09 February 2020

Best of 2019

2019 was my first full year living in New York and it was delightful to get the chance to see more or less everything I wanted to see, cinematically speaking. Because I still write a weekly column for the Sonoma Index-Tribune, I also watched plenty of the stuff everyone else saw as well. One weekend I absorbed the bracing contrast of The Aeronauts to review and Portrait of a Lady on Fire for my own pleasure. This year it became clearer to me the way my mind works on much different levels depending on whether the film before me has any desire to engage intellectually.

The key to enjoying the films of 2019 was weathering the nonstop bludgeoning by Disney Corporation (whose portfolio includes Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilms with more to come soon). Our corporate overlord did over 40 percent of the total box office in America and generated very mediocre film products this year. Streaming services like Amazon Prime and Netflix, themselves fighting for market dominance, picked up some of the slack by distributing many excellent films. In spite of Hollywood’s overall lack of bravery, a bumper crop of ethnically and geographically diverse directors did outstanding work outside the realm of boardroom consensus.


Best Supporting Actor

Some would say Little Women or The Irishman but what if the best ensemble cast of the year was in Beach Bum? Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Buffet, Martin Lawrence, Jonah Hill and, especially Zac Efron and Zac Efron's beard made me laugh as hardest in 2019...until Uncut Gems and Kevin Garnett's smooth turn as himself. My favorite part of Midsommar is the bickering about grad school theses between the useless men, so William Jackson Harper gets a nod. While I was not 100% persuaded by Knives Out, I do declare that I enjoyed Daniel Craig doing Michael Scott's "I do declare" Southern accent for the entire film. The finest performance, particularly when considering the element of surprise of a retired actor returning to screens, is by Joe Pesci in The Irishman. He really knew how to move through a HoJo's kitchen and I appreciated his clarity of mind even immediately after waking up from a nap.


Best Supporting Actress

While her character was short-lived and quite blood-soaked, it was magical to watch Elisabeth Moss flip to her tethered self in Us. WTT Best Supporting Actress 2018 winner Awkwafina gracefully passes the torch to Zhao Shuzhen, her Nai Nai in The Farewell. Park So-dam gives the funniest and ultimately most affecting performance in the Parasite and we'll long remember the catechism, "Jessica, only child, Illinois Chicago." But the WTT award goes to the mother we all needed—Penelope Cruz in Pain and Glory. Pedro Almodóvar has given us many great matriarchs but Cruz's appearances are as spectacular as discovering a Renaissance Madonna and Child in a museum of contemporary art. 



Best Actor

It's well to remember that Brad Pitt isn't and has never been bad, as he reminded us in both Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood and Ad AstraRobert Pattinson excels in isolation in High Life (it's possible I'm also still charmed by the Q&A I saw with Pattinson and Claire Denis, in which he clearly adored his director). In Uncut GemsAdam Sandler gives his once-a-decade reminder of what he can do as an actor (before making four or five straight films with David Spade). Bless Clint Eastwood for finding Paul Walter Hauser to play his Richard Jewell, a wheezing American heart attack waiting to happen. Given the buzz around this film in early 2019, I though we'd see Tom Burke on more year-end lists for The Souvenir—but he's clearly a step forward in the portrayal of devastatingly addicts on screen. 


Best Actress

It was pleasing to see the steely Florence Pugh get a nom for Little Women, but she was even better ensconced in flowers and depression in Midsommar. In my annual nod to a non-professional actress doing better work that 99% of the professionals, there's the quietly electric Mame Bineta Sane in Atlantique. I adored our new Orpheus and Eurydice on flying ointment, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Cynthia Erivo's nomination for the lifeless Harriet reveals the Academy's bottomless taste for boredom. The nom is particularly stupid this year, when Lupita N'yongo was right there in Us. She poured unbelievable amounts of herself into her role and she even did a funny voice—that sort of thing ought to have easily secured her Oscar glory.


Best Pictures

Before rolling into the Top Ten, some other fiction to see: Carlos Reygadas’ Our Time, Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into the Night, Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, and Oliver Assayas’ Non-Fiction. And the hottest docs were: Feras Fayyad’s The Cave, Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s American Factory, Brett Story’s The Hottest August, Nanfu Wang’s One Child Nation, and Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov's Honeyland.

10. Us - If you remember just one sound from a 2019 movie, it is probably the unforgettable snip snip of scissors from Jordan Peele’s thriller. The snippet is trimmed from the “tethered” remix of hip-hop classic “I Got 5 on It,” one of the best deployed songs in recent cinema. The superb music cues, Peele’s stellar story concept and astonishing acting by both Lupita Nyong’o and Elisabeth Moss made Us a great start to the year in film.

