The excess of overspending on blockbusters and relying too much on audience goodwill for franchises, and not putting enough creative muscle in stories, finally caught up with Hollywood in 2023. This summer was a reckoning for studios on a number of fronts: first with the studios penny-pinching and disregard of creatives in the form of multi-month strikes by both the Writer’s Guild and Screen Actors Guild (with more potential strikes in 2024), then with several “surefire” smash films severely underperforming. Durable franchise entries like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, “Fast X” and “Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning, Part 1” all underperformed (and lost substantial amounts of money in the cases of “Indiana Jones” and “Dead Reckoning”, whose budgets ballooned due to COVID-inspired delays), and though it’s nearly $600 million worldwide box-office isn’t a faceplant, Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” still struggled to make its money back. Yes, the twin phenomenon known as Barbenheimer helped an ailing summer box-office, but that was lightning in a bottle rather than a sustainable model for the future.
In addition to other blockbusters underperforming, have audiences finally hit a wall with superhero movies? With the exceptions of “Spider-Man: Across the Universe” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3”, every other superhero movie this year either floundered at the box-office, or was critically-reviled, with February’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” the only other film getting over $200 domestically, but getting slammed by critics for its over-reliance on special effects and convoluted, dramatically-empty narrative. DC had it worse; when “The Flash” is their “biggest” hit of the year despite being a mammoth money loser (the jury is still out on the just-released “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”, but it’s not looking good), and their best offering of the year- August’s “Blue Beetle”– got steamrolled by Barbenheimer and the duel strikes, which meant actors and writers couldn’t promote the film, it’s fair to wonder where audiences stand with the genre. I don’t think 2024 will offer up much in terms of answers to whether superheroes are on their way out- the only major releases are “Madame Web”, “Deadpool 3”, “Kraven the Hunter”, “Joker: Folie a Deux” and “Venom 3”– but it will certainly make for fodder for pundits and publications wanting this era to end.
This year, personal reasons kept me from covering the Sundance Film Festival for the third year in a row. In March, however, I did return to the Renegade Film Festival, whose selections keep getting better and better. (I’ll miss it in 2024, as it is taking the year off.) I went to the Atlanta Film Festival for the fifth year in a row, and once again it was a treasure trove of gems. There’s been a lot of personal changes for me- the theatre I started the year working at closed up, and after working at a couple of other ones, I was finally able to change jobs for the first time in almost 22 years. My new job has meant a lot of changes to how I run Sonic Cinema, but in 2024, I will continue to deliver reviews and podcasts as regularly as I can. Speaking of the podcast, I feel like it’s really been cooking over the past few years, and I’ve also guested on a number this year, with more slated in the new year. Finally, a long-in-gestation compilation album of horror-inspired music, “The Cold Wind of Horror”, was released. It’s been an exciting, exhausting year.
2023 feels like it was a year I was perpetually behind on. A big part of that was me not covering Sundance this year, but as the year wound down, and my new job ramped up, it was tough to catch up. Among the films I still have yet to see include: “May December”; “Godzilla Minus One”; “Rustin”; “The Coior Purple”; “Ferrari”; “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt”; “The Zone of Interest”; “The Taste of Things”; “Robot Dreams”; “Beyond Utopia”; “Four Daughters”; “The Mission”; “The Pigeon Tunnel”; “Origin”; “They Cloned Tyrone”; “Air”; “Eileen”; “Beau is Afraid”; “The Royal Hotel”; “Nimona”; “The Iron Claw”; “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nuggets”; “Pricilla”; “All of Us Strangers”; “Suzume”; “Bottoms”; “Evil Dead Rises”; “Society of the Snow”; “Being Mary Tyler Moore”; “Flora and Son”; “American Symphony”; and “No Hard Feelings”. I will get to as many as I can before the Oscars, but it must be left at the 250 features and short films I’ve seen this year for now.
Favorite Films of 2023
This was a difficult year to come up with a locked-down Favorite Films list of the year. Part of it had to do with how much I had missed, but I also struggled in figuring out what the list looked like, but as it took shape, it made all the sense in the world. I hope you enjoy!
