Best movies of 2023: Dungeons & Dragons (seriously).
In Slate Annual Cinema clubfilm critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow critics—for 2023, Bilge Ebiri, Esther Zuckerman, and Mark Harris—about the year in cinema. Read the first entry here.
Hello new friends,
Bilge, I completely understand what you’re saying about this year being full of great work from established directors, almost to a depressing degree. It didn’t feel like a year of discovery so much as a year of reassurance. I remember that after I was at Cannes in May, my friends asked me what were the best films I had seen there. I tried to reach unexpected titles, and I loved it Ghost pictures, the documentary Kleber Mendonça Filho about films and memory, for example – but I often default to saying: “Well, I liked the Hynes and Scorsese.” However, if it is boring to think that Todd Haynes (May December(And Martin Scorsese)Moonflower Killers) I made great movies, maybe I don’t want to be that interesting. (Plus, Ghost picturesalthough it’s eligible for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, it won’t technically be released in 2023. So, there you go, Bilge.)
Both Haynes and Scorsese Featured in my top ten list:
Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret.
Asteroid city
Boo is afraid
Fallen leaves
Retainers
Moonflower Killers
May December
Oppenheimer
show
Area of interest
Honorable mentions: The boy and the heron, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, El Conde, John Wick: Chapter 4, the killer, Bad things, Corridors, You hurt my feelings
Now that that’s out of the way, I want to turn the conversation back to Barbenheimer to address the matter Barb-A side of that bag. Barbie It didn’t make my top ten, but I like the movie a lot, even if I feel like the second half is a bit of a mess. Although I think we spend a lot of time with the Keynes and their revolution, that’s the way it is BarbieAfter all, it’s hard not to give in to the many pleasures offered by Greta Gerwig’s film, which is so full of joy and ingenuity that it feels like a minor miracle. Barbie The film takes the lead with its big, open, beating pink heart, filled with a love for the craft of cinema — from the way Gerwig uses practical effects to the musical numbers, which sound as if they were dropped from the 1950s.
During my first viewing of BarbieI cried several times. Should I count the moments? When Margot Robbie’s Barbie tells an old woman, played by legendary fashion designer Anne Roth, that she is beautiful; When Barbie meets her creator, Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), for the first time; When America Ferrera’s Gloria gives her big speech about the confusing realities of femininity; When Barbie finds out she wants to leave Barbieland behind. I was wiping away tears when Robbie delivered that last line – and the phrase “I’m here to see a gynecologist” immediately entered the pantheon. Barbie It doesn’t always follow logic, but in this way it matches the fantasy of playing with dolls as a child. Emotions cancel out everything else.
And then, BarbieAnd I keep reminding myself, it’s still basically a product of intellectual property, that acronym that’s starting to sound like a dirty word to us critics. The boom in intellectual property-driven movies has us thinking of nothing but soulless blockbusters featuring big explosions and Easter eggs for the “true fans” who tell the rest of us that we have to wait another two years to learn that “Gloop” Glop or… Whoever he is is actually the real villain.
Unlike many IP operations, Barbie It starts from a seemingly cheesy place — Mattel wants to sell dolls, after all — but turns out to have real meaning even as it grapples with what its intellectual property means. It starts from this place of rudeness, and then rises above that, and it’s not the only film to do that this year. Bilge and Dana, I was tickled to see that you two were in love Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thievesas I did. Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (aka Sam Weir from the movie Freaks and Geeks), the D&D The film was not successful at all Barbie, but in fact they have a lot in common. They both take their source – one is a puppet; The other is a tabletop fantasy role-playing game – and use that loosely to create a story that’s engaging, very funny, and shockingly honest. (Hey, I also cried during the climax scene D&D.)
I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons before, however Honor among thieves It’s had me since its first sequence, an extended prologue in which Chris Pine’s poet pleads with Edjin for his release from prison alongside his companion Holga (Michelle Rodriguez). It’s an expertly orchestrated segment in which Payne delivers a long sob story but keeps interrupting himself to ask for a council member named Garnathan, making it clear that Jarnathan will do it. truly Understand what he is trying to say. Firstly, Garnathan It’s a funny name to say, especially, like 11y time. Secondly, it leads to a great line, where Jarnathan turns out to be an oversized flying man that Edjin just wanted to use to fly out the window.
Goldstein and Daly have previously made one of the best modern films I’d love to simply watch at home, an incredibly intelligent action comedy. Game nightand I can see myself having that relationship with D&D also. Although it works as a whole, it’s also full of excellent indie tunes that make me smile. I love the cemetery scene in which the gang interrogates the corpses, as well as the perfect turn from Regé-Jean Page as a very honorable sidekick. D&D It takes its world-building incredibly seriously but doesn’t get bogged down in it, instead giving us delightful little glimpses into its weirdness. At one point, we see a giant fish open its mouth to free a baby cat, who returns to the arms of his cat-like father. Really, what’s not to love?
I adore this stage of Hugh Grant’s career. in D&D, he plays the charming, self-absorbed man Forge. Grant uses the tendency he once used well in rom-coms like Bridget Jones’s Diary And About a boy, now on a larger scale. And between this and Paddington 2, He’s the ultimate villain who you can’t help but love, and an amazing twist on an ex. He also makes an adorable Oompa Loompa character Wonka– Another example of how old intellectual property can be transformed into something new and delightful.
On the one hand, this year seemed like the death knell for IP entertainment as we once knew it. Superhero movies have often been deeply disappointing; the fast The franchise is holding on for dear life. However, the aforementioned filmmakers prove that there is a way to do it right. What do the rest of you say?
Off to go find Garnathan,
Esther
