38. Hale County This Morning This Evening (Ross, 2018)
39. Transit (Petzold, 2018)*
40. Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
41. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)*
42. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (DeBlois, 2019)
43. Columbus (Kogonada, 2017)
44. Pain and Glory (Almodovar, 2019)*
45. The Dead Don't Die (Jarmusch, 2019)*
46-47. When They See Us (DuVernay, 2019)
48. Franco Building with Jonathan Meades (2019)
49. Beautiful Boy (Van Groeningen, 2018)
50. Disobedience (Lelio, 2017)
51. The Souvenir (Hogg, 2019)*
52. Chi-Raq (Lee, 2015)
Had a little cinema binge last couple weeks:
Transit - interesting concept of acting out a thriller of refugees trying to escape seemingly occupied WW2 France, but shot in modern setting. Does add a layer of flatness and artificiality that makes it hard to be drawn in.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - fun hangout film in late 60s Hollywood. Yeah, he overshot a bit in the last act, but eh, it's still a hugely enjoyable cinema experience. Utterly gloriously shot.
Pain & Glory - one of Almodovar's best, which is some achievement. Brilliant and wholly absorbing autobiography. Antonio Banderas is great, could get an Oscar nom for this, if they go for one of their occasional foreign language acting picks.
The Dead Don't Die - crammed in the same week, three new films at cinemas from three of my favourites of recent decades, which had all competed at Cannes. Definitely minor Jarmusch, it had fun playing with its knowing genre tropes for the first half, but didn't really go anywhere in the 2nd. Still, it's got a cast of deadpan pros who carry it through and there's far worse ways to spend 90 mins.
The Souvenir - Probably the most dreary two hours I've spent in a cinema; thank God I didn't have to pay for this one.. Getting rave reviews for reasons I cannot fathom. And judging by the comments I was hearing coming out of the cinema, I was not alone. A few good songs on the soundtrack nowhere near enough to save it. Is it being double-plus meta to make a lifeless uninspired autobiographical film about a lifeless uninspired film student? Joanna Hogg is 2 for 2 in strong dislikes from me (saw Unrelated a good few years ago). I'm not going to be rushing for #3.
From the others, I thought Columbus was a good debut & When They See Us definitely deserves watching. The Meades doc was typically fine mix of architecture & history, surrealism & polemics, though it felt a bit like it was meant to be a series but got condensed along the way into one feature length doc.
* = cinema
1. In Fabric (Strickland, 2018)*
2. Minding the Gap (Bing Liu, 2018)
3. Lost in London (Harrelson, 2017)
4. Aquaman (Wan, 2018)
5. Las herederas/The Heiresses (Martinessi, 2018)
6. The Girl in the Spider's Web (Alvarez, 2018)
7. Les salauds (Denis, 2013)
8. Midsommar (Aster, 2019)*
9. Un couteau dans le coeur/Knife + Heart (Gonzalez, 2018)
10. Wildlife (Dano, 2018)
11-14. Escape at Dannemora Ep 1-8 (Stiller, 2018)
15. Euphoria (Langseth, 2017)
16. Incident in a Ghostland (Laugier, 2018)
17. At Eternity's Gate (Schnabel, 2018)
18. Damsel (Zellners, 2018)
19. Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (Loveridge, 2018)
20. The Little Stranger (Abrahamson, 2018)
21. Le redoubtable (Hazanavicius, 2017)
22. Vox Lux (Corbet, 2018)
23. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (Berlinger, 2019)
24. Loro (International Cut) (Sorrentino, 2018)
25. Spider-Man: Far From Home (Watts, 2019)*
26. Cold Weather (Katz, 2010)
27. Mortal Engines (Rivers, 2018)
28. Blindspotting (Estrada, 2018)
29. The Great Hack (Noujaim & Amer, 2019)
30. Heaven Knows What (Safdie Brothers, 2014)
31. Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher, 2018)
32. Photograph (Batra, 2019)*
33. Dumbo (Burton, 2019)
34. Sunset (Nemes, 2018)
35. Flotten/The Raft (Lindeen, 2018)
36. Leto (Serebrennikov, 2018)
37. A Simple Favor (Feig, 2018)
38. Hale County This Morning This Evening (Ross, 2018)
39. Transit (Petzold, 2018)*
40. Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
41. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)*
42. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (DeBlois, 2019)
43. Columbus (Kogonada, 2017)
44. Pain and Glory (Almodovar, 2019)*
45. The Dead Don't Die (Jarmusch, 2019)*
46-47. When They See Us (DuVernay, 2019)
48. Franco Building with Jonathan Meades (2019)
49. Beautiful Boy (Van Groeningen, 2018)
50. Disobedience (Lelio, 2017)
51. The Souvenir (Hogg, 2019)*
52. Chi-Raq (Lee, 2015)