Well, here we are again: January is nearly over, so that means it’s time for me to finally get around to starting to post my 2019 EOY retrospective. This is a retrospective dedicated to the movies I saw in 2019, not just the movies that came out in 2019, so I’ll be breaking it up into three categories: 2019 Movies I saw in 2019; 2018 Movies I saw in 2019 (because of course so many of the best movies of the year come out right at the end of the year); and Pre-2018 Movies I saw in 2019, which I include as a catch-all for any older movies I saw. In each of those categories, I’ll be looking at male performances, female performances and the movies themselves. First off:
Top 5 Female Performances
Chieko Baisho – Howl’s Moving Castle
Well, the nice thing about being old is you’ve got nothing much to lose.
Zoey Deutch – Flower
Zoey Deutch . . . gets some astonishingly big laughs out of her mugging . . . the performance becomes more subtle as Erica begins to feel some more complex emotions . . . compassion, uncertainty, empathy.
Zaide Silvia Gutierrez – El Norte
Zaide Silvia Gutierrez is naturalistic, but also iconic.
Kyoko Hasegawa – Three…Extremes
Kyoko Hasegawa is wonderful as a young writer haunted by a recurring nightmare . . .we find ourselves lost in memories of the horrible trauma that scarred her as a young child.
Bai Ling – Dumplings
You must start from the inside for the best result. Only my secret formula can do this. Mrs. Li, think of the results. Not what it was.
Top 5 Male Performances
Gael Garcia Bernal – Coco
Know that I’m with you the only way that I can be/Until I’m in your arms again, remember me.
Anthony Gonzales – Coco
This isn’t a dream then. You’re all really out there.
Leon Lai – 3 Extremes II
The surreptitious and mysterious Mr. Yu . . . helped along by some great performances. Leon Lai is fantastic as Mr. Yu.
Joey Morgan – Flower
Joey Morgan . . . has a real pain and awkwardness . . . captures the emotional torment he’s dealt with or, rather, failed to deal with . . .both heart-wrenching and hilarious.
Eric Tsang – 3 Extremes II
Eric Tsang brings an endearing slovenliness to his role as the blue collar cop that finds himself drawn into the strange story of his new neighbors.
Top 5 Best Films
An All-Colored Vaudeville Show
The performers’ amazing talents can’t be suppressed and, decades later, their vibrant intensity shines through to create a work of truly magnificent entertainment.
About twenty or thirty minutes into Coco, I was thinking to myself that this movie was going to be kind of mid-tier Pixar. You know, good, but not truly great. A bit over an hour later, I was weeping.
What it does is bring the viewer right down to ground level with characters that represent a group that’s all too often been dehumanized and degraded and that is, in and of itself, a revolutionary act.
This movie is a kind of contented sigh of a film, a sweet, earnest fairy-tale that evoked a sense of peace and emotional fulfillment.
It’s kind of impossible to get a fix on what exactly the movie is up to or even wants to be up to, but it’s a fun experience and a unique film . . .because of the sheer license given to the directors.