Monday, December 30, 2019

By Nathan Kouri

What were your favorite movies of 2019? Favorite older movies you saw for the first time? Did you have any once-in-a-lifetime moviegoing experiences? We asked Bijou and this is what they said:

Molly Bagnall (Executive Director)
2019
1. The Grand Bizarre (Mack)
2. Uncut Gems (Safdies)
3. Life After Love (Epcar)
4. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot)
5. A Month of Single Frames (For Barbara Hammer) (Sachs)
 
New-to-Me (alphabetical)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette)
Close-Up (Kiarostami)
Funeral Parade of Roses (Matsumoto)
Persona (Bergman)
Sex is Comedy (Breillat)
Sink or Swim (Friedrich)
 
Movie Experiences
—Programming, watching, hosting, experiencing ICDOCS 2019
—Rewatching Twin Peaks while babysitting my nephew
—Seeing Mulholland Drive (2001) by David Lynch on the big screen, it changed the way my brain works
—Watching Little Women on 35mm with my sister on Christmas Day
—Discovering Bon Appetit’s Youtube channel
—Watching Artists and Models (1955) by Frank Tashlin after finals and crying my eyes out from laughter
—Watching all three seasons of Riverdale with my roommate over the summer
Jack Christensen (After Hours)
2019
1. 1917 (Mendes)

I was not expecting this film to get anywhere near number one on my list when I heard about it (even hearing reviews I thought it would barely scratch my favorite films), but in the end, it completely blindsided me. I figured this would make my top 10 and maybe even my top five, but I never imagined it would be my number one film of the year. I had heard of the “one take” style it had before I watched it and assumed it would be a little gimmicky like in Birdman (although I will say Birdman was one of my favorite films of that year). A one take film that I would whole-heartedly recommend is Victoria; an actual 2 hour long one take film which completely blew my mind. 1917 used its one take in a surprisingly thoughtful way, though. I think the "single take" only serves to enhance the story rather than add a gimmick to the filmmaking and distract from the rest of the movie. All in all, this is a very compelling story with extremely impressive filmmaking to boot. This is Mendes’ best film ever (and that comes from a Mendes fan). It literally hits every nerve I have as a film buff, most of which I can’t mention without spoiling the film (and trust me the spoilers are almost the entire reason I want to talk about this movie), I have watched the last twenty minutes of this film maybe ten times and have never tired of it. I am very open about films I cry at and of every movie I have seen this year this is only one of two I’ve cried at, and I cried multiple times. Please, do yourself a favor and watch this film. This may be a little bit too “mainstream” for some people, but I think that shouldn’t be a disqualifying factor in determining films to watch. This is one of the most powerful stories (although fictional) to be told, ever.

