Movies Best Movies of 2019

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
So what's everyones top films that were released in 2019? Here's mine.

(revised with more Oscar bait movies watched recently!)

1. 1917
2. Avengers: Endgame
3. Joker
4. Jojo Rabbit
5. Uncut Gems
6. Pokémon: Detective Pikachu
7. Spider-Man: Far From Home
8. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
9. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
10. The Highwaymen
11. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
12. Alita: Battle Angel
13. Captain Marvel
14. Shazam!
15. How to Train Your Dragon 3

2019 films I still wanna see:
1917
The Irishman
Jumanji 2
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
Ad Astra
Ford v. Ferrari
Richard Jewell
Uncut Gems

Yeah... I mostly went to theater for more shallow entertaining movies... not anything with any sort of depth. :p
 
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prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
1. Shazam!
2. Ford v. Ferrari
3. Alita: Battle Angel
4. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
5. Harriet
6. The Highwaymen
7. Rambo: Last Blood
8. Crawl
9. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (I guess technically from last year....But I went to it this year)
10. High Strung Free Dance (probably doesn't belong, but I have a weakness for these terrible, cliche, by-the-beats dance movies)

Of those, I think 'The Highwaymen' is one that's underrated by folks and most unseen because Netflix-bullshit while being very much worth watching.

Those top two could go either way, honestly. They're just such different movies it's hard to compare.
Endgame not included because...I dunnow if it 'counts' as released in 2019. It's basically just the final piece of the MCU that's been getting pieced-together for years now, so...I dunnow. Also doesn't seem right to include.

Still want to see Joker, Ad Astra, 1917, and Richard Jewell as well, and the How To Train Your Dragon looked like fun. I'd add to that Hotel Mumbai, as well. Add on Uncut Gems--because I've heard nothing but good things about it even as Adam Sandler's presence makes me tilt my head and go 'huh?' because of typecasting.
 
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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Yeah Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse would've made my list but I doublechecked and saw it was released in 2018. It probably would've made my third or fourth spot I feel.

Also on your recommendation I saw Highwayman and yeah it was a good movie. Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson and Kathy Bates as Governor MA Ferguson. It was nice to see a movie follow the lawmen for once as opposed to following Bonnie and Clyde like previous movies and adaptions of the tale have. Seeing it from the LEO point of view was nice and though it was a bit of a slow movie, it was pretty good.

Kinda bummed with the artistic license they took with the finale shootout though. I think it'd of been just as effective in the historical manner. There was some decent gun porn as well with all of those Colt Monitors and old fashioned self loading rifles with the box magazines.
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Also on your recommendation I saw Highwayman and yeah it was a good movie. Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson and Kathy Bates as Governor MA Ferguson. It was nice to see a movie follow the lawmen for once as opposed to following Bonnie and Clyde like previous movies and adaptions of the tale have. Seeing it from the LEO point of view was nice and though it was a bit of a slow movie, it was pretty good.
Oh, it was plenty enjoyable. I love that this movie wasn't afraid to show that Bonnie and Clyde were vicious murderers, though showing Bonnie committing a murder she didn't actually commit was probably a step too far.

Thinking back about it, the LEO point of view made such a good story because they were the underdogs. They were just two old men, whose decades of experience didn't change the fact that they were past their prime. Bonnie and Clyde were faster and had popular support, whereas the FBI had the overwhelming advantage in manpower and equipment.

As for me, I would rank 2019's movies/shows as:
  1. Ford VS Ferrari
  2. The Highwaymen
  3. ???
  4. ?????
  5. Jack Ryan season 2
Yeah. Turns out, I don't watch a lot of movies. :p
 

Argent

Well-known member
1. Avengers: Endgame
2. Joker
3. How to train your Dargon
4. Spider-Man: Far From Home
5. Shazam!
My top five. When How to Train your Dragon may not have been as good as the frist one it was still fun. But overall it it tied together one of my favorite animated series. They managed to keep the theme and the growth of Hiccup from the frist movie to this one was great and surprising for a show aimed at children.

Avengers End Game is the end to a decade long movies series that started with Ironman. It is a social phenomena that I would argue is equal to the original Star Wars coming out. It is just a shame the Oscar's will never recognize the impact that these movie had or the skill it took to make them.

Also on top of that it was a great movie that left an emotional impact to even the casual MCU fan.

Spider Man Far From Home made the list for a few reasons. The frist is that they keep to the more fun loving Spiderman that Ingrew up with. Also it managed to show how the MCU movies will move on from Endgame. Overall it had a tight plot, the jokes played well and the acting was well done.

