2019 saw the culmination of Disney’s initial all-in push behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe, delivered a shockingly great year to Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite from Cannes to the Academy Awards and saw at least six different theatrical-and-or-VOD releases from Nic Cage.
Arguably it was also the first major year when the streaming wars took their first shots as Disney+ emerged with The Mandalorian while Netflix countered with a series of major awards contenders (Marriage Story, The Irishman, Dolemite is My Name, American Factory) and a grand total of 118 features/documentaries put out under their banner. I think if I tried sitting down and rounding up all of the short-form and “television” material they have per year I’d blow my computer up. On the alternate end, Fandor quietly completed its death knell though you can still subscribe to the content through the Amazon Prime app and The Criterion Channel relaunched from the ashes of Filmstruck.
I wasn’t searching for any major themes across my viewing habits this year. I dabbled in the end of Legion, which briefly led me to wonder if the reason so many audiences weren’t getting behind Noah Hawley’s feature debut (Lucy in the Sky) stemmed from not actually watching his work despite office cooler chit-chat. I still have all the episodes of Watchmen lined up to one day consume on my DVR and Dragged Across Concrete will sit forever on my iPad Mini until I “finally get around to it.” At least it took a pandemic for me to finally hunker down and finish this.
Here’s what I thought stood out from last year in order and what’s worth hunting down.
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)
dir. Hu Bo
Adapting his own short story, writer-director Hu Bo follows four people intersecting over the course of a hellish day as bullying leads to injury which leads to death and the sort of escalation that would make Darren Aronofsky step back to examine his choices. As the four characters slowly come together, Hu Bo shows us a drab urban experience in China as the camera at times flies up and down stairs and takes extend outdoors as the natural light slowly fades into night time. Ultimately each person becomes determined to escape what will happen if they stay behind and invest themselves fully in an urban legend of an elephant that’ll grant your wishes.
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018)
Dir. Bi Gan
If you read every review of this out of Cannes and had a drinking game tied to the amount of “dream-like” and “otherworldly” adjectives used you’d feel as if you watched a marathon of Liu Shichao’s dizzying feats. As repetitive as it seems, however, Bi Gan’s film follows Luo Hongwu (Huang Jue) as he returns to the constant setting of Kaili to reminisce over his dead father and find a long-lost love that got his best friend killed. Moving from spot to spot he inevitably is led to a club in the middle of a rundown town and forced to wait in a movie theater.
And that, infamously, is when the second half of the film begins complete with the title card.
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, shot in 2D until that point, transitions into 3D to highlight spatial awareness, placement and the now god-like power of the camera which abandons the earth and seems to have a mind of its own as it tracks Luo from a mine shaft into town. This is lost outside of the theatrical and even some distribution markets as a friend that lives in Germany had no idea about the 3D switch but Long Day’s Journey is strong enough by itself to be seen in any format regardless.
Her Smell
Dir. Alex Ross Perry
How long do you tolerate the apocalypse if it means you’re constantly making money? Becky Something (Elizabeth Moss) fronts the greatest alternative punk band that’s on course to explode from drug addiction and excess—namely hers. Everyone is stuck picking up after her or barely holding the cash cow in place from her ex-husband (Dan Stevens), bandmates (Agyness Deyn and Gayle Rankin), increasingly Pepto Bismol chugging manager (Eric Stoltz) and Becky’s own ignored daughter. If you’re of a certain age this definitely borrows heavily from the mannerisms and life of a certain musician (in fact Rankin’s own character is an inside joke).
Moss rules the entire film transforming from creative savant to an unstoppable monster that can only be taken down by herself. It also didn’t hurt there was a limited run on the film’s record label and band t-shirts.
Climax (2018)
Dir. Gaspar Nóe
Who knew Gaspar Nóe loved the 10HoursMovies channel so much?
Assembled as a single continuous shot, Climax had a surprisingly big release in the US and prompted a few multiplexes to put signs up noting the title card wouldn’t appear for nearly 30-40 minutes and it was part of the film. A dance troupe practice for an upcoming performance, get loose and slowly release the sangria was spiked with LSD. To say it encompasses nearly every taboo, narrative idea and shot would sound impossible but Nóe achieves it.
Aquarela
Dir. Victor Kossakovsky
I rewatched this a few weeks back now that it’s making the movie channel rounds and it pales in comparison to the theatrical experience. The irony, however, is Aquarela was meant to be seen in a format that isn’t even commercially viable yet (96 FPS) with a very limited 48 FPS IMAX Dolby run. All of that said, Kossakovsky brings an immense visual spectacle moving around the world and giving a very apocalyptic look at climate change affecting the planet. The soundtrack, pulled across Apocalyptica’s own orchestral doom-metal experience, adds to the overwhelming power of storms, oceans and cars plunging through warming bodies of water.
The Wedding Guest
Dir. Michael Winterbottom
What if Michael Winterbottom made a slick action thriller and it was overshadowed by Steve Coogan going to Spain and then applying veneers in a toga?