9. Atlantique - This assured debut by filmmaker Mati Diop employs non-actors to present a hypnotic vision of languorous ghosts on the coast of Senegal. At once casually depicted and deeply rigorous, the film offers both insights into the lives of impoverished workers in Dakar and a fantastical vision of reincarnation. Diop’s career will be fascinating to track as she explores little seen places and states of mind.

8. The Beach Bum - Harmony Korine’s follow-up to the inimitable Spring Breakers heads way down South to the Florida Keys and a mad poet, Moondog, played by Matthew McConaughey as only he can. The supporting cast is as colorful as the lead, with delicious roles for Snoop Dogg, Martin Lawrence, Jimmy Buffett(!), and a panini-bearded Zac Efron. With some help from real-life poet Richard Brautigan, Moondog delivers one especially fine poem then mic drops on the line, “That’s great poetry.” Damn straight.

7. Ad Astra - It’s wonderful to see James Gray making better and bolder films as he ages. Between this role here and his deeply charming turn in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Brad Pitt spent 2019 reminding us of his excellence. Yes, Ad Astra is another lonesome outer space film, but Pitt offers more than Ryan Gosling’s nearly strangled terseness in First Man or Matt Damon’s uber-chipper performance in The Martian. As he presses on from the Moon to Mars to the unfathomable frontier of Neptune, Gray dares to deliver that rarest commodity in contemporary cinema—earnestness.

6. High Life - Another of 2019 auteurs in space is Claire Denis, who brought Juliet Binoche and Robert Pattinson with her. For the director, this film is both a leap forward and return to a familiar form. Denis’ first English-language film still has a soundtrack by the Tindersticks but now they’re scoring the journey of prisoners compelled to undertake experiments in deep space. Their spacecraft, designed by artist Olafur Eliasson, is at once prison-like and Edenic. The heroes are shipping out to a black hole, destined to see things those who condemned them are too frightened to contemplate.


5. Uncut Gems - The Safdie Brothers’ previous adventure Good Time brought relentless and headlong nihilism to the screen and with Uncut Gems they’ve somehow one upped themselves for sheer you-better-breathe-into-a-paper-bag madness. Adam Sandler’s Diamond District hustler is just smart enough to get himself into bigger and bigger trouble with dangerous people—the insanity of his jewel-selling schemes is exceeded only by his pulse pounding proclivity for implausible parlay bets on NBA games. The directors get not only a career-best performance from Sandler but also generate a remarkably good turn from NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett. Plus they seamlessly interweave the real events of 2012 NBA Eastern Conference Finals with the rest of their bonkers story.

4. Dolor y gloria - Pedro Almodóvar’s films are often a triumph of design but Pain and Glory, in which the master again collaborates with longtime production designer Antxon Gómez, has his most wondrous interiors ever. Antonio Banderas plays a stand-in for Almodóvar himself and his home is furnished with the director’s own belongings. Flashbacks to his youth reveal a whitewashed cave setting that’s filled with a mythical power. Banderas impresses and, in her limited screen time, Penelope Cruz has never been better, nor more beautiful. When the Almodóvar character is asked what he will do after retiring from writing and directing films he replies, “Live, I suppose.” Oh the gorgeous resignation of it all!

3. The Souvenir - Joanna Hogg, an English director too little known stateside before producing this masterwork, will not fly under the radar again. The film’s smart and stylish love story gives Honor Swinton Byrne a marvelous debut and showcases Tom Burke’s addictive, irresistible performance as her erudite yet heroin-addicted beau (his character stole steals the heart quickly with his praise for the films of Powell and Pressburger). The film has an incredibly fresh feel, thanks to the extraordinary quality of light, costume, and setting. Not to mention Hogg’s flawless deployment of songs as disparate as Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out with Him” and Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.”

2. Asako I & II - A thought-provoking film that, amongst other things, has the most delightful variation on the “Going out for a pack of smokes” disappearance in any recent film. Three quiet, subtle but still tremendous acting performances make the piece: Masahiro Higashide and Erika Karata are remarkable as the confused and crisscrossed central couple and Jintan the cat proves that pet acting has really gotten stronger in recent years. Director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi infuses the film’s two-part structure with just enough essence of mystery from Hitchcock’s Vertigo while making something totally his own, featuring doppelgangers, recurrences, rhymes, and echoes.

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire - The most indelible, burned-into-your-memory film of 2019 is Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This film, about the creation of a painting, boasts dozens of breathtaking shots, carefully composed and brilliantly lit against the gorgeous backdrop of Brittany, France in the late 18th century. The story is simple—a female painter meets and must paint her reluctant subject, who knows the commissioned work will be sent to a fiancée she’s never met and never wishes to meet. So she hides—her hair, her face, her smile—for as long as possible. Each revelation aches with significance and, as the pair’s relationship crescendos, the film becomes a fresh, reimagined twist on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is, wonderfully, almost entirely without men. But its success rests on the incredible chemistry between the lead actors—we feel the thunder in their hearts.


