2023 in Review: Not Necessarily The Best Films of 2023

 

Yes, you read that title correctly.

I make no claims that what follows are the absolutely very best films of the years just ended. And here's why...

As the title of this blog says, I am a PART TIME cinephile, not a full-time professional film critic. To date, I have seen 105 of the films released in 2023 - which is a lot, but less than half of what a professional critic would see. Then again, as a highly selective amateur critic, I focus on seeing as many high-quality films as I can squeeze into a schedule that allows for other passions and pastimes. So this list isn't totally eccentric; you'll see a number of overlaps with other critics' lists. 

Also... to qualify for my list, a film must have been in general release for the first time in the Chicago area between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023, inclusive. (Film festival screenings don't count.) This means some 2023 films will be considered for my 2024 list; those include Memory, All of Us Strangers, Origin, The Taste of Things, and The Zone of Interest. This also means that some films generally considered to be 2022 releases were actually considered for this year’s list, and a few of them made the Honorable Mention list.

Then there were the eligible films that I just didn't get to, usually due to missed or limited opportunities. (And by “missed or limited opportunities", I mean they haven’t yet played in suburban theaters. Or sometimes they have, but I ran out of  either the time or the inclination to see them.) For 2023, these include: Fallen Leaves, Godzilla Minus One, Napoleon, Ferrari, The Iron Claw, Dream Scenario, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, and American Fiction.

I'm not a particularly academic or intellectual critic, and I chose the films on this list largely based on how much I thought about them after seeing them - and how badly I wanted to see them again. (In fact, I've watched six of the ten films at least twice so far.) 

Having said all that, here are my ten favorite movies of 2023.(I've provided information on where you can stream each of them; "the usual platforms" means Apple, Amazon, Google Play and Vudu.)

10. Linoleum (director Colin West)

It's nearly impossible for me to tell you why you must watch Linoleum without giving away its stunning and entirely surprising ending.  It starts as a gentle comedy about a bumbling, 1960s dad (Jim Gaffigan) who hosts a TV science show for kids but doesn't seem to get much respect at home. One day, as he is walking home, a red sports car literally drops out of the sky and crashes to the road near him, its driver appearing to be a younger version of himself. Later, when he's on camera with his show, two stagehands appear to clear off the set pieces - one of whom sports a very 21st century hoodie and man bun. Those are our first clues that Linoleum is playing with notions of  space, time and the unreliability of human memory. This unprepossessing little film turns out to be a lot more than you expect, and those stunning final moments are absolutely worth the ride.

Linoleum is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

9. A Compassionate Spy (director: Steve James)

This startling documentary proves an interesting companion piece to Oppenheimer, detailing how a young scientist working on the Manhattan Project (Ted Hall) shared classified nuclear secrets with Russia and evaded punishment.  Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) combines dramatic recreations of episodes from Hall's life with narration by his feisty, unrepentant widow, Joan. This  approach may sound cheesy, but it actually works to underline the moral questions inevitably raised by Hall's actions. (He also shows footage of Ted himself confessing many years after the fact, but it's Joan's testimony that sticks in your memory.)

Nowhere do the dramatizations have more impact then in the passage where Joan tells us of her husband's tortured conscience and his plan to confess to his crimes in the hopes of saving Julius and Ethel Rosenberg from the electric chair. Joan didn't just talk him out of it; she forbade him to come forward in the strongest possible terms. This leads to a stunning dramatization of an actual moment from the Halls' life: on their way to a dinner party in upstate New York, they drive past Sing Sing prison at almost the precise moment that the Rosenbergs are executed there, a particularly haunting Mahler symphony playing on the car's radio as they pass.

Mrs. Hall is a challenging narrator, to the say the least. She's a proud old-school lefty who works forcefully to control the narrative around her husband's crime - and sometimes drifts into cloud cuckoo land. She brags about her activist daughter who "was a Maoist back when China was the good guys." ("And when precisely would that have been?" this reviewer wondered. recalling the devastating famine wrought by Mao's Great Leap Forward initiative, not to mention the chaos and violence that were instigated by his Cultural Revolution.)  I'm not sure who the good guys are in this particular story either. James doesn't answer that question for us, but gives us plenty to ponder instead.  It's a provocative and unsettling film.

A Compassionate Spy is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

8. Maestro (director Bradley Cooper)

To fully appreciate Maestro, you'll need to put your expectations aside. If you're looking for an in-depth history of Leonard Bernstein's contribution to music, this isn't it. Rather than is an impressionistic portrait of his complicated marriage to Felicia Monteleagre (beautifully played by Carey Mulligan). By 'impressionistic,' I mean you're going to get fleeting but significant glimpses of their relationship at various stages. And by “complicated,” I’m alluding to Bernstein’s many extramarital affairs, mainly with men.

I completely understand why this approach to the life of Leonard Bernstein is frustrating and unsatisfying to many viewers. But if you can accept Maestro on its own terms, it's an admirably accomplished piece of filmmaking. Bradley Cooper who wrote and directed, in addition to playing Bernstein, captures the heady combination of passion, talent and ego that drove him. With Mulligan, he creates a compelling and nuanced portrait of a marriage that endured - and sometimes thrived - albeit largely through compromise and capitulation on Felicia's part. It would be trite to simply observe that marriage to a genius is tough, but Maestro puts some real teeth into that assertion. 

Maestro is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

7. May December (director: Todd Haynes)

A friend tells me she can't bring herself to watch May December. I assume her reluctance stems from the fact that Julianne Moore's character, Gracie Yoo, is obviously based on Mary Kay LeTourneau, the infamous pedophile who seduced a 13 year old boy, eventually having his baby while serving time for child molestation - and ultimately marrying him. 

I understand her reluctance. But May December isn't lurid, nor does it take any predictable or expected approach to the incendiary subject matter. When we first meet Gracie, she has been married to Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) for twenty years, the two of them settled in a Savannah, Georgia McMansion with a daughter in college and twins about to graduate high school. 

Natalie Portman arrives, playing a particularly vacuous actress cast as Gracie in an upcoming film. She prattles on about the 'very complex, very human' story she's about to perform and assures Gracie she wants her to "feel seen and known.' But it's all so much bullshit. The very point of Todd Haynes' acerbic take on this story is that people and situations like these are ultimately unknowable. Tabloids, TV shows, 'true crime' movies - none of the pop culture venues by which we peer at deviant behavior really gets to the heart of it. Gracie, as cannily played by the always brilliant Moore is slippery, almost shape-shifting. One minute she's a sweet, soft spoken, cake-baking Georgia housewife, the next a critical, passive-aggressive mother telling her daughter, "You're so brave to show your arms in that dress." At night, in bed next to Joe, she piteously sobs like a child over the slightest disappointments of her day. Then she's up early the next morning, rifle in hand, stalking quail in the early morning fog. 

There are comic flourishes here and there, such as when Gracie stares ominously into her fridge and announces "I don't think we have enough hot dogs," while ominous music swells on the soundtrack.  Or the uncomfortable scene where Portman speaks to a group of high school students, in very inappropriate detail, about what it's like to shoot movie sex scenes.  But the non-ironic heart of the film lies in Joe's story line and Melton's fine, sensitive performance. Amidst all the evasive posturing by Moore’s and Portman's characters, it's Melton’s Joe who grapples with the truth of what happened between him and Gracie, and the disturbing possibility of his own exploitation and abuse.

