Top 13 Movies of 2023
Time for the timely time of the year when we can all reflect on our favorite movies of the past year on a yearly basis (yearly). As we slowly crawl back to having more and more good movies in theaters again, 2023 has served to be an interesting one. And by that I mean, everything bombed and we appear to be on the cusp of either another Hollywood New Wave revolution or the complete annihilation of the industry as we know it. Regardless, enough good stuff has come out for us to keep the top X list at a round 13 for good luck. Now, these aren’t the objectively best movies of the year or the ones that are most likely to win the awards; these are the ones I enjoyed the most and I base that criteria off of which ones I catch myself chatting to friends about the most often. And since any top [insert number here] list will inevitably be very fluid depending on the day, I decided to eschew any rankings and simply alphabetize them for expediency’s sake. Hopefully you’ll find some films that you'll want to check out!
Blister in the Sun~Violent Femmes
Directed by Ben Affleck (Live by Night, Argo, The Town)
Written by Alex Convery (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Sports drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 52 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video
Ben Affleck is one of those people that I am utterly convinced took too long to find his calling. The dude is, quite frankly, not a very good actor. Not to say that he’s an especially atrocious one either but unless you find a genuinely good role that he can play into, he’ll come off as miscast as best or atrocious at worst. At the same time, however, Ben Affleck is one Hell of an amazing director. Every movie he’s made has been genuinely excellent and the man has shown an amazing knack for pacing, cinematography, how to let a scene breathe without feeling long and how to give actors some great banter. And Air is no different in this regard.
Air has a set-up that is both fairly simple and unique. The film is set in 1984 as the marketing team at Nike shoes are looking to sponsor an up-and-coming basketball player. While the initial plan is to diversify their output, the marketing team’s self-appointed maverick, Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), insists on choosing to put all their eggs in one basket in the form of the unknown talent, Michael Jordan (Damian Young). The rest of the film is them building up to the pitch at convincing Jordan and his parents (Julius Tennon and Viola Davis in a show-stealing performance) to choose Nike as their representative.
It’s really hard to articulate why a movie like Air is so good as it’s really just about the business politics of designing a shoe to pitch to a wealthy athlete. Yet these small stakes are what makes it excel. It’s not the end of the world, it’s not a rise and fall, it’s just these guys trying to make a business pitch. I ended up really loving these characters (who are all just wacky enough to be memorable but not so much so that they seem like they couldn’t exist) and the suspense comes from not wanting to see them waste all their money on a total dead end. The movie does admittedly suck off on Jordan a little too much at times (particularly one needless melodrama moment) but, aside from that, I did get into the dramatic scenes as well. When the movie gets to the final montage where it shows what it’s all about, it feels earned.
Plus, I just want to go on record saying that this is one of the best 80s period pieces I’ve ever seen. A lot of movies try to get down that 80s aesthetic but Air is so effortless with the costumes, design, soundtrack etc. that it doesn’t look like they tried at all.
Family Is, Monk Is~Laura Karpman - American Fiction
Directed by Cord Jefferson (directorial debut)
Written by Cord Jefferson (Watchmen, The Good Place, Master of None) and Percival Everett (Follow Your Heart)
Genre: Comedy-drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 57 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Youtube Movies, VOD
American Fiction is the best social satire I’ve seen in a very, very long time. The film revolves around Thelonious Ellison (nicknamed Monk) (Jeffrey Wright), a professor/author who is frustrated by the constant proliferation of what he considers low-brow “black books” (i.e. books that seem to represent black stereotypes) that become extremely popular. Fed up with this trend, he decides to write the most stereotypical black book he can possibly think of as a joke to mess with his publishers. Instead, it ends up becoming extremely popular and the more he doubles down with the stereotypes, the more popular his book becomes.
Yeah, this is basically social dynamite in movie form and really has fun with its giant middle finger pointed towards modern liberal America (apparently the movie was born out of Cord Jefferson’s clients constantly asking him to “blacken up” a lot of stories that he pitched and that resentment carries through in the film). That having been said, I have gotten into discussions with others who said that they were slightly disappointed with the film as it might not be everything you’re thinking it is from watching the trailer. While the satire is a big part of American Fiction, there’s also a whole B-plot concerning Monk dealing with his family drama. Some might say they were hoping that the movie would be more focused on the book plot but I actually think the family drama enhances that side of the story on a more meta level. American Fiction’s whole plea is about how stories of black Americans shouldn’t necessarily all have to be about poor people living in the ghetto. To demonstrate this, the film showcases a man dealing with a variety of problems that have nothing to do with his race. Monk’s problems entail dealing with a death in the family, a mom with Alzheimer’s, difficulty making ends meet, a brother he doesn’t get along with and a family friend getting married; none of these are problems that occur because he’s black. This family drama also enhances the story about Monk Ellison as a character study and this ties into why I really love the movie.
