These are the first words uttered in Michel Franco’s deceptively spare drama, Memory. Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) is celebrating 13 years of sobriety at an AA meeting. She’s brought her daughter, and those around her are remembering her impact on them.
For the next 140 minutes, Franco examines what’s true and what’s faulty in the human memory, and what he finds is sometimes harsh and unpleasant, but just often, profoundly tender.
Chastain’s performance is brittle but with complexity and depth. Sylvia’s life, and her hard-edged wall, are built from the years of being denied her truth. She knows who she is and she’s doing what she can with that.
Saul (Peter Sarsgaard, astonishing) does not always know who he is, but when he does the film shimmers with life and humanity. Saul follows Sylvia home from a high school reunion of sorts. The catalyst is provocative in that it makes Sylvie reconsider her own memory, which allows those around her to reignite their assault on its veracity.
A razor-sharp ensemble lends remarkable support to Chastain and Sarsgaard. Jessica Harper, in particular, is picture perfect, her sly and cheery manipulation leading to an emotional climax blistered by authenticity.
Memory is a bit of a departure for Franco, who’s films often keep audiences at arm’s length from the emotional turmoil beneath a character’s enigmatic surface. Not so here. Chastain’s slowly melting wall of ice creates real intimacy, and what she reveals beneath is raw.
She and Sarsgaard are veteran talents reveling in an opportunity to discard artifice and create something untidy. Their work, particularly in scenes together, testifies again to each actor’s remarkable skill.
Franco’s films rarely answer all the questions they ask, and can feel almost shapeless and often hopeless. Memory is a departure here as well. Though it’s far less rigidly structured than many Hollywood films, there’s a comforting structure to it and, more comforting, an undeniable spark of hope.
A film for anyone who squeezes creative passions into the hours outside other responsibilities, refuses the label “hobby” and still never manages to complete anything, Destroy All Neighbors lives that nightmare.
William (Jonah Ray) has been working and reworking the final song on his prog-rock album for ages. Years. He’s so close, but then the loudest, most aggressively weird neighbor moves in next door. Vlad (Alex Winter, who also produces) may have charmed William’s longsuffering girlfriend (Kiran Deol), but he’s pushing William to the brink of insanity. Who can get anything done with all that noise?!
William is that nonconfrontational nice guy who’s always being taken advantage of. But Vlad has pushed him too far. Which is why it will be so difficult to convince anyone that Vlad accidentally killed and dismembered his own self. But he did! Really!
Destroy All Neighbors delivers silly, sloppy horror comedy with the highly relevant message: maybe this is all your own fault. Ray (MST3K) drives the lunacy with an earnest performance. You kind of already know this guy. Hell, he could be you.
And that’s the real charm of Destroy All Neighbors. Director Josh Forbes, working from a script by Mike Benner, Jared Logan and Charles A. Pieper, isn’t wagging a finger of judgment. The finger is gently pointed inward.
The writing team comes from animation and comedy rather than horror, which may be why the film is so gleefully gory, no meanness in it. Whenever William does find his inner badass, the film makes sure he immediately regrets it.
A cameo from Kumail Nanjiani and the supporting goofiness from Lennon and Ryan Kattner as rock and roll has been Caleb Bang Jansen (say the whole name!) keep the tone silly.
Destroy All Neighbors is not a great movie. It’s definitely not a great horror movie. But it’s a light, weird, gentle reminder that you may be all that’s holding you back. (And also, loud neighbors kind of suck.)
With Clear Mind, director Rebecca Eskreis and writer Seanea Kofoed craft a darkly comedic tale of revenge while also poking fun at new age therapy.
After losing her daughter in a freak drowning accident, Nora (Rebecca Creskoff) finds herself adrift in grief. Her marriage over and dropped from her friend group, Nora seeks solace in a new form of virtual reality therapy. In the virtual world, Nora gets to exact revenge against the family and friends who have wronged her. Unfortunately the violence doesn’t stay virtual.
Despite presenting itself as a horror thriller, Clear Mind is surprising light on frights. As the carnage begins to splash across the screen later in the film, it’s only after Eskreis has subjected the audience to round after round of uncomfortable confrontations between Nora and her former friends. While the kills and gore gags might not wow horror fiends, the tension and seat-squirming anxiety created in the lead up more than makes up for it.
