Cover of the Decade
2019: Traumas past and present (and future)
FILMS
01. A Hidden Life (Malick)
02. The Irishman (Scorsese)
03. Lost Course (Li)
04. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Gu)
05. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma)
06. High Life (Denis)
07. Ad Astra (Gray)
08. Mary Magdalene (Davis)
09. MS Slavic 7 (Bohdanowicz/Campbell)
10. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Tailfeathers/Hepburn)
11. Atlantics (Diop)
12. Jojo Rabbit (Waititi)
13. The Lodge (Franz/Fiala)
14. Midsommar (Aster)
15. Oh Mercy! (Desplechin)
16. 1917 (Mendes)
17. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Kunuk)
18. Once upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino)
19. Uncut Gems (Safdie/Safdie)
20. Young Ahmed (Dardenne/Dardenne)
21. The Lighthouse (Eggers)
22. Parasite (Bong)
23. Toy Story 4 (Cooley)
24. Little Women (Gerwig)
25. US (Peele)
26. Koko-di Koko-da (Nyholm)
27. The Twentieth Century (Rankin)
28. High-Flying Bird (Soderbergh)
29. The Farewell (Wang)
30. The Two Popes (Meirelles)
PERFORMANCES
01. Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
02. Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, Mary Magdalene
03. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, The Lighthouse
04. Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, The Irishman
05. Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie, Once upon a Time in Hollywood
06. Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems
07. Juliette Binoche, High Life
08. Lupita Nyong'o, US
09. Riley Keough, The Lodge
10. Deragh Campbell, Anne at 13,000 Feet
11. Florence Pugh, Little Women
12. Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
13. Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell
14. Roschdy Zem, Sarah Forestier, and Léa Seydoux, Oh Mercy!
15. The entire cast of Parasite
ALBUMS
01. FKA twigs, Magdalene
02. Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
03. Ariana Grande, Thank U, Next
04. Carly Rae Jepsen, Dedicated
05. Mount Eerie and Julie Doiron, Lost Wisdom pt. 2
06. Taylor Swift, Lover
07. Solange, When I Get Home
08. Kanye West, Jesus Is King
09. Lizzo, Cuz I Love You
10. Sleater-Kinney, The Center Won't Hold
FILMS
01. A Hidden Life (Malick)
02. The Irishman (Scorsese)
03. Lost Course (Li)
04. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Gu)
05. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma)
06. High Life (Denis)
07. Ad Astra (Gray)
08. Mary Magdalene (Davis)
09. MS Slavic 7 (Bohdanowicz/Campbell)
10. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Tailfeathers/Hepburn)
11. Atlantics (Diop)
12. Jojo Rabbit (Waititi)
13. The Lodge (Franz/Fiala)
14. Midsommar (Aster)
15. Oh Mercy! (Desplechin)
16. 1917 (Mendes)
17. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Kunuk)
18. Once upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino)
19. Uncut Gems (Safdie/Safdie)
20. Young Ahmed (Dardenne/Dardenne)
21. The Lighthouse (Eggers)
22. Parasite (Bong)
23. Toy Story 4 (Cooley)
24. Little Women (Gerwig)
25. US (Peele)
26. Koko-di Koko-da (Nyholm)
27. The Twentieth Century (Rankin)
28. High-Flying Bird (Soderbergh)
29. The Farewell (Wang)
30. The Two Popes (Meirelles)
PERFORMANCES
01. Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
02. Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, Mary Magdalene
03. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, The Lighthouse
04. Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, The Irishman
05. Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie, Once upon a Time in Hollywood
06. Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems
07. Juliette Binoche, High Life
08. Lupita Nyong'o, US
09. Riley Keough, The Lodge
10. Deragh Campbell, Anne at 13,000 Feet
11. Florence Pugh, Little Women
12. Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
13. Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell
14. Roschdy Zem, Sarah Forestier, and Léa Seydoux, Oh Mercy!
15. The entire cast of Parasite
ALBUMS
01. FKA twigs, Magdalene
02. Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
03. Ariana Grande, Thank U, Next
04. Carly Rae Jepsen, Dedicated
05. Mount Eerie and Julie Doiron, Lost Wisdom pt. 2
06. Taylor Swift, Lover
07. Solange, When I Get Home
08. Kanye West, Jesus Is King
09. Lizzo, Cuz I Love You
10. Sleater-Kinney, The Center Won't Hold
In Storms of Steel
Sam Mendes's 1917 may very well be the most intensely realistic war movie ever made, a hypnotic hybrid of immersive VR and the grim matter-of-fact-ness of Ernst Jünger's war prose, or else like the famous opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan extended to two full hours and transported from the beaches of WWII Normandy to the rat-infested trenches and no man's land of the First World War. It's appropriately exhausting, in the expected, rigorous war-epic way but also uncommonly demanding on the viewer's eyes; the sustained illusion of a single, largely mobile shot, masterfully executed by Roger Deakins, provides little opportunity to blink or relax. Few movies more palpably express the feeling that there could be fatal danger anywhere and everywhere. As in Jünger's memoir, staying alive is a matter of constant luck and split-second decision-making.
With its genuinely nightmarish atmosphere and pervasive sense of dread and terror, 1917 is also (more so than most war films) a great horror movie, though, like many great horror movies, it relies too heavily on its musical score to build tension and foreshadow. In this otherwise ultra-realistic film, such artifice feels especially superfluous, undermining the immediacy of the action. It is also, just occasionally, too sentimental, attempting to win the audience's sympathy through calculated bits of character exposition –– another common horror-movie misstep. Yet, the best sequences in Mendes's film –– particularly one set amidst the hellish ruins of a burnt-out French town –– feel like something new and urgently powerful, summoning up the visceral lived experience of a war that almost no one still living can personally remember.
Sam Mendes's 1917 may very well be the most intensely realistic war movie ever made, a hypnotic hybrid of immersive VR and the grim matter-of-fact-ness of Ernst Jünger's war prose, or else like the famous opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan extended to two full hours and transported from the beaches of WWII Normandy to the rat-infested trenches and no man's land of the First World War. It's appropriately exhausting, in the expected, rigorous war-epic way but also uncommonly demanding on the viewer's eyes; the sustained illusion of a single, largely mobile shot, masterfully executed by Roger Deakins, provides little opportunity to blink or relax. Few movies more palpably express the feeling that there could be fatal danger anywhere and everywhere. As in Jünger's memoir, staying alive is a matter of constant luck and split-second decision-making.
With its genuinely nightmarish atmosphere and pervasive sense of dread and terror, 1917 is also (more so than most war films) a great horror movie, though, like many great horror movies, it relies too heavily on its musical score to build tension and foreshadow. In this otherwise ultra-realistic film, such artifice feels especially superfluous, undermining the immediacy of the action. It is also, just occasionally, too sentimental, attempting to win the audience's sympathy through calculated bits of character exposition –– another common horror-movie misstep. Yet, the best sequences in Mendes's film –– particularly one set amidst the hellish ruins of a burnt-out French town –– feel like something new and urgently powerful, summoning up the visceral lived experience of a war that almost no one still living can personally remember.
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