Last Year when I sat down to write my annual review of my own movie watching and writing, I was working my way out of a bit of a filmic funk. My overall viewing numbers were down, I hadn't been writing consistently, and I was feeling disengaged from what I love best about movies. Thankfully, going through the exercise of writing about what did bring me cinematic joy helped turn things around for me. This year has been my most consistent year of writing in this space and I also wrote for other online and offline publications who were generous enough to have me. I'm happy to say that I have a ton of ideas for pieces and projects for the coming year and while time is ever a precious resource, I'm grateful to be in a place of creative enthusiasm. As always, thanks so much to everyone who reads, likes, responds, or otherwise offers any bit of encouragement to keep me plugging along. It truly means the world to me and I hope you do find a movie recommendation or at least a kindred spirit amongst my ramblings.
Movies are Back, Baby! I keep hearing this from film journalists and while it has a lot to do with Barbenheimer, it's true in a smaller way for me too. As I write this, I'm sitting at 400 Letterboxd diary entries for 2023 and I know my theatrical attendance has been solid throughout the year. 400 is not an insane number of movies compared to many die-hards and more dedicated reviewers than myself, but until I can abandon my 9-to-5 this is a sweet spot for me. Most of the films I saw were from the US and could be considered dramas which is fairly typical for me. France was the clear runner up for country of origin and the crime/thriller genres were well represented (though they do cross over with the dramas).
Directors - My most-watched director for 2023 was Claude Chabrol and it wasn't close. I watched 15 Chabrol films over the year and almost all of them were new-to-me. Chabrol is a fascinating character in his own right and was such a prolific filmmaker that I will no doubt be watching many of his films for years to come. Despite my interest in French film, I (sheepishly) admit that I haven't been the greatest student of the New Wave. I certainly watched a handful of the best known Truffaut and Godard films as a young movie nerd but my real entry into Cinéma français has always been Melville who is more New Wave adjacent. Chabrol is interesting because he is undoubtedly part of the Cahiers du cinéma gang and the first of them to get a movie made, and yet his career diverged from the movement and was met with rather severe criticism from them (not unlike Melville). I've actually never fully understood why the Cahiers critics could have such undying admiration for filmmakers like Hawks and Hitchcock but met comparable French stylists with such total derision. Regardless, Chabrol's filmography is a rich one and I was able to sample from his earliest films that were largely in line with his New Wave contemporaries, some of his mid-period Hélène cycle thrillers, and many of his later period "commercial" films. Though I've been trying all year, it's challenging to capture what I find so compelling about Chabrol's films in writing. Often the plot beats are simplistic or appear to be loaded with genre tropes and yet he is able to present them or subvert them in fascinating ways. His style is somewhat detached (which works beautifully in his repeated skewering of the bourgeoisie) but he works with these marvelous actors - Stéphane Audran, Michel Bouquet, Isabelle Huppert, Jean Yanne, etc. - and gets tremendous, emotionally powerful performances from them. His films can be cruel, they are often slyly funny, and though he is working in the form of popular entertainment - he often seems indifferent to delivering the expected to his audience. One thing I have noted with some frustration is the availability of his work. Criterion has released both his earliest films and some later ones where he received a lot of critical admiration (La Cérémonie). Arrow has produced two beautiful box sets of Chabrol films licensed by mk2 mostly from the 80s and 90s. I am loving the sets and the films but they are not his most celebrated or necessarily where I'd recommend anyone start with Chabrol. Somehow Chabrol's films from 1968-1978 are missing in action aside from a few dvd releases here and there. This includes the Hélène films as well as his much admired first collaboration with Isabelle Huppert, Violette Nozière. These are the films that not only would I like to see given restorations, there the ones I could probably most easily recommend to fans of classic genre, thriller, and even horror films. There are a lot of eurocult crossover with the performers and they're just great movies. Here's hoping we see some in the near future.
As a quick additional note, my second most watched director of the year was Hal Hartley. Hartley was one of the undisputed kings of the indie film scene when I was first being exposed to them in the late 90s and I worked in theaters when some of his higher profile films released. I've felt like his name had been somewhat forgotten and his films weren't terribly easy to find so I couldn't have been more thrilled to see Criterion Channel offer a complete retrospective of his work. I subscribed for a month and devoured them - it was a terrific revisiting of a time and place I still think of fondly.
