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Movies are so hosed up because of how many things just will not be in wide release or VoD until 2024 that by all rights should be 2023 movies That being said I still have plenty to watch until I'm ready to make this list, including poor things and monster and passages and american fiction and and and. I don't even know if I want to focus solely on 2023 releases or incorporate the other amazing movies I saw for the first time this year (American Graffiti, Barton Fink, Paddington, etc.) Glad this is happening!
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Dec 18, 2023 12:46
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 07:49 |
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The only movie left from this year that I plan to watch is The Color Purple, (sorry Iron Claw I'm just burned out on theaters right now, maybe next year) and I somehow doubt that will worm its way into my top 10, so here is a top 19 consisting of only stuff from this year, because there are 19 movies from this year I want to talk about. It was a pretty good year! Movies That Might've Made This List If I'd Had the Chance to See Them (rant about movie distribution goes here) American Fiction All of Us Strangers The Zone of Interest Origin Perfect Days Fallen Leaves The Teachers’ Lounge (definitely not coming to where I'll be on Christmas) About Dry Grasses Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World The First Slam Dunk Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell Evil Does Not Exist Tuesday Dream Scenario Top Ten First-Watches From Earlier Years (in alphabetical order) 10 Things I Hate About You American Graffiti The Banshees of Inisherin Beauty and the Beast (1991) Muppet Treasure Island Paddington The Power of the Dog Return to Seoul Sleepless in Seattle We're All Going to the World's Fair Da List 19) Rye Lane, dir. Raine Allen-Miller A sweet, short rom-com about two Black young adults in South London, both recently out of relationships. For me it was too fast-paced to really understand and fall in love with the leads, but the dialogue is charming, the cinematography is joyous and inventive, and the music supervision is very cool. It's a Hulu original, so if you've got Hulu and are looking for something cheerful, give it a go! 18) Joy Ride, dir. Adele Lim An Asian-American woman adopted by white parents as a child returns to the country where she was born to find her mom. It feels like we all collectively skipped over this one, but maybe give it a second look if you saw the description and the genre and thought "Eh I'm good." All four leads are really strong, especially Sabrina Wu, and while many of the jokes will not be to everyone's taste (I'm still working out if one late sequence is astounding or astoundingly tacky), the story has its heart in the right place. 17) Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., dir. Kelly Fremon Craig Adaptation of the classic 1970s book for older children by Judy Blume. I never read it as a kid (I, as a young boy, was more into the Fudge books), and was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the movie. Alright, it's essentially Lady Bird For Tweens, with all the sweetness, edginess, and baggage that entails, but I think Lady Bird is a great movie overall and am glad tweens have something like this to watch. It kept me thinking "being a young girl must SUCK jesus" which is obviously the sign of a good movie. 16) Killers of the Flower Moon, dir. Martin Scorsese The Osage tribe of indigenous Americans, made recently wealthy off the sale of oil wells, is gradually subjugated through the efforts of a network of white people, led by a well-respected cattle rancher. It's a relentlessly straightforward, well-crafted movie, anchored by best-in-class performances from Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, but I never quite fell in love with it until the very end, when a beautifully stylized sequence tapped into the real sense of anger muted behind the camera for the first three hours. It's still an achievement, though, and well worth seeing. 15) The Boy and the Heron, dir. Hayao Miyazaki A boy still reeling from the loss of his mother goes on a journey into a fantasy world to rescue his father's new wife. There's a lot to love about this movie, from the animation to the voices (full disclosure I saw it dubbed) to the score, but on the whole it's one of Miyazaki's clumsier films. The fact that it ranks this high this year is a testament to his artistry - his ability to capture complex emotions in his animation - more than anything else. 14) Bottoms, dir. Emma Seligman Two dorky high school lesbians start a fight club so they can get in bed with popular cheerleaders. Teen movies often create universes which are way more oppressive and depressing than they have any right to be, and this movie is no exception. That's undoubtedly due to the strength of its production design and its performances, but the screenplay is nothing to sneeze at, either, combining campy fun with a surprisingly in-depth exploration of the violence society does to us and that we do to each other. And Ayo Edebiri is a star (though I preferred her deployment in Theater Camp, an overall much worse movie - funny how that happens). 13) Afire, dir. Christian Petzold A novelist travels with his friend to a cottage near the sea to work on his next book at the height of wildfire season. This, Passages, and the next entry on the list make a neat trio of movies from this year about complete rear end in a top hat artists. Petzold's film is undeniably strong, and you can really feel the tension he creates under even the most minor interactions between the major characters. The only thing keeping this from being one of the year's best is its ending, which I will not spoil here, but which truly baffled me. 12) The Holdovers, dir. Alexander Payne Over the winter holidays at an expensive boarding school in Western Massachusetts, a strict, long-suffering Classics teacher bonds with a bright, yet troublesome young man. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it looked terrible, but it really surprised me. The two lead characters are some of my favorites of the year, and although the story has a slow start, it progresses into sweet, satisfying territory. Familiar, but comfortable rather than cliched. (I will say I'm not sure where the hype for Da'Vine Joy Randolph's performance is coming from. It's fine? Feel free to set the hounds on me for this take.) 11) Shortcomings, dir. Randall Park When the manager of an arthouse theater in California finds himself on the outs with his long-term girlfriend, he drifts through the city in search of something intangible. That description does not do this movie's breezy, faintly satirical tone justice, but it's the best I can do without giving away crucial details. Justin H. Min's performance here as the lead rear end in a top hat is one of my very favorites from this year. Despite appearances, he and Park craft a stunningly sophisticated portrayal of a young man in transition, trying to be the best person he can be but slowly figuring out that his best isn't good enough. Add in a strong supporting cast and the best exploration of race of the year, and you have a real winner. 