Search Results

You can find all of Story Screen's favorite 2023 lists right here! PODCAST: STORY SCREEN PRESENTS: Story Screen's Best of 2023 Mike Burdge, Diana DiMuro, Bernadette Gorman-White, and Robby Anderson chat about some of their favorites of 2023, including Oppenheimer, The Boy and the Heron, Past Lives, John Wick: Chapter 4, Barbie, and more. Listen on... Links: Plagiarism and You(tube) Video ARTICLES: Mike's Top 23 Films of 2023 By Mike Burdge Diana's Best of 2023 Films By Diana DiMuro From the Bottom to the Heart: Bern’s Top 10 Films of 2023 By Bernadette Gorman-White Reeya's Best of 2023 By Reeya Banerjee BaeBae’s Top 10 of 2023 By Robby Anderson Damian's 10 Favorite Films of 2023 By Damian Masterson Scotty's 2023 in Film: 10 Movies to Love By Scott Arnold Jeremy’s Top 10 of 2023 By Jeremy Kolodziejski

Both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes over disputes with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers may have slowed down the release of content in 2023, but it did not diminish the quality of the films and TV shows that were released. If anything, it gave me more time to watch the available movies. So (unintentionally), thank you WGA and SAG-AFTRA? Here’s hoping that these strikes and the investigative journalism of 2023 will lead to better pay and better working conditions, not only for writers and actors but for animators and beyond. Writing for Story Screen has always been a way for me to excitedly shake the person I am talking to (even virtually) after I watch something truly great and want them to watch it too. That being said, I had a harder time deciding how to rank my favorite films from 2023. Some of my listed films were technically released in 2022, but not widely or in the United States, others were just plain bangers, but I had a hard time conveying into words anything that I felt was unique from their mass-critical-acclaim. But when it comes down to it, these are the films I majorly enjoyed in 2023 and I hope you will too. (P.S. If you saw a great film or show in 2023 that is not on my list, please, tell me. I mean it. I want to hear all about it.) TV Series Honorable Mentions: There were so many good series to watch in 2023, including Season 2 of The Bear, and Netflix’s Beef. (Hats off to music supervisor Tiffany Anders for that insane trip down memory lane). Here are two of my favorite shows from 2023: Reservation Dogs - Season 3 (final season) While Season 2 of Rez Dogs might be one of the best seasons of television ever (shoutout to Lily Gladstone), the final season of creator Sterlin Harjo’s show begins to hint at how our four young Native protagonists will continue to move on with their lives off-screen. They will always be connected -  to their community, their past, and each other. It’s a show that I recommend hands-down to any viewer no matter their usual genre preferences. It has something for everyone and I can’t wait to see what its four main young actors go on to do next. Our Flag Means Death - Season 2 (final season) While it was recently announced that Max has canceled OFMD, Season 2 had such a satisfying ending that I was okay with it. I loved Season 1, but in its second season, David Jenkins allowed his cast to get really weird and it only made me love every single character EVEN MORE. On to my Favorite Films of 2023: Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie Directed by Davis Guggenheim, (It Might Get Loud, An Inconvenient Truth) this documentary film does an amazing job of combining actual footage of Michael J. Fox with reenactment footage, showing someone who kind of resembles him from behind acts out parts of his life while Fox narrates it. It’s really impressive how well done it is. I think the film is captivating and ultimately very hopeful. It makes a point of making you feel compassion rather than pity for Fox in his current state of health. It also showcases how insane it was that Fox was hiding his Parkinson's symptoms for so long from the public, all while churning out so many roles to achieve his acting dreams. Talk to Me It doesn’t matter if they’re dead or alive, we’re all just reaching out for some connection. That was my main takeaway from Talk to Me. The movie takes the experience of connecting with the dead and equates it with recreational drug use, slowly making you think it’s OK to keep taking more until it’s too late. Sophie Wilde’s performance is amazing. I would love to see another film in this universe. They already have the sequel name perfected. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (Formerly Part One) I love the Mission: Impossible franchise. It’s my comfort food. Mission: Impossible - Fallout might be my all-time favorite in the Tom Cruise-led series, but 2023’s Dead Reckoning is still insanely epic in its scale, stunts, and Cruise’s ability to charm, soothe, and even, make us laugh when we least expect it from this genre. Hayley Atwell does a surprisingly good job of making us care about her despite being the newest addition to the group (and the fact that she’s no substitute for my sweet sweet Rebecca Ferguson). Sanctuary Christopher Abbott is one of those actors who is so very good at playing terrible people. I had no idea what this film was about before watching or how insanely good Margaret Qualley would be opposite Abbott. This film is a dance, a chess game, a battle of wits, call it whatever you like, but it is a match between its two leads, Hal and Rebecca, and I won’t say any more than that. It totally surprised me and I can’t recommend it enough. Of An Age This film captures what it’s like to discover yourself and that first brush with love. I think it also conveys the friendships we have when we’re young that don’t necessarily make sense, but we cling to when we most need someone who accepts us. This film is sort of a best-case scenario of “It gets better.” Its two leads are each captivating in their own right. Thom Green’s Adam reminds Elias Anton’s Kol that there is a bigger better world out there than the small-minded small town they’re both from. Rye Lane I wrote about Rye Lane for Story Screen when it was first released and since then it has stayed in the back of my mind throughout 2023. It shares DNA with films like Before Sunrise while blending in more humor and showcasing distinct cultural neighborhoods in London. Its flawed characters are fun and funny and ultimately bring out the best in each other. Priscilla I loved Cailee Spaeny in Devs. She can capture a youthful naivety that sells her performance as Priscilla in Sofia Coppola’s latest film. Jacob Elordi does a fantastic job as Elvis, portraying him as sort of a captivating Peter Pan manchild who teeters on the brink of violent anger at all times. Priscilla can feel like a horror movie while you wait for the other shoe to drop, but Coppola shoots it a lot like The Virgin Suicides. It looks amazing: its color palette, attention to detail, and its soundtrack. I enjoyed it even more upon second viewing, and I imagine that it will only gain my esteem as time goes by. Poor Things Poor Things is bonkers in the best way possible. I love director Yorgos Lanthimos' last film, The Favourite, but it is deeply sad. I was pleased to find that even though Poor Things deals with big existential questions, it is hilarious and ultimately a story with a hopeful ending about falling in love with life itself. The movie also looks amazing - from its color palate to its costumes. In another star supporting role, Mark Ruffalo almost steals the show in one of my favorite performances of his ever, but this movie belongs to Emma Stone. She deserves all of the awards. Fallen Leaves Even though not a lot happens, Fallen Leaves is such a great film. It is very funny, but its sequences without dialogue are just as engrossing and heartfelt as those with it. The story grapples with its main characters getting older and not wanting to be alone. Its central characters, Ansa and Holappa, played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, are my favorite onscreen couple of 2023. Blue Jean Blue Jean takes place in England during the 1980s when being openly gay meant potentially losing your job, but a lot of the fears that plague the film's main character, Jean, could easily apply today. Struggling with being out among your peers is a reality no matter what time. Period. The film shows Jean watching someone younger than her struggle with being queer and trying to decide whether she is obligated to be a good role model for them and how to do that while still dealing with her own issues. Rosy McEwen reminded me of Lily Rabe-meets-Jodie Comer in the best way possible. Chris Roe’s beautiful score compliments director Georgia Oakley’s ability to walk a tightrope between hope and heartbreak. It’s worth the watch. Joyland This movie was nothing like I expected. While its trailer gives a glimpse of someone hiding themselves from their family, that’s only the tip of the iceberg in this movie. The fact that its main character Haider (played by Ali Junejo) is so unclear about what he wants is what makes the film feel so honest. Its supporting character Mumtaz (played by the incredible Rasti Farooq), slowly steals the film and breaks your heart. I felt frustrated by the film's third act until its coda absolutely destroyed me. Killers of the Flower Moon Scorsese’s latest film is three hours and 26 minutes but I have a hard time deciding what I would try to cut out to make it a shorter watch. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance is GOOOOOD but he is upstaged by the incredible Lily Gladstone. This is not a fun watch. It is horrible, based on even more horrible real-life events. But I am glad that by creating a film about these awful events more attention is being drawn to the Osage people. Marty may be getting older but he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Keep on, keeping on, Mr. Scorsese. TEN: Barbie I forgot how funny Barbie is until I watched it recently for a second time. Greta Gerwig directed something truly amazing. The fact that she was not nominated for “Best Director” by the Academy Awards seems unbelievable. Barbie’s practical effects, production design, and costume design are all killer. The movie has a phenomenal cast. Margot Robbie’s performance is fantastic without being too over the top and America Ferrari is probably my favorite part of the film. Ryan Gosling almost steals the movie from Robbie, especially during his dreamy Gene Kelly-esque musical escapades. For a film based on Mattel IP, it is immensely poignant, hilarious, and heartwarming. If you haven’t yet, just watch it already. NINE: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez make a great dynamic duo in this movie. Pine is charming and hilarious, making a great foil to Rodriguez’s stoic muscle. It also has one of the best-unexpected cameos I’ve seen in a film in years. This movie is extremely fun to watch and gave me serious 90s summer blockbuster vibes. I’ve already watched it a second time on a lazy Sunday afternoon and I enjoyed it just as much as my first viewing in the theater. In solidarity with my brotha Damian Masterson, I could easily watch another D&D film every few years. There’s so much potential here. I NEED MORE JARNATHAN! EIGHT: Emily I was really blown away by Emily. Written and Directed by Frances O'Connor, the film is more of an artistic interpretation of the life of the Brontë sisters than a factual retelling. The film’s score by Abel Korzeniowski adds to the fantastical elements of the film and it’s beautifully shot by DP Nanu Segal. There are so many scenes that stayed with me long after watching the film. Emma Mackey’s performance builds on the same strengths displayed in Sex Education and adds so much more. I hope to see her in more leading roles after this movie. I loved watching every scene between her and her onscreen brother (played by Fionn Whitehead), even when I knew they might not be the best influences on each other, you could feel their love and their understanding of one another. And Oliver Jackson-Cohen finally gets to play someone who is not a complete psychopath, so there’s that. By not being a strict historical retelling of the life of the Brontës, O’Conner creates a film about the creative process itself, and how elements or events in your life can impact your imagination. She finds a way to imagine Emily Brontë’s life, showing who encouraged her to cultivate her gifts as a writer to go on to write Wuthering Heights. It’s also a reminder of how insanely young most people were when they died in the 1800s. The Brontë sisters in particular. SEVEN: The Boy and the Heron Hayao Miyazaki delivers. I wasn’t expecting this film to blow me away the way that it did. It’s far more grounded than most of Miyazaki’s usual fair, but once it starts getting weird, IT GETS WEIRD. It has one of the most beautiful film scores I have ever heard. I can’t believe composer Joe Hisaishi was not nominated for more awards. I watched the English-dubbed version and lemme tell you something: Robert Pattinson’s voice performance is insane and I AM HERE FOR IT. LONG LIVE WEIRD PATTINSON. SIX: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse I loved 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and was hyped for its 2023 sequel. While there have been several reports of unsustainable working conditions for the over a thousand animators working on Across the Spider-Verse, there’s no denying that their work is an immense achievement. It is: SO. MUCH. SPIDER-MAN. And I mean that in the best way possible. Daniel Pemberton is back with an even more amazing score that should have been nominated for an Academy Award. We meet some awesome new Spider-characters voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, Issa Rae, and Karan Soni, but it’s the existing relationships between Gwen Stacy and her dad, Miles and his parents, Rio and Jeff Morales, (as well as Gwen and Miles’ friendship) that makes the film so well worth the watch. I can’t wait for its final installment (hopefully in a few years, please, take your time). FIVE: Past Lives What I love most about Celine Song’s film, Past Lives, is that it’s not a straightforward romance where you are rooting for one love interest over another. It’s more about grieving a version of your past self and thinking about what might have been if you had made different choices. Simultaneously, the film is also about accepting your present self based on the choices you have made. Both male protagonists have affected Nora’s life and shaped who she is now, but it is still heartbreaking for Nora to say goodbye to her past. FOUR: The Holdovers Dang, I do love Sideways and a good ol’ cranky performance by Paul Giamatti, but I think I love The Holdovers even more. He is perfect for the role of a curmudgeon history teacher, Paul Hunham. Newcomer Dominic Sessa is a lovable pain in the ass, à la Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore, but I think it’s Da'Vine Joy Randolph who truly makes this the holy Trinity of found families around the holidays. I loved Randolph in Hulu’s High Fidelity, but that performance was often over the top (channeling her inner Jack Black). In The Holdovers, Randolph’s Mary is frequently understated but never minces words. I could easily re-watch this film around the holidays for years to come, but despite it taking place during Christmas, I think it’s a highly enjoyable film to watch at any point in the year. THREE: Anatomy of a Fall It’s wild how engrossing Anatomy of a Fall is when so much of it takes place inside a courtroom (not normally my cup of tea). Sandra Hüller’s performance is captivating as her character Sandra’s life is picked apart by a full courtroom. Sandra’s lawyer, played by Swann Arlaud, has become an internet boyfriend sensation for having some of the best floppy hair since 90s Hugh Grant. The true stars of the film, however, are Sandra’s son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), and his dog, Snoop (with an amazing performance by Messi the Dog). Also, shout out to