Haynes (whose most brilliant prior work includes Safe, Far from Heaven and Carol) doesn't play to our expectations or make bold pronouncements about his characters' guilt or innocence, much as we might have wanted that. He plays around the edges of the story, teasing out small bits of information, but never giving us the full picture.  His approach is frustrating at times, but ultimately brilliant

May December is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

6. Past Lives (director: Celine Song)

There is a quiet and gentle beauty to this film that accumulates tremendous emotional power as it proceeds.

Told in three distinct chapters, it follows the lives of two junior high school sweethearts in Korea, Hae-sung and Na-young, whose friendship is upended when the girl's family moves to Canada.  The two connect online as young adults (now played by Teo Yoo and Greta Lee), while she is studying playwriting in New York and he is serving in the Korean military; after some initial excitement, however, that connection eventually peters out. They finally reunite in person in New York where Na-young has changed her name to Nora and gotten married.

It's the accumulation of seemingly small but finely observed moments that make this film special. I can never forget the scene where they meet in Central Park for the first time in 20 years: his obvious nerves as he repeatedly tucks his shirt in and smooths his hair, her buoyant nonchalance as she greets him with a hug. It's a tiny bit of business, really. But the details were so perfectly calibrated and true that it brought tears to my eyes (and still does, even as I write this.)

Past Lives is about the transformation of a particular friendship over time, and much of it is framed in ways specific to Korean culture and the immigrant experience. But it also evokes universal truths about the ways we all evolve and change as we get older, and sometimes grow apart from people we once loved. As the characters themselves acknowledge in the final chapter, we are different people in different stages of our lives, but we can always remember and cherish who we used to be.  These observations seem almost trite when put in writing, but Song's lovely script and meticulously directed scenes give them power and resonance.

Past Lives is available to rent on the usual platforms.

5. Priscilla (director: Sofia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola is the cinematic poet of the loneliness in privileged lives, as she has demonstrated to perfection on films like Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette and Somewhere.  Who better, then, to adapt Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis and Me?

Here's what I wrote in an earlier post about Priscilla - I can't say it better now:

“Here, as in her earlier film, Marie Antoinette, Coppola is specifically concerned with the outwardly pretty but inwardly desolate life of a (too young) woman trapped in the gilded cage of her husband's royalty. (Yes there's a difference between being the King of France and the King of Rock and Roll, but I think the analogy stands.) 

I can clearly recall an interview given by Priscilla Presley around the time she published her memoir of life with Elvis. She was quietly insistent that the 'real Elvis' was a sweet and decent man. Coppola's depiction of their relationship lines up with that assessment even as it refuses to back off from the uncomfortable creepiness of it all. It's startling when Elvis' friends invite a wide-eyed, guileless 14-year old to meet Elvis at their home, even weirder when Elvis arranges to install the still teen-aged Priscilla in Graceland by setting up his father as her temporary guardian. He controls and dictates everything from her wardrobe choices to her friendships and even a Catholic school education; he also feeds her pills to help her sleep. Yet he demurely postpones the consummation of their relationship until she reaches legal age, and it isn't clear whether this is evidence of his innate chivalry or the result of frank discussions with his legal team.

Yet Elvis, as impressively portrayed by Jacob Elordi, comes off as an essentially well-intentioned man who got too rich and too famous too fast. There is genuine affection and decency in his portrayal, as well as unreasonable anger and startling dictatorial tendencies. His performance makes it all too easy to understand how Priscilla fell under his spell. He's seductive and terrifying in equal measure. 

For her part, Callie Spaeny as Priscilla makes the slow transition from wide-eyed innocence to thoroughly exhausted 28-year-old with seamless authenticity. It's an exquisitely measured performance through which we can always see Elvis as Priscilla must have seen him.”

As of 1/15/24, Priscilla is not yet available for streaming rentals, but can be purchased on the usual platforms.

4. Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese)

If you read my earlier review, you might be surprised to see this ranked so highly. But despite my wish that the Osage point of view might have been articulated in a bit more detail, Killers of the Flower Moon remains, indisputably, a masterfully crafted and powerful experience.

Martin Scorsese turned 81 late last year. As he's grown older, his films are not only getting longer, but also plumbing ever deeper levels of moral urgency. (A trend that will likely continue with his next announced project, a film about Jesus.). Killers is, in some respects, just one more impressive entry in Scorsese's tales of white men behaving badly, yet there is a more potent sense of tragedy here than in most of his earlier films.  Nowhere is the film's broken heart more stunningly personified than in the performance of Lily Gladstone, as the Osage woman who marries and is betrayed by a foolish white man (Leonardo Di Caprio).

Killers of the Flower Moon is available to stream on Apple with a subscription or to rent on Google Play.

3. Barbie (director: Greta Gerwig)

I saw Barbie twice in the theater, and my memories of both showings are pure, pink-tinted joy, much like what Margot Robbie radiates in the photo above. (She's singing the Indigo Girls' classic Closer to Fine, which is also one of my favorite songs to belt out while behind the wheel of a car.)

Beneath its shiny, silly surface, Greta Gerwig's film actually has a lot to say about being an American female in the years since Barbie became our favorite doll. It's no accident that women and girls flocked to this movie, making it the box office hit of the year. It's not just a movie, it's a tribal experience of sisterhood. We came together in those packed cinemas to share the laughter of recognition. We’ve all had a "Weird Barbie" with raggedly shorn hair and a shitty Magic Marker make-up job. We’ve all longed for a world like “Barbie World” where we could achieve anything we wanted with the full, loving support of other women. And we’ve all felt the exhaustion and futility of the culturally imposed need to be unfailingly 'nice' and 'likable' that is so perfectly expressed by America Ferrara in a now famous monologue. That we get all this validation in a very funny movie fueled by non-stop product placement feels more like a joke the Mattel company wasn't quite in on than it does a craven cash grab.

And kudos to Ryan Gosling for his fully committed, good natured portrayal of Ken as a handsome doofus whose whole reason for being is simply 'to beach.'  You could complain that the guys get short shrift in this film, but that gloriously daffy "I'm Just Ken" production number is actually one its best, most memorable scenes.

Barbie is available to stream on Max with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

2. Oppenheimer (director: Christopher Nolan)

I'll be totally honest here. Oppenheimer is this high on my list because it's a three-hour movie that doesn't feel like a three-hour movie.  The first time I saw it, I was in a huge IMAX auditorium alongside a wheelchair-bound friend, which meant our seats were right up front, just below the enormous screen. I watched the whole three hours with my neck uncomfortably craned back and never minded. I was too engrossed in the drama, the stellar performances and the complicated moral questions around the deployment of the atomic bomb. And yes, I watched it a second time on streaming, and that second viewing went by as seemingly fast as the first. 

(My only complaint is that I got a little distracted by the number of well-known actors showing up in brief roles - hey it's Kenneth Branagh! Matthew Modine! Rami Malek! Jason Clarke! Gary Oldman!  I was very anxious for the final credits to confirm that I really had spotted British actor Tom Conti playing Albert Einstein - he hasn't been onscreen much in recent years.)

Seriously though… with Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan seamlessly integrates the many facets of a complex story about a complex man into a film both thrilling and intellectually stimulating. He is absolutely masterful when incorporating scientific information, giving us just enough for a high-level understanding of how the bomb works, but not so much that we’re baffled and constantly trying to keep up. Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer is mostly in his eyes. He's soft spoken and his body language is restrained, but you can see the curiosity or moral panic in his subtlest sweeping glances.

 Oppenheimer is available to rent on the usual platforms.

