Movies! The Best of A24 (2019 Edition) / February 22, 2020 by Joel Goodman

It was a banner year for the best production and distribution company in film, A24. It seems like everything they released was pure gold, but I unfortunately didn’t get to catch all of it. 2019 (and especially the last half of the year) was absolutely bonkers for me and my family, and I had to carefully choose what movies I watched because free time was so scant. Whenever I could, I chose the movies that were best received by critics I like and trust, and the lion’s share of those films were A24. I’ve talked about a few others already, but I’ve saved the best for last. Here are my 3 favorite A24 film of 2019. Cheers!

The Lighthouse

8.95/10.0

A "Hell is Other People" movie that takes place at, you guessed it, a lighthouse. It sort of functions as a better, more stylish and surreal version of The Vanishing. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe star, and I think it's Dafoe's best work. But the real star of the show is the cinematography. It's shot in inky black and shades of silver, with night scenes lit so perfectly with pools of candlelight that it almost distracts you from the story. The 1.19:1 aspect ratio is a great choice, as well. Really makes the experience that much more claustrophobic. From Robert Eggers, who wowed us all a few years back with The Witch, or The VVitch if you prefer.

Midsommar

8.5/10.0

Ari Aster is back with another story of family tragedy disguised as a horror film. This time around we have a young woman that takes a trip to a Swedish commune with a group of friends following an event that leaves her as the sole survivor of her immediate family. Of course, things are not as they initially seem and things go very bloody, very quickly as relations between the commune and their visitors sour. While not as strong as Aster's previous film, Hereditary, which was a defining moment in modern horror, there is plenty to like about Midsommar. It's well shot and directed, and almost constant daylight provides an interesting backdrop to the happenings on screen. Highly recommended.

Uncut Gems

9.15/10.0

My pick for the best film of 2019. From the Safdie brothers, who previously gave us the pleasantly surprising Good Time. Adam Sandler plays a gambling addicted jeweler that constantly makes the wrong decisions and winds up in a terrible situation involving Kevin Garnett (who plays himself) and a rare uncut black opal. Uncut Gems is a singular accomplishment that everyone should see. This movie made me feel like I was on the verge of a panic attack for the entirety of its running time. It's very strange that I'm typing these words, but here it goes: Adam Sandler was robbed and he deserved the Academy Award for best actor. This is a truly great film that I believe will come to be thought of as one of the great suspense films of all time. Yes, it is that good. I get the feeling I will rewatch this frequently.

Movies! The Green Inferno, Under the Silver Lake, and The Inventor / June 12, 2019 by Joel Goodman

The Green Inferno (2014)

2.40/10.0

Eli Roth has a problem. He, like Quentin Tarantino, grew up on grindhouse cinema and was inspired to emulate midnight movies in his own career. But unlike Tarantino, Roth doesn't do anything to elevate exploitation films. He instead takes the worst qualities in those movies and accentuates them while leaving out any nuance or charm, until the only thing left is an ugly emulation of what people who don't know a lot about movies think of when they hear the word "Grindhouse".

In the case of The Green Inferno, he has taken the worst movies of the 70's and 80's (Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, and all of their ilk) and reproduced all of their hallmark ugliness without making an attempt to do anything new and without putting an artistic spin on it. His attempts at humor fall completely flat (specifically the spider scene and the "munchies" scene), so what we have here is a joyless piece of trash. This is the worst horror film I've seen in recent years. I could not wait for it to end. I wish that Eli Roth, who is obviously cinematically literate, would put more thought and effort into his homages to vintage B movies.

Under The Silver Lake (2019)

8.45/10.0

Really interesting film about the sinister and unseen side of Hollywood. Also features subplots about secret codes and hidden meaning in pop culture, and also a plot thread about a dog killer that is almost certainly the main character. This film feels like David Lynch doing Hitchcock, like a psychedelic neo noir. This is one of the most unique and well executed films I've seen in a long time, but I was surprised to find that only half the people who have seen the movie agree with me. The other half seems to have loathed it. Go figure. The film careens from one weird set piece to the next in such a dizzying fashion that the gripes that critics had with this film are almost understandable, but they still miss the point. This movie deserved a wide release but was apparently so divisive that A24, which is normally much better at this kind of stuff, decided to just release it on VOD instead of putting it in art houses where it belonged. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing score that makes this feel even more like a Hitchcock movie.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

6.20/10.0

Entertaining documentary about a vapid grifter that somehow managed to liberate countless Silicon Valley VCs of their hard earned cash with promises of a product based on impossible science. Recently Elizabeth Holmes has been the subject of numerous books, podcasts, documentaries, and news magazine segments. This doc hits most of the points that all the other media concerning this woman does, and it's well made but feels like it lingers too much on some aspects of the story while leaving out some of the more important/interesting bits, such as Sonny's hostility towards dissent and Holmes' clearly fake-as-all-hell baritone affect. Worth watching if you have HBO.