The 36 best 2019 films--and the eight worst (including Tarantino, Gerwig, Scorsese, and Elizabeth Moss twice)

I like smart films that have wonderful things to say in new ways.   So I generally don't go to genre or Hollywood blockbuster films (you'll find some of those in my list of films I don't intend to see below).  If Rotten Tomatoes rates out at 93% or better, then I'm likely to agree it's a winner.

If you agree with me, you'll like this ranking of the very best films of 2019! Starting at the top with the Best Film of 2019:

1. Woman at War--Marvel should stop their silly film-making.   They’ve just been blown out of the ice-cold water by an Icelandic/Ukrainian indie partnership.   It’s more colorful.  It has a true hero who inspires us all to be stronger than we are.   The music is more mythological.   And there’s not a moment of CGI. How much better is Women at War?  Let me count the ways, including the presence of a tuba and a traditional singing trio. These musicians literally follow--we're talking wet costumes here--the central character as she repetitively takes down the power grid as an act of eco-activism.   Of course, the skilled political machinery takes over the hero's story, making it about foreign terrorism (one comic bit has a footloose Mexican bicyclist arrested for every one else's crimes--he has dark skin so he must be the "terrorist").  This is the strongest female character (her sister turns out to be the second strongest with a surprising act of grace near the end of the film) you'll see in film this year.   Wow.  Wait until you see the scene where she shoots down a CIA-loaned drone with her bow and arrow!
2. Joker--interpretive dance brought to a new level by Joaquin Phoenix--who voices vindication, anger, humiliation, and power with every acting step he takes.  eventually he meets his old self in the form of Jack Nicholson, and the fireworks fly even further into class warfare politics.   Gotham in the 1970's is New York or Caracas or Paris of 2020. The have-nots are just as angry about the fact that those with money get to exercise power every minute...just because you accuse a poor person of stealing (in this case, an advertising sign) doesn't mean it's true, Mr. Wall Street! 
3. Marriage Story--This movie sings (literally in two cases to a Randy Newman soundtrack) with honesty and truth. Your gender will likely decide whether you think an extraordinary Scarlett Johansson or an equally powerful Adam Driver are the primary focus, and whether one is liberated and the other is taken down a notch. Since I'm a guy, I'll say the primary narrative is Driver's, and it tells a story of a feminist MacArthur Grant winner who's a decent dad and a sensitive guy who despite his PC cred manages to impede the powers of his partner. The result? He gets crushed, most directly by Nora, the killer man-hating California divorce lawyer played by Laura Dern (neither Alan Alda nor Ray Liotta can keep pace with her, and they're both powerhouses themselves--and Dern won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role). No one comes to his aid in the end, and perhaps he deserves the step down to a UCLA residency. Some of the wonderful monologues in this Noah Baumbach script will be staples in drama schools for decades, I bet (Johannson's answer to a social worker's "how often do you drink" question is one excellent example but every one gets a turn--even Wallace Shawn!). 
4. The Biggest Little Farm--no, you can't stick a fork in this--the earth north of LA is so despoiled by monoculture farming (years and years of lemons and avocados) that you can't even get a pickax through the surface.   To the rescue comes a barking dog, a plucky couple with great filmmaking and food credentials, and a mystic ecosystem mentor.   In seven seasons, mostly during the most recent five year drought, they turn crust into biodiversity, and watch economic sustainability, and nature return.   Having lost their mentor, dog and owners are subject to whims of when each critical species will return--initially, the snails seem to win the race, but birds and coyotes and gophers and hawks refuse to follow the repopulation timeline in exactly the way you want.   And then, of course, come the fires--California is, indeed, burning, on three sides.  This is the most hopeful documentary of the decade...tell me you don't want to buy your own abandoned farmland and help the planet just as much as these folks do.   Final note:  the ducks will save us!
5. Pain and Glory--if you're addicted to Almodovar, this film will feel like having breakfast at your mother's table when you were five--it's that full of memory and longing. Banderas finds hypochondria isn't enough, so turns to heroin to hide from the loss of his powers. Love and Penelope Cruz save him.
