Top 10 Films of 2023

Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)

Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)

Pacifiction (Albert Serra)

The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)

Godland (Hlynur Pálmason)

Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Maestro (Bradley Cooper)

Passages (Ira Sachs)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, et al)

Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)

Next 10, Weirdly, a more interesting list.

The Outwaters (Robbie Banfitch)

Will-o’-the-Wisp (João Pedro Rodrigues)

Happer’s Comet (Tyler Taormina)

Beau is Afraid (Ari Aster)

May December (Todd Haynes)

Saint Omer (Alice Diop)

Skinamarink (Kyle Edward Ball)

Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)

Sick of Myself (Kristoffer Borgli)

Past Lives (Celine Song)

 

Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023): 4/5

Even more busy, fussy and dense than Wes, but also as purposeful, pissed off and romantic below the surface. Fascinating portrait of the moral stages one passes through in life. From the kill-the-frog stage to the screaming-for-freedom stage to the body stage to the philosophy stage to the stage where you realize you can’t really do anything about human suffering and punish yourself to the nihilism stage to when you reject and “kill” your father(‘s ideals). Admirably sex-positive and positivity-positive. Also the funniest movie of the year (if not Asteroid City). A kind of Tristram Shandy, Tom Jones, Barry Lyndon picaresque. 

 

Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023): 4/5

Out of all the movies I liked this year, this one had the most feels. Just vibrating with emotion. 

 

American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, 2023): 3.5/5

The most 2023 movie of the Oscar best film line-up. Speaking truth to power in a shocking manner.

 

Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin, 2023): 3.5/5

What we learn about North Korea is absolutely jaw-dropping. I was also interested in how elaborate any escape from the country has to be (like…why don’t they just get a raft and circle around the border in the Sea of Japan or the Yellow Sea?). I was less convinced by the escape drama. 

 

R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu, 2023): 3/5

Combines the blatant and obvious with the vaguely symbolic. I think that all the racism stuff (especially a harrowing 17-minute unbroken take of the town meeting) would seem a lot more cliché if it had been set in, say, the South in 1955. Good thing it was in Romania! What the movie really has going for it is our protagonist, who is capable of anything and serves as a bridge between the film’s two worlds. Unfortunately, they don’t give him much to do, especially in the unclear and muddled conclusion. 

 

Trolls Band Together (Walt Dohrn, 2023): 2.5/5

I always forget how good the musical sequences are in these movies. Almost made me wish I knew the boy-band songs that were prominently featured. 

 

Orion and the Dark (Sean Charmatz, 2024): 2/5

Meet Darkness and his buddies Sleep, Insomnia, Quiet and Dream. Supposedly written by Charlie Kaufman, but Pete Doctor, writer of Inside, should get royalties for this shit.

 

Migration (Benjamin Renner, 2023): 2/5

Road trip with ducks. Written by Mike White, because all the weirdos are writing kids movies now. 

 

Warrendale (Allan King, 1967): 3.5/5

Upsetting and riveting cinema verité doc about a group home for emotionally disturbed children. As when I watch Love on the Spectrum, I experienced an instant warm recognition and empathy toward these young people who are doing the best they can with the hand they are dealt. 

 

A Married Couple (Allan King, 1969): 3.5/5

A completely fascinating verité documentary about a marriage in trouble. The husband is, god, so disgusting—and the tiny red underwear he favors will forever be seared in my mind.

 

My Name is Julia Ross, 65m (Joseph H. Lewis, 1945): 2/5

As the record will show, I am not a fan of gaslighting as a central plot conceit (see Les Diaboliques and, er, Gaslight). Gun Crazy, five years later, is a cosmic leap forward for Lewis.

 

U.S. Go Home, 1h8m (Claire Denis, 1994): 4/5

Two girls go to a party with the idea of losing their virginity but discover some complex feelings. One of my (new) favorite Denis films—a good length for one of her half-stories. Made for French TV as part of anthology series. Vincent Gallo is more tuned in here than in Denis’ Trouble Every Day (seven years later)

 

The Unholy Three (Tod Browning, 1925): 2/5

The first half unites the titular crime trio: a murderous little person (midget) impersonating an infant, an older man impersonating a grandma, and a female pickpocket acting as the mother. Fun! But the back half gets bogged down into a courtroom redemption drama (that everyone wants!?). Contains a truly frightening chimpanzee attack scene, using a live (and pissed) animal. 

