2023 Movie Round-Up!! Part 1

Hi team,

This year we're going to do the year-end round-up a bit differently.

We're already doing it differently, obviously, given that it's the end of April and I'm just now getting to it.  I inadvertently set myself up to approach this post differently this year when I wrote the preamble to this year's round-up, so I suppose it makes sense to continue to deviate from my routine way of reflecting on a year of movies.

My plan for this year is to write the round-up in three installments:

• Part 1: Overview
  
• Part 2: The Worst Movies
• Part 3: The Best Movies

I'm actually kind of excited to try out this version of the round-up, because in honesty writing the one-big-post version is kind of a bear.  It's one of the longest and most labor-intensive posts I do each year.  As we've already established, I just don't have time for that kind of task right now.

So now, let's commence Part 1: The Overview!

As you'll see below, in stark contrast to this year (so far, at least), I watched A TON of movies last year.  In fact, I watched the second-most number of movies last year in the entire history of this blog, with the sole exception of 2020 (aka the other year I had a parental leave) (but also the year the pandemic started), during which I watched a whopping 95 movies.

Those movies were:

1. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (4)

2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (5)

3. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (3)

4. The Automat (4)

5. The Banshees of Inisherin (5)

6. Failure to Launch (2)

7. Emily the Criminal (5)

8. Wall Street (2)

9. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (4)

10. Notting Hill (1)

11. This Changes Everything (3)

12. Art and Craft (4)

13. The People We Hate at the Wedding (4)

14. Spirited Away (5)***

15. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King (3)

16. Norma Rae (5)

17. Luca (3)

18. Persona (5)***

19. Thelma and Louise (3)

20. Now You See Me (2)

21. Inside Man (4.5)

22. Crazy Rich Asians (3)***

23. Late Spring (5)

24. To Catch a Thief (3)

25. The Philadelphia Story (4)

26. The Apartment (4)

27. Cléo de 5 à 7 (4)***

28. Early Summer (5)

29. Designing Woman (3)

30. Woman of the Year (2)

31. From Up on Poppy Hill (2)

32. The Big Sleep (3)

33. Rome, Open City (5)

34. Belle de Jour (2)

35. When Marnie Was There (3)

36. Murder on the Orient Express (3)

37. Red Notice (3)

38. Broadcast News (5)

39. Magic Mike (2.5)

40. Audrey (2)

41. The Princess Bride (4)

42. Die Hard (5)***

43. Bad Boys (2)

44. The Lego Movie (5)***

45. Palm Springs (5)***

46. Shadows (4)

47. Winter Light (4)

48. Autumn Sonata (5)

49. Funny Face (2)

50. Malcolm X (4.5)

51. Rye Lane (4)

52. Le Samouraï (5)***

53. The Brady Bunch Movie (4)***

54. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2)

55. The Goonies (2)

56. Minions: The Rise of Gru (4)

57. Despicable Me (3.5)***

58. Despicable Me 2 (3.5)

59. Wish Dragon (5)

60. Minions: The Rise of Gru (4.5)***

61. Stutz (5)

62. Plus One (5)

63. BlackBerry (4)

64. Heat (4)

65. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (5)

66. Dancing with the Birds (5)***

67. Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia (4)

68. The Jewel Thief (4)

69. Barbie (5)

70. Running with Speed (5)

71. Joy Ride (4)

72. Barbie (4)***

73. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (4)

74. Nosferatu (3)

75. Quiz Lady (3.5)

76. Moana (4)***

77. The Lego Movie (5)***

78. No Hard Feelings (4)

79. Best. Christmas. Ever! (1)

Overall, I'm not only pleased with the quantity but also the quality and breadth of the movies I watched last year.  I watched movies from a variety of eras, genres, and countries.  I watched children's movies, documentaries, silly movies, movies important to the history of cinema, and movies I'd never heard of before.  

I watched a lot of movies I'd seen before and overall enjoyed revisiting.  As a reminder, these latter films are indicated thusly: ***.  In the past, I've used * to indicate that I got nauseated while watching a movie and ** to note that I fell asleep while watching a movie.  Happily, neither of those indicators were necessary last year.

