pieces, b) I will at least pretend to respect your time, if not my own, and c) there are only so many adverbs to use before I run out. But we'll see how all that goes. After that, if, for some reason, you need to sacrifice more of your precious minutes to this (and you only have so many!), I will politely offer some thoughts on the best scenes of the year, and the worst movies, for your masochistic viewing pleasure.
In interest of transparency, here's a list of all the movies I saw this year. Normally, I'd mention something here about distributors keeping the smaller and/or international (...er) films from the middle of the country, but honestly this year had us pretty well covered. So while there are a couple notable glaring exceptions (looking at you, Portrait of a Lady on Fire), most of big holes in my viewing this year came from time issues/laziness (sorry, The Souvenir, Clemency, Les Miserables, Diane, Invisible Life, Asako 1 and 2).
1917, Ad Astra, Atlantics, American Factory, Avengers: Endgame, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Bombshell, Booksmart, Captain Marvel, Cats, Climax, Consequences, Dark Phoenix, Dear Ex, Detective Pikachu, Diamantino, Dolemite is My Name, Downton Abbey, The Farewell, Ford v Ferrari, Frozen 2, Giant Little Ones, Glass, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Great Hack, Harriet, A Hidden Life, High Life, Honeyland, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Hustlers, I Lost My Body, The Irishman, Isn't It Romantic, It Chapter Two, Jawline, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Judy, Klaus, Knife+Heart, Knives Out, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Last Christmas, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, The Lighthouse, The Lion King, Little, Little Monsters, Little Women, Ma, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Marriage Story, Midsommar, Midway, Missing Link, Monos, The Mustange, The Nightingale, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, One Child Nation, One Cut of the Dead, Pain and Glory, Parasite, Rafiki, The Red Sea Diving Resort, Ready or Not, Rocketman, Sauvage, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Shadow, Shazam!, Sorry Angel, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, Styx, Synonyms, They Shall Not Grow Old, Tigers are Not Afraid, Toy Story 4, Transit, The Two Popes, Uncut Gems, Us, Waves
Alright, without further ado (it's already been adone), let's jump in!
Honorable mentions: though they didn't make the cut, I'm grateful for grand and gory silliness of Shadow, the tenderness and brutality of Sauvage, and those wacky wacky Doppelgänger in Us.
(Spoiler alert: a piece of these here and there might be stolen from my letterboxd review, because either a) I liked what I wrote there and thought it would add something here or b) was being super lazy.)
20. Diamantino (dir. Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt)
So difficult to sum up all the things that are great about this Playskool My First Fascist Takeover, all of its truly bonkers ideas (cloning! gender-bending refugees! giant hallucinatory puppies!) coalescing as a Big Dumb Fascist Face on a throw pillow. Major points for Carloto Cotta's deeply stupid and intensely committed performance (which you can see in this wild trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyvbS9WdiU).
(streaming on the Criterion channel, rentable on amazon)
19. Transit (dir. Christian Petzold)
Another take on the world's slide into fascism, Petzold updates the Anna Seghers wartime novel to fit a world in which time no longer moves like it's supposed to. Voice-over locks the characters into their own actions, removing their agency and their status as protagonists even as they go about their lives: everything is watching, or being watched, and the act of storytelling is always uglier than it seems.
(streaming on Prime video, also rentable on amazon)
18. 1917 (dir. Sam Mendes)
Throwing a sentimental bone to teenage me, who was very passionate about Movies About Sensitive Men Trying Very Hard in Insensitive Places, of which 1917 is a great example. Points for the first act's horror bones, points for the second act that flips a switch and becomes a different, more beautiful, more urgent movie, and points for the whole film, that consistently obfuscates our need for scale, resolution, and meaning.
(in theaters now)
17. Knives Out (dir. Rian Johnson)
Is this the best thing to happen to the Whodunit genre in a decade or two? Furious, funny, and fascinated--a wiggly slithering thing that doesn't settle into its real motives until the very last minutes.
(in theaters)
16. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
I'm still extremely not sold on the ending's violence (specifically, the way the movie thinks it's giving us a real treat), but most of what comes before it is lovely. It's masturbatory nostalgia, sure, but it's also an elegiac ramble from an artist who's no longer convinced that the world needs what he knows how to give.
