The Ten Best Movies of 2023

December 22, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged Barbie, Best of, Bottoms, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Lists, Past Lives, Poor Things, Saltburn, Talk to Me, The Holdovers, The Zone of Interest, Theater Camp, Top Ten 3 Comments

End-of-year lists are a rite of passage, a time to select the best of the best from all we’ve seen. And then anguish over what we’ve chosen. Like its small-screen counterparts, 2023 proved to be an unusual year in film. Countless delays due to widespread industry strikes shifted many potential blockbusters to 2024 and beyond, while numerous big-budget films flopped. In many ways, 2023 was a sea change year, signaling that past successes may not guarantee future wins. Disney Studios, for instance, experienced more flops than hits, and only two movies ended up scraping past the billion-dollar mark at the box office. Read More

The Ten Best TV Shows of 2023

December 21, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged Beef, Dave, Drops of God, How To With John Wilson, Lists, Succession, The Bear, The Curse, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Last of Us, Top 10 Movies 4 Comments

2023 was a weird one. On the one hand, the TV industry had finally started to shake off the dust of the pandemic production halts to deliver a full year of small screen entertainment, though there were lingering effects and aftershocks felt throughout the industry. And then came the strikes. First the WGA and then SAG, strikes that lasted, in totality, from May to November. Or, a good half of the year. While necessary, the strikes impacted the release schedule of many a film and series and so kind of left viewers with yet another lopsided, half-formed year. But it certainly wasn’t still without its highlights. Read More

‘WONKA’ Delights in Making the Roald Dahl-Verse Dreamy Again

December 14, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Calah Lane, Hugh Grant, Jim Carter, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Natasha Rothwell, Neil Hannon, Olivia Colman, Paterson Joseph, Paul King, Rake Thakrar, Reviews, Rich Fulcher, Roald Dahl, Simon Farnaby, Timothée Chalamet, Tom Davis, Wonka 2 Comments

Two words: Paul. King. The 45-year old British writer/director has not so much stumbled as pioneered his way into the most winsome of formulas with his trifecta of perfectly delightful family friendly films, Paddington, Paddington 2, and, now, Wonka. By exploring the backstory of the mysterious titular character from one of Roald Dahl’s most iconic tales, King seamlessly blends the charm and whimsy that have defined his previous works with the musical fantasia of the 1971 Gene Wilder-starring film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The result is a truly special prequel: a largely wonderful and never-not-dazzling film that revels in oodles of fun, deliciously lavish set pieces, and many a toe-tapping song and dance numbers. Read More

Bureaucracy of Evil: ‘THE ZONE OF INTEREST’

December 5, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Christian Friedel, Johnnie Burn, Jonathan Glazer, Lukasz Zal, Mica Levi, Reviews, Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest 3 Comments

How dare the guardians of hell find solace on its perimeter? That is the question that Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing holocaust drama asks. Not so much about the banality of evil as the bureaucracy of evil, the stomach-churning film ruminates on the operational complexities of the Holocaust and the monstrous administrators who oversaw its execution, making for a new entry to the Holocaust recreation sub-genre that’s starkly unique and entirely haunting. Glazer and cinematographer Lukasz Zal capture the simple, beautiful domesticity of a Germany family living just outside the barbed-wire walls of Auschwitz, juxtaposing the visually appealing nature of their idyllic grounds against the soul-piercing aural nightmare sounding on the other side of the wall. That stark contrast and cognitive dissonance – trapping the audience between seeing beauty and hearing hell – creates a truly disturbing tension in The Zone of Interest, sure to make viewers queasy and entirely unsettled. Read More

Fantastical ‘POOR THINGS’ A Madcap Adventure Through Self-Discovery

December 4, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things 5 Comments

As if involving the likes of Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Ruffalo in a Yorgos Lanthimos film wasn’t enough of a good thing, the delightfully madcap Poor Things treats viewers to the combined prowess of these actors, harnessing their considerable talents for a wickedly funny and fresh reimagining of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’. Stone plays Bella Baxter, the creation of mad scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who prefers simply to go by the modest moniker “God”. Lanthimos presents Bella Baxter, a dullard reanimated beauty, as a miniature study in maturation. Viewers are invited to observe her journey, witnessing her rapid learning and growth onscreen. From her awkward first steps through her unhinged sexual awakening and eventually onto self-discovery and actualization, Bella’s odyssey is a delightful mix of hysterical black comedy and a thought-provoking feminist manifesto on personal evolution and revolution. Read More

Fiery ‘SALTBURN’ Glows With Psychosexual Heat, Palace Intrigue

November 13, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Barry Keoghan, Carey Mulligan, Emerald Fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, Saltburn, Sophie Canale, Suzie Davies 3 Comments