6. The Last Black Man in San Fransisco--If you think you understand gentrification, I recommend this film as a gorgeous source of enlightenment.  Amazingly, it got no big awards for anything, except the special Sundance Prize, which is self-dealing since they funded a lot of it.  Anyway, what a lively touch...rowing boats, skateboarding, squatting.  And what storytelling--about a house, a time, and a family. And what characters--street preachers, and street people from the foster family world who inhabit their stereotypes while always being individual. The crux of the story is whether a kid who works as an orderly can afford a $4 million Victorian in San Francisco.  Of course he can't, which is why he's the last black man until he's booted back to Oakland, far from his family home.
7. Les Miserables--the French entry for the Oscars, which could have just as easily won as Parasite. The film depicts the Paris banlieu as a place of such escalated tensions, voices, and weaponry that no one can hear themselves think. Compassion and communication are impossible in this world, so you can't even distinguish between children getting shot and childhood pranks (in this instance, a lion cub is "borrowed" from the Gypsy circus). We all end up face-to-face with the teeth of the lioness--not just Issa, the newly militarized hoodlum. Will any one ever put down their gun, or their Molotov cocktail?
8. Rocketman--this film thrills because is invites comparison to so many other films and then surpasses them.   The interesting question is:  which bypassed film is the most poignant?   I'll go with LaLa Land first--this has all the creativity and filmmaking chutzpah the Academy Award winner did not.   Then there are music films, obviously:  Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born.  Rocketman surpasses these by truly integrating the music into the story (this isn't a biopic, so you can't complain that the songs aren't in chronological order.   They simply fit the story--Pinball Wizard makes as much theatrical sense here as it did in the rock opera Tommy.). And, despite not being a true concert film (and the covers of Elton's songs are not the best ever...they simply work perfectly as part of the script), you can even give this a leading score vs the greatest of those...Stop Making Sense, Last Waltz, etc.  Finally, Rocketman surpasses Baz Luhrmann comparisons (Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby come to mind)--the crowd scenes surprise regularly, while Luhrmann's are showy representations of cliches.  Taron Egerton is not a triple threat--his voice isn't perfect and based on all the jump cuts, he can't dance.   Maybe he's a 2.1 threat in total.   And that's just perfect here, in this spectacular piece of film making.
9. Tel Aviv is Burning--An intractable impasse of diametrically opposed opinions.   The threat of imminent violence.   And this is only the soap opera--admittedly the most popular one in Palestine.   When the plot and script become political footballs, caught in this case between a disenchanted Israeli bully stuck as a captain at a border crossing from Ramallah, and the anti-Zionist staff on the TV show, all appears to be lost.   Who should the sexy Jewish "spy" Tala marry???  In a hopeful tone, the writers become better, a generous solution arises, and the show is renewed for season 2.   As for the mess in the Middle East?  At least for two hours, you can believe cooperation and tolerance are possible.  
10. Parasite--Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Korean Oscar nominee. You think you're watching Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run--or even Dumb or Dumber. You should know better--the suction-tipped arrows and the urination in the first minute might be your clue. Soon, a wealthy tech family is truly infiltrated by a preponderance of fake Oxford degrees, products shipped from the US, and an elite housekeeper agency that requires passports. With credentials like these, who would notice the flaws--other than the audience who sees every minute crack. 2019 was a great year for non-US films...hard to call the best, though this one got the most award glitter--including it's deserved joint best picture/best foreign film Oscars.
11. The Mustang--Matthais Schoenaerts has a problem.   He's in jail and he has anger management issues.   A decision he made "in the blink of a second" has landed him in jail for a very long time, and he's not sure he's fit to be around people.   Then, a social worker places him in outside duty where he suddenly becomes a horse trainer.   It may sound improbable but several hundred wild horses are sold and auctioned off from prisons in the Western US each year.   Be prepared for some heavy-handed (or hoofed) comparisons between animals and men in cages, but The Mustang offers the best lesson in patience and tolerance and understanding that eventually emerges--enough so that you wish every prisoner was riding horses while serving time.   Of course, the mustangs, who have been rounded up in terror by helicopters, might disagree.   They'd probably rather stay out on the range, far from any humans.
