2019 Year End Report: Best Documentaries

As with every year, some of the best films were docs. Sometimes, they’re easy to see – and sometimes not – meaning, as always, I missed (or didn’t get a chance to see) some of the year’s best docs. These include: Advocate, The Cave, Diego Maradona, The Hottest August, The Kingmaker, Midnight Family, Sea of Shadows, 63 Up and Varda by Agnes (and I waited an extra week to post this so I could see Honeyland). Some of these came and went from Toronto pretty quickly or never opened there at all, and either haven’t shown up for home viewing, or I haven’t gotten to them yet. Considering that many of the most acclaimed docs are on that list, perhaps you’ll want to take my list with a grain of salt. As always, I start with ones I didn’t like, and gradually move on up, until we get to the top 10.

 

As for the ones I didn’t like, there was Aquarela (Victor Kossakovsky) which I fully admit may have played way better on the big screen – but on a small screen, while it looked great, it was also quite dull. The Biggest Little Farm (John Chester) which just struck me as rather phony. Fyre Fraud (Jenner Furst & Julia Willoughby Nason) was the glib version of the fascinating story – better told elsewhere (see the top 10)

 

Better than those were: Ask Dr. Ruth (Ryan White) is an entertaining, but surface level, doc about why Dr. Ruth was important – and how odd that fact is. Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (Eva Orner) may have played better had I not heard the excellent ESPN podcast on the same subject that went way deeper – but it’s a good overview of the case. The Great Hack (Karim Amer &Jehane Noujam) which was about the Cambridge Analytica scandal – which oddly seems to want to a complex issue too simple. Meeting Gorbachev (Werner Herzog & Andre Singer) took a fascinating, complex figure – profiled by a great filmmaker – and is all far too simple. Wrinkles the Clown (Michael Beach Nichols) is a very odd film about the clown that started the creepy clown fever that gripped America a few years ago – which makes some, let’s say, interesting choices.

 

Even better than those were the following, very solid docs: The Apollo (Roger Ross Williams) probably should have been a miniseries – the footage is amazing, but it goes through the historic theater way too quickly. Black Mother (Khalik Allah) is a verite portrait of Jamaica that I admired more than I actually liked. The Brink (Alison Klayman) the second best (of two) of films about Steve Bannon this year – but still a good film in its own right. The Edge of Democracy (Petra Costa) is a mixture of the personal and the political in retelling the recent history of Brazil – with no attempt at balance. Hail Satan (Penny Lane) is a story about the Church of Satan, and their goal to get religion out of American public life is very good – just not quite as insane as you think it should be. Knock Down the House (Rachel Lears) became known as the AOC doc – but it’s not just about the popular Freshman congresswoman, but the larger movement she represents – and is an inspiring (if rather simplistic) look at American politics. Marianne &Leonard: Words of Love (Nick Broomfield) is the gentlest film that Broomfield has ever made – a rather sweet (when it isn’t creepy) look at the love between Leonard Cohen and his longtime girlfriend Marianne Ihlen – and how difficult it can be to love a genius asshole. Where’s My Roy Cohn? (Matt Tyrnauer) is a very informative, but kind of dry, recounting of the life of Roy Cohn – and how he connects everything from Joseph McCarthy to Donald Trump.

 

Then there are the films that easily could have made it – but there just wasn’t room: The Gospel of Eureka (Michael Palmieri & Donal Mosher) is an interesting look at a small town in Arkansas – which has both a massive Passion Play and a drag bar, and how they basically co-exist in peace. Memory: The Origins of Alien (Alexandre O. Phillipe) is a better than average documentary about an influential film – more than a making of, but not enough more to be a truly great one. Roll Red Roll (Nancy Schwartzman) is another film about rape culture and football culture, and how they may be one and the same – no matter how many of these I see, they never stop shocking, angering and saddening me. Tell Me Who I Am (Ed Perkins) tells the type of unbelievable story that would only work in documentary – but is perhaps too much style over substance to be truly great. Wrestle (Suzannah Herbert) is a less ambitious Hoop Dreams, about a high school wrestling team – and the individual triumphs and failures over the course of one season.

                                                                 

And before we get to the top 10, there are a few documentary series that I think deserve a shout out – even at their extreme length, had they been one film, they’d like be in my top 10 docs of the year list: I had some issues with The Case Against Adnan Syed (Amy Berg) but it was very well made, and is a great summary of just why Syed’s conviction is so suspect. It was probably a little too long but The Confession Killer (Robert Kenner & Taki Oldham) is a fascinating look at Henry Lee Lucas – the most prolific confesser to murders America has ever seen. The Devil Next Door (Yossi Bloch and Dan Sivan) is perhaps a little too drawn out, but is still a fascinating look at an accused Nazi war criminal, who insists it’s a case of mistaken identity. Don’t F**k with Cats (Mark Lewis) is a fascinating look at the Luka Magnotta case – and even if I didn’t buy the attempt to implicate the audience, the story is undeniably fascinating (and it’s the one Netflix series that could have been longer). I Love You Now Die (Erin Carr) is the type of true crime doc I love – it takes a well-known case, and makes you see it in a completely different light, challenging the popular narrative. Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed) is a relatively simple, straight forward recounting of the accusations of two men against Michael Jackson – but will make it impossible for you to see ever see the King of Pop the same way again. Lorena (Joshua Rofe) is a necessary corrective, taking the infamous case, and making it very clear it wasn’t a joke – and it wasn’t funny, and still isn’t. The Ted Bundy Tapes (Joe Berlinger) recounts the life and crimes of Ted Bundy, using the copious amounts of tapes about the famed serial killer in disturbing fashion.

 

Top 15

 

15. Maiden (Alex Holmes)

Maiden is the inspiring true life story of Tracy Edwards – who loved boating, and wanted to be on a real racing crew, and was tired of being the cook on these ships. And so, she gets an all-female crew together, finds a sponsor, finds a boat – and enters the upper crust Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989. The film is made up of archival footage from that time – and interviews with the key players today. What’s striking is how much attitudes have changed in the past three decades – and, sadly, some of the ways they have not changed. It is also just a tense, sports movie – full of highs and lows – so even if, like me, you know nothing about boat racing – you will be caught up in the emotions of it all.  

 

14. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (Alex Gibney)

A financial scandal documentary for our times, Alex Gibney’s best film in a number of years was the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos – a young entrepreneur with a truly great idea on how to revolutionize the health care industry, but absolutely no idea how to actually pull it off. Holes tried the classic Silicon Valley strategy of “fake it until you make it” – but with people’s health on the line, that’s not a good strategy, especially when she starts rolling out actual blood testing equipment that she knows darn well does not work. It probably isn’t quite as deep as The Dropout – the longer podcast which detailed the same thing – but it’s a great primer of a documentary, and allows Gibney to cheekily poke fun at fellow documentary filmmaker Errol Morris – who allowed himself to be used by Holmes and Theranos, and now doesn’t want to talk about it. As these types of docs go, this is about as good as they get.

 

13. David Crosby: Remember My Name (A.J. Eaton)

It seems like every aging musician gets this kind of career retrospective documentary near the end – and they are almost all the same – dull and predictable. By David Crosby: Remember My Name is different because, of course, David Crosby is different. He’s always been difficult – and while many age out of that, he hasn’t. He’s blown up Crosby, Stills and Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young almost singlehandedly – both in just the last few years. This documentary has Crosby very honest about his life, his work, his many mistakes. He is honest, and harder on himself than he is on everyone else. It’s that rare musician documentary from the golden years that is really, truly worth watching and considering.