=“Hundreds of Beavers” (Directed by Mike Cheslik)- There’s a part of me that wishes I had seen this feature-length, live-action cartoon of a comedy at its theatrical screening at the Atlanta Film Festival. But there’s also part of me that’s grateful I was able to experience it on my own, eternally surprised by the comedic madness of this story of a trapper who must defeat hundreds of beavers to win the heart of a young woman. As a lifelong Looney Tunes fan, the film’s gonzo approach to humor hasn’t left me since I first watched it.
=“Dream Scenario” (Directed by Kristoffer Borgli)- In a way, the concept of Nicolas Cage as a projection of our emotions is so absurd that it makes all the sense in the world. His professor in this film starts appearing in the dreams of people he both knows and doesn’t know; the way this goes from being a darkly funny quirk to a horrific reality is one of the most drastic tonal shifts of the year. In focusing on Cage’s sense of self, and how he doesn’t adapt to a shifting reality, we get a riveting look at what happens when people feel incapable of seeing things about themselves unless they are forced to.
=“Silent Night” (Directed by John Woo)- The more that I’ve thought about Woo’s revenge thriller, the more his dialogue-free approach to this story of fatherly vengeance- which is devoid of many of the master filmmaker’s visual flourishes- connects with me. Woo is putting a mirror up to America’s “stand your ground” mentality about gun violence, and showing us that there’s only one direction such a worldview can lead people.
=“Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse” (Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson and Kemp Powers)- The richest Spider-Man movies always start with that fundamental core idea of great power requiring great responsibility at their center. In this second film of the animated trilogy about Miles Morales, and his adventures in the multiverse, he finds himself learning hard lessons in responsibility, as his existence as a superhero has thrown the multiverse out of whack. This continues to be one of the most striking uses of animation as storytelling of the modern era, and as the films bring more spider characters to the forefront, we see the ways the Spider-Man mythos might be the best of all superhero narratives- it allows for endless invention, and it’s always grounded in real emotions.
=“The Other Fellow” (Directed by Matthew Bauer)- This documentary feels like it should have been produced for one of the James Bond box sets as a fun little aside. Instead, what Bauer does is look at what a variety of people who have the same name as 007 feel as they live life with that name. Some thrive, some struggle, and for some, it’s a matter of survival. We do get some idea of where Ian Fleming came up with the name, but this film’s greatest strength is in how it measures the way people struggle with their sense of identity, and how what might seem like a blessing could be a curse, and how some people find a way to make what could be a curse into an opportunity to live a life beyond themselves.
=“Dusty & Stones” (Directed by Jesse Rudoy)- It may sound insensitive to compare the trials that this country music duo from Swaziland face on their trip to America to what happens to the titular band in “This is Spinal Tap,” but while Dusty and Stones suffer many setbacks, they are a pair who love country music, and want to show that it is as universal a musical language as any other. Director Rudoy found them on YouTube, and I’m so glad that he decided to follow them as they make their way to the Texas Sound International Country Music Contest as one of sixteen acts competing. Unfortunately, the veins of racism still run deep, even when everyone is there for a singular purpose; but when they endure- and opportunities open up to them- I couldn’t help but cheer.
=“Scarlet” (Directed by Pietro Marcello)- It’s hard to pinpoint what, exactly, it is about Marcello’s romantic fantasy that ended up resonating so strongly with me. The story of a father, home from war, left to car for the child his wife had in his absence is not one that I can personally connect with, but what does make this film so striking to me is its lush images, the gorgeous score by Gabriel Yared, and the idea of doing everything you can in hopes that a loved one can live a better life. That’s ultimately what sold me on this film, and why it is one I will cherish through the years.
=“Monster” (Directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu)- Kore-eda’s films are some of the most empathetic in modern cinema. By breaking up his scenario of a troubled boy into three different perspectives, our empathy- and his- are kicked into overdrive, as we see why a mother is frantically searching for answers, why a teacher is struggling to comprehend what’s happening, and why the boy in the middle is probably unable to help either one get to the truth. This is a tremendous work of heart, and complexity of life, as only Kore-eda can make.
=“Maestro” (Directed by Bradley Cooper)- Creative people are less tortured and more trying to make sense of their lives. Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein, however, wants to keep everyone else on their toes while he tries to have everything. The approach to Bernstein as an outsized genius makes sense, and the way Carey Mulligan- as Bernstein’s wife- has to keep up with him in heart-rendering in its inability to do so, leaving her on the outside looking in. Theirs was a genuine love, however, as Bernstein’s words make clear, even if his actions tell a different story.