12. Jojo Rabbit--Jew, jew, jew, jew. If that statement makes you uncomfortable, you'll probably really enjoy this film, which feasts on the carcasses of one executed real rabbit, and millions of rabid nationalists and fascists. Particularly when compared to the self-sacrifice of characters played by Scarlett Johansson (man was this her year as a talented actress) and Sam Rockwell, and the most memorable sendup ever filmed of dead Hitler, played by the screenwriter (hats off to Take Waititi), the Nazi's stand out as the lethal murderers they were. The movie closes with the most romantic and hopeful dance sequence you'll ever see. How many more racist thugs can humanity withstand before we all go extinct?
13. Honeyland--you haven't met bad neighbors until you see the Turkish family that parks its trailer in this deserted Macedonian riverbed washout. Loud, destructive, continuously reproductive, uncaring for the land or the culture.  Just like most of western civilization these days! This documentary initially aimed at the ecological end of the river, and then found the last solo beekeeper in the region. And then the Turks show up. There's nothing you can do to wring more honey from bees--and land--that have been in harmony for ages. To every one of us: watch this movie, go home, and change the way we travel on our fragile earth. 
14. The Charmer--a handsome "single" Iranian man with one suit gets into Denmark on a short term visa, but needs to prove he's cohabitating to provide documentation that he won't become an economic burden to the state. A series of really bad one-night-stands results (it appears white women hope for domination when trolling in expensive Copenhagen bars for middle eastern men), but things get problematic when he meets the Danish-born Persian girl of his dreams (and ours too...she's beautiful)...and they fall in love. Unfortunately, our guy is married, it turns out...the plan was to get the permanent visa and then move the village family up north to join him. Not so good--our hero gets expelled from the Iranian community in Denmark now, too. What should he do?
15. Yesterday--I've never heard a better version of "Hey Dude!"  Imagine a world where random household brands (and a few forgotten ones like the band Oasis) never existed.   The Beatles.   Harry Potter.   Cigarettes.   Coca-Cola.   Then you can invent all the songs and the best soft drink ever and be god.  And even John Lennon (who is still alive in this new world) will thank you for writing all those beautiful songs.
16. The Kindness of Strangers. Venture into the homeless shelters and soup kitchens of NYC as the victim of domestic violence (her husband is a psychopath who eventually kills his own father) makes an escape with her two boys. In most cases, some one like this would end up on an even worse track...in jail or in trouble...but literally she's the fortunate one who gets small gifts of food, shelter, and forgiveness.  And legal representation.  Bill Nighy steals much of the show as a fake Russian restauranteur. Initially release pre-COVID in 2019, and then re-released by Netflix in 2022. 
17. Knives and Skin--a great surreal exploration, including the best musical soundtrack of the year ("Promises, Promises"), of the costs of male violence in the date-rape sphere (mostly). First rate imagery and cinematography combine to show that many men still don't take no for an answer. One uplifting story from this film that starts with kitchen knives--the guys who actually  treat women decently come off as angels vs the lethal assholes.
18. I Lost My Body (French: J'ai perdu mon corps)--the first animated film to win the Grand Prize at Cannes. For good reason--because it's focus on loss is as close as your (missing) hand.  Parents are gone, love is impossible, and the central character has lost his hand, which desperately tries to find its owner while every one reads The World According to Garp, itself the greatest book about losing parts of your body.
19. The Dead Don't Die--I'd take this Jim Jarmusch film over "Stranger Things" any time--it's not referential of 1980's horror flicks, it brings you in.   There's not even the structure to indicate a fourth wall ever existed here, so there's no need to break it down.   Bill Murray notices this at one point and asks "Jim showed you the whole script?  I only got to see my lines.   That asshole.   And after all I've done for him!"   And Adam Driver has never been more deadpan--which is saying something profound.   Only negative I could see was the total waste of Chloe Sevigny--you create a camp classic and still all the women can do is scream?  "It doesn't end well," says Driver.
20. Stuber--This film didn't do well on Rotten Tomatoes, so it's a rare case where we disagree. The complaint was that it didn't merge its disparate genres. But in my opinion, that's exactly what makes it work with such precision and truth. Anyway. Perhaps the funniest version of the “you can’t work an app” punchline you’ll ever see. A rogue cop (Dave Bautista) who isn’t black but isn’t anything else, loses his partner and then hunts down a drug kingpin…the day he’s recovering from Lasik. So he walks into everything he doesn’t see, including gun battles, and including his first Uber pool ride. His driver, struggling to maintain a 4.1 rating, and nicknamed Stuber, forms the second half of the perfect buddy film, for discussions about male communications. Stu’s acts of kindness and heroism teach the troglodyte how to love…for a sweet ending despite betrayals and the most destructive sporting goods store scene ever.
