Best Films of 2019 [Poll][Dead] - Movies & TV

Hayden

Location: CDMX

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Look at that! This year we've moved all the way from the Games section to Movies & TV! Wowza. What'll we think of next.

What a year! What a year! BAM BAM BAM go the releases right in our faces on the big screen and small. South Korea made a film! It was BIG! Will it be BIG here? Tune in to find out! Was Joker good? WHO KNOWS! How did Mendes pull off the shots for 1917? WHO KNOWS! How little are these women? WHO KNOWS! What were the producers thinking when they made Cats? WHO KNOWS! Zombies! Strippers! Jokers! Pope Francis! Bo Peep! Opals! Hollywood! A seagull! Hitler! Cats!

Here's a thread where we can discuss/rec our favourite films and performances of the year, hopefully dishing out a couple recs to anyone who wants them. Was that film overrated? Underappreciated? Disappointing? Etc... Was anything better than Bojack in 2019? Is Joker the most divisive film of the decade? Does it feel like we're stuffing amazing performances into bad films? Discuss.

SUBCATAGORIES:

5 Best Male Performances
&
5 Best Female Performances
&
Best Film Score

Which you may submit up to 10 each, but the final acting lists will be the top 5. The score list will be the top 3.

The gist/ rules:

BEA composes a list of our 50 favourite films of 2019.

All lists will be PMed to me or posted in this thread, maxing out at 50. The final list will be 50 films. I'll be accepting lists of any denotation up to 50. The size of your list determines its weight. Films must be longer than 40 minutes. Films preferably have an international premiere date between January 1st 2019 and December 31st 2019.

Documentaries are allowed. Miniseries (i.e. Chernobyl) are not.

Lists will also be accepted in IMDb and Letterboxd format. Deadline will be March 28th.

For the first time, there will be no 'hard' restrictions for what is/isn't allowed as far as official release dates go. Don't throw in something stupid, and we're all good. No fighting.

A reminder to prep you decade lists (2010-2019), as that'll be after Mr. Green

Last edited by Hayden on 03/14/2021 19:24; edited 8 times in total

badseed

Gender: Male
Age: 35
Location: FL

Hi guys!

So was 2019 a good year or what? I'll be honest, I've only just gotten back into actually watching movies after spending quite a while completely ignoring movies, even the ones I bought. But I'm getting back in the game and honestly I haven't been too disappointed with anything not called Pet Sematary.

I'm glad Parasite killed it at the Oscars. Bong Joon Ho is the man; I've been a fan of his for a long time so to see him dominate was nice. It's no doubt my favorite of the year so far from what I've seen, which includes every Best Picture nominee except Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit and Little Women (all of which I'm excited for). 1917 is the only one I saw in the theater, and while it wasn't my favorite of the year thanks to the production value it ranks pretty high among my all time theatrical experiences.

But don't count out horror this year if you guys haven't been keeping up. Holy cow. I thought Us would be hard to top honestly, but Midsommar and The Lighthouse both may have. With sophomore genre efforts that are right up there with their debuts, all three directors have the potential to be considered amongst horror titans like Romero and Carpenter sooner than later. Perhaps even above them? Child's Play was also loads of fun and one of the best Chucky movies ever, with loads of laugh out loud humor. Ready or Not is still on my watchpile and I need to pick up Doctor Sleep but I've heard good things about both (though the other Stephen King movies this year were less impressive). Oh and speaking of modern horror directors, what's his name, Alejandre Aja? His movies are so mean spirited yet somehow they always get wide distribution. That's pretty cool I think. But I didn't like Crawl too much because it really triggered my anxiety. In between PTSD and empathy for the characters from also being a Floridian in a hurricane, plus always hating movies when a loveable pet could potentially die, I just wanted it to be over and everything to be okay. That's what horror is all about though. It just hit too close to home. I'm gonna have to link up with my buddies and see if I missed anything on the independent scene worth an immediate look, as I haven't seen anything too low budget this year.

