Since we're fast approaching the second half of the year, I think it's a good time to look back on the first half, to the movies that came out this year and to share our favorites. I'm giving my favorite 10 (though in no particular order) but if more or fewer stood out to you and you want to share all of them, feel free! Blockbusters, indies, comedies, dramas, whatever stands out to you from 2019 so far. Don't feel pressured to write anything but the title or a basic synopsis if you don't want to.

• Apollo 11: Okay, I know I said this list isn't in order, but this one is definitely #1. It's history in motion, and its images and editing will surely be seared into my mind as the way I think of the Apollo launch.
• An Elephant Sitting Still: Technically came out in 2018 in some regions, but has a 2019 release in my country, which is the order I'm organizing this list in. A beautiful and heartbreaking journey into universal pain and suffering and catharsis in the tiniest things. At nearly 4 hours and with an oppressively melancholy tone, I struggle to recommend it to everyone and anyone, but if the description interests you, definitely give it a look.
• The Farewell: Hilarious and sad, often in the same moment. My love of this may well have been colored by my experiences as an immigrant under very similar circumstances as its main character, but it's an interesting look at differing cultural philosophies of the worth of the individual on their own versus their relation to society.
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco: A layered critique of gentrification and the personal individual obsessions that keep us from truly seeing it and other issues in our world as they happen. It's filled to the brim with things to say, sometimes to a detriment, and some of the screentime spent just showing the sad beauty of San Francisco could've been used to further flesh out some of its ideas, but I still found it extremely compelling all the way through.
• John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum: I think the John Wick movies get a little more bloat on them every entry(much like their titles, actually), but the action only seems to get slicker. I still like the balance of the world, character work, and action in Chapter 2 the best, but while I think 3 drags itself down into its lore a bit too much, its setpieces are still top of the line. I find Keanu endlessly killing people left and right to be incredibly cathartic. Should probably talk to someone about that.
• Burial of Kojo: This doesn't say "Netflix original" on it, but it does seem to be distributed by them in all the countries I checked, so I don't know what's happening there. Regardless, there's a good chance you'll find this on Netflix in your country. I'm willing to admit this movie is heavily, deeply flawed. It overtelegraphs many of its plot points repeatedly, for one. But I also think it is filled with a gorgeous charm. It's light fantasy and grounded fairy tale feels half Tarsem and half Guillermo del Toro, and I was captivated from beginning to end.
• Booksmart: I find the new crop of female led high school movies (Booksmart, Edge of Seventeen, Eighth Grade) to be far more relatable and interesting than the dozens of high school movies of decades prior. It feels like the hands of the filmmakers is more on the pulse of the struggles of modern kids. Booksmart is very much a heightened comedy compared to the other examples I mentioned, but it is great at it. It's hilarious, even if there's one scene in particular that goes on forever. The comparisons to Superbad are mostly warranted, and I still lie awake at night, sad at the fact that I saw this opening night and the theater was mostly empty.
• Dear Ex: The Netflix revolution of every indie movie ending up on streaming services and leaving the theaters to the blockbusters isn't quite happening at the speed originally anticipated, but it definitely seems like more and more of my favorites of the year end up being a streaming original. Dear Ex is a Netflix film about different people grappling with the loss of one man, and it shows the power of the individual to connect the lives of the people they love, and of the many tools we employ to try to get over losses in our lives.
• High Flying Bird: Yet another Netflix movie. Steven Soderbergh is one of the people who can make a bearable heist movie in this day and age imo, and he lends that gift to this to make a movie where the heist isn't money or jewels, but the basic rights of human beings being trampled on by a system that creates middle men to suck up money, leaving the real workers with pennies. It's shot on an iPhone, and there are moments where that seems like a limitation, but honestly, a lot of it looks really impressive.
• Ash is Purest White: This is Jia Zhangke well within his comfort zone, looking at the strain put on human relationships by the passage of time and the everchanging effects of globalization and shifting national landscapes. The World(2004) (aka Shijie) is still my favorite of his, and it is definitely an idea he's explored before, but his ideas and commentary on it have never failed me to keep me enthralled all the same.

I have a list of all the 2019 movies I see that I consider "good" here (29 films at the time of writing this) if anyone wants to take a look at all of them.

Thanks to @dubteedub for doing this up until now, let's bring em back :)

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any movies that you'd like to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here!

Spoilers are okay, just give fair warning so people who care about them can participate too.

