Best of 2023 - personal list(s)

[flip]

this is the time of year when i usually start to catch up on new movies. i've so far seen only 12 films released in 2023, and because i think it's sort of funny to post a top ten list as bad as the one i'm posting below, i'll post the best ten (of twelve) 2023 films i've seen so far:

1. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
2. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
3 The Covenant (Guy Ritchie)
4. We Have a Ghost (Christopher Landon)
5. Tetris (Jon Baird)
6. Plane (Jean-Francois Richet)
7. Die Hart (Eric Appel)
8. No Hard Feelings (Gene Stupnitsky)
9. To Catch a Killer (Damian Szifron)
10. Hypnotic (Robert Rodriguez)

the two films that don't make the list are Your Place or Mine and The Jane Mysteries: Inheritance Lost. i'm planning this month to watch exclusively 1938 films (for the poll) and 2023 films, and i'm hoping by the end of the month that only Anatomy of a Fall will remain in my top ten for the year, because i don't much like anything else in my list right now, and many of these films i think are awful. i'll post my updated top ten at month's end, and if anyone else would find it fun to post their current top ten of the year, of course feel free!

[rischka]

that's a good idea i'm gonna do that too xD

1 rocky aur rani kii prem kahaani (karan johar) ♥
2 fallen leaves (aki) ♥
3 do not expect too much from the end of the world (radu jude) ♥
4 cerrar los ojos (victor erice) ♥
5 jawan (atlee)
6 may/december (todd haynes)
7 reality (tina satter)
8 john wick: chapter 4 (chad stahelski) - at theater
9 asteroid city (wes anderson)
10 mad fate (soi cheang)

leaving only air (ben affleck) and the pigeon tunnel (errol morris) out in the cold

one can immediately see i am not an adventurous viewer of current cinema but i enjoyed all of these on SOME level most i've been in a theater in SOME time

i am planning to see MAY DECEMBER and THE HOLDOVERS

edit: mad fate bumps the killer off
edit: the holdovers bumps mission impossible
edit: may/december knocks off oppenheimer
edit: radu jude leaps to the front and kills barbie
edit: godzilla makes a brief appearance; is subsequently destroyed by 83 yrs old victor erice ♥

final edit!! fallen leaves and jawan knocked out killers of the flower moon and spider-man

[wba]

Funny idea. I'll do it with ratings.

I've seen 5:

Manta Manta - Zwoter Teil "Manta, Manta: Legacy" (Til Schweiger, Germany) [10/10]
Miraculous - le film "Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie" (Jeremy Zag, France) [8/10]
Jean-Claude Van Damme, coup sur coup "Jean-Claude van Damme: Karate King" (Olivier Monssens, France/Belgium/Israel/Spain/Switzerland) [7/10]
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (Cal Brunker, USA/Canada/France) [7/10]
Dora and the Fantastical Creatures (William Mata, USA) [6/10]


I don't know if I'll watch any more 2023 films this month.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I still haven't seen a single movie first released in the 2020s. It'll be quite the anti-social accomplishment if I manage to go the whole decade...

[nrh]

ponniyin selvan 2, mani ratnam
mad fate, soi cheang
jawan, atlee
rocky aur rani, karan johar
knock at the cabin, m night shyamalan
jailer, nelson
viduthalai part 1, vetrimaaran
dasara, srikanth odela
shin kamen rider, hideaki anno
leo, lokesh kanagaraj

barely anything, although except for the anno everything 2023 movie i've seen so far has been at the movie theater. starts dipping towards "interesting but flawed" after viduthalai (which has what sounds like a significantly revised director's cut that i still haven't seen).

the other two were maamannan, a major disappointment from a very talented young writer/director, but which had some great filmmaking and maybe my favorite performance of the year. pathaan was the first movie i've walked out of since i was a kid.

the only tv series i've seen so far have been the bear season 2, which was a mess and often a frustrating one, and charlie chopra and the mystery of solang valley, which is the ideal comfort mystery series i've been waiting for in the streaming era.

