Eric Ortiz's Favorite Movies Of 2019

Special mention:

WRINKLES THE CLOWN by Michael Beach Nichols

As part of Fantastic Fest 2019 Screening Team, I supported a handful of titles, and in the end only Wrinkles the Clown made the cut (I was warned since the beginning, by esteemed FF programmer Logan Taylor, that the process was harsh). So yeah, can’t help to feel a special connection with this documentary; that said, it’s really fascinating. This is what I wrote back then:

I didn’t know anything about Wrinkles the Clown, so this documentary worked for me just as the filmmakers intended. That is because it has a huge plot twist near the ending that changes everything and turns a mildly interesting documentary about an old man who gets hired to dress as a clown and scare children, into a fascinating examination on Internet phenomena. The director fools you with the perfect structure for an exercise accordingly the Wrinkles the Clown phenomenon. Scary clowns, viral Internet videos and a dose of Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, this film is very surprising.

Honorable mentions:

25. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM by Chad Stahelski

24. THE GASOLINE THIEVES by Edgar Nito (my full review here) / THE GUARDIAN OF MEMORY by Marcela Arteaga

23. HAIL SATAN? by Penny Lane

22. COLOR OUT OF SPACE by Richard Stanley (my Fantastic Fest review in Spanish here)

21. PETTA by Karthik Subbaraj

Honorable mentions:

20. THE GOLDEN GLOVE by Fatih Akin

19. JALLIKATTU by Lijo Jose Pellissery

18. JOJO RABBIT by Taika Waititi (my full review from Los Cabos here)

17. MARRIAGE STORY by Noah Baumbach (my Los Cabos review in Spanish here)

16. JOKER by Todd Phillips

15. PAIN AND GLORY by Pedro Almodóvar

It’s easy to deduce that Antonio Banderas’ character in Pain and Glory (Salvador, a film director who hasn’t been able to shoot a movie in quite some time due to his physical and mental pains) is a cinematic version of Pedro Almodóvar himself. The Spanish filmmaker evokes a series of memories from his own life (including his childhood, his first sexual desire, a truncated yet unforgettable love, and his relationship with his mother) in an exercise that also reveals his love for cinema and the artistic process. The fascinating “autofiction” Pain and Glory might be Almodóvar’s most personal film, with the director, in an emotive way, facing his mother’s death and his regrets as a son, and exposing how much it means for him to express himself and heal through cinema.

My Cannes review in Spanish here.

14. DOGS DON’T WEAR PANTS by J.-P. Valkeapää

I watched this Finnish film one morning at the Cannes Film Festival without knowing anything about it, so it was a genuine discovery. Dogs Don’t Wear Pants tackles the mourning of Juha (Pekka Strang), a surgeon who lost his wife. Many years after the tragedy that turn him into a single father –and now that his daughter (Ilona Huhta) has grown up– he can’t move on with his life. Later on, Juha meets by chance Mona (Krista Kosonen), the dominatrix at a sadomasochistic establishment. They begin a secret relationship, however we understand that Juha is not there to obtain sexual pleasure, moreover he’s trying to to get someone else to end with his own life. While all of this indicates Dogs Don’t Wear Pants is a depressing European drama, what follows is closer to Asian cinema. Not only because some scenes are quite explicit, but also because the director goes for dark humor and a true love story based on a couple of twisted souls and their sadomasochistic interests. Outside of what is considered normal, one can still find a real and even hopeful connection that can lead to healing.

My full Cannes piece in Spanish here.

13. MIDSOMMAR by Ari Aster

Midsommar is a continuation of the way in which Ari Aster has approached the horror genre. It takes even less time than in Hereditary to explore a clichéd scenario: the young American students who, guided by a European friend, travel to that continent (in this case to a Swedish commune). But this ain't Hostel, as Aster deals with a subgenre known as folk horror, of which one of its main exponents is the unforgettable British film The Wicker Man. Aster follows the path of The Wicker Man once the Americans enter a pagan commune that continues to practice their ancestral rituals, apart from modernity and what we consider normal. The valuable thing about Midsommar is that, equivalent to what he did in Hereditary, Aster manages to provide his own voice. It’s vital that the problems of the main couple, Dani (Florence Pugh) and her asshole boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), are at the core of the film. There are many other unique elements that separate it from The Wicker Man, be it the cinematography’s dazzling brightness (everything happens during the day), the wicked sense of humor or the immersive exercise with POV shots that emphasize the characters’ altered states. Midsommar is continuously disconcerting, a bad trip that always leads us towards a ritual that may be part of the beliefs of a commune, but that’s still terrifying and twisted.

