Personally, 2023 was something of a rough year.  Sadly, the solace I normally find in film was not so easy to come by.  Previously, I think July was the record for how far into the year I made it before seeing at least ten films I would feel comfortable putting on a top 10 list.  In 2023, that didn’t happen until the beginning of November.  Yikes.  It was not helped by the several films I had every reason to be excited about turning out to be disappointing.  But we got there.  We got there.

Top 10 Films of 2023

10. Godzilla Minus One:  Godzilla has been an analog for the atomic bomb, for nature, and even for bureaucratic ineptitude in the face of a disaster.  This time, he’s the whole danged Second World War.  The movie wears its heart on its sleeve, and maybe gets a bit too high-strung, but it’s a good flick, for sure.

9. Smoking Causes Coughing:  Surreal goodness from Quentin Dupieux.  If you’ve seen his stuff and thought, boy, I wonder what he’d do with a Power Rangers film…well, here you go (also, get help).  It reminded me a bunch of Danger 5, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

8. They Cloned Tyrone:  The whole vibe of this movie is great.  It covers mostly familiar territory, but does so in a cool way that’s fun to watch.  The cast is great and the sort of no-time, 70s? 90s? Today? style is very cool. 

7. Sisu:  90 minutes of an angry gold prospector killing the hell out of Nazis.  Inject it directly into my veins.

6. American Fiction:  Come for the scathing satire, stay for the endearing family drama.  Also, American Treasure, Jeffrey Wright. 

5. The Holdovers:  Unlikely bonds formed over holiday break.  This feels like one of those movies that some 12 or 13 year old is going to see, have their mind blown, and then change the course of their lives.  Great performances, too. 

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem:  Considering how little interest I had in this movie, it remains a genuine shock that it’s one of the best films I saw this year.  From the animation to the script, it all just works.

3. Bottoms:  I laughed pretty danged hard through this one.  It felt like something out of the 80s in the best way.  And boy howdy, does it go in some wonderfully surreal directions.  

2. Asteroid City:  I didn’t quite click with this one the first time I watched it, but something prompted me to give it a second viewing.  I’m glad I did, because I really connected with it on the second watch.  Wes Anderson’s take on…the chaos of the last few years.

1. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret:  I never read the book, but this coming of age story feels like an instant classic.  Or, maybe it would be if the way we see movies hadn’t been so drastically altered in the last decade or so.  I also like that it’s a rare example of a pro-urban film.

Best Supporting Actress: Tracee Ellis Ross for American Fiction

Best Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe for Asteroid City

Best Actress: Rachel Sennot & Ayo Edabiri (it’s my list; I can do what I want) for Bottoms

Best Actor: Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction

Best Director: Gareth Edwards for The Creator

Almost There:  There were several movies that might have just squeaked into the top 10.  “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”  Yeah.  That’s right.  I liked it.  “Maestro” was pretty good for a biopic.  Same with “Rustin” and “Oppenheimer.”  “Dungeons & Dragons” of all things, was actually on my top 10 right up until 11PM on New Years Eve.  “Barbie” was fun.  And “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” was better than Vol 2, and a good finale for that trilogy.  Any one of those movies would have made me happy in the number 9 or 10 spot on my list.  But three movies wouldn’t have felt right to put there, yet almost had what it takes.

Infinity Pool: Brandon Cronenberg’s new film was probably my most anticipated movie of 2023.  Unfortunately, it just didn’t live up.  Good performances and some very uncomfortable scenes aside, its message felt a bit too muddied and the whole thing left me unsatisfied.  I did go back and watch his first film, “Antiviral,” which, while I didn’t love, I preferred.  “Possessor” was such a fantastic and bleak movie, I was hoping for more from “Infinity Pool,” which ended up feeling like it needed more time to gestate. 

65: This had all the makings of a great “dumped in January” movie.  The kind of weird genre film that I normally love.  Yet, it didn’t come together, even though the elements were all there.  If it had been a little more over the top, maybe a bit more exploitation, a bit more pulp, a bit more…something.  Adam Driver was solid in the lead.  I didn’t really care about the whole Man Taking Care of Orphan storyline.  It was a wacky premise, but it seemed like somewhere along the way, someone forgot to make the movie live up to that premise.  

The Creator: Gareth Edwards is a master making special effects blend with reality.  Seriously, one of the top filmmakers on that count.  The cast in this is great.  The premise is fine.  The effects and location shooting are fantastic.  The plot…See the above statement about “65.”  It ended up being too familiar, too expected, too by the book, and the last act falls apart.  But dang it, the movie looks phenomenal.  With so much goofy looking, bad special effects and flat film-making going on these days, seeing a movie with such fantastically rich imagery is a nice change of pace.  It kept making me feel like I was watching a movie from 40 years ago, before we digitized away so much of the richness of film (*cough* James Cameron *cough*).

Video Discoveries:

Cotton Comes to Harlem: I honestly don’t know how I hadn’t seen this already. So darned good.

Gate of Hell:  Colorful and gorgeous to look at, this is a very cool samurai film.

Grabbers: Some movies are just fun to watch.  This movie was fun to watch.  It ain’t Shakespeare.

Touchez Pas au Grisbi: Jean Gabin, one of the coolest dudes to ever grace the silver screen, heads this grim crime drama from France.  Without the shackles of the Hays Codes, they could take this movie to the dark places most classic Film Noir could only hint at.  Darned good.  But nasty. 

Fanny:  Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier have a suave-old-Frenchman-off in this non-musical adaptation of the stage musical.  Some great location shooting in Marseille. 

The American Friend:  A very different take on a Tom Ripley story (this time around, the novel Ripley’s Game).  Dennis Hopper is good and Bruno Gantz is fantastic.  

High Pressure:  Fast Talking/High Trousers Cinema at its best.  William Powell is a delight. 

The Scent of Green Papaya: Just a quiet and beautiful film that I really enjoyed watching.

Cinema Paradiso:  Maybe I need to write an article or something on what I call the Intimate Epic.  This and “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” jump to mind, but I’m sure I can find some more.  Great stuff. 

The Lady Eve: That Barbara Stanwyck.  Not sure if anyone else noticed this…but she was pretty good.  Real star potential. 

Best TV/Streaming:

Scavengers Reign: This adult, animated Science Fiction series is what I’ve been hoping to see for the last 30+ years.  Not anime.  Not a comedy.  It’s good, solid storytelling that feels like it comes out of the literature of the 1960s or 1970s, with visuals that remind me of some Moebius comics.  More of this sort of thing, please.

Baby J:  John Mulaney’s standup is some of my favorite contemporary stuff.  In this set he takes a pretty honest look at being an addict.  It’s funny, but it’s also deeply sad.  And it serves as a good reminder that we never really know what people are going through.  Especially with people who look like they’ve got it together.

What We Do in the Shadows: Season 5 was a return to form after the sort of middling (but still funny) 4th season.  I don’t know how long this show will sustain, but darn it, they’ve given us some excellent, absurdist TV.

Poker Face:  Natasha Lyonne does Columbo?  OK.  

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds:  I’ll say it again.  Best Trek since the original series.  And boy, did they have some fun this season. 

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