Stuff Worth Watching, 2023 Edition

Once again, it's time to shout to the rooftops about what was memorable out of the metric tons of crap I watched in 2023. I'll start today with the Movies, and then finish off with TV/Streaming shows and other odds and ends later in the week.

2023 had some of my favorite movie experiences, so this list is gonna be long. I split it up into my top tier, some solid B+ stuff and honorable mentions, and then my favorite older watches. Many of these movies are extremely violent, so keep that in mind.

At the end, as a reward for reading, I've posted Samin Nosrat's recipe for brined Ligurian Focaccia (yes, brined) that I found buried in a YouTube comments thread. You have to make this, it is the shit.

Everything is in alphabetical order, because that is how I roll.

TOP TEN

BOTTOMS
Lesbian best friends and complete losers Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri (from THE BEAR) start a literal fight club in their high school as a plot to try and get laid by some cheerleaders. Hilarious and tonally over-the-top all the way through, with a real HEATHERS vibes. Somehow both wholesome and filthy, with great random violence, and with an amazing, amazing performance by Marshawn Lynch as the teacher put in charge of chaperoning the club. An instant cult classic.

THE CREATOR
There was no cooler-looking movie this year. It's the 2060s and there is a war on between humans and AI robots. A disillusioned human soldier (John David Washington, not doing his best work but getting it done) realizes he is fighting for the wrong side when he gets his hands on the AI's ultimate weapon – a synthetic child meant to bring all sides together in peace. The script is a total mess but it doesn't matter. The wholly unique, fully realized world is the real miracle here, with special effects unlike anything else you have ever seen. A pre-dawn raid set to to" Everything in its Right Place" by Radiohead is a standout sequence. I just wanted to get up and walk around in that world the entire time.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES
In a magical land of wizards, dragons, monsters and adventure, Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, scenery-chewing Hugh Grant and secret weapon Rege-Jean Page are involved in a quest to stop a legion of evil wizards. This movie is just a blast, whether you play D&D or not. Super-funny, with a tight script and great performances, and full of delightful Easter eggs for nerds in the know (Owlbear! Gelatinous Cube!). And this settles the matter forever - Chris Pine is the best Chris. Also, slow-clap to Bradley Cooper for the truly memorable cameo.

GODZILLA MINUS ONE
This new version goes back to the beginning, returning the big fella to his roots as a product of the atomic age at the end of WW2 in Japan. It makes Godzilla terrifyingly destructive again, and also manages to be the genuinely emotional story of a country trying to bring itself back to life after being used as cannon fodder in a hopeless war by its leaders. Our hero is a kamikaze pilot who refuses to fly his mission at the end of the war and is shunned as a coward, who manages to pick up the pieces of his life in the rubble of Tokyo, only to get an unexpected shot at redemption when Godzilla threatens all he holds dear.

THE HOLDOVERS
It's 1970 at an exclusive Northeast boarding school about to go on Christmas break. Impossibly cranky professor Paul Giamatti and the slightly less acerbic head cook Da'Vine Joy Randolph (mourning her son recently killed in Vietnam) are stuck babysitting one left-behind 17 year old, Dominic Sessa. Alexander Payne returns to form with a movie as old-fashioned as they come, like the spiritual twin of HAROLD AND MAUDE, right down to the lighting choices and the soundtrack. It's impossible to resist this one, I am afraid to say. Good luck.

HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
Folks, the title is the movie. A gang of young, committed, righteously pissed-off environmental activists travel down to Texas to blow up a crucial pipeline and see if they can make a dent in the global fossil fuels industry. This movie kick all sorts of ass — pacing by director Daniel Goldhaber, performances (particularly Ariela Barer and Lukas Gage), direct and didactic storytelling, just a fucking locomotive of a movie. Made me want to run through a brick wall after I finished. I think this is my Number One of the year.

MAY DECEMBER
Thoroughly enjoyable melodrama. And maybe my favorite Todd Haynes? Julianne Moore is a thinly veiled version of Mary Kay Letaourneau, and Charles Melton plays the 30-something guy who she seduced back when he was a 13 year old boy. Now, 25 years later, they are still together and their kids are about to head off to college, leaving them empty nesters with way too much time to think. To make matters worse, Natalie Portman is an actress come to study them to prepare to portray her in an "honest, human" indie film. Melton is astonishing as the man-child finally confronting his past (him smoking a joint with his son on the roof is an amazing moment), and the sly comedy is so great, all the way to the last shot.

