The 2023 EMOs

Now, more than ever, it is important to carry on with the grand tradition of Ethan’s Makeshift Oscars despite spurious and unprompted character assassination from Saturday Night Live.

Top 10 of 2023:

  1. Asteroid City
  2. Return to Seoul
  3. Oppenheimer
  4. The Holdovers
  5. Barbie
  6. Showing Up
  7. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  8. All of Us Strangers
  9. Afire
  10. Anatomy of a Fall

Best Director:

  • Wes Anderson, Asteroid City
  • Davy Chou, Return to Seoul
  • Greta Gerwig, Barbie
  • Daniel Goldhaber, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  • Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
  • Nicole Holofcener, You Hurt My Feelings
  • Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
  • Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
  • Christian Petzold, Afire
  • Kelly Reichardt, Showing Up
  • Celine Song, Past Lives
  • Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Best Acting Ensemble:

  • Anatomy of a Fall
  • Asteroid City
  • Barbie
  • How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  • The Iron Claw
  • Oppenheimer
  • Showing Up
  • You Hurt My Feelings

Best Lead Performance:

  • Kenneth Branagh, A Haunting in Venice
  • Michael Fassbender, The Killer
  • Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
  • Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
  • Ryan Gosling, Barbie
  • Salma Hayek Pinault, Magic Mike’s Last Dance
  • Eve Hewson, Flora and Son
  • Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
  • Scarlett Johansson, Asteroid City
  • Greta Lee, Past Lives
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus, You Hurt My Feelings
  • Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
  • Ji-Min Park, Return to Seoul
  • Margot Robbie, Barbie
  • Franz Rogowski, Passages
  • Thomas Schubert, Afire
  • Jason Schwartzman, Asteroid City
  • Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
  • Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla
  • Michelle Williams, Showing Up

Best Supporting Performance:

  • Swann Arlaud, Anatomy of a Fall
  • Hayley Atwell, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
  • Dave Bautista, Knock at the Cabin
  • Paula Beer, Afire
  • Jamie Bell, All of Us Strangers
  • Hong Chau, Showing Up
  • Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
  • Jacob Elordi, Saltburn
  • Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers
  • Forrest Goodluck, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  • Tom Hanks, Asteroid City
  • Anne Hathaway, Eileen
  • Nathan Lane, Beau Is Afraid
  • Patti LuPone, Beau Is Afraid
  • John Magaro, Past Lives
  • Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
  • Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
  • Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
  • Tilda Swinton, The Killer
  • Ben Whishaw, Passages

Best Original Screenplay:

  • Wes Anderson, Asteroid City
  • John Carney, Flora and Son
  • Davy Chou, Return to Seoul
  • Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Barbie
  • David Hemingson, The Holdovers
  • Nicole Holofcener, You Hurt My Feelings
  • Christian Petzold, Afire
  • Kelly Reichardt, Showing Up
  • Celine Song, Past Lives
  • Justine Triet, Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
  • Mauricio Zacharias, Ira Sachs, Arlette Langmann, Passages

Best Adapted Screenplay:

  • Ariela Barer, Daniel Goldhaber, Jordan Siol, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  • Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen
  • Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
  • Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
  • Andrew Kevin Walker, The Killer

Best Cinematography:

  • Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
  • Philippe Le Sourd, Priscilla
  • Eric Messerschmidt, The Killer
  • Rodrigo Pietro, Killers of the Flower Moon
  • Pawl Pogorzelski, Beau Is Afraid
  • Jamie D. Ramsay, All of Us Strangers
  • Ari Wegner, Eileen
  • Robert Yeoman, Asteroid City

Best Score:

    • Christopher Bear, Daniel Rossen, Past Lives
    • Gavin Brivik, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
    • Alexandre Desplat, Asteroid City
    • Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
    • Richard Reed Perry, Eileen
    • Richard Reed Perry, The Iron Claw
    • Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, The Killer
    • Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon

    Best Editing:

    • Jonathan Alberts, All of Us Strangers
    • Kirk Baxter, The Killer
    • Sarah Flack, Priscilla
    • Daniel Garber, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
    • Nick Houy, Barbie
    • Jennifer Lame, Oppenheimer
    • Barney Pilling, Asteroid City
    • Sophie Reine, Passages
    • Laurent Sénéchal, Anatomy of a Fall
    • Steven Soderbergh, Magic Mike’s Last Dance
    • Kevin Tent, The Holdovers

    Movie Moment That Made Ethan Say “Okay! Wait, what?? Nice.”

