Honeyland Is A Sweet Intimate Portrait of a Helpful Beekeeper

Given how often movies aim for endlessly gargantuan spectacle regardless of whether or not it works for their story or not, it's always refreshing to find an unabashedly simple motion picture like Honeyland. It crossed my mind more than once whether or not the basic premise of this project could sustain a feature-length story. Such thoughts quickly vanished as Honeyland constantly proved my doubtful thoughts misplaced. In fact, Honeyland is quite remarkable in how it gets such an engaging movie out of so little. Directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov demonstrate that it's not the number of tools you have, but how you use them.

The Utterly Impressive Crime Thriller Uncut Gems Will Leave Your Nerves Shattered

Saying that the new Adam Sandler movie Uncut Gems begins with a sequence taking place inside buttocks of Sandler's protagonist, Howard Ratner, might make you think this project is some kind of stealth Grown Ups sequel. But Uncut Gems isn't that at all, it's the newest project from Ben and Josh Safdie, the directorial duo responsible for Good Time. These two know how to deliver good movies and that means they have a great reason for starting Uncut Gems within someone's colon. Such an opening follows up a prologue sequence set in Ethiopia, where two miners discover a rare black opal gem. The prologue ends with the camera zooming into the gem, revealing all the dazzling colors within.

Douglas Laman's Twenty-Five Best Movies of 2019

A live image of people getting ready to devour Douglas Laman's Twenty-Five Best Movies of 2019 list

Ah, another year has come to an end. How is it already New Year's Eve once again? With 2019 about to head into the past, it's good to look back on what's happened to us all in the past 365 days. For me, it's been a year of momentous firsts as I attended my first film festival, did my first ever red carpet coverage, finished writing my first ever feature film screenplay and got my first ever paid writing gigs. In between all of that (plus college!), I managed to see a whole slew of new movies, 176 of them to be precise. Normally, I'd have to wait until late January or early February to publish this list thanks to so many new movies not coming to theaters near me until the new year. But thanks to the aforementioned film festivals I've been able to attend plus new advanced press screenings, I actually can do this Best Movies of the Year list before New Year's Eve for the first time ever! How about that, it's like I'm a real film critic or something!

Not changing from year's past is that this list will be done in alphabetical order sans one title that I've picked as the absolute best of the year. It was immensely tough to whittle down just 25 movies to represent the best of 2019 cinema, but it is done, I've achieved just that. Let's begin this Twenty-Five Best Movies of 2019 list with...

John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch Is A Very Specific And Very Funny Creation

You're gonna know right away if the specific style of humor of John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch is going to be for you or not. This is a satire of classic children's variety specials hosted by John Mulaney and a large collection of children that's broken up into an assortment of comedic musical numbers, off-the-wall gags skewering hallmarks of children's television (like those "Can You Guess What The Image Is?" puzzles) and a couple of celebrity cameos. Much of the humor seems designed to leave some viewers more baffled than amused and that's totally fine. All art is subjective but that's especially true when it comes to comedy.

Bombshell Lets Down Essential Perspectives With A Poor Movie

Based on the true stories regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault cases at Fox News, Bombshell chronicles a trio of individual stories each centered on a different woman (two of them being actual people, one of them being a fictional creation) working for Fox News, in-film narrator Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron), Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and newbie employee Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie). Bombshell explores the work environment they reside in as well as the gradually increasing presence of a sexual harassment lawsuit (one spurred on by Gretchen Carlson) brewing against the network and its founder, Roger Ailes (John Lithgow).

Just Mercy Is A Courtroom Drama With Plenty of Empathy And Great Performances

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) has just graduated from Harvard with a law degree, which means there’s only one clear course of action to take one. That’s right, Stevenson is going to move down to Alabama and create a non-profit law firm that specializes in providing free legal services to death row inmates. It’s a crusade that’s highly unorthodox, to put it gently, especially considering Stevenson is a Black man trying to fight against a justice system that inherently sees people of color as immediately guilt. However, Stevenson wants to use his lawyer's gifts to help the most underserved of American citizens. After all, these are not inhuman monsters, but people who could be anybody. Heck, Stevenson himself observes to his Mother at one point that “It could have been me, Mama”

Noelle's Bursts of Originality Highlight Its Heavily Derivative Elements

SPOILERS FOR NOELLE AHEAD

There's a really interesting idea for a Yuletide family movie nestled within Noelle, one of the first original films made for the Disney+ streaming platform (it was once set for a November 2019 theatrical release). But much like a Christmas present tucked away at the very back of the tree, it remains out of grasp of writer/director Marc Lawrence. Well, mostly out of grasp I should say. There is a stretch of the third act where Noelle actually manages to hit upon something special and unique. Unfortunately, too much of it settles for being derivative, a hodgepodge mixture of Elf, The Year Without A Santa Claus and Arthur Christmas. 