Despite being high-concept, Clear Mind is not a plot heavy film. The bulk of the movie features characters simply talking to one another around a table. It’s a testament to Kofoed’s writing that while the movie is overly chatty, it’s never boring. Only when the movie stops to propel the plot forward does Clear Mind stumble.
Eskreis and Kofoed’s commentary on therapy and the people found in Nora’s friend group is so well established through character relationships that any push to highlight it through plot seems disingenuous and clunky. The genre hook of the movie feels like the part the filmmakers were the least interested in.
Despite somewhat pulling punches with its genre elements, Clear Mind is still a well written jab at pseudo-science and the people in its orbit.
About two-thirds of the way through The Beekeeper, director David Ayer and star Jason Statham hit us with the film’s highlight. It’s an elevator sequence that takes an unexpectedly gory turn, then adds a clever surprise for the finishing touch.
If only the rest of the film could be this interesting.
Statham is playing his usual one man killing machine, this time named Adam Clay. He’s living a quiet and reclusive life as a beekeeper in rural Massachsetts, until a cybercrime firm scams Clay’s only friend (Phylicia Rashad) so badly she kills herself.
Clay takes very explosive, very lethal revenge.
But the phishing firm’s CEO Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson in hipster douchebag mode) has friends is high places, including a former CIA director (Jeremy Irons, classing up the joint). Danforth wants Clay taken out, but he soon learns that will not be so easy.
See, Clay is more than a beekeeper, he’s a former beekeeper, an elite group of enforcers who are outside the chain of command and charged only with “protecting the hive when the system is out of balance.”
Bad news for anyone standing between Clay and the scale-tipping Danforth.
Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Expend4bles, the Point Break and Total Recall reboots) rolls out a script that feels like a discarded idea from Denzel’s first Equalizer film. Each step closer to “the head of the snake” gets more ridiculous, all presented with a bone dry seriousness from Ayer (Fury, Suicide Squad) and Statham that screams for a little self awareness.
Instead, The Beekeeper keeps pushing toward its own misguided goal of sermonizing about corruption while celebrating vigilante vengeance. Where it lands – elevator ride aside – is strictly in plug-and-play Statham territory, another ironic reminder of why his comedic turn in Spy was such a joyous bullseye.
Writer, director, and star Dana Kippel delivers a trippy journey through a form of psychotherapy called shadow work in her film, Reflect.
As Summer, Kippel invites participants to a spiritual retreat as a challenge of sorts in which they can win money upon completing “reflective” obstacle courses.
Accompanying her on this journey to the desert (both spiritual and literal) are three friends (and one frenemy). Each woman brings her own past traumas with her, but none of them take their upcoming journey too seriously. From the clothes they wear to the things they pack, they don’t seem to understand the gravity of what they’re getting into.
Along the way, the characters meet some odd balls – odd balls that are part of a show, The Game of Life, in which the women are unaware participants.
It’s a strange set up for sure. By putting our characters on this journey, Kippel mines the sources of trauma in each woman’s life, some of those traumas more damaging than others.
As each woman undertakes the obstacle courses, they must face their anguish. It’s part of the game, part of the journey, but it makes you wonder what exactly becomes of a person who can’t handle the pain that plagues them.
Reflect excels at delivering a game cast of women (including Grace Patterson and Jadelyn Breier) who play off each other with the authentic dynamic of friends. There is genuine affection, but also a level of cattiness that keeps the quintet from truly letting each other in. Perhaps if they were able to do so, those life traumas would not be so overwhelming.
The film’s only weak element is when Kippel cuts away from the women to the gameshow framing device. Reflect would have worked just as well as a psychedelic journey into shadow work without the added element of voyeurism.
However, Kippel wisely keeps most of our attention on Summer and her friends, revealing their baggage little by little. It’s an interesting look at how our past infects our present and influences our future. Is there a way to move forward when the past pervades our every being? Maybe, maybe not. Kippel offers no easy answers, and the film is better for it.
2012’s The Impossible proved director J.A. Bayona could recreate a real life disaster with heart-racing precision, and then mine the intimate aftermath to find a touching depth.