(rentable on amazon)
15. Uncut Gems (dir. The Safdie Brothers)
Deeply stressful, and more than a little grating, but the Safdies' unrelenting symphony of gleeful bad choices won me over with its sheer ballsiness. Everyone talked about Adam Sandler, but we should all be talking about Idina Menzel's titanic high-heel parking lot shuffle.
(not available right now)
(I should say that, though we're only six in, you can imagine that everything I write from here on in is accompanied by increasingly high-pitched squealing.)
14. Sorry Angel (dir. Christophe Honoré)
A perfect, effortlessly modulated piece, the kind of movie I could have spent another 10 hours watching (how is this not in my top 10?). Honoré's delicate look at love on the margins, and all the stupid, tiny sacrifices people make just do make them, made me swoon, then cry, then swoon a little more.
(rentable on amazon)
13. Synonyms (dir. Nadav Lapid)
Things that are important: words, dicks, homoerotic tension, humming really loudly on the subway, Lebanese porn actresses, rivers, being a big strong man, national anthems, bad pasta, and buttholes. No movie I've ever seen moves, speaks, or thinks quite like Synonyms, a grenade strapped to a thesaurus and thrown onto a crowded street--shame that the last third works hard to throw out just a little bit too much of its boldness.
(rentable on amazon)
12. Booksmart (dir. Olivia Wilde)
God PLEASE give me more comedies, or movies in general, that take friendships between women (teenagers!) as seriously as this one does, with all the heart and nuance and genuine feeling that this one displays--while still being one of the funniest movies of the year. Beanie Feldstein and Kathryn Dever are great, obviously, but talk about an ensemble--everybody gets their big silly moment to shine.
(streaming on hulu, rentable on amazon)
11. Hustlers (dir. Lorene Scafaria)
A totally perfect thing--incisive in its portrayal of (potentially toxic) friendships, clear-eyed in its depiction of dancing and sex work, and probably the best fiction film ever made about the 2008 financial crisis. A beautifully balanced wonder that's funny, thrilling, upsetting, and sad in equal measure--and again, how is this not in my top 10?
(rentable on amazon)
10. Pain and Glory (dir. Pedro Almodovar)
Tender and lush, like dreaming about the ocean--it's so wonderful to see Almodovar working in his upper registers, because who can compete with him when he's doing his best? Pain and Glory is as rich and deeply felt as anything from the Pedro canon, with Antonio Banderas giving a career-best performance.
(rentable on amazon)
9. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)
Somehow it feels like heresy to have something so universally regarded as low as #9, but here we are. And it should be universally regarded--no one can deny the dizzying craft it takes to keep a story this perilous moving as it trundles forwards on its spun glass stilts. The lion's share of praise has gone to the film's breathless and labyrinthine plot, its wire-tight editing, its nightmare homes and gardens design, and above all the direction, but I've got to single out the cast--the best ensemble of 2019, called on to play entire worlds without giving up their own games.
(rentable on amazon)
(And here I go, throwing brevity down the stairs! Eat shit brevity, I've got things to say. Go wait at the bottom of the stairs with all the other useless concepts like objective truth and balance.)
8. Marriage Story (dir. Noah Baumbach)
It's somewhat passé at this point to talk about this movie and balance, the way Marriage Story is more accurately called Marriage Stories, how the film sways in the wind between its two protagonists, both taking more and giving less than either would admit or believe. Everyone is dynamite here, though I might give the slight advantage to Johansson, or maybe Merritt Weaver, who feels like she's been teleported in from I Love Lucy but in exactly the right way. I laughed, I cried, Laura Dern acted like a sandwich lobster, and I got to see Julie Hagerty again (something that doesn't happen nearly enough)--what more does anyone need?
(streaming on netflix)
7. The Lighthouse (dir. David Eggers)
The kind of movie you need to go to church after--an extremely funny dark comedy until it's very suddenly not funny at all. This gay romp through the mist about lighthouse keepers and the lighthouses/mermaids they want to doink surprised me with its melodramatic wit (has there ever been a funnier aggrieved speech in all of cinema than Willem Dafoe's mid-movie curse because Robert Pattinson doesn't like his cooking, or a better response than '...fine, have it your way"?), and, it must be said, its filthy sexiness (R Patz is apparently at the absolute height of his charisma and power whilst covered in sweat and dirt, furiously masturbating to realistically rendered shark vulvas). Whatever it does--comedy, sex, mind-bending dreams, toxic bdsm friendships, seagull murder--it does with singular ferocity. I think we all wouldn't mind living an eternity chained to this movie's wall while seabirds eat our organs.
