Top 10 Films of 2019

2019 was an interesting year, as it also ended the decade, resulting in best of the decade lists to go with the best of the year lists. That’s just catnip for movie lovers and cinephiles alike, and it was an interesting exercise for passionate list makers (biggest takeaway? Nobody gets this stuff completely right the first time).
2019 saw Disney’s acquisition of 21^st Century Fox, creating an entertainment colossus possibly never seen before. Now owning Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Fox, it has become almost impossible to avoid intellectual property emanating from a studio not underneath Disney’s umbrella. Of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year, the first 9 of them were exclusively Disney property (for those interested, 10^th place was Hobbs and Shaw, from Universal). Their box office dominance may explain what motivated renowned auteur Martin Scorcese, in the midst of promoting one of the better films of his career (will he make this year’s list? See below!), to take a shot at the Disney juggernaut. Saying that the Marvel franchise films were closer to theme park rides than actual cinema, it greatly disturbed the ocean floors of the movie business in kicking up a lot of fuss. What’s more interesting though, was Scorcese’s debut of his film on streaming platform Netflix- an overt admission that the movie business, regardless of having one mega company make the films that everyone sees, is currently in a great state of flux. Simultaneously, the great theatre chain disruptor, MoviePass, with its exponentially affordable deals but bizarre business model concepts, went out of business, leaving a great deal of people to decide between paying their rent or going to the movies. Certainly, people went to the movies, as Avengers: Endgame didn’t become the (unadjusted for inflation) box office champion of all time for nothing- but for the 17^th straight year, ticket sales haven’t matched or exceeded 2002’s grosses. Wherever the film industry ends up going, there is still greatness to be found, inspiration to be absorbed, and a gaze worth making. Here’s some of the favourites (with honourable mentions) that I was able to discover this year:

10. Honeyland
Documentaries are typically a blind spot for me, but I did manage to see a few that really made an impression. For this list, it came down to either American Factory, the sociologically tinged tale of an Ohio manufacturing plant reopening with Chinese and American workers, or the exotic Honeyland, the intimate portrait of a woman living in Macedonia. While Factory was very strong (and I have few qualms about its Oscar win for Best Documentary), Honeyland had an artistic flourish to it that felt more comparable to a work of nonfiction, while also taking a less is more approach in its portrait of a woman (Hatidze Muratova), who dares to be completely congruent with her environment (which straddles the line between rustic and abject poverty), living amongst few people but never being lonely. Its biggest charms are in the questions that it doesn’t ask, in how it shows someone too busy living in harmony with the land and taking care of her elderly mother to worry about the life that she doesn’t lead. The first FOMO you should feel about someone who couldn’t care less about FOMO, this documentary about a beekeeper is sweet.

9. Under the Silver Lake

After making my #3 movie of 2015 (the unnerving It Follows), I was looking forwards to writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s next work. While Under the Silver Lake features some tense and suspenseful scenes, it’s a departure from his previous work in that Lake is made more in the shaggy stylings of a comedic noir, a kind of The Big Lebowski embroiled in a Chinatown sized conspiracy. Lake’s charms involve pounding out a never-ending stream of symbols, codes, riddles, and non sequiturs to an indifferent but increasingly frazzled Andrew Garfield, who may just stop leering at women long enough to be able to solve them- and maybe celebrate with a tomato juice bath to erase the stench emanating from him. Regardless of the outcome, while the universe may be an’ indifferent machine of causality, Lake is hysterical at times, and on the short list of cult movie classics destined to join midnight movie fare such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Room.

8. Little Women
After Lady Bird, writer/Director Greta Gerwig had a fair amount of cache moving forwards for her next project (parallel to Jordan Peele’s experience from Get Out to this year’s Us). While Women is an IP that has been covered many times previous, Gerwig’s strengths in creating relatable and strong female characters, combined with jumbling the film’s timeline of the girls’ journey to adulthood, makes the period piece material sing as a more than worthy addition to the canon. Laura Dern (better here, than in Marriage Story), Saoirse Ronan, and Florence Pugh (my favourite actress of 2019), are particularly strong as members of the March family, and composer Alexandre Desplat puts in excellent but never dominating work in crafting one of the year’s best scores. Amongst the adversity of the period’s civil war hardships, deadly diseases, and patriarchal mindsets, good vibes and estrogen powered fraternity are prominently featured. Spend some uplifting time with a bunch of women who are anything but little.

