Another Year of Greatness

It seems surreal to me that we’re already at the end of another year. This one just started like five months ago. It went by fast, but that’s probably because I spent another year consuming as much pop culture as I possibly could while being lucky enough to write about it for you fine readers of the Source Weekly. I’ve never looked at this job as being a critic of other people’s art; instead, my only real desire is just to share with people things I think they would like. I waste time on the bad stuff so you don’t have to, but I also approach everything I watch hoping to fall in love with it. Life is too short to approach every piece of entertainment with nose held high and a demand for perfection. Creation is messy because human expression is so rarely perfect.

So, thank you again for gifting me with the privilege of writing for you. I don’t take it lightly or for granted, and if I ever do, then I should start doing something else.

With that said, this year I saw 128 new releases in 2023 (along with countless older ones), but still managed not to see some of the ones that I really expect would change the shape of this list immensely. Once I can finally lay my eyes on “The Zone of Interest,” “Poor Things,” “The Iron Claw,” “All of Us Strangers,” “The Teacher’s Lounge,” “American Fiction,” “Fallen Leaves,” “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” and a few others, then I’ll have a more accurate and updated list.

If had to pick the five best shows I was able to see (in no particular order), it would go something like:

“Beef:” Steven Yeun and Ali Wong are perfect in this jaw-droppingly unpredictable look at the petty rages that ruin and sustain us.

“Succession:” Did we all watch this show because we wanted to watch the Roy’s triumph or fail? Do we care?

“The Bear:” Anxiety and tension wrapped up in humanist stories of people finding joy in feeding each other. The episodes “Forks” and “Fishes” were the two best episodes of television I watched all year.

“Reservation Dogs:” The final season of this show made me realize I loved some of the characters more than I do members of my own family. Nothing on TV has ever been like this and never will be again.

“Barry:” I’ve never watched a show about a soulless seral killer that was so funny and so sad at the same time. Bill Hader is an immense talent as a writer/director.

There were so many other great shows though, like “The Last of Us,” “I’m a Virgo,” “Fargo,” “Somebody Somewhere,” “Scavengers Reign,” “Poker Face,” “I Think You Should Leave,” “Slow Horses,” “The Curse” and “Yellowjackets,” that I want to write about, but there’s only so much space in this paper!

On to the movies and some special awards:

Best Documentary: Tie between “Kokomo City” and “Lakota Nation vs. United States.” To me, these two docs represented massive swaths of people this country leaves behind even as it pretends to make motions toward equality and progress. These should both be taught in schools.

Best Rom Com: “Rye Lane.” A BIPOC and British riff on “Before Sunrise” that features truly innovative filmmaking by Raine Allen-Miller.

Best Comic Book Movie: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Groundbreaking animation and a great story combine for a truly breathtaking ride into alternate dimensions.

Best Horror Movie: “Talk to Me.” There are sequences so gleefully disturbing in this dark and chilling modern classic that I still haven’t been able to get them out of my head.

And now my Top 15 favorite films of 2023:

15: “Bottoms.” A queer coming of age comedy about a pair of nerdy, angry young women who start a fight club so they can hook up with cheerleaders. Subversive and heartwarming in equal measures.

14: “Napoleon.” I think I was in the minority that adored how weird and horny this biopic was and loved every single minute we spent with Joaquin Phoenix growling and panting at Vanessa Kirby while she dominated him to within an inch of his life.

13: “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Surprised myself this wasn’t higher on the list, but even with some wonky script choices, the combined might of Scorsese and Lily Gladstone make this unmissable.

12: “Oppenheimer.” I’m still amazed that a three-hour-long movie built around long conversations in quiet rooms was this mesmerizing.

11: “Anatomy of a Fall.” Dare I say the most riveting courtroom drama since “A Few Good Men?” Justine Triet is an astonishing filmmaker and should quite possibly get the Oscar for Best Director for this one.

10: “Return to Seoul.” A young woman raised in France returns to South Korea to search for her bio-family in this sneakily gorgeous, yet completely unsentimental character piece.

9: “Barbie.” Completely unsubtle and that’s completely the point. Moving, funny and life-affirming sometimes in the same scene, “Barbie” looks at how America raises women and demands it does better.

8: “The Holdovers.” Ahhhh, like a warm hug from Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers” is proof that we still can have movies that feel like throwbacks to a simpler time. An Irish Coffee of a film.

7: “Saltburn.” Another one that I felt like I was in the minority of critics to love, but what a visually stunning and hilarious loogie in the eye of the class divide. You will never look at bath water the same way again (and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing).

6: “Blue Jean.” A primal scream at the UK to not let Margaret Thatcher rest in peace. A deeply gentle look at gay trauma and the double lives our world forces LGBTQ+ people to live every single day.

5: “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” More like “How to Radicalize a Bunch of Film Nerds into Trying to Change the World,” amirite? Such a potent reminder of our responsibilities as stewards of the Earth.

4: “Showing Up.” No big drama, just a quiet and understated look at the Portland art scene featuring Andre 3000 on the flute before it was cool. Movies that just share glimpses of normal lives with no explosive moments are so important.

3: “Asteroid City.” Wes Anderson isn’t for everyone, but I’m still very much on his peculiar wavelength. I think all of human creation was summed up profoundly when Jason Schwartzman’s Augie Steenbeck nervously looked to Adrien Brody’s Schubert Green and said, “I still don’t understand the play,” and Green responded with “Doesn’t matter. Just keep telling the story.”

2: “Past Lives.” The most quietly devastating movie that also somehow manages to be hopeful, profound and a provocative deconstruction of love from the inside looking out. The scope of this movie is limitless in how it generates empathy for the human condition and then readjusts our expectations of romantic connection.

1:”Fremont.” Deadpan, dryly funny and achingly humanist, “Fremont” isn’t just a story about an Afghan refugee working in a fortune cookie factory quietly struggling with survivor’s guilt and PTSD, but a story about the collective connection of all people on the planet and how miraculous it is to reach out to one another. A perfect movie that seeks to remind us that the harder we love, the less time we have to be afraid.

This article appears in Source Weekly December 28, 2023.