 

12. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)

Director Todd Douglas Miller got his hands on hours and hours of previously unreleased and unseen footage of the massive effort to get Apollo 11 to the moon and back again, and crafted it into this engrossing documentary. The film is all archival footage – there is no talking heads in the films, no look backs, but is really just a portrait of the massive scale of the effort – the number of people, and the science, involved in getting this mission to work. It is an example of how you can do history in a documentary in a very specific way – to make it seem timely and new, and a reminder of a time when America came together, in a time when they couldn’t be further apart.

 

11. Amazing Grace (Sydney Pollock & Alan Elliott)

In 1972, director Sydney Pollack was hired to film the great Aretha Franklin singing for two nights in the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles as she would record her best-selling gospel record. He did that – but because of some rookie mistakes by Pollock and his crew, the footage was deemed unusable for years – the sound and picture didn’t align. Finally, after years, and a lot of painstaking work, we are able to see the result of what Pollock film – and it is this amazing film, which is basically Franklin belting out one amazing song after another, proving once and for all that she was the best singer in history. The film is a great historical document – and is a fitting tribute to the late, great Franklin.

 

10. Cold Case Hammarskjöld (Mads Brügger)

The strangest doc of the year may just be Mads Brügger’s Cold Case Hammarskjöld – a film that starts out trying to investigate what really happened to the former Secretary General of the United Nations, who died in a mysterious plane crash, just as he was threatening to modernize the international organization. Where it goes from there is into some wild conspiracy theories about secret militias and organizations, and attempts to infect Africans with AIDS, and all sorts of other wild places. Brügger knows how insane this all sounds – and how strange it is for two very white Scandinavians to be digging into this conspiracy mainly centered on Africa – and finds clever ways to undermine that, poke fun at himself, and question the fake news aspect of it all. I’m not sure he ever really finds any real answers – but that is not really what the doc is about. It is a strange documentary for our strange times.

 

9. For Sama (Waab al-Kateab & Edward Watts)

We’ve been hearing about Syria for years now – but by now in many ways it’s easy to somehow tune out when you hear about the ongoing tragedy – especially since its been largely met with apathy by the worldwide community, with little being done. For that reason alone, more people should see For Sama, a film shot by Waab al-Kateab, a young woman and revolutionary in Syria, who falls in love and gets married, and has a daughter – Sama – during all of the chaos. She and her husband – a doctor – are committed to staying as Aleppo falls, and the footage she gets in amazing and tragic, and emotionally overwhelming. The impact of the film is immediate and powerful – a remarkable feat of documentary filmmaking, especially since they were able to form it into a cohesive whole.

 

8. Fyre (Chris Smith)

Of the dueling Fyre festival docs this year – Chris Smith’s Netflix doc was clearly superior (both have some ethical issues – this one taking money from Fuck Jerry Media to make it, the other for paying Billy McFarland for an interview). This documentary was less glib, and more focused on the people who were really hurt by McFarland’s fraud – the locals who were owed money, and never got it – as well as the massive hubris of McFarland et al to try and pull it all off. The film goes deeper than an episode of say American Greed, and finds the folly in all of this – both the comedy and the tragedy of it all. We seemingly got lost comparing the two docs when they came out in January – not real

 

7. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter)

Over the years, countless concert films have been made – but only a few of them are the type of film you would recommend to someone to watch even if they aren’t a massive fan of the artist involved. There’s Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, Demme’s Stop Making Sense, the Maysles’ Gimme Shelter, etc. And now, there is Homecoming – which if all the proof one could ever need at the massive talent of Beyoncé – on many different fronts. The film documents her two already legendary performances at 2018’s Coachella – and shows just what into making them for Beyoncé and her collaborators, and then celebrates the music itself – which shows Beyoncé at the peak of her powers. She also directed the film – and its mesmerizing to watch – the first time the costumes switch on an edit, and you realize that this is two different shows, executed with such precision you can cut between them, it’s pretty astounding. I hope that Beyoncé takes her skills and directs a feature one day – with this added to Lemonade, it’s clear she’s far better than most directors working today anyway.

 

6. Mike Wallace is Here (Avi Belkin)

Avi Belkin’s documentary about the legendary 60 Minutes journalist Mike Wallace is all archival footage – footage of Wallace’s early career, interviews he did with others when he was the subject, interviews he did with others as the interviewer, and all sorts of other great footage. The documentary is edited with razor precision – yes, at times your kind of wish they would just let the interview go on, but Belkin’s film wants to present the complexity of Wallace – the way he entered journalism, through the entertainment side of TV, not the journalism side, yet how he became known for his hard hitting questions – sometimes his own, sometimes other peoples. The film reminded me of Best of Enemies from a few years – about Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley – and kind of the unintended consequences of elevating that sort of television. The film is largely nice to Wallace – but it’s not without complexity. This one kind of got overlooked this year – but it is worth seeking out.

 

5. One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang & Zhang Jia-Ling)

Nanu Wang and Zhang Jia-Ling’s One Child Nation is a devastating documentary about the lasting impact of China’s one child policy – a policy well-known in the West, but is probably something you haven’t actually though very much about. The film documents the horrific things that women who got pregnant with a second child had to endure – what happened to all those unwanted babies – mostly girls – who were the second child (or the first child to families who wanted a boy) and the impact the policy had on the officials and doctors whose jobs were to enforce it. The result is a powerful, sad, devastating film – that looks beyond the surface level with which we’ve always thought about the policy, to the tragedy underneath.

 

4. American Dharma (Errol Morris)

Errol Morris sits down with Steve Bannon, and basically allows Bannon enough rope to hang himself – and just for good measure, visually undermines him throughout the film as well. Basically, Morris lets Bannon lay his populist message, why he loved Trump so much, and his love of movies. Morris sits back a little – we hear his voice occasionally pushing Bannon for more – but as is often the case with Morris, he likes to be an invisible presence. Where we see Morris, throughout the film, is visually. Near the end of the film, as Bannon tries to defend himself, Morris shows you the truth visually – with footage and headlines, etc. For those who think that Bannon should be interviewed at all, so be it – I don’t agree, but you don’t have to watch it. For others though, I find it odd that some think Bannon got the best of Morris here. It’s impossible to watch this film, and come away liking Bannon. This is not in the very top echelon of Morris’ films – but it’s excellent, and a timely document about the age of Trump.

 

3. Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov)

There was no more visually stunning or beautiful documentary this year – hell, it would be on a very short list of most beautiful film of the year period. The film focuses on Hatidze Muratova, living in a remote village on North Macedonia – really only her aged, sick mother is around, and she never gets out of bed. She is a bee-hunter – does some crazy things to find these bees, and sticks to the very strict rule of leaving half the honey for the bees – that way, everyone wins. It is about what happens when a large, boisterous family moves in close by – starts raising bees from breeders – and don’t stick to those same rules. Honeyland is a fascinating look at this woman, this dying way of life, and this conflict between these two very different ways of collecting honey. It’s also stunning to look at – the first 10 minutes in particular are amazing.