2. The Lighthouse (Eggers)
I thought this would be my number one film without competition, but unfortunately 1917 came along and messed everything up, but that’s not to say this isn’t a good film, in fact it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. This is, I want to say, the most unique films I’ve ever seen, but I’ll settle with one of the most unique. The artistry of this film comes not from the story or the acting, but from the filmmaking. First of all, the movie is shot in 1.19:1 which gives it a completely different feel from any film that has come out this year. This is the epitome of arthouse-horror. Both of the main actors, which kind of implies the only two actors, give performances of a lifetime. Willem Dafoe gives some of the most memorable monologues in history (aided by the impeccable writing by Robert and Max Eggars) and Robert Pattinson performs his heart out in the best role of his entire life (only to be rivaled by his rollein the Safdie Brother’s film Good Time, but more on the Safdie Brothers next). If I had to summarize this film in one sentence it would be: This is the best written, best performed, most minimalist horror film ever created. I really don’t know how else to pitch this film, it’s a modern classic, it’s so good, do yourself a favor and watch it; there’s nothing else like it.
3. Uncut Gems (Safdies)
The most snubbed film at the Oscars, period. Adam Sandler, the Safdie Brothers, Lakeith Stanfield, Daniel Lopatin, etc. This film literally had nothing going against it. Adam Sandler was my pick for best actor, LaKieth Stanfield for best supporting actor, Safdie Brothers for best directors/writers/editors, and Daniel Lopatin for best original score. This film was stacked and only served to prove that the Oscars do not deserve their standing. This is an adrenaline fueled ride from start to finish to the point that I don’t think I ever blinked for the nearly two hour runtime. Even for the most mundane scenes, the editing and score keep you on the edge (in my case literally) of your seat. One of my favorite films of all time, Punch Drunk Love, stars Adam Sandler, and his performance in Uncut Gems surpasses that by quite a bit. When I tell people this movie stars Adam Sandler, it seems to deter a lot of people. Please don’t let that be you. This is, without a doubt, Sandler’s best role ever. Just watch the trailer, Sandler acts his ass off and totally kills it. Even though it isn’t my favorite of the year, I’d say if you watch any film from my top ten it has to be Uncut Gems because it is one of those films that will end up on every “most underrated films ever” lists. Please, for the love of God, watch this movie!
4. Joker (Phillips)
Let’s get this out of the way, there was a lot of controversy surrounding this film. Almost all of it was completely unfounded. This film is about a man who desperately looks for help, but at every turn is denied. There is nothing about oppressing minorities, or women, or whatever you’ve heard about this movie. It is a very slow and dark film about a man who needs help but can’t get it and eventually breaks. Don’t go into this film expecting a Marvel film, or a DC film for that matter, I think the best way to approach this film is to go in without any expectations. If you like character pieces that delve into the psyche of a mentally deranged person, then this is a movie for you and don’t read anything else about it. If you need more convincing then let me tell you that this is a love letter to early Scorsese. This isn’t to say it’s just a rip-off of Scorsese, far from it. It does something that few films have done as it perfectly toes the line between mainstream and arthouse film. If DC is able to recreate this again, then it’s got a promising future. Personally, though, I think it’s like catching lightning in a bottle (please prove me wrong!!!).
5. Parasite (Bong)
What can I say about Parasite that you haven’t already heard? Honestly, though, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, just go see it. The less information you go into this movie the better. I saw this opening day with only the information being it was a good movie. This is one of the most unique films ever made and Bong Joon-Ho is one of the most impressive filmmakers working today. If this is your first South Korean film…I mean, please let me know, there are so many amazing South Korean films that I can’t talk about right now (like Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer, The Host, and Okja), but please watch Train to Busan, or I Saw the Devil, or…gosh… really anything by Park Chan-Wook like Old Boy (one of my favorite movies of all time), or The Handmaiden. But this is about Bong Joon-Ho and Parasite, honestly there isn’t much I can say about his movie without spoiling it. All I can say is that it’s one of the best films ever made and one of the most (if not the most) unique stories ever written. It’s about economic disparity, it’s a love story, thriller, comedy, horror, action, like honestly everything. If you can’t get over the subtitles of this movie then you don’t deserve to watch movies. I actually cannot think of a bad thing about this movie, it only happens to be that there are four films I preferred over this one. I said if there is one movie from this list to watch it was Uncut Gems but that was assuming you’ve already seen this movie because, please, watch this movie, if you don’t you’ll be behind culturally. Watch this damn movie!

Please email me at jack-christensen@uiowa.edu to tell me why I'm wrong!

Emma Gray (Marketing Director)

2019
1. Uncut Gems (Safdie Brothers)
2. Honey Boy (Alma Har'el)
3. Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)
4. High Life (Claire Denis)
5. Vox Lux (Brady Corbet)

Jack Howard (Open Screen)
2019
1. Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot)
The Irishman (Scorsese)
Little Women (Gerwig)
Parasite (Bong)
Uncut Gems (Safdies)
 
New-to-Me (alphabetical)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder)
Brazil (Gilliam)
The Grand Bizarre (Mack) / Chinese Portrait (Wang)
Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Almodóvar)
 
Movie Experiences
—Watching The Irishman in one sitting with my dad at the Fleur and peeing two minutes straight afterwards
—Mulholland Drive @ On Iowa! sold out screening with all my Bijou pals
—Ghost World with Bijou pals even though I hated it
—Uncut Gems and feeling severe anxiety the entire time
—Joker being afraid someone would shoot up the theater
—Boy Erased and realizing I'll never be able to take Steve Carell seriously. Adam Sandler, sure, but not Steve Carell.
 
