The Farewell is one of the best films of 2019. Heck, it might even be one of the best of the entire decade.

“It’s all a cross-section of my brain. It’s like martial arts, comedy, drama, metal; everything that you want in a movie. It’s all personal experience stuff for me. It’s very, very, very loosely based on feelings and experiences and passions of mine. The fact that people have been responding to it the way that they have is somewhat surprising.”
– Riley Stearns

None of it mattered to me, and while I wanted to shrug my shoulders and whisper inaudibly, “Hakuna Matata,” as the end credits began their scrawl, the truth of the matter is that I felt no love for this The Lion King remake, it’s overall storytelling mediocrity a circle of never-ending disappointment I couldn’t wait to be finished with.

Anchored by a superb performance from comedian, author, podcaster and essayist Maron and featuring wonderful supporting works by all three of his primary costars, especially a delightfully anarchic Watkins, Sword of Trust is a fast-paced O. Henry meets Mark Twain meets Tom Wolfe-like absurdist lark that sent me out of the theatre smiling.

There is a lot to unpack where it comes to Midsommar, and a lot of it is definitely, a defiantly, worthy of additional dissection and debate.

Langseth lays her story out with a caring specificity that kept me wanting to learn where things would go next, and for my part I found the character-driven honesty of Euphoria difficult to resist.

Wild Rose is a universally aspirational story of retaining one’s individuality in the face of societal roadblocks that prefer conformity and the status quo over anything unique, its songs of faith, family and friendship worth singling along with.

The last third of Yesterday is an ineffectual slog that wastes the talents of its stars, and as breezy, inoffensively enjoyable and as adorably light as so much of this was to suddenly hear it hit so many sour notes was undeniably disappointing, my emotions gently weeping the more I keep thinking about it.

Loosely born from co-writer/star Jimmie Fails’ own life experiences, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is at times a broad comedy, at others a searing social commentary, and in many instances a bracingly tragic melodrama