that instrumental cover of 50 Cent's "P.I.M.P.”, by Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band. It slaps. TWO: All of Us Strangers Aftersun starring Paul Mescal was my number one favorite film of 2022. Andrew Scott’s “Hot Priest” from Season 2 of Fleabag may be one of my all-time favorite characters on television. Who knew these two actors would have such great chemistry? This is definitely Scott’s movie, and as Adam, he does an amazing job expressing so much with only a look. While I loved watching him opposite Mescal’s Harry, it was his scenes with his onscreen parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) that stayed with me long after viewing this film. I felt conflicted about how director Andrew Haigh deals with the central relationship between Adam and Harry, but I loved every second that they got to spend together, as well as with his parents, and all of the healing that those exchanges, whether real or dreaming, produced for him. ONE: Oppenheimer When I was in the theater for the first time watching Oppenheimer, there were a few moments during the film when I thought I might be having a panic attack. The film’s sound design works so intensely alongside Ludwig Göransson’s beautiful score (plus the volume at the theater was so incredibly loud) that I often felt extremely uncomfortable. I think that was deliberate. It took a second viewing at home for me to really appreciate how beautifully the score works with Christopher Nolan’s vision and Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography. This film is gorgeous. It is also a ridiculous who’s who of Hollywood actors, showcasing some of the best cameos, character actors, and Nolan-verse regulars around (shout out to Josh Hartnett). If you haven’t seen the film yet - Robert Downey Jr. is in it wayyy more than I expected based on the movie’s trailer. The Downey Jr. hype is well-merited. Nolan's use of practical effects vs. CG is mind-blowing but also, unsurprising when you take into account his other films’ use of practical effects. This may be his best film. Ever. I can’t say this is my favorite role for Cillian Murphy (I will always be a 28 Days Later fan) but I am so happy Murphy is getting the praise he deserves. Emily Blunt plays the best angry drunk I’ve seen in a film in a long time but David Krumholtz might be my favorite performance in the film. Hand me that orange slice, bub. Diana DiMuro Besides watching TV and movies, Diana likes plants, the great outdoors, drawing and reading comics, and just generally rocking out. She has a BA in English Literature and is an art school dropout. You can follow her on Instagram @dldimuro and Twitter @DianaDiMuro

This past year was driven by equilibrium. Throughout the pandemic and lockdown, when we were all at a loss for new entertainment, seemingly everyone got back to nature. I know I did. I got out in the yard, I sat weeding for hours, I actually started listening to podcasts, and I rededicated myself to running, a hobby I had been in and out of since high school. And then life resumed, and we all got back to busy schedules, filling our time with concerts, movies, trivia nights, and good old-fashioned social calls. But sometimes it felt like I had swung back to my pre-pandemic lifestyle too swiftly, too heartily, and a little too greedily. While I consider myself to be a social person, I really enjoyed the stillness of the lockdown (a selfish comfort in the midst of an undeniable tragedy for so many). So, in an attempt to find this equilibrium this past year, I did both more and less; I ran three half-marathons, got pregnant, and started a new job…but I watched far fewer films than in previous years. Out of the films I did see this past year, these 10 are the ones that I had the best time watching. I do think 2023 lacked the excitement of the previous two years overall (I mean, I’m still thinking about After Yang, RRR, and Annette…to name only a few), but I do appreciate 2023 for proving that comedies are back, baby! (Light Spoilers for the films ahead…) 10) Bottoms Emma Seligman’s follow-up to 2020’s Shiva Baby did not disappoint. Starring Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott (who co-wrote the film with Seligman), Bottoms follows high-school lesbians, Josie and PJ, as they try to lose their virginity before graduation…by starting a female fight club masquerading as an after-school self-defense club. Already a bonkers premise, Bottoms kicks it up a level by satirizing the high school film genre and leaning into the hierarchy of the very real high school clique system. There were definitely films that I watched this past year that may have been technically more sound than Bottoms (anticipate some strange, big-budget-shaped gaps in the list ahead, dear reader), but when it comes down to enjoyment level, Bottoms was an absolute riot. The high school film genre is a strange one that continues to persevere, to varying levels of success, but Bottoms solidified itself as a staple in my book. Kudos to Seligman and Sennott for finding a fresh take on the absurdity of high school. 9) Barbie Ten, twenty years down the line, Oppenheimer will just be another great film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography, that also happened to reap the benefits of being attached to Barbenheimer. But Barbie was a moment. Let’s be real, there’s no Oppenheimer cosplay without Barbie cosplay, and I don’t think people would have gone in groups to see a film like Oppenheimer without the prerequisite of that same group seeing Barbie. That’s not to diminish the success of these films, both together and separately, on the merit of their actual execution as art; they are both stunning in different ways. But no matter how much Fat Man and Little Boy stuck with me since watching it in high school chemistry class, I was societally predisposed to be delighted by the build-up to, and subsequent admiration for, Barbie. Not only is the film consistently funny, but it also lands the more heartfelt scenes as Barbie and her cohort begin to question their one-dimensional purposes in search of meaning. I don’t know what the future holds for our patriarchal society, but a film like Barbie existing certainly doesn’t hurt in a long series of steps to changing the tide. Thanks, Barbie! 8) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse These Sony Pictures Animations Spider-Man movies just keep on slamming, don’t they? The stakes were high for Across the Spider-Verse to meet the excitement and fun that 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse (God, was that really five years ago?) completely nailed, but it managed to bring the heat and then some. Picking up where Into the Spider-Verse left off, Miles, Gwen, and the rest of the Spideys become entangled in an even more inescapable web as the film leans more heavily into destiny and fighting fate. The Spider-Man franchise has always been neck and neck with the Batman franchise for me, but it’s been a real treat to watch these recent Spider-Man animated films soar in creative new ways while also shining a light on characters from the Spider-Verse that have yet to be featured in the film franchise. After venturing Into and Across, I can’t wait to go Beyond. 7) Past Lives Sometimes I think the phrase “a special movie” can come across as a little condescending, but it’s exactly how I feel about Celine Song’s debut, Past Lives. What Song (alongside actors Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro) accomplishes in a tight 106 minutes is both beautiful and heartbreaking as Lee’s Nora Moon navigates an emotional minefield of growth, nostalgia, and acceptance. It’s rare that a romantic film comes along that realistically depicts “the one that got away” with any real sense of responsibility, but Song’s story of two childhood sweethearts whose relationship gets cut short by no fault of its own feels exceptionally honest. Sometimes two people are just not meant to walk through life together, despite their best efforts; the world is too big, the path too unpredictable, and the story too demanding. Through Past Lives, Song reassures us to find peace and comfort in this reality, in both the film and in our own lives. 6) May December There’s no way anybody can mentally prepare for just how funny Todd Haynes’ May December turned out to be. I’m eternally grateful to both Haynes and Samy Burch, the screenwriter, for approaching May December in this humorous manner because to approach it in any other way would only feel…icky? But perhaps there is no “right” way to approach a “loosely inspired” story about Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau. Regardless, I’m glad they did. This news story, which spanned from 1996 all the way to 2020 with Letourneau’s death, was truly THE news story from my childhood. Outside of 9/11 and Princess Diana’s death, these events are the most memorable, and the story kept evolving throughout my childhood into my teens, and later into my adult life. It just never quite went away. And now it came back, yet again, in the form of May December. If the film wasn’t so downright playful, I might have had a difficult time enjoying a film that does, to a certain degree, exploit Vili and his family, but gosh darn it, this movie’s great (with standout turns from Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and a riveting Charles Melton). Regardless of your connection to the real-world events, May December just proves again what a chameleon Haynes is in his interpretation of reality. 5) Dicks: The Musical Watching Dicks: The Musical might have been my favorite movie-viewing experience of last year. I had feebly attempted to meet up with fellow Story Screener Scotty Arnold to see it in a theater, but when that didn’t work out, I threw it on at home, months later, while my husband, Heath, passively watched while playing Baldur’s Gate 3. Needless to say, he didn’t accomplish much gaming as Dicks: The Musical demands your attention. Written by UCB alumni Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, the two star as business rivals who “discover” they’re identical twins and hatch a Parent Trap situation to get their divorced parents (Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane) back together. That’s pretty much all you need to know to get your foot in the door because the rest of the film is an absolute treat to walk into blind. Dicks: The Musical is a tight hour and a half of laughs, gags, and the music ain’t half bad either. If stupid, alternative comedies are your bag, don’t sleep on Dicks. 4) The Boy and the Heron The remainder of this list is a testament to auteurs in 2023. Coming in at number four, Hayao Miyazaki stuns again with The Boy and the Heron, a whimsical tale of loss, maturity, and family. Focusing on young Mahito as he wrestles with the death of his mother, The Boy and the Heron steps through worlds and time with the greatest of ease, weaving a masterclass in storytelling. In some respects, the film is boldly grounded for a Miyazaki film, but when it takes its turn into different worlds and philosophical concepts, it really leans in. That being said, I also think it might just be the most skilled of his filmography to appeal to both children and adults, but its ability to bridge that gap is nothing new for a Miyazaki story. In a year of great animation, The Boy and the Heron soars. (In my viewing I had the pleasure of watching the subtitled Japanese version, but I can’t wait to revisit it with Robert Pattinson’s titular heron.) 3) Asteroid City Leave it to me to find a nice comfy home for the latest Wes Anderson film. Asteroid City, Anderson’s 11th installment in his filmography falls in perfect alignment with his other works, exploring a retro-futuristic 1950s Americana desert through the lens of storytelling and nostalgia. Anderson’s come a long way since 1996’s Bottle Rocket, but while his style continues to become more refined, he still manages to capture the vulnerability in the human condition. In Asteroid City, a group of young geniuses converge in the fictional city to be honored in the Junior Stargazer convention, during which the city experiences an alien encounter. The base premise is already peak Anderson, but the crux of the film is that Asteroid City happens to be a play being told in the greater context of Asteroid City the film. This metatextual framing, of which Anderson is fond, helps take Asteroid City to the next level. Anderson’s storytelling is always something I look forward to and I was pleased to find that even though Asteroid City could have rested on the entertaining premise of an alien touchdown, it chose to dig even further by delving into the extremely touching alien nature of human interaction. 2) Poor Things Speaking of human interaction, Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest cinematic feat also explores what it means to be human in a sea of inhumane depravity. Marrying the stylized cinematography of 2018’s The Favourite to the heady rule-bending worlds of his earlier work like The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Poor Things channels a lifetime’s worth of self-discovery into his heroine, Bella Baxter (exuberantly portrayed by Emma Stone). Bella is a woman who, through an ordeal I won’t describe here, is learning how the world is meant to operate, and her place in it. It postulates how nice it would be to exist in the magic of the world without being burdened by any of the societal pressures or restrictions we all face as we age into adulthood. Bella is a character that has to rapidly come to terms with the world’s understanding of her, but without the proper time to learn self-doubt and insecurity, she rebels against the weight of society’s acceptance. Bella accepts herself, nearly wholeheartedly, which is a beautiful process to watch. And did I mention that Poor Things also happens to be one of the funniest films of the year? Yes, Poor Things will certainly be a film I revisit enthusiastically and often. 1) The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart As I have been known to say regarding many of my top picks over the years, there just couldn’t have been another film to take this title. If you know anything about me, you most likely know of my deep love and admiration for The Venture Bros., the [adultswim] animated series that premiered all the way back in 2003. Over the course of its seven-season run, the Venture family (amidst a cast of other amazing characters) grew and developed into the very best of what you expect in a television comedy; fully realized characters who haven’t lost any of the hilarious flaws that make them human. Now, do I wish Poor Things could have risen to the top this year in an alternate reality where The Venture Bros. didn’t have their eighth season canceled and condensed into this finale of a film? Absolutely. But we live in a world where, regrettably, The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart is going to be the last piece of Venture media we will be blessed with. But boy, does it deliver on that blessing. So long as you’re of a sane and rational mind, the Venture Bros. film delivers on its promise to answer the most important burning questions, all the while setting up some fun, undercurrent mysteries for those of us who fashion The Venture Bros. to be their Roman Empire. That’s all I can say for this film, as to delve into anything more would be to rob the uninitiated of The Venture Bros. journey. If you value my opinion at all, give yourself a little treat by digging into The Venture Bros. You won’t regret it and will be welcomed into one of the most loving fandoms on this here planet Earth. “Hench For Life,” “Love Never Blows Up and Gets Killed,” but most importantly, “Go Team Venture!” Bernadette Gorman-White Bernadette graduated from DePauw University in 2011 with a Film Studies degree she’s not currently using. She constantly consumes television, film, and all things pop culture and will never be full. She doesn’t tweet much, but give her a follow @BeaGorman and see if that changes.