American Fiction is similar to other great satires such as And Justice For All and The Wire where it doesn’t shy away from poking holes in the argument it’s trying to make by creating a very flawed protagonist to espouse said argument. Monk Ellison is a mean, ornery bastard who hates white people, black people, gay people and anyone else who doesn’t conform to his very rigid, judgmental view of the world. While the character is there to make a point, American Fiction is willing to acknowledge why he’s wrong sometimes and why these books and stories exist in the first place. This is one of the first movies in a long time that left me wondering about my own views on race after it was over and it’s one of those things that’ll only get better when you talk it out with someone else who watched it.
Barbie Girl~Aqua
Directed by Greta Gerwig (Little Women, Lady Bird, Nights and Weekends)
Written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Frances Ha)
Genre: Comedy-drama
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour 54 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? MAX
Unfortunately that song is not actually in the movie. Well, kinda, they have a shitty R&B remix at the end instead of just paying less money for the original song because… reasons. I dunno, maybe it would’ve been better if they had the Dutch version of the song. Anyhoo, if you told me a couple years ago that a movie based around the Barbie doll would’ve been the highest-grossing movie of the year, I’d have been surprised. If you told me that it would have deserved it, I’d have thought you were high on something. If you told me that it would also be one of my favorite movies of the year, I would think that you were crossfaded. Then you tell me that Greta Gerwig is the one directing and suddenly the project becomes interesting again. And so here we are.
Barbie has a weirdly metaphysical plot that can be a bit hard to describe but the basic gist is that it’s set in Barbieland, a land populated entirely by anthropomorphized girl dolls called Barbie, named after their jobs (i.e. President Barbie (Issa Rae), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Dr. Barbie (Hari Nef) etc.), and anthropomorphized guy dolls called Ken, also named after their jobs (i.e. Tourist Ken (Simu Liu), Basketball Ken (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Merman Ken (John Cena) etc.) The main character is Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) who travels to the real world alongside her loyal compatriot, Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling), upon discovering that something there is affecting Barbieland and causing her to malfunction. So, yes, it’s that typical “bring cartoon characters into the real world” formula that created more shitty movies than you can count in the 90s and 2000s but, I assure you, this one at least is good.
In fact, it’s tough to even begin with how good this movie is. The set design is incredible, giving kinda that pastel look that you would expect every Barbie dream home would look like (so much so that the movie actually caused an international shortage on pink paint) but being so obviously fake that it becomes kinda hilarious. The comedy is on-point as it’s not laugh-out-loud funny but very witty. All the actors are aware that the more they take these dumb characters seriously, the funnier it gets (Ryan Gosling is especially hilarious as the main Ken).
City of Dreams~Talking Heads
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself, Drib)
Written by Kristoffer Borgli
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Apple TV+
Dream Scenario is another movie that I hear some people are disappointed by because of the misleading trailers and set-up. The film is about an ordinary loser named Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) who finds out that total strangers (in fact, most of the world) seem to have him in their dreams and recognize him. Hearing this concept, I think a lot of people were expecting Dream Scenario to be a real mindfuck of a film that plays around with blurring the line between dreams and reality and what-not and it definitely isn’t that. Instead, it’s more about the life cycle of a celebrity as people recognize Matthews and constantly want to use him in all the same ways that we use celebrities in our world.
This sort of satire about our parasocial relationships with celebrities and how most people aren’t equipped to deal with a sudden burst of fame is a well-worn cliché by now but there’s two aspects to Dream Scenario that help it stand out. First is that the usage of dreams is a stroke of brilliance. It never is adequately explained how or why Matthews is suddenly showing up in people’s dreams and there’s a bit of a mysticism to it. More importantly, however, it also shows how no one really gets to choose to become famous; these are things that are entirely beyond our control. So when all of a sudden the dream magic decides to start showing him as a bad guy, well, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it, is there?
