2023 in Film Part 2: Favourites and Turkeys

And now we come to Part 2 of my 2023 retrospective in film and this covers my Turkeys of the year and my Favourites of the year movie wise and lets get the rubbish out of the way first shall we and cook some Turkeys that in some cases deserved to be thoroughly roasted.

5. The Flash:

Now initially when I saw this movie, I was of a more mixed mind on it but as I began to think about this list more and more I felt that it deserved to be here despite the films fun Batman action in a few scenes.

And the reason this is here is because the films third act is simply atrocious, first of all it looks like director Andy Muschietti who made the 2 IT films in 2017 and 2019 respectively has gotten to the last level in a video game and has to fight the final boss (in this instance Michael Shannon returning as General Zod from 2013’s Man of Steel and looking completely lost the entire time) only to get his ass kicked over and over like it was Shao Khan from Mortal Kombat 2 and 3.

And in all the worst ways it feels like a director hogging the controller as they endlessly try to finish this last level and complete the game but they keep failing either the main objective or fail to save all of the characters in that level and it just becomes so monotonous to sit through that it loses any and all character impact in the emotional moments it desperately tries to hit.

But this climax also gets so bogged down in timey wimey multiversal gobbledygook that I just sat there in my seat going “Oh What” more often than not and the CGI of the Flash running through the time circle thingy just looked like a fucking hamster on a wheel going around and around and around and the legs look like their made of industrial grade rubber instead of flesh, blood and bone.

And speaking of the CGI in this film it is at times really bad and the opening scene of the film with the Flash saving a group of people from a hospital collapsing I just had playing in my head “If I could save Time in a Bottle” from X-Men Days of Future Past and sure enough there is a YouTube fan edit of that scene with that song playing, I guess great minds think alike sometimes.

But now onto Number 4 and its another Superhero film with:

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania:

Wowsers, this was really bad.

And first off the films treatment of Ant-Man is where I have to start, now I like Paul Rudd and he has been fun in this role but he’s not smegging Captain America or Iron Man or Dr Strange or Spider-Man, the kind of marquee character you use to headline an important film which this was billed to be as, he is not that character he’s the fun goofy character who has smaller scale stories not one where he goes into strange new worlds to build up the new Thanos in Kang or give us a proper look at the Quantum Realm.

Speaking of the Quantum Realm it looked fucking terrible in this movie and more often than not I kept thinking to myself “My Eyes Hurt” as your just looking at this artificial environment in the vast majority of the film and it just looks like the actors were just standing on the Volume stage created for the Mandalorian series and none of it looks real or believable or tangible and this movie came out just 2 months after Avatar the Way of Water which is even more baffling.

And as for Kang well Jonathan Majors tried his best but this movie did that character dirty not only with not really building him up all that well as a genuine replacement for Thanos but also Ant-Man beats him in a one on one fight at the end of this movie.

Again let me repeat.

THIS WAS MEANT TO BE THE NEW BIG BAD AND HE LOSES IN HIS FIRST MOVIE!!

Sorry to go over the top like that but it kind of defeats the purpose of having a new villain for the Avengers (what’s left of them) to fight and have him lose to the one character he shouldn’t lose to under ANY circumstances and then they do these pointless teases of what was to come but that fell flat too, the sooner the MCU either gets away from this pointless villain or better yet calls it a day the better.

3. The Fabelmans:

Sometimes an artist’s great story is best left untold.

Now I was looking forward to this movie as I am a Spielberg fan and this was him telling the story of his life and the divorce of his parents and the trailer was good and got me emotional and I went into this keen to see it.

Boy did this leave me cold emotionally and feeling pretty much next to nothing when it was all over and there are 2 main reasons for this.

The first is that Spielberg has touched on so many of these ideas and themes in so many of his previous films that by the time he has gotten around to making it the core focus of a film it feels both too little and too late at the same time.

- The cold and sometimes aloof father figure well that was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Hook and Close Encounters

- The separated parents was a big part of ET and in fact Spielberg’s initial conception for that film is basically this one but with the Alien element added in

- The young man determined to go and make his mark on the world well that was done in the Amblin produced Back to the Future (a story Spielberg believed in the moment he heard it) and Gremlins as well as Empire of the Sun to a lesser extent

- The young group of friends on their bikes going off on an adventure was another Amblin production the Goonies

And lastly the war film that Sammy Fabelman makes feels like a group of 12 or 13 year olds seeing the opening of Saving Private Ryan and having their minds blown and then deciding to make their version of it the first chance they could.