    • The alien arrives, Asteroid City
    • the ending of Beau Is Afraid
    • The opening assassination, The Killer
    • Lap dance, Magic Mike’s Last Dance
    • The chair, Suzume

    Worst Batman: Luther in Luther: The Fallen Sun

    Biggest Stretch of Fan Goodwill: Retroactively inserting both Jason Momoa AND Alan Ritchson into Fast Five, Fast X

    Most Disappointing Gap Between Concept and Execution: Polite Society

    Just Let Michael B. Jordan Adapt Hajime no Ippo Rather Than Do This: Creed III

    Most Defensibly Indefensible Nonsense: Saltburn

    Maybe Sixth-Best Ayo Edibiri Project of the Year: Bottoms

    Never Mind, This Is the Biggest Stretch of Fan Goodwill: Doing more John Wick universe stuff after John Wick: Chapter 4

    Ken Adam Memorial Award for Finally Putting One of These Poirot Movies on a Goddamn Real Set For Once: A Haunting in Venice

    Movie I Want to Engage With the Least: Beau Is Afraid

    Red Digital Cinema Memorial Award for Most Wildly Over-produced Fake News Footage: Knock at the Cabin

    Sexiest Not-a-Heist Heist Movie: Magic Mike’s Last Dance

    Cutest Absolute Nightmare: Daijin, Suzume

    Most Inscrutable Black Hole: quantum physics in Oppenheimer John Le Carré, The Pigeon Tunnel

    Worst Fridging: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

    Best Wifi Connection: all of Ireland, Flora and Son

    Wildest Scene That Absolutely Shouldn’t Work But Does: that one I don’t want to spoil toward the end of The Iron Claw

    Most Luxurious Shag Carpet: Priscilla

    “Call My Agent!” Award: Thomasin McKenzie, who desperately needs to stop playing fragile wounded birds, especially ones with American accents, Eileen

    Most Impeccably Crafted Comedy: The Killer

    I Don’t Do a Whole Costume Design Category at the EMOs But If I Did It Would Go to: Passages

    The Ex-Pat New Yorker “Wait Have I Been To That Bar” Award: Past Lives

    The Ex-Pat New Yorker “Wait I’ve Definitely Been To That Bar” Award: You Hurt My Feelings

    Beastie Boys Award for Sabotage: Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon

    The John Grisham “He Just Said WHAT in a Public Court of Law” Award: Anatomy of a Fall

    Most Relatable Writer’s Block, He Writes Four Hours Before the Oscars: Afire

    Second-Best Andrew Haigh Ghost Story But Best Andrew Scott Ghost Story: All of Us Strangers

    The Al Gore “Hey This Climate Change Agit-Prop Slaps” Award: How to Blow Up a Pipeline

    Most Likely to Trigger the Anxiety of Academic Support Staff: Showing Up

    Least Requiring My Opinion: Barbie

    Most Eerily Accurate Depiction of That Particular Shade of Gray That Deerfield, Massachusetts Turns in December: The Holdovers

    Not the Best Movie of the Year But Certainly the Maximalist: Oppenheimer

    Special Achievement in Confusing Release Dates That Will Absolutely Jack Up My Letterboxd Data For Years to Come: Return to Seoul

    Legitimately Best Time I’ll Probably Ever Have Again With a Quarantine Movie: Asteroid City

    The 2022 EMOs

    I don’t know what it was about this year in particular – maybe it’s that I actually kept up with most of the movies that I was really interested in, maybe it’s that it was actually a really darn good year with a lot of varied, interesting and flawed movies, with little that stood above the pack in any really obvious way – but dear lord am I tired of the discourse and have never more glad that I’m not regularly writing reviews and trying to keep my finger on the pulse of criticism or whatever anymore.