I haven’t stared aimlessly at a blank page for this long in a while. That blinking cursor fades in and out of reality. Do you think they designed a cursor to blink to make writers feel anxious? Like a passive-aggressive metronome? Also, where does this little fucker go? Does it get high? Travel to more interesting Google Docs? Does it say, “Can you watch this essay while I go smoke?” Why am I stalling? If you’re here, reading this on your phone or laptop at your desk or toilet you probably know the deal. I’m Robby Anderson, my friends call me BaeBae, and for the past seven years, I’ve been writing a top ten list of movies for Story Screen. Sorry to all the hardcore BaeBabies, a term I coined just now for my adoring fans if I’m boring you with my recap. We both know BaeBae lore is important and you’ve done the homework. But for the new BaeBabies or BaeEnemies let me catch you up to speed on where my head is by sharing an excerpt from my Top 10 list of 2022: My intro last year lamented on feeling burnt out like I was spinning my tires and had accomplished very little with my craft. Throughout 2022, I actually tried to change that. I was proactive: I made a resume. I applied for jobs. I took jobs that fell through and I had my biggest accomplishment in years: I got paid to write. How about that! I have 2023 in my sights. It took me a long time to realize that the mud I was spinning my tires in was made up of all the gross feelings I’d let myself sink into. No more! Big things are ahead for me, I can feel it, and if in a year I look back at this little annual journal entry and think, “Damn, I was wrong lol,” at least I’ll know it wasn’t for lack of trying. I don’t usually make my previous year’s list required reading like it’s some bullshit Disney + show setting up four movies no one wants to watch but for those who come here because of an investment in my character development and my personal story then guess what: Damn, I wasn’t wrong lol. In the year that was 2023, I started my career as a freelance writer and was published a total of fifteen times. I got a new car (beep beep) (why did I type that?). I quit my job that I was miserable at and got a new part-time gig that I really dig. My fiancé and I moved into a sick apartment. Oh, and I got engaged. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. When you have an eventful year filled with milestones and progress: It’s hard to find time to go to the movies! This year I’m breaking my rules a little bit. There are so many 2023 movies I have yet to see, but there was also a lot of media outside the medium of film that really spoke to me. So when you see a YouTube video in my top 5, try not to freak out. Alright, time to stop stalling. My name is Robby Anderson, and my friends call me BaeBae, I’m a writer, and this isn’t a list of the best movies of the year, this is a list of my favorite art of the year. Let’s get into it. 10. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse The long-awaited sequel to 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had some mighty big shoes to fill. Into the Spider-Verse felt like a cornerstone in nerd culture. Its plot is extremely ambitious for its time, making something as geeky, complicated, and vast as the multiverse streamlined and easy for audiences to comprehend. It pioneered an aesthetic that blends 3D CGI models with 2D hand-drawn art that is so beautiful to look at, animated films would use it for years to come. At the film’s core is an intimate story. New webhead Miles Morales has to learn what it means to be a hero; what it means to put on the mask (the kind of platitude that’s usually summed up well by someone’s dying Uncle). Fast forward to 2023 and general audiences are basically multiverse scholars. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is everything great about the first movie but MORE. MORE Spider-Folks, MORE universes, MORE varied and beautiful art. One might imagine producers and writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as that Adam Driver meme from The Last Jedi during production. Across the Spider-Verse feels like a part one. It was announced alongside its trilogy capper, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, a movie that I don’t think is coming out anytime soon. That being said, its plot is still entertaining and satisfying. Gwen Stacy takes more of a center role in this film. After her identity is revealed to her father, a police sergeant, she flees her dimension and joins Miguel O’Hara’s elite squad of Spider-People. Miles’ story is a bit more grand than his first outing as he is tasked with defying fate and the meta-narrative that befalls all Spider-Heroes. The movie's biggest triumph is its art. Across the Spider-Verse may be the best-looking animated movie I’ve ever seen. Every Spider-Locale has its own distinct flavor. Gwen Stacy’s world is a watercolor mood ring, where her emotions paint the scene. Mumbattan, home of Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar, is a dense metropolis doused in vibrant greens, yellows, and purples. Nueva York is home to the Spider-Society’s HQ, a gravity-defying MC Escher-esque design that accounts for the sticky feet of all the wall-crawling heroes. All of these extra settings make you appreciate Miles’ world even more, the familiar blend of street and pop art that captures the best aspects of New York City and classic comic books. Before moving on from this flick, it doesn’t feel right to include this film on my list without mentioning reports of the problematic working conditions behind the scenes. The film is a herculean effort accomplished through the labor of hundreds of talented artists. Across the Spider-Verse artists were forced to work grueling 11-hour work days, 7 days a week at various points during production. I hope Beyond the Spider-Verse is delayed for as long as it needs to be to avoid putting any more crunch on the artists who worked so hard to make one of the greatest animated films of all time. In a year where good art was mired by studio greed, forcing creators into striking and fighting for their livelihood, it's sad to know that behind the colorful worlds of the Spider-Verse was the same gloomy darkness. 9. Past Lives I think Past Lives is the best movie of the year. So when you see that I enjoyed Shin Kamen Rider more than the best movie of the year, hopefully, you won’t think less of me. Why do I think it's the best movie of the year? It’s shot beautifully, framing our characters in ways that create distance when they’re in the same room and intimacy when they’re thousands of miles apart. I think the performances are masterful. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo make the feeling of longing tangible. They make something as elusive and slippery as an emotion feel solid, and dense, like longing could be placed in your hands and it would weigh a thousand pounds. Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) were elementary school sweethearts in Korea before Nora and her family immigrated to the United States. The two grow up, and no matter how much time passes, or how different their lives are from one another, they remember that pure, innocent romance they had for one another when they were children. When they finally meet in person again, Nora is in a happy marriage and Hae Sung is freshly single. Sounds spicy right? Luckily, I’m really secure and only asked my fiancé once, “You don’t have a long-lost love from your past, right?” Right? I think Past Lives can easily be seen as a film about an emotional affair. I think it is relatable for anyone who never got closure from a relationship. I think what Past Lives really nails is when you love the idea of someone more than the actual person. People, friends, family, or lovers exist in our lives in two forms: the literal, physical self who exists in reality, and the concept, the way that person exists in the narrative of our lives. Our memory creates the story of what they mean to us and how they change us, writing their dialogue whenever we hear their voice echoing against the walls of our mind palace. Past Lives wrestles with this corporeal dissonance in a way that transcends fiction and simply feels real. 8. Oppenheimer Obviously, when Christopher Nolan makes a movie, I’m going to show up. While I do enjoy most movies in Nolan’s film catalog, I wouldn’t say I’m a die-hard Nolan bro. I’m not a Nolan Chad, which is a cross between a film nerd and high school jock, aka the biggest piece of shit you’ve ever met. Nolan always makes interesting movies and he’s one of the last big-budget blockbuster auteurs making films that are more than simple cash grabs. His last movie, Tenet, wasn’t my cup of tea, so I was cautiously optimistic about Oppenheimer. The man delivered. My favorite aspect of the movie is its pacing. Despite its three-hour runtime, the film flies by without a single wasted moment. Perhaps this is because it was produced in an unbelievably short amount of time. Nolan and company shot the film in less than 60 days, an appropriate speed for a film about creating a super weapon as fast as possible. I don’t love the term “Oscar bait.” I generally like to be more optimistic about art and think that creators are setting out to make awesome art, not to make something that will get an award. Whether this is award-season catnip or not, I do think it deserves some accolades. I can’t think of a movie that does anything better on any technical level when pitted against Nolan and Oppy. It's visually captivating. Its scenes are broken up by esoteric vignettes of chemical drama within the atomic bomb itself: macro videography of electrical currents snapping and writhing in pain, white searing heat expanding against watery prisons, and fiery infernos tumbling and rising to meet the surface of hell or the base of heaven. Also, the bomb drop scene in IMAX was so loud I think it permanently damaged my hearing. Oppenheimer is one of the best horror movies of the year. The story of how a madman’s scientific intrigue led to the single most impactful discovery of human existence: the very thing that could end it. 7. Shin Kamen Rider When I first started watching Shin Kamen Rider I kept thinking, “This feels familiar.” It felt like I was watching a live-action anime, but not with the budget or sheen one might expect a modern superhero movie to have. It reminded me of last year’s RRR, a movie with great visual effects that was never striving for realism, but style. I was enamored with the movie. I loved the costume design, the action, and the goofy exposition dumps. I couldn’t quite figure out why I felt nostalgic while watching it until I remembered what it reminded me of: Power Rangers. Shin Kamen Rider, aka Shin Masked Rider, is the third movie directed by Hideaki Anno in his “Shin” series. Shin in Japanese means “new,” and with this series of films, Anno is reimagining classic Japanese characters that belong to the Tokusatsu genre. This style of filmmaking refers to live-action films or television shows that make heavy use of practical effects. The genre would be associated with Japanese monster films like Godzilla before eventually shifting popularity to masked heroes in what is referred to as the “Henshin Boom”, beginning with Kamen Rider in 1971. It was watching Shin Kamen Rider that led me down this historical rabbit hole and made me realize a deep, personal truth about myself: I like seeing guys in cool helmets kicking ass. For me, this admiration for helmet-wearing heroes started with several teenagers with attitude who were kicking ass in the 90s, and I didn't know just how nostalgic I was for this style of filmmaking. If you still have images of 90s-era Power Rangers episodes in your mind like every well-adjusted adult in their early 30s, then watch a little bit of the first episode of the original Kamen Rider on YouTube for this to all start making perfect sense. Shin Kamen Rider is more than Power Rangers nostalgia fuel. It's a dark retelling of the Kamen Rider story; the story of a man captured and turned into a weapon against his will. He uses his power to take down those who changed him. It’s a story of sacrifice; of protecting those you love, and doing a crazy airborne kick into a bat-man. I don’t know if Shin Kamen Rider is for everyone, but it sure as hell is for me. 6. Godzilla Minus One Did someone order an allegory for the indomitable human spirit? I’ve never been the biggest Godzilla guy. I always thought he was cool, because who wouldn’t think a giant lizard was cool? I didn’t grow up with him in my life, and the newest Godzilla versus (or team-ups with) King Kong movies are...fine. Watching Godzilla Minus One had me like Frank Reynolds at the end of that one It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode saying, ”Oh my God, I get it.” Godzilla Minus One is a period drama that takes place in Japan soon after World War II. Its title refers to the fact that post-war Japan was at zero, and when Godzilla appeared they were minus one. If there's anything worse than an atomic bomb, it's the allegory for one rising from the sea to spit a laser beam at you. Godzilla doesn’t get a ton of screen time but when he does, it's terrifying. When you hear his classic theme in the film’s score, you shuffle in your seat and think “Oh lawd, he’s coming.” When he appears, there are consequences. People die and cities are leveled. It’s refreshing when compared to some of the recent Godzilla outings where he’s kind of an ambiguous force for good, which is an interesting twist on the character, but I prefer for him to be…a monster doing monster stuff. This film is more focused on its human characters than its scaly ones. The citizens of Japan have a distrust for their government and must unite to take down this monstrous threat. The film is about the will to live, and the courage it takes to fight not for your own life, but for the lives of the future. The film's thematic and emotional anchor is Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot whose arc I won’t spoil here but you can imagine it’s pretty satisfying. Side note: I just watched the trailer for the black and white release of the film and I got goosebumps. 