I've still got a lot to watch before putting together a list, from the aforementioned best picture nominees and horror films to everything from Knives Out to Uncut Gems, not to mention the foreign and documentary films I truthfully know next to nothing about. But man, what a year.
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CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

@badseed It's good to hear from you. Hope all is getting better. But Midsommar was an abysmal turd.

@Hayden Yeah, Bojack's final season hit the ball out of the park.
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Hayden

Location: CDMX

CA Dreamin wrote:

@badseed It's good to hear from you. Hope all is getting better. But Midsommar was an abysmal turd.

I'm afraid I'll have to second that. Sorry Badseed. Being said, I loved The Lighthouse. I don't associate it with horror as much as others, but if it fits the bill, it's possibly my favourite horror film of the decade. Great to see you around, and I'm looking forward to your list Smile

CA Dreamin wrote:

@Hayden Yeah, Bojack's final season hit the ball out of the park.

That was a bit of an easter egg for those paying attention Laughing

I copy and pasted that sentence from our 2018 poll thread. Just changed the year. But yeah, what a knockout. I would've never guessed what they had up their sleeves based on season one alone (which is still pretty strong).

Quote:

I've still got a lot to watch before putting together a list, from the aforementioned best picture nominees and horror films to everything from Knives Out to Uncut Gems, not to mention the foreign and documentary films I truthfully know next to nothing about. But man, what a year.

And yeah, really was a treat after 2018. Def get around to Uncut Gems, it'll be #2 on my personal list. Just make sure you can watch it on the biggest screen possible with as absolutely zero interruptions. Treat it more like a rollercoaster than a film.

I still have 10-15 films I'd like to get around before solidifying my list, but I haven't a clue if I'll be able to or if they'll even be available. Anyone seen About Endlessness yet? Laughing

badseed

Gender: Male
Age: 35
Location: FL

Man y'all are crazy. What did you not like about it?
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Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

I obviously don't know what's allowed and what isn't, so I'll just put my RYM list down here for now.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Cubbieri...s-of-2019/

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

Hayden wrote:

CA Dreamin wrote:

@Hayden Yeah, Bojack's final season hit the ball out of the park.

That was a bit of an easter egg for those paying attention Laughing

I copy and pasted that sentence from our 2018 poll thread. Just changed the year. But yeah, what a knockout. I would've never guessed what they had up their sleeves based on season one alone (which is still pretty strong).

The original post read "Films preferably have an international premiere date between January 1st 2018 and December 31st 2018." That was quickly corrected, but obviously there was copying and pasting. But how could anyone remember the Bojack sentence from last year's thread? Laughing

Nevertheless, it applied to both years. Because wow, what a perfect ending. I just finished the final run of episodes on Tuesday. I'm still thinking about it, specifically those final two episodes. I'm gonna miss that show, but it's better to finish strong than to pointlessly keep going and decline for years.

badseed wrote:

Man y'all are crazy. What did you not like about it?

Hayden and I mentioned why we didn't like Midsommar on the 2019 Films and Oscars thread. But hey, it's fun to shit-talk terrible movies. I don't know about Hayden, but I'm happy to do it again. This is some of what I wrote months ago on the other thread:

CA Dreamin wrote:

Midsommar...ugh. Fucking terrible. Wish I could get those three hours of life back. If you're not a fan of Hereditary, don't watch it. You will hate it too because it follows a similar structure but it's much worse in every sense. If you thought the ending of Hereditary was dumb, Midsommar will make you want to beat yourself to a coma...

The major plot issues of Midsommar were in its pacing and editing. It was overly long, drawn out, and predictable, which killed any suspense. For example, from the moment they arrived in Sweden, to the cliff ritual scene, there was about 45-60 minutes where very little happened. The cliff scene was the key scene that set the story in motion but it took way too long to get there. The rest of the story was okay, but there were still several lulls in the action. In regards to the ending, it's comparable to Hereditary. I didn't care for Hereditary's plot twist near the end because I thought it upended what the film was building towards, but I respect that it was actually a twist that most audiences (including myself) didn't see coming. But what was the big reveal near the end of Midsommar? That the commune wasn't really abiding by local folk tradition, and they were just a cult performing human sacrifices? No shit, everyone with at least three brain cells could assume that an hour beforehand. Yet it was still played off as some clever twist as if we didn't already know. Just a very uninteresting an uninspired twist. To make matters worse, Midsommar's dumb story was crowded with dumb, shallow characters, making dumb decisions, and spouting dumb dialogue. Outside of the main character, all of her friends were unlikable douchebags. Of course, this could have all made for some standard "horror" entertainment, watching them all die in some gory fashion. However, there wasn't much of that either. In fact, it wasn't even scary at all. In sum, Midsommar was downright boring and terrible. I've had more fun at funerals.
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badseed

