What a great year for movies. There were a plethora of wonderful flicks released in the last 12 months across a mix of genres, making 2023 trips to the theater satisfying.
Like all years with a lot of top shelf movies, it can be hard to narrow a list down to 10. But the more good movies the better, and based on personal enjoyment and what I found most well made, I was able to put together 10 picks. However, like always, I will honor the movies that didn’t make the cut.
“The Color Purple” makes sense as a title, because the hardships the main character goes through will have someone feeling blue and seeing red.
Based on the stage musical, which itself was an adaptation of a 1982 novel, “Color Purple” is a film centered around the character Celie Harris-Johnson (Fantasia Barrino). As a teenager, Celine is raped by her father and gives birth to two children, who are taken from her and given to the church for adoption.
The cruelty doesn’t stop there, as he then arranges Celie to be married to an abusive farmer named Albert (Colman Domingo). During this time, she’s also separated from her sister, Nettie (Halle Bailey). Celie goes through many hardships, but finds some kindness and encouragement from other women, including Sofia (Danielle Brooks) and a singer named Shug (Taraji P. Henson).
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Color Purple’ powered by cast, weakened by script”
Sometimes even the most meticulously-made movies fall short.
That’s the case with director Michael Mann’s new biographical film centered on Italian car-maker Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver). The movie is set in 1957, with Ferrari gearing up for the annual Mile Miglia, or Thousand Miles. The Italian race event is another opportunity to show off his brand.
While this is happening, Ferrari’s company is is in a difficult situation financially. To turn things around, a suggestion is made to merge with another company, but it’s complicated because Ferrari’s estranged wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) owns half the shares. Their relationship has been strained since their son’s death and is even more so lately as Ferrari is having an affair.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Despite strong filmmaking, ‘Ferrari’ is largely unfocused”
It feels kind of bad to pile on Washington after they just lost the football national championship, but the review must go on.
“The Boys in the Boat” is set in the mid 30s, right in the middle of the Great Depression. The film begins by introducing Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), a student at the University of Washington who’s homeless and is having difficulty paying for his tuition. While looking for work, he finds he can make money for the semester by making the school’s rowing team.
After a grueling selection process, Rantz and seven others are picked for the JV team. Their coach, Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) puts them to work right away and soon learns they’re able to compete well with the varsity team. Because of their talent, the coach begins considering the JV squad to compete for a spot in the 1936 Olympics.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Boys in the Boat’ bores more than it excites”
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are known for their documentaries chronicling individuals who do incredible physical feats. Maybe they should have just done a documentary with this subject, too.
The duo’s latest film is a narrative feature centered on distance swimmer Diana Nyad. In the late 70s, Nyad (Annette Bening) participated in several open water attempts, swimming around the island of Manhattan and from the Bahamas to Florida.
What she wasn’t able to do at that time, though, was conquer a swim from Cuba to Florida. The film picks up with Nyad in the early 2010s, now in her 60s, with a fiery desire to try the swim again. The movie chronicles her attempts with help from her coach and friend Bonnie (Jodie Foster).
When there’s hardships aplenty, sometimes a human connection is what can get a person through.
Writer and director Michel Franco’s new film “Memory” shows just that, as two broken people find each other and form a relationship. The film opens by introducing Sylvia, a single mother and recovering alcoholic who works in an adult care home. While she’s been sober for years and able to manage her daily life, she still deals from trauma in her past.
The movie picks up with her meeting a man, Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), who has early onset dementia. This leads to their first encounters being difficult, but as time goes on, they grow closer. While the relationship brings them some happiness, though, there are still struggles for both.
Continue reading “REVIEW: While moving, ‘Memory’ often feels distant”
A film from Blumhouse Productions kicked off both 2023 and 2024. The difference is that “M3gan” was a much better experience than “Night Swim.”
The new horror stars Kerry Condon and Wyatt Russell as Eve and Ray Waller, who begin the movie in the market for a new house. Their search for a new home comes after Ray had to retire from Major League Baseball due to an illness.
The home they end up buying appears to be a great fit, as the pool in the backyard will be helpful for Ray’s physical therapy. Things at the new home start off well enough, with the family of four enjoying the luxury of having a pool. However, creepy things begin happening and paranormal sights are seen.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Don’t bother with a dip, ‘Night Swim’ is a skip”
Sometimes a film comes along that does something positive by shining a light on a hidden figure, but doesn’t do so in extraordinary fashion.
This movie is an example. It tells the story of Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), who was the lead organizer for the March on Washington in 1963. The event is now most well known for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and a subsequent meeting with President John F. Kennedy.
Getting to those historic moments took an immense amount of planning and mobilization, though, and Rustin was at the center of it all. The film dramatizes this, as well as Rustin’s experience as a gay man during a time where he had to keep his relationships hidden.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Story of ‘Rustin’ is important, but told without cinematic flair”
During the Nuremberg Trials, Rudolf Höss admitted that well over a million people were killed while he was commandant at Auschwitz. As this film shows, he had no issue maintaining a regular life next door.
Set in 1943, “The Zone of Interest” follows Höss (Christian Friedel) not inside the infamous camp, but rather at home with his family. While he was in charge of the camp, his residence was right beside it, only separated by a high concrete wall.
As the film demonstrates, the proximity to a place of extermination did not hinder the Höss family from living an average life, where the patriarch went off to work in the morning while his wife tended to the children and kept busy with a garden. They did all of this all while hearing the sounds from the camp.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Despite strong filmmaking, ‘Zone of Interest’ loses momentum”
Wrestling may be theatrical and scripted, but the physical and mental toll is very real, as this film shows.
“The Iron Claw” tells the story of the Von Erich family, which has produced multiple generations of professional wrestlers. The origins of wrestling in the family go back to its patriarch, Fritz (Holt McCallany), who was a professional in the 50s and 60s. In addition to his career, Fritz became the father to several sons.
Once his time in the ring was done, he decided to push wrestling on his kids, Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simons). Fritz doesn’t just stop at tough physical training, though, as he also uses manipulation and pushes his sons too far, leading to tragic consequences.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Iron Claw’ is mostly effective in showing family drama and trauma”
Matthew Liedke on Film 