Wednesday, June 26, 2019

The Best Movies of 2019, So Far

It’s been a bit of a punishing summer at the movies so far; after the splashy debut of Avengers: Endgame,multiplexes have been teeming with underwhelming and underperforming wannabe blockbuster sequels, which could dim the movie-going enthusiasm of even the most dedicated cinephile. But Vanity Fair film critics Richard Lawson and K. Austin Collins are here to reassure you that actually, plenty of great movies have already been released this year. Here’s their top 10 list of 2019 so far, an eclectic mix that considers everything from Chinese auteurs (Ash Is Purest White) to deeply moving documentaries (Black Mother, which Collins calls “filmmaking as baptism”) to, well, one of those underperforming wannabe blockbuster sequels: Toy Story 4, which Lawson found himself surprisingly touched by. “Knowing that many of the series’s big themes were neatly settled nearly 10 years ago, director Josh Cooleyand crew slightly shift the focus of this new adventure, contextualizing the toys, especially Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep (a terrific Annie Potts), in new, more grown-up light,” he writes. “What results is a pensive mulling of the world beyond children, for both those who have watched their little ones march off into adulthood, and those who maybe never had them to begin with.”

Elsewhere in HWD, contributor Paul Chi introduces the heroine of the inspirational documentary Maiden; Laura Bradley pinpoints a central problem with The Handmaid’s Tale season three; contributor Chris Azzopardi catches up with John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig and the Angry Inch gets a splashy Criterion release; and Yohana Desta regretfully tosses cold water on a beautiful rumor about a revival of The Simple Life.