 

2. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese’s film is part concert documentary – featuring some truly amazing footage from Bob Dylan’s legendary 1975 comeback tour, featuring all sorts of guests, and music. It contains real reflections on that tour and what it meant then – and what it means know. And, yeah, it also includes fake stuff – made up characters and memories, because of course Bob Dylan is pretty much incapable of giving you a straight answer on anything having to do with himself – and Scorsese uses this well-known tendency to pull off a major trick of his own in plain sight (if you get to the end and haven’t figured out part of it is fake, I don’t know what to tell you). Part of me wanted this to be a more-straight forward doc – hell, it may have been better as a straighter forward film, as Scorsese’s last Dylan doc – No Direction Home – is. But then it wouldn’t be as much Dylan as this film is – where you get the truth through lies. I have a feeling this one is going to be debated for years to come.

 

1. American Factory (Steve Bognar & Julia Reichert)

In order to make a great documentary, you need great access – and I don’t think any doc had better access than American Factory did this year. This film, about a former car factory in Ohio, which had been shut down throwing the area into recession, which was bought by a Chinese glass company and reopened, is amazing in that they basically get in everywhere. What they come up with is a culture clash documentary, and while the sympathy for the American workers, it isn’t completely one sided. In a world that is increasingly interconnected – no matter what Trump tries – there are going to more of these stories. American Factory shows how this sort of thing should work, looking at the complex issues that cannot be unraveled.

2019 Year End Report: Best TV Shows

Shows I Really Should Have Watched:

I feel bad that I never started Pamela Adlon’s Better Things – because everything I hear about it makes me think I would love – but catching up on multiple seasons is just too hard these days. I still think I should watch Castle Rock – and haven’t yet. I cannot believe I never got around to Netflix’s Unbelievable but here we are. Ditto Veep – which I didn’t have HBO at the time it started, and didn’t have a wife nagging me to catch up (like Game of Thrones) – so I just never got there.

 

Shows I Gave Up On

Every year, I give up on a few shows, and this year was no different. I liked Black-ish at its peak, but it stumbled last year trying to get all serious with the marital crisis, and this year, I just never got on board. Without Black-ish, it left me also leaving its lead-in Modern Family – which was really good at its peak, but hasn’t been really good in about 5 seasons. I apparently forgot all about Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It in season 2 – but it seems like everyone else did too. I still watch a lot of The Simpsons – but I can honestly say I didn’t watch a lot of the current season, so I’ll probably just see them all in reruns all the time. I wouldn’t say I gave up on True Detective – I just was never inspired enough to watch Season 3, which resulted in the same thing. I would have loved to have given up on The Witcher (Season 1) but my wife wanted to watch it all, so I saw it all, and boy was it not good.

 

Other Shows I Watched All of (Runners-Up, I guess):

Big Mouth (Season 3) is one that I think needs to age its animated characters a little bit – yet still, it was still quite good throughout. Black Mirror (Season 5) was okay, I guess, but with only three episodes, one being bad, the other two being okay, I cannot really say it was all that great either. Dead to Me (Season 1) is a fine show, with fine performances by Christina Applegate and Linda Cardinelli – but if I’m being honest, had my wife not insisted, I probably would have given up on it. Dirty John (Season 1) had nothing on the podcast, but as a guilty pleasure it was quite good (had my wife not insisted we finish it though, I probably would have let it slide). Counterpart (Season 2) got far too complicated in its second season, and even if at its best it may have been better than Season 1, I know why it ended – it got too far up into its not that interesting mythology. The Loudest Voice (Miniseries) was a good overview of Roger Ailes career at Fox News – but it’s also fairly one note – as good as Russell Crowe is in the role, I’m not sure he ever really succeeds in making him into a real person – and he has the most depth of anyone. Madam Secretary (Season 5b/6) ended its run with a shortened season – and showed what a good network drama could still be – comfort food to be sure, but satisfying in its way. On Becoming a Good in Central Florida (Season 1) has a wonderful performance by Kirsten Dunst – but I’m not quite sure where this is going. Shrill (Season 1) was a fine showcase for Aidy Bryant – but needed more to be fully rounded show. The Twilight Zone (Season 1) was a very mixed bag, but when it worked, it worked really well – and I look forward to more (but please, go to half hour episodes). Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 4b) came to an end, probably a season too late, as I think the show naturally ran its course in two seasons, was still very good in its third, and felt like it was trying too hard in both halves of its final season – the best is still very good, but this was past its sell-by date. Years and Years (Miniseries) started out great, but regressed as it went along - and pulled too many punches in the finale.

 

23. The Big Bang Theory (Season 12)

Mock me if you must, but I have seen every episode of The Big Bang Theory, and have thoroughly enjoyed my time doing so. Is it brilliant TV? No, but it was remarkably consistent for 12 years, and was perhaps the last of a dying breed – the multi-cam, laugh track driven network sitcom that actually generated huge ratings. The networks would love to have a lot of these to keep them relevant, but they don’t. It will not go down as an era defining show, but it may well go down as an end of an era.

Best Episode: 12.23/24: The Change Constant/The Stockholm Syndrome – As we all know, it’s hard to end a long running series well, even when it’s a sitcom. In the two-part finale, I think The Big Bang Theory stuck the landing – letting us all know where all the characters are heading, giving Sheldon what he wanted all along, and then him finally recognizing what all his friends really mean to him. This is as about as good of a finale as you could expect from this show.

 

22. Orange is the New Black (Season 7)

Orange is the New Black was never my absolute favorite show – and its quite clear that it peaked a number of seasons ago. Still, I did watch every episode over its seven season run, and I do think that the last season is an improvement over some of the latter ones – if for no other reason than I think the show pretty much sticks the landing. It is not all happy endings, of course, but I think it does a good job of wrapping things up – and setting those left on a path for the future. It even cleverly, and empathetically, addressed #MeToo from the male point of view, not making him a villain, or a case of pure redemption, high lighting how complicated the issue can me. The show still spent too much time on Taylor Schilling’s Piper (did I hear correctly – she only served 18 months? So the six years we watched was all in a year and a half?) – but I had to make peace with that years ago. This is the show that really, truly kicked off the streaming era – and showed what it could be (yes, more than House of Cards). I’m glad it’s over – but I think they wrapped it up nicely.

Best Episode: 7.13: Here’s Where We Get Off – It’s hard to do a series finale for a show with this many people, to wrap up everyone’s story in a way that is satisfying. And so, even if the episode was way too long, you have to give it credit for being able to pull it off – from the happy to the tragic – including a fairly surprising murder, which makes complete sense (I could have done without the poor woman in the desert). Still, the show ended as it should.

 

21. Game of Thrones (Season 8)

There is no question that this shortened final season was deeply, deeply flawed. We can list the big flaws – how it turned The Night King and his snow zombies into an afterthought instead of the existential threat I had presumed they would be, valuing shock value over character development, meaning that Dany’s turn to the dark side, which could have been easily developed properly, was instead trotted out for maximum shock value, and the ending, which puts the most boring character on the Throne on the strength of his “story” – and that’s just the big ones. Yet, I think in all the fervor about the big picture, we missed what this show did remarkably well – all of this series looked amazing (I’m sorry, but I could make out the Battle of Winterfell just fine) and it does this large scale war and destruction better than we’ve seen on TV before. As well, the characters all got their moments – and if it’s fan service, and sometimes it’s not always good fan service – it’s still quite good. I will say this – I didn’t feel sorry for going on this wild ride for this series. Hate it if you want.