1. The Holdovers (director: Alexander Payne)

The Holdovers is not an unusual choice for the year's best film; it's topped a few other lists as well. But it feels like a specifically personal choice for me because so much of what I loved about it intersects with my own experience. In addition to being set in the the early 70s, the film is styled to deliberately evoke films of that decade, right down to old "R" rating header that precedes the story. Watching it made me feel like I was a teenager again, in the decade where my passion for film really exploded. It also features Paul Giamatti as a pedantic, fussbudgety Latin teacher which resonates with me - a straight-A student in Latin for all four years of high school. I actually understood many of the Latin phrases he used before he translated them.

Personal attachments aside, this is just a beautiful, sensitive, compassionate film about the unlikely alliances formed between wildly different people thrown together under uncomfortable circumstances. Paul Giamatti plays the cranky Latin instructor assigned to tend the handful of private academy students who are forced to remain at school over Christmas break. His charges eventually dwindle to just one, an insufferably snotty boy (Dominic Sessa ) whose apparent arrogance is a mask for deeper troubles. There is also the school cook, whose son was recently killed in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), grieving privately while brushing off too easily offered condolences.

Put all that in writing and it sounds hokey. But be assured, The Holdovers is no such thing. Nothing in the developing relationships between these characters ever feels forced or precious. Every one of them is recognizably, stubbornly human and real, and no conflict between them is ever resolved in a pat or predictable manner. This is a film I know I will come back to, time and time again, in the coming years just to bask in its humanity and intelligence. 

Alexander Payne, who previously - and memorably - directed Giamatti in Sideways, elicits an even greater performance from Giamatti this time. It's no exaggeration to call it a performance for the ages.  I dearly hope that he wins a well-deserved Oscar.

The Holdovers is available to stream on Peacock with a subscription. It can be purchased on the usual platforms, but rentals are not available as of 1/15/24.

Honorable Mention:  Showing Up, Earth Mama, The Quiet Girl,  BlackBerry, Anatomy of a Fall; A Thousand and One, R.M.N., Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Flora and Son.

2023 Nominees to the Academy of the Overrated: Asteroid City, Poor Things, Saltburn

2023 in Review: Unpopular Opinions

 

This is the first in a series of posts looking back at the the past year in film and television.

Back in 2013, I briefly reconsidered re-naming my blog What Movie Did THEY See? It was my reaction to finding myself diametrically opposed to most other film bloggers on the merits of so many films. (For example, I was - and remain - baffled by the generally very favorable response to Josh Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. Most loved it, I hated it. Anyone re-watched that lately? Anybody own it on DVD?  I thought not. Thank you, I feel vindicated.)

A decade later, I'm having the same sense of WTF? with regard to one critical darling that I didn't care for. I'm equally baffled by the outpouring of gratuitous nastiness being slung at another film that I very much liked.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) never does things by halves. If there's grossness, provocation or discomfort to be had in a situation, he'll lay it on thick. Poor Things is no exception to that rule. Visually stunning, but relentlessly shocking, it'll either delight you or wear you out. Myself, I fall definitively into the category of the worn out.

Lanthimos' favorite actress, Emma Stone, plays Bella, the Frankenstein-like experiment of one Dr. Godwin Baxter (William Dafoe, made up to looks as if pieces of his face had been torn off and then sewn back in place - rather grotesque and never explained). Bella, while pregnant, killed herself by jumping into the Thames River. Baxter implants her unborn child's still-functioning brain into Bella's cranium and brings her back to life. We then get to watch Stone play a grown woman with the mind of an infant, and initially she has great fun with the role - unsteadily staggering around like a toddler, speaking unintelligibly, throwing food, and so forth. Then she starts to learn things - including, to her endless delight, how to masturbate - and it's no holds barred from that point on. Bella swiftly progresses from self-pleasuring to coupling with men to working in a brothel while sorting out what pleases her and what doesn't. She also travels, reads Emerson and gives money to the poor. But mostly she has a lot of sex.

It wasn't prudishness so much as weariness and sensory overload that had me squirming in my seat and even zoning out entirely from time to time.  The spectacular scenic design and fine performances aside... how much boinking does a person have to see to get the point? Every time Stone took her pants off, all I could think of was the plaudits and award nominations she'd be showered with for her 'brave' performance. It's right up there with Barry Keoghan's performance in Saltburn in terms of brazen envelope-pushing. Between that film and this one, I've now reached my 'outrageousness' quota for the year.

All through Poor Things, I kept wondering what it was like for Stone on the set, shooting these scenes day in and day out. Was she game for all this or did she have any doubts, any moments when she thought, "I  CAN'T do this scene."?  Was she ever coerced into doing a scene she wasn't comfortable with? What's bugging me is that, even though it's Stone giving that unabashedly raunchy performance, there's a male director pulling the strings.  They've worked together before; maybe he's doing things to help Stone feel safe and protected on set. Maybe not. 

And this is where I start thinking about Jane Fonda.

Fonda went on record recently about a French director she'd auditioned for in the '60s (but didn't name in the interview). She was horrified when he told her he'd need to hear what she sounded like when she climaxed in order to consider for the role. Fonda was clearly traumatized by this experience. She's also spoken, regretfully, about the fact that she had to get drunk in order to shoot the "stripping naked at zero gravity" scene that opens Barbarella, directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim. That's how terrified she was. 

Barbarella, like Bella Baxter on some level, was a sexual adventurer, but also a lewd punchline in her day. Stone's Bella, by contrast, is being celebrated for her lack of shame about her body and her determination to experience pleasure on her own terms.  In theory, that's a step forward for women, but the graphic depiction of it here feels more like a step backward to me.  For better or worse, I am a product of my own generation (a late-wave Baby Boomer who turns 64 this month), and I can't quite make this leap. Stone's portrayal of Bella, under the direction of  the ever-provocative Lanthimos, still feels a bit exploitative to me.

I'd be curious to hear what Stone says about her Poor Things experience when she gets into her 80s. I won't be alive then to hear what she says, but I'd still be curious.

With Maestro, the whole problem is the title. When you make a film about Leonard Bernstein and call it Maestro, audiences expect a full-bodied biopic highlighting Bernstein's musical accomplishments. But a better title might have been Lenny and Felicia: Portrait of a Marriage.

Because that's what Maestro really is - an artsy, impressionistic look at a difficult marriage between the bisexual Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre (impeccably portrayed by Carey Mulligan , who I dearly hope will win the Oscar). And by 'impressionistic," I mean it's a collage of pointed glimpses at the couple's life throughout various stages in their marriage. Admittedly, it omits or shortchanges some of Bernstein's male lovers and several of his best known musical works. West Side Story, for example, is mentioned twice in passing. Many of his compositions are there, but often unidentified and used as underscoring in scenes with dialogue. While it doesn't delve into the specifics of Bernstein's musical career too deeply, it does conjures up a heady vibe of the energy and passion that drove him. If you take the film on its own terms, and don't demand that it be something else, it's actually a very accomplished piece of filmmaking.

Of course, some cannot accept Maestro in its actual form. While it has a respectable 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, many prominent critics fall into the "Rotten" column. And those that do are shockingly dismissive of the film's writer/director/star Bradley Cooper. Even the enthusiastic endorsements Cooper has received from Bernstein's son and daughters don't appear to be helping.

Richard Brody, the New Yorker's pompous gasbag of a film critic, is not alone in deeming Cooper's recreation of Bernstein directing a Mahler symphony at Ely Cathedral  "a brazen, Oscar-striving money shot." Cooper, who has a well-documented lifelong passion for orchestral conducting, spent SIX YEARS honing his conducting skills for that scene, which is at least 100,000 times what Brody spent honing his snarky little swipe at Cooper's ambition. If Daniel Day-Lewis had spent six years learning to conduct Mahler for a film role, he'd have been elevated to sainthood. Just sayin'.