    Here are a bunch of things that I liked and found funny about the movies of 2022! Enjoy! Or skip it! I don’t know!

    Top 10 of 2022

    1. Nope
    2. Benediction
    3. Tár
    4. Women Talking
    5. Stars at Noon
    6. RRR
    7. Decision To Leave
    8. Petite Maman
    9. Everything Everywhere All At Once
    10. The Eternal Daughter

    Best Director:

    • Terence Davies, Benediction
    • Claire Denis, Stars at Noon / Both Sides of the Blade
    • Todd Field, Tár
    • Joanna Hogg, The Eternal Daughter
    • Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
    • Park Chan-wook, Decision to Leave
    • Jordan Peele, Nope
    • Sarah Polley, Women Talking
    • S.S. Rajamouli, RRR
    • Céline Sciamma, Petite Maman

    Best Acting Ensemble:

    • Armageddon Time
    • The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Benediction
    • Confess, Fletch
    • Funny Pages
    • Nope
    • Tár
    • Triangle of Sadness
    • Women Talking

    Best Lead Performance:

    • Juliette Binoche, Both Sides of the Blade
    • Cate Blanchett, Tár
    • Sterling K. Brown, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    • Jessie Buckley, Men
    • Austin Butler, Elvis
    • Viola Davis, The Woman King
    • Idris Elba, Three Thousands Years of Longing
    • Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Regina Hall, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    • Cheryl Isheja, Neptune Frost
    • Daniel Kaluuya, Nope
    • Vincent Lindon, Both Sides of the Blade
    • Jack Lowden, Benediction
    • Amber Midthunder, Prey
    • Keke Palmer, Nope
    • Margaret Qualley, Stars at Noon
    • Tilda Swinton, The Eternal Daughter
    • Tilda Swinton, Three Thousand Years of Longing
    • Tang Wei, Decision to Leave
    • Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

    Best Supporting Performance:

    • Gillian Anderson, The Pale Blue Eye
    • Jessie Buckley, Women Talking
    • Zlatko Burić, Triangle of Sadness
    • Peter Capaldi, Benediction
    • Hong Chau, The Menu
    • Carly-Sophia Davies, The Eternal Daughter
    • Claire Foy, Women Talking
    • Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Anthony Hopkins, Armageddon Time
    • Nina Hoss, Tár
    • Kate Hudson, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
    • Judith Ivey, Women Talking
    • Sophie Kauer, Tár
    • Rory Kinnear, Men
    • Lashana Lynch, The Woman King
    • Brandon Perea, Nope
    • Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once
    • Benny Safdie, Stars at Noon
    • Matt Smith, The Forgiven
    • Ben Whishaw, Women Talking

    Best Original Screenplay:

    • Cheung Seo-kyung, Park Chan-wood, Decision to Leave
    • Julia Cho, Domee Shi, Turning Red
    • Terence Davies, Benediction
    • Todd Field, Tár
    • James Gray, Armageddon Time
    • Joanna Hogg, The Eternal Daughter
    • Owen Kline, Funny Pages
    • Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
    • Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Jordan Peele, Nope
    • Céline Sciamma, Petite Maman

    Best Adapted Screenplay:

    • Joel Kim Booster, Fire Island
    • Claire Denis, Christine Angot, Both Sides of the Blade
    • Claire Denis, Andrew Litvack, Stars at Noon
    • Adamma Ebo, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    • Greg Mottola, Zev Borow, Confess, Fletch
    • Sarah Polley, Women Talking
    • Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

    Best Cinematography:

    • Jeff Cutter, Prey
    • Nicola Daley, Benediction
    • Ben Davis, The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Eric Gauter, Stars at Noon
    • Rob Hardy, Men
    • Florian Hoffmeister, Tár
    • Luc Montpelier, Women Talking
    • Kim Ji-yong, Decision to Leave
    • Claudio Miranda, Top Gun: Maverick
    • Ed Rutherford, The Eternal Daughter
    • Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost
    • Hoyte Van Hoytema, Nope

    Best Score:

    • Michael Abels, Nope
    • Carter Burwell, The Banshees of Inisherin
    • Hildur Guðnadóttir, Tár
    • Hildur Guðnadóttir, Women Talking
    • Harold Faltermeyer, Hans Zimmer, Top Gun: Maverick
    • M.M. Kreem, RRR
    • Tindersticks, Both Sides of the Blade
    • Tindersticks, Stars at Noon

    Best Editing:

    • Erin DeWitt, Owen Kline, Funny Pages
    • Christopher Donaldson, Roslyn Kalloo, Women Talking
    • Helle le Fevre, The Eternal Daughter
    • Julien Lacharay, Petite Maman
    • Kim Sang-beom, Decision to Leave
    • Guy Lecorne, Stars at Noon
    • Nicholas Monsour, Nope
    • Paul Rogers, Everything Everywhere All At Once
    • Monika Willi, Tár

    Best Scene:

    • Disabled, Benediction
    • Louisiana Hayride, Elvis
    • Locker confrontation on prom night, The Fabelmans
    • Faith mime, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
    • Jupe remembers Gordy’s rampage, Nope
    • Naatu Naatu, RRR
    • Bheem’s surprise attack on Gov. Scott’s party, RRR
    • Olga’s apartment, Tár
    • closing credits, White Noise

    Most ’90s: Marry Me

    Egregiously Not ’90s Enough: Hocus Pocus 2

    Probably Better When Projected Soundlessly On The Wall In A Metal Bar: The Northman

    No Jokes, Just Fight/Donate: The Janes

    Maybe (Maybe) Fifth-Best Class Satire of the Year: The Forgiven

    Longest You Have to Wait Before You Get To The One Bit Everyone Won’t Shut Up About: Pearl

    Most I Wanted A Script To Be a Person So I Could Punch It In the Face: Harry Melling introducing himself as “E.A. Poe…..Edgar A. Poe” in The Pale Blue Eye

    First Time I Have Ever Seen a Movie “tl;dr” Itself In Its Title: Men

    Saddest Anime Boys (Like Actually): Belle

    Possibly The Most Convoluted Act of Copyright Violation In Cinema History: See How They Run

    New Gnarliest Counterpoint To “Animation Is For Kids”: Mad God

    Most Undeserving Of Unfortunate Real-World Relevance: White Noise

    Literally The Least Trustworthy Creature To Walk The Earth Since The Serpent In Eden, Elvis, What Are You Doing: Tom Hanks in Elvis

    Straight-To-Streaming Dump That Most Deserves A Big Screen Revival: Prey

    Best Rom-Com Featuring Bowen Yang In A Historically Queer Beach Town – Released in September: Bros

    Most Inaccurate Depiction Of Content Moderation Practices: Kimi

    Best OAAA (Obligatory Annual Austen Adaptation): Fire Island

    Weirdest Casting Flex: Cate Blanchett, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

    Hardest Its Fans Will Argue That It Is Not Exactly The Movie On The Poster When It Is, In Fact, Exactly The Movie On The Poster: The Fabelmans

    Best Use Of Chekhov’s Gator: X

    Special Achievement In Mimicking A Particularly Connecticut Flavor Of Politician: Kathryn Hahn, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

    Most Visibly Affected By COVID Restrictions: Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

    Most ’00s: Turning Red

    Best Dick Metaphor Death: The Woman King

    Most Online, For Better And For Worse: The Menu

    Most Ideas Compressed Into The Least Amount of Time: Wendell & Wild

    Widest Apples-To-Oranges Disparity Between This And Any Other Movie On This List: Neptune Frost