Second is that Nicolas Cage is spot-on perfect as Paul Matthews as he plays the character as just the right level of asshole. He’s not a raging, abusive monster but he’s not insipidly nice either; he’s just a socially awkward jerk who sometimes says things that can come off as a little rude. This means that when he says the wrong thing on camera, people are inclined to start viewing him as a monster which invites you to sympathize with him as we’ve all acted like this before. The last third of the film is a chilling portrayal of cancel culture as the dreams warp themselves into making Matthews seem like a bad person and he does not fight this perception well at all. Because we recognize aspects of ourselves in Matthews, we want to see him make it out of this scenario okay. His being a jerk doesn’t make less likable; it actually makes him more likable because we recognize that we’ve all acted like this before and would not fare much better.
That having been said, the dream scenes are admittedly a bit underwhelming so if you were planning on watching this to see some really trippy imagery, sorry to disappoint but you won’t find it here.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Directed by John Francis Daley (In the Dark, Game Night, Vacation) and Jonathan Goldstein (In the Dark, Game Night, Vacation)
Written by Jonathan Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2), John Francis Daley (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2) and Michael Gilio (Dark Harvest, Jolene, Kwik Stop)
Genre: Action-adventure, fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours 14 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Paramount+, MGM+
It really is a crying shame that this movie bombed as bad as it did because Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was one Hell of a fun time at the theater. Granted, it does add up when making a movie about Dungeons & Dragons since not a lot of people have played and those who do generally don’t like to openly admit it in polite company. I do not since I am too busy driving fast cars and talking to girls but I still know a good movie when I see one. There’s two key aspects to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that make it a fun movie: how low the stakes are and how it plays with many of the fantasy tropes that we’ve seen a million times before.
The plot is less Lord of the Rings and more Ocean’s Eleven as it revolves around a bard named Ervis (Chris Pine) who leads a band of thieves. After his partner, Forge (Hugh Fitzwilliam), betrays him and takes Ervis’ daughter (Chloe Coleman) as his ward, Ervis assembles a merry band of ne’er-do-wells to rob Forge and get his daughter back. No magical land to save, no mystical artifact, no dark lord, it’s just a heist movie that happens to have a fantasy setting. What’s great about it is that these characters all resemble playable archetypes in the D&D board game (i.e. one character’s a barbarian, another’s a sorcerer, another’s a paladin) and, from my understanding, most of the monsters they meet are monsters from the game. So this is a great example of a movie that is enjoyable for both fans and non-fans of the original source material.
You can tell that the writers also had fun playing with a lot of fantasy tropes. For example, about halfway through the movie, there’s an action scene where the characters face off against a dragon. Now this could easily have been just another dragon scene in another fantasy movie but someone at some point during the writing process asked, “Wait, what if we made the dragon morbidly obese?” So, now, instead of a chase scene we’ve seen in a million movies since Lord of the Rings, it’s actually a lot more unique and fun as the dragon is rolling down at the characters and they keep trying to dodge the splash zone of its impact.
As much as I’m gushing about the writing here, I’ll admit that it isn’t perfect and there are flaws if you want to look for them (the main hero and villain are former best friends and I think they share 30 seconds of screen time before the reveal). But Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves still remains one of the best action-adventure films in years. Especially since most action-adventure movies of the past decade usually ruin their dramatic scenes with bad meta humor, it’s refreshing to have a movie let the dramatic moments be dramatic, let the funny scenes be funny and not be afraid to indulge in either. It’s a shame that this bombed as badly as it did but, with any luck, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves should be well on its way to cult classic status before we know it.
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki (Ghost Book, Lupin III: The First, Dragon Quest: Your Story)
Written by Takashi Yamazaki
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours 4 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Still in theaters, will likely be on VOD by March
Few movie characters from the Land of the Rising Sun are more iconic than Godzilla and his rotating cast of monsters that he battles with. So much so that most people are unaware that the original Godzilla movie from the 1950s was actually meant to be a legitimate horror movie with the monster acting as a commentary on the death and waste caused by the atomic bomb. No other movie starring the monster ever took itself as seriously or had as serious commentary. Until this past year with Godzilla Minus One.
The biggest surprise about Godzilla Minus One is just how dark it is. The film takes place in postwar Japan as a veteran named Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is trying to make ends meet after his country has been devastated before he and his community are haunted by this monster from beyond the waves. The movie acts as a commentary on the common Japanese soldier trying to rebuild his life after WWII and Godzilla seems to be more evocative of the horrors of the Japanese Empire than the atomic bomb. This leads to a very mature look at national pride as it features the characters being forced to confront their own demons and reseek their honor whilst acknowledging their very dishonorable past.
