The Obsessive Viewer
Film and TV Reviews and Podcasts
As 2023 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the past year and share my thoughts on the best films of the year and some stand out moviegoing experiences. Below are my honorable mentions and my top ten movies of the year, along with links to the coverage I provided on the title.
As 2023 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the past year and share my thoughts on the best films of the year and some stand out moviegoing experiences. Below are my honorable mentions and my top ten movies of the year, along with links to the coverage I provided on the title.
Bottoms was such a pleasant surprise for me. I had no idea it was going to be such an off-beat and weird comedy when I got to the theater. Once I caught onto the tone the movie was going for, I was all-in. Silly gags like the jock characters constantly being in their football equipment to everything Marshawn Lynch does just worked like gangbusters for me. The way Bottoms subverts the teen sex comedy while still adhering to the conventions of the subgenre worked really well and made this a comedy I can see myself rewatching frequently.
Coverage
I loved the way Robot Dreams was able to communicate the feelings of isolation, loneliness, and regret with no dialogue. The animation only enhanced those themes while painting a beautiful portrait of 80s New York City in a world occupied by animals. I didn’t expect my favorite romantic comedy of the year to be one focused on a robot and a dog.
Coverage
Scream‘s sixth installment is an absolute blast of a continuation from Radio Silence’s excellent franchise love letter, Scream (2022). While it may not hit quite as hard as the 5th installment, it carries on the story of our Woodsboro survivors in a meaningful way highlighting the bond that’s been forged among them. The Core Four play off each other incredibly well with a chemistry that made me extremely nervous to see Scream VI because I genuinely feared for their safety. No matter what happens to the franchise going forward (Spyglass, sell the rights please; you’re done), I’m so thankful Radio Silence gave us two entries that are among the best in one of the most consistently good horror franchises.
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At its heart, Across the Spider-Verse does some spectacular things with its subtext as it explores themes of identity, acceptance, and overall purpose. There are some heavy themes here and the movie does a great job of handling them. Across the Spider-Verse works great as both a continuation of Miles’ story and an expansion of the Spider-Verse mythos. Spider-Gwen is more prominent in a plotline that directly ties to Miles but gives her some great depth as well. The way the villain and conflict evolves throughout the movie is unique and sets the stage well for Beyond the Spider-Verse.
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When Evil Lurks is a very unique and bleak possession/demonic horror movie. The characters make dumb choices but they’re always reactionary and it feeds well into the tension of the movie. The movie includes some really gruesome and unforgiving violence that pays off the overall bleak storyline well in the end. This was a haunting and overall satisfying experience that I’m glad I watched on Halloween.
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Time will tell if 2023 will go down as the year the comic book movie bubble burst. But one bright spot in the cacophony of comic book and cinematic universe disappointments was James Gunn’s swan song for the Guardians of the Galaxy. This movie is a near perfect culmination for what is the most heartfelt group of heroes in the entire MCU. Detailing the tragic and difficult backstory of Rocket Raccoon provides a strong emotional tether to the plot and the other characters we’ve grown to love throughout the franchise.
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Eli Roth took his Grindhouse trailer and expanded it into a clever and fun slasher film all built around the Thanksgiving holiday. The choice to steer away from the shlock 70s grindhouse aesthetic and lean more into the classic vibes of the 90s teen slasher craze was a stroke of genius. The kills and the different implementations of holiday imagery were spectacular and has me very eager for a sequel and maybe even a full franchise.
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Emma Stone is insanely good in this and the movie looks absolutely incredible.
Bella’s evolution throughout the movie is some of the best character work I’ve seen all year. The way her story glides through so many different facets of society and perspectives while also examining several different types of personal relationships is pretty remarkable.
There is something usually so off-putting to me about Yorgos Lanthimos’ style. As interesting and unique as it often is, the movies of his I’ve seen often just fill me with a sense of discomfort throughout it and I just end up not having a great time. I’m really glad Poor Things broke that streak with me.