 

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, 53m (Ron Ormond, 1971): 3.5/5

What the hell is this? It’s 80 percent authentic, preachy, pro-Jesus, anti-communist, repressive and repressed, fascistic propaganda. However, in showing the dangers of communism and godlessness, it indulges in the most lurid and grotesque fantasies. A perfect x-ray of their personal obsessions and turn-ons, including rape, torture and murder. Like Alex fantasizing about lusty but society-endorsed bible stories at the end of A Clockwork Orange. Naive and ironic. 

 

Ham on Rye (Tyler Taormina, 2019): 3.5/5

Like Happer’s Comet, the director’s (even) more experimental 2023 feature, this movie ambitiously tells the story of an entire community and is filled with ambiguous images and gestures. Here, a bunch of kids from all over the town meet for what at first seems like prom but eventually half-coalesces into something far more mysterious—leaving the rest of the population in a funk for something ineffable they have missed and will never get back. Excellent acting from more than 100 on-screen personalities and probably about 40 speaking roles. In his long, charming comment on Letterboxd, Taormina says “Please don’t compare it to Yorgos Lanthimos.”

 

 

 

Frank Perry Film Fest

A good six-year run. Nothing as daring, weird and iconic as The Swimmer, but all worth watching. 

 

The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968): 4/5

In the mysterious opening scene, a troubled god dreams aloud about swimming upriver, back to an imagined innocence. Thereafter, we swim from drama to drama as in a play—a journey that goes both forward and backwards in time, as we discover what he is swimming toward and away from with blank surrealism. Burt Lancaster was more or less my current age when he made the movie, and he looks goddamn perfect.

 

Last Summer (Frank Perry, 1969): 3/5

I heard Bret Easton Ellis extol the virtues of this movie at length, and I can see why. Bored rich kids in over their heads, alcohol and drugs, a hint of gay love, and the specter of violence. Barbara Hershey felt responsible for the death of a bird that broke its neck during filming and briefly changed her name to Barbara Seagull as a tribute to the creature: “I felt her spirit enter me,” she later explained. LSD definitely involved.

 

Diary of a Mad Housewife (Frank Perry, 1970): 3/5

A woman has a very justified affair. Richard Benjamin leans into being the most annoying and bullying person of all time, and Frank Langella is a real snack as the lover. 

 

Doc (Frank Perry, 1971): 3/5

A very 70s, spaghetti western-ish, Bonny and Clyde-drunk, retelling of the gunfight at the OK Corral mythos, starring Stacy Keech and Faye Dunaway (great!)—focusing on Doc Holliday and the sex worker he, uh, loves. Stages the final shoot-out as a massacre motivated by power and wealth.

 

Play It as It Lays (Frank Perry, 1972): 3.5/5

The tone is a bit wound up for such a spacey protagonist—I wish it was as languorous as she is. But I guess the movie places her in a foreign land that drives her crazy. Tuesday Weld is phenomenal, possibly because she’s actually high on heroin. Joan Didion offers an acidly, mordantly funny if shapeless script. “I know what nothing means and keep on playing.”

 

Man on a Swing (Frank Perry, 1974): 3/5

Cliff Robertson is a small-town police chief investigating a murder. Joel Grey is the self-proclaimed psychic who either has real powers or is himself the murderer. Shaggy but compelling.

 

 

Hong Sang-soo Film Fest

I think I may be getting the hang of Hong Sang-soo’s minimalist, tranquil, soju-fueled, humanist, naturalistic, tricky cinema—always different and always the same. I relate to these artistic characters who drink and talk about aesthetics and love. He employs long takes (often 10 minutes or more) of (often drunken) conversations, of which he commonly shoots 7 or 8 takes (the actors, often getting increasingly drunk), allowing his stable of actors to shine in ensemble. The characters are often directors or other kinds of artists themselves, and the men are almost always (gently) weak, self-deluding, ultra-sensitive, self-centered, and lacking ambition and foresight. Characters often say things that show that Sang-soo is thinking about his own artistic obsessions, strategies and goals. Like this one from Claire’s Camera: “The only way to change things is to look at everything again very slowly.” Or this one from Oki’s Movie: “Things repeat themselves with differences I can’t understand.”

