• The Best
• Recommended DVD Releases
• The Worst
• Looking Forward
• 2023: Bedlam in Print
• 2023: A Look Back in Bedlam

2023, I predict, will be looked upon by future generations as “The Year That Ate Hollywood,” “The Time When It All Fell Apart,” or perhaps simply “The End.”  It was a fateful period, in short, with Hollywood’s longstanding bad decisions coming to an ugly head in the form of two debilitating strikes, a multitude of costly flops and a record number of industry layoffs.  It’s been claimed that Hollywood is too big to fail, and it seems that in the coming months we’ll be able to directly gauge the accuracy of that statement.

What follows is the latest installment of my annual ranking of the previous year’s noteworthy film releases.  I’ve already made my feelings about 2023’s movie output known in a previous posting.  To sum those feelings up: I’m not too thrilled overall.  There were, however, gems to be found in the wreckage, and encouraging news in the home video sphere, with my 2023 DVD recommendations, you’ll find, being more voluminous than they’ve been in some time.

As always, I’ll be covering only those films released commercially in the United States, either theatrically or on streaming services.  I was unable to see every movie released in 2023, and missed potentially worthwhile releases like THE ZONE OF INTEREST and SILENT NIGHT (as well as less-than-promising ones like THE FLASH, BLUE BEETLE, THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER and THE MARVELS), but most of the really prominent films I saw, along with a number of lesser-known obscurities.

So with the preliminaries out of the way, let’s start with…

---

1. OPPENHEIMER

Not an especially novel choice for film of the year, perhaps, but as far as I’m concerned Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER is the only choice. As with most every Nolan film, it has its annoyances: the narrative flow, which takes the form of a more-or-less continuous montage that freely incorporates past, present and future, takes some getting used to, as do puzzling artistic choices like having the major female players Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh outfitted and made-up to look alike. What ultimately registers is the majesty and epic heft of Nolan’s vision—this is a rare film that fully earns the term visionary—and the excellence of Cillian Murphy’s work in the title role.  The idea of making atomic bomb architect J. Robert Oppenheimer a stand-in for the conflicted soul of America might not seem too promising, not least because Nolan and many of his cast members are British (and because a previous film, 1989’s FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY, royally flubbed the concept), but it works.  Likewise the three hour runtime, which for once feels just right.

 

2. GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Gojira -1.0)

The most pleasant surprise of 2023 was this, the 33^rd GODZILLA flick made by Japan’s Toho Studios.  Written and directed by special effects ace Takashi Yamazaki, GODZILLA MINUS ONE is set in 1945.  It involves a disgraced kamikaze pilot (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a young woman (Minami Hamabe), a homeless girl and of course Godzilla, who takes CGI form (as opposed to the guy in a suit longtime kaiju fans have become accustomed to) and assumes his rightful place as a figure of fear and destruction.  Yamazaki manages to locate that elusive sweet spot where human interest and special effects intersect, and is helped by a highly innovative symphonic score by Naoki Satō and the imagery of cinematographer Kōzō Shibasaki, which in contrast to most GODZILLA movies uses natural light to its advantage.

 

3. SKINAMARINK

This, it would seem, is the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and/or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY of the 2020s: a highly innovative no-budget horror-fest that owes its notoriety almost entirely to the internet.  Another thing SKINAMARINK has in common with those previous films is that it doesn’t hold up to repeat viewings; upon experiencing the film for the first time I was so impacted I was ready to replace all my favorite horror movies with SKINAMARINK, but speaking frankly, it’s a film that’s far less interesting once you’ve spotted the ghost in its machine (which I believe I have).  I’m sure you know the particulars: two young children are stuck in a dark house with an unseen something that makes all the doors and windows disappear, in addition to the kids’ parents.  It’s a mood piece, and one that’s often downright obnoxious in its nonlinear irrationality, but there’s a reason the film has had such resonance.

 

4. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

This Martin Scorsese film’s prerelease publicity portended a period epic in the David Lean mold, and while KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON has a time frame and thematic heft that are indeed epic, it’s actually not too far removed from the insularity of TAXI DRIVER—with the major difference being that film’s homicidal protagonist was a much nicer guy than the present film’s headliners.  They include a wealthy cattle rancher (Robert De Niro) and his nephew (Leonardo DiCaprio), the latter of whom marries a Native American woman (Lily Gladstone) who’s part of an oil-rich tribe.  This occurs amid a spate of killings orchestrated by De Niro and DiCaprio, whose object is to drive away the natives and take their land.  Thus we have a depiction of the white man’s treatment of America’s natives in miniature, with a very Scorsese-esque sense of personal angst.  The film overall hangs together much better than previous Scorsese period epics like GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR, although it woefully lacks the kinetic energy that tends to mark even his worst films.