5. Plagiarism and You(tube) Welcome to the first, “Hey! This isn’t a movie!” on my top 10 list. Plagiarism and You(tube) is a YouTube video essay by Hbomberguy AKA Harry Brewis. Brewis’ brand of video essays is a bit hard to pin down. He’s been making videos on YouTube for almost ten years and the subjects vary between analytical breakdowns of video games and television shows, topical political response videos, and deep-dive journalistic assassinations of giant pieces of shit. Plagiarism and You(tube) is the latter. It is an almost four-hour-long video essay, filled to the brim with research that makes a case against several prominent Youtubers who have made a career off of plagiarizing people who are better than them. Brewis is a supremely talented writer, researcher, and video creator. In this video essay, he explains step by step how plagiarism is commonly done on the video platform, why plagiarists do it, and how they impact our history. Brewis is critical of the YouTube business model. The ad-supported revenue stream leads content creators to fill their scripts with stolen words so they can output content at an unrealistically fast pace for an audience that cherry-picks “information” from background noise. Brewis teaches us about “YouTube Content Mills,” channels whose goal is to make cruddy videos as fast as possible to then monetize those videos. Content mills are just regurgitated work from other people. Reaction videos, A.I. voiceovers reading the synopsis of a movie, and video essayists that can pump a video out every other day are all a part of the content problem on YouTube. This video essay acts as an exposé on specific plagiarists and draws a hard line in the sand separating “content” from “art”. The word “content” has started to sound more and more gross in my mind; a word that only a few years ago I would use to describe my own creative work. Another one of my favorite YouTubers, Patrick H. Willems recently made a video that criticizes the word “content,” how it's used in 2023, and how it no longer should apply to art. It’s a word that is now owned by corporations and studios, homogenizing all labor done by creatives into capital. “Content” now more accurately describes media sludge that is shat onto a conveyer belt that is then fed to whatever orifice we’re not currently using to consume plagiarized media. Yummy. Brewis’ Plagiarism video culminates in the takedown of James Somerton, a Content Creator (derogatory) who made video essays analyzing media through a queer lens. Somerton had a massively successful channel, Patreon, and eventually leveraged his audience to fund his very own production company where he made original queer cinema. Brewis takes down this guy so badly that I’m surprised he didn’t just evaporate into thin air. Somerton stole almost every word that went into all of his videos, and Brewis spends over an hour proving it. Somerton is not only a plagiarist, but the nature of his content means he’s stealing from other queer writers and artists. By the end of the video, Brewis gives us the heartbreaking thesis of his four-hour-long epic, shining a bright light on the queer erasure that happens through plagiarism. Is Plagiarism and You(tube) just a video essay? Is it more of a documentary? Is it journalism at its finest? I’m not sure. But I do know it's important, and I think we all should watch it. 4. John Wick: Chapter 4 Usually, sequels offer diminishing returns on great original stories. I don’t mean monetarily, in that way it's the opposite. Film studios want to expand the original story into a franchise machine, turning an original idea into a money-making IP (intellectual property), and spinning it out into as many sequels, television series, prequels, and video games as humanly possible. If a story is good, best to bleed it dry and sell that blood as content. The John Wick franchise is the perfect example of an original story that has become a bankable IP. We got a bad television show, we’re getting a prequel, and they’re making video games. Despite the John Wick franchise representing every cynical thought I have on Hollywood productions… I love seeing this guy in a bespoke bulletproof suit fight goons. Narratively, no future John Wick installment can top the simplicity of that original movie. What happens when you kill the most dangerous man in the world’s dog? You get a great, original story designed by stunt performers and fight coordinators to house some of the most impressive action sequences ever performed on screen. I don’t watch these movies for the plot. I watch them to see John Wick go sicko mode in beautifully shot environments, set to dance music. John Wick: Chapter 4 is three hours of that, so yeah, I’m thinking it's number four on my list. John Wick: Chapter 4 is one of the most confident movies I’ve ever seen. It knows it's cool. Its shallow, trope-riddled characters are performed beautifully by a cast of absolute bangers. There are so many incredible set pieces that when you think about your favorite part of the movie, you remember there are like six more even crazier scenes that you forgot about. It’s a murder music video. It's like putting vibes into a syringe and shooting it into your neck. Its story is as good as it needs to be. It paints in broad strokes. Wick wants out of the organized crime world. He has nothing left to fight for. He wants peace and he’ll literally kill everyone on the planet to get it. What elevates the plot of John Wick: Chapter 4 beyond a few moments of dialogue that strings together action scenes is twofold. One is the thing the John Wick franchise has always been good at: world-building. It’s fun to learn about the intricate, polite, and bureaucratic world of organized crime in these movies - so much so that they’re going to drown us in spin-offs. The second is Donnie Fucking Yen. Yen plays Caine, the blind hitman who uses an almost drunken boxing style of fighting. He’s the perfect foil to Wick. Wick has lost everything, Caine’s daughter is alive but is used as collateral to ensure Caine fulfills his task of eliminating Wick. What happens when a man who lost everything fights a man who has everything to lose? John Wick: Chapter 4 yearns to be the exciting conclusion to a blood-soaked revenge odyssey, but we’ll see if the powers at be let Keanu get some rest. Unless, of course, he gets to wear a cool helmet while he kicks ass in John Wick: Chapter 5. In that case, make three hundred more of these. I don't care. 3. Poor Things I guess Poor Things is my favorite movie of the year? I just realized that right now in real time. My top two spots on this list are television shows (please don’t freak out), so by default…yeah Poor Things is my favorite movie of the year. Congratulations! Director Yorgos Lanthimos is one of my favorite creatives working right now. The Lobster is one of my favorite movies ever. I adored Killing of a Sacred Deer and I really liked The Favourite, just not as much as everyone else. The Favourite marked Lanthimos’ first team-up with writer Tony McNamara. One of The Favourite’s greatest qualities is its dialogue - beautifully crafted faux-victorian quips that somehow always feel modern. What The Favourite lacked, for me, was the level of absurdism and surrealism found in Lanthimos’ previous films. It was still plenty weird by normie standards, but I’m a little freak. Poor Things is a weird horny masterpiece for little freaks. Tony McNamara returns and brings that same style of dialogue to the film but in a far stranger setting. It’s a story that feels a little bit like Frankenstein before it becomes an odyssey through human sensations. Bella Baxter’s (Emma Stone) journey of reanimation is an allegory for life itself. It celebrates the miracle of carnal sensations. It celebrates the endorphins that power our desires. It celebrates the human need to explore and be explored. It is not without darkness, as behind every bright light there is a shadow, but Bella Baxter has an innocence about her and an infectious curiosity that makes you wish your brain could return to a simpler time. The film starts with a character whose mind and body are disconnected, exploring the absurdity of both. Bella Baxter’s quest is to unite the two and create herself. The design of the world of Poor Things is delightful. It seems to exist in a strange oil painting of Victorian cities plucked from the imaginations of the past. The sky is cotton candy colored. The costumes look like they were designed by a drunk person trying to recreate “old-timey” from memory. Its cinematography is delightfully fitting for its strange plot and setting, morphing and changing to stay in step with Bella on her journey. Using awkward zooms and black-and-white color grading seen through a fisheye lens, its visual boldness meets its narrative peculiarities head-on. Poor Things is a Frankenstein’s feminine monster-esque journey of self-discovery. It’s hilarious, stunning, and features some of the best performances of the year. There was also a third-act cameo that had me cheering in my seat. I’m just happy movies like this exist. 2. Blue Eye Samurai Blue Eye Samurai is extremely my shit. It’s a blood-soaked revenge story set in 17th-century Edo-period Japan. It is an homage to some of the greatest action movies of the past twenty years as well as an examination of race, gender, prejudice, and self-hatred. At the nexus of these themes is a samurai named Mizu, a mixed-race woman, disguised as a man on a mission to kill the men responsible for her blue eyes. During this period in Japan, the nation closed its borders to the world. Its citizens saw those with white physical features as ugly and impure. Throughout her life, Mizu internalizes the hatred towards her, fueling her lust for revenge. Mizu learns that at the time of her birth, there were four white men in Japan. One of these men is her father. To hedge her bets, she makes it her life’s mission to kill them all. The series features some of the greatest fight sequences I’ve ever seen. Obviously, animation can have exciting fight choreography, but Blue Eye Samurai hits are different. The fights feel like live-action. The way the “camera” moves through the action is more akin to a fight scene in a movie than, for lack of a better term, the static “camera” work of an animated fight scene. This is because of the show’s Supervising Director Jane Wu and Stunt Choreographer Sunny Sun. In Netflix’s behind-the-scenes short, Blue Eye Samurai: Making a Warrior, we learn about the work that goes into creating realistic martial arts that not only look cool but tell a story. The fights in Blue Eye Samurai are gory, brutal, and above all, character-driven. As all great fights should be, they are extensions of the narratives of our heroes and villains literally crashing into one another. The series pays homage to many amazing films and fight scenes that came before it. It includes musical cues from Kill Bill and features an entire episode that’s a love letter to The Raid. Blue Eye Samurai is about diversity. It’s about the hate that marginalized people can face and the way they internalize it. It’s about how strength is found in what makes us unique or different. A katana is forged by different metals, and when it is too pure, it breaks. Mizu is a challenging character to root for. She has faced a ton of adversity and hate, but her mission is born from her self-hatred. You’d rather see her accept herself, see herself as special. We know her bloody quest won’t bring her peace. Her quest is mirrored by a cast of amazing characters. Princess Akemi yearns for freedom outside the prison of archaic gender norms. Taigan, a dishonored samurai, battles for respect. Then there’s Ringo; the bleeding heart of the show. Ringo is a ramen chef, born without hands, who wants to be something great, whether that be a samurai or the greatest ramen chef in the world. Ringo is the best. I love Ringo. I value what Blue Eye Samurai adds to the fabric of entertainment. We need more diverse stories. They breed freshness and excitement. I don’t relate to Blue Eye Samurai. I mean duh, right? Even when art isn’t relatable, it should teach you how to relate. It’s an exercise in empathy that can benefit us all. Blue Eye Samurai is one of the most badass, beautiful, and entertaining stories I’ve seen all year, but it’s also something we need a lot more of. I love Ringo. 1. Pluto Originally, Pluto was a manga that ran from 2003 to 2009. The story was based on Astro Boy, specifically, the The Greatest Robot in the World story arc. The original Astro Boy manga was geared towards kids. This story arc follows the robot named Pluto, whose desire to be king of all robots is so great that he sets out to destroy the seven other most powerful robots in the world. Pluto, the manga, and later anime, is a dark retelling of this story. Creator Naoki Urasawa aimed to retell the story he felt was always in that original Astro Boy manga; a story about “the emptiness of war.” Pluto is a science fiction noir that is like Blade Runner meets Hannibal. After a series of gruesome murders of powerful robots and human robot-sympathizers, Europol detective Gesicht is tasked with solving the case. After investigating a human murder, Gesicht realizes a robot is responsible. This is the first case of a robot murder in years. What starts as an engaging mystery quickly becomes a meditation on what it means to be alive, critiquing society’s potential treatment and legislation of artificial life. In the world of Pluto, robots and humans coexist. Robots have jobs and families. Older models look like traditional metal human-shaped robots and newer ones look just like a flesh and blood person. Even if they look human, there are key differences between the two. Robots are programmed to be unable to harm or kill a human. They cannot lie. Of course, like any good story, if rules are established in the first act, that means they’ll be broken by the last. Robots cannot kill or lie by design, which makes them subservient to humans. It’s the lack of darkness that makes them second-class citizens in this world. When Gesicht meets Atom (aka Astro Boy), we’re shocked to learn how impressed he is with the boy’s artificial intelligence. Before this moment we see Gesicht do crazy high-tech detective stuff, like analyze crime scenes with his mind in seconds or morph his hand into a gun. Atom is known to have the most advanced A.I. in the world because of his capacity to feel. His ability to have emotions and feel excitement, curiosity, and sadness makes him more advanced than a gun-toting detective-bot. Pluto dares to ask, “What makes us human?” Is it our ability to hate, to kill, to lie? If a robot can commit atrocities, is it the most human robot? As viewers, we meet seven powerful robots before they’re attacked by Pluto. We learn that it’s their empathy, their kindness, and their capacity to do good that makes them as human as any one of us. They’re told they cannot feel like humans can, but as an audience, we see that they feel plenty. Robert Anderson Robby has a degree in Screenwriting and Playwriting and works in multiple genres. He's just your typical man-child who enjoys most things nerd culture. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RoBaeBae