=“John Wick: Chapter Four” (Directed by Chad Stahelski)- I was late to the “John Wick” franchise, but once I caught up, I was all in on this insane action movie world of a global assassin brotherhood that Wick- a man who had given up the life for love- must fight his way through for peace. One of the strengths in this fourth film in the series is how Wick, played ably by Keanu Reeves, continues to keep his principles in tact, even as the High Table stacks the odds against him. Stahelski has an action feast for us in this film, culminating in both the staircase melee in Paris- and the showdown afterwards- that thrills us and also makes us appreciate the stunning work of the film’s stunt team and filmmakers in general. I don’t know if we will get more of Wick’s story, but if so, I’ll be curious where it leads.
=“We Kill for Love” (Directed by Anthony Penta)- A 163-minute documentary about the direct-to-video erotic thriller market may seem like overkill, but by interviewing filmmakers, actors and scholars in addition to offering up clips, Penta gives us an exhaustive, enlightening and entertaining look at the genre that might serve as an important reminder to why cinema is uniquely suited, at times, to satisfy our base urges. It’s a must-see for film fans.
=“Quantum Cowboys” (Directed by Geoff Marslett)- Lily Gladstone was in two westerns this year where she has men encroaching on her rightful land, but as much as I respected her collaboration with Martin Scorsese, this animated adventure from Marslett looks at circumstance, the connection between events, and the way history is written in a fresh, enjoyable way that I could soak up in a heartbeat. If you were floored by Gladstone in Marty’s film, this is worth your time to check out.
=“The Childe” (Directed by Park Hoon-jung)- This action film about a Filipino boxer who is trying to raise money to get his mother life-saving surgery is very much of a piece with “Silent Night” and “John Wick” on here in terms of its reliance on stunts, story and style to create a kinetic cinematic experience for us. “The Childe” is a throwback to ’80s and ’90s action movies where personal motivations mattered more than global consequences, and director Park Hoon-jung and stars Tae-Ju and Kim Seon-Ho give us characters worth caring about as the film makes its way to its wild, unpredictable conclusion.
=“Red Earth” (Directed by Georg Koszulinski)- The Atlanta Film Festival was a treasure trove for genre fans this year, and this low-budget sci-fi film is a film indicative of that. We see, hear and read the words of members of the Harriott family, which allows us to chart a time period where Mars is colonized, and Earth is abandoned because of war. The images, the sounds and the ideas are reminiscent of the best of hard sci-fi epics of the past, but have a look and feel all their own as Koszulinski’s 63-minute film gives us a full sense of an apocalyptic world where people are struggling with the changes around them.
=“The House Sitters” (Directed by Sydne Horton)- This year’s Renegade Film Festival was a collection of riches between short films and features. My favorite was this thriller from Horton (a return filmmaker to the fest) and a young woman who house sits for her grandmother’s companion. Unfortunately, her feelings about her best friend are at the forefront as the weekend commences. This is simply an example of genre done very well by Horton, who keeps the suspense and terror moving throughout this film’s 21 minutes. If you get a chance to watch it, take the time to do so.
=“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Directed by Davis Guggenheim)- As a lifelong fan of Michael J. Fox, this documentary about his career, and the struggle he’s faced since his diagnosis with Parkinson’s, was emotional, engaging, and really helped us understand the strain stardom and diseases can have on a life. This is a film for not only fans of Fox’s, but anyone who has struggled to find balance in life.
=“Dasara” (Directed by Srikanth Odhela)- This Telugu-language drama about the political struggle in an Indiana village has as many massive set pieces and musical numbers as 2022’s “RRR,” but it’s the grounded nature of the story- and how the filmmakers elevate it stylistically- that made this as rich, and entertaining, as the earlier film, even if it lacks some of its show-stopping nature.
=“Young Kings” (Directed by Jonathan Banks)- One of my personal highlights at the Atlanta Film Festival, this short documentary about bike culture in Atlanta feels like a lovely tone poem to the importance of community and an activity when we’re young in order to have a sense of purpose. I love the black-and-white images Banks puts onscreen as children see the importance of society.