The level of death and carnage in this movie is absolutely insane. In most monster movies, when you see the monster stomping around, you enjoy seeing them tear apart the buildings and cause several GDPs worth of property damage. Here, the director really takes the time to show all the people inside the buildings and on the streets that are systematically crushed underfoot. This is the first time I’ve ever found Godzilla genuinely frightening and the movie has some awesome set pieces with the monster, with particular mention going to the boat chase about a third of the way into the movie.
While Godzilla Minus One is very good, I will admit that I would place it a bit further down on this rundown if I were to number it. While I understand that the movie is intentionally grim, it feels almost boring at times with how unrelentingly dour it is. There never seems to be any element of fun to the characters. While you might say that that’s the point, I don’t know; if you watch, say for example, Saving Private Ryan, the characters there have a fun camaraderie that accentuates the horrors around them. Real people tend to find joy in terrible situations. By placing that in the movie, it makes us care more and thus makes the terrible situations even more terrible. Even the original Godzilla has a bit more of that trait than this film. Though if there’s any real big problem with Godzilla Minus One, is that the ending to the movie is a total copout that undermines Shikishima’s entire arc. Literally, the last 30 seconds of the movie are all that they needed to be cut to make it better.
Directed by Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver)
Written by Eric Roth (A Star is Born, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Forrest Gump) and Martin Scorsese
Genre: Western, thriller
Rating: R
Running Time: 3 hours 26 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Apple TV+
I watch a lot of movies about terrible people and there have been debates in parental and philosophical circles about how much we, as a society, have become desensitized to violence and loose morals because of movies. That’s probably a discussion for another day but it’s not entirely without merit. When you become a film buff, you learn to judge villains in movies by how cool they are more than how uncomfortable they make you feel. So it really speaks to the strength of a movie like Killers of the Flower Moon when I find the villains to be so downright vile. The movie centers around one of the darkest episodes in the history of the American West where members of the Osage Native American tribe discovered oil on their land and were systematically robbed and murdered by white settlers who started moving into their town.
The film was directed by Martin Scorsese, who is a strong contender for the title of the greatest American director who ever lived and is definitely the greatest American director currently alive today. He was part of the Hollywood New Wave from the 70s and stands out in that he has had one of the most consistently excellent outputs of any director. Sure, he’s made some movies that are better than others but, unlike many of his contemporaries (i.e. Coppola, Spielberg, de Palma, Lucas), he’s never made anything truly bad. And this being a Scorsese movie, coupled with the above plot, should tell you most of why Killers of the Flower Moon is a great movie and whether or not you’ll like it. It’s violent, it’s stylized, it’s cool, it’s about the worst of humanity, the acting is phenomenal, the cinematography is gorgeous, it has memorable lines, it has ruminations about Christian guilt, it’s got it all.
While Killers of the Flower Moon is one of the year’s best films, there is a problem with it and it’s a weird enough one that I feel like it’s worth addressing: Killers of the Flower Moon has a very bizarre framing device for the first half-hour or so when it comes to who’s committing the murders. The movie doesn’t reveal the killer for quite a while so at first it seems like it’s supposed to be a murder-mystery but, eventually, the killers are revealed and it’s exactly who you think it is. But there’s no real fanfare to the reveal either. One minute the audience is speculating, the next we’re shown who it is. It’s a bizarre payoff to a mystery that didn’t need to exist, especially since the engagement of the movie comes from the dramatic irony that does exist for the killers.
Going back to the good stuff, Lily Gladstone’s performance is just as excellent as everyone’s telling you it is. Amidst all the scumbags and weirdos that occupy Osage, she somehow leaves one of the biggest impressions despite saying less than 100 words over the course of a 200-minute movie. Those are some impressive acting chops.
Directed by Sofia Coppola (The Beguiled, The Bling Ring, Lost in Translation)
Written by Sofia Coppola
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 53 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, VOD
Priscilla probably would’ve been a good movie regardless of when it came out but its one-and-a-half-years-later release date from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic makes it a curious cultural artifact. They’re an interesting brother-and-sister pair, as this movie is everything that that Elvis movie is not. Elvis was gaudy and flashy, Priscilla is reserved and slow. Elvis’ soundtrack is a celebration of his music, Priscilla’s soundtrack is much more atmospheric (partially because the Presley Estate would not let this movie license his songs). Elvis has at times almost cartoonish acting, Priscilla seems to ground itself much more in the real world. And while Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was a celebration of Elvis Presley and about his tragedy at the hands of his scumbag manager, this movie is about the tragedy of his wife, Priscilla Presley (née Beaulieu) (Cailee Spaeny), and her abusive marriage to the King of Rock (Jacob Elordi). Both these films are important in analyzing the complexities of a historical figure.