Since then, he’s had his big screen mind on monsters, with results both miraculous (A Monster Calls) and mixed (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). Now, Netflix’s Society of the Snow finds Bayona back in the true adventure business.
And his business in Society of the Snow is heartbreakingly, thrillingly, unbelievably good.
It’s the latest account of the 1972 Andes flight disaster, a legendary ordeal that has been detailed in several books and films over the last five decades plus. Bayona read Pablo Vierci’s “La Sociedad de la Nieve” while researching The Impossible, bought the rights soon after, and now teams with co-writers Bernat Vilaplana and Jaime Marques for a harrowing and fittingly reverent treatment.
Following Vierci’s lead, Bayona makes sure we get to know many of the members of the ill-fated Uruguayan rugby team, who were on their way to a long weekend in Chili when their plane – carrying 40 passengers and 5 crew members – went down among the snowy peaks.
After an introduction that endears the young men to us via enthusiastic friendship and youthful naïveté, Bayona pulls us into the crash experience with a spectacular, terrifying set piece almost guaranteed to whiten your knuckles and quicken your pulse.
It’s a stunner, as it should be, because it anchors the film in a survival mode that will be tested beyond what most people could ever imagine.
The ensemble cast, filled mainly with newcomers, is deeply affecting. The survivors will be pushed to their physical, moral and spiritual breaking points, and these young actors make sure not one exhausting second of it feels false.
Bayona and cinematographer Pedro Lugue present the Andes as a beautiful monster in its own right, capable of majesty and menace in equal measure. The smaller you feel, the better, so experience this one on the biggest screen you can find.
Forget what you know. Even if you’re aware of what these people went through, Society of the Snow will reframe the tale with a deeper level of humanity and courage. And should this legend be new to you, resist the urge to research until after you’ve seen Bayona’s take.
Nominees for the 22nd annual Columbus Film Critics Association awards
(Columbus, December 31, 2023) The Columbus Film Critics Association is pleased to announce the nominees for its 22nd annual awards. Winners will be announced on the evening of January 4th, 2024.
Founded in 2002, the Columbus Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and its surrounding areas. Its membership consists of 28 print, radio, television, and online critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.
The 2023 Columbus Film Critics Association awards nominees are:
Best Film
–American Fiction
–Barbie
–Godzilla Minus One (Gojira -1.0)
–The Holdovers
–The Iron Claw
–Killers of the Flower Moon
–May December
–Oppenheimer
–Past Lives
–Poor Things
–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
–The Zone of Interest
Best Director
-Greta Gerwig, Barbie
-Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
-Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
-Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Celine Song, Past Lives
Best Lead Performance
-Bradley Cooper, Maestro
-Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Colman Domingo, Rustin
-Zac Efron, The Iron Claw
-Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
-Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Greta Lee, Past Lives
-Carey Mulligan, Maestro
-Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
-Margot Robbie, Barbie
-Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
-Emma Stone, Poor Things
-Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Best Supporting Performance
-Penélope Cruz, Ferrari
-Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
-Jodie Foster, Nyad
-Ryan Gosling, Barbie
-Glenn Howerton, Blackberry
-Charles Melton, May December
-Julianne Moore, May December
-Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
-Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
-Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
Best Ensemble
–Asteroid City
–Barbie
–The Color Purple
–Killers of the Flower Moon
–Oppenheimer
–Poor Things
Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)
-Willem Dafoe, Asteroid City, The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka), Inside, and PoorThings
-Matt Damon, Air and Oppenheimer
-Colman Domingo, The Color Purple, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, Rustin, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
-Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) and The Zone of Interest
-Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction, Asteroid City, and Rustin
Breakthrough Film Artist
-Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon – (for acting)
-Cord Jefferson, American Fiction – (for directing and screenwriting)
-Charles Melton, May December – (for acting)
-Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers – (for acting)
-Celine Song, Past Lives – (for directing and screenwriting)
Best Cinematography
-Matthew Libatique, Maestro
-Rodrigo Prieto, Barbie
-Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Robbie Ryan, Poor Things
-Hoyte Van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
Best Film Editing
-Michael Andrews, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
