The Filmgoer's Diary 2018/19

THE TOP 12 MOVIES OF 2019

2019 is probably the first year since 2013 that my top 12 list feels so deprived. I will admit this is the first year I've really dropped the ball and could see a new movie every week. My works kept me busy and I genuinely feel bad about this list not feeling quite as competitive as it has been the last few years. I mean I remember agonizing over putting 7 or 8 films out of the honorable mentions. And almost all of the honorable mentions could've been in the list somehow. This year however, I agonized over 3 of the 8 honorable mentions on here. The rest filled the spot. I'm not proud of this aspect.

That is not to say I do not love the movies I have put on this list. This year saw quite a good number of hard-hitting movies. Probably around the second half of the list on actually. To be completely honest, I managed to watch all the movies I wanted to watch. So I believed I collect a strong number of really good movies this year. Those that I could not see such as 1917, Dark Waters or Bombshells are coming out in Thailand in January or February. The number of films I missed due to my own laziness hovers at the same percentage as last year. Films like Dolemite, Fighting with My Family, Ford vs. Ferrari – I've heard good things about all of them, but sometimes I miss a showing and then I just forget. This is particularly the case for Ford vs. Ferrari – I'm still kicking myself to this day.

But the point is that in terms of film I really liked, I have enough to make a satisfactory list – perhaps not a satisfactory honorable mention, but a satisfactory list. Even though the list is probably much weaker this year than others, I have to say when 2019 hits, it really hits. So let's talk about these decade ending films one last time before celebrating my 2020 anticipated.

Honorable Mention. The Great Hack

This is really timely documentary. Even though I didn't feel this was super well directed, the storytelling, the interviews and certainly the relevance of the issue at hands kept my interest. I was recommending this movie to A LOT of people just because of what it was saying. Honestly the last time a documentary about information leak on the internet got this much out of me was Citizen Four. And honestly, between Snowden and this shit, it's about time my friends stop hounding me about accepting requests and posting more shits on social media.

Honorable Mention. The Edge of Democracy

Another documentary to make it on this list is one that does what I love the most in films: weaving personal narrative with grand processes. The Edge of Democracy looks at a country struggling to deal with its own political system. Democracy is a shaky and grey thing. And this elusive entity is somehow successfully embodied in the series of events, investigations, protests, coups, trials and crises that this documentary portrays. This documentary is supremely well directed, but its strongest point is the choice to put its narrator, the filmmaker Petra Costa in the midst of the issue. Her voice comes through as a guide into contemporary Brazil. And at times, that voice finds itself uncertain of the future and unsure of what to make of the past. The beginning of this film was of particular interest to me because it presents a complex milieu upon which democracy rests. However, and perhaps this is the only thing keeping the film from my top 12, it does get a bit one-sided towards the end. Granted, it's the side I feel the most for, and the side I think is being treated with injustice. It still doesn't change the fact that towards the end, the film loses some of the nuances it started with.

Honorable Mention. Shazam

DC's back baby! In the same year that Marvel start to show some signs of weaknesses, DC starts gaining some serious ground. And once again, it's the choice to go back to basic, to abandon the big universe attempts that makes this all work. Shazam is a fun family time that I think is a bit forgettable. But it feels a lot like one of the phase one MCU films. Those ones you forgot. But are just fun to watch the first time round. And maybe a few more times in retrospect once you came to love the universe.