=“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (Directed by James Mangold)- The glory days of Indiana Jones as an icon felt gone 15 years ago with “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” I do not think this swan song is a return to the thrills of “Raiders” or “Last Crusade,” but like so many of his films over the past decade, Harrison Ford has delivered a beautiful look at a man who knows his days are numbered, and what matters to him. All while fighting Nazis. Mangold and Ford couldn’t have made a better finale to Indy’s adventures.
=“Oppenheimer” (Directed by Christopher Nolan)- Christopher Nolan delves into the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer with his interest in fragmented structure and the invocation of cinematic language focused on Oppenheimer’s objective experience as he creates the atomic bomb, and the way other people’s memories cloud the truth about the man himself. His filmmaking has never been more on point, or engrossing, as it is here.
=“Perfect Days” (Directed by Wim Wenders)- Conflict is at a minimum in Wenders’s drama about a toilet cleaner, but that does not mean his story is without interest. We see his daily routine, and see it disrupted, once by a horny co-worker, once by his niece, and once by a chance encounter. Throughout, Kôji Yakusho’s Hirayama goes on, content enough in his life to not let such disruptions get him down. This is an uplifting film about what it means to live freely, and contently, unconcerned about how others view you. This is a place we all hope to get to; it’s hard to make happen for ourselves.
=“Barbie” (Directed by Greta Gerwig)- Barbenheimer was a natural phenomenon in moviewatching, and honestly, it wouldn’t have happened had both films not been fantastic. Whereas Nolan’s film was intellectual in an introspective manner, Gerwig’s is intellectual by being clear-eyed about the place that Mattel’s iconic doll occupies in the world, and what it could mean moving forward. Colors, a pop soundtrack and delightfully comedic performances, it was the perfect duet partner for “Oppenheimer.”
=“Elemental” (Directed by Peter Sohn)- Pixar’s latest film is not one of their most inventive films, but it is one of their most charming films. An opposites attract romantic comedy that deals with different cultures and family legacy, this film snuck up on audiences, who decided that it’s a film that they wanted to discover for themselves, turning it into a word-of-mouth hit the likes of which Pixar has not had since their inception. It also gifted us with beautiful animation and an all-timer Thomas Newman score.
=“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig)- This coming-of-age film from Fremon Craig (“Edge of Seventeen”) from the classic novel by Judy Blume has a number of different stories going on in it- a girl (played by Abby Ryder Fortson in one of the best performances of the year) going through puberty; a mother (Rachel McAdams, matching her beat-for-beat) trying to acclimate to a new town; a father (Bennie Safdie) trying to keep everyone together, and it’s all put together in an emotional, funny and engaging story about growing up and family. I loved every minute of it.
=“The Marvels” (Directed by Nia DiCosta)- Marvel had a fairly rough 2023, with this team-up getting hit the hardest at the box-office, but I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure about three woman who must put their past mistakes aside to save the day. The chemistry between Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris makes up for a number of this film’s shortcomings.
In part because of how far behind I’ve been, my Top 25 Favorite films this year has been in flux until publication. I have no doubt that it could change from here on out, but I feel pretty great about the choices I have made. As I did last year, I have ten more films populate what Roger Ebert would call “Eleventh Place” (or, in this case, 26th Place) that would have made sense on the list, and- in some cases- were. They include: Celine Song’s “Past Lives”, a delicate drama about childhood friends whose connection has forever shifted over their lives; François Ozon’s “Everything Went Fine”, about a daughter (the wonderful Sophie Marceau) who has to put her complicated history with her father aside to be true to his wishes; Gabriela Staniszewska’s “Choose Your Weapon”, a fantastic short film that gets to the anxiety of being a new mother in a dark but hilarious and emotional way; Ryan Stevens Harris’s “Moon Garden”, a supernatural thriller that follows a girl into a fantastic world that takes her away from the pain of reality into the positivity of the past; Jeff Rowe & Kyler Spears’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”, a strikingly animated adventure comedy with everyone’s favorite heroes in a half shell; Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of a Flower Moon”, which looks at white violence and greed against the Osage with a compassionate eye, and open heart; Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction”, wherein Jeffrey Wright’s author wants to hold up a mirror at white guilt and its hypocrisy, but finds it’s not that simple; Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up”, a thoughtful portrait of a woman whose family is filled with genius, but struggles to be there for each other; Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things”, where Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter stops being a plaything for men and becomes a woman with agency; and Shaun MacLean’s “Chipper”, a devastating short film where a son goes home and confronts a family secret as his father is on his deathbed. I would also be remiss if I did not mention the Director’s Cut of K/XI’s “Black Lake”, which played the weekend of the Renegade Film Festival, and brought depth an a new perspective on my favorite film of 2020.