In her second feature, writer, director, and producer Emerald Fennell digs her heels deeper into the themes of power dynamics and the consequences of privilege that she explored in 2020’s explosive Promising Young Woman, this time folding in palace intrigue by moving the action to the lofty estate of a family of aristocrats at the eponymous Saltburn. A decadent feast for the senses, Fennell’s sophomore feature calls to mind a tale as old as time framed through a modern lens: an unassuming Oxford scholar is allured by the corrosive power of wealth, finding himself sucked into a vortex of desire, greed, and materialism. It’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with the hyper-modern visual high-shine of Euphoria and the cold calculation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, plus a splash of the wealthy ennui found in a Sofia Coppola film. Read More

Bittersweet Symphony ‘THE HOLDOVERS’ Waxes on Holiday Loneliness

November 3, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alexander Payne, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, David Hemingson, Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti, Reviews 3 Comments

Winter is coming. At an Exeter-esque New England prep school circa the 1970s, students ready themselves for Christmas break. All but a handful of Barton students anticipate time with family, away from the academic demands of their coursework and the prying eyes of their hawkish professors. A small collection of eponymous “holdovers” are left behind, stranded at the snow-bound school for various reasons, forsaken under the tyrannical cross-eye of Dr. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Amongst the abandoned is resident reprobate Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a whip-smart smart-ass who’s a bit of a loner and has a troubled home life. There to ensure the collection is fed during their holiday stint is cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who recently lost her son, a recent Barton graduate, in the Vietnam War. Director Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, Nebraska), working from a fantastic script from long-time TV writer David Hemingson, finds every avenue to make these characters collide, collude, and refract one another in a dizzying display of heart, humanity, and humor. Read More

‘THE CREATOR’ Updates Humanity With Technically Brilliant Original Sci-Fi

September 28, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Allison Janney, Chris Weitz, Gareth Edwards, Hans Zimmer, John David Washington, Ken Watanabe, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sturgill Simpson, The Creator Leave a comment

Good science fiction straddles the line between grappling with contemporary anxieties and reflecting on the essence of humanity, often through non-human characters. Movies such as Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Her, and even Terminator 2 explore the notion that our innate humanity transcends mere flesh and blood. Any truly meaningful exploration of humanity tends to exceed the boundaries of pure science and biology, delving into the metaphysical realms of the soul. Qualities like empathy, love, or even the ability to crack a good joke are as fundamentally human as opposable thumbs or the capacity to biologically reproduce. In one pivotal scene in Gareth Edwards’ stark and striking science fiction film The Creator, the best original sci-fi film in years, a group of American soldiers descend upon a village to extract the location of a concealed weapon. One of the soldier threatens to execute the dog of a trembling little girl unless she gives up information. It’s a stark reminder that humanity often eludes those who are, ostensibly, human themselves. Read More

Take a Delightful Sojourn Into Thespian Hilarity at ‘THEATER CAMP’

July 27, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Sedaris, Jimmy Tatro, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Out in Theater, Review, Theater Camp 7 Comments

In the vein of the best Christopher Guest mockumentaries, Theater Camp delivers a laugh-a-minute exploration of the inner workings of a fictitious child actor’s summer getaway, firmly rooted in reality. Destined to become a cult comedy classic, especially amongst the performance-inclined, this feature-length adaptation of the short film of the same name is crafted with a deep understanding of the theatrical world. Co-directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, both with theatrical backgrounds, the film expertly celebrates and satirizes the peculiarities of the theater world, infusing the humor with a delightful mix of specificity and personal touches. Read More

Pastel-Plastered ‘BARBIE’ A Hilarious and Incisive Indictment of Modernity, Gender Roles

July 18, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alexandra Shipp, Ana Cruz Kayne, Barbie, Dua Lipa, Emma Mackey, Greta Gerwig, Hari Nef, Issa Rae, John Cena, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Margot Robbie, Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Noah Baumbach, Ritu Arya, Ryan Gosling, Scott Evans, Sharon Rooney, Simu Liu 2 Comments

When Mattel recently announced that they would be launching their own extended cinematic universe (the Mattel Cinematic Universe, or MCU2), the internet groaned in exhausted unison. After all, what could be more unappealing in our era of modern moviemaking than yet another corporate attempt to coalesce blatant brand synergy and Hollywood’s necrotic trend of interconnectiveness, all to satisfy a company’s stakeholders and their own bottom line? From my very anecdotal research, this is simply not a thing that the movie-going public is clambering for. No one is demanding a theatrical showcase where Hot Wheels, Sock ‘Em Robots, and Barbie team up in some kind of Avengers-style plot to take down the dastardly Hungry Hungry Hippos. And yet, Mattel is currently in some stage of development on a vast number of feature films based on just that with Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, He-Man, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Polly Pocket, View-Master, American Girl, and the card game Uno all in some form of gestational pre-production. Theirs is a gloomy future that presupposes that Hollywood hits come purely from brand recognition – a future that forecasts the further sidelining of anything truly original, championing nostalgia and brand dominance over the creation of the new. Read More