(rentable on amazon)
6. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (dir. Marielle Heller)
Leave it to Marielle Heller to take a deadly dull genre (the biopic) and refashion it into a communal therapy session in which the audience is actively invited to participate in the protagonist's own healing process. Only a terribly brave movie could have Tom Hanks reprise Mr. Rogers' famous 'let's take one whole minute to think about the people who are special to us' moment, and then have him look directly at the camera while the film pauses for a full minute. It's sheer insanity, and it's brilliant. This movie ripped me into little pieces, hinting at the kind of catharsis we all want to want, the kind that's beautiful to imagine, but a little fleeting and out of reach. Maybe the best ending of the year? In which everything we've seen--all of our desires to put Mr. Rogers on a pedestal--get dashed in one angry fist to the piano.
(not available yet)
5. Atlantics (dir. Mati Diop)
A phenomenal announcement from a debut filmmaker: whole worlds pushed against and through each other, resonating with the not-spark of stories that happen because they have to. Fascinated by the way the ocean looks this way--ugly, flat, unknowable, a listless, dull-eyed void standing between Now and Sometimes, or maybe Never. Such a beautiful and haunting movie, everything said in charred bed-sheets and broken handcuff chains and the eyes in the sea. There's passion and horror here, everything obstructed in gray lace and humidity.
(streaming on netflix)
4. The Farewell (dir. Lulu Wang)
One of the quietest, most understated (and underrated) movies of the year--a tapestry of all the quiet hurts people carry with them because they have to, or because they want to, or because any other choice just seems hollow. I'm astounded by the movie's ability to evoke character, everyone on the screen inferring a vast and unspoken life beyond the margins. Wang's framing is immaculate, as is her sense for knowing exactly what we need to see, and when. Everything exists together, jubilant contradictions jostling for attention. Think of the 'wedding' scene, that casually leapfrogs from comedy karaoke to farewell speeches to dizzy drinking games without breaking a sweat, which is how things are--everything just happens, and there's nothing to do but 'ha' it out the next morning.
(rentable on amazon)
3. Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster)
A ragged yawp to the sky, which doesn't give a shit about you, but, why not, will go ahead and yawp back. Ari Aster's peon to madness (or, I suppose, the deep and horrible sanity that comes from everything going insane) doesn't hold its punches--it's almost three hours of well-lit brutality, culminating in one of the most weirdly cathartic ritual murders I've ever seen. Midsommar is about release, whatever and however we find it. It doesn't hurt that said release is facilitated by the most undersung crafts of the year (those horrible folk paintings in the lodge! the may queen dress! that charming bear suit!), nor does it hurt that Aster is always quick to leaven the strangeness with humor. ("...I think I ate her pube," says one character, on being confronted with a very bizarre circumstance. "That sounds probably right," they reply, taking everything in stride.) It's beautiful, it's ugly, it's horrific, it's delightful, and it wants you to experience all of those at once. Plus it's a horror movie about grad students picking their dissertation projects, which, how is that only now in 2019 the subject of a horror movie?
(streaming on prime, rentable on amazon)
2. Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig)
I wish everything in life were this gentle, generous, and warmly observed. Gerwig's primary conceit--ordering the film so that we see both younger and older characters at the same time--pays off in spades, giving the smallest and largest things the (littlest) women experience weight because we get to watch how they pay off years from now. This, inevitably, makes for a more melancholy and reflective Little Women than we tend to get--which is never a bad thing when you have Saoirse Ronan, aka The Best Face in All Cinema, to anchor your movie. But the whole cast gets to shine, as the film finds the time to care intimately about all of these people and their dreams, their lives--every March sister, their parents, their lovers, hell, even poor Chris Cooper across the way who just wants to be sad and cry on the stairs while listening to the piano. I can't even express how much I love the time this movie takes and the respect and kindness it affords every one of our characters. We need more things and people that are willing to look at everyone with a generous heart.