Best Episode: 8.2 – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – The second episode is basically all fan service – bringing together so many characters that we want to see together for one long night of the soul – existential conversations as they all think they are about to die. There is hardly a scene here that doesn’t work – including the controversial Arya sex scene (I am confused as to why many seemed to shocked that Arya was all grown up – we’ve seen her kill people in cold blood people!). This was the peak of the season – and one of my single favorite episodes that didn’t contain mass slaughter in the shows entire run.

 

20. Undone (Season 1)

Undone is unique among shows on TV – it is a rotoscoped animated sci-fi show for adults. Rotoscoping allows you to animate over something you’ve shot with actors – it allowed Richard Linklater to make films like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, doing things more cheaply than it would take to do with CGI – but oddly, not many have taken up his mantle. Here, used for a TV show, it allowed the creators to get all trippy, as the show trips through time as a young woman, after a car accident, meets her long dead father, and helps to investigate his own death. The show is only 8 episodes long – all about 25 minutes – so it goes by fairly quickly. Still, I do think there is too much exposition and explaining of the dynamics of the time travel as it were. When it works though, it’s intelligent sci-fi, with a real emotional grounding. And no matter what, it looks great.

Best Episode: 1.2: The Hospital – The first episode was all setup – letting us get to know the main character. It is in episode 2 where we really get to the heart of the show. Really, all the explanation we need is in this episode – and it sets up the stakes, and holds your attention. It’s also right before the mid-season bulge (episodes 3-5 are so are that bulge). Here though, everything works – and its all satisfyingly mysterious.

 

19. GLOW (Season 3)

The third season of Glow did a very daring thing – other than the first and last episode of the season, they barely showed any wrestling at all. Instead, the show focused on the large ensemble cast – which has become increasingly important over the run, that kind of started out as almost a three hander with Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin and Marc Maron, with a talented supporting cast, into a true ensemble. It’s about the difficulty of being in Las Vegas full time, away from your family, and either realizing that your chosen career is not working out, and finding a whole new path. In general, I think the season is quite good – I liked the deepening relationships – and how sometimes awkward they can become. I also think that the show got a little messy at times – trying to shoehorn everyone’s subplot in ways that didn’t always work – and a slowly inflating runtime of every episode. If this is the end of GLOW – it wouldn’t be shocking, and would end on an interesting note. If there’s more, I’ll certainly be back.

Best Episode: 3.2: Hot Tub Club – It’s kind of odd that after I just praised the show for being more of an ensemble piece, my favorite episode was Hot Tub Club – essentially a two-hander between Brie and Maron, which shows them both at their best. Their chemistry is real – and yet so is the way things don’t quite work, and the awkwardness that happens after (and lasts the whole season). I could have picked other episodes – I love how they started the season by setting up a challenge for themselves – but Brie and Maron make this my favorite.

 

18. Stranger Things (Season 3)

I don’t know if this is a popular opinion or not, but I think Season 3 was an improvement over Season 2 – which was still very good, but felt a little too diffuse. This time, the film is leaner and meaner – basically three (perhaps four) main subplots, with well-defined groups and goals for each them, which allows the show to do what it does best – let everyone engage in banter, pointless 1980s nostalgia, and a mixture of the styles of John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg and Stephen King for a small town horror show in the vein of the Body Snatchers. I’m not sold on the ending – which is setting us up for a “shock” when a “dead” character turns out not to be dead in Season 4 – and that characters note basically undermines the entire premise of the show, but hey, the show still works, it’s still fun, and I still want more.

Best Episode: 3.2: The Mall Rats – I know this isn’t the most popular opinion here, but for me, I think I’ll remember this episode – which was still lighter and more fun than the rest – well after the mechanics of the plot of the rest of the show has faded. But Max and Eleven at the mall shopping was fun, the boys having no clue just how they messed up is fun. Anything involving future star Maya Hawke is fun. And I come to Stranger Things for fun, so here we are.

 

17. The Handmaid’s Tale (Season 3)

It is completely normal for TV shows to have “placeholder” episodes – episodes between hugely dramatic incidents in which the show rests a little, and sets up whatever is coming up next. Season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the only examples I can think of a “placeholder season”. They advertised that Revolution was coming in season 3 of the show – I just don’t think anyway really expected it would take the entire 13 episodes to get there. So much of this season feels like it could have been done in a couple of episodes, before we get to the good stuff – but this time it took far too long. It’s a testament then to the strength of the series – the strength of the performances (particularly Elizabeth Moss’, who more than ever risks our sympathy this season) and the world they’ve built that the season was still involving and well made. It just took far too long to get to where it’s going. They have to pick up the pace here – and let’s be honest, get June out of Gilead – for the show to continue to be as good as it has been.

Best Episode: 3.13 – Mayday – It’s not surprising that in a season where I think it took far too long to get where it’s going that the final episode is clearly the best. Honestly, I kind of thought we’d be here early in the season, not this late – but here we are. Still, the season sticks the landing – and sets up what could be a great fourth season with this emotionally powerful episode, which is also incredibly intense. This is the episode we were waiting for all damn season.

 

16. What We Do in the Shadows (Season 1)

This delightful series is the one I didn’t know I needed. As someone who really enjoyed Taika Waititi & Jermaine Clement’s 2014 film of the same name, I kind of thought that they wouldn’t have much more to explore in the world of vampire mockumentaries about ancient vampires trying to fit into the modern world. I was wrong – the show was an absurdist delight, hilarious throughout, with every episode having a few instantly quotable lines. And the show does a couple of things right – that the film didn’t – adding a woman to the cast – including a woman in the cast was a great corrective (and then adding Beanie Feldstein as a recurring character was even better) and adding an energy vampire – who drains you of your energy by talking endlessly and boringly – seemed like a one joke premise that kept paying dividends. The best character though was Harvey Guillen’s Guillermo, a familiar, who really wants to be a vampire – and gets the shock of his life in the finale. A great, hilarious series.

Best Episode: 1.9: The Orgy. I could choose any number of episodes – I loved The Trial, which brought to together a bunch of pop culture vampires as a council for example. But my favorite was The Orgy – Season 1’s penultimate episode, in which they plan, well, an orgy. It delivered some of Guillermo’s best moments – as he grows increasingly frazzled, and has to betray a friend – and has my favorite line of the whole season – it’s about CrossFit, and its hilarious.

 

15. Big Little Lies (Season 2)

I’m not quite sure where the idea came from that Big Little Lies had a bad Season 2 came from. No, it wasn’t quite as good as Season 1 – and there were elements that they didn’t seem to know what to do with (Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz got the short end of the stick for sure. But this is still one of the best acted shows on television – MVP honors this year shared by Meryl Streep and Laura Dern, who between them had all the quotable lines, but did more with those characters than quotes. Perhaps it comes from the fact that people didn’t realize they were essentially watching a prime time soap opera in season 1. Perhaps it comes from the obvious mistreatment of the great Andrea Arnold, who directed this season, but was pretty much frozen out of post-production because they didn’t like her style as much. But this was still a hell of an entertaining season of television – the more it embraced the improbabilities in its story (the courtroom scenes for instance), the more I embraced it.

