Best movies 2019

I am happy to recommend these selections, the links going to my earlier remarks about them:

Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse (animated)

Campernaum (Ethiopian refugee in Beirut)

Transit

Us

Ash is Purest White (Chinese, obscure)

High Life (best science fiction movie of the year?)

Long Day’s Journey into Night (big screen only, Chinese obscure)

Woman at War (Icelandic, wacky)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (duh)

Booksmart (full of energy on the screen)

Echo in the Canyon (L.A. music scene in the 1960s and beyond)

The Farewell (American-Chinese, about a dying relative)

Honeyland (Macedonian, about bee keepers)

Inside Bill’s Brain (Bill Gates, short documentary)

Joker

Parasite (Korean, the Straussian reading is anti-egalitarian)

JoJo Rabbit (modern-day anti-Nazi comedy, mostly they pull it off)

Marriage Story

Atlantics

The Rise of Skywalker

A Hidden Life

From those my top picks would be Marriage Story — the American redo of Scenes from a Marriage, and then Honeyland.  Overall it was a much better year for movies than last year.

As for marginal choices, Ad Astra and Knives Out were two movies I liked, and came close to making this list, but didn’t.

As for historic cinema, I am very glad I purchased the complete Blu-Ray set of Ingmar Bergman movies, spectacular transfers and the American viewer can watch the true, complete version of Persona for the first time.

As for the rest of the year, I have high hopes for The Souvenir, Little Women and also the new Adam Sandler movie, but I have not yet seen them.  The documentary For Sama has potential too.

What am I forgetting?

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