2023
Favorite movies I've seen of this year to the least favorite.
List activity
15 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
9 titles
- DirectorJames GunnStarsChris PrattChukwudi IwujiBradley CooperStill reeling from the loss of Gamora, Peter Quill rallies his team to defend the universe and one of their own - a mission that could mean the end of the Guardians if not successful.
- DirectorMarc ForsterStarsTom HanksMariana TreviñoRachel KellerOtto is a grump who's given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a young family moves in nearby, he meets his match in quick-witted Marisol, leading to a friendship that will turn his world around.. I really liked this movie a lot. The story and the actors were all really great. If there was one nitpick I had, it would be that they should have hired Colin Hanks as the younger Otto. He looks a lot like Tom Hanks, and no offence to Truman Hanks, he plays the role he needs to, but he is not an actor and it shows for me. He comes across as someone who has a mental deficiency as opposed to what Tom Hanks plays as the older Otto, as someone who is just annoyed by people who don’t know as much as he does or follows the established rules. That being said, it doesn’t ruin the movie, it just makes me wish that part could have been better. Even given that, it was a really good movie. I enjoyed the film, and it really made me feel for all its characters. If you get a chance to see it, definitely see it.
- DirectorElizabeth BanksStarsKeri RussellAlden EhrenreichO'Shea Jackson Jr.An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge on a Georgia forest where a huge black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.. This film was SO much fun. If you can take gore, and love a movie that is in on how much of a joke the movie is, you should see it. It's one of the best movies I've seen that is successfully in on it's own joke.
. If I were to nit-pik It's really inconsistant about when the bear is in a killing rage and when it goes after the cocaine. And oddly, I wanted some kind of commentary at the end with the bear having to chosse between the cubs and the cocaine. But those seem like really odd comments to make on a movie like this.
. In the positives, I felt like every single character who stepped onto screen, no matter how short a time there, was overflowing with personallity, which made you really feel for each one of them in the midst of the craziness.
. Definitely a super fun movie. Is it a great movie? Not even close, but man was it a blast! Definitely give it a watch if you think you can handle the violence. - DirectorAaron HorvathMichael JelenicPierre LeducStarsChris PrattAnya Taylor-JoyCharlie DayA plumber named Mario travels through an underground labyrinth with his brother Luigi, trying to save a captured princess.
- DirectorDavid F. SandbergStarsZachary LeviAsher AngelJack Dylan GrazerThe film continues the story of teenage Billy Batson who, upon reciting the magic word "SHAZAM!", is transformed into his adult superhero alter ego, Shazam.I'd say this one was as good or maybe even slightly better than the first one. A solid film. The after credits give me hope.
- DirectorChris McKayStarsNicholas HoultNicolas CageAwkwafinaRenfield, Dracula's tortured henchman, is forced to capture prey for his master and do his every bidding. But now, after centuries of servitude, Renfield is ready to see if there is a life outside his boss's shadow.
- DirectorPeyton ReedStarsPaul RuddEvangeline LillyMichael DouglasScott Lang and Hope Van Dyne are dragged into the Quantum Realm, along with Hope's parents and Scott's daughter Cassie. Together they must find a way to escape, but what secrets is Hope's mother hiding? And who is the mysterious Kang?
- DirectorGerard JohnstoneStarsAllison WilliamsViolet McGrawRonny ChiengA robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like doll that begins to take on a life of its own.. So, this was a movie… A very SLOW movie. Look, you’ve got a killer robot movie, maybe don’t drag your movie and unleash that aspect in the last like, 30 mins of the movie. The thing is, they set up some really interesting ideas, like the idea of a perfect robot guardian as opposed to a fallible human one. That’s interesting to explore, however, with that, and all the other interesting things they bring up, they simply throw it out there and don’t really explore it at all. For them to go SO slowly through all of those things, while not really exploring them, and then to end on a robot who is not even conflicted but just killing for itself to survive, lame man. If you’re going to end on that just get to it and don’t waste our time with things you are not even going to delve into.
. Two things that were good. The M3gan effect was very good. My best guess is they put an animatronic face over an actors’ face, but however they achieved it, it was a good effect, I don’t think it ever looked bad. (well, the running on all fours maybe, but that’s just mostly due to me asking how that is beneficial for her) The second thing that was really good was the child actor, Violet McGraw. Now, the editing didn’t always make her acting as seamless as it should be, but I feel like she did some phenomenal acting in this. As my own side note also, for some reason I loved Ronny Chieng in this movie.