7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The auteur known as QT returns in his 10^th film (yes, he’s made 10 of them!) to make an elegiac love letter to Hollywood around the period of the Tate murders that along the free love fringes features his usual acidic meanderings. As per QT’s strength in casting and coaxing career best performances, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and especially Brad Pitt are superb in their roles as actor, actress, and stunt man/potential wife murderer. As always, Tarantino loves to subvert expectations and show off his freak flag (flame thrower anyone?), but the most endearing part of Once Upon is its similarities to QT’s more somber and mature works like Jackie Brown, as this is a hang out movie that showcases an era that belonged to a more innocent time and was gone before anyone really realized it. Like the shot of the strip lighting up after the sunset, by the time you realize its importance- it’s vanished.

6. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The most romantic movie of the year. I’d heard a lot about the film Portrait, but wanted to see the goods for myself- it’s the real deal. Writer/Director Céline Sciamma’s simple story, about a portrait artist travelling to a remote island to paint a commissioned portrait of an unwilling subject left an impression on me so strong, that it just may be underrated. A quintessentially French film in terms of its unapologetic passion and oddly matched characters, its portrayal of the artistic process is almost as commendable as its romantic aspirations, as Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) take turns inverting each other’s gazes and seeing through the other, as Héloïse’s portrait continues to be refined and perfected, stroke by stroke and brush by brush. Featuring no sex but tons of glances so piercing it could be mistaken for erotica, Portrait burns like few others.

5. Knives Out

The most entertaining movie of the year, Writer/Director Rian Johnson continues his penchant for making more smart than they need to be popcorn crowd pleasers in Knives. Featuring an incredibly stacked cast (some, like Chris Evans, really playing against type, others like Daniel Craig being right where they need to be), they bicker and scheme while surrounding a promising break out performance from humble young heroine Ana de Armas (immensely likable). Johnson pays homage to other Clue-like capers in his comedy-noir about a family patriarch (Christopher Plummer) who’s death may have involved foul play, and who has an estate that his family is definitely interested in inheriting. Johnson never hesitates to wink at us, through scenes such as essentially fan boys breathlessly shushing others who have the nerve to interrupt a character explaining the ins and outs of the caper, and when we’re not laughing at how preposterous the respective situations are, we’re trying to wrap our heads around the story’s hole inside the doughnut hole of it all. Wherever in the doughnut you land, don’t miss this one.

4. The Irishman
After throwing some shade at Marvel, Scorcese returns, and makes another gangster picture starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel. Been there done that right? Wrong. This generation’s most revered master takes a familiar cast and does something completely new with it- at least in terms of where we end up. Think Goodfellas if Henry and Karen were followed around for another decade or two after going into witness protection. Scorcese, never shy of the influence religion had on him as a child, in showing the typical rise to prominence for his crime minded characters, shows what happens to the soul after the fall, and then what happens after that too. Certainly we all have consequences that illustrate the weight of choices made throughout a life, and in typical masterful fashion, he quietly but effectively shows it here. It’s difficult to recommend to non cinephiles a film that’s 3.5 hours long (yup, longer than Godfather Pt.II), but if you can forgive the butt numbness, it’s worth it- especially when its essentially a Netflix production to be viewed from home anyways.

