Just like the first installment, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse flaunts a distinct comic-book style that sets a new standard for the entire animation industry. That offset printing art style is still here like from the first movie, but now it triples down on the technique by adapting it to different parts of the multiverse. Furthermore, this sequel steps things up by including nearly three hundred more uniquely designed Spider-Beings that thrive in the multiverse, each with a unique art style and animation style. The wildly fun sequence of all these Spider-Beings chasing Miles Morales was so technically advanced that it took two years to create.
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Of these universes across the multiverse, Gwen Stacy’s home takes the watercolor style from her spinoff comics as the environment responds to her emotions. Of the characters that come in from other parts of the multiverse, the evil Vulture appears in a very old-school DaVinci art style. The attention to detail goes shockingly deep into every single frame, the colors of the Puerto Rican flag even pop up briefly when Miles’ mother snaps her fingers (to reference her cultural heritage). It’s unfathomable to think that such backbreaking work went into an animated film that’s almost two-and-a-half hours long… the longest of any American animated film in history. With a runtime that long, nearly everyone should find entertainment value in what will soon be celebrated as one of the greatest sequels of all time.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wowed the world with its unique pop art visual style—one that captures the exact essence of a vintage comic book. Everything done to translate that atmosphere into the world of computer animation breaks the rules of filmmaking, resulting in a beautiful marriage between 2D and 3D storytelling. As a result of all their hard work and late nights, the animators developed new techniques to better manage the back-and-forth process of manually trying to solve an animation problem and letting the computer do the work for them. Here are only a few of the techniques that made this studio trend-setter so impactful:
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Elements that would normally go out of focus throughout the film instead have their separate CMYK color channels shift slightly like offset comic book print. Shadows are made from hashed lines and Kirby dots. Two-dimensional form lines are placed on the characters’ faces. Background objects are made from moving blobs of color or static paintings in windows. The characters are frequently animated only every other frame without any motion blur, but other characters sometimes break that rule depending on which alternate reality across the Spider-Verse they’re from. Their varying animation styles range from Spider-Ham’s cartoonish quirks to Spider-Gwen’s ballet-esque movements. Yet that’s just the surface of the details contained within this game-changing animated blockbuster, one that’s outdone anything ever done by Disney or Pixar, and will continue pushing the entire animated medium forward.

PG (DLV)
Action/Sci-fi
1 hr. 57 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY.
Watch it to feel SAD.
Watch it to feel AFRAID.

Not only is this a cinematic version of the first concert to ever gross over one-billion dollars, but it’s also the overdue shake-up to the entire movie theater industry. Rather than how other major studios would normally tell theaters far in advance when to book their next tentpole movie release, Taylor contacted those theaters herself, blocking out all of October so that no other major releases would conflict with her film. As a result, the cinematic version of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour became one of the biggest hits of 2023, making huge theater crowds lining up for a theatrical event a reality once again after the COVID-19 pandemic hurt the industry.
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For what feels like the first time, fans are able to experience a live concert without the messy crowds, loud noises, or expensive tickets that may discourage them from going. Yet these fans are still encouraged to wear friendship bracelets, t-shirts, and other T-Swift related merchandise, getting the freedom to participate in the theater the same way they would at the live concert. In fact, watching the concert this way provides the extra advantage of seeing Taylor more up close and personal; it’s easier to see how openly grateful she is toward her adoring fans. Thanks to this largely influential musician’s desire to make her body of work more accessible will save movie theaters, a new chapter to what the theatrical experience is all about has begun.

PG-13 (DLS)
Documentary/Musical
2 hr. 49 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to LEARN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY.

This remake had the task of marrying together the original book by Alice Walker, the Steven Spielberg film, and the Broadway adaptation, all while keeping the soul of the story preserved. With Oprah Winfrey on board as a producer, this newest version gives an inspirational glance back to a time when Black freedom in America was still a new concept, making this an important movie for Black women to feel seen and heard. As another component behind why this version works so well, Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino, two cast members from the Broadway production, reprise their respective roles. Likewise, Taraji P. Henson is here, playing the role she originally turned down on Broadway.
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With that authentic touch of theatrical pizzazz, that naturally means this film version has some phenomenal musical numbers, including one with traditional Ugandan fashions. One of the songs featured is, “She Be Mine,” which was originally written for the Broadway show but didn’t make the final cut. Ultimately, the production in the end looks great, and the cast seems to be such a closely-knit community who had their hearts in the right place. For anyone who’s been a victim of abuse, neglect, or poverty, The Color Purple is for them. It’s the sort of movie that motivates the overlooked by promoting deeply Christian themes, particularly in how God created purple flowers so that we can notice His rare sparks of beauty in nature.

Hayao Miyazaki last made a feature-length motion picture a full decade before making this one, and he ended up leaving retirement to spend seven years directing this deeply personal WWII-era epic. Since that essentially makes The Boy and the Heron an ultimatum of Miyazaki’s legacy in cinema, the animation techniques are much more advanced and up-to-date now. That includes a new installment for Studio Ghibli: Dolby Cinema, a technology that better distinguishes the highlights and lowlights of the movie’s image. Yet the skill of the animators remains tremendous, particularly when animating the heron, who appears grotesque in the most uncanny of ways.
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The entirety of the movie includes a similar contrast of beauty against darkness. The story is indeed grim, but the magical score helps keep the experience from being too overwhelming; the music complements every emotional peak of the story perfectly and even presents a wonderful new song, “Spinning Globe.” The fact that such an emotionally delicate work of animation finally got recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures is a big deal. Not only is it the first hand-drawn animated film to win Best Animated Feature since Spirited Away twenty-one years ago, not only is it the first international film to win since then, but it’s also the first ever PG-13 movie to win in that category. Therefore, this important Oscar win is guaranteed to change the entire animation industry forever.