 

5. SOCIETY OF THE SNOW (La sociedad de la nieve)

The 1972 crashing of a plane in an Andes glacier, stranding a Uruguayan rugby team whose members resorted to cannibalism for survival, has been the subject of multiple books (notably Piers Paul Read’s ALIVE) and documentaries.  This J.A. Bayona directed Spanish language film is the third dramatization of the case, following Rene Cardona’s SURVIVE! (1976) and Frank Marshall’s ALIVE (1993), and suffers from the fact that its particulars are so familiar.  Yet Bayona’s recreation of the crash and its aftermath are authoritative enough to replicate actual photos of the event (shown over the end credits) with uncanny fidelity.  Plus, Bayona reinstates the hard edges Marshall’s film sanded down, with uncomfortable details (such as the dismemberment of human corpses to extract the edible parts) owned up to with graphic (though not overly so) frankness.

 

6. ESME, MY LOVE

Longtime sound technician Cory Choy made an impressive directorial debut with ESME, MY LOVE.  Involved are a young woman named Hannah (Stacey Weckstein) and her daughter Esme (Audrey Grace Marshall).  Hannah insists on taking the city bred Esme to an abandoned family farm in upstate New York, allegedly because the girl is sick and needs fresh air.  From the start this drama is tinged with a sense of horror, bequeathed by sound design that, in keeping with Choy’s sonic orientation, effectively incorporates eerie noises and creepy undertones.  The script by Laura Allen is strong, but it’s the filmmaking that resonates, with distorted hand mirror POVs offered up amid a wild juxtaposition of close-ups and wide shots.  The lead actresses are both quite strong, particularly Audrey Grace Marshall in a turn that ranks as one of the finest little girl performances in any film, recent or otherwise.

 

7. NYAD

Unabashed Oscar bait that for once actually works.  Annette Bening delivers a performance that, in a year filled with startlingly uninhibited female turns (including Emma Stone in POOR THINGS, Florence Pugh in OPPENHEIMER and Jennifer Lawrence in NO HARD FEELINGS), ranks as the most daring of them all.  Bening, after all, transgresses the ultimate Hollywood taboo—aging—by parading her wrinkled skin, sans makeup, in naturally lit outdoor settings.  She plays Diana Nyad, a champion swimmer who at age 61 became determined to swim from Cuba to Florida.  I don’t think I’m giving anything away by revealing that Nyad accomplished her goal (there wouldn’t be a movie if she didn’t), but it’s impossible not to root for her—a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that as rendered here the character is quite prickly and self-centered.  I give credit to Bening and the directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, and also Jodie Foster, who as Nyad’s best friend delivers one of her finest performances in decades.

 

8. LIMBO

An above-average example of the new Hong Kong filmmaking aesthetic, which offers a somber, noirish take on material that would formerly have been rendered in a more kinetic manner.  Lensed in luminous black and white, LIMBO pivots on a tough cop (Ka-Tung Lam) teaming up with a straight-laced rookie (Mason Lee) to track down a ghetto-dwelling serial killer (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi) who preys on women, leaving their body parts strewn around various slums.  Director Soi Cheang and cinematographer Siu-Keung Cheng drench LIMBO in stately and magisterial widescreen visuals that conflict somewhat with the mud, rain and overall squalor of the scenery (with garbage-strewn alleys being common locations).  It seems Cheang was trying to outdo BLADE RUNNER and SE7EN in dystopian grime, and he very nearly succeeded.

 

9. PIAFFE

In which a shy young woman (Simone Bucio) takes on her sister’s job as foley artist on a commercial about a horse.  In so doing a horse tale sprouts from Bucio’s backside, leading to an odd fetishistic coupling with a local himbo (Sebastian Rudolph).  There’s not much to this German import story-wise, but its pleasures are in the unrestrained physicality of Ms. Bucio and the sense of perverse eroticism bequeathed by co-writer/director Ann Oren.  I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the unresolved conclusion, but the final close-up (which recalls a particularly infamous bit from SHALLOW HAL) is a mind-searer.

 

10. SLY

A Netflix documentary portrait of Sylvester Stallone (made, presumably, to complement its ARNOLD docuseries about Sly’s main 1980s rival) that purports to tell his full, unvarnished life story.  That’s not actually the case, as a great deal is left out; there’s no mention of ROCKY producer Irwin Winkler, with whom Stallone has been feuding, and the 2012 death of the man’s son Sage is covered only in passing.  SLY is nonetheless quite engaging, taking us inside Stallone’s Hollywood home (filled with pictures and statues of himself) and offering a good overview of his career, which like the tried-and-true ROCKY narrative is nothing if not inspiring.