Joker made the list for just being different. In a market dominated by superhero movies a charater peice on a villain is something different to grab your attention. But Joker did not just rest on that. They made a compelling movie where reality and fantasy is hard to tell apart. It also shows the different social problems and a somewhat realist veiw of mental illness.

The last is Shazam!. It took a little known superhero and made a fun movie. While it could be replaced with some others just having a D.C. movie I liked is rare enough. But the thi g that sold the movie is that they have Shazam act like a kid. The fact that one of the frist th o.k ngs he does is try to buy booze then candy along with playing skeet with lightning is great. That alone give the movie a lot of points In my mind.

As for Alita: Battle Angel. I saw it made a couple of lists. But overall while better then 99 percent of live action anime movies it just felt overburdened to me. It would have worked better as a mini series or have some parts broken off. The movie tries to do to much. Frist you have Alita regaining her memories and finding what it is like to be a child. Then you have the human smuggling ring, the racing plotline, romance, the hunters, corruption, Doctor Dysion's past, Alita's past, Nova. It culltered up the movie and I feel they should have made the plot a bit tighter and dropped some subplots.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Having seen 1917 a few days ago, I will have to say that it was the best movie released in 2019. I also saw Aladdin and two Netflix horror movies In the Tall Grass and Sweetheart but much like I Am Mother while all of those movies were overall good, I dunno if I'd consider them top ten films in my humble opinion. Though Sweetheart as a simple survival story with a monster backdrop would've been the best of the bunch.

Still hopefully planning on seeing Uncut Gems soon as well.

As for Alita: Battle Angel. I saw it made a couple of lists. But overall while better then 99 percent of live action anime movies it just felt overburdened to me. It would have worked better as a mini series or have some parts broken off. The movie tries to do to much. Frist you have Alita regaining her memories and finding what it is like to be a child. Then you have the human smuggling ring, the racing plotline, romance, the hunters, corruption, Doctor Dysion's past, Alita's past, Nova. It culltered up the movie and I feel they should have made the plot a bit tighter and dropped some subplots.

Yeah I really liked this movie too. I have no frame of reference with the original manga or anime or what have you, but it was a great movie and a great technical achievement. And the acting was great and I loved all of the characters and the story arcs and setting but you could tell that there was A LOT they were glossing over. Especially with the romance and the love interest especially towards the end of the film. The movie didn't suffer for it, but you could feel all of the skimming over of vast swathes of potential story so it prevented me from thinking of it as being a great movie and merely a good one. I don't think it was too jumbled like many modern movies are, but it seemed to be spreading out a lot of its excellent story over a lot of space. It was deep in many parts... but still shallow and spread thin over others (what I'm saying makes sense in my mind).

I agree with you on Alita in that it would've been better served as a miniseries even though I didn't think of it until I read your post. But much like say Solo, it was covering a lot of ground and while I felt it was doing a competent or even good job... it was still spreading itself too thin over a lot of material. But I have said that Solo would've been a great miniseries.

Alita was a better movie IMHO then Solo of course... just had to get that out there.
 

ShieldWife

Marchioness
I just saw 1917 and I really loved it. I would give it 5/5 stars and I hardly ever rate movies that high. It was amazingly well acted and choreographed with a compelling story and characters that really shows both the horrors of war and the power of the indomitable human spirit.
 

FriedCFour

PunishedCFour
Founder
I just saw 1917 and I really loved it. I would give it 5/5 stars and I hardly ever rate movies that high. It was amazingly well acted and choreographed with a compelling story and characters that really shows both the horrors of war and the power of the indomitable human spirit.
Having exactly one cut was certainly interesting.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Just saw JoJo Rabbit today in theaters. Sadly none of the local theaters are playing Uncut Gems anymore so this was my fallback. I mean seeing the trailer made me think this film was right up my alley but I was still kinda ambivalent about watching it in theaters. But gave it a shot and it was a pretty good movie. One of my favorites.

It was definitely entertaining and the whole film was basically a decent Try Not to Laugh Challenge it seemed with all of the (largely defanged) dark humor it had within it. I'm guessing only Directors like Taiki Wakiki could make a film like this, weaving such a dark setting with aberrant humor so shamelessly not just because he's a talented Director, but his identity provides him some insulation from criticism (though skimming over the reviews, not all of the stupid criticism of this film). It was very funny throughout but it blended tragedy and comedy very well so while there were laughs, it wasn't so much that it made one lost the message.

Usually dark humor movies can be pretty awkward or uneven in their tone or atmosphere (Very Bad Things being the worst example) but this movie never got into tasteless territory I feel or made things too funny you lost impact on the drama in some of the scenes or lessened the impact of anything. Which was impressive in itself, this movie really managed to somehow weave antisemitism, family issues, Nazism, and modern war themes with comedy, humor, satire and wit to a degree that was really amazing to see all blended together. Like in some scenes... I was feeling super sad and down... and laughing at the same time, the juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy was so well done.