21. Coup 53--The CIA learned to spread its evil wings by overthrowing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Great Britain helped, but since the UK had all the oil contracts, the CIA had the important goal of screwing over their ally as well.  Enter "Operation Ajax." We know the end--BP got created, half a dozen US oil companies got most of the business--and we zip forward to 1979 and eternal violence and hostility against US-provided weapons.  God, what a stupid country the US was--and is. Great documentary about how easy it is to get a few soldiers to overthrow a legit government and create eternal death.
22. Uncut Gems--Adam Sandler is such a force of nature he gets under our skin (if you miss this point, the filmmaker shows us video from a colonoscopy and inside a bullet wound--perhaps moments that question the audience's intelligence just a little too directly?). Anyway, you can't stop watching this guy who personifies the "one last big hit" part of toxic masculinity better than any other film. It can't last and you know he'll alway say "hit me" even when he's holding two jacks, but each time Sandler even survives--less underpants, hanging out a window, abusing the women in his life) it's a heroic salvation. Weirdly excellent Kevin Garnett plays himself winning the 2012 NBA championship for the Celtics.
23. Kuessipan--This Canadian film depicts two Innuit girls who grow up together, and make different choices. Of course their loyalty is tested--brothers die, husbands punch wives, people drive very drunk. The friendship survives, with severe bruising, at least until all the pain and discrimination ultimately spins the two out of orbit--and into different solar systems. (Sadly, the movie can't get beyond that puzzle--which is better? Leaving the reservation to try to go to university in southern Quebec--or have lot of babies with an abusive spouse. There has to be another option...please?)
24. Transit--one reviewer called this German/French collaboration "Kafka meets Casablanca."   That's pretty good...a 1942 novel about escaping from southern France is set in contemporary times, so it's even scarier when you see that "cleansing" and "they've taken Avignon" aren't anachronisms in 2019.   Political justice is still the opposite of moral justice.  Art is still crushed by propagandists.  And the blackshirts are still goose-stepping down the streets and dragging random women from their families.  In this case, Bergman takes a ship and Bogart dons hiking shoes to trek the troop-dominated Pyrennes.   Love is still lost.   We never had Paris, and we never will.
25. Sword of Trust--you could complain that Marc Maron has only one character (see Glow). But what a character, in full bloom here.  Here, Maron's ex-addict pawn shop owner confronts the failure of the band he never started, the rise of cult Alabama natives who know the South won the Civil War, flat earth conspiracists who accept photos of tennis balls as evidence that we're surrounded by a 200 foot wall of ice so things don't fall off the edges--and even a veteran of the Israeli military who knows a thing or two about guns. Out of this comes a love story based on the deepest humanism imaginable.
26. Adults in the Room--Costa-Gavras takes the autobiographical point of view of Greece's finance minister to depict the Eurozone financial and political leaders as vindictive racist bullies. You can argue that Greece brought this crisis onto themselves with overspending and corruption, but by the time the socialist government took over on promises of protecting the citizens rather than the IMF, the airports had already been sold to the Chinese and pension funds had been looted. Turns out bankers still think you can get blood out of a stone.
27. The Other Story--The Israeli's are making some great films now (sadly, they're also making a lot of great weapons and militarizing their entire region, too).   This film slyly relates both--a group of people who are 100% sure they're right about their decisions and their personal philosophies, and, who, as a result, are painfully stuck in pain and disappointment and anger.  Check that--I understand the allegory.   The movie also stands up well as a group of great characters crossing paths and learning a little bit along the way, so it's fun even without the background murderousness of the Palestinian/Israeli shithouse.  
