2023 EOTY Entertainment Lists • Page 3

One of those things is not like the other

 

I have some catching up do so not really ready for a list, if I’ll ever be. But taking a glance at my Letterboxd, these are all of the ones that would be in contention currently

Bottoms
Rye Lane
Evil Dead Rise
Polite Society
John Wick Chapter 4
Missing
Past Lives
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1
Nimona
Barbie
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
When Evil Lurks
Priscilla

Still really need to see Dream Scenario, Poor Things, May December, Godzilla, and Saltburn

 

Pacifiction is like if White Lotus met Weerasethakul. Beautiful film and the last 30 minutes or so were especially incredible

 

I need to check out May December and The Boy and The Heron

 

Have a few more things to see but I like reflecting on my faves before the holidays. It's been actually a GREAT year for movies. Will most likely edit this once i've seen stuff like The Zone of Interest, Godzilla Minus One, etc

1. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
3. The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)
4. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin)
5. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K Thompson)
7. Ferrari (Michael Mann)
8. May December (Todd Haynes)
9. Return to Seoul (Davy Chou)
10. Maestro (Bradley Cooper)
11. John Wick Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski)
12. Afire (Christian Petzold)
13. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)
14. Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster)
15. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)


And just for fun, the worst film I saw this year was: The Flash

 

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-documentaries-2023/

 

2023 was a return to normalcy in many ways. The film industry has more or less moved past the pandemic while also navigating the new reality that the audience has been accustomed to shortened or non-existent theatrical windows. Why go out on Friday night and wait in long lines to see something mediocre when you can have people over and order from DoorDash instead of cold popcorn? Of course, the pesky little problem with that is that the numbers are unsustainable; the cost of subscriptions is just not enough to replace the massive profits from the theater experience, where distributors took up to ninety percent of the gross on opening weekends. This is why movies like ANT-MAN 3 could make half of a billion dollars and still be considered a failure. However, we did see the return of many of the old masters, some of whom were releasing films for the first time since before the pandemic. We saw people willing to sit through an over three hour movie about Native American exploitation, and they even let Michael Mann out of director jail.


However, before the top ten is revealed, a bottom five is in order. One cannot appreciate the highs without suffering through the lows; one cannot eat in a fancy restaurant every night or win in every contest. This list is incomplete for multiple reasons; firstly, there was no need to sit through THE HUNGER GAMES 5 or THE LITTLE MERMAID because there are things that are best moved on from at a certain point. If the list came out in a month, more likely there would be other films to highlight. All these lists are incomplete by definition, so here are the five most painful experiences.





5. INDIANA JONES 5
DIRECTED BY: JAMES MANGOLD

Disney has done a funny thing. By the early 2010's, it was common knowledge that Lucas had ruined both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises with uninspired, silly, embarrassing late-career sequels. Jar Jar Binks and nuclear refrigerators and midichlorians were major offenses to these stories that had resonated as children for so many when viewed as an adult. However, those films, misguided as they often were at times, seem positively fascinating when compared to the boardroom-approved films that Disney began to pump out after spending so many billions to acquire these brands. When STAR WARS 8 dared to color outside the lines a little and upset the online Nazis, the mega-corporation made sure they would stick to formula and play the hits as much as possible. Mutt gets the funniest off-screen death possible, Sallah is brought back to make you remember the two best previous films, and they pull of the quasi-final ending, where Jones might be retired for good but maybe they can wheel Harrison Ford out of the nursing home in a few years for another round.





4. POOR THINGS
DIRECTED BY: YORGOS LANTHIMOS

2023 Rick Blaine: We'll always have DOGTOOTH.




3. NEXT GOAL WINS
DIRECTED BY: TAIKA WAITITI
When suffering through JOJO RABBIT, the question was why does this director seem to have such a following? He seemed to be entirely tasteless, and it made sense that he came from superhero films, but people still hoped for some sort of rebound. The film treats the entire Samoan people as childish scrappy underdogs. While that might work in THE MIGHTY DUCKS, where the characters are literally children, it is grating and insincere at best, racist at worst, when it is applied to a group of people with their own beliefs, culture, and identity.