OPPENHEIMER
Christopher Nolan's epic, IMAX-sized take on the genius, myopic, savvy/innocent father of the atom bomb was pretty great. Was the movie like 40 minutes too long? Heck yes. But it was still fascinating, sometimes really profound, and a fine if accidental primer on late 20s-early 30s Communist radicalism. The key for me was realizing this was Nolan's BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, with Cillian Murphy as Alec Guiness. I also had to put it here because my 15-year-old loved it so much he saw it 3 times in the theater. Madman.

As a bonus, it gave us an excuse to do a double bill with 1983's WARGAMES, which holds up well, and is a great coda where we get to see what Oppenheimer's dark choices wrought decades after he opened Pandora's box in the first place.

SISU
In 1944 Lappland, Finnish prospector Jorma Tommila discovers a rich lode of gold that will change his life forever. Unfortunately, he encounters a column of brutal Nazi soldiers wreaking a scorched-earth path of destructions as they retreat from Finland, and they would like that gold for themselves. They don't bargain on the fact that he is a practically unkillable murder machine, and he will have his revenge on every last one of them. Non-stop ingenious action along the lines of FURY ROAD, gruesomely violent, and a tribute to the human spirit working at the highest levels. Top 3 of the year.

THEY CLONED TYRONE
Tough-as-nails drug dealer John Boyega, comically overwrought pimp Jamie Foxx, and steely-spined hooker Teyona Parris uncover a massive government science experiment wreaking havoc in their neighborhood, and set out to expose the truth. This is essentially a Blaxploitation version of THEY LIVE, a less self-serious GET OUT, filtered through the sensibility of Boots Riley. Subtle, it ain't; and that's just fine. Fun, funny, and ultimately really disturbing.

THE BEST OF THE REST

ANSELM
I'm a sucker for 3D, and this doc from director Wim Wenders about German postmodern artist Anselm Kiefer did not disappoint. Kiefer creates monumental paintings and sculptures in enormous installations around Europe, using molten iron and blowtorches on his canvases to finish them. Wenders catches the process and the final works in stunning, gasp-worthy 3D. Still not sure what I think of Anselms's art and his critique of postwar Germany, but the movie was excellent.

BONES AND ALL
This came out at the end of 2022, but I'm counting it. Taylor Russell, Timothee Chalomet, and super-creepy Mark Rylance and Michael Stuhlbarg are Eaters, flesh-eating cannibals who roam the outskirts of 1980s America. Somehow, this is a super-gory horror that also happens to be a coming of age romance. I think it was likely too gentle for horror fans, and too disgusting for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME fans, and so it just fell in the gap. But that bizarre combo is what made it cool. Also has an astounding one scene cameo from Chloe Sevigny.

BOSTON STRANGLER
Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon are reporters in 1960s Boston on the hunt for a serial killer. Although, really, they are fighting to get the idiotic patriarchy of the time to even understand there is a serial killer on the loose, much less attempt to catch him. Incredibly well-made, solid real-life thriller with some final twists and turns that sent us all straight to Wikipedia to see what the hell the real story was.

THE COVENANT
Sorry, "GUY RITCHIE'S THE COVENANT." Not sure why, but that's the official title. Which is hilarious because it is the most Un-Guy-Ritchie movie ever. A fantastic Dar Salim plays an Afghan interpreter for the Americans in the middle of the occupation, doing it out of revenge against the Taliban who killed his son, and in the hopes for an American visa for his surviving family. Jake Gyllenhaal is his sergeant, whose life he saves by dragging his half-dead body miles through the mountains to safety. And that's just like the first 45 minutes! From there, it becomes an insanely tense and emotional rescue mission (with a cameo from shitbird Antony Starr). Many standout moments, including the one-shot sequence where Salim tries to escape the Taliban searching for him house-to-house. It definitely sidesteps the politics of the invasion to narrow the focus to the characters, but it is blunt in assessing that the US is a chaotic, destructive force, an unreliable ally to its friends, and considers all lives but our own expendable.

DREAM SCENARIO
The unholy love child of Mike White, Ari Aster and Wes Craven. Nic Cage plays against type as a mild-mannered professor who suddenly starts appearing in people's dreams all around the world, and gets drunk on the celebrity that comes with it. But then everyone's dreams turn to violent and horrifying nightmares, still starring him but now as the killer, and his world turns upside down. Couldn't quite figure out a satisfying ending, but still worth it.