18 February 2019

Best of 2018

2018 was better than 2017 (for films released in America, not for American democracy). It had returns to form from Yorgos Lanthimos and Alfonso Cuarón. It had the same excellent form from Wes Anderson and Barry Jenkins. And it had a total masterpiece from Lucrecia Martel after a too-long wait.

All it lacked was a new release by Olivier Assayas featuring Kristen Stewart...

Though the best features came from Latin America, I must admit that the film moment that titillated me the most in 2018 must have been the trailer drop for A Star Is Born. I spent a lot of time streaming hacked together tracks of the isolated audio, waiting for the full reveal of Lady Gaga accompanied by Bradley Cooper as voiced by Sam Elliott.


Best Supporting Actor

Flyest use of capes in 2018 is a title shared by Jason Isaacs in The Death of Stalin and Donald Glover in Solo, both of whom were the most irresistible things in their films. As I've said elsewhere, the only interesting five minutes across all 20 Marvel films is the sequence when it appears Michael B. Jordan will be righteous king in Black PantherTom Waits was the best bit in the kinda disappointing but kinda what you expected The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. But the easy winner in this category is Steve Yuen in Burning, the man who gave us our postmodern Gatsby.


Best Supporting Actress

Rarely has our inability to communicate with each other been expressed as poignantly as by Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk. And poignancy is not something you'd expect from a queen vomiting blue cake, but Olivia Colman's badgery self in The Favourite does it exquisitely. Elizabeth Debicki was excellent in Widows and not just because she stood a head taller than everyone else. Lola Dueñas delighted in keeping the title character at a low boil in Zama but the best laughs and best pajamas belonged to Awkwafina in Crazy Rich Asians.


Best Actor

Give me lean Christian Bale in the tasty Hostiles over fat suit Christian Bale in the execrable Vice. Give me Daniel Giménez Cacho in Zama and help me rediscover all of his other roles. The most stirring moments in BlackKklansman occurred when John David Washington sounded exactly like his father. As someone who never tires of insulting Ethan Hawke, it's absurd that he wasn't nominated for First Reformed. Adriano Tardiolo convinced as a time-traveling supernatural Italian peasant in the remarkable Happy as Lazzaro. But in a put up or shut up role, Bradley Coopera guy I have not particularly enjoyed since Wedding Crashersgave us a massive gift with A Star Is Born.

(And, just to go on record, Cooper's goldendoodle Charlie edges Olivia the West Highland White Terrier in Widows for Best Doggo.)


Best Actress

Charlize Theron
is so good in Tully that I'm in the awful position of praising something about a Jason Reitman film. Praising something about a Claire Denis film is less surprising, and Let the Sunshine In benefited from Juliette Binoche, who is wonderful in everything, all the time. Praise also to Viola Davis who, as Michelle Rodriguez tells it, was kissed by Liam Neeson in a non-racist way in Widows. The year, however, belonged to non-actors. Lady Gaga was fabulous, even with that terrible tangerine dream hair color, in A Star Is Born. Late in Madeline's Madeline, Helena Howard had the finest audition since Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. But the prize is for Yalitza Aparicio carrying a family of six (and an entire nation) on her back in Roma.


Best Pictures 

Outside the Top 10 you might also consider Annihilation, First Reformed, Hale County This Morning, This EveningHappy as Lazzaro, Hostiles, Leave No TraceMadeline's Madeline, Tully, and Widows. And any film not made by a white male director.

10. The Death of Stalin - Armando Iannucci is the best ever at satire that is not quite satire because he is too right about the grotesque sausage-making of empires. In the same way Veep scripts began to predict Trump's White House, The Death of Stalin doesn't feel at all out of step with the bumbling series of events that would occur in the event of King Trump's longed-for demise. The stacked cast, from Steve Buscemi to Jason Isaacs to Simon Russell Beale to Jeffrey Tambor skillfully convey the endless absurdity of each political power grab. And their clothes are so vile you can almost smell them through the screen.

9. Let the Sunshine In - Claire Denis will always give you something different. Let the Sunshine In pairs her with Juliette Binoche in a comedic mode, as the legendary actress faces middle age and all manner of insufferable Gallic nincompoops. From the cretin who insists of "gluten-free olives" to the ignorant, Harry Dean Stanton-type drifter, it's all garbage until she hangs out with Alex Descas, one of the classiest figures in contemporary cinema. And, like a gout-inducing glass of port, Gerard Depardieu ends the picture with a fantastic cameo.