Top Sixteen Cinematic Discoveries of 2019

We've come to the end of another year, my friends. How does all the time go by? In addition to completing two more semesters of college (just one more and I'll have a Bachelor's Degree!) and getting my first three paid writing gigs, I also managed to watch a whole slew of classic movies for the very first time. The amount of acclaimed classic cinema I managed to finally catch up on 2019 was vast, making it hard to par down a Top Sixteen Cinematic Discovers of 2019 list. Despite its daunting nature, I managed to get such a list made and looking back on these sixteen specific titles fills me with oodles of joy, both because of the quality of the titles themselves and also for how many of these movies are connected to happy memories of mine in 2019. Cinema and my life have always been permanently intertwined and 2019 was no different.

Let's begin this look back on my Top Sixteen Cinematic Discoveries of 2019 (done in alphabetical order) starting with...

Grab Your Catnip For The Musical Madness of Cats

Musicals are inherently absurd creations. People don't sing their feelings in real life, after all. Because they work as the antithesis to reality, the best musicals can create sights & sounds you'd never see in another medium of creative expression. Avenue Q, for example, where else could you see a puppet show that doesn't even try to conceal that the puppets are being operated by people? Or how about Little Shop of Horrors or The SpongeBob SquarePants Musical? Both thrive on unabashed weirdness! Such strange yet enjoyably bold creativity is why I love musicals. When people think of musical oddness, though, one go-to reference point might be Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats.

The Two Popes Has A Formulaic Script But Two Solid Lead Performances

The idea that the best leaders are the ones who don't want to become a leader is heard early on in The Two Popes and it's an apt descriptor for Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce). An easygoing fellow open to new practices (a sharp contrast to the Catholic Church's default to tradition) and who works as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio is preparing to retire. This is a task that requires him to get the permission of the current Pope, Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), who's the total opposite of Bergoglio in every way. Turns out, Bergoglio's prospective retirement is coming just as Benedict XVI is facing a slew of scandals that mean he could use the aid of Bergoglio.

The Nightingale Echoes Au Hasard Balthazar In Being Well-Done Harrowing Cinema

CW: Discussions of Sexual Assault ahead

The first word that pops into my mind when thinking about The Nightingale is "uncompromising". Jennifer Kent's new film, her follow-up to her horror movie sensation The Babadook, is the farthest thing one could imagine from a cookie-cutter major studio production with its bleak examination of how English settlers dehumanized members of marginalized populations, like women and Aboriginal Australians. It's something that evokes Au Hasard Balthazar in numerous moments in its unflinching darkness. Kent's filmmaking is wall-to-wall misery but it isn't just empty gruesomeness. This is an extremely appropriate tone, especially in the way she executes it, for the bleak story she's seeking to tell here.

What A Twist!: Spoiler Thoughts on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (SPOILERS)

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD FOR STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER AND JOJO RABBIT BELOW

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Closes Out The Saga On An Underwhelming Note

For the final entry in the nine-film Skywalker Saga, we reunite with the heroes of the most recent entries in the story, scavenger turned Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley), stormtrooper turned Resistance hero Finn (John Boyega) and folk singer turned pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac). Ultimate baddie Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has returned from the dead and is now working with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) on a whole new evil plot. In order to save the galaxy and win the war against these dastardly foes, Rey must muster up all her courage and confront both old & new evil forces as well as her struggle to define who she is.

Jumanji: The Next Level Delivers Some Laughs But Can't Quite Hit A High Score

The good news with Jumanji: The Next Level is that it's hard to dislike this Jake Kasdan directorial effort. How many comedy sequels can you say that about? Unfortunately, at the same time, it's also hard to really get wrapped up in this fourth entry in the Jumanji universe (yes, Jon Favreau's Zathura is apparently canon). It's not necessarily because the production is a big mess or that a singular element has gone horribly wrong in the scripting department. It's just the gags just aren't as spry as before, the adventure stuff still feels more perfunctory than it should, enough stuff comes up just short that it begins to add up after a while.