    Most Boston: Confess, Fletch

    Quickest I Have Switched From Interpreting A Movie As Satire To Socialist Realism: Triangle of Sadness

    Too Few Minutes Of Idris Elba And Tilda Swinton Flirting: Three Thousand Years of Longing

    Sweatiest: Funny Pages

    Best State-Sponsored Action Propaganda Since Chapaev: Top Gun: Maverick

    Better Of The Two Instances This Year That A Prominent Male Jewish Director Made Us Watch His Movie Instead Of Going To Therapy: Armageddon Time

    Jean-Luc Godard Memorial Award For The Most Cartoonishly French Film Of The Year: Both Sides of the Blade

    Lifetime Achievement Award For Colin Farrell’s Eyebrows: The Banshees of Inisherin

    Weakest Wi-Fi: The Eternal Daughter

    Best Alternative To Actually Doing Your Taxes: writing EMO jokes about Everything Everywhere All At Once

    Least Creepy Twin Children: Petite Maman

    Best Prison Food: Decision to Leave

    Heaviest Lift By The “Inspired” Bit Of “Inspired By A True Story”: RRR

    First But Hopefully Not The Last Time That A Claire Denis Movie Inspires A Taylor Swift Album: Stars at Noon

    My Most Uncanny Movie-going Experience Of The Year, Thanks To The Two UMass Bros Who Showed Up Late, Drunk, And Preceded To Loudly Ask Each Other Every Five Minutes What The Women Were Talking About: Women Talking

    Better As A Movie Than As A Thinkpiece: Tár

    Probably The Closest We’ll Get To A Terence Davies/RuPaul Collab: Benediction

    Film Of The Year For Archivists Who Feel Smug About Knowing How To Correctly Pronounce “Muybridge”: Nope

    A Year with Mubi

    Still of Bill Paxton from Kathyrn Bigelow's film "Near Dark"

    Like every other average movie/TV viewer, I’ve slowly accumulated a pile of subscription streaming services over the years while chasing the (impossible) dream/promise of being able to watch any given movie at any given time. At this point I think the tally stands at: Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Discovery+, Apple TV+, AMC+, Paramount Plus, and even, don’t judge me, the Lifetime Movie Club. (I’ll regularly use Vudu for rentals to fill in the gaps, while I still maintain a futile, not-particularly-principled “stand” against both Disney+ and Amazon Prime and will pursue any titles exclusive to those platforms via…other…means)

    Of course, as an aspiring cinephile I remain frustrated (in the abstract) by how that lineup leaves a ton of independent, foreign, and otherwise obscure back-catalog material out in the cold and/or subject to the tax-evading whims of the major media companies. So I’ve also dabbled in the past with the late, beloved FilmStruck and its spiritual successor, the Criterion Channel, but had to concede, after multiple years of mindlessly watching the monthly debit to my bank account fly by without ever seeing the Janus Films logo, that my at-home viewing habits and the everything-all-at-once-pile-of-tiles model of most streaming video services, including Criterion, do not gel easily with art-house fare. Given the opportunity – out of thousands of undifferentiated options – I am highly likely to default to comfort food sitcom reruns over a passed-over Céline Sciamma joint.

    Unless – unless! There is something to force my hand. Which is why I have always been intrigued by the model of Mubi, with its highly curated, explicitly rotated selection of titles. But for whatever reason (perhaps the assumed FOMO of missing out on films before they rotated out of the service and “wasting” my subscription, as was my usual experience with FilmStruck/Criterion), I never dived in until finally gifted a one-year subscription for Christmas 2021. Thinking back over the year of movie-watching (read: forced to choose whether to re-up the subscription with my own cash), I was moved to reflect and write up a bit both about the particular delights of some of the films I encountered but also on the general experience of Mubi, which I must say does stand out somewhat from the crowd.