 

11. BIRTH/REBIRTH

A horror indie that accomplishes three mighty impressive feats: 1). It’s a Shudder original that’s actually worthwhile, 2). It partakes of Hollywood’s current feminist orientation without pandering or grandstanding, and 3). It’s a rare example of non-boring character-based horror.  Marin Ireland stars as a doctor performing unholy experiments designed to conquer death, and SCRUBS’ Judy Reyes plays a nurse who learns that her recently deceased daughter is Ireland’s latest subject; despite being quite different in background and temperament, the ladies strike up a close bond over the fact that both have a vested interest in the girl being resurrected.  The trajectory is predictable (the resurrected girl’s post-mortem behavior was essentially forecast by PET SEMATARY), but the expert performances and stylish direction maintain one’s attention.

 

12. BOY MAKES GIRL

A film that can be said to mark the next major evolution of a concept that prior to 2023 was best represented by 2013’s HER.  Writer-co-director-star Mark Elias plays an autistic computer programmer whose mental issues are manifested in debilitating social awkwardness.  In desperation he creates a robotic woman (Meeghan Holaway) that initially behaves much like him but before long begins displaying emotion and independence, leaving Elias with two choices: shut the ‘bot down or learn to better interact with the non-robotic people around him.  Holaway offers an interpretation that’s refreshingly divergent from modern cinema’s standard depiction of robot women, while the filmmaking by Elias and co-director Mark David (AMERICAN COWSLIP) strikes a nice balance between romantic whimsy and harsh reality.

 

13. NEFARIOUS

Proof that evangelical films are slowly but surely improving.  NERAFIOUS, from Believe Entertainment (of GOD’S NOT DEAD and THE BOOK OF DANIEL), is strong enough that I was fooled into thinking it was an actual movie (with only a last-minute appearance by Glenn Beck giving away its true orientation).  It features an atheist shrink (Jordan Belfi) interviewing a soon-to-be-executed serial killer (Sean Patrick Flanery) in his prison cell.  The latter claims to be a demon, leading to a surprisingly intelligent battle of wills as Belfi attempts to draw out his charge’s supposed true nature but is constantly rebuffed—and eventually comes to believe Flanery’s claims.  The cheapness of the enterprise is always apparent, but the actors—Flanery in particular—worked overtime, resulting in a thoroughly provocative piece of work.

 

14. LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

This Netflix original, executive produced by the Obamas, isn’t as radical as it’s been cracked up to be.  In fact, it’s but the latest in a long line of suburban disaster movies focused on current anxieties.  In the case of PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1962) that anxiety was nuclear war, while in RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR (2006) it was biological terrorism.  LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND’s targets are more scattershot, encompassing government conspiracy, cyberattacks and civil war (I’m surprised the filmmakers didn’t find a way to work in pandemic jitters), but it’s very much in the tradition set by those earlier films, taking place in a contained setting where a handful of apparently “normal” folk, played by names like Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali, attempt to subside as society collapses around them.  The film works reasonably well, inducing the intended alarm and anxiety despite being overwrought; the 2½ hour runtime is excessive, as are the ominous music cues and unnervingly oft-kilter camerawork (writer-director Sam Esmail has clearly studied THE HUMANS quite closely).

 

15. AMOR BANDIDO

A torrid Argentine thriller of a type in which nineties-era Hollywood specialized.  It’s quite diverting, being a lively account of a teenager (Renato Quattordio) involved in an amorous relationship with a sexy teacher (Romina Ricci).  The two head off to a secluded mansion for an extended bang-a-thon, but then a strange man turns up and the eroticism gives way to noirish intrigue.  The sexual content, in direct contrast to most Hollywood attempts, is actually erotic, and director Daniel Andres Werner lends the proceedings a richly atmospheric charge.  I just wish there were more to the story; an added twist of two might have livened up a script that despite its virtues feels under-baked.

 

16. A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE

Yes, a documentary has been made about the infamous STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL, and A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE offers nearly everything one could desire in its dissection of a program most would rather forget.  Behind-the-scenes info is provided by many of the show’s participants (unsurprisingly, they reveal that the production was something of a catastrophe), while nerd culture gurus like Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt and Seth Green are on hand to impart snarky observations (with the late Gilbert Gottfried offering up the funniest line: “The STAR WARS special sucked so bad I’m amazed I wasn’t in it!”).  The tone is kept light and jokey, with archival footage giving voice to those who aren’t interviewed, including George Lucas, who likely hates THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL more than anyone else.

 

17. THE LATENT IMAGE

Hailing from England, here’s a horror-fest that’s more thoughtful and complex than is usual these days.  It features a gay writer (Joshua Tonks) alone in a secluded cabin, which is invaded by a dangerous but quite seductive intruder (Jay Clift).  There follows a highly twisted psychosexual dynamic that harkens back to Tonks’ fraught relationship with his lover (William Tippery), who’s seen in flashbacks; Tonk takes all the strife as inspiration for his newest book, although it’s suggested that what we’re seeing may in fact be the events of that book.  Intriguing, but the painfully low budget is a constant distraction.

