Sofia Boutella and company, Climax, directed by Gaspar Noe
I have never found ranked lists of anything entirely credible, because after all what could be the really credible meteric by which a critic could take a group of films, or books, or restaurants even, that they admired during a discrete time period and break down their various levels of quality to the extent that the distinctions between one and ten were so argumentatively substantial that you could understand just why the tenth best was at that bottom rung (as opposed to why that first best so roundly exemplified the virtues of the art form under discussion). I doubt that most critics go to the trouble of really breaking down those distinctions, if any in fact exist. And it seems like the process, which I suspect might be more of a math problem than an aesthetic one, would be laborious, tedious, and sure, ultimately pointless.
Which is a long-winded way of getting to the point that I'm not sure why, this year, I decided to present 25 of my most-loved films of 2019 in a ranked list, the assembly process of which mainly consisted of shuffling around the 17 titles below the top eight. Or the 20 titles below the top ten. Or something. Which is not to say, for instance, that I don't think Little Women is a better film than Marriage Story, for those of you apt to raise an eyebrow. I do. But not worlds better. Only a bit.
1) The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
The piece I wrote about this movie for Decider is not a proper review but does contain some, you know, observations. It also has an explanation as to why the content of this blog has been even less than less than robust for a while. I also, for Decider, wrote about Pacino's Hoffa and Nicholson's Hoffa.
2) Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)
Beautiful, vulnerable, surprising. And in terms of acting, practically a tie with The Irishman.
3) Black Mother (Khalik Allah)
4) Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
My thought upon leaving the screening was, "Goddamn him, he did exactly what I did not wish for him to do, and he made me love it."
5) High Life (Claire Denis)
A refreshingly blunt science-fiction movie.
6) Climax (Gaspar Noé)
Lurid sensationalism done right.
7) Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)
8) Uncut Gems (Josh and Bennie Safdie)
Stressful. The only movie to elicit an actual nightmare for me in some time.
9) Rolling Thunder Revue (Martin Scorsese)
A delightful jest, with notable music.
10) Asako 1 + 2 (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
11) The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard)
Let me Rolle it to you.
12) Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)
An impressive hybrid of Art Film and Movie-Movie With Strong Rooting Interest.
13) Little Women (Greta Gerwig)
Guys, it's good! It's got mise-en-scéne! But seriously: I kept hearing about how radical and stuff it was, but what more impressed me about the picture was its genuine tenderness. There's a rare delicacy of feeling here.
14) The Burial of Kojo (Blitz Bazawule)
15) Dark Waters (Todd Haynes)
People have said things like, "Todd Haynes should work outside his comfort zone more often" but why is taking on a directing job at the request/behest of another artist you admire some kind of alienated labor? The direction and the restless inventiveness of Ed Lachman's cinematography are nothing but assured. And yes, I am going to be replacing much of the household cookware.
16) Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
Doesn't take sides.
17) In Fabric (Peter Strickland)
18) A Long Day’s Journey into Night (Bi Gan)
19) Parasite (Bong Joon Ho)
A very good Bong Joon Ho picture.
20) The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)
Not just another Jarmusch movie, but that also. There's real and new discomfort under its droll get-off-my-lawn-surfaces.
21) Suburban Birds (Qiu Sheng)
22) Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré)
23) Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)
24) The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)
I've come around a bit on it since the above-linked Venice consideration. My more recent consideration is, if you think it's too much, good. Think about why you think that.
25) Our Time (Reygadas)
There they are, then. 25.
Unranked, then, other films I enjoyed, and reviewed, in alphabetical order:
Apollo 11 (Miller)
Aquarela (Kossakovsky)
Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)
Barbara Rubin (Chuck Smith)
Burning Cane (Phillip Youmans)
By the Grace of God (François Ozon)
Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt)
The Eyes Of Orson Welles (Mark Cousins)
First Love (Takashi Miike)
Grass (Hong Sang-Soo)
Hotel By The River (same guy)
Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzalez)
The Load (Ognjen Glavonic)
Piercing (Nicolas Pesce)
The Plagiarists (Peter Parlow)
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (Matt Wolf)
Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)
Shadow (Zhang Yimou)
Sword of Trust (Lynn Shelton)
Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy)
Films I enjoyed but did not review include these:
Ad Astra (James Grey)
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (Marielle Heller)
Diane (Kent Jones)
Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)
Knives Out (Rian Johnson)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)
Midsommar (Ari Aster)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)
Us (Jordan Peele)
Restored films:
A Bigger Splash (Jack Hazan)
Duet For Cannibals (Susan Sontag)
The Fate Of Lee Khan (King Hu)
Hyenas (Djibril Diop Mambéty)
The Juniper Tree (Nietzchka Keene)
Mr. Klein (Joseph Losey)
Queen of Diamonds (Nina Menkes)
Films I Could Not Review
Of course, I was quite taken with both High Flying Bird and The Laundromat (whose Brechtian finale proved something of a critical point of contention), and I recommend those films highly. But I remain too much personally in the camp of Steven Soderbergh (sorry if that sounds like a humblebrag or whatever you call it) to recommend them without full disclosure. Here, for example, is a photo taken of myself yucking it up in Venice, at the film festival, with Corey Bayes, the first associate editor on both films, and someone who has helped me out with a wonky piece or two. What an afternoon that was! Earlier in the day, I was hotly excoriated on Twitter by a "positive" film blogger who called me something like a "shit scumbag" for making sport of some eminently-make-sport-of-able thing he'd said about Joker. Anyway, here he comes waltzing (I had another verb, beginning with a "w" and ending in a "g," but it was not positive enough) into the very same reception (and not nearly so well dressed as Corey and I, not to mention the mysterious beauty behind us), and I'm thinking — get this — "Now's the time to mend fences. I should introduce him to the gang." I then mentioned the events of earlier in the day to Corey, who said, "He must be a very important person if he can call you such things." Anyway. I never got around to making the introductions. Like the song says, "Oh well. We'll catch up some other time."
That's it. Surely the year also offered us terrible films, and bad-as-opposed to good films, but I've got to get back to work on the book so better not to stir up stuff. See you around these parts in April I hope.
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