I hate to say this. No. Wait. Back up. I LOVE to say this. This is one of my favorite articles of the year because it’s a bit a of a revenge piece. Most people who respond to the blog tell me how I have erred. I don’t blame them. I err often. And if you publish your extended thoughts on 250 films a year, you’ll find that 100% accuracy is a luxury. I never want to get it wrong, but I do sometimes, and when I do, I often pay a price.
This is my revenge. This is where I get to tell the public and critics how they’ve erred in praising such mediocrity. Could I be wrong here, too? Oh, yes. I most certainly could. But deep down you all know I’m not.
Heading the list of the massively overrated films of 2023 is …
Good God, what a dull film. Did I see a screenplay nomination? That’s not possible, is it? State one (1) moment from this film that made you care about it or the characters within. Heck, name one moment of this film you’ll remember six months from now. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Leonard Bernstein was bi-sexual. Fantastic. Good for him. Now, please tell me why this movie was made, cuz we’re a little past “shocking the audience” into the 21st century. Bradley Cooper sure wasn’t interested in showing us why Bernstein is such a revered artist. And every pouty face from Carey Mulligan feels contrived because (according to the film) Felicia Montealegre knew exactly who and what Lenny was before she married him. It’s like marrying a drag queen and deciding 20 years later you have a problem with the cross-dressing. Mostly, however, Maestro was painfully boring. Good luck slogging through these hours upon hours of film.
At some point, you will all understand that Martin Scorsese is overrated and then life will make sense. I am convinced that Maestro was propped up essentially by Scorsese and Steven Spielberg signing on as producers; I don’t think it gets a best pic nod without them. Similarly, if you didn’t know Killers of the Flower Moon was a Scorsese, would you champion it? I’m thinking no. Not even close. What Scorsese does best is introduce a morally questionable character we can relate to. That’s completely absent in Killers. Instead, we have a film told entirely from the perspective of a Native American tribe which, while commendable, is hardly unique, nor necessarily makes a great film. Killers is longer that a weekend retreat with your in-laws and surprisingly uneventful for a three-hour history lesson involving murder.
Among the weirdest films of the year, Dream Scenario amounted to exactly piffle upon reflection. Yes, the idea is wonderful! Everyone keeps dreaming about one unimpressive professor. Yes, the casting is inspired! Nic Cage as everybody’s “dream man” is worth a smile by itself. BUT DID YOU SEE THE FILM?! It’s vacuous tripe, explains nothing, and asks completely irrelevant questions. I care far more what it means that we’re all dreaming about the same guy than the mechanics behind it. The former is a far better question to ask when you think about it. The film answers neither.
Well, gosh, I don’t think I’ve seen a riveting court procedural since My Cousin Vinny. And … I still haven’t. This film would have been better to substitute procedural drama for, I dunno, ANY alternative explanation of facts. Three hours is long time when you’ve only got one issue to solve. Sure, I’ll give it up for Sandra Hüller; do you have any idea how long she had to keep our attention without adding anything to the discussion?
Not that Wonka was a bad film. It had several moments of wonder and delight and fun. But at some point, everybody is going to realize how embarrassingly poor this film is compared to the original … and you’re going to wonder why we didn’t throw it out like a day-old candy wrapper just as we did with the Johnny Depp version.
I debated between including this film or Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. on the list. I was swayed by already having had my say over Margaret. Priscilla didn’t have rights to Elvis‘ music. At that rate, I don’t care how good the product was. I don’t care how good the screenplay was. I don’t care what the film has to say. Follow me here: Elvis was an icon like no other. A popular music icon to be specific, like BTS or the Beatles. He was popular almost entirely because of his music. It sure wasn’t his acting. We only know who Priscilla Presley was precisely and entirely because of her relationship with Elvis. Hence, making an Elvis film -and don’t kid yourself, this is an Elvis film- without Elvis music is stupid. Once rights weren’t achieved, the project should have been scrapped.
I’m embarrassed I even have to talk about this one. It wasn’t scary. It wasn’t delightful. It wasn’t funny. It didn’t make sense. And it was hard to get behind the protagonist. What exactly did you see in this shitty horror film?
I will go to the mat for this one. Creed III was a bad film. Period. Never before has a film cared so little about professionalism. This is the non-projectile sporting equivalent of a guy getting out of jail to hit 50 homers in the majors or quarterbacking a super bowl winner without having played football for a
decade. We pretend it’s all equal because “punching is punching,” right? Wrong. It takes a lot of work to be a professional -yes, even a professional boxer- and even more to be at the top of the game. None of the undercard subplots here work, either. Creed III is the equivalent of Trump believing he can be presidential just because the title has been given. And your love of Creed III is the pretense that he was.
I’m going to end the 2023 list with a surprise. Past Lives seems like the kind of film I’d champion, not denigrate. Well, guess what? If an audience makes too much of a small film, I’m going to give it a slap, too. Past Lives is about the pain of action not taken. Clearly that message resonates with, literally, billions of us. Hence, I do not denounce the universal power of the message. The key phrase here, however, is “action not taken.” As in, there’s almost literally NOTHING that happens on screen in this film. Movies are about characters making choices. This is a universal truth. Almost no choices in Past Lives happen on screen. All we have is “here are these guys ten years later. Oh, they’re sad, darn it.” Past Lives feels like an acting workshop because, essentially, it is. As none of the characters is allowed to make a choice on screen, they all have to act as how they would if a choice of some kind had actually been made. In my book, this defeats the entire purpose of moviedom. And it’s not as if we got close to the fork in the road here. The characters make it clear from the outset of every act that the obstacles are going to be too large to overcome. This wasn’t a “near miss” romance; this was a romance-less romance. And if a romance doesn’t have any romance, what exactly is the point?
