Your top 3 movies of 2019?

I’m way behind on movies released this year. Of the ones I’ve seen Dolemite is My Name is up there.

I’m not sure I’ve even seen three 2019 films. The only one I can think of is Marriage Story, which I just finished last night, so… Marriage Story!

I eagerly look forward to The Irishman but it’s hard to carve out 3+ hours of Netflixin’ these days.

Avengers: Endgame
John Wick 3
Spider-man Far From Home

Oh that’s right, I took the kids to see LEGO Movie Part 2, we really liked that! There’s my top three.

Not necessarily in that order, but definitely among the best I’ve watched this year.

  • The Lighthouse
  • Parasite
  • Destroyer
  • The King
  • Free Solo

Certainly also liked Avengers Endgame, Dolemite, Joker, and The Irishman.

Looking forward to Knives Out, Jojo Rabbit, and Uncut Gems, but those aren’t out over here yet. Marriage Story is on my Netflix watchlist, but haven’t had the time yet.

  1. Godzilla: King of the Monsters - this is a contender for one of my favorite blockbusters in a long time (#1 is Fury Road, immutably).

  2. Midsommar

  3. I am way behind on movies this year. I just caught Us finally (a good effort, not amazing; B/B+). IStill need to see Endgame, John Wick 3, Knives Out, Once Upon a Time, many others. But I haven’t seen them. So no #3.

I can’t do a top three, because too many good movies came out this year, I saw lots of them, and so the recency bias would tend to kick in. Knives Out, Midsommar, Us, Parasite, Jojo Rabbit were all hugely worthwhile. Also saw and really dug a weird indie comedy called Greener Grass and a recent Takashi Miike movie First Love that probably most of you won’t have had a chance at yet.

I saw a bunch of Marvel movies, Shazam, Aquaman, Joker. I liked all of them to one degree or another but next to things like Knives Out or Parasite? not in the top 3 for sure. Some others did not even quite rate that highly for me, like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or John Wick 3. And Ad Astra is almost certainly my most disappointing watch of the year.

I haven’t seen any of the Netflix joints that people are really excited about, though I did watch Triple Frontier (lesser Chandor but still good) and El Camino (well made, kind of unnecessary).

I’m a sucker for tearjerker scenes for some reason and as far as I remember each of these has one and by some coincidence they’re also my favorite movies of the year:

  1. Joker
  2. Le Mans '66 AKA Ford vs. Ferrari
  3. Toy Story 4

Pretty strong year for movies IMO and honorable mentions go to Us and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I have yet to see Midsommar and Crawl but I will probably get around to them.

EDIT: I’d also like to point out how most movies are getting too long again? Editors really need to push to cut stuff beyond 2 hours and Toy Story was probably the only one that didn’t feel unneccesarily padded.

  1. Joker
  2. Marriage Story

Also saw Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far from Home and Avengers: Endgame at a cinema (the latter was a rather huge disappointment for me) and some other Netflix movies (6 Underground, The King, Triple Frontier).

But seriously…

Knives Out
JoJo Rabbit
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Honorable mention to “One Cut of the Dead,” which came out in Japan in 2017 but wasn’t available in the USA until it came to streaming this year. One of the most fun movies I’ve seen in a long, long time.

  1. Joker

Incredible, important movie that I think will become better appreciated with time (though I was shocked to learn that it made over a billion worldwide, even with an R rating, considering how trashed it got by a lot of the critics). Joker is the greatest villain, and this is his best origin story. He doesn’t need an acid bath to magically turn him evil—all he needs is to be beaten down and ignored by society. This is how real monsters are made, and I think Phoenix and the rest of the cast and crew did an amazing job portraying it.

It’s not perfect. I didn’t have a problem with his turn, but the sudden and massive swell of support in the streets was too much, too quick and should have either been saved for a sequel or just portended with a few small scenes here and there. But overall I was pretty stunned by how great it was.

Here’s hoping they don’t fuck up the sequel!

Avengers: End Game - 10 years in the making and very well done, even had some surprises.

Ford v Ferrari - I don’t care about cars or racing and for almost 2 hours this movie made me care about both because it was easy to get drawn in when it is this well done.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World - another great ending to a franchise, beautifully crafted

Runner’s Up

Toy Story 4 - I was surprised how much I liked this despite going in thinking Forkie is one of the dumbest characters ever imagined. Another excellent ending movie

Knives Out - I generally dislike these let’s show the audience how clever we are crime shows, but this was a enjoyable.

Captain Marvel - I knew nothing about this character going in and left caring and wanting more

I saw a lot of movies this year, so there would be a long list and lots to say about each of them but I’ll stop here.

Haven’t seen many 2019 films due to parenthood and family issues (I’ve gone from 40+ films a year to 3-4), but:

Marriage Story: was great and an instant classic drama imho. Adam Diver solidified in my mind as the most special (American) actor of his generation by far. He’s like Dustin Hoffman in the 60-70s, donning something unique, special and powerful.

The Taxi Driver remake: I enjoyed it for what it was, but there’s a mixture of truthfulness and fake silly stuff that did keep bothering me. Could have worked better as a contemporary drama devoid of the Batman Mythos or the faux 70 aesthetic, and being less derivative and more it’s own thing (see the title I gave it). Still a good film with some great acting, I thought, and the final transformation in the TV set channeling Jack Nicholson was amazing.

I only have these two, I’m afraid. I liked Ad Astra, but the climax didn’t work. I know I will likely enjoy The Irishman and I know I’ll love Little Women by all accounts (it’s just the kind of stuff I really like), but I haven’t seen these yet.

Sorry, I did 4 instead. Hope that’s OK :)

Best:

Worst:

  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741700/
    I’m struggling to remember what this was even about. Something about sound waves. Regardless, even the visuals were muddy and poor. A total bore.
  • Dark Phoenix
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6565702/
    Bland and meandering. It had the feel of reshoots and studio interference. Probably the final nail in the coffin for the X-Men franchise. It’s time for a rest.
  • The Highwaymen
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1860242/
    Veteran actors. A strong setting, an interesting true story to draw from. It all fell completely flat. A big yawn.
  • Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2527338/
    Not the worst movie I saw this year. There were a few great scenes here and there but the script could have been scribbled by a toddler - in crayon. Wins the groan award for stupid plot devices.

If X-Men 3 didn’t kill the franchise, I doubt Dark Phoenix will, but I could be wrong.

I fully agree with this. He’s a great actor. Check out “Paterson” if you’ve not seen it already.

This is tough. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the clear #1 for me, but I’m having trouble picking a #2 and #3 out of Joker, The Lighthouse, Midsommar, Knives Out, and Ford v Ferrari.

1- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
2-The Lighthouse
3-One Cut of The Dead

I also loved or really liked:

Parasite
Uncut Gems
The Irishman
Joker
Cold Pursuit

Guilty pleasure:
Aquaman

Well, X-3 kind of did kill that incarnation of the franchise. They made more X-Men movies eventually but of course they did. They have that kind of name recognition. Just like we will probably eventually see another Fantastic Four movie even though neither attempt so far has worked.

  1. Parasite
  2. The Lighthouse
  3. The Chambermaid

Others:
Varda by Agnes
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
Knives Out
Midsommar

I have a good feeling about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Little Women, and Marriage Story, but I haven’t seen them yet.