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John Wick: Chapter 4 is wall to wall action in a near 3 hour 4th installment of a franchise with some jaw-dropping beautiful set pieces and cinematography. The way the most intense action is made to look so effortless yet completely chaotic in this movie is something I’m still trying to wrap my head around. Astounding.
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The way Nolan positions the biopic as being about so much more than just Oppenheimer dealing with the regret of the bomb while also making it nearly a horror movie in the way he’s haunted by it is so enthralling. Oppenheimer is also a really smart multifaceted story about other people’s (namely the government)’s reaction to the bomb and the paranoia and immediate impulse to go bigger in the aftermath with the H-bomb.
And the way Nolan expresses those positions through the viewpoint of two people who are somewhat opposed to each other (or, at least through the lens of a personal grudge held by Strauss) really works for me as a bigger statement of the themes of the movie than if it were just a traditional biopic.
I have been hot and cold on Nolan over the last several years but I think Oppenheimer is his best work in the last decade and maybe even his entire career.
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The horror in Talk to Me has stuck with me throughout the last several months. I am really glad I got to see it in the theater with no distractions because the pacing and tension had me squirming in my seat. It’s a very unique spin on sèances and possession horror and the supernatural elements of it are brought to life in really immersive and terrifying ways.
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Wonderful and so moving as a character study of two people helping one another heal and enriching each other’s lives in the process. And even as it has its share of emotional gut punches, there’s such a strong beauty in the way the writing makes everything flow so naturally.
It’s perfectly demonstrated in the way the film’s most dramatic moments are predicated not on high energy swings of emotion but in the way the actors carry all the emotion in their pauses and reactions in quiet moments as the characters begin to change as they get more and more comfortable letting their guard down.
And maybe this is a low bar to clear but I’m amazed at how Alexander Payne made The Holdovers a top to bottom 70s style film for apparently no other reason than it perfectly fits the tone of the story being told. Not once does it ever give any hint of being a case of a filmmaker making a pastiche of their favorite styles of film (Tarantino) or straight up remaking something that influenced them instead of making something original (Abrams). It’s really refreshing.
I can see myself revisiting this a lot in the future. It’s beautiful.
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The way Dream Scenario depicts a hapless, unassuming man’s journey into the most recognizable man on the planet is the best exploration of loneliness and insecurity I’ve seen since Spike Jonez’s Her. Paul’s experience trying to leverage this freak occurrence into an opportunity only to be thwarted at every turn with a reminder that he’s remarkably unremarkable is some of the best characterization I’ve seen onscreen all year. As an extension of that, I loved the way the movie explored Paul’s desire to be more than this unassuming man and more like the “man of everyone’s dreams.” Spectacular.
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The level of satire and handling of real world subjects through a comedic lens without sacrificing the messaging is astounding here. And the surrealism in both Barbieland and the Real World are fun and wonderfully detailed.
I’m amazed at how much this movie dives into the surreal for the commentary it’s providing. The way it handles that surrealism and makes this world so believable and detailed is just masterful.
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When the Mothra vs Godzilla theme played during Godzilla’s attack on Ginza and later when the original Godzilla theme played, my heart soared.
I loved this movie. The harrowing despair of post-war Japan and how everyone is still fighting their own private wars and dealing with the aftermath of WWII is visceral and heartbreaking. And the characterization of Shikishima throughout the movie works incredibly well as an anchor to those themes.
The destruction and design of Godzilla is A+ filmmaking and this movie has a train escape sequence that’s considerably shorter than Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One‘s but so much better executed and more memorable.
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And there you have it, my top ten of 2023. On January 18th, The Obsessive Viewer Podcast‘s 2023 Year in Review episode will be released in which Tiny, Mike, and myself will share our top tens and viewing stats for the year. In the meantime, you can find all of my writing and podcasting for the year on my 2023 Archive page.
Thank you so much for reading, listening, and supporting what I do here! I’m looking forward to more good movies in 2024.
The Obsessive Viewer 