I'm also thrilled with the number of movies I wrote about last year.  A variety of post structures made that possible, including writing perhaps my favorite double header ever, but mostly trying and finally succeeding at keeping myself to slightly briefer posts of a couple of paragraphs is what clinched 2023 as the most prolific blog year to date by number of posts.

Unlike in 2020, I allowed myself to be guided much more by my instincts and interests rather that curated should-y seeming lists of what other people consider to be the best or most important or whatever movies.  Taking that latter tack in 2020 got me into some trouble, including watching some of my least favorite movies of that year.  I'm thankful to have moved past the sense of obligation to decide what to watch based on other people's opinions, because I truly do feel content and satisfied with what I watched last year.

And with that, I think we'll conclude Part 1.  I'm excited to get into the worsts and bests, hopefully very soon!

{Heart}

Living in the Margins

Hi friends,

This month, I watched about a third of a movie and am putting off the 2023 round-up yet again.

I feel sad about this somewhat dramatic and abrupt change in my ability to engage in two things that are really important to my identity as a whole person, not only a caregiver: writing and watching movies. I also feel a bit anxious about this change, because I don't totally understand why it suddenly feels like the already very thin margins on the logistics and demands of my life have suddenly gotten even narrower.  

That's maybe because it's not due to only one thing.  There are the obvious contributing factors, like our Second Child becoming more mobile and communicative in the months before and since his first birthday, and enduring the cliché parade of different kid-borne plagues, the latter of which at best slowed the rate at which we're able to handle the everyday tasks of life and work.  I've also gradually started to increase my work hours while simultaneously trying to stay on top of various routine obligations like doctor and vet appointments.  And then there are the "bonus" unanticipated disruptions, like being sent on a wild goose chase of possibly buying a second car because of a dubiously dire assessment from an unfamiliar mechanic about our current one (lesson learned: always get a second opinion, ideally from a mechanic you already know and trust), or rescuing a cat who showed up in our backyard and yelled at us through the window until we finally gave him the chance to walk right into a cat carrier and set up temporary residence in one of our bathrooms, or the surprisingly large lift of completing enough continuing education credits to renew one of my licenses.

On the lighter side of things, Husband and I have also recently rediscovered our love for Love Island as well as discovering a new show we're really enjoying, which together gobble up the potential movie-watching time in the evenings.  I've been putting a lot of effort into meeting and building relationships with other parents in our neighborhood, and also unwittingly but joyfully building relationships with several types of local wildlife who now frequent our backyard.

It all makes sense when I lay out all the things that have accumulated to the point that they fully color in the page of my life to its very outermost edges.  I just keep waiting for there to be a little more breathing room, a little more consistent reprieve from the happy relentlessness of this stage of life.  It truly is happy, but it truly is also relentless.

I started this blog as an accountability check during grad school, to hold myself accountable to myself for making space for my whole self as I engaged in a process that could easily consume everything I had to offer: learning to be a psychologist.  I am not only a caregiver.  I knew that then, and I know that now.

The happy trouble is, I'm really good at caregiving, and I love doing it.  I love my work and I love parenting and I love maintaining everything that is my family, including my home and all the living things within (and around) it.  It gives me a deep sense of fulfilled, values-directed purpose and satisfaction.  That signals a change in my caregiving that I've taken stock of recently--I'm caring for things in a way that doesn't feel like pouring into a bottomless vessel.  I used to do a lot of that impossible kind of caregiving, and it was at times pretty devastating.  At best, it was draining, made me feel devalued, and cloudied my mental vision.  I think I've become more realistic about what I'm responsible for and what my care can and cannot accomplish, and when I stay within the new boundaries that awareness creates, caregiving feels radically different.

Now, I feel the ways in which my love and care can create an echo chamber in the same way depression, fear, or trauma can.  I feel my own care and love reflected back to me, and added to, when I'm with my children and husband, when I see a fox in our backyard or hear birds singing around our house, when I know more of my neighbors, and when I do my work.  Each of these things is evidence of the love and care I've planted blooming.  I'm tired, overworked, and overwhelmed most of the time now, but I'm also happy and emotionally full most of the time, too.