And all of those other films I mentioned above can be watched by anyone, anywhere in the world and they will have a proper emotional reaction to it whereas here I felt nothing by the time it was over and the cameo at the end had me thinking “that was nice but I wish it was this other person who was far more important to the young Spielberg instead.”

And now the bottom 2 and boy does this Turkey deserve an almighty roasting:

Expend4bles:

A COVID Movie in all the worst ways.

First off the Expendables series had more or less come to a close with 2014’s 3rd entry which in and of itself wasn’t that great mainly because it went for an M rating instead of the MA rating the 2 previous films had and this one is also MA rated but it may as well not even have mattered as the action here is really bad with lots of quick cuts and shaky camera work and no real energy or verve to it.

Secondly the cast just goes through the motions, Megan Fox runs around in tight clothing and has no real chemistry with the Stath who really needs to be trying harder as he’s a fun actor to watch and should be making far better films, Andy Garcia just seems to be here so he can make some money again after being in lockdown for 2 years while the returning Expendables cast members just don’t seem to want to do anything other than the bare minimum.

But the worst part of this movie is the second half as the Expendables get onto a boat to find the bad guy and the device he’s stolen to wreak havoc and I thought to myself “okay this is the second act stop before the big finale” but NOOOOO we spend the entire back half of this movie on this damn boat where it feels like everyone who works on it has also been trained in the deadly arts I mean imagine going for a job on this boat.

“Hi I’m here to operate the Radio,”

“Very good, bunk down below and head to the Radio Room and tomorrow at 0930 hours there’s a martial arts course on the deck”

“Woohoo”

“Hi I’m here to be a Deck Hand,”

“Excellent, find a bunk and then get to work and tomorrow at 1030 hours we have advanced weapons training in Cargo Bay one”

“Alright”

“Hi I’m here to be a Ship’s Cook”

“Good, fund a bunk then report to the kitchen and tomorrow at 1100 hours we have knife training in Cargo Bay 3”

“Can I practice with the Knives in the Kitchen?”

“No”

“Ohhh”

Oh and about this feeling like a COVID Movie well there is so much green screen matting in this film that it feels like it was shot during the pandemic in a way where group scenes are at the barest possible minimum, most of the action can be in cars or flying vehicles or small enough groups so we can properly distance everyone and what location work there is was only done for smallest amount of time possible so we don’t flout any rules regarding outside gatherings.

Lionsgate had a good year this year with Hunger Games, John Wick and Saw doing pretty well but this did not and nor did it deserve to.

But there was indeed a worse movie than Expend4bles and it was late to the game but games are sometimes won in the last quarter like the 2018 grand final but this is not the prize you want to win especially when it comes from Walt Disney Animation the one group above all others that helped to foster my love of film.

Wish:

And when I saw this movie there was no doubt this was going to be my worst film of 2023.

And it breaks my heart to say this because whenever a new Disney Animated film comes out I have to see it at once as movies like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules from the 90s did so much to fuel my love of film and make it feel real and tangible (this year I got a proper Australian cinemas one sheet of Aladdin from 1993 framed) but this movie was simply awful on every level.

Firstly the story here is rough and it feels rough as you watch it as none of it feels organic or thought out or cohesive in any meaningful way, it just goes from one story beat to the next and one character moment to the next with next to no cohesion to it and it just jumps around all over the place and after a while it really starts to show.

Next up the characters are annoying, I love Ariana DeBose but here she tries and fails rather miserably to try and channel the same cute and quirky comedic energy Kristen Bell did as Anna in the Frozen films when she should’ve been more like Elsa in the Frozen films but no we can’t seem to do that nowadays or have her be like Ariel or Belle or Jasmine and want an adventure to go on or to not have their life lived for them or god forbid marry someone for love no we can’t have that it seems they have to be stoking the fires of revolution and/or trying to change the world to better suit them.

