The Year 2019 in Movies

Matt Lynn Digital maintained a strong focus on reviewing movies in 2019. In taking a cinematic look back at the films we reviewed this year, we’ll provide a look into 48 distinct movie. We’ll additionally look into the concept of remakes and sequels as a bonus look into the field of movie making.

(The best movie Matt Lynn Digital saw in 2019 was Vertigo as directed by Alfred Hitchcock. We reviewed this film in April).

Atop our list of movies is the one film that received a perfect rating, that of 5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 stars on the movie rankings list. Alfred Hitchcock‘s Vertigo (1958) is a film that uses a narrative style mixing in mystery, thriller, romance, and psychological illness to suggest that a character isn’t guilty. Vertigo is the first of two Alfred Hitchcock movies reviewed this year.

(Matt Lynn Digital reviewed 2001: A Space Odyssey as directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. We reviewed this film in January).

Our second best film for the year introduced us to space tourism and a future of what traveling in space might look like in Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The rating of 4.75-stars reflects the quality in innovation, storytelling, science fiction and genre creation. This is also the first of six movies reviewed this year associated with space travel.

(Three films rated at 4.50-stars included 1980’s Ordinary People, 1992’s Glengarry Glenn Ross and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. The films were reviewed in January, April and July, respectively).

Four Academy Awards awaited the film Ordinary People (1980), a sad, moving, and emotionally satisfying film. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) offers the colorful language of full-throated criticism of the modern American business culture. The first of six films produced, directed or both for Steven Spielberg happens to be the first of three films starring Tom Hanks in our review this year. The film Saving Private Ryan (1998) shows a highly realistic depiction of the human cost of war, culminating in the central stories of a group of soldiers tasked with saving one soldier whose brothers died in that same war.

(Three of six films rated at 4.25-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, 1999’s The Matrix and 1988’s Big. The films were reviewed in August, May and November, respectively).

The film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) provides a fictional retelling of the time, the place, and an fact-adjacent place of Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. A winner of four Academy Awards, the film The Matrix (1999) offered a groundbreaking dystopian movie-going experience. The film Big (1988) made a splash with the whimsy of a 13-year-old boy in a grown man’s body.

(The remaining six films rated at 4.25-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1988’s Rain Man, 1989’s Field of Dreams and 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The films were reviewed in October, June and December, respectively).

Another winner of four Academy Awards in our reviews this year was the serious yet comedic film Rain Man (1988). The second film, Field of Dreams (1989), while being perhaps the best baseball film ever made is the first of three movies reviewed this year to star Kevin Costner. The film How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) offers an irrepressible portrayal of an aggrieved Grinch who does not care for the holiday of Christmas.

(Four of eight films rated at 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Joker, 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun, 2016’s Hidden Figures and 1995’s Apollo 13. The films were reviewed in October, June, November and July, respectively).

The film Joker (2019) tells a gritty, physically demanding, emotional gut punch of an origin story of a would-be foil of the comic book character Batman. A Raisin in the Sun (1961) is a film adaptation that reviews the value and purpose of dreams, the need to fight racial discrimination and the importance of family. The film Hidden Figures (2016) focuses on three African American women fighting society and culture placing the obstacles of indignity, prejudice, and institutional obstruction in their way in service of the space race. The blockbuster film Apollo 13 (1995) tells a triumphant story of human ingenuity and tragedy averted.

(The remaining eight films rated at 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1992’s A Few Good Men, 1993’s The Remains of the Day, 1993’s The Fugitive and 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The films were reviewed in July, February, March and September, respectively).

A Few Good Men (1992) is a film that tells the fictional tale of a Navy lawyer who has never seen the inside of the courtroom while defending two reticent Marines accused of murdering a colleague in Cuba. The film The Remains of the Day (1993) explored how to waste your life emotionally and politically. The preceding two films garnered a dozen Academy Award nominations between the two of them. In the film The Fugitive (1993) you see the story of a man unjustly accused of murdering his wife who gains his freedom through a train accident then sets to establish his innocence. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), a partially live action and animated film offers an adult sensibility filled with lurid details, gags of a lighter nature, and an all around good time.

(Four of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s Motherless Brooklyn, 2019’s Knives Out, 2017’s The Darkest Hour and 2012’s Looper. The films were reviewed in November, December, April and June, respectively).

The film  Motherless Brooklyn (2019) sets itself against the backdrop of 1950s New York City with a puzzle for lead character and private detective with Tourette’s Syndrome. Knives Out (2019) as a whodunnit works for not being based on anything. The film The Darkest Hour (2017) follows the trying days of the Dunkirk Evacuation with Operation Dynamo. Rian Johnson, with his second film in this paragraph in Looper (2012), gets creative with two characters battling each other through time in an interesting science fiction plot.

