This is a Very…Very… Temporary Top 10 List Halfway Through Oscar Season
We’ve dipped our toes a tad into Oscar season, so it felt apt to put together another Top 10 List at this point in the year. There’s a few additions since August, including the film that I think will be the best movie of the year, taking over the new #1 slot.
Netflix’s promotion of this movie was pretty lackluster. Don’t know why, because this movie’s merger of time travel with race relations storytelling is smartly conceived and executed very well. Props to Stefon Bristol; dude, where did you come up with this idea?
British Pakistanis and Bruce Springsteen don’t seem like an ideal match for a great film. But in Gurinder Chada’s hands, the movie gets the Bend It Like Beckham treatment, turning the story into a great exploration of culture, music, family, racism, and the working class. Despite those serious themes, its hella funny too.
It takes a certain intestinal fortitude to write direct and star in a movie where you play Adolf Hitler as a young boy’s best friend. Taika Waititi’s style might not be for everyone, but if you like silly satires that have the capacity to pack a wallop, then Jojo will hit you harder than you think it will.
Yimou Zhang is not a filmmaker well known in America, but China’s medieval martial arts auteur does it again with this beautiful looking gem. Using epic storytelling and sumptuous visuals, Shadow can proudly stand among Zhang’s best work including Hero or Raise the Red Lantern.
It takes guts to follow up a perfect film. But Toy Story 4 pulls it off, again proving how Pixar’s master storytellers can continue to find a deep well of emotional truth in a bunch of plastic figurines or a spork with pipe cleaner arms. If this is Woody/Buzz/etc’s swansong, then it’s a perfectly sweet one to end on.
Mark Twain’s DNA is all over this completely adorable road trip movie. Shia Laboeuf and Dakota Johnson are great, but Zack Gottsagen will get all the praise here, as I don’t really recall a man with Down Syndrome leading a movie in such a fun and joyful way.
A scathing, pitch black satire that is very clever and very biting. Jesse Eisenberg and Alessandro Nivola are really great in their study of how pervasive, cruel, and amusingly stupid toxic masculinity is.
A story about a dying grandmother and a family hiding her secret feels like it should be really sad and manipulative. Such is the delight of Lulu Wang’s beautiful film, which presents the differences between the East and West in a subtle, lovely funny way, and contains a revelatory performance from Awkwafina.
A fairly sprawling look at a former GM plant that was taken over by a Chinese company. This prescient documentary takes an unflinching look at the universal struggle of working people and how the powers that be are unaware of the pain and suffering these heroes endure because of their decision making.
Bong Joon Ho finally put it all together. This will be his masterpiece. Successfully merging a bunch of genres into a fascinating story about class and society, this twisty fascinating tale is a gift that keeps on giving. And could only be told by a director at the peak of his powers.
Just read the descriptions of the films, it seems a better title for the article would be “Top Ten Wokest Movies of 2019”. While I love a good meaningful story, it seems this selection of movies are all about preachiness, and I for one am getting weary of being preached to. Perhaps the author of this article is averse to a movie just being a fun story.
Just read the descriptions of the films, it seems a better title for the article would be “Top Ten Wokest Movies of 2019”. While I love a good meaningful story, it seems this selection of movies are all about preachiness, and I for one am getting weary of being preached to. Perhaps the author of this article is averse to a movie just being a fun story.