Hey everyone,
Because of a burnout I was unable to watch movies for about 1.5 years. For 20 months, more precisely. Now it’s time to catch up! Let’s see what dreck Disney has produced over the months. Gotta watch those superhero movies and mediocre remakes! otherwise I can’t follow the conversations of everyone complaining about them.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019). Pretty neat, but somehow I feel manipulated by the visuals into liking it; in an Avatar kind of way. Felt like a collection of a hundred already explored ideas, but produced with skill. I liked it.
Aladdin (2019). Nice production values at times, but otherwise a pretty bland rendition. The songs are lesser versions of the original, and the new Jasmine song sounds too modern compared to the rest.
Captain Marvel (2019). As with most marvel movies, nice visuals. The character of Cap Marvel is pretty bland though. There’s nothing to her. The side characters are doing all the work of telling the story.
Avengers: Endgame (2019). A great ending for a giant series. Nice callbacks to previous movies and very satisfying twists and turns towards the end. Very well done.
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019). My time spent watching Pokemon as a kid finally pays off? No. Hectic, badly written annoyance, but I didn’t hate it.
Missing Link (2019). A rather forgettable animated story. The jokes didn’t work for me. The main character was annoyingly awkward.
Ad Astra (2019). Not the kind of movie that will resonate emotionally with many, but it did with me. Visually stunning and conceptually interesting.
The Lion King (2019). Now looks like a nature documentary, but what have we won? The voices sound disembodied and the lack of emotional expression left me feeling unengaged. The problems go even deeper than that: every little emotional beat of the story feels mishandled, not to mention the ruined songs. Biggest disappointment of the year.
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). Cute characters, gorgeous animation, heartfelt story. The whole series is great. I’d rather watch this than the Lion King remake.
Shazam! (2019). Felt like a breath of fresh air. The bad guy with his ugly monsters was a bit boring, but overall this was quite entertaining.
Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). A third part, yet the previous films have not really prepared its story. A confetti of disconnected storytelling. Failed buildups. Story resets. Individual moments create an illusion of epic. Luckily, there is so much running to and fro that you don’t have time to think about what’s happening.
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (2019). A pleasure to watch. Great dialogue, acting, scenes, just overall good quality filmmaking. A love-letter to an earlier time, to Hollywood, to the Hollywood struggle of actors maintaining their success or reaching for their potential.
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). Good fun. The teenage awkwardness is annoying but limited. Strikes the right balance with Spider-Man as an almost-Avenger and slightly smaller-scale villains.
Jojo Rabbit (2019). Funny, cute, and impressive in more than one way. The interaction between the boy and girl were just perfect, and the inner struggle of the boy really came alive with a phantom Hitler. The comedy is very effective to just highlight the absurdity of the Hitler-Jugend. A good supporting role by Scarlett Johansson.
Joker (2019). The movie sucked (WAAH!? no, lemme finish the sentence) me right into the screen with its power. Phoenix carries – and has to carry – the entire thing on his own with great skill. It coopts a comic franchise but stands solidly on its own, and finally even takes ownership of it. Great acting and character transformation.
To be continued…
A Sky of Books and Movies 
You are so right when you say that Phoenix “carries…the entire thing on his own” in Joker. There is just no film whatsoever there, let alone a decent one, without Phoenix, his performance and his character.
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Oh, I’m a little bit more positive about the rest of the film. It’s simple, yes, but well shot. It looks beautiful and has a kind of slow burn that I appreciate. But yeah, he is the only character of consequence in the story and a lesser actor would have pulled the whole structure down into ruin.
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Haven’t seen a single one of these. Will watch the Tarantino and Endgame though.
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Are you well familiar with the Manson murders/ murder of Sharon Tate? I’d recommend reading up on that before watching the Tarantino, or much of the story and its catharsis will be lost.
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I know the general stuff, but I wouldn’t say well familiar. Thanks for the tip.
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