It's fair to say that Maestro misses a few opportunities. It would have been fun, for example, to see the infamous fund-raising soiree that he and Felicia hosted for the Black Panthers - the one so caustically described in Tom Wolfe's equally infamous essay Those Radical Chic Evenings.  But I firmly maintain that, if you're looking for an exhaustive, definitive portrait of Leonard Bernstein, you need a mini-series for that.  A two-hour movie can't come anywhere near getting that job done. Cooper chose a narrower focus, and within the boundaries he set for himself, he did a more than admirable job.

A Few Words About a Few Movies

 After a long hiatus from blogging, I have returned to share my thoughts on films I've seen in the last few months...

Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese)

Ask me what I think of this film and, depending on the day, you'll get one of two answers. Sometimes I will jokingly call it "an exercise in bladder control!" (Which - at three-and-a-half hours, preceded by up to 30 minutes of previews - it most certainly is. If you don't want to miss anything, prepare to keep your legs crossed!) But usually I tell people, with my eyes earnestly wide, "It's VERY good." And in those cases, my enthusiasm is a tiny bit feigned.

And not because it isn't very good. It's carefully and beautifully made, an ambitious effort that mostly achieves what it sets out to do.  The lead performances are also uniformly excellent, particularly the quietly confident performance of Lily Gladstone as Leonardo Di Caprio's long-suffering Native American wife. (We'll just overlook Brendan Fraser yelling his way through a bizarre cameo in the film's climactic courtroom scene.) 

Yet it kept nagging at me that I wasn't entirely satisfied with the film, and it took me some time to figure out why. It's both an oversimplification of Scorsese's work and entirely true to say that he specializes in depicting white men behaving badly. And Killers of the Flower Moon fits very comfortably into his wheelhouse. Its central tragedy is the systematic murder of Osage people by white men intent on seizing the rights to the oil-rich Oklahoma land on which they live. But the impact of that tragedy is blunted by the fact that most of the Osage characters are little more than ciphers. The focus here is almost entirely on the criminals - the victims are minor players. 

There are two brief scenes in Killers... where Scorsese trains his camera on an Osage man who delivers a powerful, angry history lesson in the exploitation of his people by the white intruders. These scenes were not in the original script; Scorsese actually discovered this actor delivering his impassioned history lesson to fellow actors during a break in shooting. Impressed by the actor's passion, Scorsese asked him to re-tell the story on camera. These scenes comprise an admirable addition to the story, but they're not quite enough. We don't know who that man is or what's been done to him; the history he delivers is important and disturbing, but we don't get to see what it has cost him personally. And sadly that's the case with nearly all the Osage characters. With the notable exception of Gladstone's character, Scorsese's film stands outside their experience, keeping a far too polite distance. He's far more comfortable showing us the cold-hearted menace of Robert De Niro's character, or the fatal cluelessness of Leonardo Di Caprio's.

To his credit, however, the director does deliver a brilliant coda which forces us to see the way we package and distance ourselves from the true heinousness of the most shameful moments in our history. 

Killers of the Flower Moon is in theaters now. It will be available to stream on Apple TV with a subscription at a date still to be announced.

Priscilla (director: Sofia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola is the cinematic poet of the loneliness that lurks inside lives of  privilege, particularly for women. Here, as in her earlier film, Marie Antoinette, Coppola is specifically concerned with the outwardly pretty but inwardly desolate life of a (too young) woman trapped in the gilded cage of her husband's royalty. (Yes there's a difference between being the King of France and the King of Rock and Roll, but I think the analogy stands.) 

I can clearly recall an interview given by Priscilla Presley around the time she published her memoir of life with Elvis. She was quietly insistent that the 'real Elvis' was a sweet and decent man. Coppola's depiction of their relationship lines up with that assessment even as it refuses to back off from the uncomfortable creepiness of it all. It's startling when Elvis' friends invite a wide-eyed, guileless 14-year old to meet Elvis at their home, even weirder when Elvis arranges to install the still teen-aged Priscilla in Graceland by setting up his father as her temporary guardian. He controls and dictates everything from her wardrobe choices to her friendships and even a Catholic school education; he also feeds her pills to help her sleep. Yet he demurely postpones the consummation of their relationship until she reaches legal age, and it isn't clear whether this is evidence of his innate chivalry or the result of frank discussions with his legal team.

Yet Elvis, as impressively portrayed by Jacob Elordi, comes off as an essentially well-intentioned man who got too rich and too famous too fast. There is genuine affection and decency in his portrayal, as well as unreasonable anger and startling dictatorial tendencies. His performance makes it all too easy to understand how Priscilla fell under his spell. He's seductive and terrifying in equal measure. 

For her part, Callie Spaeny as Priscilla makes the slow transition from wide-eyed innocence to thoroughly exhausted 28-year-old with seamless authenticity. It's an exquisitely measured performance through which we can always see Elvis as Priscilla must have seen him.

As with most of Coppola's films, Priscilla is also about costuming and set dressing. The opening credits play over scenes of a young woman putting on lipstick and high heels, as Priscilla would do for Elvis. Throughout the film, her wardrobe choices are also the clue to how much control Elvis has over her. By the film's final scenes, she's sporting hippie-ish long hair and peasant blouses with bell bottomed slacks. Even before she puts herself and her toddler daughter into the car that whisks them away from Graceland, we know the love story has reached its end.

Priscilla is in theaters now. It is expected to be available for streaming rental in January and will be available to stream on Showtime with a subscription in July 2024.

Red White and Royal Blue (director: Matthew Lopez)                                                                      Sitting in Bars With Cake (director: Trish Sie)

Contrary to popular belief, I don't require every movie I watch to have profound artistic or intellectual significance. Like everyone else, I sometimes need a movie that is sweet and silly and doesn't demand too much of me.

(Within limits, that is.  Even by these standards, I could barely make it through the very clumsily directed cash grab that is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.The original film was slight but delightful; the entirely unnecessary sequels have only tarnished the memory of its goofy sweetness.)

 I can't defend either of the films listed in the heading above as great cinema, but I can recommend them for those nights when the world seems sad and awful and you just want to get under a blanket, drink cocoa and watch nice people being good to each other.

Red White and Royal Blue, based on a best-selling romance novel, is about the seemingly impossible love between the son of the U. S. president and a prince of Great Britain (the spare, not the heir, which gives a bit more hope for a happy ending). In the best screwball rom-com fashion, the two start out hating each other, but wind up being up head over heels in love.  The roadblocks to their union are predictable, but you end up cheering for them in spite of it. 

More importantly, the casting and writing hint at a world we aren't quite yet living in, but (most of us) would like to. Without comment, it gives us a female U.S. president (Uma Thurman, rocking a wobbly southern accent), a black female British prime minister(Sharon D. Clarke), and a host of other characters who are generally tolerant and kind. Despite a few strong hints that the British public may not accept this relationship, there's very little overt homophobia on display. 

Sitting in Bars with Cake, by contrast, is an old-fashioned tear-jerker in which a bright young woman, Corinne, is stricken with a terminal illness. But the main story belongs to her friend Jane, a painfully shy law student who is too scared to talk to men in the local pub until Corinne convinces her to bring along one of her scrumptious, beautiful homemade cakes to serve to the other revelers. Men and women alike love her cakes and she gradually comes out of her shell and begins dating. But that trajectory is complicated by her dedication for supporting Corinne throughout her grueling medical procedures and final illness.