Actors - In part inspired by the Fun City Editions release of Party Girl, I was watched and re-watched a considerable chunk of Parker Posey's career. This overlapped rather well with my Hal Hartley binge and she became my most watched actor for 2023. Much like Hartley, Posey was already indie-film royalty when I first got a job at an arthouse theater and I quickly became a massive fan. Though I did a lot of re-watching of her films, there were some new-to-me ones that left a lasting impression. Gregg Mottola's Daytrippers is my platonic ideal of a 90s indie classic - initially budgeted for 50k, shot in 16 days, leverages the actual apartments of the cast and crew as locations, and is essentially bursting with talent because NYC was overflowing with creative, enthusiastic people who were willing to make a thing just to make a thing. It's an ensemble piece but Posey certainly shines as the snarky foil to Liev Schreiber's reserved (though slightly sinister) intellectual. Jill Sprecher's Clockwatchers is another low-key 90s gem that I was totally taken with. Again an ensemble (featuring some great stuff from Toni Collette) but one where Posey shines as the office temp who knows the game well enough to subvert it. No machine can replace me until it learns how to drink!!!!
A very close second place to Parker Posey was Isabelle Huppert. I don't know that there's much I can say to add to the world renown and admiration Huppert has already earned time and time again. She worked closely and magnificently with Chabrol and I would easily recommend any of their collaborations. Interestingly, Huppert shared the screen only twice with Gérard Depardieu and both films are incredible - Loulou and Valley of Love. There's no way I can defend Depardieu the person, but he and Huppert are iconic on screen together (even and maybe especially when they are older). Lastly, I have to mention La Garce which Fun City Editions released earlier this year and I wrote about in a standalone article. The article was one of my most visited pieces since I started the blog so I hope people are finding the film, seeing the film, and recognizing its quality even if it is challenging. I've seen it playing here and there around the country and would love to see it for myself on the big screen.
Theatrical Experiences!
I've always been thankful for the variety and depth of cinematic options available to us here in the Twin Cities but I think it was doing some traveling last year that truly brought that quality home. This isn't New York or Los Angeles or Paris, but I'd wager to say that the Twin Cities metro (especially Minneapolis) is currently home to one of the best local cinema scenes in the country - especially for a city of its size. Many comparable metros have been left with maybe one or two arthouse or even independent theaters while we're spoiled for choice on a weekly basis. I had a genuinely tough time trimming my list down to the experiences that left the greatest impact on me and most of these entries are local. This is an amazing problem to have and one I hope to keep on having. If you're living near here you should really be taking advantage of these resources and if you're just going to one of these venues, I'd highly encourage you to sample some others. I still have some spots and series that I haven't fit in yet but I hope to address that in 2024.
My top ten theatrical experiences in roughly chronological order:
The 7 Grandmasters (1977) - Shown in 35mm at the venerable Trylon Cinema thanks to Dan Halsted of The Hollywood in Portland. I would love to be able to attend Dan's regular series that he programs from his unparalleled collection of original Kung-Fu film prints, but I'm beyond thrilled that he makes the trip out to Minneapolis every so often to present something amazing. I was already familiar with the unrelenting intensity of 7 Grandmasters but it's something else entirely to see a Kung-Fu film on film and with an audience. I wrote something about this one for Trylon's Perisphere blog which was cool to be able to do.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)- This is in part a stand-in for the Independent Film Spirit Award screenings that happen at the Walker every year. As far as I know, the Spirit nominee screenings only take place in Los Angeles and Minneapolis and for me it's often the chance I have to catch festival movies that had yet to or will not hit wider theatrical release. This year there was something especially moving seeing a documentary about an artist and an activist in an art museum surrounded by a crowd of art and film lovers. One of the reasons I struggle to do "best of" whatever year lists is that the line between the years gets blurry to me. I think Bloodshed has generally been considered a 2022 film, I saw it in 2023, and it would make my best-of list for either year.
Nights of Cabiria (1957) - Cabiria is one of the rare Fellini films that I first saw in the theater. It had been re-released following a restoration in the 90s and I saw it at the sadly now-defunct Uptown Theatre knowing almost nothing about it. I was positively entranced then and it remains one of my most cherished movie going experiences. This year I was able to bring my wife to a nearly sold out matinee screening of Cabiria as part of the Italian Film Festival at The Main Cinema. While I can't totally recreate that first time viewing experience for myself, it was an absolute joy to be sitting in the dark with people who either loved the movie as much as I do or were discovering for the first time themselves. The fact that so many people would pack a theater at 11am to watch a 66 year old Italian film is one of those life affirming moments we could all use more of.
MSP International Film Festival - I have attended MSPIFF screenings many times before in my life but 2023 was the first year where I was really able to see not only multiple films every week but often multiple films a day. This is very much thanks to MSPIFF granting me press access to the festival so I made every effort to see as much as possible. From an organizing perspective, it was run beautifully. I thought the staff and the volunteers did a great job and hosting most of the films at the Main meant I could use public transportation to attend and things like a meal or a drink were all a short walk away. I also loved the programming: Tori and Lokita, Showing Up, Kokomo City, The Beasts, The Origin of Evil, Birth/Rebirth, L'Immensita, Love Life, and more are all movies that have really stuck with me over the year. I'd love to take some time off of work for the festival in 2024 and hopefully attend some more talks and events.