3. Uncut Gems
I thought the Safdie brothers had done all they could do in showcasing cinematic anxiety, through “feel bad scumbag yarns” such as Heaven Knows What and Good Time, but I was wrong- Uncut Gems is on another level. Its story, of a diamond district jewellery dealer (Adam Sandler, who has more bravura performances like this one than you would think), who’s a gambling addict who can’t stay loyal to his wife or out of trouble with his loan shark brother-in-law, exudes a frantic energy that you can’t tear your eyes from and is exhausting in the best of ways. With a scary good Kevin Garnett performance in the background, the Safdies dig deep (literally in some scenes) into Sandler as he travels all over New York, attempting to dig out of a hole that he dug himself- by digging deeper. Dripping with a love for NBA basketball, constantly roving chaotic frustration, and people interrupting each other, the Safdies’ now trademark non glamourous lighting has never highlighted the ways deeply flawed people have tried to convince others they’re this close to reforming any better. As far as films go, this is one gem that’s flawless.

2. Marriage Story
As a child of divorce, stories about irreconcilable differences between consenting adults are like catnip to me. But after seeing Marriage Story, with its characters’ reasonable intentions gone awry, what comes across is how achingly sincere the characters are in trying to officially stop being a couple without destroying their family. The most humane of films about 2 people going in different directions, Director/Writer Noah Baumbach’s most mature and accomplished film features superb work by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as 2 halves of a couple who have had a child together and now wish to divorce. Baumbach never tries to get us to pick a side (although we all will anyways!), but shows how a family, can tear itself apart after it tries to be as amicable as possible. Getting snagged up in the logistics of enmeshed extended family members and close friends (check out the hysterical Mistress America-like comedy of the service scene), as well as the gears of the legal industrial complex (both Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, as the lawyers who have no shame or squeamishness in grandstanding for their respective side’s victory, are delicious here), it’s a dilemma thick with differing opinion on how to achieve the same result. Driver and Johansson are as helpless to a clean break as we are to not falling prey to the film’s drama of what happens when a couple stops saying, “I do”.

1. Parasite

Unusually popular for a foreign film (South Korea) of such technical skill, Parasite’s charms include that it’s as enjoyable to watch as it is difficult to categorize what genre it falls into. It’s definitely a class consciousness satire (the title is well chosen), but with loads of thrilling moments, has a formal charm but is at times oddly hilarious, has the shifty mechanics of a surprising grifter but pursues integrity, has some horror elements but never feels threatening, and has some stirringly downbeat moments while never feeling like a downer- it’s a real trick to pull off. Director/Co-Writer Bong Joon-Ho’s pristine camera work and divine sense of setting perfectly anchor a sterling cast and tack-sharp script to create a perfect storm, that like a flood, has a habit of starting slowly- before overwhelming your senses and annihilating the world you once knew. Filled with superlatives while never trying to be more than it actually is, it’s my favourite film of the year. A resounding commercial and critical success- and something tells me it will age well in time moving forwards.

Honourable Mentions:

11. Ad Astra
12. The Nightingale
13. The Souvenir
14. Waves
15. Peterloo
16. The Art of Self Defence
17. Us
18. Avengers: Endgame
19. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
20. Good Boys

Good, but just missed the cut:

American Factory, Midsommar, Toy Story 4, High Life, Dolemite is My Name,  Light of My Life, I Lost My Body, Little Woods, Plus One, Joker, Relaxer,  Booksmart,  The Beach Bum, Triple Frontier, Her Smell, Dragged Across Concrete, Zombieland 2: Double Tap.

Seen and destined for oblivion:

Long Shot, Pain and Glory, Hustlers, 1917, Gemini Man, Ford Vs. Ferrari, Bombshell, JoJo Rabbit, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Terminator: Dark Fate, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, Captain Marvel, Coffee For All, Polar, Hustlers, Alita: Battle Angel, Charlie's Angels, Brightburn, Star Wars IV, Six Underground, The Dirt, Murder Mystery, X Men: Dark Phoenix, The Red Sea Diving Resort, The Kitchen, Fighting with my Family, Wine Country, Late Night.

Favourite Scenes of the Year- 2019

The Irishman. The Nursing Home.
Scorcese, ever the director of kinetic energy, after a 3+ hour movie depicting mob men and their consequences, can’t resist bringing some of that that jazz to the old folks home for one last go. It’s an inspired but odd choice, for Scorcese to slowly pan down the hall, flashing forwards, before whipping it back to the same place again, indicating that (even more) time has passed. It’s one of the more anti climatic cuts you’ll see that is exciting, but more prone to sadness than thrills.