 

18. NOWHERE

A mostly effective exercise in confined drama, with a young pregnant woman (Anna Castillo) trapped in a shipping crate that ends up adrift on the Atlantic Ocean.  Castillo is never less than completely engaging, and the script displays great ingenuity in the assortment of goodies contained in the crate (such as masses of Tupperware and string) that she uses for sustenance.  Those attributes, unfortunately, don’t forgive the lousiness of the opening scenes, depicting a futuristic dictatorship that’s straight out of the dial-a-dystopia school, with fascistic overseers who are anti-woman, anti-infant and extremely trigger-happy; the heroine’s confinement in the crate actually seems like a step up, as in there, at least, nobody’s shooting at her.

 

19. NO HARD FEELINGS

An exuberant throwback to the raunch-coms of the 2010s.  It’s rare these days to find a woman-centered comedy with a heroine who’s allowed to be sexy and charismatic; Jennifer Lawrence plays that heroine, a thirtyish hottie who agrees to be the girlfriend of a teenage introvert (Andrew Barth Feldman) at the behest of his rich parents.  There are no surprises, with everything turning out exactly as you’d expect it to (i.e. happily), but the sunny beachfront settings, attractive cast, inviting tone and complete lack of political messaging that’s become de rigeur in modern filmmaking (words like privilege and patriarchy go mercifully unmentioned) make for a pleasant time passer.

 

20. THRILLER 40

Unadulterated puffery to be sure, but an enjoyable film nonetheless.  Granted, that enjoyment likely pivots on having been around in 1983, when Michael Jackson’s 67 million copy selling THRILLER album and its accompanying music videos were the center of the pop culture universe.  There is simply no modern-day equivalent to THRILLER’s success in the 1980s, and this documentary on the album’s creation and reception offers a potent flashback.  Included is a fair amount of info on the making of the John Landis directed THRILLER video/short film, which by itself makes THRILLER 40 a worthwhile watch.

 

21. THE KILLER

The umpteenth example of filmdom’s boundless fascination with hit men.  As in LE SAMORAI, THE PROFESSIONAL and quite a few others, David Fincher’s THE KILLER closely follows a professional hitman (Michael Fassbender) going about his nasty business.  Fincher and screenwriter Kevin Andrew Walker (adapting a graphic novel by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon) were evidently so enamored with the subject matter they couldn’t be bothered with things like narrative progression, as the focus throughout is on the minutiae of the protagonist’s lonely existence, with Fassbender providing quasi-professorial narration that often makes the film sound like an extended episode of BURN NOTICE.  Still, for all its problems THE KILLER is extremely watchable due to cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt’s meticulously wrought visuals, and a cast that includes talents like Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell and Arliss Howard.

 

22. HELL CAMP: TEEN NIGHTMARE

I can remember watching a TV expose of the Challenger Foundation, which kidnapped wayward teenagers from their homes and forced them to take part in a grueling hike through Utah, when I was a teen myself, and having the Holy Hell scared out of me.  This Netflix documentary takes a deep and (as tends to be the case these days) extremely one-sided look at the foundation and its late owner Steve Cartisano.  Director Liza Williams makes Cartisano out to be the antichrist, although the truth would appear to be a bit more layered, with the foundation having begun with valiant intentions only to morph into a horrifically misguided free-for-all.  Furthermore, the most interesting and disturbing aspect of the Challenger Foundation is IMO the teenage “help” industry that sprung up in its wake, which is touched upon only briefly by Williams.

---

(Back to the top)

 

AMERICA’S DEADLIEST HOME VIDEO

One of the forerunners of the found footage genre, this early nineties mock doc starring Danny Bonaduce holds up remarkably well—hard to believe it’s taken this long to be digitized.

 

ATTACK OF THE KILLER REFRIGERATOR

Not the best killer fridge movie ever made, but this 1990 short remains an enjoyable 15 minutes of splatterific silliness.

 

COPPERHEAD

It would be a definite stretch to call COPPERHEAD a classic, but it is one of the stronger examples of early eighties SOV horror, and was lovingly digitized by Terror Vision.

 

THE DEAD MOTHER

I’ve long appreciated this little-known Coen Brothers-esque Spanish thriller by Juanma Bajo Ulloa (whose 1997 comedy AIRBAG also deserves a stateside release).

 

FREAKS

From Criterion, the ultimate home video edition of Tod Browning’s 1932 masterwork, which comes complete with two little-known Browning silent features.  A must!

 

FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HEAVEN: THE LOST AND SAVED FILMS OF THE ORMOND FAMILY

A Blu-ray companion set to Jimmy McDonough’s indispensable book THE EXOTIC ONES, featuring 13 heretofore obscure films by trash cinema legend Ron Ormond and his family.