28. Gemini Man--great Will Smith, in multiple versions (I won't say how many for fear of giving a plot twist away).   He's so fun to watch and as always more than other spy heroes, his films allow the women to be full partners--the film is worth it just to watch Mary Elizabeth Winstead keep shooting from a sitting position after she's wounded (similarly, Winstead and Smith, armed only with hardware store axes, prepare to fight off the United States government over the line "you've been a great partner," matching only Newman and Redford in Butch Cassedy.  Anyway, Smith's version of the tough guy always allows feminism to pop up in a genre that rarely allows it.   You can see why Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm) got interested in this routine film...we face ourselves and our families every time we look in a mirror.
29. Knives Out--Daniel Craig fools them all with an over-the-top southern accent and a wild whodunit solution that has a unique twist--the murderer is such a good person they confess. But it's a mystery, so let's not be so quick to rule out the entire family who has been cut out of the will, forever. Perhaps the extra drive here is that we're all uncertain of our parents' love, so there's a fulfillment in watching Don Johnson and Michael Shannon and Jamie Lee Curtis squirm as they learn its "my house, my rules..." Very satisfying!
30. Roger Waters' Us + Them--it's no Stop Making Sense, but who could not enjoy Roger Waters updating a bunch of post-Viet Nam era hits and finding that they make even more sense in an era when all the rest of the world sees of the United States is death from drones?   And, by the way, we in the US see all the kids sorting garbage dumps as terrorists.  The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, Us + Them, Wish You Were Here--they all take on a trance-like immediacy when Trump's head, attached to a floating pig, is flying over your head.  Pink Floyd's concerts (and album covers) were works of art.   Those images may seem like cliches now, which is sad, but only a testament to our complete lack of progress toward peace and stable economic policies. 
31. Charlie's Angels--Elizabeth Banks directs this version, which has all the requisite one-liners and heels and weapons and fight scenes to move the franchise forward, despite the fact that Patrick Stewart turns out to be a turncoat Bosley. (Oh, come on. There's no such thing as a spoiler alert for reboots.) I don't love Kristen Stewart but she has a good time being the mean girl in this one. Most important, though, I think is the radical nature of what Banks and team have done to create a spy thriller where:


• Not one of the female characters is rescued by a guy
• There’s a 10 second flirtation with a nerd guy at one point but the gaze of the opposite sex is not at issue, ever (Kristen Stewart gives off a few moments of lesbian interest but not as a plot element
• The male corporate leaders are universally depicted as damaging to the planet, even when they think they’re being good, and
• A major plot element revolves around realizing the bad person is a woman, and assuming that “it couldn’t be her.”
• The jokes are universally female-centric.
32. Little Wood--I usually don't put movies I wouldn't universally recommend on my "best of" list.   I don't want you to have a miserable experience as a result of my suggestion.   Little Wood is depressing, but the weird kind of depressing that you kind of want every one to see...so here it is.  Two sisters stand in for the bottom 33% of our economy--no real job, no insurance, no benefits, no family, and dealing opioids or whatever they can to eat periodic ramen.  "Our decisions are limited by our choices," one sister says as she decides to break the law again.  I don't think you can consider yourself a citizen of the US unless you understand that a large swath of our country is WAY beyond caring about Trump v any one else.  They're too stoned and in pain to read or vote.   Their jobs are very dangerous, the only people they can steal from are their broken neighbors (the film's dramatic high point occurs when a van gets towed for parking illegally and you realize there's absolutely no way it's coming back), you can't afford an abortion--and then there are cheap and plentiful opioids.  Wendy and Lucy on...oxycontin?
33. Booksmart--Olivia Wilde has done a great comedy here...Rotten Tomatoes has this at 97% at the point I'm writing this!   The joy is seeing two ostensibly smart girls go after a party night with the idea that they can catch up on all the fun they've missed.  The operative word here is "girls," since most versions of this story have featured boys--wrecking cars, puking, wearing white socks, etc.   You'll be reminded of Harold and Kumar, or Risky Business, or all the Hangover films, or maybe Fast Times at Ridgemont High.   And you'll think "maybe this story is better with women at the center."   Or not.  This genre is pretty dependable, in the end, no matter the gender.   We all love the myth that things will blow up in our faces and get really really out of control...and then we'll all be back in school on Monday morning, better groomed, wiser, and more beloved than we were the previous Friday afternoon. 
