Well I've not written a countdown of my films of a year for a few years now. I have a 2020 draft that I might finish at some stage and a 2022 list that I could type up but for the life of me I can't remember my favourite films of 2021 (I know Dune was up there but I don't recall what else). I have got more decisive in my old age so no more lists of 15 films (or 16 if I snuck in a tie at 15th), but a tidy list of five. I have seen most films that have got 2023 release in Australia that are on most best of 2023 lists I've seen floating around with the exception of Godzilla Minus One, Blackberry, and Bottoms. Anatomy of Fall and Priscilla aren't out until next week, and May December not until later in the month, so there are 2024 films for Australian- along with the second Dune film, they are some of my most anticipated 2024 films.
So onto my 2023 top 5...
5. The Boy and the Heron
During the second world war, Mahito loses his mother in the bombing of the hospital where she works. A few years later, Mahito's father, a munitions factory owner, relocates his business and his son out of Tokyo to the rural town where his dead wife's sister, who he is now involved with (possibly married to) and who he is expecting a child with, lives. As Mahito and his aunt/step mother arrive at her estate, a grey heron that lives on the property swoops down near Mahito. The heron later tells Mahito that his mother is not dead and he can take Mahito to her. The heron led him to a mysterious tower on the property which Mahito cannot enter. Mahito has dreams of his mother dying and on his first day at his new school, he gets into a fight and though not injured badly by it he then aggressively harms himself. Now excused from school, he has repeated and at times threatening interactions with the heron, Mahito decides to kill the heron and with the help of the servants at the house he build a bow and arrow. When his aunt/step mother disappears into the forrest around the house, everyone searches for her, and Mahito and one of the maids end up being lured by the heron into the mysterious tower and following events there, Mahito finds himself in some kind of alternate reality.
Miyazaki is back! I know he will likely "retire" again soon but after so long without a Miyazaki film, it is joy to have one again and if you are someone who is precious about following the work of directors in a year with a Scorcese film and a Nolan film, give me Miyazaki any day. In addition to this, if there are two plots I love a story built around, one of them is definitely a pre-teen or teen dealing with trauma or growing up by taking a trip to a fantasy world (the other is outsider watching the lives of the idle rich which was also got in 2023 come to think of it- though in a very different film). I do prefer the literal translation of the Japanese title which is How do I live? to The Boy and the Heron but it at least does make some sense unlike other translated titles. The animation is as glorious as you would expect from a Miyazaki film, and the themes of trauma and loss are beautifully poignant (Miyazaki is in part reflecting on the early death of his own mother in this script). As you expect from Miyazaki, you also get a dose of the power of the natural world.
Where can you watch it- still in cinemas
4. Poor Things
Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) is a young medical student in Victorian London when he taken under the wing of an older doctor, Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Godwin Baxter hires McCandles as his assistant and tasks him with observing the mental and physical development of his ward, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a women who though physically fully grown has the mental capacity of a young child and walks like a toddler. Bella appears to learn faster than a child and also shows curiousity both towards Godwin's (who she calls God) medical work and about her own sexuality. McCandles also grows curious as to where Bella comes from, and Godwin eventually tells him that Bella is the reanimated corpse of a woman who committed suicide (this isn't a spoiler as it is in the trailer and her suicide is the opening shot of the film in fact- though I will not reveal the element of the reanimation that makes her childlike). McCandles ends up falling for Bella and proposes to her, however before they can marry Godwin hires a lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), to redraft draft his will, and Bella and Wedderburn run away together to Europe.
I read the novel on which the film is based before I saw it and I found it amazing but I also wondered at how anyone would be able to play Bella without making her ridiculous. Now the film makes changes from the book (Max McCandles is Archibald McCandless in the book, and it is set in Glasgow not London to name two of the minor ones) but it is by and large a great adaptation, and a lot of that hangs on one person, Emma Stone. Not only is her Bella not ridiculous, it is in fact a revelation and this is without question Stone's best ever performance which saying a lot. The humanity she brings to Bella and the way she convincing portrays Bella's childlike nature is outstanding. I could continue on Stone's performance but also to be commended are Dafoe and Ruffalo (after being in near every count down of films I wrote in the 2010s Ruffalo is back). Dafoe and Ruffalo are in fact playing almost polar opposites- Dafoe with a heavy layer of make up plays a Godwin Baxter who is ugly on the outside but despite questionable motivation truly cares for Bella, and Ruffalo perfectly balances the outward charm and attraction of Wedderburn and his inward slimy petty man baby. Moving on from the acting, it is a beautiful film. I think it will putting up a strong fight in production design and cinematography categories in the upcoming award season. The world the film creates once the action leaves London (which is initially in black and white) is a fantastical pastel steam punk place and it is like you are seeing the world through Bella's eyes as a magical and new place, and it is beautiful. Though I would have loved the film to be in Scotland like the novel is, there is really little to fault here and after The Favourite, this is cementing my appreciation of Yorgos Lanthimos as a director (I really do need to go back and watch his earlier work.