First up: that “spoiler” tag isn’t there for fun. This essay is going to focus on a climactic moment in ‘Toy Story 4’. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what happens, close this topic NOW.

I saw ‘Toy Story 4’ last night. I’ve been catching myself up on the previous movies over the past few weeks (I’d never seen any of them before), so they’re reasonably fresh in my mind. I surprised myself by enjoying the movies a bit more than I expected to. I had assumed they were very much children’s movies, but I found them engaging and enjoyable even as a middle-aged adult.

So I was all caught up, and went out last night to see the latest instalment in the franchise with a friend who’s a massive fan of all things Disney.

I liked it. It was yet another “toys having adventures in the big wide world” story line. That seems to be the main story line of all the Toy Story movies: the toys get lost or misplaced, or have to go rescue a toy who is lost or misplaced, so they end up having adventures outside of their home.

But there’s usually an emotional heart to each movie. And that emotional heart often comes from the character of Woody, whose goal has always been to make sure that the toys are doing what toys are supposed to do: bringing joy to children. As we often get told, mostly by Woody, being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. To that end, Woody seems willing to do almost anything. The toys have mounted ridiculous rescue missions, they’ve manipulated humans (it wasn’t Andy’s idea to give his toys to Bonnie), and they’ve made personal sacrifices. Even in this movie, Woody was willing to give up his voice box so that he could get brand-new toy Forky back to Bonnie who had made him, and to give Gabby the chance to belong to a kid.

Then…

Woody met Bo Peep in this movie, and found her living an independent life as a lost toy. We know they’ve had romantic feelings towards each other, but she was given away by Andy’s little sister some years back. Then she got given away again, to an antique store. Now she turns up living near a caravan park, and she’s noone’s toy except her own.

Normally, Woody would have moved heaven and earth to reunite Bo with her previous kid, or to find her a new one. But she doesn’t want one. She’s an independent toy now, and that suits her fine.

So they have their adventures. And, at the end of those adventures, Woody and his fellow toys are returning to Bonnie, while Bo is returning to her independent life. And Woody has a moment of indecision. Does he return to Bonnie, or does he go with Bo?

But, there’s not really that much tension because we know how this is going to end. Woody has told us so many times that being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. Of course he’s going back to Bonnie.

And then he chooses to go with Bo.

I sobbed.

Let me give some context for my reaction to this moment. I do respond emotionally to movies and television. I laugh loudly when something is funny, and I cry openly when something is sad. I jolt back in my seat in response to scary moments, and I’ve been known to cover my eyes during exceptionally gory scenes. I’m not ashamed to feel things in response to events on the screen, nor to express those feelings. That’s normal for me. However, I felt a very strong emotional reaction to this moment in the movie – much stronger than most. I wanted to burst out in loud unmanly sobs because of how upset I was. I wanted to shout at the screen. I felt a real and physical reaction in my gut: it was literally a gut-wrenching moment for me (and that almost never happens!). This was the strongest emotional reaction I’ve had to any moment in movies or television for years. It was strong enough to prompt me to write about it!

I know I was supposed to feel happy that Woody and Bo had found each other, and they loved each other, and this was the start of their romantic “happy ever after”. But that’s not why I cried. I cried because Woody turned his back on nobility and chose selfishness.

Woody had been the conscience and the heart of the whole franchise, reconciling toys to their place in life, and helping toys to achieve their goal in life. Even in this movie, he had turned Forky around from wanting to be trash to wanting to help Bonnie. Woody showed toys their noble goal in life, and did everything he could to help them achieve it.

And then he turned his back on everything he’d said and believed up till now.

Sure, Bonnie wasn’t playing with him as much as Andy did. Sure, he wasn’t top dog in Bonnie’s playroom (that place belonged to Dolly, who’d been there much longer than Woody and his fellows). But Woody was always selfless. Woody was always looking out for the children’s best interests. Woody was always putting the children’s needs ahead of his own. He had previously told his fellow toys that even being stored in the attic was a good thing because it meant their child (now a college man) still cared about them to some degree. So, even if Bonnie wasn’t playing with him all the time, he would still want to stay around to be there for her – or even to be there for the other toys she did play with.

Wouldn’t he?

Or was it all a lie? Was it all about his own selfish desire to be important and, then, when that importance was taken away, he decided to walk out?

Or was it as basic as choosing pleasure over service?

How could you do that, Woody? How could you turn your back on everything noble and good, and choose your own selfish desires instead?

Woody, you broke my heart.