It wasn't a perfect movie by any means, but it was a really good one worth a watch. There are issues with it, but they feel so minor to me (some jokes falling flat or being a bit eyerolling because they feel forced) but criticism on that line would've been more personal nitpicking then actual serious criticism.

Browsing over the negative/rotten reviews on RT, it seems fairly obvious that the "critiques" that these critics have would've fucking ruined the movie. For example, mouth breathing New York Times film critic A.O. Scott said "The Third Reich wasn't all fun and games" because apparently he missed all of the scenes of mass executions, soldiers with missing limbs hobbling about and women and children getting gunned down... but I digress. His other main complaint was that the Jewish characters lacked Jewishness in context. It's true... for some unfathomable reason the message that Jews are human beings like you and I was a message A.O. Scott apparently missed. The only time you saw distinct Jewishness in this movie is in the Nazi propaganda. None of the actual Jewish characters in this film displayed hooked noses, hid Jew Gold, wore horn hiding hats or feasted on Aryan foreskin. They were too busy hiding and living in desperate squalor to act too Jewish for the New York Times.

So yeah... probably one of my favorite movies of the year! Watch it!

Or don't... whatever.

If you liked Thor: Ragnarok, you'll probably thoroughly enjoy this movie. Which sounds weird to say...
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
So three Oscar-bait movies in three nights. After watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and JoJo Rabbit the previous two nights, I found a theater still playing Uncut Gems which was Adam Sandler's new movie and it was pretty good too. I remember first seeing the trailer weeks ago and thinking... I really want to see this movie. Then I saw the divisive audience reviews on RottenTomatoes about how it was just a cacophony of swearing or whatever and decided maybe not. But friends and the internet kept nudging me into watching it if I had the chance and well I did tonight and I'm glad I checked it out. I can see how it can be a polarizing movie. Sure there will be people who might be dumb enough to think it's an Adam Sandler comedy but it's not.

Uncut Gems was a great film. The trailer pretty much gives the gist of it. Adam Sandler does a great job as a gems and jewelry salesperson whose addicted to dealmaking and gambling and everything and all of that to the point it's seemingly self and everyone else destructive. And everyone else did a great job here. Lots of good character actors and even Kevin Garnett of all people (one of a plethora of celebrity appearances here and none of them exactly 'flattering' self portrayals) did a great job with his performance. It was great acting again... like Adam Sandler was phenomenal and so was the rest of the cast. So many characters and interactions and it never got really boring or slow or tedious. The film managed to bring it all together in a nice movie that didn't seem like it was being stretched out even though it's more then two hours long.

This movie is also super tense. It's like a crime thriller and it's not like tense through the whole movie... but when it is tense... it's so much so it's almost uncomfortable. But it's not a bad sort of discomfort. I never felt like cringing away from it... it never incurred anxiety in me like some other movies would (Requiem for a Dream for example with its drug use themes). It was just so riveting watching the main character dancing his way through all of this family and business and personal and professional drama and seeing him dig his way through it all. It was just fascinating to watch it all develop and unfold and everytime there seemed to be catharsis the movie kept it in the back of your mind that it wasn't over yet.

Great movie... but I can see how some just wouldn't like it. Sort of. The trailer doesn't really lie to you I feel. It's a tension filled thriller type of movie. Real gritty, great character acting. Totally riveting to watch. Definitely going to mess up my top ten list even more.

And I think I'm done with Oscar bait movies for a while. Going to spend the next decade watching mostly crap in theaters again probably. ;)

Just checked too.... of course somehow this movie gets snubbed by the Oscars. Buncha tools... they nominate ten movies and somehow this doesn't get put in the running? Whatever.
 

Argent

Well-known member
I agree with you on Alita in that it would've been better served as a miniseries even though I didn't think of it until I read your post. But much like say Solo, it was covering a lot of ground and while I felt it was doing a competent or even good job... it was still spreading itself too thin over a lot of material. But I have said that Solo would've been a great miniseries.

Alita was a better movie IMHO then Solo of course... just had to get that out there.

It is something I think a lot of movies could do that are based on series. Sometimes you just have to cut out things from a long running Manga or book series.

It has always stuck with me the difference between the old Dune movie and the Sci Fi mini series. 9n3 could just cover so much more ground.

Even the Harry Potter movies had to make some choices that cut a lot of the background out after book two. So while you still got the plot anyone that read the books noticed the lack of certain details.

I think that is what mainly got me. I watched the anime and read the comic a while back. So I knew about the wrold and like you said the movie did a good job but just spread it self to thin.