Ignoring the historiography, Priscilla is similar to Dream Scenario in that this is in some ways your typical movie about an unhealthy relationship but it’s elevated by its style and a few creative choices. The movie does a great job at sucking you into Priscilla’s head and has an almost ethereal, dreamlike style. Priscilla was an underaged teenager when Elvis married her and most of her love for him came from her latching onto the obsessive crush that any teenage girl projects onto her favorite boy band. The life she shares with Elvis seems almost heavenly which makes it all the more alarming when the scenes of abuse happen. The film holds onto these scenes just long enough to let them impact before rapidly moving on because Priscilla herself so badly wants to move on and pretend that they don’t exist. Elordi is also excellent, both as an abuser and as a dead-ringer for Elvis Presley. Most times, he’s genuinely sweet and nice to Priscilla but there’s still that undercurrent of control and potential violence that’s always there, slowly inching its way onscreen.
While Priscilla is a great movie, it does get points off for the lackluster climax. The actual ending is excellent but the scene that provides its impetus is the one time in the film where it seems undeservedly short. I won’t give it away but if you’ve seen the movie, you probably know what I’m talking about. Especially since it’s the climax of a 20-year-long relationship, it seems ridiculous that the scene in question comes off as only 30 seconds long. However, I’m always of the belief that a bad ending doesn’t retroactively ruin a good movie so you should still watch Priscilla.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos (Voltron: Legendary Defender, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra), Kemp Powers (Soul) and Justin K. Thompson (directorial debut)
Written by Phil Lord (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs), Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) and Dave Callaham (Zombieland: Double Tap, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Expendables)
Genre: Action-adventure, fantasy
Rating: PG
Running Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Netflix
After 15 years of this ongoing superhero movie boom, it’s pretty hard to come up with new ways to be excited about new superhero movies. Not to say that I hate them all, if you still like Marvel movies, that’s totally fine, I’m just kinda done with the franchises unless they come up with a way to breathe life into the genre. And the Spider-Verse movies do exactly that. If you didn’t see the first film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, then, boy, did you miss out. The film revolves around a high schooler named Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) who gets bitten by a radioactive spider, becomes Spider-Man and fights evil villains and that’s all well and good. The movie gets fun, though, by playing with multiverse theory as Miles meets other Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?) from other universes such as film noir Spider-Man, chibi anime girl Spider-Man etc. Into the Spider-Verse was a ton of fun and one of the best movies that year. They do a lot with the concept so where do you go from there for a sequel? Well, how about instead of the multiverse coming to Miles Morales, Miles Morales goes to the other universes?
If you like stylized looks in your movies, then I seriously cannot recommend Across the Spider-Verse enough. Each universe that the audience travels to in the film is completely different in the style of animation which gives the movie a one-of-a-kind look. So in one universe the characters change colors every time they take a step and in another the characters look normal but the backgrounds are shaded until they’re blurred and in another the backgrounds are heavily detailed but colored a distinct purplish-black color. In terms of sheer mastery over the art form of animation, this could quite possibly be the greatest animated movie ever made. They should be showing this movie to students in art school, it looks that amazing.
The movie also kicks up the stakes a lot as a good sequel should do. I actually really got into Morales’ family drama as I love his mom and dad (Lauren Vélez and Brian Tyree Henry) and his relationship with them. Of all the Spider-Man movies we’ve seen over the years, this one really felt like it got teenagedom down the best. Both of the villains are great, starting off comedic but slowly becoming more menacing as the film advances. The heart of the film still remains Morales’ relationship with Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and they develop in a believable way. And the movie also gives Morales a great dramatic decision in the last act that you don’t know how his friends will react to. This is pretty close to a totally perfect film.
Which makes it all the more frustrating when you see how, or rather when, the movie ends. Yeah, this is another classic case of “great movie, bad ending” that I think is even worse than Priscilla’s. At least in Priscilla, the film reaches some sort of climax even if it’s rushed. Here, the film ends literally right before the climax. While I have heard arguments that the film does reach some sort of character-based climax instead of an action-oriented one, I say that if you have to justify it post hoc, it’s a bad ending. And they were doing soooooo good beforehand too.