Jay (Dev Patel) ominously leaves London for Pakistan where he’s scheduled to kidnap a bride (Radhika Apte) from an arranged marriage and bring her to India where her boyfriend awaits. Jay’s own preparation and reconnaissance for the deed feels like Winterbottom decided it was time to take his shot at something like a Spartan or just a reminder he isn’t all set-ups for Steve Coogan to have a decent holiday. If Her Smell is Elizabeth Moss’ film to wrestle around, The Wedding Guest is Patel’s reel to be in every smart drama and action film for the next 15 years. Ironically, when this closed in Washington, D.C. at the theater it was replaced with Hotel Mumbai and it seemed like every positive step Patel took was washed over by Armie Hammer.
Midnight Family
Dir. Luke Lorentzen
Luke Lorentzen follows the Ochoa family in their own unique local business: the ambulance trade. As the film intones, Mexico City has 45 ambulances available if you’re willing to wait for them—or, you can accept a private ambulance with their own unique EMTs who hem and haw with injured people about which hospital they want to go to and which they should go to as the ambulance team gets kickbacks. But more often than not by the time victims are delivered to the preferred hospitals, they can’t afford to pay the separate ambulance fees. So it goes for the Ochoas, who nightly assemble from oldest to youngest to fit inside of their own private ambulance and chase calls over the radio calls ranging from car wrecks to drunks. Lorentzen melts into the background, cab and seemingly into the ground for specific shots as the Ochoas race to accidents, deal with police and try to scrape enough money together for a meal of saltines and fish.
Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Dir. David Robert Mitchell
If Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson felt like the most faithful adaptation to a Haruki Murakami novel that wasn’t real, Under the Silver Lake is the sequel to that same imaginary novel. A slacker fantasy turned conspiracy thriller all because an out-of-work guy thinks he has a chance with a woman that’d never give him the time of day otherwise, David Robert Mitchell nailed an unclassifiable film out of the park. It’s a shame then that the release for this, in the pre-COVID-19 time, was utterly fucked by the crumbling of the A24’s distribution method and a French distributor releasing it in Summer 2018 and having it go to DVD/Blu-Ray nearly six months before a US release date. But home viewing saves Under the Silver Lake by its infinite ability to be rewatched and Mitchell’s shot composition (the opening shots frame…well…make sure you look closely).
Pain and Glory
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
It turns out the best person to reflect on Almodóvar is Almodóvar by way of Antonio Banderas. An honest self-reflection from the writer-director along with one of his longest collaborators looks back at the Spanish independent film and theater scene if you’re aware of it; otherwise it’s a touching review of a creative life and how one chooses to live with their output. In Almodóvar’s world everything is capable of bending at the whim of the director, including a brief foray into heroin, as long as the audience doesn’t lose track of what is and isn’t essential in accepting the art. Banderas deserved more recognition for this role and arguably should’ve stood out more in the awards season game. But ultimately it doesn’t matter as long as the work can hold up—and it will.
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2018)
Dir. Henry Dunham
One of the best noirs out of 2019 that takes the “locked room” premise and teases out bit by bit how little our protagonists are actually prepared to deal with a major event. A militia group in Texas come together after word that an armed gunman opens fire on a police funeral, come together at their storage house and learn they’re missing the exact items used in the attack. Gannon (James Badge Dale), a former cop, volunteers to interview the other members to see who could’ve done it, realizes one of the members is actually an undercover cop and has to juggle the job of protecting the cop and finding who among them is the shooter. Henry Dunham keeps the film churning non-stop as Gannon isn’t the country-fried Columbo he perceives himself to be and the growing paranoia among the other militia members leading to said titular standoff.
6/6/2020: In hindsight, it’s hard to endorse this without being aware of production company Cinestate’s own values and treatment of crew from Marlow Stern’s piece. Standoff isn’t mentioned as a troubled shoot like VFW or Satanic Panic but the awareness should be out there.
Other Things from 2019 in Film
Best Repeat Viewings: Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (3: 35mm, DCP, Large-format DCP); Knives Out (3: Regular, regular, Director’s Commentary Podcast); Crawl (2); John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum (2); The Matrix (Dolby Atmos); Paris is Burning (4k DCP); Nosferatu (live musical accompaniment from Goblin)
Best Personal Soundtrack Flex Despite How Your Otherwise Good Film Performed: Motherless Brooklyn, “Daily Battles” - Thom Yorke, Flea.
Best Casting Not At All Probably Influenced by Nepotism: 47 Meters Down Uncaged
Best Theatrical Walkouts: Cold Pursuit (25 min), Escape Room (30 min with the technicality there was no picture for 25 min, then it restarted and no sound for 5 minutes before I got especially fed up)
Best Surprising Second Feature: The Kid (2019), dir. Vincent D’Onofrio.
Best Film That Was Pretty Boring But Had An Amazing Short Film Hidden Inside of Its Second Act: Captive State
Best Distribution Company That Had To Suddenly Replace A Lot of FYC Swag When Parasite Became Their Lucky Stone: Neon
Best Film That Should Be Seen Cold to be Believed (tie): Serenity (2019) and The Fanatic