As for other movies I just saw Ford vs Ferrari and it was good. While it doesn't replace my top five it would make a top ten list easy.

Overall it is more a charater drama then an action film. But it has a good mix of humor, action, and tension that keeps you watching.
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Went to see 1917 recently, and I'd agree with (seemingly common) sentiment it's very well-done, and easily slots into the top two or three positions for me at least. While the characters and plot are good, the settings and different 'atmosphere' presented in each one are perhaps the greatest reason for it. The transitions from field of flowers to war-torn hellscape of craters and death back to fields, then ruins, then trees is powerful itself and some cool association with the story and drama (even if I'm pretty sure bonkers, historically). The trailers spoil it a bit, but of special mention is the early scene in the German trenchwork-tunnels, where it manages to present horror-movie levels of tension, followed by some comedic relif that instantaneously transitions back to shock and terror of a horror film...Only done in a war movie.

I'm...Actually a bit iffy on the 'single-shot' presentation/gimmick it went with? I think it contributed to the general atmosphere and presentation without doubt, and at some points--and I mean this in a good way--it felt like a 'third person' following-along (the beginning especially) but it also felt a bit conspicuous at times? The number of times there were 'hidden'breaks and transitions by the camera panning over dirt, or across a blank wall, or from one side of a house to another made it feel a bit more awkward in ways a jump-cut wouldn't? Still really impressive, and the length of time for each shot is probably really up-there, but I couldn't help but notice it and at times it felt more distracting and like it was being maintained for 'gimmick' purposes than a more solid reason. The pan across the farmhouse the protagonists come across that soldiers are peeing against the one that sticks out as most conspiciously not adding much but 'maintaining the one-shot trick', while other stuff like the pan 'up' over the mounds of dirt when going into no-man's-land clearly had some more solid reasoning for it...They just seemed more 'noticeable' than they perhaps should have in each case.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Went to see 1917 recently, and I'd agree with (seemingly common) sentiment it's very well-done, and easily slots into the top two or three positions for me at least. While the characters and plot are good, the settings and different 'atmosphere' presented in each one are perhaps the greatest reason for it. The transitions from field of flowers to war-torn hellscape of craters and death back to fields, then ruins, then trees is powerful itself and some cool association with the story and drama (even if I'm pretty sure bonkers, historically). The trailers spoil it a bit, but of special mention is the early scene in the German trenchwork-tunnels, where it manages to present horror-movie levels of tension, followed by some comedic relif that instantaneously transitions back to shock and terror of a horror film...Only done in a war movie.

I'm...Actually a bit iffy on the 'single-shot' presentation/gimmick it went with? I think it contributed to the general atmosphere and presentation without doubt, and at some points--and I mean this in a good way--it felt like a 'third person' following-along (the beginning especially) but it also felt a bit conspicuous at times? The number of times there were 'hidden'breaks and transitions by the camera panning over dirt, or across a blank wall, or from one side of a house to another made it feel a bit more awkward in ways a jump-cut wouldn't? Still really impressive, and the length of time for each shot is probably really up-there, but I couldn't help but notice it and at times it felt more distracting and like it was being maintained for 'gimmick' purposes than a more solid reason. The pan across the farmhouse the protagonists come across that soldiers are peeing against the one that sticks out as most conspiciously not adding much but 'maintaining the one-shot trick', while other stuff like the pan 'up' over the mounds of dirt when going into no-man's-land clearly had some more solid reasoning for it...They just seemed more 'noticeable' than they perhaps should have in each case.

I was actually worried about that because when I first heard about 1917 it was just as a good war movie... then it was mentioned it was all like going to be a single cut then someone said it became a distraction looking for the cuts and then I was like 'Oh no... this is going to take me away from the film.' and so I started watching the movie... and by ten minutes in I had forgotten I was supposed to be distracted by the cinematic tricks they were going to use to make the cuts. Occassionally I'd be reminded of it in some hamfisted manner, like during the actual time shifts in the film but for the most part it didn't even factor in for me... personally and I was a bit... distracted by the thought I would be distracted by it... but thankfully the movie itself proved far too distracting for me due to how great it was for me to be distracted by the thing I was worried I'd be distracted about.
 

absenceofmalice

Well-known member
Temporarily Banned
I haven’t seen that many movies this year but there were a few that I did like. My favorites were Rambo:last blood and 1917.

I loved Rambo last blood because it was full of action and violence and was unapologetic for it. The dark subject matter the film addressed wasn’t presented without any irony. Bonus points for them showing you can’t just draw a bow and hold it indefinitely.

I can go on about the bad movies but I guess that should be another thread.
 

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