Martin's Musings

We’re already at the end of January 2024, and awards season is in full swing. (If you missed them, the Oscar nominations were announced earlier this week.) Unfortunately, I had to wait to see some of the potential contenders till they were released widely, so I decided to wait to share my final reviews of 2023. 

And so, better late than never, and just like I did in the first, second, and third quarters of this year, here’s a (slightly delayed) roundup of what I thought of all the movies I saw in the — let’s call it, second half of the fourth quarter of 2023, in reverse chronological order, with a note about how/where I saw them.

FYI: You won’t see recent wide-release films like All of Us Strangers or Poor Things here; I saw those in the first half of the quarter. For the record, they both earned a spot on my list of the year’s best films.

The third quarter of 2023 sure did have its ups and downs — where the movies were concerned, anyway.

On the one hand, we had the one-two punch of Barbie and Oppenheimer — or Barbenheimer, if you prefer — movies that broke box office records and were actually very good, proving that sometimes, the hype is actually justified.

But on the other hand, there was the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which halted production and limited promotion for nearly all new releases. Some release dates were delayed as a result, and movies that did come out often did so quietly. Thankfully, after nearly 150 days, the writers got a great deal from the studios. Hopefully, the actors will get one, too, and soon.

Over these last three months, I saw 14 movies, bringing my total for the year so far to 50. (I’m counting a collection of four short films as one feature.) I’ve shared my thoughts about most of what I’ve seen on Twitter and/or Instagram (Stories), but I haven’t documented my thoughts about everything. So, just like I did in the first and second quarters of this year, here in one place (and in reverse-chronological order) is a list of all the movies I saw in the third quarter of 2023, how I saw them, and a quick review of each one.

You had to be sleeping under a rock to not have heard about Barbenheimer, the portmanteau made by combining the names of this summer’s two most eagerly anticipated movies: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. 

Other than ambitious filmmakers taking large swings and huge ensemble casts full of recognizable faces, the two films do not have much in common; one is a candy-colored comedy based on a popular toy, and the other is a drama about one of the darkest chapters in American history. But the hype over the last few months turned their release on the same day into a legitimate event. Just check out the memes and social media chatter — not to mention the brand partnerships. In response, fans showed up in droves; the two movies together earned more than $235 million at the box office on opening weekend in the United States and Canada.

If you’re someone who’s still on the fence about seeing one or both of these movies, or you’ve somehow managed to avoid all the buzz, let me cut to the chase and share the good news that they’re both worthy of the hype and worth seeing. That’s a bit of a modern-day miracle given we’re living in times when hyperbole and (undeserved) overpromotion are the norm.

What more do you need to know? Here are my thoughts about both films, in reverse alphabetical order.

The new Apple TV+ documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated may not be what fans of the Golden State Warriors’ point guard are expecting.

Despite an opening sequence set on December 14, 2021 — the night Curry broke the record for 3-pointers in a career — the film is not a highlight reel of #30’s time in the NBA. Nor is it a hagiography filled with adoring talking-head interviews. Heck, while it celebrates Curry’s skill as a player and the seeming ease with which he takes shots from outside the paint, that Curry’s style of play has been at the forefront of how the game of basketball has changed in recent years is not the film’s focus.

Instead, Underrated functions more as an origin story for one of the game’s current superstars, a smaller-than-average player who’s had an outsized impact on his teams — and the NBA overall. That’s a good and a bad thing.

If you’re familiar with the work of Wes Anderson — and if you’ve spent any time on TikTok recently, you should be — then you will not be surprised by the quirky way in which his latest film, Asteroid City, begins.

We’re told that the city itself does not exist. It is, instead, the setting of a play called “Asteroid City.” The events we’re about to see in the film are, essentially, a play-within-a-play — one that was never actually staged.

“The characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication,” explains our host (Bryan Cranston). “But together, they present an authentic account of the inner-workings of a modern theatrical production.” 

Alrighty, then.

Watching Celine Song’s excellent new film, Past Lives, I found myself thinking of Sliding Doors. 

In that 1998 high-concept film, Gwyneth Paltrow plays a woman who exists in two different realities: One in which she just misses getting on a subway train, and the other where she makes it just in time. The film hinges on the concept of “What if?” and we see what happens in both timelines, so we don’t have to wonder.

Like Sliding Doors, Past Lives examines how the notions of fate, love, and the choices we make affect the lives we lead.

But in Past Lives — which, to be absolutely clear, is a much better film than Sliding Doors — we don’t get the benefit of seeing what would have happened had things been different. Instead, the question of “What if?” hangs over the entire film.