Based on the book “Erasure” by Percival Everett, American Fiction utilizes an ambitious narrative style to show a Black author named Monk combating the system of racial prejudice. Monk writes as a joke the most stereotypically Black novel ever written, which like in the climax of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, ends up a massive accidental success. Since Monk’s content lacks the Black stereotypes that bring White readers comfort, he’s mistreated by the publishing industry, which directly parallels America in the real world. This movie is careful to address how much White Americans promote mediocre, safe Black stories, then hypocritically don’t consider what the Black community believes which African American stories should be celebrated.
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Besides the hilariously unapologetic honesty this film expresses about America’s racial standards, it’s also greatly personal in depicting the confrontation between siblings as they deal with death and Alzheimer’s. With its heart in the right place, this motion picture bashes on the same Academy of Motion Pictures that routinely awards White savior drivel like Green Book instead of promoting stories about the true Black experience. Thus, it’s quite awesome to see this introspective satirical drama still receive much Oscar glory by winning the award for Best Adapted Screenplay! Its landmark win shall mark the instance when more courageous films in the future will be rightfully awarded for how they give minority groups their overdue opportunity to tell their own stories.

As director Greta Gerwig made the creative decisions for this ambitious blockbuster movie, she refused to go with what the adult in herself would’ve wanted, but rather what the little kid in herself would’ve wanted. Sure enough, her vision led to the set and costume designers using more shades of pink than anyone ever thought could exist. The sets resemble life-size Barbie houses- all authentically artificial and built to scale with the actors (the car Barbie drives is 23% smaller than an actual car). For the fun sequences of the bridge between Barbieland and the real world, scenes are depicted in various locations, all with moving background canvases and multiple layers of artificial set pieces that move.
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Every Barbie party outfit ever sold is referenced in the dance party scene, and even the brand’s more forbidden dolls are included in the cast, such as “Growing Up Skipper” and “Sugar’s Daddy Ken.” Makeup tests were done as well on Margot Robbie to make sure she looked as perfect as a stereotypical Barbie doll—a process that took approximately a year. This huge movie would be nothing however without the brash musical score and hit songs, which demonstrate what happens when filmmakers don’t take themselves too seriously and just have some fun. Yet these filmmakers balance that fun with a loving critique of the Barbie brand’s legacy, which is why Barbie will soon change future tentpole movies forever.

Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things mixes up the Frankenstein story by turning the “monster” into an attractive young woman with the brain of her unborn baby surgically placed into her cranium. This role of Bella Baxter was certainly quite difficult on paper to portray, a character unlike any ever written before, and only somebody like Emma Stone could pull the role off perfectly. The filmmaking style is also unlike anything ever done before, with the whole first act being black-and-white, and everything after that exploding in repulsive color combinations. The colorful fisheye cinematography is meant to resemble Bella’s point-of-view as she explores the steampunk world, like how a small child sees everything for the very first time.
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At the beginning of her journey, Bella prances around with stilted limbs and a limited vocabulary, always referring to herself in the third person like a robotic toddler. But as she gradually gains her independence, she walks more properly like a grown woman and stops referring to herself in the third person. So that means she starts as a woman trapped in a restrictive box designed by men’s ideals, but then teaches herself how to break out of that mold to become her own woman. It’s a weird story indeed, but it’s also a beautiful testament to how sustaining a child’s fascination with life will restore the capacity to stand up for oneself.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a family drama disguised as a martial arts movie that utilizes its weird content to conduct a study about existentialism and generational trauma from the perspective of a broken Chinese-American family. Many alternate realities are depicted across this multiverse, and each one has a distinct color palette, set of lenses, use of grain, and aspect ratios… which sometimes change on the spot in a single shot. They’re all designed to imitate a specific cinematic genre and have their own standalone story with a beginning, middle, and end, which in turn complement the main story.

Symbolic imagery is utilized to hold everything together, such as the round mirrors to represent the fear of self, or the everything bagel to represent the black hole that the main character, Evelyn, fears her daughter is getting closer to. This movie also sets a higher bar for how all movies, big and small, should approach their practical stunts and practical effects, even using an animatronic raccoon that looks like it came from the 1980s. But best of all, this incomparable movie speaks sincerely about traditional Chinese values in a way that will help make Asian cultures more mainstream in America’s media—which it does in a fashion that guarantees tears from the audience over the wounded bond between a mother and daughter that they can relate to all too closely.

It made history as the first foreign language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and director Bong Joon-ho is a big reason why it deserves that honor. He illustrates the differences between the upper and lower classes through complex yet subtle filming techniques, such as by dividing two actors with a vertical line hidden in the set. Yet there’s more symbolic imagery: Water represents capitalism pushing the already poor further down the economic ladder while those already high up get to remain above the rising floods. The poor people are always looking down at things while the rich people never look down at anything, and to enhance that detail, the poor people behave in ways that are comparable to bugs.
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Making the gears grind for the intense symbolic imagery required lots of preplanning and visual effects work, starting with the street of the poor neighborhood, which was built entirely from scratch inside a massive water tank. The house of the rich people was made up of the most expensive décor the set dressers could find while the exterior of that house was two separate sets combined digitally with the upper-level set on top of the lower-level set. The extreme expertise of how Parasite was concocted, as well as the moral grey in every single character, is evidence enough as to why this heavily entertaining art film deserves its title as the best movie of 2019.