    Now, Mubi no longer strictly holds to what I recall was their original model of only having 31 titles available at any given time, with one film added and one cycled out of rotation every day, giving you only a month to watch any given entry; having gradually expanded their role as distributors and producers over the years (including recently acquiring The Matchstick Factory), there’s a fair bit of back-catalog material, largely from foreign studios, that, much like every other streaming service, appears to be available exclusively and in perpetuity (or at least for the lifetime of whatever contracts have been signed behind closed doors). And while their rotating carousel still highlights one curated new addition every day, many if not most of the titles seem to stick around for considerably longer than a month, giving one plenty of time to build up a languishing pile of unwatched titles.

    That said – it was a revelation to see how slowing down the content spigot to a controlled trickle affected my follow-through on actually sitting down and watching a bunch of movies that I’m certain I would have scrolled right past on any other service. Rather than facing that wide-open, intimidating, impossible question of “What do I want to watch?” and being met with a deluge of new, old, and stale recommendations, it limited the question, every day, to simply: “Do I want to watch this movie?” If the answer was yes, I could tap an icon on my phone to add the title to my watchlist, and likely within a few weeks, left to my own devices for an afternoon or evening, I would indeed sit down and watch the damn movie (the giant, glaring “LEAVING IN 14 DAYS” countdown banner that appears in the app over titles that are about to leave is also an incredible motivator and piece of UI/UX design that definitely succeeded several times in kicking my ass toward a film that I had otherwise left ignored for too long). If the answer was no, then no harm nor foul – the question would pop up again tomorrow, and the very act of picking and choosing felt worthwhile, relieving the worry of whether I was getting “my money’s worth” from the subscription.

    Running down the final tally of 24 films that I watched over the course of the year, an average of 2 movies per month may not seem like much in our maximally-extracted-value culture, but I can only emphasize again how I almost certainly never would have picked these particular films out of the lineup on HBO Max, Hulu, or any other mainstream service (one especially – in fact my favorite, top-rated Mubi watch of the year – is notoriously difficult to find on any streaming service and prone to random and extended disappearances given its peculiar rights situation, so that was an especially delightful find). Even with the films I didn’t end up liking very much, the ability to finally catch up with and cross off indie sleepers or foreign titles that I’d missed in years past, to explore the lesser-celebrated nooks and crannies of favorite genres or filmmakers, to challenge myself with repertory or eccentric picks without necessarily having to trek out to the local indie theater in the midst of a still-raging pandemic; I felt the closest I ever have to recapturing my film studies spirit since leaving New York City five years ago.

    So! If this style of engaging with movies appeals to you (or so does the following list of movies themselves – though keep in mind this is essentially my double-curated personal watchlist, and there were many other directions I could have gone with what Mubi made available!) – I can’t recommend Mubi enough. I don’t know that I will bring back this particular blog format next year (it would probably be more worthwhile to revive the full ERPs – Ethan’s Repertory Picks – and fold Mubi watches into that, but I lack the energy to pull that off at least this time around) but I do very much look forward to continuing to explore in 2023!

    Top 10:

    1. Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)
      • I bothered nearly everyone I know around October to add this to their Halloween/spooky watching rotation, but truly I feel like Bigelow’s neo-Western/vampire mash-up would hold up well no matter the time of year. I’m 100% convinced Near Dark would be more highly revered in the ’80s genre/cult classic canon if it was more widely and easily available: the cast is chock full of Cameron favorites doing their thing (Bill Paxton! Lance Henriksen! Jenette Goldstein!), on top of a unique, scuzzy, but occasionally incredibly/woozily romantic vampire story that just happens to erupt in satisfying squib-happy violence from time to time. Never quite seen anything like the way the intro scenes (with Adrian Pasdar’s hapless cowpoke accidentally stumbling into a drifting pack of monsters) is shot, scripted and staged.
    2. Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
      • Petzold is a blind spot for me, but I could see what folks are on about minutes into this curious, timeless anti-fascist affair. I have to say, I’m a sucker for a director that knows how to unsettle the viewer with long shots, and Petzold keeps you on that knife’s edge between languor and excruciating anxiety that one glimpses (even when not, uh, escaping political persecution and execution) in the in-between from departure to destination.
    3. Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi, 2003)
      • I’m entranced by nearly everything Panahi does, including his less-ballyhooed pre-arrest films; this was no exception. An extraordinary, heart-breaking depiction of class division, with an unforgettable, half-silent performance from its troubled lead; finally seeing this added quite a bit of context and flavor missing from the extended piece of This Is Not a Film that reflects on the making of Crimson Gold. Very glad to have filled in this gap in the Panahi filmography.
    4. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009)
      • Everything I loved about Call Me By Your Name – the perfect control sliding up and down the scale of romanticism, sensuality and eroticism; the delicate homages to Visconti melodramas – without, uh, the bits that are less fun to engage with. Plus, swap Timothée Chalamet for Tilda Swinton! Who doesn’t win here?!
    5. The Love Witch (Anna Biller, 2016)
      • Speaking of homages – what an audacious and careful recreation of a particular kind of B-picture that quite literally hasn’t been made in decades. Forget the third-wave/postmodern feminist (re)analysis of witchcraft, male/female relationship dynamics, spiritual communities, etc. – this one’s a (welcome) challenge just to sift and sit through a style of image-making that got tossed out by the American New Wave.
    6. Rodents of Unusual Size (Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer, 2017)
      • A documentary that promises to enlighten the viewer on the history of nutria (yes, the giant, invasive rats) but cleverly zags to become an extremely moving and intimate portrait of blue-collar Louisiana. Certainly the most surprising cry I had in movie-watching this past year.
    7. Drug War (Johnnie To, 2012)
      • Just a rollicking, tense, terrifically-executed crime thriller. Alllllmost starts to overstay its welcome with maybe a twist or two too many and the extended third-act shootout, but To’s style and a great pair of lead performances keep things propulsive from start to finish.
    8. Free Angela Davis & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch, 2012)
      • A simple, but fierce and enraging overview of Davis’ activism and particularly the criminal case made against her for abetting the armed takeover of a Marin County courthouse in 1970. Lynch knows she has the best tool available to tell this story – Davis herself – at hand, so largely sits back and lets one of the most thoughtful and engaging public speakers of the past 50 years guide the tale.
    9. White God (Kornél Mundruczó, 2014)
      • I’m not quite sure what to take away from this film besides the most virulently, violently pro-animal rights stance this side of a Greenpeace protest; there is a fable-like quality to the story that I suppose one could map on to the dynamics of any oppressed group or minority of your choice, but it frankly felt like a stretch to me. But it’s certainly the source of some of the most startling, vivid movie imagery I’ve seen in some time, all the more incredible (in the literal sense) that it was managed in a humane environment to match its pro-dog ethics.
    10. Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983)
      • A cliché I’m sure, but Beresford’s Tender Mercies is unsurprisingly, well, tender! It is really quite wild to me now with this added context that Jeff Bridges and Crazy Heart picked up so much acclaim for doing uhhhh like no joke the EXACT SAME MOVIE only 25 years later. But that’s neither here nor there – Robert Duvall and Tess Harper are both lovely here, and Horton Foote’s screenplay engages with the obvious connections between country music and southern/Texan Christian culture vis-a-vis thematic obsession with addiction, recovery and redemption that feels like a lighting rod few other Hollywood (or even indie) films have dared to touch.

    Also watched:

    1. The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017)
    2. Control (Anton Corbijn, 2007)
    3. All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor, 2013)
    4. The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932)
    5. This May Be the Last Time (Sterlin Harjo, 2014)
    6. Lucky (John Carroll Lynch, 2017)
    7. The Nile Hilton Incident (Tarik Saleh, 2017)
    8. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (Eli Craig, 2009)
    9. Life Itself (Steve James, 2014)
    10. Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998)
    11. Love Affair (Leo McCarey, 1939)
    12. Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2020)
    13. Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (Stephen Chow, Derek Kwok, 2013)
    14. Nowhere to Hide (Lee Myung-se, 1999)