Best of 2019 - This Could Be It

The Chicago Cubs killed my grandfather.

It was mid-August 1969, and the Chicago Cubs were beginning an epic collapse -- blowing a 9.5-game lead that month -- eventually ending up 8 games behind the Amazin' New York Mets. My grandfather uttered "The Cubs stink," went off to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and as he returned to the living room, he keeled backward in the doorway and crashed like a tree, gone instantly. He was 65.

I was 6.

A lot of ugly but amazin' stuff happened in 1969, and after a year of anniversaries, it's time to put them in an Apollo time capsule and seal them away forever. Last year my age was a multiple of seven, and it was time to launch a new seven-year life cycle. I rewatched -- either on the big screen or in my mind's eye -- the gathering at Woodstock, the moon landing, Chappaquiddick, the Manson murders, the collapse of those Cubs, the felling of my mom's dad, the start of kindergarten.

In 2019, I was surrounded by death and illness. Cancer attacked my mom and two of my oldest friends, one of whom succumbed. Two close friends had loved ones murdered. My healing guru in Arizona died of a heart attack. During this whole struggle, I outlived my father, whose heart had given out 28 years earlier, a half a lifetime ago. The message of this odd year was loud, if not clear: It was time to let go and move on.

Seven years have passed since I revived this film blog full-time at the start of 2013, and that's a life cycle that feels complete. (It helped that in 2016 the Cubs finally exorcised decades of demons by winning the World Series.) It became clear this year as I indulged in the nostalgia and trauma of my childhood era, that it's time to bury the '60s. It was a treat to revisit the moon mission in the tick-tock documentary "Apollo 11"; watch the baby boomers wallow in rose-tinted memories of Woodstock documentaries; or have Quentin Tarantino meticulously re-create the specific time of the Manson killings in L.A. that summer (or, better yet, view the female perspective in "Charlie Says"). But it's over.

There's a list below of the best films of 2019, and it's, you know, a list -- already pinned to the past. Many of you have already skipped down to it. That's great. Load up your queue. Follow the links. The blurbs speak for themselves. No essay needed to put it all into perspective. There was no grand theme that emerged. Like the past couple of years, only the top two or three will endure as great movies that withstand the test of time. (We're twinning this entry with a Best of the Decade, for perspective. We mean it -- it's time to put a bow on an era.)

Which brings me to the movie that struck me as the most appropriate and symbolic of the year, a little-noticed film from 2005. It's called "Game 6," and it has all the ingredients I need in an obscure film -- pre-"Birdman" Michael Keaton as my avatar, a baseball obsession (this time the Red Sox' epic fail in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), a screenplay by Don DeLillo. (GRADE: B+)

The film observes one day in the life in Manhattan of noted playwright Nicky Rogan (Keaton), whose latest drama -- based on his family history -- is debuting on Broadway (and before the vicious critic Steven Schwimmer, played by a loopy Robert Downey Jr.) on the same night that the Red Sox are seeking to close out the World Series in Game 6. You might recall it would be the night when Mookie Wilson's dribbler would go through Bill Buckner's legs, continuing the 68-year Curse of the Bambino.



Buckner, the epitome of the agony of defeat, died, conveniently for this essay, in May of last year at 69. For Nicky, Buckner's error was just another in a long line of heartbreaking plays going back to his childhood as a Red Sox fan. (His age 6 scar involved Johnny Pesky's hesitation on a relay throw in Game 7 of the 1946 Series.) It's that decades-long rollercoaster of having hopes perpetually raised and dashed, raised and dashed, by a stupid baseball team you can't let go of. "It's like having your whole childhood die," Nicky laments to his mistress as he spits mouthwash into the sink for effect, "over and over and over again."

