Early on in 2023, before a very necessary pair of strikes screwed everything up, it seemed like we had a really easy theme all set up for my annual wrap-up: unfinished business. Between the likes of Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One we had an absolute glut of (perhaps arrogantly conceived) half movies. And then there were all the franchise pay-offs on the other end of the spectrum, John Wick: Chapter 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and plenty more were all slated to wrap-up some other long-running stories. Then things went off the rails and we all started to wonder if the recovery we all thought we were promised in 2022 would never actually come to pass.
Well, all that chaos aside, I’m sticking with that theme. Because I’ve got some real unfinished business. I thought I had a pretty good handle on 2023 until I started seeing my friends’ lists and award nominations and realized I actually still had a ton of homework to do. And then I went and had a really weird couple of weeks that sapped my motivation to pay attention to movies. So I created a living document here. And I’m gonna keep trying to work on 2023 as we continue on into the new year. You got a problem with that? Too bad!
Here’s the stuff that’s at the top of my watchlist as of writing this post:
Anatomy of a Fall
Blackberry
Ferrari
The First Slam Dunk
Killers of the Flower Moon
Past Lives
Priscilla
Society of the Snow
You Hurt My Feelings
The Zone of Interest
Honorable Mentions
Air
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
The Killer
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Poor Things
What’s cool about The Boy and the Heron is that it’s impossible to talk about it without talking about its director, Hayao Miyazaki. My dude retired, got fed up, and went and made a movie about how hard it is to pass on your legacy to a generation that’s (perhaps rightfully) more than willing to tear it all down. I do not envy Goro Miyazaki!
You don’t care about feminism. Your favorite show is Entourage!
I’ve kind of cooled on Asteroid City after learning how off-putting some people found it. I think the first time I saw it I thought I would get it more upon repeated viewings? But the second time I saw it, “you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep” still eluded me. That said, I still enjoy Wes Anderson’s quirkiness and mise-en-scène more than pretty much anyone else who’s doing it. Jeffrey Wright continues to dominate, as he should.
Tell me your secret dream, child.
Ultimately the third Guardians of the Galaxy was a catharsis machine. After years of anxiety about this movie following James Gunn’s firing, big changes to the team’s dynamic in Avengers and Thor, and just the general messiness of Marvel these past few years, it felt so good to see them stick the landing. Vol. 3 had a strong soundtrack (hell yeah Spacehog), a few really cool action and sci fi sequences, and enough laughs to make it a good super hero movie. But what made it great was its unflinching dedication to dealing with trauma with the help of your family. Who knew a CGI racoon scientist could make us all cry so much?
I am also surprised Oppenheimer is so far down my list. I really liked this movie and thought about it a lot in the minutes, hours, days, and weeks since I saw it. I actually ended up seeing it in theaters twice. I already wrote some thoughts here. Somebody set up us the bomb.
May December is one of those movies that I read about, instantly knew I would probably like, and went into pretty much blind. I never saw a trailer or read any reviews, so I was genuinely surprised how tonally complex it was. This movie is funny, it announces it really early one with a music cue that grabbed my attention. Although I think my favorite joke is when they casually drop that Natalie Portman’s character is famous for starring in a show called “Norah’s Ark.” Hahaha! And then other times it’s just absolutely squeamishly uncomfortable. And the rest of the time it’s just really interesting to try to figure out what’s going on in the heads of these fucked up, complicated people. I should probably go back and catch up with Dark Waters, huh?
We know now it was pretty unlikely the third Spider-Verse movie would have been out this summer, even without the strike. By all accounts, Across the Spider-Verse was being worked on almost to the day it was released and Beyond the Spider-Verse was (and maybe still is) just a twinkle in the eyes of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. So does that bother me? Does that make the massive cliffhanger ending even more unbearable? I don’t think so. On its own, I think this a really good Miles Morales story and an amazing Gwen Stacy story. And unlike so many other multiverse super hero movies (cough Quantumania cough The Flash cough The Marvels cough) I love how Across the Spider-Verse uses its gimmick to be a better movie instead of just enabling fan service. The way every universe has it’s own animation style is just so cool… In a year with a jaw-dropping new Hayao Miyazaki movie, I still feel like this is a worthy contender for best animated picture. And like last year’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, this is a movie about identity, about how fucked up it would be to find out their are infinite versions of you (and they resent you)… I’m getting long-winded here. This movie’s great.
Godzilla Minus One is debatably my favorite Godzilla film now, which I don’t say lightly because big green has started in like 40 movies. Like super hero movies, kaiju stories work best when they’re about the people experiencing these extraordinary circumstances rather than the spectacle of them, so I can think of no higher compliment to pay Godzilla Minus One than to say that I think I would still like this movie if they took all the giant monster stuff out of it. It’s a really great melodrama about survivor’s guilt and post-war Japan. But then yeah, it also does have a big giant lizard that can stomp cities and breathe explosions. That’s pretty cool too.
If I’m being completely honest, I had a tough time ranking my top four and maybe The Holdovers wouldn’t have been number one if it wasn’t for John and Colin both having it as their number ones. This movie is a little more on their wavelengths than mine… but just a little because I definitely can relate to an equally curmudgeonly and lonely academic. And I also agree that the rewatchability factor is extremely high here. Hopefully in the future, the weirdness of The Holdovers coming out around Halloween will be forgotten and instead it will just be celebrated as the new Christmas classic everyone at Mildly Pleased believes it to be. I will also fondly remember this as part of my best movie night streak ever, as I took my brother and dad to this and then a week later to Godzilla Minus One without them knowing anything about either movies. When you forced a love one to go see something they’re didn’t even know about and then they end up loving it? That’s the magic of cinema baby!