A few other things of note:
- The Frankenstein nerd that I am, when I read the novel, I couldn't not appreciate that Godwin Baxter is named after Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, and I was so happy the film didn't mess with his name- not that it could as it wouldn't be the same without Bella calling him God. Just extra nerd point which isn't in the film, the character is actually Godwin Bysshe Baxter in the novel so it named after Mary Shelley's father and her husband (Bysshe being Percy Shelley's middle name). Though the character is a slightly better human than William Godwin and much better on than Percy Shelley, love this reference point in a work that is in some ways an updated Frankenstein.
- Content warning, if you are someone who isn't big on sex scenes in films, this film has quite a few and doesn't back down from showing them.
Where can you watch it- still in cinemas
3. Dream Scenario
Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is an unassuming biology professor who has had little academic success and is painfully aware of his own mediocrity leading to many professional and personal jealousies. One morning, his daughter tells his that he appeared in her dream the night before but that he basically stood in the background doing nothing. That day his class acts oddly and then that night at the theatre he and his wife run into an old girlfriend of his who says he has been on her mind. When he meets with this old girlfriend over coffee, she tells him that she has been having dreams with him in them where, like in his daughter's dream, he just stands idly by in the background not interacting with the rest of the dream. This old girlfriend of Paul's is a journalist and she publishes an article about her dreams featuring him. Suddenly it comes to light that people around the world have had Paul pop up in their dreams doing nothing. Paul is suddenly famous online and the associated growth in his ego just further brings out the petty insecurities he always had and then...the dreams start to change as dream Paul starts to be active in them.
Any year that blesses the world with two Nicolas Cage films is a great year and not only did 2023 do that, it gave one for each side of the brilliance of Cage. There is an episode of Community where the character of Abed takes a class that is "Nicolas Cage: Good or Bad?" and ends up being broken by watching too many Cage films (oh and to question I have to say even in the worst film, Nicolas Cage is good). The point of that episode could almost be made by just watching this film and Renfield. Now I found Renfield a lot of fun even though the script wasn't brilliant and it was more violent than it need be (and that is coming from me the Tarantino fan who is very desenitised to violence), and the thing that I enjoyed the most was Cage going full ham scenery chopping over the top in his portrayal of Dracula. Going from that performance to Cage in Dream Scenario is quite the head spin as Cage in the first part of the film has to reign in the OTT he is known for (it does get a tiny bit of moment in the second half of the film which no spoilers is at one point hilarious) and play the most mediocre, soft spoken, every man out there. I would like every person who questions Cage's skill as an actor to watch this film as he is brilliant in it (some are saying this is the performance of his career but I wouldn't go that far as I love him in most everything he is in) and his ability to give life to this man who is so much of a nobody is outstanding. Cage's performance aside, the other performances, mostly from actors who aren't big names (the next biggest name in the cast is Michael Cera), are also great especially Julianne Nicholson as Paul's wife and Tim Meadows as the Dean of the college where Paul works. The concept of the film might be familiar from other films about dreams but I don't think it has every been used to this comic effect before or been so well utilised as a morality play about the fickle perils of internet fame.
Where can you watch it- still in cinemas
2. Barbie
In Barbieland, Barbies are told that they as dolls have allowed little girls to dream bigger and by their very existence all issues with gender in the Real World are fixed. Barbies live a dream life where they wake up every morning to a perfect outfit and a perfect breakfast, and then hang up with their Barbie friends taking breaks to excel at every job there is, while being worshipped by an army of super attractive men, the Kens (oh and Midge and Allen are there too but this isn't their story). It is ideal or is it? During a super fun party including choreographed dancing with all her Barbie friends, Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) suddenly starts thinking about death and then the next day she wakes up and everything is out of synch and worst of all, her feet are flat! After talking about this with the other Barbies (who are horrified by what is happening to her), she goes to talk to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who explains to her that the child playing with Stereotypical Barbie must be going through something and that this is fractioning the wall between Barbieland and the Real World and thereby impacting Stereotypical Barbie. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that she has to journey to the Real World to figure out what is going on. Stereotypical Barbie heads off the Real World with her 'boyfriend" (in his mind) Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) stowing away. On arrival in the Real World, Barbie and Ken (I'm ditching the full names now) discover it isn't as they thought and the patriarchy (which neither of them has heard of) is very much still a thing- this horrifies her and fascinates him. Barbie sets off to find the girl who is playing with her, while Ken goes to find out more things about the patriarchy. Meanwhile the leadership team at Mattel, who are all men and lead by Will Ferrell as the CEO, go into a tailspin of what to do with the fact there is a Barbie in the Real World, as the CEO's assistant, Gloria (America Ferrera) watches from the sidelines.