 

Starting with his fifth feature, Sang-soo has been employing a unique filmmaking method: When making a movie, he wakes up each morning at 4 a.m. and writes the day’s script (or at least scene outlines). Then by 7 a.m. he lets the actors know who will be in the day’s scenes. This ensures spontaneity, freshness, lightness, and a (hopefully pleasant) wandering quality to the narratives.

 

Even more than with most films, I’m a bit reluctant to describe the structure and characters, since discovering the variations and delighting in the narrative strategies is the whole gig here. Crazy but these movies really do gain depth and enjoyment in relation to one another. 

 

I should also mention that Hong Sang-soo and I share a birthday (October 25). He’s exactly 7 years older than me.

 

HaHaHa (Hong Sang-soo, 2010): 3.5/5

Awkward and narcissistic men—and the women who forbear them and sometimes make them a bit better. Bounteous narrative innovation. Two young men talk about their recent past and slowly come to understand they’re describing the same group of people.

 

Oki’s Movie (Hong Sang-soo, 2010): 5/5

Four short stories about the same three characters, with a glorious final segment that locks loose ends into place. A great place to start for those new to Hong Sang-soo’s universe. Strong women and weak men, struggling to grow up. Fractured narrative. Filmmaker character(s). Discussions of aesthetics. Shifting perspectives and sympathies. Doubles. 

 

Hill of Freedom, 1h6m (Hong Sang-soo, 2014): 3/5

Japanese man comes to Seoul for a girl, but she’s not around. He lives his life, meeting people, writes her letters. Later she read the letters, the contents of which form the narrative, and this melancholy of missed opportunity hangs over everything. Also, the letters get out of order and one goes missing (with narrative implications). 

 

Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo, 2015): 3.5/5

Like Tokyo Story for Ozu, this is the accepted favorite (tho not mine), and it’s easy to see why. It’s romantic, wistful, in the face of longing and loneliness. It works great if it’s the only movie you’ll watch by the director, but it isn’t really in the slipstream of the artist’s work, which is usually more in discussion with itself. 

 

On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo, 2017): 3/5

Enigmatic even by HSS standards. Young actress Kim Min-hee drinks and talks with different groups of people about a messy affair she had with a director, while a dark and faceless figure sometimes hangs around. Editors’ note: it turns out Kim Min-hee really did have a messy affair with Sang-soo on set. In real life, they have been living and working together ever since, but Sang-soo’s wife (with whom he has a daughter) won’t grant him a divorce.

 

Claire’s Camera, 1h9m (Hong Sang-soo, 2017): 4/5

Another very aging Sang-soo-type director has an affair with Kim Min-hee. Huppert (surprisingly) is an agreeable ray of sunshine and an actual director character, hanging around taking pictures of the people around her, advancing the plot, getting them to express their feelings. Traditionally entertaining, with a backwards-feeling plot (since we keep finding out more about the past as we move forward).

 

Grass, 1h6m (Hong Sang-soo, 2018): 3/5

One of Sang-soo’s most abstract films, with a static setting, as in heaven or purgatory. A series of one-act dramas captured in one long take each. Situations and emotions freely flowing, in combinations and variations—a miniature of the entire HSS project. Strindberg’s Dream Play comes to mind as a reference, and therefore Bergman. As in Claire’s Camera, there is an explicit stand-in for the director role (Kim Min-hee, of course), interrogating the characters, pushing at lies, and heightening conflict. 

 

The Woman Who Ran, 1h17m, (Hong Sang-soo, 2020): 2/5

Kim Min-hee has especially banal conversations with three women. All is fairly peaceful in each until a man shows up to kill the vibe. 

 

The Novelist’s Film (Hong Sang-soo, 2022): 4/5

The most recent films of Sang-soo’s that I’ve seen (although there are three newer ones, including two from 2023 and one that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival with Huppert returning), and he’s still got the juice. Is it a series of chance encounters, including a socially awkward yet arrogant male director, with some really good unbroken takes of people in conversation about art and about their pasts and change? Why yes, it is.