First-Time Views: November 2023

Before we get to the news, I should mention that my book Baseball: The Movie is currently available for pre-order. We don’t have a cover yet, and the blurbs are still coming in, but it is technically for sale. Maybe consider a blind buy? I promise it’s pretty good, at least.

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It’s screener season, which means I’m catching up on all the films I’ve missed—and many not yet released—before I vote in my critics’ groups and release my Top 10 of 2023. About that: Several films I’ve watched this month are going to end up in my Top 10, so it would be redundant to cover them here and there. For the purposes of this month’s list, I’ve eliminated those films. Here now are my top watches of 2023 that aren’t in my overall Top 10 of the year. Got all that?

First-Time Views

1. The Ice Storm (1997) - Why did I never watch this horribly bleak film about lonesome teenagers and irresponsible adults in 1970s suburban Connecticut? Maybe it hit a little too close to home. Regardless, The Ice Storm is a courageous film. Director Ang Lee furiously commits to the inescapable bleakness of its story, refusing the viewer an ounce of comfort or relief. There’s no joy in adultery or teenage experimentation. All is awkward and icy and deadly. It takes a lot of discipline to make a film with established movie stars and young stars on the rise, and not let them be charming for a single second.

2. Le Bonheur (1965) - Here’s some advice: If you’re going to watch this 1965 French New Wave masterpiece on MAX, don’t read the site’s description first. It gives away the film’s incredible ending. This way, you’ll spend the first 70 minutes enjoying the film’s happy journey into the practical realities of polyamory. At least, polyamory for men. Francois is a happily married father of two who has an affair with a beautiful young postal worker and eventually decides he’d like to continue both relationships. I won’t spoil the ending either, but I’ll only say it has more in common with The Ice Storm than it seems at first glance. Truly one of cinema’s great rug-pulls.

3. Passages (2023) - This would actually make a neat double feature with Le Bonheur. It’s about two men, Tomas (Franz Rogowski) and Martin (Ben Whishaw), who are married but in a semi-open relationship. Their relative idyll gets thrown into chaos when Tomas falls in love with a woman (Adele Exarchopolous). Written and directed by Ira Sachs (Love is Strange), the exceedingly well-acted film offers what feels like an honest portrayal of the opportunities and challenges of love and sex in 2023. It is sometimes dramatically underwhelming, but that’s only because it works so hard to stay true to the rhythms of real life.

4. Reality (2023) - This taut, fact-based drama is based on the interrogation and arrest of Reality Winner, an intelligence whistleblower convicted of leaking classified documents to the Intercept. In fact, “based on” isn’t quite accurate. Every bit of dialogue is taken from transcripts of the real-life encounter. Reality (Sydney Sweeney) arrives home from work to find two friendly FBI agents on her lawn. What follows is an exercise in simmering tension brought home by Sweeney’s performance. The star of HBO’s Euphoria and The White Lotus, Sweeney’s ample talent is often overshadowed by her ample, um, something else, but her work in Reality is a masterclass in face-acting. Subtle and stirring, it’s one of the great performances of the year.

5. Nyad (2023) - I can’t say Nyad is a perfect film, but it’s more alive than it needs to be. It’s based on the achievements of Diane Nyad (Annette Bening), a 60-year-old athlete who became the first ever to swim from Cuba to Florida. It’s a rousing sports movie, but there are two things that give it more life. The first is the brazen direction from Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, making their non-documentary debut after winning Oscars for Free Solo. There’s an innovative spirit in certain scenes here that reflect the freedom of filmmakers who haven’t yet learned the rules and don’t know which ones they’re breaking. I dug it.

   I also dug the relationship between Diane and Bonnie (Jodie Foster), her lifelong BFF who accompanies her on each unsuccessful attempt and her final success. Through it all, Bonnie supports Diane with both tenderness and toughness, and it’s neat to see a life partnership that is in no way romantic. It’s different, and it enlivens a film working in a genre we know by heart.

Worst View: Priscilla (2023) - Okay, my actual worst view of the month was Meet Joe Black, but I already covered that one in depth for paid subscribers (just $5 a month, people), and I won’t devalue their investment by rehashing my objections here. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla was a major disappointment for me. It’s not bad exactly, just completely lacking any spark or surprise. If you’ve seen any earlier Coppola film (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, The Bling Ring), you already have a pretty good idea of her take on Priscilla. It’s another story of a wealthy woman in a gilded cage who struggles to assert her identity under the dominance of her husband. The performances are good here, and there’s a beautiful hollowness to the mise-en-scene that feels just right, but Priscilla is just exactly what you’d think it would be, and that’s not enough.

Best Rewatch: Strange Days (1995) - Good title, as it’s a very strange movie. Written by James Cameron and directed by Kathryn Bigelow (they were married at the time), Strange Days takes place in a then-future 1999, when Los Angeles is in a police state due to the threat of racial violence, and hustlers like Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) make their living selling devices that allow thrill-seeking users to buy experiences that have been recorded by others. It’s like virtual reality but more immersive. Put on the hardware, boot up a disc, and you can fulfill any violent or sexual fantasy you’ve ever desired. It’s the kind of film that should have inspired a series of direct-to-DVD knockoffs with more nudity and less complexity, which is to say Strange Days is titillating and thought-provoking all at once, and its stirring climax—in which love, politics, and violence collide—is the stuff of great opera, not cinema. I highly recommend it.

If you want more of me, here’s where I have been found over the past month.

For Washington City Paper, I’m still on the repertory cinema beat, reviewing The ‘Burbs, a movie I’ve seen a hundred times, and Sexy Beast, a movie I’ve now seen once. 

For The Rye Record, I analyzed why repertory cinema is so popular these days, and offered my readers a few local spots to see classics on the big screen.

For Uproxx, I profiled Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who gives a miraculous (and award-winning) performance in The Holdovers.

Oh, and I had an absolute hoot discussing The Killer with Robyn Bahr and Brian Roan on The Film Stage Podcast.