 

HAUNTED SAMURAI

This heretofore impossible-to-find Japanese slash fest, a forerunner of the LONE WOLF AND CUB and LADY SNOWBLOOD films, has been digitized at last, courtesy of Diabolik DVD.

 

LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT

Just what the title promises, contained in a fun digital package from Terror Vision.

 

THE SERVENT

Joseph Losey’s all-time 1963 classic gets Criterionized.  Yes, that’s a big deal.

 

THE TRIAL

A Criterion-ized edition of Orson Welles’ THE TRIAL (1962)!  Need I say more?

 

VAMPIR-CUADECUC + UMBRACLE

VAMPIR-CUADECUC, from Pere Portabella, is perhaps the most poetic and subversive behind-the-scenes doco (profiling the making of Jess Franco’s COUNT DRACULA) ever made.  Portabella’s non-documentary UMBRACLE isn’t as strong, but the earlier film’s inclusion makes this an essential acquisition.

 

WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Yet another essential Terror Vision release, a digitization of the infamous mock VHS recording of an ersatz 1980s Halloween TV special.

 

A WOMAN KILLS

Here’s a good deal: the long-awaited Blu-ray release of Jean-Denis Bonan’s A WOMAN KILLS (1968), together with five short films (including the long-banned SADNESS OF THE ANTHROPOPHAGI).

 

---

(Back to the top)

 

1. INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

The NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN of the INDIANA JONES franchise. 1983’s NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, for those who don’t remember, was a rogue entry in the James Bond cycle that’s now regarded as, essentially, a joke. That sums up the James Mangold directed INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, which from the title (nobody remembers TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY?) on downward stands as a thoroughly disposable and derivative production with CGI-heavy action scenes that are only partially coherent, and a 1960s set story, involving Indiana Jones chasing after a portion of an Archimedes constructed time dial, that fails to compel.  Further annoyance is heralded by the presence of a woman sidekick (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, providing the British accented brunette character that’s become a requisite in Lucasfilm productions) who’s so haughty and superior I wondered if she was meant as a villain—in fact, she was supposed to take over the franchise from Harrison Ford, but the film’s pathetic box office haul put an immediate stop to that, for which we can all be thankful.

 

2. CANDY CANE LANE

I’ve long believed that the annual Candy Cane Lane festivities in El Segundo, CA, in which Santa Claus exits a fire truck and leads a massive crowd from house to house, lighting up each with a wave of a hand, is something that should be filmed—but as this film’s tagline states: Be Careful What You Wish For.  CANDY CANE LANE is indeed about the El Segundo CCL experience, but was for some ungodly reason filmed on the Universal Studios backlot, and adds a nonsensical narrative involving Eddie Murphy as a nerdy family man and a magic spell that results in a lot of gratuitous CGI chaos.  I say this is all unnecessary, as the actual Candy Cane Lane experience is wild and surreal enough on its own.

 

3. BARBIE

I’m not a fan of the snootier-than-thou brand of VILLAGE VOICE film criticism, but I gained a newfound appreciation for THE VILLAGE VOICE’s Amy Taubin when she responded to the question of whether she found BARBIE “inspiring” with the retort “It’s about a fucking doll!”  In other words, it’s a disposable product completely unworthy of all the discourse, pro and con, that has sprung up around it.  The supposed feminist message is muddled, with a sexual segregation stance that isn’t too far removed from the rhetoric of the Red Pill crowd.  Furthermore, Ryan Gosling’s Ken is the most complex, and so most interesting, of the film’s characters, with Margot Robbie’s Barbie existing as a Candide-like airhead whose exploits, in a “reality” that didn’t seem too far removed from the doll world she previously inhabited, never seemed worth following.

 

4. MAY DECEMBER

Can we please stop overpraising Todd Haynes?  Yes, the man is certainly capable of creating great cinema, but all too often he squanders his talents on silliness like this ersatz PERSONA wannabe.  MAY DECEMBER recalls contrived arthouse fare like INTERIORS and BY THE SEA rather than an actual example of such, with distracting fake grain added, presumably, to make it look like a product of the 1970s.  The acting, by Julianne Moore as a woman who years earlier molested a thirteen year boy and Natalie Portman as the actress chosen to play her, is quite strong, suggesting that Haynes’ real talent is his direction of actors.  Storytelling, alas, isn’t one of his attributes, as this film goes nowhere, and does so very slowly.