Directed by Eli Roth (The House with a Clock in its Walls, The Green Inferno, Hostel)
Written by Jeff Rendell (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Horror-comedy
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hours 43 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, VOD
Ever since about, oh, say, 2018/19, I feel like we’ve been in a bit of a new wave of great horror films (ex.: Get Out, Hereditary, Parasite, Last Night in Soho, X, Pearl, Barbarian etc.) though I’m disappointed to say that 2023 didn’t really have any new classics. Except one, that obviously being Thanksgiving. This isn’t an out-and-out horror film but it isn’t not one if that makes sense. Here, let me try to explain. If you remember the 2007 exploitation film, Grindhouse, it featured trailers for three fake films that eventually got made into actual movies: Machete, Hobo with a Shotgun and Thanksgiving. And those two movies should give you a pretty good idea on whether or not you’ll like Thanksgiving as it’s the exact same type of tone.
What tone is that, you might ask? Well, if you’ve ever seen Machete or Hobo with a Shotgun, you’ll know that they are hilarious exploitation films that actually take themselves just seriously enough between the over-the-top violence that you end up caring about the characters and getting invested in the action. Similarly, Thanksgiving is the perfect tone of horror and comedy in that it can be both genuinely suspenseful and hilarious, sometimes simultaneously. The film, as you can predict, revolves around a bad guy known as the John Carver Killer slaying his victims using Thanksgiving paraphernalia. One of the highlights is a scene where Carver bastes and decorates one of his victims like a turkey before sticking her in an oven. So it’s scary because being cooked alive in an oven is genuinely horrifying but it’s also kinda funny in a sick way because just say that sentence out loud: he bastes someone like a turkey and sticks her in the oven.
The whole movie is full of scenes like this as the kills are gorey in the best possible way but the build-up to the scares are also suspenseful in the best possible way. The villain is also quite awesome and I hope he becomes a new horror icon (please, John Carver Halloween costumes in the years to come, do it). But what really elevates Thanksgiving is that the characters are all way more likable than is needed for a film like this. I think that comes down to charisma because it’s not like they’re especially well-written characters; they’re just great character actors who are giving it their all.
Considering how many movies we have for Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving tends to get caught between the two and I think part of that is because of how few Thanksgiving movies there are. Especially for horror junkies, there are several Christmas slasher films; Halloween you can watch any horror movie that you please but no Thanksgiving. Well, this is the movie that finally fills that niche. I would call it the best Thanksgiving-themed movie I can think of but the only other one I can think of is Planes, Trains & Automobiles so it is not. Thanksgiving is, however, a welcome addition to the holiday season and will certainly be getting some airtime on Thanksgivings to come (or, more likely, while hiding from the world on Black Friday).
Directed by Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways, Election)
Written by David Hemingson (Whiskey Cavalier, Kitchen Confidential, Just Shoot Me!)
Genre: Drama-comedy, Christmas
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours 13 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Peacock
Speaking of future holiday classics, people are already considering The Holdovers a new staple of the Christmas season and the movie has existed for less than 4 months. Professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is the stodgy, old professor at Barton Academy Boarding School who draws the short straw and has to watch over the children who aren’t going to get to go home to their parents for Christmas. Led by Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), the kids promptly raise all sorts of Hell whilst Hunham and the cafeteria lady, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), watch over them and try to keep them out of trouble. Will these students finally learn the value of academics while Hunham learns the importance of having fun? Can they actually learn from each other through time spent over Christmas?
At first glance, The Holdovers seems like the type of Oscar-baiting crap that I normally hate and like to make fun of. But everything about this movie is just so well done and so damn likable that it’s hard not to fall in love with it. The directing, pacing, acting, cinematography and especially the dialogue-writing are damn on point. The actors have phenomenal chemistry with each other and each not only has a funny wit but their wits are distinct from character to character. The winter and 60s setting gives the film a look that alternates between cozy and frigid. And Giamatti is by far the show-stealer as this clearly autistic professor who hates his students. He does such a good job as this stick-in-the-mud that I was actually second-guessing at first whether or not he was just going to be the pure villain and if was ever going to achieve a redemption arc.
I’d be lying if I said that this film didn’t get a little too sappy at times, especially at the ending (between this, Godzilla Minus One, Priscilla, Across the Spider-Verse and a few of the honorable mentions, it seems like 2023 was the year of great movies with bad endings). Weirdly, I think the ending is a good one but it’s ruined by having the sad music play over Giamatti’s last scene whereas if they just kept it entirely silent and let the actor do his thing, it would’ve been a much more powerful ending. It’s one of those mysteries of film editing in how that works.
