a year in film, part I
UFOs, loose screws, yung Denzel, wacky women and more
After an agonizing selection process, my list of favorite films from 2023 is finally here! My reasoning for these selections was both very specific and arbitrary (the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma). I didn’t even include certain films that did bring me immense enjoyment, but maybe they’ll make an appearance in a future round-up post.
What did make the cut were these k-dramas and films that were imperfect but begged me to write about them. I guess they’re honorable mentions? I honestly have no clue. My thoughts have nothing to do with me; I am merely a vessel for them!
Glitch (2022) - Roh Deok
An ambitious concoction that’s all fizzy soda bubbles, and just like soda, the flavor turns flat. There is plenty to love in Glitch: it’s a weird and quirky delight with a resonance for 30-something office employees who live with their parents and can’t drive (lol, hi). The soda comparison is apt but it’s a bit like a colorful candy display too or gooey bubblegum. The dark conspiracy lurking beneath such a sugary exterior just failed to captivate me the way the central alien mystery did. And the cult storyline was incongruous, I preferred the UFOs. I was enamored with its depiction of a female friendship with a frayed edge and Nana’s performance as Heo Bora.
Bloodhounds (2023) - Kim Joo-hwan
Possibly the grisliest crime thriller I’ve seen. Throats and achilles tendons are slashed, backs are broken, skin is pierced by knives and arrows, literal salt is rubbed into wounds, just an unrelenting display of blood splattered cruelty and violence. But there is still a heart buried underneath so much carnage. A battered one, but I absolutely wouldn’t have continued watching if there wasn’t. It would just be male aggression, a bleak tale of predatory loan sharks with no hope in sight.
Its saving grace is the brotherhood between two boxers who instantly hit it off after a bout in the ring. I definitely am not watching this again but I’d skip all the bloodshed and revisit the scenes of Woo Do-hwan and Lee Sang-yi being the tenderest, most purehearted duo. Found family really is one of my favorite tropes, illuminated so wonderfully in this drama. I’m actually still baffled that it contains real tenderness and warmth. ALSO, there is a Roman Holiday reference! Unexpected, inexplicable and splendid! Anything that references Roman Holiday is a masterpiece…except Bloodhounds.
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) - Ernst Lubitsch
What starts with pajamas ends in a straitjacket. It’s got the Lubitsch light touch: silken and sophisticated but zany too. Gary Cooper is so tall and so silly, exactly how I like that tall, lanky specimen. He’s equally matched with a sparring partner in Claudette Colbert, the picture of bejeweled refinement and yet cute as a button. “I always put iodine on people when I bite them” is such a glorious line. So while I can’t quite overlook its faults - performances and characters excluded - it is still enchanting. And no movie with Edward Everett Horton in the cast is going to disappoint.
Svengali (1931) - Archie Mayo
This movie is actually very well made, technically brilliant despite - or maybe because of? - its constraints. I am forever impressed by films of the '20s and '30s that avoid creaky camera work and still hold up alongside flashier effects. I wouldn't have noticed without it being pointed out to me, but there are antisemitic undertones in John Barrymore's portrayal, a troubling aspect to his otherwise toweringly good rendering of the title character. He is truly scary, but there are lighter moments when he isn't; he moves and talks like he's in a pre-code comedy, not a pre-code horror. This blend of comedy and fright actually enhances the film. It's atypical of pre-code horror and the genre overall. I wouldn't say it hypnotized me, I was far too alert even as it gripped me in its dread embrace, but it is a hypnotic film.
And now, presented in the order I watched them, are the faultless first time viewings of 2023.
The Lady Eve (1941) - Preston Sturges
A screwball comedy with Barbara Stanwyck terrorizing a man can’t fail (see also Ball of Fire from the same year). The first half is a lot more tame and straightforward than the second, when the shenanigans properly ensue. But the first features Stany’s achingly earnest lovesick lady con artist, which surprised me. She falls for her target, a good looking millionaire dweeb (Henry Fonda). When he finds out she’s a swindler, he tells her to get lost, refusing to believe that she’s no longer after his fortune. So she devises a revenge scheme by pretending to be a British aristocrat who also suspiciously looks exactly the same as the lady con artist he fell in love with?! The sublime meter is going berserk! And the meter is liable to combust with a line like this: “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” Plus, the cast includes comedy superstars Eric Blore and Eugene Pallette 😍
Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) - Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers
Quite a feat for this to surpass the first and I’d still feel the same even if there wasn’t a Spider T-Rex or an Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City needle drop. But it does have those along with Hobie, the anti-fascist rebel Spider Punk and the most astonishing painterly strokes imbuing a hand drawn warmth. The unabashed celebration of parenthood and the fierce love parents have for their kids made me a little weepy. Disney is toast 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Elemental (2023) - Peter Sohn
I reviewed the film here and don’t have much to add, but I'm so happy EXO’s Kyungsoo is the movie’s biggest fan 💞 What a relief that it was well received and no one annoyed me with their awful takes1 :) A bittersweet film to end the nearly 10 years I’ve spent at Upcoming Pixar, sigh.
Carbon Copy (1981) - Michael Schultz
Denzel's already a star in his film debut, an incisive race satire about a wealthy white businessman discovering the existence of his Black son. His begrudging acceptance of the young man wreaks havoc on his life: shunned by his wife and friends, fired from his job, publicly humiliated and forced to endure hostile living conditions in the inner city. Maybe it is out of touch by today's standards, but I had a good time and I loved the set design and aesthetics.