-Kirk Baxter, The Killer
-Nick Houy, Barbie
-Jennifer Lame, Oppenheimer
-Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Poor Things
-Thelma Schoonmaker, Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Adapted Screenplay
-Kelly Fremon Craig, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
-Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
-Tony McNamara, Poor Things
-Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
-Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Original Screenplay
-Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Asteroid City
-Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, May December
-Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw
-Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
-David Hemingson, The Holdovers
-Celine Song, Past Lives
-Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute)
Best Score
-Jerskin Fendrix, Poor Things
-Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
-Laura Karpman, American Fiction
-Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
-Naoki Satô, Godzilla Minus One (Gojira -1.0)
Best Documentary
–20 Days in Mariupol
–32 Sounds
–American Symphony
–Anselm (Anselm – Das Rauschen der Zeit)
–Kokomo City
–Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Best Foreign Language Film
–Afire (Roter Himmel)
–Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute)
–The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka)
–Godzilla Minus One (Gojira -1.0)
–Perfect Days
–The Zone of Interest
Best Animated Film
–The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka)
–Elemental
–Nimona
–Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
–Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Frank Gabrenya Award for Best Comedy
–American Fiction
–Asteroid City
–Barbie
–Bottoms
–The Holdovers
–No Hard Feelings
–You Hurt My Feelings
Best Overlooked Film
–Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
–Blackberry
–Rye Lane
–Showing Up
–Theater Camp
–You Hurt My Feelings
COFCA offers its congratulations to the nominees.
Previous Best Film winners:
2002:Punch-Drunk Love
2003: Lost in Translation
2004: Million Dollar Baby
2005: A History of Violence
2006: Children of Men
2007: No Country for Old Men
2008: WALL·E
2009:Up in the Air
2010:Inception
2011: Drive
2012: Moonrise Kingdom
2013: Gravity
2014: Selma
2015: Spotlight
2016: La La Land
2017: Lady Bird
2018: If Beale Street Could Talk
2019: Parasite (Gisaengchung)
2020: Promising Young Woman
2021: The Power of the Dog
2022: The Banshees of Inisherin
For more information about the Columbus Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mail info@cofca.org.
The complete list of members and their affiliations:
It is that time again! What a year 2023 was in movies – action and horror, blockbusters and indies, newcomers and veterans. Plus feminists, God bless them! We had to really prune and trim, but here are our 25 favorites.
1. Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos creates a luscious world that is difficult to pin down. It’s part Victorian England, part Blade Runner 2049, and it is where Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, perfection) evolves to challenge the patriarchal notions that surround her.
The arc of Bella’s character is as satisfying as anything put to screen, and Stone revels in every unexpected, delightful, brash moment. And though it’s tough to pull your eyes away from Stone, along comes Mark Ruffalo to commit grand larceny with every scene of his hysterical cad Duncan Wedderburn, who indulges his ego teaching Bella about “furious jumping” (take a wild guess) but is reduced to mush when she moves past him without mercy or apology.
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
“Can you find the wolves in this picture?”
The question comes from a book on Osage Indian history that Ernest Burkhart is perusing, and it’s one that lingers throughout Martin Scorsese’s triumphant epic Killers of the Flower Moon.
Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth adapt David Grann’s nonfiction book with an engrossing mix of true crime fact-finding, slow burning thrills and devastating heartbreak. The characters are rich in culture and in shades of human grey, each one caught in an infamous crossfire of American envy, arrogance, bigotry and greed.
3. Oppenheimer
Writer/director Christopher Nolan gives Oppenheimer an engrossing IMAX treatment that serves up history lesson, character study and mystery thriller during three unforgettable hours.
Cillian Murphy is simply mesmerizing and absolutely award-worthy as Oppenheimer. Much like any film of this nature, Oppenheimer takes its liberties and leaves room for further study. But Nolan takes you inside the personal journey of one of the most important men in history, with resonant and challenging lessons on hubris, envy, blind faith and the search for redemption. And by the end of hour three, he leaves you drained but thankful for the experience.
4. Barbie
Barbie, which director Greta Gerwig co-wrote with Noah Baumbach (that slouch), delivers smart, biting, riotous comedy with more whimsy than anything this politically savvy has any right to wield. This film does not work without a tightrope of a tone, and everyone walks it with their heels off the ground.