Best Episode: 2.2: Tell-Tale Hearts – As much as I enjoyed this season as w whole, I do think the first two episodes were the best – the first featuring Meryl Streep dress down Reese Witherspoon (you’re a wanter), and the second featuring her do the same thing again, even as she tried to apologize (the whole thing about short people). But it’s Laura Dern’s “I will not, not be rich” that sealed it for me.

 

14. Dear White People (Season 3)

I do think that Justin Simien’s Dear White People drifted a little bit in Season 3 – it lacked a little bit of focus this time around, eschewing the character centric episodes for a more freewheeling style, and dropping the narrator all together, because of their identity reveal in Season 2. Still, I find this entire cast of characters incredibly interesting, I find the writing hilarious, the performances great – and the shows continued refusal to wrap things up in neat packages, or provide easy answers satisfying. I do think that a fourth season, which should happen, should also be the show’s last – wrap up these characters and move on. Yet, Dear White People remains one of the most underrated Netflix shows – or really, any shows, currently going.

Best Episode 2.3 – Volume 3, Chapter III – The show felt less episodic this season, so narrowing down a specific episode was harder than it has been in the past. Still, I’ll go with this one, if for no other reason than it introduces us to Simien himself playing a Tyler Perry like director – and ends up truly surprising me my making a pretty convincing defense of him, even after showing his work (which would make Perry’s real work seem subtle).

 

13. Fosse/Verdon (Season 1)

They latest one season wonder from F/X was Fosse/Verdon, a look at the relationship – professional and personal – between legendary choreographer/director Bob Fosse and his wife Gwen Verdon, a Tony Award winning actress in her own right, and someone who helped Fosse a lot along the way, and never got the credit that he did. Sam Rockwell is great as Bob Fosse – egomaniacal, driven, brilliant and self-destructive, but Michelle Williams is even better as Gwen Verdon, who was a huge star on Broadway, and helped to give Fosse his start – but as they age, he gets to be a “genius”, and she is shunted to the side. A big part of the reason for the show seems to be to correct the historic record, and finally give Verdon her due. But it’s also an intensely personal movie – both of these people (and everyone else in the film) are deeply, deeply flawed people – but also brilliant ones. It’s interesting to look back at these people through a modern lens – and it’s also hugely entertaining.

Best Episode: 1.8 – Providence – There is something almost sweet about the season finale – it skips ahead a few years from the Chicago days in the last episode, to the All That Jazz days of this one. It seems like the pair at its heart have made peace with each other – and as much piece as they can come to with themselves, even as they still repeat the patterns that drove people away (Fosse using a sweet moment with his daughter for the movie, Verdon ditching her longtime boyfriend to go on tour with Chicago). There is also a great cameo by the actor playing Roy Scheider in his All That Jazz outfit. All That Jazz has always been my favorite Fosse film – and the whole series is like that movie from an outside point-of-view. Only one complaint – Star 80 deserved better than to be referenced as a failure in a title card (and it would have been great to see him work on that complicated, real life film).

 

12. Bob’s Burgers (Season 9b/10a)

I think I have somewhat overlooked the greatness of Bob’s Burgers in the past two years (the only two years I made TV lists). It suffers from two things beyond its control – as both an animated show, and a network sitcom, it’s easy for every season to blur together, and treat it as one big show – especially since I see some many in syndication. But it must be said, that 10 seasons in, Bob’s Burgers is still churning out great episodes’ week in and week out – and is the really the only thing I’m tuning in on Sunday nights to Fox for. This was another fine year for the show. 

Best Episode: 9.15 – The Fresh Princ-ipal – We all have our favorite characters on the show – usually one of the kids – and I am certainly Team Louise on that one, so seeing her become Principal for the day as a blast – as she realizes its nearly ceremonial, and then doing everything possible to actually accomplish something. It’s also always nice to see her have to fight for her mortal enemy Mr. Frond. It’s always hard to picture an episode as the best for this type of show, but this one stood out for me.

 

11. Killing Eve (Season 2)

The absence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the head writer/showrunner this year was felt in season 2, as this season really leaned into being over-the-top and ridiculous, but in ways that were so much fun. It seems like everyone involved realized that the show was at its best when Sandra Oh’s Eve and Jodie Comer’s Villanelle were in the same place at the same time, and even if it had to stretch credibility to make it happen so much more this season, you almost don’t care, because it’s still so much fun to see them poke, prod, flirt with each other as the sexual tension mounts. In Season 1, Oh was the standout, but this year, Comer really takes over the show – and delivers a deliciously over-the-top performance for the ages.

Best Episode: 2.8 – You’re Mine – Season 2 ended wrapping up all the storylines, and then forcing both Eve and Villanelle to make decisions that put the other one over their own interests. It features a grisly throat cutting, a great fight sequence featuring an axe, and then had two great scenes – one between Oh and Fiona Shaw’s Carolyn, and the other between Comer and Kim Bosnia’s Konstantin – before getting to the scene the whole show has been building towards – the two women laying their cards out in beautiful Roman ruins – and leaving us with a cliffhanger. Season 2 was certainly a different animal than Season 1 – and if I’m not sure I prefer it; I still say it was wonderfully entertaining.

 

10. Russian Doll (Season 1)

Perhaps the best new show of the year, Russian Doll was an inventive sci-fi, fantasy, comedy all built around the unique charms of Natasha Lyonne – as a New York woman, who keeps dying, and coming back to life again and again and again to the same birthday party – and gets increasingly frazzled, until she meets someone else doing the same thing, and they have to figure it out together. I’m not sure what else you can say about the show, except to say that as high concept as it is, it never loses sight of their characters. A truly unique show.

Best Episode 1.8 – Ariadne – As with almost all Netflix shows, this one kind of runs together in one large binge – but the two episodes that stand out are the first one, which does a brilliant job of setting up this world, and the final episode – which somehow finds the perfect, joyous note to end the season on. So take your pick of those two.

 

9. The Good Place (Sean 3b/4a)

I think that now that we’re fairly far into the endgame here – there are only five episodes left to air in 2020 – that the show will never quite be as great as it was in what was a perfect first season. Seasons 2 and 3 were brilliant, daring television in their own way – jumping from premise to premise, and just keep on going – but wasn’t quite up to that level. Season 4 has settled down somewhat – it’s mainly about the one-year test – which has added some consistency to the show, but also somewhat sidelined Chidi, and highlighting some new characters that weren’t quite as good. Still, that’s nitpicking on what is the best show on network television, that is still smarter, funnier and better acted that just about any other sitcom.

Best Episode: 4.9: The Answer: Much like last year, where their final episode of the year (before the mid-season break) was the brilliant Janet(s) The Good Place’s last 2019 episode was their best of the calendar year. With the judge about to end all of humanity, Michael needs to bring back Chidi – and all of his memories – to try and save them, and we get an entire episode in the space of that finger snap – a flashback to all of Chidi’s lives, and all he has learned in that time. It gave us the instantly iconic Esmerelda (Kate Berlant – who I know isn’t going to win an Emmy for what was probably less than 2 minutes of screen time, but damn well should) and one of the very most moments of the entire series – when Chidi reads the note he wrote himself before the memory wipe, and then looks at Eleanor’s hopeful face. That’s instant tears – and the kind of perfect moment that very few television shows ever have.