Heart Condition (1990) - James D. Parriot
Fast forward nine years to Denzel's firmly established stardom. The racial politics here are a bit thornier than in the previous film. Bob Hoskins is a racist cop (unsurprisingly sympathetic, a feat only he's capable of) and Denzel is the brash lawyer who gleefully torments Hoskins' cop from beyond the grave. The concept of a Black ghost is iffy on paper but not in motion. A splashy film brimming with bawdy humor and energy, but it has genuine heart too. It also has Denzel in bright '90s fits rocking a fanny pack!
Okay. So I just learned it’s widely regarded as his worst film…😭 errm Richochet (1991) is actually guilty of that crime!
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) - Jacques Rivette
Three hour long films aren't only reserved for war epics or superhero sagas. A breezy sun drenched adventure with two homegirls just hanging out, making up stories, and acting strange. Applications are currently open for my own offbeat bff to join me in delightful mischief. Celine and Julie proves that movies don't have to make sense or follow a linear structure. They can simply be fun and carefree with a spontaneity we crave in our own dull lives, where mundane outings take on exciting shape. It is fearless, uninhibited expression, not at all unlike a child's wild imagination. But you know, suitable for grown-ups.
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) - Josh Greenbaum
Next on the double bill of weird besties soaking up sun is this unfettered delight. The wackiness levels are critically high; over the top just like the campy pastels. I'm also partial to its tacky beachfront charm. Though Barb and Star are awkward, frumpy, and middle aged, they're never the butt of the joke. The film is free of cruelty and cynicism. Jamie Dornan has a fabulous musical number that influenced "I'm Just Ken" from Barbie (I just made that up but I'm right) and the latter pales in comparison. There's even a talking crab who sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman.
The Unguarded Hour (1936) - Sam Wood
The suspense in this film is built up so well, helped along by the smoothest pacing. There's great depth in its slim running time. Easy to see why Natalie Wood borrowed her stage name from this director! A man's fate hangs in the balance - charged with the murder of his wife, he insists there was a witness who can prove his alibi, but she won't come forward. Doing so would likely ruin her husband's promising career since she's being blackmailed about his past. And her husband is also the prosecutor in the accused man’s case.
This is an undiscovered gem both in general and in Loretta Young's vast body of work. Man was her face otherworldly. She and Franchot Tone are an evenly matched pair with their slender elegance and whatnot. He's also playing that irresistible archetype of the husband deliriously obsessed with his wife.
Terrorizers (1986) - Edward Yang
This movie stays grounded even though it feels so dreamy. White billowing curtains, stretches of silence, haunted eyes, floors and glass lacquered with late afternoon gold, photographs taken in secret, lonely corners, aimless youth. In my effort to make sense of it, I read a handful of reviews that pointed to its coincidences, but it seems to me like nothing happens by chance.
Chameleon Street (1989) - Wendell B. Harris Jr.
I'm confounded by this film's lack of mainstream attention. I have to call it a masterpiece, it's completely warranted. Starring its director as real life con man Douglas Street who camouflaged his way into a prestigious university, a surgeon’s coat, a magazine job, and a law office. Even when he's caught and sent to prison, he's still a slippery dude. His astute observations about white people's casual/overt racism and theft of Black culture are peppered throughout. A guy with his intellect could put his talents to better use, but where's the fun in that?
They Cloned Tyrone (2023) - Juel Taylor
The best way to cope with evil is to make it absurd. This movie exceeds at that with an abundance of style. And it is funny as hell, the moments I wasn't doubled over laughing were sparse. The most shocking conspiracy theories about the government's crimes against Black people are never exaggerated. But Tyrone chooses vibrancy and joy even amidst the garish spectacles of poverty, violence, and racism. John Boyega!!! A choice role for him; the anti-hero radiating fury, a permanent scowl twisting his mouth, a bruised child behind his tough guy act!!! Please give me just one meager chance.
Green for Danger (1946) - Sidney Gilliat
Few things are as enjoyable as a vintage murder mystery. Tension is thick in the small village hospital where a killer is afoot: scorned and jealous lovers, petty rivalries, and checkered pasts all tightly woven into a knot. Then a wickedly brilliant Scotland Yard Inspector arrives and tugs those strings loose. Everyone's a suspect. The warmth and coziness of a detective novel with a cup of tea alchemized into film!
Gilda (1946) - Charles Vidor
I could've sworn I'd seen this film before, or else it rolled into a corner of my mind collecting dust and cobwebs. But there's no way I could've forgotten such an intense, furious film. A polished jewel swathed in black satin, if you can ignore its anticlimactic ending, which I do. The epitome of Film Noir with all the usual suspects, but the tropes and archetypal characters are heightened. Johnny is the everyman with an intact conscience but he's not a good man, he's infuriating and doesn't earn the happy ending. Gilda is a femme fatale, slinky and alluring, but her heart is shattered.
Rita Hayworth was destined to be a screen siren, though it brought her a great deal of pain. "Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda and woke up with me," she once famously said. It's also an insightful representation of this film. The men see Gilda as merely a temptress, and that's the main selling point too. But really she's a sad girl who yearns to mend her broken heart ... :( I’ll save you from those worthless chumps, Gilda!!
Enter the Dragon (1973) - Robert Clouse
Awhile back I asked my big brother, a former karate champ, to recommend me some wuxia titles. This was one of them and it's set the bar so high for the rest that'll follow. Exceedingly fun and a bit cheesy, but the fight scenes are choreographed with such whiplash precision. The hall of mirrors scene has triggered the legendary motion sensors and they won’t stop going off! The inclusive casting was intentional since Bruce Lee was a role model for Black kids too. And when one Cape Verdean man brought karate from his overseas travels to Boston's projects, a generation of kids was immediately hooked.
It wasn’t and they did.