Finally, here are 25 more features and shorts that stayed with me in 2023: “#NOFILTER”; “Anatomy of a Fall”; “Blue Beetle”; “The Boy and the Heron”; “Brooklyn 45”; “Cocaine Bear”; “Content: The Lo-Fi Man”; “Fenom”; “Give Me an A”; “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3”; “Infinity Pool”; “Let It Be Morning”; “Love at First Sight”; “Number Twelve”; “Once Upon a Time in Uganda”; “Our Father, the Devil”; “Other People’s Children”; “Polite Society”; “Ride On”; “She Watches Blindly”; “The Starling Girl”; “Theatre Camp”; “Torn Together”; “Twenty”; “Wilder Than Her”
Favorite Soundtracks of 2023
I feel like most years I consider pretty great, if not all-timers, for film music. I’m not sure if I can do that this year. A lot of film scores had a generic nature to them, from what I’ve heard, and while the high end of what 2023 had to offer was fantastic, it’s not enough to elevate the scores that don’t really work as well; we should hope that they are the standouts in a year of tremendous film music. This year, I just don’t really feel that.
The top of the pack in 2023 is populated by two inventive scores for sprawling historical dramas. For Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, the late Robbie Robertson crafts a score filled with rage and empathy for what white people are doing to the Osage, with its sparse instrumentation hitting us harder than an traditional orchestral score would have as American greed is front and center. In “Oppenheimer”, Ludwig Göransson is using a full orchestra, as well as synthesizers, to bring Christopher Nolan’s film about the creation of America’s nuclear program to life, but like Robertson, he’s not thinking traditionally; this is as propulsive as any action film score while capturing the moral complexities onscreen. When though those two stand out even above the cream of the crop, the rest of the scores that round out my Top 5 are worthy to be included. The lush romanticism of Gabriel Yared’s score for “Scarlet” is something I could not get out of my head, and has been a constant listen ever since. Marco Beltrami scores John Woo’s silent action thriller, “Silent Night”, with an appropriate mix of bombast and melodramatic emotions that make it essential to the film’s success as it goes to the dark heart of violence in society. And Thomas Newman’s score for “Elemental” feels on another level from even his previous, great work for the studio, sounding very familiar from his typical aesthetic, but also expanding it musically to tell a story of an immigrant family, and their struggles to find their place in their new society, even in the fantasy world of Pixar. Coming in at the last minute is a fantastic song soundtrack compiled by Wim Wenders for his toilet cleaner in “Perfect Days”. It is another banger from the German director.
From there, the competition wanes a bit, but there’s certainly enough that I loved that I can recommend. One of my early favorites from the year was Gavin Brivik’s propulsive score for “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”, with its reliance on rhythmic energy to carry the film forward, and I also find myself thinking a lot about the comic book fun Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross bring as they adapt their sound to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”. A late surge of beauty came in from the always delicately powerful voice of Joe Hisaishi, and his score for “The Boy and the Heron”. For Kore-eda’s “Monster”, Ryuichi Sakamoto gifted us with a final musical statement that gets to the complicated nature of the story. For Gareth Edwards’s “The Creator”, Hans Zimmer returns to the Asian influences of his early scores to create a new sense of a world divided by technology and hostility. Greta Gerwig nailed the tone musically for her “Barbie” with the right blend of songs (“Dance the Night” and “I’m Just Ken”) and score by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. As with the first film, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has a terrific mix of songs and score by Daniel Pemberton. For the final film in the franchise, John Williams creates a score that plays off of the past but also sends the character off well in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”. The soundtrack for “Wonka” has a nice blend of original songs and music built off of established themes. I loved the song score for “Theatre Camp”, which gets to the tone of a Christopher Guest spoof in the best way. Tim Hecker’s score for “Infinity Pool” brings the film’s sinister world of privilege and horror to life, and James Gunn gives us a blast of musical energy to remember as he wrapped up his trilogy with “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3”. Probably the most surprising and lasting soundtrack of the year, however, was for the documentary, “River”. I barely remember the images, but the mix of classical music and original score has been one I’ve returned to a lot over the past year. Is that enough to call this a great year in film music? To some, I can see that, but for me it falls just short of greatness.