And it really really doesn’t work as Asha’s motivations don’t make any sense, she doesn’t get her way so she decides to overthrow the King basically despite the fact that the Kingdom she lives in is full of people who from what we see in the movie seem happy and content and don’t seem to be suffering or living in any kind of tangible poverty but none of that matters because one person doesn’t get what they want and thinks the world should revolve around them, give me a fucking break.

And does she suffer any consequences for her actions like Aladdin did for his lying to Jasmine and the Genie in that film, Nope not one bit but again we can’t have that nowadays can we.

As for the sidekicks well their annoying too and the talking goat in particular does anything but spout the same meaningless platitude that a talented cast had to vomit out of their mouths in 2018’s A Wrinkle in Time and like in that film its just so fucking annoying to listen to over and over and over again.

And then there’s King Magnifico the villain who just turns into a villain what seems like at random and without any meaningful arc that turns him to the dark side and it really doesn’t work at all and neither do the songs or the animation which like the characters and storytelling have a rough feeling to it but there’s a movie to be put out so let’s just feed it through the AI machine we just bought and that’ll do.

And it ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!!! Again sorry to go over the top again and sound animated but this group of Disney Animation severely needs a kick up the ass for giving their fans this mediocre drivel not once but also last year with Strange World which was so deathly dull to sit through and even Encanto which didn’t really feel as magical as it thought it was.

And to go back to the 90s that group of talent was led by Jeffery Katzenberg who for all his mistakes knew what talented artists he had and wasn’t afraid to make them fight for their ideas, defend their ideas and throw out their ideas if they weren’t good enough nor was he afraid to make them scrap their work and start over again if it wasn’t good enough and he also wasn’t afraid to crack the whip when needed or bend when a good enough argument was made against his suggestions, Disney desperately needs that leadership again otherwise it will go back to the rut it fell into post Walt’s death until he and Michael Eisner took over in 1984.

Ah, that felt good.

Now we can serve the Turkeys on the table and feast on the goodness as here are my 4 favourite films of 2023 and this group of films were the ones that made it without any question and it was a group that I loved as much as I did and wanted to talk about more often than not and wanted to recommend widely to my friends but numbering them was tricky and the ordering changed depending on my mood but this listing is what it will probably be so let’s start with Number 4:

Elemental:

Now I wasn’t overly keen for this movie as it was coming after the debacle that was Lightyear last year which topped my Turkeys list for 2022 and the previews did nothing to help but when I saw it I was surprised at how much I liked it.

But it made this list after I did a rewatch of the film at home on Disney Plus and after that rewatch I came to adore the film for two main reasons:

The first of those being the world of Element City that the film creates, here Earth/Fire/Wind and Water (No Heart sorry so no Powers Combined I am Captain Planet here to be found) live together in as harmonious an environment as possible though the Fire element is sometimes treated with suspicion and doesn’t integrate as well as the other elements do but the way this world is realised was fun to spot on both watches of the film, I particularly got a good laugh out of the way the Water people cry in some scenes it felt like they could create a flood with their tears or help solve a drought.

And secondly this movie had a sweet love story at its core between a fire element in Ember and a water element in Wade and their scenes together were just wonderful from the first meeting to getting to know each other to figuring out whether they could hold hands and/or hold each other to finalising realising their true feelings for each other, this was a great reminder to me that Pixar when it tries still has some of that old magic left in it.

3. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:

Now the odds were surprising for this film as while I was looking forward to it a part of me was nervous as to how it would translate to film as this was about Snow who was played as the President of Panem in the earlier movies by Donald Sutherland as a young man and reading his lines in the book I read them in Sutherland’s voice.

But this movie managed to pull that off and Tom Blyth deserves all the praise for doing so as he was the make of break of this movie and he made it big time and he had great assistance by Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird who like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen I just cannot imagine anyone else in that role, she had great twisted chemistry with Blyth, did all of her singing live on set and sounded great and she did a great job with the southern accent and the more serious moments of the film.

Other great performances were Josh Rivera, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis and Burn Gorman who did great work with their characters and were never boring to watch plus the world building in this movie is excellent as it has been in the rest of this series with the costumes, sets, music and props all making Panem feel real and believable as a film world you want to immerse yourself in.