Is it just me, or did 2023 feel like a really dry year for entertainment? It’s probably just me. I live in a corner of upstate New York that’s closer to Bennington, VT, than anywhere else in New York, and the movie theater in Bennington is small and doesn’t always get distribution of all of the big movies of the year - or if they do, they don’t play for long, so my window of opportunity to see movies in a theater is small and I rarely make it. But then again - this was also the year of the WGA strike, and SAG-AFTRA’s strike in solidarity, which halted production on many films and television shows, delaying many of them. I have been eagerly awaiting the return of Apple TV’s Severance, for example, since its Season 1 finale in April 2022, and that show’s production schedule was dramatically affected by the strike. There was a period of time in which our household was legitimately floundering for things to watch during the thick of the strike. (I chronicled our strange journey in search of entertainment in a recent Story Screen piece), and things got…dire. That being said, it’s not like there was NOTHING good to watch in 2023 - it’s just that my Best Of lists tend to be TV-heavy due to my not having a good movie theater nearby, and the strike kind of made TV stop for a few months there. With all of those caveats in place, here’s a rundown of what I really enjoyed watching last year: The Last of Us, Season 1 There have been many, many words spilled about HBO Max's masterful adaptation of this post-apocalyptic zombie-adjacent show about people struggling to survive in the aftermath of a massive global pandemic (yeah, a very timely show, too), and I don’t know if I have a whole lot more to add to that conversation. Early last year Pedro Pascal ascended to some sort of combination of Most Famous Man Ever and National Treasure due to his ubiquity playing leading roles in both The Mandalorean and The Last of Us and I am here for it. His performance as Joel, the reluctant guardian to Bella Ramsey’s potential Savior of the Human Race Ellie was brilliant, as we saw him transform from traumatized grieving father, resentful of having to be in Ellie’s presence (as it only reminded him of the daughter he lost in the early days of the cordyceps pandemic), to full-on ass-kicking semi-super-human-strength protective Papa Bear as his bond with Ellie grows throughout the show. And of course, we can’t forget Episode 3 “Long Long Time” - essentially a bottle episode featuring two side characters, Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) - that turned out to be a gorgeous, aching, multi-decade story about two middle-aged gay men who found each other amidst catastrophe and built a beautiful life and love together and made us all sob collectively. (If you didn’t sob watching that episode, I question your humanity.) It is perhaps the best single episode of television that aired in 2023. The ending of season 1 is polarizing by design (a shot-by-shot remake of the polarizing conclusion to the video game that inspired this show), but I’m just going to leave this article here, because I think the gang at The Mary Sue is absolutely spot-on in their take on Joel’s choices in the end, regardless of how it affected his relationship with Ellie: 'The Last of Us' Finale: Joel Was Right | The Mary Sue. I’m excited to see how the next two seasons (as they have been planned) will tackle the also-polarizing sequel to the original video game. Shrinking, Season 1 I wrote a review of this lovely new show by Apple TV+, so it might be best to just point yourself in the direction of that essay instead of me rehashing it here; that being said, this is a wonderful show about grief, love, and family (blood and chosen) featuring the always-loveable Jason Segel as Jimmy Laird, a therapist who goes vigilante with his clients and tries to repair his relationship with his daughter as he processes his grief over the untimely death of his wife, and Harrison Ford, in his television debut, having the time of his goddamn life playing Paul, Jimmy’s mentor and father figure dealing with his own complicated issues with his family of origin. With an amazing supporting cast (including MVP Jessica Williams as Gaby, another therapist who works in the same practice with Jimmy and Paul, Christa Miller, and Ted McGinley), there’s a lot to love about this show. Lucky Hank, Season 1 I also wrote a review of this show for Story Screen so hop on over there to get a deeper dive so I don’t have to rehash it all here. Long story short: I was eager to see Bob Odenkirk’s follow-up after playing the notorious Saul Goodman for over a decade, and I was not disappointed; this show where he plays Hank, a small-town college professor grappling with his feelings of mediocrity and depression and his traumatic relationship with his father while navigating campus politics and a growing chasm between himself and his wife, was an absolute delight. Odenkirk, originally a sketch comedy writer and performer, really became a gifted actor during his journey turning Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, and it was wonderful to watch him sink his teeth into another, different type of complicated character.  I am heartbroken that Lucky Hank was not picked up for a second season on AMC, but this first season works as a standalone miniseries, unresolved cliffhanger ending notwithstanding. (Is it weird that the three shows I’ve just listed as some of my favorites of 2023 are about people dealing with grief and trauma? Anyone who’s read any of my non-Story Screen writing or listened to my debut record will undoubtedly conclude that I enjoy pounding on this drum because I am projecting my own trauma wildly onto these shows.  And they wouldn’t be wrong, frankly. Self-awareness, folks.) Ted Lasso Season 3 I’ll be honest, I don’t think this final season of Ted Lasso was nearly as strong as Season 2; many of the episodes felt a bit disjointed and meandering, and I would argue that they may have tried to jam in way too many character stories in a short number of episodes at the expense of really telling those stories well; Nate’s arc in particular I think was wrapped up far too easily given his descent into the dark side in Season 2, and the entire situation with Zava’s stint with Richmond was ultimately pointless and baffling. That being said, there were enough little delightful moments in this season that keep me from writing the whole thing off - getting to spend more time with Trent Crimm, for example, as he shadows the Greyhounds all season to write a book, was absolutely wonderful; that man is just the most adorkable journalist ever (with the best hair), and stepping into the role of queer mentor to Colin as he goes about navigating coming out as gay in the not-always-gay-friendly world of Premier League soccer brought some real depth to both characters. The growing friendship between former nemeses Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt was another wonderful thing to behold; I challenge you to watch the sequence where Jamie teaches Roy how to ride a bicycle in Amsterdam and not laugh belly laughs while feeling your heart grow three sizes. Learning more about Beard’s mysterious backstory was a wonderful payoff after three years of just wondering what Beard’s deal is; though it was in service of wrapping up Nate’s arc in a way that felt facile, I was happy to truly understand the nature of his relationship with Ted and see how it complicated our understanding of both men. I don’t think Ted Lasso stuck the landing in its series finale perfectly, but in the end, I’m mostly ok with how they finished things, mostly because of the time we got to spend with Trent, Roy, and Jamie. The Crown, Season 6 Part 1 The Crown finished out its run this year with its final season split into two parts; the first chronicling the last summer of  Diana’s life and the second delving into the next generation of the royals by following William as he goes to college and meets Kate Middleton. I don’t want to get too detailed here as Bernadette Gorman-White and I are planning to do a Cathode Ray Cast episode about this final season but to keep it simple for now: I knew they were going to have to tackle Diana’s death and I was dreading it, but thought it was handled very well, chronicling the whirlwind romance between her and Dodi Al-Fayed and their tragic end; both Elizabeth Debicki as Diana and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi did a tremendous job bringing real humanity and pathos to a story that we all know all too damn well. I also knew that they were going to focus on Will and Kate to close out the show and… well… what can I say? William is probably the most boring member of the Windsor family, and those episodes featuring him suffered; I wish we had gotten more time with Margaret (who might be the most interesting member of the Windsor family), although the episode featuring her illness and death was lovely, and I question the veracity of Dominic West’s portrayal of Charles as a hands-on father in touch with his sons’ emotions as they grew up without their mother. I’ve read Spare. I have questions. But the Diana-Dodi business was well done so that half of the season makes my list. May December For those of you who listened to my Hot Takes podcast about this film with Mike Burdge, you probably know that I struggled a bit with figuring out whether I actually liked this movie or not. Based on the story of sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau and her relationship and marriage to her former student Villi Fulau, the film featured strong performances by Julianne Moore as Gracie (the Letourneau analog) and Natalie Portman (as the B-List actress hoping to make it big by portraying Gracie in a film and sidling her way into Gracie’s life ostensibly for research for her performance). A lot was going on in this movie, some of it bordering on campy which I found to be a questionable choice, and I absolutely despise the soundtrack.  But in the end, I kept returning to Charles Melton as Joe (the Fulau analog). Melton is an absolute revelation in this role, and the film is worth it just for his performance alone. If this is the film that makes Charles Melton a huge star, I would be thrilled. He is an actor on the rise, and I cannot wait to see what he does next. Oppenheimer I know. I KNOW. Is this too obvious a choice for a Best Of list? I’m guessing this is going to be on the lists of many of the Story Screen fam, and just like with The Last of Us, I don’t know how much more I can add to the existing conversation about this film. So let me just leave it at this: I wanted so badly to see Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in a theater (especially an IMAX theater), but the timing of when it hit Bennington just didn’t work with my work/life schedule (and there’s no IMAX in Bennington), so I didn’t end up seeing it till much later when it hit Amazon Prime Video. J. Robert Oppenheimer is the role of a lifetime for Cillian Murphy and I was so happy to see him finally get to take center stage after being a long-time supporting actor in the extended Nolan-verse. This film has a hugely sprawling supporting cast, all of whom were fantastic. Still, it was lovely to see Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss (Oppenheimer’s one-time supporter turned secret antagonist) after having taken a hiatus from acting for a few years - and I’m sure he enjoyed getting to sink his teeth into a really meaty role as a complicated, conniving man after so many years Tony Stark-ing it up. The visual effects in this film are stunning - that is a given. The recreation of the Trinity test was heart-stoppingly good. And the end of the film - what an ending! Haunting, troubling, thought-provoking… it made me sick, but in a weirdly good way? But ultimately what I found compelling about Oppenheimer - aside from the story itself, being about such a hugely world-changingly important man and his dreams, visions, and achievements - was the way it was written. The story is structured with Strauss’ Senate confirmation hearing as a framing device and the Gray Board hearing regarding whether Oppenheimer’s security clearance would be renewed as a sort of sub-framing device, and then the rest of the script sort of bops in and out of both of these frames with a chronological telling of Oppenheimer’s origins and journey towards becoming the Father of the Atomic Bomb. It’s very cleverly done, it’s somehow never confusing, and it has the bonus effect of being a reality-based version of the time-play Nolan does in the screenplays for his more fanciful films like Memento (ground-breaking!), Inception (fun!), Interstellar (depressing!), and Tenet (baffling as fuck!).  It’s so very Nolan-y, but in the best, most accessible way. I got so obsessed with the way this screenplay was structured that I ended up watching the film multiple times in a row after the holidays in an effort to map it out. It’s a wildly ambitious telling of the story of a wildly ambitious and complicated man, and I might just watch it again tonight. The art and costume direction are also absolutely sublime. I want to live in this movie. (But aren’t we all kind of living out the consequences of this movie? I mean… that ending…) Honorable Mention: Welcome to Chippendale’s This was on my best of 2022 list, and that’s because the majority of the episodes of this Hulu miniseries were broadcast in the winter of 2022; however, the final episode aired in January 2023, so while I might be cheating a bit by including it again here, I will justify this decision by saying that the final episode was very, very well done and I think it’s worth it to reiterate, once again, that Kumail Nanjiani did an exceptional job in his first dramatic performance ever as the complex, egotistical, megalomaniacal Somen “Steve” Banerjee, founder of the male stripping franchise Chippendales’ and ABSOLUTELY NO RELATION TO ME I SWEAR. My list is thin this year. I know it. I own it. I wish I’d seen more movies this year, but it just is logistically impossible for me unless the film has a streaming release. And I openly admit that once my partner and I started watching the entire run of Kids in the Hall from start to finish in our quest to find entertainment in the drought wrought by the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike we got pretty tunnel-visioned about it and probably missed out on other shows and miniseries that deserved attention (like, we haven’t gotten to The Bear yet - WUT?!  It just cleaned it up at the Emmys and we know we gotta watch it but we just… really love those Kids in the Hall).  We’ll be moving to a more populated area very soon (oh yeah, buried the lead there but more details to come soon!) - a place that definitely has more than one movie theater nearby and at least one multiplex - so I promise that next year, my Best Of 2024 list will be epic.  In the meantime, please give Shrinking some love so it doesn’t meet the fate of Lucky Hank, okay?  Still very salty about Lucky Hank getting canceled. Reeya Banerjee Staff Writer Reeya is a musician and writer based in New York's Capital District. Her debut album, “The Way Up,” was released on January 27, 2022. She can frequently be seen in her car on the NYS Thruway cursing traffic on her way to the Hudson Valley for band rehearsals or to Brooklyn for recording sessions. In her other life, she works as a staff accountant for a management company that oversees veterinary practices nationwide, enjoys watching Law & Order SVU returns while eating gummy bears, and has a film degree from Vassar College that she does not use.