Although its premise may seem a bit contrived, Sitting in Bars... is, in fact, based on a true story. It is earnest and effective not only in its portrayal of a deep and devoted friendship, but in showing that our youthful ambitions sometimes morph into quieter vocations that better suit our gifts and talents. Both of the young lead actresses - Yara Shahidi as Jane and Odessa A'zion as Corrine - have an appealing chemistry. Bette Midler also appears, briefly, as Corrine's cranky boss. She's not particularly well used in the role, but succeeds in giving the story a curmudgeonly little kick.

Red White and Royal Blue and Sitting in Bars with Cake are both available to stream on Amazon Prime with a subscription.

Saltburn (director: Emerald Fennell)

And now, we reach the other end of the cinema spectrum, light years away from the feel-good vibes of the just previously mentioned films...

Emerald Fennell made a spectacular directorial debut with her feminist revenge dramedy, Promising Young Woman. But where that film had insight and a genuine sense of heartbreak, her sophomore effort seems to be motivated by nothing more than a quest to inflict the maximum amount of grossness on her audience. To borrow a phrase that another critic used about another, equally disturbing film (Anti Christ), she doesn't just push the envelope, she burns down the freakin' post office.

Saltburn starts out pleasantly enough, but evolves into a relentlessly creepy tale, often extremely difficult to watch. In the course of  two hours and ten minutes you'll be forced to see all of the following: A young man slurping the draining bathwater from a tub in which another man has just masturbated. The same young man copulating with a freshly dug grave. And again, that same man ripping the ventilator tube out of a critically ill woman's throat like he's brandishing a bullwhip. The actor in all these scenes (and at least one other that is arguably worse) is Barry Keoghan. According to interviews with Fennell,  Keoghan often suggested his character do something more extreme than the director herself had envisioned. Hence the bathwater slurping and grave boinking. And there's plenty of full frontal nudity along the way; I'm pretty sure Keoghan's penis gets enough screen time to qualify for its own Best Supporting Actor nomination. I've lavishly praised this actor in the past, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to look at him again.

The story has a tenuous connection to earlier, better ones like Brideshead Revisited where unprepossessing middle class university students develop crushes not only on beautiful, aristocratic fellow students, but also on their beautiful, aristocratic families and the beautiful, sprawling estates they call home. (There are also glancing references to Peter Medak's corrosive satire The Ruling Class.) Keoghan plays nerdy, socially awkward Oliver Quick who becomes infatuated with the rich and gorgeous Felix Catton. (Jacob Elordi. Yes, the same Jacob Elordi who played Elvis in Priscilla. This dude has range!). Felix invites Oliver to his family's estate, Saltburn, to spend summer break with his eccentric family. Oliver morphs from a shy bumbler to a cold-eyed, manipulative shit literally overnight with a much-too-rushed build-up to that sudden personality shift. This jarring transition sets up the ensuing parade of aforementioned "WTF?" moments. Saltburn is not without its merits. There are fine comic performances by Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, and Carey Mulligan, plus a particularly tantalizing tracking shot through the estate house that sets up Oliver’s fixation on the Cattons and their glamorous abode. But, on the whole, it's a deeply unpleasant experience.

Saltburn is in theaters now. It will be available to stream on Amazon Prime with a subscription at a date still to be announced.

My Kinder, Gentler 2023 Oscar post

 

They're doing it again this coming Sunday.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will hand out their Oscars for the 95th time.  I'm only 63 myself, but sometimes it feels like I've been watching this awards show for all of the last 95 years. And with each subsequent awards presentation, I get a little less invested in it. As I wrote in 2022: "With every passing year, it becomes more obvious to me that these awards have only an ephemeral and tenuous connection to enduring artistic achievement."

In recent years, the tone of my Oscar posts has become increasingly bitchy and snarky. But I no longer have it in me to be a crab-ass about an event that, as previously noted, has "only an ephemeral and tenuous connection to enduring artistic achievement." No virtue signaling intended here, but with all the the truly terrible things happening in the world right now, I don’t have the energy to get pissy about a well-intentioned (if messy and incoherent) action comedy winning Oscars it probably doesn't deserve. I’d rather save my indignation for people who truly deserve it, like (insert name of any far right lunatic politician here.)

What follows are my kinder, gentler observations as to who/what WILL win, who/what SHOULD win (IMHO) and who/what was tragically overlooked in the nominations.

Best Supporting Actress

Will win: Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once

She's already scored a SAG award for her role as the frumpy, menacing IRS agent who relentlessly stalks Michelle Yeoh throughout Everything, Everywhere... And she's a much loved performer whose unbridled enthusiasm for her co-stars' many award wins has been a happy highlight of the awards broadcasts. It's probably a bit churlish of me to say that her wig, bad clothes and fat padding here do at least half of the acting for her, but. I'm saying it anyway 'cause it's true..  Make no mistake, I'm a Jamie Lee fan, and she does have a lot of fun with this role. But I'd like to gently suggest that it really isn't an Oscar-caliber performance. (I actually thought she was more impressive as the traumatized, middle-aged Laurie Strode of the 2018 Halloween reboot.)

Should Win: Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin

A Kerry Condon upset in this category is not entirely out of the question; she won the BAFTA and quite a few critics' awards. But as much as I loved her fine work in Banshees, I'm not sure even she can stop the tsunami of awards love for Everything Everywhere All at Once. As Colin Farrell's wise, frequently exasperated sister, she provided the common sense ballast needed to ground the film's dark absurdity. Hers was a delicate, funny and very accomplished performance.

Overlooked: Keke Palmer for Nope

From the minute Keke Palmer showed up in Jordan Peele's sci-fi/horror fantasy, I remember thinking "She's going to get an Oscar for this!" Palmer was hilarious with a 'light up the screen' kind of charisma you couldn't take your eyes off. Yet, here we are in 2023, and no one's even talking about Nope - or Palmer's wonderful performance in it - anymore. And that's a shame. The film itself was flawed and understandably has fallen out of the conversation, but Palmer should have been remembered and honored.

Also overlooked: Nina Hoss for Tar

Playing Cate Blanchett's long-suffering partner in Tar, Hoss raised the art of 'subtle changes in facial expression that speak volumes' to a new and dizzying height of artistry." With one raised eyebrow or quiet double-take, she communicated everything we needed to know about the dynamics of their relationship. Hoss' performance, unfortunately, is the kind of powerful but understated work that rarely gets noticed at awards time.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Oscar loves a comeback kid, and this year they'll honor the former child actor (The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) who, after years of scrounging for work, landed a great role in the year's most honored film. It's a fine enough performance which nicely balances that of his co-star, Michelle Yeoh, but far from my first choice in this category. However, I won't begrudge him his hard-earned moment of triumph. Expect unbridled joy to erupt in the auditorium when Quan comes onstage to accept his Oscar.

Should Win: Barry Keoghan for The Banshees of Inisherin

Truth be told, I'd be nearly as happy with a Brendan Gleeson win in this category, although that's even less likely to happen. Keoghan won the BAFTA, so there's a tiny glimmer of hope for an upset here. His gentle, daft Dominick - the would-be suitor of Kerry Condon's character - is beautifully modulated, ultimately tragic portrayal. Keoghan excels at playing oddballs (for a more disturbing performance in this vein, watch his unnerving performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer). His character in Banshees is similarly off-kilter, but with added nuances of innocence and silliness; it's a deceptively complex performance.

Overlooked: No one, really

I don't have any fights to pick with this category. All five of the nominated performances were honorable, and I have great difficulty coming up with another actor who may have been slighted.  See, I'm not ALWAYS a curmudgeon!