 

5. AIMEE: THE VISITOR

2023 gave us a number of “important” films, but I contend this Charles Band production is the most important.  That’s not because of what it has to say (which adds up to very little) but because AIMEE: THE VISITOR will be viewed by future generations as a turning point in cinema’s AI revolution.  This is in reference to the widely publicized fact that the title character is the first in history to be entirely computer generated.  Aimee, who exists solely as a face on a computer monitor, is a striking creation that won’t ever be confused for an actual human, meaning there’s no immediate worry about actors being replaced by computerized simulations.  This personage, however, displays a fair amount of charm and sex appeal—more so, in fact, than any of the all-too-human performers surrounding it.  The narrative they find themselves caught up in, involving a porn-obsessed hacker (Dallas Schaefer) becoming smitten with Aimee, who is in fact an elaborate computer virus, is clichéd and perfunctory, and at just 69 minutes isn’t nearly substantial enough.

 

6. LADY BALLERS

Possibly the most hotly contested film of last year, an unabashedly right-wing comedy about crummy basketball players who become stars by pretending to be transgender.  Made by Ben Shapiro’s DAILY WIRE film arm, LADY BALLERS was such a hot potato it was shunned even by right-leaning performers like Gina Carano and James Woods—hence all the appearances by DAILY WIRE correspondents like Brett Cooper, Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens, Andrew Klavan and Ben Shapiro himself.  It falls short because, aside from being excessively preachy and ham-fisted, it fails at the one thing crucial to any comedy: it isn’t funny.  That means all the caterwauling provided by the media served only to drum up publicity for a mediocre film.

 

7. KNOCK AT THE CABIN

This M. Night Shyamalan potboiler was adapted, loosely I understand, from Paul Tremblay’s popular 2018 novel THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD.  I haven’t read Tremblay’s opus and so can’t comment on how faithful Shyamalan was, but can say that the film he turned out is ridiculous.  Involved are a gay couple (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) staying at a remote cabin with their adopted daughter (Kristen Cui); all is well until a Dave Bautista led quartet of weirdoes hefting an odd set of weapons turn up demanding that one of the protagonists kill the other.  The purity of their love for each other is apparently so profound (even though the only evidence we get of this purity is a sing-along to “Boogie Shoes”) that if they don’t go through with the sacrifice the world will end—proven, it seems, by TV news reports of earthquakes, tsunamis and planes falling out of the sky.  The crushing solemnity of the enterprise suggests Shyamalan and his collaborators believed they were creating something profound, which adds a definite bad movie charm that will likely grow more pronounced in the coming years.

 

8. THANKSGIVING

A missed opportunity for sure, with Eli Roth adapting his infamous GRINDHOUSE mock trailer “Thanksgiving” into a shockingly uninspired slasher pic.  The film’s problems start with an early scene depicting a Black Friday stampede that turns into a gory kill-fest, despite the fact that real life Black Friday crowds have thinned considerably in recent years.  From there the film recycles much of the imagery from the trailer—a beheading at a Thanksgiving Day parade, a knife stuck through a trampoline, etc.—in its account of a splat-happy nut loose in a small town on Thanksgiving, offset by a cop (Patrick Dempsey) and the standard Roth-imagined band of annoying twentysomethings (Instagram star Addison Rae among them).  Watch the aforementioned trailer instead, which is more imaginative, outrageous and exciting than anything in this feature.

 

9. MAESTRO

This artfully mounted black and white Leonard Bernstein biopic is a consummate piece of filmmaking, but has two things working against it: 1). As depicted here Bernstein isn’t a very interesting character, with his bisexuality presented as the major point of interest despite the fact that in today’s climate the subject is far from novel, and 2). Bradley Cooper, who directed, delivers a severely overwrought and affected impersonation of Bernstein.  Carey Mulligan, as Bernstein’s longtime love, fares better, particularly toward the end, when she makes for an alarmingly convincing cancer patient.

 

10. FERRARI

There are some great things to be found in this Michael Mann historical saga, as well as a number of not-so-great things.  Call me greedy, but I like my Mann movies to fire on all cylinders (as in THIEF, HEAT and THE INSIDER), and not just deliver impressively wrought visuals and some spirited performances, as is the case here.  Set in 1957, FERRARI is marked by distant and unpleasant characters, none more so than Adam Driver’s Enzo Ferrari, who tries to resuscitate his crumbling auto empire via a dangerous race through the backroads of Italy while juggling a temperamental wife (Penelope Cruz) and needy mistress (Shailene Woodley).  Another problem: a climactic scene that should be powerful and shocking is lessened, if not ruined entirely, by crummy CGI.

 

11. EVIL DEAD RISE

A new-school EVIL DEAD movie that follows the lead of Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake of Sam Raimi’s classic. This means it’s a woman-centered, Ash-free take that plays down the humor (unintentional in the case of the 1981 original) of the earlier films in favor of over-the-top carnage. The setting is a grungy big city apartment building where an assortment of thoroughly unlikeable folks become demonically possessed after an earthquake dislodges an ancient text.  All the characters are so obnoxious that I was never too troubled by their gory demises, and anyway, I maintain that this material was done right the first time around.