EXTRACTION 2
Chris Hemsworth's stoic mercenary Tyler Rake is back (somehow, considering he appeared to die at the end of the first movie), and he has one job – get a woman and her two children out of high security Tkachiri Prison in Georgia where they are being held by their gangster father. Just a real straight-ahead action B-movie, and not every bit of it works, but holy shit that centerpiece prison break, which feels like a 30-minute single-shot sequence that follows Rake and company fighting their way through a prison riot, an underground sewer system, and onto a train fighting off soldiers and helicopters. It's a real achievement, and worth the watch.

FERRARI
I just don't quite get this movie, even though ultimately I really liked it? I think? On paper it works – it's the mid-1950s and Enzo Ferrari and his wife are going to go bankrupt and lose everything, unless a Ferrari race car can win the legendary 24-hour Italian road race Mille Miglia. But in structure, in casting choices, in just the whole plot framing, all sorts of odd choices that I'm not sure really work. That being said, the race scenes are stellar, Penelope Cruz is on the right acting wavelength throughout, and the final chunk of the movie really clicks into place.

THE INNOCENTS
Holy crap this one is a doozy. A group of little bored Norwegian kids stuck in a housing development during the dog days of summer discover that when they are together, they develop supernatural powers. But they are too young to really understand the concept of good and evil, and things go very wrong. Maybe the scariest movie I've seen in awhile? Not jump scares or anything, but some of the shit that happens between these kids, their friends and their parents is really visceral, and it hits hard.

JOHN WICK 4
This movie was way too long, understood. And this series has gotten so far beyond Keanu Reeves just fighting to get revenge for his dead puppy, and become weighted down with layers of weird mythology, also understood. And yet, the action in the second half of the movie is so imaginative and well-done, it is undeniably awesome. The fight in the middle of traffic at the Arc de Triomphe, the explosive fight scene in an abandoned building all captured in one overhead shot, the epic climb up the stairs to Sacre Coeur, all seen in a theater full of people losing their minds together – worth the price of admission.

THE MOTHER
Raise your hand if you thought Jennifer Lopez would work as a kickass deadly assassin drawn out of hiding to save the teenage daughter she gave up at birth and never met? Yeah, I didn't think it would work either. But it does! Not sentimental at all, solid action, and a tight script. I wasn't shocked to see it revealed that this was one of Netflix's top-performing movies of the year, even if it flew entirely under the radar.

REALITY
What a fascinating movie, directly lifted from the FBI recordings of their interrogation of leaker Reality Winner (Sidney Sweeney, great), and told in real time. The way it tightens the screws, the way she is literally cornered, and to finally understand in full why she did what she did, and ultimately how right it was. And also another nail on the coffin of Glenn Greenwald, as you could argue his site The Intercept’s sloppy unmasking of Reality as a source, which earned her 5 years in jail, was the beginning of his heel turn into curdled conspiracy theory shit bag.

TALK TO ME
An Australian horror flick standout from our family Halloween screenings about a bunch of kids who get their kicks summoning spirits using the embalmed hand of a deceased medium ...but what happens if those spirits don't ever want to leave? Creepy, gory and legit scary from the very first insane scene all the way to a gut-wrenching ending. And equating the feeling of communing with spirits with an addictive drug high is so clever and plays out in such ingenious ways.

TAYLOR MAC’S 24-DECADE HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC
In the year of the concert film, including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and STOP MAKING SENSE, this might have been my favorite. It’s a condensed account of performance artist Taylor Mac’s marathon musical experience, which literally lasted 24 hours. The movie features great moments from the show itself (cutaways to audience napping on cots in the hallways were hilarious), and turns the camera onto the craftspeople, the makeup artists, and the costumers behind the scenes who brought the show to life. The idea that Mac removed a musician each hour, so that at the very end it is just Mac alone on stage, voice weakened after singing for 24 hours, is so amazing once you realize what’s going on. This one is a treat, and it’s a show I wish I was able to see live.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MADNESS
What a delight! For my money, this take on the "Heroes on the Half-Shell" by Seth Rogen and company was the best comic book movie of the year (yes, better than SPIDER-VERSE 2). The animation style was super-cool, like early-1990s NYC graffiti come to life. The writing was funny and smart. The soundtrack fucking rocked. The voices were great, including inspired casting of Jackie Chan as Splinter, the rat sansei. Also had one of the more inspiring final acts of a comic book movie.

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY
A hilarious, antic delight from beginning to end, with a balls-out funny Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al. Aping the structure of everything from 8 MILE to RAY, with a tone of mock seriousness and a fearless ability to completely deviate from any sort of truth, this one is kinda flawless. Maybe it doesn’t work if you didn’t grow up with Dr. Demento and Weird Al as constant presences in your pop culture life? Dunno. I did. I loved it.