It’s a role Margot Robbie was clearly born to play. Ryan Gosling, the man behind the tan, plays Existential Crisis Ken and it’s possible he’s never been better. Barbie is a brilliantly executed, incredibly fun, brightly colored, completely logical feminist statement that should be remembered come awards season.
5. Maestro
Bradley Cooper’s instincts for construction have grown exponentially since A Star Is Born (his stellar directing debut). Frame after frame is a wonder of style and storytelling, including an unforgettable extended take of simmering intensity and visual contrast that rivals the emotional wallop of Marriage Story‘s famous soul-baring confrontation.
Maestro is a film that soars early and often, via moments of glamorous cinematic muscle-flexing and intimate soul searching. It is as much about a great artist as it about the sacrifices great art often demands from both the artist and those who are closest to them. It’s a celebration of a legend and of a legendary bond, a sublime piece of moviemaking that deserves a standing O.
6. When Evil Lurks
Just when you thought no one could do anything fresh with a possession movie, Terrified filmmaker Demián Rugna surprises you. When Evil Lurks does sometimes feel familiar, its road trip to hell detouring through The Crazies, among others. But Rugna’s take on all the familiar elements feels new, in that you cannot and would not want to predict where he’s headed.
As choices are made and usually regretted, Rugna propels his heroes onward, each step, each choice, each misstep adding pressure and confusion, unveiling the character beneath even as bits of the brothers’ history organically comes to light. This is a magnificently written piece of horror, and Rugna’s expansive direction gives it an otherworldly yet dirty, earthy presence.
7. The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki delivers the best Christmas gift this year with the lovely, likely swan song, The Boy and the Heron. Characteristically gorgeous, the film combines the spectacle of Spirited Away with the solemnity of The Wind Rises. Joe Hisaishi’s plaintive score never overwhelms but quietly emphasizes the sense of loss that permeates the movie. And though the painterly magic we’ve come to expect from the unparalleled filmmaker is on display in every frame, the storytelling this time is openly wistful.
The Boy and the Heron may represent Mahito’s coming of age, but as he turns his back on the imaginative world he leaves behind, it’s hard not to feel as if Miyazaki is likewise waving goodbye.
8. Godzilla Minus One
Writer/director Takashi Yamazaki tips some unmistakable hats to both Jaws and Dunkirk, and emerges with a completely satisfying Kaiju adventure. And though Yamazaki makes sure Godzilla wreaks his havoc early and often, Minus One is a film driven by characters with all-too-human complexities.
Yamazaki – who’s also credited as the VFX supervisor – gives Godzilla a wonderfully classic look, with imposing and well-defined features like those spiky scales that turn blue when he’s about to spit that fire! Hell yeah! The filmmaker deftly balances the destruction with the reflection, and Minus One raises up a welcome addition to Godzilla lore.
9. American Fiction
“White people think that they want the truth, but they don’t. They just want to feel absolved.”
Writer/director Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction takes aim at fiction – print or cinematic – and its problematic relationship with Black trauma. You might not expect a film that floats this truth so effortlessly to be a laugh riot, but American Fiction delivers an awful lot of laugh-out-loud moments.
Jeffrey Wright – an underappreciated genius of an actor if ever there was one – does what he always does. He conjures a fully formed human being, flawed but forgivable and endlessly earnest. Buoyed by a delightful ensemble and cuttingly hilarious script, he delivers one of the finest performances of his career.
10. The Color Purple
No matter how familiar you are with Alice Walker’s original novel, or Spielberg’s 1985 film, director Blitz Bazawule’s adaptation of The Color Purple Broadway musical comes to the big screen as a heartfelt and joyous experience.
Have those tissues handy, but rest assured they will all be tears of joy. Because as much suffering as Miss Celie and her family endure, that pain is not what drives this vision. Bazawule, Fantasia Barrino and a top flight ensemble make this The Color Purple an uplifting celebration of heritage and family, and an exhilarating film experience.
11. May/December
May December feels more like Todd Haynes of old: a sultry situation masquerading as hum drum, populated by Tennessee Williams-esque damaged beauties wanting, wanting. Plus, Julianne Moore.
