This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2023

If box office is robust, all bets are off, but it doesn't seem like the sort of movie that's going to do Greatest Showman numbers.

I'm not getting my hopes unnecessarily up for a best actress Oscar lineup that is majority foreign-language/bilingual

I'm filling out my FFCC ballot as I type.

Glad to see Portman in comedy!

Here we go -- another year when certain tropes in casting Black supporting actresses never get vetoed.

I didn’t remember Wonka is also a musical … so two big splashy year-end musicals fail to make best picture in a category partially designed specifically for them, and Air somehow momentarily escapes its fate as a movie no one remembers three years from now

Here’s Amy Taubin’s yanked-from-Artforum top 10 list;

We're humbled to share Amy Taubin's (@AmyOrNot) Best Films of 2023 list, which was pulled from the December issue of Artforum in protest against the firing of the magazine’s great editor-in-chief David Velasco. https://t.co/AbXrh6pTJZ

— Screen Slate (@ScreenSlate) December 12, 2023

May December is a comedy now? ok

Its own producer called it a funny movie fwiw

Another Artforum cast-off

The decision to retract my list from Artforum and publish it myself wasn't an easy one, but it felt like the right thing to do. And if you ask Artforum about this, they will deny it just to save face

— Charles Bramesco (@intothecrevasse) December 12, 2023

May December is a comedy now? ok

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Tuesday, December 12, 2023 11:43 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes. I laughed every few minutes

it is simultaneously fucking hilarious and deeply unsettling. just like all of my favorite novels

Yep, which is why I rank it right up there with Safe and Superstar as his best

From the BFI ballots, J.Ro’s top 10

Jonathan Rosenbaum
Critic, USA

Afire (Christian Petzold, Germany)
Barbie (Greta Gerwig, US)
The Daughters of Fire (Pedro Costa, Portugal)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, US)
Master Gardener (Paul Schrader, US)
No Bears (Jafar Panahi, Iran)
The Runner (1984) (Amir Naderi, Iran)
Saint Omer (Alice Diop, France)
The Taking (Alexandre O. Philippe, US)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson, UK, US)

Alphabetical order. Although we tend to embrace the expedient fiction that all films are created equal, my inability to see the latest Radu Jude feature before the October deadline has to weighed against how much easier it was to get to the Anderson, Gerwig, Schrader, and Scorsese. Money talks – and, indeed, canonises.

Three of those are 2022 releases going with the U.S. theatrical release - maybe there was a belated U.K. release?

(The three being No Bears, the belated theatrical distribution of The Runner, and Saint Omer. All great FWIW.)

Chicago gets right into the middle(brow) of it all:

Best Picture: Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Best Actor: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Best Actress: Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best Supporting Actor: Charles Melton, May December
Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best Original Screenplay: Samy Burch, May December
Best Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Animated Feature: The Boy and the Heron
Best Documentary: Kokomo City
Best Foreign Language Film: The Zone of Interest

We have spoken!

http://www.floridafilmcritics.com/2023/12/13/oppenheimer-killers-of-the-flower-moon-past-lives-lead-pack-with-most-nominations/

I only got a few of mine in, guess which

exp It's strange how Chicago really put middlebrow criticism on the map with Siskel & Ebert and yet it was also the home base to some of the very best alternative weekly critics of the past 50 years (maybe even the two best).

That's new - autocorrect turning xxp into exp

Rogowski, McAdams, and Weaver?

Were you among those holding Barbie off at the pass?

it was also the home base to some of the very best alternative weekly critics of the past 50 years (maybe even the two best).

Rosenbaum and ... Kehr?

Dave Kehr, correct - though it's kind of weird he did a stint at the Chicago Tribune while Siskel was still there. Per an interview he did decades later (after Siskel had long passed), I think he said the Trib had a falling out with Siskel over something to do with his TV show and hired Kehr to replace him, only to realize soon after that it was stupid to fire a critic who got the paper priceless advertising/publicity via a popular weekly TV show, so they hired him back as a "columnist" with Kehr in Siskel's old position.

Rogowski, McAdams, and Weaver?

Were you among those holding Barbie off at the pass?

― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.)

Barbie wasn't even a factor.

Yes, no, yes.

Critics Choice noms:
https://variety.com/2023/film/awards/critics-choice-nominations-2024-full-list-barbie-1235835620/

Nothing too surprising, other than maybe Saltburn as a best picture nominee.

Saltburn refuses to just die

Those Chicago picks aren't middlebrow.

I like some of those honorees (the ones I've seen at least), but they are absolutely middlebrow. Most big Oscar contenders are.

If Oppenheimer and The Holdovers aren't middlebrow, nothing is

Inspired me to order Dwight MacDonald's Essays Against the American Grain.