Parasite. The long and rainy walk home.
After an epically tense sequence of trying to not be discovered as squatters and to get out of the family’s home without being their identities being discovered, the resourceful Kim family are able to escape and begin their trudge home. As they travel through the city, they go across and down, resembling a downward descent into if not hell, then at least a flooded sewer. Joon-ho’s framing, of the family inching their way downwards, shows the talented film maker’s eye for composition and energy, and demonstrates more metaphor for the part social satire film’s views on class. It all culminates in one of the most memorable images of the year, as there’s no place like home- except the pool.

Little Women. The 2 sisters on the beach.
Despite a lot of buzz from her success in past projects as a writer, actor, and director, Greta Gerwig’s take on the VERY familiar 19^th century novel by Louisa May Alcott didn’t invite a lot of hype in terms of bringing something new to the text. But that changed when I was entranced at the beach scene of Jo (Saoirse Ronan) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) talking about whether or not one of them would let a loved one die from their disease. Gerwig’s direction, of framing the fiery with resoluteness Jo, and the young and brave Beth, with their environment, combined with Alexandre Desplat’s delicate score, create a sequence of delicate motion that never stops to mourn, fret, or sulk. The result is magic, closer to something from The English Patient than Sense and Sensibility. Magic.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The Introduction.
In Céline Sciamma’s scorching romance, portrait painter Marianne (played by the sturdy Noémie Merlant) needs to paint stubborn Héloïse (intoxicatingly played by Adèle Haenel)’s portrait. Not only does Héloïse not want to pose, but in their first encounter, they meet outdoors, and Héloïse sprints for the edge of a cliff. Fearing Héloïse will copy her now deceased sister’s suicide, Marianne takes off after her in pursuit, before she’s even able to see Héloïse’s face. The conclusion is one of the more breathtaking, blink and you’ll miss it, introductions in film that I’ve ever seen.
Bonus Scenes- pretty much the whole film.

High Life. The Fuck Box.
Claire Denis’ first English feature had one particularly unforgettable character- that of the Fuck Box, a hybrid box/device of pleasure placed on the doomed and modestly budgeted spaceship of criminals (lead by Robert Pattinson) set adrift in space. Constructed for you know what, built by god knows who, and possessing the same kind of sounds and body horror ejections as a machine from David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, it lets the Juliette Binoche pseudo witch character let her freak flag fly, before the conclusively guttural gurgle slop drains into the hallway- now if only in space you could have a cigarette.

Terminator: Dark Fate. Carl.
This year’s latest iteration of the moribund Terminator franchise featured nothing worth mentioning- save for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance (yet again) as the iconic T-800 cyborg from the future. Yes, that means we get to watch more footage of the septuagenarian unloading rounds of ammo into yet another unstoppable CGI creature, but what stands out is what he does that’s new for an icon not known for his acting range. His character, the robotic assassin, having accomplished its sole mission in the beginning of the movie, goes into standard infiltration mode. That is, infiltration of a family, functioning as a safe and supportive husband and doting dad, and of society, working at a job that you probably wouldn’t have guessed. His take on the idea of possessing a conscience (not to mention hospitality), of giving to something larger than yourself, is inspired and even inching towards something resembling pathos. Channeling something more akin to Maggie (with dad jokes and comments about appropriate drapery), rather than The Expendables 3, if there’s (mercifully!) never another Terminator movie, at least this is a performance that hints at the potential of memorably fading into the sunset, rather than groaning into the green screen abyss of death.