Matthew Huh (After Hours)
2019
1. Parasite (Bong)
2. Joker (Phillips)
3. The Lighthouse (Eggers)
4. Booksmart (Wilde)
5. The Farewell (Wang)
 
New-to-Me
1. Frances Ha (Baumbach)
2. American Beauty (Mendes)
3. Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton & Faris)
4. American Movie (Smith)
5. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Reiniger)
 
Movie Experiences
1. The Adventures of Prince Achmed on 35mm @ Music Box Theatre — My first modern 35mm experience in a classic movie theater. It introduced me to this ancient, yet incredible form of animation, and it has since become one of my favorite animations.
2. Marriage Story on 35mm @ Music Box Theatre — I got to see one of my most anticipated movies of the year close to 2 weeks before Netflix in a theater on film.
3. Sex and Astrology @ FilmScene — Never in my life did I expect to watch vintage pornography in a theater with a packed house in 2019.
4. House @ FilmScene — It's been a dream of mine to see this in a theater as it is one of the most unique horror films. The reactions from the audience and the images on the big screen made it worth it.
5. Bad Black @ FilmScene — From the trailer, this seemed like it would be a fun film to watch. And it was. The audience was laughing, applauding, and in awe of the insanity on the screen.
 
Nate Kouri (After Hours & Blog)
2019
1. The Grand Bizarre (Mack)
2. Ad Astra (Gray)
3. Slow Volumes (Gibisser)
4. Mademoiselle de Jonquières (Mouret)
5. Amanda (Hers)
 
New-to-Me (alphabetical)
Artists and Models (Tashlin)
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson)
Gertrud (Dreyer)
Mikey and Nicky (May)
My Brother's Wedding (Burnett)
Police Story (Chan)
 
Movie Experiences (not including Bijou events)
1. Charles Burnett retrospective (To Sleep with Anger, My Brother's Wedding, Killer of Sheep, The Horse, When it Rains) @ FilmScene & Burnett interview by Christopher Harris
2. Diary of a Country Priest on 35mm @ Irish Film Institute, Bresson retrospective
3. La Petite Bande (Deville) @ La Cinémathèque Française, children's matinee
4. Eyes Wide Shut with Tracie Morris' live poetry "handholding"
5. The Grand Bizarre and Horders Without Borders @ Headroom w/ Jodie Mack
6. "Watching" Michael Snow's photomontage book Cover to Cover w/ Molly B.
7. Segunda Vez (Garcia) and Finding Frances (Fielder) @ True/False film festival, w/ filmmakers
8. The Headless Woman (Martel) @ FilmScene, Women on the Verge
9. Kiwami Japan's "Sharpest ____ kitchen knife in the world" videos on YouTube
10. Dracula 3D (Argento) @ FilmScene, all-night FilmScream horror marathon
 
Calvin Leslie (Forum & Banter)

Movie Experiences
1. Avengers: Endgame: It was, without a doubt, the best time I’ve ever had in a theater. I went with a friend who knew very little about Marvel, one who knew a good amount, and me, who’d been checking the countdown clock every day for the past 135 days. Not only did the film turn out to be one of my favorites of all time, but the audience had no qualms participating. I’m pretty sure there were 2 standing ovations during the film, and dozens of applause breaks. Thanks to Marcus Sycamore for that.
2. Independence Day: Resurgence: I, for some reason, wanted to see this movie. An usher actually asked if I was there to watch the movie before it started, which should have been an omen. It was one of the worst movies ever made, however, I was alone in the theater. I heckled the shit out of it, and nobody in Ames Iowa’s Movies 12 could complain.
3. Batpussy: FilmScene, hilarious pornography on the big screen, and my friend skinned her knee on the way but refused to leave. Perfect.
4. Happy Death Day 2 U: My friend showed us the first one to prep us for the Late Shift at the Grindhouse preview, and it was awesome. Then, we go to what can only be described as an experiment in insanity with a sold out crowd. It was just a blast with people who signed up to have a blast.
5. Free Solo: Once again, I was alone in the theater for this. I sat in the couches in FilmScene, making the screen enormous. It was good I was alone because, numerous times, an involuntary curse escaped my scared-of-heights mind and bounced off the guy climbing a SHEER CLIFF with nothing but his BARE HANDS! Terrifying.