. This movie also is far from free of the horror movie trope of, “Why would you do that?”. Few horror movies seem to be able to escape this problem, but I won’t stop pointing it out just because everyone does it. Case in point, there is one part where they need to manually unplug M3gan from their system so she stops messing with it. So the guy walks up to where it is plugged into M3gan to do it, and I’m just like, “My dude, unplug it from the OTHER end.”. It also had the typical, “That’s not how a nail gun works.”, and, “The top end of a paper cutter is not sharp.” type of things.
. Bottom line, this had interesting ideas but it just threw them out there and it didn’t explore any of them, it took a long time to just end up with a robot trying to self-preserve itself, and it had people doing things that didn’t make any sense. To be incredibly honest, when I saw the first preview for this I was like, “Oh, this looks like the exact same premise of the Child’s Play remake.”, and sadly, there is nothing this movie does that that Child’s Play(2019) remake doesn’t do WAY better. It had some good things going for it but overall I’d say you wouldn’t be missing anything if you gave it a pass. - DirectorM. Night ShyamalanStarsDave BautistaJonathan GroffBen AldridgeWhile vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse.. So, this movie was bad. Unfortunately to explain my main reason for thinking that, I have to spoil it. No worries, as always I will give a spoiler alert before I do so. But yeah, really disliked this one. The stars I did give it is because it was obvious it's makers know how to make a movie… in the filming portion anyway, and far as script, editing, etc, not so much. Also, the actors all did perfectly fine for what they were given, and were probably the better portion of the good things this movie does, although the things they do are somewhat diminished by editing. It did have some interesting ideas in it’s writing, like the idea of your mind playing tricks on you, and the power of influence and muddling what happened when in echo chambers. The idea of us vs them. Sincerity of beliefs and how it can push both sides against each other, just by the nature of the different beliefs, be they right or wrong. All interesting things, but, well, why didn’t we got more into that?
. As far as the bad things that are not spoilers, one of the top things on the list for me is that it does a bad job at being a thriller. It never made me feel tense or suspenseful, not even once. I’m not sure that’s entirely the movie’s fault though, I think surprisingly that’s the way the story is put together. So, slight spoiler, the movie starts with the strangers knocking at the cabin and goes back in flashbacks. To me, these choices are completely contrived and actually deters from the story and thriller aspects. I’ll say this for the millionth time, when Tarantino chops his timelines up, it’s because it makes the story more interesting. When you see one character die later in the timeline, but then find out earlier in the timeline, later in the movie, that his partner decided to quit "the life" right before that happens, it hits bigger when he decides to quit. It hits bigger because that could have been him there dying also. Or maybe had he been there he could have saved his friend. Knowing the end before it’s place in the chronological timeline makes the moment later in the movie where he decides to quit much more impactful. Ultimately more so when done in Memento. Chopping up the time line is not just a cool thing to do. Especially in this case, these people get put into this situation before we know them at all, we have no connection to them at all as characters. Had they not chopped up the timeline with flashbacks and just told the story in order we would have had ANY kind of connection to the characters we are supposed to care about when the danger arises. Sometimes throwing people in the middle of the action doesn’t work, especially when you are trying to build tense situations and want us to care about the characters’ survival. Nothing about any of this worked for me.
. But by far the worst part of this movie for me is how it ends. *SPOILER ALERT* Now, this movie had me up till it’s very last frame. I held on even when the screen turned black and I waited for the twist. The twist that was completely expected, but still would have made this an infinitely more interesting movie that would have left you with a lot of questions in your own life and beliefs. Sadly, as it is, the ONLY take away message I can take from how the movie ends is, if you have super radical beliefs that require you to kill to hold them, even if you have very little to back them other than your own feelings (and ideas that may or may not have been purposely indoctrinated into you), you definitely should follow through on those because there’s a chance you could be right. I know this is just fiction, but with the ending they have I don’t know what else I could take from this movie. That deeply disturbs me, not in a fun movie disturbing way, but in a people put this message out to others way. Also want to mention here, the shot where it’s looking up into the apocalyptic sky with a character in frame, and a plane randomly falls from the sky behind him… ridiculous. This happened WAY after the NEWS put out a report of a bunch of planes randomly falling from the sky all over the world with no mechanical failure. Why the #!@* was that plane in the air? What companies are flying full airliners after that? Ridiculous. *SPOILERS OVER*
. Overall, it was a competently made movie as far as camera work, framing, acting, props, and lighting, but the editing (by which I mean chopped up timeline), writing, and end note message make this movie just bad for me. Not bad in a fun, entertaining way like The Happening or supposedly Old (I haven’t seen it), this was just bad in a boring way that could have been interesting had we cared about any of the characters from the jump. Take a pass I say.