Under the Silver Lake. The Music Man.
In a movie drowning in symbols, codes, messages, and pointless nudity, Andrew Garfield’s deadbeat detective struggles to make sense of it all, whether it’s his aimless life or finding a fetching neighbor who suddenly goes missing. He finally gets to have his Neo meeting the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded moment, meeting the man (hilariously played by Jeremy Bobb) who wrote perhaps ALL of the pop culture songs in society’s history, suggesting that there are meanings behind them that subliminally controlled our actions. His arrogant glee at revealing a fraction of his secrets, contrasted with Garfield’s baffled stupor, is one of the funniest scenes of the year- but mind the over the top violent conclusion that’s perfectly in synch with David Robert Mitchell’s delightfully original and chauvinistic comedy-noir.

Marriage Story. The Argument.
For a movie about a couple separating and going to court for a custody battle, it’s a fairly civil affair. That is, until Adam Driver’s ex-husband and Scarlett Johannsen’s ex-wife get together and decide to let each other know what they really think of each other- about what they’ve holding onto all these years. After getting to know the couple, it’s an emotionally charged trainwreck that you want to look away from, while knowing that you can’t, grounded in reality, and captured in perpetuity. A doozy.
Bonus scene- The supervised visit sequence.

Avengers: Endgame. Mjolnir’s friends’ list expands.
As a studio tentpole blockbuster franchise entry, Endgame is already notable in how well it wraps up the twentysomething movies that came before it, but in the film’s moving and epic finale, we see a new wrinkle to a character’s arsenal that is so effective that it has been known to induce applause in theatres. If Endgame is the last moviegoing mass cultural experience before the death of movie theatres as we know them, this scene encapsulates a worthy choice that will make your soul sing as a character, exclaims, “I knew it!”.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), written and directed by Céline Sciamma.

What is it about?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes place in the late 18^th century. An artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is sent to an island in France to paint a portrait of the countess’ (Valeria Golino) last surviving daughter. Marianne has her work cut out for her as the daughter, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) has refused to pose for artists in the past, and Marianne plans to complete the portrait in secret. As Marianne spends time with Héloïse and attempts to make a portrait of her without her knowing it, the island’s remote setting provides a backdrop for the ladies finding muses of inspiration in each other that they never saw coming.

Why is it worth seeing?

It’s easy to point out the dismal state of American studio romances currently, and comparing writer/director Céline Sciamma’s 4^th film to them not only feels unfair (to the competition), it takes away from how powerfully singular Portrait is. It’s no simple Trompei Loeil to make something so captivatingly swollen with passion.


It’s safe to say that Sciamma has good taste- she herself at one point dated French actress Adèle Haenel, and between Haenel and Noémie Merlant, as the key protagonists thrust together for a brief sojourn of time on an isolated island, they provide a plethora of terroir ocular delights to feast upon while acting slightly off putting- is there anything more quintessentially French? In terms of cuisine for the eyes, it’s a feast.


As the characters start the process of their delicious encounter, filled with enticing glances, intoxicating stares, and embarrassed look-aways when caught, Sciamma’s narrative macguffin of an artist observing their subject starts to reverse itself, a case of the observer being observed, through scenes of hypnotic rawness, both at the hunter becoming the hunted, and the id leaping in front of superego. It’s a delirious phenomenon, in that the film moves along at a leisurely pace, cut often with breathtaking out of control moments that feel like a sprint. It’s telling that a film with so much dedication to realism features several fantasy sequences.


Sciamma’s dialogue (winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival) has a sense of authenticity, and supports a film featuring no actual sex to be sexy, with words more naked than the characters could ever hope to get. Being a period piece, there are mentions of the sociological implications of the time, with the arranged marriages, barbaric medical practices, and inability for women artists to paint male subjects, but those realities are background to a foreground that constantly has the sound of a crackling fire within it. Similar to the ending to Martin Scorcese’s Silence, everything burns with a poetic irony in this movie- and you will too.


As Marianne goes through her artistic process of rendering her subject, through observing, sketching, modelling, underpainting, and painting, she builds a portrait that with each attempt gets closer to the heart of her subject, sharpening and refining the artistic process to portray reality as it actually is, the 2 characters defining themselves through choices and enduring consequence. This is one of the best movies of 2019- take note studios.

