Tom’s Top 10 of 2019 (and 10 Stinkers)

I’m not generally one for ranking movies, but I see enough and this is a movie review blog, so I guess I’ll rank them. My method is generally around the time the year comes to close, I look over the titles of my old reviews and see which ones stuck with me as better or worse than others. As such, here we go with my top and bottom ten of 2019.

Oh, if you want a longer or more comprehensive list, or you just don’t like mine, check out my pal William Watson’s more complete list here.

Best

10. Avengers: Endgame

This may be the purest popcorn movie ever made. It’s far from perfect–the movie lacks an antagonist for a good chunk of the runtime–but this is the last time we’ll see many of the original Avengers, and that concluding battle manages to perfectly balance fan service with exciting action. Plus, I showed my nephew the following video and told him he missed all that when he saw the movie.

There’s a small subgenre of YouTube videos adding characters to that final battle. And the better ones only run about three or so minutes because otherwise the joke gets old. But that should tell you all you need to know about how the movie touched audiences, especially when Game of Thrones ended so poorly and Star Wars was just kinda meh.

9. Motherless Brooklyn

The trailers for this one looked so much like an Oscarbait vanity project for star/director Edward Norton. And it may still be so, but it was so damn good all the same. I wish more vanity projects justified the vanity.

8. The Farewell

On the surface, this is a comedy with the basic premise of culture clash and honesty as a Chinese American girl learns her grandma is dying and in order to keep the old lady in good spirits, no one told her. But the end result was a film that acted as a meditation on change and a celebration of Nai Nai’s life even as her family is deeply mourning her impending loss under the guise of a cousin’s wedding. Beautiful and sweet, this one was based on a true story.

7. Us

Jordan Peele’s first movie, Get Out, could have been a fluke. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and his second feature Us acts as an even bigger indictment of American society. And this time, it wasn’t just wealthy, white liberals who were the target of Peele’s satirical lens. Instead, he looked at, oh, everybody in American who could afford a movie ticket. If this is what Peele does for an encore, he has a truly promising career ahead of him.

6. The Irishman

Martin Scorsese’s movies are never what they appear to be on the surface. So, sure, The Irishman may appear to be the life of a union leader/hitman, but it’s really a meditation on aging and legacy. Besides, any time Scorsese and De Niro work together, we get some real gold.

5. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Yeah, there were the expected flashes of violence, but most of this movie is a tribute to a lost era in Hollywood. These are characters you might just want to hang out with for a couple hours. Plus, I love me some Tarantino, and if he follows through on his retirement promise, we won’t be getting more from him at some point in the near future.

4. Ad Astra

This one was my favorite for a while, and I recommended it to a number of people. Like a cross between 2001 and Apocalypse Now, it shows astronaut Brad Pitt going on a mission to both find closure and save the solar system. I just loved this movie.

3. Knives Out

I took my parents to this, and all three of us liked it despite three different sets of taste. On the surface, writer/director Rian Johnson made a Agatha Christie style murder mystery. But then we look below the surface and the all-star cast and see not only a murder mystery but also a commentary on income inequality and how society treats people who seem like outsiders since the movie’s actual protagonist is the dead man’s nurse, a woman whose mother is an undocumented immigrant. Just fun and clever all around.

2. Little Women

Oh, this was just oh-so-delightful. I hope Greta Gerwig and Saorise Ronan continue to make good movies together.

1. Parasite

Boon Joon-ho manages to make a movie that works as a comedy, a thriller, and a comment on income inequality as the poor Kim family manage to connive their way into employment for the wealthy Park family. It starts off clever and funny, and then goes clever and suspenseful, and it always works. When Mr. Kim does what he does at the movie’s end, it’s an earned moment that makes perfect sense.

Special mention: Captive State

While the characters may be somewhat forgettable and stock figures–aside from maybe John Goodman’s cop–this was a clever movie about what humans might do after aliens successfully took over the Earth. Cool sci-fi with a tense plot, if this is your thing, you should check it out.

Worst

10. Stuber

Lazy filmmaking at its finest, this stinker of a comedy thought just sticking Kamail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista in a car together was all they really needed to do. Beyond acting as a long ad for Uber, it also wasted martial arts master Iwo Uwais. Why can’t he get good work in this country?

9. Pet Sematary

What a disappointment this one was. It looked like it was aiming for the same vibe as at least the first chapter of the new IT, but it never quite made it. I had no objections to the changes the movie made to the original story, but Jason Clarke was just so bland in this. How do you make Jason Clarke bland?

8. The Goldfinch

Good movies based on books sometimes make me want to someday read this book. This dull slog managed to do the exact opposite for the first time in my life.

7. Lucy in the Sky

Noah Hawley makes some good TV. But his movies? Well, this one at least was something of a mess where Natalie Portman’s messed up astronaut just wants to either run off with Jon Hamm or go off into space again. What a yawn-inducing movie.

6. Replicas

I didn’t like this one much at all, but it’s a very typical January release. It’s not worth saying anything more about.

5. Lion King

Here’s a terrible idea: take a modern animated classic, make it “live action” with CGI animals that can’t emote, remove all the bright colors and flowing movements, and release it to the public without changing much of the original plot. More evidence of the creative bankruptcy at Disney these days.

4. Dumbo

I’ll give this one points for trying something original instead of just being another slavish remake. But this one took the fun, talking animals out and put it onto dull, bland human characters instead. Sadly, typical for anything Tim Burton directs these days.

3. Hellboy

I’m a Hellboy fan, so this one hurt given how much of a mess the final product was. About the only thing it had in its favor was good casting on Hellboy himself and the presence of Ian McShane.

2. The Dead Don’t Die

Jim Jamusch is a talented, quirky director with a deadpan sensibility. I’ve seen and enjoyed many of his movies. And Bill Murray is a beloved comedy icon for a reason. But aside from anything involving Tilda Swinton, this was just something of a yawn where Jamusch didn’t have anything new to say in the zombie genre.

1. Cats

It’s Cats. Do I need to say more?

Special mention: Serenity

Serenity is in no way, shape, or form a good movie. But I’ll give it credit for this: it took a fairly ridiculous concept and played it completely straight to its logical conclusion. It didn’t do it well, but I’ll give it credit for doing something different and playing it out to the end, no matter how ridiculous it got.