Yeah, I think "middlebrow" is sometimes misunderstood as simply middle-of-the-road or bland. But as I undestand it, it's art that appeals to a certain kind of aspirational educated person because it presents itself with a veneer of cultural prestige, even though it is not actually challenging or profound in the way that highbrow art is. It flatters the audience's perception of itself as intelligent and refined. It's often used as a pejorative by critics like MacDonald, but I think it can be useful as a descriptive category regardless of any judgment of quality.

From Classic Hollywood, probably defined by William Wyler and Fred Zinnemann (at its best), or Stanley Kramer (at its not-best).

and today Alexander Payne is the embodiment of it.

Nolan most definitely too, when he leaves genre behind

I didn't think it was a good movie, but I did appreciate Payne's ambition on Downsized - it was just too lacking in nuance, falling back on a lot of stereotypes and betraying a shallow grasp of the various issues it tried to tackle. I really wish he pulled it off. The new one is clearly within his comfort zone - not a bad film at all, to be fair.

Presenting Film Comment's Top 20 Released Films of 2023

Read full film blurbs from FC contributors, critics, and more: https://t.co/IMsZB36vGt pic.twitter.com/H30LivoEnI

— Film Comment Magazine (@FilmComment) December 15, 2023

I don’t agree that Payne is thee most middlebrow director alive but OTOH I’m in no rush to see The Holdovers because I’m averse to most stories about middle-aged academics.

I will check out Barbie on HBO Max during my vacation and report here on whether it’s middlebrow.

At the risk of sounding like Meryl Streep in Manhattan, you could probably come up with an interesting Venn Diagram based on Macdonald's idea of middlebrow and Manny Farber's white-elephant art. Lots of overlap, but not the same. Dances with Wolves: both.* Apocalypse Now: white elephant, but not middlebrow. And Payne's Election is termite art and definitely not middlebrow. The Holdovers: totally middlebrow.

*(He says, never having seen it.)

Some good ballots scattered throughout: https://www.filmcomment.com/best-films-of-2023-individual-ballots/

👀

Richard Brody (critic, The New Yorker)

19. The Color Purple
20. Our Body

And then this one, in its entirety:

Nathan Lee (critic, scholar)

John Wick: Chapter 4

i think the only critic bate movies i've seen this year were Pacifiction (i loved) and Afire (fine, bring back Hoss). I haven't heard of most of these though i did study rogowski's outfit in the stills of that one movie using google image search but that's all i really wanted out of it.

ill probably watch some of them after they're on a richard brody end of list like every other uncle

I've always hate-read OG's year-worst lists, but this year, his biggest swing happens to be for a movie I also hated: https://variety.com/lists/worst-movies-2023/owen-gleiberman-worst-films/

(At least his dumb swipe against the majesty of Magic Mike XXL restores order a bit.)

Sharing Toronto crix only because they're just about the only ones left of the regionals that aren't breaking hard for Oppenheimer:

Best Picture: The Zone of Interest
(RUs: All of Us Strangers & Killers of the Flower Moon)

Best Director: Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
(RUs: Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon & Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall)

Best Lead Performance: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon & Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
(RUs: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers & Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers & Emma Stone, Poor Things & Kôji Yakusho, Perfect Days)

Best Supporting Performance: Ryan Gosling, Barbie & Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
(RUs: Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon & Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer & Glenn Howerton, BlackBerry & Charles Melton, May December)

Best Original Screenplay: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
(RUs: Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall & Celine Song, Past Lives)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
(RUs: Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers & Tony McNamara, Poor Things)

Best Animated Feature: Robot Dreams
(RUs: The Boy and the Heron & Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)

Allan King Documentary Award: 20 Days in Mariupol
(RUs: The Eternal Memory & Four Daughters & Swan Song)

Best International Feature: Fallen Leaves
(RUs: Anatomy of a Fall & The Zone of Interest)

Best First Feature: Rye Lane
(RUs: American Fiction & Past Lives)

Breakthrough Performance: Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One
(RUs: Charles Melton, May December & Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers)

Best Performance in a Canadian Film: Glenn Howerton, BlackBerry
(RUs: Jay Baruchel, BlackBerry & Théodore Pellerin, Solo)

Rogers Best Canadian Film nominees: BlackBerry, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, and Solo
Rogers Best Documentary Award nominees: Rojek, Someone Lives Here, and Swan Song

Stay tuned

I def am … for the International Cinephile Society’s picks in February

The Film Stage list is eccentric - Holdovers shouldn’t be in the top 50, let alone top 10.

https://thefilmstage.com/the-film-stages-top-50-films-of-2023/