12. DEERSKIN by Quentin Dupieux

Georges (played brilliantly by Jean Dujardin), a man recently separated from his wife, pays a good amount of money for a deerskin jacket and immediately becomes obsessed with the garment. Since the old man who sold him the jacket decided to give him a video camera (in one of those random actions so characteristic in Quentin Dupieux’s cinema), Georges will invent that he works as a filmmaker when he begins to socialize with bartender Denise (Adèle Haenel). Naturally, in Dupieux's hands, both gags that involve the protagonist –the jacket and the lie that he's a film director– will reach the last consequences of the absurd, with Dupieux mocking low-budget filmmaking and, of course, his own figure. Deerskin evolves into something that could be considered part of the slasher subgenre but, unlike Rubber (Dupieux’s film about a killer tire), it also offers us the humorous version of the serial killer movies that are closer to psychological horror. Laughs never stop in this strange cocktail about a filmmaker and serial killer (really), motivated by an unattainable dream that he shares with his beautiful deerskin jacket (!) and financed by a young woman with the caliber of film producer. Undoubtedly, one of the best comedies of 2019.

You can read my Fantastic Fest review in Spanish here.

11. THE GUILTY by Gustav Möller

I missed Gustav Möller’s debut feature-length film, The Guilty, at Fantastic Fest 2018 but luckily, and surprisingly, it got a theatrical release in Mexico in early 2019. Much like Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth (which was written by the late, great Larry Cohen) and Steven Knight’s Locke, The Guilty proves that a minimalist premise (a man talks on the phone) can lead to an intense thriller and a complex humane drama/character study that happens in “real time.” By observing the protagonist Asger (an incredible performance by Jakob Cedergren) while he does his job as an emergency number operator in Copenhagen, Denmark, and just with a couple of locations (both in the same building), The Guilty becomes a terrific police thriller and a character study with a potent plot twist that opens a reflection on the dangers of the (apparent) justice delivery and that forces the protagonist to face his own actions and assume the consequences.

10. HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR by Xavier Burgin / SESIÓN SALVAJE by Paco Limón and Julio Cesar Sánchez

I just love documentaries about cinema that end up costing you money, meaning that when they're over you have discovered many new movies and you can’t wait to track them.

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is a poignant documentary that invites us to know the perspective of African-Americans towards horror films. Analyzing both the problems (from invisibility, problematic representation, to the countless tropes) and the moments that positively changed the course of history (from Night of the Living Dead, Blacula, Tales from the Hood to Get Out), in addition to highlighting lesser-known films (Ganja & Hess, Eve's Bayou or Bones); Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror basically makes us understand the importance of fair representation in a massive medium, undoubtedly powerful as cinema.

You can read my interview with co-writer and producer Ashlee Blackwell here.

On the other hand, Sesión salvaje, which was part of last year’s Mórbido Fest, is Spain’s answer to the work of Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films), as it’s a highly entertaining celebration of the wildest Spanish cinema from a bygone era. Long before Álex de la Iglesia and subsequent genre directors like Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, Nacho Vigalondo and J.A. Bayona, there were westerns, horror movies, cinematic violence, sex comedies, social thrillers, exploitation efforts, and in general Spanish cinema that just couldn’t be made today. A much-deserved homage that will make you dig into the work of such filmmakers as Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (Who Can Kill a Child?, The House That Screamed), Juan Piquer Simón (Pieces), Joaquín Romero Marchent (Cut-Throats Nine), Eloy de la Iglesia (Cannibal Man) and Iván Zulueta (Rapture).