2. SALTBURN
DIRECTED BY: EMERALD FENNELL

In which the child of a fabulously wealthy jewelry designer, the product of posh English private schools and the recipient of complete creative control while older and more accomplished directors struggle to get any money at all, suggests that the biggest sin of the rich is the inability to see the true evil, a middle-class wannabe social climber. Stuff like the bathtub scene or the graveyard humping or the parade of penises is meant to distract you from the ludicrous social politics, just like the ripped-from-the-headlines #MeToo inspired PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN promised to give women agency while the heroine is brutally killed and the police come to save the day.





1. GOOD BURGER 2
DIRECTED BY: PHIL TRAILL

Entering your mid-thirties is relaxing in many ways. Long gone are the need to be hip or up-to-date on the trends. The most popular music of the day is a mystery, clothes are bought for comfort and practicality rather than fashion, and the value of sitting in a quiet room has become much more appealing. However, it is also the age of a level of economic security for many, as they enter more career stability in their lives. This makes us the prime demographic for marketing, and when Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem showed up in the Super Bowl halftime show, it was clear that we were in the age of nostalgia baiting. Just like the Power Rangers reboot earlier this year, this is a naked cash-grab, devoid of anything resembling artistic merit. Mark Cuban shows up and looks directly in the camera to tell people how rich he is. Kenan Thompson ends up back at the restaurant in financial need, just like the last one. The managers' office only has pictures of employees from 1997, suggesting Ed is miserable and has hated his new-coworkers for the last 25 years. The disgraced Nickelodeon producer does not return as the manager, but they bring back other All That alumni from their accounting jobs to mug for a few seconds. They even found Carmen Electra! Film is always a battle between art and commerce, as they are prohibitively more expensive than writing a book or writing a song, but this one leans so far in the greed direction that it threatens to fall overboard.

 

Now I really need to see Good Burger 2.

 

Every year, there is a scramble to see everything before the end of the year. Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, you simply are unable to see the independent and foreign films that are given limited releases. This year, FALLEN LEAVES, THE ZONE OF INTEREST, UNREST, and OUR BODY highlight the biggest omissions. However, there is still plenty to celebrate this year.




10. MASTER GARDENER
DIRECTED BY: PAUL SCHRADER

Just like THE CARD COUNTER previously, Schrader is interested in violent men trying to live in non-violent society. While the protagonists take very different directions, there remains that unspoken threat of escalation by these people who cannot help but posture themselves in the ways of an animal defending itself. Making him a horticulturist and pairing him with an impossibly younger woman threatens to create a lot of dismissal, but the sincerity is still there.




9. FERRARI
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL MANN

What pushes these men? Why do they disregard the safety of their workers, neglect their family, and disappoint everyone around them in pursuit of their dreams? Most people would rest on their laurels and enjoy their fortunes, but we see these people continuing to push and pursue, often until their own deaths. Perhaps it is that drive in the first place that gets them to the precipice, but it leaves scorned wives and unacknowledged children and mutilated underlings in its wake.




8. SHOWING UP
DIRECTED BY: KELLY REICHARDT

She just wanted the hot water fixed.




7. MAY DECEMBER
DIRECTED BY: TODD HAYNES

Most of the traffic jams from an automobile accident are from the other cars slowing down to stare at it. Videos of people at their lowest moments become viral sensations. The news cycle waits for a politician or celebrity to say or do the wrong thing. When we accept our basic desires to see people hurt, humiliated, or otherwise torn down, what does that suggest about the behavior it cultivates in each other? What is really to be gained by dramatizing tragic or heinous events, other than our own ability to shake our heads and say it isn't us? What additional wounds are we creating by shoving cameras and microphones in the faces of our sinners? Because we are such a hyper-individualistic society, it does not matter; only self-satisfaction is important.




6. AFIRE
DIRECTED BY: CHRISTIAN PETZOLD

Life is a comparison to those around us. How much money are the people I went to high school with making now? Which of my friends are divorced and which ones know it is coming? Who has the most disappointing children? Where does my partner rank me among their lovers? Indeed, it is obsessing over these things that puts us into a state of arrested development, afraid to move and afraid to act and afraid to change. Films love to portray writers because of the solitary nature of the work, and it does not help when everyone around you seems to be doing so much better than you.