Nicky stalks the city for hours, visiting with a panoply of "This Is Your Life" personas: his dotty father (Tom Aldredge), a burned-out playwright pal (Griffin Dunne), his flaky daughter (Ari Graynor), his chain-smoking estranged wife (Catherine O'Hara -- "I've been talking to a prominent divorce attorney." / "How prominent?" / "He has his own submarine."), his barber (who provides him with a Chekhovian pistol), his lover (Bebe Neuwirth), a young actress (Shalom Harlow), and the cast of his play at rehearsal, led by Peter Redmond (Harris Yulin), who has a mysterious brain disease that's messing with his line readings. Peter can't remember a key line, even though his father character must merely repeat the line posed to him by the son in the play: "This could be it."

This could be it.

Nicky engages with a cabdriver (Lillias White) and her grandson. (In classic DeLillo fashion (see "Cosmopolis") Nicky hopscotches through Manhattan on this day, regaling each of the cabbies (who bear ominous post-9/11 foreign monikers) with his own tales of driving a taxi back in his lean days.) He takes gram and grandson to dinner to watch Game 6. The cabdriver, a wise owl, has mistaken Nicky for an infamous local mobster, and he plays along, gun in the waistband and all. She tries to imbue him with positivity, urging him to lose the loser mentality and embrace hope. (They develop the circular mantra "Baseball is life. Life is good.") Cue a bar full of annoying Mets fans.

This could be it. The moment when the tortured past gets purged, sins are washed.

Except -- and we know this all along -- it doesn't work. Or Nicky just isn't open enough to the universe to allow it to end well. That 6-year-old is stubborn. God and Bill Buckner (former Cub) had other plans. (And Tarantino isn't around to rewrite history.)

DeLillo's philosophical musings are a treat throughout this snappy 83-minute stage play for the screen, full of precise phrasing. (At one point Nicky complains to his pal about a reclusive colleague wasting away "in a small, dark apartment eating soft, white bread.") But the novelist isn't exactly subtle here. "Your truth is locked up in the past," Nicky is told. "Find it. Know it for what it is."

Finding it isn't the problem. How obvious can it be? How heavy can it sit on a 6-year-old's shoulders? But knowing it and wrestling it into submission -- that's the challenge. Nicky would have to wait another 18 years for that championship, for expiation, if he could even be bothered to hold out that long. It can feel impossible to let go of the things that stamped us when we were small.

2019 was a ghastly, ghostly year at times. To cope, I numbed myself with an inordinate number of "R.I.P." headlines in this space -- Agnes Varda, Bruno Ganz, Robert Forster, Robert Evans, Kim Shattuck, Daniel Johnston, Phillip Blanchard, D.A. Pennebaker, Dick Dale ... even one of the "Seven Up" kids died before the latest installment of "63 Up." Bring out your dead!

The pathetic mantra of the Cubs back in the day was always "Wait till next year." Well, next year has finally arrived. The '60s are now comfortably more than 50 years ago; time to seal the decade in a sarcophagus. I'm still among the living, willing to squint into the sunshine and step forward. This could be it.

THE TOP FILMS

   

  1. Give Me Liberty - An exciting debut feature that captures a day in the life of ordinary folks, including a medical transport driver and his charges, in a big city.
  2. The Other Side of Everything - A mesmerizing tone poem about the breakup of Yugoslavia as seen through one family's history.
  3. Marriage Story - Harrowing, funny, real. It hits uncomfortably close to home.
  4. Thunder Road - A crazed fever dream chronicling a flawed man's often-hilarious mental and emotional breakdown. A one-man tour de force.
  5. Under the Silver Lake - A modern stoner neon neo-noir in the grand tradition of L.A. cinema.
  6. Hail Satan? - A flawless documentary that is informative and entertaining.
  7. Wild Rose - As close to pure joy and heartbreak as we got in 2019.
  8. Never Look Away - A gorgeous sweeping history of the second half of the 20th century from the fussy auteur Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
  9. Fyre - An absolute hoot and a story that tells itself so well that all the filmmakers had to do was get out of the way and let it spill.
10. Parasite  - Bong Joon-ho finally finds the sweet spot between story and spectacle with a sizzling, juicy narrative. 
11. Waves - An epic, gut-wrenching family drama that lures you to the edge of your seat and then slams you back in the chair.
12. Honeyland - Realism doesn't get more depressing or insightful than in this documentary.
13. Booksmart - Sheer giddiness and old-fashioned angsty high school bawdiness with two strong leads.