ALSO RECEIVING VOTES

Spider-Punk in ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE ● Everything Sterling K. Brown is doing in AMERICAN FICTION ● Anytime Michael Cera's Alan is on-screen in BARBIE ● The moment they announce the launch of the iPhone in BLACKBERRY ● Bryan Tyree Henry (and only Bryan Tyree Henry) in CAUSEWAY ● Vicky Kreips in CORSAGE, holy crap ● The extremely surreal, cool boxing scenes in CREED 3 ● Lily Gladstone's monumental performance in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ● The entire cast of THE MENU, particularly John Leguizamo ● All the train shit at the end of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING ● That scene between Patricia Clarkson and Trace Lysette in MONICA, when she finally recognizes her own daughter ● Butt naked Jennifer Lawrence hilariously kicking the shit out of a bunch of kids on the beach in NO HARD FEELINGS ● Newcomer Marianne Rendon stealing every scene in Frank Grillo's ONE DAY AS A LION ● Julia Styles' Oscar-worthy shocker performance in ORPHAN: FIRST KILL ● Colman Domingo Colman Domingo Colman Domingo! in RUSTIN ● All the creepy moments with the disappearing doors and windows in SKINAMARINK ● 3 or 4 gruesome scenes including that one with the axe in WHEN EVIL LURKS

OLDER MOVIES AND REWATCHES

THE ABYSS (1989)
James Cameron's underwater epic is a shaggy combo of great action, intense drama, antiwar agit-prop and alien close encounter hooey, and it was glorious to see on the big screen in 4k for a one-night-only engagement this year. It does not all work, particularly an ending that has never hung together in any version I've seen, but Cameron is a master. My Hot Take is that the entire sequence where Ed Harris tries to save estranged wife Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio from drowning in the icy depths is the best thing Cameron has ever shot.

BURN! (1969)
In 1880s colonial Antilles on the fictional Portuguese isle of Queimada, British spy Marlon Brando foments a slave revolt and revolution led by illiterate cane worker (and first-time actor) Evaristo Marquez, who proves to be a true leader. And then, years after the revolution, he returns to take control of the newly independent Queimada on behalf of greedy sugar companies by hunting and killing the very rebel he created. Gillo Pontecorvo's follow up to THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS is a fantastic, angry look at colonialism and revolution, shot and released at the height of Vietnam and just as relevant right now for any number of super-depressing reasons. I could only find a shitty print of it on PPV, and it was still gorgeous. Includes a wild Ennio Morricone score.

THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941)
A reclusive, greedy tycoon (Charles Coburn), angered when he is hung in effigy during a union protest at a department store he owns, goes undercover as a sales clerk to find out who was responsible and get his revenge. But meeting Jean Arthur and a crew of very persuasive union agitators changes everything. This is the first screwball worker uprising movie I’ve ever seen and it is great. There is a scene at an impossibly crowded Coney Island beach that is a masterpiece of comedy. Never had becoming a class traitor been so much fun. Oh, and when looking for the movie make sure you use the “AND” in the title. Very important.

DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954)
This in 3D on the big screen was a blast. Grace Kelly didn’t think her affair would escape the attention of sleazy playboy husband Ray Milland, did she? If so she was wrong, and murder is literally in the title. Hitchock's use of 3D, particularly in the big centerpiece scene, is some of the best you’ll see. The audience's delighted reaction to Hitchcock's cameo was one of my favorite theater experiences of the year.

5 GRAVES TO CAIRO (1943)
Undercover British soldier Franchot Tone impersonates a German spy at a remote Egyptian desert hotel just as Erwin Rommel himself checks in. Akim Tameroff is fun, Eric Von Stroheim as Rommel is even better, and Franchot Tone could really have been something more, huh. It's simple, fun, and has one of Wilder's best opening acts.

This is also an excuse to talk about the Billy Wilder kick I went on because the Film Forum had a retrospective. The print of DOUBLE INDEMNITY was the best I’ve ever seen. Still not a big SABRINA fan even though I love Bogie, Holden and Hepburn, but I forgot how dark it was — Wilder couldn’t help himself. And ACE IN THE HOLE, like NETWORK, plays more like a documentary every time I see it.

THE GANGSTER, THE COP, THE DEVIL (2019)
Don Lee, man. He is becoming one of my favorite modern action stars, no joke. In this mismatched buddy thriller, he plays a ruthless Korean gangster who survives an attack from a sick serial killer, and then teams up with an obsessed cop to bring the killer to justice and get his revenge. The plotting is super-clever, the action is big and brutal (like Don), and a great ending. What else can you ask for?