Lumières Françaises 2023 - Another nod towards the Main and their international programming - this time the annual French film festival. I did manage to make it out to several screenings during this week long tribute to Cinéma français but there were definitely two standouts and they were both films I'd seen before. The Innocent is a 2022 film that I managed to catch during my Criterion subscription and one I've been able to recommend to a broad swath of people because I think it's an incredible slice of entertainment. It's part heist film and part romantic comedy with a soundtrack that blends both impossibly cool movie soundtracks and irresistible 80s/90s europop jams. Seeing it in a theater was excellent and hearing Stelvio Cipriani themes in full surround sound is a dream. The real highlight of the festival for me was watching Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles theatrically for the first time. I've seen Chantal Akerman's masterpiece before but I don't know that I'll ever want to see it again outside of a darkened cinema. Being compelled to sit with it for the full duration in the dark, with no pause buttons or other distractions available is to truly confront it in its fascinating, frustrating, intimate, engrossing whole.
New Jack City (1991) - Seeing a restored version of New Jack City in New York with a fully hyped up audience would have been enough to make it on this list, but this screening (during the Tribeca Film Festival) also featured a Q&A with Mario Van Peebles, Vanessa Williams, Fab 5 Freddy, and Michael Michele. Did I mention RZA was also just there, hanging out and talking music with Freddy? Unreal stuff.
Cria! (1976) - This is the kind of film I absolutely adore the Trylon for rolling out. It wasn't really part of a series, it's not a new restoration, they just decided to screen a 35mm print of Carlos Saura's dark and touching portrait of childhood grief and estrangement. I didn't find this as unrelentingly depressing as many people claim it to be. Rather, I found Cria to have a richer texture that captured a lot of the joy and levity in childhood that contrasts some truly harrowing experiences. I managed to find a book on Saura at Brattle Book Shop in Boston so I have some more reading to do and more of his films to catch up on. One thing I'm curious about is his facility for integrating pop music into his films. Deprisa, Deprisa influenced a lot of my listening in 2022 and Porque te vas? has been in heavy rotation this year.
The Super Spook Show Spectacular - I would have liked to include more of Cinema of the Macabre's programming on this list because Tim shows some killer movies. However, his Spook Show Spectacular this October was easily one of my favorite cinematic experiences of any year. Five mystery movies, grab bags, skits, prizes, trailers, and even Edgar Allen Poe were on offer that afternoon and I loved every bit of it. I have nothing but endless admiration for those who subject themselves to 24 hour horror movie marathons but this was much more my speed. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Luigi Cozzi's Black Cat was one of the films screened and it has been my ambition to see that with an audience since first hearing those sweet Bango Tango riffs that open the film. I am very hopeful that this will be a continuing tradition and I wouldn't miss it for anything.
Hi, Mom! (1970) - Another unexpectedly awesome 35mm showcase from the Trylon and local heroes The Cult Film Collective. Brian De Palma's early feature is chaotic and confounding - blending verité location footage, multiple film formats, unexpected shifts in tone, and improvised dialogue to deliver a biting satire that while funny, doesn't even try to conceal the seething rage that's driving it. It's not a perfect picture by any stretch of the imagination and I think criticisms about how its politics are unexamined are totally fair. However, seeing it with an audience truly made the picture for me and that's why it's on the list. Being with people laughing and gasping and feeling terribly uncomfortable together delivered such a visceral experience for me and maybe (hopefully) captures some of the impact it had on audiences back in 1970.
Found Footage Festival Vol. 10 - One of those genuinely fortuitous moments. I was texted out of the blue to see if we wanted to go to see the Found Footage Festival live at the Heights so we decided to forgo grocery shopping and get down to the theater. I've been appreciating the shot on video delights of the FFF from afar for years but this was my first ever viewing of the live show. I don't recall laughing so hard for anything in recent memory. The Dorothy Recording, sourced from somewhere near here in Minnesota, was an obvious highlight and I was beyond stunned when they played clips of a film noir serial shot in my home town and aired on public access television in the early 90s. It was also extremely cool that the show opened with Strange Tapes. Scott showed some amazing stuff and I believe is the person responsible for alerting me to the presence of Hamburger Dad for which I will be eternally grateful.
I hope that you had a satisfyingly cinematic 2023 and I wish you a 2024 filled with great films!