(in theaters)
1. One Cut of the Dead (dir. Shin'ichiro Ueda)
I know, this might surprise you, and honestly, it surprises me a little too. In a year as robust and fantastic as this one, how is it that the movie that takes the cake is the micro-budget horror comedy that got made because its cast and crew took a filmmaking seminar together and needed a final project? Well, that's how it is. Like I said, this is one of those infrequent years where I could never be sure what my favorite movie was (I still can't pick a winner from 2016), and this answer will probably change every time I'm asked. Maybe I picked this one because I simply had the most fun with it--and I did laugh at this movie harder than I have in...years? I'm honestly not sure when a movie last made me laugh this much. But just calling it 'the most fun' does a massive disservice to a hugely accomplished movie. I don't want to spoil too much, because much of the fun is watching a movie unfold that never wants to let you pin it down. But it is, among other things, a self-aware send-up of B movies, a flashy technical exercise (the first 34 minutes are one uninterrupted take, which soon-to-be Oscar winner 1917 only pretends to do), a mid-life crisis dramedy, and above all, a celebration of rolling up your sleeves and just making something, no matter what it is. And maybe that's what I want most this year--something warm and silly and clever that believes unfailingly in the power of making and doing and creating. Not that art is a magical solution for every problem, per se, but that the act of doing it is one of the most powerful tools we have for gleefully refuting the limitations that the world wants for us. And all of this folded up as love letter to trashy horror movies! It's like someone read my dream diary and then made the thing I didn't let myself want.
(streaming on shudder, rentable on amazon)
Well look at us go! I've only been working on this intermittently for ... 3-ish hours! If you've got more in you (and I can't imagine why you would, but perhaps you, like me, are committed to doing the worst thing whenever possible), I'm going to take a moment to catch my breath, and then jump into the best scenes and worst movies of the year.
(I'll try to link to the best scenes on YouTube, but no promises.)
10. Rebel Wilson, the Singing Nightmare Cat-Cats
Ok, so maybe 'best' is a big word here, but I couldn't let the day pass without talking a little bit about the horrendous nightmare phantasmagoria that is Cats. It's not best as in good, but best as in 'this is a movie you will never forget, despite your best efforts.' Just looking up clips for this movie made my brain reject its reality anew. And what better way to represent that horrific reality than the scene in which a digitally befurred Rebel Wilson eats little cockroach ladies and then unzips her own skin?
(Here's a taste (heh) of the whole scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Uei5Qk9RM)
9. Would You Like to Dance?-Little Women
It's tough to distill all of this movie's charm and grace and warmth into one moment (and the movie itself kind of resists a 'one scene' category), but this scene of Jo and Laurie giddily courting each other at a dance made me grin from ear to ear, and still does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x79u230bFU
8. Opening Dance-Climax
It may be deeply flawed in many ways, but Gaspar Noé's Climax is nothing if not bold, and it lets us know that right from the bat, dropping us into an mind-boggling extended dance number in which a bevy of context-less bodies do their best to contort, disjoint, and appear unreal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwkacrln26o
7. Being Alive-Marriage Story
Who knows how powerful it is out of context, but as one of the emotional crescendos of the movie, Adam Driver's low-key and blearily felt rendition of Sondheim's 'Being Alive' is a knock-out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWengrlMpok
6. 'Show Yourself'-Frozen 2
I am such a sucker for Disney ballads every year. But how could I possibly turn down this gorgeously animated, to-the-rafters wail of self-discovery that melodramatic gay teens will be playing during their coming out for years to come? Shit always gets real when Elsa sings so hard she gets a costume change, and we're all powerless before it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiQbDk5V2yU (note: Frozen 2 spoilers abound if you haven't seen it yet)
5. Communal Crying-Midsommar
Our shell-shocked protagonist gets some .... bad news, and loses it. Then, in an unsettling but bizarrely empowering moment, the women of the cult community around her cry in rhythm with her, helping her confront her feelings by being them. It's wild stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTjxym-VpfQ (there are kind of spoilers, but it's all vague enough that you could watch it without knowing what's actually happening)
4. Enter Ramona-Hustlers
A star turn for the ages, and one hell of a character intro. Jennifer Lopez's introductory dance tells us everything we need to know about her, the world she lives in, and the world our main character doesn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwYeAPH1Mg
3. Avengers...Assemble-Avengers: Endgame
(Avengers spoilers ahead) Look, I hate myself for this just as you hate me for having it here, but I am who I am, and who I am is ultimately a child who was *very* excited to watch all of his toys play together at the same time. But really--all I've ever wanted out of the comic movie craze was *one* scene that reminded me of The Death of Superman, in which the entire DC universe is all one page, the clarity and spectacle and weight of every possible narrative folding themselves down to one. And Endgame gave me that. So even though Disney is destroying the film industry as we know it, I've got to be grateful for this, at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBe3H8TCw5Q
2. Night Run-1917
1917 is probably overpraised by this point (boy is it not a movie that is going to wear the best picture winner mantle well), but credit where credit is due. When George MacKay wakes up to discover a Hieronymus Bosch fever dream waiting for him, all fire and brimstone and shifting shadows, we get one of the most jaw-dropping visual sequences of the year. (To quote a colleague/fellow movie lover: 'my eyes shot right out the back of my head.')