(Four of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1999’s October Sky, 2018’s Ready Player One, 2010’s Inception and 2018’s Widows. The films were reviewed in May, February, January and September, respectively).

The film October Sky (1999) tells the tale of a difficult father son relationship and the formation of a career in the early days of the space race. The science fiction, fantasy, and action film Ready Player One (2018) offers clever mixes of graphic and reality set in the hypothetical year 2045. Winning four Academy Awards, the film Inception (2010) offers a decent science fiction story line with an entertaining if dreamy cinematic experience that works well in movie or home theaters alike. The film Widows (2018) offers political intrigue, a corrupt local crime boss, and a broken relationship between a husband and wife that gives this story some punch.

(Six of fourteen films rated at 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1988’s Bull Durham, 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1983’s Terms of Endearment, 1982’s Poltergeist, 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1954’s White Christmas. The films were reviewed in October, August, February, August, June and December, respectively).

The film Bull Durham (1988) is the film of a rookie, a veteran, an experienced fan seeking a love triangle and baseball.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) tells a comedic high school version of the message stop and smell the flowers. Winning five Academy Awards, the film Terms of Endearment (1983) tells of the family problems of an independently spirited daughter and her hard to please mother. The original film Poltergeist (1982) gains momentum as random occurrences in the home begin to introduce themselves and grow into outright disturbances that scare the audience. An alien-themed film with a lyrical bent gives a glimpse into the wonder that is the move Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). White Christmas (1954) is the romantic movie for Christmas that quite honestly inspired the genre.

(Four of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1996’s Fargo, 1998’s Fallen, 1985’s The Color Purple and 1941’s Dumbo. The films were reviewed in February, March, March and March, respectively).

Fargo (1996) won an Academy Award for screenplay written for the screen while playing in the genres of crime, drama, and possibly thriller. Most correctly, the film should be characterized as a dark comedy in small town America. The film Fallen (1998) mixes the genres of supernatural with police thriller in tackling a clever telling of aiming to defeat the supernatural. The film adaptation of The Color Purple (1985) could have been harder hitting in getting into some of the upbringing and forcibly separate lives of sisters Celie Johnson and Nettie Harris. Brutal truths in the lives of the sisters are explored nonetheless with dignity. The fifth movie released by Disney was the animated film Dumbo (1941). The 64-minute feature gets into the story of a baby elephant forced to work in order to survive.

(Three of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 1963’s The Birds, 1990’s Arachnophobia and 2018’s Brian Banks. The films were reviewed in May, June and August, respectively).

The sudden and unpredictable attacks of birds form the premise of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds (1963). Arachnophobia (1990) just might be the film for you have a fear originating in childhood that you’d like to have comically challenged for two hours. The film Brian Banks (2018) recounts much of the story of a man sent to jail unjustly in what appears to be a clear case of injustice.

(Three of ten films rated at 3.50-stars by Matt Lynn Digital included 2019’s The Secret Life of Pets 2, 2019’s Gemini Man and 2010’s The Town. The films were reviewed in July, October and December, respectively).

The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) is an animated film that follows the lives of pets in an apartment in New York City as pet owners leave for the day with the added mixture of a circus, a farm, and an airplane flight. The film Gemini Man (2019) deserved better than the box office gate the film received in theaters.  The Town (2010) offered a film looking into the notion of burglary, armored trucks, banks, and Fenway Park serving as places just as distinctly as there were funny notions of love and loyalty.

Movies landing with a rating of 3.25-stars included The Jackal (1997) reviewed in May,  The Running Man (1987) reviewed in August, The Mule (2018) reviewed in August, Welcome to Marwen (2018) reviewed in September and Ad Astra (2019) reviewed in October.

Addressing the theory of remaking movies or offering sequels that keep a franchise going, we offered why this can work to assist storytelling and cinema in a look we made in March. We looked into A Star is Born (1937), A Star Is Born (1954), A Star Is Born (1976) and A Star is Born (2018). We looked into The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Wiz (1978). Then there were Little Orphan Annie (1932), Annie (1982), Annie (1999) and Annie (2014). The films The Godfather (1972) led to sequels The Godfather: Part II (1974) and The Godfather: Part III (1990). Batman Begins (2005) led to The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). The film Jaws (1975) led to three sequels, namely Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987).

We finally offered our Top 20 Movies in ranked order (with reviews) in April. I recommend taking a closer look, as there are movies that we didn’t specifically review in 2019 that are worth your time. 2019 was a good year for reviews with us. Invite your friends to follow us if you agree.

Matt – Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, and ‘The Color Purple’

Alice Walker‘s book The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1983. Two years later, the film The Color Purple (1985) premiered in December 1985 with a more general release in the following year. Steven Spielberg directed and partly produced the film, which was nominated for eleven Academy Awards. (Much of this review includes spoilers).

