I don’t mean this in a “movies suck now” kind of way, I actually think 2022 was a pretty good year for movies and 2024 will probably be better
but yeesh, 2023 seemed like a particularly bleak year for film. of those I’ve seen on this list, the only ones I’d heartily recommend are Bottoms and Nimona. maybe Beau is Afraid and Infinity Pool, but those are definitely not for everyone. oh and the TMNT movie was a lot of fun
(I haven’t seen Flower Moon yet so don’t get mad at me, Scorsesebros)
but please feel free to CMV and recommend any good movies from this year, whether they’re in this image or not!
They Cloned Tyrone is pretty good. I think everybody here would vibe with it. Also, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Venture Bros Movie, Sisu (purely for the Nazi killing, just gotta ignore the history before that), wandering Earth 2, and as far as Marvel slop goes Spider-verse is still the best of it.
Oh, and if you want slop of Nic Cage having fun being Nic Cage, Renfield and Sympathy for Devil.
actually How to Blow up a Pipeline and Sisu are from 2022My reputation will never recover from this.
I feel like I appreciated what They Cloned Tyrone was trying to do more than I actually enjoyed watching it. also felt like it was trying to do what Jordan Peele and Boots Riley have already done better. But it wasn’t bad at all, just fine. IDK maybe I’ll give it another chance sometime.
John Boyega and Teyonah Parris are both really good. ofc Jamie Foxx too but I really didn’t like how the abusive pimp was portrayed as a likeable character
Yeah, I get that, a lot of movies and shows bug me when they get like the most charismatic guy in hollywood to play the space nazi or asshole with superpowers or something but I felt like they did a pretty good job of demonstrating how the characters were victims of circumstances created by the system? Lol, I mean, I’d like to say I don’t think anybody walked away from watching the movie thinking that it was endorsement of that kind of behavior, but we know how people are nowadays. So, yeah, I get ya.
I loved They Cloned Tyrone. It was a surprise hit for me.
I can’t believe what you have Dune 2 me, 2023
But I thought Barbie was pure kino 10/10
Barbie started out fun but kinda lost me once they traveled to the real world. and it seemed like the movie really wanted to comment on patriarchy but didn’t really have anything interesting to say about it. idk, just didn’t vibe with me
mfw barbie doesnt win every category at the game awards. Its all ogre now
Beau is afraid… definitely not for everyone.
Hey, want to spend an entire movie feeling uncomfortable, confused and a little angry?
Only now realized that I’ve barely watched anything from this year. But I thinks that’s because I’ve been busier than usual. Infinity Pool was very interesting but I don’t know if I fully vibe with the Cronenberg (Jr) style.
I enjoyed it a lot more than his previous film, Possessor, though it seems not many people agree with me. I liked how it accurately portrayed wealthy western vacationers as unhinged psychopaths who face zero consequences for their actions, though there’s been a lot of stuff like that lately (White Lotus, Triangle of Sadness, etc.)
I have 0 idea if its gonna be good but Im a sucker for the setting of Napoleon dont even care if its not historical.
Then again Im not a big movie guy.I mostly watch cartoons and anime with the odd show peppered in. I just prefer my entertainment to be 60min at max usually since I do breaks inbetween to do other stuff or work on something.
Apparently Ridley Scott has a 4.5 hour director’s cut of Napoleon, which is hilariously too long but it could work if they release it as a miniseries like Hateful Eight. If that happens I’ll probably wait for that version so I can watch it in shorter chunks.
2022 was an excellent year for movies but I think 2023 was pretty good too.
Movies I’ve liked so far:
The Killer
Oppenheimer
Barbie
Killers of the flower moon
Blackberry
Past Lives
John Wick 4
Dungeons and Dragons
Are you there god, it’s me margaret
Films I’m looking forward to seeing (but haven’t yet)
Anatomy of a fall
The boy and the heron
Monster
Blue jean
Viduthalai: Part I
The Stroll
Kokomo city
Pictures of Ghosts
Mami Wata
Sira
Saw X, Scream 6, and Across the Spiderverse were good. Haven’t seen most of these.
I really hated Saw X but I don’t like any of the Saw movies so that was to be expected
was actually a bit cold on Scream 6 as well, even though I’m a fan of the series. I actually liked 5 more but it seems I’m in the minority there
I’m also in the minority of people who don’t really like the Spider-Verse movies that much, I think it’s too much sensory overload for me. also don’t like the cop dad stuff, and there were twice as many cop dads in this one. still gonna watch part 3 though
The Saw movies are just torture porn. Gotta question the headspace of people who like them.
“Saw” movies are simply a celebration of the summer slashers which have always celebrated the art of gore and the unsympathetic cast. I hated them at one point in fact, never understood why people liked em. but I’ve learned through my wife’s love of the genre to enjoy them.
I’ve come to see they’re not enjoyed the way i connected with movies in other genres. Unlike most (?) movies, you aren’t supposed to form a bond with or see yourself in these characters, they are there to die horrificly for your enjoyment.
You know it’s not real, and the buzz you get from watching an imaginative kill well executed graphically is great fun, and everything and everyone is fine! It’s harmless! So chop em up baby, show me a spectacle!
