Best Movies of 2019 so far

[oscar jubis]

The experience of cinema changed a lot since my boyhood in the 60s and 70s(obvious opening line). Television was never as good as the best films and the best films were never half as good when broadcast in crudely edited, censored chunks and watched on crappy sets. It was easy to figure out what was released and when. It was easy to pretend one had seen the films that count, the ones that may have a claim to a place on any list of, say, the ten best. We watched movies in one theatrical sitting, in public, a social event that begins and ends at predictable times. If you missed something, and you always overlook something from the hyperexpressive, meaning-sprouting, audiovisual products of the cinema, then you had to wait until the next show and buy another ticket; no click-quick reprise; no reliving the moment. For me, the life changing technology was not the vhs in the late 70s but the dvd in the late 1990s, when I began to watch movies at home.

In the 2000s, I started to watch movies at home in better sets (while still going to theaters a couple times a week). I also studied cinema in graduate school, which deepened my interest in both film history and history through film. I started to work at the school's art cinema which gave me access to optimal projection. Now, about half the films I watch are films from the past 2-3 years, and the other half are older films, including silents. It takes me a while to watch enough films from a given year to offer a Top 10 list. I give these movies a lot of thought. I like to watch anything I list more than once, but this hasn't happened in many cases. I also have a longer list of the best 25 from the rest of the 2010s. Did I post it? Where would one do that? I am also motivated by the thought that there is so much production that some of the films one loves really need promotion in order not to be completely ignored or certainly under appreciated.

BEST CINEMA OF 2019

3 FACES
AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL
THE BEACH BUM
THE IMAGE BOOK
MARRIAGE STORY
LA FLOR
LITTLE WOMEN
THE SOUVENIR
SUNSET
TRANSIT