Lights! Camera! REACTION! My Life At The Movies: The Movies I Saw In 2019

I can't claim to be a movie buff. I love movies, and I very much prefer to see them in a theater rather than at home on a TV screen. But I don't get out to see movies all that often. In 2019, I think I only made it to the movie palace a total of eleven times:

On The Basis Of Sex [2018 release]
Captain Marvel
Shazam!
Avengers: Endgame
Toy Story 4
Yesterday
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
Frozen II
Little Women



(It is possible that I didn't get around to seeing two more 2018 releases--A Star Is Born and Mary Poppins Returns--until 2019, but I think I caught both of those before 2018 ceded its parking space to '19. I remember seeing A Star Is Born at The Hollywood Theatre in Mattydale, my favorite second-run movie spot, so it's possible the calendar's page had flipped by then.)

I remain an unapologetic fan of superhero movies. Every stuffier-than-thou complaint I read about comic-book flicks makes me wanna dig in my heels and offer a defiant reply; most of my replies seem to only total two words. Imagine that. I've never reacted well when people have tried to tell me what I could or couldn't/should or shouldn't like. If I heeded those type of naysayers, I never would have fallen for The Ramones. I dig what I dig.



(Incidentally, I consider the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On The Basis Of Sex a superhero film. RBG's a real-life superhero, fighting for truth,  justice, and the American way. I approve of that message.)

Given how few movies I see in a year, I don't bother going to see anything unless I'm reasonably certain I'm going to enjoy it. I rarely see comedies, I certainly don't see horror films, and I'm very selective about documentaries.  I wouldn't mind visiting the cinema a bit more often, but when I go, I have to believe it's going to be worth it.



The happy result of that approach is that I'm generally satisfied with the films I see when I see a film. Of the eleven movies I saw in 2019, Shazam! was the only disappointment. I really wanted to like this adventure of the superhero formerly known as Captain Marvel. Going in, I knew it wouldn't be my Captain Marvel. My Cap was the best-selling comic-book superhero of the 1940s, a character now owned by DC Comics, but DC's arch-rival Marvel Comics trademarked the name when it wasn't being used by the original, and DC wasn't about to approve the making of a movie starring a hero named Marvel. I knew the intent of the Shazam! movie was to remake the film Big as a superhero story, but it was ultimately just too silly for me (and with moments of brutal violence that seemed jarringly out of place in this frivolous context). Unfortunate. Lead actor Zachary Levy looked the part (although I think he looked more like Cap in his role as a doctor on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel than he did in costume in Shazam!), and I can only dream of how he could have been in a Captain Marvel adventure rather than this ill-conceived trifle. (And yeah, I'll probably go see the eventual sequel. Hope springs eternal.)






Other than Shazam!, though, I did indeed dig the films I saw in 2019. I loved Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood, an amazing evocation of Southern California in the '60s, with an ace soundtrack and...well, to say more would be a spoiler. At the close of A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, I whispered in my wife's ear, "Tom Hanks may need to clear some more space on his awards shelf at home." I adored Yesterday's frothy mix of rom-com and Beatles songs. Little Women's accomplished back-and-forth jumps in the chronology of its narrative made the story even more compelling. I did wonder why Little Women's lead actress seemed so familiar to me, before the closing credits flashed the name of actress Saoirse Ronan, whom I remembered from her starring role in the 2015 film adaptation of Colm Tóibín's novel Brooklyn. (No, I haven't seen her in Lady Bird.)




That leaves Disney. Both Toy Story 4 and Frozen II were satisfying follow-ups to animated features I already liked; at the screening of Frozen II, I'm pretty sure that Brenda and I were the only adults in attendance not accompanied by a (much) younger companion. We also enjoyed two of the  Marvel films together, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Brenda's otherwise not much of a superhero fan--the only other latter-day superhero movies she's seen are Black Panther, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man: Homecoming--so she opted to stay home when I went to see Avengers: Endgame.




I am not ashamed to say that Avengers: Endgame was my favorite movie experience in 2019. And it was an experience, the culmination of years of planning, a popcorn extravaganza like no other. It had action, it had emotion, it had pathos, comedy, in-jokes, and a keen awareness of what it was, what it wanted to be, and what it had to be. In the popular parlance, it rocked. And it delivered one particular moment I've been waiting for since the first Avengers movie in 2012, as Captain America finally said, y'know... that line. That line. If you're any kind of Marvel Comics fan, you know what I mean. THAT line. As we watched the movie, my daughter heard the line (which she knew I was waiting to hear), looked over at me with a smile, and gave me a thumbs-up. Me? I pumped my fist as silently as I could manage, a 59-year-old kid in his heaven and the Mighty Avengers on screen. Justice will triumph. 

Some assembly required.

I hope this new year brings me many more opportunities for a visit to the movie theater. I want to see more plays as well, read more, write more, attend more concerts, travel if I can. And movies. Some superhero movies, and some movies without costumed crusaders. Here's to all of us digging whatever we wanna dig in 2020.




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