[Silga]

Not much so far:

1. Tótem (Lila Avilés)
2. Black Stone (Spiros Jacovides)
3. Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman)
4. War Pony (Riley Keough, Gina Gammell)
5. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski)
6. The Old Way (Brett Donowho)

[flip]

i watched ten new films so far this month, so i'll update my list, which is still mostly dire:

1. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
2. The Marsh King’s Daughter (Neil Burger)
3. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
4. The Covenant (Guy Ritchie)
5. A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh)
6. We Have a Ghost (Christopher Landon)
7. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)
8. Tetris (Jon Baird)
9. Plane (Jean-Francois Richet)
10. The Killer (David Fincher)

the new films i watched, no spoilers:

The Marsh King's Daughter (Neil Burger) -- no one seems to much like this, but i thought it was really well made, good cast, gripping thriller

A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh) -- i find branagh a terrible poirot, this film is all atmosphere and it does it well enough, the conclusion is half-clever and half-deeply unsatisfying which is not exactly what you want from this kind of movie

Barbie (Greta Gerwig) -- i liked when this film gets all intellectual but then you realize this is just a big budget rebranding exercise and the insincerity starts to show through. in the emotionally affirming moments you always have in this kind of film, the calibre of writing is well better than normal, but it still feels like gift card sentiment. some very strong moments though and i can't fault gerwig for making it sort of bonkers

The Killer (David Fincher) -- audiovisually really impressive, and the sound choices are sometimes unlike anything i've heard in a movie, like the overloaded glitch bass during the signature fight scene. the voiceover, on the other hand, is some of the worst writing i've heard in a movie. i don't know who reads that script and thinks it's worth saying the words out loud, or why anyone would think this a story worth telling. this would be higher on my list if there was no dialogue

and films that didn't make my dire top ten:

The Creator (Gareth Edwards) -- i think this film looks kind of amazing, probably because so much of it is real, and not the cgi and green screen mess that makes most newer sci-fi, action and superhero movies look like video games. sadly it is not otherwise a good movie

Good Burger 2 (Phil Traill) -- if you really like Good Burger 1, there are maybe enough good moments in this to make it worth watching, but it's a very pale imitation of the original. it actually kind of looks like the barbie movie some of the time

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold) -- i sort of hated this, it looks awful, this is the gross cgi overload i can't stand to sit through, and it has long overstayed its welcome before getting to its one good idea

The Burial (Maggie Betts) -- i liked some of the smaller-scale interplay among the characters, but a courtroom drama has to at least be a bit credible on the law, and this has the most preposterous courtroom scenes i've seen in a long while (i noticed so many legal mistakes i felt compelled to review this on letterboxd, and i'm not a lawyer so who knows how many i missed).

Old Dads (Bill Burr) -- i'll confess i find burr hilarious, some of the time, if i want to know what my dad would think about the rapid progress of our world, if my dad had perpetual roid rage, i can just watch burr and save myself a phone call. and i think burr is just self-aware and compassionate enough to navigate some tricky lines at the extremes. but this movie sort of sucks, just really safe and formulaic, and it could have overcome those problems if it was funny, but it isn't.

[ofrene]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the biggest disapointment of the year undeniably ;(

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I've seen 18 films from 2023 so far. A few that I liked decently enough. I don't think I've discovered any new favorites though.

Fallen Leaves - Aki Kaurismaki
Poor Things - Yorgos Lanthimos
I Told You So - Ginevra Elkann
The Killer - David Fincher
You Hurt My Feelings - Nicole Holofcener
May December - Todd Haynes
Monster - Hirokazu Kore-eda
Thanksgiving - Eli Roth
Bottoms - Emma Seligman
Asteroid City - Wes Anderson

Edited to add Poor Things.

[St. Gloede]

I finally have a close to all-great top 10, though I suspect only the top 2-4 will remain once I have caught up properly, which I usually manage by the end of March (most of my watchlist is still unavailable to me).

1. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) 8.5
2. Afire (Christian Petzold)
3. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)
4. Past Lives (Celine Song) 8
5. Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster)
6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson)
7. Passages (Ira Sachs)
8. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
9. Deep Sea (Xiaopeng Tian)
10. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) 7.5

[Mauries]

A bit of mix between 2022 and 2023, because some I watched at festivals, some in cinema that premiered at festivals in 2022.