Now some people will be shocked that this is my number 2 as I have been saying since July that was my favourite film of the year, well sadly for Barbie something came along and stole its top spot at the last minute. That said though, this is very close second to my film of the year and it is the one I'm more likely to rewatch a lot- I saw it twice at the cinema and have tentative plans to see it again soon at a special screening. Everything about this film is genius from the casting- say what you will about others who could have played Barbie but Margot Robbie is perfection- to performance- Gosling's Ken is one of the performances of the year- to set design- Barbieland is beautifully nostalgic- to music- this film has long since had a lock on the Best Song Oscar (I would love to see "I'm Just Ken" take it out, but it is really is Billie's Eilish's to lose with 'What was I Made for?" and those are just two songs from a great soundtrack)- to script- I love nearly every line of it and yes I have a line from this film on a t-shirt. That said, I feel like I was the definition of the target audience for this film so I do need to try to be objective to a degree. I have to ask myself would I have ranked this film as highly if it was the same but with one of elements of it changed for the worse (not for possibly equally good like the fact that Jonathan Groff was meant to play Allen- I think that would have been amazing but Michael Cera (wow he is in two of my top 5 films this year) was amazing in the end anyway). If the script was weaker or the casting off or the performances not as good for example, would it be this high on my ranking? Likely not. Even if they removed the dream ballet (which I was shocked Gerwig had to fight for as it is the best scene in the film and was perfection even though they only had day to shoot it- I have such admiration for Gosling, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, and the many background dancers- sorry Kens- for getting this done in a day), it would possibly slip to lower in my top 5, same if they had someone other than Helen Mirren as the narrator or other than Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. In the end I have to conclude it is more than just the nostalgia of having been a little girl who loved Barbies and whose Barbies largely ended up looking like Weird Barbie (so much so that my nieces refused to play with most of them when my parents fished them out of the shed when my nieces were small- awww my poor Barbies with their punk hair cuts which were coloured weird colours by textas) or me being a women in her 30-40s who is a more than a bit of a feminist, this film legitimately is a great film and to be honest, I would expect nothing less from Greta Gerwig.
Two things to note:
- I know people have questioned the fact that the feminism of the film is quite simplified and I say to them "so what". It is simple white girl feminism but you need to start somewhere and I can see this being the film people shows their young children to get them on board with the basics of why the patriarchy is evil.
- I just discovered that there was a Stereotypical Ken in the film. It was Scott Evans' Ken and initially I was confused as surely that should have been Gosling's Ken but then I realised that it is in fact a bit genius as you rarely buy Barbie and Ken as a set so children tend to couple Barbies and Kens together at random. I mean the Ken I had as a kid based on his gold mesh top and fluro green tight shorts was likely not much interested in Barbie anyway.
Where can you watch it- it is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime
1. Past Lives
In a bar, we hear people debating about the relationship between the three people we can see on screen- an Asian man, an Asian woman, and a white guy. Is the woman in a relationship with one of the men, are they colleagues, are they tourists, why is the conversation mainly between the Asian man and woman? Flashback twenty four years to a school in Seoul. Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) is 12 years old and her family is in the middle of making plans to immigrate to Canada. Na Young has a crush on Hae Sung (Seung Min Yim), a boy in her class, and their parents set up a date between the two but nothing more comes of it as Na Young's family leaves the country. Twelve years later, Na Young is now Nora Moon (Greta Lee) and she is enrolled in a graduate writing program in New York. She notices that Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) has tried to reach her via the social media account for a film her father directed. The two reconnect over social media and it turns out he is still in Seoul living with his parents and is studying engineering having just finished his compulsory military service. They talk as often as they can online considering the time difference and talk about when one of them would be able to visit the other. Then Nora opts to pause their conversations for a while as she heads on a writers' retreat and Hae Sung heads to an exchange program in China. At the retreat, Nora meets Arthur (John Magaro) and they fall for each other with Nora explaining to him the Korean idea of in yun where interactions between people build up over past lives and if people wind up married they have thousands of layers of in yun (note not sure on spelling as online it was also rendered in yeon). Another twelve years pass and Hae Sung reaches out to Nora who is now married to Arthur about visiting her while he is in New York.