And also this movie does a great job with the Games themselves, most of the time I found the Games in the other films not as interesting as the politics or intrigue or character arcs that came before them but here Francis Lawrence returning to direct the film after directing Catching Fire and the 2 Mockingjay films gives them a real savagery that they’ve sometimes lacked and the film is better for it.

2. Air:

I was looking forward to this movie mainly because it was Ben Affleck’s new film and not really it being about the creation of the Nike Air Jordan shoe and I liked what I saw in the preview for it but when I watched it I was riveted from start to finish.

Firstly Affleck’s direction this time around has the same tightness and confidence and sense of ease to it that the Town and Argo had and even with elements of Live By Night but wisely Ben doesn’t take on as many roles on this movie as he did there and to that films detriment, he knows how to let the scenes play out, when to use archival footage and songs from the mid 1980s in a way that makes you feel your in that period and living it and also how to direct his actors in a way that brings out the best in them performance wise.

And this movie is littered with great performances, Matt Damon is terrific here channelling is likeable everyman persona into a corporate suit and it feeling very effective, Viola Davis as Michael Jordan’s mother (a casting choice he himself wanted) is extremely good and along with the Woman King cements her as probably my favourite actress working today, Jason Bateman is a lot of fun as a rival Nike executive while Chris Messina gets to channel Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire in the best way as the sports agent who doesn’t want his client to go to Nike.

And lastly this movie does such a great job of tapping into the myth of Michael Jordan, his face is never seen in the film and the only glimpses you get of him are from behind and it really works well as it makes him feel mythic and larger than life which to a generation of people he was and the Last Dance documentary series very much focused on the man and beautifully this when I rewatched it felt that it focused on the myth and it worked equally as well as many of us liked to dream that he was me and that we could be Like Mike.

And now we come to Number 1 my favourite film of 2023 and once more Christopher Nolan has won with his new film:

Oppenheimer:

This movie was simply a great achievement by Nolan who for me has gone from strength to strength as a director since Interstellar in 2014 which I felt ran away from him in terms of his ambition for that film but with Dunkirk, Tenet and now Oppenheimer it feels like he has learned from the failure of that film and crafted his work in a way that maintains its ambition but doesn’t get the better of him and one key person who has helped make that happen is Jennifer Lame his editor on this film and Tenet and she deserves to win the Editing Oscar for her work here as it is remarkable.

But this movie on the whole is a fascinating one to think about because on the one hand this is a pure character drama, the purest Nolan has made and yet it is still riveting to watch whether it be conversations between Cillian Murphy (brilliantly playing Oppenheimer himself) or Tom Conti’s Albert Einstein which is casting that feels so spot on its ridiculous or Robert Downey Jr’s scheming Senator who feels Oppenheimer represents a national security threat to the country because of his past ties to Communism or the makeshift office scenes with Jason Clarke interrogating his witnesses, its all riveting stuff and Nolan does it like a master never once letting the tempo sink or get too boring to watch.

On the other hand this feels like a physics class as well as you learn about what it really took to invent the Atomic Bomb and the race against the Nazi clock to have one before they do so they can turn the tide of World War 2 in the Allies favour and those scenes again are people in rooms theorising, sharing their results, yelling at people to get them to realise how important this is to the cause of the War and then the devastating aftermath as Oppenheimer realises he has now given the world the power to destroy itself in a matter of moments in Mutually Assured Destruction.

In any other directors hands this movie could’ve been a real mess but the way Nolan crafts it from his scripting to direction to the performances he gets (even if once again the women are let down with pretty nothing roles something that he REALLY needs to fix with his next film) to Lame’s editing to the music score to the sound design (especially during the Trinity Test scene) and cinematography this was simply amazing filmmaking and like James Cameron it makes me wish we had more like him or Nolan or Greta Gerwig making movies.

Because if we did I can’t help but feel that movies, something I’ve loved and have been passionate about since I was a boy and helped to open doors in my life I never thought of and make great friends as a result of that might just get back that certain cultural attaché they’ve had for many decades but has slowly started to become lost in recent years.

And so that was 2023 in film, hopefully 2024 is a good year as well but given the length of the writers and actors strikes and the shut down of production that caused I fear it will be another slim year movie wise that does little or nothing to bring them back to prominence in culture, I hope most sincerely I am wrong but I fear I will not be and that makes my heart sink a little but we’ll have to wait and see and hope for the best.