So where in all this do movies fit?  I don't know.  They don't really, at least not with the regularity they used to.  I've taken to reassuring myself that however over-the-top things feel right now, my life won't feel like this forever.  There will be times when there is more freedom in my days for other things, and hopefully I'll enjoy those, too, because the love and care I plant continues to yield a bountiful and broad harvest.

I'm genuinely so excited for the movies I'll watch when it's possible again.  There's so much good stuff out there to see.

{Heart}

Decently Good "Good Grief"

Hey everyone,

I am accepting that I’m putting off my annual movie round-up for yet another month since this choice is just an honest indicator of what my life is like right now. This is not remotely to say my life is bad. It’s just immensely full, and it’s therefore giving me lots of opportunities to practice being gentle, realistic, and reasonable with myself about what’s possible and what’s a priority right now.

So instead of the heavier lift of a round-up post, I’ll squeeze in a February post on this leap day by writing about a movie I recently watched. 

On a possibly ill-advised whim while Husband was out for the evening for a family event and I stayed home with our children, I watched “Good Grief” (2023), a film about a person mourning the sudden death of his husband. Because how better to take advantage of a solo evening after the kids are in bed than to watch a movie that makes you sad and anxious about spousal loss? This was truly free time allocation at its finest.

Beyond the mild angst and regret I feel about that decision, I have overall mixed feelings about this movie. Let’s get into it.

The film is written and starred in by Dan Levy, who also made his directorial debut on this project. I am aware of how beloved Levy is following his role in “Schitt’s Creek”, and found his scenes in “Happiest Season” (2020) to be the most redeemable parts of that movie. He wields a unique combination of sass and pathos that makes him incredibly watchable, and for the most part I enjoyed his performance in “Good Grief”.

The movie starts out strong enough, quickly submerging us in the social world and relationship dynamics of Levy’s Marc and his two close friends, Sophie (played by Ruth Negga) and Thomas (played by Nimesh Patel). Knowing the premise of the movie (hell, just knowing the title of the movie) lends the raucous Christmas party at its beginning a somewhat obvious-feeling dread. This is not to say that the pivotal moment of the death of Marc’s husband Ollie (played by Luke Evans) doesn’t succeed in landing its gut punch of wrenching shock and grief—it does, but taken altogether it feels a bit artless.

And ultimately, that sense of artlessness, of emotional moments that land in a slightly faltering way, typifies the entirety of “Good Grief”. The turning point when this became inescapable for me, unfortunately, was during a monologue of Marc’s that went on a little too long, to the point that it took on an almost stage-y feeling. Rather than feeling authentic and organic, each major moment afterward was instead dogged by a sense of fastidiously checking off the necessary evolutions and catharses to which each main character was entitled. They felt forced and over-written when they could have been outbursts or conversations that sounded like things real people would say to each other. The performances in “Good Grief” were therefore limited by what feels like a lack of maturity in the film’s writing, which is a shame because the actors were otherwise very enjoyable to watch.

The movie’s settings are beautiful and the soundtrack is great. And the overall existence of this film, as an examination of gay married life, love, and loss, as well as adult friendships and grief, is unarguably a net positive. Despite the dubiousness of the timing of when I watched this movie, I’m glad I did. It won’t be the best thing I watched this year, but I think it’s still worth watching.

I gave it a 3.

{Heart}

2023 Movie Round-Up Preamble: Lightning Round!!

Hi friends,

As I was preparing to write my annual round-up post--like as I was literally highlighting the list of movies I watched last year to copy and paste them into a blank blogger window--I noticed I'd underlined a couple of titles with the aspirational intent to come back to those films and write about them.  I felt disappointed to move onto 2024 without talking about those movies.  This happens every year: there are always movies I meant to write about that end up simply getting passed over and, unfortunately, ultimately forgotten about.

Well NOT THIS YEAR.

Because it's better to write a few sentences or paragraphs than nothing at all, I'm going to attempt to write a lightning round-style post about (at least some of) those movies.

Here we go!