Best Actress

Will Win: Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once

It will be another inspirational and emotional moment when Yeoh comes to the podium Sunday night to accept her Oscar. That outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion now that she's brought home a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit award, and a SAG award. I'm happy for her, even if not quite in agreement that she gave the year's best performance. Yeoh gave us some beautiful moments in an otherwise messy and frequently incoherent film and reduced me to tears in her beautifully realized final scenes.  I'm not about to besmirch her upcoming victory.

Should win: Cate Blanchett for Tar

Everything I said about Michelle Yeoh notwithstanding, Blanchett's performance is the towering achievement of the year.  As I noted in my review, Tar is not an audience-friendly film, nor is Blanchett's character one that audiences can take to their hearts. It's a long, talky, intellectually challenging film with an arrogant, predatory protagonist. I totally get why it's not as popular as Everything Everywhere... and that its lack of embraceability is what's hurting Blanchett's Oscar chances. But there is simply no denying that Blanchett is dazzling in the role of Lydia Tar, inhabiting that role so entirely that you don't really notice she's acting.

Overlooked: Florence Pugh for The Wonder

The Wonder is arguably the most undervalued film of the year, and Pugh's stellar performance has been cruelly overlooked in every awards contest so far.  No surprise then that she was omitted from the slate of Oscar nominees, but it's disappointing nonetheless. If you haven't already seen it, please log on to Netflix this week and marvel at Pugh's mesmerizing portrayal of a nurse dispatched to Ireland to observe a girl who hasn't eaten for months, but continues to live and thrive. The locals think it is a divine miracle, but Pugh's cool skepticism cuts through their religiosity.  

Also overlooked: Tilda Swinton for The Eternal Daughter

Swinton delivers a stunning double act, playing both a middle-aged filmmaker and her mother in an ethereal thriller than combines ghost story tropes with an unsparing examination of their relationship. You're barely aware that the same actress is sitting on both sides of the table, so finely etched are details of each women's personality.  Swinton was equally impressive in the too-little-seen, too-little-loved fantasia, Three Thousand Years of Longing.

Best Actor

Will Win: Brendan Fraser for The Whale

This is, by far, the toughest category to call. Pre-Oscar award wins have been pretty evenly divided between Fraser and Austin Butler (Elvis). And Colin Farrell isn't entirely out of the running, although he's probably best considered as dark horse.  I finally settled on Fraser because (as I noted above) Oscar loves a comeback kid.  Fraser's formerly high-profile career faltered for years as the result of both injuries he sustained while making The Mummy films and the fallout from his alleged sexual harassment by the head of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association . Although I didn't much care for The Whale (which was far too focused on the grotesquerie of its lead character's morbid obesity), I greatly admired Fraser's performance and was happy to see him back in the limelight.

Should win: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin

I'll be honest: there isn't a single actor nominated in this category whose win would disappoint me. Austin Butler gave a fine and moving performance in the title role of Elvis. Paul Mescal was equally heartbreaking in Aftersun. Bill Nighy's repressed bureaucrat desperately looking for meaning in his final days was the whole reason to see Living. But my heart is with Farrell and his portrayal; of the dim, bewildered Padraic in Martin McDonagh's bleakly funny Banshees. I suspect Farrell's chances here are somewhat hampered by the fact that he and co-star/offscreen buddy Brendan Gleeson have been marketed and celebrated) as more of a double act in this film than they have been as individual performers.  But Farrell has turned in reliably memorable performances for almost two decades now, and a win for him would be akin to a well deserved lifetime achievement award.

Overlooked?

Again, I got nothing. The Oscars were dead-on perfect on their choices for the male acting honors this year.

Best Picture

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Let's face it, this film is unstoppable. It has dominated every major award presentation this year and is headed for Oscar glory. For me personally - a woman prone to shutting down in the wake of sensory overload - just the film’s title provokes anxiety, let alone all the lightning-fast jumping around the multiverse that comprises its plot.  But I've been greatly touched by the exuberant joy of the cast as they've appeared together at the podium of nearly awards show to date; they're a group of actors who played a family and then clearly became like family to each other. That actually feels like something to celebrate rather than malign.

Should Win.... Eh, why even worry about it?

The Everything Everywhere victory is a foregone conclusion, and I've clearly made peace with that. So I'll just quickly toss off my opinion that any of the following films would be better choice for the honor: Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Fablemans, Top Gun Maverick. For the record, I loathed Triangle of Sadness and respected - but was ultimately underwhelmed by - Women Talking. Full disclosure: I have not yet seen Avatar: The Way of Water. For that matter, I still haven't seen the original Avatar which was nominated for Best Picture twelve u years ago.

(There actually are a few experts predicting an upset by All Quiet on the Western Front, which cleaned up at the BAFTA awards last month, taking both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film. I don't anticipate a rerun of that at the Oscars, though.)

Overlooked: The Wonder.

See my comments about Best Actress above. Here's part of what I wrote when I gave Sebastian Leilo's eccentric but absorbing drama the number four slot on my year's best list:

Florence Pugh plays an English nurse dispatched to Ireland in the 1840s to observe a young girl who has not eaten for months but continues to live and be healthy. The townspeople are inclined to see this as a divine miracle; Pugh's no-nonsense nurse is not convinced. The story evolves gradually and devastatingly as the layers of truth in the situation are peeled back. Pugh's character is a sort of stand-in for us, the audience; her skepticism and her diligent search for the truth keeps the narrative moving forward.  She's the outsider looking into a entirely different culture. Let me remind you that the English were none too popular with the Irish at this time (or probably at any time). At times it almost seems that Pugh's character was invited there only to be refuted. Or possibly converted.

Director Sebastian Lelio bookends the film with scenes of the soundstages where it was shot. A narrator reminds us that we are about to see is a story and that every character in it has a story that they believe in fully. Even though that turns out to be true, it's a slightly awkward framing. Yet the moment the camera first sweeps in to show us Pugh thoughtfully eating soup in a ship's dining room, we are completely and convincingly transported to the 1840s and drawn into the events of the narrative. It’s a transition that, in the wink of an eye, demonstrates the transformative magic of movies.

These are (Not Necessarily) the Best Films of 2022

 

Yes, you read that headline correctly. 

I make no claims that what follows are the absolutely very best films of the year just ended. And here's why... 

As the title of this blog says, I am a PART TIME cinephile, not a full-time professional film critic. I saw exactly 97 of the films released  in 2022, less than half of what a professional critic would see. But I am an enthusiastic, highly selective amateur critic; I focus on seeing as many of the best films as I can squeeze into a schedule that allows for other passions and pastimes. Even so, I miss a sizable number of each year's releases. Here's an overview of what I didn't see (or, in some cases, started but didn't finish).

The Ones That Triggered my Sensory Issues: When I launched this blog seven years ago, I outlined some of my limitations as a reviewer, advising my readers that "I don't do action/adventure/superhero flicks; they overstimulate my nervous system and make me anxious." And actually, it goes beyond that. Films of any genre that are loud, hectic, loaded with quick-cut editing and non-stop frantic movement are anxiety-producing for me as well. You can safely assume that I am not a Baz Luhrmann fan for just that reason.

In the intervening years, I've been able to relax enough to get through a couple of Avengers movies, both Wonder Woman films, several entries in the Thor franchise and a few other action flicks. But I lost some ground during the cosseted years of the Coronavirus lockdown. Forty-five minutes of the amped up action scenes and wildly exuberant dance numbers in RRR were all I could manage out of its over-three-hour running length, then I bailed.  I did manage to get all the way through Everything Everywhere All At Once and Elvis, but in both cases, I was overwhelmed and exhausted by the time the end credits rolled. So you won't see any of these on my list,.because I can't give them a fair evaluation.