4.5*
Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell - Pham Thien An
The Fabelmans - Steven Spielberg

4*
On the Edge - Nicolas Peduzzi
In the Rearview - Maciek Hamela
Anatomy of a Fall - Justine Triet
Knit’s Island - Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L'helgoualc'h
Showing Up - Kelly Reichardt
Barbie - Greta Gerwig
May December - Todd Haynes

3.5*
Tár - Todd Field
Suzume - Makoto Shinkai
Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning pt 1 - Christopher McQuarrie

[ofrene]

only include 2023 stuff

thanks to a short visit to the film festival, luckily able to see some movies on my watchlist..

Close Your Eyes
Killers of the Flower Moon
Evil Does Not Exist
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Fallen Leaves
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Asteroid City
Eureka
La Chimera

honarable mention : Afire, Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, Music, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

edit : watched Fallen Leaves and it was perfect year-end movie

[nrh]

some catchup -

trenque lauquen (laura citarella) - 2022 but has been showing up on 2023 lists, wide release this year. generally love el pampero cine, but citarella's first movie dog lady was their one movie i didn't like at all, so i was a little trepidatious about spending four + hours with this. it's good? worried it would cross over into the wrong kind of twee academic mysticism, and the fantasy of being comfortable middle class and disappearing into the fiction of argentine literature (pampas & gauchos) scans a bit like tourism, even though i understand the gesture of allowing a woman to slip into this very male world. but it mostly won me over, even if i'm in the minority of liking the melancholy workplace infatuations more than the fantastical second half.

leo (lokesh kanagaraj) - rewatched after catching in the theater in october. lokesh doing a history of violence (david cronenberg gets a shot out in the credits) with superstar vijay as a mild mannered coffee shop owner in snowy himachal pradesh. first half is great, oppressive and really violent, second half, which has more traditional big weightless action and a lengthy flashback that threatens to derail momentum, still feels like a betrayal of potential. but i do think this has something interesting, and more than a little perverse, to say about the tamil movie hero, and for all the movie's flaws i do think it is an exciting next step for lokesh.

khuliya (vishal bhardwaj) - some major pleasures here, especially the three central performances of tabu, wamiqa gaddi and azmeri haque badhon as tied together through espionage, infatuation and revenge (and theater legend navnidra behl as one of the great villainous hindi mothers). and there is a great section in the last third, with wamiqa undercover in the shitty dakota town where the cia has secreted her traitorous husband.

but it's another movie in the streaming era that arrives somewhat confounding in its deformity - vishal bhardwaj has made some perversely structured movies before, but there is no way this one did not spend at least some development time as a web series, and it all comes off as both oddly stretched and brutally truncated. and the tabu character's queerness doesn't make the estranged from family by work drama any less cliche. had more fun with the agatha christie web series (which started as a movie trilogy and was reduced).

the archies (zoya akhtar) - at least it isn't evil like some of zoya's other movies? another netflix original, transposing the archie characters, in their iconic 50s/60s dan decarlo style rather than the modern riverdale versions, into 1960s fictional anglo-indian hill town, so they are the first generation born after independence.

launch movie for a bunch of star kids, including srk's daughter and sridevi's youngest daughter. the kids are good, awkward in an endearing way, lots of music from shankar ehsaan loy (it's a real musical for once, with plot points resolved in song and big choreographed dance numbers), and in theory i like that this is earnest instead of snarky/meta in the 2000s josie & the pussycats way. but what you get instead is slow and soporifically boring, lots of serious conversations with treacly "emotional" background music, and a "we need to put on a show to save the town park!" plot that feels stretched at 2 and a half hours. a curiosity at best...

jigarthanda double x (karthik subbaraj) - spiritual sequel to the beloved jigarthanda, repeating the pairing of director and gangster. here sj suryah is just pretending so he can assassinate clint east wood obsessed (this is a '70s period piece) madhurai gangster raghava lawrence, who dreams of being the first dark skinned star in indian cinema (rajinikanth's '75 tamil debut is mentioned).

this is a lot of people's favorite of the year, i usually enjoy even subbaraj's failures, and he's just coming off of the best movie of his career. but i mostly hated this, a haphazard mess of plotting where he miscalculates the level of suspension of disbelief needed to buy into the basic premise, and the second half turn towards the political exploitation of tribal communities and "power of cinema" kitsch is kind of morally vile. i seem to be in the minority here...

[rischka]

ofrene has seen the erice! i'm waiting on subs; it seems to be in several languages?

fallen leaves isn't online anywhere yet

i'm curious about the radu jude

[ofrene]

i'm waiting on subs;

eng sub is uploaded:)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is radu jude's best movie imo

[St. Gloede]

i'm waiting on subs;

eng sub is uploaded:)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is radu jude's best movie imo

My favourite of the year (so far).