LONE WOLF AND CUB: SWORD OF VENGEANCE (1972)
Disgraced widower samurai Itto and his 3-year old son Daigoro wander Edo-era Japan hunting down their enemies and searching for redemption. This adaptation of the manga series comes hard out of the gate, with a gut-wrenching execution scene that preps you for the brutal world you are about to enter. And being a little toddler in this world is no escape. There are several rousing battle scenes involving Daigoro that are literal jaw-droppers, even if you've read the comics.

MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH (1976)
Did you like JAWS but wish there was a version where the shark was the hero? Well I have the movie for you! A salvage diver whose life was saved by sharks in the Philippines forms a telepathic bond with the creatures and fights alongside them to massacre humans hunting them for sport. This is grade-A sleaze, and has the distinction of being the only movie I know of where they filmed with sharks in the water without any shark cages. How no one was killed during filming, I have no idea. This is why we need strong unions in this business, people.

MALCOLM X (1992)
Watched the new 4K of Spike Lee's majestic biopic on July 4th and holy shit does it hold up. I know that's not a shocking revelation or anything, but Spike Lee and Ernest Dickerson and Terence Blanchard and Denzel Washington really were at the top of their game. The colors and the performances pop off the screen. There are sequences in here that astound – his trip to Mecca, his final day heading of to his speech at the Audubon Ballroom, little moments like intercutting the firebombing of his house (likely by the Nation of Islam with an assist from the FBI) with that of his father's house being burned down by the KKK. It's a classic.

SORCERER (1975)
A loose remake of WAGES OF FEAR, William Friedkin poured all the Hollywood cred he earned via THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST into this relentless thriller about four desperate fugitives in the South American jungle who take on a suicide mission driving trucks full of nitroglycerin to extinguish a raging oil well fire at a remote drill site. It's a tough, cynical movie; in some ways Friedkin's TREASURE OF THE SIERAA MADRE masterpiece. But the cast wasn't quite right (although Roy Scheider is perfect), it had the misfortune to open against a little movie called STAR WARS, and critics fucking haaaaated it. I don't get the hate. The stunts are so intense, you'll never see anything quite like 'em. The bridge scene is sweat-inducing, and is quickly followed by two other classic sequences. The Tangerine Dream score is also unforgettable.

THREADS (1984)
Here is what I wrote at some point while watching this shocker that details in horrifying detail the aftermath of nuclear war on Sheffield, England: “Christ, this movie is fucking terrifying. Why am I watching this?” Part kitchen sink Ken Loach melodrama, part BBC mockumentary, and utterly and entirely scary as shit. The future it depicts starting the moment of the attacks and tracking the survivors for a generation is so bleak and believable, and there are images here I will never dislodge from my brain. One of the scariest movies I have ever seen.

WINTER KILLS (1979)
Super-young super-hot Jeff Bridges stars as the brother of an assassinated US president who years later uncovers a vast conspiracy, in this unhinged paranoid thriller satire that plays like a coke-fueled, comedic version of PARALLAX VIEW. While I didn’t go coo-coo for this like everyone else, there were some hilarious, prescient digs at everything from Brooklyn hipsters to blood-draining Peter Thiel-style oligarchs. Also towering scenes from aging John Huston and Richard Boone.

THIS WEEK'S RECIPE

Samin Nosrat's Ligurian Focaccia

Dough Wet Ingredients

2.5 cups (600g) lukewarm water
1 tsp active dry yeast
2.5 tsp (15g) honey
1/4 cup (50g) olive oil

DOUGH DRY INGREDIENTS

5ish cups (700-800g) all-purpose flour
4 1/2 tsp (15g) kosher salt

BRINE

1/3 cup (80g) water
1.5 tsp (5g) kosher salt

Extra flaky salt (because there isn't enough salt

THE PROCESS

Combine water, yeast and honey, set aside
Combine flour and salt
Add liquid to dry and mix
Add olive oil and mix. Should be soft and jiggly
Cover with Saran Wrap and leave in large bowl overnight. It will double in size.
Put 3 tbs of olive oil on a sheet pan, gently creep out the dough from the bowl.
Stretch the dough a bit at a time over the next 20 minutes to fill out the sheet pan
Add another tbs of oil over top
Let rest another 30-40 minutes
Oil hands and make dimples with aggressive finger moves.
Mix water and salt to create brine, pour brine evenly over top, maybe shake a little to get it even.
Rest another 30-40 minutes
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees
Sprinkle a little flaky salt over top
Bake for around 30 minutes
Pry up and check the bottom, should release pretty easily. Set on wire rack to cool a touch, if you can wait.