Mike Burdge, Diana DiMuro, Bernadette Gorman-White and Robby Anderson chat about some of their favorites of 2023, including Oppenheimer, The Boy and the Heron, Past Lives, John Wick: Chapter 4, Barbie and more. Listen on.... Plagiarism and You(tube) Video

2023 was an interesting film year. The studios’ needless prolonging of the guild strikes very likely put a dent in how this list turned out. Among the notable omissions, the release of Poor Things got pushed back from September, to what turned out to be the day before my son was born, so I haven’t caught it yet. And my presumptive favorite film of this year, Dune: Part 2, got pushed to 2024. Despite that, I still had plenty to pick from for my list this year. One thing that I have found, is that I feel a little out of step with a lot of the top ten lists I’ve read here at year’s end. I think that might be because, in a year with a number of huge capital ‘F’ Films, it was the much smaller and more intimate stories that connected for me. I’m not opposed to a good spectacle, but out of my list of 11, I realize that all but three of them would probably work just about as well on stage as they do on film. Because of the more personal feel of this year's list, I’ve opted to structure it this time around as a mix tape. I have paired each film with a song that I think draws out something worth highlighting in the film. So, read and listen along as we take a look back at the year that was. Just outside the list (20-12): 20. Little Richard: I am Everything 19. Eileen 18. Showing Up 17. The Monkey King 16. Past Lives 15. The Adults 14. The Civil Dead 13. Sisu 12. Reality Honorable Mention (11): The Starling Girl Palehound - Independence Day Laurel Parmet’s film, The Starling Girl, is about a 17-year-old girl who is gradually outgrowing the ultra-conservative Christian community she was raised in. She’s a young girl on a track for the rest of her life, about to start the chaperoned courting of the young man her parents have chosen for her to marry, but she is starting to feel urges that nothing in her upbringing has given her the tools she needs to cope with, while also discovering that she’s not the only person in her life feeling so confined. Eliza Scanlen, who I’ve loved since first seeing her in 2019’s Babyteeth, plays Jem. What she captures so perfectly is the sense in which Jem isn’t initially at all unhappy in her little life. She loves her faith, her church, her family, her community, and her faith-based dance troupe. She just runs into a wall when she wants just the littlest bit more than the narrow path laid out for her, and her unwillingness to stay in her assigned box winds up destabilizing her family and community. I would especially recommend this if you liked 2019’s Yes, God, Yes. 10. Flora and Son The Dropkick Murphys - My Eyes Are Gonna Shine I’ve had some complicated feelings about Flora and Son since I first saw it. I went into it with certain expectations because I’m such a fan of John Carney’s other films, Sing Street and Once, but it was an adjustment to realize that this film is trying to capture something a little bit different than those films were. Once and Sing Street are both structured more like musicals, with a whole bunch of great polished songs sprinkled throughout, while Flora and Son is more about that first impulse to express yourself through music and the path to writing your first song. Its songs, like its characters, feel pretty unfinished until the film’s finale. This doesn’t make for as much of a fist-pumping experience as Carney's other films, in terms of scratching that musical itch, but this approach works much better for the particular story this film is trying to tell. The relationship between Flora and her son is also one I’ve never quite seen before. Flora is initially a hard-partying screw-up of a single mom, with a tense relationship with a teenage son she feels she barely knows anymore, and sometimes she resents having had in the first place. Her son, Max, has behavioral issues, repeatedly getting into trouble with the police for petty theft. In theory, they love each other if they could only get outside the unhappiness in their individual lives. Flora makes an effort to try and find Max a hobby that will keep him out of trouble by giving him a guitar she found in the trash and had refurbished. The gesture doesn’t work, but having the guitar in her house unlocks something in herself that will ultimately go a long way to saving them both. 9. May December khai dreams - Panic Attack May December is aware of how salacious and exploitative its story is. The names and places are changed, but it’s aware that any audience for this film very likely knows going in that it’s taking its inspiration from the story of Mary Kay Letourneau - the teacher who "had an affair” with her 12-year-old student and later married him after completing the prison sentence she received for their relationship. The film elegantly manages to tell that story in a way that also interrogates the impulse to want to tell and watch such a story in the first place. The format of every poster I’ve seen for this film features the faces of Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. Moore plays Gracie, the stand-in for Letourneau, and Portman plays Elizabeth, an actress about to portray Gracie in a film about the scandal. Both are truly spectacular in their roles, but what the promotion and film are coy about is the degree to which this becomes the rightful story of Joe (Charles Melton), the child in that scandal, who is now married, in his 40s, and grappling with having three adult children with his abuser, who each got to have the childhood that he never did. 8. Biosphere Juliet Ivy - were all eating each other Biosphere perfectly captures the spirit of what I’m always hoping to experience when I sit down to watch something. Surprising throughout, there is no single tone or genre it’s trying to fit into. It defies categorization or synopsis in the best possible way. The gist of the story is that two men find themselves living in a (hopefully) self-sustaining biosphere after an event that seems a lot like the end of the world. What exactly that disastrous event was is never made explicit, but it wasn’t just man-made, it was specifically caused by one of the two men in this habitat. One of those men is the former president of the United States, Billy, played by Mark Duplass, and the other is his much smarter advisor and the builder of the biosphere, Ray, played by Sterling K. Brown. Sometimes playful, and sometimes discomfiting, the film ends up being a delightfully strange look at gender, masculinity, race, and mortality. It would be an understatement to say that I was not at all prepared for where this story goes, and deeply surprised by how gripped I was by where it winds up. 7. The Artifice Girl Islands - Headlines This is a challenging film to talk about in a way that doesn’t spoil it. The story is told as three interconnected one-act plays, spaced out over several years, at an organization that is using the latest technologies to fight child pornography and child sex trafficking. What the film is interested in, mostly, is the toll that kind of work can take on those doing it, and the corners we can talk ourselves into cutting in the pursuit of saving children. Tatum Matthews absolutely shines as Cherry, the young girl at the heart of the story. 6. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Cheekface - Largest Muscle This is the representative of big ‘dumb’ fun and spectacle on my list, but with a script as smart and sharp as anything else I saw this year. Written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves takes the world of Dungeons and Dragons and manages to deliver a satisfying fantasy action film that fully captures the fun of sitting around a table rolling dice with friends. Something of this underlying concept of this story lends it a meta quality for me that helps protect it from feeling too formulaic. Yes, It is a mission-oriented story where a group of ‘heroes’ have to come together to do a thing, ultimately defeating a big bad villain, saving the day, and learning something about themselves along the way. It’s so straightforward in some ways that you could teach story structure from this script. And yet, because I’m spending the whole run time thinking of it like a gaming session, I have an easier time embracing the formula. If they wanted to make one of these movies every other year, I would be the first person in line for it. 5. Nimona Bleachers - Modern Girl Gay knight befriends thousand-year-old preteen shapeshifter as they team up to try to clear his name in this retro-futuristic tale. There is so much to love about this. Nimona may be my favorite character in anything for ages. She reminds me of Monster Girl from Invincible - a mix of gruff punk maniacal destruction (often) in the package of a young girl who just wants to be accepted. There are some bits in the story where the plot machinery gets a little strained, and some of the characters’ motivations get muddy, but overall this is fun and lively from beginning to end. 4. The Killer Half Moon Run - You Can Let Go I expect to write something longer on this film in the near future. My academic specialty is the philosophy and moral psychology of empathy, so my ears pricked up more than a little when I heard the titular killer espouse the ethos: “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability.” The notion is obviously wrongheaded and the film plays with that throughout the story, but I’m most fascinated by the higher-order sense in which the film plays with the audience’s empathy. Films are inherently empathy machines, taking advantage of the reflexive human impulse to empathize with anyone reasonably similar to ourselves. So much so that we’re enthralled by this story about an assassin on a revenge mission, rooting for and identifying with him on his investigative murder spree, while he is at no point the hero of this story. He doesn’t even fit a forgiving definition of an antihero. He’s just a bad guy doing bad things, due to circumstances that are entirely his own fault. He has the means to opt out of what he’s doing at any point, and, given his means, the ending of his story would be identical to what it ends up being even if he had skipped all of the vengeful actions he takes. And yet, The Killer works. I shouldn’t love it, but I do. David Fincher pulls off a narrative magic trick here and I’m going to spend a long time trying to puzzle out just how he pulls it off. 3. Sanctuary Alice Merton - Waste My Life What I find I love most in a film is being surprised by its story. I often find myself checking out of films when I can feel the story machinery at work, particularly when I clock that something is being overtly introduced just so that it can be paid off in a predictable way later in the story. A desire to surprise an audience can be carried too far, though. If you make a story overly twisty just for its own sake, what you’re making can start to feel like it’s just random, not giving the audience anything to hang onto. Sanctuary may be the best film I’ve ever seen at navigating this. This is a script where, almost sentence to sentence, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Moreover, upon reflection, and even on rewatch, all the twists and turns feel like they are a part of one coherent story that builds to a killer final moment. As much as I love the script, I can also imagine a garbage 90s erotic thriller version of this film if you didn’t have two leads as dynamite as Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott. Sharing every scene, Abbott and Qualley perfectly trade the spotlight back and forth as each moment needs, while navigating an ever-shifting power dynamic, and playing the multiple layers of characters who are behaving performatively for one another in the reality of the story. 2. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial Young Fathers - Sink or Swim It’s interesting watching The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial having seen A Few Good Men as many times as I have. The story behind A Few Good Men is that Aaron Sorkin got the idea for that story from his sister, who was a Navy Judge Advocate General. But the similarities between the two movies are so striking that it gets hard to believe that Sorkin wasn’t cribbing deeply, either from the 1953 play or the original 1954 film. That may be unfair, as two military courtroom dramas can only be so different, but The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial feels like a very similar story but with the temperaments of the enlisted men and their commanding officer being flipped. This was William Friedkin’s final film before passing and it’s not overtly the work of a master filmmaker. Filmed in only 14 days and set in just two rooms and a hallway, it can feel a bit like you’re watching a made-for-TV movie, but there is a simple elegance that makes the whole film feel perfectly executed. This goes down so easily that I suspect it will be the film from this year that I revisit the most. Beyond that though, I also find it a more satisfying film than A Few Good Men. There is a musicality to Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue that I’m a sucker for, but what his stories often lack is any kind of ambiguity. By his own proud admission, what Sorkin generally writes are melodramas with clear and explicit takeaways for the audience. Conversely, I’ve watched The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial four times already and I’m still chewing over the underlying tension at the heart of the case. 1. Linoleum Let’s Eat Grandma - From the Morning Bonus Track: Watching the Credits - The Beths My number one is the perfect example of why this is a list of my favorite films rather than what I think the objectively best films of the year are. I wrote about Linoleum back in May, and it’s spent most of this year as the film that was so perfectly tailored to me that nothing ever came close to moving it from my top spot. In that time, I haven’t figured out a way to say all the things I would like to about this film without spoiling it, but I knew back when I was writing that initial review that there was going to be a way for me to have it both ways. So, I leave it to the reader to choose their own adventure. If you want to avoid spoilers, I direct you to the link above; if you’ve seen the film, or want to know everything about a film before checking it out, read on. Linoleum doesn’t let on to this for a while, but the story is actually a collage of one person’s life, that they are experiencing through a prism of dementia in their final days. The main character we’re following in the story is Cameron (Jim Gaffigan), the Bill Nye-esque host of a little-watched kids science show called, Above and Beyond. He used to host the show with his wife, Erin (Rhea Seehorn), but she left the show, and, though they still live together, she is in the process of getting a divorce from him. They live with their two children, Nora (Katelyn Nacon) and Sam (who is played by six different actors, including two of Gaffigan’s actual kids). Nora is a senior in high school who is still working out who she is and wants to be. She’s still figuring things out, but happily so. Also in Cameron’s life is his father, Mac, a former NASA engineer, who is living in a nursing home while contending with the effects of worsening dementia. Cameron enjoys his show, but the dream he still hangs on to is going to work for NASA to build, and maybe even fly, the things he only gets to talk about on his show. When we meet Cameron, he’s about to have his show taken away from him, with him being replaced by the kind of person he always thought he wanted to be, a retired astronaut, named Kent Armstrong (also played by Gaffigan). Kent moves into a house next door to Cameron with his teenage son, Marc (Gabriel Rush), who winds up being in the same grade as Nora. Now, having given all of these character introductions, Cameron, Mac, and Marc are actually all the same person. The older man, Mac, looks back at the fragmented details of his life with Marc as his teenage self, and Cameron as his middle-aged self. Erin and Nora are also the same person, both the young girl he met as a teenager and the woman she grew up into that he married. Their son Sam has no dialogue in the film and is played by multiple actors because he’s actually the stillborn child they lost. In the story we’re watching, Cameron and Erin are getting divorced, but that may just be how Mac is processing his wife’s seeming absence in his life because of his worsening dementia; Erin (Elisabeth Henry) is actually there at the hospital bedside with him, helping him through what appear to be his final days. The culmination of the film is Cameron, with help from Marc and Erin, building a rocket in his backyard from the crash-landed debris of a previous NASA mission. While older Erin is helping load Mac into an ambulance, younger Erin is helping Cameron get into the capsule of his rocket to blast into the unknown. Damian Masterson Staff Writer Damian is an endothermic vertebrate with a large four-chambered heart residing in Kerhonkson, NY with his wife and two children. His dream Jeopardy categories would be: They Might Be Giants, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, 18th and 19th-Century Ethical Theory, Moral Psychology, Caffeine, Gummy Candies, and Episode-by-Episode podcasts about TV shows that have been off the air for at least 10 years.