 

12. BEAU IS AFRAID

Every director is deserving of some unalloyed self-indulgence, although in BEAU IS AFRAID Ari Aster takes that dictum a bit too far.  Falling somewhere between THE TENANT and PINK FLOYD: THE WALL, it’s about a sad sack (Joaquin Phoenix) who finds himself stuck in an increasingly surreal universe in which people hover on the ceiling of his bathroom and street urchins invade his apartment.  This leads to an exploration of his unsettled past in which long-dead loved ones turn back up to berate him, a spectral trial is conduced and a giant penis makes an appearance.  Aster and Phoenix deserve points for audacity, but the film fails to do their efforts justice, being plodding, unevocative and, at nearly a full three hours, vastly overlong.

 

13. NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU

An alien invasion horror movie similar in conception to 2006’s long-forgotten ALTERED and the famous unfilmed screenplay NIGHT SKIES.  It has a young woman (Kaitlyn Dever) finding herself alone in a secluded farmhouse when aliens decide to invade.  What follows is a stylish and suspenseful cat-and-mouse tale in which the heroine assumes the roles of both pursuer and victim amid special effects that are surprisingly potent.  I’d question the wisdom of casting a lead actress who looks like she’s still in high school (as the role was evidently intended for a much older performer), but Dever is quite captivating.  The film’s real problem, in any event, is the agonizingly pretentious final third, which features a distracting tonal change that knocks the proceedings completely off course.

 

14. MONEY SHOT: THE PORNHUB STORY

A disappointing documentary, but a necessary one.  The subject is the Canadian website Pornhub, which was in large part responsible for a shift in the nature of pornography, taking it from an industry that stayed in the shadows to the quasi-mainstream enterprise it’s become.  If you ask me, the makers of this doco should have given that historical aspect more prominence, but they focus on Pornhub’s legal troubles, and in so doing indulge what is arguably the single most obnoxious journalistic technique of the modern age: the use of random screen grabs from Twitter to represent “the public.”

 

15. POOR THINGS

To its credit, this feminist-minded FRANKENSTEIN pastiche from the always-eclectic Yorgos Lanthimos has a look and style that are directly at odds with most everything in today’s play-it-safe moviescape—conceptually, however, POOR THINGS is strictly a case of the Same Old Crap.  Set in a boldly designed steampunk phantasmagoria, it involves a young woman (Emma Stone) who after committing suicide is brought back to life when a mad doctor (Willem Dafoe) implants the brain of a child in her head. This child-woman embarks on an odyssey through Europe in which she transgresses most every law, although there are no consequences. Nor does she face much in the way of hardship, with a money shortage solved by becoming a prostitute (venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies luckily don’t exist in this world) and the ever-present specter of misogyny leavened by the fact that nearly every man she meets is a moron or buffoon.  Salvation is eventually found, in the form of a black lesbian socialist (why not make her handicapped as well?), and our indomitable heroine, despite a complete lack of formal schooling, elects to become a surgeon. What could possibly go wrong?  According to this film, absolutely nothing.

 

16. PAIN HUSTLERS

A film that tries for a WOLF OF WALL STREET vibe in telling the fact-based (albeit heavily fictionalized) tale of a young Floridian woman (Emily Blunt) who goes to work at a sleazy pharmaceutical outfit, and eventually turns whistleblower.  Blunt and co-stars Chris Evans and Andy Garcia do what they can, but the film just doesn’t go far enough in any capacity.  What that means is it’s never particularly outrageous, tragic, humorous, inspiring or compelling, although it wants very much to be all those things.

 

17. JESUS REVOLUTION

The first of 2023’s surprise non-Hollywood hits, a $54 million grossing depiction of the Costa Mesa, CA based Calvary Chapel.  Run by the late pastor Chuck Smith, the chapel broke from tradition in the late 1960s by focusing on hippies, lured into the fold by a Jesus-like fellow named Lonnie Frisbee, who was known to perform mass baptisms in the Pacific Ocean. Those things are dramatized in this slick but overlong and highly sanitized biopic, which features a strong Kelsey Grammar as Smith and an unconvincing Jonathan Roumie as Frisbee. Left out are the allegations of sexual assault that dogged the church and the virulently anti-gay rhetoric espoused by Smith. For an evangelical production JESUS REVOLUTION is above average, but it’s not fully satisfying.

 

18. COCAINE BEAR

The problem of the miscast director is one Hollywood has been grappling with for the past few years.  Elizabeth Banks was an unlikely and, it turns out, inappropriate choice as helmer of this fact-based horror-comedy about a bear that goes on a killing rampage after ingesting cocaine dropped in a Georgia wilderness.  Caught up in the melee are several quirky characters, including a nurse (Keri Russell), her daughter (Brooklyn Prince), a cop (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and some drug dealers (including O’Shea Jackson Jr. and, in his final role, Ray Liotta).  There’s a great deal of CGI carnage, which isn’t badly done; what bothered me was the smirking and superior tone, apparently Banks’ idea of dark comedy.  For that matter, I’m not sure the film needed a comedic side at all, as the stranger-than-fiction events it dramatizes are plenty outrageous on their own.