 

8. When They See Us (Miniseries)

Ava DuVernay’s heartbreaking, four part, nearly five-hour miniseries about The Central Park Five is powerful and devastating, and brilliantly structured. Each episode runs a little longer the one before it, and each episode has its own unique look at the case – the first being about the “crime” and the “confessions” the cops and prosecutors get from the suspects, the second about the trial, the third about the experiences about four of the boys in jail, and the fifth about the one kid sentenced to adult prison – and what he goes through for more than a decade. The film shows yet again what a great director DuVernay is – she uses close-ups particularly well, and she gets amazing performances from the entire cast – especially Jharrel Jerome, who delivers one of the best performances of the year, in any medium. A timely, and devastating story.

Best Episode – Part Four – I think each episode gets stronger than the lone before if – the first two telling the story we already know, wonderfully. But it’s the final devastating episode – centered on the remarkable performance by Jerome – is where this series becomes truly special.

 

7. Mindhunter (Season 2)

I don’t think Season 2 of David Fincher’s Netflix show about the birth of the BSU was quite as good as the first. For one thing, it didn’t have someone like Edmund Kemper (brilliantly played by Cameron Britton) quite so hanging over the whole season. For another, I could have done without the family issues of Bill Tench taking up so much time, and the show kind of didn’t figure out what to do with Anna Torv when the FBI was in Atlanta. But those are really my only concerns – the standalone interviews with subjects like Berkowitz and Manson were excellent (and to be honest, didn’t need the multi-episode Kemper treatment) – and even the less well known serial killers provided good episodes. Plus, the ongoing investigation in Atlanta – which became the backbone of the second half of the season – did something the first season didn’t – put them into the field, and in action. I also think it’s quite telling that they continue to flash to BTK throughout the show – because he is going to elude capture until 2005, and is the exact opposite of all these profiles they keep spitting out, which combined with the fact that the show embraces the likely fact that while Wayne Williams is guilty of some of the Atlanta murders – he’s unlikely to have done them all – may make Mindhunter a show about profilers, that doesn’t really buy into what they do entirely. It remains a fascinating, dark, disturbing show – without quite tipping over into exploitation. I eagerly await Season 3 – in probably 2-3 years (hopefully, you never know with Netflix).

Best Episode 2.9 – The season finale was probably the best episode (although I think you could argue for the Berkowitz or Manson episodes as the best standalones) because of the cumulative power of the series. It also gives us the fascinating Wayne Williams character (a great Christopher Livingston) – who had shown up before, but not much. It’s an unsettling performance because you know he’s guilty – but of what? He’ll haunt me like Britton’s Kemper did (not quite the same, but close)- and by ending with BTK, it’s showing they still don’t have a clue. A great end to a (mostly) great season.

 

6. Barry (Season 2)

I was one of the people who thought we didn’t really need a second season of Barry – the first season was just about perfect, as Barry (Bill Hader) keeps trying to leave his old life as an assassin behind, and never can – leading to deadly consequences for everyone around him, but never him. Barry is clearly a bad guy, who tries desperately to see himself as a good guy – and can never do. It’s also a show that brilliantly mixes together violence and comedy. And yet, while I think the first season would have been fine on its own, Season 2 is excellent in its own right – its blending together the different elements of Barry’s life in interesting ways. Season 1 all seemed like one whole thing – all on Barry. Season two expands it – and makes room for some interesting twists and turns, including Barry’s horrible secret from his past in Afghanistan, and the wonderful final cliffhanger.

Best Episode 2.5 – ronny/lily – This was a very good season, but the clear stand out episode was the brilliantly surreal ronny/lily – which is probably the best single episode of TV I saw this year. Barry does everything he can not to kill Ronny – but he’s kind of stuck when he attacks him. And Ronny’s very strange daughter shows up. The whole thing is a surreal, violent, comic masterwork – a bizarre episode, but a brilliant one.

 

5. Bojack Horseman (Season 6a)5

It’s impossible to judge the final season of Bojack Horseman completely – as we only got half of it this year and much of it – particularly the last episode – seem to be setting up the endgame of the series – which will involve Bojack finally having to face up to all the horrible things that he has done over the course of the series. What we do have though, is another excellent batch of 8 episodes, that sets everyone up in their own way for the end. Bojack is legitimately trying to get better – going to rehab, and staying there for too long, because he’s worried what he’ll be like in the real world (with good reason) and even screwing up when he tries to help. You have Diane, struggling with her book, but making a good faith effort in Chicago, and with a new boyfriend. Princess Carolyn struggling with new motherhood and her career at the same time. Mr. Peanutbutter struggling with his impending marriage – and infidelity. Todd is perhaps the happiest of all – finding his calling as a nanny – but still having to deal with his complicated family and sexual life. Once again, Bojack Horseman the show was hilarious throughout – but also addresses real themes, and darkness, and didn’t shy away from them. The endgame seems like it will more of the same – and I cannot wait for it.

Best Episode: 6.7 – The Face of Depression – I don’t think we quite got an individual episode as great as Free Churro or Time’s Arrow or as daring as Fish Out of Water in this group of episodes, but the second to last episode of the season – really, the last one we saw our main cast came the closet, as all the different characters struggle with their depression, and try their best to set themselves up for the future. Really, only the first episode of this season – with the flashbacks going further back to show when Bojack’s drinking became a problem – comes close to this one, for single episode impact this season.

 

4.Watchmen (Season 1)

I was certainly skeptical that we needed more Watchmen content – the graphic novel is, of course, a masterpiece and I liked Zack Snyder’s film adaptation, even if it wasn’t perfect – but I was of the opinion that while we could have comic book material that is serious, perhaps we needed to get away from assuming it had to be Watchmen and come up with new ideas. But what Damon Lindelof and company pulled off is truly great – a sequel to the series, set in the modern time, with only some of the characters from the book – and seeing what has happening in the interim. The star was the great Regina King – doing some of the best work of her career, as a masked hero in Tulsa, Oklahoma who grew up in America’s 51^st State – Vietnam. The series was wide ranging – going back 100 years to the racist past of Tulsa, and then moving right up to very modern villains – and how little has changed. As much as Lindelof has a reputation for too many twists, and not being able to stick the landing – neither was true here – there were certainly twists here, but he didn’t play them up too much, and answered the questions it needed to as it went along. And then the season – perhaps (and probably correctly, series) finale was just about perfect – right down to that great final moment. I didn’t think we needed Watchmen – but what we got is a legendary season of TV.

Best Episode: 1.8 – A God Walks into Abar – The final is perfect, pretty much, but it was the penultimate episode of the series that I thought was truly amazing. The idea of Dr. Manhattan experiencing every moment of his life at the same time, which has been around since the graphic novel, was always something I didn’t think you could do in movies or television. And then, with this episode, they pulled it off brilliantly. And it was more than an intellectual exercise, or a triumph of structural screenplay (although it was both) thanks to the great performances by Regina King and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Certainly, this was the most ambitious hour of television of the year.

 

3. Chernobyl (Miniseries)

HBO’s brilliant five-episode miniseries is as harrowing as television can get. From the insanely intense first episode, that documents the explosion and the chaos and confusion that followed, through the rest of the series which focused on Jared Harris (in one of the very best performances in any medium this year) as a Soviet scientist tired of the lies. Chernobyl is as bleak as anything you will ever see. Just when you think it cannot get bleaker, episode four comes along, and has a subplot about the guys whose job is to kill dogs that have had too much radiation. The final episode is a courtroom thriller – and manages to breathe some life into what could have been a tired genre. The film is full of information, full of great period detail – and also, full of characters and heroism, and tragedy. You will see the best and worst of humanity in this show – which is one of the best miniseries’ I have ever seen.