4.5/5

The Last Dance

The Last Dance (2020), directed by Jason Hehir.

Why is it worth seeing?

In The Last Dance, director Jason Hehir’s 10 part electrifying docuseries about Michael Jordan’s path towards sports immortality, we see the monumental chasm between Jordan, the icon, and Mike Jordan, the person, start to shrink just a little. But not through a lack of trying to widen it at the same time.


For Last Dance, as usual, Jordan’s timing is perfect (this footage has sat in the can since at least 1997, awaiting his approval along with subsequent interviews). Jordan’s been retired as a player for almost 2 decades (longer, if like most people, you completely ignore Jordan’s Washington Wizards' tenure), and with talk abuzz about how LeBron James is the greatest NBA player ever, along comes a series to show why Jordan was the greatest to ever lace up his (sponsored) sneakers. It couldn’t come at a more robust time- not only a good of a time as any to remind people of his legend, but with the NBA season suspended due to Covid-19 concerns, the NBA has a gap in content via the very playoffs that Jordan once dominated so thoroughly.


Hehir intriguingly starts the series out at the beginning of the 1997-1998 NBA season, where the Chicago Bulls, lead by perpetual MVP candidate Jordan, hyper capable second banana Scottie Pippen, and manic personality Dennis Rodman, are dealing with the fall out from General Manager, Jerry Krause’s declaring that regardless of the team’s outcome for that year, head coach Phil Jackson would not be re-signed to the team the following year- leading Jackson to call the season their, “Last Dance”. The circumstances at the time were that the Bulls had just won 2 consecutive championships, and in 5 of the last 7 years- and they again were favoured to win it all that year, rendering Krause’s decision making to be questionable. While moving forwards through that last turbulent season of their championship run, Hehir simultaneously rewinds to show how the Chicago Bulls became one of the most successful dynasties in sports history, and how their lynchpin Michael Jordan became the most successful athlete of all time.


Previous documentaries on Jordan, such as 1993’s Air Time, 1990’s Playground (made by a guy named Zach Snyder), and 1989’s Come Fly With Me, were glorified puff pieces (not to mention 1996’s Space Jam) sponsored by the NBA (and Jordan himself) to build the mythos of their, and corporate America’s, favourite cash cow. A basketball fan, wanting to become more closely acquainted with Jordan’s considerable star power, wouldn’t be disappointed by footage of the spectacular athlete, but would be told the same story every time- that after being cut from his high school basketball team (which Last Dance exposes as not being actually true), Jordan turned himself into essentially a hyper competitive martian from outer space who could dunk from half court, and simultaneously being a corporate spokesperson that could never make middle class white America feel threatened- while never actually getting to know the human being. That’s the near miracle of Last Dance, a Jordan approved product, that not only assembles interviews with Jordan and peers/NBA personnel, jaw dropping game footage set to eclectic and bold music tracks, and parlays through back rooms and gyms not seen before- it’s that it exposes Jordan’s more human side.


For reasons both obvious and known only to him, Jordan has rarely allowed the curtain to be pulled back on his carefully created mystique (Even more allegedly personal work, such as 1993’s Rare Air: Michael on Michael, are closer to publicity stunt than they are to an actual personal revealing). As pointed out in Episode 5, Jordan rarely, if ever, used his cultural power to speak out on politically charged issues, summing up his philosophical approach as, “Republicans buy shoes too”. That same episode shows how Jordan became a victim of his own success, and was alienated by his boundless fame. While the media loved to hound him ceaselessly, and mocked him for attempting to audition to play for a major league baseball team, Jordan never strayed from the script, maintaining that he was a basketball player, first and foremost, a cyborg on the court, and cipher off of it. Just ask writer David Halberstam, whom in the late 90’s tried to write about Jordan’s life (1998’s Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made) through an insider’s view, who was told yes, and then was told no, resulting in one of the stranger write arounds in memory, an alleged insider sports book about a guy who didn’t actually appear in any of it. That’s what makes The Last Dance remarkable- it’s that brand Jordan does acknowledge some of the uglier pieces of his story.