Ryan Nielsen (After Hours)

2019 (alphabetical)
The Irishman (Scorsese)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot)
The Lighthouse (Eggers)
Monos (Landes)
Parasite (Bong)

Movie Experiences
And Then There Were None, dir. Rene Clair (After Hours Event)
Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood, dir. Quentin Tarantino (70mm event at Music Box Theatre in Chicago)
Parasite, dir. Bong Joon-ho (Just amazing)
Flash Gordon, dir. Mike Hodges (Really fun After Hours event, though not a great movie)
The Passion of Joan of Arc, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer (Special event at Film Scene with score provided by George Sarah)
 

Lee Sailor (Horizons)
2019
Apollo 11 (Miller)
Cats (Hooper) - Favorite does not mean best...
The Farewell (Wang)
Little Women (Gerwig)
Monos (Landes)
Parasite (Bong)
 
New-to-Me
The Big Sleep (Hawks)
Brazil (Gilliam)
Chungking Express (Wong)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir)
Ladybug Ladybug (Perry)
 
Movie Experiences
Café Elektric at the Babylon Theater in Berlin. Having the chance to see an expressionist film at a ninety-year-old German theater with live music was very cool.
 
My Avengers: Endgame international fake spoilers long con. A lot of blockbusters get released in Europe a few days ahead of the US and I, who had never seen a Marvel movie in theaters before, joked to a friend who is a big fan of the series that because I was studying in Europe, I would be able to see Endgame before they could. When Captain Marvel came out, I actually did attend early so that I could send them real (though minor) spoilers about the film. This made them think I was serious about Endgame. The day it came out in Europe, I sent all sorts of fake spoilers to them, astonishingly we are still friends after that.
 
The Farewell and my grandmother. Towards the end of the year, my ninety-year-old grandmother suffered a health emergency and had to spend a few days in the hospital. Between limited transport and the fact that this was right before finals week, I was not able to make a trip to see her during this time. Fortunately, she would be okay in the end, but for obvious reasons, I found myself struggling during this time. During this very same week, I saw The Farewell for the first time, and it hit me about as hard as a movie can. This wasn't a favorite experience by any means, but it was undoubtedly one of my most memorable movie experiences.
 
Introduction to Film Studies. I think I'm slightly unusual among Bijou members in that I am not studying film or the arts. This past fall, however, I had the chance to take Introduction to Film Studies taught by Andrew Owens with former Bijou executive director Hannah Bonner leading discussion. Despite just scratching the surface, the class was a fascinating overview both of so many aspects of filmmaking I've never considered, but also the relationship between film and broader world history and culture. Both Andrew Owens and Hannah Bonner are fantastic teachers, and I hope to have the opportunity to study under them again.
 
Cats. There is nothing I can say about Cats that had not been better said somewhere else. I have no idea how such a weird movie came to be, but years from now, when it's a staple of the midnight movie circuit, I'll have so much fun telling people how I saw it when it first came out.
Michael Wawzenek (Forum & Vertical Cinema)

2019
High Life (Claire Denis)
Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)
Monos (Alejandro Landes)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
Knives and Skin (Jennifer Reeder)

New-to-me (alphabetical)
Code Unknown (Michael Haneke)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling)
Ishtar (Elaine May)
Popeye (Robert Altman)
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong)

Harry Westergaard (After Hours)

2019
1. Uncut Gems (Safdies)
2. The Farewell (Wang)
3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot)
4. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Scorsese)
5. The Lighthouse (Eggers)

New-to-Me
Popeye (Altman)
Something Wild (Demme)
To Sleep with Anger (Burnett)
Police Story (Chan)
Don’t Look Now (Roeg)
 

Movie Experiences
1. Visiting Odd Obsession Video in Chicago over the summer, renting The Landlord (Ashby), Melvin and Howard (Demme) and Stolen Kisses (Truffaut).
2. Charles Burnett Retrospective. Technically five separate events (To Sleep with Anger, My Brother’s Wedding, and Killer of Sheep screenings + the Q&A with Chris Harris and Cinema Savant event).
3. Seeing Hausu for Bijou Horizons with a close friend of mine in a very enthusiastic packed house. There were Rocky Horror levels of energy in that room.
4. Blood Simple screening for After Hours
5. Watching The Muppet Movie, a childhood favorite of mine, in a theater with my six year old brother, who shouted “LOOK, ITS STEVE MARTIN” during the actor’s cameo.