Now there are many films about missed connections out there so what is it that makes this film better than the average such film? Well firstly I think it is that it starts not with a relationship that failed or a long window of unrequited love but with the simple idea of a childhood crush and I would suspect it is not uncommon for people to wonder what became of people they knew as children maybe particularly closer relationships they had at that stage like their first crush or their childhood best friend. In tapping into this common curiousity the film gives something that everyone can connect with and a common heartstring on which it can pull. Secondly with the concept of in yun, it gives you something more than just this life to reflect on. Finally, the film is self autobiographical and I think the truth of Celine Song's experience as a double immigrant from South Korea to Canada and then Canada to the US gives extra heart to the film. The characters in the film, even Arthur who is in the film much less, feel fully lived in and fleshed out thanks to a brilliant script which yes is largely in Korean (I did worry that Past Lives might get stuck in the same loop as The Farewell did a few years ago this award season of being an American film but being so much in another language that it gets put in Best Foreign Language categories (often the hardest categories to win) and misses out on Best Film spots- that said thankfully for nominations to date, it looks like Hollywood might have finally learnt its lesson though). The lead performances, in particular Greta Lee, are amazing, and combined with the script they just give the film a relatable realness to it. It is subtle, it is beautiful, it is simple, and it is real.
Where can you watch it- after it mysteriously disappeared for a few days (and delayed this countdown as I didn't want to write it without seeing it and good thing I waited), it is back for rent or purchase on Apple TV (and maybe also google play but I'm an Apple person so I don't know that for sure).
So there are my top five and for the first time, female directors in the top two spots and only one director who was born in the States in my top five (Greta Gerwig).
Here in no order as my honourable mentions that just missed this top five:
- Perfect Days (I said this was in no order but this was definitely number 5 until Past Lives pushed it out of the top 5)
- Asteroid City
- Oppenheimer
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider- Verse
- All of Us Strangers
- Fallen Leaves
- Saltburn (this was the film I mentioned as having the outsider observing the idle rich and I have to say massive content warning on how sexual this gets)
- Riceboy Sleeps (this is technically a 2024 film in Australia but I saw it at a film festival)
- John Wick 4
- Leave the World Behind
And just to show that I don't think the performance Oscars will come entirely from my favourite films, here are the performances of the year in my opinion:
- Emma Stone in Poor Things
- Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon (if this film was 30-45 minutes shorter and if it had focused on the native Americans instead of the white folk, chances are I would have liked this fim more (also TBH I hate to say anything bad about him but Leonardo diCaprio was miscast- performance was fine but he was the wrong person for the role) BUT none of that should take away from the fact that Lily Gladstone is outstanding (I mean it is still a great film just not for me) and she is in my opinion Emma Stone's biggest competition for best actresses this award season)
- Ryan Gosling in Barbie
- Greta Lee in Past Lives
- Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer
- Rosamund Pike in Saltburn
- Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things
- Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers
I don't have an Australian film of the year as I haven't watched many... watched this space in 2024 as there is a shot Furiosa will be up there and it is Australian.
Also to say, my film controversy of the year was the madness around The Sound of Freedom which I have not seen as sounds like a pretty average action film about a topic that while we need to do something about isn't something people are unaware of (most people know child trafficking happens and are horrified by it). I thought the drama around Don't Worry Darling's press tour was fun in 2022 (I watched that film on a plane this year and my advice is don't bother darling, as despite Florence Pugh's best efforts, it do suck) but that didn't prepare me for a film becoming the focal point of the culture wars and having more controversy around it than anyone knew what to do with in 2023. Not going to detail it all here but it involves QAnon folk, conspiracies about the shelving of films after studio purchases (a common practice especially with films that aren't going to be award winners or blockbusters), and conspiracies from both sides of politics about ticket sales. Give it a google if you want but trust me, it is a rabbit hole that might steal a lot of your time. I might watch the film on a plane one day but I doubt it will be more than a three star film for me.
My worst film of 2023 is a return to "form" from the DCEU. It isn't The Flash as I've not seen it yet (I suspect it I will watch it at some stage but I hear it ain't great). Despite having Jason Momoa front and centre, my least favourite film of the year was Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. I didn't hate the first Aquaman film but with the uncanny valley of it all (not helped by the fact it was the second 2023 comic film that lost me in the uncanny valley- Ant Man and the Wasp: Quatumania already got my uncanny valley anger up earlier in the year), the complete lack of chemistry between most actors esp Jason Momoa and Amber Heard, and the worst script on a film I've watched in a long while, this sequel had no chance. Momoa can carry the character when he is having fun with it (he clearly wasn't for most of this film and if you want to see how good Momoa having fun with a role can be, just watch Fast X) so I think if DC is going to keep him as Aquaman, they need to recast most everyone else (I think I would only keep Teumera Morrison) and hire a decent writer. Seriously the James Gunn era of the DCEU cannot kick in soon enough as to date most of the DCEU's output has just worked to cement me as a Marvel person (Wonder Woman and Gunn's The Suicide Squad (not the Ayer's Suicide Squad-my least favourite film of the 2010s) being the only actual good DCEU films to date).
So that is my thoughts on films in 2023...as I said I might finish some of my half finished films of previous years blogs when I get the chance and I also have my updated ranking of the MCU half written and I might Oscar predict again for fun so watch this space as maybe 2024 is the year for blogs to make a come back.
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