THE SCREEN-SPACE BEST (AND WORST) FILMS OF 2019

Takeaways from the year in cinema include the forced retirement of some once-glorious franchise friends (Terminator Dark Fate; X-Men Dark Phoenix; Rambo Last Blood); the resounding indifference to remakes/reboots/rehashes (Charlie’s Angels; Pet Semetary; Hellboy; Shaft); and, the struggle faced by marketers when selling specialised content (despite pre-release hype and critical buzz, Midsommar sputtered to US$43million globally). Australia produced a legitimate homegrown hit with Ride Like a Girl (US$8.5million), but otherwise found the marketplace tough (Storm Boy, US$4million; Danger Close, US$2million; The Nightingale, a paltry US$0.5million, despite critical acclaim).

But there was much to feel optimistic about. Despite what the HFPA would have you believe, women directors have made some of the year’s best films (40% of my Top 30 are female helmed); Oscars 2019 recognised diversity (in their own baby-step way) when handing out the Golden Guy, even if Best Picture winner, Green Book, carried with it some ugly baggage; and, quite hilariously, the young, white male web-overlords freaked the f*** out when the CATS trailer dropped (apparently, if you’re going to prance around in tights and makeup, you better be in a Marvel movie). Anyway, here are our favourites of 2019 (with their Rotten Tomatoes % included, to show how much we really run with the pack on this stuff)…

10. KNIVES OUT (Dir: Rian Johnson; 130 mins; USA; 97%) Starved of ol’ fashioned star-driven ensemble romps, audiences and critics alike reacted to Rian Johnson’s ripping murder/mystery yarn as if a genre had been borne. Knives Out isn’t new cinema (seek out Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap, from 1982, for starters), but it pulsed with a crisp freshness and giddy sense of fun the likes of which rarely survive studio suits interference.

9. HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCE (Dir: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter; 137 mins; USA; 98%) The vivacity and vision that Beyoncé displayed in staging her Coachella 2018 set is captured with a potency that leaves the viewer breathless in Homecoming. Her music, her motives, her motherhood – the icon stamps this moment in her country’s history as her own in a behind-the-scenes concert film that ranks amongst the best ever.

8. WORKING WOMAN (ISHA OVEDET) (Dir: Michal Aviad; 93 mins; Israel; 97%) “The piercing humanistic precision that Michal Aviad honed with her decades as one of the world’s finest documentarians serves her well..” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.

7. COLOR OUT OF SPACE (Dir: Richard Stanley; 110 mins; USA; 87%) The combination of talents is irresistible to the cult cinema crowd – be he brilliant or barmy, director Richard Stanley; author of the alien invasion source story, H.P Lovecraft; and the mad maestro himself, Nicholas Cage. The finished product is a B-movie fever-dream; a twisted, terrifying, exhilarating nightmare of family angst and parasitic world domination.

6. BOOKSMART (Dir: Olivia Wilde; 101 mins; USA; 97%) A coming-of-age teen comedy with heavy doses of blue humour shouldn’t feel so fresh, be so funny, or pack an emotional punch like Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut managed. With Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever (pictured, top; far left) inhabiting their co-lead roles and a thematic through-line in acceptance tugging at the heartstrings, Booksmart is so much more than the Superbad-for-girls the trailer promised.

5. WILD ROSE (Dir: Tom Harper; 101 mins; UK; 93%) The balance between dreams, talent and the roots that give them meaning have rarely been so acutely portrayed as in Tom Harper’s Wild Rose. As Rose-Lynn Harlan, the Glaswegian ex-con with a voice that fills the room and raises the roof, Jessie Buckley is a revelation; by the time she belts out ‘No Place Like Home’, her tears and triumphs bring emotions that only great rags-to-riches-to-rags stories deliver.  

4. ALICE (Dir: Josephine Mackerras; 103 mins; UK | France | Australia; 100%) In this story of a French woman cocooned by the façade of a dishonest marriage and her rise to independence, Josephine Mackerras has crafted a moving, funny, immediate #MeToo superheroine. As Alice, Emilie Piponnier (pictured, right, and top right) is the Australian director’s perfect foil; her emergence on-screen as a self-reliant, sexually energised woman in charge of her own destiny is the character arc of the year.