What I wrote on it:

Shot on 16mm black and white film and then push processed to look extra grainy, grungy and lo-fi, this was not quite the film I expected going in. It took me a while to warm up to what it was doing, even with all my built-up love and goodwill towards Jude. This ugly, repetitive world only breaks into colour when our overworked protagonist steps into her hyper-mysoginist, bad-filter-beard alter ego for TikTok videos, which she shoots between errands that seem to tear her down to the bone.

This bleak, though still vulgar and even spicy black comedy - which even managed to grab Uwe Boll for an extended cameo as himself - reveals itself slowly, and turns out to play a sharp long game. For instance, recurring long shots (often with jump cuts) of our protagonist simply driving her car, felt aimless at first, and even after I was absorbed by the film, it felt somewhat unnecessary, but then, we get a quite surprising pay-off:

Spoiler!

When after seeing her almost get into multiple clashes with other drivers, being close to falling asleep at the wheel and setting up scenarios where we know something could go wrong given just how tired she is, we learn that Romania has a severe road accident problem, and are shown cross after cross from a highway with more dead than there are kilometres.

The comedy is very much what we have come to expect from Jude - flawed characters and shots in every direction, stabbing wildly at society without ever moralising. The people taken advantage of by foreign companies, lamenting the power structure in play and their rotten deal are just as likely to be Covid-deniers or shout abuse at non-white immigrants. Everyone has a self-interested agenda and doesn't necessarily see too far. I love this way of building strong social satire as it never comes across as preachy, giving anyone an easy ride, or indeed painting anyone too badly - hopefully opening more people off to the film rather than turning them off - though given the experimental touches the audience here will be small - and I did wonder while watching just how easily Jude might have tweaked himself the way say Lanthimos has, and reached a wider audience with the same kinds of punches without betraying his vision.

Oh, I haven't even mentioned the fact that the film's first part is also "in conversation" with real Romanian film from the 80s about a woman driving a cab, occasionally with Every Man For Himself (JLG, 1980) style slow-motion editing touches - again, likely a touch too experimental for many, though I was surprised by how this too had a notable payoff:

Spoiler!

In that, Jude cast the same actors replaying their roles as the parents of the parents of the man who ends up being chosen for the workplace safety video.

I was also fascinated with how current Jude makes the film. He did this is 2021 with Bad Luck Banging as well, one of the few films that dealt with COVID in a way that it was overtly a part of the world the film took place in, but here there are far more time-specific statements, such as the death of the Queen of England, her funeral, the death of Godard, etc. that already dates it a little, along with multiple references to Russia, the war in Ukraine and so on. It is a bold choice for sure.

And then it is the overall messaging, which is certainly up for interpretation, but with the title seems to hinting that this is indeed the whimper with which we will go down the drain.

For all the cuts Jude makes at contemporary society, especially Romanian society, and of course, ties in with his favourite topic of history, the film paints a scathing portrayal of the GIG-economy, the banality of evil of international companies throwing about words such as inclusivity or caring for their workers, when it is clear that they do no such thing, and indeed ... workplace safety, especially road safety (in a cheeky tie-in with the film's plot).

As the film came to an end, I was once again convinced I had seen another Jude masterpiece, though it will likely not be as accessible as some of his other recent work. Let's see how the fans he gained due to Bad Luck Banging will react.

[St. Gloede]

My current and frequently updated)! list: https://letterboxd.com/gloede/list/my-top-10-of-2023/

Quite a few changes from the list I posted on Dec 8th already, but still a lot more to see.