To be fair saw ten is pretty brutally racist if the analysis by the podcast Horror Vanguard is to be believed. I’ve not seen it yet
Damn I’ll listen to their episode on it later. Just from watching the movie I have no idea what this is referring to.
Edit: Just listened and agreed on most stuff. I did notice the yellow filter use but I didn’t notice they took it off with the white lady.
Side tangent, they say it’s clear the films take the side of Jigsaw being a hero, but i disagree with that. I mean you’re clearly meant to sympathize with the first two people in Saw X, as well as root for Amanda while she tries to get Garbriela out (although the film is also sadistic). The only person who’s portrayed as pure evil and worthy of “punishment” is the blonde millionaire lady, and she survives, which is in line with Jigsaw’s philosophy, while Mateo is killed on a technicality.
But there are clearly characters who are portrayed as doing bad things with the aim of making the viewer root for their death, Saw 3D having tons of examples. At the same time, while in some cases Jigsaw’s methods are seen as rehabilitative, there are also cases where it’s criticized. For example there’s the lady who chopped off her arm (from I don’t remember which movie, but it’s after 3) who scoffs at Jigsaw (Hoffman’s version, which is also seen as a corrupted version of Kramer, but what he did in this case is no different from something Kramer would do) when asked if she learned to appreciate her life, talking abt how the only benefit she received was handicap parking. It’s very clearly meant to show that Jigsaw’s philosophy does not necessarily rehabilitate people.
There’s even a deleted scene in 3 where Kramer’s Jigsaw says he was wrong before he dies according to the DVD commentary.
Yeah but Saw (and similar tortureporn movies) focus on the realistic, gruesome violence (often in closeup). That was never a selling point of the “summer slashers” you are trying to wax poetic about.
yeah but
You put summer slashers in quotes and disparaged my poetry.
I think you just don’t like the genre, and and that’s just fine. Make sure you remember that my enjoyment is just fine too, and remember to be civil, because this here? This topic? Doesn’t matter enough to start a fight.
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Scream 5 has a better final sequence imo but I also think the side-characters in the movie were very forgettable, and 6 did a better job w that.
I agree with the cop dad stuff but we’ve always had that pig nonsense in Spider-Man w Captain Stacey.
Disney animated films were particularly meh this year. Elemental was too cliched, Wish looks godawful. Unironically, the Mario movie has a better shot at the best animated film Oscar than either of these (it’ll go to either Across the Spiderverse or The Boy and the Heron).
The best animated film of the year, Nimona, was supposed to be released by Disney but they canceled it. So glad they managed to get it made anyway without that awful company.
Nimona was really good, and yeah I’m sure Disney would’ve neutered it. Still don’t think it’ll win the Oscar though, especially with the Academy’s bias against streaming platforms.
I loved Beau is Afraid! I have no idea who I could recommend it to but I went with a friend and watched a 3 hour anxiety movie together.
I also really liked Barbie, skipped Openheimer though. It was some good dumb fun. I bought it, rewatched it a couple times too.
And that was pretty much it for me for theatres this year, oh well.
What type of anxiety movie is it? Like an uncut gems or a lost daughter?
the movie perfectly captures what a nightmares are like when you have chronic anxiety. it’s three straight hours of the worst possible thing happening at any given moment. the few moments of levity only serve as setup for an inevitable payoff of misery
it’s so over-the-top awful to the point of becoming an absurdist comedy, so I’d say your enjoyment of the film will really depend on your sense of humor
Uncut gems, it’s also pretty out there and symbological rather than literally happening yo Beau (although, who’s to say I guess - the stuff he’s seeing and feeling is true to him and us as the audience)
You missed out Oppenheimer was a masterpiece.
tetris is probably my least favorite out of all of these. i can’t believe we got a poorly made anti-soviet propaganda film based on one of the best video games of all time. the scene where pajitnov is like “nobody smiles here in russia because there’s nothing to smile about” was laughably stupid. the movie was straight ass all the way through with poor pacing and super boring characters (generic evil KGB man is definitely not an overused trope at this point…).
It’s a movie about regional licensing laws, which could’ve had something funny about the interaction between the late Soviet system and the western systems, but they did the conservative thing of getting too mad before they could get the joke out.
literally the only movie I watched from that roster was John Wick and I enjoyed it immensely
man this sucks, I can never find the time and/or energy to watch films anymore
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Past Lives were both excellent movies
yeah I’ve seen that Past Lives has gotten a lot of acclaim. probably won’t watch it though because I have a personal bias against romance films, unless it’s about lesbians
Past Lives isn’t really a romance movie. It’s about how people who immigrate as children can feel stuck between worlds, and the romance is sort of just an aspect of that.
I liked killers of the flower moon, but I also get not wanting to watch a 3.5h movie.
I also have heard good things about Anatomy of a Fall, but haven’t seen it yet.
yeah I’ll probably watch KotFM when I can enjoy it in the comfort of my own home and take pee breaks without missing anything. I’m not a massive Scorsese fan but I’ve definitely enjoyed some of his films, and the subject matter is interesting so I’ll check it out eventually
the subject matter is interesting
And also absolutely infuriating, but I guess all of us on here are used to that
oh I should also mention that I liked Talk To Me, which is technically from 2022 but that’s BS because it didn’t get a proper release outside of film festivals until this year, so it’s a 2023 film in my opinion
