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Post by Jeremy on Dec 12, 2023 15:42:00 GMT -8
Okay, so for some inexplicable reason, Metacritic apparently is no longer aggregating year-end Top 10 lists. (I was genuinely curious to see whether Barbie would beat Oppenheimer in the aggregate. Some rivalries never die.) More annoyingly, they seem to have gotten rid of all the Top 10 aggregate pages from the past decade. Just plain rude.
Still, the year is wrapping up, and it's about time to start highlighting the best films of the year. I'll be posting my usual annual lists over the rest of the month - starting with the 10 worst films of 2023, which should be out later this week.
In the meantime, if there are any underappreciated films you want to shout out or any overhyped films you want to complain over, now is the time to do it.
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 12, 2023 20:17:24 GMT -8
Just so you know, these types of boards have been glitching on my computer for the past few days, so if I don't post much, that's why. Not sure what's happening. Could be a browser update gone awry.
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Post by otherscott on Dec 13, 2023 7:23:16 GMT -8
I don't watch enough movies to be able to comment on underappreciated gems, but I feel like this was a particularly strong year for movies. Just at the top, I feel like The Holdovers would have been my top movie most years and this year I'm not sure.
And that's even given that I didn't love Killers of the Flower Moon like some did.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 13, 2023 17:38:17 GMT -8
Just so you know, these types of boards have been glitching on my computer for the past few days, so if I don't post much, that's why. Not sure what's happening. Could be a browser update gone awry. That is weird, and annoying. My ProBoards access has been pretty smooth lately, though it has had hiccups in the past. I don't watch enough movies to be able to comment on underappreciated gems, but I feel like this was a particularly strong year for movies. Just at the top, I feel like The Holdovers would have been my top movie most years and this year I'm not sure. And that's even given that I didn't love Killers of the Flower Moon like some did. I don't know if I thought this was a particularly strong year for movies, though that's in part because I was underwhelmed by a number of the year's most acclaimed films ( Barbie, Asteroid City, and to some extent Oppenheimer). But there were definitely a lot of enjoyable films this year, and on a mainstream level, this felt like the first year of big fun blockbusters since 2019, which I appreciated. Need to see a few more films before I draft a Top 10; I may or may not get to Killers of the Flower Moon before year-end.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 19, 2023 8:24:58 GMT -8
I'm running a bit late this year, due to various outside forces, but I should be able to get all my usual year-end pieces out by end of December. Let's kick off the festivities with a list of the not-so-festive. Here are my picks for the 10 worst films of 2023.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 29, 2023 9:09:00 GMT -8
And here's my final piece of the year, listing the 10 Best Films of 2023. Please enjoy, and don't get too intimidated by that frightening Paul Giamatti picture up top.
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 29, 2023 13:05:12 GMT -8
"Godzilla Minus One is among the year’s most entertaining features, and (with respect to Oppenheimer) 2023’s best exploration of the atomic bomb and its fallout as well."
This is all well and fine, but Oppenheimer...isn't really about the atomic bomb and its fallout. It's about the man who helped create the atomic bomb, and the fallout on his life, specifically. The focus of these two films is entirely different. A more reasonable point of comparison for Godzilla Minus One would be with 1953's Hiroshima.
Anyways, I thought 2023 was a decent, but unexceptional, year for film. Were it stronger, I don't think our lists would overlap as much (six-films-out-of-ten, and likely seven once I've seen The Iron Claw), because we'd have more genuinely standout films to choose from. I was barely able to put together a list of ten, and I'm borderline-lukewarm on half of it. I'm not optimistic about 2024, either, because that will likely be hit even harder than 2023 due to the writers'/actors' strike.
I've got to get around to watching Are You There God? It's Me Margaret. I actually had it out from the library at one point, but never got around to watching it. I usually respond pretty well to these witty coming-of-age stories with female leads.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 30, 2023 16:10:15 GMT -8
I think I rewrote that Godzilla/Oppenheimer line two or three times, and couldn't get it to come out right. You are correct that Oppenheimer isn't about the fallout of the bomb, but sometimes when I'm writing these end-of-year pieces I go for the turn of phrase that flows best in my head, and occasionally it needs one more edit than I give it.
In general, I don't think 2023 was a particularly great year for film (it mainly felt like the first "packed" year at the theaters in a while), but I was quite happy with it overall, especially as I haven't watched some of the late-year acclaimed films like Poor Things, KotFM, and Zone of Interest.
I think you'll like AYTGIMM; it was certainly better than it had any right to be. (Bottoms and Polite Society are also quasi-coming-of-age movies with female leads, and both are pretty entertaining, although they go for the dumb/lowbrow jokes a little too often.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 31, 2023 4:43:20 GMT -8
Yeah, if Bottoms and Polite Society show up in my public library system, I'll check them out. AYTGIMM is sitting at the library right now, waiting for me. Oppenheimer is finally in-transit as well, when it normally would've been so about a week or two after its mid-November Blu-Ray release. I think I fell asleep for a few minutes during my theatrical viewing -- as is often the case with movies these days, on account of my sleep patterns -- so I want to make sure I've seen it in its entirety, and also how well it holds up for me on a second viewing.
