Those referring back to the Some Other Movies From 2019 entry will see that I've already watched most of the movies from that year. What you see below is four of the few remaining movies I haven't.
The following things happened in 2019:
- U.S.-China tensions surfaced again as the U.S. Justice Department charged Chinese tech giant Huawei with multiple counts of fraud.
- The Indian air force launched multiple air strikes against targets in Pakistan.
- Venezuela underwent a sustained presidential crisis.
- The EU fined Google over breaches of antitrust regulations.
- A fire engulfed the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a controversial "sovereign internet" bill into law.
- Thousands of Hong Kong residents protested against their local government.
- U.S. President Donald Trump pulled America out of several trade and military agreements.
- The COVID-19 pandemic kicked off with the first known human case in Hubei, China.
Some Good Ones
1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
This movie reminded me a bit of the earlier La Belle Noiseuse. Both movies explore the relationship between an artist and his/her subject, and both movies relate eroticism to art. In Portrait of a Lady on Fire this erotic element is at once more explicit and less spoken of, while in La Belle Noiseuse the erotic element is at once more aesthetic and more discussed between various characters. Both movies also move at a glacial pace, so if you've just watched F9 expect to have trouble focusing on this one.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire and La Belle Noiseuse are both, however, undeniably good movies. I'd recommend watching either of these movies around midday, after you've had a good nap and a cup of coffee. That should be the right time.
The director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma, was in a relationship with star Adele Haenel (Heloise) at the time of filming. One could interpret this entire movie as a love letter to Haenel, though Sciamma and Haenel have since parted ways.
Oh, and Valeria Golino is in this. Remember her? She was in several American movies back in the 80s. Her career has since shifted over to Europe, though she's made a few appearances in American TV shows.
2. The Platform
In this Spanish production a man tries to survive six months in a "Vertical Self-Management Center." It's a very violent film that trades in a lot of symbolism. I didn't love it, and it felt to me like a novel I would've had trouble finishing.
3. The Gentlemen
Guy Ritchie traffics in British and American gangsters. Unlike Anna below this movie really is a return to form, with Ritchie outdoing himself in terms of plot twists and memorable exchanges between idiosyncratic characters. Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Grant turn in great performances, and the movie is familiar in a comforting way.
A Bad One
3. Anna
Speaking of Notre-Dame (de Paris), you can see it in this movie when Anna walks out of the photo shoot. Most of Anna is set in Paris, which makes sense given that the director, producer and writer is Luc Besson, who'd just wrapped production on the disastrous Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
Anna is undoubtedly better than Valerian, and the story, centered around a KGB agent turned supermodel, plays to Besson's strengths as a director. Costars Luke Evans and Helen Mirren make it slightly better than it ought to be, and there are some good fight scenes, but the movie moves backwards and forwards too much. Once Cillian Murphy shows up in the tropics it gets very ridiculous very fast.
Fun Fact: Star Sasha Luss was in Valerian too. At the time of writing her filmography consists of that movie and this one.
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