Best Episode: 1.1 – 1:23:45 – You can probably make a case for any of the episode – seriously, while each episode is unique, they are equals. Still, I think the controlled chaos at which the first episode was directed, written and show is a brilliant way to get you right inside the series from the start. A brilliant example of sustained confusion and chaos on screen, that is still crystal clear in terms of plotting and character.

 

2. Succession (Season 2)

I had missed Succession Season 1 when it came out – even though it sounded interesting. When it became an phenom in Season 2, my wife and I binged both seasons fairly quickly. While the first season was excellent – truly it would have ranked high on my list had I seen it then – Season 2 really does bring everything to the next level. Brian Cox maybe delivering the best performance on television – certainly it’s become the most iconic (I could listen to him say “Fuck off” all day long) – but the entire ensemble is easily the best currently working on TV. One of the great things about the show is that they somehow find a way to keep all of these characters bouncing off each other every episode, each their own unique brand of horribleness. The show is funnier than just about any comedy on TV, and the high stakes drama is wonderful, in part specifically because you cannot cheer for any of these characters – they are all awful – so you simply root for chaos. This is one of the great new shows in recent years – and I wonder how long it will go on. The end of season 2 seems to set up the endgame – but maybe not.

Best Episode: 2.10: This is Not for Tears – I almost went with episode 8, if for no other reason that because Kendall (the great Jeremy Strong) rapping about his father, which may be the funniest single scene in anything this year – but it’s hard to deny the perfect way that they ended season 2 – deciding Kendall was going to be the fall guy – and him finally finding his killer instinct again in his final speech, before ending with the great final shot of Brian Cox. A perfect episode.

 

1. Fleabag (Season 2)

Like Barry and Killing Eve, we didn’t really need a second Season of Fleabag – which was brilliant as a standalone season back in 2016. But I am really glad we got one anyway. The second season starts with a brilliant, hilarious episode of awkwardness at a dinner party for the family – where we find out everything that has happened since we last saw these people. It then gets deeper and deeper throughout the season – as Fleabag’s friendship/flirtation/relationship with The Priest (Andrew Scott – brilliant, and I am usually not a fan) gets deeper. The show takes its premise – with Fleabag constantly addressing us in the audience – and challenges it, pushing it in a very clever, very real way – one that makes you realize that we in the audience, and Fleabag’s obsession with us is really what is holding us back. That is why this will certainly be the last season of Fleabag – because Fleabag realizes what she needs to do to grow and mature – and that’s to leave us behind.

Best Episode 2.6 – That first episode is a mini-comic masterpiece all of its own, and would be a fine choice for best in the series (it’s certainly the funniest). But I will go with what ended up the Series Finale – mainly for its final moments – the subtle, heartbreaking way the relationship between Fleabag and The Priest ends – and how Fleabag leaves us behind. It is the perfect way to end the series.

2019 Year End Report: Worst Films

As per usual, I usually avoid movie that have no reason to believe I will like them – all of which means, many of the films that will dominate others worst of lists aren’t on mine. But when you watch as many movies as I do, you are going to see your share of bad ones. So below are all pretty bad – followed by my Bottom 10 of the year.

 

The Aftermath (James Kent) was a lifeless WWII drama that wastes a talented cast. Aladdin (Guy Ritchie) had none of the magic of the original animated film, and is overlong to boot. All is True (Kenneth Branagh) is a rather dull film about the final days in the life of Shakespeare – I’d prefer Branagh do more Shakespeare adaptations than this. American Son (Kenny Leon) has its heart in the right place, and fine performances – but it’s so on the nose that it becomes useless. Bliss (Joe Begos) is filled with artist clichés and needless provacations, so despite a committed performance in the lead, it’s a very bad horror film. Captive State (Rupert Wyatt) is the type of film we need more of – large scale, original filmmaking – but I just wish it was much, much better. Charlie Says (Mary Harron) does offer an original take on the Manson Family – but not original enough to overcome a miscast Matt Smith, and it made me slightly uncomfortable at the way it excuses the actions of the Manson girls. The Curse of La Llorna (Michael Chaves) is perhaps the nadir of the Conjuring universe – which just repeats anything, and isn’t even fun. A Dark Place (Simon Fellows) is a would be modern noir, that strains credibility to far too survive. The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Xavier Dolan) is the second misfire in a row from Dolan. Dumbo (Tim Burton) continues Burton’s decline into anonymous corporate product. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (Johannes Roberts) can be okay if you expect nothing from it – but I still want a little more from my killer shark movies. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan) is a hugely disappointing a sequel to Unbreakable – that doesn’t work in any real way. The Goldfinch (John Crowley) is too reverential to the source material, which just doesn’t work on screen. Gwen (William McGregor) is a slow burn horror which is way too slow, and not enough burn. In the Tall Grass (Vincenzo Natali) is a disappointing adaptation of a very disturbing Stephen King/Joe Hill story that pulls its punches. J.T. LeRoy (Justin Kelly) tells the fascinating true story from the wrong point of view. Just a Breath Away (Daniel Roby) is a France/Canadian co-production trying to be a blockbuster – and it didn’t really work. The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff) kind feels like a miniseries chopped down to feature length and the result is basically incoherent. Knives and Skin (Jennifer Reeder) is an admirable attempt at a feminist version of Twin Peaks – but it feels too calculated and hollow. The Lion King (Jon Favreau) adds nothing to the magic of the original – and is more than a little creepy. Lords of Chaos (Jonas Akerlund) has a fascinating true crime story to tell, and has absolutely no life to it. Lucy in the Sky (Noah Hawley) never quite figures out ins central conceit – and takes everything way too seriously. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Joachim Ronning) is a pale shadow of the first film – which wasn’t exactly brilliant. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Gilliam) kind of makes you wonder why Gilliam spent so many years trying to get this made – its odd, but not in the best Gilliam way. Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton) is a modern noir, with too much story, and a distracting lead performance by director Norton. The Mountain (Rick Alverson) is not as awful as The Comedy was – I hated that one – but an interesting start really goes nowhere. Official Secrets (Gavin Hood) has a fascintating story, but basically tries to tell three stories at once at doesn’t quite figure out how to blance it all. Pasolini (Abel Ferrara) doesn’t really give you any idea of why Pasolini was such a major figure – or much other than the pain of his death. Peterloo (Mike Leigh) is very long and rather lifeless from Leigh – which is not something I ever thought I’d see from him. Possum (Matthew Holness) looks impressive, but there’s nothing going on in this low budget English horror film. The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Chris Renaud) does nothing to add to the charm of the original, and is oddly disjointed. Terminator: Dark Fate (Tim Miller) is probably the best in the series since T3 – and it’s still bad. Through Black Spruce (Don McKellar) doesn’t seem to know what the important story is – and McKellar seems to know he shouldn’t be directing it. Ugly Dolls (Kelly Asbury) shows perhaps how hard it was to pull off Trolls – because it doesn’t do anything with its cute dolls. Wonder Park (N/A) is a bargain basement animated film for kids – and feels like it.  Yesterday (Danny Boyle) has a fascinating premise – and yet it doesn’t do anywhere near enough with it.