I’m a bit more forgiving to this movie’s ending, however, as I recognize that this is one of those films that is destined for holiday classic status and when I see it in years to come, I’m probably going to come around to the sappier moments. I realize that this review has been very mixed so let me just clear the air here. The Holdovers is a great, emotional and very funny movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you do so but I recommend that you wait until next December because I guarantee that it’ll feel more homely.
Directed by Sean Durkin (The Nest, Southcliffe, Martha Marcy May Marlene)
Written by Sean Durkin
Genre: Sports drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Still in theaters, will likely be on VOD by March
Every year I’ve done these top X lists of the best movies, I always say that I’m not going to number them since I want to give each film equal breathing space/can’t be arsed enough to actually number them. And every year, I do end up finding one that I actually do think is the best film of that year and gets added to the list of my favorite films of all time. For 2023, that movie has got to be The Iron Claw (although American Fiction and Barbie can give it a good run for its money). Which is fascinating to me because I only checked it out because I thought it looked neat. I knew nothing about the von Erich family, don’t particularly care for wrestling and feel like sports movies have been done to death. So what is it about The Iron Claw that’s so great?
The film centers around the trials and tribulations of the von Erichs: a Texan family that used to be humongous in the wrestling world. The family is led by their patriarch, Jack (Holt McCallany), who trains his four sons; Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simons); to follow in his footsteps to become all-star wrestlers in the hopes that one of them will win a medal and/or championship belt for wrestling. The movie acts both as a chilling family drama and an exposé of the wrestling world circa the WWWF era and how things used to be (and might still actually be), particularly the dangers that wrestling inflicts on the body.
The Iron Claw is dark. The tragedy of the film is telegraphed relatively early on but every time you think you’ve reached as bad as it’s going to get, it always gets worse. The acting is phenomenal with Zac Efron giving the performance of a lifetime. There’s an amazing piece of acting that’s worth studying when, relatively early in the film, Kevin gets injured doing a stunt during the middle of a wrestling show. And over the course of the next 2 minutes, you see a million things going on in his head and they all come through in Efron’s performance. He’s hurt, but he’s not trying to show it but he’s always grimacing but he wants to keep on doing the show because he doesn’t want to embarrass himself or his father and then when his brother comes to help him, he’s ashamed but he doesn’t want to show that either.
The other standout performance is Holt McCallany as the father. This is another movie that acts as a great portrayal of an abusive relationship as this is a man who was clearly shaped from living in Texas and show business during the Great Depression and, thus, has a warped view of the world. It’s a unique portrayal of an abusive relationship as he doesn’t beat or flat-out emotionally assault his children so much as he just expects too much out of them for them to ever reach the level that he expects. He rides just the right line between despicable and empathetic while staying firmly on the despicable side of that line.
I could go on and on about all the performances of the movie and how great of a period piece this is and the heart-wrenching finale. But, in the interest of keeping the word count down, the last thing that I want to acknowledge the film’s usage of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. It’s one of the great classic rock songs that has become very popular to use in movies over the years and you could probably name a half dozen films that it’s been in. The Iron Claw has the best usage of it I’ve seen and in a very deceptive way as well. Instead of being played during a tragedy, it plays during a key piece of foreshadowing that sets up the rest of the movie and gives you this sense of impending dread. It’s masterfully done.
Directed by Molly Gordon (directorial debut) and Nick Lieberman (music videos, feature directorial debut)
Written by Noah Galvin (screenwriting debut), Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman and Ben Platt (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Comedy, mockumentary
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, VOD
Closing out this retrospective of my favorite movies of 2023 is the most obscure and underrated film on this list. Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) is the founder and director of AdirondACTS, a theater-based summer camp in upstate New York. While she’s scouting and advertising for her camp, she ends up falling into a seizure-induced coma, leaving the camp in the care of her son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), whose “day job” is being an Instagram business influencer. Theater Camp then proceeds as a fish-out-of-water story as Troy tries to fulfill his mother’s dream of keeping AdirondACTS open while dealing with all the diva students and teachers that attend the camp, particularly the drama teachers, Amos Klobuchar (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon).