34. Atlantics--opens with three completely arresting long pan shots (the movie's worth it just for these): new construction in the slums of Cote d'Ivoire, the beach, and then the slums themselves. Unable to get paid or take care of themselves, the men hop on a boat for Spain, where a big wave (the same one from this year's Star Wars?) sinks them. The women at home who depend on these men then become "zombies" intent on making amends for the injustices they suffered. Only two women who have a tiny bit of independence (one's the star and the other owns a bar) avoid the endless cycle of African post-colonial poverty.
35. The Great Hack--I've struggled to understand exactly how Russian and Republican Facebook posts gave us Trump. This movie tries to explain--as I understand it, Cambridge Analytica targeted a hundred thousand lazy right wing crazies in three swing states called, in the business, "persuadables." They then sent them 5.9 million posts, each full of hate speech. The result was that these losers got so upset that they put down their Budweiser, fired up the Ford 150, and got their fat butts to the voting station. Without anger, they never would have gone. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida go to Trump. End of story, and perhaps of human civilization.
36. Little Joe--Emily Beecham won the best actress award at Cannes for her role as a plant scientist, which seems like, perhaps, the judges also took home these cute little plants that turn every one into a happy robot. Watch out for the pollen! You'll be so happy you won't care.

2019 films I'd recommend that didn't make the "best of the year" list

• Late Night--I personally was a little confused as to whether Emma Thompson, the out-of-touch-with-her-audience Johnny Carson character here, really did become more relevant after her epiphany.   And, I seriously doubt that the reason 30- and 40-something men treat women like shit is because no one has bothered to tell them to be nice.   Well, in any case, finally, a bunch of women get the point across, at least to the comedy writers on the show, and there's Emma, back on top of her women-centered game, wowing the network brass with her tough charm.  
• Halston--we spend a lot of time in Paris (often seeing version originale cinema, so I don't really need up close and personal with clothing designers.   But I gotta say those early Halston off the bias outfits were, in fact, breathtaking...all while he was breaking free of Bergdorfs.   You'll understand why the Studio 54 glitterati loved Halston...
• Gift--what do a squatters' camp in Rome, Burning Man, and Schubert's Lieder have in common?  First, they're all examples of art directed toward supporting alternative economic structures besides our run-of-the-mill and exclusionary "white guys dominate the trading economy" world.  Second, they all frame the historical Inuit "potlatch" gifting tradition of northern Vancouver Island in BC.  Inspired by Lewis Hyde's The Gift (originally released in 1982 and due in a new edition fall 2019), this film doesn't offer any dramatic tension, but it raises all sorts of very interesting questions about elitism, privilege, art and economics, and the unique beauty of donated art.  You'll definitely stay til the end, even if you get a bit impatient with some of the characters you meet on the trip.  Plus, Canadian director Robin McKenna bankrupted herself for five years making this epic...making Gift a gift to all of us.
• Ash is Purest White--Chinese director Jia Zhangke makes political films (this apparently is his ninth) that often get censored.   By focusing on his wife's character Zhao, the girlfriend of a local labor-friendly gangster, I hope he avoided that problem in this film.  This film is full of interesting issues around loyalty and love and economics, but primarily seems to be making the single point that China is changing.   Hardly the stuff to rock any boats, even those downstream of Three Gorges Dam, where some of the film is set.   Zhao goes from disco queen to prisoner to penniless and ID-less drifter searching for a lost love she knows doesn't exist.
• Ad Astra--maybe this is the end of the cycle of famous actors getting lost in space. It was fun while it lasted, but Brad Pitt shows that there's nothing more to say.
• Secret Life of Pets 2--vastly better than SLOP I.  More balanced consideration of the dog v. cat issue.  More character research producing realistic pet experiences.   Obviously more pet consultants involved in every aspect of the production.   And, some one catches the "red moth!!!"
• Wild Nights with Emily--some one had to resurrect Emily Dickenson's story from the ashes of the "madwoman in the attic" myth--repeated in the absolutely dreadful 2017 Cynthia Nixon disaster  A Quiet Passion (destroyed in my review here).  Wild Nights asks why we need the only woman in the "canon"  to be a social outcast psychotic. In fact, all the evidence actually points to a woman with an active sex life and the ability to interact with problematic men, who thrived in the pockets of intellectualism she could find (not, it turns out, with Ralph Waldo Emerson--you'll love the portrayal of the don of American philosophers in this film!).  How important is it to the literary world for us to continue to believe Dickensen was weird?  This important:  we ignored her niece who spent decades speaking to non-receptive audiences about our greatest woman poet's lifelong love affair with her mother.  We continue to believe Mary Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson helped Emily--never again after you see this film where both of these "angels" get the complete roastings they finally deserve!!! Who gave these two idiots the right to consider themselves editors?
