It might have been a bad year in politics, but it was a solid year at the pictures. Last year’s screen writers guild strike may have hit the pipeline of new TV, but the movies kept going.
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t problems on the big screen. Normally cinemas make their money from blockbuster superhero releases, but this years smash hit – Deadpool and Wolverine – was a superhero movie that took the piss out of the genre. Lots of people thought this was cool, particularly the way it broke the 4th wall. I found it annoying. Still it got plenty of bums on seats. Dune 2 was the big sci-fi epic, and is beautiful yet soporific. It only just avoids being Laurence of Arabia in Space, by having enormous worms, which were my favourite bit of the film.
Much better was Blitz. After 80 years it is hard to find anything new to say about WW2, or a new way to tell the same story. McQueen succeeds brilliantly by setting the story among ordinary Londoners, brushing shoulders with people from around the world, stranded in London by war. One of the central scenes is the death of Snakehips Johnson and his band when a German bomb hit the Cafe De Paris. There was some vapid culture war push back by right wingers offended by a version of WW2 that didn’t focus upon the heroism of white men, with predictable claims that ‘you can’t re-write history”. History is, of course, always being re-written; each generation writes it’s own history books, finds new evidence, new perspectives. As new events happen old ones get reviewed and re-assessed. The push back against Blitz is similar to the faff around Remembrance Day, in which older conservative voters demand that they alone are the custodians of the poppies, they alone determine how we remember, yet at the same time moan that younger people aren’t joining in the way they are told to. McQueen’s movie will do more to connect young people to WW2 than a million posts on Facebook linking the sacrifice of earlier generations to their own contomprary right wing fads and fantasies.
The movie itself isn’t perfect, but it is emotionally charged with some great performances from Saoirse Ronan, Elliot Heffernan and Paul Weller who is all the more convincing for under acting everything.
Just as good was Joker Folie a Deux. For years me and Sachin would go to the movies on a Friday night. Often we would eat at the same Chinese restaurant on the way, have a beer in the same bar. We would watch all kinds of stuff, brilliant and rubbish. The first Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie we watched twice, on 2 consecutive Friday nights we loved it that much. It had it’s flaws – it’s depiction of mental illness was shallow and dishonest, but it’s central story was compelling; Arthur Fleck, abused and desperate to be loved is only noticed by society when he transforms himself into the monstrous Joker. Phoenix’s Oscar winning performance was brought to life in a New York borrowed from Scorsese.
But there was another audience who latched onto the Joker but who saw a different story. For them the transformation into the psychopathic Joker wasn’t tragic but heroic. Alone, painfully on line, and despairing of ever being noticed or loved themselves Joker became a hero for them, along with high school shooters. The same young men who voted for Trump, and who idolise Elon Musk; two sad inadequates who reinvented themselves as preposterous cartoon villains.
Clearly when the idea came up of Joker 2 the producers were keen to distance themselves from this part of the fandom, and shaped the sequel to make it clear that they were not invited. A musical, starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn (every incel’s dream girl) would keep them away from the box office.
Predictably this had serious commercial implications. Fans did indeed stay away, and flooded sites like Rotten Tomatoes with negative reviews. The studio panicked, it was pulled from cinemas, and sold cheap to streaming sites.
Yet the movie is a triumph. Pheonix is brilliant again as Fleck facing trial for murder, but unsure if it is him on trial or the Joker. Lady Gaga’s Harleen Quinzel is perfect, in love with the Joker, but not with Fleck, and only in the final stages does Fleck realise that he hasn’t found true love. The musical numbers work perfectly, Nick Cave’s opening medley concludes with the darkest version imaginable of “What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love”, while Joker singing Jacques Brel’s “If You Should Go Away” in the style of Scott Walker into a court payphone is spine tingling. Harry Lawtey continues to impress as Harvey Dent.
The Apprentice, didn’t get shown on many screens in the US but was brilliant. A biopic of Trump showing his formative relationship with corrupt attorney Roy Cohn. Shot to replicate TV pictures of the time, with grain and colour bleed-through. Sebastian Stan is fantastic, showing a reasonably sympathetic Trump growing into the monster he became via rape, liposuction and scalp treatments to combat his baldness. Yet Stan is overshadowed by Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn denying his sexuality even as he dies from AIDS.