Re: 2023 movies in general, there don't seem to be as many highly acclaimed non-English-language films in the mix. I looked up some lists re: what are supposedly the best ones, and few of the films listed jump out at me. Past Lives, even though it feels like an American co-production, seems well ahead of the pack almost by default. I will say it's interesting that my local theater is playing both the subtitled and English-language version of The Boy and the Heron, but that may simply be a reflection of the relative sparseness of big, commercially-successful American films currently in release. I actually almost thought that Poor Things was going to get a wider rollout than it has, given how many TV ads I'd seen for it in the past six weeks, but it still seems vaguely in limited release.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 31, 2023 6:45:38 GMT -8
Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall are both non-English* films that have earned rave reviews lately, at or near the level of Past Lives, and Godzilla Minus One has amassed quite some praise as well. That said, it does seem to be a bit tougher for foreign-language films to break through in wide release around the US and Canada. (My local theater has been playing both the subbed and dubbed versions of Boy and the Heron, and I believe the dubbed version has been selling significantly more tickets. Why read a movie when you don't have to?)
*Well, the first 30-40 minutes of Anatomy of a Fall are mostly in English, for reasons that become clear once you've seen the rest of the movie.
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Post by otherscott on Jan 1, 2024 7:31:18 GMT -8
Fortunately, someone from Reddit found a bunch of top 10 lists and compiled them which somewhat makes up for the lack of Metacritic list. Link is here with methodology: www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/qRJZ4dsUjJTop 10 for the year: 1. Past Lives 2. Oppenheimer 3. Killers of the Flower Moon 4. Barbie 5. Anatomy of a Fall 6. May December 7. Poor Things 8. Zone of Interest 9. The Holdovers 10. The Boy and the Heron I guess the surprise for me is that I thought Falling Leaves was getting much more critical acclaim back in September or so but it ended up pretty low on the list. Barbie at 4 also seems very high.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 1, 2024 8:57:14 GMT -8
The thing about a lot of those mainstream movie critics' lists is that they often tend to prioritize mainstream, wide-release American films. Plus, a fair number of critics don't rank their lists, which, given that the person who compiled those lists gave every film on a non-ranked list 100 points, allows something like Barbie (which has 490 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) to rate pretty high. Something like, say, The Holdovers (which has 275 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) isn't going to be seen by as many mainstream critics, and thus isn't going to rank as high on an aggregate list like that almost by default, unless the critics who do rank it put it first or second on their lists (which is what has happened with Past Lives, which has a similar number of RT reviews).
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Post by guttersnipe on Jan 1, 2024 17:03:30 GMT -8
Hi all!
1) Oppenheimer 2) Killers of the Flower Moon 3) How to Have Sex 4) The Killer 5) Passages 6) El Conde 7) Asteroid City 8) Elemental 9) Evil Dead Rise 10) Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
BEST SHORT: The Ratcatcher BEST DOCUMENTARY: Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World BEST MUSIC VIDEO: Raye feat. 070 Shake - Escapism
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Post by guttersnipe on Jan 1, 2024 17:04:44 GMT -8
And my top ten films seen in 2023:
Hold Me Tight (2021, Mathieu Amalric) Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020, Junta Yamaguchi) The Blazing Sun (1954, Youssef Chahine) The Other (1999, Youssef Chahine) Chinese Roulette (1976, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) Mandara (1971, Akio Jissoji) The Wild Pear Tree (2018, Nuri Bilge Ceylan) Gwledd (2021, Lee Haven Jones) Designing Woman (1957, Vincente Minnelli) Clan of the White Lotus (1980, Lieh Lo)
BEST SHORT: Plastic Bag (2009, Ramin Bahrani) BEST DOCUMENTARY: Varda by Agnès (2019, Agnès Varda) BEST MUSIC VIDEO: Hall & Oates - Out of Touch (1984, Raoul Kark)
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 1, 2024 18:12:06 GMT -8
1) Oppenheimer 2) Killers of the Flower Moon 3) How to Have Sex 4) The Killer 5) Passages 6) El Conde 7) Asteroid City 8) Elemental 9) Evil Dead Rise 10) Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget BEST SHORT: The Ratcatcher I like how there is no overlap at all in my Top 10 and yours, despite my having seen most of the films on your list. Perhaps a sign that the year of film was deeper than it appears. (Although of course tastes differ; I confess I found the Chicken Run sequel a bit underwhelming.) I've also seen a few critics cite The Ratcatcher as the best of Wes' Roald Dahl shorts, but I actually found it the weakest of the quartet. ( Poison was probably my favorite.) I'm curious to see which one is chosen for the Netflix's Oscar campaign in the Short Film category.
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