3. AD ASTRA (Dir: James Gray; 124 mins; USA; 84%) ‘Mr Serious Filmmaker’ James Gray tackling a science-fiction story (essentially Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with added daddy issues) had us all intrigued; most critics liked it, audiences not so much (tapped out at US$130million globally). A dark reflection on legacy, masculinity and the pain of truthful self-discovery meant Gray was in his high-minded element, but he didn’t skimp on genre prerequisites (the year’s best VFX) and a subversive ‘movie star’ presence in Brad Pitt’s nuanced performance.

2. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU) (Dir: Céline Sciamma; 121 mins; France; 97%) How does the artist capture a subject who refuses to be observed, who refutes closeness of any kind? Writer/director Céline Sciamma painstakingly unravels the constraints of 18^th decorum and privilege to capture a physical and spiritual connection between two women, alone on an isolated Brittany island. Embodying the soaring, doomed romantic liaison are actresses Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, whose performances connect as only the greatest of screen lovers can.

1. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (Dir: Quentin Tarantino; 161 mins; USA; 85%) “[Tarantino’s] heart is in this film, for the first time afforded as much input as his fan-boy passion and film culture knowledge…” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.

The next 20 (in no particular order; with their Rotten Tomatoes %, where possible) are also great, so please seek them out…:
REPOSSESSION (Dirs: Ming Siu Goh, Scott C. Hillyard; 96 mins; Singapore; N/A)
LITTLE WOMEN (Dir: Greta Gerwig; 134 mins; USA; 96%)
KNIVES AND SKINS (Dir: Jennifer Reeder; 112 mins; USA; 72%)
ROMANTIC COMEDY (Dir: Elizabeth Sankey; 78 mins; UK; 100%)
THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Dirs: Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz; 97 mins; USA; 95%)
ATLANTICS (Dir: Mati Diop; 106 mins; France | Senegal | Belgium; 95%)
THE GOLD-LADEN SHEEP AND THE SACRED MOUNTAIN (SONA DHWANDI BHED TE SUCHHA PAHAD (Dir: Ridham Janve; 97 mins; India; N/A)
UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (Dir: David Robert Mitchell; 139 mins; USA; 58%)
READY OR NOT (Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett; 95 mins; USA; 88%)
KLAUS (Dirs: Sergio Pablos, Carlos Martínez López; 96 mins; Spain | UK; 92%
THE BEACH BUM (Dir: Harmony Korine; 95 mins; USA; 55%)
HUSTLERS (Dir: Lorene Scafaria; 107 mins; USA; 88%)
CAPTAIN MARVEL (Dir: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck; 123 mins; USA; 78%)
PARASITE (GISAENGCHUNG) (Dir: Boon Jong Ho; 132 mins; Korea; 99%)
TOY STORY 4 (Dir: Josh Cooley; 90 mins; USA; 97%)
THE REPORT (Dir: Scott Z. Burns; 119 mins; USA; 82%)
APOLLO 11 (Dir: Todd Douglas Miller; 93 mins; USA; 99%)
THE FURIES (Dir: Tony D’Aquino; 82 mins; Australia; 60%)
JOJO RABBIT (Dir: Taika Waititi; 108 mins; New Zealand | Czech Republic; 79%)
MOSLEY (Dir: Kirby Atkins; 96 mins; New Zealand | China; N/A) 

THE WORST FILMS OF 2019:
Todd Phillip’s Joker was a puerile, garish, tone-deaf shout-out to angry white males who responded en masse, as was the plan.
Disney plundered its vaults and manufactured a series of awful live-action/CGI abominations that reeked of cash-grab cynicism and stockholder pandering - the hideous Mary Poppins Returns and unnecessarily mean-spirited Dumbo; The Lion King was ok, but ‘not as bad as we expected’ is faint praise.
A lot of critics played the ‘its big, dumb, fun card’ in cutting slack to the idiotic brand-extension film, Fast & Furious Present: Hobbs & Shaw, while the more mature filmgoer had to contend with their own dire movie moments, in grotesque melodrama (Isabelle Huppert in Greta) and boomer privilege fantasy (director Rachel Ward’s insufferable Palm Beach).
The Worst Film of 2019, and by some measure, is Sony’s risible attempt to rekindle the MIB franchise, MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL. Directed by the utterly disinterested F. Gary Gray, this mish-mash of poor effects and grab-bag plotting hoped to exploit the chemistry generated by Thor Ragnarok co-stars Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, but the film leaves Thompson clutching at thin air character-wise and Hemsworth…well, he’s no Will Smith. Handing this horror-show over to Kumail Nanjiani’s comic-relief CGI alien to salvage at the midway mark is testament to the vacuum of creativity on show.