2023 was a strange year for movies: with a couple of notable exceptions, I felt myself appreciating bits and pieces of films, and valuing movies more in hindsight. For me, this past year felt like a long-awaited return to the full business of life. Couple that with a months-long writers’ strike, pushing release dates of countless movies to the end of the year and beyond, and it’s no wonder there are still some important contenders I’ve yet to watch. So I’m pivoting: I don’t feel like I can say these are the best movies released last year, but I found joy in these ten movies – some in specific moments of brilliance, others in the totality of their stories. I hope you do, too. Most of my picks this year are lovely subversions of genre or source material. When the TV movie of the Mary Kay Letourneau story has already been made, what can Todd Haynes find in it? When Shaw and Mary Shelley have already created classics about humans as creators and creations, where is there for Yorgos Lanthimos to go? With a million horrible CGI Barbie movies in existence, what can Greta Gerwig make out of a played-out property? I love this trend of filmmakers not just going for the well-made obvious choice, but building on what’s come before and creating something that only they can. *Note: my criteria for eligibility are films widely released in theaters or available for streaming in 2023. TEN: BEAU IS AFRAID Written and directed by Ari Aster Dream logic is a difficult thing to capture, and Ari Aster has done it. That means expectations of plot and storytelling need to be adjusted to truly enjoy this movie, but if you can get on its dark, funny, twisted wavelength, it will reward you. There’s so much in Beau is Afraid that it’s almost impossible to hold it all in your head at once, but scene by scene, it captures Beau’s fears in the most visceral ways possible. In hindsight, viewing the film as a character study through nightmares allowed me to digest this bonkers movie in a completely satisfying way, something I didn’t think I could come to fresh from the theater. NINE: SALTBURN Written and directed by Emerald Fennell The story at the center of Saltburn is good but not great. But what I’m here to celebrate is the style of Saltburn and the epic swings that the film takes along the way. Performances are great across the board, with great work being eclipsed only by Rosamund Pike in an iconic turn. The cinematography and editing are top-notch. The production design is giddily breathtaking. The five-or-so set pieces of the film are so committed, so over-the-top, and so primal that, for me, it elevated the movie from a fun flick into a piece of art. EIGHT: SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE Screenplay by Dave Callaham, Phil Lord, & Christopher Miller; directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, & Kemp Powers As a kid with a comic book card collection in the early ‘90s, I’ve ridden the wave of the superhero cinematic universe and come out on the other side pretty sick of the whole mess, which makes it all the more impressive when a movie like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse wins me over. Continuing where the first amazing entry leaves off, this sequel has a sense of humor and a heart that goes beyond the played-out recycled Whedon quips that have run rampant in the genre, finding something more unique and truer. The human story is grounded and hard, and the super-plots tie back to real hurt, pain, and conflict, reminding us why superhero stories were good in the first place. And the truly stunning animation makes the movie a real joy to watch. SEVEN: MAY DECEMBER Screenplay by Alex Mechanik & Samy Burch, directed by Todd Haynes Thank you, Pedro Almodóvar, for teaching me how to watch May December - a movie so subtle in its campy melodrama that many have missed its existence entirely. A spiritual successor to To Die For, this movie bathes in unmentionable parts of humanity. No one comes off well, the traditional gender dynamics of victim and perp are flipped on their head, and somehow I was still smiling at these crazy characters by the end of the movie. SIX: WONKA Screenplay by Paul King & Simon Farnaby, directed by Paul King I always appreciated Willy Wonka growing up, but I never felt quite cool enough to get on its wavelength. In hindsight, the indisputably amazing performance by Gene Wilder hijacks the movie a little, taking it to places more interesting than it intended to go, but also places it wasn’t fully dramaturgically prepared to explore. I had my doubts about Wonka, but when I found myself in a movie theater with my mom and my nieces, skeptically not expecting much, I found myself laughing, crying, and feeling a little more connected to the world. This shouldn’t be surprising from the director of Paddington, but the revelation for me is that Wonka takes a beloved but imperfect property and crafts a story that feels like the best of Roald Dahl – one that doesn’t shy away from his signature darkness, but makes sure to balance it with a heaping dose of heart. Also, as a harsh critic of songs in movies, these fit the story perfectly, furthering the plot and deepening characters, and they’re super fun to boot. FIVE: BARBIE Screenplay by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach, directed by Greta Gerwig Barbie is fun, smart, and original, and has furthered the culture in amazing ways. It’s sticky, in the Tipping Point meaning of the word, and our conversations about gender, feminism, and masculinity have all progressed because of this unexpected movie. There are people in my life who still won’t watch it because “it’s a feature-length Mattel commercial,” and while I think it has a complicated relationship with that truth, I also think it’s a pretty amazing idea to use that as a Trojan horse. That all makes it sound highfalutin’, but in the end (and this is the true coup), it’s a true bop of a movie. FOUR: ALL OF US STRANGERS Written and directed by Andrew Haigh All of Us Strangers could easily have been a genre film in one direction or another, but it commits instead to being what I can only describe as a filmic poem, and I mean that as a high compliment. Andrew Scott is heartbreaking as a single aging gay man, and the movie has true insight into what it meant to grow up gay in a different generation and the scars that we carry. I knew Andrew Haigh could make a very true movie, but in this, he’s tapped into a deeper truth that’s beautiful and tragic, and human. THREE: CLOSE Screenplay by Angelo Tijssens & Lukas Dhont, directed by Lukas Dhont Close is inspired by a nonfiction book called Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection. Childhood is often hard to remember, but this movie brought it flooding back to me. Anchored by two fantastic performances, Close explores the love we are capable of before society teaches us to temper ourselves, and the tragedies that occur when that impulse is cut short. TWO: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM Screenplay by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit; directed by Jeff Rowe It’s always been right there in the title, but TMNT: MM is the first adaptation to really commit to the mutant turtles being teenagers, and that commitment elevates the movie from another superhero flick to a lovely, touching, funny coming-of-age story that also happens to be a superhero flick. Add to that the coolest visual style I’ve ever seen in an animated movie, and you get a modern masterpiece. I don’t understand why awards season is sleeping on this one, but I for one can’t wait for more of these and won’t stop watching this on repeat ‘til the next one comes out. ONE: POOR THINGS Screenplay by Tony McNamara, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos What a joy to be living while Yorgos Lanthimos is making movies, and what an unexpected delight that they are being acknowledged in the mainstream. Poor Things takes its inspiration from Mary Shelley and Bernard Shaw, giving Lanthimos’ whimsy fodder both mythic and grounded in reality, and the result is warmer than ever before without losing any bite along the way. Emma Stone gives a hilarious and touching performance at the center of this creation story, with stalwart support in every direction. The visual style and strong choices (take note, Maestro, of how to successfully burst from black-and-white to color) propel this irreverent and moving tale into masterpiece status. HOTTIE OF THE YEAR: LaKieth Stanfield, Haunted Mansion Scotty Arnold Scotty has always been a storyteller, mostly through musicals, and he’s pleased as punch to have found a tribe with the amazing weirdos at Story Screen. scottyarnold.com

Another year has passed and it feels like we are all barreling through the 2020s like a freight train. It is hard to believe that I am getting close to 10 years of writing for Story Screen because some days it feels like I am just getting started. 2023 was not the easiest year for me, as the instability of the film and television industry which led to the WGA and SAG strikes (Solidarity to everyone affected and continuing to fight for the rights of all the industry workers) left me and thousands of out of work creatives and crew fighting for validity. Nevertheless, I always look forward to writing about 10 or so of my favorite films and sharing them with you, the beautiful readers of Story Screen. This was a terrific year for film releases, with a healthy balance of innovative microbudget indies as well as blockbusters using every cent of their huge budgets to deliver true spectacles. The films that spoke to me the most, the ones that showed me images I didn’t think were possible, and the auteurs I have the greatest admiration for somehow getting better, which I did not believe was possible. Before I get into the top 10 films of the year, I’d like to give an honorable mention to a handful of television shows I finished and greatly enjoyed over the past year. In no particular order! The Bear The Fall of the House of Usher Blue Eye Samurai Poker Face The Righteous Gemstones Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Barry Beef I would also like to shout out a handful of video games I loved and got addicted to over the past year.Again, in no particular order. Hi-Fi Rush Turbo Overkill Trepang2 Resident Evil 4 (2023) Dead Space (2023) Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Street Fighter 6 Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name El Paso, Elsewhere One more bulleted list! These are the films I had a lot of fun with and/or had a substantial quality to them, but did not quite qualify for the final 10. Still would highly recommend any and all films listed here. How to Blow Up a Pipeline Asteroid City May December Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Ferrari Evil Dead Rise Shin Kamen Rider The Holdovers And now, here are my 10 favorite films of 2023. These are mostly unordered. As I’ve gotten older, it’s been more difficult for me to rank pieces of art that have spoken to me as one over another, but these are the 10 that left me with the biggest and most positive impressions. Regrettably, I did not get to see every film I would have liked to see before finalizing this list. It seems as though certain distributors do not find the Hudson Valley to be a particular zone of any interest to release certain films, but I digress. Skinamarink This is a film I can’t easily recommend to everyone (starting off this list great, right?). It has an extremely unconventional method of storytelling. It is vague, obscure, still, and there isn’t really a human face that appears on screen for most of the runtime. It is a film heavily reliant on atmosphere and interpretation, and not everyone wants to do the homework for that, which I understand. I was not fully on board with Skinamarink directly after leaving the theater, but as its harrowing and upsetting imagery and oppressively bleak atmosphere crept into my brain as I walked through my empty and dark house, I knew the film had a more powerful effect on me than I had originally realized. Director Kyle Edward Ball accomplishes so much with so little, not just creating a piece that’s scary, but also emanates pure malice. Beau is Afraid You have to respect A24 granting Ari Aster their biggest budget (at the time) and letting him craft something so personal and, at the same time, so bizarre and alienating. A true big-budget film for sickos. The first and last acts are definitely stronger than the middle section, which unfortunately drags along a little, but the film is an uncompromising and hilarious vision. It constantly throws me for a loop with its insane twists and turns to an almost exhausting degree, while also featuring one of my favorite Joaquin Phoenix performances. When Evil Lurks When the vice president of a horror streaming service directly tells you he’s particularly excited about a recent acquisition, you know you’re in for something special. A truly mean-spirited gross-out demon possession horror film that fully commits to its apocalyptic atmosphere, as we watch our protagonist's family spiral towards their eventual dooms attempting to prevent an infection from spreading to everyone around them. Turns out, that’s not an easy task, as we’ve all come to learn. Sometimes, people just can’t help themselves from giving in. The rest I will leave unsaid, however. This is a film that benefits from a blind watch. It’s on Shudder, go watch it and feel bad!! The Iron Claw It is a shame that The Iron Claw was released so late into the year in such a crowded market. I hope people discover it and receive its flowers over time because it’s truly deserved. An incredibly crafted and affecting melodrama about the most tragic celebrity family ever, next to the Kennedys maybe. A gripping and heartbreaking story of loss, family, masculinity, and the limits of how we push our minds and bodies for our art, anchored by a terrific ensemble. The Killer David Fincher performs a victory lap, fully indulging in the dark, precise, and stylish atmosphere he’s perfected over his 30-year career. On the surface, this appears to be a cold and brooding film about a stone-faced bad MF operating at the highest level of murder that this character archetype has been so solidified as. However, the film blossoms into an exploration of self-doubt, the loneliness and mundanity of freelance work, and the realization that one may be more human and vulnerable than how they present themselves. It’s so simple in its execution, but so satisfying. Godzilla Minus One Combining the Western influences of Jaws and Dunkirk, Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One reinvents and revitalizes the 70-year-old monster into not only an exciting and scary action blockbuster, but a truly life-affirming and moving character study exploring chosen families, collective trauma, and regular people banding together to do something their higher powers failed to do for them. It’s terrific stuff, and I’m so happy for its success. I hope future films get as weird and surreal as certain Showa and Heisei-era Godzilla films do while still retaining the strong emotional core this film has. It’d be tough to pull off but I’d still like to see it! John Wick: Chapter Four The highest level of action filmmakers collaborating with the highest level stunt team currently working today to deliver a modern-day Odyssey that concludes the greatest action series of the 21st century. There are sequences in this that I fear may never be beaten. Our hero has been finally set free, but not before he paints his Sistine Chapel with gunpowder and brain matter. Blackberry Glenn Howerton. He’s from Waterloo, where the vampires hang out. This is probably my most rewatched film of 2023. So effortlessly entertaining as a hilarious and tragic display of the most innovative men of their time and their capacity to fumble the bag so destructively. Matt Johnson deserves the world (or at least a third season of Nirvanna the Band the Show). Oppenheimer The most elating success story of 2023 is that a 3-hour historical courtroom drama made a billion dollars at the box office. You have all seen it by now. You know exactly how much of a monumental achievement Oppenheimer is. Christopher Nolan collects his 25 years of masterfully crafted spectacle and distills it down to the human face. Killers of the Flower Moon I’m eternally grateful we still have Martin Scorsese. 50 years into his career and he is still at the top of his game, this time guiding us by the hand and having us stare into the abyss of American History. His editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, continues to be the best in the business 50 years into her career as well, with a three-and-a-half-hour film that feels like no time has gone by at all. This is a bleak, and heartbreaking film chronicling an entire culture that was almost erased by greed and bloodthirsty men. It’s not an easy watch by any means, but it is in every regard, essential. I’ll see you around in 2024, hopefully seeing more great movies. Jeremy Kolodziejski Jeremy is a long-time supporter of and contributor to the Story Screen Fam, as well as the entire Hudson Valley Film community, as a writer, filmmaker, film worker, and general film fan. You can find him sifting through the most obscure corners of horror, martial arts, comedy, noir, and crime drama cinema, always on the hunt to discover something new, strange, and exciting.