One Cut of the Dead Is Constantly Full of Wonderful Surprises (SPOILER REVIEW)

SPOILERS FOR ONE CUT OF THE DEAD FOLLOW

I've mentioned this in prior reviews, but when I'm watching a movie, I tend to live in the present. Sometimes I can predict plot beats coming a mile away if a movie is really just tedious, but usually I'm like a horse on a racetrack; stuck with blinders on that keep me focused on only what's in front of me. I'm not sure if that's something related to my particular form of Autism or if that's just a Douglas Laman thing, but this means twists and turns in movies tend to hit me extra hard. This means the barrage of already clever surprises that make up the crux of One Cut of the Dead were like a revelation to me. Going into this movie totally unaware of what it was beyond just being the newest acclaimed zombie comedy made this such a rich and exciting cinematic experience!

In Laman's Terms: The Definitive Ranking of the Six Best Star Wars Characters

Max Rebo, one of the greatest Star Wars characters of all-time

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Star Wars discourse is toxic. It's been that way ever since the Phantom Menace backlash caused Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd to receive relentless bullying and the ever-growing presence of the internet in the modern era has only accelerated that level of toxicity for the modern Star Wars movies. With The Rise of Skywalker just two days from release, the Star Wars discourse is about to get revved up into overdrive and inevitably, a large sum of that is gonna be virulent. In an effort to combat that, I've decided to make a positive Star Wars essay for this weeks In Laman's Terms column. I've decided to run down six background/supporting Star Wars alien characters I adore. Basically, this is The Definitive Ranking of the Six Best Star Wars Characters!

No Han Solo to be found here, but plenty of distinctively designed aliens are ahead, starting with...

Dead or Alive Begins and Ends With A Bang...Literally

Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive certainly begins with a bang, doesn't it? That iconic opening sequence is like the love-child of Edgar Wright & the Safdie Brothers on a hundred Red Bull's and also a healthy dose of bath salts. Said opening sequence depicts a bevy of human beings being taken out in violent ways by a group of criminals. The editing used to cut between individual locations is Road Runner-fast and none of the deaths are subtle. Noodles explode from one dying person's body instead of blood and the presence of drugs and sex is similarly pervasive in this stretch of bravura filmmaking. To watch this opening scene of Dead or Alive is to feel like you've just gone on the world's faster rollercoaster, your head is spinning, your mind is in shambles yet you kind of want to do it again?

Sweetheart's Script Can't Quite Balance Monster Mayhem With Human Drama

We get about five or six Blumhouse Productions movies a year that get major theatrical releases, the likes of Get Out, The Purge and Halloween (2018) but what about the rest of Blumhouse's annual output? The Jason Blum-run production outfit actually releases more films annually than you might realize, they just end up getting way less prolific direct-to-video bows after brief film festival runs. Such a fate is the one seen by their 2019 feature Sweetheart, a new directorial effort hailing from J.D. Dillard, the filmmaker behind the 2017 film Sleight. After debuting at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, Sweetheart basically vanished before getting dropped on digital retailers in October (currently, there is no physical home video release for the title).

Richard Jewell Is Another Empty Modern-Day Clint Eastwood Directorial Effort

What on Earth has happened to Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker this decade? The iconic Western gunslinger turned director has spent his most recent years helming features like American Sniper, The 15:17 to Paris and Sully that are just tedious rehashes of real-world events with nary an interesting perspective or trace of memorable filmmaking to be found. Little in the way of thoughtful exploration of the perspective of human beings caught up in the grand sweep of history can be found, his recent movies have been too bland for that. Even his foray into musical cinema with Jersey Boys used the same shadow-heavy cinematography and lack of thoughtful character work that have plagued Eastwood's recent efforts.

Cinema Paradiso Poignantly Reaffirms The Emotional Power of Movies

Unless you’re Paul Schrader, chances are you have fond childhood memories connected to cinema if you’re an adult devotee of movies. For me, it’s my faint memories of being an expert in inserting and ejecting VHS tapes in my families VCR player before I even learned how to talk! That kind of childhood connection to cinema can have long term effects that are felt well into adulthood and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar-winning feature Cinema Paradiso isn’t just aware of this, it’s the foundation on which the entire story is built. Unlike sand, the experience of youthful love for cinema turns out to be a great foundation on which to build something.