Top 10 best movies 2023

Notes: Since I’m myself an immigrant myself, son of an immigrant, I’m always fascinated by such stories, especially when it is so perfectly handled as it was definitely the case here. Indeed, with this movie, you didn’t have 1 but 3 fascinating intricate characters and, as a result, it was probably the best love triangle I have ever seen. Indeed, there was no good guy, no bad guy, only some really realistic and convincing human-beings dealing with some complex feelings. As pointed out by Arthur himself, in a weaker movie, he would have probably been the evil jealous White husband doing everything he can to prevent his wife to see her childhood crush. But, even if he was a nice guy who really loved his wife, it doesn’t mean that his situation was easy though. Concerning his wife, Nora, she was probably the character who got the most screen time and it was just so fascinating to see her wrestling with her past, her present, her culture baggage, and, eventually, you don’t get some clean clear-cut answers but that’s how it goes in real life and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Concerning Jung Hae Sung, you get the feeling that he will never really manage to let go of this childhood romance but you spend enough time with him to see that, even if he cherished every minute he spent with Nora, he was so compassionate towards her, even towards her husband, it was quite inspiring to behold. Another interesting thing is that they argued that Nora made her choice to be where she ended up but, in fact, she never really made this choice in the first place. Indeed, it was her parents who took the decision to immigrate to Canada, she would have never made this choice at 12 years old, and you can only wonder what would have been her relationship with Jung Hae Sung if her parents who have decided to stay in South Korea. Anyway, the damned thing was just so fascinating and it is easily one of the best movies I have seen this year.

Notes: It must be hands down one of the very best legal procedurals I have ever seen and the damned thing was just to subtle, so cleverly put together, I’m not surprised that it also won the Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay. Eventually, I was expecting that they would show some flashbacks so that you could get a better idea about who was this woman and this man and what was exactly their relationship but it happened only once because the victim had actually recorded this conversation. Anyway, this approach was just so effective because, as a result, you are basically on the bench during this trial, listening to the testimonials. On top of that, everybody from the defense, from the prosecution, the judges, everything they said did make sense which was just so refreshing compared to the black-and-white characters that you get in your usual Hollywood production. Sure, you might have some personal opinion about which theory might be correct but every character was so well written, the dialogues were razor sharp, it was just spellbinding to behold. Eventually, there were very little evidence and, at the end of the day, either you believe this woman or you don’t and if you expect this movie to give some easy answers, I’m afraid you will be disappointed. The fact that we, as a viewer, have to go through this process was difficult enough but to witness her son (by the way, the kid who played this character was just so amazing) going through this process as well was just so heartbreaking. I mean, in his case, either his father did commit suicide or his mother killed him, in both scenarios, the end-result will remain so tragic.

Notes: When I heard that my filmclub would see it, I was quite disappointed because I was on holiday in France. Well, somehow, I managed to convince my mother in France to see it together so I still managed to watch the damned thing after all. Fortunately, it was definitely worth it out though. Indeed, I have watched all the previous movies from Jonathan Glazer but it was easily the best one he has made so far. Basically, it gave such a fascinating and chilling glimpse of the normalization of extreme discrimination. At the end of the day, if you keep hearing such ideas and seeing such behaviour, it will seem normal to most people and I think that's what was perfectly displayed in this movie. On top of that, Glazer and the cast did an incredible job to make sure that this is typical Nazi family was displayed as the most average family you could imagine. Indeed, they were kind to each other, they just wanted to enjoy life like any normal human-being, the fact that they lived next to the closest place to look like Hell on Earth was just an afterthought for them. The fact that, 80 years later, there is such a frightening rise of extreme-right politics all over Europe made the damned thing even more topical. On one hand, we are condemning such past events but, on the other hand, we are obsessed by our own comfort closing our eyes regarding how we treat foreigners, immigrants and refugees. Seriously, many people might argue that both situations are not the same but I think that they are actually extremely similar.

Notes: A usual with Christopher Nolan, this movie it was visually really neat and the directing was top-notch. Above all, Oppenheimer was such a fascinating character, easily one of the best characters Nolan as ever worked with. His quest to create the first atomic bomb was also so interesting because it would change our world forever and its impact is still topical nowadays. So, the story was great but I’m not sure Nolan’s approach completely worked. Indeed, at times, it felt as if you either needed to have read the book or have Wikipedia at all times open or that you had to be a massive history buff to keep track of everything and above all everybody involved. Concerning the cast, well, Cillian Murphy was rightfully praised, the guy was amazing and easily delivered one of the best performances of his career. I wish I could say the same about the rest of the cast though. It’s not that anyone was bad, I was more bothered by the fact that so many showed up for barely nothing. It was especially frustrating with Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh who all seemed to have some more substantial characters and, yet, they were given so little to do after all. Even Robert Downey Jr., after getting stuck playing Tony Stark for so many years, who was finally given the opportunity to do something else, didn’t really impress me because the focus on this conflict with Lewis Strauss was, in my opinion, a rather poor idea. Anyway, even though I might seem harsh, the damned thing was still really good though.