• The Art of Self-Defense--I can't do better than A.O. Scott's review in the New York Times on this one.   My short highlight summary:   a fun if ill-defined satire of masculinity dominated by a mesmerizing Alessandro Nivola as the machiavelli of karate teachers.  Seems to have allegorical intentions given answering machines and deadpan delivery, but god only know what the allegory was.   Funny dweeb played by (Scott says "this may be redundant") Jesse Eisenberg.  In the end, the violence is transgressive and real, just like America.  It's not a joke. 
• Luce--this film is based on a book/play, and sadly some parts show it (though of course that means this is a wonderful film to discuss afterwards with friends).   At the center is either the valedictorian of his class, or a closet sadist (I assume the director was nodding toward the later by casting Tim Roth and Naomi Watts as the parents...they once starred as the witless foils to crazy Michael Pitt in the terrifying remake of Straw Dogs called Funny Games--and they have their hands equally full sorting out reality here.)
• Port Authority--and introduction to vogueing for white cis people, and they got me...I didn't think the lead was trans.   Doesn't matter---every one had sex and was happy.   I'm tired of lead male characters who, for whatever reason, are so unable to communicate that they end up in unnecessary moral quandaries--really, you're the eviction agent for your only friend?   Let's all stop lying and start talking to one another, and the catwalks will look better and people won't be disappointed in one another so frequently.   My jaundice on this sort of character may cause me to undervalue this film--nice characters and I learned a lot (and as I said, it showed me up for my biases).
• Star Wars--So, it's over. After 250 years of perpetual war, the Skywalker groupies now need to learn to live without the constant thrill of outgunned starship battle scenes. How will they govern? We were imagining how much people did NOT want to see the movie about the flourishing of arts & culture and the creation of an economically equitable society etc...or how endless warriors avoid PTSD. Fortunately we'll never know. What did I learn from SW I-IX? Next time I need to have a light saber fight, I definitely want to do it in big surf.
• The Irishman--I know this is supposed to be an elegy for the genre. That's impossible.  Films about dumb men who kill one another are at the center of our cultural identity. No wonder they feel so satisfying. They confirm we're all from Boston, and we're all gangsters.
• The Whistlers--Romanian film set, a la James Bond, in the Canary Islands, Singapore, and other jazzy locales. Fun deadpan sendup of the double-cross genre (if you don't get the joke, there's a scene where an American film director shows up in the midst of a warehouse gang scene, looking to scout a location). Every one should know that the sexy chick in the slinky red dress will be the one who walks into the forest (in this case the illuminated light show in Singapore) with the cash. BTW, the title refers to the ability of some people to communicate lengthy full sentences via whistling, which plays a critical part in the storyline here.

The WORST films of 2019 (note: all of these bad films share the common element of failing to rewrite history with a misplaced veneer of feminism. Maybe that says more about me than about the films, but I think these are really duds).

•  Her Smell.   We have so many music biopics and fantasies and redemption films now. This one has nothing new to say...and weak conservative propaganda at the center--I was frightened that Elizabeth Moss has gone off the Scientology deep end into a land of Handmaid's Tale and Her Smell where the only thing that motivates women in motherhood. That's a crock, and no one should make art that tries to argue that point. Plus, the music sucks.
• The Souvenir.  Sundance convinced us that this was a coming of age film. It's not. It's a hanging around way too long film. Pretense piled upon pretense. When Tilda misses, she REALLY misses. 
• Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. Who the fuck green lighted this Tarantino fantasy?   It appears to be built around his sadness that Sharon Tate got murdered, so he couldn't sleep with her because she was a nice kid. The acting is super fun--I love Brad Pitt (who cares if he killed Natalie Wood!) and who can miss DiCaprio doing the Steve McQueen bit from The Great Escape that lands him in the cooler?  But, we are NOT nostalgic for the good old days when women actors (in this case Margot Robbie and Lena Dunham) are used only for their cute butts.  Give the women a role worthy of their talents, dude!  Yes, there were some great films in 1969. But they were built on a soft sand foundation of exploitation and abuse, and this movie glosses over every bit of the sleaze. Oh--while we're at it--you set a film in 1969 and there's no black cinema element???? Quentin--your next movie better make up for the offensiveness of this film or you're done with me.  Fool me once...
• Hustlers--I'm adding this JLo vehicle to the worst films of the year because the reason every one else likes it is because it's feminist.   I couldn't find a feminist bone in its body.   Rather, I thought it was an extended justification for "two wrongs make a right" moral philosophy (i.e. people who work on Wall Street are thieves so giving them roofies and then stealing their credit card advances is totally cool). I can read about our foreign policy to get all I need about not turning the other cheek...I don't need some REALLY bad acting to help me know right from wrong. Are there women in the world who define friendship as "you bought me a chinchilla coat!"?  I've never met one but my range of friends is smallish.
• The Kitchen--what a cast.  The movie opened and closed in two minutes.  Elizabeth Moss' second appearance in the worst films of 2019 list--is that telling us something (though she was probably the most interesting to watch)? Some mild examination of failed loyalty was intended, I believe, but it all comes off as random--good guys show up, the women partners spat, who cares. Too bad.
• Queen and Slim--sorry. You want to like this film and not just because it has Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya as a nice guy on a first date. The rest of the acting and directing is blah, and given the state of hostility between the police and the black community, anything other than the expected guns-blazing-from-one direction-only ending would be a total sell-out fantasy (hey, let's do Black Panther again..that was wonderful!). Probably better for all of us to just rewatch Bonnie and Clyde--or even better: The Harder They Come.
• Phoenix (FONIKS)--(released in North America in 2019 but generally not available). I wouldn't steer anyone away from this film--it has a lot of visual interest and family drama. But, in the end it's kind of a hot Norwegian mess which currently has an average 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  A 14-year old daughter (played by an actress who appears to be 23, creating some unnecessary and confusing Lolita moments) and her younger brother suffer through having two divorced parents who are both artists--media, and trumpet.  The mom (Maria Bonnevie, who also plays Mads Mikelson's wife in the 2021 Druk) can't get out of bed for a job interview, and we all know where that's going to end (on the end of a rope, in case you're still guessing). Dad reappears on his way to Brazil but it turns out he's really going to jail for 3 months in Oslo for drunk driving.  Lolita and her brother end up sitting on the couch, watching TV.  I suspect this is based on a memoir--otherwise the fake science fiction moments and fantasy scenes (I always wanted to be onstage with my dad!) make no sense whatsoever.  A rare Scandi backfire.
• Little Women--I don't understand the point. Little Women is already a fey book. Why make a film that emphasizes the weaknesses of the source material without adding anything other than more saccharine? Sadly, I suspect I know the answer. Greta Gerwig has only one story, and it ran out of gas on movie # 5.  This is number 8.  We're done.Sarah Polley was offered this to direct--and demurred.   Perhaps because Little Women is a boring book compared to Anne of Green Gables. 

2019 Films I haven't seen yet, or don't plan to see

• Any of the Marvel films--enuf already--please stop (Joker was DC, phew).
• Welcome to Merwin--please see the original documentary instead.
• John Wick Chapter 3--sorry Keanu...
• Toy Story 17
• Men in Black 3
• LeMans 66
• Ford v Farrari--really, does this matter in our crappy culture?
• Where'd You Go Bernadette
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood--makes me sad that we can't come out of our little shells unless Tom Hanks asks us to
• Gloria Bell--Julianne More, John Turturro
• Richard Jewell--please Clint, stop.
• Dark Waters--Mark Rufalo fights Dupont
• Us--Jordon Pele at it again
• A Hidden Life--haven't seen it even though Terrance Malick has done several of my favorite films ever (and at least one of the worst: Tree of Life)
• High Life--Juliette Binoche
• The Farewell
• Pity the Lovers--Iceland rocks
• A White White Day
• 1917--unnecessary war that we didn't learn anything from. I don't need to revisit it unless the script is written by a pacifist.