The Other Ones I Couldn't Finish: The Menu, White Noise, The Northman, Bardo: A False Chronicle..., You Won't Be Alone 

The Ones I Just Didn't Get To: Jurassic World Dominion, The Batman, Bones and All (I don't do cannibal movies), Avatar: The Way of Water (I still need to see the first film); The Woman King; The Lost City; Babylon, The Whale (but I'm seeing it tomorrow!), Till, The Inspection, The Outfit, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Kimi.

Limited or Missed Opportunities: Aftersun, EO, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.

One other qualification for this list: the film must have been released for the first time in the Chicago area between 1/1/2022 and 12/31/2022 inclusive, whether in a theater or via home streaming. (Film festival screenings prior to the general release date do not count). That's why you'll see at least one movie on this list that is generally considered to be a 2021 film. And that's also why you won't see any of the following films here, although they'll be eligible for consideration in 2023: Corsage, Saint Omer, Broker, The Quiet Girl, No Bears, Women Talking, Living, Holy Spider, A Man Called Otto.

Even with ALL those qualifications and omissions, I came up with a list of 12 exceptional films that I had to honor, and a healthy list of Honorable Mentions as well. If there's a 2022 film you don't see mentioned anywhere in this post, you can probably assume I saw it and didn't like it that much.

Here are my favorite films of 2022,in reverse order of preference. ("Where to stream" information is included for each film; where I've referenced "the usual platforms," those are Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Redbox and Vudu):

12. Stars at Noon (director: Claire Denis)

Claire Denis' best films aren't so much stories as they are visual tone poems. There may be a narrative, of sorts, but Denis is more focused on creating moods and conjuring emotions. If you can surrender to the vibe and ride it like a wave, you'll love her work. I certainly do. 

Margaret Qualley plays a American journalist who's hit the skids in Nicaragua. She can't get work, nor can she get out of the country, so she's reduced to prostitution to keep going. After falling into a torrid affair with a shady English businessman (Joe Alywn), her situation gets more dire and the trade-offs she makes to get home get ever more compromising. It's not a conventionally suspenseful film, but the urgency of Qualley's situation evolves in a subtle but devastating fashion. And Qualley, an exceptional young actress, carries us through it with seamless assurance.

Stars at Noon is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

11. The Fablemans (director: Steven Spielberg)

Spielberg looks back on his own childhood, his filmmaking origins and his parents' troubled marriage with love and forgiveness, plus a little bit of palpable pain. The film is every bit as luminous and entertaining as one would expect, and Spielberg elucidates the childlike sense of wonder that has informed some of his best work.  There are clues to the origins of  Spielberg's pet themes and formative influences as well. Michelle Williams has received entirely deserved praise for her role as the free-spirited, volatile mother; her effectively mannered performance is nicely balanced by those of Paul Dano as her husband and Seth Rogen as a close family friend.  It's also wonderful to see the great Jeannie Berlin in a small role based on Spielberg's grandmother.

 

The Fablemans is in theaters or available to rent from Apple or Amazon at a premium price ($19.99)

10. She Said (director: Maria Schrader)

An expertly constructed, true-life journalistic thriller, in the manner of All the President's Men, Spotlight and The Post  but with a uniquely female perspective. Here we follow New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Meg Twohey (Carey Mulligan) as they work to expose Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual predation and abuse. On one level, it follows the playbook for investigative reporting stories - lots of tracking down reluctant witnesses, newsroom discussions with editors and so on - but here the reporters are also dealing with issues like postpartum depression and juggling child care and family obligations.  The suspenseful thrill is still there, as is the reporters' relentless dedication to break an important story, but it doesn't skim over the personal challenges they handle along the way.

She Said doesn't seem like the kind of film you have to see in a theater, but I'm glad I did. At the multiplex screening I attended, the almost exclusively female audience burst into sustained applause at two critical points in the story when it was obvious that shit had gotten real for Mr. Weinstein.  I can't pretend that audience reaction didn't influence my decision to put She Said on my year's best list; it's the greatest affirmation I can point to for the film's power and impact.

She Said is available to stream only on Peacock with a subscription. 

9.After Yang (director: Kogonada)

I first watched After Yang on a flight to Lima, on a tiny screen while wedged into a cramped economy class seat. And even in that far less-than-ideal setting, I found it incredibly moving. 

In the future world where After Yang is set, there something called a 'techno-sapiens,' a sort of convincingly human- like android that can be purchased for use as a household helper. One such android, Yang, is a sort of babysitter to Mika, the adopted daughter of his owners, and is treated much like a member of the family. But Yang is a 'refurbished' techno-sapiens, purchased secondhand by the the girl’s father (Colin Farrell), and one day he simply breaks and stops functioning. So Farrell goes in search of the parts to repair Yang and, in the process, comes into possession of Yang's "memory box." In that box are stored images and short recordings of people and moments that Yang considered important to preserve.

It's the contents of the memory box, and what Farrell learns as he searches for the people and places he sees there that give this film its lovely, grieving heart. (There are many scenes from Yang's life with a previous owner, including his relationship with a young woman played by the always wonderful Haley Lu Richardson.) Seeing what Yang sees - what touches and fascinates him - only intensifies Farrell's appreciation of beauty and relationships with loved ones. The film is filled with soft, burnished colors and infused with a sustained sense of melancholy. It's comforting to watch and challenging to ponder, all in the same moment.

After Yang is available to stream on Showtime with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

8. Emily the Criminal (director: John Patton Ford)

Here's what I wrote after seeing this film back in October. It's all still true, and after watching the film again recently, I have an even deeper admiration for Aubrey Plaza's performance in the title role:

"A great performance from Aubrey Plaza makes this film an especially compelling experience. Plaza plays a restaurant delivery worker who's struggling - and failing - to pay off student loans while making the rent. Given the opportunity to make fast cash as part a credit card fraud ring, she's at first hesitant, then all in. Emily the Criminal subverts expectations; at first glance, it appears to be an almost Ken Loach-esque tale about the impossibility of getting by in the gig economy, but it evolves into something darker and more particular. Plaza's Emily is a complex and not altogether sympathetic character. At some point, it becomes difficult to tell which characters are criminals and which are victims."

Emily the Criminal is available to stream on Netflix with a subscription, or to rent from the usual platforms.

7. Top Gun Maverick (director: Joseph Kosinksi)

Because it was just so much fun, hit all the right emotional notes and got us all back into movie theaters again. What other reasons do I need, really?

The scenes of fighter pilots slicing through the air are every bit as thrilling and exciting as you'd expect, more so than in the original thanks to the improved technology of the intervening 36 (!) years. Tom Cruise's Maverick got his redemption story. Goose's son (Miles Teller) turned out to be a chip off the old block. They even worked Val Kilmer's Ace into the story, lightly skirting around the actor's now badly ravaged voice (the result of throat cancer) to give the character an emotionally charged farewell.

It is - dare I say this? - better than the original Top Gun.

Top Gun Maverick is available to stream on Paramount Plus with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

6.The Eternal Daughter (director: Joanna Hogg) & 5. Turning Red (directo: Domee Shi)

Two very different films explore the complexities of mother-daughter relationships from different but equally compelling perspectives.

The Eternal Daughter is the less accessible, more eccentric of these two films, but it has an eerie vibe that grows on you. Director Joanna Hogg returns to the autobiographical character of Julie Hart, whom she introduced in The Souvenir, now middle-aged and played by Tilda Swinton. As part of her preparation to make a film about her mother's life, Julie takes her to a Welsh guest house for a week to talk with her about her memories of living there as a child during World War II. 

