DOWN THE JOJO RABBIT HOLE: A 2019 OVERVIEW

It is disheartening when this year’s ostensible Best Picture front runner, 1917, turns last century’s arguably most pointless and least justifiable war, World or otherwise, into the cinematic equivalent of a first-person shooter video game.  And with about as much subtlety and insight.  Luckily, we have JOJO RABBIT to balance the scales by poking some much-needed holes into the self-righteous façade of Nazism and, by extension, nationalism, nativism, fascism, pick your “ism”.

During this year’s On The Page Oscar® podcast host Pilar Alessandra rightly pointed out that MARRIAGE STORY follows the divorce and child custody tribulations of two pretty darned privileged people -- a genius grant New York theater director who lives for his art, and his star actress and (soon to be ex-) wife who wants a television career back in her home town of Los Angeles.  Talk about elite world problems.  Thankfully, PARASITE gives us the opportunity to watch class warfare from the bunkers to the trenches to the palaces of the mighty (or at least the spacious homes of the upper-upper-middle class).  That combat trauma would make 1917 blanch.

Perhaps most demoralizing is the dearth of female filmmakers in contention for this year’s awards.  Missing is the raucous teen comedy BOOKSMART, directed by Olivia Wilde and written by Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins and Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman.  Also AWOE (Absent Without Explanation) is QUEEN & SLIM, a modern day Bonnie & Clyde infused with the anger and sorrow of the Black Lives Matters movement, directed by Melina Matsoukas with a screenplay by Lena Waithe from a story by James Frey and Waithe.  And yet LITTLE WOMEN, the year’s most surprising and exhilarating film, has seen its writer/director Greta Gerwig justly nominated for picture and adapted screenplay.  And, if the stars align, she will win for the latter.

All this is to state the obvious:  Oscar® makes mistakes (CRASH, GREEN BOOK, the list goes on).  But it also gets it right now and then (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, MOONLIGHT, to name a few).  In other words, Oscar® is like us -- just generally better looking and better dressed.  So if Oscar® botches the category you’re most invested in tomorrow, try not to get too glum.  Next year they might get it right.  Until then…

I may sound redundant but I am sincere when I express profound thanks to everyone who reads these pages, to everyone who challenges my opinions or, of course, those wise few who agree with me on every particular (wherever and whoever you may be).  Thanks to my patient friends and family.  I would be lost without you.

And now, my favorite films of 2019.  If you have been on the fence about one or more on my list, get off that fence and into a theater or onto your preferred streaming service.  You will not regret it.

Brian Pope

February 8, 2020

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THE BEST OF 2019

THE TOP THREE
(in alphabetical order)

JOJO RABBIT  Writer/director Taika Waititi’s outlandish, darkly funny and surprisingly moving satire (based on Christine Leunens’ Caging Skies) tells the story of an enthusiastic pre-teen Hitler youth called Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) who discovers a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in the home he shares with his mother (Scarlett Johannson), a secret member of the resistance.  Jojo finds himself torn between his mother’s compassion and his imaginary friend Adolf’s (Waititi) childishly goading Nazism.  Though Waititi makes merciless fun of the often buffoonish fascists, he never undercuts the horrors of life under totalitarian rule.  Davis, Johannson and McKenzie are standouts in an exceptional cast.

LITTLE WOMEN  At first writer/director Greta Gerwig’s decision to move Louisa May Alcott’s story back and forth in time is disorienting.  It soon becomes apparent, however, that this choice is decidedly brilliant.  Knowing the happy or heartrending consequences of a character’s decision in advance becomes just one of the many resonant pleasures of this energetic, relevant and often  revelatory reexamination of a time honored chestnut.  Rather than treating the novel as sacred text, Gerwig and her outstanding cast (Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Emma Watson and Meryl Streep, among others) give new life to a classic that makes it feel almost modern.

PARASITE  As you watch South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s stylish and elegantly constructed thriller you may not immediately notice the scathing class commentary at the film’s heart.  That’s because Bong is first and foremost a shrewd entertainer.  The Kim family (Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, Choi Woo-sik and Park So-dam) lives in a basement apartment infested by cockroaches.  When their son becomes the tutor for the daughter of the rich Park family (Lee Sun-kyun, Jo Yeo-jeong, Jung Ji-so and Jung Hyun-jun) the Kim’s concoct a devious plan to insinuate the whole family into the Park household – with devastating results.  Bong and Han Jin-won’s script taps into the zeitgeist, as the film sheds its genre skin and slithers into your subconscious with startling ease.

RUNNERS-UP OF 2019
(in alphabetical order)

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

BOOKSMART

DOCTOR SLEEP

THE IRISHMAN

KNIVES OUT

QUEEN & SLIM

US

Honorable Mentions:  BLACK AND BLUE; BOMBSHELL; CAPTAIN MARVEL;
FORD v FERRARI; JUST MERCY; THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO; MARRIAGE STORY; MIDSOMMAR; ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD; ROCKETMAN; TERMINATOR: DARK FATE; TOY STORY 4;
UNDER THE SILVERLAKE