Gender: Male
Age: 35
Location: FL

Sheesh.

I don't think it's any secret that I've dabbled in hallucinogens, so I really dug the scenes where they were on shrooms. Those were the most realistic visuals I've ever seen in any film.

I also don't think I'm surprising anyone when I say I have mental health issues. I'm not as emotional as Florence Pugh's character but I had that in common with her. I've always really enjoyed
emotionally unstable female characters who *SPOILER ALERT* get to the end of their film with a sense of bravado after going through hell, a la Rosemary's Baby or Melancholia. I thought Florence Pugh was really good. I'll admit the rest of the actors weren't easy to sympathise with since I had empathy for the main character, who is emotionally distant from everyone, it made sense from that standpoint that the viewer doesn't get attached to anyone else. I loved the cinematography and the score. I loved that the gore was used sparingly but heavily. Yeah, I had to suspend my belief for some of the characters' actions but you get that in a lot of horror. It's not a perfect film by any means but it's a quality genre film and especially a high spot in the isolated religious village cult horror sub-subgenre.
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Hayden

Location: CDMX

Quote:

But how could anyone remember the Bojack sentence from last year's thread?

I didn't expect anyone too, nor did I actually think it would come up, let alone on the first page Laughing

Quote:

The major plot issues of Midsommar were in its pacing and editing. It was overly long, drawn out, and predictable, which killed any suspense. For example, from the moment they arrived in Sweden, to the cliff ritual scene, there was about 45-60 minutes where very little happened.

This. I actually really liked the premise of Midsommar and figured I'd enjoy it quite a bit (not to mention the cinematography is a joy), but my god I found it a slog. I'm down for a four hour film, whatever, throw an entire miniseries at me, but there's not way that film needed the runtime it had.

I would've cut 90% of the dialogue. Maybe even upwards of 40% of the runtime. If Ari went with an 80-minute jolt of almost Wall-E-esque work, it could've been phenomenal. I was just REALLY not into the first 90 minutes of the film Laughing

... sorry Badseed.

Score's good though.

My Letterboxd review—

Quote:

Cinnamontography.

Oddly disappointing. I found Midsommar a lesser Wicker Man, if you took everything that makes Wicker Man a film and replaced it with... maybe flowers?

Didn't watch the director's cut, but I'm lost as to why anyone would want this to be longer. I can't excuse the first 90-or-so minute slog of the film. By all means, there isn't even 90 minutes of story here. Apart from the singing, screaming, ritualism, and perhaps cheers of skal, Midsommar could have been dialogueless and it would have improved by quite a bit. I don't think anything anyone said ever mattered. What's there doesn't add any depth, plot, soul, humour, suspense... it just makes the characters unlikeable stereotypes. The runtime could've been cut to under 100 minutes without much contemplation.

Costumes are great, art direction's great, cool score, but that's all I got. Really wasn't big on the screenplay. As someone who doesn't mind the occasional 4-hour slow burn, Midsommar's pace kills anything it could've had. It feels like an insanely high-budget high-resource grad school film (albeit, a fairly good one).

I hate that I didn't like it, I was looking forward to it as much as anyone, but I don't even understand people's response. It wasn't scary, it wasn't original, it wasn't mysterious, it wasn't weird-artsy, I didn't particularly feel like it was 'trippy', and hell, it felt more like Oregon than Scandinavia. It wasn't for me.

Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

Darn, I thought I was the one with the worst takes Sad