(Not on youtube yet, as it's still in theaters, but these two clips give a vague idea of some of the aesthetics at work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlbJZQQJ528 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlqa_GCFfqE
1. A Minute of Silence-A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Could it be anything else but this, a daring formal move and an emotional wallop all in one? Funny, just two days before I saw this movie, I taught Die Mörder sind unter uns in class, and we talked about how movies generally aren't brave enough to be silent. And then this came along! A whole minute of quiet, directly addressed to the viewer, in which we're all invited to spend a little time thinking together. The moment of the year, and I can only hope that 2020 will also have a minute as bold and beautiful as this one.
(Not on youtube either, but around 3.14 of this video talks about the scene briefly and shows a quick clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f18gDPOiEc)
And finally, the worst movies of the year! It's never great to dwell in negativity, and I do want these to be a celebration, but there's always a terrible and freeing pleasure in burning the proverbial bear costume. And don't worry, dear reader, because I am silly with bear costumes and am ready to torch them all.
5. Joker
I really did think about not having this on here, thinking that surely the ambition on display would place it above other, less accomplished movies. But nope, in the end that's what killed it. The worst thing about Joker is not that is so profoundly derivative of The King of Comedy (which is more or less the same movie) and Taxi Driver (for the aesthetic and edge), it's not that the way it treats women is hideous (though it is), or that it exploits discussions of mental illness (and equates them in the final monologue to how hard it is to be a white comedian who gets told what's funny and what isn't), and it's not even that the central ideologies are totally hollow, or don't even exist. The worst thing about Joker is that Joker is so goddamn convinced that it's a great movie. So instead of throwing something like Red Sea Diving Resort or Isn't it Romantic or Glass--all movies that are worse, at least cinematically--I've got Joker here because of how proud it is of itself, how much it believes in its own size.
4. Dark Phoenix
I've seen every X-men movie in theaters, but at what cost? A total mess from beginning to ending, made by and for people who couldn't care less if the entire franchise fell into the sea.
Now this year I'm doing something a bit unorthodox, in that I've got a three-way tie for first place. And they are:
1. The Lion King/Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker/Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
I thought about ranking these in degrees of horribleness, but why? They're all at the bottom for the same reason. Because they have no reason for being other than making money. Because the only guiding artistic principle was whatever would sate the lowest common denominator. Because all three are only interested in the viewers so much as their childhoods can monetized and sold back to them. Because all three represent the nadir of what filmmaking can be: something with all the personality--or less--of trading stocks. The only things that matter are the things that push the little numbers up or down. And this isn't the future I want. This is not why I fell in love with movies. And I'm frightened, I honestly am, that the Disney monopoly is eating everything in sight, that 8 out of 10 of the highest grossing movies of the year are Disney properties. It'd be scary even if they were putting every effort into making something other than a profit. But they're not, as demonstrated here. (Note: if you're rushing to the comments to assure me that all movies are made to make money--there's a difference between artists wanting to be paid for their art and content that is algorithmically produced to make a certain percentage.)
So I'm going to be an asshole and say this--if you're the kind of person who only goes to the theater for a Disney movie, then you're part of the problem. And it's not a matter of 'just let people enjoy what they enjoy,' because we're moving to a world where that doesn't happen. Hell, try going to a theater when Star Wars opens and see the variety you get (not to mention that Disney is forcing theaters to block-schedule its products, which means that fewer movies even get the chance to open).
And I'm part of the problem too. I always told myself that it was ok that I went to these movies in theaters, because I'm going to see everything else as well, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. So I'll have to figure out if I can ethically see Disney movies in theaters--even if I love plenty of them, as evidenced by some of the things above. So we'll see.
Ok, that was obviously a very downer way to end the post, which is a shame, but Disney's got me legitimately spooked, and if you care about movies at all, you probably ought to be a little spooked as well. But that's enough of that! I'll be back tomorrow and the next day with more posts, but in the meantime: what did you think? What did I get wrong? What am I missing?
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