Moore is characteristically brilliant and wonderfully enigmatic. Portman is magnificent, biting into a role with more salty meat than anything she’s handled since Black Swan. But it’s Charles Melton who truly surprises, heartbreaking emotional honesty in a film that flaunts insincerity.
12. The Iron Claw
Writer/director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest) brings together his lifelong love of wrestling with a keen ability to heighten psychological tension to the breaking point and then see what fills the void that comes after that break.
The result is a mesmerizing sports movie and Oscar contention for Zac Efron. Call it a curse or call it bad luck, but Durkin’s deft handling of these events turns public tragedy into a searing meditation on familial bonds and the limits of a certain type of masculinity.
13. The Holdovers
Director Alexander Payne serves up plenty a period comedy that also finds time to unwrap some warmth and understanding.
Paul Giamatti is perfection as a man who seems to have forged a comfortable “hate-hate” relationship with life. Dominic Sessa impresses in his screen debut, giving depth to the rebellion that has brought Angus multiple expulsions from multiple schools. And Da’Vine Joy Randolph brings plenty of weary humanity, crafting Mary as a heartbroken woman still trying to understand why her Curtis was deemed more expendable than these rich white boys who are preparing for college instead of war.
14. Asteroid City
As is so often the case, director Wes Anderson, writing again with Roman Coppola, painstakingly creates a world – colorful, peculiar, emotionally tight lipped – brimming with characters (equally colorful, peculiar and emotionally tight-lipped). Brimming. About 50 speaking characters stand or sit precisely on their mark, perfectly framed, each one doing their all to keep chaos at bay.
The wordplay is succinct and witty per usual, dancing through themes of science, art, and Cold War paranoia. But while Anderson’s last film, The French Dispatch, left its procession of indelibly offbeat characters to fend for themselves, this time they’re connected with the sterile humanity that buoys the best of his work.
15. Air
If you still need proof that Ben Affleck is a damn fine director, you’ll find it, right down to how he frames the multiple telephone conversations. But the real surprise here is the script. In a truly sparkling debut, writer Alex Convery brings history to life with an assured commitment to character.
And much like his success with the Oscar-winning Argo, Affleck proves adept at a pace and structure that wrings tension from an outcome we already know. In fact, he goes one better this time, inserting archival footage that actually reminds us of how this all turned out, before leaving Mrs. Jordan’s final ultimatum hanging in the air like a levitating slam from Michael.
16. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
A reminder that multiverse films can, indeed, be made well, this story is wild but never illogical, delivering a heady balance of quantum physics, Jungian psychology and pop culture homages while rarely feeling like a self-congratulatory explosion of capitalism. Heart strings are tugged, and it helps if you’ve seen the previous installment. (If you haven’t, that’s on you, man. Rectify that situation immediately.)
A star-studded voice cast shines, but that wattage is almost outshone by the animation. Every conceivable style, melding one scene to the next, bringing conflict, love and heroism to startling, vivid, utterly gorgeous life.
17. John Wick 4
Chapter 4 is not just more of what makes the series memorable, it’s better: better action, better cinematography, better fight choreography, better framing and shot selection. Sandwiched between inspired carnage are brief moments of exposition set within sumptuous visions of luxury and decadence. This movie is absolutely gorgeous.
One of the reasons each episode of this franchise surpasses the last is that the franchise is not exactly about John Wick. It’s a love letter to a canon, a song about the entire history of onscreen assassins and their honorable, meticulous action. Genre legends arrive and we accept a backstory that isn’t detailed or necessary because the actors carry their cinematic history with them, and that’s backstory enough.
18. Showing Up
Visual poet of the day-to-day Kelly Reichardt returns to screens with a look at art as well as craft in her dramedy, Showing Up.
Michelle Williams is characteristically amazing. Her character exists as much in what she does not say as what she does, and the honesty in that performance generates most of the film’s comic moments. Reichardt invests her attention in the small moments rather than delivering a tidy, obvious structure. The result feels messy, like life, with lengths of anxiety and unease punctuated by small triumphs.
19. Sisu
Is there anything in all the world more satisfying than watching Nazis die? Perhaps not. Jalmari Helander, the genius behind 2010’s exceptional holiday horror Rare Exports, squeezes a lovechild from Leone and Peckinpah by way of Tarantino (natch). The result, Sisu, a kind of WWII-era Scandinavian John Wick.