JUST MISSED THE LIST

(Honorables mentioned)

• "The Heiresses"
• "The Charmer"
• "Little Women"
• "Charlie Says"
• "Knives Out"
• "Transit"
• "Wild Pear Tree"

MORE TOP DOCS

• "Bathtubs Over Broadway" 
• "63 Up"
• "Midnight Family"
• "What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael"
• "Varda by Agnes"
• "American Factory"
• "Jay Myself"
• "Echo in the Canyon"
• "For Sama"
• "Apollo 11"
• "Too Funny to Fail"
• "David Crosby: Remember My Name"
• "Raising Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins"

BONUS TRACKS (& PAST MASTERS)

We got to a few leftovers from 2018, too late to make last year's list. A pair that stood out: the unique perspective of the quirky documentary "Bisbee '17"; the tender story of skate-punk buds, "Minding the Gap"

With the dearth of compelling 2019 releases, we reached back further in time and appreciated the following:

• We finally got around to re-viewing and reviewing one of the greatest movies of all time, 1968's "Spring Night, Summer Night."
• The lovely tale of an old man in his final days, from Italy, "The Window" (2009).
• We paid tribute to the memory of Bruno Ganz by teeing up the 1987 classic "Wings of Desire."
• David Lean adapting Noel Coward with 1945's "Brief Encounter."
• Jamie Bell starring in David MacKenzie's "Mister Foe" from 2008.
• The 2002 gem from Bob Odenkirk, "Melvin Goes to Dinner."
• The Hal Hartley indie darling "Fay Grim" from 2006.
• Vincent Gallo's minor masterpiece "Buffalo '66" (1998).
• The gritty 1961 noir nugget "Blast of Silence."

GUILTY PLEASURES

• "Rocketman" was a lot of fun
• "Yesterday" went far on charm
• "Between Two Ferns: The Movie" is silly and satisfying
• The Elliott family schlocking it up in "Clara's Ghost"
• A reinvigorated Eddie Murphy and friends had a good time making "Dolemite Is My Name."

TOP PERFORMANCES

• Saoirse Ronan head and shoulders above everyone in "Little Women." 
• Adam Driver doing laps around a stellar cast in "Marriage Story."
• Joaquin Phoenix was the only thing to like in "Joker."
• Deadpan second-banana Laura Lapkus wrings laughs in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie."
• Ana Brun, steady in "The Heiresses."
• Jim Cummings -- wow -- in "Thunder Road."
• Jessie Buckley is a natural life force in "Wild Rose."
• Taron Egerton embodied Elton John without doing an insipid imitation in "Rocketman."

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Some of our favorite directors didn't thrill us this time around)

• Lynn Shelton fumbled with a mismatched cast in "Sword of Trust."
• Nicole Holofcener strayed from her formula and flopped in "The Land of Steady Habits."
• Alex Ross Perry went off the deep end with the hideous "Her Smell." We walked out.
• We also couldn't make it through Claire Denis' dense and droning "High Life."
• Even Asghar Farhadi had somewhat of an off year with the good but not great "Everybody Knows."
• We'll give Quentin Tarantino high praise for everything but the last 20 minutes of "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood."
• Not that we've bothered much with Martin Scorsese the past 20 years, but "The Irishman" was dullsville. And his cheat of a documentary with Bob Dylan was unforgivable, "Rolling Thunder: A Bob Dylan Film."
• Frederick Wiseman is fading fast with the watching-corn-grow tedium of "Monrovia, Indiana," a leftover from late 2018.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

(Haven't caught these yet)

• Celine Sciamma's "Portrait of a Lady on Fire"
• Francois Ozon's "By the Grace of God"
• From Romania, "I Do Not Care If We Go Down as Barbarians"
• From China, "One Child Nation"
• The Safdie brothers' "Uncut Gems"

Stay tuned for reviews of those five titles and plenty more, albeit in condensed form, as we gleefully charge into 2020, such a round even number.