[rischka]

watching it now I think I love it that chick is my new hero. i LOVE films where people drive a lot. now i wanna watch the lady taxi driver film (which is unsubbed atm)



and who doesn't love a film about films ♥♥♥
(maybe people who aren't nerds :p)

Spoiler!

i swear i got a lil tear when they sang my rifle my pony and me

TY 83 yr old victor erice for this ♥♥♥♥♥

[flip]

since my last update, i watched ten more 2023 films, and this time i actually expected some of them to be good (and occasionally i was right). my latest list, which still isn't great but is less embarrassing than the earlier ones. the top four will probably make my top ten in the end:

1. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
2. The Marsh King’s Daughter (Neil Burger)
3. May December (Todd Haynes)
4. Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio)
5. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
6. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
7. Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
8. Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
9. The Covenant (Guy Ritchie)
10. A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh)

films that didn't make it:

Fast Charlie (Phillip Noyce) -- i had no idea Noyce was still making movies, if i liked these kind of violent pseudo-comedies i'd probably have found this decent but that's not my thing

Family Switch (McG) -- how has McG's career devolved so far that he's making anodyne body swap comedies? this is a decent entry in a genre full of execrable films (that i seem to watch anyway)

The Old Oak (Ken Loach) -- i hated this, i think for loach to work, we have to feel immersed in the milieu and invested in the situation, and so many of the actors in this seem really self-conscious about being on camera, so it just felt like enduring miserable situation after miserable situation for no reason

Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) -- i was on board with this for a while, but i feel like there are serious structural problems, and none of the politics in the second half seem to work

The Super Mario Bros Movie (Matt Jelenic/Aaron Horvath) -- only watched this because it is apparently the second highest grossing film of the year, you'd really need to care about the super mario universe to like this i think

[nrh]

4. Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio)

watched this last week, and glad to see it here; i thought it was strong even in the context of bellocchio's remarkable last few decades. can't help but think he gets overlooked in the english language film world, despite being one of the last of the great older european directors left standing.

[flip]

watched this last week, and glad to see it here; i thought it was strong even in the context of bellocchio's remarkable last few decades. can't help but think he gets overlooked in the english language film world, despite being one of the last of the great older european directors left standing.

it was my first bellocchio, i'm definitely interested to see more. it feels very assured, i could tell he's been directing for decades. the only issue i had with the film was with the screenplay, how it tries to take in decades of history, which is difficult to pull off formally. the scenes with shostakovich's 8th string quartet are the most inspired audiovisual pairings i've seen in any film from 2023.

[pabs]

watched this last week, and glad to see it here; i thought it was strong even in the context of bellocchio's remarkable last few decades. can't help but think he gets overlooked in the english language film world, despite being one of the last of the great older european directors left standing.

it was my first bellocchio, i'm definitely interested to see more. it feels very assured, i could tell he's been directing for decades. the only issue i had with the film was with the screenplay, how it tries to take in decades of history, which is difficult to pull off formally. the scenes with shostakovich's 8th string quartet are the most inspired audiovisual pairings i've seen in any film from 2023.

I assumed he'd died too, long ago. Flip, I'm certain his Fists in the Pocket will mesmerize you.

[---]

i saw 23 which i think is more than i'd've usually just after the year ended

1. SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD (anna hints)
2. FALLEN LEAVES (aki kaurismaki)
3. RAP AND REINDEER (petteri saario)
4. OCEANS ARE THE REAL CONTINENTS (tommaso santambrogio)
5. MAREYA SHOT, KEETAH GOAL: MAKE THE SHOT (nilesh patel, baljit sangra)
6. ASTEROID CITY (wes anderson) <--surprised i liked this as much as i did, which is to say, mediumly
7. BLACK MIRROR: BEYOND THE SEA (john crowley) i dunno letterboxd says it's a movie
8. BLACKBERRY (matt johnson)
9. ISRAELISM (sam eilertsen, eric axelman)
10. LYNX MAN (juha suonpaa)

1/2 are miles ahead of 3, which is miles ahead of 4. 4-10 all about equal

3 finnish movies (2,3,10) and my 11 would've been too (LET THE RIVER FLOW, ole giaever)

[nrh]

probably in the last stages of 2023 catchup -

nanpakal nerathu mayakkam, lijjo jose pelissery

lijo has been a hit or miss director for me, very ambitious and talented with an increasingly serious interest in literature, but his projects almost always fall flat; his last project with the terrific writer s. hareesh, churuli, was one of the more frustrating movies i've seen in years. nanpakal, again written by s. hareesh and starring and produced by the malayalam superstar mammootty, is a triumph on almost every level. bus load of malayalam tourists are on a pilgrimage trip to the neighboring state of tamil nadu; they take a nap in the afternoon, mammootty gets off the bus, wanders into a nearby village, and immediately starts acting as if he's living the life of a tamil villager who disappeared two years prior. oblique and very funny, right up until it's not.