Miklós László’s 1937 play, Parfumerie, has been adapted into films three separate times. First, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner in 1940, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan; Next, In the Good Old Summertime in 1949, starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson; and, most recently, Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail in 1998, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. As I’m writing this, You’ve Got Mail is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and The Shop Around the Corner has long been a seasonal classic as the whole story builds to a climax on Christmas Eve. There is one of these stories that I think works much better than the others, but we’ll get to that. A lot of the plot details shift between the various versions of the story, but the core is the same for all of them: there is a man and woman who have been anonymously corresponding with one another, and they are each starting to realize that they are falling in love with their pen pal. Unbeknownst to either of them, it turns out they already do know each other in real life, and they can’t stand one another. At one point the man discovers his pen pal is the very same woman who became his kind of nemesis, and he spends the remainder of the story trying to get her to feel as warm towards him in real life as she seems in her letters. There’s something classic about the structure of this story. It’s not a perfect analogy, but Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing make this kind of transition from enemies to lovers with just a little bit of dishonest nudging from their friends. In their case, rather than finding out it’s their enemy they were unknowingly in love with, Beatrice and Benedict are each told that it’s their enemy that has secretly been in love with them, and this ‘discovery’ gradually softens them towards one another until genuine affection begins to develop. Beatrice and Benedict’s relationship is founded on a deception, but importantly the deception doesn’t originate from either one of them. They are both sincere throughout, both in their initial antipathy towards one another, and in their later affection. The relationships in the adaptations of Parfumerie aren’t quite the same. In each case, after the man learns the true identity of his pen pal, he engages in some degree of deception to get her to think of him in real life the way she does in her letters, but the degree of deception differs in scale with each of the adaptations. The least regarded of these three films is In the Good Old Summertime. Released only 9 years after The Shop Around the Corner, it does come across as a weaker version of that earlier film. One where some of the more transgressive edges to the original story have been sanded down, and where a few musical numbers have been shoehorned in. It’s still worth being discussed alongside the other two more beloved adaptations, as Judy Garland is truly a joy here in one of the rare instances of a happy film production for her. And, since this adaptation is so directly centered on her character, she may actually get to play the richest version of the female love interest out of the three films. In this version, Garland plays Veronica Fisher, a young woman who comes to Otto Oberkugen’s music store looking for a job. The virtue of this setting is that, in addition to instruments, the store also sells sheet music that the staff is expected to be able to perform for customers upon request, providing us with multiple opportunities to hear Garland sing. Her antagonist in the shop is the lead salesman, Mr Andrew Delby Larkin (Van Johnson); and the source of their conflict is that, when Miss Fisher first came in looking for a job, Mr. Larkin didn’t think the store could afford another salesperson during the slow season. Miss Fisher was able to go over Mr. Larkin’s head to convince the store owner to hire her anyway. The mutual bitterness between them over this leads to that kind of “merry war” that initially existed between Beatrice and Benedict. The difference in this case was that, unbeknownst to either of them, Miss Fisher and Mr Larkin had each replied to the same ad with a dating service, and had already been anonymously and affectionately corresponding with one another for weeks before their first meeting. In every version of the story, we see the same contrast. In this case, when they are face to face, Miss Fisher and Mr Larkin can’t help but needle one another at every opportunity. Having gotten off on the wrong foot to start, they now bring out the worst in each other. Yet, all the while, they’re still engaged in a correspondence that brings out the very best in each other. Within the safety of their letters, they’re able to be poetic and bold in a way that few of us are encouraged to in our daily lives. They don’t just love the person they’re writing to, but also the person they get to be when they’re writing to them. In every version we also see the story turn on the same key scene. In this case, Mr Larkin has agreed to meet his pen pal at a restaurant. She will know him by a flower in his lapel, and he will know her by the book of poetry she’ll have on her table with a flower in it. Larkin has a friend come with him to the restaurant for moral support and he nervously asks his friend to look through the restaurant window first. Larkin’s friend spies the woman, recognizing who it is right away. He tries to break the news to Larkin gently and in stages. Yes, the woman is pretty. Very pretty. “I would say she looks like…she has something of the coloring of Miss Fisher…” Larkin is bewildered why his friend would be bringing up Miss Fisher at a time like this, to which his friend replies, with the line that every adaptation retains from the play, “I can tell you right now, if you don’t like Miss Fisher, you won’t like this girl.” It’s a funny kind of line because it happens to stay true even as their relationship changes throughout the story. At that moment, we know that Miss Fisher and ‘this girl’ are the same person, so it has the form of a logical truth. But also, from Larkin’s point of view, he thinks these are two different people. And his view of one will come to determine his view of the other. It turns out that as soon as he finds out that Miss Fisher, who he hates, and ‘this girl’, who he is ready to propose to, are the same person, all his feelings for ‘this girl’ briefly vanish, temporarily replaced by his feelings of antipathy towards Miss Fisher. His disdain for his coworker supersedes any image he had of his pen pal, and he leaves the restaurant without going inside. Mr. Larkin’s curiosity gets the better of him, though, and he returns to the restaurant just a little later that same night. Pretending he just happened to wander in, he attempts to strike up what is clearly an unwelcome conversation with Miss Fisher. Mr. Larkin has started softening a bit towards Miss Fisher, his affection for his pen pal gradually overtaking his antipathy. Still, Miss Fisher has had no reason for her opinion of Mr Larkin to have changed, and she is especially anxious to see him go away because she’s still expecting to meet her pen pal any minute. This makes her unusually savage towards Mr. Larkin. So much so that, after making the start of a real effort to build some kind of rapport between them, he gives up and goes home without ever letting on to Miss Fisher that he is, in fact, the man she has been waiting for. Larkin finds that he can’t just go back to hating Miss Fisher, though. If he loves his pen pal, he must also love Miss Fisher. He begins a project to try to win her over, but without telling her that he knows her true identity. He stops fighting back when she needles him at work, which in turn, does begin to thaw her towards him as well. It’s in this third act that In the Good Old Summertime starts to fall apart because of how convoluted the story becomes. In this version, Larkin isn’t just deceiving Miss Fisher, but also his boss, Mr. Oberkugen, and a violinist friend of his, all to set up a farcical finale for the film. In the end, Mr. Larkin and Miss Fisher do wind up together, but Mr Larkin has proved to be a person so comfortable lying, that it can be a little unclear how happy an ending for Miss Fisher this should actually be. In Nora Ephron’s adaptation of the story, she modernizes things for the then-new, computer age, by replacing the couple’s letters to one another with email. Ephron also scales up the characters from retail clerks by making them rival bookstore owners, instead. Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, the second-generation owner of a famed Children’s bookstore in NYC, The Shop Around the Corner. Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox, the third-generation owner, along with his father and grandfather, of the bookstore chain, Fox Books - a stand-in of the real-life chain, Barnes & Noble. At the time, this was the third romantic comedy pairing of Hanks and Ryan, following Joe Versus the Volcano and Sleepless in Seattle, and probably the film that cemented their place in the romantic comedy hall of fame. Their chemistry here is unreal, which is important because it helps paper over a number of the more peculiar elements of the story. Notably, unlike the other adaptations, Joe and Kathleen both have partners they’re living with when they stumble into their online relationship. At the outset of the film, they’re each already to the point in their correspondence of waiting for their partner to leave for the day to check their email in private. Before any of the events of the film unfold, both of our romantic leads are sneaking about because they each know what they are doing is something out of bounds for their current relationship. Both Joe and Kathleen will eventually break up amicably - weirdly amicably - with their partners before their relationship with one another really takes off, but it does change the dynamic of the story that they’re not two lonely hearts looking for connection, but rather just two people in largely happy relationships that want something different and new. It’s also hard to overstate how big an effect Ephron’s change to the characters’ social status has on the story. In the older adaptations, part of the antipathy between the two leads is how deeply they both need their jobs, while it turns out there are hardly any stakes at all to the David and Goliath battle between Joe and Kathleen. Joe and Fox Books are in no danger from The Shop Around the Corner, and they barely benefit in any measurable way when the smaller store closes. And Kathleen it turns out has her pick of fulfilling jobs when the store closes. It’s genuinely impressive how elegantly Ephron can keep the audience from hating Joe for putting Kathleen’s small family-owned store out of business, and it’s equally impressive how thoroughly Ephron is able to get the audience to forgive Joe his even more prolonged and deliberate deception of Kathleen in the final act of the film. Joe orchestrates numerous, seemingly happenstance, encounters with Kathleen, at least five quasi-platonic dates, in which he coaches her on her relationship with the pen pal he’s gotten her to admit to having. At the same time, he’s similarly masterminding things in his role as that pen pal, organizing their final in-person meetup. If you really unpack what Joe is doing, it does start to seem a little icky, but Hanks is just so charming that it’s hard not to forgive him everything if it gets us the happy ending we want. You can’t help but feel happy to see Joe and Lathleen wind up together, even if it’s not entirely clear if Joe is all that decent a guy. All this said, I think the best version of this story is the first one, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner. If this film has any shortcomings, it’s that Margaret Sullivan can’t really compete with Meg Ryan or Judy Garland as the female lead. She’s perfectly fine as Klara Novak, but she’s written a little one note, while Jimmy Stewart gets a much wider variety of notes to play as Alfred Kralik. As much as You’ve Got Mail works because of Tom Hanks’s charm, Jimmy Stewart carries this film with ease, having none of the same character or plot shortcomings to overcome. In The Shop Around the Corner, Jimmy Stewart is the lead salesman at a leather goods shop in Budapest owned by Mr. Matuschek. Margaret Sullivan’s Miss Novak manages to get herself hired as a salesperson by Mr. Matuschek over the objection of Mr. Karlic. Otherwise, their story unfolds the same as the other versions. The two of them resent each other and quarrel at work, all while unknowingly writing each other the most lovely letters. They have the same encounter at the restaurant, where the pen pals are about to meet for the first time, but Mr. Kralik realizes it’s Miss Novak he’s meeting before she sees him. Here though, Stewart seems to manage something that neither Hanks nor Johnson can. He goes in like the others, also pretending he just wandered in, but Stewart’s Mr. Kralik feels like he’s trying to build up to telling Miss Novak who he really is, but keeps being stopped by her understandable irritation towards him for continuing to interrupt her date. This is what this version of the story does better than all the rest, even if it comes a bit at the expense of Miss Novak as a character. Mr. Kralik isn’t exactly straightforward with Miss Novak, but when he is dishonest, it is mostly for her benefit. Where the men in the other films come off as more overtly manipulative, Stewart’s Mr. Kralik is usually just trying to spare Miss Novak’s feelings. He does write her one final letter to apologize for standing her up and to new plans to meet up on the next night for Christmas Eve. In that letter, he doesn’t admit who he is or confess to knowing who she is, but I think that can be forgiven since that’s what he intends to do as soon as they are alone together the next evening. This is the key difference for me from the other stories and the reason why this version works better than the others. Mr. Kralik’s and Miss Novak’s eventual relationship feels more satisfying and credible because Mr. Kralik is never trying to manipulatively deceive Miss Novak. The only thing he is trying to orchestrate in the end is a private moment to tell her who he is and how he really feels about her. In this sense, Mr. Kralik and Miss Novak feel the most like Beatrice and Benedict because their relationship doesn’t feel defined by deception, but rather confession. Like the letters they wrote to one another, you can believe that theirs is a relationship that will bring out the best versions of one another, which doesn’t feel as true of the other adaptations. Theirs is the relationship that feels the most like the one I want for myself. Damian Masterson Staff Writer Damian is an endothermic vertebrate with a large four-chambered heart residing in Kerhonkson, NY with his wife and two children. His dream Jeopardy categories would be: They Might Be Giants, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, 18th and 19th-Century Ethical Theory, Moral Psychology, Caffeine, Gummy Candies, and Episode-by-Episode podcasts about TV shows that have been off the air for at least 10 years.

Mike Burdge and Reeya Banerjee chat their way through Todd Haynes' latest, provocative dark-comedy, May December, which is equal parts sickeningly uncomfortable and laugh-out loud funny. Topics include Haynes' previous works with Julianne Moore, the powerhouse performance of Charles Melton, that score, the hot dogs and how the predators in this movie hide in plain sight. Listen on....

Kitty Green and Julia Garner have teamed up again (and this time Jessica Henwick is along for the ride) in Green’s latest film, The Royal Hotel. Traveling abroad with your best friend is a rite of passage. Drinking too much, running out of money, and meeting people from other countries, all seem like a fun adventure until you find yourself trapped in a potentially threatening situation. That’s what happens when Hanna and Liv find themselves working at a bar in a remote part of the Australian Outback where the clientele is almost entirely made up of male miners. Their first night employed at the Royal Hotel bar is simultaneously a going-away party for the previously employed working tourists (two women from the United Kingdom) who decide to go out with a bang: getting wasted, climbing on top of the bar, and subsequently, almost missing their flight home the following morning. That first night is extreme, but not insanely out of the ordinary for a backpacking experience abroad. It’s not until the next day when things have seemingly settled down, that their new job becomes more ominous for the film’s main characters. As in Green’s previous film, The Assistant, red flags start popping up from time to time that continue to mount the entire film. Green does a really excellent job at creating these quiet atmospheres that are poised and ready to explode. Most of the central action takes place inside the bar at the Royal Hotel - a dark and dingy space filled with jarred snakes and beer bottles. After starring in 2020's The Assistant, Julia Garner is back, this time as Hanna, in an equally steely performance. Hanna initially seems fun - open to making out with strangers and dancing - until she runs out of money and is forced to work with Liv at the hotel. Her character walks the line between seeming uptight and seeming entirely validated in trusting her instincts. Green, in collaboration with Garner, does a wonderful job of putting us in that vulnerable first-person headspace. Hanna is trying to make the most of a bad situation while it continues to wear her down. As in The Assistant, there’s a mounting sense of dread throughout the film, which is a slow boil to its climax. Jessica Henwick does her best with a less fleshed-out character as Liv, Hanna's friend who just wants to party and have fun; she almost seems to enjoy letting Hanna do all of the worrying for both of them while she goes about her business. There are hints in their conversations that Liv wanted to get as far away from home as possible but that thread never gets tied up. I would have liked to have seen more backstory or more fun happening between the two friends before they are put through the wringer of their job placement, but c'est la vie. While Liv initially tells Hanna to “lighten up,” there comes a point in the film when she realizes that the threats Hanna fears are indeed real. There is little protection or comfort for the girls to be found in the bar’s owner Billy, played by Hugo Weaving. Billy constantly walks a line between drunken rage and total wasted obliteration. There are only two female characters in the movie, Carol (Ursula Yovich) the bar’s cook and Billy’s sometime romantic partner, and Glenda (Barbara Lowing) an older alcoholic who only seems to egg on the drunken men at the bar around her. Toby Wallace, who I loved in 2019’s Babyteeth, plays Matty, who may be the least outwardly threatening of the bar’s male clientele (looking to date Hanna despite her initial reticence), but he is not totally blameless either. There’s also a fun cameo performance by Herbert Nordrum (of The Worst Person in the World fame) as a friendly traveler hoping to hook up with Hanna again, but he has no idea what he’s getting into. Green’s latest film is another tense watch that had me gritting my teeth and nodding along in sympathetic recognition throughout. It’s worth the watch and I kind of hope Julia Garner continues to work with her in the future as her own personal patron saint of ghastly working conditions. Diana DiMuro Besides watching TV and movies, Diana likes plants, the great outdoors, drawing and reading comics, and just generally rocking out. She has a BA in English Literature and is an art school dropout. You can follow her on Instagram @dldimuro and Twitter @DianaDiMuro