As the documentary ably shows, Jordan had a physically dominating but acrobatic and balletic approach to the game of basketball, that combined with his competitiveness and skills in public speaking, lead to both a dominating Q score and an all-time winning percentage that few previous basketball players (short of the 1960’s Bill Russell Celtics teams and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) could compete with (and hasn’t been matched since). That combination of grace, winning percentage, and corporate ubiquity, lead to a zeitgeist so steeped in adulation for Jordan’s exploits that Gatorade commercials sang about an inexhaustible desire to be, “like Mike”.


But Dance is more interested in some of the dynamics that lead to Jordan’s life at times being more of an ugly wrestling match, than an elegant dance. From questioning Jordan about his leadership style, which included relentless teasing, goading, and trash talking (that occasionally lead to actual fights with teammates), his only wanting “yes men” coaches (looking at you Doug Collins), and a gambling addiction that had such features of denial as Jordan wearing sunglasses indoors while insisting proof of him not having a problem included him having employment and not being homeless. Jordan (and his emotions) are surprisingly forthcoming about some of these questions, particularly regarding if his leadership style was indeed the best approach. Statisticians (and proponents of the win at all costs approach) will tell you that it was- but Jordan’s reaction suggests that perhaps he had second thoughts after years of reflection. It’s really something to see Jordan consider losing his composure, after not only his legend has grown, but been copied by future NBA Most Valuable Players like Kobe Bryant, who clearly took the Gatorade commercials to heart.


Last Dance doesn’t come without flaws. While it features a considerable amount of discourse as to whom Jerry Krause, the general manager who assembled not 1 but 2 Bulls juggernaut title squads, was as the deeply flawed individual who then dismantled one of the greatest teams of all time, it barely acknowledges that Krause deserves more credit for actually building those teams in the first place- although maybe not as much credit as Krause would have liked. If Krause hadn’t been as shrewd building those teams, Jordan likely never would have become anything more than a stat filled, highlight generation machine, lost in time to history’s list of winners.
Another feature that it can’t get around is how responsible the owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, was for signing off on Krause’s moves. The General Manager of a sports franchise does nothing without the owner’s approval- so in reality it was Reinsdorf who ultimately dismantled one of the greatest teams of all time, and one of its biggest cash cows ever. Watching Reinsdorf defend his actions, as the guy who says he warned Scottie Pippen not to sign a contract that would end up with him turning Pippen into one of the game’s most underpaid players, is some all time spin machine stuff.
It’s also hard to take talk too seriously the prestige of head coach Jackson’s mythos regarding his methods and his zen stylings. While winning 11 championships as a coach is impossible to discredit, 2 things that stick out about Jackson’s resume, is how overrated the Triangle Offence is (which was brought to prominence by assistant coach Tex Winter. Since the 1990’s, the offence has only been successful when facilitated through multiple first ballot hall of fame teammates), and how thin Jackson’s coaching tree of influence is- suggesting that his methods could have been inimitable, simply impossible for others to implement into NBA franchises, or perhaps, just a mirage coated in incense, a suggestion that Jackson couldn’t win it all- unless carrying a stacked deck.


Like all things, the end of Jordan’s career in the NBA didn’t actually end with him retiring after winning his 6^th championship. Jordan would be unable to feel satisfied not playing the game he loved so much (and the player power/celebrity buzz that came with the stature) and would return to the league with his physical powers greatly diminished. The sight of Jordan, trying to compete in a league that he no longer dominated, on a not competitive team (that ironically he had assembled himself), compromised Jordan’s larger than life mythos. That, and a truly horrendous career as a General Manager and then owner of a perpetually underachieving team, is some more context that diminishes the god-like stature of his legend, but makes him infinitely more relatable and interesting- something more human. But like a Prom Queen sweetly reflecting on those glory days of yesteryear, the good years were truly great, and not only can nobody take them away from him- this docuseries encapsulates them better than anybody else before.

4.5/5