8. If Beale Street Could Talk - With the recent documentary I Am Not Your Negro and this film, it's been great to have James Baldwin's words back in the public imagination. Barry Jenkins adapts Baldwin's 1974 novel with tremendous tenderness for his star-crossed leads, KiKi Layne and Stephan James. In a one-sequence but brilliant appearance, Brian Tyree Henry succinctly describes the prison-industrial complex: "This country really does not like n---as." Jenkins's cinematographer James Laxton lights the faces in the film with the unusual radiance he finds in any space, but he makes sure the prisons are never beautiful.

7. Burning - Lee Chang-dong made good films with Secret Sunshine and Poetry but he has far exceeded those with Burning, a completely engrossing study of three characters full of literary affinities, from The Great Gatsby to Crime and Punishment (the film is based on a Haruki Murakami story). In addition to the scorching work of Steven Yeun, Yoo Ah-in and Jeon Jong-seo give great, troubled performances as poorer souls. Yoo's slow writer is on the receiving end of the shiver-inducing diss, "What kind of 'writing' are you planning to 'create?'" Even more chilling, as cooly delivered by Yuen, is the line, "I have a habit of burning greenhouses..."

6. The Favourite - Yorgos Lanthimos is back at his best with The Favourite. Olivia Colman, as the gout-afflicted Queen Anne, vomiting blue cake and surrounded by rabbits, is served by her sharp lady-in-waiting Emma Stone, whose enormous eyes were made to gawk at the goings on, and her even sharper confidante Rachel Weisz, who does some of the strongest work of her career. And then there's the marvelous Nicholas Hoult, whose speech is powdered as prettily as his resplendent wig. The biting insults, vicious repartee, and impromptu breakdancing make for a giddy two hours.


5. Isle of Dogs - Moving from one polarizing auteur to another, there's Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, in which he again flexes his mastery of stop-motion animation. The canines quarantined on Trash Island are hilarious, especially Jeff Goldblum's mutt, who knows all the rumors. Anderson is seen as an apolitical stylist, but has made a picture very relevant to these times—Isle of Dogs touches on the environmental destruction of the planet and the plight of "aboriginal" dogs born on Trash Island that are unable to gain asylum and enter the wider world.

4. A Star Is Born - While his direction would hardly be confused with the ultra-controlled mastery of Anderson, Bradley Cooper acquits himself well as a first-time filmmaker. He gets great performances from Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay and himself (borrowing Sam Elliott's voice). The music is tremendous, real pop and real country, all of it listenable—especially for those of us who found "Shallow" atop our year-end most-played playlists. You really feel the Jason Isbell-penned lyrics of Cooper’s signature tune—it takes a lot to change a man, hell, it takes a lot to try.

3. Roma - As with Cooper's A Star Is Born, this film is clearly a passion project Alfonso Cuarón, and a beautifully conceived one at that. The household of a well-to-do Mexico City family in the 1970s is seen through the eyes of the incredible non-actor Yalitza Aparicio. She does her daily business against a fabulous city backdrop, full of large-scale, "how’d-he-get-that-shot?!" choreography. There are a dozen memorable sequences, highlighted by a nude shower bar martial arts demonstration and an uproarious, "The Rules of the Game"-style interlude in the country. Roma is mid-career masterpiece full of nods to Cuarón’s former films, especially Y Tu Mamá También and its desperate, breathtaking climax at the beach.

2. Minding the Gap - Bing Liu's debut film is a riveting look at Rockford, Illinois and the intergenerational damage caused by poverty, abuse and alcoholism. It's also the foremost skateboarding documentary ever, with Liu following skaters Keire, Zack, and himself. The cinematography is tremendous, so skillfully tied together it's almost inconceivable that Liu produced this landmark documentary in only his mid-20s, after filming for a dozen years. Minding the Gap shows the ways in which, to help deal with trauma, you control the minutest actions while you’re on your board skating...or in your editing bay, cutting together a masterpiece.

1. Zama - As played by the brilliant Daniel Giménez Cacho, protagonist Don Diego de Zama is at the end of the alphabet, the end of the world, and the end of his rope. Lucrecia Martel's adaptation about a Spanish colonial functionary stuck in the South American interior improbably improves upon Antonio di Benedetto’s must-read novel of the same name. As the hero loses track of time, so does the viewer, lost in immersive lushness of Martel's vision. The film ends in the emerald beauty of the countryside, as Zama tries to move out of the fetid ennui of his colonial outpost, even if the quest is sure to be fatal. The most lasting image of the year is the hungry landscape swallowing him whole.


27 May 2018

Boggle Poem

Found poem from a game of Big Boggle with Mr. Cody W. M. Upton:

The terns are lost
kept as pets with the rest
they nest with hens have
restless fetes on lots
here and there --
the most gorgeous gets
a penthouse that's hers.