Helander’s confident vision meshes majestically with the cinematography of Kjell Lagerroos, capturing the lonesome beauty of Lapland in one minute, the next minute bursting with the frenetic energy and viscera of action. The stunt choreography and editing in the dizzying array of carnage-laden set pieces are breathtaking. Knives, guns, fisticuffs, tank fire, regular fire, land mines, a hanging, airplanes – a seemingly endless string of magnificently crafted violent action keeps the pace breathless.
20. Anatomy of a Fall
Writer/director Justine Triet’s understated gem masquerades as a courtroom drama – a thrilling, frustrating, compelling one at that. But the tale she really tells is one of sexual politics and the way the patriarchy effortlessly vilifies women.
Sandra Hüller is perfection as a woman suspected of killing her husband. Triet’s script – a quietly powerful sermon on the power of words – tells two stories simultaneously: the one we’re hearing and the truth. It’s a masterful piece of filmmaking, frustrating in its honesty.
21. Bottoms
Bottoms essentially follows a traditional teen comedy path, from the first day of senior year. But if you saw co-writer/director Emma Seligman and co-writer/star Rachel Sennott’s uncomfortably brilliant 2020 comedy Shiva Baby, you have some idea of what you’re in for. Expect a chaotic, boundary pushing satire unafraid to offend.
Part John Hughes, part Jennifer Reeder, part Chuck Palahniuk, Bottoms exists in a bizarre world of deadpan absurdism so littered with smart, biting commentary that you’ll need to see it twice to catch all of it. Seligman’s tone, her image of high school and high school movies, is wildly, irreverently funny and fearless. It’s hilarious, raunchy, and so much fun.
22. Linoleum
If you haven’t gotten to know filmmaker Colin West, it’s high time you correct that. The writer/director follows up last year’s surreal Christmas haunting Double Walker with a beautiful look at living a fantastic life.
The effortlessly affable Jim Gaffigan plays Cameron, an astronomer in suburban Dayton, Ohio hitting a very rocky path in his middle age. The kiddie show about science that he hosts is failing. Maybe his marriage is, too. New neighbors, a mysterious woman, and increasingly bizarre events have got him wondering. What does it all mean?
23. The Killer
Writer/director David Fincher gives us The Killer as a Patrick Bateman for a new generation, managing some dark fun as he probes our descent into cold, violent narcissism. Fassbender is perfection as this meticulous, emotionless killbot, and the great Tilda Swinton’s late stage cameo brings the film more star power, plus one genuinely hilarious and insightful moment.
There are no business cards involved, but passports with increasingly funny aliases (brush up on your classic sitcoms) provide levity as scores are settled with inventive bloodshed and impressive fight choreography. And through it all, The Killer keeps preaching his mantra as a MAGA Bond, unwavering in his devotion to self and the perpetual need to feel aggrieved.
24. Priscilla
Like most stories about Elvis, this one is pretty familiar. But this point of view is not. That’s likely what interested Sofia Coppola, and she adapts Priscilla’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” as a lush, compelling, and often heartbreaking portrait of the woman at the heart of a uniquely American love story.
Cailee Spaeny (On the Basis of Sex, Bad Times at the El Royale) gives a breakout performance that is utterly transfixing. With grace and ease, she is able to take Priscilla from the shy schoolgirl hiding a big secret behind her knowing smile, to a woman no longer willing to sacrifice her life to the whims of an icon.
25. Blackberry
So, a voice on the line says, “You have a collect call from ‘What the f%& is happening’!”
That’s not really the caller’s name.
He’s actually Jim Balsillie (a terrific Glenn Howerton), co-CEO of BlackBerry Limited, and he’s having yet another temper tantrum. The pairing of Balsillie’s bare-knuckled business sense with the tech genius of other CEO Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel, perfectly awkward) made the company an early leader in the cell phone game, but things have started to unravel. Fast.
The colliding of worlds is engaging enough, but the delightfully sharp humor and first-rate ensemble (also including Michael Ironside) turn these based on true events into a rollicking, can’t-look-away slice of history.