In an inspired bit of double casting, Julie's mother is also played by Swinton. It's a skillful set of performances by the actress, subtly etching in the details and sore spots in their relationship as Julie probes her mother's childhood memories.

But something is amiss here. The desk clerk alludes to other guests in the hotel, but we never see them. Winds howl, things go bump in the night. The Eternal Daughter initially plays like a ghost story, but it evolves into something entirely different with a startling twist in the final chapter that will make you go back and watch the whole thing again to look for clues. 

At the other end of the spectrum, there's Turning Red, an exuberant Pixar animation that perfectly captures the emotional highs and lows of that delicate moment when girls morph from children into hormonal adolescents - and the resulting impact on their relationships with their mothers. (Yes, that's a lot for a cartoon, but since when have Pixar films ever been mere cartoons?) Set in Toronto's Chinatown in 2002, it's rooted in a specific culture and speaks thoughtfully to the dilemma of a immigrant's child struggling to reconcile her commitment to family tradition with her desire to embrace the culture of their adopted home. Yet it also hits on universal truths about how girls relate to their mothers and whether we live out our parents dreams for us or follow our own lights.

Meilin (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) is a feisty, enthusiastic eighth grader (a "very enterprising, mildly annoying young lady" according to her teachers, an "overachieving dork" per her classmates). She's torn between her mother's expectations (straight As, helping the family with the tourist-friendly temple they operate) and her big love for her friends and a dreamy boy band called 4*Town. 

The film's title, coupled with the subject matter, unavoidably evokes the onset of menstruation; the filmmakers acknowledge this and winkingly play with it. After Meilin freaks out and locks herself in the bathroom, her mother (Sandra Oh) comes running with a box of pads and knocks on the door to gently inquire, "Has the red peony bloomed?" It has not; it's considerably more complicated than that. In a moment of intense anger and embarrassment,  Meilin has turned into a giant red panda.  It's a condition shared by all the women in her family, albeit one they have learned to tame and contain, mainly by avoiding intense emotion. But Meilin grows to enjoy the experience of being that irrepressible panda. Adolescent rebellion ensues, as does maternal panic. But  all gets sorted out in Pixar's reliably authentic-yet-uplifting fashion.

The Eternal Daughter is available to rent from the usual platforms. Turning Red is available to stream on Disney Plus with a subscription or to rent from Amazon.

4. The Wonder (director: Sebastian Lelio)

I'll be honest, I don't know if The Wonder would even be on this list were it not for Florence Pugh's performance. She's in virtually every frame of the film, and she is consistently mesmerizing. The very first scene is just Pugh thoughtfully eating a bowl of soup, and she makes even that most mundane of actions fascinating to watch.

Pugh plays an English nurse dispatched to Ireland in the 1840s to observe a young girl who has not eaten for months but continues to live and be healthy. The townspeople are inclined to see this as a divine miracle; Pugh's no-nonsense nurse is not convinced. The story evolves gradually and devastatingly as the layers of truth in the situation are peeled back. Pugh's character is a sort of stand-in for us, the audience; her skepticism and her diligent search for the truth keeps the narrative moving forward.  She's the outsider looking into a entirely different culture. Let me remind you that the English were none too popular with the Irish at this time (or probably at any time); At times it almost seems that Pugh's character was invited there only to be refuted. Or possibly converted.

Director Sebastian Lelio bookends the film with scenes of the soundstages where it was shot. A narrator reminds us that we are about to see is a story and that every character in it has a story that they believe in fully. Even though that turns out to be true, it's a slightly awkward framing. Yet the moment the camera first sweeps in to show us Pugh eating that soup, we are completely and convincingly transported to the 1840s and drawn into the events of the narrative. It’s a transition that, in the wink of an eye, demonstrates the transformative magic of movies.

The Wonder is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

3. The Worst Person in the World  (director: Joachim Trier)

I first saw this at the 2021 Chicago International Film Festival, at which time I wrote:

"This Norwegian comedy-drama about a thirty-something woman's inability to settle on a career path or a partner is a pleasant, if not spectacular, way to spend a couple of hours.  It's been compared by at least one critic to Frances Ha  - an apt comparison, although this film is more distinctly European in its ambiguity. Its scenes wander in and around the characters emotions, without clearly defined comic beats or other cues to elicit desired audience reactions.

The film benefits from the fine lead performance of Renate Reinsve, a sweet-faced and subtle actress who comes off as likable and sympathetic even as her character makes selfish, ill-advised life choices. Her drift from job to job is played for laughs, while the scenes of her romantic break-ups are played with a realistic ambivalence and genuine pain.

I've seen a few films by this director (Joachim Trier), but I think this may be my favorite of his work. It's certainly the sunniest and sweetest of his films that I've seen."

A repeat viewing this year only deepened my appreciation. There's  a sweetness and a joy to this film, as well as a clear-eyed look at how we all grow past and out of romantic relationships, but without anger or resentment towards those we leave behind. 

The Worst Person in the World is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin (director: Martin McDonagh)

The setting is an island off the coast of Ireland, and the time is 1923. The low roar of gunfire can be heard from the mainland where a civil war is raging. But on the isle of Inisherin, the squabbles are far less consequential if, in their own way, nearly as brutal.

After years of sharing daily chats and pints in the pub, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) decides he can no longer be friends with Padraic (Colin Farrell) because he finds Padraic dull company. Colm dreams of writing music and making something meaningful of his remaining days, while Padraic, confused and hurt, keeps chipping away at Colm for rapprochement. Colm becomes so indignant that he threatens to cut off his own fingers, one by one, if Padraic doesn't leave him alone.

If you've seen any other of Martin McDonagh's films, you can probably guess where this is going. 

I hated McDonagh's last film, the dreadfully overrated Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, but this film has redeemed him in my eyes. Back in his own native Ireland, McDonagh is on surer ground. His dark, deadpan humor works brilliantly here, particularly as acted by Farrell and Gleeson, as brilliant a double act as we've seen onscreen in many years.  There's lots of fine work by the supporting cast as well (including Kerry Condon as Farrell's sister and Barry Keoghan as a lonely misfit who harbors an unrequited love for her.) The film is suffused with an underlying sadness and sense of loneliness, even in its most ridiculous moments. It's a tale of small things - petty grievances, idle gossip, fleeting moments of contentment - but it accords to those small things a deep emotional resonance.

The Banshees of Inisherin is available to stream on HBO Max with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

1. TAR (director :Todd Field)

I wrote at length about TAR back in October: you can read the whole review here.

Since then, I've rewatched this film twice, and it only gets better and more impressive on repeat viewings. With another look, I could better appreciate the subtle accumulation of thoughtfully chosen details that reveal who the characters are and what they're about.  And I gained even stronger  admiration for Nina Hoss' portrayal of Tar's wife, Sharon. Hoss is the master of understated but telling alterations in facial expression; the whole history of her relationship with Lydia is etched in every watchful glance, every raised eyebrow. It's the kind of quiet but devastating performance that unfairly gets overlooked at awards time. But you can be absolutely sure that Blanchett will be scooping up another armload of trophies this season; she's already nabbed a Golden Globe and several critics' awards.

TAR is available to rent from the usual platforms.

Honorable Mention: Armageddon Time, Benediction, Brian and Charles, Decision to Leave, Fire of Love, Good Luck to You Leo Grande, Lost Illusions, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Sundown.

2022 Nominees to the Academy of the Overrated: Triangle of Sadness, Crimes of the Future