mein falke, dominic graf

a graf television projects, dense and layered in his usual manner, and very strong. a divorced forensic pathologist trains a falcon while dealing with her lonely, widower father's mourning over his dead next door neighbor, who he may or may not have had a now adult child with; subplots from her work are tangled throughout, a drowning that might be a murder, a dead and unidentified baby in the forest, trying to identify bones in a mass grave from the second world war. all frayed family bonds and layers of history. often quite funny in that graf way, where the whole project seems like it's about to careen off the rails at certain points.


the beast in the jungle, patric chiha
the famously indigestible henry james novella (there is another french adaptation from 2023, by bonello), set in a stygian, nameless club (beatrice dalle is the hooded bouncer) over the course of several decades, late '70s through early 2000s, through disco, synth pop, aids, house and rave. beautifully shot by the great celine bozon, all fantastic interior club lighting and great fashion. strange movie, the tragedy of being the person who doesn't realize it's time to leave the club.


afire, christian petzold
this has been showing up on a lot of best of the year lists, and it's very accomplished in that petzold manner, but i wonder if it's not a little too conceptually sound for my taste (also in the petzold manner). a kind of comedy of manners with a young writer trying to finish a terrible novel ("club sandwich") at his friends summer house, while forest fires rage just offscreen. find the rohmer comparisons thrown at this kind of baffling...


toby, basil alchalakkal
one of two 2023 projects by writer star raj b. shetty (the other one, swathi muttina male haniye he wrote and directed by didn't star in). this is back in the mode of his great 2021 movie garuda gamana vrishabha vahana, a village tragedy with odd, almost mystical undertones. starts out as a kind of esthappan structure, the story of mute orphan turned morgue assistant toby narrated by neighbors and associates, eventually turns into a kind of gangster movie in the remnants of feudal exploitation. one of the more overlooked movies of the year, even within south indian movie circles.

ferrari, michael mann
a major disappointment - this really didn't work for me at all, probably the first mann movie where there's just nothing of interest, outside of the most academic auteurist interests, might be great for that guy who used to hang out on the dave kehr forums and would go through directors entire bodies of work and write down every time a ladder or whatever would appear.


full river red, zhang yimou
very long period blockbuster whatsit from zhang yimou that plays entirely within the confines of a labyrinthian, monochromatic fort. starts as a murder mystery, ends as the patriotic origin of the famous "full river red" poem. there's about 40 minutes in the middle of this, where it's weird and unpleasant guys scheming and lying in increasingly elaborate plot reversals, where i thought this might turn out to be great, but it just falls apart under its own bloat.


moscow mission, herman yau
one of four(!) herman yau movies from the year. this is an andy lau passion project, a blockbuster of sorts about an undercover mission into former soviet territory to solve a series of robberies targeting trains that were ferrying black market goods from china into russia following the chaos of the soviet collapse.

several movies fighting for space here, with the least interesting ones winning out. some decent action that is totally misplaced, really hideous color grading, manages to both make shostakovich a plot point and play boney m.'s rasputin in what is nearly its entirety.


the delinquents, rodrigo moreno
have been curious about moreno since publishing a long translation of a piece by the critic/filmmaker lautaro garcia candela where he wrote at length about moreno's earlier movies.

this is a large - over 3 hours - movie that starts out as a kind of bank heist before moving into a more diffuse second half, would be fanciful if there wasn't so much weight of wasted time, both in prison and in work. almost everyone i follow seems to be somewhat cool on this, but i liked it a great deal, certainly my favorite 3 hour + argentine movie featuring laura paredes as a character named laura of the year.

kaathal: the core, jeo baby
another movie starring and produced by mammootty, this one a kind of chamber drama where a woman (played by the tamil star jyothika) files for divorce, alleging that her husband of 20 years is homosexual; he's in the middle of running for office, and one of the movie's more interesting dramatic ironies is contrasting the drama of a lifetime spent in the closet with the progressive, communist party he's associated with happily using his story for their own identity politics, and most of his neighbors not caring. great performances, which goes without saying for mammootty at this point, and a major star playing an openly gay character is not a small deal, even in the malayalam film industry. but at points this drifts past nicely restrained and into underwritten, and using the court scenes as a backbone as much as this does seems like something of a crutch.

[flip]

the oscar nominees are announced tomorrow, so that's when we'll start the official best of year poll (in a new thread)