Favorite Performances of 2023
Unlike last year, I didn’t feel like there were any particular performances that floored me immediately in a way that made it impossible to not mention them in terms of my favorites. That isn’t to say there wasn’t a lot that I loved, though, and several made lasting impressions on me, sometimes in the most surprising of ways. As I’ve thought about my favorite performances of 2023, however, I cannot say one stood out over the rest.
Is it weird that two of my favorite experiences watching actors this year were in genre films acknowledging their aging personas, as they look for one more triumph in their lives? That was very much the case with both Harrison Ford in his final performance as the iconic archeologist in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and Jackie Chan as a stuntman who hopes to relive his glory days in “Ride On”. As a daughter struggling with a choice about her father, Sophie Marceau’s work in “Everything Went Fine” was so impactful I made the case for her being nominated over at In Their Own League. As a daughter going through puberty during a move, and a mother trying to make the best choices for her, Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams brought the classic story of Judy Blume’s “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.” to life with sweet humor and emotion. As a boy whose recent actions confound and complicate the lives of his mother and his teacher, Soya Kurokawa is devastating in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s “Monster”. As a daughter who makes an unexpected connection on her way to her father’s wedding, Haley Lu Richardson absolutely charmed me in the romantic drama, “Love at First Sight”. Bradley Cooper had two emotionally-charged performances in 2023, both as the famed Leonard Bernstein in his “Maestro” (which also gave us a terrific performance by Carey Mulligan as his long-struggling wife), and then in his latest performance as Rocket Racoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” (which also continues to plum the depths for Karen Gillan‘s Nebula). As a father wanting vengeance on the gang that took his son’s life, Joel Kinnaman takes “Silent Night’s” no-dialogue conceit and runs with it in a performance filled with rage and tragic loss. Eliza Scanlan is remarkable as a young girl whose own desires are at odds with faith in “The Starling Girl”. As the creator of an innovative new mobile phone- and the corporate goon who sells it- Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton bring different energies to the story of “Blackberry”, each of which are vital to the rise- and fall- of the device. As a teacher caught in the middle of a divorced couple and their daughter in “Other People’s Children”, Virginie Efira brings warmth and sensuality to a difficult role. And as adversaries on the other sides of the High Table, Keanu Reeves and Donnie Yen bring physicality and pathos to “John Wick: Chapter 4”.
The rest of my favorite performances are ones that just took things to another level of stardom and character complexities. As an author who tries to comment on the publishing world- and how people consume Black literature, Jeffrey Wright is hilarious and sensational in “American Fiction”, and as a family friend who’s been helping look after his mother, Myra Lucretia Taylor has a lovely arc that gets to the joys and pains of life. In “Showing Up”, Michelle Williams is an artist who is used to doing things for others, but has a hard time getting others to do something for her- she is wonderful, as always. As a young woman who wants to buck tradition and be a stuntwoman, Priya Kansara dazzles in a star-making performance in “Polite Society”. “Poor Things” gives us one of the best performances of Emma Stone’s career, as well as terrific work by Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo. “Anatomy of a Fall” has been seen primarily through the lens of Sandra Hüller’s fantastic performance, but the work of Milo Machado-Graner as her blind son is just as vital to its success. “Dream Scenario” is fundamentally a starring vehicle for Nicolas Cage, but the work by Tim Meadows and Dylan Gelula also stood out in the absurdist dark comedy. As Hirayama, a toilet cleaner going through life, Kôji Yakusho brings beautiful simplicity to the main role in “Perfect Days”. That leaves three stunning ensembles: “Oppenheimer” gives Cillian Murphy an amazing opportunity as Robert Oppenheimer, but there’s also fantastic work on display by Robert Downey Jr., Josh Hartnett and Matt Damon; “Barbie” gives us a dazzling array of entertaining performances, especially by Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, America Ferrera and Kate McKinnon; finally, “Killers of the Flower Moon” has Martin Scorsese orchestrating fantastic, nearly career-best work from Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. There are surely more I could mention, and more I haven’t yet seen, but all of these are great examples of the acting on display this year.
The coming year is going to be a really interesting one for Hollywood, as fewer big films get released as a result of the dual strikes. That being said, I can’t wait for a lot of the major ones we are looking to get.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