It’s been a passion of mine that there hasn’t been a truly great comedy in too long of a period of time as every comedy film since, say, 2015 has either tried to take itself too seriously, makes for clumsy satire or tries too hard to be witty. While I’m not going to pretend that Theater Camp is one of the greatest comedies ever made, it’s still a very funny one and the best I’ve seen in years (honorable mentions to Barbie and The Holdovers for also being hilarious though Theater Camp is the only one that’s a pure comedy). And that comes from one simple fact of comedy famously espoused by Larry David: no hugging, no learning. The characters are all a bunch of hilariously pretentious assholes and, while there is an arc, the arc doesn’t exist for the audience to get the warm and fuzzies. It exists as a backbone for the film to make more funny jokes at the characters’ expense.
You can tell that the directors of this film are recovering theater kids because they get down the culture to a T. I’ve never been a full-fledged theater kid but, working in the arts, I’m very familiar with this world and the people who tend to inhabit it (hint: when they say they love drama, they’re not just talking about acting). Virtually all the staff members, and the majority of the students, at AdirondACTS have their heads shoved squarely up their own ass and the script basically takes whatever wacky parts there are about this subculture and increases it by just a few degrees to make it outlandish. The movie actually reminds me a lot of Bill Murray’s comedies in the 80s where the characters, particularly Amos and Rebecca-Diane, are such lovable jerks. So you want to see them win but you also enjoy laughing every time they end up as the butt of their own jokes. I especially love Jimmy Tatro as Troy Rubinsky. It would’ve been so easy to make the outsider a pure straight man but by making him weird in his own way (note: Instagram business influencer is not a real job no matter how badly some people tell you it is) adds so many more opportunities for jokes.
But it’s not flat-out mean either. It’s a very tricky balancing act between making a movie that both makes fun of theater culture (and, by extension, gay culture) while still being endearing towards it. Of all the films on this countdown, this is statistically speaking the one you’re least likely to have seen so please go watch it and help Theater Camp become the new cult classic that it deserves to be.
Honorable Mentions:
What’s Up~4 Non-Blondes (He-Man Remix)
BlackBerry: A business thriller in the vein of Air though this movie makes the mistake of Hollywooding up the story too much. In case you think that historical inaccuracy doesn’t a flaw make, those Hollywoodized elements are easily the worst part of the film.
Elemental: A new Pixar classic that is heavily brought down by the scenes where it falls back on annoying rom-com clichés. When it’s good, though, it’s really damn good.
Influencer: The best of Shudder’s horror line-up this year (even though I’d consider this more of a psychological thriller) but a bit too slow for me to say I truly loved it. Also, was it just my stream or is the sound mixing off for anyone else who watched this film?
John Wick: Chapter 4: Some of the most awesome action scenes in years and a great wrap-up to John Wick’s story. What stops it from being a truly great action movie is how bloated it is.
May December: A pretty tragic (and unusual) portrayal of an abusive relationship with a very creative framing device. One of Netflix’s obligatory two good movies of the year it gets these days.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: I’ve never been the biggest fan of the M:I movies as they always felt like the poor man’s James Bond to me. This is what I wanted out of the last 2 Bond movies, though, making Dead Reckoning one of only two M:I movies I find to be a good movie (the other being Ghost Protocol) and one of only two to have a great villain (the other being III).
Nimona: Netflix’s other obligatory good movie of the year. The film is flawed, with some annoying zoomer humor, a boring villain and a copout ending; but makes up for it with a creative setting, fun set-up and emotional climax. After reading about the troubled production history, it’s actually amazing Nimona is as good as it is.
Past Lives: Avoids many romance clichés and shows one of the best portrayals of healthy adult love I’ve seen. The second half is definitely better than the first though. Probably my personal favorite of all these honorable mentions and the one that I’d most recommend you see.
Silent Night: Your typical action movie but completely silent with no dialogue. Is it a gimmick? Yes. It is an awesome one? Also yes.
Somewhere in Queens: This I actually find to be an aggravating watch as it’s an engaging drama that could’ve been an instant classic if they cut out some flaws, particularly the insipid soundtrack. The film constantly rides the line between dramatic and sappy and the music is what pushes it over the edge.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: One of the better TMNT properties with phenomenal animation and some of the funniest usage of music in recent years. Bonus points for giving each of the turtles unique designs as well.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter: Based off of a single chapter in the Dracula novel, this is a Gothic and awesome horror film with one of the coolest designs of Dracula in cinematic history. But alas, this is yet another good movie with a terrible ending (and of all the films this year with that problem, this one comes the closest to actually ruining the movie).
Totally Killer: Another aggravating movie because of how almost-great it is. It’s got a fun and funny set-up with likable characters but there’s just too many dumbbell moments that drag it down.
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