"Norma Rae" (1979)

The first thing that viscerally registers about "Norma Rae" is the noise.  The film opens in the thunderously loud warehouse where Norma Rae, her parents, and her neighbors toil, and the intense and droning din is instantly oppressive and overwhelming.  In this manner, the movie reminds me of the use of sound in the much-later "Children of Men" (2006) to wrenchingly ground its audience in its bleak world--the sounds of this world aren't only impacting the characters in the story, distorting their perceptions of reality, but you, the viewer, as well.

Beginning with this bodily experience of the consequences of the working conditions of Norma Rae and her compatriots, "Norma Rae" is still a remarkable, gripping, and inspiring film about the desperate importance of the labor movement.  It is just excellent!  I gave it a 5.

"Thelma and Louise" (1991)

I watched this movie shortly after watching "Norma Rae" in an attempt to continue watching some of the empowering lady movies of yore, but this one fell pretty flat especially by comparison to its union-celebrating predecessor.  "Thelma and Louise" is fun in a pulp fiction-y way, but also a bit rough to watch.  To my unpleasant surprise, despite being billed as an early women-driven buddy movie, "Thelma and Louise" struggled with the same casually compulsive sexism of movies from over a decade prior without reckoning with it in a clear-headed way.  Sure Thelma and Louise variously kill and inconvenience a variety of extremely shitty men, but I was still struck with how harshly critical Susan Sarandon's Louise was at times of Geena Davis's Thelma.  I'm glad I watched it given its importance in cinematic history, but it didn't move me nearly as profoundly as "Norma Rae".  I gave it a 3.

"The Princess Bride" (1987)

I know this seems ~*~inconceivable~*~, but I actually had never seen the "Princess Bride" before last year.  I was a bit hesitant to watch it because I couldn't imagine it would live up to the deep adoration many people have for it, and I feared that being a late-comer to the film would mean I would find it  particularly underwhelming.  On the other hand, I thought it would be convenient to finally get the jokes and references people make to this movie every once in a while.  

Happily, I honestly liked it!  It was cute and silly, and I understand why people find it so lovable.  I know this is probably the oddest of details to hang onto, but I really liked how you can see where the set designers incorporated crash pads into the set so the actors safely engage in dramatic leaps during one particular sword fight.  Something about the low-fi nature of the movie's stunts really endeared me to it.  Also apparently Andre the Giant was a goddamn delight!  I gave "The Princess Bride" a 4.

"Audrey" (2020) and "Funny Face" (1957)

An offshoot of my micro-theme of empowered lady movies was to watch a few Audrey Hepburn movies, starting with the documentary about her followed by "Funny Face".  Despite absolutely loving Hepburn as a person and actor, I unfortunately found both of these films pretty underwhelming.  The documentary is a bit lifeless, which is kind of astonishing given its incredible source material--Audrey Hepburn is one of the most magnetic, charismatic, lovely performers of Hollywood's Golden Age, so it's a crime that a movie about her dramatic, impactful, and jam-packed life be so dull.

I chose to watch "Funny Face" for the fashion and also because I wanted to see Hepburn's dancing.  While it delivers on those two fronts, I was again underwhelmed by other aspects of the film, including its unconvincing romance between Hepburn and (a comparatively much older) Fred Astaire and its overall belittling attitude toward Hepburn's Jo (are you kidding me with the title referring to her face??), but especially her intellectual interest in a new philosophical doctrine.  Blech.

I gave both movies a 2.

"Despicable Me" (2010) and "Despicable Me 2" (2013)

Especially after reckoning with how much I liked "Minions: Rise of Gru" (2022), I basically had to watch these movies.  I was genuinely curious to see how I'd feel about "Despicable Me" upon rewatching it, and whether "Despicable Me 2" would uphold the generally solid quality of this series of movies.  Neither disappointed!  I didn't enjoy them quite as much as the Minions movie, but both juxtaposed goofy slap-stick humor for children against competent and thoughtful relationship themes, first the father-child relationship and then the parent-new partner relationship.  I really like that these movies exist to model non-problematic versions of these relationships for children, as movies like that are bizarrely rare.

I gave both movies a 3.5.

I have a few straggling movies from 2023 that I genuinely hope I can write last-minute longer-form posts about, because I really want to dig into them a bit more than would make sense here.  That sure would be consistent with my first resolution for 2024, so here's hoping I pull that off!

{Heart}