5. PRISCILLA
DIRECTED BY: SOFIA COPPOLA

Coppola has always been at her best when she has portrayed a version of herself, which is to say a young woman trapped (sometimes literally) by people and a society that want to protect and coddle her. Like all men who seek younger woman, Elvis wants to be with someone who is going to exist solely for him. He might have a fling with a famous actress his own age, but he knows that she has agency and can leave just as easily as she arrived. While the courting and marriage has all the performative qualities as love, Priscilla sees very quickly that she will be interchangeable with a pet or a handbag. That is the end for so many of stories, but now that the real-life Priscilla has been a successful guardian of the Elvis brand and estate longer than he was a celebrity, it is an open question as to who had the real skills and ability.





4. PASSAGES
DIRECTED BY: IRA SACHS

Everyone has their eye start to wander eventually; monogamy is a social construct and we act shocked when people don't follow the rules. However, those bonds that we make are what make the human experience so fulfilling, so the situation becomes a push-and-pull between these dual impulses for love and for lust. That brief moment of release leads to much longer and more enduring pain, and a person can spend the rest of their lives regretting what was only a few minutes long.





3. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
DIRECTED BY: MARTIN SCORSESE

Pretty much all Americans know the broad strokes of the bad things their country did to the indigenous people, but the erasure and exploitation of an entire continent of people is not just done with smallpox blankets and Little Big Horn. From forced Americanization of native children in public schools to the breaking up of tribes and forcing private property onto them, the destruction did not stop with reservations and westward expansion. Even when they hit the proverbial lottery, the leeches are going to be at the door sooner or later. It will not stop until it consumers or destroys everything, and then it moves on, eschewing anything resembling remorse or responsibility.




2. DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA
DIRECTED BY: LUCIENG CASTAING-TAYLOR AND VERENA PARAVEL

The human body is disgusting.




1. PACIFICTION
DIRECTED BY: ALBERT SERRA

The gradual uncoupling of the former European colonies has been a slow, awkward, and painful one. From language to currency to customs, the culture of the colonizers remain, if not the political domination. That is not to say that they are not fighting back, though; as older generations who showed deference to the European powers that had once ruled them begin to die out, newer generations with clearer national identities question why bother keeping them involved at all? When you have small island nations telling the Prince of England to his face that they are leaving the Commonwealth, you know that these people are going to have to learn to accept their incoming irrelevance. It is not so easy as just cosmetic, though, as the powers more often and not kept many of the most important economic pieces for themselves, and the multinational conglomerate is perfect for creating an image of diversity or even local control while funneling all of the resources and wealth to the people who have made sure to control it.

Next year we have many interesting films to look forward to, such as:
KUNG FU PANDA 4
GHOSTBUSTERS 5
ANOTHER GARFIELD MOVIE
ANOTHER PLANET OF THE APES MOVIE
BAD BOYS 4
DESPICABLE ME 4
DEADPOOL 3
JOKER 2
KARATE KID 6
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3
SAW 11

It will be as fun as usual.

 

Wonderful write up as always, Pacifition was truely speacial.

 

wait is there actually another garfield being made

 

Starring Chris Pratt

 

Need to finally see May December

 

Did that not already happen

 

You’re thinking of Mario

 

did lights camera jackson post his list yet? i wanna see it!

 

Honestly kinda liked Mario.

 

I didn't even know there was a Good Burger 2. This thread is also the first time I've heard about Pacification, so I'll have to seek that one out.

There are three of four movies I wanted to see before making a list, but I got sick in the last week so I probably won't be able to make it to the theater to catch them unfortunately.

 

I know he doesn’t deserve defending, but Taika had a couple of great comedies under his belt before he was a Marvel director.

 

Yes he did. The Taste of Things is a great pick. Maybe his best list ever

1. “The Holdovers” (Focus)
2. “Robot Dreams” (NEON)
3. “The Taste of Things” (IFC)
4. “Society of the Snow” (Netflix)
5. “The Deepest Breath” (Netflix)
6. “Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles” (Amazon)
7. “They Cloned Tyrone” (Netflix)
8. “Suzume” (Crunchyroll)
9. “Two Tickets to Greece” (Greenwich)
10. “Priscilla” (A24)

 

Lights Camera Jackson manages to pick movies no one has ever heard of.

 

I have been meaning to watch They Cloned Tyrone

 

Loved May December