(Alice Walker, the writer of the book The Color Purple, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award).

The Color Purple tell the story of life in African-American women in the Southern United States. The movie gets into some of the upbringing and forcibly separate lives of sisters Celie Johnson and Nettie Harris, who are forced to confront incest, rape, and then premature familial separation at the hands of the man they knew as their father. Celie, portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg after being forced to marry Albert Johnson, moves into a horrific and controlling situation after giving birth to two children at the hands of her purported father.

(Whoopi Goldberg as Celie Johnson in the movie The Color Purple).

Danny Glover plays Albert Johnson in The Color Purple. Albert agrees to marry Celie after Alphonso, the father to Celie and Nettie, comes to an agreement with Albert to have Nettie keep house and raise his kids after being widowed. Albert physically, sexually, verbally, and emotionally abuses Celie from roughly 1907 through the 1930s. Albert’s kids join in the verbal abuse and act with much emotional disdain towards Celie throughout the film.

(Danny Glover as Albert Johnson in the movie The Color Purple).

After Alphonso’s sexual advances toward Nettie after Albert and Nettie’s arranged marriage, Nettie fleas to Celie seeking refuge. Albert attempts to force himself upon Nettie. Nettie fleas this, and when forced out of the Johnson household at a young age she leaves, crying. Nettie promises to write until her death. As Albert guards against Celie seeing any correspondence coming to Johnson household, Celie goes on for many years never hearing from her sister. Akosua Busia plays Celie’s sister, Nettie Harris.

(Akosua Busia as Nettie Harris in the movie The Color Purple).

As the story progresses toward the 1930s, Albert’s son Harpo and Sofia have become pregnant. Oprah Winfrey plays Sofia while Willard E. Pugh plays Harpo. Sofia is the stronger character of these two and takes pains to have defended herself against the physical, sexual, and emotional violence of male family, Southern United States culture, and being financially poor in Georgia. (Much of the movie is set in Georgia).

(Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in the movie The Color Purple).

Against the will of Albert Johnson, Sofia and Harpo get married. A total of three kids are born to Sofia and Harpo between physical fights and disagreements, with Sofia leaving Harpo for lack of respect and fair treatment while the third child is newly born. Much later in the larger story, Sofia justifiably strikes a condescending white man and, as a result, must work as a servant to a white family in the Southern United States with no rights of self-determination or free movement. Sofia is separated from her kids for more than eight years, and Celie then raises Harpo’s kids at Albert Johnson’s home.

(Willard E. Pugh as Harpo Johnson, left, and Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in the movie The Color Purple).

Albert Johnson takes transparent, brazen interest through much of the above story taking romantic interest in Shug Avery, a beautiful woman that for much of the movie entertains men through dance and singing in speakeasies while entertaining in private as well. Margaret Avery portrayed Shug Avery. Shug did spend time in the Johnson household, and Celie was forced by her husband to see to housekeeping and food preparation services to Shug. Later in the movie, it was Shug that takes sympathy with Celie’s longstanding suffering and sets Celie onto the course of freedom; this occurs after Shug is properly married and intervenes in such matters as finding the cache of letters that Albert had hidden in the house yet never shared with Celie.

(Whoopi Goldberg as Celie Johnson, left, and Margaret Avery as Shug Avery in the movie The Color Purple).

Some tense scenes for The Color Purple reveal themselves between the finding of the letters and the resolution of the film. Harpo and Sofia come to some semblance of a civilized relationship, which occurred after Celie took the outcome of her 8-year banishment to white Southern America culture as a punishment for a relatively minor infraction against a white southern male. Celie had considered taking revenge upon Albert Johnson more than once, yet was dissuaded from the course at each point where that thought arose. Ultimately, Nettie Harris returns home to Georgia from Africa with a husband, Celie’s two kids, and news that Alphonso was stepfather to Celie and Nettie. The sisterly bond of Celie and Nettie is restored, and the reestablishment of a morally uplifting reunion after all the bitter ugliness in the film offers some sense of hope.

(Whoopi Goldberg, left, and producer/director Steven Spielberg between takes of the movie The Color Purple).

Critical reception of the film includes the underlying point that films by Steven Spielberg tend to emphasize of points of more clarity without delving into points of uncomfortable sexual storytelling. Alice Walker‘s book is properly read through the lens of feeling the discomfort and agony of the emotional pain that comes from the incestuous of forcible sexual situations. The added emotional wounds of physical and emotional pain were downplayed as a matter of tone in The Color Purple. That diminished the impact of the film. In fairness to Spielberg, none of his movies have confronted emotionally charged subject matter such as this in as direct a manner as I am suggesting.

The experience of the movie was important. Carefully considered, much of the larger message was expressed. Given the style points raised in the last paragraph, my rating of the movie The Color Purple is 3.50-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Wednesday, March 13, 2019