 

19. INSIDE

Until it turns pretentious this contained thriller plays like something that could have been dreamed up by J.G. Ballard.  It features Willem Dafoe as an art thief who breaks into an ultra-luxurious NYC penthouse to snatch some expensive canvases from its walls, only to set off an alarm that completely locks the place down.  Thus he’s trapped in this swank yet cold and impersonal enclosure, with very little in the way of food or water.  Dafoe’s attempts at surviving, and escaping via a scaffold constructed of odds and ends he scavenges from around the apartment, make for fascinating viewing, enhanced by director Vasilis Katsoupis’ highly stylish mise-en-scene.  It’s just too bad the film loses its momentum in the final scenes, in which Dafoe becomes prone to hallucinations and bleary monologues about the nature of art.

 

20. SISU

This would appear to be 2023’s answer to the previous year’s RRR: an action-oriented import that purports to deliver all the things we could previously expect from Hollywood.  Hailing from Finland, SISU takes place in the final days of WWII, when an elderly prospector (Jorma Tommila) runs into a contingent of retreating Nazis.  This sets off a violent confrontation, as they want his gold and he’s loathe to give it up; much CGI enhanced carnage is in store, all of it fast and energetic.  I can’t say the film isn’t enjoyable and even profound in its way (Tommila’s weathered face ranks as one of the most compelling cinematic images I’ve beheld in some time), but I really wish writer-director Jalmari Helander had made a greater effort at rendering his imaginings plausible.  The film plays like a live action Tom and Jerry cartoon, but is even less believable.

 

21. SOUND OF FREEDOM

Yet another example of a movie done in by its own inflated self-importance.  As a TAKEN-esque thriller SOUND OF FREEDOM, which purports to dramatize the real-life heroics of the former U.S. government agent Tim Ballard, works reasonably well, but as the child trafficking expose it insists on presenting itself as the film flounders.  We see Ballard, played by Jim Caviezel in what amounts to a reprise of his role as Jesus in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, risking his life and occupation to rescue two young children from the clutches of brown-skinned traffickers (yes, this is very much a white savior movie) whose ranks include Yessica Borroto as an impossible-to-forget fem-bot.  Given the scary statistics the film throws out about the astounding number of children abducted each year, Ballard’s efforts on behalf of just two kids seem a bit reductive; shouldn’t he and the moviemakers be setting their sights a bit higher?

---

(Back to the top)

 

CLOSE YOUR EYES

The latest, and quite possibly final, film from Spain’s Victor Erice (SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE).  It’s been described as “a defiantly slow, ruminative, digressive piece of work about the fragility of memory.”

 

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

I’m always interested in the output of the Coen Brothers.  This film was made by Ethan Coen (apart from his brother Joel), and has been described as “a wacky queer road-trip comedy inspired by exploitation movies of years gone by, but with a new innocence.”

 

DUNE: PART TWO

The fact that this was delayed from its initial set-in-stone October ‘23 release date isn’t too encouraging, but I’ll remain positive.

 

FURIOSA

In which Anya Taylor-Joy plays a younger version of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa (from MAD MAX: FURY ROAD) in a Mad Max-less MAD MAX movie.

 

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX

This might be good.  It’s a sequel to 2019’s JOKER that adds Lady Gaga and a musical overlay.  Once again: it might be good.

 

MEGALOPOLIS

I wasn’t too jazzed by the screenplay for this self-financed Francis Ford Coppola epic, but comments by its co-star Adam Driver have me intrigued.  According to Driver, the film is “unique and inventive” and “one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of.”

 

MICKEY 17

Interstellar sci-fi from PARASITE director Bong Joon-ho, starring Robert Pattinson.

 

NOSFERATU

Writer-director Robert Eggers remakes F.W. Murnau’s all-time vampire classic.  Yes, that film was already remade, and quite strikingly, but again: I’m trying to be positive.

 

RED ROOMS

My pre-release review of this stylish and disturbing French-Canadian thriller has garnered a lot of interest, and I can report that the film, whose US release is in February, fully lives up to the adulation.

 

SAMSARA

Apparently “A luminous and sonorous journey leads to reincarnate on the beaches of Zanzibar,” featuring “a 15-minute sequence for which the audience are required to close their eyes, listen to the soundscape and register the colors through closed eyelids.”

See Also: 2023 Bedlam in Print; 2023 A Look Back in Bedlam

(Back to the top)