10) Showing Up, dir. Kelly Reichardt A sculptor working as an administrator at an art school in Portland prepares for her next show while dealing with the world around her. This is a movie which takes real pains to show the totality of life as an artist, from the highest highs (opening a show!) to the lowest lows (your landlord won't fix your water heater!). Reichardt captures feeling wanted and dehumanized at the same time really well. There's not much more I can say about this one without giving the experience away - if you haven't seen it, check it out! 9) Asteroid City, dir. Wes Anderson We witness an abstract filmed adaptation of a popular in-universe stage play about a convention for young astrologers which, to put it mildly, goes off the rails. Putting aside the notion of the framing devices within framing devices (which I really don't mind at all, to be frank), this is a confluence of a lot of conflicting ideas about faith, science, and art. What I love about it, though, is that its ideas are all in service of and expressed through its many characters and plot threads. In that way it is similar to many plays in the era of theater it's imitating. I also, as someone with a dicey attention span at the best of times, appreciate Anderson's decision to tell us how many scenes there are in advance - so we can keep track, of course. It's funny and often thought-provoking. Anderson at his most flat-out enjoyable. 8) Beau is Afraid, dir. Ari Aster A middle-aged man plagued by anxiety and delusion goes to his mother's house for her funeral. This is a pretty controversial pick - a lot of people, probably rightly, view a lot of this movie as empty strangeness and masculine bloviating. I, however, always love to see the neuroses of a particular director laid out for the world to see, and this movie has that in spades. From the abrasiveness of the opening shot to the self-indulgence of a long animated sequence just after the film's midpoint to the Actual Terror of the attic scene and the bathtub scene, this is Aster at what I can only imagine is his most unfiltered. The message may have the subtlety of a hammer, but the setpieces and humor are arresting enough that if you sit back and enjoy the ride, you'll likely have a great time. 7) Oppenheimer, dir. Christopher Nolan I'm not going to bother with an introduction for this movie. It's Oppenheimer. I love it, you may love it or may not, let's move on. 6) Anatomy of a Fall, dir. Justine Triet A woman goes on trial for the murder of her husband. In a lot of ways this is one of the simplest movies of the year. But there's so much more to it than its premise - it's an exploration of marriage, of power, of what drives people to do what they feel is right. As its title implies, this is more a scientific dissection of a marriage than a movie about a sensational murder. It's a unique vibe for a courtroom drama, and the addition of a few key elements of specificity (thinking about the dog in particular) gives the story just enough dimension to remain consistently interesting. Slice of life, but not. 5) Kill Boksoon, dir. Byun Sung-hyun Being an assassin is easy. Parenting is hard. If you're not already sold based on those two sentences, I don't know what to tell you. It's my favorite action-adjacent movie of the year, but it's also a great interpersonal drama, funny when it needs to be, touching when it needs to be, exciting when it needs to be. Jeon Do-yeon gives one of my favorite performances of the year. My enjoyment of this isn't all that complicated; it's just a really entertaining movie. And it's a Netflix original, so if you're a subscriber you have no excuse. 4) May December, dir. Todd Haynes An actress, as research for her next movie, visits its real-life subject: an ex-teacher who made tabloid headlines when she was discovered in a sexual relationship with one of her preteen students. "Delicious" is the best way to describe this movie. The way the story is told makes you feel like one of the regular people in the Georgia town where the film takes place, watching the relationship between the actress, the woman, and her grown-up husband from the sidelines. You want to turn to your neighbor and say "did you see that," tutting with your mouth while gleefully swallowing everything going on in your head. In the end, regardless of your feelings on the situation presented, you've become the tabloid. As I said on Letterboxd, it's Exactly My poo poo, and it features potentially my favorite joke of the year. 3) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers In lieu of actually talking about this movie, I'm going to write out what was going through my mind while I was watching it: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAH 2) Monster, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda When her son starts acting strangely, a woman goes to his teacher at school for answers. People will call movies "devastating" and I'll usually be skeptical, but this one really fits the bill. The first half is perfectly fine and compelling, but it's the second half where this movie becomes truly great, overwhelmingly joyous and sad and hopeful and fearful. Kore-eda methodically peels back the layers of his characters and his story until the truth hits you all at once, and the movie transforms. I needed a whole day to recover from this, and I still get emotional thinking about the ending. Fantastic stuff. 1) Poor Things, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos A woman created in a mad scientist's experiment grows up and sets off to see the world. Of all the movies from this year, this is the one that I think people will be talking about years from now. It's hysterical and audacious and, at times, offensive, but as a whole, it contains so much and tackles its central issues from so many different perspectives that it transcends all of that. Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo are astounding. Since I've seen this I've absorbed a good deal of criticism of it, feminist and otherwise, and what makes this the movie of the year for me is that I can look at all of it and say "This is probably correct, but I don't care." movies!!!
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Dec 23, 2023 23:08
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Thanks for running this shooga! It was a lot of fun.
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Jan 2, 2024 20:08
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