All in Views
One thing I always make it a point to do, no matter how busy my schedule, is a year-end wrap-up. I have a few more 2019 features to take in before I commit to a Best Films of 2019 list. However, I’ve seen enough films in the past 10 years to comfortable evaluate what I believe to be the best 25 of the decade.
I stand by every word of my unconventional review of the Cats film. The version released in theaters Thursday, 19 December 2019 was an unprecedented mess, filled with digital glitches rarely seen out of video games being beta tested. The use of light, color, scale, perspective, editing, sound design, digital wardrobe, and CGI effects created something so off putting, so unnerving, so unusual that it did not feel like a film. The only way I could express the feeling of dread and frustration that overwhelmed me was to write my review as a piece of psychological horror.
There is no shortage of Christmas films. Lifetime, Hallmark Channel, and Netflix have gone all in on producing these heartwarming tales for the holiday season. They’re fun, they’re silly, and they’re all about positivity and joy.
My own take on a holiday film is different.
The criteria for the list is rather simple. A great musical has to have a great song score. The singing has to be good. The songs have to service the story and the story needs to hit the emotional heights necessary to justify a song. And, most importantly, the film must have released between 2010 and 2019.
No matter what version of It you look at, It is a narrative driven by irrational fears. For example, I fear ever picking up a Stephen King novel that runs more than 800 pages again. It, the novel, is one of those texts that turned me into a fan of Stephen King’s short stories. Contained to a single story in a small format, King limits his ideas and cast of characters into twisted vignettes of life and anxiety defined by past trauma. In a meandering long form novel, he just keeps introducing more characters and more ideas that start to contradict each other until nothing makes sense.