 

10. Men in Black International (F. Gary Gray)

I have to admit, that I’ve never been much of a fan of any of the Men in Black movies – the first one is fine, the second one not so much, and third is okay at best. Still, all of them are better than Men in Black International – the ill-advised and lazy attempt to reboot the franchise. If you were going to do that, then you could certainly do worse that casting Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth – they do look great in those suits – but they have absolutely nothing to work with here. This wasn’t a world that needed expanding, and the film lacks the punch and humor that the series could be at its best. This was probably the laziest attempt to capitalize on some existing IP this year – not the worst (as you’ll see) – but certainly the one that didn’t seem to even be trying.

 

9. Hellboy (Neil Marshall)

The sad truth about Guillermo del Toro’s two fine Hellboy films is that they didn’t make enough money to justify their budgets. The fact that they both came out really before the MCU was a thing didn’t help make the studio confident enough to give him enough money to do a third film. And yet, you have to wonder why they would even bother with this reboot if they were clearly going to do it so cheaply and with such little effort. There are a couple of stand-alone sequences in Hellboy that show what director Neil Marshall can do – especially the final scene in the film, which has more energy than the rest of the film combined – but basically, this is a bargain basement attempt to cash in on what Del Toro created – and the result is painfully dull.

 

8. The Angry Birds Move 2 (Thorop Van Orman)

I’m not sure I can explain why I disliked The Angry Birds Movie 2 as much as I did. I have seen more than my fair share of bad children’s animation in the past few years (having two girls, who love to go to the movies, and wanting to make sure that love continues, means we go see pretty much everything aimed at them). But something about this cynical, loud, fast moving garbage, with a plot that didn’t seem to be given a moment’s thought really just irked me sitting in the theater. For reasons I cannot explain, the film got pretty good reviews from people – not good reviews exactly, but many expressed surprise with how much they enjoyed it. I didn’t see that here – I saw a lot of loud, incoherent action, with subplots designed to get some cute birds in the mix, and the laziest humor I can imagine. It still bugs me – more so than the other subpar animated films I saw this year – by far.

 

7. 6 Underground (Michael Bay)

I’m not quite sure when Michael Bay became quite this awful – it was certainly sometime during his years doing Transformers. Personally, I had kind of hoped that leaving those movies behind, and working with Netflix, would produce something great from Bay again – hell, my favorite of all of his films is Pain & Gain, made during the Transformers years. Instead what we got was another loud, incoherent movie – a film that values constant action, violence and spectacle over everything else. The result is a Netflix movie that runs just over two hours, but seems to be about three times as long as The Irishman – a headache inducing mess of a film, by a filmmaker I know has immense talent, but has buried it under so much crap that you cannot tell anymore.

 

6. Donnybrook (Tim Sutton)

I’m not sure why director Tim Sutton seems to have been confused while making Donnybrook – but he certainly. This should have been a straight ahead exploitive B-movie – its two main characters after all are named Jarhead Earl and Chainsaw Angus, and they are making their violent ways to a bare knuckles boxing competition in the mountains, and includes a scene where a woman has sex with a man and shoots him in the head the exact moment he climaxes. This is a movie impossible to take serious – and had it been made as a fun, exploitive B-movie, then Donnybrook may well have been a filthy good time at the movies. Instead, the director of Dark Night (his awful re-imagining of the shooting in the Colorado movie theater playing The Dark Knight Rises) seems to think he’s making something deep and meaningful here. It doesn’t. The film makes darkness and misery for truthfulness and profundity. It isn’t – it’s just painfully bad.

 

5. Rambo: Last Blood (Adrian Grunberg)

I have no idea why Sylvester Stallone decided to bring Rambo – his second most famous character – out of retirement for this jingoistic piece of exploitation cinema, but here we are. I actually quite liked Rambo’s last outing – in 2008 – which was basically as close as Stallone has gotten to making his own version of Unforgiven. But here, he is back in pure exploitation territory – with Rambo’s sweet, innocent, naïve niece kidnapped and abused horribly by human traffickers in Mexico, meaning he has to strike back of course. The result is a nasty film – one that would be more offensive if its wasn’t so damn silly – and ending with, if not a promise for more, at least a possibility for more. I don’t really want more – if it’s going to be this awful – but John Rambo deserves a better sendoff than this.

 

4. Serenity (Steven Knight)

Serenity is the type of awful film that only really talented people can make. Led by Steven Knight – who is a great screenwriter (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises) and director (Locke) – who this time tries to make a modern sunshine noir – set on a tropical island, in which a fisherman with a past (Matthew McConaughey) who is approached by his ex (Anne Hathaway) with an offer to kill her current husband (Jason Clarke). The films dialogue plays like a parody of noir dialogue – and even if there is a reason for that, it doesn’t make it any less tin eared. It doesn’t help that Hathaway is horribly miscast – and Clarke seems to be sleepwalking through the role he always gets. When we finally get to the now infamous twist, well, we’ve stopped caring. I can see where Knight and company were going here – and you have to kind of admire it for the sheer, dumb arrogance of it all it – but it doesn’t save the film from being awful.

 

3. Cats (Tom Hooper)

A part of me wants to give Tom Hooper and company credit for Cats – they certainly completely and totally committed to their vision of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but sweet Jesus, was this a painful experience. So painful in fact that I wonder if the ever popular musical is in fact terrible as well – I haven’t seen it on stage, but am interested to, because the songs are awful in this, and the whole thing is just so goofy and over-the-top, but played completely straight. The only performer who emerges unscatched from it is Taylor Swift, who somehow completely nails her one song, and gets the tone exactly right for it. Everything else is so weird, so creepy, and yet somehow so boring, that it’s the type of film that you kind of have to see it to believe it – but you don’t really want to sit through it.

 

2. Dark Phoenix (Simon Kinberg)

Even if The New Mutants will be the actual end of the X-Men at Fox before it’s swallowed by Disney, Dark Phoenix really does feel like the death rattle of the franchise as we knew it. To be fair, Fox has been struggling with this franchise since the third film – Brent Ratner’s The Last Stand – producing some great films (like Logan) and some really bad films (like Apocalypse) as the series kind of starts and stops, moves forward and backwards, etc. Yet, at no time have they ever made a film as singularly bland, boring and misguided as Dark Phoenix. I’m not sure why they tried to tell the legendary Dark Phoenix saga again – after they failed so badly with The Last Stand – and if they were going to do so, why they gave it to Simon Kinberg, who co-wrote that film. Whatever the reason, Dark Phoenix is disjointed and boring – wastes its entire cast, who is sleepwalking through their roles and is as painfully boring as a comic book could be. I don’t like the idea of so many corporate mergers, where everything is owned by one mega corporation. In the case of X-Men though, it cannot get worse than this, can it?

 

1. The Haunting of Sharon Tate (Daniel Farrands)

I would wish that all those who hated the depiction of the Manson family and Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would watch The Haunting of Sharon Tate to see just exactly how awful things could have been. I would wish that, but that would mean more people would watch this absolutely awful movie – the worst I’ve seen in several years. The film is incompetently made, written and acted – and engages in some strange victim blaming as well as some wish fulfillment. I can legitimately see the filmmakers behind it saying their intentions were basically the same as Tarantino’s – accept, of course, they don’t have the talent of Tarantino, and they don’t appear to have any real understanding of Tate, the Manson family, the sixties, or just about anything else. This is a downright awful film – the worst you could have possibly have seen this year.