Shattering the Celluloid Ceiling
As we approach the end of 2019, the ITOL team are compiling their end of year lists of their favourite films. Here's James Cain's list and his personal top 20 films of 2019! Another year, another fresh bout of shame. I didn’t see “Hustlers”! I didn’t fit “Always Be My Maybe” onto my list of favourite movies! Anyway, here are my Top 20 Films of 2019.
It seems a universal question in cinema: how does a director follow-up a hit debut? In the case of Ana Lily Amirpour, it is the beguiling, fascinating, frustrating “The Bad Batch” (2016). Having gained near-universal critical praise with her previous feature, the black-and-white Iran-set vampire drama “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” (2014), Amirpour takes the opportunity to sprawl out and tell a distinctly different tale.
The year was 1999. I was but a mere six years old then, but I remember vividly the release of such monumental films as Stanley Kubrick’s "Eyes Wide Shut", Paul Thomas Anderson’s behemoth masterpiece, "Magnolia", and the first return of "Star Wars" in nearly 20 years, "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace". Amongst the litany of great films that year, another had come along, rich with unique tension and flavor, destined to change the very fabric of action films and blockbusters forever. The Matrix.