Notes: To be honest, I have to admit that I had no idea what it was actually about before watching this movie and it took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on but it made the whole thing even more rewarding. Eventually, I was actually floored by the damned thing. I have noticed that it was described as a camp comedy by some reviewers but, even though I understand what they meant, that’s not how I experienced it, at least, not most of it. In fact, it did impact me on a very personal level, much more than I expected. Indeed, I’m currently in the middle of an ugly divorce, I was married for 20 years and it was apparently a very abusive relationship. When we met, she was 34 years old, married with 2 children, I was 23 years old and I recognized so many things in Gracie’s behavior and Joe’s behavior, it was actually quite heartbreaking. I can’t imagine going through this if I would have been 10 years younger. As a result, even though, like everyone else, I was impressed by Julianne Moore’s and Natalie Portman’s performances, I was also really impressed by Charles Melton. Indeed, with barely any dialogues, he played such a stunted man, he was quite pitch-perfect. I think it’s the first time that I really understood the extent of the damages, for a teenaged boy, to have a sexual relationship with a much older woman. In this case, it was even worse since he was only 12 years old. After all this, I have to admit that I had some trouble to focus on Natalie Portman’s fine work because, sure, this couple or whole family was pretty messed up, but this actress definitely had some major issues as well. As a result, this movie was probably the worst advertisement I have ever seen regarding the acting profession.

Notes: I just loved the damned thing after all and I'm really glad we managed to catch this amazing sequel on the big screen this time. Anyway, it was again visually so neat, there were maybe slightly too many details but the end-result was still quite amazing to behold. It's also the reason why such multiverse features actually works better with animation because, this way, they could tweak each dimension, give its own specific visual identity, which would be much harder to achieve with a live-action feature. It was also neat to see Miles Morales growing up and becoming an anxious and insecure teenager. In general, it was a much more emotional feature, probably the most emotional Spider-Man feature ever made so far. I mean, not only Spider-Man had to live a life of secrets and loneliness but, in this case, he was even called an anomaly which was then tracked down by 100's of other Spider-Men and Women. Eventually, the only minor issue I had was that, nowadays, we get just too many movies dealing with multiverses (Hell, even the last Best Picture Academy Award winner was a multiverse feature), even if, in this case, I have to admit that it is slightly unfair since its predecessor was the first movie to explore this genre. It was also impressive that even though it was really long, even though it was only half of this story, there was never a dull moment and I was completely entertained from the beginning until the end.

Notes: Even if some people might be worried about the extensive running time, Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest masters, delivered here an impressive tale of greed and love. To be honest, I have to admit that it didn't know much about the Osage and the terrible tragedy that happened on them and you get the opportunity here to learn more about them. However, their tragic fate was not really the main focus here or, at least, in my opinion, it wasn't the biggest asset in this movie. After all, I was above all fascinated by DiCaprio who delivered here one of his very best performances. Indeed, his character was so complex, he was probably one of the most confused men I have ever seen on the silver screen. Basically, he was an average White male who was promised some easy money and, like every White American man at the time, he didn't care one bit about the Indians. And, yet, somehow, he actually fell in love with this beautiful sharp Indian woman who also loved him back. But, then, how could he possibly try to kill this woman, possibly the only person on Earth who actually cared for him, and wipe out also all her family if he loved her so much? On paper, it wouldn't make any sense at all and, yet, DiCaprio was always convincing. It was just so fascinating to see him going through a seemingly endless roller coaster of completely contradicting emotions. Of course, it was also a blast to see him facing Robert De Niro, another film icon, and some of their scenes together were amazing but De Niro's character was so much more one-note and therefore not quite so fascinating. Anyway, it was a great epic, that's for sure.

Notes: As far as I was concerned, it felt like a horror feature, the big difference was that it was based on something real which made all these images even more hard to swallow. Eventually, it was a strong reminder how we seem to live in some kind of parallel world where we worry about the costs of our groceries and about where we are going to spend our next fancy holidays when, not so far away, some really desperate immigrants are going through hell dreaming of a better life for themselves and very often for their very young kids. Something which was not handled in this movie was the fact that, if they ever managed to reach their destination (many won’t), they will be despised and very poorly treated by the local population which made me feel such a great shame. They did spend some time however to show how awful the job was for the military working at the border and it was a great way to show that, even if someone gets in direct contact with these refuges, they pretty much feel instantly different about them which shows, that deep down, we are all human. But they didn’t stop here, they also spent some time with some activists, just a handful of them, who tried to make a difference but I think the way this group was depicted was less effective. Indeed, it seemed that none of them had a daily job or some family to take care of and that they all could simply drop off everything to help these poor souls which seemed less realistic than the rest of this movie. Anyway, I’m still shaken up by the damned thing.

Notes: To be honest, I have to admit that I have never been a fan of Roald Dahl’s books film adaptations. However, I really did love ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ which is, as far as I’m concerned, Anderson’s best movie so far and, well, the famous writer and the indie film director seemed to be once again a match made in heaven. Indeed, as usual with this director, the whole thing was a visual treat but, above all, it was such a fun tale and, combined with Anderson’s quirky directing style, it was just a marvel to behold. The fact it was a short feature was also perfect because I do believe that this way of telling a story for at least 90 mins could have been rather exhausting and/or annoying after a while. The only thing missing, at least, if you would compare it to his most recent directorial efforts, is that he didn’t get a huge cast to play each character by some famous actor but, instead, he chose to have only a handful of actors playing several characters but I thought it was rather distracting. Fortunately, it wasn't a big deal though and the damned thing was a real blast.

Notes: It was visually once again quite reminiscent to ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ but it wasn’t an issue, in the contrary. The tone was also once again quite marvelous. However, the approach was still quite different this time around though. Indeed, instead of actually showing the action, it was actually mostly narrated by Rupert Friend. Well, even though I might admit that this approach might be frustrating, I thought it was in fact quite intriguing. Indeed, it was as if Peter Watson did grow up and started reminiscing about this day during which he survived a train going on top of him and a beautiful swan was tragically killed. Anyway, it certainly turn the whole thing into an impressive one-man-show from Rupert Friend who possibly delivered here the best performance of his career. Eventually, I enjoyed it more than 'Poison' above all because the story was this time around completely unpredictable.