9 Best Films I've Seen This Year to Date

1.     Fool’s Paradise-The serendipity of good and bad fortune alike is evoked with the whimsy and physical comedy of Charlie Chaplin. It’s a rare ode to male friendship and features the gone-too-soon Ray Liotta’s best performance. Starring and directed by everyone’s favorite illiterate savant: Charlie (Day) from It’s Always Sunny

2.     Asteroid City-Following the bloated misstep of French Dispatch, this charming movie rivals the best directors at creating a strong sense of place: A charming Route 66 Southwest pit stop at the dawn of the nuclear era. Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson have one of those stoic romances reminiscent of the French new wave; Maya Hawke charms as a teacher with existential insecurities; there are five gangly genius clones of Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore, and many more interesting characters. Unlike French Dispatch, there’s a better sense of scale with the characters.

3.     Tetris- It’s hard to understate how impressive it is to take a subject that bores me to tears and make it a gripping thriller. Of course, it helps that the real-life story is equally mind-boggling: In order to acquire the rights for Tetris, Henk Williams mortgaged his house, risked trouble with the KGB, and was initially dependent on a company that was actively trying to screw him. When he finally broke free and secured the rights with the Nintendo company, he realized he didn’t have the rights because he was lied to. Although it’s easy to root for him in retrospect, movies like these often overlook that these bold risk takers simply can’t be classified as responsible adults. I’d love to see a deleted scene between Henk and his financial advisor.

4.     Air-Like Tetris, this is a film that does an amazing job of creating tension and stakes out of a topic that some might snooze-worthy. It’s a close call between Air and Tetris, but Tetris is insanely exciting, and Air deals with slightly more familiar beats. Still, this is a credit to director Ben Affleck for further developing the winning style of Argo.

5.     Are You There God. It’s Me Margaret-If it wasn’t an IP, it might have gotten the same kind of praise as Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. It perfectly captures the melodrama of early adolescence and how a million great and catastrophic things are happening to you at the exact same times. Rachel McAdams is tear-inducing. 

6.     Joy Ride-It’s a women’s buddy comedy in the mold of Bridesmaids or Girls Trip in over-the-top raunchiness.  In this case, it’s more specific to the East Asian experience: The divides within the community as well as the stereotypes from outside, that second generation Americans from that part of the world have to navigate to form their ethnic identity. Combined with all the near brushes with catastrophe and the wild card nature of two of the four main characters (but fortunately, not in an overly derivative way), an apt description would be Crazy Rich Asians meets the Hangover.  Also, one of the actresses is named Sherry Cola which just about the coolest name I’ve ever heard of.

7.     Ruby Gillman Teenage Kracken-Whatever my opinion of the three animated films I saw this year, I can’t deny credit for quality of the visuals. Any random animation cel from this film would have blown minds if used as a screensaver in the late 90s. When so much of the budget is used for animation, it’s tempting for animated films to let the story fall by the wayside (Super Mario Brothers was passable to me based solely on technical elements), but I found this pretty charming. The coming-of-age beats are familiar, but the inversion of Annie Murphy’s mermaid character was a nice trick: The trailer clues us in to her antagonist status but I didn’t expect it the reveal to extend to the 3^rd act.

 

8.     Polite Society-Considering I’m not a huge fan as an unmarried person of watching so many of my peers spilling all their matrimonial bliss over my Facebook feed. With that in mind, I enjoyed living vicariously through this teenage renegade who is willing to karate chop her way to break up the marriage of her older sister. The zooms and camera movement are reminiscent of the super zooms that came out of CSI and The Matrix at the turn of the century.

9.     Flaming Hot-If there weren’t Mexican actors, they’d certainly be accused of being ridiculously stereotypical, but I’ll allow it. I’m not a fan of the “alas, a struggling immigrant who has to provide for his family” sentiment because that’s pretty much every story in a capitalist society. What I did appreciate was the angle of a guy circumventing the regular channels to go straight to the boss with his game-changing idea. Essentially, this film would have been much better if it went the Argo/Air route (dating back to the era of All the President’s Men) and cut the fat: The story needed to focus exclusively on the protagonist’s risks and rewards of subverting the rules. That and more Tony Shalhoub. Poised CEO Tony Shalhoub is a charming guy.