The Substance will be a controversial cult classic for the rest of our lives. Driven by an amazing performance from Demi Moore the first 2/3rds of the film are a feminist version of the Picture of Dorian Gray, with Moore slowly realising that she is the portrait in the attic. The final third everything explodes, is sprayed with blood, or turns into a monster. Or all 3 at once. It is grotesque and visceral, and nearly as hard to watch as Donald Trump’s combined liposuction hair transplant. Poor Things hit UK screens in January 2024 with great hype; Emma Stone leads as a child/woman brought back to life in a fantasy version of Victorian England. It looks great, but I just wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t a bit too shallow and crass. For a woman unhindered by the conventions of the day, free to do whatever she wanted, she didn’t do much more than shag a lot. Others disagreed.
Alex Garland’s Civil War presented a shockingly believable vision of America torn apart by conflict. Kirsten Dunst is a war photographer trying to get to Washington to record the fall of the White House, Nick Offerman in a cameo smirks as yet another Trump inspired politician watching the decline of the USA. A superb movie, all the more compelling for giving no hint as to the politics of the protagonists, or the events leading up to the conflict. A prequel called Warfare is on it’s way.
Scoop was one of 2 re-tellings of the Prince Andrew/Emily Maitlis. The movie version of Netflix had Rufus Sewell as the Prince, Gillian Anderson as Maitlis, and Billie Piper as the researcher who made it happen. It is totally brilliant. Whether you prefer it to the HBO/Amazon mini series A Very Royal Scandal with Michael Sheen as the Prince, and Ruth Wilson as Maitlis is up to you. Both are brilliant, and provide a great opportunity to see the same story told through 2 different perspectives. For me Very Royal Scandal just edges it. Luckily Prince Andrew is an endless source of scandals so we should be set for plenty of sequels.
Probably the best action movie of the year Monkey Man starred Dev Patel, who also Directed, with Jordan Peele as producer. High octane chop sockey as Patel took on Modi cronies and Hindutva oligarchs in a stylised Mumbai. I watched it twice, and would happily watch again. Patel is a hugely under rated actor, and a real star. Not quite so good was Alien: Romulus, which never really got going.
Zone of Interest came out right at the end of 2023 to sneak into Oscar contention. Based on Martin Amis’s dramatisation of the life of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz living a happy little life with his wife and children. Chilling and a great movie, but not one I would watch again.
Another one released very late in 2023 presumably to qualify for Oscar nominations, but which didn’t hit the UK until this year was American Fiction. Jeffrey Wright as frustrated African American college professor Thelonious Ellison whose alter ego Stagg R Leigh’s fictional ghetto memoir is hugely more successful. Lots of fun.
I’m not a fan of romances but All of Us Strangers was excellent- a haunting, eerie romance between Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, bot of whom produced fantastic performances.
Hugh Grant continues his transformation from blushing rom-com fop to brilliant character actor. Heretic continues his renaissance – a twisted psychological horror with Grant tormenting two hapless female missionaries who knocked on the wrong door.
The other best horror release of the year came on YouTube. Milk and Serial is a no budget found footage chiller released on YouTube with no studio behind it. It spread by word of mouth, and is a lot better than most big studio horror releases this year. Once again streaming services have identified horror as part of their core offering leading to masses of boring generic shockers.
Kneecap are an Belfast rap act with Nationalist politics. Their new album was OK, and for all their radical posturing their actual rapping is pretty mainstream. Their movie with Michael Fassbender was much more fun, and was best music movie of the year.
And finally just when you thought everyone was bored of post apocalyptic thrillers Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch excel in The End From Which We Start. The apocalyptic event is lots of rain and flooding which is a lot more believable than a zombie holocaust, and the movie is much better for it. The time has to be right for an apocalyptic drama about a hose pipe ban.
As a postscript there were quite a few movies this year that you couldn’t watch. There is a trend for studios to abandon movies close to release because taking the tax loss and not releasing it is more lucrative than releasing it and watching it bomb. Warners famously spent $90m on a Batgirl movie 2 years ago which will never be seen. This year Juror No#2, directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Nicholas Hoult, JK Simmons and Keifer Sutherland also vanished from the screens. Producers feared a flop, and uncomfortable with Eastwood, sold the rights cheaply to streaming platforms to cash in a tax loss.
And Back in Black was rubbish. So there.